A bit overpriced. My local YMCA has classes for kids as young as 6 months old at $135 for 10 half hour lessons.

And your skill set is?

I know this sounds like a non-answer, but I would use a process such as a fishbone diagram to find the best solution. That solution might involve changing your process, changing the technology, or some other solution such as additional training.

This was pretty easy. Just lay things out in a spreadsheet and start filling in the blanks.

My only suggestion is to try and figure what went wrong and learn from it. She had her reasons for leaving. Figure out what they were and try not to walk into the same train wreck the next time.

Actually, it's for working moms, which also covers working dads who actually help out in raising the kids. Doesn't say what criteria were used to generate the list, so it's pretty much useless.

Capturing the requirements and specifications is more systems engineering work than software development. On a large project or in a highly regulated industry (millitary, pharm, etc) writing the specs is often the bulk of the work. Poor requirements and specifications are also the root cause of most failed projects. Getting into requirements capture and drafting specifications is a good way up that ladder, in that it gives you more visibility. However, realize that moving into project management means that you will no longer be coding. Also, project managers have more stress and get beat on by upper management much more than programmers. The pay for system engineers, programmers, and project managers is similar.

Why are you even trying? Just learn the material and get your skills up. Even if you fake it through an interview, prepare to be canned in the next 3- 6 months.

Why not just tile one room at a time, avoiding the room being tiled?

MS has always been overpriced, going all the way back to DOS. It seems inline with earlier releases when you account for inflation. My main concern is all the hidden costs associated with the upgrade. I wonder how many programs will break under the new release, forcing an upgrade.

What a silly, unusable thing. I hope the company just made it up as a gag or promotional item.

Do you ever want to use them as a reference? Don't burn bridges if you can help it.

Saying "Hey this isn't working" isn't really helpful. Having specific complaints and proposed solutions moves things from a gripe session to a brainstorming session.

And you propose???? The free market model isn't perfect, but everything else has been worse.

It's called a free market. Wal Mart is just the most efficient at exploiting new logistics technologies. Don't worry, in a generation or two Wal Mart will be squeezed out by someone else. Then people can complain about how the changing economy is driving such a wonderful part of america out of business.

I guess moral superiority is worth the high prices and poor selection those mom & pop stores had. I well remember various mom and pop stores. Some were good, but many had high prices, poor quality, limited selection, and would try to rip you off worse than any big box retailer. I like low prices, wide selection, and stores being open until 10 at night.

A word of advice - Buy cheap, indestructabile mice and keyboards in bulk. My kids kill input devices on a regular basis. Either it's spilled drinks, banging on it, dropping it on the floor, or fighting over it (one kid grabs the mouse / keyboard, the other grabs the cord). For a while my younger son would repeat phrases from education games in exacly the same tone as the game. Anytime I did something wrong he would chirp out "That is not correct, try again!".

Wipe the HD, reinstall the Windows that came with it if you are feeling kind, then either donate it or simply put it outside with a "WORKS - FREE!" sign. Anything that's still usable and too much trouble to donate I generally just put on the curb marked as free for the taking. Most times its gone within hours.

Given that I'm not in an overcrowded city and generally healthy, I'm not too worried. We also keep supplies around for the natural disaster du jour. If you are really worried, get on of these: http://www.fluarmour.com/[^] And stock up from here: http://theepicenter.com/[^]

FWIW, there have already been small anthrax attacks in the USA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cases_of_anthrax[^] Far as I know, inhalation anthrax is survivable if treated in time. The problem is that it generally isn't caught before it's too late.