the problem is that these people are not releasing the code back to the community
Depending on the license (and the original poster was vague about this) there's no obligation to release source code back to the community under any conditions. Under the GPL, the company is only required to release source to the people it sells the software to. If I buy a copy of the GPL'ed Neat-O Keen Software from Acme, Acme is under to release the source to you. It must give me the source if I ask for it, but there's nothing that says you get a copy of it. If Acme makes changes to the code and uses it only internally, it is under no legal obligation to release that code to you. And I think, but am not sure, that if Acme makes changes to the code, and I buy it from them, they only have to give me the code, not you. I can still release the code back, but Acme is under no obligation to.
Under other kinds of licenses, Acme can make all the changes it wants, sell it to me and still be under no legal obligation to give me the code it changed.
even acknowleging the community that created the technology, except as a marketing target, or worse as a theoretical marketing target for fundraising purposes
Acme must include all copyright notices in the code and compiled binaries, but it is under no legal obligation to include references to the copyright holders in it's advertising. Remember, that's part of what the fuss about XFree 4.4.
You may not like it, you may think it is immoral, but it isn't illegal. When you release your code, you may want to think about that when choosing a license.
Very true, for FLOSS licesnes, but not all. There was no suggestion in post I was replying to that the source was not released. If it was released, then there's no violation. If it was not released, then there was. But the original poster's complaint was that reselling open source software as a bundled product on a computer was ripping off the creators. That's only true if the software is being distributed in way that violates the FLOSS license.
Well, that is the problem with open source. If the companies are also releasing the code to the purchasers, then the companies aren't violating or "ripping off" the open source apps.
What these companies are doing, in theory, is providing the support and services that Free/Open Source/Libre software supporters have always said is the way to make money.
So while you may see it as "ripping off" open source, these companies are doing exactly what the developers intended when they released their software under that kind of license: some very knowledgeable people can get the source and compile it themselves and do all the troubleshooting or someone who just wants a product that works and a support number to call when it doesn't can pay for the packaged solutions.
Or better yet, shell out for the equally useful to the home user, but with a much better interface Paint Shop Pro. Just $99 Download, well with the reach of someone with a good digital camera. And it has filters built in that are perfect for a home user. Things like "Photo cleanup" that runs a series of filters to make digital photos look nice, or a Red Eye Remover.
Those are the sort of things the home user cares about, and they are missing from the standard gimp install.
One thing that Perl has going for it that PHP doesn't is that it has correctly set up the database connection functions. Once you connect to a data source, all of the commands you use to interact with that connection are the same, whether you are using mysql, postgresql, or just a csv file. This means that you can change backend databases trivially, merely by changing one line of code.
With php, the commands for connecting to a database and running a query change, sometimes drastically, depending on the database you are using. For example, until recently if you had a query to run on a mysql backend, you did mysql_query($query) but for a postgres it was pg_exec($query). That is changing at least so now it's pg_query($query) but it still makes changing backends a large search, replace, and hope nothing breaks task.
Not according to the email I just received from their Sales people. I've been in the market for a 256-512 meg flash based unit. Unfortunately, the Neuros only goes to 128. I emailed iRiver and their people said ogg support is not there for the flash players.
If you want a hard drive ogg player, Neuros is the obvious solution. USB 2.0 in 20-80 gig models. Pick the storage you want. They've opened their sdk and they have the best customer service and response going. http://www.neurosaudio.com and browse the forums.
Griffin and Sabine (and the followups) did this with dead trees back in the late 80's early 90's. The book contained a series of letters, postcards, etc. between the two main characters. And unlike all the novels that were written in letter form before, the letters and post cards were physical objects in the book.
It's one of those oh-so-clever ideas that gets done once just to show it can be done, then is never done again because it's not that great of an idea.
There was even a video game like this. I think it was Majestic, http://www.gamezone.com/gamesell/p16652.htm , that I'm thinking of. You could give it your beeper number and it would call you, etc. A one person LARP.
