I was told the company had spent thousands on the consultant and for that reason would be going ahead with his suggestions.
This is one of the most common reasons I have heard for going ahead with
a consultants recommendations. "if we don't, the money's been wasted".
Never mind that the consultant cost (maybe) 5 grand, and the recommendations cost five hundred to implement. One of the perverse outcomes is that the more your consultant charges, the more likely their
recommendations are to be accepted.
Worse, as the costs go up the harder it becomes to say "hang on, this
project's not delivering the benefits". There's so much investment, that
it becomes politically impossible to lose face and cancel it. In the end,
the money runs out. The consultants leave. Everyone agrees that the
project was a success.
If ever there was a need for "the emperors new clothes", the IT industry
is it.
Of the article's 12 steps, 2 are the reasons you got the SPs in, in the
first place.
Step 5. Seek out expertise. Yes, that's a good reason to bring in external
people. You don't have the skills in house and it's not cost/time effective
to hire or train your own staff.
Step 8. Hire knowledge you need. Sounds pretty much like step 5 to me.
As for step 12: Give yourself over to a higher power -- your employees.
So, who's going to do their jobs while they "work side by side with the
consultants"? Oh, I know. let's get more consultants in.
This article looks like it was written by the very people you're trying to
get rid of. They can give you pretty prsentations and high-level bullet
points. However, when you look under the covers at the substance. it all
disappears.
Use consultants when you have an extraordinary need, if you really have to.
Better to have them do the mundane stuff, and train you own people to do the
cutting edge, interesting, high-value work....... Assuming they're good enough.
These comments about access in other countries
are cherry picking (to contine the fruit theme) the
absolute best offers/tech, with no context about how
common it it.
For example, in the UK there's only a tiny number of
people who are close enough to an enabled exchange to
actually get 24Mbit/s connectivity.
Further, in spain my personal experience is that ADSL
connectivity is more expensive than in the UK. Granted,
there may be some offers available in major cities that
make it look cheaper in absolute terms -- but then
take into account the average wage in these countries
and the real cost is higher.
To sum up: don't take these headlines and get paranoid,
they are as misleading to what real people actually get
as any sales brochure.
Originally phone access was restricted - as it had a cost involved.
As time progressed (certainly in this country) phone access has become
one of those things that you take for granted at work. Sure, people
make personal calls. However, it's generally thought to be "a good thing".
Internet access goes the same way. Businesses' instinct to anything new
is to ban/restrict it, then gradually it becomes liberalised.
Like phone access, those who abuse it either by making calls to premium
rate (smut and the like) site/numbers or through massive non-business use
should be brought to task. This does mean that people will have to get used
to having their usage monitored.
So it takes too many listings to sell goods on eBay?
Maybe your stuff simply costs too much.
When once eBay used to be the place to go for bargains,
nowadays I frequently find items priced on B.I.N. or with
reserves higher than it's available from non-eBay online
stores.
I don't know if they're cashing in on the (now rather inaccurate)
idea that if it's for sale on eBay it must be a bargain, or just
exploiting people's unwillingness to shop around.
Oh yes, don't get me started on the increasingly popular
practice of charging a low headline price and then an
extortionate shipping cost.
The future is not so hard to predict - just look at all the domains where people are competing hardest to innovate...
To find the technological (as opposed to political, social or economic)areas
where there will be real progress in 10 years, you have to focus on those
years that are not regulated. What drugs will we be using in ten years time?
Simple: the same ones we use today, plus a fraction of those that are about
to enter clinical trials.
Same goes for aircraft, cars, HDTV, mobile phones and anything else that needs
a standard. I would hazard a guess and say I'll still be using W2K in 2016!
Well, I've never seen a smart mob, so I've got to call his forcast bogus.
As for mobile technologies - yawn! We've had mobile phones for over 20 years
and they've been in popular use for well over 10. As for other mobile devices
(remember walkman?) that's nothing new.
With the availability of genetic screening, you can get a much
more accurate picture of your future risks than simply by knowing
what your ancestors dies of. Esp. as they wouldn't diagnose
diseases as we do today.
Worse, most people who actually made it to adulthood would've
died of injury, illness, starvation or war rather than than
something like luekemia (sp?)
