When I started working, I heard from multiple sources that our company budgeted for exempt employees by treating them as hourly employees who worked 5 hours of overtime per week. Given that most overtime is paid at time and a half, that's the equivalent of being paid for 47.5 hours at at a straight hourly wage. 7.5/47.5 =.1579, or about 15.8% of salary. Now the real question is, how many of these folks will get 5 or more hours of overtime per week?
Vista might be more secure than XP. Of course, some of my users will never get to find out, because Microsoft deliberately disabled DDE in Windows Vista. Never mind that a lot of enterprise software, especially applications written to interoperate with IBM's client access suites for iSeries (AS/400) and pSeries (RS/6000) depends on DDE functionality. MS is forcing enterprise users to choose between a secure OS and having to invest thousands, if not millions of dollars and tons of man-hours rewriting code that works perfectly well on XP. Maybe Windows 7 will drop support for COM. Meh.
For businesses, especially small ones, utility computing makes a lot of sense. I work for a 70-person company, and six of our employees (including me) are dedicated to the IT function. We could probably reduce that number in half and still get more revenue-generating projects tackled if we were able to outsource things like backup and recovery, user account maintenance (why isn't this an HR function has always befuddled me - they control the hire/fire function, but don't determine system access at most companies, including mine), software rollouts, machine cloning, etc. I've been evaluating Google apps, and I tell you, it's almost to the point where I can see myself making the business case to deploy it company wide. I close my eyes, imagine a world where i never have to think about email servers and spam blocking again, and I cry a little. Saving my company $150K+/year in the process is just a bonus.
These computer scientists have already developed a simulation of Urban Terror. Perhaps these two useful projects can share data, or even possibly merge!
There are many examples of FOSS solutions that are widely used, some even more widely than their close-source counterparts. What these solutions have in common, is that they outperform their closed-source counterparts. Think LAMP-stack webservers, compared to IIS and SQL Server-based ASP platforms. Think Perl, compared to other rapid-development, scripting, or reporting packages. IMHO, it's pretty simple to most people:
FOSS advocates have to realize that closed-source products benefit from the marketing muscle behind them. Perceived benefits are real benefits when it comes to purchasing and deployment decisions. To come out on top, then, FOSS has to deliver benefits (both real and perceived) to the user that are GREATER than those from closed-source solutions. This seems counter-intuitive at first. To the untrained eye, an equally functional "free" product should beat out an expensive solution everytime , but ultimately, the marketing effect adds to the value consumers derive from closed-source software, and that means FOSS solutions have to do more than match their counterparts, they have to outperform them.
I think this is an example of where technology, or at least people's visions for the technology, is outpacing common sense. RFID-like tags are a great idea for identifying lost pets or livestock, but they absolutely suck as a criminal monitoring device compared to existing systems for enforcing home detention. RFID is a passive system - a tag moves by a reader, it's energized and sends its data to the reader. As I understand it, the ankle bracelets currently used are active systems - the bracelet and the monitoring station are in constant communication, and when the link between the two devices is severed, the authorities are notified. I know that part of the "chipping" proposal is to detect when an offender shows up near a school or other "forbidden" area, but couldn't the same type of thing be done with the existing equipment? For me, government-mandated microchip implants cross the line into "cruel and unusual punishment" territory.
The name of the game is BLAZEMONGER, in all capital letters. If you don't YELL when you say it, you SUCK when you play it! Get on the ball, or you'll be hearing from BLAZEMONGER, Inc. "Customer Service".
That would be the first time anyone ever suggested using a British Corporation as a tax shelter, I assure you. This is, after all, the country where everyone believes WWII was fought for socialized medicine.
It's not only not sexy to drive a car with 0-70 times measured in minutes rather than seconds, it's not safe. Roads would need to be redesigned to accomodate automobiles with such poor acceleration - you would hate to be the guy going 70 on the interstate when someone merges doing 25.
It's a "gentleman's agreement" among the top-tier PC makers. I won't make you show yours if you don't make me show mine. There is very little to gain, and a lot to lose, especially if you consider how malleable the definition of "failure" is in the PC market. User deletes system files and renders PC unbootable? Chalk it up as another failure!
Just barely off-topic, but there are apartment units in New York that don't have windows in the bedrooms, however if I remember correctly, residents technically aren't allowed to be called these rooms "bedrooms". These apartments are usually in converted office buildings where what was large, open, "bullpen" areas are walled into relatively narrow apartments with windows along only one end. The areas with windows are used for living rooms, while the non-bedroom "bedrooms" are closer to the center of the building, and thus have no windows. Kinda like having your own cave.
