I had taken a stats class in undergrad... did not really pay attention as I thought it had no use. While getting my masters I was obligated to take an advance statistics class. Going in, for the life of me I thought it would be a waste - it was the best class I ever took. I was able to use it in my job almost every week if not more ( most of the other classes were theoretical at best and had no real world application ). Ten years later, I still rely on things I learned in that class. Statistics should be mandatory for all in college regardless of major because it can be used for so many things.
I am not sure how intuitive or usable the old office is, but I have been using one version or another since the late 80s. I am very familiar with it and can access anything relatively quickly with little forethought. My company switched to Office 2007 and I am miserable. I use to know where everything is, but now it takes multiple clicks to get what I want done. Maybe I will get used to, I'll probably have to, but one of the key benefits for me was the model that was used. I knew that in any program I went to, if I wanted to open a document, I should go under File and I would see the open command. Whatever happens, I just hope that all the different vendors stick to a consistent model so that people will still be able to transfer knowledge of how one program works to how another works. Another bad move I thought was the new interface by Adobe, I am not liking the new Elements interface.
ads? What are ads? Ever since I got the Tivo Series 1 (now have HD Tivo) I haven't watched many commercials unless they were playing during the Superbowl - oddly enough I end up watching more commercials on youTube or something else like that when my friends email links to the funny ones.
I hope she is not a sweater or else you are going to have a lot of water flying around the space station. Something tells me that can't be good for all the electronics.
I took my Canon Digital Rebel, two lenses, iPod and Powerbook along with misc cables with me to Australia last year. It was almost a necessity because of all the pictures I took, I needed someway to store them and I chose to bring the laptop so I could blog it (www.obinge.com/australia). The one thing I learned is make sure you have a comfortable backpack because the things you travel with get heavy quickly and can become a real nuisance. Also, make sure you get one where the laptop can be removed quickly for those airport screeners.
I have also found that internet access is not cheap in some places, so map out any free hotspots before you go wherever it is that you are going.
I agree, the only problem is when I ordered my RAZR and Mototola Bluetooth headset, they had different chargers! The RAZR had the USB and the headset still had the old one used on the v60s... I was so annoyed. Now I have two chargers for home, and two chargers for the car. They should standardize all of the phones and accessories.
I was in a training class for Rational Software Architecture, I was 'told' that some company's have set it up and augmented the rational suite so that they can get about 85% of generated code before a developer has to touch it. There claim was the architect will be the main driver behind future development and the key cog in the enterprise.
I live in an established community that was around before the internet hype started, so we are stuck right now with the existing wiring infrastructure. However, around me I see new communities going up all the time and I never understand why they don't install fiber to begin with and why these new homeowners associations don't decide to own lines inside of their community and have the ISPs just connect at the front door. Perhaps it has something to do with regulations that the phone company or whomever must own the connection, but I think it would be worth to consider running a second line so that people in your community could have a choice. Hell, I don't get much worth from my homeowners fee at the moment, at least this in my mind would be something I would pay for.
We use Connected DataProtector, which does have a scheduling option - if I was allowed to modify it. They have things so locked down permissions wise that I am not allowed to change it. They force security patches (which always take forever, because they hit you when you boot, and then they make it reboot - and let's face it, windows doesn't boot the fastest and this company has scripts that run every day that makes it even slower).
I am for a more open system, mostly because I like to think I know what I am doing, however I see there point in that it does control the amount of tech support they need, and everyone should be on the same versions and this should also control the licensing issues. I can't install anything on my own, access the registry, even most of the control panel is locked down. For release testing you need to get special permission to change your HOSTS file, it goes on and on...
Because of these type of events, I am now subjected to running everything encyrpted now by the company I currently have a contract for. Plus they force daily backups in case the laptop is stolen/lost. At first I thought it would be a hassle and there are some minor delays when the backup is taking place (seems to run at most inappropriate times), but so far I have gotten used to it and it really hasn't impacted my work. If this is the price I have to pay to telework, than so be it, it is better than having to trek the 80+ miles to the office every day.
The real problem I have is the perception that when you "work from home" you are not really working, so I have to work extra hard so that people think I am working at all.
It is not the job of the IT department to sell changes to the senior execs (unless you are speaking about infrastructure), it is their job to implement the changes that the business has deemed necessary and have gotten approval (and funding) for.
One of the key things that hurt AT&T since the divestiture was the inability to compete on price, they unlike all other carriers were subject to regulation by the FCC. So when a competitor comes out with a great new offering, it took a long time before AT&T could match since they had to get permission to do so.
The FCC extends its Competitive Carrier deregulation of the interstate telephone industry, ruling that it will rely on market forces instead of regulation to control the rates of all carriers except AT&T, under a policy known as "forbearance."
