Fourfiveb is right. When I was in school it was much easier for me to talk to girls. I generally had a girlfriend. When I was feeling down, I found I was more introverted, and this had a harder time making conversation. Just try talking to people every chase you get and you will develop it. This is in a lot of books from business deal making to dating guides.
I would recommend Neil Strauss though, his books have activites that build just this.
I second the reccomendatuon for AVG. It's effective, lightweight, and low cost. Management tools allow remote admin, but the installation works much smoother on a domain. You may still be a le to get it to install from there without it, depending on your networks. I have deploied it across poorly functioning domains and it runs into permission issues without domain admin privledges.
Also, check out the ZyXEL zywall 5. As a basic security appliance for $600 and no per seat licenseing for antivirus/ intrusion protection, I find it to be an invaluble toolfor many of our small business clients.
I post a VOIP number that redirects all numbers BUT that of Yahoo to the person I'm annoying.
Introducing this will make it easier to trace the offender. As long as the victim has a reliable phone service of some sort, that have to respond to the phone calls as harassment and investigate it from the inside. Now if I have something like free VoIP or magic jack, it wouldn't surprise me to get junk calls in the first place
What if you need the help of the ISP to track down the offender? ISP's still need procedure that will scale properly for this, yet also protect user's rights. i think this is where the original story really shines.
This WILL apply to users who buy a machine with an OEM license of vista after July 2009. you can run XP in place of your vista license if you choose, and many OEM's are offering it as an option on certain models. I order Dells with Vista licenses that have XP pre-loaded on them.
Your first point holds true though, with the added idea your license is backward compatible (thanks M$, something useful)
true that, I will be selling XP as long as I can. Seems this will extend until July now if I had to guess, maybe even longer.
I work with a lot of (medical imaging) software that will NOT work on vista, but they are already planning on moving to Windows 7.
IT workers, blue collar or professionals?
on
Should IT Unionize?
·
· Score: 1
I see any IT workers who are in high pressure jobs, like the blackberry-toting indispensable server room troops who in numbers keep the corporations running. On the other hand there are the self taught keyboard cowboys who know how to do it right and quick to keep things safe (or create the danger) on the wild wild web.
The common thing here is Specialized Knowledge. Regardless of how it is learned, we need to keep up with it. A union just doesn't fit for those with this type of knowledge, professional organizations do.
Personally, i am discusted with the current state of IT workers. I cannot hire college grads with degrees in computer science, the programs don't prepare them. Certs from CompTIA never expire, I had an A+ certified tech not know what type of memory went into a desktop computer. MCSE, Cisco programs are rather proprietary, and don't prepare for multiple platforms well. The best thing time time in the field, but we've all seen managers that claim years of experience who are so out of touch that they cannot make an informed decision anymore. A voluntary professional organization with a system of continuing-ed is the best option to get the IT industry in ship shape.
With a group like this, workers in large shops can openly share their issues with others in the community, and change standard practice. IT managers can also effect corporate practices. IT is NOT a magic bullet as we all know, and many ave pointed out. The forgotten piece of the puzzle are the little guys --the zit faced beetle-driving geek squad guys, the neighborhood small businesses, and the niche computer consultants, security experts, and the highest sought after freelance assets. There will be a measuring stick to compare these guys to, and keep the corrupt ones out.
I have all the confidence in the world that he can learn, but the wasted effort to get a design itself is where the problem lies. He is the IT go to guy for a company, the last thing that he needs is to fight to build a website design from scratch. Just having someone else build a comp and slice it up for him would be great head start, produce excellent results, and (assuming they get a fair price) save money vs having to develop (and redevelop) the design in house.
Geekdom is one thing, but artistic design typically falls out of the realm of geekdom. All my attempts at sites failed horribly, regardless of the medium chosen. Flash & HTML based. Knowing how to write a website's code doesn't mean he'd be able to make it more appealing. Color theory and basic wold of design type stuff can only go just so far, there are a lot of trends that need to be checked before continuing, such as what resolution are the majority of site visitors using, what platforms are being used, and so on. Then factor in the navigation and alt tag requirements for ADA, it really should START in the hands of someone who is more experienced, the site will overall look much better when done, and it will likely save a lot of self taught time (and payroll for the boss). If he really likes, he can have someone with graphic talent create a site and code the back end, or use one of the many templates that are already out there.
