Slow to hire? I know a number of companies that still can't find people. It's all about your skillset right now. If you're in the Carolinas and know VMware and/or Storage and/or Cisco Data Center Networking you need to email me. I need people ASAP.

Many employees worry about WebSense and other logging apps but in my experience, those apps aren't what gets you in to trouble. I've never seen an investigation start with the logs...but I have seen a couple of senior execs fall after the board started an inquiry in to some internal financial issues and the investigators found porn on the execs computers. As soon as they find out they go pull the web logs and then things spiral. So often these logs aren't really the target of the investigators, but if they're looking for something else they sure can hang you. Like I said, I've seen a few people get taken down for things like this when the actual investigation found they did nothing wrong.

So be careful. Don't be an idiot. Don't be the CEO looking at porn at work when you can do it at home. It just doesn't make sense. What's sad is I'm sure some of these guys look at porn at work because their wife gets mad at home. Nice job honey. :)

Trade schools exist...they are just Community College now. You can go to a CC and become a certified welder or pipe fitter. The problem is that CC has an unwarrented stigma attached to it. So it's seen as a "Oh..he went to Community College...oh well.".

Yes, some of us do. I'm using a 27" iMac right now with one. My MacBook Pro also has a glossy screen. I probably use the combination of these two devices 10 or 12 hours per day, or more. Most of my time is spent indoors when working but I use it outdoors as well. Not a perfect solution but just get an anti-glare cover for the screen. Use that outside and take it off inside.

I'm sure that's the case for some people, but when there are iPads EVERYWHERE amongst 12K network guys at a show like this, that tells you something and it's more than marketing. I have seen exactly one non-iPad tablet in the last 3 days at Cisco Live and that was an older Windows tablet. Poor guy. But if you choose to believe it's all marketing, go for it..but it's not. Same reason I carry an iPhone 4 right now. I looked at the Droid, EVO, and others before I bought this new one. No one had the usability of it. I use my phone and my iPad every single day. I don't care I can't run a web server on it, that's not my use case. I don't care that I have to go through the app store (in most cases), the tradeoff is well worth it.

Cisco doesn't care because Cisco isn't competing directly with Apple here. This is a device that fits in with the rest of their VoIP/Video device offerings. I bet a lot of what it can do will also be available for the iPad, when v2 hits with a camera. So you can use the Cius and dock it with a Cisco VoIP phone or load an app on an iPad that you manage yourself.

This is not an iPad killer. It's not meant to be one. I'm at Cisco Live right now and all the Cisco geeks are wetting themselves over it...but it's not even a competitor to the iPad. It's a niche product to work with Cisco's other technologies. Hospitals are going nuts over the iPad and Cisco wants a play in that market. They want these customers to buy the Cius just like they do Cisco wireless handsets now. Look at the promo pics, it's docked in a Cisco phone.

Different markets.

No. I'm buying an experience. I just used my iPad at Cisco Live all day. It worked great..it's exactly what I bought it for. I've owned other tablet devices and they sucked. The current Android offerings do the same. Right now there is no better OVERALL PACKAGE in tablet form than the iPad. Sure, it may not have 8 USB ports or 3 SD slots, but it works really damn well and that's what people want. Geeks want speeds and feeds, users want a tool that just works.

You are correct. The F9 doesn't connect to the net. It talks to the connection kit on a PC. BTW, the connection kit sucks. It's pretty much useless.

...Linking to horrible html since 1996.

It's more than just tradition. My experience is more from the petroleum exploration arena, so I'll speak it its terms.

Almost no property owner owns the mineral rights to their land, only the 'surface' rights. The mineral rights (in most cases) were seperated years ago.

Exploration for petroleum involves statistical analysis as well as physical discovery. Physical discovery used to involve guessing, based on prior performance or just a hunch, where there might be oil or gas. These days, there's a lot more technology to be applied. One method involves placing sensitive seismic instruments in a variety of locations. Then large machines called 'thumpers' are put in place to cause deliberate seismic disturbances. The effects of these disturbances and underground interference to them are measured, mapped and analysed using the instrumentation that's scattered about.

This type of physical discovery is not cheap. It consists of:
expensive instruments
expensive machines
well-paid geologists and other crew
paying landowners for use of their land.
costom analysis software
and more

The best ways for a venture like that to make money are to (a) sell the information to mineral rights owners, or (b) use the information to drill for petroleum themselves.

In case (a), making the information available at no charge is contrary to the business plan. In (b), they would need to acquire/lease the necessary mineral rights and it wouldn't pay advertise what they were looking for where.