Right, because imposing artificial barriers to communication, and making it even harder for the engineers to express themselves clearly, is something we should really encourage.
Obviously you've never been in the position of having to explain something very complicated and very technical to someone who will never ever understand it. There are some things that take years to learn and understand.
That sounds elitist, and perhaps it may be, but many dedicated professionals spend their lives learning. The notion that anyone can easily understand an esoteric and complex detail implies that there is no such thing expertise or wisdom.
You'll be able to "make stuff" again, but you won't be able to "sell stuff," which means you'll be out of a job pretty quick, unless you happen to work for one of a handful of companies that makes geek toys.
Well, your assertion is not supported by history. "Revolutionary" products are not made by sales, marketing, or management. They are made by "geeks." I'm pretty sure that the facts are self evident, but should you need an example, lets look at the personal computer. In the 70s it was geeks like me building micro-computers.
All technical discussions in companies should be done in Klingon. Having worked in the field for over a quarter of a century, I have come to the conclusion that marketing, sales, and management should NEVER know what goes on in engineering. Everyone will be happier. Lets face it, non-technical people barely understand as it is, and when they do get the jist of an idea, they so badly misunderstand it, it becomes a marketing phase/buzzword that everyone else will eventually either have to support or explain to the lowest common denominator why its a bad idea.
Lets just speak Klingon and kill the engineers that dishonour themselves and go into management to prevent translation. The economy will be better because we'll be able to make stuff again.
Lets be honest, everyone here is on some sort of social media system these days, and as such, we can make statements that are seen by a number of people. If enough of use post a headline "Don't by a Kindle, here's why," editorialize and post the link. I think it may spread the message better than slashdot will. You just know that the standard media outlets won't publish crap about it.
"As a long term atheist, maybe a subtle religious analogy escapes people.
You can be subtle and think you are clever, I hope you are comforted by your own cleverness. Sometimes however you are so subtle and clever you're the only one who knows it. Blunt as a brick usually brings all doubt to a quick halt, as I have done here. Rather than mock me you might take a queue.
Well, at the risk of sounding "elitist," because we all know that clever or knowledgeable people are bad and not real americans. I happen to like subtlety, irony, and wit. Thus, I will not be "blunt as a brick," because, lets face it, anyone can be blunt. G. W. Bush was very blunt.
Oh, and one point I would disagree on. I think MySQL's existence is good for Postgres. MySQL strongly focuses on ease of setup / use by beginners and I think that that competition is good for encouraging Postgres to cater for beginners.
I have to disagree with the ease of use statement. I am mystified that *anyone* thinks that MySQL is easier to set up than PostgreSQL.
And my response to that is if you are intent on appealing to mythological beings as models for human behavior analysis then you at least should have the honesty within your self to first realize that anything you can imagine you think you might understand about omnipotent behavior is more than likely very wrong; if such beings existed they would be so far out of your experience there's nothing you'd be able to say about them that would even approximate reality. Even if the Bible were some kind of cosmic "Be back later" note. In all likely hood the note would be written on some kind of formless interstellar plasma that would impart the wisdom of the universe to all who touched it. Not start an argument that most humans seem to feel compelled to solve with a knife.
So lets put the religious theories away, shall we?
As a long term atheist, maybe a subtle religious analogy escapes people.
"god" or any sufficiently important mythological figure can often serve as a metaphor. Like the expression "The devil is in the details," there is no explicit belief in any mythological devil. The devil represents evil and disputes.
Similarly, "god" in my post is nothing more than a metaphor for the source of money.
So, in case you missed the point, let me be a little less subtle.
There are many more geniuses who are poor than there are those that are rich. It seems to be a trend that the "jerseylicious" types have money showered upon them, where as good and decent, hard working people struggle.
So, Larry Ellison is rich? So what, look at most of the rich people and you'll see that it says nothing about character or ability.
What's the difference between God and Larry Ellison? God doesn't think he's Larry Ellison.
Seriously, Oracle is an arrogant blood sucking company with its fangs in the fortune 500 markets and government organizations. Oracle DBAs demand a high price, and make sure you can't really escape the vendor lock.
Its a house of cards, really. Oracle on a single system doesn't scale much better (if even) than PostgreSQL on a single system. Oracle's cluster solution is nice, but the expense is crazy. Only fortune 500s and governments can waste that kind of money. I don't know of any "new" business that chooses Oracle.