The graphic design area isn't a place to dabble with commercial sites, we can ALWAYS tell.
it seems as this the US government is issuing a report just to sugar coat the truth. There are many cases where it appears there are broadband options, but none take into account the type of target customer that the providers are looking for in these markets. a big fiber pipe is nice, but it's not an option for home broadband. Satellite boasts coverage everywhere, but in use it's inferior to landline based broadband services.
I had no idea that the NTIA even existed, but if they do, and this is the garbage they put out, no wonder why no one has ever heard of them. It's a bunch of people working just enough to stay off the radar to keep their jobs off of the chopping block.
The fact that the US is falling behind in the broadband speeds in comparison to other countries isn't really the problem here, but it's the state of the disjoint telecommunications industry working hard to maximize profit without thinking about future growth. Technologies like Sandvine in use by Comcast are not just ways to break net neutrality, but a way to use their existing data circuits to take care of more customers, and tehy are spreading it as thin as they can to avid complaints. They are only able to get away with it because they are the best price for download speeds in many areas.
I have Comcast, and while i was able to download the NTIA report in about a second, I was unable to get slashdot to load the page so i can post a comment. it took a half hour to may by bills online (it should take 5 minutes). If plans aren't made to get more interactions between the existing ISPs and get fatter pipes all around, our broadband will end up like our power grid, and that surgeon who was cited in the NTIA report will have to send a snail-mail letter from Queensland to San Diego to explain how come a rolling internet outage led to the patient's death.
Now they actually have superconducting high tension power lines. They put wires inside a set of nested pipes, and pump liquid nitrogen around. NO resistance, but still expensive and may not be cost effective over long distances. They have one in Albany, NY, between two substations. It still takes energy to keep the liquid nitrogen cool. There's a lot of math to figure this one out.
This year, I've personally replaced over 50 hard drives, about 20 of which were from portable systems, (notebooks, etc.). 15 of those were Toshiba drives. . IBM/Hitachi "Deathstar" and "Troublestar" is is not that much better. These two companies account for the highest failure rates I've seen.
Please keep in mind that this data is not scientific. i ALWAYS advise my clients to keep their important data in more than one place, because HDD failure is so common. I have noticed that Western Digital drives have the lowest failure rate (once again not-very-scientific) I've only replaced three this year. and two of those were over 5 years old used in the same room with an X ray tube.
It's great Toshiba is pioneering new technology, but I'd like them to make their existing technology work first.
Technology is a means to assist the teacher and students, not a substitute for teaching skill! Using technology properly is the key, and can be more effective. I still had students write down notes even though i had power point presentations. I had some special needs students who i would give copies to, and also printouts the slides are great for absent students. I supplimented the notes with animation. not possible on the blackboard, which helped to crystallize the concepts i was trying to teach. it's not just memorizing formulas in math class.
I actually wrote my thesis on effective use of technology in the mathematics classroom. I was unable to show a statistical difference between my groups of students. Nevertheless, i still am a strong supporter for Technology in the classroom.
Fist, in regards to projectors, if you have one with enough power (recommend around 2000 lumens) you can use your projector in a normal classroom with lights on, and you can still see the screen. You can scale back on the projector if the lighting in the room is designed around having a projector, however this involves rewiring light fixtures, and unless the school board is willing to renovate for your teaching style, it's not easy to do.
besides, kids will try to do the same antics whenever you're not looking, not just when the lights are out. Thats my experience as a student as well as a teacher! Real teachers know how to deal with these things.:-)
Now one notion I've toyed with is using a VNC box hooked up the the projector, and having a couple of tablets in the classroom to get students involved, it may be worth a shot. obliviously, this is costly, and the students probably won't have the same respect for the computers you had to go out and buy as you or your colleagues would.
For software, in math check out Geometers Skeptchpad! this is great for any topic involving geometry and modeling. Well worth the price. Also check out Math Type (plugin for MSWord). Might not be tablet ready yet but is much much easier to use than the Microsoft Equation editor. I used it to make the formulas on all my test. Plenty has already been said about power point, but you can really step up the level of what you're doing if you get into using Flash or any other animation based software. You can show models in fluid motion, or create something interactive, which you should be able to pull right into power point.
