I wanted Plex and needed dead simple. Ubuntu was the only linked one.

At one shop, when it was taken away, it was done as the company transitioned from being a private, all-engineers company to a corporate entity run by bean counters. Short-sighted as there were quite a few leaving as a result in the slash-and-burn of culture from trust to thumbscrews.

Last place I was at had pop, mostly for customers. I always found it directly at odds with the regular drum beat of people losing weight and staying in shape to keep health costs under control.

This. I have dealt with enough of c-suite to know they can't focus on details, and they can't be told "no" except in very sparing circumstances. What they want is options. They have told you, directly or indirectly, what the business wants to do and you and your team need to figure out how to do this.

The CIO does this at the pinnacle of strategic levels. Directors do this with a touch of execution mixed in. Project managers/managers do a heavy dose of translation from strategy to execution, and business analysts/programmer analysts finish the job of translating into details. Its a continuum.

To me, the worst leaders are those who do exactly opposite of what many of you pine for: Stick their noses in details well beneath their level, resulting in micro-management. That is a reflection of distrust and "mightier than thou" which does nothing but piss people off and murder morale.

I'd wager heavily that a desire for CIOs who know the finer details and talk through them often haven't worked for one. I have and it was THE single worst working experience I've had.

Erwin:CowboyNeal is not dead.

Yes, legislative elections and process at least. The basics of gov't are messed up. The rest are ancilliary, driven by the basic legislative process.

I've been doing enterprise software project management for 10 years. Here are my experiences with 2 ERPs and numerous other large-ish projects.

The open concept works for the very early period when you're collaborating with your business folks, figuring out the roles and responsibilities, the design, and the team. The more closed-in (and remote work) approach works much better in the build phase, when the contributors are most effective uninterrupted. This latter point is one reason, often, that ERP deployment teams are sequestored to a separate facility and not allowed to continue legacy support. Execs/management recognize that as a success factor. So, yeah, both sides are right. You need each environment for a different purpose.

I've been running worldwide projects for a bit as well, which is almost a perfect picture of work-at-home effectiveness because the foreign teams NEVER are in the office. Frankly, communications are extremely strained (misinterpretations from lack of body language and emphasis), balls get dropped often, and there is very little in terms of team culture. That latter point is huge to PMs who know what it takes to deliver stellar project products: a cohesive, fun-loving team.

Even celebrations, which I feel are crucial to keeping you star tech folks, are difficult if not impossible. Again, you're missing the team opportunity.

There was a concept I got the joy to work in at Purdue University (as an employee) where individual office cubes (no doors) were set in a star pattern around a common area with table. The common area was the visioning, planning, and design point. The offices were the concentrated, individual work centers. It really was a great environment. But they ran out of space and so the "pod" environment disappeared.

Lastly, managers have offices with doors for lots of reasons. Promotions, raises, disciplinary action, confidential executive discussions, constant phone calls and meetings (which many of you likely hate). All those, done in a public environment, are disruptive at best and acidic at worst. I never had one of those offices, so its not like I've got some vested interest, either.

That correlation doesn't hold, I think. A more appropriate one would be to compare learned users of each country's population that can access the Internet. My understanding is that the majority of China is poverty-stricken and not using the Internet. And by this same position, I would expect the cracking attempts from US-based locations to vastly outnumber all other states in sheer number, but I don't believe that's the case either.

Another poster had the right angle, I think. The number is greatly influenced by state-sponsorship or lack of law enforcement.

This is how I would use it, as well. For instance, maybe it gets sophisticated enough for me to use measurements from laps and events such that I can identify problematic corners or compare in context of suspension changes.

The issue of an increase of squids dying using this device will be meaningless in the aggregate. There are already lots of those. New lawsuits? Maybe, but isn't that what ToS are for?

Business is driven almost entirely by profit. If you're a highly paid person who has skills that aren't in the critical areas I'm at a loss for why any company should feel compelled to keep you on, regardless of your age. Knowing one or two languages, IMHO, is a suicide move. Besides, as one who helps technical and business folks achieve their goals, I don't want single-skilled people like programmers. Like it or not, I can get those a dime a dozen overseas. The needs for the organizations I've been with have been a mix of business process, design, and technical knowledge. Evolve or be unemployed. Or relocate. People bitching about there being no jobs often haven't explored relocation and there are jobs, just not in your locale perhaps.

I'm severely disappointed that they gave in to Tea Partiers again. They should have let the super-conservatives/religious right drive the country into the ditch. Giving into the side that refuses to compromise is like buying your 5-yo candy every time he throws a tantrum at the checkout. You will never be able to avoid doing it once you've started.

At least defense will get decimated, I hope. As an independent, I want 50% to come from tax increases and 50% to come from cuts, the latter proportionally hitting defense and entitlements relative to their funding.

Over time I've found myself being shoved politically "left" as the substantial movement of the country continues right. I hate it. Its been nearly impossible to find a Republican to vote for in the past 8+ years.

A relative is an employee and showed me an article from an internal newzine talking about this kind of development too. They have deeper pockets, I bet, too. Anyway, I recall it showing an auto moonroof application that I presume is oriented at electric/hybrid vehicles. But the company has many large building contracts so that would be a presumed application as well. As has already been noted, the question is value.

Pressing for certification is double-edged, as many have presented here. I am astounded at the frequent lack of response here which misses the ideal way to keep such candidates, though. Simple, quality leadership is what keeps most in their duties (aside from love of the work). Its not usually about money, its about who you work for and with. If certs are suddenly compulsory and management isn't paying then its my view that they're probably not quality management to start with. That's what causes the high turnover, not necessarily the credential itself. Contracts are a complex, poor way of substituting for providing a quality work environment.

Yes, I've seen people leave once they got some cert or some specialized experience that is in high market demand. Guess what? They often tried to return and depending on how badly they burned their bridge on the way out, they might or might not have a shot at getting back in.

Incidentally, as has been covered here at length, management who thinks certs create wonderful workers are delusional. A cert is usually just a recognition the person understands the best practice being pushed by vendor X. Actual practice is proven in the proverbial pudding and the onus is on management to set expectations those best practices are followed.

I don't agree. The change in music being driven by the Internet suggests performances is how artists will survive. Journalists can't do that. So once they have sold their article once, it will be replicated without control and the journalist will have made, what, $2? As with the Parent to your response, I too fear the repercussions of the impending failure of traditional news outlets. My take isn't that the sky is falling, but the trend in ideologically-driven US politics will only be driven further and faster with fewer real investigative journalists doing work. Its unclear what new model might come about, or when. What happens until then?

One interesting new direction is Dan Rather's change from traditional evening news at CBS to HDNet and investigative journalism interesting to him. This is what I'd like to see more of.

This is unrealistic. When you get onto an airplane to cross the country or an ocean, do you know how to change the airplane's oil? Or rotate its tires? Computers are only a tool for all but those specialized to deal with them. If the computer doesn't work, the masses take it to a specialist to get it back into working order.

Probably a dirty word in these technical bits, but I'll say it anyway. Owners should be leading their business and the decisions they make. What they publicly do do impacts the morale and actions of all employees. I would probably suggest to each of them individually that a public demonstration of them following a new IT policy is a good way to cement its importance company-wide. This achieves two ends for you: getting the C's to follow-through on their original approvals and level-setting for everyone else.