You put it in, but you glossed over the absolute most important sentence in that paragraph:
And nine out of 10 enterprise customers said that such a change wouldn't provide any tangible business gains.
That's the most important point by far. Sure, a company could spend millions of extra dollars and tons of extra time converting to Linux, but for what gain? We've been hearing for years how Linux provides exactly the same or similar capabilities as Windows-based counterparts. So, where's the gain? If it's 3-4 times more expensive to do the conversion, then that also means we can upgrade to the newest version of Windows 3 or 4 times and STILL not spend as much as it would cost to covert to Linux. Even with a liberal 2-3 product upgrade cycle for Windows, that means it would still take 6-12 years for an ROI. Most businesses don't plan that far in advance for ROI.
You've already conceded the point that it would be more expensive to convert an infrastructure from Windows to Linux, so then explain the gain? An ROI in 12 years? Yeah, take that to your CFO and see how quickly he jumps on it.
Where do you get the idea that CS degree == developer?
When I was in school 13 years ago, CS degrees were for programmers. CMIS (Computer Management and Information Systems) or IT were the degrees that lead you to an administrator's position. It seems times have changed a little bit. Regardless, very little of what I learned in my CMIS program actually helps me in the day-to-day. All of that was theory which has little practical use. Administration and troubleshooting comes from experience.
I guess we can pin this sort of thing on Microsoft, who's penchant for wizards and paperclips has led to a flooding of the market by uneducated or unqualified IT workers.
I would pin it on two other places: First, certification paper mills that tell you that a housewife can go from 0-$60,000 by just spending two weeks in a class and learning the answers to the MCSE tests. The other would be on the Linux community for "distracting" IT workers from doing their jobs. Too often we hear "Well, we wouldn't have these problems if we used Linux!" Yeah, that's great, when it does everything we need, we'll look into that. In the meantime, stop eschewing everything GUI and figure out that there is an underside to Windows that, if you know what you're doing you can manipulate, surprisingly without having access to any source code whatsoever. Unfortunately, too many people would rather just bitch than learn.
same frightful problem that the developer space deals with, where VB6 allows people to create executables without understanding programming at all
Yes, because only people with CS degrees should be able to create things that might help them be more productive. True that the small VB programs put out by these unwashed masses might be useful from time to time and do exactly what the person wants and no more...but, they're inelegant to the ever-so-helpful developers who are always more than willing to drop everything to create something useful instead of wandering around Slashdot. No, for them, form is much more important than function.
if all sysadmins had CS degrees, the majority of all servers would probably be *NIX based
Yes, because we all know that developers make GREAT sysadmins. I'll give you a clue: developers don't make even LOUSY sysadmins. I'd much rather put a user in charge of a critical system than let a developer touch it. I'm reminded of the infamous Melissa virus...and the programming houses I have friends at who constantly laughed at my use of Exchange instead of a Linux-based solution for my mail. I remember well laughing at their long, long, long hours cleaning up their networks because while I had implemented systems to protect against such attacks, they believed unwisely that Linus would protect them somehow.
and Code Red wouldn't have happened
Huh, odd then as Code Red also affected *NIX servers. Unless Solaris is no longer a *NIX variant? Explain also how the security checklist that comes with IIS provides no less than three checkpoints that would have avoided Code Red (Don't install unnecessary services such as IPP, don't use standard, well-known directories such as the "Scripts" virtual directory, and don't make your directories writable)? Explain also how Code Red was developed based on information from a security patch released by Microsoft a full month prior and therefore came AFTER the patch? Could it be that so many developers in charge of these IIS servers simply followed the wizards to install the servers and failed to follow good post-install security practices? It would be great if you could explain these things in context that makes these issues Microsoft's fault. It would be especially interesting to hear how Solaris being affected by Code Red was Microsoft's fault.
I personally don't know any REAL admin that was affected in any way by Code Red. Those affected were of the "I'm a developer, but I'm also required to be the systems admin as well" variety. Real admins don't blame Microsoft for their problems. They take responsibility for the safety and well-being of their networks and servers and do what they need to to ensure security and availability. Anyone who ever says, "Damn Microsoft for our latest technical woes..." is not a real admin and should be treated with suspicion.
No, you can install k3b on redhat fedora core and burn away, but knowing that k3b is as easy to use as Nero, or even EXISTS is harder on Linux than Windows if for no other reason than the fact that you can't just go to the store and see all the cd burning software available, and buy what you need. Most CD burners come with some kind of burning software for Windows, but not for Linux. If I was a "user" with a new CD burner in my machine that runs Linux, being able to burn CDs will be a lot harder for me than my neighbor running Windows. Now, here come the "if it's that hard for them to figure out, they shouldn't be running Linux in the first place" argument that draws in so many people to the Linux flock....
(Not necessarily from you, Strider, but some yutz is thinking it out there right now...)
In fact all of those things except OCR (which I've never heard of) and modems (which I have no experience of in mandrake) are a breeze. You don't ever have to use the command line.
No, not necessarily. Suppose for some reason your modem isn't supported, or network card, or sound card. There might be a kernel module out there you can get that'll enable it, but the average user isn't going to be able to do that. Until it's at the point that they stick in a CD that auto-runs and installs the drivers, or software for them, it's never going to be easy enough for general use. There are lots of people who are going to say "my grandmother or spouse uses Linux without problems", but that wouldn't be true if they didn't have a geek to help them out along the way.
Oh, yeah, OCR=Optical Character Recognition. Scan a document, and it converts it to text so it can be edited. Useful stuff for some, and for those people a deal-breaker against using Linux (like me).
except I don't believe the iPod has a way to play through audio from another source.
Although I don't have one, I have been investigating getting one, and I think that is incorrect. There is at least one accessory available for the iPod that suggests otherwise: The iTalk turns your iPod into a voice recorder. I think the unit simply stores your voice notes as MP3s on the iPod, but perhaps with a few tweaks it could playback real-time audio instead of just recording.
I've never seen anything with a button that turns a tv off but not on
Most modern IR-controlled electronics have discrete On and Off signals, they're just generally not used. Some remotes, such as those from One-For-All support these discrete codes. They're very useful for setting up macros. For example, one of my macros is set to send "On to TV, Input 2 to TV, On to Amp, On to DVD" if I want to watch DVDs. If I used the generic "Power" button, I couldn't use this macro when I was already watching TV because it would turn off the TV and the amp, but turn on the DVD player. In a similar vein, I have a "System Off" macro that sends discrete off signals to every piece of equipment in my rack.
