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Why does stating facts seem to piss you off?

Because these particular "Facts" are being SPUN to make them look like they are a behavior/policy/business-model that is EXCLUSIVE to Apple.

Every. Single. Time.

But even this SLIGHTEST effort will show them to be anything BUT Apple-Exclusive behaviors/policies/business-models.

For example: Since we were talking about Adapters (so-called "Dongles"), these were found in about 5 minutes of Googling, and I didn't even have to try hard AT ALL (my search term was [mfg] USB-C Adapter:

https://www.cdw.com/product/De...

https://www.amazon.com/Dell-DA...

https://www.dell.com/en-us/sho...

https://www.dell.com/en-us/wor...

So, where's the Outrage at Dell?

https://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp...

https://www.amazon.com/HP-USB-...

https://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp... ...and IMHO, the MOST egregious:

https://www.amazon.com/HP-N2Z6...

So where's the outrage at HP?

I could probably go on an on with other laptop OEMs; but I think (hope) you get the point.

I'll take my apology now...

If you don't want to pirate it, you can buy single copy LTSB at CDW:
https://www.cdw.com/search/?ke...

You are linking to the G2, not G1
HP Elite x2 1012 G1 : $439

Samsung recently released a 15 TB SSD to market using the same form factor, and it is at about $11600 USD.

I'd assume perhaps twice that amount, give or take?

https://www.cdw.com/product/Sa...

So just to ensure I understand you correctly: the owner of an x86 Chromebook can back up all data, go to developer mode, enable legacy boot, leave developer mode, and press Ctrl+L to boot a different GNU/Linux OS installed on something like a Cruzer Fit flash drive. Do I have that right? And if so, would the Arch guide work for other Chromebooks and other GNU/Linux distributions?

It's one thing to support DRM and commercial software and quite another to gimp the entire OS in order to bend over backwards for the entertainment industry

Like how my Macbook won't output video (at all) if it detects that it's connected to my HDMI matrix?
Eventually I got around it by grabbing a hardware device, the HDMI Detective, and programming it with the EDID for my projector to trick it into thinking it's connected to a full HDCP chain so it would output video again to the HDMI splitter.

Linux, fortunately, didn't have that problem, and the nvidia driver lets me specify an EDID file so I don't need to use an external piece of hardware just for that.

Many small businesses buy VL SKUs in small or even single quantities. AFAIK there is no lower quantity limit to VL SKUs, you just have to buy them through a MS Gold or higher partner, of which there are quite a few.

I used to work for a small 3 person (including me) company. We were a Gold level partner. At least at the time, the bar was set at having 2 MS certified technicians and 1 MS certified sales person along with some revenue requirement. So the bar was not high at all.

We would regularly buy single quantity VL products for our customers. Actually, that is all we would buy. We only sold retail products out of the store front.

That said, the Enterprise version of the OS is about 60% more expensive than the Pro version.

To prove my point, here is a link to CDW for a single upgrade license to Windows 10 Enterprise (so, yes, in this case you would need to first buy a Pro version of Windows 7 or 10 first): https://www.cdw.com/shop/produ...

logitech once made a wireless keyboard with an included touch pad intended for console centric use. Yep, found them.

https://www.amazon.com/Logitec...

Iogear makes one with a trackball.

https://www.cdw.com/shop/produ...!

Though I never used them, I just used a TV Tray/Table/lappad with a standard USB keyboard/mouse with a long enough cable.

>I'm surprised to see it lauded since they don't sell all that well on ebay

What you have are probably not WRT54GL, by the way.... The "L" is the one most coveted.

You can still buy them NEW for a reasonable price.
https://www.cdw.com/shop/produ...

I would rather buy a new one for 6 times the price than deal with getting some old, battered one that MIGHT work and MIGHT be the exact model I asked for...

I was referring to the old style laptop docking stations that actually "docked" with laptop/company specific connectors like this Dell

They would probably burn pretty hot, but yes, the possibilities are rather startling. It will be an interesting day when SSDs overtake HDDs on practical metrics such as data density, and even more so on price. Any predictions on when that is going to happen?

