Microsoft has it's Most Valued Professional program. I'm one of them (System Center Operations Manager). It's actually a pretty good deal - probably better then most of the other programs out there. They bring you out once a year for a week long summit (Pay your own way there, lodging and food taken care of by MS), you get cutting edge information in the product you are MVP for, and you get a comped MSDN + TechNet sub (That even their employees don't get). Add on top of that a few hundred dollars in credit to the MS company store and a few thousand dollars in free software from other companies and it's awesome.
Bad mouth MS all you want, but they do take care of their MVPs - and all you have to do is blog/respond on the newsgroups.
Seriously, why is this such a surprise to everyone? When you going a global economy, it's like opening a flood gate; initially there's a huge rush out (everyone outsources), then some smaller waves back (people demand more insourced jobs), then - well, then it all balances out (US Company A outsources to India, Indian Company B outsources to the US, Mexican company G outsources to the UK, UK Company L outsources to Oz, etc etc).
In fact, isn't this exactly what everyone was telling us would eventually happen 8 years ago? So shouldn't we have been expecting it?
..that I don't send in rebates any more unless they are $50 or higher. Seems like 9 times out of 10 I never hear from the company again if the rebate is a smallish amount - now I know why.
It truly is brilliant though, how hard would you try to get a small $3.50 rebate back, but it was the reason you picked that product over a competitor. So they win twice, once on getting your business and again when they don't send you the check and you don't really care.
Actually in 2.1 that's being implemented. If you get a tell, you can right click and 'Report Spam' it - this automagically also ignores that user, not just that particular player, but the entire account.
So very try, I'll second that - I'm in Minneapolis here, and it's almost impossible to NOT work. A simple drop of my resume on Dice and recruiters are literally beating my door down for contract work. I'm making 6 figures, doing what I want, and have plenty of money to burn - I love it here!
Sadly, I have to agree with most of the sentiment regarding/. now, compared to/. back then. I've been posting a long time (This UID shows it) and reading even longer. But over the past several years, the quality has waned - I now come here more as a novelty instead of a necessity. Shame really - I really loved this place.
I second the Weather Duck, it's a wonderful solution - especially for smaller datacenters.
One note of caution on the Power Egg - they aren't UL listed, and the construction of them seems.. well, not that great. We ordered a couple with L5 30amp ends and after a few weeks decided we didn't want to trust our power to something that hasn't been certified - not to mention the lawyers told us that if there was a fire due to them that it wouldn't be covered. So buyer beware on that!
But our Weather Goose has yet to fail on us, just waiting for a bigger solution to get installed
The best part is watching all the trucks deliver and take away the radioactive fuel and waste. Good thing there aren't ever any highway accidents.
Actually, there hasn't been. There have been over 3000 shipments of radioactive fuel in the US since the 50s, and there has yet to be a single accident with them.
There's a "Modern Marvels" on the History channel entitles "Dangerous Cargo" - in it they talk about the Yucca mountain facility being built to house our spent fuel, and they talk about all the prior shipments already made.
People always worry about the transport of radioactive fuel, yet no one seems to mind the fact the there are thousands of tons of spent fuel rods sitting next to the plants in nothing more then an oversized swimming pool - most of which are in a lot closer proximity to residential areas then the proposed Yucca mountain facility.
Oh, and Chernobyl was as bad as it was because the Russians chose to not construct a secondary containment vessel. All of the plants have them, and they make a big difference, see 3 mile island.
And don't even get me started on the much much safer pebble bed reactors, whose fuels pebbles are safe enough to be held in your hand!
Except for a bad 32mb SIMM I had in 1997, I've never ever had ram go bad on me, but then again I always use Crucial - I've seen some of the prices for ram you can find on Pricewatch and all, but remember 'if it sounds to good to be a deal, it probably isnt'. Besides, with everything else then can go wrong with PCs these days, I like to be reasonably assured my ram is fine.
In fact, I used to work in a datacenter with some 2500 Proliant servers running mostly the 6400 SA controllers. For about 3 years we had to shut down the datacenter completely about once or twice a year (Mainly for upgrades to the electrical systems) - and in bringing things backup we'd end up needing to replace 4-5 controllers - and they never skipped a beat! Same with upgrades, never had any problems.
but can also replace the non-descriptive "Check Engine" light with a scrolling message that gives exact information about the sensed problem instead of requiring somebody with a special chip-reader tool to extract that error message.
