Yeah - of course, everyone's results vary, but on every flight I've taken my laptop on, I ended up not using it at all.
I just carry it on so it's always in my possession. (Too easy for some baggage handler to make it become "lost luggage" and sell it on eBay that night....)
Most of my flights have been state to state flights inside the U.S. anyway, and you don't really get *that* much time to use the thing. (You have to keep all electronic devices off during takeoff and landing, so you can only count time actually at cruising altitude as valid time to use them.)
I guess it's enough time to write up a Word document or two, if you need to do so. In my case, I get more done in the airport while waiting for boarding.....
No, while I'm certain I can't change your mind on this one - I strongly disagree with you.
I don't think "piracy" is really "theft" in the traditional sense, so I don't need to make up lies and become "self-brainwashed" to make myself sleep well at night over it.
As many people have pointed out before, the term "piracy" is ridiculous in the first place. It's a euphamism created to make the act sound much more devious and wrong than it really is. Pirates hijaacked ships with weapons drawn, and forced people to hand over items of value or risk death. It's insane to claim that copying "copyrighted works" is in any way similar.
The bottom line is, piracy ends up being yet another of the victimless crimes out there. Sure, you can create scenarios where someone gets injured by the act - but it's all based on quite likely incorrect assumptions.
Primarily, the assertion that by copying a movie or piece of software, I'm somehow depriving the author of revenue is, at best, a "straw dummy". Can you prove I would have plunked down the cash for the product if I hasn't duplicated it instead? Fact is, I buy plenty of "virtual goods". I pay about $25 a month to watch whatever programming I'm spoon-fed via satellite TV, for starters. I buy software packages now and then, too. I own over 200 music CDs and a handful of vinyl records, not to mention 60 or 70 cassettes, 30 or 40 DVD movies, and at least 20 movies on VHS tape. I go to the theater occasionally too. When I had a Playstation 2, I bought around 20 games for it. I certainly feel I've done *at least* my fair share of contributing a percentage of my income to these industries over the years! Nonetheless, I've also "pirated" a large number of programs and music. I'm here to tell you, though, there's no way I'd spend more than I already on these things. There's no real "lost revenue" from any of the stuff I copied - because the industries in question already collected the max. amount from me they possibly could collect.
Reality is, when you're in the business of selling digital works, or recordings made on analog media, your real goal is to offer a vast selection of "tempting choices" for your customers to buy. Most people will get "illegal copies" of at least 2 or 3 for every one they decide to pay for. That's just how the business model works. Greed drives them to scare people with legal threats, because they're dealing with a largely saturated market. There are more works out there than any one person can digest, and most people already buy as much of it as they can afford.
That's all fine and well if you have the clients.... Building a customer-base is *always* the tough part, though. I partnered with a friend of mine who was trying to get a computer consulting and on-site service business going, years ago, and the cost of advertising our services exceeded our income.
If we had a big loan, up front, to work with - sure, I think it would have broken even in a year or two, and started making money. Fact is, we didn't have that luxury. We simply had a limited budget to start with, and the knowledge that we were both really good at what we did.
Being good at the job doesn't equate with short-term profitability, though. When you're out of work and need to pay the bills, this type of thing isn't usually a workable solution - unless you've got large cash reserves.
Hey, if you see my reply - can you provide some more info on your technical writing job?
I took a number of creative-writing related courses in college, and had a couple computer-related articles published in a local computer journal before. I also wrote a number of documents detailing procedures for our I.T. staff at my last job.
I almost took a contract job as a technical writing for a large firm, but declined at the last minute.
Now, I've been considering the idea of doing technical writing (or some type of writing for hire) again. What is the pay like? When I've searched for offers to pay freelancers to write articles for tech. magazines, I'm shocked at how little they pay. (Typically, about $25-$35 per article used.) I don't see how freelance writers make any kind of living that way.
On the other hand, many of the "technical writer" jobs I see posted seem to want a lot of HTML experience, plus experience with a particular Lotus product that I've never used. (I assume it's sort of like a desktop publishing package, designed mainly for pre-publication document formatting.) I guess these people are mainly focused on getting a large amount of technical information posted to a corporate Intranet?
Yeah, there was a time when I'd completely disagree with you - but lately, I'd say that's dead-on accurate.
With few exceptions, the jobs I've seen listed on Monster.com, Dice.com and HotJobs.com in I.T. have been looking for an extremely specific skill-set. It's not that the pay and benefits are necessarily bad, but the employers are fishing for a "perfect" candidate that just happens to have years of experience in several obscure technologies, plus a bachelor's degree and a couple certifications.
I often wonder if they ever find what they're looking for. Sometimes, you see these ads get listed over and over for several months, and suddenly disappear. (Did they really find someone, or just give up running the ad and settle for someone less qualified?)
This will only get worse, here in the U.S., ever since the September 11th. terrorist scare.
In my current job search, I'm amazed at how much personal information and background checking they do, even for minimum wage sales jobs.
Stores like Radio Shack do much more checking than they've ever done before, and for what? So you can earn $5.15 an hour plus commission selling their crappy products?
One of the job-search portals I recently visited had a huge advertisement on the front page telling employers to try out their paid background checking service. It went on to brag how many large businesses use them for each new applicant, including Edward Jones, Anheiseur Busch Breweries, etc. etc.
