To the detractors: You know, if you hate businesspeople that much; especially those who try to give back; you need to find a country where you don't need that dollar a day in order to survive. Even communist states aren't that simple.
I am the first to concede that Microsoft got to the top and then started knocking other people off the top by abusing their power. There is probably NO WAY to tell whether or not other powerhouses like Apple and IBM would have done the same -- on the other hand, there may be - Don Imus was talking about a book by a former IBM CEO the other day (but he was also mentioning that it seemed to be written in a vacuum; with no discernible mention of the worldwide sociopoliticeconmical situation at the time period; which is apparently the early 80s).
It just so happens, WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT, that Mr. Gates is very very rich. And you know what; even if 98% of what his company does is wrong; getting there was not as wrong as you think. And that man worked hard to get where he is; and deserves an ounce of your respect for that. There are two sides to a coin; and the very fact that he gives back in areas that many others do not or would not donate time or money towards is laudable.
As far as "the memo" is concerned... you/we/they ARE the competition. Every Pro-Linux gathering has plans to defeat the competition that is Microsoft - or corporate greed or whatever your noble cause du jour is. So do it!
Give Microsoft competition; give 'closed source' competition; don't just spew mindless immaturities - "Waaaaah, he gots a lollipop and I don't". Remember to ask yourself how you are going to make money giving something away for free - and DAMN you if you make only the first one free because that is the same practice you detest. And before you break out more immaturities; I use them all - Solaris, Windows, Linux - because each one has their uses depending on what or whom I'm working for. If you can get it in front of the multibillion dollar corporation and get them to adopt it as their baseline OS; then that will be my next job. I am less worried about the kind of systems I will be supporting than whether said support position will be funded next year.
Internet Explorer is one they 'sold at a loss' - i.e., gave away free - which was an illegal maintenance of their monopoly - which may or may not have been gained by illegal means (but the court says no the monopoly is OK; it's just what you did with it that was bad).
Mr. Chiang is apparently very busy - not only has he done this cover and design direction for the Star Wars prequels, apparently he also did the design work for the starships in the new MMORPG Earth and Beyond. I can't judge the impressiveness of his resume; but I can say that's quite a bit of recent work.
That's a very good point - thank you for that. Actually, a lot of the more recent/. articles have sparked some lively (and healthy!) debate between my wife and I.
Actually, I believe he had his weapons illegally - hence the Federal weapons charges that first brought the Maryland authorties' attention to the guy. I completely stand by my right to keep and bear arms, and don't doubt I will fight for that right even if I have to break out my nail clippers to do so. The people that have guns legally here are usually hunters and people who wish to protect themselves in this manner - and that is their right and privilege. I'm no conspiracy theorist, civil libertarian or NRA good ol' boy; but I do believe the more rights and privileges we lose - and that's what they are privileges - the more we open ourselves to abuses by those from whom those privileges were not taken; as well as those that disregard the taking in the first place.
You would think that they would license the broadcast rights for non-ADV shows from the producers; and producers interested would hopefully fall over themselves to get their shows on this channel. Advertisers would have a great fine-tuned target audience here like they do with TechTV, ESPN, and maybe even BBC America, Lifetime, etc.
I have a couple friends that are able to frequent Anime' conventions and have brought me back some stickers and manga for things like the nurse and baseball manga; not just the sci-fi/horror sorts of things you see on Cartoon Network and that (at least I think because I like them like Robotech, etc.) most of us (that are here, I know/. is international) Americans watch. I am completely speculating on whether some of this (video, not print of course!) ends up on this channel. It would be a nice crossover since we seem to get a lot of our material on their channels.
that I hope gets answered before someone mods it down:
I have digital cable (cheaper than regular cable since we get the cable internet too). Of course, 2 days before I get the job two hours from home we decide to spend $2 more for the 'whole shebang' - all the extra 'premium' channels and whatnot - which I just got for the anime' on the Action network.
