Can you explain to me how having icons for common task located in a standard spot has to do with a programmer's "freedom"?
"Absolute freedom in the software is what's important."... is absolute freedome in industrial design also important? You want to find that 30% of the cars made have the ignition on the left of the steering wheel, 30% on the right and the others have the ignition switch wherever the hell the assembly team felt like putting them on that day?
Excellent idea. Many times people just want to know where their project is in the queue, and if they can see it on the whiteboard they won't interrupt you to ask about it. It's psychologically a good idea to cross things out when they are done and leave them there until you write your weekly report for your boss.
Good source of CHEAP whiteboards - Lumberyards sell a 4x8-foot panel of glossy wall covering material called "tile board". It comes in some disgustingly bad imitations of tile, but also in a plain white often used in commercial kitchens. It's not quite as sturdy as commercial whiteboards, but for $20 a sheet you can afford to replace it every few years.
"I am the sole IT person for a 100+ person company, with 50+ remote VPN users, 40+ developers, 30+ servers, firewalls, etc. I do it all, from desktop and application support, to security, to servers." Translation: You are all they have. It's as much a power position as you want to make it.
Take a tip from the medical world: When everything is an emergency, nothing is an emergency. Get some books on time management, read a few and get an idea of the processes. Then have a chat with your boss about how you can create a schedule and set project priorities to make the most of your time for the benefit of the company. There will be times when you have to leave a couple of people bleeding in the waiting room, shrieking loudly, in order to keep a larger number of people alive. So what.
First of all, you need the authority to say "no, that was denied" or "not now, but you are on the schedule after ___", and they need to back you up in your decisions. If you are constantly being pulled off important project "A" to take care of a minor thing for someone else, it's not efficient. If people learn they can go over your head to get their pet project done, it's not efficient.
You also need to make a list of undone tasks and prioritize them: what is "mission critical" and has to be done real soon before the wheels fall off, what must be done at regular intervals to keep things running smoothly, and what are the "we would like this" projects that can be postponed. Also track the number of "emergency" fixes you are doing... if they have a pattern, go upstream and prevent them with a training class, an upgrade, or whatever it takes.
You need a couple of "superusers"... people who are willing to help out their department with the minor stuff. The definition of "minor" varies, but usually these people reboot servers, install software, and are the first point of contact for problems with software used in the department. You might need to have a couple of training classes to teach people to take care of the repeated minor problems (and post the how-to's and FAQs on the company website).
You need to have a meeting, with everyone, explaining the situation, the priorities, and how things are going to be handled. If you lay the problem out, show the project list, and explain that there is a plan to take care of the business-critical stuff, then the rest, in a rational order, most people will act rationally about it (those that don't should be referred up the line to whoever outranks them for a whack upside the chops). Follow up with a publically available list of the projects (a spreadsheet on the web works well) and a running total of your progress and interruptions. When people can SEE your workload, they take it more seriously.
Set up a formal way to submit and answer work requests: there are some free ones available. Make it a policy that people have to formally get themselves on the list, or submit a request on the spot before you do the fix... that "while you are here" stuff chews up resources.
Set aside one block of time a week for the "nuisance" stuff, like tweaks to user machines,... If people see you working on it regularly they will be more patient.
Consider outsourcing some projects if your load of true emergency fixes is so high you won't get to them, and if they are really needed.
so what exactly should those who recieve one of these do? Take it to the state Attorney General, fill them in on the background, and ask them to investigate the blatant extortion attempt.
" Why are so many companies who are doing Linux business (SuSE, for example) complaining, but not unleashing their lawyers" Why? Just stand back and let Darl dig a hole for SCO with his mouth.
The last thing SCO needs right now are more countersuits... you can only fire a countersuit if you have been sued. However, if your business has been damaged by SCO's badmouthing, feel free to file something similar to what RH did. If you have some copyright code in the kernel (or anywhere else in code the SCO is distribuitng), feel free to sue them for copyright infringement.