They are trying to kill MySQL, and while I hope it dies a quick but painful death, PostgreSQL offers far more features and equivalent performance for free. What they are doing with Java is crazy. They don't even know what they have or how to capitalize on it. This isn't like MySQL where it is a direct competitor to their cash-cow, this is a key infrastructure piece that gives them a solid foot-hold in the industry. By suing Google and the actions they are taking now, it just tips the scales a bit more toward other languages and environments and weakens their position.
But, Larry is an idiot. Periodic flashes of brilliance, followed by long periods of narcissistic retardation disorder.
A while ago, Polaroid and, I guess, DEC before it, all had the same problems. They had a great body of work, but they could not capitalize on it. At Polaroid, I worked on their electronic still camera. The project took a distant back seat to their "instant film" division because that's where the income was. The current cash cow was too powerful within the organization to allow it to develop and market potentially competing technologies. The problem is, if you don't modernize your product line and, perhaps, risk exiting products, your competitors will, and in the case of Polaroid, they did.
Polaroids "ESC" camera we were working on was the best of its time. The color was good, the resolution was great (for the time), and the speed good too. Polaroid starved the project because they didn't want jeopardize their instant film. So, polaroid died when digital cameras took over.
Similarly, Sun had great technology, but it seems as though they could not decide if they were a hardware company or a software company. Their hardware was good, but not competitive. Their software strategy was flawed. They could not commit to being "open source" or being "closed source," instead tried to straddle the middle ground decimating the value proposition for their closed source, and generating distrust on the open source offerings.
Maybe it isn't exactly like polaroid, but these were two companies with a huge amount of intellectual capital that were unable to monetize it.
While I am a hobbyist in my own right, the tool set sophistication of this project is a bit high. Home cut and tuned aluminum bars? Give me a break, it would be less time consuming, easier and cheaper to run to "toys are us" and BUY a cheap xylophone. Seriously, lathe cut solenoid cases? OMG, who has a lathe? I would have gone to a hardware store, or sowing store to buy some plastic spools. Again, cheaper, easier, and less time consuming. MOSFETs are cool, but for the current and time constrains, a simple 2n2222 would work fine. Lastly LED's as a clamp diode? OMG! LEDs are slow, you'll eventually cook the mosfet regardless.
Why should our tax dollars and our lawyer be prosecuting one of our citizens for a multi-billion dollar multi-national corporation?
It should be our taxes and our lawyer DEFENDING one of our citizens against the CIVIL charges of an out of control multi-billion dollar multi-national corporation!
In the air, I sense pitch forks. I sense a people who feel that the workings of government no longer work for us. When justice is not measured out fairly and justly by the organizations charged with doing so, citizens have a tendency to take it into their own hands.
Until now, these people have had a very safe existence, but they better start to realize that they must at some time walk amongst us, and if, at some point people start taking the law into their own hands -- as a last resort, they may better start thinking of a greater "right and wrong" sooner rather than later.
While I don't think I'm about to pick up a pitch fork any time soon, I know a number of people who are out of work, the anger is growing in a serious way, can you feel it? I don't believe the status quo can survive much longer.
The term "Fascism" is derived from the Italian word "fascio" which means bundle. It was first applied by Mussolini describing an economic philosophy (different from capitalism) where government and business are one "bundle" of "fascio."
To enforce such an arrangement, you eventually need a harsh dictator ship, but as an economic principle we are almost there.
Why are our tax dollars paying our lawyer to press criminal charges against one of our citizens on the behalf if a multi-billion dollar multi-national corporation for altering legally purchased private property?
I remember when AT&T was forced, gasp, to use non AT&T phones on their service because the government protected its citizens. It seems we've come reversed ourselves.
Microsoft is involved, so that is not good news. SuSE is dead, or soon will be. What's going to happen to the UNIX copyrights, and will this IP sale be the stick that they will continue to try to beat Linux with? Software patents? OMG, in the hands of Microsoft?
One can theorize that this is Microsoft's way of trying to get Google. Windows Phone 7 needs a way to beat Android, and I'm sure the whole Linux copyright, patent BS will be focused on the mobile phone market.
Windows 1 to Windows ME were DOS Based systems. In versions 1 and 2 they were module based overlay systems. In version 2.1 they introduced DPMI (DOS protected mode interface) in which the DOS version of Windows was run in its own 386 VM. In Version 3.0 "Standard mode" was introduced and Windows ran in 80286 16 bit protected mode and it was a disaster In version 3.1 (I believe) they eliminated standard mode and introduced Win32 API where they would run 32 bit programs. In Windows 95, they made it prettier and added more DOS devices drivers to the DPMI system In Windows 98 and 98SE, they just added more drivers In Windows ME, they basically jumped the shark and killed it.
