For the record, I know of at least two people who really like the Netbook keyboards. My wife types much faster on it than she does a 15" laptop or standard desktop keyboard. She is a small person with small hands so it seems reasonable. Oddly, the other person I know who really likes typing on their netbook keyboard is a 6'6" guy with enormous hands. He looks comical with his netbook but claims he never was very good at typing until he started using it.
Yeah, the problem with blocking ads is that if advertising revenue shrinks to the point where the web sites cannot support themselves, the sites will have to shift to something else.....perhaps back to the subscription model. We would be free to avoid those sites, but if too many quality sites went that way it would really suck. For that reason, I'll leave the Slashdot ads on instead of clicking the box saying I can turn them off. There was an ad for a free network monitoring software called "Splunk" the other week. I even clicked on it and downloaded the software. Uhm, admittedly I have not installed it yet as I already have network monitoring tools but I will eventually check it out.
As long as the ads aren't flying across my screen and completely interfering with what I am trying to do (ESPN....I'm looking at you) I will tolerate them and occasionally even click them.
News Flash! The data on your own machine isn't really impossible for others to get at. There are all manners of Trojans, Worms, Badware, keyloggers, and whatever else meant to....get to some data on your machine. Heck, W32.Blaster (I think) got into your computer and sent E-Mail with files attached.
Listen to the advice from the member of the female gender that just posted. Your wife DOES NOT CARE what you are doing with your computer. She'll only take that crap for so long until she throws up her hands and goes out to find someone else to spend the weekends with.
Sometimes I get really wrapped in work and it carries over into the evening. Sometimes I get really wrapped up in a personal project and want to jam myself in my room for a few days. Yet...I make sure that at the minimum I stop to Sit down and eat dinner with her (take my time eating), Take another break and sit down and talk with her or watch TV for an hour or so, and finally...I go "tuck her in" at night (I stay up considerably later than she does). Sometimes "tucking in" means more, usually it is just holding her and talking to her about stuff...maybe telling her things I love about her, maybe planning things we are going to do, maybe reminiscing or something. It is during this time when she is most willing to listen to me talk about my computer work or projects, oddly enough (don't do this every night though....it will get old fast). It is amazing what a little *GASP* attention and affection can do.
One more thing....get away for a day or two once in awhile. Go somewhere just the two of you...leave the laptop and smart phone at home. Enjoy her company. If you don't enjoy it...why did you get married in the first place?
I have to agree with you here. Wikipedia isn't the "Be All, End All" of definitions, but I'm sure many people who want to know what IT is might just hit up Wiki. What does it say?
Information technology (IT), as defined by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), is "the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware."[1] IT deals with the use of electronic computers and computer software to convert, store, protect, process, transmit, and securely retrieve information.
That really seems like a pretty decent catch all. I can get PC Technician, Software Engineer, Web Developer, I can get Network Engineer/Admin out of that, DBA out of that without stretching it one bit.
I'm the sole "IT person" at a small company. I'm mostly a Network guy but I do a lot of Database stuff, I do Desktop support, and I do some programming (Mostly as pertains to databases but I have written a few decent, but small programs including one that will run on embedded devices sold with our product). Up until fairly recently we would go into meetings with sales people or potential business partners. The President would identify himself as President, the Engineering Manager, the Controller, the Sales Manager, etc. He'd get to me, stumble with his words and eventually blurt out "He is our computer guy". He eventually asked me what I'd like to be called and now I'll get introduced as the Senior Network Engineer, the CIO, the Systems developer,The "Supreme Overlord of Technology", the "guy who stays up all night", and even once as "The Janitor". We just make crap up depending on the people we will be meeting with. I did not see a difference in the way I was treated by those we were meeting with from title to title. I even have business cards with everything except the guy who stays up all night.
When I decide to start really looking for a job, I'll concoct a suitable job title and go with that. For now...as long as they continue to pay me and treat me with a level of respect equal to that of the other employees, I could care less what they want to call me.
I'm far from being an Economist but to me, wealth is simply the amount and quality of things you have in comparison to the value others place on the things you have and what the quantity and quality of the things they would exchange for your things. Those things can be barrels of oil, cobs of corn, acres of land, bars of gold, bottles of whiskey, laptop computers, pieces of paper that hold value (Currency, Stocks, etc.), or whatever else you can think of.
