I've heard of GMail but have no desire to have an account. The idea that all my emails are sitting around on a company's servers that I don't trust sounds like a bad idea. Others may feel differently but Google isn't a company that gives me a high level of confidence.
Their motto (whatever) "Do No Evil" is so lame, I won't even comment.
And for those who believe that for-profit companies won't do "evil", well.... one man's evil is another man's profit.
I am currently running my new Compaq laptop (nx6325) with Vista RTM 64-Bit. Installed in 20 minutes, and found all hardware. It has a Dual-Core 2GHz Athalon and runs pretty good. But the base 1GB is not sufficient so I immediately ordered another 1GB for CHF 220.00 (about USD 183.00). The 2GB modules are still over CHF 1,000.00 so I'll wait for now.
The default apps and such defaulted to the 32-bit versions, so I had to make some changes to the paths but after that all works well. It has been running non-stop for over 7 days, without a single problem. Actually, I haven't rebooted it at all after the installation, so I haven't much experience. This evening I ran through Windows Update and it updated a few things, but didn't require a reboot which was surprising.
The speed isn't bad for a 64-bit system but Vista is ram-hungry, so I won't be able to see much improvement until I add the extra memory.
In the future, I will not buy anymore new 32-bit systems, only 64-bit. I will, however, continue to check out vintage 32-bit systems for a good price, if necessary. At Christmas, Santa Clause is bringing me 2 DL-360s, which he only paid Euro 250.00 each. I'll use these for W2K3, and all the server-related apps.
I, as an external consultant, recommended to a large Swiss bank that was complaining about their 'internal' people not having the right skill sets, to pay a 'bonus' of around CHF 1,000.00 for each complete certification (MCSE, Orcacle, Novell, Cisco, Citrix, etc.) The comptroller of my Region said they shouldn't need a bonus, they should do it as loyality to the bank.
I, off-handidly said, "If you want loyalty, get a dog. I work for money."
He went 'ballmer', and told my boss. So, my boss (who thought I was doing pretty good) had to slap me down for a week. (read: give me a stern talking to)
Nothing ever happened about education and about 6 months later most of the good people had left. When one of the best programmers left, I thought "oh, oh... time to bail out." So, I left, too. My boss thought I was crazy but I saw the writing on the wall.
Two months later, the bank fired 50% of the externals in one night. It was called the "night of the long knives" because most consultants got telephone calls after work on a Thursday tellling them to come in on Friday and pack their stuff and leave.
6 months later the bank had to hire about 75% of the people back at higher rates because the internals couldn't get anything completed. Projects were backed up for years due to management's stupidity.
I'm running the 64-bit version of Vista Ultimate (RTM) on my HP 64-bit laptop and it's quite nice. So far, no problems and I've been running almost everything that is installed in the build. Of course, it's a default setup with some changes I made to run smaller and faster.
But overall, businesses should not have too hard of a problem creating a decent build (and I've done 4 server builds and 2 workstation builds so I have *some* experience.) But the learning curve is most likely in the rollout phase. It'll be a real change then.
I've had the pleasure to purchase and work with about 575 of the DL360-G1s, and of these, only about 3 gave us a problem on setup. Compaq replaced them in 24hrs, and they've been the most stable server systems I've ever known.
In fact, I just purchased two for my home from a vendor in Germany. They'll run Longhorn and W2K3, hosting VMWare, Virtual Server, IIS, SQL, and just about everything I can think of. I'll get a disk array and load it up.
Besides, HP printers, these puppies are the cat's meow.:)
Of course, your mileage may vary. But in my experience, they are rock solid machines.
>> people get a god damn grip on yourselves, lighten up,
>> get laid, have a drink, or what ever you need to do
>> in order to get your collective panties un-bunched.
>> No wonder the general populace thinks geeks are all
>> a bunch of self righteous assholes. It's over reactions
>> to things like this that give them that impression.
I have the original Cairo presentation from Mark Ryland, who was over in Europe around 1994/95 giving small sessions with Tier 1 MS clients.
Intereting read, even today.
