The problem is, I'm a University library's systems librarian, the user rights and policies are set by the main IT department - so I have no control of it.
Ultimately, it is their responsibility to fix the machines, but if we wait for them, it takes 2-3 weeks, whereas I can get to them usually on the same day.
Now I could change the policies on these machines - at least the users who have the most problems - but I'm not sure how the main IT folks would feel about this. One thought I'm entertaining is to install Deep Freeze - the software we use for the public PCs - on these staffers' machines, and just leave a thawspace for documents. I really hate being that restrictive, but I also hate spending hours straightening out their machines every month or two.
I've been losing this battle with the staff where I work; they just can't seem to understand that it is itself spyware and/or viruses. I've had to remove this crap from 5 or 6 computers in the last month alone.
I grew up in a conservative rural area as well, and we read 1984 and Brave New World in high school. There were definitely people in the area that wanted Harry Potter removed from the libraries too.
Unfortunately, a screen replacement for my laptop is prohibitively expensive.
If I could get one for $50, I probably would, but I haven't seen one for less than about 2-3 times that much. (dell inspiron 5150)
Worst computer purchase on my part ever I think.
I love the brown theme. I switched to KDE for a while last year and one of the first things I did was set it up to look like the standard gnome/ubuntu theme.
As a librarian, I can tell you that we are not a dangerous bunch. Greyfox has it right - we may get up in arms over something, but ultimately we do nothing. At best we have a long meeting about it.
From what I understand their ATM security is just fine.
I've always felt that the poor security and poor implementation on the voting machines is intentional to allow for the possibility of fraud - or more to the point to allow for officials to say, "these have been hacked...by someone else!" after they are themselves caught hacking them.
Just looking at the main page of Conservapedia is infuriating: conflating Hitler, Darwin, and Dawkins; Ayers actually wrote "Dreams of my Father" for Obama, "Homosexual Porn Baron Funds Obama Campaign" !!!
Wow. I'd love to see a student turn in a paper with this site on their work cited.
I'd say internships are immensely valuable in just about any profession. I did two internships and I can guarantee that I wouldn't have been nearly as successful in my job search had it not been for them.
In both of the places that I interned, they did not even actually have intern programs - I just contacted them, explained what I wanted out of the situation and what I could provide while I was there. For the second internship they even ended up paying me!
Internships are just a good way of getting your foot in the door of the profession.
I visited a site a few months ago that had all the standard annoying things...the ones that I remember now are the disabled right-click and not working in anything other than IE.
So, I sent them an email explaining why this was such a bad business decision - thinking that it would make me feel better even though they would never change anything.
I had to go back to that page a few weeks ago, and amazingly, they had fixed everything that I complained about. I was stunned.
I'd never heard of the Bulger case - or if I did I'd forgotten it. I just read about it, and it is horribly disturbing.
Since becoming a father, these sorts of things are much more difficult to deal with. I feel horrible for the murdered child, but I also feel horrible for the boys that did it. At 10, they can't have understood what they were doing, yet they certainly can't just be released either. Wow. I find the case to be very unsettling.
Oddly, the link that it has for my website is wrong - it goes to "index.html" which hasn't been used in at least 3 years (if ever).
I wonder if I should put in a redirect for the legions of cuilers...cuils...cuilios?
Oh, come on. All of our news sucks - clearly Fox sucks much more than all the rest, but the rest is horrible too.
All the other new organizations seem to actually be pursuing Fox News, becoming increasingly crappy in order to become increasingly profitable.
Also in Savannah, GA - and originally from GA as well (unfortunately), and I agree. People in the cities tend to not be nearly as heavy as people in the more rural areas.
Also, I visited the mid-west not too long ago, and I remember walking through the airport amazed at the obesity of the people there. Of course maybe the airport has its own demographic separate from the area.
I'm guessing that I'm the only one that read "DonnerGate" rather than "DonorGate."
Is Jimmy Wales eating people now?! Jeez, things really have gone down hill at wikipedia!
Wow, I actually RTFA, and I think it was very illuminating. Unfortunately, I was very much that kid in school - I was in the gifted program, saw myself as a very smart kid, etc., but then when I hit middle school I started to flounder. I've often reflected on why it was that I was "so smart" as a kid - had a high opinion of what I was going to be in the world, and then in middle and high school completely lost my way. Maybe knowing this will help.
I'm also soon to be a father; maybe this information will help me do better by my son.
When the Comcast installation guy came to hook up my connection, he had no idea what to do with Linux. I booted the computer for him, he stared at it for a while then looked at me and said, 'Where's the control panel?'
I told him it was Linux, and he didn't seem to know what I was talking about. After a few minutes I went to get my wife's laptop which runs Windows.
I don't think they hire people with much knowledge about computers - just grunts who they train to click this button then this button.
I think that the whole concept of change through technology is actually quite recent. If you read some of what would pass today for speculative fiction from the early 19th Century there is really no concept of change over time - at least not through technology. They would speculate about political change or the coming of plagues or natural disasters, but not change through technology.
I suspect that technology can only take us so far before it plateaus...there really is no reason to expect the technology of 100 years from now or a 1000 years from now to be that much different...though obviously it could be.
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Either the map has changed or you suck at geography!
That is South Carolina, not Georgia.
The problem is, I'm a University library's systems librarian, the user rights and policies are set by the main IT department - so I have no control of it.
Ultimately, it is their responsibility to fix the machines, but if we wait for them, it takes 2-3 weeks, whereas I can get to them usually on the same day.
