Good news for many Chase credit card holders!
Many Chase credit cards are popular because of the rewards programs and sign on bonuses associated with them. However, many of those cards feature a "No Preset Spending Limit" (NPSL) feature. Chase used to not report the credit limit on those cards to credit agencies, which could lead to a poor credit score because of a high credit utilization ratio (statement balance divided by available credit). I recently decided to contact them to see if they would consider reporting the limits and was pleased to find out that starting this month (November 2011), and because of customer requests, NPSL cards' credit limits will now be reported. I was able to verify that this is the case via creditkarma.com's free credit monitoring service.
Showing posts with label other. Show all posts
Showing posts with label other. Show all posts
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
On the Interview Trail: Transportation in the Northeast
First, a little background for those unfamiliar with the medical school application process: students preparing to enter medical school the fall after they graduate from college, like me, take the MCAT anytime from the summer before junior year to the summer after junior year of college. Then, during the summer of their junior year, they submit their AMCAS application, a sort of common application for most medical schools in the United States. Once the AMCAS has been submitted, secondary applications which provide supplemental information specific to each school are submitted. After schools review both the content of the AMCAS and secondary application, they decide whether or not to offer a personal interview to the applicant. The interview always comes before an acceptance; no applicant is accepted without one. Interviews are usually held from fall through March.
I have been to a few interviews, but the most time consuming aspect of interviewing is traveling to and from the interview. I don't have a car, so I opted to take public transportation. Here, I'll just address the options as they apply to the Northeast (i.e. DC to Boston). My options have been plane, train (Amtrak), and bus (BoltBus, Megabus, Greyhound, etc.).
After having experienced both trains and buses so far, I have to admit that Amtrak is my preferred way to travel. At least up to New York, it is faster than a plane when you consider security and check-in times, as well as accessibility (Baltimore Penn Station is much closer to Hopkins than BWI Airport). Also, Amtrak ticketing is much more flexible; should plans change last minute, you can cancel any unprinted ticket and receive a full refund. Try that with a plane ticket, which is more expensive to start with.
While the BoltBus has WiFi and is cheaper than Amtrak, it is noticeably more cramped. Amtrak has wide seats and a lot of legroom, and very large overhead compartments (most suitcases that you would have to check on an airplane can even fit up there). Amtrak also has food for purchase onboard, and a tray table on which you can eat either the onboard food or food you bring on the train. Plus it is a handy place to put your laptop compared to your lap. Amtrak also has plans to put WiFi on all of its Northeast Regional trains in the future (currently it is only on Acela trains and in major stations in the Northeast Corridor).
The other main disadvantage of the BoltBus is that it takes longer than Amtrak and is subject to traffic conditions on I-95. All that said, the advantages of Amtrak seem to outweigh the higher cost of the ticket. Of course that may not be true for everyone, but I wager that for most people, $30 or so would be worth the upgrade from a bus to Amtrak.
The one case in which I could see using the plane would be for a trip up to Boston. Boston is far enough from DC/Baltimore that a train or bus affair ends up taking a good part of the day. However, if this country invests in high speed rail infrastructure, then that trip would also be competitive by train, though not any time in the near future because of how long that infrastructure would take to develop.
Anyways, that was a fairly long and rambling post. In short, don't forget about Amtrak the next time you travel in the Northeast.
Footnote: I strongly believe our country should invest in high-speed rail. If you look carefully, the opponents of such investment usually have a vested interest in the automobile, petroleum, or airline industries. As far as those that complain about the amount of money the federal government throws at Amtrak, consider that the interstate system is also largely funded by the federal government.
I have been to a few interviews, but the most time consuming aspect of interviewing is traveling to and from the interview. I don't have a car, so I opted to take public transportation. Here, I'll just address the options as they apply to the Northeast (i.e. DC to Boston). My options have been plane, train (Amtrak), and bus (BoltBus, Megabus, Greyhound, etc.).
After having experienced both trains and buses so far, I have to admit that Amtrak is my preferred way to travel. At least up to New York, it is faster than a plane when you consider security and check-in times, as well as accessibility (Baltimore Penn Station is much closer to Hopkins than BWI Airport). Also, Amtrak ticketing is much more flexible; should plans change last minute, you can cancel any unprinted ticket and receive a full refund. Try that with a plane ticket, which is more expensive to start with.
While the BoltBus has WiFi and is cheaper than Amtrak, it is noticeably more cramped. Amtrak has wide seats and a lot of legroom, and very large overhead compartments (most suitcases that you would have to check on an airplane can even fit up there). Amtrak also has food for purchase onboard, and a tray table on which you can eat either the onboard food or food you bring on the train. Plus it is a handy place to put your laptop compared to your lap. Amtrak also has plans to put WiFi on all of its Northeast Regional trains in the future (currently it is only on Acela trains and in major stations in the Northeast Corridor).
The other main disadvantage of the BoltBus is that it takes longer than Amtrak and is subject to traffic conditions on I-95. All that said, the advantages of Amtrak seem to outweigh the higher cost of the ticket. Of course that may not be true for everyone, but I wager that for most people, $30 or so would be worth the upgrade from a bus to Amtrak.
The one case in which I could see using the plane would be for a trip up to Boston. Boston is far enough from DC/Baltimore that a train or bus affair ends up taking a good part of the day. However, if this country invests in high speed rail infrastructure, then that trip would also be competitive by train, though not any time in the near future because of how long that infrastructure would take to develop.
Anyways, that was a fairly long and rambling post. In short, don't forget about Amtrak the next time you travel in the Northeast.
Footnote: I strongly believe our country should invest in high-speed rail. If you look carefully, the opponents of such investment usually have a vested interest in the automobile, petroleum, or airline industries. As far as those that complain about the amount of money the federal government throws at Amtrak, consider that the interstate system is also largely funded by the federal government.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Comcast Customer Support and Internet Speeds
Comcast is notorious for its poor customer support. My experience with them has not been totally inconsistent with most of the terrible things I've heard. Back when I initially tried to get internet service ordered, one customer service agent at the Baltimore service center even went as far as to say that another agent (via Comcast online chat, who asked me to visit the service center to verify my identity) lied to me about being able to pick up a self-install kit. Whether or not I should have been able to is besides the point; I think it's quite something if Comcast calls itself a liar just because an agent made a mistake in what they thought was possible. In general, I've found that things one customer service agent tells me may no longer apply with the next agent. The level of consistency, or rather lack thereof, can get to be extremely frustrating.
