Absolutely, as the professional, I should demand to use my own tools.
And actually, on the things that count (actual working code) they agree with me.
They let me run anything I like in my cube (including Debian Linux unstable) as long as what I produce ALSO runs well on Solaris/Java.
But for all documents (crap that no one reads after implementation anyway), they insist on Office. Their loss!
You might be comforted a bit by the fact that no one there has caught on to my RTF attachments instead of DOC.
Someday, I'll find a more enlightened employer, or my current one will get a clue. You can guess which is more likely. I've had 'em before, and I'll have 'em again, I just don't have one now.
Are you kidding? Where I work, MS Word and Excel are (very sadly) used almost universally at my workplace. They even post them on intranet sites and post links to them (ugh!).
They don't understand why putting a link to a propreitary formatted file is so evil. Of course, I try to educate them, but I'm clearly outnumbered.
I buck the trend when I can, by producing PDFs (which load in MSIE just as automatically as Word does), or at least using Word to export to RTF.
I agree, real programmers should spend all day in vim, but unfortunately, at many places, the programmer also does the HLD and DD (that's high-level design, and detailed design) documents, sometimes even Requirements, and yes, they insist on Word 2000. Mostly a waste of time, but it's better than the alternative of THEM writing the tech docs, and then you have to follow their inanity even more!
It amazes me how companies with such large
overhead, and accustomed to a diet of huge
revenue streams, think they can get into
Linux, and make it Just Another Product.
Everything about the Linux culture
is too fundamentally different for outsiders
to just come in and 'make it work' as a business.
Small is beautiful, not only in code, but also
in the boardroom/executive suite.
I'm not saying no one can live off Linux support
(of course not, I do!), but throwing big money
and lots of people at Linux doesn't make it
profitable automatically.
Especially when a company like
Corel attacks it with a full set of overhead
costs. Corel Linux (1.0 and 1.1) were, IMO,
horrible distributions, and it's obvious to
me that Corel was trying to 'microsoft' it's
way to the desktop. I'm glad I won't have
to face another distro from THEM!
This is more support for my view that the
best, innovative, healthiest companies
lean towards the small side, and that simply
BEING a big company is a handicap when
trying to grok Linux.
This task is much more suited to 'small fry'
companies like me!
It's hard to tell your manager,
that 'there no fix for the problem yet, but it's expected in the next pre-patch release.'
Gimme a break - what you should be telling
your manager is: "Look here's the problem,
and because we have the source, I'll have it
working again in a couple hours, and the whole
world will have my fix in the next release."
*I* provide Enterprise-level support for Linux,
and you can too. Your boss is NOT beholden
to the vendor with Linux - anyone can fix it!
I don't recall a D.A.R.E. program in my school.
It apparently isn't necessary, since I
never touched the stuff, not even close!
BUT I can tell you with certainty that I have
four cousins, an ex-brother-in-law and a former
coworker, who have totally ruined themselves
on drugs, mostly pot and cocaine. They have
lost their jobs, their spouses, their hopes,
and in the case of two of the cousins, their
lives.
The ex-brother-in-law tries to fly right
sometimes, but invariably he succumbs to
the drugs again every few months. It's as if
he will always have this intrinsic weakness,
always preventing him from building a
productive, happy life.
I don't have any patience for people who try
to apologize and legitimize illegal drugs, or
say 'they are not so bad'. If this is you,
you're dead wrong, and you will pay dearly for
your addictions.
The 'drug war' is a sad failure, but that's
doesn't mean drugs are good. Considering the
damage they cause in human terms, we really
ought to come down on it a lot harder than we
already do.
It wasn't the least bit difficult for me to
stay off drugs, not with all these abusers,
losers and failures in plain sight. It's
smart to learn from your own mistakes, but
FAR BETTER to learn from others' mistakes.
(You'll never have time to make all of them
yourself.)
A clean, sober, successful
life is it's own reward.
If you don't think so, you simply
haven't tried it.
didn't think so... Add it to the list:
reliability, included source, no legal hassles,
no license fees, no viruses, no snoopware,
no untrusted code...
IBM is turning out to be one pretty hip company.
