Tyler Durden: You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You're not an evil hacker that can take down a server farm. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.

Hello, Visualizing large data sets can be readily solved if you have following items available:

• A Zoomable User Interface. The project Piccolo http://www.piccolo2d.org/ is really nice.
• A Powerwall http://www.cs.uaf.edu/2007/powerwall/ (A Beowulf cluster with high end video cards)

Both tools combined allow you to easily visualize large data sets and adjust the resolution of your data.

The number of times I face palm myself.

"I hope you're not implying that use of proprietary solutions allocates you to the "assclown" category, because IMHO that mentality is never good for the IT-business relationship. We're not there to evangelise, we're there to fill a business need. If that need can be filled with FOSS, by all means do it. But using a proprietary solution that fits the bill does not make you a "no talent (FTFY) ass clown" it makes you a realist who puts the needs of your clients above your own personal agenda. You can make sweet passionate love to your favourite FOSS technology all you want in your own time."

People who use proprietary solutions are not ass clowns. People who believe that proprietary solutions are the only solution are ass clowns.

"That statement is not without merit. I can find an IT staff member who is familiar with Active Directory in about 30 minutes. Finding one who is familiar with your customised LDAP-based authentication scheme is going to take longer, and probably going to cost me more. For a small business who cannot afford to pay premiums for highly specialised knowledge that they don't really need, or experience lengthy hiring delays, this might be important. The only error that statement makes is implying that industry standards are exclusively the domain of windows, which is not always the case."

Good point.

Lets differentiate between the two types of ITers. The nerds and the no talented ass clowns.

I am a nerd. I am in it cause I love technology and I love the concept of open source.

The no talented ass clown is a person that will write a statement like this, "Open Source Solutions Although many open source solutions are available that will provide similar system functionality to a Windows environment at a lower cost; for mission critical hardware and software itâ(TM)s important to follow industry standards and use products which can be easily supported if a staffing change were to occur."

I believe the inverse of this is true. While in graduate school I worked as Sys Admin and Web Developer. After a year and a half of mostly being a sys admin I moved to a different job that emphasized development. If you do not understand how mounted file systems, web servers, firewalls and network centric databases work you are going to be SOL when it comes to finding a novel solution in software development (unless you like re-inventing the wheel or write enterprisey type software). Being a sys admin you get to play with all the high level tools for doing systems integration. As a software developer you build solutions to individual problems.

In my experience the more dynamic your capabilities the better off you will be. I have M.S. in CS which helps me get a foot in the door. I have been turned down by plenty companies who did not like my mixed background of web development / system administration or my degree. I am very glad those companies turned me away! At my current job(small company) I get to do web development, system administration, and project management. I do not always get to play/learn the technologies that interest me so I work with a non-profit on the side that lets me satisfy the need for creativity and gets me experience in the technologies that do interest me. Volunteer your skills for good, help a non-profit and gain some experience.