About a month or two after my Comcast service was initially connected, I noticed that the sustained download speed I was getting was inconsistent with the tier I signed up for. I signed into the Comcast online chat support service, explained that I believed the modem was not receiving the configuration file for my level of service, and had the issue resolved very quickly.
More recently, I signed up for a promotion for a higher tier of internet service. Between about 5-6 customer support agents including a supervisor, none were able to get the correct modem configuration file sent. Most of them claimed that the issue had been fixed and I had to wait 24 hours for the change to take effect. In one of these cases, waiting 24 hours resulted in my modem returning to the Comcast walled garden (unregistered modem). When I attempted to go through the first time registration process, I was told by the online system that no service tier was on my account number. Fortunately, phone support was able to restore my previous tier of service fairly quickly.
After about the 6th agent in trying to get the correct tier of service, and a callback to my voicemail saying that no internet billing codes were on my account, some neuron in my brain fired reminding me that Comcast had a Twitter account which was staffed by an effective support team. I did some quick research online to gauge others' experiences, and decided to give it a try. I e-mailed the address listed on the Twitter page since I don't use Twitter, and within 15 minutes of my request I received a reply saying that the issue was fixed. I checked and indeed it was fixed! So if you are a Comcast user, I highly encourage you to use Comcast's Twitter support team, whether by Twitter or e-mail.
In Comcast's defense, however, if you are using wireless and feel that your internet is very slow, and you are living in an apartment complex, try a wired connection first. It is very likely that your speed is low due to interference from neighbors' WiFi. Most people only have wireless routers and laptop wireless cards that operate in the 2.4 GHz frequency range, in which there are only 3 non-overlapping WiFi channels. In my building, I can see more than 30 access points of varying signal strength from where my laptop sits. That means all of these 30 cause interference to some degree in the 2.4 GHz range, and that doesn't include interference from microwaves, portable phones, and Bluetooth devices which also operate in the 2.4 GHz radio band. My solution was to get a dual band wireless router, which includes the ability to operate in the 5 GHz frequency band in addition to 2.4 GHz. Although 5 GHz does not penetrate walls and bend around obstacles as well as 2.4 GHz does, it has many more non-overlapping channels (20). Not being able to penetrate obstacles as well can also become advantageous if everyone had a 5 GHz-capable router since the degree of interference from neighbors would also be reduced. Dual band wireless routers are more expensive, which is probably why most people don't have them, and will also require that your laptop have a wireless card that can talk 5 GHz. Generally, if the wireless card says it can connect to 802.11a networks, it can do 5 GHz. 802.11n can be either 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz, so if you have a card that says it can connect to b/g/n, that's likely to mean only 2.4 GHz, and a 5 GHz wireless router will not help you. Over a 5 GHz connection, my laptop can get the same speeds to the internet as a wired connection can (30 Mbps downstream, 6 Mbps upstream), but over 2.4 GHz, speeds are much slower (about 4 Mbps downstream, 5 Mbps upstream).
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Censored!
...by China's censorship policies.
Although I am an ABC (American-born Chinese), I am taking Chinese classes. At home, I learned to speak the Shanghai dialect of Chinese, and passively picked up some ability to listen to basic conversations in Mandarin Chinese, but I never learned to speak it, or to read or write it. I started taking classes in high school when they were introduced during my sophomore year. In any event, for the current Chinese class I am taking, one of the recurring assignments is to write a blog entry on a weekly basis. Our professor chose blog.sina.com.cn as the blog host. Part of that assignment is to also read and comment on three of the other blog entries posted by classmates.
One of the entries my classmate posted asked for advice in finding off-campus housing. My first attempt to comment said something similar to:
今年学生政府推出了校外房评比网站，应该对你很有帮助：http://www.jhusga.com/ochd/
[Translated: This year, the student government launched an off-campus housing comparison website, which should be helpful for you. Here is the link: http://www.jhusga.com/ochd/]
When I noticed that this comment had disappeared, I posted a new one:
好像我的评论被和谐了。。。。反正，你可以去看http://www.jhusga.com/ochd/
[Translated: It seems that my earlier comment got censored (using a term that means harmonize, but is popularly used by bloggers to mean "censored by the government in the name of harmony"), in any case, you should check out http://www.jhusga.com/ochd/.]
That also disappeared. I e-mailed my professor and we both thought the first was removed because of the word "government", but I tested a bit more and it turns out it was because of the link! If I paste only the link, the comment gets deleted. If I change the comment to say "Google for JHU OCHD" instead of providing the direct link, the comment stays.
Apparently any link that goes to a "foreign" website is considered worthy of censorship, at least on Sina's blog platform.
Although I am an ABC (American-born Chinese), I am taking Chinese classes. At home, I learned to speak the Shanghai dialect of Chinese, and passively picked up some ability to listen to basic conversations in Mandarin Chinese, but I never learned to speak it, or to read or write it. I started taking classes in high school when they were introduced during my sophomore year. In any event, for the current Chinese class I am taking, one of the recurring assignments is to write a blog entry on a weekly basis. Our professor chose blog.sina.com.cn as the blog host. Part of that assignment is to also read and comment on three of the other blog entries posted by classmates.
One of the entries my classmate posted asked for advice in finding off-campus housing. My first attempt to comment said something similar to:
今年学生政府推出了校外房评比网站，应该对你很有帮助：http://www.jhusga.com/ochd/
[Translated: This year, the student government launched an off-campus housing comparison website, which should be helpful for you. Here is the link: http://www.jhusga.com/ochd/]
When I noticed that this comment had disappeared, I posted a new one:
好像我的评论被和谐了。。。。反正，你可以去看http://www.jhusga.com/ochd/
[Translated: It seems that my earlier comment got censored (using a term that means harmonize, but is popularly used by bloggers to mean "censored by the government in the name of harmony"), in any case, you should check out http://www.jhusga.com/ochd/.]