It depends. The command line can be quite user friendly.
copy a b
That's a fairly easy way to understand how to copy a file in dos. But in the gui world, a person has to remember to right click and say copy (or ctrl+c) and then right click on the destination and say paste (or ctrl+v). Or remember that if dragging files between folders not on the same drive, the file is copied by default but if dragging between folders on the same drive move is the default in windows. KDE does this better, always asking the user what to do with files drug from one location to another.
As far as your example goes, it really depends on the os. In my copy example above, linux would have the user us cp. Well, how does the user know that? If the os let a person say:
burn song.wav to cd1 as audio-cd burn all songs in c:\mp3 to cd1 as data-cd
that would be pretty easy and friendly. But no os does that AFAIK. No reason you couldn't make a bash alias to do that and then it would be easy for people.
On the other hand, I just found a really handy little program called sequoiaview that gives you a visual representation of how much space your files and folders occupy on a drive or network share. There's no way a command line utility could convey the amount of information in the sequoiaview window in as easy a fashion.
The thing to remember is that usability is Hard. Very Hard. But it isn't the medium that's restrictive, it's the capabilities of the person creating the interface.
Funny, I didn't do anything to get my 5 button mouse to work in Windows. Even Firefox knows that the two side buttons mean forward and backward a page, and I have never done anything to setup my mouse with windows xp. I didn't even to install drivers. I just plugged it into the usb port and started using it.
Can you tell me where in KDE/Mandrake I can configure my 5 button mouse so that the side buttons work for forward and back in Firefox?
But just as many animals use other colors. Poison arrow frogs are a good example. They come in a many range of colors: blue, green, orange, and red, jsut off the top of my head. Gila monsters are the most poisonous lizard in North America, and they're pale or bright pink. The idea is that bright colors act as warnings, not a particular color. At the risk of grossly over simplifying, animals tend to use either camoflauge to hide from predators or really bright colors to warn away predators. Either "you can't see me" or "here I am, but if you touch me you die".
Not that google should be taken as a true random sample, but out of the first 16 pictures, 3 are red, 3 are green, 4 are blue, and 4 are yellow and 2 are combinations of green, yellow, and blue.
A GIS for poisonous snakes shows mainly brown, one bright yellow and one a really nice bronze sort of color. No true reds though.
Because people are accustomed to red as a warning, they have a tendancy to remember re-inforcing examples. That seems to be what you have done here. SO watch it with the dumbass, dumbass.;)
wouldn't a common circular wheel, while going over a steep hill
No, because the hill is really at best a half circle.
I'm not sure if tank tracks count as a wheel since they don't orbit a central axis. Even if they were, the tank treads aren't flat when they are in use. They're a sort of oblong shape. You might as well say a wheel is also a line because if you cut the inner tube in half it lies down and becomes a line.
If the wheel is circular, then the road would have to be circular as well. Like going around a small, perfectly spherical asteroid. But is it still a road if it doesn't actually lead anywhere?
Ah, but you see you're asking for support from the mod_perl list. If you are using the package from Red Hat, you should try Red Hat support or Red Hat specific mailing lists.
Then they are very stupid. If they're going to do that, they should set up an SUS box on campus and let you all hit that for updates. SUS is Software Update Server, Microsoft's way of letting large organizations easily push out the updates they want their users to have. Admins download and approve MS patches then the SUS box pushes them to clients. You use GPO's to tell the clients where to get their updates from. It's actually quite slick and easy.
It's like making your own urpmi source for Mandrake and then setting all the clients to hit it as part of a cron job or as part of login. But with the added bonus of being able to easily change the configuration in a central location and have it take effect for all clients.
And as someone who has been bit by the "you can only use IE to get this file" problem, I can tell you that I would like to bash the person who made it ie specific.
Set up Automatic Updates to download critical patches and install them every day. You don't need to use the IE interface to do this at all, it happens automagically for the user, and the user won't get hit with the next code red.
TotalRekall holds a lot of promise. It's open source, but if you are on windows you have to buy the compiled binaries. On Linux, you compile yourself I believe.
But does any one know why atm's here in the states have a decimal in the amount? So if I want to take out an amount (say $15) that isn't listed, I have to type:
1-5-0-0
to let the machine know I want 15 dollars instead of 15 cents. No atm that I've seen (granted, limited experience) will dispense change. I don't think I've seen any that even dispense dollar bills, so getting $17 is impossible. So why the decimals?
