Safety rules have changed a bit since the 20's. The cost of airbags alone averages between 600-800 each, and that is just two parts out of a few thousand. Ask you dealer how much the computers in the car cost, or even the ignition systems that ties the key to the car via electronics.
I unchecked that box the minute I got the job I really wanted; I wanted to be clear that I was going somewhere I wanted to stay. The reality is that if you have skills/experience a company really wants they will call you regardless of what a "check box" says. Even with that box checked I get a call to my desk at work at least once a month (people who take the time to look up the office number and navigate the dial by name directory) as well as an e-mail a week or so.
It is safe to assume that this isn't the only company that would notice such a thing, so if in doubt uncheck the box on your own LI profile.
And the earth is how many years old?
I'm not saying climate change isn't happening, just that your example isn't a good one given the limited sample set that is your life. If we are being honest, even a few thousand years of recorded history isn't much to go on given the age of the planet. Climate change has happened before, it will happen again. Some of it will be because of us, some will not.
I apply this same thinking to people who I (help) interview for the various teams I have worked on. Give me people who are willing to learn (and have shown that ability) and a good fit for the team; choosing based on skills alone is waaaaay too risky.
Over the last 4 years I've managed a rather good run of moving up to bigger/better positions. In each case I have had to answer the "what would it take to keep you here" question and in each case I said that I wasn't interested in renegotiating. Upping my pay or asking for more of "X" changes the relationship in a way that cannot ever be undone, and odds are it doesn't solve the underlying problem anyway. More money for you doesn't solve the bad manager / small budget / long commute problem and any/all of those things will wear on you over time.
Find someplace you like with a low idiot and/or psycopath to normal person ratio, remember to keep your skills current, and work to increase your value to the company just because it can't hurt.
Sorry but this is just another example of a company who has no idea how to properly terminate or control access. First, those service and/or other random accounts should not have the ability to remotely access systems in the first place, let alone domain admin access. Second, thanks to the miracle of PowerCLI/etc changing local passwords across all hosts (VMware in this case since it is the focus of the story) is dead simple, free, and fast. Third, if you are going to term someone with admin access you cut off their access BEFORE you tell them. Yes changing service account passwords is difficult but it is your job as an IT staffer to let management know that downtime will be required if someone with full admin access is let go. I've been through that exercise multiple times and it took a small team of us to get it done. Once you have done it once though you know what to expect and can accurately predict how long it will take moving forward. Not only that, you can use the exercise to determine what changes to make that will simplify the process moving forward (such as less accounts with remote access rights).
Damn dude you nailed it; I just forwarded this to someone I worked with. My company does global health work in primarily third world areas. Almost a year ago the company brought in someone from a completely different industry (tobacco) as our CIO and he is trying to shoehorn in every idea from his previous job into our IT department. Let's just say it isn't working and those of us who (in the past) gladly spent far beyond 40 hours a week helping the company design/implement a stable IT infrastructure because we were proud of the mission of the company are watching these "new" ideas threaten it all and our enthusiasm/energy levels drop like a rock (sorry for the long sentence).
The article is fairly accurate, as is your reply. If you are working your way up the tech ladder you should really be living as transient a lifestyle as is possible. This means renting rather than buying a home, not buying roomfulls of furniture (harder to move all of your stuff), limiting debt, etc. If you are able to be mobile and local opportunities are limited you will always have options elsewhere. I am fortunate that I live in an area that is still growing (Raleigh, NC) so I still have plenty of opportunities locally; I would be in trouble if I had to move right now (house needs work, would need to hire a mover, would probably lose a little money, etc). I know some guys who are stuck in areas like Boston, NYC, Michigan (multiple cities), etc who can't sell their house (not only is no one buying, they owe more than it is worth) which means they can't afford to move at the moment. If I could get them down here I know of multiple jobs they could get but they just can't make a move.
