Believe me, if I had the chance to immigrate to Europe, I would do it. The years of GW Bush were ugly enough (and many of us are still freaked out about things), and then I still have US health care to deal with. This situation with healthcare goes back way before GW Bush, and its something you hear about from time to time. It can take a normally prosperous family and strip them of literally everything they have before any kind of government assistance kicks in. By then its financial ruin and all of the emotional trauma that can cause heaped on top of unplayable medical bills.
An effective system should not allow that to happen.
My COBRA coverage got pulled at about the 1/2 point because my old company was small and both of the spouses had coverage, so at the annual renew time, they just stopped offering health.
After talking with an Insurance rep that I have used for company insurance at a few places, it became clear that my family and I would NEVER get personal health insurance. Currently, I suffer from chronic foot pain (for the past 6 years), my oldest son suffers from depression and bi-polar disorder (for the past 4 years), and my wife gets migraines (from childhood). You can see why an insurance company would not want to touch us, but we still need insurance.
As my COBRA ran out my agent tried to get us on a temporary plan. We know that if we claim the meds that my son and I require, $2,000 to $3000 a month, we will also not be allowed to re-up the temp plan. We decided that we would not claim any of the chronic things that we have to deal with so that we have the plan if we have a major issue, but once we do, we no for sure that we will not be allowed to re-up.
For the temp plan we went with a carrier that haven't been covered by for over 12 years. But we were denied coverage by this carrier because they had on record that...
1) My wife had been treated for headaches.
2) One of my 2 sons had been treated for a sore throat.
OVER10 YEARS AGO!!
Those 2 reasons were all that it took to deny even temporary coverage.
We had to find a carrier that had never insured me and my family before just to get temp insurance.
We are still looking for a permanent option, but as we do our savings are being drained rapidly as we try and cover our ongoing issues. We need to minimize claims to preserve our temp insurance in case of a major issue. Because of that none of us are getting any ongoing treatment, so no one is getting any better. Were stuck with little chance at improving medically, and at this point we have not found an insurer who will offer us insurance at any price.
If you have now, or have ever had anything more that a minor medical issue, your chance of getting coverage as an individual are effectively 0%
I have been looking for work for 2 years, sending out, and following up on at least a dozen job openings ever month (12 is my self imposed min). While the economy is bad I have no idea if I will be able to get a job, and while I am in this catch 22 I am spending more and more of my time trying to find coverage.
In the mean time, I have one of my cars for sale, family jewelry is listed, and while our house is not under water, real estate is not exactly booming either.
I dunno. Does my government really want me to be broke, unemployed, and perhaps homeless, before I can get health care for my family?
Or can they come up with some way for people to purchase coverage, to allow them to get healthy, before they loose everything?
During tough economic times, people tend to look for items that will last and provide greater value over time. In my experience an Apple macboook pro has proved to be very rugged and functional over time. Any equivalent Laptop I have owned has lasted 2 years before it was obsolete or falling apart, where as a Mac will last 4+ before I upgrade out of one. I haven't been shopping laptops recently, $2(X) > X=$500 for anything over a $500.
I know the shaky cam is hard on some people, but thats part of the whole basis of the damn movie! This is what a guy filmed while helping his friends and running for his like for christ sake! I mean, how many people do YOU know who have a stedi-cam for for their home cam corder? And the bits that come through from "the old tape" are perfect. Especially at the very end.
I want a home server that can integrate all the iApp. My wife and I still complain about photos that I have, and that She has, and that the Kids have, etc. Gimme a $299 home server that gives me a common DB for photos, Music, a Cal manager and perhaps some zigbee home automation tool as an option. Simple tools to allow you to create a simple automated home with all of your stuff available.
Caymas systems (http://www.caymas.com) has a box that will allow a) simple and b) secure access. The speed is good, but bandwidth can be constricted at any point between you and the end user. For the record, I used to work at Caymas.
It's still costly to get a decent connection. Where I live I have a good ISP that provides quality DSL service with support (unlike ATT/SBC which has what has to be the worst customer support on the planet), but even with all of that I'm paying $60/month for my DSL. Once the long term contracts with ATT expire I'm certain that ATT will 'screw my ISP to the wall' so that I'll need to choose between a $60 ATT line with the worlds worst service, or an $85 (or higher) line from my IPS, or I can get on Comcast's 1000 household per subnet cable connections. The future looks dim.
