We're a Dell shop at work and by default, all "road warriors" have Computrace installed on their machines.

While it doesn't happen often, we do suffer a loss due to theft now and then.

My experience has been that the local PD is very helpful and sends a copy of the police report to Computrace, exchanges contact data, and at least professes interest in recovering the laptop.

Worst case; we get a check in 6 months if the unit is not found.

I know this is a little late for you now, but if your insurance replaces the unit, you might want to add the $$ for CT.

...may be hazardous to your health.

Apparently, EVERY damn thing that is fun,entertaining, or otherwise distracts us from reality is DANGEROUS.

And you know what? I'm pushing 60 and simply don't give a shit if it kills me anymore.

So, I think I'll pour a drink of good bourbon, load the bong, and watch 3D movies until my eyes explode or the Surgeon General kicks in my door...whichever comes first.

I read about the original research and hadn't heard anything for a while and wondered if HP was still working on this.

Personally, I feel this is OUTSTANDING news. RTFA, they think they'll get 20GB on a square centimeter. And have a viable competitor to flash memory in 3 years.

Instead of "coming on Blu-Ray Tuesday!", it'll be "coming on MR-Chip Tuesday!"

Of course, when they get the 4D version working, that'll change to "coming last week on MR-Chip!"

( And yes, I just copyrighted "MR-Chip"...)

...in a pan of hot motor oil.

I'd had my 3GS for 2 months. Was in my shirt pocket while I was changing the oil in my John Deere tractor.

It was the first oil change on the tractor. I had run the engine for 15 minutes and had just started draining the oil when my hand slipped pulling the filter.

When I yanked my hand back and jumped up, the phone tumbled out of my shirt and did a gainer into the drain pan and sank.

Of course, I burned my OTHER hand fishing the phone out, then dropped the very slick and hot phone onto the concrete driveway.

Blotted the oil off with paper towels and used Q-tips to wick oil from the speakers and dock connector.

Let it dry for 4-5 hours and then checked it out. No harm and it's still working.

Just glad no one witnessed the impromptu slapstick routine in the driveway.

I looked hard at the Sony and Kindle units and got neither.

I use my 3GS, Stanza, and Comixology . Also have the USA Today and NY Times apps for news.

I like the single device aspect, and readibility is good. Not excellent...I'm > 50 and have reading glasses.

So, I'm considering the iPad. I did look at the latest Sony readers at Best Buy just yesterday and I still think color (especially for comics and news) and the larger form factor are what I want.

Actually had to do the phone activation with Win 7 Pro 3 weeks ago.

I had installed the license I got for Xmas on a dual-core Athlon tower. It ran 4 days, then the motherboard decided it no longer had USB ports. (I live on a farm with power made by gophers pedaling bikes apparently)

So, I built a new box, salvaged HDs and GPU from the "mostly dead" PC, and reinstalled Win 7. Got the "couldn't activate Windows" message, so I called the robot in Redmond.

Took 3-4 minutes and I was "legal" once again.

The WAT bit gives me some concern that I could get ID'd as a false positive at some point.

Actually, the iPhone and the iPad DO multi-task, just not with 3rd party apps. Flash is ugly; HTML5 or even SilverLight is a better choice. People have found methods for an iPad camera in the SDK; what else is in there that's not enabled....yet?

The reasons for WHEN and WHAT the iPad is and is not are not technical at all. It's financial. Apple wanted to get in front of the buying public with the iPad before some competing tablets hit the market. The price isn't the $999 some predicted; even the 64GB/3G model is less than that.

If they enabled multi-tasking out of the box, they risk performance and reliability issues with the 1st gen release and lose some revenue from the closed ecosystem of iTunes, etc. and bad press. Basically, I think Apple is gambling a bit until OS 4.0 is ready, at which time they'll allow/turn on all the "stuff" people are crying about being absent.

And no one I know has any problem saying "Gonna play with my Wii" with a straight face.

My 2 cents...

...I'd buy THAT for a dollar!

Actually, if this thing ever becomes an actual product, I'll buy one.

I can always get the laser in the aftermarket.

I would not pirate an app for my iPhone or any machine I own.

I have a lot of friends and co-workers with iPhones and I don't think a single one of them has a jailbroken device OR any pirated apps. Considering a fair amount of them (and myself) have the technical ability to do so, I wonder about the "rule", regardless of whether they're Pinch-based apps or not.

