Who really loves their cell phone provider? I moved from Sprint to T-mobile 3 years ago because you can use unlocked phones and they use a standard that's recognized abroad. In practical terms, this means when we had to replace Staci's phone, we simply moved the SIM card from her old phone to the new one and it worked, it also moved all her contacts.  When we were in Germany for the World Cup, I was able to make calls without a hassle. But I'm still locked into T-mobile - I can't get say, oh, an iPhone and use it with T-mobile. Nor can I take my current phone and switch to AT&T. 

The cell-phone providers love this lock in, because it lets them keep rates high and customer service low. You can't vote with your wallet, especially with early termination fees hanging onto your contract.  Congress is stepping in with an eye to reform the system. Helpfully, Consumers Union has set up a simple form you can use to tell your representative that you want real cell phone competition. Please take a minute to fill it out and send a message.

In this market, companies rarely compete based on price and service;  instead they lure new consumers with complicated and sometimes misleading offers, then use early termination fees and handset locks to stop you from voting with your feet.

I have to confess that delegating software installation to Debian and Ubuntu's apt command is what finally converted me to Linux. I stillhave a bias against .rpms and building from source based on disastrous experiences hunting down obscure .rpms or figuring out why make would not work. If you're trying out Ubuntu or another Linux distribution, you should stop and read download squad's Package management 101.

Package management refers to the way your distribution installs and configures (as well as manages and removes) software applications and libraries on your system. When Windows installs an .exe (which is the closest thing in Windows to a package) it usually places it in a single specific place within a directory. Linux installs across a few directories, leaving many new Linux users scratching their heads as to where their .rpm actually went. Most distributions install the executables in /usr/bin, and the libraries in /usr/lib. You may notice related files in /usr/share or /etc.

In short, you'll want to let your package manager install and upgrade new software for you. You don't have to take my word for it, Thank You, Aptitude!

I've long believed that the easiest way to install software on a modern operating system is through a well-designed package manager connected to one or more carefully-maintained package repositories.

Zed Shaw provides a very useful insight into what makes a project work.  I'm posting this here a) so that I can refer to it again in the future and b) the hypothesis passes my "Yup-I've-been-there" test.

This method is based on a simple revelation about how clients and projects can be divided generally into Customer,Collaborator;Implementation,Invention. I call this "The [C2I2]{.caps} Hypothesis" since it's not a theory yet, never will be a theory, is based mostly on my thoughts on the subject, and you should probably just use it as a way to think about the problem yourself.

Another reason I like the essay is his burtally honest statement that "This is again just my thoughts and experiences. I've got little if no evidence that my ideas are valid since there simply isn't any". I could point to a number of projects where matching the two were successful or lead to failure. Figuring out if you are working with Customers or Collaborators will give you direction in to how to ask questions, report progress, and deliver the final product. At the least, it would be very valuable to ask these questions next time your sitting in a conference room with a Project Manager to kick off a project to make sure the project group is on the same page.