Not that Qwest is a good example of a telco trying to do this, but their limited deployment of what they call "VDSL" with television streamed from the head end to your house hasn't grown beyond the test area in Highlands Ranch, CO in a number of years.
Something must have been wrong with the business model, or they just didn't do it right. The people that have it say it's a good bundled package, and their speed tests, etc... are good, but it's not expanding and hasn't for some time.
There's a number of reasons Radio Shack doesn't sell real electronics parts anymore, not the least of which is that the number of people who can actually build anything with them has fallen off dramatically in the U.S.
It's an effect of the social and educational shift of our populace having zero interest in the technology behind all the gadgets they're using.
On mailing lists and other web-based electronics forums, the majority of people truly interested and BUILDING things with electronics are not hobbyists, they're engineers who also tinker with electronics in their spare time or as a second job.
Slashdot is probably not a good cultural place to ask this, but...
When was the last time you really repaired a piece of electronics? Was it worth it?
RadioShack stocked parts when it was common for any handyman to attempt to fix their home electronics. With costs down, and complexity up to the point where you need a hot-air soldering station to work on surface-mount technology/boards, and schematics published by manufacturers and given out with the equipment a complete relic of the distant past, no one repairs anything anymore unless they have formal training or have absolutely nothing to lose in trying.
Other things hurt the "old" RadioShack model also, like the proliferation of places like DigiKey and Mouser Electronics where you can order small parts in quantity cheaper than you could ever get them at RatShack, and have them delivered to your door next-day.
I'm amazed Fry's still sells oscilloscopes, really... and impressed.
The company I work for (well over 1000 users) has regional IT folks who have access to all desktops in their sphere of influence, and have also:
1. Left the indication that the PC is being viewed remotely always in the taskbar, so the user knows if an admin is on their system. It's a simple Red/Green thing.
2. They have all IT personnel make a serious attempt at not ever connecting unless asked to, or until they've spoken with the employee in person before connecting.
This gives the IT group the visibility they need, while still retaining some semblance of "privacy" for the user.
Of course, nothing is private on a company network, but it at least "feels" fair. I haven't ever heard of PC user complaining about our IT department ever sticking their noses in and bothering them or anything like that.
It's a nice "open" feel, and gets the job done... one of the better IT policy decisions I've seen in recent years.
A typical use might be:
"Hey, I noticed that my manager has a Visio license for all of us in our group, but the new laptop doesn't have Visio installed."
"No problem, do you mind if I connect to your laptop and install it for you?"
"Sure... hang on let me send this e-mail to a customer... okay, all yours."
Could they override it and watch anyway? I'm sure they could. We all "understand" that, but the need for secrecy in 99.9% of the cases, just isn't there. I'm guessing there's some sort of IT policy requiring a written sign-off to do that, too.
One of the sysadmins threatened to quit when he was asked to do something he felt was unethical once, and management actually backed off at the thought that they'd lose him. (Proof that sanity does sometimes win.)
"Some degree of success with SAP products"... what, they bought it?
Who here's ever seen a wildly successful SAP deployment in any medium to large sized company? I haven't.
I know someone who's made a second career out of consulting to a specific small companiy that wanted to "act like the big boys", on the implementation of SAP.
That person had been through the hell-on-earth that the larger company's SAP implementation had been and become over the years, so that gave them enough insight to go in and try to patch the hundreds of procedural holes that SAP had caused in a smaller organization.
As best I can tell, the folks doing the SAP installation and consulting get wads of cash -- and the shareholders of any company installing or attempting to clean up a failed setup of SAP -- are getting bilked.
And even better some moron CEO can claim, "We spent 20 million dollars improving our IT infrastructure for YOU!" to his customers and shareholders alike, but if pressed - how many could give a measurement of HOW MUCH that 20 million dollars had saved him/her vs. not having installed it in the first place? None can.
The best anyone comes up with is "the staff can now access information instantly" about whatever. In this case, I say... "Was the answer to whatever your customer's question was -- time-sensitive?"
Sure it's nice to have a fancy database with all of my personal information in it at every place I call, linked directly to their phone system so it can pull my ANI and have my account interformation right there in front of the agent (who took 30 minutes to answer in the understaffed ACD queue)... but wouldn't I have been just fine waiting for two days for an answer?