I have friends who live paycheck to paycheck, and $720 per year for internet access is something they can do without.
Currently I'm on the IT side of this, so let me play both sides for a sec.
From the IT side, you can't always respond to every change request ASAP. Simple things like adding more ram and stuff are all easy to actually do, but sometimes there are roadblocks, for instance who owns the system? If it's IT, they may not have budget to add more ram whenever someone asks for it. If it's you or your group, can you get a PO approved?
Does the system really need more ram? I used to get requests for more internet speed all of the time. It happens a lot less often since I started parading out the metrics to show people here that a) we are not using all of our bandwidth to the internet when their issue occurred, and b) I can prove that we can and do use up all of our bandwidth at times.
Policies can slow things down too, but to operate without them is a very slippery slope. I used to hate policies but as I moved up the chain in IT and we began to get requests for things that would create a great deal of work for very little return, or even more important, to deal with difficult HR situations, it became much simpler for everyone to be able to point a the policy that says "As far as the company is concerned, there is no personal data on that company supplied laptop, and you need to hand it over now"
From the non IT side it can be very frustrating dealing with IT some times. If they are really competent,and your requests are reasonable, they will get to your request in a reasonable amount of time. If not, well....
Here is all I can recommend if you aren't getting the service you need. Make the business case to your manager. Show him or her what these delays are costing the company, and allow them to take it up the chain of command with the data you have provided. In any well run company, showing how you can improve the bottom line should be enough to get things moving. Keep in mind that you will win some, and loose some. There may be issues you are not aware of behind the scenes (partnerships, politics between groups, etc.)
Leaving is an option, but save that one for when you are certain that you are dealing with real incompetence and you are sure that there is no way to fix things. If you think you have a good company, do what you can to make things right.
I would agree with all the folks saying brush up the old resume, but that would be just in case you can't pull off what you need to pull off.
One poster who said, more or less to put on the old management hat and sell, sell, sell has got the right idea, but before you go in to sell you need to feel out what management really thinks is valid so you aren't trying to sell an import car to a domestic car person.
Let's look at each point you raised.
The main job of IS is connectivity. Connectivity is the core of why we have IS. Anything else is extraneous, and I shouldn't be dealing with it.
So all they think they want is connectivity. Well, think of all the other things they are overlooking here and make a list. Basic user support, security, anti-virus, anti-spyware, patching, license management (a good example of the potential costs of being caught with 1 licenses copy of office and 100 installs helps here. Be sure you don't make it sound like a threat!), Application installs, hardware support, etc, etc, etc.
IS involvement in other divisions isn't necessary. IS is involved with other divisions when physical products get connected to the network, but not before. Software should be evaluated by IS only when it becomes necessary for purchase and implementation, not before. Any developed piece of software (we have an in-house programmer in accounting who uses Access -- I know, I know...) should be evaluated by IS when the software is ready to install.
Just point out the real world costs of this. It should be easy to find cases of where this has bitten the company, and if they really believe in item 1, then management has stated that you should not be dealing with this.
I'm too overloaded... I carry no management authority... Management thinks because things are running, I have no issues, etc...
Well, you don't want to sound like a whiner. In the past I have addressed this by telling my management that I can do 1 of 2 things. 1. I can continue to do a half assed job on everything, or 2. I can do a top notch job of the most important things, and just let the other things fall on the floor.
So, what you need to do is sit down with your management, make it clear to them on terms they can understand that things are not efficient, secure, or maintainable, and spell out what needs to be done to make things work in a manner that will benefit the company by lowering costs and keeping people spending 100% of their time doing what they were hired for, instead of 80% job and 20% IT. (If you aren't there that ratio will change dramatically.)
You need to walk out of that meeting with them understanding the importance of IT to the bottom line. They need to be willing to say to the rest of the company, that changes are going to be made and that that is not up for discussion.
If they still don't get it, start looking for other work. Management that doesn't get the value of IT even after it's been explained to them is never going to get it until it's too late. If the coming catastrophe hits while your there, they will blame you. If it hits after you have left, they will either blame you or beg you to come back and save them, or both. You probably don't want to be associated with them when it happens in either way.
