What you are mentioning is a reflection of experience at our university where I work as well. Nearly the same anyway. In fact, 90+% of the computers on this campus are windows based PC's. Macs are popular but far from a majority even with the students here. This fantasy land that universities are almost entirely mac dominated is false. Certainly, there is a higher percentage of students and faculty that use macs at universities than elsewhere but its hardly a majority. I also reflect what is said about lab and office machines that take forever to start up. But then again I think we are one of the last to still be using Novell. There is an active directory migration and win 7 migration occurring but it will take a long time to finish. I only wish the XP machines would boot faster. Taking 5+ minutes to boot a machine is ridiculous. But they have 100+ applications and network login etc along with novell that occur at startup. There has to be a better way though. I'll be glad to say good riddance to XP but now they just want to use the old XP image in vmware booting which defeats the point of going with 7 in the first place. Nonsense.

Now seriously Intel? Do you really take users for being this kind of a moron? Its easy! If I see something like this I'll simply not buy a computer with an intel chip in it that I have to pay extra money to activate a feature? This is about the same as the cable companies, etc that were trying to experiment with "metered billing" and then now the CEO gets mad because customers threw a pie in his face for treating the customer as if they are really that dumb to consider it! Come on! Seriously! Absolute BS. AMD is STILL making alternate CPU's after all. Hmmm, Intel! *knock knock* are you in there!?

Actually the Amiga was quite an advanced machine at the time. It is too bad that Commodore did not market it aggressively enough over time. Someone mentioned how poor PC programs looked compared to the Amiga. This is true. But I don't think the "three magic letters" are what made PC's so popular but rather the fact that PC's at the time already had all of the popular and "killer" business applications of the day. It also had M$'s monopolostic marketing and sales strategies which are exactly the strategies that Commodore should have used and actually were used when Tramiel was at the helm. Well, nothing is perfect in this world. Commodore made some of the most innovative computer products of the 80's and early 90's. It is a shame they have faded into relative computing obscurity. The Amiga OS itself was amazing for the time.

If you are not going to attend class then why are you in college? I recently graduated and most of the prof's where I went to school took attendance and counted it as part of your grade. There were some students who scoffed at it but I don't care. If you are going to waste the prof's time, the college's time, and your own time why not stay in your mother's basement and veg in front of the xbox? I even had one prof that would quietly walk over to the lecturn and silently write down a -1 in his grade book anytime a student came in late or left early. He didn't argue, he didn't yell, he just automatically deducted a point when people behaved irresponsibly. I don't see why the RFID shouldn't be used. Attendance can be taken instantly and also record the time the student enters or leaves the room and then can be used to partially calcuate the final grade at the end of the semester and save a lot of time not having to take roll and send around roll sheets and things like this. Faster, more efficient, and holding people accountable and responsible for their actions. Especially, this is true in public universities where tax money is used to pay for people's education. People should be held accountable for their behavior. Counter to the idea that its treating people like children its actually expecting people to act like adults and be responsible. Maybe I am too "old school" but I am not. The rotten drift wood won't make it in an RFID roll system. I agree that huge classes are silly but even then the lecture can be useful. And in fact, I remember sitting in a class trying to pay attention to the prof when others were talking in the back of the room. Finally the prof yelled at them and told them to be quiet or leave. I also learned to sit at the front of the room to pay attention and see and hear what was going on rather than sit in the back with the idiots that interrupt, and text, etc. So, in this case, even though I am usually against "big brother" initiatives I think this one is good. Put the RFID tag inside the student's ID card and they must have it to enter the room and their attendance and time of entry and departure are automatically recorded and automatically used to calculate the attendance portion of their grade. If they don't like it then tough balls and kiss behind. Go to school somewhere else or go home to mom's basement and veg in front of the xbox.

