More MacBook Pro notes

• Setting up Active Directory required an AD's username/password, something it doesn't in Windows, but it bound itself nicely to the network and now my network shares do not require individual authentication to work.
• VPN on Request is a load of codswallop. It apparently was designed to respond to a specific set of APIs which are not generally used by cross-platform apps or protocols, SMB among them. This is important because adding network shares to your startup items apparently requires the VPN be on at my employer's, and VPN isn't set to automatically turn itself on from remote locations.
• The solution to this is to keep aliases to the automounted shares in the Documents folder, where they can be manually opened after switching on the VPN.
  
• Thunderbird is dog slow when running POPmail from a network share (please don't ask).

In general, this is beginning to work well.