I am very glad to see this happening. Limewire, in recent years, was the easiest source for non-computer literate people (aka techno-peasants) to get viruses. My know people that would constantly have viruses on their XP machines because of this app. Good riddance, honestly.

Amen brother. As if Ars is the ONLY place to get information about products on the web.

I simply do not click on adverts so why would I want to see them? Even if there was no way of blocking them I would never click on them. It's as simple as that. Finished and klaar.

Maybe a bit of both. I'm going to go where the wind blows but I do have a loose set of things I want to accomplish and one of those is to perhaps do some volunteer work not working with or touching computers. My ultimate goal is to actually come back with a fresh outlook on life and my future career aspirations. I would like to, eventually start a company, and be my own boss and experience the highs and lows of that. The sabbatical was the initial idea for this whole thing but as the days have gone on I've added a lot of additional thing's I want to accomplish but whatever it is, the ultimate goal is to rejuvenate, re-energize, and re-focus my life and come back a better person for it. Sounds cheezy but there's more value to this decision than meets the eye. But hey, who knows, maybe I find an incredible job there and I stay! :D

A lot of people don't realize this but taking time off does not equate to being a slacker. It has more in line with providing you with, ultimately, a better set tools to make informed decisions and a better set of rules to live life by. Taking time off is probably one of the most undervalued ideas in this generation and until you're faced with it by consequence of some dire event, such as is my case, you'll never know any better and continue to live life unhappily for the remainder of your days. Going down that path was not on my agenda of things to do so the alternative is, make the choice to actually show up for and live life! Thanks for the well wishes.

Luckily I got a severance package which is going towards this trip, combine that with everything that I have already sold, as in sold everything in my Condo, and you have the makings of some semblance of financial security that will last me at least 6 months. I don't care much for the status that comes with awesome home entertainment equipment like big flat-screens etc When I get back there will be something better to get, as soon as I released my grip on the importance and value of worldly possessions a lot of very good things started happening. For me thing's changed about 2 years ago when my Dad died from Cancer. Suddenly I started putting life into perspective. I realized that it's not worth waiting until I'm 65 to retire and 'enjoy' myself. Rather, I'm going to be taking these 'mini-retirements' throughout life and enjoy as much as I can. This first trip to Africa is going to be trip #1 of many. It's amazing how the world works in your favor as soon as you make a big decision. I feel an absolute ton of gratitude for my place in the world right now and for the experiences I've had thus far that have brought me to this point in life and I'm looking forward to what is yet to come.

I'm completely jaded with the IT industry after having spent the past 10 years installing toner cartridges and mapping network drives for people that show very little gratitude. I tried my best to move up the corporate ladder, so to speak. I started out at the bottom and slowly worked my way up passed junior admin, helpdesk, and into senior technical support. Then I hit a vertical limit at one company, with no choice for further career progression. I looked around and evaluated my skills, but everything pointed to a horizontal move. With my desire to have a stable, decent paying job, I had inadvertently boxed myself into a position which was going to be almost impossible to get out of. My skills were clearly tailored around supporting users, with some network admin and even lecturing experience. Then, a miracle happened, I got laid off from that job and that's when life started. Suddenly a thousand possibilities entered my head. And that's where I'm at right now. I'm taking 6 months off, I put my condo up for rent and I'm going traveling to Africa! I'm hoping to accomplish quite a few things when I get there, re-focus my efforts and rejuvenate my enthusiasm, when I get back I want to start my own company, I'm tired of working for people. I want to experience owning a company firsthand and seeing my efforts pay off, literally. I'm tired of making shareholders richer and richer with each passing month. So if you skipped all of that here's the sum up. If you don't enjoy what you do, take some time off to figure out what it is that you want to do with yourself. Emphasis on 'time off'. They say that people change careers 5 times in their lives. This change, for me, will be change number 1 and I'm looking forward to it like you cannot believe.

QFT! I call myself the High-Tech Janitor. Because that's what I do!

The problem is not these clueless idiots working in these corporations. It's the braindead HR people that hire these people to fulfill these positions. My beef is clearly and squarely with HR, they're obviously not doing a good enough job of filtering out the clueless from the clued up. If HR *were* doing their job properly then we would be working in a wonderful environment.

That's funny because I don't think this problem is a Dell-specific one, I think it's systemic across the industry. I was once told by a Futureshop salesman that a particular brand of DVD player supports playing back WMA content and that I would need a WMA-Writer to make use of that feature. A WMA-Writer? What's that? Often I come across sales guys that regurgitate something technical that they've heard said before but screw up in it's delivery making them in turn sound like complete retards such as this gem, I was in the market for a decent laptop so another Futureshop sales guy told me that I could upgrade my laptop's graphics card (and that in fact all laptops graphics cards were upgradeable), as he pointed to the shelves in the far corner containing PCI-Express graphics cards. /facepalm The problem is these guys aren't technical at all and just need a job to pay some bills or get them through college/university and unless they have a vested interest in computers they're not going to be all that clued up, it's just a fact, but it's bad to have these guys selling stuff to unsuspecting consumers that don't know a lot about computers. That's the part that grinds my balls.

I'm completely getting out of IT. I've been doing Technical Support for well on 10 years now and when I was laid off from my last job I re-evaluated my life and came to the solid conclusion that fixing computers for a living was not bringing any joy whatsoever. Other than paying the bills, the job wasn't doing anything else for me. So I'm completely jaded and disenchanted with the IT industry as a whole so what am I doing now? Taking 6 months off, going traveling! When I first got into IT it was straight out of high school, I skipped University because I wasn't too academically inclined but I got a LOT of certifications for various things in IT so I'm well qualified enough to do quite a range of things but when I look at the industry I'm left with a sour taste in my mouth. Originally IT was super cool, I was the admin, I controlled everything, and even when there were restrictions I could get around them. That was in my younger more childish IT days but as I matured in IT I became very jaded with the continual politics that are played again and again so that leaves me at today not wanting to fix another damn computer even if my life depended on it. Instead what I'm going to do once I get back from my little trip is start a company and experience the highs and lows of running my own business! It's the only way!