I think it's more varied than you make it out to be... My own experience with my girl friends kids (1 boy & 1 girl neither of which is mine because I spent 6 years being her friend because I'm a dumbass and couldn't tell her how I felt about her) are that Ema will play with anything Alex does (though not always vice versa) and ahs at least as much interest in blocks, race tracks, cars, etc as her brother... Then again Alex hardly plays with legos, he'd much rather go outside and play (and so would Ema really).
I really think it's far more varied than you make it out to be... And the enviroment the kids live in does tend to unbalance things... Alex for instance knows that 'boys play with action figures & that girls play with dolls', but he didn't learn it from his parents (well I'm not to sure about his dad even though I've known his dad longer, I'm not around them very often). It's a concept reinforced by his peers, a boy playing with dolls would be ostrisized from the rest of the group. It takes effort on the part of the kid to defy the role that is pushed on them.
While I know my experience doesn't correspond with the perception of education, I do happen to be the IT person for a school and I feel compelled to say this:
90% of the teachers (and by teachers I'm including special education, language, and others that aren't just say... a '3rd grade teacher' or a '6th grade math teacher') where I work have a masters degree. I don't know about you, but I would tend to think that implies a certain amount of intelligence and skill in their chosen field. Their pay however is mandated by funds... Basically the board of directors takes the costs out of the budget that are fixed or nearly fixed (utilities, maintenance, etc) then split the remaining funds by the number of teachers and apply the rules from the union to the amounts they get... presto! Teacher salaries. In case your wodnering I'm basically written in as a 'maintenance' cost...
Now these people in general have issues understanding technology (it's not their forte), but that's why they have me... But when it comes to educating or managing a class full of kids I'll defer to them any time...
Now as far as pay goes... Well I had a female teacher during college that had a variety of jobs before coming to work at the college (and btw she was never previously a teacher of any sort, in fact her education is in business) and would be the first to tell you that women get paid less at any given profession for 2 reasons: 1) They are assumed to have a husband or boyfriend to offset the lose in wages they recieve (aka they expect the woman to have a second source of income and not need to be the 'bread-winner') 2) They expect less work from a woman due to family matters (having kids, caring for kids, etc) then men. Men basically aren't going to be excused as easily when family issues come up, but women will be and this directly effects their pay.
She always made less than a man at the same job and in fact hired otehr women on the same assumptions used to pay her less... The funny part to me is that she knows the first issue wasn't often true in her case as she's a widow and a divorcee. However that is the 'thought' in business that effects pay between the sexes...
Yo bitch. The teasting is _State Mandated_ it's not going anywhere whether you or I like it (the state couldn't care less except to pull our ability to teach if we failed to uphold their requirements), I said that in my last post... Now stop calling me an asshole and live with the fact that for alot of schools their is no other option than having PC's and usign them on the internet whatever the risks are for teachers!
The teacher doens't control their classroom btw, they couldn't insist on getting rid of the PC's in their rooms. Outside PC's aren't allowed and they have zero control over internal machines (they aren't even power users to the machines they use). They are free to leave, but frankly I see alot of people locally who would love to have their jobs so it's live with the liability or hope you can function in another field... Btw I happen to know that, at least at my school, 50% of the teachers have masters degrees in education, these are people who are serious about teaching. Yet still they couldnt' figure out what to do with software unless they are hand-held through how to use it and adapt (to that version), they are as much to blame for why we don't (and can't) run linux as the administration... & these are smart people!
Btw they have anti-spyware/anti-malware apps sittign on their desktops where I work... We have a tight firewall that dissallows executable files (which they bitch about constantly)... They have no one to blame if this happened to them, except themselves... & I know this isn't true everywhere, but it is true at a number of schools...
Ah I wish... Actually this job is fairly new for me (less than a year) and really I consider it a lucky match most of the time... In my area IT has no openings and a dozen applicants per job when even low pay jobs open up... My girlfriend isn't goign to move (well unless it's maybe to florida, but then only because her brother lives there), so moving isn't an option...
Your extremely lucky. I answer directly to the principal, and two ciriculum directors. Any decision about software must go through them. None of them will allow a switch to firefox, let alone another OS. Even if they did the teacher would be sure to bug me for weeks about how the program wasn't 'working right', they do with anything new...
On top of that is the problem of low amounts of ram in all the computers at the school because their local vendor that I'm forced to use doesn't understand how much ram is appropriate for a PC. Older systems (1.8 Ghz Celeron's btw) have 32 MB of ram, newer systems have 128 MB (and they run XP and were bought a year ago). None of these systems has an easy time running anything and the vendor refuses to believe these systems need more ram to work correctly... The server has a whopping 1 GB and that is only because the previous admin thought they had a memory issue on it...
Can't do without them. Part of the state mandated testing is via the internet on a PC. Kids must be able to use the PC's before these tests come around and the tests needing online access through a PC are first seen in third grade.
Sucks to be a teacher (I guess), but the machines will stay. I don't even blame the IT staff (if the school actually had dedicated IT staff) as I know from my experience I'm one person supporting 260 PC's at the school I'm the netowrk admin for. It can take time to actually get to real problems because of all the user errors that are seen as the PC's not working...
