I often work from a customer's site. And in many cases they've adopted some draconian security measures. I end up needing to go back to the motel to get a (relatively open) high bandwidth connection to download the patches or files that I need to complete the work at the customer site.
(Yes, I do organize and keep these files in case of future need.)
Security measures that require work arounds lessen productivity. And lessened productivity can have real costs.
Microsoft and Intel are so tied into the channel that there isn't much margin left for BP/VARs.
If a customer pays 2k$ for a server, they're going to balk at a 5k$ services engagement.
Instead the Windows shops have their helpdesk MCSE 'tard play with the new server. In short order, every SMB has dozens of (whatever was cheapest that week) brand X systems running Exchange / SQL Server / IIS / Sharepoint /.Net or the like. Nothing is consistent, nothing is well managed, and everyone is convinced that "cheaper is better". At least until the data center gets full.
Yes, IBM leaves some margin on the table for VARs. But sometimes spending more than bare minimum for a project leads to a good outcome.
At one point, poor availability of mice limited Windows sales. So Microsoft made mice. At one point, poor availability of motherboards limited Pentium sales. So Intel make motherboards.
If poor availability of OS limits services revenue, IBM will make alternative OS. IBM learned from the opportunity it missed with the OS/2 & Windows split. Keeping Linux on a back burner definately makes sense.
There isn't any black and white anywhere. But I get the impression that Microsoft would like to get into the grey. They'd like to see more well managed IT shops with happy desktop customers. If it means growth for Microsoft related services, it could be a good thing.
Google is showing that you can make money flogging a "we don't have to pay for it" OS. If enough large scale companies make a similar display, people will loose faith in the endless treadmill of Microsoft upgrades and virus scares.
Most people are too lazy to defect, but in general this can't be a good trend for Microsoft revenue.
Well, it must be evolution, cause it sure wasn't intelligent design.
Human virii don't travel over IP.
on
A Flu Pandemic?
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· Score: 1
Telecomute friendly companies could concievably fare better against this sort of issue? If you're sick, but you can work, work from home. Don't bring it to the office.
If saving energy isn't reason enough to let people work remotely, then how about saving lives?
I worked for a health insurance company for five years. The whole time, 80% of the work was on systems at least two states away. But the company wouldn't let me work from home, unless it was oncall work. Add in the fact that their time off policy equated vacation to sick time, and I would rather go to the office while ill than use up my vacation time.
Unless this kind of stupidness costs someone money, policies aren't going to change.
If it wasn't a spitefull and small, I'd suggest booting anyone with any connection to Blizzard from slashdot. If anyone gripes, just add a new rule to the Eula that covers the situation.
Instead, do something nice for someone today. It won't make the dissapointment go away, but at least you'll have something to feel good about.
EMC sym - Once EMC gets in your shop, they will monopolize as much of your time as possible so that you don't have time to compare them with anyone else.
HDS - The most expensive storage on the market. Whether its worth the extra cost is up to you.
IBM - Don't listen to the hillbilly. The usability of the "Shark" is fine. The fact that you don't pay extra for multipath drivers can be a big plus.
HP - Don't buy from a company that doesn't make what they sell. Don't reward them for being middlemen. If you want Engenio/LSI or HDS, buy direct.
Sun - Just pimpin CPU and whatever they can partner with. Aside from the STK purchase, they don't have much of a storage play.
WTF? What kind of cheapskate bastards ship a new model card with dual monitor support, but without dual DVI? (Save 50 cents on an extra DVI connector, and the DVI to VGA dongle?)
They had a chance to knock the 6600GT out of the lowest priced widely available dual DVI card slot, and they blinked? Morons.
After racism and sexism die out, maybe we can go after ageism. Making arbitrary distinctions based on age is just as bad as doing so based on race or sex.
I completed the RHCE cert as well. The opportunity to cert was tied to the prep class, which was covered for whatever reason by an IBM training card.
In my case, having certified staff helps qualify business parters for an extra discount. The theory being that the customer will go to the partner for support first before jumping on the support line. People also like getting support from local people they know.
Certs are often practical for people when a degree is not an option. It doesn't have to be an either/or discussion.
Any time I see an HP win in the press, I think of the 9000 or 3000 series sytems. Instead, this is just a bunch of Compaq boxes. Nothing really HP about that.
Yahoo was very quick to sell out and become a glorified adfarm. They might as well have renamed themselves AOL-Search.
Google on the other hand thinks that their shit doesn't stink, and the search results are not as good as they once were. But at least they're innovating.
