I'm sure higher-end software will charge per physical chip if nothing else.
I am sure that newly licensed software will explicitly state whether it means physical chips or cores, but remember, companies exist to make money. By licensing per core instead of physical chip, they make more money. The software is the same no matter how many chips, only the price varies.
The real issue is how current licenses handle multiple cores per chip. This may wind up in the courts, or licensees may wind up being extorted for extra money they probably do not owe.
Despite being dead, BSD scales well with SMP and runs SMP apps very well, plus it is free. I know what license I will use...
What is the difference of DirectNIC and PairNIC? I have been using DirectNIC 5 years with no probs.
They are just different registrars. pairNIC is very customer-friendly, offers extra features like IPv6 and SPF, allow direct editing of DNS entries for people who are control freaks (most registrars just allow editing contact info, anything else is like pulling teeth). You can do email forwarding with them too, but I also have web hosting through their parent company and this includes an extensive email system including a custom qmail setup and procmail. I can install ClamAV and other software on my server if I want.
These servers run FreeBSD, a dead operating system, so the Slashdot trolls should have fun with this post:-)
Now everything goes to gmail since I'm going to need web email
pair Networks has five Squirrelmail servers set up and they work well enough for me when I need web mail. Combined with procmail I can delete email, send it to a specific IMAP folder, whatever I want. Usually I just delete blatant spam. The best part is that it is still part of your account's email, there is no forwarding involved. It just reads IMAP folders.
But I think it depends on what you are using your domain for; wildcard spam is minor/rare compared to targetted spam:
My main address (unmunged, in this message's header) gets about 500 spams per day. Before I removed the catch-all I was getting almost twice that. Granted I am not everyone, but a few other people are in the same boat as I am. My web host has its own private news server (i.e. not connected to Usenet), and quite a few people who post there talk about getting thousands of spams sent to nonexistant addresses on their domains every day. Turning off the catch-all is a no-brainer in that case.
Go to something like directnic.com, get your domain for $15/yr and get mail forwarding included (including wildcard)!
I am leery of most of those "quasi-registrars". I have a full fledged registrar, and I get those features, SPF, IPv6, et al. and it is all included in my free account, for the same $15 (or less) per year per domain.
From a programming point of view, I am sure many database designers used the VIN as the primary key, and this is why it will cost so much to revamp.
I think the real issue is that millions of systems out there assume a 16 digit VIN with letters and numbers in specific locations with specific meanings. Changing that involves changing databases to allow longer strings, changing validation routines and input boxes to allow longer (and possibly different) strings, and application logic to parse and understand the new, longer strings. The Y2K fiasco involved changing to a four digit string, which is how some systems viewed it anyway, and if nothing else, systems at least displayed it that way. They just assumed the wrong century. With VINs we make assumptions because we as humans defined the VIN. Years have meaning without computers, VINs have no meaning without vehicles.
I think the best thing to do is add a few more digits to VINs to accomodate future requirements that we do not know about yet. Who knows what we will need? This is the same mentality behind API calls with reserved arguments. Maybe it will need more functionality in the future, so add an extra argument so the signature does not change. That makes it a lot easier to update old applications. Sounds like a solution to a familiar problem, does it not?
You know what's Microsoft Achille's heal when it comes to DoD? IPv6 support! That's right.
The DoD mandates IPv6 since Oct. 2003 as they're going to switch their whole network to IPv6 between now and 2008. It is critical to them.
Yes, but every time the DOD mandates something with their computers and Microsoft takes their time, the DOD grants them an extension and the DOD waits. IPv6 is a noble goal but unrealistic. Forget Microsoft for a minute, there are thousands of other systems (e.g. Unisys mainframes) that do not have IPv6 capabilities. Some do not have IPv4 capabilities (e.g. Unisys mainframes) and require other systems to act as intermediaries with the rest of the network.