I have actually found an interesting thematic photoblog, it is a girl who got a digital camera for her 29th birthday and decided to take a picture of herself each day for the next year until she turns 30. ,br>She ads in some commentary and I have found it quite good at times, blah at others.
I concur, the Lensman series was great. I liked the part where ships used to grapple the other ship and send boarding parties to take over the other ship, so there would be hand to hand combat in space battles. Just like the tall ships of old.
As a person involved in GUI design for the last eight years I have to come to the realization that is very important to both listen to your user base as well as to ignore them.
Users often ask for the most ridiculous things that they think will suppsoeduly make their life/jobs easier (since I build software for professional tasks, this might not be apropos to the OS), it is my job to not just dismiss these request but to think about them and try to figure out the underlying problem that I need to solve. Not to make the user totally happy, but to make them productive (bonus if both are possible, and they sometimes are).
Basically I consider there to be three types of users:
Beginner's - just beginning to use the softeare and need training.
Novices - can get around, do there job competently but is still not at the the optimal state
Expert - They can use the system flawlessly and are very productive
In my world I design systems towards the experts needs. They use the software every day and need to perform their tasks quickly and without mistakes. If I design for the beginner in mind, it will slow down the Novice and Expert groups, and eventually with the proper training all users should progreess from one stage to the next, ending up at the expert stage. For a company, they want all their employee's running at our near the expert level because this is where they gain their efficiencies.
It is a little more of a problem to apply this concept to an operating system, this is why I have the utmost respect for the people who design them. But I think they should try to keep the same principles in mind, design towards the expert with helping hands towards the beginners, i.e. Wizards (but not limited too). When you first set up let say a network connection, you use the wizard (beginner/first time setup), when you need to change something, you most likely will just go to the connection and make the change directly (novice/expert). That is the difficult part in the design, allowing all types of users to use the system, while also educating them. I'm don't know about everyone else, but when was the last time you moved the mouse up to file menu and down to the pring button instead of hitting Control-P? At first most people probably went to the file menu to print, but then they see the hot keys next to it and learn that this is a quicker way to perform the same task.
Overall, I am just happy to see serious discussions on this topic. A lot of people in my work take UI design forgranted as well, and I will point them to these articles.
As a former labs person, one who was included in last years outsourcing, it is not a surprise to see this happen. For right or wrong the new management has chosen this path and they are succeeding in an alarming rate. What they are succeeding at I have no idea beside the destruction of the Labs and the company as a whole. Am I a bitter ex-employee? sure... but that doesn't change the fact that that it is happening.
The president of the labs is to credit or blame as you see fit. He has a strategy and he is going about it quickly. Is it a good strategy? Time will tell, but it is not one I believe in, nor do I believe in their president, even when I was a loyal employee. He is downsizing research and development and trying to buy off the shelf products for a company that really has no peer in size. Let's face it, the reason why AT&T had to develop all of their own stuff internally was because there was no one on the outside developing towards that market and could achieve the quality that was desired. They have special needs that outside vendors, for the most part, can't fill, but they try and stick the square peg into the round hole.
I am against quick and dirty, as stated it can get funding and results. My big hesitation is the statment 'assuming you get money later'-which in my experience never happens in my area.
I have worked on several projects where features were done earlier in the quick and dirty way, after some period of time a new feature comes in that affects the earlier work. I knew nothing about the work and the person who did it had left. We had provided estimates and got the funding and now we went to do the work to find out that their was no documentation (just a shell of a high-level design). We had to suck it up and do alot of work to document the original feature first, and then do our requirements document. (yes--we should have looked in greater detail before committing to the project, but we thougnt the original developer followed the process and this was several years later).
This has happened a few times, and was even more painfull we had to get to CMM Level II certification. We had to got back and document everything, and it was not the people who originally did the work who had to suffer. We are now being forced to go to III by our clients, and thankfully since we have stuck with the processes established getting level II it shouldn't be that bad.
End result, I am for the process to be followed even if it seems to be more painful up front.
I work for a large telecom (think mom), we were recently sold off (outsourced), a few days after being sold, all the developers that were left were told that they now only do design, all the coding is to be done in India. My old company's model now appears to be outsource all development, the new company has all development done in India.
So the coding future doesn't look good at the moment if you live in the US and want to work in voice telecom (not that I would recommend that industry after working in it for 10 years, perhaps VoIP has a better track record). However, if you want to do high and low level design documents and integration test when the code comes back you might be able to find something.
One of my fondest memories is when I upgraded from the//e to the//GS. I figured out that I could play all the old games that I had mastered at twice the clock speed. Rescue Raiders was never the same!
I should dig my GS out of the closet!