I can easily see this turning into the same fiasco we have now with credit agencies. Some schmuck incorrectly enters a piece of data into the database, and for years - you're stuck with a mark on your record that you can't seem to get removed. Where can we call to request a free copy of our background check, to verify that the information on file is correct? (Can we even do this at all??)
This brings up another related point. What's with companies saying your employment may be based partially on your credit history? Why is it their business at all what your past credit history is? Honestly, as an employer, I'd probably *prefer* someone with a lot of recent bad credit - because that sounds to be like an individual who is out of money and really needs a job! At least he/she has some real motivation to show up to work on time every day.
I already mentioned it in another reply on this topic, but here's the deal:
You people assuming that the only purpose of linking to this story is to promote stealing Cisco's product are mistaken!
There are many folks out there who still believe a Cisco firewall product is somehow technically superior to most others. These are the same people who insist on blowing thousands of dollars on something like a PIX, and meanwhile, won't even consider a freeware solution running on an older PC.
The fact that someone has completely disassembled a PIX, shown you what's really inside one, and proceeded to build a "replica" the way he did proves a point. Hardware-wise, at least, you're likely better off (not *worse off*), using an old Pentium-based system to run something like FreeSCO, IP-Cop, Smoothwall GPL, or you-name-it.
It all comes down to this: Spend $12,000+ to legally run Cisco's proprietary firmware on a 486DX in a pretty rackmount case, or recycle your existing junk PCs with open-source alternatives at pretty much $0 cost. There's nothing else "magical" in the PIX box, folks.
Yeah, I'm in complete agreement with your accessment: Hacking together a Cisco PIX clone is going to offer you nothing.
Despite all the flaming of Slashdot for linking to this article, though, I think there's another reason for it besides the obvious. The point I got from it is "Cisco firewalls are really just 486DX computers in a pretty rack-mount case, with some proprietary firmware loaded in them."
Not that I didn't already know this. My work got a Cisco PIX, years ago, for free. (We initially purchased a Windows NT based software firewall product that was bought out by Cisco, and discontinued shortly afterwards. Since there were still 500 or so active users of the NT based product out there - Cisco just sent all of us free PIX's to get us switched over.) When I first examined it, I though "Man - no wonder they can afford to give these out for free! There's not much to it!" I was blown away when I saw their retail price for one.
I think many folks still view the Cisco firewalls as some sort of technologically superior product with costly parts inside. They're not - and the sooner people realize that, the sooner they can start feeling comfortable running a free Linux or BSD based firewall solution on a standard PC.
Actually, I considered that as I was writing my message - but no, I really think the younger adults and teens *are* influential.
True, they may not directly have the responsibility in a corporation to "call the shots" ordering a change in OS or software.
That's not really the problem, though. The people who do call those shots are typically pretty far away from the technologies themselves. They don't really know more than just a basic overview of what "software package A" does for their company, and why it's supposed to be better than "package B".
They end up relying on "their people" to keep them informed, or at least to "use their best judgement" in selecting the right products for their businesses. That's where all these young adults and teens come in. They're usually the ones setting up the computers and software, implementing the changes, and getting their voices heard when they constantly chatter about the way they think things should be.
"This version does not support Netscape, Opera and Mac."
It also looks like a Windows product, with no Linux version available -- so there are a total of 4 good reasons why we might not want to use it.
In any case, thanks for giving out a reg. key for the thing. Maybe I'll give it a whirl. I tried this product called Ad Killer on my Win XP box already - but I'm about to uninstall it. I get a lot of weird errors in IE 6 that never occured before, and I suspect it's the culprit. It also kills too many important pop-up windows that aren't advertisements at all. (And if I put it on the lowest level of filtering, too much stuff gets past it.)
Very well put! Only problem I see is that there are considerably more people in your 2nd. group than in your first.
The "stick it to the man!" group, as you put it, tends to be a pretty influential bunch of younger adults and teens who are the "up and coming" systems administrators, middle management, PC consultants, and technicians out there.
The true "open source people" you refer to tend to be software developers/programmers who believe in investing some of their time and energy on projects that they stand no chance of profiting from financially. Not only are there far fewer programmers out there than computer users - but subtract from them the programmers only doing Microsoft development, only programming "for hire", only programming for Apple Macintosh, etc., etc.
Granted, there are *some* of us "non-programmers" out there who really believe in the "open source" concept for what it's supposed to be; an alternative way to develop code without restrictions and by co-operation of anyone interested in joining in. We just happen to be quite a minority, and our voices easily get lost in the hype about "Free software! Save yourself *tons* of money on licensing!"
Honestly, besides the difference in color, I didn't really notice much taste difference between regular Dr. Pepper and the "Red Fusion" stuff. Dr. Pepper has a pretty distinctive, super-sweet, cola flavor - and whatever they add to make it "Red Fusion" doesn't do much to change that.
I almost wonder if it's partly a psychological thing... People see that it's red, so their mind plays a trick on them and makes them believe it tastes more like a "red soda". When I first tried, it I drank it straight from the can - so wasn't looking at it while drinking it.
Actually, it's interesting someone brought this up.... I bought some Vanilla Coke to give it a try - and although I agree it tastes pretty odd, I sort of got to like it for what it is after the first can I drank.
I do remember having pretty bad heartburn after drinking it, but I was never really sure it was anything specific to Vanilla Coke. I get that every so often with regular Coca Cola, or other cola drinks. Usually, it's a sign that I need to stop drinking them for a little while.