Additionally, no shareholders who buy via mutual funds and other "consdlidation investments" ever has to pay attention to the balance sheets of the companies they "own" in their mutual funds and/or index funds. T
hat's the true shame of it. (And those companies like it that way -- no accountability to anyone but the analysts and the institutional investors.)
People still choose who works and when, ERP systems are just an electronic way to document it.
Databases store information people put into them, when the people screw it up, the databases are no help in correcting the bad data, and more people come along to clean it up. Databases also fail at a higher rate than paper and a good filing system.
ALL businesses hamstring employees to work in counter-productive ways. Ever had a day where you could just get up from your desk and walk out because you know you can't concentrate on work until some personal issue or project in your life is back on track? Businesses don't give a damn, and you'll be there your full 8 hours, either way.
"More" is only expected by bosses who don't know what "good" or "great" is. Those that do sometimes expect "less" from those who produce, but they'd better continue to produce.
Globalization just made the markets bigger, it didn't dictate at what speed it arrived or how fast it has to go on a daily basis.
Easiest way to survive ANY company?
Remember you're working for someone else (unless you own the place) and their wealth. Bring in enough of it that they can share some with you.
Get rid of anything on your desk that doesn't affect the bottom line... just like you would if you were a small business person.
If e-mail is distracting and none of it matters to the bottom line, and you must respond to some of it -- bulk it. Twice or three times a day, maximum. If you must monitor for "hot" items, learn to sort on incoming messages properly and dump everything else in a "later" folder.
If phones or PDA's are distracting and not helping with the business of making money/a living, turn them off and only check them periodially after some real work is done.
If you don't have a goal or two (at least) for each day BEFORE you start work. Learn to set some. And hit them.
People didn't decide to compete at any new "level" -- the game is the same, and the measuring stick is the dollar bills you make.
But don't let it consume your life. Just figure out how to bring in more than the guy sitting next to you and keep your customers (be they internal or external), happy.
Do your job. Work for your pay. Put down the PDA/Phone/E-mail/crap and do something useful with your time.
I'll be enjoying my steak dinner tonight purchased with money, while the waiter laughs at you attempting to trade your knowledge for the same dinner at another table.
You should have said, the only thing of value is knowledge of how to make money.
I think my worst experience with web hosting was watching all the people like the ones in this thread, keep trying to find hosting at unreasonably low prices, while the company I worked for at the time had things priced reasonably for GOOD service that didn't have any of these problems.
I just sit back and LAUGH at all you idiots who lost data to crappy hosting companies.
Good hosting companies were out there, you just weren't willing to PAY for them. And it eventually led to many of them laying off a lot of good people, who now wouldn't touch the hosting biz with a ten foot extension ladder coated in cheese.
We charged a lot of money but we also GUARANTEED 100% uptime, and we tried damn hard to hit that. We gave serious refund money out when certain maintenance simply had to be done. We never refused to give anyone their own data back, and we never lost anyone's data.
It's like many markets -- there are markets where consumers simply don't value quality service over money. Web hosting and services are one of them.
You have to understand how the Korean culture works.
This guy is our equivalent of a rock star there -- paid very well, etc. Koreans hold technological advancement in high esteem as a source of national pride.
So his position is not only a scientific one like we're used to seeing... Academics here in the States are generally just left alone to do their work and publish papers... he is a political figure, and a symbol of "Korean intelligence".
Add in the generally Eastern philosophy that you never ever dishonour your co-workers or family, and you have the recipe for the cultural differences, at least on a big-picture scale.
He had to step down in light of all of the above because he didn't do what he said he did. It's an integrity issue over there, and one our culture here could badly use to reign in some ultra-greedy businesspeople...
If running a fair/clean business were a source of national pride... imagine the possibilities, psychologically, socially, and monetarily.
You meant to say, "replace call center employees", right? At least that's what the people selling the things want you to believe.
Of course, after the damn thing sent me to the wrong person three times, it didn't seem to understand me when I told it to "Fuck off" when I called back in for the fourth time.
