BZZZTTT... guess again. All private industry (four IT jobs: one manufacturing, two consulting firms, one software startup). The current consulting gig is doing work for a federal government agency. Believe me, for these folks 40 hours IS overtime. I would say 37.5 is the mean.
I don't get it. I just don't get it? Are you an H1-B slave or something? Why do people work these hours. I've NEVER put in more than 45 hours a week, and I've been in IT about four years now. For that matter, I haven't worked more than 50 hours since my waiter days in college.
Apparently, this is a problem for some people. Here's my HOWTO on How To Not Work Long Hours. Lot's of people say "tell em to &*(! themselves" but that's a little too confrontational.
1. Say in the interview: "What are your hours like? Do people work overtime? Do people take comp time if they do?" Follow up: "If you're looking for someone to work 50-60 hours a week, I'm not your man."
2. You have to establish these boundaries from the outset. Don't try to be a "go getter" by working long hours thinking you can slow up later. Won't work.
3. Of course, you have to be productive during those 40 hours. If you get stuff done, people don't care how long you work. Also, if you do this, you have to watch at work goofing off. Be discrete with your slashdot/ebay/porn, etc.:)
4. Roll out after 8 hours unless there is a crisis. If you come in at 7:30 -- like I do --Roll out at 4:30. If you worked thru lunch, leave 30 minutes early. Don't sneak out, just go by the boss (or drop a mail), and say "hey, came in at 7:30, I'm outta here".
5. If a crisis does come up, work thru it, then take comp time preferably the NEXT DAY. If not the next day, then remind boss of it the next day. As in: "Hey, remember we working 'til 7 p.m. last nite (don't say "yesterday" say "night")? I'm taking that time Friday afternoon." NOTE: DON'T say what you need comp time for (doctor, etc). Why should they care? You don't need an excuse.
6. Suppose this is challenged. That's where the interview questions come in. Say "I thought I didn't need to work overtime? Is my performance a problem?"
another satisfied UltraEdit user here. Wish I had some mod points. It's a tool you can do so many things with: HTML, ASP, Java, scripts, batch files,.... I love it.
60 days? In the corporate world, you don't get specs laid down 60 days before the release of anything. Hell, you're lucky if you get two or three weeks.
The University of Oklahoma has now taken to not allowing bags inside at football games. Formerly, you could bring in a bag of snacks for your kids rather than pay the outrageous $$$ for stadium snacks. Of course, you can't go outside at halftime either, all in the guise of security (never mind that the stadium is OPEN during the week -- I know because I run steps there all the time -- and you could plant a bomb with ease on a timer). The halftime thing is so they don't lose $$$ to people who go outside. After all, we know a terrorist would only blow up the stadium after going to O'Connell's for a beer at halftime.
The main difference is that most XP users probably wont be knowledgeable about their systems or knowledgable enough to lie. .... Right... because we ALL know that ALL Windows' users are idiots, right?
I know the MSDN library has come on DVD for a while. I have a DVD drive at home and this was nice, I'd take one home (not the latest, but good enough for home) and it didn't take gobs of drive space. Very nice.
Not necessarily. The file system DOES have something to do with it. Because of the Mac two-fork filesystem (where each file CAN have a resource fork), you can store the "file type" and "preferred program to open with" separately. Thus, you can have.jpgs which open in a slide show program, and others which open in Photoshop.
the point is, worms/viri/hacks are expect to see a default setup. Put a partition with ONLY the web root. No amount of virtual directory/../../.. is going to navigate to anything besides the data. There's lots of other suggestions, but that one would save you from Code Red and Nmidia both without patching.
Sure, I'll fault Microsoft for it's setup. IIS servies should not be on by default, Particularly in win 2k pro, that's bad. Map paths should be off by default (so../../ doesn't even work). But if you call yourself a sysadmin/webmaster and have a web site running on a public server in C:/inetpub/wwwroot, you just haven't really thought about security. Now if you have a hack, it is sucessful, the first thing the dude is going to do is "../../WINNT/System32/Cmd.exe" if you've changed your directory, they are lost!
God, where are my mod points. Gee, one of my Win 2k dev servers hadn't been touched in two months, but It STILL didn't get the damn thing. (niether did it get code red. Why? Because I FOLLOWED THE RECOMMENDED GUIDELINES for setting up IIS securely. If you rely on the default setup for anything, your an idiot. Period. and I'm a developer, not a sysadmin "network guy"
Our local news here is an... interesting... market, to say the least. Folks gape in disbelief when I say the local stations were 24/7 live for 5 or 6 days after the bombing here. It got to the point where they were just doing a call in show on live TV. My wife (a mental health worker) worked some support lines and the number one thing she told people was "turn the TV OFF!"