Windows NT was originally designed as portable OS/2 and was a "rewrite" (or theft if you like) of DEC VMS by Cutler. NT 4.0 moved NT from a "micro-kernel" model to a modular kernel by embedding the video GDI into the kernel space. Since 4.0 Microsoft has been making NT less and less reliable by adding more and more to the kernel space.
X is one of the most important "unixy" things about Linux that make it far better than Mac or Windows in a networked environment. People who see X as an impediment are those who miss the big picture. If Linux doesn't have X, what's the point? I just lost a usability that *I* use.
What is "dead" and what is "alive" when it comes to technology? Linux has millions of users. This is a fact. It isn't dead. It isn't going to be. Will it be as popular as the Mac? Probably not. Will it be a market that people will ignore? Probably, but if there is a market of millions of possible customers and little competition, an enterprising company would be foolish not to take some notice. The problem with Mac and Windows is, well, Mac and Windows. Windows does suck. Everyone knows it. Most reluctantly use it. The Mac is better and people love their macs, but they are not as entrenched (yet) as Windows and their are issues, plus it is a more expensive platform.
I would hazard to say that Windows and Mac are just as dead as Linux. There are no new applications. Computers themselves aren't getting faster only "wider." We are done. There's nothing left for the desktop to do. We can only improve what we have or alter the way in which we deliver services (i.e. netflix, hulu, etc.). Its a toaster or a VCR. People still buy toasters and VCRs (well DVD players), but they aren't getting any "better."
The interesting work isn't the desktop, but the device that comes after it. Obviously phones and mobile computers are big, but that is approaching saturation as well. What's next? Is there a next? The whole tech world is search.....
Maybe Microsoft has tightened security in the last few years, but I doubt it. The network is pretty wide open and it isn't run like some sort of movie company with real security. A smart enough guy would be able to get in and do what ever they wanted. People routinely work at all hours and leave their computers running in offices with open doors. Screen savers aren't always password protected.
So, if he was trying to put something into windows, then it s probably there
Why do the "legitimate" scientists think that they are any better, deserving, or even more fit than the "amateur" scientists? Or even the thrill junkie? What gives them the temerity to try to exclude others from natural phenomenon. I think of myself as scientifically minded, but science is not the only thing. Some people study oceanographic waves, some people surf. Don't like it, study cryptozoology, no one will bother you there.
While I can go down the rat hole of an endless paranoia, the fact is that every time you connect to a site, there needs to be a separate path by which you can authenticate certificate for a site with peer review. Perhaps even an old fashioned phone call. Here's my organization's Md5HASH if you don't get the the same number, call for support.
The reality is that we only need a handful of trusted sites, credit card, back accounts, etc. The browser should be able to link a specific cert and authority to a specific site.
I never thought the idea of "corporations" being trusted was a good one
With most UPS systems on the market, the battery is sized for an estimated 5~10 minutes of run time for the power capacity of the UPS. There are actually two things to consider: The storage capacity of the batteries and the power capacity of the UPS. So, if you have a 1400VA UPS, you'll probably only have a couple 12V 17AH batteries. To get a longer "runtime" commercially, you would have to get a higher capacity UPS. This would cause you to buy a heavier duty UPS than you really need and spend a lot more for it, when all you really need is higher storage capacity in the batteries.
If your company is really small and cheap, and has a hands-on mentality, which in this economy seems to be making a come-back, you could take a properly sized UPS and extend its run-time capacity merely by buying a couple batteries. For instance, I have an APC 1400 UPS for my office servers, I got two 12 V 35VA batteries in addition to the standard 17A ones that came with it. I tripled the run-time storage while leaving the load capacity the same.
UPS companies don't like this, because they like to sell bigger products, but its your money.
Slashdot Mirror
Right, because imposing artificial barriers to communication, and making it even harder for the engineers to express themselves clearly, is something we should really encourage.
Obviously you've never been in the position of having to explain something very complicated and very technical to someone who will never ever understand it. There are some things that take years to learn and understand.
That sounds elitist, and perhaps it may be, but many dedicated professionals spend their lives learning. The notion that anyone can easily understand an esoteric and complex detail implies that there is no such thing expertise or wisdom.