There's already 200GB MicroSD cards and 16TB 2.5" SSDs for sale, so I'm pretty sure density is a long won match. Price/GB is another matter, but HDDs don't scale down. I just checked and if you only need 128 GB of space, you pay the same for a HDD as for a SSD. Sure, the HDD will be 500GB but if you don't need it because cloud, streaming etc. you can't save more by buying a smaller HDD. And if you don't want one for a boot drive, you have the budget for a 256GB SSD before SSD+HDD becomes cheaper. I really don't mind HDDs for bulk media, we play movies from discs or stream them over internet connections that are much slower than that.

My server spec's likely won't be helpful for you. One of the SSD's alone would pretty much use up your budget. Here are the details anyway:

Intel S2600CP Motherboard
2 of E5-2620 v2 @ 2.10GHz
64GB of DDR3L 1600MHz RAM
1000W Power Supply
Intel RMS25KB040 RAID Controller
AXXCBL740MS7P RAID/SAS Cable Kit
2 of 500GB SATA HDD in RAID1 for OS/Boot
2 of Intel 750 Series PCIe 1.2TB SSD for VM storage

Software installed includes:
VMware ESXi 6.0.0
Intel-nvme-1.0e.1.1-1OEM.550.0.0.1391871.x86_64.vib
Scsi-mpt2sas-20.00.00.00.1vmw-1OEM.550.0.0.1331820.x86_64.vib
Vmware-esx-provider-lsiprovider.vib

Can your old PC can do what a $17,500 Cisco router can do?

The Cisco 4451-X offers a multicore CPU architecture running modular Cisco IOS XE software that dynamically adapts to the changing needs of your branch-office environment. The separation of the control and data planes provides the ability to deliver application-aware network services while maintaining a stable platform and a high level of performance during periods of heavy network load. With the ability to integrate application-aware services and the ability to scale performance without a complete equipment upgrade, the Cisco 4451-X offers exceptional total cost of ownership (TCO) savings and network agility through the intelligent integration of market-leading security, unified communications, and application services.

https://www.cdw.com/shop/products/Cisco-4451-X-Integrated-Services-Router-Application-Experience-with-Voice/3641687.aspx

BTW: LTO6 half height internal tape drive (aka normal 5 1/4" drive bay) from CDW today is $2242.

http://www.cdw.com/shop/produc...

SandForce was purchased by LSI quite some time ago. LSI wanted directional control of the silicon to make sure future enhancements fit their needs. That and the fact LSI has always been a storage centric IP/ASIC company, making such an acquisition a perfect fit with their core business. The SF22xx controllers are used in all of LSI's enterprise PCIe SSDs, including the $35K, 3.2TB, model BFH8-3200:

http://www.lsi.com/products/flash-accelerators/pages/nytro-warpdrive-bfh8-3200.aspx#tab/tab0
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/LSI-Nytro-WarpDrive-BFH8-3200-solid-state-drive-3.2-TB-PCI-Express-3/3072358.aspx

If the SandForce controller is good enough for a $35K enterprise device it's more than good enough for your needs. Your shunning of the SF controllers, simply due to low OCZ product quality, is unwarranted. They're one of the two best (Samsung being the other) SSD flash controllers on the planet, hands down. OCZ's problems weren't due to the SF controllers.

I've never actually used it, but HP's new Officejet Pro X Series of ink based printers actually seem like a very good product! They print faster than most laser printers, lower cost per page (or so they claim), and from what I've seen you don't need to worry about ink drying out. They have minimal moving parts as well. I'm someone who has avoided ink for along time (have two color laser printers at home), but this is something worth looking at. They apparently are exclusive to CDW for now (according to our CDW rep in Feb.). Find one here

Our rep claimed the following:
- The ink wont smudge or run due to rapid drying pigment ink
- It prints 70 pages per minute which is in the Guinness book of world records (didn’t know they had a category for that)
- The cartridges will last for 9000 pages (black) and 6600 pages (color)
- It saves on power consumption because it doesn’t need to heat up like laser printers
- It has less parts that you will have to replace
- The biggest difference is it doesn’t have the ink cartridge that flies back and forth printing on the page. It has little ports that don’t move that apply the ink to the page

Umm whats this.

Yes they have killed the xserve line but the Mac Pro uses server hardware and works quite well as one.