It is frequently 3 or 4 hours between stops at my desk to check my messages, my email, etc. The company would not be happy if a critical service was down for 3 or 4 hours because I was busy elsewhere.
Then you really need to make the business case to them that the cell phones or beepers or whatever tech you want are a necessity. Point out to them the times in the past when you had to miss calls, get any sympathetic bigwigs to help bolster the case.
It sounds like you need to make the case, repeatedly, that this policy is costing the company money. Let them make it business phone with limited capabilities if they don't trust you. Use sophisticated beepers. Use those little walkie talkies (ok, they're called something else, but that's what they are) they've been advertising for small businesses. You just need to keep writing memos and reports that highlight the money lost due to the fact that you can't fix what you don't know is broken.
For systems that must stay live, telling their admin he can't use phone alerts just begs for a disaster.
If that's the case, then he needs to make the solid business case for the phone. X amount of dollars spent for the phone versus Y amount of dollars in lost sales, down time, etc.
I just didn't see any of that in the question. And that's what I said in point 1. If there's a business need, he needs to communicate that. I just didn't see that in the question.
Seriously. Why do you need a cell phone? Do you have a phone on your desk at work so that people at work can get a hold of you that way? Do you have email?
I'm trying to think of why you might need to use your cell phone at work, and these are what I could come up with:
1) Communicate with other people in the organization or company. If this is the case, then the company should provide a phone for that purpose. Obviously the company you work for does not think a cell phone is necessary to do the work they hired you to do. They could be wrong, but that's what they think. If so, either convince them they're wrong, if they really are, or use the tools and processes they want you to use for communication.
2) To communicate with vendors or other 3rd parties. If so, then the company should provide you with a phone, but it doesn't have to be a cell phone.
3) Personal calls. It's actually better for the company to make a phone available for personal calls. Many little errands can be done over the phone that you would otherwise have to take time off for work to handle and it is invariably more efficient to use the phone. It may be in an inconvenient location, but they aren't obligated to make it convenient for you. And if they don't provide a phone for personal calls to take care of personal items, then you either take a couple of hours off from work to run errands, figure out another way to handle the errand, or quit over it. Quitting seems excessive.
4) You mention server alerts. Are you attempting to manager either personal servers or servers you've set up for a side business on company time? If so, why should they permit that? Many companies even have specific rules against moonlighting because they know the drain two jobs can have on a person. Switch to email alerts and have the mail sent to an account you can check at work. Then if they see that you're doing a second job on their time, they can deal with that as appropriate.
Do they provide you with a phone at your desk or nearby? Seriously, a cell phone is not a necessity.
There is definitely a stock element to some of the characters
The big problem I had with the books is that not only are the characters stock characters, but the world they lives in demand that they be that way. Any person born in *that* country must act like this. Sure, it made sense within the book that the people would be affected by their patron god and take after him in personality, but it made the characters that much flatter. Not only are they stock, but they can never grow beyond it because they are limited by the rules of the world they live in.
Rereading the Belgariad and the Mallorean is like reading a checklist. You just check things off as you go. Flowers supposed to bloom? Check. Person supposed to be saved? Check. Evil defeated? Check.
Doesn't this violate the naming convention of using Roman god names for planets and then appropriate names for the moons. For example, Diemos and Phobos were children of Mars, Jupiter is surrounded by moons named for his lovers. Should this planet follow a similar convention and stick with a Roman god or goddess? Perhaps Proserpina, because she's close to Pluto (although really that would be an appropriate name for a moon if Pluto can grab a second one). Perhaps Janus, as god of doorways and bounderies would be appropriate to mark this orbit as the boundary of our solar system.
On Windows 2k or XP, make their accounts user accounts and remove them from the adminstrator group. Then they can't install software.
Now log on as the admin account.
This won't stop them from installing activex components though, so use the "Set Program Access and Defaults" tool to set the default web browser to Firefox (or anything besides IE).
