Welcome to the club. Fortunately I was able to retire at 39 (although it was due to medical problems {sigh}) but you couldn't pay me enough to fix some of the problems that people want me to consult on and fix. Dirt cheap.
These days I keep my hand in by working with various projects that are mildly interesting around the world and the odd beta or three. Sorry companies, I've had enough use and abuse. You are not worth the pain.
How is this different from those of us that have signed multiple NDA's or have a (high-level) security clearence. Now I can't discuss precise details about either but I will say that I've been living this life subject to both above; heck they (you know who) monitor my whereabouts and activities to this day (and no, I'm not paranoid). I even have to ask permission for foreign travel.
I also am frequently engaged in product testing for competitors on similar products. Yet I have no problem compartmentilizing my life between my various activities. Just as I would not discuss upcoming features in VMWare with people involved in the Microsoft Virtual Server R2 group, I wouldn't reveal classified information to anyone. I take my oaths and contracts seriously as do any player who wants to remain a player. Break your word once and your reputation is toast.
Furthermore, all these companies need to get a clue. Turnover in all aspects of the IT community is a fact of life. The average is less than two years in any development and many other IT jobs. They won't pay to keep people and frequently won't even engage in upgrading their skills. That's something left to the employee. So when they jump ship, they are surprised? BTW, what about all those H-1B's that take those skills and competitive information back to their home countries at the end of their employment? They aren't using it? I don't think so. They are. It is just that the legal systems in those countries don't give our mega-corps legal recourse.
IBM does some nice things. Even a developer ID, with all those nice packages, DVD's, alpha and betas is dead easy to get. I've had one for years now. And the documentation available for free is simply awesome. "Need INPUT!";-)
Not like Microsoft at all where you have to pay for the privilege of documentation that is useful (and I have paid and paid and...).
Off-topic: Your comments about programming are dead on for most everyone I've taught/tutored over the years. Some of us can handle the level of abstraction in Stroustrup or K&R, most can't. Start with baby-steps and work your way up before you try hurdling! Thanks for the link.
Okay, sounds like they are using Perl then, or one of the other languages, that keys off of special characters. Hmmm... I wonder why they just don't use a filter and escape the dang things. I use filters all the time to make sure that such things as SQL injection attacks can't happen. Weird.
The only problem with that scenario is that DirectX still doesn't work right on a virtual architecture. I know, it was part of the the most recent beta for VMWare Workstation and a lot of DirectX apps simply break. Virtual Server from MS isn't even trying in that regard as I'm doing the beta for R2 now. Vista will be heavily dependent on DirectX. So until that particular hole is fixed by someone (Intel? AMD?), this is all a pipe dream. Someday, maybe.
Ah! Given that I have never in all my years on the web, since the very beginning and ARPANet before that, I've never searched on special characters, I'm not surprised I didn't know that. However, I think that is more an interface problem. Why don't you drop by Google and suggest that they have some escape sequence for special characters. It'd be another feather in their cap as they aren't the only ones that need it.
I've been saying that for over a decade. Until someone other than Microsoft captures the corporate desktop, market share is a dream. Sure, people want their machines to play games as well, but the actual hardware/OS decisions are driven primarily by what people have at work. VPN/SSL solutions are only going to exacerbate the problem of tghe corporate desktop monopoly.
This is where the government screwed up in the MS monopoly case. It's the MS Office monopoly stupid!
Disclaimer: I'm mostly a MS (l)user here (Windows Server 2003 Enterprise is my workstation OS) although I'm trying to get better.
Unless you need the server experience for some reason, I have no idea why are going to spend all that money, including recurring costs such as power and replacement parts as the machine ages, just to do your web projects. For less than $30 per month you can find some hosting provider with the right mix of features for you. Heck, mine provides every bell and whistle you can think of from.NET/SQL Server 2000 on down on the MS side and PHP/MySQL/etc. on the FOSS side for the same account, 20 GB of space, and 2 GB of traffic a month. That's what I use for my projects as it's flexible as hell. Furthermore since I'm hosted, via my reseller, at iPlanet, I don't think I'll have any downtime in the next millennium;-). Many of the hosting providers for LAMPs based systems even provide a command line and even more space.
Economically it makes no sense to go any other way unless there is an overriding reason to do so. Push the security updates, costs, and maintenance off to someone else.
It's not just an American thing if you know your history. It's a story as old as the human race. We put whomever up on a pedestal and then go looking for the feet of clay. I've been expecting it for a while.