That also disappeared. I e-mailed my professor and we both thought the first was removed because of the word "government", but I tested a bit more and it turns out it was because of the link! If I paste only the link, the comment gets deleted. If I change the comment to say "Google for JHU OCHD" instead of providing the direct link, the comment stays.
Apparently any link that goes to a "foreign" website is considered worthy of censorship, at least on Sina's blog platform.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Where Am I on the Subway?
On Shanghai's very new Metro Line 10, there's a nifty little information panel located above all the railcar doors. Since pictures are worth a thousand words, I figured I'd make this post a couple thousand words shorter and post a video (watch in 720p/HD for best clarity; I apologize for the shakiness). While watching, you should be able to answer the following questions:
- Which station did I just leave?
- Which station am I approaching?
- Approximately how far am I between the last and next stations?
- Which direction is the train moving?
- Which branch of the line is this train traveling on? (although at the time of recording, only one branch had been built)
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Security and Blackboard
...the online course management system Blackboard, not the one that instructors literally write on. Apparently it's insecure enough that a 9-year-old student in my K-12 school district was able to grant himself administrative privileges, according to this article in the Washington Post. I'd be interested in knowing what was actually exploited, but since the software is developed under a closed source model, I doubt the general public will find out the details of the problem, even if it is fixed.
See my previous extended write-up on Blackboard here.
See my previous extended write-up on Blackboard here.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Long Term Investment (or Solaris is Dying)
If you know me, you might be surprised to see me write "Solaris is Dying." Well, unfortunately I suspect that may be the case. Oracle seems to be making good on its promises to make its Sun acquisition profitable, but in the long run something is going to give.
Two things have recently happened that have made me think that Solaris may not be around in the next 10-20 years, as the next generation or two of computer engineers enters the workforce:
1. Solaris isn't so free anymore.
2. Changes to the scope of Sun Education programs.
While there may not be any DRM (yet) to enforce the non-free-ness of Solaris, the fact that the license only permits legal use of Solaris for 90 days without a support contract or other paid license and that security patches are no longer available to non-paying customers severely restricts access to all non-enterprise customers. If it doesn’t restrict access, it at least strongly discourages anyone who had an interest in trying out Solaris.
A Bit of History
Back in the old days (before Solaris 10’s 2005 release), Solaris had a separate paid license. Intel/x86 support was a joke and it pretty much only ran on SPARC, but since it shipped preinstalled on Sun systems which were the lion’s share of SPARC systems in the world, it was practically free if you had the hardware. All patches were free. When Solaris 10 came out, Sun changed the scheme. Solaris 10 would be free for anyone to download and use, and only support would cost extra. Work on decent x86 support also began in earnest. Patches, however, were restricted. They were no longer 100% free; only security and hardware patches would remain available to non-paying customers. Solaris update releases (also free), however, would include all the other patches, so if you needed the other bug fix or enhancement patches but did not have a support contract, you could just wait a few months for the next update release.
In addition to the Solaris side of things, Sun hardware was prevalent at many universities in the 1980s and 1990s, exposing students to Sun technology. The dates might be a little skewed as that was way before my time as a college student, but from what I've heard from others that were around then, that was roughly the era of Sun workstations. In any event, during that era people didn't have cell phones and students didn't have personal computers in their rooms, and the PC didn't really even take off in households until the early to mid-90s. Today most educational institutions run primarily Windows and Linux, and if Sun hardware or Solaris is present, it is very often as part of a legacy installation.
What Happened?
Here's my theory: the PC happened. And I don't mean PC as in PC vs. Mac, I mean PC as in Personal Computer.
With the PC came an increased accessibility to computers by the ordinary citizen. Microsoft came in with DOS and then Windows. IBM made an attempt at OSes with OS/2. And there was Linux, the closest thing to UNIX that could run on a PC. UNIX was still king in enterprises, but that would change eventually. The first computer that many people were exposed to was no longer a Sun or other UNIX workstation in college, it was a PC at the local electronics shop or at home. People got comfortable with Windows and Linux before UNIX systems ever came within reach, and before long, all three OSes could boast comparable features, at least comparable enough that the average computer user would not realize any significant difference.
The PC generation then entered the workforce knowing Windows and Linux, but not UNIX. There are two options for this new workforce: learn something new, or push what they are already comfortable with. Guess what happened?
The Old IBM Integrated Systems Strategy
Oracle says it wants to repeat the successful IBM strategy of integrated systems that put IBM in the “no one gets fired for buying IBM” position in the 70s and 80s, but I have to wonder if they considered why the IBM strategy was not sustainable. Sure, UNIX systems became more suitable for many environments than the original mainframe model, while IBM stuck with the mainframe, but I think it also had to do with accessibility. UNIX systems were smaller than the mainframe, and therefore more accessible to smaller companies. The PC, driven by the x86 processor architecture, was affordable by someone as “lowly” as the home user. UNIX replaced the mainframe, and then x86 replaced UNIX architectures. Each successor was cheaper to acquire than the previous as well, but I attribute that more to economy of scale due to the level of accessibility. Of course mainframes and UNIX remain around today, but in a significantly smaller capacity than they once existed. Of the UNIXes still here, Solaris seems to be the biggest in terms of widespread use. At least, besides my level of exposure to it, it seems the fact that when applications have support for Windows, Linux, Mac, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, with support for AIX and HP-UX having been pulled many years before Solaris support was pulled would suggest Solaris as being more prevalent. (Matlab recently pulled support for Solaris/SPARC. Mathematica still supports Solaris but recently dropped support for other UNIX operating systems.) And I think that's related to Solaris having had a significant presence in educational institutions for quite some time.
Oracle has cut off Solaris from the hobbyist. The hobbyist will no longer even have an opportunity to know Solaris. And when the hobbyist becomes a college or graduate level professional, they will report to work not knowing Solaris. The market will shift away from Solaris as people choose to stick with what they are comfortable with. Just as Oracle seems to be focused on short-term profits, corporations in the future will be similarly focused, and using the existing knowledge base of the pool of potential hires is often much more cost-effective (in the short run) than training them on a new system which the employees have no existing experience with.
