I have trained about ten broadband users to use firefox with limited javascript, cookie firewalling, zero disk cache, and zero java for everything, and if an important page (like online banking, or online billpay systems) doesn't work correctly, to look at that page ONLY in IE.

The average person can adhere to the above with only a few hours of training, whereas trying to fully educate people about security implications requires a great deal more time, especially teaching those that consider computers to be an invasive and immature technology (read: the sane, not you, most of the world, etc.)

I explain a bit of how cookie firewalling thwarts advertisers and how you really don't need to accept cookies from anything but *.yahoo.com to use the yahoo.com site.

I explain that disk cache on a broadband connection will actually slow your browsing experience on a cluttered hard drive.

I explain that java is almost never used for anything critical and that for those sites that use java that are important, just use IE.

I explain that in Firefox, it is wise to disable all of the features of javascript that Firefox lets you disable, because malicious web designers abuse those features and ruin your browsing experience, but OTHER javascript features enable things like hotmail and gmail to work. Again, if you need more javascript for sites that are important, just use IE.

If you are using a site that needs realplayer or quicktime, or flash, or shockwave, and you *really* need to go to that site, just use IE.

When the users start to get a feel for firefox, and start using the google search bar and tabbed browsing and are able to surf without pop-up windows and automatic window resizing, etc., they can't thank me enough.

Now, if only I could find a way to easily teach openoffice and non-outlook* adoption, I'd feel like superman... I'd certainly feel like the users are much safer than they were.

There was an off-topic conversation in the thread, "New Linux Kernel Crash-Exploit discovered"(http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/06/14/118209&mode=thread&tid=106&tid=126&tid=128&tid=185&tid=190).

Some yahoo suggested that VB should be widely used instead of C, in an attempt to modernize coding.

There are a lot of reasons to modernize coding, but we'd lose things like plaform independance, OS independence, low-level control over seemingly unimportant details, etc.

When computing freedoms are threatened by Microsoft controlling the OS market, I do not think that abandoning C in favor of VB is a wise idea.

A better argument might have been for programmers to better consider the intended purpose and user-base, then choose an appropriate high-level language for the likely platform(s) to leverage the capabilities of the platform, operating system, and programming language in order to turn out solid and optimized code. Oh yes, and we must not forget things like cost to implementation, and choosing a language that best fits your programming team's capabilities. And how about a language that best leverages the ratio of time-to-implementation goals vs. quality of software and software performance?

The above are a few of the thousands of reasons why thousands programming languages exist, and there is not one do-all language. There isn't even a do-most language. There is a right tool for the job, but not every tool is the right tool.

In any case, to my unamed and misinformed creative inspiration, I wish you the best of luck with your VB Programming for Dummies book, MCSE certification, and Lincoln Tech diploma. Happy forming!