The problem is the conversation you described is a very, very, very rare thing.
A much more likely scenario is:
Potential Employer: Thank you for meeting with us. We'll let you know.
You: Thank you. I look forward to working together.
Potential Employer:...
You: Hello? We met for an interview recently. Have you made a decision?
Potential Employer:...
You: wtf?
If the employer really wants you and has no other comparable candidates, it may come up just as a CYA so employer can say, "he said it wasn't him." In any other case, it won't come up. They'll just hire someone else instead.
On the bright side, soon everyone will have some sort of embarrassing or undesirable content online associated with their name, whether it refers to the person in question or just someone with the same name. Like job-hopping. So many IT workers in their 20s and 30s spent the last decade in a series of short-term positions, an employer looking to exclude people with such a history will have trouble finding employees.
You don't need your online identify to be pristine. You just need to be cleaner than the next guy.
I now believe that the iPhone will sell 456 million units and will indeedReplace the Segway!
Cities will be built around it! Temples will be built to it! People will spurn loved ones to be with it! Bow before its glory like the vermin you are! Look away! Your eyes are not worthy.
I understand that virus protection wasn't the main focus of the article
Are you sure? The article mentions Symantec more often than Microsoft. I don't doubt the moral of the story--the advantages of Ubuntu over XP--but the body of the article if FUD.
He makes it sound like Symantec AV is a) absolutely 100% required to run Windows, yet at the same time, b) makes Windows 100% unusable. In fact, neither is true. Okay, there is some evidence for point b, but point a is crap. There are plenty of other options for Windows anti-virus. Many are not resource hogs, and some are even free (as in doughnuts).
When he's not complaining about Symantec, he mostly addresses ease of installation. Yes, Windows is pain to install, even before you get to applications, with the patches and security updates and reboots, etc. But that should be a minor point of comparison. Ubuntu beats Windows on day 1, but what about day 2 until day [get new computer/decide to wipe system and reinstall everything]? It's worth my while to put in a few extra hours on day 1 if that effort will save me a few minutes a day for the next few hundred days.
So aside from Symantec and OS installation, what about a comparison of everyday computer use? He addresses several issues that have nothing to with Ubuntu vs. Windows. Backups? Okay, you can use the same backup procedure for your desktop and servers with Ubuntu because your servers are linux. If my servers are Windows, doesn't that same point become an advantage to running Windows on the desktop? And printing from the internet, what does this have to do with desktop OS?
I do not doubt the point he is trying to make--Ubuntu is a good desktop OS and has many advantages over MS Windows--I just don't see much of a valid argument made here to support that point.
Actually I was think of the late 90s when Intel was under-clocking Celerons in response to cheap CPUs from AMD.
To compete on price, and short of shifting manufacturing to produce cheaper chips, Intel had two choices: drop the price of 500 MHz chips to compete with AMD's 300 MHz offerings (and there by devalue their whole product line--if the 500 is worth less, then that affects the price they can get for the 750, and so on), or add a new bottom tier to the product line--a 500 chip labeled and priced as a 300.
It gave Intel a low end product line for the investment of new labels as opposed to the expense of dedicating (or building new) actual manufacturing capacity.
Running a CPU faster than it was designed to run is one thing, but for a time you could get a pretty good performance boost overclocking Celerons from the labeled MHz _to_ the speed it was designed for.
In this case, I doubt MS has actually devoted resources to developing a VS Express. They just don't want too many people to figure out you can get (most/all of) the VS Super Deluxe code for the VS Express price. They don't want this guy showing people how to overclock VS Express.
Did it occur to Nielen that it probably takes users a little longer to get use to the new functions on a DVR so they likely haven't even understood the concept "Oh man you mean I don't have to watch commercials!".
I think they're talking about 7 days after the program is recorded, not 7 days after getting a DVR. I also think most DVR users have seen (and maybe even own) a VCR, so they're probably familiar with the 'fast forward' concept.
I'd say marketing folks might be interested in DVR-use trends and how ads get viewed weeks and months after the original airing, but seeing how many DVDs come with 'now in theatres' commercials, marketing folks have the long term memory of a goldfish and have no idea what is this '3 month' thing you speak of.
