That's how my work Blackberry is configured - if I enter my PIN wrong too many times, it self wipes. All my data is gone. Until I either plug it in to my workstation at work, and it restores form the backup, or I call in and get a new activation pin assigned and do a wireless sync. It's a bit of a pain in the butt when it happens, but seems like a reasonable trade off. Of course the BB has a good keyboard, so i don't mistype often:)
That being said, I do lust after an Iphone for personal use, but I would not at this point recommend we use them for corporate work, too much risk. My personal data is less valuable, as I don't carry around sensitive emails.
Yes there is ageism in IT. There are types of jobs that you will never get hired for beyond a certain age, as you will be viewed as too expensive for the position. For instance, no one ever hires a 35 yr old for a entry level coding position. As you get higher in age, the fewer avenues are open to you. Eventually you end up with a choice between high level technical specification (Sr Architect positions, etc) or Management.
The problem is that there are very few senior architect positions. Ergo, effectively as you get older, the jobs get harder to get, and you get an effect that is pretty much indistinguishable from discrimination. (I'll stay out of if it ACTUALLY discrimination - that's a hair for legal types to split, not I)
So if you're very good, you can keep on in Tech. Put your ego aside and ask yourself if you're actually that good. Or better yet, ask someone you can trust.
Now for myself, as I came up the ranks of techies, I noticed something. There were very few good IT managers. Good being defined as:
1) having a clue about what they're managing (IT) 2) giving a shit for the people they are managing 3) being able to talk to both the IT guys and the Business guys without getting shot by both
I am arguably good enough that I could have gone Architect. I currently manage a team of them, and for the most part I keep up. I think I better serve the organization where I am though. I keep the shit from hitting my team, provide constructive feedback them in terms of budgets, org politics, and business realities, and try to ensure that the company doesn't make a mistake because IT didn't communicate effectively enough to them in terms they can understand. (Techies: We need a new core switch, we're hitting 8Gbits on the backplane!) (Business: Whats a backwhozit?)
That's effectively how it works in Canada. You go into ER, the triage nurse sees you, checks your vitals, takes your case history, and tells you to sit down. You get seen based on available resources (if you are having issues with your pregnancy, no sense handing you off to the cardiologist.
If you're there for stupid things, you're gonna be waiting for a while. That encourages you to see a doctor instead, as it should be.
Of course, you do actually need to have the chops, but the truth of the matter is that of the people who read this, only about.01% of you have the gumption to actually take this sort of risk, and if you're willing to take it, you probably are either that good, or stubborn enough to become that good.
A rule of my life has been "I never want to look back and wonder 'What would have happened if I'd taken that chance'".
So far there's been only one time I let an opportunity pass me by, and that was because it was a choice between my professional life and my personal life. Personal won, and I don't regret that.
Move to somewhere with very few people, like the Yukon Territory. That's how I started my IT career when it became obvious that in the big city it didn't matter how good I was, I was looking at doing my time in helpdesk. If you're serious about IT as a career, and can't stand doing your time on the line, that's one alternative. By the end of my 5 years up there I had run a regional ISP, and been the head network person for the Dept of Eduction. Also nothing makes you look good like being able to tell the cliche bear stories. My favorite though is the time the internet went out because a hunter with bad aim missed a moose and hit the waveguide on one of the microwave towers I was using!
Now here's the bad news: I've been doing IT for almost 20 years, I manage the architecture team for a mid sized business with offices in 3 cities and 2 countries, I hold a CISSP and am responsible for the security of the company, and the owners/CEO/Execs STILL asks me to fix their computer. On the plus side I'd say my average between interruptions is down to about 20 mins. The interruptions tend to also be bigger problems. Some days I wish rebooting the PC would solve the tickets that get assigned to me, but my desktop support guy is good at that:)
I believe it was on a 286 and I was running a distro that doesn't exist anymore - Softlanding Software (SLS).
Those were the days... I remember trying to set up a dumb terminal off the serial port. I kept getting "inittab respawning too fast"... so I figured I'd delete inittab and recopy it.... don't try that at home kiddies!
I set up a UUCP Fidonet gateway. Which is probably not the most normal thing.... this was back in 92 though, when installing X meant a bunch of extra 1.44MB floppies!
