I still think that no matter how robust and capable an exoskeleton is, the things that's INSIDE will still only be so capable of resisting certain forces.
Sure the suit might survive a free fall - sorry, POWERED ballistic trajectory - but the person inside hitting the sides of that suit will still turn to something akin to liquid.
Then again maybe the suit does serve a purpose.
It keeps your floors clean of that sticky human mess. The suit can then get itself to a morgue all on its own.
Hey - one way to look at this is that Apple is trying to insinuate that it's getting successful enough to start scrimping on hardware. Why?
OEM licensing.
Let's hope. I've always loved Apple hardware. I will buy a Mac Pro the day I can afford it. However for the MacOS to truly develop, ONE day they must bring the mantra of quality hardware to the OEM market. Not like the Power Computing days Steve had to kill dead when he returned to Apple. Apple will hopefully have MacOS X Server running on OEM hardware - starting with premium manufacturers. From there perhaps we see OS X support crappy and top-of-the line hardware. You choose your rig.
I know ITIL may be a bit big of a standards process to map to a small business, but the processes are meant to be implemented "a la carte."
That might be one of your better starting points as the ITIL library can be parsed to focus on those processes you need now, and how best to document them for future use. WHERE you put these docs and how is not important. Once you know which pieces make sense for you now you have a framework of operations to consider and flesh out into real company processes and policies - the hardware, software, business services and how you managed them.
It's an open standard and there are lots of certifications available so it'd be a good sell to management if you're needing a whiz-bang name to throw out. It's not out-of-the box however so you may need to take course (wasn't that predicable?) on the art of implementation to learn to work out how best to apply it all to your real-world scenario.
I work in a very large IT organization undergoing an IT Governance shift based partly around ITIL standards and partly around custom models. To date the best money has been spent on ITIL related training as it helps disparate units within a fragmented organization to thing in parallel so at the very least the parts come together having similar processes oriented in the same fashion (level 1 support and how to get it vs level 3 desk-side support and how that comes into play). If it all works out for the best, to use a time-worn analogy, we'll all speak the same language in business service terms rather than having unique business cultures with no real way to translate it all when we merge together. As you grow larger you might see fragmentation of methods and skills across parts of your business that no longer talk to each other daily.
While a small business won't build the same organization, if anything it will merely have multiple functions assigned to single people rather than single roles for a single person. You have to figure it all out. However don't focus on the physical tools so much - think how the IT services will service the business going forward. You'd be surprised how different the future looks when you focus on the processes rather than the technology you're integrating.
jb
What if your backup doesn't span more than one DVD
on
Backing Up Your Brain
·
· Score: 1
Does that mean you were less fulfilled than someone who got a few volumes out of theirs?
Can you do incremental backups over time or is each backup slightly larger than the previous one?
If I'm using a memory during the backup do I get a "memory-in-use" failure?
What If i fail to remember something one time but remember it another time? How do I reconcile that?
I was stoked to find that iTunes, at some version date, started correctly placing the band name "The Cure" BEFORE Devo in the sorting order. That way some tracks I have named "Cure" and The Cure all remain clustered.
Stupid studies like this are what truly help make the world more productive.
If she needs Paypal donations to fund her next study sign me up. Maybe she can turn her sights on the Slashdot "dupe" phenomenon.
Training is VERY important - critical for large outfits. You will find it interesting to note that as with all bell curves there are left of centre knowledge non-leaders who need that training just to keep functioning. If a large enterprise requires documented training or must contract that out, then that becomes part of any RFQ/RFP for the product itself - in this case it's the desktop office worker software. The support arrangements are unavoidable, and if in the end the line items for "user training costs" on the RFQ documents for OpenOffice don't match up, or offset any of the same on the side of MS Office, well then as with any raw calculation the final sum tilts towards MS Office.
Entrenchment is pretty key here.
If the makers of Star and Open Office move to create world class training materials in several languages then you might make the choice easier for large corporations...especially when the advisory committee (which is usually not all IT) comes looking and says "woohoo - free training that doesn't suck!!".
