Oh boy, this should be fun....Are you sure you performed an "analysis" on this?
First off, you started your story thusly:
For our small corporate network, I have determined that it would cost us nearly $40,000 USD (Just for the Software!) to maintain a Primary and Back-up Domain Controller using Microsoft Windows 2000. This includes both the Main Server License costs and the multiple packs of CALs required to allow each user access to the servers.
in which you quote $40,000 in licensing costs for 2 Windows 2000 Servers and a "small corporate network". I then preceded to show that as completely and utterly ridiculous. You then decided that you'd like to change your network to:
To handle 200 users, I would, or should have ONE PDC, at least TWO BDCs and likely one or two fileservers, each of which would need at least 200 CALs. (Unless MS changed the licensing recently, which I doubt.)
Let's add this up, shall we? (To make it more 'fair' we will go with 1 file server from the above mix...)
4 Windows 2000 Server w/ 25 CALs $6400
9 - 20 CAL packs per server (4) $24,120
WOW! We are already over $30,000
where you still come up $10,000 short of your original quote, despite transforming from a "small corporate network" with 2 servers, into a 200 user network with 4 servers.
Secondly, you've evidently never heard or bothered to look up per server and per seat licensing modes, despite the quite obvious choice Windows gives you when you add licenses or set up a new server. If you had known this, you could've saved over $20,000 just on the CAL add packs.
But, you decided that it was better to dig to the bottom than jump out now. So, you proceed to demonstrate your complete and total ignorance of MSFT's licensing model when you stated:
each of [the 4 servers] which would need at least 200 CALs...[and]...You know that you need to have CALs for EACH potential user that can access EACH server at any given time?
which, once again, shows you have no concept of per seat licensing mode and when it's advantageous to use it. You also, evidently, have confused concurrent users with your "potential" users.
As a coup de grace, in case anyone doubted your ineptness with MS products, you state that:
we should have two admins, just for monitoring/maintaining the servers as well as to provide tech support assistance.
for 6 servers, 2 of which are BDC's (which, BTW, don't exist in Windows 2000 Server or AD, but I digress), and 1 of which is a simple file server.
After this less than stellar performance, I'd suggest you call someone a bit more familiar with MS products next time, check out one of MS's licensing webinars, avoid doing cost comparisons altogether, or getting a job with Enron's accounting department or the Gartner Group-where your math and research skills will fit right in.
Oh, and BTW, I never stated there was a cost benefit. Obviously, comparing the CAL prices of a free(beer) Linux and SAMBA distro with Windows would never show a cost benefit in MS's direction. I only ask that you if you're going to discuss licensing costs that you know what the hell you're talking about, instead of enveloping the rest of/. with your cloud of FUD and confusion.
In order to set up 300 users for MSFT on my network it would have cost my company around $180,000. This is for exchange, the CAL's the microsoft guys to help set it up, and the hardware. Around 30 to 40 thousand of it was licensing costs.
With Exchange, 300 users and 7 servers, I'd say the licensing costs on that sounds close. If I had to guess though, I'd put it closer to $50,000 (with 2 Exchange servers). But, I haven't taken the time to price it out, so we'll use your numbers.
I did it with Samba, plus one extra guy to help, a full migration for about $25,000. Most of that was the extra helps salary. Let's see, that was 7 servers, two black box cabinets, two unmanaged switches, a cisco router, arcserve backup, and an 8 tape dlt 4 changer.
Well, since you state that the migration cost you $25,000, most of which was salary...let's assume $10,000 was for HW (a split of 60/40 in salary/hadrware costs). Going back to your $180,000 quote, with the $40,000 in MSFT licensing, and the $10,000 in hardware gives you $130,000 in salary "for the Microsoft guys to help set it up"? That's a crapload of help....Let's see, that's about FOUR months of TWO full-time (40 hours per week) consultants (at $100/hour). You either have one wack job of a setup to migrate, are completely clueless on Windows and need extensive training, or are mistaken on your $$ costs.