Lastly, if you go, spend those last 2 weeks documenting all the things that need to be done and hand that into management on your way out. Always keep your most professional foot forward.
The best way to deal with this is calmly and professionally. If they want you out right now just say thanks and go.
If they expect you to remain for those last 2 weeks with no access to the systems, break out a pad and pen and start writing down all of the things you know you have access too, and work with your co-workers to ensure you no longer have access to anything.
On top of that, spend some time to pass along info on those systems you are the only one that knows anything about.
Beyond that it's not bad to sit around and make it known your available to answer questions before your time is up.
Face it, the more professional you are, the better your former employer and co workers will feel about you later. That never hurts when looking for references.
Like one of the previous posters I am an early Tivo adopter too, but unlike him, I have 2 units (series 1 and 2) that i use every day.
I still like Tivo better that the alternatives, but I have to admit that the alternatives are getting better all the time and Tivo is making it easier for them to catch up and doing themselves no favors in the process.
I'm not sure what the partnership with Intel is going to buy them though. Are they switching to intel CPU's?
I have Tivo2Go on both my Mac's and PC's and it works fine in both cases, so what does Viiv get me as a consumer?
Personally, I'm looking forward to an Apple PVR, especially if that integrate an iTunes server into the package (and perhaps an iPhoto server as well).
Besides, DRM is probably going to cripple all of this anyway, and like most people, if I have to jump through to many hoops to watch things the way I wana watch them, I'm just not going to do it.
Contrary to what the MPAA, RIAA, and TV execs believe, I am not going to change my habits to mesh with their wishes. If I can't have it my way, I'll just do something else all-together.
Add this to the FCC Cable a-la-carte news.
Perhaps I can cut my cable bill in half soon when I dump this stupid ass package I HAD to get just to get Speed TV to watch the F-1 races. Gimme basic cable at 1/2 what I'm paying now and Speed for an additional $2/month.
OK, can someone get me the sucession paperwork please? We in California are leaving. True, we have Conan as the Gov, but hopefully not for much longer.
Were happy to take Oregon along too, so long as they stop getting all uppity when they see a California license plate.
Washington? Alaska?, Hawaii? You guys up for this too?
You Easties should do the same, we can start a cool alliance and all laugh at what's left of the country as all the "smart people" head to the one coast or the other for a taste of the 21st century.
For all the rest of you, you get rid of all of us, you get probably 75% of the country, and lots of like minded individuals, and you can get your school vouchers and send all yer kids to bible camp to learn about how the world was inteligently designed 5000 years ago!
Hmm, I submitted a question about low power severs for the home just yesterday (No Yea/Neigh just yet), so I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one looking at this.
If I look at my own guilty fact sheet, I can see that I'm guilty of the following...
Getting high powered servers all of the time.
Not consolidating services enough.
Not encouraging enough of an emphasis on power consumption.
On the plus side, I have converted to LCD's whenever I nave needed to replace a monitor. It's a start, but a small one.
Since I have been looking at low power home servers for myself, I have started to look at the power used by the servers at work. There is allot of crap, mostly Windows stuff, that I run on solo servers. I'm sure I need no explain the reasoning behind that, but it's clear that it's not really efficient.
We have been looking at VM Ware and Xen with an eye towards reducing the number of hardware devices we need to have space and cooling and spare parts for, but The power consumption savings alone may be enough to tip the balance with Management.
Has anyone done a nice comparison of power usage after smushing 7 or 8 systems into 2 VM Ware boxes?
Well, I have been a longtime Tivo user. I hacked my series 1 box to add more space, and I bought a series 2 box pre hacked. This initial incident seems to have been caused by a big that has highlighted a legitimate feature, but the cat is out of the bag now.
Here is my problem with this.
Tivo changed the way I watch TV, but perhaps it changed it more than they thought it would. I have no problem recording a show and not watching it for a few weeks, then sitting down on night and catching up on a months worth of new episodes. If the show gets dumped after 5 days, well, then I'm not going to see it.
So now, depending on the network's whims, my Tivo box may have just become much less usefull. I can tell you 2 things that I will NOT be doing.
