Whereas in Europe you can head over to a pub to relax and chit chat, in AMERICA (and English Canada) it is completely frowned upon.
I don't know where you got that impression concerning English Canada from. I think what you might have encountered is more of a central Canada (Toronto) and central US (think Chicago) cultural difference from the more laid back west coast attitudes. Why just this Thursday, one of the department heads invited everyone to beer and some appies at a bar half a block away from our head office. A similar thing happened when our President/CEO invited everyone for drinks in the late afternoon on Christmas Eve. Our head office is on the west coast (BC) so that might explain a different attitude. The dress code is also pretty lax even outside of IT these days outside of the top level execs.
If you have to put in 80-100 hours a week consistently and you are not a manager then your manager is incompetent or you don't know how to estimate your efforts properly and have no concept of a balance between work and home life. Not being able to manage expectation causes your workplace to be 50% understaffed. An 80-100 hours per week is roughly the equivalent of two full time jobs of 40-50 hours per week
If an employee is seriously putting in that much time, their efficiency is going to be extremely low, the employee is likely to be sick a lot and the company would get better value for their money by hiring more people.
How is a pub not consistent with business? Many business deals/contacts are made in pubs. It could be a great place for employees to relax on a Friday afternoon after a successful product launch, oh wait, this is Microsoft. Well they could always give out free beer to console employees and boost morale.
I see nothing wrong with employees being able to hang out after hours and maybe even some informal brainstorming could take place. Way to not think differently MSFT. How very boring and corporate America of you.
*Whoosh*
He was a great man. He was a preacher and a political activist who played a pivotal role in the history of the US but I think he would be disturbed by this "worship" of him given that he was a humble man of faith. You act like someone was disrespecting a revered prophet or something. It's a joke. You are supposed to laugh. For crying out loud, christians can take light hearted jokes and even tell them to each other but this cult of personality surrounding King Jr seems to have no sense of humour.
Dell sees the writing on the wall that in a recession, people are less likely to upgrade their hardware often regardless of how "cheap" it is. This means that Dell can no longer continue with the race to the bottom and expect to make it up on volume. I recall predicting that this would happen a couple years ago only to be laughed at by others on slashdot.
This is a bit ironic that Dell would be leading the charge back towards premium products when they forcing premium brands like IBM, HP and Sony down to their level for the past few years.
Stop thinking about price and start thinking about "best value" for the money. I'm sticking with my macs but I think the era of the "cheap" computer is coming to an end and we will start to see slower upgrade cycles. You should be factoring in longevity of the product when making a purchase decision.
--You need a whole other phone if you want to use verizon or sprint.--
Complete BS. They want to keep it that way, charging us double for a tenth of the bandwidth you can get over there too.
Do us all a bloody favor and google CDMA and GSM. They are incompatible technologies. GSM use SIM cards while CDMA phones (in North America) are programmed for a network. The technologies are not compatible with each other.
If they are supposedly so far ahead, where is the fanciful technology? Why are they unable to compete outside of Japan? The simple answer is that more features do not make a device more advanced and that the hallmark of truly advanced technology is that it is powerful yet easy to use and would appear as magic to more primitive cultures.
I'm tired of this myth about technology being more advanced in Japan. This is simply not true.
More bands should be offering their music for free on the Internet itself. Look at how well Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead (for starters) have done with their Internet releases.
But why stop there? March right into your boss's office right now and demand to work for free./sarc
You do realize that things like food, clothing and shelter do actually cost money right?
If you don't think that you should work for free, then why do you think other people should?
Question, if you have an iPod and can subscribe to NPR podcasts, why do you need a radio on your trip assuming that you know how to pick songs that you like onto your iPod?
Pystar is providing unlicensed upgrades onto machines that do not have a previous install of the OS. They are also hacking the OS before installing it.
Pystar are pirates. They are not a legitimate business.
You are wrong on all counts except for the part about the machine not having a previously installed OS.
1) Anyone can buy a shrink wrapped copy of Mac OS X. They have and they are installing it.
Anyone can buy a shrink wrapped OS X upgrade copy. The EULA, which is available online on the Apple.com website, specifies that those copies are to be installed on an Apple branded computer that had previously had a legal copy of OS X installed by Apple. Do you feel that you should be allowed to install the upgrade version of Vista without having owned a copy of XP?
