When my "computer savvy but not programming" youngest was about that age he called me into his room with "Dad, do you know anything about a program called python? Look what I can do with it!" - and he showed me several small things he'd been able to create after reading the online tutorials. He found python intuitive, fun and useful - and that's what a first programming language should be all about.
Go over to the Baen Free Library http://www.baen.com/library/ and read Eric Flint's take on book piracy and free books. Quite interesting and well thought out. His idea is that what little book piracy there is actually creates a bigger audience for the author's work - from which he will profit. For this reason they give away free electronic versions of many of their books, hoping to tempt you to buy more.
It's worked on me! I now look specifically for Baen books when I shop my local bookstores.
Big Brother has an html interface, with lots of blinking lights - interfaces into rrdtool for your graphs and basically does a really good job of monitoring your servers and network. Extensions are easy to write in shell script or any other language you like. And there is a FREE version! http://www.bb4.com/
If you want to get information on how your older geeks think, just ask them, "Of what project you've worked on are you most proud - and why?"
If their eyes light up and you get enthusiastic responses then you know they do this job for the love of the project - the thrill of the chase... And that means they'll be an enthusiastic and contributing member to your team. If you get dull responses then they are in it for the money - or are burned out and might not be the asset you want..
It meets all your requirements. it was designed to work robustly over a high-latency, low-bandwidth streams, and would be tolerant to intermittent network outages. Back in the early 80s I maintained a 'network' of disconnected machines via 2400 & 9600 baud modems and the programs in the UUCP package - worked quite nicely.. If it still exists 'waffle' is a uucp implementation for DOS - I have no clue if it will run on current the hardware/OS
FreeNAS is a minimal FreeBSD distribution that provides NAS (network-attached storage) services: CIFS (Samba), FTP, NFS, RSYNC, local user authentication, and software RAID. It may be booted and run from compact flash or CD-ROM. It also features a full Web-based configuration interface.
Get a piece-o-crap machine from the dump, several cheap drives and a NIC - you're in business.
Quoting from the letter I received from Representative Mike McIntyre from North Carolina.
" Thank you for contacting me regarding H.R. 2060, the Internet Radio Equality Act. I appreciate hearing from you on this important, and I am pleased to tell you that I am a cosponsor of this bill.
As you know, on March 2, 2007, the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) dramatically raised the performance royalty rates for webcasters. The CRB eliminated the percentage of revenue fee that many small webcasters used to determine their performance royalty. The move from a percentage of revenue to a per-song rate hits small webcasters the hardest. Royalty rates would increase over 300% for the largest webcasters and as much as 1200% for the smallest webcasters. This kind of rate hike would mean the end of many Internet radio stations that would not be able to stay in business under the crushing new royalty rates. Therefore, I have cosponsored H.R. 2060, the Internet Radio Equality Act. This bill would render the CRB ruling ineffective and would reinstate the percentage of revenue royalty payments. This bill has referred to the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Committee on Judiciary.
Thank you for contacting me about this important issue. I will continue to be a strong voice for you in Washington.
My mother is 85 years old and for years she's bugged me to get her a computer, but I always refused because I was NOT going to try to support a Windows system for her remotely - Then a few years ago I ran into Knoppix and the instructions on how to create your own distribution. I took an old P3-800 and ripped out the hard drive, installed 2 GB ram and created a live-cd with what I call MOM-OS.
Mom loves it. She has internet access, email, IM, and solitaire. She can browse to her heart's content, send me EMAILS IN ALL CAPS and play videos from YouTube - what else could she want? Her bookmarks are on mybookmarks.com, she uses Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Docs if she wants to write something - and I never have any support issues, because she CAN'T SCREW ANYTHING UP!!! When she reboots everything is back to the original install. The only issue I ever had was when she inserted the CD upside down (they are now all marked "THIS SIDE UP")
The trick was not to get her involved with bash and maintenance - just give her a mouse with links on her desktop, then 10 minutes of instruction before leaving her alone to explore.
