"my Grandfather actually did build his own house... Sears used to sell kits of everything you need, he bought one"
What? He put together a kit? How is that DIY? If that's the case I'm a furniture builder when I buy something from IKEA.
When I was a lad building your own house meant fighting the indigenous people and moving them off the land, clearing a plot and using the trees to mill my own lumber, forging nails to put it together, making my own bricks for the foundation and making my own glass for the windows and I liked it. Whipper-snappers building kit houses, Harumph!
This is a stupid argument and boils down to self righteous semantics. Get over it. If I buy or find open source components, put them together and configure them myself to facilitate a working system I've "built" the system. If I buy the whole system ready out of the box, I've financed building the system. The Vanderbilt's built Biltmore. Bill built Microsoft and Steve built Apple. They had help along the way but all of them are credited and synonymous with their creations. How far down the raw materials and tools line do you need to go before it's DIY?
I had three paragraphs written. I erased them and will just concur with your comments and add a few.
The graphics and effects were great in my opinion. The chick was hot. The music was just OK to have been hyped so much. (and I'm an electronic music fan) The story line was well off the mark when compared with the original. The character development was lacking and the characters were cliched.
American Society for Microbiology (2008, June 5). Humans Have Ten Times More Bacteria Than Human Cells: How Do Microbial Communities Affect Human Health?. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 29, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.comÂ/releases/2008/06/080603085914.htm
Why let users login at all then? So they can do their job. The one that's in their job description. The one the company pays them for. Not watch some YouTube video or post to their blog or download the latest version of some virus from a torrent.
"You seem to want him pissed off. Because you can piss him off and be "right", you have authority."
Ah, I see now, some IT guy told you no at some point and now you have an inferiority complex about it. Did you stop to ask the guy/gal why? Maybe it wasn't licensed software. Maybe it wasn't in the budget to buy 30 of whatever you were wanting (Bob has a blackberry, why can't I get one?). Maybe there was a better solution but, because you didn't stick around and present a business need and the IT guy had 50 other things on his plate that day, he didn't follow through and tell you about it. Step back and think about this for a minute. If I said yes to everything that someone asked me to do in the time frame they ask me to do it, I wouldn't be able to do it all and I would lose my job because it would poke so many holes in the network I'd have script kiddies walking through it like a shopping mall.
To answer your other question:
I don't care about a laptop that isn't directly connected to the network that I'm responsible for maintaining. It's easy enough to re-image if it has a problem. Case in point, our sales guys who are never in our office or on our network, have local administrative rights on their laptops. However, when they come into the office and need to connect to the Internet, they go through our proxy which blocks things like Internet radio and streaming video. They are also provided a guest network that isn't attached to our internal network for access to the Internet too. That way we have some control when one of them has been surfing porn sites or have WOW installed or has some malware/spyware/virus on their laptop.
Just a question since I've answered yours. In your office do you let the guy who fills out an expense report write the check and sign it? Do you let the data entry guy make decisions to give raises to everyone? Do you let the sales guys run your sensitivity training and your HR group clean the toilets? No? Then why are you expecting anyone besides the IT group to set reasonable policy towards using network and computer resources? I know what I'm doing.
Want a case study to support my non-helpful naysaying: 85 data entry people who are expected to produce a certain amount of data every day doubled their output when it was suggested we block them from streaming media. We told them we didn't care if they brought in their personal radios or mp3 players and listen to music but that we didn't want them connected to the company computers. Why you ask? Because when we implemented this policy, the network utilization dropped from 80% to around 20% and the people stopped complaining about documents that they were downloading from government sites taking 3-4 minutes each. How much did it cost the company? Nothing. Who do you think was happy after that? Management, and they took the idea of closing that office off the table (Something the data entry guys weren't even aware of) because they were productive again.
I'll probably get another flamebait for this but...
You obviously haven't been at this for a long time. It is my job to insure that the network and attached devices runs smoothly. If Bob in accounting is taking up part of the companies bandwidth to download podcasts, it's my job to stop that since it affects the business on multiple levels. One, it's a misappropriation of resources that I'm responsible for maintaining. Two, it's a liability to the company if what he is downloading isn't legal. I'm not going to make a determination whether it's legal or not. I'm just going to block it unless there is an explicit business need there's no reason to have iTunes on a work computer. If the person wants to listen to their disconnected iPod, I don't have a problem with that. Bob can be pissed if he wants to. He's still wrong for using the resources and I'm right for doing my job.
As for "making it faster" most of the time that's a function of budgets, not the IT staff directly. I'd love to put quad-core boxes with 16GB of RAM and mirrored 500GB drives on everyones desk. It ain't going to happen.
If we have the money to make it faster, I agree, upgrade the RAM. However, if we don't, the end user shouldn't be able to make the decision on their on to resolve it with some half assed idea.
