Seriously. The android SDK is free, Eclipse is free. There's no monetary risk involved to experiement and see if you like doing it.

I screwed around with it for a month off-and-on doing all the tutorial programs on developer.android.com and by the time I was done, it made a lot more sense. I made extensive use of stackoverflow.com too. Good resource there.

If developing isn't for you, there are indeed open source style apps out there. A little bit of googling can find out if they are legit, or if the source is indeed available.

Sounds to me like TI is run by a bunch of ego-maniacal Texan control-freaks with typical ego-maniacal control freak personalities. I mean it's not like a pocket calculator is even that *relevant* anymore. Christ, bc on the unix command line can practically do everything your basic TI can do. For everything else there's your basic run-of-the-mill desktop calculator. Seems like TI should be focusing on how to stay alive, rather than frustrate it's users. I don't understand how they are even in business.

The people you don't want to know about this stuff, already know. The only reason Siemens or others don't want the info made public is to save face.

A tweet is one thing. An entire blog seems a bit over-the-top for dicking-off. Especially in these times.

I like the simplicity of Xterm. It works well with SSH, can talk to endless serial devices (like console terminal login on headless stuff) and can run over a modem. All I need is twm and Xterm and I have a nice lightweight X desktop on a server for installing Oracle. There aren't a lot of dependencies so I can keep the software footprint small. Updates are faster and few.

Now in KDE on a desktop, something like Termkit might be more practical. Don't forget though, eye-candy comes at the expense of resources. You can't have all that bling without giving up cpu or ram. In the end, is the payoff worth it to be able to run a screensaver in your terminal?

All the work that went into the Compiz bling; it's cool but I just don't use it. The exploding windows are neat, I just don't see the point in having a desktop that contributes to my distractions.

But it's not in the form of iChat, MSN Messenger, or other proprietary protocols which have muddied the waters of collaboration in order to control a niche of the market.

Look up XMPP. It's an open standard. It's open source. Google talk uses it. I can chat in windows linux or mac with it. People on other platforms can chat with people on other platforms. It supports group chat. There are open source clients and server software available. It works great. Why use anything else?

Read it out-loud in your UT announcer voice and it's even more awesome...

.NET was a mostly foiled attempt of microsoft to do the same thing with C that they did to Netscape. Why hand that over to Microsoft by implementing some cross-platform version of a noose they can hang you with? They are bad enough when the law *isn't* on their side.

I don't understand what would drive anyone to do this unless they are on the Microsoft bank-roll.

Google is just trying to make a marketing argument to put some momentum behind their Chromebook. There is no solution which is completely 'torture' free... even an Abacus can be frustrating.

No matter how much you want it to be gone, Flash is like ActiveX and IE. A necessary piece of software for many production applications in use today. To take those pieces away means costing corporation several thousands if not millions in re-inventing their wheels. Corporations don't like to that, and many IT budgets aren't fat enough to do it. No matter how much Steve Jobs bitches about it his argument is irrelevant - at least at this point in time.

It will take the industry a good many years to shift away from their crappy software suite dependencies (IE, Flash, Active-X, etc, etc) but until that happens, we are stuck with Flash so let's just stop with all the whining.

It's not enough to pursue fossil fuels to the point of destroying the environment on a global scale, but what really, really pisses me off is that the 10 motherf@#$ in control of the world's supply are so crazed with insatiable greed that they can, and will, continue to as they wish with no regard for anything. They are unstoppable becuase they own the lawmakers.

I'm looking at you especially, Walker; you kochsucker.