I just fixed my modem (I had to rely on a laptop with power problems to connect, so I could rarely stay online for more than a few minutes).
Hopefully I will be able to stay connected long enough to be able to post some stuff.
I'm currently checking out Ruby on Rails for web application development, and working with VMware Workstation.
While my experiences with VMware Workstation, a program that lets one run multiple virtual machines on your computer, have been overwhelmingly positive, I haven't been able to get Rails to install yet because of the Internet connectivity problems I have been experiencing.
I'm mainly testing Rails because I want to see what the hype is about, but VMware has already proved to be enormously useful for maintaining multiple development environment configurations.
