Microsoft going lights-out?

CJones

CJones

Final Approach
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uHaveNoIdea
Tried to get to Hotmail earlier today and got a Page Load Error. No big deal - Hotmail stinks at random times.

I've been doing some work in VB.NET for the past hour or so and google'd an error message which provides a link to Microsoft MSDN. Get the same Page Load Error. Even www.microsoft.com isn't working.

Is the economy so bad that even MS has had to but back in their web department? :devil:

Edit: Of course, immediately after posting this, www.microsoft.com is back up, but Hotmail (live.com) and msdn.microsoft.com aren't up. Weird. Maybe they should switch from IIS to LAMP. ;)
 
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CJones said:
...Edit: Of course, immediately after posting this, www.microsoft.com is back up, but Hotmail (live.com) and msdn.microsoft.com aren't up. Weird. Maybe they should switch from IIS to LAMP. ;)
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:rofl: There literally was a time when both microsoft.com and HotMail reported they were on Apache, but one was due to Akimai fronting them. MSFT had both of those fixed eventually. (Probably by having the sites LIE. :rofl:)
 
I had a woman I've done work for off and on call me several times last week complaining she couldn't get into Hotmail. Kept getting a "Server Busy" error.

I told her that the problem was that Microsoft uses its own servers, and that there was nothing I could do to fix that; so she shouldn't waste her money on a service call.

She thought I was joking. I wasn't.

-Rich
 
Do yourself a favor and get rid of hotmail before you start sending out IT/technical resumes. A hotmail address on an IT-type resume is a huge turn-off.
 
jesse said:
Do yourself a favor and get rid of hotmail before you start sending out IT/technical resumes. A hotmail address on an IT-type resume is a huge turn-off.
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Hunh?

I've done a few hundred interviews, evaluated a few thousand resumes -- I gotta say, never did it cross my mind, "Well, this guy has a yahoo address...."

In fact most of the folks working for me have gmail accounts.

Does that mean they're unqualified?

Nah....


OH... I see that you said "an IT-type resume"

We engineers know those "IT-types" live in an entirely different universe, so perhaps @hotmail makes a difference in that world....
 
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dmccormack said:
Hunh?

I've done a few hundred interviews, evaluated a few thousand resumes -- I gotta say, never did it cross my mind, "Well, this guy has a yahoo address...."

In fact most of the folks working for me have gmail accounts.

Does that mean they're unqualified?

Nah....
Click to expand...

If you are using hotmail you are unqualified. Period.

Gmail is not hotmail.
 
jesse said:
Do yourself a favor and get rid of hotmail before you start sending out IT/technical resumes. A hotmail address on an IT-type resume is a huge turn-off.
Click to expand...

It's my catch-all junk-mail address. :)
 
CJones said:
It's my catch-all junk-mail address. :)
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I use hotmail for that purpose, too. I use it for all my e-commerce activities. It is quite amazing how much pure spam I get on that address. Currently I am clearly the prospective pigeon du jour for anyone with a Nigerian Scam. I get about 10 per night, on average.

-Skip
 
Skip Miller said:
Yep. It is the modern version of using *.aol as a return address.

-Skip
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Yessir. Honestly, I would not hire someone with a @hotmail.com address, and I'd give some serious scrutiny to an @msn.com address too, and a @mac.com email address ranks up there too.

Especially not to anyone applying for a techie job.
 
SkyHog said:
Yessir. Honestly, I would not hire someone with a @hotmail.com address, and I'd give some serious scrutiny to an @msn.com address too, and a @mac.com email address ranks up there too.
Click to expand...

One of these things is not like the others,
One of these things just doesn't belong,
Can you tell which thing is not like the others ...
 
So what is the cool e-mail address for geeks these days? :confused:
 
alaskaflyer said:
@yourcooldomainnameregisteredthroughgodaddyandhostedonyourownserverinyourmomsbasement.com

Or if you are really cool use .net instead of .com.
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Nope. .net just means you wasted money at GoDaddy.