Actually the world is NOT getting warmer. The average planetary temperature hasn't risen appreciably since 1998. In 1973 we were in a cooling cycle that had environmental alarmists warning us of the coming Ice Age. Zealots scoff when we point out no change over 8 years and say that is not enough time to develop a trend, but will gladly use a mild 25 year upswing as proof for their cause.
The Earth cools and the Earth warms, it has since the dawn of history. Deal with it or move somewhere else..
I quit supporting it when the original creators stop supporting it. Windows: 2000 and XP only - no NT, no Win9x - Browsers are the same. If the guys that wrote it give up on it it, far be it from me to continue to support it's arcane functions.
I've been a consultant for many years and stay busy 100% of the time. How? by consistently delivering to the client MORE than they requested/expected.
It's easy really, the Golden Rule makes an ideal yardstick. If you can close an engagement knowing that you have succeeded completely in meeting the client's needs, then you'll get references and repeat business.
This occasionally means turning down potentially lucrative contracts if they are not a good fit. Will I do Windows work? Not on a bet, but I will gladly refer you to someone I trust, and that only grows my credibility.
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence therefore, is not an art, but a habit."
It makes absolutely no difference what you write up as a proposal. It will be judged solely on sentence structure, composition and spelling. After contracting for 10 weeks to do a job my proposal was finally accepted in week 9. Thankfully I had started writing at week 1 while I was putting the proposal together.
Good luck, but don't expect them to have a clue as to what you are proposing...
For years I've heard "Users won't switch to Linux because it just doen't support gaming as well as Windows." If all the PC games die then there won't be any reason not to switch, and we can make it about usability, performance, stability and security instead of "Does it support UltraMegaWars III? 'cuz I can't LIVE without UltraMegaWars III!"
I have the service and travel all over the US. So far I've found exactly ONE (1) location where I got "Near DSL" speeds - mostly it's like plain old dialup. I keep it for the convenience. I have, at a minimum, dialup capability no matter where I am - in a client office without a drop, in the airport with no wi-fi, in the car... And I can run Skype over it as well, so I always have a phone with no time limit and no roaming...
Things are looking up. More hi-speed areas are coming - but they are major metro areas. If I were you I woulcn't plan on getting any kind of decent throughput out in the sticks..
I spent most of last winter writing software for a major university. The specs were passed by a review board who were more concerned about the spelling and CAPITALIZATION than the functional points of the design.
Having 10 weeks to write the app, it took them 9 to decide on the specs. - I wrote the app while they were arguing about it. The app worked - they paid me..
If dear ol' dad is footing the bill and wants you in a more prestigious school, then start packin' yer bags... You definitely want to keep him happy.
In truth, he's probably mistaken about where the degree comes from - at least in the CS market - as experience and depth make much more difference that the name on your wallpaper - but if it's his money then it's his call.. Get up off your butt and move across town to the BIG school!
what other products besides Google Desktop Search, Spybot Search & Destroy, Google Toolbar and Service Pack 2 are Slashdotters installing on their parents' Windows machines?
My 82 year old Mom runs a custom version of Knoppix from CD on a PIII with 512 MB of RAM and no hard drive. The only tech support issue I've ever had with her was when she put the CD in upside down. All he CD's are now clearly marked "This Side Up"
I'm beginning to believe that it's time CIOs were taken to task for repeatedly putting their businesses in danger by continuing to require Microsoft products on their servers.
Most/. readers will agree that the OS and most of the MS software is buggy and CERTAINLY less than secure, so shouldn't these corporate "EXPERTS" know it as well? If so then they are intentionally endangering their most precious corporate assets - information.
Where I come from that is a direct affront to the charter of their positions and grounds for termination...
Slashdot Mirror
When my "computer savvy but not programming" youngest was about that age he called me into his room with "Dad, do you know anything about a program called python? Look what I can do with it!" - and he showed me several small things he'd been able to create after reading the online tutorials. He found python intuitive, fun and useful - and that's what a first programming language should be all about.