IT will always be perceived as not serving the users interest since it's their job to provide a secure environment for the business.
I've caught flak from day one in suggesting (succesfully) that DBAs and Developers didn't need to be Domain Admins or even local administrators of database servers of which 13 accounts were demoted. I caught flak when I suggested (successfully) strong password policies because people couldn't remember their password.
The idea of letting every Tom, Dick, and Harry carry their personal laptop, thumb drive, pda, digital camera, iPod, cell phone, and wireless device around and connect into our network scares the $hit out of me. However, it's done because the senior management want it and don't see a problem with letting the guys in the trenches do it too. That being said, we don't support any personal device and will reset workstations to standard configurations if there's a problem. Luckily I'm not the person that supports that side of our network.
Now, I've got to get back to downloading some podcasts to my iPod and syncing my calendar to my PDA while I'm waiting for this torrent to download on my laptop. It's good to be king.
If you use an online payment system to sell the account/virtual equipment there is a paper trail. If you deposit a large sum of money in a bank in the US (online or otherwise) they are required to report it to the IRS. There again, it's a paper trail. Month after month, year after year, they start asking questions at which point you have to start answering them.
Remember Capone... tax evasion got him.
As long as you have a viable business plan and show a profit 3 out of 5 years you can. The key is, if you do not show a profit in 3 out of 5 years and count your expenses as loss against your income you are subject to the IRS auditing you. Your business can also be deemed a hobby business in which all the expenses can be deemed unacceptable and you have to pay the taxes plus penalty.
Self employment isn't hard. Proving that your hobby is actually a business is over time.
In the event that you have set up a business model that sells virtual equipment/accounts from an online game you would treat your business as you would any other service oriented business. Income would be generated at the time of sale rather than at the time of acquisition of an item since market pricing would provide fluctuations in the value of the commodity. Accounting for your machine, home office expenses, percentages taken for online payment options, advertising, game costs, etc. you would file under a 1099 just like any other independent contractor who provides a service.
The problem is, the average gamer isn't looking to give unto Ceasar what is Ceasar's since they think it's just a game. It is just a game until you turn a real money profit, at which time you declare income less deductions and pay the percentage for whatever tax bracket you fall into.
This would not fall under a capital gains (15%) tax since it wouldn't be a regulated investment income or real estate sale. I would dare to guess that virtual estates aren't recognized under tax regs.
Computer literacy and Computer expert are two different things. Being able to read and comprehend Dick and Jane makes you somewhat literate. Being able to read and comprehend a major work is a completely different skill level.
Basic computer literacy - to be able to use and understand basic operating system functions and commands, word processor, email, spreadsheet, printing, basic maintenance/virus/spam/internet safety, Next-Next-Finish installation of software and drivers, and basic connectivity of external devices. Being able to change out your own damn printer cartridges would be nice too.
Computer literacy also entails being able to ask the right question when you don't know what you're doing. Giving the computer expert the error message as stated also tends to help them solve problems which few people usually do. Dropping a message to the email administrator saying, "I can't send email," when really you can't send email to one person in Malaysia at 3 PM EST makes you look like an idiot. Especially when you get an NDR that says something about the recipients mailbox is full.
My fault, the touchy feely bandwagon took a turn so now it's ok to like Intel. I still don't like the idea that an Intel chip costs more from Apple than other manufacturers and you have to get a shoehorn, stand on your head, or just give up when installing another OS on the hardware. I'll stick with the PC where I have options, thank you.
HP replaced a printer for me a month after the warranty expired. Dell sent me an MP3 player after I called and said that the promotion had changed on a laptop I had recieved three days earlier and that I would like to take advantage of the new promotion. It's not just Apple and the touchy feely, "I'm better because I hate Intel and Microsoft," crowd. The vendors that like to make money can have good customer service too.
Personally, I don't care for proprietery hardware that limits what I can and can't do with it. I like the fact that my MP3 device isn't tied to a service and doesn't police me and is flexible and didn't cost 2-3 times as much. And... I'm done.
What you don't take into account is that Wal-Mart makes buying a mower into buying a commodity so your hypothesis falls apart. If I buy a $150 mower at Wal-Mart am I going to go through the hassle of getting a warranty repair in the 11th hour of my warranty or am I going to go out and buy another $150 mower and get the grass cut?
Lower end users are not going to be that savy anyway. They're going to take it back to Wal-Mart for the replacement or refund instead of going to the parts counter at the local dealer or going through the hassle of warranty repair.
Slashdot Mirror
"my Grandfather actually did build his own house... Sears used to sell kits of everything you need, he bought one"
What? He put together a kit? How is that DIY? If that's the case I'm a furniture builder when I buy something from IKEA.
