Anyone that hates the Chromebook has probably not watched "regular people" use one. I picked up a c720 new for $175, put a larger SSD in it to dual boot Linux and Chrome OS and its been worth every dime. Everyone that has used Chrome has loved it as they just want a browser and email and I have found it to run Linux very well with the right config. I have been a UNIX sysadmin fo over 20 years and the fact that I can use a sub $200 device to do most of what I need when visiting a client blows my mind. I remember when people dreamed of being able to buy anything that you coukd run X windows on let alone a cheap laptop with 7 hour battery life. Kids these days...now get off my lawn.

Sounds about right. Some areas of CA are certainly Republican leaning (Orange County to San Diego) but in general everything north of OC is more and more liberal as you move up the state. A few rural areas aside. Why Feinstein's supporters have not run her out of town years ago is beyond me. She and the people that vote for her make a strong argument to dividing CA into two new states...just too much voting power in Nor Cal so it might as well just be their state.

I believe that Koush started to kick the idea for this around after his Tether application was removed from the Android Market for Sprint users. It was eventually restored but he was not pleased that they were able to pressure Google into blocking it.

Read between the lines much? Don't confuse a post on /. that took me 5 seconds to type for an actual response to one of our employees...sheesh.

As I said, if someone needs something different to get their job done in a better fashion and it meets our requirements its not a problem, but our users are not in a position to set policy and as part owner of the company if they don't want to play by the rules set by the people that sign their paychecks they are free to leave. We are not unreasonable about requests like this but when we say 'no' we mean it and going against our wishes is grounds for termination. We need to run a very tight ship due to the nature of our business and one rogue employee could easily cost us millions in fines and lost contracts. We are simply as restrictive as is required...no more, no less.

"User figures out a better way to do something"

Better for the user or for the company that issues their paycheck? If a user has a better method or device/software to get a job done its zero problem to allow it but quite often users don't see the big picture and that is understandable. They don't know the regulations we are legally required to operate under (at least in my industry) and don't always understand that while their method might make their job easier it also has consequences that they cant anticipate. Very often users know enough about technology to be dangerous and don't understand that being 'tech savvy' is not even close to being an expert. When I go to see the Dr I have ideas and questions about treatment but when he talks I listen...he is the expert and knows that he is talking about. IT should be the same. Of course, some IT folk are just a-holes and frankly should not hold the position, but assuming your IT staff is competent they should have full veto power over users ideas..but ealing with incompetent IT employees is a different conversation.

I certainly understand that users want to use what is easy for them but they need to understand that they don't set policy. I listen to any reasonable requests and if they fit within our policy (or if it makes sense to change the policy to allow it) I will authorize their request. However, understand that I have been working in IT for over 20 years and know a thing or two that you probably don't. Its not a power trip, its my job, it is what they pay me to do. Employees need to understand that its not personal. If their request was denied I had a very good reason to do so. Get over it, move along.

Obviously they hired the wrong replacement if you are asking these questions. This is IT 101.

I have been running Linux as my primary OS since the early Yggdrasil days and have been along for the UI ride ever since. Switching to Unity was something I had to force myself to do. I was full of rage for the first week and annoyed on the second week but once I adapted to doing things a new way I now really like it. The version of Unity included with 11.10 is much more polished and works very well on my multi-headed setup and the 2D version runs very well on systems that don't play nice with 3D accelerated version.

Another interesting thing: All of my users that have had the option to use Unity have loved it. I thought they would freak out but every single one has been very pleased. That is a pretty huge point.

Break into my house in the middle of the night and see how I "pretend" to have weapons for protection...

But of course, the businesses should be punished heavily, but that does not mean that we should not make an effort to stop illegal immigration. We have a process to become a US citizen, if you don't like it don't and take a chance at breaking federal law don't cry to me when you get sent home. Of course with sanctuary cities that never happens here in CA...

Bingo. People that support illegal immigration just cant seem to grasp that they are supporting a system that exploits people that have no protection under the law. Also..dont give me that 'jobs you wont do' crap. I will happily pay more for fruit if the worker that picked it was making at least minimum wage and I know a ton of people without jobs that will take *anything* at this point.

...'cus this is all just a dream anyway.

Reps in our fine state tend to pass laws to look good for their constituents knowing that it wont stand up to the legal challenge...assuming a group or person will bring a lawsuit of course. This makes oh so much sense for a state without a dime to its name. Passing stupid and unconstitutional laws is cheap, getting them repealed is very expensive for both the state and its citizens. Watching the state senate at work via stream is about the most painful thing you can do, especially as you write your yearly tax check. Keep up the good work!

I HATED Unity but decided that I needed to use it for a week before I made up my mind. Long story short...I like it now. I am running it on two 24" displays and I am just as productive as I was with the Gnome 2 interface now that I know all the keyboard shortcuts. Its a harsh toke for sure to go from the 'classic' interface to Unity but I think that a lot of people are just not giving it a chance. As for the problems with Compiz and other bugs, I have not really had any issues. The only problem I have had is the proprietary Radeon driver is slow so I am not using it at the moment.