While I've read of them, read things by them, heard of them, etc.... I've never once in the "wild" (an actual job at an actual company) met someone with a degree that I considered to be technologically "worthy". Some were competent, but never an exceptional one.
I find this very hard to believe.. unless you have worked at some places who have made extreamly poor choices in hiring/recruiting.
I'm going to disagree with you on this. You & your situation are an exception to the rule... and I bet that nearly _any_ large corporation will not even consider someone for a sysadmin job without some sort of a formal education and experience.
He's going to have a much more difficult time finding a job without a college degree- regardless of how smart he is or how much time he spent learning Linux or *BSD at home. Furthermore, not all recent grads are bad and not all "self taught" folks are excellent.
College provides a lot of opportunities for learning and opens a lot of doors that would otherwise be closed to someone without a degree. Also, regardless of what people think, spending a few years in school really does prepare you for life in the so-called "real world"- especially if you go away to school.
You were lucky, and there are some people who are just as lucky- but I would be willing to bed that the number of unlucky ones GREATLY outnumber the lucky ones. The fact of the matter is, a college degree is worth a lot in the job market. The combination of self-taught skills with a degree will place him in in a MUCH better position when looking for a job.
You are correct. I have become pretty bored with just general surfing. I use the web quite a bit for shopping and for reference material, but I spend probably 1/2 mas much time online as I used to. For now, there are no huge compelling reasons for me to spend more time online.
The "news" sites that I used to visit quite frequently have turned more into "opinion" sites and are essentially copies of pretty much every other news site on the web. I only read a couple of sites regularly, slashdot mainly, cnn, and maccentral. that's about it
Linux and Apple are in a similar situation. Both are "niche" players in the tech industry. Neither has to "conquor" MS in order to be successful. Many so-called "pundits" claim that Apple will never survive unless they start courting the enterprise market. Many among the legions of Apple fans believe the same thing, however, they overlook the fact that Apple is an extreamly successful company within their selected niche of the tech market.
Linux does not have to conquor the desktop in order to be successful, as has been demonstrated over the past few years by the number of companies that are using it as a Server operating system. It (an I am using the word it to describe the body of developers that contribute to and maintain all of the Linux code) simply has to focus on what it's doing right- providing a good alternative to Windows & Unix servers, and to continue to improve in that market.
So use a different Instant Messaging application. AOL does not have a "monopoly" on instant messaging.. they have a monopoly on AOL Instant Messaging. Just like Apple has a monopoly on the MacOS, just like Sun has a monopoly on Solaris. It's not like the operating system monoploy that Microsoft has, however... so don't bring up that foolishness. If IM is that important to you, use Yahoo, MSN or whatever. If AIM is important to you, use AIM.
AIM is a free service that is provided by AOL. AIM users do not pay for the service, they agree to use it under AOL's tems and conditions and agree to be presented with advertising information through the AIM client window. Non-AIM clients don't show the ads that AOL uses to subsidise the cost of providing the AIM service. SO basically non-AIM clients are _stealing_ resources from AOL.
I don't really understand why anyone gets upset whenever AOL blocks a non-AIM client from using their proprietary network and resources. AOL owns the systems that power AIM and should be allowed to prevent non-AIM clients from accessing them altogether, in fact, they have every right to protect their property and to see that their resources are used according to their will.
It has nothing to do with AOL being predatory (as mentioned in the article) or "selfish" (also mentioned in the article). It has everything to do with AOL protecting the resources that it, as a corporation, owns.
HP makes a lot of scientific equiment as well, walk into any medical research lab and you'll likely see HP branded gas chromatographs, mass spectrometers and other such stuff.
I agree with you.... The first few seasons were fantastic and I watched the show religiously. There were some incredible episodes during the early years.
Then as time went on, I grew extreamly bored with the same old conspiracy plotline and the government coverup BS. It's cool to have some sort of a continuing theme that runs through the life of a program, but The X Files took that to an extreme. I stopped watching it about 3 years ago.
After my second Palm died, I decided to go PDA-less for a while. The Sonly Clie is probably the device that will win be back... mainly because of the high resolution screen. I've yet to see one in person though... my main complaint with the Palm was that it was difficult for me to read for long periods of time (ie. eBooks, PDFs and stuff).. I am hoping that the 320x320 res on the Clie is a lot better.
Would any of you care to comment/share your esperiences with the high-res Clie?
