Re:You need to clarify your question
on
Ethics In IT
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· Score: 1
Yes, sociopath/psychopaths does describe the top 3 in power in my I/T department. In fact, many of these traits exist in many senior management I have encountered over the years. They are not pleasant to work for and often rely on a layer of middle management to make it work.
In my current job I suspect they are trying to transfer me to under one of these types of managers and what they don't know is I am polishing my resume. So the day he and I have an ethical dilemma, I am gone. I have also learned the hard way not to wait until management cleans it up either, the usual way it gets addressed is when the company needs resources and the managers reputation precedes them once too often. Can be a long time. Longer than I am willing wait. An undocumented cause of I/T turnover for sure.
Microsoft is offering a 62% premium on what the shares are worth now, $31... and they want $40. WTF? Would they rather they get nothing once their market share drops some more?
But 1/2 are in shares. Microsoft knows it's shares have peeking in value. This is when most companies would make such deals. Hm, if good shorts exist on the long term market Monday I might bite.
Bet chairs are a flying in Redmond, right out the Windows.
Also bet now that XP is drying up on the consumer end and the Vista SP1 is next generation crap ware, MSFT is going to post sales declines in about 2-6 months.
Yahoo was good to turn down such an offer. MSFT futures, I would short. And if I had a lot of Yahoo shares, I would want to dump them fast on the conversion. Now if Google offered Linux....killer blow... Microsoft knows it is vulnerable.
Yeah, the standard. If your shitty http engine is too shitty to process html without having to look up the DTD on the w3c's website every single page, your shitty http engine shouldn't be allowed out on the internet.
Now what am I missing?
The DTD is a reference, if you app needs it then why not include it in your app? Make your app so it runs on an isolated network?
If it is intended to be downloaded on each start of a app, what a daft design move. W3C or the app writer.
Why don't they just move the directories/links...let the bad apps break? Will teach them good to write poorly design applications. This way they are off the internet as you suggest.
Not every patent is a troll. And I have no clue if this one is or not.
But when I saw this the thought came to me. The very same companies that support the patent system and produce a product are going to get sued out of existence. Or end up raising the costs of their products. An example, say $100 for the processor, and $60 for lawyers and $50 for patent charges, total $210 per processor.
Now what is going to happen is the Intel's and the Microsoft companies are going to realize all a long,/.ers are right. Scrap the patent system or modify it so the patent has to be significant and revolutionary. Not just some twist on an existing technology. Which is really the problem here.
And if I was a CEO of a tech company, I would move off shore to a country that does not value the needless waste of court time and moneys. And setup a US subsidiary that can pass on the costs to US residents while the rest of the world does not have to pay. If they do not, the competition might do it for them.
It is nice to see the big boys caught in their own traps.
I wonder if the idiots that thought they could effectively block P2P have a brain?
If you block it, it will find a way around you one way or another. You could run P2P over DNS if you wanted to. Once that happens, 2 choices, break the law or cut the universities off the internet.
I think this particular vista bashing is very poorly done. I didn't read past "It turns out the Facebook issue was not really Microsoft's fault -- facebook had a broken IPv6 record, and Vista defaults to using IPv6". perhaps a better title would have been "facebook sucks". happy linux user and all those other/. stereotypes, I just think if we are mocking vista we should talk about its weaknesses not blame other mistakes on it. I know if someone posted an article claiming it was firefox's fault it didn't correctly render poorly coded web pages it would be received as blasphemy in this community.
As a technical user, with a lot of family and friends not so computer literate, I tell them simple. If you buy Vista don't call me.
Why? Over the last year I have had to help setup every one of them because the vendor support sucks. I have had to set back each one to IP-V4 because on install it sets up IV-V6 or PPPoE on a non-PPPoE interface. Then there are the countless hours of where is this? And oh yea, why does my camera, printer, PVR, video cam... not work...
So, I choose NOT to support Vista. And suggest they take it back, go back to their old PC until Microsoft and the vendors get this thing sorted out.
Up next, Frequent Slashdotter finally moves to Ubuntu, feels that this is the Year of Linux on the Desktop.
Yep, good buying opportunities at the local PC shop. Picked up 2 discount "open box" PCs at a real bargain. The sales guy suggested I may want to visit HP and I could order a recovery CDs. I let them now after I purchased it that they would make a great Linux desktop. Both were Vista returns. Both work great. Two for one pricing....