This has been an overlooked movie starring James Woods, Oliver Platt and Louiss Gossett, jr. It con-artist movie revolving around boxing in a small southern town. Worth a view in my opinion.
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I had taken a stats class in undergrad... did not really pay attention as I thought it had no use. While getting my masters I was obligated to take an advance statistics class. Going in, for the life of me I thought it would be a waste - it was the best class I ever took. I was able to use it in my job almost every week if not more ( most of the other classes were theoretical at best and had no real world application ). Ten years later, I still rely on things I learned in that class. Statistics should be mandatory for all in college regardless of major because it can be used for so many things.
I am not sure how intuitive or usable the old office is, but I have been using one version or another since the late 80s. I am very familiar with it and can access anything relatively quickly with little forethought. My company switched to Office 2007 and I am miserable. I use to know where everything is, but now it takes multiple clicks to get what I want done. Maybe I will get used to, I'll probably have to, but one of the key benefits for me was the model that was used. I knew that in any program I went to, if I wanted to open a document, I should go under File and I would see the open command. Whatever happens, I just hope that all the different vendors stick to a consistent model so that people will still be able to transfer knowledge of how one program works to how another works. Another bad move I thought was the new interface by Adobe, I am not liking the new Elements interface.
ads? What are ads? Ever since I got the Tivo Series 1 (now have HD Tivo) I haven't watched many commercials unless they were playing during the Superbowl - oddly enough I end up watching more commercials on youTube or something else like that when my friends email links to the funny ones.
I hope she is not a sweater or else you are going to have a lot of water flying around the space station. Something tells me that can't be good for all the electronics.
I took my Canon Digital Rebel, two lenses, iPod and Powerbook along with misc cables with me to Australia last year. It was almost a necessity because of all the pictures I took, I needed someway to store them and I chose to bring the laptop so I could blog it (www.obinge.com/australia). The one thing I learned is make sure you have a comfortable backpack because the things you travel with get heavy quickly and can become a real nuisance. Also, make sure you get one where the laptop can be removed quickly for those airport screeners. I have also found that internet access is not cheap in some places, so map out any free hotspots before you go wherever it is that you are going.
I agree, the only problem is when I ordered my RAZR and Mototola Bluetooth headset, they had different chargers! The RAZR had the USB and the headset still had the old one used on the v60s... I was so annoyed. Now I have two chargers for home, and two chargers for the car. They should standardize all of the phones and accessories.
I was in a training class for Rational Software Architecture, I was 'told' that some company's have set it up and augmented the rational suite so that they can get about 85% of generated code before a developer has to touch it. There claim was the architect will be the main driver behind future development and the key cog in the enterprise.
I live in an established community that was around before the internet hype started, so we are stuck right now with the existing wiring infrastructure. However, around me I see new communities going up all the time and I never understand why they don't install fiber to begin with and why these new homeowners associations don't decide to own lines inside of their community and have the ISPs just connect at the front door. Perhaps it has something to do with regulations that the phone company or whomever must own the connection, but I think it would be worth to consider running a second line so that people in your community could have a choice. Hell, I don't get much worth from my homeowners fee at the moment, at least this in my mind would be something I would pay for.
We use Connected DataProtector, which does have a scheduling option - if I was allowed to modify it. They have things so locked down permissions wise that I am not allowed to change it. They force security patches (which always take forever, because they hit you when you boot, and then they make it reboot - and let's face it, windows doesn't boot the fastest and this company has scripts that run every day that makes it even slower). I am for a more open system, mostly because I like to think I know what I am doing, however I see there point in that it does control the amount of tech support they need, and everyone should be on the same versions and this should also control the licensing issues. I can't install anything on my own, access the registry, even most of the control panel is locked down. For release testing you need to get special permission to change your HOSTS file, it goes on and on...
Because of these type of events, I am now subjected to running everything encyrpted now by the company I currently have a contract for. Plus they force daily backups in case the laptop is stolen/lost. At first I thought it would be a hassle and there are some minor delays when the backup is taking place (seems to run at most inappropriate times), but so far I have gotten used to it and it really hasn't impacted my work. If this is the price I have to pay to telework, than so be it, it is better than having to trek the 80+ miles to the office every day.
The real problem I have is the perception that when you "work from home" you are not really working, so I have to work extra hard so that people think I am working at all.
It is not the job of the IT department to sell changes to the senior execs (unless you are speaking about infrastructure), it is their job to implement the changes that the business has deemed necessary and have gotten approval (and funding) for.
One of the key things that hurt AT&T since the divestiture was the inability to compete on price, they unlike all other carriers were subject to regulation by the FCC. So when a competitor comes out with a great new offering, it took a long time before AT&T could match since they had to get permission to do so.
