More often, though, dirty IT jobs put people in tough positions — like having to explain to a crew of arrogant geeks why the network can’t be upgraded the same day payroll needs to run; or why you’re not a spammer despite what it says on your business card; or how lying about your company’s products is probably not a good strategy for long-term growth. You may be forced to take the blame for a failed project even when it’s not your fault or to expose wrongdoing at your workplace even if it puts your career at risk.
Dirty jobs never rest, and neither do the people charged with doing them. Be thankful you aren’t one of them. And if you are — well, at least you have a job. Right?
Got any dirty IT jobs stories to share with us? If so, then we’d love to hear all about them in the comments section below (anonymously, of course!).
At TEDxNASA, Dennis Hong introduces seven award-winnning, all-terrain robots — like the humanoid, soccer-playing DARwIn and the cliff-gripping CLIMBeR — all built by his team at RoMeLa, Virginia Tech. Watch to the end to hear the five creative secrets to his lab’s incredible technical success.
If you’re a non-American waiting for the iPad, make yourself comfortable: the international release has been delayed for a month.
The official reason for the delay is that US demand has been so much higher than expected that it will take time to get extra stock ready for non-US orders. Apple reports that it delivered more than half a million iPads in the first week after release.
While that’s no doubt the main reason for the delay, there are a couple of other factors which might have played a part. One could be that Apple now wants to avoid having the international release coming at the same time as the US debut of the 3G version: if there are technical issues that arise with this version, it may be easier to sort them out while the audience is limited to the US.
Another possibility, which is admittedly dependent on your level of cynicism, is that Apple wants to buy more time before making overseas pricing decisions. If it concludes that the US figures will translate into international demand being higher than expected, it may be tempted to make overseas prices higher than it originally planned.
As it happens, Apple has announced that it won’t be releasing international pricing until it begins taking pre-orders on May 10.
There are some new details available for international users though: Vodafone has been confirmed as a mobile service provider in Australia, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK. There’ll be some competition in those four European countries as Orange will also be offering iPad plans, while the UK will have three plans on offer thanks to O2 striking a deal.
Those expecting a price war are likely to be out of luck: the iPhone is available on multiple networks in the UK but, while the breakdown of pricing varies, the total costs are suspiciously similar. Of course, that may be different with an unsubsidized device such as the iPad, and users will also have the option of choosing the carrier which offers the best coverage in their area. That may be particularly useful if European carriers follow AT&T’s lead in offering monthly deals with no long-term commitment.
This superbly detailed (and a bit gross) dead tauntaun wedding cake was made for Star Wars artist Christopher J. Trevas’s wedding by Courtney Clark from Cake Nouveau. I can’t really say the cake looks delicious, even though I’m pretty sure it is. Additional pics after the jump
Ex-video game designer Karine Fortin, who incidentally is one of my next-door neighbors, is the voice behind Connekt. Since Karine is debuting her musical career and needs a bit of help, I decided to share her first video with you guys. Karine will surely be reading this, so if you want to leave a comment about your thoughts on the video, she’ll be there to see them. Oh, and the clip is more than geeky enough, so don’t worry about me posting un-geeky things on [GaS] ;)
Kiss’s clip was entirely shot in 2 days in her cramped bedroom on a green screen with a Canon 7D camera. Post-production was then done by her spouse, Marc Morissette, via Nuke and Final Cut. The whole project took just a little over 3 weeks to finalize.
Opera has become the first rival browser to Safari to appear on the iPhone and iPod touch. The app was approved last night and is already available for download.
It’s something of a surprise that Apple would give the thumbs up to Opera. While the iTunes App Store approval process has often seemed close to random, one constant was that the firm turned down anything which could be argued to replicate a feature offered by Apple itself.
As far as the specs go, Opera (or rather Opera Mini) has some notable advantages: it allows searching within a web page, saving of pages, and turning off images to increase load speed (and cut mobile data use). In theory, too, it also works quicker than Safari as the system compresses pages on the server and only the “lighter” version is sent to the device.
In practice though, in the brief time I’ve spent using it, these don’t translate into an advantage with the factor that really defines Apple’s portable products: how it feels. I’ve not even thought of using any of these features in the past: whether that’s because they really aren’t necessary to my mobile use, or if I’ve just not used them because they aren’t there, it’s hard to say.
To me, though, there are four main reasons why I would want to ditch any browser:
It isn’t stable and reliable.
It’s a security risk.
It doesn’t work smoothly and intuitively.
It feels too slow.
The problem for Opera is that none of these really apply to Safari on mobile devices. So while Opera may very well be objectively equal to, or better than, Safari, it isn’t really filling a perceived gap.
Where Opera might make a tangible difference is on 3G connections, particularly in areas with poor service. In such situations it could be that the speed advantages over Safari are much more pronounced.
This isn’t the first “victory” Opera has had over larger rivals. It was the main complainant that prompted a European Union investigation into Microsoft’s bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows. That led to an ongoing program by which all European IE users are being greeted with a one-off on-screen prompt asking them to specifically choose one or more of the 12 leading browsers on the continent. While its market share hasn’t noticeably gone up yet, Opera claims it has seen a dramatic rise in downloads as a result.
Call of Duty 6 (2D Remake) is an awesome 2D remake of the famous first person shooter, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Even though the game only lasts for about 5 minutes, it offers a lot of variety for time you’ll be playing. Beside the normal platform shooter passages, you will also control a stationary machine gun, swirl around with a helicopter, take a race with a snow mobile and a motor boat… and control a remote controlled missile. Check out this awesome gameplay video:
Since a large percentage of our readership is composed of IT pros, we figured this article listing some of the dirtiest jobs in IT may be of interest to some of you.