Plus they will host it for you if need be. You access it via Citrix and it can tie back into your corporate Exchange (assuming you have Outlook Anywhere/RPC-HTTP configured) for Outlook integration. It is pretty simple to host our your own BUT not every company has a box available that they can put SQL on (plus Blackbaud releases a lot of patches).
Thanks New York, seriously.
This just drives more companies down south. Companies that need workers, especially IT workers.
In Raleigh, NC am at least ten times more likely to meet someone *without* a southern accent than someone with one, so keep your southern jokes to yourself.
The first question would be what type of sysadmin do you want to be and do you have any good contacts? I did consulting for a number of years (small to mid size companies) and the lack of degree never hurt me.
But wait; now you are getting bored. You realize that you are lucky to roll out one server every two years and 80% of your time is patches/account maintenance/backups. The more you think about it, the more you realize that you could be replaced tomorrow because your boss/his boss thinks that all you do is push buttons. If you are wise you spent all that sysadmin free time (you have free time right? All good sysadmins should) learning about what interests you and getting certs as those are what it will take to "move up" if you don't have contacts and/or a degree.
Once you get to a higher level getting asked about what you need (ie: "The Budget") the ability to understand the relationship between IT and the business is critical to your continued growth within the organization. I had to do a business case/presentation for a data dedupe solution that I wanted and I can say without a doubt that the writing and research skills I gained during my bachelors (and now masters) courses helped me a more than just a bit when it came to getting the purchase approved.
At the bare minimum I would say that you need to start earning certs and building your business contacts. Join local user groups or even Infragard (if IT security interests you). Set up a Linked In profile and join a bunch of groups (on that site). A degree can always come later should you feel that it will help you further advance your career. I can tell you that when it comes to many larger companies a degree figures in what your pay will be. Fair or not it is just the way things are.
Except some of us need "antiquated" serial ports for those antiquated items such as CAT 6XXX switches that we need to configure or EMC SANS when we need to do some specific testing.
Then I have all those old clients of mine who use them to configure industrial equipment.
You say antiquated, I say still very much a part of the electronic world.
I have many years on my resume as a consultant. Solid growth in terms of network size/scope complexity. Solid growth in the size/scope of project work that I have done. Certs, client reference letters, degrees, all earned while being a consultant. A solid line of succession over a 7 year period.
I did all of this so well that my previous employer promoted me to a "Director" level position. Rather than be in the field every day I oversaw all of our consultants. I still did project work but only on the weekends, usually in a mentor role.
Anyway the "director" level job didn't work out. When it came time to job hunt (which I did while still working) my title was scaring off potential employers. A went about six weeks with no solid hits (I mainly let people find me), then decided to alter my resume to say "manager" rather than director, and featured my previous title (systems engineer) more prominently. I had a offer letter 8 days after making that change.
Like someone else said take a look at your resume and get the focus on your schooling and off of your job. Maybe even try a resume writing service; I did that prior to moving to RTP, NC and my resume always gets compliments.
WAN optimization, works rather well. We have several offices connected via VSAT links (shared bandwidth like yourself) and VOIP and everything works fine. The Riverbed averages about 90% compression across all traffic.
(a href="http://www.tredent.com/news/fhi-deploys-riverbed-steelhead-appliances-after-testing-cisco-packeteer-and-juniper/">Go here you want to read our "success" story.
I work for an organization (www.fhi.org) that gets quite a bit of money from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation for any number of health related studies and/or programs. For him to say what he did shows that he has no idea what he is talking about, as the programs they sponsor serve a definite need.
No, the foundation cannot solve all the issues that these people face. Whether it is a lack of viable employment, stable food/water supply, sanitary living conditions, or just a dictator who generally opresses them, their problems are much greater than just general health.
I've got news for you Richard: Open source software isn't the solution to their problems either.
Please don't make me describe the experience I had getting *Intel* based wireless to work under Ubuntu on my Dell Latitude D530. Until manufacturer driver support equals that of Windows and the driver install process is fully automated (I'm not afraid of the command line, it's just that time=money) I'll bet you that I could download all the updated drivers (which isn't as many as you claim) needed for a Windows rebuild in the time it takes to get wireless/video drivers working properly under Linux.
