You want Office Communication Server with IM Federation. We're using that, and it works perfectly. Of course, all messages are archived on the company archival system.
The fact that all messages are logged (hopefully) prevents employees from doing useless bullshit. I have no idea if it works because i don't read the logs.
Ah well, it's not easy. I sometimes catch myself drifting into that habit after particularly stressful days. I work in a Small Business (~30 People) that is an ERP ISV and sells some amount of IT services to other Small Businesses.
Dealing with customers is easy - they know that you're on a clock, and every minute wasted is THEIR money wasted. As such, most customers don't call unless it's important, and when they call they tend to keep it as short as possible. On site visits happen of course, for larger work or if the customers wants to (We have several customers that prefer to pay for on-site service rather than online service - nothing wrong with that).
Dealing with customers is easy. Now, another part of my job is to take care of internal IT. With a large amount of technical people, we don't have any draconian IT policies - if you want to have local admin rights, you can have them. I will try to fix the problem, but if i can't all i can offer you is a redeploy of the base image. If you don't want to have local admin rights, everything will be maintained by us, and if something breaks it's our fault.
This policy has worked really well for us in the past few years. But the problems mostly come with the non-technical personnel that sometimes have insane ideas, wishes, or no idea on how we are organized.
"I need a new mouse" - "Ask your department head, i can't buy stuff, only your dept head can approve that"
15 min later
"x told me that you don't want them to get a new mouse" *argh*
And of course stupid questions like
"Yahoo Messenger Video Chat doesn't work" "Well, i don't care. You're allowed to install the software and use it according to our executives, but i'm not going to waste time on getting it working for you"
"x told me that you don't fix their computer" *argh*
Such occurences really piss me off, because I think i do understand that IT only has value if it improves the productivity of employees. I'm also willing to try and solve all the Business problems that we have, but i can only solve one at a time. And no, i don't care about Yahoo Messenger or some other such bullshit you found somewhere on the web.
Sure, there are militaristic atheists and they're usually on the same level as religious zealots.
The line between agnostic/atheism is not really clear cut, especially because people use the words incorrectly. Like Hacker/Cracker.
I'm pretty sure that there is no god, but i'd be willing to change my opinion if i observe otherwise.
I'm also pretty sure that currently no raccoon with rabies is demolishing my appartment, but i'd be willing to change my opinion if i observe otherwise.
I also think that the second thing is far more likely to happen. And we don't have any raccoons here.
1. Possessing ability, qualification, or susceptibility; having capacity; of sufficient size or strength; as, a room capable of holding a large number; a castle capable of resisting a long assault.
Now, i often see computers advertised as "gaming ready". Does that mean that if they can't run Crysis in 1920x1200 at full details they are also fraudulently advertising them?
Vista Ultimate/Enterprise have BitLocker - to use it, you'll either need a TPM module or an USB flash stick - are all machines shipping without TPM/USB stick not Vista capable?
Windows, Linux, Mac OS are all operating systems meant to be used by users, and administrated by administrators.
They are NOT meant to administrated by users. What marketing says is one thing, reality is another. Most users do not possess or are willing to learn the knowledge required for even basic troubleshooting.
I'm not blaming them for that - i'm blaming them for not getting professional help. It's the same way i handle my car. I drive it (user), but i'll leave repais and checkups to qualified professionals (administrators).
Yeah, but they exactly DO what was advertised - they run Vista.
I don't see how being unable to use Aero or Windows Movie Maker can be made subject to a lawsuit.
"HD Ready" doesn't mean you can display 1080p content either - it's just advertising. You'll have to look at the actual specs to see what you're buying.
For example, i'm not a car mechanic - so i don't know much about cars. So if i have a problem with my car, i can either a) invest research or b) ask someone who knows. That's why i don't change my oil on my own - i let a professional take care of things i don't know about or don't want to know about (cars are not important to me - they're just a way to get from a to b with the least amount of hassle).
