As a good start, i recommend Django. It's a nice framework that takes care of a lot for you, but still lets you write Python. They have a few tutorials as well as a good community and an ongoing project, The Django Book. I transitioned directly from PHP to Python without any books. Most coding forms transition directly over to Python. As you learn more Python, you'll find shortcuts, e.g., the list constructs and lambda functions.
I also recommend reading over PEP 0008, the "standard" coding structure for the Python core libraries. It may seem restrictive limiting yourself to 79 character columns, but you get used to being able to read your code very quickly, especially if you come from PHP or Perl. (Tip: USE SPACES FROM THE START! You'll thank me later.) I can't underestimate the awesomeness of the interactive Python shell, either, especially for beginners.
There are also other platforms out there, Turbogears and Pylons being two notable ones. I think the Django documentation is a bit better, though.
You may also look up Web.py, which is as close to "drop and run" PHP as you'll get without going to pure CGI.
Python takes a little more care to set up at the server level, and you won't find may $1 hosts that support it.
I no longer use PHP, but these two releases highlight one of the things I hated the most about PHP. Every release, even minor "bugfix" releases (5.2.1 to 5.2.2) always do more than fix security and blocker bugs. That means that even if you're only updating to fix the mail() function, you have to run your entire site/system through testing to ensure the update didn't mysteriously break something else.
See, for example, the 4.6.6 release notes:
The PHP development team would like to announce the immediate availability of PHP 4.4.6. This release addresses a crash problem with the session extension when register_globals is turned on that was introduced in PHP 4.4.5. This release comes also with the new version 7.0 of PCRE and it addresses a number of minor bugs. That means that 4.4.5 introduced a major crash problem in a module every PHP website uses. How does that get missed? Also, why does that release also simultaneously bundle a new library version AND fix other "minor bugs"? Release the crash fix and that's it! Keep new features/minor bug fixes to point releases (4.5), not minor point versions.
Thank god Python doesn't do that. At least they keep all the big changes to individual versions!
I should have clarified that more. I grew up on a farm as well (well, dairy farm and basic crops, no cash crops). I only meant it predictable in so far that people will always need to eat.
Let's just hope IBM layoffs are a blip on the map and not a sign of things to come.
Then again, any IT person not in a critical role should always be planning (financially, professionally, and personally) for layoffs or reduced compensation. IT is not, and never will be, a constant line of supply/demand. If you want job predictability, be a farmer.
It's also interesting they are dropping unprofitable contracts. Imagine if someone like Dell did that. More than 5 calls over the same user issue? "Sorry, sir, please repackage your computer and return it to Dell for a prorated refund. We are no longer interested in maintaining this support relationship or maintaining you as a customer."
Congress needs to smack the shit out of the Copyright Board for this stunt. As in abolish them entirely and make the payment returns retroactive. And to revoke laws that help entertainment monopolies like the RIAA. That'd be sweet justice AND help America by revoking needless laws AND give consumers more choice. The only loser would be the RIAA.
MANY small clinics are switching to cash-only. Insurance? They don't care. Submitting insurance is incredibly expensive for small clinics. It requires many man hours of work. It requires computers, extensive records (above and beyond reasonable record keeping), etc. If you want your insurance to pay for it, you have to file it yourself, and hope you filed all the paperwork correctly, on time, with the correct proof and records.
There are many, many industries where losing any data is unacceptable. Banking and health care (which I work in) being the front runners in my book. I can't imagine losing even 15 minutes' worth of patient data, or accidentally deleting test results, or losing even a single piece of a record. Not only is it potentially dangerous (for instance, losing the allergy information for a patient), it's bad service. Who wants to get their blood re-drawn because of an IT problem?
The server knows the last few values and the next few values -- any selected from a reasonable amount of time are generally permitted. Higher security requirements can lower the time window. But given a time code that changes once every 5 minutes, and a server that permits the current and previous/next two, that's a 25 minute window. So even an inaccurate clock that loses a second a day is good for almost 2 years without a clock sync.
