I thought the same thing. This seems like yesteryears news? It's still a real issue, sure - but it's certainly not "new".

I use a Zotac mini PC, mounted on the wall directly behind the TV itself. USB hub zip tied to the unit, with a 2TB 2.5" USB powered HDD, USB connection for the remote IR pickup and USB dual TV tuner. Runs Windows 8 media centre. Job done. No mess. Works perfectly. I use this model: http://www.zotac.com/products/...

Boots from off to fully functional in a few seconds (SSD OS drive). Self records series by itself, the kids can use it, the wife can use it, even the babysitter can use it. Plus it has full Windows, so I can use RDP to do work while the kids eat breakfast.

Indonesia is about to execute a bunch of people, including two Australians, which is big news in Australia. They use the firing squad approach, and in the executions they carried out in January, using some 20 people firing at once - some with blanks and some with real, so the people never know if they really killed someone or not. Even still - the death is by no means quick., the fastest death by firing squad was six minutes. Others took far longer to bleed out or have internal organ failure.

It's especially big news in Australia at the moment because the two Australians (charge: drug trafficking in 2005) to be executed any day now are generally regarded by all as fully remorseful and fully reformed - even by the people executing them. Which begs the question - what's the point of a prison system based on reform if you just kill people even if they actually do reform? The two in question are said to be so well regarded in the prison they're in that other inmates have volunteered to stand in for them an be executed in their place.

The real pity here is that they're going to be executed not because of their crimes but because Indonesia's government wants to show its people how they can stand up to international pressure (something the majority of Indonesians want to see them do). So basically, they're going to be killed for political purposes, not because of their crime. That's no reason to execute someone.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not in favour of drug traffickers - but their "victims" all chose to take drugs, too.Compare that to someone who actively was involved in the Bali terrorist bombings a few years ago - I'm talking physically carried the actual bombs to the actual night club where 202 people were killed and many more mained - not just someone peripherally involved - and that guy has been released from prison in Indonesia already. But foreign drug traffickers? No - they get killed.

I think that's overly cynical and not really fair. I believe it's a genuine desire to get it right. Even if you want to remain cynical, they have every economic reason to give people an OS they want.

Yeah, I sent them a tonne of feedback, while I tested Windows 10 - all of it bug reports but I tried to give them as much information as possible, with each bug I found.

As you can read through other people's bug reports, I noticed 90% of them are not in anyway helpful to the developers - statements like "It deosunt prnit" (with no further information as to what didn't print and on what hardware) or "why are you so dtoopid!" --- "useful information" to that effect.

It's frustrating reading because this is a chance for users of Windows to get the best possible outcome by making their voices heard - unfortunately the vast majority of people making noise should probably have stayed silent, which only increases the chances that genuine bugs and useful feedback will be lost in all that mess.

Actually I shall Wear Midnight was excellent, I thought. Snuff was also very good.

I'm currently forcing myself through Raising Steam at the moment. I honestly doubt Sir Terry even read this book. He may have provided a few snippets and some ideas but there's no way he wrote it, himself. It's definitely been ghost written. Characters are terribly out of character (Vetinari is just a ranting bully with no subtlety, and Moist is just... who knows?), the style is amateurish and not like any of his other works, multiple characters fly in, make a ridiculously preachy monologue, then fly out, never to be seen again (in fact, this happens dozens of times).

I'll always remember Sir Terry for his works - and Raising Steam clearly wasn't one of them.

Sure does. I've read every one of his books, more than once (except Raising Steam, which I'm currently reading for the first time and, frankly, I doubt he actually wrote that one).

His books retain a re-readability that's rare and always entertaining. I always looked forward to the next one. We all knew this was coming and I'm sure it's heartbreaking for his family but for his fans, this sure is a sad day.

Coz all my servers are production or purpose defined, and based on CentOS or VyOS. They all work. They all do their jobs - so I haven't had a compelling reason to upgrade. I did put one server briefly on CentOS 7.0 (Kernel 3.10 or something) and the client couldn't figure out how to use it, so I rolled it back.

I'm starting to feel old. I'm still on 2.6.x on my boxes.

You're going to get crucified for suggesting a Microsoft product on slashdot :-P - but I agree with you and was going to say, it, too. We use it for distributed teams and I find it works exactly as we want. Dare I say we even use it with Surface Pros? Any tablet screen would work, though, iPad, Android or otherwise.

You mean like this:
http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE

Which allows you to have IE 6,7,8,9 and 10, all installed at the same time. And running separately. I used to use it when I needed to test websites I was developing on multiple IE versions. Now, I just test in Chrome and everyone else can suck it. :-p

Good summary. Anyone looking at going to work for themselves should read this.

Fortunately, while I'm the techy, my business partner is not. He's a business consultant (which I did as a living for a short while too but I'm still fully aware that I'm too focused on the tech). I'm lucky to work with him as he is 100% about the business, so it keeps me in check.

If you want to start your own company, then one thing matters: cashflow.

I ran a side business from about 2003 until 2010 when I decided to quit my job and go into full time business, where I still am today.

All the good ideas in the world don't matter for anything if you don't have income actually coming in, day by day. You can have the biggest profit on the balance sheet but if you don't have actual cash in the bank, you're dead. So you find yourself perpetually chasing debtors, chasing money and doing work you would rather not be doing because it pays immediately.

My advice is - start young, don't wait. When you're like me and you have kids in private school, cars, mortgages (and now staff), you can't have bad months. When you're 23 you can afford to eat noodles or whatever if it slows down, so start young when you're not already tied up with responsibilities. Make sure you have a couple of stable (couple - not one) customers, who can pay you some money each month, so you're ok and you can survive one of them going quite for a while - because they will.

Don't base your business on a dream of money coming in once you make something unless you have deep pockets (i.e. a start up) or no costs.
Don't base your business on one customer because a) as far as your government is concerned (at least most of them) that's not a business - that's being a consultant, which is not the same thing for taxation and b) if they hit a rough patch, you're screwed.
Diversify your customer base as fast as you can. Don't assume that a project on the horizon is going to happen because it my fall apart for reasons out of your control.
Minimise your outgoings, always. This goes for IT, rent and every other cost.

The bad thing about running a business is that you're running a business. If you love development or cloud or IT or whatever, if you start a business doing it, you wind up running a business. You have to chase leads, find money, do your taxes, pay staff, hire staff. Manage them when they're lazy or pissed off or bored or whatever. Pretty soon, you're not doing development or whatever - you're going to some shitty "business leaders breakfast" to hear a bunch of PHB bang on about their latest buzzwords because of the off chance you might get a meeting, which will allow you the privilege of spending 4 days making a detailed proposal (for free) to then give to someone so they can never bother getting back to you to even say "no thanks".

All that said, I wouldn't leave it for anything.

Wow. I just watched the show. That was really bad. I get that they rushed out some crap for legal reasons but I think surely this just puts another nail in the coffin of any chance of this making it to a great show, one day? Why can't WoT get the GoT treatment from HBO?