Pystar is providing unlicensed upgrades onto machines that do not have a previous install of the OS. They are also hacking the OS before installing it.
Pystar are pirates. They are not a legitimate business.
WHy not linux? Because quality work costs money which is something that linux developers do not receive generally. You also seems to be under the impression that you can easily get good software by throwing a bunch of coders at the problem without any analysts, UI experts or artists.
You fools don't know what you are asking for. This will mean that OS X will end up with all of that copy protection/activation nonsense. It will also mean that the full version of OS X will cost somewhere around 400 dollars, the current box upgrade will probably also rise in price and it will start checking for a previous install of OS on the machine.
Way to ruin everything for us you bloody cheapskates. Get real fricken jobs for crying out loud and move out of your mother's basement.
You see, what you burger flippers don't seem to get is that software development is expensive and difficult and that Apple was subsidizing their OS development with hardware sales. Apple tried and failed with the clone model and it failed because not only did the clones undercut their prices significantly but Apple was stuck with the development and support costs for all of those machines that they did not sell in the first place. This left no source of revenue to offset the costs incurred from all of that extra support and dev work.
Some of us on slashdot chose the mac platform because we work with or develop software on windows in our day jobs and wanted a machine at home that ran an OS that "just works" and hardware that "just works" out of the box.
It seems today that people do not appreciate the value of hard work and expect to get everything handed to them.
Sorry but I don't see what this has to do with privacy. It is an updater that runs in the background updating google applications. It does not collect information on you. Most of you do not have a problem with Apple update or windows update do you? As of those who do have a problem with them, take off your tinfoil hats and check yourself into the nearest hospital as you might be suffering from paranoia.
If you things being downloaded without your knowledge, don't install any software and unplug your computer from the network. Just visiting this page caused your browser to download text, images and javascript without your knowledge or consent.
I'm thinking that many of you do not seen to grasp how network apps like google earth work and how they are supposed to be updated regularly when the services they depend on are updated.
You can be "cool" simply by buying a shiny toy with an Apple logo? I guess "cool" isn't what it used to be.
Being cool is a state of mind. It has nothing to do with what you own. You are cool if you are happy with who you are and don't care about what other people think of you. An iPod will not help you achieve that. At the same time, buying something other than an iPod in an attempt to be "different" than the masses will just make you look like a zealot or anti-apple fanboy.
Exactly. I'm sick of people on the net being so US-centric extolling the virtues of services like hulu, netflix and amazon to people who have no ability to access those services regardless of the OS they use.
The idea was great. Unfortunately, their selection was/is crap and it is just easier for me to buy from iTMS directly instead of having add files manually to my library after downloading them from emusic.
I'm puzzled as to how one gets from "the universe may have a finite resolution" to "omfg it's prolly a hologram!!!"
That's a big whiskey-tango-foxtrot, over.
Shhhh! The science fanboys might hear you. There is a lot of questionable science going on these days and I'm not just talking about studies sponsored by the tobacco industry.
This, along with Dark Matter, Dark Energy and String theory are typical untestable theories which scientists lately have been using to fill in holes in their own understanding of the nature of the universe. Rather than going back to the drawing board when a model does not work, they use a cop out like this one to fill in the blanks.
If your job requires a lot of creativity and original thinking, staying at work longer than 8 hours per day is really inefficient. You are basically only really productive 6 hours at the most out of eight hours. If you started work at 9am, your productivity by the time 4:30 rolls around would be almost nil. You could answer a few emails and possibly answer some questions but you are not going to be on the ball for coming up with a lot of original ideas.
It is also very important to take the time to eat your lunch away from your desk if possible to recharge you batteries and allow for proper digestion.
If you work in "IT" as a sys admin or technical support staff and you hate your job, I'd suggest looking at changing your career for something that you would love to do. If you have coding skills, look at upgrading either internally or at another company to a junior developer position. I'd suggest taking some courses at your local community college on business communications and any programming course they might offer to increase your chances at landing a job.
With the ever changing techniques and languages, a computer science degree by itself is not really worth much especially if you want to develop software for the business world. Soft skills play a much more important role in today's development environments where many groups are using agile development methodologies which involve having business analysts intimately involved in the software development life cycle from day one and through each iteration leading up to each product release.
Most other departments won't respect the IT department because they're all dorks and geeks.
