So yes, when you have hundreds of callers a day telling you you are ruining their business and costing them thousands of dollars and raping their grandchildren, patience sometimes runs a little thin. Because so many customers open with "are you guys down AGAIN?" rather than describing their problem, sometimes techs can get a little terse.
Try working on a helpdesk for a petro-chemical company. Around every two weeks the bank that processes all of this company's debit & credit cards has a scheduled outage for maintenance during the very early hours of Monday morning. Despite the on-hold message clearly stating that the bank is offline due to maintenance, people still hold on to ask "does the bank outage affect me?"
It gets better though... occasionally when the scheduled outage doesn't happen, we get a heap of phone calls asking why the bank isn't offline - and even worse, those who complain that the bank isn't doing their maintenance properly!
thereafter may not the enterprise not maintain, of Linux contains illegitimately acquired mental property of SCO. against it is to SCO on its homepage to have offended, why Tarent had requested an order procedure in June.
It's the only web service I know of that churns out more garbage than Slashdot...:p
"no other country could play them."... until the hardware manufacturers get wind of the fact that there's huge demand for AVS capable players....
As ridiculous as this sounds, I don't doubt that it's possible. After all, the good DVD player that I bought a few years ago for $750 is sitting right underneath the cheap & nasty $150 DVD player that will play my burnt (S)VCDs. (please bear in mind that I live in Australia, so the prices won't sound right to anyone in the US) The truly annoying thing is that my good DVD player will quite happily play original VCDs and SVCDs, but point blank refuses to read CR-R/RW discs.
I personally wouldn't be putting too much emphasis on this. Unfortunately, the Australian Democrats have been slowly but surely evolving into a mindless "if the government proposes it, it must be evil and must be opposed" party. I would place far more worth on this report if either of the major political parties had taken this stance.
Just so the American readers don't get too confused, I must point out that the Democrats are very much a minor party. Whilst they (along with the Greens) hold the balance of power in the Senate, they have no lower house representation and have increasingly been doing more and more damage to themselves by bitter infighting and sqabbling. This comes from the point of view of an ex-Democrat voter.
...this will be the start of the demise of telephone networks - at least over in Africa, anyway. VoIP is getting more and more refined, along with more and more applications, such as the GPL'd Asterisk software PABX system. Most of the larger PABX systems I've seen around give the capability for VoIP links to other offices and if suitable gateways become more widely available, the move to VoIP will slowly but surely become more widespread as the larger companies that deal with the countries that have widespread VoIP penetration start to use those links to reduce the cost of making phone calls.
What about methane? I have no idea what the freezing point of Methane is at the atmospheric pressure that exists on Mars...but that could account for some Hydrogen if the conditions are right...
Great... so one wrong move with a landing vehicle, and Mars would fart itself out of orbit...
Maybe I'm just not nerd enough, but just because you can run Linux on something, does that necessarily mean that you have to do it?
"Look ma! I've got the toaster running Linux!"
But what does that really acheive, apart from proving to the world that you need to get a life? We already know that Linux is a highly flexible operting system, but unless there's a concrete reason for running Linux on something, it's pointless really. I'm already waiting for the first person to announce that they've converted their internet fridge to Linux.
Except the author thinks that software companies are just going to lovingly hand over specifications on their file formats.
No, that's not what he said. What he said is that if open data laws were passed, companies would be more likely to open up their data formats in order to retain lucrative government contracts.
The author, in the very first paragraph, dismisses "open source laws", saying they "won't work". Huh? Says who? Then he says his WILL work. You can't just make enormous blanket statements like that without backing them up!
Gee... maybe we weren't reading the same article. The great bulk of the article was discussing why software companies would be more likely to open their data formats than their source code.
Likewise, he is not talking about forcing companies to open their data formats, he's talking about making it more commercially viable. You seem to be picking quotes out from their context and twisting them to your preferred view.
If MS doesn't do QA, and companies all wait for bugs to rear their nasty heads then the only people we have left to discover them are rednecks who can't describe their problem to tech support in any more detail than 'My computer is broken.'
