I am 19, and have been working P/T to F/T in small business and collegiate IT departments for three years. Yes, I have worked 45 hour weeks for more than 12 weeks straight, have worked from 9:30AM to 4:30AM the next day installing new network equipment and switching it over. I have heard several times in interviews that people "don't expect" to get a young person with people skills, and that is a flaw with most teenage workers. I agree that communication is essential, and I have done phone based tech support for end-users from my house in NY without looking at a computer for employees in Amsterdam, Dallas, Boston, etc. It seems to me that it depends on both English skills and memory. Some people cannot remember how to open their email even if they write it down, while others can dictate how to configure DHCP on Trusted Solaris 8 without looking at a screen.
In other words, I believe there is a general perception that young workers lack good communications skills, but it is not necessarily the case.
Re:What are the ethical implications here?
on
BoyCott Advance
·
· Score: 1
I just want to let everyone know you can buy one of the Advance systems in NYC for $120. There's a bunch of games availible in English for under $50. Why emulate when you can take this cheap system on the road, which has twice the amount of colors as the original SNES.. hmm.
My problem with having the service pay based is that I would be paying $X a month to download MP3s, yet sharing 40, 50, or 300 mp3s to others. So let me get this straight: I share my mp3s for free, but in order for someone to download mine, or me to download theirs that they put up free I pay Napster $10 for the service of a search engine.
In the company I work for, the CIO is in charge of the widespread IT decisions, which also includes things like phoneswitches and building wiring, electrical power redundancy, and other offshoots of perhaps the traditional roles IT managers play.
The CTO is the lead developer--essentially the person whom all other developers ultimately report to. He is responsible for conducting product demos, interacts heavily with leaders of other businesses who are also customers, and does solve bugs himself.
Just read about the founder of Tripod's benevolent venture called GeekCorps which is deisgned to provide tech training and help to developing nations, those in South America and Africa included. Consider taking a sabbatical or doing something to try to help. Once altruism has opened up the user base, real tech companies from these areas can take hold and fuel some of the economy, Bangalore India being an example.
Of course, part of the problem with bringing in computers into places where other things are needed much more is that computers are considered frivolous compared to the more urgent needs of clean water, healthcare, and the like. These considerations aside, the collective community of those who are blessed with large salaries and tech access should be helping in all means possible.
You should never need a photo. A credit card processing agency requires only the number, expiration date, name and address. Optional are the "extra" numbers on the back of the card and a phone number. The processor sends the card number to the bank which sends back the address on the card and expiration date. Based on this information, the company you are buying a product from can accept or deny the charge; even if the addresses don't match the company can take a risk and accept the card.
This is detailed very well in Philip Greenspun's book, availible fulltext online. Here's the book.
Napster's usage for me and others is to find recordings that are rare, out of print, or unreleased. I too am a fan of Moby, and I can find remixes of his songs on Napster, something which does not affect his album sales but does hold enjoyment and entertainment for true fans. There should be alternatives, as Tony Cross suggested, which should be negotiated by Napster and recording companies. BMI and My.MP3.com have reached an agreement--if they had negotiated earlier, perhaps there would have been no need for a lawsuit, saving bad PR, stock value, and considerable money.
If he's gonna make profit on this, he definetly needs to use some research firm and not non-random benevolent slashdot readers.
Also, anyone else wondering how this thing is going to be powered? It's a minitower case. Display? Where do you put it? Runs on batteries?? There's too many details left out of the site and description to make it even a viable question "would you want one".
These types of lawsuits really get under my skin after awhile. I bought your freakin' CD and now you don't want me to listen to it? Record companies need to get a clue about which technologies are infringing upon their copyrights and patents and which aren't. This raises an important issue: should music be allowed to be patented? If any of your CD's (as some of mine do) have a P in a circle like a copyright mark, the album has been patented. Ultimately, labels want complete rescinding of consumer and artist rights to themselves in the interest of profit.
Let's do a little research here before complaining about RedHat's cost for certification. RedHat has 140 employees, whereas Microsoft has 30,000 employees. Slight difference, eh? MSCE's are in demand much more than RHCE's, like it or not, and as we know, demand should allow prices to fall, in the sense that tests can be streamlined. RedHat is still a very new company, and the fact that they've implemented a program so soon should be commended. If your employer values linux certification enough, they'll send you to NC, just as they would send you to a trade show that is relevent to your field. RH by no means has the resources to send a segment of its 140 employees globetrotting.