1) Changing my TV viewing habits back to where I work around the shows schedule. There are precious few shows that I;m now going to rearrange my schedule around.
2) Buy another Tivo. I was considering replacing my lifetime service series 1 with a lifetime service hacked series 2 (waiting for HDTV), however, it looks like this will be much less useful than what I am used to having.
Sorry Tivo. It was a good run, but the other options are looking better and better all the time.
My kids hate going to school now. Well, ok most of us did but the reasons are different now..
No Band PE 1 time a week No Library because they have no Librarian They can't RUN at lunch (fer chist sake!!) They have to be quiet at lunch
and the kicker..
No Dodge Ball!!
Personally, I got more interested in school as the electives became more interesting. While I was there I wend ahead and took my math and english too, and later on I got a degree in Physics of all things. But if there is no joy in school its kinda hard to get excited about it. Especially hard to get excited enough to go on to advanced degrees.
Having been in IT a looong time, I'm pretty familiar with all of the major players.
All of them have their +'s and -'s, but one of my biggest gripes about Microsoft is that instead of trying to leverage OSS, they continually try to crush or marginalize it. Over time I find myself less and less likely to consider a Microsoft solution because I know that over time Microsoft will try and make that solution less interoperable with all of my other solutions.
Microsoft would sell more software to me if I could be sure that they are NOT going to try and lock out all of my other platforms going forward.
Given your current position, does it look as if Microsoft will continue to try and marginalize OSS, or will they do an about face and work to try and ensure ongoing interoperability?
Electronic Voting can be used to create an unambiguous paper ballot. Beyond that, I don't want it right now.
In the mysterious future you could do a combination of unambiguous paper and digital as long as Joe Voter has a means to simply look at his/her vote and be sure that it went down as advertised.
I wonder if this will get more of the game developers on board? That would be nice. I suppose it depends on allot more than just the Intel arch, but it may be enough for some devs.
There will always be a market for both. I have an Xbox, PS2, 2 PC's and 2 Macs.
My kids (2 boys 10 and 13) play console games like pop songs. I.E. They get a new game, play it to death, then about the only time it ever comes out again is when someone visits, or when you have a sick day or really bad weather and no cable.
PC Games on the other hand get played long term.
Look at the other advantages. Simple game mods, support apps like Team Speak, the ability to run other programs like spreadsheets and the like.
Personally, I hate the controllers for the console games myself, but even if I liked them I could get equivalent controllers for my PC, but I have seen very few keyboard/mice/nostromo combos for consoles.
Consoles will improve. The Hard drive in the Xbox was a great addition, as is ethernet capabilities, but in the end you have a pretty static box. To make them as reliable as they are you strip things down or write an OS from scratch. These make them Gaming Appliances, and while thats all well and good, there is still a great need for more generic computing platforms.
So long as those ever so useful generic computing platforms are out there and can also run Games, the game makers will continue to develop for them.
Long term, I'd expect there to be more and more releases of games on all the major platforms all at once. We are already seeing releases for PC, PS2, and Xbox all at once.
Besides the obvious, switching to Open Source, etc. here are a few thoughts...
1) Make sure you know what you are spending.
If you don't have a baseline it's hard to tell, and even harder to prove, that you are saving any money at all. I have been in situations where Management, and I have very different ideas about how much certain things cost. You need to agree here, or it could get very bad, very quick.
2) Don't allow others to use IT as a purchaser.
How many times have you given out things? If your finance system is adequate you can transfer the assets when needed. This should reflect on your budget favorably, or it shouldn't happen.
3) Know where your time goes.
Few things sway management better that graphs and data. Gather statistics and you may find out that some time savers are not. Be prepared to loose a pet project, that can happen too, but it beats layoffs any time.
4) Be ready to cut the chaff.
Sometimes, a layoff is the right thing to do. If you have never had to do it, I can tell you it sucks really bad (I could tell you stories, but thats another issue), but if you have a team of 4 and 1 is a slacker, you need to look at that person with a critical eye. Once done, the workers will usually appreciate it as they no longer need to worry about covering unfinished work or assisting the slow poke. Remember, you could lay off Charles Manson, and someone will say "Oh my god! They fired Chuck!"
5) Consolidate and simplify.