Of course, the amount of things you can get in exchange for a certain item with will always change with the times. People are freaking out right now, so those bars of gold will get you more pieces of paper than usual....but they aren't freaking out to the point where your pieces of paper can't buy a significant number of corn cobs. If we saw a huge collapse of course, none of those pieces of paper would likely be worth a single cob of corn.
Now of course there are the "other" types of wealth, as in "I have a great wife and wonderful children and am happier than I could ever imagine..." but that is an entirely different discussion...I think.
A few years back I was Sick of burning through Linksys WRT54-G Routers at the rate of one every nine months. I said to hell with it and tried out the "Buffalo" WHR-HP-54G. It started to show some signs of slowing down in the past six months, so I tried to replace it with a WRT54-G, a Linksys Wireless N, a Netgear wireless N, and a D-Link Wireless N. None of those routers gave me the throughput that my 4 year old Buffalo did. The Buffalo stock firmware leaves something to be desired, but it was easily flashed with DD-WRT.
Now, I admit that this is a little pathetic, but my in-laws really treat me quite well and despite being over 30, still drop $200 or so dollars on my wife, her two siblings, and me for Christmas despite the fact that they are not even close to being rich. So, my list included a few items with the new Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH. Sadly, that is the cheapest Buffalo with 10/100/1000 speeds on the LAN ports. While I have not tried this router yet, my past experience with the Buffalo Routers has been so positive that I have no problem recommending that you try it out.
Another crazy thing with Buffalo, I was browsing through the reviews of a Buffalo product on Amazon or Newegg or some other website. One of the guys from Tech support had popped in to answer some questions and also tossed his own EMAIL Address out there for people. It was really early one morning (3 AM central) and I had quick question so I threw it out there. I got a response from the guy 30 minutes later. That was pretty wild. I wouldn't expect that kind of service all the time for a low end consumer product, but it gives me confidence that their support team takes some pride in their work.
Note that I have never worked for Buffalo or am affiliated with them in any way... I've just been very impressed with them in my (albeit small) experience with their products.
I wouldn't say it is many times cheaper than a fixed phone. I think the cheapest actual cell phone plans are probably in the $30 range (not including pay as you go). When I had DSL for a short time I couldn't convince them that I didn't need phone service. I obviously opted for the cheapest phone service which cost about $12/month.
Are you insane? "No, you can't do business with us unless you install the browser that we like." For the sake of argument, let us say that I am a very non technical user (albeit one with a good deal of money) who has a hard time doing anything outside of clicking on Outlook to get EMAIL, clicking on Word to create documents, and clicking on Internet Explorer to browse the web. Now you are telling me that you expect me to download some Godzilla Flaming Fox thing in order to order stuff from you? That sounds like a lot of trouble at best, some interweb hacker thing to steal my information at worst. I'm going elsewhere.
I recently gutted the main menu on my company's web site because the thing didn't load 20% of the time and was really poorly written. My first try at it, it worked with IE7, IE8, and Firefox. I figured it would be fine. Calls started coming in from people unable to navigate our site at all. If I had walked into the President's office and explained that I am going to put some type of notice that the customer should just upgrade their browser, he would have either A. Laughed at the funny joke I made and told me to go fix it or B. Sacked me on the spot if he realized I was serious.
I like open source software. I like compliance to standards. I hate IE 6 (actually 7 and 8 too, but mostly 6). Unfortunately, it is my job to make the tech work for the users, not make the users do things to work with my tech. That sort of mind set will put you out of business pretty quickly unless your clients are almost entirely high tech.
Raped and Murdered? No. But how many decent people may have lost their jobs (and by extension the ability to feed and clothe their families) due to declining profits associated with the theft of data? What effect would the theft have on the company's future abilities to hire you on again as a consultant?
If I see an actual crime being committed (crimes that can impact other people negatively....that does not include such things as the worker smoking some dope on his off time) I believe it is my full responsibility to report it to those who need to know. If I owned a business and some of my employees were doing this to me, I would hope other honest employees would inform me. My time is valuable as you said but my morals are more valuable to me than billable hours or leisure time. If I woke up in the morning and couldn't look in the mirror knowing I put forward my best effort in doing what I consider to be the right thing, all else is meaningless.
