I'm glad you are humble enough to go this route. I sincerely doubt that despite all the hippie hype; many others would be willing to balance their satisfaction with their pay. For example; recall the posts of those that say "They can't afford me."
Oh, and a big problem with small companies is that it gets really hard to leave when you're ready to move on... they tend to grow on you.
A big problem with small companies is that they'll call you on Monday and tell you your last check is that upcoming Thursday; so sorry, nice working with you these past eight months.
There are risks and advantages to any size team or company. The smaller the team; the more likely you are to have several responsiblities where you can handle support tasks of varying types. You aren't just there to do one task, and one task only. You get into larger groups and oftentimes you aren't going to be branching out into other areas of interest because there are several specialists per task already.
I was going to say that you risk the smaller company going under and you losing your job; but larger companies are just as likely to rid themselves of you nowadays than they would have been 2 or 5 years ago. I'll take the less pay and broader opportunity of a small team inside a big company and wait for the economy to so-called "right itself" in due time.
I gotcha there. The whole thing is pretty sticky. You'd think there should be little if no excuse to reboot anything that is a required production unit. I am getting a mild impression that.Net is trying for the 99.9% uptime but we'll see.
We don't need to go over any thread about roaming profile issues; like you said they should fail gracefully but they definitely do not. I have more evil issues with them as well.
Too bad they couldn't get Charlotte Church to do a song or three for the soundtrack. I'd be very inclined to pre-order that instead of just waiting for it in the store as I did for the first.
Sigh... Plus every hotfix on Windows requires a reboot.
Don't forget that if you have to place a lot of hotfixes on your Windows servers at once; you can use the qchain utility to do several fixes at the same time before you reboot; and I think someone I know mentioned a "no-reboot" tool similar to something in WISE that just makes the registry changes and then registers any changed or added dlls without a reboot (I could be wrong about that part but qchain is legit). This might alleviate some of the headache.
Actually, I tell all my friends, acquaintances and any customers a lot about a lot of things - several of them choose not to hear it. If someone has something they have been working with for a long time; they tend to resist change - even if it's free. I have just stated that I have observed this.
HOWEVER - I'm not a flaming-sword waving anti-corporate, anti-MS, anti-paying-for-software anything. If someone's amenable to something and I have a solution for it, voila. I'm looking right now for something other than Paint Shop Pro v7 for someone because I remember my version 5 being $99 and I know they don't have $99 to spend.
So whether it's my fault or not is flying f**k, rolling doughnut. Any more questions?
Case in point: I have never received anything from my employers except a couple hours off early [paid] before Christmas Eve - of course, that will not happen this year (at least for tomorrow and Friday) because of my contractor status - except:
When I worked as a government employee, the four in our little unit were friends and I got gifts from everyone far more fortunate than my broke GS-4 self.
And last year the company I was working for sent me smoked fish in one of those freezer shipment packs - which was very nice because the person doing all the client and employee gift-giving noted that I liked smoked fish on my bagels.
Which does illustrate my point: I remember that gift better than any other probably because it was food (except for the extra-expensive sweater my ex-boss/good friend Jim Banks gave me that was a SMALL - but for big and tall men so it swallowed my tiny 19yo frame and fits very well and comfortably now *chuckle* He won't read this but he knows that thing has kept me alive in the freezing cold a few dozen times).
Something no one except a bulemic could complain about is gathering everyone up and feeding them at whatever the local favorite is - it doesn't have to be expensive but it could be more memorable than Applebee's or the like. You've avoided any cliches and not given someone something they will discard in the future. Add a Christmas card or Thank You note for good measure.
eh? maybe I misread the article then. ouch. even so; the impression I got was that they were using something that wasn't normally used on the network. I guess I am as conservative as I claim I am not.
Yes I have worked in the Real World before but I won't claim to be a super expert on any of this. It's just my opinion. And it should be documented. I've worked in a couple of places where the place closes down if their regulatory agency comes in and doesn't find all the proper documentation for everything, and that includes data processing.
