I always just answer "The Senator from Connecticut in 1893" for all of my security questions. No one will ever guess that!

(Whoops!)

The problem isn't from Telcos. You can't spoof caller ID from a regular land line phone. This is for PBXs and 3rd party VOIP services where spoofing goes on all the time. In fact, I bet the local phone and cable companies are behind this bill since it causes problems for their customers.

Debt collectors are known to spoof caller IDs. For example, they'll spoof their number to that of a family member or employer. And, we recently had a spat of spoofed IDs a few months ago when that company in Missouri was selling extended auto warranties. In that case, they spoofed the number to hide their identity, so people couldn't complain.

FCC regulations already prohibit spoofing caller ID, but there really isn't any federal law which makes the regulations almost impossible to enforce.

There is a major problem with the bill. The bill only applies to people calling from Mississippi. The bill should have made it illegal to call a person or business in Mississippi using a spoofed caller ID.

The article in Volokh.com is simply wrong.

The ISP received a search warrant for the emails and replied to those search warrants. This is well in line with fourth amendment procedures. The defendants in this case were the D.A. and his assistant. The complainant was the one who had the search warrants executed by the D.A. on his emails.

The warrants had lots of issues and might not be valid. The validity of the warrant and the ability to use any information gleaned from the warrant in court against the defendant was never an issue in this particular case. The court had (several times in fact) ordered all charges be dropped against the complainant and for the D.A. (the defendant in this case) to stop harassing the defendant.

In this particular case, the complainant filed charges that he was harassed by the D.A. for no reason. The whole case is that the complainant charged the D.A. and the assistant with multiple infractions. The ruling of the court is whether the D.A. had full and partial sovereign immunity in dealing with the grand jury which heard the case against the complainant.

In this particular decision, the court ruled that the D.A. did have immunity when he acted in front of the grand jury, but that he could still be charged with harassment.

One comment by a single share holder doesn't set a "tone". I've seen videos of the meeting, and you always have share holders like this. Not only that, but this same person was widely booed by other share holders as he ranted against Al Gore.

Hang around with a non-geek for a while. A typical intelligent person who doesn't difference between Star Wars and Star Trek and doesn't even care. Look how they use their PC.

That PC might even be a "Mac" which they're told was "easier to use". They don't know about "right clicking". They don't know how to use the file browser (Finder or Windows Explorer). They simply want to get their work done. What do they do? Mainly browse the web, email, Facebook, Twitter. They sometimes even use Microsoft Word and maybe rarely use Excel if they want to make a table of some sort (and they have no idea how to do things like sum up a column).

For these people, an iPad is a godsend. It does exactly what they want. They know how to use it. They don't care about DRM. They don't care about Open Source. They don't even care about free beer. (Actually, they might take a pro-free beer position on that last statement).

Am I tossing out my laptops and desktop systems and getting myself an iPad? No way. I am a developer and need the full power of my computer. I need to run multiple things at once. I need my command line. I need to be able to configure my development environments and to test out my stuff on our QA environments. I can't do that on an iPad, and won't get one for myself.

However, my wife mainly looks at her mail and browses the web. She has no idea how to use the Finder to browse her files. She has no idea how to use Spotlight as a search tool. The other day, she lost the icon on the Dock for Quicken, and asked me to put it back. This is a Mac, and she even finds it overly complex to use.

How does she respond with Windows? We have a Windows Media Center as our TV, and she always asked me or our children to help her set it up, so she can watch her program.

She also has an iPod Touch she uses as an organizer and she loves it. She has no problems using the contacts, email, using the web browser, or checking the weather. She has even taken to installing her own applications and rearranging the icons on the screen. She loves the touch screen and the ease of maneuvering.

My wife's current desktop computer is over six years old and is showing signs of its age. I need to get a replacement. I could try to use a cheap windows system, but she hates Windows. She knows Macs, and an Mac Mini might be a nice replacement.

