They're sitting on billions because they know how to market to the people holding the purse strings (non-technical executives). Nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft...even if its not the best tool for the job (and I will give it to them...some of their stuff is genuinely the best). That said, You'd be surprised how little "compiling" of software is required these days with linux-based solutions. Also, my biggest gripe about Microsoft is having to look for non-descript error codes online to figure out what's broken vs Iooking at an error log with some verbosity. Having access to the code also makes it easier to implement a bug fix since I can be more precise on my bug reporting, saving everybody time.
So, yes...milenials are more immersed in technology, and have a better handle on how to use it, but that doesn't mean they have an understanding of how it works. To call every 20 year old with a cell phone an expert in mobile communications devices is a gross exaggeration. If they're more demanding its because they're used to it just being there...like water or electricity.
Just do it! Tech is one of those areas where you can gain experience and knowledge on your own with minimal financial outlay. So, study up. Play with things. I'm not sure what the climate is like in your district, but perhaps you can also take on some more technical responsibility in your school district? Through reading, tinkering, and applying your learned knowledge, you'll eventually get to a point where you can legitimately do this sort of thing full time. It's a process, but it's totally doable.
I've used Twonky Media Server for a while as a UPnP server, and been reasonably pleased. Plex is great for all the metadata it gives you along with the other features (particularly the ability to stream iPlayer content with the plugin that's available), but is really really finicky about file naming conventions and directory structures. Twonky seems to just list and transcode without much fuss.
Converting the existing POTS network to an IP network (even for voice) is far more complicated than you make it out to be. The main reason its tougher is SIGNAL DEGREDATION OVER DISTANCE.
Every wire carrying an electrical signal over distance is subject to signal attenuation due to electromagnetic forces interfering with the signal (e.g. other cables, electrical wires, etc). This is why you can only run a cat-5e ~1500 feet before you need to insert a repeater. The way the phone company got around this for serving POTS to far points is by inserting load coils at strategic points to boost the signal enough to go where it needed to go. That said, load coils are not suitable when carrying anything other than voice. This is why DSL availability is limited to places close to the CO, or places with a heavy business presence (as there are usually satellite distribution facilities from which your DSL can originate). Additionally, telephone cables typically contain several hundred to several thousand pairs, each serving a client. The shielding for a pair towards the outside of a cable is far less than the shielding for a pair towards the core of the cable. Not all pairs in a cable are even viable for DSL.
To make this happen, the phone company needs to substantially increase the presence of fiber EVERYWHERE: This is similar to the way cable does it, in that fiber is usually run to every street, and the "last mile" is carried over RG6, which in turn is branched off of for every customer. There would of course be other implications for using the existing infrastructure for the last-mile, and last-mile really means something more like "last couple of feet".
In summary, this isn't happening any time soon since it involves substantial investment in the existing infrastructure. While FTTP is promissing, it still has a long way to go.
As somebody who spent a lot of time and energy helping acquire such a device for his father who suffered from ALS, I would like to highlight some important facts.
Many of the devices that the insurance companies cover are actually modified PC's. Before you say that people are better off buying a computer and having insurance foot the bill, look at the facts:
1. These PC's come modified with software and other interfaces which are specially designed based on years of research to meet the needs of the disabled for communication in the most intuitive way possible.
2. Often times the software is placed on an embedded windows system so that its harder to "break" with malware, and the like. Very few PC owners apart from the tech savy can say they've never gotten a computer virus or some form of malware. Even us techies slip up sometimes. Can you imagine if your lifeline were disabled by a virus? This is exactly what these devices are. Lifelines. People rely on them every day for the basic things we take for granted. Having the software embedded keeps the device functioning. Having functionality limited to...well....speaking...that makes the device far less daunting to those who might not be as computer savvy.
3. There are lots of different attachments available for these devices that let pretty much anyone with any level of disability use them. Each attachment is geared towards using the functionality a person has left. These are niche items that are pretty hard to come by at WalMart.
4. These computers are generally ruggedized (usually a toughbook, or something similar). The ruggedization is critical when the device goes everywhere with you.
The bottom line, really, is that these devices are designed to work any time anywhere for anyone. These are really custom solutions. Also, a whole lot of vendor support comes with the device, which is critical to making the most of it. This entire package, including the support, the level of customization in terms of input devices and software tools, and the level of quality and reliability seem to justify the high price in my eyes.
Your insurance company, believe it or not, has your best interest in mind as well as their own when they decide what is and isn't covered. These costly specialized devices are the best option for a whole lot of people. By only covering a solution like this, the insurance company knows you're getting what you need, which is tough to do if you're talking about building a system yourself.
I could have created a home-brew solution, but it would have been without the benefit of years of research into the progression of various diseases and the capabilities of somebody paralyzed from the neck down. Why should a patient have to deal with debugging a home-brew solution or trying to use a conventional mouse or keyboard when they can barely move their fingers? Being paralyzed is frustrating enough as it is...they don't need the extra stress.
On a side note, you can in fact work with the vendor and the insurance company to have an "add-on" placed in the computer-turned-medical device to allow you to use it as a computer as well. The expense is out of pocket, but is usually far less than the cost of a computer.
Here's how it works, at least for Verizon on the east coast...
Depending on the arrangements between Verizon, your electric company, and your town, Verizon either owns the poles, leases space on the poles, or jointly owns the poles with the electric company. Verizon lays and maintains the cable for their copper and fiber networks. In the case of the copper network and their legacy (non-FiOS) fiber network, they are obligated by law to lease the pairs out to CoLocators, or more simply, mom and pop telco's and other telcos without a presence in the area that still wish to supply service (like AT&T local service).
