We all know that a large percentage of all Internet users use usenet frequently. Before, you could find MP3s on the Web or easily through popular software that had a lot of public attention. Now music sharers are being pushed to Usenet. A larger percentage of people on Usenet are a little more tech savvy than the average Internet user. Therefore, they are more apt to find tools to break the DRM or dare to use a sharpie on their CDs to break the DRM. --------
Ok, now that that's done.
You are on crack. File sharing is more prevalent than ever before. It's trivial to find mp3s on the web. Try doing a google search for: "Parent Directory" mp3 -html -php
Furthermore, p2p services such as Kazaa and Bittorrent are steadily increasing in volume with other new p2p services coming online all the time. More people, not less, are sharing files. The increase in files available on Usenet is a sign of that.
How about an email system that by default, blocks all incoming emails. One where the user manually has to set which email accounts are allowed to email them.
Do a google search for: email whitelisting
I don't know much about coding other than HMTL/CSS & hacking PHP scripts, but something like his can't be very difficult to develop or even integrate into existing email clients. See a mailto link? Right-click it and "Add to Allowed Email Accouts".
Do a google search for: client side email filtering
Why I haven't seen something like this already is beyond me.
You apparently haven't been looking all that hard.
Actually, I meant that using an unreliable transporter that may or may not turn the transportees into goo is unethical. Besides, what does it gain you to transport the enemy onboard your ship, where they can take over from the inside?
It's not any more unethical if it's quick, painless, and you were going to kill them anyway. There are a few ways to employ the transporter here...you could beam up part of them...you could beam them up and blast them...you could beam them up and then beam them back down somewhere else...you could beam up just their weapons...you could them up and "lose" them (i.e. a fabricated transporter accident).
This wasn't really an issue in other StarTreks because either the transporter wasn't working, or they could just beam up the crew to get them out of trouble.
I don't think they'd have site-to-site in Enterprise...I don't see anything wrong with it in general though. Site-to-site is a reasonable progression of transporter technology...presumably you beam the up and out without having to rematerialize them in the middle. People could use turbolifts instead of transporters for any number of reasons. The transporter takes up a lot of power, the transporter can't move as many people to as many places at the same time, the transporter breaks easier, the transporter is often not usuable in many situations (certain kinds of radiation, blah blah blah). Besides a lot of "action" goes on in those turbo lifts...
Ah...so that's why they spend most of their time in Enterprise killing people, instead of um...killing people yeah.
So it's unethical to vaporize them by beaming them up, but it's ok to phaser them. It's also ok to clone someone to kill them later, torture people, steal from people...that's why the show sucks.
The reason the USA doesn't nuke the middle east (disregarding the major environmental issues) is because nuking the middle east would kill many many noncombatants (even more than we already do kill). It's killing noncombantants and destroying the environment that's unethical.
Beaming up people trying to kill you does neither.
I have a -big- problem with the transporters. Yeah, I think it was interesting that they decided to make them unreliable. The only problem is they are reliable when they want them to be. There's never a problem with beaming up people when they need to. Furthermore there are so many instances in the show where they could use the transporter and they don't. For example, if Archer is surrounded by enemies...why not beam THEM up? Who cares if the enemies get fried by the transporter?
Enterprise has so many other issues. It's supposed to be StarTrek, and yet it's incredibly dark. StarTrek is not dark...that's the whole frigg'n point. StarTrek repesents optimism about the future. When I watch StarTrek I want to feel good...in Enterprise they just kill people and make all these moral compromises.
Also, in Enterprise they never use technological solutions to get out of problems. They always go in phasers blazing. They seldom figure out peaceful ways to accomplish anything.
Another thing that bothers me is that Archer is almost always right. There's really no rhyme or reason to him being right, he just is. Tipol makes a rational observation that fits the facts that they have available at the time, then Archer comes along and makes ridiculous observations that are fairly baseless and they ALWAYS turn out to be right. How many times on the show has someone appeared to be helping them, and Archer out of the blue is like, "We need to watch them, they're evil."?
Finally, what's with the plot lines? That whole Xindi thing was awful. It just dragged and dragged and dragged...hell with DS9 they at least took a break from the war every now and then. Also why don't they address other issues like first contact and the subsequent war with the Klingons?
I would hope that I would get certified mail and a phone call about a $1,000,000 check.
Likewise, the cops aren't going to email you either.
If it's absolutely, truly important, you don't do it just over email. There are so many ways for email to fail.
Spam filtering isn't about looking for a magic bullet, it's about attempting to make email usable when you have places where 60% of their email is spam. I don't know about you, but I think I'd mistakenly delete more than 1 legit mail out of 25000 is 15000 of them were spam.
As to the claim of 1 in 25000, yes I think you'd have to do more independant testing before buying into it. For this, go with a vender that will let you test it first. The claim is not necessarily false, but just like with all advertising, you take it with a grain of salt.
This doesn't apply for iTunes which you can download for free.
For other products, did you try to contact the company and tell them you didn't agree to the EULA and wanted a refund? Did you contact the company before purchasing and ask for a copy of the EULA? Seems logicial to me after being bit once, that if EULA's concerned you, you would do this.
Better yet, quit purchasing software. If this practice is abhorrent to you, use OSS instead. While there may be EULA's, you can reject them without it costing you anything.
Interesting, when I try to listen to an audio clip on Amazon.com with Real Player 10, I get an error about the codec being too old and no longer supported.
1. What options do the accelerators need? The AGP video drivers should take care of accelerating things that have to do with using the graphics card.