Why does this strike me as a more than appropriate punishment for people who don't QA software properly?:)
<flamebait type="tounge in cheek">We don't call them "rednecks" here, we call them "Queenslanders", but the principle still applies</flamebait>
Unfortunately, it's something we've all heard before. I'm a recent entrant to the world of tech support, and the company I work for (much like many other large companies) refuse to touch a new Microsoft OS until it's been through at *least* one, preferably two service packs.
Likewise, updates that Microsoft class as "critical" are not to be installed for at least a fortnight, unless they are for serious security holes with known exploits. Whilst I think this is probably a rather conservative approach, it sure as hell is better than having the network crash down around you. I believe this company was bitten badly by such a problem with a patch a couple of years ago, hence their policy on updates.
If you had bothered to read the article (or even the story submitted as is!) you would have noticed that this is a high quality copy, supposedly from the original film, complete with surround sound.
(Even though I've already seen it twice - once at the cinema and once at the drive-in - methinks I might even hunt around for it... I'm not going to see it in the cinemas again, anyway)
By using 100% hemp or mixing hemp with cotton, you will be able to pass on your shirts, pants and other clothing to your grandchildren. Intelligent spending could essentially replace the use of petrochemical synthetic fibers such as nylon and polyester with tougher, cheaper, cool, absorbent, breathing, biodegradable, natural fibers.
...and as an added advantage, whenever you felt the need to mellow out a little, you can smoke your old clothes...
I've seen many Fords, Chevys, Dodges and GMCs from the 70s still in good operating condition.
Cars from the 70s are one thing. Cars made within the last 10/15 years are another thing altogether. Here in Australia, you see very few X series Falcons on the road anymore - cars that stopped production in aroudn 1988, but you still see more than a couple of old (60s/70s) Fairlanes and Holdens. Even the early E series Falcons (88-91 or so) are becoming less and less common.
Which reminds me; could you all kindly remind your ISP's that APNIC's address space is not JUST China, Korea and the Phillipines. It includes some friendly, non-spammy countries too (NZ and Australia).
There are some who would disagree with you. It took a death penalty threat to Tel$tra Bigpong (no typo - the service stinks) to get them to move against spammers.
Of course, the CA or signing third party may be compromised. In that case, there are only two solutions:
1. Use telepathic brainwaves
2. Use carrier pigeons, because nobody will be expecting them
Since you've now blown carrier pidgeons as as method for exchanging keys, perhaps you should use the Spanish Inquisition.
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.
What about integrating a 'search bar' that automatically sends them to MSN search?
You've made somewhat of a point there. Most other browsers either default to Google for their searching, or can easily be configured to do so - Mozilla included. That kind of configuration is going to be very difficult to beat.
That is hilarious. Lemme think of some possible companies that have had a "lock" on their respective market and have fallen to Microsoft... 1. Netscape 2. Word Perfect 3. Novell The list goes on...
...and all of those companies had one thing in common - they sold software. Google is not software - it's a web service.
Microsoft's approach to knocking off the top dog has been to either buy out the competitor, or to bundle the software into Windows. Barring a deliberate patch to IE that renders Google unusable, the later is impossible, and whilst the former is possible, I wouldn't consider it that likely.
What do you guys think of Cisco, as a corporation? I remember seeing an article on Wired years ago about how happy the employees were about working there.
I can't speak for working there, but I've heard nothing but praise for their after-sales support. You might pay through the nose for it, but by God you'll get your money's worth.
There was a friend of mine who was having trouble with a Cisco router in his office and couldn't figure out the problem. Cisco tech support spent a total of six hours on the phone with him over a period of two weeks. Eventually they said "OK, this is a wierd one. We'll get a patch for the router worked up and sent out to you ASAP". Damned if it didn't arrive a week later.
Slashdot Mirror
First time I've ever seen a reply I would *love* to moderate "Flamebait +1"... :)
It gets better though... occasionally when the scheduled outage doesn't happen, we get a heap of phone calls asking why the bank isn't offline - and even worse, those who complain that the bank isn't doing their maintenance properly!