The worst part of this (beyond Microsoft's outright self-serving lies) is that most Canadians are horribly uninformed/misinformed about copyright laws and will believe virtually anything they hear making copyright FUD north of the border very effective. It would be nice if more people, like Michael Geist, tried to get the truth out there but sadly his sort are rare...
Paid for by CBC - Government sponsored, $2B CAD and rising. You should read this, Outer Limits:
There is nothing wrong with your television. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are now controlling the transmission. We control the horizontal and the vertical. We can deluge you with a thousand channels or expand one single image to crystal clarity - and beyond. We can shape your vision to anything our imagination can conceive. For the next hour we will control all that you see and hear. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the deepest inner mind to... The Outer Limits. Please stand by.
Outer Limits was far ahead if it's time. Fits right in with Microsoft's way of doing business. It is about control of YOU! Hey, Microsoft, any "cash envelopes" for our politicians?
I'm not saying that your boycott isn't doing any good since obviously you feel better for it. Just don't expect Sony to come knocking on your door begging for you to stop your boycott because it is so hurting their bottom line...
Oh, it is, perhaps only by a little bit. Used to buy Sony PCs and Sony cameras. Last PC was HP and the last camera was Canon. Walk by Sony all the time now. Don't miss them either. Spreading the word too. Maybe not a lot, but I know I am not feeding the RIAA/DRm/Rootkit machine.
As long as people are willing to shell out the $$ for the crap they keep shoveling out, not much is going to change.
Haven't bought a single CD or DVD since Sony/BMG put that root kit thing out. Not a one. Not going to either until this fix the problems in this industry. My form of protest to the way the music industry is treating their customers like criminals.
I for one can't wait until there's real reform and this guy's out of business.
Don't hold your breath. For the most part it were elected lawyers who made the law in the first place. Make a problem like the patent system, then profit by it.
I too would like to see all software patents expired. It is hindering innovation and diversity in this business. Even if a patent is blatantly prior art, frivolous and meaningless, it can bankrupt most in just defending off an attack by the vultures. Thus, kicks the little guys out.
This is why I love being Canadian. The solution to a big huge problem is usually nothing more than a smaller tiny problem. Canadians have no problems paying taxes -- we're realyl good at it too. A $5 monthly tax not only results in virtually unlimited music downloads, but it also saves on court costs, law enforcement costs, and regulation costs associated with making something illegal even though the majority of the population desires it.
Read the fine print, legal to download. First, you have to find a site that lets you download it (legally) as for you uploading it is still a crime. Legal download is useless unless you can find a legal server to get it from.
Nothing more than another welfare tax as proposed.
What they should do if send out a good offer in Shaw, Telus, Bell and Rogers, tick here. We will for $4.95 (plus GST, plus PST, plus communications taxes) provide a server that you can download all you can eat with a 2 year subscription.
The company then divvies up the moneys based on the rates of which tunes are actually downloaded. Thus good artists, not just the ones in an MPs favour will get the cash. And not just Canadian artists, include the US, UK, Aussies etc.
Solves a couple of problems. For those that don't download music, they don't pay. Second, less government, including where the money goes. Most "artists" are crap, on the dole, looking for handouts because they suck or are one hit wonders. Lots of them on Vancouver's skid row. Which is really what this is all about. But Canada does have good artists...and I buy their CDs.
... File Sharing would legalize sharing of a copy of a copyrighted musical work without motive of financial gain, for a monthly fee of $5.00 applied to all Canadian internet connections,...
Have enough social fees on my utility bills already.
It is so totally stupid that this is even been contemplated. The best part, it likely will not get past the government, they don't like competition.
I was thinking Brazil myself. Nice weather and good place to retire. Probably more stable and less people per square km. Less strife and unrest.
And with how many people there are in India, WiMax will be maxed out to a point it isn't very reliable or usable, much like many support centers I have had to recently use.
MSFT shares are up 3% today after another strong rise yesterday, after announcing their financial results and outlook.
True. Selling 2 licenses, one for bundled-Vista and another to usergrade it to XP is a real good way to boost sales. But it will not last. Lets see what happens in Q2 when the X-Box returns are in.
And a rise over a market crash? Some of my stocks are up 10% in 2 days and 3% is on the lean side.
