A place I used to work, we had a "Home grown" helpdesk app. It sucked boulders through straws. We had one guy at another site who would enter in all his tickets at the end of the day then close them.
The helpdesk manager saw that and decided to "Adjust the system to better reflect the data."
What that bonehead did was take one of the levels away. We had one that was for 2 weeks and we used it for long term issues like ordering a new system and setting it up for a user.
His new metric was 3 days.
He kept scratching his bald head when the SLA's being missed went through the roof.
That pile of drek was eventually scrapped when all the desktop and systems admins stopped using it at all. (You spent more time adding the ticket then it took to fix the problem)
Uh huh. I gather you aren't from these parts. Might I suggest you google Article 10 of the NH state constitution? Very interesting read and is occasionally brought to the attention of the Pols here.
I voted in the primary and we used paper ballots. I'm also in a major city. If there was fraud, it was probably actual voter fraud. NH has one of the more asinine policies for registering. All you have to do is show up and announce that you are "planning" to move to NH and you can register to vote.
Organized fraud? Highly doubtful. People just coming up from Mass and Vermont and saying they were moving into the state? It wouldn't surprise me at all.
I have Verizon for my home phone and until recently had them as my cell carrier. The cell coverage was quite good, but one of the reasons I left is their habit of crippling their phones. When my contract ended I started looking at new phones. I wanted one with a better camera, bluetooth file transfers etc. What I found was that the only way you could transfer files and pictures was via Verizons service. (At a nice charge too)
I read about how they crippled phones so people had no choice, and their attitude was "Tough! Take it or leave it." So I left after almost 15 years. (My first cell was a bag phone from Nynex)
I went with AT&T for the reason stated above and because I could use the phone overseas. (Either paying for the service or setting up a number on the local telephone company)
I've also been looking at their DSL service and when FIOS is rolled to my city I will probably look at duping Comcast and going with them.
On the house phone I have the bare minimum plus caller ID. Otherwise I use my cell phone or Skype Out. (Even with the problem they had, it's been a great service for a very reasonable price)
Just my $0.02
I can see you never spent 16 hours building out an engineering system. The last job I worked we couldn't wait to lock down the systems. The problem wasn't viruses so much, although that was an issue, as it was adware, spyware and stuff breaking applications we used. Once we locked down the desktops our calls dropped dramatically.
The one problem area were the sales force. Since they had laptops, worked out of the office for long periods of time, and always needed help, we had to leave them with rights to their systems. We did this so we could walk them through the problem and have not have to bring the system in. I had one person who would call us complaining his system was running very slow. I would go down to his office and find all sorts of junk he had installed.
Of course the first program invited all it's friends along for the ride. I would spend a couple of hours decontaminating it and then tell him the policy about installing unauthorized software. A week later he would call again with the same complaint. Again he was found to have loaded the "Latest cool toy" on his system.
Another case was the sales guy who liked music. So he installed Kazaa on his laptop and was sharing out half his hard drive. We found out by accident when he called about a problem. The tech working remotely on his system had logged out the user and was logging herself in. She was chatting with the network security manager when the system came up and kaazaa started running. The security manager took one look at that and exploded. That was a very messy incident and this guy was almost fired.
Locking down the systems is done to lower the workload for the IT people. You may think that having the rights to update firefox would make life simpler for people like me. How do we know that the new version will work with our older web based applications? I've had that happen too.
Just remember one thing. That isn't your computer. It belongs to the company you work for. The IT department is responsible for keeping running and you working. Downtime costs money.
If I were going to rebel against the govt. (Hello NSA! just speculating here!!) I wouldn't go up against the military. I would studiously avoid them. I would go after the bozos running the government instead. Knock off a dozen or so politicians, and the rest might get the message.
Shoot a few dozen soldiers and the rest come after you with really big things that go boom in the night. Besides, After the revolution we're going to need to be on good terms with them to help us crush our enemies.:)
Now on the military splitting ala the union and confederates. It ain't gonna happen. If enough people start moving against the gov, the military will sit it out and simply say "Posse Comitatus. This is a civilian law enforcement issue. We'll just keep the foreign enemies out and protect the nukes. Call us when its over."
They do not want a repeat of history and have a blue/gray situation again. Unlike a lot of people, they learned from that painful lesson. I have no doubt there is some contingency plan on a shelf somewhere on what to do if this scenario should happen.
I haven't traveled anywhere near as much as you have, but I have been to China a couple of times. I don't speak the language, but I didn't try to make myself understood by speaking slowly and YELLING AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS.
I just did my best and let the nice lady who is now my wife do all the talking. I was also quite willing to make a minor fool of myself when needed. Case in point. When I met my wifes family for the first time it was at a big dinner they threw for me. Of course there were no forks.
When it came time to use the chop sticks, I hesitated a bit just as everyone else made ready. I do know how to use them, but I noticed the looks in everyone's eyes.
"Let's see how the silly American uses proper eating utensils" Being a "Typical arrogant American", I took one stick in each hand, grinned madly and drove them into a bowl of rice.
That basically broke the ice. I showed I was willing to be silly and not be an ass.
Only once was there a point that could have been a problem. One of my hosts started asking why Bush wanted to invade Iraq. (This was just before we went in and removed that genocidal maniac and his sadistic offspring)
Being a guest in that country, I didn't want to get into debates about politics. I replied that it was a family tradition. A Bush becomes president, and then invades Iraq. This generated a few good natured chuckles and let them know I wasn't going to talk about politics, ours or Chinese.
