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The guy on the right.. Pictured at a football match.

I indeed understand where you are coming from.
FYI, there are car stereo units that read AAC. (or ogg, or both) There are many and they aren't rediculously expensive. Maybe 30-50$ more than just an MP3/WMA head unit. This one even supports ID3. Last I checked, that might be a tad cheaper than buying a new Ipod, no? Also AAC for head units has been around for as long as AAC's been around, just was only on like high end pioneer units and has moved down to mainstream as all technology evolves.

What's the enormous benefit of controlling that way through your stereo when your ipod does it better? I'm not a fan of the pod, but the way the wheel interacts can't really be matched on your stereo. Any stereo that supports ID3 supports directory up/down and sometimees playlist navigation. There are no systems that can mimic the Ipod via the car, because it simply isn't the ipod itself. Make a scroll wheel on the back of a car steering wheel and I would buy one and an Ipod myself. However, it might be hard to do (I wouldn't know).

Beyond that, cars don't play quality above 128kbps very noticably well. Even a $500 speaker system in a car coupled with a 500$ head unit won't match supersampled audio @ home theatre. What's the point of acting like Ipod represents some sort of extreme quality when even if you did 256kbps aac through your stereo, your audio can't truly play such quality? Reencoding from a lossy codec to a lossless, means you don't lose quality.You already lost your quality by the time it was encoded into the lossy format (aac). Where ya goin with that one? Also note the difference can (codec dependant) be beyond minute and still have a small amount of lossy quality going on. That is something certain types of AAC happen to be superb at, FYI.

Issues that become non-issues means they were trivial in the first place and unlikely that normal consumers will notice or care. I'm not trying to flame you, both of us perhaps have misconceptions to squash regarding the Ipod.

Sorry, but here in the States, anyone may take photographs of whatever they want when they are in a public place, as long as there is no specific statute or ordinance in place prohibiting such activity (military bases, etc.)

Obviously no details have been released yet, but we can at least speculate (I reorganized your questions):

Is it an additional add-on? (I'd assume it is, with a remote.) If so, how much does it cost?

Seeing as this would be a huge marketing thing if it was built in, I think we can assume that this would have to be an add-on. The PS3 has USB ports, so I'm thinking that's an obvious connection method.

Does it support CableCard?

I don't think we can answer that definitively, but seeing as they already make a digital entertainment product with a CableCard slot, it's possible that this could happen. At least we know they have the infrastructure in place to produce devices with CableCard slots, and are aware that this might be a good thing to include.

Does it support HD? (I'd assume it does.)

Obviously we don't know, but we could go either way here - to support digital and HD cable subscriptions you'd think they'd definitely have to include it. But I have to speculate what their content protection would be on any recorded content. Of course, seeing as the PS3 supports HDMI 1.3, I think it's safe to say this device, if it comes to fruition, definitely would support HD content.

How does it compare to other DVRs? Specifically, does it require a subscription? Offer TV listings? Offer suggestions?

I can't answer that, but my link above to the Sony Vaio XL3 gets a pretty decent, but not perfect, review from CNET. I imagine it won't be a Tivo, but for people like me who don't want to own a Tivo, I'm hoping that this will be an adequate solution. Particularly if you can access the device from within the PS3's linux distro...

Can it record while a game is playing? While a movie (DVD/Blu-Ray) is playing?

If we follow through with the assumption that the device is external, I don't expect it to draw too much power from the PS3 itself. Given that you currently can download content from the web while watching a movie or playing a game, I think that this feature is a must-have, but maybe not available initially. As with the PSP and PS3, I see them following the trend of releasing good hardware with limited features and patching with firmware releases as time goes on.

Does it use the same hard drive that games use? Will they be competing for available space?

Seeing as the ability to connect external devices is built into the current Sony firmware, I don't see how they can not allow you to use an external hard drive or memory card. Of course, the content will be encrypted, so mobility will be an interesting issue...but the ability to take recorded content on the road with your PSP is very intriguing.

Just as a technical aside - I have a Sony Ericsson K800i (came free as part of an 18 month contract with "Three" in the UK) and this supports: UMTS / GSM 900 / GSM 1800 / GSM 1900. The US uses GSM 1900 for it's implementation and my phone works out there.

