You're right that Dell laptops are relatively easy to modify and upgrade - for a laptop. But still you can't expect to transplant a motherboard into any but the most closely related model. I upgraded my old M90 to an M6300 by replacing the motherboard, CPU and memory. For the M6400, I believe that the motherboard and case from the M6500 should be compatible (provided you change the CPU and CPU heatsink) but I cannot be entirely sure. The newer 17 inch Dell models have 1920x1080 screens instead of 1920x1200. You couldn't jam the older screen into them because it is physically a different size, even if the connector turns out to be the same.

I wonder whether installing Classic Shell would help users who are used to Windows XP and earlier versions.

As an English speaker learning Spanish I found it easiest to start with the word 'corrida'. Somehow the O vowel before helped to roll the RR. After that, 'corrida de burritos'. More difficult still, 'corrida de perritos'.

I think you're missing the point. It is not about hardware durability. The original hardware installed in 1974 has long since been replaced (probably several times over). It is the software that costs money over the long term - hiring programmers to maintain it. And it is the software that is the reason the system hasn't been replaced with something else.

http://xkcd.com/624/

Yes, for a few years Nvidia laptop video cards had solder that tended to melt with heat, and the cure there too is to bake them in the oven. I did this successfully with a Quadro 3600M card. Vibration can also be a problem, but I don't think it was the issue in this case.

FWIW, the Unicomp buckling spring keyboards are generally reckoned to count as Model M keyboards too. (as are Lexmark-produced Model Ms)

This excellent blog article describes a technique developed by Judea Pearl decades ago to do exactly this. Would be interested to understand how this is different/better.

Fine, self-signed certs should not be "silently accepted" - but then totally unencrypted, plain-text-over-the-wire, any-idiot-with-a-network-card-can-sniff-it traffic shouldn't be silently accepted either! Nobody objects to a reasonable browser warning on self-signed certificates. What many gripe about is the fact that these same browsers then show unencrypted sites with no question at all. Often, if Firefox produces an SSL certificate warning I just change the URI from https: to http: to get the damn thing out of my way.

OP here, way too late to matter, but still. It was poorly phrased. I missed the comma between high and six-figure. Where I come from, *any* 6-figure income would be considered high...

Simon.

I'm one of said H1B visas, now with a green card. Been here almost exactly 10 years now, after Apple bought my company. I came here for the money and the weather, not for anything else. Frankly I don't think the US society is as "free" as people here seem to believe.

I've mentioned this here before, and (understandably, no-one likes bad news) I tend to get down voted for it, but the simple honest truth of the matter is that the USA isn't geared for looking after people, it's geared towards controlling people. There's things I like about it (the job is great, the weather is excellent, the people (as individuals who I meet day-to-day) are generally wonderful unless driving, the money is still good, I like my house and I met my wife here - my son is dual American/British).

There's things I don't like too, (the militarisation of the police, the lack of any reasonable healthcare, the "I'm alright Jack, screw you" attitude of a *lot* of people - weirdly enough those who often really *aren't* alright, the schooling system, and for lack of any better term, the country's soul). As time passes, and I get older, these seem to be more important. I can't see myself retiring here, and in fact I can't see myself here in another 10 years. That's not the attitude I came to the US with, it's something I've developed while I've been here.

Let's be frank here, I'm not trying to boast, but I'm one of the 'have's - I have a million dollar house (which sounds a lot more impressive than it really is in this neighbourhood) which is almost paid off, I have a high six-figure income, and I've money in the bank. I'm not a "1%er" but I'm up there with the rest... however, even with all of this, I'm not happy with the way the country is going. There's little-to-no safety net for joe public, and seemingly (*both* houses Republican, seriously ?) no desire for that. I think the USA is far closer to oligarchy than democracy, and the long-term trend just looks like it gets worse from here on out.

[sigh]

Simon.

In fact this is not the 68000 but its crippled little brother the 68008, which uses an 8-bit external data bus (as the 8088 is to the 8086). That was also used in the Sinclair QL, which was Linus's first computer before he bought a 386 PC and got into Minix. Could Linux now be ported to run on the QL?

Don't SAP have their own RDBMS, called SAP DB or MaxDB? It was even released as free software a few years back (then they changed their mind and went back to proprietary). Do you mean that despite that, the only database backend that works well with large SAP installations is Oracle?

In terms of sheer numbers, I'd guess you are right: more Win32 applications have been written since 1995 or so than there are apps for iOS. Especially if you include in-house software.

In terms of applications to do something most people want to do, which is a subjective measure I admit, iOS may have the lead. Particularly so if you look for software that's optimized for tablet use: there are a lot of very capable Windows programs which are rather less usable on a tablet than with a physical keyboard and mouse, whereas iOS apps are all designed around touchscreen use.

For example, I've been looking for a map program (similar to Google Maps) that runs on a handheld Windows 7 PC with attached GPS. It's surprising how few choices there are that do the basic function of showing your GPS position on a map, and aren't some crusty thing last updated in 2004. True, if I included Windows 8 "Metro" apps there would be a wider choice, but still it is dwarfed by what you get on Android or iOS. (FTR - in the end I went with Anquet Maps for hiking maps and Mapfactor PC-Navigator for city use.)