Cairo is presented as a set of technologies that Microsoft was planning on installing into the Windows NT build, circa 1996. Those include DFS, Kerberos, OFS, Namespace catalogs, indexing, disk quotas, disk compression, a directory service, and replication.
All in all, they have done it. Not that other OSs didn't do it before (and maybe better). But as I see it, 'Cairo' was delivered basically on-time. Of course, being MS, they also continued to add technologies onto 'Cairo', so there is still more coming out, now and in the future.
Windows Longhorn was the original beta name for both the client and server builds.
Windows Vista, the release name, is the Windows client build, and separate from the server build.
Windows Longhorn Server is still the official 'beta name' for the server build, and I haven't heard anything different up to today. That's up to Build 5308.60, which is only a 'Longhorn' build number, not a Vista build.
And, yes, 'Longhorn' has been around a long time but that's normal. Gosh, 'Cairo' has been around since Bill was single.
Ok, maybe everyone knew all this but I thought I's just throw it up.
I mean, come on, do you think they would have this hidden under super-double-secret names? It's the CIA, for crying out loud! They hide this stuff under normal names which almost all the people who'd see them wouldn't think twice about. Similar to "Nothing to see here." and "The Purloined Letter".
I do the same thing by hiding all my pr0n under "My pr0n" and nobody ever guesses what's there.
Hmmm... No. I haven't. And I don't intend to ever download songs illegally. As an ex-DJ, who always made sure the clubs I worked at had paid their license fees, I see little reason to do download illegally.
But this is my personal decision.
I go out and buy what I want.
I have never copied/downloaded a movie DVD or a CD. It just doesn't sit right with me.
I worked in a couple of Swiss banks for a few years building Windows trading systems. Yeah, yeah. I know. But the new trading app was Windows-based. Anyway...
The company policy on the trading floor (about the size of a football field) was anyone caught with a Natel (read: mobile phone) powered-on was immediately sacked. And immediately meant security locked down the system, locked the desk, telephoned the police, etc. Not a pretty sight I bet, but I never heard of anything like this happening while I was there. Only told about it before we started working on the floor.
All trading goes through the bank's special trading phone system, which is recorded for security and banking reasons.
Since the two of us, who built this system, sometimes needed to go onto the floor, we were exempt from this rule.
Of course, before taking this job, I sold out of all my stocks just to be on the safe side. Ok, maybe I made a bit of money but Apple was then at about USD 15.00. Oh, well.
Important Theological Questions That are Answered If We Think of God as a Computer Programmer.
Q: Does God control everything that happens in my life?
A: He could if he used the debugger, but it's tedious to step through all those variables.
Q: Why does God allow evil to happen?
A: God thought He eliminated evil in one of the earlier versions.
Q: Does God know everything?
A: He likes to think so, but He is often amazed to find out what goes on in the daemon scripts.
Q: What causes God to intervene in earthly affairs?
A: If a critical error occurs, the system pages Him automatically and He logs on from home to try to bring it up. Otherwise things can wait until tomorrow.
Q: Did God really create the world in seven days?
A: He did it in six days and nights while living on Jolt and candy bars. On the seventh day He went home and found out His girlfriend had left Him.
Q: How come the Age of Miracles Ended?
A: That was the development phase of the project; now we are in the maintenance phase.
Q: Will there be another Universe after the Big Bang?
A: A lot of people are drawing things on the white board, but personally, God doubts that it will ever be implemented.
Q: Who is Satan?
A: Satan is an MIS director who takes credit for more powers than he actually possesses, so non-technical people are scared of him. God thinks of him as irritating but irrelevant.
Q: What is the role of sinners?
A: Sinners are the people who find new and imaginative ways to mess up the system when God has made it idiot-proof.
Q: Where will I go after I die?
A: Onto a DAT tape.
Q: Will I be reincarnated?
A: Not unless there is a special need to recreate you. And searching those.tar files is a major hassle, so if there is a request for you, God will just say that the tape has been lost.
Q: Am I unique and special in the universe?
A: There are over 10,000 major university and corporate sites running exact duplicates of you in the present release version.
Q: What is the purpose of the universe?
A: God created it because He values elegance and simplicity, but then the users and managers demanded He tack all this senseless stuff onto it, and now everything is more complicated and expensive than ever.