Until you know that detail then you will always be as confused as you seem.
>>FWIW, I'm not 100% convinced about man's effect on climate change
Are you convinced of the bahaviour of electrons in a semiconductor? They theories behind all of that stuff is even weirder but you're not ditching your computer...
At this point I've given up on asking for some change...I'm thinking it's better to find a nice place away from all the morons if all hell breaks loose - as it will in stages, depending on where the problems exist.
>>and if nothing else, China's future suphur dioxide emissions from burning coal are going to cause environmental problems well beyond their borders.
Let me argue meanly for second: You might have a neighbour who molests children...are you saying that you're missing out on that too?
We've all recognized that wasted energy is likely a bad thing. However there is a lot of money to be made by energy interests by WASTING energy. Ergo the argument that China is getting ahead by wasting energy, which it is. China and India argue that we went through that phase a hundred years ago. They're right. Why are we suddenly seeing the light after being gluttons when we're already post-industrial anyway? I'm sure you fee so left out of the game when you could live here:
Becoming post-industrial wastrels means co-operation because lots of corporations are leaving easy money on the table by NOT encouraging us to burn through all the energy man has at hand. It will run out. And in the meantime China and India will become so goddamn polluted that most of us won't want to go there. The quality fo life will drop precipitously in some areas and there will be riots...maybe even a civil war. The climate changes on top of that will merely add insult to injury.
And you want to bail on a great idea just because our neighbors want to keep up with the old patterns...which they have no choice in avoiding right now since most of them still wash the fricking clothes in RIVERS.
Do some reading to understand WHY China and India have been given some leeway in avoiding the carbon emissions targets that are touted here so widely. It's because we've arrived, they are barely on their way. If you read any history you'll notice that many wars have begin over simple issue of trade and commerce...remember the Boxer rebellion? The idea is that we can afford the cuts now and in the end we end up being the holders of every goddamn patent and innovation in energy effiency. God forbid after all of our investments in this area that we stumble onto a solar cell that works so efficiently that we can cover all our sunny-day power needs with no coal-powered plants.
No way I want that;)
P.S. Have a little vision...there are good things to come if we try.
>At this point, IT is vital, vital to any $10M/year or higher in revenues
Very good point...perhaps this is why a Business-Centric refocus of IT resources is occurring worldwide. ITIL, ISO, and many other standards are part of the effort to ensure that IT is PART of the decision making process. I bet that TJXs IT department, if it did NOT have a seat in the boardroom, does now.
IT, like plumbing, has always been a service component, and regarded as important. Sure you need electricity to run a company, but are there any electrical engineers in the executive in say, Mattel Inc.? If your business people don't speak your language then no wonder you might get ignored. that mysterious tech-speak is either far above their heads or far below it. If you ignorant of the issues it makes no difference which direction. You're uninformed either way.
Give it a few years and you'll see more effective business-minded IT professionals up top...and they will fall on their swords for such goof ups.
> Not that I ever did previously, but I would never shop there.
Almost every piece of clothing I currently have has been purchased through Winners at some point (in Canada - a subsidiary of TJX). I am pretty much on the brink of never shopping there again either. I haven't purchased anything from them since news of this broke. And I always use credit with them - ouch.
I've never given out my postal (zip for you guys) code whenever they asked after a purchase. That makes the existing breach so much more damning. Given that it's very improper for any retailer to KEEP your card number after the transaction (Canadian law generally forbids it), now that I know their internal practices I'm readying my attempts to go back to cash only purchases for everything.
The gist for any security conscious consumer should be that credit or card based transactions are now used to track you ad infinitum. If it isn't for marketing reasons, it could be used for national security purposes...that means a VERY long list of your financial activities. Since major companies are all trying to keep such data, any one could be vulnerable to any attack of this nature, and you're back to fixing your credit history again and again.
Go back to cash while you can. in hindsight it is starting to make those Starbucks (or insert your favourite store here) cash cards seem like a better deal when you used cash to fill them up to begin with.
I converted my whole house, except for the dimmer switch controlled lights three years ago when we first moved in. No issues here. You need to shop around. Some lights are definitely not nice to look at (some Phillips), but others are pleasantly good (IKEA - who knew).
