Thanks. We're inching closer to that with every week and hopefully we'll eventually be on equal footing. Only time (and effort) will tell I suppose.

I'm quite aware that it may be budget related, and we're actually much further down the road than you think. We've been appealing to the IT management for years through our management and that's no joke. Every time we do, we run up against a wall of senior employees that have their positions not because of their merits, but because they've been at the company since the beginning. Their payment is determined not by how well they do their jobs, but because they have been at the company 30+ years. The end result is a split in infrastructure. Our managers have made big enough of a stink that the campus (I work at a college) has been split into parts. Some of the infrastructure is managed by IT, some by a second department and the third (albeit smallest) by us. The second department I mentioned has already transitioned smoothly from XP to Vista and Vista to 7 all within their budget (I believe Vista was only a partial roll-out, IIRC). They bought machines that were slightly better than the minimum just so they wouldn't have to replace them many times over. They manage every machine in the building (the biggest building, in terms of workstation count, on campus) as well as the rest of the buildings on our side of the campus (except us) with ease. She treats her employees with respect, something that is in short supply on the IT side of the campus (this isn't even speculation, we've had plenty of friends quit that department with horror stories about the managers and senior employees alike). They even have a Mac lab and a few specific purpose labs (audio, video, 3D design, etc) that IT doesn't have. While this could be entirely a budget problem, we've removed half of the campus from their plate and we handle the support calls for all web based students in their place. If we've (us and the aforementioned second department) removed this much from their plate, complained to their managers through our managers as much as we have and all they can manage for us is bad attitudes and poor service, what am I supposed to do? We've cut as much dependence on them as we can and we're moving on with our lives. We're the ones pointing out the holes in their security now. We're the ones writing them documentation on how to do their jobs now. We're the ones setting up their virtual hosts now. We're the ones documenting and integrating our systems with their domain servers. What do you propose I do? Wait for them?

It's used to justify the purchase of the lowest price hardware. Hardware so slow that opening outlook with more than a few messages is a daunting task, even in XP. The machines are so underpowered that they will have no choice but to buy completely new machines when it finally comes time to upgrade (when XP support runs out). Even if XP does everything most people need it to do, they've found a way to make it do those things as slowly as possible while saving them some money in the short-term. These machines were bought using the Windows XP minimum requirements as a reference. That's what's wrong with XP. As an operating system, we could all still use it, but IT has weaponized it in a war for short-term, upper manager pleasing savings.

"discussion seminar"? Is that what kids call it these days? Back in my day we just called it "war".

Your cheap scanners still give you the manufacturer codes (or rather, can read them), they just don't automatically turn them into something useful like they can with standard codes so you have to rely on either a mechanics manual or a quick google search to find the meaning of the code. If he's asking for help on Slashdot then I'm sure he can manage that. If he's specifically looking for fancy sensor readouts though, he might be better off buying a prepackaged solution anyway, sadly.

I definitely must agree. What I find bizarre though is that Linus has pulled out so far ahead of Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie. While I appreciate Linus' efforts a great lot (I am using Linux after all), can anyone guess what programming language the majority of the Linux kernel is written in?

I think raising my arm up in front of the screen and presenting it with the middle finger would be an appropriate gesture communicating both were I think it should stick that error and what I think about what it has to say in one simple gesture.

I don't think they make sarcasm tags big enough for your post.

Oh please, everybody knows hexedit is where it's at.

...a strategically placed bowl of alphabet soup or SpagettiO's could also be used as a terrorist communication tool but I don't go around holding press conferences about it.