Automated story writing will be easier once the next updated version of the newspeak dictionary is released.
Unfortunately I am a doubleplusungood newspeaker, but at least computer written stories will help me avoid crimethink.
Get checked for a Vitamin D deficiency. Your doctor can do that with a blood test. If your doctor doesn't think it is worth doing this test, find another doctor.
Most people who work in an office all day have low Vitamin D and will benefit from taking a supplement. You don't need a prescription for it (at least not in the US) so you can just walk in and pick it up in the vitamin aisle at the grocery or wherever. Get the ones that are liquid gels as I have heard they are better. I take a Vitamin D supplement twice a day and have noticed vast improvements in feeling more healthy (in general) and being less prone to anxiety and depression (I used to be).
I don't know for sure if all of this is due to taking Vitamin D, but I believe it to be. It is such an easy thing to try and low risk (ask your doctor about it), so why not try it?
And if all of that doesn't work then find another job. Seriously, your time is too important to spend it being miserable.
I really think their biggest problem is the whole time they thought they were competing with Best Buy, but they were really competing with Target, Walmart, and online retailers like Newegg, Buy.com, and TigerDirect. Best Buy should try to learn from their demise.
You just need more redundancy. Two engines is not enough redundancy to protect against a double bird strike, but four would have been, right?
I suppose cost could be a factor. Depending on what the airlines consider the value of a human life to be would determine whether this is feasible for them. It comes down to how many 9s the airlines are willing to accept and what they will pay for that "uptime" of their engines.
Don't use your old PCs because they are worthless. Just donate, recycle, or sell them because it will be a major headache to install the OS, software, and keep them updated. Use VMWare player or Virtual PC (I use both of them) and you can download pre-built images. And one more benefit... using virtual machines will keep your electric bill lower than a bunch of old PCs.
I've recently read a Groklaw article that mentioned a salary dispute between two lawyers. Both claimed to usually charge $400 per hour. AFAIK even highly sought after IT consultants rarely get away with that kind of fees.
Maybe you haven't used a lawyer before. My lawyer bills at $200 per hour, but bills his time down to the minute, so its not like in IT where you might bill out for 8+hour days over a long period of time. Also, with lawyers a lot of the mundane work gets farmed out to paralegals who bill lower. So it's not like the lawyer makes $400 an hour, 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year.
Thinking back (waaaay back) to my first programming class in HS, there are going to be two kinds of students, those who have an active interest and those who do not.
The ones with an active interest will just need a little bit of "fuel" and point them in a direction and let them go. For these students you can show them a quick demo, tell them where to find more information, give them a project, and all you need to do is be available for questions. Too much guidance or restriction will either bore them or make them frustrated.
The other kind, lets say they have a passive interest, might be curious but maybe they don't have the same motivation as the others, so they will like to see many demonstrations, and have hands-on exercises where you guide them through something. I don't know if the active and passive interest students could be taught effectively in the same class.
The simple things?
Get a haircut. Dress appropriately and wear decent shoes. Shower, wear deodorant, and brush your teeth. Be respectful and humble enough (i.e. don't be a jackass). Practice interviewing. Smile, speak clearly at an appropriate volume and with enough eye contact. Have someone proof-read your resume (spelling doesn't matter on Slashdot, but it does matter on your resume.
I am sure someone will make a wise-crack joke about some of those, but as someone who has been on the other side of the table, all of those things matter.
The bottom line is something is wrong, other than your degree and experience, and you need to find out what it is quickly.
Sure, you are excited now, but I predict you will look back on this moment with indifference once the 46th is discovered. For now, I'm going to keep the champagne on ice.
You are assuming Microsoft has bands of programmers capable of fixing Vista drivers. Not everyone who works at MS is an expert on operating systems or driver development.
I agree, many people have a vague dislike for Vista. I think it has to do in part with allowing Apple to be the one to tell consumers about Vista. And not surprisingly they did not paint it in a good light. I run Vista and it is not _horrible_, but a few of the big problems I have with it are:
1. Drivers were slow to become available. This is not as much of an issue anymore.
2. Windows Explorer (and the open file dialog) is broken. I think they could have heeded the rule if it ain't broke don't fix it. Now, I just want to get to my C: drive, it SHOULDN'T be this complicated.
3. Finally, and this is a general complaint about Microsoft's latest user interface strategy, but why have they chosen to get rid of traditional menus (which everyone is already familiar with) and effectively "hide" functionality. If I am trying to help my Mom over the phone, I can't tell her to click on the File menu anymore, because now it is some multi-color orb in the upper left hand corner of Word 2007. WTF? Can someone who is trained in UI design tell me why you would want to move away from menus that have real words as titles? The only thing I could think of is it saves them on translation costs for localizing their applications, but how much, really? The same thing on Windows Media Player, it is completely non-obvious how to get to the Options dialog for example (you have to right click on the control box, WTF?)
