I do sell IT surplus equipment and the real issue I see here is that the fees are about double that of eBay's. The exchange getting a 20% cut is a huge deal on the lower-end items. Combine this with their limited user base, general shopping practices, and small amount of value add, it's not worth the extra pricing information.

For instance: I have a stack of Cisco 2960G Switches. I can go to eBay, do a search for closed auctions, or go to any number of pricing services to get historical selling prices. Since these are common, I will have no issue seeing the buying range. I make a compelling ad, pay $0 to list and pay 10% on the final value and probably 2.7% on the payment end. I can make a compelling ad and create incentives to get people to use me instead some other seller.

Now take something like a Thin Client, KVM cables, Rack keyboards, etc: low volume, and low price. Same fees for eBay. Double for this exchange. AND no one is looking for them because it's geared towards the network hardware side of things.

While I think it's a good idea and if they can get people to pay that much for an automated pricing system, great. But I'll be skipping it for now.

The issue here wasn't that a security person took down the poster, it was rather than call someone higher up and ask "why the hell is a rent a cop touching my personal property?" he decided to go to name calling. That is not how things are done in business if you want to keep your job. You call your boss, he makes a call, a couple hours later either the matter is dropped and you put your poster back up or your boss calls you a douche for putting up a dumb poster. Either way, quick resolution.

But no, let's put up a new poster implying the security people were fascists. Because that will help. Now everyone gets called to the (metaphorical) principle's office because your couldn't handle it like an adult.

Oh and BTW, they took down a poster in your work environment, not beat you for stating political ideals. There's a difference.

Who cares? I don't devote myself to the geek arts for mainstream acceptance. I do it because shit gotta get hacked.

As bad as every other site that doesn't require https:// for login.

When I was working on the arrestor portion in 2001, we had a system controlling two linear induction motors attached to the arrestor cable. Turns out that yes, you can use this type of system to stop planes, it is effective in many situations where planes come in at odd angles (the system pulls the plane towards the center of the deck), and you can recover power from it.

However, if you wire the position encoders backwards, the motor cores eject quite violently as soon as the control system is turned on. Thankfully, interns are surprisingly good at dodging.

Actually, Windows 7 has Windows XP available as an option. It runs XP apps in a VM and displays the window as a native window on the 7 desktop. You would need to tweak the default install to get IE 6 on there (it ships with 8), but it's still cheaper over the long haul than not upgrading to windows 7.

Ya, I did it with Asterisk a while back. Found out accidentally when I dialed my cell phone while setting my call ID to my cell's number. So I tried it with a friend's number. Hilarity ensued.

If you're doing it to get department unity, or to get better visibility for your people so you can get the recognition for a good job, it's not a terrible idea. The trick is that you don't want the IT guys to dislike it, or so that users don't start pulling guys away from higher priority tasks due to the new visibility.

I know, I prefer wearing the uniform when I go out on calls (saves me from having to think about my outfit), but our shirts are actually comfortable and appropriate for the weather and clients we're servicing. That and as a small company, we really need to have a professional, unified image.

Having an internal team wear them just to be easier to stick out, or for reasons that don't help your team directly, will brew internal tension.