As someone who also received the letter, they weren't targeting open source developers. They have standard rules for participating in normal IPOs, which usually means having a ton of investing experience and a ton of money. IPOs are very high risk, and they don't want some Joe Schmoe who has no idea what they are doing to invest. Nor do they want day traders investing in an IPO. People applying for an IPO are designed to be longer term traders. The whole purpose is to raise money, not get the money and watch all the shares get sold the next day.
E-Trade's problem, I bet, was they didn't have anything in the system to let people who qualified for the special IPO shares to get to them. Their computer system means everyone had to go through the same crap. Seeing as how they told people over the phone (in not quite the same language, but the message was the same) to lie on the questionaire (which I did the second time around), they probably didn't have any way to override the IPO system.
Hopefully this has been changed now.
E-Trade's practices may have been a little off in this whole situation. However, I talked to too many customer service representatives during the process to think they were targeting the open-source community. Given the fact they were basically telling many of us to lie and doing they best they could with a limited web-based system and the SEC, and dealing with a bunch of developers that probably didn't have much money to contribute to their bottom-line profit, I give them a little credit for being as responsive as they were. Yes, their system sucked. And I was a nervous wreck for 2 days. But most of us got our shares. I just hoped they fixed their process.
Too many companies these days are installing clients that allow them to see your screen. Typing an e-mail? They can read it while typing. Talking on ICQ? They can get the conversation, too.
The PGP/SSL argument's don't hold water. If they see you doing something personal, either by sniffing or peeking into your computer, they can monitor whatever they darn well please. And read whatever they want to. And watch what you're doing.
It is impossible for you to hide what your personal web usage from the IS department. There are no solutions when they can take over your monitor from another box and packet sniff.
I've got some bad news for you. Getting NN to work well after you've got the page made for IE is pretty darn near impossible in most cases I've seen.
I work for a company where part of the product is web-based report generation. Getting NN to work took about 3 times longer than getting IE to work.
I don't know if Microsoft planned this when they made IE, but they made it friendlier for developers doing advanced stuff. Netscape blows chunks when you try any of the latest browser features.
I think because it's a little easier to develop for (imho), IE has gained acceptance because so many people are developing for IE.
I don't know where this attitude comes from, but it is appearing a great deal in this discussion. "X is flexible. UNIX is flexible." Great. There have been very few efforts that generated a lot of interest ot make X usable for more normal people who don't have 4 or 5 years to put into a bachelor's degree or 6 months to a year of training on the job. What efforts there were weren't that accepted. Admit it. X hasn't moved much since the 80's, even with KDE, GNOME, and whatever else.
Get over it, people. I'm getting a feeling that everyone is trying to hold to X and defend it, mainly because they can put time into it. I would say it's more like we (as geeks) like to put time into it.
Granted, Windows sucks to. Definitely in the areas we geeks are concerned about. But how many more tech questions would your friends ask you if they ran UNIX, or some variant thereof? Isn't the majority of computer users a little more relevant in the entire scheme of things than our little clique?
Go ahead. Call me a troll. Tag this as flamebait. Put yourself into your parent's shoes. Your co-worker's shoes. Does your manager have the time to learn X and customize his Linux distro and learn all the fun under the covers?
Food Network is highly advertising the special edition coming up June 25th, I believe, with Morimoto versus Food Network's own Bobby Flay. How much of the C&D orders are legal, given that Food Network is making their own episode? I mean, can the fan sites simply say they're getting the images and logos and stuff from Food Network and not FujiTV or whoever? If more of these special episodes follow, or if it's adopted for American TV, how does the legalese of the issue apply? I understand FujiTV holds the rights to the show and all, but how much of that is applicable if Food Network starts to do their own? Curious for perspective.
Quick question: Why is the IT world, whatever IT means, any different than any other profession? Is it just me, or is there a shortage of qualified and hard-working anything? Qualified and smart lawyers, preachers, teachers, insert any profession here.
I see alot of people making a big deal about the shortage of competent "IT professionals." How about, a shortage of "professionals" in any field?
To the best of my knowledge, Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, OH) only has Doom 1.0 banned (thanks to the network traffic it creates) and Windows 2000. Well, let me correct that. Windows 2000 hasn't been checked out by the Network Service department, so students/professors/etc. are highly discouraged to use it.
They've had an outlet for small bands for a really really long time. It's called "college radio." I'm a college radio DJ. We love to play local bands. And I never had a playlist, and could play anything I wanted too. I did have one restriction. Nothing commercial. And that just makes the show better, as it makes the DJ work harder to find current, good music. Contact your local one. Ask if you can send a CD. They would probably love to have it as well.
