A few weeks ago I encountered an ad desiring "5 years of experience with Ruby on Rails" on the same day that the fifth anniversary of the release of Rails was announced. I wrote and told them that apparently they wanted the creators of Rails and where they could find them.

What she needs is a real, low overhead business. eBay is getting harder as they raise fees, but finding a niche is possible. Just don't buy a boatload of something wholesale that you aren't sure is going to sell! If she can type and use a few programs, and you don't live somewhere rural, she might consider what my wife has done: create a home secretarial business. An inexpensive Yellow Pages ad that points to her website has built up her business over about three years to where she has more work than she can handle at $35/hr. She also puts out business cards at all the private mailbox places and contacts all her competitors for overflow business (and she's sending them some now). And some of her business is virtual (she has never met the client face-to-face). And of course I am her tech support, plus I do a few of the more difficult tasks involving file conversion and such. It's been good all around.

modified on Monday, May 26, 2008 10:18 AM

Back in the 80's we got a couple of cards that generated a rather robotic sounding voice from text input. I installed one in a coworker's computer and had it say something like "Help me, I'm stuck in here" when he booted. Of course no one else was ever around when it happened and he couldn't make it happen again. Just like a sitcom.