HyperCard was awesome in the days of Motorola 68K-based Macs. I have super-fond memories of "programming" with it on my SE/30 or my IIsi. But the main problem is that Apple really took it as far as it can go before it just no longer became useful, or preferable to other authoring tools out there.

It's clear the Apple did neglect HyperCard to death, but this started well before Steve Jobs returned. But I don't think there was any evil conspiracy behind its demise; I simply think HyperCard ran its course. The neglect is that they hardly made the final version available for sale. If you could find it for sale on their old, "ore-Apple Store" online web store, you could order it. This was the version we had all been waiting for, with full color stack support, and the ability to embed QuickTime media objects (pictures, movies, etc.).

Well, I found it on the site, ordered it...it came on something like 14 floppy disks, which I imaged into the old Disk Copy-style .img files and burned them all to CD-R, so that they could all be mounted at once and the install would go quicker--no floppy shuffle. Turns out this version was slow, bloated, and you know what? By this was point, it was easier to learn a little bit of simple HTML, or use one of the early WYSIWYG HTML editors like Claris HomePage, and build something similar...but faster and compatible with the most of the world that didn't have HyperCard or HyperCard Player installed.

Yes, HyperCard may have helped inspire the web, but the web overtook it. On the Mac, more powerful tools like AppleScript Studio and XCode offered *real* development opportunities, making HyperCard look quaint.

Sure, I get HyperCard nostalgia from time to time, too. So I got me a demo copy of Runtime Revolution, which picks up HyperCard where Apple left off, and adds a whole bunch of modern niceties. Sadly. the whole "stack" concept still seems antiquated and quaint, even with modern tools.

Sorry folks, reviving HyperCard is not the answer. The answer is a new pseudo-development environment and corresponding runtime that is super-easy for non-programmers to pick up. Something we haven't seen yet, not something based on old paradigms.

If this situation came up 100 times with 100 different CIOs, I'd venture to say that 99 times the CIO would make you choose Red Hat. (Actually, they'd probably steer your toward Windows Server, but let's assume we're dealing with Linux-friendly CIOs here.)

Most CIOs won't let a big software project go through without paid support from all the software vendors in question. But your CIO is a smart man. I wouldn't say all software support contracts are worthless, but if you've got strong Linux knowledge in-house, CentOS is a perfectly acceptable alternative to Red Hat.

As the director of IS at my company (we don't have a CIO title, so my position is as close as it gets), I have spent years building up Linux gurus who know their way Red Hat- and Debian-based distros. I trust their knowledge, and their ability to research and solve problems on their own, to go with CentOS when a Red Hat-based distro is needed for a certain project.

Some projects we have done have absolutely required RHEL (to the point where they won't run on Red Hat-based distros, even Fedora), so we went with them because we had to. The only difference we found was that we couldn't get updates without our RHEL license keys. We were able to solve all problems with our own staff; we only contacted RHEL support when there were problems with the update servers.

Maybe you don't feel confident enough with your in-house knowledge. That's too bad. I'd spend money on training and developing gurus rather than forking over cash just to get updates. But mostly I say enjoy your situation here, as it is very unique. 99% of CIOs are going to force you to go down the paid route.

OK, since you asked nicely, I'll draw a line. The last link in the chain of links, that links to the file that allows you to gain access to the material. So, in the case of TPB, I hereby draw the line at the link to the .torrent file.

You are correct, good sir. Pirate certainly doesn't fit everyone's situation.

Are they really "useless" if they lead you to content you are interested in and might want to download?

Don't get me wrong, I like downloading copyrighted stuff for free as much as the next guy, but I find it peculiar that otherwise smart people try to argue that what The Pirate Bay or Newzbin or whoever is doing is just offering up "indexes" or "text files" or what have you. You know damn good and well their intent is to aid you in downloading stuff you would otherwise have to pay for, for free.

Like I said, I like the free stuff too, but let's not play coy here. If you're going to be a pirate, at least admit it.

"You can't shut down my favorite torrent tracker! All they do is offer .torrent files, which are totally useless on their own! (Except for when I load in them up in a torrent client and get free music, movie, TV shows and pr0n, but really, they are useless, I promise!)

Nearly all laptops by quality manufacturers have excellent Linux support these days, especially if you are inclined to use Ubuntu.

Your MacBook is an excellent candidate. I have a couple Dells, one that came with Vista and the other with 7, that I put Ubuntu on, and they run great. I also took an older MacBook that had fell out of use, and it also runs Ubuntu like a champ. I can't say I prefer one or the other; both brands have their strongs points in terms of hardware, but the Linux experience is about as close to perfect as you can get on either Dell or Apple hardware.

If I were you, I'd seriously run Boot Camp Assistant, set up a partition, install the distro of your choice, and continue to enjoy OS X along with Linux on that nice hardware.

You recommend that you suggest? Way to take a stance there.

It is possible to run other window managers on Ubuntu, you know. You might even give Kubuntu a try if you are so inclined to customization.

Brian, is that you?

I thought most P2P software these days will latch on to port 80 or 443 if everything else is blocked...or 25, 110, 465, 587, 993, or other ports you are likely to have open even if you have "everything" blocked. Traffic on port 80 doesn't have to be HTTP, after all; that's just the "standard" protocol for that port.

Hell, I remember seeing it on NBC in the late '80s!