MARK and REL.
QEMM386.SYS RAM X=C800-CFFF.
DesqView running four copies of RBBS-PC (Quad Courier HST! 20MB On-Line! ASCII menus and art!)
I just need to find 32K of contiguous upper memory to LOADHI that damn Novell NET.EXE redirector.
I don't see any scenario when a bunch of people suddenly needs to share some Internet connection.
How about a team of CPA's in for a large company's audit and certification of financials? Or sales tax investigators doing a large audit? A team of programmers in for a database migration? I bet the insurance company response teams in Florida could even have benefitted from such a device. Once you start thinking along these lines, the list starts growing and growing.
Just a few weeks ago my family and I, along with two other families spent a week vacationing in some cabins at a camping resort. I brought 4 notebooks and a LinkSys WAP along with some multiplayer games. It rained two nights in a row, but the kids had a blast playing games. We had quite a crowd of family, friends and even passers-by hooting and hollering on our front porch.
This got me to thinking how nice it would be if I could find a tiny AP to carry in my daily bag for similar purposes. Granted, most cheap AP's aren't that big, but this D-Link device looks small enough to fit in one of the unused diskette pockets in my bag, and since its USB-powered, I can leave the power-supply at home.
I'm from Pennsylvania. What's this "Firearm License" thing you mention? Apparently, you live in some facist, communist nation where the basic human rights to put food on the table and protect your family from harm are rigidly usurped by the central committee.
On the other hand, this entire debate is like the NRA fighting for private, unrestricted ownership of 30mm miniguns, rocket launchers, flamethrowers and any other firearm you might desire. There is a limit: the line between your God-given rights and what's reasonable and sane is subjective, but there IS A LINE and as responsible, thinking creatures we should understand and accept that.
So stop flailing around like a spoiled two-year-old who's been told he can't eat the entire jar of cookies, and join the other 99% of the world who are more concerned about avoiding a secondary role in the next suicide terrorist attack than they fear the federal government learning about their monthly visits to some whorehouse in Nevada.
Fiber is completely impervious to electromagnetic tapping
AFAIK, in order to tap F-O, you need to remove the outer & inner jackets exposing the F-O core, attach an ultra-sensitive optical sensor, and then bend the cable to coerce enough light scatter to be detected, yet not break the optical conductor or significantly impeded the signal.
Even through light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum, I believe this would more accurately be described as "optomechanical" tapping, and not "electromagnetic;" the latter being more commonly associated with RF emissions.
And why should Mozilla be different than anyone else in this respect? In the FOSS "marketplace," downloads are essentially the only measure of success.
Even in the commercial market, companies report sales volume that includes pre-installed software installed by system OEM without adjusting for the significant fraction of users who replace, remove or just never use the "free" bundled product.
I'm an employer - and I don't pay for my employees Internet access, or cell phones, furthermore I find the posts on this thread completely offensive.
Hmmm. I would have mod'd +1 Interesting, but I couldn't restrain myself from posting. But it is interesting, because it shows a different (and, apparently, unpopular) point-of-view.
I am also an employer, and I also do not pay for employee's broadband access. I view this as a personal luxury, not a business requirement. I run an IT services company and have one tech and two engineers on the payroll. I provide each of them with a toolkit, cell phone, a laptop with company-paid dial-up ISP, and a credit-card. Dial-up is sufficient for 90% of the work we are called to do outside of normal business hours. Yes, it might take a bit longer than broadband, but overtime is paid (and billed) based on actual time-on-task. But as I said, 90% of the time the speed of the connection has nothing to do with their ability to solve a problem.
I do not require employees to have any Internet access. I do require them to have a POTS line at home so they can dial-up the ISP. There are policies limiting the non-business use of the laptop, credit card and cell. But I would only take action if there was significant abuse (which, thankfully, I've not yet encountered).
The number of times an employee needs to connect remotely from home does not justify the cost and effort of me requiring and paying for broadband Internet. Nevertheless, all three employees have their own broadband Internet accounts, but that is their choice.
It is more important for me to provide dial-up than broadband. Dial-up can be used anywhere: a customer site, home, hotel room, etc. SSH, VNC and Windows Remote Desktop are workable over dial-up. I use it enough to know. In fact, I'm using it now from a Holiday Inn Express that doesn't have high-speed Internet.
On the other hand, if I had employees that were regular telecommuters, or lengthy after-hours calls occurred more frequently, I would reconsider this issue. Most probably, I would just give everyone a small raise to cover the average cost of broadband, rather than setting-up company-billed accounts (which, in my area, means paying significantly higher fees for commercial broadband) or having employees go through the trouble of expensing their costs. And I would explain it that way to new hires (i.e., "Your annual salary is X, plus an additional $60/month allowance to offset the cost of broadband Internet).
I have a corporate credit card, that is charged AGAINST MY CREDIT RATING SHOULD somthing go wrong...
