17479798
submission
greymond writes:
In my ever growing job responsibilities, I’ve recently been tasked with documenting our organizations IT infrastructure, primarily focusing on cost analysis of our hardware leases and software purchases. This is something that has never been done in our organization before and while it’s moving along slowly, I’m already seeing some places where we could make improvements. Once completed, I see this as an opportunity to bring up the topic of migrating the majority of our office from Windows 7 to Linux and Exchange to Gmail. However, this would result in three departments each running a different system, Windows, OS X and most likely Fedora. Has anyone worked in or tried to setup an environment like this? What road blocks did you run into? Is this really feasible or should I just continue to focus on the cutbacks that don't require OS changes?
The requirement for having three different systems is that the vast majority of our administration, who rely solely on an install of Microsoft Windows, Word and Excel, are savvy enough that if they came in and saw Gnome running on Fedora with Open Office they’d pick it up fast. However, our marketing department is composed entirely of Apple systems, and the latest Adobe Creative Suite doesn’t seem to all work under Wine. The biggest issue is with the Sales department though, as they rely on a proprietary sales platform that is Windows only, as well as generally, sales personal give the biggest push back when it comes to organizational changes.
13268488
submission
greymond writes:
I was originally hired as an Online Content Producer to write articles for a company website as well as start up the company’s social media outlets on Facebook and Twitter. With budget cuts and layoffs I ended up also taking over the website facilitation for three of the company’s websites (they let go of the current webmaster). During this time the company has been developing a new website and I was handed the role of pseudo project manager to make sure the developer stayed on course with the projects due date. Now that we’re closer to launch the company has informed me that they don’t have the budget or staff in place to set up the web server and have tasked me with setting up the LAMP and Zend App on an Amazon EC2 setup, which while it’s been years since I worked this much with Linux I’m picking it up and moving things along. Needless to say I want to ask for more money, as well as more resources, as well as a better title that fits my roles, but what is the best way to go about this? Of course my other thought is that I'd much rather go back to writing and working with marketing than getting back into IT.
11622140
submission
greymond writes:
Will the iPad finally be the product that brings the era of digital books or will PDF’s and ePub’s continue to remain a niche market? It would seem to me that with the release of Sony’s reader, Amazon’s Kindle DX and now the popular iPad that we’d start to see an increase in sale of digital books. However, does anyone have numbers that can confirm or deny this?
7698210
submission
greymond writes:
Team San Jose has been considering revamping their website, www.sanjose.org, for some time now and I have been asked to see what level of interest the online community would have if we were to allow for inclusion of syndicated bay area blog content and/or general user generated content, such as the uploading of photos by site visitors and the submission of venue reviews.
If SanJose.org was to proceed with a redesign what feature would you most desire to have offered from the site? Keeping in mind our ultimate goal would be to generate an online community that responds to events that happen within the city of San Jose and create an accurate picture of the city.
An additional inquiry weââd appreciate feedback on is how you view the city of San Jose as a destination, and not just another city on the map. Many people consider San Jose to be the heart of Silicon Valley with its history with companies such as IBM, however, how do you feel towards San Jose as a place of tourism and fun? While its location allows for a plethora of adventures 30 to 90 minutes in any direction, what venues, services and hot spots, that are not business related, bring you to San Jose? If business has been your only interest within the city, what places have you considered to be the most favorable and the least enjoyable?
821339
submission
greymond writes:
It appears that a lot of the disgruntled 3rd party publishers may have caused WoTC to rethink their policies and procedures within the GSL. It's nice to know that some companies do listen, of course when you have the help of producers like Paizo complaining it can help quite a lot. Of course, who is to say that they won't just come out with something more restrictive?
WoTC News Post
305105
submission
greymond writes:
I recently received an email from a recruiting company for a Graphic Design / Desktop Publishing position. While I have my resume available online as well as pieces of my portfolio I didn't find it at all strange to receive this initial email. I hadn't responded by the afternoon when I received a call from a lady named Pyra who asked me to send her my latest resume because they were very interested in hiring me. I asked about the positions pay since the job title and position seemed like it would be a lot lower pay grade than my current Art Director position I now hold. She said she would inquire about it, but to please send my resume.
Now here is where it gets strange...I sent my resume off (note: my resume has only my name, number and email listed in it — no address) I then received this email asking for my Social Security Number. I found this to be VERY odd as no one ever has asked me for that, save the human resource manager of a company who has already hired me. When I told her I would wait until the interview to give it to them, I was then sent this email which had this letter attached to it. I responded with the same response and needless to say I haven't heard back from them.
Oh and in case my bandwidth gets blown up, the recruiting company was Agneto and the company they were hiring for was supposedly AT&T. So, is this really just a new elaborate scam or just a really bad new business policy?