Theres a really cool sci-fi book I recently discovered called the Bible! It has all sorts of tales of super-men with powers to create entire worlds in 7 days (and he even took the day off on one of those days!), tales of sci-fi monsters, hybrid human/super-men crosses that can heal normal men with one touch, ability to part seas, walk on water, what a wonderous book! I wonder when men will see one of these great sci-fi stories come to truth....... wait....

Let me take a step backwards for a second and explain my situation. I've been developing for the web for many years now and I've seen technology come and go but I've never seen an idea of an OpenSource web portal take such a strong hold as Joomla! has. PHPNuke was close but even then you rarely randomly stumbled upon a Nuke site every second search. However, unlike Nuke, Joomla seems to have taken over like a bad storm.

I still have some websites lingering around that use Joomla but I am very much dissociated with that CMS, infact any CMS nowadays. I find the issues that these systems bring to the table far outweigh any little added productivity that a small group can sustain. There are teams of script kiddies from Asia and elsewhere scouring online websites for these systems to prove just how easy they are to hack into. If you have an online database with confidential client information, you are in trouble.

The largest website I manage is my own and it ran Joomla for 2 years while I was working on my MSc degree. I had to deal with repeated attempts by hackers to break into this website. It was very frustrating after scouring logs on my linux server to find out that they came in through one of the "secured" CMSs. SQL injections, cross site scripting hacks, upload/media vulnerabilities, you pretty much name it that so called secure web server had one big gaping hole in it and that was Joomla.

I peruse Joomlancers sometimes when looking for some spare cash (freelancing site dedicated to Joomla) and try to encourage local North American companies to ditch this disaster of a CMS. Not only do you have to deal with bugs and exploits at the core but when people load up this CMS with extensions that are mostly all crap (even Community Builder can't seem to get it right) you put together a nice looking template (like this guy with his book from Drupal suggests) and then put it out there for the "Mad Dogs of Vietnam" to hack into and make your online reputation look like shit.

I salute the chap that pointed out how vastly the Joomla community is growing with its extensions and micro-economic community, its a good point really. But if you take a look at whose running these communities (Joomla Art, a popular Joomla template company, Joomlancers, and others) are all owned by a Vietnam company that has less than stellar ethics when dealing with clients - Just search the Joomla forums. I have to wonder why the top contributors and hackers are all from the same city Hai Noi =) Birds of a feather I suppose or is that just job "security"?

I got out as fast as I got into looking after websites running Joomla. Last year we had 13 clients running Joomla and what a headache I developed looking after these sites. The previous freelancers knew how to use a CMS and after that they knew nothing. Even their half-assed attempts at building in additional functionality was more of a joke than anything. I had clients breathing down my neck over issues that were really out of my control. One day I woke up and realized that the real issue was Joomla and thats when I drew the line with it. Now a days I only work for clients that will develop from the ground up. I no longer have to deal with the types of security issues that these open CMS systems bring to the table. They are great to impress a client in a hurry with something that looks and works right away but as the days turn into months you will have the gut feeling like "what did I do..." ...don't do it. Build yourself a core set of functions and your own library in PHP and then build ontop of that individual sites. Code Ignitor among others still get a thumbs up from me. Don't use the same mysql fields all the time. Change your database connection strings up. Change critical global variables every now and then. Thats my 2 cents.

There hasn't been a PC Mechwarrior game released in almost 8 years yet people keep playing Mechwarrior4 because of our community support at MekTek.net and other community leagues and forums dedicated to the game and series. We have become so overwhelmed with supporting the Mechwarrior community that we started building our own versions of the classic PC series (AT1:BT using the Blitz3d engine, NP using OGRE, and our MekPaks for MW4). We did produce 3 fan built expansions for MW4 through some rather creative reverse engineering.

On average our webserver costs $2000 USD depending where the economy is at, and we also have a development server which costs $1500 USD. We only ask our community to support our webserver and they always do through donations.

Do I think the community would support a Mechwarrior MMO based on a model that we proved works? SURE! With a little bit of marketing and getting the word out there we could certainly build a self-sustainable Mechwarrior MMO.

Do I think the future of gaming is dependent on this model? No. I think the future of gaming needs bigwigs to realize that the old school hackers will persist in their communities and locking out PC Game modders is a bad thing in a MMO because it is a subscription based service. Rather, I almost prefer that an MMO subscription is only required to access official game servers and download new content from the primary developer (yes the primary developer needs to provide new content).

