I'm sorry I didn't read all of the comments, but didn't microsoft make their money and run type of thing. At the end of the article the guy said Microsoft must be loosing money because of "brain-dead" policies.
But he has a valid Microsoft license, that came with the computer, and the system is already paid for. So Microsoft made their money, and now doesn't have to support their system. Even if the business won't go with Windows servers in the future, the way they seem to purchase hardware would seem that they will continue recieving pre-built computers with windows, then install linux on it. HP and Microsoft will continue making money without really loosing the business.
I sort of have to disagree with this, as for 1 our school does have stuff to teach and I may have been misleading about how our school goes about this process. We have a 2 hour/wk course which is our advisory meeting, essentially we meet with our advisor to discuss the happenings of the past week. Beyond this all work is completed outside of the classroom environment. Secondly, at the end of each semester, we have what the school calls a tech fair. Essentially the entire school is set aside where every group shows off what they've done, and we have some media coverage and several employers onsite for the tech fair. Essentially this allows employers to gage a students skill level by seeing what they have done. Thirdly, each tech project is required to incorporate something above and beyond course material, hence the promotion of self learning, and not simply having to be taught everything you know in a classroom environment.
If you look at most jobs, they want several years related experience, and even entry level positions, the employer wishes to see what you are capable of and what you have done. The most interesting item that this "teaches" is atleast one person in each group gets to feel the stresses of project management, and every member learns new skills. If you had to hire someone, would you prefer someone who knew all the theory but has never worked on a project that hsa actually done anything, or someone who actually knew how to work as part of a team building a project that actually does something.
I am currently in a program at a college doing this very exact thing. For the last two semesters we have essentially our Final Project, which for the first semester is basically doing the planning and design stages of developement, and the second semester actually building it and implementing it basically targetting the end of the semester.
The really neat part is for our CIS progam, they encourage that we actually get a client and build a project that they need completed, and will actually be used by the client. This is for the added benefit of for 1 potentially being hired by the company upon completion, or atleast getting references and building contacts for future usage.
However, for our case, this project primarily is ours to design and build. We have a project advisor who gives us feedback, and who report to for our course mark, but doesn't really do anything beyond providing feedback, and sort of making sure everything gets done.
I find this concept for a final project to be very beneficial, you can actually say that you have real world experience in building a production system, that is used by a company. I would iamgine this would look a whole lot better to a potential employer then a student who knows the technology, but has never had the chance tow ork on a system deployed in a production environment.
You said you were interested in Technology, but to me this tends to break down atleast somewhat between networking, programming, and databases. I would suggest you pick a program, likely a degree to get the well roundedness and these days the respect required. Then I would apply at the schools tech department if you want to become a network admin.
You'll learn alot just because your administering a school network, and nothing gets abused like school computers. It is also good preperation for business like administrative / support roles where you need to go in and troubleshoot a networking problem. Or the common stuff such as deploying images, rolling out updates, etc.
Secondly, if your more interested in Programming / Database type stuff, become a tutor. As a tutor you generally get paid, but it's not necassarily a stead job. However, if your at a university which has good IT programs, Programming is one of those murderous courses where there will be lots of people needing tutoring. And you will learn so much about this field just because you now have to relay information onto other students who may be struggling alot.
I am currently in my last 8 months for my degree, and I do both of these on top of a third job of which I've just been promoted to a team leader. I'd say both the network admin and programming tutor have been invaluable experience, related to two potential fields I can enter after I've completed my program.
As always, this is what has worked for me, your mileage may vary.
I myself like using trac which I believe is opensource and works off of a subversion tree. To my knowledge Subversion is meant to be a better solution then CVS for most items, and can be used on it's own.
On the other hand, my company uses Subversion and TortoiseSVN as a shell extension, edit files locally and simply commit them to the subversion repository. You can do all the blame, branching/tagging you need, but our company is likely much smaller then yours. Something to look at I guess.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sorry I didn't read all of the comments, but didn't microsoft make their money and run type of thing. At the end of the article the guy said Microsoft must be loosing money because of "brain-dead" policies.
