I've noticed this in just about every arena I've managed to do research on - especially now on the web where it's easy to find (well, usually it is anyway) some user forums where actual users post. Another great example is Kitchen-aid mixers. I mean, it's top quality right? Well, not so much, it's now owned by Whirlpool and Amazon shows something like a 30% failure rate within months by reviews even of the $450 pro versions. The generally quality stand mixers by forum posts etc? The almost unheard of Bosch Universal Plus or Electrolux DLX.
That all said, I do still use a brand I find to be good as a shortcut to finding acceptable new products. Maybe not the best, but consistently quality. The important part is not to assume that a brand that was quality 20 years ago still is today. Look at Maytag:(...
I've found that you can usually get about 5 years out of an evaluation before you have to do the research again to see if the brand has held up its standards.
Sometimes IT can be very boneheaded. I've seen this. Other times, we get tired of being burned when instead of users telling us what they want to accomplish they say things like "I need a compiler". It took several days of back and forth to understand that what the user really wanted was someone to re-compile some dlls for Matlab to 64 bit so they'd work on Win 7 x64.
Often times, users ask for a specific program without understanding what it does, or if there's an existing tool that performs that function fine. For instance, users ask for a software package called Webdrive. We ask why. They say they want to share files. We say we already have a fileserver they can use, a Wiki they could use, SVN server they could use. So in this case we really don't see any reason to set up another proprietary program.
I have to say, for some reason managers where I work really like excel. Even when we have all the data they want to look at already in a database with a web gui that lets them run queries by selecting field names and sort procedures, they then want to use the export to csv and manipulate in Excel. I honestly have no idea what excel does that this web app doesn't do (and it's instantly updated as users and computer client apps update it) nor have the excel people been able to tell me or show me what it does, but boy - everything ought to be a spreadsheet.
What's really sad is my coworker managed to get about half of the spreadsheets replaced with wiki table plugin, so all they really wanted was columns they could e-mail around!
I have to admit that I am stumped that all the medium to large OSS projects (that I've used) seem to use MySQL. Though this may betray my ignorance, I'm thinking of things like OCSNG, Zenoss, etc.
I may have the best job right now. I've been working at a smallish research lab at a University. We get to do everything from AD to RHEL Linux Clusters, old VMS on VAX and Alpha, Mac laptops, building our first SAN with 10gb network interconnects. I get to pick out technologies, vendors to some extent, and whatever. We get to try out Hyper-V, KVM, Xen, RHEL Cluster technologies etc. I can use Open Source products or proprietary as makes sense in the budget. We're playing around with Likewise...
And because they're using custom scientific code and we run stuff like Zenoss which uses zope, mysql, we front end with Apache for SSL - we definitely can find obscure problems.
My days are almost never boring because like in your part 2, I get to do something in almost every part of support IT, but also have a team I work with, so I'm not the sole IT guy.
It's also pretty low pressure, management doesn't have too many hard deadlines and would prefer something was done right than rushed to be done fast (except for end user client PCs, never get enough notice on those, it's like they forget that new users might need a computer). I also get to read and comment on Slashdot, multiple other forums, and mailing lists as part of my job!
It's all on a smaller scale of course, but you actually get to do the planning, executing, and maintenance of your very own setup. This. It's awesome in my opinion. At least if it all goes tits up, you only blame yourself, and you learn from it and do better next time.
I think of cloud infrastructure usually as VM clusters of some sort where you can have an entire computer fail and not lose services, and you can basically add more servers if you need more load without having to manually re-configure the services etc. vSphere etc.
I think the main difference is that this was a business, operating for-profit, that broke copyright law. It seems that has to be what copyright law was always targeting. Plus, as a business, you certainly should understand that there may be rules, laws, and the like you need to understand as apply to the business you want to undertake. I would certainly expect a business to verify things that they do with a lawyer for instance.
Almost none of this applies to a person doing things in their home (save if they run the business from their home). A average person in their house is not doing anything for profit, isn't explicitly interacting in the public sphere, and usually isn't expected to consult a copyright lawyer or contract lawyer etc regularly. It also seems to many, whether they are right or wrong, that copyright law wasn't originally targeted at non-commercial infringment.
I find that Comodo is quite good about being really free, and it's not horribly difficult to find the initial install. It will generally install all updates automatically... And if you're clueless but not cheap, you can purchase remote support from them for a yearly fee that's equivelent to the big guys just for the software...
You don't want to have to check 10 services to see if there are new messages. You want easy, quick and accessible communications.
I think this may be a big assumption that doesn't hold true. At least anecdotally, the people I know really want to have a "work" phone,e-mail, whatever that is *very* separate from a "home" phone,e-mail etc for what seems like obvious reasons to me (don't want to get work e-mails on the weekend, don't want vendor phone calls for work on services you personally pay for, don't want your porn surfing at home showing up at work, etc).
