This! Very much this!

The last three versions of OS X have broken critical work programs for the vast majority of people in my company. It has gotten to the point where Helpdesk warns people to NOT install the new OSX until Helpdesk have had a chance to go over it closely and if you do, and if you have any problems whatsoever, your computer will be taken, wiped, and reverted to the previous stable version of OS X.

If you're going to do that, at least use IMAP (Unless you're a Comcast customer, in which case, you have my condolences). IMAP lets you keep mail on the server and even organize it, rather than just having one huge Inbox. I use it on two desktops, a laptop, a smartphone, two Android tablets, and a webmail client (RoundCube).

I haven't been able to find any of those in a while. The only ones I've found in the last 8-12 months have been for 7" and bigger tablets.

Okay, so the question becomes: What is a better QWERTY phone? He mentions T-Mobile by name, but even better if it runs on all networks. The single requirement is a hardware QWERTY keyboard.

Yeah, I know, almost no one uses a hardware keyboard anymore, it's all on-screen and autocorrect now. But some of us don't like on-screen keyboards and some people do more than poke the Like/+1/retweat button.

Same here. I use KeePassX, other members of my team use KeePass on Windows or Mac. I also use KeePassDroid on my Android phone. The database is compatible between all versions, and encrypted so it can be stored on a file share (In our case, our departmental drive). I also use ownCloud to sync it automatically between devices whenever a password is updated.

I don't use the plugins though. I don't need to. KeePassX allows me to auto-type in named windows by hitting a global hot-key. Very useful.

It took me a while to find it too. It's that little gear symbol to the right of the Insightful, Informative, Interesting, Funny tabs. You mouse-over that, then you can select your threshold. But I have a problem in that it won't stick. I have to do that on every story. Plus there's no one-line-only option like in the current interface, and while I usually like browsing at +3, I still like seeing the first line of +2 comments. I've found a lot of good comments that way.

That plus the very excessive amount of whitespace on the comment pages are my biggest peeves with the new site (I'll be honest here, I haven't tried to post a comment in Beta, mainly because the comments taking < 40% of the screen space (And much less than that once they're nested) drove me away from it). I told them this in the Survey last year but the beta doesn't appear to have changed much since then (The only thing that I can recall changing is that gear icon for the threshold). I don't mind them putting the poll, their Sourceforge and Dice stuff on the main page (Though I do like the Slashboxes in the current interface), but I do NOT want that on the comments page. On any story with even a decent amount of comments, that sidebar runs out and then I have a blank spot staring at me while the comments (The important stuff that I went to the page to see) get smaller and smaller.

Not everything in HA is hip or sexy. Most of the stuff I want to do in my own DIY home automation project is boring, turning lights on and off remotely, opening and closing window blinds, zoned HVAC, automated porch light with motion detection. Stuff that's not hip or sexy but makes the house more intelligent and less energy-wasting.

It's more like "You can make about the same food as that hip restaurant in LA at your home in NYC, if you've got the time and inclination and a few raw materials..Here's a few recipes..."

Or, you know, use hand tools...

They're not saying they could build Nest for $70 in parts, they're saying they built a nest-clone device in less than 24 hours for about $70 in parts. Their time was theirs to spend, and they're not "marketing" this.

Oh they care, for the most part. They just don't think about privacy.

Because then it's "unfair" to the SUV-driving soccer moms and limo-riding corporate execs out there. It "unfairly" rewards hybrid drivers and those who get significantly more MPG than average.

If it detects smoke, it gives you a "heads up" warning before screaming its guts out. if you wave at it, it shuts up.

That's not how drives die of old age. A sudden and permanent drive failure like what is described is almost always a controller failure. When mechanical drives die of old age, they generally develop bad sectors and read-errors accumulate on the platter, but you can still read from the un-damaged areas. When SSDs die, those worn-out sectors go read-only or begin throwing similar read/write errors, depending on the firmware.

After having a 40GB IBM Deathstar suddenly go down in flames, and dozens of "salvage my data!" calls from friends and family, I don't trust any single drive of any age or provenance. ALWAYS have backups.

VMware is not open-source, and is pretty expensive if you need more than the basics. However it's well-supported in most circles, and its paid-license-support gets it past the PHB hurdle.

Xen is a beast. The time investment alone to get it to work puts it out of reach for even mid-level Linux admins. Plus it requires extra help to run non-Xen guest OSes.

OpenVZ isn't real virtualization. It's OS-level containment and pseudo-virtualization, which can be good for some things.

KVM has real steam behind it. It's already in the mainline kernel, it supports real virtualization (I've been able to get all modern Linux distros running as KVM guests as well as WinXP - WIn8 preview), but can get almost as fast as Xen's para-virtualization with some guest-OS drivers installed. There have been new features added to the Linux kernel to help it (Kernel Same-page Merging is one example). It's not that difficult to get working, especially if you use something like libVirt to do the heavy lifting for you.

I'm not an Ubuntu user, so I can't give first-hand experience using KVM on LTS, but a quick google search turned up this this HOWTOforge article on the latest LTS and from my reading, it seems pretty straight forward.