But is it up to you to decide that for my children? For someone elses children?
Why not? At what point do we finally realize that just because two people know how to fuck without protection that they have any idea how to raise a child? It's the parents who have been whining for years that violence and sex causes people to go insane and kill and rape...this is a fair solution. Parents, like everyone else, seem to want it both ways...police our children and protect them from all that is dark in the world, but don't tell us how to raise them!
It still sounds like an iBook, especially given your description
Doesn't sound like the one sitting right next to me (well, Powerbook, really). My Powerbook came with a bunch of crap I don't use, has taken weeks to find and install software to get it to do what I want, and if for no other reason than the fact that Apple STILL doesn't grasp the fact that a one-button mouse is useless, ESPECIALLY if I have to hold down a key on the keyboard or two in order to do a lot of thing, is not easy to use.
On the other hand, it does look nice. It better, though, after spending $2600 to get the same functionality a $900 Windows laptop would have gotten me.
Before you ask, I was giving Apple another try after a decade or so of avoiding them. Don't get me wrong, I've actually grown quite fond of it, it just ain't worth all the hype.
Arguments that we should be grateful that the benevolent US has been kind enough to not turn Iraq into glass even though it could have
That was hardly the argument. My argument was that we can now take out a dictator who slaughters entire families because one of them disagreed with him without having to kill the entire country. It's no longer necessary to eliminate a country in order to liberate it.
The amount of soldiers killed in Iraq went UP after saddam was captured. Actually the amount of total violence in Iraq went up.
Kinda like the amount of violence in Germany went up in WWII when we stepped in there, too? Oddly enough, though, eventually the amount of jews being killed went down in the long-term. Just be glad we don't use carpet-bombing as a tactic anymore. Sending 500 planes over Iraq each dropping 10,000 lbs of ordinance would have quelled these outbreaks a lot sooner, but at a cost of millions more lives.
Everyone uses all of them. You have to look at "everyone" as a group, and not as individuals. Not every individual is going to use every feature, but when you lump every individual into everyone, you'll see that every feature gets used by someone, somewhere at some times.
MS does a lot of research into what people want in their word processors and spreadsheets. If the OO team did the same, OO would have at least as many as the Office suite. It doesn't matter if you don't use all the features, or if your neighbor doesn't, or even if your entire company doesn't. Someone, somewhere does and that's the big difference. MS targets everyone with their products, OO targets everyone as well, but with an "eh, noone uses this feature, so we won't put it in" attitude and then wonders why everyone says their products don't have the same features.
I've known managers who asked me to setup Word for them to always open with the "Memo" template because that's all they every use it for (waste of a manager more than a software package if you ask me..). But, conversely, my ex is a tech writer who has tried OO on many an occasion when asked by management and has returned it to them with a "switch to this, and I'm getting a new job" note attached.
I'll never forget the time rolling out new PCs for a company and the company was switching from WordPerfect to Word. I had one woman complain that it was useless because it didn't have one feature that WP did...in WP, she was able to have a column on every page that was the same. She could do headers and footers, but couldn't do this repeating column. To her, Word was as useless and feature-deficient as OO is to other people. Go figure.
As can be seen in the comments, there are 3-4 different ways listed to set a document to double-space in Word. Why is that? Because everyone does things differently. In order for OO to succeed, it needs to have EVERY feature Word does, and then some. Otherwise, everyone's going to say it doesn't have some feature they want, and not use it.
Do you consider formatting the HDD, and slapping a fresh image of the OS and apps a solution, or is that a last ditch effort?
We did reimage the machine, and the problem still occured. It was only at that point that we decided to give up and swap the machines. We did it both times it happened, and both times freshly imaged machines exhibited exactly the same results. I do consider imagining a machine an absolute last ditch effort. I instruct my techs at all times to spend the time trying to get the problems fixed. Since the machines are imaged, imaging isn't a solution, the problem's going to come back. Fixing a problem once takes less time than fixing it over and over again.
Doing desktop support for a corporation that; is constantly changing (application level) platforms, buying terriblely buggy software with horrendous vendor support, allowing users to install whatever crap they want on their machines (users are local admins on their boxen), and employees too few technicians per users.
Then, that is a fault of your corporation. They see no value in technology, it is merely a means to an end. By allowing other departments to make their own decisions on IT issues, they have eliminated IT as a proactive element and made you all repair monkeys. That isn't a fault of Microsoft, though. In a properly locked down environment where users aren't allowed to screw with their machines, or install what they want, or even make purchasing decisions without first consulting IT, those kinds of problems don't happen. The worst part is, it's a vicious cycle. They buy crap, it makes the machines act like crap, they think IT stuff is crap. Since you're the ones responsible for it, you are given less credence and they don't come to you for advice...so they buy crap...No matter what OS you have running, be it Windows, Linux or OSX, that situation will continue to prevail. The solution to your problems aren't technical.
The way i see it, it comes down to the amount of time spent. It's the equivilant of hospital triage for the help desk.
That analogy doesn't work, because at the end of the day in an ER, everyone needs to be alive. You can't say, "well, he's just got a broken leg, let's send him home with some aspirin for the pain and tell him to come back tomorrow". That's what's happening when you use reboots to fix an issue. Yes, if the load is heavy, and it's a one-time thing, go ahead, reboot and go away. But, if it happens again, it needs to be fixed.
One thing I've found that works effectively in combating political and social issues like the ones you're facing is to become proficient in the numbers. Learn how long it takes for a user to suffer with poor software and hardware. Provide a manager with a cost, and he might listen. Example:
A couple years ago, the company I worked for had a branch office. Every once in a while, I had to go up there and provide desktop support. The problem was, these machines were about 5 years old. They were running the original install of Windows 95 that came with the machine. Over the years, software had been installed, removed and layered. They were running the latest versions of all the apps as well. Ever tried running Office 2000 or Oracle Applications 11 on a Pentium 150 w/ 32M of RAM? They were slow and crashy. I told the manager time and time again the machines needed to be upgraded, they were too slow for the latest software. He said it was fine, and people could live with it.