What a lot of people seem to forget is that you don't have to use SQL Server with ASP.Net. You can use .Net with MySQL, and in many cases, it's actually quite a good compromise for price and functionality. A copy of Windows Server "Web" edition, is only $400. Pair that with running free database software like MySQL, and you have pretty cheap solution. Visual Studio Express is free, but even if you want the professional version, that's only $500 or so. Sounds kind of expensive, but if you're making a serious business venture, spending $1000 on software to start up isn't that bad at all. You will surely spend much more on many other aspects of your business.

Just not super-cheap: http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/Myricom-Myri-10G-network-adapter/1824423.aspx

The idea is that the wireless environment needs to match the wired one in cost and budgeting expenditure at the very least

How do you propose to make that happen? I can buy one 48-port GigE switch and connect about 46 people to. You stated that

Any wireless LAN that requires decent data throughput should never have more than 10 clients connected to a single AP.

Using current technology, it takes about four and a half wireless APs to achieve the same density as a single switch. It has been a while since I worked with any of Cisco's enterprise (Aironet) gear, but it was not cheap. If you really want to manage it, you have to weave in additional hardware to unify it all together. Otherwise, your are left with half assed options like setting all of the APs to the same SSID and letting the clients hop between them. Above and beyond the wireless components, you still have to back everything with ethernet, and usually PoE at that. I have never seen a single, real world, "enterprise / campus" level wireless network that was setup as a wireless mesh. All of the APs had direct connections into switches.

Cisco 2960G 48 Port Gigabit Switch - $2,654.99

Cisco 2106 Wireless LAN Controller - $1,692.99
Cisco 1041 Single-Band G/N AP - $341.99 X 4 = $1,367.96

Total cost ends up $3,060.95 vs $2,654.99 so a bit more money involved but you end up with the flexibility of wireless, not having to install (as many) wired runs, leveraging effectiveness of smartphones, tablets, and laptops in the business environment, etc. Also, the 10 clients per AP is for quite a bit of throughput per user. Standard internet and LAN data usage I try to keep between 15 and 20 max per AP when I am configuring a site. With regard to setting the APs to the same SSID, that is exactly how the controller handles things, it just takes into account the connected client's signal strength and if it drops below a certain threshold and another signal nearby is higher it will move the client. This capability also exists outside of controllers and can be configured on the standalone APs, you just have to make sure that your signal density is enough that at whatever threshold you have set to disconnect clients, there is another AP with a higher signal strength to migrate to. Seamless roaming sufficient for even VoIP environments can be achieved without controllers and by using WDS services, it is just more difficult.

With regard to ethernet backing and PoE requirements, almost every PoE AP comes with the required inline power brick if you don't have a PoE switch to connect to. Also, I'm not arguing that ethernet isn't important...anyone who needs to have serious data throughput still needs a wired connection until we have gigabit wireless everywhere and will probably need it afterward. I'm just saying that wireless has become just as important and more and more over the last 10 years has become cost effective enough that it should be considered an equal budgeting consideration.

I have personally overseen the installation of, configured, and installed 2 enterprise mesh networks (12 total uplinks to gateways supporting 10 mesh APs each for a total of 120 APs, 12 Mesh Gateways as an example). Additionally our company provides monitoring for municipal water and power companies who have widespread mesh 802.11 networks with a small number of wireless gateways that serve as the network interfaces for hundreds of field mesh APs distributed across t

The idea is that the wireless environment needs to match the wired one in cost and budgeting expenditure at the very least

How do you propose to make that happen? I can buy one 48-port GigE switch and connect about 46 people to. You stated that

Any wireless LAN that requires decent data throughput should never have more than 10 clients connected to a single AP.

Using current technology, it takes about four and a half wireless APs to achieve the same density as a single switch. It has been a while since I worked with any of Cisco's enterprise (Aironet) gear, but it was not cheap. If you really want to manage it, you have to weave in additional hardware to unify it all together. Otherwise, your are left with half assed options like setting all of the APs to the same SSID and letting the clients hop between them. Above and beyond the wireless components, you still have to back everything with ethernet, and usually PoE at that. I have never seen a single, real world, "enterprise / campus" level wireless network that was setup as a wireless mesh. All of the APs had direct connections into switches.

