Sage wisdom states that there are two sides to every coin. This timeless wisdom will be borne out in spades with Windows 8/RT. Let's get into the dark side first.

If your users are veterans of Windows it is safe bet they are going to take one look at Windows 8 and scream blasphemy. Users whose brains are geared towards visual learning will undoubtedly yell the loudest and longest.

There's a good reason for this. Mick Jagger brought his band to the Redmond campus, performing live "Start Me Up" in the summer of 1995 (it was a great show). This heralded in the abandonment of program icons sitting on the desktop and introduced the now legacy Start button.

Ending the life of the 17-year-old start button is not going to go well with some users.

Attempting to create an intelligent entry about Linux for such a wide ranging audience is a bit like trying to compare a presentation on quantum mechanics for physicists while being readable by somebody with a junior high school education.

If you are a *NIX expert, then I suggest you keep on reading so you know how to explain this world to mere mortals.

I called it *nix for a reason. It represents a family of thinking. It is not unlike the difference between the language C and C++. Are there differences between the two? Certainly. And it is not like the difference between COBOL and C.

Years ago when I ran my own vo-tech school I would teach the students there are only two things in life. MS and *NIX. A friend of mine, a genius developer in her own right was aghast.

C# PROGRAMMING –MAIN DESIGN GOALS

C# is a popular programming language these days, and it was designed from inception to provide a simple, clean, general purpose programming language for those intending to work within the confines of Microsoft’s .NET framework.  Since then, it has been approved as one of the standard languages by both ECMA and ISO, making C# programming an essential tool in every programmers’ kit.

Different languages have different uses and specialties, and C# was designed for programmers to be able to use it to create different components for use in software that would be deployed and distributed en masse, to live use environments.  This means that designers had to really put an emphasis on making the actual source code extremely compatible and portable.  Those already familiar with C or C++ should definitely notice this emphasis.

Another particular point of emphasis during design was focus on internationalization of the language; it was intended from inception to be available all over the world, and to see all sorts of different implementations based on variance in regional programming technique.  The resultant use should help the language develop sophistication as it is refined throughout different versions.

If you’re interested in building modern websites or applications which use ASP, XML, or mobile technology, you’ve heard of Visual Studio .NET.  It is one of the more popular suites of development tools available to aspiring programmers, as it consolidates several different tools and languages into the same development environment, which helps in turn to integrate this code across development languages.  Here are three important benefits to using the visual studio suite:

·         Use of Visual J# - This development tool is specifically oriented towards people who already are familiar with basic Java syntax, and is designed for use by those people to build apps or services which will then run on the Microsoft .NET Framework.  This is useful because it fully supports Microsoft Extensions, among other reasons.  Visual J# was developed completely independently by Microsoft.

·         Utility for Smart Devices – Another huge benefit of using visual studio .NET is the ability to immediately integrate your programming efforts with deployment across a variety of smart devices.  PDAs, smartphones, Pocket PCs, and any device which has a limited amount of resources all require a compact framework for the programming of applications it is designed to run.

·         XML Web Usage and Support – Because XML services aren’t married to any particular technology or programming language, they can be accessed by any system, and this broad-based utility has made the services increasingly popular.  Visual Studio .NET takes advantage of this by fully integrating with XML services, including the ability to create and edit them from scratch.