Having opened and closed one for 3 years in the heart of the SF Bay Area, I can tell you:
-It will be alot of hard work. Be prepared to give up a good chunk of your life.
-You won't make alot of money. If you want that, do something else.
-You are competing with new game releases/technologies all the time.
-Depending on your market and location, you are dealing with annoying and evil teenagers (not all of them mind you).
-You need alot of capital for each upgrade round. Sometimes you just won't have it.
-It's a seasonal business.
-You will have fun at least.
-You will learn alot.
My advice, don't do it.
For me, it's all about the apps.
I can run these on OSX:
Web
Email
Office Apps
irc
putty
vpn
BUT I CAN'T RUN THIS ON OSX (elegantly anyway):
PC Games
Therefore I won't switch to OSX.
I dont use a firewall, av, spyware cleaner or anything at all. I just restore the latest clean image of my HD using Acronis, whenever I run into trouble, which doesn't occur that much really.
The Acronis restore works pretty fast too, like 10-15 minutes.
I think kids are very visual at this age, seeing is believing. Show them an internetwork of routers, switches, hubs, WAPs, etc Give em a glimpse of what the Internet physically looks like. Show them the path of an email, or how the web works. Or maybe how cell phones work. Better yet take them to a data center if you can, now thats geeky!
face it, there's not much you can do about this trend (layoffs, no jobs, outsourcing, etc.) short of the ballot box.
sure you can get training, study up, and make yourself more valuable in the field, but no guarantees. you can also do a career change (such as myself after 17 years in IT) or seek other types of work.
but there's no avoiding it, outsourcing will continue to happen, competition will be tougher, layoffs will continue, and budgets will be tighter. do something about your particular situation or you will be left behind. people have to get smarter and more skilled. that's just evolution.
i would suggest a solution to the government to intervene in this way:
----
Dear Corporation:
For every person you lay off, the money you saved from that person for one years time, will be put into training/retraining of said person for new skill(s) of their choice.
----
What do you think? I mean I'm sure there's ways that companies can fool the government on this, but I'm sure the laid off person will keep them in check.
Slashdot Mirror
Having opened and closed one for 3 years in the heart of the SF Bay Area, I can tell you: -It will be alot of hard work. Be prepared to give up a good chunk of your life. -You won't make alot of money. If you want that, do something else. -You are competing with new game releases/technologies all the time. -Depending on your market and location, you are dealing with annoying and evil teenagers (not all of them mind you). -You need alot of capital for each upgrade round. Sometimes you just won't have it. -It's a seasonal business. -You will have fun at least. -You will learn alot. My advice, don't do it.
For me, it's all about the apps. I can run these on OSX: Web Email Office Apps irc putty vpn BUT I CAN'T RUN THIS ON OSX (elegantly anyway): PC Games Therefore I won't switch to OSX.
I dont use a firewall, av, spyware cleaner or anything at all. I just restore the latest clean image of my HD using Acronis, whenever I run into trouble, which doesn't occur that much really. The Acronis restore works pretty fast too, like 10-15 minutes.
I think kids are very visual at this age, seeing is believing. Show them an internetwork of routers, switches, hubs, WAPs, etc Give em a glimpse of what the Internet physically looks like. Show them the path of an email, or how the web works. Or maybe how cell phones work. Better yet take them to a data center if you can, now thats geeky!
google is nothing but an overrated, neo dot com, hubris bloated, geek infested, search tool. well at least they're hiring...
face it, there's not much you can do about this trend (layoffs, no jobs, outsourcing, etc.) short of the ballot box. sure you can get training, study up, and make yourself more valuable in the field, but no guarantees. you can also do a career change (such as myself after 17 years in IT) or seek other types of work. but there's no avoiding it, outsourcing will continue to happen, competition will be tougher, layoffs will continue, and budgets will be tighter. do something about your particular situation or you will be left behind. people have to get smarter and more skilled. that's just evolution. i would suggest a solution to the government to intervene in this way: ---- Dear Corporation: For every person you lay off, the money you saved from that person for one years time, will be put into training/retraining of said person for new skill(s) of their choice. ---- What do you think? I mean I'm sure there's ways that companies can fool the government on this, but I'm sure the laid off person will keep them in check.