Computer License
nemesis @ Tuesday 2nd December, 2003I'm a web developer for a government department (as you'd know if you read my journal).
Our department actually hosts sites for many other government departments, and does the development of a few of them too.
For some reason, many of our hosting clients seem to thing "web developer" means they can call me up with the problems they're having developing their own sites.
I get cryptic phonecalls from clients claiming "it doesn't work". After half an hour of "it just doesn't work", I was able to ascertain that the problem was they hadn't uploaded the file to their webserver. Duh.
And there's many more examples.
This article was mainly prompted by this:
<em-pathy> there seriously should be computer license
And hence, we developed the following system.
- You are required to take an optional course, and sit a mandatory half-hour test to be granted your license. This license is valid for two years, after which time you must re-sit the test.
- In a similar way to the motor vehicle system, you are required to hold a valid license in order to operate a piece of computer equipment.
- Computer equipment is defined as any non-embedded system running a recognised operating system, such as Windows or MacOS.
Basically, it means you can use a VCR or DVD player without a license, but you can't use a PDA.
- You are requried to quote your license number when purchasing a piece of computer equipment, or when calling a technical support line.
- Once your lose all your demerit points, your license will be suspended for three months, after which time you must re-sit the test.
- Demerit poit deductions will be followed by a monetary fine, which will go towards the victim of your abuse: e.g.:
"blamed the web developer when it was actually user's fault"
- 3 points, and $297 to the web developer.
Okay that's my rant for today.