Also, for all the posters getting excited about the iPhone's EDGE capabilities: EDGE is pathetic, it is capable of 90Kbps max. In the UK (and I believe most of Europe) everything has moved over to 3G ala UMTS which gives a reliable 300-400Kbps.

My plan gives me unlimited internet surfing, 5MB download to phone quota, 300 free minutes any network any time and 100 free SMS messages for USD $60/month (don't forget the high exchange rate atm) and as I signed up for 18 months I got the phone for free.

CNET quick guide to mobile/cell phone speeds: http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3504_7-5664933-5.html

In theory, you are correct. However:
    http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-8900_7-5581176-1.html

The issue in a nutshell is the cable providers would prefer you to use their box, because Cablecard didn't support 2-way connectivity (not yet). And since the cablecards aren't that common, hardly any TV's (even high-end) have a cablecard slot.

It would have been simpler to go with DVB.

the LG VX3400 http://reviews.cnet.com/cell-phones/lg-vx3400-veri zon-wireless/4505-6454_7-32070685.html

Per Cnet review "

The good: The LG VX3400 is a basic phone with a bare minimum of features. It has a compact design and a comfortable keypad, and features a speakerphone.

The bad: The external screen of the LG VX3400 is monochrome, and personalization options are limited. There's also no Web browser.

The bottom line: The LG VX3400 is one of the best basic phones we've laid our hands on, with simple and easy-to-use controls and a great compact design.
"

Samsung announced one that is plain and simple. They even have one that is just for emergencies.

Adobe Flash exploit could log keystrokes
By Dawn Kawamoto, CNET News.com
16/07/2007
URL: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/security/0,39044215, 62028443,00.htm

Adobe has issued three critical security updates, one of which is designed to stop a problem in the way the Flash player interacts with browsers, which could result in users' keystrokes being transmitted to attackers.

Adobe Flash Player 9.0.45.0, 8.0.34.0 and 7.0.69.0, as well as their earlier versions running on all platforms, are affected.

Users loading a malicious vector graphics file format (SWF) in their Flash Player may find attackers exploiting security flaws due to an input validation error in 9.0.45.0 and earlier versions, according to a security advisory from Secunia. Attackers, as a result, can gain remote access to a user's system.

In versions 7.0.69.0 and earlier running on Linux and Solaris, malicious attackers could exploit an error in the interaction between the Flash Player and certain browsers. That could potentially lead to a leaking of keystrokes to a Flash Player applet, Secunia noted. Flash Player 9 is not affected.

Versions 8.0.34.0 and earlier contain a bug due to insufficient validation of the HTTP referrer. As a result, an attacker could execute a cross-site forgery attack. Flash Player 9, however, is not affected.

Adobe recommends that 9.0.45.0 users upgrade to 9.0.47.0 for Windows, Mac and Solaris, or 9.0.48.0 for Linux.

Adobe Flash Player 9 is the recommended solution for the other two versions that contain security flaws.
--
For Your Flash-Based Safety

http://reviews.cnet.com/cell-phones/nokia-7380/450 5-6454_7-31636326.html

Not sure if it hooks up to a PDA, but does have mp3 play back, voice recorder, camera and a radio. Damn small too.

I'm sorry, but I don't follow your logic. 5-6 hr. talk-time battery for the SLVR is bad, but iPhone's 7-8 hr. of talk time with the WiFi switched off is good? (fwiw CNet said they had 7:20 hr. of talk time w/o WiFi and less than 4hr with WiFi; now that's a treat - better put a cap to your daily amount of YouTube browsing then, since video sans WiFi is only about 7hr as well).

Anyway, talk + wireless + music/video = you'll have to recharge daily. That's OK, but the battery seems rated at 300-400 recharges, so it means you might just make it untill the end of the 2yr. contract with the original battery, if you're savvy about how much you use the phone. And what if you're the type that often enough has long phone conferences that will push the 7-8hr. limit on the iPhone? 'Regular' phones that are not so smart as to solder the battery allow you to make do with carrying a spare for such occasions. IPhone's way? well, there will probably be portable rechargers sometime in the future. Not much else to hope for at this stage.

The Casio G-Shock Atomic Solar is pretty damn ideal.

