You can use Cmd-F9/10/11/12 to avoid the expose stuff. OS X sees that as a different combination so doesn't fire expose but VMware passes the F-key unmodified to the VM which seems like an oversight but has got me out of a number of jams. If not using vmware YMMV.

The default is to overscan on every TV I've seen, but the last few I've bought in recent years allow you to switch off the overscan from the TV menu. Sometimes it's called 1:1, sometimes Native, sometimes Full. Often it's simply listed in the same menu as the 4:3/16:9 widescreen menu thingy.

You'll find that all your HDMI sources like BR players, consoles, etc. will be running scaled up too though it's not so immediately obvious when there's no start menu on screen!

And how would your console determine it has been activated? By going online.

Up to a point, then you've got to make a choice. Keep the high level OOP constructs, or flatten it out to make the compiler's job easier.

THEN you have the next level of optimization, keep the readable code or do it the "clever" way that nets a 40% boost. And as any experienced coder will tell you, clever code is the antithesis of maintainable.

When you are installed on as large a number of computers as Microsoft's OS is, you have to be a little more responsible. Improve the security model to bring it closer to Linux, spectacular! Leave it so that writes to previously okay directories now fail? Terrible.

Maybe I'm over simplifying this, but to me it would seem trivial to remap writes to a user directory. Every time OpenFile is called on Program Files/blah/foo.cfg, open %USERDIR%/Local Settings/App Data/blah/foo.cfg if it exists, if not, copy the one from program files and then open it. Vista already has the compatibility options that correct for misapplications of win32 functions, for me at least my complaint was that their backwards compatibility was really half assed and they've shown no interest in updating it.

Which now that I think about it, seems to be their pattern (X360 Xbox compatibility has stalled, XP never did get a working soundblaster emulator)

It's actually worse than that. They take the digital masters and further filter it as there are certain patterns that a needle in a groove just can't do. If the bass gets too deep, it can leave the surface of the record so they lower it, high frequencies come out tinny, so they filter them too.

If you like the sound of vinyl, then nothing else will do, but from a purely technical standpoint, CD is better in every way it's possible to be better.

This is very true. I recently bought a pair of Shure SE210s and while not high end, they were so far beyond what I'd been using that I'm finding it more difficult to listen to some of my older MP3s from the pre-LAME days.

Clarious helpfully provided a decent link for what you asked, but perhaps a simpler way to demonstrate it is in storage capacity.

An 80min CDR can store just over 700MB, but 80min of audio. 80min at 44.1KHz 16bit Stereo works out around 820MB. Some of your data-CD space is eaten up file file system data, but not 120MB.

That extra space that audio uses for audio is used to store that error detection/correction and seek data I was referring to.

It's probably a lot to do with simply consolidating manufacturing. If they only need one set of equipment, I'd imagine that helps their bottom line. If they can get some marketing led sales out of it from gullible sorts then that's just gravy.

Different encoding scheme, more error correction and most importantly the data has a way to tell the drive where it is for accurate seeking, so a misread can be re-read. Whereas on an audio-cd programs have to do a hack where they guess the position based on the data they are receiving. Accurate rip software can basically never truly guarantee a bit for bit copy, and have to brute force it to get close. In practice however the end result is close enough that only a purist who doesn't care about the music so much as the warm fuzzy feeling of a accuracy will care.

And I don't want to buy something you've had first. There's more to a game than the bits on a disc.

Y'see, that one I don't mind so much. It shows that the person knew what the end result had to be and thought about what they could do to achieve that given what they knew.

It was needlessly complex and not very useful in the end, but when you deal with people who refuse point blank to realise that everything they've been asked to do today is a tiny variation on one common theme and NOT to phone you every single time for instructions... damned if I'm not going to be impressed if they at least try.

Snap.

When tasked with organising the artwork for poster sized versions of company logos this very thing turned an afternoon of phone calls and emails into "become an expert at tracing company logos with Illustrator."

I think sometimes it might be the that professions have the perception that someone spent time learning this through apprenticeships or many years at university and are therefore better people than that damned bespectacled nerd who only knows what to do from tinkering with those stupid computers in his parent's basement.

That and while people appreciate their cars or of course, their health, with computers it seems to be more that they HAVE to use it and resent every minute of it.

Sometimes you have to learn how to be stupid to deal with people. Where I work they understand Excel. That's it.

If you want to send any tabulated data whatsoever, it damn well better be in an excel spreadsheet rather than ANYTHING more suited to the task. And when you're butting up against the physical limitations of the excel file format, then it's your data that has to change, not the file format. Grrrrr.