Keep production systems as uniform as possible. You can support more and recover easier if you know the systems are 98% identical.
I could think of more, but this seems sufficient for now.
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Believe me, if I had the chance to immigrate to Europe, I would do it. The years of GW Bush were ugly enough (and many of us are still freaked out about things), and then I still have US health care to deal with. This situation with healthcare goes back way before GW Bush, and its something you hear about from time to time. It can take a normally prosperous family and strip them of literally everything they have before any kind of government assistance kicks in. By then its financial ruin and all of the emotional trauma that can cause heaped on top of unplayable medical bills.
An effective system should not allow that to happen.
My COBRA coverage got pulled at about the 1/2 point because my old company was small and both of the spouses had coverage, so at the annual renew time, they just stopped offering health.
After talking with an Insurance rep that I have used for company insurance at a few places, it became clear that my family and I would NEVER get personal health insurance. Currently, I suffer from chronic foot pain (for the past 6 years), my oldest son suffers from depression and bi-polar disorder (for the past 4 years), and my wife gets migraines (from childhood). You can see why an insurance company would not want to touch us, but we still need insurance.
As my COBRA ran out my agent tried to get us on a temporary plan. We know that if we claim the meds that my son and I require, $2,000 to $3000 a month, we will also not be allowed to re-up the temp plan. We decided that we would not claim any of the chronic things that we have to deal with so that we have the plan if we have a major issue, but once we do, we no for sure that we will not be allowed to re-up.
For the temp plan we went with a carrier that haven't been covered by for over 12 years. But we were denied coverage by this carrier because they had on record that...
1) My wife had been treated for headaches.
2) One of my 2 sons had been treated for a sore throat.
OVER10 YEARS AGO!!
Those 2 reasons were all that it took to deny even temporary coverage.
We had to find a carrier that had never insured me and my family before just to get temp insurance.
We are still looking for a permanent option, but as we do our savings are being drained rapidly as we try and cover our ongoing issues. We need to minimize claims to preserve our temp insurance in case of a major issue. Because of that none of us are getting any ongoing treatment, so no one is getting any better. Were stuck with little chance at improving medically, and at this point we have not found an insurer who will offer us insurance at any price.
If you have now, or have ever had anything more that a minor medical issue, your chance of getting coverage as an individual are effectively 0%
I have been looking for work for 2 years, sending out, and following up on at least a dozen job openings ever month (12 is my self imposed min). While the economy is bad I have no idea if I will be able to get a job, and while I am in this catch 22 I am spending more and more of my time trying to find coverage.
In the mean time, I have one of my cars for sale, family jewelry is listed, and while our house is not under water, real estate is not exactly booming either.
I dunno. Does my government really want me to be broke, unemployed, and perhaps homeless, before I can get health care for my family?
Or can they come up with some way for people to purchase coverage, to allow them to get healthy, before they loose everything?
During tough economic times, people tend to look for items that will last and provide greater value over time. In my experience an Apple macboook pro has proved to be very rugged and functional over time. Any equivalent Laptop I have owned has lasted 2 years before it was obsolete or falling apart, where as a Mac will last 4+ before I upgrade out of one. I haven't been shopping laptops recently, $2(X) > X=$500 for anything over a $500.
Finally someone who gets it!
I know the shaky cam is hard on some people, but thats part of the whole basis of the damn movie! This is what a guy filmed while helping his friends and running for his like for christ sake! I mean, how many people do YOU know who have a stedi-cam for for their home cam corder? And the bits that come through from "the old tape" are perfect. Especially at the very end.
I want a home server that can integrate all the iApp. My wife and I still complain about photos that I have, and that She has, and that the Kids have, etc. Gimme a $299 home server that gives me a common DB for photos, Music, a Cal manager and perhaps some zigbee home automation tool as an option. Simple tools to allow you to create a simple automated home with all of your stuff available.
Caymas systems (http://www.caymas.com) has a box that will allow a) simple and b) secure access. The speed is good, but bandwidth can be constricted at any point between you and the end user. For the record, I used to work at Caymas.
