CONTENTS

• Editors Desk
• Their Money's No Good
• Survivor Species
• Linux Log: The Only Unchanging Truth
• Letters to the Editor
• How to Submit an Article
• URLs Mentioned in this Issue

Editors Desk

By Steve Litt

• In early 1990, Windows, then in version 2, was considered a joke. DOS was the most used and appreciated operating system.
• In 1990 an electronics supply store manager asked me if my book was insured, in case someone harmed by its information sued. I told him he was crazy, saying "it's a book, not a ladder or power saw". Today everything I write carries a legal disclaimer.
• In December of 1991 the Soviet Union disintegrated, and Communism ceased to be seen as a threat.
• In 1992 I paid $4500.00 for a Gateway 2000 486-66 with 16 meg of RAM and 340 meg of disk space, 2400 baud modem and 4x cdrom.
• In 1994 I plunked down $800.00 for a 1 gig disk drive. I strutted from the store laughing at the spectacular deal I'd made.
• I have a tape of an old 1994 made for TV movie. Not one ad has a web URL.
• In the first half of 1995 a guy knowing enough HTML to make a site with text, links and graphics commanded $500/page, typing and transcribing extra.
• In Mid 1995 I paid $678.00 for a 16 meg RAM simm for my Gateway 2000.
• In 1995 no journalist in his right mind criticized Microsoft or any of its products.
• In 1996 the vast majority of programmers had never heard of Linux.
• In 1996 you could eat an entire restaraunt meal without hearing someone talk on a cell phone.
• In 1996 client/server apps were a new technology.
• In early 1998 no rational person believed you could make money in Linux.
• In August 1999: Linux vendor Red Hat Software's six million share IPO, initially valued at $14.00 per share, would have generated $83. But prices rose into the 52 1/16 by the end of the day. By August 27 the stock, now at 79 13/16, is worth $478,875,000.00 Just short of a half a billion dollars.
• In August 1999 a vendor offered me a brand new bare bones AMD K6 450 with quality motherboard and case for less than $200. At $279 for a 14.4gig IBM 7200rpm drive and $150 for 128meg of 6ns SDRAM, and say $350 for miscelleneous floppy drives, CD drives, video, sound, modem, and network, I can have a state of the art system for under $1000.00.

Steve Litt is the author of "Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful Technologist". He can be reached at Steve Litt's email address.

Their Money's No Good

By Steve Litt

1. Medium of Exchange
2. Store of Wealth
3. Unit of Account
4. Standard of Deferred Payment

And you try very hard to find more stable stores of wealth than money.

Now draw an analogy between American currency in the 70's and technological knowledge today. The former had a half life of 5 years at its worst. The latter's half life is closer to a 1.5 years (obsolescence). Money is to goods and services as tech knowledge is to jobs, as described in the following table:
 

	Money	Tech Knowledge
Buys:	Goods and services	Jobs
Devalued by:	Inflation	Change/obsolescence
When not devalued, store of:	Wealth	Income potential
Stable investment alternatives:	Stocks, gold, real estate	Management knowledge, industry knowledge
Devalue avoidance:	Barter, just in time money acquisition	Barter, just in time learning acquisition
Barter:	Other goods and services	Other jobs++
Just In Time acquisition:	Matching spending to work/asset sales and vice versa	Matching learning to jobs and vice versa
Requirements for JIT acquisition:	Excess moneymaking capacity via optional overtime, commission work, or timely asset sales	Excess learning capacity via Rapid Learning
++ Incomplete analogy. Knowledge can be spent repetatively. However, given its rate of obsolescence and employers' discouragement of moonlighting, the practical result is that knowledge buys very limited consecutive new jobs. Bartering in the job market takes the form of using one's position as an employee to gain a promotion to a newer technology.

Tech knowledge devalues with storage. It cannot be stored for a rainy day or accumulated in the hope that a suitable job will later show up. It must be obtained immediately prior to acquiring a job, contract, project or assignment using that tech knowledge. It must be obtained based on the technologist's need, not "when it's available". This implies massively excess learning capacity.

The days of keeping your tech knowledge in the mattress are gone.

Steve Litt is the author of the newly released book, "Rapid Learning: Secret Weapon of the Successful Technologist". He  can be reached at Steve Litt's email address.

Survivor Species

By Steve Litt

Human adaptability certainly doesn't result from their physical attributes. Almost hairless, the unclothed, fireless human cannot survive a single snowy night. Fangless and slow, the weaponless human is dinner for wolves, and unlikely to catch any animal for dinner.

None of this matters, of course. Threatened with predators, the human invents knives, clubs, spears and arrows. Threatened with cold, he invents fire and animal skin clothing. Threatened with starvation, he invents traps, fishing hooks, and intensive farming. Threatened with overpopulation, he wanders, cutting forests with machete and fire, cutting trails, making boats and wheeled conveyances. Threatened with problems too difficult for a single animal or even a pack, he invents government. Using nothing but his brain, voice and opposable thumb, this weak, slow, hairless, unclawed, brittle toothed and barely fertile loser of the animal kingdom goes everywhere and thrives.

He survives with tools. Tools to kill, tools to build, tools to make tools. Tools to make tools to make tools. Tools to deal with change.

High school and college were sufficient techology knowledge learning tools for 1950's humans. There was little need for accelerated learning techniques. Schooling gave them a virtually lifetime supply of technological knowledge. Glacial post graduation technology progress could be learned using their native intelligence with books, night school or training classes.

Then the pace of technology overwhelmed the human's native learning ability, just as cold weather overwhelmed his naked ancestor so long ago. His ancestor invented clothing to keep warm beyond the innate ability of his body. The modern technologist invented Rapid Learning to learn beyond the innate ability of his mind.