For every cable, fiber, pole, anchor, guy wire, conduit, and duct placed or owned by Verizon, Verizon is taxed above and beyond the regulatory fees they might pass on to you in your bill. It functions much like property taxes. In essence, Verizon is leasing space within the town's right of way. Anyone can use the right of way, including gas, electric, and sewage, subject to the same regulations. In rare cases where Verizon needs to extend beyond the right of way, they will arrange an agreement with a property owner known as an easement. This agreement grants Verizon the right to extend beyond the right of way within an agreed apon area in exchange for monetary or other compensation.
The bottom line is that Verizon (or more generically, your local telephone company) owns the network. They are taxed to high heavens on the network. Due to antitrust rulings of old, they are required to share their network at a reasonable cost to prevent them from establishing any sort of monopoly.
The antitrust rulings apply to the copper network as well as their last-mile fiber. These laws do not however apply to their up and coming FiOS network.
Now, what they happen to charge for the right to use their network is their choice, but that being said, it must be fair and may not be anti-competitive, which is what this court case seems to be about. One thing must be made certain though...Verizon is NOT getting a free ride by any stretch of the imagination. They pay through the nose for every piece of plant they deploy.
For more information on regulations for your area, check out your public library, city hall (the town engineer's office), and maybe even your telephone company.
>cue the "The More you Know!" screen graphics...
All the would-be Einsteins are at Google, or some other private industry job. Private industry pays better than government up front, and is extremely enticing, especially when you are talking about Google's perks. I personally turned down a Defense Research position with CECOM/CERDEC to pursue a career in software engineering in first telecom, then the financial sector. The money is better, which is great when you are trying to get yourself started in life, and trying to pay down that mountain of debt accumulated over the years in college. There's also the idea that you can be safe in the knowledge that what you engineer isn't actively killing someone.
Aside from it all, who WOULDN'T want a beenbag chair in their cubical?
How much kicking and screaming have they done? I ask because as a former verizon network engineer, I have routinely found myself putting out work orders to modify plant to make DSL possible. The qualification system used by the call center reps is littered with errors and false positives. With that in mind I would highly suggest that you incist that they put in a ticket to engineering to qulify the loop, or even that they push an order through anyway. If it's not doable as is, the loop assigners will put it to engineering. If its impossible for engineering to do, then it will fall through all together. How far are they from the CO? Have you seen any CEV's around the neighborhood? A CEV is a sort of remote extension of the CO to extend the reach of certain services. For the most part it looks like a big metal door into the ground. If there is a CEV figure out how far they are from that. All in all if they are more than 18000 ft from the CO or a CEV verizon cannot physically provide service. If any neighbors have dsl, that is also a good justification to make them try to do it. Good luck. Hope I helped. --izm
Agreed. Additionally more emphasis needs to be placed on math, science, and engineering at the primary phase of educational development, and through the culture. Kids need to think math and science are just as cool as their favorite Saturday morning cartoons. Frankly, Mr. Wizard was the man. He got me hooked (and I don't mean on phonics).
I tend to agree that the price and form factor tend not to be feasible. As a software engineer I tend to spend most of my time with my laptop or desktop anyway, so most of what I need in a PDA is organization and communication functionality. For me, a keyboard is not entirely necessary. The trend towards ubiquitous computing (many computers per person, each enhancing a particular aspect of life) being what it is, portable devices like PDA's need to shrink in size while maximizing functionality. I personally would like to see a modestly sized, modestly priced embedded linux PDA (similar to the Zaurus, but more accessible to the users with less cash) that uses either an insanely simple or an existing open synchronization standard. Size, functionality, and scalability need to be balanced to have the next "killer app" in the PDA industry.
Keep in mind that not all states are currently issuing driver's licenses with magnetic stripes on them. NJ for example has a bar code on their "new" licenses.
This isn't an isolated phenomenon. The vast majority of school districts are sort of plunged into educational technology use without very much training or expertise. They may be provided federal and state funding to purchase computers for classrooms, but they aren't allocated funding to employ full time technical professionals to maintain the investment. When I was in high school, the same thing was happening. I used Linux live CD's all the time, and even when I tried to help them fix things, they never wanted to know. We were in even less secure a situation. To get around the school's chaperon filter, all you had to do was change the browser settings so that you didn't use the proxy at all, and you could get through without trouble. The reason why administrators react in such a way is because they don't understand what's going on beyond wrong vs right. Its highly likely that 1 teacher who took an A+ certification course and feels very full of him or her self is also too overzealous to admit that a student was able to help correct a security flaw that they had overlooked. That's how it was in my High School district. I think the key is to start doing 1 of 3 things: either providing teachers and administrators proper training, employing competent technical professionals, or start actually trusting students who offer to help and regarding their suggestions with a bit of humility.
How tedious is it to log every call? I know with Remedy help desk, a ticket will take 5 minutes to write at the least, and if you are logging and then resolving a ticket, you need to write it, submit it, then go into the queue and close it. 10 minutes down the drain.
A big deterrent for Help Desk people towards logging every single call is that often times a simple password reset (which is recorded in logs anyway), or a case of user error doesn't seem to warrant a ticket because it would take longer to write the ticket than to resolve the problem and move on to the next, and there's very little future value to the ticket from a troubleshooting standpoint other than establishing that the user is a blithering idiot.
I'd be careful because there's a fine balance between logging to improve efficiency in provisioning service, and making a 2 minute call to the help desk a 10 minute one. Plus, as you said, they've all got other tasks to attend to as well. Happy users are the most important aspect of any help desk. If your team uses its time efficiently, and users are satisfied, then things should be left well enough alone.
