You have a good point. Most people can't afford to regularly upgrade their MS OS software. Case in point, two jobs ago I was working for a company where we used Windows 95. We never bothered to upgrade because it was expensive and we managed with what we had. Fast forward a few years to where we purchased new hardware that came pre-loaded with XP.
From 95 to XP - it was like using a whole new kind of OS,everything looked and felt different. My boss (who was barely computer literate) eventually changed back to 95 because she just could not cope with XP.
IMHO using Windows does not teach you to think and to figure things out for yourself. You learn what and where to click but not why so when something is different, something is changed you're a little screwed.
Which is a very important point. Unfortunately most people don't know they have a choice. I was one of those who used a PC in my daily working life for years, put up with whatever MS saw fit to dish up because I thought that MS was the ONLY option for an average user like me.
Unix, sure I heard of it - it was something that worked on the server and was only to be used by Ubergeeks. I wasn't an ubergeek hence I used MS because that is all I had and all I knew.
Now that I know that there are alternatives I see it as my duty to spread the word to other average users like myself.
Whether they switch to Open Source or not is entirely their choice - but at least now they know they have a choice.
Nothing stopping women except, maybe, themselves? I have friends who were very career focused and then the baby came along and suddenly the career wasn't that big an issue.
I just think (in general) that women are finding careers in IT to be too demanding if they want to balance work and family. There are plenty other careers to follow that allows them to have a better balance between the two so they're leaving IT.
I don't think it's either a good or bad thing, just a thing and there are plenty exceptions.
who has a husband that works in IT, here are my general observations:
My husband's working hours are 8 to 5, yet he's never home before 6 (and that's on a VERY quiet day).
When he's on standby he gets calls all times of the day, night and weekend and has had to drive to work in the middle of the night because a server is down.
And when he has a major project to work on he works even more overtime then he normally does.
Now, I don't have kids (yet) but if I did I don't think I'd cope with the erratic nature of his IT work environment. Kids have school and activities that run to a schedule, you don't get to chop and change that at will. And babies, well, they have a schedule all their own.
I am lucky, I have a husband who does more than his fair share at home, but are other working women (especially working moms) that lucky?
It's no surprise then that IT is not that appealing a career choice for women, but it has nothing to do with their talents and abilities. Rather it has to do with the inequalities in our social systems (as opposed to the work place) where women are still expected to put family first while men put work first.
My life isn't interesting enough for a blog, yet that's exactly the reason I have a blog - to totally make up stuff to impress faceless strangers. And just so that no one calls me on the BS I post, I don't use my real name (exactly like when I post on/.)
Shouldn't you be asking if mainstream media is accurate and trustworthy, assuming you're being sincere and not sarcastic of course?.
To answer your sincere question then, bloggers as a whole may not be accurate and trustworthy - can you really trust someone you barely know, except through the thoughts they choose to post online?
However, Bloggers do tell you about their lives, as they live it, about the things that happen in their country and how it affects them. So while blogs may lack decent grammar and spelling, it is at least, to me, a more realistic view of the average person's situation. (Note: this does not apply to the ravings of bored teenage girls with smiley addictions! - of which there are way too many in the blogosphere)
You raise an interesting point. Let's take a moment to consider it.
See, first off you have to deal with those tiny cubicles that are sized to accomodate midget hobbits. Then there's the curtain that just never closes properly on said cubicle. Add to that the flourescent lighting that makes you look like you've just been raised from the dead. And last but not least all those mirrors that allow you to see how fat your ass really is.
Hmmmmm................
If I had to try things on before I bought them I'd never buy anything. But by buying them and trying them on at home (and consuming copious amounts of alcohol) I can convince myself that it doesn't look so bad in natural light and my ass doesn't look like a hippo's.
Taking legal action against 'Snotty' is just a waste of time. You can get rid of him but I'm pretty sure there were a quite few people who read the article and thought 'Hey, this would be a good way to make money, take over where Scott leaves off'. In fact, right now, I'm sure some spammer somewhere is sending out millions of unsolicited mail telling you how you too, for a measly $10.00, can get rich the Scott Richter way.
Plently of people have moral issues with prostitutes and prostitution, so who do the laws target, the prostitutes who are just trying to get by and make a living. But there would be no prostitutes if there were no willing customers.
SO, the point I'm really trying to make is this, if you really want to stop the spammers, sue the idiots who make it a profitible business for them. You can start with the 40 000 who bought Scott's little war souvenir cards. They made it worth Scott's while to send out the other 14 960 000 mails to people who obviously know better.
How long would the spammers be able to maintain their bulk mailing if nobody, absolutely nobody, bought a damn thing from them?
Supply and demand, that's what it is really all about.
I am currently looking for a job and have noticed that many companies ask that I send my CV as well as my preferred salary. Okay, I can do that. Of course if I state my preferred salary is R10 000 and someone with similar skills and experience says she wants R5000, who are they more likely to hire?