While paper-based may seem like the best solution to you; what you don't realize is that paper-based is just a single phrase for the rest of these 'bases':
sneaker-based when everyone must run throughout passing paper;
warehouse-based when rows upon rows of storage are now required to keep all these bits of paper;
administrative overhead based when you realize that it takes two minimum-wage file clerks for every one form per desk - not functional area - to file and find and that takes a LOT of time;
and Mexican-based (yes, I said Mexican - who do you think most major businesses pay to do this? I know for a fact they ship things like this there by the truckload.) when you need cheap data entry and "error checking" [which is very unreliable when they can't read your language!] to enter information that could not be read from handwriting and then index them with a reasonable filing code.
Having spent a considerable amount of time as an admin assistant myself; and later as a document imaging and workflow support person, I can tell you that the cost and manpower savings far outweigh any perception or consideration for robustness or reliability.
The PHBs - or very likely the 'managed care' people (and that should have been put in quotes too) that provide a lot of the funding for the hospitals likely decided to save a few thousand since it wasn't lifesaving equipment or blood products/pharmaceuticals/etc.
Should there be a few replacement devices on hand for failures? Yes. Should there be backups of the IOS and configurations for all of the routers? Yes. Should this stuff be anal-retentively documented in triplicate by someone who knows how to write documentation that is detailed yet at the same time easy to understand? Yet another yes.
If it is so critical, it should be done right in the first place. If a physically damaged or otherwise down link is ESSENTIAL to the operation or is responsible for HUMAN LIFE, then there should be duplicate circuits in place throughout the campus to be used in the event of an emergency; just like certain organizations have special failover or dedicated circuits to other locations for emergencies.
Last but absolutely certainly not least; the 'researcher', regardless of their position at the school, should be taken severely to task for this. You don't experiment on production equipment at all. If you need switching fabric; you get it physically separated from the rest of the network or if you really need outside access you drop controls in place like a firewall, etc. to severely restrict your influence on other fabric areas.
No, they come back and tell me they can't get anything done the way they want to; or are missing some feature or another; or do not want to learn a new Office suite. Rarely, but even still sometimes, they cannot share materials with other business the way they would like - or they can't take it home which is another thing. But that "compatibility" issue isn't as prevalent as the resistance to change, I think.
No no no... You would start getting more "road to wealth", multi-level marketing, and get rich quick scam - ahem, I mean scheme - material than you already do. You'd also get even higher rate interest card offers because at first glance, without looking immediately left of your bank balance for your credit score; they'd assume you were desperate for more cards.
I have a wife, and if necessary, a shrink for this purpose. I feel very much like this is one of those "we'll tell you what you can and cannot have or do, and you will like it".
If I were you I'd find another bank right away and LET THEM KNOW why you are leaving them. Your private information is private and should remain that way.
I've always felt that the best advertisements were clever or funny - they didn't bombard you as you drove down the street; scream at you from the television or blazingly blink you into an epileptic fit in front of your computer screen.
I know the ads that catch my attention are the ones that really do make me stop and consider. The 'blinky' ones just make me stop long enough to turn them off.
Still, that doesn't mean I'll be buying any of it anytime soon while trying to catch up with the horror that was this year.
**I thought this a very strange thing and didn't really believe it till I met a few of the online acquaintances to know for sure that they were really middle aged women. Universally they are married but near divorce, or single without much hope of hooking up with someone. A lot of them do a lot of sex talk with the younger college age boys online. **
I don't think you are reflecting the entire female MUDder population but you definitely are reflecting a significant portion of it. Here's the interesting thing: a lot of these games are free, and relatively easy to learn and play and subsequently get deeply immersed in [especially if you involve yourself learning to code and build the environments] and you have the time to do so if your spouse works nights or swing shifts or the like. The availability of dialup 'freenets' from local colleges and libraries makes this even more convenient; once you've found out there is something like that out there.