When I was a lad building your own house meant fighting the indigenous people and moving them off the land, clearing a plot and using the trees to mill my own lumber, forging nails to put it together, making my own bricks for the foundation and making my own glass for the windows and I liked it. Whipper-snappers building kit houses, Harumph!
This is a stupid argument and boils down to self righteous semantics. Get over it. If I buy or find open source components, put them together and configure them myself to facilitate a working system I've "built" the system. If I buy the whole system ready out of the box, I've financed building the system. The Vanderbilt's built Biltmore. Bill built Microsoft and Steve built Apple. They had help along the way but all of them are credited and synonymous with their creations. How far down the raw materials and tools line do you need to go before it's DIY?
I had three paragraphs written. I erased them and will just concur with your comments and add a few.
The graphics and effects were great in my opinion.
The chick was hot.
The music was just OK to have been hyped so much. (and I'm an electronic music fan)
The story line was well off the mark when compared with the original.
The character development was lacking and the characters were cliched.
EOL
American Society for Microbiology (2008, June 5). Humans Have Ten Times More Bacteria Than Human Cells: How Do Microbial Communities Affect Human Health?. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 29, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2008/06/080603085914.htm
You'll just love this then. Humans have ten times more bacteria that human cells.
Occam's Razor... Live it, learn it, love it.
That and never underestimate the stupidity of your parents when faced with using a computer.
Why let users login at all then? So they can do their job. The one that's in their job description. The one the company pays them for. Not watch some YouTube video or post to their blog or download the latest version of some virus from a torrent.
"You seem to want him pissed off. Because you can piss him off and be "right", you have authority."
Ah, I see now, some IT guy told you no at some point and now you have an inferiority complex about it. Did you stop to ask the guy/gal why? Maybe it wasn't licensed software. Maybe it wasn't in the budget to buy 30 of whatever you were wanting (Bob has a blackberry, why can't I get one?). Maybe there was a better solution but, because you didn't stick around and present a business need and the IT guy had 50 other things on his plate that day, he didn't follow through and tell you about it. Step back and think about this for a minute. If I said yes to everything that someone asked me to do in the time frame they ask me to do it, I wouldn't be able to do it all and I would lose my job because it would poke so many holes in the network I'd have script kiddies walking through it like a shopping mall.
To answer your other question:
I don't care about a laptop that isn't directly connected to the network that I'm responsible for maintaining. It's easy enough to re-image if it has a problem. Case in point, our sales guys who are never in our office or on our network, have local administrative rights on their laptops. However, when they come into the office and need to connect to the Internet, they go through our proxy which blocks things like Internet radio and streaming video. They are also provided a guest network that isn't attached to our internal network for access to the Internet too. That way we have some control when one of them has been surfing porn sites or have WOW installed or has some malware/spyware/virus on their laptop.
Just a question since I've answered yours. In your office do you let the guy who fills out an expense report write the check and sign it? Do you let the data entry guy make decisions to give raises to everyone? Do you let the sales guys run your sensitivity training and your HR group clean the toilets? No? Then why are you expecting anyone besides the IT group to set reasonable policy towards using network and computer resources? I know what I'm doing.
Want a case study to support my non-helpful naysaying: 85 data entry people who are expected to produce a certain amount of data every day doubled their output when it was suggested we block them from streaming media. We told them we didn't care if they brought in their personal radios or mp3 players and listen to music but that we didn't want them connected to the company computers. Why you ask? Because when we implemented this policy, the network utilization dropped from 80% to around 20% and the people stopped complaining about documents that they were downloading from government sites taking 3-4 minutes each. How much did it cost the company? Nothing. Who do you think was happy after that? Management, and they took the idea of closing that office off the table (Something the data entry guys weren't even aware of) because they were productive again.
I'll probably get another flamebait for this but...
You obviously haven't been at this for a long time. It is my job to insure that the network and attached devices runs smoothly. If Bob in accounting is taking up part of the companies bandwidth to download podcasts, it's my job to stop that since it affects the business on multiple levels. One, it's a misappropriation of resources that I'm responsible for maintaining. Two, it's a liability to the company if what he is downloading isn't legal. I'm not going to make a determination whether it's legal or not. I'm just going to block it unless there is an explicit business need there's no reason to have iTunes on a work computer. If the person wants to listen to their disconnected iPod, I don't have a problem with that. Bob can be pissed if he wants to. He's still wrong for using the resources and I'm right for doing my job.
As for "making it faster" most of the time that's a function of budgets, not the IT staff directly. I'd love to put quad-core boxes with 16GB of RAM and mirrored 500GB drives on everyones desk. It ain't going to happen.
If we have the money to make it faster, I agree, upgrade the RAM. However, if we don't, the end user shouldn't be able to make the decision on their on to resolve it with some half assed idea.