Of course it will PLAY, just not as a ringtone unless you get it and set it thru iTunes at $0.99 a track.

http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9736272-1.html

The iPod has come a long way in audio quality since gen 1, but its relatively decent 83dB S/N ratio (shown here) gets flat-out whupped by the plainly excellent 98 dB S/N ratio of the Zen Xtra (here).

I'm guessing, from the mac.com address, that you'll either argue against this solid evidence with mac-protecting nonsense or not respond.

It's okay to buck the trend and admit two things:

1) It was a joke.
2) Apple is not always the best at everything. They are a company that, like many others, sells things manufactured by third parties in China, and, as with other companies, real-world cost-considerations come into play along with the limitations of their designers and engineers.

The second is probably harder to admit.

Happy dining...

I just saw on Matt Asay's new blog on CNet that he claims that Centric CRM, one of the companies called out by the OSI, is going to ship a new product under an OSI-approved license. If true, that would seem to suggest they might be paying attention to this discussion.

The 'fake' web is mobile sites. mobile IMDB, mobile Slashdot, mobile CNET... These sites are a shadow of the real sites, often presenting abbreviated content (in the case of Slashdot, you can only see the top 5 comments from any given story) in a crippled interface.

Anyway, I think there's a market for people who like nice interfaces, but who are also function hogs. I'm quite comfortable on the command line, but I find that I'm more efficient with X Windows. On the same screen, I can have 6 xterms, a browser in the background, and other applications easily accessible. Toggling background processes or using screen is fine, but you only see one thing at a time. The split-screen mode of screen works well, but my monitor doesn't seem to support high enough resolutions to get the same amount of content on my monitor while in text mode.

One of the things I've envied about OS X recently is Expose(accent). It's a nicely implemented, smooth feature, and it allows for higher productivity (seemingly, at least, by making it easier to work with lots of windows open). I've seen non-GL implementations that simply pale in comparison, both for Windows XP and Linux. Somehow, Apple got it right. I think that Beryl has the same feature, however I use a non-GL window manager due to compatibility issues.

Anyway, the point of my rambling is that in the case of Expose(accent), form and feature both seem to play an integral part in the delivery of the entire product. It's a useful feature, it's quite pleasant to look at, it's smooth, and it's something that, to the best of my knowledge, Apple came up with.

Spotlight, while less of a draw to me, is another place where the tools simply don't exist (or aren't as deeply embedded) on Linux. Indexing the content is one thing, but being able to index the metadata of non-Apple applications (assuming the authors implemented the ability) is really quite fascinating. You don't get that on Linux, probably mostly because it's a completely different mentality. GNU/Linux is a lot of simple programs that does one thing, but does it very, very well. OS X is a complete user experience. Regardless, I defy you to search pictures, documents, pdfs, arbitrary applications (where the author saw fit to include the ability--and many, many of them do) within Linux at the speed of Spotlight. If there is such a way, please let me know how!

It's not all about having a simple interface. There are lots of innovations in that Apple software that go beyond interface.

Gah, I wish I could edit that post. Because The Macalope also has an article on this very same topic. Posting as an AC to avoid claims of karma whoring :-)

What is the chance that any given *NON* *IPOD* mp3 player supports AAC?

Pretty good. In fact, I'd reverse it and ask if any significant music players don't support it. I certainly wouldn't look at any that didn't.

Game playing, your redefining not playing as poor quality.

It's the worst quality. My little Sansa e280 can play non-DRMed AACs, so that extra 3/10 of a dollar gets me something I can actually use.

Then why disable the 'Convert to mp3'? Better still why do I have to buy AAC for my MP3 player???

Who knows why they disabled it, but since it's no big deal, why fret about it? And since every review puts AAC ahead of MP3 for sound quality at a given bitrate and doesn't require royalties to distribute or stream, it's pretty much set up to be MP3's replacement.

I never accused you of it, I put a reasoned explanation as to why Apple are playing games

You did technically offer reasons, even if they're easily deflated. I'm just pointing out that you don't have to be an Apple lover to see that your whole argument is weak.

The only issue is that it is an MS phone, so if you do not like MS mobile phones then this would not be good for you.