The Last Straw
Okay, so no hobbyist. But educational institutions? As far as I can tell, the Sun Academic Excellence Grant and Sun Education Essentials hardware deep discount programs have both been discontinued under Oracle, with mumblings that even the standard education discount may be significantly reduced or even eliminated. Why wouldn't they be? They aren't exactly programs that make an obvious profit. But by killing those two programs, accessibility to and interest in Sun technologies is significantly reduced at the university level. As I mentioned earlier, college and graduate students won't know about Sun or Solaris when entering the workforce. Maybe Sun didn’t know how to market its products or was unable to develop a profitable roadmap, but I think it at least got one thing right, and that was investing in the future by increasing accessibility to Solaris and promoting its technologies at education institutions.
Is Oracle trying to kill Solaris? Maybe it is. If so, it's certainly done a good job without making it blatantly obvious. It will be a slow death. Maybe something will happen in the OpenSolaris realm to keep the goodness of Solaris alive. Or maybe I'm all wrong and everything will turn out fine. But considering that Solaris already has a limited presence in the minds of students today, further restricting access to Solaris will not help that. And it is certainly the students today that will be the technical employees and business leaders of tomorrow.
Food For Thought
Keywords: oracle, sun, solaris, unix, linux
Two things have recently happened that have made me think that Solaris may not be around in the next 10-20 years, as the next generation or two of computer engineers enters the workforce:
1. Solaris isn't so free anymore.
2. Changes to the scope of Sun Education programs.
While there may not be any DRM (yet) to enforce the non-free-ness of Solaris, the fact that the license only permits legal use of Solaris for 90 days without a support contract or other paid license and that security patches are no longer available to non-paying customers severely restricts access to all non-enterprise customers. If it doesn’t restrict access, it at least strongly discourages anyone who had an interest in trying out Solaris.
A Bit of History
Back in the old days (before Solaris 10’s 2005 release), Solaris had a separate paid license. Intel/x86 support was a joke and it pretty much only ran on SPARC, but since it shipped preinstalled on Sun systems which were the lion’s share of SPARC systems in the world, it was practically free if you had the hardware. All patches were free. When Solaris 10 came out, Sun changed the scheme. Solaris 10 would be free for anyone to download and use, and only support would cost extra. Work on decent x86 support also began in earnest. Patches, however, were restricted. They were no longer 100% free; only security and hardware patches would remain available to non-paying customers. Solaris update releases (also free), however, would include all the other patches, so if you needed the other bug fix or enhancement patches but did not have a support contract, you could just wait a few months for the next update release.
In addition to the Solaris side of things, Sun hardware was prevalent at many universities in the 1980s and 1990s, exposing students to Sun technology. The dates might be a little skewed as that was way before my time as a college student, but from what I've heard from others that were around then, that was roughly the era of Sun workstations. In any event, during that era people didn't have cell phones and students didn't have personal computers in their rooms, and the PC didn't really even take off in households until the early to mid-90s. Today most educational institutions run primarily Windows and Linux, and if Sun hardware or Solaris is present, it is very often as part of a legacy installation.
What Happened?
Here's my theory: the PC happened. And I don't mean PC as in PC vs. Mac, I mean PC as in Personal Computer.
With the PC came an increased accessibility to computers by the ordinary citizen. Microsoft came in with DOS and then Windows. IBM made an attempt at OSes with OS/2. And there was Linux, the closest thing to UNIX that could run on a PC. UNIX was still king in enterprises, but that would change eventually. The first computer that many people were exposed to was no longer a Sun or other UNIX workstation in college, it was a PC at the local electronics shop or at home. People got comfortable with Windows and Linux before UNIX systems ever came within reach, and before long, all three OSes could boast comparable features, at least comparable enough that the average computer user would not realize any significant difference.
The PC generation then entered the workforce knowing Windows and Linux, but not UNIX. There are two options for this new workforce: learn something new, or push what they are already comfortable with. Guess what happened?
The Old IBM Integrated Systems Strategy
Oracle says it wants to repeat the successful IBM strategy of integrated systems that put IBM in the “no one gets fired for buying IBM” position in the 70s and 80s, but I have to wonder if they considered why the IBM strategy was not sustainable. Sure, UNIX systems became more suitable for many environments than the original mainframe model, while IBM stuck with the mainframe, but I think it also had to do with accessibility. UNIX systems were smaller than the mainframe, and therefore more accessible to smaller companies. The PC, driven by the x86 processor architecture, was affordable by someone as “lowly” as the home user. UNIX replaced the mainframe, and then x86 replaced UNIX architectures. Each successor was cheaper to acquire than the previous as well, but I attribute that more to economy of scale due to the level of accessibility. Of course mainframes and UNIX remain around today, but in a significantly smaller capacity than they once existed. Of the UNIXes still here, Solaris seems to be the biggest in terms of widespread use. At least, besides my level of exposure to it, it seems the fact that when applications have support for Windows, Linux, Mac, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, with support for AIX and HP-UX having been pulled many years before Solaris support was pulled would suggest Solaris as being more prevalent. (Matlab recently pulled support for Solaris/SPARC. Mathematica still supports Solaris but recently dropped support for other UNIX operating systems.) And I think that's related to Solaris having had a significant presence in educational institutions for quite some time.
Oracle has cut off Solaris from the hobbyist. The hobbyist will no longer even have an opportunity to know Solaris. And when the hobbyist becomes a college or graduate level professional, they will report to work not knowing Solaris. The market will shift away from Solaris as people choose to stick with what they are comfortable with. Just as Oracle seems to be focused on short-term profits, corporations in the future will be similarly focused, and using the existing knowledge base of the pool of potential hires is often much more cost-effective (in the short run) than training them on a new system which the employees have no existing experience with.
The Last Straw
Okay, so no hobbyist. But educational institutions? As far as I can tell, the Sun Academic Excellence Grant and Sun Education Essentials hardware deep discount programs have both been discontinued under Oracle, with mumblings that even the standard education discount may be significantly reduced or even eliminated. Why wouldn't they be? They aren't exactly programs that make an obvious profit. But by killing those two programs, accessibility to and interest in Sun technologies is significantly reduced at the university level. As I mentioned earlier, college and graduate students won't know about Sun or Solaris when entering the workforce. Maybe Sun didn’t know how to market its products or was unable to develop a profitable roadmap, but I think it at least got one thing right, and that was investing in the future by increasing accessibility to Solaris and promoting its technologies at education institutions.