Q: If I pray to God, will He listen?
A: You can waste His time telling Him what to do, or you can just get off His back and let Him code.
Q: What is the one true religion?
A: All systems have their advantages and disadvantages, so just pick the one that best suits your needs and don't let anyone put you down.
Q: Is God angry that Jesus was crucified?
A: Let's just say He's not going to any more meetings if He can help it, because that last one with the twelve managers and the food turned out to be murder.
Q: How can I protect myself from evil?
A: Change your password every month and don't make it a name, a common word, or a date like your birthday.
Q: Some people claim they hear the voice of God. Is this true?
A: They are much more likely to receive email.
Q: How can we interpret the Heisenberg Uncertainty Constant?
A: A manifestation of our machine's precision limit.
Q: What was Aramaic?
A: The original Higher Order MACRO Language.
Q: What does that make Ancient Hebrew?
A: Aramaic++
Q: Why don't we see God at work?
A: God works at interrupt level. When He wants to do something, He suspends our processes, saves our registers and status, and swaps us out. Then He works His will on the world. Then He swaps us back in, restores our registers and status, and resumes our execution. To us, things appear to change by magic.
With thanks for the anonymous person who posted this on the 'net many, many years ago.
Having worked for a Swiss bank, even its internal security was extremely good. The few times I have forgotten my pass, I needed to have the security people at the front door issue me a new one. Now, I've been working there for about 3 years, and all the sec people know me on-sight, by name. Yet they must bring up my security profile on their PCs, double-check by asking an obscure question that only I know the answer and then, and only then, will they issue a temporary pass for the day.
In addition, to get to some of the system rooms I needed to pass 6 security pass points:
- front door - security guards, passcard
- entry to secure entry - use pass card, checked by security guard
- entry to secure zone - use passcard and fingerprint to go through a door for only one person at a time, checked by security guard
- elevator to secure zone 5 - use passcard
- entry to secure zone 5a - use passcard
- entry to system room - use passcard to go through a door for only one person at a time
The difficulty, although well warranted, led my team member and I to design our systems (400 Citrix servers) to be completely managed remotely. The time to just go down to push a button or type on the keyboard was considerable.
I remember the first time we had to move the servers into the server room. There were about 25 pizza-boxes on a trolly that couldn't go into the room since it was a 'raised-floor'. So we used the trolly to block the door open while we moved the servers in. After about 3 minutes there was an alarm beeping for a minute or so, which we figured was the door alarm. It went off, so we continued moving the servers into the room.
A minute later, two security guards appeared to check. They asked us why we left the door open since that set off the alarm. Next, they asked us for our passcards, called in on telephone to the main security center to confirm we could be here in this specific room. Afterwards they mentioned not to leave the door open since the alarm goes off. We said ok and finished the job.
Now, these were the same guards that saw us pass into the secure area a few minutes earlier, so it was obvious we were ok to be there. But they double-checked again.
Two weeks later it happened again, while moving in another batch of servers. And a minute later the guards were there, double-checked our passes. But this time, a warning was sent to our manager. Ouch.
But all in all, it was a wonderful (and safe) learning experience.
As an "old man" from the days of iron core memory, it might be have been the same then (1974). My first job was in IT Operations in the US. I dated a very nice young girl who worked in "data entry" (don't ask). After a few months, there was an opening in Ops and she asked me if I'd put in a good word for her to the Ops Manager. Knowing her apptitude in IT, I said sure. And a week later she got the job. But the Ops Manager made sure we worked different shifts.:( A month or so later, we split up but I always thought she was great for the job. And she was.
In the next few months I dated a girl who worked as a waitress in a local bar, but was interested in computers. She also asked me for a recommendation to the Ops Manager. I thought why not? She had always found my "geek talk" fasinating. And lo and behold, she was also accepted. And after a few months she was going great as a shift supervior.
30 years later, I hope they made the right choice because I thought they would be good. Not because they were 'grrls' but because they seemed to really like working in IT.
I have never thought IT was 'gender-related'; only mind-oriented. There are those who find IT interesting and those who don't.