When a company begins to beat the "you IT types need to understand the business" drum, it is time to take your professional skills someplace where they're valued more than the bullshit credo du jour.
If the company can afford to have you spend three quarters of your time wallowing in the groupthink, then they can afford to pay you a higer bill rate while you work from the outside. Keeping in-demand leading-edge skills up to date is not a trivial undertaking, and should not be replaced with worrying about what color the company cancer cure is going to come in.
The research hospital, insurance company, bank, manufacturing concern, etc, all need the same kind of IT pros. If the one you're working for gets an ass-kissing business-side-of-the-house-loving CIO, remember that the average CIO tenure is less than four years. But if you can't deal with the bullshit for that long, either go pro, or find some fresh air at the next place.
HR departments, or IT managers surely could do a better job of writing position descriptions. Somewhere between half and three quarters of the postings describe unrealistic mixes of skills, or unreasonable expectations of experience for a given compensation.
I'm suprised that someone hasn't stepped in to fill that void. Well written and reasonable postings should attract less befuddled applicants. (IMO)
Every year or two for the last ten years I've considered the decision whether to stay in sysadmin/storadmin/tapeadmin spot or begin the trek towards proficiency as a professional coder.
I don't need to feel vindicated in my decision to stay focused on administration, but the question of whether to become a coder is still in front of me.
There is no surplus of quality staff (anywhere in IT) today. Panning harder doesn't produce more gold; you have to wait for good people to become available. If business becomes limitied by the people the can be attracted, we may see a turnaround in the downward slide in benefits offered here in the PNW.
Unless the real estate market adjusts, the cost of living in PDX is only going to increase.
Slashdot Mirror
I often work from a customer's site. And in many cases they've adopted some draconian security measures. I end up needing to go back to the motel to get a (relatively open) high bandwidth connection to download the patches or files that I need to complete the work at the customer site.
(Yes, I do organize and keep these files in case of future need.)
Security measures that require work arounds lessen productivity. And lessened productivity can have real costs.
If you ever get stuck in a shop which doesn't allow sftp or ftp:
Teraterm Pro can send and receive zmodem, and telnet is generally 8bit clean.
A successful PVR need not be more than a Hauppauge PVR-150, a Creative DXR3, a Soekris VPN-1401, a large hard drive, and an OS.
People have come to expect even the smallest innovation to become an endless renenue souce.
Case in point; Intel will flog Viiv for most of 2006. AMD won't have a chance to compete, Intel's marketing poop pump is just too big.
I want my TV via FTP. wget, gunzip, and xine
Microsoft and Intel are so tied into the channel that there isn't much margin left for BP/VARs.
.Net or the like. Nothing is consistent, nothing is well managed, and everyone is convinced that "cheaper is better". At least until the data center gets full.
If a customer pays 2k$ for a server, they're going to balk at a 5k$ services engagement.
Instead the Windows shops have their helpdesk MCSE 'tard play with the new server. In short order, every SMB has dozens of (whatever was cheapest that week) brand X systems running Exchange / SQL Server / IIS / Sharepoint /
Yes, IBM leaves some margin on the table for VARs. But sometimes spending more than bare minimum for a project leads to a good outcome.
At one point, poor availability of mice limited Windows sales. So Microsoft made mice.
At one point, poor availability of motherboards limited Pentium sales. So Intel make motherboards.
If poor availability of OS limits services revenue, IBM will make alternative OS. IBM learned from the opportunity it missed with the OS/2 & Windows split. Keeping Linux on a back burner definately makes sense.
There isn't any black and white anywhere. But I get the impression that Microsoft would like to get into the grey. They'd like to see more well managed IT shops with happy desktop customers. If it means growth for Microsoft related services, it could be a good thing.
Google is showing that you can make money flogging a "we don't have to pay for it" OS. If enough large scale companies make a similar display, people will loose faith in the endless treadmill of Microsoft upgrades and virus scares.
Most people are too lazy to defect, but in general this can't be a good trend for Microsoft revenue.
Some of the middle age Netvistas suffered capacitor death.
Or if the PVR-250 isn't available, the PVR-150 should do.
Well, it must be evolution, cause it sure wasn't intelligent design.
Telecomute friendly companies could concievably fare better against this sort of issue? If you're sick, but you can work, work from home. Don't bring it to the office.
If saving energy isn't reason enough to let people work remotely, then how about saving lives?
I worked for a health insurance company for five years. The whole time, 80% of the work was on systems at least two states away. But the company wouldn't let me work from home, unless it was oncall work. Add in the fact that their time off policy equated vacation to sick time, and I would rather go to the office while ill than use up my vacation time.