If you live in Canada, you wear a thick overcoat. If you work in modern technology, you use Rapid Learning.

Steve Litt is the author of the newly released book, "Rapid Learning: Secret Weapon of the Successful Technologist". He  can be reached at Steve Litt's email address.

Linux Log: The Only Unchanging Truth

Linux Log is a regular column in Troubleshooting Professional Magazine, authored by Steve Litt. Each month we'll explore a facet of Linux as it relates to that month's theme.

Answers abound, from the astronomical to the microscopic to the just plain wierd, until a disciple answers "Nothing withstands change except the truth of this statement".

The old man hands his robe, inherited from line of predecessors stretching back 1000 years, to the disciple speaking those words, then goes to the next world in peace.

Now for the more modern version of the story:

All but one sycophant answer "Microsoft rules the world". The lone dissenter answers "Nothing withstands change except the truth of this statement".

On the way to his going away party, the old IT manager fires the wierdo dissenter. His department is now pure.

Three months later the fired former sycophant, now a consultant, gives the HR department an app they've been requesting for a year. It uses a Linux server. His pay for the project exceeds the yearly salary of the newly appointed IT manager, who is fuming.

Incredible, Isn't It?

So they put all their eggs in the Microsoft basket. They learn the exceptions, the workarounds, the blue screens of death, the trivia. And they leave the door wide open for us to displace them when the change happens. And change always happens.

Put these guys in a time machine, whisk them back to 475 AD, and they'll tell you Rome will rule forever. Guys like these wrote the 1930's encyclopedia entry explaining why man would never get to the moon. One of their kind wrote the anatomical treatise explaining why no man would ever run a sub 4 minute mile. Their older brothers' mantra was "nobody ever gets fired for buying IBM".

The Real Question

But of course, the naysayers say nay to all challenges to Microsoft. It's a 100% certainty that one day they will be wrong. It's just a question of which time. Like the successive Barbarian invasions of ancient Rome, each challenge is more serious than the last. One day a non-Microsoft technology will strut in, like the Barbarian Odoacer, dethroning Emporor Bill and leaving a shrunken, divided vestage of the Redmondian empire. And when that day comes the naysayers better hope their unemployment checks come on time.

Will the conquering technology be Linux?

Probably.

The latest issue of Infoworld declared that Compaq has just dumped development of NT on the Alpha platform, announcing that Alpha would run Linux, Tru64 Unix, and Open VMS. What kind of "Enterprise" OS doesn't run on minicomputers?  Linux is being developed to compete with Win CE in the embedded market. Gnome and KDE bring it to Windows' home turf, the "technologically challenged".

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Stop the Presses: This just in! 8/30/1999. Sun Microsystems, who recently bought the Star Office office suite, has released Star Office under the a zero cost, source available license! Star Office runs on Windows and Linux, and is absolutely free of charge to anyone who wants it. Why would anybody spend $400 for MS Office? Now that there's a free, source available office suite on Linux, to add to its server and window manager capabilities, why would anyone go with crash and burn Windows. Scott McNealy: Way to go!

Several years ago Microsoft eviscerated Netscape by offering a free competitor. That knife cuts both ways.

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True forever: Nothing withstands change except the truth of this statement.

True today: I'm betting on Linux!

Steve Litt is the author of the newly released book, "Rapid Learning: Secret Weapon of the Successful Technologist". He  can be reached at Steve Litt's email address.

Letters to the Editor

All letters become the property of the publisher (Steve Litt), and may be edited for clarity or brevity. We especially welcome additions, clarifications, corrections or flames from vendors whose products have been reviewed in this magazine. We reserve the right to not publish letters we deem in bad taste (bad language, obscenity, hate, lewd, violence, etc.).

Submit letters to the editor to Steve Litt's email address, and be sure the subject reads "Letter to the Editor". We regret that we cannot return your letter, so please make a copy of it for future reference.

How to Submit an Article

All submissions become the property of the publisher (Steve Litt), unless other arrangements are previously made in writing. We do not currently pay for articles. Troubleshooters.Com reserves the right to edit any submission for clarity or brevity. Any published article will include a two sentence description of the author, a hypertext link to his or her email, and a phone number if desired. Upon request, we will include a hypertext link, at the end of the magazine issue, to the author's website, providing that website meets the Troubleshooters.Com criteria for links and that the author's website first links to Troubleshooters.Com.

Submissions should be emailed to Steve Litt's email address, with subject line Article Submission. The first paragraph of your message should read as follows (unless other arrangements are previously made in writing):

I (your name), am submitting this article for possible publication in Troubleshooters.Com. I understand that this submission becomes the property of the publisher, Steve Litt, whether or not it is published, and that Steve Litt reserves the right to edit my submission for clarity or brevity. I certify that I wrote this submission and no part of it is owned by, written by or copyrighted by others.

URLs Mentioned in this Issue

• http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/: Troubleshooters.Com bookstore, home of Rapid Learning: Secret Weapon of the Successful Technologist.
• http://www.troubleshooters.com/tpromag/9805.htm#Barbarians: A May, 1998 article in which Steve Litt predicted a Linux conquest of Microsoft. Everyone thought him crazy. What a difference a year makes!
• http://www.redhat.com: Home page of Red Hat Software, the guys with the Linux IPO
• http://www.microsoft.com: Home page of Microsoft, vendors of Windows.
• http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?990820.pintdump.htm: Infoworld announcement that Compaq has dropped NT development for the Alpha.
• http://www.news.com/News/Item/0%2C4%2C41111%2C00.html?sas.mail: News article: "Sun to offer Microsoft Office competitor for free". Will the bad news never end for Microsoft?