You could even build the terminals such they sync the clock. Many terminals run on always-on connections now, so running something like ntp on them is feasible. You could use the clock skew to detect attempted fraud, too -- if you know the clock in a particular card loses 2.4 seconds a day from historical data, and the number of days between the last purchase * 2.4 seconds doesn't equal the real time, something is wrong -- possibly a forged card. It's easy to duplicate a magnetic strip, I'd bet it's harder to forge an purposely-inaccurate clock that varies from card-to-card.
As an aside, I hope the electronics are recyclable and the credit card companies actively solicit returns of them. It'd be nice if the cover/numbers of the card were simply an overlay that could be replaced, along with the clear protective coating. Replace the front panel, sync the clock, put the new data on the magnetic strip, coat it, and wham, new card without wasting the electronic components.
There are many laws that dictate the length of public records. Repealing those laws and correcting existing laws will reduce complexity and overall reduce cost over time.
One of the parts of a real solution is something like 'cvs blame' for every single word in every single law passed. Want to know who added every single phrase. Yes, even punctuation, grammar, spelling, and capitalization changes should be tracked, after all, "I helped my Uncle Jack off a horse" is distinctly different than "I helped my uncle jack off a horse".
That was my immediate thought as well. I hope it leaves them some breathing room, but with the increasing fees, I highly doubt it.
Those who want to save Pandora: call your Congressmen! Call your Senators! There is a small movement to permanently alter the royalty system.
Make sure you let them know you think the royalty "board" is ridiculous, too. Why should the RIAA have a government-mandated monopoly over an art form?
I'm sure all of the engineers, factory workers, and shops that center around bicycles would like to disagree with you. I'm sure a lot of the European and Asian countries would also like to disagree with you, given that many of them have higher rates of bikes per capita than vehicles (not so in North America, except for a few cities perhaps). Bad analogy.
And a lot of people, at least here at Slashdot, make a good living administering Linux, so being knowledgeable about multiple operating systems is a good thing. If you can make $A administering Windows, and $B administering Red Hat, and $C administering FreeBSD, it stands to reason that if you know Windows, Red Hat, and FreeBSD, your pay, $D, should be $D > ($A, $B, $C). If Red Hat fell out of favor, you still have two other systems you can manage.
Besides, a 100% identical network isn't good practice, no matter what company you work in. You don't want every server to be impacted by the same security flaw on the same day. Competition to Microsoft is good for everyone, including Microsoft administrators.
The Simple English Wikipedia edition has a decent definition, although it throws in packet switching and "IP" in the definition (http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet):
The Internet is a worldwide network of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP). It is a "network of networks" that consists of millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and government networks, which together carry various information and services, such as electronic mail, online chat, file transfer, and the interlinked Web pages and other documents of the World Wide Web.
So when you come up with a good definition, please contribute and edit the Simple English page.
The retraining and hardware requirements were the exact excuses I used to start brining Linux into my offices, one computer at a time. We don't have any special software or anything (just Firefox and Microsoft Office, which I am gradually replacing with OOo). Instead of paying $1200 for a decent office computer that can run Vista smoothly, I can pay $600 for a computer with Linux compatible hardware and know I won't have to upgrade for a good long time. The training is going much smoother than I anticipated, actually, and thus far, I've had several employees ask if I could help them run Linux at home (pointed them at the local Linux users group, naturally).
Why buy expensive hardware and retrain everyone after paying over a thousand dollars per seat (Vista + Office) when you can buy a cheaper, more reliable computer? And the best part of the deal? All those shitty downloadable Windows "games" can't be installed!
They aren't seeking the identity of the unintentional middlemen involved, or are, but only so far as to find the identity at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. If they identify the particular botnet involved, they can attempt to trace it back to whoever controls it, installed it, or locate who picked the bundle of addresses up.
And even if they can't find the end person, they can at least educate the zombie PC owners using a real-world example instead of the fear tactics used to push crapware like Norton Internet Security.
Care to cite references that say we're "kicking ass" in Afghanistan? You'd think the administration and the Pentagon would be quick to hype up the ass-kicking to deflect against Iraq.