There's a big reason WHY there is only a check engine light and not a full diagnostic output - because vehicles aren't as smart as you think they are and are often wrong.
Here's a common example of what I mean.. You get a 'check engine' light and a code scanner says your oxygen sensor is bad. You replace said oxygen sensor, same thing happens. Repeat 2-3 times until you finally take it to the mechanic to have the leaking throtle-body gasket replaced.
See, in that example, the O2 sensor keeps saying "There's to much oxygen in this exhaust, cut back!". So the engine says "Ok, here's a little less o2.". O2 sensor STILL says "TO MUCH O2 - CUT BACK!". The engine goes "Ok" again, and reduces the air a bit more.
Now, after awhile, the engine is basically going to assume that the O2 sensor MUST be broken because all it's done is ask for less air, and I can't give it any less then I'm doing now. So it ignores the O2 sensor, uses a stored 'profile', and pops a code.
So you see, if you give out all the diagnostic info to the driver and the replace the part the car says is wrong, they'd start to think their automaker is a POS that can't design a system well.
Those of us who understand all the above, and know to go to AutoZone to rent a free code reader, can properly fix it without blindly swapping parts.
True, and weirdly enough, this CPU is in an IBM too. It's an old desktop from some company, and it has all sorts of weird things inside of it - like a Radio transmitter! I've never seen anything like it before, but I remember booting it up the first time it absolutely refused to boot because it couldn't contact the radio receiver - some kind of anti-theft technology. Of course, luckily enough the BIOS wasn't password protected, so all I had to do was go in and disable it.
Still made me wonder though - then again I've almost 0 dealings with IBM except for their big 400+ tape backup units
I wonder how long it will be until everything contains trust chips.
I was thinking about this earlier last week, and made a decision I'll try to stick with - I'll get the most cutting edge PC I can that doesn't contain any builtin DRM, and then see how long I'll last.
Except for games, I think I can last quite some time. As it stands, the only thing I need a lot of extra horsepower for is gaming. I don't mind waiting an extra bit of time for a program to compile, and everything I use now works fine even on an old P3 667. If push comes to shove, I'll just game on a console and do my compiling on a stand alone machine.
The only 'bite me in the ass' possibility is if they start building hardware (video cards, hard drives, ram, etc) that demands the use of this DRM chipset, then I'd be screwed. If not, I bet I could push my next PC purchase out to easily over 5 years.
Debit cards fall under the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, see more info here.
Personally, I think the credit card companies have a lot to do with people thinking they have zero protection. Granted, a debit card isn't as safe as a credit card, but it's not as risky as a lot of people like to think.
Well, so, it will be purely for wardriving. I just bought and iPaq 4155 for song from a coworker (200$ - it's only been used for a week or so) and while I don't want to use that for wardriving (It's internal wifi doesn't work with ministumbler, pocketwinc yes, ministumbler no) it did come with an older ipaq 3xxx series that will mate with the dual PCMCIA sleeve that my wife kept telling me to get rid of hehe. Add in a GPS & an Orinco card with an external antenna and I'm good to go.
I actually plan on making a geek backpack with the PDA and antenna for wardriving/walking/etc as well as a place for my ipod (extending the remote into the straps to keep it hidden) and my cell.
Though, other then that it's sort of useless. My blackberry does phone/web/mail/etc
If you currently have a Debit card, cut it up. Ask your bank for a card that ONLY does ATM transactions and nothing else. You are NOT protected if a debit card is stolen or misused - your money is GONE. Credit card companies protect you from paying more than $50 if a card is stolen / misused.
Not true. See here. Granted, credit cards have a broader umbrella then debit cards, but there are protections in place - the Visa and MC "zero-liability" apply to debit cars these days as well. It's tougher to dispute a debit purchase vs a credit purchase, but's its definately doable.
Credit cards. Under federal law, if someone steals your credit card you're only responsible to pay the first $50 of unauthorized charges. And, says FTC lawyer Carol Reynolds, if you notify the issuer before the thief makes any charges, you may not be out anything. You're also free from liability if unauthorized purchases occur when the card is not physically present, say in an Internet purchase, she says.
