Find a local leasing company that is selling their computers that have just returned from being leased. If you need computers in your office, you will pay less than half price for barely used computers. Most leasing companies lease to places like lawyers offices and such who turn out to use computers very little (it's mostly their secretaries). If you have a budget for needed equipment, it will reduce costs.
p.s. to some of the people out there, what kind of IT department needs to do work that can't be done on a P4 1.8GHz vs a P4 3.0GHz?
No joke. Everytime there's a lightning storm around here, we get about 2 dozen of our dialup customers coming in saying that "yalls intraweb don't work." Of course when we tell them that we weren't kidding when we said to make sure their phone line went through the surge protector (which to tell you the truth only works about half the time). We make $15 bucks on each modem. So I like my job.
For friends and family, if it takes me less than an hour, I charge nothing. If it takes me longer, they have to make or pay for dinner.
On the job: $75 per hour on site for PC repair, cleanup, and networking issues.
One the job: $60 per hour in shop for cleanup, repairs, upgrades, etc (this usually ends up being either 1 or 2 hours worth of service plus the cost of parts or antivirus software).
And unlike our local competitors, we do not start charging time until we get there and analyze the situation. We give a quote for how long it will take, and if they decide for us not to go ahead, we only charge a half hour of our time.
Why don't they (the fans) just promise to buy all of the products advertised during the commercials? Isn't that what commercials are for - to pay for the TV shows you are watching?
How long will it take for the new subdivision I moved into to appear within the online maps? Really, I'm just curious how often these sort of things get updated. There's already a couple hundred people living in my new subdivision, and I'm terrible at giving directions. I have to tell all my out of state friends to meet at a location we both know and have them follow. Well anyway, I'll live somehow, but I thought it was a valid questions.
I'm sure it's not really Paypal's contact number. It's a 402 area code, which is in Nebraska. Nebraska is nortorious for having the original "outsourced" call centers before they went to India. I use to work in one myself getting calls from people (using a major internet service provider) who had a problems with their e-mail/internet. Good luck actually trying to get a hold of someone at paypal.
is Windows users. Where I work we sell and repair computers as well as provide internet. When something goes wrong with someone's computer, it's always our fault. So they don't pay their internet bill and come back to us six months later saying that we broke their computer and want us to fix it or give us a refund. Nevermind that they clicked on all of the smiley face pop-ups they ever see and that their 14 year old boy learned how to bypass the family-friendly content filter to download pr0n. Nevermind that they disabled their Norton AntiVirus while online since it wouldn't allow them to access some cool website or that their bank requested their credit card number and password. Nevermind that when the power went out they had their computer plugged into the clearly labelled surge protector side of the battery backup and when it came back up they decided to bypass that "little blue LinkSUS" and plug straight into their cable router because something kept saying it needed to connect to their computer. Nevermind that this happens on a weekly basis...
Where I work, the president of the company is also the mayor of the town of couple hundred people. We provide dial-up and high speed wireless to the local area. He actually provides city hall with free access because so many of the people around here use our internet. Many of the residents also are members of the city council or hold other positions where they need access to the various databases on the city hall servers. Just thought I would throw in a real world example of what you're talking about. It's a situation where a company was willing to invest in a small town, and the town, in turn gives to the company without having it run by local government.
Local Libraries and Slashdot, what a team. Every time I hear of a book mentioned on/. I go to my local library's web page and place a hold. I am number 70 on the list today for this book now. I'm still waiting for a couple O'Reilly books to come to me from a while ago. Please someone tell me if it is worth reading so I can decide if I want to cancel my hold.
Educational institutions do many different things which do not lead to direct monetary benefits. Young college students with a Comp Sci background and something to prove could definately go for a similar challenge. Look at the last DARPA competition we all remember and see how many of those teams were students.
What you need to do is go ahead and send me all of those PIII laptops you have available, and I'll configure all of them for you and send them back... I promise! While you're at it, you might as well send me the sound cards and wireless gear, too. Do you visit ebay very often? No? Excellent...