What's going on here? What is MS using the EULA to tell users they can't use functionality that MS developers put into the software?
Is there a reason they can't just take out (or never put in) the feature of VS Express they don't want anyone to use?
ObBadAutoAnalogy: Rather than post speed limits, why not pass a law that cars coming off the assembly line must be restricted to 55 mph? (I told you it was a bad analogy.)
But seriously, the VS Express guy makes it sound like this is some stand alone project. If that is so, why does it do these things they explicitly don't want it to do? My guess is, VS Express is 99% the same code as VS Super Premium, with that 1% being switches to turn off the stuff MS wants you to pay for.
It sounds like the daily wear/long wear contact lense hub bub from a few years back. In that case, the company sold cheap daily wear contact lenses. The directions were to wear for one week then throw them away. They also sold more expensive long term lenses with directions to remove and clean each night.
Turned out, the only difference was the directions. You could buy the cheap lenses and just use and clean them as you would the expensive lenses.
I say, if you don't want people getting expensive contact lenses for a cheap price, don't put a cheap price on your expensive lenses. If you don't want people overclocking your CPUs, don't underclock faster CPUs. And if you don't want people developing extensions for the free express edition, don't release the extensible version wrapped in the express version EULA.
Ted Stevens, he understands that the Internet is not like a big truck
Why is that funny? Does the poster mean to imply Ted Stevens is mistaken, that the internet is indeed like a big truck?
Re:People are too easy to distract
on
Is Email 'Bankrupt'?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Speaking of non-dweebs, they would at a disadvantage using the "vibrate-only" method, because most of them don't like to walk around with their phones clipped to their belts
There, fixed that for ya.
Seriously. This isn't the old west. That phone isn't your six-shooter. You're not some cyber-samurai traveling like Groo with his trusty sword strapped to his back.
And another thing, unless your phone is somehow different from every other phone/pda/pager with a vibrate feature, the other person does know you are ignoring a call. Vibrate is less obtrusive than a ring, but it is not silent.
its like saying everytime you call a cab over a landline phone you have to pay a tax, uh no
I don't follow your logic. Everytime you call a cab over a landline phone you have to pay a tax. Uh, yes! Telephone service is taxed. Doesn't matter you're calling a cab.
I think a better analogy is to say, everytime you make a purchase over the phone you owe the same taxes as if you has made that purchase in person (plus whatever phone taxes). (If the seller is in a different state, perhaps they aren't automatically collecting state sales tax the way it is done for in-person sales, but you still owe those taxes.) (Yes, even if the buyer and seller are in different states.)
What they're trying to do is make sure any taxes that would have been collected as part of an in-person transaction are also collected for the same transaction done via internet.
Any talk of an "email tax" (at least for now) is FUD.
Considering the whole list is one giant opinion, and your only real argument in favor of your position is that you personally disagree, I'd say troll is appropriate.
So a whole article of opinion is worthy of the front page, but expressing an opinion on those opinions is troll?
The primary reason the IT security industry exists is because IT products and services aren't naturally secure.
Do we really need locksmiths? If buildings were naturally secure (aka didn't have doors or windows), we wouldn't need locksmiths.
However, people need to get in to and out of buildings, so we need doors. And sometimes we need to control which people are going in to and out of a building. So we need locksmiths.
So, if your IT systems are powered down, unplugged, encased in carbonite, and buried at the bottom of the sea, then the answer is no, you do not need a security industry. Or, at the other end, if all your IT doors and windows are open, and you don't care who comes in and out, then again, you do not really a security industry.
But if you want some people to have access to your computer, but not others. Or you want to control the level of access people have, then yes, you do need a security industry.
I agree 99 and 44/100%. My post was not meant to be flamish or trollish or, FSM-forbid, ESRish.
My post was meant to express, when I read the headline, I thought the article was about the academic, theoretical implementations of information technology and systems vs. the every day practical and actual uses of said technology and systems.
Of course, once I read the summary I knew otherwise. In the context of a headline on/. (as opposed to a headline on cnn.com or my local daily paper), use of the word 'hackers' was misleading. Nothing to do with what I accept or approve.