Remember Ada? The DOD mandated its use, then everybody applied for waivers and got exempted from the requirement. Eventually the DOD backed off. The same will happen with IPv6.
Aside from all that the topic of the conversation was the DOD. Perhaps they could fund such an effort. It would probably cost less then what they are paying MS.
The problem with this is "outsourcing." While it is not offshore, the DOD is aggressive about buying off the shelf software (MS Office, Remedy, et al) and hiring IT contractors to write what they cannot get shrinkwrapped. Organic development is declining, and even contracting is preferred less to shrinkwrapped. Exchange/Outlook is already written. The DOD does not want to reinvent the wheel, even if the wheel is square. It is cheaper to buy licenses than to develop their own application. This is tied into the whole migration cost/TCO issue, so the true cost is debatable. Either way your idea is not likely to happen.
If the DoD switches in near totality to OpenOffice, hundreds of corporations will switch too for the sake of compatability with their primary source of bread and butter. Microsoft is terrified at the idea of losing not just approximately 1-1.5 million defense desktops (not counting the other, smaller, departments) but the corporations that sell to them. A mass move to Linux, or better yet in 2 years, HaikuOS would be a disaster for Microsoft.
Good luck. The generals and admirals want their Exchange/Outlook combo and Active Directory. At least in the Air Force there is a huge push to make Outlook the standard with a truly global address book and all the stupid little "features" it adds that I just turn off because they are annoying. Sigh. This will be an uphill battle. I hope open source can make inroads into the U.S. government, especially the DOD, but it will be a battle fiercer than any we have fought.
Steve Ballmer spoke at a recent Air Force conference that I attended. He let us know that the U.S. Air Force is the single largest customer of Microsoft. Do you really think we can "just switch the whole DOD" that easily? The military/DOD is a huge customer for Microsoft and one they will not give up without an epic battle.
There are things the submitter could have done, like stopped all services that listen for connections. Ran Windows XP's firewall on their connection. Unbound Microsoft Networking Client from their NIC, etc. They could have booted up in safe mode with network support.
There are many things the submitter could have done, but I think a better question to ask is "how do I install Windows safely if I am not a computer geek?" In that case, the best thing would be to use a NAT firewall because it closes all ports you do not open explicitly. I believe that now all boxed Windows XP versions (and OEM from Dell, Gateway et al) have SP1 out of the box, which helps.
I think a big part of avoiding worms and spyware is user education. I just ran Ad-Aware on my wife's XP machine and found over 150 objects comprising about six discrete malware applications and tons of cookies from porn sites. My XP machine had six malware objects. Minus the false positives there was one dialer from a porn site that did not work with Mozilla so I had to use IE. Good thing I do not have a modem. On my Linux box I have zero malware, zero viruses.
When I install Windows it is behind a NAT firewall which helps (no open ports from the outside). The first thing I do is install SP1 from CD, next I update from Windows Update.
I recommend downloading SP1 and burning it in Linux, then using that CD to patch up the Windows box before connecting it to the network.
Really? How many of your files do you have access to with your normal login? If I in any way get you to run an application or process that simply deletes every file you have the permissions sufficient enough to delete, how minimal would the effect really be?
You would delete everything in my home directory, and maybe some stuff in/var and/tmp that is not critical (certainly/tmp is not critical). Of course, I would then copy all of my important data files back over the network, after removing whatever virus or trojan you used to attack me. At any given time I have all of my important files on two machines on my network, and weekly backups to CD-R. Deleting my files might annoy me but the odds are I will recover with minimal loss.
Of course, the average computer user (Linux or Windows) does not have two computers and if he does he is not as anal retentive (data retentive?) as I am.
Linux is not immune to security issues, and any claim that many eyes make for few bugs and thus OSS is fundamentally safer than Windows-based equivalents can be discredited with the slightest thought about reality rather than theory. Linux remains relatively safe because of the culture surrounding it, not because it's inherently flawless.
