From the business point of view computers in general are only a tool, nothing more, nothing less. Business decisions are hardly exempt from ethics, in fact many corporations now have programs on ethics for their employees. What is different is that technical merit is not the prime reason for a choice, but rather the overall value add (Value provided - cost). Yes indeed software platforms have philosophies, but to hold to these in business is a route to chapter 11. In fact the trend in the next couple of years will be to move email to a service that one buys from a service provider, not a function one provides inhouse, as running email systems is not in the core business of most companies, but currently something they are forced to do.
Looking at a more economical solar cell than the one shown, go with the Uni-Solar amorphous cell technology. From the deliveredsolutions.com web page a 32 watt cell costs $199, and a 64 watt cell costs $299. While not truly useful for a mostly indoor use, or to power off of grid powered lights, if you are where there is no power, either in the 3rd world, on expedition, or in the field this could be very useful.
This sort of situation demonstrates that at least this one ISP and likley many others are not really E-business ready (as indeed are some businesses witness e-bay). People need to get with mainframe folks who build business continuity plans, change control systems etc. If one is running a business using a hosting service one has to start asking, questions and the rating services need to. 1. if your facility is out of order due to fire etc what is your backup scheme. 2. What are your processes to avoid ensure that any redundancy is maintained. 3. What kind of change control process do you have in place, and are changes reviewed indpendently before being implemented. 4. Do you have a reliablity engineering process in place? Of couse these cost money and one needs in making the decision of who to provide the service what the value of each is. All of these are in the nature of insurance, there is a risk and a premium that one can pay to minimize the risk. The business decision is what risks do you want to insure and what do you want to take. Big sites like the stock traders and folks like ups/fed ex have all this inplace because its essentail to the business. One needs to begin to expect the hosting companies to do the same, all be it that the cost will go up.
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From the business point of view computers in general are only a tool, nothing more, nothing less. Business decisions are hardly exempt from ethics, in fact many corporations now have programs on ethics for their employees. What is different is that technical merit is not the prime reason for a choice, but rather the overall value add (Value provided - cost). Yes indeed software platforms have philosophies, but to hold to these in business is a route to chapter 11. In fact the trend in the next couple of years will be to move email to a service that one buys from a service provider, not a function one provides inhouse, as running email systems is not in the core business of most companies, but currently something they are forced to do.
Looking at a more economical solar cell than the one shown, go with the Uni-Solar amorphous cell technology. From the deliveredsolutions.com web page a 32 watt cell costs $199, and a 64 watt cell costs $299. While not truly useful for a mostly indoor use, or to power off of grid powered lights, if you are where there is no power, either in the 3rd world, on expedition, or in the field this could be very useful.
This sort of situation demonstrates that at least this one ISP and likley many others are not really E-business ready (as indeed are some businesses witness e-bay). People need to get with mainframe folks who build business continuity plans, change control systems etc. If one is running a business using a hosting service one has to start asking, questions and the rating services need to. 1. if your facility is out of order due to fire etc what is your backup scheme. 2. What are your processes to avoid ensure that any redundancy is maintained. 3. What kind of change control process do you have in place, and are changes reviewed indpendently before being implemented. 4. Do you have a reliablity engineering process in place? Of couse these cost money and one needs in making the decision of who to provide the service what the value of each is. All of these are in the nature of insurance, there is a risk and a premium that one can pay to minimize the risk. The business decision is what risks do you want to insure and what do you want to take. Big sites like the stock traders and folks like ups/fed ex have all this inplace because its essentail to the business. One needs to begin to expect the hosting companies to do the same, all be it that the cost will go up.