In the context of the mass media, I know 'hackers' means 'people who break stuff, usually whilst wearing black hats.' However, in other contexts, I expect a more sophisticated audience who can appreciate the distinction between 'people who break stuff' and 'people who are not content to "use as directed."'
I develop software for customers, but my team doesn't "add to the bottom line" either... We treat the develoment effort of producing new software as a capital investment rather than as a sunk cost;
The above is why bringing such questions to Ask/. is such a waste of time. What do you think a 'capital investment' is? It's spending money to make money. If your team doesn't "add to the bottom line" then you are a sunk cost.
Just because the company has a sales team doesn't mean the devs don't add to the bottom line. How would cash flow be affected if the sales team didn't have software to sell?
But maybe you're right. Perhaps you don't add to the bottom line, although if you like your job, better hope your boss (or the company ownership) doesn't find out.
At worst, she'll ask whether the revenue is larger than the cost, which luckily it is.
If luck is the only thing keeping revenue above costs, I suspect your company won't be around very long.
One metric you could use is downtime/loss of work due to IT. This could be because you don't do backups right, to you don't have a test/production setup, to you upgraded to vista without training first, etc etc. Though you'd be reporting stuff you do badly, you can use this for a lot of justification.
Why would you do such a thing to yourself? With those metrics, the absolute very best you could do is, 'we didn't cost the company anything...other than salaries and resources.'
Why not use metrics/goals that actually help justify your job? Why not use metrics to show how much IT is adding to the bottom line? Seriously.
BTW, before you go out and waste resources on another system you don't understand, how about learning how to handle what you have? (Hint: It's not downtown; it's 'scheduled maintenance.')
Considering the essay didn't name names, locations, or dates, it sounds like it was not disturbing, as in any sort of threat, but rather disturbing, as in 1984 or Lord of the Flies.
So, without having read the essay, it sounds precisely like he was arrested for writing an essay.
In other words, an expose on the Catholic Church sex-abuse scandal might be disturbing to teachers in a Catholic school. Is that grounds to call the police on a student?
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is the conversation you described is a very, very, very rare thing.
A much more likely scenario is:
Potential Employer: Thank you for meeting with us. We'll let you know.
You: Thank you. I look forward to working together.
Potential Employer: ...
You: Hello? We met for an interview recently. Have you made a decision?
Potential Employer: ...
You: wtf?
If the employer really wants you and has no other comparable candidates, it may come up just as a CYA so employer can say, "he said it wasn't him." In any other case, it won't come up. They'll just hire someone else instead.
On the bright side, soon everyone will have some sort of embarrassing or undesirable content online associated with their name, whether it refers to the person in question or just someone with the same name. Like job-hopping. So many IT workers in their 20s and 30s spent the last decade in a series of short-term positions, an employer looking to exclude people with such a history will have trouble finding employees.
You don't need your online identify to be pristine. You just need to be cleaner than the next guy.
In your mental experiment, you're pushing a rope?
Um...TiVo does allow people to mod their boxes.
TiVo even allows people to add code to their boxes.
TiVo does not allow people to mod the TiVo code.
So you're saying god is a plugger?
Just like we overcame being children of the baby boomers. Neat.
I now believe that the iPhone will sell 456 million units and will indeed Replace the Segway!
Cities will be built around it! Temples will be built to it! People will spurn loved ones to be with it! Bow before its glory like the vermin you are! Look away! Your eyes are not worthy.
Daily supply of vitamin J in each glass, you say?
Are you sure? The article mentions Symantec more often than Microsoft. I don't doubt the moral of the story--the advantages of Ubuntu over XP--but the body of the article if FUD.
He makes it sound like Symantec AV is a) absolutely 100% required to run Windows, yet at the same time, b) makes Windows 100% unusable. In fact, neither is true. Okay, there is some evidence for point b, but point a is crap. There are plenty of other options for Windows anti-virus. Many are not resource hogs, and some are even free (as in doughnuts).