AFAIK, if the company supplies you with a corporate credit card, it is on their credit record, not yours. Even though my employee's name is on the card, they are not authorized to get any information from the issuing agency. My corp. card has never appeared on any of my credit reports, and I check at least once every year.
Does your company have a history of not paying its bills on-time? Are they having financial or management problems? If not, why are you so concerned about what MIGHT happen? You MIGHT get hit by a meteor one day; will you hide inside for the rest of your life?
When my nextel was and pager were taken I was told to get something and expense it, I decided I did not need to be contacted after hours
Frankly, I preferred to pay for my own cell and Internet when I was an employee. It gave me more flexibility and control. I didn't have to worry about accounting for personal vs. business use, running over minutes, etc. When I left the company, I was able to keep my cellphone, which managed to help me poach a few customers from my previous employer. And, since I had to file an expense report every month for the cell & ISP, it also caused me to claim vehicle mileage and other small expenses that I would otherwise just forget or blow-off. So in my case it was a win-win situation.
In any event, if you were instructed to obtain a cell phone and failed to do so, you are being insubordinant and are in risk of disciplinary action.
requiring their pristine laptop be used only for work and that no other activity take place on the connection
Given the prevalence and severity of security issues associated with remote access, this is an understandable, even prudent, policy. I have personally seen several cases where an otherwise well-protected network was compromised via an improperly-secured/patched home computer or laptop connected through VPN.
if they really want you to have it, someone will hand it to you
You know, I don't see anything here that you have a right to bitch about, except for the boneheaded admin disabling your laptop, which was apparently a mistake that you chose not to correct. Your company instructed you to obtain a new cell phone at their expense and you refused. They replaced your desktop with a laptop and implemented prudent security policies, and you rebelled. They stopped subsidizing your home broadband, which you later say you rarely needed for business purposes, and replaced it with restricted dial-in to enhance security and you bitch. So maybe dial-in takes longer to get your work done, but you get paid overtime anyway.
Maybe there's other issues going on at your workplace that's not covered. If things are bad then find a new job. What I hear is a spoiled, uncooperative employee, whom I would be anxious to replace at the earliest opportunity.
No business expenses are tax-deductible, to my knowledge, if you are a W-2 employee for a company. That includes broadband, cell phone, mileage, etc.
No, that is not correct. There are places on your Schedule A (Itemized Deductions) where you can deduct uncompensated business expenses, but there are limits and conditions on what you can claim. Broadband and cellphone might be dicey. Mileage you can definately deduct, but not commute mileage.
Spend a little money this coming Spring and talk to a real CPA/Tax Accountant (and not one of the blockheads). If you have possible issues such as business deductions, you might find you recoup the CPA's fees in additional tax savings.
OMG! Quick: run to Home Depot and buy a generator before they all sell out!
Drats, they ran out of generator serial numbers too, and no more can be sold until a new system is introduced. Switch to Plan B: off to the battery aisle!
the problem is that my domain hosting provider does not allow SMTP relay *at all*. Therefore, I use the SMTP relay service provided by my ADSL provider.
Why the emotional attachment to an obviously inqdequate hosting provider? I don't know the market in the UK, but in the US I have hundreds of hosting providers asking as little as US$4 per month. The one I use at this price has no problem relaying as long as I authenticate first. My only complaint is they are not looking into implementing any system such as SPF at this time. (I'll bug them into compliance).
Phone number portability is limited. For example, if I move from NY to CA I cannot port my NY phone number to my new CA address, because the phone system can't handle the routing. You can only port a number when switching from one carrier to another at the same location. Cell phones have different rules because they have an entirely different routing system.
As IP routing works today, IP address portability would cause an eventual breakdown of the system. And, from a practical standpoint, how much value is there in a particular IP address? Services are accessed by hostname and DNS not by IP address. Maybe some specialized application required the use of real IP's on the LAN, (instead of private RFC1918 addresses and NAT, as is now common practice), and so some pain would be incurred in changing static IP assignments on servers. But no way does this balance out the potential problems such a precedent would cause for the entire Internet as it works today.
I don't have a conference room, but I do have a sofa, a side chair, a quality speaker phone and a digital projector. I also don't have a separate "quite room," since it's usually just me. I do have a service pick-up my cleaning, and I stylist comes to my house once a month for us all to get hair done.
I guess that would leave a gopher. I'd like to say that's my wife, but that would be matrimonial suicide.;^)
To make up for the lack of a gopher, I do have alcoholic beverages in my fridge!
We have 8 people in my company and we have everything on my list EXCEPT the gopher, and I miss having one.
We all pay for our laundry/dry-cleaning service. It costs the same as it would if we dropped-off at the cleaners, but its much more convenient. We also pay for our own hair cuts, about the same amount as going to a local stylist.