Precisely. It's a zero defect environment which most CS graduates, and more than a few technicians, can't seem to grasp. Real engineering does not allow defects, or where they will occur makes provisions. Nuclear meltdowns, or mangled payrolls for that matter, are so messy.
Yeah, I caught that too in my usual batch of industry rags this week. One of my friends is consolidating a whole raft of Linux servers onto one z-series using virtualization. Not only will it be more reliable for this firm but their recurring costs, power especially, will be lower and they won't have to upgrade their server room cooling.
To paraphrase, the death of the mainframe has been sadly exaggerated.
That hit a nerve here too. My idea of a good time is reading a manual or three, journals, a good book on computer hardware design, compiler construction, Tannenbaum, or even the Demon book for the umpteenth time. Raiding IBM's online library is a primary activity here. Actually, I acquired the habit very early in life when I chewed my way through the entire set of IBM/360 and OS/360 manuals at the local university at the tender age of 12 in a month. [Funny story there, I also learned how to turn off the accounting system for my jobs in JCL! Took them years to catch on.]
Most of the IT people I've met are completely unwilling to learn anything new until they are forced and they want to have their hands held via company supplied training and certification. To date I still don't have a single cert, but I've never lacked for jobs, all via networking and a huge stack of gold-plated references. There are a few rare exceptions out there to the trend but I consider many people in IT, even with CS degrees mere technicians, which isn't to put down technicians, we need them too. However, it might explain why so much software sucks.
All too frequently I'd get handed a project, do my systems analysis, identify the problem domain(s), data structures, algorithms, etc., and have to learn a new language or suite to get the job done. All in a month. The longest I ever had was six weeks. And these were most emphatically not small projects. Heck, many of the problem domains I worked in are only becoming common today (BPM, predictive logics,...). I should also point out that, to date, no one has ever found a bug in my (fully documented) code. Actually, I spent most of my time creating work-arounds for OS bugs. And this covers thirty years of programming.
If you want to warm a chair doing just one thing for your whole life, you'll be sadly disappointed as the sands of technology shift under your feet. But I don't have to tell you that. You already know.
It's amazingly short sighted.
Well, we should expect that actually. US businesses tend to be focused, at worst, on the current quarter or, at best, the current fiscal year. Anything else is totally outside their mental horizon. I found that out when I went back to the university and some business courses were part of the economics portion of my (next) degree. Going out to the business world was even more of a shock as they were even more short-sighted than the professors at the university.
Given that short-sightedness, is it any wonder that it spills over into investments in "human capital" as we call it in economics? We have countries and companies around the world making that investment, while we fiddle.
As for myself, I made the effort to engage in life-long learning, something that I continue despite being retired. That's the only way to keep ahead of the game, otherwise you'll lose.
I don't know. I rather liked the Harris-300s that I worked on although I must admit they were a bit weird. I got lucky and hooked up with one of their field techs once who gave me the full up system tape with all the compilers, tools, and documentation, something the US Navy did not have anywhere that I heard of. That made all the difference I suppose.
I never did get any training on the beast, totally self-taught which was also extremely unusual at the time. I do hear that they've switched to using Unix now, for the few that are left, though.
Ah, VOS (Vulcan OS), ISAM, Cobol (what's a Cobol?). Those were the days. *Wiping away a tear*. NOT!
You obviously are not familiar with either modern mainframes nor the applications or environments in which they are employed. Just from an economic perspective, when you price that rack of servers, even blade servers, against comparable computational power you'll find that the mainframe comes in cheaper, often much cheaper. And that does not even count recurring costs (power, HVAC, etc.) which are much lower due to efficiencies. Furthermore, from a systems engineering perspective, your rack has more single points of failure with less redundancy than your z9 server. Any time you increase the number of parts you decrease reliability. I'd much rather have that mainframe, thank you, and my experience covers the entire range of computer engineering aside from the other fields of engineering that I have worked in professionally.
One more point. Mainframes today extensively incorporate co-processors, e.g. I/O processors, to increase through-put. That through-put simply can not be matched even if you were using gigabit ethernet between your servers and blades. In a highly transactional environment, you lose. Big iron has its place just as every other device has a niche in our industry. I've worked on all of them, mainframe to microcomputer. You don't use a sledgehammer when a ball peen hammer is called for, nor do you use a ball peen when a sledge is called for. Use the right tool for the job.
I wish I had mod points as you're dead on in your post. I've always tailored each resume with an eye towards the job specifications. Another point is to engage in extensive research into the company not only concerning their current and past projects but even financials especially if you expect to be around for more than one project.
