I generally will upgrade some component(s) over that time frame. I built my first desktop back about 2000, using a Lian-Li case, which I still use (modular aluminum) the PSU has been upgraded 3 times, mobo 3 times, CPU 4 times, memory several times, video several times, storage several times and the OS twice.

Originally a 32 bit system with 256MB RAM and 1 80 GB HDD, it's now 64 bit, 6 cores, 32GB RAM, 256 GB SSD boot drive and 6TB RAID 5. Still screwing around with cheap video cards as I can do everything I need with a $49 card.

I still like mine. It's got some cool stuff on it, available on no other platform and one of the biggest pluses is I don't go on the internet with it, so that distraction and annoyance isn't an issue. :)

Nearly as old as Beer?!? That's awesome.

From the pictures you can find I dunno if he's likely to have a wife or kids...

Paul desperately needs to be kicked into a large, deep pit while someone shouts, "This is Sparta" or suchlike.

Greeks invented the Pi character, it's in their alpha bet and much older than Paul the Trademark Troll.

Shouldn't be much of a problem here. Snowden's already shown all the cards the NSA didn't want anyone to see.

I'm more disposed to this particular view...

You put your secrets on computers which are exposed to the internet? STUPID!

I can't blame the Chinese or the Russians or some school kid in Vallejo, California, for prying in and having a look around, if companies are so damn stupid about erecting barriers between Trade Secrets hosting systems and an outside world. How about building an intranet, encrypting resources, creating VPNs which require a key, employing something like Kerberos to verify some user on a workstation should have access?

All down to laziness and paying the executives too much for their massive blind spots.

I usually start by telling where I've buried the bodies.

I .. I suddenly have the urge to buy all the soundtrack music played over the tannoy at Tesco.

Once the ballyhoo and excitement at the birth of a new language have subsided it is quickly supplanted by the motherly urge to control and protect.

More like...

Dear Valued Customer,

Please try not to be noticed, but do continue to use a lot of bandwidth to protect our revenue stream.

There's a good chap.

Cheerio,
Your ISP

PS If you do get noticed we, most regrettably, shall be forced into the position of writing a stern letter to your mum.

I once lived in the heart of the US auto industry. Anonymous tin-box Chevy and Ford cars ruled the roads by shear numbers. Not many people remember these high volume cars, the Vega, Maverick, Nova, Fairlane, Granada, Chevette. And the Pinto is only well remembered due to an engineering oversight which made it a mobile crematorium.

So Microsoft has higher numbers, yeah? So who is using these things? Quick and dirty websites or real e-commerce, media, commercial/industrial?

Numbers alone aren't very meaningful.

We demand, lies, damned lies and statistics

I'm honestly surprised when someone on MSDN knows the precise reason something works or does not, their own code probably looks like muck to them, too. Keep going through these exercises of "try this..."

OT - I'm not surprised. Is anyone surprise? Apple is the private sector equivalent to the NSA.

First, of course was Shoemaker-Levy 9.

And we're not counting people who don tracksuits, Nikes and scarf deadly pudding whenever they see a big comet scooting by.