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A place I used to work, we had a "Home grown" helpdesk app. It sucked boulders through straws. We had one guy at another site who would enter in all his tickets at the end of the day then close them. The helpdesk manager saw that and decided to "Adjust the system to better reflect the data." What that bonehead did was take one of the levels away. We had one that was for 2 weeks and we used it for long term issues like ordering a new system and setting it up for a user. His new metric was 3 days. He kept scratching his bald head when the SLA's being missed went through the roof. That pile of drek was eventually scrapped when all the desktop and systems admins stopped using it at all. (You spent more time adding the ticket then it took to fix the problem)
Uh huh. I gather you aren't from these parts. Might I suggest you google Article 10 of the NH state constitution? Very interesting read and is occasionally brought to the attention of the Pols here.
I live near Spitbrook and I've seen that plate around the area for years. I've never known the story behind it though.
The heck with the B1, I want to know if it can be mounted on the head of a shark!
Oh this is going to make my wife angry. She loves these sort of movies.
;)
She's also Chinese in the states on a Green Card.
She loves movies of creatures eating people.
I voted in the primary and we used paper ballots. I'm also in a major city. If there was fraud, it was probably actual voter fraud. NH has one of the more asinine policies for registering. All you have to do is show up and announce that you are "planning" to move to NH and you can register to vote.
Organized fraud? Highly doubtful. People just coming up from Mass and Vermont and saying they were moving into the state? It wouldn't surprise me at all.
I have Verizon for my home phone and until recently had them as my cell carrier. The cell coverage was quite good, but one of the reasons I left is their habit of crippling their phones. When my contract ended I started looking at new phones. I wanted one with a better camera, bluetooth file transfers etc. What I found was that the only way you could transfer files and pictures was via Verizons service. (At a nice charge too) I read about how they crippled phones so people had no choice, and their attitude was "Tough! Take it or leave it." So I left after almost 15 years. (My first cell was a bag phone from Nynex) I went with AT&T for the reason stated above and because I could use the phone overseas. (Either paying for the service or setting up a number on the local telephone company) I've also been looking at their DSL service and when FIOS is rolled to my city I will probably look at duping Comcast and going with them. On the house phone I have the bare minimum plus caller ID. Otherwise I use my cell phone or Skype Out. (Even with the problem they had, it's been a great service for a very reasonable price) Just my $0.02
I can see you never spent 16 hours building out an engineering system. The last job I worked we couldn't wait to lock down the systems. The problem wasn't viruses so much, although that was an issue, as it was adware, spyware and stuff breaking applications we used. Once we locked down the desktops our calls dropped dramatically.
The one problem area were the sales force. Since they had laptops, worked out of the office for long periods of time, and always needed help, we had to leave them with rights to their systems. We did this so we could walk them through the problem and have not have to bring the system in. I had one person who would call us complaining his system was running very slow. I would go down to his office and find all sorts of junk he had installed.
Of course the first program invited all it's friends along for the ride. I would spend a couple of hours decontaminating it and then tell him the policy about installing unauthorized software. A week later he would call again with the same complaint. Again he was found to have loaded the "Latest cool toy" on his system.
Another case was the sales guy who liked music. So he installed Kazaa on his laptop and was sharing out half his hard drive. We found out by accident when he called about a problem. The tech working remotely on his system had logged out the user and was logging herself in. She was chatting with the network security manager when the system came up and kaazaa started running. The security manager took one look at that and exploded. That was a very messy incident and this guy was almost fired.
Locking down the systems is done to lower the workload for the IT people. You may think that having the rights to update firefox would make life simpler for people like me. How do we know that the new version will work with our older web based applications? I've had that happen too.
Just remember one thing. That isn't your computer. It belongs to the company you work for. The IT department is responsible for keeping running and you working. Downtime costs money.
If I were going to rebel against the govt. (Hello NSA! just speculating here!!) I wouldn't go up against the military. I would studiously avoid them. I would go after the bozos running the government instead. Knock off a dozen or so politicians, and the rest might get the message.
:)
Shoot a few dozen soldiers and the rest come after you with really big things that go boom in the night. Besides, After the revolution we're going to need to be on good terms with them to help us crush our enemies.
Now on the military splitting ala the union and confederates. It ain't gonna happen. If enough people start moving against the gov, the military will sit it out and simply say "Posse Comitatus. This is a civilian law enforcement issue. We'll just keep the foreign enemies out and protect the nukes. Call us when its over."
They do not want a repeat of history and have a blue/gray situation again. Unlike a lot of people, they learned from that painful lesson. I have no doubt there is some contingency plan on a shelf somewhere on what to do if this scenario should happen.
I haven't traveled anywhere near as much as you have, but I have been to China a couple of times. I don't speak the language, but I didn't try to make myself understood by speaking slowly and YELLING AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS.
:)
I just did my best and let the nice lady who is now my wife do all the talking. I was also quite willing to make a minor fool of myself when needed. Case in point. When I met my wifes family for the first time it was at a big dinner they threw for me. Of course there were no forks.
When it came time to use the chop sticks, I hesitated a bit just as everyone else made ready. I do know how to use them, but I noticed the looks in everyone's eyes.
"Let's see how the silly American uses proper eating utensils"
Being a "Typical arrogant American", I took one stick in each hand, grinned madly and drove them into a bowl of rice.
That basically broke the ice. I showed I was willing to be silly and not be an ass.
Only once was there a point that could have been a problem. One of my hosts started asking why Bush wanted to invade Iraq.
(This was just before we went in and removed that genocidal maniac and his sadistic offspring)
Being a guest in that country, I didn't want to get into debates about politics. I replied that it was a family tradition. A Bush becomes president, and then invades Iraq. This generated a few good natured chuckles and let them know I wasn't going to talk about politics, ours or Chinese.
Oh yes, the food was terrific too!