Java, Linux, Thinkpads, Mainframe. So strange
that this is the same company Steve Jobs called 'evil empire'. My how things change!
I was confronted last year with an Indian
programmer, newly assigned to a project that
was well under way, who started his first day
on the job by flatly refusing
to work for the project manager (who happened
to be an Indian woman, I assumed it was a
cultural-based objection, b/c Indian women
are usually subservient to Indian men), and
making all kinds of racist allegations against
the rest of the
staff (Chinese and American, mostly). The
sales rep who landed us the work had a 'chat'
with him to get him straightened out, and after
that he did his work quietly and well, although
he never apologized to the group for his initial boorishness.
When the project was winding down, he told me
why he did that: He was felt that the project
didn't offer him a chance to demonstrate ability
commersurate with a H1B-related designation
called "exceptionally qualified resident alien"
.
(which was true, the project was already mapped
out and his little part was just simple coding). After the project's completion, he explained to me privately, that his outrageous shenagans were his attempt to get relocated to another project that offered him a significant challenge where (if he did good) would qualify him for that. He had been here four out of six years, and didn't think he'd
get the green card before his time was up, so
he was aiming for these other immigration
statuses.
He didn't have the luxury of jumping to another
job like Americans do, but he hoped to make it
to another project by manufacturing these
'personnel problems'.
This doesn't excuse his actions, but certainly
does explain them! As more H1B's are
forced to go home, there will be more and more
problems like with this. Not every
alien will go berserk, of course, but tensions
overall will increase.
I just wish corporations would start treating
American staffers better - there's only a
shortage of programmers who will tolerate their
BULL! That's why _I_ work at
home (among other reasons).
Did it never occur to anyone that the KDE people
continued development in spite of these
objections, in the hope of peacably
forcing TrollTech to go the GPL route?
Looks to me like KDE achieved their mission,
AND they did it the right way.
This really is progress, people - you should
be celebrating that yet another company finally
'gets it'! two (and more) major free desktop
projects that are equally free (at least
once Qt 2.2 comes out?)
As for RMS, I admire him for his contributions,
but some people aren't happy unless there is
a (perceived) problem to fight. I fear he
may be one of them.
Disclaimer: I use KDE except for the wm, for
which I chose enlightenment instead...
The first truly useful test of this would be put our spacecraft into orbit without all the rockets. Alternatively, if this enables us to easily get our spacecraft materials into orbit, we can assemble the ships up there.
If we can indeed suspend the effects of the Earth's gravity, then it follows that a larger field would allow us to escape the Sun's gravity with greater efficiency as well.
This could give satellite mission planners many more options in the way they plot their trajectories. Instead of burning fuel, generate an anti-gravity field. trajectories of satellites
I am putting the finishing touches on a Linux-based ATM machine (as in CASH), and my client is looking to use the i-opener as a replacement for the full-size PC we've been developing on.
I just wrote them an email saying: You either sell the thing for $99 or you don't! Now what's your price WITHOUT your crappy internet service? Are they really dumb enough to throw away the easy sale of 3,000 units?
Why is it that if I, as an individual, snag the obvious.com name of some company that is late to the part, and try to extort money, it's cybersquatting?
But if I try to register asktim.com, and find it for sale for $1,500+ by a COMPANY called domaincollection.net beat me to it, that does cybersquatting, it's called brokering?
I say, if your only intent it to sell it, you shouldn't have it in the first place.
Example: I have registered the name http://linuxtampa.com. I give Linus proper credit for his TM on every page (per his recent instructions), and I'm using it to market my consulting operation. Nobody can accuse me of trying to profit from the domain name itself. Any reasonable person can see that I'm actually USING it legitimately.
Does anyone else think that AOL should have to earn their business, and not just be able to assimilate every user by way of buying all these companies?
The number is HUGE! $350 BILLION is almost 50 times what AOL paid for Netscape, and we thought that was enormous...
TimeWarner HAS earned my business by providing pretty good (but not perfect) cable modem service to me for two years. Now that AOL is buying TW, they will have access to my revenue even though I would never have signed up with them.
My employers and clients have no business snooping around my home office, making sure that I use approved desks, ergonomic keyboards, approved software, even APPROVED OPERATING SYSTEMS (last job required NT4)!