I suspect the biggest problem is their acidity. Coke is known for being especially acidic. (Some folks may recall that old experiment where you drop a small piece of wood in a glass of Coke and let it sit for a day or two. Eventually, it's just about completely dissolved!)
On item #2 there in your list of mistakes, I'd venture to say that honestly - you're better off in the position your in.
The people complaining "I don't know how to do that!" who get sent off to training are still going to come back with less usable knowledge than you have by figuring it out, hands-on.
What I've started figuring out is that training is of relatively little value unless it earns you some type of certification upon its completion. Certifications help get you future jobs. The other stuff doesn't. I've been to all sorts of training on everything from MS Exchange Server to Dynamic HTML development - and without certs. from any of it, people don't seem to really care.
I doubt the people getting shipped off to training classes in response to the "I can't do it!" exclamations are earning certifications.
I know you got modded up as "funny", but you don't know how true that is!
I spent a *lot* of time doing Google searches to research problems with our PCs. I also spent quite a bit of time doing those "sucks" searches to find out if a new product was a potential dud.
Not everyone who posts a complaint with their new scanner or motherboard explains it in a very technical manner, after all.
Yeah, it really just depends on the individuals - but the "geeks training geeks" thing brings one colorful memory to mind.
We had some reps from HP come in to give us some crash-course training on their OpenView and Manage-X products. The two guys they sent were obviously quite knowledgable on the products -- but their presentation and public speaking skills were, well, lacking.
One of the guys said "ummm" and "the, uh, " so many times, I stopped listening to what he was trying to teach and started counting each "umm" and "uh" instead.
Actually, my previous employer did something rather innovative in this regard. (Shocking, in fact, considering their relative lack of innovative business practices.)
After having poor results conducting "management training" courses using outside firms, they let one of the women from H.R. start doing in-house training. She had a previous background in conducting training classes, so it worked out really well. She became the de-facto "corporate trainer". After employees reported satisfaction with her classes - was eventually given pretty much free reign to conduct her classes however she wished.
Nowdays, every employee eventually goes through her classes, which are held once a month for about 10 months, at which time the participants "graduate". It's no longer called "management training", but rather, "employee development".
As for technical/PC related training - that's another story. I really had no say-so in what training I received, other than suggesting courses that interested me to my boss, who could approve or deny them. (Basically, if it allowed us to earn a certification, we couldn't go. I think they had a mentality that if we got certified, we'd run off to someone with better pay and benefits.)
I'm not even so concerned with "CD quality" not being good enough. I think it's plenty good enough for me. I know they have newer, improved fornats like DVD-Audio out there now, but they don't particularly interest me. I don't own multi-thousand dollar speakers or even an extremely expensive home stereo receiver, so I doubt it'll be that dramatic an improvement to my ears.
What I *would* like to see, though, is MP3s encoded at 256 bits, or at the very least, 192 bits. These are in very short supply on the free p2p networks, as 99% of people think "128-bit is good enough for me", and seem to value saving a little disk space over the improved quality. I can almost always tell a definite sound quality differnce between 128 bit and 192 bit + encoding. The 128-bit stuff just sounds "dull" or "lifeless" by comparison. You wouldn't necessarily even realize what you were missing if you didn't compare the same song, side-by-side, at both encoding rates -- but once you do, you'll never want 128-bit MP3s again.
Honestly, I think the part many are missing is the fact that most people still need their music to reside on a physical piece of CD media before they can enjoy listening to it.
This is the real reason behind your statement (and consequently your logic) that you'll opt to go "buy a CD" instead of download a file.
There's an entire infrastructure built around the public listening to their music on compact discs - and no p2p network can change that fact.
The recording industry needs to address this before they begin trying to make money on downloaded MP3 songs!
As I've said many times before, a really good alternative for them would be building computerized kiosks that let the customer burn his/her own selection of songs onto a high-quality CD - and pay for it by the song. (Probably by taking a resultant printed receipt up to the counter/checkout lane with the shiny new disc)
This would eliminate the issue of requiring huge amounts of physical store space to display all the music. (Instead, they might have a tradeoff of a little bit of "back room" space taken up with a server containing all the digital data that makes up the music collection, and some boxes of blank media to reload the kiosk with when it runs out.)
I would think most retails stores would absolutely love this idea, as would consumers who can finally buy their own "custom mix" CDs - instead of paying for songs they don't like/want, just to get a few that they do. By tallying up exactly which songs sell best, the recording industry gets much more accurate feedback of what's "hot" and what's "not", too.
Selling downloaded MP3 music has only very limited appeal in a world where many people don't even own the tools required to move the songs onto media playable in their car/home stereo. (The rest of us do, but we don't always appreciate taking all the time/effort out to do so.)
IMHO, you're nitpicking a bit. I do understand your point - but you're taking "proprietary" quite literally. On the other hand, in the world of computers, people typically use "proprietary" to designate the fact that the hardware is developed by a single vendor, using standards they invented themselves.
The Apple computers have always fit this definition, to one extent or another. (As I said, though, this is changing in some ways. You no longer see much happening with, say, the NuBus slot.) I still can't just buy an Apple Cinema display and slap it on my PC and expect it to work properly, though.