If there's an operational gain to making ticketing of every call compulsory, then by all means, tell your team this. Be prepared with metrics and charts to depict this.
In my view, its not really monitoring as much as communication with the kid that is key. When I was 14, I had virtually unlimited access to the internet. I did do my fair share of surfing for porn (come on..what 14 year old isn't a little curious), but for the most part, the internet was a learning tool I used to learn about things that I was curious about but never had any exposure to. What was important in my life was the communication from my parents about ethics, responsibilities, and safety. I had a computer wherever I did most of my homework. This was not in plain view of my parents, but they made sure I was aware about the tenants of Internet privacy and safety. They largely parallel situations involving talking to strangers.
The time when a kid really resorts to doing bad things, or going too deep into the rabit hole that is myspace, or online chats, etc, is the time when they feel bored, lonely, or neglected. By being involved in your kid's life, teaching them about the dangers, and allowing the to develop a social life, they will become well adjusted, and you won't have to worry about them becoming the subject of internet predators or becoming viewers of copious amounts of questionable amounts of Internet Porn.
For the most part, you'll find that school IT is really a case of fear of the unknown, which is the case literally everywhere in today's society just as it was throughout the ages. When I was in high school, I had even more restrictive policies, and the IT dept was not really well structured at all. The equipment was in disrepair, and some of the calls they made were just stupid. I used to enjoy booting from a live CD in the lab, because it wasn't subject to the terrible UI restrictions found on the windows domain machines. The most amusing part of this is that instead of forcing all traffic through the proxy by limitting which machines can get out, they just locked the proxy setting into IE, meaning if you could get rid of it, you could go through unfiltered. Naturally, i did it more often than not.
On another note, I was not allowed to do any of my programming for APCS on networked computers owned by the school. They seemed to believe that programmers were a threat to the network, so they would not allow the CS lab, composed of a rag-tag bunch of second hand PC's, to access the network.
I even offered to help them improve the network. Naturally, that went over so well that they ignored my ever saying it (i don't blame them...nobody likes to see where they made mistakes...especially not idiots like them).
All in all, public schools are places where people who barely understand computers enforce rigid restrictions on them with no rhyme or reason beyond avoiding litigation.
I'm glad I'm out.
I know that my district was very much anti-programming. All machines were locked down. The only ones I was allowed to program on were the 2nd hand machines they got for the AP CS "lab" (a corner of the A+ certification lab which they got on a grant and never maintained), which they made sure was never allowed on the network because they saw programmers as a "threat to network security". Nevermind the fact that their network was set up such that you could bypass all the filters in place on their proxy server by simply bypassing it and going straight out (yes, they were that stupid). If it looked like I was doing anything in the least "technical", I was forced to stop. Basicly, people were all scared of what they didn't know about, which in the case of somebody who's taught english, science, mathematics, or history for 25 years, its programming in C. They really didn't want to encourage any free thinking either. If you didn't fit within their definition of what was good (proud to be an american, unconditionally trusting your government without questioning or having an opinion on what your leaders are doing, apathetic towards any of the absurd policies the administration tries to opress us with, etc...), you were looked down apon. High School sucked because every time I tried to change things for the better, it always boiled down to excuses to avoid the wrath of 65 year old superintendants and administrators who want to avoid lawsuits by supressing innovation and free thought.
High school sucked...
Biggest thing in my school's setup is the repair program in place. Laptops break. Its a fact of life, and doubly so in college. A student may or may not take the best care of it possible, and they may just break in spite of the loving care and attention they get.
If they have to go to the manufacturer to get repairs, they're pretty much screwed for 3 or 4 weeks. If you have repair programs on or near campus, they're out of a machine for a week or so, and at that point, they could use a lab (we still have a few labs set up).
This is a tricky little dillema. The students are in the school by the choice of their parents, which until they turn 18, is also their choice. On the one hand, they are voluntarily part of the organization, for better or for worse, so they sort of accepted whats going on, and an organization of consenting individuals should by all means have the right to conduct themselves in a manner that fits within the guidelines of the law. By remaining members of the catholic school community, the students could in essence be making the choice to be bound by the rules set for them by the school.
However, that being said, whether or not they are recieving funding from the government, the fact of the matter is that they are chartered and incorporated within the United States of America, and as such, to exist, must abide by the laws of the United States. The fact that this is being introduced at a time after the students paid their tuition (essentially consented to be a member of the community bound by the rules set forth knowingly at the time of payment) though raises an issue. The agreement was changed to curtail their civil liberties in the middle of the term of service (the school year). This means that the students did not agree to it when they originally joined the community at the beginning of the year, and as such, they are not concenting to the new arrangement. Essentially, since this was not clearly stated at the beginning of the school year, they are being forced into having their civil liberties curtailed, which is illegal whether its a federal agent doing it or a new jersey transit train conductor forcing liberals to ride in the vestibule for being liberals (never happened....an extreme example....but it conveys my point).
My personal feelings are that with regard to the development of the students into responsible, savy adults, is that making rules to protect people is not half as beneficial as teaching them how to protect themselves.
IF you give a man a fish, he eats for a day. If you teach a man to fish he eats for a lifetime.
Silly crap that shouldn't be... like underscores in front of function names which do the exact same thing. Winsock is different from BSD sockets. Things like that. While its not glareing, its certainly a pain.
Also, when compiling libraries for use with my programs...take libjpeg for example...I have to do a lot of configuration and tweaking to compile on windows (or i just find the precompiled libraries somewhere...which is what i ended up doing). On my linux box, it was simply./config, make install, and I was done.