This struck a nerve. It's when you have to dig and find out what a pice of sh*t it is you get mad. I've dug into code and thought "man, this is crap", but then again, it looks a lot like the code I wrote two years ago.
But the other day I went to replace a toilet in my house (cracked base). When I pulled it up, I found a HOLE (I could see the dirt below the subfloor. Stuck into the toilet base was a thin metal pipe (think dryer vent pipe) rusted out, no wax seal, all the floor underneath rotted.
Am I mad at the builder? Well, a little, but the house is 50 years old. I'm mad at the inspector who was too lazy to go 60 feet into the crawl space to look at this. One look at the pipe, you knew it was crap. And the black, rotted subfloor should have told you something..
Similarly, I get mad at management for not LOOKING AT WHAT THE CODERS ARE DOING plus, of course, not backing coders when they say "this module is crap, it needs to be fixed -- excuse me "refactored."
BTW, if you're curious, 14 hours later, replaced pipe with new PVC, patched it into the existing drain pipe (cast iron), replaced subflooring (got lucky there, tile was set in an two INCHES of mortar, stayed put fine while I replaced the boards underneath), jacked up a new extra support joist between two others, and installed the new toilet. You want it done right? Do it yourself. You program software right? And you think plumbing is hard? Nope, just messy and tiring. HACK YOUR HOUSE!!!
Re:How about intermediate formats?
on
Linux Office Suites
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
>>Further, the only really important Microsoft Office applications are Word, Excel and Access.
Actually I'd say, for most businesses this is the order: Outlook, Word, Excel, Powerpoint. For more some, (without a decent IT staff) Acess would be after word. Do you wonder why people don't leave outlook after numerous virus attacks? It's that useful, that's why.
Or you could take the opposite approach... if you're dumb enough to pay for all those apps, you deserve the crappy software/support and high prices you pay for them:)
I've used Atari 8-bit line (wrote basic and assembler routines), a TI-99/4A, Macs for a LONG time (6.x thought 8.5), Linux: macLinux on my old mac and screwed around with RedHat 6 for about three months before losing interest -- my office had a client that had us take over a Perl/Apache site. I did some mods to the code. I also had RH6 on a partition of my home machine. I used it fairly regularly. Once I got X server working with my old NEC monitor -- not recognized and not in the list of monitors. Screwed around with mySQL until I realized it was a joke compared to the MS-SQL 7 box I was admin'ing at the time.
Of course I've used DOS, some win 3.1 (very little). Built my own 98 now 98/2k machine.
I'll take win2k any day over any of those. I've been using since late beta and I've never seen a blue screen except once on a boot which I loaded a corrupt video driver (corrupted on copy from floppy), which I promptly rolled back to last config. without issues.
This is the Microsoft data engine or whatever (I can't recall the name, and am too lazy to look it up). It's essentially a personal SQL (one user) engine... Why do this? Well, it's good for portable apps (like on a CE or a laptop) that disconnect from the network. You set up replication so when the user plugs into the LAN, they automatically get DB updates so the app functions off-line and their transactions (like orders they placed with an order entry app or something) get replicated to the master DB... it can be pretty damn slick.
Plus, if you just just want to develop and learn ADO against SQL, just use it (it's downloadable somewhere on the microsoft MSDN site).
or on most keyboards, hit context (right click key), w, enter and type the name. Before you laugh, I use this all the time. The key to GUI's are learning the shortcut keys.
umm... it's not pitiful, it's pointing out the logical incosisentcy of the position (the opposite of the other being discussed).
Also, 7 years of appeals, and we still screw it up (inncoent people ARE executed. Have been executed. There have been people freed by DNA evidence 9 years after convicted and sentenced to death).
Well, this left-winger (for the most part) couldn't give a crap about animals. Sorry folks, I eat animals and say test, test, test. In the eveolution game, we're on top and I no more feel sorry for the cow I eat than I do for the dirt I walk on.
It is interesting contradiction sometimes though. Kinda like many right-wingers who hold life so sacred when it is in the womb but are in favor of putting anyone, including minors and the mentally retarded, do death at the drop of a hat.
>I don't even know if MS IIS supports this, but luckily I'm not running IIS..
You've GOT to be kidding. Do you really think IIS wouldn't support something as trivial as running on a different port?
At our company, we just went through a round of layoffs that our investors required (we had to reduce "burn rate"). Those folks you mention (like our worthless "product manager" kept their jobs. Three developers were cut. Of course, those guys were fairly worthless, but still. It CAN happen. ---
Slashdot Mirror
BZZZTTT. .. guess again. All private industry (four IT jobs: one manufacturing, two consulting firms, one software startup). The current consulting gig is doing work for a federal government agency. Believe me, for these folks 40 hours IS overtime. I would say 37.5 is the mean.