I think Windows gets a bad rep. I don't know what you're doing with your machine but why do you instantly blame Windows?
Windows has gotten a lot more stable over the years. Moving consumers to the NT kernel in Windows XP was a huge win from Microsoft, because it finally got rid of the DOS underpinnings of the OS. Still, because of backwards compatibility and performance hacks, Windows is a lot less stable *than* *it* *should* *be*. One example of such a hack was when NT's video drivers were moved from Ring 3 to Ring 0 by the NT 3.51 to 4.0 upgrade. This increases video performance, making for a system that feels "faster", but it allows a crashing video driver to bring the rest of the system down with it, which is an absolute no-no if you're trying to run a server. For a long time, the conventional wisdom for someone setting up an NT 4.0 server was to use the system's built-in VGA driver, and simply live with 640 x 480, 16 colors.
We'll start with the basics. Buy quality hardware. Buying a cheaper processor because you can overclock it and double the voltage while pumping koolaid into it is probably not within the design specs.
True. But because the PC market is becoming so commoditized, quality hardware is getting scarcer and scarcer. $299.00 computers are commonplace nowadays. Think that kind of money is going to buy top-quality components?
Apple computers have a rap for being too expensive. But to be honest, the prices aren't that much higher than quality PCs. It's just that people compare Apple's prices to the prices on bottom of the barrel PCs.
I'm sitting at my work computer here so let me just take a look around at what we've got. Dual Xeon 2.4 ghz on a SuperMicro motherboard. Ultra 3 SCSI drives and a SuperMicro server case.
What, did you say something? I can't hear you over the fans!
Seriously, it's true that properly administered on nice, expensive hardware, a Windows machine is going to be relatively stable, with long uptimes, etc., etc. But the fact of the matter is that for most people, using Windows is an incredibly frustrating experience. Worms, viruses, crashes, blue screens, etc. are all an accepted and acknowledged part of life for most Windows users. It's great that you've individually had a good experience using Windows. But the bulk of reports out there are very, very different from yours.
Left to its own devices to decide what medical treatments to pursue, the pharmacuetical industry delivered two hair loss prevention treatments and three different erection pills. While that's undoubtedly a benefit to bald guys who can't get it up, we're lucky that federal research dollars are used to find cures for diseases that are not as "commercially viable". If we depended on "the market" for everything, we'd still be using dirt trails and Indian guides for transportation, since no one would find the ROI of an interstate appealing.
The good people at DegreeInfo will be more than happy to help. Many recognized experts in the field of distance learning hang out there. I know that Dr. John Bear has a guide to earning your high school diploma at a distance, but I'm not sure of the exact title - someone there would definitely be able to help you out.
Once she's done with high school, she can come back for help earning her degree by distance as well!
I'm a Mac fanboy, and I'll say there is a step three.
3. Wait for a stable release.
While CenterStage looks promising, it's a new project that hasn't even reached its second alpha yet. Let's give the developers some time before we start giving people unrealistic expectations.
(I've got a lot of hope for this project - the fact that ATI has already contacted the developers to add support for their Remote Wonder products is awesome!)
Oh, come now. I've seen lots of computers where if you accidentally kicked out the PS/2 mouse and put it back in, your mouse pointer was frozen. Windows 95 even gave you the option to reboot if it realized you had booted without your normal PS/2 mouse attached. If reliability was the issue, we would still be using an old RS-232 serial mouse.
Can't we let PS/2 ports die already? Four USB 2.0 ports on this thing, and Via still thought we needed PS/2 ports. I'd rather drop the PS/2 ports and get a FireWire port, or another USB 2.0 port. PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports are as much of a dead end as the MCA bus - it's time to let go.
Since I'm one of the 119, I figure I'll let you guys know how it really went down.
Early in the morning on March 2nd, someone calling himself "brookbond" on the BusinessWeek MBA Forums saw the results of his HBS application using a modified version of the link he'd use to see his results at another school also using the Apply Yourself system.
He saw a "ding" letter, meaning that he saw a form letter with the standard "We're sorry, we can't admit you to the class of 2007. Blah blah blah. Best of luck in your future endeavors." He then posts the technique he used to view the letter to the BW forums. This information is visible for roughly six to eight hours. After the beginning of the business day on the easy coast, all hell breaks loose. People are discussing the posting on the BW forums, with people wondering if the link works or not. People report seeing one of two things:
A ding letter, like the one brookbond saw. (Which is what I saw.)
A blank screen.
