Quite frankly, I think here in the U.S. - the main reason karaoke survives has nothing to do with whatever cash prizes or competitions are going on. Everyone I know who is into it is either a part-time musician who wants to practice their singing skills in public someplace, or more commonly, is an amateur who thinks he or she is a "pretty good singer" and wants to show off (after loosening up a bit with a couple beers).
EG. I used to know a couple girls, one of their boyfriends, and another guy the boyfriend was buddies with, who went to karaoke religiously because they got a kick out of working on songs they could all sing as a group. (They spent a few weeks working out a version of the B-52's "Love Shack", for example - with one of the guys doing the low male voice that says "Love shack baby!", etc. and the others alternating lines or singing in chorus throughout the song.) After that got old and one or two of them lost interest, they all quit going to karaoke. The bar they went to never held contests or anything. They just went there because it was close to where they all lived.
Another good friend of mine is a guitarist, and he's played off and on again in bands his co-workers put together to jam on weekends. After he learns to play a song, a lot of times he starts trying to learn the lyrics and sing along to it, so he can play it solo for friends or a girlfriend, and keep it interesting enough to listen to all the way through. Karaoke is sort of his way of both practicing and testing the results in a public setting of his singing. (He only does karaoke for songs he learned the guitar for previously.)
Although I'm not too sure it's something even Steve Jobs would consider (given the fact he's C.E.O. of Pixar, and *might* view this as a conflict of interests), it seems like Apple is in a great position to retaliate if it came down to it.
Simply change the iTunes music store to a "portal" to independent artists and music, and start a program allowing anyone to sell their independent music on the store, similar to the way people post auctions on eBay today. Perhaps offer the option for any artist to submit a free selection from whatever uploaded album of songs they want to sell, which would be put into "rotation" as the "free download of the week" - helping them promote themselves that way if they wish.
At the same time, maybe even incorporate a BitTorrent style feature for users to share any other music they happen to wish to share with fellow iTunes users for free, and make sure IPs are anonymized as part of the functionality. Not saying they'd actively promote illegal music sharing from the other commercial entities, but you know.... make it easy to do, while pointing out the legal uses of the new feature at the same time.
Not sure we're much alike at all, then....
on
Pay vs. Happiness
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
For starters, I've never had a $60K a year job. I've certainly done work where you'd assume or expect that's what I was paid, but actually - more like around $48K was about the most I've seen (and not for quite some time, at that!).
Also, by the mere fact that I do have a kid, almost *everything* changes. For starters, there are a number of jobs I've had to skip over applying for because working in rotating shifts was one of their requirements. (How can you find someone who will take care of a 3 year old for you when you're alternating working mornings, days, and late nights every month or two?) In fact, even "overtime" is extremely troublesome for me, since I have to pick my kid up from daycare no later than 6PM each day. I don't have the option of just "agreeing to work late" with no advance notice, if something comes up. And many of today's employers simply expect that. That's why they're looking to hire people fresh out of college, who don't have a family yet to "get in the way".
I always followed the majority of your listed "points for 16 year olds to learn from" - but a few of them just aren't realistic. For example, I always knew renting was a bad deal - but when I first moved out of my parents' house, I ended up renting an apartment with a roommate. At that point in time, I didn't have any credit history built up yet, nor did I have money for a downpayment on a house. But it was still time to move out (or just become a leech off of my parents - which I don't believe in doing either). When I got the opportunity, I did buy a small house (for well below market value, no less), and pay less on my mortgage each month than some people pay on their car loans. Waiting until a home is fully paid off to get married is ridiculous adivce, IMHO. Marriage should happen whenever 2 people in love with each other feel it's the right step to take. It really shouldn't be governed by how much property someone has paid off. Assuming a healty, normal relationship - both partners should simply be committed to the job of trying to get through life together. If part of that means both people doing their part to keep payments current on a house, so what?
Your point #7, by the way, is very questionable advice in my opinion. That's exactly what I did, and I feel quite certain it's one of the biggest mistakes I made! When you work for small businesses, you don't end up with any recognizable/respectable names of employers to put on your resume, nor do you gain experience working in many scenarios that are only available to people in a very large workplace. Hiring managers see big company names on a resume, and feel more "secure" in a decision to hire you. There's an assumption that a large business has the resources to do more complete background checks and so forth; If you were good enough to get and keep a job with one of them for a length of time, you're probably good enough for the next position too. When you work for small places, it looks more suspicious - like perhaps the business owners were just personal friends who hired you as more of a favor?
Oh yeah... I can second this, and I never even worked for them myself! I've observed enough from other people who took jobs there, and even went through their whole interview process one time when I was so desperate, I briefly considered working there until something better came along. (They were such a "revolving door" of people coming and going though, my paperwork literally got lost in the shuffle, and instead of calling me back in to start work, they forgot all about me for about a month, until someone called me on the phone trying to figure out if I had already "taken their tests" and interviewed with them or not.)
On "blaming the employer" ....
on
Pay vs. Happiness
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I tend to agree with many of your points, but not quite *all* of them.
In a relatively "good" job market, sure - there's little to no excuse for someone to keep a "crappy job" that's making them physically ill, etc. But at least in my field (computers and I.T.), the overall market has simply NOT been very "healthy" at all ever since around 2001. I'm not sure I really see any signs of it "recovering" either.
I've been out of work for over 6 months now, and it's not even that often I can find an opening to send a resume to - because businesses are getting more and more demanding about exactly what they're seeking in a candidate. I have close to 15 years of combined experience with computer hardware and support, consulting, purchasing, and troubleshooting. Unfortunately, practically every job I see considers most/all of that "nice stuff to know on the side" while they really want someone who either does software coding of some sort, database administration (with previous experience in SQL, etc.), or experience implementing/supporting very specific appliacations (EG. Peoplesoft or specific CRM type packages). When it's not some combination of those, it's some type of "project manager" or "I.T. Manager" opening - requiring management experience and skills I don't have, because I've spent all my time on the "technical side" of things instead.
My "mish mash" of experience in everything from Linux to Mac OS X to IBM OS/2 Warp to Windows NT 3.51, 4.0 and 2000 server support to "you name it" doesn't amount to a hill of beans to anyone except the "on site computer service" places like Geeksquad or "Computer Nerds" who just want to pay you a lousy $10/hr. or so to drive all over town doing work they bill close to 10x that much for.