I working independently from my home now, at my last regular job, I got to work from home a couple days a week.
I have 6 Linux systems, several Xterminals, two 19" monitors, two leather executive chairs, two phone lines & cable modem. In other words, much more than businesses are required to provide telecommutors.
I bought these things for myself to help make telecommuting pleasant, but I would have never got my last job to approve the concept if OSHA were required to provide me these goodies.
Am I the only one to notice that the first plane to take off in the new millenium was headed from NZ to California?
Hmmm, they take off at 1/1/2000 00:04, go east, cross the date line, where it is still 12/31/1999 and about 16-18 hours later, experience the millenium rollover AGAIN?
I'm sure some of our foreign friends will host it... like other forms of encryption. You can't keep OSS down...not even a pack of lawyers can rip it apart! Tim (first post?)
How can you live with yourself knowing that you are raising a child that your wife had with another man? How does it make you feel when you look at that boy?
Believe it or not, it doesn't affect me at all. That is because I filed for divorce - I had already given up on her, and towards the end, actively disliked her. When she told me she has gotten pregnant with another man (in the midst of a divorce where I was winning everything in court anyway, including custody), she was looking for sympathy. I laughed my butt off!
Besides, none of that is the boy's fault. He deserves love and attention, and his bio-dad isn't around for him. My dad left me and Mom when I was a child, and I didn't want him to know that kind of hurt. He is now four and a half years old, cute as a button, and often behaves better than the older boy!
Frankly, I wouldn't know how to meet a woman EXCEPT for a computer. Fortunately, the computer has been the source of both of my marriages.
I met my first wife on a BBS called Meganet in St. Petersburg, FL (local number, no longer around). Lived together within two weeks of first date, engaged for 1.5 years, married for over 5 years. Divorced in 1994.
Then I met a much better woman pretty quickly on a unix bbs (again a local number) that later became http://matchmaker.com. Engaged for 3.5 years, then got married. We just celebrated our 2nd anniversary, and no problems in sight. Our educations couldn't be more different (literature/poetry/philosophy vs. computers/music), and that leads to both of us teaching each other new things all the time. She is the wonderful kind of old-fashioned woman described in Uncle Robin's Advice article that is there for me, running the bath water and serving me late-night sandwiches!
My first son was with my first wife, and my second son is a child she made with someone else who doesn't care a --bleep-- about the boy, so I treat him like my own.
My second wife cannot have children -- fortunately for her, my sons were part of the package deal with me, so she does get to raise a couple of kids after all.
Say what you will about Sun, but please remember this:
Because of Java, I/we can finally write programs for Windows (when we have to) without having to waste time on their dead-end APIs, keep my attention away from Linux and Solaris.
Sun DOES make some of the best hardware out there!
Sun has been pretty supportive of Linux overall... They help blackdown.org, and they have a Linux wrapper for Solaris too.
Some of Sun's founders (Bill Joy, et all) actually created much of the environment we love so much. They're still on our side!
Sure, they've got a few problems too, but overall, wouldn't you agree that we're better off with Sun in our industry that without? I sure do!
Slashdot Mirror
(If you can do anything else, you didn't communicate it, so fair game).
I wouldn't!
Absolutely, as the professional, I should demand to use my own tools.
And actually, on the things that count (actual working code) they agree with me.
They let me run anything I like in my cube (including Debian Linux unstable) as long as what I produce ALSO runs well on Solaris/Java.
But for all documents (crap that no one reads after implementation anyway), they insist on Office. Their loss!
You might be comforted a bit by the fact that no one there has caught on to my RTF attachments instead of DOC.
Someday, I'll find a more enlightened
employer, or my current one will get a clue. You can guess which is more likely. I've had 'em before, and I'll have 'em again, I just don't have one now.
Smile - It could be a LOT worse!
Are you kidding? Where I work, MS Word
and Excel are (very sadly) used almost
universally at my workplace. They even post
them on intranet sites and post links to them
(ugh!).
They don't understand why putting a link to a
propreitary formatted file is so evil. Of
course, I try to educate them, but I'm clearly
outnumbered.
