> Wow, you MS apologists just don't quit, do you?
>
>Here's the thing: If it was exclusive then what caused the exclusivity to change?

It's typically specified in the contract. MS probably demanded a period of exclusivity in exchange for the development/integration/distribution of making Netflix streaming available to their huge installed base of users. Netflix wanted to retain the flexibility to partner with anyone they wanted. So, they negotiated a mutually agreeable term of exclusivity.

This is very common in the software industry.

For those of us that use Windows in a VM on our primary Linux or Mac OS X desktop, what is the best OS?

For a long time, I stuck with my good old Win2K VM. But, too many apps were not supported on Win2K, so I moved to XP.

There was clearly no reason to go to Vista from XP. But, how about now with Win7? Any advantages to Win7 for basic VM use, office apps & IT tools?

This looks like a great device to replace my old WRV54G router (which has hardware IPSec support). When I bought the WRV54G, there were a couple projects to create an linux firmware, but none ever panned out.

Do any of the OSS firmware options support IPSec? I know it won't be fast on an embedded processor like are in these routers. But, it should be okay for a home router.

They declared bankruptcy.. the company failed and went into bankruptcy protection in an attempt to salvage something.

Their shareholders (owners) lost billions of dollars, and the GM of old is no more.

Yes, it's important to recognize the responsibilities of old-GM that are not being addressed now that they are gone. But, this should not be surprising, and it's not that unusual either.

The functional equivalent of the smartphone remote control has existed for a decade or so. The Phiips Pronto remote control is a touch screen, fully programmable, completely optimize for its job, remote control. It had a GUI editor for configuring the screens, built-in IR emitter, etc.

And yet, other universal remotes have been created and flourished. The touch screen sucks for remote controls. You don't want to look at the device to figure out the context and button layout every time you use it. You just want to feel the button layout and hit what you need.

I replaced me Pronto with a cheap Radio Shack remote control (and some hack-ish software to reprogram it). You can get nearly the same effect for a bit more $$ with the Harmony remote. Although, I think the Radio Shack "JP1" remotes are even better when programmed well - minimal buttons completely optimized for the user's environment.

Virtualization gives an easier way to accomplish this (with the caveat of needing a platform able to host the virtualized platform).

You can easily snapshot systems, and have an OS image for each x years rather than a complete new platform each time. Doing this today, you could easily produce snapshots from DOS days up until current systems.

VMware would be easier to create all this with. But, open source Xen would probably be the better choice to ensure future availability.

Does it have a mini adapter to an external video output?

A tiny device like this would be great to use as an HD Media Player, and also be usable as a portable device if needed.

If it supported Intel's VAAPI, it could probably decode HD content.. certainly MPEG2 HD content. Other similar devices with NVidia GPUs could also be excellent options. Their new video decoding API seems great - MythTV has support for it in the dev builds.

I made the mistake of buying Quicken when I moved from Linux to mac a few years ago. It sucked. I won't buy from intuit again until there is feature parity.

The free options don't meet my needs, I want more investment tracking. So I'll stick with my spreadsheet for now.