These 'small and midsize' businesses don't have the staff to hire a DBA, a sysadmin, a helpdesk guy -- you're it. You're the jack of all trades.
It's rather logical to think you're going to get abused, because the same person who is fixing SQL queries is now known to be the helpdesk guy, and unfortunately can't keep up with the work.
That said, I've been there. And working 80 hour weeks, I had enough, and moved to a large, massive corporation with good job deliniation. Not only do I learn more because I have the time, I work 40 hours a week (barely) and make far more money with better benefits.
Just a reminder folks, work to live, don't live to work. There is no such thing as a 'dream' job, because at the end of the day you'll always want more, best to find a job that allows you to live your life to the fullest and provides you a good salary as a bonus:)
Cheers and good luck to those out of work in '09, it's shaping up to be a tough year.
Because asking somebody to fix something with a movable timeline means it NEVER gets fixed.
If they keep the timeline, you can guarantee there will be people up nights and weekends to get it done on time. Just like the year 2000, where almost nothing happened because of the massive amount of work behind the scenes. Not like they could move that date either.
I never really expected Slashdot to give Windows of any kind a fair shake, and given that 99%+ of you have never tried it, it's entertaining to hear the responses.
It's really not that bad. Really.
But I'll leave you to your devices and talk up Linux which with the attitude displayed here, is no wonder why it never makes it onto the desktop.
Feel free to mod me down or whatever. I usually like to wait until I've tried something before criticising it.
I don't know of ONE good sysadmin that doesn't have programming knowledge of some decent degree.
Do you want to run everything you do manually? Do you want to go into tedium on a regular basis to do regularly scheduled tasks? The whole point of a GOOD sysadmin is that they don't do SHIT, they just automate the hell out of their environment and let it go.
That goes for Windows as WELL as *nix.
If you want to be a good sysadmin, learn how to program. Whether it's bash/perl/python, or VBScript or Powershell.
Best Keyboard (generic): IBM old-school Best Keyboard (Ergonomic): Microsoft Ergonomic 4000 Best Keyboard (Gaming): Logitech G15 Best Keyboard (Gamepad): Logitech G11 OR Ideazon Fang
The last category is one of sheer preference... the G11 gives you the D-Pad which a lot of people like, because it allows you to have 4 keys on your thumb without ever moving it. However, this is detracted from the fact that you don't get as many keys as the Fang.
The reason I dismiss the Warrior MERC or whatever else, is plainly -- shitty software. The Fang is good because you can download (and PRINT) gaming profiles, so if you change your keymaps then you can look at a piece of paper to see everything. It supports all the newest games, so they have default keymaps for everything that mimic exactly what's on the keyboard. I find it very useful.
Anyway, that's the right list.. their list (and reasoning) was horrible so use mine and buy away:p
Until they release software that can compete with Linux on the netbook field (resource usage, anyway), they will *have* to keep Windows XP available.
After that however, Windows 7 looks poised to be a good netbook OS, since the beta specs run at 512 RAM quite well, and the ATOM processor runs Windows 7 just fine.
That said, Linux netbook return rates are very high (I guess largely due to misunderstanding about operating systems when purchasing), and MS is looking to capitalize on it.
Amen to that -- Remedy has the most awkward interface I've used or even THOUGHT of for a helpdesk application.
If they didn't have a neat API to go with it, it would be the bottom of the barrel. But you can customize it to do pretty much anything you want, including set up AD accounts, email boxes, etc... all automatically. That is its greatest strength, too bad few people have the resources to do things like that.
I'd hate to use Digital Workflow, if it is WORSE than Remedy:)
I couldn't keep up with WOW, too much treadmill stuff, too much time investment to raid, etc... it was fun, I just didn't have the time and besides -- being without a good guild meant I never got the good stuff in raids because it was hard to raid over and over. And getting in good guilds is hard as it is.
PvP for me, Darkfall hopefully will address that. I can pick it up, play, and turn it off. I know it can get more detailed but from what I've read, I don't *have* to be involved to enjoy it, since there's no uber magic lewt that I have to 'raid' for to get.:)
Agreed 100%. My first internship paid only a transportation stipend, and it was worth every penny of time to get the experience.
If you need a JOB, wait tables and get the tips -- you do pretty good.
If you want an internship, don't waste time looking at how much you're going to make, look at what you're going to LEARN. That job experience on your resume can be invaluable in your future, especially when you compare a $15/hr internship to graduate you to a $40k/yearly job, or an unpaid one to graduate you to a $100k+ job.