However, I think there's also a more subtle separation wanted as well. If you phone me, it's more important or time sensitive (well, implicitly - maybe not for everyone, but at least at work...) than an e-mail, so I don't want the phone call getting merged and lost in my e-mail in-box. etc.
Of course, this may only apply to old fogies, and the new hotness is indeed one big mashup of everything for everyone to see. But I doubt it.
But see, I think this should be mandatory anyway. The People (and the representatives) ought to have a chance (and an obligation for the representatives) to know what's actually being voted on.
Hmm, this doesn't jive with what I've heard on the dedicated (though unofficial) forums. You can use 2000 minutes before there's any AUP issue. I recall they did have a limit on the number of different numbers you could call in an hour because they were getting telemarketers buying them and their TOS was home use, not business.
These complaints are very rare, and usually because someone has very unusual usage patterns. That said, they do the same thing ISPs were getting in trouble with, calling limited service unlimited.
I used to think the judiciary as set up in the USA was a good thing. Now I'm a little worried about the supremacy of the Judiciary that we have - what Britain used to have with some members of Parliment as the highest court may have been a better idea... I'm really not sure.
I think of course, that most people hope there aren't judges who rubber stamp anything the government wants to do.
We haven't done this to China yet to stop the huge trade deficit and fix our economy. Why not? Well, and also probably because we don't have an overwhelmingly superior force with which to invade. So we might lose - we might also lose because the Chinese make most of our consumer goods and electronics, and for all I know, might make enough of the military stuff to make it hard to fight them.
Well, you can have the same amount of control over a Corporation by buying stock. Actually, you can get more control by buying a LOT of stock, if you can afford it. I think it's similar indeed to campaign contributions - more money means more influence.
Hey, I'd be happy with either getting rid of monopoly licenses or regulating the heck out of them - I just hate the worst of both worlds where we can only get one or two options in many locations and they can screw with the net however they want.
I don't know what has to be done, but I find it very sad that our pricing and restrictions have gone up, and our choices down since dial-up. Dial-up may have been slow, but I could change ISPs by changing the phone # I dialed. And I could change phone companies too... Now we can't...
Well, no - I think alterations are alterations of off the rack stuff, custom tailored means they take your measurements and make a suit from scratch to fit those.
That said, I found that getting an off the rack suit tailored makes an amazing difference in comfort and fit - and doesn't have to be horribly expensive either - you can get a decent job done at a Mens Warehouse for under $100 on any clothes. You don't even have to buy them there, though there does actually have to be fabric in the clothes to let out if needed or lengthen etc...
And that it seems like Pakistan is doing the same to us now. We're going to have to deal with Pakistan somehow to try and win this - or we could give up and leave, probably with no lesson learned (seeing as we forgot Vietnam and all).
I do wonder why anyone would think there is any other *military* solution to an enemy group that keeps coming back? Eventually you either have to figure out a non-military solution(well, non traditional war - I suppose 50+ years of occupation might work) or you have to kill everyone on "the other side".
Well, yes, but I assume he's pointing out that the supposed economic incentive to purchase a hybrid... isn't. Don't purchase a hybrid car only to save money. If cost is your only or even main metric, buy a used car (well, according to Car Talk and other American sources of Car info, a heap) that gets passable gas mileage and fix it with junkyard parts at a cheap mechanic (or do the work yourself).
Well, really late reply, but in the US there are certainly BSIT or CIS (Computer Information Systems) degrees which are basically IT degrees, though targetted more at the core infrastructure, database administration etc then installing Windows. I know because I got one. If I recall correctly, the areas of specialization were System Administration, Network Administration,Database Administration,Web Applications . . . and I forget - I think there was one in Information Security. So basically targeting some sort of back end Administration I think. I certainly don't think "Imaging Monkey" or first line help desk requires a bachelors in anything - heck I could do that in High School (and did).
Oddly enough, it's either a degree limited to technical schools like RIT and RPI in New York and mid level state schools, or just hasn't caught on for the people writing job ads. There's not (in the US anyway) a "Standard" set of degrees, each college or university is free to make up their own as they go, and at least some do. So unless you do a search somehow across schools, you might never know that BSIT or BS CIS even exists, or that they are equivalent degrees named differently by two different colleges that came up with the programs separately.
But there is a different skillset (I think anyway) needed to be a SysAdmin than say an application programmer. And many companies need both.
Slashdot Mirror
I've noticed this in just about every arena I've managed to do research on - especially now on the web where it's easy to find (well, usually it is anyway) some user forums where actual users post. Another great example is Kitchen-aid mixers. I mean, it's top quality right? Well, not so much, it's now owned by Whirlpool and Amazon shows something like a 30% failure rate within months by reviews even of the $450 pro versions. The generally quality stand mixers by forum posts etc? The almost unheard of Bosch Universal Plus or Electrolux DLX.