Is Oracle trying to kill Solaris? Maybe it is. If so, it's certainly done a good job without making it blatantly obvious. It will be a slow death. Maybe something will happen in the OpenSolaris realm to keep the goodness of Solaris alive. Or maybe I'm all wrong and everything will turn out fine. But considering that Solaris already has a limited presence in the minds of students today, further restricting access to Solaris will not help that. And it is certainly the students today that will be the technical employees and business leaders of tomorrow.
Food For Thought
- Sun Microsystems was rated the #13 best place to work in IT by Computerworld in 2009. Oracle did not make the list.
- If you ask the average (or even above average) college student today, they’ve heard of Sun, if only by way of an introductory programming course in Java, but have never heard of Oracle.
Keywords: oracle, sun, solaris, unix, linux
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Broadband Networks and Google Fiber
An interesting read on Verizon, Comcast, and the new Google Fiber initiative, written from a Baltimore perspective.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
The Value of a Job
Ever think about the jobs that are really important to society? Ever consider that they are usually the lowest paying jobs?
Do you want to be a sanitation worker? Bus or cab driver? Security guard? Cashier? Probably not, but what would society do without them? Given, most people probably don't even want to take their own trash from the house to the curb if they don't have to, let alone pick up everyone else's.
The BBC recently published an interesting article where they assessed the value to society of some high-paying jobs and low-paying jobs.
At least in the United States, you could almost extend the thought to illegal immigrants. The common argument made to deport them is that they are here illegally and are taking up jobs that Americans would otherwise have. Well...is that really true? Yes, they are here illegally. But why would an employer hire an illegal resident and risk consequences if they could hire a legal resident? If you were an employer and couldn't find a legal resident, and now your business is suffering financially, are you more likely to want to shut down your business or perhaps be willing to overlook a potential hire's legal residency status? I'm not trying to be political here, just thought-provoking.
Do you want to be a sanitation worker? Bus or cab driver? Security guard? Cashier? Probably not, but what would society do without them? Given, most people probably don't even want to take their own trash from the house to the curb if they don't have to, let alone pick up everyone else's.
The BBC recently published an interesting article where they assessed the value to society of some high-paying jobs and low-paying jobs.
At least in the United States, you could almost extend the thought to illegal immigrants. The common argument made to deport them is that they are here illegally and are taking up jobs that Americans would otherwise have. Well...is that really true? Yes, they are here illegally. But why would an employer hire an illegal resident and risk consequences if they could hire a legal resident? If you were an employer and couldn't find a legal resident, and now your business is suffering financially, are you more likely to want to shut down your business or perhaps be willing to overlook a potential hire's legal residency status? I'm not trying to be political here, just thought-provoking.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Microsoft Licensing for Schools Lock-In
Like many large IT companies, Microsoft offers discounts for educational institutions. But what most people don't realize is that these licensing agreements make it financially undesirable for schools to use anything under than Windows and Office on their computers. Since schools participate in volume licensing, some sort of counting is needed to determine how much that school should be paying. After all, a fixed cost regardless of how many computers or users would be pretty unfair. But it's in this counting itself that results in lock-in. The bundle typically includes Windows upgrade, Office, and Client Access Licenses (CAL) for Windows Server and Exchange. Note that this means any PC purchased must already have some version of Windows on it in order to qualify; a school can't just buy a PC with no OS license and install Windows based on this program alone. Upgrades and extended patch support are included as long as the school maintains the agreement contract.
K-12 schools can use Microsoft School Agreement. This is what Fairfax County Public Schools uses. FCPS spent $2.9 million on Microsoft School Agreement in FY2009 for its roughly 98000 desktops and laptops. That comes out to about $30 for each PC, which, considering the retail cost of Windows Professional and Office Professional, is a really good deal. However, from the School Agreement information booklet:
In other words, if a school has PCs that are Pentium III or iMac G3 or better, they have to count them even if those PCs won't be using some or even any of the products covered under the agreement. Another way to put it is if a school runs Windows on only half of its computers (the other half could be Mac or Linux, etc.), and all of those computers are less than 5 years old, the school wouldn't pay Microsoft any less than if it ran Windows on all its computers. Older computers only have to be counted if they are going to run software from the agreement, otherwise they can be left out.
Higher education can utilize a similar program, the Microsoft Campus Agreement. The lock-in here is potentially worse:
So colleges and universities don't even pay based on how many computers there are, but based on how many people they hire. Part-time faculty and staff are included as fractions.
From a financial perspective, then, it makes the most sense to run Windows on every computer.
So what about thin clients?
I found an interesting article from Computerworld, written about three years ago. The Software Assurance mentioned is included with both School and Campus Agreement options. Microsoft has a Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop program for thin clients, it seems. However, it's unclear exactly what the interaction between that and a School or Campus Agreement would be. In any event, from the information document:
It sounds like the OS would be licensed on a concurrent user basis (assuming the thin client disconnects from a VM when it isn't in use), while Office would need to be licensed per-thin client that might potentially use the application. It's also unclear if licensing under VECD would be more or less expensive than licensing under SA/CA. At the least, though, VECD seems to be less restrictive than the traditional licensing agreements, but perhaps only by necessity. However, it's also possible that Microsoft assumes the use of a Microsoft-based thin client, and they would demand a more stringent contract in the presence of, say, a Sun thin client that runs no Microsoft OS on-board.
So yes, maybe a school district or university stands to save by using alternative platforms such as Linux or Solaris, or would like to do graphics work on Macs. But unless they completely dump Microsoft, or opt for a different and probably more expensive (unit cost-wise) licensing agreement, this is at best difficult to do, especially in economically hard times. That said, I'm not saying institutions shouldn't try, and VECD may be a good way to go in and of itself if I've understood it correctly.
UPDATE 1/24/2010: I want to clarify the volume licensing mentioned above is on a subscription and not a perpetual basis. Customers have to recount and repay for each and every eligible system on a regular basis (either annual or three year contract).