I was only in this branch for one day every 6 months, so building an image for them and installing it wasn't an option. Regardless, no amount of tweaking would make these machines run any faster. So, I did a survey and found that the average user crashed about 7 times per day. Every user used at a minimum Outlook 2000 and Oracle Apps. It took...no lie...10 minutes for them to reboot their machines, log in and load up the basic software they needed to get through the day. On reboots alone,
Because with a ratio of 1:30 to 1:100 helpdesk:users, I don't have time to debug everyone's little problems with Explorer.
Ah, the cry of the truely desperate. "I just don't have time!" Then, why are you in IT? 1:100 is a very low ratio, I've had 1:250, 1:500 and still found time to get things done. Here's your new mantra: "If I don't have time to fix it the first time, where will I find to fix it again?" Take the time to fix the problems. If you do that, they don't come back, and don't take anymore time. Better yet, make a good image, test it, and verify it won't bluescreen BEFORE it goes to the user community. That'll cut down on those calls, and you'll have time to devote to the really odd problems that pop up.
Hold on there, killer, I disagree. Do you use Windows?
No, I use BeOS on every machine, both private and corporate.
Yes - but the blue screen is indicating that the OS is no longer stabile - you DO NEED to reboot.
No, the bluescreen is not "indicating", it is TELLING you that the machine (OS, software & hardware) is unstable and you need to find out what it is and fix it. Rebooting only gets rid of a bluescreen for a short while. If a machine bluescreens, the bluescreens will come back until you fix them. Prime example: my home machine started bluescreening. Read the error, did some research, and confirmed that my HD was dying. Drive Imaged over to a new drive, bluescreens stopped. Interestingly...I installed Linux on the old drive to see if the drive was recoverable, and the machine core dumped. What a surprise, not a problem with the OS at all!
MS error messages contained in blue screens is sometimes cryptic at best.
So? Most error messages are cryptic at best, that doesn't mean you don't take the time to learn how to read them, or figure out how to fix the problems they're indicating. To do so is simply lazy. And, MS doesn't hold a patent on cryptic error messages. Those from Linux can be twice as obtuse. Of course, their support is usually better: "If you can't figure it out, you shouldn't be using Linux" always solves problems.
Researching a blue screen message can often point to a bug in an application, or in the OS itself.
Well, yes, that would be the point of an error mesage. Funny that, huh?
I've had MS give me indications that I may have older drivers. Downloaded the newest vesions just a day or so prior. Sometimes the advice is just wrong.
Yes, it is. So? Then stop taking their advice and learn to fix problems on your own. I've called MS 3 times in the last 12 years. All three times they were a last resort and all three times they couldn't give me an answer. Save the dollars and learn.
There's not always something else that CAN be done on a Win box.
That's almost true. In the past 20 years, I've encountered exactly ONE problem I couldn't fix, and to this day have no idea what the problem was. It actually occured on two machines:
The machines were running Windows 98. The user would log in, and then get an error: "SHLWAPI.DLL has caused and invalid page fault in explorer.exe". Explorer would never load, and the user couldn't use the machine. (I'll save you the time, shlwapi.dll is a component of IE). Here's where it gets interesting: if another user logged into the machine, the machine worked fine. If the user logged into another machine, the machine worked fine. If I made the user a domain admin (temporarily), the machine worked fine. It was only if THAT user logged into THAT machine as a user. Profiles were not enabled in Windows. We did end up reimaging the machine, and she was the first to log into it, and got the same error. All previous conditions applied. I ended up just swapping her machine with her neighbor's since they were imaged and identical. Never did figure that one out, even when it occured to another user. Same solution, and it never happened again in the two years I was there.
In any case, that was an isolated and singular situation, every other problem, I've fixed. I don't leave a machine until it's FIXED. Reboots and defrags are not repairs.
You're certainly right, reboots are not the answer for ALL problems. But they are solutions (and pretty darm good ones at times) for the weird, occassional problem. Reboot, log-in, run your app, and you're fine for days.
No. You still have a problem, you haven't fixed anything. I tell my users: "if something happens, reboot once. If it happens again, call us. If it happens again within the next six months, call us. Otherwise, it's a one-time random thing. Anymore frequently than every six months is not rand
To quote The Donald: "You're Fired". You are exactly the kind of person I was referencing in my post.
Is there a babelfish something somewhere that'll translate BSOD into English? Because most of the error messages I've seen there have been spectacularly unhelpful.
Yes, there are two easily accessible: called "Google" and "The MS Support KB". I'll give you a hint: that long string of numbers in the upper left-hand corner is your error. Put that in the KB, and you'll generally get an answer or 25. You don't have to put in all the leading zeros (0x0000007b becomes 0x7b). Put that in with the word "Stop".
Well, the machines problem is probably simply the fact that it's running Windows.
No, the machine's problem is simply that its support staff has no idea what it's doing.
If a user is getting bluescreened once a weeek, it seems kind of silly for me to take the machine offline for half a day,
And thus the reason you're fired. If I had you on my staff and you uttered those words to me, you'd be out of there so fast your head would spin. How long does the user suffer every week because of those blue screens? 10 minutes? 20? Add it up and you'll see that a few hours work is worth the time. Regardless, if it's taking you half a day to solve a bluescreen issue, you shouldn't be working second level support.
Sure, if you're blueing regularly
Define "regularly". I would define regularly when it comes to blue screens as "once". Weekly is unacceptable and constant. Blue screens are a Windows last resort. Something has happened on the machine so bad that the OS has to shut it down lest any further damage takes place. That doesn't happen with a proper install. It's up to YOU to figure out what happened, and fix it. I've never once encounted a bluescreen that I couldn't fix, therefore the problem is with you.
chalk it up to Windows overhead, remember to save your work regularly, and get on with things.
Spoken like a true professional. I'm sure your boss goes to bed every night and thanks his stars he was lucky enough to land someone like you.
It's your responsibility to fix problems. When problems come up, and you don't fix them, you're shirking your responsibilities. Grow up, learn and take some responsibility for a change.
where there are IT depts and such supposedly taking care of the machines, I think that the numbers would be drastically reversed
I would disagre, as most IT people have little more clue than users. I say this not to be a prick, but because it's true. I've met so very few people in the last 20 years that really, really know what they're doing and have good troubleshooting skills. How often do you hear from an IT person "Ooops, it bluescreened, that means it's time to reboot!"? No, if you got a bluescreen, that's a friggin' error message. Read it and find out what went wrong. I'd also argue that these clueless masses of IT folks think that reboots are the cure for all problems. If you're forced to reboot a machine, that machine has a problem....FIX IT! If you can't fix it, it's not MS fault, it's yours. You don't need the source code to figure out what's wrong, just a brain.