I don't get it. I just don't get it? Are you an H1-B slave or something? Why do people work these hours. I've NEVER put in more than 45 hours a week, and I've been in IT about four years now. For that matter, I haven't worked more than 50 hours since my waiter days in college.
:)
Apparently, this is a problem for some people. Here's my HOWTO on How To Not Work Long Hours. Lot's of people say "tell em to &*(! themselves" but that's a little too confrontational.
1. Say in the interview: "What are your hours like? Do people work overtime? Do people take comp time if they do?" Follow up: "If you're looking for someone to work 50-60 hours a week, I'm not your man."
2. You have to establish these boundaries from the outset. Don't try to be a "go getter" by working long hours thinking you can slow up later. Won't work.
3. Of course, you have to be productive during those 40 hours. If you get stuff done, people don't care how long you work. Also, if you do this, you have to watch at work goofing off. Be discrete with your slashdot/ebay/porn, etc.
4. Roll out after 8 hours unless there is a crisis. If you come in at 7:30 -- like I do --Roll out at 4:30. If you worked thru lunch, leave 30 minutes early. Don't sneak out, just go by the boss (or drop a mail), and say "hey, came in at 7:30, I'm outta here".
5. If a crisis does come up, work thru it, then take comp time preferably the NEXT DAY. If not the next day, then remind boss of it the next day. As in: "Hey, remember we working 'til 7 p.m. last nite (don't say "yesterday" say "night")? I'm taking that time Friday afternoon." NOTE: DON'T say what you need comp time for (doctor, etc). Why should they care? You don't need an excuse.
6. Suppose this is challenged. That's where the interview questions come in. Say "I thought I didn't need to work overtime? Is my performance a problem?"
another satisfied UltraEdit user here. Wish I had some mod points. It's a tool you can do so many things with: HTML, ASP, Java, scripts, batch files, .... I love it.
not for me. I get a page not found... IE 5.5sp2
60 days? In the corporate world, you don't get specs laid down 60 days before the release of anything. Hell, you're lucky if you get two or three weeks.
The University of Oklahoma has now taken to not allowing bags inside at football games. Formerly, you could bring in a bag of snacks for your kids rather than pay the outrageous $$$ for stadium snacks. Of course, you can't go outside at halftime either, all in the guise of security (never mind that the stadium is OPEN during the week -- I know because I run steps there all the time -- and you could plant a bomb with ease on a timer). The halftime thing is so they don't lose $$$ to people who go outside. After all, we know a terrorist would only blow up the stadium after going to O'Connell's for a beer at halftime.
what a joke.
The main difference is that most XP users probably wont be knowledgeable about their systems or knowledgable enough to lie. ... Right... because we ALL know that ALL Windows' users are idiots, right?
.
I know the MSDN library has come on DVD for a while. I have a DVD drive at home and this was nice, I'd take one home (not the latest, but good enough for home) and it didn't take gobs of drive space. Very nice.
Anything like Herbert Kornfeld
Accounts Receivable Supervisor?
whiff!!!
In case you missed that joke -- he was making the sound effect produced when the last joke whizzed over your head!
Not necessarily. The file system DOES have something to do with it. Because of the Mac two-fork filesystem (where each file CAN have a resource fork), you can store the "file type" and "preferred program to open with" separately. Thus, you can have .jpgs which open in a slide show program, and others which open in Photoshop.
the point is, worms/viri/hacks are expect to see a default setup. Put a partition with ONLY the web root. No amount of virtual directory /../../.. is going to navigate to anything besides the data. There's lots of other suggestions, but that one would save you from Code Red and Nmidia both without patching.
../../ doesn't even work). But if you call yourself a sysadmin/webmaster and have a web site running on a public server in C:/inetpub/wwwroot, you just haven't really thought about security. Now if you have a hack, it is sucessful, the first thing the dude is going to do is "../../WINNT/System32/Cmd.exe" if you've changed your directory, they are lost!
Sure, I'll fault Microsoft for it's setup. IIS servies should not be on by default, Particularly in win 2k pro, that's bad. Map paths should be off by default (so
God, where are my mod points. Gee, one of my Win 2k dev servers hadn't been touched in two months, but It STILL didn't get the damn thing. (niether did it get code red. Why? Because I FOLLOWED THE RECOMMENDED GUIDELINES for setting up IIS securely. If you rely on the default setup for anything, your an idiot. Period. and I'm a developer, not a sysadmin "network guy"
Our local news here is an ... interesting ... market, to say the least. Folks gape in disbelief when I say the local stations were 24/7 live for 5 or 6 days after the bombing here. It got to the point where they were just doing a call in show on live TV. My wife (a mental health worker) worked some support lines and the number one thing she told people was "turn the TV OFF!"
