I wonder what is really the risk for Psystar on the recall question? While it sounds horrendous, it does not really seem to be such a financial risk.
A manufacturer can recall a product as much as he wants, if I decide to not give it back there is no recourse, or is there? Can a buyer be compelled to return the product when it is recalled?
If I had gotten a computer that works and cost me half of what I would have to pay otherwise, why would I return it to the manufacturer (on recall), if I won't get it back? Even if I get my money back, I would only be able to replace it with half an Apple branded machine.
Hence Psystar does not need to fear (financially) the thread of a mandatory recall.
Number of pages (and their growth over time) as well as the pages/employee ratio
Number of WikiWords ==> links between pages
Ratio WikiWords/Page
Number of visits (and visits/employee ratio)
Number of bounces (and bounces/employee ratio)
List of top bounce pages and look if they are info pages, that stand on their own, such as company directory.
Also, institute some meetings where people go through the Wiki and try to eliminate "old news" that has only historic value. This keeps the info fresh and useful.
In addition allow for automatic discovery of new info. For example a subscription to a weekly query for chosen keywords that comes to your e-mail inbox. Set it up for the manager's names to the manager's inbox. It strokes their ego when they discover where they are mentioned (even if it is only the todo lists of last week's meetings:-)
Does your wiki exhibit signs of growth? In order to allow the wiki to grow there must be enough users with create/edit privileges to keep it up to date. The more users there are who are actively involved in the wiki, the more likely it is to be successful.
Does it not defy the purpose of a Wiki in the first place if not everybody has edit privileges?
After all the ability to see all edits in public and to see the edit history is deterrent enough in a corporate organization where everybody (theoretically) knows everybody.
If management is concerned about editing important documents, then they should encourage authors/owners of documents to keep tabs on edits and try to "investigate why the change has been made and if it might be actually a welcome change." (if you really need immutable documents, use attachments).
Using a Wiki as a publishing platform is missing the point of a Wiki, which is to communicate and share knowledge, not broadcast it.
Wow, try to apply this very same logic to thieves (or criminals in general) and police and the poor citizens that pay for police and courts and lawyers.
Ouch! This argument works there as well. Do you still think it is "dumb" to insist on things that society had the foresight to put into law?
And when it comes to FOLLOWING RFC, I'm pretty sure that "don't use other people's DNS servers" is pretty high on the list.
And how do you do that? Isn't DNS a hierarchical system, where all the answers you are not authoritative on get resolved through queries to other servers? That implies you can't avoid other people's DNS servers.
Walking, bike riding to work is some of the least intrusive exercise and it makes you work out regularly. You can even determine your distance by getting off the bust/train one station earlier than you usually would or using a parking lot farther from your office.
And it has other benefits like being exposed to the elements once in a while, which strengthens your immune system.
But my favorite is to go for a 20 min walk after lunch. It helps not only as exercise (although it might be to short to make much of a difference on weight). But it does help with not falling into the early after noon trap and you will be much more productive, making up for the "lost" 20 min.
that computer science gets linked to math courses in almost every university is actually harmful (because it scares off people who might otherwise have become very good computer scientists, and because it propogates this "software is math" fallacy).
I think you do not have fully understood your studies. You learn math as a computer scientists, because understanding computers requires understanding very, very complex subjects. It is not about being able to proof theorems on a daily basis, but it is about having done that at least once to get your brain to this level of abstract thinking.
who might otherwise have become very good computer scientists
Chances are not so good for this to be true. At least not if you want to device a learnign curriculum that likely produces good computer scientists. Math is simply the most useful study to force you into this level of abstract thinking (variables, and formulae and variables for formulae, and proofs and theorems,...) and it sure comes in handy when you try to understand computational theory to have done your Calculus right
Well with genes, there is one caveat. Nature can do produce the very same gene, just on its own. So should you be liable for patent infringement, if you are born with five noses, or your parents?
Well, what do you do if your other programmer is a "Career programmer" himself. Walking down the wrong recursion? Your scheme (in the extreme) sound sliek inbreeding.
Also, API is not worth the penny if you do not have an idea of the problem space, are slow at understanding requirements and have no sense for complexity and performance requirements.
The true skill of a good programmer is the ability to *understand* real world problems quickly and completely and then break them down into smaller pieces so they can be digested by a computer. Languages and frameworks are simply tools in that process and those that know which tool to choose when appropriate beat the ones that have experience and a preference anytime.