Btw schools tend to have one of three types of IT setups:
Dedicated Staff, Normally one though sometimes a couple people to deal with all technology issues. This is what mine has.
Teacher as IT, This type normally has a single teacher who is knowlegable about PC's that acts as a teacher and a IT person. My high school did this.
IT by consultation, This type have no IT staff and instead contract out support to a third party because having someone on staff is seen as to expensive... Schools of this type are extremely reluctant to call on the consultants as this normally means fairly hefty bills for them. I've seen alot of public schools end up like this when they can't find a teacher who can fill in for IT staff.
Besides dedicated staff the options are a joke... It's hard enough with one dedicated person, I pitty the other types...
Not really... In alot of places actually following the intent of the grandparent post isn't going to work.... Especially in a school... If you really want I'll start listing out reasons, but I've personally tried to introduce linux (no Apple hardware so OS X isn't a choice and they are not goign to spend the money to buy apple hardware) into the school I admin... The faculty and staff resist any and all changes... Heck they barely understand the system as is... Windows is just a fact of life in most elementary, middle school, and high school settings right now...
I don't think you understand how many educational applicatiosn geared for that segment require internet access to function... Removing internet access from classrooms would remove valuable tools from the hands of teachers... Also their are even more applications that require network access (data must sit on a local server), so this becomes a logistical issue when you need network access, but not internet access... I can make it happen, but it is far more involved than otherwise and I'll have to sit and listen to teachers and administrators bitch about lack of access to 'basic' internet functions from classrooms... It just doesn't make much sense to do unless I'm required to do it...
It's far far easier to simply include tools on each PC to get rid of crud and attempt to keep the PC's clean...
Actually most minimum security facilities (which is where she would end up) are nicer then alot of inner city homes. Cable and/or Sat TV with all the extras, workout rooms, good food (compared to what some people end up having to eat), a clean place to sleep, a library (in case you ahve an interest in books), heating and A/C...
I work for a charter school in an inner city and the kids (well the older ones anyway) want to live in jail! Why? Because inmates have a better life in jail than most of the people those kids know outside of jail... The 'popular' view of US jails is more a view of maximum security facilities and often several decades out of date...
As is it's always pissed em off that inmates often live better in many ways than I do, yet I'm paying for them to be their and have those luxuries...
I've see tons of jobs locally that are for $8/hr... In fact one place I applied to tried to pay me Around that for a associate network administrator position. That's an IT job within their group only one spot below the top of their IT food chain... I talked them up to $24k/year (roughly $12.50/hr), but it's not what they wanted to pay me... I nearly laughed out loud when they told me they wanted to pay me $8/hr...
Global variables that must be determined before any other code is written is how COBOL works... See their is this section called 'declarations' or 'declaration' it's been almsot 7 years since I last touched it so forgive my vagueness... Every variable goes in this section where you determine it's length and content (a field of 4 numbers is 9999, a field of 4 letters is XXXX, etc). This section goes before just about everything else. If I remember correctly only program comments can come before it in the order of priority in coding.
If it isn't declared with length and type data it can't be used.... However I have heard of certain COBOL compilers that supported some limited 'local' variables... I've never seen one though...
Uhh... CICS... please don't remind me of it... CICS was the last straw that made me decide networking was for me programming was not... The fewer reminders of that nightmare the better... Heck the fewer the number of times I have to remember trying to debug 150k line COBOL apps that spill out onto 30 or 40 pages of paper (which was 'easier' to read than the IDE interfaces window on screen) the better...
As of 1999 DeVry University taught COBOL in it's CIS program... I'm uncertain if they still do, but I am going to say they still do... Their program is geared toward the needs of the business community and (where I went to college in their network) that area hosts a bunch of large bank coporate headquarters and insurance company headquarters, so I figure it probably still does...
I had a manager (though not my direct supervisor) at a former place of employment that was harrassing me verbally (though not in a racial or gender sense which is all the company cared about), it went on for months and the other managers ignored it... One night it was constant harrassement until I got feed up and refused to answer his calls to my extension, so he came to visit me in person and then refused to leave me alone... So I got feed up, and while I managed to control my tongue, my hand betrayed me & I gave him the finger... This had to go up to corporate and since the other managers were on his side I had to reduce my typed (2 page) recounting of events down to 1 paragraph describing my side of the story while another manager watched, even more I was given 15 minutes to write my response and the manager watching had to sign off on it... He wouldn't if I reffered to anythign beyond the events of that night, so I had to leave off on months worth of harrassement as well as cuttign the story down to a single paragraph... Needless to say my whole paragraph was worthless to corporate and they let me go as 'being disrespectful to a manager'.
I also got screwed out of getting paid for the 2 weeks I had to wait while they decided my fate, which they swore they would pay for... & didn't... While I could have sued them over the money at least, I decided to write it off as not worth my time... The same went for gettign the other managers in trouble for making me condense my version of events and the time table I was given to do it in... The state btw agreed that they fired me for 'unsupported reasons' and I got unemployment because of it...
Needless to say I don't really care for them much and prefer to avoid them at almost all costs...
