Does this mean I'll have to start washing my hands after I come out of the bathroom AND after work repalce a mainboard? Guess I should'a been doing that anyway.
Sheesh...
** Warning, these comments contain no pro-Linux content and so should viewed with skepticism.**
The moderators must not have liked the pro W2K slant to my comments, but I'll try again. Karma shmarma...
As the IT manager for a school district I've been evaluating the cost advantages of Linux for some months now. Looking at Debian, Mandrake, ArkLinux (which I thought was COOL), Red Hat, etc. I was close to making a decision to have us wade our way into the Red Hat pool, but support is the issue, and what I'm hearing from Szulik is "Hey, if you want ease of use, go Windows!"
We've been Windows for years, and pardon me for saying so on/. but once we installed W2K Pro on all our workstations all, I mean ALL our problems went away. Our workstations simply work. I've got SUS updating all my servers and desktops, and group policies administering rights and securities automatically and it works like a charm. 95% of issues we have left are user's errors, and we'd get that no matter what OS we use. You'd have to show me some hard-core cost advantages to another OS for me to even justify it in my own mind, let alone to my mangers.
Sorry, but I don't have enough technically savvy users to justify going from an insanely easy desktop environment to use and mange (W2K Pro) to one whose fortunes seem to change with the prevailing wind. It's just me and one other guy supporting 1700 users on 350 computers with 12 servers, and I have a wife and kids- I can't sleep here. I need things to just work, and I don't have the personal bandwidth to retrain.
Yes, MS is greedy, yes they monopolize, but frankly the current state of their products is totally advantageous for our particular environment, and I don't see that changing with help from Red Hat (or Linux in general) as I'd hoped.
I'd love to drop MS if the advantages were there. Their licensing vehicle is for us exorbitant, but right now it nets us a product that is widely supported, and honestly, whose support community is a great group to work with. I've never been told to RTFM on a Windows support forum.
Linux will never catch up with MS in their niche, nor should it try to. That's not what it's about IMHO.
As the IT manager for a school district I've been evaluating the cost advantages of Linux for some months now. Looking at Debian, Mandrake, ArkLinux (which I thought was COOL), Red Hat, etc. I was close to making a decision to have us wade our way into the Red Hat pool, but support is the issue, and what I'm hearing from Szulik is "Hey, if you want ease of use, go Windows!"
We've been Windows for years, and pardon me for saying so on/. but once we installed W2K Pro on all our workstations all, I mean ALL our problems went away. Our workstations simply work. I've got SUS updating all my servers and desktops, and group policies administering rights and securities automatically and it works like a charm. 95% of issues we have left are user's errors, and we'd get that no matter what OS we use. You'd have to show me some hard-core cost advantages to another OS for me to even justify it in my own mind, let alone to my mangers.
Sorry, but I don't have enough technically savvy users to justify going from an insanely easy desktop environment to use and mange (W2K Pro) to one whose fortunes seem to change with the prevailing wind. It's just me and one other guy supporting 1700 users on 350 computers with 12 servers, and I have a wife and kids- I can't sleep here. I need things to just work, and I don't have the personal bandwidth to retrain.
Yes, MS is greedy, yes they monopolize, but frankly the current state of their products is totally advantageous for our particular environment, and I don't see that changing with help from Red Hat (or Linux in general) as I'd hoped.
I'd love to drop MS if the advantages were there. Their licensing vehicle is for us exorbitant, but right now it nets us a product that is widely supported, and honestly, whose support community is a great group to work with. I've never been told to RTFM on a Windows support forum.
Linux will never catch up with MS in their niche, nor should it try to. That's not what it's about IMHO.
"I'd argue that the current and future benefits from nuclear power alone outweigh the concern about the misuse of this knowledge"
Yes, but how many atom-splitting advances can we pile up before we wipe ourselves out? I'd argue that the threat level goes up exponentionally with each "advance".
Sooner or later we're going to stumble across something that spins way out of control and devastates the human race with unintended consequences. It's really only a matter of time.
I'm sure this is all about who is insurable and who is not. Auto insurance companies use bias in determining fees and eligibility all the time, they just use a different data set. All things being equal between A and B, if applicant A has a predisposition for lung cancer they represent a greater liability to the company- who winds up paying their medical costs when they smoke their way into an emphysema-induced early grave.
