They are not talking about Citrix servers and running remote apps in the traditional Citrix sense. They are referring to Citrix virtual desktops. They keep changing the name but I believe it is called the "Independence Project" now.
It allows you to have just about any workstation either local or remote and you will connect to your "virtual desktop" and do all of your work. An example is a thin client at your desk with a bare image of Windows. It can automatically launch your businesses virtual desktop on start up. That same virtual desktop you have can be accessed from ANY thin client, laptop, over the internet etc.. No more "desktop" management per say because the user can basically plug in a bare bones pre installed something from Dell and with a single application, can access their "normal" desktop. On the back end, there are many advantages as well. The virtual desktops can use shared storage, they can be templates allowing you to distribute hundreds of virtual desktops with a small back end amount of disk space (changed from the template are saved in your desktop etc). These virtual desktops can be checked out and on a timed basis as well and and be configured to limit what access the local hardware has so you can limit usb sticks copying crap off etc. You can give an employee a laptop with a copy of the virtual desktop limited to 30 days use. If they take off, the virtual desktop with all of the company data can not be accessed after 30 days. Just an example.
Applications are updated and pushed to the templates as a group instead of to each physical desktop so that is easier as well.
VMWare has the same thing, it is called VDI. I've tested them both. I like the VMWare solution better myself but both companies are adding features and functionality every week.
I probably have one big run on sentence above and did a crappy job explaining it but. Read and decide for yourself, it is a decent technology that has a lot of good use.
Verify. Well not completely. That will tell you what was sent is what is on the backup media, what was sent may not have been correct though and might not actually be usable for a backup. The media could become corrupt after that as well.
If anything, at least using some type of verify option should put you one more step away from being the "problem" if a restore goes bad.
Actually walking through the whole backup/restore process (at least restore to a different location) is the only way.
however, is as a barometer of a poster's credibility. What did the OP say that you think was not credible? You're not arguing the OP's statements, just the use of M$.
I don't like M$ because I don't agree with how they try to force you into buying their new version. I don't like MS because I don't agree with how they try to force you into buying their new version.
What makes you question the credibility of one statement vs the other? They say the same exact thing. Is your thinking that since the person used M$ he must be biased and not like Microsoft? Of course he does not like them, it was clearly stated.
"Shake my head bemusedly" would probably be a more accurate description.
Far from a more accurate description because you did not just shake your head bemusedly, you posted a reply specifically stating the person was childish, uneducated, like a 10 year old, and questioned the credibility (but offered nothing that actually questioned it). Those sound like someone "pissed off" to me, not someone just shrugging it off and shaking their head. If you did that, your post(s) would not be here complaining about it.
Different people have different opinions and express them in a different way than you would. They may not always be the same opinion you have and they may actually have a reason to have that opinion.
And for heat, buy a portable kerosene heater. They use no external electrical power and they give off a lot of light and heat, both you will need for an extended power outage. I have a 22k btu model and I think it was about $120. It alone can heat my entire ~2200 Sq ft split foyer style house to 70+ average on the lowest setting when it is in the teens outside (convection so the further rooms are a little colder). It holds about 1.6 gallons and lasts about 10-12 hours on one filling. A single kerosene heater works good in a split foyer because of the open style floor plan and large opening between the lower and upper floors. Depending on your house, maybe a 22K model in the lower floor and a smaller 10k unit in the upper floors.
I know a lot of people think no way when it comes to using kerosene but a lot of people I know use them and have for decades with no problems. I had a really old heat pump for my house and used to supplement with the kerosene heater often. We even sleep with it going. Obviously with small kids and maybe obnoxious pets you would have to use more caution but they are safe. The smell can be a little bad when starting and stopping them but it goes away in a few minutes. I actually slide mine into the bathroom and turn the fan on for those operations.
I can pick out the tail lights on the a Cadillac from probably a 1/4 mile away. For some reason my eyes catch that annoying flicker and it is very annoying. Even to the point that I will pass the person or make sure a car is between us if possible. Okay maybe I've got problems but it does bother me;)
Other cars don't seem to be as bad but I'm sure they all use roughly the same pulse width.