Moving to Europe, I've found that the percentage of IT personnel that are female to be, at most, 25% of the total and that's a quick calc. In the UK, it's a bit higher. But on the continent, it's still quite low.
So, now 30 years later, I find it disappointing that not more young ladies have not taken the path in IT. IT is interesting, challenging, changing, and certainly innovative.
If you're female *and* in IT, I salute you. Thanks for making the industry even more interesting.
Note: my wife is only somewhat interested in IT... but then again, she's Swiss, so she finds banking more exciting.:)
There is a small auberge, "L'Acacia" in Marly, Switzerland (outside Fribourg) that has wireless access for the rooms. I asked the owner, Sammy, if he could install a WAP in the restaurant area so I could do some work and check email while having my Sat/Sun cafe and beers. Two weeks later, it was installed and I am here every weekend; even sending this via his wifi network.
Super fast, protected, and maintained, I find weekends more enjoyable by being around all my friends from the village.
And it's free. I "pay" for the service by drinking a couple of extra cafes each morning, and beers in the afternoon. Ball-park calculation: CHF 20.00 extra per weekend = 80-100 per month. More than enough to pay for 2 months of access.
So, he gets more money, I get access and beer, plus I get a chance to see all my friends over a drink instead of staying all weekend at home.
A win-win situation for sure. But maybe this isn't like the States.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for the link. Great reading material.
And THIS post is exactly the reason we need a LIKE button on \dot.
Super reply. That's a keeper.
I've heard of GMail but have no desire to have an account. The idea that all my emails are sitting around on a company's servers that I don't trust sounds like a bad idea. Others may feel differently but Google isn't a company that gives me a high level of confidence.
Their motto (whatever) "Do No Evil" is so lame, I won't even comment.
And for those who believe that for-profit companies won't do "evil", well.... one man's evil is another man's profit.
Actually, I made a mistake. The processor is an "AMD Turion 64 x2".
But I really wouldn't know the difference even if they hit me in the head. But it does seem to work well.
Mark-Allen
I am currently running my new Compaq laptop (nx6325) with Vista RTM 64-Bit. Installed in 20 minutes, and found all hardware. It has a Dual-Core 2GHz Athalon and runs pretty good. But the base 1GB is not sufficient so I immediately ordered another 1GB for CHF 220.00 (about USD 183.00). The 2GB modules are still over CHF 1,000.00 so I'll wait for now.
The default apps and such defaulted to the 32-bit versions, so I had to make some changes to the paths but after that all works well. It has been running non-stop for over 7 days, without a single problem. Actually, I haven't rebooted it at all after the installation, so I haven't much experience. This evening I ran through Windows Update and it updated a few things, but didn't require a reboot which was surprising.
The speed isn't bad for a 64-bit system but Vista is ram-hungry, so I won't be able to see much improvement until I add the extra memory.
In the future, I will not buy anymore new 32-bit systems, only 64-bit. I will, however, continue to check out vintage 32-bit systems for a good price, if necessary. At Christmas, Santa Clause is bringing me 2 DL-360s, which he only paid Euro 250.00 each. I'll use these for W2K3, and all the server-related apps.
But the future is 64-bit and so far, so good.
Just my 2 centimes,
Mark-Allen
I, as an external consultant, recommended to a large Swiss bank that was complaining about their 'internal' people not having the right skill sets, to pay a 'bonus' of around CHF 1,000.00 for each complete certification (MCSE, Orcacle, Novell, Cisco, Citrix, etc.) The comptroller of my Region said they shouldn't need a bonus, they should do it as loyality to the bank.
I, off-handidly said, "If you want loyalty, get a dog. I work for money."
He went 'ballmer', and told my boss. So, my boss (who thought I was doing pretty good) had to slap me down for a week. (read: give me a stern talking to)
Nothing ever happened about education and about 6 months later most of the good people had left. When one of the best programmers left, I thought "oh, oh... time to bail out." So, I left, too. My boss thought I was crazy but I saw the writing on the wall.
Two months later, the bank fired 50% of the externals in one night. It was called the "night of the long knives" because most consultants got telephone calls after work on a Thursday tellling them to come in on Friday and pack their stuff and leave.