I make no claim that Linux or any other Unix operating system is flawless, just that its network-centric multi-user system model is inherently more secure than the multi-user system hacked on top of the single-user Windows OS. I know NT is not DOS-based, but that is an argument for a different story (trying to keep this on topic). Anyway, the Unix user and permissions model is far more stable and secure than the one Windows has. The biggest threat to Linux is social engineering. That is why we must address these issues now, before the masses use Linux in force.
You are correct, however, about Linux being the server target. But look how often Linux servers are hacked as opposed to Windows servers, and how severe the hacks are.
in all fairness if the tables were turned and M$ had only 5% and linux had 90% of the users out there you can bet we'd be seeing virues/trojans/worms and hacks coming from all over the place, and we'd be talking about that instead of windows.
And this would only infect people running Linux as root all the time who use email clients that execute scripts sent from complete strangers without telling them. Yes, people would write Linux viruses and worms (they already do), but the effect would be minimal at best.
Besides the basic Calculus everyone had to take, I took Discrete Math and Probability and Statistics. Boolean algebra is critical to anyone who programs using "if" and "for" statements, which should be everyone. "if (x == 7)" is easy even for non-programmers to understand, but a formal education in boolean algebra will give you a better insight into how complex conditional expressions work and how to simplify them (e.g. DeMorgan's Law). Statistics has limited direct use in computer science, but understanding it helps one to understand how important algorithmic efficiency can be.
Advanced math (i.e. beyond college algebra) is not critical for programming but it helps.
...but to call all of their software junk indicates either that you have never used it, or lack the skills to use it properly.
Microsoft became popular by writing software designed for single user systems. The forced it into a multi-user environment, introducing inconsistencies, inefficiencies, and massive quantities of security holes. To be fair all software has these issues, but Microsoft did not understand the network paradigm until it was too late to change because of all the existing software. Windows 2000 came close, XP is probably a step back.
When I call it junk, I mean that it has so many problems that it is marginally useful. Oh, to be fair, my comment is -1 flamebait but the good outweighs the bad.
Seriosuly, isn't this the first item on *everyone's* install list?
When I install Windows XP, it goes something like this:
Install service pack, install Windows Update patches
"ungayify" Windows by reverting to Windows Classic theme, old-school permissions and file sharing, etc. 2000 had the right idea, XP "Professional" "is not."
Install open source applications such as Mozilla, OpenOffice, Gimp, Vim, etc.
Never use Outlook or IE again except for Windows Update
The only thing Microsoft has on any Windows system I install is Windows itself. The rest of their junk is just that: junk. The OS is decent if you put it behind a firewall, even better if you never plug the computer in.
The biggest diffrence I've seen between distros is how stuff is configured.
I think this just about nails it in my experience. That and the installer, at least. Each distro has its own way of configuring the system, but the underlying software is essentially the same. They have their own default desktop themes and icons, but these rarely stay static. The packaging system might be different, but all apt/rpm/tgz wars aside, they all do essentially the same thing -- the difference is the interface. What I see here is not a difference in the underlying system so much as how it is presented. What do you type or click to upgrade packages? How are you desktop icons configured before you change them anyway? And so on.
Inkscape, from the website, looks good. It is an open source, cross-platform vector graphics tool. While vector graphics is a niche market (back in the day it was supposed to be the next great thing but that never happened) I actually have a use for a cross-platform vector graphics program. Thank you for mentioning it.
I think you're confusing "easy to learn" with "easy to use". An interface that is simple and intuitive can often get in the way of productivity.
No matter where I go, I use Vim as my editor of choice. Easy to learn? Hell no. Easy to use? Hell yeah, once you learn it:-) I do not want to start vi/emacs wars here but once you learn Vim you have tons of power literally at your fingertips. It just is not easy to learn. Oh, it is cross-platform, too. I use it in Linux, FreeBSD, and Windows. With version 2.0, Gimp is truly cross-platform too, and despite my difficulty using it, I congratulate the Gimp team for their monumental efforts.
