Someone give me some mod points so I can mod this up! The University of Phoenix style of learning is completely USELESS for someone studying geology, remote sensing, and other related fields (e.g. ME). You business majors and generic programmers can have your fun with these degree mills. I'll take my chances with a real college.

I'm just about in the same boat as you (ability-wise). Java install in firefox and chromium under 10.04 went off without a hitch for me. Hopefully the same can be said of 10.10.

is now on just as close to being a reality as the awesome UI.

If you want a software package comparable to ENVI or ERDAS Imagine, check out Opticks. http://opticks.org/confluence/display/opticks/Welcome+To+Opticks It's open source and runs on a variety of systems. GDAL is also worth a look. It's good for simple, quick jobs, large, compex scripts etc. http://www.gdal.org/

In other words, "you haven't bribed the right people yet." http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126199094