The Manga Guide to Databases is the best introduction to (relational) databases I've come across. It provides an entertaining and thorough overview of database terminology and concepts. I've used this book for years with junior engineers and interns who have all loved it, and the DBAs I've loaned it to were impressed by how much ground the book covers.

There are best practices and rules a programmer should follow and those should be set at the team level...call that "style" if you want. But formatting? Who cares? The IDE takes care of that. If the diff engine on your IDE or repository can't tell the difference between code changes and whitespace changes then something's wrong. I was on a (Java) project where half the team liked braces on a new line and half didn't. When I worked on code written by someone else, the first thing I'd do is hit alt-shift-F (Netbeans) to reformat the code. I'd do the same if I pasted some code...reformat the file to get the new code formatted the right way.

Our SVN repository wasn't glutted with meaningless diffs and I didn't face hundreds of conflicts when updating code. In this modern age (despite the lack of flying cars) it's silly to have to conform to one standard to make the software happy. Software works for us, not the other way around. I use software to format code the way I'm most comfortable with...why should everyone compromise so no one is happy? Just set up your tools properly and stop worrying about formatting.

I don't know how desktop users could have asked for something that hasn't yet existed on the desktop, but the classic desktop is still there:

http://www.ghacks.net/2012/10/08/how-to-switch-from-windows-8s-startscreen-to-the-desktop/

You must be gnu here...

I'm a coder and I've found I'm much more productive when I'm listening to music through headphones (usually the Foo Fighters or 311). Without music I'm much more prone to distraction, and not just from office noises. I'm more inclined to get a random thought and end up surfing the web when I'm not listening to music. Meds will help me stay in the zone but music definitely increases my productivity, on or off meds.

I never referred to my studies as "bra input" like they did but I guess that's what it takes to get funding. All my research has been self-funded...

I'm sure that's a comfy couch but it doesn't need to fill the frame. How about zooming in on the speaker?

...I'll be by to take it because you don't seem very bright.

You announce on Twitter when you leave your house ("Off to IKEA!"), you're too cheap to pay for ADT (or even ADT signs and stickers), yet you don't mind paying for equipment so you can sit around and monitor your home.

Let me know when you get the webcams up and running...I'm sure you'll fail to change the default password. I'd rather use the webcams to see when you leave rather than following you on Twitter.

One of the Stack Exchange sites would give you better answers, or at least a set of answers without "frist psot". Take a look at http://serverfault.com/ or even http://askubuntu.com/.

Brilliant! I will now rule the workplace!

Really? Wow...how did that game get funded?

We faced a similar problem once upon a time and used a USB key from Wibu as the solution (http://www.wibu.com/wibukey.html - they have a newer product out now). It's been a few years since I worked on the project but in general what we did was used the key to decrypt small, critical portions of the code. The software couldn't run without the key and it was non-trivial to patch the code to an unencrypted state. No solution is perfect but that worked for us.

It would take an amazing camera to photograph both sides of a document at once. That's why I use the ScanSnap s1500 - it will beat your 12-15 pages per minute while scanning both sides in color and creating PDFs on the fly. Its footprint is small enough that it sits on my desk.

I second the above post. I also have an S1500 and like jrkotrla says, it's magic. I open the unit, load the docs, press the blue button and the PDF is stored in the correct folder. Load more docs, press the blue button, etc. I rename the files and remove unneeded pages before moving the PDF to its final location but that's all the effort I expend.

Are you a janitor? Programmer? DBA? SA? Middle manager?

And what is "an open source job"? Is that a job where anyone can come by and do your work for you?

Your knee-jerk reaction makes no sense. You didn't say what you do or how the change will affect you, only "OMG M$!!!!!". In the end your company will be better off without you.