Yes, I also know that some newer Linksys firewalls actually do SPI, but apparently that fact glossed over you.
You just need something to do port blocking. But feel free to stay on your high horse. It's an attitude that keeps *nix relegated to geeks and not go mainstream because of the same type of attitude the admins convey.
We didn't initiate the survey (it comes from a third party, and we don't know when it goes out), but it was about your user experience, what problems you have, how quickly they are resolved, that kind of thing.
Given the 'marks' our department gets consistently, and the bonus *I* get as a result afterwards, I am going to assume that I'm doing okay. Besides, I'm one of the few sysadmins that puts my name out 'in the wild' for the business users to get a hold of me. I don't answer helpdesk calls, but at least people know who's running the systems they are on, and who can help them if there's an issue.
There is something to be said about *nix platforms always championed by the 'geeks'. Windows is GUI based to be sure, but there are behind the scenes things (registry, hosts files, policies, clustering, etc) that is not as intuitive as people think it may be. That's also where a LOT of problems occur, and cause the BSODs and other things that the *nix fans love to jump at.
I'm not really a proponent of Windows, or Unix. I am a proponent of *getting things done*. Now whether I find *nix to do a job better, faster, cheaper, or Windows, that's the platform I'll do it off of. More often than not, it's actually cheaper (in terms of FTE billing) to do the job in Windows. It's not universally true, but it holds true in a lot of client/server applications.
As far as Microsoft advertising Windows to be more hard to use -- I don't know... I think people who use Windows and are 'sysadmins' (and I use quotes on that on purpose) are the ones who will continue to delude themselves that they can 'figure it out' without any study or knowledge. The amount of reading I've done on the ability to edit active directory is insane, and unexpected from me before I actually scratched the surface. And it's the same idiot sysadmins who try the same thing in 'figuring it out' and wreak havoc for the entire organization.
You can actually get ESX Server for *free* now, you just don't get management tools.
But if you know Linux well, it should be rather irrelevant. I've been tooling around with it, Hyper-V as well... VMWare still has a lot of advantages but at the cost of Hyper-V.. I dunno which to choose given the performance is similar, but scalability lacks on Hyper-V. I'm sure they will add it in, and for $25 or whatever per server, it's next to nothing to get using it.
In the 7 years as a Windows Sysadmin I've seen my job getting easier and easier by taking a few proactive steps to corporate use of Windows.
For server use, it's perfectly fine. I have a Windows file cluster running over a year without an downtime, but we've taken cluster members offline for patches in turn, and failed back to the alternate which is a net of 0 downtime.
We use strict policies on the desktop, and don't allow users to do things that are going to cause problems. Mostly, this includes *not* giving them administrative rights, though we do delegate some things out.
It's like any other system. The problem is that Windows is so large an ecosystem, and so many folks that 'represent' Windows sysadmins pretty much suck at their job, or are MCSEs on paper and not in practice, then it does a disservice to what I feel is a perfectly fine OS for daily use, and corporate use. I have no 'virtual minefield' because I know my business well, I know my job well, and I perform well in bringing harmony between them (the business and the IT use).
It's like ANY system (*nix included), because if you have an incompetent sysadmin, you will have problems on your domain and infrastructure. If you have a competent sysadmin, you won't see anything wrong. Our users are largely very happy, and that's done by internal auditing (mandatory surveys, as we represent 19000 employees country wide), and consistently the 2500+ userbase I work with and for rank me highest of the family of companies I work for in their satisfaction in their computing needs.
Again, it's not the platform at fault, it's the admins around it. If you feel Windows is a virtual mine field then it may indicate your talents lie elsewhere (*nix), and as such should keep to the business you know, rather than tell folks who run Windows successfully that they have inherent problems at hand they aren't aware of.
Slashdot Mirror
These 'small and midsize' businesses don't have the staff to hire a DBA, a sysadmin, a helpdesk guy -- you're it. You're the jack of all trades.
It's rather logical to think you're going to get abused, because the same person who is fixing SQL queries is now known to be the helpdesk guy, and unfortunately can't keep up with the work.
That said, I've been there. And working 80 hour weeks, I had enough, and moved to a large, massive corporation with good job deliniation. Not only do I learn more because I have the time, I work 40 hours a week (barely) and make far more money with better benefits.
Just a reminder folks, work to live, don't live to work. There is no such thing as a 'dream' job, because at the end of the day you'll always want more, best to find a job that allows you to live your life to the fullest and provides you a good salary as a bonus :)
Cheers and good luck to those out of work in '09, it's shaping up to be a tough year.