Odd, I consider Microsoft's docs one of their strengths. I've never ran into a problem that couldn't be solved by:
- Searching MSDN (yeah, it's a little odd, learn the search keywords for specific products. Look at the botton for keywords. Start at this knowledgebase article on searching the knowledgebase
- The MS newsgroups. Usually have those MS MVPS (not MS employees in most cases, but people who know their stuff in a particular area.
Now, for tutorials on learning a new MS technology, I often go to third parties, like Wrox and others.This struck a nerve. It's when you have to dig and find out what a pice of sh*t it is you get mad. I've dug into code and thought "man, this is crap", but then again, it looks a lot like the code I wrote two years ago.
But the other day I went to replace a toilet in my house (cracked base). When I pulled it up, I found a HOLE (I could see the dirt below the subfloor. Stuck into the toilet base was a thin metal pipe (think dryer vent pipe) rusted out, no wax seal, all the floor underneath rotted.
Am I mad at the builder? Well, a little, but the house is 50 years old. I'm mad at the inspector who was too lazy to go 60 feet into the crawl space to look at this. One look at the pipe, you knew it was crap. And the black, rotted subfloor should have told you something..
Similarly, I get mad at management for not LOOKING AT WHAT THE CODERS ARE DOING plus, of course, not backing coders when they say "this module is crap, it needs to be fixed -- excuse me "refactored."
BTW, if you're curious, 14 hours later, replaced pipe with new PVC, patched it into the existing drain pipe (cast iron), replaced subflooring (got lucky there, tile was set in an two INCHES of mortar, stayed put fine while I replaced the boards underneath), jacked up a new extra support joist between two others, and installed the new toilet. You want it done right? Do it yourself. You program software right? And you think plumbing is hard? Nope, just messy and tiring. HACK YOUR HOUSE!!!
>>Further, the only really important Microsoft Office applications are Word, Excel and Access.
Actually I'd say, for most businesses this is the order: Outlook, Word, Excel, Powerpoint. For more some, (without a decent IT staff) Acess would be after word. Do you wonder why people don't leave outlook after numerous virus attacks? It's that useful, that's why.
Or you could take the opposite approach... if you're dumb enough to pay for all those apps, you deserve the crappy software/support and high prices you pay for them :)
Ok:
I've used Atari 8-bit line (wrote basic and assembler routines), a TI-99/4A, Macs for a LONG time (6.x thought 8.5), Linux: macLinux on my old mac and screwed around with RedHat 6 for about three months before losing interest -- my office had a client that had us take over a Perl/Apache site. I did some mods to the code. I also had RH6 on a partition of my home machine. I used it fairly regularly. Once I got X server working with my old NEC monitor -- not recognized and not in the list of monitors. Screwed around with mySQL until I realized it was a joke compared to the MS-SQL 7 box I was admin'ing at the time.
Of course I've used DOS, some win 3.1 (very little). Built my own 98 now 98/2k machine.
I'll take win2k any day over any of those. I've been using since late beta and I've never seen a blue screen except once on a boot which I loaded a corrupt video driver (corrupted on copy from floppy), which I promptly rolled back to last config. without issues.
This is the Microsoft data engine or whatever (I can't recall the name, and am too lazy to look it up). It's essentially a personal SQL (one user) engine... Why do this? Well, it's good for portable apps (like on a CE or a laptop) that disconnect from the network. You set up replication so when the user plugs into the LAN, they automatically get DB updates so the app functions off-line and their transactions (like orders they placed with an order entry app or something) get replicated to the master DB... it can be pretty damn slick.
Plus, if you just just want to develop and learn ADO against SQL, just use it (it's downloadable somewhere on the microsoft MSDN site).
or on most keyboards, hit context (right click key), w, enter and type the name. Before you laugh, I use this all the time. The key to GUI's are learning the shortcut keys.
umm ... it's not pitiful, it's pointing out the logical incosisentcy of the position (the opposite of the other being discussed).
Also, 7 years of appeals, and we still screw it up (inncoent people ARE executed. Have been executed. There have been people freed by DNA evidence 9 years after convicted and sentenced to death).
Well, this left-winger (for the most part) couldn't give a crap about animals. Sorry folks, I eat animals and say test, test, test. In the eveolution game, we're on top and I no more feel sorry for the cow I eat than I do for the dirt I walk on.
It is interesting contradiction sometimes though. Kinda like many right-wingers who hold life so sacred when it is in the womb but are in favor of putting anyone, including minors and the mentally retarded, do death at the drop of a hat.
>I don't even know if MS IIS supports this, but luckily I'm not running IIS ..
You've GOT to be kidding. Do you really think IIS wouldn't support something as trivial as running on a different port?
At our company, we just went through a round of layoffs that our investors required (we had to reduce "burn rate"). Those folks you mention (like our worthless "product manager" kept their jobs. Three developers were cut. Of course, those guys were fairly worthless, but still. It CAN happen.
---