Boy, that ended up being more ranty than intended.:)
On my site, which isn't a geek-oriented site and therefore more representative of the general population of the net, IE still accounts for over 95% of the browser market with no change at all in the last few months.
Goddamn that was just one of the most brilliant posts I've seen on this damn site. Finally, someone who gets that free software can cost too much in terms of time.
So? I realize it's difficult to believe, but sometimes, when Directors screw up severly, they get punished. Keep track of the blood loss, and take it to your boss, or better yet, YOUR director. At the very least, he can use it as politcal ammo against the twit. If it's your director, no there isn't much you can do at that point unless you're going to take a VERY WELL documented case to the Director of Finance. Most CEOs will listen to that Director, and if you come to him and say, "Captain Dorkwad is costing the company $1,000,000 a year in technical support and repair and here's where I get those numbers..." you might have a shot. Barring that, go straight to the CEO, and if you're not comfortable doing that, dust off the resume. It's never, ever going to change, so why deal with it? It will probably be the same elsewhere, but there's a chance it won't be. At least you'll be out when they go out of business.:)
I mean it's like telling a child not to take candy from strangers. I'm asking for common sense and the ability to take instruction, not expertise
No matter how much you drill it into their heads, some children will always take candy from strangers, just like some people will open attachments they're not supposed to. This woman may get hundreds of mails a day from strangers, some which are valid (resumes, salespeople digging for information, etc) and some that aren't. It's not her job to determine if an attachment should be opened or not, it's YOURS. When I was an admin, I took that responsibility away from the end users and put it on myself because a) I was more capable of making that distinction, or more precisely capable of setting up software that could make that distinction on thousands of e-mails a day and b) it was my job to protect my network. I couldn't expect my users to put much thought into what e-mails and attachments they should open because they had other tasks. And, surprisingly, when I took that responsibility, viruses stopped ENTIRELY.
I think this is a fundemental problem with IT people. They want to blame everyone else for their issues, and take no responsibility for their failures. If a virus gets on your network, it's YOUR FAULT, and no one else's. It's your job to keep them off. Educating your users is a wonderful thing, but some people are not going to get it or not care. Those are your responsibilities and it's such an easy thing to fix. Install a virus filter on your mail system that checks every mail prior to it being dropped in your client's mailboxes. Filter out all executable and non-business related attachments (pif, exe, com, mov, avi, mp3) from the get-go. Setup your AV signatures to automatically update every 4 hours, and scan everything else. If there's anything that's questionable, send it to you before sending it to the user. Yes, it can be that simple. At the very least it eliminates the overwhelming majority of threats, both old and new. An educated user should be your LAST line of defense, not the first or second.
Look, common sense is not an absolute. To me, it's just common sense that an IT person would take responsibility for keeping viruses off their network, and not leave it up to the end "lusers". But, to you, common sense tells you that if you tell a person 100 times not to do something, they won't do it. Common sense tells me that ain't never going to be the case.:)
And, to be clear, this isn't an attack on you personally, just a lively discussion.
the burglary comment was about the virus writers
I realize that, but it applies to end users as well. A burglar gets caught, convicted and goes to jail. He's been told, in no uncertain terms, "Don't do that". He's been punished in a way that we can't (but would love to) do to our users. He gets out, and does it again, and gets caught, and goes to jail. Again, he's been told and punished for it. He gets out, and does it again. At some point we have to stop and say, "This guy ain't gettin' it". Another poster commented that the woman should be "punished" by taking her computer away from her for a few hours to give her impact for her actions. Their common sense says that should work. By that common sense, a burglar who goes to jail twice for the crime isn't going to do it again because they're "out". But, it happens. If someone doesn't learn not to commit burglary after two convictions, a couple stints in prison AND the threat of losing their freedom forever, what chance do you think you're going to have teaching a person like that to not open attachments she shouldn't? She's of the same mentality as Mr. Burglar. She doesn't get it..."it won't happen to me, it's someone else's problem, someone else will take the rap".
My common sense tells me: "Ms. Idiot is never going to stop doing this. I can't really punish her because the corporate policies don't provide for such punishment. That makes no sens
More importantly, that RPM only works on RPM-based distros and even then there will be times when it won't work.
Yeah, one of my biggest problems with Linux. For an OS that's designed by people who scream about standards compatibility, nothing's consistent from one machine to the next. Regardless, since it costs practically nothing to get it on the recipient's machine, blasting it out to 1,000,000 people in the hopes that it'll infect 10,000 is a good return and worth the effort.
2) If IPFilters was installed, then the spammer has to also reconfigure the packet firewall in their install script.
And, if the firewall is enable on the Windows PC, and the AV is enabled on the Windows PC, and if the user isn't running as an admin...in other words, if people applied the same basic security on Windows as they do on Linux (aside from the AV, I know that's only Windows), then a lot of these problems would be non-existant.
I suppose you would blame gunshot victims for not wearing a bullet-proof vest or upgrading to the newest models when better armor piercing bullets came out
No, but I would blame them for entering such a situation without some form of protection. Most people go through their entire lives without being shot. They don't enter situations which would cause that to happen. Look at the stats, most people who suffer from gunshot wounds are either criminals fighting with other criminals, or rednecks shooting at stop signs (for whatever reason they do that). I do feel sorry for the small minority who are shot through no fault of their own, but they are a VERY small minority.
In some cases this may take up to six months
SIX MONTHS? What the hell are you testing for six months?
admins have been plaqued with downsizes and more duties
And, unfortunately, most admins don't know how, or refuse to, play the political game and get what they need out of senior managers. They have burned the relationships in the past to the point that they can't say: "If you're taking away the support staff, I need to be able to lock down the machines, tighten security and standardize systems so that I can do this on my own."
Slashdot Mirror
You put it in, but you glossed over the absolute most important sentence in that paragraph:
And nine out of 10 enterprise customers said that such a change wouldn't provide any tangible business gains.
