Friend, if you're like me, and you've already got a University Diploma from a presigious non accredited university, a lifetime supply of herbal viagra to keep your 12 inch penis hard to satisfy those hot teen sluts, and a low rate mortgage to buy a warehouse to put all those toner cartridges, all made possible by helping out some swell Nigerian prince, then this offer is for YOU!!
Get in on the ground floor of this new growth industry!!! For only $30, you receive my start up kit for making money suing spammers. I made 1 million dollars in the first month alone and I want to offer YOU this once in a lifetime opportunity! You can make $3000 a week working entirely from home. Just think of all cable descramblers and prescription drugs you can buy with that cash! Plus you get that warm and cozy feeling that you caused some scumbag spammer a little harm. Don't wait, act now!
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I am glad I finished my CS degree in the mid 90's before the dot com boom was in full swing. People doing CS back then actually had ability and interest in programming, not a gold rush mentallity. There were no watered down IS or MIS degrees. Of the people I graduated with that I have kept in touch with, most of the competent ones still have decent jobs in the field. People with talent will somehow manage to survive, I think, or I least hope. Those that don't are being weeded out.
I feel for anybody coming out of school today. I took a lesser paying starting position doing system administration/technician job and eventually moved into a programming position, even with mediocre college grades (I was a lazy bastard in college, rarely studied.) But even those entry level jobs don't seem to exist much anymore. But I guess this is just the correction for the over inflation. IT will eventually bottom out and stabilize to a more realistic level, I hope.
There may be a federal law, but we occasionally still get a few spam faxes at my office, I've even gotten a Nigerian or similar scheme, and the usual stock, toner, and mortgage garbage. It's illegal and we could theoretically probably collect, but the 15 person firm I work for just doesn't have the time and personnel to pursue things like this, when it only really costs a few pennies for paper, maybe. How many people actually are willing to go through the trouble to collect on this? I really don't look at who is sending the junk faxes, but I bet most are probably international, as there are some cheap international long distance rates, or there wouldn't be telemarketing firms operating out of Canada.
I wonder if the junk fax law were expanded, if it even would be valid, since a typical spam is bounced off some Korean open relay or similar. This could be a loophole in the law. Even if this wasn't the case, the spammers would just move their operations offshore. You're never going to legislate spam away, it's not that simple. Technical measures are the only realistic way IMO to reduce spam, unless you can get international support and cooperation for something like this (good luck!).
If you have false ceilings, venting the hot air into the ceiling can help quite a bit. At the small company I work for, we have 2 16 node, 32 CPU Athlon clusters(for doing large simulations). These are in 1U chasses in small 22U enclosed cabinets, and each cluster generates about 12,500 BTU/hr. These cabinets have large fans on top which vent out the hot air. Using 2 small portable air conditioners and venting the exhaust with insulated air hoses into the false ceiling of another part of the building, the server room temperature stays at around 70F. We could probably heat a part of the building with this heat this winter, if we wanted to. We are in the New Mexico desert, so humidity is not much of an issue, but the AC units also have dehumidifiers. As soon as the building management approves, we will install a vent on the roof to exhaust the heat, which should be even more efficient. Without venting, the room would quickly overheat. This whole "home brew" cooling system only cost a few thousand dollars, whereas putting in an industrial strength cooling system would easily be 20-30K. The room is monitored 24/7, and in 6 months the hottest it has gotten is 73F. Of course if we add a lot more equipment, we would need a more conventional cooling system, but this works great for us right now.
Yes, there are a lot of packages on the typical RedHat CD, but many are very obscure and quite frankly of questionable quality. Why would your typical non geek user want/need 10 browsers, 8 editors, 7 email clients, when only a couple of each might be decent. Choice is good, but the belief that free software is always better than proprietary is bogus. There is a lot of crappy software, whether free or not. A lot of programs on the CD's are redundant, or of dubious quality and/or use. There is of course a lot of good stuff on there too, if somewhat unpolished.
If there is really this great push to cut into the desktop, there needs to be some consolidation. Choice is great, but there must be some uniformity to appeal to the average computer user. Some sort of unified desktop or compatibility would help, and it seems that may be starting to happen. Personally, I don't care how many desktops Linux is installed on. It was a great OS 6 years ago when I started using it, and is even better today. Whether it takes over the desk top and actually turns a profit for some companies is irrelvant to me. If it's good, I will use it, regardless of popularity. In fact, I sometimes yearn for the days when it wasn't as well known. The quest for popularity seems to be mostly to mimic Windows.
The days of using a 2400 baud modem on my 486 to dial in to the local high school. You had shell on a VAX, you used lynx and kermit.
Hell, in my day, all we had was a tin can and string, and we were happy to have it! These young whippersnappers today don't know how good they have it!