As for network protocols, simply publishing the details of how it works doesn't make it a defacto "standard". Appletalk might be completely and openly documented - but it will always be considered more "proprietary" than TCP/IP, just as Novell's IPX or Microsoft's Netbeui protocols are. Appletalk wasn't developed by a vendor-neutral committee - for one thing.
Heh, don't fool yourself! That "telemarketing opt-out law" is really there only to benefit the state, not the consumer!
I live in St. Louis, Missouri and recently got a "newsletter" with information on the succes of the no-call list. Basically, every time you get harassed and go to the trouble to fill out a 2 page long report about it, you get nothing. Not even confirmation that something was done about the problem. Missouri, however, sues for large sums of money, all of which they pocket afterwards. Despite their whole case being based on your written testimony, you receive no compensation.
In most cases, you don't even get your immediate problem resolved. Missouri doesn't go after every single business that calls you after you're on their "no call" list. They only chase after the easiest targets; the repeat offenders that generate hundreds of complaints from different residents. They love to brag about slapping "Miss Cleo" with a fine for her telemarketing calls trying to sell you on the "Psychic Hotline" -- but her fine was peanuts compared to what she rakes in on those 900 numbers. She probably still came out ahead on her telemarketing campaign after paying Missouri their fines.
As for closing those "remaining loopholes", if they don't - they have a completely bogus law in place, IMHO. Right now, those loopholes make the "no call list" practically worthless. Currently, it says anyone is allowed to solicit you if they're someone you've done previous business with. That means you can get calls offering you credit cards and loans all day long, if you ever opened a checking account with a large bank. Ever get your carpets cleaned with a firm like Stanley Steemer? Too bad then... can't stop them from telemarketing you randomly. It also exempts charities from calling you. I get countless calls from those places soliticing funds for the "retired firefighters" or "retired police officers", and I can't do a thing to stop it.
Best where electrical power is questionable....
on
Solar Surgery
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Despite all the jokes on here about it, I think it has applications in 3rd. world countries where reliable electrical power isn't a given.
In countries like the United States, every hospital has backup power generators, uninterrupted power supplies, and so forth -- on top of being connected to a pretty reliable power grid. I can't see someone choosing sunlight over an electrically powered laser beam for surgery. The greater initial expense of the laser is quickly offset by money lost on surgeries that couldn't be performed due to weather conditions.
In a relatively undeveloped country, however, this might make a lot of sense! It could give new options to doctors who simply couldn't count on a laser-based setup to function reliably, or couldn't afford it to begin with.
Well actually, I was referring to the Apple hardware itself - more than anything else.
Sure, they have USB now - so that opens up a few more expansion options than before. Still, you have to always use the "Apple approved" hardware, which is quite a limited selection compared to the options available for a PC.
For just one example, look at all the answering machine/voice mailbox type cards for a PC. Now, tell me how many of them you see for a Mac platform? How about TV/radio add-on boards? How about industrial control boards?
Seriously, I really do believe that the age of the user is about the only relatively "constant" factor when it comes to willingness to adapt/change with a new OS/software.
The idea that "Mac users are inflexible." is just as silly as saying "Linux users are inflexible." or "Windows users are inflexible." In any of these cases, some are and some aren't.
Having done nearly 10 years of PC support now - I can assure you that the older PC users, almost without exception, have been the ones most afraid of changes. They come from a world before the personal computer. The devices they used to get tasks done rarely changed much. (EG. They might have gone from a manual to an electric typewriter over the years, but they still worked almost the same way. The changes were very incremental and rather logical, such as the evolution of correction tape and finally correction fluid to fix typing errors.)
Then the computer came along, and threw them a BIG learning curve. Just when they struggled through that and mastered using their mouse, computer keyboard with function keys and all, and a few popular applications - people want to go and change the entire look and feel of everything! Younger folks grew up with the idea that computers are sort of "empty slates, waiting to get painted with whatever strikes the developer's fancy". Interface changes are treated like interior decorating... You do it once in a while just for the sake of freshening up the look of things. Believe me, the older users don't share that belief!
Amen! After using nothing but PCs ever since I bought one of the early 286's on the market, I finally decided it was time to see what all the hype was about - and bought a PowerMac. I kept it for about 6 months before selling the whole system. While there were many admirable traits to the "Mac way" of doing things, the expense and limited choices were infuriating.
Now that the latest offerings in the Mac world are upon all of us (iMac, Titanium Powerbook, OSX, etc.) - I thought it was time to take one more look. Nope, pretty new "candy coating" but same old proprietary, over-hyped core.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to slam the Mac. Maybe I'm coming across a bit too harsh. OSX is a vast improvement over anything they offered in the past, and I really like what they did with the Powerbooks. (I still can't get used to the look of the iMacs though.... It just looks too much like a kid's toy, or a engineer that tried way too hard to make the thing look futuristic. My computer doesn't need to look like a prop for a low-budget Jetsons movie.)
As the author said, above, the Mac dumbs a lot of things down so the "average user" can easily get around in it. That's fine, except I want to be rewarded for my years of effort at becoming more than just another "average user". The Mac just isn't that flexible in that regard. Sometimes, it even feels like a big contradiction. (AKA. You install a high-end, powerful application. Then you have this program that lets you dig in *really* deep and work at a low level with things... but the OS itself doesn't get nearly as complex. It doesn't even feel like the app belongs on that platform!)