On the cover letter I always like to emphasize the fit between my skills and their requirements. Ditto any special capabilities such as flexibility, ability to learn new skills in very short time periods, etc. Anything to get past those durn liberal arts majors to talk to the (real) technical people where you can strut your stuff.
The problem here is that aside from vague generalities, any discussion of specifics, especially concerning vendor equipment would violate OPSEC. A computer that handles SECRET material, or higher, is similarly classified as that as well, including all the specific details about software and hardware implementation. Consult with a security officer, read your contract, and read those regulations. Beyond that, at best you can only deal in generalities about publically known information. Period.
Vendor. Period. You don't even want to deal with the expense and delays in getting a home-built system compliant with DoD regulations. And that doesn't even address physical security which is a whole kettle of worms by itself. I spent much of my career in those vaults. I'd seriously consider a consultant/vendor for that as well. Someone with a track-record in the field and the right clearence level so that later site inspection issues can be addressed in case one should arise.
As a matter of fact, I don't believe it's possible to build such a computer without certain specialized electrical/electronic engineering knowledge. TEMPEST is a pain. Been there, done that, burned the t-shirt. Not fun.
"..they hiring?"
That was my question as well. I'm glad I read the thread completely first. I'm even authorized to do micro-miniature (2M) and TEMPEST repairs:-). Those regulations were no fun at all.
Actually, I know Unix quite well right down to the details of how it works at the assembler/C level since I've been working with it since the '70's. I watch the march of privilege escalation problems march by in the security notices that I receive on a daily basis. A privilege escalation is a privilege escalation whether we are speaking about Windows, OS/X, or some form of *nix. True, *nix is inherently more secure by design but the defects in the applications are a killer, not counting the occasional (rare) kernel bug. {Shrug} Nothing is perfect, to date.
The way to deal with it is to exercise that thing we call a brain when working on computers. Something that I see rarely happen in practice {sigh}.
Actually I've had zero false positives to date with BitDefender and that's with the freebie implementation. I do have MD5 hashes, tucked in a locked/encrypted drive, just in case I do run into a possible false positive, but I'm very paranoid. The only irritating thing about the product is that some of my security/penetration testing tools set it off as well which surprised me at first but it makes sense after I thought about it. I now keep them locked up as well.
Very nice tool, although I'm adding ClamAV to the mix to have a second check; something I did for years (since '87) back when I was a file librarian on CompuServe.
Is is paranoia when they really are out to get you?
Actually this dates back to the Puritans. The whole thing is rather funny, actually, since people married when they were somewhere between 10 and 14 years old way back when. It is only in modern times that we don't consider people an adult until the age of 18 and that is rather a modern innovation, it having been 21 before.
So, so-called children were engaging in sex well before what we consider the age of consent today. Not only that, they were marrying older men, or women, to consolidate property way back when. Weird world this. All of a sudden, in the industrial age, we consider people who were considered adults now children.
As for you flame-bait concerning abortion and gay marriage, well both were left out of the Constitution for a reason. First off, abortion has existed for thousands of years, not simple and frequently with health hazards. However the Founding Fathers didn't think it was the business of the Federal Government, leaving it to the states or the individuals (10th Amendment in case you don't remember that one). For gay marriage, well since marriage is about the preservation of property for your progeny, it didn't seem an issue in the time when gay couples could not have progeny. That has changed of course.
Frankly, I couldn't care less about what marriage laws are Constitutional since it has never been addressed. That sole right is reserved to the States and the People (again, 10th Amendment). What has munged the whole process is that each state has to recognize what another state has done judicially. Fix that and all will be bliss.
I just use a nice little program that, among many other features, happens to synch the clock over HTTP. It's called Naviscope and is, the last time I looked, now abandonware. No biggie since they never charged for it in the first place.
Other features include: DNS caching, programmable (delayable) prefetch by site including number of threads and depth, blocking of (simple) advertisements, site backgrounds, blinking text, pop-ups (while loading or entirely), UserAgent, Referrer, cookies, Javascripts, and sounds. All that can be set for default as well as on a site by site basis. My default is block everything which keeps the malware sites confused and limited;-).
Other handy features include recording all headers in and out of the program and your system as well as building a site map (handy for programming web crawlers). And of course, given all those functions, it is a web proxy.
I've been using it some five odd years or more now and it goes on all my Windows systems. For *nix, which may be what we are discussing here, you'll have to hack your own.
If your are interested, Google will turn it up in the first few entries (PCWorld site in #1 but you may desire a different source). Enjoy.