That is what makes windows in my opinion less pleasant than linux from a programming perspective. Also, keep in mind that my employer required me to do all of this C programming in Visual Studio.NET 2003. That was also more than half the headache right there.
I'd choose Linux over Windows for programming any day.
While 95% of the world runs a MS OS, that is purely because Microsoft has the PC industry in a strangle hold in terms of licensing agreements. Half of users could give two shits about whether its windows, mac, or linux. All they care about is what they can get done with it. You can't get much done when your computer is constantly plagued by viruses and spyware....can you?
While it is true that part of why Windows is insecure is because of its being so widely used, UNIX like operating systems are more secure due to their structure, and the fact that their authors and users are constantly looking at the OS under a microscope, picking out the vulnerabilities, and releasing patches. Even if UNIX based OS's were more widely used, there would still be fewer security concerns and fewer flaws. The flaws in windows go way beyond security.
Also, USB plug and play is actually pretty good on Linux. Also, using tools like yum, you can install software and all dependancies with one command.
If I recall, Apple was to market first with their personal computer (Apple II) while Microsoft was was still kissing IBM's feet, selling them an OS they didn't have. I myself still have my Apple IIe.
Also, from a programming perspective, Win32 is a monster. I have to modify perfectly good standards based C code to work on windows, where it will compile with very little modification whatsoever on Linux, and the BSDs, and the MAC. Standards exist for a reason.
Perhaps windows is easy to use, but it still presents way too many problems to be worthy of my respect. This article also puts everything else down waaaay tooo much (its just a tad biased.....like all of us I suppose).
Microsoft is a good business....not a good software maker.
Well, this is true, but lets be honest. How often have you heard of a school actually lowering its tuition. Tuition is astronomical to begin with, and there's no way it would go down if people weren't forced into purchasing these machines. The convenience for the most part lies in user support, in that if need be, the student can bring the machine down to our service center and get any hardware issue taken care of within a day or 2, while getting a loaner in between. Try that with a laptop you bought from BestBuy, or newegg. The RMA alone would take at least a week. This way, you are not without a machine for an extended period of time (which is detrimental to your workload when you are at Stevens...unless you're a Biztech, then you don't matter at all). Lets not forget that this is a tech school.
You are right though...it is paid for through tuition, but in proportion to the tuition, the cost of the machine is negligable. Perhaps I misspoke when I said that the machine was "provided" for the students. By the same token, the more tech toys are given, and this goes for any college, the more the tuition will be. The question is really how well is the technology fee used? RIT and Stevens have similar tuitions. We at Stevens have a significantly smaller population than RIT, so given the fact that we have such a small population, and by comparison a smaller amount of funding, we still manage to have a fiber-optic connection, and we still manage to do allot with the small amount of money we recieve from tuition payments. I would say we aren't doing all that bad considering the circumstances. Sure, things could be a bit better, but these things for the most part are technical nitpicks.
The main advantage lies in ease of support.
I'm a student at Stevens Institute of Technology, and I work for the Office of Information Technology. We have quite a vast array of services for our students (and when everything is working, which is about 90% of the time, its great...):
- Each student upon entering the school is provided with a laptop computer. These machines are brand new, and on the cutting edge (at least as far as consumer models go). They are configured to last 4 years, and are covered for accidental damage as well as theft for the student's entire undergraduate career. (I have to say that while mine has been a repair nightmare, much like those of students who came before me, it was in large part because of the fact that it is a Compaq...the latest systems, Dell M60's, have lasted fairly well). The software package includes many of the finest freeware and open source products the internet has to offer (Mozilla, eventually Firefox will replace Mozilla in the distribution), as well as Windows.
- Each student is provided with 250mb of space on a file server which can be used for serving up web pages as well as backing up lots of data. Scripting capabilities are disabled except by special request. For the average user, this is enough though.
- Each member of the campus community is provided with 100mb of email quota (IMAP4 email account).
- The campus has a high speed connection (OC3) to the Internet as well as an even higher speed connection to Internet2 and NJ EdgeNET. The network is fairly open, and the policies are fairly simple. If you don't cause trouble, we don't care.
- We have AT LEAST 802.11b wireless coverage over 95% of our campus, and we are currently working on a full rollout of 802.11g campus wide.
- We have WebCT for online course tools, which is a powerful and intuitive system for creating interactive course websites.
- We recently introduced Campus Pipeline. Lovingly referred to as CrackPipe line, or Campus Poopline, it provides total access to all of your information including grades, bills, schedule, etc in a single area. I have to say that this is the only part I am not entirely enthused about. While the idea works in theory, the platform is still bloated and extremely rough around the edges. In introducing Pipeline, we phased out our UNIX Shell service (personally, I am not too happy with that either, but from a systems administration standpoint, it makes sense. Also, the higher-ups were pushing for us to make things easier for the poor little business majors...and themselves).
- Online registration (which has been available since the mid to late 1990's).
- UNIX Shell access is still preserved in the CS department where a lab of netBSD machines is maintained, and remotely accessable. Here, scripting and DB access are provided, as well as 100mb of quota. Any member of the campus community can have an account in the CS Lab. The packages in the lab are meticulously maintained by the systems administrators. They are both secure, and run the latest versions of all compilers necessary for coursework.
The people in both IT and CS are constantly looking for ways to make the campus computing resources more useful to their users. Everyone is very good about providing comprehensive support for all of these systems.
All in all, we have quite an impressive array of computing services. The only thing that I am even the slightest bit disenchanted with is the move away from UNIX Shells in IT, and the fact that the class AFTER me got the good laptops...;)
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I thought I made it clear that googling for obscure error codes was a windows thing....