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Yeah - of course, everyone's results vary, but on every flight I've taken my laptop on, I ended up not using it at all.
I just carry it on so it's always in my possession. (Too easy for some baggage handler to make it become "lost luggage" and sell it on eBay that night....)
Most of my flights have been state to state flights inside the U.S. anyway, and you don't really get *that* much time to use the thing. (You have to keep all electronic devices off during takeoff and landing, so you can only count time actually at cruising altitude as valid time to use them.)
I guess it's enough time to write up a Word document or two, if you need to do so. In my case, I get more done in the airport while waiting for boarding.....
No, while I'm certain I can't change your mind on this one - I strongly disagree with you.
I don't think "piracy" is really "theft" in the traditional sense, so I don't need to make up lies and become "self-brainwashed" to make myself sleep well at night over it.
As many people have pointed out before, the term "piracy" is ridiculous in the first place. It's a euphamism created to make the act sound much more devious and wrong than it really is. Pirates hijaacked ships with weapons drawn, and forced people to hand over items of value or risk death. It's insane to claim that copying "copyrighted works" is in any way similar.
The bottom line is, piracy ends up being yet another of the victimless crimes out there. Sure, you can create scenarios where someone gets injured by the act - but it's all based on quite likely incorrect assumptions.
Primarily, the assertion that by copying a movie or piece of software, I'm somehow depriving the author of revenue is, at best, a "straw dummy".
Can you prove I would have plunked down the cash for the product if I hasn't duplicated it instead? Fact is, I buy plenty of "virtual goods". I pay about $25 a month to watch whatever programming I'm spoon-fed via satellite TV, for starters. I buy software packages now and then, too. I own over 200 music CDs and a handful of vinyl records, not to mention 60 or 70 cassettes, 30 or 40 DVD movies, and at least 20 movies on VHS tape. I go to the theater occasionally too. When I had a Playstation 2, I bought around 20 games for it. I certainly feel I've done *at least* my fair share of contributing a percentage of my income to these industries over the years! Nonetheless, I've also "pirated" a large number of programs and music. I'm here to tell you, though, there's no way I'd spend more than I already on these things. There's no real "lost revenue" from any of the stuff I copied - because the industries in question already collected the max. amount from me they possibly could collect.
Reality is, when you're in the business of selling digital works, or recordings made on analog media, your real goal is to offer a vast selection of "tempting choices" for your customers to buy. Most people will get "illegal copies" of at least 2 or 3 for every one they decide to pay for. That's just how the business model works. Greed drives them to scare people with legal threats, because they're dealing with a largely saturated market. There are more works out there than any one person can digest, and most people already buy as much of it as they can afford.
That's all fine and well if you have the clients.... Building a customer-base is *always* the tough part, though. I partnered with a friend of mine who was trying to get a computer consulting and on-site service business going, years ago, and the cost of advertising our services exceeded our income.
If we had a big loan, up front, to work with - sure, I think it would have broken even in a year or two, and started making money. Fact is, we didn't have that luxury. We simply had a limited budget to start with, and the knowledge that we were both really good at what we did.
Being good at the job doesn't equate with short-term profitability, though. When you're out of work and need to pay the bills, this type of thing isn't usually a workable solution - unless you've got large cash reserves.
Hey, if you see my reply - can you provide some more info on your technical writing job?
I took a number of creative-writing related courses in college, and had a couple computer-related articles published in a local computer journal before. I also wrote a number of documents detailing procedures for our I.T. staff at my last job.
I almost took a contract job as a technical writing for a large firm, but declined at the last minute.
Now, I've been considering the idea of doing technical writing (or some type of writing for hire) again. What is the pay like? When I've searched for offers to pay freelancers to write articles for tech. magazines, I'm shocked at how little they pay. (Typically, about $25-$35 per article used.) I don't see how freelance writers make any kind of living that way.
On the other hand, many of the "technical writer" jobs I see posted seem to want a lot of HTML experience, plus experience with a particular Lotus product that I've never used. (I assume it's sort of like a desktop publishing package, designed mainly for pre-publication document formatting.) I guess these people are mainly focused on getting a large amount of technical information posted to a corporate Intranet?
Yeah, there was a time when I'd completely disagree with you - but lately, I'd say that's dead-on accurate.
With few exceptions, the jobs I've seen listed on Monster.com, Dice.com and HotJobs.com in I.T. have been looking for an extremely specific skill-set. It's not that the pay and benefits are necessarily bad, but the employers are fishing for a "perfect" candidate that just happens to have years of experience in several obscure technologies, plus a bachelor's degree and a couple certifications.
I often wonder if they ever find what they're looking for. Sometimes, you see these ads get listed over and over for several months, and suddenly disappear. (Did they really find someone, or just give up running the ad and settle for someone less qualified?)
This will only get worse, here in the U.S., ever since the September 11th. terrorist scare.
In my current job search, I'm amazed at how much personal information and background checking they do, even for minimum wage sales jobs.
Stores like Radio Shack do much more checking than they've ever done before, and for what? So you can earn $5.15 an hour plus commission selling their crappy products?
One of the job-search portals I recently visited had a huge advertisement on the front page telling employers to try out their paid background checking service. It went on to brag how many large businesses use them for each new applicant, including Edward Jones, Anheiseur Busch Breweries, etc. etc.