Slashdot Mirror
These days I keep my hand in by working with various projects that are mildly interesting around the world and the odd beta or three. Sorry companies, I've had enough use and abuse. You are not worth the pain.
I also am frequently engaged in product testing for competitors on similar products. Yet I have no problem compartmentilizing my life between my various activities. Just as I would not discuss upcoming features in VMWare with people involved in the Microsoft Virtual Server R2 group, I wouldn't reveal classified information to anyone. I take my oaths and contracts seriously as do any player who wants to remain a player. Break your word once and your reputation is toast.
Furthermore, all these companies need to get a clue. Turnover in all aspects of the IT community is a fact of life. The average is less than two years in any development and many other IT jobs. They won't pay to keep people and frequently won't even engage in upgrading their skills. That's something left to the employee. So when they jump ship, they are surprised? BTW, what about all those H-1B's that take those skills and competitive information back to their home countries at the end of their employment? They aren't using it? I don't think so. They are. It is just that the legal systems in those countries don't give our mega-corps legal recourse.
Get a clue big guys!
IBM does some nice things. Even a developer ID, with all those nice packages, DVD's, alpha and betas is dead easy to get. I've had one for years now. And the documentation available for free is simply awesome. "Need INPUT!" ;-)
Not like Microsoft at all where you have to pay for the privilege of documentation that is useful (and I have paid and paid and...).
Off-topic: Your comments about programming are dead on for most everyone I've taught/tutored over the years. Some of us can handle the level of abstraction in Stroustrup or K&R, most can't. Start with baby-steps and work your way up before you try hurdling! Thanks for the link.
Okay, sounds like they are using Perl then, or one of the other languages, that keys off of special characters. Hmmm... I wonder why they just don't use a filter and escape the dang things. I use filters all the time to make sure that such things as SQL injection attacks can't happen. Weird.
The only problem with that scenario is that DirectX still doesn't work right on a virtual architecture. I know, it was part of the the most recent beta for VMWare Workstation and a lot of DirectX apps simply break. Virtual Server from MS isn't even trying in that regard as I'm doing the beta for R2 now. Vista will be heavily dependent on DirectX. So until that particular hole is fixed by someone (Intel? AMD?), this is all a pipe dream. Someday, maybe.
Ah! Given that I have never in all my years on the web, since the very beginning and ARPANet before that, I've never searched on special characters, I'm not surprised I didn't know that. However, I think that is more an interface problem. Why don't you drop by Google and suggest that they have some escape sequence for special characters. It'd be another feather in their cap as they aren't the only ones that need it.
This is where the government screwed up in the MS monopoly case. It's the MS Office monopoly stupid!
Disclaimer: I'm mostly a MS (l)user here (Windows Server 2003 Enterprise is my workstation OS) although I'm trying to get better.
Economically it makes no sense to go any other way unless there is an overriding reason to do so. Push the security updates, costs, and maintenance off to someone else.
What? You can't put quotes (") around your search string? I've been using that for dog's ages with all the search engines.
It's not just an American thing if you know your history. It's a story as old as the human race. We put whomever up on a pedestal and then go looking for the feet of clay. I've been expecting it for a while.
Precisely. It's a zero defect environment which most CS graduates, and more than a few technicians, can't seem to grasp. Real engineering does not allow defects, or where they will occur makes provisions. Nuclear meltdowns, or mangled payrolls for that matter, are so messy.
To paraphrase, the death of the mainframe has been sadly exaggerated.
Most of the IT people I've met are completely unwilling to learn anything new until they are forced and they want to have their hands held via company supplied training and certification. To date I still don't have a single cert, but I've never lacked for jobs, all via networking and a huge stack of gold-plated references. There are a few rare exceptions out there to the trend but I consider many people in IT, even with CS degrees mere technicians, which isn't to put down technicians, we need them too. However, it might explain why so much software sucks.
All too frequently I'd get handed a project, do my systems analysis, identify the problem domain(s), data structures, algorithms, etc., and have to learn a new language or suite to get the job done. All in a month. The longest I ever had was six weeks. And these were most emphatically not small projects. Heck, many of the problem domains I worked in are only becoming common today (BPM, predictive logics,...). I should also point out that, to date, no one has ever found a bug in my (fully documented) code. Actually, I spent most of my time creating work-arounds for OS bugs. And this covers thirty years of programming.
If you want to warm a chair doing just one thing for your whole life, you'll be sadly disappointed as the sands of technology shift under your feet. But I don't have to tell you that. You already know.