6 months later the bank had to hire about 75% of the people back at higher rates because the internals couldn't get anything completed. Projects were backed up for years due to management's stupidity.
If you pay peanuts, you get moneys.
Just my two centimes.
Mark-Allen
I'm running the 64-bit version of Vista Ultimate (RTM) on my HP 64-bit laptop and it's quite nice. So far, no problems and I've been running almost everything that is installed in the build. Of course, it's a default setup with some changes I made to run smaller and faster.
But overall, businesses should not have too hard of a problem creating a decent build (and I've done 4 server builds and 2 workstation builds so I have *some* experience.) But the learning curve is most likely in the rollout phase. It'll be a real change then.
Just my two centimes....
Mark-Allen
Too true.
>> It is *not* based on scientific facts.
This is SlashDot, and it isn't based on scientific fact either. So we're even.
--
Mark-Allen
"Need to make a sig but it keeps loosing it's charge."
I've had the pleasure to purchase and work with about 575 of the DL360-G1s, and of these, only about 3 gave us a problem on setup. Compaq replaced them in 24hrs, and they've been the most stable server systems I've ever known.
:)
In fact, I just purchased two for my home from a vendor in Germany. They'll run Longhorn and W2K3, hosting VMWare, Virtual Server, IIS, SQL, and just about everything I can think of. I'll get a disk array and load it up.
Besides, HP printers, these puppies are the cat's meow.
Of course, your mileage may vary. But in my experience, they are rock solid machines.
>> people get a god damn grip on yourselves, lighten up,
>> get laid, have a drink, or what ever you need to do
>> in order to get your collective panties un-bunched.
>> No wonder the general populace thinks geeks are all
>> a bunch of self righteous assholes. It's over reactions
>> to things like this that give them that impression.
And your point was, exactly, what?
I have the original Cairo presentation from Mark Ryland, who was over in Europe around 1994/95 giving small sessions with Tier 1 MS clients.
Intereting read, even today.
Cairo is presented as a set of technologies that Microsoft was planning on installing into the Windows NT build, circa 1996. Those include DFS, Kerberos, OFS, Namespace catalogs, indexing, disk quotas, disk compression, a directory service, and replication.
All in all, they have done it. Not that other OSs didn't do it before (and maybe better). But as I see it, 'Cairo' was delivered basically on-time. Of course, being MS, they also continued to add technologies onto 'Cairo', so there is still more coming out, now and in the future.
Just my 2 centimes.
Windows Longhorn was the original beta name for both the client and server builds.
Windows Vista, the release name, is the Windows client build, and separate from the server build.
Windows Longhorn Server is still the official 'beta name' for the server build, and I haven't heard anything different up to today. That's up to Build 5308.60, which is only a 'Longhorn' build number, not a Vista build.
And, yes, 'Longhorn' has been around a long time but that's normal. Gosh, 'Cairo' has been around since Bill was single.
Ok, maybe everyone knew all this but I thought I's just throw it up.
I mean, come on, do you think they would have this hidden under super-double-secret names? It's the CIA, for crying out loud! They hide this stuff under normal names which almost all the people who'd see them wouldn't think twice about. Similar to "Nothing to see here." and "The Purloined Letter".
I do the same thing by hiding all my pr0n under "My pr0n" and nobody ever guesses what's there.
Duh?
>> I think I have a better chance of meeting my goals
>> than NASA has of reaching theirs. LOL!!!
Dubba? I told you to stay off this web-site!
Karl R.
>> But if all you need to do is drive to and from class,
>> what's the point of spending another $34,000?
Cute coeds?
Everyone has illegally downloaded before, right?
Hmmm... No. I haven't. And I don't intend to ever download songs illegally. As an ex-DJ, who always made sure the clubs I worked at had paid their license fees, I see little reason to do download illegally.
But this is my personal decision.
I go out and buy what I want.
I have never copied/downloaded a movie DVD or a CD. It just doesn't sit right with me.
Just my 2 centimes.
I worked in a couple of Swiss banks for a few years building Windows trading systems. Yeah, yeah. I know. But the new trading app was Windows-based. Anyway...