I can easily see this turning into the same fiasco we have now with credit agencies. Some schmuck incorrectly enters a piece of data into the database, and for years - you're stuck with a mark on your record that you can't seem to get removed. Where can we call to request a free copy of our background check, to verify that the information on file is correct? (Can we even do this at all??)
This brings up another related point. What's with companies saying your employment may be based partially on your credit history? Why is it their business at all what your past credit history is? Honestly, as an employer, I'd probably *prefer* someone with a lot of recent bad credit - because that sounds to be like an individual who is out of money and really needs a job! At least he/she has some real motivation to show up to work on time every day.
I already mentioned it in another reply on this topic, but here's the deal:
You people assuming that the only purpose of linking to this story is to promote stealing Cisco's product are mistaken!
There are many folks out there who still believe a Cisco firewall product is somehow technically superior to most others. These are the same people who insist on blowing thousands of dollars on something like a PIX, and meanwhile, won't even consider a freeware solution running on an older PC.
The fact that someone has completely disassembled a PIX, shown you what's really inside one, and proceeded to build a "replica" the way he did proves a point. Hardware-wise, at least, you're likely better off (not *worse off*), using an old Pentium-based system to run something like FreeSCO, IP-Cop, Smoothwall GPL, or you-name-it.
It all comes down to this: Spend $12,000+ to legally run Cisco's proprietary firmware on a 486DX in a pretty rackmount case, or recycle your existing junk PCs with open-source alternatives at pretty much $0 cost. There's nothing else "magical" in the PIX box, folks.
Yeah, I'm in complete agreement with your accessment: Hacking together a Cisco PIX clone is going to offer you nothing.
Despite all the flaming of Slashdot for linking to this article, though, I think there's another reason for it besides the obvious. The point I got from it is "Cisco firewalls are really just 486DX computers in a pretty rack-mount case, with some proprietary firmware loaded in them."
Not that I didn't already know this. My work got a Cisco PIX, years ago, for free. (We initially purchased a Windows NT based software firewall product that was bought out by Cisco, and discontinued shortly afterwards. Since there were still 500 or so active users of the NT based product out there - Cisco just sent all of us free PIX's to get us switched over.) When I first examined it, I though "Man - no wonder they can afford to give these out for free! There's not much to it!" I was blown away when I saw their retail price for one.
I think many folks still view the Cisco firewalls as some sort of technologically superior product with costly parts inside. They're not - and the sooner people realize that, the sooner they can start feeling comfortable running a free Linux or BSD based firewall solution on a standard PC.
Actually, I considered that as I was writing my message - but no, I really think the younger adults and teens *are* influential.
True, they may not directly have the responsibility in a corporation to "call the shots" ordering a change in OS or software.
That's not really the problem, though. The people who do call those shots are typically pretty far away from the technologies themselves. They don't really know more than just a basic overview of what "software package A" does for their company, and why it's supposed to be better than "package B".
They end up relying on "their people" to keep them informed, or at least to "use their best judgement" in selecting the right products for their businesses. That's where all these young adults and teens come in. They're usually the ones setting up the computers and software, implementing the changes, and getting their voices heard when they constantly chatter about the way they think things should be.
Right off their main web page:
"This version does not support Netscape, Opera and Mac."
It also looks like a Windows product, with no Linux version available -- so there are a total of 4 good reasons why we might not want to use it.
In any case, thanks for giving out a reg. key for the thing. Maybe I'll give it a whirl. I tried this product called Ad Killer on my Win XP box already - but I'm about to uninstall it. I get a lot of weird errors in IE 6 that never occured before, and I suspect it's the culprit.
It also kills too many important pop-up windows that aren't advertisements at all. (And if I put it on the lowest level of filtering, too much stuff gets past it.)
Very well put! Only problem I see is that there are considerably more people in your 2nd. group than in your first.
The "stick it to the man!" group, as you put it, tends to be a pretty influential bunch of younger adults and teens who are the "up and coming" systems administrators, middle management, PC consultants, and technicians out there.
The true "open source people" you refer to tend to be software developers/programmers who believe in investing some of their time and energy on projects that they stand no chance of profiting from financially. Not only are there far fewer programmers out there than computer users - but subtract from them the programmers only doing Microsoft development, only programming "for hire", only programming for Apple Macintosh, etc., etc.
Granted, there are *some* of us "non-programmers" out there who really believe in the "open source" concept for what it's supposed to be; an alternative way to develop code without restrictions and by co-operation of anyone interested in joining in. We just happen to be quite a minority, and our voices easily get lost in the hype about "Free software! Save yourself *tons* of money on licensing!"
Honestly, besides the difference in color, I didn't really notice much taste difference between regular Dr. Pepper and the "Red Fusion" stuff. Dr. Pepper has a pretty distinctive, super-sweet, cola flavor - and whatever they add to make it "Red Fusion" doesn't do much to change that.
I almost wonder if it's partly a psychological thing... People see that it's red, so their mind plays a trick on them and makes them believe it tastes more like a "red soda". When I first tried, it I drank it straight from the can - so wasn't looking at it while drinking it.
Actually, it's interesting someone brought this up.... I bought some Vanilla Coke to give it a try - and although I agree it tastes pretty odd, I sort of got to like it for what it is after the first can I drank.