Wow, you determined that poster is childish, uneducated, and immature from that comment? How is using M$ directly or indirectly related to any of those descriptions? People have different opinions for different reasons. If those opinions are different or expressed differently than yours does not make the person childish, uneducated, or immature.
That is a marketing answer. What is actually different internally or design wise?
1) WHAT DESIGN OR FACTORS MAKE BETTER Voltage stabilizing in case the power coming to the PSU is not very good 2) WHAT MAKES A Quieter fan 3) WHAT DIFFERENCES TO MAKE THE Output voltage/watts and efficiency stay within reason at higher load 4) WHAT CHANGES TO PREVENT heat up?
There are way too many generalizations and FUD in the PSU market to sort out the crap from real performers.
I talked a fellow van pooler out of a Craigslist scam to rent a room she had. It was the classic cashing of a fake money order and send money Western Union to a shipper etc.. I overheard her talking to her bank trying to do the money transfer after she "deposited" the scammers check. Even after explaining the scam to her, she still did not fully comprehend what was going on. She said she knew when the lady was flying into the country and she wanted to confront her and ask if it was a scam, I told her again, THERE IS NO PERSON FLYING HERE, there will be no person coming to the US to rent your room. Then she wondered what to do with the money she got from the money order. She was so fooled by the whole thing and it took her a few days and a call to the police to finally comprehend what was going on. Luckily she did not actually send any money out. You are 100% right, some people have absolutely NO idea what is going on.
Well the only people I see claiming 80+ for great mileage are big V8 engines that all have a peak torque ratings around 2500-3500 RPM, these same engines have a crap load of usable torque at and around 2000 rpm (200+ftlbs) and they are at 2000rpm at 80 because they have a final drive ratio at something around 0.68 or lower. I guess it does not have to be a big V8 but any car that has a decent amount of torque at low rpm and a low final drive number should scale the same. There are very FEW cars made recently that have that power profile other than some diesels and V8's. Every car you listed above (except maybe the F150 which may have a V8 4.6 OHV but it is shaped like a brick) has almost no low end torque and only gets its power at high rpms. Higher rpm operation requires more air and more fuel to maintain the A/F ratio which mean less MPG at higher speeds I have a 5.0l Mustang that meets those requirements and I have gotten about 28MPG fully loaded (4 adults, 2kids and a hatch full of stuff) driving 80. When hitting hills, the car has enough torque at that rpm that you barely have to add more gas to maintain your speed either. I'm not defending these types of cars though because anything other than 70+ straight non speed changing driving and the gas mileage goes to crap. That is the ONLY time where they have an MPG advantage.
and I can tell you for a FACT that not only does no-one here use chains in the winter, but chains and "studded tires" (tires with small metal bumps embedded in the rubber) are Illegal in New York State.
Tires with metal studs may be used in New York State only from October 16 through April 30.
I could not find anything that said chains were illegal, only a few references stating to pull of the road to a safe area if you need to install chains.
Every driver *should* know their car well enough to brake on the limit for any given conditions.
"Given conditions" is the key word there. Every section of road is different. Bumps, tars and sealers, cracks, different moisture, differnet materials, angles of the road etc.. In the real world, you may be able to guess what is under the tires at any given point but it would be a guess. Yes, you can quickly compensate but when that deer runs in front of you, you may have about 1.2 seconds to realize it and react. If your natural reaction is to slam on the brakes (which I bet 99.99% of us would do even though only 5% will admit to it), not only will you hit the deer but you may skid off the road and hit a tree as well. I doubt your first reaction was to remember exactly what road surface you were on and to know exactly how hard you will have to apply the brakes for those road conditions at any instant, specially when you were just changing radio stations and your eyes were looking in the rear view mirror at the car behind you.
I do "test" my cars often though so I do agree with you. I also made my driving age kids do the same thing. I even made them feel what it is like for the passenger side tires to go off the road into a slight ditch around a bend and how the car pulls and reacts. Another thing I did was have them outside the car and walk out the distance they thought it would take the car to stop at 60 MPH. They were not even close when we tried it. I hope this stuff helps helps but IMHO, there is not substitute for ABS in a true emergency situation.