When he's not complaining about Symantec, he mostly addresses ease of installation. Yes, Windows is pain to install, even before you get to applications, with the patches and security updates and reboots, etc. But that should be a minor point of comparison. Ubuntu beats Windows on day 1, but what about day 2 until day [get new computer/decide to wipe system and reinstall everything]? It's worth my while to put in a few extra hours on day 1 if that effort will save me a few minutes a day for the next few hundred days.
So aside from Symantec and OS installation, what about a comparison of everyday computer use? He addresses several issues that have nothing to with Ubuntu vs. Windows. Backups? Okay, you can use the same backup procedure for your desktop and servers with Ubuntu because your servers are linux. If my servers are Windows, doesn't that same point become an advantage to running Windows on the desktop? And printing from the internet, what does this have to do with desktop OS?
I do not doubt the point he is trying to make--Ubuntu is a good desktop OS and has many advantages over MS Windows--I just don't see much of a valid argument made here to support that point.
What are the odds?
Actually I was think of the late 90s when Intel was under-clocking Celerons in response to cheap CPUs from AMD.
To compete on price, and short of shifting manufacturing to produce cheaper chips, Intel had two choices: drop the price of 500 MHz chips to compete with AMD's 300 MHz offerings (and there by devalue their whole product line--if the 500 is worth less, then that affects the price they can get for the 750, and so on), or add a new bottom tier to the product line--a 500 chip labeled and priced as a 300.
It gave Intel a low end product line for the investment of new labels as opposed to the expense of dedicating (or building new) actual manufacturing capacity.
Running a CPU faster than it was designed to run is one thing, but for a time you could get a pretty good performance boost overclocking Celerons from the labeled MHz _to_ the speed it was designed for.
In this case, I doubt MS has actually devoted resources to developing a VS Express. They just don't want too many people to figure out you can get (most/all of) the VS Super Deluxe code for the VS Express price. They don't want this guy showing people how to overclock VS Express.
I think they're talking about 7 days after the program is recorded, not 7 days after getting a DVR. I also think most DVR users have seen (and maybe even own) a VCR, so they're probably familiar with the 'fast forward' concept.
I'd say marketing folks might be interested in DVR-use trends and how ads get viewed weeks and months after the original airing, but seeing how many DVDs come with 'now in theatres' commercials, marketing folks have the long term memory of a goldfish and have no idea what is this '3 month' thing you speak of.
What's going on here? What is MS using the EULA to tell users they can't use functionality that MS developers put into the software?
Is there a reason they can't just take out (or never put in) the feature of VS Express they don't want anyone to use?
ObBadAutoAnalogy: Rather than post speed limits, why not pass a law that cars coming off the assembly line must be restricted to 55 mph? (I told you it was a bad analogy.)
But seriously, the VS Express guy makes it sound like this is some stand alone project. If that is so, why does it do these things they explicitly don't want it to do? My guess is, VS Express is 99% the same code as VS Super Premium, with that 1% being switches to turn off the stuff MS wants you to pay for.
It sounds like the daily wear/long wear contact lense hub bub from a few years back. In that case, the company sold cheap daily wear contact lenses. The directions were to wear for one week then throw them away. They also sold more expensive long term lenses with directions to remove and clean each night.
Turned out, the only difference was the directions. You could buy the cheap lenses and just use and clean them as you would the expensive lenses.
I say, if you don't want people getting expensive contact lenses for a cheap price, don't put a cheap price on your expensive lenses. If you don't want people overclocking your CPUs, don't underclock faster CPUs. And if you don't want people developing extensions for the free express edition, don't release the extensible version wrapped in the express version EULA.
Why is that funny? Does the poster mean to imply Ted Stevens is mistaken, that the internet is indeed like a big truck?
There, fixed that for ya.
Seriously. This isn't the old west. That phone isn't your six-shooter. You're not some cyber-samurai traveling like Groo with his trusty sword strapped to his back.
And another thing, unless your phone is somehow different from every other phone/pda/pager with a vibrate feature, the other person does know you are ignoring a call. Vibrate is less obtrusive than a ring, but it is not silent.