Let my try to explain the gopher:
This is usually a local teen, housewife or retiree. They typically work part time, between 10AM and 3PM, but hours vary according to their needs. Their duties are the ones the other employees don't like and, frankly, are not paid to perform:
Stock bathrooms & touch-up between professional cleanings
Stock kitchen & run to store for kitchen supplies (1-2/wk)
Take and pick-up lunch orders (one deli or restaurant per day)
Clean-up kitchen after lunch
Empty trash and clean-up spills
Run to copy center or office supply store as needed (infrequent)
Assist receptionist w/clerical tasks (filing, typing) and random odd jobs.
At $8 - 10 per hour, the pay is better than most part-time jobs, but only costs $50 - 70 per day. When compared to the hourly salary for a programmer or engineer, that's about 1.5 hours max: well worth the price.
Arch hit the nail on its head: your space should reflect your work culture and project structure.
As a consultant, I've worked in places where full-time programmers are shoe-horned into as small as 4x6 foot cubicles. It immediately reminded me of the cages used at commerical chicken farms (you know, where the chickens take-on the rectangular form of their cage). I refused to work in one, and made the client allocate a small conference room instead.
On the other hand, I've also worked in wide-open spaces. These are noisy, busy and distracting, and I found it difficult to concentrate with all the activity. But ironically, I got a lot of work done. You pick-up on other conversations, chime in or get new ideas, and then enter your coding trance to get work done.
My favorite is what I have now: a 12 x 15 private room, french doors leading in, two windows with a nice wooded view, and a fully-stocked kitchen across the hall. Of course, not everyone can work from home!
I'd suggest the following from experience:
Available high-speed Internet
Good cell phone coverage.
Pleasant, accomodating landlord
Pleasant location, safe surroundings, convenient parking and mass transit
Sufficient space for all needs and 3-yr growth.
Separate spaces for development, sales/marketing, accounting/admin, support.
Open work area with space between desks.
Two large desks in an L configuration with a 2-drawer file on one-end and 3-drawer unit on other.
One powerful but quiet PC with dual LCD display, top-quality keyboard and mouse, no speakers
High-end laptop w/DVD and port replicator and good mouse.
Cordless (or cell) phones & headsets, no speakerphones
Lots of electric and network plugs, with at least 4 electric & 2 net above the desktop.
Large bookshelf, whiteboard and tackboard.
Solid, comfortable, ergonomic chair
Subdued room lighting, tasks lamps on desks
Nicely painted walls (not white!)
Good carpeting, acoustic ceiling and sound-absorbing wall panels for noise reduction.
Framed artwork (not necessarily original) on the walls (not "Unix Magic" or product posters).
A couple of small quiet rooms with a round table and two or three chairs.
At least one conference room, fully equip'd w/presentaion and pro speakerphone.
Break room with full kitchen. Hot/cold beverages (non-alcoholic) for free.
Small exercise room (treadmill, lifecycle, bowflex, exercise mat) with shower.
Receptionist to screen calls, take messages, greet visitors, make copies, etc.
A gopher-type person on-staff to keep things clean, make minor repairs, run out for supplies, get lunch/dinner, pick-up prescriptions and such. Amazing how valuable this $8-10/hr person will be.
Laundry/dry-cleaning pick-up & delivery service (either employee or employer pays)
On-site hair stylist twice a month (either employee or employer pays).
Backwards compatibility is what tipped the scales for me in the PS2 vs XBox decision a few years back. My kids and over $700 invested in PS1 games at that time.
Fast foward to the present, and we've got three PS2 consoles (one per kid), no XBoxen, and prolly another $700 of PS2 games (plus the original $700 of PS1 games, many of which still get played regularly.
From time-to-time I've thought about getting an Xbox, mostly because of my pursuit of the "ideal home info-tainment device." But I can't reconcile the thought of just tossing-out $1,400 worth of games, and refuse to have a "stack" of game consoles next to each TV.
You can get a residential broadband router with NAT for less than $50. These do some limited firewall-like filtering as well. Or put a second NIC in and setup your Linux box to do the same (or just use your Linux box as a proxy). All you really need to start with is a NAT boundry with no inbound routing or port forwarding to the new PC. This will keep-out the worms until you finish patching. Without a firewall or NAT, a fresh PC is typically compromised within 15 minutes.
Go to WindowsUpdate FIRST and nowhere else until all your Windows and Internet Explorer service packs and patches are installed. Then install and update your antivirus. Follow this with a personal firewall (at least the free version of ZoneAlarm). Proceed from there. Just be very careful to not mistype the URL for any of these trusted websites, or you might get an unpleasant surprise.
As noted elsewhere, Microsoft has an update CD but it's not up-to-date, and it seems to take forever to arrive. Ordered mine in Feb, received it in April, and it was only updated through Oct of last year. Since then there's been more than 30MB of new patches. There are about a dozen projects on the web to help you make your own complete and up-to-date patch CD, or even Windows install CD. I don't know how good/reliable/trustworthy these projects are because I use network-based commercial tools at my shop, but they seem to be making some people happy.
