"After this, how could one have faith enough to serve an inept institution?"
The short answer is that someone has to serve in the hopes of someday things being made right. If the best and brightest will not do the job they should not complain, on the other hand, if the best and brightest are doing the job we cannot expect people not to, occassioanlly, make bad decisions or mistakes. While this is a serious transgression I hope this individual was not knowingly compromising our veterans and, being a veteran myself, I feel confident that since the information was made public, by the transgressor, I can be more observant of my finances etc.. In the end incidents like this will happen and we can only hope that they will be handled in a timely and professional manner. Perhaps we can also suggest solutions to the problems instead of just complaining.
hopefully now that VMWare has some competition, see http://www.parallels.com/, these products will continue to improve. There certainly is a need for these programs and I love to see the competition.
From my experience as an IT person I have seen pros and cons for Windows and Linux-based operating systems and commercial vs. open source applications. Sure older versions of Windows were not very stable, but the operating systems that were did not make people want to use computers. Now almost everyone is using computers and it was commercial software that got us here.
These days if you need a server that is stable, shares files rapidly, rarely has massive security holes, and requires a higher level of knowledge to operate *nix is great. If you need central calendaring, massive organization, granular access control, detailed logging and office software everyone can use Microsoft's products seem to actually perform better. In addition to MS-Office working well it is intuitive for our users and lowers cost by not having to have extended training. I do think that OpenOffice is making strides in this area and their latest release is quite nice. It still does not format some things correctly, especially if they were created with a competing product.
Many IT professionals would not have jobs if it weren't for their ability to use both commercial and open-source applications and operating systems and recognize the strengths and weaknesses of each. For me I guess it depends how much time I want to invest with the end user. I cannot expect them to catch on to new concepts overnight, or adjust to a new or different UI as soon as it hits the shelves. Users, in general, like what they are comfortable with and so far commercial folks are much better at marketing.
Once the support for open-source becomes more available and standardized I think there will be a shift from the current method of thinking. A newbie getting on a forum today however typically gets the following standard responses when seeking help:
"RTFM"
"M$-Sucks"
"just use apt-get"
"patch your kernel"
"recompile that module with no dependencies so that...."
Those aren't the best way to win people to open-source, and right now you don't have to know what any of that is for most comercial applications or operating systems. Hopefully we can make open-source easier to use and support so that it will catch on with the people who spend the money on stuff.
Looks like Apple is trying to crush any smaller competitors. If the iPod is better they should just allow the competition. That would, of course, not be the American way these days. Someone should have patented the couch several years ago, it would be easier to choose when you buy furniture.
My opinion is this. People who are ready to use Linux in this situation will continue to use free open source versions for quite awhile. http://www.novell.com/products/desktop/howtobuy.ht ml this pricing structure is unlikely to lure people away from the "proven performance" of MS. MS may have proven themselves to have several problems, but the bottom line is that MS-Office, and MS-Windows will work 95% of the time for most people. Linux requires tweaking, checking and special configuration. Once you get that done it is very stable but the ROI just isn't there yet. I would also like to hear some examples of Sysadmins and desktop support folks supporting the "typical user" on Linux; this seems to have enormous potential to be either divine or a nightmare. I think Linux can overcome MS but it's still a several years out.
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"After this, how could one have faith enough to serve an inept institution?" The short answer is that someone has to serve in the hopes of someday things being made right. If the best and brightest will not do the job they should not complain, on the other hand, if the best and brightest are doing the job we cannot expect people not to, occassioanlly, make bad decisions or mistakes. While this is a serious transgression I hope this individual was not knowingly compromising our veterans and, being a veteran myself, I feel confident that since the information was made public, by the transgressor, I can be more observant of my finances etc.. In the end incidents like this will happen and we can only hope that they will be handled in a timely and professional manner. Perhaps we can also suggest solutions to the problems instead of just complaining.
hopefully now that VMWare has some competition, see http://www.parallels.com/, these products will continue to improve. There certainly is a need for these programs and I love to see the competition.
a copy of ethereal or (insert preferred sniffer here) and instructions on how to use it. ;-)
From my experience as an IT person I have seen pros and cons for Windows and Linux-based operating systems and commercial vs. open source applications. Sure older versions of Windows were not very stable, but the operating systems that were did not make people want to use computers. Now almost everyone is using computers and it was commercial software that got us here. These days if you need a server that is stable, shares files rapidly, rarely has massive security holes, and requires a higher level of knowledge to operate *nix is great. If you need central calendaring, massive organization, granular access control, detailed logging and office software everyone can use Microsoft's products seem to actually perform better. In addition to MS-Office working well it is intuitive for our users and lowers cost by not having to have extended training. I do think that OpenOffice is making strides in this area and their latest release is quite nice. It still does not format some things correctly, especially if they were created with a competing product. Many IT professionals would not have jobs if it weren't for their ability to use both commercial and open-source applications and operating systems and recognize the strengths and weaknesses of each. For me I guess it depends how much time I want to invest with the end user. I cannot expect them to catch on to new concepts overnight, or adjust to a new or different UI as soon as it hits the shelves. Users, in general, like what they are comfortable with and so far commercial folks are much better at marketing. Once the support for open-source becomes more available and standardized I think there will be a shift from the current method of thinking. A newbie getting on a forum today however typically gets the following standard responses when seeking help: "RTFM" "M$-Sucks" "just use apt-get" "patch your kernel" "recompile that module with no dependencies so that...." Those aren't the best way to win people to open-source, and right now you don't have to know what any of that is for most comercial applications or operating systems. Hopefully we can make open-source easier to use and support so that it will catch on with the people who spend the money on stuff.
Looks like Apple is trying to crush any smaller competitors. If the iPod is better they should just allow the competition. That would, of course, not be the American way these days. Someone should have patented the couch several years ago, it would be easier to choose when you buy furniture.
I agree, this seems like the best way to go. They each have strong points learn to use them where they work well.
Zerofoo, Well said auditing has become a necessary and important function concerning the privacy and accountability of people's data.
My opinion is this. People who are ready to use Linux in this situation will continue to use free open source versions for quite awhile. http://www.novell.com/products/desktop/howtobuy.ht ml this pricing structure is unlikely to lure people away from the "proven performance" of MS. MS may have proven themselves to have several problems, but the bottom line is that MS-Office, and MS-Windows will work 95% of the time for most people. Linux requires tweaking, checking and special configuration. Once you get that done it is very stable but the ROI just isn't there yet. I would also like to hear some examples of Sysadmins and desktop support folks supporting the "typical user" on Linux; this seems to have enormous potential to be either divine or a nightmare. I think Linux can overcome MS but it's still a several years out.