We know. We all know that graphics don't equal fun. But....better graphics can absolutely help enhance games. I play my 360 on a 65" 1080p Plasma. I want it to look good on a display that size and the current consoles are woefully lacking. There is nothing I can think of that goes on a spec sheet that immediately equals better games..but the specs help to support the game devs vision.

We want an updated Xbox. I want an Xbox that can compete fairly well with modern PCs. I want to run games at 1080p and have them look good with high frame rate. I want it to be quiet. I want it to have a good online gaming experience, which honestly I think Live has done. I want good first party games. The problem is that the current consoles are old. They are outdated. My gaming has dropped off over time as the games and quality are lagging. Don't try to reinvent everything...I'm trying to make it easy for you. Give me a modern capable console.

It's a good thought, but you gloss over many things. First, not everyone has a good computer or Internet access. Second, can you imagine the support nightmare? I went through an online Masters program through a good school and it was almost impossible to get everyone online at the same time with working video conferencing. Tons of problems...tons of issues... Now add in to that people that just want their kid to go to middle school and you're setting yourself up for a lot of missed homework because the computer was infected..or Word kept crashing...or the Internet was down...etc.

The only way this works is to do it in parallel with traditional processes, which many schools now do. We're not at the point where we can cut over to all electronic communication just yet. I'd love to...but we aren't there yet. My son's preschool does a good bit online but many forms and other information still come home on a regular piece of paper.

To learn. My son is 3.5yo and can use an iPad better than most new adult users. I got him a Core2Duo iMac for a steal on Craigslist that he uses for PBSKids.org and other learning sites. If you don't have kids you'd be AMAZED at how fast they pick this stuff up. There isn't something magical about books that makes them the best learning tool. They can easily be supplemented with interactive learning from iPads and computers. My goal isn't to make him an IT geek. I don't give a damn what he does later as long as he is happy..it's to make technology extremely comfortable for him to use. When he gets older kids won't carry books..they'll have eBooks on a tablet. I want that to be as comfortable for him as it is now for me.

And pre-school is just school for younger kids. My son is in a Montessori pre-school with 3, 4, and 5 (kindergartners) year olds. He learns a lot. Now, some pre-schools are really just daycares so they aren't all equal so YMMV.

The problem with most tech positions is that there is a limit on what you can earn. Bill rates and returns on individual contributor or even team lead roles is only so much. What happens is that people in their mid-30s get the experience and understand the business and the industry well enough to move on to something else. They get tired of being on call. Get tired of the development cycle grind. Get tired of trying to keep up with tech while also having a life. So they move on to management, sales or other roles where they make more, and often, work less. It's a decision many people have to make at some point in the career.

Macs are no longer limited to graphics artists and web designers. While that market may not be what it was for Apple it's being more than made up for in other areas. I'm a Data Center Architect and use nothing but Macs. Cisco, EMC, and VMware now offer Macs as standard offerings for their SEs and field people and last I heard Cisco had gone 30% Mac in just a few months. It's rare I'm in a meeting with those guys where Mac is not the majority.

Pushing away professionals? Hardly. Nice link bait.

It does very little to the battery. It scales up in speed as needed and then back down to like 192MHz when idle. Mine is at 1.7GHz and battery has been just fine. After tweaks and OC it's not bad at all...especially for $149. Good enough that I sold my iPad 1.

Link to an easy walkthrough I did on tweaking the Touchpad:

http://jasonnash.com/2011/09/05/tweaking-that-new-hp-touchpad-you-just-got/

That's why I say sometimes I can't. But often I can install Prezi on it..just depends.

If you can help it, stop using PowerPoint. I do a lot of user group and technology evangelization presentations and I'm doing my best to stop using PP. Sometimes I don't have a choice as I can't control the presentation system (large presentations like VMworld, for example). But when I can I'm using Prezi. It really breaks you out of that bullet point process. You throw your talking points and ideas out on a "canvas" and build your thoughts from there. After making the move I've gotten a LOT of positive feedback on it. Even if you can't use Prezi you can get out of bullet points. When having to use PP I stick to a "conversational" style presentation. Very few bullet points and statements, graphics, simple sentences, etc. The slide is about a thought, not a list of points.

Thanks for the review. I'll grab a copy of this as well.

It's a little early to call the death of FCoE. We still can't really do a true FCoE environment. The firmware to enable multi-hop FCoE on switches is just now starting to ship. Up to now all we've done is single-hop where the storage is directly connected to the same switch as the end devices...which is not scalable. I have a lot of customers doing 10Gb NFS (I do a lot of VMware) but for true high performance the choice is still Fibre Channel and those same customers are the ones looking heavily at FCoE.

Slow to hire? I know a number of companies that still can't find people. It's all about your skillset right now. If you're in the Carolinas and know VMware and/or Storage and/or Cisco Data Center Networking you need to email me. I need people ASAP.

Many employees worry about WebSense and other logging apps but in my experience, those apps aren't what gets you in to trouble. I've never seen an investigation start with the logs...but I have seen a couple of senior execs fall after the board started an inquiry in to some internal financial issues and the investigators found porn on the execs computers. As soon as they find out they go pull the web logs and then things spiral. So often these logs aren't really the target of the investigators, but if they're looking for something else they sure can hang you. Like I said, I've seen a few people get taken down for things like this when the actual investigation found they did nothing wrong.

So be careful. Don't be an idiot. Don't be the CEO looking at porn at work when you can do it at home. It just doesn't make sense. What's sad is I'm sure some of these guys look at porn at work because their wife gets mad at home. Nice job honey. :)

Trade schools exist...they are just Community College now. You can go to a CC and become a certified welder or pipe fitter. The problem is that CC has an unwarrented stigma attached to it. So it's seen as a "Oh..he went to Community College...oh well.".

Yes, some of us do. I'm using a 27" iMac right now with one. My MacBook Pro also has a glossy screen. I probably use the combination of these two devices 10 or 12 hours per day, or more. Most of my time is spent indoors when working but I use it outdoors as well. Not a perfect solution but just get an anti-glare cover for the screen. Use that outside and take it off inside.

I'm sure that's the case for some people, but when there are iPads EVERYWHERE amongst 12K network guys at a show like this, that tells you something and it's more than marketing. I have seen exactly one non-iPad tablet in the last 3 days at Cisco Live and that was an older Windows tablet. Poor guy. But if you choose to believe it's all marketing, go for it..but it's not. Same reason I carry an iPhone 4 right now. I looked at the Droid, EVO, and others before I bought this new one. No one had the usability of it. I use my phone and my iPad every single day. I don't care I can't run a web server on it, that's not my use case. I don't care that I have to go through the app store (in most cases), the tradeoff is well worth it.