Really, i don't get it. As an IT professional working in the Small Business market, i paid close attention to Windows Vista. It was the new whizbang that was supposed to come out Nov 06, played with all the betas and informed myself. I remember reading the document detailing the requirements "Vista Premium Ready" and "Vista Capable". It was obvious that the "Vista Capable" label just meant that the machine could run Vista - nothing more, nothing less. You wouldn't have fun with such an underpowered machine.
So for me it was obvious - we recommended customers to buy machines which at least qualified for Vista Premium ready. Many of them have since upgraded to Windows Vista, and are quite content with what they have.
Readiness for new operating systems is important - especially with such security and driver model improvements that Vista shipped with. My company is now running Vista on 90% of all the desktops (the rest are running unsupported legacy applications on a variety of operating systems). We're around 35 people.
Upgrading to Vista was no problem, not even the hardware. We have IBM/Lenovo ThinkCentre machines, of which even two-three year old machines could easily run Vista, with an additional amount of memory installed.
Now what are those people complaining about? That they didn't research what "Vista Capable" entails? That they have no clue on how to do IT?
I don't understand the lawsuit - if they would've informed themselves, they wouldn't have had the problem. And the machines CAN run Windows Vista - all the editions. Just Aero and Moviemaker won't work without a proper graphic card, but that's not much of a problem.
Well, i usually purchased the teacher editions of whatever books we were using. Made it much easier for me.
In the end, the target in reality is to solve a problem with the minimum amountof resources/effort. Solving problems which have already been solved seems kinda pointless to me.
Nevertheless, i only did basic primary and secondary school, i've never studied. Took an apprenticeship. Was much better than school - real skills with real values.
IE7's Protected Mode on Windows Vista is a big improvement over what Firefox offers - it limits the seriousness of exploits immensively. Firefox could do the same, but they don't (yet).
No, real hippies would never condescend to use.doc or.ppt. Real geeks would use whatever tool is suited best for a given task, which may or may not Microsoft products.
Re:ethics require education
on
Ethics In IT
·
· Score: 1
Education, Education, Education. Plus administrative reprimands if your password fails an audit using bruteforce.
This is not a technology problem, it is a people problem.
Re:ethics require education
on
Ethics In IT
·
· Score: 1
Many systems have a timestamp on when the password was last changed, e.G. to implement a forced password change every x days.
I guess it depends on lot on the people you know, where you want to hang out, and what kind of work you do.
During the day, i usually visit customers all over the map. Driving from customer to customer with a car or motorcycle is simple, convenient and fast. I can take whatever equipment with me that i need (more so in the car, less so on the motorcycle). I don't have to worry where a customer is located, when the trains are going or whatever. After i'm done, i just get into my car and drive to the next location. With mass transit, i'd be in a whole lot trouble. Several customers are in industry locations where you get maybe a single bus per half hour, and then have to wait an hour for a train. For me, that is simply not acceptable.
For my groceries and everything, i do these by foot, with the exception of buying water/drinks, which i do once a month. I could have these delivered, but it doesn't matter that much.
After my job, there's a lot of variety. I go directly to the nearest City here, taking Mass Transit is an option IF i'm sure to come back before 2300 (otherwise, the busses in my hometown don't drive anymore, and i'll have to pay for a cab). It get's even worse if you visit other people - because in other smaller towns, busses also stop driving at 2300, so you'd have to leave at 2100 or so to get home.
The biggest downside of using the car/motorcycle in my free time is that i can't drink alcohol. Otherwise, there are just advantages.
I don't know much about Berlin, i was only there once. Can you reach the outskirts of town 24/7? How long do you have to wait to catch the next train/bus/tube?
No country i know has got mass transit that allows you to ditch the car.
I live in Switzerland, and some people argue that it has one of the best mass transit systems in the world - if that is true, other country must REALLY be in a heap of shit, because it sucks bad here.