Years ago, I could at least get a respectable job as a "support specialist" or possibly even "systems analyst" at a mid-sized company with my skills. But even in the late 90's, these types of jobs were rather sparse. Now, I'm stuck trying to do my own on-site business because I simply can't find employment other than accepting something paying well under 40% of what I used to earn 10 years ago!
Preaching to people about the "need to have healthy relationships" is practically pointless. I *thought* I had one myself several years ago. My marriage ended horribly when my ex turned out to have mental problems that suddenly surfaced (bi-polar, manic depressive, etc.) and on one of her "downer" days, decided it was really all my fault and cleaned out my house, took our daughter, and moved about 5 hours away. Thankfully, all of that mess is pretty much sorted out (divorce finalized, etc.) - but I lost most of what I owned including 2 cars. And though I have primary custody of my daughter now, that also means I have a responsibility to do what it takes to earn money so she gets a decent life here with me. So some boss who lectures me about "over-extending myself" while he sits back and collects a good 2x-3x my salary just to "manage" me isn't going to sit well with me. I'm not some irresponsible drug addict who can't manage my money.... I'm simply busting my ass to do the right thing in a piss-poor economy.
I *know* they were clear on it. I just assumed the hardware was more solid and reliable, and I could at least expect to get, say 4-5 years of useful life out of one! All of my computers have run for that long, as a rule....
Yeah, all of those items you mentioned come immediately to mind for me as well. I think part of the problem is, Apple really goes in for style as an integral part of their products. If "everybody else" is building a product a certain way or with a certain material, Apple tries really hard NOT to do the same thing (even though often, the "other guys" have very sound, sensible reasons for doing it the way they do).
I have an Aluminum 17" Powerbook and though it's still in pretty nice condition, I also don't use it real often (certainly not on a daily basis), because I have other desktop PCs at home. It simply sits in my closet until I'm taking some sort of trip that requires it, and stays in a good protective carrying case most of the time.
Nonetheless, I had it fall off of a table once while using it, and now it has a nasty little dent in one corner and scratch along the back. I suppose if it were plastic, I might have a crack or piece of missing plastic instead which would be worse... but the downside is, replacement of part of the aluminum shell is a several hundred dollar expense. Probably under $100 or so for most other laptops.
I think Apple product "reliability" is generally above average. They've had a few "clunkers" that got a lot of attention - but overall, they're fine in that area. The real question is, can they make things that continue to look nice throughout their usable product life? In the case of iPods, I don't think they ever succeeded except maybe with the Shuffle. The chrome back to all the regular iPods constantly gets scratched up - and in some cases, even developed rust where it was engraved. Now they've got these screen problems on Nanos....
I loved my Tivo for a little while... Even used it *in place of* a MythTV box I had already built before I ever had the thing! But selling the units for next to nothing and trying to make up for it with service contracts isn't the way to go.
My Tivo actually died on me (appears to be a faulty CPU since it boots to the initial splash screen ok, but then goes to a black screen with some kind of error about an unexpected instruction and stops). Even though I already had a lifetime membership for it, I'm unable to transfer that to another brand new Tivo I was given free by my parents. (They bought it as an Xmas gift for someone who it turns out already had one and didn't need it.) Somehow, it rubbed me the wrong way that the nearly $300 "lifetime subscription" would only be good for as long as one specific piece of hardware lasted. How do I know my next Tivo won't just die the same way after another year or so?
And granted, I could send it back in for an "out of warranty repair" for $80 or so - but that still leaves me with this new, free, Tivo sitting here in the box that I have no way to use without now buying a redundant contract (plus now with a 1 year service committment on top of that!). No thanks.... Tivo, I'm done. Back to the MythTV I've gone and no regrets.
I can see this from both sides. On one hand, it's easy to say "Users need to *learn* the basics. If they're going to just say "I refuse to be bothered to learn what a megabyte is!" - then maybe they need to work elsewhere!" On the other hand, there's a strong argument for setting up a more user-friendly environment that makes a lot of this unnecessary. (EG. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Apple's Mail application in OS X is smart enough so when you tell it you want to attach an image to your message, it asks you if you'd like it sent "Small, Medium or Large size" and auto-scales to one of 3 reasonable preset sizes suitable for emailing. If this became standard behavior for all popular email clients, most of the problem of clogging mail servers with huge graphics attachments would disappear.)
Like most things, the answer is probably somewhere in the middle. Educate the users on *some* of the jargon, but try to construct an environment where as many technical details are invisible as possible, so they only need to know a few basic concepts to function in the office.
The biggest obstacle I see these days is the tendency for smaller or mid-sized businesses to try to cust costs on I.T. - eliminating full-time I.T. support staff, in favor of going with a service contract or a part-time worker. This does prevent the problem of paying someone to sit around and surf the web, etc. while they "wait for something to break". But it also causes such things as the situation mentioned in the article where users could simply "turn off their firewall" or make other harmful system changes. (EG. Can't send out my email!? Hey, maybe it's my network card settings! I remember the support guy at home walking me though that stuff in my "Control Panel" under "Networking" when I called for help with my DSL!. I'll try changing some of these numbers around in here!) Users are given more "administrator-type" system privileges due to the lack of real, full-time I.T. staff, and they begin tinkering with things, knowing it'll be a while before they get help otherwise. Then you've got much worse problems....
I hate to slam HAMs with this post, but at the risk of being accused a "troll" - I have to say, I was *once* very interested in HAM radio and thought about getting a license. But I started out with a decent police scanner and listened to a bunch of the conversation first - and most of the time, it seemed like a bunch of old men with nothing better to do than play around with various antenna configurations and gear, and test it out. That, plus a bunch of extremely BORING conversation about fishing or someone's last camping trip or whatnot.
Maybe it's just the city I live in or something... but that made me lose practically all interest I had in paying govt. and passing exams for the privilege of talking on yet another type of communications device.
- I read the article all the way through, and I actually do get why this isn't just "barely disguised advertising B.S. on Slashdot once again".
Normally, yeah, who cares? A laptop now offers a new top plate? But here's the thing: It's the long-standing IBM Thinkpad doing it. Unlike practically every other laptop on the market, the Thinkpad, under IBM's guidance, remained much more about usability and practicality in a business enviornment than about catering to style-conscious consumers. Leaving a laptop in all black plastic (and no polished or mirror finishes either!) makes a lot of sense for a device you assume is going to be taking some physical abuse and will be in daily service for a long time. Small scratches don't show up much on it, nor do fingerprints. If it gets a little dirty, it won't immediately look terrible like a white laptop will. And at least in theory, you're not stuck paying a premium for "looks". (It should have cost less to make everything in plain old black than to maintain multiple product lines with various colors.)
