Mod parent up. Americans don't go to a war zone to hike. No one does. That the entire nation swallows this crap is what's astounding. The public doesn't have proof they're CIA or not but what's more likely?
The fact is, you have unreasonable expectations regarding life expectancy of computers. 12 years old is old. Heck even XP is 8 years old and is showing its age.
Who made you the authority to decide what is reasonable? GP is right - it is more user-friendly to provide support longer term than what Apple provides.
"Remotely" doesn't mean offshore. All big outsourcers - especially those who have large offshore operations - make their offshore staff sign all sorts of confidentiality and privacy contracts. A sysadmin in India is as likely to wind up in jail as a sysadmin here. A worker in a Chinese factory committed suicide just because an Apple prototype got stolen from him.
In addition, outsourcing contracts have liability clauses for breaches. So get the vendor company to agree to liability clauses and protect yourself.
Only on Slashdot can trolling like this be modded up as Insightful. There _is_ a shortage of technical talent in the US. That doesn't mean there is no unemployment in this sector. If all you know is VAX/VMS and you only want to live in Nashville, perhaps you will be unemployed. But unemployment in the tech sector is _far_ lower than the rest of the economy.
The basic principle of free trade and free movement of capital, goods and labor is to maximize efficiencies that benefit society as a whole. This produces winners and losers depending upon who is best positioned to take advantage of market opportunities. I don't have a problem with the government helping the people who lose out - retrain laid off workers, for example. But these workers have to learn skills that are in demand in society.
If you simply raise protectionist barriers, cost of IT workers will be artificially high, so cost of doing business will be high, so cost of goods will rise. American consumers and shareholders will ultimately pay the price. So they will subsidize the artificially high salaries of IT workers. Just like all taxpayers had to foot the bill for bailing out banks.
Parent should be modded down -75
Everyone can edit
Doesn't mean your edits won't be reverted. It's still faithful to its original mission.
Wikipedia matured a couple of years ago. There are many articles for which the best write-up is a an old version archived on Wikipedia, not the current revision.
It would be nice if someone could redirect their zeal on other wikis instead of Wikipedia. Like this encyclopedia of comparisons.
Any web developer worth his salt ought to have strong experience with the UNIX shell, shell scripting, and Apache configuration. Developers with broader interests should have Photoshop, Illustrator, and Flash at their disposal. And every developer should have decent C/C++ skills.
And he should be able to dance, cook, be good in bed, know how to sail a boat, be good with kids and impress my parents.
Have you ever watched TV in other countries? If it's not reruns of old stuff from the US, It's knock-offs like [insert country here] Idol. Entertainment is bad on a global scale.
Before you take too much misplaced patriotic pride in the silliness of American Idol, you should know that it's a ripoff from a British show. But it's too late for that I guess.
it would only open the market between T-Mobile and AT&T, and separately between Sprint and Verizon Wireless. Both use totally different networks (GSM vs CDMA2000), so nothing would be open. This is not true. Infact this is the perfect market opportunity for Dual mode phones.
It's high time the American mobile phone market is made more open and interoperable.
In GSM-dominated countries, swapping phone service has got nothing to do with your mobile phone. You just remove your SIM-card and put in another one. Conversely, when you buy a new phone, you just put your old SIM card in it and you're done.
The rationale for a termination fee is usually that handsets are subsidized. But a better solution is for the FCC to open up the industry so that there is a separate market for mobile handsets. This will give customers more options to buy handsets that they know will work with any carrier, and competition in the mobile handset market will bring prices down.
Carriers can still offer subsidies on handsets with contract termination restrictions - but users will then opt for it willingly - ignoring the option of other available handsets.
Wikipedia logs IP addresses - heck, that's one way they make sense of who is doing what. Does this mean all wikis based on MediaWiki will not be allowed in Germany?