It's still costly to get a decent connection. Where I live I have a good ISP that provides quality DSL service with support (unlike ATT/SBC which has what has to be the worst customer support on the planet), but even with all of that I'm paying $60/month for my DSL. Once the long term contracts with ATT expire I'm certain that ATT will 'screw my ISP to the wall' so that I'll need to choose between a $60 ATT line with the worlds worst service, or an $85 (or higher) line from my IPS, or I can get on Comcast's 1000 household per subnet cable connections. The future looks dim.
I have friends who live paycheck to paycheck, and $720 per year for internet access is something they can do without.
From the IT side, you can't always respond to every change request ASAP. Simple things like adding more ram and stuff are all easy to actually do, but sometimes there are roadblocks, for instance who owns the system? If it's IT, they may not have budget to add more ram whenever someone asks for it. If it's you or your group, can you get a PO approved?
Does the system really need more ram? I used to get requests for more internet speed all of the time. It happens a lot less often since I started parading out the metrics to show people here that a) we are not using all of our bandwidth to the internet when their issue occurred, and b) I can prove that we can and do use up all of our bandwidth at times.
Policies can slow things down too, but to operate without them is a very slippery slope. I used to hate policies but as I moved up the chain in IT and we began to get requests for things that would create a great deal of work for very little return, or even more important, to deal with difficult HR situations, it became much simpler for everyone to be able to point a the policy that says "As far as the company is concerned, there is no personal data on that company supplied laptop, and you need to hand it over now"
From the non IT side it can be very frustrating dealing with IT some times. If they are really competent,and your requests are reasonable, they will get to your request in a reasonable amount of time. If not, well....
Here is all I can recommend if you aren't getting the service you need. Make the business case to your manager. Show him or her what these delays are costing the company, and allow them to take it up the chain of command with the data you have provided. In any well run company, showing how you can improve the bottom line should be enough to get things moving. Keep in mind that you will win some, and loose some. There may be issues you are not aware of behind the scenes (partnerships, politics between groups, etc.)
Leaving is an option, but save that one for when you are certain that you are dealing with real incompetence and you are sure that there is no way to fix things. If you think you have a good company, do what you can to make things right.
I would agree with all the folks saying brush up the old resume, but that would be just in case you can't pull off what you need to pull off.
One poster who said, more or less to put on the old management hat and sell, sell, sell has got the right idea, but before you go in to sell you need to feel out what management really thinks is valid so you aren't trying to sell an import car to a domestic car person.
Let's look at each point you raised.
So all they think they want is connectivity. Well, think of all the other things they are overlooking here and make a list. Basic user support, security, anti-virus, anti-spyware, patching, license management (a good example of the potential costs of being caught with 1 licenses copy of office and 100 installs helps here. Be sure you don't make it sound like a threat!), Application installs, hardware support, etc, etc, etc.
Just point out the real world costs of this. It should be easy to find cases of where this has bitten the company, and if they really believe in item 1, then management has stated that you should not be dealing with this.
Well, you don't want to sound like a whiner. In the past I have addressed this by telling my management that I can do 1 of 2 things. 1. I can continue to do a half assed job on everything, or 2. I can do a top notch job of the most important things, and just let the other things fall on the floor.
So, what you need to do is sit down with your management, make it clear to them on terms they can understand that things are not efficient, secure, or maintainable, and spell out what needs to be done to make things work in a manner that will benefit the company by lowering costs and keeping people spending 100% of their time doing what they were hired for, instead of 80% job and 20% IT. (If you aren't there that ratio will change dramatically.)
You need to walk out of that meeting with them understanding the importance of IT to the bottom line. They need to be willing to say to the rest of the company, that changes are going to be made and that that is not up for discussion.
If they still don't get it, start looking for other work. Management that doesn't get the value of IT even after it's been explained to them is never going to get it until it's too late. If the coming catastrophe hits while your there, they will blame you. If it hits after you have left, they will either blame you or beg you to come back and save them, or both. You probably don't want to be associated with them when it happens in either way.
Lastly, if you go, spend those last 2 weeks documenting all the things that need to be done and hand that into management on your way out. Always keep your most professional foot forward.
I won't...
Let em' know what you think!
If they expect you to remain for those last 2 weeks with no access to the systems, break out a pad and pen and start writing down all of the things you know you have access too, and work with your co-workers to ensure you no longer have access to anything.