IT will always be perceived as not serving the users interest since it's their job to provide a secure environment for the business. I've caught flak from day one in suggesting (succesfully) that DBAs and Developers didn't need to be Domain Admins or even local administrators of database servers of which 13 accounts were demoted. I caught flak when I suggested (successfully) strong password policies because people couldn't remember their password. The idea of letting every Tom, Dick, and Harry carry their personal laptop, thumb drive, pda, digital camera, iPod, cell phone, and wireless device around and connect into our network scares the $hit out of me. However, it's done because the senior management want it and don't see a problem with letting the guys in the trenches do it too. That being said, we don't support any personal device and will reset workstations to standard configurations if there's a problem. Luckily I'm not the person that supports that side of our network. Now, I've got to get back to downloading some podcasts to my iPod and syncing my calendar to my PDA while I'm waiting for this torrent to download on my laptop. It's good to be king.
Will do... Just wait by the phone.
We moved three racks of servers out of ThePlanet last Thursday. Timing is everything.
Because the Great Omnipotent Deity in the sky made it that way!
Now where did I put that invisible robot killing machine?
If you use an online payment system to sell the account/virtual equipment there is a paper trail. If you deposit a large sum of money in a bank in the US (online or otherwise) they are required to report it to the IRS. There again, it's a paper trail. Month after month, year after year, they start asking questions at which point you have to start answering them. Remember Capone... tax evasion got him.
As long as you have a viable business plan and show a profit 3 out of 5 years you can. The key is, if you do not show a profit in 3 out of 5 years and count your expenses as loss against your income you are subject to the IRS auditing you. Your business can also be deemed a hobby business in which all the expenses can be deemed unacceptable and you have to pay the taxes plus penalty. Self employment isn't hard. Proving that your hobby is actually a business is over time.
In the event that you have set up a business model that sells virtual equipment/accounts from an online game you would treat your business as you would any other service oriented business. Income would be generated at the time of sale rather than at the time of acquisition of an item since market pricing would provide fluctuations in the value of the commodity. Accounting for your machine, home office expenses, percentages taken for online payment options, advertising, game costs, etc. you would file under a 1099 just like any other independent contractor who provides a service.
The problem is, the average gamer isn't looking to give unto Ceasar what is Ceasar's since they think it's just a game. It is just a game until you turn a real money profit, at which time you declare income less deductions and pay the percentage for whatever tax bracket you fall into.
This would not fall under a capital gains (15%) tax since it wouldn't be a regulated investment income or real estate sale. I would dare to guess that virtual estates aren't recognized under tax regs.
Computer literacy and Computer expert are two different things. Being able to read and comprehend Dick and Jane makes you somewhat literate. Being able to read and comprehend a major work is a completely different skill level.
Basic computer literacy - to be able to use and understand basic operating system functions and commands, word processor, email, spreadsheet, printing, basic maintenance/virus/spam/internet safety, Next-Next-Finish installation of software and drivers, and basic connectivity of external devices. Being able to change out your own damn printer cartridges would be nice too.
Computer literacy also entails being able to ask the right question when you don't know what you're doing. Giving the computer expert the error message as stated also tends to help them solve problems which few people usually do. Dropping a message to the email administrator saying, "I can't send email," when really you can't send email to one person in Malaysia at 3 PM EST makes you look like an idiot. Especially when you get an NDR that says something about the recipients mailbox is full.
Excellent, I'll be able to read hot chicks blogs off their chests without looking like I'm staring at their boobs.
/. is psychic.)
(How appropriate, the image word so that I can post this is "sexist". Thus proving
My fault, the touchy feely bandwagon took a turn so now it's ok to like Intel. I still don't like the idea that an Intel chip costs more from Apple than other manufacturers and you have to get a shoehorn, stand on your head, or just give up when installing another OS on the hardware. I'll stick with the PC where I have options, thank you.
HP replaced a printer for me a month after the warranty expired. Dell sent me an MP3 player after I called and said that the promotion had changed on a laptop I had recieved three days earlier and that I would like to take advantage of the new promotion. It's not just Apple and the touchy feely, "I'm better because I hate Intel and Microsoft," crowd. The vendors that like to make money can have good customer service too. Personally, I don't care for proprietery hardware that limits what I can and can't do with it. I like the fact that my MP3 device isn't tied to a service and doesn't police me and is flexible and didn't cost 2-3 times as much. And... I'm done.
What you don't take into account is that Wal-Mart makes buying a mower into buying a commodity so your hypothesis falls apart. If I buy a $150 mower at Wal-Mart am I going to go through the hassle of getting a warranty repair in the 11th hour of my warranty or am I going to go out and buy another $150 mower and get the grass cut?
Lower end users are not going to be that savy anyway. They're going to take it back to Wal-Mart for the replacement or refund instead of going to the parts counter at the local dealer or going through the hassle of warranty repair.