The FCC extends its Competitive Carrier deregulation of the interstate telephone industry, ruling that it will rely on market forces instead of regulation to control the rates of all carriers except AT&T, under a policy known as "forbearance."
cool, maybe if this happens I can transfer from the boring IBM job to a cool one at apple...
I have actually found an interesting thematic photoblog, it is a girl who got a digital camera for her 29th birthday and decided to take a picture of herself each day for the next year until she turns 30.
,br>She ads in some commentary and I have found it quite good at times, blah at others.
http://www.watchmeturn30.com/
I concur, the Lensman series was great. I liked the part where ships used to grapple the other ship and send boarding parties to take over the other ship, so there would be hand to hand combat in space battles. Just like the tall ships of old.
Users often ask for the most ridiculous things that they think will suppsoeduly make their life/jobs easier (since I build software for professional tasks, this might not be apropos to the OS), it is my job to not just dismiss these request but to think about them and try to figure out the underlying problem that I need to solve. Not to make the user totally happy, but to make them productive (bonus if both are possible, and they sometimes are).
Basically I consider there to be three types of users:
- Beginner's - just beginning to use the softeare and need training.
- Novices - can get around, do there job competently but is still not at the the optimal state
- Expert - They can use the system flawlessly and are very productive
In my world I design systems towards the experts needs. They use the software every day and need to perform their tasks quickly and without mistakes. If I design for the beginner in mind, it will slow down the Novice and Expert groups, and eventually with the proper training all users should progreess from one stage to the next, ending up at the expert stage. For a company, they want all their employee's running at our near the expert level because this is where they gain their efficiencies.It is a little more of a problem to apply this concept to an operating system, this is why I have the utmost respect for the people who design them. But I think they should try to keep the same principles in mind, design towards the expert with helping hands towards the beginners, i.e. Wizards (but not limited too). When you first set up let say a network connection, you use the wizard (beginner/first time setup), when you need to change something, you most likely will just go to the connection and make the change directly (novice/expert). That is the difficult part in the design, allowing all types of users to use the system, while also educating them. I'm don't know about everyone else, but when was the last time you moved the mouse up to file menu and down to the pring button instead of hitting Control-P? At first most people probably went to the file menu to print, but then they see the hot keys next to it and learn that this is a quicker way to perform the same task.
Overall, I am just happy to see serious discussions on this topic. A lot of people in my work take UI design forgranted as well, and I will point them to these articles.
As a former labs person, one who was included in last years outsourcing, it is not a surprise to see this happen. For right or wrong the new management has chosen this path and they are succeeding in an alarming rate. What they are succeeding at I have no idea beside the destruction of the Labs and the company as a whole. Am I a bitter ex-employee? sure... but that doesn't change the fact that that it is happening.
The president of the labs is to credit or blame as you see fit. He has a strategy and he is going about it quickly. Is it a good strategy? Time will tell, but it is not one I believe in, nor do I believe in their president, even when I was a loyal employee. He is downsizing research and development and trying to buy off the shelf products for a company that really has no peer in size. Let's face it, the reason why AT&T had to develop all of their own stuff internally was because there was no one on the outside developing towards that market and could achieve the quality that was desired. They have special needs that outside vendors, for the most part, can't fill, but they try and stick the square peg into the round hole.
I am against quick and dirty, as stated it can get funding and results. My big hesitation is the statment 'assuming you get money later'-which in my experience never happens in my area. I have worked on several projects where features were done earlier in the quick and dirty way, after some period of time a new feature comes in that affects the earlier work. I knew nothing about the work and the person who did it had left. We had provided estimates and got the funding and now we went to do the work to find out that their was no documentation (just a shell of a high-level design). We had to suck it up and do alot of work to document the original feature first, and then do our requirements document. (yes--we should have looked in greater detail before committing to the project, but we thougnt the original developer followed the process and this was several years later). This has happened a few times, and was even more painfull we had to get to CMM Level II certification. We had to got back and document everything, and it was not the people who originally did the work who had to suffer. We are now being forced to go to III by our clients, and thankfully since we have stuck with the processes established getting level II it shouldn't be that bad. End result, I am for the process to be followed even if it seems to be more painful up front.
So the coding future doesn't look good at the moment if you live in the US and want to work in voice telecom (not that I would recommend that industry after working in it for 10 years, perhaps VoIP has a better track record). However, if you want to do high and low level design documents and integration test when the code comes back you might be able to find something.
One of my fondest memories is when I upgraded from the //e to the //GS. I figured out that I could play all the old games that I had mastered at twice the clock speed. Rescue Raiders was never the same!
I should dig my GS out of the closet!
This has been an overlooked movie starring James Woods, Oliver Platt and Louiss Gossett, jr. It con-artist movie revolving around boxing in a small southern town. Worth a view in my opinion.