On top of that, spend some time to pass along info on those systems you are the only one that knows anything about.
Beyond that it's not bad to sit around and make it known your available to answer questions before your time is up.
Face it, the more professional you are, the better your former employer and co workers will feel about you later. That never hurts when looking for references.
Like one of the previous posters I am an early Tivo adopter too, but unlike him, I have 2 units (series 1 and 2) that i use every day.
I still like Tivo better that the alternatives, but I have to admit that the alternatives are getting better all the time and Tivo is making it easier for them to catch up and doing themselves no favors in the process.
I'm not sure what the partnership with Intel is going to buy them though. Are they switching to intel CPU's?
I have Tivo2Go on both my Mac's and PC's and it works fine in both cases, so what does Viiv get me as a consumer?
Personally, I'm looking forward to an Apple PVR, especially if that integrate an iTunes server into the package (and perhaps an iPhoto server as well).
Besides, DRM is probably going to cripple all of this anyway, and like most people, if I have to jump through to many hoops to watch things the way I wana watch them, I'm just not going to do it.
Contrary to what the MPAA, RIAA, and TV execs believe, I am not going to change my habits to mesh with their wishes. If I can't have it my way, I'll just do something else all-together.
Add this to the FCC Cable a-la-carte news.
Perhaps I can cut my cable bill in half soon when I dump this stupid ass package I HAD to get just to get Speed TV to watch the F-1 races. Gimme basic cable at 1/2 what I'm paying now and Speed for an additional $2/month.
Were happy to take Oregon along too, so long as they stop getting all uppity when they see a California license plate.
Washington? Alaska?, Hawaii? You guys up for this too?
You Easties should do the same, we can start a cool alliance and all laugh at what's left of the country as all the "smart people" head to the one coast or the other for a taste of the 21st century.
For all the rest of you, you get rid of all of us, you get probably 75% of the country, and lots of like minded individuals, and you can get your school vouchers and send all yer kids to bible camp to learn about how the world was inteligently designed 5000 years ago!
Hmm, more people should be inteligently designed.
If I look at my own guilty fact sheet, I can see that I'm guilty of the following...
On the plus side, I have converted to LCD's whenever I nave needed to replace a monitor. It's a start, but a small one.
Since I have been looking at low power home servers for myself, I have started to look at the power used by the servers at work. There is allot of crap, mostly Windows stuff, that I run on solo servers. I'm sure I need no explain the reasoning behind that, but it's clear that it's not really efficient.
We have been looking at VM Ware and Xen with an eye towards reducing the number of hardware devices we need to have space and cooling and spare parts for, but The power consumption savings alone may be enough to tip the balance with Management.
Has anyone done a nice comparison of power usage after smushing 7 or 8 systems into 2 VM Ware boxes?
Well, I have been a longtime Tivo user. I hacked my series 1 box to add more space, and I bought a series 2 box pre hacked.
This initial incident seems to have been caused by a big that has highlighted a legitimate feature, but the cat is out of the bag now.
Here is my problem with this.
Tivo changed the way I watch TV, but perhaps it changed it more than they thought it would. I have no problem recording a show and not watching it for a few weeks, then sitting down on night and catching up on a months worth of new episodes. If the show gets dumped after 5 days, well, then I'm not going to see it.
So now, depending on the network's whims, my Tivo box may have just become much less usefull. I can tell you 2 things that I will NOT be doing.
1) Changing my TV viewing habits back to where I work around the shows schedule. There are precious few shows that I;m now going to rearrange my schedule around.
2) Buy another Tivo. I was considering replacing my lifetime service series 1 with a lifetime service hacked series 2 (waiting for HDTV), however, it looks like this will be much less useful than what I am used to having.
Sorry Tivo. It was a good run, but the other options are looking better and better all the time.
Why would margins drop? Do you expect the Intel hardware will cost Apple more than the PPC?
I'd expect just the opposite to occur, or more likely, for the price to drop.
Intel has a certain economy of scale. If Apple can purchase components at a lower price becuase of that scale then either
a) margins go up since the system now costs less to make
or
b) costs come down and the margins remain the same as Apple passes the savings on to the consumer in order to increase sales volume.