It still amazes me that people make such a big deal about market share. When will people understand that Apple does NOT have to dominate the "PC" market in order to be successful? Aparantly the answer to that question is "never". Apple is expected to report sales of well over a billion dollars for the past quarter. That's a BILLION dollars.... and they are expected to report a profit. Now, tell me that they are not successful.
Katz is right though, the majority of Americans don't care about style, or the quality of user experience. These are the same lemmings that buy SUVs because the neighbor got one.
What Jobs realizes, and what sooooo many other CEOs and "journalists" (ie Katz) do not realize is that there is a segment of the population that appreciates good design, style, and quality of user experience and is willing to pay for that. I'm one of them. I'm not an "elitist" or any of that foolishness. I simply believe that you get what you pay for... and it might cost a little extra in the beginning but a product from Apple computer is a quality piece of equipment.
As long as that does not change, I'm quite happy with it.
Apple's... (err who ever manufactures the LCD panels)... LCD's are some of the best in the industry. I've owned 4 different PowerBooks and none of them have ever had a dead pixel. I've never actually seen a dead pixel on a quality Laptop from _any_ company.
Including the 4 PowerBooks, I've owned 7 different Macs (9600, B&W G3, original (rev A) iMac, PB 5300, PB 3400, "WallStreet" G3, "Pismo" G3). None of them have ever had any sort of hardware failure. None. My little sister has been using that Rev A iMac since it was introduced nearly 4 years ago.
I'd say that purchasing Apple equipment is a pretty safe bet.
Of course, there are some people who have problems, but given my experience with Apple hardware, I'd say it's some of the highest quality stuff on the market.
That's Cool. When I wear them it's fine for a few minutes but then it feels like I've got rocks or something stuck in there, haha. I've tried them with and without the foam covers also. I'm prone to ear infections and such anyway, so I guess I have sensitive ears, haha.
VST or someone like that has made a cable that will power the iPod through the cigarette lighter, but i don't know how erll it works. There was a long discussion about this and in-car use on Macintouch.com a few weeks ago.
I bought a cassette adapter and plugged it into my iPod to tryusing it in the car, but I had some problems with feedback. I have not had the time to figure out if the adapter I bought was funky or if there was some other problem though.
others have had good luck with using theirs in the car though... check Macintouch.com's iPod report. (http://www.macintouch.com)
Anybody who goes into a Gateway or Apple store to buy a computer most likely has not bought a computer in 10 years. They are probably replacing their 386's with Win 3.1 on them
So what? A sale is a sale.. and the simple fact that 40% of the customers at The Apple Store did not already own a Mac is a good indication that Apple is doing things that consumers appreciate. As an aside, I know a few highly technical people that have bought Macs in the past few months simply because of the iBook and OS X.
I've had my iPod since late October and I love it. It has worked flawlessly and live up to all of my expectations. I was afraid of how sturdy it would turn out to be, but I've managed to drop it a few times (once from about chest height) with no ill effects. My Rio 600 was totally destroyed after being dropped from the same height. I only have 2 complaints:
1. The stainless steel back does scratch easily... mine was scratched after just a couple of days of carrying it in the pockets of my coats and jeans. Still, though, peple see it and say "hey, is that one of those Apple MP3 things?"
and...
2. I don't really like the earbuds. I can't wear them for more than a few minutes without getting sore ears. No big deal, though, I just got some head phones. I've never found any earbuds that I like, however, so I was not expecting to be happy with the ones that come with the iPod.
It works great in FireWire disk mode as a quick backup disk or as a quick way to transfer large files from one Mac to another. I've read about people who have booted their Macs from an iPod, but Apple does not recommend doing that. I believe that it's because the internal disk was not designed to spin for long peroids of time or to hold up to frequent reading and writing. I don't know for sure, but that's what I am guessing.
The battery life is stupendous and actually exceeds the 10 hours that Apple lists in the specs. I listen to mine at work all the time and it never drops below about 50% or so.
Some people have complained about the lack of an on-board equalizer, but you can do that in iTunes and the settings are applied to the MP3 file & the iPod recognizes them when the file is transferred so that's not really a big deal.
It does get a little warm... when it's been playing for a long period of time. Nothing like the G3/G4 PowerBooks though.
All in all, it's the best MP3 player I've seen. Sure, it's only a 5 gig hard drive, but the ease of use more than makes up for that minor shortcoming.
good grief. I know that. All I was doing is telling a story. I could not care less who was doing it. It's just further evidence that online polls are essentially worthless.
