Portable Application Portfolio

[lespaul]

Hello all! I have recently purchased a new computer and one of my nifty devices is a Flash Memory USB Key Storage. It's the coolest; now I know all the network administrators are GROANING because of the security, but it is really cool!

I've been thinking that I would like to have an Application Portfolio on my key drive: demos of applications I developed, copies of documentation that I have written, specs, etc.

What do you think of this idea?

Leslie

 

[RiverGuy]

It's a good idea in some respects. Although if you just carry it with you and bring it around, you can't trust that other peoples' computers will have all of the required components for your applications installed. And you could find yourself running out of room if you place the complete setups on the drive.

If you have a laptop, you might want to take that along with you if you have any hard-core demonstrations to do. You don't have to worry about setting up anything or installing anything.

The usb drive is a good idea for pictures, documents, pamphlets, etc.

 

[CajunCenturion]

I've been thinking that I would like to have an Application Portfolio on my key drive: demos of applications I developed, copies of documentation that I have written, specs, etc.

This issue has been well discussed in several threads, but you must address the issue of ownership, copyright, and the like. You cannot show anything without the permission of the owner, and just because you wrote it, does NOT mean that you're the owner.

I would review thread717-807487 for starters to ensure that you're on solid ground with what you show.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[dilettante]

Yes, this rapidly spills over into an ethical and a standards and practices issue.

The same sort of thing became "hot" when CD-Rs got popular and then again when the smaller CD form-factors became popular. I saw a flurry of CDs arriving with resumes during the latter part of the dot-com bubble, typically with CD-based "web sites" giving a guided career overview with samples and docs - mostly for jobs in the web development arena.

This sort of thing doesn't seem to be as common anymore, but then again I don't review resumes as often as I once did. People were often a bit careless with the items they included, which probably would have been unpopular with their current and former employers.

 

[AnanthaP]

In this forum I thought you would be talking of server centric universal applications. (Not just web based). What about it?

Why not an ASP (Application service provider) who will deliver all your registered apps over a standard connection and desktop? IS this the future.

Products like this exist in the corporate world (Zen Works comes to mind). Also the thin client model.

Also, in other fields this has been happening for ages. Eg. Telephones. Nearly the same interface but lots of tariff plans. Rotary dial phones still exist and do an equally good job in voice communication.

There are some advantages to this.
--> No need to frequently upgrade.
--> Carry just one instrument.

OK?
End

 

[dilettante]

Well what I have seen happen is almost the opposite in some ways.

Corporate networks seems to be moving toward a more fuedal model as "the King's deer" are "poached" by the vassels and his "Treasury" threatened by raiders, predators, and pestilences roaming the countryside (Internet). I see a lot more inward-facing firewall strategies as well as the now traditional outward-facing ones.

I know one outfit that has started balkanizing its own network with internal network security devices. Once you have a certain number of internal network nodes and population of users your internal risk of problems goes up. Nobody can afford to have one sloppy user bring a Slammer or worse inside the walls and have it run rampant and gut the Kingdom. Think about it: Is a network of 10,000 users that much different from the Internet?

In some shops simple web access to outside sites is beginning to be blocked as well as FTP, Telnet, SMTP, NNTP, IRC, etc. I'm not sure how much longer anybody would be able to count on a reviewer of prospective employees being able to reach out via a Citrix, Terminal Services, or VNC client to some sort of hosted service.

Not that slipping in a CD from outside or some USB flash memory dongle is considered a safe and approved practice either.


I wonder how soon ISPs will be forced to do this? Between legal pressure to make them enforce Copyrights and malware that threatens network bandwidth, usability, and stability... How soon before the Internet is effectively locked down into a broadcast television (or cable TV) model?


You could always host your stuff on a dial-in BBS type host. Oh! Don't forget, most organizations prohibit dial modems in corporate machines though.


One last comment:

Anybody know whether the U.S. Postal Service has stopped using those e-beam devices to sterilize mail yet? After the Anthrax scare there were lots of warnings not to mail flash memory devices, which were not only erased but destroyed by these sterilizers.

 

[chiph]

I wonder how soon ISPs will be forced to do this? Between legal pressure to make them enforce Copyrights and malware that threatens network bandwidth, usability, and stability... How soon before the Internet is effectively locked down into a broadcast television (or cable TV) model?

You're starting to see some of that now. A friend got a letter (in the mail!) from his ISP because they detected a large number of emails being sent from his IP address. They thought he had been infected with something and were threatening to cut him off unless he corrected the problem. It turns out that his home-based business (yes, he was paying the business rate) sent emails as a notification to his customers, so he wasn't spamming the world like they thought.

But the fact that they were ready to disconnect him unless he patched his system was plain. I've heard of similar things happening to people running P2P applications -- suddenly the idea of "unlimited" internet usage got turned into "unlimited as in the sense of 8 hours usage a day", and their ISP would cut them off.

The ISPs are doing this simply to protect themselves -- they don't want angry customers calling up complaining of slow performance. Personally, I wouldn't want to be on the same subnet as someone like this (either my friend, or a P2P user), as it would affect my Internet experience (I hate slow connections, that's why I've gone from dial-up to ISDN to cable modem over the years).

The threat of spam isn't to be ignored. Right now, I feel that email is on the brink of becoming unusable. If I want to email my mom, half the time it doesn't get there because her ISP filters it out. All it takes is 2 dollar-signs, or a higher-than average punctuation count, and my note gets sent to /dev/null.

Chip H.


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