That's the most important point by far. Sure, a company could spend millions of extra dollars and tons of extra time converting to Linux, but for what gain? We've been hearing for years how Linux provides exactly the same or similar capabilities as Windows-based counterparts. So, where's the gain? If it's 3-4 times more expensive to do the conversion, then that also means we can upgrade to the newest version of Windows 3 or 4 times and STILL not spend as much as it would cost to covert to Linux. Even with a liberal 2-3 product upgrade cycle for Windows, that means it would still take 6-12 years for an ROI. Most businesses don't plan that far in advance for ROI.
You've already conceded the point that it would be more expensive to convert an infrastructure from Windows to Linux, so then explain the gain? An ROI in 12 years? Yeah, take that to your CFO and see how quickly he jumps on it.
Where do you get the idea that CS degree == developer?
When I was in school 13 years ago, CS degrees were for programmers. CMIS (Computer Management and Information Systems) or IT were the degrees that lead you to an administrator's position. It seems times have changed a little bit. Regardless, very little of what I learned in my CMIS program actually helps me in the day-to-day. All of that was theory which has little practical use. Administration and troubleshooting comes from experience.
I guess we can pin this sort of thing on Microsoft, who's penchant for wizards and paperclips has led to a flooding of the market by uneducated or unqualified IT workers.
I would pin it on two other places: First, certification paper mills that tell you that a housewife can go from 0-$60,000 by just spending two weeks in a class and learning the answers to the MCSE tests. The other would be on the Linux community for "distracting" IT workers from doing their jobs. Too often we hear "Well, we wouldn't have these problems if we used Linux!" Yeah, that's great, when it does everything we need, we'll look into that. In the meantime, stop eschewing everything GUI and figure out that there is an underside to Windows that, if you know what you're doing you can manipulate, surprisingly without having access to any source code whatsoever. Unfortunately, too many people would rather just bitch than learn.
same frightful problem that the developer space deals with, where VB6 allows people to create executables without understanding programming at all
Yes, because only people with CS degrees should be able to create things that might help them be more productive. True that the small VB programs put out by these unwashed masses might be useful from time to time and do exactly what the person wants and no more...but, they're inelegant to the ever-so-helpful developers who are always more than willing to drop everything to create something useful instead of wandering around Slashdot. No, for them, form is much more important than function.
if all sysadmins had CS degrees, the majority of all servers would probably be *NIX based
Yes, because we all know that developers make GREAT sysadmins. I'll give you a clue: developers don't make even LOUSY sysadmins. I'd much rather put a user in charge of a critical system than let a developer touch it. I'm reminded of the infamous Melissa virus...and the programming houses I have friends at who constantly laughed at my use of Exchange instead of a Linux-based solution for my mail. I remember well laughing at their long, long, long hours cleaning up their networks because while I had implemented systems to protect against such attacks, they believed unwisely that Linus would protect them somehow.
and Code Red wouldn't have happened
Huh, odd then as Code Red also affected *NIX servers. Unless Solaris is no longer a *NIX variant? Explain also how the security checklist that comes with IIS provides no less than three checkpoints that would have avoided Code Red (Don't install unnecessary services such as IPP, don't use standard, well-known directories such as the "Scripts" virtual directory, and don't make your directories writable)? Explain also how Code Red was developed based on information from a security patch released by Microsoft a full month prior and therefore came AFTER the patch? Could it be that so many developers in charge of these IIS servers simply followed the wizards to install the servers and failed to follow good post-install security practices? It would be great if you could explain these things in context that makes these issues Microsoft's fault. It would be especially interesting to hear how Solaris being affected by Code Red was Microsoft's fault.
I personally don't know any REAL admin that was affected in any way by Code Red. Those affected were of the "I'm a developer, but I'm also required to be the systems admin as well" variety. Real admins don't blame Microsoft for their problems. They take responsibility for the safety and well-being of their networks and servers and do what they need to to ensure security and availability. Anyone who ever says, "Damn Microsoft for our latest technical woes..." is not a real admin and should be treated with suspicion.
Is it hard to do that on Red Hat?
No, you can install k3b on redhat fedora core and burn away, but knowing that k3b is as easy to use as Nero, or even EXISTS is harder on Linux than Windows if for no other reason than the fact that you can't just go to the store and see all the cd burning software available, and buy what you need. Most CD burners come with some kind of burning software for Windows, but not for Linux. If I was a "user" with a new CD burner in my machine that runs Linux, being able to burn CDs will be a lot harder for me than my neighbor running Windows. Now, here come the "if it's that hard for them to figure out, they shouldn't be running Linux in the first place" argument that draws in so many people to the Linux flock....
(Not necessarily from you, Strider, but some yutz is thinking it out there right now...)
In fact all of those things except OCR (which I've never heard of) and modems (which I have no experience of in mandrake) are a breeze. You don't ever have to use the command line.
No, not necessarily. Suppose for some reason your modem isn't supported, or network card, or sound card. There might be a kernel module out there you can get that'll enable it, but the average user isn't going to be able to do that. Until it's at the point that they stick in a CD that auto-runs and installs the drivers, or software for them, it's never going to be easy enough for general use. There are lots of people who are going to say "my grandmother or spouse uses Linux without problems", but that wouldn't be true if they didn't have a geek to help them out along the way.
Oh, yeah, OCR=Optical Character Recognition. Scan a document, and it converts it to text so it can be edited. Useful stuff for some, and for those people a deal-breaker against using Linux (like me).
except I don't believe the iPod has a way to play through audio from another source.
Although I don't have one, I have been investigating getting one, and I think that is incorrect. There is at least one accessory available for the iPod that suggests otherwise: The iTalk turns your iPod into a voice recorder. I think the unit simply stores your voice notes as MP3s on the iPod, but perhaps with a few tweaks it could playback real-time audio instead of just recording.
Sure. This site's prolly the best place to start. Good reviews of all kinds of remotes as well as detailed technical docs.
http://www.remotecentral.com/
I've never seen anything with a button that turns a tv off but not on
Most modern IR-controlled electronics have discrete On and Off signals, they're just generally not used. Some remotes, such as those from One-For-All support these discrete codes. They're very useful for setting up macros. For example, one of my macros is set to send "On to TV, Input 2 to TV, On to Amp, On to DVD" if I want to watch DVDs. If I used the generic "Power" button, I couldn't use this macro when I was already watching TV because it would turn off the TV and the amp, but turn on the DVD player. In a similar vein, I have a "System Off" macro that sends discrete off signals to every piece of equipment in my rack.
