What's always bugged me is how many Linux distros lump most of their installed programs in just a few directories. I think that has been one thing that has kept me from using Linux as a main OS for the longest time. Is there a current distro that actually seperates installed applications?
Motivation of outsourcing companies.
on
Orwellian Tech Support
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· Score: 2, Informative
Up till last November, I worked for an outsource company. The problem with these companies is that their not motivated to fix people, just make money off the call volume. They want their techs to rush and get the customer off as much as possible. They also will hire as few people as they can get away with to do the job and cross-cue people between contracts without the clients knowing.
On my last contract, it was more like working directly for the client rather than the outsource company because of how the client interfaced with the techs and that the outsource company expected it to turn into a bigger contract, which didn't happen. They ended up closing the call center where I worked because the parent company wanted to reduce the number of call centers in the US.
Basically the parent company bought the outsource company to raid them of profits thru the economic downturn. I heard recently that they want to sell the company now. It's all about the money...
This is an issue for unemployed people also. I just got laid off and I'm facing a lack of socialization until I find a new job. Thankfully this is my first week since it's an unusual week with the holiday.
I'm a transgendered person and I would NOT take offence at the use of male, female or even gender changer. I see the humor in them, especially gender changer.;)
I think that rule in LA county is nuts. There is such a thing as going to far at being politically correct. Although I think it would be funny to get slashdotters living in LA county to complain about various terms and words just to see how far they can be pushed before the county officals say enough. lol
Why have them plummet back into the atmosphere?Why not just build multi-generation spacestations and boost them into higher orbits as needed? NASA actually have a design that would last much longer than currently used designs. It's called TransHab. A combination of TransHab and shuttle tanks would create a very functional space station.
I think so too. The DS9/Terok Nor spacestation also deserves to be built one day.
I definitly have issues with the current NASA inspired thinking about spacestation design. Spacestations should be designed to last because it's a waste to launch all the materials up there for a station, only to burn it up about 10 years later.
I'm being laid off around the end of next month. While I'm not directly loosing my job to someone in another country, my job being moved is a direct result of other jobs from where I work being moved to other countries. The parent company decided that it wanted to reduce it's "geographic footprint". This is the same company that bought out the company I work for. In the year 2001, the site employed around 2000 people in the DFW area. Now there are less than 300 and in two months, it'll be down to just a handful of security guards and corporate people finishing up the site closure.
It's sad to see so many of my friends be scattered to the winds. It's equally sad to see the vast network in the building be dismantled. All this to satisfy some corporate bean counters. The company I do support for and many others along with their customers will have to accept a lower quality support for a period of time because it will take the techs at other sites months or longer to come up to speed. Many of us there have worked with the company for years and know the products we support inside and out. In some cases, we're the only people in the country that does support those products.
Some people hoped to be hired directly by the companies they supported but many chose to move to the outsource companies other sites. The people working there couldn't approach the companies directly due to non-competition agreements. No one protested the move because the upper level management had rumored the place to death till everyone was happy to see it go to avoid the stress. It can be quite stressful working in a nearly empty building where so many of your friends had worked before. Everyone was also bought off by a performance based bonus. Which could be canceled if people decided to protest.
How about the ability to use a any mouse on either the PS2 or USB ports without having to change the selected driver?
Or how about the ability to assign a PS2 mouse and keyboard to one video card output and the USB keyboard and mouse to another video card output to give the ability to login one person on each interface grouping.
The company I do support for uses it also. It's a very good product but doesn't scale up very well. It's good for internal use or for companies that have a small customer base.
There are a number of problems with it, such as incident locking. I don't know how many times I've had to boot someone out of my incident or had someone boot me by mistake and I lost my entire current entry. A customer an override a lock as easily as another employee.
The real problem is that getting on line is too easy for the average person. Much of these problems were far less of an issue years ago when people had to code their own ppp log on scripts or use command line utilities to access the net.
The Internet has become too much of a bulk mainstream toy.
One solution for this would be for the real tech savvy people to move to IPv6 and let the average person do what they will on the IPv4 Internet. If going to IPv6 were a stumbling block for most people then it would keep it sufficiently isolated. Instituting new email standards would solve much of the problems with virus transmission. In the standard, forbid executing code (binaries or scripts) in emails by the email client or server.
While you are correct, it doesn't describe it very well; sometimes you have to simplify things for the masses. Being a technical support person, I'm use to simplifying things for the average umm...person.
Who I'm attracted to has nothing to do with how I see myself. Sexual preference and gender identity, mental body map and physical sex are separate things.
To be transhuman is to take your life in your own hands and shape yourself (mind or body) to your will. It's body builders, disabled people moving beyond their limitations, people who develop their mind to do incredible things, transsexuals, etc. Transhuman is basically anyone moving beyond what has been given to them by nature. It is really a different mindset, one where you really push yourself to be what you want to be.
