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Living Room / Re: One answered question before you died
« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 07, 2008, 07:43 AM »Where do I sign up for the next life?
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What is DreamSpark?
Microsoft DreamSpark enables students to download Microsoft developer and design tools at no charge.-Cloq (October 06, 2008, 05:59 PM)
The Microsoft IT Academy Student Pass is a special no-cost online learning opportunity for students. IT Academy Student Pass provides free e-learning courses to verified students who are interested in extending their technical skills with Microsoft technologies.
The IT Academy Student Pass offers 12 to 22 hours of FREE e-learning courses, aligned to the first set of topics you need to master for the first Microsoft certification exam within the track. Each track is unique, and most will require you to take additional e-learning courses to complete all of the topics you need to succeed on the certification exam.
The goal of the IT Academy Student Pass is to give you a head start by providing hours and hours of rich, award-winning e-learning content that sets the stage for the learning to come.
Students may also want to explore Microsoft technical certifications, and the IT Academy Student Pass is a perfect entry point to five different certification paths. Learn about Microsoft Certifications (http://www.microsoft...ing/mcp/default.mspx)
The IT Academy Student Pass will be available initially in English, but additional languages are being considered for future releases.
[Carol]: FSF approach is just plain stupid (IMHO).
Most non-free software in the world today is not sold, but licensed. From complex operating systems to tiny games or screensavers, end users of the software have a license to use it under conditions laid out in an End User License Agreement (EULA). This agreement lists out the conditions under which the user can use the software -- often restrictions are imposed on the use to which the software can be put. In almost all cases, users are explicitly prohibited from "taking the software apart" to study how it works, cannot modify or improve it, are only allowed to make a single copy of the software (for backup purposes) and are strictly prohibited from distributing copies to other people. (Much of the open source model is one of distribution.)
I openly credit Vista's original EULA for pushing me toward Linux. Thanks again, Microsoft; it was the best thing you've ever done for me! But then recently, the highly popular open source Mozilla Firefox browser was severely criticized for creating a pop-up dialog of Firefox's EULA, a piece of software which needed no "branding" EULA. Mozilla Foundation’s Mitchell Baker quickly responded to it as a mistake.
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Most of us are never going to open the hood and retool the source code. But there's intrinsic value in using free/libre software, since most of the world cannot afford to send money to Redmond for its proprietary products, much less trust a corporation to do the right thing by us. Not Microsoft. Not Google. Not IBM. Not Apple. Not Goldman Sachs....
Besides, all data composed by governments (and many key industries) should be open source that follows open standards. Stephen Fry explains it well: http://www.gnu.org/fry/-zridling (October 05, 2008, 09:30 PM)
The Free Software Foundation's definition of "free" goes beyond being free of charge. To be considered "free" in the FSF universe, a product would have to be released under GPL. Any licensing restrictions would make it "not free" even if it were otherwise given away.-40hz (October 04, 2008, 07:33 AM)
Are you behind a NATing router? (without DMZ and with sensible forwarding rules!)
Do you have XP's firewall enabled?
Do you use firefox+adblockplus+noscript?
If you answer yes to all the above, you shouldn't get malware... unless something's really really wrong.-f0dder (October 02, 2008, 06:31 PM)
I asked readers to let me know about high-tech user forums that they already visit, and what they like and dislike about them. Here's a list of some of the forums that were submitted, in case you haven't heard of them all:
...
As to what readers dislike about these forums, ...
As a paid subscriber I was somewhat perplexed that someone showed me the news letter 169 and I don't have a copy? Having said that I was equally perplexed about the first article in the letter about websites people find useful.
The articles seems to say "all websites are too geeky and unhelpful" despite the fact you have just listed a whole pile of websites that your own users recommend as useful.
You also seem to argue that only WindowsSecrets news letter can be trusted.
OK, I have an axe to grind really because I have been a subscriber at www.donationcoder.com practically since it started. OK there are some very knowledgeable geeks there but there are plenty of people who are extremely helpful and knowledgeable and who bend over backwards to help visitors etc. I was so impressed with the site that I volunteered to be a moderator - and there is precious little to do beyond remove spam. There are remarkably few flamewars given the large user base and an extremely open and warm atmosphere.
I have to say I still pay to subscribe to WindowsSecrets - OK not a lot but at least I pay - but I am seriuosly considering not renewing next time. The newsletters are now more advertising than anything else and since your first merger (with Fred Langa - of whom I was a huge fan) WindowsSecrets seems to have got blander and blander with hardly any article worth reading in full (unless you are a complete newbie).
Rather than rubbishing websites that help tens of thousands of people daily and declaring that you are better how about looking at yourselves and start producing newsletters of the quality Fred used to produce before the merger!
I'm testing priPrinter right now. It is excellent so far! Nice find zridlingGreat that FinePrint finally gets a worthy competitor!
-Nod5 (October 01, 2008, 05:53 PM)
Have you also looked at Clickbook from Bluesquirrel?-Darwin (October 01, 2008, 06:51 PM)