Microsoft recommends you disable so-called "personal firewall" software on the PC you are updating. I find that with the right settings, this is unneccessary. But in any event, a hardware-based firewall or simple residential router/NAT device will not interfere in anyway with WindowsUpdate (unless you want it to).
As silly as it might sound, I keep a cheap router in the back of my car at all times. I can't tell you how often I've had family, friends and clients with completely-trashed machines that need rebuilding and don't have a firewall. I used to try to maintain a CD of all the service packs and patches for Win98 through XP, but it took too much effort to maintain. The router is easier and cheaper in the long-run. It also looks nice sitting back there next to my propeller-beanie.
Look. These are NOT called TV Tuners. They are Capture Cards that have a TV Tuner in them. There are Capture cards without TV Tuners, so what do you call those? Single-Line in Not Tuners?
I call them "video capture cards," which readily distinguishes them from "TV tuner cards."
I'm old school. I'll upgrade to HDTV when the equipment and service costs the same as I'm paying now. I'm not paying an extra $500 for an HDTV monitor plus an extra $10/month to watch a handful of channels. Maybe, if I decide to get a bigger screen (more than the 36-inch I have now) for watching DVD's I'll go for 720p. How much image quality do I need to watch Cialis and Hair Club for Men commercials?
90% of the time, the 320x240 TV window on my laptop is more than sufficient resolution for the quality of programming available. And even the least-expensive USB 1.1 tuners work well at that size.
At my office, I have a local news/weather station running in a small window on my desktop. If the crawl at the bottom of the screen goes red, I know something important (usually a weather alert) is happening. I can warn my staff and clients of an impending risk (or, as is more often the case, make sure my car windows are rolled-up!). It's a useful source of information during a major news event or disaster.
Several of my clients are in the opinion survey/polling industry. It's always nice to see them on TV presenting the data I've helped to collect and analyze. It also helps me maintain a good relationship when I can honestly compliment them on their appearance and intelligently discuss their current projects.
As useful as the above might be, putting a small TV on my desk would not be acceptable. First of all, there's the space issue. I'm often running one or two notebooks and a desktop. Then there's a perception issue -- that I'm watching TV while everyone else is working -- which is not as readily apparent when the TV is a tiny window on the screen of a display facing away from my visitors.
I also live 2+ hours from work. I rent a room near my office, and the landlord includes a basic cable connection (alas, no broadband). I watch the evening news on my laptop, sometimes after watching a movie on DVD. A small TV with a DVD-player costs over $300. I already have the laptop, so the USB-TV device only added $70, and I don't leave anything important behind in case my room gets broken-into.
Maybe I'm being naive, or overly optimistic, but I don't think blocking outbound SMTP will fly. After all, there are plenty of legitimate reasons to not use the ISP's mail servers. I know a bunch of people who still maintain minimum subscriptions with AT&T Worldnet just for email, or who have hosted websites/email domains on external servers. Not only is there nothing wrong with this, it actually reduces the burden on the ISP.
Blocking all outgoing port 25 would not only be extreme and antagonistic, but anticompetitive as well. Personally, I'm opposed to all filtering by the ISP - after all, who gives them the right to censor access to the Internet? Why are they in a better position to determine what is good and what is dangerous from my perspective? This becomes a very slippery slope. Filtering incoming http and ftp is the norm, as is filtering Microsoft network protocols and RPC. Peer-to-peer filesharing is always bad, right? So let's filter that out too, regardless of the legitimate use that might be blocked. PcAnywhere, VNC and MS-WBT get filtered as well. What about VoIP? Or webcams? Or Instant messenger? Maybe only AOL instant messenger is bad, but Microsoft is good? What's the criteria? And what's the recourse?
From an ISP's perspective, the world would be a better place if users just limited themselves to browsing websites and exchanging email within clearly defined parameters. But is this Internet access? Isn't the Internet supposed to be a global network of networks to facilitate data transfer? Unless you can evaluate the specific data being transferred, what makes one protocol inherently worse than any others?
ISP's can track traffic utilization and reasonably determine if a customer's system is being exploited for SPAM, worms, et cetera. Tools can be used to scan for exploits, vulnerabilities and zombies. Ditto for determining if a customer is running "unauthorized" http, ftp or mail servers. These customers can then be contacted and/or disabled pending mitigation. Traffic prioritization and shaping devices/software are widely available to avoid having networks overrun by roge servers and abusive users. There are technological solutions that will achieve the goals that censorship and antagonistic acceptable use policies can only define.
Spam is certainly a major problem that is growing worse by the day. Hopefully, and sometime soon, the industry will realize that ANONYMOUS SMTP is the root of the problem, and implement something like trusted SSL certificates for SMTP servers so that at least all mail servers can be positively identified. I feel this is an inexpensive and relatively quick/easy improvement for email. With the servers positively identified, other existing spam-reduction technologies would become drastically more effective, and abusive server operators could be tracked down and shot^H^H^H^H prosecuted.