And Snow Tires are only legal in many states within a set period of months
Really? I've never heard of restrictions for snow tires but I have seen restrictions for STUDDED snow tires.
I have some of those cable type chains. Where I live now, it does not snow often enough and the area is relatively flat (Northern VA) so decent all season tires are typically all that is needed with the exception of maybe one to three days of the year. I keep them in the trunk just in case. IMHO, $30 for them is a good investment and I've used them a few times.
I disagree with traction control being better when stuck. I have a Hyundai Elantra with traction control, maybe the Hyundai system sucks but either way, I experienced this first hand on a trip to the mountains. I was not "stuck" like off the road in a ditch. I was stuck trying to go up a snow covered hill with about 2-3 inches of fresh snow. The traction control would not allow steady controllable momentum. One tire would spin, then the other, then the brakes would apply, then the gas cut down in a repeated pattern. The car was jerking around in an attempt to get traction. With the traction control off, we still spun but at least we could get 10-40 feet at a time because it was a non jerking and a much "softer" progression up the hill controllable by the gas pedal. After about an hour, I finally ended up getting pulled the rest of way to the resort by someone who worked there. Yes, my tires sucked but I definatly was making much better progress with the traction control off. I'm sure there are times when traction control is much better than human control but this was not one of them.
It may be mentioned already but "sticking it to the man" is not the main reason he is doing this.
I caught an interview with him on a DC radio station a few months ago and he explained the situation. His parodies are based on popular songs. If the song is still fresh and popular, his parody has a better chance of being popular. Waiting a year or two to compile enough tracks to fill a typical CD is too long for the original to still be in everyones mind.
I assume he probably knew this a long time ago but it wasn't until the last few years that making money off of individual tracks was possible.
Since when has Nokia or Motorola come out with anything that looks remotely like iTMS? Since when have they developed a UI that is easy to use and intuitive?
Not a phone but I have a Samsung Sansa mp3 player and I find the UI very simple and easy to use. It also integrates with Real Rhapsody just fine. I plug the unit in and it syncs up my choice of music and my playlists, including the dynamic playlists that I "subscribe" to that are created by other people. It is simple and easy to use.
Didn't the Nokia N95 have an orientation sensor? Is the N95 one of those products that you did not know about;)
MS Cloud computing and a fix for people not purchasing MS Office and Windows X+1 every two years. A carrot out there with "light" capability to keep you interested and to generate a more consistant revenue stream. This product is not the answer or a solution to a computing problem that people have, it is an answer to a financial problem that MS has.
Yes, there are many vendors participating in the VMware cloud concept.
The Virtual Datacenter OS and the vCloud idea really does look interesting. If you can find that keynote online, it may be worth watching. They gave a live demo.
I've found my banks use of Checkfree is more reliable for paying bills than my wife and I put together. We were always late on payments and it was not due to a lack of funds. We've automated every bill we possibly could and all is good now. I don't think we've "balanced" our check book in 10 years either. We just check the balance every so often and transfer money in and out of the checking account as required. Our checking makes the same rate as are basic savings account so it doesnt really matter.
I'd rather take precautions than do nothing. Opening an account with a local back takes about 10 minutes and depositing cash or a check at that physical bank is not hard. This bank is in the same parking lot as the nearest grocery store and I pass by it every day so it is not out of the way either. You're right though, I do not like Paypal either and I should have to do nothing to protect myself and maybe I'm a little paranoid but the little effort I go through seems worth it to me. What is your method of dealing with a money transaction with people far away from you that you do not know? Go to the USPS and get a postal money order every time, send a personal check and wait for it to clear, send cash? Use one of those mentioned and also a third party escrow service? I do not see how any of those methods are more convenient, safer, or cheaper.
