There are no tricks. No good books, no magic potions. You need to stay away from the Internet, including/., while you're working! Turn off your phones, turn off any music or TVs. Get yourself away from any other distractions, like people, especially boy/girl friends. Set goals for the day and for the week, and reward yourself in small ways for meeting those goals. Don't lose hope after a failure, but redouble your efforts. If you find that ultimately, you can't do it, after really giving it all you've got, you should seriously think about a plan B, perhaps a different career.
Come on, Taco! Why is it news that a movie with a $175 million dollar budget would actually use a real computer exploit? Are you thinking that nmap is so Slashdot cool that we have to read about it here? Is this any more surprising than the appearance of real 21st century motorcycles in the same movie? The real news is just how uncreative The Matrix Reloaded turned out to be - a souless fireworks display of technology that tells us next to nothing about this virtual world of the future.
This kind of article is pure hype. No one knows what tech jobs will be like in a year, much less 7. I tend to think that articles like this are promoted to get more people to become techies in hopes of glutting the job market so companies can offer lower salaries.
One thing is clear: Right now, the job market for techies is lousy. In Silicon Valley there are 50 - 100 thousand engineers out of work, many for over a year. There are no signs of the economy improving. And don't count on any phony voodoo from the Bush camp. They're only interested in helping the wealthy get even richer!
Here's why I "still" use Windows, even though I love Linux and Solaris and have used Unix since 1979.
Office and Outlook: Wine and Evolution don't offer the 100% interoperability I need for work.
Palm applications: The PC "halves" of Palm applications exist and work.
Easy, client based SPAM filtering. No need to be a Procmail or sendmail expert.
Ad filtering. Super easy with AdSubtract and several other PC tools. You have to set up Squid or Privoxy on Linux.
Trillian. Seems simpler than Gaim.
USB support. The truth is, more stuff works on PCs, especially things like disks that require USB2.
With everyone I work with using Windows, it would be encumbent on me to be 100% compatible with them. I just don't have the cycles to figure out how to do that. There are too many complex Word, Excel, PPT, Visio files I need to be able to quickly edit or view. There are VPN clients that only work on Windows, and the IT staff has no time to figure out a solution for Linux.
Laptops. Maybe using VMware, but that's it.
Printer support. It's gotten better, but try using a Brother MFC on Linux. Can you say, "No driver"?
I love Linux, but I can't spend time everyday dealing with incompatabilities between Linux and Windows applications. If I had a superfast PC with a hunk of RAM, I might consider Linux as the Primary OS with W2K as a VMware guest.
Slashdot Mirror
There are no tricks. No good books, no magic potions. You need to stay away from the Internet, including /., while you're working! Turn off your phones, turn off any music or TVs. Get yourself away from any other distractions, like people, especially boy/girl friends. Set goals for the day and for the week, and reward yourself in small ways for meeting those goals. Don't lose hope after a failure, but redouble your efforts. If you find that ultimately, you can't do it, after really giving it all you've got, you should seriously think about a plan B, perhaps a different career.
Come on, Taco! Why is it news that a movie with a $175 million dollar budget would actually use a real computer exploit? Are you thinking that nmap is so Slashdot cool that we have to read about it here? Is this any more surprising than the appearance of real 21st century motorcycles in the same movie? The real news is just how uncreative The Matrix Reloaded turned out to be - a souless fireworks display of technology that tells us next to nothing about this virtual world of the future.
This kind of article is pure hype. No one knows what tech jobs will be like in a year, much less 7. I tend to think that articles like this are promoted to get more people to become techies in hopes of glutting the job market so companies can offer lower salaries. One thing is clear: Right now, the job market for techies is lousy. In Silicon Valley there are 50 - 100 thousand engineers out of work, many for over a year. There are no signs of the economy improving. And don't count on any phony voodoo from the Bush camp. They're only interested in helping the wealthy get even richer!
Here's why I "still" use Windows, even though I love Linux and Solaris and have used Unix since 1979. Office and Outlook: Wine and Evolution don't offer the 100% interoperability I need for work. Palm applications: The PC "halves" of Palm applications exist and work. Easy, client based SPAM filtering. No need to be a Procmail or sendmail expert. Ad filtering. Super easy with AdSubtract and several other PC tools. You have to set up Squid or Privoxy on Linux. Trillian. Seems simpler than Gaim. USB support. The truth is, more stuff works on PCs, especially things like disks that require USB2. With everyone I work with using Windows, it would be encumbent on me to be 100% compatible with them. I just don't have the cycles to figure out how to do that. There are too many complex Word, Excel, PPT, Visio files I need to be able to quickly edit or view. There are VPN clients that only work on Windows, and the IT staff has no time to figure out a solution for Linux. Laptops. Maybe using VMware, but that's it. Printer support. It's gotten better, but try using a Brother MFC on Linux. Can you say, "No driver"? I love Linux, but I can't spend time everyday dealing with incompatabilities between Linux and Windows applications. If I had a superfast PC with a hunk of RAM, I might consider Linux as the Primary OS with W2K as a VMware guest.