It is like the janitorial staff in the eyes of many. They don't produce anything they support the "real" innovators and money makers.
This is why I'd like to eventually move into a completely tech related company (in gaming ideally) so there are less of those types and more tech people.
Those are quite a few assumptions that you are making. You assume that all companies fall into two categories: those that have an IT support staff for managing desktops and servers only and completely tech related companies.
Speaking from experience, there are some companies that provide business services to other businesses in a "software as a service" model as well as providing direct online services for customers which could be individuals or other companies in other industries.
In those companies, information technology people are sometimes broken up into two distinct groups. One group is the traditional sort of IT operational staff and they are not always treated with the respect they deserve. The other group usually consists of developers, analysts, product managers and business analysts. The latter group is usually more aligned with the business side as they are often producing software not only for internal consumption or for the company's own online offerings but also for software as a service. In a nutshell, these guys indirectly contribute to the bottom line so they are considered part of the business rather than logistical IT staff. I remember working in IT doing some support when the company was small so I can identify with the frustration some people feel.
Slashdot Mirror
No this is AMERICA....
Whereas in Europe you can head over to a pub to relax and chit chat, in AMERICA (and English Canada) it is completely frowned upon.
I don't know where you got that impression concerning English Canada from. I think what you might have encountered is more of a central Canada (Toronto) and central US (think Chicago) cultural difference from the more laid back west coast attitudes. Why just this Thursday, one of the department heads invited everyone to beer and some appies at a bar half a block away from our head office. A similar thing happened when our President/CEO invited everyone for drinks in the late afternoon on Christmas Eve. Our head office is on the west coast (BC) so that might explain a different attitude. The dress code is also pretty lax even outside of IT these days outside of the top level execs.
If an employee is seriously putting in that much time, their efficiency is going to be extremely low, the employee is likely to be sick a lot and the company would get better value for their money by hiring more people.
I see nothing wrong with employees being able to hang out after hours and maybe even some informal brainstorming could take place. Way to not think differently MSFT. How very boring and corporate America of you.
*Whoosh* He was a great man. He was a preacher and a political activist who played a pivotal role in the history of the US but I think he would be disturbed by this "worship" of him given that he was a humble man of faith. You act like someone was disrespecting a revered prophet or something. It's a joke. You are supposed to laugh. For crying out loud, christians can take light hearted jokes and even tell them to each other but this cult of personality surrounding King Jr seems to have no sense of humour.
This is a bit ironic that Dell would be leading the charge back towards premium products when they forcing premium brands like IBM, HP and Sony down to their level for the past few years.
Stop thinking about price and start thinking about "best value" for the money. I'm sticking with my macs but I think the era of the "cheap" computer is coming to an end and we will start to see slower upgrade cycles. You should be factoring in longevity of the product when making a purchase decision.
--You need a whole other phone if you want to use verizon or sprint.--
Complete BS. They want to keep it that way, charging us double for a tenth of the bandwidth you can get over there too.
Do us all a bloody favor and google CDMA and GSM. They are incompatible technologies. GSM use SIM cards while CDMA phones (in North America) are programmed for a network. The technologies are not compatible with each other.
I'm tired of this myth about technology being more advanced in Japan. This is simply not true.
Who the hell copies and pastes text on their phone anyway? Most people can barely write text on their phones because they have a number pad only.
Those come with strings attached. There is nothing wrong with the BSD license.
No it doesn't mobileme was down.
More bands should be offering their music for free on the Internet itself. Look at how well Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead (for starters) have done with their Internet releases.
But why stop there? March right into your boss's office right now and demand to work for free. /sarc
You do realize that things like food, clothing and shelter do actually cost money right?
If you don't think that you should work for free, then why do you think other people should?
Question, if you have an iPod and can subscribe to NPR podcasts, why do you need a radio on your trip assuming that you know how to pick songs that you like onto your iPod?
Pystar is providing unlicensed upgrades onto machines that do not have a previous install of the OS. They are also hacking the OS before installing it.
Pystar are pirates. They are not a legitimate business.
You are wrong on all counts except for the part about the machine not having a previously installed OS.
1) Anyone can buy a shrink wrapped copy of Mac OS X. They have and they are installing it.
Anyone can buy a shrink wrapped OS X upgrade copy. The EULA, which is available online on the Apple.com website, specifies that those copies are to be installed on an Apple branded computer that had previously had a legal copy of OS X installed by Apple. Do you feel that you should be allowed to install the upgrade version of Vista without having owned a copy of XP?
