Check out http://www.continuum.net/. I've been using their services for over 5 years, and they've been steadily improving it since they split from Zenith Infotech. No, it's not free, but it's quite cheap per unit and you get a lot of bang for your buck. Remote monitoring and alerts on any service, remote access, at-a-glance dashboard, etc. With 500 clients, I'm guessing you'd rather spend your time monitoring the situation than putting together a custom solution.

The big problem with running is the lousy shoes that all but force you to use a heel strike. It's the heel strike that trashes your knees and hips, and leads to fatigue very quickly. Take the shoes off and run barefoot, landing flat-footed or on the balls of your feet. At first you'll discover muscles you haven't been using, then you'll find yourself wondering why you wasted all that money on expensive running shoes.

Correct, I never trusted his motives. Take a few minutes to look at the guy's history and you'll see why.

Making money is far from evil. Lying, cheating and/or stealing to make money is evil. There's a big difference. If he would have said, "I also plan to build a pipeline along this corridor to move water from one location to another" while he was crowing about his wonderful plan to build this wind farm, his reception would have been entirely different. It was a lie of omission, and he planned to use the land -- taken from its owners using eminent domain -- for huge personal gain. So you have lying AND stealing. Hence this scheme was evil.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickens_Plan#Pickens.27_motives

I think the "technical problems" may be that he couldn't get the okay to build his pipeline along the same corridor. I never trusted his motives, and I remember reading a pretty detailed article on this shortly after he announced his grandiose plan.