Part of the problem is the invention or should I say interference of HR in even the smallest company.
HR are not experts in complex skills such as programming. They can't distinguish between the guy that is a one trick pony and the gal that can adapt with the times and be creative.
What HR is best at is writing job descriptions (lists of skills) and match them like a computer. And they are good at head counting. That should tell you something.
If you want to change this culture then remove HR from the hiring process for skilled labor and make the hiring manager responsible for it. May be train the hiring manager in some HR skills.
As a practical matter, don't look for jobs at Monster, because you get sifted through the meaningless HR skills sifter. Instead network your way to a new job.
I think you are doing the right thing and assess your options.
Here are the three things I'd do.
* Make a list of what you like and dislike about the current job. Assess your skills and accomplishments and what you have learned. Brush up your CV/Resume. * Brush up your network and networking skills. Reconnect to old friends and work colleagues, project team members. Check who has gone where and what they are doing now. Write birthday e-mails and Holiday cards. Talk to your parent's friends as well. Update your networking tools (Addressbook, social networks, LinkedIn, Plaxo, Suit, Tie, etc.). Let your network know you are merged and don't know if you might move on. Discuss with your network what they like about their jobs. * Look at the current job market under your other life constraints (i.e. stay local, no travel,...). See what jobs you might qualify for and seek out some recruiters, may be even get some Interviews (just for training purposes).
Armed with that you will have the confidence that you'll need to negotiate what ever comes your way. And you can move into job search mode at a moment's notice. And may be just may be you find an opportunity you can't refuse, before anybody ask you to make a decision. You are in control!
I'd simply partition my DNS to get sub domains for each physical location: chicago.company-office.com, etc.
Then I'd name the servers' A records by the room they are in such as for machine 001 in the server room SR001.chicago.company-office.com or dell-SR001.chicago.company-office.com and the PTR records accordingly. May be add a VXX for virtual machines on a particular server.
Workstations and laptops assigned to users are named by the user.
However, all servers get CName aliases for each function, such as intranet.company-office.com, webmail.company-office.com, files01.... etc. See there is no location for this.
This way users get functional names that are easy to remember, and to communicate. Admins can consolidate, split services across different machines with ease. They can relocate servers w/o hassle and it is easy to see where a server is by doing a reverse lookup, which will give you the location based A Record information.
An alternative is to maintain TXT records in DNS for the location and other information, such as server type and configuration.
Another consideration is to make server names transparent between internal and external access. The mail configuration should be the same regardless if I'm in or outside the office network.
Well, may be we need to be that pedantic. My read on what ICANN's press release says is the exact opposite.
The press release says clearly that the http server was not compromised ("The organizations' actual websites at icann.org and iana.org were unaffected. "), but instead the DNS records at the root server were directed to a different DNS server ("The DNS redirect was a result of an attack on ICANN's registrar's systems.") who did reply with different IP addresses that did not belong to ICANN and served a defaced website.
That goes to exactly my point, the language does not make much sense in the realm of DNS, but matches the realm of http web servers. This kind of language does cloud the facts and therefore is dangerous.
I'd like ICANN to publish a full report, of what happened and how they are going to prevent this in the future. This kind of press release does raise more questions than it answers.
Well, I would like to hold professional journalists to higher standards.
While I agree that it is a subtle difference, it is a difference I expect a professional word smith (journalist) to pick up and to question its meaning. No degree in CS required, but a critical mind and some sense for the kind of spin that press releases contain.
And I expect for a reporter to report facts and question them and not "for a reporter to assume." If (s)he simply wants to reprint the press release that is fine with me, but tell me!
The web server does not seem to be configured well either. If a webmaster cares about search engine visibility (optimization) then (s)he wants to really redirect the aliases for that server to a single normalized domain name. This is not the case with this web server, it responds under http://www.icann.com/, http://icann.com/, http://icann.org/, http://www.icann.org/ and even http://208.77.188.103/
This leads to duplicate content in the search engines, makes it harder for readers to identify the server as authoritative and is (in my book) simply not an indication of a well managed web server.
Not to talk to myself, but I just also read the "press release" from ICANN. It says the same things "icann.com and iana.com were recently redirected to different DNS servers." How can that be?
The press release also talks about "The domains in question are used only as mirrors for ICANN and IANA's main websites." Well, as of today the domains and the www.... simply point to the same web IP address, which is presumably served by the same server. In my book this is hardly a mirror, which would imply it is somewhat fault tolerant.