Cisco 2960G 48 Port Gigabit Switch - $2,654.99

Cisco 2106 Wireless LAN Controller - $1,692.99
Cisco 1041 Single-Band G/N AP - $341.99 X 4 = $1,367.96

Total cost ends up $3,060.95 vs $2,654.99 so a bit more money involved but you end up with the flexibility of wireless, not having to install (as many) wired runs, leveraging effectiveness of smartphones, tablets, and laptops in the business environment, etc. Also, the 10 clients per AP is for quite a bit of throughput per user. Standard internet and LAN data usage I try to keep between 15 and 20 max per AP when I am configuring a site. With regard to setting the APs to the same SSID, that is exactly how the controller handles things, it just takes into account the connected client's signal strength and if it drops below a certain threshold and another signal nearby is higher it will move the client. This capability also exists outside of controllers and can be configured on the standalone APs, you just have to make sure that your signal density is enough that at whatever threshold you have set to disconnect clients, there is another AP with a higher signal strength to migrate to. Seamless roaming sufficient for even VoIP environments can be achieved without controllers and by using WDS services, it is just more difficult.

With regard to ethernet backing and PoE requirements, almost every PoE AP comes with the required inline power brick if you don't have a PoE switch to connect to. Also, I'm not arguing that ethernet isn't important...anyone who needs to have serious data throughput still needs a wired connection until we have gigabit wireless everywhere and will probably need it afterward. I'm just saying that wireless has become just as important and more and more over the last 10 years has become cost effective enough that it should be considered an equal budgeting consideration.

I have personally overseen the installation of, configured, and installed 2 enterprise mesh networks (12 total uplinks to gateways supporting 10 mesh APs each for a total of 120 APs, 12 Mesh Gateways as an example). Additionally our company provides monitoring for municipal water and power companies who have widespread mesh 802.11 networks with a small number of wireless gateways that serve as the network interfaces for hundreds of field mesh APs distributed across t

The idea is that the wireless environment needs to match the wired one in cost and budgeting expenditure at the very least

How do you propose to make that happen? I can buy one 48-port GigE switch and connect about 46 people to. You stated that

Any wireless LAN that requires decent data throughput should never have more than 10 clients connected to a single AP.

Using current technology, it takes about four and a half wireless APs to achieve the same density as a single switch. It has been a while since I worked with any of Cisco's enterprise (Aironet) gear, but it was not cheap. If you really want to manage it, you have to weave in additional hardware to unify it all together. Otherwise, your are left with half assed options like setting all of the APs to the same SSID and letting the clients hop between them. Above and beyond the wireless components, you still have to back everything with ethernet, and usually PoE at that. I have never seen a single, real world, "enterprise / campus" level wireless network that was setup as a wireless mesh. All of the APs had direct connections into switches.

Cisco 2960G 48 Port Gigabit Switch - $2,654.99

Cisco 2106 Wireless LAN Controller - $1,692.99
Cisco 1041 Single-Band G/N AP - $341.99 X 4 = $1,367.96

Total cost ends up $3,060.95 vs $2,654.99 so a bit more money involved but you end up with the flexibility of wireless, not having to install (as many) wired runs, leveraging effectiveness of smartphones, tablets, and laptops in the business environment, etc. Also, the 10 clients per AP is for quite a bit of throughput per user. Standard internet and LAN data usage I try to keep between 15 and 20 max per AP when I am configuring a site. With regard to setting the APs to the same SSID, that is exactly how the controller handles things, it just takes into account the connected client's signal strength and if it drops below a certain threshold and another signal nearby is higher it will move the client. This capability also exists outside of controllers and can be configured on the standalone APs, you just have to make sure that your signal density is enough that at whatever threshold you have set to disconnect clients, there is another AP with a higher signal strength to migrate to. Seamless roaming sufficient for even VoIP environments can be achieved without controllers and by using WDS services, it is just more difficult.

With regard to ethernet backing and PoE requirements, almost every PoE AP comes with the required inline power brick if you don't have a PoE switch to connect to. Also, I'm not arguing that ethernet isn't important...anyone who needs to have serious data throughput still needs a wired connection until we have gigabit wireless everywhere and will probably need it afterward. I'm just saying that wireless has become just as important and more and more over the last 10 years has become cost effective enough that it should be considered an equal budgeting consideration.

I have personally overseen the installation of, configured, and installed 2 enterprise mesh networks (12 total uplinks to gateways supporting 10 mesh APs each for a total of 120 APs, 12 Mesh Gateways as an example). Additionally our company provides monitoring for municipal water and power companies who have widespread mesh 802.11 networks with a small number of wireless gateways that serve as the network interfaces for hundreds of field mesh APs distributed across t

what ncomputing client did you use?