Then open up c:\WINDOWS\inf\SYSOC.INF in notepad. Do a global search and replace for the word "hide" without quotes. Now you can remove more software with Control Panel. Open Control Panel | Add and Remove Software | Windows Components. Remove Outlook Express, Windows Messenger, and if you can, IE. I've never tried removing IE this way, so your mileage may definitely vary.
Now in Control Panel go into Administrative tools and look at Services. Disable at least the following:
Server Computer Browser Error Reporting Telnet Messenger
And anything else that isn't necessary.
Make sure to turn on automatice download and install of Windows updates and anti-virus updates, each checking daily during a time you are reasonably sure they machine is on.
Get them a decent email reader, like Thunderbird. Set up Thunderbird (or whatever email reader you use) to automatically save all attachments in a specific folder. Then go into the security for that folder and deny everyone the ability to execute (right click on folder, properties, security, advanced, add a user "everyone" and deny traverse/execute). Now if someone sends them an application via email, it will automatically go into that folder and since everyone is specifically denied the ability to execute files from that folder, even double clicking the attachment won't let it start.
In XP, enable the firewall and block everything but Remote Desktop. Unlike VNC, remote desktop connections are encrypted by default. If you must use VNC, use UltraVNC with the encryption plugin.
If they need a piece of software installed, remote desktop in and install it for them.
I think from a legal standpoint it might be very important that OSS developers not look at the code. Even though they didn't leak it, MS still has rights to the code. If an open source program took advantage of illegally leaked code, what would the legal ramifications be on the OSS project? I don't know the answer, but I'd be willing to be real money that MS would sue. I remember reading an article where the SAMBA developer said he was very careful not to look at any code because of this. Reverse engineering is fine, but you don't get any help to do it.
I've seen a number of people come and go that learned how to program that way. They could accomplish things; their programs ran. But they didn't have the concepts of programming down, the very basics like types of sorting techniques, objects, reasons for breaking things out into functions, etc.
What a more formal education gives you, or should give, is a well rounded approach that teaches things you don't need to know immediately but that will come in useful in the future.
Slashdot Mirror
the problem is that these people are not releasing the code back to the community
Depending on the license (and the original poster was vague about this) there's no obligation to release source code back to the community under any conditions. Under the GPL, the company is only required to release source to the people it sells the software to. If I buy a copy of the GPL'ed Neat-O Keen Software from Acme, Acme is under to release the source to you. It must give me the source if I ask for it, but there's nothing that says you get a copy of it. If Acme makes changes to the code and uses it only internally, it is under no legal obligation to release that code to you. And I think, but am not sure, that if Acme makes changes to the code, and I buy it from them, they only have to give me the code, not you. I can still release the code back, but Acme is under no obligation to.
Under other kinds of licenses, Acme can make all the changes it wants, sell it to me and still be under no legal obligation to give me the code it changed.
even acknowleging the community that created the technology, except as a marketing target, or worse as a theoretical marketing target for fundraising purposes
Acme must include all copyright notices in the code and compiled binaries, but it is under no legal obligation to include references to the copyright holders in it's advertising. Remember, that's part of what the fuss about XFree 4.4.
You may not like it, you may think it is immoral, but it isn't illegal. When you release your code, you may want to think about that when choosing a license.
Very true, for FLOSS licesnes, but not all. There was no suggestion in post I was replying to that the source was not released. If it was released, then there's no violation. If it was not released, then there was. But the original poster's complaint was that reselling open source software as a bundled product on a computer was ripping off the creators. That's only true if the software is being distributed in way that violates the FLOSS license.
Well, that is the problem with open source. If the companies are also releasing the code to the purchasers, then the companies aren't violating or "ripping off" the open source apps.
What these companies are doing, in theory, is providing the support and services that Free/Open Source/Libre software supporters have always said is the way to make money.
So while you may see it as "ripping off" open source, these companies are doing exactly what the developers intended when they released their software under that kind of license: some very knowledgeable people can get the source and compile it themselves and do all the troubleshooting or someone who just wants a product that works and a support number to call when it doesn't can pay for the packaged solutions.
Or better yet, shell out for the equally useful to the home user, but with a much better interface Paint Shop Pro. Just $99 Download, well with the reach of someone with a good digital camera. And it has filters built in that are perfect for a home user. Things like "Photo cleanup" that runs a series of filters to make digital photos look nice, or a Red Eye Remover.