Pystar are pirates. They are not a legitimate business.
WHy not linux? Because quality work costs money which is something that linux developers do not receive generally. You also seems to be under the impression that you can easily get good software by throwing a bunch of coders at the problem without any analysts, UI experts or artists.
Way to ruin everything for us you bloody cheapskates. Get real fricken jobs for crying out loud and move out of your mother's basement.
You see, what you burger flippers don't seem to get is that software development is expensive and difficult and that Apple was subsidizing their OS development with hardware sales. Apple tried and failed with the clone model and it failed because not only did the clones undercut their prices significantly but Apple was stuck with the development and support costs for all of those machines that they did not sell in the first place. This left no source of revenue to offset the costs incurred from all of that extra support and dev work.
Some of us on slashdot chose the mac platform because we work with or develop software on windows in our day jobs and wanted a machine at home that ran an OS that "just works" and hardware that "just works" out of the box.
It seems today that people do not appreciate the value of hard work and expect to get everything handed to them.
If you things being downloaded without your knowledge, don't install any software and unplug your computer from the network. Just visiting this page caused your browser to download text, images and javascript without your knowledge or consent.
I'm thinking that many of you do not seen to grasp how network apps like google earth work and how they are supposed to be updated regularly when the services they depend on are updated.
You can be "cool" simply by buying a shiny toy with an Apple logo? I guess "cool" isn't what it used to be.
Being cool is a state of mind. It has nothing to do with what you own. You are cool if you are happy with who you are and don't care about what other people think of you. An iPod will not help you achieve that. At the same time, buying something other than an iPod in an attempt to be "different" than the masses will just make you look like a zealot or anti-apple fanboy.
Exactly. I'm sick of people on the net being so US-centric extolling the virtues of services like hulu, netflix and amazon to people who have no ability to access those services regardless of the OS they use.
The idea was great. Unfortunately, their selection was/is crap and it is just easier for me to buy from iTMS directly instead of having add files manually to my library after downloading them from emusic.
I'm puzzled as to how one gets from "the universe may have a finite resolution" to "omfg it's prolly a hologram!!!"
That's a big whiskey-tango-foxtrot, over.
Shhhh! The science fanboys might hear you. There is a lot of questionable science going on these days and I'm not just talking about studies sponsored by the tobacco industry.
This, along with Dark Matter, Dark Energy and String theory are typical untestable theories which scientists lately have been using to fill in holes in their own understanding of the nature of the universe. Rather than going back to the drawing board when a model does not work, they use a cop out like this one to fill in the blanks.
It is also very important to take the time to eat your lunch away from your desk if possible to recharge you batteries and allow for proper digestion.
Seriously though, does anybody actually work only 40 hours a week?
No, I work about an average of 37.5 hours a week as a salaried developer and have 5 weeks of vacation a year.
Of course, I live in Canada where they have laws against slave labour.
With the ever changing techniques and languages, a computer science degree by itself is not really worth much especially if you want to develop software for the business world. Soft skills play a much more important role in today's development environments where many groups are using agile development methodologies which involve having business analysts intimately involved in the software development life cycle from day one and through each iteration leading up to each product release.
Most other departments won't respect the IT department because they're all dorks and geeks. It is like the janitorial staff in the eyes of many. They don't produce anything they support the "real" innovators and money makers. This is why I'd like to eventually move into a completely tech related company (in gaming ideally) so there are less of those types and more tech people.
Those are quite a few assumptions that you are making. You assume that all companies fall into two categories: those that have an IT support staff for managing desktops and servers only and completely tech related companies.
Speaking from experience, there are some companies that provide business services to other businesses in a "software as a service" model as well as providing direct online services for customers which could be individuals or other companies in other industries.
In those companies, information technology people are sometimes broken up into two distinct groups. One group is the traditional sort of IT operational staff and they are not always treated with the respect they deserve. The other group usually consists of developers, analysts, product managers and business analysts. The latter group is usually more aligned with the business side as they are often producing software not only for internal consumption or for the company's own online offerings but also for software as a service. In a nutshell, these guys indirectly contribute to the bottom line so they are considered part of the business rather than logistical IT staff. I remember working in IT doing some support when the company was small so I can identify with the frustration some people feel.