Even in a small office environment where we have tools for making/tracking requests, as well as an Outlook/Exchange setup with task management built into it, everybody falls back on email for the initial "can you help me with X?" questions.
As was already mentioned, perhaps something like a dedicated email address that would enable you (or your ticketing system) to receive and enter this request yourself would be the best -- you could even auto-generate an email reply that would direct the sender to your ticketing system where they could enter more details.
Unless you're quite sure that you can get your clients using the system you pick, I would suggest picking the system that best fits your needs.
In general, I think that managing your own server is a great way to go for things like this -- there are other issues of responsibility that come into play when using your company/institution to host it for you. But if you're going to rely on any of the services you set up for yourself while also treating the box like a bit of a toy (or at least a minor concern), then be prepared to have decent backup services in place for anything that becomes important to you.
I've been running a personal server now for about three years, primarily for web/email services with a few other things. I approached it as though it would be a little box to tinker on. But as I've come to rely on the services more -- particularly email -- I find that relying on my own availability and attentiveness isn't as carefree as I had thought. Most things on the machine are easily trashed/rebuilt/restored, but I rely too heavily on the email accounts handled by the machine so each time I hose the machine or just feel like starting fresh, it is becoming more of a hassle without also having a backup mail server in place.
Unless it comes with a custom Strongbad palette, I don't see it superseding Flash.
Re:Kids' chess set
on
Chess for Kids?
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I would agree with you, if you're the kind of parent who takes the approach that if the child has any tools or toys that can enable some independence then you shouldn't participate with them at all. I was assuming, from the submitter's question, that he/she already had some interest in playing chess with his/her daughter and teaching her the rules.
I think there is an added benefit (at least there was for me) to having a chess set that lets a child include friends who might not have the benefit of someone having taught them the game, or even of getting to play with a younger sibling. For me, it helped it feel more like a game and less like a lesson.
I see little difference here between chess and cards for a six year old. Both are fun and rule/strategy based. You could take the time to immerse your kid in the rules every time they want pull out a deck of cards, but you could also give them a pack of cards to just sit there and shuffle through, or play war with once in a while, without having to worry about strategy and more complex rules.
But also, if you're concerned that having your child just play with the board and pieces, or play with people beneath his/her skill level, will be detrimental for his/her later chess tournaments, then you have a different agenda altogether and it's probably better to spend some money on a tutor.
Personally, I was happy to think that the game was both challenging and kinda fun at that age. But then again, I'm sure there were enough times where I had a chess piece sticking out of my mouth or was busy making the neighing and fighting sounds for the knights.
Kids' chess set
on
Chess for Kids?
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I can't say much about software for kids -- my daughter is five and just starting to show an interest, but hasn't started to try to play yet. But I can remember, when I was a kid, I had an instructional chess set that had fairly simple plastic pieces with all the moves for each piece embossed on them.
I can remember, even at a young age, my younger brother and I playing together because we could at least shuffle the pieces around without worry about remembering all the rules. Certainly, this doesn't say much for teaching strategy, but I think it could still be a nice set for just keeping the game fun for kids, especially if your daughter might want to play with her friends who might not be as interested by the game.
We have used mostly Leap products, but also V-Tech, with our two girls (five and two years old). They both enjoy using them, but they are essentially toys. Sure, sure... they are games based around learning, but the learning portion is generally overstated.
Some of the early reviews of the Leapster I think have been confirmed by now, and that is that the system is more game than education. As long as you're buying this as a gaming console with educational titles, rather than a learning console with games, you'll probably like either. In general, just for the ubiquity of the product and variety of add-ons, I like the Leap series.
With a question like this it is inevitable that folks will always give you the same message -- a product like this should supplement "better" educational toys. The Leap stuff is great, but neither work very well if the child doesn't have sufficient time with someone just reading books to the child or providing the child with more creative puzzles or toys. The real benefit from these products comes, I think, through some independent use of it, and if the child isn't really ready to use it independently, it's just a (hopefully) fun game that you can feel less guilty about because it doesn't involve shooting things. As they get older, some of the titles (at least with things like the LeapPad) are pretty academic -- books about history or biology. But at this age, it's questionable.