Oh yeah, and you didn't get Exchange, or I assume, an equivalent groupware solution.
Of course, in the end, you do have a solution which you're comfortable with. And that is important. An admin needs to be comfortable with the systems he's administrating. And I don't expect you to set yourself up out of a job. However, let's be honest when discussing the costs of MSFT...at least with each other. You can tell the PHB's whatever you want.
For our small corporate network, I have determined that it would cost us nearly $40,000 USD (Just for the Software!) to maintain a Primary and Back-up Domain Controller using Microsoft Windows 2000. This includes both the Main Server License costs and the multiple packs of CALs required to allow each user access to the servers.
Since Windows 2000 Server with 25 CALs is about $1600, and additional 20 CAL packs are $670, it would seem to me that your "small corporate network" is somewhere around 1150 nodes. Even if you use per-server licensing mode, you'd still be able to purchase about 600 CALs for EACH server for $40,000. I think your small network ain't so small, or you miscalculated your prices. Oh, and note that one of MSFT's licensing programs would get you a cheaper license price as well, but I didn't take that into effect.
Haven't used it yet (it's a new product) but for the usual SMB Exchange features (calendaring, tasks, contacts, email, public folders, etc.) MDaemon Groupware might be a viable alternative. A lot cheaper than Exchange, has anti-spam filtering built in, and uses IMAP instead of MAPI, but has a plugin so you can use Outlook as the client.
FWIW, I've used MDaemon Pro (POP3/SMTP/IMAP/LDAP server) for years now, and have been very happy with it.
I've SEEN this done in production. I personally don't (hardware is cheap and I consult in small enough environments where I don't have to wring every bit of performance out) but it's a somewhat common tweak and was even a standard workaround for an NT/IIS4 exploit that used 8.3 paths to get around permissions (and I recall doing it on a couple of servers around that time with no problems afterwards).
I know of some issues having to do with registering DLL's and install programs, but they can be fixed by reenabling and reinstalling. For most production environments, though, this shouldn't be mch of an issue as install programs aren't run very often.
That being said, if they tuned Windows then they should have tuned Samba as well...that's only fair.;)
The most damaging thing about the above link is that they
disabled 8.3 filename generation on the W2K3 server. In a
production environment this WILL BREAK APPLICATIONS !
What typical production applications, specifically, will this break? AFAIK (and MS, it will only break 16-bit applications that can't deal with long filenames. Obviously, if you have that in a production environment, you should probably replace it. Barring that, don't disable 8.3.
How long before someone rights a nifty utility to monitor window titles and soon as one that has that dialog box pop up, does a sendkeys and clicks it automatically?
Not long, I'd suspect. Note that this program was out way before this debacle, and has many othe ruses, but should suffice for this particular case as well.
AutoIt running in a loop checking for the window would probably work too...and of course, a real programmer should have no trouble with dismissing these buttons...the only question, is will they be sued for trying?
I, for one, particularly like the idea of being notified before my browser loads an ActiveX control. Sounds to me like a feature that should already be in the browser for security purposes anyway. Yes, I know it's a user changeable option, but honestly, how many "Joe Sixpack" users know the option's there anyway, much less what it means?
If Joe Sixpack doesn't know what the option means, then he's not going to really care about the dialog box informing him that an ActiveX component is being loaded.
This is, by and large, a retarded idea. It in no way diminishes functionality for IE or plugins in general, but requires the user to jump through hoops to see a webpage. And we call this "promote[ing] the Progress of Science".
You should definitely be able to support more than 10-25 standard office users on decent hardware. I've had 15 users running Office, Access databases, etc. on VERY low end hardware also acting as a file/print server, AD controller, etc. Disk speed and RAM were the main constraints.
IIRC, the server was a low end Dell Poweredge (the ones that come standard with a 7200RPM IDE drive). I think a single PIII in the
I've also had 60-70 users on dual processor servers running database apps and custom software. At 75 users, the server would start to drop connections, and we had to put another server in. It really all depends on the apps.
