After the debacle of Vista, I could have sworn I read on this very site a few weeks ago that Win 7 was going to offered as a FREE upgrade, at least to Vista users. Am I on crack or did I actually see that story?

Honestly. The adoption rate of Exchange 2007 was LOW and slow. Even when SP1 was released (after almost a year delay, btw), we're still stuck with this shitty command line interface that USED to be GUI to do all sorts of fun admin things in. It's a royal PITA to administer. How about an SP2 that will fix seemingly dead issues like OWA support for other browsers, etc? If MS thinks we and other companies that just spent thousands of dollars on the "bleeding edge" 2007 are going to pony up for 2010, they've got a surprise waiting. This is incrtedibly insulting.

I guess Ballmer realized how shitty everything was the company has done over the past 2-3 years since he took over and decided to move on.

Sorry. You are dead wrong. This is a classic move by union telco members when there is a contract dispute. It's way too coincidental this was done (in two places) just when their most recent contracts expired. CLASSIC telco sabotage.

When I hear that critical lines were cut, I thought to myself "I bet there just happens to be some sort of labor dispute going on with the union guys in California." Sure enough, you guys confirmed it.

My father worked for Verizon (formerly Bell Atlantic, etc) for roughly 15 years until he recently retired. He was "management." EVERY SINGLE TIME the union guys went out on strike, the vandalism began. There's a lot of political back-scratching going on when this happens and the union is VERY good at protecting these guys from any sort of prosecution. Fortunately, one time, one or two guys were electrocuted in Brooklyn (or maybe it was Staten Island) the last time around. They were climbing a pole attempting to cut lines. They successfully sabotaged lines in Fairfield County back in 98 or 99. They set fires in buildings, flooded tunnels containing copper and fiber lines, attack managers physically or damage their cars while they are working and these guys are "picketing." Disgusting behavior.

Union workers are a pathetic bunch. Very petty, very childish, very ignorant and are often despicable. You cut phone lines that people rely on for 911 services because you want a f***ing pay raise??? I hope one day a family member of a union telco worker dies due to an intentionally cut line. Maybe they will learn. but I doubt it.

I'm kinda-sorta looking for a new job because my boss is an a$$hole. So, I update my res and look at the listings on Monster...and it's DEAD. I'm talking about a couple of listings per week if that for anything more than entry-level (I've got 10+ years under my belt, so..). Its pretty dismaying, to be honest. The layoffs don't seem to have hit this area hard (yet) but there are no open jobs around that I can find.

Yeah, good luck with that. That would require the Chinese gov't to actually give a shit about this problem.

This guy is right. Piracy is embedded in the Chinese culture. I dated a Chinese girl and her entire extended family (a lot of people) felt it was perfectly normal to do shit like pirate software - and eat endangered species (I'm not kidding). I'd be surprised if there was even one legitimate copy of software in that entire country, frankly.

After all the damage squirrels have done to my property the past few years, I know refer to them as tree rats. I "relocated" 12 of them last year and 3 more are adding themselves to my shit list this fall.

I think a lot of these problems stem back to the ridiculously warm weather we had late last January. It was in the 60s and 70's for nearly a week. Fucked up a lot of my plants and killed many of them once it returned to normal cold a week or so later. I've talked to several people who've had similar problems this year with various plants likely due to that warm spell.

I've been in IT for around 10 years now, and I'm still learning tons of stuff. Outside of troubleshooting and a few other things, hiring straight out of school (IMHO) is not always a good idea. ESPECIALLY when it comes to customer (i.e. end-user) service.

One funny anecdote I like to tell people how experience matters in my job: I used to work for a popular fashion company in NYC. Tons of hot girls. I noticed that every once in a while, one of them would be super nice to me. And then I would do special things for them (find a sound card for their music, etc.) as they asked. I was befuddled why they no longer paid attention to me. Then I figured it out: hot girls use IT guys to get shit. Now, they wait longer. Well, that's not always true, but since I'm married it doesn't matter and I always like the eye candy. But at least I'm aware of it now. :)

I absolutely agree with you. Frankly, there is very little, if any, legitimate traffic coming out of Russia. I think most ISPs should unilaterally cut off any communications from any IP from Russia. And part of me wants to extend that block to China as well.

I agree. I have absolutely NO qualms about anyone going after these scumbags if "regular" law enforcement won't do anything about it. Hell, I'd do it myself if I was so equipped and skilled.

I have a degree in Philosophy, but my career (with a brief interlude into journalism) has been in IT. Shortly after I graduated, I met a guy who started a software company. he was a Phil grad and he said most of his programmers were as well. There's something in the logical functionality of computer science that appeals to us brainiacs. :)