In any case, crave ( http://crave.cnet.com/8300-1_105-1.html?search=htc +wing ) has more photos of this phone than the posted article. This is worth a look. They also have a link to a full review.

I'd be curious, if anyone is hacking these phones to install Linux or BSD on them, and if so can they still using them with their phone providers. Is this even possible or does it violate some license?

You mean like this http://reviews.cnet.com/mp3-players/sandisk-sansa- e260-4gb/4505-6490_7-31684139.html and this http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1960965,00.as p ?

Hm.

All I can say is, I've put 500 and 750 GB drives in Series 2 TiVos and not had the problems you're describing. Perhaps it matters which Series 2 TiVos we're talking about, there was a lot of variation in models and the ones I upgraded were the Pioneer CD-R units, the DVR-810H - I don't know how much RAM they sport.

Those (and their showy big brothers, the DVR-57H) are great units, by the way, if you can catch a videophile upgrading to the Series 3 and getting rid of the Pioneers.

Hm.

All I can say is, I've put 500 and 750 GB drives in Series 2 TiVos and not had the problems you're describing. Perhaps it matters which Series 2 TiVos we're talking about, there was a lot of variation in models and the ones I upgraded were the Pioneer CD-R units, the DVR-810H - I don't know how much RAM they sport.

Those (and their showy big brothers, the DVR-57H) are great units, by the way, if you can catch a videophile upgrading to the Series 3 and getting rid of the Pioneers.

But if it makes you feel better, go ahead and reprint this for free.

Copyright ©1995-2007 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.

Uh, okay ... wait a minute...

All editorial content and graphics on our sites are protected by U.S. copyright, international treaties, and other applicable copyright laws and may not be copied without the express permission of CNET Networks, Inc., which reserves all rights. Reuse of any of CNET Networks editorial content and graphics for any purpose without CNET Networks' permission is strictly prohibited.

Permission to use CNET Networks content is granted on a case-by-case basis. CNET Networks welcomes requests. Please visit our Permissions and Reprints page to submit a request.

Hmmm, so should we believe the last line of the page, or the second to last line of the page?

Fuck it...

Why I love patents and copyrights

By Michael Kanellos
http://news.com.com/Why+I+love+patents+and+copyrig hts/2010-1008_3-6182429.html

Story last modified Thu May 10 04:00:02 PDT 2007


Keith Richards in a near-death experience. Does TV get any better?

Ocean Tomo, a Chicago-based company that holds auctions for patents, copyrights and other intellectual property, will put a gem on the block in its next auction taking place in London on June 1: film footage of the Rolling Stones guitarist getting electrocuted during a U.S. concert in 1965.

"The Stones do not currently have this footage themselves; this particular piece of film lasts 10 minutes, with the electrocution scene occurring at the close, and lasting approximately a full minute," the catalog for the auction states.

The footage is part of a collection of film that is owned by Mark and Colleen Hayward and is being sold as a single lot. Other footage in the lot includes an early film of The Beatles playing in Blackpool, England, and some shots of Paul McCartney in 1966 yukking it up on a Learjet owned by Frank Sinatra.

TV stations pay around $3,000 to broadcast about 30 seconds of footage from the Hayward collection.

The Haywards will also auction off a collection of photos of rock stars over the decades: The Clash, AC/DC and The Moody Blues. You'd have to go to the Konocti Boat Harbor to see some of those acts today.

It won't be all celebrity memorabilia at the intellectual property auction. Most of the lots involve chemicals (a formula for flexographic printing from Meat/Westvaco), wireless communications, medical devices (customized bone implants--a patent with a $200,000-plus value), green technologies (an efficient way to incinerate waste from our pals at KusuKusu Industry), or electronics (anyone care for a gas composition sensor from Accentus?).

Despite early skepticism, the open auction concept for intellectual property is clearly gaining steam. In the company's April auction in Chicago, $11.4 million worth of intellectual property was sold, including two lots that went for $3 million and $2.8 million each.

Although it's not a really popular sentiment these days, I think patents, trademarks and copyrights are simply fantastic and a primary, necessary driver of the world economy. Without them, the rapid pace of technological innovation around the world would slow to a crawl. And frankly, without them, most open-source projects would rapidly wither away: without an intellectual property behemoth like Microsoft to fight, what would be the point?