You'll be able to "make stuff" again, but you won't be able to "sell stuff," which means you'll be out of a job pretty quick, unless you happen to work for one of a handful of companies that makes geek toys.
Well, your assertion is not supported by history. "Revolutionary" products are not made by sales, marketing, or management. They are made by "geeks." I'm pretty sure that the facts are self evident, but should you need an example, lets look at the personal computer. In the 70s it was geeks like me building micro-computers.
Perhaps off topic, but.....
All technical discussions in companies should be done in Klingon. Having worked in the field for over a quarter of a century, I have come to the conclusion that marketing, sales, and management should NEVER know what goes on in engineering. Everyone will be happier. Lets face it, non-technical people barely understand as it is, and when they do get the jist of an idea, they so badly misunderstand it, it becomes a marketing phase/buzzword that everyone else will eventually either have to support or explain to the lowest common denominator why its a bad idea.
Lets just speak Klingon and kill the engineers that dishonour themselves and go into management to prevent translation. The economy will be better because we'll be able to make stuff again.
Lets be honest, everyone here is on some sort of social media system these days, and as such, we can make statements that are seen by a number of people. If enough of use post a headline "Don't by a Kindle, here's why," editorialize and post the link. I think it may spread the message better than slashdot will. You just know that the standard media outlets won't publish crap about it.
"As a long term atheist, maybe a subtle religious analogy escapes people.
You can be subtle and think you are clever, I hope you are comforted by your own cleverness. Sometimes however you are so subtle and clever you're the only one who knows it. Blunt as a brick usually brings all doubt to a quick halt, as I have done here. Rather than mock me you might take a queue.
Well, at the risk of sounding "elitist," because we all know that clever or knowledgeable people are bad and not real americans. I happen to like subtlety, irony, and wit. Thus, I will not be "blunt as a brick," because, lets face it, anyone can be blunt. G. W. Bush was very blunt.
Oh, and one point I would disagree on. I think MySQL's existence is good for Postgres. MySQL strongly focuses on ease of setup / use by beginners and I think that that competition is good for encouraging Postgres to cater for beginners.
I have to disagree with the ease of use statement. I am mystified that *anyone* thinks that MySQL is easier to set up than PostgreSQL.
I mean, jeez
initdb -D /databasepath /databasepath start
pg_ctl -D
Is MySQL even close?
And my response to that is if you are intent on appealing to mythological beings as models for human behavior analysis then you at least should have the honesty within your self to first realize that anything you can imagine you think you might understand about omnipotent behavior is more than likely very wrong; if such beings existed they would be so far out of your experience there's nothing you'd be able to say about them that would even approximate reality. Even if the Bible were some kind of cosmic "Be back later" note. In all likely hood the note would be written on some kind of formless interstellar plasma that would impart the wisdom of the universe to all who touched it. Not start an argument that most humans seem to feel compelled to solve with a knife.
So lets put the religious theories away, shall we?
As a long term atheist, maybe a subtle religious analogy escapes people.
"god" or any sufficiently important mythological figure can often serve as a metaphor. Like the expression "The devil is in the details," there is no explicit belief in any mythological devil. The devil represents evil and disputes.
Similarly, "god" in my post is nothing more than a metaphor for the source of money.
So, in case you missed the point, let me be a little less subtle.
There are many more geniuses who are poor than there are those that are rich. It seems to be a trend that the "jerseylicious" types have money showered upon them, where as good and decent, hard working people struggle.
So, Larry Ellison is rich? So what, look at most of the rich people and you'll see that it says nothing about character or ability.
My response to that is this:
If you want to know what god thinks about money, look at the people he gives it too.
What's the difference between God and Larry Ellison? God doesn't think he's Larry Ellison.
Seriously, Oracle is an arrogant blood sucking company with its fangs in the fortune 500 markets and government organizations. Oracle DBAs demand a high price, and make sure you can't really escape the vendor lock.
Its a house of cards, really. Oracle on a single system doesn't scale much better (if even) than PostgreSQL on a single system. Oracle's cluster solution is nice, but the expense is crazy. Only fortune 500s and governments can waste that kind of money. I don't know of any "new" business that chooses Oracle.
They are trying to kill MySQL, and while I hope it dies a quick but painful death, PostgreSQL offers far more features and equivalent performance for free. What they are doing with Java is crazy. They don't even know what they have or how to capitalize on it. This isn't like MySQL where it is a direct competitor to their cash-cow, this is a key infrastructure piece that gives them a solid foot-hold in the industry. By suing Google and the actions they are taking now, it just tips the scales a bit more toward other languages and environments and weakens their position.