The problem is that most of the things you think that Windows lack either A) cannot be packaged in due to antitrust concerns and/or it isn't a Microsoft app B) don't matter to 99% of all computer users and C) aren't true substitutes for people that need the "real" version of said application.
If you want to defend Linux you only need to tout the advantages of open source and the ability to create a very small OS footprint. People spend far too much time knocking Windows and not enough time focusing on improving those small things within Linux (such as wireless networking installs on very popular business class notebooks) that make things frustrating for people who are trying it out.
RTP (Raleigh/Durham) is home to Cisco, Microsoft, EMC, NetApp, Red Hat, Lenovo, IBM, Symantec, Biotech, Epic games, Etc, Etc. Unemployement hovers below 5%, and there are always good paying IT jobs available. You may get a little less at first (the penalty for job hunting remotely), but give it a few years and things will right themselves.
My wife is a teacher and this stuff has been going on for quite awhile and it has nothing to do with NCLB. The "at risk" students get far more than the successful ones in terms of resources and leniency. The concept of "inclusion" forces kids with significant issues into normal classrooms where they either have no chance to succeed or cause significant disruption due to behavior.
The list of problems with public education is long and diverse, but the biggest problem of all is people not properly raising their kids, or having more/any kids when they cannot provide for them.
The most troubling part: the ones at risk/with issues are breeding faster and earlier than those who will go on to lead a productive life.
Tons of Linux jobs. Tons of MS jobs. Tons of Cisco jobs. Lots of salaries to pick from. Super low unemployment. I moved here 3 years ago and while my initial salary was below market (the penalty some pay for job hunting from another state), my current pay is twice what I was getting when I first moved down here.
As a consultant with s Windows/SonicWall/Exchange primary skillset with some experience with VMware, Cisco, and OCS 2007 I get an average of 5 "come interview with us" requests per day when I have my resumes up for people to view.
Who is in RTP? Red Hat, Microsoft, Cisco, NetApp, EMC, Symantec, GSK, IBM, Lenovo, AT&T managed services, hundreds of IT consulting firms, biotech companies, a few computer game companies, and tons more that I am forgetting about.
Seriously, give it a look. Whether you are a programmer, linux admin, windows admin, or help desk, RTP has *many* openings on a daily basis.
The lack of OCR image scanning is reason enough to ditch GFI. My previous employer sold GFI for years but as it became less reliable we switched to SonicWall Mail Security appliances. They are less expensive than Barracuda, but the accuracy rate has been out of this world. A little secret: the devices don't enforce their license limits. No matter what size you buy (among the smaller units) the devices are the same.
I've found that the device works fine as is, but if your company gets a lot of spam (say 200+ daily per person) you might want to enable at least one DNS black list. I usually added the entire sorbs DNS black list. I also set up catch all email addresses (john.smith@xxxx.com) that the device uses to train itself. The device reads all email sent to these nonexistent users and uses it to identify spam/train itself for everyone else.
The device can be configured to send daily summary emails that users can read and unjunk directly from the email if need be. In all honesty after a few months the users will find it so accurate that they will just ignore the email alltogether.
Make sure you update it out of the box, they never ship them with the current hd image).
You can view the web UI at the SonicWall site, they have a demo unit set up. The device costs more than GFI (about 2G up front for the smallest unit, a few hundred a year to renew the updates) but trust me it will pay for itself in terms of less spam management labor all around.
I've installed/configured about 20 of the SonicWall devices and probably 80 GFI ME/MS and they really don't compare.
You can go with outsourced solutions, but the truth is that people will never log in and check their spam.
Slashdot Mirror
Apple audits 5% of their suppliers: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/compute/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501832&objectid=10779344
What they are doing is a good thing, but 5% is 5%.
