Every damn appliance, RSA card, management card, etc. comes with SSL support today, so you just sign that with your own internal CA and distribute that automatically through whatever management infrastructure you have to all your machines.
If you use the WS08 Version from MSDN on your Desktop, what you're doing is most likely illegal. MSDN licenses are granted for development only, and posting on slashdot is not covered by that.
I like PowerShell, and use it daily for scripting.
But as an interactive shell, it sucks. I'm zsh/bash on the (few) unix-ish systems i administrate, and using those is much more fluent, easier for day to day tasks.
It's just details, i can't really pinpoint where the problem is. Maybe the inflexible console window i can't resize. Or the tab completion.
System administration is only as boring (or unchallenging) as you let it be
That wasn't meant as a complaint. I'm quite challenged by my job and enjoy it.
It's just that i think someone who really can do everything and is that good won't be challenged by what i'm doing.
IMHO, ACPI bugs is not someone what a sysadmin does - maybe figuring out that it is a an ACPI problem and then opening an appropriate support cal with the server vendor.
Why the sarcasm? If you're hiring sysadmins who aren't also system-level developers, you're not hiring people who can Do The Job Right.
People with that amount of expertise will hardly be challenged by sysadmin position. And without a challenge you'll get bored. As such, you'll never find people with such high qualifications in sysadmin position.
A sysadmin of course needs to know his stuff, and especially a unix sysadmin should be able to read C code and get the basics (and have extensive knowledge in scripting languages).
But i doubt that understand the gritty details how bind works (or reading a DNS packet with just a hex editor) is something that can be expected from a sysadmin.
But i also might just be defending my lack of knowledge, so beware:)
Please note that ClamWin Free Antivirus does not include an on-access real-time scanner. You need to manually scan a file in order to detect a virus or spyware.
Yeah, and embedded virus scanning is all that is currently good for. It does not have an On-Access scanner, making it almost useless in a desktop environment.
Most firewall appliances currently sold offer "Deep Packet Inspection" - and ones that can handle around a full gigabit of traffic with full inspection cost around 10k.
For smaller companies, there's Microsoft Small Business Server - around 2000 US$ for 10 Users. Add 5k of hardware. Add maybe 10 hours of works. Makes around 10k US$ total.
The problem is that for companies, this isn't so easy. For acquiring software, there is usually a well defined process one can follow.
But with OSS, you'll have to hire someone on a hourly basis. That's different.
Add to that support - for example, a critical product might require break-fix support. Do you offer 24x7 support contracts with a 4 hour committed recovery objective?
The reason society treats pedophiles as criminals is because pedophilia is a crime, by definition (as any other crime, I don't believe in natural or divine law).
No, you got it all wrong. Pedophilia *CANT* be a crime. Pedophilia is a sexual orientation.
Raping children on the other hand *IS* a crime (at least in my moral orientation). The law itself of course has various definitions of when it is rape (statutory rape) or when it is a child (age of consent).
The two things have an overlap, but as much as there are pedophiles who rape children, there also other people that rape children without themselves being a pedophile.
You can see this at other moments too - for example the phenomenon of prison rape, which is usually not done by homosexuals, but heterosexuals which are starved for sex and want dominance over someone weaker.
IBM System x servers come with no OS preloaded, period.
As for desktops (we use Lenovo), they come with a horrible preload - the machines get wiped and their normal base image deployed automatically (Vista made this stuff so much better). We need to do that anyway since we have VL/SA which allows us to use Vista Enterprise, while the machines ship with Vista Business.
If we were a Linux shop, we could just load them with Linux. The Mxx Series can be ordered with special bid without an OS (actually, with PC DOS).
Nobody should install Windows "by Hand". Home users get their OEM Preload, and companies roll their own images.
Should people be required to buy websites from me even though you're clearly better at it?
Of course not. But reality is usually not that simple.
There are self made people that worked long and hard to finally get a lot of money. I respect those people.
But there are other people that get a lot of money working in an inefficient multicorp, earning an above average salary doing exactly nothing of any value. Those people don't get my respect.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with that - the system is more or less self regulating, but it's not very quick at that. When a company has reached a certain size it can just sit on it's ass and still make a lot of money.
The larger a company grows, the less productive it's employees get. Imagine a Small Business, maybe 40 employees. Everyone knows everyone. The company is a team. Made up numbers: direct employee productivity is maybe around 60-80%.