If you believe the mass media have any sort of "left" agenda, or have any agenda whatsoever beyond getting the next advertising deal, you need to buy more tinfoil. The only agenda most American media companies has is to make money; some do it by pandering to religious conservatives, some do it by pandering to Democrats, others are trying to woo the traditional conservative (the small government type, not the current brand of conservatives). If all mass media pandered to the same group as in a nation-wide "agenda", you'd have a vacuum of ad dollars, which we do not have.
And yes, I do see combatant body counts. All the time, in fact, and you would too if you read media outside of the US or read some non-mainstream news sources, or at least not the "big" outlets.
The last batch of laptops we ordered from Dell came with Vista on them. They were not stable at all. It was like Windows ME all over again, ranging from hardware-level failures, still-broken sleep mode, incompatible CD/DVD burner drivers, etc. On all five machines the USB drivers didn't work until Dell sent a different version of them to us. Then we tried to update the video drivers (the default ones didn't support monitor/display mirrors for presentations) and Vista couldn't run the approved drivers.
I gave up and bought 5 copies of XP Professional and my users couldn't be happier, which in turn makes me happier.
Simple solution is to simply use something like TrueCrypt. Don't let applications save logs or recent file histories and use portable apps on USB thumb drives where applicable (even TrueCrypt can run in this mode).
Besides being more private, it's also damned cool and lets you bring your programs, files, and everything with you no matter what computer you're on.
It also means that every company, big or small, will have to try to patent EVERYTHING. If you don't, you risk becoming an infringer later. The law will make patents a necessity for operating even the smallest of business, and could easily render nearly every business out there an infringer.
The horse had a bad broken leg before, now we're going to add a bullet through its skull and still try to ride it.
Contrary to my prior post, it makes sense. This has happened before, for instance, with power companies or utilities that suffer a major outage, only to rebound strongly after fixing the issue without losses and with minimal interruption. I don't know if it's worth a $3 increase in RIMM's case, since they are likely the ones that caused the incident to begin with, accidental or otherwise. Utilities generally are hit by natural causes, or a retard digging where he shouldn't dig. Still, I was kind of hoping for a massive crash. I hate those little devices.:P
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As a good start, i recommend Django. It's a nice framework that takes care of a lot for you, but still lets you write Python. They have a few tutorials as well as a good community and an ongoing project, The Django Book. I transitioned directly from PHP to Python without any books. Most coding forms transition directly over to Python. As you learn more Python, you'll find shortcuts, e.g., the list constructs and lambda functions.
I also recommend reading over PEP 0008, the "standard" coding structure for the Python core libraries. It may seem restrictive limiting yourself to 79 character columns, but you get used to being able to read your code very quickly, especially if you come from PHP or Perl. (Tip: USE SPACES FROM THE START! You'll thank me later.) I can't underestimate the awesomeness of the interactive Python shell, either, especially for beginners.
There are also other platforms out there, Turbogears and Pylons being two notable ones. I think the Django documentation is a bit better, though.
You may also look up Web.py, which is as close to "drop and run" PHP as you'll get without going to pure CGI.
Python takes a little more care to set up at the server level, and you won't find may $1 hosts that support it.
See, for example, the 4.6.6 release notes: The PHP development team would like to announce the immediate availability of PHP 4.4.6. This release addresses a crash problem with the session extension when register_globals is turned on that was introduced in PHP 4.4.5. This release comes also with the new version 7.0 of PCRE and it addresses a number of minor bugs. That means that 4.4.5 introduced a major crash problem in a module every PHP website uses. How does that get missed? Also, why does that release also simultaneously bundle a new library version AND fix other "minor bugs"? Release the crash fix and that's it! Keep new features/minor bug fixes to point releases (4.5), not minor point versions.
Thank god Python doesn't do that. At least they keep all the big changes to individual versions!
I should have clarified that more. I grew up on a farm as well (well, dairy farm and basic crops, no cash crops). I only meant it predictable in so far that people will always need to eat.
Let's just hope IBM layoffs are a blip on the map and not a sign of things to come.
Then again, any IT person not in a critical role should always be planning (financially, professionally, and personally) for layoffs or reduced compensation. IT is not, and never will be, a constant line of supply/demand. If you want job predictability, be a farmer.