Just my 2cents,
MekTek.net Founder
-VAM

You should really think about the older folks before babbling on about a scenario that I imagine features that 28 year old blond twit hired for that managerial secretary position because of her perky boobs.

My dad runs a successful business, hes 62, he knows how to use GMail and Hotmail. Very computer illiterate. When GMail introduced the ability to use custom domains along with checking POP3 and download emails into Gmail he was all set. What a great service they offer for someone like him.

Over the years, being an industrial mechanic (and never having or being able to sit at a desk for 8 hours) he never caught on and today he is still nervous about doing anything on the computer himself within a desktop application. However, for some reason doing things on a website seems easier to him, I can't explain it really but thats how it is for him.

I'm not grammar queen but come on CmdrTaco! This one hurt my brain cell. I think I lost one =)

*gasp* Gnome!

I did. But wasn't the point of the comment. KDE4.x was.

Thank you SIR!

KDE4.x is the reason I switched back to Windows! It was just too much to bare. Inability to use older QT apps, difficulties with GTK apps. Whatever. The OpenSource solution is as bad or worse for someone with a day job. This is why desktop linux is no solution to average home users. Even with Compiz running I still couldn't take KDE4.x

What? People pay for IT work? Thats ridiculous. Bunch of 70s pong playing punks! Since when do pay kids to play with computers!

Stupid post =)

These kids are all of the same age range. These are hormone driven teens that have reached puberty that experimenting and trying to entice each other into sexual play. Which is actually healthy, normal, and certainly not something to be considered child pornography. Rather than our hard earned tax dollars going into this obscene judicial process, why not take these kids and teach them about safe sex, sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy, and morals and values about sexually conduct.

Even the bible teaches us males in the first chapter of geniuses about the woes of a woman. How old does the church consider Eve and Adam to be? Considering that man was suppose to have been created in how many days? The same nut jobs that believe that shit are the ones involved in this 'prosecution'.

The black man with the magic wand has a steep hill to climb I think.

Small businesses are a pain in the ass even if you are your own boss. There are plenty of things to do and worry about and since you will likely be looking to more than 5-15 hours a week I would recommend taking that extra 5 hours and spending it with your kids. Infact, don't kid yourself, most clients expect a great deal of work for as little as possible. What happens when a client needs to contact you during 'normal' working hours? Your current employer won't be happy when they figure out what you are doing. I had a part time contract with a full time employer and even though the technology between the two was completely different I ended up loosing the job with the full time employer because they thought I was cutting their company. Be prepared to be overwhelmed. I couldn't imagine doing this work with a family. If you are looking for something to do then why not get a hobby or build a useful application and sell it for $30-40. How much work can you really do in 5 hours? Clients want 50 hours a week not 5!

Just my 2 cents.

All markets are doing poorly. Why do people think that these companies are all going to vanish without a trace? Its only noticeable because its the big dog. The little companies are the ones that are vanishing without a trace.

I expect similar announcements from Intel, Cisco, Adobe, just to name a few. It is no shock that Microsoft has to put jobs on the chopping block.

As a webmaster dealing with clients and companies on a regular basis I have to applaud Google for this. There are so many reasons why IE6 is crap that I lost track. Why are people insisting on using that security hazard people call a browser? Lack of PNG support, lack of following standards, I never seen a product from Microsoft that I loath more than IE6. If Microsoft had made a decent browser or release an update for IE6's rendering engine for Win2k+ users then Firefox likely would have been as popular as it has been.

But remember if you switch to Google Chrome be sure to read the EULA =)

I was almost expelled from junior high over ASCII art and this one brought back some memories. There plenty of emoticons banned after that at that school. Funny how the principal even declared that computers were evil arcade machines that would never be useful in the 'real world'. }=)

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A certified electrician is who you need to hook this up. If you are going to doing this work yourself then you should be prepared to show the insurance company your electricians papers when you launch into a live system effectively creating a electrical storm and an arc of electricity that can kill you, your loved ones, and burn your home down in a flash.

I live in the North East, and I realize that these things happen. Don't blame the power utility for your misfortune. You are living in one of the more harshest climates in the world (and it does have its advantages -- though most of those are when you live in the sticks and can do whatever the hell you want).

If you have access to a wood stove and some dry hardwood then that would be enough to keep your home warm. Another thing is letting your taps drip which should keep enough water moving in the mainline that your pipes don't freeze. If you have a hot water based furnace then you have other issues since that is a closed system but can also be bled if you know what you are doing.