Hate ??? Microsoft

[Mike Harris]

Hey Edward, I aggree,

<start_rant>

I've worked alongside people earning £45+ pounds an hour who didn't even
know how to install NT or even which end of the power cable went where
(honest to God) let alone understand what NetBIOS, NetBEUI and the like
meant - to top it all off these guys were getting paid more because they're
MCSEs.  I new an 'analyst' (term loosely used) who was so pleased with his
MCSE income, that he paid for his wife (formerly no experience) to do it and
she passed and became and MCSE too - one big happy family.

Basically there are skill people out there on both sides of the UNIX and NT
fence and a lot (like myself) frequently have to jump it and get
heterogeonous.  But it appears that anyone with £5000 to spare and a good
memory can become an MCSE without possessing any REAL IT skills.  These are
the people that cause this industry so many problems, badly advise
management and cost everybody time and money.

The fact that MCSE can be obtained in this fashion (and I've worked with
many people who've done this) highlights the failings of this qualification
and the failings of IT and Corporate management to recongnise this and costs
companies a forture for the extra salaries that it demands and the extra
time that 'under-skilled' IT bods spend making bad descisions and mistakes.

It's daft to say NT is easier than UNIX to administrate.  Try using Network
Monitor, try making registry changes to fine tune the server, try using that
dreaded command line, diagnose network problems etc. etc. etc.  NT looks
pretty and is good at some stuff underneath, UNIX can look pretty too if you
want to, but its got a pretty damn powerful command line and excellent
scripting tools.  Ever tried to schedule tasks using AT and a DOS batch file
???  Yuk.

Anyhow, you need a skilled administrator to administrate NT just as you need
one for UNIX.  It's just that NT 'attempts' to hide the real stuff whereas
UNIX lays it bare.  You can be assured that an experienced UNIX admin
*knows* what he or she is doing.  All you know with NT is that they can use
a GUI - any Windows 98 user can do that!!

The problem's not NT per se, it's the industry, the marketing, the corporate
bozos and the flash contractors in their Ferraris with their 'Teach your
grandad NT in a day' books!

'Zero Administration' - my ar$e!

</end_rant>

Apologies for offending anyone, not intended, just letting off steam :-)

Mike.
----- Original Message -----
From: Edward Schernau <ed at schernau.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list SAMBA-NTDOM <samba-ntdom at samba.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2000 3:07 PM
Subject: Hate ??? Microsoft


> Lots of us LIKE Microsoft.  Heck, 98% of us on here make our living
> babysitting Windows clients (or why would we be here????) and NT
> servers.
>
> I think the backlash against NT system administrators is this:
> There are many people who put on a tie, buy a palmpilot, read
> NT Server for Dummies, and flood the marketplace.  Ive actually
> fielded questions from _NT ADMINS_ who ask "Are you guys running
> Ethernet or IP?"  Or "Dammit, all these floppies are formatted
> NTFS!".  These are the guys who use Disk Administrator to look
> at the pretty bargraphs to tell HOW MUCH FREE SPACE C: has.
>
> These are the guys whose motto is: "If there is not a GUI, it
> can't be done."
>
> Do most of us on here, and even MANY NT Admins fall into this
> category?  Of course not.  Do most of us on here, and even many
> Linux/Unix Admins hate Microsoft, want to kill Bill Gates, and
> rule the world?  Of course not.
>
> It just takes a few bad apples to spoil the barrel.
> </soapbox>
> --
> Edward Schernau http://www.schernau.com
> Network Architect mailto:ed at schernau.com
> Rational Computing Providence, RI, USA, Earth