I'd completely agree on the eminent domain ruling, but not so sure on the cable.
For quite a while now, I've seen cable providers consolidate or disappear, leaving most areas with only one choice. Had nothing to do with legislation, really. It just costs too much to build out a whole cable network and to convince enough people to sign up for it to be very profitable. Like another/. poster already said, it's very profitable for one provider to handle an area, but as soon as you have two of them, the new one has to achieve a minimum of 40% customer penetration to survive. Not a real easy task.
As I'm understanding this Supreme Court ruling, it basically ensures new start-ups can't claim that they get to use the existing cabling infrastructure to run their service over. (You know, the way the L.D. companies used to force Bell to let them use their switches and wires so they could offer "cheap long distance service" to you.) This doesn't seem to stop someone from running a different set of lines to businesses and homes and offering a completely seperate service?
No, I agree with your asseertion that the two are different - but the problem is, the two are *intertwined*.
When you reach a point where your government no longer really listens to what the citizens are asking for (because individuals with a differing opinion + enough money can buy into getting things their way), it jeopardizes individual freedoms, including speech.
Luckily, most of the political decisions being "paid for" are by corporations that right now, wouldn't stand to benefit by free speech restrictions. (Hey, that might cut into their ability to advertise their next product or service, right?) But as private industry grows more reliant on military contracts, I could see this changing too.
I'd have to say I recommend (with reservations) Charter, here in St. Louis, Missouri. I'm using them myself, and my biggest gripe is the cost. (I don't even have cable TV... only using them for the broadband net access, and it costs me $49.95 per month for 3mbit download rates, and about 768K up.)
On the other hand, I convinced my parents to switch to them not too long ago, and my mom is pretty computer illiterate. (She can check and write email after almost a year of coaching her through using Outlook Express, while my semi computer-literate brother uses their machine quite a bit for research on the web.) She had some intermittent connection issues at first, and the Charter rep spent over 2 hours on the phone with her, trying to help out! They ended up having to send out a tech who determined the fault was in the cabling between her house and their junction box on a pole - but my mom was very happy with the customer service she was given.
In this area, you can get a better price for what's basically the same bandwidth up and down by going DSL with SBC/Yahoo - but the customer service and support will definitely be a few steps below Charter's. With SBC, you're also committing to a service contract, unlike Charter who lets you just pay month-to-month with no penalties. So as much as anything, I think it comes down to how much "hand-holding" you think you might need, and how long you plan to keep your broadband.
I'd agree, though I'd also add "good ability to research/find information" is a HUGE plus.
No tech can really be expected to know ALL of the answers, but there's no excuse for not having the skills to look it up using google, etc.
These days, except for providing and installing replacements for defective parts, most computer service is really about straightening out OS glitches, finding updated/proper drivers for devices, and removing software causing malfunctions.
You can buy yourself a surprising amount of time to figure out a problem by humoring the customer and keeping up a friendly conversation with them while you work -- but eventually, you still need to provide the solution.
Jason, it sounds to me like the place you work really needs to consider enforcing some type of standardization. I've had to work with at least some of those things in previous "support" roles, but certainly not that many technologies.
I guess what bothers me most is your comment that "We have to support whatever systems are chosen by departments." I know very FEW companies who would run things that way. The typical response to that is, "If your departments feels they need to use this non-standard configuration, then your own people are fully responsible for supporting it." (You see this all the time with mostly Windows PC shops who have Macs in an art department or publishing dept.)
The risk they run, doing things the way you describe, is finding another "Jason" who is flexible enough and knowledgeable enough to take on all of those random requirements that could change any time a dept. wants to do something new. Good sysadmins do wear multiple hats - but they also provide guidance and make decisions on standards that are adhered to throughout the corporation. (EG. If you're expected to ensure proper functionality of the corporate LAN/WAN, you should have ultimate say-so as to which types of devices can be plugged into that LAN/WAN.)
Yep! In my last job, I did on-site computer service and this would have been VERY useful. Nothing like showing up to someone's house who simply tells you on the phone "My computer doesn't work right. I don't know much about it.", only to find they need about 5 or 6 device drivers that they lost the CD for, and they only have dial-up internet access. (The average Lexmark all-in-one printer driver download is over 200MB nowdays, don't forget!)
The wi-fi hot spots aren't always very reliable either. I've had at least twice now I really need to get some work done on the net, so I took my Powerbook in to the nearest Panera Bread and tried to get online - only to get a generic "Please try again later." type web page, or no connectivity at all.
Anonymous poster, you seem to have missed my point.
Of course I didn't run the electricty to my property. It was already done when I purchased the house, actually. I have, however, taken a number of courses in electricty and electronics back in high-school, and I've certainly done such things as replacing light fixtures before. The basic wiring has been in my home since about the mid 1950's, when the place was built - and will probably stay pretty mun as-is for the next 50+ years. (One of my ex co-workers was a woman who did actually rip out her whole fuse box and install a circuit breaker panel on her own though. She simply couldn't afford to pay a union electrician to do it "legally" and her fuse box was going bad. Is that a safe thing to do? No... but she did it successfully, nonetheless.) You'll just see more of this when people can't pay for repairs they need.
Corporate America will always pay for skilled tradespeople to build their structures. No argument there. But how many carpenters, plumbers and electricians would honestly say "Doesn't matter to me in the least if I never get another call from a homeowner and only have business contracts!" ?
On WalMart salaries, people aren't likely to be paying for a lot of home rennovation either. They're doing good to make the payment for the house itself (if they don't just rent), and their utilities.
Also, those big shopping malls are not going to be doing much expansion when all the degreed professionals in the "tech", "legal" or "medical" fields start losing their jobs or taking huge pay cuts. I guarantee the majority of shoppers at mall stores are NOT your WalMart and K-Mart employees.
