It might help to see how I was stimulated by my parents to take up programming at an early age.
At 12 years old I started programming at school on a VIC-20. BASIC of course. Although I was interested in computers to begin with, my mother pushed me to do a course. In that time (1984) she already had the foresight to tell me that it would be a smart move. I am still thankful for that after all these years.
Although BASIC seems a outdated choice now, in retrospect, the simplicity and the speed at which results became visible was important to keep me going at that age. This is the reason I would suggest to start simple. Perl perhaps. Also don't try object-oriented stuff yet. It will come later if the interest is there...
The next push was a challenge: A few months later (I moved on to a C-64), IBM was programming a piece of software for the company of my parents. I noted this when it was discussed some time during diner. I remarked that it didn't sound very complex and wondered about the enormous costs that seemed connected to it. They asked me if I thought I could do it. I said yes. My father then said to me: "If you manage that, you earned yourself a printer and a disk drive for your C-64". Around that time, this was a unimaginable wealth for an underage C-64 owner (at least it was for me). I started on it and a few weeks later it was there. It worked, I got my hardware (and my father a huge discount from IBM after he showed them my program telling them that he wouldn't pay that asked price for software that could be delivered by a mere child in his spare time in a few weeks LOL)
After this I went on on my own. During my studies I met some people with the same hobby and that completed my addiction;-) These people also introduced me to higher languages like Pascal and C++.
At this moment I am a regular perl/ruby/RoR/C++ programmer and still having a lot of fun!
So a good approach seems to be:
1) Start out simple (script?) 2) Set challenges to overcome to keep stuff interesting. 3) Slowly move to higher generation languages.
First off, you should realize that this discussion in the Netherlands is sparked by a very small (2 seats in the government) ultra-religious (they dont accept women in any meaningful position in their party, etc) splinter party (2 seats in the government). This small party was needed to make the current "cabinet" possible and it is now caching in on all kinds of stuff the dutch did NOT intend when the last elections took place.
Most dutch dont care at all which part of surplus clumps of cells gets thrown away and on what criteria. all but one clump will get ditched anyhow so a person with any brain cell at all will choose the best of the lot anyhow!
Having said this, there is a very good reason to ditch the ones with a genetic defect: Due to our protected lives, evolution longer is a meaningful process for correcting DNA defects over time. Even with serious defects you can survive to have children and keep these DNA defects in the gene pool. It is therefore imho no more than prudent that we help nature a bit in this respect.
If you actually read my post you would have seen I think it is a sound theory. But it is still just that. A theory. Once in a while a better one comes along. That's why you should always question them...
People should be allowed to contradict it. However...
The theory of evolution is soundly based on scientific observations whereas most of these 'alternative' theories are based on eh... yeah what ARE they based on actually? Hope? Beliefs? Ignorance?
The problem then is not in the theories, but in the teachers that apparently can not keep themselves from indoctrinating young people with what in their warped minds is the truth. It is what we did in the dark ages. One might hope that we had learned from that time.
There actually IS a very simple solution for this: Ban schools based on religious beliefs. Period. Radical, but effective. Perhaps too radical in the States though...
Not only is it not "flashy", it is not even very new. We have been using similar techniques for some time now. It is just another form of adaptive blacklisting, and a rather inefficient one at that.
If you have a filter that only stops 90% spam and you keep a database of sending IP's you would have 99.99% accuracy after only 4 spam messages from the same IP. Actually this is what we do at OnlineSpamfilter.
Terry Pratchett delves into the subject in "Science of Diskworld: Darwin's Watch". You might want to look in there for the right questions to ask. Anyway, it's fun to read too:-)
I'm guessing this "test" used emails that looked like spam. And this is what we call 'false positives' since it obviously was NOT spam. Typically you should have much less than 1 in 1000 of those for legitimate mail if your spam filtering is to be any good. If M$'s spam filtering takes out so many messages it really really sucks big time. So, even from M$ i can not believe this is true. Something else must be happening...
Frankly I cannot believe that so many mails get lost. But then afain, I only use my hotmail account to connect to MSN with Gaim and never EVER use it for serious communication. I mean did you ever READ the License Agreement? When you have the time, do so for once...
Europe did not go along with this software patent nonsense. That we didn't was a stroke of luck actually. Until now. Actually, M$ did Europe a favor here. Large companies like Philips (oh yuck imagine I used to work there once) who have promoted software patents have argued that software patents were never actually abused to make life difficult of OSS and so we shouldn't be afraid because 'none of the big companies is planning to use it against OSS anyways'. Well they won't be able to use THAT argument any more... Helps a lot in the discussion over here, now the argument is heating up again...
Well... when you guys kick bush out I hope some sanity will be restore at your side also...