You'd think some sarcastic engineer would have realized that would be a common request and programmed the system to respond by immediately apologizing and sending you to a human.
The more IVR's that get installed, the more I like Paul English's list:
Usually people who are uncomfortable with this question are so because their company has given zero thought or effort to create career paths.
Don't feel bad, this is the norm today. And it's okay to say that. You'll find it won't turn that many people off, in fact, many are expecting it. In fact, if you're a public company, there's many times the same thing going on at the very top of the organization these days with a revolving door at the upper-management level, and people can easily research this before applying.
As far as the person who said they wanted a foot in the door:
Your collegue may have missed out on the greatest employee they ever had by flatly denying someone with enough chutzpah to say "I want to work here, period." to them directly. How many employees do you have that will tell you their direct desires and give you a measurable goal they wish to attain in their first discussion with you? That flat refusal was short-sighted and immature.
A better manager would have discussed the real need for a SPECIFIED amount of time-in-job, an expectation that the employee excel in that job (not just be there), and perhaps even dug a little deeper about that person's plans beyond that -- perhaps the company NEEDED that person, but the silly manager didn't ask, because he was empire-building his own department and only worried about his own needs.
The CEO's certainly not going to stick around if the going gets tough in a modern company -- run her down further and wait for the Board to throw them out with the golden parachute, is the usual mentality at their level -- all while maintaining a perfect "positive attitude" and giving lipservice to "process improvement" so they don't blow their shot at moving on to the next company disaster with a smile.
The late 80's and early 90's movement to "Quality Management" and then the large shift in Stock Market strategy to quarterly or daily trading of equities has made it such that large corporations are completely at the whim of this quarter's numbers and the management only knows how to communicate in terms of processes -- there's no focus left on overall maintainability of the organization as a "family" or "company" in the more traditional sense of the word -- a group of people working together toward a common goal -- in CEO's vocabulary any more.
You're right. This guy should move on if he wishes -- the "leaders" of the organization certainly will if the company suddenly takes a turn for the worse. And it sounds like it'll take a big dive if he leaves, too... but none of the "leadership" will see the correlation between their systems crashing, this guy leaving, and their customer relationships failing due to bad communication and lost work time. They'll just implement "process changes", and that will happen too slowly to save them.
Until "leadership" people once again are committed to anything longer than this quarter's revenue numbers, employees won't be either. It's a natural reaction to lack of trust and fear for one's job.
Owners of small businesses are just about the only managers left with the right focus... if their company goes down, they go with it. Thus, they naturally try to build for the long term, from hiring to firing. They tend to be excellent people to work for, and many also have some semblence (not always) of being human too.
Perhaps they should rethink what they're paying him.
(Either guy. The one who's too stupid to get his AOL working probably doesn't have enough brain cells to really be running a company, and/or the one who's his virtual slave-boy.)
What resolution are you looking to broadcast this signal around at? Full NTSC? HD?
You haven't even gotten close to getting a real specification together and yet you've already decided that wireless is the correct choice?
Any answer we'd give would only be a guess at this point. Be more specific about what exactly you need -- full framerate video at least 24 fps? How much resolution? Do you need to send audio with the video?
In almost all cases, in a closed environment like a business, cheap 75 ohm co-ax cable is going to be the most cost-effective and reliable medium for sending video signals 'round the building. IP-based video solutions are rarely the answer unless cabling is impossible.
You think it's not already happening? Look at the taxes on any bill from any telco you've received lately. Tell me what percentage of your bill it's up to.
Is it high enough for you to complain to Congress yet? If not: It will go higher.
Slashdot Mirror
And you had a JOB too, unlike the guy on the sailboat! ;-)
Mobile housing (be it on land or sea), for those of us who like to wander, would be great if you could work effectively from anywhere.
Speaking of "tubes" and ways to get things around the house.
I just want a damned laundry chute to the basement in a modern house someday again, just like many houses used to have...
Not that Qwest is a good example of a telco trying to do this, but their limited deployment of what they call "VDSL" with television streamed from the head end to your house hasn't grown beyond the test area in Highlands Ranch, CO in a number of years.