Mass Transit just isn't flexible enough to help most people. There are cases where it might be better than sitting on congested streets, but that doesn't make it good. If i expect congestion, i'll just take the motorcycle instead of the car - this has downsides of it's own, but it's still better than taking the train or bus.
It depends a lot. The idea is nice, but also has a lot of disadvantages:
* You'll have to find a power plug for this thing (yes, also for the laptop, but finding one power plug is easier than finding two) * The companies security policy has to allow you to install a wireless device into the network * The wireless device has to be able to authenticate properly to the customers network - support a variety of 802.1x/EAP authentication schemes * I would probably lose the device in a week;)
Especially #2 would be prohibitive for me. But, if it works for your customers then it is a good solution.
I currently own a ThinkPad T60. I use the optical drive one time per quarter, maximum. I could easily live without it.
Ethernet on the other hand, well. An external, small Dongle. I've already lost laptop power supplies, i'd probably lose a lot more than the power supplies. I use Ethernet frequently. Not every customer has wireless yet, or setup a guest access wireless. Other people might need the optical drive more often.
The ThinkPads have always been designed in a simple way: Form follows function. Apple is primarily selling lifestyle products. There's nothing wrong with that, but they often trade usability for aesthetics, which is bad, in my opinion. But there are multiple requirements for different people.
We don't completety power down any of our desktop machines. Users log off in the evening, and machines go to standby/hibernate after enough time has elapsed. Thus, users do not have to wait in the morning till the machine boots.
Machines are woken from sleep to deploy updates, etc. Many of our desktops are able to accumulate 30 days of uptime before the next patchday.
Energy consumption is a non-issue. We don't pay much for electricity.
The rest of the infrastructure - printers, faxes, access points, etc. runs 24/7. Again, the complexity to shut them down would never be equal to the energy savings.
Slashdot Mirror
You want Office Communication Server with IM Federation. We're using that, and it works perfectly. Of course, all messages are archived on the company archival system.
The fact that all messages are logged (hopefully) prevents employees from doing useless bullshit. I have no idea if it works because i don't read the logs.
And did you build a bootstrap C compiler from scratch?
http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=102181&seqNum=4
I tried that, but most users found that to be really rude. Maybe it's cultural thing.
Ah well, it's not easy. I sometimes catch myself drifting into that habit after particularly stressful days. I work in a Small Business (~30 People) that is an ERP ISV and sells some amount of IT services to other Small Businesses.
Dealing with customers is easy - they know that you're on a clock, and every minute wasted is THEIR money wasted. As such, most customers don't call unless it's important, and when they call they tend to keep it as short as possible. On site visits happen of course, for larger work or if the customers wants to (We have several customers that prefer to pay for on-site service rather than online service - nothing wrong with that).
Dealing with customers is easy. Now, another part of my job is to take care of internal IT. With a large amount of technical people, we don't have any draconian IT policies - if you want to have local admin rights, you can have them. I will try to fix the problem, but if i can't all i can offer you is a redeploy of the base image. If you don't want to have local admin rights, everything will be maintained by us, and if something breaks it's our fault.
This policy has worked really well for us in the past few years. But the problems mostly come with the non-technical personnel that sometimes have insane ideas, wishes, or no idea on how we are organized.
"I need a new mouse" - "Ask your department head, i can't buy stuff, only your dept head can approve that"
15 min later
"x told me that you don't want them to get a new mouse"
*argh*
And of course stupid questions like
"Yahoo Messenger Video Chat doesn't work"
"Well, i don't care. You're allowed to install the software and use it according to our executives, but i'm not going to waste time on getting it working for you"
"x told me that you don't fix their computer"
*argh*
Such occurences really piss me off, because I think i do understand that IT only has value if it improves the productivity of employees. I'm also willing to try and solve all the Business problems that we have, but i can only solve one at a time. And no, i don't care about Yahoo Messenger or some other such bullshit you found somewhere on the web.
