Good point, I have Win 7 on a Dell Mini 10 with 1GB of RAM, it boots to the login screen in about 30 seconds and comes out of standby mode in about 5 seconds. Considering how much more it is actually loading on Windows, it seems Google still has a long way to go until instant on is a reality.

When Microsoft starts making me sign in using my hotmail ID to start my copy of Windows 7 then I think I'll revisit your opinion.

ChromeOS requires a google ID to log in. Imagine that, if that isn't vendor lock in I don't know what is.

As fan of lem mentions, the issue you state only happens if the wsus regkey is present. The regkey can only be present if you image a machine that has registered with WSUS. Best practice is to make sure that the machines that you image does not have any group policies applied to it.

Blackberries on BES offer enterprise features simply unheard of with Winmobile or iphone devices. Windows mobile only recently got the much needed security features such as remote device deactivation and wiping. Blackberries simply offer more for the enterprise such as a slew of custom encryption features, mds for intranet based apps, web proxy features so you can control user's network browsing, full featured logging (down to the phone calls you make) fully customizable IT and security policies, and I'm sure I'm missing a ton of other features that Blackberry offers that has not even been contemplated for Winmobile much less iphones. Maybe you should be offering your customers reasons to use Blackberries and not reasons to make your job easier. You never know, they may think that one of those features you don't care too much about is pretty nifty...

You should have at least 2 of these: AMD-V or Intel-VT Capable Motherboard and Processor Combo (for those interested in running Hyper-V or other enhanced VM setups) I prefer the Intel branded boards for my setups, never let me down... At least 4GB of RAM per box Cheap SATA drive 100GB maybe? 2 or more Intel Pro 1000 NICs (can get them for about 35 bucks on newegg) You should also get: Any box with a P4 or similar should work for this. Setup Openfiler or FreeNAS. If you are playing with VMs, shared storage is a must. You will preferably setup RAID0 or something equally as fast (assuming this is purely a test environment and you dont care about redundancy.) It will be hit or miss with the network adapter support for integrated NICs so you may want to pick up an intel pro 1000 for one of these as well. You will also need supporting hardware 2 gigabit switches - 3Com unmanaged 5 or 8 port ones are excellent and support jumbo frames very nicely A cheap 4 port KVM, there is a trendnet 4 port USB KVM for under 75 bucks available at most shops 3 desktop UPSes or maybe 1 good enterprise UPS. Always a smart move to protect your investment, and power failures can easily screw up a RAID0 solution. Don't forget to check out the online HCLs for the VM solutions you want to run. The above configuration should work for VMware ESX or HyperV, ESXi has tighter requirements so it would be worth checking out. Happy hunting!

You can setup Untangle as a passthrough or as your router. There's no crappy software to install, all network traffic can be screened and logged, there is an override function and best of all its free.

You can't compare apples to oranges. Physics, chemistry and other sciences that explain the physical realm are physical sciences and rely on strict adherence to the scientific method. A scientific study of ethics or morality would put it in the category of social sciences or the study of human related activity and require a more statistical based adherence to the scientific method.

Simply based on the ephemeral nature of ethics and morality one's observation cannot be said to be more true than another's. Morality and ethics is what we define it and for that very reason impossible to test. For instance I could believe beating my wife is wrong while you believe that beating your wife is right. Between each other I have no greater moral or ethical authority than your belief.

Using god and dogma to define ethics and morality is a fools way out to define how social conventions came to be and is prone to abuse by those in power to interpret dogma. Remember the inquisition, the crusades, the current strife in the middle east... God is not necessary to explain why we behave in the manner we do. Social sciences such as sociology and economics can make generally good predictions on macro level human behavior. These sciences show us the reasons behind societal norms and helps explain why moral codes "mores" are generally shared cross culturally while more exclusive "folkways" are less so.

My god let's me eat pork, what's yours let you do?