Something must have been wrong with the business model, or they just didn't do it right. The people that have it say it's a good bundled package, and their speed tests, etc... are good, but it's not expanding and hasn't for some time.
One thing you can do is handle your own mortgage escrow.
Set up a separate account and tell them you're taking it over.
Dilligently put away the correct amount of money for your taxes, etc., in that account.
Spend ten minutes a year dealing with it, save anywhere from $50-$200 in unnecessary fees.
It's an effect of the social and educational shift of our populace having zero interest in the technology behind all the gadgets they're using.
On mailing lists and other web-based electronics forums, the majority of people truly interested and BUILDING things with electronics are not hobbyists, they're engineers who also tinker with electronics in their spare time or as a second job.
Slashdot is probably not a good cultural place to ask this, but...
When was the last time you really repaired a piece of electronics? Was it worth it?
RadioShack stocked parts when it was common for any handyman to attempt to fix their home electronics. With costs down, and complexity up to the point where you need a hot-air soldering station to work on surface-mount technology/boards, and schematics published by manufacturers and given out with the equipment a complete relic of the distant past, no one repairs anything anymore unless they have formal training or have absolutely nothing to lose in trying.
Other things hurt the "old" RadioShack model also, like the proliferation of places like DigiKey and Mouser Electronics where you can order small parts in quantity cheaper than you could ever get them at RatShack, and have them delivered to your door next-day.
I'm amazed Fry's still sells oscilloscopes, really... and impressed.
The company I work for (well over 1000 users) has regional IT folks who have access to all desktops in their sphere of influence, and have also:
1. Left the indication that the PC is being viewed remotely always in the taskbar, so the user knows if an admin is on their system. It's a simple Red/Green thing.
2. They have all IT personnel make a serious attempt at not ever connecting unless asked to, or until they've spoken with the employee in person before connecting.
This gives the IT group the visibility they need, while still retaining some semblance of "privacy" for the user.
Of course, nothing is private on a company network, but it at least "feels" fair. I haven't ever heard of PC user complaining about our IT department ever sticking their noses in and bothering them or anything like that.
It's a nice "open" feel, and gets the job done... one of the better IT policy decisions I've seen in recent years.
A typical use might be:
"Hey, I noticed that my manager has a Visio license for all of us in our group, but the new laptop doesn't have Visio installed."
"No problem, do you mind if I connect to your laptop and install it for you?"
"Sure... hang on let me send this e-mail to a customer... okay, all yours."
Could they override it and watch anyway? I'm sure they could. We all "understand" that, but the need for secrecy in 99.9% of the cases, just isn't there. I'm guessing there's some sort of IT policy requiring a written sign-off to do that, too.
One of the sysadmins threatened to quit when he was asked to do something he felt was unethical once, and management actually backed off at the thought that they'd lose him. (Proof that sanity does sometimes win.)
I would have to wholeheartedly agree.
BusinessObjects was "good" software back when no one was in their space about four years ago or more.
Now they truly, "sucketh".
Retarded RICH Easterner...
Nice summary!
"Some degree of success with SAP products"... what, they bought it?
Who here's ever seen a wildly successful SAP deployment in any medium to large sized company? I haven't.
I know someone who's made a second career out of consulting to a specific small companiy that wanted to "act like the big boys", on the implementation of SAP.
That person had been through the hell-on-earth that the larger company's SAP implementation had been and become over the years, so that gave them enough insight to go in and try to patch the hundreds of procedural holes that SAP had caused in a smaller organization.
As best I can tell, the folks doing the SAP installation and consulting get wads of cash -- and the shareholders of any company installing or attempting to clean up a failed setup of SAP -- are getting bilked.
And even better some moron CEO can claim, "We spent 20 million dollars improving our IT infrastructure for YOU!" to his customers and shareholders alike, but if pressed - how many could give a measurement of HOW MUCH that 20 million dollars had saved him/her vs. not having installed it in the first place? None can.
The best anyone comes up with is "the staff can now access information instantly" about whatever. In this case, I say... "Was the answer to whatever your customer's question was -- time-sensitive?"
Sure it's nice to have a fancy database with all of my personal information in it at every place I call, linked directly to their phone system so it can pull my ANI and have my account interformation right there in front of the agent (who took 30 minutes to answer in the understaffed ACD queue)... but wouldn't I have been just fine waiting for two days for an answer?