So far as living to a ripe old age just 'cos your great-grandaddy did?
Don't forget, they didn't have McDonalds to deal with.
but every trip they make into space breaks new ground and teaches them new lessons
That may have been true for the sixties space-race, but where exactly are these
shuttle missions going? The old tub is going to be obsolete in a few years and then
replaced (maybe) with something different.
Now, I'm not against manned space missions per. se. but they need to have value and
to be a last resort: not just pushing satellites out the hatch. If I was going to risk my
life, I'd want to know that it was for something that mankind would benefit from,
not just to make a political point, or to demonstrate a "I was right, it can still fly" attitude.
> being the most powerful country in the World, (like Britain was in the 19th Century, or France in the 18th).
and I think we can all reasonably assume china will be in the 21st century -
at least they don't teach creationism.
That's pretty much all I had to do to start my company in the UK.
I bought an "off the shelf" company for £100.00 (OK, slightly more,
but only took a few mouse-clicks) and filled in a couple of free
forms supplied with the package to register transfer of ownership.
The headline does however miss the point. Starting up a company is
the easy bit, any fool can do that (I know, firsthand:-) A more
telling question would be to ask how many of these start-ups are
still running 2 years later.
The highest resolution easily available is 1600x1200 or maybe 1920x1200
This is about 2 mega-pixels: hardly astounding comared with 8MP cameras
for example.
Also resolution hasn't increased much for many years. I've been
running 1600x1200 as standard for many years (at least 5). This is
one area of technology that's preet much stood still over the past
few years.
Therefore I'd say this article and the reasons the author gives are
completely bogus: ignore.
This sounds like some confusion about what constitutes a signature.
IANAL, but so far as I can see, in law a signature is when you "sign"
your name. An email sig. is merely a few lines of text that some people
add to the bottom of their emails.
Just because they share the same name doesn't make email signatures
and contractual signatures the same
It's getting on for 20 years since I got my first cell phone (1987).
Judging by the capacity of the batteries and the short amount of time
they lasted I reckon these old units used (and probably radiated) more
power than modern devices.
Either way, it means that we should have about 20 years worth of
usage history, so if there is firm evidence of cellphone related
tumours, we should start seeing an increased incidence fairly soon.
This does assume that people who study these things are asking cancer
victims about their cell phone habits, to get the base data in the
first place.
making the whole thing nearly as good as what I've got now.
Without the need to massively upgrade my video (to get the
pretty, but superficial GUI) or learn the new places that
stuff has been moved to - such as the "run" command.
Thanks but I'll pass on this one, there's just no killer app here
OK, so you don't feel you need a high level of security on your PC.
That's fine, but remember that come the time you wish you'd had it,
it's too late. In that resepect it's like taking out home/property
insurance: you can only do it ahead of time. Once you've been robbed
you can't take out a policy and get paid retrospectively.
For that reason, a lot of experienced people take a "better safe than
sorry" attitiude and prefer an inherently secure O/S.
Obviously, if you keep nothing of value (to you) on your computer then
you are correct - you don't need to stop unauthorised access, just like
you don't need insurance if you don't own anything.
Unfortunately it's easier to take an inherently secure design and relax
the level of security than it is to start with a system that's full of
holes and try to patch them. That's one of the reasons that people with a
lot to lose prefer Unix based O/S's
I've seen situations like this in organisations I've
contracted at. It seems that when "the management" loses
confidence in the IT people they increase the amount
of oversight and planning associated with any new task.
This is to prevent problems from occurring, as they may have
in the past. Or at least to act as a CYA for the decision
makers.
You have these options:
- leave
- go with the flow. Find alternative outlets for your energy
outside of work
- fight the system
- ignore the system and JFDI
this is a common mistake that some beginners and most managers make.
It usually only survives in their minds until they have actually
read someone else's (supposedly) self-commented) code.
As the OP says, code will only ever tell you the "how" not the "why".
As in this snippet:
i++ ; increment counter
while trivial, it tells you nothing about why you wish to increment
the counter. Ada,C(++) or any other high-level language is always
limited to this.
