I fully agree. When you get down to the actual, usable OS with applications that work, Microsoft is the hands down winner. I have to wonder how many of the Linux crowd have completely moved away from Windows? I bet 90+% have at least 1 Windows box available "just in case". The last PC I put together with Ubuntu was not usable for the same reasons most Linux is not usable - no drivers for my stock standard recently purchased hardware. Just try to get an nVidia card to work right the first time. I last tried Jaunty, and it was great. Up and running in about 15 minutes without a reboot - it found my network and my network printer, but when I tried to use them, I had to change all of the networking back to IPV4. After I did reboot, Jaunty never did figure out the GeForce 9500 card again. I would not waste the dime on this book.

I love audio books for non-technical. I can get them from the Library for free most of the time, and I play them in the car when I'm going to and from work. e-Reader books are very difficult. I'm not going to take an e-reader into the bathroom. Technical books need to be on paper. Prefereably with a spiral binding so they open flat, and non shiny paper.

It's not like he invented BASIC, he just adapted it for the PC. BASIC was invented at Dartmouth by Kemeny and Kurtzas in 1963. Bill Gates was 8 at the time.

But the voices in my head are much louder.

Stationary Platform InteRplanITary

I'd be amazed if any product could meet the 99 to 100% perfect model even without a deadline. In my experience with business, scope creep is the norm and projects are never complete or on time. IMHO, if someone wants to become a "great" programmer, they need to have good business sense and know when and when NOT to code. I call these people Analysts and that's where most "good" programmers end up. Moderate to marginal programmers end up as Coders, and that's fine as long as they are not the ones developing specifications. Even the great programmers (analysts) are only that in a vertical market. If I took any programmer and dropped them into an alien development environment they would be terrible for months or years. I think that salary is balanced against the various levels of expertise, ability and business sense that is displayed. However, it never hurts to blow your own horn, or make a problem, then fix it, in order to get a raise.

I have to agree there! I've downloaded Linux distro's since before the 1.0 kernel and even helped support a SCSI device driver for a while. In every case there's some piece of hardware on my system that is not supported very well. Currently, it's my nVidia graphics cards. In the past it's been audio, video, printers you name it. I don't call these Windoes related requirement, I call these computing related. If I have a piece of hardware that I buy at Best Buy, it should be supported under Linux. Until the distro's get there, Linux will continue to be a geek OS. Sorry, but true.

Will this finally stop the morons that shine laser pointers at airplanes?

So, they're not banging the coconuts together, they are rubbing them together. That makes much more sense.

I really think it's Capitalism at its best! If Sun had been minding the business store and its marketing plan had been sucessful it would not be being eaten by wolves today. It's not reasonable to blame the EU or IBM either. The EU is looking out for itself (and European citizenry), and IBM is doing its job by killing off the competition.

Murdoch is constantly grandstanding! If it wasn't for the Simpsons, I'd be able to ignore Fox completely!

With all of the other ones you can just turn off the flow of money to get them under control. Banks on the other hand have your money and can control you. We need to change this!

Just what we need - more ways to mess up a browser. I thought we were supposed to be working towards standards not adding more extensions!