Ontario is looking to ban incandescent bulbs - dumb idea, but critical mass is the best way to go.
I grew up during the ParticipAction years (in Canada) and my whole school was very active. Very few of those kids were anywhere near obese.
Flash forward to my competitive years (I was an amateur athlete for 10 years and a pro for four). As I waned into my career years (post athletics) my caloric consumption went from 3000-4000 per day at the highest to about 2000-3000 and of course I gained 50% more weight. I'm still roughly 190-200 lbs at just under 6 feet but hey - I can dream of the olden days;)
Consumption really does make the difference. However the empty sugar-laden calories that are starting to make up most people's diets are largely efforts by agribusiness to find a place to dump the excess sugar and fat products produced on the open market. Agricultural subsidies may have much to do with that. Success in marketing calorie-rich but nutrition poor foods make up another component of the problem. they all point to general weight gain despite overall intake.
I would not wait for the other shoe to drop in the cessation of this study. The obvious conclusion is that the food is much to blame - what else would it be if the science is solid? However many, many people in busines, government and the public service will have to fall on their swords in order for that conclusion to be decisively and openly written.
>iTunes worked so well that I decided to go for an iPod and >it was (and still is) hands down the best MP3 player I've every owned.
I was using MusicMatch Jukebox on the PC at the time and I had the same epiphany - I can use iTunes on BOTH platforms!
iTunes used to be a great little program called SoundJam MP, so Apple sometimes buys their technologies too;)
What they are always great at is creating a portfolio of companies with great products to augment their own product stream. I work both ends of the "desktop" spectrum - PC by day, Mac at night. I always come back to the Mac for efficiency reasons.
I find that interesting...I've got three Maxtors and a Seagate in my PowerMac G4 (mirrored drive bay 1ghz) since 2002.
None have given me issues and run much of the time (60%). The machine goes to sleep at night now, and stays above 15C (it's -20-30 these days here).
I've not yet had one drive failure. No SMART errors etc.
My co-workers in platform services (the server guys) have said across the board that windows machines are far harder on their hard drives than the UNIX machines. That woul dbe nice to suss out of the Google data - but we already know what their preference is;)
I was a geek and victimized in school - both Grade and High Schools. I did model trains, planes (!), boats, cars, guns, computers (when i had them)...you name it.
I invested more time in my hobbies than I did my social networks. Ergo I was sometimes an outcast.
I was also a national record holder in several long distance events, and won several national junior, senior and NCAA titles in my events. It's amazing how hypocritical people can be when it comes to treating you poorly, and then treating you as a star if you're valued as one. I think my point sticks then. Popularity is superficiality. I've gone from being beat up in the halls to being untouchable within two weeks in high school when I won my first Provincial title and was all over the news. How is that for a brain-teaser?
People in general _can_ be jerks, that doesn't let you off the hook. Find better friends, or move away. I lived in three ends of this continent and every one had it's pluses and minuses. I worked for some world class assholes too. You can't make your life a reaction to the jerks in your life.
I know some real IT jerks. I know some real non-IT jerks. Just because someone had a rough life doesn't make it incumbent on them to spread the disease. And YES - there are idiots in IT. I have way too many examples I can't reprint. If you're that unconvinced email me. Don't be a drone and wish it away just because you might have the moral high ground.
I don't understand where anyone got the idea that it was okay to be an ass to any client - even those who can't comprehend the work you do.
Try imagining that scenario between a Doctor and a patient. Does it feel any better? No. It creates confusion and mistrust.
Our jobs depend on us being able to make one part of the system work within a larger unit called "the business" If the client/userbase finds an IT resource that acts nicely and says please and thank-you, then you might one day kiss your job good-bye because at some point it will _seem_ like that person does a better job, even if they actually don't.
I treat my people with the respect they deserve. I don't always understand their jobs, and they sometimes wonder aloud what a genius I am. I just make an analogy comparing our two professions and point out the similarities. I find myself discovering just how much talent is required for what may seem like paper-pushing jobs. I just do something that requires a specific skill. When they see that it makes them much confortable with IT issues and how to handle them. Dumb requests are just as hard to stomach by everyone.