There's two sides to every coin. Even though I've been in I.T. for over 12 years myself, I can't ever seem to land a better-paying job as an actual sysadmin. Why? Not because I don't know the material. I've been asked to build departmental servers while working in "support specialist" roles for years, as well as maintaining Citrix Metaframe boxes, configuring and maintaining Exchange servers, setting up user accounts, and directory/file permissions for everyone in companies, and more.
But they always look at my resume and see "Jack of all trades." in big, bold "between the lines" print. They'd rather have the more steerotypical systems administrator type with the MCSE, maybe a Cisco cert. for good measure, and a job title of sysadmin for a company or two.
Honestly, if I had worked for a larger firm that forced me to be "pigeonholed" in one area (and paid for related training and certs. for that area) - I'd be making a lot more money than I do now. Instead, I've always opted to work for the start-up companies, the mom-and-pop operations that set up entire networks for other small businesses, and a mid-sized company that made me wear a lot of hats while refusing to change my official title from one that made me sound like I was just a glorified help-desk guy.
I really do understand the other argument too... that you limit your usefulness when you specialize. But it's so tough to find good jobs in today's marketplace, I don't tihnk it's really THAT much easier for the people with a broad array of skills. (People like me who've worked with a lot of random technologies and even do Linux and Mac as well as PC/Windows are best working for themselves in consulting roles of some sort.) If you want a steady, corporate job with the benefits and good pay that can come with it - I think you may as well keep up a job search for the extra 3-6 months it might take to find a match for your specialty.
I'm not disputing that there will always be a need for someone to fix plumbing problems, build or repair homes, fix cars, and all those other things.
But at the same time, those tasks rely on someone using their hands and doing work that they might not otherwise prefer to do.
The "knowledge" fields require exactly that.... detailed and complex knowledge of the area, in order to perform the work satisfactorily.
If I'm an intelligent person with no major physical disabilities, I can fix my own house - even if it means buying a couple books and a lot of trial and error. Heck, a while ago, my wife put up bathroom tile in our bathroom we remodeled, and she'd never done it before in her life. Looks completely professional and it's been up there for about 3 years now.
Same goes for cars, really. It might require a lot of tools and a lot of time tinkering around with things, but most people coming from these other "tech" fields could do it if they set their mind to it.
On ther other hand, even the smartest, most talented carpenter is not going to be equipped to do biotech work or even H.R. without paying for some formal training/schooling first.
Therefore, people practicing trades will always be in demand, but won't get the kind of pay they once got, if the other people are out of work and deciding they have to "do it themselves" rather than pay someone else.
I have to disagree here. You make a point that, on the surface, sounds valid - but it's actually quite flawed.
For one thing, you're making the assumption that the only value an artist receives for his/her work is the sales of his/her albums. Actually, it's well known that the recording industry generally places such restrictive terms on their recording contracts that artists receive very little from their sales.
Why does an artist ever agree to such terms in the first place then? In a word, *exposure*! He/she wants to become popular, famous, etc. There's not much rewarding about spending your life writing and recording music that practically nobody listens to afterwards. No matter how much people hype the whole "do it yourself!" publishing methods leveraging the Internet, etc. - right now, we're still suck in a world where achieving true "popularity" pretty much requires the marketing muscle of one of the big record companies.
To illustrate, not long ago, the artist John Waite was in town for a show, and stopped by one of our local radio stations for an interview. The D.J. asked him why, after all these year, he was still going around the country trying to do these small club tours? He said he simply needed the money to pay his bills. Know where he was staying when he was in town? Motel 6! That's right! He couldn't afford anything else. And this is the guy who sold HUGE numbers of albums with "The Babys" and "Bad English". He openly admitted that he didn't really make much of anything with those bands by the time the record companies got their cut.
I'd argue that artists simply need the blood-sucking record companies to act as a "launch pad" for their careers, but the real money they make tends to be from doing live performances, once they achieve a "critical mass" of listeners.
When you look at it that way, artists are often being helped much more than hurt by people "pirating" their music around. It's more free exposure for them. And plenty of people who only owned bootleg copies of all of a band's music still shelled out the $40 or even $80+ for a concert ticket to see them afterwards.
Maybe some states are more lax, but I know here in Missouri, there's no way you'd "easily get away" with this type of scam.
For starters, you're required to do an in-person reporting to your local unemployment office every 4 weeks. Until you do, your benefits cease, and not showing up for the in-person reporting after 2 weeks go by terminates your benefits.
Also, the maximum benefit amount they pay out in Missouri is $250 per week, not $400 like the figures used in the article.
To top it off, they also require that you apply for at least 3 jobs per week and keep a log of your contacts. True, they may or may not ever really look at this - but they reserve the right to. (I don't know exactly how that policy works, but I'm guessing maybe they randomly select people from the pool of benefits-seekers to come in and show them the log of contacts.) And in some cases, applicants for benefits are also required to go through other processes, such as spending time each week in their "resource room", using their computer database to job hunt.
I know this is going to be seen as "just more fringe political B.S." by some - but the last few administrations seem like clear evidence to me that it's so.
If the L.P. could garner enough voter support to be viable, their political attitudes and agenda would finally break the cycle. But with the "Republican" vs. "Democrat" status-quo we're working under today - no matter who gets elected, indiividual rights and freedom gets further trampled on. Under the Clinton administration, you had acts like the D.M.C.A. signed into law. With Bush, you have soliders being sent off to die for a war that seems no more likely to ever be won than the "War on Drugs" of the 80's.
Just today, I believe a Supreme Court ruling decided that states DO have the rights to take away individuals' property for ANY reason (not just if they can show it is in the greater public interest to do so). These types of changes happen right under our noses all the time, slowly chiseling away at those grand concepts like "Freedom" that we supposedly fight for in the services.
You know, you bring up a point I'd thought about before... What if someone started designing software that ran in the background on the computer (perhaps as a screen saver, so it wouldn't bother you while you were actively using the PC), and just automatically crawled web pages, looking for ads to "click on"?