I'm not talking NPR. They're nearly as bad as the commercial stations on down the dial. They're in it for the money, too.
However, I don't really know how much MP3s are going to affect small bands. I think it's great they're finally sticking it too the major labels. And granted it's been 2 years since I had an MP3 collection on my computer (moved off-campus), but most of the stuff I saw traded was the mainstream music all over again.
I think what you're asking for is for people to actually be choosy. To have taste. To not waste time with Alanis or Celene or Garth or Shania or whoever and actually find better music, because it's out there. And there is a ton of it.
One writer earlier noted it's a matter of convenience. All we're doing is attacking the industry. We're not popularizing good music with MP3s. More power to them for challenging the industry. But the average MP3 trader/collector I saw just had the "popular" stuff.
I'm a senior at college working towards my BS/MS in Computer Engineering/Computer Science. Alot of people that started the world of college when I did graduated this past year. Most of them had interviews and offers flung at them as if they were beads at Mardi Gras.
One trend I notice to be very disturbing is the amount of overtime in the tech industry, observed from friends and internships. I can think of two reasons this is, and I don't know which is the greater cause. One is the obvious lack of workers.
But second, and what frightens me more, is the thinking that since college students coming out of college have alot of energy and no life, they can work 60, 70, 80+ hours a week and not miss a beat. There are companies that were hiring straight from college at my university this past year, and they just wanted the overachievers. It wasn't unheard of to be up 24-7 during training, and put in ungodly hours once they got out of that as well. The average time one was with that company was only 3 years. I suspect burnout.
I'm also currently working in an internship where if you're here after 5PM, something is terribly wrong. The environment here is very 8-5, suit, meeting driven, etc. etc. And I don't feel fulfilled. It's like I don't feel productive.
Yet at the same time, I don't want to go somewhere I can't back out of. I know that in a few years, I'm going to want to start a family. I want to come home every night and kiss my wife. I'm starting to wonder if there has to be a trade off.
But from the patterns I've seen, most companies like the out-of-college type because they can be overworked. And I don't want that. That scares me.
Maybe I should just go get my MBA and become a management drone. -sigh-
Slashdot Mirror
As someone who also received the letter, they weren't targeting open source developers. They have standard rules for participating in normal IPOs, which usually means having a ton of investing experience and a ton of money. IPOs are very high risk, and they don't want some Joe Schmoe who has no idea what they are doing to invest. Nor do they want day traders investing in an IPO. People applying for an IPO are designed to be longer term traders. The whole purpose is to raise money, not get the money and watch all the shares get sold the next day.
E-Trade's problem, I bet, was they didn't have anything in the system to let people who qualified for the special IPO shares to get to them. Their computer system means everyone had to go through the same crap. Seeing as how they told people over the phone (in not quite the same language, but the message was the same) to lie on the questionaire (which I did the second time around), they probably didn't have any way to override the IPO system.
Hopefully this has been changed now.
E-Trade's practices may have been a little off in this whole situation. However, I talked to too many customer service representatives during the process to think they were targeting the open-source community. Given the fact they were basically telling many of us to lie and doing they best they could with a limited web-based system and the SEC, and dealing with a bunch of developers that probably didn't have much money to contribute to their bottom-line profit, I give them a little credit for being as responsive as they were. Yes, their system sucked. And I was a nervous wreck for 2 days. But most of us got our shares. I just hoped they fixed their process.
Too many companies these days are installing clients that allow them to see your screen. Typing an e-mail? They can read it while typing. Talking on ICQ? They can get the conversation, too.
The PGP/SSL argument's don't hold water. If they see you doing something personal, either by sniffing or peeking into your computer, they can monitor whatever they darn well please. And read whatever they want to. And watch what you're doing.
It is impossible for you to hide what your personal web usage from the IS department. There are no solutions when they can take over your monitor from another box and packet sniff.
I've got some bad news for you. Getting NN to work well after you've got the page made for IE is pretty darn near impossible in most cases I've seen.
I work for a company where part of the product is web-based report generation. Getting NN to work took about 3 times longer than getting IE to work.
I don't know if Microsoft planned this when they made IE, but they made it friendlier for developers doing advanced stuff. Netscape blows chunks when you try any of the latest browser features.
I think because it's a little easier to develop for (imho), IE has gained acceptance because so many people are developing for IE.
Nor does Flexibility == Usability.
