I am in the South as well, Southwest Florida to be precise. I think it may be more your industry than your location.

Nope, I am an ex-Navy nuke. I know exactly why those things cost so much, and most of it is that they can tell you where the part came from, back to the mine the metal was mined.

One's pay is not based solely on what one does now. It is also based on what one has done in the past and what one was paid in the past. Why do you think businesses don't want employees discussing their pay? It is because two people, even two men, can be working at the same job, doing the same work, shoulder to shoulder and one be paid much more than the other because that one's past experience and pay is greater and he asked for a higher salary as a result. If you don't understand that, you are either ignorant or an idiot.

Have you even worked in a major corporation before, or even worked for that matter? Slightly different job titles? There is no HR department in the United States that would put up with that because of the work alone. And, that ignores the fact that most HR departments are made up of women. Don't believe me? Check it out yourself.

Congratulations on shooting yourself in the foot. If men have to pick up the slack for women, why should women be paid the same? If you were always picking up the slack for a co-worker, would you be happy to be paid the same as that co-worker, or would you resent that co-worker and be a disgruntled employee because you work more and harder than that employee?

Ok, how about another version of QuickBooks? Every version from 2009 onwards either doesn't run or runs like crap.

Which is irrelevant because the suggested direction is Windows to Linux, not Linux to Windows. What is needed is Windows apps ported to Linux.

You'd never switch to linux to increase productivity by upgrading your tools...

You are thinking like a techy, not a manager. Productivity is a primary concern.

Having supported both in variously sized companies, I can safely say this is a false statement. In fact, the primary reason for maintenance was people doing non-business things(surfing porn, etc) on the business computers.

I am not sure what you mean by "dancing pigs". If, by "dancing pigs", you mean users, then you are also talking about increased salary costs because higher quality workers cost more. If you mean downloadable games, apps, etc., then you are talking about people doing non-business things on a business computer.

Except hardware is a depreciable capital cost and the only time one needs to upgrade is when one needs better hardware for an application or just preference, which would still result in a new purchase.

If you haven't noticed, it is often times cheaper to purchase a new computer with the latest version of Windows than to purchase one with no O/S or to build a system.

Remember what used to be said about IBM? Now, it is "No one ever got fired for going with MS Windows on the desktop." Especially, with the popularity of MS Office. Another big reasons is Outlook and Exchange.

You are looking at this from a tech angle and are missing a lot of things management and business owners look at, including lost productivity, retraining costs, and all the other switch-over costs.

That doesn't necessarily follow as you may be using it for ideological rather than technical reasons. And, again, you didn't answer the question.

A) Those are three letters, not words. B) I am sure that PDF will import into Excel to allow them to examine how the numbers were derived quite well. C)Seven words: Only send us Word and Excel documents.

No, the fact that women don't pursue higher pay does not support the contention that women are "disadvantaged in their careers by lower pay for the same work as men". It is funny that you accuse me of thinking women are weak and/or inferior then outright say that women are taught to be weak and inferior. Project much?

You haven't answered the question. Rather, you stated an arguably subpar alternative you prefer. What if the ability to run QuickBooks Pro 2013 is required for business reasons?

"Why is it that every single file you send me has to be reformatted? If you don't get your act together, I will have no choice but to cancel our contract and change suppliers."

Oh, you thought that the documents created are only used internally? Are you sure you have worked in the real world?

Really? What if the company is using software that is Windows only and doesn't run right under WINE? What if they need QuickBooks Pro 2013 which runs like garbage under WINE?

Where I live we have trucks that do all the heavy lifting. All the garbage collectors have to do is drive the truck, work leavers, and occasionally move cans.

I spent the last 15 years in Telecom at large companies. While it wasn't as unbalanced as what you indicate, the majority of the tech side were men. But, the interesting thing was that most of the women who were on the tech side weren't Americans. They were mostly Chinese and Indian with a few Eastern Europeans and the occasional American sprinkled in. And, for the most part, the American women weren't as competent as their female counterparts.

Atypical? Says who? You? How many strippers do you know? I personally know strippers. I have tutored strippers at the local community college. I have dated an ex-stripper. Most of them make well over $50,000 per year. I knew one who routinely made $2,000 in cash a weekend.

I knew one woman who admitted to prostituting at the strip club while working as a dancer, or "providing extras" as she called it. She made over $150,000 a year doing that. The biggest money problem strippers have is that they get addicted to the money and the party lifestyle and the drugs that go with it. It isn't that they don't make a lot of money, it is that spend everything they make.

A) provide scientific data to support your statistics. B) As the customers of prostitutes are overwhelmingly straight males, a major imbalance of this sort should not be surprising. You may as well say that 99% of the men who go to gay night clubs are gay or bisexual.

Or, at least the ones to report it. Domestic abuse of men is like the rape of men. There is such a huge stigma attached to it that men won't report it. And, even when men do report it, there is a good chance they will be forced to leave their home even if the men are the victim. Most of the laws are written so that the police must make the man leave.

Except there has been quite a bit of debunking of this by women. Recently on Planet Money, a female assistant professor from UT Austin was talking about who women ask for raises and bonuses much less than men. A few years ago, a female economist wrote a paper saying how, when choosing a job, women as a group use a different set of criteria than men.

Men, as a group, will overwhelmingly go after the better paying job even if it the job requires nights and/or weekends, extensive travel, dirty work, working for a company they don't like or agree with, or in other ways giving up personal comfort and/or satisfaction.

On the other hand, women, as a group, rate personal satisfaction and personal comfort at a higher level than men. Women will choose a job that pays less if it provides more personal satisfaction such as working at a favored non-profit rather than at a for-profit company. Women will choose a job lower paying job over a higher paying job if the lower paying job doesn't require onerous working conditions such as 50+ percent travel or having to work long or odd hours.

In a way, you are proving my previous point with this. Many women choose to stay home for a year or more to have and raise children, which necessitates the men continuing to work and possibly working more hours to make up for the loss of income. Now, some women don't choose to stay home to raise the kids and work while pregnant. That is where the Family Leave Act come in. Look it up some time.

So, you are saying that there isn't a history of some girls getting boys to help with and/or outright do their homework, often by promising or providing affection and/or intimacy? Next, you will say that prostitution never happens.

There is no need to defend against "They suck because they are like everyone else!"