You could even feed it a list of the sites you'd most want money/credits to go towards and aim it there first....
If enough people ran such a program, it seems like the advertisers would be forced to change business models, since they'd be paying out a lot more than before to advertise on sites -- or they'd be forced to withhold a lot of payments and lose business partners.
Actually, the hard-core hacker and enthusiast types who would force OS X to run on their non-Apple branded PC are simply helping legitimize OS X and drive more customers to Apple's products in the long run.
(Your "regular users" might see Joe Hacker's slick little modded installation of an unsupported version of OS X on his clone PC and say "Wow, that's a nice looking operating system. How can I get that?" When they learn all the "catches" to doing things Joe's way, they'll pass on it. But they'll give some real thought to perhaps buying an Apple machine next time too.)
It seems to me, too, there's the potential of locking things down so tightly, it's not worth the effort to crack OS X to run on non-Apple hardware. Judging from the industry's track record at "copy protection measures", I'd say it probably won't happen. But people probably underestimate the *potential* to make it really difficult.
(After all, DirecTV still has nobody who's been able to successfully crack the encryption scheme used for their current "P4" satellite cards - and this is an application where a successful hacker can literally make millions of dollars off his handiwork!)
Unless things have drastically changed in recent years, I remember Sybari's most important product being their "Antigen" software which allowed efficient scanning of *email* for virii. We purchased the version of their product for Exchange Server back when Exchange 5.5 was a pretty recent product and people were still running NT 4.0 on their workstations.
I assumed the Unix/Linux versions of Sybari products were typically purchased for this purpose - in-line virus scanning of corporate email as it went through the Unix or Linux server?
Commerical software developers aren't stupid. They don't like re-inventing the wheel any more than anyone else does.
If they see an OSS project that parallels something they want to do, or are trying to do, they very well might want to contribute to it or work along-side of it, to achieve their own goals more quickly.
I'm not saying Apple would just want to give out free hardware to anyone working on OSS proijects. Obviously, that wouldn't make any good business sense. But striking a deal with the NeoOffice people? Might be a sound plan for Apple, while helping them at the same time. Right now, Apple has the aging "Appleworks" product as their "all in one" suite. It's long overdue for replacement with something, but there's really nothing they've come out with that serves that purpose. I could see adopting and modifying something like NeoOffice and making it the successor to Appleworks, while still keeping Pages, Keynote, and whatever else Apple has up their sleeves as the higher-end set of solutions. (Microsoft still sells "Works", despite having Office. Apple could very well do something similar.)
Well, typically, I see people bring up this supposed difference more for educational purposes. (You know, to call attention to the very fact you're mentioning... that classically, it used to mean something different.) Sort of nitpicking to get people thinking about the details of what their govt. is and isn't....
Well, the first thing I'd do is call your local competitors up on the phone, pretending to be a customer, and see what they're charging and how they bill. When I did that, I found out a few creative little "twists" to how some firms bill for system repairs. For example, some places claim to charge "flat repair rates" - but actually end up being more costly than firms billing by the hour plus parts. Sometimes, they do such things as billing fixed prices for every piece of the PC they have to remove and replace during a repair job. So if you have, say, an HP Pavilion that needs a RAM upgrade - they might charge $40 "flat rate for power supply removal/installation" because it had to come out to get to the memory slots!
It's good to know such things before going into the business, so at the very least, you can properly inform some people who falsely believe competitor X is far cheaper than you....
I currently charge $60/hr. with a 1 hour minimum, and additional time billed in 20 minute increments. I don't charge any extra travel or trip charges. Most of my competitors bill upwards of $79/hr. and do include some type of travel charge. I live in a major city though... your findings may vary based on location.
The people who think these rates are "extremely high" really don't have a good concept of the costs of doing business. For starters, a basic Yellow Pages ad will easily cost you upwards of $400 per month. If you don't have one of these, you aren't going to really be competing effectively at all in the marketplace. (When "Average Joe" needs his PC fixed, he looks in his phone book to find someone - more often than not.)
Of course, if you're only doing this part-time, maybe you only plan on "word of mouth" referrals or flyers in mailboxes or whatever. That's fine too, but don't forget your costs for gas, oil changes, tires, and other vehicle maintenance for driving around to these calls. Also, you'll need to keep some sort of basic inventory of parts with you. I always try to keep at least 2 256MB PC-133 memory sticks, 2 PC-2700 256MB memory sticks, a DVD writer, a CD writer, a spare AMD Athlon XP motherboard and CPU, an extra ATX power supply, a 3.5" floppy drive, and spare PS/2 keyboard and mouse, along with a Linksys wi-fi router and a spare cable modem. (I was surprised how often I ran into problems with internet connectivity that ended up being the fault of a defective cable modem. It's not a HUGE issue, but I saw it a good 3 or 4 times. It was worth keeping a spare with me for troubleshooting purposes, at least.)
I'm not sure if you're just bitter about the concept of on-site service as a whole or what, but under the assumption you're not simply trolling - I'll go ahead and respond....
1. My rates happen to be lower than anyone else I've called in the entire Yellow Pages under "on-site PC service". I do think many places charge too much for too little, so I'm trying to make a living while still being reasonable.
2. I do both PC and Mac service, and countless times, have suggested the Macintosh alternative to people when they seem to repeatly be struggling with spyware and virus issues. Nonetheless, it's no big secret that ALL on-site PC service businesses handle more virus and spyware calls than any other single type of call today. Even Dell estimates that about 40% of their incoming support calls are about these problems. If I had my way, I'd much rather spend my time solving an interesting system problem or performing an upgrade which leaves a customer with a system that works better than it ever did before. But reality is, they usually call about the virus and spyware problems.