NO ONE SAW AN ADMIT LETTER.
Period, point blank. Anyone who says they did, is lying. At sometime between 8:00AM and 9:00AM EST, the BW forum moderators realize what's being discussed, either because of the activity level on threads related to HBS, or because they were contacted by HBS directly. BW begins deleting every single thread related to HBS, regardless of whether or not it contains information about the "hack" or not.
At this point, a blogger named PowerYogi posts the technique to his blog. A rather humorous thread insinuating HBS is sending snipers after PowerYogi starts up, then peters out after a while.
Eventually, Apply Yourself wakes up and patches the system to show "Your Decision is not yet available" messages instead of the dings and blank screens. This occurs between 10:00AM and noon EST.
Nearly 20 hours after the "hack" is first posted, HBS sends this letter to applicants:
We understand that some users of ApplyYourself, the on-line application and decision notification system we employ, have inappropriately attempted to access decision information about their own applications before the specified notification date. We take this abuse of the ApplyYourself system very seriously. Such behavior is unethical and inconsistent with the behavior we expect from high-potential leaders we seek to admit to our program. We want to assure all applicants, however, that:
HBS decision information housed within ApplyYourself is neither complete nor final until our application notification dates
The application information that all applicants and recommenders submitted to us has been, and continues to be, secure
We appreciate your interest in Harvard Business School, and we want to underscore to all our applicants our commitment to make and communicate our admissions decisions in the most rigorous, fair, and secure fashion.
Sincerely,
Brit K. Dewey, Managing Director of MBA Admissions & Financial Aid
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field Road
Dillon House
Boston, MA 02163
Unfortunately, things don't stop there. Eventually, BW gives up trying to delete all the HBS postings, and people begin discussing the item. An article appears in the Harvard Crimson detailing the incident on March 3rd, and the article is used as source material for articles by the Boston Globe and the Associated Press. The AP article makes the front page of MSNBC.
By March 4th, other schools using Apply Yourself realize that their decision information may also have been available. In an amazing display of leadership, the Tepper School at Carnegie Mellon announces that they will reject anyone who tried to access their decision information early. Elsewhere, it is learned that a grand total of TWO people attempted to learn their fate at Tepper early, making it easy for CMU to grandstand.
With a precedent set, schools begin to announce their decisions on the fate of the "hackers". According to
Agreed on the G3 iBook issues. The fact that an entire production run of two different types of computers (12 and 14 inch) had these problems right up until the last G3 iBook indicates to me that they should have taken fairly drastic steps much, much sooner than they did. People had these problems on the very first 500mhz "dual USB" iBooks, and I had a 900mhz that I bought just as the new G4 iBooks were arriving with the same problem! Like you, I ended up with a G4 replacement (See my journal entry on the subject), but it was after a boatload of grief.
As it worked out, I feel like I was made whole. But Apple has never fully acknowledged the issues with that series of computers, and to continue selling computers with the same logic boards after so many problems was just irresponsible.
Slashdot Mirror
In tonight's top story, people are fucking.
Film at 11^H^H^H^H^Hall over the Internet.
When I started working, I heard from multiple sources that our company budgeted for exempt employees by treating them as hourly employees who worked 5 hours of overtime per week. Given that most overtime is paid at time and a half, that's the equivalent of being paid for 47.5 hours at at a straight hourly wage. 7.5/47.5 = .1579, or about 15.8% of salary. Now the real question is, how many of these folks will get 5 or more hours of overtime per week?
Vista might be more secure than XP. Of course, some of my users will never get to find out, because Microsoft deliberately disabled DDE in Windows Vista. Never mind that a lot of enterprise software, especially applications written to interoperate with IBM's client access suites for iSeries (AS/400) and pSeries (RS/6000) depends on DDE functionality. MS is forcing enterprise users to choose between a secure OS and having to invest thousands, if not millions of dollars and tons of man-hours rewriting code that works perfectly well on XP. Maybe Windows 7 will drop support for COM. Meh.
Kinda. Sorta. Not yet, but soon.
For businesses, especially small ones, utility computing makes a lot of sense. I work for a 70-person company, and six of our employees (including me) are dedicated to the IT function. We could probably reduce that number in half and still get more revenue-generating projects tackled if we were able to outsource things like backup and recovery, user account maintenance (why isn't this an HR function has always befuddled me - they control the hire/fire function, but don't determine system access at most companies, including mine), software rollouts, machine cloning, etc. I've been evaluating Google apps, and I tell you, it's almost to the point where I can see myself making the business case to deploy it company wide. I close my eyes, imagine a world where i never have to think about email servers and spam blocking again, and I cry a little. Saving my company $150K+/year in the process is just a bonus.