K-12 schools can use Microsoft School Agreement. This is what Fairfax County Public Schools uses. FCPS spent $2.9 million on Microsoft School Agreement in FY2009 for its roughly 98000 desktops and laptops. That comes out to about $30 for each PC, which, considering the retail cost of Windows Professional and Office Professional, is a really good deal. However, from the School Agreement information booklet:
School Agreement requires an institution-wide commitment for any application, system, and Client Access License (CAL) products selected. To that end, you must include all of the eligible PCs in the participating school(s) or district. Eligible PCs include all of the Pentium III, iMac G3, or equivalent or better machines*. You must also include any additional machines within your institution on which any of the software will be run.
*Includes machines with similar processors, such as Intel Celeron and AMD Athlon.
In other words, if a school has PCs that are Pentium III or iMac G3 or better, they have to count them even if those PCs won't be using some or even any of the products covered under the agreement. Another way to put it is if a school runs Windows on only half of its computers (the other half could be Mac or Linux, etc.), and all of those computers are less than 5 years old, the school wouldn't pay Microsoft any less than if it ran Windows on all its computers. Older computers only have to be counted if they are going to run software from the agreement, otherwise they can be left out.
Higher education can utilize a similar program, the Microsoft Campus Agreement. The lock-in here is potentially worse:
Campus Agreement pricing for any application, system, and CAL products you select is based on a count of your total faculty/staff FTE employees and requires organization- or department-wide coverage. To that end, you must include all FTE employees in the participating institution(s) or departments(s) (including student employees) using the calculation below.
Non-knowledge workers, such as maintenance, grounds keeping, and cafeteria staff may be excluded from the faculty/staff FTE employee count if they do not use institutional computers.
So colleges and universities don't even pay based on how many computers there are, but based on how many people they hire. Part-time faculty and staff are included as fractions.
From a financial perspective, then, it makes the most sense to run Windows on every computer.
So what about thin clients?
I found an interesting article from Computerworld, written about three years ago. The Software Assurance mentioned is included with both School and Campus Agreement options. Microsoft has a Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop program for thin clients, it seems. However, it's unclear exactly what the interaction between that and a School or Campus Agreement would be. In any event, from the information document:
Thin client license. For thin clients, a single annual subscription purchase is required. With this subscription, companies can install unlimited copies of Windows Vista Enterprise or earlier operating systems, such as Windows XP Professional or Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional, on any number of physical servers, as long as the VMs are accessed only by licensed client devices. Users can access up to four running VM instances on up to four servers per subscription license. In addition, the annual subscription has Software Assurance built-in and provides for earlier versions, and well as upgrades that are made available within the license time frame.
To use desktop applications (for example, Microsoft Office Professional 2007) from the licensed device, each accessing device must be licensed for the application. Windows Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop does not include application licenses.
It sounds like the OS would be licensed on a concurrent user basis (assuming the thin client disconnects from a VM when it isn't in use), while Office would need to be licensed per-thin client that might potentially use the application. It's also unclear if licensing under VECD would be more or less expensive than licensing under SA/CA. At the least, though, VECD seems to be less restrictive than the traditional licensing agreements, but perhaps only by necessity. However, it's also possible that Microsoft assumes the use of a Microsoft-based thin client, and they would demand a more stringent contract in the presence of, say, a Sun thin client that runs no Microsoft OS on-board.
So yes, maybe a school district or university stands to save by using alternative platforms such as Linux or Solaris, or would like to do graphics work on Macs. But unless they completely dump Microsoft, or opt for a different and probably more expensive (unit cost-wise) licensing agreement, this is at best difficult to do, especially in economically hard times. That said, I'm not saying institutions shouldn't try, and VECD may be a good way to go in and of itself if I've understood it correctly.
UPDATE 1/24/2010: I want to clarify the volume licensing mentioned above is on a subscription and not a perpetual basis. Customers have to recount and repay for each and every eligible system on a regular basis (either annual or three year contract).
Thursday, December 24, 2009
NORAD and Santa
CNN published an interesting article on some of the history of NORAD's Santa tracker. Read it here.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Everyone Uses Blackboard
Today was the last day for fall semester classes at Johns Hopkins, and tomorrow is the official start of the three-day reading period. Technically my reading period is much longer since my exams don't start until a week from today, on December 14th, but it does seem I will need most of that time to be studying.
It has been awhile since I posted something of substance here, yet I still don't have much time to write anything new, so I figure it's time to start posting some op-eds I wrote for a class in high school. They may be a tad bit out of date, but should not be any less relevant. So here goes the first:
Everyone Uses Blackboard
Monday, March 31, 2008
But why? Should we really be using it?
Consider that Fairfax County Public Schools is facing a large budget deficit for fiscal year 2009. Among the things that were considered to fix the deficit were cutting the subsidizing of standardized test costs for students (2.66 million dollars) and charging students a fee for participating in activities and athletics (2.5 million). (Those proposals were later rejected by the school board after many parents and students protested.) Now consider that out of the 15.4 million dollars allocated to technology, 2.2 million (or 14%) of that is for “FCPS 24-7 Learning Initiative Enhancements.” (FCPS 24-7 Learning is Fairfax’s name for their implementation of Blackboard.) The only technology ticket items that cost more are licensing for Microsoft software (2.9 million) and computer lease costs (4.3 million). Costs in the 2008 budget were very similar, with Blackboard costing 2.1 million and computer leases at 3.7 million. Microsoft and replacing computers are a few pages of discussion by themselves, so I won’t talk about them here.
Okay, so cutting Blackboard wouldn’t completely make up for a student activities fee, but how is Blackboard worth 2 million dollars a year? Most of my teachers have an enabled Blackboard site, but only a handful post anything on it regularly, and next to none use it for anything other than posting syllabi or assignments. I’ve very rarely used the discussion forum tool. The situation isn’t much different on university campuses, according to college students. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t pay 2 million just for teachers to post a few documents online. The 2 million is really going towards often poorly implemented collaboration features that aren’t even being used most of the time. Blackboard, Inc. has largely been able to get away with this since it pretty much provides the only commercially-supported course management system (CMS) available, thanks to its patent portfolio which, up until a few days ago when the USPTO reevaluated and then invalidated all of its software patents, it was able to use to sue CMS startups like Desire2Learn.
