Yes, and is pain in the ass to use and something that no normal person will ever do. Hell, even I don't want to use it while being a geek and fully understand it's potential.. but it's just so pain in the ass.

Like with everything, how companies do things vary quite a lot. If talking about standard development environments, Visual Studio is likely the most used way to go, along with plugins for it and Microsoft Exchange infrastructure inside. It's the most professional way at least. But since you seem to be Java developer, it probably doesn't apply, but if you move to C# or C/C++ then yes.

Then he should have transferred the whole HumbleBundle account, not just Steam keys. They're given so that users can install them on their favorite platform, not give out them away for others while still using them elsewhere, ie. you use in Steam and give the Desura keys to friend.

Oh and I forgot to note that PayPal generally gives out way too much personal info. If you want to know someones real name, all you need to do is send that email $0.01 and it will be conveniently shown to you. I guess it would work for all emails you have (but don't know who they are) if they just use PayPal with the same email. Sometimes it's good to know the other parties name, especially if doing business, but it should be an option.

Best system I've seen is with WebMoney, where user have reputation score based on their activity amount, users can write about problems in their profile (and account owner can answer publicly) and you can set yourself what information is public and what is private. For example, here's account that Valve (and others) use to process payments: http://passport.wmtransfer.com/asp/certview.asp?wmid=362311291686 . It has a high business level, has been verified and ok'd to have real info via notarized documents (but still the actual information can be private) and complaints are public. This gives the option to the user to decide if he trusts the other party or not.

Maybe it's a cultural thing too, but both Europe and Russia have a history that makes people understand how important it can be protect your private information. PayPal system is really limited compared to WebMoney, but sadly it's only used mostly in Russia and other CIS countries.

There's another side to the disputes too. It generally screws over merchants and sellers, especially if they're selling digital services. It's a quite common practice for fraudsters to buy something digital and then either make a dispute or do chargeback. The seller can't really do anything else than accept it and pay additional money to cover fees. So not only the seller gives away the item/service for free, he actually loses money. Challenging it can easily lead to your account being limited or blocked, so if you rely on those transactions in your business you generally just have to take the loss.

However, such thing is much harder thing to pull out with other services like Moneybookers, WebMoney, Liberty Reserve and the now-gone ePassporte (and various others). All transactions are final, so it doesn't screw up the seller. That's why sometimes merchant require buyers to wait several days to get their digital goods or services if they're paying with PayPal.

Another thing about PayPal really are the fees. They might be ok for single purchases, but they stand to go really high if you take in lots of money, or for example get your payments via PayPal. This is especially true if you work with something like affiliate marketing and the companies pay their commissions via PayPal to international affiliates. If you generate the normal wage amount of commissions, lets say $3000 a month, the fees take $100-200 out of that. Other payment options do not take that much. For example ePassporte took $0.30 per transaction. That's why I generally use other services than PayPal, but sellers most likely have to use it as sadly PayPal gained the marketshare in western world, especially US.

Aaaand that was illegal. It clearly states they're only for your own use.

Because if it would be more widespread practice, they wouldn't get that. It's mostly just one time thing where elitist Linux geeks (those using on desktops, I actually use on servers too) want to show off when they once have the change. Also, the games being indie helps as it kind of good target audience. With more mainstream games, not so much.

On top of that, Linux is a support nightmare. The drivers are horrible, the system underneath is a moving target that changes A LOT between different Linux distros and with multiplayer games Linux users would cry aloud about some anti-cheat software like PunkBuster, VAC or Blizzard's one scanning their system while playing.

There's also no good distribution platform for Linux, like Steam. And no, apt-get or yum won't work. Considering all these, it's just not worth the effort.

Actually you don't even need to be lacking compiler, most good IDE's (for PHP at least) have fully capable debugging built-in. Most people probably use the old echo die method, but the possibility is there, and it's just as powerful as with C/C++/Delphi/Java/.NET etc..

OS doesn't matter if someone wants to target it. In fact it can even be good thing - it's a lot easier to rootkit and hide in Linux based systems than Windows, and most people don't know how to get rid of them too. Hell, in Linux a simple rootkit can work just by editing the system commands like ls.

Also, don't forget the fact that Google royally screwed over their existing users when they seriously limited the available resources and changed pricing just a few weeks ago. And how do you know Google won't discontinue the service soon enough as they seem to do with a lot of their products. I can't rely on that. At least other services give me some reliability.

Not to throw away Nasa's success, but I just want to point out this fun game http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerbal_Space_Program It's indie, lets you build your own spacecraft etc :P

I really wouldn't couldn't on TOR, especially considering that it's mostly US project intended to act against Iran. In paper it's a nice project - no, it's a great project.. but, the main reason for the existence of TOR is that it helps US to spy on Iran. And this isn't some tinfoil hat stuff either, it has been written on paper several times.

Seriously, it's almost brilliant how different Slashdot articles contradict themselves. Just yesterday we talked about how bad thing it is that Microsoft employees UEFI , and now were saying it's long overdue.

Probably because you seem to assume lots of things too. I run Linux servers myself too, and I think they're better in some situations. At the same time I can also see and understand that there's also lots of Windows Servers around and they also do better job at some things. The fact is 50% of servers run Windows Server, and you can't get around that. Personally, I use the best tool for the job and don't really care about all the evangelist bullshit.

No I'm not a Microsoft employee. Why does everyone always think you have to work for some company if you give positive comments about them? Besides, I think most people don't really comment about the company they work. I'm sure slashdot has lots of Google, Microsoft, Apple and so on employees reading this site, but they stay out of the discussions about their company.