It's been a while, but for shared calendaring we used to use Meeting Maker. It is licensed per-user, allows shared calendars, and also allows each person to assign editing privileges to their person calendar so one person can have either a single person or the entire user base in their list of allowable contributors.
I remember it being pretty nice for cross-platform use and had a built-in web interface as well.
You don't mention having any software for kids around. There are lots of edutainment titles out there. One company that produces some very high-quality software with characters is Kutoka. They do some great software for both language and math skills. Even my daughter, who is almost five years old now, benefits a lot from their titles.
On another note, you can also find several large investment companies that have a fair amount of online resources available for helping your children learn amount money and saving. I think Fidelity has a whole site for kids, for example.
A lot of these "Apple doesn't need to support anything" comments keep missing the point. A good deal of the appeal to the Mac OS is that my dear old mum can get started with a Mac and not have to worry about much of anything. She buys a printer that says it supports the Mac and, odds are, there's nothing to install to just get it working -- device drivers are included in the OS installation. Monitors? Scanners? Cameras? Mobile Phones? It's all the same -- as long as you choose from a decent list of products, you'll know that it will just work. And you have the choice of choosing from other products as well and figuring out how to make them work, but that's not usually for my mum.
Part of what enables Apple to market as they do is the fact that they control a lot of the drivers. It's not every peripheral manufacturer writing drivers in whatever way to provide you with a sometimes/most of the time smooth experience overall. Particularly regarding different versions of the OS -- when my mum upgrades from 10.3 to 10.4, she doesn't have to scramble to download updates for all her peripheral devices.
I think that what a few others have said is that what Apple would lose by relinquishing control or influence in this way is a lot of their marketing clout.
For simple stuff like due dates, most mobile phones provide a simple calendar with alarms. The good thing too is that, unlike a PDA, it's unlikely that you will be without your phone.
I guess it's still a relatively small group of subscribers, but I've been with Verizon's FIOS service now for about three months, and I'd actually rate it a 10, which surprises me (or probably surprises anyone who has had to work with Verizon when it comes to business support).
Positives...
The speed is great -- 2 Mbps upstream, 5 or 15 Mbps downstream. I started with the 5 Mbps down and bumped up to the 15 Mbps down. (They also offer a 30 Mbps down/5 Mbps up, but the cost skyrockets.)
The cost is competitive for what you get. I was previously a Comcast subscriber, so I was paying just over $40/month for my service (which was somewhere around 4 Mbps down, 256 Kbps up when I canceled). The FIOS service is something like $40/month for the 5/2 service and $50/month for the 15/2 service. I think they throw in a $5/month discount as long as you have a Verizon phone package that qualifies.
The support couldn't be better. I did have Speakeasy DSL when I first moved to my current location, but there were tons of problems due to what turned out to be water in the Verizon lines on the street. After Verizon's solution was to reroute to me, increasing my distance to the CO to over 20K feet, I had to drop DSL, but Speakeasy was superb at working with Verizon and troubleshooting the problems to try to get my service working. So even having experienced Speakeasy support, I can say that dealing with Verizon as an early-adopting FIOS customer is tremendous. They are really prioritizing FIOS customers. I have had to call tech support several times over the first three months (I had an existing router I was trying to use that turned out to be problematic and I upgraded from 5 Mbps to 15 Mbps service, which turned into a problem due to the way the order was entered into the system). I have received terrific support with near-immediate escalation from the general support to a network tech. When my upgrade request got botched in the system, the network tech worked with me for several days while working with the system developers as well to get the problem corrected.
As for the negatives...
The biggest downside is being a new subscriber. Plus, the installers and general tech support is typical in that it's a Windows world. I'm using OS X for my main machine, but luckily I had an XP laptop around just to satisfy the general support or installer that the problem wasn't my Mac. However, once you get escalated to a network tech the Windows bias drops away. Otherwise, the problems have all just been a lack of experience with the installers or general support and a fairly limited support site for now (just very general questions, still more DSL focused rather than fiber). My only real problems have been with a processing system they used to handle order requests and with trying to use an older Linksys router instead of the recommended D-Link router.