2. Linux is not the main competition for Microsoft Windows on the desktop. Microsoft's largest competetor for the desktop is it's own older products. There are still many many 95 and 98 installations out there. I think it's very unlikely that linux desktop manager development is driving Windows desktop development. I think it's more the other way around, where Linux desktop developers look and see what works and what doesn't with Windows and implement features accordingly. Microsoft invests a huge amount on GUI research, makes sense for Linux developers to benefit from that instead of reinventing the wheel.
I think these accelerators are junk most of the time, or they tweak things that make the desktop perhaps more responsive and thus it -seems- faster. You want a faster computing experience? Get new hardware.
If my car doesn't start, I'll try starting it again. I'll try a few more times before calling assistance.
Exactly. When my car doesn't start, I may try it a few times. Then I might ask someone to help me jump it. If that doesn't work then I have it towed to my mechanic. What I do not do is leave it in the middle of the street, try and start it for 30 minutes, open up the hood and start yanking out things, and then take it to my local gocart store, tell them I did not yank out a bunch of things and that the problem is I can't get to work, and then expect them to fix it.
If the printer doesn't print, I'll do the same thing. Most people don't know a thing about printer queues. They don't know what magic happens with servers. They don't even know there is another compouter between them and the printer, let alone the fact that the printer has a computer inside it. Why would they even consider that trying to print again might cause problems?
Because they know that if they are trying to print someone else can't. It's as simple as that.
As for marking emails "important", why not just let the user decide what is and isn't important? If you're going to mark it important, when it isn't to a user, why should they expect the next one to one important? They're more likely to think that you're a self-obsessed nerd, who thinks anything he has to say is important. If this causes a problem, it's because you are unable to understand human nature. Human nature is the way it is. You can't change it.
This is a bit out of scope from the original point which was:
"When IT support sends you an email with high-importance, delete it at once. We're just testing."
Typically messages sent to everyone would be considered high-importance. On messages where I do this, I clearly indicate in the subject line what the message is about...either "Scheduled Network Outage", "Email server will be down", etc. This doesn't refer to somehow marking the message as more important than another (that's pretty stupid anyway IMO). The chief gripe is you send everyone an email with a subject of "Scheduled Network Outage - 08/10/04" and have people who simply delete it and then complain on the 10th when the network is down.
And if peopel asking you to do something that's not in your job description is a regular occurance, then it's up to you to deal with it in as efficient a way as possible. Bitching about the users isn't going to help.
How does people venting on slashdot have any bearing on what they do in the real world? Users bitch about admins all the time, why aren't admins entitled to do the same?
I find the self-righteousness of a lot of IT guys quite tedious. Strangely, the ones I've actually worked with are helpful and professional. There just seem to be so many "jokes" online about how useless their users are, and how life would be so much easier without them, when it's simply a case of users not being experts with a very complicated and fiddly tool.
Dude...just about everyone vents about work. Perhaps you don't, but I'd say most do. The reason why your experience with the IT people you work with is that they are helpful and professional, is because many are. I'm sure waitstaff and retail clerks are courteous and nice at their place of employment and then come home and talk about the things customers do that annoy them.
As far as the "jokes" online about users. There are probably just as many "jokes" about admins. After all, we're all smelly ungroomed little trolls who get hard ons by wielding power with an iron fist and terrorizing the user populous as revenge for the repeated beatings we received in high school.
And maybe you've sent something to the entire company marked "Important", which isn't important to most people. People learn to associate the "important" marker with some mundane IT stuff that doesn;t affect them. Of course they're surprised when it does affect them. They've been trained to ignore it.
That's really not true. Anything I send to the entire company marked "Important" is...at least it is to most people. I don't send messages that affect a minority to the majority.
Regardless...people should not bitch when they are emailed ahead of time that something that affects them is going to occur. The best part about this is they don't even think to check if the outage was scheduled. Hmm...did I receive an email that this was going to occur...I know the admin sends these things out...naaa...
Delegate. Get a list of support numbers. Forward the request on to the right person.
Sysadmins work on computers...figure out whether the object in question is a computer...forward the request on to the right person.
You're expecting a user to know how the print queue works. They assume that either it prints, or the request gets lost. Most people are not IT experts.
No...I expect the user to know that only one thing can print at a time. If their job is printing or is stuck, or is submitted 20 times, then no one else can print.
I do blame the software developers. You seem to be blaming the users. It's not their fault. Can you check a box that stops windows from warning about a change in extension, or that firefox couldn't find a web page? You use software where errors are actually important. Most people don't.
It's ultimately the users who decide to ignore warnings instead of reading them. Changing an extension is often a problem with users actually...they'll change it and wonder why it won't launch anymore. Not being able to find a web page is a reasonable error as well...it's also fairly predictable. I have little sympathy when someone is told, "Hey, you're doing something that may cause x to happen" and they do it anyway and wonder why X happened.
True. It's also the perfect time to get a coffee. especially if the admin guy usually takes 5 minutes or so to finish what he's doing.
If you know it takes 5 minutes and you only take 5 minutes that's one thing...however also realize that if we go over there immediately and have to wait 5 minutes, that often means everyone else in the support queue has to wait 5 minutes. It's also another thing to put in a request in disappear. I have a support request out now in fact where I have been unable to get a hold of the person for a few days. I'm guessing they went on vacation or something...I'm sure they will expect the problem to be fixed when they get back, however without them present I really can't fix it.