Additionally, no shareholders who buy via mutual funds and other "consdlidation investments" ever has to pay attention to the balance sheets of the companies they "own" in their mutual funds and/or index funds. T
hat's the true shame of it. (And those companies like it that way -- no accountability to anyone but the analysts and the institutional investors.)
... about certain co-workers and myself, depending on what's going on. ;-)
Money flows because people choose to spend it.
People still choose who works and when, ERP systems are just an electronic way to document it.
Databases store information people put into them, when the people screw it up, the databases are no help in correcting the bad data, and more people come along to clean it up. Databases also fail at a higher rate than paper and a good filing system.
ALL businesses hamstring employees to work in counter-productive ways. Ever had a day where you could just get up from your desk and walk out because you know you can't concentrate on work until some personal issue or project in your life is back on track? Businesses don't give a damn, and you'll be there your full 8 hours, either way.
"More" is only expected by bosses who don't know what "good" or "great" is. Those that do sometimes expect "less" from those who produce, but they'd better continue to produce.
Globalization just made the markets bigger, it didn't dictate at what speed it arrived or how fast it has to go on a daily basis.
Easiest way to survive ANY company?
Remember you're working for someone else (unless you own the place) and their wealth. Bring in enough of it that they can share some with you.
Get rid of anything on your desk that doesn't affect the bottom line... just like you would if you were a small business person.
If e-mail is distracting and none of it matters to the bottom line, and you must respond to some of it -- bulk it. Twice or three times a day, maximum. If you must monitor for "hot" items, learn to sort on incoming messages properly and dump everything else in a "later" folder.
If phones or PDA's are distracting and not helping with the business of making money/a living, turn them off and only check them periodially after some real work is done.
If you don't have a goal or two (at least) for each day BEFORE you start work. Learn to set some. And hit them.
People didn't decide to compete at any new "level" -- the game is the same, and the measuring stick is the dollar bills you make.
But don't let it consume your life. Just figure out how to bring in more than the guy sitting next to you and keep your customers (be they internal or external), happy.
Do your job. Work for your pay. Put down the PDA/Phone/E-mail/crap and do something useful with your time.
That's all it takes.
That you, Don?
I'll be enjoying my steak dinner tonight purchased with money, while the waiter laughs at you attempting to trade your knowledge for the same dinner at another table.
You should have said, the only thing of value is knowledge of how to make money.
I think my worst experience with web hosting was watching all the people like the ones in this thread, keep trying to find hosting at unreasonably low prices, while the company I worked for at the time had things priced reasonably for GOOD service that didn't have any of these problems.
I just sit back and LAUGH at all you idiots who lost data to crappy hosting companies.
Good hosting companies were out there, you just weren't willing to PAY for them. And it eventually led to many of them laying off a lot of good people, who now wouldn't touch the hosting biz with a ten foot extension ladder coated in cheese.
We charged a lot of money but we also GUARANTEED 100% uptime, and we tried damn hard to hit that. We gave serious refund money out when certain maintenance simply had to be done. We never refused to give anyone their own data back, and we never lost anyone's data.
It's like many markets -- there are markets where consumers simply don't value quality service over money. Web hosting and services are one of them.
You have to understand how the Korean culture works.
This guy is our equivalent of a rock star there -- paid very well, etc. Koreans hold technological advancement in high esteem as a source of national pride.
So his position is not only a scientific one like we're used to seeing... Academics here in the States are generally just left alone to do their work and publish papers... he is a political figure, and a symbol of "Korean intelligence".
Add in the generally Eastern philosophy that you never ever dishonour your co-workers or family, and you have the recipe for the cultural differences, at least on a big-picture scale.
He had to step down in light of all of the above because he didn't do what he said he did. It's an integrity issue over there, and one our culture here could badly use to reign in some ultra-greedy businesspeople...
If running a fair/clean business were a source of national pride... imagine the possibilities, psychologically, socially, and monetarily.
You meant to say, "replace call center employees", right? At least that's what the people selling the things want you to believe.
