I actually did switch from a 2011 Macbook Air (the dual core 2GB RAM, 13" model) to a Surface Pro 1, a little while before the Surface Pro 2 came out. Why? Because, through gradual changes in my client base and their worlds, I found myself spending more and more time in powershell, Hyper-V management and other purely Microsoft centric tasks. So I ended up Bootcamping my MBA to Windows 8 (required for Hyper-V 2012+ management), so it was now basically a PC, anyway. Then, once a guy next to me got a DynaDock with his Surface Pro, I realised I could dock it to a couple of nice, big monitors and keyboard and mouse and it's frankly more powerful than my 2011 MBA was.

So I sold my MBA on eBay (at almost as much as I paid for it, amazingly - incredible resale value) and switched to the SP1, which I am still using. I have pre-ordered a SP3, in fact, because I have been so happy with it (we don't get the Surface Pro 3 in Australia until September). It's smaller, lighter, faster and better suited to my current working life. I also love the pen, as I now spend about 40% of my week in meetings.

So overall, I don't think this is a bad thing - I just don't expect it to get heavily taken up. I think most MBA and MBP users will prefer to stick with what they have. The trust is, I use my Surface Pro like a desktop or a notepad (a literal, paper notepad, not a laptop notepad). I basically never use it as an actual laptop unless I have no alternative but then again, I pretty much hate all laptops, compared to the desktop experience.

Oh sorry, forgot to say, yes, it's easy to find all IPMI devices on your network. Please take a look at: ftp://ftp.supermicro.com/utili... - you can download the IPMIView tool from there, which will find all IPMI devices on your LAN. The default password and username for all Supermicro IPMI is ADMIN and ADMIN, so, of course, super secure.

The majority of IPMI would be enabled by default, yes - however the majority (not all, some are virtual IPMI) are on dedicated NICs - usually labelled management interface or port or something. They're not usable as a normal NIC (although as mentioned above, yes, some are virtual and share an onboard NIC). As such, you're best putting them in a different VLAN. We use differently coloured network cables for them, too, in our datacentre, so there's no confusion. They're in a different VLAN, on a different switch (makes sense to use a different switch as IPMI is usually 100mbit and not worth wasting space on expensive switches for) and only a handful of machines can see that network, which, frankly, if those machines got compromised, we'd be f*cked anyway (domain controllers, etc).

The default config for a Supermicro (which is what I use) is the IPMI is enabled and set to DHCP, so if you left it like that, yes, everyone on your network would probably be able to find it.

I guess it depends on what you're doing, doesn't it? If you're trying to provide Microsoft Sharepoint access to Microsoft Office documents to users or Microsoft Exchange email access, then, yes, it probably is cheaper and quicker to do it with Microsoft stuff. It's a pretty ludicrous claim to say that the TCO of Linux is higher than Microsoft unless you are also clear about what your company expects your IT to do... If you're just trying to use Linux to emulate Windows, then of course that's probably a waste of time and resources.

$client = new-object System.Net.WebClient
$client.DownloadFile( $url, $path )

Probably works on Powershell 2 however I think it requires the .NET framework installed. Powershell wasn't that good until later versions. I have to say, current versions are actually extraordinarily powerful, when working with other Microsoft technologies, like Hyper-V or Exchange but the early versions were no reason to leave VBScript.

Ha! I'd give you mod points for that if I could. That's the first time I have ever tried to post using the new Beta interface on a mobile and it munted the link badly.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh849901.aspx is the link.

That requires powershell 3. Prior to that you could use: System.Net.WebClient but the Invoke-WebRequest is far easier.

http://technet.microsoft.com/e... Using an old version of powershell?

Invoke-WebRequest http://www.google.com/ -OutFile c:\google.html

So Apple want $40 a phone for a few cosmetic and convenient things they were the first to bring to market, like tapping a number or bounceback when you over scroll - but they baulk at paying $2 a phone for stuff that *makes the phone actually work* like 3G/4G, WIFI, etc. etc. How the hell is that ok? And if you want to say those 3G patents Samsung hold are FRAND and essential for phones, fine - but Apple still wasn't even paying the FRAND amount. So why can't Apple's innovations be considered essential and ubiquitous to normal mobile phones, now and also be forced to be reasonable??

Genuine thanks. I have one of these models in my office, where there's just a couple of us. Never even thought about it, as we don't use it for anything other than establishing PPPoE on ADSL. Turns out we had those features all turned on, too. No disks attached - but still.

Or... they could just not build insecure systems directly connected to the internet?

Ok, ok, I know that nothing is ever totally safe and the Natanz reactor in Iran was hacked without being connected to the internet but surely, better design, better systems management and better monitoring, etc, would reduce the need for such an astronomical number of heads, just sitting in a chair all day watching logs or looking for bugs in code? And you can be quite sure some idiot will still run an out of date flash or java on their IE browser and plenty of small areas will still get subcontractors in to manage domains, scripts, small programs etc and they'll be under the radar.

Sounds like the modern equivalent of the industrial revolution - just pay a huge number of plebs to do menial tasks. Somehow I doubt this will stop a bugged monitor cable, supplied by the NSA, from doing what it does.

I'm sure it's great and all but in Australia, you might as well mail the data to me in individual bits per envelope, for the speed that Vimeo buffers down here...So pretty much at that point, I lost interest and decided this is basically Pulse or Flipboard.

I'd fully refute that. Triple J is barely recognisable to me, these days, and I was 100% immersed in the music scene in the 2nd half of the 90's. It's all dance and rap now - a very different sound. It's not "wrong" or "worse" but to claim it's in anyway oriented at the 30 something's, like me, is way off; it's just aimed at people who are younger than I am. It's aimed firmly at the uni student age, and always has been. Even their news articles lead with stories like rises to student fees, etc.

A friend of mine was asked this back in uni, when he applied for a graduate role at some company. He replied "in your chair".

He did not get the job.

I would assume the simply tendered out the process and got a bunch of quotes (tender responses) from companies on the government preferred supplier list. Any companies not assumed "big enough" were discounted out of hand. Then they would have had 2 or 3 left over (because at the very start of the process, they would have decided to immediately short list down to 2 or 3 people at most because bigger numbers than that is too hard to comprehend) and had some presentations from them about their success stories and then asked themselves "who was the cheapest?" and "who have I heard of before?".

That's how it works here in Australia, anyway.