Six or seven years ago when I was 21-23 I touched along the edges of the 'culture' you are describing. It is out there, and it can be pretty disturbing. I don't think this will translate well into the Sims game because it will have to be paid for; and often in the real life scenarios you are generally describing there is little money for anything except cigarettes and the phone line they are making local calls from.
That's just my observation; but I guess we'll have to see how this one pans out.
I really like your idea... there are a lot of advantages to PDF - and with the right software you can collaborate on PDF format documents too (and do workflows, and secure them, and...) - check out http://www.microimagesys.com and ask Rick Lunglhofer if he can match or better the solution you are currently looking at - and cost you less too with much better support. I used to work for them and they are great.
As much as I may 'defend' Gates as a person; I am still afraid that they are going to corrupt XML in much the same way they seem to have corrupted Kerberos to their own ends. If they are strictly compliant with XML - not like the weirdness that is Word formatted HTML and Front Page evils - then more power to them.
A few years ago, when WordPerfect was still on users' desktops (especially in the Federal government) and Groupwise *may* have been making inroads into the email market for business users; you *might* have had someone willing to continue to make interoperability at this level - the 'document' level; not the web - a project.
Now, you have yourself two war chiefs:
One, the advocate of open source. There are several reasons, mostly ideological I'm sure, that an open source programmer or office document workflow/application coder will not write this piece. I think one of them is that they will likely refuse to use Visual Basic for Applications for anything, even encapsulating their Perl or Javascript module into a VBA "application" to run as a macro on Office. Whether they know MS development environments or not; I doubt they'd do it. Most of them are deliberately avoiding MS development environments for any reasons like affordability, desire to not learn the GUI, or ethical reasons. I won't debate the loftiness or lack thereof of this choice at this point; that's not the purpose of my post.
The other group; the folks that develop applications with Microsoft tools, will simply find no reason to port OpenOffice documents to your Office97-OfficeXP or "11" suite. It's not going to make them money and/or their boss isn't going to ask for it. If they have users or consultants that do not use Office they will still request it in text, RTF, or optimally Word format. A huge number of IT recruiters will only accept resumes in Word format - even for UNIX and IBM mainframe jobs. If someone is writing anything other than email and they don't have the latest and greatest; I know a lot of support people that won't hesitate to drop Office 97 on the computer, at the very least until whatever 'standard' Office environment the company is using - 2000 or XP - can be brought in. A small clique of those are on SMS and have site licenses so they load it when someone asks for it.
All arguments for or against MS aside; unless it is a government office or small business with little means to acquire the software; I don't go many places where they aren't running at least Office 97 or MS Works. I set things up with older word processors or Open Office for a couple of home offices and such; but they call me a week later asking how much it will cost them for Office or if they buy a new computer can they get it included.
Actually I have to really, really contradict this. In my area the landline reception is shoddy and full of interference on a good day [and that's plugged right into the line; not on a cordless]. The guys here have a point about using their cell phones all the time - my wife and I are experimenting with replacing our land line with two cell phones - it is a lot cheaper all around and we use cable for our internet so we don't need it - not to mention we've just removed a major inlet for telemarketers and other annoying calls in the evening - especially if we turn the phones off when we're together. Add the first tone of the 'line disconnected' message to your cell's voicemail and you've freed yourself from a lot of ordinary household telephone constraints [even if you don't get 3 or 4 Blockbuster coupons for your outrageous long-distance bill to the in-laws' house an hour away].
*L* I guess it means some people do. Now you may have to think about this [and this is extremely way off topic]; but haven't we learned that most girls get their stimulation mentally and less visually? Of course I leave it up to you as to whether any of the mostly faked [at least I believe] letters are true or even prompt anyone to repeat a few of them - at least they don't seem to with any of the girls I know. Then again; if there were that many degenerate parties out there society would be in even worse shape I bet.
Slashdot Mirror
Yay authentication and authorization!
BR So you have kids that watch the Fairly Oddparents too hmmm?
I don't think it's 20500? DOI, two blocks away, is 20240 - 20500 doesn't sound right.
The pay ain't much, but we can get by on it.