Strangely enough, once I was working on a strictly per-hour basis, the boss found far fewer 'emergencies' that required me to work all weekend.
This was the truth for me too, more than once. The resident lead tech administrator abruptly quit... and my contract was nearly up so they put me into his job as they knew I had the skills. On average he would get called 2 times a day after hours. Me, as a contractor I had it in that after hours calls of not my own work are 1 hour minimum. After two weeks the boss looked at me and said lets talk. I grabbed my note book and went through each call one by one. I also cited it is probably like that for the rest of your staff and in part why they are so miserable during the day. BTW I got the extra pay.
But a new policy was drawn up. The reasons had to be good to wake you up at 2am. Every after hours call had to be individually reviewed by management the next day. Now, maybe 2 on a bad month and the reasons are good. There is a difference between service and abuse.
Customers don't pay for MySQL professional because it's not that great of a database. As a "free" option, there's tons of support for it. It was seen early on as "the" database for OSS work. As a result, nearly every OSS tool in existence is built around MySQL.
Bet though this will spike PostgreSQL support in FOSS applications. A good under rated database.
While everything you say is true, he was still a damn good chess player and good enough to win for Americans a chess championship. So what if he was neurotic. Are we all not neurotic to some degree?
If they do, keep that center button with tabs functionality. Addictive super addition to FireFox and I love that feature. IE users don't know what they are missing, unless of course M$ added it to IE7? Been so long since I used IE I don't know where they are at any more.
Probably because MySQL is a company and PostgreSQL is not?
But my point being, $800M or whatever the price is could hire a lot of good technical talent for a long time. Put that talent into development for intrinsic growth, and fork or work with MySQL and/or PostgreSQL and do some good moving ahead development work. Because what is lacking in North American companies is intrinsic (profitable) growth.
I think Sun just wasted a lot of good cash. And the Innobase licensing has a time limit.
Well, this could be something to breath life into MySQL which seemed to be in dire straits recently. After Oracle's low blows removed both of transactional engines, it looks like everyone is abandoning MySQL for Postgres.
There was no doubt what Oracle did was predatory, but if MySQL didn't use commercial InnoBase component they would not have had any issues.
Lets hope many contributors and users dump MySQL and go to PostgreSQL. I have used PostgreSQL, MySQL, and Oracle. I often thought PostgreSQL was underrated and suspect those switching will be happy.
Re:Not a rash move
on
Sun Buys MySQL
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
But I think most people thought Sun might push PostgreSQL which is a nice database. Not sure why Sun would purchase MySQL, seems like an expensive PR move. I for one have seen Sun's product support deteriorate over the years, and hope they keep support for MySQL independent of the main line support. Or maybe this plays into Oracle as Oracle had or has an alliance with Sun. Is this alliance strained?
License fees dont begin to cover the real cost of software. You need to have an IT department to support it, you have to train users on it, etc. A $100 dollar license fee seems negligable pretty fast when contrasted with the IT budget for a company and any productivity gains/losses that result from using different software.
Spoken like a true MS-Fanboy.
The best software does not not require much support. Users are more adaptable than you might think.
Maybe in the problem is you have had to spend too much time tendering to keeping the fragile ware going. Seriously, Microsoft has built an empire on flaw-ware and dysfunctional coddling.
And about your cost of change, Linux has less of a GUI change than going Vista, so in fact you just argued going Linux. Or for that mater, a Mac. Vista is like no other, big huge GUI change and lots of pricey hardware.
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Yes, sociopath/psychopaths does describe the top 3 in power in my I/T department. In fact, many of these traits exist in many senior management I have encountered over the years. They are not pleasant to work for and often rely on a layer of middle management to make it work.
In my current job I suspect they are trying to transfer me to under one of these types of managers and what they don't know is I am polishing my resume. So the day he and I have an ethical dilemma, I am gone. I have also learned the hard way not to wait until management cleans it up either, the usual way it gets addressed is when the company needs resources and the managers reputation precedes them once too often. Can be a long time. Longer than I am willing wait. An undocumented cause of I/T turnover for sure.
But 1/2 are in shares. Microsoft knows it's shares have peeking in value. This is when most companies would make such deals. Hm, if good shorts exist on the long term market Monday I might bite.
Bet chairs are a flying in Redmond, right out the Windows.
