Actually, that amount on a NIC would be a great boon in keeping all network processing on the NIC instead of having to CPU/system memory-offload, especially when you turn on the bells and whistles like jumbo frames, etc. I can also see it helping out quite a bit when processing HD video packets when streaming video where it's pretty important to get them processed as quickly and efficiently as possible before passing them off to the main system. These packets tend to have a decent amount of overhead, etc and being able to process quite a bit of them at once due to increased RAM on the NIC should help quite a bit smoothing out the entire process.

Questions:

1) Does the viewer in Chrome lack all of the JS and other nonsense shoved into all of the "traditional" PDF programs (and yes, every other viewer developer is starting to throw this nonsense into their viewers, including Foxit & Sumatra)?

2) Will this change make it easier to just click on the PDF link in Chrome and have it automagically open in a new tab instead of me having to jump through hoops?

I ask this because the only two times I've used it were for a pair of device technical/warranty manuals which (USUALLY) don't come with any added cruft so I didn't notice anything in question 1.

Essentially, I just use PDFs for quick and dirty things like warranty/manual reading. I don't do forms or other corporate buzzword bingo nonsense in them.

I can confirm the T1s where for I live. While somewhat rural, even the nearest 100K+ population city doesn't have (and probably won't have) anything 4G/LTE in the foreseeable future. Maybe by 2024. Maybe.

Let me tell you, they roll those things out in very select and specific areas to make it appear they have great coverage with this, when in fact they do not, and aren't even close to covering the numbers they are claiming on those maps.

Put it this way - if it isn't going to be a population center of at least 500k or more, it won't happen anytime soon, and even then it will be as cheaply done as possible to save on the fiber rollouts and lease fees.

I've had to remove that nonsense - make sure you dig into your browser settings and check both the extensions and plugins sections (it installs to both, and also changes your default search engines, etc). Conduit also installs itself into more than one directory, so make sure you triplecheck your ProgamFiles and ProgramFiles(x86) folders if on 64-bit Windows. This particular bit of spyware also tries to reinstall itself when you remove it.

You'll also need to check under Users/Appdata/Local and Users/Appdata/Roaming AND under services.msc as sometimes it tends to install a service (and this service does two things - handles calling the mothership and the self-reinstall mechanism).

This particular bit of software can install itself silently and it can completely bypass UAC due to more certain undocumented stupidity by Microsoft (aka they have a mechanism by which you can use a certain switch in certain signed installers to A) elevate privs for the installer process and B) bypass UAC while C) not asking for permission for the first two).

I take it you've never actually read the lack of useful comment lines in the kernel source code.

They already have this. It's called Steam + Big Picture.

What we are waiting on, is the official Steam Box to hit retailers, and the official SteamOS for those of us who want to dedicate a specific PC of our own making to games instead of shoveling it all into one system like we do on average now.

With the performance drag between ECC and 'normal' RAM almost entirely vanished nowadays, I am seriously considering a gaming/movie server build for my next system that I can leave parked in a cabinet under my tv, and official SteamOS releases will be a big part of this.

When they decided to start hiding or removing useful settings while adding so much bloatware into it that they might as well have renamed it FireIE 6.0, I quit using it for daily browsing habits.

Now that it is up to version 25+ (which is fucking stupid in its own right, trying to play version catch-up with Google just because), I still find that I don't use it for anything but Twitch.tv and Disqus.

For some reason the chat interface for Twitch never loads in Chrome no matter what I do, and Disqus comments never load in Chrome no matter what I do.

Not that I interactively use the Twitch chat, since it requires a Facebook account to post, but I can at least read the commentary and maybe send the developers a more full-fledged response via email when I am watching something from Digital Extremes or Trion for instance.

As for Disqus, I can't figure out what it is - it may be Chrome mangling the Disqus cookies in some way or hating the number of redirects the Disqus system itself uses when logging in and loading comment sections, but it just sits and spins and never loads. Loads instantly on IE10 or Firefox though (yes, I use Windows 7 exclusively at the moment).

You forget that Reader was not programmed in-house and that the code of Reader was really not built in a way that condoned 'mucking about' very well, as we saw every single time Google 'improved' it with updates.

They probably couldn't get targeted advert code into Reader itself even though they wanted to, and coupled with the nonsense crybabying from some news companies in the EU, they just decided it wasn't worth the bother anymore (that and I know tons of people who dumped it after one of their updates in 2011 mangled it).

The deselection in the installer only does a few things:

1) Doesn't install a desktop icon for Sharepoint or its services.

2) Doesn't install the Sharepoint icon under the Start menu anywhere.

3) Doesn't create the registry entries pointing to the non-existent icons other than a few in certain keys to denote that the icon was "disabled", but still can be added manually or automatically via 're-installation' at a later time.

So yes, it still installs it (and this seems to vary from one version of Office to another if it has this behavior) but just doesn't allow you direct access via icon, etc. Sometimes I think this behavior is due to different groups of people writing the installer packages - some groups take the lazy way by just disabling the icons.

The Verifone models are also what quite a few stores use around here as well. I can confirm they are touchy, and "die" often (I think due to customers poking them too hard or something during debit transactions), but they also are all the models where you can swipe a normal card OR "tap" the chip-enabled cards to perform the transaction (which I guess helps our foreign tourists out, as there is only one card & card company here that offers them, so, useless to us locals).

There's been a few times where that tamper detected error has shown up where it's only been a loosened hex screw on the backplate due to the way those things mount on the swivels - they can eventually work loose over time. It went away if the terminal was shut off, the screw tightened, then the terminal restarted.

They have no qualms about dropping the banhammer. They've banned literally hundreds of thousands of accounts for botting, let alone the rest. I am quite sure they can and do detect it. This is just like WoWglider. when they created Warden in response on top of the lawsuit.

I take it you missed the part where that +/- 10 cm was THROUGH A WALL.

Or just dump it all to something similar to Dropbox or Skydrive, then pull it back - not saying to use those in particular if you don't like their owners or policies, but I think you get the drift.

They claimed it was "China". Now we know the truth.

My guess is for most of their easy-mode access, they are actually using a rootkit of some sort to simply pass along whatever they want before any encryption is applied.

Yes, and also attempts at access to my router's two remote access ports (I disabled remote access from the get-go, fortunately).

The attempts have all been originating or appearing to originate in China, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Turkey, and the Ukraine.