Still, scary stuff though.
Slashdot Mirror
Sheesh...
** Warning, these comments contain no pro-Linux content and so should viewed with skepticism.**
As the IT manager for a school district I've been evaluating the cost advantages of Linux for some months now. Looking at Debian, Mandrake, ArkLinux (which I thought was COOL), Red Hat, etc. I was close to making a decision to have us wade our way into the Red Hat pool, but support is the issue, and what I'm hearing from Szulik is "Hey, if you want ease of use, go Windows!"
We've been Windows for years, and pardon me for saying so on /. but once we installed W2K Pro on all our workstations all, I mean ALL our problems went away. Our workstations simply work. I've got SUS updating all my servers and desktops, and group policies administering rights and securities automatically and it works like a charm. 95% of issues we have left are user's errors, and we'd get that no matter what OS we use. You'd have to show me some hard-core cost advantages to another OS for me to even justify it in my own mind, let alone to my mangers.
Sorry, but I don't have enough technically savvy users to justify going from an insanely easy desktop environment to use and mange (W2K Pro) to one whose fortunes seem to change with the prevailing wind. It's just me and one other guy supporting 1700 users on 350 computers with 12 servers, and I have a wife and kids- I can't sleep here. I need things to just work, and I don't have the personal bandwidth to retrain.
Yes, MS is greedy, yes they monopolize, but frankly the current state of their products is totally advantageous for our particular environment, and I don't see that changing with help from Red Hat (or Linux in general) as I'd hoped.
I'd love to drop MS if the advantages were there. Their licensing vehicle is for us exorbitant, but right now it nets us a product that is widely supported, and honestly, whose support community is a great group to work with. I've never been told to RTFM on a Windows support forum.
Linux will never catch up with MS in their niche, nor should it try to. That's not what it's about IMHO.
We've been Windows for years, and pardon me for saying so on /. but once we installed W2K Pro on all our workstations all, I mean ALL our problems went away. Our workstations simply work. I've got SUS updating all my servers and desktops, and group policies administering rights and securities automatically and it works like a charm. 95% of issues we have left are user's errors, and we'd get that no matter what OS we use. You'd have to show me some hard-core cost advantages to another OS for me to even justify it in my own mind, let alone to my mangers.
Sorry, but I don't have enough technically savvy users to justify going from an insanely easy desktop environment to use and mange (W2K Pro) to one whose fortunes seem to change with the prevailing wind. It's just me and one other guy supporting 1700 users on 350 computers with 12 servers, and I have a wife and kids- I can't sleep here. I need things to just work, and I don't have the personal bandwidth to retrain.
Yes, MS is greedy, yes they monopolize, but frankly the current state of their products is totally advantageous for our particular environment, and I don't see that changing with help from Red Hat (or Linux in general) as I'd hoped.
I'd love to drop MS if the advantages were there. Their licensing vehicle is for us exorbitant, but right now it nets us a product that is widely supported, and honestly, whose support community is a great group to work with. I've never been told to RTFM on a Windows support forum.
Linux will never catch up with MS in their niche, nor should it try to. That's not what it's about IMHO.
Yes, but how many atom-splitting advances can we pile up before we wipe ourselves out? I'd argue that the threat level goes up exponentionally with each "advance". Sooner or later we're going to stumble across something that spins way out of control and devastates the human race with unintended consequences. It's really only a matter of time.
If we blacken the skies they'll just figure out a way to use us as an source of energy and food...oh wait- that's what virii do.
I'm sure this is all about who is insurable and who is not. Auto insurance companies use bias in determining fees and eligibility all the time, they just use a different data set. All things being equal between A and B, if applicant A has a predisposition for lung cancer they represent a greater liability to the company- who winds up paying their medical costs when they smoke their way into an emphysema-induced early grave. Still, scary stuff though.
"That'll stop 'em!" Sure. All they have to do now to make the CDs totally undecipherable is put the lyrics on the sleeve in pig-latin.
I think you can still give Wordpad spell-check features with CetusWordpad... www.cetussoft.com/
If only we could do this to actions movies...one hummin' explode-fest!