Go over to the Baen Free Library http://www.baen.com/library/ and read Eric Flint's take on book piracy and free books. Quite interesting and well thought out. His idea is that what little book piracy there is actually creates a bigger audience for the author's work - from which he will profit. For this reason they give away free electronic versions of many of their books, hoping to tempt you to buy more.
It's worked on me! I now look specifically for Baen books when I shop my local bookstores.
Big Brother has an html interface, with lots of blinking lights - interfaces into rrdtool for your graphs and basically does a really good job of monitoring your servers and network. Extensions are easy to write in shell script or any other language you like. And there is a FREE version! http://www.bb4.com/
If you want to get information on how your older geeks think, just ask them, "Of what project you've worked on are you most proud - and why?"
If their eyes light up and you get enthusiastic responses then you know they do this job for the love of the project - the thrill of the chase... And that means they'll be an enthusiastic and contributing member to your team. If you get dull responses then they are in it for the money - or are burned out and might not be the asset you want..
It meets all your requirements. it was designed to work robustly over a high-latency, low-bandwidth streams, and would be tolerant to intermittent network outages. Back in the early 80s I maintained a 'network' of disconnected machines via 2400 & 9600 baud modems and the programs in the UUCP package - worked quite nicely.. If it still exists 'waffle' is a uucp implementation for DOS - I have no clue if it will run on current the hardware/OS
Like this is a sudden new discovery??? Does no one remember alt.flame on usenet?
He's only got 2 mobile phones - the Nokia N810 is an Internet Tablet. I'm never seen anywhere without mine. It's a geek thing...
FreeNAS is a minimal FreeBSD distribution that provides NAS (network-attached storage) services: CIFS (Samba), FTP, NFS, RSYNC, local user authentication, and software RAID. It may be booted and run from compact flash or CD-ROM. It also features a full Web-based configuration interface.
Get a piece-o-crap machine from the dump, several cheap drives and a NIC - you're in business.
" Thank you for contacting me regarding H.R. 2060, the Internet Radio Equality Act. I appreciate hearing from you on this important, and I am pleased to tell you that I am a cosponsor of this bill.
As you know, on March 2, 2007, the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) dramatically raised the performance royalty rates for webcasters. The CRB eliminated the percentage of revenue fee that many small webcasters used to determine their performance royalty. The move from a percentage of revenue to a per-song rate hits small webcasters the hardest. Royalty rates would increase over 300% for the largest webcasters and as much as 1200% for the smallest webcasters. This kind of rate hike would mean the end of many Internet radio stations that would not be able to stay in business under the crushing new royalty rates. Therefore, I have cosponsored H.R. 2060, the Internet Radio Equality Act. This bill would render the CRB ruling ineffective and would reinstate the percentage of revenue royalty payments. This bill has referred to the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Committee on Judiciary.
Thank you for contacting me about this important issue. I will continue to be a strong voice for you in Washington.
Sincerely,
Mike McIntyre
Member of Congress"
Those of us from the VCR era know exactly how to fix this problem - the same way we stopped our VCRs from blinking "12:00:00" all the time.
2 inches of black electrical tape and the problem is solved.
My mother is 85 years old and for years she's bugged me to get her a computer, but I always refused because I was NOT going to try to support a Windows system for her remotely - Then a few years ago I ran into Knoppix and the instructions on how to create your own distribution. I took an old P3-800 and ripped out the hard drive, installed 2 GB ram and created a live-cd with what I call MOM-OS.
Mom loves it. She has internet access, email, IM, and solitaire. She can browse to her heart's content, send me EMAILS IN ALL CAPS and play videos from YouTube - what else could she want? Her bookmarks are on mybookmarks.com, she uses Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Docs if she wants to write something - and I never have any support issues, because she CAN'T SCREW ANYTHING UP!!! When she reboots everything is back to the original install. The only issue I ever had was when she inserted the CD upside down (they are now all marked "THIS SIDE UP")
The trick was not to get her involved with bash and maintenance - just give her a mouse with links on her desktop, then 10 minutes of instruction before leaving her alone to explore.
