MH stores each email as a plain text file, each folder as a directory. It uses the unix filesystem as its database. It's very quick and has tools to re-order a folder quickly.

In addition, MH has tools to convert mail formats. It was designed in the days of low cpu power and small disks. It also lent itself well to being wrapped by other tools like xmh, exmh and mh-e so you don't have to learn the raw MH commands.

Yes, IMAP is cool, but don't discount MH. Plus the O'Reilly MH book is free as a PDF.

Oh, some IMAP servers and mail clients use MH format or something derived from it.

Minix ran on an 8086/8088 with 512k ram. It used the same 64k I&D model as PDP-11s

I have that issue. Also the 1984 issue that focused on Unix. I got them around 1990.

DEC had a number of MIPS based computers that ran Ultrix.

DECstation 3100, 5100 workstations.
The 5900 (and 5800?) mini computer.

Ultrix ran on Vaxen and MIPS systems.
The Alpha chip and OSF/Digital Unix/Tru64 replaced MIPS and were much faster.

I think SGI had Indy and Indigo2 systems at the time of the DECstations. They may have preceeded the purchase of MIPS by SGI

Well, he was probably running on SCO, not Linux or FreeBSD.....

Reboots to fix problems should never be done.

Reboots as a matter of policy isn't a bad idea.

If your system reboots periodically, you force network disconnections, memory cleanup, etc.

Users that logged on months ago are no longer tying up resources. Maybe they don't need it but forgot to logout. Or their client died so there's a zombie on the server.

Administer? No. Debug? Yep! http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/7295/1/

I don't run vim if it's not part of the OS. I run /usr/bin/vi because it's part of the OS. On Linux it might be vim. On BSD it might be nvi, on Solaris it's vi.

Real Unix vets know how to use the tools that came with the OS and don't *have* to use extra stuff. But we'll use nmap if we have it. Or emacs.

FWIW, you can use echo * when ls isn't available.

The rope is the rail. The only place you need bearings are the ski towers. Look at a ski lift.

Heck, look at every ski area with a lodge at the top or even an EMT shack. They use the lift to get supplies up.
Of course it works. It's in use at every ski area in the world. A purpose built system would be more efficient.

You forgot Itanium. Server 2008 runs on Itanium.

Alpha has an x86 to Alpha JIT compiler that would eventually turn an x86 app into native code. It wasn't enough to keep NT on Alpha.

I think everything else got steamrollered by x86.

MS has the work environment locked up. We all run Windows to AD/Exchange/Office/Sharepoint and other native apps. Maybe some users will get a thin client to a terminal server to run legacy apps with a native web browser locally.

Most home users will just need a web browser on a phone/tablet/laptop/desktop to access everything. They're finding that Windows doesn't need to be a part of that.

Connie Willis wrote an interesting story called Remake.

All dead actors rights were under license and it was more cost effective to use dead actors then unknown live actors.

http://www.amazon.com/Remake-Connie-Willis/dp/0553374370

I've been using a web browser since 1993, both at home and at work.

I have always had lots of bookmarks and usually want the same set at home and at work. It's always been a pain to combine them without duplicating or losing bookmarks. I used to use my bookmarks.html as my home page.

I've gone from Mosaic to Netscape to Mozilla to Firefox. I tried external sites like delicious but didn't like how it got brought back to my browser. I tried scripts that would merge 2 copies into a master copy.

Foxmarks was the 1st system that did what I wanted. It even helped when I tried Chrome. I love saving a bookmark at work and finding it at home.

I don't want to have to sync anything else. I use different extensions, cookies, logins, etc at home/work. Work has a censoring proxy that blocks some sites. I don't use facebook, youtube, etc at work because they monitor for "excessive usage". I can wait until I get home in any event. I certainly don't want any tabes brought back to work.

The next thing I want to find is a bookmark cleaner to clean out dead links. Some of my book marks might be for a device I power on in summer and off in winter every year and I want to keep those even if they go off the network.

The textbook looks like a good introduction to concepts using computers, but as an IT Systems Administrator, I wouldn't call it IT. Some of the suggestions here are programming, not IT. IT uses programming, but lots of it is user stuff.

For IT concepts:

Something on security, using passwords. Maybe explain it in terms of a diary that you don't want a sibling to read & how to ensure that. The issues of sharing too much online.

How email works. Storing & forwarding. How email addresses are organized.

How an algorithm works. Math, if-then-else, functions. This plus this. Use a spreadsheet. Use a programming language. Use Openoffice macros. Use javascript. Teach concepts.

Teach file organization. Grouping files. Sorting, date formats. Moving files, copying files, backups. Age of data.

Teach about tags, metadata (data about data). File sizes.

Tables, statistics, graphing. How to use it to measure something over time. Outliers. Measuring something scientifically like time/distance, temperature, etc.

In the southern US, some weeds have already developed a resistance to weeds.

The techniques those farmers currently use for large scale farming need to be changed.

Speed is the NASCAR channel. I try to watch MotoGP on it. There was a 3 way battle for 2nd place going on last week and they cut away from it, just as an attack was going on to show 1st place, 4-5 seconds ahead, cruising across the finish. *sigh*

There's lots of cutting away from a race to show a NASCAR repeat. ESPN used to do it with Supercross & cut off the end to show the football draft rerun. At least Speed treats supercross better then ESPN.

FWIW, I heard about an F1 race with 2-3 lead changes in a race. The next week I saw a MotoGP with 4 lead changes in *1* corner.

And I say "the day the gov't/power company put something in to remotely turn off my toilet"

I'm all for having something where I can see how much power I'm using minute to minute. The power, gas, phone and water utilities should already be able to do this. I'd love to be able to get the same data on my system in a reasonable timeframe. I'd probably be willing to pay.

But no way am I going to give permission to any of them to turn it off w/o my active involvement. I have my owe computer monitoring my freezer temp, burgler alarms. My garden gets watered during the day, etc.