Well, over a typical 30 year mortgage at 50 miles each way per workday, you'll be driving about 624,000 miles so you're already a good chunk of the way there. Add in to that the additional wear and tear on your vehicles, the probability of gas prices rising further, the likely need to have two vehicles instead of one at least at some point, and this ceases to sound very good to me.
I didn't check your math, but you are RIGHT about your point. People only think things through the first step, but if you add up the additional costs, sometimes what appears to be a financially smart move actually is not. And don't forget the non-financial costs of living farther from work... having to spend more time in the car, instead of doing whatever you like. And also the fact that you are more likely to get into a car accident, since you spend more time on the road. Or what about the health toll? So you get home later and you only have time to eat fast-food for dinner, or don't have time to go for a jog or work out?
Perhaps with a rise in telecommuting we can switch to getting paid for generating x amount of work done instead of x hours in the workplace.
That is fine if you are a worker drone that produces X widgets per hour, or answers Y calls per hour. Having a job that does not lend itself well towards telecommuting is GOOD. It means you are valuable for something more than what can be written down in a procedure and shipped overseas. Personally, I don't want my work intruding on my personal space. Because sometimes work sucks, and when it does my home is where I go to get away from it and relax.
I prefer my ISP to be like a utility, and not a content provider. And if history tells us anything, most other people do too. Remember AOL, Compuserve, and Prodigy all had their own exclusive content, but in the end the consumer didn't want to pay for that content, all they wanted was a link to the Internet where they could choose their own content.
Sorry, I didn't see this to respond immediately, but if you get signal drop outs, where it is high and then low all of a sudden and your picture breaks up, it is most likely due to multipath. The DB8 and other bay style antennas are not very directional, so they get signals bouncing off of other things. You probably would be better off going with a "silver sensor" (google for it) or another Yagi style antenna. The silver sensor can work indoors, the yagi is probably something you want to mount outside.
Amplifying the signal will not help if you are suffering from multipath, it might actually make it worse! You didn't say how far away you are, but I have a yagi antenna on my roof and pick up some stations that are 30+ miles away without an amplifier, so I don't think you should go that route unless you are seeing a consistent, weak signal (not spiking up and down). Anyway, that's my 2 cents. Good luck!
Excuses take the responsibility off your shoulders so you can feel good about doing nothing.
Bite the bullet and make changes. Over two years ago, I cut my commute in half by moving closer to the city (no its not an urban blight neighborhood, nor is it a million dollar condo). While everyone else is complaining about gas prices, I don't give it a second thought. That is nice, but the reason I moved wasn't for gas prices or for the environment, it was to conserve the most precious resource I have... time.
If you commute 45 minutes each way to work, and let's say you work 5 days a week for 48 weeks out of the year (taking out 4 weeks for vacation and holidays). That means you spend 360 hours per year in your car driving to and from work. How many hours of vacation-time does your employer give you? 80? 120? If you cut your commute in half, you get an extra 180 hours per year!
By the way, a really good book I read a while back is called "Take Back Your Time", and there is also a Take back your time website.
Not a bad idea, but in the BlackBerry software world that isn't really something that is done by other companies. I would really just have preferred people try the trial version first, and if it didn't work then fine, don't buy it. But please don't buy it and then complain that it doesn't work. I'm a dev by trade, so I am not cut out for customer service, and you really have to be good at handling rude people in customer service (as I'm sure some people reading this know). From this experience, I learned that I hate customer service, so at least I learned something out of it.
Good question. I guess the other side of the story is my full-time job and working part time on a masters degree was really making it hard to dedicate the required attention to selling BlackBerry apps. I guess it is kindof like a company deciding that something is not their core competency and then dropping it.
You come to a point when you realize there are only 24 hours in a day, and you need to leave some for yourself.
I guess it could sound like I had a crummy app, but without going into details I really think it was very, very simple. It had about 1,000 customers, and somehow most of them had no trouble with it. I didn't mind helping people, but the thing that got me was the people who would just buy it sight unseen. I guess I am more careful with my money, I would never pay for something without knowing what it does ahead of time.
I used to be a micro-isv for BlackBerry apps, but gave up after getting completely frustrated by the stupidity of users. I have lost count of how many times someone would simply buy my app without even trying the trial version first. I even had a few people buy it and then email me asking what it is supposed to do! Then there were the people who would buy it sight unseen and then not be able to get it working for whatever reason. The support load from these kinds of users just became too much for a one-person shop, so I woke up one morning and said f-it and closed up.
The more expensive the device, the more likely you will encounter these wasteful consumers. I guess it is good if you are an ISV, and hats off to this developer for marketing a totally useless application to totally useless users.