Every year Java World or Java Developers Journal (I always forget which one does it) allows people to vote online for the year's best Java Products. Apple's WebObjects is always a candidate in the Application Server category.. all of the Mac web sites post stories about the poll and encourage their readers to go and vote for Webobjects. LOL, one year it one, not on its technical merits but because hoards of Mac fanatics went and voted. I think that the journal fixed the problem last year by making you register before you voted.. that might have discouraged a lot of the casual voters from participating.
I'm not sure that the Linux community (let alone the market for Linux) is ready for something like that
I agree totally there... I don't think that the Linux community is ready for this type of system.
And yes.. since you will have access to other channels it seems logical that the orher companies/groups would kick in to help support the system... which brings up another question. I wonder how much a system like this would cost to set up and maintain? Is the largest expense the cost of bandwidth or hardware or support (ie sys admins, programmers, etc) or what?
You have a lot of valid points, but, the infrasturcture to support an sutomatic updating service has to be paid for by somone. Companies like Ximian can't survive by giving everything away.
$9.95 a month might be a little steep but you can always download the fixes and patches... you just can't take advantage of the other perks the automatic service has to offer.
Maybe the price will come down in the future. What do you think would be a reasonable fee to pay for a service like this? Or how do you think that the service should be implemented if you don't agree with charging for something like this?
You can still download the updates... it's still GPL and all that.. you just won't be able to take advantage of the high speed connection and other perks offered by the subscription service.
Yep. But the BIG difference is that the music drowns out the other noise and lets me get on with my work. I can work quite well while listening to music but have a hard time getting anything done while people are having conversations around me.
If I need to really concentrate, I go home where it's very quiet.
You probably also subscribe the the idiotic belief that a true "professional" should be in a suit and tie every day.
Slashdot Mirror
While I've read of them, read things by them, heard of them, etc.... I've never once in the "wild" (an actual job at an actual company) met someone with a degree that I considered to be technologically "worthy". Some were competent, but never an exceptional one.
I find this very hard to believe.. unless you have worked at some places who have made extreamly poor choices in hiring/recruiting.
I'm going to disagree with you on this. You & your situation are an exception to the rule... and I bet that nearly _any_ large corporation will not even consider someone for a sysadmin job without some sort of a formal education and experience.
He's going to have a much more difficult time finding a job without a college degree- regardless of how smart he is or how much time he spent learning Linux or *BSD at home. Furthermore, not all recent grads are bad and not all "self taught" folks are excellent.
College provides a lot of opportunities for learning and opens a lot of doors that would otherwise be closed to someone without a degree. Also, regardless of what people think, spending a few years in school really does prepare you for life in the so-called "real world"- especially if you go away to school.
You were lucky, and there are some people who are just as lucky- but I would be willing to bed that the number of unlucky ones GREATLY outnumber the lucky ones. The fact of the matter is, a college degree is worth a lot in the job market. The combination of self-taught skills with a degree will place him in in a MUCH better position when looking for a job.
You are correct. I have become pretty bored with just general surfing. I use the web quite a bit for shopping and for reference material, but I spend probably 1/2 mas much time online as I used to. For now, there are no huge compelling reasons for me to spend more time online.
The "news" sites that I used to visit quite frequently have turned more into "opinion" sites and are essentially copies of pretty much every other news site on the web. I only read a couple of sites regularly, slashdot mainly, cnn, and maccentral. that's about it
You are right.
Linux and Apple are in a similar situation. Both are "niche" players in the tech industry. Neither has to "conquor" MS in order to be successful. Many so-called "pundits" claim that Apple will never survive unless they start courting the enterprise market. Many among the legions of Apple fans believe the same thing, however, they overlook the fact that Apple is an extreamly successful company within their selected niche of the tech market.
Linux does not have to conquor the desktop in order to be successful, as has been demonstrated over the past few years by the number of companies that are using it as a Server operating system. It (an I am using the word it to describe the body of developers that contribute to and maintain all of the Linux code) simply has to focus on what it's doing right- providing a good alternative to Windows & Unix servers, and to continue to improve in that market.
So use a different Instant Messaging application. AOL does not have a "monopoly" on instant messaging.. they have a monopoly on AOL Instant Messaging. Just like Apple has a monopoly on the MacOS, just like Sun has a monopoly on Solaris. It's not like the operating system monoploy that Microsoft has, however... so don't bring up that foolishness. If IM is that important to you, use Yahoo, MSN or whatever. If AIM is important to you, use AIM.