I was surprised to notice that there was no reaction about IE not being supported. From the site:
"Just a sticky note to let everyone know that we ARE going to support both Internet Explorer and Safari when we release the final version, even though we currently only support Firefox.
Firefox is much more Ajax-friendly, and it has been much easier to prototype for it. Also, some of our code requires XUL, which is Firefox-only; we're having to devise work-arounds for other browsers, and those aren't ready yet.
Thanks again for all your input and suggestions on this and other topics. I'm putting this note here so there's no confusion; yes -- we ARE going to support the most popular browser on the Internet, eventually.:-P"
Good to see roles reversed for a change! Now the hard-core Microsoft addicts finally get to feel the old and trusty "we are going to support your platform soon... eh...eventually...eh...perhaps...eh...whenever we feel like it" argument:-).
Most likely your IP is listed at those sites as belonging to a range given out to ISP's for reistribution to their customers. You are probably rejected for that reason, because 'normal' domestic users don't have mail servers, or so these parties seem to wrongfully think. You can configure your mail server to send out the mail through our ISP's smtp server (smarthost).
You can only go down with your hourly rate, never up! I started a business doing strictly Linux (or other OSS) installs and maintenance and I can get away with an hourly rate of around 100 euro's for normal jobs (higher when they need me quickly). Of course, I am always cheaper than any other business using proprietary software in the end, so my example may not be entirely representative.
My experience is that you can always lower your price, but never ask more the next time for the same(ish) job with the same customer. Also people take exception if they hear that you give lower rates to someone else, no matter what the circumstances. Take that to heart. State your price and keep to it. People are generally inclined to pay surprisingly well if you make a difference to their business. Fixed price agreements also work very well if you have some more experience.
Remember also that you will not always have work. The network you have now may seem big to you now, but it will grow less willing to call you once they have to pay for your services. Then again, if you dont have work, you have at least 40-60 hours a week to find it. That is a LOT. If you play your cards well you can easily make a living of virtually anything. This was my biggest eye opener so far since I started for myself!
I'd say: go for it. I did almost 2 years ago and I am never going back:-)
Wasn't there talk recently about making the OOo format into a ISO standard? Perhaps this is the way to go: 1) Make a good XML based ISO standard for textprocessors. 2) Try to convince governments/companies to require their sofware to be compliant with this standard. 3) And this is very important: Demand a very high and continued compatibility with this format to receive the "ISO approved" label. Or else we have another "IGES" debacle on our hands.
Managers and administrators just _love_ ISO standards and will at least frown if we can say: "Well M$ is not even ISO compliant, you will be in trouble in the future if you use that! It's not even compatible with the only existing ISO standard!!". This way M$ will have to coorporate to satisfy the very people that decide about buying their software...
Just a thought. Wouldn't know where to start to make this happen. But perhaps someone else here does:-)
I converted several of my customers to Linux recently for exactly this reason. The fun is that I don't have to really push it anymore. I just walk into the place for a lunch or to talk with the business owner and they start asking me about it:-) This is a new experience for me and I think it is a very important signal that users are fed up with it... Thanks M$!
- If they go really GPL-ish, SUN code will be used to improve Linux even further. Ergo: Linux will grow. - If they don't, they will not get a decent developer base. They win nothing. Ergo: Linux will grow.
I have even been mailing with the (sorry) right wing party I normally vote for. Seems they are quite against the patent law as it was voted for some weeks back. It looks like a lot of politicians have been taken by surprise. They assured me, the next time would be better.
Nice and all, but since I trust those people exactly as far as I am able to see them, I think I will vote for a party with which have been voicing their opinion on this subject more prominently.
I have my own business to protect and since it is based on OSS, it seems that I am voting left wing this time to do so!
I agree on this. This guy could probably be making tons of money selling low-priced but perfectly functional routers and firewalls running his own software (DONT forget to sell them a regular security update subscription though. THAT's where the real money is!).
I once played with this idea myself. I asked around a bit and found that especially small and medium sized businesses seemed interested. The only reason it didnt come to be is that I was too big a chicken-sh*t to quit my regular cosey job...
I just had a look at the development of the value of the SCO shares over the last 6 months (http://investor.cnet.com/investor/quotes/chart-sn ap/0-9970-1043-0-SCOX.html?priceDisplay=1&duration =6m&frequency=0) and it seems to have increased 10-fold since march... I wonder when the great buyout will start!
Slashdot Mirror
Under cygwin it works afaik.
Furthermore I would strongly advise you wise up, pop in an Ubuntu CD, and ditch .NET altogether. But that's just my 2 cents.
The subject says it all:
- rdiff-backup to backup your data one backup server.
- chironfs to clone the file system to another remote server.
rdiff-backup runs on *nix and windows (with the help of Cygwin).
