what was the 'one'?

I'm sure many, Many of us have ran into such problems, me certaintly included. Some years back I did a major move from one state to another and I didn't have room in the uhaul for all I had and decided it was finally time to get rid of about 20 books (from NT4 through 2K technologies, as well as the interdev books, to name a few). I tried to pass them off to a used book store but not even they wanted most of them! Oh, and all these books were in like new condidtions without marks (just as you, I can't do any harm to a book without destroying the earth somehow in the process). I ended up putting them all on a cart at the exit door of the book store with a sign saying "free" and walked away. So .. that's what you must do. Just walk away! You can do it! Run if you have to!

I've pretty much only used vb6, vbscript and, of course, vb.net from 1.0 through 2.0. I've taken an extended break from doing any dev work and have been learning C# off and on for a few years now but haven't actually tried my hand in putting anything together. I bacame frustrated as I observed fewer and fewer people writing coding tutorials and other examples with VB (including msdn magazine, as I once noted on here). I started to see that nearly everything being written and done was with C#. This trend has continued for several years now. It is because of this that I have decided that I will just switch over and move forward with C# even though everything I already know isn't C#. Without all those examples and how to's that are tremendously avail for C# but not so much with VB.NET (any longer), the choice for me has become more clear. A number of times in the past when I was creating more complex project with VB.NET, I was unable to find the code/example/help I needed or I'd get some example written in C# that I was unable to convert properly (after using converters or asking for help in converting or trying it myself). I've decided to move on from vb.net because .. it appears, most everyone else has (or everyone else that was providing code examples/articles/help). I'm sure if we compare the number of new articles and code examples between the two, we'd see a massive, Massive gap.

Oooh! A pound of coke! Right on man!

Yes, I would say that we're all fairly easily replaceable at this point due to how many jobs have been loss (and continue to be). Even after all the shoes I filled over the years in IT (network admin, server admin, monitor carrier (glad they're lighter now), database admin, web developer, and now in incident management for one of the largest operations centers there are (think of one of the biggest names in online email not being gmail or yahoo). I can tell you that I'm still pretty easily replaceable. Even looking around me at some of the more .. professional professionals .. I can say that even with all their amazing skill sets, they're still replaceable within a short time frame. I think the days of being anything otherwise are over. Must have been cool to be IT in the 80s. More respectable perhaps?

I agree. Even on a new mobo I've run into odd glitches that just shouldn't be and couldn't be easily pinned down until later the mobo just failed altogether. A new motherboard with all the same plugged in hardware (cpu/ram/ps/fans/hdd/dvd/cd/etc) ended up working just fine. And, the failed mobo was an ASUS as well! This was for my i7 proc with 6gb ram.

All the programming I have done has been with VB then VB.NET. Microsoft keeps continues to develop and release it along side C# and the rest. However, over the last few years, I have seen very little new information out there regarding VB. Very few articles on Code Project and other sites. Oh, and I'm a subscriber to MSDN magazine and I haven't seen a single line of VB.NET code in .. in .. I can't even remember the last issue. I can say at least the last four issues there hasn't been anything in VB.NET. It's all been C#, C++ and even F# but no VB! Is Microsoft trying to push it to the side so it whithers and dies and hope that no one notices or pays attention? Even here on Code Project I've noted next to nothing new on VB. Every week I get the newsletter with all the new articles and rarely do I see anything on VB.NET. There may be one article among the 30 C# articles but that's on a good week. So, what am I supposed to do? Just stop using it, pick up a "Learning C# For Lonely, Left Behind VB.NET Programmers" and just think of VB.NET as fond memories of long ago? I have a hard time with such a concept. VB.NET has evolved into a good language and is capable of doing pretty much anything C# can do (using the .net framework, of course) so why isn't it promoted more by MS and others?

All points taken and respected. However, for the masses for which the movie was geared, I'm sure it made more sense. And, how many hollywood movies do you know of that are technically accurate? I'm sure there's many, Many discrepancies in the movie but I don't think exactness was its reasoning to exist. I was thinking you're younger than what you appear to now be. If you've been around that long, I'm actually surprised you never saw Tron until now. It was another one of those 80s icons like silly putty, School House Rock and MTV.

Actually, during that day and age, most users were the programmers as well. This comes during a time when most home computer users had to write their own programs (or had to purchase very expensive software otherwise which wasn't typically done). Many of us 'users' would pick up computer magazines of the day which would contain hundreds of lines of code in them and we'd copy, line for line, that code into the computer (using basic or some other language). They were typically cheesy programs like screensaver type code or small games but that was often the only way we could get such things for the system. We didn't have the tons and tons of pre-written software for our computers like we do today. Pretty much all of the pre-written software out there was for big business, not for the home 'user'. So, for all of us nerds watching Tron back then, the concept made complete sense.