On the topic of the discussion forum feature, I have to say that the Blackboard backend is apparently more insecure than I could have ever imagined. When students come together on a forum, it’s understood that they can post and reply. It’s also understood that they can delete their own posts. As it turns out, they can delete anyone else’s posts by writing a little code of their own. There is no backend security protecting one student from deleting another student’s posts; there is just the lack of a button on the webpage to do it. Sending the code that says “delete other post” still works, or so I’ve heard from other students.
Use the 2 million dollars for something else. Blackboard sucks. Oh, but wait, we’ve now become dependent on an online course management system....
Before FCPS even began evaluating Blackboard in schools, a group of Thomas Jefferson High School students developed the first TJ student Intranet, which launched in 2000. One of the features implemented, IOTA, was essentially a simple course management system which would have satisfied nearly all teachers online needs. It would later sit unused as FCPS adopted and mandated Blackboard as the CMS for all schools. When Intranet 2 was developed and launched 6-7 years later, no course management tool was included since it was simply assumed that teachers would only use Blackboard anyways. However, because of the way the new Intranet was designed, it would be fairly easy to add such a system to integrate with the existing Intranet codebase. While that hasn’t happened yet, a group of underclassmen are leading an effort to develop a product they’ve dubbed “Whiteboard,” which would be their offering for a replacement to Blackboard.
Did I mention that there hasn’t been any exchange of money here? All of these student-led efforts have been free contributions, and more or less open source. Apart from in-house efforts, there is also Moodle, a more larger, community-based open source CMS project. Commercial support is an issue, you say? I agree! And yet somehow Blackboard has still managed to be down more than is acceptable for something we pay 2 million dollars a year for.
Universities and school districts, it’s never too late to look at alternatives.
It has been awhile since I posted something of substance here, yet I still don't have much time to write anything new, so I figure it's time to start posting some op-eds I wrote for a class in high school. They may be a tad bit out of date, but should not be any less relevant. So here goes the first:
Everyone Uses Blackboard
Monday, March 31, 2008
But why? Should we really be using it?
Consider that Fairfax County Public Schools is facing a large budget deficit for fiscal year 2009. Among the things that were considered to fix the deficit were cutting the subsidizing of standardized test costs for students (2.66 million dollars) and charging students a fee for participating in activities and athletics (2.5 million). (Those proposals were later rejected by the school board after many parents and students protested.) Now consider that out of the 15.4 million dollars allocated to technology, 2.2 million (or 14%) of that is for “FCPS 24-7 Learning Initiative Enhancements.” (FCPS 24-7 Learning is Fairfax’s name for their implementation of Blackboard.) The only technology ticket items that cost more are licensing for Microsoft software (2.9 million) and computer lease costs (4.3 million). Costs in the 2008 budget were very similar, with Blackboard costing 2.1 million and computer leases at 3.7 million. Microsoft and replacing computers are a few pages of discussion by themselves, so I won’t talk about them here.
Okay, so cutting Blackboard wouldn’t completely make up for a student activities fee, but how is Blackboard worth 2 million dollars a year? Most of my teachers have an enabled Blackboard site, but only a handful post anything on it regularly, and next to none use it for anything other than posting syllabi or assignments. I’ve very rarely used the discussion forum tool. The situation isn’t much different on university campuses, according to college students. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t pay 2 million just for teachers to post a few documents online. The 2 million is really going towards often poorly implemented collaboration features that aren’t even being used most of the time. Blackboard, Inc. has largely been able to get away with this since it pretty much provides the only commercially-supported course management system (CMS) available, thanks to its patent portfolio which, up until a few days ago when the USPTO reevaluated and then invalidated all of its software patents, it was able to use to sue CMS startups like Desire2Learn.
On the topic of the discussion forum feature, I have to say that the Blackboard backend is apparently more insecure than I could have ever imagined. When students come together on a forum, it’s understood that they can post and reply. It’s also understood that they can delete their own posts. As it turns out, they can delete anyone else’s posts by writing a little code of their own. There is no backend security protecting one student from deleting another student’s posts; there is just the lack of a button on the webpage to do it. Sending the code that says “delete other post” still works, or so I’ve heard from other students.
Use the 2 million dollars for something else. Blackboard sucks. Oh, but wait, we’ve now become dependent on an online course management system....
Before FCPS even began evaluating Blackboard in schools, a group of Thomas Jefferson High School students developed the first TJ student Intranet, which launched in 2000. One of the features implemented, IOTA, was essentially a simple course management system which would have satisfied nearly all teachers online needs. It would later sit unused as FCPS adopted and mandated Blackboard as the CMS for all schools. When Intranet 2 was developed and launched 6-7 years later, no course management tool was included since it was simply assumed that teachers would only use Blackboard anyways. However, because of the way the new Intranet was designed, it would be fairly easy to add such a system to integrate with the existing Intranet codebase. While that hasn’t happened yet, a group of underclassmen are leading an effort to develop a product they’ve dubbed “Whiteboard,” which would be their offering for a replacement to Blackboard.
Did I mention that there hasn’t been any exchange of money here? All of these student-led efforts have been free contributions, and more or less open source. Apart from in-house efforts, there is also Moodle, a more larger, community-based open source CMS project. Commercial support is an issue, you say? I agree! And yet somehow Blackboard has still managed to be down more than is acceptable for something we pay 2 million dollars a year for.