That all said, I do still use a brand I find to be good as a shortcut to finding acceptable new products. Maybe not the best, but consistently quality. The important part is not to assume that a brand that was quality 20 years ago still is today. Look at Maytag :( ...
I've found that you can usually get about 5 years out of an evaluation before you have to do the research again to see if the brand has held up its standards.
http://alternativeto.net/software/delicious/
This has a bunch of alternatives though.
Sometimes IT can be very boneheaded. I've seen this. Other times, we get tired of being burned when instead of users telling us what they want to accomplish they say things like "I need a compiler". It took several days of back and forth to understand that what the user really wanted was someone to re-compile some dlls for Matlab to 64 bit so they'd work on Win 7 x64.
Often times, users ask for a specific program without understanding what it does, or if there's an existing tool that performs that function fine. For instance, users ask for a software package called Webdrive. We ask why. They say they want to share files. We say we already have a fileserver they can use, a Wiki they could use, SVN server they could use. So in this case we really don't see any reason to set up another proprietary program.
I have to say, for some reason managers where I work really like excel. Even when we have all the data they want to look at already in a database with a web gui that lets them run queries by selecting field names and sort procedures, they then want to use the export to csv and manipulate in Excel. I honestly have no idea what excel does that this web app doesn't do (and it's instantly updated as users and computer client apps update it) nor have the excel people been able to tell me or show me what it does, but boy - everything ought to be a spreadsheet.
What's really sad is my coworker managed to get about half of the spreadsheets replaced with wiki table plugin, so all they really wanted was columns they could e-mail around!
Well, yes - unless I'm misinformed, things like GLPI (Inventory), Zenoss (monitoring event database) etc still only use MySQL.
I have to admit that I am stumped that all the medium to large OSS projects (that I've used) seem to use MySQL. Though this may betray my ignorance, I'm thinking of things like OCSNG, Zenoss, etc.
Well, I would think they have a choice between:
1) use an appropriate tool, maybe learning something
2) Not working.
Most users I know, even the very office dronish ones, prefer tools that function vs not.
I may have the best job right now. I've been working at a smallish research lab at a University. We get to do everything from AD to RHEL Linux Clusters, old VMS on VAX and Alpha, Mac laptops, building our first SAN with 10gb network interconnects. I get to pick out technologies, vendors to some extent, and whatever. We get to try out Hyper-V, KVM, Xen, RHEL Cluster technologies etc. I can use Open Source products or proprietary as makes sense in the budget. We're playing around with Likewise...
And because they're using custom scientific code and we run stuff like Zenoss which uses zope, mysql, we front end with Apache for SSL - we definitely can find obscure problems.
My days are almost never boring because like in your part 2, I get to do something in almost every part of support IT, but also have a team I work with, so I'm not the sole IT guy.
It's also pretty low pressure, management doesn't have too many hard deadlines and would prefer something was done right than rushed to be done fast (except for end user client PCs, never get enough notice on those, it's like they forget that new users might need a computer). I also get to read and comment on Slashdot, multiple other forums, and mailing lists as part of my job!
It's all on a smaller scale of course, but you actually get to do the planning, executing, and maintenance of your very own setup.
This. It's awesome in my opinion. At least if it all goes tits up, you only blame yourself, and you learn from it and do better next time.
Isn't this the same as Mainfraimes used to be?
I think of cloud infrastructure usually as VM clusters of some sort where you can have an entire computer fail and not lose services, and you can basically add more servers if you need more load without having to manually re-configure the services etc. vSphere etc.
I think the main difference is that this was a business, operating for-profit, that broke copyright law. It seems that has to be what copyright law was always targeting. Plus, as a business, you certainly should understand that there may be rules, laws, and the like you need to understand as apply to the business you want to undertake. I would certainly expect a business to verify things that they do with a lawyer for instance.
Almost none of this applies to a person doing things in their home (save if they run the business from their home). A average person in their house is not doing anything for profit, isn't explicitly interacting in the public sphere, and usually isn't expected to consult a copyright lawyer or contract lawyer etc regularly. It also seems to many, whether they are right or wrong, that copyright law wasn't originally targeted at non-commercial infringment.
I find that Comodo is quite good about being really free, and it's not horribly difficult to find the initial install. It will generally install all updates automatically... And if you're clueless but not cheap, you can purchase remote support from them for a yearly fee that's equivelent to the big guys just for the software...
You don't want to have to check 10 services to see if there are new messages. You want easy, quick and accessible communications.