My friends just returned from a trip to Kenya. Much to my surprise I was IM'd by one of them while they were there, despite the 8 hour time difference. His host family (where he stayed) had full internet access and used AOL Instant Messenger. This is somewhat anecdotal evidence, but I have also corresponded with people using a computing center in Kenya. I would not venture that access is widespread, but at least in Nairobi there are ISPs.
It's my understanding that since it is carried over glass and then switched via a mirror there is no way to pick up signals like you can on CRT monitors, and there is no way to put a breakpoint in the line to divert some of the flow to a different computer, like is possible with wire. Therefore, fiber optic ethernet (100base fx I think?) +OC-3 (fiberoptic linkup) +128bit encryption would render a system unbreakable (to the greatest extent humanly possible).
You could have bought one of these babies in 1997 from the Black Box catalog. I dug an old one out and found it in there..100% optical switch for fiber networks. The US gov is worried about these things because you can't "wiretap" them because there's no wires (obviously).
Another RIAA statement I found interesting was that they deem it unacceptable to "build a business" on top of pirating the recording industry. Last time I checked Napster was completely free, and I doubt Napster Inc. has made a cent off of the RIAA let alone anyone else. How can they with no ads or sales of the client? Now, Napster is still in the beta stage yet and may turn shareware or payware, but for the moment there is no business of pirating..it's a free exchange of files.
If an Oscar-worthy song has BLEEP after BLEEP, then maybe, just maybe, a few more people will take the time to think about what censorship is, and who is trying to protect whom from what.
That's exactly what I was thinking when I saw a live performance of Dr. DRE and Eminem on the American Music Awards on ABC a month ago (I believe it was the AMAs..too many award ceremonies to tell apart). It was quite impressive , they had on-the-fly censoring of their live performance for people watching on tv. They did such a good job that often the next 2 words after an explative were also bleeped out, rendering the song unlistenable.
I have also noticed that censored versions of albums (Fatboy Slim, Korn, etc) are oftentimes $2-3 cheaper than their unedited counterparts.
Don't let censors take over America. We'll listen to what we want to hear.
Now with the introduction of MiniGL and the Palm IIIc, it is conceivable that one could write a color 3d application for the Palm platform. The possibilities for development are endless, only marred by processing power. This may make OpenGL the only true graphics "standard", since it can now run on machines other than desktops!
The z50s have a built in 56k modem, and they have a PCMCIA slot for an ethernet card. I doubt they will play mp3s though, because the processor is slow. It will run a web browser, email, "pocket" MS Office, and other CE apps under CE. It's basically a cross between a subnotebook and palm device. It's very light, but offers a 6" screen or so with a decent keyboard. Well worth the money I think, especially with unix alternatives.
..."in developing countries - there the time is just not as valuable"
First off, I'd like to thank you for your usage of "developing nation". It's just as bad as calling it a third world country. It is ironic that the banner on the page I'm tying this is for IBM "moving at the speed of e-business", for that is exactly my point. The speed of e-business does not vary based upon your time zone, nationality, or geographic location. To say that tech people in the reigons of Africa, Eastern Europe, or Latin America have more time to spend installing linux is ludicrous. To say that, as I believe AC has said, time is not as valuble in any country besides "developed" nations is also ridiculous. There are 24 hours in each person's day around the world, and each minute is as valuable to one person as the next.
We cannot write off other nations or give them second rate or our discarded products because we believe they have the time to fiddle with them. If the USA's seemingly infinite tech structure can't deal with 486s and Linux, what makes one think that they will be welcomed in another country? An old computer is not necessarily better than no computer at all. This has been pointed out to be by people at schools who don't want old hardware donations from the company I work at. It's better to buy new equipment to teach people on, and it's worth every penny in support hassles.
Over 50% of the world's population has never made a phone call. Should we make a direct leap onto the internet for them? I would imagine that a graphical Linux on capable, stripped down for cost hardware would be an excellent en masse computing solution. Linux, a Celeron, 32mb RAM, 3gb HD, small graphics card is all it takes. Shipping 486s all over the place is not the solution.
Time is what you make of it, not what other people tell you it's worth!
There is no such thing as zero administration. The day that computers can configure themselves to exactly what you want without asking will be the day that I'll be afraid to use computers.
