If you're looking to transition from Windows to Linux but your users are not technically inclined you may want to evaluate Linux XP Desktop 2008. Linux XP tries to emulate the look and feel of Microsoft Windows. The goal being to make the transition to Linux easier for those used to Microsoft like operating systems.

Grid computing has been around for over 12 years now and its advantages are many. Grid computing can be defined in many ways but for these discussions let's simply call it a way to execute compute jobs (e.g. perl scripts, database queries, etc.) across a distributed set of resources instead of one central resource. In the past most computing was done in silos or large SMP like boxes. Even today you'll still see companies perform calculations on large SMP boxes (e.g. E10K's, HP Superdomes).

I came across an article from Microsoft a few weeks back that claimed setting a blank password is more secure than setting simple passwords that most users choose.