Then again, why not an iPad? It does everything she wants, and uses an interface she knows and loves. I'll get a BlueTooth keyboard and it's her desktop system. If she wants to lie down on the couch and browse the web, she can do that too. For my wife, the iPad is perfect.

The iPad is an appliance much like a toaster. A chef might find a toaster limiting, but if all you want to do is warm up your Pop Tart, you can't go wrong with a toaster.

Boy, what a bunch of whiners.

The iPad is not a computer for anyone who reads Slashdot. It is for those who simply want something that they can surf the web with, do a bit of email, and read a few ebooks. It is computer as an appliance. If you're interested in this, and want more, buy a MacBook. That uses the same base OS and is not locked down.

Then, there are the "sheeple" comments. People who buy this are sheep who simply follow the herd! They don't want to think! They're stupid!

No, they're not. They're quite intelligent and have decided to use their intelligence to handle things like dating and relationships instead of spending hours reading random tech forums to find out what they need to do to prevent some virus on their computer from stealing their money. Android isn't locked down, and the iPhone is, but then it was Android that had at least four trojan apps that were suppose to be banking apps, but ended up stealing banking info. You want to run root on your phone? Get an Android! If you simply want something you don't have to think about, get an iPhone.

The internal combustion engine is only one class of heat engines. The Sterling Engine and the External Combustion Engine (used in old steam locomotives) are also heat engines. Heat engines use heat to create power either by taking advantage of temperature differences or the expansion of heated air.

You actually have a point.

Back in the 1990s with the Microsoft antitrust case, many emails and discussions came out. One of the most interesting ones was Microsoft taking about their market position in China at that time. They talked about market share and how many people there were using Windows and Office and what they could do to improve this. The funny thing is they weren't talking about sales, but the number of people pirating their software. Microsoft wanted to encourage people in China to pirate more copies of Windows and Office.

Microsoft new the number of people who could actually afford their software in China at that time was low, but they also believed that one day China would crack down on the pirating and become a legitimate market. Microsoft thought their best position was to make sure everyone was using Microsoft products -- even if they were pirated -- because people would be use to them. Then once the government cracked down on pirating, Microsoft's sales would go through the roof.

Microsoft's biggest fear is that if people were discouraged from using pirated copies of Microsoft products, these people would turn to "open source alternatives" and would never become Microsoft customers.

I think this is actually one of the problems with Linux interfaces. They get so stuck on the THEME and not much on user usability.

When Mac OSX first came out, it was bright and colorful. Icons were eye popping. Over the various iterations, Apple toned down the interface. It went from candy striped to stainless steel to steel gray, icons became simpler, and color was more carefully used. The early Aqua theme did its job of making the Mac look eye popping fresh compared to Windows. XP even took the cartoony color schemes, to the heights of uglitude.

However, although Mac fanboys whined about the changes in Aqua (and toning down the colors), it actually improved the interface. The simplification of the icons improved readability. The reduction of color saturation improved the look and made the interface less distracting.

We must keep in mind the purpose of the GUI is not to create really cool looking desktops, but to help the user navigate. You notice that the Mac OSX interface has no concept of themes. You can't change the skins of the windows. You can't edit the look and feel of the menus. (I don't think you can even change the fonts). The taskbar can only be on the bottom or side. Yet, the Mac OSX interface is the standard that other GUIs try to meet.

The Mac's desktop's trick is not to be a personal expression of the user, but to help the user navigate. Retro style windows and desktops, Geek themes, and all the fancy 3D icons do none of that.

I don't see any reason why Google would try to harm Firefox. Granted Google has a browser called Chrome, but what Google really wants is for people to use Google as their search engine. With Firefox the most popular engine after IE (and Microsoft wouldn't do anything, but make Bing IE's default search engine), I don't see why Google wouldn't simply extend their deal with FIrefox. They certainly wouldn't want Firefox to move over to Yahoo or Bing.

The only thing I can see is Google would use their leverage over Firefox to get Firefox to switch from the Gecko to WebKit. That would give Google a unified JavaScript/Web browser engine to run their applications against.