This is precisely why I got out of the field I was in back in the day, which was gene therapy research. Now granted, I only have a Bachelors degree in Biochemistry and not a Masters or PhD so I couldn't expect to be at the top of the pay scale but I was doing some pretty intense work. My job was to research and create polymers that I believed would do the best job at A. Encasing DNA inside B. Not falling apart immediately C....But still fall apart when it needed to (that is, when it entered the target cell) D. Effectively targeted a specific organ (hopefully the liver, but kidneys, lungs, and heart were also good) E. Deliver the DNA in tact to the nucleus of the target cell and F. Not kill the person that would receive the treatment.
One of the most exciting days of my life was when the lab results came in from one of my more promising molecules. The guy that ran the tests on the rats was a little quirky and he was running down the hall yelling "Gene Therapy! Gene Therapy!" because I managed to approach 2% expression (5% was the real target, but 2% was the best we had done up to that point.) with the molecule. Unfortunately, I was making around $26,000 a year which was barely enough to have a small apartment, a modest car, and pay my bills. I was working 10 hours a day in the lab and then went home to think about my projects another 4 hours. I saw the other people in my lab. All unmarried. All working more hours than I was. Most on hard drugs. The work was interesting and could have great benefit for mankind if successful, but the life wasn't one I envisioned. I left to pursue a career in IT. It is rewarding..not as much so as the lab but I truly enjoy my work and relish the spare time I have for my wife, family, and friends. I miss Chemistry on occasion but I have really never looked back.
Here is the thing. My "extended support network" (myself included) prides itself on being able to do things on their own. We noticed some problems with that. Me trying to fix my car and fucking it up worse, friends trying to fix simple computer problems and ending with a computer that won't boot, etc.... I'm pretty lucky actually, much of my "extended support network" has skills that I do not and that are more expensive than computer fixing. My mechanic buddy calls me? I'll drop practically everything to help him. The guy I know that does HVAC, electrical wiring, and some plumbing? I'll help him in a snap. That guy that does drywall and other home remodeling? Sure! I'm called upon more often...but I come out ahead in the end.;)
GoTo Assist Express offers different levels of pricing. $660 per year, $69 per month, or $9.95 per incident. If they are just friends and family and want to get their stuff fixed, I think the $9.95 per incident wouldn't be that big of a deal. Explain to them that if they want their computer fixed right then, they are going to have to give you $10 next time you see them (or mail it/Paypal it to you later). I actually signed up for it when it was in beta (it was free) and ended up getting a discounted price of something like $450 a year, which my company pays for. It is a good program. I have not had any problems with users installing it....well....users that are using Internet Explorer. Firefox has some issues with installing the applet that makes it confusing for some users.
Seriously, there are people in charge of such projects that are far worse. I worked at a 600+ user company that had Network Admins that I wouldn't trust to load my Laptop with Windows XP, much less trust to implement any new systems. Typically, they tried to act busy to keep their jobs and hired expensive consultants any time actual work needed to be done. At least he is off asking about possible solutions. Everyone has their "First Time" foray as far as tech goes.
That's right! You can't get hurt in a car! Yeah, when I was in a low speed car accident years back I only broke several bones in my hand at a cost of $50,000 or so after all was told. My hand was damaged by being caught between a combination of the air bag pushing towards me and my inertia pushing towards the steering wheel.
This may sound crazy, but there are rare occasions when a smell of some sort will make me feel weak, lightheaded, and just weak in general. It seems that when it does happen it is at a person's house that has some type of potpouri or in the presence of someone wearing way too much of a certain type of perfume or cologne. It does not happen enough for me to establish a pattern or determine precisely what it is but the effects will hit me really really fast. This has happened to me since I was a real little kid. I have no scientific basis for my comment, but I do know how I feel and I assure you it is real.
I don't know, some smoker's computers can get pretty nasty. I myself do smoke cigarettes. Maybe not at an insane three pack a day rate but I do smoke. I remember some years back when I was a tech at a repair shop. I was in my very early twenties and spent a great deal of time in smoke filled bars and the like so I was pretty immune to smelling smoke.