Zero-liability policies, like those offered by Visa and MasterCard, add a second layer of protection. Under these programs you won't pay anything if someone fraudulently uses your credit card online or off.
Debit cards. The rules are similar for debit cards, but there are a few restrictions. For example, your liability under federal law is limited to $50, but only if you notify the issuer within two business days of discovering the card's loss or theft. Your liability could jump to $500 if you put it off. And even this cap is lifted if you wait more than 60 calendar days from the time your bank statement is mailed.
Federal protections are a bit more generous if a thief just steals your debit card number (and not the actual card), but you still have 60 days after receiving your bank statement to report any unauthorized transactions.
The Visa and MasterCard zero-liability policies also apply to debit cards, but only to non-PIN transactions. If a thief steals your card and your PIN, the federal rules are your only defense.
For additional protection check your homeowners or renter's insurance policy. Most cover up to $500 for losses from unauthorized card use.
Also, get a new SSN issued and have the old marked as fradulent. It will prevent any new credit cards or loans being created in your name and destroy your credit
I never said I would download wav files, but I want the option to.
It's just a reassurance thing - if I know I can have it in a format that's been around for ages and probably won't be going anywhere for awhile it would just make me feel better about signing up.
The author's idea of a music store is pretty much aligned with my own, except for one thing - I'd like to have the ability to (for an additional fee even) download the.wav file.
Then I can do whatever the hell I want to with it. Yes MP3 and OGG are nice, and yes FLAC is lossless, but the ability to download a.wav just gives me that warm fuzzy "I can do whatever I please with it" feeling.
Ah, yes, and I'd like the ability to download the track I purchased 3 times, just in case. Making sure I could grab my music again if my hdd fails would be an extra warm selling point too.
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft has it's Most Valued Professional program. I'm one of them (System Center Operations Manager). It's actually a pretty good deal - probably better then most of the other programs out there.
They bring you out once a year for a week long summit (Pay your own way there, lodging and food taken care of by MS), you get cutting edge information in the product you are MVP for, and you get a comped MSDN + TechNet sub (That even their employees don't get). Add on top of that a few hundred dollars in credit to the MS company store and a few thousand dollars in free software from other companies and it's awesome.
Bad mouth MS all you want, but they do take care of their MVPs - and all you have to do is blog/respond on the newsgroups.
Seriously, why is this such a surprise to everyone? When you going a global economy, it's like opening a flood gate; initially there's a huge rush out (everyone outsources), then some smaller waves back (people demand more insourced jobs), then - well, then it all balances out (US Company A outsources to India, Indian Company B outsources to the US, Mexican company G outsources to the UK, UK Company L outsources to Oz, etc etc).
In fact, isn't this exactly what everyone was telling us would eventually happen 8 years ago? So shouldn't we have been expecting it?
..that I don't send in rebates any more unless they are $50 or higher. Seems like 9 times out of 10 I never hear from the company again if the rebate is a smallish amount - now I know why.
It truly is brilliant though, how hard would you try to get a small $3.50 rebate back, but it was the reason you picked that product over a competitor. So they win twice, once on getting your business and again when they don't send you the check and you don't really care.
It's not 19 cents per song, it's .019 cents per song
Wow, you're quite the clever one, aren't you?
I shall be just as clever:
1999 called, it wants it's joke back.
Actually in 2.1 that's being implemented. If you get a tell, you can right click and 'Report Spam' it - this automagically also ignores that user, not just that particular player, but the entire account.
If you aren't yet a member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, now would be a real good time to start. http://www.eff.org/
So very try, I'll second that - I'm in Minneapolis here, and it's almost impossible to NOT work. A simple drop of my resume on Dice and recruiters are literally beating my door down for contract work. I'm making 6 figures, doing what I want, and have plenty of money to burn - I love it here!
Nah, we just tend to read more then we post, but we're here.
Sadly, I have to agree with most of the sentiment regarding /. now, compared to /. back then.
I've been posting a long time (This UID shows it) and reading even longer. But over the past several years, the quality has waned - I now come here more as a novelty instead of a necessity. Shame really - I really loved this place.