It was an L230. At that price, we could have gone with an ION nettop PC, and that's what we did after that debacle.

what ncomputing client did you use?

It was an L230. At that price, we could have gone with an ION nettop PC, and that's what we did after that debacle.

Your top end for SSDs is too low. I just paid over $1,000.00 for a 64GB SSD for a server.

http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?edc=2015616&cm_mmc=ShoppingFeeds-_-Pricegrabber-_-Data%20Storage/Drives-_-HP%2064GB%202.5%20SATA%20SSD_2015616

I have some "fake" Cisco WIC cards for the 2600 series here in a couple of routers. I'll tell you that they work just as well as regular Cisco WIC cards, and the systems you install them into can't tell the difference. These have been running reliably for years now.

Cisco is begging for a counterfeit market for their parts, because they mark up prices to insane levels.

True, it's the research, development, documentation, and support that makes their products great, but charging what they charge is just stupid.

Here's an example;

Intel 2-port 10Gig network card, $2500.00

http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=1352161

Same EXACT card but branded as Cisco costs over $14000.00

http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?edc=1424619

Yes, these are the same cards, my company has several of the large ASA firewalls that these go into, and the Intel cards. Sit them side by side and they are identical. At most, different firmware, but I doubt it. I've never actually tried since we can't be dorking around with production equipment.

Newer Cisco routers and switches are now using licensing for features and ports, so installing non-Cisco-extortion-priced parts won't really be an issue anyway. Reference the 3750-E/3560-E switches and those new 1900/2900/3900 series routers.

I've processed enough Cisco Sales orders and man their equipment is definitely high priced. The difference between a 500 gig hd for a CIVS is mad expensive even though it's a sata drive.

I have some "fake" Cisco WIC cards for the 2600 series here in a couple of routers. I'll tell you that they work just as well as regular Cisco WIC cards, and the systems you install them into can't tell the difference. These have been running reliably for years now.

Cisco is begging for a counterfeit market for their parts, because they mark up prices to insane levels.

True, it's the research, development, documentation, and support that makes their products great, but charging what they charge is just stupid.

Here's an example;

Intel 2-port 10Gig network card, $2500.00

http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=1352161

Same EXACT card but branded as Cisco costs over $14000.00

http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?edc=1424619

Yes, these are the same cards, my company has several of the large ASA firewalls that these go into, and the Intel cards. Sit them side by side and they are identical. At most, different firmware, but I doubt it. I've never actually tried since we can't be dorking around with production equipment.

Newer Cisco routers and switches are now using licensing for features and ports, so installing non-Cisco-extortion-priced parts won't really be an issue anyway. Reference the 3750-E/3560-E switches and those new 1900/2900/3900 series routers.

I've processed enough Cisco Sales orders and man their equipment is definitely high priced. The difference between a 500 gig hd for a CIVS is mad expensive even though it's a sata drive.

I have some "fake" Cisco WIC cards for the 2600 series here in a couple of routers. I'll tell you that they work just as well as regular Cisco WIC cards, and the systems you install them into can't tell the difference. These have been running reliably for years now.

Cisco is begging for a counterfeit market for their parts, because they mark up prices to insane levels.

True, it's the research, development, documentation, and support that makes their products great, but charging what they charge is just stupid.

Here's an example;

Intel 2-port 10Gig network card, $2500.00

http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=1352161

Same EXACT card but branded as Cisco costs over $14000.00

http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?edc=1424619

Yes, these are the same cards, my company has several of the large ASA firewalls that these go into, and the Intel cards. Sit them side by side and they are identical. At most, different firmware, but I doubt it. I've never actually tried since we can't be dorking around with production equipment.

Newer Cisco routers and switches are now using licensing for features and ports, so installing non-Cisco-extortion-priced parts won't really be an issue anyway. Reference the 3750-E/3560-E switches and those new 1900/2900/3900 series routers.

I have some "fake" Cisco WIC cards for the 2600 series here in a couple of routers. I'll tell you that they work just as well as regular Cisco WIC cards, and the systems you install them into can't tell the difference. These have been running reliably for years now.

Cisco is begging for a counterfeit market for their parts, because they mark up prices to insane levels.

