What medium are your offsite backups stored on? And where? In addition to a colo data center on our campus, my organization contracts with Iron Mountain for full offsite backups, which we dump to tape and send to their facility. Depending on your location in the US (or anywhere in the world really), many of their storage facilities are converted missile silos and bunkers - climate-controlled, and far enough underground to potentially survive nuclear and Carrington events alike. There are many other companies that provide the same services too. Depending on how much you store and how frequently you need to send it/retrieve it, the price of service can vary, but if you're that paranoid, it's worth a look.

Then again, if you're storing on an optical medium, none of this will matter except for the climate-control - optical media can't be degaussed.

Good news - most of the big oil companies have contributed and/or paid for data in this collection, so at least some of the data will be trustworthy.

Yeah, voice acting ain't so great, but the play is pretty good - feels like a souped-up WC2 with Prophecy-style controls. Missions are well-designed and if you can get past the cheese, the story is pretty cool too.

Wing Commander: Standoff has been available for some time now, and it's pretty great - unlike Saga, it uses WC: Prophecy's engine (and consequently needs Prophecy: Secret Ops to run - just need to download that too). Check it out - http://standoff.solsector.net/

As an IT manager, degrees are all well and good, but what the potential employee has accomplished and understands is most important to me when hiring. A prospect with a BA, code examples, and a good understanding of the real world will get the job 9 times out 10 over a green CS grad. Being self-taught goes a long way too, as it demonstrates that they're capable of growth of their own accord. I also tend to favor certifications over (bachelor) degrees, as I've learned from experience that you get way more out of a Red Hat cert than you do from a couple Linux classes at a state university.

If you subtly remind them of all the ways you're inspecting their packets, they're less likely to nod off. MUAHAHA

uses an older flip phone with an old-fashioned dialing pad. He texts by sound and feel, and faster than I can on my keyboard-less smartphone. Oh, and he paid $100 less for his phone and $20 less per month thanks to the fact that he doesn't NEED an iPhone or a data plan. While I feel like the research might have its heart in the right place, a much simpler solution appears to already exist.

I'd drag and drop this troll post out of the comment thread, but the new version of VLC doesn't let me do that either.

I imagine the GOP's equivalent of Anonymous will be defacing the DOJ's website over this momentarily.

$5k laptops running "unstable" Windows? The 1990's called - they want their tech back.

Even if you do this, you're still left with the parent's predicament - putting devices in a DMZ or seperate VLAN doesn't make them any more secure, or any easier to manage. What if these users want to use the company's apps? How will you make sure they're using secure passwords? How can you distribute software to these devices? Of course there are fixes for a lot of these types of problems, but you're left managing solutions separate and independent of your company's central infrastructure which is time consuming and a pain in the balls. Want to push apps with your BES? Sorry, your iPads need the App Store, your Android needs the Marketplace – gonna need corporate accounts for each. How about enforcing policy? Sure, there are apps out there that let you manage Androids, but if you want a BES equivilant, nothing even comes close in functionality, and some utilities require rooting the devices – then you’re left with managing a service independent of your BES while doing your own tech support on the phone because you voided the warranty.

Thankfully I don’t have to manage mobile devices in my current environment (yet), but having Macs in our 2008 AD environment is a headache – running (a now neutered) Open Directory environment in parallel, can't use our imaging solution for system deployment, no app deployment through SMS, no accidental damage warranty for laptops, no unified AV management platform, the inability to use hardware manufacturer’s bootable diagnostic tools – I could keep going, but the horse is already pile of red mush. If we ever start using iPads in the production environment, kill me.

Just out of curiosity: how are you going to manage 40 Android devices? Consumers are fleeing RIM, but without some semblance of enterprise management tools, Android really isn't a viable alternative for a larger business or enterprise that needs to lock down/look after/manage lots of devices. You might be able to do it with Windows Phone, but WP7 management options are a shadow of the WP6's. Until there's a real challenger to to the functionality of BES (despite the nightmare), RIM will continue to rear its ugly head.

Imagination isn't dead - it just isn't found at the likes of EA, Activision, etc. Plenty of innovation in the indie community. For example, I just started playing Bastion and it kicks ass - and that's just one of the hundereds of cheap/awesome/original games out there.

GigE comes on nearly every new computer. Consumer GigE routers and switches are marginally more expensive than their 10/100 equivalents. Most home media appliances are GigE. Nearly any home NAS you can buy has GigE. Most Cat5e cable can handle GigE speeds. Why would you bother buying 10/100 equipment? Even if your ISP isn't yet capable of it, there is plenty of application for it in the home, and it's conceivable that consumer-grade services provided by US ISPs will break the 100Mb barrier in the next five years, which isn't an unreasonable life expectancy of any of the aforementioned equipment. Say nothing of the benefits of GigE in small business and enterprise.

Flatulent, unwashed, blind and deaf elephant in the room is more like it. Not to mention a dumb article.

Oh man, I sure hope Taco Bell runs that promotion again - I can taste that meat-flavored filler now!