If this deal is blocked, it would not be bad news for T-Mobile as some here have claimed. According to Bloomberg,

"Should regulators reject the deal, which would create the biggest U.S. wireless carrier, AT&T would have to pay Deutsche Telekom $3 billion in cash. It would also provide T-Mobile USA with wireless spectrum in some regions and reduced charges for calls into AT&T’s network, for a total package valued at as much as $7 billion, Deutsche Telekom said this month."

So T-Mobile would get $3 billion in cash, more spectrum, and reduced fees for calls going through AT&T's network. This would seem to be good news for T-Mobile, as all of these things would make them more competitive.

I can already guess what this program is going to look like. In my small city, and many other small towns in the country, a company called Open Range (http://www.openrange.net) has recently been offering Internet service that they brand as "4g". It uses WiMax. One of their flyers was left on my door, offering a free one month trial, so I decided to give it a try, just for the heck of it. They provide a unit that looks like an oversized wireless router, with giant antennas on it. This device recieves the WiMax, and it also has a built in wireless router. They also offer phone service through the unit - it has phone jacks in the back. The internet is $40 a month, and it goes to about $60 if you want the phone service as well. The internet is actually unlimited. But it isn't what I'd consider to be broadband. They claim speeds of up to 4 Mbit. In reality, I found that speed varied quite a bit, depending on time of day mostly. Sometimes it could get very slow. And doing something bandwidth intensive on it would take up so much bandwidth it would significantly slow my browsing even. So in the end, I decided it wasn't for me. There are other options in this city, and I think for the price, DSL would be better. I have cable, and while cable is more expensive, it at least provides an 8 Mbit connection that is always reliably right around it's advertised speed. I believe this company is partially financed by government grants and or low interest government loans. Since we're considered a rural area, it was part of the rural broadband initiative. However, this still doesn't help the people who live outside of my city. This wireless doesn't reach them, the cable company won't run cable out there, and the phone company won't upgrade their lines outside of the city to handle DSL. To top it all off, the cell phone service around here isn't great. In the city (of 20,000 people) AT&T hasn't even yet upgraded to 3g, T-Mobile doesn't offer service, Sprint doesn't either, leaving Verizon the only game in town if you want to use data on a mobile device. Enough whining about my city. Anyways, I fail to see what this will accomplish. All the decent sized towns and cities in America already have choices for internet, which are already better than 4g. Still no one will be covering the really rural folks who live outside of town. So. What does this accomplish? Nothing, really, except to waste more taxpayer money. Maybe the competition will help lower broadband prices? I haven't seen that happen yet in my city, the 4g isn't really priced low enough to bring droves of people away from what they already have. Even if it was dirt cheap, it just isn't fast enough for me anyways.

Living in this state, sometimes I think it would be easier to go back in time to buy liquor. Now if only my dad hadn't sold his DeLorean...

I'm from Pennsylvania. Sales of wine and liquor are highly regulated by the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PLCB). The places in the state that can sell liquor are state-run stores. Wal-Mart in Pennsylvania can't sell beer, same thing with convenience stores. The idea to sell wine from vending machines in grocery stores is not a really new idea, nor was it the idea of the retailers. The state actually approved of the wine vending machines, in response to many consumers wishing that they could at least purchase some wine while buying food. This isn't really a forward-thinking idea, actually. If we were really in the 21st century, Pennsylvanians would be able to buy wine and beer right at Wal-Mart and other places right off the shelves, and the cashiers can check IDs. I've seen the wine vending machines, they actually came out a few months ago in some other grocery stores. I don't like them because the machine only stocks a few varieties of the most popular wine. Not nearly the selection one would find at a "state store" or the even bigger selection one would find if he felt so inclined as to cross the border. As a side note, I live close to the border. In my town, due to the state's arcane laws, there is no place to buy beer after 8:00 PM - unless one goes to the bar and buys carryout by the six packs. So we've been known to make beer runs to a neighboring state, where there is a convenience store that sells by the case, just a few miles from the state line. I haven't actually used the new wine vending machines, but I know some who have, and they complain that it's not that fun, sometimes there are some issues, and last I knew, there was only one employee at the remote location that verifies the IDs. So, there is some waiting, and sometimes some issues with reading the cards. YMMV. Anyways, even though it seems cool, and *OMG YAY technology!* It isn't really a step in the right direction, as far as my state's arcane laws are concerned.

I second that. About a year ago, I was setting up a new Xserve, and I was configuring it, getting ready to take it to our data center and throw it in a rack. I work in an office with a bunch of Mac users, and everyone was walking by, saying "What kind of Mac is THAT?" It never dawned on them that Mac made servers too. To them, they saw a funky looking long, skinny machine that ran OS X.

As someone who's job it is to be a server administrator for two Xserves, and systems administrator for our corporate network of Mac workstations, this news saddens me. No longer can I throw my title out as "Mac Server Administrator" at geeky parties to the amusement of my friends who work on Linux and Windows servers. Seriously though, the Xserve will be missed, at least in my organization. Unlike many Apple products, they aren't toys, they were designed for the enterprise and had many useful functions. They are extremely useful to me, running FileMaker Databases, providing NetBoot services for imaging Mac workstations, hosting AFP file shares, and when connected with a rackmount RAID array, make for a very nice backup server (Time Machine!). Also, the OS X Server software is really a great server OS, a fully Unix certified OS that also provides many other innovative and useful tools. Sure, I can do most of what I do on a different server, but, damn, Apple just makes my job so easy! RIP Xserve, you will be missed, at least by this Systems Admin.

In my opinion, using the voice minutes for the first leg into the cloud severely cuts down on latency and improves call quality. I much prefer making calls with Skype on my Verizon phone than I prefer trying to make Skype calls over WiFi with my iPhone.

Also, I'd like to point out that before this update, Skype for Android (at least with my Verizon Droid) would route my out-going Skype calls to a regular phone number, where it was presumably dialing into a computer than would then route my call over IP to the destination. Since I had unlimited calling on my phone, I found this to actually be better quality than calls directly over WiFi or my internet connection. Less latency, and better quality, in my opinion.

If I recall, no US carrier has ever allowed VOIP traffic on 3g. On my AT&T iPhone, Skype has to use WiFi. Appears to be the same case on my Verizon Droid too. I recently went on a trip to Russia. I bought a cheap SIM card with a data plan for my (jailbroken) iPhone, and just out of curiosity, I launched Skype, it it let me place a call right over 3g! That saved me a lot of money for calling my family back home. Not to mention that cell phone plans and data is cheaper there than in the US too. Amazing what some real competition in a market can do.

Was I the only one to notice that the first screenshot in this review shows Baghdad, with a note that it is occupied, and will "produce extra un-happiness until a courthouse is built"? Apparently, all America needs to do sort out the mess in Iraq is build some courthouses. We all know that the court system in America makes everyone happy.