Also, the press release implies that only web servers where affected. However if the whole domain got routed to a different DNS server, the attackers also had ability to change the MX record, which routes mail for this domain. Did they not realize this? Or did they just not want to talk about it in their press release?
I conclude the journalists where even mislead by the official press release, which does not excuse that they did not check the content.
Hmm, in the CBC article is says "Visitors to those addresses are normally redirected automatically to the organization's main sites at ICANN.org and IANA.org, neither of which was affected by the attack."
What is to *re*direct here? DNS is there to translate domain names into IP addresses. It does not have any *re*direction mechanisms. Redirection is a feature of the HTTP protocol and would require to compromise the web-server (which they state has not happened.)
I wonder, Is this simply a typo or does the journalist/editor not understand what (s)he is writing about (and has no references to have this proof read)?
I'm rather vary, because I see such factual errors often in widely read media, written and edited by journalists. Sometimes I see even "experts" quoted with wrong statements. How does this reflect on news that I don't know so much about that I can spot the factual errors?
As far as I know you can transfer the license plate between cars you own and you pay insurance, taxes, etc. on the largest (most expensive car).
I don't think it extends to transferring the license plate to a friends car or a car otherwise borrowed. Don't know the details.
Don't know about parking, but that would be the logical consequence.
There are several advantages: * People pay only for the car they can use at a time (nobody drives two cars at the same time) * You can own the cars that are right for different circumstances. SMART for commute, Truck for the hobby farm. Sports car for the fun trip. * The car industry is happy because they can sell more cars.
One of the larger issues is that we all use one or max two cars to fulfill our various transport needs. In essence we buy the largest car we need/can afford.
I think Switzerland has an interesting model. They tax and insure cars through the license plate to operate it. That way you can own that SUV for the trips to your back country house, but drive in a slick SMART to work in the city and save gasoline, road space and parking space.
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder what is really the risk for Psystar on the recall question? While it sounds horrendous, it does not really seem to be such a financial risk.
A manufacturer can recall a product as much as he wants, if I decide to not give it back there is no recourse, or is there? Can a buyer be compelled to return the product when it is recalled?
If I had gotten a computer that works and cost me half of what I would have to pay otherwise, why would I return it to the manufacturer (on recall), if I won't get it back? Even if I get my money back, I would only be able to replace it with half an Apple branded machine.
Hence Psystar does not need to fear (financially) the thread of a mandatory recall.
Everybody will win: more folks will run a more secure OS than Windows and Apple will still get all the OS sales.
How can you praise Apple for the security if it is time and again slow to fix the bugs, such as the DNS vulnerability?
I'd look at a few measures:
Also, institute some meetings where people go through the Wiki and try to eliminate "old news" that has only historic value. This keeps the info fresh and useful.
In addition allow for automatic discovery of new info. For example a subscription to a weekly query for chosen keywords that comes to your e-mail inbox. Set it up for the manager's names to the manager's inbox. It strokes their ego when they discover where they are mentioned (even if it is only the todo lists of last week's meetings :-)
Does your wiki exhibit signs of growth? In order to allow the wiki to grow there must be enough users with create/edit privileges to keep it up to date. The more users there are who are actively involved in the wiki, the more likely it is to be successful.
Does it not defy the purpose of a Wiki in the first place if not everybody has edit privileges?
After all the ability to see all edits in public and to see the edit history is deterrent enough in a corporate organization where everybody (theoretically) knows everybody.
If management is concerned about editing important documents, then they should encourage authors/owners of documents to keep tabs on edits and try to "investigate why the change has been made and if it might be actually a welcome change." (if you really need immutable documents, use attachments).
Using a Wiki as a publishing platform is missing the point of a Wiki, which is to communicate and share knowledge, not broadcast it.
Wow, try to apply this very same logic to thieves (or criminals in general) and police and the poor citizens that pay for police and courts and lawyers.
Ouch! This argument works there as well. Do you still think it is "dumb" to insist on things that society had the foresight to put into law?
May be, just may be Apple does not only employ programmers.
How else could they fail the second time around on their activation system for an iPhone launch or on their MobileMe.com switch?
Like http://www.glish.com/css/7.asp, http://saila.com/webdesign/layouts, ...
http://www.google.com/search?q=three+column+based+layout+with+CSS&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
And when it comes to FOLLOWING RFC, I'm pretty sure that "don't use other people's DNS servers" is pretty high on the list.