My kids hate going to school now. Well, ok most of us did but the reasons are different now..
No Band
PE 1 time a week
No Library because they have no Librarian
They can't RUN at lunch (fer chist sake!!)
They have to be quiet at lunch
and the kicker..
No Dodge Ball!!
Personally, I got more interested in school as the electives became more interesting. While I was there I wend ahead and took my math and english too, and later on I got a degree in Physics of all things. But if there is no joy in school its kinda hard to get excited about it. Especially hard to get excited enough to go on to advanced degrees.
You should make the demo run for..
28 days
6 hours
42 minutes
12 seconds
Pay close attention.
You could miss something.
Having been in IT a looong time, I'm pretty familiar with all of the major players.
All of them have their +'s and -'s, but one of my biggest gripes about Microsoft is that instead of trying to leverage OSS, they continually try to crush or marginalize it. Over time I find myself less and less likely to consider a Microsoft solution because I know that over time Microsoft will try and make that solution less interoperable with all of my other solutions.
Microsoft would sell more software to me if I could be sure that they are NOT going to try and lock out all of my other platforms going forward.
Given your current position, does it look as if Microsoft will continue to try and marginalize OSS, or will they do an about face and work to try and ensure ongoing interoperability?
Can you say Harrison Bergeron? I though you could.
Electronic Voting can be used to create an unambiguous paper ballot. Beyond that, I don't want it right now.
In the mysterious future you could do a combination of unambiguous paper and digital as long as Joe Voter has a means to simply look at his/her vote and be sure that it went down as advertised.
I wonder if this will get more of the game developers on board? That would be nice. I suppose it depends on allot more than just the Intel arch, but it may be enough for some devs.
There will always be a market for both. I have an Xbox, PS2, 2 PC's and 2 Macs.
My kids (2 boys 10 and 13) play console games like pop songs. I.E. They get a new game, play it to death, then about the only time it ever comes out again is when someone visits, or when you have a sick day or really bad weather and no cable.
PC Games on the other hand get played long term.
Look at the other advantages. Simple game mods, support apps like Team Speak, the ability to run other programs like spreadsheets and the like.
Personally, I hate the controllers for the console games myself, but even if I liked them I could get equivalent controllers for my PC, but I have seen very few keyboard/mice/nostromo combos for consoles.
Consoles will improve. The Hard drive in the Xbox was a great addition, as is ethernet capabilities, but in the end you have a pretty static box. To make them as reliable as they are you strip things down or write an OS from scratch. These make them Gaming Appliances, and while thats all well and good, there is still a great need for more generic computing platforms.
So long as those ever so useful generic computing platforms are out there and can also run Games, the game makers will continue to develop for them.
Long term, I'd expect there to be more and more releases of games on all the major platforms all at once. We are already seeing releases for PC, PS2, and Xbox all at once.
And my wife was always saying I was missing a part of my brain!!
In your FACE honey!!
Besides the obvious, switching to Open Source, etc. here are a few thoughts...
1) Make sure you know what you are spending.
If you don't have a baseline it's hard to tell, and even harder to prove, that you are saving any money at all. I have been in situations where Management, and I have very different ideas about how much certain things cost. You need to agree here, or it could get very bad, very quick.
2) Don't allow others to use IT as a purchaser.
How many times have you given out things? If your finance system is adequate you can transfer the assets when needed. This should reflect on your budget favorably, or it shouldn't happen.
3) Know where your time goes.
Few things sway management better that graphs and data. Gather statistics and you may find out that some time savers are not. Be prepared to loose a pet project, that can happen too, but it beats layoffs any time.
4) Be ready to cut the chaff.
Sometimes, a layoff is the right thing to do. If you have never had to do it, I can tell you it sucks really bad (I could tell you stories, but thats another issue), but if you have a team of 4 and 1 is a slacker, you need to look at that person with a critical eye. Once done, the workers will usually appreciate it as they no longer need to worry about covering unfinished work or assisting the slow poke. Remember, you could lay off Charles Manson, and someone will say "Oh my god! They fired Chuck!"
5) Consolidate and simplify.
Keep production systems as uniform as possible. You can support more and recover easier if you know the systems are 98% identical.
I could think of more, but this seems sufficient for now.