Sure, there are militaristic atheists and they're usually on the same level as religious zealots.
The line between agnostic/atheism is not really clear cut, especially because people use the words incorrectly. Like Hacker/Cracker.
I'm pretty sure that there is no god, but i'd be willing to change my opinion if i observe otherwise.
I'm also pretty sure that currently no raccoon with rabies is demolishing my appartment, but i'd be willing to change my opinion if i observe otherwise.
I also think that the second thing is far more likely to happen. And we don't have any raccoons here.
Here's the definition:
Now, i often see computers advertised as "gaming ready". Does that mean that if they can't run Crysis in 1920x1200 at full details they are also fraudulently advertising them?
Vista Ultimate/Enterprise have BitLocker - to use it, you'll either need a TPM module or an USB flash stick - are all machines shipping without TPM/USB stick not Vista capable?
Windows, Linux, Mac OS are all operating systems meant to be used by users, and administrated by administrators.
They are NOT meant to administrated by users. What marketing says is one thing, reality is another. Most users do not possess or are willing to learn the knowledge required for even basic troubleshooting.
I'm not blaming them for that - i'm blaming them for not getting professional help. It's the same way i handle my car. I drive it (user), but i'll leave repais and checkups to qualified professionals (administrators).
Yeah, but they exactly DO what was advertised - they run Vista.
I don't see how being unable to use Aero or Windows Movie Maker can be made subject to a lawsuit.
"HD Ready" doesn't mean you can display 1080p content either - it's just advertising. You'll have to look at the actual specs to see what you're buying.
For example, i'm not a car mechanic - so i don't know much about cars. So if i have a problem with my car, i can either a) invest research or b) ask someone who knows. That's why i don't change my oil on my own - i let a professional take care of things i don't know about or don't want to know about (cars are not important to me - they're just a way to get from a to b with the least amount of hassle).
Really, i don't get it. As an IT professional working in the Small Business market, i paid close attention to Windows Vista. It was the new whizbang that was supposed to come out Nov 06, played with all the betas and informed myself. I remember reading the document detailing the requirements "Vista Premium Ready" and "Vista Capable". It was obvious that the "Vista Capable" label just meant that the machine could run Vista - nothing more, nothing less. You wouldn't have fun with such an underpowered machine.
So for me it was obvious - we recommended customers to buy machines which at least qualified for Vista Premium ready. Many of them have since upgraded to Windows Vista, and are quite content with what they have.
Readiness for new operating systems is important - especially with such security and driver model improvements that Vista shipped with. My company is now running Vista on 90% of all the desktops (the rest are running unsupported legacy applications on a variety of operating systems). We're around 35 people.
Upgrading to Vista was no problem, not even the hardware. We have IBM/Lenovo ThinkCentre machines, of which even two-three year old machines could easily run Vista, with an additional amount of memory installed.
Now what are those people complaining about? That they didn't research what "Vista Capable" entails? That they have no clue on how to do IT?
I don't understand the lawsuit - if they would've informed themselves, they wouldn't have had the problem. And the machines CAN run Windows Vista - all the editions. Just Aero and Moviemaker won't work without a proper graphic card, but that's not much of a problem.
Well, i usually purchased the teacher editions of whatever books we were using. Made it much easier for me.
In the end, the target in reality is to solve a problem with the minimum amountof resources/effort. Solving problems which have already been solved seems kinda pointless to me.
Nevertheless, i only did basic primary and secondary school, i've never studied. Took an apprenticeship. Was much better than school - real skills with real values.
IE7's Protected Mode on Windows Vista is a big improvement over what Firefox offers - it limits the seriousness of exploits immensively. Firefox could do the same, but they don't (yet).
Well, it could be worse. You could also be driving this van
My boss would say that you don't have tested it adequately if you don't know how it will behave in production.
No, real hippies would never condescend to use .doc or .ppt. Real geeks would use whatever tool is suited best for a given task, which may or may not Microsoft products.
