How about those that don't see the point? It didn't seem to fill a need that couldn't be met with other technologies. There's also the critical mass effect that benefits or hinders all social media tools - how many people do you know that are using it, and is it compelling enough to switch, and have others switch with you?

The article says they are doing exactly what I think they should - look to move into the trading type positions and earn some of the money themselves! If you want to earn the money the traders do, look to move out of the server room & onto the trade floor. There's still a demand for HFT talent with significant programming skills...

Microsoft can't compete. The iPad is a toy that you play with, and enjoy using. You don't buy one to be productive or get stuff done, you buy them cos they're awesome and fun to use. MS will never be able to match that...

Where did you find the Canon drivers? Still no luck finding drivers for the MP 390 scanner...

Even made of out of garbage, he still looks better than the actual garbage masquerading as Optimus in the Bay films...

...for the Japanese Miracle.

I would say that taking the pen and breaking it would not be the way to behave. I have a colleage who occasionally does the foot tap thing that makes my desk shake (a la xkcd) - I just remind him with a good-natured comment.

Something like a joke 'pen-clicking charge' of 50c each time - said with a smile, in a strong attempt at showing humor rather than annoyance, every time he does it, would go further. Hopefully he'll be apologetic about doing it - I'm sure he doesn't want to be annoying, but I could be wrong...

30 pages is too much information for a senior executive, even if they think they want it, and ask for it.

I would start trying to 'manage up'. I used with work with an executive who had a very short attention span, would frequently request changes, and then request that they be changed back when he saw them during the next review. He would always focus on format - we'd discus fonts of the number in a report rather than the numbers themselves.

So, you do the research, figure out what the best option is, and then present a 4 page power point outlining why. Keep the information in the ppt to a minimum, don't share too much - it'll just open opportunities to questions that he really doesn't understand and shouldn't care about - but have the detailled report ready if he asks for it.

Perhaps let him make the decision on trivial things - (e.g. what color should the network cables be? blue or green), but present your chosen option on the big decisions (where to locate the data center) as the 'recommended' choice, and imply serious shortcomings of the alternatives.

It's very Dilbert-esque, but there are shades of truth in those strips.

There's a open source downloader I found called Multiget (http://multiget.sourceforge.net/) that seems to have been based on FDM. I was essentially looking for the same thing - an FDM for Linux. I tried to tweak a couple of things myself, but my C++ isn't up to scratch - I'm still a beginner. Would be interested to help out if I could though...