Sometimes a writer has difficulty formulating a story of the length
required in the timeframe mandated. Sometimes one has nothing to say,
and at other times, too much. Today is one of those times for me
(although I am not certain exactly which one).
I decided that it would be a good week to revisit some past articles
and give clarifications, additions, and updates. I would call this,
"Miscellaneous Ramblings," but that name is already taken. Instead, I
will refer to it as, "Various and Sundry Ramblings."
This is the journalistic equivalent to a corporation restating its
earnings. For example, I might write, "What we meant to say was do
not place your iBook under running water. We regret any
inconvenience the omission of the word 'not' in the original article
may have caused," in much the same manner as a corporation's accounting
department might write, "When we released our original earnings
statement, we had not yet received our power bills for the last 12
years. Since we now know that we owe PG&E $25 million, we are
revising our earnings statement to reflect the fact that, instead of
posting a $3 million profit, we are now in fact bankrupt. We apologize
for any inconvenience to our shareholders."
Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.
In this article, my intent was to focus on possible solutions that
readers might not have thought of. That is the main reason I did not
discuss CD-R/RW and DVD-R. These are excellent backup methods,
especially DVD - if you can afford it! In fact, I use CD-R regularly as
part of my backup routine. It is more difficult to automate these
methods, as opposed to a tape, for instance. The tradeoff is that the
media, especially CD-R's, is dirt cheap and very reliable.
IT Job Articles
A point that I did not really address in these articles is that
there are basically two philosophies of hiring. One, in which HR does
most everything - maybe giving the manager a little input, and the
other where the manager does most of the screening and interviewing and
runs the finalist(s) by HR for a "courtesy call." Obviously, there are
many situations that fall between these two extremes.
It is not always easy to know which situation you are sending a
resume into. HR is typically much more impressed by paper credentials
than an IT Manager would be. The only certifications that normally get
my attention are the ones from Novell. It is very difficult, though
admittedly not completely impossible, to get these by just reading a
book and without some practical experience.
Microsoft's certs, on the other hand, are very easy to obtain
without any actual knowledge or experience whatsoever. The Apple
administrative certifications are new, so time will tell their value.
The Apple hardware technician certification has been around forever and
is virtually a prerequisite to being hired by any reputable Apple
repair shop - and certainly by Apple itself.
My spell check changed Scott McNealy's name to, "McNeely" and I let
it. "Scott McNeely" is a golfer and presumably would not care one way
or the other about an MCSE. I typed that particular article in MS Word.
Obviously MS did not think Scott McNealy important enough to put the
correct spelling of his name in the built-in dictionary. Surprisingly,
"Steve Ballmer" passes the spell check with flying colors. {Editor's
note: We have corrected the original article.]
Footnote to Sociologists looking to conduct a new study: The hits on
the article on how not to get a job went through the
stratosphere (and are still increasing); hits on the two articles
giving advice on actually landing a job barely registered on the
radar.
Wireless Printing
Apple actually hawks the Linksys WPS-11 on
their website. However, the reports I have received indicate
that making it work with AirPort continues to be problematic in a small
but significant number of instances. Linksys continues to maintain on
their website that they do not support this product in a Macintosh
environment. They offer some Apple setup files on the CD, but you
are pretty much on your own.
Since I purchased my WPS-11 and wrote the original article, there
have been some very positive developments at D-Link with regards to
Macintosh compatibility. D-Link has quietly added "Mac compatible" to
the descriptions of a great many of their products. Here is a paragraph
straight from their website on Mac compatibility:
Mac Support
- Check for Mac support by going to the Products section and
selecting your product. Links to Mac drivers are included in the
product description. If you do not see a link to a Mac driver, the
product is not supported for the Macintosh operating system.
They also have a new product called the D-LinkAir DI-713P, IEEE
802.11b Compliant Wireless Gateway with 3-Port Switch + Print Server.
This is an integrated wireless base station, 3-port switch, and
wireless print server with a suggested list price of $179. I have not
used it, but I have had good luck in the past with other D-Link
products. I am especially encouraged by D-Link's support of the
Mac.
In revisiting my Macworld Predictions Report Card, I made several
predictions that did not pan out. However, I have since been redeemed
on three of those "misses:"
- $999 iBook
- PowerMac G4 speed bump: Now at 1.25 GHz
- 1 GHz TiBook
For next year's Macworld, I can safely predict a 2 GHz G5, confident
that, sooner or later, I'll be right!