"why in the world would a company the size of SCO take on a company the size of IBM if they knew their claims were bull?"... I believe they were initially trying to get some cash from IBM to make up for being jilted in Monterey whenIBM fell in love iwth Linux. That went nowhere, so they decided to bluster about their rights and trade secrets and that went nowhere either. Tired of being ignored, they pulled out their ultimate weapon (no, not McBride's mouth) and sued IBM, hoping to get a quick cash settlement. Right about then, they noticed that what thye thought they were standing on was NOT firm ground, it was one of those rock overhangs in a Roadrummre cartoon, and IBM was driving a bulldozer at them very slowly. Then a lot of B&W birds showed up and started pooping on the rock and digging undreneath it to make it wobblier.
"they think somehow that choosing the right jurisdiction with the right judge will net them a win?"... they originally filed in Utah state courts, didn't they. And hired a carnival law firm's lead barker.
"You hit me to get me to complain. Did you ever think that I don't want to take that active of a role in your war?"
It is your war too, because your ISP is your internet neighborhood. If someone did a review of your restaurant and pointed out that it was in a run-down building, with panhandlers out front, hookers displaying their wares from the second floor windows, and drug dealres in the lobby offering drugs to arriving customers... would you act? Would you insist that your landlord clean up the place? Or would you bitch that the review ruined your business?
Will Brazil truly pull a Munich, or are they just playing the game Thailand thinks it won with Microsoft.
The rhetoric around this issue in Latin America has included "paying tribute", "software imperialism" and other politically loaded phrases. When it becomes a matter of national honor, and when M$ is seen as the greedy absentee landlord sucking profits from the country and giving little in return... it's over.
"how is this going to stimulate the industry if there is no money to be made for the software "companies"?"
Instead of sending the money to the USA, you pay developers for developing new things, for installing and supporting and running systems. $1.4 MILLION (the licensing fees that they are not going to send to M$) can go a long way in Brazil.
The developers have FREE access to the source code - the original article used the words "software libre", not "software gratis", so it's the liberated part, not the costs no money part that they are interested in.
"I mean what advantages does this development give to Linux users? Its not that the Brazilian govt will channel money that they used to pay MS to the FSF. They just want to cut costs."
"tanto pela economia de recursos, como pelo incentivo a industria nacional de software".... not only for the savings, but as an incentive for the national software industry"... to develop things Brazil needs that Microsoft wasn't terribly interested in making happen in their products.
And RTFA, dude. IBM, Oracle and Intel don't show up for local hobbyists...
So... all M$ would have to do would be to distribute free copies of their software to the Brazilian government No. The Brazilian article was using the term "Software Livre" (as in liberty)... not "gratis". They want the freedom to adapt source code, have local programmers create modificaitons, etc. They see it as much better for the Brazilian IT industry to be developing local talent.
"evento reuniu cerca de 2 mil pessoas, entre gerentes e tecnicos de TI, estudantes e parlamentares, alem de empresas como IBM, Oracle e Intel."... 2,000 people, including IT managers, students, lawmakers, and IBM, Oracle and Intel.
I know they have local talent. Ages ago, right after Intel opened its website, we noticed that a certain IP address had systematically pillaged the technical section, downloading file after file in the wee hours of the morning, programming guides, chip manuals, etc. I tracked it to a University in Sao Paulo, and sent them an email asking about the activity (not annoyed, just curious). Internet connectivity was horrendously expensive in Brazil then, so they were stocking a local mirror of our stuff on a long-time local computer-related BBS.
"On the other hand one wonders how a judgement from a Texas court affects AOL off in Loudoun county VA. I suspect the AOL/Time lawyers may have a different opinion."
Normally one would have to do this in federal court, like IBM/SCO, because state courts (Tarrant County's 352nd District Court) have no jurisdiction over interstate communications and commerce.
Has CI-Host been allowinbg spammers to use it's name servers or have its customers been zombied?
"Linux accounts for 61% of the defacements in the last 24 hours "... what is the defacement rate per thousand or 10 thousand or any other number of sites hosted on Linux systems? And what is the rate of defacements for non-Linux hosted sites, expressed in the same numbers? What ZoneH reports are the raw attack stats (and only attacks they know of), and without any indication of the populations at risk, there is no conclusion to make. It's like my saying there were 10 murders in my home town last year, and you saying that yours only had 5... how big is the town?
