Andrea -
I appreciate your comments but you're not helping <grin>.
Seriously though, I don't need an SA to protect me from myself. If I'm
stupid enough to do some of the things you've mentioned, then I deserve
what I get, and I can not complain to the SA for help. I wouldn't anyway,
because invariably I end up spending more time teaching them, than
getting any real help. We developers are truly the "experts" here.
As for updates, we're supposed to test them before they go out to the
rest of the users. In other words, we are *supposed* to install them
before they're "approved".
As for you last comment, that we might look "more equal" than others,
that's just too bad. We *should* be treated differently than others. We
have to work 24/7 when critical problems come up. How many other people
have to do that? And who do they call when some bigwig can not log into
one of our applications because he can not read the error message that
tells him his password has expired? Us. In short, we *are* different
than everyone else. We have more responsibility, and we require more
privileges.
It's like this: I work for a large company. We have rules for appearance
that include short hair for men (don't raise a stink about this -- if
you knew what company I worked for, you'd understand). However we have a
group of people that are usually referred to as "talent". These people
can look however they want. Ponytails for the men are common. Does this
bother me? No! They're the only ones who can do what they do, so they
deserve to be prima donas. And we're the only ones who can do what we
do, so we *should* be treated differently than everyone else.
(Yes, you touched a nerve <grin>).
-Dan
Andrea Raimondi writes:
Quote
IMHO: it all depends on the kind of applications you're doing.
Let's see it from the SysAdmin POV for a minute, ok?
SysAdmins are responsible for how the computers and devices at work.
This means that, in general, if you have admin rights on the machine,
SysAdmin is not responsible any longer, but he's responsible by
contract, so he can not just "leave it" as it is.
Second thing: Windows is a weird beast, you can potentially install
anything with Admin rights and, no, I am not talking about viruses and
spyware, I am reasonably confident that you're smart enough to avoid
that. Let's take another example for this kind of issue: say that you
install OpenOffice instead of MSOffice. Now, you will most likely write
letters and save them in Word, but once or twice a month you might
forget that and save in OOo native format and nobody else is able to
read what you're sending.
Another example for this matter: say you want to use Thunderbird as
email client. Thunderbird has a junk detection algorithm that
automatically moves junk mail to a dedicated folder. It happens more
frequently than not, to have colleagues who send lots of emails in
varying formats, mainly HTML, which TB regards as junk.
Don't forget that OE sends HTML mails by default. This means that,
default, TB will mark and move messages in the Junk folder.
I think you get the end of the story. Be aware: the algorithm
scans email by email, so some might go into the junk folder,
others might not.
Updates: having admin rights would allow you to install *any* update,
even those that are not "officially" approved, i.e. WXP SP2 and/or
dotNet.
To these things, add also the fact that probably you developers are the
only ones to have admin rights on the local computers and this to a
"manager" might look like you're more equal than others(maybe, more than
themselves in some cases), consequences are easy to guess :D
Opinions?
