The university that I attended (and worked at for a while) has been renting textbooks through the campus-run bookstore since my father went to school there (about 35 years). The concept is not new. What will be interesting though will be seeing how some of the textbook retailers (Barnes & Noble, Amazon, etc.) will respond to a more public method of renting books. Personally, I'm more interested in increasing the popularity of electronic textbooks than I am traditional textbook distribution......
There is plenty of original IP associated with MMO games these days..... but most of that IP comes from game developers outside of the U.S. I have seen some really good IP coming out of Asia, but the ideals that the IP brings forth clashes with the American culture, and therefore usually fails when an introduction is attempted.
I have been a fan of the Spark Client and Openfire Server as an IM platform for quite sometime. They are built on the XMPP and Jabber protocols. After being in a corporate environment before, I know it's hard to convince management to go with an OSS solution as they seem to think that if it doesn't have a price tag, it's not secure. The Spark/Openfire platform come in an 'Enterprise' flavor with support to appease management as well. Both the client and server are built on a plug-in style architecture, so it's pretty easy to include your own software add-ins. There are really too many features for me to really go into though.
I tend to agree. I'm not sure that the corporate environment is ready to take productivity to this level yet, for security reasons. The thought of confidential documents accidentally getting cached in the wrong place on a google server gives me shivers.
I'm not that familiar with ThinkFree or Zoho, but if Google releases appliances that don't phone home except for software updates, I think they'll be a major competitor, provided they can keep the cost for the appliance under the cost of licensing for MS Office.
Everyone seems to show this announcement in a negative light. This isn't as bad as it seems.
Last I checked, the game was stable, fairly well balanced, and almost all the features they said were going to implemented were there. Bugs exist, but compared to other games, not that bad.
Let's compare that to WoW's release. Blizzard struggled (maybe still do?) with class balance for a very long time, they didn't implement a PvP system that folks wanted to use until months after release, and a lot of the content(e.g. instances) were buggy.
Now let's compare Warhammer to Funcom's Age of Conan which was released not long ago. AoC (Age of Conan) has balance issues, a partial PvP implementation, and a lot of bugs.
With Warhammer, you'll be missing some content and classes, both of which have viable alternatives implemented, but should have a fairly stable and balanced game.
Overall, I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing as long as everything else releases well.....
I tend to agree, to a certain point. I've been watching the netbook market pretty closely over the last several months. A large majority (not all) have better hardware specs on their windows systems than the linux systems (usually because windows requires more). It would not surprise me to see the Geeks buying the system with better hardware and re-installing with whatever OS they fancy.
Most Universities encourage their grads to go work for large companies. This is usually due to the prestige of saying 'we have grads working for XYZ big company' and hoping that the company will donate money. This isn't the best working environment for everyone.
I had the opportunity to 'grow' with a budding IT department. The department went from a small/medium size department with no budget (read: we couldn't afford to buy jack) to a medium/large size department with a fairly substantial budget.
There was a major shift in operations as the department grew. The larger the department, the more 'off the shelf' software and outsourcing. This meant less creativity and more monotony for the IT staff.
It was a blast when I first started working there... always having to find some creative way to make something work the way our customers wanted it to. Now, the same positions entail little more than making sure servers and applications are running.... and if development work is needed, they outsource it.
I left and went to work for a small/medium sized IT department somewhere else and love what I do once again.
In my opinion, there is too much emphasis by the Universities to find employment at large businesses.
I did some research on a similar situation a couple years ago. Optical media has a rather long lifespan (in upwards of 70+ year ratings on some of the high end dvds, if I recall correctly). The question to ask yourself is will there be hardware available to read the media in the future.
One of my first ideas was 'fine, I'll just put away an optical reader'. There are two issues with that conclusion.
1. Optical readers have moving parts. Can the readers handle this much shelf life without regular use?
2. The optical reader has to plug into a computer. Will computers have the appropriate connections in the future? I could put away an entire computer, but that seemed excessive for me.
In my opinion, pick something relatively dependable (and cheap) and run with it. When the price of the media and drive(r)s to read it start going up due to new technology or availability, then it's time to convert.