Otherwise, the usage isn't as wonderful as with Speakeasy. You're still limited to not running your own web server, and I'm not yet sure what they block -- from a quick check it seemed that they were blocking port 80, which kind of sucks. You get a really fast service and you're still limited to not being able to do basic file sharing via a locally hosted site -- Windows and Mac support this one-click web sharing but it's not even useful.
Well, not quite, but I have a very simple network by most standards. A couple of Macs (one connected via ethernet and one wireless), a couple of Windows laptops (both wireless), and a couple of TiVos (one wired, one wireless).
However, I have 3 routers here to support my services.
I originally had a Linksys wireless router, but then signed up with Verizon's FIOS service. Well, the bandwidth was terrible with the Linksys router. Putting a D-Link broadband router in there solved the speed problems. However, the "free" with the service D-Link router provided by Verizon had no wireless capabilities, so I had to keep the Linksys wireless router as well. I just haven't yet tried to replace it with, presumably, a D-Link wireless router.
Then I signed on with Vonage. Well, Vonage has one option -- take a router (containing all the super-secret settings for my VoIP service).
I'm going to have to figure out some design for my tower of routers that I'm acquiring...
There's definitely an advantage to telecommuting. I've been doing it for about three years now and it's worked out pretty well. When defining your expenses though, don't look to get compensated for every home expense that you can. In most cases, your boss will work out the cost of having you as an employee in the office versus having you work from home. At my office, there's a big advantage to having people telecommute, as the space is expensive and there are perks to being in the office (lunches, massages, etc.). In that case, it's a bit easier for my company to figure out the operating costs per employee.
I think that some compensation for your connectivity is reasonable, but maybe only if the company already pays your regular commuting costs. Do they pay for your gas? Should they pay for your bandwidth?
Hopefully this time they will think to register the trademark early.
But just in case, I'll just go ahead and submit this here application for Gbrowser, my new line of eyebrow glitter!
Like everybody else seems to be saying, just be with her, read to her. At nine months old, she's still learning to assemble basic causality, so I don't think it really matters who does what (a fireman saves lives, a dog buries bones, etc.). It just fascinates her to learn what is out there. You should pick up a basic developmental psychology book if you're really interested in figuring out what she would enjoy, and benefit from, being exposed to.
Personally, I feel that my technology bent makes me possibly more prone to being upbeat about wading through the piles of information available for us. If there is something about which I or my daughters (now 4 and almost 1.5) have questions, I'll take the time to find what I feel are the right books or websites (or disc-based encyclopedia) to learn the answers. In a way, I think that this teaches them as much about what I do as if I were to take the time to describe my day. These kinds of problem-solving approaches and attitudes towards information, as well as what you select as the best examples, are what will rub off just by spending time with your daughter.
Otherwise, if you're really interested in having her see a geek as a role model, one piece of advice -- why not at least wait until you can get her to successfully add 1 + 1?
Will this also be the end of the Mystery Clouds? I hope not. I use them as an opportunity to alarm my neighbors. "HURRY! QUICK! It must be a radioactive puffy thing from the nucular plant!"
Slashdot Mirror
Even in a small office environment where we have tools for making/tracking requests, as well as an Outlook/Exchange setup with task management built into it, everybody falls back on email for the initial "can you help me with X?" questions.
As was already mentioned, perhaps something like a dedicated email address that would enable you (or your ticketing system) to receive and enter this request yourself would be the best -- you could even auto-generate an email reply that would direct the sender to your ticketing system where they could enter more details.
Unless you're quite sure that you can get your clients using the system you pick, I would suggest picking the system that best fits your needs.
In general, I think that managing your own server is a great way to go for things like this -- there are other issues of responsibility that come into play when using your company/institution to host it for you. But if you're going to rely on any of the services you set up for yourself while also treating the box like a bit of a toy (or at least a minor concern), then be prepared to have decent backup services in place for anything that becomes important to you.
I've been running a personal server now for about three years, primarily for web/email services with a few other things. I approached it as though it would be a little box to tinker on. But as I've come to rely on the services more -- particularly email -- I find that relying on my own availability and attentiveness isn't as carefree as I had thought. Most things on the machine are easily trashed/rebuilt/restored, but I rely too heavily on the email accounts handled by the machine so each time I hose the machine or just feel like starting fresh, it is becoming more of a hassle without also having a backup mail server in place.
