obviously, since jobs death they are working with a limited supply of magic. until an entire new generation of unicorns can be grown and harvested, there simply isn't enough to fill the old full sized CPUs.

Misunderstanding of what a MAC address is and how they work, that is the crux of the issue.

I've read this article twice, and the only supporting facts for the author's conclusions seem to be some stats about declining female enrollment in CS and the personal tale of one woman who had a slightly shitty experience at one place she worked.

WTF.. I could provide a lot more evidence to support a flat earth theory.

I don't doubt that there are places where women have a tougher time than males in the IT dept, but the conclusions this author is making seem shaky at best (not to mention flying in the face of everything I've seen in my own somewhat lengthy career in the field.. admittedly myopic but just a valid and apparently more diverse than the evidence used by the author).

it is true that ios != android, but i don't think either could solve the fundamental problems the tablet form factor has when used as a primary computing device (aka laptop replacement). typing sucks unless you use an external kb, but to carry one you're now basically taking up the same space as a laptop. not being able to run any real software sucks. maybe the win8 tablets will address that. limited local storage sucks, sad fact of life is that travellers cannot always be online even in the year 2011. there maybe android would help, removable storage and a real filesystem etc.

anyway the point is that while adding a tablet to your kit might be fun, replacing a laptop with a tablet might not be fun at all, it certainly didn't go over well here.

I am speaking from the experience after mgmt decided our IT dept must deploy iPads to 300+ mid level types company wide earlier this year.

For about a month, iPads at every meeting, out on every roadwarrior's trip (and dropped a few times, oops), always seen on desks in the office, etc.

Today... they live in drawers, under stacks of paperwork, "i forgot it at home". haven't seen anyone carry one into a conference room in recent memory.

And guess what our first major purchasing request of fiscal year 2012 is?

250 new laptops.

Go figure.

Replacing a laptop with a tablet, any tablet, is a nasty compromise. You'll miss your 4 year old laptop the first time you have to do any work on the tablet.
If you're like most people who have this idea, you'll wind up carrying both the tablet and the old laptop (or buying a new laptop) and then one day you'll just forget the tablet at home, and within a couple months the tablet will live on your coffee table and rarely leave the house.

completely off topic, but i noticed you were thinking about ssd... just put one into a system that is also about 3 years old as the first step in what i thought would be the typical "3 year in place rebuild" involving new cpu, mb, gpu, etc mostly done together. used a relatively cheap/small ssd for os and apps and left all the crap that wouldn't benefit anyway (movies, music, etc..) on the existing hds. and, oh sweet crap this system is fast now. i had no idea, ssd is probably the most massive improvement in overall system speed i've seen from a component upgrade in many years, maybe ever. highly recommended! i might just leave the rest of the components alone for now.

We're talking about malware on an OS targeting people who can't even figure out Windows... an OS these same computer illiterates were likely told is perfectly safe and unable to get a virus by the family computer nerd that talked them into buying it. While I agree with the sentiment of your post, I think reality is that the "doesn't work on people who have a brain" thing is going to be even less of an obstacle for malware on OS X than it is in the Windoze world.

"isn't anywhere near catching up to Windows-based malware in terms of volume and variety"
"may be adopting some of the more successful tactics that Windows viruses have been using to trick users"
"a technique that's been in favor among Windows malware authors for several years now"

I'm sure that will be a great comfort to the Mac users effected by this malware :)