And how do you do that? Isn't DNS a hierarchical system, where all the answers you are not authoritative on get resolved through queries to other servers? That implies you can't avoid other people's DNS servers.
Walking, bike riding to work is some of the least intrusive exercise and it makes you work out regularly. You can even determine your distance by getting off the bust/train one station earlier than you usually would or using a parking lot farther from your office.
And it has other benefits like being exposed to the elements once in a while, which strengthens your immune system.
But my favorite is to go for a 20 min walk after lunch. It helps not only as exercise (although it might be to short to make much of a difference on weight). But it does help with not falling into the early after noon trap and you will be much more productive, making up for the "lost" 20 min.
But it sure helps if you understand sets, tuples, vectors, and unions of sets, intersections, etc.
Oh! All mathematical concepts!
that computer science gets linked to math courses in almost every university is actually harmful (because it scares off people who might otherwise have become very good computer scientists, and because it propogates this "software is math" fallacy).
I think you do not have fully understood your studies. You learn math as a computer scientists, because understanding computers requires understanding very, very complex subjects. It is not about being able to proof theorems on a daily basis, but it is about having done that at least once to get your brain to this level of abstract thinking.
who might otherwise have become very good computer scientists
Chances are not so good for this to be true. At least not if you want to device a learnign curriculum that likely produces good computer scientists. Math is simply the most useful study to force you into this level of abstract thinking (variables, and formulae and variables for formulae, and proofs and theorems, ...) and it sure comes in handy when you try to understand computational theory to have done your Calculus right
Well with genes, there is one caveat. Nature can do produce the very same gene, just on its own. So should you be liable for patent infringement, if you are born with five noses, or your parents?
Well, what do you do if your other programmer is a "Career programmer" himself. Walking down the wrong recursion? Your scheme (in the extreme) sound sliek inbreeding.
Also, API is not worth the penny if you do not have an idea of the problem space, are slow at understanding requirements and have no sense for complexity and performance requirements.
The true skill of a good programmer is the ability to *understand* real world problems quickly and completely and then break them down into smaller pieces so they can be digested by a computer. Languages and frameworks are simply tools in that process and those that know which tool to choose when appropriate beat the ones that have experience and a preference anytime.
Part of the problem is the invention or should I say interference of HR in even the smallest company.
HR are not experts in complex skills such as programming. They can't distinguish between the guy that is a one trick pony and the gal that can adapt with the times and be creative.
What HR is best at is writing job descriptions (lists of skills) and match them like a computer. And they are good at head counting. That should tell you something.
If you want to change this culture then remove HR from the hiring process for skilled labor and make the hiring manager responsible for it. May be train the hiring manager in some HR skills.
As a practical matter, don't look for jobs at Monster, because you get sifted through the meaningless HR skills sifter. Instead network your way to a new job.
I think you are doing the right thing and assess your options.
Here are the three things I'd do.
* Make a list of what you like and dislike about the current job. Assess your skills and accomplishments and what you have learned. Brush up your CV/Resume. ...). See what jobs you might qualify for and seek out some recruiters, may be even get some Interviews (just for training purposes).
* Brush up your network and networking skills. Reconnect to old friends and work colleagues, project team members. Check who has gone where and what they are doing now. Write birthday e-mails and Holiday cards. Talk to your parent's friends as well. Update your networking tools (Addressbook, social networks, LinkedIn, Plaxo, Suit, Tie, etc.). Let your network know you are merged and don't know if you might move on. Discuss with your network what they like about their jobs.
* Look at the current job market under your other life constraints (i.e. stay local, no travel,
Armed with that you will have the confidence that you'll need to negotiate what ever comes your way. And you can move into job search mode at a moment's notice. And may be just may be you find an opportunity you can't refuse, before anybody ask you to make a decision. You are in control!
I'd simply partition my DNS to get sub domains for each physical location: chicago.company-office.com, etc.
Then I'd name the servers' A records by the room they are in such as for machine 001 in the server room SR001.chicago.company-office.com or dell-SR001.chicago.company-office.com and the PTR records accordingly. May be add a VXX for virtual machines on a particular server.
Workstations and laptops assigned to users are named by the user.
However, all servers get CName aliases for each function, such as intranet.company-office.com, webmail.company-office.com, files01.... etc. See there is no location for this.
