The best qualities are pretty much the same no matter what work you do. Be honest. Accept responsibility if you screw up. Defend your co-workers when they deserve it. Be helpful, not competitive. Share knowledge and show others how you learned what you know so that they can find it next time. If you do these things, you'll be the "go to" guy that people respect and trust.

VCR? What's that?

What is wrong with just using parental control software that already exists? I know it's part of the OS on a Mac, and I'm sure there are some analogs available for Windows. You're overthinking it and trying to build the "ideal system." Anyone who has owned a computer for more than a few days realizes quickly that the "perfect system" is a myth, albeit a pretty one. You're a single parent. You have more to do than administrate 4 computers (yours and the 3 they will have). In fact, try just adding 1 or 2, it's likely they don't all need one. Just one that isn't yours. You know your kids best, but I doubt all three need to use the computer at the same time. Just my thoughts. Really, though. You're making this harder than it needs to be.

They had to let Mr.Fudd go, he never seemed to know whether it was rabbit season or duck season. And regardless of which season he thought it was, he always seemed to wind up killing the duck. Which of course he blamed on the rabbit.

Even if Opera is approved, how do they make it the default browser? If you click a link in Mail it will still go to Safari, I'm willing to bet. There currently is no mechanism to specify another browser to the iPhone OS.

I agree. If you apply standards that all browsers should support, you'll also be friendly to other browsers like Firefox, Safari, Konqueror, Opera, etc. There's no reason to have to build separate pages and do redirects (or detect browser in PHP and cough up different page code). The whole point of HTML is that it should render in any browser (which includes Lynx, too). As a Mac user, I'm glad to see the web lose its Microsoft-centric view of the world. Firefox (which owes it's history to Netscape) finally put a dent in Microsoft's armor so others could succeed too.

TACT. As someone else on this topic is already mentioned not having upper management on board with the policy when it was created was the first mistake. At this point you must rely on diplomacy to get them on board. I speak from my own experience. I joined a company whose lone programmer had written a very convoluted web program in ColdFusion. As soon as I was able I was quick to disassemble the program into modular components that can be swapped in and out depending on the client's needs. I also instituted a test system (he'd been doing everything live). Said programmer was obviously my boss, but he got promoted out of daily operations. Of course this didn't stop him from attempting to make changes. More than once I found discrepancies between something that he'd inserted into the live system that was not mirrored in the test system. He simply had his own way of doing things and wouldn't change. At this point I had to employ tact and diplomacy. If nothing else at least suggested to him that he share what he's working on with the rest of the programming crews so that we know what areas to avoid and don't step on his code. By reversing the situation, he felt I was being deferential and complied. Good luck. You're going to need it.

I agree with most people here, but for a different reason, I think. Any scripting language is interpreted rather than compiled. I think compilation is difficult for beginners to understand. A good interactive interpreted language gives quick results so it encourages them to "experiment." I learned with BASIC and LOGO, but I'd also recommend Python or even Applescript or shell scripting (dos or linux) - those are all "quick result" languages that allow him to see that he is controlling things happening on the screen.

1. Hangover cure - B vitamin complex and 2 aspirin before bed. Next morning you're good to go. 2. Recipe for Romulan Ale: 2 quarts of Kool-Aid Berry Blue and grain alcohol (or vodka) to your taste. For hangovers, see item 1.

Wow, you really think we could get Gates to do the video? I'd make it so...authentic. (overheard in the background, "MUHAHAHAHAHAHA!")

I doubt seriously if there are any users of the product here on /. That's like offering driver's ed. to NASCAR drivers.

And if the worst comes to pass, and they are not worth reading, that only makes Asimov's star shine a bit brighter. Either way, it doesn't harm Isaac.

I agree, LOTR was almost like reading the books, very faithful adaptation. Dune, on the other hand....Let's just say I liked the Sci-Fi channel's miniseries better than that monstrosity that David Lynch did. Every time I catch sight of it on TV I want to gut Sting and punch that little girl playing Alia in the face. When I saw it in the theater for the first time, I could see in the first 5 minutes it was going to be terrible, but it exerted some strange fascination over me - I had to stay to see HOW bad it was going to be. Not even Patrick Stewart could make the movie worth watching.

Don't you mean "R. Danielle Steele?"