The IT undustry (management) is all over the new "concept" of IT being part of the "business". That may seem like a semantic shift to some, but it marks a specific change in how IT is looked at. It is now being pulled back in to the business, and requires that IT staff often know how their work impacts the users and vice versa. Just like any business component should. If you're still treating your users as sheep when that happens just because they can't understadn your work, you'll just look like the breat big asshole you likely are.
There are just as many idiots within IT as without it.
The phone integrates with iTunes. Most other smart phone providers allow you _buy_ third party apps via their download services. These are usually digitally signed to prevent Trojans, malware and the like.
Since the integrity of the phone and IP networks will depend on secure access to such services, I will bet you all that iTunes will SELL the third party apps, or Apple will provide them if they happen to develop all of the good ideas (which no-one believes can happen).
I expect iTunes to host all those apps in the future and they will be thoroughly tested and vetted by Apple labs as part of the distribution deal.
Ergo if a problem or exploit turns up...next time you sync, iTunes will alert you of an important update.
Voila. There's your download mechnism in a nutshell.
Now when do we expext iTunes to get a rename to something more general...like iLife store or something similar. "Tunes" isn't a word that properly describes movies and podcasts as it is. Add the phone in there and WTH??
Slashdot Mirror
if it was a vision should you not have jabbed out your visual cortex instead?
I see lots of investments being buried these days. What would I hallucinate about then?
Sure the suit might survive a free fall - sorry, POWERED ballistic trajectory - but the person inside hitting the sides of that suit will still turn to something akin to liquid.
Then again maybe the suit does serve a purpose.
It keeps your floors clean of that sticky human mess. The suit can then get itself to a morgue all on its own.
I knew it's have a purpose!
JB
Hey - one way to look at this is that Apple is trying to insinuate that it's getting successful enough to start scrimping on hardware. Why?
OEM licensing.
Let's hope. I've always loved Apple hardware. I will buy a Mac Pro the day I can afford it. However for the MacOS to truly develop, ONE day they must bring the mantra of quality hardware to the OEM market. Not like the Power Computing days Steve had to kill dead when he returned to Apple. Apple will hopefully have MacOS X Server running on OEM hardware - starting with premium manufacturers. From there perhaps we see OS X support crappy and top-of-the line hardware. You choose your rig.
Barring that my pipe dream sounds nice anyway.
JB
I know ITIL may be a bit big of a standards process to map to a small business, but the processes are meant to be implemented "a la carte." That might be one of your better starting points as the ITIL library can be parsed to focus on those processes you need now, and how best to document them for future use. WHERE you put these docs and how is not important. Once you know which pieces make sense for you now you have a framework of operations to consider and flesh out into real company processes and policies - the hardware, software, business services and how you managed them. It's an open standard and there are lots of certifications available so it'd be a good sell to management if you're needing a whiz-bang name to throw out. It's not out-of-the box however so you may need to take course (wasn't that predicable?) on the art of implementation to learn to work out how best to apply it all to your real-world scenario. I work in a very large IT organization undergoing an IT Governance shift based partly around ITIL standards and partly around custom models. To date the best money has been spent on ITIL related training as it helps disparate units within a fragmented organization to thing in parallel so at the very least the parts come together having similar processes oriented in the same fashion (level 1 support and how to get it vs level 3 desk-side support and how that comes into play). If it all works out for the best, to use a time-worn analogy, we'll all speak the same language in business service terms rather than having unique business cultures with no real way to translate it all when we merge together. As you grow larger you might see fragmentation of methods and skills across parts of your business that no longer talk to each other daily. While a small business won't build the same organization, if anything it will merely have multiple functions assigned to single people rather than single roles for a single person. You have to figure it all out. However don't focus on the physical tools so much - think how the IT services will service the business going forward. You'd be surprised how different the future looks when you focus on the processes rather than the technology you're integrating. jb
Does that mean you were less fulfilled than someone who got a few volumes out of theirs?
