The state university I work at has used Ellucian (formerly SCT) Banner for over 10 years now. Ellucian is in the midst of a significant UI move, away from Oracle Forms and PL/SQL-based web pages to Groovy/Grails. These interfaces can launch background tasks written in C, COBOL, or Java as well.
One of the big advantages is taking Oracle Application Server out of the picture, as the Banner XE code can run in Tomcat on Linux under VMware (people that understand Oracle's licensing, VMware support, and the like get the implications).
The first step was to add columns to all of the database tables to make record select/update easier. Then they're rolling out the new interface in pieces, whether it's enhancements/new features or updating the existing application or interface.
They've also implemented SSO so that you don't have to re-log as you move from one interface to another. This is helpful while components are transitioning.
Caveat: I work as a server admin and sometimes Oracle DBA. I've had very little to do with the Banner XE implementation, other than sit in some meetings and webinars and create a bunch of VMs.
I would hope that Facebook protects credit card data in accordance with GLB, PCI, other regulations and best practices.
But the reason they want people to put a credit card on file with them is so they can market things - they figure you're more likely to buy an impulse purchase when you have a number on file (a la Amazon) than when you have to enter a card number for each purchase.
Which is exactly why I've resisted EVERY overture Facebook has made for me to purchase something - I don't play games, I don't give gifts via Facebook, and I won't pay the $1 fee to get an FB email into someone's "inbox" rather than "other" box.
I moved from ATT to Sprint the day that the HTC Evo 4G came out. I asked that day and they said "4G will be coming to this area in six months." 18 months later, WiMax 4G still hadn't come to the area, and Sprint had changed from deploying WiMax to LTE, so my Evo would never see 4G. They tried to sell me an LTE phone, and I politely advised them that I couldn't believe their deployment. Meanwhile, their "unlimited data" users - many coming from other carriers at the time - were swamping Sprint 3G, which was the only service available to me. I ended up switching to Verizon before my Sprint contract was up (it cost me $50 since I was close to the end). My Verizon contract costs more, although I've not come close to hitting my data quota, and it's MUCH more usable and reliable.
I can get ICS for my phone, and in fact I have been rejecting the update. Reports are that my phone performs better on GB, and it's already rooted and working fine. I am going to leave it as it is until maybe some killer app comes along that won't run on GB. Most likely that won't happen until my next phone comes along, and by that time I may bite the bullet and get an iThingie.
I don't think AT&T would try this if Steve Jobs was still alive. With him gone, and with Android as a healthy alternative (and several carriers have been pushing Android over iPhone for various reasons - lower subsidies, availability of 4G, etc), I think we'll start to see more carrier control of the platform - limits like this, crapware infestation, and the like.
VNC, as others have noted, works on lots of platforms (including older ones). You'll have to configure it in their firewall, and I use a non-standard port as well.
Some VNC versions allow a form of access control, but that doesn't help if your IP or IP range changes.
And while I realize that there is an actual cost involved to fix it, letting them stay on primitive hardware and OS is not really helping them. Sadly, "because it still works" is less and less a good reason to keep an old PC running. Not too long ago I was asked to clean up a virus-infested Windows ME box - yes, it still boots... but it had so little memory that none of the current antiviruses I had available would even run.
This is exactly the kind of thing I don't want from a condo association - a middleman that takes a cut of my fees and adds no value. I would rather contract directly with DSL or cable provider. That way if it breaks I don't have to call the condo offices (during business hours only, of course) to call the internet contractor (again, only reachable during business hours) to commence the finger-pointing.
Enterprise management capabilities, genuine software (Office, in particular) as opposed to "compatible" or "capable" software, familiarity, upper management, vendor packages that require MS servers, and relative lack of people that can "fix things" along with their regular responsibilities, are just a few reasons why.
Rapid-update philosophy sounds good for early adopters and hobbyist users (does Chrome have much traction in the corporate environment?)
