Posts by Combat Wombat 252 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Jun 2009
I am living in Canada at the moment and Shaw is not a company you want to be in change of any sort of network. They have the same business model as Telstra which is to milk the copper coax for all it's worth while at the same time refusing to do any sort of infrastructure rebuilding.
I live in Canada, and this plague will spread to Canada where the CRTC has the same problem that the FCC has, in that it is entirely staffed by former Telco execs.
Once they have killed NetNu in the US you can sure as hell bet that the fastlane stuff will start turning up in international treaties like so much US policy does.
They'll force it in via the back door...so take a deep breath and brace yourself.
This has been going on for literally years.
I knew about this trick back in 2008 If you got denied ADSL you did the following;
1. Order ADSL Via Telstra, you would magically be able to get it with them
2. Cancel the services the same week, as you had a 30 day cooling off period.
3. Order service with the ISP you originally wanted.
I am not shocked by this in the slightest.
"If you don't care about mind numbingly tedious documentation and basically being a very well paid secretary / administrator"
I disagree with this sentiment, if you are a really good project manager then it can be very hands on and very rewarding. I love project execution work and overcoming problems.
I also happen to enjoy the business analyst side of it as well. You can be a good project manager and just go through the motions, or you can be a great project manager by actually helping the client to see the best way of doing things.
My favorite kind of projects are the one who have gone completely off the rails, and they need a "Mr Wolf" to come in and solve problems. If you have an IT background you are much better at getting these sort of IT projects back on track, or having the tough conversation with the project sponsors that you need to "old yellar" the thing and start again.
AC, I couldn't agree with you more.
The hiring system is the biggest broken part of this equation.
People need to learn how to network, rather than using recruiters and job applications. There is a LOT of work out there if you know how to make the connections and find it. The "Old boys network" is re asserting itself again because hiring departments are so bloody useless.
"Yes, Project Management, or an Architect role sounds like it would be a logical route for extra money,"
This is exactly what I am doing, after being an IT generalist for the last 15 years. Life is getting increasingly sucky for IT generalists. Employers want much more, for much less money. I was at the cross roads of "specialize in something, or get out "
At the end of the day, my heart just wasn't in it, so I went off and did a 3 month project management course at my local Uni, and I am making the leap to Project Management.
There is a lot of need for GOOD project managers in IT, Software Dev and telecommunications.
Things you will need to do to be successful
1. Get your PMP or Prince2 certification
2. Get your Agile Certification
3. Have an awesome reputation for not just understanding IT, but also the business side of things.
Generalists tend to have a really good set of skills for this.
Another option is getting into "business analyst" type roles. IT generalists have good logic and problem solving skills which lends itself to that side of the business system as well. If you can translate business needs into SQL or programming specs then you will have a license to print money.
So, you CAN make the leap, but I am not going to lie that the first few jobs will be the hardest to get, so have a financial buffer to allow for it.
Best of Luck !
Check out my LinkedIn, and you can see my generalist history,
ca.linkedin.com/pub/andrew-fraser/1b/43/514/
A = Take the average number of detected hacks a year
B = the rate of successful breaches
C = The average cost of dealing with those breaches.
A x B x C = X
If X is less than the cost of paying the legal fines, then they won't finance security.
The only time a company puts serious money into security is after they have been royally and totally owned (See Target in the US), and then it's really just for show until the rep is restored then they just cut it again.
Fail.. for obvious reasons, but we really need a Tyler Durden Icon, with alt text of "A x B x C = X"
The back bones are fine, the issue is that the ISP's in the US have a "Last mile monopoly" In a lot of places in the US you have a choice between 2 isp's or worse no choice at all.
Those two ISP's are are about to merge in a lot of places, so there will be no choice at all.
When cities and municipalities have tried to break the monopoly by installing their own, publicly funded, publicly run fiber networks the established ISP's have sued the pants off them to stop that happening.
There is effectively no competition in the US, until Google gets its fiber rolled out on a bigger scale.
This is the established ISP's trying to get paid twice for every bit they push across their network, and pocketing the profits, rather than updating the last mile services
Bullpucky
You have thousands of obsessive nerds going through every blockchain to find those coins. And no one has found anything even approaching that Mt Cox is reporting to have happened.
As Richard Nixon's head would say.... "You've been scammed baby ! Arrroooooo! "
Mt Gox is just trying to throw up enough smoke and mirrors so he can lay low until this all blows over and bitcoin recovers it's value. Then he'll cash in for all the latte's he can drink.
I am getting the hell out of operational support for this reason. Market is flooded, and with all the axe swinging, it's only going to get worse.
I am lucky to have learned business and people skills in my time, so I am off to the dark side of IT project management.
All the POS devices are running windows XP and they likely aren't being patched or maintained.
You see the same thing all over the place. I remember doing work for a metal shop who had a virus box somewhere on the network.
Turned out it was the automated C&C machine, which was running XP SP 0 and according to the manufacturer could in no way be patched updated or even have AV loaded on it.
It got put on it's own little isolated DMZ in a very short order.
You are going to see more and more of these hacks, as XP gets older and older and POS providers drag their feet with the replacements.
No one likes the Xbone, and it's being out sold by the WII U.
The Wii U is being seen as a failure by Nintendo, so it tells you how bad the XBone is.
It'll just be one more stinking mess of failure that the new CEO of MS will have to clean up.
If I were the new CEO, I would have StevieB flogged in the MS town square for what he has done to the company
What you are seeing is some residual writhing and twitching but it'll just take the LNP to put a few more rounds into it to truly make it die.
The LNP is just waiting for the country to stop paying too much attention to it, before they issue the final deathblow.
The Telstra panel they appointed will come back with the recommendation to kill it by about the end of the year. They are already winding it down.
Tim
The ABC published a bunch of election data that was broken down by various demographics but it showed that old people overwhelmingly voted for the LNP.
I am sure you are one of the good ones, but sadly you are in the minority.
My own Parents both voted LNP, despite my best efforts to convince them otherwise.
You voted in these idiots, so prepare to reap the "rewards"
The LNP is laying the groundwork to kill this thing outright. They just need to slowly press the pillow down over it's face first.
The current government rode to power on the back of the "Grey vote" And all they really care about is getting the most out of their retirement, and keeping the brown people out.
Not really being a bigot.
Old people primarily voted for the LNP, on the basis of a "Turn the boats around, to keep the brown people out" campaign.
The NBN is just collateral damage as far as that voting block goes, because old people have no idea how to use the internet and generally don't see any problems with the speed they have now.
It means they have time to make a cup of tea, and lunch while they wait for their email to load.
If I were in the NBN board's shoes, I would do the same thing.
The new boss wants to implement a substandard project and add a billion dollars onto it for no good reason.
After just 10 years the project will be an abject failure because FTTN / Wireless was a looser idea from the get go.
The LNP's model is built with keeping the existing Foxtel / Telstra / Newscorp happy at the expense of the Australian internet user.
So they are taking a stand and saying "You think you can do it better ? Then you are welcome to try, F**kwit. "
This whole election has been a farce (except without the "being funny" part), that has been handed to us by the old, white racist baby boomer demographic.
MS certs are pretty much useless nowdays. The exams are badly written, horrible exercises in memorization and offer you no clear view of the persons actual skills.
They are pretty much a key word filter for recruiters these days.
Ballmer departing, now this.... things might actually getting better at MS.
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