Lenovo's interest in changing this signifies much more than "Woo - the Thinkpad gets a style makeover!" It means they're trying to re-orient the whole product line to compete in the consumer and so-ho/small business sector. (And this is strictly personal opinion, but I also think it's a strong sign that there's no longer a point in demanding Thinkpads for your corporation, if you're part of a comnpany that used to standardize on them. Generally, notebooks of Japanese manufacture are coming off the assembly line with better quality control than Chinese ones like Lenovo products. But furthermore, this shift in strategy means you're going to start paying more for "flash" than "substance" as time goes on with Thinkpads.)
It makes me cringe whenever I hear Symantec making these "predictions" about potential attacks on computers.
I have run into *countless* numbers of damaged Windows installations, directly attributable to Symantec's own products. Just last week, I struggled for hours with a customer's XP Home Edition because he was "having problems getting any streaming audio to work properly".
Upon closer examination, the XP firewall was in a corrupt state, refusing to allow connections for his Internet radio stations. I was unable to view the advanced firewall properties, etc. After looking up event log error codes and trying several methods that repaired the problem for some people, it became obvious that I was looking at the result of a botched uninstall of a Symantec Personal Firewall or "Internet Security Suite" product.
Not only can these things happen, but you'll often see computers with errors with the "32-bit subsystem" when going to an MS-DOS command prompt, due to Norton products screwing up system registry settings due to an improper/incomplete uninstall or installation/upgrade.
Furthermore, when their anti-virus and "security suite" products do work properly, they still bring older, slower PCs to their knees in many cases. The "on-demand scanning" feature lags far behind the rest of the system when working with large numbers of small files (extracting a ZIP or the like), causing a window to constantly pop up, informing you to "please wait" while it scans them... And their "activation" process they now require for their AV products in Windows is every bit as bad as Microsoft's XP activation procedures! I remember purchasing a 25-pack of OEM Norton AV licenses last year, only to find that 6 or 7 of the key codes refused to work, claiming they were "used too many times" or the like. (I guess pirates with keygens hit upon them already or something?) Thiis is *not* the type of B.S. you want to fool around with when you're on a client site, getting paid by the hour to fix a virus problem for them!
I won't even go into the disk corruption their "Disk Doctor" for Macintosh did to MANY customers after they upgraded to newer versions of OS X and Symantec didn't keep up with needed changes/patches to the product!
Their company went down the tubes ever since Peter Norton quit coding their products and started getting royalties for having his photo thrown on the front of the packages.
Ok, saying it's "impossible" to change the situation isn't quite accurate - but it's quite likely Switchfoot is content to point out the futility of such copy protection schemes (on a Sony sponsored message forum, no less!), rather than risk everything they've worked for to date (all the existing recorded material that Sony would *still* have the rights to and so forth).
While it's true you can have quite a multi-track recording and mixing powerhouse in your own basement for a very reasonable price today, that still doesn't do squat for you in the way of helping you *market* yourself to the public. When you're just getting started, you need people with connections to get the radio airplay, the ability to have your material put on store shelves in prominent locations, the deals with game companies to use your tracks as background music, and/or movie deals. That's usually why people sign these "deals with the devil" with major labels. Once they're off to a good start and have the name recognition, they're trapped in a really bad contract arrangement - but setting up one's own personal web pages and putting songs on a few music-sharing sites doesn't usually give you that initial boost into "popularity" that you need either.
Re:How about information about your car's health?
on
VW Goes USB
·
· Score: 1
I agree. There's actually a lot of useful info one can obtain from the OBDII port found on 1996 and later vehicles, but you need the proper cable and connector, plus software for a PDA or laptop computer to interpret it for you.
(www.obdscan.net has a few good products for the purpose)
But even that won't tell you things like the condition of your brakes or oil levels...
Brakes, in particular, I find very frustrating. On my last vehicle, a '99 Ford Ranger truck - I took it in several times to have the brakes checked. (It started squealing or squeaking when I stopped - so I thought it might be due for new pads.) Each time, I was told "Nope, you've got over 50% wear left... No worries!" Then, next thing I know, it's in for inspection and I'm told my pads are worn and the rotors are damaged too. Grr... That's exactly why I wanted to catch it before it got that bad!
But I've learned you can't really count on hearing the squealing to determine when the pads are down to the "wear indicators" - because modern pads tend to squeal or squeak a lot anyway.
I always had a problem with justifying this sort of thing.... I know it might be effective, but it doesn't make it ethically ok.
For example, I once worked at a small computer store that sold new and the occasional used item. We had a guy come in around Xmas time once, offering to sell us a Toshiba laptop that seemed to be in brand new condition.
His asking price was reasonable, but not so low as to be suspicious. My boss went ahead and purchased it, since his story was that he got it as a gift, but needed the money to buy Xmas presents for friends and family more than he needed a new laptop.
Luckily, my boss also thought to photocopy the guy's drivers' license, just in case, and filed it away.
A few weeks later, the county sheriff showed up, asking about the computer. If my boss didn't have the photocopied information to hand the guy, I'm sure he would have been arrested - which seems ridiculous. Instead, he was forced to turn over the computer (which he still had on the store shelf), and was never compensated for the loss.
Not only are the Linux alternatives free of charge, but you've got to build a "bridge" to get the HUGE established base of Windows users to cross over. The "best" products don't always win out in the marketplace. (You know, the old Betamax vs. VHS tape debate and so forth.)
When you have people out there who spent many hundreds of dollars on training courses and the like for Photoshop, they're generally *not* going to see the value in an alternative product that has a drastically different GUI. It makes a LOT of sense to "re-engineer" the power in GIMP so the controls look and feel like the dominant product in the marketplace for the same tasks.
For all the slamming of the Windows interface and look/feel of most popular Windows apps - I personally feel that they've done a lot of things right in that area. It's far from perfect, but these days, most of my Windows-related complaints have a lot more to do with the underlying infrastructure and it's inherent weaknesses (virus and spyware problems, tendency to have multiple, concentrated "points of failure" such as XP's WMI database or the system registry, etc.). Even Mac OS X, which looks teriffic, feels a bit "weak" to me in the area of file management. (It's very touchy about exactly where the mouse needs to be in order to start a list of files and folders scrolling up or down inside a window, for one example. Quite frustrating.)