Lastly, this may not be as useful as the other ones that you posted, but i created an online graphing calculator tutorial back when i was in school. Here, it nay be useful. http://oit.southernct.edu/acc/miscellanea/ti83demo /ti83/index.html
I spent 5 years of my life working my ass of for a retail chain selling computers, accessories, etc. Following that i said cooperate life sucks and i started my own computer business. It has since evolved since i got out of college, and I now run a successful consulting firm.
Price to install ram, yeah 29.99. Did i ever recommend that we do it? No. Our store had some of most consistent performance across the nation. sure we didn't meet some sales goals set by eggheads at cooperate based on the top 10 percent of the company's national average, but who cares. We had customers, loyal customers, who knew our store was different. We had wonderful tech sales because people trusted us with computers. The repeat sales we had keeps the place going.
The fact that we were successful shows a few different things. The big box retailers have some flawed business models, and they are measuring success with the wrong metrics.I'd like to see how many repeat computer buyers best buy and circuit city have on their PC's.
as far as recovery disks being a profit center, i think that in itself is stupid, bu if a tech actually gave some care to set up a computer for that particular customer, with some attention to detail and not just being an assembly line operation, well, it's be worth it.
I'm American. so I can say that I know most Americans are ignorant, and only looking out for themselves. Humans in general are driven by two things... pretty much everything we do can be traced back to greed and fear. Some international team of scientists might be working on the cure for cancer, but they want the publicity for the research, hence they are greedy for something else besides money. So i don't think that the rest of the world is as pleasant as you make it out to be. Americans just like to be assholes about it.
did taxpayers pay to get you through school? Any loans backed by government? Any scholarships? Or maybe went to a state school? maybe military academy?
That tax that you are complaining about paying will be absorbed by the extra tax revenue it creates. College graduates make more money than non college graduates, even when the job market is shitty. I'm going to pay someone who's got a college degree more to flip burgers than someone without. (at McD's they're called "chefs" or management material" because they exercise common sense. The typical college kids who don't have common sense drop out or are super geniuses.
Yeah, but is your average high school student concerned about dropping out going to be able to do that type of advanced math?
I've taught in schools, most of the dropouts I encountered dropped out because the system didn't work for them, it either didn't challenge them in the right way iF they just got fed up with not getting the material that someone said they should be able to understand. Please remember this is the current generation. before people were expected to work if the family needed money. Parents still need to instill education into their kids, so if we play a numbers game, the most likely people to not instill the value of education to children would be hose on financial support from the government (and yes, they nay be otherwise good parents). How about if the government takes away their support monies if they don't keep their kids in school.
Think of the money saved, now we can jail those dropouts when they commit a crime.
Mathematics is always favorable down the road.. no one wants to survive the program. How many times do you hear people get excited about a real mathematics course. Applied mathematics are a little bit different. I can't speak to the other degrees in the program though. I imagine that job placement should also be a part of the program if necessary. (if not let's have them add it). This practice is starting to emerge in some programs in select programs and schools, wit h good reason... competition.
Not a competition... cool, let's tell that to the capitalist society in America.
But really i agree, it shouldn't be a competition, but i don't think people are that altruistic.
Copyright law (to the extent it's compatible with the US constitution) is an government granted exclusive monopoly on distribution of works for a limited period to the extent that it promotes the progress of science and the useful arts.
you can easily say that your stuff is protected under copyright until someone says you're using it unfairly. (ie, always changing the date on the same static item, so yes, it can be hard.
Slashdot Mirror
I would recommend Neil Strauss though, his books have activites that build just this.
Also, check out the ZyXEL zywall 5. As a basic security appliance for $600 and no per seat licenseing for antivirus/ intrusion protection, I find it to be an invaluble toolfor many of our small business clients.
I post a VOIP number that redirects all numbers BUT that of Yahoo to the person I'm annoying.
Introducing this will make it easier to trace the offender. As long as the victim has a reliable phone service of some sort, that have to respond to the phone calls as harassment and investigate it from the inside. Now if I have something like free VoIP or magic jack, it wouldn't surprise me to get junk calls in the first place
What if you need the help of the ISP to track down the offender? ISP's still need procedure that will scale properly for this, yet also protect user's rights. i think this is where the original story really shines.
