but sweeping on to claims like, "reducing the rates of passenger fatalities and generally encouraging a safer urban environment" is silly.

Actually, there's a whole body of research that shows just that.

But this is slashdot....

Not only is it legal but it is depressingly common in some, ah, less IT savvy industries who have bought the FUD that Open Source software is a security risk - by definition.

Yes, I have had customers insist on buying MS SQL Server licenses because MySQL is Open Source and therefore completely banned in their company (and, I was assured, their industry generally). Not suprisingly, all the major vendors in that industry are MS Gold Partners and all the companies list as major MS accounts. Chicken or Egg?

You need to understand whether their problem is with the license or with the fact that Other People have access to the source code. If it is the former, you can write a new licence and double your fees. If it is the latter you will need to do a significant re-write to meet that requirement (and charge accordingly).

Yes, your boss is undereducated. And you are too. (Music significantly affects work patterns - do your homework before whining)

Actions:
1. Buy yourself some proper industrial hearing protection earmuffs. No "music at work" issues and more effective than earbuds
2. Buy the boss "Peopleware" for Christmas (http://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Teams-Second/dp/0932633439)

You can get 24db earmuffs (make sure you get ones that don't have a "speach hole") and add another 15 or 20 with the common or gardenttype little Yellow Earplugs. (See http://www.soundproofing.org/sales/ear_muffs.htm for examples)

"we're just beginning to rediscover it."

In this age of 20yo CEOs and single-quarter companies it's hardly suprising that most software is no better than a rigged demo.

Just make it shiny enough for someone to buy the company and then let their support staff of MS trained monkeys deal with it

Then we have the "artists" (in both the software and hardware field) who have survived for twenty years without "all that sh1t". Course, like the CEO, they've gone on to their next challenge long before the chickens come home to roost. And it's not their fault everyone else is incompetent, is it?

I continue to be amazed, on a weekly basis, by the complete lack of experience shown by the actions and products of very large companies.

Oh, I reject the claim that

Software maintenance is not like hardware maintenance, which is the return of the item to its original state. Software maintenance involves moving an item away from its original state.

The author has obviously never maintained hardware: it has bugs, patches, upgrades just like any other part of your system.

+1 I've had exactly _one_ call from a MAC user - including those I used to get a call from every week when they had windows.

No-one's mentioned risk.

You need to have a list of risks (and opportunities); their likelihood of occuring and their impact. Multiply the two to get a factored cost of risk. Sort. (google risk management)

Decide whether you need to accept; transfer or mitigate each and everyone of them.

Certain high-impact risks will need management review regardless of their probability - eg. your datacentre burning down, or anything that could kill/maim anyone.

Initially MGT will fine-tooth comb everything you do but if you get the format

(
As other have mentioned, you need to be able to say
* what assets you have and what their potential and actual capabilities are, plus their financial state
* why you are spending the money you spend;
* how that translates into money earnt and
* what your efficency is - in terms of %availability
* what issues you have that you need MGT to deal with and when
)

For bonus points,
* discover your MTBF and MTTR distributions for all your assets
* start applying a little SPC or PCA to your failures/outages/traffic loads
* write down all you plans/procedures. Backup, repair, training, technology road map. Review and update annually.

Management has been described as the art of making and sorting lists. If you add "scheduling and acting" to that, you're pretty close to the truth

"I'd love to do this in Linux"

STOP: You're failing already.

Don't project your wishes onto the solution space. F'er example, WTF is wrong with their DVD soln?

You _don't_ know!

Because you've not captured the GOALS and mapped them into REQUIREMENTS, framed by CONSTRAINTS. Then, and only then, start thinking of possible SOLUTION ARCHITECTURES.

And first, make sure you don't have a wicked problem. (See http://www.poppendieck.com/wicked.htm)

Go industrial - get something like the Moxa UC-7400 (18W, all solid state, small, no temperature issues)

    No fan noise, either

See http://www.moxa.com/Product/UC-7400.htm

(Yes, I've got one sitting on my desk. I could sell you one but the postage would be prohibitive :-).)

Anything new must always be learned.

So far, other than it being NEW, you've failed to answer the question.

Further, the points you raise could have easily been addressed as an add-on to XP (much like PowerShell). They are not key O/S items.

(BTW I have indexed search OFF on my XP box and use "classic" start menu).

So: which versions of Opera, K-Meleon, etc etc etc actually have the patch. Opera's website is vague, to say the least

When I hear morons talk about muscle memory in Excel I know they don't understand what an advanced user is. Did ANY advanced user actually grab the mouse and click on a menu option rather than using one of the numerous keyboard shortcuts?

Right, so you aren't actually using the ribbon? Thought so. The best I've heard is "it's not so bad when you get used to it" quickly followed up by a complaint about a missing or corrupted feature (eg. 3-deep conditional formating)

We've had to keep a bunch of '03 machines as '07 can't seem to read/write '03 files reliably.

Not happy.

If you are training modern day boiler makers, then java or some other "industry ready" language is good.

If you are educating engineers or scientists, then algorithms and concepts are what you need. And a whole gamut of languages are useful (from Lisp to Perl, via C & Java)

History (Brooks, McCarthy etc) shows that the "LOC" per day is closer to ten than one hundred. A quarter of a centuary of anecdotal experience concurs.

Sad but true.

If Ben Cohen is VHDLCohen, then +2. Until about half a decade ago I had done chip design and verification for almost two decades and VHDLCohen was one of the few people on the planet I'd run into who understood the language better than myself.

I'm not normally one to "do the yank" and claim the high ground. But this is one of those cases where I believe I have (or rather had) justification

There's a dozen or so companies providing software in this area, from littlies like Atrove to the big players like Xerox's Docushare.

You have three problems
a) MS windows does not work with large end-to-end delays. You are going to need something third party (sharepoint, as has been pointed out, is not a solution to your problems)
b) you apparently don't know who owns your documents. You need to sort your documents by publisher, IP ownership rules and then publisher's ID
c) I worry when a "midsized aerospace company" hasn't worked out how to identify; revision control drafts and baseline manage issued documentation.

The problem has been solved for many years - the tools and best practice are constantly evolving (particularily with managing AV data).

Hire a DM/CM dude from a proper aerospace company. Or two. Or even a properly qualified librarian.

Finally, how on earth are you currently meet your contractual obligations?