The company policy on the trading floor (about the size of a football field) was anyone caught with a Natel (read: mobile phone) powered-on was immediately sacked. And immediately meant security locked down the system, locked the desk, telephoned the police, etc. Not a pretty sight I bet, but I never heard of anything like this happening while I was there. Only told about it before we started working on the floor.
All trading goes through the bank's special trading phone system, which is recorded for security and banking reasons.
Since the two of us, who built this system, sometimes needed to go onto the floor, we were exempt from this rule.
Of course, before taking this job, I sold out of all my stocks just to be on the safe side. Ok, maybe I made a bit of money but Apple was then at about USD 15.00. Oh, well.
Important Theological Questions That are Answered If We Think of God as a Computer Programmer.
.tar files is a major hassle, so if there is a request for you, God will just say that the tape has been lost.
Q: Does God control everything that happens in my life?
A: He could if he used the debugger, but it's tedious to step through all those variables.
Q: Why does God allow evil to happen?
A: God thought He eliminated evil in one of the earlier versions.
Q: Does God know everything?
A: He likes to think so, but He is often amazed to find out what goes on in the daemon scripts.
Q: What causes God to intervene in earthly affairs?
A: If a critical error occurs, the system pages Him automatically and He logs on from home to try to bring it up. Otherwise things can wait until tomorrow.
Q: Did God really create the world in seven days?
A: He did it in six days and nights while living on Jolt and candy bars. On the seventh day He went home and found out His girlfriend had left Him.
Q: How come the Age of Miracles Ended?
A: That was the development phase of the project; now we are in the maintenance phase.
Q: Will there be another Universe after the Big Bang?
A: A lot of people are drawing things on the white board, but personally, God doubts that it will ever be implemented.
Q: Who is Satan?
A: Satan is an MIS director who takes credit for more powers than he actually possesses, so non-technical people are scared of him. God thinks of him as irritating but irrelevant.
Q: What is the role of sinners?
A: Sinners are the people who find new and imaginative ways to mess up the system when God has made it idiot-proof.
Q: Where will I go after I die?
A: Onto a DAT tape.
Q: Will I be reincarnated?
A: Not unless there is a special need to recreate you. And searching those
Q: Am I unique and special in the universe?
A: There are over 10,000 major university and corporate sites running exact duplicates of you in the present release version.
Q: What is the purpose of the universe?
A: God created it because He values elegance and simplicity, but then the users and managers demanded He tack all this senseless stuff onto it, and now everything is more complicated and expensive than ever.
Q: If I pray to God, will He listen?
A: You can waste His time telling Him what to do, or you can just get off His back and let Him code.
Q: What is the one true religion?
A: All systems have their advantages and disadvantages, so just pick the one that best suits your needs and don't let anyone put you down.
Q: Is God angry that Jesus was crucified?
A: Let's just say He's not going to any more meetings if He can help it, because that last one with the twelve managers and the food turned out to be murder.
Q: How can I protect myself from evil?
A: Change your password every month and don't make it a name, a common word, or a date like your birthday.
Q: Some people claim they hear the voice of God. Is this true?
A: They are much more likely to receive email.
Q: How can we interpret the Heisenberg Uncertainty Constant?
A: A manifestation of our machine's precision limit.
Q: What was Aramaic?
A: The original Higher Order MACRO Language.
Q: What does that make Ancient Hebrew?
A: Aramaic++
Q: Why don't we see God at work?
A: God works at interrupt level. When He wants to do something, He suspends our processes, saves our registers and status, and swaps us out. Then He works His will on the world. Then He swaps us back in, restores our registers and status, and resumes our execution. To us, things appear to change by magic.
With thanks for the anonymous person who posted this on the 'net many, many years ago.
I agree.
Having worked for a Swiss bank, even its internal security was extremely good. The few times I have forgotten my pass, I needed to have the security people at the front door issue me a new one. Now, I've been working there for about 3 years, and all the sec people know me on-sight, by name. Yet they must bring up my security profile on their PCs, double-check by asking an obscure question that only I know the answer and then, and only then, will they issue a temporary pass for the day.