One computer came in that was very nicotine stained on the outside, but nothing out of the ordinary. I opened the thing up and honestly almost puked. The entire motherboard was covered with something that looked like a frat house carpet. We grabbed at the corner and actually peeled up a 2 inch square glob. As I mentioned before, I smoke and (more so back then) do so at my computer desk. I have never had a computer look nearly as bad as this one. The best we could figure out is that the owner does not sleep, smokes 3 cigarettes at a time, and makes a concerted effort at exhaling directly at the computer.
Oddly, once I got over the initial revulsion factor, fixing this machine was a cinch. We peeled off several more squares of the "carpeting" and replaced the CPU fan. The computer worked perfectly after that.
This machine was a tad older and was not under any type of warranty. If it had been though, there would have been no issues with covering it. I can't even imagine telling someone that their computer wasn't covered because the inside (Which they have never seen) was exposed to too much smoke.
That said I saw a few more computers in as bad of shape and they were all dog/cat hair related. I never saw another computer where it appeared smoking was a factor.
I assume they are talking about State Schools, which is really confusing....
Step 1: Taxes are collected from the populace and some of the money is allocated to colleges.
Step 2: People enroll in college and get a tuition bill. They pay tax on their tuition bill.
Step 3: The taxes are collected from the tuition payments. Some of the money is allocated to the colleges....
Am I missing something here or would it just be easier to LOWER taxes for everyone else, give less funding to the Universities, and have the Universities charge higher tuition.... This way just seems like a plan to make the bureaucracy larger....
I do corporate support for a smallish company but also do support for a variety of really small companies and of course, do a lot of home user support. I used to be a Toshiba fanboy but I've found the failure rates to be rising sharply, especially in their consumer lines. I personally am on my second Satellite in 18 months. First one started shutting down 5-6 randomly times a day just after the warranty period ended. Current one is 6 months old and is now doing the same. I've also seen this with about 20 other laptops from various types of users. This will be the last Toshiba I own.
Conversely, I have grown to love HP's laptops. I'm talking $800-$1000 range laptops so nothing terribly high end. The shortest life I've seen out of them recently is about 2.5 years which in actuality is pretty good.
I don't know, I think your "just slightly" is more like a "barely". I do not use illegal drugs and have not for a good number of years. I know that tonight I could certainly get Marijuana, Cocaine, Crack, MDMA, Pharmacy grade methamphetamine (Adderall), any number of different types of pharmaceutical opiates (Vicodin, Percocet, Oxycontin..), and possibly Ketamine. Most of these I could obtain at one of several small suburban bars....hardly a seedy area. Maybe I just know a lot of people, maybe I just happen to know people who are into drugs, but availability does not seem to be a huge issue.
The people I knew who were addicted to drugs seemed to have more problems coming up with the money to buy them than they had difficulties finding perspective dealers. Actually, the drugs that appear the most difficult to obtain seem to be the pharmaceuticals which are actually legal in a sense.
Kind of reminds me of a friend of mine's first foray into quitting smoking. He declared that he was only going to smoke when he was drinking. He did very well with that...the only problem was he ended up getting drunk twice a day.
Wow. I didn't realize that Ibogaine could be effective for Nicotine, Alcohol, and Methamphetamine as well as opiates.
I know I'm taking a slightly off topic post and going more off topic, but does anyone have any personal experiences with Ibogaine? I know a few people who have struggled with opiate addiction. It is a struggle practically every day of their lives even after years clean. I have to remain slightly skeptical that one Ibogaine experience has such lasting effects.
Hey, I'll give Ronald Reagan credit for being a part of it, but Gorbachev is the important one here. Gorbachev had to pull out of Afghanistan, he had to let the Eastern Bloc Warsaw Pact nations determine how to handle their internal affairs. All of this was guaranteed to greatly reduce his own personal influence, and had a good chance (As it turns out, great chance) of greatly reducing the influence of communism in the world. Seeing as how Soviet Dogma suggested that the communist revolution needed to spread across the globe in order to succeed, he was basically blowing up his country in exchange for peace. On the other hand, America pretty much carried on as before.
I know this isn't particularily helpful, but if your Windows XP machine is just a gaming box, why do you need to back it up or have it share data with the other boxes? If you are worried about the drive crashing and having to reload windows and all of your games why not just toss an external hard drive on it, take an image, and put it away until your drive crashes. You are taking one OS out of the equation that way.