This way users get functional names that are easy to remember, and to communicate. Admins can consolidate, split services across different machines with ease. They can relocate servers w/o hassle and it is easy to see where a server is by doing a reverse lookup, which will give you the location based A Record information.
An alternative is to maintain TXT records in DNS for the location and other information, such as server type and configuration.
Another consideration is to make server names transparent between internal and external access. The mail configuration should be the same regardless if I'm in or outside the office network.
Well, may be we need to be that pedantic. My read on what ICANN's press release says is the exact opposite.
The press release says clearly that the http server was not compromised ("The organizations' actual websites at icann.org and iana.org were unaffected. "), but instead the DNS records at the root server were directed to a different DNS server ("The DNS redirect was a result of an attack on ICANN's registrar's systems.") who did reply with different IP addresses that did not belong to ICANN and served a defaced website.
That goes to exactly my point, the language does not make much sense in the realm of DNS, but matches the realm of http web servers. This kind of language does cloud the facts and therefore is dangerous.
I'd like ICANN to publish a full report, of what happened and how they are going to prevent this in the future. This kind of press release does raise more questions than it answers.
Well, I would like to hold professional journalists to higher standards.
While I agree that it is a subtle difference, it is a difference I expect a professional word smith (journalist) to pick up and to question its meaning. No degree in CS required, but a critical mind and some sense for the kind of spin that press releases contain.
And I expect for a reporter to report facts and question them and not "for a reporter to assume." If (s)he simply wants to reprint the press release that is fine with me, but tell me!
Just to continue talking to myself.
The web server does not seem to be configured well either. If a webmaster cares about search engine visibility (optimization) then (s)he wants to really redirect the aliases for that server to a single normalized domain name. This is not the case with this web server, it responds under http://www.icann.com/, http://icann.com/, http://icann.org/, http://www.icann.org/ and even http://208.77.188.103/
This leads to duplicate content in the search engines, makes it harder for readers to identify the server as authoritative and is (in my book) simply not an indication of a well managed web server.
Not to talk to myself, but I just also read the "press release" from ICANN. It says the same things "icann.com and iana.com were recently redirected to different DNS servers." How can that be?
The press release also talks about "The domains in question are used only as mirrors for ICANN and IANA's main websites." Well, as of today the domains and the www.... simply point to the same web IP address, which is presumably served by the same server. In my book this is hardly a mirror, which would imply it is somewhat fault tolerant.
Also, the press release implies that only web servers where affected. However if the whole domain got routed to a different DNS server, the attackers also had ability to change the MX record, which routes mail for this domain. Did they not realize this? Or did they just not want to talk about it in their press release?
I conclude the journalists where even mislead by the official press release, which does not excuse that they did not check the content.
Hmm, in the CBC article is says "Visitors to those addresses are normally redirected automatically to the organization's main sites at ICANN.org and IANA.org, neither of which was affected by the attack."
What is to *re*direct here? DNS is there to translate domain names into IP addresses. It does not have any *re*direction mechanisms. Redirection is a feature of the HTTP protocol and would require to compromise the web-server (which they state has not happened.)
I wonder, Is this simply a typo or does the journalist/editor not understand what (s)he is writing about (and has no references to have this proof read)?
I'm rather vary, because I see such factual errors often in widely read media, written and edited by journalists. Sometimes I see even "experts" quoted with wrong statements. How does this reflect on news that I don't know so much about that I can spot the factual errors?
Grrr! who cam up with this lousy graphic that posts the numbers under the cursor, so you can't read it.
Am I the only one that notices?
As far as I know you can transfer the license plate between cars you own and you pay insurance, taxes, etc. on the largest (most expensive car).
I don't think it extends to transferring the license plate to a friends car or a car otherwise borrowed. Don't know the details.
Don't know about parking, but that would be the logical consequence.
There are several advantages:
* People pay only for the car they can use at a time (nobody drives two cars at the same time)
* You can own the cars that are right for different circumstances. SMART for commute, Truck for the hobby farm. Sports car for the fun trip.
* The car industry is happy because they can sell more cars.
K<o>
One of the larger issues is that we all use one or max two cars to fulfill our various transport needs. In essence we buy the largest car we need/can afford.
I think Switzerland has an interesting model. They tax and insure cars through the license plate to operate it. That way you can own that SUV for the trips to your back country house, but drive in a slick SMART to work in the city and save gasoline, road space and parking space.
A lighter car means a smaller and lighter engine, which works on two factors to reduce energy consumption.