Yeah I know you were being funny, and in some ways it's actually true (hence 'Live CD's)... But in alot of ways Linux does have a long ways to go... Especially in small business...
I suggest linux alot to clients when it is suitable, but for the stupid user who wants their PC to 'Just work' windows is often a better bet still. Why? Because that's the type who will go to the store, buy random software without being able to understand if he can run it or not, and expects it to work... I have clients who are that type... If they went to the store, bought software, and then it didn't work on their PC I'd be getting calls at wierd hours... At least one tends to do business on said PC until like 11 PM at night, so he'd most likely install it then... Trust me I don't want called at 11 PM while I'm sleeping because someone couldn't install 'X software app', the guys wife (and his business partner) still refuses to use firefox even though said PC got screwed royally (via Malware) when IE was their only web browesr. For those people Linux is the worst possible solution... I had to pratically beat him over the head to get him to stop using old versions of netscape or IE6 and switch to firefox when he had managed to get 6000 pieces of malware in 3 days (I'm thinking he was going for a world record)... He kept telling me "I don't liek how it does things, so I don't want to use it!" In the end I told him "Look it's not all that different, but I'm tired of fixing your PC every 3-5 days... Use firefox as I set it up for you, or fix it yourself!" That finally got the point home... He's stubborn as a mule at times, but if things 'work' then he can normally be talked into it... But something so vastly different as Linux? I'd shoot myself having to support him under linux... I can see it now with calls every 5 minutes because he can't do 'X' or doesn't know how to do 'X', he's used to windows and msotly accepts it's quirks when things don't work as he expects... But asking him to change is silly and futile...
The other issue is what happens when I stop doing consulting or I move away from the area? If those clients are running Linux who is going to support them? I don't know any other consulting groups or individuals that deal with Linux locally except me... Their isn't a LUG group around either (I'm not about to start one either, I already have enough side occupations). I'd leave them all hoping they could figure out things over internet forums... But a small business owner doesn't want to spend hours on forums hoping to solve their problems, they need to be running their business...
Um personally my clients come to me for solutions, they don't hand me parts and say "Make it work'. Maybe you have clients like that, but I'll flat out tell a client it won't work if it won't work. My clients appreciate that from me. I have had clients say 'This is what I already have, will this work?' and I have to give them a 'yeah' or a 'nay'.
In this case (& figuring they said 'Here is what you have to work with') I'd have given them a giant 'Nay', and then explained why: "Your HP's don't include real OS disks making a drive change impossible without a new OS disk. You could keep the existing disk and add a controller while continuing to run the OS from the existing disk or We can pull the old drive, install the new RAID array, use a newly purchased OS disk (prefferably with Server 2k3, which I'd hope they were running upstream in this extension of their network), and we'll void HP's warranty. However we could simply use a NAS setup and save ourselves alot of trouble in general on the storage end." Just a quick overview, but pretty much what I'd start with.
If, as the article suggests, he failed to do so... I'm quite willing to call him a moron all over again. I've delt with law firms, stores, and even a charter school (the last one I worked for). In all cases I would have said the same thing. If the client refused to listen, I'd tell them to find someone else stupid enough to do something that isn't going to happen the way the want it to. I've never had a client stay dumb in the face of proof it doesn't work by someone who would know it doesn't... At least not yet, maybe big business is a tad different since I hear enough IT horror stories about huge deals that can never be finished...
Ok who else doesn't believe the line: "It started out quite simply, a client needed to set up a small branch office, something I do almost every week.", from the article?
I have been a consultant (my own business) working exclsuively with small bussiness for quite some time & before I ever started doign that I'd have told him he was a frickin' moron. HP doesn't support other hardware on their _restore_ CD's, well friggin' DUH! Hey moron how can you not know this if you 'a client needed to set up a small branch office, something I do almost every week'. If you had you'd know this already and wouldn't have screwed with the HP disks at all & would know you need a real OS disk.
After that you blame Promise's CD... Yet lots of vendors do that... Hell lots of motherboard vendors do that! It's why I have a LS120 drive I use that is never installed in systems, but lets me get stuff loaded at that fun part of the install where I have to have a 'floppy type device' to load anything...
Really two things come to mind that sum up the solution to his whole problem: Either convince HP to customize a machine to your needs (and keep their support which you btw killed when modifying their box anyways and is the only real reason to buy from a OEM vendor anyways) or Build the darn box yourself so you can customize it as you want with a real OS CD! Problem solved.
It may be nice Linux 'solved' your problem, but your problem was caused by you for not already knowing what you were walking into.
Having (once upon a time) worked for a retail chain, I can tell you what they told us: We have no rights what so ever to stop anyone for any reason trying to leave the store. Capturing criminals is the job of police not store employees. We could be 'overly helpful' (aka stiking to them the entire time they are in the store like glue) and if we know someone stole something we could get license plate numbers and such... But that was it.
Now this was in Pennsylvania, so your millage may vary... I also worked retail in Ohio and it was different there (security, though not management, could 'hold' people until the police arrived). However their apparently had been several cases that caused PA to ban the practice of stopping shoplifters so any stores with sense informed employees they would lose their job if they tried to physically stop thieves.
