dlaz

Don't require people to get approval before installing new software. That's a pain for the developer and the person who needs to do the approval and will likely just result in your developers not trying out tools that might help them be more productive.

I did this a few years back for an independent study in college. Once the semester was over I never touched it again though. Hopefully they'll do a better job.

http://carnap.cs-i.brandeis.edu/~dlaz/dev/groupmath/chat.xml, for anyone who's interested.

Generally people who want to pursue a PhD do not do it for the money. A PhD is about loving the field you're in and loving research.