I have a separate bank account with "totally free checking" at a local bank and only use it for Paypal. Nothing else. When I need to use Paypal, I deposit money in that account by check from my other bank or using their ATM out front and walk in and deposit it. If some of the horror stories I hear about Palpal freezing accounts or people being scammed happen to me, I will only loose access to a couple of dollars.
That's odd. Not technically related but I was able to remove the 5 digit SMS ability from one of my Sprint phones. I was hit with a bill from one of my kids that sent something and subscribed to some stupid joke service or similar. She can still send to 7 digit numbers, just not 5 digit. If they had that capability, you'd think they could disable SMS without an issue.
Not a true geek solution but keep your existing setup or something similar for your network shared storage and back that up to a cheap external USB/1394 portable drive(s) mounted with Truecrypt on a schedule. This is extremely flexible, reliable, secure and is extremely low cost and non proprietary and your backups will not be sitting on the same box and "online" with the rest of your shared mounted file systems.
I'm sure that old 4U machine is not very efficient either and/or it is probably extremely loud and if it is more modern, it is far more than you would ever need to serve up 5-15 concurrent connections.
I had the same concern with the title insurance company charging full price during a refi within 3 years. I asked about it before hand and they were willing to knock it down to 50%. To this day I do not understand even paying 50% of the cost to change the lien holder on the paperwork but going to a different title company in protest would have cost me the full amount. I guess 50% is better than 100% but both were a complete rip off.
IMHO, the transfer of a house is a chance for any one that can to get involved and grab the largest piece of pie that they can. Some businesses even have different rates for termite and radon inspections if it is for a prospective house buyer compared to someone that already owns the house. The justification I got was the "paperwork" involved. Okay, so you have to fax a copy of the report to the lender, is that really costing you $100 more?
When buying a house, large amounts of money is changing hands, paying $100 here and $500 there does not seem like much compared to the overall cost and these people know it and exploit it.
Slashdot Mirror
Not specifically a reply to you but..
They are not talking about Citrix servers and running remote apps in the traditional Citrix sense. They are referring to Citrix virtual desktops. They keep changing the name but I believe it is called the "Independence Project" now.
It allows you to have just about any workstation either local or remote and you will connect to your "virtual desktop" and do all of your work. An example is a thin client at your desk with a bare image of Windows. It can automatically launch your businesses virtual desktop on start up. That same virtual desktop you have can be accessed from ANY thin client, laptop, over the internet etc.. No more "desktop" management per say because the user can basically plug in a bare bones pre installed something from Dell and with a single application, can access their "normal" desktop.
On the back end, there are many advantages as well. The virtual desktops can use shared storage, they can be templates allowing you to distribute hundreds of virtual desktops with a small back end amount of disk space (changed from the template are saved in your desktop etc). These virtual desktops can be checked out and on a timed basis as well and and be configured to limit what access the local hardware has so you can limit usb sticks copying crap off etc. You can give an employee a laptop with a copy of the virtual desktop limited to 30 days use. If they take off, the virtual desktop with all of the company data can not be accessed after 30 days. Just an example.
Applications are updated and pushed to the templates as a group instead of to each physical desktop so that is easier as well.
VMWare has the same thing, it is called VDI. I've tested them both. I like the VMWare solution better myself but both companies are adding features and functionality every week.
I probably have one big run on sentence above and did a crappy job explaining it but. Read and decide for yourself, it is a decent technology that has a lot of good use.
Verify.
Well not completely. That will tell you what was sent is what is on the backup media, what was sent may not have been correct though and might not actually be usable for a backup. The media could become corrupt after that as well.
If anything, at least using some type of verify option should put you one more step away from being the "problem" if a restore goes bad.
Actually walking through the whole backup/restore process (at least restore to a different location) is the only way.
however, is as a barometer of a poster's credibility.
What did the OP say that you think was not credible? You're not arguing the OP's statements, just the use of M$.
I don't like M$ because I don't agree with how they try to force you into buying their new version.
I don't like MS because I don't agree with how they try to force you into buying their new version.
What makes you question the credibility of one statement vs the other? They say the same exact thing. Is your thinking that since the person used M$ he must be biased and not like Microsoft? Of course he does not like them, it was clearly stated.