Having been in Columbus (for colelge) during 2000 I can tell you that 'cow towns' isn't really appropriate... Columbus is a huge sprawl where you can't tell if you are in the 'suburb' or 'city' and Columbus tends to eat it's suburbs... Back when I was there Reynoldsburg (a suburb of Columbus) was complaining about the city taking multiple blocks from it as part of said expansion...
Having been in both large cities I can say I'd be hard pressed to say which is truly 'larger'...
As a (local level) admin for a charter school, my experience has been a stone wall on non-windows/non-MS apps in several cases...
Administration requires MS Office (any alteration causes them to not understand how it works, I tried a test of Open Office and they all hated it), MMS (which as far as I can tell won't work in emulation for wierd reasons), They insist on Photoshop (LE since we won't pay for the full versions), Exchange/Outlook, and AD (which I don't think I need to go into). They outright refuse alternatives...
Teachers (especially the librarian who I'm including under teachers as she 'teaches' classes) Insist on a wide range of apps which all run under windows and may or may not work and would all have to be tried out first...
On top of that is a school board that has it's own ideas about 'state of the art' and what is required to be considered that... For instance they tried a wireless rollout with no idea how to test for reception... And the building is largely concrete block in all the supporting structures (90% of the building) cutting signals beyond a single room... Then they complained their six or so access points weren't working to cover the building... The other local admin fears ever seeing wireless again and refuses to work with it... Even with a cost savings at some level I would find it hard to push OSS or *nix of any sort because it would have to match their ideal of 'cutting edge'...
It's not all that simple by any stretch... I'd love to have the main lab dual boot win XP/Linux and maybe even totur some of the best kids in how to use it myself...
Sidenote: 'cutting edge' by the board also means 'legacy systems' as the PC's are bought on a 'when money is available to purchase them' basis... Meaning I have everything from 700 Mhz Celerons with a whole 64 MB of RAM to P4 Celeron 2.67 Ghz systems with 256 MB... And our board's vendor of choice is a local company that keeps telling them they don't need much RAM... I'd love to standardize that to some sane level for working with windows...
These roads are all long stretches (20 odd miles) and flow isn't really an issue... There is a constant flow of traffic both directions on these roads which rarely has pauses of more than 30 seconds (people turning off cross-traffic). They consist of (often) long stretches of open flat road that lasts 7 or more miles, with mostly hills as interruptions (PA is filled with hills) to the eveness of the roads.
Even if someone tried to use the excuse that there is no point in changing the speed limit in those 7 mile stretches, you'd run into the fact that their are at least 3 speed limit signs restating the low speed limits in those areas... If they have signs already why can't they change those sections...? And the answer comes back to my first point... Governments don't want to change the speed limits on most roads. It has nothing to do with road conditions. It has nothing to do with traffic flow. It's purely a matter of potential income for the state or (more often) local governments.
'Low traffic' roads doesn't really apply to alot of the ones I'm thinking of... To start with are three major roads that lead from the outlying towns to the largest city in the region... None are interstates, but they are major highways with easily 50,000 cars a day driving on them... Each passes through farmland situated between the outlying towns and the main city so pedestrians are hard to imagine... The worst 'ahrd to see' obstacles along any of those three is one section of road that passes alongside a stretch of wetlands which can overrun... And has giant warning signs about the possibility... The roads are upgraded and expanded (as much as they can be since people own land on either side fo the road) every 3 years to deal with an ever increasing flow of traffic... Yet the speeds haven't changed sicne I was born and in fact my parents remember them being like that from when they were teenagers... The roads have been enhanced alot in the last 40 odd years... I don't see why the speed limit should still be the same...
Well the stretch I'm reffering to is part of one of three major highways into the nearest big city... Probably 20,000+ cars a day (easily) drive that road... Yet it's 45 mph... It's hardly a residential area unless your worried about hitting cows either... It's all farmland til you get awfully close to the city which is still a good 12 miles away...
So it can neither be forgotten, considered residential, or otherwise be subject to limitation... It's been the same since I was born at the very least... Police like to set speed traps there because no one in their right mind wants to do 45 on a 6 mile flat straightaway without even hills along it...
I understand practical uses for SUV's, though I've always felt jeeps (and other 'small SUV's of the type) and pickups made more sense in genral than SUV's... I would tend to go even a step further and change the criteria we use to judge 'speed limits' besides using arbitrary and useless generic figures... How about speed limit signs with 'frequent high crosswinds' or curve speed limit signs that say '40 mph, sharp turn full sized vehicles use extra caution'.
On the other hand I've seen alot of cases where 'studded winter tires and enough weight over the rear axle, I can safely drive faster on ice than most other vehicles' has proved vastly wrong... My car gets around better than most SUV's with studded snow tires and I don't even have snow tires of any sort on my car (they are all-season types, though new each year because I drive so much they wear out), but then my car is wide with a low center of gravity and weighs enough to give it good traction on the front and rear without having to weight it... Of course most people don't pick cars for winter driving they pick SUV's instead thinking they are inherently better... And since they have no clue, they end up not being able to leverage any advantage of a SUV in winter that they couldn't have had in a car...
