Watch me get downmodded and see if I care...what format EXACTLY are you speaking of? its not ODT as I've seen it seriously crap on complicated layouts so its not that, PDF is a read only format so no go, what's left? RTF?

Its all nice to claim everyone should use "open standards' but if those standards don't do the job you need, what then? Does everyone expect the world to just stop doing whatever it is they need to do until someone comes up with one?

Like it or not for large complex documents MS Word seems to be the only one to handle the truly complex in a user friendly format. You can't honestly expect everyone to learn how to write in LaTeX, which is just SLIGHTLY more friendly than handing someone today a PC running DOS 2, although frankly with all the "perception bubbles" around here I honestly wouldn't be surprised if all the uber nerds here honestly expect everyone to jump through flaming hoops learning LaTeX rather than simply use what is easiest.

This is why we need a sarcasm tag folks, this right here. because honestly you are either doing a smashing job at sarcasm or sadly I've known bean counters that talk just like that so one never knows.

Just for the sake of argument I'm gonna answer like it is NOT sarcasm and use the same dialog I did right before I quit dealing with corp IT...How much work do you REALLY think will get done in this day and age without computers? Do you HONESTLY think that if half the systems take a big old dump that you are gonna be paying workers to work, or sit on ass? Because keeping those giant POS Smell PCs is causing the entire workforce to seriously drag ass for a good 30 minutes or more a day as they sit on ass waiting for all the corporate crap to load so they can do their damned job. Now YOU figure out how much having more than 70% of your workforce sitting on ass for 30 minutes a day on the clock is costing you, then you get back to me about "costs" because frankly IT is the best damned ROI any decent company has! It is WE that make sure when the workers flip the switch it just magically goes, it is WE that make sure the email that just landed the big contract gets to you quick enough for you to act, it is WE that have to do a constant juggling act to make sure all this stuff continues functioning and it is WE that have to do all the testing to make sure some Windows Update don't take a crap on a critical piece of software or the latest AV virus def doesn't flag SVHOSTS as a bug and turn the entire computer network into paperweights..yeah that would be US that does that.

Because then you'd just have a TiVo and not a general purpose OS like Windows and OSX? The reason one can have DRM on OSX and Windows is because of protected path, you have a proprietary kernel that feeds the input to proprietary drivers that is decoded by hardware protected by trade secrets which then feeds that signal to a monitor that also follows this proprietary spec and can thus read it.

Now do you see why it just can't work in Linux?All it takes is a single one of these things to be open for the entire system to fall apart. Believe me companies like netflix doesn't want to limit their potential customers but if something simply can't be done no matter how much money you spend it just can't be done. it would be like saying you can build a car that runs 200MPH on a teaspoon of gas, it is simply not possible. For protected path you need the entire stack, OS, drivers, I/O, A/V, all have to be onboard for the system to work. The fact that simply can't be changed is that the kernel is under GPL V2, even Linus can't change this because too many people have worked on it for him to ever be able to put that genie back in the bottle. and as i said the core of the problem is that ALL data ultimately is handled by the kernel which means one could recompile the kernel to simply lie to the DRM and its game over. Now with Windows and OSX that simply isn't possible because neither OS will run on any kernel but one built and approved by the parent corp but that simply isn't the case with Linux and simply can't be changed.

So i hope you can see this isn't any bias, on the contrary I think the GPL did exactly what RMS wanted it to do which was to keep companies from locking down the code after the fact. But you simply have to take the bad with the good and the bad is that as long as the content providers insist on DRM in simply can't be run on a Linux desktop. Sure you can buy boxes like TiVos and Boxxee boxes but those use hardware to enforce the DRM, not only could you not do that on Linux because hardware to enforce the kernel simply doesn't exist but legally even if you did manage to magically pull it off you'd run afoul of the TiVo clause of GPL V3. Remember that groups like TiVo have to be VERY careful to not include GPL V3 in their offerings or they would be forced to open the device and as far as i know nobody makes a purely GPL V2 Linux distro, hell if they did many packages would be so far behind it probably wouldn't be usable as a general purpose OS. In the end its a catch 22 in that Linux enforces freedom but for one to have the freedom to play DRM content you'd have to take away one of the four freedoms which you can't do because Linux enforces freedom.

In my particular backwater of this fortune 500 company, 3 people on 3 different teams would hamstring the project and kill it with competing interests, none of them the customer's. If I can find a jack of all trades moderately clueful on security, I'll take him.

Yeah, he eventually decided it must be a hash. A hash is a good guess but the wrong answer. You're matching against multiple patterns with different don't-care bits. Every bit is significant in a hash lookup; they don't handle floating don't-care conditions.

If you're doing it purely in software, you're using something like a radix tree (alternately called a Trie). Otherwise you're sorting patterns by preference, stuffing them into a TCAM (a tri-state SRAM-like device) and burning lots of electricity and heat to get your answer in a single clock.

The guy I'm hiring for now doesn't have to know this. I'm not looking for a developer to build me software, I'm looking for a guy who can make damn sure operability is adequately addressed in the architecture, to make sure the logs spit out usable knowledge, to make sure the plans don't call for breaking traffic the devs didn't realize was ordinarily on a production network and then to run both that and other equipment.