My question is am I going to be able to set this thing up to record those channels (on the scheduler, not just by pressing "record this now!")? I know you can record your PPV if you wire the thing after the digital box and whatnot; but I don't do a lot of A/V stuff so I'm curious. If it's in the PVR's manual; just let me know - it's the only thing I am getting for Christmas this year so I'd like to know what I'm getting into...!
If you open the wrapper, they no longer allow you to return it for any reason whatsoever - they automagically assume that you copied it and brought the orginal back. Yes, you could take your player to the store and PROVE that it does not work; but that may not be feasible with some stereo setups.
I often wonder how many people that DON'T copy or don't even have computers to rip music or store it on a fileserver arrangement for playback in the home or on portable MP3 devices get discouraged hearing about the recording industry's newest anti fair use tactics and stop buying music in the stores too. [I guess I can't blame satellite radio though since they seem to be struggling themselves]. Could we just be disgusted or discouraged; regardless of the technology (or lack thereof) in our homes? I know places in rural Virginia that don't even have CD players in their homes. If they can't find it on cassette, they don't buy; and don't bother ordering it either.
I have been happy to find whatever I can from Cisco, MS, Informit, and any other site with free information and articles when I need to get a job done. I am certain I do more research online when I'm having trouble studying for a certification than I do reading the books or self-study material - plus I can switch right into computer lab mode and work the solution and see what it is I'm doing. Freely available (and no cost) study information is not only great for the students taking these courses - imagine how much less their credit card bills will be at the end of their college terms! - but for folks like me who can't afford [time OR tuition for] that education and rely on experience and willpower to thrive - especially in today's economy.
I would like to see this sort of thing help less financially fortunate students - and adults - obtain the knowledge they want or need to apply to a given situation. Like many adult degree programs maybe this could be a great springboard to reduce the number of actual 'live' classes and help folks "CLEP out" of certain areas or apply some of these towards credits in their degree program by testing for them. Rather than reduce the number of students in classrooms and affect the bottom line of a school; I feel that this may encourage more people to get the education they want and thus end up putting more people into that school over the long term.
They can't afford for me to come on-site . Besides, if they had IT staff available, they wouldn't be talking to me-- the IT guy would (and often does).
Then the point of my first statement is made - renaming the file to email it in a pinch shouldn't be that difficult a task.
If I can't explain to another human, in numbered steps, how to change a filename and execute it, then I'd better find a new line of work. If it is obvious they should not be installing software; then they need to be paying me to perform the work on-site or their computer services person should be doing the work.
I like having a filter on message sizes. As many have said; you should be using email for communication, not file transfer. Overnight a CD if it is that important and no one is able to download it from a web or FTP server.
On the other hand, I and people I've worked for and with have had to come up with clever ways around today's email filters to get legitimate work done - like naming.bat files.tab and.exe's.xex. Necessary evil; but on the other hand NOTHING gets automatically run at the far end of our delivery; and it is educational to our clients that we are concerned about their own security that we wouldn't send them something that may automatically run (thanks to the modern email client that shouldn't be interpreting anything but TEXT anyway! HTML is for web pages, not email).
what if you have both ICQ and AIM? How are they going to cover that? I have the same nick on both; but some people have different ones - and still others DELIBERATELY have different ones (like the party animal who uses a 'clean' nick at work).
but have not bothered with ICQ for over two years now myself. I loaded it once about 18 months ago but after 50+ offline msg spams I figured it wasn't worth finding any already-known acquaintances or new chat pals for all the cruft ICQ gives you.
Then again, my AIM account hasn't been very handy lately either, what with my friends spending more time offline or in MMORPGs. I guess talking with a couple of my siblings several states away makes it worth it; but it isn't the 'community piece' it may have been a couple years ago - like the commercials you see where the kids forego the phone for the IMs. Maybe they still do; but maybe I'm not a kid anymore. When I worked on a TEAM, with 12 other people doing support work; then it came in handy. It's really weird seeing their names pop up but having nothing to chat with them about anymore - I don't like to whine when things are hard or gloat when I have a juicy consulting gig; and long gone are the days of planning 'work group' holiday parties or movie trips [especially when you may live near them, but no longer work even close].