It's also interesting they are dropping unprofitable contracts. Imagine if someone like Dell did that. More than 5 calls over the same user issue? "Sorry, sir, please repackage your computer and return it to Dell for a prorated refund. We are no longer interested in maintaining this support relationship or maintaining you as a customer."
Congress needs to smack the shit out of the Copyright Board for this stunt. As in abolish them entirely and make the payment returns retroactive. And to revoke laws that help entertainment monopolies like the RIAA. That'd be sweet justice AND help America by revoking needless laws AND give consumers more choice. The only loser would be the RIAA.
You could generate even more power by placing treadmills 360 degress around the tanks and paint the tanks to look like free & cheap beer.
MANY small clinics are switching to cash-only. Insurance? They don't care. Submitting insurance is incredibly expensive for small clinics. It requires many man hours of work. It requires computers, extensive records (above and beyond reasonable record keeping), etc. If you want your insurance to pay for it, you have to file it yourself, and hope you filed all the paperwork correctly, on time, with the correct proof and records.
There are many, many industries where losing any data is unacceptable. Banking and health care (which I work in) being the front runners in my book. I can't imagine losing even 15 minutes' worth of patient data, or accidentally deleting test results, or losing even a single piece of a record. Not only is it potentially dangerous (for instance, losing the allergy information for a patient), it's bad service. Who wants to get their blood re-drawn because of an IT problem?
The server knows the last few values and the next few values -- any selected from a reasonable amount of time are generally permitted. Higher security requirements can lower the time window. But given a time code that changes once every 5 minutes, and a server that permits the current and previous/next two, that's a 25 minute window. So even an inaccurate clock that loses a second a day is good for almost 2 years without a clock sync.
You could even build the terminals such they sync the clock. Many terminals run on always-on connections now, so running something like ntp on them is feasible. You could use the clock skew to detect attempted fraud, too -- if you know the clock in a particular card loses 2.4 seconds a day from historical data, and the number of days between the last purchase * 2.4 seconds doesn't equal the real time, something is wrong -- possibly a forged card. It's easy to duplicate a magnetic strip, I'd bet it's harder to forge an purposely-inaccurate clock that varies from card-to-card.
As an aside, I hope the electronics are recyclable and the credit card companies actively solicit returns of them. It'd be nice if the cover/numbers of the card were simply an overlay that could be replaced, along with the clear protective coating. Replace the front panel, sync the clock, put the new data on the magnetic strip, coat it, and wham, new card without wasting the electronic components.
There are many laws that dictate the length of public records. Repealing those laws and correcting existing laws will reduce complexity and overall reduce cost over time.
One of the parts of a real solution is something like 'cvs blame' for every single word in every single law passed. Want to know who added every single phrase. Yes, even punctuation, grammar, spelling, and capitalization changes should be tracked, after all, "I helped my Uncle Jack off a horse" is distinctly different than "I helped my uncle jack off a horse".
That was my immediate thought as well. I hope it leaves them some breathing room, but with the increasing fees, I highly doubt it.
Those who want to save Pandora: call your Congressmen! Call your Senators! There is a small movement to permanently alter the royalty system.
Make sure you let them know you think the royalty "board" is ridiculous, too. Why should the RIAA have a government-mandated monopoly over an art form?
Damn those revisionist scientists! Can't they just leave the sun alone?! Changing the oxygen content of stars sounds like it's dangerous!
Since when do you refer to dollars as 1,000$? Maybe in other languages, but USD the dollar sign always precedes the value.
I'm sure all of the engineers, factory workers, and shops that center around bicycles would like to disagree with you. I'm sure a lot of the European and Asian countries would also like to disagree with you, given that many of them have higher rates of bikes per capita than vehicles (not so in North America, except for a few cities perhaps). Bad analogy.
And a lot of people, at least here at Slashdot, make a good living administering Linux, so being knowledgeable about multiple operating systems is a good thing. If you can make $A administering Windows, and $B administering Red Hat, and $C administering FreeBSD, it stands to reason that if you know Windows, Red Hat, and FreeBSD, your pay, $D, should be $D > ($A, $B, $C). If Red Hat fell out of favor, you still have two other systems you can manage.