"Shake my head bemusedly" would probably be a more accurate description.
Far from a more accurate description because you did not just shake your head bemusedly, you posted a reply specifically stating the person was childish, uneducated, like a 10 year old, and questioned the credibility (but offered nothing that actually questioned it). Those sound like someone "pissed off" to me, not someone just shrugging it off and shaking their head. If you did that, your post(s) would not be here complaining about it.
Different people have different opinions and express them in a different way than you would. They may not always be the same opinion you have and they may actually have a reason to have that opinion.
And for heat, buy a portable kerosene heater. They use no external electrical power and they give off a lot of light and heat, both you will need for an extended power outage. I have a 22k btu model and I think it was about $120. It alone can heat my entire ~2200 Sq ft split foyer style house to 70+ average on the lowest setting when it is in the teens outside (convection so the further rooms are a little colder). It holds about 1.6 gallons and lasts about 10-12 hours on one filling. A single kerosene heater works good in a split foyer because of the open style floor plan and large opening between the lower and upper floors. Depending on your house, maybe a 22K model in the lower floor and a smaller 10k unit in the upper floors.
I know a lot of people think no way when it comes to using kerosene but a lot of people I know use them and have for decades with no problems. I had a really old heat pump for my house and used to supplement with the kerosene heater often. We even sleep with it going. Obviously with small kids and maybe obnoxious pets you would have to use more caution but they are safe. The smell can be a little bad when starting and stopping them but it goes away in a few minutes. I actually slide mine into the bathroom and turn the fan on for those operations.
I can pick out the tail lights on the a Cadillac from probably a 1/4 mile away. For some reason my eyes catch that annoying flicker and it is very annoying. Even to the point that I will pass the person or make sure a car is between us if possible. Okay maybe I've got problems but it does bother me ;)
Other cars don't seem to be as bad but I'm sure they all use roughly the same pulse width.
Wow, you determined that poster is childish, uneducated, and immature from that comment?
How is using M$ directly or indirectly related to any of those descriptions?
People have different opinions for different reasons. If those opinions are different or expressed differently than yours does not make the person childish, uneducated, or immature.
That is a marketing answer. What is actually different internally or design wise?
1) WHAT DESIGN OR FACTORS MAKE BETTER Voltage stabilizing in case the power coming to the PSU is not very good
2) WHAT MAKES A Quieter fan
3) WHAT DIFFERENCES TO MAKE THE Output voltage/watts and efficiency stay within reason at higher load
4) WHAT CHANGES TO PREVENT heat up?
There are way too many generalizations and FUD in the PSU market to sort out the crap from real performers.
I talked a fellow van pooler out of a Craigslist scam to rent a room she had. It was the classic cashing of a fake money order and send money Western Union to a shipper etc.. I overheard her talking to her bank trying to do the money transfer after she "deposited" the scammers check. Even after explaining the scam to her, she still did not fully comprehend what was going on. She said she knew when the lady was flying into the country and she wanted to confront her and ask if it was a scam, I told her again, THERE IS NO PERSON FLYING HERE, there will be no person coming to the US to rent your room. Then she wondered what to do with the money she got from the money order. She was so fooled by the whole thing and it took her a few days and a call to the police to finally comprehend what was going on. Luckily she did not actually send any money out.
You are 100% right, some people have absolutely NO idea what is going on.
Make a player that you can only turn up to 9.
Well the only people I see claiming 80+ for great mileage are big V8 engines that all have a peak torque ratings around 2500-3500 RPM, these same engines have a crap load of usable torque at and around 2000 rpm (200+ftlbs) and they are at 2000rpm at 80 because they have a final drive ratio at something around 0.68 or lower. I guess it does not have to be a big V8 but any car that has a decent amount of torque at low rpm and a low final drive number should scale the same. There are very FEW cars made recently that have that power profile other than some diesels and V8's. Every car you listed above (except maybe the F150 which may have a V8 4.6 OHV but it is shaped like a brick) has almost no low end torque and only gets its power at high rpms. Higher rpm operation requires more air and more fuel to maintain the A/F ratio which mean less MPG at higher speeds
I have a 5.0l Mustang that meets those requirements and I have gotten about 28MPG fully loaded (4 adults, 2kids and a hatch full of stuff) driving 80. When hitting hills, the car has enough torque at that rpm that you barely have to add more gas to maintain your speed either.