'course, none of the personals sites are free anymore - not that that even matters (and it SHOULDN'T) when you're happily married.
It is an MTO - at least they pay most Sheetz people a couple dollars' more than minimum wage. I'm in West VA but I go to Greencastle a lot to pick up my older kids. Sheetz is where we go where everyone else would head to 7-11 (or for a REAL burger, In and Out, but I have only had one and may never be in CA ever ever again heheh).
I know that this will get me nailed to the wall by the postgre/linux/mysql crowd; but you probably should check out the SQL parts of Microsoft's website. There are bound to be whitepapers there on this or a similar topic. TechNet may have something for you as well; but that's almost like putting a generic term into an engine and hoping that one of the 2,000 search results is the one you want.
They often require this from their low- and mid-level employees; while they require an extensive range of product/OS and environment knowledge from their team leaders and managers. So what do you do as an unemployed-for-months techie that does not want to end up hawking washers at Sears or making MTOs?
You go from two resumes to twenty. If they want an ubergenius at creating software installers, give it to them. If they want a bangup job backing up every night; hand them one of your tapes. Because if you really want the work; you'll be really good at it. Regardless of your degree (or lack of degree); regardless of your years' experience - if you know or can know the product then you need to target your resume to the position - for the headhunter or the cost-conscious HR person who has no clue what MSI or Apache means - and go. You're likely to talk with three people before you get to the hiring manager and let's face it - they hire you if they like you. Joe Admin on the next phone call can have five years on you but if they don't like him, the job is yours.
Hey smyle, I'm actually trying to discuss - not argue - so don't get pissed. Why not? "Out here in the boondocks" could just as easily be a sharply switchbacking mountain pass - like 211/340 near Mount Jackson and Newmarket, VA - as it is long stretches of open road like I-81. And believe that there are several vehicles resting peacefully (and in pieces) off of those roads when people are not paying attention. Granted, you could still argue that speed and stupidity, not distractions, are the root cause; but I don't have a lot of numbers to argue either case.
How many of you have your kids quiet in the car while driving? How many of you don't like driving with passengers because... they are a distraction? ANYTHING that distracts you from the most immediate and important task - DRIVING - should, pardon the pun, take an immediate and complete back seat to anything but driving when you are on the road. Hundreds upon hundreds of accidents each year should drill that concept into you. It's no wonder I see more and more luxury-class vehicle accidents than I do even drunk driving incidents anymore. High speed and cellphones are the new alcohol intoxication of today's highways.
Muahahahahahh... you're right it was very much a knee-jerk reaction and today I'm onto knee-jerkedness. However, I know I can think of a dozen reasons why I wouldn't want P2P on my network nor would I want any services announced from my network, etc. - on both sides of the discussion I started... I'm just glad the discussion is being had.
Ooooooh... I'm sorry. I have a tendency to do that in my emails as well. Confuses the heck out of my mother. I guess I'm also not at all good about categorizing the things I comment on very often. Thank you for putting me in my place.
How is the RIAA able to tell what is on MY corporate intranet? This reeks of an intrusion into my Business Confidential data in and of itself.
Please, please tell me some of you guys that maintain and monitor large corporate networks will bring this to your boss' attention when they get back from another RIAA sandpaper condo-media relations conference.
Now they threaten your teachers and your boss; hoping they'll get better results if they make it look like said lawyers would be happy to sink their teeth into larger fish. How many people are going to lose legitimate business use of their computers and the internet because of this? I already know too many places that make you sign 20 disclaimers before you can actually log on to the local network to get your email.
