I think the reason I've loved all the T series laptops I've had is the ease of maintenance. Between the support from IBM/Lenovo and the availability of Maintenance Manuals, it been great. On my previous T30, when I broke the keyboard (after the end of the warranty) I was able to get instructions on how to remove it and what part number I needed to reorder. And the fact that IBM has a parts site to make it easy to get replacements.

So long as Lenovo keeps those available, I'll keep considering the Thinkpad lines.

The hot swap on the new one was nice too when the DVD drive died. The sent me a new one and it was a quick swap out and back in business. Didn't even have to worry about whether there was going to be an argument about whether I needed to send the entire thing in to be repaired.

So is it just me or did Microsoft get more friendly toward Open Source about the time Bill Gates retired?

Works great until 2 people try to change the same file at the same time. Then whoever saves lasts wins. DFS doesn't support file locking which allows Excel to tell a user that a file is in use.

Pretty much sounds like my job (combinations of the above, although my title is Systems Administrator). I've got a CS degree and I love the fact that one day I'm coding, the next I'm planning server deployment and the next I'm doing network config. I realized that doing just one thing every day would bore me to death. But the CS degree has helped with pretty much every part of it. When something goes wrong, I have a much better idea of why than my colleagues. So yeah, find something or things you want to do and find a place that will let you do them.