They're sitting on billions because they know how to market to the people holding the purse strings (non-technical executives). Nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft...even if its not the best tool for the job (and I will give it to them...some of their stuff is genuinely the best). That said, You'd be surprised how little "compiling" of software is required these days with linux-based solutions. Also, my biggest gripe about Microsoft is having to look for non-descript error codes online to figure out what's broken vs Iooking at an error log with some verbosity. Having access to the code also makes it easier to implement a bug fix since I can be more precise on my bug reporting, saving everybody time.
So, yes...milenials are more immersed in technology, and have a better handle on how to use it, but that doesn't mean they have an understanding of how it works. To call every 20 year old with a cell phone an expert in mobile communications devices is a gross exaggeration. If they're more demanding its because they're used to it just being there...like water or electricity.
Just do it! Tech is one of those areas where you can gain experience and knowledge on your own with minimal financial outlay. So, study up. Play with things. I'm not sure what the climate is like in your district, but perhaps you can also take on some more technical responsibility in your school district? Through reading, tinkering, and applying your learned knowledge, you'll eventually get to a point where you can legitimately do this sort of thing full time. It's a process, but it's totally doable.
I've used Twonky Media Server for a while as a UPnP server, and been reasonably pleased. Plex is great for all the metadata it gives you along with the other features (particularly the ability to stream iPlayer content with the plugin that's available), but is really really finicky about file naming conventions and directory structures. Twonky seems to just list and transcode without much fuss.
Converting the existing POTS network to an IP network (even for voice) is far more complicated than you make it out to be. The main reason its tougher is SIGNAL DEGREDATION OVER DISTANCE.
Every wire carrying an electrical signal over distance is subject to signal attenuation due to electromagnetic forces interfering with the signal (e.g. other cables, electrical wires, etc). This is why you can only run a cat-5e ~1500 feet before you need to insert a repeater. The way the phone company got around this for serving POTS to far points is by inserting load coils at strategic points to boost the signal enough to go where it needed to go. That said, load coils are not suitable when carrying anything other than voice. This is why DSL availability is limited to places close to the CO, or places with a heavy business presence (as there are usually satellite distribution facilities from which your DSL can originate). Additionally, telephone cables typically contain several hundred to several thousand pairs, each serving a client. The shielding for a pair towards the outside of a cable is far less than the shielding for a pair towards the core of the cable. Not all pairs in a cable are even viable for DSL.
To make this happen, the phone company needs to substantially increase the presence of fiber EVERYWHERE: This is similar to the way cable does it, in that fiber is usually run to every street, and the "last mile" is carried over RG6, which in turn is branched off of for every customer. There would of course be other implications for using the existing infrastructure for the last-mile, and last-mile really means something more like "last couple of feet".
In summary, this isn't happening any time soon since it involves substantial investment in the existing infrastructure. While FTTP is promissing, it still has a long way to go.
As somebody who spent a lot of time and energy helping acquire such a device for his father who suffered from ALS, I would like to highlight some important facts.
Many of the devices that the insurance companies cover are actually modified PC's. Before you say that people are better off buying a computer and having insurance foot the bill, look at the facts:
1. These PC's come modified with software and other interfaces which are specially designed based on years of research to meet the needs of the disabled for communication in the most intuitive way possible.
2. Often times the software is placed on an embedded windows system so that its harder to "break" with malware, and the like. Very few PC owners apart from the tech savy can say they've never gotten a computer virus or some form of malware. Even us techies slip up sometimes. Can you imagine if your lifeline were disabled by a virus? This is exactly what these devices are. Lifelines. People rely on them every day for the basic things we take for granted. Having the software embedded keeps the device functioning. Having functionality limited to...well....speaking...that makes the device far less daunting to those who might not be as computer savvy.
3. There are lots of different attachments available for these devices that let pretty much anyone with any level of disability use them. Each attachment is geared towards using the functionality a person has left. These are niche items that are pretty hard to come by at WalMart.
4. These computers are generally ruggedized (usually a toughbook, or something similar). The ruggedization is critical when the device goes everywhere with you.
The bottom line, really, is that these devices are designed to work any time anywhere for anyone. These are really custom solutions. Also, a whole lot of vendor support comes with the device, which is critical to making the most of it. This entire package, including the support, the level of customization in terms of input devices and software tools, and the level of quality and reliability seem to justify the high price in my eyes.
Your insurance company, believe it or not, has your best interest in mind as well as their own when they decide what is and isn't covered. These costly specialized devices are the best option for a whole lot of people. By only covering a solution like this, the insurance company knows you're getting what you need, which is tough to do if you're talking about building a system yourself.
I could have created a home-brew solution, but it would have been without the benefit of years of research into the progression of various diseases and the capabilities of somebody paralyzed from the neck down. Why should a patient have to deal with debugging a home-brew solution or trying to use a conventional mouse or keyboard when they can barely move their fingers? Being paralyzed is frustrating enough as it is...they don't need the extra stress.
On a side note, you can in fact work with the vendor and the insurance company to have an "add-on" placed in the computer-turned-medical device to allow you to use it as a computer as well. The expense is out of pocket, but is usually far less than the cost of a computer.
