Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Tuesday March 10 2020, @04:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the all-the-better-to-identify-what-can-be-outsourced? dept.

Dustin Kirkland has written a blog post about telecommuting for over two decades. He goes into a lot of detail about his particular setup. He closes asking what other people's remote offices look like and what, if anything, he missed.

In this post, I'm going to share a few of the benefits and best practices that I've discovered over the years, and I'll share with you a shopping list of hardware and products that I have come to love or depend on, over the years.

I worked in a variety of different roles -- software engineer, engineering manager, product manager, and executive (CTO, VP Product, Chief Product Officer) -- and with a couple of differet companies, big and small (IBM, Google, Canonical, Gazzang, and Apex). In fact, I was one of IBM's early work-from-home interns, as a college student in 2000, when my summer internship manager allowed me to continue working when I went back to campus, and I used the ATT Global Network dial-up VPN client to "upload" my code to IBM's servers.

If there's anything positive to be gained out of the COVID-19 virus life changes, I hope that working from home will become much more widely accepted and broadly practiced around the world, in jobs and industries where it's possible. Moreover, I hope that other jobs and industries will get even more creative and flexible with remote work arrangements, while maintaining work-life-balance, corporate security, and employee productivity.

See similar article at the BBC.

How much, if any, can you work from home? What tools are on your "gotta have it" list? What cautions, suggestions, and resources do you suggest for your fellow Soylentils?


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday March 10 2020, @06:38PM (3 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday March 10 2020, @06:38PM (#969201) Journal

    To run an entire suite of Microsoft Enterprise products? Outlook? Sometimes Excel and Word. (Although I do use LibreOffice.) Teams. Skype. And other assorted bits.

    Microsoft? The company known to sabotage its software not to run on DR DOS ? (Back in early 1990s or late 1980s)

    Not something I would want to bet on.

    I would probably instead ask for a corporate laptop, which would be equipped with all the standard apps and security, including our VPN, Bitlocker, corporate antivirus, etc.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by acid andy on Tuesday March 10 2020, @06:44PM (2 children)

    by acid andy (1683) on Tuesday March 10 2020, @06:44PM (#969207) Homepage Journal

    Yeah I was pretty sure that was the case but thought I'd just throw down the comment anyway. I've never tried ReactOS actually. I must admit running code written by M$ under Wine does really creep me out. A separate machine is the way to go.

    --
    If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Freeman on Tuesday March 10 2020, @08:18PM (1 child)

      by Freeman (732) on Tuesday March 10 2020, @08:18PM (#969264) Journal

      No need to be creeped out by Wine or running M$ code on Linux. In fact, it's essentially sandboxing your program.

      As far as ReactOS is concerned. It is not ready for prime time. You can tinker with it, but it's still in Alpha and lots of things don't work quite right still. It's leaps and bounds better than it used to be, but it's got a long journey ahead.

      --
      Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
      • (Score: 3, Informative) by acid andy on Wednesday March 11 2020, @03:46PM

        by acid andy (1683) on Wednesday March 11 2020, @03:46PM (#969667) Homepage Journal

        https://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#How_good_is_Wine_at_sandboxing_Windows_apps.3F [winehq.org]

        Wine does not sandbox in any way at all. When run under Wine, a Windows app can do anything your user can. Wine does not (and cannot) stop a Windows app directly making native syscalls, messing with your files, altering your startup scripts, or doing other nasty things.

        --
        If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?