Re:The Word Perect call of shame...
on
IT Calls of Shame
·
· Score: 2
At the risk of being "that guy" this is a forwarded email that's been circulating via forward buttons for 10+ years now...who knows if it's true... sounds true...:-)
This seems somehow revisionist history to me. Bush didn't "put anyone in charge" of the FCC: Powell was nominated and had to be voted upon to get into that position. And if you remember the senate was 50/50 (something like that) back then and pretty much every vote for judges and the like was filibustered in the senate. If the the opposing party didn't want Powell he would not have had that job. Also, phone calls are more expensive today than in 1997? Really?
Also, dial-up internet had taken off before 1996. Even in my tiny little town I was using a dial-up in ISP in 1992/93 with "spry mosiac" (windows 3.1!) and...well i forgot the name of the dial up software we had...point is ISPs were taking off and Win95 including a browser (along with netscape's success) brought the idea of the web to the masses and contributed to internet popularity in the 90s. Actually AOL was still around and quite popular in 2000. Took years for them to finally collapse in subscriber numbers. Not any where near "suddenly".
The ISPs, from what evidence I've observed first hand, started going out of business thanks to readily available DSL/Cable/microwave/fiber connections for roughly the same price as dial-up. In rural areas that still don't have DSL as an option dial-up is still in use (there's still a dial-up ISP in my tiny town and I know multiple people still using dialup living "in the sticks").
* Medical coding/transcriptionist. I know this is a very common work-from-home job, though it requires a fair amount of relatively expensive training. It pays roughly as well as a junior level sysadmin job in many areas, I've noticed. You can work from home, usually at odd hours (doctors need their notes transcribed at all hours of the day), with a fair amount of flexibility for things like "the kids need dinner". You'd have to be able to type fairly quickly, know the coding of medications, and things like that. I'm not sure about the costs or time requirements associated with the training, however. Anywhere with a regional hospital nearby is going to need quite a few people to do this (a 100-workstation private practice I'm familiar with had 6+ doing this).
I work for a relatively small hospital in a relatively rural area and we just got through outsourcing/cutting out our transcriptionists: some of them are still working for the hospital but now employed by an off-shore company while the doctors are apparently going to be using "Dragon Medical" speech dictation software. Point is this option's future my have a shelf life.
started bringing a little cart full of snacks and drinks into the theater so everybody could just buy stuff right there instead of going back and forth to the lobby. And it was amazingly popular. Why don't all theaters do stuff like that??
I agree with the JavaScript/HTML approach. I would also point out the some what language similarities between JS and the likes of C++/Java.
I was also going to mention there's a HTML developer-oriented editor already included with office that few actually know is even there, called Microsoft Script Editor. Default located at:
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\MSE7.EXE"
It's actually pretty good even if it does seem to default to VBScript for some reason. It's kind of like Visual basic (drag buttons/elements around then put in the event-based coding). Just has the HTML coding instead. Even create HTAs (does anybody remember HTAs? Doubt it!)
I've been mostly skimming this thread but I don't think anybody has pointed to Amahi: seems like at least software-wise it would cover all the requirements for media storage and add/removal of HDDs. I should mention my favorite forum merely recommends Amahi as a FOSS alternate to WHS but that I have not actually used Amahi.
Also, I thought XFS was supposed to be a good/possibly best file system for large files?
Which version are you having trouble with? Are you sure that you're not just mindlessly repeating a 7 year old meme? Are you also one of the people who switched to Chrome because "Firefox uses too much memory" when simple tests show that Chrome uses more? I know it feels like you're a part of the club when you repeat what you hear from the other club members. But don't confuse groupthink with truth - especially when it comes to the quickly-changing world of tech.
Well there's been a few version changes in firefox since this time but at my last job 6 or so months ago I had to run chrome because the employer-issued laptop simply couldn't run firefox or couldn't anything *besides* firefox... Chrome on the other hand ran perfectly on this pathetic laptop. So chrome is taking up less of something. If not memory than...something else? All I know is on a laptop with very limited resources Chrome ran great and FF ran crap.
Based on the description I don't see why hosting it yourself isn't an option. If you literally have 500 gigs of data get two 1TB drives and build a NAS with the two drives mirrored. For OS you could use either a Linux server with LVM/RAID or a FreeNAS set up with ZFS. You could even virtualize it if you wanted to get fancy (easy to switch physical hardware used if nothing else). Open a port on your router and hand out the IP or setup a DynDNS sort of deal for others to access. You also want a separate USB hard drive to back the data up.