True, it's the research, development, documentation, and support that makes their products great, but charging what they charge is just stupid.

Here's an example;

Intel 2-port 10Gig network card, $2500.00

http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=1352161

Same EXACT card but branded as Cisco costs over $14000.00

http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?edc=1424619

Yes, these are the same cards, my company has several of the large ASA firewalls that these go into, and the Intel cards. Sit them side by side and they are identical. At most, different firmware, but I doubt it. I've never actually tried since we can't be dorking around with production equipment.

Newer Cisco routers and switches are now using licensing for features and ports, so installing non-Cisco-extortion-priced parts won't really be an issue anyway. Reference the 3750-E/3560-E switches and those new 1900/2900/3900 series routers.

It's all BS. Forget all of the posts regarding FDA, documentation, testing, and that crap.

It's just a matter of how many units get sold, like microprocessors.

If you design, make, and sell one, it's $500 million. If you design one, make 500 million, and sell 500 million, they cost $1 each. Profit is the same either way.

Not a lot of people buy medical devices, with some exceptions.

Nintendo can't make them and start with high prices, then drop them later. They have to assume how many they will make, sell, and guess a good price before their first unit is sold.

And yes, I have worked in medical device manufacturing, and I currently work in non-profit cancer research. We have numerous genetic sequencers around, like ones from Illumina. They cost like $750K each, but it's really surprising how little materials is actually in them. A $500 laptop is technologically 10,000 times more advanced than one of those Illumina boxes.

It's true that medical devices are more expensive, and I'd be the first person crying foul about it, but they often really really do have good reasons to justify the higher costs... usually.

If you want to talk about price rape, look no further than Cisco.

$2000 card
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=1352161

$13,0000 card
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?edc=1424619

They are the SAME EXACT CARD, with a little tiny firmware tweak. We have a couple of these in the 5580 series firewalls.

It's all BS. Forget all of the posts regarding FDA, documentation, testing, and that crap.

It's just a matter of how many units get sold, like microprocessors.

If you design, make, and sell one, it's $500 million. If you design one, make 500 million, and sell 500 million, they cost $1 each. Profit is the same either way.

Not a lot of people buy medical devices, with some exceptions.

Nintendo can't make them and start with high prices, then drop them later. They have to assume how many they will make, sell, and guess a good price before their first unit is sold.

And yes, I have worked in medical device manufacturing, and I currently work in non-profit cancer research. We have numerous genetic sequencers around, like ones from Illumina. They cost like $750K each, but it's really surprising how little materials is actually in them. A $500 laptop is technologically 10,000 times more advanced than one of those Illumina boxes.

It's true that medical devices are more expensive, and I'd be the first person crying foul about it, but they often really really do have good reasons to justify the higher costs... usually.

If you want to talk about price rape, look no further than Cisco.

$2000 card
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=1352161

$13,0000 card
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?edc=1424619

They are the SAME EXACT CARD, with a little tiny firmware tweak. We have a couple of these in the 5580 series firewalls.

HP and Wyse are both very expensive in my experience. I have had very good luck with Igel.
Their entry level units are pretty close to the $200, price-point.

Their remote management software is light-years ahead of wyse's.

From CDW: http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?edc=1199380&enkwrd=ALLPROD:(902114-01L)
Wyse S50 for $218.99

Supports RDP and Citrix ICA

At work, we would routinely have to deal with 5-10 hard drives a day and probably would order 40-60 a month. We stored them in anti-static bags in a bankers box. While that's not the exact brand we used (we bought them in 100 packs), its similar. During the few years we used those bags, we did not lose a single drive to storage loss. There were drives that were DOA or died during processing, or were dropped, but we never pulled a drive that was working the previous time only to discover that it was dead when we pulled it.

As for hookup, you have a couple of options. If you are going to do casual use, you can get an esata dock. It doesn't have a fan, but for all but the most intense use, it should be sufficient for transfering files and weekly backups. If you're looking for more, go with sata sleds (again not the brand I used, but similar), you can screw your hard drives into those and if your sata controller supports it, hot swap the drives. You can also buy extra sleds so that you can swap out your drives without having to handle the internal drive.