My advice would be to set up a test server. MS has scripts you can use to load test. I'd guess that with a dual processor, 1GB RAM, Ultra160 server you should be able to serve 100+ office users. Up it to a quad Xeon, 2GB RAM and you should approach 200 users/server. It could be higher or lower depending on the applications and usage patterns of your employees, of course. If they all use the same apps (Word, Excel, etc.) then one nice thing is that the EXEs and DLLs only get loaded once, so you'll really save on memory. But if they're all working on 250 page documents, then you'll still have to worry about RAM. I assume, of course, that these will be dedicated terminal servers, since you're talking so many users.
Here (PDF) is a good whitepaper on the subject. It's part MS propaganda, of course, but there's alot of good info in it and the numbers aren't too far off reality. Like I said though, the only real answer is it depends on your usage patterns.
As for increasing IT staff, I don't know how many you have (staff or servers) now, but adding 5-10 terminal servers shouldn't be a very large burden. I'd set up the terminal servers identically, and then you can script or Ghost a new install. Data would be stored on existing file servers, so you don't even need to back up the terminal servers.
Thin clients would be your least hassle option, but as you've no doubt found out...they're expensive. Yesterday's hardware running Windows 2000 or XP Pro should be more than sufficient though. Unfortunately, it doesn't release you from the patch management cycle, but with 1000+ users you should hopefully already have something in place to handle that already.
So, you're question is can you save money doing this? I'd say no, not right now. I'd guess that your current hardware is sufficient to run your current apps (Office, Groupwise, etc.) so you won't save money in that respect. 1000 users demands some sort of patch and application management. You'll still have the patch management issues, and whatever you're using for application management (GPOs, SMS, etc.) is already licensed. No costs savings there. You'll need 5-10 more servers + operating systems to purchase and maintain. You'll need to keep some desktop support staff to deal with the underlying OS on your client machines, as well as your users who won't be running terminal services. So, unless you have an abundance of desktop techs, I don't think you'll save money there either. Your admins will still need to maintain the current servers, plus the additional 5-10. A server outage will take down 100-200 users, though they can be load balanced to running servers on reconnect, but they'll still lose their current state.
On the positive side, desktop issues can be taken care of quicker and with less legwork. Software upgrades are easier and quicker, requiring less staff. Backup is centralized (if it's not already).
On the whole, I'd say unless you regularly upgrade your PC's or software, are due for a HW/SW upgrade, or have a lot of desktop techs you'll be out about the cost of the servers. But, that's just a guess. I only tend to use TS in remote user environments, or in no admin remote offices to avoid most travel issues. I've never been convinced of a benefit to most companies in using it in place of desktop PC's.
If I destroyed something your Father gave you, then offered to "buy you a replacement" how would you feel?
Well, I don't think you could buy a replacement for the rights to life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness (or property)...those are the things my "Father" gave to me. So I would be very sad indeed.
I can't seem to find a word processor that has all the stuff I need and none of the stuff I don't.
That's because you need different stuff than I do, for example. Some MS exec once said that even though Word users only use 10% of the features, they all use a different 10%.
Solution? Modularity. We should be able to pick and choose which options to install. Office gets close with Windows Installer technologies and install on 1st use or disabled selections, but fails to remove all the clutter of the removed features...in effect only saving cheap and abundant disk space.
I don't understand all this WinME bashing. I've used it for years and it's worked well. no major problems. previous to ME I was running 98se.
You're in the minority. Based on a recent PCMagazine survey, WinME was the worst of the Microsoft OS's. For those interested, WinXP was tops for MS, OS X was tops overall, and Linux didn't get enough info to be included.
Also according to PCMagazine, Windows ME is a bit slower than 98SE. Not surprising, of course, with the System Restore and File Protection services running.