But what about corporate environments that require software to stay stable and on fixed known-working versions? For example, Firefox 3.6 broke compatibility with a plugin that we have widely distributed at our site, and the solution to this issue requires another mass deployment. We've had similar issues with Java's auto-updater breaking compatibility with some applications (and no, we're not an IE6 shop).
If you're looking for something in the 10" range and/or to spend $400+ then wait. Even then, there's going to be only a few real winners and a lot of losers.
Many of the $250-and-under tablets are junk (slow processors, older Android versions, low-resolution screens with crummy touch sensors, etc), and I don't know that that's going to change in the short term. Probably the best choice in that price range is a rooted nook color. And when you're ready to get something new/better, you can restore it and resell it, or pass it on as-is.
For what it's worth, I have an Evo (practically a mini-tablet) and an iPad. The iPad has its merits, and you can do programming on it now (there's at least three BASIC interpreters, for example), but if you want to do app development, it's much cheaper to get started on Android.
No one from Etisalat, RIM, or SS8 is saying anything about the issue, despite the fact that the application appears remarkably difficult to remove. Enterprising hackers, though, have discovered it can be done, with one providing a useful utility (seventh message down) to automate the process.
I was looking for a quote about "open mouth, change feet" - completely unrelated to this topic - just a few moments ago, and ran across this post that really fits:
The summary of the numbers in that article (replacing US coal-burning plants with offshore east coast windmills):
So, we have, just for the towers nacelles and fans: - A workforce of 170,000 people, just to work at the plants to construct them. - 120 huge factories to construct. - Wind towers every 375 feet for the whole length of the Atlantic Coastline and stacked 38 rows deep. - Construct those towers, nacelles and fans at the rate of one every 8 minutes for 40 years, in the Atlantic Ocean. - $10.4 Trillion in today's dollars (conservatively).
It gets more ludicrous than that, when you consider continental shelf, keeping shipping lanes open, etc.
Admitted, adding on-shore windmills would be more doable, but still - it is quite pricey and impractical.
US Cellular appears to be a CDMA network from my spot-checks, so they couldn't use a stock IPhone on their network if they wanted.
That's part of the battle right now - even US GSM phones from T-Mobile vs ATT aren't 3G-compatible, nor compatible with CDMA networks (Verizon, Sprint, US Cellular).
Insist they use a client that can behave itself. I believe that Azeurus and MicroTorrent are in that category - and require they tune it down to a responsible level. I suppose this is a better choice than a roommatectomy. I had to do that once (abuse of my house though, not my internet connection).
I know of a fellow that regularly gigs with a laptop, MIDI keyboard,
AAS' Lounge Lizard and
Native Instruments B4. Admittedly, since he first started doing that, standalone keyboards have gotten better and less expensive.
I'm a regular hanger-outter on KVR Audio, as are some others (hi WR!) I don't want to think about what I've spent on VST hosts, instruments, sample libraries, and upgrades over the last four years...
If these people were the highest paid sales staff and they aren't making commission, then I would imagine they earned that salary buy sticking it out and being with the company for a long time (my assumption, could be wrong). So you stay with a company and work you way up and then someone decides to can you so you can start all over again.
This happened to a friend of mine with Best Buy a number of years ago. He had been a store manager for some time (I think close to ten years), and his side of it is that they found a way to get rid of him because he cost too much to keep compared to less-tenured store managers.
"We want cheap rather than good" seems to be the American way right now.
The book that helped make it clear to me (in spite of the at-first-simplistic style) is Head First Servlets and JSP by Basham, Sierra and Bates. The book makes a specific point of highlighting what will (and won't) be on the J2EE certification.
TBH, you either love or hate the Head First books.
Perhaps at private universities. Don't count on it at state schools.