A few years ago I worked for a company that seemed to be permanently in the outsource-then-bring-it-back-in-house-then- outso urce merry-go-round. Every once in a while, some manager hoping to score brownie points would suggest outsourcing as a means for the company to improve their bottom line. And it would be done.
Then not too long in the distant future, the outsoursed jobs would be brought back home because some other manager suggested that doing it ourselves would be cheaper. And it would be done.
Face it, Joe Soap might have started his lemonade stand as a means of feeding his kids but when he started making more money then he needed for groceries what did he do? He grew his company, branched out into orageade, limeade and coolade and employed his brother-in-law to do deliveries.
That is until Joe realised that he can pay the Indian kid down the street a fraction of what he pays his brother-in-law for the same job and in the end Joe makes more money.
Does he stop selling lemonade when the kids are all grown up and can provide for themselves (assuming they're not American programmers)?
Of course not, because it stopped being about feeding the kids a long, long time ago. Now it's all about the money.
Is it not better for a company of 150 people to outsource 100 jobs and stay in business or not outsource at all and so all 150 jobs are lost?
It's still about the money because if you don't have money, you certainly can't afford to pay a programmer.
Re:The real problem is incompetent employers
on
Joel Rants About Resumes
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
The even more real problem is lazy personnell agencies the employers use to recruit staff.
Here I am, unemployed, using all that I can to find a job. This includes buying the newspaper and going through the situations vacant section.
One personnell agent / agency advertised three jobs, all with the exact same word for word job description and salary. I only knew it was three different jobs because they were based in different places. All three jobs are not to far away from home for me so I could, should and did apply for all three. One one e-mail. I mean why should I take the time to write an original cover letter for each post if the agent could not even be bothered to write three original ads.
In fact it is pretty difficult to write a decent cover letter when they barely give you any information about the job, barring the obligitory 'must be proficient in MS Office' bit - which bit exactly? I can draw up the sweetest spreadsheets that would make you weep at their simplicity, but maybe spreadsheets are the domain of the accounts department and I would just be a threat. Case in point, a friend of mine had the opportunity to find himself in the accounts department of one of his clients. The dear lady responsible for his cheque was carefully adding up figures in a spreadsheet on her trusty solar powered desk calculator. Maybe she got the job because her auntie is department head - would said auntie want me around when I am so obviously going to make her niece look incompetent?
Right, where was I? Oh yeah, if they want to know what I can and can't do and want a brilliant and original covering letter, then 'they' have to give me something to work with, make me want to work for them.
Slashdot Mirror
You have a good point. Most people can't afford to regularly upgrade their MS OS software. Case in point, two jobs ago I was working for a company where we used Windows 95. We never bothered to upgrade because it was expensive and we managed with what we had. Fast forward a few years to where we purchased new hardware that came pre-loaded with XP.
,everything looked and felt different. My boss (who was barely computer literate) eventually changed back to 95 because she just could not cope with XP.
From 95 to XP - it was like using a whole new kind of OS
IMHO using Windows does not teach you to think and to figure things out for yourself. You learn what and where to click but not why so when something is different, something is changed you're a little screwed.
More importantly people like choice.
Which is a very important point. Unfortunately most people don't know they have a choice. I was one of those who used a PC in my daily working life for years, put up with whatever MS saw fit to dish up because I thought that MS was the ONLY option for an average user like me.
Unix, sure I heard of it - it was something that worked on the server and was only to be used by Ubergeeks. I wasn't an ubergeek hence I used MS because that is all I had and all I knew.
Now that I know that there are alternatives I see it as my duty to spread the word to other average users like myself.
Whether they switch to Open Source or not is entirely their choice - but at least now they know they have a choice.
Nothing stopping women except, maybe, themselves? I have friends who were very career focused and then the baby came along and suddenly the career wasn't that big an issue.
I just think (in general) that women are finding careers in IT to be too demanding if they want to balance work and family. There are plenty other careers to follow that allows them to have a better balance between the two so they're leaving IT.
I don't think it's either a good or bad thing, just a thing and there are plenty exceptions.
who has a husband that works in IT, here are my general observations:
My husband's working hours are 8 to 5, yet he's never home before 6 (and that's on a VERY quiet day).
When he's on standby he gets calls all times of the day, night and weekend and has had to drive to work in the middle of the night because a server is down.
And when he has a major project to work on he works even more overtime then he normally does.
Now, I don't have kids (yet) but if I did I don't think I'd cope with the erratic nature of his IT work environment. Kids have school and activities that run to a schedule, you don't get to chop and change that at will. And babies, well, they have a schedule all their own.
I am lucky, I have a husband who does more than his fair share at home, but are other working women (especially working moms) that lucky?
It's no surprise then that IT is not that appealing a career choice for women, but it has nothing to do with their talents and abilities. Rather it has to do with the inequalities in our social systems (as opposed to the work place) where women are still expected to put family first while men put work first.
when you can have a blog instead. Sure you don't get paid but your 'publisher' never, ever rejects anything you submit.
"You can now say that linux officially works on Centrino laptops."
Had my Centrino-running-Ubuntu laptop a few months now. Finally I can take it out in public. Phew!