There's the problem. I don't come in over the weekend. Ever. The fact that you are, and your telling me about it means that you're giving me pointless information, which devalues the important emails.
I see...and we're supposed to know who does and does not come in? A network outage is potentially relevent for everyone...maybe you don't come in, but you expect a build to occur over the weekend...maybe someone else who works on your project needed to do work that may cause a delay in something you were expecting to do on Monday. Who knows...the point is, don't complain if something is down and you were told a week ago via email you decided not to read that the outage was going to occur.
Why would a programmer need to use a photocopier:P But if someone asked me to fix it, I would. I'd call the photocopier repair guy. If I didn't know who that was, I'd call someone who probably does.
Right, so you again on one hand indicate we're slow to respond and on the other think it's reasonable for us to handle things that office staff really should be doing further setting us behind. I've been asked to fix so many things...fax machines, fans, copiers, mini fridges, etc...It's ridiculous.
This is a matter that can be diagnosed over the phone. I've never had a line so bad that the computer didn't register a dial tone though.
Lucky you. I've had people with lines so staticy that the modem picks up the line and does not register a dial tone there. You're right it can be diagnosed over the phone. Hey, I hear a bunch of static on your line, the likely cause of your problem is your phone line...call the phone company. The problem is, people think you're just brushing them off when you give them an answer like that.
Did I actually remember to press print? Did I click ok and not cancel? Better not tell the cranky IT guy in case he gets mad at me. Let's give it another couple of goes to make sure it's definitely not working. It's not like it's going to use up any paper if it doesn't work.
This is very selfish of you, because each stuck job in the queue prevents someone else from being able to print. We're also not talking about 2 or 3 tries. We're talking about the people who go, "Hmm...it didn't print...well...click click click click click click click click..."
If trying to print is what's causing the printers to mess up, then the print server is broken.
Or, your software is sending something messed up to the printer...or the job is too big...any number of issues can be at work. It's not necessarily the print server. If it is the print server, sending it 20 times isn't going to make a bit of difference. Now, what I would normally do is send the document to someone else and ask if they can print it. If they can, I'd call the sysadmin and say, "My computer won't print this, but Chuck's can." if they can't I'd call and say, "It seems this document won't print...I tried and Chuck down the hall tried it too."
Come on. a mouse cable is made from durable plastic, and steel! this can handle a fairly sustantial compression force. It's also only bearing a fraction of the weight of the computer.
Ever notice those indentions that are in the cable when you do that? Do i
1. We are asocial nerds. Please don't personalise your machine. It confuses us.
- Personalizing your machine does not mean burying it under tons of stuff and not moving it when you want support.
2. We are incapable of replicating any bugs you produce. sorry.
- How does one replicate a bug without a thorough description of the error generated by said bug?
3. If you are unable to do any work, please stare at your screen until the admin gets round to stopping by. DO NOT get a coffee. We'll be there within an hour.
- It's very difficult to fix a problem without the user present. It's also very frustrating to have people put in support calls and immediately disappear.
4. The admin is incapable of engaging in discussion to diagnose problems. Please remember to diagnose your problem yourself before telling the admin.
- No, just describe the actual problem instead of being vague. If your machine doesn't turn on, don't say you can't get email say "My machine won't turn on." Similarly if you caused it not to work, don't lie about it. I've had users knowingly delete the system directory to get more space and then indicate the system stopped working without them doing anything.
6. All our admin emails are sent as high importance. We think we're important people, and you really need to know everything we send you no matter how trivial it may seem to you.
- Remember that the next time there's a scheduled outage and you bitch about everything not working when you come in over the weekend to do work.
7. IT people are unable to leave their computers for more than 3 minutes at a time. Please take this into consideration when you think they're working.
- It's noon, you see someone eating...come on now...
8. Admins left school before they were taught upper case letters. Please use lower case.
- Right, that's why most support calls regarding password problems are a result of someone having the capslock key on.
9. Warning, admins can only administer one type of equipment. They are also unable to direct you to the admins who deal with other equipment.
- Mmmhmm...and you're a programmer. You work with computers, I see no reason why you shouldn't know how to fix the copier either.
10. Admins can be called even if you don't have a working phone line. Try it sometime.
- Your phone line can be crappy enough to not allow a modem to dial out, yet still be used to make calls. This can, and does happen frequently.
11. Admin people have no idea what the company policy is on disposal of computer equipment, and have no interest in finding out.
- Why should the company bear the burden of disposing your own computer equipment from home? Why can't you figure out the location of your own local computer equipment disposal area/service?
12. If an admin person asks you to bring your computer to them, and they aren't there, please lug it back to your desk and try again later. Don't assume they will remember asking you to bring it to them.
- First off the original point was made about equipment from home. In case you didn't notice, if you ask me to fix your busted up PC from home and I agree, I'm doing you a favor. Second if I'm not there when you come by (you can't bitch about how long it takes for us to arrive, and bitch about us not being in our office at the same time) leave a post it note on the machine indicating who you are, how I can contact you, and what the problem with the machine is.
13. Remember, admin believe anything you say is wrong..
- Remember, most of the time it is...as you expressed with point #17.
14. The admin will be there shortly. The last 50 times were just an anomoly.
- Well if we weren't busy staying in our office to make sure we were there so you could bring your home PC by for us to repair for free, we may actually be able to get to handling company related support calls.
15. If at first you don't succeed, give up.
- Gee...if it doesn't
It all depends on what the terms of employment were.
It doesn't matter which items you are likely to have. I'm likely to have food in my house, this doesn't mean I'm supposed to feed the CEO.