HP develops product with strange name and amazing powers!
People, check out their site. They do this kind of stuff all the time. It's research - not an actual product. Why aren't there stories like this every time they have a press release?
Check out this announcement that declares an extension of Moore's law for 50 years!
Ease of installation: yes!
Security: yes!
Updates: it's so good, they made it run off a CD!
Ease of administration: who needs hard drives!
Support: burn a new CD!
Check out this review to learn a little bit more about the Pentium M. According to their information, and what I saw on Intel's website - the Pentium M's can have a juntion temperature of 100 degrees C (where the proc meets the paste). They ran their Pentium M at 35.5 degrees C overclocked to 2.53GHz!!! They said that P4s idle at 53 degrees C. So I would say this is pretty good. Someone else is more than welcome to find other temperatures for a more balanced comparison.
Real world example: My church has always uses a dual display machine to display words to music as well as promotional videos projected on the wall. Recently they spent the money on a new Dell Dimension and had a "dual-display" Matrox installed as an upgrade. Unfortunately, the program we use, MediaShout, has some issues with Matrox (which they said on the website, but non-techies didn't know where to look). The backgroud video gets choppy when we play a movie behind text. So I was able to get a real cheap GeForce FX 5200 that works much better, and at a lower price than the Matrox. Turns out that Matrox isn't very compatible with presentation software like this in other cases as well. So I don't know if Matrox is a good choice anymore.
Slashdot Mirror
Find a local leasing company that is selling their computers that have just returned from being leased. If you need computers in your office, you will pay less than half price for barely used computers. Most leasing companies lease to places like lawyers offices and such who turn out to use computers very little (it's mostly their secretaries). If you have a budget for needed equipment, it will reduce costs.
p.s. to some of the people out there, what kind of IT department needs to do work that can't be done on a P4 1.8GHz vs a P4 3.0GHz?
Ok, all you budding graphic artists out there thinking about entering the contest can all go home now.
What if we're already past the event horizon of a supermassive black hole in the center of our galaxy? How much time do you predict we have left?
No joke. Everytime there's a lightning storm around here, we get about 2 dozen of our dialup customers coming in saying that "yalls intraweb don't work." Of course when we tell them that we weren't kidding when we said to make sure their phone line went through the surge protector (which to tell you the truth only works about half the time). We make $15 bucks on each modem. So I like my job.
For friends and family, if it takes me less than an hour, I charge nothing. If it takes me longer, they have to make or pay for dinner.
On the job: $75 per hour on site for PC repair, cleanup, and networking issues.
One the job: $60 per hour in shop for cleanup, repairs, upgrades, etc (this usually ends up being either 1 or 2 hours worth of service plus the cost of parts or antivirus software).
And unlike our local competitors, we do not start charging time until we get there and analyze the situation. We give a quote for how long it will take, and if they decide for us not to go ahead, we only charge a half hour of our time.
Yeah, but can it run a beowulf cluster of linux korean old people in soviet russia---
Oh, forget it.
When I clicked on the link in the article expecting to see some fried eggs and instead there was this.
I WILL NEVER USE A LAPTOP AGAIN
Why don't they (the fans) just promise to buy all of the products advertised during the commercials? Isn't that what commercials are for - to pay for the TV shows you are watching?
How long will it take for the new subdivision I moved into to appear within the online maps? Really, I'm just curious how often these sort of things get updated. There's already a couple hundred people living in my new subdivision, and I'm terrible at giving directions. I have to tell all my out of state friends to meet at a location we both know and have them follow. Well anyway, I'll live somehow, but I thought it was a valid questions.
I'm sure it's not really Paypal's contact number. It's a 402 area code, which is in Nebraska. Nebraska is nortorious for having the original "outsourced" call centers before they went to India. I use to work in one myself getting calls from people (using a major internet service provider) who had a problems with their e-mail/internet. Good luck actually trying to get a hold of someone at paypal.