I do remember having pretty bad heartburn after drinking it, but I was never really sure it was anything specific to Vanilla Coke. I get that every so often with regular Coca Cola, or other cola drinks. Usually, it's a sign that I need to stop drinking them for a little while.
I suspect the biggest problem is their acidity. Coke is known for being especially acidic. (Some folks may recall that old experiment where you drop a small piece of wood in a glass of Coke and let it sit for a day or two. Eventually, it's just about completely dissolved!)
On item #2 there in your list of mistakes, I'd venture to say that honestly - you're better off in the position your in.
The people complaining "I don't know how to do that!" who get sent off to training are still going to come back with less usable knowledge than you have by figuring it out, hands-on.
What I've started figuring out is that training is of relatively little value unless it earns you some type of certification upon its completion. Certifications help get you future jobs. The other stuff doesn't. I've been to all sorts of training on everything from MS Exchange Server to Dynamic HTML development - and without certs. from any of it, people don't seem to really care.
I doubt the people getting shipped off to training classes in response to the "I can't do it!" exclamations are earning certifications.
I know you got modded up as "funny", but you don't know how true that is!
I spent a *lot* of time doing Google searches to research problems with our PCs. I also spent quite a bit of time doing those "sucks" searches to find out if a new product was a potential dud.
Not everyone who posts a complaint with their new scanner or motherboard explains it in a very technical manner, after all.
Yeah, it really just depends on the individuals - but the "geeks training geeks" thing brings one colorful memory to mind.
We had some reps from HP come in to give us some crash-course training on their OpenView and Manage-X products. The two guys they sent were obviously quite knowledgable on the products -- but their presentation and public speaking skills were, well, lacking.
One of the guys said "ummm" and "the, uh, " so many times, I stopped listening to what he was trying to teach and started counting each "umm" and "uh" instead.
Actually, my previous employer did something rather innovative in this regard. (Shocking, in fact, considering their relative lack of innovative business practices.)
After having poor results conducting "management training" courses using outside firms, they let one of the women from H.R. start doing in-house training. She had a previous background in conducting training classes, so it worked out really well. She became the de-facto "corporate trainer". After employees reported satisfaction with her classes - was eventually given pretty much free reign to conduct her classes however she wished.
Nowdays, every employee eventually goes through her classes, which are held once a month for about 10 months, at which time the participants "graduate". It's no longer called "management training", but rather, "employee development".
As for technical/PC related training - that's another story. I really had no say-so in what training I received, other than suggesting courses that interested me to my boss, who could approve or deny them. (Basically, if it allowed us to earn a certification, we couldn't go. I think they had a mentality that if we got certified, we'd run off to someone with better pay and benefits.)
I'm not even so concerned with "CD quality" not being good enough. I think it's plenty good enough for me. I know they have newer, improved fornats like DVD-Audio out there now, but they don't particularly interest me. I don't own multi-thousand dollar speakers or even an extremely expensive home stereo receiver, so I doubt it'll be that dramatic an improvement to my ears.
What I *would* like to see, though, is MP3s encoded at 256 bits, or at the very least, 192 bits. These are in very short supply on the free p2p networks, as 99% of people think "128-bit is good enough for me", and seem to value saving a little disk space over the improved quality. I can almost always tell a definite sound quality differnce between 128 bit and 192 bit + encoding. The 128-bit stuff just sounds "dull" or "lifeless" by comparison. You wouldn't necessarily even realize what you were missing if you didn't compare the same song, side-by-side, at both encoding rates -- but once you do, you'll never want 128-bit MP3s again.
Honestly, I think the part many are missing is the fact that most people still need their music to reside on a physical piece of CD media before they can enjoy listening to it.
This is the real reason behind your statement (and consequently your logic) that you'll opt to go "buy a CD" instead of download a file.
There's an entire infrastructure built around the public listening to their music on compact discs - and no p2p network can change that fact.
The recording industry needs to address this before they begin trying to make money on downloaded MP3 songs!
As I've said many times before, a really good alternative for them would be building computerized kiosks that let the customer burn his/her own selection of songs onto a high-quality CD - and pay for it by the song. (Probably by taking a resultant printed receipt up to the counter/checkout lane with the shiny new disc)
This would eliminate the issue of requiring huge amounts of physical store space to display all the music. (Instead, they might have a tradeoff of a little bit of "back room" space taken up with a server containing all the digital data that makes up the music collection, and some boxes of blank media to reload the kiosk with when it runs out.)
I would think most retails stores would absolutely love this idea, as would consumers who can finally buy their own "custom mix" CDs - instead of paying for songs they don't like/want, just to get a few that they do. By tallying up exactly which songs sell best, the recording industry gets much more accurate feedback of what's "hot" and what's "not", too.
Selling downloaded MP3 music has only very limited appeal in a world where many people don't even own the tools required to move the songs onto media playable in their car/home stereo. (The rest of us do, but we don't always appreciate taking all the time/effort out to do so.)
IMHO, you're nitpicking a bit. I do understand your point - but you're taking "proprietary" quite literally. On the other hand, in the world of computers, people typically use "proprietary" to designate the fact that the hardware is developed by a single vendor, using standards they invented themselves.
The Apple computers have always fit this definition, to one extent or another. (As I said, though, this is changing in some ways. You no longer see much happening with, say, the NuBus slot.) I still can't just buy an Apple Cinema display and slap it on my PC and expect it to work properly, though.