American Express used to have this. It was called "Private Payments." I used it for every on-line and phone transaction I completed for the past several years. More than once it saved me grief, if for no other reason than IMMEDIATELY identifying the source of a fraudulent transaction.
Alas, Amex discontinued Private Payments this past April. I don't know why for certain, but I suspect that it interferes with new, optional fraud protection programs that are being rolled-out at additional cost.
Slashdot Mirror
Nurse quick: more Haloperidol.
I don't see any scenario when a bunch of people suddenly needs to share some Internet connection.
How about a team of CPA's in for a large company's audit and certification of financials? Or sales tax investigators doing a large audit? A team of programmers in for a database migration? I bet the insurance company response teams in Florida could even have benefitted from such a device. Once you start thinking along these lines, the list starts growing and growing.
Just a few weeks ago my family and I, along with two other families spent a week vacationing in some cabins at a camping resort. I brought 4 notebooks and a LinkSys WAP along with some multiplayer games. It rained two nights in a row, but the kids had a blast playing games. We had quite a crowd of family, friends and even passers-by hooting and hollering on our front porch.
This got me to thinking how nice it would be if I could find a tiny AP to carry in my daily bag for similar purposes. Granted, most cheap AP's aren't that big, but this D-Link device looks small enough to fit in one of the unused diskette pockets in my bag, and since its USB-powered, I can leave the power-supply at home.
I'm from Pennsylvania. What's this "Firearm License" thing you mention? Apparently, you live in some facist, communist nation where the basic human rights to put food on the table and protect your family from harm are rigidly usurped by the central committee.
On the other hand, this entire debate is like the NRA fighting for private, unrestricted ownership of 30mm miniguns, rocket launchers, flamethrowers and any other firearm you might desire. There is a limit: the line between your God-given rights and what's reasonable and sane is subjective, but there IS A LINE and as responsible, thinking creatures we should understand and accept that.
So stop flailing around like a spoiled two-year-old who's been told he can't eat the entire jar of cookies, and join the other 99% of the world who are more concerned about avoiding a secondary role in the next suicide terrorist attack than they fear the federal government learning about their monthly visits to some whorehouse in Nevada.
AFAIK, in order to tap F-O, you need to remove the outer & inner jackets exposing the F-O core, attach an ultra-sensitive optical sensor, and then bend the cable to coerce enough light scatter to be detected, yet not break the optical conductor or significantly impeded the signal.
Even through light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum, I believe this would more accurately be described as "optomechanical" tapping, and not "electromagnetic;" the latter being more commonly associated with RF emissions.More important, I wonder how many more times it will change its name before then.
And why should Mozilla be different than anyone else in this respect? In the FOSS "marketplace," downloads are essentially the only measure of success.
Even in the commercial market, companies report sales volume that includes pre-installed software installed by system OEM without adjusting for the significant fraction of users who replace, remove or just never use the "free" bundled product.
Hmmm. I would have mod'd +1 Interesting, but I couldn't restrain myself from posting. But it is interesting, because it shows a different (and, apparently, unpopular) point-of-view.
I am also an employer, and I also do not pay for employee's broadband access. I view this as a personal luxury, not a business requirement. I run an IT services company and have one tech and two engineers on the payroll. I provide each of them with a toolkit, cell phone, a laptop with company-paid dial-up ISP, and a credit-card. Dial-up is sufficient for 90% of the work we are called to do outside of normal business hours. Yes, it might take a bit longer than broadband, but overtime is paid (and billed) based on actual time-on-task. But as I said, 90% of the time the speed of the connection has nothing to do with their ability to solve a problem.I do not require employees to have any Internet access. I do require them to have a POTS line at home so they can dial-up the ISP. There are policies limiting the non-business use of the laptop, credit card and cell. But I would only take action if there was significant abuse (which, thankfully, I've not yet encountered).
The number of times an employee needs to connect remotely from home does not justify the cost and effort of me requiring and paying for broadband Internet. Nevertheless, all three employees have their own broadband Internet accounts, but that is their choice.It is more important for me to provide dial-up than broadband. Dial-up can be used anywhere: a customer site, home, hotel room, etc. SSH, VNC and Windows Remote Desktop are workable over dial-up. I use it enough to know. In fact, I'm using it now from a Holiday Inn Express that doesn't have high-speed Internet.
On the other hand, if I had employees that were regular telecommuters, or lengthy after-hours calls occurred more frequently, I would reconsider this issue. Most probably, I would just give everyone a small raise to cover the average cost of broadband, rather than setting-up company-billed accounts (which, in my area, means paying significantly higher fees for commercial broadband) or having employees go through the trouble of expensing their costs. And I would explain it that way to new hires (i.e., "Your annual salary is X, plus an additional $60/month allowance to offset the cost of broadband Internet).AFAIK, if the company supplies you with a corporate credit card, it is on their credit record, not yours. Even though my employee's name is on the card, they are not authorized to get any information from the issuing agency. My corp. card has never appeared on any of my credit reports, and I check at least once every year.