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For the record, I know of at least two people who really like the Netbook keyboards. My wife types much faster on it than she does a 15" laptop or standard desktop keyboard. She is a small person with small hands so it seems reasonable. Oddly, the other person I know who really likes typing on their netbook keyboard is a 6'6" guy with enormous hands. He looks comical with his netbook but claims he never was very good at typing until he started using it.
Yeah, the problem with blocking ads is that if advertising revenue shrinks to the point where the web sites cannot support themselves, the sites will have to shift to something else.....perhaps back to the subscription model. We would be free to avoid those sites, but if too many quality sites went that way it would really suck. For that reason, I'll leave the Slashdot ads on instead of clicking the box saying I can turn them off. There was an ad for a free network monitoring software called "Splunk" the other week. I even clicked on it and downloaded the software. Uhm, admittedly I have not installed it yet as I already have network monitoring tools but I will eventually check it out.
As long as the ads aren't flying across my screen and completely interfering with what I am trying to do (ESPN....I'm looking at you) I will tolerate them and occasionally even click them.
News Flash! The data on your own machine isn't really impossible for others to get at. There are all manners of Trojans, Worms, Badware, keyloggers, and whatever else meant to....get to some data on your machine. Heck, W32.Blaster (I think) got into your computer and sent E-Mail with files attached.
Listen to the advice from the member of the female gender that just posted. Your wife DOES NOT CARE what you are doing with your computer. She'll only take that crap for so long until she throws up her hands and goes out to find someone else to spend the weekends with.
Sometimes I get really wrapped in work and it carries over into the evening. Sometimes I get really wrapped up in a personal project and want to jam myself in my room for a few days. Yet...I make sure that at the minimum I stop to Sit down and eat dinner with her (take my time eating), Take another break and sit down and talk with her or watch TV for an hour or so, and finally...I go "tuck her in" at night (I stay up considerably later than she does). Sometimes "tucking in" means more, usually it is just holding her and talking to her about stuff...maybe telling her things I love about her, maybe planning things we are going to do, maybe reminiscing or something. It is during this time when she is most willing to listen to me talk about my computer work or projects, oddly enough (don't do this every night though....it will get old fast). It is amazing what a little *GASP* attention and affection can do.
One more thing....get away for a day or two once in awhile. Go somewhere just the two of you...leave the laptop and smart phone at home. Enjoy her company. If you don't enjoy it...why did you get married in the first place?
I have to agree with you here. Wikipedia isn't the "Be All, End All" of definitions, but I'm sure many people who want to know what IT is might just hit up Wiki. What does it say?
Information technology (IT), as defined by the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), is "the study, design, development, implementation, support or management of computer-based information systems, particularly software applications and computer hardware."[1] IT deals with the use of electronic computers and computer software to convert, store, protect, process, transmit, and securely retrieve information.
That really seems like a pretty decent catch all. I can get PC Technician, Software Engineer, Web Developer, I can get Network Engineer/Admin out of that, DBA out of that without stretching it one bit.
I'm the sole "IT person" at a small company. I'm mostly a Network guy but I do a lot of Database stuff, I do Desktop support, and I do some programming (Mostly as pertains to databases but I have written a few decent, but small programs including one that will run on embedded devices sold with our product). Up until fairly recently we would go into meetings with sales people or potential business partners. The President would identify himself as President, the Engineering Manager, the Controller, the Sales Manager, etc. He'd get to me, stumble with his words and eventually blurt out "He is our computer guy". He eventually asked me what I'd like to be called and now I'll get introduced as the Senior Network Engineer, the CIO, the Systems developer,The "Supreme Overlord of Technology", the "guy who stays up all night", and even once as "The Janitor". We just make crap up depending on the people we will be meeting with. I did not see a difference in the way I was treated by those we were meeting with from title to title. I even have business cards with everything except the guy who stays up all night.
When I decide to start really looking for a job, I'll concoct a suitable job title and go with that. For now...as long as they continue to pay me and treat me with a level of respect equal to that of the other employees, I could care less what they want to call me.
I'm far from being an Economist but to me, wealth is simply the amount and quality of things you have in comparison to the value others place on the things you have and what the quantity and quality of the things they would exchange for your things. Those things can be barrels of oil, cobs of corn, acres of land, bars of gold, bottles of whiskey, laptop computers, pieces of paper that hold value (Currency, Stocks, etc.), or whatever else you can think of.