Some factors affect the uptake of Vista:
1. It needs a lot more RAM. Or atleast people seem to think so.
2. People are waiting for it to "settle down" - probably until Service Pack 1 is released.
3. There is a lot of confusion about different Vistaversions.
There is also the issue of some drivers not being available. But things will settle down soon enough. One year is not that long of a timeframe to wean marketshare away from one operating system monopoly to another.
Dickheads. If they unbundle the OS and the hardware, Windows marketshare will decline only marginally. A lot of people will just install pirated Windows. Free Windows downloads on Piratebay!
You do have a valid argument. Investment does lead to more work.
Jon Stewart's argument was about 2 types of people: those who have regular jobs and "work" and those who are on Wall Street (their work is investment).
For people who already have work, their savings are in banks. When the Fed cuts interest rates, the return that people who "work" get on their savings goes down. But the stock market goes up (as it did when the rate cut was announced). So the rate cut is good for guys on Wall St and even for people who live on borrowed money (mortgage, credit card debt). But for people who practice fiscal prudence, keep a job and save their hard-earned money in banks, the rate of return on savings goes down. At the same time, the dollar depreciates and there is inflation. So the real worth of savings goes down even further.
Your point is well taken: If everyone saves and no one invests, that situation is also bad for the economy. In its infinite wisdom, the Fed controls the money supply in the economy. In this instance, they decided to lower rates. But all this, of course, means that interest rates are not determined only by the free market. So to that extent, it is not a free market economy.
After the rate cut that the Fed announced, fellow-liberal Jon Stewart asked Greenspan pointed questions of whether America is a free economy given the invisible hand of the Fed that favors "investment over work", these guys have been wondering what kind of "flation" we will have to live with.
The Fed chose to cut rates to prevent deflation. The Slate article seems to suggest that deflation has only been postponed and companies will be hit in the long term. But the price cuts are held often - think Thanksgiving or Labor day weekend sales. The fact that there is (almost certainly) a chance to get products way cheaper at a certain point in time does not mean that sales at other time will slow down. The iPhone price cut debate is over - atleast on Slashdot. We all agreed that there will always be early adopters who don't mind paying extra to be the first ones to own a cool piece of gadgetry. That is the very definition of early adopters.
If I were the Product Manager for the presentation app, I'd like to see what features are being used and how often. Per privacy policies, Google cannot go around snooping into the docs or presentations that people create. So how does the Google Docs team study the use of their product by the populace?
The only way to do that is to provide YouTube-like functionality where people can upload and share their presentations online for open access.
Or am I wrong about the privacy policy and can Google study the presentations that I create? What about the degree of collaboration on my documents - can they monitor and trend that?
From TFA
Hiding porn on an office PC, using unlicensed software, and abusing e-mail all count as security incidents, though all pale in comparison to one successful phishing trip." They are not even talking about "stupid" actions or even losing/corrupting/releasing data. If this is what you are measuring as a security incident, no wonder the number of security incidents being caused by insiders is going to be higher. If I am a hacker, why would I use a PC in a hacked corporate network to store my porn?
While Comcast's recent actions threaten to stifle innovation in this space, Netflix and Amazon Unbox will eventually win. Not to mention YouTube. What is interesting is that related industries such as video search engines and content producers like this will flourish.
I'd like to see some statistics on how many people upload videos vs. how many download/watch them.
I am assuming that you are talking about being a people manager and not a project manager.
An important thing I've learnt about managing "resources", especially for people transitioning from a technical background, is to focus on the business needs. Often this might mean that you go for the quickest bang for the buck, and not necessarily the architecturally best solution. This is an example - the point being if you really want to climb the management ladder, your whole outlook should change. You need to be customer-focused in your plans, in your thoughts and in your actions.
Know that you are now responsible not just for your deliverables, but that of your team. So while CYA is an important principle, you need to cover your team too.
I'm sure people will have plenty of advice to give you. At the end of the day, take it easy. Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy. All the best.
Google Suggest is a better example of predictive text input, isn't it?
The concept, however, has been in use in Nokia phones for SMS messages since before 2000.