I'm glad you are humble enough to go this route. I sincerely doubt that despite all the hippie hype; many others would be willing to balance their satisfaction with their pay. For example; recall the posts of those that say "They can't afford me."
Oh, and a big problem with small companies is that it gets really hard to leave when you're ready to move on... they tend to grow on you.
A big problem with small companies is that they'll call you on Monday and tell you your last check is that upcoming Thursday; so sorry, nice working with you these past eight months.
There are risks and advantages to any size team or company. The smaller the team; the more likely you are to have several responsiblities where you can handle support tasks of varying types. You aren't just there to do one task, and one task only. You get into larger groups and oftentimes you aren't going to be branching out into other areas of interest because there are several specialists per task already.
I was going to say that you risk the smaller company going under and you losing your job; but larger companies are just as likely to rid themselves of you nowadays than they would have been 2 or 5 years ago. I'll take the less pay and broader opportunity of a small team inside a big company and wait for the economy to so-called "right itself" in due time.
I gotcha there. The whole thing is pretty sticky. You'd think there should be little if no excuse to reboot anything that is a required production unit. I am getting a mild impression that .Net is trying for the 99.9% uptime but we'll see.
We don't need to go over any thread about roaming profile issues; like you said they should fail gracefully but they definitely do not. I have more evil issues with them as well.
You've got a point there... maybe I'm equating a little too much tragic diva where there should not be. Thanks for the perspective.
Too bad they couldn't get Charlotte Church to do a song or three for the soundtrack. I'd be very inclined to pre-order that instead of just waiting for it in the store as I did for the first.
Sigh... Plus every hotfix on Windows requires a reboot.
Don't forget that if you have to place a lot of hotfixes on your Windows servers at once; you can use the qchain utility to do several fixes at the same time before you reboot; and I think someone I know mentioned a "no-reboot" tool similar to something in WISE that just makes the registry changes and then registers any changed or added dlls without a reboot (I could be wrong about that part but qchain is legit). This might alleviate some of the headache.
No, you are accusing me like the elitist snob you pretend to be. As I said, flying fuck, rolling doughnut.
Actually, I tell all my friends, acquaintances and any customers a lot about a lot of things - several of them choose not to hear it. If someone has something they have been working with for a long time; they tend to resist change - even if it's free. I have just stated that I have observed this.
HOWEVER - I'm not a flaming-sword waving anti-corporate, anti-MS, anti-paying-for-software anything. If someone's amenable to something and I have a solution for it, voila. I'm looking right now for something other than Paint Shop Pro v7 for someone because I remember my version 5 being $99 and I know they don't have $99 to spend.
So whether it's my fault or not is flying f**k, rolling doughnut. Any more questions?
Case in point: I have never received anything from my employers except a couple hours off early [paid] before Christmas Eve - of course, that will not happen this year (at least for tomorrow and Friday) because of my contractor status - except:
When I worked as a government employee, the four in our little unit were friends and I got gifts from everyone far more fortunate than my broke GS-4 self.
And last year the company I was working for sent me smoked fish in one of those freezer shipment packs - which was very nice because the person doing all the client and employee gift-giving noted that I liked smoked fish on my bagels.
Which does illustrate my point: I remember that gift better than any other probably because it was food (except for the extra-expensive sweater my ex-boss/good friend Jim Banks gave me that was a SMALL - but for big and tall men so it swallowed my tiny 19yo frame and fits very well and comfortably now *chuckle* He won't read this but he knows that thing has kept me alive in the freezing cold a few dozen times).
Something no one except a bulemic could complain about is gathering everyone up and feeding them at whatever the local favorite is - it doesn't have to be expensive but it could be more memorable than Applebee's or the like. You've avoided any cliches and not given someone something they will discard in the future. Add a Christmas card or Thank You note for good measure.
eh? maybe I misread the article then. ouch. even so; the impression I got was that they were using something that wasn't normally used on the network. I guess I am as conservative as I claim I am not.
