He gets my sympathy for his anti-IT bitch-fest. Being a developer and having worked for consulting companies, I have dealt with a lot of admins, as well as a lot of developers. The parent poster is correct. IT (both admin and development) is overloaded with people who are horribly abusing their positions, and see the users as a burden instead of as the reason they have jobs. Finger pointing and excuses are simply standard fare. We in IT are in the service industry. We are here to serve. This concept is lost in on more IT people than those that get it.
I wouldn't call more than 10% of the IT folks I've worked with competent, and consider my current job with about 75% of the IT people being competent to be more than I could have ever hoped for. Of course, having so many competent people around you makes it painfully clear how bad the competency level was in the other jobs.
Exactly. A chronic problem in the Admin field is the belief that admins are their to keep the network running. They are not. The network running is just incidental to their real job of making sure the users have what they need to do their jobs. They serve the users, not the other way around. Without the users, you might as well turn off the servers and go home.
That might be nice if what you were saying was true. Making a universal claim that all Admins will work with users for function they need is at best wrong. At worst a bad lie. You know as well as everyone else that there are plenty of crappy IT admins. In fact, claiming that all admins are inherently competent and reasonable is a clear indication that you don't understand what those things are, and thus are more likely than not to be one of the incompetent ones.
Going around IT's back may be asking for trouble, but unless you are a mainframe admin that is how you got your job in the first place. The entire PC industry is built on going around IT's back. People couldn't get the functions they needed on the mainframe, so they brought in their own computers behind IT's back. Those people out performed their piers enough that it became clear that everyone need a computer to just compete. Only after the issue was forced did companies start hiring people like you to maintain those systems.
There are users we work with and have no problem with, and then there are the assholes who do something behind our backs and cause trouble when we have to chase down their mistakes. Guess who gets first priority on the list of new feature/function requests?
This alone shows that your claim of working with users if they need functionality to be a lie. If you are putting functionality request in order of how much you like the user, you are abusing your position and violation your fiduciary responsibilities. Not to mention you are encouraging the people you don't like to go behind your back because if the list is long, the only way they will get what they need to do their job is to go around you and your roadblocks.
OK, so the part that I have always wondered about is how well they clean. I get that it shoots a stream of water, but shit can have a lot of consistencies. Sometimes that consistency is such that I have a hard time believing a simple stream of water would get it all off. Just how vigorously do these things clean? I would be concerned that it would not only not get me clean, but just spread the feces across the surface of my ass.
When put in that context, a $6300 toilet could be a money saver. How much does it cost to keep staffing for toilet cleaning 24/7. Even at $5 an hour, it would pay for itself in less than 2 months. After that, it is reducing labor cost at thousands a month. How can we afford NOT to buy one of these!
The problem is not that other people "don't understand computers very well". It is that OSX has some serious UI deficiencies that Mac fanboys continuously try to defend. I specifically said that over riding the close behavior in Windows "It is still bad behavior".
More excuses. Apple themselves cannot get the close button to have consistent behavior. It does not "genrally" result in the document or window that is open closing but the application staying active. It is a total crap shoot. OSX is like The Emperors New Clothes.
Does not matter. The excuse for continuing to run was that all 'Documents' are closed. Clearly that is not the case. If I wanted iTunes to continue running minimized in the task bar, I would have pressed the minimize button. This is what the minimize button is for. Claiming that it makes any kind of sense to keep a music player open after I specifically tell it to close is simply making excuses for a crappy UI.
I can't claim to have read Apples guidelines, but since pressing the red X has less consistent behavior in OSX than Windows, the point still stands. Maybe Apple's guidelines say "Do whatever you want when the red x is pressed.", but that doesn't make it consistent.
That is some pretty hard core rationalization you have there. iTunes and OSX App Store are equivalent application that are both written by Apple. iTunes, with no 'Documents' open will continue to run as an icon in the task bar if you press the red X. OSX App Store with no 'Documents' open will shut down if you press the red X. The 'Document' excuse is just that. An excuse for inconsistent behavior. Really trying to claim that an application isn't minimized if it is running without any open windows, and is represented by an icon in the task bar, is just bizarre.
So, while you may not be trying to sound like some fanboy, it is happening anyway.
Not even Apples applications work this way. The 'Document' excuse is frequently used, but it doesn't change the fact that it is a crap shoot on which stay open, and which close. Even with applications written by Apple themselves.
Well it's good that you did post AC, as you don't make yourself look good. Not because you 'ripped me a new one', but because your logic is so poor. 7% of the world speaks spanish. What percent speak ONLY spanish? Half that?