Can you do incremental backups over time or is each backup slightly larger than the previous one?
If I'm using a memory during the backup do I get a "memory-in-use" failure?
What If i fail to remember something one time but remember it another time? How do I reconcile that?
Can I screw with other people's backups?
The questions only multiply...
JB
I didn't know Ron Jeremy was into research?
I guess he would be indexed under Thing, The?
JB
Jesus - no f'ing kidding.
I was stoked to find that iTunes, at some version date, started correctly placing the band name "The Cure" BEFORE Devo in the sorting order. That way some tracks I have named "Cure" and The Cure all remain clustered.
Stupid studies like this are what truly help make the world more productive.
If she needs Paypal donations to fund her next study sign me up. Maybe she can turn her sights on the Slashdot "dupe" phenomenon.
JB
Ummmm...no that was me. Sorry
I will shut down my 500 Ubuntu test VMs right now.
*delete*
Hardware encryption. Nuff said.
These "little" details are very informative and important to point out.
Oh boy - welcome to the corporate IT flame war!
Training is VERY important - critical for large outfits. You will find it interesting to note that as with all bell curves there are left of centre knowledge non-leaders who need that training just to keep functioning. If a large enterprise requires documented training or must contract that out, then that becomes part of any RFQ/RFP for the product itself - in this case it's the desktop office worker software. The support arrangements are unavoidable, and if in the end the line items for "user training costs" on the RFQ documents for OpenOffice don't match up, or offset any of the same on the side of MS Office, well then as with any raw calculation the final sum tilts towards MS Office.
Entrenchment is pretty key here.
If the makers of Star and Open Office move to create world class training materials in several languages then you might make the choice easier for large corporations...especially when the advisory committee (which is usually not all IT) comes looking and says "woohoo - free training that doesn't suck!!".
Until you know that detail then you will always be as confused as you seem.
JB
Really?
i mages/China_Pollution.jpg].
;)
>>FWIW, I'm not 100% convinced about man's effect on climate change
Are you convinced of the bahaviour of electrons in a semiconductor? They theories behind all of that stuff is even weirder but you're not ditching your computer...
At this point I've given up on asking for some change...I'm thinking it's better to find a nice place away from all the morons if all hell breaks loose - as it will in stages, depending on where the problems exist.
>>and if nothing else, China's future suphur dioxide emissions from burning coal are going to cause environmental problems well beyond their borders.
Let me argue meanly for second: You might have a neighbour who molests children...are you saying that you're missing out on that too?
We've all recognized that wasted energy is likely a bad thing. However there is a lot of money to be made by energy interests by WASTING energy. Ergo the argument that China is getting ahead by wasting energy, which it is. China and India argue that we went through that phase a hundred years ago. They're right. Why are we suddenly seeing the light after being gluttons when we're already post-industrial anyway? I'm sure you fee so left out of the game when you could live here:
[http://seekingalpha.com/wp-content/seekingalpha/
Becoming post-industrial wastrels means co-operation because lots of corporations are leaving easy money on the table by NOT encouraging us to burn through all the energy man has at hand. It will run out. And in the meantime China and India will become so goddamn polluted that most of us won't want to go there. The quality fo life will drop precipitously in some areas and there will be riots...maybe even a civil war. The climate changes on top of that will merely add insult to injury.
And you want to bail on a great idea just because our neighbors want to keep up with the old patterns...which they have no choice in avoiding right now since most of them still wash the fricking clothes in RIVERS.
Do some reading to understand WHY China and India have been given some leeway in avoiding the carbon emissions targets that are touted here so widely. It's because we've arrived, they are barely on their way. If you read any history you'll notice that many wars have begin over simple issue of trade and commerce...remember the Boxer rebellion? The idea is that we can afford the cuts now and in the end we end up being the holders of every goddamn patent and innovation in energy effiency. God forbid after all of our investments in this area that we stumble onto a solar cell that works so efficiently that we can cover all our sunny-day power needs with no coal-powered plants.