Imagine an internation multicorp with 100'000s of employees. The left hand doesn't know what the right hand does. Processes. Procedures. direct employee productivity is somewhere between 5 and 20%. Yet those companies still rake in cash.
I do not think that we should do anything about this. The system works reasonably well, at least better than the alternatives.
It's perfectly normal to lease a machine for three years, while it is covered by warranty/service contract, and give it back after the lease expires.
The failure rate of old equipment goes higher and higher, and without proper maintenance contracts you'll start of getting into unstable territory.
It's perfectly OK to do it this way. It does not make sense spending an inordinate amount of resources of keeping a huge park of a variety of machines running.
Instead, standardizing on a few machines and tossing them out when another technology renewal is due is *good*. It makes management easier and allows IT to keep things running smoothly.
If you get to view the source, it sounds like Open Source to me.
Then you're wrong.
I work for an ERP vendor which sells an application that runs on the IBM i platform.
Customers had the ability to purchase an agreement that allowed them to view and even modify our source code (of course with lots of strings attached). And that has been going on for a few years, so it's not exactly new.
Many other vendors that do not operate in a commodity market also offer the possibility to buy access to the source.
We're using an Exchange 2007 Edge Server, with ForeFront Security for Exchange and it's integrated Spamfilter.
Works well. Spam is tagged and automatically sorted to the users Junk-Mail folder, directly accessible within Outlook. Each user checks their Junkmail folder on their own.
Slashdot Mirror
The solution for this is an internal/private CA.
Every damn appliance, RSA card, management card, etc. comes with SSL support today, so you just sign that with your own internal CA and distribute that automatically through whatever management infrastructure you have to all your machines.
Problem solved.
This is not entirely true. While WS08 and Vista share the same kernel, WS03 and XP (32bit) do not. XP x64 uses the same kernel als WS03 x64.
If you use the WS08 Version from MSDN on your Desktop, what you're doing is most likely illegal. MSDN licenses are granted for development only, and posting on slashdot is not covered by that.
IANAL - but licensing software requires entering a contract with whoever licenses the software. I'm not entering a contract with Blizzard.
I'm entering a contract with the retail store where i bought the box.
A whole another topic is the whole subscribtion thing, where completely other rules come to play.
I like PowerShell, and use it daily for scripting.
But as an interactive shell, it sucks. I'm zsh/bash on the (few) unix-ish systems i administrate, and using those is much more fluent, easier for day to day tasks.
It's just details, i can't really pinpoint where the problem is. Maybe the inflexible console window i can't resize. Or the tab completion.
That wasn't meant as a complaint. I'm quite challenged by my job and enjoy it.
It's just that i think someone who really can do everything and is that good won't be challenged by what i'm doing.
IMHO, ACPI bugs is not someone what a sysadmin does - maybe figuring out that it is a an ACPI problem and then opening an appropriate support cal with the server vendor.
People with that amount of expertise will hardly be challenged by sysadmin position. And without a challenge you'll get bored. As such, you'll never find people with such high qualifications in sysadmin position.
A sysadmin of course needs to know his stuff, and especially a unix sysadmin should be able to read C code and get the basics (and have extensive knowledge in scripting languages).
But i doubt that understand the gritty details how bind works (or reading a DNS packet with just a hex editor) is something that can be expected from a sysadmin.
But i also might just be defending my lack of knowledge, so beware :)
Yeah, and embedded virus scanning is all that is currently good for. It does not have an On-Access scanner, making it almost useless in a desktop environment.
Now, i don't know that much about apple products, but the same can be seen for servers.
Assume i buy an IBM server and add a 24x7 4h 3Y ServicePack to it.
Now, if i buy IBM branded RAM, it will automatically be covered by the ServicePack i bought for the server.
If i buy some (matching) Noname RAM, i'll have to run after that myself.
So you pay a price premium for having
* A assured working configuration (which you don't get if you chose components on your own)
* Service covered by a single vendor
Of course IBM tacks on a hefty profit of their own - but i don't see much wrong with that.
Most firewall appliances currently sold offer "Deep Packet Inspection" - and ones that can handle around a full gigabit of traffic with full inspection cost around 10k.
(For example, the NSA 7500 http://www.sonicwall.com/emea/4986.html)
So it should be easily possible to scale a system that handles chinas internation internet traffic (100 Gigabit? 1000 Gigabit?)
Maybe we should change the internet, so that users can't communicate which each other directly.
Content can be published by companies though. And instead of URLs, we will have a menu system provided with a desktop application.
