Signs on the Sand

Google launches Premier Edition of the google.com/a - Google Apps. It's:

• Gmail (10Gb mailbox), Google Talk, Google Calendar, Docs & Spreadsheets, Page Creator and Start Page
•  99.9% uptime guarantee for email (only for email?)
• opt-out for ads in email - doh!
• Shared calendar
• Single sign-on
• User provisioning and management
• Support for email gateway
• Email migration tools (Limited Release)
• 24/7 assistance, including phone support
• 3rd party applications and services

for mere $50/year per user. Sounds tempting for microISVs and small businesses.

They say it's cheap alternative to Microsoft Office. I'm not convinced. $50 x 4-5 years = Microsoft Office price, but I'm not sure one can compare Google Apps and Microsoft Office featurewise (yet).

What's more interesting is  /. gang very cold reaction. Are sysadmins afraid Google is taking their job off?

Here is a list of 65 Math books available online for free, compiled by George Cain of Georgia Institute of Technology. Including really interesting ones such as:

• Algorithms and Complexity by Professor Wilf
• A = B, by Marko Petkovsek, Herbert Wilf, and Doron Zeilberger
• A Course In Algebraic Number Theory by Professor Ash
• Calculus Without Limits, by John C. Sparks
• Handbook of Applied Cryptography, by Alfred J. Menezes , Paul C. van Oorschot, and Scott A. Vanstone
• Graph Theory, by Reinhard Diestel
• Basic Concepts of Mathematics, by Elias Zakon
• An Introduction to the Theory of Numbers by Leo Moser
• Graph Theory with Applications, by J. A. Bondy and U. S. R. Murty
• Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms, by David J. C. MacKay
• Voting, Arbitration, and Fair Division: The Mathematics of Social Choice by Professor Pivato
• Numerical Methods and Analysis for Engineers, by Douglas Wilhelm Harder

[Via reddit.com: programming]