And honestly, most of the apps are so cheap that anyone and everyone should just pay the $2. I bought RedLaser for $1.99 a while back and saved far more than that shopping with it the first weekend. Bought Pocket Universe for $2.99 last week and have certainly gotten more than 3 bucks of enjoyment from it.

Pirates...whether they're stealing apps or cargo ships...are the lowest form of life.

Yes kids, the card is FAST, but the better news is DirectX 11 support and the ability to run up to 3 displays at high resolutions.

Tom's Hardware has some metrics on overclocking and power consumption in their review, BTW.

At $600 MSRP, this is not a cheap card, but the performance is pretty amazing.

I'm still using an nVidia 8800 in my primary PC and a 7600 in my backup box, and both do OK with most games. I should point out that I don't have Crysis or many of the games used for benchmarks, with the exception of Left 4 Dead (1 and 2).

COD2, the L4D's, and Borderlands all run fine on my current setups, so I'll wait until something dies before I look at a new nVidia or ATI card.

Indeed! I "salvaged" some parts to build a dual-core PC with 4GB of RAM and an nVidia 8800GT to play Left 4 Dead.

I pre-ordered L4D2 to play the demo...pretty good stuff, by the way...then bought Borderlands because my son was raving about it.

Spent this last weekend taking a Soldier up to Level 15. I was doing the "Sledge's Safehouse" mission, got the Mine Key, fought my way out, and couldn't remember where I parked my car. No problem, I think, I'll trot back to turn in the mission and just kill more stuff on the way.

I was leaning over a cliff to snipe skags and accidently fell into the midst of about 12 Adult and Spitter Skags. Bad news for me...my Scorpio Turret got some before I went down under 5-6 beasties. Got a Second Wind twice, but eventually died and was eaten.

I love this game.....

LOL...you are correct.

I started to head the post with DISCLOSURE, but suffered an unfortunate grammar collision while typing. (No lives were lost and only minor injuries were reported)

DISCLAIMER: I bought an iPhone 3GS in July, the first one I've owned. My wife got one in August. We like the phones, but are not Apple zealots. :END DISCLAIMER

I think the prediction, if true, is good news. I don't see Apple, or anyone else non-Android, idly standing by the next 2-3 years. It should result in better hardware, better OS, better apps, and better user experience at a lower cost due to competition among the players.

Wishful thinking perhaps, but not completely. The typical customer will be an existing device owner. Since their current (non-AT&T) carrier may well offer an Android phone, Apple will have to be available on more carriers than AT&T OR have an iPhone "5GS" that's so compelling people would (still) line up to get one. I don't think Apple can "out-hardware" anyone. The 3GS is neat and capable, but as several others have pointed out, there are other phones as good or better right now.

So, I would think that the entire Apple "food chain"; hardware, iTunes, App Store, iPhone OS, and carrier partner, will have to change and adapt to compete. There may well be many phone models, from multiple manufacturers by 2012 running Android. If Google rolls out "gTunes" or something that competes decently with iTunes with the content Google could bring to the table, Apple will have to react. Ultimate winner should be the consumer.

For my part, if there's an Android phone available a year from July (when my AT&T contract is up) that is better than an iPhone is at that time, I'll likely get it. My consumer loyalty lies with me, period. I feel that's probably the case with most people. iTunes doesn't make or break the deal for me either.

As I said, good news.

Use this RAH short story and have the students compare characters, events, and society to today's Republicrats, and "prophets" like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

Edgar Rice Burroughs - The Barsoom books...any of them. Ask the question "how would John Carter fare in 21st century America"

Asimov - "I,Robot". Bonus points for including the Harlan Ellison screenplay as part of the reading, followed by a discussion of science fiction adaptations to the big screen.

The above will burn up a couple of weeks at the least.

Good luck with the class....

...an inkjet I've fallen in love with; the HP OfficeJet 8500.

If you can find a working LJ4, get it. Best thing HP made, other than the venerable LJ II. I sold my last one 2-3 years ago. Stilled worked and toner carts were still available. The 5 series weren't bad, either.

I recently went back and forth on laser versus inkjet and ended up coming home with the OfficeJet 8500. I needed color capability, so price was an issue. Got the wireless-capable model for $199, on sale.

It's an all-in-one and while speed and print quality were my primary drivers, I did have to send a 40 page fax this week and have used the copier feature more than I thought I would.

This is a big printer..bigger than some lasers...but the print quality and features are excellent.