Those are the sort of things the home user cares about, and they are missing from the standard gimp install.
One thing that Perl has going for it that PHP doesn't is that it has correctly set up the database connection functions. Once you connect to a data source, all of the commands you use to interact with that connection are the same, whether you are using mysql, postgresql, or just a csv file. This means that you can change backend databases trivially, merely by changing one line of code.
With php, the commands for connecting to a database and running a query change, sometimes drastically, depending on the database you are using. For example, until recently if you had a query to run on a mysql backend, you did mysql_query($query) but for a postgres it was pg_exec($query). That is changing at least so now it's pg_query($query) but it still makes changing backends a large search, replace, and hope nothing breaks task.
Not according to the email I just received from their Sales people. I've been in the market for a 256-512 meg flash based unit. Unfortunately, the Neuros only goes to 128. I emailed iRiver and their people said ogg support is not there for the flash players.
If you want a hard drive ogg player, Neuros is the obvious solution. USB 2.0 in 20-80 gig models. Pick the storage you want. They've opened their sdk and they have the best customer service and response going. http://www.neurosaudio.com and browse the forums.
Griffin and Sabine (and the followups) did this with dead trees back in the late 80's early 90's. The book contained a series of letters, postcards, etc. between the two main characters. And unlike all the novels that were written in letter form before, the letters and post cards were physical objects in the book.
It's one of those oh-so-clever ideas that gets done once just to show it can be done, then is never done again because it's not that great of an idea.
There was even a video game like this. I think it was Majestic, http://www.gamezone.com/gamesell/p16652.htm , that I'm thinking of. You could give it your beeper number and it would call you, etc. A one person LARP.
Because commandline is NOT END-USER FRIENDLY
It depends. The command line can be quite user friendly.
copy a b
That's a fairly easy way to understand how to copy a file in dos. But in the gui world, a person has to remember to right click and say copy (or ctrl+c) and then right click on the destination and say paste (or ctrl+v). Or remember that if dragging files between folders not on the same drive, the file is copied by default but if dragging between folders on the same drive move is the default in windows. KDE does this better, always asking the user what to do with files drug from one location to another.
As far as your example goes, it really depends on the os. In my copy example above, linux would have the user us cp. Well, how does the user know that? If the os let a person say:
burn song.wav to cd1 as audio-cd
burn all songs in c:\mp3 to cd1 as data-cd
that would be pretty easy and friendly. But no os does that AFAIK. No reason you couldn't make a bash alias to do that and then it would be easy for people.
On the other hand, I just found a really handy little program called sequoiaview that gives you a visual representation of how much space your files and folders occupy on a drive or network share. There's no way a command line utility could convey the amount of information in the sequoiaview window in as easy a fashion.
The thing to remember is that usability is Hard. Very Hard. But it isn't the medium that's restrictive, it's the capabilities of the person creating the interface.
Funny, I didn't do anything to get my 5 button mouse to work in Windows. Even Firefox knows that the two side buttons mean forward and backward a page, and I have never done anything to setup my mouse with windows xp. I didn't even to install drivers. I just plugged it into the usb port and started using it.
Can you tell me where in KDE/Mandrake I can configure my 5 button mouse so that the side buttons work for forward and back in Firefox?
But just as many animals use other colors. Poison arrow frogs are a good example. They come in a many range of colors: blue, green, orange, and red, jsut off the top of my head. Gila monsters are the most poisonous lizard in North America, and they're pale or bright pink. The idea is that bright colors act as warnings, not a particular color. At the risk of grossly over simplifying, animals tend to use either camoflauge to hide from predators or really bright colors to warn away predators. Either "you can't see me" or "here I am, but if you touch me you die".
w %2 0frogs&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&sa=N&t ab=wi
;)
Here's the link to a GIS for poison arrow frogs:
http://images.google.com/images?q=poison%20arro
Not that google should be taken as a true random sample, but out of the first 16 pictures, 3 are red, 3 are green, 4 are blue, and 4 are yellow and 2 are combinations of green, yellow, and blue.