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I think it's more varied than you make it out to be... My own experience with my girl friends kids (1 boy & 1 girl neither of which is mine because I spent 6 years being her friend because I'm a dumbass and couldn't tell her how I felt about her) are that Ema will play with anything Alex does (though not always vice versa) and ahs at least as much interest in blocks, race tracks, cars, etc as her brother... Then again Alex hardly plays with legos, he'd much rather go outside and play (and so would Ema really).
I really think it's far more varied than you make it out to be... And the enviroment the kids live in does tend to unbalance things... Alex for instance knows that 'boys play with action figures & that girls play with dolls', but he didn't learn it from his parents (well I'm not to sure about his dad even though I've known his dad longer, I'm not around them very often). It's a concept reinforced by his peers, a boy playing with dolls would be ostrisized from the rest of the group. It takes effort on the part of the kid to defy the role that is pushed on them.
While I know my experience doesn't correspond with the perception of education, I do happen to be the IT person for a school and I feel compelled to say this:
90% of the teachers (and by teachers I'm including special education, language, and others that aren't just say... a '3rd grade teacher' or a '6th grade math teacher') where I work have a masters degree. I don't know about you, but I would tend to think that implies a certain amount of intelligence and skill in their chosen field. Their pay however is mandated by funds... Basically the board of directors takes the costs out of the budget that are fixed or nearly fixed (utilities, maintenance, etc) then split the remaining funds by the number of teachers and apply the rules from the union to the amounts they get... presto! Teacher salaries. In case your wodnering I'm basically written in as a 'maintenance' cost...
Now these people in general have issues understanding technology (it's not their forte), but that's why they have me... But when it comes to educating or managing a class full of kids I'll defer to them any time...
Now as far as pay goes... Well I had a female teacher during college that had a variety of jobs before coming to work at the college (and btw she was never previously a teacher of any sort, in fact her education is in business) and would be the first to tell you that women get paid less at any given profession for 2 reasons: 1) They are assumed to have a husband or boyfriend to offset the lose in wages they recieve (aka they expect the woman to have a second source of income and not need to be the 'bread-winner') 2) They expect less work from a woman due to family matters (having kids, caring for kids, etc) then men. Men basically aren't going to be excused as easily when family issues come up, but women will be and this directly effects their pay.
She always made less than a man at the same job and in fact hired otehr women on the same assumptions used to pay her less... The funny part to me is that she knows the first issue wasn't often true in her case as she's a widow and a divorcee. However that is the 'thought' in business that effects pay between the sexes...
Yo bitch. The teasting is _State Mandated_ it's not going anywhere whether you or I like it (the state couldn't care less except to pull our ability to teach if we failed to uphold their requirements), I said that in my last post... Now stop calling me an asshole and live with the fact that for alot of schools their is no other option than having PC's and usign them on the internet whatever the risks are for teachers!
The teacher doens't control their classroom btw, they couldn't insist on getting rid of the PC's in their rooms. Outside PC's aren't allowed and they have zero control over internal machines (they aren't even power users to the machines they use). They are free to leave, but frankly I see alot of people locally who would love to have their jobs so it's live with the liability or hope you can function in another field... Btw I happen to know that, at least at my school, 50% of the teachers have masters degrees in education, these are people who are serious about teaching. Yet still they couldnt' figure out what to do with software unless they are hand-held through how to use it and adapt (to that version), they are as much to blame for why we don't (and can't) run linux as the administration... & these are smart people!
Btw they have anti-spyware/anti-malware apps sittign on their desktops where I work... We have a tight firewall that dissallows executable files (which they bitch about constantly)... They have no one to blame if this happened to them, except themselves... & I know this isn't true everywhere, but it is true at a number of schools...
Ah I wish... Actually this job is fairly new for me (less than a year) and really I consider it a lucky match most of the time... In my area IT has no openings and a dozen applicants per job when even low pay jobs open up... My girlfriend isn't goign to move (well unless it's maybe to florida, but then only because her brother lives there), so moving isn't an option...
Your extremely lucky. I answer directly to the principal, and two ciriculum directors. Any decision about software must go through them. None of them will allow a switch to firefox, let alone another OS. Even if they did the teacher would be sure to bug me for weeks about how the program wasn't 'working right', they do with anything new...
On top of that is the problem of low amounts of ram in all the computers at the school because their local vendor that I'm forced to use doesn't understand how much ram is appropriate for a PC. Older systems (1.8 Ghz Celeron's btw) have 32 MB of ram, newer systems have 128 MB (and they run XP and were bought a year ago). None of these systems has an easy time running anything and the vendor refuses to believe these systems need more ram to work correctly... The server has a whopping 1 GB and that is only because the previous admin thought they had a memory issue on it...
Can't do without them. Part of the state mandated testing is via the internet on a PC. Kids must be able to use the PC's before these tests come around and the tests needing online access through a PC are first seen in third grade.
Sucks to be a teacher (I guess), but the machines will stay. I don't even blame the IT staff (if the school actually had dedicated IT staff) as I know from my experience I'm one person supporting 260 PC's at the school I'm the netowrk admin for. It can take time to actually get to real problems because of all the user errors that are seen as the PC's not working...