Does your company have a history of not paying its bills on-time? Are they having financial or management problems? If not, why are you so concerned about what MIGHT happen? You MIGHT get hit by a meteor one day; will you hide inside for the rest of your life?When my nextel was and pager were taken I was told to get something and expense it, I decided I did not need to be contacted after hours
Frankly, I preferred to pay for my own cell and Internet when I was an employee. It gave me more flexibility and control. I didn't have to worry about accounting for personal vs. business use, running over minutes, etc. When I left the company, I was able to keep my cellphone, which managed to help me poach a few customers from my previous employer. And, since I had to file an expense report every month for the cell & ISP, it also caused me to claim vehicle mileage and other small expenses that I would otherwise just forget or blow-off. So in my case it was a win-win situation.
In any event, if you were instructed to obtain a cell phone and failed to do so, you are being insubordinant and are in risk of disciplinary action.
requiring their pristine laptop be used only for work and that no other activity take place on the connectionGiven the prevalence and severity of security issues associated with remote access, this is an understandable, even prudent, policy. I have personally seen several cases where an otherwise well-protected network was compromised via an improperly-secured/patched home computer or laptop connected through VPN.
if they really want you to have it, someone will hand it to you
You know, I don't see anything here that you have a right to bitch about, except for the boneheaded admin disabling your laptop, which was apparently a mistake that you chose not to correct. Your company instructed you to obtain a new cell phone at their expense and you refused. They replaced your desktop with a laptop and implemented prudent security policies, and you rebelled. They stopped subsidizing your home broadband, which you later say you rarely needed for business purposes, and replaced it with restricted dial-in to enhance security and you bitch. So maybe dial-in takes longer to get your work done, but you get paid overtime anyway.Maybe there's other issues going on at your workplace that's not covered. If things are bad then find a new job. What I hear is a spoiled, uncooperative employee, whom I would be anxious to replace at the earliest opportunity.
No, that is not correct. There are places on your Schedule A (Itemized Deductions) where you can deduct uncompensated business expenses, but there are limits and conditions on what you can claim. Broadband and cellphone might be dicey. Mileage you can definately deduct, but not commute mileage.
Spend a little money this coming Spring and talk to a real CPA/Tax Accountant (and not one of the blockheads). If you have possible issues such as business deductions, you might find you recoup the CPA's fees in additional tax savings.OMG! Quick: run to Home Depot and buy a generator before they all sell out!
Drats, they ran out of generator serial numbers too, and no more can be sold until a new system is introduced. Switch to Plan B: off to the battery aisle!
the problem is that my domain hosting provider does not allow SMTP relay *at all*. Therefore, I use the SMTP relay service provided by my ADSL provider.
Why the emotional attachment to an obviously inqdequate hosting provider? I don't know the market in the UK, but in the US I have hundreds of hosting providers asking as little as US$4 per month. The one I use at this price has no problem relaying as long as I authenticate first. My only complaint is they are not looking into implementing any system such as SPF at this time. (I'll bug them into compliance).Phone number portability is limited. For example, if I move from NY to CA I cannot port my NY phone number to my new CA address, because the phone system can't handle the routing. You can only port a number when switching from one carrier to another at the same location. Cell phones have different rules because they have an entirely different routing system.
As IP routing works today, IP address portability would cause an eventual breakdown of the system. And, from a practical standpoint, how much value is there in a particular IP address? Services are accessed by hostname and DNS not by IP address. Maybe some specialized application required the use of real IP's on the LAN, (instead of private RFC1918 addresses and NAT, as is now common practice), and so some pain would be incurred in changing static IP assignments on servers. But no way does this balance out the potential problems such a precedent would cause for the entire Internet as it works today.I guess that would leave a gopher. I'd like to say that's my wife, but that would be matrimonial suicide. ;^)
To make up for the lack of a gopher, I do have alcoholic beverages in my fridge!We have 8 people in my company and we have everything on my list EXCEPT the gopher, and I miss having one.
We all pay for our laundry/dry-cleaning service. It costs the same as it would if we dropped-off at the cleaners, but its much more convenient. We also pay for our own hair cuts, about the same amount as going to a local stylist.Let my try to explain the gopher:
This is usually a local teen, housewife or retiree. They typically work part time, between 10AM and 3PM, but hours vary according to their needs. Their duties are the ones the other employees don't like and, frankly, are not paid to perform:- Stock bathrooms & touch-up between professional cleanings
- Stock kitchen & run to store for kitchen supplies (1-2/wk)
- Take and pick-up lunch orders (one deli or restaurant per day)
- Clean-up kitchen after lunch
- Empty trash and clean-up spills
- Run to copy center or office supply store as needed (infrequent)
- Assist receptionist w/clerical tasks (filing, typing) and random odd jobs.