Here's how it works, at least for Verizon on the east coast... Depending on the arrangements between Verizon, your electric company, and your town, Verizon either owns the poles, leases space on the poles, or jointly owns the poles with the electric company. Verizon lays and maintains the cable for their copper and fiber networks. In the case of the copper network and their legacy (non-FiOS) fiber network, they are obligated by law to lease the pairs out to CoLocators, or more simply, mom and pop telco's and other telcos without a presence in the area that still wish to supply service (like AT&T local service). For every cable, fiber, pole, anchor, guy wire, conduit, and duct placed or owned by Verizon, Verizon is taxed above and beyond the regulatory fees they might pass on to you in your bill. It functions much like property taxes. In essence, Verizon is leasing space within the town's right of way. Anyone can use the right of way, including gas, electric, and sewage, subject to the same regulations. In rare cases where Verizon needs to extend beyond the right of way, they will arrange an agreement with a property owner known as an easement. This agreement grants Verizon the right to extend beyond the right of way within an agreed apon area in exchange for monetary or other compensation. The bottom line is that Verizon (or more generically, your local telephone company) owns the network. They are taxed to high heavens on the network. Due to antitrust rulings of old, they are required to share their network at a reasonable cost to prevent them from establishing any sort of monopoly. The antitrust rulings apply to the copper network as well as their last-mile fiber. These laws do not however apply to their up and coming FiOS network. Now, what they happen to charge for the right to use their network is their choice, but that being said, it must be fair and may not be anti-competitive, which is what this court case seems to be about. One thing must be made certain though...Verizon is NOT getting a free ride by any stretch of the imagination. They pay through the nose for every piece of plant they deploy. For more information on regulations for your area, check out your public library, city hall (the town engineer's office), and maybe even your telephone company. >cue the "The More you Know!" screen graphics...
All the would-be Einsteins are at Google, or some other private industry job. Private industry pays better than government up front, and is extremely enticing, especially when you are talking about Google's perks. I personally turned down a Defense Research position with CECOM/CERDEC to pursue a career in software engineering in first telecom, then the financial sector. The money is better, which is great when you are trying to get yourself started in life, and trying to pay down that mountain of debt accumulated over the years in college. There's also the idea that you can be safe in the knowledge that what you engineer isn't actively killing someone.
Aside from it all, who WOULDN'T want a beenbag chair in their cubical?
How much kicking and screaming have they done? I ask because as a former verizon network engineer, I have routinely found myself putting out work orders to modify plant to make DSL possible. The qualification system used by the call center reps is littered with errors and false positives. With that in mind I would highly suggest that you incist that they put in a ticket to engineering to qulify the loop, or even that they push an order through anyway. If it's not doable as is, the loop assigners will put it to engineering. If its impossible for engineering to do, then it will fall through all together. How far are they from the CO? Have you seen any CEV's around the neighborhood? A CEV is a sort of remote extension of the CO to extend the reach of certain services. For the most part it looks like a big metal door into the ground. If there is a CEV figure out how far they are from that. All in all if they are more than 18000 ft from the CO or a CEV verizon cannot physically provide service. If any neighbors have dsl, that is also a good justification to make them try to do it. Good luck. Hope I helped. --izm
Agreed. Additionally more emphasis needs to be placed on math, science, and engineering at the primary phase of educational development, and through the culture. Kids need to think math and science are just as cool as their favorite Saturday morning cartoons. Frankly, Mr. Wizard was the man. He got me hooked (and I don't mean on phonics).
I tend to agree that the price and form factor tend not to be feasible. As a software engineer I tend to spend most of my time with my laptop or desktop anyway, so most of what I need in a PDA is organization and communication functionality. For me, a keyboard is not entirely necessary. The trend towards ubiquitous computing (many computers per person, each enhancing a particular aspect of life) being what it is, portable devices like PDA's need to shrink in size while maximizing functionality. I personally would like to see a modestly sized, modestly priced embedded linux PDA (similar to the Zaurus, but more accessible to the users with less cash) that uses either an insanely simple or an existing open synchronization standard. Size, functionality, and scalability need to be balanced to have the next "killer app" in the PDA industry.
Keep in mind that not all states are currently issuing driver's licenses with magnetic stripes on them. NJ for example has a bar code on their "new" licenses.
This isn't an isolated phenomenon. The vast majority of school districts are sort of plunged into educational technology use without very much training or expertise. They may be provided federal and state funding to purchase computers for classrooms, but they aren't allocated funding to employ full time technical professionals to maintain the investment. When I was in high school, the same thing was happening. I used Linux live CD's all the time, and even when I tried to help them fix things, they never wanted to know. We were in even less secure a situation. To get around the school's chaperon filter, all you had to do was change the browser settings so that you didn't use the proxy at all, and you could get through without trouble. The reason why administrators react in such a way is because they don't understand what's going on beyond wrong vs right. Its highly likely that 1 teacher who took an A+ certification course and feels very full of him or her self is also too overzealous to admit that a student was able to help correct a security flaw that they had overlooked. That's how it was in my High School district. I think the key is to start doing 1 of 3 things: either providing teachers and administrators proper training, employing competent technical professionals, or start actually trusting students who offer to help and regarding their suggestions with a bit of humility.
How tedious is it to log every call? I know with Remedy help desk, a ticket will take 5 minutes to write at the least, and if you are logging and then resolving a ticket, you need to write it, submit it, then go into the queue and close it. 10 minutes down the drain. A big deterrent for Help Desk people towards logging every single call is that often times a simple password reset (which is recorded in logs anyway), or a case of user error doesn't seem to warrant a ticket because it would take longer to write the ticket than to resolve the problem and move on to the next, and there's very little future value to the ticket from a troubleshooting standpoint other than establishing that the user is a blithering idiot. I'd be careful because there's a fine balance between logging to improve efficiency in provisioning service, and making a 2 minute call to the help desk a 10 minute one. Plus, as you said, they've all got other tasks to attend to as well. Happy users are the most important aspect of any help desk. If your team uses its time efficiently, and users are satisfied, then things should be left well enough alone. If there's an operational gain to making ticketing of every call compulsory, then by all means, tell your team this. Be prepared with metrics and charts to depict this.
