You want to keep the laptop secure. You want a 12 year old to use it. You want it to run Windows.

There is no solution. There will always be security risks and in some cases a negative time-frame to deal with them. Doesn't matter how good your AV is or what utilities you put on there, if it's connected to the Internet and there's a user at the keyboard then it is inherently insecure.

Now, how "secure" do you need it to be? If you're ok with putting that laptop on a separate subnet from everything else and teach the kiddo to do a proper update check every couple of days you should be able to mitigate most of the 'risk'.... but that seems a bit much to ask.

Looks like I need to reconsider the certification then. Last I honestly looked at it it was on par with Novell's CNA and Microsoft's early MCSE.. Great for getting an introduction, but not something that's going to really take you far.

I'm still finding myself wishing at times that the CNX (Certified Network Expert) program hadn't fallen apart, but when you're a program governed by various (and opposing) members of the industry I'm shocked it got out of the womb....

Last time I looked at the CCNA courses I considered it "baseline" stuff (this being back in 99/00 timeframe). But I know a number of people who say the words "Network Engineer" and yet the only "engineering" they've done is to hire a cabling contractor to lay cables and then plug them into a few switches. The phrases "Network Map" and "Site Bible" mean nothing to them. There's no documentation of the design/implementation of the network, there's usually no disaster plan, half the time a simple stupidity of a network loop caused by an end user with a switch in their cube takes days to figure out beyond "If we disconnect this switch the network starts working again"

Ugh, I didn't think I'd be getting to the crotchety old man phase this soon... "Damn kids, get off my e-lawn!"

As usually said on woot "In for one".

Should prove interesting. I've been a network engineer since 94 and I'm quite honestly disgusted by people who claim to be network engineers these days who don't understand the difference between Bit/Byte, the concept of a Packet or what CSMA/CD is. Administrators I'd expect that from, they don't really need to know these things. Engineers should, IMO. These are the basic building blocks of "traditional ethernet" networks, how can I expect someone to actually design something properly if they don't understand the basics?

Honestly I'm signing up for the course just to see how it's handled. If they decide to offer this in the future I can think of a few "Power Users" in my sphere of influence that might benefit from this, even if it's just the basic basics. I'm not expecting high detail of the low level stuff, but if it can actually help people understand what a packet is and how it traverses the internet at large then it's going to be a BIG step forward for some people and be of benefit to anyone who wants to hold any position in IT in general....

Can someone tell me which make/model of TV he ordered and if it was cheaper than that 716?

I have a friend that owns the 516 (5.56 version of the gun instead of the 7.62) and it's a nice chunk of hardware...

I can get behind that to an extent. Yes, you do learn either way. With success however you generally have a few options on "follow up learning" whereas with failure you step back, evaluate the the how/why of it failing, reassess your original position and then start forward again. The how/why determination is a missing component when you succeed and can offer up an insight on a number of things possibly not related directly to the problem at hand.

Learning does occur (if you're paying attention at least) either way, but the way I've seen things play out over the course of my life is that there's more understanding and tangental lessons available with the "I tried and did not succeed in what I set out to do" vs "It all went according to plan".

Yes and no on the first part. You pitch the idea, the VP doesn't sign off on it and cites reasons (actual reasons not "I don't like the color"). It's documented and placed in the "public view". I come along, look at the idea and modify it. I have a different perspective on the problem and I actually make an advancement/improvement of some kind. I pitch the idea and the VP signs off on it.

Depending on how THAT aspect is handled would determine how good or bad this process goes.

The second part is more or less what I fear would actually happen. You throw the idea past a person who only got where they are by circumstance, not by actually being able to work in the areas that he's "responsible" for.... that's going to be a shitstorm no matter HOW you slice it. It's always bad.

Sadly, been there done that. Too many times. :(

The suck factor is, you wind up with some management types "hoarding" their talent pool. They'll get the benefits while their Minions do the work. And that will be the start of that nasty downhill slide of backstabbing....

I would argue that you learn more from the failure than the success.

Share the "failure". Let others take a look at it. Let someone else take a stab at it.

The "Reward" in this case sounds like they're recognizing employees who are making an effort to change things. They are providing information about the project attempt and letting others know what's going on instead of sweeping it under the rug and ignoring that it ever happened.

Done PROPERLY I can see this being a major positive, especially for morale. "Hey, Bob went to pitch his idea today, but it didn't pan out. I think I see what killed it and I might have a solution for that..." Granted I also expect massive backstabbing if this is implemented wrong. Instead of collaboration it can very quickly devolve into theft and sabotage.

Phantasy Star and Phantasy Star IV classified as "Adventure"? I guess they're throwing all RPG games into that category? I mean, Legend of Zelda is more Adventure than RPG but PS and PSIV are quite a bit more "open" as far as the RPG element goes.... For that matter, FFVII and Fallout3 as well.

I consider anything >10ms to servers located within my ISP to be absolutely unacceptable. However I'm on a fibre link so my viewpoint is kinda skewed.

When I was on a DSL link (1998 - 2002) if I got >50ms to servers at my ISP I started looking at what may have been clogging my link (in one case I did a data capture and proved to the ISP that one of their Cisco routers was misconfigured and spewing garbage) and then started planning to lay siege to the ISP.

However given that you're dealing with an ISP that I'm unaware of, are their servers located in the same facility that your DSL connects to or are there other hops that it goes through? What is the layout of their network like? Is there traffic shaping between your ingress point and these test servers?

300ms is only acceptable if you're communicating across one of the trans-oceanic links or you're on Dialup/Satellite (and I think Sat links have improved, haven't they?)

Not that it matters much. 15 minutes after I thought the problem had been fixed, it was back. Why it worked for 15 minutes I'm not sure, but that's more experimentation for later on..... :|

That appears to have cleared it up, of course I've now lost a few years of profile data as a result. ;)

Ah well. I guess this will finally teach me to use bookmarks "like everyone else" instead of relying on the history functions to pull up my common websites by partial name..... Crap. Now I get to start the folders that I escaped from back in '99 again. ;)