Read
Ye olde tyme C programmer: What's this? A bona fide, genuine, certified job ad! Yes sir, a job ad.
Think
Mouse: What's this? Cheese? And served up on this little platform. Must be my lucky day, squeak.
*snap*
I don't follow your logic. Everytime you call a cab over a landline phone you have to pay a tax. Uh, yes! Telephone service is taxed. Doesn't matter you're calling a cab.
I think a better analogy is to say, everytime you make a purchase over the phone you owe the same taxes as if you has made that purchase in person (plus whatever phone taxes). (If the seller is in a different state, perhaps they aren't automatically collecting state sales tax the way it is done for in-person sales, but you still owe those taxes.) (Yes, even if the buyer and seller are in different states.)
What they're trying to do is make sure any taxes that would have been collected as part of an in-person transaction are also collected for the same transaction done via internet.
Any talk of an "email tax" (at least for now) is FUD.
So a whole article of opinion is worthy of the front page, but expressing an opinion on those opinions is troll?
When was the last time you saw an OEM computer come with restore disks? For me, it was about 6 years ago.
Nowadays, computers with Windows pre-installed come with a restore image on the hard drive. Pirates are the folks most likely to have Windows on CD.
Gin.
Do we really need locksmiths? If buildings were naturally secure (aka didn't have doors or windows), we wouldn't need locksmiths.
However, people need to get in to and out of buildings, so we need doors. And sometimes we need to control which people are going in to and out of a building. So we need locksmiths.
So, if your IT systems are powered down, unplugged, encased in carbonite, and buried at the bottom of the sea, then the answer is no, you do not need a security industry. Or, at the other end, if all your IT doors and windows are open, and you don't care who comes in and out, then again, you do not really a security industry.
But if you want some people to have access to your computer, but not others. Or you want to control the level of access people have, then yes, you do need a security industry.
I agree 99 and 44/100%. My post was not meant to be flamish or trollish or, FSM-forbid, ESRish.
My post was meant to express, when I read the headline, I thought the article was about the academic, theoretical implementations of information technology and systems vs. the every day practical and actual uses of said technology and systems.
Of course, once I read the summary I knew otherwise. In the context of a headline on /. (as opposed to a headline on cnn.com or my local daily paper), use of the word 'hackers' was misleading. Nothing to do with what I accept or approve.
In the context of the mass media, I know 'hackers' means 'people who break stuff, usually whilst wearing black hats.' However, in other contexts, I expect a more sophisticated audience who can appreciate the distinction between 'people who break stuff' and 'people who are not content to "use as directed."'
The above is why bringing such questions to Ask /. is such a waste of time. What do you think a 'capital investment' is? It's spending money to make money. If your team doesn't "add to the bottom line" then you are a sunk cost.
Just because the company has a sales team doesn't mean the devs don't add to the bottom line. How would cash flow be affected if the sales team didn't have software to sell?
But maybe you're right. Perhaps you don't add to the bottom line, although if you like your job, better hope your boss (or the company ownership) doesn't find out.
If luck is the only thing keeping revenue above costs, I suspect your company won't be around very long.
This doesn't seem to have anything to do with hackers at all.
You want crackers. Two doors down.
Why would you do such a thing to yourself? With those metrics, the absolute very best you could do is, 'we didn't cost the company anything...other than salaries and resources.'
Why not use metrics/goals that actually help justify your job? Why not use metrics to show how much IT is adding to the bottom line? Seriously.
BTW, before you go out and waste resources on another system you don't understand, how about learning how to handle what you have? (Hint: It's not downtown; it's 'scheduled maintenance.')
Considering the essay didn't name names, locations, or dates, it sounds like it was not disturbing, as in any sort of threat, but rather disturbing, as in 1984 or Lord of the Flies.
So, without having read the essay, it sounds precisely like he was arrested for writing an essay.
In other words, an expose on the Catholic Church sex-abuse scandal might be disturbing to teachers in a Catholic school. Is that grounds to call the police on a student?
And I spent my afternoon doing bong hits and playing Wii.
Kinda puts things in perspective.
After all, marijuana is a renewable resource. How much old growth forest did we lose for those post-its?