At $8 - 10 per hour, the pay is better than most part-time jobs, but only costs $50 - 70 per day. When compared to the hourly salary for a programmer or engineer, that's about 1.5 hours max: well worth the price.I am deathly allergic to cats, you insensitive clod!
As a consultant, I've worked in places where full-time programmers are shoe-horned into as small as 4x6 foot cubicles. It immediately reminded me of the cages used at commerical chicken farms (you know, where the chickens take-on the rectangular form of their cage). I refused to work in one, and made the client allocate a small conference room instead.
On the other hand, I've also worked in wide-open spaces. These are noisy, busy and distracting, and I found it difficult to concentrate with all the activity. But ironically, I got a lot of work done. You pick-up on other conversations, chime in or get new ideas, and then enter your coding trance to get work done.My favorite is what I have now: a 12 x 15 private room, french doors leading in, two windows with a nice wooded view, and a fully-stocked kitchen across the hall. Of course, not everyone can work from home!
I'd suggest the following from experience:- Available high-speed Internet
- Good cell phone coverage.
- Pleasant, accomodating landlord
- Pleasant location, safe surroundings, convenient parking and mass transit
- Sufficient space for all needs and 3-yr growth.
- Separate spaces for development, sales/marketing, accounting/admin, support.
- Open work area with space between desks.
- Two large desks in an L configuration with a 2-drawer file on one-end and 3-drawer unit on other.
- One powerful but quiet PC with dual LCD display, top-quality keyboard and mouse, no speakers
- High-end laptop w/DVD and port replicator and good mouse.
- Cordless (or cell) phones & headsets, no speakerphones
- Lots of electric and network plugs, with at least 4 electric & 2 net above the desktop.
- Large bookshelf, whiteboard and tackboard.
- Solid, comfortable, ergonomic chair
- Subdued room lighting, tasks lamps on desks
- Nicely painted walls (not white!)
- Good carpeting, acoustic ceiling and sound-absorbing wall panels for noise reduction.
- Framed artwork (not necessarily original) on the walls (not "Unix Magic" or product posters).
- A couple of small quiet rooms with a round table and two or three chairs.
- At least one conference room, fully equip'd w/presentaion and pro speakerphone.
- Break room with full kitchen. Hot/cold beverages (non-alcoholic) for free.
- Small exercise room (treadmill, lifecycle, bowflex, exercise mat) with shower.
- Receptionist to screen calls, take messages, greet visitors, make copies, etc.
- A gopher-type person on-staff to keep things clean, make minor repairs, run out for supplies, get lunch/dinner, pick-up prescriptions and such. Amazing how valuable this $8-10/hr person will be.
- Laundry/dry-cleaning pick-up & delivery service (either employee or employer pays)
- On-site hair stylist twice a month (either employee or employer pays).
That's all I can think of at the moment.Fast foward to the present, and we've got three PS2 consoles (one per kid), no XBoxen, and prolly another $700 of PS2 games (plus the original $700 of PS1 games, many of which still get played regularly.
From time-to-time I've thought about getting an Xbox, mostly because of my pursuit of the "ideal home info-tainment device." But I can't reconcile the thought of just tossing-out $1,400 worth of games, and refuse to have a "stack" of game consoles next to each TV.Err, what ads?
You can get a residential broadband router with NAT for less than $50. These do some limited firewall-like filtering as well. Or put a second NIC in and setup your Linux box to do the same (or just use your Linux box as a proxy). All you really need to start with is a NAT boundry with no inbound routing or port forwarding to the new PC. This will keep-out the worms until you finish patching. Without a firewall or NAT, a fresh PC is typically compromised within 15 minutes.
Go to WindowsUpdate FIRST and nowhere else until all your Windows and Internet Explorer service packs and patches are installed. Then install and update your antivirus. Follow this with a personal firewall (at least the free version of ZoneAlarm). Proceed from there. Just be very careful to not mistype the URL for any of these trusted websites, or you might get an unpleasant surprise.
As noted elsewhere, Microsoft has an update CD but it's not up-to-date, and it seems to take forever to arrive. Ordered mine in Feb, received it in April, and it was only updated through Oct of last year. Since then there's been more than 30MB of new patches. There are about a dozen projects on the web to help you make your own complete and up-to-date patch CD, or even Windows install CD. I don't know how good/reliable/trustworthy these projects are because I use network-based commercial tools at my shop, but they seem to be making some people happy.
Microsoft recommends you disable so-called "personal firewall" software on the PC you are updating. I find that with the right settings, this is unneccessary. But in any event, a hardware-based firewall or simple residential router/NAT device will not interfere in anyway with WindowsUpdate (unless you want it to).