How many of the kids in school are going to be traveling the world as opposed to traveling within the states? Most will never leave the US, and if they do, they will be going to tourist destinations where English is spoken. So, even using your numbers, sign language is more useful to more people than Spanish.
Now lets look at your "relevant to less than 10% of the US population". That is fundamentally flawed, and the reason was even explained in the post you responded to. If a class of 30 students learns sign language, it immediately brings relevant uses. Each of those thirty students can now carry on conversations with each other in places that are either too noisy, require quite, or have the sound blocked. What does Spanish bring to the table? It lets you speak to more people than you could before, but not in as great of numbers as sign language.
Spanish and English are replacements for each other. They are simply different standards for the same task. Neither bring anything significant to the table that the other doesn't supply. Sign language is a complement to the spoken language. It truly shines in places that both English and Spanish flounder. If the same resources were put into teaching Sign Language that are put into teaching Spanish, it would transform communication in America.
If that is true, then instead of researching climate change researchers should be researching gravity change, because there would have to be some truly bizarre gravitational effects to make that happen.
The last group of Amish I ran into was in Iowa during a family road trip this last summer. They pulled up in a van, and proceed to shop just like everyone else. They bought their kids plastic toys, and on of them had a prosthetic arm. No a wooden arm, but one made of plastic and steel that was mechanical. The Amish aren't what they used to be. Even they have moved ahead with technology.
The poster below is correct that it wouldn't work for a tablet, but I also agree that sign language is an under utilized resource. Call me a heartless bastard, but I don't think the deaf are the real reason it should be more common. It being useful for the deaf is just a side benefit in respect to the general population. With video based input, it could be a good dictation system. It would actually be superior to even good voice recognition in many environments. Places like cubicles. Libraries, or anyplace else that creating noise can be a problem.
Outside of computers, it would be good for talking through windows, or in very noisy environments like night clubs or concerts.
I would be very happy to see sign language be the first 'second language' that is taught in schools instead of Spanish or French. It would be much more useful to most of the population.
That used to be my standard on whether a person was too stupid to be in a conversation. If my 2 year old son could do it, and it isn't trivial for an adult to accomplish it, (whatever 'it' happens to be), then the adult is too dumb to be taken seriously. This lasted through the age of 3. By the time he reached 4, it was just too much to ask the general population to keep up.
I think you meant OSX loves to override the close buttons. While I have seen a few apps in windows that do this, they always the small apps that are specifically designed to be long running in the background like torrent software and instant messengers. It is still bad behavior, but it is limited, and usually the behavior can be set in a configuration file. OSX on the other hand, you get things like word processors that decide close means minimize. It is a total hodge podge of inconsistency. Even worse is that when this poor UI is pointed out, you get a stream of OSX fanboys claiming that it makes sense. That it is a feature, not a bug. The bad behavior is not only allowed by the OS, it is endorsed by the OS manufacturer, so there is little hope that it will ever be fixed to work in a sane way.
I'm not buying that. They are already on the hook for as much as they are going to be for copyrighted material. If a disclaimer that the users is responsible is good enough, then it is good enough. A better guess would be that they don't think there is very much on there that anyone really cares about, so they don't see a need to migrate it. The way they are doing it, they can do their due diligence in regard to not being evil by letting you get access to the videos if you care, and they can dump anything else.
No, they are not. They are not "VERY" up front about support time-lines. I would venture to guess that the vast majority of MS customers do not know anything about the timelines that MS offers support. Most people that bought XP in 2009 did not know exactly what they were doing. No rational person would make their software incompatible with their own OS in 2 years. Of course, now we know they will, and businesses should keep that in mind if and when they have a choice in what software they run.
No one is arguing that MS makes the rules on how long they will support their process. That doesn't mean that they are not treating their customers badly with the rules they choose. I am not talking about rules, so the ones I came up with don't exist. I didn't come up with any. I am just stating what is actually happening. No "rules" needed.
As long as the company is required to continue paying your salary during the non-compete period, I so nothing wrong with them. The problem is when they can say that if you don't do what they want, you can't work for them, AND you can't work for anyone else. If you work nights and weekends, your employer must pay you for that.
MS was still selling XP in 2009. It is perfectly reasonable for users to expect MS's applications to run on the brand new computer that they bought that is running the brand new copy of MS's OS. Basically MS is saying "Hey, you know that cool new Windows computer you got the Xmas before last? Yeah, you can't run an new MS software on it."
I agree that support cannot last forever, and eventually people either have to upgrade or accept that they are running on a retro system. I don't expect MS to fix bugs in my C64's Basic interpreter. (Yes, the Basic in the C64 was a MS product.) But cutting off users from a critical MS product if they are running a 2 year old version of a MS OS isn't reasonable.