Of course America is converting to the Metric system - we're just doing it inch by inch...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml= /opinion/2006/04/09/do0907.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/0 4/09/ixworld.html
Actually the world is NOT getting warmer. The average planetary temperature hasn't risen appreciably since 1998. In 1973 we were in a cooling cycle that had environmental alarmists warning us of the coming Ice Age. Zealots scoff when we point out no change over 8 years and say that is not enough time to develop a trend, but will gladly use a mild 25 year upswing as proof for their cause.
The Earth cools and the Earth warms, it has since the dawn of history. Deal with it or move somewhere else..
I quit supporting it when the original creators stop supporting it. Windows: 2000 and XP only - no NT, no Win9x - Browsers are the same. If the guys that wrote it give up on it it, far be it from me to continue to support it's arcane functions.
Trillian.. One client, multiple protocols - even Google Talk which is just Jabber.. Even handles Skype IM.
I've been a consultant for many years and stay busy 100% of the time. How? by consistently delivering to the client MORE than they requested/expected.
It's easy really, the Golden Rule makes an ideal yardstick. If you can close an engagement knowing that you have succeeded completely in meeting the client's needs, then you'll get references and repeat business.
This occasionally means turning down potentially lucrative contracts if they are not a good fit. Will I do Windows work? Not on a bet, but I will gladly refer you to someone I trust, and that only grows my credibility.
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence therefore, is not an art, but a habit."
It makes absolutely no difference what you write up as a proposal. It will be judged solely on sentence structure, composition and spelling. After contracting for 10 weeks to do a job my proposal was finally accepted in week 9. Thankfully I had started writing at week 1 while I was putting the proposal together.
Good luck, but don't expect them to have a clue as to what you are proposing...
For years I've heard "Users won't switch to Linux because it just doen't support gaming as well as Windows." If all the PC games die then there won't be any reason not to switch, and we can make it about usability, performance, stability and security instead of "Does it support UltraMegaWars III? 'cuz I can't LIVE without UltraMegaWars III!"
I have the service and travel all over the US. So far I've found exactly ONE (1) location where I got "Near DSL" speeds - mostly it's like plain old dialup. I keep it for the convenience. I have, at a minimum, dialup capability no matter where I am - in a client office without a drop, in the airport with no wi-fi, in the car... And I can run Skype over it as well, so I always have a phone with no time limit and no roaming...
Things are looking up. More hi-speed areas are coming - but they are major metro areas. If I were you I woulcn't plan on getting any kind of decent throughput out in the sticks..
I spent most of last winter writing software for a major university. The specs were passed by a review board who were more concerned about the spelling and CAPITALIZATION than the functional points of the design.
Having 10 weeks to write the app, it took them 9 to decide on the specs. - I wrote the app while they were arguing about it. The app worked - they paid me..
Fallen I have and get up I cannot!
If dear ol' dad is footing the bill and wants you in a more prestigious school, then start packin' yer bags... You definitely want to keep him happy.
In truth, he's probably mistaken about where the degree comes from - at least in the CS market - as experience and depth make much more difference that the name on your wallpaper - but if it's his money then it's his call.. Get up off your butt and move across town to the BIG school!
what other products besides Google Desktop Search, Spybot Search & Destroy, Google Toolbar and Service Pack 2 are Slashdotters installing on their parents' Windows machines? My 82 year old Mom runs a custom version of Knoppix from CD on a PIII with 512 MB of RAM and no hard drive. The only tech support issue I've ever had with her was when she put the CD in upside down. All he CD's are now clearly marked "This Side Up"
I'm beginning to believe that it's time CIOs were taken to task for repeatedly putting their businesses in danger by continuing to require Microsoft products on their servers.
/. readers will agree that the OS and most of the MS software is buggy and CERTAINLY less than secure, so shouldn't these corporate "EXPERTS" know it as well? If so then they are intentionally endangering their most precious corporate assets - information.
Most
Where I come from that is a direct affront to the charter of their positions and grounds for termination...