I think you may be referring to *.onmicrosoft.com (add that one to the list too...)
197 karma · joined April 13, 2021
I know many of us in this community tend to look back at the earlier days of the internet very fondly and feel the nostalgia hit strongly, and I think it's because of the innovations (or maybe gimmicks?) like these that were novel and groundbreaking in many ways. Off the top of my head right now, I can't recall anything in recent times as quirky as the CueCat that would have evoked a similar excitement and genuine intrigue to a child today like I was fortunate to have experienced twenty years ago. But then again, I'm sure back then there weren't many seven year olds hunting down library database software and messing around with it for fun - so maybe my perspective is an outlier...
As the article mentions, we also have the app pushed out to all of our phones that can place outgoing calls with prioritization, but it only automatically keys in your PIN and the number you wish to reach after calling the dial access number. It's more of a convenience feature for those not wanting to manually enter the long string of digits for GETS. The app offers three modes to dial out: WPS, GETS, WPS+GETS. I always thought the WPS+GETS method seemed redundant, but I'm glad the author made the distinction on why stacking both methods makes sense.
Does anyone have a good recommendation on any material that really made wireless technology understandable for you?
Of course this isn't much of a concern when installed onto a two-lane residential street for targeted enforcement. Though I know most municipalities opt to only place cameras at points of egress/ingress on their borders with other cities, and those roads tend to be more than just two lanes.
The ERP we use for HR/Payroll, Accounts Payable/Receivable, Utility Billing, etc. costs an exorbitant amount of money each year, and the quality of both the software and the technical support we receive is comical. And this is new deployment, too. We upgraded from an IBM AS/400-based system a couple of years ago which I honestly long to go back to now and again out of frustration.
Let me give you just one an example of how we are held hostage to a private software vendor - collecting payment for utility bills. We are forced to use one credit card processor because it's the only "partner" that the ERP vendor has for payment processing. I guarantee you that you've never heard of them before. Their software is abysmal, and last time I checked, the ERP vendor gets a flat rate for each payment they collect (in addition to the standard credit card processing % + flat fee that goes to the merchant services company). There's no alternative. It's a Windows Service that has a tendency to crash several times a day without logging anything to Event Viewer. It's known to charge a credit card, but not return a success code to back the ERP, meaning the money was collected but their bill doesn't show as being paid. It's a problem I've documented clearly and created tickets on for over seven months at this point, and it's still not been resolved. Why? They have zero motivation. It's a beast to migrate to a new ERP (multiple years and $1M+), and they treat us as if we have no leverage in pushing for prompter support or better quality software. So luckily we are still on-premise with full access to the SQL database. I have written procedures to update the payment status manually each time this happens, post the transaction to the ERP, update reference numbers, and do a few other various things that should happen automatically when it works correctly. We were scolded for digging around ourselves and doing this, but if we open a support case, it takes 2-14 days to get a response back and that's simply not feasible when these payments need to post before EOB.
There's also no open API available. We have the in-house expertise to develop integrations and try to tie systems together in ways that make sense for our environment. Nope. Whatever few integrations that exists costs tens of thousands of dollars up-front, have very lackluster support, are infrequently updated, and are very rigid in their capabilities. I've asked how we can gain access to a sandbox environment or get documentation on an API so we can test and create the integrations that these sacred "partners" are able to -- radio silence. I've even reached out to individuals who work at the company on LinkedIn asking a similar question of how an independent developer can integrate with their ERP ecosystem -- left on read, no response.
Need a customization or change? Let's schedule a series of meetings and get it quoted out. $5,000 and two months later, we now have one new line of text displayed on our water bills about the drought. This is the level of control they maintain and use to line their pockets at our expense.
And now I've noticed that over the past year or so, there's been a very aggressive push to move to a SaaS environment. Meaning we'd lose direct access to SQL, lose access to logs and other tools I use to debug/diagnose, and be reliant on (read: held hostage by) the vendor even more. Good luck getting access to any of our raw data at that point. It's vendor lock-in to an extreme.
We (the agency, but more so the tax payers by extension) are victims. And we take it willingly without any pushback because there's no alternative. If anyone reading this is interested in helping fight against this or develop an open source alternative specific to government agencies, please reach out to me (email in profile here). I'm very passionate about this, having suffered so much aggravation over the years, and would love to work on bringing about some sort of solution.
We had one staff member in charge of both the library and computer lab at my school, and I always admired her know-how when we'd watch her demonstrate something or troubleshoot a problem. Looking back now at the selection of software she curated for us, the uniformity of the look-and-feel across all Macs on campus, having a networked file share accessible from the 2-3 iMacs/Macintosh LCs we had in each classroom and in the lab, I appreciate how she really went above and beyond for that period of time and fostered so much intrigue in me. I really have to attribute a lot of my interest in tech to her during those formative years.
[0] http://toastytech.com/guis/macos9users.png
[1] https://macintoshgarden.org/games/the-incredible-machine-3
Let me share my personal experience with you so I can try to shed some light on our varying interpretations of what "won the lottery" means. I went to college full-time, four days a week, and was a commuter. I was responsible for my entire car payment, my parking pass, my books/material, and for taking out a loan for tuition. I took it upon myself to get a part-time job while continuing to study and go to class for four and a half years. I then got a full-time job upon graduating and lived very frugally for two years with a huge chunk of my paychecks going towards paying off my car and student loans. The thought of paying interest killed me, and I did everything in my power to put every penny I could afford towards paying down my debt. I didn't go on vacations, didn't spend money frivolously on a new iPhone every year, didn't buy anything that wasn't necessary until my obligations were fulfilled.
Now let's revisit Person B (and to be clear, I personally know a Person B who's a close friend of mine who fits this description). They did not consistently work in college, but partied, went to festivals, took vacations, had a much easier schedule not having to factor in a job. They then graduate just like me. They have a few hundred dollars more every month that can go towards more vacations than I had the option to take, a more expensive car that I could not afford to buy, and more discretionary spending power than I had during that time. They work a job now, but have yet to begin repaying their loans yet (I understand the pandemic was a once-in-a-lifetime situation, but even so, there's a grace period after graduating where you aren't forced to pay). And even when payments resume, they will likely pay the bare minimum each month because they now have the prospect of having that debt potentially forgiven in its entirety.
How do you tell me with a straight face that I won the lottery, and that Person B is actually the one who is "fucked" (as you so eloquently put it) and needs the forgiveness?
But Person A, who paid their $30k loan in full, now has $30k less to spend on a home, a car, savings, etc. Person B, who did not pay their $30k, now has effectively $30k more in buying power either immediately or spread across what would otherwise have been their repayment timeline.
Person A's responsibility for their obligation has set them back $30k, while Person B's lack of responsibility for making payments has put them ahead $30k. Maybe we shouldn't call it a direct punishment, but they're certainly coming out of the scenario worse off than their counterpart.