"Are there other reasons why the likelihood of a "Sobig" or an "ILUVYOU" would be lower for Linux than Windows?"... Linux doesn't let you double click and run things (yet)... you would have to download it, deliberately execute it, and then it would probably crash because it's on the wrong distro and can't find the libraries it needs. It would also have a heck of a time taking advantage of the cache and address books because these things are not in as predictable a place as they are with windows.
I think it was. (badly pronounced, of course, as k-nock-vurst with a fake french accent) There were so many running gags in that show that I have forgotten most of them.
Their search is wierd... it is a cross between a search and a directory.
They have the paid "feature sites", then the "web directory sites", and only then the rest of the stuff, which autmoatically puts all the non-commercial things onto page 2. Screw that.
I prefer Google, mainly because the paid-for stuff is at the side and yoou cna get right to the results faster.
Yes, the "Fallen Madonna with the
obligatory hand gesture (.) (.)
Big Boobies"... which I last saw stuffed into a sausage and being taken to the Swiss border.
I've done BookCrossing, for books I didn't want to keep that were popular genre fiction. It's amazing how far your books can go when you give it to someone headed out on an international sales trip. I asked them to leave the books in the airpot lounges - there's nothing worse than seeing the same 10 best sellers all over the world.
Perhaps the developer had such a bad experience as as a child that he's never been inside a library since the 1960s? Every one I can think of locally has (as space permits) story times, study groups, artists/author lectures, writing classes, and various community groups meeting there.
However, I can see this working well in a small community with known members, such as a company (finding out who has certain references), school, or small town. But you have to have a system where the borrowers can be personally known to the lenders.
Yeah, sure, I'm going to let some person I have never met, whose identity is not confirmed by the Distributed Library project in any way, know where I live so they can pick up a book or video... just for the sake of building "community". How do I knowthey will bring it back instead of selling it on eBay, or are not just casing the joint as they take the book.
If I have a CD or book to lend out, I GIVE it to the library and let them handle the distribution.
"Well, if it doesn't have all functions of Excel, you can't load all Excel worksheets. "
News flash... not even EXCEL can load all other EXCEL spreadsheets. The bulk of the spreadsheets out there are doing basic accounting and data sorting - I learned to use Lotus123 to do parts lists, notcash flow. Very few businesses I have been in have the customised VBA "workbooks" and office integration that Microsoft sells their MSOffice Developer version for - and at least one of those was rapidly changing over to web-based CGI or JAVA apps. I've used that software and it's no fun having VB fuctions that don't work like the examples in the book, or work differently when called from within a loop than they do inline. (I don't remember which one that was, but it was a PITA!)
"what is the biggest gain for us , emulate Microsoft or trying to inovate. Emulating Microsoft formats is just futile, they just have to change file formats , APIs or standards to break years of efforts."
Nope... I don't care how many whizbang innovations something has, if it can't READ my existing data, and read/write formats my business contacts use, it's worthless. You have to be "interoperable" to make any headway, because people can't afford to lose data.
On the bright side, as soon as people reassure themselves that their data can be retrieved, they are usually willing to abandon proprietary software. I demonstrated that OO could read/write EXCEL and Word files to a coworker and the first words out of his mouth were "Then what the hell do I need Windows for?"
Slashdot Mirror
"Absolute freedom in the software is what's important." ... is absolute freedome in industrial design also important? You want to find that 30% of the cars made have the ignition on the left of the steering wheel, 30% on the right and the others have the ignition switch wherever the hell the assembly team felt like putting them on that day?
Good source of CHEAP whiteboards - Lumberyards sell a 4x8-foot panel of glossy wall covering material called "tile board". It comes in some disgustingly bad imitations of tile, but also in a plain white often used in commercial kitchens. It's not quite as sturdy as commercial whiteboards, but for $20 a sheet you can afford to replace it every few years.