Slashdot Mirror
Automated story writing will be easier once the next updated version of the newspeak dictionary is released. Unfortunately I am a doubleplusungood newspeaker, but at least computer written stories will help me avoid crimethink.
Get checked for a Vitamin D deficiency. Your doctor can do that with a blood test. If your doctor doesn't think it is worth doing this test, find another doctor.
Most people who work in an office all day have low Vitamin D and will benefit from taking a supplement. You don't need a prescription for it (at least not in the US) so you can just walk in and pick it up in the vitamin aisle at the grocery or wherever. Get the ones that are liquid gels as I have heard they are better. I take a Vitamin D supplement twice a day and have noticed vast improvements in feeling more healthy (in general) and being less prone to anxiety and depression (I used to be).
I don't know for sure if all of this is due to taking Vitamin D, but I believe it to be. It is such an easy thing to try and low risk (ask your doctor about it), so why not try it?
And if all of that doesn't work then find another job. Seriously, your time is too important to spend it being miserable.
Good luck.
I'm glad this question came up. I read somewhere that 2009 was going to be the year of Linux on the desktop.
I really think their biggest problem is the whole time they thought they were competing with Best Buy, but they were really competing with Target, Walmart, and online retailers like Newegg, Buy.com, and TigerDirect. Best Buy should try to learn from their demise.
You just need more redundancy. Two engines is not enough redundancy to protect against a double bird strike, but four would have been, right?
I suppose cost could be a factor. Depending on what the airlines consider the value of a human life to be would determine whether this is feasible for them. It comes down to how many 9s the airlines are willing to accept and what they will pay for that "uptime" of their engines.
Don't use your old PCs because they are worthless. Just donate, recycle, or sell them because it will be a major headache to install the OS, software, and keep them updated. Use VMWare player or Virtual PC (I use both of them) and you can download pre-built images. And one more benefit... using virtual machines will keep your electric bill lower than a bunch of old PCs.
In terms of money, that seems to be true.
I've recently read a Groklaw article that mentioned a salary dispute between two lawyers. Both claimed to usually charge $400 per hour. AFAIK even highly sought after IT consultants rarely get away with that kind of fees.
Maybe you haven't used a lawyer before. My lawyer bills at $200 per hour, but bills his time down to the minute, so its not like in IT where you might bill out for 8+hour days over a long period of time. Also, with lawyers a lot of the mundane work gets farmed out to paralegals who bill lower. So it's not like the lawyer makes $400 an hour, 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year.
Thinking back (waaaay back) to my first programming class in HS, there are going to be two kinds of students, those who have an active interest and those who do not.
The ones with an active interest will just need a little bit of "fuel" and point them in a direction and let them go. For these students you can show them a quick demo, tell them where to find more information, give them a project, and all you need to do is be available for questions. Too much guidance or restriction will either bore them or make them frustrated.
The other kind, lets say they have a passive interest, might be curious but maybe they don't have the same motivation as the others, so they will like to see many demonstrations, and have hands-on exercises where you guide them through something. I don't know if the active and passive interest students could be taught effectively in the same class.
Maybe they just used their own application to farm some more gold. Just a thought.
The simple things?
Get a haircut.
Dress appropriately and wear decent shoes.
Shower, wear deodorant, and brush your teeth.
Be respectful and humble enough (i.e. don't be a jackass).
Practice interviewing.
Smile, speak clearly at an appropriate volume and with enough eye contact.
Have someone proof-read your resume (spelling doesn't matter on Slashdot, but it does matter on your resume.
I am sure someone will make a wise-crack joke about some of those, but as someone who has been on the other side of the table, all of those things matter.
The bottom line is something is wrong, other than your degree and experience, and you need to find out what it is quickly.
Sure, you are excited now, but I predict you will look back on this moment with indifference once the 46th is discovered. For now, I'm going to keep the champagne on ice.
Why? She was the one who SAID those things.
You are assuming Microsoft has bands of programmers capable of fixing Vista drivers. Not everyone who works at MS is an expert on operating systems or driver development.
Can I get a
?
Sorry, I must have posted that from Vista. (Bada-Bing!)
I agree, many people have a vague dislike for Vista. I think it has to do in part with allowing Apple to be the one to tell consumers about Vista. And not surprisingly they did not paint it in a good light. I run Vista and it is not _horrible_, but a few of the big problems I have with it are: 1. Drivers were slow to become available. This is not as much of an issue anymore. 2. Windows Explorer (and the open file dialog) is broken. I think they could have heeded the rule if it ain't broke don't fix it. Now, I just want to get to my C: drive, it SHOULDN'T be this complicated. 3. Finally, and this is a general complaint about Microsoft's latest user interface strategy, but why have they chosen to get rid of traditional menus (which everyone is already familiar with) and effectively "hide" functionality. If I am trying to help my Mom over the phone, I can't tell her to click on the File menu anymore, because now it is some multi-color orb in the upper left hand corner of Word 2007. WTF? Can someone who is trained in UI design tell me why you would want to move away from menus that have real words as titles? The only thing I could think of is it saves them on translation costs for localizing their applications, but how much, really? The same thing on Windows Media Player, it is completely non-obvious how to get to the Options dialog for example (you have to right click on the control box, WTF?)