I don't know where this attitude comes from, but it is appearing a great deal in this discussion. "X is flexible. UNIX is flexible." Great. There have been very few efforts that generated a lot of interest ot make X usable for more normal people who don't have 4 or 5 years to put into a bachelor's degree or 6 months to a year of training on the job. What efforts there were weren't that accepted. Admit it. X hasn't moved much since the 80's, even with KDE, GNOME, and whatever else.
Get over it, people. I'm getting a feeling that everyone is trying to hold to X and defend it, mainly because they can put time into it. I would say it's more like we (as geeks) like to put time into it.
Granted, Windows sucks to. Definitely in the areas we geeks are concerned about. But how many more tech questions would your friends ask you if they ran UNIX, or some variant thereof? Isn't the majority of computer users a little more relevant in the entire scheme of things than our little clique?
Go ahead. Call me a troll. Tag this as flamebait. Put yourself into your parent's shoes. Your co-worker's shoes. Does your manager have the time to learn X and customize his Linux distro and learn all the fun under the covers?
Food Network is highly advertising the special edition coming up June 25th, I believe, with Morimoto versus Food Network's own Bobby Flay. How much of the C&D orders are legal, given that Food Network is making their own episode? I mean, can the fan sites simply say they're getting the images and logos and stuff from Food Network and not FujiTV or whoever? If more of these special episodes follow, or if it's adopted for American TV, how does the legalese of the issue apply? I understand FujiTV holds the rights to the show and all, but how much of that is applicable if Food Network starts to do their own? Curious for perspective.
Let's see. Very little revenue. Small site. Room for growth. On the stock market, that's about one billion dollars.
Quick question: Why is the IT world, whatever IT means, any different than any other profession? Is it just me, or is there a shortage of qualified and hard-working anything? Qualified and smart lawyers, preachers, teachers, insert any profession here.
I see alot of people making a big deal about the shortage of competent "IT professionals." How about, a shortage of "professionals" in any field?
To the best of my knowledge, Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, OH) only has Doom 1.0 banned (thanks to the network traffic it creates) and Windows 2000. Well, let me correct that. Windows 2000 hasn't been checked out by the Network Service department, so students/professors/etc. are highly discouraged to use it.
No more conditional offers.
They've had an outlet for small bands for a really really long time. It's called "college radio." I'm a college radio DJ. We love to play local bands. And I never had a playlist, and could play anything I wanted too. I did have one restriction. Nothing commercial. And that just makes the show better, as it makes the DJ work harder to find current, good music. Contact your local one. Ask if you can send a CD. They would probably love to have it as well.
I'm not talking NPR. They're nearly as bad as the commercial stations on down the dial. They're in it for the money, too.
However, I don't really know how much MP3s are going to affect small bands. I think it's great they're finally sticking it too the major labels. And granted it's been 2 years since I had an MP3 collection on my computer (moved off-campus), but most of the stuff I saw traded was the mainstream music all over again.
I think what you're asking for is for people to actually be choosy. To have taste. To not waste time with Alanis or Celene or Garth or Shania or whoever and actually find better music, because it's out there. And there is a ton of it.
One writer earlier noted it's a matter of convenience. All we're doing is attacking the industry. We're not popularizing good music with MP3s. More power to them for challenging the industry. But the average MP3 trader/collector I saw just had the "popular" stuff.
Texodore
I'm a senior at college working towards my BS/MS in Computer Engineering/Computer Science. Alot of people that started the world of college when I did graduated this past year. Most of them had interviews and offers flung at them as if they were beads at Mardi Gras.
One trend I notice to be very disturbing is the amount of overtime in the tech industry, observed from friends and internships. I can think of two reasons this is, and I don't know which is the greater cause. One is the obvious lack of workers.
But second, and what frightens me more, is the thinking that since college students coming out of college have alot of energy and no life, they can work 60, 70, 80+ hours a week and not miss a beat. There are companies that were hiring straight from college at my university this past year, and they just wanted the overachievers. It wasn't unheard of to be up 24-7 during training, and put in ungodly hours once they got out of that as well. The average time one was with that company was only 3 years. I suspect burnout.
I'm also currently working in an internship where if you're here after 5PM, something is terribly wrong. The environment here is very 8-5, suit, meeting driven, etc. etc. And I don't feel fulfilled. It's like I don't feel productive.
Yet at the same time, I don't want to go somewhere I can't back out of. I know that in a few years, I'm going to want to start a family. I want to come home every night and kiss my wife. I'm starting to wonder if there has to be a trade off.
But from the patterns I've seen, most companies like the out-of-college type because they can be overworked. And I don't want that. That scares me.
Maybe I should just go get my MBA and become a management drone. -sigh-
Texodore