AIM is a free service that is provided by AOL. AIM users do not pay for the service, they agree to use it under AOL's tems and conditions and agree to be presented with advertising information through the AIM client window. Non-AIM clients don't show the ads that AOL uses to subsidise the cost of providing the AIM service. SO basically non-AIM clients are _stealing_ resources from AOL.
I don't really understand why anyone gets upset whenever AOL blocks a non-AIM client from using their proprietary network and resources. AOL owns the systems that power AIM and should be allowed to prevent non-AIM clients from accessing them altogether, in fact, they have every right to protect their property and to see that their resources are used according to their will.
It has nothing to do with AOL being predatory (as mentioned in the article) or "selfish" (also mentioned in the article). It has everything to do with AOL protecting the resources that it, as a corporation, owns.
HP makes a lot of scientific equiment as well, walk into any medical research lab and you'll likely see HP branded gas chromatographs, mass spectrometers and other such stuff.
I can never remember the titles of the episodes.. but some of my favorites were:
The hacker episode - with the rough and tough hacker chick and her little trailer full of equipment
Fluke man - the fluke/man hybrid that came to the US aboard a Russian tanker
The Peacock Family- perhaps the most violent and disturbing episoide ever aired... the one with the severly mutated & inbred family
The Pilot Eposide (the very first one)
The episode with the older psychic guy who kind of had the hots for Sculley (It was called the Amazing something or other)
The Side Show Episode - that featured The Enigma eathing a raw fish
and so many more....
I agree with you.... The first few seasons were fantastic and I watched the show religiously. There were some incredible episodes during the early years.
Then as time went on, I grew extreamly bored with the same old conspiracy plotline and the government coverup BS. It's cool to have some sort of a continuing theme that runs through the life of a program, but The X Files took that to an extreme. I stopped watching it about 3 years ago.
Cool, man. Thanks for the information!
After my second Palm died, I decided to go PDA-less for a while. The Sonly Clie is probably the device that will win be back... mainly because of the high resolution screen. I've yet to see one in person though... my main complaint with the Palm was that it was difficult for me to read for long periods of time (ie. eBooks, PDFs and stuff).. I am hoping that the 320x320 res on the Clie is a lot better.
Would any of you care to comment/share your esperiences with the high-res Clie?
hahaha, nice troll. Apple is not "flirting with bankruptcy".
PC == a generic term for personal computer not necessarily a computer that runs Windows or has an x86 chip in it.
And thanks for being a good example of the type of person I am talking about!
It still amazes me that people make such a big deal about market share. When will people understand that Apple does NOT have to dominate the "PC" market in order to be successful? Aparantly the answer to that question is "never". Apple is expected to report sales of well over a billion dollars for the past quarter. That's a BILLION dollars.... and they are expected to report a profit. Now, tell me that they are not successful.
Katz is right though, the majority of Americans don't care about style, or the quality of user experience. These are the same lemmings that buy SUVs because the neighbor got one.
What Jobs realizes, and what sooooo many other CEOs and "journalists" (ie Katz) do not realize is that there is a segment of the population that appreciates good design, style, and quality of user experience and is willing to pay for that. I'm one of them. I'm not an "elitist" or any of that foolishness. I simply believe that you get what you pay for... and it might cost a little extra in the beginning but a product from Apple computer is a quality piece of equipment.
As long as that does not change, I'm quite happy with it.
Apple's... (err who ever manufactures the LCD panels) ... LCD's are some of the best in the industry. I've owned 4 different PowerBooks and none of them have ever had a dead pixel. I've never actually seen a dead pixel on a quality Laptop from _any_ company.
Including the 4 PowerBooks, I've owned 7 different Macs (9600, B&W G3, original (rev A) iMac, PB 5300, PB 3400, "WallStreet" G3, "Pismo" G3). None of them have ever had any sort of hardware failure. None. My little sister has been using that Rev A iMac since it was introduced nearly 4 years ago.
I'd say that purchasing Apple equipment is a pretty safe bet.
Of course, there are some people who have problems, but given my experience with Apple hardware, I'd say it's some of the highest quality stuff on the market.
HAHA! yeah, you are correct about that!
That's Cool. When I wear them it's fine for a few minutes but then it feels like I've got rocks or something stuck in there, haha. I've tried them with and without the foam covers also. I'm prone to ear infections and such anyway, so I guess I have sensitive ears, haha.