Btw schools tend to have one of three types of IT setups:
Dedicated Staff, Normally one though sometimes a couple people to deal with all technology issues. This is what mine has.
Teacher as IT, This type normally has a single teacher who is knowlegable about PC's that acts as a teacher and a IT person. My high school did this.
IT by consultation, This type have no IT staff and instead contract out support to a third party because having someone on staff is seen as to expensive... Schools of this type are extremely reluctant to call on the consultants as this normally means fairly hefty bills for them. I've seen alot of public schools end up like this when they can't find a teacher who can fill in for IT staff.
Besides dedicated staff the options are a joke... It's hard enough with one dedicated person, I pitty the other types...
Not really... In alot of places actually following the intent of the grandparent post isn't going to work.... Especially in a school... If you really want I'll start listing out reasons, but I've personally tried to introduce linux (no Apple hardware so OS X isn't a choice and they are not goign to spend the money to buy apple hardware) into the school I admin... The faculty and staff resist any and all changes... Heck they barely understand the system as is... Windows is just a fact of life in most elementary, middle school, and high school settings right now...
I don't think you understand how many educational applicatiosn geared for that segment require internet access to function... Removing internet access from classrooms would remove valuable tools from the hands of teachers... Also their are even more applications that require network access (data must sit on a local server), so this becomes a logistical issue when you need network access, but not internet access... I can make it happen, but it is far more involved than otherwise and I'll have to sit and listen to teachers and administrators bitch about lack of access to 'basic' internet functions from classrooms... It just doesn't make much sense to do unless I'm required to do it...
It's far far easier to simply include tools on each PC to get rid of crud and attempt to keep the PC's clean...
Actually most minimum security facilities (which is where she would end up) are nicer then alot of inner city homes. Cable and/or Sat TV with all the extras, workout rooms, good food (compared to what some people end up having to eat), a clean place to sleep, a library (in case you ahve an interest in books), heating and A/C...
I work for a charter school in an inner city and the kids (well the older ones anyway) want to live in jail! Why? Because inmates have a better life in jail than most of the people those kids know outside of jail... The 'popular' view of US jails is more a view of maximum security facilities and often several decades out of date...
As is it's always pissed em off that inmates often live better in many ways than I do, yet I'm paying for them to be their and have those luxuries...
I've see tons of jobs locally that are for $8/hr... In fact one place I applied to tried to pay me Around that for a associate network administrator position. That's an IT job within their group only one spot below the top of their IT food chain... I talked them up to $24k/year (roughly $12.50/hr), but it's not what they wanted to pay me... I nearly laughed out loud when they told me they wanted to pay me $8/hr...
Global variables that must be determined before any other code is written is how COBOL works... See their is this section called 'declarations' or 'declaration' it's been almsot 7 years since I last touched it so forgive my vagueness... Every variable goes in this section where you determine it's length and content (a field of 4 numbers is 9999, a field of 4 letters is XXXX, etc). This section goes before just about everything else. If I remember correctly only program comments can come before it in the order of priority in coding.
If it isn't declared with length and type data it can't be used.... However I have heard of certain COBOL compilers that supported some limited 'local' variables... I've never seen one though...
Uhh... CICS... please don't remind me of it... CICS was the last straw that made me decide networking was for me programming was not... The fewer reminders of that nightmare the better... Heck the fewer the number of times I have to remember trying to debug 150k line COBOL apps that spill out onto 30 or 40 pages of paper (which was 'easier' to read than the IDE interfaces window on screen) the better...
As of 1999 DeVry University taught COBOL in it's CIS program... I'm uncertain if they still do, but I am going to say they still do... Their program is geared toward the needs of the business community and (where I went to college in their network) that area hosts a bunch of large bank coporate headquarters and insurance company headquarters, so I figure it probably still does...
I had a manager (though not my direct supervisor) at a former place of employment that was harrassing me verbally (though not in a racial or gender sense which is all the company cared about), it went on for months and the other managers ignored it... One night it was constant harrassement until I got feed up and refused to answer his calls to my extension, so he came to visit me in person and then refused to leave me alone... So I got feed up, and while I managed to control my tongue, my hand betrayed me & I gave him the finger... This had to go up to corporate and since the other managers were on his side I had to reduce my typed (2 page) recounting of events down to 1 paragraph describing my side of the story while another manager watched, even more I was given 15 minutes to write my response and the manager watching had to sign off on it... He wouldn't if I reffered to anythign beyond the events of that night, so I had to leave off on months worth of harrassement as well as cuttign the story down to a single paragraph... Needless to say my whole paragraph was worthless to corporate and they let me go as 'being disrespectful to a manager'.
I also got screwed out of getting paid for the 2 weeks I had to wait while they decided my fate, which they swore they would pay for... & didn't... While I could have sued them over the money at least, I decided to write it off as not worth my time... The same went for gettign the other managers in trouble for making me condense my version of events and the time table I was given to do it in... The state btw agreed that they fired me for 'unsupported reasons' and I got unemployment because of it...
Needless to say I don't really care for them much and prefer to avoid them at almost all costs...
Yeah I know you were being funny, and in some ways it's actually true (hence 'Live CD's)... But in alot of ways Linux does have a long ways to go... Especially in small business...