At work, we would routinely have to deal with 5-10 hard drives a day and probably would order 40-60 a month. We stored them in anti-static bags in a bankers box. While that's not the exact brand we used (we bought them in 100 packs), its similar. During the few years we used those bags, we did not lose a single drive to storage loss. There were drives that were DOA or died during processing, or were dropped, but we never pulled a drive that was working the previous time only to discover that it was dead when we pulled it.

As for hookup, you have a couple of options. If you are going to do casual use, you can get an esata dock. It doesn't have a fan, but for all but the most intense use, it should be sufficient for transfering files and weekly backups. If you're looking for more, go with sata sleds (again not the brand I used, but similar), you can screw your hard drives into those and if your sata controller supports it, hot swap the drives. You can also buy extra sleds so that you can swap out your drives without having to handle the internal drive.

And at $1,270.99, it's an absolute steal!

Unless he's making hundreds/thousands of patch cables, I think the original poster is better off buying a commercially made cable.

We count the CAL as part of the workstation cost. They're cheap, only about $20 each ( http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=488489 ), and you only have to pay once per client, there is no additional cost for another server that is accessed by existing licensed clients. If you look at our accounts payable, Microsoft server licenses are a very small portion of our overall cost of doing business. I like Linux. But if I switch, it won't be because of cost. Windows just isn't all that expensive.

Sheesh.

The Nokia N810 does SIP and Sykpe (and Flash) out of the box, plus allows you to do Bluetooth Phone-as-modem to your cellphone so you can do it on your cellular carrier's network.

The browser is Mozilla. You can install Debian on it, if that spins your wheels. You can REPLACE THE FRIGGING BATTERY ANY TIME YOU FEEL LIKE IT!

Oh, and it has a keyboard. And you can cut-and-paste, at no additional charge! That's right, fanbois - nothing else to buy to get cut and paste!

$223 @ CDW $223 @ CDW.

AC again. CDW has the N810 on for $223.

And if you need more run time, just get one of these.

Take that, netbookies!

The fact that companies are going to be running on economized IT budgets is a good argument for why Windows will stay. You can pay fairly competent Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/Vista desktop support people $12 an hour. Finding fairly competent Linux desktop support staff is likely to be more difficult AND more expensive.

I myself have worked at mostly smaller businesses in my 10 year IT career. I'd say that during that time I worked with about 150 different IT employees ranging from first level help desk to network engineers. I can think of about 30 who ever even used Linux and about 15 that would be able to do anything with it (Of course some of my earlier acquaintainces that I have not seen in a decade may have picked up Linux later on). The 15 that would be able to deal with Linux in a legitimate capacity were mostly higher up on the food chain or were very ambitious and headed that way.

As far as hardware goes, I think people are putting a little too much stock in the idea of crazy expensive hardware being needed to run Windows Vista. A lot of companies that I know of have a 4 year or less replacement cycle on desktops and an enterprise license agreement with Microsoft. Vista would now be covered under said agreement. They could go out and buy HP business desktops like this one From CDW It has an Athlon 64x2 5000b. It only has 1 GB of RAM so maybe they will need to plop down another $40 to upgrade it to 3GB. The built in video is sufficient for Aero. The Price? $379 without corporate discounts. Tell me again about how companies will not upgrade to Vista because they don't want to buy this extreme hardware....

For comparison, an Imation 128GB costs between $1,900 and $2,500.

I'd guess that the Samsung 256GB ones would therefore cost in the range of $5,000 +/- $2,000 (probably more likely +, given there's usually a premium for new and for bigger).

For comparison, an Imation 128GB costs between $1,900 and $2,500.

I'd guess that the Samsung 256GB ones would therefore cost in the range of $5,000 +/- $2,000 (probably more likely +, given there's usually a premium for new and for bigger).

Why can't just ONE SINGLE networking product company make a pledge to stop cutting corners on quality and looking for ways to make a quick buck off their users and just deliver decent hardware!?!?!?!?!?! Don't ANY of these companies' management chains have the SLIGHTEST bit of fiscal common sense?

Someone did....You Might Have Heard Of Them...

...anymore. Something has changed in the last couple of years, both the Seagate and Western Digital drives they sell are getting abnormally high failure rates reported back in the product reviews.

