When I was working on the arrestor portion in 2001, we had a system controlling two linear induction motors attached to the arrestor cable. Turns out that yes, you can use this type of system to stop planes, it is effective in many situations where planes come in at odd angles (the system pulls the plane towards the center of the deck), and you can recover power from it.

However, if you wire the position encoders backwards, the motor cores eject quite violently as soon as the control system is turned on. Thankfully, interns are surprisingly good at dodging.

Actually, Windows 7 has Windows XP available as an option. It runs XP apps in a VM and displays the window as a native window on the 7 desktop. You would need to tweak the default install to get IE 6 on there (it ships with 8), but it's still cheaper over the long haul than not upgrading to windows 7.

Ya, I did it with Asterisk a while back. Found out accidentally when I dialed my cell phone while setting my call ID to my cell's number. So I tried it with a friend's number. Hilarity ensued.

If you're doing it to get department unity, or to get better visibility for your people so you can get the recognition for a good job, it's not a terrible idea. The trick is that you don't want the IT guys to dislike it, or so that users don't start pulling guys away from higher priority tasks due to the new visibility.

I know, I prefer wearing the uniform when I go out on calls (saves me from having to think about my outfit), but our shirts are actually comfortable and appropriate for the weather and clients we're servicing. That and as a small company, we really need to have a professional, unified image.

Having an internal team wear them just to be easier to stick out, or for reasons that don't help your team directly, will brew internal tension.