We've been looking at several options for this type of thing at the University where I work. We've got one lab currently running LANDesk, and another that is running off of VMWare. They each have their own advantages and drawbacks, you've just got to decide which is best for your situation.

In the multiple computer labs that I maintain virtualization is out of the question due to the performance hit being too high considering the usage for the two of the labs (Photoshop, streaming video, audio decoding, some really heavy javascript stuff). The rest of my labs lack the funding/justification to setup a VMWare or LANDesk backend and they get the hand-me-downs when I get new hardware for the larger labs. What I've done instead is I use Altiris (now Symantec) Deployment Solution. I've put together a basic lab image (MS Office, Firefox, anti-virus, Windows updates, etc.) in VMWare Fusion on my Mac. I then deploy that image out to the rest of my labs as they only need Office and internet access. That way I only really have to maintain two lab images. One for the two Photoshop labs, and one for the rest of my labs. When important updates come out I update the VM, and have my deployment server push the updated image out to all of my machines in the middle of the night so I don't get in the way of the students being able to do homework and other assignments. The nice thing about Deployment Solution is it has an option for hardware independent imaging where it removes the existing hardware abstraction layer (HAL) and injects drivers for whatever hardware the image has been deployed to. You do have to maintain your driver database and make sure that you get updated drivers for new hardware, but this has worked flawlessly for me for quite a while now and I'm imaging against...I think five different sets of hardware (they mostly differ in the motherboards, no video cards in the lab machines beyond the integrated video) with the one base image.

Oh man...TIE Fighter. I remember the summer I got that game - or rather I remember playing it for three straight months. I got some nasty eye strain headaches because I couldn't stop. I started dreaming that I was a TIE pilot. I even had all of the ridiculous keyboard commands memorized. I had muscle memory for transferring power from shields to weapons, weapons to shields, tractor beam, engine power...dang...I want to play that stupid life-sucking game now.

Thanks a lot.

"All these worlds are yours except Europa. Attempt no landings there. Use them together. Use them in peace."

I mean Arthur C. Clarke must've known something. Another science fiction author unraveled the meaning of existence and we all know that L. Ron Hubbard is 100% right (for those of you with broken sarcasm detectors, I'm kidding), so Clarke must be at least as brilliant since he was a better writer!

No argument there. I work for one of Novell's largest customers and we're about 2 minutes down the freeway from their HQ in Provo, UT. We were having some serious Netware issues (we're finally moving to AD this summer because of this crap) and a bunch of us IT geeks drove to their campus and wouldn't leave until we got some real help.

Yeah, this is pretty scummy. But I've gotta admit, it's also pretty creative.

Most of the movies were decent (although I have to agree with you on that weird dance). Order of the Phoenix had some serious editing problems.

For example after Umbridge catches Harry in her office suddenly half the cast is in there as well. Hermione and Ron are to be expected but Ginny Weasley and Luna Lovegood are also there, yet the film has given no reason for them to be involved in what Harry was doing in the office. Draco Malfoy even drags Luna into the room at the beginning of the scene saying "I caught this one trying to help the Weasley girl." Help her do what? In the book they were acting as lookouts, but there is no mention of that in the movie.

It's one thing to make changes for pacing, believability, time, etc. but there several instances where scenes were obviously shot, but then subsequently left out. I know this happens all the time in movies, but in the case of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix it causes some real problems due to characters mentioning things that happened in those scenes.

If you want a good example of an "oops" after shooting wrapped watch Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. When Katie Bell (the girl who touched the cursed necklace) comes back to Hogwarts and Harry gets up to talk to her there is a very awkward cut-in shot of the potions textbook being closed. If you watch the way he gets up prior to the edit he isn't holding the book, but after the cut-in he is. This was added due to a continuity issue, but they obviously weren't going to re-shoot the entire scene with 100 extras just because of that. Unfortunately it ends up being a strange, jarring moment that can leave audience members wondering what that was all about.

I notice these types of things because I've done them myself when I worked on and edited a few short films. I also really enjoy Harry Potter, sometimes it's a little painful though.

I guess I'm just a cult member. I happen to like David Lynch's version. I know it's not the most accurate, but I thought it was fairly well done for its time - and how many film adaptations are well done? Some of the Harry Potter movies (Order of the Phoenix being the worst offender) are so off it's funny, and The Lost World (Jurassic Park 2) didn't resemble the book at all. I also really enjoyed the principal actors - Kyle McLachlan, and just enough Patrick Stewart to lend some legitimacy.

That's an excellent point. I know someone that worked for a company that contributed money to one side of the prop 8 argument in California. This person contributed money to the opposite side. He ended up having his wife's name on the contribution since donor information is public and that information includes the employer. With his wife making the contribution the occupation was listed as homemaker. It could've caused him problems at work for there to have been public record (he wouldn't have been fired or anything, but other things could've come up) for him contributing contrary to his employer's open endorsement.

I understand that most of their customers won't really need this, but for heavy users that need to monitor their bandwidth this is just evil. The bandwidth monitor needs to be aligned with the billing month, not the calendar month. This is just another way for them to get users to pay fines for going over the bandwidth cap.

"Sorry, but your billing cycle ended on the 23rd of December, you started using up your January billing cycle's bandwidth allotment then even though the meter only shows your usage since January 1st."

That's part of why my dad was able to do so much with his. They custom built the house and he went over on weekends and ran several miles of cable through the walls before the drywall went up. There were multiple coax, POTS, and cat5 runs to each room, with a few extra things thrown in for future availability. Once the house was up it was a simple matter of plugging everything in.

I agree with you totally. Retrofitting sucks.

Yeah...I know. I tried to figure out who it was. My Dad's an RF engineer and he's the one that told me about it when I was talking to him about some home automation stuff I want to do (I wanted to copy his old setup).