Once set up, rdiff-backup needs virtually no maintenance. If needed, setup Nagios to warn you if things run afoul.
Used this for years, never disappointed me so far!
It might help to see how I was stimulated by my parents to take up programming at an early age.
At 12 years old I started programming at school on a VIC-20. BASIC of course. Although I was interested in computers to begin with, my mother pushed me to do a course. In that time (1984) she already had the foresight to tell me that it would be a smart move. I am still thankful for that after all these years.
Although BASIC seems a outdated choice now, in retrospect, the simplicity and the speed at which results became visible was important to keep me going at that age. This is the reason I would suggest to start simple. Perl perhaps. Also don't try object-oriented stuff yet. It will come later if the interest is there...
The next push was a challenge: A few months later (I moved on to a C-64), IBM was programming a piece of software for the company of my parents. I noted this when it was discussed some time during diner. I remarked that it didn't sound very complex and wondered about the enormous costs that seemed connected to it. They asked me if I thought I could do it. I said yes. My father then said to me: "If you manage that, you earned yourself a printer and a disk drive for your C-64". Around that time, this was a unimaginable wealth for an underage C-64 owner (at least it was for me). I started on it and a few weeks later it was there. It worked, I got my hardware (and my father a huge discount from IBM after he showed them my program telling them that he wouldn't pay that asked price for software that could be delivered by a mere child in his spare time in a few weeks LOL)
After this I went on on my own. During my studies I met some people with the same hobby and that completed my addiction ;-) These people also introduced me to higher languages like Pascal and C++.
At this moment I am a regular perl/ruby/RoR/C++ programmer and still having a lot of fun!
So a good approach seems to be:
1) Start out simple (script?)
2) Set challenges to overcome to keep stuff interesting.
3) Slowly move to higher generation languages.
First off, you should realize that this discussion in the Netherlands is sparked by a very small (2 seats in the government) ultra-religious (they dont accept women in any meaningful position in their party, etc) splinter party (2 seats in the government). This small party was needed to make the current "cabinet" possible and it is now caching in on all kinds of stuff the dutch did NOT intend when the last elections took place.
Most dutch dont care at all which part of surplus clumps of cells gets thrown away and on what criteria. all but one clump will get ditched anyhow so a person with any brain cell at all will choose the best of the lot anyhow!
Having said this, there is a very good reason to ditch the ones with a genetic defect: Due to our protected lives, evolution longer is a meaningful process for correcting DNA defects over time. Even with serious defects you can survive to have children and keep these DNA defects in the gene pool. It is therefore imho no more than prudent that we help nature a bit in this respect.
Just my 2 grains of salt...
If you actually read my post you would have seen I think it is a sound theory. But it is still just that. A theory. Once in a while a better one comes along. That's why you should always question them...
People should be allowed to contradict it. However...
The theory of evolution is soundly based on scientific observations whereas most of these 'alternative' theories are based on eh... yeah what ARE they based on actually? Hope? Beliefs? Ignorance?
The problem then is not in the theories, but in the teachers that apparently can not keep themselves from indoctrinating young people with what in their warped minds is the truth. It is what we did in the dark ages. One might hope that we had learned from that time.
There actually IS a very simple solution for this: Ban schools based on religious beliefs. Period. Radical, but effective. Perhaps too radical in the States though...
Not only is it not "flashy", it is not even very new. We have been using similar techniques for some time now. It is just another form of adaptive blacklisting, and a rather inefficient one at that.
If you have a filter that only stops 90% spam and you keep a database of sending IP's you would have 99.99% accuracy after only 4 spam messages from the same IP. Actually this is what we do at OnlineSpamfilter.
Nice angle though...
Terry Pratchett delves into the subject in "Science of Diskworld: Darwin's Watch". You might want to look in there for the right questions to ask. Anyway, it's fun to read too :-)
Frankly I cannot believe that so many mails get lost. But then afain, I only use my hotmail account to connect to MSN with Gaim and never EVER use it for serious communication. I mean did you ever READ the License Agreement? When you have the time, do so for once...
Europe did not go along with this software patent nonsense. That we didn't was a stroke of luck actually. Until now. Actually, M$ did Europe a favor here. Large companies like Philips (oh yuck imagine I used to work there once) who have promoted software patents have argued that software patents were never actually abused to make life difficult of OSS and so we shouldn't be afraid because 'none of the big companies is planning to use it against OSS anyways'. Well they won't be able to use THAT argument any more... Helps a lot in the discussion over here, now the argument is heating up again...
Well... when you guys kick bush out I hope some sanity will be restore at your side also...
"Just a sticky note to let everyone know that we ARE going to support both Internet Explorer and Safari when we release the final version, even though we currently only support Firefox.