Also bet now that XP is drying up on the consumer end and the Vista SP1 is next generation crap ware, MSFT is going to post sales declines in about 2-6 months.
Yahoo was good to turn down such an offer. MSFT futures, I would short. And if I had a lot of Yahoo shares, I would want to dump them fast on the conversion. Now if Google offered Linux....killer blow... Microsoft knows it is vulnerable.
Yeah, the standard. If your shitty http engine is too shitty to process html without having to look up the DTD on the w3c's website every single page, your shitty http engine shouldn't be allowed out on the internet.
Now what am I missing?
The DTD is a reference, if you app needs it then why not include it in your app? Make your app so it runs on an isolated network?
If it is intended to be downloaded on each start of a app, what a daft design move. W3C or the app writer.
Why don't they just move the directories/links...let the bad apps break? Will teach them good to write poorly design applications. This way they are off the internet as you suggest.
Not every patent is a troll. And I have no clue if this one is or not.
But when I saw this the thought came to me. The very same companies that support the patent system and produce a product are going to get sued out of existence. Or end up raising the costs of their products. An example, say $100 for the processor, and $60 for lawyers and $50 for patent charges, total $210 per processor.
Now what is going to happen is the Intel's and the Microsoft companies are going to realize all a long, /.ers are right. Scrap the patent system or modify it so the patent has to be significant and revolutionary. Not just some twist on an existing technology. Which is really the problem here.
And if I was a CEO of a tech company, I would move off shore to a country that does not value the needless waste of court time and moneys. And setup a US subsidiary that can pass on the costs to US residents while the rest of the world does not have to pay. If they do not, the competition might do it for them.
It is nice to see the big boys caught in their own traps.
I wonder if the idiots that thought they could effectively block P2P have a brain?
If you block it, it will find a way around you one way or another. You could run P2P over DNS if you wanted to. Once that happens, 2 choices, break the law or cut the universities off the internet.
Can the universities send the RIAA the bill?
As a technical user, with a lot of family and friends not so computer literate, I tell them simple. If you buy Vista don't call me.
Why? Over the last year I have had to help setup every one of them because the vendor support sucks. I have had to set back each one to IP-V4 because on install it sets up IV-V6 or PPPoE on a non-PPPoE interface. Then there are the countless hours of where is this? And oh yea, why does my camera, printer, PVR, video cam... not work...
So, I choose NOT to support Vista. And suggest they take it back, go back to their old PC until Microsoft and the vendors get this thing sorted out.
Up next, Frequent Slashdotter finally moves to Ubuntu, feels that this is the Year of Linux on the Desktop.
Yep, good buying opportunities at the local PC shop. Picked up 2 discount "open box" PCs at a real bargain. The sales guy suggested I may want to visit HP and I could order a recovery CDs. I let them now after I purchased it that they would make a great Linux desktop. Both were Vista returns. Both work great. Two for one pricing....
I do agree with you, Canadians are misinformed.
Paid for by CBC - Government sponsored, $2B CAD and rising. You should read this, Outer Limits:
There is nothing wrong with your television. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are now controlling the transmission. We control the horizontal and the vertical. We can deluge you with a thousand channels or expand one single image to crystal clarity - and beyond. We can shape your vision to anything our imagination can conceive. For the next hour we will control all that you see and hear. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the deepest inner mind to... The Outer Limits. Please stand by.
Outer Limits was far ahead if it's time. Fits right in with Microsoft's way of doing business. It is about control of YOU! Hey, Microsoft, any "cash envelopes" for our politicians?
Oh, it is, perhaps only by a little bit. Used to buy Sony PCs and Sony cameras. Last PC was HP and the last camera was Canon. Walk by Sony all the time now. Don't miss them either. Spreading the word too. Maybe not a lot, but I know I am not feeding the RIAA/DRm/Rootkit machine.
Haven't bought a single CD or DVD since Sony/BMG put that root kit thing out. Not a one. Not going to either until this fix the problems in this industry. My form of protest to the way the music industry is treating their customers like criminals.
Don't hold your breath. For the most part it were elected lawyers who made the law in the first place. Make a problem like the patent system, then profit by it.
I too would like to see all software patents expired. It is hindering innovation and diversity in this business. Even if a patent is blatantly prior art, frivolous and meaningless, it can bankrupt most in just defending off an attack by the vultures. Thus, kicks the little guys out.