I'd rather do it and suffer consequences.
Because asking somebody to fix something with a movable timeline means it NEVER gets fixed.
If they keep the timeline, you can guarantee there will be people up nights and weekends to get it done on time. Just like the year 2000, where almost nothing happened because of the massive amount of work behind the scenes. Not like they could move that date either.
I have to agree... Vista works just fine for my needs and while it's far from "amazing", it works without a hitch and doesn't crash.
Isn't that what folks always tout about Linux? It doesn't crash? Rock solid stability?
I don't get all the brouahaha.
I never really expected Slashdot to give Windows of any kind a fair shake, and given that 99%+ of you have never tried it, it's entertaining to hear the responses.
It's really not that bad. Really.
But I'll leave you to your devices and talk up Linux which with the attitude displayed here, is no wonder why it never makes it onto the desktop.
Feel free to mod me down or whatever. I usually like to wait until I've tried something before criticising it.
I don't know of ONE good sysadmin that doesn't have programming knowledge of some decent degree.
Do you want to run everything you do manually? Do you want to go into tedium on a regular basis to do regularly scheduled tasks? The whole point of a GOOD sysadmin is that they don't do SHIT, they just automate the hell out of their environment and let it go.
That goes for Windows as WELL as *nix.
If you want to be a good sysadmin, learn how to program. Whether it's bash/perl/python, or VBScript or Powershell.
Best Keyboard (generic): IBM old-school
Best Keyboard (Ergonomic): Microsoft Ergonomic 4000
Best Keyboard (Gaming): Logitech G15
Best Keyboard (Gamepad): Logitech G11 OR Ideazon Fang
The last category is one of sheer preference... the G11 gives you the D-Pad which a lot of people like, because it allows you to have 4 keys on your thumb without ever moving it. However, this is detracted from the fact that you don't get as many keys as the Fang.
The reason I dismiss the Warrior MERC or whatever else, is plainly -- shitty software. The Fang is good because you can download (and PRINT) gaming profiles, so if you change your keymaps then you can look at a piece of paper to see everything. It supports all the newest games, so they have default keymaps for everything that mimic exactly what's on the keyboard. I find it very useful.
Anyway, that's the right list.. their list (and reasoning) was horrible so use mine and buy away :p
Are built by hand, not bought from HP.
That's why he thinks it's a dead end. Nobody buys them from HP unless they are idiots.
This way when they turn off the PC, it will simply revert to the same way you set it up, regardless of what stupidity they do.
Here's a link:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/sharedaccess/default.mspx
Windows 7 can run on a Netbook. Vista can't.
Until they release software that can compete with Linux on the netbook field (resource usage, anyway), they will *have* to keep Windows XP available.
After that however, Windows 7 looks poised to be a good netbook OS, since the beta specs run at 512 RAM quite well, and the ATOM processor runs Windows 7 just fine.
That said, Linux netbook return rates are very high (I guess largely due to misunderstanding about operating systems when purchasing), and MS is looking to capitalize on it.
You know who Bill Lumbergh is, and obviously have watched "Office Space."
Half the battle is already over.
Amen to that -- Remedy has the most awkward interface I've used or even THOUGHT of for a helpdesk application.
If they didn't have a neat API to go with it, it would be the bottom of the barrel. But you can customize it to do pretty much anything you want, including set up AD accounts, email boxes, etc... all automatically. That is its greatest strength, too bad few people have the resources to do things like that.
I'd hate to use Digital Workflow, if it is WORSE than Remedy :)
Just wanted to say :)
And this is coming from a person who already hates Remedy :p
Darkfall Online will be released January 22nd :)
I couldn't keep up with WOW, too much treadmill stuff, too much time investment to raid, etc... it was fun, I just didn't have the time and besides -- being without a good guild meant I never got the good stuff in raids because it was hard to raid over and over. And getting in good guilds is hard as it is.
PvP for me, Darkfall hopefully will address that. I can pick it up, play, and turn it off. I know it can get more detailed but from what I've read, I don't *have* to be involved to enjoy it, since there's no uber magic lewt that I have to 'raid' for to get. :)
He has the hottest girl.
And thrown a chair at Allchin.
At least he's emailing now.
I wish *I* could be charged with insider trading.
It would mean I'm worth it enough to go after :(
Agreed 100%. My first internship paid only a transportation stipend, and it was worth every penny of time to get the experience.