For the amount of money it would take to host all this data the Linux/FreeNAS solution would be much, much cheaper (less than $400US). Also, ridiculously easy to setup an SSH daemon on linux/FrreeBSD.
You sound like you're at some kind of college or university so I assume it wouldn't be too difficult to bribe a local computer scientist with mountain due and pizza to help you out as needed.
Several years ago there was a special pen with a special paper you could buy: take notes with the pen, connect to pc and it had recorded all your key strokes. Seems like the best of both worlds. No idea if that product/idea is still around.
I've never been in exactly your position of having a stable job but being completely apathetic about it but I go through something similar with things that interest me. To get the enthusiasm back I'd say look for a problem some one is having and program up a "wow" solution for them.
Everybody has an example of this I think: your mechanic is still shuffling paper and unnecessarily faxing things between offices...build a web-based database to replace it...maybe a parent is having the same constant issue with their computer...figure out some simple interface alternative that will minimize that issue.
In other words find a sense of satisfaction/accomplishment that will be give you some sort of semi-immediate "wow that's great" response outside of work...just may help bring you out of funk and re-kindle your love of programming. Also, if you don't exercise start exercising. I know that helps me quite bit.
Yes, when you open a file panel or a network browser under Windows, you are using IE. The desktop is IE. The control panel is IE. Friggin' everything is IE! Even if you install another browser, you CANNOT tell those components to use it. So, yes, if you use Windows, you MUST use IE. You have no choice. And must you use Windows? Well, yes. Many web applications aren't written to international standards, they're written to Microsoft-proprietary functionality within IE. This WILL worsen, with this news about IE and Windows 8, just as it worsened considerably after Microsoft violated the Windows 95 injunction by releasing the bundled IE as Windows 98.
I guess you aren't aware but this is all true of Vista and 7. And yet other browsers and OSes exist some how. Just because the Control Panel window is an IE-based window doesn't mean you have to use it to check your email. It's just a window rendered with a web browser. Not that big a deal.
The competition is hurting something chronic. IE has rising usage figures. Firefox is starting to slide. Opera is sliding badly. Chrome may run foul of the Apple vs Google battle-to-the-death. (And one of them WILL die in it, if they don't back off.) Linux has never been fairly or reasonably offered as a desktop choice by anyone other than the OLPC group - and even they are now getting into bed with Microsoft.
Firefox is sliding because of project management (as far as I can tell). Opera has had fairly consistent market share for 10+ years, admirable on some level. I don't think that has anything to do with MS either. The reason I have never gotten into it is the whole built in web server thing. That seems like a really, really bad idea some how. Neither of these things have anything to do with MS. Chrome seems to be doing fine and still improving, I don't see any reason to worry about it. For that matter Safari still comes bundled with all those iTunes installs.
Point is IE doesn't seem that much of a threat to existing browsing technology, it will lose or gain market share based on quality as much as anything.
This isn't a socialist pay model: it's not mandated. There's choice. I can opt-in to channels I want like AMC and comedy central, opt-out of golf channel and all spanish-speaking channels. Or choose not to have cable at all. There's always Hulu/Netflix.
By contrast in socialist medicine for instance EVERYONE is mandated to buy health care...or the more politically correct phrasing "compulsory health insurance",... thus subsidizing everyone else. No choices involved. In conclusion I don't really see the similarities.
Blackberry was a single manufacturer outselling all others combined for years on end so I don't really buy this logic. If Android wasn't appealing in some way it wouldn't matter how many manufactures and variations there were, iPhone would still outsell them all combined.
I believe it's a combination of things including variations in prices and form factors as well as the general appeal of the OS itself over iOS. Personally I'm too cheap to buy a turn-by-turn gps device so the free one in the phone effectively keeps me on Android. That and I hate iTunes with a passion (among other reasons).
I guess this isn't a very popular suggestion. And you seemed to imply you wanted a local archive for your data, something you do yourself.
I would just a large iSCSI NAS. 2TB Drives are really cheap these days. FreeNAS even lets you flag a drive as a hotspare so you don't have to as much about failures.
