Personally, I would have stood my ground and let the legal system work for me in this.

You were in the right, to protect what's yours, and she used character assassination, and intimidation to get you to do what was in HER best interests, and no one else's. There are laws regarding such things, and what she did appears to be against most of them (think MAFIA tactics).

Stay strong, stand your ground, and make her pay for the wrong she's done.

I'd like to see those statistics.

Use of this also requires an Amateur Radio License from the FCC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio

Unfortunately it' a dying hobby, with all the cellphones out there, no one sees the need for radio communications anymore. One thing people have forgotten though, in a disaster situation, cellular communications either get bogged down, where you can't use it effectively, or it's completely out (depending on the disaster).

Radio communications will always be there, and Amateur Radio operators become the first line in communications, since the primary thing they do is communicate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio_emergency_communications

But regardless, this all still requires an Amateur Radio license from the FCC, or from whatever appropriate government agency in your particular country of citizenship.

What you need to understand, no security is absolutely perfect. There is no such thing, unless you disconnect the computer from all outside sources and influences, and allow no access to the computer, what that breaks down to is, unplug the computer, disconnect it from the internet, and lock it in a vault. And even that's not 100% secure.

Bottom Line:

Locks only keep honest people honest.

If you feel you have the qualifications, try to get a contract job through a contract agency.

I'd also recommend, when looking at the jobs requirements, do what you can to meet as many qualifications as possible, that includes getting certificates that they require, like A+, etc.

Once you get one contract, even a short term one, you can put that on your resume and go from there to find others later on down the road.

OK, here's the bottom line:

1) Red Hat includes support, and guaranteed updates, and you can be sure it will be continually updated in a timely manner.
2) You can call Red Hat for assistance
3) You also get content that is not included in any free distro, the Red Hat Value Added content

1) CentOS gives you a remastered version of Red Hat EL which is potentially 2 to 3 versions behind Red Hat.
2) You get the support you pay for, ie: Being told to RTFM before you're entitled to any assistance from the community. Help that's limited to what users of CentOS can give, because the developers won't waste their time helping you, even though it's Community ENTerprise OS, they really only put the distro together for themselves and don't really care about the community.
3) You can't be sure that the updates are up to date. In most cases, the updates you get are lagged significantly behind the Red Hat release, that it could leave a known security hole in your network, in a business environment this is dangerous.

Don't get me wrong, I love FOSS, and I infact use CentOS on my home server, but I also know that I have to rely on myself and those I personally know, when I need to fix something that I'm struggling with.

In a business environment, I would insist on only using a distro that has the backing and support of a company/organization that is capable and willing to support it, like Red Hat is, without saying RTFM before I'll help you. With Red Hat, you are paying for that support, and they step up to the plate to give you what you're paying for, regardless of how elementary or advanced your knowledge level is regarding the product, or the complexity level of the issue you're calling in about.

In other words, you get what you pay for, but in a business environment, you should consider if it's worth it to pay for support or get little to none.

The thing about encryption is, it's the timeliness of data.

Anyone relying on encryption to store any data for any long periods of time are confused. Any encryption system, no matter how complex, can he defeated, given time, resources, and perhaps some skulduggery.

Look at WWII and the German Enigma machine. It was no more than a computer, and very hard to crack, in fact, it couldn't be cracked on the basis of the encrypted information itself. But it did it's job, messages were secure for the length of time that they needed to be, and even if it was decrypted after the fact, it didn't matter. It took the Allied forces stealing an Enigma device and code book to actually crack Enigma encrypted messages.

The same goes for anything, it's timeliness of information. If you encrypt something long term, and someone gets ahold of it, and they want it bad enough, and have the resources at their disposal, they will in time, get at that information.

Bottom line is 2 fold actually, timeliness of information and the fact that locks only keep honest people honest.

Lindens are different than Bitcoins only in the fact that they are centrally controlled, and therefore their value is relatively stable. I can sell 10000 lindens for approx $35 USD today, and tomorrow I'll still sell 10000 lindens for approx $35 USD. Hoarding Linden dollars will not increase their value, and dumping them into the economy will not decrease their value.

Bitcoins value goes up like a commodity, with effects of hoarding contributing to their value. They have no real intrinsic value due to usefulness, just the desire to have them or willingness to accept them in lieu of USD or any other government backed currency. In this regard, absent the potential usefulness, they are more like gold, where their value goes up by people holding onto them as long as there are people out there that desire them.

Bitcoins have value because people are willing to buy/sell them, and there are people/businesses that are accepting them for services/product.

It's people that give anything it's value. Bitcoins are a commodity, just like gold or silver, or steel, or copper, or anything else in the world. Due to the fact that there are a limited number of them, their value is higher, due to the fact that people are willing to pay more for them at the present time, gives them a higher value than yesterday. when people are unwilling to pay for them, or pay more for them, their value will drop.

I agree 100% with this statement.

If you are a professional, you should conduct yourself as one, and be expected by your customers, that you will conduct yourself as one.

A professional adheres to best practices of business. Honesty, discretion and common sense.

Although a professional should also be expected to be law abiding, it does not make them a forensics expert to report to the authorities if they find something on a customer's computer that may or may not be illegal, or morally objectionable. When a professional is working on a customer's computer, they should not be looking through their personal information or data files. And if, during the normal execution of their duties of repair, happen to come across something that is illegal or morally objectionable, they should ignore it and move on. Computer professionals are not duly deputized law enforcement agents and shouldn't be.

If, perchance, law enforcement happens to contact a computer professional asking questions about a customer or the contents of their computer(s), they should use proper discretion and contact their lawyer for advise on how to respond. If they are provided a subpoena or a search warrant, they should also contact their lawyer to aid them in dealing with it in a professional manner.