If you want to rise in your current company, you might consider finding out what skills you need to rise to the next level on the corporate ladder and then target those skills with individual courses. For example, my Mom was a "senior programming analyst" for about 20 years. She was told that she needed personnel and project management skills to rise to the next level of project or group leader. She decided she was having fun where she was, so her continuing education focused on a couple of courses that let her broaden her personal approach to her tasks. Her decision worked in the sense that since she was at the top of the pay scale for her job, she got the max annual bonus for many years in a row, and the company did not fire her through 3 complete corporate mergers. She did have a bachelors degree in math, but her focus was programming and the courses she took were programming courses.

UCSD has extension courses that may be available for open enrollment. That's where she went. She was a Berkeley alum but I'm not sure that was a pre-req for admission to the extension courses.

For you personally I suggest courses in software engineering, rather than "pure" computer science which will touch on a wide variety of topics that may not apply. Or pick/choose courses from the CS degree program at the university of your choice, on the theory that you can learn stuff that applies to you now and can later on be applied to a degree program. But if you're already a programmer, your next step up may be software engineering and project management.

I encrypt work email whenever it includes private or sensitive information. But that is only because my company has a global email address book and every single user has published encryption certificates. My company has also mandated that every email gets digitally signed, whether it is encrypted or not.

Which brings me to my no answer, my personal email. I would encrypt all personal email if I could, but the problem is that it is unlikely I could get all of my email recipients (or even most of them) to bother to deal with keys and making sure their email client could decrypt as required. Not only that, I use webmail a lot and it's not easy to get everyone onboard the same scheme that would allow encrypted email via webmail.

If everyone did it, then heck yes I'd encrypt all of my personal email too. If it was as easy as microsoft putting a big button "enable encryption", along with another button "send public key to email correspondent", then everyone would be using encrypted email. But they won't, so I'm pretty much out of luck.

I encrypt work email whenever it includes private or sensitive information. But that is only because my company has a global email address book and every single user has published encryption certificates.

Which brings me to my no answer, my personal email. I would encrypt all personal email if I could, but the problem is that it is unlikely I could get all of my email recipients (or even most of them) to bother to deal with keys and making sure their email client could decrypt as required. Not only that, I use webmail a lot and it's not easy to get everyone onboard the same scheme that would allow encrypted email via webmail.

If everyone did it, then heck yes I'd encrypt all of my personal email too. If it was as easy as microsoft putting a big button "enable encryption", along with another button "send public key to email correspondent", then everyone would be using encrypted email. But they won't, so I'm pretty much out of luck.

Let me guess... The same organization that discovered a keylogger on armed UAV control systems and couldn't get rid of it for months?

As a person with first hand experience on Cisco and HP Access Points, I have some disappointing news for you. There is no comparison between the Cisco and HP wireless gear. The HP stuff is repackaged Calubris Netowrk gear and it is kludgy, at best. I really, really, really have a shudder of fear when client select the HP stuff. It simply doesn't work well. The Cisco gear using a WLC (Wireless LAN Controller) is the absolute best I;ve ever seen. It's a breeze to install and performance is great. Keep in mind that when using a mesh, the bandwidth goed down 50% at each hop. So, if you have 54Mbps at the first access point, the next access points are limites to 27Mbps and the next at down to 13.5. This is under PERFECT conditions. Your distance of 300 feet is too far. I would recommend a mesh being no more than 150 feet outdoors. Preferably 100 ft. There are limitations to wireless LANS and in the end, your best bet is to create multiple meshes, each with a hard drop back to a switch. You can get underground CAT5 pretty cheap. Rather than running the whole mesh off one drop... have 3 or four of them out to the field and set up your access groups accordingly. But seriously... I would just lose the HP gear. It's so bad. I even yelled at the HP rep... just my $0.02.

In other tech news, crazy (technophobes,technophiles) found a way to (avoid,misuse) technology found in (your favorite tech here), conducting activities that resulted in (isolating them,harming people) in a surprisingly (ignorant,creepy) fashion.

The world responded with (shock,anger,compassion) for (1,2,5,30) minutes and then returned to their (pathetic lives,regularly scheduled programming).

Rule #1 for a successful business: Never spend more than you make.

A lot of people like to segregate themselves in to a special group called "geek". The fact is my 7 year old nephew crasked his buddies iPhone and helped him load apps from Cydia. He's seven years old. Think about what these young consumers will want in the future. These are the manufacturers future target market, not us dusty 30 somethings (soon to be 40 somethings). Easy to use won't cut it for the future consumers.

I can't imagine they could do away with much more than explorer and maybe a hand full of DLL's. So, basically, we are given an extra step to load our desktops... probably while we are inundated with news feeds or advertisements. I wonder which HKey will turn this off.

Sounds like it has great physical properties, but what about potential hazards? What happens when it burns or is crushed/shredded? Does it burn violently or excessively hot (or cold)? Is the smoke toxic? In mutilated form, does it release toxic or otherwise hazardous particles? Can you handle it with bare hands, and can you handle a torn edge with bare hands? Can it be disposed of normally? What about resistance to solvents and/or petroleum?

If the stuff is hazardous, then it's going to have some severe limits in practical use. The risk of hazardous exposure is going to have to be weighed against the benefits for every application, and hopefully we don't see irresponsible use of a new technology just because it's new. Some of the abuses we see of carbon fiber and li-po batteries in applications that routinely expect to get damaged are examples we shouldn't follow, if this stuff is dangerous when damaged or burned.

Good god, if a tv show intended for viewing on a tv inside a home was allowed to be shown on one of those newfangled gadgets that are electronical and have viewing screens that show magical MOVING IMAGES while inside a home, who KNOWS what might happen NEXT! We gotta stop this NOW, before someone thinks of a way to somehow magically store those shows to see them later inside that same house, or, god forbid, see the shows on TWO TVs in the same house at the same time!!!!!111eleventyone

everyone panic and someone for the love of god CALL THE LAWYERS!

How is this any different from a commander including a room full of water-damaged equipment during a congressional visit, to highlight the need for funding roof repairs in a critical facility that is too old to get maintenance/upkeep funding through normal procedures?

Really, the military can't fund or equip itself so whenever the people who DO fund and equip the military come by for a visit, you can bet your ass that the military commander will attempt to tell his story to the visitors. This is the way it is in an all-volunteer military that gets its orders from a chain of command that has no ability to actually provide money to accomplish those orders. The military takes its lawful orders, and does what it can to get funding to carry them out.

If anyone has a problem with this, they need to take it up with the SecDef, Commander in Chief, and chairmen of the military oversight committees in congress. Those people need to get their crap straight before anyone goes pointing fingers at the military folks who are stuck with orders to accomplish unfunded missions without enough personnel.

A kindle or equivalent book reader would also be a lot easier to keep charged with a small solar panel than most other tiny computers or tablets. Charge both a small light and the kindle with solar during the day, read/study a bit after sunset until the light batteries start to fade. I've read about lots of remote villages becoming much more productive due to having a few hours of light before sunrise and after sunset because of relatively cheap solar charged lights, and a kindle (or a ruggedized stripped down equivalent) wouldn't take much power to keep charged. Keep the whispernet and wifi options though. That could be the only way to get new content since remote locations may not have any network other than cellphones.

Wifey hates the smell of burning plastic in the oven. Don't ask me how I know this.