Go figure.
Have you been taking lessons from SCO in constructing arguments again?
As ridiculous as this sounds, I don't doubt that it's possible. After all, the good DVD player that I bought a few years ago for $750 is sitting right underneath the cheap & nasty $150 DVD player that will play my burnt (S)VCDs. (please bear in mind that I live in Australia, so the prices won't sound right to anyone in the US) The truly annoying thing is that my good DVD player will quite happily play original VCDs and SVCDs, but point blank refuses to read CR-R/RW discs.
I personally wouldn't be putting too much emphasis on this. Unfortunately, the Australian Democrats have been slowly but surely evolving into a mindless "if the government proposes it, it must be evil and must be opposed" party. I would place far more worth on this report if either of the major political parties had taken this stance.
Just so the American readers don't get too confused, I must point out that the Democrats are very much a minor party. Whilst they (along with the Greens) hold the balance of power in the Senate, they have no lower house representation and have increasingly been doing more and more damage to themselves by bitter infighting and sqabbling. This comes from the point of view of an ex-Democrat voter.
...this will be the start of the demise of telephone networks - at least over in Africa, anyway. VoIP is getting more and more refined, along with more and more applications, such as the GPL'd Asterisk software PABX system. Most of the larger PABX systems I've seen around give the capability for VoIP links to other offices and if suitable gateways become more widely available, the move to VoIP will slowly but surely become more widespread as the larger companies that deal with the countries that have widespread VoIP penetration start to use those links to reduce the cost of making phone calls.
Can't come soon enough for my liking.Wi-fi is all well and good, but in a third world country, who is going to have the technology to access it?
But what does that really acheive, apart from proving to the world that you need to get a life? We already know that Linux is a highly flexible operting system, but unless there's a concrete reason for running Linux on something, it's pointless really. I'm already waiting for the first person to announce that they've converted their internet fridge to Linux.
Lifing at one and and sinking at the other? Where have I heard this before?
Oh yeah, that's right... the Titanic...
Gee... maybe we weren't reading the same article. The great bulk of the article was discussing why software companies would be more likely to open their data formats than their source code.
Likewise, he is not talking about forcing companies to open their data formats, he's talking about making it more commercially viable. You seem to be picking quotes out from their context and twisting them to your preferred view.
<flamebait type="tounge in cheek">We don't call them "rednecks" here, we call them "Queenslanders", but the principle still applies</flamebait>
Unfortunately, it's something we've all heard before. I'm a recent entrant to the world of tech support, and the company I work for (much like many other large companies) refuse to touch a new Microsoft OS until it's been through at *least* one, preferably two service packs. Likewise, updates that Microsoft class as "critical" are not to be installed for at least a fortnight, unless they are for serious security holes with known exploits. Whilst I think this is probably a rather conservative approach, it sure as hell is better than having the network crash down around you. I believe this company was bitten badly by such a problem with a patch a couple of years ago, hence their policy on updates.
If you had bothered to read the article (or even the story submitted as is!) you would have noticed that this is a high quality copy, supposedly from the original film, complete with surround sound. (Even though I've already seen it twice - once at the cinema and once at the drive-in - methinks I might even hunt around for it... I'm not going to see it in the cinemas again, anyway)
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.
Now if we could just invent something that would push or pull Grandma when she's not regular enough...
Microsoft's approach to knocking off the top dog has been to either buy out the competitor, or to bundle the software into Windows. Barring a deliberate patch to IE that renders Google unusable, the later is impossible, and whilst the former is possible, I wouldn't consider it that likely.
There was a friend of mine who was having trouble with a Cisco router in his office and couldn't figure out the problem. Cisco tech support spent a total of six hours on the phone with him over a period of two weeks. Eventually they said "OK, this is a wierd one. We'll get a patch for the router worked up and sent out to you ASAP". Damned if it didn't arrive a week later.
OK, I guess it's time for eat my words. In reply to this article, I shot my mouth off about the stupid legistlators who enact stupid laws.
Now who looks foolish.