Thank you for getting it. I can tell easily in this thread who also has young children and who does not. You said exactly what I was thinking, only better.

They may be working for Facebook, but there is a return on the work. That return is an electronic social connection service that is fairly unique, albeit mostly because of the current momentum. There *is* value provided by all the employees on the back end of Facebook, even if it does cost the users something other than money- their Privacy. But, you are right on about the bubble shifts. The Internet changes quickly. Facebook is always pushing the extent of which their users will cooperate. They do run the constant risk of abandonment when a suitable competitor arises who at least *appears* to have less conflict with their personal values.

Yeah, even if that "distraction" happens to be a web browser on your second monitor so you can code web apps on a dual monitor setup. That "distraction" is gone now, and your second monitor now goes dark..gee how thoughtful of them. #1 reason I am not upgrading to Lion.

Don't assume just because the office is small that downtime due to hardware failures is any less devastating to their business. I've had more than one "small office" learn this lesson after I argued that they shouldn't skimp on the redundancy just because it's expensive.

"How much does is cost if your employees are sitting around doing nothing for 2 days waiting for parts to arrive to fix your mission-critical server?"

Exactly right. Wish I had mod points for this. One of the numerous advantages of many open source solutions is that they are designed by hackers and when things go wrong, usually there are very distinct error messages and good logging capabilities. Coupled with some googling and/or IRC rooms, things usually get resolved very quickly. If you're a hacker yourself, you can usually resolve issues pretty quickly.

A common experience for me with closed source has been more along the lines of a message-box-only delivery of a very random error message with no other clues to go on. At that point you are at the mercy of the profit-motivated corporation's support center who has often outsourced their support operations. You'll have to fight for days or weeks jumping through meaningless hoops before you get your support case escalated to someone who can actually give you a correct answer.

That said, there is another edge to that sword. Being designed by hackers often means that unless you are a hacker yourself or have made smart choices in hiring one, you might find yourself struggling to maintain it because you don't have the skills to also manage the other open-source systems they build upon ( e.g. Database, http server, external libraries ). This can be solved usually by hiring people familiar with the open source world, but I can understand that it's tough to make a switch once you've hired a staff who is accustomed to the pointy-clicky way of doing things.

Yes, I have caps lock remapped to control on all my systems. This design decision reduces my excitement to get one of these devices since I would not enjoy coding on that keyboard.

Yes indeed, witness the O.J. SImpson criminal trial.. Oh wait..

Not so sure about that "easy to use website" part.. Your enthusiasm piqued my interest, but when I find a bug in their "Utilities" within 30 seconds of browsing their site, it doesn't speak well for their services. "Response object error 'ASP 0156 : 80004005' Header Error /inc/AccessControl.asp, line 237 The HTTP headers are already written to the client browser. Any HTTP header modifications must be made before writing page content."

I like "phobophobia" better.

Neat-o.. My dot is almost over Mahatma Gandhi. Somehow that makes me feel superior. Thanks for that link!

There's actually a huge number of us that believe this way. What we lack is the critical mass of fanatics required to organize a threat to the status quo. That's because those of us that recognize governing is not black or white are, more often than not, intelligent enough to at least consider an opposing point of view.

We should be focusing on the threat of an asteroid colliding with our planet. The logistics of destroying or redirecting an asteroid are difficult, but finding another inhabitable planet that we could reach without light-speed is such a statistical improbability that it feels like a lower priority to me.

I don't have the numbers, but I'd wager that it's more likely that another intelligent lifeform would find us first.

I'll agree. I was a loyal customer for 15 years. Their support was absolutely top notch. I never had to wait more than 10 seconds when calling them and only once did I ever need to escalate a call beyond the first person to answer.

I think this is what put them out of business. The PC industry is a race to the bottom. Price is king these days and if you aren't willing to sacrifice your quality in the name of more profits, you will be replaced by someone else who is.

This is a very sad day for me.

Damn right! I've been using thumb wheel trackmen for 14 years now and I freaking love it. No mouse shoulder, easy to click.. And as a bonus, you can kick serious ass with FPS with our ability to head look or spin ridiculously fast. This feature does take a while to get used to, however..