Then YOU can pay our next monthly bill when it doubles using someone other than MCI.
is Windows users. Where I work we sell and repair computers as well as provide internet. When something goes wrong with someone's computer, it's always our fault. So they don't pay their internet bill and come back to us six months later saying that we broke their computer and want us to fix it or give us a refund. Nevermind that they clicked on all of the smiley face pop-ups they ever see and that their 14 year old boy learned how to bypass the family-friendly content filter to download pr0n. Nevermind that they disabled their Norton AntiVirus while online since it wouldn't allow them to access some cool website or that their bank requested their credit card number and password. Nevermind that when the power went out they had their computer plugged into the clearly labelled surge protector side of the battery backup and when it came back up they decided to bypass that "little blue LinkSUS" and plug straight into their cable router because something kept saying it needed to connect to their computer. Nevermind that this happens on a weekly basis...
Mexico? all my e-mails tell me to go to Canada!
Where I work, the president of the company is also the mayor of the town of couple hundred people. We provide dial-up and high speed wireless to the local area. He actually provides city hall with free access because so many of the people around here use our internet. Many of the residents also are members of the city council or hold other positions where they need access to the various databases on the city hall servers. Just thought I would throw in a real world example of what you're talking about. It's a situation where a company was willing to invest in a small town, and the town, in turn gives to the company without having it run by local government.
Check this out to get rid of that happening all the time. Plus, Google the has the luxury of accessing your site wilst MSNbot does not.
Local Libraries and Slashdot, what a team. Every time I hear of a book mentioned on /. I go to my local library's web page and place a hold. I am number 70 on the list today for this book now. I'm still waiting for a couple O'Reilly books to come to me from a while ago. Please someone tell me if it is worth reading so I can decide if I want to cancel my hold.
"The Samsung is only $50 with a two-year commitment, sir."
Ah, yes, the "would you like fries with that" for the technology age.
Educational institutions do many different things which do not lead to direct monetary benefits. Young college students with a Comp Sci background and something to prove could definately go for a similar challenge. Look at the last DARPA competition we all remember and see how many of those teams were students.
What you need to do is go ahead and send me all of those PIII laptops you have available, and I'll configure all of them for you and send them back... I promise! While you're at it, you might as well send me the sound cards and wireless gear, too. Do you visit ebay very often? No? Excellent...
HP develops product with strange name and amazing powers!
People, check out their site. They do this kind of stuff all the time. It's research - not an actual product. Why aren't there stories like this every time they have a press release?
Check out this announcement that declares an extension of Moore's law for 50 years!
You can make money by spamming people? Where do I sign up?!
search
It's got to be rigged, google and msn aren't the top ones.
Ease of installation: yes!
Security: yes!
Updates: it's so good, they made it run off a CD!
Ease of administration: who needs hard drives!
Support: burn a new CD!
Who needs updates!
Check out this review to learn a little bit more about the Pentium M. According to their information, and what I saw on Intel's website - the Pentium M's can have a juntion temperature of 100 degrees C (where the proc meets the paste). They ran their Pentium M at 35.5 degrees C overclocked to 2.53GHz!!! They said that P4s idle at 53 degrees C. So I would say this is pretty good. Someone else is more than welcome to find other temperatures for a more balanced comparison.
Real world example: My church has always uses a dual display machine to display words to music as well as promotional videos projected on the wall. Recently they spent the money on a new Dell Dimension and had a "dual-display" Matrox installed as an upgrade. Unfortunately, the program we use, MediaShout, has some issues with Matrox (which they said on the website, but non-techies didn't know where to look). The backgroud video gets choppy when we play a movie behind text. So I was able to get a real cheap GeForce FX 5200 that works much better, and at a lower price than the Matrox. Turns out that Matrox isn't very compatible with presentation software like this in other cases as well. So I don't know if Matrox is a good choice anymore.