As silly as it might sound, I keep a cheap router in the back of my car at all times. I can't tell you how often I've had family, friends and clients with completely-trashed machines that need rebuilding and don't have a firewall. I used to try to maintain a CD of all the service packs and patches for Win98 through XP, but it took too much effort to maintain. The router is easier and cheaper in the long-run. It also looks nice sitting back there next to my propeller-beanie.I call them "video capture cards," which readily distinguishes them from "TV tuner cards."
You say toe-may-toe, I say toe-mah-toe.I'm old school. I'll upgrade to HDTV when the equipment and service costs the same as I'm paying now. I'm not paying an extra $500 for an HDTV monitor plus an extra $10/month to watch a handful of channels. Maybe, if I decide to get a bigger screen (more than the 36-inch I have now) for watching DVD's I'll go for 720p. How much image quality do I need to watch Cialis and Hair Club for Men commercials?
90% of the time, the 320x240 TV window on my laptop is more than sufficient resolution for the quality of programming available. And even the least-expensive USB 1.1 tuners work well at that size.
At my office, I have a local news/weather station running in a small window on my desktop. If the crawl at the bottom of the screen goes red, I know something important (usually a weather alert) is happening. I can warn my staff and clients of an impending risk (or, as is more often the case, make sure my car windows are rolled-up!). It's a useful source of information during a major news event or disaster.
Several of my clients are in the opinion survey/polling industry. It's always nice to see them on TV presenting the data I've helped to collect and analyze. It also helps me maintain a good relationship when I can honestly compliment them on their appearance and intelligently discuss their current projects.
As useful as the above might be, putting a small TV on my desk would not be acceptable. First of all, there's the space issue. I'm often running one or two notebooks and a desktop. Then there's a perception issue -- that I'm watching TV while everyone else is working -- which is not as readily apparent when the TV is a tiny window on the screen of a display facing away from my visitors.
I also live 2+ hours from work. I rent a room near my office, and the landlord includes a basic cable connection (alas, no broadband). I watch the evening news on my laptop, sometimes after watching a movie on DVD. A small TV with a DVD-player costs over $300. I already have the laptop, so the USB-TV device only added $70, and I don't leave anything important behind in case my room gets broken-into.
I think that depends on whether or not you use the Viagra.
Maybe I'm being naive, or overly optimistic, but I don't think blocking outbound SMTP will fly. After all, there are plenty of legitimate reasons to not use the ISP's mail servers. I know a bunch of people who still maintain minimum subscriptions with AT&T Worldnet just for email, or who have hosted websites/email domains on external servers. Not only is there nothing wrong with this, it actually reduces the burden on the ISP.
Blocking all outgoing port 25 would not only be extreme and antagonistic, but anticompetitive as well. Personally, I'm opposed to all filtering by the ISP - after all, who gives them the right to censor access to the Internet? Why are they in a better position to determine what is good and what is dangerous from my perspective? This becomes a very slippery slope. Filtering incoming http and ftp is the norm, as is filtering Microsoft network protocols and RPC. Peer-to-peer filesharing is always bad, right? So let's filter that out too, regardless of the legitimate use that might be blocked. PcAnywhere, VNC and MS-WBT get filtered as well. What about VoIP? Or webcams? Or Instant messenger? Maybe only AOL instant messenger is bad, but Microsoft is good? What's the criteria? And what's the recourse?
From an ISP's perspective, the world would be a better place if users just limited themselves to browsing websites and exchanging email within clearly defined parameters. But is this Internet access? Isn't the Internet supposed to be a global network of networks to facilitate data transfer? Unless you can evaluate the specific data being transferred, what makes one protocol inherently worse than any others?
ISP's can track traffic utilization and reasonably determine if a customer's system is being exploited for SPAM, worms, et cetera. Tools can be used to scan for exploits, vulnerabilities and zombies. Ditto for determining if a customer is running "unauthorized" http, ftp or mail servers. These customers can then be contacted and/or disabled pending mitigation. Traffic prioritization and shaping devices/software are widely available to avoid having networks overrun by roge servers and abusive users. There are technological solutions that will achieve the goals that censorship and antagonistic acceptable use policies can only define.
Spam is certainly a major problem that is growing worse by the day. Hopefully, and sometime soon, the industry will realize that ANONYMOUS SMTP is the root of the problem, and implement something like trusted SSL certificates for SMTP servers so that at least all mail servers can be positively identified. I feel this is an inexpensive and relatively quick/easy improvement for email. With the servers positively identified, other existing spam-reduction technologies would become drastically more effective, and abusive server operators could be tracked down and shot^H^H^H^H prosecuted.
American Express used to have this. It was called "Private Payments." I used it for every on-line and phone transaction I completed for the past several years. More than once it saved me grief, if for no other reason than IMMEDIATELY identifying the source of a fraudulent transaction. Alas, Amex discontinued Private Payments this past April. I don't know why for certain, but I suspect that it interferes with new, optional fraud protection programs that are being rolled-out at additional cost.