WH@T W1LL 3Y3 R1T3 M@CR0V1RUS3S W1TH N0W?!??11/?
Signed,
Script Kiddies
These computer scientists have already developed a simulation of Urban Terror. Perhaps these two useful projects can share data, or even possibly merge!
Today, the Attorneys General of 49 states took another step towards running for governor by knocking down yet another straw-man.
There, fixed that story for you. No need to thank me.
There are many examples of FOSS solutions that are widely used, some even more widely than their close-source counterparts. What these solutions have in common, is that they outperform their closed-source counterparts. Think LAMP-stack webservers, compared to IIS and SQL Server-based ASP platforms. Think Perl, compared to other rapid-development, scripting, or reporting packages. IMHO, it's pretty simple to most people:
if((Benefits(FOSS) - Cost(FOSS)) >= (Benefits(closed-source) - Cost(closed-source))) {
use_open_source;
} else {
use_closed_source;
}
FOSS advocates have to realize that closed-source products benefit from the marketing muscle behind them. Perceived benefits are real benefits when it comes to purchasing and deployment decisions. To come out on top, then, FOSS has to deliver benefits (both real and perceived) to the user that are GREATER than those from closed-source solutions. This seems counter-intuitive at first. To the untrained eye, an equally functional "free" product should beat out an expensive solution everytime , but ultimately, the marketing effect adds to the value consumers derive from closed-source software, and that means FOSS solutions have to do more than match their counterparts, they have to outperform them.
I think this is an example of where technology, or at least people's visions for the technology, is outpacing common sense. RFID-like tags are a great idea for identifying lost pets or livestock, but they absolutely suck as a criminal monitoring device compared to existing systems for enforcing home detention. RFID is a passive system - a tag moves by a reader, it's energized and sends its data to the reader. As I understand it, the ankle bracelets currently used are active systems - the bracelet and the monitoring station are in constant communication, and when the link between the two devices is severed, the authorities are notified. I know that part of the "chipping" proposal is to detect when an offender shows up near a school or other "forbidden" area, but couldn't the same type of thing be done with the existing equipment? For me, government-mandated microchip implants cross the line into "cruel and unusual punishment" territory.
That's a dupe! Damn those editors...
The name of the game is BLAZEMONGER, in all capital letters. If you don't YELL when you say it, you SUCK when you play it! Get on the ball, or you'll be hearing from BLAZEMONGER, Inc. "Customer Service".
That would be the first time anyone ever suggested using a British Corporation as a tax shelter, I assure you. This is, after all, the country where everyone believes WWII was fought for socialized medicine.
It's not only not sexy to drive a car with 0-70 times measured in minutes rather than seconds, it's not safe. Roads would need to be redesigned to accomodate automobiles with such poor acceleration - you would hate to be the guy going 70 on the interstate when someone merges doing 25.
It's a "gentleman's agreement" among the top-tier PC makers. I won't make you show yours if you don't make me show mine. There is very little to gain, and a lot to lose, especially if you consider how malleable the definition of "failure" is in the PC market. User deletes system files and renders PC unbootable? Chalk it up as another failure!
Just barely off-topic, but there are apartment units in New York that don't have windows in the bedrooms, however if I remember correctly, residents technically aren't allowed to be called these rooms "bedrooms". These apartments are usually in converted office buildings where what was large, open, "bullpen" areas are walled into relatively narrow apartments with windows along only one end. The areas with windows are used for living rooms, while the non-bedroom "bedrooms" are closer to the center of the building, and thus have no windows. Kinda like having your own cave.
Windows has gotten a lot more stable over the years. Moving consumers to the NT kernel in Windows XP was a huge win from Microsoft, because it finally got rid of the DOS underpinnings of the OS. Still, because of backwards compatibility and performance hacks, Windows is a lot less stable *than* *it* *should* *be*. One example of such a hack was when NT's video drivers were moved from Ring 3 to Ring 0 by the NT 3.51 to 4.0 upgrade. This increases video performance, making for a system that feels "faster", but it allows a crashing video driver to bring the rest of the system down with it, which is an absolute no-no if you're trying to run a server. For a long time, the conventional wisdom for someone setting up an NT 4.0 server was to use the system's built-in VGA driver, and simply live with 640 x 480, 16 colors.
True. But because the PC market is becoming so commoditized, quality hardware is getting scarcer and scarcer. $299.00 computers are commonplace nowadays. Think that kind of money is going to buy top-quality components?