Education, Education, Education. Plus administrative reprimands if your password fails an audit using bruteforce.
This is not a technology problem, it is a people problem.
Many systems have a timestamp on when the password was last changed, e.G. to implement a forced password change every x days.
I guess it depends on lot on the people you know, where you want to hang out, and what kind of work you do.
During the day, i usually visit customers all over the map. Driving from customer to customer with a car or motorcycle is simple, convenient and fast. I can take whatever equipment with me that i need (more so in the car, less so on the motorcycle). I don't have to worry where a customer is located, when the trains are going or whatever. After i'm done, i just get into my car and drive to the next location. With mass transit, i'd be in a whole lot trouble. Several customers are in industry locations where you get maybe a single bus per half hour, and then have to wait an hour for a train. For me, that is simply not acceptable.
For my groceries and everything, i do these by foot, with the exception of buying water/drinks, which i do once a month. I could have these delivered, but it doesn't matter that much.
After my job, there's a lot of variety. I go directly to the nearest City here, taking Mass Transit is an option IF i'm sure to come back before 2300 (otherwise, the busses in my hometown don't drive anymore, and i'll have to pay for a cab). It get's even worse if you visit other people - because in other smaller towns, busses also stop driving at 2300, so you'd have to leave at 2100 or so to get home.
The biggest downside of using the car/motorcycle in my free time is that i can't drink alcohol. Otherwise, there are just advantages.
I don't know much about Berlin, i was only there once. Can you reach the outskirts of town 24/7? How long do you have to wait to catch the next train/bus/tube?
No country i know has got mass transit that allows you to ditch the car.
I live in Switzerland, and some people argue that it has one of the best mass transit systems in the world - if that is true, other country must REALLY be in a heap of shit, because it sucks bad here.
Mass Transit just isn't flexible enough to help most people. There are cases where it might be better than sitting on congested streets, but that doesn't make it good. If i expect congestion, i'll just take the motorcycle instead of the car - this has downsides of it's own, but it's still better than taking the train or bus.
War. War never changes.
Agreed.
Another point i want to add is: Eventhoughmanynewbeamers have DVI input, the conference room wiring is still VGA only.
Ah well.
;)
It depends a lot. The idea is nice, but also has a lot of disadvantages:
* You'll have to find a power plug for this thing (yes, also for the laptop, but finding one power plug is easier than finding two)
* The companies security policy has to allow you to install a wireless device into the network
* The wireless device has to be able to authenticate properly to the customers network - support a variety of 802.1x/EAP authentication schemes
* I would probably lose the device in a week
Especially #2 would be prohibitive for me. But, if it works for your customers then it is a good solution.
I currently own a ThinkPad T60. I use the optical drive one time per quarter, maximum. I could easily live without it.
Ethernet on the other hand, well. An external, small Dongle. I've already lost laptop power supplies, i'd probably lose a lot more than the power supplies. I use Ethernet frequently. Not every customer has wireless yet, or setup a guest access wireless. Other people might need the optical drive more often.
The ThinkPads have always been designed in a simple way: Form follows function. Apple is primarily selling lifestyle products. There's nothing wrong with that, but they often trade usability for aesthetics, which is bad, in my opinion. But there are multiple requirements for different people.
Sorry, i'm not a treehugger.
We don't completety power down any of our desktop machines. Users log off in the evening, and machines go to standby/hibernate after enough time has elapsed. Thus, users do not have to wait in the morning till the machine boots.
Machines are woken from sleep to deploy updates, etc. Many of our desktops are able to accumulate 30 days of uptime before the next patchday.
Energy consumption is a non-issue. We don't pay much for electricity.
The rest of the infrastructure - printers, faxes, access points, etc. runs 24/7. Again, the complexity to shut them down would never be equal to the energy savings.
LOL no.
Do you really believe that?
While a technical person might react like this, they're not the target group. If a teenager has his clique on MSN, nothing will change that.