You cited the fact that your company moved from a location that was serviced by public transit to one that was not. It absolutely isn't the company's responsibility to buy you car. The reason why is because your contract stipulated that you had to be at work on time. This doesn't mean you have to buy a car either. You could:
1. Run to work. 2. Bike to work. 3. Segway to work. 4. Carpool to work. 5. Move closer to work.
In fact it really is none of the company's business how you get there, as long as you do and it's on time.
But you should consider this accessibility and all its various costs as accounted for in your salary requirements (just like you pay for gas in your car if you commute) and not insist that it be reimbursed separately.
This is the problem. You are assuming that 24/7 availability is stipulated in the guy's job requirements. Maybe it isn't. If not, this "service" may be negotiable. The worst thing you can do is negotiate against yourself by telling yourself there is nothing you can do. Instead of taking it up the ass, this guy should have a talk with management and see if he can come to some reasonable compromise.
If the guy agreed to 24/7 availability and the company did not agree to provide the equipment, well then the equipment was a bonus, and he isn't getting screwed.
It's hard to say what this guy should do without getting all the facts first.
Now, under windows, what other option do you have besides opening all 300 photos in a photo editing program and issue the rescale command for each and every photo?
Like I said, iPodLounge is a great resource. Had the Search feature brought me these links, it would have solved my problem. However, I didn't happen to find the FAQ link under the Javascript. You knew where to find it, and that's great.
I had no problem with the search. I tried it with "windows ipod on mac". It pulled up a bunch of crap. The crap was sorted by date and appeared to to do an or search instead of an and search. So, then I clicked "advanced search", typed in the same criteria again, click "search for all terms", and click "search in title".
I got 8 hits. The first 3 weren't relevant, but here's the last 5:
4
Can I use my Windows formatted iPod on a Mac computer?
Yes, however this process is not supported by Apple, and may yield weird results.
Dec 24, 03
5
Can I use my Mac formatted iPod on a Windows PC?
Yes, however you must purchase third party software such as MacOpener to do so. Otherwise, you will...
Dec 24, 03
6
Can I use my iPod on both my Mac and Windows computers?
Yes. Install and format your iPod for use on a Mac with the iPod Software for Mac. Install Ephpod,...
May 31, 03
7
Can I convert a Mac iPod to a Windows iPod or vice versa?
Yes. You can convert either format iPod to the other. To convert a Windows iPod into a Mac...
Feb 16, 03
8
If I enable FireWire Disk mode on my iPod, can I just manually copy over MP3s and playlists to my iPod using Mac Finder or Windows Explorer?
You certainly can manually copy MP3s (or any other files for that matter) to your iPod once...
But I still don't quite understand why you've got such a mad on for people who publish books. You think O'Reilly should go out of business because people should just read HOWTOs?
I'm not angry and no. Many O'reilly books are an excellent resource. I'm sure this one is too. The reason why is because they provide a complete resource for information that is often scattered all over the place. In addition the books are often written by the very people who designed (or are intimately involved with) the original software they cover.
For example perl books written by Larry Wall or Randal Schwartz. They aren't just references, they are definitive references.
I'm sure you're no stranger to this, but the howtos and docs for many pieces of software both OS and CS are crappy. If it's programming books you are reading, they provide incite into programming concepts and the best way to do things...stuff that the docs won't tell you and that if you weren't already knowledgable you wouldn't find yourself online (you could find it, for example a sorting routine, but unless you are knowledgable you may not know if it's the best one). The howtos often don't contain examples, provide a complete description, or are full of technobabel.
I don't like this particular book. I believe it's a waste of time and money...not for the author, they will probably make something off it, but for the reader. I seriously doubt there's anything in the book that isn't in iPodLounge. I doubt the book explains it any better than the articles in iPodLounge. I doubt you can find it any faster than in iPodLounge. It also costs more money than iPodLounge. Finally, it's written by someone who is basically a technology enthusiast. I could've searched iPodLounge and put this book together.
Compare that with my favorite O'reilly book, "The Perl Cookbook". It contains information that you could not find from a single source. The information is often times the best or most concise way of doing whatever it describes. For many topics the author presents multiple recipies. Some are faster, some are more concise, some are more reliable. The author describes which are which and why in good detail (information you would not get when looking up the topics yourself). The book is written by one of the best "perl experts" in the world...it's almost like by buying the book you get a pass to one his courses or speaking engagements. In short, the book provides value.
Slashdot Mirror
I would come unglued if it was running on any of my systems.
Boy that sounds like a fun place to work. Are you hiring?
Considering that Google is the one putting the content online, it is their responsibility.
They aren't linking to someone else's site with the books on them, they are hosting the books themselves.
corrected text:
-----------
increase in usenet
We all know that a large percentage of all Internet users use usenet frequently. Before, you could find MP3s on the Web or easily through popular software that had a lot of public attention. Now music sharers are being pushed to Usenet. A larger percentage of people on Usenet are a little more tech savvy than the average Internet user. Therefore, they are more apt to find tools to break the DRM or dare to use a sharpie on their CDs to break the DRM.
--------
Ok, now that that's done.
You are on crack. File sharing is more prevalent than ever before. It's trivial to find mp3s on the web. Try doing a google search for: "Parent Directory" mp3 -html -php
Furthermore, p2p services such as Kazaa and Bittorrent are steadily increasing in volume with other new p2p services coming online all the time. More people, not less, are sharing files. The increase in files available on Usenet is a sign of that.