No way I want that
P.S. Have a little vision...there are good things to come if we try.
JB
You shoudl go sell that knowledge to heckers from Russia for 800.00 nd recoup your losses. Make them sign an NDA and use a pseudonym.
If they choose to look a gift-horse in the mouth then fie on them.
You should have tried the emails of the president. That would have been useful.
JB
>At this point, IT is vital, vital to any $10M/year or higher in revenues
Very good point...perhaps this is why a Business-Centric refocus of IT resources is occurring worldwide. ITIL, ISO, and many other standards are part of the effort to ensure that IT is PART of the decision making process. I bet that TJXs IT department, if it did NOT have a seat in the boardroom, does now.
IT, like plumbing, has always been a service component, and regarded as important. Sure you need electricity to run a company, but are there any electrical engineers in the executive in say, Mattel Inc.? If your business people don't speak your language then no wonder you might get ignored. that mysterious tech-speak is either far above their heads or far below it. If you ignorant of the issues it makes no difference which direction. You're uninformed either way.
Give it a few years and you'll see more effective business-minded IT professionals up top...and they will fall on their swords for such goof ups.
JB
> Not that I ever did previously, but I would never shop there.
Almost every piece of clothing I currently have has been purchased through Winners at some point (in Canada - a subsidiary of TJX). I am pretty much on the brink of never shopping there again either. I haven't purchased anything from them since news of this broke. And I always use credit with them - ouch.
I've never given out my postal (zip for you guys) code whenever they asked after a purchase. That makes the existing breach so much more damning. Given that it's very improper for any retailer to KEEP your card number after the transaction (Canadian law generally forbids it), now that I know their internal practices I'm readying my attempts to go back to cash only purchases for everything.
The gist for any security conscious consumer should be that credit or card based transactions are now used to track you ad infinitum. If it isn't for marketing reasons, it could be used for national security purposes...that means a VERY long list of your financial activities. Since major companies are all trying to keep such data, any one could be vulnerable to any attack of this nature, and you're back to fixing your credit history again and again.
Go back to cash while you can. in hindsight it is starting to make those Starbucks (or insert your favourite store here) cash cards seem like a better deal when you used cash to fill them up to begin with.
JB
I converted my whole house, except for the dimmer switch controlled lights three years ago when we first moved in. No issues here. You need to shop around. Some lights are definitely not nice to look at (some Phillips), but others are pleasantly good (IKEA - who knew).
Ontario is looking to ban incandescent bulbs - dumb idea, but critical mass is the best way to go.
JB
Indeed!
;)
I grew up during the ParticipAction years (in Canada) and my whole school was very active. Very few of those kids were anywhere near obese.
Flash forward to my competitive years (I was an amateur athlete for 10 years and a pro for four). As I waned into my career years (post athletics) my caloric consumption went from 3000-4000 per day at the highest to about 2000-3000 and of course I gained 50% more weight. I'm still roughly 190-200 lbs at just under 6 feet but hey - I can dream of the olden days
Consumption really does make the difference. However the empty sugar-laden calories that are starting to make up most people's diets are largely efforts by agribusiness to find a place to dump the excess sugar and fat products produced on the open market. Agricultural subsidies may have much to do with that. Success in marketing calorie-rich but nutrition poor foods make up another component of the problem. they all point to general weight gain despite overall intake.
I would not wait for the other shoe to drop in the cessation of this study. The obvious conclusion is that the food is much to blame - what else would it be if the science is solid? However many, many people in busines, government and the public service will have to fall on their swords in order for that conclusion to be decisively and openly written.
JB
That's funny...I've got an "always on" setup of Linux Unix, and MacOS X and I've never experienced an issue.
;)
Then again...I did once! It was when I was running Windows 2000. Someone rooted my Hotline Server and deleted all my files
JB
>iTunes worked so well that I decided to go for an iPod and
;)
>it was (and still is) hands down the best MP3 player I've every owned.
