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  1. Re:Dell innovated in bussiness processes. on An Engineer's View of Carly Fiorina's Leadership · · Score: 1

    Yeah. Maybe you just didn't comprehend my comment. Yeah, that would explain it.

  2. Re:Solaris 2.5.1? Yes, it's still about. on Windows 2003 and XP SP2 Vulnerable To LAND Attack · · Score: 1

    Moving *away* from Sendmail? Yes, you are fucking mad.

  3. Re:Ask your boss! on A Fair Telecommuting Budget? · · Score: 1

    I wouldn't do it for free. It saves the company big time if an employee telecommutes. Think of all the various facility expenses involved in a physical structure for each and every employee. Cleaning expenses, office supplies, company computer(s), office space, insurance for another butt in a seat in a gievn building, etc. It costs companies big time to put a butt in a company-owned seat. I would, at the very least, itemize by percentage of office space your office takes for rent, 100% of 'Net access, an appropriate portion of your electrical bill, the proper percentage of your environmental bill (AC/heat), etc. Yes, it will save you certain expenses to work from home (gas, eating out, dress clothes, etc) but it will also cost you a lot of money. Don't do it for free.

  4. Re:Look to the IRS on A Fair Telecommuting Budget? · · Score: 1
    I've done this on my taxes for the past couple of years. IIRC 21% of my last home was compromised of my home office. I took off 21% of my rent as a business expense. I had a lab of networking gear in that room that was on 24/7. I calculated that approximately 50% of my electrical bill was due to all the equipment. I spent on average 10 hours each business day in that room working. 50 hours out of a 168 hour week is about 30%. 30% of my environmental costs (read: AC/heat, water, sewer, trash) was written off as a home office expense (assuming a constant consumption/production rate for each of the items). I wrote off 100% of my Internet access as a business expense. Because I was working from home I had 2 Internet connection (reliability issues), one of which was an ubber high speed DSL line. The figure was probably a little over-simplified but the way I saw it I wouldn't have had the second connection at all if I didn't have the home office and I wouldn't have had the really really expensive DSL connection either. It made figuring it easier at least. I didn't have a regular budget for books, misc office supplies, etc but I did keep the receipts and logged all those purchases into a spreadsheet.

    A good spreadsheet is of critical importance to figuring your business expenses. I entered each and every bill into a row dedicated to that particular company. I then took a sum of that row times whatever percentage of an expense that bill fell under and put the result on a final sheet. Very handy time saver. Just make sure you keep up with your spreadsheet. My accountant sure liked my method.

    I almost forgot, one other business expense that everyone (including myself) always forgets is cleaning expenses. Don't forget to allot a certain amount of time for cleaning your home office. If you were to hire someone to do it for you each week you'd pay them for a good hour of work (vacuum carpet, wash windows, dust, etc..). Don't forget that percentage expense of your overall cleaning budget.

  5. Re:was a change required? on Wells Fargo Web-Enables ATMs · · Score: 1
    I decided to save my mod points and reply to your comment instead.

    "It uses regular Windows" should be "They use regular Windows"; plurality matters.

    Actually, his initial use of the word "Windows" was correct. "Windows(tm)" is singular, not plural. However the rest of his comment was thoroughly borked.

  6. Re:Dell innovated in bussiness processes. on An Engineer's View of Carly Fiorina's Leadership · · Score: 1

    By "PCs" I'm assuming you're referring to x86 Windows-based platforms. Because if you aren't then you're mistaken. Apple was actually taking orders and custom building Macs online via the Apple Store before Michael Dell decided it was a good idea and followed suit.

  7. On the contrary on FCC to Fine Curses More Than Nuke Violations · · Score: 1
    twat

    n 1: a man who is a stupid incompetent fool [syn: fathead, goof, goofball, bozo, jackass, goose, cuckoo, zany]

  8. Re:basement bad on Considerations for Raised Floor Installation? · · Score: 1

    Not a problem. Keep the humidity level to a normal level of about 44%.

  9. Re:Quotations out of context on Preparing for the Broadcast Flag? · · Score: 1

    Your post certainly doesn't deserve a score of 0. To combat this, welcome to my friend's list.

