This, times 1,000. I'm amazed more people aren't talking about this.

All the cool BES security and management stuff is amazing, in theory. But in reality, BES is cumbersome, overly complicated, and downright unreliable, with crappy support. As just one particularly infuriating example: I used to run a BES server for about 100 users, and I couldn't migrate any Exchange mailboxes between mailbox databases because BES would corrupt the users' blackberry contacts. I had a ticket open with RIM support for well over a year, and now I've moved to new job, but AFAIK they never fixed that bug. When I complained through their sales channel at contract renewal time, their sales person said it was a feature request, and they couldn't be bothered. What IT department wants to support that? We like happy users, not angry users with broken phones and no help from the vendor. Forget not keeping up with new market trends -- RIM has driven away those who used to be its core supporters in what is supposedly its core market. And we're not coming back.

Because any competent IT manager realizes that a computer that's locked down yet works consistently for it's intended purpose is clearly better than a computer that's not locked down and is virtually non-functional.

They are middle school students!! 90% of their generic catch-all insults are "of a sexual nature." I'm guessing that, in their minds at the time, without having thought things through completely, they thought that calling the teacher a pedophile was no more serious than calling something they don't like "gay." IMO the conclusion you jump to is completely unfounded.

U3 enabled flash drives emulate a CD-ROM from the *hardware* level - it's not just software on the drive, but actually seems to appear on the USB bus as a CD-ROM as well as a flash drive. So a virus on a standard flash drive couldn't do this. Perhaps the contents of the emulated CD-ROM on a U3 drive could be hacked to load a virus, but that part of the drive is not user-writable in any apparent way, so it wouldn't be trivial.

He didn't "make anything up." If you're going to disagree, don't do it by being pedantic. The government took $78k, plus several thousand more, so let's call it $85k. That's 42.5% (while we're being pedantic) which most would agree is "half" when the word is used in imprecise terms, and even if you want to be technical about it that 7.5% inaccuracy doesn't invalidate his argument. It's not like it was actually only 10% but he was calling it "half."

Not likely, unfortunately. They'll just write it off as another technology change they don't understand, and get a new TV so they can keep watching Desperate Housewives.

I can't help but notice that, in in a thread suggesting the avoidance of money and "smoke and mirrors" investments, you've just suggested taking payment for work in... gold futures. :-)

If I had mod points, I'd have a hard time deciding whether to mod you Funny or Insightful! I agree 100%.

I work on cars sometimes as a hobby, but I'm sure I'd soon come to hate it if I had to do it for a living. It can be fun when you don't care if it's still not running at the end of the day, and you can come back to it tomorrow, or next weekend, or whenever.

But when you HAVE to do it, and QUICKLY, because the user/driver is complaining because they can't work/get to work until you get their email/starter fixed, and there are 10 more frustrated people in line behind them, it can eventually become somewhat of a drag. And you start to REALLY question why software/car companies have to make such simple things so damn much work to fix! (Seriously, though, why do they? I'd think car manufacturers, at least, could save some money on warranty work by designing cars to be more serviceable. Dell IMO does quite a good job with this.)

Only being able to get 3 years max of warranty/support probably doesn't fly well, either.

Really?? Outlook 2007 does of course have that functionality, as well as that same ability to set itself up automatically. Perhaps your Outlook was set up before your company moved you over to Exchange 2007, which made the automated setup possible.

I'm pretty sure he meant that his company network enforces a policy that instructs Windows to update - meaning he CAN'T change the setting. It also likely means he only gets updates that his company has released, so he might be spared from this one.

What happens if you run a clean ship but they find something you've (sincerely) accidentally overlooked?

This may be true, but these are NOT the people a WPA password is supposed to protect you from. If they have access to your drawer, and they intend to do your harm, your WPA password is the least of your worries. And, if they already have physical access, then they don't need your WPA password to "break into your internet" anyway.

If we were talking about an online banking password that someone could steal from your drawer and use to empty your account, then I might agree with you (although the same idea applies, that there are probably much more dangerous things in that drawer already). But wireless network encryption is only capable of protecting against someone who doesn't already have physical access anyway. So how is it not a good choice to make that a secure password that's written down and filed away?

Yes, people lose perspective in computer security.

If you suck at tech, they'll fire you. If you're great at tech, they will increase your responsibilities, inching you closer to your Peter Point. If you handle the heightened expectations, they will raise you to a management level, thereby eliminating your chance to contribute in your old way, or they will reassign you to fix some ailing project.

That last part is sometimes called "career growth."

As others have said, the OP should do whichever he'll enjoy most. There's nothing wrong with trying new things and taking on new challenges.

No!! The obvious solution is to ban cars, since they can be deadly if used improperly.