I worked for a large ISP that did both managed and colo hosting. The big secret is that I already have root on the boxes we manage, and I don't want root on yours. If you want to send in part of a log file, I'm happy to take a look, but I wouldn't login to your box on a bet.

When your box craps out and you loose [insert valuable service/data here], you send in the lawyers and my boss comes by to ask what happened, one of the biggest thrills of my life is being able to say "Beats me, we don't have a login for that box."

And if we're managing it, you don't have root, and your box won't crap out because we've got 500 others just like it that are working just fine and yours is nothing special.

Switch providers.

Linode has been excellent and they never mess with my stuff.

The trial is free, but it's a trial of the $10/month service. If you want the service that's actually useful, it's $35/month.

Intuit still blows.

And FWIW, Quickbooks Online doesn't work with with Linux. I had to change my user agent string to Firefox/Windows to get past the 'Screw you, Linux User" page.

> "... don't really trust Intuit with my data, ..."
> My impression of Intuit is that they are one of the most abusive big companies in the United States.
> Here are just a few examples: Intuit abuses.

Minor update. I just signed up for the free trial for $10/month.

It sucks. Everything useful (sync with online checking, etc.) is only available in the $35/month package, and there's no way in hell I'm giving them over $400/year just to handle a small business. And I have zero trust that they won't sell my data for ad revenue or worse.

I'm looking into Front Accounting right now (GPL).

I spent a great deal of time looking for good web based, open-source accounting software, but found absolutely nothing that comes close to Quickbooks.

Right now, I'm using SQL Ledger, which is more-or-less OK, but the UI is firmly rooted in about 1990 and printing (especially checks) is really lacking. And while Quickbooks might run udner Wine, I'm really looking for something web-based so I can enter billing information and look stuff up from "wherever", instead of waiting to get back to the office.

Quickbooks Online might be an option, although for some reason, they support Firefox, but not on Linux (User agent switcher seems to make it work just fine).

As much as I hate paying for something every month, and don't really trust Intuit with my data, they're pretty much the only reasonable choice right now for a small business.

Why did nobody slap AES or blowfish block ciphers around the video packets? I admit I am assuming the video is digital. There are inexpensive (in terms of the cost of a drone) silicon implementations of both for the planes and BSD licensed software for the stations. If they just used preshared keys its would have been trivial to do and probably would have prevented this.

My best guess is that it:

1. Doesn't matter if they know we're watching. OR:
2. It's to our advantage for them to know we're watching.
3. The only stuff they can watch is stuff we want them to watch.

If you were planning Something Evil, and noticed that there was a live video feed of your "hideout", you might want to think about postponing your plans for a while. My $600 laptop has various forms of encryption ranging from "Secret Decoder Ring" to "GFL". I'm pretty sure if we wanted an encrypted video feed, we'd have it.

In fact, one of the huge advantages during the Cold War was that the Soviets knew we were watching them, and we knew they were watching us.

It might be paid support, but unfortunately, it's not truly professional support - when I contacted them about it, they were unable to meet the 15 minute SLA response time and 24x7x365 support that our organization was looking for.

Unless you're a company very deep pockets, those are going to be difficult terms to meet. If you have the money that it costs to essentially keep four - six developers (need to be able to handle vacations and illness)on call 24x7 along with a call center and support staff, you shouldn't have any problems finding someone willing to do it. In fact, if you can't find anybody, I would be happy to add on the necessary staff, however you're going to be looking at more than a million $/year. Since this is usually cost-prohibitive, companies that require this level of support typically hire their own staff and obtain any necessary and training.

Be a man and take responsibility for your actions.

Pretty much.

Unfortunately, nobody can get your virginity back. Depending on how awful the thing was, and what lengths your willing to go to, you could change your name.

Unless what you did was truly horrible, nobody will care anyway, so I'd just ignore it and get on with your life.

I'm sure the reason the Burmese junta are still in power is because Aung San Suu Kyi doesn't have your willpower. Shame on her! And if that guy standing in front of the tank had swung his shopping bags with a little more determination China would be a democracy by now. You don't even know what I'm referring to, do you? You soft little trust-fund wanker.

Nice try at a hijack, but none of what you wrote has anything to do with a crappy job.

[citation needed]

As long as you think like that, you'll always be a doormat.

If you're really good at what you do and like your job, it's time to say no.

Tell them "no", and turn the job down. If they fire you, start your own consulting business.

"Management" is code for "You're responsible when things go wrong" and "On call" is code for "We own you and every molecule of your time." If this is a high profile job, you won't be able to go on vacation or leave town without arranging for coverage, which means that all the major holidays and nice weekends just vanished off your plate.

In fact, as long as I'm on a roll here, "No" is the most valuable word an employee has. Once they know you'll take a stand and won't be a doormat, they'll respect you and will think twice before trying to get you to clean up somebody else's mess. They may also fire you, but the job sucks anyway, so you haven't lost anything.

"We need you to work this weekend."
"No. I don't work weekends"

"We need you to take over this doomed project"
"Sorry, I don't accept projects with little chance of success."

Your life can only suck as much as you're willing to allow it to.

So I guess instead of paying money to pretend to be someone else, I'll go make and eat a gourmet meal, get laid, then maybe do some SCUBA diving.

Oops! did I say that out loud?

This just in: "Actual reality is much better than virtual reality"

If they thought DPI was expensive, wait until they try real-time decryption