Then back this NAS up to at least two online storage services. Make sure they're not both the same thing on the back end (like amazon's S3). Actually Carbonite personal can't distinguish iSCSI from a local drive and is unlimited storage for personal use. I'm sure that violates some terms some where but technically it's possible. Pick another high capacity online service for redundancy.
Also, encrypt the data locally *before* it's uploaded (it's just a good idea).
You didn't say how much total data you have to archive or how fast if at all it is growing nor how often you would need to access it. I have seen amateurs making 40TB storage servers from component parts. Honestly I can't think of a reason to go with anything other large capacity drives. I assume 2TB drives don't have any where to go but down in price.
Well being in Canada of course you don't need to COOL your house. Trying living some place that gets to 100 degrees F and stays like that for three months straight. Then tell me "open a window".
Well I'm only the "swing" shift so maybe this doesn't apply to me (from 2pm to 11pm). I get home around 11:30pm. I have trained myself over the last year to be able to shower and go straight to bed when I get home (asleep by midnight). No TV or computer games. That way I have the next day to take a walk in the sun and go grocery shopping.
I also haven't bothered with any kind of cable TV. No point in that really. I mean if I had a PVR of some kind then I could what? Spend several hours every day when i wake up watching last night's TV? No thanks. In fact even things I could following on Hulu I've instead found other stuff to do instead. If I really want to watching something it's on Netflix like ST:TNG.
I try to have a semi-normal time breakfast and lunch and dinner at work around 7pm. Just can't do anything with friends and family at normal times like between 5pm and 10pm. No WoW raids (not necessarily a bad thing) and no dinner visits with family (would be nice sometimes).
I am actually really tired and generally lacking in energy but then I was like that when I had normal hours. At least going to bed at midnight I have the option of staying in bed until noon if I really feel like it...
Where I live there's seniors who get on the freeway at 40MPH or come to near complete stops on freeway on ramps waiting for an opening (or trying to kill me I'm not sure which)...so no, people don't learn.
Slashdot Mirror
At the risk of being "that guy" this is a forwarded email that's been circulating via forward buttons for 10+ years now...who knows if it's true... sounds true... :-)
This seems somehow revisionist history to me. Bush didn't "put anyone in charge" of the FCC: Powell was nominated and had to be voted upon to get into that position. And if you remember the senate was 50/50 (something like that) back then and pretty much every vote for judges and the like was filibustered in the senate. If the the opposing party didn't want Powell he would not have had that job. Also, phone calls are more expensive today than in 1997? Really?
Also, dial-up internet had taken off before 1996. Even in my tiny little town I was using a dial-up in ISP in 1992/93 with "spry mosiac" (windows 3.1!) and...well i forgot the name of the dial up software we had...point is ISPs were taking off and Win95 including a browser (along with netscape's success) brought the idea of the web to the masses and contributed to internet popularity in the 90s. Actually AOL was still around and quite popular in 2000. Took years for them to finally collapse in subscriber numbers. Not any where near "suddenly".
The ISPs, from what evidence I've observed first hand, started going out of business thanks to readily available DSL/Cable/microwave/fiber connections for roughly the same price as dial-up. In rural areas that still don't have DSL as an option dial-up is still in use (there's still a dial-up ISP in my tiny town and I know multiple people still using dialup living "in the sticks").
* Medical coding/transcriptionist. I know this is a very common work-from-home job, though it requires a fair amount of relatively expensive training. It pays roughly as well as a junior level sysadmin job in many areas, I've noticed. You can work from home, usually at odd hours (doctors need their notes transcribed at all hours of the day), with a fair amount of flexibility for things like "the kids need dinner". You'd have to be able to type fairly quickly, know the coding of medications, and things like that. I'm not sure about the costs or time requirements associated with the training, however. Anywhere with a regional hospital nearby is going to need quite a few people to do this (a 100-workstation private practice I'm familiar with had 6+ doing this).
I work for a relatively small hospital in a relatively rural area and we just got through outsourcing/cutting out our transcriptionists: some of them are still working for the hospital but now employed by an off-shore company while the doctors are apparently going to be using "Dragon Medical" speech dictation software. Point is this option's future my have a shelf life.
started bringing a little cart full of snacks and drinks into the theater so everybody could just buy stuff right there instead of going back and forth to the lobby. And it was amazingly popular. Why don't all theaters do stuff like that??
