IT guy here is incompetent

[mercanucaribe]

I've been using a Dell laptop.. the 1920x1200 15.4" LCD is pretty damn nice. While making me admin so that I can install some GPS software, he grumbles about "messing with stuff" and tells me to use the CRT connected to the dock so the laptop runs cooler. He says that because the LCD is off, the laptop runs cooler...

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't the LCD's invertor and backlight insulated from the rest of the computer by plastic hinges and a whole lot of airspace?? What in the hell is this guy talking about?

This "incident" is the not the only reason I say he's incompetent. The worst thing he does is buy overpowered computers and recommend overpowered computers to other employees. He believes that everyone needs 4 gigs of RAM. We just requisitioned four quad core Xeon workstations and Radion X1900XTs for what... the same GIS work that the old P4 machines have been used for. If it was possible, they'd have SCSI, which he believes is better than SATA.

Well that's the end of my rant, but this guy is wasting YOUR MONEY, because he works for Yellowstone.

 

[acemcmac]

He's a goddamn moron. Ignore him. If he does it again, give him a wedgie and hang him on a coathook by his starwars underwear.

Is this USGS? I know some really really underpaid USGS sysadmins who have to work with spit, gum and duct-tape for everything.... I find this kind of waste hard to believe from the USGS.

 

[brandonbull]

If less current is drawn from the laptop to power the screen, it would run cooler. Cold with solution as a matter of fact.

 

[djheater]

I firmly believe that half of my department has Asperger's. IT people are barely functional social misfits by nature.

 

[Jack Ryan]

Another example of someone getting a degree from wikipedia and thinking they know whats up.

Too many times the "tech junkie" has no idea what they are talking about. I find that people that DO know what they are talking about, don't have to promote it.

Where I work there are two loud mouth people who talk about everything techie, but I wouldn't trust them to program speed dial on my phone.

 

[CVSiN]

Originally posted by: mercanucaribe
I've been using a Dell laptop.. the 1920x1200 15.4" LCD is pretty damn nice. While making me admin so that I can install some GPS software, he grumbles about "messing with stuff" and tells me to use the CRT connected to the dock so the laptop runs cooler. He says that because the LCD is off, the laptop runs cooler...

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't the LCD's invertor and backlight insulated from the rest of the computer by plastic hinges and a whole lot of airspace?? What in the hell is this guy talking about?

This "incident" is the not the only reason I say he's incompetent. The worst thing he does is buy overpowered computers and recommend overpowered computers to other employees. He believes that everyone needs 4 gigs of RAM. We just requisitioned four quad core Xeon workstations and Radion X1900XTs for what... the same GIS work that the old P4 machines have been used for. If it was possible, they'd have SCSI, which he believes is better than SATA.

Well that's the end of my rant, but this guy is wasting YOUR MONEY, because he works for Yellowstone.

Depends on what the machines are being used for..

we are using Opterons with 16gigs of ram and high end Nvidia workstation cards in SLI for our Linux workstations for crunching geo data at Chevron..

running them on dual 23 inch flatpanels..

every scientist has a machine of this spec. next to his crappy old windows box LOL..

 

[DaShen]

GIS is quite resource intensive. The more RAM the better. As for the monitor, the less current, the cooler the computer.

As long as he isn't pompous about his opinions, don't worry about it.

 

[mercanucaribe]

Originally posted by: CVSiN

Originally posted by: mercanucaribe
I've been using a Dell laptop.. the 1920x1200 15.4" LCD is pretty damn nice. While making me admin so that I can install some GPS software, he grumbles about "messing with stuff" and tells me to use the CRT connected to the dock so the laptop runs cooler. He says that because the LCD is off, the laptop runs cooler...

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't the LCD's invertor and backlight insulated from the rest of the computer by plastic hinges and a whole lot of airspace?? What in the hell is this guy talking about?