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To the detractors: You know, if you hate businesspeople that much; especially those who try to give back; you need to find a country where you don't need that dollar a day in order to survive. Even communist states aren't that simple.
I am the first to concede that Microsoft got to the top and then started knocking other people off the top by abusing their power. There is probably NO WAY to tell whether or not other powerhouses like Apple and IBM would have done the same -- on the other hand, there may be - Don Imus was talking about a book by a former IBM CEO the other day (but he was also mentioning that it seemed to be written in a vacuum; with no discernible mention of the worldwide sociopoliticeconmical situation at the time period; which is apparently the early 80s).
It just so happens, WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT, that Mr. Gates is very very rich. And you know what; even if 98% of what his company does is wrong; getting there was not as wrong as you think. And that man worked hard to get where he is; and deserves an ounce of your respect for that. There are two sides to a coin; and the very fact that he gives back in areas that many others do not or would not donate time or money towards is laudable.
As far as "the memo" is concerned... you/we/they ARE the competition. Every Pro-Linux gathering has plans to defeat the competition that is Microsoft - or corporate greed or whatever your noble cause du jour is. So do it!
Give Microsoft competition; give 'closed source' competition; don't just spew mindless immaturities - "Waaaaah, he gots a lollipop and I don't". Remember to ask yourself how you are going to make money giving something away for free - and DAMN you if you make only the first one free because that is the same practice you detest. And before you break out more immaturities; I use them all - Solaris, Windows, Linux - because each one has their uses depending on what or whom I'm working for. If you can get it in front of the multibillion dollar corporation and get them to adopt it as their baseline OS; then that will be my next job. I am less worried about the kind of systems I will be supporting than whether said support position will be funded next year.
Internet Explorer is one they 'sold at a loss' - i.e., gave away free - which was an illegal maintenance of their monopoly - which may or may not have been gained by illegal means (but the court says no the monopoly is OK; it's just what you did with it that was bad).
Mr. Chiang is apparently very busy - not only has he done this cover and design direction for the Star Wars prequels, apparently he also did the design work for the starships in the new MMORPG Earth and Beyond. I can't judge the impressiveness of his resume; but I can say that's quite a bit of recent work.
That's a very good point - thank you for that. Actually, a lot of the more recent /. articles have sparked some lively (and healthy!) debate between my wife and I.
Actually, I believe he had his weapons illegally - hence the Federal weapons charges that first brought the Maryland authorties' attention to the guy. I completely stand by my right to keep and bear arms, and don't doubt I will fight for that right even if I have to break out my nail clippers to do so. The people that have guns legally here are usually hunters and people who wish to protect themselves in this manner - and that is their right and privilege. I'm no conspiracy theorist, civil libertarian or NRA good ol' boy; but I do believe the more rights and privileges we lose - and that's what they are privileges - the more we open ourselves to abuses by those from whom those privileges were not taken; as well as those that disregard the taking in the first place.
You would think that they would license the broadcast rights for non-ADV shows from the producers; and producers interested would hopefully fall over themselves to get their shows on this channel. Advertisers would have a great fine-tuned target audience here like they do with TechTV, ESPN, and maybe even BBC America, Lifetime, etc. I have a couple friends that are able to frequent Anime' conventions and have brought me back some stickers and manga for things like the nurse and baseball manga; not just the sci-fi/horror sorts of things you see on Cartoon Network and that (at least I think because I like them like Robotech, etc.) most of us (that are here, I know /. is international) Americans watch. I am completely speculating on whether some of this (video, not print of course!) ends up on this channel. It would be a nice crossover since we seem to get a lot of our material on their channels.
Thanks tfos that will be something for me to play with come this holiday.
that I hope gets answered before someone mods it down:
I have digital cable (cheaper than regular cable since we get the cable internet too). Of course, 2 days before I get the job two hours from home we decide to spend $2 more for the 'whole shebang' - all the extra 'premium' channels and whatnot - which I just got for the anime' on the Action network.
