Nobody make a splash..

If you are an official non profit (501 organization) Google provides free services including their App engine AND will provide up to $10,000 free adwords advertising a month. http://www.google.com/nonprofi...

I just assumed this had to do with a heist that went un-reported. E.g. they had to take out the power sub-station before cracking another criminal's safe or something.

I just skimmed the Slashdot description it looks interesting. It looks really interesting I'll come back to read it later ;) /sarcasm & irony.

By EOD today I'll be officially employed as my own company. The issues that OP presented are quite common. While I also run a home lab I have also seen the advantages of being in the directorial position. I think that too many tech companies out there are not run by people with sufficient experience. Recently I was doing some interviews in the Boston area (before deciding to start my own company) and the companies that seemed to be doing the best were the ones that were staffed by veteran senior developers. Capt. James I'm happy to see your viewpoint here because this is what I am hoping for in the long run.

I always assume that it's pretty standard practice to delete any /install folder. I mean seriously.. Not only are you keeping your installation tidy but obviously it prevents anyone from re-running any install scripts. So it either comes down to people being lazy or just not knowing. I forget how many "webmasters" or "developers" are out there that don't even know the basics. As sort of an argument point spin-off, better software has led to less hands on deployment and made it easier for more people to deploy sites. In this vein people haven't learned how to RTFM since installs are so easy. /rant

The scary thing is that they were using Google a private US company to share private international secrets. This is just sloppy in my opinion. I mean.. come on how seriously are they trying to protect this sensitive information if they are uploading it to third party servers which probably never delete data and just deep freeze it?

However, I mostly code in C# .NET and I dabble in Java in my spare time to model financial markets. What I have found is that C# has some powerful features that other languages do not have. This allows the .NET framework to be a little more robust than Java. Also my opinion is that C# and .NET creates a more syntactically elegant and coder friendly experience whereas Java is good, but not as good as .NET. In closing, C# .NET > Java. Please address .NET hate-responses to /dev/null

The first thing is that you need to know the language you are working in. So if you are coming from a C background, it's similar but you should pick up a book on C++ (or whatever language you happen to be working in). Secondly it takes practice. Every day I am working with other people's code to fix problems. Once I find the problem area I have to sit and digest what's going on line by line, and usually add comments, where were not there to begin with. Lastly learning how to effectively read other people's code is one THE BEST skills you can have as a developer. Anyone can read their own code but to work as a team you need to be able to read other people's code and not get turned off by it. Small rant, most people who can't read other people's code seem to think that no one else knows what they are doing and that their code is sacred and they are the best coders ever, which is rarely the case and usually the opposite.

I have been developing .NET apps for a long time and prior to that I was using LAMP. If you want to learn SQL you can get a free copy of Microsoft's development tools, specifically Sql Server Express 2012, and Visual Studio Express 2012. If you have zero sql experience I recommend picking up a book and learning that way to get started. As far as Exchange you should get some computers / servers to practice on, or a really good one and use Hyper-V for lab setups. Spin up several of their eval licenses and configure the eval version of Exchange on Active Directory. I also recommend going through the features / roles of Windows server. Basically jump in, get books where you need the deep knowledge, but nothing beats hands on experience. Learn to talk the talk and walk the walk. If you want a good practice server I recommend getting a Dell XS23-SB on eBay, I paid about $300 for mine, it has four "blades" that you can use. Or like I said get a kick-butt system and use Hyper-V.

I can't believe I just read this, but I guess I'm not surprised.

This actually happens more often than you think. Usually the are found out. I remember seeing one example of a poorly clone stamped image where the photographer made the dark clouds from an explosion look bigger. And don't forget Martha-Gate, when they photoshopped her head onto a body model for the cover of Newsweek.

Save the ales!