But he has a valid Microsoft license, that came with the computer, and the system is already paid for. So Microsoft made their money, and now doesn't have to support their system. Even if the business won't go with Windows servers in the future, the way they seem to purchase hardware would seem that they will continue recieving pre-built computers with windows, then install linux on it. HP and Microsoft will continue making money without really loosing the business.
Just my thoughts on the subject anyways.
I sort of have to disagree with this, as for 1 our school does have stuff to teach and I may have been misleading about how our school goes about this process. We have a 2 hour/wk course which is our advisory meeting, essentially we meet with our advisor to discuss the happenings of the past week. Beyond this all work is completed outside of the classroom environment. Secondly, at the end of each semester, we have what the school calls a tech fair. Essentially the entire school is set aside where every group shows off what they've done, and we have some media coverage and several employers onsite for the tech fair. Essentially this allows employers to gage a students skill level by seeing what they have done. Thirdly, each tech project is required to incorporate something above and beyond course material, hence the promotion of self learning, and not simply having to be taught everything you know in a classroom environment.
If you look at most jobs, they want several years related experience, and even entry level positions, the employer wishes to see what you are capable of and what you have done. The most interesting item that this "teaches" is atleast one person in each group gets to feel the stresses of project management, and every member learns new skills. If you had to hire someone, would you prefer someone who knew all the theory but has never worked on a project that hsa actually done anything, or someone who actually knew how to work as part of a team building a project that actually does something.
I am currently in a program at a college doing this very exact thing. For the last two semesters we have essentially our Final Project, which for the first semester is basically doing the planning and design stages of developement, and the second semester actually building it and implementing it basically targetting the end of the semester.
The really neat part is for our CIS progam, they encourage that we actually get a client and build a project that they need completed, and will actually be used by the client. This is for the added benefit of for 1 potentially being hired by the company upon completion, or atleast getting references and building contacts for future usage.
However, for our case, this project primarily is ours to design and build. We have a project advisor who gives us feedback, and who report to for our course mark, but doesn't really do anything beyond providing feedback, and sort of making sure everything gets done.
I find this concept for a final project to be very beneficial, you can actually say that you have real world experience in building a production system, that is used by a company. I would iamgine this would look a whole lot better to a potential employer then a student who knows the technology, but has never had the chance tow ork on a system deployed in a production environment.
You said you were interested in Technology, but to me this tends to break down atleast somewhat between networking, programming, and databases. I would suggest you pick a program, likely a degree to get the well roundedness and these days the respect required. Then I would apply at the schools tech department if you want to become a network admin.
You'll learn alot just because your administering a school network, and nothing gets abused like school computers. It is also good preperation for business like administrative / support roles where you need to go in and troubleshoot a networking problem. Or the common stuff such as deploying images, rolling out updates, etc.
Secondly, if your more interested in Programming / Database type stuff, become a tutor. As a tutor you generally get paid, but it's not necassarily a stead job. However, if your at a university which has good IT programs, Programming is one of those murderous courses where there will be lots of people needing tutoring. And you will learn so much about this field just because you now have to relay information onto other students who may be struggling alot.
I am currently in my last 8 months for my degree, and I do both of these on top of a third job of which I've just been promoted to a team leader. I'd say both the network admin and programming tutor have been invaluable experience, related to two potential fields I can enter after I've completed my program.
As always, this is what has worked for me, your mileage may vary.
I myself like using trac which I believe is opensource and works off of a subversion tree. To my knowledge Subversion is meant to be a better solution then CVS for most items, and can be used on it's own.
On the other hand, my company uses Subversion and TortoiseSVN as a shell extension, edit files locally and simply commit them to the subversion repository. You can do all the blame, branching/tagging you need, but our company is likely much smaller then yours. Something to look at I guess.