Feel free to check off this task and move on to the next one; it's just "flavor text".

I wanted to explain a little about my use of this icon,

while also addressing some of the concerns you may have.

One thing about the GNU tools is that they are VERY powerful, but "with great power comes great responsibility" as Spider Man's Uncle Ben would say. One tool in particular, dd, happens to be so powerful and potentially catastrophic, it's sometimes jokingly called "destroy disk".

You may be asking yourself why anyone would use these tools. The answer is that, while it's true the "safety is off" so to speak, it's also true that when you are using an open source OS, it is VERY easy for you to recover data, fix your own computer problems, and in general recover from any terrible thing you've done. And unlike with a windows system, if something goes wrong, it's almost always because you did something wrong, not some faceless nameless developer, which means you are in a good position to track down and fix the problem.

The analogy I like to use here is a kitchen. As a windows user, you've been buying frozen food and simply microwaving it. I'm showing you how to use the oven. If you aren't careful, you might set your kitchen on fire. But the advantages that come with being able to cook your own food and save money far outweigh the disadvantages. And if you're really determined, you can start a fire with your microwave anyway ;)

One thing that I think is a must-read for anyone getting their feet wet with Unix is Neal Stephenson's "hole hawg" portion of his essay, "In the beginning there was the command line". I've linked to it here:

http://www.cryptonomicon.com/command.zip

Unzip it and start on line 464, where it says "THE HOLE HAWG OF OPERATING SYSTEMS" in bold letters.

That's pretty much all I wanted to say here. You're building a Genie. Standard Genie rules apply.