As a person with first hand experience on Cisco and HP Access Points, I have some disappointing news for you. There is no comparison between the Cisco and HP wireless gear. The HP stuff is repackaged Calubris Netowrk gear and it is kludgy, at best. I really, really, really have a shudder of fear when client select the HP stuff. It simply doesn't work well. The Cisco gear using a WLC (Wireless LAN Controller) is the absolute best I;ve ever seen. It's a breeze to install and performance is great. Keep in mind that when using a mesh, the bandwidth goed down 50% at each hop. So, if you have 54Mbps at the first access point, the next access points are limites to 27Mbps and the next at down to 13.5. This is under PERFECT conditions. Your distance of 300 feet is too far. I would recommend a mesh being no more than 150 feet outdoors. Preferably 100 ft. There are limitations to wireless LANS and in the end, your best bet is to create multiple meshes, each with a hard drop back to a switch. You can get underground CAT5 pretty cheap. Rather than running the whole mesh off one drop... have 3 or four of them out to the field and set up your access groups accordingly. But seriously... I would just lose the HP gear. It's so bad. I even yelled at the HP rep... just my $0.02.

Rule #1 for a successful business: Never spend more than you make.

A lot of people like to segregate themselves in to a special group called "geek". The fact is my 7 year old nephew crasked his buddies iPhone and helped him load apps from Cydia. He's seven years old. Think about what these young consumers will want in the future. These are the manufacturers future target market, not us dusty 30 somethings (soon to be 40 somethings). Easy to use won't cut it for the future consumers.

I can't imagine they could do away with much more than explorer and maybe a hand full of DLL's. So, basically, we are given an extra step to load our desktops... probably while we are inundated with news feeds or advertisements. I wonder which HKey will turn this off.

I think the quote stating that having a war video game dishonors those who have fought in real battles.... is interesting. I take issue with this for several reasons. 1) Video games serve as a tactical simulation and provide an enhanced learning experience for participants. 2) Video games will most accurately simulate the war of the future. [Remote control, camera and sensor based] 3) How can a video game dishonor war veterans? Do people really think war veterans care if you play a video game about a battle they were in? Really? I can understand the protester trying to make a point, but let's keep it real.

who would you want on your side?

HP or IBM?

Personally, IBM research and development puts me in a constant state of awe. I believe they have some of the most brilliant minds in the world pushing the boundries of science. Maybe thier end products don't always reflect the level of R&D invested, but don't kid yourself... the last thing HP wants is IBM's full, undivided attention at it's market share.

IBM's strength is in it's diversity. Just because they cut PC's to Lenovo doesn't mean anything about the future of the companies presence in the future technology market.

Remember this little gem?..... http://www.research.ibm.com/quantuminfo/teleportat ion/index.html