Perhaps copying Windows in a product like Linspire just makes more sense than trying to "re-invent the wheel" in an attempt to achieve some "holy grail" of UI elegance and efficiency?
I absolutely would *love* to have more disk space in my laptop. I have 80GB now, and it's not nearly enough. I have an Apple Powerbook, and one reason I bought it was for the ability to do video editing. 80GB isn't much at all when you're downloading a bunch of camcorder footage to go through later and trim down to, say, 45 minutes to 1 hour of final product. Then consider you might want to work on 2 projects at the same time....
Right now, everyone I know using a laptop for video work carries along an external drive... but that partially defeats the purpose of having a portable computer in the first place!
I love my "CanoScan D1250U2F" USB 2.0 scanner - BUT, it has no Mac OS X drivers at all, which really sucks, and not really any other support I know of either besides Windows....
On my XP machine though, it scans quickly, quietly and with very good color accuracy. (It was top rated for scanners in the $200 price range that could do a good job scanning in photographic negatives too. I rarely need that feature, but it has a special adapter to hold a strip of negatives for scanning.)
I get the idea that driver support is the only real negative to most Canon scanner products.... The hardware is good though.
Life is what you make of it.... If you want to go around being a "whipping boy", taking abuse and just sucking it up with a credo of "Life's unfair.... oh well!" - then go right ahead.
But change tends to come from the people who aren't afraid to speak out, and do decidedly "non P.C." things at times.
I don't think it's about getting that "5 minutes of euphoria" (or at least, it shouldn't be). Rather, it's the realization that sometimes, there are bridges worth burning. Yeah, you might not ever be able to cross them again, but maybe you've saved a lot of other people some heartache when they waste time crossing them.
Personally, if I was treated as "expendable/undervalued/worthless" by a potential employer, I wouldn't ever consider re-applying there again anyway. I really don't get these people who quit (or even get fired) from a place, only to take another job there a few years later. Sure, you can say "Well, the person who was the problem is gone now." - but it almost always runs much deeper than that. It's a whole sickness in the corporate culture of the business, most of the time. They have a structure that allows people to get promoted to management for the wrong reasons, etc. Recipe for repeated disaster/failure/problems - even if there's a "calm before the storm" because by sheer luck, they happened to promote a few people who had a clue.
In the "big picture" - expressing anger can always, theoretically, come back to bite you in the ass. But how many of us can go through life acting perfectly happy with everyone we run into, and every situation we encounter? I'd say practically nobody unless they're on heavy medication....
As I've seen in my own job hunt, and as many of my friends can also testify who are seeking employment right now - there is a lot of arrogance on the part of *employers* too!
It's fine to preach about practicing "professionalism" in a job search, but there's also something to be said for the individual who isn't afraid to "tell it like it is" when a proespective employer demands far too much or illustrates utter cluelessness.
EG. A lady I know was trying to get hired on at a high-end furniture store in town. She was originally seeking a position in commission-based sales, because it appeared the potential was there to earn the type of money she needs to take care of her family. (She's divorced with 3 kids and has to make house payments, a car payment, etc. etc. And she's only getting child support payments sporadically - and when they come, they don't nearly cover the basic bills.) Despite explaining her situation during the interview, the manager she interviewed with seemed to conclude that with her education and background, she'd be a better fit for one of their accounting positions. Fine, except it only paid about $9/hr.! Nobody would even consider discussing the sales openings with her after that, and it just fell on deaf ears that $9/hr. wasn't going to cut it....
(And don't forget, this is a business that sells one of the most marked-up items around... expensive furniture. On average, everything they sell goes for well over 200% of cost, and the store moves a lot of product too!)
She *could* have just politely declined the offer and moved on, but instead, she ripped into the guy about it. I say good for her! Maybe... just maybe, they'll give some more thought to the wisdom of expecting to get good candidates with 4 year college degrees to oversee all of their income and expenses, while paying them far LESS than any of the sales staff makes. Maybe they'll wake up a bit and realize that it takes a little more than some $9/hr. job to raise a family on.
Nothing's going to change when everyone just smiles and pretends that they're ever so happy to be given the opportunity to get bent over and screwed with a crappy job offer.
I have to agree. What is so "cool" about making your computer more difficult for others to use, first of all? Considering the fact that keyboard makers can't even agree on such basic things as where the best place is to locate the backslash - I see nothing sensible about a keyboard where it's not even marked in the first place!
But $80 for it too? This is the kind of gimmicky stuff I'd expect to see selling for about $10-15. If you really want a *good* keyboard, I recommend hunting down one with ALPS mechanical keyswitches in it!
The old "Northgate Omnikey" keyboards used to be the "Cadillac" of keyboards... solid with great key feel and configurability. (You want that backslash in the alternate location? No problem! Pull the keys off, switch 'em around, snap 'em back in place, and set the DIP switches to tell it what you did!) They're still available on eBay now and then - occasionally reconditioned to brand new shape.
Yeah.... but there's also the flip side to that. If you're an *intern*, that implies you're not planning on staying there in that position for a great deal of time.
I'd think that doing some kind of temporary internship, about the only "perks" you could hope to get would be the little things (like the iPod Nano in this case). Who is going to do all the paperwork and incur the expenses of setting up what amounts to a glorified temp worker with a 401k plan, etc. ?
The often quoted "2 weeks of vacation per year" doesn't even come into play for some of us. I spent 6 years working for a company that offered us this typical 2 weeks' vacation policy, but my boss would never let us really use it. He kept telling us we had some project or other we were in the middle of that was "too important" for us to be taking off.... He preferred to have H.R. just pay us for the unused days, once it got to the point of "use it or lose it".
Then, I worked for 3 different companies in a row where I didn't get any vacation time until I worked there for at least 1 year first. And guess what? I didn't stay at 2 of the 3 for any longer than almost exactly 1 year each! In the last case, I was there for about 1 1/2 years, but the company closed its doors and let all of the employees go, before I had the chance to use my vacation.
Right now, I'm *finally* getting my first "vacation" in nearly 10 years.... collecting unemployment and sitting at home, job hunting.
Slashdot Mirror
Quite frankly, I think here in the U.S. - the main reason karaoke survives has nothing to do with whatever cash prizes or competitions are going on. Everyone I know who is into it is either a part-time musician who wants to practice their singing skills in public someplace, or more commonly, is an amateur who thinks he or she is a "pretty good singer" and wants to show off (after loosening up a bit with a couple beers).