As for network protocols, simply publishing the details of how it works doesn't make it a defacto "standard". Appletalk might be completely and openly documented - but it will always be considered more "proprietary" than TCP/IP, just as Novell's IPX or Microsoft's Netbeui protocols are. Appletalk wasn't developed by a vendor-neutral committee - for one thing.
Heh, don't fool yourself! That "telemarketing opt-out law" is really there only to benefit the state, not the consumer!
I live in St. Louis, Missouri and recently got a "newsletter" with information on the succes of the no-call list. Basically, every time you get harassed and go to the trouble to fill out a 2 page long report about it, you get nothing. Not even confirmation that something was done about the problem. Missouri, however, sues for large sums of money, all of which they pocket afterwards. Despite their whole case being based on your written testimony, you receive no compensation.
In most cases, you don't even get your immediate problem resolved. Missouri doesn't go after every single business that calls you after you're on their "no call" list. They only chase after the easiest targets; the repeat offenders that generate hundreds of complaints from different residents. They love to brag about slapping "Miss Cleo" with a fine for her telemarketing calls trying to sell you on the "Psychic Hotline" -- but her fine was peanuts compared to what she rakes in on those 900 numbers. She probably still came out ahead on her telemarketing campaign after paying Missouri their fines.
As for closing those "remaining loopholes", if they don't - they have a completely bogus law in place, IMHO. Right now, those loopholes make the "no call list" practically worthless. Currently, it says anyone is allowed to solicit you if they're someone you've done previous business with. That means you can get calls offering you credit cards and loans all day long, if you ever opened a checking account with a large bank. Ever get your carpets cleaned with a firm like Stanley Steemer? Too bad then... can't stop them from telemarketing you randomly. It also exempts charities from calling you. I get countless calls from those places soliticing funds for the "retired firefighters" or "retired police officers", and I can't do a thing to stop it.
Despite all the jokes on here about it, I think it has applications in 3rd. world countries where reliable electrical power isn't a given.
In countries like the United States, every hospital has backup power generators, uninterrupted power supplies, and so forth -- on top of being connected to a pretty reliable power grid. I can't see someone choosing sunlight over an electrically powered laser beam for surgery. The greater initial expense of the laser is quickly offset by money lost on surgeries that couldn't be performed due to weather conditions.
In a relatively undeveloped country, however, this might make a lot of sense! It could give new options to doctors who simply couldn't count on a laser-based setup to function reliably, or couldn't afford it to begin with.
Well actually, I was referring to the Apple hardware itself - more than anything else.
Sure, they have USB now - so that opens up a few more expansion options than before. Still, you have to always use the "Apple approved" hardware, which is quite a limited selection compared to the options available for a PC.
For just one example, look at all the answering machine/voice mailbox type cards for a PC. Now, tell me how many of them you see for a Mac platform? How about TV/radio add-on boards? How about industrial control boards?
Seriously, I really do believe that the age of the user is about the only relatively "constant" factor when it comes to willingness to adapt/change with a new OS/software.
The idea that "Mac users are inflexible." is just as silly as saying "Linux users are inflexible." or "Windows users are inflexible." In any of these cases, some are and some aren't.
Having done nearly 10 years of PC support now - I can assure you that the older PC users, almost without exception, have been the ones most afraid of changes. They come from a world before the personal computer. The devices they used to get tasks done rarely changed much. (EG. They might have gone from a manual to an electric typewriter over the years, but they still worked almost the same way. The changes were very incremental and rather logical, such as the evolution of correction tape and finally correction fluid to fix typing errors.)
Then the computer came along, and threw them a BIG learning curve. Just when they struggled through that and mastered using their mouse, computer keyboard with function keys and all, and a few popular applications - people want to go and change the entire look and feel of everything! Younger folks grew up with the idea that computers are sort of "empty slates, waiting to get painted with whatever strikes the developer's fancy". Interface changes are treated like interior decorating... You do it once in a while just for the sake of freshening up the look of things. Believe me, the older users don't share that belief!
Amen! After using nothing but PCs ever since I bought one of the early 286's on the market, I finally decided it was time to see what all the hype was about - and bought a PowerMac. I kept it for about 6 months before selling the whole system. While there were many admirable traits to the "Mac way" of doing things, the expense and limited choices were infuriating.
Now that the latest offerings in the Mac world are upon all of us (iMac, Titanium Powerbook, OSX, etc.) - I thought it was time to take one more look. Nope, pretty new "candy coating" but same old proprietary, over-hyped core.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to slam the Mac. Maybe I'm coming across a bit too harsh. OSX is a vast improvement over anything they offered in the past, and I really like what they did with the Powerbooks. (I still can't get used to the look of the iMacs though.... It just looks too much like a kid's toy, or a engineer that tried way too hard to make the thing look futuristic. My computer doesn't need to look like a prop for a low-budget Jetsons movie.)
As the author said, above, the Mac dumbs a lot of things down so the "average user" can easily get around in it. That's fine, except I want to be rewarded for my years of effort at becoming more than just another "average user". The Mac just isn't that flexible in that regard. Sometimes, it even feels like a big contradiction. (AKA. You install a high-end, powerful application. Then you have this program that lets you dig in *really* deep and work at a low level with things... but the OS itself doesn't get nearly as complex. It doesn't even feel like the app belongs on that platform!)