I got my degree mostly on-line as well. It wasn't even in Computer Science, it was in Computer and Information Science (kind of a hybrid thing I guess). I was looking for a job to do some MS Access stuff, but I stumbled upon an internship position doing C++ work. After 6 months of internship, I got an offer from them and have been working here ever since. I think I got pretty lucky landing this internship, but I guess the point is try to find an internship or a volunteer position somewhere first to get some experience under your belt. Showing off some projects you did on your own helps as well.

I think it's still valid to call it DOS prompt. Whether we like it or not, Windows is still very much rooted in DOS. The shell commands are still the same, we still have to use the stupid C:, D:. If you want to see just how much DOS is still around, just type "dir /x" in the "DOS Prompt".

As some people said here, you must first decide whether you want to get into IT or become a Software Engineer. These are two totally different things, related only because they have something to do with computers. If you want to do IT (the easiest one I think): IMHO a vendor certification like MCSE will get you into the door more so than a degree, though degree wouldn't hurt. This is what computertraining.com is teaching. I think this one is easier to get into because employers ask for specific things that you've been taught, and you're going to be doing those specific things. Software Engineer: You pretty much have to get a degree in Computer Science, unless you're really lucky and you know someone. You also have to have analytical skills. The degree actually does very little to prepare you for real-world development job, so you have to either get lucky and get one of the very few entry level positions, or get very lucky and get internship/COOP experience while you're still in college. Did I mention that analytical skills and abstract thinking is what you need, versus specific skills for IT? This does pay more.

I honestly don't understand the animosity towars Vista. I don't claim that it was the best OS ever, but it wa pretty good. Every time I use XP I miss the "instant search" for apps and stiff. I think ppl got so attached to XP because it was around for so long and it was really just Win2k in a pretty dress. I think everyone forgot that it was even less stable than Vista when it first came out. I do love win7 and I've almost completely switched to it (I have several computers). I love the new task bar, and I love that MS finally decided to do some optimization. I think they should have held off Vista and released win7 instead. However, it may not have been as good without all the feedback they got from Vista :)

I completely agree. I used to actually buy CD's all the time. I pretty much completely turned to piracy because I am always worried that the music I buy legally will not work when I do my "almost weekly" reshuffling of files, devices, etc. Just the other day I had a friend (he's not technically savvy) call me asking me how to load his iTunes-bought music into his wife's new workout mp3 player. There really is no "easy" answer. We used to not have this problem with CDs. Even though my music collection started out as almost 100% legit, I doubt there's 10% of my music that I actually paid for. I would love to pay for music, if I can actually have it afterward. I'm not paying 99 cents for something that I will not actually own. I am a software engineer, so I do believe that people should pay for IP, but the problem with the music industry is that their only means of "customer support" is to sue their customers. Not the best way to stay in business, if you ask me.

I've been using Vista at work for a while now. Never had any problems. However, the software I work on did need some tweaking before it would work with Vista. I don't think it's a bad thing, since most of Vista-specific crashes happen because of bad memory management. The only thing I found to be a pain it the elevation message that you get when you launch processes that need higher permissions. That's the price of security though. If you're Windows developer, you would be stupid not to use Vista, or at least have people in the same shop that do. It's out there people--you have to support it. Besides, Windows 7 is essentially Vista that they finally finished. I use Windows 7 Beta at home and I love it. It's what Vista should have been. I know we all hate business-driven decisions to release software, but that's the way the world works. However, I think MS might have something with the lame-duck Vista release. It makes Windows 7 look even better, since most software is now adjusted to run fine on Vista, so it will run just fine on Win7 as well. This makes Win7 look even better...