I suggest linux alot to clients when it is suitable, but for the stupid user who wants their PC to 'Just work' windows is often a better bet still. Why? Because that's the type who will go to the store, buy random software without being able to understand if he can run it or not, and expects it to work... I have clients who are that type... If they went to the store, bought software, and then it didn't work on their PC I'd be getting calls at wierd hours... At least one tends to do business on said PC until like 11 PM at night, so he'd most likely install it then... Trust me I don't want called at 11 PM while I'm sleeping because someone couldn't install 'X software app', the guys wife (and his business partner) still refuses to use firefox even though said PC got screwed royally (via Malware) when IE was their only web browesr. For those people Linux is the worst possible solution... I had to pratically beat him over the head to get him to stop using old versions of netscape or IE6 and switch to firefox when he had managed to get 6000 pieces of malware in 3 days (I'm thinking he was going for a world record)... He kept telling me "I don't liek how it does things, so I don't want to use it!" In the end I told him "Look it's not all that different, but I'm tired of fixing your PC every 3-5 days... Use firefox as I set it up for you, or fix it yourself!" That finally got the point home... He's stubborn as a mule at times, but if things 'work' then he can normally be talked into it... But something so vastly different as Linux? I'd shoot myself having to support him under linux... I can see it now with calls every 5 minutes because he can't do 'X' or doesn't know how to do 'X', he's used to windows and msotly accepts it's quirks when things don't work as he expects... But asking him to change is silly and futile...
The other issue is what happens when I stop doing consulting or I move away from the area? If those clients are running Linux who is going to support them? I don't know any other consulting groups or individuals that deal with Linux locally except me... Their isn't a LUG group around either (I'm not about to start one either, I already have enough side occupations). I'd leave them all hoping they could figure out things over internet forums... But a small business owner doesn't want to spend hours on forums hoping to solve their problems, they need to be running their business...
Um personally my clients come to me for solutions, they don't hand me parts and say "Make it work'. Maybe you have clients like that, but I'll flat out tell a client it won't work if it won't work. My clients appreciate that from me. I have had clients say 'This is what I already have, will this work?' and I have to give them a 'yeah' or a 'nay'.
In this case (& figuring they said 'Here is what you have to work with') I'd have given them a giant 'Nay', and then explained why: "Your HP's don't include real OS disks making a drive change impossible without a new OS disk. You could keep the existing disk and add a controller while continuing to run the OS from the existing disk or We can pull the old drive, install the new RAID array, use a newly purchased OS disk (prefferably with Server 2k3, which I'd hope they were running upstream in this extension of their network), and we'll void HP's warranty. However we could simply use a NAS setup and save ourselves alot of trouble in general on the storage end." Just a quick overview, but pretty much what I'd start with.
If, as the article suggests, he failed to do so... I'm quite willing to call him a moron all over again. I've delt with law firms, stores, and even a charter school (the last one I worked for). In all cases I would have said the same thing. If the client refused to listen, I'd tell them to find someone else stupid enough to do something that isn't going to happen the way the want it to. I've never had a client stay dumb in the face of proof it doesn't work by someone who would know it doesn't... At least not yet, maybe big business is a tad different since I hear enough IT horror stories about huge deals that can never be finished...
Ok who else doesn't believe the line: "It started out quite simply, a client needed to set up a small branch office, something I do almost every week.", from the article?
I have been a consultant (my own business) working exclsuively with small bussiness for quite some time & before I ever started doign that I'd have told him he was a frickin' moron. HP doesn't support other hardware on their _restore_ CD's, well friggin' DUH! Hey moron how can you not know this if you 'a client needed to set up a small branch office, something I do almost every week'. If you had you'd know this already and wouldn't have screwed with the HP disks at all & would know you need a real OS disk.
After that you blame Promise's CD... Yet lots of vendors do that... Hell lots of motherboard vendors do that! It's why I have a LS120 drive I use that is never installed in systems, but lets me get stuff loaded at that fun part of the install where I have to have a 'floppy type device' to load anything...
Really two things come to mind that sum up the solution to his whole problem: Either convince HP to customize a machine to your needs (and keep their support which you btw killed when modifying their box anyways and is the only real reason to buy from a OEM vendor anyways) or Build the darn box yourself so you can customize it as you want with a real OS CD! Problem solved.
It may be nice Linux 'solved' your problem, but your problem was caused by you for not already knowing what you were walking into.
Having (once upon a time) worked for a retail chain, I can tell you what they told us: We have no rights what so ever to stop anyone for any reason trying to leave the store. Capturing criminals is the job of police not store employees. We could be 'overly helpful' (aka stiking to them the entire time they are in the store like glue) and if we know someone stole something we could get license plate numbers and such... But that was it.
Now this was in Pennsylvania, so your millage may vary... I also worked retail in Ohio and it was different there (security, though not management, could 'hold' people until the police arrived). However their apparently had been several cases that caused PA to ban the practice of stopping shoplifters so any stores with sense informed employees they would lose their job if they tried to physically stop thieves.