I second the Weather Duck, it's a wonderful solution - especially for smaller datacenters.
One note of caution on the Power Egg - they aren't UL listed, and the construction of them seems.. well, not that great. We ordered a couple with L5 30amp ends and after a few weeks decided we didn't want to trust our power to something that hasn't been certified - not to mention the lawyers told us that if there was a fire due to them that it wouldn't be covered. So buyer beware on that!
But our Weather Goose has yet to fail on us, just waiting for a bigger solution to get installed
The best part is watching all the trucks deliver and take away the radioactive fuel and waste. Good thing there aren't ever any highway accidents.
Actually, there hasn't been. There have been over 3000 shipments of radioactive fuel in the US since the 50s, and there has yet to be a single accident with them.
There's a "Modern Marvels" on the History channel entitles "Dangerous Cargo" - in it they talk about the Yucca mountain facility being built to house our spent fuel, and they talk about all the prior shipments already made.
People always worry about the transport of radioactive fuel, yet no one seems to mind the fact the there are thousands of tons of spent fuel rods sitting next to the plants in nothing more then an oversized swimming pool - most of which are in a lot closer proximity to residential areas then the proposed Yucca mountain facility.
Oh, and Chernobyl was as bad as it was because the Russians chose to not construct a secondary containment vessel. All of the plants have them, and they make a big difference, see 3 mile island.
And don't even get me started on the much much safer pebble bed reactors, whose fuels pebbles are safe enough to be held in your hand!
I know I can't be the only one who scheduled his vacation around WoW.
Except for a bad 32mb SIMM I had in 1997, I've never ever had ram go bad on me, but then again I always use Crucial - I've seen some of the prices for ram you can find on Pricewatch and all, but remember 'if it sounds to good to be a deal, it probably isnt'.
Besides, with everything else then can go wrong with PCs these days, I like to be reasonably assured my ram is fine.
Indeed, they are.
In fact, I used to work in a datacenter with some 2500 Proliant servers running mostly the 6400 SA controllers. For about 3 years we had to shut down the datacenter completely about once or twice a year (Mainly for upgrades to the electrical systems) - and in bringing things backup we'd end up needing to replace 4-5 controllers - and they never skipped a beat! Same with upgrades, never had any problems.
but can also replace the non-descriptive "Check Engine" light with a scrolling message that gives exact information about the sensed problem instead of requiring somebody with a special chip-reader tool to extract that error message.
There's a big reason WHY there is only a check engine light and not a full diagnostic output - because vehicles aren't as smart as you think they are and are often wrong.
Here's a common example of what I mean..
You get a 'check engine' light and a code scanner says your oxygen sensor is bad. You replace said oxygen sensor, same thing happens. Repeat 2-3 times until you finally take it to the mechanic to have the leaking throtle-body gasket replaced.
See, in that example, the O2 sensor keeps saying "There's to much oxygen in this exhaust, cut back!". So the engine says "Ok, here's a little less o2.". O2 sensor STILL says "TO MUCH O2 - CUT BACK!". The engine goes "Ok" again, and reduces the air a bit more.
Now, after awhile, the engine is basically going to assume that the O2 sensor MUST be broken because all it's done is ask for less air, and I can't give it any less then I'm doing now. So it ignores the O2 sensor, uses a stored 'profile', and pops a code.
So you see, if you give out all the diagnostic info to the driver and the replace the part the car says is wrong, they'd start to think their automaker is a POS that can't design a system well.
Those of us who understand all the above, and know to go to AutoZone to rent a free code reader, can properly fix it without blindly swapping parts.
True, and weirdly enough, this CPU is in an IBM too. It's an old desktop from some company, and it has all sorts of weird things inside of it - like a Radio transmitter! I've never seen anything like it before, but I remember booting it up the first time it absolutely refused to boot because it couldn't contact the radio receiver - some kind of anti-theft technology. Of course, luckily enough the BIOS wasn't password protected, so all I had to do was go in and disable it.
Still made me wonder though - then again I've almost 0 dealings with IBM except for their big 400+ tape backup units
I wonder how long it will be until everything contains trust chips.
I was thinking about this earlier last week, and made a decision I'll try to stick with - I'll get the most cutting edge PC I can that doesn't contain any builtin DRM, and then see how long I'll last.