In my view, its not really monitoring as much as communication with the kid that is key. When I was 14, I had virtually unlimited access to the internet. I did do my fair share of surfing for porn (come on..what 14 year old isn't a little curious), but for the most part, the internet was a learning tool I used to learn about things that I was curious about but never had any exposure to. What was important in my life was the communication from my parents about ethics, responsibilities, and safety. I had a computer wherever I did most of my homework. This was not in plain view of my parents, but they made sure I was aware about the tenants of Internet privacy and safety. They largely parallel situations involving talking to strangers.
The time when a kid really resorts to doing bad things, or going too deep into the rabit hole that is myspace, or online chats, etc, is the time when they feel bored, lonely, or neglected. By being involved in your kid's life, teaching them about the dangers, and allowing the to develop a social life, they will become well adjusted, and you won't have to worry about them becoming the subject of internet predators or becoming viewers of copious amounts of questionable amounts of Internet Porn.
For the most part, you'll find that school IT is really a case of fear of the unknown, which is the case literally everywhere in today's society just as it was throughout the ages. When I was in high school, I had even more restrictive policies, and the IT dept was not really well structured at all. The equipment was in disrepair, and some of the calls they made were just stupid. I used to enjoy booting from a live CD in the lab, because it wasn't subject to the terrible UI restrictions found on the windows domain machines. The most amusing part of this is that instead of forcing all traffic through the proxy by limitting which machines can get out, they just locked the proxy setting into IE, meaning if you could get rid of it, you could go through unfiltered. Naturally, i did it more often than not. On another note, I was not allowed to do any of my programming for APCS on networked computers owned by the school. They seemed to believe that programmers were a threat to the network, so they would not allow the CS lab, composed of a rag-tag bunch of second hand PC's, to access the network. I even offered to help them improve the network. Naturally, that went over so well that they ignored my ever saying it (i don't blame them...nobody likes to see where they made mistakes...especially not idiots like them). All in all, public schools are places where people who barely understand computers enforce rigid restrictions on them with no rhyme or reason beyond avoiding litigation. I'm glad I'm out.
I know that my district was very much anti-programming. All machines were locked down. The only ones I was allowed to program on were the 2nd hand machines they got for the AP CS "lab" (a corner of the A+ certification lab which they got on a grant and never maintained), which they made sure was never allowed on the network because they saw programmers as a "threat to network security". Nevermind the fact that their network was set up such that you could bypass all the filters in place on their proxy server by simply bypassing it and going straight out (yes, they were that stupid). If it looked like I was doing anything in the least "technical", I was forced to stop. Basicly, people were all scared of what they didn't know about, which in the case of somebody who's taught english, science, mathematics, or history for 25 years, its programming in C. They really didn't want to encourage any free thinking either. If you didn't fit within their definition of what was good (proud to be an american, unconditionally trusting your government without questioning or having an opinion on what your leaders are doing, apathetic towards any of the absurd policies the administration tries to opress us with, etc...), you were looked down apon. High School sucked because every time I tried to change things for the better, it always boiled down to excuses to avoid the wrath of 65 year old superintendants and administrators who want to avoid lawsuits by supressing innovation and free thought. High school sucked...
Biggest thing in my school's setup is the repair program in place. Laptops break. Its a fact of life, and doubly so in college. A student may or may not take the best care of it possible, and they may just break in spite of the loving care and attention they get. If they have to go to the manufacturer to get repairs, they're pretty much screwed for 3 or 4 weeks. If you have repair programs on or near campus, they're out of a machine for a week or so, and at that point, they could use a lab (we still have a few labs set up).
This is a tricky little dillema. The students are in the school by the choice of their parents, which until they turn 18, is also their choice. On the one hand, they are voluntarily part of the organization, for better or for worse, so they sort of accepted whats going on, and an organization of consenting individuals should by all means have the right to conduct themselves in a manner that fits within the guidelines of the law. By remaining members of the catholic school community, the students could in essence be making the choice to be bound by the rules set for them by the school. However, that being said, whether or not they are recieving funding from the government, the fact of the matter is that they are chartered and incorporated within the United States of America, and as such, to exist, must abide by the laws of the United States. The fact that this is being introduced at a time after the students paid their tuition (essentially consented to be a member of the community bound by the rules set forth knowingly at the time of payment) though raises an issue. The agreement was changed to curtail their civil liberties in the middle of the term of service (the school year). This means that the students did not agree to it when they originally joined the community at the beginning of the year, and as such, they are not concenting to the new arrangement. Essentially, since this was not clearly stated at the beginning of the school year, they are being forced into having their civil liberties curtailed, which is illegal whether its a federal agent doing it or a new jersey transit train conductor forcing liberals to ride in the vestibule for being liberals (never happened....an extreme example....but it conveys my point). My personal feelings are that with regard to the development of the students into responsible, savy adults, is that making rules to protect people is not half as beneficial as teaching them how to protect themselves. IF you give a man a fish, he eats for a day. If you teach a man to fish he eats for a lifetime.
OOH! It'll be just as successful as the Microsoft Student Ambassador Program (http://www.studentambassador.net/) at a Tech School!!! (i.e. not at all)
Silly crap that shouldn't be... like underscores in front of function names which do the exact same thing. Winsock is different from BSD sockets. Things like that. While its not glareing, its certainly a pain.
./config, make install, and I was done.
.NET 2003. That was also more than half the headache right there.