  10. Re:Since the future is wireless... on Electronic Gadget Ideas for a New House? · · Score: 1

    Cool. Good luck with that.

  11. Re:Since the future is wireless... on Electronic Gadget Ideas for a New House? · · Score: 1

    What are you smoking? GigE does not require Cat6. GigE doesn't even require Cat5e. IEEE 802.3z's copper implementation runs on standard Cat5. IEEE 802.3z was ratified in 1998. Cat5e was ratified in late 2000. Cat6 wasn't even ratified until June 2002. You need to lay off the wacky weed my friend.

  12. Re:Since the future is wireless... on Electronic Gadget Ideas for a New House? · · Score: 1

    Really? Where at? I too am in KS.

  13. Re:straw? on Electronic Gadget Ideas for a New House? · · Score: 1

    Actually, I believe it's much older. Who's counting though? :-)

  14. Re:Enough on Apple Agrees to Hold Off on Subpoenas · · Score: 1

    You're missing an extremely obvious point. Apple is required by law to defend their trade secrets and trademarks OR THEY WILL LOSE THE PROTECTIONS GRANTED TO THEM. They have no choice in the matter. They either do due diligence and defend themselves now or they will have no resource later. It's not rock science folks. Apple's not being a bully. They're doing what they're required to do by law.

  15. Re:Isnt' against federal law? on Online Cigarette Customers Get Bill from State · · Score: 1

    And again that isn't possible. You can't assess a tax on zip code. You can find a single zip code with multiple school districts in it. School district A passes a bond that raise the tax in their district a cent. Should the other residents of that zip code that live in another school district be forced to pay the elevated tax as well? Where does their single cent increase go? It can't go to School District A. It's got to go some where. Taxing by zip code isnt' feasible and never will be. There will have to be a different solution.

  16. Re:Isnt' against federal law? on Online Cigarette Customers Get Bill from State · · Score: 1
    They do this to most out of state vehicles. My folks purchased a vehicle in Oklahoma because that was the only dealer in the that sold at invoice price. Oklahoma has no sales tax. When they brought it to Kansas to tag it the lovely state of Kansas charged sales tax on the sticker price of the vehicle. Notice I said sticker price of the vehicle and not how much was actually paid for it. If you happen to haggle your way down from $35 to $26, you still pay tax on $35. My folks didn't haggle though because there was nothing left to haggle with. They also got 2 or 3 rebates on that Dodge. The tax was on the invoice price of the Dodge before the rebates. They taxed the rebates too essentially. I raised a stink about it when back home and started inquiring with a number of state agencies. Eventually one guy pointed me to a vague statute that is read while drunk and on drugs with one eye closed and from across the room it might give them the ability to tax rebates by state statute. The statute however had an expiration date if you will that was long since passed. I replied to him and asked if there was a current statute since the one he'd directed me to had sunset many years prior. He never replied. Tax bastards.

  17. Re:Kansas on Panera Bread Is The Largest Provider Of Free WiFi · · Score: 1

    Yeah, that's an option. I've never been there but it's not too far from where I live. Optionally you could be like that kid that was arrested up here while wardriving, or warparking depending on how you look at it. A cop saw him parked in a parking lot working on his laptop at 12:30AM. Somehow the cop figured out the kid was hacking a server in a nearby building? Sure. I double as Roger Rabbit on the weekends too! :-) Anyhow, the kid was arrested and it made the morning radio news.

  18. Re:Kansas on Panera Bread Is The Largest Provider Of Free WiFi · · Score: 1

    I was simply going off there hot spot list. There's a Panera here in Wichita IIRC. I don't believe it has 'net access though. Their site says none of the KS ones do at least.

  19. Kansas on Panera Bread Is The Largest Provider Of Free WiFi · · Score: 1

    Well they sure aren't in Kansas yet. :-(

  20. Most annoying POS ever on Microsoft Anti-Spyware to Be Free of Charge · · Score: 1

    I first encountered this clusterfuck today at my new job. MS Anti-Spyware has got to be the most annoying fucking software I have ever encountered. It's worse that BlackICE Defender in the amount of frivolous BS it spits out. I can't see any possible use for it other than to greatly annoy the hell out of the user (even highly experienced users, not to mention novices) and chew up valuable CPU time. What a pain in the ass.