So my two letter - two digit Whois ID and 5 char .com domain (which I haven't used yet. Guess what it is.) count for anything?

How about once owning a Class B Net block?
 
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SkyHog said:
Yessir. Honestly, I would not hire someone with a @hotmail.com address, and I'd give some serious scrutiny to an @msn.com address too, and a @mac.com email address ranks up there too.

Especially not to anyone applying for a techie job.
Click to expand...

Positively, absolutely, totally irrelevant job qualification.

Let's see... I currently have 2 Post-Graduate degree types working for me, 4 others with Computer Science or Computer Engineering MS degrees, all can talk tech a blue streak...

In my previous job I had 15 CS types working for me in my engineering domain...

And all -- like me -- have a hotmail, yahoo, aol, or gmail account for "public" email exchange.


It's called a "filter."
 
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dmccormack said:
Positively, absolutely, totally irrelevant job qualification.

Let's see... I currently have 2 Post-Graduate degree types working for me, 4 others with Computer Science or Computer Engineering MS degrees, all can talk tech a blue streak...

In my previous job I had 15 CS types working for me in my engineering domain...

And all -- like me -- have a hotmail, yahoo, aol, or gmail account for "public" email exchange.


It's called a "filter."
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You are confusing the issue....yahoo, gmail, etc, are fine.

Hotmail is the late 2000s version of AOL. It means "I'm a newb, and I can't separate social networking with email."

mac.com means "I am a newb, and this computer is pretty."

Your email address says a lot about you....almost as much as a proper cover letter (or lack thereof).
 
SkyHog said:
mac.com means "I am a newb, and this computer is pretty."
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Nah. It is a pretty powerful service bundle. It just means that the owner of the email address hasn't yet realized they can receive pretty much all of the same services for free elsewhere, or chooses not to.
 
gprellwitz said:
Well I've got an acm.org address. What's that say?:dunno:
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"I have a real email address, and I probably know what I'm doing." Im not familiar with acm.org, but its not hotmail or aol, so you're g2g
 
SkyHog said:
"I have a real email address, and I probably know what I'm doing." Im not familiar with acm.org, but its not hotmail or aol, so you're g2g
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You're not familiar with ACM??? Or are you just role-playing the part of an interviewer?
 
SkyHog said:
"I have a real email address, and I probably know what I'm doing." Im not familiar with acm.org, but its not hotmail or aol, so you're g2g
Click to expand...

HR has spoken.

(FWIW, I'm a WG member of IEEE and IMS. And I could care less if some applicant uses @aol, @yahoo, @hotmail, or @gmail))
 
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SkyHog said:
"I have a real email address, and I probably know what I'm doing." Im not familiar with acm.org, but its not hotmail or aol, so you're g2g
Click to expand...
http://www.acm.org/ [Association for Computing Machinery]
Geek Headquarters
ACM, the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, delivers resources that advance computing as a science and a profession. ACM provides the computing field's premier Digital Library and serves its members and the computing profession with leading-edge publications, conferences, and career resources.
Click to expand...
 
What about one of those old numbers.numbers compuserve addresses?
 
There are some pretty ridiculous, arbitrary, and totally meaningless standards by which some employers choose to screen their candidates. This nonsense ranks way, way up near the top. The only one more absurd that I can think of is a hiring manager I once knew of who for a while refused to interview anyone named Richard who shortened their name to Rick; Rich and Dick were A-OK, though.

Oh well. More potentially qualified candidates for those of us who actually know what matters.
 
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ReverendSlappy said:
There are some pretty ridiculous, arbitrary, and totally meaningless standards by which some employers choose to screen their candidates. This nonsense ranks way, way up near the top. The only one more absurd that I can think of is a hiring manager I once knew of who for a while refused to interview anyone named Richard who shortened their name to Rick; Rich and Dick were A-OK, though.

Oh well. More potentially qualified candidates for those of us who actually know what matters.
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If I applied to work some where and later learned I wasn't selected because I "...had a AOL email address" on my resume, I would thank the Good Lord it worked out that I wasn't hired to work for such bozos.
 
dmccormack said:
CompuServe???