Besides, a 100% identical network isn't good practice, no matter what company you work in. You don't want every server to be impacted by the same security flaw on the same day. Competition to Microsoft is good for everyone, including Microsoft administrators.
So when you come up with a good definition, please contribute and edit the Simple English page.
The retraining and hardware requirements were the exact excuses I used to start brining Linux into my offices, one computer at a time. We don't have any special software or anything (just Firefox and Microsoft Office, which I am gradually replacing with OOo). Instead of paying $1200 for a decent office computer that can run Vista smoothly, I can pay $600 for a computer with Linux compatible hardware and know I won't have to upgrade for a good long time. The training is going much smoother than I anticipated, actually, and thus far, I've had several employees ask if I could help them run Linux at home (pointed them at the local Linux users group, naturally).
Why buy expensive hardware and retrain everyone after paying over a thousand dollars per seat (Vista + Office) when you can buy a cheaper, more reliable computer? And the best part of the deal? All those shitty downloadable Windows "games" can't be installed!
They aren't seeking the identity of the unintentional middlemen involved, or are, but only so far as to find the identity at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. If they identify the particular botnet involved, they can attempt to trace it back to whoever controls it, installed it, or locate who picked the bundle of addresses up.
And even if they can't find the end person, they can at least educate the zombie PC owners using a real-world example instead of the fear tactics used to push crapware like Norton Internet Security.
Care to cite references that say we're "kicking ass" in Afghanistan? You'd think the administration and the Pentagon would be quick to hype up the ass-kicking to deflect against Iraq.
If you believe the mass media have any sort of "left" agenda, or have any agenda whatsoever beyond getting the next advertising deal, you need to buy more tinfoil. The only agenda most American media companies has is to make money; some do it by pandering to religious conservatives, some do it by pandering to Democrats, others are trying to woo the traditional conservative (the small government type, not the current brand of conservatives). If all mass media pandered to the same group as in a nation-wide "agenda", you'd have a vacuum of ad dollars, which we do not have.
And yes, I do see combatant body counts. All the time, in fact, and you would too if you read media outside of the US or read some non-mainstream news sources, or at least not the "big" outlets.
I hear Al Gore invented the network and runs at 1tpg, or 1 tree per gigabit.
The last batch of laptops we ordered from Dell came with Vista on them. They were not stable at all. It was like Windows ME all over again, ranging from hardware-level failures, still-broken sleep mode, incompatible CD/DVD burner drivers, etc. On all five machines the USB drivers didn't work until Dell sent a different version of them to us. Then we tried to update the video drivers (the default ones didn't support monitor/display mirrors for presentations) and Vista couldn't run the approved drivers.
I gave up and bought 5 copies of XP Professional and my users couldn't be happier, which in turn makes me happier.
Going on the idea that the most secure computer is the one never turned on, the most secure operating system is the one never installed.
Perhaps Microsoft's marketing department consulted a modern day Oracle at Delphi and misunderstood the prediction.
Simple solution is to simply use something like TrueCrypt. Don't let applications save logs or recent file histories and use portable apps on USB thumb drives where applicable (even TrueCrypt can run in this mode).
Besides being more private, it's also damned cool and lets you bring your programs, files, and everything with you no matter what computer you're on.
I don't get browser popups from porn websites. Ever.
Other popups, on the other hand...
Maybe this SCO fellow was quietly and publically bragging about his virility? Perhaps this is a veiled Viagra spam through the court system? Hmm.
It also means that every company, big or small, will have to try to patent EVERYTHING. If you don't, you risk becoming an infringer later. The law will make patents a necessity for operating even the smallest of business, and could easily render nearly every business out there an infringer.
The horse had a bad broken leg before, now we're going to add a bullet through its skull and still try to ride it.
Contrary to my prior post, it makes sense. This has happened before, for instance, with power companies or utilities that suffer a major outage, only to rebound strongly after fixing the issue without losses and with minimal interruption. I don't know if it's worth a $3 increase in RIMM's case, since they are likely the ones that caused the incident to begin with, accidental or otherwise. Utilities generally are hit by natural causes, or a retard digging where he shouldn't dig. Still, I was kind of hoping for a massive crash. I hate those little devices. :P