EG. I used to know a couple girls, one of their boyfriends, and another guy the boyfriend was buddies with, who went to karaoke religiously because they got a kick out of working on songs they could all sing as a group. (They spent a few weeks working out a version of the B-52's "Love Shack", for example - with one of the guys doing the low male voice that says "Love shack baby!", etc. and the others alternating lines or singing in chorus throughout the song.) After that got old and one or two of them lost interest, they all quit going to karaoke. The bar they went to never held contests or anything. They just went there because it was close to where they all lived.
Another good friend of mine is a guitarist, and he's played off and on again in bands his co-workers put together to jam on weekends. After he learns to play a song, a lot of times he starts trying to learn the lyrics and sing along to it, so he can play it solo for friends or a girlfriend, and keep it interesting enough to listen to all the way through. Karaoke is sort of his way of both practicing and testing the results in a public setting of his singing. (He only does karaoke for songs he learned the guitar for previously.)
Although I'm not too sure it's something even Steve Jobs would consider (given the fact he's C.E.O. of Pixar, and *might* view this as a conflict of interests), it seems like Apple is in a great position to retaliate if it came down to it.
.... make it easy to do, while pointing out the legal uses of the new feature at the same time.
Simply change the iTunes music store to a "portal" to independent artists and music, and start a program allowing anyone to sell their independent music on the store, similar to the way people post auctions on eBay today. Perhaps offer the option for any artist to submit a free selection from whatever uploaded album of songs they want to sell, which would be put into "rotation" as the "free download of the week" - helping them promote themselves that way if they wish.
At the same time, maybe even incorporate a BitTorrent style feature for users to share any other music they happen to wish to share with fellow iTunes users for free, and make sure IPs are anonymized as part of the functionality. Not saying they'd actively promote illegal music sharing from the other commercial entities, but you know
For starters, I've never had a $60K a year job. I've certainly done work where you'd assume or expect that's what I was paid, but actually - more like around $48K was about the most I've seen (and not for quite some time, at that!).
Also, by the mere fact that I do have a kid, almost *everything* changes. For starters, there are a number of jobs I've had to skip over applying for because working in rotating shifts was one of their requirements. (How can you find someone who will take care of a 3 year old for you when you're alternating working mornings, days, and late nights every month or two?) In fact, even "overtime" is extremely troublesome for me, since I have to pick my kid up from daycare no later than 6PM each day. I don't have the option of just "agreeing to work late" with no advance notice, if something comes up. And many of today's employers simply expect that. That's why they're looking to hire people fresh out of college, who don't have a family yet to "get in the way".
I always followed the majority of your listed "points for 16 year olds to learn from" - but a few of them just aren't realistic. For example, I always knew renting was a bad deal - but when I first moved out of my parents' house, I ended up renting an apartment with a roommate. At that point in time, I didn't have any credit history built up yet, nor did I have money for a downpayment on a house. But it was still time to move out (or just become a leech off of my parents - which I don't believe in doing either). When I got the opportunity, I did buy a small house (for well below market value, no less), and pay less on my mortgage each month than some people pay on their car loans. Waiting until a home is fully paid off to get married is ridiculous adivce, IMHO. Marriage should happen whenever 2 people in love with each other feel it's the right step to take. It really shouldn't be governed by how much property someone has paid off. Assuming a healty, normal relationship - both partners should simply be committed to the job of trying to get through life together. If part of that means both people doing their part to keep payments current on a house, so what?
Your point #7, by the way, is very questionable advice in my opinion. That's exactly what I did, and I feel quite certain it's one of the biggest mistakes I made! When you work for small businesses, you don't end up with any recognizable/respectable names of employers to put on your resume, nor do you gain experience working in many scenarios that are only available to people in a very large workplace. Hiring managers see big company names on a resume, and feel more "secure" in a decision to hire you. There's an assumption that a large business has the resources to do more complete background checks and so forth; If you were good enough to get and keep a job with one of them for a length of time, you're probably good enough for the next position too. When you work for small places, it looks more suspicious - like perhaps the business owners were just personal friends who hired you as more of a favor?
Oh yeah... I can second this, and I never even worked for them myself! I've observed enough from other people who took jobs there, and even went through their whole interview process one time when I was so desperate, I briefly considered working there until something better came along. (They were such a "revolving door" of people coming and going though, my paperwork literally got lost in the shuffle, and instead of calling me back in to start work, they forgot all about me for about a month, until someone called me on the phone trying to figure out if I had already "taken their tests" and interviewed with them or not.)
I tend to agree with many of your points, but not quite *all* of them.
In a relatively "good" job market, sure - there's little to no excuse for someone to keep a "crappy job" that's making them physically ill, etc. But at least in my field (computers and I.T.), the overall market has simply NOT been very "healthy" at all ever since around 2001. I'm not sure I really see any signs of it "recovering" either.
I've been out of work for over 6 months now, and it's not even that often I can find an opening to send a resume to - because businesses are getting more and more demanding about exactly what they're seeking in a candidate. I have close to 15 years of combined experience with computer hardware and support, consulting, purchasing, and troubleshooting. Unfortunately, practically every job I see considers most/all of that "nice stuff to know on the side" while they really want someone who either does software coding of some sort, database administration (with previous experience in SQL, etc.), or experience implementing/supporting very specific appliacations (EG. Peoplesoft or specific CRM type packages). When it's not some combination of those, it's some type of "project manager" or "I.T. Manager" opening - requiring management experience and skills I don't have, because I've spent all my time on the "technical side" of things instead.
My "mish mash" of experience in everything from Linux to Mac OS X to IBM OS/2 Warp to Windows NT 3.51, 4.0 and 2000 server support to "you name it" doesn't amount to a hill of beans to anyone except the "on site computer service" places like Geeksquad or "Computer Nerds" who just want to pay you a lousy $10/hr. or so to drive all over town doing work they bill close to 10x that much for.
Years ago, I could at least get a respectable job as a "support specialist" or possibly even "systems analyst" at a mid-sized company with my skills. But even in the late 90's, these types of jobs were rather sparse. Now, I'm stuck trying to do my own on-site business because I simply can't find employment other than accepting something paying well under 40% of what I used to earn 10 years ago!
