I don't know the specifics in this case of course, but it's hardly unusual for companies to have some kind of internal billing between departments. This is, in fact, the best way I know of to get managers to realize and honestly consider the actual costs of their IT requirements. Ask anyone about backup and recovery policies, and you'll find out that ALL of their data needs to be backed up hourly, saved for 20 years, and MUST be restored within 30 minutes if a system crashes. Present them with monthly cost for that, and often they'll reconsider.
Charging per support ticket, and extra for rush jobs, would be another useful approach of the same kind.
A friend of mine plugged a Gravis Ultrasound card into his computer one day, forgetting that he hadn't turned the computer off. It ran just fine afterwards, but nonetheless we rebooted the machine as soon as we realized what had happened.
Some time after that, his monitor started smoking after lightning had struck nearby, though - guess there are *some* things that even good old sturdy '95 PC hardware can't take.
Worrying about cost of client access licenses doesn't really seem relevant. If you're in a situation where you can connect Linux clients to an Exchange server, it seems rather likely that you would already have licenses that cover the number of users at your site. Whether one or more of them runs Windows or Linux wouldn't change much as far as I can tell.
Not that it's among the most commonly used words, nor very old, but.. according to Merriam-Webster:
Main Entry: incentivize Pronunciation: in-'sen-t&-"vIz Function: transitive verb Inflected Form(s): -ized; -izing Date: 1970 : to provide with an incentive
Of course, being a non-native speaker of English, I would probably just use that in my sentence - "provide with an incentive" - rather than the actual verb above:P
Re:slashdot sucks, view this post on it's own to s
on
Free as in Books?
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
Disable popup windows in your browser. I can't imagine a good use for them, anyways.
..except that as cited above, nothing is mentioned about requiring intent. It could in that way actually be seen as corresponding to me bumping into you in a crowded street indeed constituting assault.
Don't you think the huge difference in proportion is relevant? When you buy a car, you do so with a 100% guarantee that the car will require service, and that service is a significant portion of the total cost of ownership of the car. The average consumer who buys an off-the-shelf software product (e.g. a game) will probably never need support. In the case of a more major purchase (e.g. an OS/Office suite), you get free updates off the web.
The difference might not be so great.. Yeah, for (most) current software you will get updates for free, though even here that's not certain. In many cases you also have to pay huge monthly or yearly fees to be eligible for those updates, even if they fix bugs that should never have been there to begin with. However, the analogy starts making even more sense if you invert the timeline:
For cars, old models are more easily serviced as they're of less complex design, easily accessible by just lifting the hood. New models however integrate more and more advanced electronics, and software, making them far less accessible without the mentioned test codes and lots of documentation, etc.
For computer software, new models are easily serviced as updates are often freely available on the web, along with support services etc for those who are inclined to pay. Old models, on the other hand, are often abandoned by the software companies, if the company behind the software even exists anymore.. Updates from a few years ago may be available in archives, you could possibly get some help from other users as far as support goes, but for new bugs or known but unfixed flaws you have -no- choice except to tolerate the problems or stop using the software. In addition, much software might be so incompatible with today's standards that you can't even install it on a current operating system, forcing you to maintain an older system where the software does work.
If software owners would be protected by a similar right as that which is proposed for car owners, we would be able to take our software to a local computer shop and perhaps get that (by now) well-known bug fixed in 10 minutes. For that matter, you could take your software to your neighbor's son, or even try to fix it yourself.
To pretend that there is a huge difference in proportion here seems somewhat akin to hiding under a blanket and hoping the world will be all fine if you just lie still. These are real concerns, especially as we come to depend more and more on precisely.. computer software.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know the specifics in this case of course, but it's hardly unusual for companies to have some kind of internal billing between departments. This is, in fact, the best way I know of to get managers to realize and honestly consider the actual costs of their IT requirements. Ask anyone about backup and recovery policies, and you'll find out that ALL of their data needs to be backed up hourly, saved for 20 years, and MUST be restored within 30 minutes if a system crashes. Present them with monthly cost for that, and often they'll reconsider.
Charging per support ticket, and extra for rush jobs, would be another useful approach of the same kind.
How about, from their website, for an "Enterprise" FC 3.5" disk:
/fain
MTBF - 2 Million Hours
http://www.bitmicro.com/products_edisk_35_fc.php
That works for me as far as durability goes.
A friend of mine plugged a Gravis Ultrasound card into his computer one day, forgetting that he hadn't turned the computer off. It ran just fine afterwards, but nonetheless we rebooted the machine as soon as we realized what had happened.
Some time after that, his monitor started smoking after lightning had struck nearby, though - guess there are *some* things that even good old sturdy '95 PC hardware can't take.
Worrying about cost of client access licenses doesn't really seem relevant. If you're in a situation where you can connect Linux clients to an Exchange server, it seems rather likely that you would already have licenses that cover the number of users at your site. Whether one or more of them runs Windows or Linux wouldn't change much as far as I can tell.
Not that it's among the most commonly used words, nor very old, but.. according to Merriam-Webster:
:P
Main Entry: incentivize
Pronunciation: in-'sen-t&-"vIz
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): -ized; -izing
Date: 1970
: to provide with an incentive
Of course, being a non-native speaker of English, I would probably just use that in my sentence - "provide with an incentive" - rather than the actual verb above
Disable popup windows in your browser. I can't imagine a good use for them, anyways.
..except that as cited above, nothing is mentioned about requiring intent. It could in that way actually be seen as corresponding to me bumping into you in a crowded street indeed constituting assault.
The difference might not be so great.. Yeah, for (most) current software you will get updates for free, though even here that's not certain. In many cases you also have to pay huge monthly or yearly fees to be eligible for those updates, even if they fix bugs that should never have been there to begin with. However, the analogy starts making even more sense if you invert the timeline:
For cars, old models are more easily serviced as they're of less complex design, easily accessible by just lifting the hood. New models however integrate more and more advanced electronics, and software, making them far less accessible without the mentioned test codes and lots of documentation, etc.
For computer software, new models are easily serviced as updates are often freely available on the web, along with support services etc for those who are inclined to pay. Old models, on the other hand, are often abandoned by the software companies, if the company behind the software even exists anymore.. Updates from a few years ago may be available in archives, you could possibly get some help from other users as far as support goes, but for new bugs or known but unfixed flaws you have -no- choice except to tolerate the problems or stop using the software. In addition, much software might be so incompatible with today's standards that you can't even install it on a current operating system, forcing you to maintain an older system where the software does work.
If software owners would be protected by a similar right as that which is proposed for car owners, we would be able to take our software to a local computer shop and perhaps get that (by now) well-known bug fixed in 10 minutes. For that matter, you could take your software to your neighbor's son, or even try to fix it yourself.
To pretend that there is a huge difference in proportion here seems somewhat akin to hiding under a blanket and hoping the world will be all fine if you just lie still. These are real concerns, especially as we come to depend more and more on precisely.. computer software.
-- fain