As more and more DIY systems administrators arrive on the scene, courtesy of companies selling servers that apparently install themselves, the phenomenon of the Multi-Purpose Server has emerged. My rude awakening came when a nervous gentleman cornered me during my morning charge to the local deli. As I lined up to order my bacon buttie, he wondered out loud if I could rectify a “small” problem with a server he had recently purchased from Dell. Apparently he had spent long nights trying to get his "out-of-the-box network" operational and, under pressure from his boss, reluctantly agreed to seek outside help. Having come up against the standard “not our hardware” response from other tech firms in the area, he finally opted for what he must have assumed to be an unregistered charity. When I arrived on-site and entered our friend’s office, the first thing to behold was a wobbly mains adaptor hanging precariously from a 13A outlet. Its troubled existence was betrayed by a sickly