Preaching to people about the "need to have healthy relationships" is practically pointless. I *thought* I had one myself several years ago. My marriage ended horribly when my ex turned out to have mental problems that suddenly surfaced (bi-polar, manic depressive, etc.) and on one of her "downer" days, decided it was really all my fault and cleaned out my house, took our daughter, and moved about 5 hours away. Thankfully, all of that mess is pretty much sorted out (divorce finalized, etc.) - but I lost most of what I owned including 2 cars. And though I have primary custody of my daughter now, that also means I have a responsibility to do what it takes to earn money so she gets a decent life here with me. So some boss who lectures me about "over-extending myself" while he sits back and collects a good 2x-3x my salary just to "manage" me isn't going to sit well with me. I'm not some irresponsible drug addict who can't manage my money.... I'm simply busting my ass to do the right thing in a piss-poor economy.
I *know* they were clear on it. I just assumed the hardware was more solid and reliable, and I could at least expect to get, say 4-5 years of useful life out of one! All of my computers have run for that long, as a rule....
Yeah, all of those items you mentioned come immediately to mind for me as well. I think part of the problem is, Apple really goes in for style as an integral part of their products. If "everybody else" is building a product a certain way or with a certain material, Apple tries really hard NOT to do the same thing (even though often, the "other guys" have very sound, sensible reasons for doing it the way they do).
I have an Aluminum 17" Powerbook and though it's still in pretty nice condition, I also don't use it real often (certainly not on a daily basis), because I have other desktop PCs at home. It simply sits in my closet until I'm taking some sort of trip that requires it, and stays in a good protective carrying case most of the time.
Nonetheless, I had it fall off of a table once while using it, and now it has a nasty little dent in one corner and scratch along the back. I suppose if it were plastic, I might have a crack or piece of missing plastic instead which would be worse... but the downside is, replacement of part of the aluminum shell is a several hundred dollar expense. Probably under $100 or so for most other laptops.
I think Apple product "reliability" is generally above average. They've had a few "clunkers" that got a lot of attention - but overall, they're fine in that area. The real question is, can they make things that continue to look nice throughout their usable product life? In the case of iPods, I don't think they ever succeeded except maybe with the Shuffle. The chrome back to all the regular iPods constantly gets scratched up - and in some cases, even developed rust where it was engraved. Now they've got these screen problems on Nanos....
I loved my Tivo for a little while... Even used it *in place of* a MythTV box I had already built before I ever had the thing! But selling the units for next to nothing and trying to make up for it with service contracts isn't the way to go.
My Tivo actually died on me (appears to be a faulty CPU since it boots to the initial splash screen ok, but then goes to a black screen with some kind of error about an unexpected instruction and stops). Even though I already had a lifetime membership for it, I'm unable to transfer that to another brand new Tivo I was given free by my parents. (They bought it as an Xmas gift for someone who it turns out already had one and didn't need it.) Somehow, it rubbed me the wrong way that the nearly $300 "lifetime subscription" would only be good for as long as one specific piece of hardware lasted. How do I know my next Tivo won't just die the same way after another year or so?
And granted, I could send it back in for an "out of warranty repair" for $80 or so - but that still leaves me with this new, free, Tivo sitting here in the box that I have no way to use without now buying a redundant contract (plus now with a 1 year service committment on top of that!). No thanks.... Tivo, I'm done. Back to the MythTV I've gone and no regrets.
I can see this from both sides. On one hand, it's easy to say "Users need to *learn* the basics. If they're going to just say "I refuse to be bothered to learn what a megabyte is!" - then maybe they need to work elsewhere!" On the other hand, there's a strong argument for setting up a more user-friendly environment that makes a lot of this unnecessary. (EG. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Apple's Mail application in OS X is smart enough so when you tell it you want to attach an image to your message, it asks you if you'd like it sent "Small, Medium or Large size" and auto-scales to one of 3 reasonable preset sizes suitable for emailing. If this became standard behavior for all popular email clients, most of the problem of clogging mail servers with huge graphics attachments would disappear.)
Like most things, the answer is probably somewhere in the middle. Educate the users on *some* of the jargon, but try to construct an environment where as many technical details are invisible as possible, so they only need to know a few basic concepts to function in the office.
The biggest obstacle I see these days is the tendency for smaller or mid-sized businesses to try to cust costs on I.T. - eliminating full-time I.T. support staff, in favor of going with a service contract or a part-time worker. This does prevent the problem of paying someone to sit around and surf the web, etc. while they "wait for something to break". But it also causes such things as the situation mentioned in the article where users could simply "turn off their firewall" or make other harmful system changes. (EG. Can't send out my email!? Hey, maybe it's my network card settings! I remember the support guy at home walking me though that stuff in my "Control Panel" under "Networking" when I called for help with my DSL!. I'll try changing some of these numbers around in here!) Users are given more "administrator-type" system privileges due to the lack of real, full-time I.T. staff, and they begin tinkering with things, knowing it'll be a while before they get help otherwise. Then you've got much worse problems....
I hate to slam HAMs with this post, but at the risk of being accused a "troll" - I have to say, I was *once* very interested in HAM radio and thought about getting a license. But I started out with a decent police scanner and listened to a bunch of the conversation first - and most of the time, it seemed like a bunch of old men with nothing better to do than play around with various antenna configurations and gear, and test it out. That, plus a bunch of extremely BORING conversation about fishing or someone's last camping trip or whatnot.
Maybe it's just the city I live in or something... but that made me lose practically all interest I had in paying govt. and passing exams for the privilege of talking on yet another type of communications device.
Well, here's just one example of what I was talking about (and this isn't the AUTOEXEC.NT and/or CONFIG.NT issue).
k b.nsf/9b60813077fffd2385256ee60055ac57/87712b45887 8809c85256edf00520ef4?OpenDocument&src=bar_sch_nam
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/sunset-c2002
- I read the article all the way through, and I actually do get why this isn't just "barely disguised advertising B.S. on Slashdot once again".
Normally, yeah, who cares? A laptop now offers a new top plate? But here's the thing: It's the long-standing IBM Thinkpad doing it. Unlike practically every other laptop on the market, the Thinkpad, under IBM's guidance, remained much more about usability and practicality in a business enviornment than about catering to style-conscious consumers. Leaving a laptop in all black plastic (and no polished or mirror finishes either!) makes a lot of sense for a device you assume is going to be taking some physical abuse and will be in daily service for a long time. Small scratches don't show up much on it, nor do fingerprints. If it gets a little dirty, it won't immediately look terrible like a white laptop will. And at least in theory, you're not stuck paying a premium for "looks". (It should have cost less to make everything in plain old black than to maintain multiple product lines with various colors.)
