As an European, I have no idea what a checking account is (an account from which the funds for checks you write is drawn I would guess), nor have I ever received or written a check.

Salaries are paid direct deposit to your bank account. From your bank account, you pay other people (online, or at the bank in person). Sending money is of course free over the entire euro area, and at least inside my country nearly instantaneous. If you have a debit card it can be used for paying for things directly by drawing from your bank account.

My understanding is that it doesn't work this way in the US because for some inexplicable reason your bank account number is considered a secret? In Europe, the bank account number is like an address, you give it to everyone who sends you money and you know the bank account of everyone who you need to send money to. Knowing the bank account of someone is only good for sending money, there's no way you could draw money from someone's account with it.

Civ IV Complete Edition was $10 on Steam just recently, a real steal. You can install on as many computers as you like and re-download whenever you want. Both Mac and Win versions included in the same price.

Gee, thanks for "allowing" this, you're all too kind. Of course the Nokia N900 has had Skype over WiFi and 3G since last fall, and with the latest update does Skype-to-Skype video calls as wells (over whatever TCP/IP connection you have of course, including 3G)! But I'm sure it will be a great innovation and a lot of fuss about it when the iPhone 4G or whatever invents video calls later on.

It seems the mouse wheel scrolling has been changed in 3.6. It's moving a much larger distance with each "click" of the wheel than before and if you scroll continuously it seems to accelerate even faster. My first impression is that I don't like it at all. It feels a lot more like Chrome, which isn't a good thing in my opinion, the annoying jumpy scrolling is one of the primary reasons I prefer not to use Chrome.