Once I've had enough of the IT world (any day now....) my next move will be into the fine world of making beer.

The Toronto Museum of Science and Technology had a 40 foot long CO2 laser and a lens made of NaCl back around 1977 or so. Their demonstration of focused laser light to write the name of the presenter in a sheet of glass (it was vaporized instantly!) and burn through a firebrick in about 3 seconds was almost topped by the Argon laser that could pop a red balloon inside of a clear balloon in the same way eye surgery could be done with an argon laser. I remember the floor space of the museum was huge (I was about 15). I've always wanted to go back.

The blame will go to the DOCTOR not their online data service.

Having done a fair amount IT architecture work in the healthcare realm for the past 10 years, I can truthfully say that doctors are really cheap and look for ways to cut a dollar now at the risk of tens of thousands later. They are also early adopters of technology yet are basically clueless on how it works.

The cost of keeping an internal server plus vpn access for laptop use on an annual basis is a few hundred dollars. The cost of not having access to their records because of a fiber-seeking backhoe attack on their buildings access is hundreds per hour.

What _is_ the customer support number for Google if your Google Apps data goes missing? The doctors have your cell number and probably your home phone as well.

To Google, their account is one of thousands. To you, they are a car payment and maybe a few nights at the pub every month. Who is going to take care of them better, not cheaper.

The old mechanics saying comes to mind: "We do things 3 ways - right, cheap and fast. You get to choose two".

Sounds like this is taking place in a college setting. Don't worry about it. Darwin will always win. Your MMO addict will be getting a permanent chance to play all day forever back in Mom's basement after he flunks out. It's not your problem and don't try to make it be otherwise.

The connection is the most likely failure point. They can be mechanically poor and will loosen with vibration and corrode with moisture and become dirt-packed with unplug/replug cycles.

The main body of the cable can become damaged by crushing or sharp bending.

If you have a cable quality tester that can map throughput (very expensive) then use it and check existing cables on occasion when they get rerouted and on all new equipment hook ups.

Replacing patch cables is easy and fairly cheap but not worth the upgrade cost with out the need for a speed boost. A good rule of thumb is to standardize on cat5e and toss old patch cables when the equipment is moved around. the old cables go to desktop use where they will be crushed under a chair in a week anyway.

Maybe it's just me, but the tech level required to read a book online is pretty high. Add to that the power consumption.

And the paranoia of knowing the ebook I read today can be changed tomorrow to reflect a different view.

Online books are a great resource but the paper and ink industry must continue at any cost. Scholarly journal publishers will have to seriously rethink their business model. Online out of print books is a tremendous service to the public. Out of print books almost should be required to be online-capable status. But then multiple printings of a book is a clear sign of readership.

Dover publications has for decades been a staple on my bookshelves as they provide an affordable version of many technical books in multiple fields.

I do have concerns with a single entity having control of the gateway to an ever growing body of human knowledge. "Do no evil" is very much not the same as "do good" or "do no harm".

In Linux it's done with policies in LDAP that are used to set variables for login scripts. Using standard Linux tools (written 20+ years ago for UNIX systems), the login process can report back what machine, IP address, etc a user is accessing. That coupled with the group structures in LDAP are used to set environment variables that dictate everything a user can access.

If it weren't for the boneheaded point-n-click gui that windows crams down every admins throat, even windows admins would see that their precious AD is just ldap with environment variables modified by scripts.

You talk about converting 300 seats. I converted 2000 to LTSP desktops. All driven by only 33 servers. See here for details: http://www.localnetsolutions.com/press.html

If you are still stuck, my contact info is on the site. I consult.