I work at a small(er) state university in the midwest. University management (in part driven by IT managers without IT backgrounds) decided it was time to replace all of our in-house systems with an ERP (name has six letters). This implementation has all the classic marks of a deathmarch - time, staffing and resources substantially below needed levels and expectations/complexity well above what the time/staffing/resources can support. Add to this the that the IT staff was thrown at this new environment (unix and oracle) after years on mainframe/3270 development, and were tasked with OJT as they had to learn SQL AS they implemented. Also, IT management has this "big reorg" scheme coming out the next couple of weeks that few people have confidence will do anything but shuffle people, tasks, job descriptions or money... some are convinced that the goal is to redefine jobs to move people out of bargaining unit/overtime pay situations.
Add to this a poisonous labor atmosphere (TWO bargaining units were on concurrent strike last summer) and an early retirement buyout that is leading to major brain-drain on this project (two key people have retired, one is about to, and one has resigned), and a lack of user confidence and/or buy-in. We're circling the drain.
Dilbert cartoon posts show up regularly in the break room along with comments appended about how it fits a current project, the ERP implementation, management, etc.
I take little consolation in hearing that the sister institution 45 minutes up the road is doing like we are, but slower, and maybe with some hope there. Same ERP, incidentally, and some of the death march aspects seem to be driven by that vendor's implementation process.
Well, it's hard to disagree with the opinion that many (perhaps most) people are both lazy and greedy. But on the other hand lazy and/or greedy are not always negative characteristics (where would perl be if Larry Wall had not been "lazy" ?)
I saw the government's weasel words about how their action shouldn't be construed as any confirmation. My response to the government: "If you haven't done anything wrong, then you have nothing to hide." The government tries to tell us that often enough.
I'm not a court of law, but I'm sufficiently convinced that the government's done something fishy (again) and gotten caught at it (again).
IMHO, dropping the Windows version of Emagic Logic was not very customer-serving. On at least one other forum I frequent, people have lamented the loss of Logic for Windows. It sounds, however, like more people are finding other software, than switching to Apple.
Slashdot Mirror
The state university I work at has used Ellucian (formerly SCT) Banner for over 10 years now. Ellucian is in the midst of a significant UI move, away from Oracle Forms and PL/SQL-based web pages to Groovy/Grails. These interfaces can launch background tasks written in C, COBOL, or Java as well.
One of the big advantages is taking Oracle Application Server out of the picture, as the Banner XE code can run in Tomcat on Linux under VMware (people that understand Oracle's licensing, VMware support, and the like get the implications).
The first step was to add columns to all of the database tables to make record select/update easier. Then they're rolling out the new interface in pieces, whether it's enhancements/new features or updating the existing application or interface.
They've also implemented SSO so that you don't have to re-log as you move from one interface to another. This is helpful while components are transitioning.
Caveat: I work as a server admin and sometimes Oracle DBA. I've had very little to do with the Banner XE implementation, other than sit in some meetings and webinars and create a bunch of VMs.
I would hope that Facebook protects credit card data in accordance with GLB, PCI, other regulations and best practices.
But the reason they want people to put a credit card on file with them is so they can market things - they figure you're more likely to buy an impulse purchase when you have a number on file (a la Amazon) than when you have to enter a card number for each purchase.
Which is exactly why I've resisted EVERY overture Facebook has made for me to purchase something - I don't play games, I don't give gifts via Facebook, and I won't pay the $1 fee to get an FB email into someone's "inbox" rather than "other" box.
Doug
I moved from ATT to Sprint the day that the HTC Evo 4G came out. I asked that day and they said "4G will be coming to this area in six months." 18 months later, WiMax 4G still hadn't come to the area, and Sprint had changed from deploying WiMax to LTE, so my Evo would never see 4G. They tried to sell me an LTE phone, and I politely advised them that I couldn't believe their deployment.
Meanwhile, their "unlimited data" users - many coming from other carriers at the time - were swamping Sprint 3G, which was the only service available to me. I ended up switching to Verizon before my Sprint contract was up (it cost me $50 since I was close to the end). My Verizon contract costs more, although I've not come close to hitting my data quota, and it's MUCH more usable and reliable.