Apple computers have a rap for being too expensive. But to be honest, the prices aren't that much higher than quality PCs. It's just that people compare Apple's prices to the prices on bottom of the barrel PCs.
What, did you say something? I can't hear you over the fans!
Seriously, it's true that properly administered on nice, expensive hardware, a Windows machine is going to be relatively stable, with long uptimes, etc., etc. But the fact of the matter is that for most people, using Windows is an incredibly frustrating experience. Worms, viruses, crashes, blue screens, etc. are all an accepted and acknowledged part of life for most Windows users. It's great that you've individually had a good experience using Windows. But the bulk of reports out there are very, very different from yours.
Left to its own devices to decide what medical treatments to pursue, the pharmacuetical industry delivered two hair loss prevention treatments and three different erection pills. While that's undoubtedly a benefit to bald guys who can't get it up, we're lucky that federal research dollars are used to find cures for diseases that are not as "commercially viable". If we depended on "the market" for everything, we'd still be using dirt trails and Indian guides for transportation, since no one would find the ROI of an interstate appealing.
Once she's done with high school, she can come back for help earning her degree by distance as well!
I'm a Mac fanboy, and I'll say there is a step three.
3. Wait for a stable release.
While CenterStage looks promising, it's a new project that hasn't even reached its second alpha yet. Let's give the developers some time before we start giving people unrealistic expectations.
(I've got a lot of hope for this project - the fact that ATI has already contacted the developers to add support for their Remote Wonder products is awesome!)
Oh, come now. I've seen lots of computers where if you accidentally kicked out the PS/2 mouse and put it back in, your mouse pointer was frozen. Windows 95 even gave you the option to reboot if it realized you had booted without your normal PS/2 mouse attached. If reliability was the issue, we would still be using an old RS-232 serial mouse.
Can't we let PS/2 ports die already? Four USB 2.0 ports on this thing, and Via still thought we needed PS/2 ports. I'd rather drop the PS/2 ports and get a FireWire port, or another USB 2.0 port. PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports are as much of a dead end as the MCA bus - it's time to let go.
LC that pun, and raise you // more. This thread is a Classic!
Early in the morning on March 2nd, someone calling himself "brookbond" on the BusinessWeek MBA Forums saw the results of his HBS application using a modified version of the link he'd use to see his results at another school also using the Apply Yourself system.
He saw a "ding" letter, meaning that he saw a form letter with the standard "We're sorry, we can't admit you to the class of 2007. Blah blah blah. Best of luck in your future endeavors." He then posts the technique he used to view the letter to the BW forums. This information is visible for roughly six to eight hours. After the beginning of the business day on the easy coast, all hell breaks loose. People are discussing the posting on the BW forums, with people wondering if the link works or not. People report seeing one of two things:
NO ONE SAW AN ADMIT LETTER.
Period, point blank. Anyone who says they did, is lying. At sometime between 8:00AM and 9:00AM EST, the BW forum moderators realize what's being discussed, either because of the activity level on threads related to HBS, or because they were contacted by HBS directly. BW begins deleting every single thread related to HBS, regardless of whether or not it contains information about the "hack" or not.
At this point, a blogger named PowerYogi posts the technique to his blog. A rather humorous thread insinuating HBS is sending snipers after PowerYogi starts up, then peters out after a while.
Eventually, Apply Yourself wakes up and patches the system to show "Your Decision is not yet available" messages instead of the dings and blank screens. This occurs between 10:00AM and noon EST.
Nearly 20 hours after the "hack" is first posted, HBS sends this letter to applicants:
Unfortunately, things don't stop there. Eventually, BW gives up trying to delete all the HBS postings, and people begin discussing the item. An article appears in the Harvard Crimson detailing the incident on March 3rd, and the article is used as source material for articles by the Boston Globe and the Associated Press. The AP article makes the front page of MSNBC.
By March 4th, other schools using Apply Yourself realize that their decision information may also have been available. In an amazing display of leadership, the Tepper School at Carnegie Mellon announces that they will reject anyone who tried to access their decision information early. Elsewhere, it is learned that a grand total of TWO people attempted to learn their fate at Tepper early, making it easy for CMU to grandstand.
With a precedent set, schools begin to announce their decisions on the fate of the "hackers". According to
As it worked out, I feel like I was made whole. But Apple has never fully acknowledged the issues with that series of computers, and to continue selling computers with the same logic boards after so many problems was just irresponsible.
Yeah, it's going to win the Palme d'Suck.