A GIS for poisonous snakes shows mainly brown, one bright yellow and one a really nice bronze sort of color. No true reds though.
Because people are accustomed to red as a warning, they have a tendancy to remember re-inforcing examples. That seems to be what you have done here. SO watch it with the dumbass, dumbass.
wouldn't a common circular wheel, while going over a steep hill
No, because the hill is really at best a half circle.
I'm not sure if tank tracks count as a wheel since they don't orbit a central axis. Even if they were, the tank treads aren't flat when they are in use. They're a sort of oblong shape. You might as well say a wheel is also a line because if you cut the inner tube in half it lies down and becomes a line.
If the wheel is circular, then the road would have to be circular as well. Like going around a small, perfectly spherical asteroid. But is it still a road if it doesn't actually lead anywhere?
Ah, but you see you're asking for support from the mod_perl list. If you are using the package from Red Hat, you should try Red Hat support or Red Hat specific mailing lists.
Then they are very stupid. If they're going to do that, they should set up an SUS box on campus and let you all hit that for updates. SUS is Software Update Server, Microsoft's way of letting large organizations easily push out the updates they want their users to have. Admins download and approve MS patches then the SUS box pushes them to clients. You use GPO's to tell the clients where to get their updates from. It's actually quite slick and easy.
It's like making your own urpmi source for Mandrake and then setting all the clients to hit it as part of a cron job or as part of login. But with the added bonus of being able to easily change the configuration in a central location and have it take effect for all clients.
And as someone who has been bit by the "you can only use IE to get this file" problem, I can tell you that I would like to bash the person who made it ie specific.
Set up Automatic Updates to download critical patches and install them every day. You don't need to use the IE interface to do this at all, it happens automagically for the user, and the user won't get hit with the next code red.
TotalRekall holds a lot of promise. It's open source, but if you are on windows you have to buy the compiled binaries. On Linux, you compile yourself I believe.
But does any one know why atm's here in the states have a decimal in the amount? So if I want to take out an amount (say $15) that isn't listed, I have to type:
1-5-0-0
to let the machine know I want 15 dollars instead of 15 cents. No atm that I've seen (granted, limited experience) will dispense change. I don't think I've seen any that even dispense dollar bills, so getting $17 is impossible. So why the decimals?
It is frequently 3 or 4 hours between stops at my desk to check my messages, my email, etc. The company would not be happy if a critical service was down for 3 or 4 hours because I was busy elsewhere.
Then you really need to make the business case to them that the cell phones or beepers or whatever tech you want are a necessity. Point out to them the times in the past when you had to miss calls, get any sympathetic bigwigs to help bolster the case.
It sounds like you need to make the case, repeatedly, that this policy is costing the company money. Let them make it business phone with limited capabilities if they don't trust you. Use sophisticated beepers. Use those little walkie talkies (ok, they're called something else, but that's what they are) they've been advertising for small businesses. You just need to keep writing memos and reports that highlight the money lost due to the fact that you can't fix what you don't know is broken.
For systems that must stay live, telling their admin he can't use phone alerts just begs for a disaster.
If that's the case, then he needs to make the solid business case for the phone. X amount of dollars spent for the phone versus Y amount of dollars in lost sales, down time, etc.
I just didn't see any of that in the question. And that's what I said in point 1. If there's a business need, he needs to communicate that. I just didn't see that in the question.
Seriously. Why do you need a cell phone? Do you have a phone on your desk at work so that people at work can get a hold of you that way? Do you have email?
I'm trying to think of why you might need to use your cell phone at work, and these are what I could come up with:
1) Communicate with other people in the organization or company. If this is the case, then the company should provide a phone for that purpose. Obviously the company you work for does not think a cell phone is necessary to do the work they hired you to do. They could be wrong, but that's what they think. If so, either convince them they're wrong, if they really are, or use the tools and processes they want you to use for communication.
2) To communicate with vendors or other 3rd parties. If so, then the company should provide you with a phone, but it doesn't have to be a cell phone.