How about an email system that by default, blocks all incoming emails. One where the user manually has to set which email accounts are allowed to email them.
Do a google search for: email whitelisting
I don't know much about coding other than HMTL/CSS & hacking PHP scripts, but something like his can't be very difficult to develop or even integrate into existing email clients.
See a mailto link? Right-click it and "Add to Allowed Email Accouts".
Do a google search for: client side email filtering
Why I haven't seen something like this already is beyond me.
You apparently haven't been looking all that hard.
Hmm...I've heard of that. It goes over the new fangled SneakerNet right?
Actually, I meant that using an unreliable transporter that may or may not turn the transportees into goo is unethical. Besides, what does it gain you to transport the enemy onboard your ship, where they can take over from the inside?
It's not any more unethical if it's quick, painless, and you were going to kill them anyway. There are a few ways to employ the transporter here...you could beam up part of them...you could beam them up and blast them...you could beam them up and then beam them back down somewhere else...you could beam up just their weapons...you could them up and "lose" them (i.e. a fabricated transporter accident).
This wasn't really an issue in other StarTreks because either the transporter wasn't working, or they could just beam up the crew to get them out of trouble.
I don't think they'd have site-to-site in Enterprise...I don't see anything wrong with it in general though. Site-to-site is a reasonable progression of transporter technology...presumably you beam the up and out without having to rematerialize them in the middle. People could use turbolifts instead of transporters for any number of reasons. The transporter takes up a lot of power, the transporter can't move as many people to as many places at the same time, the transporter breaks easier, the transporter is often not usuable in many situations (certain kinds of radiation, blah blah blah). Besides a lot of "action" goes on in those turbo lifts...
Ah...so that's why they spend most of their time in Enterprise killing people, instead of um...killing people yeah.
So it's unethical to vaporize them by beaming them up, but it's ok to phaser them. It's also ok to clone someone to kill them later, torture people, steal from people...that's why the show sucks.
The reason the USA doesn't nuke the middle east (disregarding the major environmental issues) is because nuking the middle east would kill many many noncombatants (even more than we already do kill). It's killing noncombantants and destroying the environment that's unethical.
Beaming up people trying to kill you does neither.
I have a -big- problem with the transporters. Yeah, I think it was interesting that they decided to make them unreliable. The only problem is they are reliable when they want them to be. There's never a problem with beaming up people when they need to. Furthermore there are so many instances in the show where they could use the transporter and they don't. For example, if Archer is surrounded by enemies...why not beam THEM up? Who cares if the enemies get fried by the transporter?
Enterprise has so many other issues. It's supposed to be StarTrek, and yet it's incredibly dark. StarTrek is not dark...that's the whole frigg'n point. StarTrek repesents optimism about the future. When I watch StarTrek I want to feel good...in Enterprise they just kill people and make all these moral compromises.
Also, in Enterprise they never use technological solutions to get out of problems. They always go in phasers blazing. They seldom figure out peaceful ways to accomplish anything.
Another thing that bothers me is that Archer is almost always right. There's really no rhyme or reason to him being right, he just is. Tipol makes a rational observation that fits the facts that they have available at the time, then Archer comes along and makes ridiculous observations that are fairly baseless and they ALWAYS turn out to be right. How many times on the show has someone appeared to be helping them, and Archer out of the blue is like, "We need to watch them, they're evil."?
Finally, what's with the plot lines? That whole Xindi thing was awful. It just dragged and dragged and dragged...hell with DS9 they at least took a break from the war every now and then. Also why don't they address other issues like first contact and the subsequent war with the Klingons?
That's precisely the point...people realize it doesn't eliminate spam. The idea is to reduce it. The goal is to reduce it to 0.
Unless you've got any better (easily implemented) schemes, filtering is all we've got currently.
I would hope that I would get certified mail and a phone call about a $1,000,000 check.
Likewise, the cops aren't going to email you either.
If it's absolutely, truly important, you don't do it just over email. There are so many ways for email to fail.
Spam filtering isn't about looking for a magic bullet, it's about attempting to make email usable when you have places where 60% of their email is spam. I don't know about you, but I think I'd mistakenly delete more than 1 legit mail out of 25000 is 15000 of them were spam.
As to the claim of 1 in 25000, yes I think you'd have to do more independant testing before buying into it. For this, go with a vender that will let you test it first. The claim is not necessarily false, but just like with all advertising, you take it with a grain of salt.
This doesn't apply for iTunes which you can download for free.
For other products, did you try to contact the company and tell them you didn't agree to the EULA and wanted a refund? Did you contact the company before purchasing and ask for a copy of the EULA? Seems logicial to me after being bit once, that if EULA's concerned you, you would do this.
Better yet, quit purchasing software. If this practice is abhorrent to you, use OSS instead. While there may be EULA's, you can reject them without it costing you anything.
What the hell are we supposed to do with all these chainsaws? I can't imagine anything more useless than a chainsaw on Mars.
Recording Radio is legal, so would it make the MP3s recorded by the Digital Radio legal too?
Yes.
If some one put them out on P2P, would it be legal to download and play these MP3?
Whether it would be legal or not to download is somewhat of a grey area. However it would definitely not be legal to upload them.
How would one differentiate between such MP3s v/s the CD ripped versions?
1. They'd sound a lot crappier unless the cd ripped version is very poorly encoded.
2. If you're talking about by filename alone, it really doesn't matter. The same laws apply whether it was encoded from the radio or from a CD.