Unless it comes with a custom Strongbad palette, I don't see it superseding Flash.
I would agree with you, if you're the kind of parent who takes the approach that if the child has any tools or toys that can enable some independence then you shouldn't participate with them at all. I was assuming, from the submitter's question, that he/she already had some interest in playing chess with his/her daughter and teaching her the rules.
I think there is an added benefit (at least there was for me) to having a chess set that lets a child include friends who might not have the benefit of someone having taught them the game, or even of getting to play with a younger sibling. For me, it helped it feel more like a game and less like a lesson.
I see little difference here between chess and cards for a six year old. Both are fun and rule/strategy based. You could take the time to immerse your kid in the rules every time they want pull out a deck of cards, but you could also give them a pack of cards to just sit there and shuffle through, or play war with once in a while, without having to worry about strategy and more complex rules.
But also, if you're concerned that having your child just play with the board and pieces, or play with people beneath his/her skill level, will be detrimental for his/her later chess tournaments, then you have a different agenda altogether and it's probably better to spend some money on a tutor.
Personally, I was happy to think that the game was both challenging and kinda fun at that age. But then again, I'm sure there were enough times where I had a chess piece sticking out of my mouth or was busy making the neighing and fighting sounds for the knights.
I can't say much about software for kids -- my daughter is five and just starting to show an interest, but hasn't started to try to play yet. But I can remember, when I was a kid, I had an instructional chess set that had fairly simple plastic pieces with all the moves for each piece embossed on them.
Something like this (links directly to an image).
I can remember, even at a young age, my younger brother and I playing together because we could at least shuffle the pieces around without worry about remembering all the rules. Certainly, this doesn't say much for teaching strategy, but I think it could still be a nice set for just keeping the game fun for kids, especially if your daughter might want to play with her friends who might not be as interested by the game.
We have used mostly Leap products, but also V-Tech, with our two girls (five and two years old). They both enjoy using them, but they are essentially toys. Sure, sure... they are games based around learning, but the learning portion is generally overstated.
Some of the early reviews of the Leapster I think have been confirmed by now, and that is that the system is more game than education. As long as you're buying this as a gaming console with educational titles, rather than a learning console with games, you'll probably like either. In general, just for the ubiquity of the product and variety of add-ons, I like the Leap series.
With a question like this it is inevitable that folks will always give you the same message -- a product like this should supplement "better" educational toys. The Leap stuff is great, but neither work very well if the child doesn't have sufficient time with someone just reading books to the child or providing the child with more creative puzzles or toys. The real benefit from these products comes, I think, through some independent use of it, and if the child isn't really ready to use it independently, it's just a (hopefully) fun game that you can feel less guilty about because it doesn't involve shooting things. As they get older, some of the titles (at least with things like the LeapPad) are pretty academic -- books about history or biology. But at this age, it's questionable.
It's been a while, but for shared calendaring we used to use Meeting Maker. It is licensed per-user, allows shared calendars, and also allows each person to assign editing privileges to their person calendar so one person can have either a single person or the entire user base in their list of allowable contributors.
I remember it being pretty nice for cross-platform use and had a built-in web interface as well.
Soon, when I'm lost, I can just Google myself to find out where I am!
http://lost.google.com/search?q=myself
Results:
Why, you're just around the corner from Old Navy, where they have men's khaki's on sale for $19.95.
Thank you for using Google Lost!
You don't mention having any software for kids around. There are lots of edutainment titles out there. One company that produces some very high-quality software with characters is Kutoka. They do some great software for both language and math skills. Even my daughter, who is almost five years old now, benefits a lot from their titles.
On another note, you can also find several large investment companies that have a fair amount of online resources available for helping your children learn amount money and saving. I think Fidelity has a whole site for kids, for example.
A lot of these "Apple doesn't need to support anything" comments keep missing the point. A good deal of the appeal to the Mac OS is that my dear old mum can get started with a Mac and not have to worry about much of anything. She buys a printer that says it supports the Mac and, odds are, there's nothing to install to just get it working -- device drivers are included in the OS installation. Monitors? Scanners? Cameras? Mobile Phones? It's all the same -- as long as you choose from a decent list of products, you'll know that it will just work. And you have the choice of choosing from other products as well and figuring out how to make them work, but that's not usually for my mum.
