So I took three days off ('use it or lose it') and came back to find the default home page in Internet Explorer had been changed. No problem, set it back only to find the ability to change it, locked out. Huh? Has it been hacked? So I opened a trouble ticket and confirmed 'someone' had decided a "corporate web page" was more important than my default, Google search page. So I took a few minutes to edit my 'favorites' bar putting Google search at the front. Open IE and click the first favorite, problem solved. But something worse is going on: ignorance of what employees do - Google finds solutions to technical problems that have already been diagnosed. So instead of spending debug time on unique problems, Google finds solutions. For example, rarely used, obtuse 'unix' commands. inflated 'corporate' page counts - the corporate home page has been poorly designed and implemented for nearly a decade filled with infrequently or useless data. With a 'captive audience,' what little useful information just received a death sentence. Google is the fastest path to corporate resource pages. press releases - the fixed home page means we can (must) see 'press release' links about some 'management' promotion or 'kitten saving' initiative. Real leaders do not need a press release as they empowers employees to excellence. With this change, I know who to curse. promote non-locked browsers - Firefox, Chrome, 'roll your own', these alternative browsers are already popular although some 'enterprise' services are Windows Internet Explorer ONLY. Because I deal with system maintenance, I am OK with standards and a disciplined approach. But this forced home page . . . <SIGH> . . . they've lost it. Sorry, just venting, Bob Wilson
Save the kittens! Save the kittens! Until you can get them above a kilogram, they're not worth stewing.
There may be hell to pay when Bob emerges from essay writing and sees how I have trashed his thread here. Let it be known that I make such transgressions in only a few cases. Generally I follow theme or STFU.
Not really. I re-read my outline and had to send it for 'background processing.' Good writing is hard but in my case requires breaks. Monday is 'hump day' as the assignment is due Tuesday. BTW, I think I've figured out two puzzles in the Berkeley and sea level data: volcanic effects - these are actually, regional yet can show up in global data. The Iceland volcano in 2010 in the sea level data gave a major clue. It turns out St. Hellen will provide a retrospective confirmation test. Southern hemisphere, annual 'summer' cooling - again found in the sea level data, serendipity, it is obvious. We'll take this up after my paper(s) are submitted: Denial 101x - I've already got over 300 words with just the outline . . . and those aren't sentences. Denial 101x (enhanced) - with a bibliography PriusChat - with graphics that even the least sophisticated readers might understand . . . not that it will do any good. Bob Wilson
My last company always setup new computer with IE defaulting to their company web page. At least it was trivial to reset, and it stayed reset. They also didn't allow you to import "Favourites" from a previously exported backup html file. So if you were forewarned of a pending computer swap and wanted to migrate favourites, you needed to copy the file structure method IE uses. Just more cumbersome. Not sure why they would do this, if there was some security issue, or just drunk with power.
Don't forget the much larger and more recent Pinatubo. I understand that venting. I made my own personal and local Home Page not long after the transition from Mosaic to Netscape, before MS discovered this newfangled 'internet' thingy. It was clear early on that those 'corporate web pages' -- and later, default portals from home ISPs -- were being used for things I wanted to minimize. Thus, I open browsers with a strictly local page that doesn't 'call home' to anybody, and goes out to intra- and inter-nets only when I say so, and usually not through the assigned portal. Bummer that you are now blocked from that control.
The typical corporation has a near delusional concept of what employees should be using their internet provision for. Funny and sad. .. As a checker in a structural engineering company, I found it an invaluable resource, but suspect they had no clue, figured I should just be using it to read their web page and do my time sheet.