If bandwidth hogs were the issue they'd be going after companies who share a DSL with 100 staff. Ours is pegged all day every day. Check Bell's rate plans, business bandwidth is unlimited. How are the third parties going to compete with that? If Bell can sell unlimited bandwidth to business clients, shouldn't their wholesalers?
The issue is they want to put their competition out of business. Simple. They like being a monopoly (who wouldn't?) and want to make it as unprofitable as possible to compete with them, or at best, require all the wholesalers to lower their customer service to Bell's (crappy) standards.
I once went to serve a search warrant with the local RCMP (they needed a consultant who could tell them if they found what they were looking for - 3DES SNK'd password files not exactly being in their training) and they called me to tell me where to meet them prior to the raid -- at the Tim Horton's.
I sat there planning a raid in the local Tim Horton's with them. It seemed surreal.
I disagree. This may be true with the providers you work with, but when you get outside of NorthAm, into Central or South America for instance, it's not true anymore.
I had a client who was peering with a tier-1 international provider in one of those countries, the router admin fat fingered something and for a period of time, all the tier-1's traffic was routing through them. Oops. Also, hands up anyone who believes that no one in a tier-1 has a bot infested PC? You with the hands up, go back through Slashdot till you find the military contractor who p2p'd the plans for Marine 1, and answer again.
The biggest reason why the internet stays up is the people running the dark side have a vested interest in it staying up. If you have access to a tier-1, your power is in keeping that tier-1 routing traffic.
Assuming a vulnerability is exploited in BGP, the internet would go bibi in a hurry. That's all our eggs in one basket, and it's a fairly rickety basket. There's still a lot of trust inherent in the BGP fabric and trust is a 4 letter word to anyone who deals with infrastructure security.
I'm the manager of a team of senior architects. I'm 35, all members of my team are older then I am. If you're good, noone cares how many gray hairs you have. If you suck, noone's gonna care how young you are.
OK the case for me purchasing an account on one of the US vpn providers keeps getting stronger. 4.40*12=52.80. Witopia provides VPN at USD 36/yr, and allows me to use it for the general case of any US service that geolocks (Hulu, Pandora, and the list keeps getting longer)
Why would I give Last more money for effectively less service?
Speaking as an IT manager, I'll be dancing in the street the day that the last app stops this.
If I had a penny for every time a user lost data because some app decided to be clever in the manner mentioned above and not save it in the users profile directory...
Truly, if you were writing a linux app would you expect this to work? It's the same thing. Your app needs to expect that it can write to the user's home directory and temp locations. Fini. Done. Need to write somewhere else, make sure you set up the proper permissions during install time, when you'll be running with privs to access those directories.
Then I know where the user's data will be and can plan backups accordingly, without playing scavenger hunt with however many hundreds of apps my users are using.
As with any other time, if you want something encrypted do it yourself with an opensource product. If you trust someone else with your encryption, you can expect they won't care as much for your privacy as you would.
Google can feel free to mine my pseudo random porn:)
That's appalling. In our case, they provided us with a set of forms, offered to leave the room and come back later so that we would have a chance to make our informed consent. The forms assured us that our medical confidentiality would be insured by the hospital, and that our names, or our baby's name would not be attached to the sample in any way. It laid out the risks (pretty much nil) and the mitigations (that if there was any question of safety of the procedure given complications in the delivery, etc, that the collection would be abandoned).
I walked away feeling pretty good about the whole thing.
Ah, in our case, the hospital does the collection at time of birth (assuming something isn't going on that requires their undivided attention), and then stores it until the folks from Children's pick it up.
Slashdot Mirror
That's how my work Blackberry is configured - if I enter my PIN wrong too many times, it self wipes. All my data is gone. Until I either plug it in to my workstation at work, and it restores form the backup, or I call in and get a new activation pin assigned and do a wireless sync. It's a bit of a pain in the butt when it happens, but seems like a reasonable trade off. Of course the BB has a good keyboard, so i don't mistype often :)
That being said, I do lust after an Iphone for personal use, but I would not at this point recommend we use them for corporate work, too much risk. My personal data is less valuable, as I don't carry around sensitive emails.
