If they have internet access, for something different, but which I think is exactly along the lines of what you describe, check out a SaaS product called TrackVia (http://www.trackvia.com). It's relatively cheap (you might try to get them to give you pro bono access as a charity) and has all the abilities you describe designed specifically for non-technical people, but is also quite versatile.

Hope that helps!

Code does not have to be fully reviewed for the open source development process to discipline attempts at compromise. There is a nonzero probability that any given piece of code will be reviewed for reasons other than looking for a back door, and if the probability is higher than trivial, it would dissuade parties from attempting to surreptitiously put in a back door. If a back door were found, the contributor would be known and repercussions would follow.

Moreover, I would not be at all surprised if foreign governments who have a national security interest in running uncompromised operating systems have devoted time and resources specifically to code review of the kernel for potential compromises.

I couldn't agree more. Because of the dread Nobel prize, radical left-wingers like Einstein, Fermi, Schrödinger, and Heisenberg have ruined physics.

I'm not sure that I hear a success story there. Has it actually contributed to your career significantly, or are you just enjoying being able to speak/read the language? In the U.S., there are so many Chinese-Americans who can speak much more fluently than someone who learned it as a second language and/or Chinese immigrants who would basically be willing to sacrifice a limb for a green card that it's not a particular competitive advantage in the workplace. In China, there is such discrimination against foreigners in hiring and promotion that trying to get a real job is an exercise in futility. It doesn't sound like you've been able to actually do more than gain some social value from your experience with Chinese.

As someone who has learned Chinese as an adult, I would recommend against it unless you have the opportunity to do so without sacrificing considerable opportunity costs or have the luxury of not having to worry about opportunity costs. The learning process is considerably more time-consuming and challenging than a European language, and you cannot learn it to a functional level from taking classes. (There are many foreigners I've met in China who took four years of Chinese as an undergraduate and were astonished to discover when they set foot in the country that they were totally non-functional.) You have to actually live in a Chinese-speaking country, and it's very hard to get a decent job in China unless you're moved there by a multinational and retain your salary and benefits from the home country. Even then, if you're working a regular job, you simply won't have time to learn the language in a reaonable tme frame. I know plenty of expats in China who have been working here for 7-10 years and still can barely ask for directions in Chinese.

Finally, if you think you can simply show up in China and people will be beating down your door to give you a great job, think again. The idea that China is full of potential is a total myth for Westerners. There are almost no opportunities for Westerners outside of teaching English or other jobs unrelated to professional technical positions, and no Chinese-owned firm I've heard of has ever given a Westerner a management position with any authority. Whereas in the United States, being a non-U.S. citizen does not impose a glass ceiling, in China quite the opposite is true. You simply won't make money here unless you are working for a multinational and are moved here from your home country rather than someone who moves here and is then hired in-country, in which case your living here is taken as a clear signal you're willing to work for local wages.

In short, people who talk about Chinese as a way to open doors and create opportunities are simply out of touch with the realities on the ground in China.

If the firm uses CentOS today because they find that optimal, they may find paying for Red Hat support tomorrow optimal. If they use some other operating system, they will be less likely to ever send Red Hat money. So take this opportunity to educate the CIO so that if your firm is ever in the position of needing their services, he or she will know where to go.

The goal should not be to eliminate free riders. In fact, free riding is an inherent component of the open source model and many who are free riders today will become paying customers tomorrow. The economic model works when the number of free riders is not so high that it chokes off resources necessary to develop the platform.

Whether or not that is the case for Red Hat is going to have little to do with your firm's decision or people's sentiments about whether paying for open source software is the right or wrong thing to do, and much to do with the general incentives that their economic model produces. Red Hat knows there are firms like yours wrestling with the same decision, and that many of them will chose options such as CentOS, but hopes that there are a sufficient number for whom it is a good business decision to avail themselves of Red Hat's (and other open source contributors') services that the product will command sufficient resources to continue to improve.

The problem is not their hardware. The hardware is great. It's their inability to deliver on a stable, usable operating system. Whoever has been in charge of the OS division of their company should not only be fired, but charged with criminal negligence.

They haven't yet delivered on their Linux OS, and their use of Microsoft Mobile is a total disaster.

In my own experience, I've owned several Treos, and recently upgraded to a 750. It came with Microsoft Windows Mobile, which, though I generally haven't had good experiences with Microsoft software, I thought I'd give a quick whirl. Little did I know what I was in for.

Among the many, many instabilities, the worst is the SMS application. It freezes about 25% of the time when a message is received, dropping the message. This means that SMS is basically unusable. Perhaps an upgrade would fix it, but I hesitate to upgrade because the online message boards are filled with posts of people who've attempted the process and bricked their phones.

I was also shocked to discover that there's no way of syncing your calendar, contacts, etc. on Windows Mobile without using Outlook. No way at all, unless you want to rely on a really buggy pre-alpha open source package, which I don't.

I don't like Outlook, I don't want to use Outlook, and I certainly don't want to pay for more Microsoft software after I've already (implicitly) paid for their OS, which replaces what Palm previously did for free.

I've given up on waiting for Palm to get their act together. I still love their hardware, but their total incompetence in delivering a stable and modern OS will mean I, for one, will never be a customer again.