I think this may be a big assumption that doesn't hold true. At least anecdotally, the people I know really want to have a "work" phone,e-mail, whatever that is *very* separate from a "home" phone,e-mail etc for what seems like obvious reasons to me (don't want to get work e-mails on the weekend, don't want vendor phone calls for work on services you personally pay for, don't want your porn surfing at home showing up at work, etc).
However, I think there's also a more subtle separation wanted as well. If you phone me, it's more important or time sensitive (well, implicitly - maybe not for everyone, but at least at work...) than an e-mail, so I don't want the phone call getting merged and lost in my e-mail in-box. etc.
Of course, this may only apply to old fogies, and the new hotness is indeed one big mashup of everything for everyone to see. But I doubt it.
Ahh, I see - you've never heard of a Firewall. Google it.
But see, I think this should be mandatory anyway. The People (and the representatives) ought to have a chance (and an obligation for the representatives) to know what's actually being voted on.
Hmm, this doesn't jive with what I've heard on the dedicated (though unofficial) forums. You can use 2000 minutes before there's any AUP issue. I recall they did have a limit on the number of different numbers you could call in an hour because they were getting telemarketers buying them and their TOS was home use, not business.
These complaints are very rare, and usually because someone has very unusual usage patterns. That said, they do the same thing ISPs were getting in trouble with, calling limited service unlimited.
And if you looked into Page Plus you could pay $10 pretax every 4 months . . . There are lots of wireless pre-paid vendors.
I used to think the judiciary as set up in the USA was a good thing. Now I'm a little worried about the supremacy of the Judiciary that we have - what Britain used to have with some members of Parliment as the highest court may have been a better idea... I'm really not sure.
I think of course, that most people hope there aren't judges who rubber stamp anything the government wants to do.
We haven't done this to China yet to stop the huge trade deficit and fix our economy. Why not?
Well, and also probably because we don't have an overwhelmingly superior force with which to invade. So we might lose - we might also lose because the Chinese make most of our consumer goods and electronics, and for all I know, might make enough of the military stuff to make it hard to fight them.
Well, you can have the same amount of control over a Corporation by buying stock. Actually, you can get more control by buying a LOT of stock, if you can afford it. I think it's similar indeed to campaign contributions - more money means more influence.
Hey, I'd be happy with either getting rid of monopoly licenses or regulating the heck out of them - I just hate the worst of both worlds where we can only get one or two options in many locations and they can screw with the net however they want.
I don't know what has to be done, but I find it very sad that our pricing and restrictions have gone up, and our choices down since dial-up. Dial-up may have been slow, but I could change ISPs by changing the phone # I dialed. And I could change phone companies too... Now we can't ...
Well, no - I think alterations are alterations of off the rack stuff, custom tailored means they take your measurements and make a suit from scratch to fit those.
That said, I found that getting an off the rack suit tailored makes an amazing difference in comfort and fit - and doesn't have to be horribly expensive either - you can get a decent job done at a Mens Warehouse for under $100 on any clothes. You don't even have to buy them there, though there does actually have to be fabric in the clothes to let out if needed or lengthen etc...
And that it seems like Pakistan is doing the same to us now. We're going to have to deal with Pakistan somehow to try and win this - or we could give up and leave, probably with no lesson learned (seeing as we forgot Vietnam and all).
I do wonder why anyone would think there is any other *military* solution to an enemy group that keeps coming back? Eventually you either have to figure out a non-military solution(well, non traditional war - I suppose 50+ years of occupation might work) or you have to kill everyone on "the other side".
Well, yes, but I assume he's pointing out that the supposed economic incentive to purchase a hybrid ... isn't. Don't purchase a hybrid car only to save money. If cost is your only or even main metric, buy a used car (well, according to Car Talk and other American sources of Car info, a heap) that gets passable gas mileage and fix it with junkyard parts at a cheap mechanic (or do the work yourself).
Well, really late reply, but in the US there are certainly BSIT or CIS (Computer Information Systems) degrees which are basically IT degrees, though targetted more at the core infrastructure, database administration etc then installing Windows. I know because I got one. If I recall correctly, the areas of specialization were System Administration, Network Administration,Database Administration,Web Applications . . . and I forget - I think there was one in Information Security. So basically targeting some sort of back end Administration I think. I certainly don't think "Imaging Monkey" or first line help desk requires a bachelors in anything - heck I could do that in High School (and did).
Oddly enough, it's either a degree limited to technical schools like RIT and RPI in New York and mid level state schools, or just hasn't caught on for the people writing job ads. There's not (in the US anyway) a "Standard" set of degrees, each college or university is free to make up their own as they go, and at least some do. So unless you do a search somehow across schools, you might never know that BSIT or BS CIS even exists, or that they are equivalent degrees named differently by two different colleges that came up with the programs separately.
But there is a different skillset (I think anyway) needed to be a SysAdmin than say an application programmer. And many companies need both.