3. Having over 12 years of experience in the computer field, I wouldn't label myself a "high tech janitor", any more than I'd call a software developer wih 10+ years of experience a "digital assembly line worker, shoving bits around all day". But you can create whatever types of labels you wish for a person's line of work. Oversimplify enough, and you can make anyone look bad.
I couldn't agree more! That's why I have my own business (www.wyrickconsulting.net) today. The big problem with GeekSquad and the other large "chains" of computer on-site service is not the rates they charge, but the fact that consumers expect an expert on their doorstep for those prices. Instead, they're getting teenagers through 20-30-somethings who are doing it as their "first real conputer job", or people who simply don't care as long as they get their weekly paycheck.
They just make it harder for the knowledgeable consultants to find work, because of the whole "once bitten, twice shy" effect.
As for wireless networks though, I do think there should be some type of disclaimer customers sign on these. I've set up quite a few where I was asked NOT to secure it, because it made it too inconvenient/confusing for their computer illiterate friends (or employees, in the case of a few small businesses) to get their laptops on the network when they came by. I can actually respect that opinion, but I wouldn't want to end up in a lawsuit if something happened down the road and they claimed "the consultant didn't tell me THIS could happen!".
I do this type of on-site work and this is the single most common response I get when a customer is trying to talk me down on price, or complain about the cost of his/her repair.
There's an element of truth to it, but generally, it's not nearly as good a solution as it appears.
For starters, most service calls end up being at least partially due to virii and spyware. If the customer buys a new machine, how long do you think it will take him/her to get it just as infected as the previous system was - if he/she does the same types of things he/she did before?
I've actually had customers do this! They ordered a new Dell or bought a new HP at Best Buy rather than "waste money fixing this 4 year old machine" - only to end up calling me 2 months later, asking me to clean up *both* computers.
My first computer I owned was a Timex/Sinclair 1000/ZX-81. The TS1000 had such a weird keyboard layout (membrane keypad that made working in BASIC easier by letting you press a function key followed by a regular key to enter a whole keyword with just those 2 presses), that the TS1000 emulators I've seen are very difficult to work with. Your standard PC keyboard isn't going to be properly labeled for all those alternate functions of the standard keys.
Emulators are typically evolving works in progress too. How often do you see an emulator that guarantees 100% compatibility? I know most of the game system emulators I've used have trouble playing at least 30% or more of the games without major issues (graphics glitches, sound not functional, etc. etc.).
Emulation is a great idea, and it will probably allow SOME people to get rid of old hardware they otherwise felt they had to hang onto -- but there's no substitute for having the real thing, if you want to use it fairly extensively.
Well, regardless of whether 12 year old girls really do or don't visit these types of chat rooms - I think the real issue comes down to advertisers unwittingly having their products tied to rooms with these titles.
As far as I'm concerned, there's really no point or value in trying to make it crime to have such a chat room. Anyone, at any time, can create a "chat room" using one of the instant messenger programs out there, give it this type of "topic" and invite random people to join. Same goes for IRC, where anyone could throw a server online and make any channels they want on it - even if you somehow banned them from using the most well-known/populated IRC servers.
If you don't want your pre-teen chatting with creepy older guys who want sex with them, then a little *education* and *parenting* is in order. Legislation won't substitute.
But there IS a very real and understandable complaint when you, as an advertiser, pay your money for product placement and then your product ends up being placed where you never agreed to the placement at all in your contract.
The problem is, unlike electricity, credit is often dangled as a carrot in front of people who shouldn't have it in the first place. The basic concept of credit lines and credit cards are fine. But credit card companies are making an awful lot of money by trying to make people overspend and bury themselves in debt.
There's no other logical explanation for giving someone a higher credit score for carrying a balance on their card month to month than they give someone who pays off their balance in full every month. The truth is, they don't WANT people to be very responsible with their cards! That's why they give them out like candy to college students, who statistically are among the LEAST likely to be bringing in a good income. Their BEST customers are folks who run their card balance way up, and then struggle to try to pay it down over the years. The fees and interest charges ensure they basically CAN'T ever get it paid off - so by the time they give up and file for bankruptcy, the CC company has already profited from the original money lent out. Then, they stand to potentially get even MORE out of those people in bankruptcy. (Might be able to reposess some of the purchased property for resale, or milk a little more cash from them in a Chapter 13 debt repayment plan.) Give it a year or two, and they'll be right back, offering that SAME PERSON another card and a second chance to screw up all over again!
I'm not sure of their present status, but for a long time, Mastercard was listed as a *non profit organization*! I knew people who used to work for them who got huge "bonuses" at the end of the year, simply because MC had to find a way to dump their surplus earnings in order to hang onto that status. Before you preach about "personal responsibility" to Mastercard holders, perhaps you should preach about businesses falsely pretending to be charities in order to scam big tax breaks?
This is really nothing new. In fact, it sounds to me like Micro Center has simply come "full circle", back to the way computers were once sold, when they cost much more than they do today.
If you want to generate relatively good sales numbers compared to your chain/discount store counterparts - knowledgeable staff is the key.
But the catch is, if you grow too large, you're going to have a really tough time keeping knowledgeable people working for you. You can't afford to pay very much, and profit margins on hardware just aren't good enough to support big commissions on sales.
The Apple stores seem to have a bit of an edge over your standard Windows PC dealer in this regard, because the whole "cult of Mac" thing works to their advantage. (EG. You can find a really knowedgeable Mac junkie who would kill to say he works at the local Apple store, even though he's woefully underpaid for his level of knowledge and skills. He wants the "street cred" of being an Apple employee, and the "warm and fuzzy feeling" of being around others sharing his interests every day.)
Maybe the fact that Linux is still a relative "niche market" helps Micro Center out too. (If you know a lot about Linux, you're probably having a tougher time finding a good-paying job than if you're some run-of-the-mill MCSE. Sucks, but that's just the nature of today's marketplace. Many more businesses use Windows than Linux, so that's who they need to hire.)
