Very slow booting and running and braindead OS's 4531

For mission-critical stuff, you build in redundancy.

I can pay a lot of dollars for a system that will run forever with no downtime, or I can pay a lot fewer dollars for three identical systems that will share the load, and when one fails or needs to be taken out of service, the other two can cover the load.

This is ugly and inelegant, but it works at a much lower price point.

See, I know enough about current hardware to lie to the techs. "What kind of computer are you running?" "Windows XP." "How fast is your processor?" "It's a Duron 2300." "Great!"

Of course, I'm really connecting to the 'net with an OpenBSD firewall, and there are no Windows machines behind that firewall. So I lie to the techs, I get a connection, none of us are out of our comfort zones, and everyone's happy.

(The only time this ever caused me problems was when the cable company insisted on sending out a tech to do an install. At that point, I had a spare box, and put Windows on so the tech would have something familiar to poke at.)

I have two spare modems with lights, both of them over a decade old. I haven't used them in ages; I'm keeping them in case someday I need them, I guess.

"Sorry, I don't use Microsoft software. If you insist on it, send me a PDF and I'll send you my changes."

(Which worked until work bought me Office and a computer specifically for running it. Still my main use for Office is converting Excel spreadsheets to CSV files so I can do useful things with them.)

Oh, I have. Fortunately, a great deal of current banking wisdom involves data formats, and bankers understand the importance of reading your data and not losing your data.

Charlton