Well, I at least took the time to read many of the posts (though I hardly have time to read all of them). I will be calm and intelligent in my response. First off, if a company is truly evading taxes in an illegal way then they need to be visited by a court with judges who will apply the law accurately. You may interpret that anyway you want. Secondly, Even in my strategic management course in a reputable college of business we talk about corporate governance and corporate responsibility. From what I am reading in our text as well as the lectures from our professor I can tell you that mostly the idiots who watch the Faux news channel and who want the lowest possible taxes are the ones who (for the most part) are the fools. Every corporation has a responsibility to its stakeholders starting with 1) investors (who have questionable judgement though) 2) employees 3) customers and 4) communities (this includes citizens of a town or state and the government in said locations). So on this basis a company that simply avoids taxes and then threatens to move his operations overseas is no better than Kim Jong Il threatening with his finger on the button every time he wants to scare the west. IN this case, Ballmer may do it. But don't get any idea that he is anything more than an overgrown child. His behavior proves that. Additionally, this is the same man that is known for throwing chairs in his office when he gets mad and having temper tantrums when things don't go his way. It seems that he is a man child having a fit due to Microsoft's recently reported lower revenue. Like Detroit, they have no one to blame but themselves. Not unions, not government, none of that. It boils down to the executives and the board of directors and also a bunch of avarice filled myopic investors who care more about every penny they can get now rather than long term profitability. Additionally, it must be said that microsoft losing sales due to problems with Vista is additionally their own problem. They released an OS that later became acceptable but during the first year they expected customers to keep buying an OS that was not ready. Ballmer and M$ are not taking responsibility here. If Ballmer cannot adjust their business model to survive then perhaps the shareholders should vote him off the board and put someone in his seat less prone to temper tantrums and childish outbreaks of insanity. I think it is a common problem among corporate execs these days. They seem to feel entitled to private jets, $200,000 cars, etc. There are plenty of people who feel entitled to things including sometimes people in poverty. The difference here is that the impact of Microsoft's decisions are far greater reaching than those of someone in the middle of detroit, DC, Atlanta, LA, NYC, etc. Not that those individual decisions as a collective aren't a drag (they are). However, in this case Ballmer sets a bad example which is "I deserve and I will have" which are the hallmarks also of 3rd World Dictators and those who rob banks. Anyway, that is my patient rant for today. I am no idiot. You all need to stop watching faux news and believing the talking heads there. And additionally it would be advisable to shut off the afternoon AM talk radio while your at it. There is almost nothing in fact presented from these outlets. Have a nice day. Thank you. :)

HAHAHA i remember those. Growing up we had TWO of those phones. One was a nice desk phone with the rotary dial and then the really great one was the wall phone with a super long handset cord on it. Both phones were hardwired to the line and they were both rented from the phone company. LOL Yes, they both had the message that they were property of the phone company. Rotary dialing seems archaic now. In those days it was Southern Bell which was later BellSouth and now AT&T Southeast. I also remember calling my grandparents long distance. lOL They lived in oklahoma and we were in NC. Back then it sounded like they were talking at me from a very long distance as even when they talked loud the sound wasn't that loud on long distance calls and there was some noise in the background when we called them. Its amazing how much better technology is now versus 30 years ago.

Well, i like a lot of new AND old computer technology. Given that is the case i have a few relics of my own. I have a 25 year old Commodore 64 with monitor and disk drive that still work fine. I still play games on it occasionally. Additionally, I have a Pentium IV PC that is a frankenstein. The newest component in it is about six years old and the oldest component in it which is the DVD-ROM drive is 10 years old and still works perfectly. It also has a 30GB WD hard drive in it that is over 8 years old and still working perfectly. In my closet I have an original model IMac which still works perfectly. I still have all the manuals and the restore disk from apple for it. For that matter the newest Piece of hardware I have is already 5 years old. It is a Sony VAIO P4/3.0Ghz PC which still works great. The only thing I did to it was upgrade the memory in it to 2GB RAM. By the way, 32 Bit Vista works fine on it and I have a DX9 compatible video card so it works fine with Aero etc. I was skeptical that Vista would work reasonably well with it but it does! :) I have two older PIII PC's that are in various states of disrepair and will be an upcoming project to combine some of the parts in them into a working machine. The old "frankenstein" P4 system has Ubuntu 9.04 on it now. Fun stuff. :)