Yes I have worked in the Real World before but I won't claim to be a super expert on any of this. It's just my opinion. And it should be documented. I've worked in a couple of places where the place closes down if their regulatory agency comes in and doesn't find all the proper documentation for everything, and that includes data processing.
While paper-based may seem like the best solution to you; what you don't realize is that paper-based is just a single phrase for the rest of these 'bases':
sneaker-based when everyone must run throughout passing paper;
warehouse-based when rows upon rows of storage are now required to keep all these bits of paper;
administrative overhead based when you realize that it takes two minimum-wage file clerks for every one form per desk - not functional area - to file and find and that takes a LOT of time;
and Mexican-based (yes, I said Mexican - who do you think most major businesses pay to do this? I know for a fact they ship things like this there by the truckload.) when you need cheap data entry and "error checking" [which is very unreliable when they can't read your language!] to enter information that could not be read from handwriting and then index them with a reasonable filing code.
Having spent a considerable amount of time as an admin assistant myself; and later as a document imaging and workflow support person, I can tell you that the cost and manpower savings far outweigh any perception or consideration for robustness or reliability.
The PHBs - or very likely the 'managed care' people (and that should have been put in quotes too) that provide a lot of the funding for the hospitals likely decided to save a few thousand since it wasn't lifesaving equipment or blood products/pharmaceuticals/etc.
Should there be a few replacement devices on hand for failures? Yes. Should there be backups of the IOS and configurations for all of the routers? Yes. Should this stuff be anal-retentively documented in triplicate by someone who knows how to write documentation that is detailed yet at the same time easy to understand? Yet another yes.
If it is so critical, it should be done right in the first place. If a physically damaged or otherwise down link is ESSENTIAL to the operation or is responsible for HUMAN LIFE, then there should be duplicate circuits in place throughout the campus to be used in the event of an emergency; just like certain organizations have special failover or dedicated circuits to other locations for emergencies.
Last but absolutely certainly not least; the 'researcher', regardless of their position at the school, should be taken severely to task for this. You don't experiment on production equipment at all. If you need switching fabric; you get it physically separated from the rest of the network or if you really need outside access you drop controls in place like a firewall, etc. to severely restrict your influence on other fabric areas.
No, they come back and tell me they can't get anything done the way they want to; or are missing some feature or another; or do not want to learn a new Office suite. Rarely, but even still sometimes, they cannot share materials with other business the way they would like - or they can't take it home which is another thing. But that "compatibility" issue isn't as prevalent as the resistance to change, I think.
No no no... You would start getting more "road to wealth", multi-level marketing, and get rich quick scam - ahem, I mean scheme - material than you already do. You'd also get even higher rate interest card offers because at first glance, without looking immediately left of your bank balance for your credit score; they'd assume you were desperate for more cards.
and to help you understand your specific needs.
I have a wife, and if necessary, a shrink for this purpose. I feel very much like this is one of those "we'll tell you what you can and cannot have or do, and you will like it".
If I were you I'd find another bank right away and LET THEM KNOW why you are leaving them. Your private information is private and should remain that way.
I've always felt that the best advertisements were clever or funny - they didn't bombard you as you drove down the street; scream at you from the television or blazingly blink you into an epileptic fit in front of your computer screen.
I know the ads that catch my attention are the ones that really do make me stop and consider. The 'blinky' ones just make me stop long enough to turn them off.
Still, that doesn't mean I'll be buying any of it anytime soon while trying to catch up with the horror that was this year.
**I thought this a very strange thing and didn't really believe it till I met a few of the online acquaintances to know for sure that they were really middle aged women. Universally they are married but near divorce, or single without much hope of hooking up with someone. A lot of them do a lot of sex talk with the younger college age boys online. **
I don't think you are reflecting the entire female MUDder population but you definitely are reflecting a significant portion of it. Here's the interesting thing: a lot of these games are free, and relatively easy to learn and play and subsequently get deeply immersed in [especially if you involve yourself learning to code and build the environments] and you have the time to do so if your spouse works nights or swing shifts or the like. The availability of dialup 'freenets' from local colleges and libraries makes this even more convenient; once you've found out there is something like that out there.