In addition, to get to some of the system rooms I needed to pass 6 security pass points:
- front door - security guards, passcard
- entry to secure entry - use pass card, checked by security guard
- entry to secure zone - use passcard and fingerprint to go through a door for only one person at a time, checked by security guard
- elevator to secure zone 5 - use passcard
- entry to secure zone 5a - use passcard
- entry to system room - use passcard to go through a door for only one person at a time
The difficulty, although well warranted, led my team member and I to design our systems (400 Citrix servers) to be completely managed remotely. The time to just go down to push a button or type on the keyboard was considerable.
I remember the first time we had to move the servers into the server room. There were about 25 pizza-boxes on a trolly that couldn't go into the room since it was a 'raised-floor'. So we used the trolly to block the door open while we moved the servers in. After about 3 minutes there was an alarm beeping for a minute or so, which we figured was the door alarm. It went off, so we continued moving the servers into the room.
A minute later, two security guards appeared to check. They asked us why we left the door open since that set off the alarm. Next, they asked us for our passcards, called in on telephone to the main security center to confirm we could be here in this specific room. Afterwards they mentioned not to leave the door open since the alarm goes off. We said ok and finished the job.
Now, these were the same guards that saw us pass into the secure area a few minutes earlier, so it was obvious we were ok to be there. But they double-checked again.
Two weeks later it happened again, while moving in another batch of servers. And a minute later the guards were there, double-checked our passes. But this time, a warning was sent to our manager. Ouch.
But all in all, it was a wonderful (and safe) learning experience.
As an "old man" from the days of iron core memory, it might be have been the same then (1974). My first job was in IT Operations in the US. I dated a very nice young girl who worked in "data entry" (don't ask). After a few months, there was an opening in Ops and she asked me if I'd put in a good word for her to the Ops Manager. Knowing her apptitude in IT, I said sure. And a week later she got the job. But the Ops Manager made sure we worked different shifts. :( A month or so later, we split up but I always thought she was great for the job. And she was.
:)
In the next few months I dated a girl who worked as a waitress in a local bar, but was interested in computers. She also asked me for a recommendation to the Ops Manager. I thought why not? She had always found my "geek talk" fasinating. And lo and behold, she was also accepted. And after a few months she was going great as a shift supervior.
30 years later, I hope they made the right choice because I thought they would be good. Not because they were 'grrls' but because they seemed to really like working in IT.
I have never thought IT was 'gender-related'; only mind-oriented. There are those who find IT interesting and those who don't.
Moving to Europe, I've found that the percentage of IT personnel that are female to be, at most, 25% of the total and that's a quick calc. In the UK, it's a bit higher. But on the continent, it's still quite low.
So, now 30 years later, I find it disappointing that not more young ladies have not taken the path in IT. IT is interesting, challenging, changing, and certainly innovative.
If you're female *and* in IT, I salute you. Thanks for making the industry even more interesting.
Note: my wife is only somewhat interested in IT... but then again, she's Swiss, so she finds banking more exciting.
Mark-Allen
There is a small auberge, "L'Acacia" in Marly, Switzerland (outside Fribourg) that has wireless access for the rooms. I asked the owner, Sammy, if he could install a WAP in the restaurant area so I could do some work and check email while having my Sat/Sun cafe and beers. Two weeks later, it was installed and I am here every weekend; even sending this via his wifi network.
Super fast, protected, and maintained, I find weekends more enjoyable by being around all my friends from the village.
And it's free. I "pay" for the service by drinking a couple of extra cafes each morning, and beers in the afternoon. Ball-park calculation: CHF 20.00 extra per weekend = 80-100 per month. More than enough to pay for 2 months of access.
So, he gets more money, I get access and beer, plus I get a chance to see all my friends over a drink instead of staying all weekend at home.
A win-win situation for sure. But maybe this isn't like the States.
Mark-Allen
> "read submissions"?
You must new here.
Well, duh? And the first ad I see from 'Ads by Google' is:
"Download Episode III"
Get Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith
Watch on your PC. Burn to DVD/VCD.
Ok, so maybe Lucas is moving fast to release the DVD and get the money before he dies... but come on, what gives?