Amazingly enough, that's the only OS reliability survey I could come across. Though it does agree with my experiences in the field as well, so there you have it. Consider yourself lucky.
The interface seems to be coming along very well, it looks nice. It also appears as though they are going to integrate the most common desktop applications into one panel (IM, address book, email, etc). It is, however, all ultimately irrelevant. User interface within Windows has been at acceptable to good levels since Windows 95.
While I agree with you that Windows 9x and 2000 were the pinnacle of UI design for MS, my informal survey of non-technical users show that XP's interface is celarly preferred. And, my hunch is, that Longhorn's UI will build on XP's so that it will be just as "pretty", but more functional. All in all, that's a good thing...even if I don't particularly care for the looks of it, I'm more than capable of changing it.
Microsoft should instead be focusing completely on security, performance, interoperability, stability, and flexibility - you know, all of the things that are allowing Linux to kill Microsoft on the server side.
Perhaps you should have read the article. This is about Longhorn, Microsoft's next desktop OS. And, of course, both MS's desktop and server OS's are making progress in stability, security, flexibility, etc.
2 - Yes, its true that outsiders of the USA find it hard to understand why Americans are often so big on guns. "Culture" are socially transmitted partterns of behaviour. American society is big on guns. So it is a gun culture. I'm not saying thats a bad thing, or not thought out, or that it has no reason or rationality behind it. But it is part of your culture. Perhaps instead of condemning outsiders who ask, you could educate them.
Well, there's really a couple of different "gun cultures" in the US. First off, there's the hunters. They basically want guns to go out and shoot deer, quail, etc. with.
Secondly, there's the folks who want a gun (or 2 or 3, etc.) for protection of either self or property. Why not just ban guns outright and then people won't need to protect themselves? Well, perhaps due to our experiences with Prohibition (banning alcohol in the early 20th century, as well as drug prohibition) we've learned that you can't keep stuff out of the criminal's hands.
Third, there's an element who realizes what our Founding Fathers realized. That an armed populace is really the only defense against tyranny. Without guns, the colonists would have had a bitch of a time running the Revolution.
Truthfully, the 1st and 2nd groups far outweigh the 3rd. But the 3rd is more than happy to fight for the rights of the 1st and 2nd group, because if the time comes we're confident that Americans, by and large, will respond with whatever they have handy.
In Australia we have the "Tall Poppy Syndrome". Outsiders often find this difficult to understand. If you ask me what it is...I have no probs telling you what it is, and why we do it. I wouldn't attack you for asking. It is a big part of our culture and national identity.
(BTW..its cutting down anyone who's head sticks up too far. We have legit reasons it...at times.)
Okay...I'm curious. Why would cut down anyone "who's head stick up too far"?
I've supported Peachtree before, and don't recall this problem cropping up. You need to do a little research on the problem. My first guess would be a case of network congestion or the peer-to-peer server is bogged down. Replacing a hub with a switch and hard setting machines to 100Mb/FD may solve your problems.
The Inquirer made a typo. The article reads "Secure IDE, says Abit, has a special decoder without a special key, and that means hard drives can 'never be opened by anyone'.", which is completely different from ABit's website, which states that "SecureIDE connects to your IDE hard disk and has a special decoder; without a special key, your hard disk cannot be opened by anyone.", note the semi-colon.
There is a key. Without it, your hard drive can not be "opened". Also, remember that ABit is a Taiwanese company, and their English tranlsations aren't always the best.
WOW! I'm amazed at this technology, waiters simply looking at the glass and checking on their tables regularly would never work. I hope they come out with plates that somehow tell you when you're done chewing your food so people know when to swallow too.
Speaking as a former waiter, I know that a good deal of a waiter's time is taken up by simply checking on fluid levels. And that some people will have a full glass of beer/water/whatever for 10 minutes, but then drain the entire glass in 60 seconds. Quite difficult to time that refill.
