Ditto. And that's why for the last 4 years when anyone asks me about my recommendation for a new PC, I tell them "get a Mac". Yeah, it's not completely free (as in beer, or speech), but it utilizes a lot of the open source projects we know and love, is UNIX, and lets both power users and newbies get what they want done without dealing with things they shouldn't have to (registry problems, malware, restricted multiverse repositories, and the like). Most people just want a machine to get a job done and don't really care *how* it does it, just that it does.

Windows 7 might be getting there, but I jumped ship with Windows XP and haven't looked back. Maybe someday Steve Jobs will decide to lock down Mac OS X like iOS, but if that happens, and the OS will once again becomes an obstacle to what I am trying to accomplish, I will look elsewhere.

I guess Steve Jobs has had a change of heart on one his most used phrases? (See Steve Jobs "artists steal" quote)

Do you honestly believe that the content cartels have not thought of that? All one would require to disable this is to embed an invisible (to the naked eye) watermark in the video stream which can be detected by the video camera which causes your camera to record nothing.

And don't think this is impossible. Have you ever tried to photocopy certain government documents on newer photocopiers? They simply will not allow you do so.

Actually, that is their search engine. What the GP was talking about was Yahoo's directory, and can be found at http://dir.yahoo.com/.

The sad part is that is that the directory page is now mostly "The Spark Blog" and advertising links, with the "real" directory occupying a tiny column on the left side.

I can remember a time when that directory was actually one of the few *useful* sites on the web. Now get off my lawn.

You are waging a losing battle my friend. Just as the distinction between the terms "hacker" and "cracker" has been lost upon wider usage, "virus" has now come to mean any type of malware.

Great, so if I want decent performance out of one of the most popular internet video services, I am tied to Windows. Yuck.

I think even Microsoft has seen the writing on the wall for Flash. However, if you no longer need Flash to view videos on the web that's just one more reason why you don't need Windows. Luckily for us, Microsoft wants all of us to replace the horrible Flash with the new and improved Microsoft Silverlight. :p

Thanks, but no thanks. I'm one of the ones hoping for HTML5 video to take off.