But is it up to you to decide that for my children? For someone elses children?
Why not? At what point do we finally realize that just because two people know how to fuck without protection that they have any idea how to raise a child? It's the parents who have been whining for years that violence and sex causes people to go insane and kill and rape...this is a fair solution. Parents, like everyone else, seem to want it both ways...police our children and protect them from all that is dark in the world, but don't tell us how to raise them!
It still sounds like an iBook, especially given your description
Doesn't sound like the one sitting right next to me (well, Powerbook, really). My Powerbook came with a bunch of crap I don't use, has taken weeks to find and install software to get it to do what I want, and if for no other reason than the fact that Apple STILL doesn't grasp the fact that a one-button mouse is useless, ESPECIALLY if I have to hold down a key on the keyboard or two in order to do a lot of thing, is not easy to use.
On the other hand, it does look nice. It better, though, after spending $2600 to get the same functionality a $900 Windows laptop would have gotten me.
Before you ask, I was giving Apple another try after a decade or so of avoiding them. Don't get me wrong, I've actually grown quite fond of it, it just ain't worth all the hype.
Arguments that we should be grateful that the benevolent US has been kind enough to not turn Iraq into glass even though it could have
That was hardly the argument. My argument was that we can now take out a dictator who slaughters entire families because one of them disagreed with him without having to kill the entire country. It's no longer necessary to eliminate a country in order to liberate it.
The amount of soldiers killed in Iraq went UP after saddam was captured. Actually the amount of total violence in Iraq went up.
Kinda like the amount of violence in Germany went up in WWII when we stepped in there, too? Oddly enough, though, eventually the amount of jews being killed went down in the long-term. Just be glad we don't use carpet-bombing as a tactic anymore. Sending 500 planes over Iraq each dropping 10,000 lbs of ordinance would have quelled these outbreaks a lot sooner, but at a cost of millions more lives.
And how many people actually use those features?
Everyone uses all of them. You have to look at "everyone" as a group, and not as individuals. Not every individual is going to use every feature, but when you lump every individual into everyone, you'll see that every feature gets used by someone, somewhere at some times.
MS does a lot of research into what people want in their word processors and spreadsheets. If the OO team did the same, OO would have at least as many as the Office suite. It doesn't matter if you don't use all the features, or if your neighbor doesn't, or even if your entire company doesn't. Someone, somewhere does and that's the big difference. MS targets everyone with their products, OO targets everyone as well, but with an "eh, noone uses this feature, so we won't put it in" attitude and then wonders why everyone says their products don't have the same features.
I've known managers who asked me to setup Word for them to always open with the "Memo" template because that's all they every use it for (waste of a manager more than a software package if you ask me..). But, conversely, my ex is a tech writer who has tried OO on many an occasion when asked by management and has returned it to them with a "switch to this, and I'm getting a new job" note attached.
I'll never forget the time rolling out new PCs for a company and the company was switching from WordPerfect to Word. I had one woman complain that it was useless because it didn't have one feature that WP did...in WP, she was able to have a column on every page that was the same. She could do headers and footers, but couldn't do this repeating column. To her, Word was as useless and feature-deficient as OO is to other people. Go figure.
As can be seen in the comments, there are 3-4 different ways listed to set a document to double-space in Word. Why is that? Because everyone does things differently. In order for OO to succeed, it needs to have EVERY feature Word does, and then some. Otherwise, everyone's going to say it doesn't have some feature they want, and not use it.
Do you consider formatting the HDD, and slapping a fresh image of the OS and apps a solution, or is that a last ditch effort?
We did reimage the machine, and the problem still occured. It was only at that point that we decided to give up and swap the machines. We did it both times it happened, and both times freshly imaged machines exhibited exactly the same results. I do consider imagining a machine an absolute last ditch effort. I instruct my techs at all times to spend the time trying to get the problems fixed. Since the machines are imaged, imaging isn't a solution, the problem's going to come back. Fixing a problem once takes less time than fixing it over and over again.
Doing desktop support for a corporation that; is constantly changing (application level) platforms, buying terriblely buggy software with horrendous vendor support, allowing users to install whatever crap they want on their machines (users are local admins on their boxen), and employees too few technicians per users.
Then, that is a fault of your corporation. They see no value in technology, it is merely a means to an end. By allowing other departments to make their own decisions on IT issues, they have eliminated IT as a proactive element and made you all repair monkeys. That isn't a fault of Microsoft, though. In a properly locked down environment where users aren't allowed to screw with their machines, or install what they want, or even make purchasing decisions without first consulting IT, those kinds of problems don't happen. The worst part is, it's a vicious cycle. They buy crap, it makes the machines act like crap, they think IT stuff is crap. Since you're the ones responsible for it, you are given less credence and they don't come to you for advice...so they buy crap...No matter what OS you have running, be it Windows, Linux or OSX, that situation will continue to prevail. The solution to your problems aren't technical.
The way i see it, it comes down to the amount of time spent. It's the equivilant of hospital triage for the help desk.
That analogy doesn't work, because at the end of the day in an ER, everyone needs to be alive. You can't say, "well, he's just got a broken leg, let's send him home with some aspirin for the pain and tell him to come back tomorrow". That's what's happening when you use reboots to fix an issue. Yes, if the load is heavy, and it's a one-time thing, go ahead, reboot and go away. But, if it happens again, it needs to be fixed.
One thing I've found that works effectively in combating political and social issues like the ones you're facing is to become proficient in the numbers. Learn how long it takes for a user to suffer with poor software and hardware. Provide a manager with a cost, and he might listen. Example:
A couple years ago, the company I worked for had a branch office. Every once in a while, I had to go up there and provide desktop support. The problem was, these machines were about 5 years old. They were running the original install of Windows 95 that came with the machine. Over the years, software had been installed, removed and layered. They were running the latest versions of all the apps as well. Ever tried running Office 2000 or Oracle Applications 11 on a Pentium 150 w/ 32M of RAM? They were slow and crashy. I told the manager time and time again the machines needed to be upgraded, they were too slow for the latest software. He said it was fine, and people could live with it.
