We did this in the last place I worked... It does Work. have a coupel of mice handy and maybe a keyboard or two, you'd be amazed how far a £2.49 mouse can go to build up your KUDOS around the place. You need to be approachable, otherwise its not service provision...

Oh Yeah I get you, and once your cancourous hard drive has infected the network with trojans and malware and viruses and all that good stuff, it will still be IT's fault cos 'they made you do it'? You are putting not only your own data in jeopardy but also that of your entire company, just because you want to be a maverick? I'm going to be nice here, people like you keep me in a job... I agree with you, large corporations do harbour a lot of IT staff that only know enough to do their job and no more. Hell I've worked with IT guys who don't even own a computer at home. but don't judge us all by our worst specimens. I pride myself on my customer service abilities, that's what we are, service providers. If we can't provide that then we may as well all go home. What the OP has to contend with, isn't just a normal user base but a base of more technical programmers. i can compeltely understand why he feels like a second class citizen, I've been there. And I'll tell you, its blind ignorance and the fact they know they are out of their depth. They transpose their own inabilities onto you and it becomes your fault. My advice? Users don't change, one or two might, but the usrbase doesn't its a constant battle, always swimming against the tide. Be good at what you do, enforce your policies (make them suffer where you can) reward positive feedback with extra attention, snappier response times etc. but remember you are a service provider...

... the relentless march of technology... Real 3D is finally emerging and being embraced by the software houses and hardware manufacturers alike. Hollywood studios are now releasing major titles utilising 3D technology, be under no illjusion they see this as a major revenue stream due to the lack of consumer based technology available. Consumers will start demanding bigger displays, higher pixel counts etc, these in turn will start driving new '3D ready' cards, which will come at a premium (at first anyway). then there will be the next tier of technology that emerges, there will always be a demand for bleeding edge technology, graphics or otherwise.