Hmmm...and I thought "victory is life"
Why couldn't they run the Windows firewall or a free copy of Zonealarm?
Interesting, when I try to listen to an audio clip on Amazon.com with Real Player 10, I get an error about the codec being too old and no longer supported.
I disagree.
1. What options do the accelerators need? The AGP video drivers should take care of accelerating things that have to do with using the graphics card.
2. Linux is not the main competition for Microsoft Windows on the desktop. Microsoft's largest competetor for the desktop is it's own older products. There are still many many 95 and 98 installations out there. I think it's very unlikely that linux desktop manager development is driving Windows desktop development. I think it's more the other way around, where Linux desktop developers look and see what works and what doesn't with Windows and implement features accordingly. Microsoft invests a huge amount on GUI research, makes sense for Linux developers to benefit from that instead of reinventing the wheel.
I think these accelerators are junk most of the time, or they tweak things that make the desktop perhaps more responsive and thus it -seems- faster. You want a faster computing experience? Get new hardware.
If my car doesn't start, I'll try starting it again. I'll try a few more times before calling assistance.
Exactly. When my car doesn't start, I may try it a few times. Then I might ask someone to help me jump it. If that doesn't work then I have it towed to my mechanic. What I do not do is leave it in the middle of the street, try and start it for 30 minutes, open up the hood and start yanking out things, and then take it to my local gocart store, tell them I did not yank out a bunch of things and that the problem is I can't get to work, and then expect them to fix it.
If the printer doesn't print, I'll do the same thing. Most people don't know a thing about printer queues. They don't know what magic happens with servers. They don't even know there is another compouter between them and the printer, let alone the fact that the printer has a computer inside it. Why would they even consider that trying to print again might cause problems?
Because they know that if they are trying to print someone else can't. It's as simple as that.
As for marking emails "important", why not just let the user decide what is and isn't important? If you're going to mark it important, when it isn't to a user, why should they expect the next one to one important? They're more likely to think that you're a self-obsessed nerd, who thinks anything he has to say is important. If this causes a problem, it's because you are unable to understand human nature. Human nature is the way it is. You can't change it.
This is a bit out of scope from the original point which was:
"When IT support sends you an email with high-importance, delete it at once. We're just testing."
Typically messages sent to everyone would be considered high-importance. On messages where I do this, I clearly indicate in the subject line what the message is about...either "Scheduled Network Outage", "Email server will be down", etc. This doesn't refer to somehow marking the message as more important than another (that's pretty stupid anyway IMO). The chief gripe is you send everyone an email with a subject of "Scheduled Network Outage - 08/10/04" and have people who simply delete it and then complain on the 10th when the network is down.
And if peopel asking you to do something that's not in your job description is a regular occurance, then it's up to you to deal with it in as efficient a way as possible. Bitching about the users isn't going to help.
How does people venting on slashdot have any bearing on what they do in the real world? Users bitch about admins all the time, why aren't admins entitled to do the same?
I find the self-righteousness of a lot of IT guys quite tedious. Strangely, the ones I've actually worked with are helpful and professional. There just seem to be so many "jokes" online about how useless their users are, and how life would be so much easier without them, when it's simply a case of users not being experts with a very complicated and fiddly tool.
Dude...just about everyone vents about work. Perhaps you don't, but I'd say most do. The reason why your experience with the IT people you work with is that they are helpful and professional, is because many are. I'm sure waitstaff and retail clerks are courteous and nice at their place of employment and then come home and talk about the things customers do that annoy them.
As far as the "jokes" online about users. There are probably just as many "jokes" about admins. After all, we're all smelly ungroomed little trolls who get hard ons by wielding power with an iron fist and terrorizing the user populous as revenge for the repeated beatings we received in high school.
Don't take it so personally.
And maybe you've sent something to the entire company marked "Important", which isn't important to most people. People learn to associate the "important" marker with some mundane IT stuff that doesn;t affect them. Of course they're surprised when it does affect them. They've been trained to ignore it.
That's really not true. Anything I send to the entire company marked "Important" is...at least it is to most people. I don't send messages that affect a minority to the majority.
Regardless...people should not bitch when they are emailed ahead of time that something that affects them is going to occur. The best part about this is they don't even think to check if the outage was scheduled. Hmm...did I receive an email that this was going to occur...I know the admin sends these things out...naaa...
Delegate. Get a list of support numbers. Forward the request on to the right person.
Sysadmins work on computers...figure out whether the object in question is a computer...forward the request on to the right person.
You're expecting a user to know how the print queue works. They assume that either it prints, or the request gets lost. Most people are not IT experts.
No...I expect the user to know that only one thing can print at a time. If their job is printing or is stuck, or is submitted 20 times, then no one else can print.
I do blame the software developers. You seem to be blaming the users. It's not their fault. Can you check a box that stops windows from warning about a change in extension, or that firefox couldn't find a web page? You use software where errors are actually important. Most people don't.
It's ultimately the users who decide to ignore warnings instead of reading them. Changing an extension is often a problem with users actually...they'll change it and wonder why it won't launch anymore. Not being able to find a web page is a reasonable error as well...it's also fairly predictable. I have little sympathy when someone is told, "Hey, you're doing something that may cause x to happen" and they do it anyway and wonder why X happened.
True. It's also the perfect time to get a coffee. especially if the admin guy usually takes 5 minutes or so to finish what he's doing.