I buck the trend when I can,
by producing PDFs (which load
in MSIE just as automatically as Word does),
or at least using Word to export to RTF.
I agree, real programmers should spend all day in vim, but unfortunately, at many places, the
programmer also does the HLD and DD (that's
high-level design, and detailed design) documents, sometimes even Requirements, and yes,
they insist on Word 2000. Mostly a waste of
time, but it's better than the alternative of
THEM writing the tech docs, and then you have
to follow their inanity even more!
Small is beautiful, not only in code, but also in the boardroom/executive suite.
I'm not saying no one can live off Linux support (of course not, I do!), but throwing big money and lots of people at Linux doesn't make it profitable automatically. Especially when a company like Corel attacks it with a full set of overhead costs. Corel Linux (1.0 and 1.1) were, IMO, horrible distributions, and it's obvious to me that Corel was trying to 'microsoft' it's way to the desktop. I'm glad I won't have to face another distro from THEM!
This is more support for my view that the best, innovative, healthiest companies lean towards the small side, and that simply BEING a big company is a handicap when trying to grok Linux.
This task is much more suited to 'small fry' companies like me!
freaking perverts...
Gimme a break - what you should be telling your manager is: "Look here's the problem, and because we have the source, I'll have it working again in a couple hours, and the whole world will have my fix in the next release."
*I* provide Enterprise-level support for Linux, and you can too. Your boss is NOT beholden to the vendor with Linux - anyone can fix it!
Tim at LinuxTampa.com
BUT I can tell you with certainty that I have four cousins, an ex-brother-in-law and a former coworker, who have totally ruined themselves on drugs, mostly pot and cocaine. They have lost their jobs, their spouses, their hopes, and in the case of two of the cousins, their lives.
The ex-brother-in-law tries to fly right sometimes, but invariably he succumbs to the drugs again every few months. It's as if he will always have this intrinsic weakness, always preventing him from building a productive, happy life.
I don't have any patience for people who try to apologize and legitimize illegal drugs, or say 'they are not so bad'. If this is you, you're dead wrong, and you will pay dearly for your addictions.
The 'drug war' is a sad failure, but that's doesn't mean drugs are good. Considering the damage they cause in human terms, we really ought to come down on it a lot harder than we already do.
It wasn't the least bit difficult for me to stay off drugs, not with all these abusers, losers and failures in plain sight. It's smart to learn from your own mistakes, but FAR BETTER to learn from others' mistakes. (You'll never have time to make all of them yourself.)
A clean, sober, successful life is it's own reward. If you don't think so, you simply haven't tried it.
Mainframes have ALWAYS been the biggest and fastest hardware, and until Linux showed up on it, mainframes were pretty inaccessible to us.
I'll say the same for whoever brings Linux to the smallest device too!
didn't think so... Add it to the list: reliability, included source, no legal hassles, no license fees, no viruses, no snoopware, no untrusted code...
IBM is turning out to be one pretty hip company. Java, Linux, Thinkpads, Mainframe. So strange that this is the same company Steve Jobs called 'evil empire'. My how things change!
Don't you think you've suffered enough?
Yes, and shame on you, Taco!
When the project was winding down, he told me why he did that: He was felt that the project didn't offer him a chance to demonstrate ability commersurate with a H1B-related designation called "exceptionally qualified resident alien" . (which was true, the project was already mapped out and his little part was just simple coding). After the project's completion, he explained to me privately, that his outrageous shenagans were his attempt to get relocated to another project that offered him a significant challenge where (if he did good) would qualify him for that. He had been here four out of six years, and didn't think he'd get the green card before his time was up, so he was aiming for these other immigration statuses.
He didn't have the luxury of jumping to another job like Americans do, but he hoped to make it to another project by manufacturing these 'personnel problems'.
This doesn't excuse his actions, but certainly does explain them! As more H1B's are forced to go home, there will be more and more problems like with this. Not every alien will go berserk, of course, but tensions overall will increase.
I just wish corporations would start treating American staffers better - there's only a shortage of programmers who will tolerate their BULL! That's why _I_ work at home (among other reasons).
Looks to me like KDE achieved their mission, AND they did it the right way.