Take a tip from the medical world: When everything is an emergency, nothing is an emergency. Get some books on time management, read a few and get an idea of the processes. Then have a chat with your boss about how you can create a schedule and set project priorities to make the most of your time for the benefit of the company. There will be times when you have to leave a couple of people bleeding in the waiting room, shrieking loudly, in order to keep a larger number of people alive. So what.
First of all, you need the authority to say "no, that was denied" or "not now, but you are on the schedule after ___", and they need to back you up in your decisions. If you are constantly being pulled off important project "A" to take care of a minor thing for someone else, it's not efficient. If people learn they can go over your head to get their pet project done, it's not efficient.
You also need to make a list of undone tasks and prioritize them: what is "mission critical" and has to be done real soon before the wheels fall off, what must be done at regular intervals to keep things running smoothly, and what are the "we would like this" projects that can be postponed. Also track the number of "emergency" fixes you are doing ... if they have a pattern, go upstream and prevent them with a training class, an upgrade, or whatever it takes.
You need a couple of "superusers" ... people who are willing to help out their department with the minor stuff. The definition of "minor" varies, but usually these people reboot servers, install software, and are the first point of contact for problems with software used in the department. You might need to have a couple of training classes to teach people to take care of the repeated minor problems (and post the how-to's and FAQs on the company website).
You need to have a meeting, with everyone, explaining the situation, the priorities, and how things are going to be handled. If you lay the problem out, show the project list, and explain that there is a plan to take care of the business-critical stuff, then the rest, in a rational order, most people will act rationally about it (those that don't should be referred up the line to whoever outranks them for a whack upside the chops). Follow up with a publically available list of the projects (a spreadsheet on the web works well) and a running total of your progress and interruptions. When people can SEE your workload, they take it more seriously.
Set up a formal way to submit and answer work requests: there are some free ones available. Make it a policy that people have to formally get themselves on the list, or submit a request on the spot before you do the fix ... that "while you are here" stuff chews up resources.
Set aside one block of time a week for the "nuisance" stuff, like tweaks to user machines, ... If people see you working on it regularly they will be more patient.
Consider outsourcing some projects if your load of true emergency fixes is so high you won't get to them, and if they are really needed.
so what exactly should those who recieve one of these do? Take it to the state Attorney General, fill them in on the background, and ask them to investigate the blatant extortion attempt.
2 sales, 2500 each, sale price 14.3 and 14.26 for a total of $71375. He only has 15,494 more shares to go.
The last thing SCO needs right now are more countersuits ... you can only fire a countersuit if you have been sued. However, if your business has been damaged by SCO's badmouthing, feel free to file something similar to what RH did. If you have some copyright code in the kernel (or anywhere else in code the SCO is distribuitng), feel free to sue them for copyright infringement.
"they think somehow that choosing the right jurisdiction with the right judge will net them a win?" ... they originally filed in Utah state courts, didn't they. And hired a carnival law firm's lead barker.
Lose the install media, arrange for it to crash, badly, and offer to get it working with Linux.
It is your war too, because your ISP is your internet neighborhood. If someone did a review of your restaurant and pointed out that it was in a run-down building, with panhandlers out front, hookers displaying their wares from the second floor windows, and drug dealres in the lobby offering drugs to arriving customers ... would you act? Would you insist that your landlord clean up the place? Or would you bitch that the review ruined your business?
The rhetoric around this issue in Latin America has included "paying tribute", "software imperialism" and other politically loaded phrases. When it becomes a matter of national honor, and when M$ is seen as the greedy absentee landlord sucking profits from the country and giving little in return ... it's over.
Instead of sending the money to the USA, you pay developers for developing new things, for installing and supporting and running systems. $1.4 MILLION (the licensing fees that they are not going to send to M$) can go a long way in Brazil.
The developers have FREE access to the source code - the original article used the words "software libre", not "software gratis", so it's the liberated part, not the costs no money part that they are interested in.
"tanto pela economia de recursos, como pelo incentivo a industria nacional de software". ... not only for the savings, but as an incentive for the national software industry" ... to develop things Brazil needs that Microsoft wasn't terribly interested in making happen in their products.