The best comments are a summary at the start of a block of code that
describes the autors intent. It should have correct spelling and grammar.
if the coder can't even get the coment right - the code is probably
wrong, too.
that it's easier to get forgiveness than permission.
so long as you can tell which way the (metaphorical) wind is blowing
and you're sure that you are right, just get on and do it!
The whole point of the X prize was to make a reusable space craft.
It made pretty much the bare minimun number of flights and got
stuffed into a museum (it won't make many more from there!)
If it was me, I'd want my prize money back
not everyone here's american (or 'merkin as they're sometimes referred to)
Being british, I am totally qualified to use
Brit-speak, or more correctly english . Hence my reference to "the other 95%" which means the population of the world not in the USA
sounds like you've been reading the brochures
my friend. My commute (until recently) was
50 miles (80km) each way. It took 2-1/2 hours
every day. All by car as the "public transport"
only works in large metropolitan areas.Now I've cut it down to only 25 miles each way - still
takes 1-1/2 hours a day:-(
So far as gas (petrol) prices having a gretaer effect. It cost me £250 per month for my long commute.
Slashdot Mirror
This is one of the most common reasons I have heard for going ahead with a consultants recommendations. "if we don't, the money's been wasted".
Never mind that the consultant cost (maybe) 5 grand, and the recommendations cost five hundred to implement. One of the perverse outcomes is that the more your consultant charges, the more likely their recommendations are to be accepted.
Worse, as the costs go up the harder it becomes to say "hang on, this project's not delivering the benefits". There's so much investment, that it becomes politically impossible to lose face and cancel it. In the end, the money runs out. The consultants leave. Everyone agrees that the project was a success.
If ever there was a need for "the emperors new clothes", the IT industry is it.
Step 5. Seek out expertise. Yes, that's a good reason to bring in external people. You don't have the skills in house and it's not cost/time effective to hire or train your own staff.
Step 8. Hire knowledge you need. Sounds pretty much like step 5 to me.
As for step 12: Give yourself over to a higher power -- your employees.
So, who's going to do their jobs while they "work side by side with the consultants"? Oh, I know. let's get more consultants in.
This article looks like it was written by the very people you're trying to get rid of. They can give you pretty prsentations and high-level bullet points. However, when you look under the covers at the substance. it all disappears.
Use consultants when you have an extraordinary need, if you really have to.
Better to have them do the mundane stuff, and train you own people to do the cutting edge, interesting, high-value work....... Assuming they're good enough.
For example, in the UK there's only a tiny number of people who are close enough to an enabled exchange to actually get 24Mbit/s connectivity.
Further, in spain my personal experience is that ADSL connectivity is more expensive than in the UK. Granted, there may be some offers available in major cities that make it look cheaper in absolute terms -- but then take into account the average wage in these countries and the real cost is higher.
To sum up: don't take these headlines and get paranoid, they are as misleading to what real people actually get as any sales brochure.
Originally phone access was restricted - as it had a cost involved.
As time progressed (certainly in this country) phone access has become one of those things that you take for granted at work. Sure, people make personal calls. However, it's generally thought to be "a good thing".
Internet access goes the same way. Businesses' instinct to anything new is to ban/restrict it, then gradually it becomes liberalised.
Like phone access, those who abuse it either by making calls to premium rate (smut and the like) site/numbers or through massive non-business use should be brought to task. This does mean that people will have to get used to having their usage monitored.
Maybe your stuff simply costs too much.
When once eBay used to be the place to go for bargains, nowadays I frequently find items priced on B.I.N. or with reserves higher than it's available from non-eBay online stores.
I don't know if they're cashing in on the (now rather inaccurate) idea that if it's for sale on eBay it must be a bargain, or just exploiting people's unwillingness to shop around. Oh yes, don't get me started on the increasingly popular practice of charging a low headline price and then an extortionate shipping cost.
Now there's an irony for you. So that when they destroy the planet, at least it's being done in a way that won't cause unnecessary harm.
Same goes for aircraft, cars, HDTV, mobile phones and anything else that needs a standard. I would hazard a guess and say I'll still be using W2K in 2016!
As for mobile technologies - yawn! We've had mobile phones for over 20 years and they've been in popular use for well over 10. As for other mobile devices (remember walkman?) that's nothing new.