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I'd completely agree on the eminent domain ruling, but not so sure on the cable.
/. poster already said, it's very profitable for one provider to handle an area, but as soon as you have two of them, the new one has to achieve a minimum of 40% customer penetration to survive. Not a real easy task.
For quite a while now, I've seen cable providers consolidate or disappear, leaving most areas with only one choice. Had nothing to do with legislation, really. It just costs too much to build out a whole cable network and to convince enough people to sign up for it to be very profitable. Like another
As I'm understanding this Supreme Court ruling, it basically ensures new start-ups can't claim that they get to use the existing cabling infrastructure to run their service over. (You know, the way the L.D. companies used to force Bell to let them use their switches and wires so they could offer "cheap long distance service" to you.) This doesn't seem to stop someone from running a different set of lines to businesses and homes and offering a completely seperate service?
No, I agree with your asseertion that the two are different - but the problem is, the two are *intertwined*.
When you reach a point where your government no longer really listens to what the citizens are asking for (because individuals with a differing opinion + enough money can buy into getting things their way), it jeopardizes individual freedoms, including speech.
Luckily, most of the political decisions being "paid for" are by corporations that right now, wouldn't stand to benefit by free speech restrictions. (Hey, that might cut into their ability to advertise their next product or service, right?) But as private industry grows more reliant on military contracts, I could see this changing too.
I'd have to say I recommend (with reservations) Charter, here in St. Louis, Missouri. I'm using them myself, and my biggest gripe is the cost. (I don't even have cable TV... only using them for the broadband net access, and it costs me $49.95 per month for 3mbit download rates, and about 768K up.)
On the other hand, I convinced my parents to switch to them not too long ago, and my mom is pretty computer illiterate. (She can check and write email after almost a year of coaching her through using Outlook Express, while my semi computer-literate brother uses their machine quite a bit for research on the web.) She had some intermittent connection issues at first, and the Charter rep spent over 2 hours on the phone with her, trying to help out! They ended up having to send out a tech who determined the fault was in the cabling between her house and their junction box on a pole - but my mom was very happy with the customer service she was given.
In this area, you can get a better price for what's basically the same bandwidth up and down by going DSL with SBC/Yahoo - but the customer service and support will definitely be a few steps below Charter's. With SBC, you're also committing to a service contract, unlike Charter who lets you just pay month-to-month with no penalties. So as much as anything, I think it comes down to how much "hand-holding" you think you might need, and how long you plan to keep your broadband.
I'd agree, though I'd also add "good ability to research/find information" is a HUGE plus.
No tech can really be expected to know ALL of the answers, but there's no excuse for not having the skills to look it up using google, etc.
These days, except for providing and installing replacements for defective parts, most computer service is really about straightening out OS glitches, finding updated/proper drivers for devices, and removing software causing malfunctions.
You can buy yourself a surprising amount of time to figure out a problem by humoring the customer and keeping up a friendly conversation with them while you work -- but eventually, you still need to provide the solution.
Jason, it sounds to me like the place you work really needs to consider enforcing some type of standardization. I've had to work with at least some of those things in previous "support" roles, but certainly not that many technologies.
I guess what bothers me most is your comment that "We have to support whatever systems are chosen by departments." I know very FEW companies who would run things that way. The typical response to that is, "If your departments feels they need to use this non-standard configuration, then your own people are fully responsible for supporting it." (You see this all the time with mostly Windows PC shops who have Macs in an art department or publishing dept.)
The risk they run, doing things the way you describe, is finding another "Jason" who is flexible enough and knowledgeable enough to take on all of those random requirements that could change any time a dept. wants to do something new. Good sysadmins do wear multiple hats - but they also provide guidance and make decisions on standards that are adhered to throughout the corporation. (EG. If you're expected to ensure proper functionality of the corporate LAN/WAN, you should have ultimate say-so as to which types of devices can be plugged into that LAN/WAN.)
Yep! In my last job, I did on-site computer service and this would have been VERY useful. Nothing like showing up to someone's house who simply tells you on the phone "My computer doesn't work right. I don't know much about it.", only to find they need about 5 or 6 device drivers that they lost the CD for, and they only have dial-up internet access. (The average Lexmark all-in-one printer driver download is over 200MB nowdays, don't forget!)
The wi-fi hot spots aren't always very reliable either. I've had at least twice now I really need to get some work done on the net, so I took my Powerbook in to the nearest Panera Bread and tried to get online - only to get a generic "Please try again later." type web page, or no connectivity at all.
Anonymous poster, you seem to have missed my point.
... but she did it successfully, nonetheless.) You'll just see more of this when people can't pay for repairs they need.
Of course I didn't run the electricty to my property. It was already done when I purchased the house, actually. I have, however, taken a number of courses in electricty and electronics back in high-school, and I've certainly done such things as replacing light fixtures before. The basic wiring has been in my home since about the mid 1950's, when the place was built - and will probably stay pretty mun as-is for the next 50+ years. (One of my ex co-workers was a woman who did actually rip out her whole fuse box and install a circuit breaker panel on her own though. She simply couldn't afford to pay a union electrician to do it "legally" and her fuse box was going bad. Is that a safe thing to do? No
Corporate America will always pay for skilled tradespeople to build their structures. No argument there. But how many carpenters, plumbers and electricians would honestly say "Doesn't matter to me in the least if I never get another call from a homeowner and only have business contracts!" ?
On WalMart salaries, people aren't likely to be paying for a lot of home rennovation either. They're doing good to make the payment for the house itself (if they don't just rent), and their utilities.
Also, those big shopping malls are not going to be doing much expansion when all the degreed professionals in the "tech", "legal" or "medical" fields start losing their jobs or taking huge pay cuts. I guarantee the majority of shoppers at mall stores are NOT your WalMart and K-Mart employees.