Six or seven years ago when I was 21-23 I touched along the edges of the 'culture' you are describing. It is out there, and it can be pretty disturbing. I don't think this will translate well into the Sims game because it will have to be paid for; and often in the real life scenarios you are generally describing there is little money for anything except cigarettes and the phone line they are making local calls from.
That's just my observation; but I guess we'll have to see how this one pans out.
I resemble that. I'm Square, but not a fanboy.
I really like your idea... there are a lot of advantages to PDF - and with the right software you can collaborate on PDF format documents too (and do workflows, and secure them, and...) - check out http://www.microimagesys.com and ask Rick Lunglhofer if he can match or better the solution you are currently looking at - and cost you less too with much better support. I used to work for them and they are great. As much as I may 'defend' Gates as a person; I am still afraid that they are going to corrupt XML in much the same way they seem to have corrupted Kerberos to their own ends. If they are strictly compliant with XML - not like the weirdness that is Word formatted HTML and Front Page evils - then more power to them.
A few years ago, when WordPerfect was still on users' desktops (especially in the Federal government) and Groupwise *may* have been making inroads into the email market for business users; you *might* have had someone willing to continue to make interoperability at this level - the 'document' level; not the web - a project.
Now, you have yourself two war chiefs:
One, the advocate of open source. There are several reasons, mostly ideological I'm sure, that an open source programmer or office document workflow/application coder will not write this piece. I think one of them is that they will likely refuse to use Visual Basic for Applications for anything, even encapsulating their Perl or Javascript module into a VBA "application" to run as a macro on Office. Whether they know MS development environments or not; I doubt they'd do it. Most of them are deliberately avoiding MS development environments for any reasons like affordability, desire to not learn the GUI, or ethical reasons. I won't debate the loftiness or lack thereof of this choice at this point; that's not the purpose of my post.
The other group; the folks that develop applications with Microsoft tools, will simply find no reason to port OpenOffice documents to your Office97-OfficeXP or "11" suite. It's not going to make them money and/or their boss isn't going to ask for it. If they have users or consultants that do not use Office they will still request it in text, RTF, or optimally Word format. A huge number of IT recruiters will only accept resumes in Word format - even for UNIX and IBM mainframe jobs. If someone is writing anything other than email and they don't have the latest and greatest; I know a lot of support people that won't hesitate to drop Office 97 on the computer, at the very least until whatever 'standard' Office environment the company is using - 2000 or XP - can be brought in. A small clique of those are on SMS and have site licenses so they load it when someone asks for it.
All arguments for or against MS aside; unless it is a government office or small business with little means to acquire the software; I don't go many places where they aren't running at least Office 97 or MS Works. I set things up with older word processors or Open Office for a couple of home offices and such; but they call me a week later asking how much it will cost them for Office or if they buy a new computer can they get it included.
Actually I have to really, really contradict this. In my area the landline reception is shoddy and full of interference on a good day [and that's plugged right into the line; not on a cordless]. The guys here have a point about using their cell phones all the time - my wife and I are experimenting with replacing our land line with two cell phones - it is a lot cheaper all around and we use cable for our internet so we don't need it - not to mention we've just removed a major inlet for telemarketers and other annoying calls in the evening - especially if we turn the phones off when we're together. Add the first tone of the 'line disconnected' message to your cell's voicemail and you've freed yourself from a lot of ordinary household telephone constraints [even if you don't get 3 or 4 Blockbuster coupons for your outrageous long-distance bill to the in-laws' house an hour away].
*L* I guess it means some people do. Now you may have to think about this [and this is extremely way off topic]; but haven't we learned that most girls get their stimulation mentally and less visually? Of course I leave it up to you as to whether any of the mostly faked [at least I believe] letters are true or even prompt anyone to repeat a few of them - at least they don't seem to with any of the girls I know. Then again; if there were that many degenerate parties out there society would be in even worse shape I bet.