Alan Hicks wrote:


> I think that's a huge reason many of us are here. I hate to speculate
> on Seasame Street's [0] reasons for being here, but the fact that this
> company he says he runs is (quote from www.adams-black.com) "a
> well-known and well-established contract programming and software
> consulting house" doesn't quite add up. Unless of course, he's mining
> for data here to include in one of their technical books (as they also
> do book publishing).

I thought I was in your kill file? I was hoping I would be.... so I would
avoid having to respond to stupid remarks like above.

Mr. Hicks, what do you do for a living? Last I heard, you were a pig farmer. I
don't know if it's true, but I like bacon and I like pork... and I would not
run-down your occupation or your company or your life-style or impugn your
integrity simply to win an argument on a newsgroup (or anywhere else.)

Just for the record, I'm 57 years old, married for 23 years to my first,
current, and very expensive wife, and hold a BA from U. of Virginia and an MA
from William and Mary.

I'm president of a small consulting firm in Sacramento, CA. We have a book
publishing division as well, but it has been dormant the past two years....
just looking to ramp it up again now that the economy is better.

I just finished a 2.5 year, $300,000 consulting assignment with the State of
CA. This was to implement a new platform for one of the state agencies. The
platform was MS ASP.Net. Go and yell all you want but it was the right tool
for the job... and that's what our company provides. The contract, the work
assignments, and the financials are all public knowledge, documented, and you
can easily verify with the Dept. of Gen. Services who keep track of
procurements like this.

I'm also the main developer of our JAYA123 web-application. (www.jaya123.com)
This is about 180,000 lines of PHP code running on Linux/Apache,MySQL (again,
the right tool(s) for the job.) I wrote about 80% of the code... nights and
weekends over the past two years. We charge $14.95 a month per user and our
subscription base continues to grow. It's a good system. It's not for EVERY
one of the 10 million (NPR's stats, not mine) small business out there, but
it fills the need for a lot of them.... especially small book publishers
(since we have "the best" royalty system around.) Before JAYA123 I wrote and
sold PUB123 (www.adams-blake.com) for years to the book pub biz. Check our
credentials in that industry and you will see that our software is
well-respected and has a respectable user-base.

In addition I'm the author of The Silver Pen, Words From Home, and
ComputerMoney: Making It In Tech Consulting. I also write a weekly syndicated
column targeted to the small publishing market (of about 20,000). (Those of
you who might have been at the Book Expo America two weeks ago in Chicago
where president Clinton introduced his new book to some 2000 of us might like
my BEA Diary:
http://www.adams-blake.com/item.php?...estyle=default
)

I've been programming since I joined Ross Perot's EDS in 1974 (call them if
you don't believe me) and of late, I've finally gotten rather good at it. I
opened my own company in 1979 and have not had a "real job" since.

Mr. Hicks, now that you know a bit about me, explain why you feel that I'm not
qualified to be a Slackware user and why you feel you need to denigrate me
and my company as a means of disagreeing with me over some inane topic?

I really don't want to fight with you. I compete with Random House and with
Intuit. Believe me, Mr. Hicks, you're small potatoes... and I can have you
for lunch anytime I wish. However, I prefer a civil discourse with you. I
don't understand why you (and a few others) are such assholes ALL THE TIME.

You know the old saying. "Everyone likes a little ass,... but no one likes a
wise ass." But Alan, you seem to be a PAIN IN THE ASS... and for the life of
me I simply don't understand why.

Please put me back in your killfile... and leave me there. Who has time for
this?

ANC.