Over the last few years I've been doing this myself. I'm going thru a sex change; I went from geeky guy to a lesbian techie girl. The process isn't just a shaping of the body, but of the mind also. I examined all the things I hated about myself and have been endeavoring to toss them out and replace them with stuff I wanted.
It's possible that a machine labor force could bring about an economic system in which monetary value is just numbers in the system representing an quantity of work which is taxed and that humans are given a base living wage as a right. The humans could occupy higher order jobs or reap returns from investments to increase their personal wealth. The base system would be sort of a socialistic feeding off a near invisible capitalistic one. Of course like any other system, this one would be ripe for abuse at all levels.
I've done outsource support for 3 different broadband ISPs and every one of them had screwed up email systems. I'm sure it's the same with most ISPs. I'd have to question the judgment of anyone that would rely on just one email address for important email. Don't use two pop accounts either because your email program could screw up to and might not give an error. These things happen.
Was the ISP in the wrong on this issue? Yes but users should expect problems with their email and make alternate plans for important email. Have any important emails CC:ed to a web account also. I hope she wins the case against them, maybe some ISPs will wake up. Just remember Murphy's law applies to email also.
Now if they'll come up with some kind of genetic assembly language, we could debug our own genome.
Anyone want to write a genetic emulator to test the code on?:)
This moving of jobs out of the US is really starting to eat into things. The outsource call center I work at in the DFW area is moving it's jobs to Canada where they pay about a 3rd less than here. Next week, some friends and I are getting laid off so some corporate types can get bigger houses and faster cars. Our supervisor gets this stupid smile on her face when she walks someone because she knows it's more brownie points for her.
If your in the US and you call for tech support be sure to ask where they are located. If they aren't in the US, asked to be tranfered back to a US call center.
As far as layout goes, the Amiga keyboards rock! They place the system options keys "Amiga keys" next to the space bar where they should be and there is actually a help key. Of course the Amiga OS knows how the use those keys far more efficent than Windows can use it's Windows keys. On the Amiga, left key is for global system hot keys and right is for app short cuts.
But when it comes to physical construction, nothing can beat the Omni Key Ultra keyboard. I could kill someone with it. Plus when you press a key, you know it's been pressed. Since that keyboard supported the Amiga, although somewhat buggly in faster Amigas, it combined the best of both keyboards.
-Tekoneiric-
Slashdot Mirror
What's always bugged me is how many Linux distros lump most of their installed programs in just a few directories. I think that has been one thing that has kept me from using Linux as a main OS for the longest time. Is there a current distro that actually seperates installed applications?
Up till last November, I worked for an outsource company. The problem with these companies is that their not motivated to fix people, just make money off the call volume. They want their techs to rush and get the customer off as much as possible. They also will hire as few people as they can get away with to do the job and cross-cue people between contracts without the clients knowing. On my last contract, it was more like working directly for the client rather than the outsource company because of how the client interfaced with the techs and that the outsource company expected it to turn into a bigger contract, which didn't happen. They ended up closing the call center where I worked because the parent company wanted to reduce the number of call centers in the US. Basically the parent company bought the outsource company to raid them of profits thru the economic downturn. I heard recently that they want to sell the company now. It's all about the money...
I just wish I had a 55 gallon drum of lego to play with. :)
I'd like to see a "Supported in USA" label on the products too.
Deploy a few inflated balloons to find the leak then seal it with some JB Weld and duct tape. :)
This is an issue for unemployed people also. I just got laid off and I'm facing a lack of socialization until I find a new job. Thankfully this is my first week since it's an unusual week with the holiday.
I'm a transgendered person and I would NOT take offence at the use of male, female or even gender changer. I see the humor in them, especially gender changer. ;)
I think that rule in LA county is nuts. There is such a thing as going to far at being politically correct. Although I think it would be funny to get slashdotters living in LA county to complain about various terms and words just to see how far they can be pushed before the county officals say enough. lol
Is there a website with a map showing which countries in the world that are going open source?
Why have them plummet back into the atmosphere?Why not just build multi-generation spacestations and boost them into higher orbits as needed? NASA actually have a design that would last much longer than currently used designs. It's called TransHab. A combination of TransHab and shuttle tanks would create a very functional space station.
I think so too. The DS9/Terok Nor spacestation also deserves to be built one day. I definitly have issues with the current NASA inspired thinking about spacestation design. Spacestations should be designed to last because it's a waste to launch all the materials up there for a station, only to burn it up about 10 years later.
I'm being laid off around the end of next month. While I'm not directly loosing my job to someone in another country, my job being moved is a direct result of other jobs from where I work being moved to other countries. The parent company decided that it wanted to reduce it's "geographic footprint". This is the same company that bought out the company I work for. In the year 2001, the site employed around 2000 people in the DFW area. Now there are less than 300 and in two months, it'll be down to just a handful of security guards and corporate people finishing up the site closure.