Your first point holds true though, with the added idea your license is backward compatible (thanks M$, something useful)
I work with a lot of (medical imaging) software that will NOT work on vista, but they are already planning on moving to Windows 7.
The common thing here is Specialized Knowledge. Regardless of how it is learned, we need to keep up with it. A union just doesn't fit for those with this type of knowledge, professional organizations do.
Personally, i am discusted with the current state of IT workers. I cannot hire college grads with degrees in computer science, the programs don't prepare them. Certs from CompTIA never expire, I had an A+ certified tech not know what type of memory went into a desktop computer. MCSE, Cisco programs are rather proprietary, and don't prepare for multiple platforms well. The best thing time time in the field, but we've all seen managers that claim years of experience who are so out of touch that they cannot make an informed decision anymore. A voluntary professional organization with a system of continuing-ed is the best option to get the IT industry in ship shape.
With a group like this, workers in large shops can openly share their issues with others in the community, and change standard practice. IT managers can also effect corporate practices. IT is NOT a magic bullet as we all know, and many ave pointed out. The forgotten piece of the puzzle are the little guys --the zit faced beetle-driving geek squad guys, the neighborhood small businesses, and the niche computer consultants, security experts, and the highest sought after freelance assets. There will be a measuring stick to compare these guys to, and keep the corrupt ones out.
I have all the confidence in the world that he can learn, but the wasted effort to get a design itself is where the problem lies. He is the IT go to guy for a company, the last thing that he needs is to fight to build a website design from scratch. Just having someone else build a comp and slice it up for him would be great head start, produce excellent results, and (assuming they get a fair price) save money vs having to develop (and redevelop) the design in house.
The graphic design area isn't a place to dabble with commercial sites, we can ALWAYS tell.
it seems as this the US government is issuing a report just to sugar coat the truth. There are many cases where it appears there are broadband options, but none take into account the type of target customer that the providers are looking for in these markets. a big fiber pipe is nice, but it's not an option for home broadband. Satellite boasts coverage everywhere, but in use it's inferior to landline based broadband services. I had no idea that the NTIA even existed, but if they do, and this is the garbage they put out, no wonder why no one has ever heard of them. It's a bunch of people working just enough to stay off the radar to keep their jobs off of the chopping block. The fact that the US is falling behind in the broadband speeds in comparison to other countries isn't really the problem here, but it's the state of the disjoint telecommunications industry working hard to maximize profit without thinking about future growth. Technologies like Sandvine in use by Comcast are not just ways to break net neutrality, but a way to use their existing data circuits to take care of more customers, and tehy are spreading it as thin as they can to avid complaints. They are only able to get away with it because they are the best price for download speeds in many areas. I have Comcast, and while i was able to download the NTIA report in about a second, I was unable to get slashdot to load the page so i can post a comment. it took a half hour to may by bills online (it should take 5 minutes). If plans aren't made to get more interactions between the existing ISPs and get fatter pipes all around, our broadband will end up like our power grid, and that surgeon who was cited in the NTIA report will have to send a snail-mail letter from Queensland to San Diego to explain how come a rolling internet outage led to the patient's death.
umm.. no
http://tdworld.com/projects_in_progress/business_in_tech/superconducting_cable/
Please keep in mind that this data is not scientific. i ALWAYS advise my clients to keep their important data in more than one place, because HDD failure is so common. I have noticed that Western Digital drives have the lowest failure rate (once again not-very-scientific) I've only replaced three this year. and two of those were over 5 years old used in the same room with an X ray tube.
It's great Toshiba is pioneering new technology, but I'd like them to make their existing technology work first.
Technology is a means to assist the teacher and students, not a substitute for teaching skill! Using technology properly is the key, and can be more effective. I still had students write down notes even though i had power point presentations. I had some special needs students who i would give copies to, and also printouts the slides are great for absent students. I supplimented the notes with animation. not possible on the blackboard, which helped to crystallize the concepts i was trying to teach. it's not just memorizing formulas in math class.