I agree with the JavaScript/HTML approach. I would also point out the some what language similarities between JS and the likes of C++/Java.
I was also going to mention there's a HTML developer-oriented editor already included with office that few actually know is even there, called Microsoft Script Editor. Default located at:
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\MSE7.EXE"
It's actually pretty good even if it does seem to default to VBScript for some reason. It's kind of like Visual basic (drag buttons/elements around then put in the event-based coding). Just has the HTML coding instead. Even create HTAs (does anybody remember HTAs? Doubt it!)
I've been mostly skimming this thread but I don't think anybody has pointed to Amahi: seems like at least software-wise it would cover all the requirements for media storage and add/removal of HDDs. I should mention my favorite forum merely recommends Amahi as a FOSS alternate to WHS but that I have not actually used Amahi.
Also, I thought XFS was supposed to be a good/possibly best file system for large files?
I don't know, I mean this looks pretty easy...
Damned FrontPage
Which version are you having trouble with? Are you sure that you're not just mindlessly repeating a 7 year old meme? Are you also one of the people who switched to Chrome because "Firefox uses too much memory" when simple tests show that Chrome uses more? I know it feels like you're a part of the club when you repeat what you hear from the other club members. But don't confuse groupthink with truth - especially when it comes to the quickly-changing world of tech.
Well there's been a few version changes in firefox since this time but at my last job 6 or so months ago I had to run chrome because the employer-issued laptop simply couldn't run firefox or couldn't anything *besides* firefox... Chrome on the other hand ran perfectly on this pathetic laptop. So chrome is taking up less of something. If not memory than...something else? All I know is on a laptop with very limited resources Chrome ran great and FF ran crap.
Based on the description I don't see why hosting it yourself isn't an option. If you literally have 500 gigs of data get two 1TB drives and build a NAS with the two drives mirrored. For OS you could use either a Linux server with LVM/RAID or a FreeNAS set up with ZFS. You could even virtualize it if you wanted to get fancy (easy to switch physical hardware used if nothing else). Open a port on your router and hand out the IP or setup a DynDNS sort of deal for others to access. You also want a separate USB hard drive to back the data up.
For the amount of money it would take to host all this data the Linux/FreeNAS solution would be much, much cheaper (less than $400US). Also, ridiculously easy to setup an SSH daemon on linux/FrreeBSD.
You sound like you're at some kind of college or university so I assume it wouldn't be too difficult to bribe a local computer scientist with mountain due and pizza to help you out as needed.
You winfiles.com I assume...? Why do I still remember that site??
Several years ago there was a special pen with a special paper you could buy: take notes with the pen, connect to pc and it had recorded all your key strokes. Seems like the best of both worlds. No idea if that product/idea is still around.
Looks like similar has already been linked but I bought this one a year or two ago:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128452
I've never been in exactly your position of having a stable job but being completely apathetic about it but I go through something similar with things that interest me. To get the enthusiasm back I'd say look for a problem some one is having and program up a "wow" solution for them.
Everybody has an example of this I think: your mechanic is still shuffling paper and unnecessarily faxing things between offices...build a web-based database to replace it...maybe a parent is having the same constant issue with their computer...figure out some simple interface alternative that will minimize that issue.
In other words find a sense of satisfaction/accomplishment that will be give you some sort of semi-immediate "wow that's great" response outside of work...just may help bring you out of funk and re-kindle your love of programming. Also, if you don't exercise start exercising. I know that helps me quite bit.
Yes, when you open a file panel or a network browser under Windows, you are using IE. The desktop is IE. The control panel is IE. Friggin' everything is IE! Even if you install another browser, you CANNOT tell those components to use it. So, yes, if you use Windows, you MUST use IE. You have no choice. And must you use Windows? Well, yes. Many web applications aren't written to international standards, they're written to Microsoft-proprietary functionality within IE. This WILL worsen, with this news about IE and Windows 8, just as it worsened considerably after Microsoft violated the Windows 95 injunction by releasing the bundled IE as Windows 98.
I guess you aren't aware but this is all true of Vista and 7. And yet other browsers and OSes exist some how. Just because the Control Panel window is an IE-based window doesn't mean you have to use it to check your email. It's just a window rendered with a web browser. Not that big a deal.