Of course, the amount of things you can get in exchange for a certain item with will always change with the times. People are freaking out right now, so those bars of gold will get you more pieces of paper than usual....but they aren't freaking out to the point where your pieces of paper can't buy a significant number of corn cobs. If we saw a huge collapse of course, none of those pieces of paper would likely be worth a single cob of corn.
Now of course there are the "other" types of wealth, as in "I have a great wife and wonderful children and am happier than I could ever imagine..." but that is an entirely different discussion...I think.
A few years back I was Sick of burning through Linksys WRT54-G Routers at the rate of one every nine months. I said to hell with it and tried out the "Buffalo" WHR-HP-54G. It started to show some signs of slowing down in the past six months, so I tried to replace it with a WRT54-G, a Linksys Wireless N, a Netgear wireless N, and a D-Link Wireless N. None of those routers gave me the throughput that my 4 year old Buffalo did. The Buffalo stock firmware leaves something to be desired, but it was easily flashed with DD-WRT.
Now, I admit that this is a little pathetic, but my in-laws really treat me quite well and despite being over 30, still drop $200 or so dollars on my wife, her two siblings, and me for Christmas despite the fact that they are not even close to being rich. So, my list included a few items with the new Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH. Sadly, that is the cheapest Buffalo with 10/100/1000 speeds on the LAN ports. While I have not tried this router yet, my past experience with the Buffalo Routers has been so positive that I have no problem recommending that you try it out.
Another crazy thing with Buffalo, I was browsing through the reviews of a Buffalo product on Amazon or Newegg or some other website. One of the guys from Tech support had popped in to answer some questions and also tossed his own EMAIL Address out there for people. It was really early one morning (3 AM central) and I had quick question so I threw it out there. I got a response from the guy 30 minutes later. That was pretty wild. I wouldn't expect that kind of service all the time for a low end consumer product, but it gives me confidence that their support team takes some pride in their work.
Note that I have never worked for Buffalo or am affiliated with them in any way... I've just been very impressed with them in my (albeit small) experience with their products.
I wouldn't say it is many times cheaper than a fixed phone. I think the cheapest actual cell phone plans are probably in the $30 range (not including pay as you go). When I had DSL for a short time I couldn't convince them that I didn't need phone service. I obviously opted for the cheapest phone service which cost about $12/month.
This is why I Love this site. Everyone is always on Top of things.
Are you insane? "No, you can't do business with us unless you install the browser that we like." For the sake of argument, let us say that I am a very non technical user (albeit one with a good deal of money) who has a hard time doing anything outside of clicking on Outlook to get EMAIL, clicking on Word to create documents, and clicking on Internet Explorer to browse the web. Now you are telling me that you expect me to download some Godzilla Flaming Fox thing in order to order stuff from you? That sounds like a lot of trouble at best, some interweb hacker thing to steal my information at worst. I'm going elsewhere.
I recently gutted the main menu on my company's web site because the thing didn't load 20% of the time and was really poorly written. My first try at it, it worked with IE7, IE8, and Firefox. I figured it would be fine. Calls started coming in from people unable to navigate our site at all. If I had walked into the President's office and explained that I am going to put some type of notice that the customer should just upgrade their browser, he would have either A. Laughed at the funny joke I made and told me to go fix it or B. Sacked me on the spot if he realized I was serious.
I like open source software. I like compliance to standards. I hate IE 6 (actually 7 and 8 too, but mostly 6). Unfortunately, it is my job to make the tech work for the users, not make the users do things to work with my tech. That sort of mind set will put you out of business pretty quickly unless your clients are almost entirely high tech.
Raped and Murdered? No. But how many decent people may have lost their jobs (and by extension the ability to feed and clothe their families) due to declining profits associated with the theft of data? What effect would the theft have on the company's future abilities to hire you on again as a consultant?
If I see an actual crime being committed (crimes that can impact other people negatively....that does not include such things as the worker smoking some dope on his off time) I believe it is my full responsibility to report it to those who need to know. If I owned a business and some of my employees were doing this to me, I would hope other honest employees would inform me. My time is valuable as you said but my morals are more valuable to me than billable hours or leisure time. If I woke up in the morning and couldn't look in the mirror knowing I put forward my best effort in doing what I consider to be the right thing, all else is meaningless.