I was only in this branch for one day every 6 months, so building an image for them and installing it wasn't an option. Regardless, no amount of tweaking would make these machines run any faster. So, I did a survey and found that the average user crashed about 7 times per day. Every user used at a minimum Outlook 2000 and Oracle Apps. It took...no lie...10 minutes for them to reboot their machines, log in and load up the basic software they needed to get through the day. On reboots alone,
Because with a ratio of 1:30 to 1:100 helpdesk:users, I don't have time to debug everyone's little problems with Explorer.
Ah, the cry of the truely desperate. "I just don't have time!" Then, why are you in IT? 1:100 is a very low ratio, I've had 1:250, 1:500 and still found time to get things done. Here's your new mantra: "If I don't have time to fix it the first time, where will I find to fix it again?" Take the time to fix the problems. If you do that, they don't come back, and don't take anymore time. Better yet, make a good image, test it, and verify it won't bluescreen BEFORE it goes to the user community. That'll cut down on those calls, and you'll have time to devote to the really odd problems that pop up.
Hold on there, killer, I disagree. Do you use Windows?
No, I use BeOS on every machine, both private and corporate.
Yes - but the blue screen is indicating that the OS is no longer stabile - you DO NEED to reboot.
No, the bluescreen is not "indicating", it is TELLING you that the machine (OS, software & hardware) is unstable and you need to find out what it is and fix it. Rebooting only gets rid of a bluescreen for a short while. If a machine bluescreens, the bluescreens will come back until you fix them. Prime example: my home machine started bluescreening. Read the error, did some research, and confirmed that my HD was dying. Drive Imaged over to a new drive, bluescreens stopped. Interestingly...I installed Linux on the old drive to see if the drive was recoverable, and the machine core dumped. What a surprise, not a problem with the OS at all!
MS error messages contained in blue screens is sometimes cryptic at best.
So? Most error messages are cryptic at best, that doesn't mean you don't take the time to learn how to read them, or figure out how to fix the problems they're indicating. To do so is simply lazy. And, MS doesn't hold a patent on cryptic error messages. Those from Linux can be twice as obtuse. Of course, their support is usually better: "If you can't figure it out, you shouldn't be using Linux" always solves problems.
Researching a blue screen message can often point to a bug in an application, or in the OS itself.
Well, yes, that would be the point of an error mesage. Funny that, huh?
I've had MS give me indications that I may have older drivers. Downloaded the newest vesions just a day or so prior. Sometimes the advice is just wrong.
Yes, it is. So? Then stop taking their advice and learn to fix problems on your own. I've called MS 3 times in the last 12 years. All three times they were a last resort and all three times they couldn't give me an answer. Save the dollars and learn.
There's not always something else that CAN be done on a Win box.
That's almost true. In the past 20 years, I've encountered exactly ONE problem I couldn't fix, and to this day have no idea what the problem was. It actually occured on two machines:
The machines were running Windows 98. The user would log in, and then get an error: "SHLWAPI.DLL has caused and invalid page fault in explorer.exe". Explorer would never load, and the user couldn't use the machine. (I'll save you the time, shlwapi.dll is a component of IE). Here's where it gets interesting: if another user logged into the machine, the machine worked fine. If the user logged into another machine, the machine worked fine. If I made the user a domain admin (temporarily), the machine worked fine. It was only if THAT user logged into THAT machine as a user. Profiles were not enabled in Windows. We did end up reimaging the machine, and she was the first to log into it, and got the same error. All previous conditions applied. I ended up just swapping her machine with her neighbor's since they were imaged and identical. Never did figure that one out, even when it occured to another user. Same solution, and it never happened again in the two years I was there.
In any case, that was an isolated and singular situation, every other problem, I've fixed. I don't leave a machine until it's FIXED. Reboots and defrags are not repairs.
You're certainly right, reboots are not the answer for ALL problems. But they are solutions (and pretty darm good ones at times) for the weird, occassional problem. Reboot, log-in, run your app, and you're fine for days.
No. You still have a problem, you haven't fixed anything. I tell my users: "if something happens, reboot once. If it happens again, call us. If it happens again within the next six months, call us. Otherwise, it's a one-time random thing. Anymore frequently than every six months is not rand
To quote The Donald: "You're Fired". You are exactly the kind of person I was referencing in my post.
Is there a babelfish something somewhere that'll translate BSOD into English? Because most of the error messages I've seen there have been spectacularly unhelpful.
Yes, there are two easily accessible: called "Google" and "The MS Support KB". I'll give you a hint: that long string of numbers in the upper left-hand corner is your error. Put that in the KB, and you'll generally get an answer or 25. You don't have to put in all the leading zeros (0x0000007b becomes 0x7b). Put that in with the word "Stop".
Well, the machines problem is probably simply the fact that it's running Windows.
No, the machine's problem is simply that its support staff has no idea what it's doing.
If a user is getting bluescreened once a weeek, it seems kind of silly for me to take the machine offline for half a day,
And thus the reason you're fired. If I had you on my staff and you uttered those words to me, you'd be out of there so fast your head would spin. How long does the user suffer every week because of those blue screens? 10 minutes? 20? Add it up and you'll see that a few hours work is worth the time. Regardless, if it's taking you half a day to solve a bluescreen issue, you shouldn't be working second level support.
Sure, if you're blueing regularly
Define "regularly". I would define regularly when it comes to blue screens as "once". Weekly is unacceptable and constant. Blue screens are a Windows last resort. Something has happened on the machine so bad that the OS has to shut it down lest any further damage takes place. That doesn't happen with a proper install. It's up to YOU to figure out what happened, and fix it. I've never once encounted a bluescreen that I couldn't fix, therefore the problem is with you.
chalk it up to Windows overhead, remember to save your work regularly, and get on with things.
Spoken like a true professional. I'm sure your boss goes to bed every night and thanks his stars he was lucky enough to land someone like you. It's your responsibility to fix problems. When problems come up, and you don't fix them, you're shirking your responsibilities. Grow up, learn and take some responsibility for a change.
where there are IT depts and such supposedly taking care of the machines, I think that the numbers would be drastically reversed
:)
I would disagre, as most IT people have little more clue than users. I say this not to be a prick, but because it's true. I've met so very few people in the last 20 years that really, really know what they're doing and have good troubleshooting skills. How often do you hear from an IT person "Ooops, it bluescreened, that means it's time to reboot!"? No, if you got a bluescreen, that's a friggin' error message. Read it and find out what went wrong. I'd also argue that these clueless masses of IT folks think that reboots are the cure for all problems. If you're forced to reboot a machine, that machine has a problem....FIX IT! If you can't fix it, it's not MS fault, it's yours. You don't need the source code to figure out what's wrong, just a brain.