If you know it takes 5 minutes and you only take 5 minutes that's one thing...however also realize that if we go over there immediately and have to wait 5 minutes, that often means everyone else in the support queue has to wait 5 minutes. It's also another thing to put in a request in disappear. I have a support request out now in fact where I have been unable to get a hold of the person for a few days. I'm guessing they went on vacation or something...I'm sure they will expect the problem to be fixed when they get back, however without them present I really can't fix it.
There's the problem. I don't come in over the weekend. Ever. The fact that you are, and your telling me about it means that you're giving me pointless information, which devalues the important emails.
I see...and we're supposed to know who does and does not come in? A network outage is potentially relevent for everyone...maybe you don't come in, but you expect a build to occur over the weekend...maybe someone else who works on your project needed to do work that may cause a delay in something you were expecting to do on Monday. Who knows...the point is, don't complain if something is down and you were told a week ago via email you decided not to read that the outage was going to occur.
Why would a programmer need to use a photocopier:P But if someone asked me to fix it, I would. I'd call the photocopier repair guy. If I didn't know who that was, I'd call someone who probably does.
Right, so you again on one hand indicate we're slow to respond and on the other think it's reasonable for us to handle things that office staff really should be doing further setting us behind. I've been asked to fix so many things...fax machines, fans, copiers, mini fridges, etc...It's ridiculous.
This is a matter that can be diagnosed over the phone. I've never had a line so bad that the computer didn't register a dial tone though.
Lucky you. I've had people with lines so staticy that the modem picks up the line and does not register a dial tone there. You're right it can be diagnosed over the phone. Hey, I hear a bunch of static on your line, the likely cause of your problem is your phone line...call the phone company. The problem is, people think you're just brushing them off when you give them an answer like that.
Did I actually remember to press print? Did I click ok and not cancel? Better not tell the cranky IT guy in case he gets mad at me. Let's give it another couple of goes to make sure it's definitely not working. It's not like it's going to use up any paper if it doesn't work.
This is very selfish of you, because each stuck job in the queue prevents someone else from being able to print. We're also not talking about 2 or 3 tries. We're talking about the people who go, "Hmm...it didn't print...well...click click click click click click click click..."
If trying to print is what's causing the printers to mess up, then the print server is broken.
Or, your software is sending something messed up to the printer...or the job is too big...any number of issues can be at work. It's not necessarily the print server. If it is the print server, sending it 20 times isn't going to make a bit of difference. Now, what I would normally do is send the document to someone else and ask if they can print it. If they can, I'd call the sysadmin and say, "My computer won't print this, but Chuck's can." if they can't I'd call and say, "It seems this document won't print...I tried and Chuck down the hall tried it too."
Come on. a mouse cable is made from durable plastic, and steel! this can handle a fairly sustantial compression force. It's also only bearing a fraction of the weight of the computer.
Ever notice those indentions that are in the cable when you do that? Do i
1. We are asocial nerds. Please don't personalise your machine. It confuses us.
- Personalizing your machine does not mean burying it under tons of stuff and not moving it when you want support.
2. We are incapable of replicating any bugs you produce. sorry.
- How does one replicate a bug without a thorough description of the error generated by said bug?
3. If you are unable to do any work, please stare at your screen until the admin gets round to stopping by. DO NOT get a coffee. We'll be there within an hour.
- It's very difficult to fix a problem without the user present. It's also very frustrating to have people put in support calls and immediately disappear.
4. The admin is incapable of engaging in discussion to diagnose problems. Please remember to diagnose your problem yourself before telling the admin.
- No, just describe the actual problem instead of being vague. If your machine doesn't turn on, don't say you can't get email say "My machine won't turn on." Similarly if you caused it not to work, don't lie about it. I've had users knowingly delete the system directory to get more space and then indicate the system stopped working without them doing anything.
6. All our admin emails are sent as high importance. We think we're important people, and you really need to know everything we send you no matter how trivial it may seem to you.
- Remember that the next time there's a scheduled outage and you bitch about everything not working when you come in over the weekend to do work.
7. IT people are unable to leave their computers for more than 3 minutes at a time. Please take this into consideration when you think they're working.
- It's noon, you see someone eating...come on now...
8. Admins left school before they were taught upper case letters. Please use lower case.
- Right, that's why most support calls regarding password problems are a result of someone having the capslock key on.
9. Warning, admins can only administer one type of equipment. They are also unable to direct you to the admins who deal with other equipment.
- Mmmhmm...and you're a programmer. You work with computers, I see no reason why you shouldn't know how to fix the copier either.
10. Admins can be called even if you don't have a working phone line. Try it sometime.
- Your phone line can be crappy enough to not allow a modem to dial out, yet still be used to make calls. This can, and does happen frequently.
11. Admin people have no idea what the company policy is on disposal of computer equipment, and have no interest in finding out.
- Why should the company bear the burden of disposing your own computer equipment from home? Why can't you figure out the location of your own local computer equipment disposal area/service?
12. If an admin person asks you to bring your computer to them, and they aren't there, please lug it back to your desk and try again later. Don't assume they will remember asking you to bring it to them.
- First off the original point was made about equipment from home. In case you didn't notice, if you ask me to fix your busted up PC from home and I agree, I'm doing you a favor. Second if I'm not there when you come by (you can't bitch about how long it takes for us to arrive, and bitch about us not being in our office at the same time) leave a post it note on the machine indicating who you are, how I can contact you, and what the problem with the machine is.
13. Remember, admin believe anything you say is wrong..
- Remember, most of the time it is...as you expressed with point #17.