This "incident" is the not the only reason I say he's incompetent. The worst thing he does is buy overpowered computers and recommend overpowered computers to other employees. He believes that everyone needs 4 gigs of RAM. We just requisitioned four quad core Xeon workstations and Radion X1900XTs for what... the same GIS work that the old P4 machines have been used for. If it was possible, they'd have SCSI, which he believes is better than SATA.

Well that's the end of my rant, but this guy is wasting YOUR MONEY, because he works for Yellowstone.

Depends on what the machines are being used for..

we are using Opterons with 16gigs of ram and high end Nvidia workstation cards in SLI for our Linux workstations for crunching geo data at Chevron..

running them on dual 23 inch flatpanels..

every scientist has a machine of this spec. next to his crappy old windows box LOL..

These computers are being used to make maps using data from network drives and for editing databases.

 

[Chaotic42]

What kind of GIS work are you doing? Ortho work and stereo imaging really do require lots of memory. I've exported plenty of 1GB+ plots, and if you're going to want smooth movement in ArcGIS... Well, I don't know if that's even possible.

 

[mercanucaribe]

Originally posted by: DaShen
GIS is quite resource intensive. The more RAM the better. As for the monitor, the less current, the cooler the computer.

As long as he isn't pompous about his opinions, don't worry about it.

GIS can be resource intensive, but not what we do. I haven't seen any real GIS analysis being done since my 2nd week here.

The less current the cooler the AC adapter. The only other source of heat would be the invertor. In any case, that's insignificant compared to the processor. Never had any overheating problems anyway.

 

[randomlinh]

SCSI can be better than SATA. all depends on the application you need it for. of course, I have no idea how your software works and if scsi is a benefit or not. it's all about what you need for the job. And inherently, most scsi drives are enterprise level stuff. Raptors are the only enterprise SATA I can recall. But again, if you don't need that level, then it doesn't matter....

but yes, why would you bother w/ the CRT.. it'll generate more heat/power consumption than that LCD. unless you have a really kick ass CRT.

 

[DougK62]

SCSI is better than SATA in MANY situations.

 

[JackBurton]

Originally posted by: mercanucaribe
I've been using a Dell laptop.. the 1920x1200 15.4" LCD is pretty damn nice. While making me admin so that I can install some GPS software, he grumbles about "messing with stuff" and tells me to use the CRT connected to the dock so the laptop runs cooler. He says that because the LCD is off, the laptop runs cooler...

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't the LCD's invertor and backlight insulated from the rest of the computer by plastic hinges and a whole lot of airspace?? What in the hell is this guy talking about?

This "incident" is the not the only reason I say he's incompetent. The worst thing he does is buy overpowered computers and recommend overpowered computers to other employees. He believes that everyone needs 4 gigs of RAM. We just requisitioned four quad core Xeon workstations and Radion X1900XTs for what... the same GIS work that the old P4 machines have been used for. If it was possible, they'd have SCSI, which he believes is better than SATA.

Well that's the end of my rant, but this guy is wasting YOUR MONEY, because he works for Yellowstone.

His statement about the LCD is moronic. But if you are talking about giving everone that does GIS work 4GB of memory, he's not that far off. GIS is a monster and the more CPU power and memory you give it, the better it performs. But you definitely don't need a X1900XT for GIS (that is if you are not doing anything graphical). That card in GIS will give you the same performance as a $50 card. And yes, SCSI is better than SATA (if hard drive performace was your main objective).

 

[Fraggable]

Your laptop's screen may generate heat but only in 2 places - wherever the lamp(s) are (usually top and/or bottom of the screen) and the AC/DC power brick. Neither of those will make the thing run cooler if they were turned off.

It could make a barely measurable difference if the external CRT ran at a lower res than your lappy display, but not worth considering unless you're gaming all day.

 

[randomlinh]

Originally posted by: DougK62
SCSI is better than SATA in MANY situations.

not when your superiors laugh at the cost of implementation oh well, can't yell at me when I told em it'd be faster.