But, Larry is an idiot. Periodic flashes of brilliance, followed by long periods of narcissistic retardation disorder.
http://pulse2.com/2010/12/03/senator-joe-lieberman-introduces-shield-act-to-make-classified-information-releases-illegal
A while ago, Polaroid and, I guess, DEC before it, all had the same problems. They had a great body of work, but they could not capitalize on it. At Polaroid, I worked on their electronic still camera. The project took a distant back seat to their "instant film" division because that's where the income was. The current cash cow was too powerful within the organization to allow it to develop and market potentially competing technologies. The problem is, if you don't modernize your product line and, perhaps, risk exiting products, your competitors will, and in the case of Polaroid, they did.
Polaroids "ESC" camera we were working on was the best of its time. The color was good, the resolution was great (for the time), and the speed good too. Polaroid starved the project because they didn't want jeopardize their instant film. So, polaroid died when digital cameras took over.
Similarly, Sun had great technology, but it seems as though they could not decide if they were a hardware company or a software company. Their hardware was good, but not competitive. Their software strategy was flawed. They could not commit to being "open source" or being "closed source," instead tried to straddle the middle ground decimating the value proposition for their closed source, and generating distrust on the open source offerings.
Maybe it isn't exactly like polaroid, but these were two companies with a huge amount of intellectual capital that were unable to monetize it.
Hohner Kids Glockenspiel, $19.99 on the web. Not having to find, cut, tune, and mount 8 aluminum bars, priceless.
While I am a hobbyist in my own right, the tool set sophistication of this project is a bit high. Home cut and tuned aluminum bars? Give me a break, it would be less time consuming, easier and cheaper to run to "toys are us" and BUY a cheap xylophone. Seriously, lathe cut solenoid cases? OMG, who has a lathe? I would have gone to a hardware store, or sowing store to buy some plastic spools. Again, cheaper, easier, and less time consuming. MOSFETs are cool, but for the current and time constrains, a simple 2n2222 would work fine. Lastly LED's as a clamp diode? OMG! LEDs are slow, you'll eventually cook the mosfet regardless.
I said it before....
Why should our tax dollars and our lawyer be prosecuting one of our citizens for a multi-billion dollar multi-national corporation?
It should be our taxes and our lawyer DEFENDING one of our citizens against the CIVIL charges of an out of control multi-billion dollar multi-national corporation!
In the air, I sense pitch forks. I sense a people who feel that the workings of government no longer work for us. When justice is not measured out fairly and justly by the organizations charged with doing so, citizens have a tendency to take it into their own hands.
Until now, these people have had a very safe existence, but they better start to realize that they must at some time walk amongst us, and if, at some point people start taking the law into their own hands -- as a last resort, they may better start thinking of a greater "right and wrong" sooner rather than later.
While I don't think I'm about to pick up a pitch fork any time soon, I know a number of people who are out of work, the anger is growing in a serious way, can you feel it? I don't believe the status quo can survive much longer.
The term "Fascism" is derived from the Italian word "fascio" which means bundle. It was first applied by Mussolini describing an economic philosophy (different from capitalism) where government and business are one "bundle" of "fascio."
To enforce such an arrangement, you eventually need a harsh dictator ship, but as an economic principle we are almost there.
So, no, I am not exaggerating.
Why are our tax dollars paying our lawyer to press criminal charges against one of our citizens on the behalf if a multi-billion dollar multi-national corporation for altering legally purchased private property?
I remember when AT&T was forced, gasp, to use non AT&T phones on their service because the government protected its citizens. It seems we've come reversed ourselves.
Microsoft is involved, so that is not good news. SuSE is dead, or soon will be.
What's going to happen to the UNIX copyrights, and will this IP sale be the stick that they will continue to try to beat Linux with?
Software patents? OMG, in the hands of Microsoft?
One can theorize that this is Microsoft's way of trying to get Google. Windows Phone 7 needs a way to beat Android, and I'm sure the whole Linux copyright, patent BS will be focused on the mobile phone market.
Win32s, yes I remember, I just forgot the name.
Actually, Windows 3.0 only kinda sorta ran in 640K. In real mode it was practically unusable and it used a segmented overlay system based (int 2f?)
In protected and enhanced 386 mode, it could swap out modules much easier.
Don't forget "LIM" memory!!!
Actually this is incorrect
Windows 1 to Windows ME were DOS Based systems.