Also, when compiling libraries for use with my programs...take libjpeg for example...I have to do a lot of configuration and tweaking to compile on windows (or i just find the precompiled libraries somewhere...which is what i ended up doing). On my linux box, it was simply
That is what makes windows in my opinion less pleasant than linux from a programming perspective. Also, keep in mind that my employer required me to do all of this C programming in Visual Studio
I'd choose Linux over Windows for programming any day.
While 95% of the world runs a MS OS, that is purely because Microsoft has the PC industry in a strangle hold in terms of licensing agreements. Half of users could give two shits about whether its windows, mac, or linux. All they care about is what they can get done with it. You can't get much done when your computer is constantly plagued by viruses and spyware....can you?
While it is true that part of why Windows is insecure is because of its being so widely used, UNIX like operating systems are more secure due to their structure, and the fact that their authors and users are constantly looking at the OS under a microscope, picking out the vulnerabilities, and releasing patches. Even if UNIX based OS's were more widely used, there would still be fewer security concerns and fewer flaws. The flaws in windows go way beyond security.
Also, USB plug and play is actually pretty good on Linux. Also, using tools like yum, you can install software and all dependancies with one command.
If I recall, Apple was to market first with their personal computer (Apple II) while Microsoft was was still kissing IBM's feet, selling them an OS they didn't have. I myself still have my Apple IIe.
Also, from a programming perspective, Win32 is a monster. I have to modify perfectly good standards based C code to work on windows, where it will compile with very little modification whatsoever on Linux, and the BSDs, and the MAC. Standards exist for a reason.
Perhaps windows is easy to use, but it still presents way too many problems to be worthy of my respect. This article also puts everything else down waaaay tooo much (its just a tad biased.....like all of us I suppose).
Microsoft is a good business....not a good software maker.
Well, this is true, but lets be honest. How often have you heard of a school actually lowering its tuition. Tuition is astronomical to begin with, and there's no way it would go down if people weren't forced into purchasing these machines. The convenience for the most part lies in user support, in that if need be, the student can bring the machine down to our service center and get any hardware issue taken care of within a day or 2, while getting a loaner in between. Try that with a laptop you bought from BestBuy, or newegg. The RMA alone would take at least a week. This way, you are not without a machine for an extended period of time (which is detrimental to your workload when you are at Stevens...unless you're a Biztech, then you don't matter at all). Lets not forget that this is a tech school. You are right though...it is paid for through tuition, but in proportion to the tuition, the cost of the machine is negligable. Perhaps I misspoke when I said that the machine was "provided" for the students. By the same token, the more tech toys are given, and this goes for any college, the more the tuition will be. The question is really how well is the technology fee used? RIT and Stevens have similar tuitions. We at Stevens have a significantly smaller population than RIT, so given the fact that we have such a small population, and by comparison a smaller amount of funding, we still manage to have a fiber-optic connection, and we still manage to do allot with the small amount of money we recieve from tuition payments. I would say we aren't doing all that bad considering the circumstances. Sure, things could be a bit better, but these things for the most part are technical nitpicks. The main advantage lies in ease of support.
I'm a student at Stevens Institute of Technology, and I work for the Office of Information Technology. We have quite a vast array of services for our students (and when everything is working, which is about 90% of the time, its great...):
;)
- Each student upon entering the school is provided with a laptop computer. These machines are brand new, and on the cutting edge (at least as far as consumer models go). They are configured to last 4 years, and are covered for accidental damage as well as theft for the student's entire undergraduate career. (I have to say that while mine has been a repair nightmare, much like those of students who came before me, it was in large part because of the fact that it is a Compaq...the latest systems, Dell M60's, have lasted fairly well). The software package includes many of the finest freeware and open source products the internet has to offer (Mozilla, eventually Firefox will replace Mozilla in the distribution), as well as Windows.
- Each student is provided with 250mb of space on a file server which can be used for serving up web pages as well as backing up lots of data. Scripting capabilities are disabled except by special request. For the average user, this is enough though.
- Each member of the campus community is provided with 100mb of email quota (IMAP4 email account).
- The campus has a high speed connection (OC3) to the Internet as well as an even higher speed connection to Internet2 and NJ EdgeNET. The network is fairly open, and the policies are fairly simple. If you don't cause trouble, we don't care.
- We have AT LEAST 802.11b wireless coverage over 95% of our campus, and we are currently working on a full rollout of 802.11g campus wide.
- We have WebCT for online course tools, which is a powerful and intuitive system for creating interactive course websites.
- We recently introduced Campus Pipeline. Lovingly referred to as CrackPipe line, or Campus Poopline, it provides total access to all of your information including grades, bills, schedule, etc in a single area. I have to say that this is the only part I am not entirely enthused about. While the idea works in theory, the platform is still bloated and extremely rough around the edges. In introducing Pipeline, we phased out our UNIX Shell service (personally, I am not too happy with that either, but from a systems administration standpoint, it makes sense. Also, the higher-ups were pushing for us to make things easier for the poor little business majors...and themselves).
- Online registration (which has been available since the mid to late 1990's).
- UNIX Shell access is still preserved in the CS department where a lab of netBSD machines is maintained, and remotely accessable. Here, scripting and DB access are provided, as well as 100mb of quota. Any member of the campus community can have an account in the CS Lab. The packages in the lab are meticulously maintained by the systems administrators. They are both secure, and run the latest versions of all compilers necessary for coursework.
The people in both IT and CS are constantly looking for ways to make the campus computing resources more useful to their users. Everyone is very good about providing comprehensive support for all of these systems.
All in all, we have quite an impressive array of computing services. The only thing that I am even the slightest bit disenchanted with is the move away from UNIX Shells in IT, and the fact that the class AFTER me got the good laptops...