Unless this kind of stupidness costs someone money, policies aren't going to change.
So create a slashdot story with 'WoW!Inmate' in the title, and any WoW player who reads it will get banned? Sounds like an easy sploit.
Will the user interface be called Event Horizon?
Wow, now we get to share your helplessness.
If it wasn't a spitefull and small, I'd suggest booting anyone with any connection to Blizzard from slashdot. If anyone gripes, just add a new rule to the Eula that covers the situation.
Instead, do something nice for someone today. It won't make the dissapointment go away, but at least you'll have something to feel good about.
EMC sym - Once EMC gets in your shop, they will monopolize as much of your time as possible so that you don't have time to compare them with anyone else.
HDS - The most expensive storage on the market. Whether its worth the extra cost is up to you.
IBM - Don't listen to the hillbilly. The usability of the "Shark" is fine. The fact that you don't pay extra for multipath drivers can be a big plus.
HP - Don't buy from a company that doesn't make what they sell. Don't reward them for being middlemen. If you want Engenio/LSI or HDS, buy direct.
Sun - Just pimpin CPU and whatever they can partner with. Aside from the STK purchase, they don't have much of a storage play.
No. These are problems with the living, not the dead.
Unless you mean the ultimate death of the whole human race. (Whether it be by natural causes or not.)
WTF? What kind of cheapskate bastards ship a new model card with dual monitor support, but without dual DVI? (Save 50 cents on an extra DVI connector, and the DVI to VGA dongle?)
They had a chance to knock the 6600GT out of the lowest priced widely available dual DVI card slot, and they blinked? Morons.
After racism and sexism die out, maybe we can go after ageism. Making arbitrary distinctions based on age is just as bad as doing so based on race or sex.
I completed the RHCE cert as well. The opportunity to cert was tied to the prep class, which was covered for whatever reason by an IBM training card.
In my case, having certified staff helps qualify business parters for an extra discount. The theory being that the customer will go to the partner for support first before jumping on the support line. People also like getting support from local people they know.
Certs are often practical for people when a degree is not an option. It doesn't have to be an either/or discussion.
Soon VMs will be on the radar, 'cause you might break DRM in there!
Any time I see an HP win in the press, I think of the 9000 or 3000 series sytems. Instead, this is just a bunch of Compaq boxes. Nothing really HP about that.
Well, no. If you're good enough, you hold out for a job in a location you like.
If you fall prey to the misguided notion that there isn't enough demand to leave you choice where you go, then that is your problem.
Yahoo was very quick to sell out and become a glorified adfarm. They might as well have renamed themselves AOL-Search.
Google on the other hand thinks that their shit doesn't stink, and the search results are not as good as they once were. But at least they're innovating.
When a company begins to beat the "you IT types need to understand the business" drum, it is time to take your professional skills someplace where they're valued more than the bullshit credo du jour.
If the company can afford to have you spend three quarters of your time wallowing in the groupthink, then they can afford to pay you a higer bill rate while you work from the outside. Keeping in-demand leading-edge skills up to date is not a trivial undertaking, and should not be replaced with worrying about what color the company cancer cure is going to come in.
The research hospital, insurance company, bank, manufacturing concern, etc, all need the same kind of IT pros. If the one you're working for gets an ass-kissing business-side-of-the-house-loving CIO, remember that the average CIO tenure is less than four years. But if you can't deal with the bullshit for that long, either go pro, or find some fresh air at the next place.
HR departments, or IT managers surely could do a better job of writing position descriptions. Somewhere between half and three quarters of the postings describe unrealistic mixes of skills, or unreasonable expectations of experience for a given compensation.
I'm suprised that someone hasn't stepped in to fill that void. Well written and reasonable postings should attract less befuddled applicants. (IMO)
Every year or two for the last ten years I've considered the decision whether to stay in sysadmin/storadmin/tapeadmin spot or begin the trek towards proficiency as a professional coder.
I don't need to feel vindicated in my decision to stay focused on administration, but the question of whether to become a coder is still in front of me.
There is no surplus of quality staff (anywhere in IT) today. Panning harder doesn't produce more gold; you have to wait for good people to become available. If business becomes limitied by the people the can be attracted, we may see a turnaround in the downward slide in benefits offered here in the PNW.
Unless the real estate market adjusts, the cost of living in PDX is only going to increase.
You ever stop to think that few people have any desire to live in the cities you mention?