I understand the convenience of using GPS units for avoiding construction and major traffic delays.

But, what's wrong with people actually looking at a map before the trip, familiarizing themselves with the roads they'll be encountering, and then driving to their destination. Or actually paying enough attention to their surroundings to know which direction they're going, and reading the signs that the government has spent billions of dollars to install on the highways?

I can't count the times in the last year or two when I've been nearly killed by people fiddling with technology in their vehicles. Talking, texting, pressing buttons, changing channels, putting in the next DVD, etc... Driving is not a right, it is a privilege that carries a responsibility to be aware of one's surroundings at all times, and should be treated as such. The convergence of a lot of technologies into easily obtainable handheld devices is making travel even more dangerous, because lots of people take so much for granted.

I use Google's navigation stuff all the time, it's great! But it almost seems like the people who rely on the gadgets in their vehicle are the ones causing the accidents that the GPS units are trying to route around.

Hmm...if you count software/hardware purchases that included floppy discs for drivers (hard drives, usually), then I'll have to change my answer to sometime less than 10 years ago. I have NEVER purchased any brand-new, blank ones. The first ones i got were when Microsoft had a free demo of what now makes up the Office suite. I ordered my demo, which came with 3 discs each, and I had my parents, and my aunts, and uncles, and sister, all sign up too, so I had a bunch of 1.44MB (screw those 720K disks!!) discs, like 12 of them, for free!!

I set my parents up with an Ubuntu box a few years ago, three or four now, I can't remember. I'd had a windows box for them previously, but it was agonizing, with the amount of spyware/malware floating around, and stupid web-popups causing virus/trojan infections. So I thought to give Ubuntu a try. I got them a $200 box from wal-mart, threw an extra stick of RAM and a DVD drive in it, then installed whichever version of Ubuntu was current at the time. It works great for them, they can browse wherever they need to on the internet, check their emails and communicate with their brothers and sisters. No need for convoluted regular updates of antivirus programs. It 'just worked", was very inexpensive, and my parents actually enjoy the internet and the ability to find information about things they're interested in. Fast forward to the present, still on the same box, running Hardy Heron, still enjoying and using the machine without any problems. I call that good.

Cost Effective.. As in, how much will the cost be if your server hardware takes a dump, and you have to put all new hardware in, restore from backup, and be losing money during the down time?

I work for a newspaper, one of the absolutely skinflintiest, most penny-pinching companies I've seen in my life. When they built the new building about 5 years ago, I asked them to include climate control for the server room. "We'll deal with that next year, it's not in the budget this year." was their reply. So, the server room, which at the time only had two rack-mounted servers and a Unix box inside, got up to about 80F routinely. I begged, pleaded, and pestered them until they actually did something. Chopped a hole in the wall, and stuck in an old window-mount, venting to the inside of the inserting/packaging/warehouse area. This was able to get the temperature down to about 70F, and hold it there. With the addition of two more servers, though, the temp got up to about 78-80F. And, this was in the winter. As soon as spring came around, the tempereatures started to climb, up to about 85-90F, and with the upcoming addition of four to six more servers, it was way too hot.

We took the plunge, and I was able to actually get them to install, as a Capital project, rather than regular expenses, a Mitsubishi Mr. Slim remote unit. Wall-mounted, with external condenser, etc...
This did require the running of a 220V circuit, but the cost was just under USD$10,000.00. Considering that there are nine servers in there, with a few more on the way, and each one costs about 5 grand, plus some software, and plus the downtime and such, it was VERY much worth the cost, especially since we'll be able to add more servers in the future and still have plenty of growth room. Plus, the servers and hard drives should last longer too, since their lifespan won't be affected by high temperatures. I'm able to keep it at about 63F right now, measured on the wall farthest away from the A/C unit, behind the servers. Just walking back there, you can feel a massive amount of heat being thrown off.

Seriously, don't cheap out on cooling your hardware. In the long run, you will regret it if you do.
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