Read the fine print, legal to download. First, you have to find a site that lets you download it (legally) as for you uploading it is still a crime. Legal download is useless unless you can find a legal server to get it from.
Nothing more than another welfare tax as proposed.
What they should do if send out a good offer in Shaw, Telus, Bell and Rogers, tick here. We will for $4.95 (plus GST, plus PST, plus communications taxes) provide a server that you can download all you can eat with a 2 year subscription.
The company then divvies up the moneys based on the rates of which tunes are actually downloaded. Thus good artists, not just the ones in an MPs favour will get the cash. And not just Canadian artists, include the US, UK, Aussies etc.
Solves a couple of problems. For those that don't download music, they don't pay. Second, less government, including where the money goes. Most "artists" are crap, on the dole, looking for handouts because they suck or are one hit wonders. Lots of them on Vancouver's skid row. Which is really what this is all about. But Canada does have good artists...and I buy their CDs.
Have enough social fees on my utility bills already.
It is so totally stupid that this is even been contemplated. The best part, it likely will not get past the government, they don't like competition.
I was thinking Brazil myself. Nice weather and good place to retire. Probably more stable and less people per square km. Less strife and unrest.
And with how many people there are in India, WiMax will be maxed out to a point it isn't very reliable or usable, much like many support centers I have had to recently use.
True. Selling 2 licenses, one for bundled-Vista and another to usergrade it to XP is a real good way to boost sales. But it will not last. Lets see what happens in Q2 when the X-Box returns are in.
And a rise over a market crash? Some of my stocks are up 10% in 2 days and 3% is on the lean side.
This was the truth for me too, more than once. The resident lead tech administrator abruptly quit... and my contract was nearly up so they put me into his job as they knew I had the skills. On average he would get called 2 times a day after hours. Me, as a contractor I had it in that after hours calls of not my own work are 1 hour minimum. After two weeks the boss looked at me and said lets talk. I grabbed my note book and went through each call one by one. I also cited it is probably like that for the rest of your staff and in part why they are so miserable during the day. BTW I got the extra pay.
But a new policy was drawn up. The reasons had to be good to wake you up at 2am. Every after hours call had to be individually reviewed by management the next day. Now, maybe 2 on a bad month and the reasons are good. There is a difference between service and abuse.
Bet though this will spike PostgreSQL support in FOSS applications. A good under rated database.
Or triggered wealth sur-tax.
Robot: I Robot
Human: Tell me what I want to here.
Robot: You mean lie?
While everything you say is true, he was still a damn good chess player and good enough to win for Americans a chess championship. So what if he was neurotic. Are we all not neurotic to some degree?
firefox needs an UI facelift!
If they do, keep that center button with tabs functionality. Addictive super addition to FireFox and I love that feature. IE users don't know what they are missing, unless of course M$ added it to IE7? Been so long since I used IE I don't know where they are at any more.
But my point being, $800M or whatever the price is could hire a lot of good technical talent for a long time. Put that talent into development for intrinsic growth, and fork or work with MySQL and/or PostgreSQL and do some good moving ahead development work. Because what is lacking in North American companies is intrinsic (profitable) growth.
I think Sun just wasted a lot of good cash. And the Innobase licensing has a time limit.
There was no doubt what Oracle did was predatory, but if MySQL didn't use commercial InnoBase component they would not have had any issues.
Lets hope many contributors and users dump MySQL and go to PostgreSQL. I have used PostgreSQL, MySQL, and Oracle. I often thought PostgreSQL was underrated and suspect those switching will be happy.
But I think most people thought Sun might push PostgreSQL which is a nice database. Not sure why Sun would purchase MySQL, seems like an expensive PR move. I for one have seen Sun's product support deteriorate over the years, and hope they keep support for MySQL independent of the main line support. Or maybe this plays into Oracle as Oracle had or has an alliance with Sun. Is this alliance strained?
Spoken like a true MS-Fanboy.
The best software does not not require much support. Users are more adaptable than you might think.
Maybe in the problem is you have had to spend too much time tendering to keeping the fragile ware going. Seriously, Microsoft has built an empire on flaw-ware and dysfunctional coddling.
And about your cost of change, Linux has less of a GUI change than going Vista, so in fact you just argued going Linux. Or for that mater, a Mac. Vista is like no other, big huge GUI change and lots of pricey hardware.