Now I could change the policies on these machines - at least the users who have the most problems - but I'm not sure how the main IT folks would feel about this. One thought I'm entertaining is to install Deep Freeze - the software we use for the public PCs - on these staffers' machines, and just leave a thawspace for documents. I really hate being that restrictive, but I also hate spending hours straightening out their machines every month or two.
I've been losing this battle with the staff where I work; they just can't seem to understand that it is itself spyware and/or viruses. I've had to remove this crap from 5 or 6 computers in the last month alone.
I grew up in a conservative rural area as well, and we read 1984 and Brave New World in high school. There were definitely people in the area that wanted Harry Potter removed from the libraries too.
Um. Equilibrium was a ridiculously heavy handed hack-fest of a movie. The only redeeming bit was the action.
I've got a TRS-80 Color Computer 2...about 25 years old...in the original box with all of the accompanying papers and the book.
It doesn't work though...or at least I couldn't get it to work.
Unfortunately, a screen replacement for my laptop is prohibitively expensive. If I could get one for $50, I probably would, but I haven't seen one for less than about 2-3 times that much. (dell inspiron 5150) Worst computer purchase on my part ever I think.
That guy's resume needs some work.
I love the brown theme. I switched to KDE for a while last year and one of the first things I did was set it up to look like the standard gnome/ubuntu theme.
As a librarian, I can tell you that we are not a dangerous bunch. Greyfox has it right - we may get up in arms over something, but ultimately we do nothing. At best we have a long meeting about it.
From what I understand their ATM security is just fine.
I've always felt that the poor security and poor implementation on the voting machines is intentional to allow for the possibility of fraud - or more to the point to allow for officials to say, "these have been hacked...by someone else!" after they are themselves caught hacking them.
Just looking at the main page of Conservapedia is infuriating: conflating Hitler, Darwin, and Dawkins; Ayers actually wrote "Dreams of my Father" for Obama, "Homosexual Porn Baron Funds Obama Campaign" !!!
Wow. I'd love to see a student turn in a paper with this site on their work cited.
I'd say internships are immensely valuable in just about any profession. I did two internships and I can guarantee that I wouldn't have been nearly as successful in my job search had it not been for them.
In both of the places that I interned, they did not even actually have intern programs - I just contacted them, explained what I wanted out of the situation and what I could provide while I was there. For the second internship they even ended up paying me!
Internships are just a good way of getting your foot in the door of the profession.
I visited a site a few months ago that had all the standard annoying things...the ones that I remember now are the disabled right-click and not working in anything other than IE. So, I sent them an email explaining why this was such a bad business decision - thinking that it would make me feel better even though they would never change anything. I had to go back to that page a few weeks ago, and amazingly, they had fixed everything that I complained about. I was stunned.
The HR manager at my previous job accidentally sent out info (including SSN) on all of the employees to allusers. She then tried to "unsend" it - ha.
I'm a librarian. All of our public access computers wipe themselves at each restart to prevent any of these problems.
I'd never heard of the Bulger case - or if I did I'd forgotten it. I just read about it, and it is horribly disturbing. Since becoming a father, these sorts of things are much more difficult to deal with. I feel horrible for the murdered child, but I also feel horrible for the boys that did it. At 10, they can't have understood what they were doing, yet they certainly can't just be released either. Wow. I find the case to be very unsettling.
Oddly, the link that it has for my website is wrong - it goes to "index.html" which hasn't been used in at least 3 years (if ever). I wonder if I should put in a redirect for the legions of cuilers...cuils...cuilios?
Oh, come on. All of our news sucks - clearly Fox sucks much more than all the rest, but the rest is horrible too. All the other new organizations seem to actually be pursuing Fox News, becoming increasingly crappy in order to become increasingly profitable.
Also in Savannah, GA - and originally from GA as well (unfortunately), and I agree. People in the cities tend to not be nearly as heavy as people in the more rural areas. Also, I visited the mid-west not too long ago, and I remember walking through the airport amazed at the obesity of the people there. Of course maybe the airport has its own demographic separate from the area.
I'm guessing that I'm the only one that read "DonnerGate" rather than "DonorGate." Is Jimmy Wales eating people now?! Jeez, things really have gone down hill at wikipedia!
Wow, I actually RTFA, and I think it was very illuminating. Unfortunately, I was very much that kid in school - I was in the gifted program, saw myself as a very smart kid, etc., but then when I hit middle school I started to flounder. I've often reflected on why it was that I was "so smart" as a kid - had a high opinion of what I was going to be in the world, and then in middle and high school completely lost my way. Maybe knowing this will help. I'm also soon to be a father; maybe this information will help me do better by my son.
When the Comcast installation guy came to hook up my connection, he had no idea what to do with Linux. I booted the computer for him, he stared at it for a while then looked at me and said, 'Where's the control panel?' I told him it was Linux, and he didn't seem to know what I was talking about. After a few minutes I went to get my wife's laptop which runs Windows. I don't think they hire people with much knowledge about computers - just grunts who they train to click this button then this button.
An interesting note: (interesting to me anyway)
I think that the whole concept of change through technology is actually quite recent. If you read some of what would pass today for speculative fiction from the early 19th Century there is really no concept of change over time - at least not through technology. They would speculate about political change or the coming of plagues or natural disasters, but not change through technology.
I suspect that technology can only take us so far before it plateaus...there really is no reason to expect the technology of 100 years from now or a 1000 years from now to be that much different...though obviously it could be.
I use gtkpod for my ipods - I tried a variety of other options, but gtkpod works the best for me.