There's two sides to every coin. Even though I've been in I.T. for over 12 years myself, I can't ever seem to land a better-paying job as an actual sysadmin. Why? Not because I don't know the material. I've been asked to build departmental servers while working in "support specialist" roles for years, as well as maintaining Citrix Metaframe boxes, configuring and maintaining Exchange servers, setting up user accounts, and directory/file permissions for everyone in companies, and more.
... that you limit your usefulness when you specialize. But it's so tough to find good jobs in today's marketplace, I don't tihnk it's really THAT much easier for the people with a broad array of skills. (People like me who've worked with a lot of random technologies and even do Linux and Mac as well as PC/Windows are best working for themselves in consulting roles of some sort.) If you want a steady, corporate job with the benefits and good pay that can come with it - I think you may as well keep up a job search for the extra 3-6 months it might take to find a match for your specialty.
But they always look at my resume and see "Jack of all trades." in big, bold "between the lines" print. They'd rather have the more steerotypical systems administrator type with the MCSE, maybe a Cisco cert. for good measure, and a job title of sysadmin for a company or two.
Honestly, if I had worked for a larger firm that forced me to be "pigeonholed" in one area (and paid for related training and certs. for that area) - I'd be making a lot more money than I do now. Instead, I've always opted to work for the start-up companies, the mom-and-pop operations that set up entire networks for other small businesses, and a mid-sized company that made me wear a lot of hats while refusing to change my official title from one that made me sound like I was just a glorified help-desk guy.
I really do understand the other argument too
I'm not disputing that there will always be a need for someone to fix plumbing problems, build or repair homes, fix cars, and all those other things.
But at the same time, those tasks rely on someone using their hands and doing work that they might not otherwise prefer to do.
The "knowledge" fields require exactly that.... detailed and complex knowledge of the area, in order to perform the work satisfactorily.
If I'm an intelligent person with no major physical disabilities, I can fix my own house - even if it means buying a couple books and a lot of trial and error. Heck, a while ago, my wife put up bathroom tile in our bathroom we remodeled, and she'd never done it before in her life. Looks completely professional and it's been up there for about 3 years now.
Same goes for cars, really. It might require a lot of tools and a lot of time tinkering around with things, but most people coming from these other "tech" fields could do it if they set their mind to it.
On ther other hand, even the smartest, most talented carpenter is not going to be equipped to do biotech work or even H.R. without paying for some formal training/schooling first.
Therefore, people practicing trades will always be in demand, but won't get the kind of pay they once got, if the other people are out of work and deciding they have to "do it themselves" rather than pay someone else.
I have to disagree here. You make a point that, on the surface, sounds valid - but it's actually quite flawed.
For one thing, you're making the assumption that the only value an artist receives for his/her work is the sales of his/her albums. Actually, it's well known that the recording industry generally places such restrictive terms on their recording contracts that artists receive very little from their sales.
Why does an artist ever agree to such terms in the first place then? In a word, *exposure*! He/she wants to become popular, famous, etc. There's not much rewarding about spending your life writing and recording music that practically nobody listens to afterwards. No matter how much people hype the whole "do it yourself!" publishing methods leveraging the Internet, etc. - right now, we're still suck in a world where achieving true "popularity" pretty much requires the marketing muscle of one of the big record companies.
To illustrate, not long ago, the artist John Waite was in town for a show, and stopped by one of our local radio stations for an interview. The D.J. asked him why, after all these year, he was still going around the country trying to do these small club tours? He said he simply needed the money to pay his bills. Know where he was staying when he was in town? Motel 6! That's right! He couldn't afford anything else. And this is the guy who sold HUGE numbers of albums with "The Babys" and "Bad English". He openly admitted that he didn't really make much of anything with those bands by the time the record companies got their cut.
I'd argue that artists simply need the blood-sucking record companies to act as a "launch pad" for their careers, but the real money they make tends to be from doing live performances, once they achieve a "critical mass" of listeners.
When you look at it that way, artists are often being helped much more than hurt by people "pirating" their music around. It's more free exposure for them. And plenty of people who only owned bootleg copies of all of a band's music still shelled out the $40 or even $80+ for a concert ticket to see them afterwards.
Maybe some states are more lax, but I know here in Missouri, there's no way you'd "easily get away" with this type of scam.
For starters, you're required to do an in-person reporting to your local unemployment office every 4 weeks. Until you do, your benefits cease, and not showing up for the in-person reporting after 2 weeks go by terminates your benefits.
Also, the maximum benefit amount they pay out in Missouri is $250 per week, not $400 like the figures used in the article.
To top it off, they also require that you apply for at least 3 jobs per week and keep a log of your contacts. True, they may or may not ever really look at this - but they reserve the right to. (I don't know exactly how that policy works, but I'm guessing maybe they randomly select people from the pool of benefits-seekers to come in and show them the log of contacts.) And in some cases, applicants for benefits are also required to go through other processes, such as spending time each week in their "resource room", using their computer database to job hunt.
I know this is going to be seen as "just more fringe political B.S." by some - but the last few administrations seem like clear evidence to me that it's so.
If the L.P. could garner enough voter support to be viable, their political attitudes and agenda would finally break the cycle. But with the "Republican" vs. "Democrat" status-quo we're working under today - no matter who gets elected, indiividual rights and freedom gets further trampled on. Under the Clinton administration, you had acts like the D.M.C.A. signed into law. With Bush, you have soliders being sent off to die for a war that seems no more likely to ever be won than the "War on Drugs" of the 80's.
Just today, I believe a Supreme Court ruling decided that states DO have the rights to take away individuals' property for ANY reason (not just if they can show it is in the greater public interest to do so). These types of changes happen right under our noses all the time, slowly chiseling away at those grand concepts like "Freedom" that we supposedly fight for in the services.
You know, you bring up a point I'd thought about before... What if someone started designing software that ran in the background on the computer (perhaps as a screen saver, so it wouldn't bother you while you were actively using the PC), and just automatically crawled web pages, looking for ads to "click on"?