In all seriousness though, I have found NT4 (SP5) to be more reliable than Win2k RTM, at least with Exchange Server. I get no end of bluescreens and Exception Faults on a Win2k testing box. I don't think there is any garuntee that win2k is more stable until enough people use it to prove it.
In my mind it's just a moral issue with possible legal ramifications. If you bought it in good faith and don't use it anymore, you shouldn't have a problem selling it. If you bought it because you thought it was "hot" to sell and it's not trademarked, that's within reason as well. However, once one has intentionally purchased domains containing prelicensed trademarks which don't belong to oneself, that's immoral and can also potentially be prosecutable, although usally businesses come up with alternative URLs as a solution.
Moreover, what about legitimate businesses cybersquatting? I have seen many instances where, for example, Ideafuture Inc registers ideafuture.com,.net, and.org just so others don't infringe on their trademark. This is wasteful and is a reverse type of squatting which ultimately wastes the company's own money.
MacOS Rumors as an example uses the "Open Content" license, with details at the bottom of their site. I think this is a possible answer for posters and readers, and it is indeed essentially a "GPL for Books".
Re:Why not just use the Crusoe as a G4?
on
Darwin on Crusoe?
·
· Score: 2
I don't think it works very well to try to emulate a processor which is faster than the chip you're emulating on. CISC chips shouldn't emu RISC chips, P-III shouldn't emulate G4, etc because you'll never get up to speed. Examples? Computers emulate calculators, game consoles, and arcade machines because of the low cpu speeds of the consoles. Rarely do you see a good emulation ofr a recent chip, with the exception of Connectix's VirtualPC for Macintosh--however even with the latest G4 you will not get P200 power.
I wish there was a statistic on how many read and receive email that is printed out for them. I seem to know some very computer illiterate people in high places who have their secrataries print out all the email, who in turn receive dictation to respond to them. This has got to be a very inefficient, time consuming process, which could be emiliurated (sp) by having politicians taking a few days to learn how to double click to receive and send email. Yet another waste of taxpayer dollars.
FYI, if you belong to MSDN (aka a MS developer partner) you can now download the retail Win2k for development. As for "illegall means", some developer has violated his NDA and TOS for MSDN. The real problem with security bugs is that Win2k has gone RTM (Release to Mfg) which means the copy that is vulnerable will be shipping with new PCs with Windows 2000.
Slashdot Mirror
I am 19, and have been working P/T to F/T in small business and collegiate IT departments for three years. Yes, I have worked 45 hour weeks for more than 12 weeks straight, have worked from 9:30AM to 4:30AM the next day installing new network equipment and switching it over. I have heard several times in interviews that people "don't expect" to get a young person with people skills, and that is a flaw with most teenage workers. I agree that communication is essential, and I have done phone based tech support for end-users from my house in NY without looking at a computer for employees in Amsterdam, Dallas, Boston, etc. It seems to me that it depends on both English skills and memory. Some people cannot remember how to open their email even if they write it down, while others can dictate how to configure DHCP on Trusted Solaris 8 without looking at a screen.
In other words, I believe there is a general perception that young workers lack good communications skills, but it is not necessarily the case.
Deliverance
I didn't see CmdrTaco in the credits...
I just want to let everyone know you can buy one of the Advance systems in NYC for $120. There's a bunch of games availible in English for under $50. Why emulate when you can take this cheap system on the road, which has twice the amount of colors as the original SNES.. hmm.
My problem with having the service pay based is that I would be paying $X a month to download MP3s, yet sharing 40, 50, or 300 mp3s to others. So let me get this straight: I share my mp3s for free, but in order for someone to download mine, or me to download theirs that they put up free I pay Napster $10 for the service of a search engine.
I forsee the usage of Napigator in my future
In the company I work for, the CIO is in charge of the widespread IT decisions, which also includes things like phoneswitches and building wiring, electrical power redundancy, and other offshoots of perhaps the traditional roles IT managers play.
The CTO is the lead developer--essentially the person whom all other developers ultimately report to. He is responsible for conducting product demos, interacts heavily with leaders of other businesses who are also customers, and does solve bugs himself.
Just read about the founder of Tripod's benevolent venture called GeekCorps which is deisgned to provide tech training and help to developing nations, those in South America and Africa included. Consider taking a sabbatical or doing something to try to help. Once altruism has opened up the user base, real tech companies from these areas can take hold and fuel some of the economy, Bangalore India being an example.
