>> I'm saying that if (for example) I read somewhere that a lot of
>> companies use Citrix to host their applications, that doesn't really
>> qualify me for a job managing Citrix. If I had actually /used/ Citrix,
>> or something vaguely like it, then yes. But having read about how it
>> exists and people use it? Not so much, no.
>
> Knowing about the trend, though, in the use of Citrix for telecommuting
> (for example) is something that's actually useful.  No, it doesn't
> qualify you to manage a Citrix system - but that's not the point.  The
> point is not looking like you're not aware of the trend when asked about
> it in an interview.
>
> Combine a demonstrated ability to quickly assimilate technologies with an
> awareness of what's going on with the industry, and that is something
> that looks good.
>
> But if you're unaware of what Citrix even *does*, then that calls into
> question (in an interview) whether you even know what's going on in IT.

I can see that knowing about how (say) Google manages their data centres 
might be quite useful if you're applying to Google. If you're applying 
to somebody who isn't Google, I'm not sure how that's useful.

...unless it *isn't* useful at all, it's just another one of those 
worthless things that "create the right impression".

>> As usual with Wikipedia, the page babbles about updates and feeds and
>> XML and "syndication" and something about RDF, but utterly fails to
>> explain WHAT IT IS.
>
> <sigh>
>
>  From wikipedia:
>
> --- snip ---
>
> RSS feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content
> automatically.

WTF does "syndicate" mean?

> A standardized XML file format allows the information to
> be published once and viewed by many different programs.

Because XHTML isn't an XML format already. Oh, wait... actually yes it 
is. And many different programs can view it. So...?

> They benefit
> readers who want to subscribe to timely updates from favorite websites or
> to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place.

This at least hints at what RSS is actually about. But it still seems 
quite vague. I'm still not clear exactly what it's getting at.

> RSS feeds can be read using software called an "RSS reader", "feed
> reader", or "aggregator", which can be web-based, desktop-based, or
> mobile-device-based.

So... you need software that supports RSS in order to use RSS? OK, fair 
enough.

> The user subscribes to a feed by entering into the
> reader the feed's URI or by clicking a feed icon in a web browser that
> initiates the subscription process.

We still haven't established exactly what point "subscribing" serves, 
but OK...

> The RSS reader checks the user's
> subscribed feeds regularly for new work, downloads any updates that it
> finds, and provides a user interface to monitor and read the feeds.

This is all very abstract. It checks "regularly" for "new work", 
downloads any "updates", and provides a UI to "monitor" such updates. So 
what does that *mean*, in real world terms?

> RSS
> allows users to avoid manually inspecting all of the websites they are
> interested in, and instead subscribe to websites such that all new
> content is pushed onto their browsers when it becomes available.

As best as I can tell, the idea behind RSS seems to be that you can see 
if any of your subscribed websites have been updated, without having to 
visit each of them one at a time. (As if that's in some way "hard" or 
something.) Why the heck the article doesn't just /say/ this on line 
one, I don't know. Instead it talks obliquely about how "all new content 
is pushed onto the browser when it becomes available". (Funny, when it 
says a feed reader "regularly checks for updates", that sounds to me 
like a /pull/ model, not /push/...)

> Now, I read your blog and keep up on it by using - that's right - an RSS
> feed.

Damn... and I thought I'd turned that off... heh. Apparently not.

> I have the feed set up in Google Reader so that when you post
> something new on your blog, I see it as part of the Reader page.
>
> That way I don't have to visit your blog to see what's going on in your
> blog.  I see an item show up in my reading list so, as wikipedia says, I
> "avoid manually inspecting all of the websites [I] am interested in" and
> can see what's new.

So what does that actually look like? I'm still trying to get my head 
around how this actually works. What counts as "new content", how it 
displays all this stuff in an intelligible form, and so on.

>>>> I usually visit Tom's Hardware when I want to see what's happening in
>>>> the hardware world.
>>>
>>> I doubt you're going to get that by reading some text on a screen.
>>
>> That's why I just built a new PC - to experience the Core i7 first-hand.
>> :-P
>
> So then why bother going to Tom's Hardware again?

Sarcasm? :-P

>> The BBC's iPlayer system "works". I mean, it's so horrifyingly blurry
>> that you sometimes can't see people's faces clearly enough to recognise
>> who's who, and often the end credits are unreadable. But technically
>> that still counts as "works", right?
>
> I don't know what kind of connection you use, but I stream on iPlayer
> occasionally from halfway around the world (did that with last night of
> the proms IIRC) and projected it onto a 10' screen.  Didn't look
> particularly blurry to me.

Want to bet that the BBC has servers all over the world?

With the latest update to our set top box, we can actually access 
iPlayer and display it on a real TV. I can actually compare the recorded 
TV broadcast directly next to the iPlayer version of the exact same 
program. And let me tell you, the image quality is incomparable. (And 
that's only SD, not HD.)

On top of that, at peak times iPlayer becomes almost unusable. It 
freezes constantly. I'm not sure whether it's the BBC servers or the ISP 
network that can't keep up, but you just can't watch anything. But then, 
if you select "high quality mode", then it runs like that all the time.

I don't think an 8 Mbit/sec Internet connection would be considered 
especially slow...

>> I just looked it up. The transfer rate of a DVD is 10.5 mbit/sec. The
>> maximum broadband speed you can get is 8 mbit/sec. So... does that mean
>> that people in America have something faster than ADSL or something?
>
> I don't - I have 3 Mbps down ADSL.  I have to not be doing other things
> with the network connection when I'm streaming Netflix, but I do get a
> high quality HD image with 5.1 sound with programmes that include it.

The sound isn't the problem, it's the video. Sound is easily streamable. 
But I'm baffled as to how you can download video in anything approaching 
real-time, unless the quality is diabolically poor.

> But more to the point, do you now understand what streaming is?

Yes. Although I'm still puzzled as to how anybody could make money out 
of selling such poor quality stuff...

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