And of course, the online service for those not quite as technically astute: Prodigy.
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So those of us who were on CompuServe with 300 baud modems 4 years before AOL existed and 10 years before the public even had internet EMAIL accesss...?

My family was also a Prodigy premier beta tester. I never realized we had a really cheap account for life.
 
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mikea said:
So those of us who where on CompuServe with 300 baud modems 4 years before AOL existed and 10 years before the public even had internet EMAIL accesss...?

My family was also a Prodigy premier beta tester. I never realized we had a really cheap account for life.
Click to expand...


Yes, those of us with 300 Baud modems who eagerly listened for the sound of a connection being made ('member that?)

I started out with an Atari 800XL in 1985. I remember the "serious" IBM types looking askance at such clear inepititude.

I also remember the A/S400 types wondering how in the world a Macintosh would provide Pre-press capability.

Whatever....
 
dmccormack said:
If I applied to work some where and later learned I wasn't selected because I "...had a AOL email address" on my resume, I would thank the Good Lord it worked out that I wasn't hired to work for such bozos.
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This.

BTW, anybody who would pass on a resume from a "sabeer@hotmail.com" (who I had occasion to meet at a COMDEX many moons ago) without second thought probably shouldn't be doing hiring. Or firing. Or much of anything else.
 
dmccormack said:
Yes, those of us with 300 Baud modems who eagerly listened for the sound of a connection being made ('member that?)

I started out with an Atari 800XL in 1985. I remember the "serious" IBM types looking askance at such clear inepititude.
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That's seriously Old School.

My first "online" foray was with 9600 Baud dial-in terminal access to a local company (whose name now escapes me). My dad refused to pay for PPP, so it was pretty much only good for IRC.

That was followed by a brief 14.4 stint with Prodigy which I never really "got", then 28.8 PPP with a local ISP (www.mc.net). Then my last experience with dialup came with the now-defunct ISP I began to work for in 1996 which is also, coincidentally, when I signed up for the Hotmail (I remember when it was called HoTMaiL) account that I still have but never use.
 
dmccormack said:
If I applied to work some where and later learned I wasn't selected because I "...had a AOL email address" on my resume, I would thank the Good Lord it worked out that I wasn't hired to work for such bozos.
Click to expand...
+1...
 
ReverendSlappy said:
That's seriously Old School.

My first "online" foray was with 9600 Baud dial-in terminal access to a local company (whose name now escapes me). My dad refused to pay for PPP, so it was pretty much only good for IRC.

That was followed by a brief 14.4 stint with Prodigy which I never really "got", then 28.8 PPP with a local ISP (www.mc.net). Then my last experience with dialup came with the now-defunct ISP I began to work for in 1996 which is also, coincidentally, when I signed up for the Hotmail (I remember when it was called HoTMaiL) account that I still have but never use.
Click to expand...

My geek buddies at Martin-Marietta (was GE Satellites, then M-M bought the facility) got me hooked up to FishNet -- the only ISP within 150 miles from Lancaster, PA (where I lived at the time).

It took about a week of fiddling, but I finally had FTP and Newsgroup access!

Web pages? bah -- too slow to load and not much there....
 
My old Compuserve address was 76713,1410 ....I can't believe I remember that.

Anywho, this is a really dumb argument....if you want to hire AOL users to work in your IT department, just be prepared to have tickets with "me too" entered as the comment.

If you want to hire hotmail users, be prepared to have "lulz! epic winz, !!11! ftw" in your tickets.
 
SkyHog said:
My old Compuserve address was 76713,1410 ....I can't believe I remember that.

Anywho, this is a really dumb argument....if you want to hire AOL users to work in your IT department, just be prepared to have tickets with "me too" entered as the comment.

If you want to hire hotmail users, be prepared to have "lulz! epic winz, !!11! ftw" in your tickets.
Click to expand...

I think we'll be just fine. :rolleyes:
 
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