Worse, most people who actually made it to adulthood would've died of injury, illness, starvation or war rather than than something like luekemia (sp?)
So far as living to a ripe old age just 'cos your great-grandaddy did? Don't forget, they didn't have McDonalds to deal with.
That may have been true for the sixties space-race, but where exactly are these shuttle missions going? The old tub is going to be obsolete in a few years and then replaced (maybe) with something different.
Now, I'm not against manned space missions per. se. but they need to have value and to be a last resort: not just pushing satellites out the hatch. If I was going to risk my life, I'd want to know that it was for something that mankind would benefit from, not just to make a political point, or to demonstrate a "I was right, it can still fly" attitude.
> being the most powerful country in the World, (like Britain was in the 19th Century, or France in the 18th). and I think we can all reasonably assume china will be in the 21st century - at least they don't teach creationism.
That's pretty much all I had to do to start my company in the UK. I bought an "off the shelf" company for £100.00 (OK, slightly more, but only took a few mouse-clicks) and filled in a couple of free forms supplied with the package to register transfer of ownership. The headline does however miss the point. Starting up a company is the easy bit, any fool can do that (I know, firsthand :-) A more
telling question would be to ask how many of these start-ups are
still running 2 years later.
Also resolution hasn't increased much for many years. I've been running 1600x1200 as standard for many years (at least 5). This is one area of technology that's preet much stood still over the past few years.
Therefore I'd say this article and the reasons the author gives are completely bogus: ignore.
This sounds like some confusion about what constitutes a signature. IANAL, but so far as I can see, in law a signature is when you "sign" your name. An email sig. is merely a few lines of text that some people add to the bottom of their emails. Just because they share the same name doesn't make email signatures and contractual signatures the same
Either way, it means that we should have about 20 years worth of usage history, so if there is firm evidence of cellphone related tumours, we should start seeing an increased incidence fairly soon.
This does assume that people who study these things are asking cancer victims about their cell phone habits, to get the base data in the first place.
Thanks but I'll pass on this one, there's just no killer app here
ha, it would be more appropriate to hold this debate in chinese
For that reason, a lot of experienced people take a "better safe than sorry" attitiude and prefer an inherently secure O/S. Obviously, if you keep nothing of value (to you) on your computer then you are correct - you don't need to stop unauthorised access, just like you don't need insurance if you don't own anything.
Unfortunately it's easier to take an inherently secure design and relax the level of security than it is to start with a system that's full of holes and try to patch them. That's one of the reasons that people with a lot to lose prefer Unix based O/S's
I've seen situations like this in organisations I've contracted at. It seems that when "the management" loses confidence in the IT people they increase the amount of oversight and planning associated with any new task. This is to prevent problems from occurring, as they may have in the past. Or at least to act as a CYA for the decision makers. You have these options:
- leave
- go with the flow. Find alternative outlets for your energy outside of work
- fight the system
- ignore the system and JFDI
As the OP says, code will only ever tell you the "how" not the "why". As in this snippet:
i++ ; increment counter
while trivial, it tells you nothing about why you wish to increment the counter. Ada,C(++) or any other high-level language is always limited to this.
The best comments are a summary at the start of a block of code that describes the autors intent. It should have correct spelling and grammar. if the coder can't even get the coment right - the code is probably wrong, too.
so long as you can tell which way the (metaphorical) wind is blowing and you're sure that you are right, just get on and do it!
Otherwise keep your CV handy
The whole point of the X prize was to make a reusable space craft. It made pretty much the bare minimun number of flights and got stuffed into a museum (it won't make many more from there!) If it was me, I'd want my prize money back
not everyone here's american
(or 'merkin as they're sometimes referred to)
Being british, I am totally qualified to use Brit-speak, or more correctly english
. Hence my reference to "the other 95%" which means the population of the world not in the USA
My commute (until recently) was 50 miles (80km) each way. It took 2-1/2 hours every day. All by car as the "public transport" only works in large metropolitan areas.Now I've cut it down to only 25 miles each way - still takes 1-1/2 hours a day
So far as gas (petrol) prices having a gretaer effect. It cost me £250 per month for my long commute.
... and realise that the other 95% of the world is paying _way_ more than that.