If you need a JOB, wait tables and get the tips -- you do pretty good.
If you want an internship, don't waste time looking at how much you're going to make, look at what you're going to LEARN. That job experience on your resume can be invaluable in your future, especially when you compare a $15/hr internship to graduate you to a $40k/yearly job, or an unpaid one to graduate you to a $100k+ job.
It's your choice.
Yes, I also know that some newer Linksys firewalls actually do SPI, but apparently that fact glossed over you.
You just need something to do port blocking. But feel free to stay on your high horse. It's an attitude that keeps *nix relegated to geeks and not go mainstream because of the same type of attitude the admins convey.
Amen to all that and more :)
We didn't initiate the survey (it comes from a third party, and we don't know when it goes out), but it was about your user experience, what problems you have, how quickly they are resolved, that kind of thing.
Given the 'marks' our department gets consistently, and the bonus *I* get as a result afterwards, I am going to assume that I'm doing okay. Besides, I'm one of the few sysadmins that puts my name out 'in the wild' for the business users to get a hold of me. I don't answer helpdesk calls, but at least people know who's running the systems they are on, and who can help them if there's an issue.
Hah, I laughed at that one :)
But in honesty -- if you have ILO (HP Servers), you can just click a button.
Truly one finger CTRL-ALT-DEL :)
There is something to be said about *nix platforms always championed by the 'geeks'. Windows is GUI based to be sure, but there are behind the scenes things (registry, hosts files, policies, clustering, etc) that is not as intuitive as people think it may be. That's also where a LOT of problems occur, and cause the BSODs and other things that the *nix fans love to jump at.
I'm not really a proponent of Windows, or Unix. I am a proponent of *getting things done*. Now whether I find *nix to do a job better, faster, cheaper, or Windows, that's the platform I'll do it off of. More often than not, it's actually cheaper (in terms of FTE billing) to do the job in Windows. It's not universally true, but it holds true in a lot of client/server applications.
As far as Microsoft advertising Windows to be more hard to use -- I don't know... I think people who use Windows and are 'sysadmins' (and I use quotes on that on purpose) are the ones who will continue to delude themselves that they can 'figure it out' without any study or knowledge. The amount of reading I've done on the ability to edit active directory is insane, and unexpected from me before I actually scratched the surface. And it's the same idiot sysadmins who try the same thing in 'figuring it out' and wreak havoc for the entire organization.
It wasn't meant in seriousness, but if you want to take it and run, feel free.
Just meant that any port blocking software or hardware (as simple AS a Linksys firewall) prevents this from being anything of an issue.
Hell, even Windows built-in firewall will do the trick.
You can actually get ESX Server for *free* now, you just don't get management tools.
But if you know Linux well, it should be rather irrelevant. I've been tooling around with it, Hyper-V as well... VMWare still has a lot of advantages but at the cost of Hyper-V.. I dunno which to choose given the performance is similar, but scalability lacks on Hyper-V. I'm sure they will add it in, and for $25 or whatever per server, it's next to nothing to get using it.
In the 7 years as a Windows Sysadmin I've seen my job getting easier and easier by taking a few proactive steps to corporate use of Windows.
For server use, it's perfectly fine. I have a Windows file cluster running over a year without an downtime, but we've taken cluster members offline for patches in turn, and failed back to the alternate which is a net of 0 downtime.
We use strict policies on the desktop, and don't allow users to do things that are going to cause problems. Mostly, this includes *not* giving them administrative rights, though we do delegate some things out.
It's like any other system. The problem is that Windows is so large an ecosystem, and so many folks that 'represent' Windows sysadmins pretty much suck at their job, or are MCSEs on paper and not in practice, then it does a disservice to what I feel is a perfectly fine OS for daily use, and corporate use. I have no 'virtual minefield' because I know my business well, I know my job well, and I perform well in bringing harmony between them (the business and the IT use).
It's like ANY system (*nix included), because if you have an incompetent sysadmin, you will have problems on your domain and infrastructure. If you have a competent sysadmin, you won't see anything wrong. Our users are largely very happy, and that's done by internal auditing (mandatory surveys, as we represent 19000 employees country wide), and consistently the 2500+ userbase I work with and for rank me highest of the family of companies I work for in their satisfaction in their computing needs.
Again, it's not the platform at fault, it's the admins around it. If you feel Windows is a virtual mine field then it may indicate your talents lie elsewhere (*nix), and as such should keep to the business you know, rather than tell folks who run Windows successfully that they have inherent problems at hand they aren't aware of.