They've done dozens of events at Apple Stores, including the huge Apple store about 100 metres from this Microsoft store.

"free enough to be distributed with the Linux kernel sources"

the firmware files are typically under a license that prohibits modification and even redistribution.

> A desktop os needs a browser (Firefox), text editor (vim), office suite (OpenOffice), PDF reader (evince), window manager (kde), etc

Browser: GNU Icecat, text editor: emacs, office suite: GNOME Office, PDF reader: GNU PDF, window manager: GNOME.

I found its actually hard to get a machine that's decent these days, unless you're prepared to put up with a bit of crap.

The solution is to build your own custom laptop -- http://www.avadirect.com/gaming-laptop-configurator.asp?PRID=25095

If you go for the "VISIONTEK Killer" wireless card, it has an Atheros chipset, so you can distro-hop to your hearts content. They also ship it with no OS if you like.

Rip it all and then use something like beats to figure out the audio fingerprinting and correctly tag things for you.

If you press stop twice, then hit play, you can generally skip that stuff.

I voted for Robot Nixon

If your kids are young, then cut it now. A few Rokus and a Netflix streaming subscription and you are set. I have a 4 year old and if needed, she can work Netflix on the Roku herself. Doesn't mind watching the same seasons/episodes of Dora, Fresh Beat Band, Franklin, Barney, etc. over and over and over. I find most kids to be like that.

People like to complain a lot about Netflix content (or lack there of), but they actually have quite a bit of kids content.

You should read on how they build their systems. One of the ways they keep costs so low is using consumer grade hardware with the idea that it will fail. In general, consumer grade hard drives have about the same failure rate as "enterprise grade", they just usually have lower transfer rates. When your clients are syncing over 768k DSL uploads or even 3-5 Mbps cable upload speeds, hard drive speed is not going to be your bottleneck.

They actually have a guy whose job it is to just go around a day or two a week through their data center and replace the dead drives. Due to the redundancy they built into their systems, a drive failure isn't a big deal or really unexpected.

It actually makes good sense as part of a complete backup system.

What happens to your data when your office/house/whatever with the 2 or 3 TB drives burns down with them in it, or someone breaks in and steals your desktop and the USB drive you left sitting on top of it?

Depending on the circumstances, I usually recommend RAID of some kind if possible, a USB/External Hard Drive on-site, and then some kind of off-site backup.

If your internal drive dies, if you had RAID, you just replace the dead drive. If no RAID, then you restore from your External backup. If you had a fire/theft or other major loss, you restore from web/off-site. In the case of BackBlaze, they offer 3 restoration options, included zip download of files, or FedEx thumb drive or external drive for additional cost.

I'm a Virgin Mobile customer, so a few clarifications:

• The $30 a month is only with auto-pay with an iPhone. All other phones are $35 (unless you are grandfathered in or use the current YMMV glitch of switching an older phone to the $25 per month plan)
• They currently only have 1 4g phone, the HTC Evo V. 4G isn't actually throttled at all, but it uses Sprints older Wi-Max network, so expect speeds around 2-4 Mbps and spotty 4G coverage depending on where you live. All other phones (including the iPhones) are 3G only

All that said, I switched from AT&T to VM a while back and couldn't be happier. They speeds are slower and data coverage is worse than any of the major 4, but I pay half what I did before for my service, so it is worth it to me.

Also, in general, if you are going to be in a major city and want the best coverage (regardless of cost) go Verizon. If you are in a more remote area, and want the best coverage, go AT&T.

I moved a company of about 150 from a 10,000 sqft or so office to a newly built 13,000 sqft office. Not quite as large of a size increase but the main change was that in the old office, everything was rigged to work, the "server room" was just a re purposed office. The cat5 was run as needed, a lot by me.

Anyway, first focus should be your server/comm room. Shoot for an independent, dedicated A/C, a waterless fire suppression system (make sure they don't put a sprinkler head in during construction and that you have everything approved with local fire code), dedicated electrical circuit (ideally 220v), also make sure they don't blindly put carpet or things like that in the room. Run Cat5e everywhere. Plan out what you think you need now for each room and, if budget allows, double it. Rooms that are more likely to change, do your best to run extra Cat5e. If you can afford it, go up to Cat 6 instead of Cat5e, again, budget matters. Get professionals to do your wiring for you. Get several quotes and make sure you see some past work before you hire them. Well done cabling can make a huge difference in an office. You don't want people throwing cable over florescent lights, or parallel to unshielded power lines or things like that. A good cable runner will leave a service loop of 10-15 feet (maybe more depending on the room) above each drop in case you need to move wall locations later. Everything should be neatly labeled, organized, etc, so that when you have an issue, it should take 5 seconds to figure out which port is messed up, not 5 hours.