Just echoing what others have said.

I'm the head of the IT Department for a small company. About a dozen of our users are on Office 2007, with the other 50 or-so on Office 2003. The majority on 2007 HATE it. Specifically- they HATE the user interface. It's just another example of Microsoft's complete disregard for usability for the sake of being "innovative". They came up with an innovative way to make it take twice as long to do anything in Office by mixing-up the menu and toolbar system everyone who has used a computer for the last fifteen years is used to. Office 2007 is also SLOW compared to 2003, on the exact same hardware, probably in-part because of the new user interface.

Of course, the saying goes: "Once you get used to it, it is hard to use anything else." But- that's part of the problem. It makes it more difficult to use anything that doesn't use the same interface. Now- everyone else needs to adopt a user interface that people didn't like in the first place, which is apparently what the Ooo folks are considering, just to try to continue to stay on-par with M$.

I can guarantee rendering and processing this new interface takes more CPU and GPU cycles, thereby making their aps run slower. Frankly- Ooo doesn't need any help in that department. I don't know who wins here- hardware manufacturers or Microsoft. The losers will be most computer users though- who will be forced to use yet another "innovative" user interface (cough, Vista, cough), while finding it necessary to upgrade their hardware just to maintain the same level of functionality they had before.

I agree with Synn. I've been running Linux servers (mostly Red Hat and CentOS) for almost as long as he has, and recently started using Ubuntu's server distro after using their desktop distro for 2+ years. I've found it to be efficient and reliable. I don't see any reason to say they aren't a viable competitor in the Linux server OS market now. Like others- I am concerned about CentOS since I have several key production servers running it.

I haven't been a big fan of Palm for many years now, but I'm starting to become a fan again.

I think it is a combination of the battle with Apple, which I hope they are able to win, and I think the woman in their commercials is amazingly hot. :)

That was my first thought. If the DOD requires specific versions- they should maintain repositories of them on their own servers. Perhaps one on their secure/classified network, and one on a more accessible network. They could be writable by only a few key people, so their chances of become corrupted would be very low.

This is interesting to hears, thanks. :)

The title is a bit misleading. There is a big difference between Depression and Bipolar/Manic-Depressive disorders.

I really hate this too. I hate it almost as much as panicked calls telling me the "Internet is down!!!" because someone's stupid home page isn't loading.

At this point in the game, basic computer knowledge should be mandatory for any non "blue-collar" job. It amazes me still that my company continues to hire people who can barely figure out where the power buttons are on their computer and monitor. There are a lot of people with good computer skills out of work right now!

My company actually still has a couple of old databases in Paradox that they still use. I developed in Paradox (PAL) for about 8 years. It was a great platform that blew away anything else at the time, short of maybe Foxpro. We had several CRM systems built on it.

Paradox for Windows was a complete flop, and because DOS Paradox used native Novell server file sharing/locking- it was unusable on a Windows network. I think that's what ultimately killed it.

I have a lot of fond memories of Turbo Pascal from the 80s and early 90s. It was inexpensive and fast- a combination that was hard to get in those days.

I have to admit though- I thought Borland died years ago.

I was thinking man-boobs and testicles the size of peas.

We have a mix of them at my office. We often have "emergency" needs thanks to a constantly shifting cube-farm, so end up making a lot of our own. But- when time permits- I prefer to purchase them. It's one less thing for me to get blamed for if it fails. We are only running 1Gb Ethernet though, so I don't know if I would trust my cable-making skills to anything faster than that, especially for something as mission-critical as this story suggests.

Yeah, but it won't be released until the second half of 2010.

And it won't actually be usable until SP1.

(Duck and run.)

I agree- this does seem odd, especially given that everyone is jumping on the "green" bandwagon. This is still Dell equipment, even if it is older. The equipment should be returned to Dell for recycling, or donated to a charitable organization.

I sincerely doubt Tiger Direct cares.

I'm not an electrical engineer, so this may be a stupid question/idea: Are these things any more efficient than current solar cell technology? Would an array of these mounted on or under a sheet of metal and painted flat-black generate more electricity than a similar-sized solar panel? Would it be cheaper to produce?

(Sorry if it was already brought up. I can only get through 3-4 slides at instructables.com before I get too annoyed at all the ads to continue.)