Why all the frothy sentiment? Intellectual property provides one of the most dependable means toward wea

I fail to understand the big fuss here. My trusty iPAQ 2790 has had this feature for ages now. See the review here. So; better go back to using decent PDA's instead of iPODs perhaps? ;)

I have had the same problem with quicktime (any .mov file, but the worst are the drm'ed music videos from itunes--yes, yes, they are all available via video.google, but the quality is usually poor for what I want to find).

The issue is repeatedly noted in the Apple forums on quicktime/itunes but nothing seems to have been done. A slightly more helpful forum discussion is found at http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6035_102-0.html?forumI D=133&threadID=238516&messageID=2446043

The solutions provided typically fall into 1) Don't use Vista (which for those us of who have apparently lost our minds and gone for it is worthless) 2) Don't use quicktime (again, worthless for those of us with ipods) 3) Use Quicktime alternative (the first somewhat helpful entry, but unfortunately doesn't work for my computer and a host of others) 4) Use a newer version of Itunes (see entry 3) 5) Use an external hard drive (haven't tried this yet, but it seems to be getting really good results--this seems to be tied to the SCSI driver issue, and the hard drive on my laptop falls in this category) 6) Wait several months for a solution (not too helpful, but hopefully will provide a long term solution that allows me to travel without an external hard drive).

Thanks a lot for the tip. cnet however found very high cost per page for this one (about 4 cents/page) which is odd. But otherwise, it looks like a great model.

I appreciate your position and I've argued it myself and when I finally upgrade (my 5yo 2GHz Pentium Linux box works better than most modern XP machines, so there's no reason to upgrade other than KVM), I'll move to an Intel Motherboard that supports open source 3D acceleration.

That being said, you're making three big assumptions:

1) The biggest one is that users are too stupid to appreciate the value of open source drivers. They might be uninformed or naive or lazy enough to buy proprietary hardware initially or have a legacy system like myself, but sooner or later they will get hit with one of these situations.:
- Their drivers will not be supported any more (see http://lwn.net/Articles/229838/ ) turning them into expensive paperweights,
- Or that the driver is supported but removes a feature you depended on (see http://reviews.cnet.com/4531-10921_7-6651889.html )
- Or that the driver adds an annoying feature (http://news.com.com/TiVo+extends+ad+features/2100 -1041_3-5792956.html)
- Or that the driver has a bug that won't be fixed soon so you have to live with it until they get around to fixing it. (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070206-878 4.html)
- Or that all open source drivers contain a feature they're salivating over but closed source drivers don't because the company hasn't gotten around to implementing it yet. (e.g. NVidia support for XGL was extremely slow in coming, or Rockbox versus all the proprietary music player firmware)
- Or the manufacturer installs a rootkit that threatens the security and privacy of your computer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Sony_BMG_CD_cop y_protection_scandal)

When any of these happen, the user will have to face the music and the next time they upgrade, all things being equal, they'll pick the open source version. If they've been bitten bad enough, they might even go for the "Ultra-free version of Gutsy Gibbon" (that goodness it'll exist) so they don't accidentally select proprietary firmware (or at least be aware of how exposed they are to potential threats so when they upgrade, they'll know what to change).

2) You're also assuming that people who are considering Ubuntu already have computers that only needs free drivers and they have the knowledge to know why things don't work and either know how to choose hardware that does work and choose to throw out their old card in favour of a free card or at minimum know how to install non-free drivers to get things to work. If new users don't have a clue how to do all of these, they'll just give up and you've lost a potential Ubuntu user. Without more Ubuntu users, case (1) will not happen so no additional pressure on manufacturers will happen.

3) You're assuming that even if the user is keen on learning so as to avoid the problem of (2) that they'll stick around long enough to realize that all the pain associated with Linux is dwarfed by all the gain Linux has to offer. Like it or not, all operating systems have a learning curve and all have annoyances that you tend to accept and forget about once you experience the benefits of the OS. If you can get people past the pain-pleasure break even point, you'll keep them. If you can't, they'll go. As with (2), this means that case (1) will not happen so no additional pressure on manufacturers will happen.

As of 2003, there were 52 million school age children in the US (http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/censusstatistic/a/l atestpopcounts.htm).