Safety rules have changed a bit since the 20's. The cost of airbags alone averages between 600-800 each, and that is just two parts out of a few thousand. Ask you dealer how much the computers in the car cost, or even the ignition systems that ties the key to the car via electronics.
I unchecked that box the minute I got the job I really wanted; I wanted to be clear that I was going somewhere I wanted to stay. The reality is that if you have skills/experience a company really wants they will call you regardless of what a "check box" says. Even with that box checked I get a call to my desk at work at least once a month (people who take the time to look up the office number and navigate the dial by name directory) as well as an e-mail a week or so.
It is safe to assume that this isn't the only company that would notice such a thing, so if in doubt uncheck the box on your own LI profile.
And the earth is how many years old?
I'm not saying climate change isn't happening, just that your example isn't a good one given the limited sample set that is your life. If we are being honest, even a few thousand years of recorded history isn't much to go on given the age of the planet. Climate change has happened before, it will happen again. Some of it will be because of us, some will not.
I apply this same thinking to people who I (help) interview for the various teams I have worked on. Give me people who are willing to learn (and have shown that ability) and a good fit for the team; choosing based on skills alone is waaaaay too risky.
Over the last 4 years I've managed a rather good run of moving up to bigger/better positions. In each case I have had to answer the "what would it take to keep you here" question and in each case I said that I wasn't interested in renegotiating. Upping my pay or asking for more of "X" changes the relationship in a way that cannot ever be undone, and odds are it doesn't solve the underlying problem anyway. More money for you doesn't solve the bad manager / small budget / long commute problem and any/all of those things will wear on you over time. Find someplace you like with a low idiot and/or psycopath to normal person ratio, remember to keep your skills current, and work to increase your value to the company just because it can't hurt.
Sorry but this is just another example of a company who has no idea how to properly terminate or control access. First, those service and/or other random accounts should not have the ability to remotely access systems in the first place, let alone domain admin access. Second, thanks to the miracle of PowerCLI/etc changing local passwords across all hosts (VMware in this case since it is the focus of the story) is dead simple, free, and fast. Third, if you are going to term someone with admin access you cut off their access BEFORE you tell them.
Yes changing service account passwords is difficult but it is your job as an IT staffer to let management know that downtime will be required if someone with full admin access is let go. I've been through that exercise multiple times and it took a small team of us to get it done. Once you have done it once though you know what to expect and can accurately predict how long it will take moving forward. Not only that, you can use the exercise to determine what changes to make that will simplify the process moving forward (such as less accounts with remote access rights).
Damn dude you nailed it; I just forwarded this to someone I worked with. My company does global health work in primarily third world areas. Almost a year ago the company brought in someone from a completely different industry (tobacco) as our CIO and he is trying to shoehorn in every idea from his previous job into our IT department. Let's just say it isn't working and those of us who (in the past) gladly spent far beyond 40 hours a week helping the company design/implement a stable IT infrastructure because we were proud of the mission of the company are watching these "new" ideas threaten it all and our enthusiasm/energy levels drop like a rock (sorry for the long sentence).
The article is fairly accurate, as is your reply.
If you are working your way up the tech ladder you should really be living as transient a lifestyle as is possible. This means renting rather than buying a home, not buying roomfulls of furniture (harder to move all of your stuff), limiting debt, etc.
If you are able to be mobile and local opportunities are limited you will always have options elsewhere. I am fortunate that I live in an area that is still growing (Raleigh, NC) so I still have plenty of opportunities locally; I would be in trouble if I had to move right now (house needs work, would need to hire a mover, would probably lose a little money, etc). I know some guys who are stuck in areas like Boston, NYC, Michigan (multiple cities), etc who can't sell their house (not only is no one buying, they owe more than it is worth) which means they can't afford to move at the moment. If I could get them down here I know of multiple jobs they could get but they just can't make a move.
It is, next year. Bank on it.
Plus they will host it for you if need be. You access it via Citrix and it can tie back into your corporate Exchange (assuming you have Outlook Anywhere/RPC-HTTP configured) for Outlook integration. It is pretty simple to host our your own BUT not every company has a box available that they can put SQL on (plus Blackbaud releases a lot of patches).