 

[jdini76]

[nick burns] Move! [/nick burns]

 

[BrianH1]

sweet blog

 

[mercanucaribe]

Originally posted by: JackBurton

Originally posted by: mercanucaribe
I've been using a Dell laptop.. the 1920x1200 15.4" LCD is pretty damn nice. While making me admin so that I can install some GPS software, he grumbles about "messing with stuff" and tells me to use the CRT connected to the dock so the laptop runs cooler. He says that because the LCD is off, the laptop runs cooler...

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't the LCD's invertor and backlight insulated from the rest of the computer by plastic hinges and a whole lot of airspace?? What in the hell is this guy talking about?

This "incident" is the not the only reason I say he's incompetent. The worst thing he does is buy overpowered computers and recommend overpowered computers to other employees. He believes that everyone needs 4 gigs of RAM. We just requisitioned four quad core Xeon workstations and Radion X1900XTs for what... the same GIS work that the old P4 machines have been used for. If it was possible, they'd have SCSI, which he believes is better than SATA.

Well that's the end of my rant, but this guy is wasting YOUR MONEY, because he works for Yellowstone.

His statement about the LCD is moronic. But if you are talking about giving everone that does GIS work 4GB of memory, he's not that far off. GIS is a monster and the more CPU power and memory you give it, the better it performs. But you definitely don't need a X1900XT for GIS (that is if you are not doing anything graphical). That card in GIS will give you the same performance as a $50 card. And yes, SCSI is better than SATA (if hard drive performace was your main objective).

It's not just the GIS computers that he says need 4gb RAM, but everyone requisitioning a computer. The quad Xeon (which he calls Xenon) workstations are overkill, especially since ArcMap is not multithreaded. The 3d cards are ostensibly for 3d programs-- the only one we use being SceneBuilder, which isn't being used for anything that requires more than probably a GeForce 3 level card.
My computer science major friend, who works for Cisco, says that SCSI is not always better, though I forget why. Latency and processor time I think... In any case, when you're working off network drives, SCSI vs SATA is irrelevant, and I can't think of a single reason to have SCSI.

 

[desy]

Read page 213 for system specs
I agree
A lot of the GIS we do is 2D maps and that doesn't require much horsepower for that. ArcGIS 9.0 min config is 1 gig proc and 512 mb or ram with 1 gig recommended.
Any good p4 processor using the latest chipset and couple gigs of Ram will do 90% of what you need quickly. A fast SATA drive is OK better Raptor and best SCSI if your pulling the data layers off local. If from a network source then it doesn't matter.

Its different if you start to do the 3D functions of GIS but even then the recommended is an open GL card V1.3 not even the V2.0 spec

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

I don't give users admin privelages ever. Yeah, people b!tch but I explain what it was like a few years ago when we weren't and people would bring their notebooks in while I'm doing SQL or web work and go, "it's acting funny" and I start it up to see hundreds of viruses and spyware and got to spend most of my day reinstalling or cleaning it knowing full damn well I'll see it in another month.

But I'm exceedingly respectful of my coworkers and I work my ass off making their jobs easier and the company more profitable so I'm pretty sure they all like me.

 

[Chadder007]

Did he say to close the lid on the laptop and have the CRT hooked up? Closing the lid traps some of the heat. Having the LCD on would take less power than the CRT screen, but it would put just a tad more draw of power through the laptops motherboard.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

But I have to say I'm lucky that I don't work with any wannabe techies questioning and second guessing my decisions behind my back like you or I might have a different attitude. Damn right I'd be a little indignant if the guy who thinks he's Bill Gates because he put together his own Conroe rig is offering me advice on running a network.

 

[Genx87]

I dont blame him about the local admin comment.


Users have and will find a way to screw up their computers if given the rights to do so.

 

[rh71]

He didn't get the memo ? Being a techie no longer makes him different than everyone else.

 

[desy]

So true
When I started 20 yrs ago I was the uber Geek now everybody has a 2 bit opinion!
Blast, makes me want to be a plumber or something.