A Reading List for Linux in the Classroom | Linux Journal | Windows causes stupidity?

A Reading List for Linux in the Classroom | Linux Journal | Windows causes stupidity?:
Windows causes stupidity?
Submitted by Barton Phillips (not verified) on Fri, 2005-04-08 10:27.

Interesting article. As a computer professional I have to use Windows. I don’t always like it but I have to. My home systems mostly run flavors of Linux and BSD.

I agree and disagree with you about Unix. In the good old days with only a command line you had a very steep learning curve, but today with KDE, Gnome, etc. the curve is not any more than using Windows. If you computer comes with Linux, BSD, Unix installed and set up for you there really isn’t much difference between Windows and Unix. Companies that use Unix have a lot of stupid users who don’t know anything about computers or computer science. Most of them can’t program anything and never use an xterm or command prompt. They use Word Processors, Spread Sheets, Accounting programs and become proficient in those areas but don’t know much about their computer.

I think one of the biggest differences between the new free Unixes and Windows is that for casual users, that is students and home users, the additional tools are all free also. The biggest barrier to going further with Windows is it all costs a lot of money. You want to learn to
program for example. Well with Windows you have to buy the C++ Development Studio which costs around $600. That stops people pretty fast. It isn’t a problem for companies, $600 is just change for a big company. With Linux on the other hand the compiler is free and available. So are editors and debuggers and all sorts of other tools.

I think one of the major differences in philosophy today is Open Source versus Capitalistic Source. As a computer professional I had to buy a lot of Windows tools. If I were just a student who wanted to learn I couldn’t afford to buy those tools. I would have to a) steal them, b) use another OS, c) not learn.

If you have the money Windows has a lot of potential and a huge number of divers”

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Man gets nine years for spamming

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Man gets nine years for spamming: “Man gets nine years for spamming
E-mail inbox
Jaynes remains free while his case is being appealed
A man has been sentenced to nine years in jail by a Virginia judge for sending millions of junk emails, or ’spamming’.

Jeremy Jaynes, 30, is the first person in the US to get a prison term in a spam case. He is said to have been the world’s eighth most prolific spammer.

By selling sham products and services advertised in his messages, he earned up to $750,000 (£398,000) per month.

Jaynes has appealed, and the court has put off the start of his prison term because the new law raises questions.

Under Virginia law, sending bulk email using fake addresses is a crime.

‘It was not just sending bulk emails, he was falsifying the routing information, disguising the origin,’ said prosecutor Lisa Hicks Thomas.

‘The end user couldn’t say: don’t send this to me,’ she added.

Ms Thomas said she was pleased with the ruling and hoped it would be upheld.

‘Never again’

Jaynes was operating though an America Online (AOL) server in Loudoun County, where the world’s largest Internet services provider is based, and is believed to have sent some 10m unwanted emails a day.

Products advertised in his emails included a ‘Fed-Ex refund processor’ which he claimed would have allowed people to earn $75 an hour by working from home.

Jaynes, who is from North Carolina, will appeal on the grounds that he has been charged as an out-of-state resident under a Virginia law that has only just come into effect.

His sentence is the harshest punishment handed down so far for junk emailing in the US, and appears to be a strong signal that authorities will not tolerate the spamming business.

Jaynes has pledged that regardless of the final outcome of his trial, he will never again be involved in what he called the ‘email marketing business’.

It is believed that 70% of all emails are spam. “