Thanks New York, seriously.
This just drives more companies down south. Companies that need workers, especially IT workers.
In Raleigh, NC am at least ten times more likely to meet someone *without* a southern accent than someone with one, so keep your southern jokes to yourself.
The first question would be what type of sysadmin do you want to be and do you have any good contacts? I did consulting for a number of years (small to mid size companies) and the lack of degree never hurt me.
But wait; now you are getting bored. You realize that you are lucky to roll out one server every two years and 80% of your time is patches/account maintenance/backups. The more you think about it, the more you realize that you could be replaced tomorrow because your boss/his boss thinks that all you do is push buttons. If you are wise you spent all that sysadmin free time (you have free time right? All good sysadmins should) learning about what interests you and getting certs as those are what it will take to "move up" if you don't have contacts and/or a degree.
Once you get to a higher level getting asked about what you need (ie: "The Budget") the ability to understand the relationship between IT and the business is critical to your continued growth within the organization. I had to do a business case/presentation for a data dedupe solution that I wanted and I can say without a doubt that the writing and research skills I gained during my bachelors (and now masters) courses helped me a more than just a bit when it came to getting the purchase approved.
At the bare minimum I would say that you need to start earning certs and building your business contacts. Join local user groups or even Infragard (if IT security interests you). Set up a Linked In profile and join a bunch of groups (on that site). A degree can always come later should you feel that it will help you further advance your career. I can tell you that when it comes to many larger companies a degree figures in what your pay will be. Fair or not it is just the way things are.
Sure you can, for a hefty price: http://www.bphx.com/en/Pages/default.aspx
No, I don't work for them. I did get offered a job but turned it down.
Except some of us need "antiquated" serial ports for those antiquated items such as CAT 6XXX switches that we need to configure or EMC SANS when we need to do some specific testing.
Then I have all those old clients of mine who use them to configure industrial equipment.
You say antiquated, I say still very much a part of the electronic world.
I have many years on my resume as a consultant. Solid growth in terms of network size/scope complexity. Solid growth in the size/scope of project work that I have done. Certs, client reference letters, degrees, all earned while being a consultant. A solid line of succession over a 7 year period.
I did all of this so well that my previous employer promoted me to a "Director" level position. Rather than be in the field every day I oversaw all of our consultants. I still did project work but only on the weekends, usually in a mentor role.
Anyway the "director" level job didn't work out. When it came time to job hunt (which I did while still working) my title was scaring off potential employers. A went about six weeks with no solid hits (I mainly let people find me), then decided to alter my resume to say "manager" rather than director, and featured my previous title (systems engineer) more prominently. I had a offer letter 8 days after making that change.
Like someone else said take a look at your resume and get the focus on your schooling and off of your job. Maybe even try a resume writing service; I did that prior to moving to RTP, NC and my resume always gets compliments.
Damn butterfingers....
WAN optimization, works rather well. We have several offices connected via VSAT links (shared bandwidth like yourself) and VOIP and everything works fine. The Riverbed averages about 90% compression across all traffic.
(a href="http://www.tredent.com/news/fhi-deploys-riverbed-steelhead-appliances-after-testing-cisco-packeteer-and-juniper/">Go here you want to read our "success" story.
Remember, this is San Fran.
Beautiful area of the country, but 150K doesn't go far out there.
I work for an organization (www.fhi.org) that gets quite a bit of money from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation for any number of health related studies and/or programs. For him to say what he did shows that he has no idea what he is talking about, as the programs they sponsor serve a definite need.
No, the foundation cannot solve all the issues that these people face. Whether it is a lack of viable employment, stable food/water supply, sanitary living conditions, or just a dictator who generally opresses them, their problems are much greater than just general health.
I've got news for you Richard: Open source software isn't the solution to their problems either.