The competition is hurting something chronic. IE has rising usage figures. Firefox is starting to slide. Opera is sliding badly. Chrome may run foul of the Apple vs Google battle-to-the-death. (And one of them WILL die in it, if they don't back off.) Linux has never been fairly or reasonably offered as a desktop choice by anyone other than the OLPC group - and even they are now getting into bed with Microsoft.
Firefox is sliding because of project management (as far as I can tell). Opera has had fairly consistent market share for 10+ years, admirable on some level. I don't think that has anything to do with MS either. The reason I have never gotten into it is the whole built in web server thing. That seems like a really, really bad idea some how. Neither of these things have anything to do with MS. Chrome seems to be doing fine and still improving, I don't see any reason to worry about it. For that matter Safari still comes bundled with all those iTunes installs.
Point is IE doesn't seem that much of a threat to existing browsing technology, it will lose or gain market share based on quality as much as anything.
This isn't a socialist pay model: it's not mandated. There's choice. I can opt-in to channels I want like AMC and comedy central, opt-out of golf channel and all spanish-speaking channels. Or choose not to have cable at all. There's always Hulu/Netflix.
By contrast in socialist medicine for instance EVERYONE is mandated to buy health care...or the more politically correct phrasing "compulsory health insurance", ... thus subsidizing everyone else. No choices involved. In conclusion I don't really see the similarities.
Blackberry was a single manufacturer outselling all others combined for years on end so I don't really buy this logic. If Android wasn't appealing in some way it wouldn't matter how many manufactures and variations there were, iPhone would still outsell them all combined.
I believe it's a combination of things including variations in prices and form factors as well as the general appeal of the OS itself over iOS. Personally I'm too cheap to buy a turn-by-turn gps device so the free one in the phone effectively keeps me on Android. That and I hate iTunes with a passion (among other reasons).
Good thing I've got you.
I guess this isn't a very popular suggestion. And you seemed to imply you wanted a local archive for your data, something you do yourself.
I would just a large iSCSI NAS. 2TB Drives are really cheap these days. FreeNAS even lets you flag a drive as a hotspare so you don't have to as much about failures.
Then back this NAS up to at least two online storage services. Make sure they're not both the same thing on the back end (like amazon's S3). Actually Carbonite personal can't distinguish iSCSI from a local drive and is unlimited storage for personal use. I'm sure that violates some terms some where but technically it's possible. Pick another high capacity online service for redundancy.
Also, encrypt the data locally *before* it's uploaded (it's just a good idea).
You didn't say how much total data you have to archive or how fast if at all it is growing nor how often you would need to access it. I have seen amateurs making 40TB storage servers from component parts. Honestly I can't think of a reason to go with anything other large capacity drives. I assume 2TB drives don't have any where to go but down in price.
Finally Qt on consoles. Doesn't which one though *scratches head*
Well being in Canada of course you don't need to COOL your house. Trying living some place that gets to 100 degrees F and stays like that for three months straight. Then tell me "open a window".
Well I'm only the "swing" shift so maybe this doesn't apply to me (from 2pm to 11pm). I get home around 11:30pm. I have trained myself over the last year to be able to shower and go straight to bed when I get home (asleep by midnight). No TV or computer games. That way I have the next day to take a walk in the sun and go grocery shopping. I also haven't bothered with any kind of cable TV. No point in that really. I mean if I had a PVR of some kind then I could what? Spend several hours every day when i wake up watching last night's TV? No thanks. In fact even things I could following on Hulu I've instead found other stuff to do instead. If I really want to watching something it's on Netflix like ST:TNG. I try to have a semi-normal time breakfast and lunch and dinner at work around 7pm. Just can't do anything with friends and family at normal times like between 5pm and 10pm. No WoW raids (not necessarily a bad thing) and no dinner visits with family (would be nice sometimes). I am actually really tired and generally lacking in energy but then I was like that when I had normal hours. At least going to bed at midnight I have the option of staying in bed until noon if I really feel like it...
Didn't EA and Bioware merge...ahh damn it
My niece is turning four soon, anybody think that is too young for this? She does love play dough.
Um, people can learn....right?
Where I live there's seniors who get on the freeway at 40MPH or come to near complete stops on freeway on ramps waiting for an opening (or trying to kill me I'm not sure which)...so no, people don't learn.