Doug
I can get ICS for my phone, and in fact I have been rejecting the update. Reports are that my phone performs better on GB, and it's already rooted and working fine. I am going to leave it as it is until maybe some killer app comes along that won't run on GB. Most likely that won't happen until my next phone comes along, and by that time I may bite the bullet and get an iThingie.
Doug
I don't think AT&T would try this if Steve Jobs was still alive. With him gone, and with Android as a healthy alternative (and several carriers have been pushing Android over iPhone for various reasons - lower subsidies, availability of 4G, etc), I think we'll start to see more carrier control of the platform - limits like this, crapware infestation, and the like.
Doug
VNC, as others have noted, works on lots of platforms (including older ones). You'll have to configure it in their firewall, and I use a non-standard port as well.
Some VNC versions allow a form of access control, but that doesn't help if your IP or IP range changes.
And while I realize that there is an actual cost involved to fix it, letting them stay on primitive hardware and OS is not really helping them. Sadly, "because it still works" is less and less a good reason to keep an old PC running. Not too long ago I was asked to clean up a virus-infested Windows ME box - yes, it still boots ... but it had so little memory that none of the current antiviruses I had available would even run.
Doug
Particularly given that they INTENTIONALLY and KNOWINGLY left Windows Phone 7 folk in a lurch with Windows Phone 8...
This is exactly the kind of thing I don't want from a condo association - a middleman that takes a cut of my fees and adds no value. I would rather contract directly with DSL or cable provider. That way if it breaks I don't have to call the condo offices (during business hours only, of course) to call the internet contractor (again, only reachable during business hours) to commence the finger-pointing.
Enterprise management capabilities, genuine software (Office, in particular) as opposed to "compatible" or "capable" software, familiarity, upper management, vendor packages that require MS servers, and relative lack of people that can "fix things" along with their regular responsibilities, are just a few reasons why.
The carriers won't agree, because it would eliminate or restrict the ability to get people to sign two-year contracts.
Rapid-update philosophy sounds good for early adopters and hobbyist users (does Chrome have much traction in the corporate environment?)
But what about corporate environments that require software to stay stable and on fixed known-working versions? For example, Firefox 3.6 broke compatibility with a plugin that we have widely distributed at our site, and the solution to this issue requires another mass deployment. We've had similar issues with Java's auto-updater breaking compatibility with some applications (and no, we're not an IE6 shop).
Doug
If you're looking for something in the 10" range and/or to spend $400+ then wait. Even then, there's going to be only a few real winners and a lot of losers.
Many of the $250-and-under tablets are junk (slow processors, older Android versions, low-resolution screens with crummy touch sensors, etc), and I don't know that that's going to change in the short term. Probably the best choice in that price range is a rooted nook color. And when you're ready to get something new/better, you can restore it and resell it, or pass it on as-is.
For what it's worth, I have an Evo (practically a mini-tablet) and an iPad. The iPad has its merits, and you can do programming on it now (there's at least three BASIC interpreters, for example), but if you want to do app development, it's much cheaper to get started on Android.
Doug
I use Natara Bonsai - Windows version, but there's also versions for Windows Mobile (touch or smartphone) and Palm.
The Register article stated:
It pointed to this link: http://supportforums.blackberry.com/rim/board/message?board.id=BlackBerryDeviceSoftware&thread.id=5504&view=by_date_ascending&page=2
But if you follow it you get:
Interesting.
Doug
I was looking for a quote about "open mouth, change feet" - completely unrelated to this topic - just a few moments ago, and ran across this post that really fits:
http://papundits.wordpress.com/2009/04/11/salazars-wind-power-first-open-mouth-then-change-feet/
The summary of the numbers in that article (replacing US coal-burning plants with offshore east coast windmills):
So, we have, just for the towers nacelles and fans:
- A workforce of 170,000 people, just to work at the plants to construct them.
