Kept one of them online for about an hour with, of all things an old Vista VM I had.

Let it go, and go - then came the sting for $$$ and I politely declined. Then the anger started, I enjoyed the threats for a minute or more - then calmly told them I had actually scammed them. He was confused, and I explained that it was a VM with a snapshot, and that as soon as he was off the phone the VM of Vista would be back the way it was before they called.

Then again, on another call - when asking there was a problem with "Microsoft Windows", I asked which one of my Linux or Mac's was causing the issue....

I enjoyed the threats of "we know where you live". The counter for that is, can you afford the airfare on your wage?

Way down in Tasmania.

The WISP is expanding in the DC arena - http://www.tasmanet.com.au/data-centre/

My thoughts exactly. I get that the shuttles were aging technology. But NASA did describe them as "pickup trucks", well I've seen some beat up pickup trucks on farms that still keep going.

I saw the Challenger disaster live, but without risk there is no gain. Several lessons were learned from that.

It is a sad end to an era, and people seem to be cheering it on.

Now it is the Russians and for-profit industry that will make those science/adventure movies reality.

That's it if D-Link is involved it is bound to be success! ;)

Absolutely should have been part of the software...

But let's face it most software now is about the pretty pictures....

Our two main kits of software generate error codes that can be submitted to the IT Helpdesk and assigned accordingly.

+ 100

http://www.internode.on.net/news/2011/09/247.php

Makes the 1% of me feel better that when I am surfing I'm green about it...

+1000 been using for two years now, I guess they want to make it for the ~85% of people on IE6....

Well, being an Australian - I have nothing but caps. But the MikroTik solution is a very good option. I'm running RouterOS 5.2 x86 on my embedded PC and works like a treat, though the 80Gig HD is a bit overkill....

Don't forget about Canada http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=people+per+square+mile+in+Canada

Or Australia http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=people+per+square+mile+in+australia

But back on topic, I've know no internet WITHOUT download caps...

If you are buying 1000 of them, I would expect the price to be *MUCH* cheaper than that. I work for a local council - and my last PC refresh I got the PC and a 22" monitor from our supplier for just over $1K/system. I only ordered 60. All components come with 9-5/5 3 year warranty, got access to (thank godness) the ENGLISH HP Government Helpdesk. I only need to do basic diagnosis of hardware faults - HD Dead, loud fans, PC/Monitor dead. We pay for warranty, we let our HP techs figure out the problem. One or two spare desktops is all we have ever needed. I haven't crunched the numbers, but rolling your own is gunna cost you more down the track. We also get our integrator to do the heavy lifting of swapping out desktops.

Sorry, but IBM is up there with Dell and Acer for me. Down here in Tasmania, we are told we are suburb of Melbourne... Server down, critical app out? Can you download this app and run? Yeah, SLA's don't mean much to us. Yeah that drive to get the app server going again won't be to you until next week. Tasmanian rep? He's in Melbourne... Sorry, IBM, if you can't look after us "small fry" I pitty those that drink the Kool-Aid...