As of the end of 2006, there were 42 million iPods sold (http://reviews.cnet.com/4531-10921_7-6416165.html )

It strikes me that a large percentage of the Michigan school kids probably already have iPods.

http://reviews.cnet.com/Powercast/4660-12760_7-668 4005.html

From the April 1, 2007 issue

I am not too sure that this is an april fools joke... as an april fools joke normally only falls on April 1st.... I seen this on digg over a week ago. It was on multiple sites, from CNN Money, to CNet reviews...

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-12760_7-6676861-1.htm l?tag=promo

and this one is from January...
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-12760_7-9673092-5.htm l?tag=txt

check out the company page at powercastco.com

I am not too sure that this is an april fools joke... as an april fools joke normally only falls on April 1st.... I seen this on digg over a week ago. It was on multiple sites, from CNN Money, to CNet reviews...

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-12760_7-6676861-1.htm l?tag=promo

and this one is from January...
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-12760_7-9673092-5.htm l?tag=txt

check out the company page at powercastco.com

There was a report on cnet Jan 7 this year. They unveiled the concept and Philips interest at CES 2007 http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-12760_7-9673092-5.htm l

Write-up from Jan.

Official Site

I was making a NAS server that was to be on 24-7.

I considered making a NAS, but it was about the time several NAS in a box solutions came out. Lacking space for yet another full size box and concerned about I went with one of the pre-packaged solutions. I settled on one that does run Linux. It uses a Riser filesystem. It supports both the Unix shares as well as SMB, both of which can be shut off. The drive is easly partitioned for mounting an encrypted partition. This works well. A mounted encrypted partition shows just like any other partition. After a power down or shutdown, the encripted shares do not auto-mount. It requires going into the web base admin interface, much like a router, and entering the encrypted volume key to mount it. Nice. A stolen drive protects my data with no intervention. All the regular user/password login's are supported.

http://reviews.cnet.com/SimpleTech_SimpleShare_NAS _server/4507-3382_7-31261848.html

You don't have to believe me, but the companies must be lying then! Cingular doesn't offer 3G in Denver right now - here is there coverage. Well over 100 cities in total.

I was using my Sprint phone on a business trip while in Denver. If the whole list is a sham then both Cnet and I are lying !

Except that yours is a minority opinion: CNET and PC Magazine both gave glowing assessments.

I use the new Y! Mail Beta too, and the reviews are right, it IS faster, and the "Web 2.0 cruft" that you disdain has markedly improved the usability of the interface (drag 'n drop messages into folders, yeah, who would want that?!).

Actually, the products that they're talking about are machines like this. To the best of my knowledge, HP were the only big-name company that actually attempted to market HTPCs as standalone entertainment centers. Everyone else seems to market their machines as "a computer you can hook up to your TV." So, in that sense, I don't think they were making tons of money at all, since they were vastly overpriced and never seemed to go anywhere...

> I'm still waiting for the videogame where you use the wii-mote to massage a prostate or
> perform an abortion.

Well, there's always this.

Chris Mattern

First was a Fujitsu P1000 micro-laptop (Transmeta Crusoe based, so there's your "linux/linus" reference, although it ran WinME). I used it for email, web browsing, updating a web page, managing finances, storage of digital photos, and as an MP3 player. It held up remarkably well in 15000 miles of on- and off-road riding, and did everything I needed it to do. No CD drive - the external one I used was left behind. The PCMCIA slot was used to mount the camera's memory card.

Next was a Kodak DC280 digital camera. It used AA batteries, and I used a small charger rather than buying new batteries. The weight of the charger was pretty low. The camera was beat up pretty well, but still works. Pictures were copied to the laptop as needed.

A couple of small earbud earphones with a splitter to let us listen to music in the tent, as well as an adapter to have RCA outputs to pipe audio to a hotel's TV or stereo when desired (music or webcasts).

Internet access was typically through dial-up, although I could use a local fast connection when available. You can either get a service with roaming support like iPass, or sign up for local service if you plan to be in a country for a while. We even used Net10's free service while in the USA; this was sufficient to connect, download/upload emails and cache a few web pages, and disconnect.

I had a cell phone - we'd get pre-paid SIM cards for use in local countries, and just tell friends our new phone number as needed. This was for emergencies, and for making travel arrangements and hotel bookings when needed.