- 120 huge factories to construct.
- Wind towers every 375 feet for the whole length of the Atlantic Coastline and stacked 38 rows deep.
- Construct those towers, nacelles and fans at the rate of one every 8 minutes for 40 years, in the Atlantic Ocean.
- $10.4 Trillion in today's dollars (conservatively).
It gets more ludicrous than that, when you consider continental shelf, keeping shipping lanes open, etc.
Admitted, adding on-shore windmills would be more doable, but still - it is quite pricey and impractical.
Doug
US Cellular appears to be a CDMA network from my spot-checks, so they couldn't use a stock IPhone on their network if they wanted.
That's part of the battle right now - even US GSM phones from T-Mobile vs ATT aren't 3G-compatible, nor compatible with CDMA networks (Verizon, Sprint, US Cellular).
Doug
They will use this to justify metered broadband, with caps and overage fees. They're already trialing it in Beaumont TX now.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/02/AR2008060202618.html
Doug
Doug
Doug
If these people were the highest paid sales staff and they aren't making commission, then I would imagine they earned that salary buy sticking it out and being with the company for a long time (my assumption, could be wrong). So you stay with a company and work you way up and then someone decides to can you so you can start all over again.
This happened to a friend of mine with Best Buy a number of years ago. He had been a store manager for some time (I think close to ten years), and his side of it is that they found a way to get rid of him because he cost too much to keep compared to less-tenured store managers.
"We want cheap rather than good" seems to be the American way right now.
Doug
The book that helped make it clear to me (in spite of the at-first-simplistic style) is Head First Servlets and JSP by Basham, Sierra and Bates. The book makes a specific point of highlighting what will (and won't) be on the J2EE certification.
TBH, you either love or hate the Head First books.
Doug
Perhaps at private universities. Don't count on it at state schools.
... some are convinced that the goal is to redefine jobs to move people out of bargaining unit/overtime pay situations.
I work at a small(er) state university in the midwest. University management (in part driven by IT managers without IT backgrounds) decided it was time to replace all of our in-house systems with an ERP (name has six letters). This implementation has all the classic marks of a death march - time, staffing and resources substantially below needed levels and expectations/complexity well above what the time/staffing/resources can support. Add to this the that the IT staff was thrown at this new environment (unix and oracle) after years on mainframe/3270 development, and were tasked with OJT as they had to learn SQL AS they implemented. Also, IT management has this "big reorg" scheme coming out the next couple of weeks that few people have confidence will do anything but shuffle people, tasks, job descriptions or money
Add to this a poisonous labor atmosphere (TWO bargaining units were on concurrent strike last summer) and an early retirement buyout that is leading to major brain-drain on this project (two key people have retired, one is about to, and one has resigned), and a lack of user confidence and/or buy-in. We're circling the drain.
Dilbert cartoon posts show up regularly in the break room along with comments appended about how it fits a current project, the ERP implementation, management, etc.
I take little consolation in hearing that the sister institution 45 minutes up the road is doing like we are, but slower, and maybe with some hope there. Same ERP, incidentally, and some of the death march aspects seem to be driven by that vendor's implementation process.
Doug
Well, it's hard to disagree with the opinion that many (perhaps most) people are both lazy and greedy. But on the other hand lazy and/or greedy are not always negative characteristics (where would perl be if Larry Wall had not been "lazy" ?)
Doug
I saw the government's weasel words about how their action shouldn't be construed as any confirmation. My response to the government: "If you haven't done anything wrong, then you have nothing to hide." The government tries to tell us that often enough.
I'm not a court of law, but I'm sufficiently convinced that the government's done something fishy (again) and gotten caught at it (again).
Doug
IMHO, dropping the Windows version of Emagic Logic was not very customer-serving. On at least one other forum I frequent, people have lamented the loss of Logic for Windows. It sounds, however, like more people are finding other software, than switching to Apple.
Doug