I didn't check your math, but you are RIGHT about your point. People only think things through the first step, but if you add up the additional costs, sometimes what appears to be a financially smart move actually is not. And don't forget the non-financial costs of living farther from work... having to spend more time in the car, instead of doing whatever you like. And also the fact that you are more likely to get into a car accident, since you spend more time on the road. Or what about the health toll? So you get home later and you only have time to eat fast-food for dinner, or don't have time to go for a jog or work out?
That is fine if you are a worker drone that produces X widgets per hour, or answers Y calls per hour. Having a job that does not lend itself well towards telecommuting is GOOD. It means you are valuable for something more than what can be written down in a procedure and shipped overseas. Personally, I don't want my work intruding on my personal space. Because sometimes work sucks, and when it does my home is where I go to get away from it and relax.
I prefer my ISP to be like a utility, and not a content provider. And if history tells us anything, most other people do too. Remember AOL, Compuserve, and Prodigy all had their own exclusive content, but in the end the consumer didn't want to pay for that content, all they wanted was a link to the Internet where they could choose their own content.
Sorry, I didn't see this to respond immediately, but if you get signal drop outs, where it is high and then low all of a sudden and your picture breaks up, it is most likely due to multipath. The DB8 and other bay style antennas are not very directional, so they get signals bouncing off of other things. You probably would be better off going with a "silver sensor" (google for it) or another Yagi style antenna. The silver sensor can work indoors, the yagi is probably something you want to mount outside.
Amplifying the signal will not help if you are suffering from multipath, it might actually make it worse! You didn't say how far away you are, but I have a yagi antenna on my roof and pick up some stations that are 30+ miles away without an amplifier, so I don't think you should go that route unless you are seeing a consistent, weak signal (not spiking up and down). Anyway, that's my 2 cents. Good luck!
Excuses take the responsibility off your shoulders so you can feel good about doing nothing.
Bite the bullet and make changes. Over two years ago, I cut my commute in half by moving closer to the city (no its not an urban blight neighborhood, nor is it a million dollar condo). While everyone else is complaining about gas prices, I don't give it a second thought. That is nice, but the reason I moved wasn't for gas prices or for the environment, it was to conserve the most precious resource I have... time.
If you commute 45 minutes each way to work, and let's say you work 5 days a week for 48 weeks out of the year (taking out 4 weeks for vacation and holidays). That means you spend 360 hours per year in your car driving to and from work. How many hours of vacation-time does your employer give you? 80? 120? If you cut your commute in half, you get an extra 180 hours per year!
By the way, a really good book I read a while back is called "Take Back Your Time", and there is also a Take back your time website.
Well, I guess money isn't everything to me.
Not a bad idea, but in the BlackBerry software world that isn't really something that is done by other companies. I would really just have preferred people try the trial version first, and if it didn't work then fine, don't buy it. But please don't buy it and then complain that it doesn't work. I'm a dev by trade, so I am not cut out for customer service, and you really have to be good at handling rude people in customer service (as I'm sure some people reading this know). From this experience, I learned that I hate customer service, so at least I learned something out of it.
Good question. I guess the other side of the story is my full-time job and working part time on a masters degree was really making it hard to dedicate the required attention to selling BlackBerry apps. I guess it is kindof like a company deciding that something is not their core competency and then dropping it.
You come to a point when you realize there are only 24 hours in a day, and you need to leave some for yourself.
I guess it could sound like I had a crummy app, but without going into details I really think it was very, very simple. It had about 1,000 customers, and somehow most of them had no trouble with it. I didn't mind helping people, but the thing that got me was the people who would just buy it sight unseen. I guess I am more careful with my money, I would never pay for something without knowing what it does ahead of time.
I used to be a micro-isv for BlackBerry apps, but gave up after getting completely frustrated by the stupidity of users. I have lost count of how many times someone would simply buy my app without even trying the trial version first. I even had a few people buy it and then email me asking what it is supposed to do! Then there were the people who would buy it sight unseen and then not be able to get it working for whatever reason. The support load from these kinds of users just became too much for a one-person shop, so I woke up one morning and said f-it and closed up.
The more expensive the device, the more likely you will encounter these wasteful consumers. I guess it is good if you are an ISV, and hats off to this developer for marketing a totally useless application to totally useless users.