My question is am I going to be able to set this thing up to record those channels (on the scheduler, not just by pressing "record this now!")? I know you can record your PPV if you wire the thing after the digital box and whatnot; but I don't do a lot of A/V stuff so I'm curious. If it's in the PVR's manual; just let me know - it's the only thing I am getting for Christmas this year so I'd like to know what I'm getting into...!
If you open the wrapper, they no longer allow you to return it for any reason whatsoever - they automagically assume that you copied it and brought the orginal back. Yes, you could take your player to the store and PROVE that it does not work; but that may not be feasible with some stereo setups. I often wonder how many people that DON'T copy or don't even have computers to rip music or store it on a fileserver arrangement for playback in the home or on portable MP3 devices get discouraged hearing about the recording industry's newest anti fair use tactics and stop buying music in the stores too. [I guess I can't blame satellite radio though since they seem to be struggling themselves]. Could we just be disgusted or discouraged; regardless of the technology (or lack thereof) in our homes? I know places in rural Virginia that don't even have CD players in their homes. If they can't find it on cassette, they don't buy; and don't bother ordering it either.
I gotcha there. Very good point. Too bad we often suffer the injustices of idiots, eh?
I have been happy to find whatever I can from Cisco, MS, Informit, and any other site with free information and articles when I need to get a job done. I am certain I do more research online when I'm having trouble studying for a certification than I do reading the books or self-study material - plus I can switch right into computer lab mode and work the solution and see what it is I'm doing. Freely available (and no cost) study information is not only great for the students taking these courses - imagine how much less their credit card bills will be at the end of their college terms! - but for folks like me who can't afford [time OR tuition for] that education and rely on experience and willpower to thrive - especially in today's economy .
I would like to see this sort of thing help less financially fortunate students - and adults - obtain the knowledge they want or need to apply to a given situation. Like many adult degree programs maybe this could be a great springboard to reduce the number of actual 'live' classes and help folks "CLEP out" of certain areas or apply some of these towards credits in their degree program by testing for them. Rather than reduce the number of students in classrooms and affect the bottom line of a school; I feel that this may encourage more people to get the education they want and thus end up putting more people into that school over the long term.
They can't afford for me to come on-site . Besides, if they had IT staff available, they wouldn't be talking to me-- the IT guy would (and often does). Then the point of my first statement is made - renaming the file to email it in a pinch shouldn't be that difficult a task.
If I can't explain to another human, in numbered steps, how to change a filename and execute it, then I'd better find a new line of work. If it is obvious they should not be installing software; then they need to be paying me to perform the work on-site or their computer services person should be doing the work.
I like having a filter on message sizes. As many have said; you should be using email for communication, not file transfer. Overnight a CD if it is that important and no one is able to download it from a web or FTP server. On the other hand, I and people I've worked for and with have had to come up with clever ways around today's email filters to get legitimate work done - like naming .bat files .tab and .exe's .xex. Necessary evil; but on the other hand NOTHING gets automatically run at the far end of our delivery; and it is educational to our clients that we are concerned about their own security that we wouldn't send them something that may automatically run (thanks to the modern email client that shouldn't be interpreting anything but TEXT anyway! HTML is for web pages, not email).
what if you have both ICQ and AIM? How are they going to cover that? I have the same nick on both; but some people have different ones - and still others DELIBERATELY have different ones (like the party animal who uses a 'clean' nick at work).
but have not bothered with ICQ for over two years now myself. I loaded it once about 18 months ago but after 50+ offline msg spams I figured it wasn't worth finding any already-known acquaintances or new chat pals for all the cruft ICQ gives you.