Fist, in regards to projectors, if you have one with enough power (recommend around 2000 lumens) you can use your projector in a normal classroom with lights on, and you can still see the screen. You can scale back on the projector if the lighting in the room is designed around having a projector, however this involves rewiring light fixtures, and unless the school board is willing to renovate for your teaching style, it's not easy to do.
besides, kids will try to do the same antics whenever you're not looking, not just when the lights are out. Thats my experience as a student as well as a teacher! Real teachers know how to deal with these things.:-)
Now one notion I've toyed with is using a VNC box hooked up the the projector, and having a couple of tablets in the classroom to get students involved, it may be worth a shot. obliviously, this is costly, and the students probably won't have the same respect for the computers you had to go out and buy as you or your colleagues would.
For software, in math check out Geometers Skeptchpad! this is great for any topic involving geometry and modeling. Well worth the price. Also check out Math Type (plugin for MSWord). Might not be tablet ready yet but is much much easier to use than the Microsoft Equation editor. I used it to make the formulas on all my test. Plenty has already been said about power point, but you can really step up the level of what you're doing if you get into using Flash or any other animation based software. You can show models in fluid motion, or create something interactive, which you should be able to pull right into power point. Lastly, this may not be as useful as the other ones that you posted, but i created an online graphing calculator tutorial back when i was in school. Here, it nay be useful. http://oit.southernct.edu/acc/miscellanea/ti83demo /ti83/index.html
Hope i was able to help!
Price to install ram, yeah 29.99. Did i ever recommend that we do it? No. Our store had some of most consistent performance across the nation. sure we didn't meet some sales goals set by eggheads at cooperate based on the top 10 percent of the company's national average, but who cares. We had customers, loyal customers, who knew our store was different. We had wonderful tech sales because people trusted us with computers. The repeat sales we had keeps the place going.
The fact that we were successful shows a few different things. The big box retailers have some flawed business models, and they are measuring success with the wrong metrics.I'd like to see how many repeat computer buyers best buy and circuit city have on their PC's.
as far as recovery disks being a profit center, i think that in itself is stupid, bu if a tech actually gave some care to set up a computer for that particular customer, with some attention to detail and not just being an assembly line operation, well, it's be worth it.
they can't afford to buy music, how are they going to be able to afford a lawyer?
Me too... actually I set up two, one that's open, and one that's sealed tight. I have a scapegoat for the DMCA notices I get now :-)
I'm American. so I can say that I know most Americans are ignorant, and only looking out for themselves. Humans in general are driven by two things... pretty much everything we do can be traced back to greed and fear. Some international team of scientists might be working on the cure for cancer, but they want the publicity for the research, hence they are greedy for something else besides money. So i don't think that the rest of the world is as pleasant as you make it out to be. Americans just like to be assholes about it.
did taxpayers pay to get you through school? Any loans backed by government? Any scholarships? Or maybe went to a state school? maybe military academy?
That tax that you are complaining about paying will be absorbed by the extra tax revenue it creates. College graduates make more money than non college graduates, even when the job market is shitty. I'm going to pay someone who's got a college degree more to flip burgers than someone without. (at McD's they're called "chefs" or management material" because they exercise common sense. The typical college kids who don't have common sense drop out or are super geniuses.
You know i wrote a paper once, and i showed that individuals with a higher education are more likely to support making funds available for education. It might not have been a groundbreaking paper, but the results should be repeatable....
Yeah, but is your average high school student concerned about dropping out going to be able to do that type of advanced math?
I've taught in schools, most of the dropouts I encountered dropped out because the system didn't work for them, it either didn't challenge them in the right way iF they just got fed up with not getting the material that someone said they should be able to understand. Please remember this is the current generation. before people were expected to work if the family needed money.
Parents still need to instill education into their kids, so if we play a numbers game, the most likely people to not instill the value of education to children would be hose on financial support from the government (and yes, they nay be otherwise good parents). How about if the government takes away their support monies if they don't keep their kids in school.
Think of the money saved, now we can jail those dropouts when they commit a crime.
Hmm, I know a bunch of examples.. there called politicians
Mathematics is always favorable down the road.. no one wants to survive the program. How many times do you hear people get excited about a real mathematics course. Applied mathematics are a little bit different. I can't speak to the other degrees in the program though. I imagine that job placement should also be a part of the program if necessary. (if not let's have them add it). This practice is starting to emerge in some programs in select programs and schools, wit h good reason... competition.
Not a competition... cool, let's tell that to the capitalist society in America.
But really i agree, it shouldn't be a competition, but i don't think people are that altruistic.