If the waiter no longer had to constantly monitor drinks, it would free them up to handle more customers and/or provide better service.
I'm not going to kill this person, I'm going to pull a lever that rotates a gear that kicks a boot into a cow, making her angry enough to kill the stablehand.
Net result is the same, and the intent was the same.
Perhaps the intent was the same, but it's a hell of a lot harder to prove in the second case than in the first. And the law isn't about what happened, it's about what you can prove happened.
I'd say your dual P4-2.8GHz + 1GB RAM is a bit overkill. Not that overkill is inherently bad, but if you want to minimize costs while still getting server class hardware, I'd say drop one of the P4's, and go with a RAID-1 (mirroring) setup with 2x36GB SCSI drives.
You don't say what your backup plans are, but a 20/40GB DDS4 tape drive is going to set you back a pretty penny. And don't forget the tapes. You can go with a Travan drive for about half the price, but the tapes are more expensive...and IMO they're crap.
You also don't say how large the websites will be, or what type of email you'll be doing (POP? IMAP? Web?) but you may want to think about how much diskspace you'll need. I'd think 36GB is plenty (5MBx250 for email (~1.25GB )+ 100MBx100 for websites (~10GB) + 30% = ~15GB.)
If you're really expecting to upgrade, you could get a dual CPU capable motherboard, but just get 1 CPU for now. Or, just plan on adding a second database server for the web sites later.
I'd estimate a 2.0+GHz P4 server, with 1GB RAM, DDS4 TBU, with 2x36GB SCSI drives in HW RAID-1 would run about $2,000 from Dell. Skimp on the CPU (down to a Celeron 1.5+GHz) and you can probably get around $1500 or so. You'd probably get a discount for non profit status. Oh, and don't forget a UPS.
More likely, though, is that they're running their engines for generator power, so they can run their microwave ovens, televisions, and yes, laptops. Truckers also like to sleep warm like everyone else, and their cab heaters run off their engines just like the ones in your car.
About damn time somebody made this point. Everyone seems to think that if it were better for the engine, that truckers would just raise down the window, pop open the side window, and either freeze to death or sweat to death in the humidity...or be robbed and shot.
How many of you guys would sleep in your open no heat/ac car in every state across the nation? How many of you would sleep in your open car with no a/c in Florida...during the day? in the middle of an asphalt jungle? with diesel fumes and engines running next to you? Just FYI, it was around 90 degrees F, 85% humidity here today.
And I've seen impromptu LANs (and pirated CD trading) set up at truck stops for gaming sessions. I'd say truckers, as a whole, are probably more tech savvy than they'll ever get credit for.
A friend of mine is currently driving and gets around 35 cents / mile. That ends up being around $21/hour. Much less than $40/hr, but slightly more than your $15. That's hauling non-hazmats in the midwest (Wisconsin).
Only if you don't count the time waiting for a load to be loaded/unloaded/dispatched, waiting at a truck stop, being snowed in, driving more miles than the company's software says it takes, being stuck in traffic, etc., etc.
Truckers make a lot less than $21/hour, if just for the fact that they spend a lot of time not working but not able to go home.
Perhaps you haven't run into the problem yet where 7Zip won't open some ZIP files, but WinRAR will? I've run into it a few times, and it's annoyed me to no end that I can't just run 7Zip.
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First off, you started your story thusly:
in which you quote $40,000 in licensing costs for 2 Windows 2000 Servers and a "small corporate network". I then preceded to show that as completely and utterly ridiculous. You then decided that you'd like to change your network to:
where you still come up $10,000 short of your original quote, despite transforming from a "small corporate network" with 2 servers, into a 200 user network with 4 servers.
Secondly, you've evidently never heard or bothered to look up per server and per seat licensing modes, despite the quite obvious choice Windows gives you when you add licenses or set up a new server. If you had known this, you could've saved over $20,000 just on the CAL add packs.
