I signed on as a Caldera reseller over a year ago, mostly because I liked the easy installation on common hardware. They seemed to have an active reseller program at the time, and I thought it would be a "good thing" to be on the relative inside. Since then, they have released new products to the market without even an email to the resellers (COL 2.3, COL eServer). I considered that kind of dumb, but I knew about them from industry press and contacts anyway (and product introduction literature is mostly useless fluff and cut sheets anyway ). Now they do the IPO thing, and don't even notify resellers about it, let alone give resellers the opportunity to invest early. I'm not expecting a free stock handout, mind you. I would be willing to pony up money, investing as a reseller in a company that I think has potential (although most of that seems to be being wasted, at this point). I hope that they are planning on using some of the IPO money to improve their reseller and community communications (maybe even hiring some talent, if they want to play in the big leagues).
I am a self employed consultant. I left the standard corporate world about 2 years ago with 8 years of my sentence served (doing 45-55 hour weeks). I like my life now. I get up and work on whatever I want to, and I manage to get paid for about half. An average week for me has me preparing and teaching at a local tech college for about 16 hours, doing some small business network support for about 16 hours, and engineering consulting and programming for about 24 hours. I usually spend about 4 hours on paperwork and overhead to satisfy the government and keep orgainzed. So, I work about 60 hours a week, spread out over 6 days (I teach and work on Sat). I usually am billing for about 30 hours per week.
So, although I am working (by my definition) more than at a standard corporate job, I am getting paid less (although the deductions offset that somewhat). The real factor in my decision, was my overall happiness. I am happy now, and I wasn't before. There is always something that seems like it would make me more money, but I'm slowly teaching myself that more money doesn't always make me happier.
I noticed that a number of people seemed interested in going down to the local sheet metal shop and getting a custom case made up. I have read the ATX specs for some previous case design work, and have had a hand in producing a custom ATX case that is mounted inside of another system. In hindsight, I should have pushed for making the case be a standard rackmount dimensions, but I didn't. Is there any interest in producing a public domain set of rackmount ATX plans (and part lists, similar to the LinuxToday article that was previously quoted) that someone could take directly to a metal shop and have a few built? I have seen a number of "Open Hardware" ideas mentioned, but I haven't actually seen too many products of a discussion.
I would be happy to work with my current case supplier to have a test run produced, as I wouldn't mind having a couple of cases built for myself. Our current custom case is the size of a full tower system, and is made of very sturdy metal. It is coated steel that could be painted, or left as-is (a shiny golden color). It costs us about $150 in quantities of 20, before shipping and with no power supply. It certainly isn't significantly cheaper than buying it from an existing rackmount vendor, but it does give the opportunity for customization.
I certainly wouldn't mind if the vendor allowed hot plugging specifically, but I haven't had any real trouble with my systems. I add and remove computers and keyboards all the time under Linux. (just don't remove and reattach under Windows!) The only problem that I have is when I have to unplug the mouse. It's dead until I restart the X server.
If anyone from Belkin is reading, I second the dual head, hot pluggable options wholeheartedly!
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I signed on as a Caldera reseller over a year ago, mostly because I liked the easy installation on common hardware. They seemed to have an active reseller program at the time, and I thought it would be a "good thing" to be on the relative inside. Since then, they have released new products to the market without even an email to the resellers (COL 2.3, COL eServer). I considered that kind of dumb, but I knew about them from industry press and contacts anyway (and product introduction literature is mostly useless fluff and cut sheets anyway ). Now they do the IPO thing, and don't even notify resellers about it, let alone give resellers the opportunity to invest early. I'm not expecting a free stock handout, mind you. I would be willing to pony up money, investing as a reseller in a company that I think has potential (although most of that seems to be being wasted, at this point). I hope that they are planning on using some of the IPO money to improve their reseller and community communications (maybe even hiring some talent, if they want to play in the big leagues).
Thanks for listening to a personal gripe!
I am a self employed consultant. I left the standard corporate world about 2 years ago with 8 years of my sentence served (doing 45-55 hour weeks). I like my life now. I get up and work on whatever I want to, and I manage to get paid for about half. An average week for me has me preparing and teaching at a local tech college for about 16 hours, doing some small business network support for about 16 hours, and engineering consulting and programming for about 24 hours. I usually spend about 4 hours on paperwork and overhead to satisfy the government and keep orgainzed. So, I work about 60 hours a week, spread out over 6 days (I teach and work on Sat). I usually am billing for about 30 hours per week.
So, although I am working (by my definition) more than at a standard corporate job, I am getting paid less (although the deductions offset that somewhat). The real factor in my decision, was my overall happiness. I am happy now, and I wasn't before. There is always something that seems like it would make me more money, but I'm slowly teaching myself that more money doesn't always make me happier.
I noticed that a number of people seemed interested in going down to the local sheet metal shop and getting a custom case made up. I have read the ATX specs for some previous case design work, and have had a hand in producing a custom ATX case that is mounted inside of another system. In hindsight, I should have pushed for making the case be a standard rackmount dimensions, but I didn't. Is there any interest in producing a public domain set of rackmount ATX plans (and part lists, similar to the LinuxToday article that was previously quoted) that someone could take directly to a metal shop and have a few built? I have seen a number of "Open Hardware" ideas mentioned, but I haven't actually seen too many products of a discussion.
I would be happy to work with my current case supplier to have a test run produced, as I wouldn't mind having a couple of cases built for myself. Our current custom case is the size of a full tower system, and is made of very sturdy metal. It is coated steel that could be painted, or left as-is (a shiny golden color). It costs us about $150 in quantities of 20, before shipping and with no power supply. It certainly isn't significantly cheaper than buying it from an existing rackmount vendor, but it does give the opportunity for customization.
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Jim Walters
I certainly wouldn't mind if the vendor allowed hot plugging specifically, but I haven't had any real trouble with my systems. I add and remove computers and keyboards all the time under Linux. (just don't remove and reattach under Windows!) The only problem that I have is when I have to unplug the mouse. It's dead until I restart the X server.
If anyone from Belkin is reading, I second the dual head, hot pluggable options wholeheartedly!