Rush Hour is a great puzzle game from Think Fun toys. My five year old son loves it.

In Santa Cruz, it is customary for employees at high tech companies to have a few beers at a local pub after work on Friday, grab some dinner and then head to the CEOs or VPs house for naked hot tubbing. It's a great way to get to know each other and and no one has anything to hide. SCO even had their own hot tub in the office court yard.

A few years ago I purchased a domain from someone in St. Petersburg Russia. I e-mailed the guy and asked him how much he wanted. He was asking for $3,000 which was fine with me. Initially I was not comfortable sending $3,000 to an unknown person in St. Petersburg. So, we used escrow.com which specializes in selling and buying domain names. The buyer pays escrow.com and the seller transfers the domain to escrow.com. When escrow.com confirms the buyers paid and the transfer from the seller, they sending the money to the seller and transfer the domain to the buyer. Safe and simple.

In the last 20 years, I have worked with far too many engineers that could not write a decent document to save their ass. You should be able to read, write and speak English well, including standing in front of a room full of people to give a presentation. At most organizations, the first step for any software development or IT project is a requirements document - written in English (or the appropriate local language.) If you are a great communicator, you will stand above your peers and advance in your career to work on interesting projects, lead teams and make more money.

While in college earning a degree in Computer Engineering, I was only required to take one semester of English. At the end of college my writing skills were appalling. I was forced to improve my writing on the job including writing product reviews for a magazine, requirements documents and documentation. I learned public speaking the hard way - standing in front of 20 people for two weeks training them on our company's product.

So, before you graduate, take technical writing and public speaking classes.

My first reaction is to leave immediately. If you are so valuable, they should have offered you stock options on day one. Second, the chances that your shares will be worth anything is almost nil. Small companies are not liquid and are unlikely to be liquid any time in the future. If you are planning on staying, counter offer with the following: 1) the CEO makes you a partner in the company with a 10% stake in the company. 2) the company pays profit sharing/bonuses at the end of each year. Treat it like a law firm and you are a lawyer that just made partner. Finally, have another job in the bag before you leave. Right now is not a good time to be unemployed.

Intuit offers a free version of Quickbooks called Simple Start which allows you to track expenses and generate invoices.

Nolo Press is a good resource for legal information. If you plan on freelancing for a while, you should consider incorporating to provide liability protection. Also, get business insurance, a good accountant and a lawyer.

Good luck!