After getting a few drives that were packed with just crumpled paper around them, I believe that the responsibility for the higher failure rate may lie more with Newegg's handling and packaging than with the manufacturer's quality control. I still order almost all of my parts from Newegg for all of the reasons that others have mentioned, but I've started getting my drives from CDW instead. Each OEM drive I've ordered from CDW has come packaged in it's own plain brown cardboard box, held suspended in plastic shock absorbers like retail boxed drives do.

I could be wrong, of course, and it was only a few months ago I decided this, so time will tell.

How does this translate into normal transfer speed units like MB/s? Otherwise I have no point of reference to tell if I am impressed or indifferent.

I'll try to help.

MB/s is a measure of IO throughput. Often this isn't the most relevant figure for 'enterprise' storage. Certain applications do a lot of random access IO so IOPS becomes more important than throughput.

Today a typical desktop disk is capable of about 100-150 IOPS. That's a rule of thumb range that varies based on operation size, cache, etc. It works pretty well usually. You can aggregate disks and get almost linear scaling; 12 disks, for instance in a device like this, will give you a maximum of 1200 IOPs, roughly. A common USB Flash device can break 1000 IOPS with certain access patterns.

The second graph on this page illustrates the extreme IOPS advantage of Flash for certain applications. Disks are limited by head actuation and rotation latency. This is why enterprise storage vendors have been pursuing Flash aggressively. That's what this story is all about.

The dream is to host the same IOPS in with an order of magnitude less physical space, power, heat, etc. If you don't need thousands of IOPS (and most PC users don't) then it isn't very interesting. If you happen to run an OLTP system with thousands of reads/write per second it means a great deal.

If your new PCs have USB ports, check out a USB floppy drive...

http://www.cdw.com/shop/search/results.aspx?key=usb+floppy+drive&searchscope=All&sr=1&cm_mmc=sendtec-_-adwords-_-Data_Storage-_-Usb_Floppy_Drive&SendTecID=10277050

Solve the problem for 19.95 + shipping.

Single-mode is the long haul stuff, not multi-mode.

You need:
1. Power at both ends of the line
2. a ditch with conduit
3. a spool of single-mode
4. a professional with the tools to terminate the ends of the fiber
5. two single mode to ethernet media converters, http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=884092

Ok, it's come down a bit, but the kit for my HP boxes is still $775 per piece. I'd rather not fight with HP over warrant issues so I just use their branded memory.

i found it for $40, but still pretty expensive... http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=105365

It's not just for an 82 year old. It's also for a 4 year old. Or, for you.

Here's a scenario. Imagine you have to give a presentation to a modest size group -- say, 25 people. Say, perhaps, that a few bigwigs are in attendance (just to boost the stress level). And, just as the presentation is about to start, someone hands you this "convenient presentation remote" to make your presentation "easier". It's got lots of features. Trying to decipher the tiny buttons, it looks like you can adjust the sound, it's got a mini-joystick to move the mouse, and mouse buttons. There's another two buttons at the bottom, one looks like it might be for blanking the screen, one says FS, though I don't know what that means. It's also got a little thumb-wheel, that does something... Maybe it's the scroll wheel for the mini-mouse?

But, right now, you want to know how to flip to the next slide, maybe flip back to the last slide, and possibly have some kind of laser pointer. I'm guessing the forward and back buttons are the little arrows in the middle of the unit, and the little red dot button may be the laser pointer.

With the stress of an actual presentation at hand, are you sure you can find the right button for those features? With all those people sitting there, and the stress of trying to sell your idea at the front of your mind, your fingers feel fat, and your palms feel pretty clammy. If you needed to do anything that those other tiny buttons required, you'd probably just walk the few steps back to your laptop to use the trackpad, rather than trying to navigate through menus with the microscopic joystick.

For its actual purpose, a presentation, most of those buttons are pretty much useless. Not only useless, but distracting. The three or four features that are really essential aren't easy to find with your fingers without looking. This clearly was designed by people who don't give real presentations -- in front of 20 people, much less 2,000.

It's like the "mouse" with dozens of buttons -- like this one. Sure, it's great for playing Missile Command, or for a first-person-shooter game. But for my actual work -- Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Statistics, Number crunching, Excel, Word, Coding... (and all that other boring stuff) well... I just use a normal plain old mouse and that 101 key multi input device that's conveniently located right front and center. I don't need to go through the hassle to set it up and then remember which of the unlabeled buttons brings up the spell checker in Word, or the line thickness in Illo.