I will give them benefit of the doubt and say that in a future scenario, it could be a great thing. If bandwidth caps were gone and up/down bandwidth in the US were better, it would be usable. If a supportive infrastructure were built up so that you could sideload/torrent from the web/iTunes/Amazon/etc. straight to your storage and it could be set to auto-upload mobile video (like many storage sites do now), that would be something worth having. You could essentially have access to your libraries on the road and at home and you wouldn't have to tie a PC up with downloads. However, bandwidth as it is makes it a terrible proposal.

I actually have several installs on my laptop booting with this method.

The draw of live music comes from the interplay of talented musicians. One guy - no matter how talented or well equipped - is not going to produce the same kind of energy and attraction.

Fact is, lots of people bought PCs back in the day who didn't need them. The majority of people I know only do web and email. A few years ago, a PC was the only option. Same people moved immediately to laptops when they became affordable. The same people are now moving on to tablets and phones, because that's all they ever needed. Those of us who do actually need the power of a PC will still be there.

When they made the announcement, I tried Netvibes again and really got into it. It's got the option of reading the feeds in a Google Reader-esque interface or in more of a widget format. Moreover, you can customize whether to see it as images or listing by the feed category. That's really nice for sticking news headlines in a long list and putting image based feeds in a widget look to see what you actually want to consume. The mobile site is nice enough to eliminate the need for something app-specific and offers offline syncing options as well. It also let me import everything over while maintaining my categories.

As a counterpoint... I used to make an effort to migrate to Google's services for the future potential. It seemed for a while there that Google never went down, continually integrated their services to allow interoperability and listened to its users to add features. Even if their offering was not as full featured as a competitor's, I would often migrate expecting them to improve, because they always did and it was not an untested company that might go out of business. I did this specifically with Drive, Reader, Contacts and Notebook. Apparently, now no service is safe. I understand it's an unpaid product and all, so I'll say thanks for the time I had with it. But I'm definitely not going to be migrating from a perfectly good service like Evernote or even text files in a Dropbox folder to this. The confidence isn't there anymore.

I know you said you don't have the design skills or patience for support for SMB websites. But you can crank these things out overnight with a Wordpress or Joomla installation and purchase well designed templates for next to nothing. You can make enough changes to make it unique by tweaking font faces/sizes in the CSS and replacing the stock photography with your own. You can have fun coding widgets for the unique aspects of the site and if it looks too in-depth or uninteresting, there are available widgets for free or purchase to cover the gaps. And the platforms are generally stable enough to have few support issues. I do them right and left and it only took a couple of jobs for a couple of local graphic designers to put me in as their on-call person for websites. Typically, I have one meeting with the client (and often, just the designer who's met with them earlier) to pick out a template and tell me what content goes where. They usually want imagery to match their print materials, so that's often done for me ahead of time - except maybe purchasing a couple of stock photos here and there. I spend maybe an hour typing or copy/pasting text, maybe an hour or two cropping and resizing photos, as much time as I want playing with the code for fun and purchase a $75 template and maybe a $25 widget on occasion. I'll make them a little manual in Word with step by step instructions on how to change the items they're likely going to want to change (hours, contact info, announcement blog, etc.). Then bill them for $2500 - $5000. If I ever have support issues, it's usually with the hosting company and I'm just being an intermediary.

Same here. My Dad carried one for ages and I'm about at that point.

I'd ask what sort of career track you're pursuing in the field.

If you're going into support, hardware or networking, a degree won't give you nearly the bang for buck as certifications will.

If you're planning to consult, I'd look at honing skills instead of a degree. A lot of companies are just hiring for immediate results. They could care less what sort of degree you hold - all they're interested in is the task at hand. If you can specialize in a field - say Java or .Net or what have you - and get a few projects under your belt you have a shot at getting your foot in the door.

Web coding - they only care about your portfolio.

Business coding - most people are more interested in your skillset and experience in the real world. Nobody cares about apps to calc pi or what AI classes you took to get a degree because 90% of the time, you'll be playing with user interfaces or making changes to a database.

Matter of fact, the only place I'd recommend a degree is if you're hoping for the traditional tech -> management progression. That may take more time in today's market than you have to sacrifice.

There will be plenty of people out there with your age AND the experience behind it. Your best shot IMHO is to build a very specific skillset and get some experience in using it in the real world. Volunteer your time to a nonprofit or a friends business to get some real world experience under your belt. Set up some VMs so you know how your work will occur in a networked environment.

I'm a 40something currently back in the IT field after working marketing for 5 years. Before that, I was 15 years in IT at all levels. I have a degree as well. But every job I've been given has been because of someone recommending me recalling a real world experience with my work.

I hear you. We are a newspaper publishing group with 25 products, 250 users and 7 locations. We maintain 6 public websites, all of which are IIS/SQL Server/ASP monstrosities with 24/7 information publishing, public forums, chat, blogs, photo galleries, ad rotation, etc. We have 30 servers, including installations of Oracle and 4 SQL Server installs. We host our own websites, DNS, Exchange Server, etc. We have 185 workstations in said 7 locations, spread out over about 150 square miles. The remote sites work through our servers through a VPN solution, which we maintain. Most of our applications are developed and maintained in-house. Our shop is also a production facility, so we support users from 6 AM to 3 AM. Personnel to support this? Me. And me alone. 1 guy. My former "generous" staff of 5 was reduced due to an overanxious COO who just got his MBA and decided to ramp up profits locally. I would leave in a heartbeat, but tech jobs in this area are very limited and I can't relocate because my wife's business is the cash cow of the family. And I'm just not enough of an entrepeneur to strike out on my own. Oh yeah, and my salary is around 30% less than comparable positions in the area who actually have a staff to assist. I tell every curious high schooler who asks about my career to get a job in sales...