14. The admin will be there shortly. The last 50 times were just an anomoly.
- Well if we weren't busy staying in our office to make sure we were there so you could bring your home PC by for us to repair for free, we may actually be able to get to handling company related support calls.
15. If at first you don't succeed, give up.
- Gee...if it doesn't
It all depends on what the terms of employment were.
It doesn't matter which items you are likely to have. I'm likely to have food in my house, this doesn't mean I'm supposed to feed the CEO.
You cited the fact that your company moved from a location that was serviced by public transit to one that was not. It absolutely isn't the company's responsibility to buy you car. The reason why is because your contract stipulated that you had to be at work on time. This doesn't mean you have to buy a car either. You could:
1. Run to work.
2. Bike to work.
3. Segway to work.
4. Carpool to work.
5. Move closer to work.
In fact it really is none of the company's business how you get there, as long as you do and it's on time.
But you should consider this accessibility and all its various costs as accounted for in your salary requirements (just like you pay for gas in your car if you commute) and not insist that it be reimbursed separately.
This is the problem. You are assuming that 24/7 availability is stipulated in the guy's job requirements. Maybe it isn't. If not, this "service" may be negotiable. The worst thing you can do is negotiate against yourself by telling yourself there is nothing you can do. Instead of taking it up the ass, this guy should have a talk with management and see if he can come to some reasonable compromise.
If the guy agreed to 24/7 availability and the company did not agree to provide the equipment, well then the equipment was a bonus, and he isn't getting screwed.
It's hard to say what this guy should do without getting all the facts first.
Now, under windows, what other option do you have besides opening all 300 photos in a photo editing program and issue the rescale command for each and every photo?
Um gee I dunno...maybe install Imagemagick for Windows and do the same thing.
Like I said, iPodLounge is a great resource. Had the Search feature brought me these links, it would have solved my problem. However, I didn't happen to find the FAQ link under the Javascript. You knew where to find it, and that's great.
I had no problem with the search. I tried it with "windows ipod on mac". It pulled up a bunch of crap. The crap was sorted by date and appeared to to do an or search instead of an and search. So, then I clicked "advanced search", typed in the same criteria again, click "search for all terms", and click "search in title".
I got 8 hits. The first 3 weren't relevant, but here's the last 5:
4
Can I use my Windows formatted iPod on a Mac computer?
Yes, however this process is not supported by Apple, and may yield weird results.
Dec 24, 03
5
Can I use my Mac formatted iPod on a Windows PC?
Yes, however you must purchase third party software such as MacOpener to do so. Otherwise, you will...
Dec 24, 03
6
Can I use my iPod on both my Mac and Windows computers?
Yes. Install and format your iPod for use on a Mac with the iPod Software for Mac. Install Ephpod,...
May 31, 03
7
Can I convert a Mac iPod to a Windows iPod or vice versa?
Yes. You can convert either format iPod to the other. To convert a Windows iPod into a Mac...
Feb 16, 03
8
If I enable FireWire Disk mode on my iPod, can I just manually copy over MP3s and playlists to my iPod using Mac Finder or Windows Explorer?
You certainly can manually copy MP3s (or any other files for that matter) to your iPod once...
But I still don't quite understand why you've got such a mad on for people who publish books. You think O'Reilly should go out of business because people should just read HOWTOs?
I'm not angry and no. Many O'reilly books are an excellent resource. I'm sure this one is too. The reason why is because they provide a complete resource for information that is often scattered all over the place. In addition the books are often written by the very people who designed (or are intimately involved with) the original software they cover.
For example perl books written by Larry Wall or Randal Schwartz. They aren't just references, they are definitive references.
I'm sure you're no stranger to this, but the howtos and docs for many pieces of software both OS and CS are crappy. If it's programming books you are reading, they provide incite into programming concepts and the best way to do things...stuff that the docs won't tell you and that if you weren't already knowledgable you wouldn't find yourself online (you could find it, for example a sorting routine, but unless you are knowledgable you may not know if it's the best one). The howtos often don't contain examples, provide a complete description, or are full of technobabel.
I don't like this particular book. I believe it's a waste of time and money...not for the author, they will probably make something off it, but for the reader. I seriously doubt there's anything in the book that isn't in iPodLounge. I doubt the book explains it any better than the articles in iPodLounge. I doubt you can find it any faster than in iPodLounge. It also costs more money than iPodLounge. Finally, it's written by someone who is basically a technology enthusiast. I could've searched iPodLounge and put this book together.
Compare that with my favorite O'reilly book, "The Perl Cookbook". It contains information that you could not find from a single source. The information is often times the best or most concise way of doing whatever it describes. For many topics the author presents multiple recipies. Some are faster, some are more concise, some are more reliable. The author describes which are which and why in good detail (information you would not get when looking up the topics yourself). The book is written by one of the best "perl experts" in the world...it's almost like by buying the book you get a pass to one his courses or speaking engagements. In short, the book provides value.
The information you "learned" was incorrect.
From the faq:
Can I convert a mac ipod to a windows ipod or vice versa
If you meant use it without changing the format:
From the faq again:
Can I use my iPod on both my Mac and Windows computers?
If you want specifically to use a Windows formatted iPod on a mac. From the faq yet again:
Can I use my Windows formatted iPod on a Mac computer?
Vice versa? You guessed it from the faq:
Can I use my Mac formatted iPod on a Windows PC?
Time to type in the url for ipodlounge and click help->ipod faqs: 10 seconds.
Time to read faq page: approx 1 minute. The book is stupid because it provides information that can be found easier, cheaper, and faster without it.