I agree with this synopsis for the most part. I work for a medium sized University in the Midwest. Here, interest in a Computer Science degree has remained fairly consistent (and low) for several years. On the other hand, Computer Information Systems and some (newer) specialized degrees (e.g. Computer Networking Technology) have been gaining some traction. I'm not going to try to speculate why it is this way. Perhaps a census such as the one presented by the CRA might be a bit more useful pertaining to the direction of IT education if they expand their subject matter.... then again.... maybe that conflicts with their goal.
I received an e-mail from VMWare just a few days ago on this very subject. They seem to be partnering up with Wyse to provide a complete solution for using VMs as thin clients. I haven't had time to fully investigate, but it may be worth a look.
When I first heard about this recommendation from Microsoft, the first thing that came to mind was the stereotypical Used Car Lot where they dress up their vehicles to look fantastic....but a week after the purchase the thing falls apart. I have nothing against Microsoft, but to me it seems like they want the PC manufacturers to do the marketing work for them or they don't think Vista can sell itself (e.g. Vista doesn't work right, but at least it will look pretty turned off!).
My organization is in a similar situation with sharing administrative passwords. The politics dictate that I share specific account information with specific users. I was given a set of specifications which included a central repository of passwords, web interface, no 'master' password, and access control for each password entered. I really don't have the time to modify an open source package like http://w3pw.sourceforge.net/ or http://pasonda.sourceforge.net/, so I found http://www.argosytelcrest.co.uk/pwsafe/. As long as I can secure the server it runs on for internal use only, this will suffice for our needs (given the political environment and red tape I have to endure). Many will frown on applications like this, but people wouldn't be coding apps like this if there wasn't a need. Sure it may be an organizational design issue, but it's better than sending passwords through email or writing them down so the users can forget them in a restaurant, considering I have no control over the organization's design.
I have been using the Kaveman for quite some time now. My organization recently got a similar kvm from Lantronix . The nice features about these boxes is you can access them via local console, VNC, or web browser. I suppose if you need a headless KVM that will work with a laptop, you could just connect the NIC on the kvm to the NIC on your laptop. Another nice feature is the use of non-proprietary cables.
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The university that I attended (and worked at for a while) has been renting textbooks through the campus-run bookstore since my father went to school there (about 35 years). The concept is not new. What will be interesting though will be seeing how some of the textbook retailers (Barnes & Noble, Amazon, etc.) will respond to a more public method of renting books. Personally, I'm more interested in increasing the popularity of electronic textbooks than I am traditional textbook distribution......
There is plenty of original IP associated with MMO games these days..... but most of that IP comes from game developers outside of the U.S. I have seen some really good IP coming out of Asia, but the ideals that the IP brings forth clashes with the American culture, and therefore usually fails when an introduction is attempted.
I have been a fan of the Spark Client and Openfire Server as an IM platform for quite sometime. They are built on the XMPP and Jabber protocols. After being in a corporate environment before, I know it's hard to convince management to go with an OSS solution as they seem to think that if it doesn't have a price tag, it's not secure. The Spark/Openfire platform come in an 'Enterprise' flavor with support to appease management as well. Both the client and server are built on a plug-in style architecture, so it's pretty easy to include your own software add-ins. There are really too many features for me to really go into though.
I tend to agree. I'm not sure that the corporate environment is ready to take productivity to this level yet, for security reasons. The thought of confidential documents accidentally getting cached in the wrong place on a google server gives me shivers.
I'm not that familiar with ThinkFree or Zoho, but if Google releases appliances that don't phone home except for software updates, I think they'll be a major competitor, provided they can keep the cost for the appliance under the cost of licensing for MS Office.
Everyone seems to show this announcement in a negative light. This isn't as bad as it seems.
Last I checked, the game was stable, fairly well balanced, and almost all the features they said were going to implemented were there. Bugs exist, but compared to other games, not that bad.
Let's compare that to WoW's release. Blizzard struggled (maybe still do?) with class balance for a very long time, they didn't implement a PvP system that folks wanted to use until months after release, and a lot of the content(e.g. instances) were buggy.
Now let's compare Warhammer to Funcom's Age of Conan which was released not long ago. AoC (Age of Conan) has balance issues, a partial PvP implementation, and a lot of bugs.
With Warhammer, you'll be missing some content and classes, both of which have viable alternatives implemented, but should have a fairly stable and balanced game.