It's sad to see so many of my friends be scattered to the winds. It's equally sad to see the vast network in the building be dismantled. All this to satisfy some corporate bean counters. The company I do support for and many others along with their customers will have to accept a lower quality support for a period of time because it will take the techs at other sites months or longer to come up to speed. Many of us there have worked with the company for years and know the products we support inside and out. In some cases, we're the only people in the country that does support those products.
Some people hoped to be hired directly by the companies they supported but many chose to move to the outsource companies other sites. The people working there couldn't approach the companies directly due to non-competition agreements. No one protested the move because the upper level management had rumored the place to death till everyone was happy to see it go to avoid the stress. It can be quite stressful working in a nearly empty building where so many of your friends had worked before. Everyone was also bought off by a performance based bonus. Which could be canceled if people decided to protest.
How about the ability to use a any mouse on either the PS2 or USB ports without having to change the selected driver?
Or how about the ability to assign a PS2 mouse and keyboard to one video card output and the USB keyboard and mouse to another video card output to give the ability to login one person on each interface grouping.
The company I do support for uses it also. It's a very good product but doesn't scale up very well. It's good for internal use or for companies that have a small customer base. There are a number of problems with it, such as incident locking. I don't know how many times I've had to boot someone out of my incident or had someone boot me by mistake and I lost my entire current entry. A customer an override a lock as easily as another employee.
Food for thought related to this. http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/currenttopics/ climatechange_wef.html
The real problem is that getting on line is too easy for the average person. Much of these problems were far less of an issue years ago when people had to code their own ppp log on scripts or use command line utilities to access the net. The Internet has become too much of a bulk mainstream toy.
One solution for this would be for the real tech savvy people to move to IPv6 and let the average person do what they will on the IPv4 Internet. If going to IPv6 were a stumbling block for most people then it would keep it sufficiently isolated. Instituting new email standards would solve much of the problems with virus transmission. In the standard, forbid executing code (binaries or scripts) in emails by the email client or server.
I really wonder if another company is driving SCO to do this so they can snatch them up after they have been squashed by other companies.
While you are correct, it doesn't describe it very well; sometimes you have to simplify things for the masses. Being a technical support person, I'm use to simplifying things for the average umm...person.
Who I'm attracted to has nothing to do with how I see myself. Sexual preference and gender identity, mental body map and physical sex are separate things.
To be transhuman is to take your life in your own hands and shape yourself (mind or body) to your will. It's body builders, disabled people moving beyond their limitations, people who develop their mind to do incredible things, transsexuals, etc. Transhuman is basically anyone moving beyond what has been given to them by nature. It is really a different mindset, one where you really push yourself to be what you want to be. Over the last few years I've been doing this myself. I'm going thru a sex change; I went from geeky guy to a lesbian techie girl. The process isn't just a shaping of the body, but of the mind also. I examined all the things I hated about myself and have been endeavoring to toss them out and replace them with stuff I wanted.
It's possible that a machine labor force could bring about an economic system in which monetary value is just numbers in the system representing an quantity of work which is taxed and that humans are given a base living wage as a right. The humans could occupy higher order jobs or reap returns from investments to increase their personal wealth. The base system would be sort of a socialistic feeding off a near invisible capitalistic one. Of course like any other system, this one would be ripe for abuse at all levels.
I've done outsource support for 3 different broadband ISPs and every one of them had screwed up email systems. I'm sure it's the same with most ISPs. I'd have to question the judgment of anyone that would rely on just one email address for important email. Don't use two pop accounts either because your email program could screw up to and might not give an error. These things happen.
Was the ISP in the wrong on this issue? Yes but users should expect problems with their email and make alternate plans for important email. Have any important emails CC:ed to a web account also. I hope she wins the case against them, maybe some ISPs will wake up. Just remember Murphy's law applies to email also.
Now if they'll come up with some kind of genetic assembly language, we could debug our own genome. Anyone want to write a genetic emulator to test the code on? :)
This moving of jobs out of the US is really starting to eat into things. The outsource call center I work at in the DFW area is moving it's jobs to Canada where they pay about a 3rd less than here. Next week, some friends and I are getting laid off so some corporate types can get bigger houses and faster cars. Our supervisor gets this stupid smile on her face when she walks someone because she knows it's more brownie points for her.
If your in the US and you call for tech support be sure to ask where they are located. If they aren't in the US, asked to be tranfered back to a US call center.
As far as layout goes, the Amiga keyboards rock! They place the system options keys "Amiga keys" next to the space bar where they should be and there is actually a help key. Of course the Amiga OS knows how the use those keys far more efficent than Windows can use it's Windows keys. On the Amiga, left key is for global system hot keys and right is for app short cuts. But when it comes to physical construction, nothing can beat the Omni Key Ultra keyboard. I could kill someone with it. Plus when you press a key, you know it's been pressed. Since that keyboard supported the Amiga, although somewhat buggly in faster Amigas, it combined the best of both keyboards. -Tekoneiric-