But, you decided that it was better to dig to the bottom than jump out now. So, you proceed to demonstrate your complete and total ignorance of MSFT's licensing model when you stated:
which, once again, shows you have no concept of per seat licensing mode and when it's advantageous to use it. You also, evidently, have confused concurrent users with your "potential" users.As a coup de grace, in case anyone doubted your ineptness with MS products, you state that:
for 6 servers, 2 of which are BDC's (which, BTW, don't exist in Windows 2000 Server or AD, but I digress), and 1 of which is a simple file server.
After this less than stellar performance, I'd suggest you call someone a bit more familiar with MS products next time, check out one of MS's licensing webinars, avoid doing cost comparisons altogether, or getting a job with Enron's accounting department or the Gartner Group-where your math and research skills will fit right in.
Oh, and BTW, I never stated there was a cost benefit. Obviously, comparing the CAL prices of a free(beer) Linux and SAMBA distro with Windows would never show a cost benefit in MS's direction. I only ask that you if you're going to discuss licensing costs that you know what the hell you're talking about, instead of enveloping the rest of /. with your cloud of FUD and confusion.
Well, since you state that the migration cost you $25,000, most of which was salary...let's assume $10,000 was for HW (a split of 60/40 in salary/hadrware costs). Going back to your $180,000 quote, with the $40,000 in MSFT licensing, and the $10,000 in hardware gives you $130,000 in salary "for the Microsoft guys to help set it up"? That's a crapload of help....Let's see, that's about FOUR months of TWO full-time (40 hours per week) consultants (at $100/hour). You either have one wack job of a setup to migrate, are completely clueless on Windows and need extensive training, or are mistaken on your $$ costs.
Oh yeah, and you didn't get Exchange, or I assume, an equivalent groupware solution.
Of course, in the end, you do have a solution which you're comfortable with. And that is important. An admin needs to be comfortable with the systems he's administrating. And I don't expect you to set yourself up out of a job. However, let's be honest when discussing the costs of MSFT...at least with each other. You can tell the PHB's whatever you want.
Since Windows 2000 Server with 25 CALs is about $1600, and additional 20 CAL packs are $670, it would seem to me that your "small corporate network" is somewhere around 1150 nodes. Even if you use per-server licensing mode, you'd still be able to purchase about 600 CALs for EACH server for $40,000. I think your small network ain't so small, or you miscalculated your prices. Oh, and note that one of MSFT's licensing programs would get you a cheaper license price as well, but I didn't take that into effect.
FWIW, I've used MDaemon Pro (POP3/SMTP/IMAP/LDAP server) for years now, and have been very happy with it.
I know of some issues having to do with registering DLL's and install programs, but they can be fixed by reenabling and reinstalling. For most production environments, though, this shouldn't be mch of an issue as install programs aren't run very often.
That being said, if they tuned Windows then they should have tuned Samba as well...that's only fair. ;)
What typical production applications, specifically, will this break? AFAIK (and MS, it will only break 16-bit applications that can't deal with long filenames. Obviously, if you have that in a production environment, you should probably replace it. Barring that, don't disable 8.3.
Not long, I'd suspect. Note that this program was out way before this debacle, and has many othe ruses, but should suffice for this particular case as well.
AutoIt running in a loop checking for the window would probably work too...and of course, a real programmer should have no trouble with dismissing these buttons...the only question, is will they be sued for trying?
IIRC, the server was a low end Dell Poweredge (the ones that come standard with a 7200RPM IDE drive). I think a single PIII in the I've also had 60-70 users on dual processor servers running database apps and custom software. At 75 users, the server would start to drop connections, and we had to put another server in. It really all depends on the apps.
My advice would be to set up a test server. MS has scripts you can use to load test. I'd guess that with a dual processor, 1GB RAM, Ultra160 server you should be able to serve 100+ office users. Up it to a quad Xeon, 2GB RAM and you should approach 200 users/server. It could be higher or lower depending on the applications and usage patterns of your employees, of course. If they all use the same apps (Word, Excel, etc.) then one nice thing is that the EXEs and DLLs only get loaded once, so you'll really save on memory. But if they're all working on 250 page documents, then you'll still have to worry about RAM. I assume, of course, that these will be dedicated terminal servers, since you're talking so many users.