Given that short-sightedness, is it any wonder that it spills over into investments in "human capital" as we call it in economics? We have countries and companies around the world making that investment, while we fiddle.
As for myself, I made the effort to engage in life-long learning, something that I continue despite being retired. That's the only way to keep ahead of the game, otherwise you'll lose.
I never did get any training on the beast, totally self-taught which was also extremely unusual at the time. I do hear that they've switched to using Unix now, for the few that are left, though.
Ah, VOS (Vulcan OS), ISAM, Cobol (what's a Cobol?). Those were the days. *Wiping away a tear*. NOT!
One more point. Mainframes today extensively incorporate co-processors, e.g. I/O processors, to increase through-put. That through-put simply can not be matched even if you were using gigabit ethernet between your servers and blades. In a highly transactional environment, you lose. Big iron has its place just as every other device has a niche in our industry. I've worked on all of them, mainframe to microcomputer. You don't use a sledgehammer when a ball peen hammer is called for, nor do you use a ball peen when a sledge is called for. Use the right tool for the job.
Gawd I hate (language/OS/hardware) chauvinists.
On the cover letter I always like to emphasize the fit between my skills and their requirements. Ditto any special capabilities such as flexibility, ability to learn new skills in very short time periods, etc. Anything to get past those durn liberal arts majors to talk to the (real) technical people where you can strut your stuff.
Sorry, but that's life in the black world.
As a matter of fact, I don't believe it's possible to build such a computer without certain specialized electrical/electronic engineering knowledge. TEMPEST is a pain. Been there, done that, burned the t-shirt. Not fun.
"..they hiring?" That was my question as well. I'm glad I read the thread completely first. I'm even authorized to do micro-miniature (2M) and TEMPEST repairs :-). Those regulations were no fun at all.
Actually, I know Unix quite well right down to the details of how it works at the assembler/C level since I've been working with it since the '70's. I watch the march of privilege escalation problems march by in the security notices that I receive on a daily basis. A privilege escalation is a privilege escalation whether we are speaking about Windows, OS/X, or some form of *nix. True, *nix is inherently more secure by design but the defects in the applications are a killer, not counting the occasional (rare) kernel bug. {Shrug} Nothing is perfect, to date. The way to deal with it is to exercise that thing we call a brain when working on computers. Something that I see rarely happen in practice {sigh}.
Actually I've had zero false positives to date with BitDefender and that's with the freebie implementation. I do have MD5 hashes, tucked in a locked/encrypted drive, just in case I do run into a possible false positive, but I'm very paranoid. The only irritating thing about the product is that some of my security/penetration testing tools set it off as well which surprised me at first but it makes sense after I thought about it. I now keep them locked up as well. Very nice tool, although I'm adding ClamAV to the mix to have a second check; something I did for years (since '87) back when I was a file librarian on CompuServe. Is is paranoia when they really are out to get you?
So, so-called children were engaging in sex well before what we consider the age of consent today. Not only that, they were marrying older men, or women, to consolidate property way back when. Weird world this. All of a sudden, in the industrial age, we consider people who were considered adults now children.
As for you flame-bait concerning abortion and gay marriage, well both were left out of the Constitution for a reason. First off, abortion has existed for thousands of years, not simple and frequently with health hazards. However the Founding Fathers didn't think it was the business of the Federal Government, leaving it to the states or the individuals (10th Amendment in case you don't remember that one). For gay marriage, well since marriage is about the preservation of property for your progeny, it didn't seem an issue in the time when gay couples could not have progeny. That has changed of course.
Frankly, I couldn't care less about what marriage laws are Constitutional since it has never been addressed. That sole right is reserved to the States and the People (again, 10th Amendment). What has munged the whole process is that each state has to recognize what another state has done judicially. Fix that and all will be bliss.
Just my $0.02.
Other features include: DNS caching, programmable (delayable) prefetch by site including number of threads and depth, blocking of (simple) advertisements, site backgrounds, blinking text, pop-ups (while loading or entirely), UserAgent, Referrer, cookies, Javascripts, and sounds. All that can be set for default as well as on a site by site basis. My default is block everything which keeps the malware sites confused and limited ;-).
Other handy features include recording all headers in and out of the program and your system as well as building a site map (handy for programming web crawlers). And of course, given all those functions, it is a web proxy.
I've been using it some five odd years or more now and it goes on all my Windows systems. For *nix, which may be what we are discussing here, you'll have to hack your own.
If your are interested, Google will turn it up in the first few entries (PCWorld site in #1 but you may desire a different source). Enjoy.