VST or someone like that has made a cable that will power the iPod through the cigarette lighter, but i don't know how erll it works. There was a long discussion about this and in-car use on Macintouch.com a few weeks ago.
I bought a cassette adapter and plugged it into my iPod to tryusing it in the car, but I had some problems with feedback. I have not had the time to figure out if the adapter I bought was funky or if there was some other problem though.
others have had good luck with using theirs in the car though... check Macintouch.com's iPod report. (http://www.macintouch.com)
Anybody who goes into a Gateway or Apple store to buy a computer most likely has not bought a computer in 10 years. They are probably replacing their 386's with Win 3.1 on them
So what? A sale is a sale.. and the simple fact that 40% of the customers at The Apple Store did not already own a Mac is a good indication that Apple is doing things that consumers appreciate. As an aside, I know a few highly technical people that have bought Macs in the past few months simply because of the iBook and OS X.
I've had my iPod since late October and I love it. It has worked flawlessly and live up to all of my expectations. I was afraid of how sturdy it would turn out to be, but I've managed to drop it a few times (once from about chest height) with no ill effects. My Rio 600 was totally destroyed after being dropped from the same height. I only have 2 complaints:
...
1. The stainless steel back does scratch easily... mine was scratched after just a couple of days of carrying it in the pockets of my coats and jeans. Still, though, peple see it and say "hey, is that one of those Apple MP3 things?"
and
2. I don't really like the earbuds. I can't wear them for more than a few minutes without getting sore ears. No big deal, though, I just got some head phones. I've never found any earbuds that I like, however, so I was not expecting to be happy with the ones that come with the iPod.
It works great in FireWire disk mode as a quick backup disk or as a quick way to transfer large files from one Mac to another. I've read about people who have booted their Macs from an iPod, but Apple does not recommend doing that. I believe that it's because the internal disk was not designed to spin for long peroids of time or to hold up to frequent reading and writing. I don't know for sure, but that's what I am guessing.
The battery life is stupendous and actually exceeds the 10 hours that Apple lists in the specs. I listen to mine at work all the time and it never drops below about 50% or so.
Some people have complained about the lack of an on-board equalizer, but you can do that in iTunes and the settings are applied to the MP3 file & the iPod recognizes them when the file is transferred so that's not really a big deal.
It does get a little warm... when it's been playing for a long period of time. Nothing like the G3/G4 PowerBooks though.
All in all, it's the best MP3 player I've seen. Sure, it's only a 5 gig hard drive, but the ease of use more than makes up for that minor shortcoming.
good grief. I know that. All I was doing is telling a story. I could not care less who was doing it. It's just further evidence that online polls are essentially worthless.
Every year Java World or Java Developers Journal (I always forget which one does it) allows people to vote online for the year's best Java Products. Apple's WebObjects is always a candidate in the Application Server category.. all of the Mac web sites post stories about the poll and encourage their readers to go and vote for Webobjects. LOL, one year it one, not on its technical merits but because hoards of Mac fanatics went and voted. I think that the journal fixed the problem last year by making you register before you voted.. that might have discouraged a lot of the casual voters from participating.
I'm not sure that the Linux community (let alone the market for Linux) is ready for something like that
I agree totally there... I don't think that the Linux community is ready for this type of system.
And yes.. since you will have access to other channels it seems logical that the orher companies/groups would kick in to help support the system... which brings up another question. I wonder how much a system like this would cost to set up and maintain? Is the largest expense the cost of bandwidth or hardware or support (ie sys admins, programmers, etc) or what?
You have a lot of valid points, but, the infrasturcture to support an sutomatic updating service has to be paid for by somone. Companies like Ximian can't survive by giving everything away.
$9.95 a month might be a little steep but you can always download the fixes and patches... you just can't take advantage of the other perks the automatic service has to offer.
Maybe the price will come down in the future. What do you think would be a reasonable fee to pay for a service like this? Or how do you think that the service should be implemented if you don't agree with charging for something like this?
You can still download the updates... it's still GPL and all that.. you just won't be able to take advantage of the high speed connection and other perks offered by the subscription service.
Yep. But the BIG difference is that the music drowns out the other noise and lets me get on with my work. I can work quite well while listening to music but have a hard time getting anything done while people are having conversations around me.
If I need to really concentrate, I go home where it's very quiet.
You probably also subscribe the the idiotic belief that a true "professional" should be in a suit and tie every day.