When I ask, "If I block all ICMP packets passing my firewall, what breaks in TCP?" he should know enough about how TCP works to at least puzzle out the answer. Otherwise he just won't be able to spot the errors until he tries to take the product from lab to production and it falls flat. I can get an install monkey cheap. I need someone who can actually find the problems *before* the install.

The guy I need is a generalist. A little bit sysadmin. A little bit architect. A little bit tester. A little bit developer. And a whole lot of IP networking knowledge.

Am I any good at recognizing talent? Yeah, actually, I am. The much more challenging question is evaluating whether the individual fits. I won't claim any great skill there.

I don't want a good networking technician. I don't have enough work for a good networking technician. I want a good generalist with a background in networking and network security. Him I have work for.

As for programmers, I have plenty of good ones and I haven't been tasked with finding more. I'm looking for a generalist, not a heads-down programmer.

Scripting passes my test for a phone interview. If you can tell me why you're the right guy for the job on the phone, you get an in-person interview regardless of any checkboxes on my list. I'll ask you some questions that require a deep knowledge of TCP/IP. Neither programming nor operations per se, but about how the protocol itself works when you poke at it in various ways. If your path has led you to the answers, I won't be particular about how you got there.

Meh I don't give a shit about groupthink, anybody who has read any of my posts see i call it like it is and don't give a shit about moderation. So far I've been told i'm a sekret ninja for MSFT, Comodo, AMD, Apple (still haven't figured that one out yet, I don't even own an iPod) Oracle and pretty much any company that some basement dweller might not like. but I call a spade a spade and bullshit is bullshit.

And as for that article i'd say it gets right to the heart of the matter why linux sucks on a desktop. I mean you can't even do the biannual upgrade without drivers crapping on themselves, and we're not talking some weird drivers either, we're talking AMD, Intel, Realtek, SiS, the same bog standard hardware that is in more than 80% of the machines out there, why? because by trying to control EVERYTHING the devs have simply spread themselves so damned thin that QA has become a bad joke. you simply can't have a handful of guys do QA on 100,000 drivers, not to mention a couple of hundred thousand packages, its simply impossible.

So I have to agree with him, make an appstore style model for software with a sandbox so that its not "all or nothing" when it comes to software installs, have a hardware ABI (which to this day you see zealots scream about even though after 20 years the damned driver model in Linux is STILL crap, it would be like MSFT sticking with VXD drivers all this time) so that those that actually make the hardware can write the drivers, and instead of spreading themselves out so thin just concentrate on the core OS and making sure that its a rock solid foundation for everyone else to build on. As he points out it would make the platform even freer than it is now while at the same time increasing QA and improving quality.

THIS, this right here, is why I can't understand all the MS office hate. I give LO to my home users but would never think of giving it to my business customers or those with college students, why? because its simply not made for that use case!

Google docs and LO are fine and dandy if all you need to do is make some basic word docs. for that they are fine, great, not a problem in the least. But when you start messing with headers and footers and tables and embedded graphics and change tracking...they just suck! And why shouldn't they? Its not the use case it was designed for! it would be like bitching that economy car can't haul a boat, well duh! Its not made to! Oh and before someone pipes in with "herp derp use PDF" that is a good way to get an F in a class or have your work file 13ed friend, NOBODY takes PDF except printers.

So I honestly don't see why there is any argument here, its like arguing that a screwdriver and a wrench should be used interchangeably. if all you are doing is basic word processing with minimum formatting then frankly you shouldn't be using MS Office, you are just wasting your money when Google Docs or LO will do just as good. But if on the other hand you are dealing with large complex docs then you would be nuts NOT to use MS Office, because Google Docs and LO simply isn't designed for that use case. its really that simple.

Not to mention kids today simply can't delve in deeply like we could in the 80s. Hell I contacted Commodore and they gave me the full specs, diagrams, and opcodes for the CPU so I could pretty much do anything with that VIC. Today you are seeing the rise of these locked down pad style devices, tablets, cell phones, game handhelds and consoles, that while they have more power than we could have dreamed of when we were hacking Commodores and Trash 80s they simply can't do anything with these devices except consume media as the builders intended.

Kinda sad really, as most of the last gen consoles and handhelds have more than enough power to still do cool stuff but they are so locked down its just not worth messing with. Frankly as much as I enjoy this hexacore PC I built myself i don't think I'd trade my childhood experience for theirs, as theirs is just one walled garden after another.

To me the sad part is instead of the free market working as intended, which would be to raise salaries and lower worker abuse instead they'll just drag some poor bastards in from India that they can work like dogs and treat like dogshit.

I have NEVER in my life seen ANY branch of a corporation treated with such hatred and contempt as I've seen IT treated. they act like they are nothing but glorified Geek Squad workers and give them less respect than a checkout girl at the local Wally World. EVERY need for resources is treated as a waste, EVERY need for action treated as an undue expense, EVERY suggestion treated like its coming from the mouth of a retard, I wouldn't take that fucking job again for all the tea in China!