I'm not defending these types of cars though because anything other than 70+ straight non speed changing driving and the gas mileage goes to crap. That is the ONLY time where they have an MPG advantage.
Locking the wheels will stop you as fast as your car can, with no exception.
You are joking right?
and I can tell you for a FACT that not only does no-one here use chains in the winter, but chains and "studded tires" (tires with small metal bumps embedded in the rubber) are Illegal in New York State.
For the studs, not according to your states DMV web site:
http://www.nydmv.state.ny.us/dmanual/chapter10-manual.htm
Tires with metal studs may be used in New York State only from October 16 through April 30.
I could not find anything that said chains were illegal, only a few references stating to pull of the road to a safe area if you need to install chains.
Every driver *should* know their car well enough to brake on the limit for any given conditions.
"Given conditions" is the key word there. Every section of road is different. Bumps, tars and sealers, cracks, different moisture, differnet materials, angles of the road etc.. In the real world, you may be able to guess what is under the tires at any given point but it would be a guess. Yes, you can quickly compensate but when that deer runs in front of you, you may have about 1.2 seconds to realize it and react. If your natural reaction is to slam on the brakes (which I bet 99.99% of us would do even though only 5% will admit to it), not only will you hit the deer but you may skid off the road and hit a tree as well. I doubt your first reaction was to remember exactly what road surface you were on and to know exactly how hard you will have to apply the brakes for those road conditions at any instant, specially when you were just changing radio stations and your eyes were looking in the rear view mirror at the car behind you.
I do "test" my cars often though so I do agree with you. I also made my driving age kids do the same thing. I even made them feel what it is like for the passenger side tires to go off the road into a slight ditch around a bend and how the car pulls and reacts. Another thing I did was have them outside the car and walk out the distance they thought it would take the car to stop at 60 MPH. They were not even close when we tried it. I hope this stuff helps helps but IMHO, there is not substitute for ABS in a true emergency situation.
And Snow Tires are only legal in many states within a set period of months
Really? I've never heard of restrictions for snow tires but I have seen restrictions for STUDDED snow tires.
I have some of those cable type chains. Where I live now, it does not snow often enough and the area is relatively flat (Northern VA) so decent all season tires are typically all that is needed with the exception of maybe one to three days of the year. I keep them in the trunk just in case. IMHO, $30 for them is a good investment and I've used them a few times.
I disagree with traction control being better when stuck. I have a Hyundai Elantra with traction control, maybe the Hyundai system sucks but either way, I experienced this first hand on a trip to the mountains. I was not "stuck" like off the road in a ditch. I was stuck trying to go up a snow covered hill with about 2-3 inches of fresh snow. The traction control would not allow steady controllable momentum. One tire would spin, then the other, then the brakes would apply, then the gas cut down in a repeated pattern. The car was jerking around in an attempt to get traction. With the traction control off, we still spun but at least we could get 10-40 feet at a time because it was a non jerking and a much "softer" progression up the hill controllable by the gas pedal.
After about an hour, I finally ended up getting pulled the rest of way to the resort by someone who worked there.
Yes, my tires sucked but I definatly was making much better progress with the traction control off.
I'm sure there are times when traction control is much better than human control but this was not one of them.
It may be mentioned already but "sticking it to the man" is not the main reason he is doing this.
I caught an interview with him on a DC radio station a few months ago and he explained the situation. His parodies are based on popular songs. If the song is still fresh and popular, his parody has a better chance of being popular. Waiting a year or two to compile enough tracks to fill a typical CD is too long for the original to still be in everyones mind.
I assume he probably knew this a long time ago but it wasn't until the last few years that making money off of individual tracks was possible.