Seriously, this is about the dumbest idea I've ever heard of. Try passing this off on the Top Gear crowd and I guarantee that something will happen in the courts in England! LOL Having said that I do think people should obey the speed limits and the rules of the road (most of the time). However, this electronic device is begging to create accidents. There are occasionally times when I am on the highway and need to accelerate to pass, etc and it would not be good to turn off the engine at the second I am trying to pass someone. This sounds like an initiative from someone who has too much time on their hands and just wants to benefit the business of a buddy who will be manufacturing the devices. Surely there are more important things to worry with. *yawn*

AT&T will have increased costs on their part as a result of this agreement. As a result it will likely result in increased internet rates for me as an AT&T customer. If I find out that my rates go up as a result of this agreement with the RIAA I wil cancel my subscription to AT&T DSL. AT&T should not be in the business of playing Nanny for the RIAA. If the RIAA wants this they should be the ones to foot the bill and pay the costs. AT&T needs to stop wasting time and money on initiatives like this and focus on getting broadband into rural areas. All the money thats being wasted to support the RIAA could be used for rural broadband initiatives. I understand that its not good to pirate stuff. However, like hell I am paying more to my ISP to support pursuit of people who download "illegal" content. The RIAA does a good enough job of that on their own. They are a sneaky, smug, hand wringing bunch of litigious thugs who want to waste the court's and taxpayer's time clogging the dockets with frivolous lawsuits and other wastes of government resources and time.

Well I am glad I don't live in Oklahoma anymore. Attitudes like this are why I left that place. And its not just OK. There are a lot of ignorant morons in this country. They have a right to their opinion but don't try to legislate out someone else's lectures because you disagree? Did you not learn about science or for that matter freedom of speech? I am tired of right wing religious nuts. They need to &*&% themselves and go to &*&?.

It is true that M$ is a much larger company than Apple. However, does any of this come as a surprise. They spend a lot developing their own software but they also spend a lot figuring out how to copy other people's stuff and on how to figure out how to take over smaller innovative companies and make the product their own. Maybe when shareholders start selling the company out from under them they will have to do something. Personally, I know that windows will never go away because we are all too dependent on its software. However, I will open a champagne bottle the day M$ is forced to open source Windows in order for it to survive and they don't have any money left. Do I feel for the people who would lose their jobs? Absolutely, but its M$ fault. As one person said, turn right into the door where the chairs are flailing around. You can start there with why M$ is beginning its own nasty fall.

Well now, it appears that M$ is still up to the same dishonest, greasy, greedy, money grubbing tactics that they have used in the past. I really want to like M$ for some of the things they have done such as Office for instance which I feel is a good product. However, last night is a good example of using more than 2 applications. I was working in two instances of office plus I had AIM, yahoo, and firefox running. There is no way in hell I will pay more just operate more than two programs at a time. This is BS. It is about as honest as the caps that Charter and the other ISP's are trying to lay upon us. M$ and other greedy companies, go F&*&! yourselves!

I am home sitting at my mom's computer now! LOL It is working fine. However, I too have had to implement some strategies to help her and my grandmother have an operational computer. First of all they have an old PC, PIII/800Mhz with 512Mb RAM (yes I gave it to them). Anyway, it works and runs with Windows 2000 workstation edition. I installed all the normal utilities on this computer including AVG which has automatic update (but not automatic scan) and of course automatic updates from M$ for the OS. Additionally, I installed logmein so that I may log in remotely to fix problems which has already saved a lot of trouble once since I installed it. Other than that they have been using AOL for their email for years and it would be hard to change them over to some other email service which sucks but thats what they like. Anyway, AOL is on here (hehe) and it is set to access through TCP/IP over their DSL connection. Of course, Firefox 3 and all the necessary plugins are installed. If they have a real problem they can call me, start up the computer and let me log in remotely to see whats going on with it. :)

Our Labor Cost in the US is too high. We have long had the ability to feel we are entitled to new TV's, computers and other things and thus feel justified in a high salary and an insular economic attitude. We can no longer afford this. When programmers in India can be hired for $20,000/yr we need to reassess our expectations for our standard of living. I know this pisses off a lot of people. However, look at Detroit. The UAW demanded $79/Hr to build cars and they were still crap. If we insist on these kind of wages and the standard of living that comes with them then we are dead in the water, especially with the economy tanking now like it hasn't in 25 years.