I was using MusicMatch Jukebox on the PC at the time and I had the same epiphany - I can use iTunes on BOTH platforms!
iTunes used to be a great little program called SoundJam MP, so Apple sometimes buys their technologies too
What they are always great at is creating a portfolio of companies with great products to augment their own product stream. I work both ends of the "desktop" spectrum - PC by day, Mac at night. I always come back to the Mac for efficiency reasons.
JB
I even bought my own furniture and computer.
JB
I find that interesting...I've got three Maxtors and a Seagate in my PowerMac G4 (mirrored drive bay 1ghz) since 2002.
;)
None have given me issues and run much of the time (60%). The machine goes to sleep at night now, and stays above 15C (it's -20-30 these days here).
I've not yet had one drive failure. No SMART errors etc.
My co-workers in platform services (the server guys) have said across the board that windows machines are far harder on their hard drives than the UNIX machines. That woul dbe nice to suss out of the Google data - but we already know what their preference is
JB
You are partly right, but partly wrong.
I was a geek and victimized in school - both Grade and High Schools. I did model trains, planes (!), boats, cars, guns, computers (when i had them)...you name it.
I invested more time in my hobbies than I did my social networks. Ergo I was sometimes an outcast.
I was also a national record holder in several long distance events, and won several national junior, senior and NCAA titles in my events. It's amazing how hypocritical people can be when it comes to treating you poorly, and then treating you as a star if you're valued as one. I think my point sticks then. Popularity is superficiality. I've gone from being beat up in the halls to being untouchable within two weeks in high school when I won my first Provincial title and was all over the news. How is that for a brain-teaser?
People in general _can_ be jerks, that doesn't let you off the hook. Find better friends, or move away. I lived in three ends of this continent and every one had it's pluses and minuses. I worked for some world class assholes too. You can't make your life a reaction to the jerks in your life.
I know some real IT jerks. I know some real non-IT jerks. Just because someone had a rough life doesn't make it incumbent on them to spread the disease. And YES - there are idiots in IT. I have way too many examples I can't reprint. If you're that unconvinced email me. Don't be a drone and wish it away just because you might have the moral high ground.
JB
I don't understand where anyone got the idea that it was okay to be an ass to any client - even those who can't comprehend the work you do.
Try imagining that scenario between a Doctor and a patient. Does it feel any better? No. It creates confusion and mistrust.
Our jobs depend on us being able to make one part of the system work within a larger unit called "the business" If the client/userbase finds an IT resource that acts nicely and says please and thank-you, then you might one day kiss your job good-bye because at some point it will _seem_ like that person does a better job, even if they actually don't.
I treat my people with the respect they deserve. I don't always understand their jobs, and they sometimes wonder aloud what a genius I am. I just make an analogy comparing our two professions and point out the similarities. I find myself discovering just how much talent is required for what may seem like paper-pushing jobs. I just do something that requires a specific skill. When they see that it makes them much confortable with IT issues and how to handle them. Dumb requests are just as hard to stomach by everyone.
The IT undustry (management) is all over the new "concept" of IT being part of the "business". That may seem like a semantic shift to some, but it marks a specific change in how IT is looked at. It is now being pulled back in to the business, and requires that IT staff often know how their work impacts the users and vice versa. Just like any business component should. If you're still treating your users as sheep when that happens just because they can't understadn your work, you'll just look like the breat big asshole you likely are.
There are just as many idiots within IT as without it.
JB
The phone integrates with iTunes. Most other smart phone providers allow you _buy_ third party apps via their download services. These are usually digitally signed to prevent Trojans, malware and the like.
Since the integrity of the phone and IP networks will depend on secure access to such services, I will bet you all that iTunes will SELL the third party apps, or Apple will provide them if they happen to develop all of the good ideas (which no-one believes can happen).
I expect iTunes to host all those apps in the future and they will be thoroughly tested and vetted by Apple labs as part of the distribution deal.
Ergo if a problem or exploit turns up...next time you sync, iTunes will alert you of an important update.
Voila. There's your download mechnism in a nutshell.
Now when do we expext iTunes to get a rename to something more general...like iLife store or something similar. "Tunes" isn't a word that properly describes movies and podcasts as it is. Add the phone in there and WTH??
JB