Please don't make me describe the experience I had getting *Intel* based wireless to work under Ubuntu on my Dell Latitude D530. Until manufacturer driver support equals that of Windows and the driver install process is fully automated (I'm not afraid of the command line, it's just that time=money) I'll bet you that I could download all the updated drivers (which isn't as many as you claim) needed for a Windows rebuild in the time it takes to get wireless/video drivers working properly under Linux.
The problem is that most of the things you think that Windows lack either A) cannot be packaged in due to antitrust concerns and/or it isn't a Microsoft app B) don't matter to 99% of all computer users and C) aren't true substitutes for people that need the "real" version of said application.
If you want to defend Linux you only need to tout the advantages of open source and the ability to create a very small OS footprint. People spend far too much time knocking Windows and not enough time focusing on improving those small things within Linux (such as wireless networking installs on very popular business class notebooks) that make things frustrating for people who are trying it out.
How about moving?
RTP (Raleigh/Durham) is home to Cisco, Microsoft, EMC, NetApp, Red Hat, Lenovo, IBM, Symantec, Biotech, Epic games, Etc, Etc. Unemployement hovers below 5%, and there are always good paying IT jobs available. You may get a little less at first (the penalty for job hunting remotely), but give it a few years and things will right themselves.
My wife is a teacher and this stuff has been going on for quite awhile and it has nothing to do with NCLB. The "at risk" students get far more than the successful ones in terms of resources and leniency. The concept of "inclusion" forces kids with significant issues into normal classrooms where they either have no chance to succeed or cause significant disruption due to behavior.
The list of problems with public education is long and diverse, but the biggest problem of all is people not properly raising their kids, or having more/any kids when they cannot provide for them.
The most troubling part: the ones at risk/with issues are breeding faster and earlier than those who will go on to lead a productive life.
Move.
RTP (Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill NC).
Tons of Linux jobs. Tons of MS jobs. Tons of Cisco jobs. Lots of salaries to pick from. Super low unemployment. I moved here 3 years ago and while my initial salary was below market (the penalty some pay for job hunting from another state), my current pay is twice what I was getting when I first moved down here.
As a consultant with s Windows/SonicWall/Exchange primary skillset with some experience with VMware, Cisco, and OCS 2007 I get an average of 5 "come interview with us" requests per day when I have my resumes up for people to view.
Who is in RTP? Red Hat, Microsoft, Cisco, NetApp, EMC, Symantec, GSK, IBM, Lenovo, AT&T managed services, hundreds of IT consulting firms, biotech companies, a few computer game companies, and tons more that I am forgetting about.
Seriously, give it a look. Whether you are a programmer, linux admin, windows admin, or help desk, RTP has *many* openings on a daily basis.
The lack of OCR image scanning is reason enough to ditch GFI. My previous employer sold GFI for years but as it became less reliable we switched to SonicWall Mail Security appliances. They are less expensive than Barracuda, but the accuracy rate has been out of this world. A little secret: the devices don't enforce their license limits. No matter what size you buy (among the smaller units) the devices are the same. I've found that the device works fine as is, but if your company gets a lot of spam (say 200+ daily per person) you might want to enable at least one DNS black list. I usually added the entire sorbs DNS black list. I also set up catch all email addresses (john.smith@xxxx.com) that the device uses to train itself. The device reads all email sent to these nonexistent users and uses it to identify spam/train itself for everyone else. The device can be configured to send daily summary emails that users can read and unjunk directly from the email if need be. In all honesty after a few months the users will find it so accurate that they will just ignore the email alltogether. Make sure you update it out of the box, they never ship them with the current hd image). You can view the web UI at the SonicWall site, they have a demo unit set up. The device costs more than GFI (about 2G up front for the smallest unit, a few hundred a year to renew the updates) but trust me it will pay for itself in terms of less spam management labor all around. I've installed/configured about 20 of the SonicWall devices and probably 80 GFI ME/MS and they really don't compare. You can go with outsourced solutions, but the truth is that people will never log in and check their spam.