Heads.

Pratchett fan? Gotta love the Hogfather.

+++ Divide By Cucumber Error. Please Reinstall Universe And Reboot +++

Depending on where you live, ATT may in fact be the only choice you have for service.

I have tried several times not to be an ATT customer - only to find the company I chose to replace ATT bought by ATT, currently they are the only land-line phone provider where I live. If you need a land line for any reason (I know this is getting rare, but there are certain things that do require a wired phone line), ATT might be your only option.

I would just like to state for the record, that IMHO SQL is a beautiful thing. Its ease of interoperability (both between languages and backends) has saved my butt on numerous occasions (not to mention the ease with which you can go from very simple to very complex depending on the need of your application) ...
 
...and you can get rid of it and replace it with OOP when you pry it from my cold dead hands.

I don't know that the bugs are all "ironed out". My wife just bought a brand new laptop that came with Vista SP1 installed (only copy of Vista running in house). It regularly corrupts network files simply by opening them. If an OS can't get the file system to work right, it is not worth having on a computer.

That said, we are hoping Windows 7 will at least get the basics right, and are planning on moving the laptop to it when we feel it is adequately stable.

The statement "You're not allowed to give up performance for other users in the network" is dependent on your task-at-hand and your network infrastructure. There are several instances where it is perfectly reasonable to push other network traffic aside or where there is no other traffic (such as the sat-feed that another user mentions in another reply).

The main reason people began wrapping UDP into highly custom/specialized versions of TCP is that TCP (while great for the Internet at large) is largely based on assumptions that may not hold true in all use cases. The RTT of the protocol may unnecessarily add latency to the data throughput for long distance trips, and TCP's aggressive "congestion avoidance" algorithm is based on the smaller bandwidths of older technology - potentially significantly slowing the data, even for single dropped packets.

UDP is actually a great basis for accelerated file transfer. Several file transfer utilities / protocols have been built around it. I deal with really large files, but I have been using Aspera on several projects with great success. Worth a look.

http://www.asperasoft.com/

I don't really care about how a database looks. I care about how a database functions. Tessitura is well thought-out as far as making the product useful to the non-profit. RE seems to go out of its way to make the non-profit do more work / buy more modules. (Have you ever tried to invite a couple to an event? There is no easy way to add a spouse after adding the main contact. Simple little thing, but it means a lot of time from someone who more than likely doesn't have any, as non-profit staff tends to wear many hats.) Again, personal opinion based on personal experience.

I agree with this... Techsoup is a great IT resource for non-profits.

ARG! NO! FileMaker is the Bain of my existence... I am constantly trying to get people off of FileMaker and it keeps popping back up like a bad weed. Run away!

(Sorry - it might be better in its latest version, but all my experience has been corrupt data that is hard to make useful to other systems.)

I am not sure how big your budget is, but I've heard nothing but good things about Tessitura:
http://www.tessituranetwork.com/Products.aspx

There is also Raiser's Edge - but their product (in my opinion) feels like it was put together by a programmer (i.e. - written to bad specs by someone whose job isn't fundraising), not by a user - and thus has lots of quirks that make it not as useful as it should be...
http://www.blackbaud.com/products/fundraising/raisersedge.aspx

Keyword: "line printer"
The almighty admin's error message: "lp0: Printer on Fire."

Ever since "Joe the Plumber" everyone keeps making comments like this, and I don't understand the reasoning. Could you expand on the logic in this?

My issues:
1.) You work for a small business about to cross the $250k income threshold. If taxed more above that threshold your pay would be cut... Why? It is only the portion above $250k that would be taxed at the higher rate (that's how tax brackets work); while this would shrink the margin on new profits, it would not affect the gross income for the firm from which salaries are paid.

2.) Income Tax for businesses is on the NET not the GROSS - and salaries fall squarely in the "cost" side of doing business. Thus if you get a pay increase of $5k, the reportable income of the business just fell by $5k. i.e. - If my business makes $251k and I decide to hire a new employee at a cost of (salary + benefits) $50k, my business now only has a reportable income of $201k. The only way this wouldn't work (for a small business who files on the owner's tax return) is if the owner raised his own salary, or hired his wife. How is a tax on income over the $250k line a deterrent to hiring? I would think that it encourages further investment in the company either through expansion, raises, or new hires, as such actions would keep the "effective tax rate" for the company lower.

What am I missing?