Of course, after the damn thing sent me to the wrong person three times, it didn't seem to understand me when I told it to "Fuck off" when I called back in for the fourth time.
You'd think some sarcastic engineer would have realized that would be a common request and programmed the system to respond by immediately apologizing and sending you to a human.
The more IVR's that get installed, the more I like Paul English's list:
http://www.paulenglish.com/ivr/
Usually people who are uncomfortable with this question are so because their company has given zero thought or effort to create career paths.
Don't feel bad, this is the norm today. And it's okay to say that. You'll find it won't turn that many people off, in fact, many are expecting it. In fact, if you're a public company, there's many times the same thing going on at the very top of the organization these days with a revolving door at the upper-management level, and people can easily research this before applying.
As far as the person who said they wanted a foot in the door:
Your collegue may have missed out on the greatest employee they ever had by flatly denying someone with enough chutzpah to say "I want to work here, period." to them directly. How many employees do you have that will tell you their direct desires and give you a measurable goal they wish to attain in their first discussion with you? That flat refusal was short-sighted and immature.
A better manager would have discussed the real need for a SPECIFIED amount of time-in-job, an expectation that the employee excel in that job (not just be there), and perhaps even dug a little deeper about that person's plans beyond that -- perhaps the company NEEDED that person, but the silly manager didn't ask, because he was empire-building his own department and only worried about his own needs.
The CEO's certainly not going to stick around if the going gets tough in a modern company -- run her down further and wait for the Board to throw them out with the golden parachute, is the usual mentality at their level -- all while maintaining a perfect "positive attitude" and giving lipservice to "process improvement" so they don't blow their shot at moving on to the next company disaster with a smile.
The late 80's and early 90's movement to "Quality Management" and then the large shift in Stock Market strategy to quarterly or daily trading of equities has made it such that large corporations are completely at the whim of this quarter's numbers and the management only knows how to communicate in terms of processes -- there's no focus left on overall maintainability of the organization as a "family" or "company" in the more traditional sense of the word -- a group of people working together toward a common goal -- in CEO's vocabulary any more.
You're right. This guy should move on if he wishes -- the "leaders" of the organization certainly will if the company suddenly takes a turn for the worse. And it sounds like it'll take a big dive if he leaves, too... but none of the "leadership" will see the correlation between their systems crashing, this guy leaving, and their customer relationships failing due to bad communication and lost work time. They'll just implement "process changes", and that will happen too slowly to save them.
Until "leadership" people once again are committed to anything longer than this quarter's revenue numbers, employees won't be either. It's a natural reaction to lack of trust and fear for one's job.
Owners of small businesses are just about the only managers left with the right focus... if their company goes down, they go with it. Thus, they naturally try to build for the long term, from hiring to firing. They tend to be excellent people to work for, and many also have some semblence (not always) of being human too.
Perhaps they should rethink what they're paying him.
(Either guy. The one who's too stupid to get his AOL working probably doesn't have enough brain cells to really be running a company, and/or the one who's his virtual slave-boy.)
What science is that? Voodoo and Marketing?
Please tell me some things a RedHat Linux *server* will do that any other Linux server won't.
I'll determine if that feature is worth the additional cost I'd have to pay for RedHat over say, Debian.
The maintenance costs will far outstrip any benefit.
What resolution are you looking to broadcast this signal around at? Full NTSC? HD?
You haven't even gotten close to getting a real specification together and yet you've already decided that wireless is the correct choice?
Any answer we'd give would only be a guess at this point. Be more specific about what exactly you need -- full framerate video at least 24 fps? How much resolution? Do you need to send audio with the video?
In almost all cases, in a closed environment like a business, cheap 75 ohm co-ax cable is going to be the most cost-effective and reliable medium for sending video signals 'round the building. IP-based video solutions are rarely the answer unless cabling is impossible.
ssh and top.
You think it's not already happening? Look at the taxes on any bill from any telco you've received lately. Tell me what percentage of your bill it's up to.
Is it high enough for you to complain to Congress yet? If not: It will go higher.
I've heard it the other way for almost ten years now, but I like yours better anyway, so I'll use it. ;-)
I'll send appropriate licensing fees. LOL.