Sorry about that. I'll have to go back and replace the sound file for that part. Thanks for pointing that out.

I made an Internet Security video for a college course that explains how SSL works, it's weaknesses, and how to protect yourself against them. Take a look and let me know what you think: SSL Video[^] I did all of the animation and drawings with Paint.Net. If anyone would like a tutorial on how to use Paint.Net to achieve some of the 3 dimensional effects, let me know. Also, I only had time to cover Man-In-The-Middle attacks. I'm quite aware of the other attacks such as Man-In-The-Browser, Boy-In-The-Browser, and other such spoofing attacks, but the presentation had to be under 3 minutes. You notice that the video is around 7 minutes, so a lot of parts were cut out. :-D Thanks (ahead) for watching and letting me know what you think of it.

I'm 36 and use .bat files to backup data in certain folders using robo copy commands on a scheduled task. Why pay for backup programs when you can make a quick script for free.

I'm assuming that the application is broken up into tiers. If so, it should be very easy to fix. Just import the Access database into SQL Server, and change the database connections in the data tier. That shouldn't take more than a day or two.

You assume that being a consultant is the only way to make money. We're programmers. We can design and sell software (or ads if it's a high volume web-site).

hmmm...I don't know how you could possible get along without breaking it up into layers. It's nice to have a presentation tier, business tier, and data tier at the very least. If you do not have these three tiers and have your business logic, presentation, and data calls all in the same tier, you'll start running into problems when multiple applications call the same stored procedures, but then one of the applications logic changes and needs to call a different stored procedure. You'll have to go through all the application pages to ensure you have updated to the new stored proc. As opposed to the n-tier, you change it in one place. If your business logic changes for one process, you would have to update that process in all parts of your application rather than just one spot in the business tier. If you break it out into tiers, you can have multiple platforms (web, windows forms, smart phones, ect) use the same business tier, and data tier. When this is done, only 1/3 of the work would have to be done for each of the platforms. If you do not have an n-tier design, you're going to be hating it when they say that they need to move to a new platform because your presentation is all mixed in with your business and data. With OOP you can make your own exception handling logic in one place and reuse in multiple application. So when an exception happens, you can handle it in a certain way (e-mail error with stack trace, text message a group of people, write to system log, ect). Any time its requested to add an additional medium to the alert list, you change in one place and all applications are instantly working. There are an infinite number of examples as to why n-tier/OOP programming is better. One of the biggest reasons is code reuse as you can tell form my examples. I hope this helps your understanding.

"Amen."

"hu?" is printed. :)

I think this is the case also. Every once in a while (once in a blue moon), I do it too. Not that I'm lazy...I just had a logical bug, decided to see if the opposite would work, it did work, so I move to the next problem thinking I'll come back and fix it later.

Really, this cnn article Windows Phone 7 says the licensing fee is 5 to 10 dollars, and droid charges for some preinstalled apps. I quote from the article: "a source familiar with Android's licensing deals said Google charges smartphone makers for the applications that are pre-installed on Android phones, like Gmail and YouTube. Google declined to comment on the specifics of its licensing deals. That cost roughly matches the fees that Microsoft charges to license Windows Phone 7, Dulaney estimates." Also there is the litigation issue as quoted from the article: "Windows Phone 7's license includes indemnifications protecting the handset manufacturers from legal battles, according to Al Hilwa, analyst at IDC. HTC and Motorola have been accused of patent violations by Apple and Microsoft, respectively, over the user interface on their Android-based smartphones. By paying a licensing fee to Microsoft, the handset makers essentially transfer the burden of fending off intellectual property disputes to the software maker. 'Ultimately, open source is free, but there is no neck to choke if something goes wrong," Dulaney said. "For that privilege, you have to pay someone.'"

I agree with this statement. How can a programmer gather requirements or create documentation without the ability to communicate in a manner that gets the message across? A note to the original author of this thread...Writing a game based in the command prompt will never sell. If you would like to try out your programming skills in the real world, get a job at some some Mom/Pop store and offer your skills as a programmer to them. There's a lot of room for automation at resale stores. I personally worked at a reconnect phone company that resold phone lines to those with bad credit. We would get phone bills from some major phone company in text format that they had to manually add to the customer's bills. I made an application to automate that process saving hundreds of hours of work each month. After a few years of experience helping out their shop, I got a professional job at the DOT because of the experience I had in the private sector. Let me tell you, it's not the same working for some private company as it is working in a professional environment. They expect you to know OOP and design patterns. Fortunately, I was able to catch on quickly, but I would suggest reading up on that.

I like carving with a dremel. I have carved several chess pieces that look pretty good. It's to go along with the chess board I made in a college framming class. I would say that playing chess helps keep my mind open towards finding solutions. I also carved a wood chain with no breaks in the wood. That was pretty fun to do.

Just Bing it! :laugh:

I had only two classes in programming, and I got a job at a small company doing something other than programming. I then told them I could automate a lot of the redundant processes during my spare time. I worked there for two years getting paid $15.00/hr and doing a lot of programming. I then applied to a professional developing position with the government and three years later I was making $30.00/hr with all medical/dental/paid vacations provided for free. That's pretty good for our area.

you could have checked the "Trash" folder for the deleted e-mail. :) I have simular experiences when I see street signs. I was passing a church sign that read "VBS training starts in June." I thought to myself, why would anyone want to learn Visual Basic Scripting, but at the same time, I was thinking wow, these people are true geeks. Then it dawned on me that they were talking about Vacation Bible Study.

I would take on the extra work. Then with a year of that experience, I'd apply to other leadership positions at other places, and tell them you have over a year experiences in managment at your current job. I personally find it hard to get a promotion at a certain location. I usually do a lot of job hopping to get what I want. People always say that looks bad on your resume, but that hasn't stopped me from moving around so far and I make well more than people back at my first job that had been working for the department for over 15 years.

.Net 2.0. I guess I'm young in the programming world, but I picked it up fast. I was thrilled with the partial classes, generics, generic collections, and ClickOnce deployment. That thrill wore off, but I am very grateful for generics and the futured feature of LINQ to object.

I wear cole haans to work because I work for the Florida Legislature, so I have to dress up some. Don't have to wear a tie except when we are in Session. The pay makes it worth it.

I guess this would be a bad time to mention that there are an infinite number of fractions of a second in a second. ;P

I donate 120.00 month to a program that helps families in my local area who are in need of help. 100% of the money goes to those in need. This Christmas, I gave an extra 800.00 to that same program. I donated 500 to the Veterans of Foriegn wars this year. I think I'm done donating for the year. :)