Here (PDF) is a good whitepaper on the subject. It's part MS propaganda, of course, but there's alot of good info in it and the numbers aren't too far off reality. Like I said though, the only real answer is it depends on your usage patterns.
As for increasing IT staff, I don't know how many you have (staff or servers) now, but adding 5-10 terminal servers shouldn't be a very large burden. I'd set up the terminal servers identically, and then you can script or Ghost a new install. Data would be stored on existing file servers, so you don't even need to back up the terminal servers.
Thin clients would be your least hassle option, but as you've no doubt found out...they're expensive. Yesterday's hardware running Windows 2000 or XP Pro should be more than sufficient though. Unfortunately, it doesn't release you from the patch management cycle, but with 1000+ users you should hopefully already have something in place to handle that already.
So, you're question is can you save money doing this? I'd say no, not right now. I'd guess that your current hardware is sufficient to run your current apps (Office, Groupwise, etc.) so you won't save money in that respect. 1000 users demands some sort of patch and application management. You'll still have the patch management issues, and whatever you're using for application management (GPOs, SMS, etc.) is already licensed. No costs savings there. You'll need 5-10 more servers + operating systems to purchase and maintain. You'll need to keep some desktop support staff to deal with the underlying OS on your client machines, as well as your users who won't be running terminal services. So, unless you have an abundance of desktop techs, I don't think you'll save money there either. Your admins will still need to maintain the current servers, plus the additional 5-10. A server outage will take down 100-200 users, though they can be load balanced to running servers on reconnect, but they'll still lose their current state.
On the positive side, desktop issues can be taken care of quicker and with less legwork. Software upgrades are easier and quicker, requiring less staff. Backup is centralized (if it's not already).
On the whole, I'd say unless you regularly upgrade your PC's or software, are due for a HW/SW upgrade, or have a lot of desktop techs you'll be out about the cost of the servers. But, that's just a guess. I only tend to use TS in remote user environments, or in no admin remote offices to avoid most travel issues. I've never been convinced of a benefit to most companies in using it in place of desktop PC's.
Well, I don't think you could buy a replacement for the rights to life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness (or property)...those are the things my "Father" gave to me. So I would be very sad indeed.
That's because you need different stuff than I do, for example. Some MS exec once said that even though Word users only use 10% of the features, they all use a different 10%.
Solution? Modularity. We should be able to pick and choose which options to install. Office gets close with Windows Installer technologies and install on 1st use or disabled selections, but fails to remove all the clutter of the removed features...in effect only saving cheap and abundant disk space.
If you include Wine in the mix, then the answer is a resounding...sometimes.
Microsoft has offered free (as in beer) viewers for quite a while now.
You're in the minority. Based on a recent PCMagazine survey, WinME was the worst of the Microsoft OS's. For those interested, WinXP was tops for MS, OS X was tops overall, and Linux didn't get enough info to be included.
Also according to PCMagazine, Windows ME is a bit slower than 98SE. Not surprising, of course, with the System Restore and File Protection services running.
Amazingly enough, that's the only OS reliability survey I could come across. Though it does agree with my experiences in the field as well, so there you have it. Consider yourself lucky.
While I agree with you that Windows 9x and 2000 were the pinnacle of UI design for MS, my informal survey of non-technical users show that XP's interface is celarly preferred. And, my hunch is, that Longhorn's UI will build on XP's so that it will be just as "pretty", but more functional. All in all, that's a good thing...even if I don't particularly care for the looks of it, I'm more than capable of changing it.
Perhaps you should have read the article. This is about Longhorn, Microsoft's next desktop OS. And, of course, both MS's desktop and server OS's are making progress in stability, security, flexibility, etc.