No GPS receiver - although it might have been nice to have a log of our travels.

We used BOB trailers for most of the trip, and had a small daypack to carry the computer, camera, passports and cash with us at all times.

The amount of stuff being produced these days for a consumer would easily overwhelm a consumer with even above-average patience and attention span. This is true in not just music, but in many other sectors/industries (cars, home electronics are other examples).

So, somebody needs to be the "gatekeepers" — we are happy to employ them to avoid missing on the good new stuff while not spending all our time weeding out the bad new stuff. The question is only, who should that be.

In medicines, which we deemed to be too important, we have FDA — a government agency. In everything else there are competing outlets, some of them commercial (think CNet), some not (think Consumer Reports).

The following is a simple truism, but it is needed to counter the article's implicit disapproval: Apple got there, because consumers of music like the work, Apple's experts are doing.

Maybe, it is the dissatisfaction with radio jockeys (think "Payola"), or with MTV, who, presumably, are losing their music gatekeeping role to Apple — I don't know. But should Apple become thought of as abusive of its position, people will switch to others — competition, as is often said, is only a click away.

You need one of these. Shows that iPod-dock-on-dashboard type vendor lock-in is nothing new - these in-car record players used a special format you could only get from Columbia Records.

is that at the same time the schizophrenic Government is down on incandescent bulbs (and refrigerators, and water heaters, and air conditioners, and furnaces, etc.) and pushing for energy savings it is hell bent on pushing energy wasting consumer electronics like [HS]DTV which just suck power (one HDTV panel is the equivalent of quite a few incandescent bulbs). The overall need for, or public benefit from, [HS]DTV is far from demonstrated.

• # Microdisplay rear projector: 0.11 to 0.15 watt per square inch

• # LCD: 0.16 to 0.41 watt per square inch

• # CRT: 0.25 to 0.40 watt per square inch

• # Plasma: 0.30 to 0.39 watt per square inch

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6475_7-6400401-2.html

I'm not sure how cheap device manufacturers will react to the digital tuner requirement, but I think (for now) they'll probably just change that coaxial "barrel" input to one that accepts analog cable only (and not an OTA antenna). Inputs (component, composite, etc) will handle the rest.

For better try: http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3118_7-6695272-1.html ?tag=cnetfd.mt/

Or for gamers: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2096940 ,00.asp/

They at least don't sound like they just dropped the M$ pom-poms to type their articles.

I've found Kaspersky to be a resource hog. My personal favorite is NOD32. The interface takes some getting used to, but it works well, has all the features you'd expect without trying to sell you on a firewall/"internet security" suite. It scores among the best in hit % (typically 2nd, sometimest 1st), and it was the fastest scanner in several tests. They also have "bulk" discounts, which is great if you're running more than one system.

Recent review here and when searching for reviews just now (never seen a bad one), I just discovered it's user rating blows away that of Kaspersky.. rightly so, IMHO. This is a nerd's AV if ever there was one.

I've found Kaspersky to be a resource hog. My personal favorite is NOD32. The interface takes some getting used to, but it works well, has all the features you'd expect without trying to sell you on a firewall/"internet security" suite. It scores among the best in hit % (typically 2nd, sometimest 1st), and it was the fastest scanner in several tests. They also have "bulk" discounts, which is great if you're running more than one system.

Recent review here and when searching for reviews just now (never seen a bad one), I just discovered it's user rating blows away that of Kaspersky.. rightly so, IMHO. This is a nerd's AV if ever there was one.

Like I said, it feels unnatural to me and every other notebook out there has another button on the trackpad for right-click.

I find it annoying having to learn another thing (and especially since I have a muscle-memory of using mouse + keyboard combinations).

If IBM took off a button, I'd move to Dell and if Dell did, I'd move to HP. So, why should I treat Apple any differently for not having a feature that is very common (not to mention desirable and widespread in use)? It's not like people haven't asked for this before.

It is the fact that there is something that I am used to in an input device that is not available on Apple products, and that it makes me feel extremely crippled - sure, I could learn to live with it by finding alternative means to achieve what is commonly in use elsewhere, or I could buy from another manufacturer who has what the majority of the customers want.