Lenovo's interest in changing this signifies much more than "Woo - the Thinkpad gets a style makeover!" It means they're trying to re-orient the whole product line to compete in the consumer and so-ho/small business sector. (And this is strictly personal opinion, but I also think it's a strong sign that there's no longer a point in demanding Thinkpads for your corporation, if you're part of a comnpany that used to standardize on them. Generally, notebooks of Japanese manufacture are coming off the assembly line with better quality control than Chinese ones like Lenovo products. But furthermore, this shift in strategy means you're going to start paying more for "flash" than "substance" as time goes on with Thinkpads.)
It makes me cringe whenever I hear Symantec making these "predictions" about potential attacks on computers.
I have run into *countless* numbers of damaged Windows installations, directly attributable to Symantec's own products. Just last week, I struggled for hours with a customer's XP Home Edition because he was "having problems getting any streaming audio to work properly".
Upon closer examination, the XP firewall was in a corrupt state, refusing to allow connections for his Internet radio stations. I was unable to view the advanced firewall properties, etc. After looking up event log error codes and trying several methods that repaired the problem for some people, it became obvious that I was looking at the result of a botched uninstall of a Symantec Personal Firewall or "Internet Security Suite" product.
Not only can these things happen, but you'll often see computers with errors with the "32-bit subsystem" when going to an MS-DOS command prompt, due to Norton products screwing up system registry settings due to an improper/incomplete uninstall or installation/upgrade.
Furthermore, when their anti-virus and "security suite" products do work properly, they still bring older, slower PCs to their knees in many cases. The "on-demand scanning" feature lags far behind the rest of the system when working with large numbers of small files (extracting a ZIP or the like), causing a window to constantly pop up, informing you to "please wait" while it scans them... And their "activation" process they now require for their AV products in Windows is every bit as bad as Microsoft's XP activation procedures! I remember purchasing a 25-pack of OEM Norton AV licenses last year, only to find that 6 or 7 of the key codes refused to work, claiming they were "used too many times" or the like. (I guess pirates with keygens hit upon them already or something?) Thiis is *not* the type of B.S. you want to fool around with when you're on a client site, getting paid by the hour to fix a virus problem for them!
I won't even go into the disk corruption their "Disk Doctor" for Macintosh did to MANY customers after they upgraded to newer versions of OS X and Symantec didn't keep up with needed changes/patches to the product!
Their company went down the tubes ever since Peter Norton quit coding their products and started getting royalties for having his photo thrown on the front of the packages.
Ok, saying it's "impossible" to change the situation isn't quite accurate - but it's quite likely Switchfoot is content to point out the futility of such copy protection schemes (on a Sony sponsored message forum, no less!), rather than risk everything they've worked for to date (all the existing recorded material that Sony would *still* have the rights to and so forth).
While it's true you can have quite a multi-track recording and mixing powerhouse in your own basement for a very reasonable price today, that still doesn't do squat for you in the way of helping you *market* yourself to the public. When you're just getting started, you need people with connections to get the radio airplay, the ability to have your material put on store shelves in prominent locations, the deals with game companies to use your tracks as background music, and/or movie deals. That's usually why people sign these "deals with the devil" with major labels. Once they're off to a good start and have the name recognition, they're trapped in a really bad contract arrangement - but setting up one's own personal web pages and putting songs on a few music-sharing sites doesn't usually give you that initial boost into "popularity" that you need either.
I agree. There's actually a lot of useful info one can obtain from the OBDII port found on 1996 and later vehicles, but you need the proper cable and connector, plus software for a PDA or laptop computer to interpret it for you.
(www.obdscan.net has a few good products for the purpose)
But even that won't tell you things like the condition of your brakes or oil levels...
Brakes, in particular, I find very frustrating. On my last vehicle, a '99 Ford Ranger truck - I took it in several times to have the brakes checked. (It started squealing or squeaking when I stopped - so I thought it might be due for new pads.) Each time, I was told "Nope, you've got over 50% wear left... No worries!" Then, next thing I know, it's in for inspection and I'm told my pads are worn and the rotors are damaged too. Grr... That's exactly why I wanted to catch it before it got that bad!
But I've learned you can't really count on hearing the squealing to determine when the pads are down to the "wear indicators" - because modern pads tend to squeal or squeak a lot anyway.
I always had a problem with justifying this sort of thing.... I know it might be effective, but it doesn't make it ethically ok.
For example, I once worked at a small computer store that sold new and the occasional used item. We had a guy come in around Xmas time once, offering to sell us a Toshiba laptop that seemed to be in brand new condition.
His asking price was reasonable, but not so low as to be suspicious. My boss went ahead and purchased it, since his story was that he got it as a gift, but needed the money to buy Xmas presents for friends and family more than he needed a new laptop.
Luckily, my boss also thought to photocopy the guy's drivers' license, just in case, and filed it away.
A few weeks later, the county sheriff showed up, asking about the computer. If my boss didn't have the photocopied information to hand the guy, I'm sure he would have been arrested - which seems ridiculous. Instead, he was forced to turn over the computer (which he still had on the store shelf), and was never compensated for the loss.
Not only are the Linux alternatives free of charge, but you've got to build a "bridge" to get the HUGE established base of Windows users to cross over. The "best" products don't always win out in the marketplace. (You know, the old Betamax vs. VHS tape debate and so forth.)
When you have people out there who spent many hundreds of dollars on training courses and the like for Photoshop, they're generally *not* going to see the value in an alternative product that has a drastically different GUI. It makes a LOT of sense to "re-engineer" the power in GIMP so the controls look and feel like the dominant product in the marketplace for the same tasks.
For all the slamming of the Windows interface and look/feel of most popular Windows apps - I personally feel that they've done a lot of things right in that area. It's far from perfect, but these days, most of my Windows-related complaints have a lot more to do with the underlying infrastructure and it's inherent weaknesses (virus and spyware problems, tendency to have multiple, concentrated "points of failure" such as XP's WMI database or the system registry, etc.). Even Mac OS X, which looks teriffic, feels a bit "weak" to me in the area of file management. (It's very touchy about exactly where the mouse needs to be in order to start a list of files and folders scrolling up or down inside a window, for one example. Quite frustrating.)