Which interface is more complex: Photoshop or AutoCAD? Are there other programs (not OSs) that are more complicated to operate than graphics-oriented ones? Girlfriend 2.0 doesn't count.
AutoCAD is more complex, but then again, its task is more complex. Either way, they are both complex. Girlfriend 2.0 is not nearly as complicated nor as annoying as Wife 3.0;-) Not to mention the extra money and resources it eats up with no apparent benefit...
FYI, I am a programmer and web app designer, not a graphics artist. That being said, I feel that any GUI application with a well-designed interface should be fairly intuitive and I should be able to get up to speed in a few minutes (I learn quickly).
I tried The Gimp on Linux. I tried The Gimp in Windows (the new native version). I still cannot get it. I try Photoshop and I can be halfway productive instantly. The result suck, remember I am not a graphics designer and I cannot even write legibly let alone draw with a pencil or a mouse, but I can get around the filters, tools, etc.
My experiences with other peoples' work proves that The Gimp is capable and powerful. My experiences with my own work proves that The Gimp has a steep learning curve mostly due to its odd interface.
I doubt many people join the military for a big salary. If you want to make decent money, get out and get a job as a DOD civilian doing your same job for 30$ per hour.
Every time the question of how to make money in the IT industry comes up on Slashdot I always say "work for the government." Certain jobs cannot be outsourced, and the government is willing to work with people who do not have a B.S. or a lot of experience. You may not get paid well, but they will pay 75% tuition assistance and give you experience. I am not talking military, I mean DOD civilian. There are a ton of good jobs out there.
A few minutes with Google and some common sense search terms will bring up other government job sites. Of course, if someone has more questions you may email me at my un-munged email address.
Well, and stick you in the middle of some desert so you can get killed so Halliburton can make a buck, but I digress.:)
The sad thing is that if they did send me to the desert I would make an extra $2 and hour or so with family separation allowance, danger pay, etc. Yet they send contractors to do the same thing for four times the pay.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sure higher-end software will charge per physical chip if nothing else.
I am sure that newly licensed software will explicitly state whether it means physical chips or cores, but remember, companies exist to make money. By licensing per core instead of physical chip, they make more money. The software is the same no matter how many chips, only the price varies.
The real issue is how current licenses handle multiple cores per chip. This may wind up in the courts, or licensees may wind up being extorted for extra money they probably do not owe.
Despite being dead, BSD scales well with SMP and runs SMP apps very well, plus it is free. I know what license I will use...
What is the difference of DirectNIC and PairNIC? I have been using DirectNIC 5 years with no probs.
They are just different registrars. pairNIC is very customer-friendly, offers extra features like IPv6 and SPF, allow direct editing of DNS entries for people who are control freaks (most registrars just allow editing contact info, anything else is like pulling teeth). You can do email forwarding with them too, but I also have web hosting through their parent company and this includes an extensive email system including a custom qmail setup and procmail. I can install ClamAV and other software on my server if I want.
These servers run FreeBSD, a dead operating system, so the Slashdot trolls should have fun with this post :-)
Now everything goes to gmail since I'm going to need web email
pair Networks has five Squirrelmail servers set up and they work well enough for me when I need web mail. Combined with procmail I can delete email, send it to a specific IMAP folder, whatever I want. Usually I just delete blatant spam. The best part is that it is still part of your account's email, there is no forwarding involved. It just reads IMAP folders.
But I think it depends on what you are using your domain for; wildcard spam is minor/rare compared to targetted spam:
My main address (unmunged, in this message's header) gets about 500 spams per day. Before I removed the catch-all I was getting almost twice that. Granted I am not everyone, but a few other people are in the same boat as I am. My web host has its own private news server (i.e. not connected to Usenet), and quite a few people who post there talk about getting thousands of spams sent to nonexistant addresses on their domains every day. Turning off the catch-all is a no-brainer in that case.