And RTFA, dude. IBM, Oracle and Intel don't show up for local hobbyists ...
So... all M$ would have to do would be to distribute free copies of their software to the Brazilian government No. The Brazilian article was using the term "Software Livre" (as in liberty) ... not "gratis". They want the freedom to adapt source code, have local programmers create modificaitons, etc. They see it as much better for the Brazilian IT industry to be developing local talent.
"evento reuniu cerca de 2 mil pessoas, entre gerentes e tecnicos de TI, estudantes e parlamentares, alem de empresas como IBM, Oracle e Intel." ... 2,000 people, including IT managers, students, lawmakers, and IBM, Oracle and Intel.
I know they have local talent. Ages ago, right after Intel opened its website, we noticed that a certain IP address had systematically pillaged the technical section, downloading file after file in the wee hours of the morning, programming guides, chip manuals, etc. I tracked it to a University in Sao Paulo, and sent them an email asking about the activity (not annoyed, just curious). Internet connectivity was horrendously expensive in Brazil then, so they were stocking a local mirror of our stuff on a long-time local computer-related BBS.
Normally one would have to do this in federal court, like IBM/SCO, because state courts (Tarrant County's 352nd District Court) have no jurisdiction over interstate communications and commerce.
Has CI-Host been allowinbg spammers to use it's name servers or have its customers been zombied?
"Are there other reasons why the likelihood of a "Sobig" or an "ILUVYOU" would be lower for Linux than Windows?" ... Linux doesn't let you double click and run things (yet) ... you would have to download it, deliberately execute it, and then it would probably crash because it's on the wrong distro and can't find the libraries it needs. It would also have a heck of a time taking advantage of the cache and address books because these things are not in as predictable a place as they are with windows.
I think it was. (badly pronounced, of course, as k-nock-vurst with a fake french accent) There were so many running gags in that show that I have forgotten most of them.
Their search is wierd ... it is a cross between a search and a directory.
They have the paid "feature sites", then the "web directory sites", and only then the rest of the stuff, which autmoatically puts all the non-commercial things onto page 2. Screw that. I prefer Google, mainly because the paid-for stuff is at the side and yoou cna get right to the results faster.
Yes, the "Fallen Madonna with the ... which I last saw stuffed into a sausage and being taken to the Swiss border.
obligatory hand gesture (.) (.)
Big Boobies"
I've done BookCrossing, for books I didn't want to keep that were popular genre fiction. It's amazing how far your books can go when you give it to someone headed out on an international sales trip. I asked them to leave the books in the airpot lounges - there's nothing worse than seeing the same 10 best sellers all over the world.
Loved Red Dwarf too ... cunna unnersta arf wut te torked bout.
Finally, I can see the last 5 episodes of "Alo, Alo"!
However, I can see this working well in a small community with known members, such as a company (finding out who has certain references), school, or small town. But you have to have a system where the borrowers can be personally known to the lenders.
If I have a CD or book to lend out, I GIVE it to the library and let them handle the distribution.
News flash ... not even EXCEL can load all other EXCEL spreadsheets. The bulk of the spreadsheets out there are doing basic accounting and data sorting - I learned to use Lotus123 to do parts lists, notcash flow. Very few businesses I have been in have the customised VBA "workbooks" and office integration that Microsoft sells their MSOffice Developer version for - and at least one of those was rapidly changing over to web-based CGI or JAVA apps. I've used that software and it's no fun having VB fuctions that don't work like the examples in the book, or work differently when called from within a loop than they do inline. (I don't remember which one that was, but it was a PITA!)
Nope ... I don't care how many whizbang innovations something has, if it can't READ my existing data, and read/write formats my business contacts use, it's worthless. You have to be "interoperable" to make any headway, because people can't afford to lose data.
On the bright side, as soon as people reassure themselves that their data can be retrieved, they are usually willing to abandon proprietary software. I demonstrated that OO could read/write EXCEL and Word files to a coworker and the first words out of his mouth were "Then what the hell do I need Windows for?"