Perhaps copying Windows in a product like Linspire just makes more sense than trying to "re-invent the wheel" in an attempt to achieve some "holy grail" of UI elegance and efficiency?
I absolutely would *love* to have more disk space in my laptop. I have 80GB now, and it's not nearly enough. I have an Apple Powerbook, and one reason I bought it was for the ability to do video editing. 80GB isn't much at all when you're downloading a bunch of camcorder footage to go through later and trim down to, say, 45 minutes to 1 hour of final product. Then consider you might want to work on 2 projects at the same time....
... but that partially defeats the purpose of having a portable computer in the first place!
Right now, everyone I know using a laptop for video work carries along an external drive
I love my "CanoScan D1250U2F" USB 2.0 scanner - BUT, it has no Mac OS X drivers at all, which really sucks, and not really any other support I know of either besides Windows....
On my XP machine though, it scans quickly, quietly and with very good color accuracy. (It was top rated for scanners in the $200 price range that could do a good job scanning in photographic negatives too. I rarely need that feature, but it has a special adapter to hold a strip of negatives for scanning.)
I get the idea that driver support is the only real negative to most Canon scanner products.... The hardware is good though.
Life is what you make of it.... If you want to go around being a "whipping boy", taking abuse and just sucking it up with a credo of "Life's unfair.... oh well!" - then go right ahead.
But change tends to come from the people who aren't afraid to speak out, and do decidedly "non P.C." things at times.
I don't think it's about getting that "5 minutes of euphoria" (or at least, it shouldn't be). Rather, it's the realization that sometimes, there are bridges worth burning. Yeah, you might not ever be able to cross them again, but maybe you've saved a lot of other people some heartache when they waste time crossing them.
Personally, if I was treated as "expendable/undervalued/worthless" by a potential employer, I wouldn't ever consider re-applying there again anyway. I really don't get these people who quit (or even get fired) from a place, only to take another job there a few years later. Sure, you can say "Well, the person who was the problem is gone now." - but it almost always runs much deeper than that. It's a whole sickness in the corporate culture of the business, most of the time. They have a structure that allows people to get promoted to management for the wrong reasons, etc. Recipe for repeated disaster/failure/problems - even if there's a "calm before the storm" because by sheer luck, they happened to promote a few people who had a clue.
In the "big picture" - expressing anger can always, theoretically, come back to bite you in the ass. But how many of us can go through life acting perfectly happy with everyone we run into, and every situation we encounter? I'd say practically nobody unless they're on heavy medication....
As I've seen in my own job hunt, and as many of my friends can also testify who are seeking employment right now - there is a lot of arrogance on the part of *employers* too!
It's fine to preach about practicing "professionalism" in a job search, but there's also something to be said for the individual who isn't afraid to "tell it like it is" when a proespective employer demands far too much or illustrates utter cluelessness.
EG. A lady I know was trying to get hired on at a high-end furniture store in town. She was originally seeking a position in commission-based sales, because it appeared the potential was there to earn the type of money she needs to take care of her family. (She's divorced with 3 kids and has to make house payments, a car payment, etc. etc. And she's only getting child support payments sporadically - and when they come, they don't nearly cover the basic bills.) Despite explaining her situation during the interview, the manager she interviewed with seemed to conclude that with her education and background, she'd be a better fit for one of their accounting positions. Fine, except it only paid about $9/hr.! Nobody would even consider discussing the sales openings with her after that, and it just fell on deaf ears that $9/hr. wasn't going to cut it....
(And don't forget, this is a business that sells one of the most marked-up items around... expensive furniture. On average, everything they sell goes for well over 200% of cost, and the store moves a lot of product too!)
She *could* have just politely declined the offer and moved on, but instead, she ripped into the guy about it. I say good for her! Maybe... just maybe, they'll give some more thought to the wisdom of expecting to get good candidates with 4 year college degrees to oversee all of their income and expenses, while paying them far LESS than any of the sales staff makes. Maybe they'll wake up a bit and realize that it takes a little more than some $9/hr. job to raise a family on.
Nothing's going to change when everyone just smiles and pretends that they're ever so happy to be given the opportunity to get bent over and screwed with a crappy job offer.
I have to agree.
... solid with great key feel and configurability. (You want that backslash in the alternate location? No problem! Pull the keys off, switch 'em around, snap 'em back in place, and set the DIP switches to tell it what you did!) They're still available on eBay now and then - occasionally reconditioned to brand new shape.
d -Looks-and-Feels-NEW_W0QQitemZ5806505448QQcategory Z33964QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
What is so "cool" about making your computer more difficult for others to use, first of all? Considering the fact that keyboard makers can't even agree on such basic things as where the best place is to locate the backslash - I see nothing sensible about a keyboard where it's not even marked in the first place!
But $80 for it too? This is the kind of gimmicky stuff I'd expect to see selling for about $10-15. If you really want a *good* keyboard, I recommend hunting down one with ALPS mechanical keyswitches in it!
The old "Northgate Omnikey" keyboards used to be the "Cadillac" of keyboards
EG:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Omnikey-101-Northgate-keyboar
Mac users also have the Matias Tactile-Pro keyboard as an option:
http://matias.ca/tactilepro/index.php
Yeah.... but there's also the flip side to that. If you're an *intern*, that implies you're not planning on staying there in that position for a great deal of time.
I'd think that doing some kind of temporary internship, about the only "perks" you could hope to get would be the little things (like the iPod Nano in this case). Who is going to do all the paperwork and incur the expenses of setting up what amounts to a glorified temp worker with a 401k plan, etc. ?
The often quoted "2 weeks of vacation per year" doesn't even come into play for some of us. I spent 6 years working for a company that offered us this typical 2 weeks' vacation policy, but my boss would never let us really use it. He kept telling us we had some project or other we were in the middle of that was "too important" for us to be taking off.... He preferred to have H.R. just pay us for the unused days, once it got to the point of "use it or lose it".
Then, I worked for 3 different companies in a row where I didn't get any vacation time until I worked there for at least 1 year first. And guess what? I didn't stay at 2 of the 3 for any longer than almost exactly 1 year each! In the last case, I was there for about 1 1/2 years, but the company closed its doors and let all of the employees go, before I had the chance to use my vacation.
Right now, I'm *finally* getting my first "vacation" in nearly 10 years.... collecting unemployment and sitting at home, job hunting.