Then again, my AIM account hasn't been very handy lately either, what with my friends spending more time offline or in MMORPGs. I guess talking with a couple of my siblings several states away makes it worth it; but it isn't the 'community piece' it may have been a couple years ago - like the commercials you see where the kids forego the phone for the IMs. Maybe they still do; but maybe I'm not a kid anymore. When I worked on a TEAM, with 12 other people doing support work; then it came in handy. It's really weird seeing their names pop up but having nothing to chat with them about anymore - I don't like to whine when things are hard or gloat when I have a juicy consulting gig; and long gone are the days of planning 'work group' holiday parties or movie trips [especially when you may live near them, but no longer work even close].
'course, none of the personals sites are free anymore - not that that even matters (and it SHOULDN'T) when you're happily married.
It is an MTO - at least they pay most Sheetz people a couple dollars' more than minimum wage. I'm in West VA but I go to Greencastle a lot to pick up my older kids. Sheetz is where we go where everyone else would head to 7-11 (or for a REAL burger, In and Out, but I have only had one and may never be in CA ever ever again heheh).
I know that this will get me nailed to the wall by the postgre/linux/mysql crowd; but you probably should check out the SQL parts of Microsoft's website. There are bound to be whitepapers there on this or a similar topic. TechNet may have something for you as well; but that's almost like putting a generic term into an engine and hoping that one of the 2,000 search results is the one you want.
They often require this from their low- and mid-level employees; while they require an extensive range of product/OS and environment knowledge from their team leaders and managers. So what do you do as an unemployed-for-months techie that does not want to end up hawking washers at Sears or making MTOs? You go from two resumes to twenty. If they want an ubergenius at creating software installers, give it to them. If they want a bangup job backing up every night; hand them one of your tapes. Because if you really want the work; you'll be really good at it. Regardless of your degree (or lack of degree); regardless of your years' experience - if you know or can know the product then you need to target your resume to the position - for the headhunter or the cost-conscious HR person who has no clue what MSI or Apache means - and go. You're likely to talk with three people before you get to the hiring manager and let's face it - they hire you if they like you. Joe Admin on the next phone call can have five years on you but if they don't like him, the job is yours.
Hey smyle, I'm actually trying to discuss - not argue - so don't get pissed. Why not? "Out here in the boondocks" could just as easily be a sharply switchbacking mountain pass - like 211/340 near Mount Jackson and Newmarket, VA - as it is long stretches of open road like I-81. And believe that there are several vehicles resting peacefully (and in pieces) off of those roads when people are not paying attention. Granted, you could still argue that speed and stupidity, not distractions, are the root cause; but I don't have a lot of numbers to argue either case.
How many of you have your kids quiet in the car while driving? How many of you don't like driving with passengers because... they are a distraction? ANYTHING that distracts you from the most immediate and important task - DRIVING - should, pardon the pun, take an immediate and complete back seat to anything but driving when you are on the road. Hundreds upon hundreds of accidents each year should drill that concept into you. It's no wonder I see more and more luxury-class vehicle accidents than I do even drunk driving incidents anymore. High speed and cellphones are the new alcohol intoxication of today's highways.
Muahahahahahh... you're right it was very much a knee-jerk reaction and today I'm onto knee-jerkedness. However, I know I can think of a dozen reasons why I wouldn't want P2P on my network nor would I want any services announced from my network, etc. - on both sides of the discussion I started... I'm just glad the discussion is being had.
Ooooooh... I'm sorry. I have a tendency to do that in my emails as well. Confuses the heck out of my mother. I guess I'm also not at all good about categorizing the things I comment on very often. Thank you for putting me in my place.
How is the RIAA able to tell what is on MY corporate intranet? This reeks of an intrusion into my Business Confidential data in and of itself.
Please, please tell me some of you guys that maintain and monitor large corporate networks will bring this to your boss' attention when they get back from another RIAA sandpaper condo-media relations conference.
Now they threaten your teachers and your boss; hoping they'll get better results if they make it look like said lawyers would be happy to sink their teeth into larger fish. How many people are going to lose legitimate business use of their computers and the internet because of this? I already know too many places that make you sign 20 disclaimers before you can actually log on to the local network to get your email.