This really is progress, people - you should be celebrating that yet another company finally 'gets it'! two (and more) major free desktop projects that are equally free (at least once Qt 2.2 comes out?)
As for RMS, I admire him for his contributions, but some people aren't happy unless there is a (perceived) problem to fight. I fear he may be one of them.
Disclaimer: I use KDE except for the wm, for which I chose enlightenment instead...
If we can indeed suspend the effects of the Earth's gravity, then it follows that a larger field would allow us to escape the Sun's gravity with greater efficiency as well.
This could give satellite mission planners many more options in the way they plot their trajectories. Instead of burning fuel, generate an anti-gravity field. trajectories of satellites
Wonder if it will be cheaper than rocket fuel?
I am putting the finishing touches on a Linux-based ATM machine (as in CASH), and my client is looking to use the i-opener as a replacement for the full-size PC we've been developing on.
I just wrote them an email saying: You either sell the thing for $99 or you don't! Now what's your price WITHOUT your crappy internet service? Are they really dumb enough to throw away the easy sale of 3,000 units?
Probably.
But if I try to register asktim.com, and find it for sale for $1,500+ by a COMPANY called domaincollection.net beat me to it, that does cybersquatting, it's called brokering?
I say, if your only intent it to sell it, you shouldn't have it in the first place.
Example: I have registered the name http://linuxtampa.com. I give Linus proper credit for his TM on every page (per his recent instructions), and I'm using it to market my consulting operation. Nobody can accuse me of trying to profit from the domain name itself. Any reasonable person can see that I'm actually USING it legitimately.
Tim
The number is HUGE! $350 BILLION is almost 50 times what AOL paid for Netscape, and we thought that was enormous...
Tim
I working independently from my home now, at my last regular job, I got to work from home a couple days a week.
I have 6 Linux systems, several Xterminals, two 19" monitors, two leather executive chairs, two phone lines & cable modem. In other words, much more than businesses are required to provide telecommutors.
I bought these things for myself to help make telecommuting pleasant, but I would have never got my last job to approve the concept if OSHA were required to provide me these goodies.
STAY OUT, OSHA!
Hmmm, they take off at 1/1/2000 00:04, go east, cross the date line, where it is still 12/31/1999 and about 16-18 hours later, experience the millenium rollover AGAIN?
Three cheers for getting back to work!
Tim
LinuxLocal.com for full-time 100% Linux Consultants
I'm sure some of our foreign friends will host it... like other forms of encryption. You can't keep OSS down...not even a pack of lawyers can rip it apart! Tim (first post?)
Believe it or not, it doesn't affect me at all. That is because I filed for divorce - I had already given up on her, and towards the end, actively disliked her. When she told me she has gotten pregnant with another man (in the midst of a divorce where I was winning everything in court anyway, including custody), she was looking for sympathy. I laughed my butt off!
Besides, none of that is the boy's fault. He deserves love and attention, and his bio-dad isn't around for him. My dad left me and Mom when I was a child, and I didn't want him to know that kind of hurt. He is now four and a half years old, cute as a button, and often behaves better than the older boy!
I'm quite happy with it!
I met my first wife on a BBS called Meganet in St. Petersburg, FL (local number, no longer around). Lived together within two weeks of first date, engaged for 1.5 years, married for over 5 years. Divorced in 1994.
Then I met a much better woman pretty quickly on a unix bbs (again a local number) that later became http://matchmaker.com. Engaged for 3.5 years, then got married. We just celebrated our 2nd anniversary, and no problems in sight. Our educations couldn't be more different (literature/poetry/philosophy vs. computers/music), and that leads to both of us teaching each other new things all the time. She is the wonderful kind of old-fashioned woman described in Uncle Robin's Advice article that is there for me, running the bath water and serving me late-night sandwiches!
My first son was with my first wife, and my second son is a child she made with someone else who doesn't care a --bleep-- about the boy, so I treat him like my own.
My second wife cannot have children -- fortunately for her, my sons were part of the package deal with me, so she does get to raise a couple of kids after all.
Tim
Sure, they've got a few problems too, but overall, wouldn't you agree that we're better off with Sun in our industry that without? I sure do!