Min
*Disclaimer: I went the manager path*
Yes there is ageism in IT. There are types of jobs that you will never get hired for beyond a certain age, as you will be viewed as too expensive for the position. For instance, no one ever hires a 35 yr old for a entry level coding position. As you get higher in age, the fewer avenues are open to you. Eventually you end up with a choice between high level technical specification (Sr Architect positions, etc) or Management.
The problem is that there are very few senior architect positions. Ergo, effectively as you get older, the jobs get harder to get, and you get an effect that is pretty much indistinguishable from discrimination. (I'll stay out of if it ACTUALLY discrimination - that's a hair for legal types to split, not I)
So if you're very good, you can keep on in Tech. Put your ego aside and ask yourself if you're actually that good. Or better yet, ask someone you can trust.
Now for myself, as I came up the ranks of techies, I noticed something. There were very few good IT managers. Good being defined as:
1) having a clue about what they're managing (IT)
2) giving a shit for the people they are managing
3) being able to talk to both the IT guys and the Business guys without getting shot by both
I am arguably good enough that I could have gone Architect. I currently manage a team of them, and for the most part I keep up. I think I better serve the organization where I am though. I keep the shit from hitting my team, provide constructive feedback them in terms of budgets, org politics, and business realities, and try to ensure that the company doesn't make a mistake because IT didn't communicate effectively enough to them in terms they can understand. (Techies: We need a new core switch, we're hitting 8Gbits on the backplane!) (Business: Whats a backwhozit?)
Min
Agreed - LARPs are good places to meet people who fall into the broad category of geekdom in my experience, and there's normally a good gender blend.
Min
That's effectively how it works in Canada. You go into ER, the triage nurse sees you, checks your vitals, takes your case history, and tells you to sit down. You get seen based on available resources (if you are having issues with your pregnancy, no sense handing you off to the cardiologist.
If you're there for stupid things, you're gonna be waiting for a while. That encourages you to see a doctor instead, as it should be.
Min
Of course, you do actually need to have the chops, but the truth of the matter is that of the people who read this, only about .01% of you have the gumption to actually take this sort of risk, and if you're willing to take it, you probably are either that good, or stubborn enough to become that good.
A rule of my life has been "I never want to look back and wonder 'What would have happened if I'd taken that chance'".
So far there's been only one time I let an opportunity pass me by, and that was because it was a choice between my professional life and my personal life. Personal won, and I don't regret that.
Min
Move to somewhere with very few people, like the Yukon Territory. That's how I started my IT career when it became obvious that in the big city it didn't matter how good I was, I was looking at doing my time in helpdesk. If you're serious about IT as a career, and can't stand doing your time on the line, that's one alternative. By the end of my 5 years up there I had run a regional ISP, and been the head network person for the Dept of Eduction. Also nothing makes you look good like being able to tell the cliche bear stories. My favorite though is the time the internet went out because a hunter with bad aim missed a moose and hit the waveguide on one of the microwave towers I was using!
Now here's the bad news: :)
I've been doing IT for almost 20 years, I manage the architecture team for a mid sized business with offices in 3 cities and 2 countries, I hold a CISSP and am responsible for the security of the company, and the owners/CEO/Execs STILL asks me to fix their computer. On the plus side I'd say my average between interruptions is down to about 20 mins. The interruptions tend to also be bigger problems. Some days I wish rebooting the PC would solve the tickets that get assigned to me, but my desktop support guy is good at that
Min
You meddling kids ruined everything!
Min
Wish I had mod points. I just hope for their sake the grandparent post isn't seen by my wife today....
Min
That's how I remember it. SLS was my first distro. Linux kernel .96a IIRC. Rebuilt that damned box so many times...
Min
So does this mean M$ will be extending the fully supported period for XP again, as it will be shipping with W7?
Min
I believe it was on a 286 and I was running a distro that doesn't exist anymore - Softlanding Software (SLS).
Those were the days... I remember trying to set up a dumb terminal off the serial port. I kept getting "inittab respawning too fast"... so I figured I'd delete inittab and recopy it.... don't try that at home kiddies!