Overall, I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing as long as everything else releases well.....
If you look at Mythic's history with Dark Age of Camelot, I imagine that this will be a 'content update' and not an expansion.
I tend to agree, to a certain point. I've been watching the netbook market pretty closely over the last several months. A large majority (not all) have better hardware specs on their windows systems than the linux systems (usually because windows requires more). It would not surprise me to see the Geeks buying the system with better hardware and re-installing with whatever OS they fancy.
Most Universities encourage their grads to go work for large companies. This is usually due to the prestige of saying 'we have grads working for XYZ big company' and hoping that the company will donate money. This isn't the best working environment for everyone.
I had the opportunity to 'grow' with a budding IT department. The department went from a small/medium size department with no budget (read: we couldn't afford to buy jack) to a medium/large size department with a fairly substantial budget.
There was a major shift in operations as the department grew. The larger the department, the more 'off the shelf' software and outsourcing. This meant less creativity and more monotony for the IT staff.
It was a blast when I first started working there... always having to find some creative way to make something work the way our customers wanted it to. Now, the same positions entail little more than making sure servers and applications are running.... and if development work is needed, they outsource it.
I left and went to work for a small/medium sized IT department somewhere else and love what I do once again.
In my opinion, there is too much emphasis by the Universities to find employment at large businesses.
I did some research on a similar situation a couple years ago. Optical media has a rather long lifespan (in upwards of 70+ year ratings on some of the high end dvds, if I recall correctly). The question to ask yourself is will there be hardware available to read the media in the future.
One of my first ideas was 'fine, I'll just put away an optical reader'. There are two issues with that conclusion.
1. Optical readers have moving parts. Can the readers handle this much shelf life without regular use?
2. The optical reader has to plug into a computer. Will computers have the appropriate connections in the future? I could put away an entire computer, but that seemed excessive for me.
In my opinion, pick something relatively dependable (and cheap) and run with it. When the price of the media and drive(r)s to read it start going up due to new technology or availability, then it's time to convert.
I agree with this synopsis for the most part. I work for a medium sized University in the Midwest. Here, interest in a Computer Science degree has remained fairly consistent (and low) for several years. On the other hand, Computer Information Systems and some (newer) specialized degrees (e.g. Computer Networking Technology) have been gaining some traction. I'm not going to try to speculate why it is this way. Perhaps a census such as the one presented by the CRA might be a bit more useful pertaining to the direction of IT education if they expand their subject matter.... then again .... maybe that conflicts with their goal.
Is it just me, or does this sound like the stereotypical persona given to us involving the 'cool' kids vs. the bad kids from high school?
I received an e-mail from VMWare just a few days ago on this very subject. They seem to be partnering up with Wyse to provide a complete solution for using VMs as thin clients. I haven't had time to fully investigate, but it may be worth a look.
When I first heard about this recommendation from Microsoft, the first thing that came to mind was the stereotypical Used Car Lot where they dress up their vehicles to look fantastic....but a week after the purchase the thing falls apart. I have nothing against Microsoft, but to me it seems like they want the PC manufacturers to do the marketing work for them or they don't think Vista can sell itself (e.g. Vista doesn't work right, but at least it will look pretty turned off!).
My organization is in a similar situation with sharing administrative passwords. The politics dictate that I share specific account information with specific users. I was given a set of specifications which included a central repository of passwords, web interface, no 'master' password, and access control for each password entered. I really don't have the time to modify an open source package like http://w3pw.sourceforge.net/ or http://pasonda.sourceforge.net/, so I found http://www.argosytelcrest.co.uk/pwsafe/. As long as I can secure the server it runs on for internal use only, this will suffice for our needs (given the political environment and red tape I have to endure). Many will frown on applications like this, but people wouldn't be coding apps like this if there wasn't a need. Sure it may be an organizational design issue, but it's better than sending passwords through email or writing them down so the users can forget them in a restaurant, considering I have no control over the organization's design.
I have been using the Kaveman for quite some time now. My organization recently got a similar kvm from Lantronix . The nice features about these boxes is you can access them via local console, VNC, or web browser. I suppose if you need a headless KVM that will work with a laptop, you could just connect the NIC on the kvm to the NIC on your laptop. Another nice feature is the use of non-proprietary cables.