3) Personal calls. It's actually better for the company to make a phone available for personal calls. Many little errands can be done over the phone that you would otherwise have to take time off for work to handle and it is invariably more efficient to use the phone. It may be in an inconvenient location, but they aren't obligated to make it convenient for you. And if they don't provide a phone for personal calls to take care of personal items, then you either take a couple of hours off from work to run errands, figure out another way to handle the errand, or quit over it. Quitting seems excessive.
4) You mention server alerts. Are you attempting to manager either personal servers or servers you've set up for a side business on company time? If so, why should they permit that? Many companies even have specific rules against moonlighting because they know the drain two jobs can have on a person. Switch to email alerts and have the mail sent to an account you can check at work. Then if they see that you're doing a second job on their time, they can deal with that as appropriate.
Do they provide you with a phone at your desk or nearby? Seriously, a cell phone is not a necessity.
The big problem I had with the books is that not only are the characters stock characters, but the world they lives in demand that they be that way. Any person born in *that* country must act like this. Sure, it made sense within the book that the people would be affected by their patron god and take after him in personality, but it made the characters that much flatter. Not only are they stock, but they can never grow beyond it because they are limited by the rules of the world they live in.
Rereading the Belgariad and the Mallorean is like reading a checklist. You just check things off as you go. Flowers supposed to bloom? Check. Person supposed to be saved? Check. Evil defeated? Check.
Doesn't this violate the naming convention of using Roman god names for planets and then appropriate names for the moons. For example, Diemos and Phobos were children of Mars, Jupiter is surrounded by moons named for his lovers. Should this planet follow a similar convention and stick with a Roman god or goddess? Perhaps Proserpina, because she's close to Pluto (although really that would be an appropriate name for a moon if Pluto can grab a second one). Perhaps Janus, as god of doorways and bounderies would be appropriate to mark this orbit as the boundary of our solar system.
On Windows 2k or XP, make their accounts user accounts and remove them from the adminstrator group. Then they can't install software.
Now log on as the admin account.
This won't stop them from installing activex components though, so use the "Set Program Access and Defaults" tool to set the default web browser to Firefox (or anything besides IE).
Then open up c:\WINDOWS\inf\SYSOC.INF in notepad. Do a global search and replace for the word "hide" without quotes. Now you can remove more software with Control Panel. Open Control Panel | Add and Remove Software | Windows Components. Remove Outlook Express, Windows Messenger, and if you can, IE. I've never tried removing IE this way, so your mileage may definitely vary.
Now in Control Panel go into Administrative tools and look at Services. Disable at least the following:
Server
Computer Browser
Error Reporting
Telnet
Messenger
And anything else that isn't necessary.
Make sure to turn on automatice download and install of Windows updates and anti-virus updates, each checking daily during a time you are reasonably sure they machine is on.
Get them a decent email reader, like Thunderbird. Set up Thunderbird (or whatever email reader you use) to automatically save all attachments in a specific folder. Then go into the security for that folder and deny everyone the ability to execute (right click on folder, properties, security, advanced, add a user "everyone" and deny traverse/execute). Now if someone sends them an application via email, it will automatically go into that folder and since everyone is specifically denied the ability to execute files from that folder, even double clicking the attachment won't let it start.
In XP, enable the firewall and block everything but Remote Desktop. Unlike VNC, remote desktop connections are encrypted by default. If you must use VNC, use UltraVNC with the encryption plugin.
If they need a piece of software installed, remote desktop in and install it for them.
This should keep a windows machine fairly secure.
I think from a legal standpoint it might be very important that OSS developers not look at the code. Even though they didn't leak it, MS still has rights to the code. If an open source program took advantage of illegally leaked code, what would the legal ramifications be on the OSS project? I don't know the answer, but I'd be willing to be real money that MS would sue. I remember reading an article where the SAMBA developer said he was very careful not to look at any code because of this. Reverse engineering is fine, but you don't get any help to do it.
No, that's a good way to learn how to do a task.
I've seen a number of people come and go that learned how to program that way. They could accomplish things; their programs ran. But they didn't have the concepts of programming down, the very basics like types of sorting techniques, objects, reasons for breaking things out into functions, etc.
What a more formal education gives you, or should give, is a well rounded approach that teaches things you don't need to know immediately but that will come in useful in the future.