Seriously though, I first got on the net about 1989 in college. Being a poor student, I couldn't afford a PC, so I spent many hours in the computer labs exploring the Net, such as it was, when I didn't have programming assignments. I finally got a hand me down 286 with a 1200 bps modem, and then bought a blazing 9600 for $100 or so. The Internet was mostly email, USENET, archie, ftp, and IRC. ISP's were pretty much non existant, I dialed into the university VAXes and transferred files with kermit. It was primitive by today's standards, but there was also no spam, so email and USENET were actually useful. You didn't have to hide your email address. To get on the Internet, you actually had to have a clue. But it did take like 15 minutes to download, uudecode and view a single pr0n image.:) Those days were still pretty cool, though.
Spammers do misrepresent what they are selling, but if there are few or no responses, it will hurt the spammer some. Most spammers get some amount of money for each response or "lead" the spam generates. So, if no one responds, he doesn't make his commission. But the actual fee collected from the client is probably more than enough to make spamming worthwhile financially. If people would stop responding to spam, then hopefully businesses would resist hiring a spammer. But as long as there are gullible, stupid people out there (and it only has to be a very small proportion) responding to it, spam will never disappear.
I think that people can only take so much. If they misjudged the market, made poor decisions, well that's the breaks. I bought a big house that was beyond my realistic needs and means and ended up selling it for a big loss. Can I get someone to bail me out of that, too?
It kind of reminds me of a compulsive gambler or addict. "Please, I just need a little cash to get me by until next week. I swear, I will never bet/drink again". Which is of course a lie. This is an inexact analogy, but people's reaction is the same. Mandrake seems to be saying (and saying, and saying) "We just need a little cash to get us by. We've spent more money than we had, we're sorry. But we're this close to turning a profit Real Soon Now. We promise. Really". I'll buy it the first couple of times, but after that I've got to question where my money is going.
Has Mandrake made a postive difference? Sure, they were the first distro with an install, desktop, and administrative interface that a non geek user could actually use. This seems to be their target audience. Unfortunately, this market is just too thin right now to support oneself soley with. RedHat is breaking even only because it has made inroads into the server and enterprise markets. Like it or not, Linux only real strength commercially is in the server/corporate environments right now. And profits are marginal at best.
Trying to make money off of free software is an iffy proposition anyway There are enough corporate users out there willing to pay RedHat for support to make it a reasonable business model. But your average home user just simply isn't going to pay for support. He isn't going to pay for something he can get for free either. It's just not in people's nature. Besides, if the product is so easy to use, who needs support anyway?
Mandrake has been a good member of the Linux community. But they have been a lousy business. They need to make up their minds just what they want to be. Either become a stable business, which may mean tightening control over their product and making some tough choices and angering some, or become a non profit. Either way, they are going to piss off some people. But they are already doing that now. Even if they do go belly up, it is not the end of the world. It's not like there is a shortage of distros out there.
I am in almost the exact same situation, except a much smaller company, 15+ employees, mainly defense work also. Every year I've gotten a raise substantially higher than cost of living, a nice bonus, and a Christmas dinner party. Starting this year we started profit sharing too, which I will take anyday over stock options. Small companies can really be very cool to work for sometimes. My hours are flexible and the environment is very relaxed, I have never been forced to work over 40 hours a week, although I have several times voluntarally. Salary is not quite as high as I could get elsewhere, but the benefits mentioned above are definately worth it to me.
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Friend, if you're like me, and you've already got a University Diploma from a presigious non accredited university, a lifetime supply of herbal viagra to keep your 12 inch penis hard to satisfy those hot teen sluts, and a low rate mortgage to buy a warehouse to put all those toner cartridges, all made possible by helping out some swell Nigerian prince, then this offer is for YOU!!
Get in on the ground floor of this new growth industry!!! For only $30, you receive my start up kit for making money suing spammers. I made 1 million dollars in the first month alone and I want to offer YOU this once in a lifetime opportunity! You can make $3000 a week working entirely from home. Just think of all cable descramblers and prescription drugs you can buy with that cash! Plus you get that warm and cozy feeling that you caused some scumbag spammer a little harm. Don't wait, act now!
You have received this email because you opted in to one our marketing partner's mailing lists. If you don't wish to receive informative marketing messages from our subsidiaries, click on link below and your address will be immediately removed from this list and put on our Preferred Customers lists to receive even more helpful messages from our marketing associates.
I feel for anybody coming out of school today. I took a lesser paying starting position doing system administration/technician job and eventually moved into a programming position, even with mediocre college grades (I was a lazy bastard in college, rarely studied.) But even those entry level jobs don't seem to exist much anymore. But I guess this is just the correction for the over inflation. IT will eventually bottom out and stabilize to a more realistic level, I hope.
I wonder if the junk fax law were expanded, if it even would be valid, since a typical spam is bounced off some Korean open relay or similar. This could be a loophole in the law. Even if this wasn't the case, the spammers would just move their operations offshore. You're never going to legislate spam away, it's not that simple. Technical measures are the only realistic way IMO to reduce spam, unless you can get international support and cooperation for something like this (good luck!).