Of course, part of the problem with bringing in computers into places where other things are needed much more is that computers are considered frivolous compared to the more urgent needs of clean water, healthcare, and the like. These considerations aside, the collective community of those who are blessed with large salaries and tech access should be helping in all means possible.
You should never need a photo. A credit card processing agency requires only the number, expiration date, name and address. Optional are the "extra" numbers on the back of the card and a phone number. The processor sends the card number to the bank which sends back the address on the card and expiration date. Based on this information, the company you are buying a product from can accept or deny the charge; even if the addresses don't match the company can take a risk and accept the card.
This is detailed very well in Philip Greenspun's book, availible fulltext online. Here's the book.
Napster's usage for me and others is to find recordings that are rare, out of print, or unreleased. I too am a fan of Moby, and I can find remixes of his songs on Napster, something which does not affect his album sales but does hold enjoyment and entertainment for true fans. There should be alternatives, as Tony Cross suggested, which should be negotiated by Napster and recording companies. BMI and My.MP3.com have reached an agreement--if they had negotiated earlier, perhaps there would have been no need for a lawsuit, saving bad PR, stock value, and considerable money.
If he's gonna make profit on this, he definetly needs to use some research firm and not non-random benevolent slashdot readers.
Also, anyone else wondering how this thing is going to be powered? It's a minitower case. Display? Where do you put it? Runs on batteries?? There's too many details left out of the site and description to make it even a viable question "would you want one".
These types of lawsuits really get under my skin after awhile. I bought your freakin' CD and now you don't want me to listen to it? Record companies need to get a clue about which technologies are infringing upon their copyrights and patents and which aren't. This raises an important issue: should music be allowed to be patented? If any of your CD's (as some of mine do) have a P in a circle like a copyright mark, the album has been patented. Ultimately, labels want complete rescinding of consumer and artist rights to themselves in the interest of profit.
Let's do a little research here before complaining about RedHat's cost for certification. RedHat has 140 employees, whereas Microsoft has 30,000 employees. Slight difference, eh? MSCE's are in demand much more than RHCE's, like it or not, and as we know, demand should allow prices to fall, in the sense that tests can be streamlined. RedHat is still a very new company, and the fact that they've implemented a program so soon should be commended. If your employer values linux certification enough, they'll send you to NC, just as they would send you to a trade show that is relevent to your field. RH by no means has the resources to send a segment of its 140 employees globetrotting.
My friends just returned from a trip to Kenya. Much to my surprise I was IM'd by one of them while they were there, despite the 8 hour time difference. His host family (where he stayed) had full internet access and used AOL Instant Messenger. This is somewhat anecdotal evidence, but I have also corresponded with people using a computing center in Kenya. I would not venture that access is widespread, but at least in Nairobi there are ISPs.
It's my understanding that since it is carried over glass and then switched via a mirror there is no way to pick up signals like you can on CRT monitors, and there is no way to put a breakpoint in the line to divert some of the flow to a different computer, like is possible with wire. Therefore, fiber optic ethernet (100base fx I think?) +OC-3 (fiberoptic linkup) +128bit encryption would render a system unbreakable (to the greatest extent humanly possible).
You could have bought one of these babies in 1997 from the Black Box catalog. I dug an old one out and found it in there..100% optical switch for fiber networks. The US gov is worried about these things because you can't "wiretap" them because there's no wires (obviously).
Another RIAA statement I found interesting was that they deem it unacceptable to "build a business" on top of pirating the recording industry. Last time I checked Napster was completely free, and I doubt Napster Inc. has made a cent off of the RIAA let alone anyone else. How can they with no ads or sales of the client? Now, Napster is still in the beta stage yet and may turn shareware or payware, but for the moment there is no business of pirating..it's a free exchange of files.
If an Oscar-worthy song has BLEEP after BLEEP, then maybe, just maybe, a few more people will take the time to think about what censorship is, and who is trying to protect whom from what.
That's exactly what I was thinking when I saw a live performance of Dr. DRE and Eminem on the American Music Awards on ABC a month ago (I believe it was the AMAs..too many award ceremonies to tell apart). It was quite impressive , they had on-the-fly censoring of their live performance for people watching on tv. They did such a good job that often the next 2 words after an explative were also bleeped out, rendering the song unlistenable.
I have also noticed that censored versions of albums (Fatboy Slim, Korn, etc) are oftentimes $2-3 cheaper than their unedited counterparts.
Don't let censors take over America. We'll listen to what we want to hear.