You could even feed it a list of the sites you'd most want money/credits to go towards and aim it there first....
If enough people ran such a program, it seems like the advertisers would be forced to change business models, since they'd be paying out a lot more than before to advertise on sites -- or they'd be forced to withhold a lot of payments and lose business partners.
Actually, the hard-core hacker and enthusiast types who would force OS X to run on their non-Apple branded PC are simply helping legitimize OS X and drive more customers to Apple's products in the long run.
(Your "regular users" might see Joe Hacker's slick little modded installation of an unsupported version of OS X on his clone PC and say "Wow, that's a nice looking operating system. How can I get that?" When they learn all the "catches" to doing things Joe's way, they'll pass on it. But they'll give some real thought to perhaps buying an Apple machine next time too.)
It seems to me, too, there's the potential of locking things down so tightly, it's not worth the effort to crack OS X to run on non-Apple hardware. Judging from the industry's track record at "copy protection measures", I'd say it probably won't happen. But people probably underestimate the *potential* to make it really difficult.
(After all, DirecTV still has nobody who's been able to successfully crack the encryption scheme used for their current "P4" satellite cards - and this is an application where a successful hacker can literally make millions of dollars off his handiwork!)
Unless things have drastically changed in recent years, I remember Sybari's most important product being their "Antigen" software which allowed efficient scanning of *email* for virii. We purchased the version of their product for Exchange Server back when Exchange 5.5 was a pretty recent product and people were still running NT 4.0 on their workstations.
I assumed the Unix/Linux versions of Sybari products were typically purchased for this purpose - in-line virus scanning of corporate email as it went through the Unix or Linux server?
Commerical software developers aren't stupid. They don't like re-inventing the wheel any more than anyone else does.
If they see an OSS project that parallels something they want to do, or are trying to do, they very well might want to contribute to it or work along-side of it, to achieve their own goals more quickly.
I'm not saying Apple would just want to give out free hardware to anyone working on OSS proijects. Obviously, that wouldn't make any good business sense. But striking a deal with the NeoOffice people? Might be a sound plan for Apple, while helping them at the same time. Right now, Apple has the aging "Appleworks" product as their "all in one" suite. It's long overdue for replacement with something, but there's really nothing they've come out with that serves that purpose. I could see adopting and modifying something like NeoOffice and making it the successor to Appleworks, while still keeping Pages, Keynote, and whatever else Apple has up their sleeves as the higher-end set of solutions. (Microsoft still sells "Works", despite having Office. Apple could very well do something similar.)
Well, typically, I see people bring up this supposed difference more for educational purposes. (You know, to call attention to the very fact you're mentioning... that classically, it used to mean something different.) Sort of nitpicking to get people thinking about the details of what their govt. is and isn't....
Well, the first thing I'd do is call your local competitors up on the phone, pretending to be a customer, and see what they're charging and how they bill. When I did that, I found out a few creative little "twists" to how some firms bill for system repairs. For example, some places claim to charge "flat repair rates" - but actually end up being more costly than firms billing by the hour plus parts. Sometimes, they do such things as billing fixed prices for every piece of the PC they have to remove and replace during a repair job. So if you have, say, an HP Pavilion that needs a RAM upgrade - they might charge $40 "flat rate for power supply removal/installation" because it had to come out to get to the memory slots!
It's good to know such things before going into the business, so at the very least, you can properly inform some people who falsely believe competitor X is far cheaper than you....
I currently charge $60/hr. with a 1 hour minimum, and additional time billed in 20 minute increments. I don't charge any extra travel or trip charges. Most of my competitors bill upwards of $79/hr. and do include some type of travel charge. I live in a major city though... your findings may vary based on location.
The people who think these rates are "extremely high" really don't have a good concept of the costs of doing business. For starters, a basic Yellow Pages ad will easily cost you upwards of $400 per month. If you don't have one of these, you aren't going to really be competing effectively at all in the marketplace. (When "Average Joe" needs his PC fixed, he looks in his phone book to find someone - more often than not.)
Of course, if you're only doing this part-time, maybe you only plan on "word of mouth" referrals or flyers in mailboxes or whatever. That's fine too, but don't forget your costs for gas, oil changes, tires, and other vehicle maintenance for driving around to these calls. Also, you'll need to keep some sort of basic inventory of parts with you. I always try to keep at least 2 256MB PC-133 memory sticks, 2 PC-2700 256MB memory sticks, a DVD writer, a CD writer, a spare AMD Athlon XP motherboard and CPU, an extra ATX power supply, a 3.5" floppy drive, and spare PS/2 keyboard and mouse, along with a Linksys wi-fi router and a spare cable modem. (I was surprised how often I ran into problems with internet connectivity that ended up being the fault of a defective cable modem. It's not a HUGE issue, but I saw it a good 3 or 4 times. It was worth keeping a spare with me for troubleshooting purposes, at least.)
I'm not sure if you're just bitter about the concept of on-site service as a whole or what, but under the assumption you're not simply trolling - I'll go ahead and respond....
1. My rates happen to be lower than anyone else I've called in the entire Yellow Pages under "on-site PC service". I do think many places charge too much for too little, so I'm trying to make a living while still being reasonable.
2. I do both PC and Mac service, and countless times, have suggested the Macintosh alternative to people when they seem to repeatly be struggling with spyware and virus issues. Nonetheless, it's no big secret that ALL on-site PC service businesses handle more virus and spyware calls than any other single type of call today. Even Dell estimates that about 40% of their incoming support calls are about these problems. If I had my way, I'd much rather spend my time solving an interesting system problem or performing an upgrade which leaves a customer with a system that works better than it ever did before. But reality is, they usually call about the virus and spyware problems.