Firefox is much more Ajax-friendly, and it has been much easier to prototype for it. Also, some of our code requires XUL, which is Firefox-only; we're having to devise work-arounds for other browsers, and those aren't ready yet.
Thanks again for all your input and suggestions on this and other topics. I'm putting this note here so there's no confusion; yes -- we ARE going to support the most popular browser on the Internet, eventually. :-P"
Good to see roles reversed for a change! Now the hard-core Microsoft addicts finally get to feel the old and trusty "we are going to support your platform soon... eh...eventually...eh...perhaps...eh...whenever we feel like it" argument :-).
Most likely your IP is listed at those sites as belonging to a range given out to ISP's for reistribution to their customers. You are probably rejected for that reason, because 'normal' domestic users don't have mail servers, or so these parties seem to wrongfully think. You can configure your mail server to send out the mail through our ISP's smtp server (smarthost).
You can only go down with your hourly rate, never up! I started a business doing strictly Linux (or other OSS) installs and maintenance and I can get away with an hourly rate of around 100 euro's for normal jobs (higher when they need me quickly). Of course, I am always cheaper than any other business using proprietary software in the end, so my example may not be entirely representative.
:-)
My experience is that you can always lower your price, but never ask more the next time for the same(ish) job with the same customer. Also people take exception if they hear that you give lower rates to someone else, no matter what the circumstances. Take that to heart. State your price and keep to it. People are generally inclined to pay surprisingly well if you make a difference to their business. Fixed price agreements also work very well if you have some more experience.
Remember also that you will not always have work. The network you have now may seem big to you now, but it will grow less willing to call you once they have to pay for your services. Then again, if you dont have work, you have at least 40-60 hours a week to find it. That is a LOT. If you play your cards well you can easily make a living of virtually anything. This was my biggest eye opener so far since I started for myself!
I'd say: go for it. I did almost 2 years ago and I am never going back
Cheers!
The only spam I get on my hotmail account is from M$ themselves... Will it stop their stupid announcements too?
Bidding can now start...
The more they push this, the more viable this will become. And after that they will loose all control on this subject. Sad...
http://freenet.sourceforge.net/ for those interested...
Wasn't there talk recently about making the OOo format into a ISO standard? Perhaps this is the way to go:
:-)
1) Make a good XML based ISO standard for textprocessors.
2) Try to convince governments/companies to require their sofware to be compliant with this standard.
3) And this is very important: Demand a very high and continued compatibility with this format to receive the "ISO approved" label. Or else we have another "IGES" debacle on our hands.
Managers and administrators just _love_ ISO standards and will at least frown if we can say: "Well M$ is not even ISO compliant, you will be in trouble in the future if you use that! It's not even compatible with the only existing ISO standard!!". This way M$ will have to coorporate to satisfy the very people that decide about buying their software...
Just a thought. Wouldn't know where to start to make this happen. But perhaps someone else here does
I converted several of my customers to Linux recently for exactly this reason. The fun is that I don't have to really push it anymore. I just walk into the place for a lunch or to talk with the business owner and they start asking me about it :-) This is a new experience for me and I think it is a very important signal that users are fed up with it... Thanks M$!
That they encrypted their uplink decently. Might give nasty surprises otherwise!!
> Why so big scale?
Why not make it easy for everyone to have in his home?
Simple: It would be more difficult to tax.
- If they go really GPL-ish, SUN code will be used to improve Linux even further. Ergo: Linux will grow.
- If they don't, they will not get a decent developer base. They win nothing. Ergo: Linux will grow.
Sounds like a no-lose situation for Linux IMHO...
I have even been mailing with the (sorry) right wing party I normally vote for. Seems they are quite against the patent law as it was voted for some weeks back. It looks like a lot of politicians have been taken by surprise. They assured me, the next time would be better.
Nice and all, but since I trust those people exactly as far as I am able to see them, I think I will vote for a party with which have been voicing their opinion on this subject more prominently.
I have my own business to protect and since it is based on OSS, it seems that I am voting left wing this time to do so!
Convenient...
I agree on this. This guy could probably be making tons of money selling low-priced but perfectly functional routers and firewalls running his own software (DONT forget to sell them a regular security update subscription though. THAT's where the real money is!).
I once played with this idea myself. I asked around a bit and found that especially small and medium sized businesses seemed interested. The only reason it didnt come to be is that I was too big a chicken-sh*t to quit my regular cosey job...
I just had a look at the development of the value of the SCO shares over the last 6 months (http://investor.cnet.com/investor/quotes/chart-sn ap/0-9970-1043-0-SCOX.html?priceDisplay=1&duration =6m&frequency=0) and it seems to have increased 10-fold since march... I wonder when the great buyout will start!