Universities and school districts, it’s never too late to look at alternatives.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Ordering McNuggets
McDonald's chicken nuggets are an interesting price conundrum. These days, most people are been conditioned to automatically believe that the higher the quantity of a product you buy, the more value you get. While this is usually true, saving us the work of having to calculate unit prices for everything, this isn't necessarily so with McNuggets. It's been awhile since I noticed this; perhaps it was originally during my vacation to Hawaii two summers ago (prices in Hawaii are high for just about everything because things have to be imported), but whatever the case, because of the ubiquitous dollar menu at all McDonalds, a 4 piece McNuggets can be bought for $1. At least in my geographic area, all the higher quantity purchases have unit prices higher than $0.25. In fact, it is more cost effective to purchase 3x 4 piece McNuggets than it is to purchase the box of 10 (and this is true for the 6 and 20 quantities as well). There is never a case in which I would get a better value buying a box that had more than 4 nuggets in it. The nuggets aren't any different in size or taste. For the nitpickers, the only noticeable differences are that you get a few more boxes that have the words "Happy Meal" on them (since Happy Meals get 4 McNuggets). Just thought I'd share this cost saving tip with those that hadn't noticed this already :)
Thursday, July 30, 2009
GPS and Paper Maps
When I grew up, we didn't have personal GPS devices to help us find our way around town, or even MapQuest or Google Maps. We used maps on paper and our brains to find routes. In first grade, I even remember a brief unit on learning how to use a grid-based paper map (although I had already learned how to navigate a few years earlier using the maps at home). Basically, navigating worked something like this:
It seems, however, that not everyone can read maps anymore...
For the record, I usually use non-GPS-based computer mapping programs, but often like to retrace the route on paper and build my own alternate routes based on that. I do not own a GPS navigator (yet).
- Pick the map for the region
- Look up the street names in the index
- Go to the indicated page number and/or grid number
- Find the street in the grid and trace it to your desired location
- Repeat for the other point of interest and connect the dots
It seems, however, that not everyone can read maps anymore...
For the record, I usually use non-GPS-based computer mapping programs, but often like to retrace the route on paper and build my own alternate routes based on that. I do not own a GPS navigator (yet).
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Zero Gravity Coffee
This is pretty neat:
Astronaut demos drinking coffee in space
(Thanks to a fellow blogger at http://miniandmicro.blogspot.com/ for the tip!)
Astronaut demos drinking coffee in space
(Thanks to a fellow blogger at http://miniandmicro.blogspot.com/ for the tip!)
Friday, July 10, 2009
Ice Cream Trucks and License Plates
Every so often you see something that makes you smile. Walking home from the bus stop today, I passed a parked car with a license plate "HIHIHIH". A few months ago, driving through my neighborhood I saw a car with the plate "LUL WUT". And longer ago I overheard an ice cream truck in my neighborhood playing Tetris Rock on its chimes.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Financial Aid and the Economy
No, I'm not talking about the numerous congressional bailouts that have been taking place within the past year. I'm talking about something a little less noticed...financial aid programs for college students. Financial aid programs are great since they give an opportunity to those that are economically disadvantaged to pursue a higher level of education. But there's an irony to these programs and how they may be impacting the economy.
Say what you will about our economic problems, but it is difficult to deny that debt is not a significant, if not primary, cause of economic troubles not just in the United States, but in many other nations. The federal government is deep in debt. Individuals are filing for bankruptcy and foreclosing on mortgages. But wait! These days, what's usually the first time a person finds themselves in debt? Isn't it during the college years, either from paying tuition or spending more than one has via a credit card? And then financial aid comes around and tells us, "Okay, you have a big house that you barely own, not much in savings or investments, and a couple of kids in the family off of two sources of income. You sound like you could use some help."
And then the other guy. A family that knows how to save so losing a job doesn't mean losing the house. Doesn't indulge in buying a new car and computer every year just because it's the latest and greatest. The mortgage on the small but sufficient house has nearly been paid off. All-in-all financially responsible. Financial aid: "You get nothing. You'll give us everything you have before we help you out."
Wait a sec...if you're financially responsible, you have to pay through the nose for college, but if you live paycheck to paycheck you get lots of help? Granted, this statement doesn't cover everyone. There are those families that are very well off where the kids can be sent off to top notch colleges and the parents can retire and still have extra leftover. There are also those that suffer financially through no fault of their own and really could use the help. But that group in the middle...what's going on there?
I really don't know what to do here. I have no better solution to this potential issue. But it's something I think is worth pondering.
As a footnote: I do not intend to offend anyone by writing this, but there is just something that bothers me a bit when I think about the system that compels me to share my thoughts, disorganized or poorly expressed though they may be.
Say what you will about our economic problems, but it is difficult to deny that debt is not a significant, if not primary, cause of economic troubles not just in the United States, but in many other nations. The federal government is deep in debt. Individuals are filing for bankruptcy and foreclosing on mortgages. But wait! These days, what's usually the first time a person finds themselves in debt? Isn't it during the college years, either from paying tuition or spending more than one has via a credit card? And then financial aid comes around and tells us, "Okay, you have a big house that you barely own, not much in savings or investments, and a couple of kids in the family off of two sources of income. You sound like you could use some help."
And then the other guy. A family that knows how to save so losing a job doesn't mean losing the house. Doesn't indulge in buying a new car and computer every year just because it's the latest and greatest. The mortgage on the small but sufficient house has nearly been paid off. All-in-all financially responsible. Financial aid: "You get nothing. You'll give us everything you have before we help you out."
Wait a sec...if you're financially responsible, you have to pay through the nose for college, but if you live paycheck to paycheck you get lots of help? Granted, this statement doesn't cover everyone. There are those families that are very well off where the kids can be sent off to top notch colleges and the parents can retire and still have extra leftover. There are also those that suffer financially through no fault of their own and really could use the help. But that group in the middle...what's going on there?
I really don't know what to do here. I have no better solution to this potential issue. But it's something I think is worth pondering.
As a footnote: I do not intend to offend anyone by writing this, but there is just something that bothers me a bit when I think about the system that compels me to share my thoughts, disorganized or poorly expressed though they may be.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
People that can read
I'm generally a very patient, calm, hard to stress person. However, a pet peeve that I have is when I have to repeat myself. Especially in writing. Specifically, I'm referring to a number of support cases that I've been filing with Sun. With a number of them, when the assigned support rep contacts me, I feel like they haven't read anything that I've written beyond the title, and that answering their question would just be rewriting my detailed problem statement. Now, granted, I'm generally very happy with Sun (Oracle?), and I'll give the benefit of the doubt that maybe this somewhat new Member Support Center makes it difficult for techs to read the problem statement, but really now. It'd be so much easier if you would just read the problem statement that I already spent time writing and then work from there. I would like to thank those techs that DO read my entire submission and subsequently are able to bring the service request to a quick resolution. Hopefully Sun will be able to address and correct whatever issue there is here.
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