The people I know and work with in the open source community are probably the most piracy conscious people I know, mostly because of jack holes like this guy. It bugs the hell out of me that people always tie open source and piracy when in fact, there could be nothing further from the truth. I'm the first one to pay for things like GAMES for Linux, or quality e-books because I want people to produce more of them! And honestly, there's nothing wrong with wanting to get paid for your work.

I think ultimately this has nothing to do with Open Source and everything to do with people wanting something for nothing, and if they can get it, they'll take full advantage. Likely the tie to Open Source comes from the fact that people who are extremely cost conscious are going to prefer Open Source products because they align with their pricing criteria (The same way illegal copies of products align with their pricing criteria)

-Runz

Oddly, Windows 7 works just fine on my MacBook Pro 15".

There was a Firmware update about 2 weeks ago, which may have been what we were waiting for; but I had no problems with it when I installed it today.

-Runz

I fully admit I'm a dumb idiot who sits on the couch watching football. It happens after you get married. When I was single there was a ton of stuff I used to do that I no longer do, such as cook. My wife likes to do it, I like eating, so win-win. That said, when she goes out of town, I'm so unaccustomed to cooking that I often don't, or will order out for the entirety of her trip. Why? I have no idea, but I do. Back in the day I actually *liked* cooking.

It works the other way too, every night I find my wife's keys, where ever it is that she puts them, and put them on the hook by the door they're supposed to go on. When I'm out of town, she gets to spend 30ish minutes every morning looking for her keys

I actually think a Dell commercial highlighting that they have a copious amount of nerds and that I'm too dumb to spec out a machine would, if presented correctly, be really, really funny. Hey, it works for Apple!

-RunZ

It's like cars, top three items women shoppers want in cars:
Economy
Safety
Cup Holders

Applied to computers:
Battery Life
Don't catch on fire
Cup Holders

*Someone* hasn't read the market research.

-RunZ

You may remember that /. ran the following several stories:
Feds Seize $78M of Bogus Chinese Cisco Gear
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/29/1642221
and
FBI Says Military Had Counterfeit Cisco Routers
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/09/164201&from=rss

Lets see, extra chips on a piece of equipment that handles all the network traffic, which would include NFS and a variety of other plain text protocols (why would someone use encryption on a "secure" network). Add to that a sprinkling of Teredo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teredo_tunneling

And looks to me like it's very likely that someone could steal whatever they wanted.

Good thing all our corporate suppliers are bound by contracts that would totally be enforced by this foreign government who's providing the bogus equipment. Didn't think about that, did you, stupid corporate outsourcing asshat.

-Runz

So if you're willing to forgo support options, I'd build a server yourself from components. You'll be able to get the mix of horse power you want and power consumption that it seems you need. fuzzyfuzzyfungus suggested using a desktop given your modest specs, I'd concur with this, but the cases used by large PC vendors don't really lend themselves for operating in a really harsh environment. I'd start with a case like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129021

While the window is flashy, it's got a ton of fans, and good airflow, so while there will be dust and whatnot, you shouldn't see a lot of cake up, plus with the window, you can see when it needs any cleaning.

Depending on the size of your UPS, you can put the whole kit and kaboodle into a rolling rack:
http://www.racksolutions.com/portable-racks-guide.shtml

Or you could go with the google approach, instead of buying a case, just slap down a piece of corkboard on a shelf in the rack and place your components. You'll have to do a bit of jerry rigging with fans if you go that route, but it would save you $100. With a can of compressed air, you can keep it as clean as you need.

-Runz

This is a little OT, but Cringley has a blog post/podcast entitled "Bob the Impaler" where he discusses Microsoft's profitability, and how they've developed a structure of hiding profit to fly low on the radar of the Federal Trade Commission. I have a feeling that these unprofitable up/down grades are somewhere in that fat...

Cringely's home page it's about 2/3 down the page.

-Runz

There are a ton of projects out there on Sourceforge, pick one and dig in. As a hiring manager, this is something I looked for in candidates because:

1) They could get the pre-requisite experience without having a job as a developer
2) It showed they enjoyed software development
3) It displayed showing initiative, which is something a lot of candidates lack

Best case: A company sees the project and wants to sponser it, making your project your full time development job

Worst case: You spend some time working on a project that goes no where, but you now have some real experience that you can tout on your resume and in the interview

Added Bonus: You get to talk in the interview about the open source community, your participation in it, and maybe on how that experience can also benefit your perspective employer.

Plus you'll be able to brag about your software to friends and co-workers.

-Runz

WHAT US WHO TAKE ENG. CORE?