This is precisely why I got out of the field I was in back in the day, which was gene therapy research. Now granted, I only have a Bachelors degree in Biochemistry and not a Masters or PhD so I couldn't expect to be at the top of the pay scale but I was doing some pretty intense work. My job was to research and create polymers that I believed would do the best job at A. Encasing DNA inside B. Not falling apart immediately C. ...But still fall apart when it needed to (that is, when it entered the target cell) D. Effectively targeted a specific organ (hopefully the liver, but kidneys, lungs, and heart were also good) E. Deliver the DNA in tact to the nucleus of the target cell and F. Not kill the person that would receive the treatment.
One of the most exciting days of my life was when the lab results came in from one of my more promising molecules. The guy that ran the tests on the rats was a little quirky and he was running down the hall yelling "Gene Therapy! Gene Therapy!" because I managed to approach 2% expression (5% was the real target, but 2% was the best we had done up to that point.) with the molecule. Unfortunately, I was making around $26,000 a year which was barely enough to have a small apartment, a modest car, and pay my bills. I was working 10 hours a day in the lab and then went home to think about my projects another 4 hours. I saw the other people in my lab. All unmarried. All working more hours than I was. Most on hard drugs. The work was interesting and could have great benefit for mankind if successful, but the life wasn't one I envisioned. I left to pursue a career in IT. It is rewarding..not as much so as the lab but I truly enjoy my work and relish the spare time I have for my wife, family, and friends. I miss Chemistry on occasion but I have really never looked back.
Here is the thing. My "extended support network" (myself included) prides itself on being able to do things on their own. We noticed some problems with that. Me trying to fix my car and fucking it up worse, friends trying to fix simple computer problems and ending with a computer that won't boot, etc.... I'm pretty lucky actually, much of my "extended support network" has skills that I do not and that are more expensive than computer fixing. My mechanic buddy calls me? I'll drop practically everything to help him. The guy I know that does HVAC, electrical wiring, and some plumbing? I'll help him in a snap. That guy that does drywall and other home remodeling? Sure! I'm called upon more often...but I come out ahead in the end. ;)
GoTo Assist Express offers different levels of pricing. $660 per year, $69 per month, or $9.95 per incident. If they are just friends and family and want to get their stuff fixed, I think the $9.95 per incident wouldn't be that big of a deal. Explain to them that if they want their computer fixed right then, they are going to have to give you $10 next time you see them (or mail it/Paypal it to you later). I actually signed up for it when it was in beta (it was free) and ended up getting a discounted price of something like $450 a year, which my company pays for. It is a good program. I have not had any problems with users installing it....well....users that are using Internet Explorer. Firefox has some issues with installing the applet that makes it confusing for some users.
Seriously, there are people in charge of such projects that are far worse. I worked at a 600+ user company that had Network Admins that I wouldn't trust to load my Laptop with Windows XP, much less trust to implement any new systems. Typically, they tried to act busy to keep their jobs and hired expensive consultants any time actual work needed to be done. At least he is off asking about possible solutions. Everyone has their "First Time" foray as far as tech goes.
That's right! You can't get hurt in a car! Yeah, when I was in a low speed car accident years back I only broke several bones in my hand at a cost of $50,000 or so after all was told. My hand was damaged by being caught between a combination of the air bag pushing towards me and my inertia pushing towards the steering wheel.
This may sound crazy, but there are rare occasions when a smell of some sort will make me feel weak, lightheaded, and just weak in general. It seems that when it does happen it is at a person's house that has some type of potpouri or in the presence of someone wearing way too much of a certain type of perfume or cologne. It does not happen enough for me to establish a pattern or determine precisely what it is but the effects will hit me really really fast. This has happened to me since I was a real little kid. I have no scientific basis for my comment, but I do know how I feel and I assure you it is real.
I don't know, some smoker's computers can get pretty nasty. I myself do smoke cigarettes. Maybe not at an insane three pack a day rate but I do smoke. I remember some years back when I was a tech at a repair shop. I was in my very early twenties and spent a great deal of time in smoke filled bars and the like so I was pretty immune to smelling smoke.