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He gets my sympathy for his anti-IT bitch-fest. Being a developer and having worked for consulting companies, I have dealt with a lot of admins, as well as a lot of developers. The parent poster is correct. IT (both admin and development) is overloaded with people who are horribly abusing their positions, and see the users as a burden instead of as the reason they have jobs. Finger pointing and excuses are simply standard fare. We in IT are in the service industry. We are here to serve. This concept is lost in on more IT people than those that get it.
I wouldn't call more than 10% of the IT folks I've worked with competent, and consider my current job with about 75% of the IT people being competent to be more than I could have ever hoped for. Of course, having so many competent people around you makes it painfully clear how bad the competency level was in the other jobs.
Exactly. A chronic problem in the Admin field is the belief that admins are their to keep the network running. They are not. The network running is just incidental to their real job of making sure the users have what they need to do their jobs. They serve the users, not the other way around. Without the users, you might as well turn off the servers and go home.
Going around IT's back may be asking for trouble, but unless you are a mainframe admin that is how you got your job in the first place. The entire PC industry is built on going around IT's back. People couldn't get the functions they needed on the mainframe, so they brought in their own computers behind IT's back. Those people out performed their piers enough that it became clear that everyone need a computer to just compete. Only after the issue was forced did companies start hiring people like you to maintain those systems.
There are users we work with and have no problem with, and then there are the assholes who do something behind our backs and cause trouble when we have to chase down their mistakes. Guess who gets first priority on the list of new feature/function requests?
This alone shows that your claim of working with users if they need functionality to be a lie. If you are putting functionality request in order of how much you like the user, you are abusing your position and violation your fiduciary responsibilities. Not to mention you are encouraging the people you don't like to go behind your back because if the list is long, the only way they will get what they need to do their job is to go around you and your roadblocks.
OK, so the part that I have always wondered about is how well they clean. I get that it shoots a stream of water, but shit can have a lot of consistencies. Sometimes that consistency is such that I have a hard time believing a simple stream of water would get it all off. Just how vigorously do these things clean? I would be concerned that it would not only not get me clean, but just spread the feces across the surface of my ass.
When put in that context, a $6300 toilet could be a money saver. How much does it cost to keep staffing for toilet cleaning 24/7. Even at $5 an hour, it would pay for itself in less than 2 months. After that, it is reducing labor cost at thousands a month. How can we afford NOT to buy one of these!
The problem is not that other people "don't understand computers very well". It is that OSX has some serious UI deficiencies that Mac fanboys continuously try to defend. I specifically said that over riding the close behavior in Windows "It is still bad behavior".
I don't know what country you are in, but here in the US, compulsory subjects are the norm. Many of them have no more real world use than chess.
More excuses. Apple themselves cannot get the close button to have consistent behavior. It does not "genrally" result in the document or window that is open closing but the application staying active. It is a total crap shoot. OSX is like The Emperors New Clothes.
Does not matter. The excuse for continuing to run was that all 'Documents' are closed. Clearly that is not the case. If I wanted iTunes to continue running minimized in the task bar, I would have pressed the minimize button. This is what the minimize button is for. Claiming that it makes any kind of sense to keep a music player open after I specifically tell it to close is simply making excuses for a crappy UI.
I can't claim to have read Apples guidelines, but since pressing the red X has less consistent behavior in OSX than Windows, the point still stands. Maybe Apple's guidelines say "Do whatever you want when the red x is pressed.", but that doesn't make it consistent.
That is some pretty hard core rationalization you have there. iTunes and OSX App Store are equivalent application that are both written by Apple. iTunes, with no 'Documents' open will continue to run as an icon in the task bar if you press the red X. OSX App Store with no 'Documents' open will shut down if you press the red X. The 'Document' excuse is just that. An excuse for inconsistent behavior. Really trying to claim that an application isn't minimized if it is running without any open windows, and is represented by an icon in the task bar, is just bizarre.
So, while you may not be trying to sound like some fanboy, it is happening anyway.
TextEdit. The word processor that Apple supplies as default on the Mac does this.
Not even Apples applications work this way. The 'Document' excuse is frequently used, but it doesn't change the fact that it is a crap shoot on which stay open, and which close. Even with applications written by Apple themselves.
iTunes minimizes. App Store closes. These are both Apple applications on an Apple OS.
Well it's good that you did post AC, as you don't make yourself look good. Not because you 'ripped me a new one', but because your logic is so poor. 7% of the world speaks spanish. What percent speak ONLY spanish? Half that?
