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At some point hitherto, Scott Prive hath spake thusly:
> > OTOH, these days I wouldn't be caught using Windows...
> 
> Oh, I like TerraTerm. But it's not bundled with Windows therefore if
> you hop from machine to machine, Hyperterm becomes more valuable
> than say if you worked at the same PC all the time.

That's what laptops are for!  ;-)

> Unfortunately Putty and TT's Telnet module do not play nice with
> some serial-port servers -- especially displaying BIOS where the
> quirks might be motherboard-specific.

That seems odd to me, but I'll take your word for it.  I assume you're
talking about Intel's serial-based BIOS management stuff (the name of
which I seem to have forgotten at the moment).  I really haven't used
it much, so I can't comment.

> I'm not aware of any serial port servers that do ssh,

Ah!  We used one at MCL, which I can't recall the brand name of (yep,
definitely time for a memory upgrade).  To bad this isn't on the
GNHLUG list -- I'm sure Paul Lussier would pipe up about this.  It was
his favorite pet project...

However, the Cyclades TS series supports SSHv2.  I'll see if I can't
find out what the other one was...

> but if there were there would likely be the ANSI-code rendering
> problems that the BIOS creates...

Well, I still don't know what you mean, and I don't have a machine
here capable of that to play with.

> And, trust me... you'd be caught using Windows if your employer used
> Exchange Server. 

<rant>

Which is why I'd probably only take such a job out of desperation...
The only other way would be if everything else about the company were
ultra-cool.

I'd also lobby the admin staff hard to enable IMAP on the Exchange
server.

I'm much more comfortable, effective, and productive with Unix tools
than with Windows.  I understand, from an IT management perspective,
why you don't want to necessarily support every platform under the
known universe; but I also think that power users should be left to
their own devices, provided they don't cause headaches.  The only
exception is where you're in an environment where security is of
critical importance; in such cases the IT staff must be allowed to do
their job without hindrances from user idiosyncracies.  This
invariably means a standardized platform, and I'm ok with that.

As for being forced to use the meeting/scheduling features of outlook,
I'd probably run VMWare or similar on my laptop.  And look for a new
job...  I also think that any company that uses Microsoft
Exchange/Outook/IIS/IE is techologically brain-dead, and probably not
a place I want to work anyway (at least, not in an IT role).  That
4-way combination is a virtual guarantee that your site is going to be
compromised by virus or worm.  A new vulnerability for one of those is
announced about once a week on bugtraq.  And those are just the ones
the white-hats are finding...  That's a mess I don't want any part of.
If you look at all the damage done by Melissa and too many other
Windows worms in the last 3 years, it seems very clear to me that the
total cost of operating a Microsoft IT environment FAR exceeds that of
a Unix environment, especially where low-cost Linux and FreeBSD
platforms can be used in the majority of roles in the back room.

</rant>

- -- 
Derek Martin               ddm@pizzashack.org    
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