[ale] linuxgruven.com

[Fulton Green]

This is way ON-topic, and here's my 1/50 $'s worth:

I just happened to whois linuxgruven.com, and it yields ... Chicago
Institute of Technology. So I tried a "reverse whois" on Chicago Institute
of Technology and got ... linuxgruven.com! Obviously, LinuxGruven.com is just
a front for a vocational school. The problem is that the vocational school
doesn't appear to have any legitimate Internet presence other than the
LinuxGruven thing. That $2500 up-front training fee now makes more sense. 
They're surrepetitiously (sp?) registering students under the guise of "job
offer"! Try responding to the offer with "I'll work for $42.5K for a year,
with X raise after a year." Don't necessarily take the offer if they do
accede, though. But if they turn you down, that's more evidence for BBB,
WSB-TV, et. al.

Besides, Volkswagen may have something to say about the commercial usurping
of one of their ad campaigns. Or would it just be usurping that Grateful
Dead sticker? :)

OTOH, there are some legitimate companies offering somewhat-recognisable
Linux certification. Besides Red Hat, which has a Red Hat Certified
Engineer (RHCE) program, there's also the Linux Professional Institute
(www.lpi.org), which has sponsorship from Caldera, SuSE and Turbolinux, as
well as IBM and Linuxcare, among others.

On Mon, Oct 23, 2000 at 11:50:08PM -0500, jiin wrote:
> I answered an ad in the AJC and had an interview with a company called 
> linuxgruven.com today. Offices in Lennox Towers across from Lennox Mall. I 
> spent two hours in the interview including a short written test. ( why 
> weren't they at the ALS? )
> 
> Their offer was very nice and I have no idea if I will be accepted or not 
> until tommorow (tues.). The jist of the offer was this: 45k per year <entry 
> level>, paid health insurance for the family including vision and dental, 
> 401k and stock options before the IPO is released. The part that smells 
> like it could be a scam is that they want me to pay $2500 dollars up front 
> for a 4 week training course to get certified in linux. Not any one 
> particular distro but "all major" distros. < the $2500 comes back after one 
> year>. My thought is to sign a contract with them for a year and they pay 
> the educational fees.
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