We run it in a school with around 1000 wireless connected laptops and a couple of hundred ethernet connected desktops, most of which are macs, but we have around 80-90 Windows clients in there also. We have a single G4 XServe running as an Open Directory Master and AFP File Server, and three other Dual G4's which are Open Directory Replicas as well as SMB File Servers/AFP File Servers/Web Servers (not all in the one box). We run a couple of legacy FreeBSD boxes for email/DNS/DHCP.
It all plays nice together, and is easy to manipulate for basic stuff. And if I want to really go nuts configuring stuff to a far greater degree than I can from the GUI, I have the command line and the GUI.
I work as a technician at a school with around 1500 machines and 4 techs. I work hard and long hours. I deal with students, plenty of whom are idiots. I deal with staff, plenty of whom are clueless. Is it stressful?
Well, to put it in context, I worked in security for just over two years. I worked as a casual employee at pubs and clubs at least 6 nights every week. I would get assaulted (and by assault, I don't mean they pushed me, or they were trying to punch someone else and I got involved as a part of my job, I mean they were having a go at me) around 20 times every week. Imagine that for stress. Imagine turning up at your 5-day a week job and four times a day, every day, having someone come up to you and try to beat the bejesus out of you. Imagine having people come up and threaten you with everything under the sun hundreds of times every week. Imagine having people regularly attack you with broken glass, knives, tyre-irons, etc. Imagine getting spat on several times a week. Imagine having balloons full of urine thrown at you.
More than that, we were nearly always understaffed, and I can recall working at a nightclub for a while which regularly had in excess of 1500 patrons with just 5 security. One guy at the door, one guy at the paying point, one guy in each of the main rooms and one guy roaming. There were times when I was the only security person in a room of 700-800 people. Then there was my regular jaunt, a five room pub, which I often worked solo at, and never had more than three security on at any one time. You do the math.
Of course, as a casual employee, if I got sick or was injured, my boss was happy for me to take time off. He would just give the hours to someone else, and I wouldn't get paid. If my injuries were as a result of my job, I would get work cover to the tune of about 75% of my usual wage (plus whatever my medical expenses were).
Towards the end, there were groups of people who knew me by name and would actively come out just to have a go at me, simply because I was the main cause behind their mates or colleagues being arrested....and they reckon are leaving the security industry in Australia because they are all trying to avoid background checks. I left because many of the jobs basically suck, and for $14.50/hour, they are simply not worth it.
Please also remember that this is a first generation product. By that I mean that it is the first generation of this product-line to be released. Remember the original ipods, their size, their capacities and their price? Comparatively, the current ipods, despite being better and cooler looking and smaller, cost less.
I would expect the ipod mini to go along the same way. The next generation may well include options for less storage space, be smaller, have more colours and will probably be cheaper.
So yes, it is expensive, but give it 6 months, and the prices will probably slowly creep down.
...but I doubt that it can be as good as I ever imagined it to be. But then Sci-Fi (and fantasy) never is. Unless something is written specifically for TV or the big screen, it almost never turns out to be as good as you imagine it. After all, when you read a book, especially when you like it and it is describing events that fall outside our normal experience (which is typical of the sci-fi/fantasy genre), you always imagine it in the best possible light, and that depends on the individual. Then, when the book gets turned into a movie or min-series, you will always be disappointed with the result because it was not how you imagined it to be. And that doesn't even account for the 'poetic-licence' that film-makers take with the actual storyline of any book.
Slashdot Mirror
We run it in a school with around 1000 wireless connected laptops and a couple of hundred ethernet connected desktops, most of which are macs, but we have around 80-90 Windows clients in there also. We have a single G4 XServe running as an Open Directory Master and AFP File Server, and three other Dual G4's which are Open Directory Replicas as well as SMB File Servers/AFP File Servers/Web Servers (not all in the one box). We run a couple of legacy FreeBSD boxes for email/DNS/DHCP.
It all plays nice together, and is easy to manipulate for basic stuff. And if I want to really go nuts configuring stuff to a far greater degree than I can from the GUI, I have the command line and the GUI.
[shrug]
It just works.
South Korea purchasing power parity - $857.8 billion (2003 est.)
/ us.html / ks.html
USA purchasing power parity - $10.99 trillion (2003 est.)
USA has around 93 times the land mass, but only around and only 13 times the purchasing power.
Of course, I believe that South Korea has a slightly higher population density also - the US does have a little empty space lying around.
Sources:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos
I work as a technician at a school with around 1500 machines and 4 techs. I work hard and long hours. I deal with students, plenty of whom are idiots. I deal with staff, plenty of whom are clueless. Is it stressful?
...and they reckon are leaving the security industry in Australia because they are all trying to avoid background checks. I left because many of the jobs basically suck, and for $14.50/hour, they are simply not worth it.
Well, to put it in context, I worked in security for just over two years. I worked as a casual employee at pubs and clubs at least 6 nights every week. I would get assaulted (and by assault, I don't mean they pushed me, or they were trying to punch someone else and I got involved as a part of my job, I mean they were having a go at me) around 20 times every week. Imagine that for stress. Imagine turning up at your 5-day a week job and four times a day, every day, having someone come up to you and try to beat the bejesus out of you. Imagine having people come up and threaten you with everything under the sun hundreds of times every week. Imagine having people regularly attack you with broken glass, knives, tyre-irons, etc. Imagine getting spat on several times a week. Imagine having balloons full of urine thrown at you.
More than that, we were nearly always understaffed, and I can recall working at a nightclub for a while which regularly had in excess of 1500 patrons with just 5 security. One guy at the door, one guy at the paying point, one guy in each of the main rooms and one guy roaming. There were times when I was the only security person in a room of 700-800 people. Then there was my regular jaunt, a five room pub, which I often worked solo at, and never had more than three security on at any one time. You do the math.
Of course, as a casual employee, if I got sick or was injured, my boss was happy for me to take time off. He would just give the hours to someone else, and I wouldn't get paid. If my injuries were as a result of my job, I would get work cover to the tune of about 75% of my usual wage (plus whatever my medical expenses were).
Towards the end, there were groups of people who knew me by name and would actively come out just to have a go at me, simply because I was the main cause behind their mates or colleagues being arrested.
Give me IT any day of the week.
Please also remember that this is a first generation product. By that I mean that it is the first generation of this product-line to be released. Remember the original ipods, their size, their capacities and their price? Comparatively, the current ipods, despite being better and cooler looking and smaller, cost less.
I would expect the ipod mini to go along the same way. The next generation may well include options for less storage space, be smaller, have more colours and will probably be cheaper.
So yes, it is expensive, but give it 6 months, and the prices will probably slowly creep down.
...but I doubt that it can be as good as I ever imagined it to be. But then Sci-Fi (and fantasy) never is. Unless something is written specifically for TV or the big screen, it almost never turns out to be as good as you imagine it. After all, when you read a book, especially when you like it and it is describing events that fall outside our normal experience (which is typical of the sci-fi/fantasy genre), you always imagine it in the best possible light, and that depends on the individual. Then, when the book gets turned into a movie or min-series, you will always be disappointed with the result because it was not how you imagined it to be. And that doesn't even account for the 'poetic-licence' that film-makers take with the actual storyline of any book.
...and then imagine it if it were implanted in people, and somehow they were able to record. Privacy would be a thing of the past.