Except for games, I think I can last quite some time. As it stands, the only thing I need a lot of extra horsepower for is gaming. I don't mind waiting an extra bit of time for a program to compile, and everything I use now works fine even on an old P3 667. If push comes to shove, I'll just game on a console and do my compiling on a stand alone machine.
The only 'bite me in the ass' possibility is if they start building hardware (video cards, hard drives, ram, etc) that demands the use of this DRM chipset, then I'd be screwed. If not, I bet I could push my next PC purchase out to easily over 5 years.
Indeed. Slashdot should just make him an editor, at least then I'd have the option to ignore stories from him.
Debit cards fall under the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, see more info here.
Personally, I think the credit card companies have a lot to do with people thinking they have zero protection. Granted, a debit card isn't as safe as a credit card, but it's not as risky as a lot of people like to think.
Ah, alright - thanks for setting me straight there. I had always just naturally assumed it was possible, now I know different.
Well, so, it will be purely for wardriving. I just bought and iPaq 4155 for song from a coworker (200$ - it's only been used for a week or so) and while I don't want to use that for wardriving (It's internal wifi doesn't work with ministumbler, pocketwinc yes, ministumbler no) it did come with an older ipaq 3xxx series that will mate with the dual PCMCIA sleeve that my wife kept telling me to get rid of hehe. Add in a GPS & an Orinco card with an external antenna and I'm good to go.
I actually plan on making a geek backpack with the PDA and antenna for wardriving/walking/etc as well as a place for my ipod (extending the remote into the straps to keep it hidden) and my cell.
Though, other then that it's sort of useless. My blackberry does phone/web/mail/etc
If you currently have a Debit card, cut it up. Ask your bank for a card that ONLY does ATM transactions and nothing else. You are NOT protected if a debit card is stolen or misused - your money is GONE. Credit card companies protect you from paying more than $50 if a card is stolen / misused.
Not true. See here. Granted, credit cards have a broader umbrella then debit cards, but there are protections in place - the Visa and MC "zero-liability" apply to debit cars these days as well. It's tougher to dispute a debit purchase vs a credit purchase, but's its definately doable.
Credit cards. Under federal law, if someone steals your credit card you're only responsible to pay the first $50 of unauthorized charges. And, says FTC lawyer Carol Reynolds, if you notify the issuer before the thief makes any charges, you may not be out anything. You're also free from liability if unauthorized purchases occur when the card is not physically present, say in an Internet purchase, she says.
Zero-liability policies, like those offered by Visa and MasterCard, add a second layer of protection. Under these programs you won't pay anything if someone fraudulently uses your credit card online or off.
Debit cards. The rules are similar for debit cards, but there are a few restrictions. For example, your liability under federal law is limited to $50, but only if you notify the issuer within two business days of discovering the card's loss or theft. Your liability could jump to $500 if you put it off. And even this cap is lifted if you wait more than 60 calendar days from the time your bank statement is mailed.
Federal protections are a bit more generous if a thief just steals your debit card number (and not the actual card), but you still have 60 days after receiving your bank statement to report any unauthorized transactions.
The Visa and MasterCard zero-liability policies also apply to debit cards, but only to non-PIN transactions. If a thief steals your card and your PIN, the federal rules are your only defense.
For additional protection check your homeowners or renter's insurance policy. Most cover up to $500 for losses from unauthorized card use.
Also, get a new SSN issued and have the old marked as fradulent. It will prevent any new credit cards or loans being created in your name and destroy your credit
I never said I would download wav files, but I want the option to.
It's just a reassurance thing - if I know I can have it in a format that's been around for ages and probably won't be going anywhere for awhile it would just make me feel better about signing up.
The author's idea of a music store is pretty much aligned with my own, except for one thing - I'd like to have the ability to (for an additional fee even) download the .wav file.
.wav just gives me that warm fuzzy "I can do whatever I please with it" feeling.
Then I can do whatever the hell I want to with it. Yes MP3 and OGG are nice, and yes FLAC is lossless, but the ability to download a
Ah, yes, and I'd like the ability to download the track I purchased 3 times, just in case. Making sure I could grab my music again if my hdd fails would be an extra warm selling point too.