It IS a gift to humanity, - think of all the lives that it has touched, and not just ActiveX programmers!

It has given linux admins more clout and opened up jobs for people wanting to avoid Microsoft like the plague
It has given new Windows security admins more job security after the old one was fired
It has given hackers a means to expand and fund their personal empires
It has helped prune out the weak by allowing the destruction of their computers

You see, Microsoft is just playing its part in the circle of life.

I don't know that this is debatable because companies are so different... Security threats can be categorized as internal or external threats. When you keep your data local your internal threats are limited to your employees with access to the systems or data, and your external threats are anything outside trying to find its way in. When you put your data up in the cloud you are opening up the internal threats to both your employees AND the employees of the company hosting your data, and your external threats to a much larger group of people targeting a much larger 'payday' by attacking the service provider. One blunder by that company, or one stupid employee at that company, and a lot of people can be affected, including you. Perhaps you have a big name and everyone wants your data - putting yourself up on the cloud might not expose you to many more external threats, but for small companies the risk of external threat by keeping your data local could be less.

So - if you have stupid people in your company emailing confidential documents or making their password "bigboy" then it doesn't matter whether your outsource or not. On the other hand if you don't have the want or desire to have a solid IT security person, then the additional risks of your service provider getting hacked are probably still less than the risk of your local network being hacked.

If you have a decent computer and an xbox/PS3/iPhone then use tversity - you get hulu, youtube, all your movies and more streamed to a number of different devices.

I bet you Dick Cheney's moon base is blurred out...

Someone finally found a hole in a Microsoft application using a Microsoft framework opening a Microsoft application!

Fusion-IO has PCI-e cards that they claim sustain 570MB/s up to 1.5GBps

Can't boot from them, but there you go.

Unfortunately I'm going to have to agree with this - especially in the higher levels of management. Sometimes it is the organization's lack of understanding of IT and need to relate to the IT manager that leads to someone with limited tech experience being hired. Other times a once tech savvy manager ends up getting further and further removed from operations - instead being forced to spend their time politicking and worrying about bottom lines.

Ultimately you should make your decision based off of what makes you happiest - as others have said. Get an understanding of what your role in management will actually entail and determine the distance you'll be from operations.

Being 39 doesn't make you 'too old for tech'... being lazy, unwilling to change, inexperienced and out of touch does. On the other side - some people are built for management and some aren't. Unfortunately a lot of people who aren't still end up in management positions.

Yea, but only if you dont care about distances. The only thing I have liked so far about the Draft-N devices is the throughput you get at greater distances. Sitting directly in front of the router my throughput was still only about 32Mbps on average (65 max in small, infrequent bursts) but was getting 2Mbps throughput at a distance where I couldnt even see my 802.11a router.