Yes the open uni is great and they provide much more support and interaction with tutors but it is also considerably more expensive than london uni if you are outside the uk.

London Uni has actually been offering distance learning degrees for far longer than the open uni (or any other) but you are more or less on your own after they send you the course notes and reading lists although some courses/colleges in london uni also offer summer schools and such things, for an additional fee.

You can do a BSc entirely by distance learning through London Uni (apart from the exams which you sit at a British Council office anywhere in the world) and it is also relatively cheap.

http://www.londoninternational.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate/goldsmiths/bsc-computing-information-systems-bsc-diploma-work-entry-route

They have many other undergrad & postgrad courses too.

Dude, this is slashdot.. ;)

It's a matter of using the right tool for the job.. to use a car analogy - you could drive a Fiat Panda in a Formula 1 race and chances are you would still get to the finish line eventually but it's not really the best car for that particular job, however it is fine for getting around town and you'd look a bit silly going to the supermarket with an F1 car! (no room the shopping)

There are many storage engines available for mysql these days and each have their good and bad points so choose one based on your expected usage.

Me too.. its many many years since I had any such problems with mysql and back then it was only when using the myisam storage engine and shitty hardware. Using innodb "just works" and it has never failed at recovering itself in the event of a hardware/server crash. I use it with truckloads of data and it does the job just fine as long as it is configured reasonably well.

Perhaps it was just a floating pumice island.. http://blogs.smh.com.au/science/archives/2006/12/post_3.html

It was actually just a really really big whale.

Well rocket launches and subsequent interceptions are very public and half the worlds media were there watching it all happen right in front of them so the figures can't be too far off. In fact the IDF says today that overall the success rate was 84%

Looks quite successful here anyway.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxwCYZ6Zhew

As long as it's not a mirror..

I've been using my eeepc now for over 2 years and it is my full time work & play machine. It does everything I need - it runs apache and mysql for dev, plays vids with vlc, runs browsers with a silly number of tabs open (and loads of other apps), I plug in a big screen and spread my desktop across the two screens and I connect a small mouse.. it runs ubuntu netbook remix (10.04) and gets a reboot once every couple of months if it's lucky.

I can't see myself needing any other computer these days as long as this one holds out. It's the dogs bollocks.

by releasing user and employee data from paypal and others? So only us regular people actually suffer the consequences.. good move!

imagine a beowulf cluster of those!

You haven't seen the way the typical 'white van man' drives around here!

This guy also has a cool setup with arduino controlled aquaponics..

http://www.kijanigrows.com/
http://faircompanies.com/videos/view/internet-food-arduino-based-urban-aquaponics-in-oakland/

Actually these days it is often provided free with the domain registration. See namecheap.com and internetbs.net for example.