Having been in Columbus (for colelge) during 2000 I can tell you that 'cow towns' isn't really appropriate... Columbus is a huge sprawl where you can't tell if you are in the 'suburb' or 'city' and Columbus tends to eat it's suburbs... Back when I was there Reynoldsburg (a suburb of Columbus) was complaining about the city taking multiple blocks from it as part of said expansion...
Having been in both large cities I can say I'd be hard pressed to say which is truly 'larger'...
As a (local level) admin for a charter school, my experience has been a stone wall on non-windows/non-MS apps in several cases...
Administration requires MS Office (any alteration causes them to not understand how it works, I tried a test of Open Office and they all hated it), MMS (which as far as I can tell won't work in emulation for wierd reasons), They insist on Photoshop (LE since we won't pay for the full versions), Exchange/Outlook, and AD (which I don't think I need to go into). They outright refuse alternatives...
Teachers (especially the librarian who I'm including under teachers as she 'teaches' classes) Insist on a wide range of apps which all run under windows and may or may not work and would all have to be tried out first...
On top of that is a school board that has it's own ideas about 'state of the art' and what is required to be considered that... For instance they tried a wireless rollout with no idea how to test for reception... And the building is largely concrete block in all the supporting structures (90% of the building) cutting signals beyond a single room... Then they complained their six or so access points weren't working to cover the building... The other local admin fears ever seeing wireless again and refuses to work with it... Even with a cost savings at some level I would find it hard to push OSS or *nix of any sort because it would have to match their ideal of 'cutting edge'...
It's not all that simple by any stretch... I'd love to have the main lab dual boot win XP/Linux and maybe even totur some of the best kids in how to use it myself...
Sidenote: 'cutting edge' by the board also means 'legacy systems' as the PC's are bought on a 'when money is available to purchase them' basis... Meaning I have everything from 700 Mhz Celerons with a whole 64 MB of RAM to P4 Celeron 2.67 Ghz systems with 256 MB... And our board's vendor of choice is a local company that keeps telling them they don't need much RAM... I'd love to standardize that to some sane level for working with windows...
'Because he's little' is the simple answer... Much like ants without an army of them swarming you they are treated as nothing...
These roads are all long stretches (20 odd miles) and flow isn't really an issue... There is a constant flow of traffic both directions on these roads which rarely has pauses of more than 30 seconds (people turning off cross-traffic). They consist of (often) long stretches of open flat road that lasts 7 or more miles, with mostly hills as interruptions (PA is filled with hills) to the eveness of the roads.
Even if someone tried to use the excuse that there is no point in changing the speed limit in those 7 mile stretches, you'd run into the fact that their are at least 3 speed limit signs restating the low speed limits in those areas... If they have signs already why can't they change those sections...? And the answer comes back to my first point... Governments don't want to change the speed limits on most roads. It has nothing to do with road conditions. It has nothing to do with traffic flow. It's purely a matter of potential income for the state or (more often) local governments.
'Low traffic' roads doesn't really apply to alot of the ones I'm thinking of... To start with are three major roads that lead from the outlying towns to the largest city in the region... None are interstates, but they are major highways with easily 50,000 cars a day driving on them... Each passes through farmland situated between the outlying towns and the main city so pedestrians are hard to imagine... The worst 'ahrd to see' obstacles along any of those three is one section of road that passes alongside a stretch of wetlands which can overrun... And has giant warning signs about the possibility... The roads are upgraded and expanded (as much as they can be since people own land on either side fo the road) every 3 years to deal with an ever increasing flow of traffic... Yet the speeds haven't changed sicne I was born and in fact my parents remember them being like that from when they were teenagers... The roads have been enhanced alot in the last 40 odd years... I don't see why the speed limit should still be the same...
Well the stretch I'm reffering to is part of one of three major highways into the nearest big city... Probably 20,000+ cars a day (easily) drive that road... Yet it's 45 mph... It's hardly a residential area unless your worried about hitting cows either... It's all farmland til you get awfully close to the city which is still a good 12 miles away...
So it can neither be forgotten, considered residential, or otherwise be subject to limitation... It's been the same since I was born at the very least... Police like to set speed traps there because no one in their right mind wants to do 45 on a 6 mile flat straightaway without even hills along it...
I understand practical uses for SUV's, though I've always felt jeeps (and other 'small SUV's of the type) and pickups made more sense in genral than SUV's... I would tend to go even a step further and change the criteria we use to judge 'speed limits' besides using arbitrary and useless generic figures... How about speed limit signs with 'frequent high crosswinds' or curve speed limit signs that say '40 mph, sharp turn full sized vehicles use extra caution'.
On the other hand I've seen alot of cases where 'studded winter tires and enough weight over the rear axle, I can safely drive faster on ice than most other vehicles' has proved vastly wrong... My car gets around better than most SUV's with studded snow tires and I don't even have snow tires of any sort on my car (they are all-season types, though new each year because I drive so much they wear out), but then my car is wide with a low center of gravity and weighs enough to give it good traction on the front and rear without having to weight it... Of course most people don't pick cars for winter driving they pick SUV's instead thinking they are inherently better... And since they have no clue, they end up not being able to leverage any advantage of a SUV in winter that they couldn't have had in a car...