In versions 1 and 2 they were module based overlay systems.
In version 2.1 they introduced DPMI (DOS protected mode interface) in which the DOS version of Windows was run in its own 386 VM.
In Version 3.0 "Standard mode" was introduced and Windows ran in 80286 16 bit protected mode and it was a disaster
In version 3.1 (I believe) they eliminated standard mode and introduced Win32 API where they would run 32 bit programs.
In Windows 95, they made it prettier and added more DOS devices drivers to the DPMI system
In Windows 98 and 98SE, they just added more drivers
In Windows ME, they basically jumped the shark and killed it.
Windows NT was originally designed as portable OS/2 and was a "rewrite" (or theft if you like) of DEC VMS by Cutler.
NT 4.0 moved NT from a "micro-kernel" model to a modular kernel by embedding the video GDI into the kernel space.
Since 4.0 Microsoft has been making NT less and less reliable by adding more and more to the kernel space.
X is one of the most important "unixy" things about Linux that make it far better than Mac or Windows in a networked environment. People who see X as an impediment are those who miss the big picture. If Linux doesn't have X, what's the point? I just lost a usability that *I* use.
Ubuntu is losing on of its users.
Let's be honest...
What is "dead" and what is "alive" when it comes to technology? Linux has millions of users. This is a fact. It isn't dead. It isn't going to be. Will it be as popular as the Mac? Probably not. Will it be a market that people will ignore? Probably, but if there is a market of millions of possible customers and little competition, an enterprising company would be foolish not to take some notice. The problem with Mac and Windows is, well, Mac and Windows. Windows does suck. Everyone knows it. Most reluctantly use it. The Mac is better and people love their macs, but they are not as entrenched (yet) as Windows and their are issues, plus it is a more expensive platform.
I would hazard to say that Windows and Mac are just as dead as Linux. There are no new applications. Computers themselves aren't getting faster only "wider." We are done. There's nothing left for the desktop to do. We can only improve what we have or alter the way in which we deliver services (i.e. netflix, hulu, etc.). Its a toaster or a VCR. People still buy toasters and VCRs (well DVD players), but they aren't getting any "better."
The interesting work isn't the desktop, but the device that comes after it. Obviously phones and mobile computers are big, but that is approaching saturation as well. What's next? Is there a next? The whole tech world is search.....
Too bad you think that way. The NHSTA has no electrical or software engineers under their employ. Its all mechanical engineers.
Maybe Microsoft has tightened security in the last few years, but I doubt it. The network is pretty wide open and it isn't run like some sort of movie company with real security. A smart enough guy would be able to get in and do what ever they wanted. People routinely work at all hours and leave their computers running in offices with open doors. Screen savers aren't always password protected.
So, if he was trying to put something into windows, then it s probably there
Why do the "legitimate" scientists think that they are any better, deserving, or even more fit than the "amateur" scientists? Or even the thrill junkie? What gives them the temerity to try to exclude others from natural phenomenon. I think of myself as scientifically minded, but science is not the only thing. Some people study oceanographic waves, some people surf. Don't like it, study cryptozoology, no one will bother you there.
While I can go down the rat hole of an endless paranoia, the fact is that every time you connect to a site, there needs to be a separate path by which you can authenticate certificate for a site with peer review. Perhaps even an old fashioned phone call. Here's my organization's Md5HASH if you don't get the the same number, call for support.
The reality is that we only need a handful of trusted sites, credit card, back accounts, etc. The browser should be able to link a specific cert and authority to a specific site.
I never thought the idea of "corporations" being trusted was a good one
With most UPS systems on the market, the battery is sized for an estimated 5~10 minutes of run time for the power capacity of the UPS. There are actually two things to consider: The storage capacity of the batteries and the power capacity of the UPS. So, if you have a 1400VA UPS, you'll probably only have a couple 12V 17AH batteries. To get a longer "runtime" commercially, you would have to get a higher capacity UPS. This would cause you to buy a heavier duty UPS than you really need and spend a lot more for it, when all you really need is higher storage capacity in the batteries.
If your company is really small and cheap, and has a hands-on mentality, which in this economy seems to be making a come-back, you could take a properly sized UPS and extend its run-time capacity merely by buying a couple batteries. For instance, I have an APC 1400 UPS for my office servers, I got two 12 V 35VA batteries in addition to the standard 17A ones that came with it. I tripled the run-time storage while leaving the load capacity the same.
UPS companies don't like this, because they like to sell bigger products, but its your money.