Slashdot Mirror
Mod parent up. Americans don't go to a war zone to hike. No one does. That the entire nation swallows this crap is what's astounding. The public doesn't have proof they're CIA or not but what's more likely?
The fact is, you have unreasonable expectations regarding life expectancy of computers. 12 years old is old. Heck even XP is 8 years old and is showing its age.
Who made you the authority to decide what is reasonable? GP is right - it is more user-friendly to provide support longer term than what Apple provides.
GP makes a great point.
"Remotely" doesn't mean offshore. All big outsourcers - especially those who have large offshore operations - make their offshore staff sign all sorts of confidentiality and privacy contracts. A sysadmin in India is as likely to wind up in jail as a sysadmin here. A worker in a Chinese factory committed suicide just because an Apple prototype got stolen from him.
In addition, outsourcing contracts have liability clauses for breaches. So get the vendor company to agree to liability clauses and protect yourself.
Only on Slashdot can trolling like this be modded up as Insightful. There _is_ a shortage of technical talent in the US. That doesn't mean there is no unemployment in this sector. If all you know is VAX/VMS and you only want to live in Nashville, perhaps you will be unemployed. But unemployment in the tech sector is _far_ lower than the rest of the economy.
The basic principle of free trade and free movement of capital, goods and labor is to maximize efficiencies that benefit society as a whole. This produces winners and losers depending upon who is best positioned to take advantage of market opportunities. I don't have a problem with the government helping the people who lose out - retrain laid off workers, for example. But these workers have to learn skills that are in demand in society.
If you simply raise protectionist barriers, cost of IT workers will be artificially high, so cost of doing business will be high, so cost of goods will rise. American consumers and shareholders will ultimately pay the price. So they will subsidize the artificially high salaries of IT workers. Just like all taxpayers had to foot the bill for bailing out banks.
Parent should be modded down -75
Everyone can edit
Doesn't mean your edits won't be reverted. It's still faithful to its original mission.
Wikipedia matured a couple of years ago. There are many articles for which the best write-up is a an old version archived on Wikipedia, not the current revision.
It would be nice if someone could redirect their zeal on other wikis instead of Wikipedia. Like this encyclopedia of comparisons.
Any web developer worth his salt ought to have strong experience with the UNIX shell, shell scripting, and Apache configuration. Developers with broader interests should have Photoshop, Illustrator, and Flash at their disposal. And every developer should have decent C/C++ skills.
And he should be able to dance, cook, be good in bed, know how to sail a boat, be good with kids and impress my parents.
WTF?? I could climb Mt. Everest but not your ego.
Have you ever watched TV in other countries? If it's not reruns of old stuff from the US, It's knock-offs like [insert country here] Idol. Entertainment is bad on a global scale.
Before you take too much misplaced patriotic pride in the silliness of American Idol, you should know that it's a ripoff from a British show. But it's too late for that I guess.
Firefox vs. Chrome comparison The article is a wiki so it will improve over time, but it's in decent shape right now. ~Posted with Firefox
Their site is very slow because it's been slashdotted. Perhaps one of the ways of distributing a Bittorrent client should be via Bittorrent.
http://www.ischool.washington.edu/events/calendar/984 Lawrence Lessig is going to give a lecture tonight at the Univ. of Washington. The title is Is Google (2008) Microsoft (1998)?
It's high time the American mobile phone market is made more open and interoperable.
In GSM-dominated countries, swapping phone service has got nothing to do with your mobile phone. You just remove your SIM-card and put in another one. Conversely, when you buy a new phone, you just put your old SIM card in it and you're done.
The rationale for a termination fee is usually that handsets are subsidized. But a better solution is for the FCC to open up the industry so that there is a separate market for mobile handsets. This will give customers more options to buy handsets that they know will work with any carrier, and competition in the mobile handset market will bring prices down.
Carriers can still offer subsidies on handsets with contract termination restrictions - but users will then opt for it willingly - ignoring the option of other available handsets.
Actually, music video budgets are shrinking.