3. Having over 12 years of experience in the computer field, I wouldn't label myself a "high tech janitor", any more than I'd call a software developer wih 10+ years of experience a "digital assembly line worker, shoving bits around all day". But you can create whatever types of labels you wish for a person's line of work. Oversimplify enough, and you can make anyone look bad.
I couldn't agree more!
That's why I have my own business (www.wyrickconsulting.net) today. The big problem with GeekSquad and the other large "chains" of computer on-site service is not the rates they charge, but the fact that consumers expect an expert on their doorstep for those prices. Instead, they're getting teenagers through 20-30-somethings who are doing it as their "first real conputer job", or people who simply don't care as long as they get their weekly paycheck.
They just make it harder for the knowledgeable consultants to find work, because of the whole "once bitten, twice shy" effect.
As for wireless networks though, I do think there should be some type of disclaimer customers sign on these. I've set up quite a few where I was asked NOT to secure it, because it made it too inconvenient/confusing for their computer illiterate friends (or employees, in the case of a few small businesses) to get their laptops on the network when they came by. I can actually respect that opinion, but I wouldn't want to end up in a lawsuit if something happened down the road and they claimed "the consultant didn't tell me THIS could happen!".
I do this type of on-site work and this is the single most common response I get when a customer is trying to talk me down on price, or complain about the cost of his/her repair.
There's an element of truth to it, but generally, it's not nearly as good a solution as it appears.
For starters, most service calls end up being at least partially due to virii and spyware. If the customer buys a new machine, how long do you think it will take him/her to get it just as infected as the previous system was - if he/she does the same types of things he/she did before?
I've actually had customers do this! They ordered a new Dell or bought a new HP at Best Buy rather than "waste money fixing this 4 year old machine" - only to end up calling me 2 months later, asking me to clean up *both* computers.
My first computer I owned was a Timex/Sinclair 1000/ZX-81. The TS1000 had such a weird keyboard layout (membrane keypad that made working in BASIC easier by letting you press a function key followed by a regular key to enter a whole keyword with just those 2 presses), that the TS1000 emulators I've seen are very difficult to work with. Your standard PC keyboard isn't going to be properly labeled for all those alternate functions of the standard keys.
Emulators are typically evolving works in progress too. How often do you see an emulator that guarantees 100% compatibility? I know most of the game system emulators I've used have trouble playing at least 30% or more of the games without major issues (graphics glitches, sound not functional, etc. etc.).
Emulation is a great idea, and it will probably allow SOME people to get rid of old hardware they otherwise felt they had to hang onto -- but there's no substitute for having the real thing, if you want to use it fairly extensively.
Well, regardless of whether 12 year old girls really do or don't visit these types of chat rooms - I think the real issue comes down to advertisers unwittingly having their products tied to rooms with these titles.
As far as I'm concerned, there's really no point or value in trying to make it crime to have such a chat room. Anyone, at any time, can create a "chat room" using one of the instant messenger programs out there, give it this type of "topic" and invite random people to join. Same goes for IRC, where anyone could throw a server online and make any channels they want on it - even if you somehow banned them from using the most well-known/populated IRC servers.
If you don't want your pre-teen chatting with creepy older guys who want sex with them, then a little *education* and *parenting* is in order. Legislation won't substitute.
But there IS a very real and understandable complaint when you, as an advertiser, pay your money for product placement and then your product ends up being placed where you never agreed to the placement at all in your contract.
The problem is, unlike electricity, credit is often dangled as a carrot in front of people who shouldn't have it in the first place. The basic concept of credit lines and credit cards are fine. But credit card companies are making an awful lot of money by trying to make people overspend and bury themselves in debt.
There's no other logical explanation for giving someone a higher credit score for carrying a balance on their card month to month than they give someone who pays off their balance in full every month. The truth is, they don't WANT people to be very responsible with their cards! That's why they give them out like candy to college students, who statistically are among the LEAST likely to be bringing in a good income. Their BEST customers are folks who run their card balance way up, and then struggle to try to pay it down over the years. The fees and interest charges ensure they basically CAN'T ever get it paid off - so by the time they give up and file for bankruptcy, the CC company has already profited from the original money lent out. Then, they stand to potentially get even MORE out of those people in bankruptcy. (Might be able to reposess some of the purchased property for resale, or milk a little more cash from them in a Chapter 13 debt repayment plan.) Give it a year or two, and they'll be right back, offering that SAME PERSON another card and a second chance to screw up all over again!
I'm not sure of their present status, but for a long time, Mastercard was listed as a *non profit organization*! I knew people who used to work for them who got huge "bonuses" at the end of the year, simply because MC had to find a way to dump their surplus earnings in order to hang onto that status. Before you preach about "personal responsibility" to Mastercard holders, perhaps you should preach about businesses falsely pretending to be charities in order to scam big tax breaks?
This is really nothing new. In fact, it sounds to me like Micro Center has simply come "full circle", back to the way computers were once sold, when they cost much more than they do today.
If you want to generate relatively good sales numbers compared to your chain/discount store counterparts - knowledgeable staff is the key.
But the catch is, if you grow too large, you're going to have a really tough time keeping knowledgeable people working for you. You can't afford to pay very much, and profit margins on hardware just aren't good enough to support big commissions on sales.
The Apple stores seem to have a bit of an edge over your standard Windows PC dealer in this regard, because the whole "cult of Mac" thing works to their advantage. (EG. You can find a really knowedgeable Mac junkie who would kill to say he works at the local Apple store, even though he's woefully underpaid for his level of knowledge and skills. He wants the "street cred" of being an Apple employee, and the "warm and fuzzy feeling" of being around others sharing his interests every day.)
Maybe the fact that Linux is still a relative "niche market" helps Micro Center out too. (If you know a lot about Linux, you're probably having a tougher time finding a good-paying job than if you're some run-of-the-mill MCSE. Sucks, but that's just the nature of today's marketplace. Many more businesses use Windows than Linux, so that's who they need to hire.)