Go to something like directnic.com, get your domain for $15/yr and get mail forwarding included (including wildcard)!
I am leery of most of those "quasi-registrars". I have a full fledged registrar, and I get those features, SPF, IPv6, et al. and it is all included in my free account, for the same $15 (or less) per year per domain.
From a programming point of view, I am sure many database designers used the VIN as the primary key, and this is why it will cost so much to revamp.
I think the real issue is that millions of systems out there assume a 16 digit VIN with letters and numbers in specific locations with specific meanings. Changing that involves changing databases to allow longer strings, changing validation routines and input boxes to allow longer (and possibly different) strings, and application logic to parse and understand the new, longer strings. The Y2K fiasco involved changing to a four digit string, which is how some systems viewed it anyway, and if nothing else, systems at least displayed it that way. They just assumed the wrong century. With VINs we make assumptions because we as humans defined the VIN. Years have meaning without computers, VINs have no meaning without vehicles.
I think the best thing to do is add a few more digits to VINs to accomodate future requirements that we do not know about yet. Who knows what we will need? This is the same mentality behind API calls with reserved arguments. Maybe it will need more functionality in the future, so add an extra argument so the signature does not change. That makes it a lot easier to update old applications. Sounds like a solution to a familiar problem, does it not?
You know what's Microsoft Achille's heal when it comes to DoD? IPv6 support! That's right.
The DoD mandates IPv6 since Oct. 2003 as they're going to switch their whole network to IPv6 between now and 2008. It is critical to them.
Yes, but every time the DOD mandates something with their computers and Microsoft takes their time, the DOD grants them an extension and the DOD waits. IPv6 is a noble goal but unrealistic. Forget Microsoft for a minute, there are thousands of other systems (e.g. Unisys mainframes) that do not have IPv6 capabilities. Some do not have IPv4 capabilities (e.g. Unisys mainframes) and require other systems to act as intermediaries with the rest of the network.
Remember Ada? The DOD mandated its use, then everybody applied for waivers and got exempted from the requirement. Eventually the DOD backed off. The same will happen with IPv6.
The military may have the weapons, but Microsoft has the back door... wait, that didn't come out right...
Aside from all that the topic of the conversation was the DOD. Perhaps they could fund such an effort. It would probably cost less then what they are paying MS.
The problem with this is "outsourcing." While it is not offshore, the DOD is aggressive about buying off the shelf software (MS Office, Remedy, et al) and hiring IT contractors to write what they cannot get shrinkwrapped. Organic development is declining, and even contracting is preferred less to shrinkwrapped. Exchange/Outlook is already written. The DOD does not want to reinvent the wheel, even if the wheel is square. It is cheaper to buy licenses than to develop their own application. This is tied into the whole migration cost/TCO issue, so the true cost is debatable. Either way your idea is not likely to happen.
If the DoD switches in near totality to OpenOffice, hundreds of corporations will switch too for the sake of compatability with their primary source of bread and butter. Microsoft is terrified at the idea of losing not just approximately 1-1.5 million defense desktops (not counting the other, smaller, departments) but the corporations that sell to them. A mass move to Linux, or better yet in 2 years, HaikuOS would be a disaster for Microsoft.
Good luck. The generals and admirals want their Exchange/Outlook combo and Active Directory. At least in the Air Force there is a huge push to make Outlook the standard with a truly global address book and all the stupid little "features" it adds that I just turn off because they are annoying. Sigh. This will be an uphill battle. I hope open source can make inroads into the U.S. government, especially the DOD, but it will be a battle fiercer than any we have fought.
Steve Ballmer spoke at a recent Air Force conference that I attended. He let us know that the U.S. Air Force is the single largest customer of Microsoft. Do you really think we can "just switch the whole DOD" that easily? The military/DOD is a huge customer for Microsoft and one they will not give up without an epic battle.