If you have false ceilings, venting the hot air into the ceiling can help quite a bit. At the small company I work for, we have 2 16 node, 32 CPU Athlon clusters(for doing large simulations). These are in 1U chasses in small 22U enclosed cabinets, and each cluster generates about 12,500 BTU/hr. These cabinets have large fans on top which vent out the hot air. Using 2 small portable air conditioners and venting the exhaust with insulated air hoses into the false ceiling of another part of the building, the server room temperature stays at around 70F. We could probably heat a part of the building with this heat this winter, if we wanted to. We are in the New Mexico desert, so humidity is not much of an issue, but the AC units also have dehumidifiers. As soon as the building management approves, we will install a vent on the roof to exhaust the heat, which should be even more efficient. Without venting, the room would quickly overheat. This whole "home brew" cooling system only cost a few thousand dollars, whereas putting in an industrial strength cooling system would easily be 20-30K. The room is monitored 24/7, and in 6 months the hottest it has gotten is 73F. Of course if we add a lot more equipment, we would need a more conventional cooling system, but this works great for us right now.
If there is really this great push to cut into the desktop, there needs to be some consolidation. Choice is great, but there must be some uniformity to appeal to the average computer user. Some sort of unified desktop or compatibility would help, and it seems that may be starting to happen. Personally, I don't care how many desktops Linux is installed on. It was a great OS 6 years ago when I started using it, and is even better today. Whether it takes over the desk top and actually turns a profit for some companies is irrelvant to me. If it's good, I will use it, regardless of popularity. In fact, I sometimes yearn for the days when it wasn't as well known. The quest for popularity seems to be mostly to mimic Windows.
Hell, in my day, all we had was a tin can and string, and we were happy to have it! These young whippersnappers today don't know how good they have it!
Seriously though, I first got on the net about 1989 in college. Being a poor student, I couldn't afford a PC, so I spent many hours in the computer labs exploring the Net, such as it was, when I didn't have programming assignments. I finally got a hand me down 286 with a 1200 bps modem, and then bought a blazing 9600 for $100 or so. The Internet was mostly email, USENET, archie, ftp, and IRC. ISP's were pretty much non existant, I dialed into the university VAXes and transferred files with kermit. It was primitive by today's standards, but there was also no spam, so email and USENET were actually useful. You didn't have to hide your email address. To get on the Internet, you actually had to have a clue. But it did take like 15 minutes to download, uudecode and view a single pr0n image. :) Those days were still pretty cool, though.
Spammers do misrepresent what they are selling, but if there are few or no responses, it will hurt the spammer some. Most spammers get some amount of money for each response or "lead" the spam generates. So, if no one responds, he doesn't make his commission. But the actual fee collected from the client is probably more than enough to make spamming worthwhile financially. If people would stop responding to spam, then hopefully businesses would resist hiring a spammer. But as long as there are gullible, stupid people out there (and it only has to be a very small proportion) responding to it, spam will never disappear.
As for room names, hmm...
Obligatory MS jab:
Kmart, for MS server rooms, with all the BSOD's, you think there must be a blue light special going on.
It kind of reminds me of a compulsive gambler or addict. "Please, I just need a little cash to get me by until next week. I swear, I will never bet/drink again". Which is of course a lie. This is an inexact analogy, but people's reaction is the same. Mandrake seems to be saying (and saying, and saying) "We just need a little cash to get us by. We've spent more money than we had, we're sorry. But we're this close to turning a profit Real Soon Now. We promise. Really". I'll buy it the first couple of times, but after that I've got to question where my money is going.
Has Mandrake made a postive difference? Sure, they were the first distro with an install, desktop, and administrative interface that a non geek user could actually use. This seems to be their target audience. Unfortunately, this market is just too thin right now to support oneself soley with. RedHat is breaking even only because it has made inroads into the server and enterprise markets. Like it or not, Linux only real strength commercially is in the server/corporate environments right now. And profits are marginal at best.
Trying to make money off of free software is an iffy proposition anyway There are enough corporate users out there willing to pay RedHat for support to make it a reasonable business model. But your average home user just simply isn't going to pay for support. He isn't going to pay for something he can get for free either. It's just not in people's nature. Besides, if the product is so easy to use, who needs support anyway?
Mandrake has been a good member of the Linux community. But they have been a lousy business. They need to make up their minds just what they want to be. Either become a stable business, which may mean tightening control over their product and making some tough choices and angering some, or become a non profit. Either way, they are going to piss off some people. But they are already doing that now. Even if they do go belly up, it is not the end of the world. It's not like there is a shortage of distros out there.
I am in almost the exact same situation, except a much smaller company, 15+ employees, mainly defense work also. Every year I've gotten a raise substantially higher than cost of living, a nice bonus, and a Christmas dinner party. Starting this year we started profit sharing too, which I will take anyday over stock options. Small companies can really be very cool to work for sometimes. My hours are flexible and the environment is very relaxed, I have never been forced to work over 40 hours a week, although I have several times voluntarally. Salary is not quite as high as I could get elsewhere, but the benefits mentioned above are definately worth it to me.