Well, there's really a couple of different "gun cultures" in the US. First off, there's the hunters. They basically want guns to go out and shoot deer, quail, etc. with.
Secondly, there's the folks who want a gun (or 2 or 3, etc.) for protection of either self or property. Why not just ban guns outright and then people won't need to protect themselves? Well, perhaps due to our experiences with Prohibition (banning alcohol in the early 20th century, as well as drug prohibition) we've learned that you can't keep stuff out of the criminal's hands.
Third, there's an element who realizes what our Founding Fathers realized. That an armed populace is really the only defense against tyranny. Without guns, the colonists would have had a bitch of a time running the Revolution.
Truthfully, the 1st and 2nd groups far outweigh the 3rd. But the 3rd is more than happy to fight for the rights of the 1st and 2nd group, because if the time comes we're confident that Americans, by and large, will respond with whatever they have handy.
Okay...I'm curious. Why would cut down anyone "who's head stick up too far"?
If that doesn't fix it, you can check Peachtree's Knowledge Base, and the Peachtree Users Forum for other tips.
There is a key. Without it, your hard drive can not be "opened". Also, remember that ABit is a Taiwanese company, and their English tranlsations aren't always the best.
Speaking as a former waiter, I know that a good deal of a waiter's time is taken up by simply checking on fluid levels. And that some people will have a full glass of beer/water/whatever for 10 minutes, but then drain the entire glass in 60 seconds. Quite difficult to time that refill.
If the waiter no longer had to constantly monitor drinks, it would free them up to handle more customers and/or provide better service.
Perhaps the intent was the same, but it's a hell of a lot harder to prove in the second case than in the first. And the law isn't about what happened, it's about what you can prove happened.
You don't say what your backup plans are, but a 20/40GB DDS4 tape drive is going to set you back a pretty penny. And don't forget the tapes. You can go with a Travan drive for about half the price, but the tapes are more expensive...and IMO they're crap.
You also don't say how large the websites will be, or what type of email you'll be doing (POP? IMAP? Web?) but you may want to think about how much diskspace you'll need. I'd think 36GB is plenty (5MBx250 for email (~1.25GB )+ 100MBx100 for websites (~10GB) + 30% = ~15GB.)
If you're really expecting to upgrade, you could get a dual CPU capable motherboard, but just get 1 CPU for now. Or, just plan on adding a second database server for the web sites later.
I'd estimate a 2.0+GHz P4 server, with 1GB RAM, DDS4 TBU, with 2x36GB SCSI drives in HW RAID-1 would run about $2,000 from Dell. Skimp on the CPU (down to a Celeron 1.5+GHz) and you can probably get around $1500 or so. You'd probably get a discount for non profit status. Oh, and don't forget a UPS.
About damn time somebody made this point. Everyone seems to think that if it were better for the engine, that truckers would just raise down the window, pop open the side window, and either freeze to death or sweat to death in the humidity...or be robbed and shot.
How many of you guys would sleep in your open no heat/ac car in every state across the nation? How many of you would sleep in your open car with no a/c in Florida...during the day? in the middle of an asphalt jungle? with diesel fumes and engines running next to you? Just FYI, it was around 90 degrees F, 85% humidity here today.
And I've seen impromptu LANs (and pirated CD trading) set up at truck stops for gaming sessions. I'd say truckers, as a whole, are probably more tech savvy than they'll ever get credit for.
Only if you don't count the time waiting for a load to be loaded/unloaded/dispatched, waiting at a truck stop, being snowed in, driving more miles than the company's software says it takes, being stuck in traffic, etc., etc.
Truckers make a lot less than $21/hour, if just for the fact that they spend a lot of time not working but not able to go home.
Perhaps you haven't run into the problem yet where 7Zip won't open some ZIP files, but WinRAR will? I've run into it a few times, and it's annoyed me to no end that I can't just run 7Zip.