There are things the submitter could have done, like stopped all services that listen for connections. Ran Windows XP's firewall on their connection. Unbound Microsoft Networking Client from their NIC, etc. They could have booted up in safe mode with network support.
There are many things the submitter could have done, but I think a better question to ask is "how do I install Windows safely if I am not a computer geek?" In that case, the best thing would be to use a NAT firewall because it closes all ports you do not open explicitly. I believe that now all boxed Windows XP versions (and OEM from Dell, Gateway et al) have SP1 out of the box, which helps.
I think a big part of avoiding worms and spyware is user education. I just ran Ad-Aware on my wife's XP machine and found over 150 objects comprising about six discrete malware applications and tons of cookies from porn sites. My XP machine had six malware objects. Minus the false positives there was one dialer from a porn site that did not work with Mozilla so I had to use IE. Good thing I do not have a modem. On my Linux box I have zero malware, zero viruses.
When I install Windows it is behind a NAT firewall which helps (no open ports from the outside). The first thing I do is install SP1 from CD, next I update from Windows Update.
I recommend downloading SP1 and burning it in Linux, then using that CD to patch up the Windows box before connecting it to the network.
3. Patent the pigeonhole principle
Really? How many of your files do you have access to with your normal login? If I in any way get you to run an application or process that simply deletes every file you have the permissions sufficient enough to delete, how minimal would the effect really be?
You would delete everything in my home directory, and maybe some stuff in /var and /tmp that is not critical (certainly /tmp is not critical). Of course, I would then copy all of my important data files back over the network, after removing whatever virus or trojan you used to attack me. At any given time I have all of my important files on two machines on my network, and weekly backups to CD-R. Deleting my files might annoy me but the odds are I will recover with minimal loss.
Of course, the average computer user (Linux or Windows) does not have two computers and if he does he is not as anal retentive (data retentive?) as I am.
Linux is not immune to security issues, and any claim that many eyes make for few bugs and thus OSS is fundamentally safer than Windows-based equivalents can be discredited with the slightest thought about reality rather than theory. Linux remains relatively safe because of the culture surrounding it, not because it's inherently flawless.
I make no claim that Linux or any other Unix operating system is flawless, just that its network-centric multi-user system model is inherently more secure than the multi-user system hacked on top of the single-user Windows OS. I know NT is not DOS-based, but that is an argument for a different story (trying to keep this on topic). Anyway, the Unix user and permissions model is far more stable and secure than the one Windows has. The biggest threat to Linux is social engineering. That is why we must address these issues now, before the masses use Linux in force.
You are correct, however, about Linux being the server target. But look how often Linux servers are hacked as opposed to Windows servers, and how severe the hacks are.
in all fairness if the tables were turned and M$ had only 5% and linux had 90% of the users out there you can bet we'd be seeing virues/trojans/worms and hacks coming from all over the place, and we'd be talking about that instead of windows.
And this would only infect people running Linux as root all the time who use email clients that execute scripts sent from complete strangers without telling them. Yes, people would write Linux viruses and worms (they already do), but the effect would be minimal at best.
Besides the basic Calculus everyone had to take, I took Discrete Math and Probability and Statistics. Boolean algebra is critical to anyone who programs using "if" and "for" statements, which should be everyone. "if (x == 7)" is easy even for non-programmers to understand, but a formal education in boolean algebra will give you a better insight into how complex conditional expressions work and how to simplify them (e.g. DeMorgan's Law). Statistics has limited direct use in computer science, but understanding it helps one to understand how important algorithmic efficiency can be.
Advanced math (i.e. beyond college algebra) is not critical for programming but it helps.
Microsoft became popular by writing software designed for single user systems. The forced it into a multi-user environment, introducing inconsistencies, inefficiencies, and massive quantities of security holes. To be fair all software has these issues, but Microsoft did not understand the network paradigm until it was too late to change because of all the existing software. Windows 2000 came close, XP is probably a step back.