Tron truly was a work of digital art from that era and even today I love the movie. I love it enough that I own the movie, soundtrack and Tron 2.0 video game (don't knock it - it really is a visually impressive and well done game IMO) as well as the GBA version of the game. The soundtrack is very hard to find and not cheap when you do come across it. Other than the impressive digital work of the time, I really like the whole storyline of the movie. Having an entire world within computers that rivals our own societal complexities including power struggles and even its own religion is a cool concept regardless of which decade it comes out in (and makes me think twice before I kill off a video game character, just in case they really do feel pain - haha). I suppose it's difficult to get the younger generation to appreciate the older movies but I will say that now that I'm older (late 30s), I have been watching older movies (black and white sci-fi movies from the 50s/60s and 70s) and there really are some cool movies out there that you'd probably never know about unless you started watching them just to see (Colossus: The Forbin Project had me thinking about it for days after I watched it). If you can put any dislike you may have for b&w aside (and lack of newer special effects if that's also a problem for you) then you may find that some of your favorite movies are twice or three times your age!

My first job in IT saw the company I worked for using access for all their databases. These databases were accessed over WAN links by upwards of 30 people at a time! Watching all the frustration produced was not entertaining at all. The only reason this was happening is because the IT person making these databases was all they knew and they were very close with the IT director who themselves wasn't even an IT person by profession (a masters in counseling does not equal IT director but somehow in this company, it did). They just didn't know any better. Over a few years time I was able to change their minds and set up a sql 2K system using vb web forms and some win forms but it was a painful transition since the technology wasn't known by the IT director or his right hand girl (the access developer who also wasn't professionally trained in any IT technologies or methodologies in any way (a music degree landed her the IT job?!)). This was another classic situation where the higher ups hate not being in control (they didn't know how to work with the technologies so that made them nervous and suspicious in everything I did for them even though it was my job to do so). Thankfully, I moved on from that crazy place (pun intended).

I know someone who was discharged for falling asleep at his desk with no prior warnings. Some employers don't like you sleeping on the job. So, who is getting ready to be fired next? Let me know so I can apply early before the newly available job is announced publicly.

For a second I thought you said "IPV6 Shortage". HA!

VMware Workstation is free now ...

I went to find this free version of workstation at VMWare and I only found the expensive versions of everything except for Zimbra open source, which isn't vmware.

Do you have a link?

"are you going to fight me on unemployment?"

Flipping burgers? Have you even tried to get a burger flipping job recently? Good luck there too! ;)

Yea, the moment I saw Best Buy on there I knew something was horribly wrong with this list. Was this is a bribery scheme to make quick money from companies who would pay under the table to be on the list?

However, as best I can determine from limited empirical evidence, you are no longer cool. Certainly not in the eyes of the up and coming generation

Hell, it would appear that we're not so cool in the eyes of the current and former generations either! I got into this business because I thought it was cool and I think others did too, but that was 14 years ago and now a days, everyone seems to look on us IT people as a bunch of janitors that clean up bits of data rather than bits of crap and so we aren't much different from janitorial staff to the others that aren't in IT. There really isn't much respect for IT types anymore and it's very frustrating. Of course, my observations are probably just limited to the three different places (and three completely different types of businesses) I've done professional full time IT work for over the last eight years. Perhaps the jr high students you speak of (oh wait, it's middle school students now ... damn I'm old!) are smarter than all of us combined!

I agree that it rocks and I use it from time to time. The latest thing I used it for was to scan in a bunch of prom photos for an old friend, upload them to a newly created skydrive folder and add my friend as the only other person (other than myself) that can view/edit the contents of that folder. This is a great thing to have available. The only drawback though is the 50meg file size limit. At times I've wanted to upload 7zip or other compressed archives that are 100 megs or maybe a bit more but ... out of luck. Maybe someday down the road there will be a free service that allows for such file sizes. The main reason is to rip a CD at a high bit rate (eg: 320) and archive the songs into zip or 7zip folder then upload that archive to skydrive (with security so only a certain person or persons can see it) so that it can be downloaded somewhere else. Since you can't email the archive due to the file size I figured skydrive would be the best bet but .. well, options are limited at 50 megs per file.

You remember a snow storm from when you were two? Wow! I barely recall memories from when I was three and four and I think late in my third year and early fourth year is when I really started to retain memories. Two is impressive especially if there's detail.