My life isn't interesting enough for a blog, yet that's exactly the reason I have a blog - to totally make up stuff to impress faceless strangers. And just so that no one calls me on the BS I post, I don't use my real name (exactly like when I post on /.)
Shouldn't you be asking if mainstream media is accurate and trustworthy, assuming you're being sincere and not sarcastic of course?.
To answer your sincere question then, bloggers as a whole may not be accurate and trustworthy - can you really trust someone you barely know, except through the thoughts they choose to post online?
However, Bloggers do tell you about their lives, as they live it, about the things that happen in their country and how it affects them. So while blogs may lack decent grammar and spelling, it is at least, to me, a more realistic view of the average person's situation. (Note: this does not apply to the ravings of bored teenage girls with smiley addictions! - of which there are way too many in the blogosphere)
You raise an interesting point. Let's take a moment to consider it.
See, first off you have to deal with those tiny cubicles that are sized to accomodate midget hobbits. Then there's the curtain that just never closes properly on said cubicle. Add to that the flourescent lighting that makes you look like you've just been raised from the dead. And last but not least all those mirrors that allow you to see how fat your ass really is.
Hmmmmm................
If I had to try things on before I bought them I'd never buy anything. But by buying them and trying them on at home (and consuming copious amounts of alcohol) I can convince myself that it doesn't look so bad in natural light and my ass doesn't look like a hippo's.
Taking legal action against 'Snotty' is just a waste of time. You can get rid of him but I'm pretty sure there were a quite few people who read the article and thought 'Hey, this would be a good way to make money, take over where Scott leaves off'. In fact, right now, I'm sure some spammer somewhere is sending out millions of unsolicited mail telling you how you too, for a measly $10.00, can get rich the Scott Richter way.
Plently of people have moral issues with prostitutes and prostitution, so who do the laws target, the prostitutes who are just trying to get by and make a living. But there would be no prostitutes if there were no willing customers.
SO, the point I'm really trying to make is this, if you really want to stop the spammers, sue the idiots who make it a profitible business for them. You can start with the 40 000 who bought Scott's little war souvenir cards. They made it worth Scott's while to send out the other 14 960 000 mails to people who obviously know better.
How long would the spammers be able to maintain their bulk mailing if nobody, absolutely nobody, bought a damn thing from them?
Supply and demand, that's what it is really all about.
Bear with me a moment.
o urce merry-go-round. Every once in a while, some manager hoping to score brownie points would suggest outsourcing as a means for the company to improve their bottom line. And it would be done.
I am currently looking for a job and have noticed that many companies ask that I send my CV as well as my preferred salary. Okay, I can do that. Of course if I state my preferred salary is R10 000 and someone with similar skills and experience says she wants R5000, who are they more likely to hire?
A few years ago I worked for a company that seemed to be permanently in the outsource-then-bring-it-back-in-house-then-
outs
Then not too long in the distant future, the outsoursed jobs would be brought back home because some other manager suggested that doing it ourselves would be cheaper. And it would be done.
Face it, Joe Soap might have started his lemonade stand as a means of feeding his kids but when he started making more money then he needed for groceries what did he do? He grew his company, branched out into orageade, limeade and coolade and employed his brother-in-law to do deliveries.
That is until Joe realised that he can pay the Indian kid down the street a fraction of what he pays his brother-in-law for the same job and in the end Joe makes more money.
Does he stop selling lemonade when the kids are all grown up and can provide for themselves (assuming they're not American programmers)?
Of course not, because it stopped being about feeding the kids a long, long time ago. Now it's all about the money.
Is it not better for a company of 150 people to outsource 100 jobs and stay in business or not outsource at all and so all 150 jobs are lost?
It's still about the money because if you don't have money, you certainly can't afford to pay a programmer.
The even more real problem is lazy personnell agencies the employers use to recruit staff.
Here I am, unemployed, using all that I can to find a job. This includes buying the newspaper and going through the situations vacant section.
One personnell agent / agency advertised three jobs, all with the exact same word for word job description and salary. I only knew it was three different jobs because they were based in different places. All three jobs are not to far away from home for me so I could, should and did apply for all three. One one e-mail. I mean why should I take the time to write an original cover letter for each post if the agent could not even be bothered to write three original ads.
In fact it is pretty difficult to write a decent cover letter when they barely give you any information about the job, barring the obligitory 'must be proficient in MS Office' bit - which bit exactly? I can draw up the sweetest spreadsheets that would make you weep at their simplicity, but maybe spreadsheets are the domain of the accounts department and I would just be a threat. Case in point, a friend of mine had the opportunity to find himself in the accounts department of one of his clients. The dear lady responsible for his cheque was carefully adding up figures in a spreadsheet on her trusty solar powered desk calculator. Maybe she got the job because her auntie is department head - would said auntie want me around when I am so obviously going to make her niece look incompetent?
Right, where was I? Oh yeah, if they want to know what I can and can't do and want a brilliant and original covering letter, then 'they' have to give me something to work with, make me want to work for them.