When I call it junk, I mean that it has so many problems that it is marginally useful. Oh, to be fair, my comment is -1 flamebait but the good outweighs the bad.
Seriosuly, isn't this the first item on *everyone's* install list?
When I install Windows XP, it goes something like this:
The only thing Microsoft has on any Windows system I install is Windows itself. The rest of their junk is just that: junk. The OS is decent if you put it behind a firewall, even better if you never plug the computer in.
The biggest diffrence I've seen between distros is how stuff is configured.
I think this just about nails it in my experience. That and the installer, at least. Each distro has its own way of configuring the system, but the underlying software is essentially the same. They have their own default desktop themes and icons, but these rarely stay static. The packaging system might be different, but all apt/rpm/tgz wars aside, they all do essentially the same thing -- the difference is the interface. What I see here is not a difference in the underlying system so much as how it is presented. What do you type or click to upgrade packages? How are you desktop icons configured before you change them anyway? And so on.
Inkscape, from the website, looks good. It is an open source, cross-platform vector graphics tool. While vector graphics is a niche market (back in the day it was supposed to be the next great thing but that never happened) I actually have a use for a cross-platform vector graphics program. Thank you for mentioning it.
I think you're confusing "easy to learn" with "easy to use". An interface that is simple and intuitive can often get in the way of productivity.
No matter where I go, I use Vim as my editor of choice. Easy to learn? Hell no. Easy to use? Hell yeah, once you learn it :-) I do not want to start vi/emacs wars here but once you learn Vim you have tons of power literally at your fingertips. It just is not easy to learn. Oh, it is cross-platform, too. I use it in Linux, FreeBSD, and Windows. With version 2.0, Gimp is truly cross-platform too, and despite my difficulty using it, I congratulate the Gimp team for their monumental efforts.
Which interface is more complex: Photoshop or AutoCAD? Are there other programs (not OSs) that are more complicated to operate than graphics-oriented ones? Girlfriend 2.0 doesn't count.
AutoCAD is more complex, but then again, its task is more complex. Either way, they are both complex. Girlfriend 2.0 is not nearly as complicated nor as annoying as Wife 3.0 ;-) Not to mention the extra money and resources it eats up with no apparent benefit...
(donning asbestos underwear)
FYI, I am a programmer and web app designer, not a graphics artist. That being said, I feel that any GUI application with a well-designed interface should be fairly intuitive and I should be able to get up to speed in a few minutes (I learn quickly).
I tried The Gimp on Linux. I tried The Gimp in Windows (the new native version). I still cannot get it. I try Photoshop and I can be halfway productive instantly. The result suck, remember I am not a graphics designer and I cannot even write legibly let alone draw with a pencil or a mouse, but I can get around the filters, tools, etc.
My experiences with other peoples' work proves that The Gimp is capable and powerful. My experiences with my own work proves that The Gimp has a steep learning curve mostly due to its odd interface.
I doubt many people join the military for a big salary.
If you want to make decent money, get out and get a job as a DOD civilian doing your same job for 30$ per hour.
Every time the question of how to make money in the IT industry comes up on Slashdot I always say "work for the government." Certain jobs cannot be outsourced, and the government is willing to work with people who do not have a B.S. or a lot of experience. You may not get paid well, but they will pay 75% tuition assistance and give you experience. I am not talking military, I mean DOD civilian. There are a ton of good jobs out there.
USA Jobs
Air Force civilian employment
A few minutes with Google and some common sense search terms will bring up other government job sites. Of course, if someone has more questions you may email me at my un-munged email address.
Well, and stick you in the middle of some desert so you can get killed so Halliburton can make a buck, but I digress. :)
The sad thing is that if they did send me to the desert I would make an extra $2 and hour or so with family separation allowance, danger pay, etc. Yet they send contractors to do the same thing for four times the pay.