Since when has Nokia or Motorola come out with anything that looks remotely like iTMS? Since when have they developed a UI that is easy to use and intuitive?
Not a phone but I have a Samsung Sansa mp3 player and I find the UI very simple and easy to use. It also integrates with Real Rhapsody just fine. I plug the unit in and it syncs up my choice of music and my playlists, including the dynamic playlists that I "subscribe" to that are created by other people. It is simple and easy to use.
Didn't the Nokia N95 have an orientation sensor? Is the N95 one of those products that you did not know about ;)
MS Cloud computing and a fix for people not purchasing MS Office and Windows X+1 every two years. A carrot out there with "light" capability to keep you interested and to generate a more consistant revenue stream. This product is not the answer or a solution to a computing problem that people have, it is an answer to a financial problem that MS has.
Yes, there are many vendors participating in the VMware cloud concept.
The Virtual Datacenter OS and the vCloud idea really does look interesting. If you can find that keynote online, it may be worth watching. They gave a live demo.
http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/vcloud_vmworld08.html
http://www.vmware.com/technology/virtual-datacenter-os/cloud-vservices/
I've found my banks use of Checkfree is more reliable for paying bills than my wife and I put together. We were always late on payments and it was not due to a lack of funds. We've automated every bill we possibly could and all is good now. I don't think we've "balanced" our check book in 10 years either. We just check the balance every so often and transfer money in and out of the checking account as required. Our checking makes the same rate as are basic savings account so it doesnt really matter.
I'd rather take precautions than do nothing. Opening an account with a local back takes about 10 minutes and depositing cash or a check at that physical bank is not hard. This bank is in the same parking lot as the nearest grocery store and I pass by it every day so it is not out of the way either.
You're right though, I do not like Paypal either and I should have to do nothing to protect myself and maybe I'm a little paranoid but the little effort I go through seems worth it to me.
What is your method of dealing with a money transaction with people far away from you that you do not know? Go to the USPS and get a postal money order every time, send a personal check and wait for it to clear, send cash? Use one of those mentioned and also a third party escrow service? I do not see how any of those methods are more convenient, safer, or cheaper.
I have a separate bank account with "totally free checking" at a local bank and only use it for Paypal. Nothing else. When I need to use Paypal, I deposit money in that account by check from my other bank or using their ATM out front and walk in and deposit it. If some of the horror stories I hear about Palpal freezing accounts or people being scammed happen to me, I will only loose access to a couple of dollars.
That's odd. Not technically related but I was able to remove the 5 digit SMS ability from one of my Sprint phones. I was hit with a bill from one of my kids that sent something and subscribed to some stupid joke service or similar. She can still send to 7 digit numbers, just not 5 digit. If they had that capability, you'd think they could disable SMS without an issue.
Not a true geek solution but keep your existing setup or something similar for your network shared storage and back that up to a cheap external USB/1394 portable drive(s) mounted with Truecrypt on a schedule.
This is extremely flexible, reliable, secure and is extremely low cost and non proprietary and your backups will not be sitting on the same box and "online" with the rest of your shared mounted file systems.
I'm sure that old 4U machine is not very efficient either and/or it is probably extremely loud and if it is more modern, it is far more than you would ever need to serve up 5-15 concurrent connections.
I had the same concern with the title insurance company charging full price during a refi within 3 years. I asked about it before hand and they were willing to knock it down to 50%. To this day I do not understand even paying 50% of the cost to change the lien holder on the paperwork but going to a different title company in protest would have cost me the full amount. I guess 50% is better than 100% but both were a complete rip off.
IMHO, the transfer of a house is a chance for any one that can to get involved and grab the largest piece of pie that they can. Some businesses even have different rates for termite and radon inspections if it is for a prospective house buyer compared to someone that already owns the house. The justification I got was the "paperwork" involved. Okay, so you have to fax a copy of the report to the lender, is that really costing you $100 more?
When buying a house, large amounts of money is changing hands, paying $100 here and $500 there does not seem like much compared to the overall cost and these people know it and exploit it.