It's not usually a good thing to have another entity control your future like this, but Firefox really doesn't have a choice now.

So, except for the horrible sets, the terrible writing, the stupid premise, and the awful plot lines, it was a good concept. :-)

So, we'll keep the bit about a bunch of people in space and change everything else.

Sounds like a reboot to me!

Amazon doesn't care about the Kindle. What they want are ebook sales and to sell ebooks, you need an ebook reader. So, Amazon created one.

Amazon would be thrilled if Apple came out with their own ebook reader and it drove Kindle sales down the drain as long as all those new Apple ebook readers got their books from Amazon. And guess which retailer will make a mint selling that Apple ebook reader? (Hint, their name begins with "A and ends with "N").

Ebooks for Amazon means no warehousing, no stocking, no shipping, and no returns. You can store an entire warehouse full of books on a few hard drives.

Don't get me wrong. Amazon is thrilled that people are buying Kindles, but only because it means they'll be loading it up with books from Amazon.

AT&T must have seriously botched their usage projections, not bothered to do any

It went like this:

Apple: We are producing a new phone that will allow you to get million of new customers, stop hemorrhaging customers, and compete effectively against Verizon. You want it?

AT&T: Oh, yes please!

When the iPhone first came out, AT&T was in desperate position. It was bigger than Verizon, but its network was a mess, and it was losing customers. Verizon had the better network and even though Apple offered Verizon the iPhone first, they didn't want it if Apple was going to tell them how it should work. Verizon doesn't operate that way. They tell phone companies what phones to build and what features to offer and at what prices.

Also, when the iPhone first came out, it didn't have all those cool apps. You could surf the Intertubes, but there weren't all those cool network hogging apps.

It will be an interesting competition. I understand AT&T's position. They simply cannot grow their network fast enough to keep up, and the lack of bandwidth is a pain shared with all customers. The problem AT&T is having is that the iPhone isn't unique anymore. There is Droid and Palm and they'll still have unlimited data plans. Plus, if the iPhone U.S. exclusivity ends, the other carriers will quickly start offering the iPhone too.

AT&T can't charge for data plans if no one else does.

Doesn't Netflix use SILVERLIGHT?

Let's see:

1). BoxeeBox uses Linux.
2). Linux doesn't run Silverlight.
3). You need Silverlight to run Netflix

Now fill in the missing word:

Therefore, BoxeeBox will never be able to run ____________.

The truth is that I've given up on standard Linux distros when it comes to multimedia. It simply isn't as good as Windows or Mac OS X. For about a year, we tried to run Mythbuntu, then Ubuntu w/ MythTV and Boxee. It simply never worked very well. Incompatibility issues with drivers and configuration problems drove us up the wall. When Windows 7 came out, we "upgraded" to Windows 7. (Why not?, it was originally a Windows Vista box).

The problem I see with the Boxee Box is that it is competing against HDTVs that can connect with Netflix right out of the box. Plus, these HDTVs are better at displaying video than what Boxee will be able to do.

Don't get me wrong. I use Linux (Fedora Distro) at work. In fact, I installed it at work over my Windows box and am running Windows under VirtualBox on the machine. I prefer to do my development on Linux because it is faster, and it comes with all the development tools I need. Plus, it is two to three times faster running Subversion and Eclipse than Windows.

However, I have that Windows under VirtualBox instance if I have to read email (our corporation uses Exchange and Evolution is an awful Exchange client). I also use my Windows side if I have to display a video or a Flash application. If I can get Flash to work on Linux, it is splotchy at best, MP4s look awful, and don't even try to run in full screen mode. Linux based Android is much better, but that's because Google isn't shy about adding a few proprietary pieces to get things to work.

Boxee is a nice concept, but they're concentrating too much on cool and not enough on getting things to work at a consumer level.

Found spade marks on the side of the "crater". After about an hour of examining the crater, investigators concluded it was a fake. . Okay, it's Fox news, but there are other news sites stating the same thing.