How many of the kids in school are going to be traveling the world as opposed to traveling within the states? Most will never leave the US, and if they do, they will be going to tourist destinations where English is spoken. So, even using your numbers, sign language is more useful to more people than Spanish.
Now lets look at your "relevant to less than 10% of the US population". That is fundamentally flawed, and the reason was even explained in the post you responded to. If a class of 30 students learns sign language, it immediately brings relevant uses. Each of those thirty students can now carry on conversations with each other in places that are either too noisy, require quite, or have the sound blocked. What does Spanish bring to the table? It lets you speak to more people than you could before, but not in as great of numbers as sign language.
Spanish and English are replacements for each other. They are simply different standards for the same task. Neither bring anything significant to the table that the other doesn't supply. Sign language is a complement to the spoken language. It truly shines in places that both English and Spanish flounder. If the same resources were put into teaching Sign Language that are put into teaching Spanish, it would transform communication in America.
If that is true, then instead of researching climate change researchers should be researching gravity change, because there would have to be some truly bizarre gravitational effects to make that happen.
The last group of Amish I ran into was in Iowa during a family road trip this last summer. They pulled up in a van, and proceed to shop just like everyone else. They bought their kids plastic toys, and on of them had a prosthetic arm. No a wooden arm, but one made of plastic and steel that was mechanical. The Amish aren't what they used to be. Even they have moved ahead with technology.
The poster below is correct that it wouldn't work for a tablet, but I also agree that sign language is an under utilized resource. Call me a heartless bastard, but I don't think the deaf are the real reason it should be more common. It being useful for the deaf is just a side benefit in respect to the general population. With video based input, it could be a good dictation system. It would actually be superior to even good voice recognition in many environments. Places like cubicles. Libraries, or anyplace else that creating noise can be a problem.
Outside of computers, it would be good for talking through windows, or in very noisy environments like night clubs or concerts.
I would be very happy to see sign language be the first 'second language' that is taught in schools instead of Spanish or French. It would be much more useful to most of the population.
That used to be my standard on whether a person was too stupid to be in a conversation. If my 2 year old son could do it, and it isn't trivial for an adult to accomplish it, (whatever 'it' happens to be), then the adult is too dumb to be taken seriously. This lasted through the age of 3. By the time he reached 4, it was just too much to ask the general population to keep up.
I think you meant OSX loves to override the close buttons. While I have seen a few apps in windows that do this, they always the small apps that are specifically designed to be long running in the background like torrent software and instant messengers. It is still bad behavior, but it is limited, and usually the behavior can be set in a configuration file. OSX on the other hand, you get things like word processors that decide close means minimize. It is a total hodge podge of inconsistency. Even worse is that when this poor UI is pointed out, you get a stream of OSX fanboys claiming that it makes sense. That it is a feature, not a bug. The bad behavior is not only allowed by the OS, it is endorsed by the OS manufacturer, so there is little hope that it will ever be fixed to work in a sane way.
I'm not buying that. They are already on the hook for as much as they are going to be for copyrighted material. If a disclaimer that the users is responsible is good enough, then it is good enough. A better guess would be that they don't think there is very much on there that anyone really cares about, so they don't see a need to migrate it. The way they are doing it, they can do their due diligence in regard to not being evil by letting you get access to the videos if you care, and they can dump anything else.
No, they are not. They are not "VERY" up front about support time-lines. I would venture to guess that the vast majority of MS customers do not know anything about the timelines that MS offers support. Most people that bought XP in 2009 did not know exactly what they were doing. No rational person would make their software incompatible with their own OS in 2 years. Of course, now we know they will, and businesses should keep that in mind if and when they have a choice in what software they run.
No one is arguing that MS makes the rules on how long they will support their process. That doesn't mean that they are not treating their customers badly with the rules they choose. I am not talking about rules, so the ones I came up with don't exist. I didn't come up with any. I am just stating what is actually happening. No "rules" needed.
As long as the company is required to continue paying your salary during the non-compete period, I so nothing wrong with them. The problem is when they can say that if you don't do what they want, you can't work for them, AND you can't work for anyone else. If you work nights and weekends, your employer must pay you for that.
MS was still selling XP in 2009. It is perfectly reasonable for users to expect MS's applications to run on the brand new computer that they bought that is running the brand new copy of MS's OS. Basically MS is saying "Hey, you know that cool new Windows computer you got the Xmas before last? Yeah, you can't run an new MS software on it."
I agree that support cannot last forever, and eventually people either have to upgrade or accept that they are running on a retro system. I don't expect MS to fix bugs in my C64's Basic interpreter. (Yes, the Basic in the C64 was a MS product.) But cutting off users from a critical MS product if they are running a 2 year old version of a MS OS isn't reasonable.