  21. RFID badges in primary education isn't a bad thing on Student RFID Tracking Suspended from School · · Score: 1
    I'm as much a civil rights buff as anyone else but I also like to regard myself as a reasonable and practical person. How could tracking a minor's school-related movements possibly be viewed as a negative thing? Do you people realize just how many children are mistakenly left on school buses? Do you realize just how many child abductions happen at schools? We had a school bus roll-over last year. We didn't have an accurate passenger manifest. Fortunately the bus didn't end up under water. But what if it had? How would they have known how many people were on that bus? How would the emergency responders known when to stop looking if they didn't know how many students, sponsors, and driving staff were in the bus? Lets look at a different scenario. What if the school had a fire? They take attendance, right? I attended an extremely tiny school by most people's standards. My school size was a fraction of most people's graduating class size. Still, even at my small school where one would think you could do anything without everyone knowing, people still managed to skip class or school undetected. They'd slip out a side door, spend the morning at another student's house in town or at the local gas station, and then slip back in again for lunch. After I graduated a student slipped out, drove across the state line, bought beer (or cigarettes, I forget which), and had a wreck on the way back to school. What would have been done if there'd been a fire while he was off on his little truant adventure? What if another student or two skipped school with him? If a minor's privacy worth the risk to emergency responders desparately trying to find an allegedly missing student in a school fire when the roll call came up a name or two short?

    Perhaps you also don't realize that school districts are legally responsible for each and every child from the time they get to school until the time they are sent or taken home. The minors are essentially in the custody of the school district for the duration of the day. If I was responsible for hundreds or thousands of minors and I answered to their parents I would certainly want to do everything in my power to ensure that they are where they're supposed to be and not our fucking around off-campus.

    I was a student at one point and time too. If my district had implemented this type of tracking policy when I was a student I would have hated it too. I would have fought it tooth and toenail. I'm not a child anymore, though. Hindsight really is 20/20. Being tracked and being kept more on the straight and narrow would have probably been a good thing for me and my classmates. We got away with a lot; too much. Someone could have seriously been hurt, or worse. In retrospect I would have welcomed the tracking when I was a minor. I think every single door should be monitored and logged. No one should get in or out without a log entry being made. I'm not so sure about bathrooms but I'm sure that the school administration have their reasons. I think every classroom door should also be monitored and logged. I think the students shouldn't be the only occupants of the structure to be tracked. I believe all faculty and staff should be monitored as well, that includes teaching staff, administrative staff, and facilities staff. No one should be without tracking. I also include on my list any and all visitors. This would be a major boon for school districts. One could prove after an accusation that no the janitor didn't break into bitchy student ABC's locker and steal her CD player. That janitor was on the other side of the building cleaning in the kitchen. Accusations like that happen all too often. A tracking system like this could greatly help put an end to problems such as these.

    That's my $0.02. I don't see it as a bad thing at all. I think the many major benefits more than outweigh the lack of negatives I haven't been able to think of. It's something that should happen IMHO.

  22. Uncle Sam on ChoicePoint Data Stolen By Imposters · · Score: 1

    They are in fact already doing this with another subset of our personal information: our medical history. HIPAA prevents anyone from accessing your medical data that you haven't authorized. I'm starting a new job tomorrow and had a pre-employment drug screening today. I asked the nurse if she needed to note any prescriptions I've had recently. The nurse said they couldn't even ask that; that only the lab people could ask that if something came up. If Congress can get a law passed that protects our medical history, why can't they pass one that protects our financial history?

  23. Re:Link please on What Do You Charge for Tech Support? · · Score: 1

    Thanks for the links. I use and recommend AdAware often but I've never used one of their commercial versions. AdWatch sounds pretty slick. I'll have to give that a try. Thanks again

  24. Re:Link please on What Do You Charge for Tech Support? · · Score: 1

    Thanks for the URLs. Too many of those search results looked like scams to me.

  25. Re:I'm in the same boat on What Do You Charge for Tech Support? · · Score: 1

    I never realized that. Maybe it's because I never had to replace either part in one. If the problem was that bad I'd simply recommend to the customer that they replace the machine. It would normally be cheaper anyhow, plus it's likely that it's time for an upgrade as well.