Part of what enables Apple to market as they do is the fact that they control a lot of the drivers. It's not every peripheral manufacturer writing drivers in whatever way to provide you with a sometimes/most of the time smooth experience overall. Particularly regarding different versions of the OS -- when my mum upgrades from 10.3 to 10.4, she doesn't have to scramble to download updates for all her peripheral devices.
I think that what a few others have said is that what Apple would lose by relinquishing control or influence in this way is a lot of their marketing clout.
"There's no step 3."
For simple stuff like due dates, most mobile phones provide a simple calendar with alarms. The good thing too is that, unlike a PDA, it's unlikely that you will be without your phone.
I guess it's still a relatively small group of subscribers, but I've been with Verizon's FIOS service now for about three months, and I'd actually rate it a 10, which surprises me (or probably surprises anyone who has had to work with Verizon when it comes to business support).
Positives...
As for the negatives...
Well, not quite, but I have a very simple network by most standards. A couple of Macs (one connected via ethernet and one wireless), a couple of Windows laptops (both wireless), and a couple of TiVos (one wired, one wireless).
However, I have 3 routers here to support my services.
I originally had a Linksys wireless router, but then signed up with Verizon's FIOS service. Well, the bandwidth was terrible with the Linksys router. Putting a D-Link broadband router in there solved the speed problems. However, the "free" with the service D-Link router provided by Verizon had no wireless capabilities, so I had to keep the Linksys wireless router as well. I just haven't yet tried to replace it with, presumably, a D-Link wireless router.
Then I signed on with Vonage. Well, Vonage has one option -- take a router (containing all the super-secret settings for my VoIP service).
I'm going to have to figure out some design for my tower of routers that I'm acquiring...
There's definitely an advantage to telecommuting. I've been doing it for about three years now and it's worked out pretty well. When defining your expenses though, don't look to get compensated for every home expense that you can. In most cases, your boss will work out the cost of having you as an employee in the office versus having you work from home. At my office, there's a big advantage to having people telecommute, as the space is expensive and there are perks to being in the office (lunches, massages, etc.). In that case, it's a bit easier for my company to figure out the operating costs per employee. I think that some compensation for your connectivity is reasonable, but maybe only if the company already pays your regular commuting costs. Do they pay for your gas? Should they pay for your bandwidth?
Hopefully this time they will think to register the trademark early. But just in case, I'll just go ahead and submit this here application for Gbrowser, my new line of eyebrow glitter!
Like everybody else seems to be saying, just be with her, read to her. At nine months old, she's still learning to assemble basic causality, so I don't think it really matters who does what (a fireman saves lives, a dog buries bones, etc.). It just fascinates her to learn what is out there. You should pick up a basic developmental psychology book if you're really interested in figuring out what she would enjoy, and benefit from, being exposed to.
Personally, I feel that my technology bent makes me possibly more prone to being upbeat about wading through the piles of information available for us. If there is something about which I or my daughters (now 4 and almost 1.5) have questions, I'll take the time to find what I feel are the right books or websites (or disc-based encyclopedia) to learn the answers. In a way, I think that this teaches them as much about what I do as if I were to take the time to describe my day. These kinds of problem-solving approaches and attitudes towards information, as well as what you select as the best examples, are what will rub off just by spending time with your daughter.
Otherwise, if you're really interested in having her see a geek as a role model, one piece of advice -- why not at least wait until you can get her to successfully add 1 + 1?
Will this also be the end of the Mystery Clouds? I hope not. I use them as an opportunity to alarm my neighbors. "HURRY! QUICK! It must be a radioactive puffy thing from the nucular plant!"
It's been a while since I've worked in an environment with so little RAM -- I don't know how/if things will run.
I see that the base plan for several of these includes 64 MB of RAM, but I see that at least RimuHosting states that Java servlets won't run with 64 MB of RAM, and more is recommended if using a MySQL database, I don't see anything yet on Linode's site about practical requirements. Does anyone have any experiences with what's necessary/practical. It seems that on the base plan, doubling the RAM from 64 MB to 128 MB also doubles the entire monthly cost. I'm just interested in using it as a hobbyist, and it wouldn't be high volume.