Boy, that ended up being more ranty than intended.
On my site, which isn't a geek-oriented site and therefore more representative of the general population of the net, IE still accounts for over 95% of the browser market with no change at all in the last few months.
Trends require more than one anomalous reading.
Hmmmmmm....you're right. I need to have a talk with my plumber! :)
And, besides that, plumbing's easy. There's only two things you need to know:
1. Shit goes down.
2. Payday's Tuesday.
Goddamn that was just one of the most brilliant posts I've seen on this damn site. Finally, someone who gets that free software can cost too much in terms of time.
...Director
:)
So? I realize it's difficult to believe, but sometimes, when Directors screw up severly, they get punished. Keep track of the blood loss, and take it to your boss, or better yet, YOUR director. At the very least, he can use it as politcal ammo against the twit. If it's your director, no there isn't much you can do at that point unless you're going to take a VERY WELL documented case to the Director of Finance. Most CEOs will listen to that Director, and if you come to him and say, "Captain Dorkwad is costing the company $1,000,000 a year in technical support and repair and here's where I get those numbers..." you might have a shot. Barring that, go straight to the CEO, and if you're not comfortable doing that, dust off the resume. It's never, ever going to change, so why deal with it? It will probably be the same elsewhere, but there's a chance it won't be. At least you'll be out when they go out of business.
I mean it's like telling a child not to take candy from strangers. I'm asking for common sense and the ability to take instruction, not expertise
:)
No matter how much you drill it into their heads, some children will always take candy from strangers, just like some people will open attachments they're not supposed to. This woman may get hundreds of mails a day from strangers, some which are valid (resumes, salespeople digging for information, etc) and some that aren't. It's not her job to determine if an attachment should be opened or not, it's YOURS. When I was an admin, I took that responsibility away from the end users and put it on myself because a) I was more capable of making that distinction, or more precisely capable of setting up software that could make that distinction on thousands of e-mails a day and b) it was my job to protect my network. I couldn't expect my users to put much thought into what e-mails and attachments they should open because they had other tasks. And, surprisingly, when I took that responsibility, viruses stopped ENTIRELY.
I think this is a fundemental problem with IT people. They want to blame everyone else for their issues, and take no responsibility for their failures. If a virus gets on your network, it's YOUR FAULT, and no one else's. It's your job to keep them off. Educating your users is a wonderful thing, but some people are not going to get it or not care. Those are your responsibilities and it's such an easy thing to fix. Install a virus filter on your mail system that checks every mail prior to it being dropped in your client's mailboxes. Filter out all executable and non-business related attachments (pif, exe, com, mov, avi, mp3) from the get-go. Setup your AV signatures to automatically update every 4 hours, and scan everything else. If there's anything that's questionable, send it to you before sending it to the user. Yes, it can be that simple. At the very least it eliminates the overwhelming majority of threats, both old and new. An educated user should be your LAST line of defense, not the first or second.
Look, common sense is not an absolute. To me, it's just common sense that an IT person would take responsibility for keeping viruses off their network, and not leave it up to the end "lusers". But, to you, common sense tells you that if you tell a person 100 times not to do something, they won't do it. Common sense tells me that ain't never going to be the case.
And, to be clear, this isn't an attack on you personally, just a lively discussion.
the burglary comment was about the virus writers
I realize that, but it applies to end users as well. A burglar gets caught, convicted and goes to jail. He's been told, in no uncertain terms, "Don't do that". He's been punished in a way that we can't (but would love to) do to our users. He gets out, and does it again, and gets caught, and goes to jail. Again, he's been told and punished for it. He gets out, and does it again. At some point we have to stop and say, "This guy ain't gettin' it". Another poster commented that the woman should be "punished" by taking her computer away from her for a few hours to give her impact for her actions. Their common sense says that should work. By that common sense, a burglar who goes to jail twice for the crime isn't going to do it again because they're "out". But, it happens. If someone doesn't learn not to commit burglary after two convictions, a couple stints in prison AND the threat of losing their freedom forever, what chance do you think you're going to have teaching a person like that to not open attachments she shouldn't? She's of the same mentality as Mr. Burglar. She doesn't get it..."it won't happen to me, it's someone else's problem, someone else will take the rap".
My common sense tells me: "Ms. Idiot is never going to stop doing this. I can't really punish her because the corporate policies don't provide for such punishment. That makes no sens
More importantly, that RPM only works on RPM-based distros and even then there will be times when it won't work.
Yeah, one of my biggest problems with Linux. For an OS that's designed by people who scream about standards compatibility, nothing's consistent from one machine to the next. Regardless, since it costs practically nothing to get it on the recipient's machine, blasting it out to 1,000,000 people in the hopes that it'll infect 10,000 is a good return and worth the effort.
2) If IPFilters was installed, then the spammer has to also reconfigure the packet firewall in their install script.
And, if the firewall is enable on the Windows PC, and the AV is enabled on the Windows PC, and if the user isn't running as an admin...in other words, if people applied the same basic security on Windows as they do on Linux (aside from the AV, I know that's only Windows), then a lot of these problems would be non-existant.
I suppose you would blame gunshot victims for not wearing a bullet-proof vest or upgrading to the newest models when better armor piercing bullets came out
No, but I would blame them for entering such a situation without some form of protection. Most people go through their entire lives without being shot. They don't enter situations which would cause that to happen. Look at the stats, most people who suffer from gunshot wounds are either criminals fighting with other criminals, or rednecks shooting at stop signs (for whatever reason they do that). I do feel sorry for the small minority who are shot through no fault of their own, but they are a VERY small minority.
In some cases this may take up to six months
SIX MONTHS? What the hell are you testing for six months?
admins have been plaqued with downsizes and more duties
And, unfortunately, most admins don't know how, or refuse to, play the political game and get what they need out of senior managers. They have burned the relationships in the past to the point that they can't say: "If you're taking away the support staff, I need to be able to lock down the machines, tighten security and standardize systems so that I can do this on my own."