Now with the introduction of MiniGL and the Palm IIIc, it is conceivable that one could write a color 3d application for the Palm platform. The possibilities for development are endless, only marred by processing power. This may make OpenGL the only true graphics "standard", since it can now run on machines other than desktops!
The z50s have a built in 56k modem, and they have a PCMCIA slot for an ethernet card. I doubt they will play mp3s though, because the processor is slow. It will run a web browser, email, "pocket" MS Office, and other CE apps under CE. It's basically a cross between a subnotebook and palm device. It's very light, but offers a 6" screen or so with a decent keyboard. Well worth the money I think, especially with unix alternatives.
..."in developing countries - there the time is just not as valuable"
First off, I'd like to thank you for your usage of "developing nation". It's just as bad as calling it a third world country. It is ironic that the banner on the page I'm tying this is for IBM "moving at the speed of e-business", for that is exactly my point. The speed of e-business does not vary based upon your time zone, nationality, or geographic location. To say that tech people in the reigons of Africa, Eastern Europe, or Latin America have more time to spend installing linux is ludicrous. To say that, as I believe AC has said, time is not as valuble in any country besides "developed" nations is also ridiculous. There are 24 hours in each person's day around the world, and each minute is as valuable to one person as the next.
We cannot write off other nations or give them second rate or our discarded products because we believe they have the time to fiddle with them. If the USA's seemingly infinite tech structure can't deal with 486s and Linux, what makes one think that they will be welcomed in another country? An old computer is not necessarily better than no computer at all. This has been pointed out to be by people at schools who don't want old hardware donations from the company I work at. It's better to buy new equipment to teach people on, and it's worth every penny in support hassles.
Over 50% of the world's population has never made a phone call. Should we make a direct leap onto the internet for them? I would imagine that a graphical Linux on capable, stripped down for cost hardware would be an excellent en masse computing solution. Linux, a Celeron, 32mb RAM, 3gb HD, small graphics card is all it takes. Shipping 486s all over the place is not the solution.
Time is what you make of it, not what other people tell you it's worth!
There is no such thing as zero administration. The day that computers can configure themselves to exactly what you want without asking will be the day that I'll be afraid to use computers.
In all seriousness though, I have found NT4 (SP5) to be more reliable than Win2k RTM, at least with Exchange Server. I get no end of bluescreens and Exception Faults on a Win2k testing box. I don't think there is any garuntee that win2k is more stable until enough people use it to prove it.
In my mind it's just a moral issue with possible legal ramifications. If you bought it in good faith and don't use it anymore, you shouldn't have a problem selling it. If you bought it because you thought it was "hot" to sell and it's not trademarked, that's within reason as well. However, once one has intentionally purchased domains containing prelicensed trademarks which don't belong to oneself, that's immoral and can also potentially be prosecutable, although usally businesses come up with alternative URLs as a solution.
.net, and .org just so others don't infringe on their trademark. This is wasteful and is a reverse type of squatting which ultimately wastes the company's own money.
Moreover, what about legitimate businesses cybersquatting? I have seen many instances where, for example, Ideafuture Inc registers ideafuture.com,
MacOS Rumors as an example uses the "Open Content" license, with details at the bottom of their site. I think this is a possible answer for posters and readers, and it is indeed essentially a "GPL for Books".
I don't think it works very well to try to emulate a processor which is faster than the chip you're emulating on. CISC chips shouldn't emu RISC chips, P-III shouldn't emulate G4, etc because you'll never get up to speed. Examples? Computers emulate calculators, game consoles, and arcade machines because of the low cpu speeds of the consoles. Rarely do you see a good emulation ofr a recent chip, with the exception of Connectix's VirtualPC for Macintosh--however even with the latest G4 you will not get P200 power.
I wish there was a statistic on how many read and receive email that is printed out for them. I seem to know some very computer illiterate people in high places who have their secrataries print out all the email, who in turn receive dictation to respond to them. This has got to be a very inefficient, time consuming process, which could be emiliurated (sp) by having politicians taking a few days to learn how to double click to receive and send email. Yet another waste of taxpayer dollars.
FYI, if you belong to MSDN (aka a MS developer partner) you can now download the retail Win2k for development. As for "illegall means", some developer has violated his NDA and TOS for MSDN. The real problem with security bugs is that Win2k has gone RTM (Release to Mfg) which means the copy that is vulnerable will be shipping with new PCs with Windows 2000.