Wikipedia logs IP addresses - heck, that's one way they make sense of who is doing what. Does this mean all wikis based on MediaWiki will not be allowed in Germany?
Head to head Blu-ray vs. HD DVD comparison
Some factors affect the uptake of Vista:
1. It needs a lot more RAM. Or atleast people seem to think so.
2. People are waiting for it to "settle down" - probably until Service Pack 1 is released.
3. There is a lot of confusion about different Vista versions.
There is also the issue of some drivers not being available. But things will settle down soon enough. One year is not that long of a timeframe to wean marketshare away from one operating system monopoly to another.
Dickheads. If they unbundle the OS and the hardware, Windows marketshare will decline only marginally. A lot of people will just install pirated Windows. Free Windows downloads on Piratebay!
You do have a valid argument. Investment does lead to more work.
Jon Stewart's argument was about 2 types of people: those who have regular jobs and "work" and those who are on Wall Street (their work is investment).
For people who already have work, their savings are in banks. When the Fed cuts interest rates, the return that people who "work" get on their savings goes down. But the stock market goes up (as it did when the rate cut was announced). So the rate cut is good for guys on Wall St and even for people who live on borrowed money (mortgage, credit card debt). But for people who practice fiscal prudence, keep a job and save their hard-earned money in banks, the rate of return on savings goes down. At the same time, the dollar depreciates and there is inflation. So the real worth of savings goes down even further.
Your point is well taken: If everyone saves and no one invests, that situation is also bad for the economy. In its infinite wisdom, the Fed controls the money supply in the economy. In this instance, they decided to lower rates. But all this, of course, means that interest rates are not determined only by the free market. So to that extent, it is not a free market economy.
After the rate cut that the Fed announced, fellow-liberal Jon Stewart asked Greenspan pointed questions of whether America is a free economy given the invisible hand of the Fed that favors "investment over work", these guys have been wondering what kind of "flation" we will have to live with.
The Fed chose to cut rates to prevent deflation. The Slate article seems to suggest that deflation has only been postponed and companies will be hit in the long term. But the price cuts are held often - think Thanksgiving or Labor day weekend sales. The fact that there is (almost certainly) a chance to get products way cheaper at a certain point in time does not mean that sales at other time will slow down. The iPhone price cut debate is over - atleast on Slashdot. We all agreed that there will always be early adopters who don't mind paying extra to be the first ones to own a cool piece of gadgetry. That is the very definition of early adopters.
If I were the Product Manager for the presentation app, I'd like to see what features are being used and how often. Per privacy policies, Google cannot go around snooping into the docs or presentations that people create. So how does the Google Docs team study the use of their product by the populace?
The only way to do that is to provide YouTube-like functionality where people can upload and share their presentations online for open access.
Or am I wrong about the privacy policy and can Google study the presentations that I create? What about the degree of collaboration on my documents - can they monitor and trend that?
Obligatory...without Charles Babbage...there'd be no Microsoft
While Comcast's recent actions threaten to stifle innovation in this space, Netflix and Amazon Unbox will eventually win. Not to mention YouTube. What is interesting is that related industries such as video search engines and content producers like this will flourish.
I'd like to see some statistics on how many people upload videos vs. how many download/watch them.
I am assuming that you are talking about being a people manager and not a project manager.
An important thing I've learnt about managing "resources", especially for people transitioning from a technical background, is to focus on the business needs. Often this might mean that you go for the quickest bang for the buck, and not necessarily the architecturally best solution. This is an example - the point being if you really want to climb the management ladder, your whole outlook should change. You need to be customer-focused in your plans, in your thoughts and in your actions.
Know that you are now responsible not just for your deliverables, but that of your team. So while CYA is an important principle, you need to cover your team too.
I'm sure people will have plenty of advice to give you. At the end of the day, take it easy. Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy. All the best.
Google Suggest is a better example of predictive text input, isn't it? The concept, however, has been in use in Nokia phones for SMS messages since before 2000.