We could call this application "Information Manager", and lookup information using keywords.
That'd rock! And it could be absolutely porn-free.
But at what cost?
For smaller companies, there's Microsoft Small Business Server - around 2000 US$ for 10 Users. Add 5k of hardware. Add maybe 10 hours of works. Makes around 10k US$ total.
Can OSS compete on this? Price-Wise?
Look at the IBM x3850 M2.
The problem is that for companies, this isn't so easy. For acquiring software, there is usually a well defined process one can follow.
But with OSS, you'll have to hire someone on a hourly basis. That's different.
Add to that support - for example, a critical product might require break-fix support. Do you offer 24x7 support contracts with a 4 hour committed recovery objective?
No, you got it all wrong. Pedophilia *CANT* be a crime. Pedophilia is a sexual orientation.
Raping children on the other hand *IS* a crime (at least in my moral orientation). The law itself of course has various definitions of when it is rape (statutory rape) or when it is a child (age of consent).
The two things have an overlap, but as much as there are pedophiles who rape children, there also other people that rape children without themselves being a pedophile.
You can see this at other moments too - for example the phenomenon of prison rape, which is usually not done by homosexuals, but heterosexuals which are starved for sex and want dominance over someone weaker.
Well, for companies things are different.
IBM System x servers come with no OS preloaded, period.
As for desktops (we use Lenovo), they come with a horrible preload - the machines get wiped and their normal base image deployed automatically (Vista made this stuff so much better). We need to do that anyway since we have VL/SA which allows us to use Vista Enterprise, while the machines ship with Vista Business.
If we were a Linux shop, we could just load them with Linux. The Mxx Series can be ordered with special bid without an OS (actually, with PC DOS).
Nobody should install Windows "by Hand". Home users get their OEM Preload, and companies roll their own images.
Of course not. But reality is usually not that simple.
There are self made people that worked long and hard to finally get a lot of money. I respect those people.
But there are other people that get a lot of money working in an inefficient multicorp, earning an above average salary doing exactly nothing of any value. Those people don't get my respect.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with that - the system is more or less self regulating, but it's not very quick at that. When a company has reached a certain size it can just sit on it's ass and still make a lot of money.
The larger a company grows, the less productive it's employees get. Imagine a Small Business, maybe 40 employees. Everyone knows everyone. The company is a team. Made up numbers: direct employee productivity is maybe around 60-80%.
Imagine an internation multicorp with 100'000s of employees. The left hand doesn't know what the right hand does. Processes. Procedures. direct employee productivity is somewhere between 5 and 20%. Yet those companies still rake in cash.
I do not think that we should do anything about this. The system works reasonably well, at least better than the alternatives.
Agreed. One of the few valid points.
However, if you have a full corporate IT setup with all the whizbang, you won't be able to boot the machine from anything other than the harddrive.
And if you open the machine, it will block at the next boot. As such, the impact on corporate IT isn't that big either.
Symantec has proven that you can make alot of money on that market without a decent product.
Can't you just marry with "Gütertrennung"?
(http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCtertrennung)
Basically, both parties keep their own money. It's either an option when marrying (Germany, Switzerland) or the default (Austria).
It's perfectly normal to lease a machine for three years, while it is covered by warranty/service contract, and give it back after the lease expires.
The failure rate of old equipment goes higher and higher, and without proper maintenance contracts you'll start of getting into unstable territory.
It's perfectly OK to do it this way. It does not make sense spending an inordinate amount of resources of keeping a huge park of a variety of machines running.
Instead, standardizing on a few machines and tossing them out when another technology renewal is due is *good*. It makes management easier and allows IT to keep things running smoothly.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Then you're wrong.
I work for an ERP vendor which sells an application that runs on the IBM i platform.
Customers had the ability to purchase an agreement that allowed them to view and even modify our source code (of course with lots of strings attached). And that has been going on for a few years, so it's not exactly new.
Many other vendors that do not operate in a commodity market also offer the possibility to buy access to the source.
You're still lacking the source for
* BIOS
* BMC
* WLAN Card
* Disk Controllers
etc. pp.
We're using an Exchange 2007 Edge Server, with ForeFront Security for Exchange and it's integrated Spamfilter.
Works well. Spam is tagged and automatically sorted to the users Junk-Mail folder, directly accessible within Outlook. Each user checks their Junkmail folder on their own.
There's no maintenance involved.
(We're around 35 People).