One computer came in that was very nicotine stained on the outside, but nothing out of the ordinary. I opened the thing up and honestly almost puked. The entire motherboard was covered with something that looked like a frat house carpet. We grabbed at the corner and actually peeled up a 2 inch square glob. As I mentioned before, I smoke and (more so back then) do so at my computer desk. I have never had a computer look nearly as bad as this one. The best we could figure out is that the owner does not sleep, smokes 3 cigarettes at a time, and makes a concerted effort at exhaling directly at the computer.
Oddly, once I got over the initial revulsion factor, fixing this machine was a cinch. We peeled off several more squares of the "carpeting" and replaced the CPU fan. The computer worked perfectly after that.
This machine was a tad older and was not under any type of warranty. If it had been though, there would have been no issues with covering it. I can't even imagine telling someone that their computer wasn't covered because the inside (Which they have never seen) was exposed to too much smoke.
That said I saw a few more computers in as bad of shape and they were all dog/cat hair related. I never saw another computer where it appeared smoking was a factor.
I assume they are talking about State Schools, which is really confusing....
Step 1: Taxes are collected from the populace and some of the money is allocated to colleges.
Step 2: People enroll in college and get a tuition bill. They pay tax on their tuition bill.
Step 3: The taxes are collected from the tuition payments. Some of the money is allocated to the colleges....
Am I missing something here or would it just be easier to LOWER taxes for everyone else, give less funding to the Universities, and have the Universities charge higher tuition.... This way just seems like a plan to make the bureaucracy larger....
I do corporate support for a smallish company but also do support for a variety of really small companies and of course, do a lot of home user support. I used to be a Toshiba fanboy but I've found the failure rates to be rising sharply, especially in their consumer lines. I personally am on my second Satellite in 18 months. First one started shutting down 5-6 randomly times a day just after the warranty period ended. Current one is 6 months old and is now doing the same. I've also seen this with about 20 other laptops from various types of users. This will be the last Toshiba I own.
Conversely, I have grown to love HP's laptops. I'm talking $800-$1000 range laptops so nothing terribly high end. The shortest life I've seen out of them recently is about 2.5 years which in actuality is pretty good.
I don't know, I think your "just slightly" is more like a "barely". I do not use illegal drugs and have not for a good number of years. I know that tonight I could certainly get Marijuana, Cocaine, Crack, MDMA, Pharmacy grade methamphetamine (Adderall), any number of different types of pharmaceutical opiates (Vicodin, Percocet, Oxycontin..), and possibly Ketamine. Most of these I could obtain at one of several small suburban bars....hardly a seedy area. Maybe I just know a lot of people, maybe I just happen to know people who are into drugs, but availability does not seem to be a huge issue.
The people I knew who were addicted to drugs seemed to have more problems coming up with the money to buy them than they had difficulties finding perspective dealers. Actually, the drugs that appear the most difficult to obtain seem to be the pharmaceuticals which are actually legal in a sense.
Kind of reminds me of a friend of mine's first foray into quitting smoking. He declared that he was only going to smoke when he was drinking. He did very well with that...the only problem was he ended up getting drunk twice a day.
Wow. I didn't realize that Ibogaine could be effective for Nicotine, Alcohol, and Methamphetamine as well as opiates.
I know I'm taking a slightly off topic post and going more off topic, but does anyone have any personal experiences with Ibogaine? I know a few people who have struggled with opiate addiction. It is a struggle practically every day of their lives even after years clean. I have to remain slightly skeptical that one Ibogaine experience has such lasting effects.
Hey, I'll give Ronald Reagan credit for being a part of it, but Gorbachev is the important one here. Gorbachev had to pull out of Afghanistan, he had to let the Eastern Bloc Warsaw Pact nations determine how to handle their internal affairs. All of this was guaranteed to greatly reduce his own personal influence, and had a good chance (As it turns out, great chance) of greatly reducing the influence of communism in the world. Seeing as how Soviet Dogma suggested that the communist revolution needed to spread across the globe in order to succeed, he was basically blowing up his country in exchange for peace. On the other hand, America pretty much carried on as before.
I know this isn't particularily helpful, but if your Windows XP machine is just a gaming box, why do you need to back it up or have it share data with the other boxes? If you are worried about the drive crashing and having to reload windows and all of your games why not just toss an external hard drive on it, take an image, and put it away until your drive crashes. You are taking one OS out of the equation that way.