Min
I set up a UUCP Fidonet gateway. Which is probably not the most normal thing.... this was back in 92 though, when installing X meant a bunch of extra 1.44MB floppies!
Min
Balderdash.
If bandwidth hogs were the issue they'd be going after companies who share a DSL with 100 staff. Ours is pegged all day every day. Check Bell's rate plans, business bandwidth is unlimited. How are the third parties going to compete with that? If Bell can sell unlimited bandwidth to business clients, shouldn't their wholesalers?
The issue is they want to put their competition out of business. Simple. They like being a monopoly (who wouldn't?) and want to make it as unprofitable as possible to compete with them, or at best, require all the wholesalers to lower their customer service to Bell's (crappy) standards.
Min
I once went to serve a search warrant with the local RCMP (they needed a consultant who could tell them if they found what they were looking for - 3DES SNK'd password files not exactly being in their training) and they called me to tell me where to meet them prior to the raid -- at the Tim Horton's.
I sat there planning a raid in the local Tim Horton's with them. It seemed surreal.
Min
Wonder if I can still get my april fool's achievement?
Min
No, no one trusts their peers anymore
I disagree. This may be true with the providers you work with, but when you get outside of NorthAm, into Central or South America for instance, it's not true anymore.
I had a client who was peering with a tier-1 international provider in one of those countries, the router admin fat fingered something and for a period of time, all the tier-1's traffic was routing through them. Oops. Also, hands up anyone who believes that no one in a tier-1 has a bot infested PC? You with the hands up, go back through Slashdot till you find the military contractor who p2p'd the plans for Marine 1, and answer again.
The biggest reason why the internet stays up is the people running the dark side have a vested interest in it staying up. If you have access to a tier-1, your power is in keeping that tier-1 routing traffic.
Min
Assuming a vulnerability is exploited in BGP, the internet would go bibi in a hurry. That's all our eggs in one basket, and it's a fairly rickety basket. There's still a lot of trust inherent in the BGP fabric and trust is a 4 letter word to anyone who deals with infrastructure security.
Min
Gotta say I love Google's April first jokes. Top notch!
I'm the manager of a team of senior architects. I'm 35, all members of my team are older then I am. If you're good, noone cares how many gray hairs you have. If you suck, noone's gonna care how young you are.
Min
OK the case for me purchasing an account on one of the US vpn providers keeps getting stronger. 4.40*12=52.80. Witopia provides VPN at USD 36/yr, and allows me to use it for the general case of any US service that geolocks (Hulu, Pandora, and the list keeps getting longer)
Why would I give Last more money for effectively less service?
Min
Speaking as an IT manager, I'll be dancing in the street the day that the last app stops this.
If I had a penny for every time a user lost data because some app decided to be clever in the manner mentioned above and not save it in the users profile directory...
Truly, if you were writing a linux app would you expect this to work? It's the same thing. Your app needs to expect that it can write to the user's home directory and temp locations. Fini. Done. Need to write somewhere else, make sure you set up the proper permissions during install time, when you'll be running with privs to access those directories.
Then I know where the user's data will be and can plan backups accordingly, without playing scavenger hunt with however many hundreds of apps my users are using.
Min
70% is bang on, the (poorly worded) article was saying 47% of respondents got it within a margin of error (65%-75%), 15% got it right (70%).
As usual when you condense a page and a half article to 2 lines, it loses something :)
Min
As with any other time, if you want something encrypted do it yourself with an opensource product. If you trust someone else with your encryption, you can expect they won't care as much for your privacy as you would.
Google can feel free to mine my pseudo random porn :)
Min
That's appalling. In our case, they provided us with a set of forms, offered to leave the room and come back later so that we would have a chance to make our informed consent. The forms assured us that our medical confidentiality would be insured by the hospital, and that our names, or our baby's name would not be attached to the sample in any way. It laid out the risks (pretty much nil) and the mitigations (that if there was any question of safety of the procedure given complications in the delivery, etc, that the collection would be abandoned).
I walked away feeling pretty good about the whole thing.
Min
Ah, in our case, the hospital does the collection at time of birth (assuming something isn't going on that requires their undivided attention), and then stores it until the folks from Children's pick it up.
Min