Was gonna say the same thing. Get a cheap NAS, put the two drives in it, go with RAID 0.
The D-Link DNS-321 is $120 from Newegg. It runs Linux and can handle all your Web/FTP/Samba needs.

Spend some more time with it to learn the aliases; and try hitting <Tab> every once in a while, it's kinda like having intellisense at the command line. As a system admin, I love powershell and am using it constantly. Granted, it does help that I'm on Exchange 2007 and we have a few Server 2008 boxes deployed. Also, what rabbit994 said is spot on for it's best usage, scripting. Sure, this is largely just MS copying the *nix shell, but it works well and having the .NET API exposed for scripting and command lines is very nice. Like rabbit994, I end up having to add chunks of users all at once (I'm in a University environment) each with a mailbox, a user folder, a web folder and an FTP folder; create the distribution group and security group for the new batch of students, add all of the students to said groups, add those groups to our higher level groups; oh, and while I'm at it make sure that all of the ACL's are correct for each of the student's folders. And, just for the fun of it, I like to keep each batch of students in their own OU in Active Directory, it makes applying group specific GPO's easier. It shouldn't be a big surprise that as a manual process this takes anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes per student. With powershell, I run a script on my laptop which consumes a CSV file of student names and a command line parameter for the group number and within seconds all of that is done for all of the students.

As for it not being on any system I sit down on, that does suck. However, what did you expect MS to do make it a critical patch for all systems? On the other hand, we'll eventually get to that point anyway. Powershell is bundled with Windows 7 and Server 2008. While some folks may hang on to XP until they die, most of us (especially businesses) will upgrade and this problem will simply disappear.

Also on the nuke idea, why limit the choice between kinetic and nuclear weapons to either/or? Take the same type of tech we are currently using for the BLU-116 Bunker Buster bomb, add engines, an optic guidance system and replace the chemical explosive warhead with a nuclear warhead. Scale as needed. It would make the lake of an atmosphere outside the ship a plus.

Sure, I would expect counter measures on large scale warships, but we have that now and weapons like this can still get through and hit their target, why do we expect that to change?

That's another one of the things which I think could help our current situation in the US for a number of markets. Disallow vertical integration in communications. For example, if you are providing communications services you cannot own the network and vice versa; nor can one parent company hold one of each. This would include phone, internet and TV. AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, etc. would be broken up into different companies. One would be a network provider which just sells access to the network and the other would be the service provider who buys access to the network and resells it to the customers. The network companies would then become similar to other public utilities which are private companies given exclusive monopolies in a region in exchange for government oversight.

The spectrum is auctioned off the highest bidder. For a few billion dollars the entrenched interests can just gobble it all up regardless of whether or not they need it or intend to deploy on it.

This has always been one of my biggest complaints about the FCC's wireless spectrum auctions. There really needs to be a use requirement attached to the sale. For example, anytime a company/individual purchases a chunk of spectrum, there are required to put it to use. If they don't utilize it or under-utilize* it it gets taken back from them (no refunds) and then re-auctioned.

* - Under utilization would cover buying a chunk of spectrum which can carry far more information on it than a company does regularly. In which case, that chunk should be stripped from them and a less valuable one given for their current use. This is to avoid the purchase of a valuable chunk and then using it to send control messages or the like to avoid it appearing unused.

You realise other networks are likely to follow suit?

I doubt it, it only takes one carrier to realize that they can pickup a ton of customers by offering an unlimited plan. They will simply need to figure out the price point at which it works for them financially, and get ready to deal with being crushed under the rush of customers. Take a look back to '96 when AOL became one of the first ISP's to offer unlimited plans. It was a disaster for a short bit, but drove sales like mad. In short order the other ISP's followed suit. And while several have threatened to go back to a per minute charge, it has never happened and it is never going to happen. The first ISP to do it will see their customers desert them in droves. Even if all of the ISP's out there get together and decide that they will all go to a per minute charge, it just becomes one huge game of chicken with the first one to break the trust winning the top market position.

The genie is out of the bottle on unlimited data plans. AT&T was happy to help remove the stopper, they are just pissing and moaning now because they didn't expect such high user demand and it's expensive to play catch-up. While having the iPhone as an exclusive device might keep a few customers, if they follow through on this threat, it's still going to kill their wireless division.

Yes, but fortunately, it's dying.

Well if this story is to be believed then while Microsoft showed a 14% decline in year over year revenue for Q3 2009, the Entertainment and Devices Division (Xbox and Zune) showed roughly a doubling of profit from $159 million to $312 million. So, while we may never know if MS has recouped all of the money they sunk into getting into the console market, it looks like they are making money on it now; even with having to carry the albatross that is the Zune.

I think it has less to do with what phase you are in in life than what types of games you play.
While I do play both console games and PC games, the choice is usually dictated by what type of game I am buying. If I am looking for a Prince of Persia or God of War type game, I buy it on the console. Since I won't really need fine control with lots of buttons, the console works out great and the ability to just drop in the disc and play is nice. For FPS or other games where I want a fine level of control and a good array of buttons, give me a PC. For example, look at the progression of the Rainbow Six games. By the second game of the series, I had an amazing amount of control over my character. The third game simply added to that. When the fourth game was announced as a console only game, I and many other fans started whining. Unfortunately, UbiSoft decided to give us what we asked for and ported Rainbow Six: Lockdown over to the PC. The controls felt like a dumbed down version Doom. And the actual game play wasn't much better. The series went from a tactical shooter to a yet another run and gun fest.

As for the hassle of keeping a gaming PC running, it's really not that hard. Yes, I have seen my fair share of games which lock up or refuse to run, but they aren't that common. And the trade off is usually a community around a good game making maps and mods. Yes, paid for downloadable content can be nice, but the stuff some of the modders do can be as good as, and sometimes even better than, the original game which gives me a lot more bang for the buck.

The health care fiasco is in a defense appropriations bill.

I thought the health care fiasco was in the Health Care Fiasco bill which we've been hearing so much about in the news. Got any actual citations on health care stuff being pushed into the defense appropriations bill? Or is this just more Limbaugh/Beck bullshit?

Have you seen the latest on the Antarctic data adjustments? The data from 63 temp sensors was "homoginized" by simply discarding the data from 62 of them and replacing those 62 with the data from the sensor with the fastest warming, producing a rate of change 8 times what might be reasonable. Persumably the hot sensor is near Mt Erebus (Antarctica's active volcano). You can "prove" anything you want if you lie about the data.

Actually no, I haven't seen this, link please? I tried googling for it and apparently either my skills are lacking or an actual source for this is.

I'd take that bet, I'm figuring that it'll get attached to the defense spending bill which is still waiting to be passed for this year (or next year's, if it takes that long). The Republicans are going to fight anything which comes out of Copenhagen which isn't an obvious hand-out to the oil companies. On the other hand, they won't fight a defense spending bill even if it had a "we're going to kill babies and stick them on spikes" rider in it.

Agreed, you can get a decent one for $20 or less at retail, even splurging and buying one which does RJ-11 as well is not going to break the bank. I have to believe that AT&T could easily negotiate a better price for the volume. And it would avoid comments like mine. Still, maybe they are just counting on no one noticing. If it wasn't for the fact that I have made more network cables than I care to admit, I might not have known that it was wrong.