The Big Think

A New Zealand law firm by the name of Brookfields just spent $165,000 upgrading and adding to their existing Mac network. Their IT department voted against the plan to switch to PC’s because:

“Our IT staff numbers would need to double if we were to run the equivalent amount of PCs. “It is very easy to maintain a Mac network, we have just four staff who manage the website, intranet, staff training and support for 145 Macs. The purchase prices of the Macs is fine and the lifespan of a Mac appears to be a little longer. Most companies seem to be replacing PCs at three years. We’ve got six-year-old Macs on the network.”

Nice to see an I.T. department recommending Macs in order to keep costs down. More evidence that the old “Macs are more expensive” FUD is losing its effectiveness.

Wow. Some people have real talent.

ONE OF THE REASONS… sorry, caps lock was stuck. Ahem. One of the reasons I started a blog was to give myself an outlet to improve my writing. I’ve seen stuff on the web that tries so hard to be readable but somehow falls short. I’ve also seen prose that is transparent and easy to read, but sticks in the mind like a good poem. Posts that have this kind pointed clarity are what I strive for. To that end, holtuncensored has a great list of common writing errors and how to correct them. Good stuff if you’re a writer, or just want to be.

The kind of lock-in you don’t want to be part of. Work at Wal-Mart. Get ankle crushed. Don’t go anywhere because your manager has locked you in and threatened you job if you use the fire exit. Way to go Wal-Mart.

One night, shortly after closing time, Mr. Ellsworth had an asthma attack. “My inhaler hardly helped,” he said. “I couldn’t breathe. I felt I was going to pass out. I got fuzzy vision. I told the assistant manager I really needed to go to the hospital. He pretty much got in my face and told me not to leave or I’d get fired. I was having trouble standing. When I finally told him I was going to call a lawyer, he finally let me out.”

I have my old Mac G3 beige tower (yawn) sitting in the corner. The hard drives blew out about six months ago and I bit the bullet and got a new G4 (yes, Mark and Giles, I love the new box :).
The G3 is pining away looking for something useful to do, thought. All it needs is a hard drive lobotomy and I have 2 UW-SCSI drives ready to go. I just need the time to put it together.
Well, lo and behold, applefritter just published an article on how to put the G3 into “stealth mode” by painting it all black. I’m not necessarily going to go this route, but I now have a jonesing to case mod this thing. After Sing I think I’ll tackle it, then migrate it into the main home automation server. The current H.A. 8100 works great, but more power is always a good thing (grunt grunt).
Also, don’t miss the piano themed “maestro” and the other case-mods.