I like my Treo 700P, but I hate the keyboard. The rounded buttons are hard to hit authoritatively. I find I have to use the edge of my thumb. I much prefer flatter or even cupped keys like the Blackbarry (earlier ones).

I've never personally come across anyone who's bought a Mac or iPod/iPhone because of the supposed "cool" factor.

I certainly wouldn't expect people who buy stuff for the cool factor would either admit it or even are aware of it. But I bet if you spent some time talking to them about why they bought an iPhone, or any hot gadget for that matter, you could discern whether they bought the device for primarily practical reasons. I'd even go so far as to say in my unqualifed opinion, the most of the people who stood in-line for hours after the iPhone release where motivated by the cool factor.

And I am not an iPhone hater. I think it is great technology and if they were weren't ATT exclusive and if Apple wasn't so draconian in locking the damn thing down, I might get one for myself. I find that fact that I have to jailbreak and violate the ToS appalling. Hell, I even tried to talk my sister into one because she would benefit from the ease of use and applications.

Devices similar to it have been around quite a bit longer than first-generation iPhones. Just like most any palm, they've never been cool, though. So even if Palm would've gotten out a TX cell, it's extremely unprobable that this would've changed anything. They might've gotten a few percentage points out of RIM's market share. Maybe some of Microsoft's. But an Apple product's hype isn't based on features, or the price, or the design. It's marketing coupled with hordes of rabid fanboys.

Much applause. Very well said.

The parent is not flamebait. You may not agree with the opinion, but the poster is making a reasoned argument. If you can't understand that, you need to turn in your mod points.

Luckily, it isn't that busy a thread.

The IT guy would have to intercept all DNS requests over the VPN and proxy them to his own DNS server. That's not a bad answer. Too bad I'm buried in the middle of this thread.

You're right. If the VPN is set-up to send all traffic over the tunnel, then the host *should* resolve using the company DNS servers. If the VPN is set-up for split tunneling, then the DNS will goto the ISP DNS. However, few VPN clients have the option to capture all DNS requests.

The solution is to put your internal server records in your public DNS or modify the hosts file.

The parent comment is not insightful.Twitter can be all the inane things the parent describes. Just like small talk can be inane, launching and goofing around can be inane, and school kid chatter is inane. But that is only one use of Twitter.

I work from home and I am relatively secluded during my work day. I am not a social butterfly by any means, but I like to talk and socialize to take a small break. Twitter gives me the opportunity to have those quick social interactions during my work-day.

I am also an in a field where there are a lot of others in the same or similar fields on Twitter. I get professional benefit from following them and, hopefully, them following me (thought I don't subscribe to quid pro quo following. If I find you interesting, I will follow you.) I am able to ask and answer questions, be alerted by events relevant to my job, and generally share outwardly. Not all the chatter is professionally focused, but enough is that it is worth while.

Twitter is a tool that unlike the IRC is open enough that you can more or less control how much stuff is sent to you by following folks and is closed enough that you can really limit the spam you receive. In fact, I rarely, if ever, get a spam Tweet. The trick to make Twitter successful for you is to build a network that is relevant to you. I don't view my follow or following count as a contest (thought others do). I view it from a quality stand point. I have far more followers than I follow. Frankly, I don't know why some of my followers follow me (and I don't mean spam bots, either).

If, however, you focus on the numbers, then you become innundated with spam and other bad behavior.

In the meantime, how the HELL is it possible the spec is so bad that you can be technically-compliant with it, and yet not be read by (almost) any existing implementation?

Because specifications are written by people and then read and interpreted by others. While specification creators try to be as complete and thorough as possible, there are still gaps. In something as complex as a document format like spreadsheets, I'd imagine it's an impossible task. Bake-offs where all the stakeholders get into a room, try to get this shit to interoperate, and then decided the proper interpretation, is where the interoperation work gets done. All of the Internet protocols went through a similar cycle. Then, when there is consensus on the interpretations, guidance and reference implementations can be written.

TFN talks ONLY about spread sheet interoperability. It's important to note that. Has interoperability testing been done with documents?

Dude, any digital navigation is automatically labeled "GPS" because digital navigation is too foreign to the common press. Calling all digital navigation GPS wildly inaccurate, yes, but easier than trying to explain what is actually going on.

And yer right, GPS won't work in a building or even under heavy canopy of trees and if it did, it's not accurate enough. 30ft difference isn't much for a conventoinal or nuclear bomb, but it is when choosing potted beef and mightydog dog food.

Really, it is. And for a 20MB line, cat 5 will do nicely.

Twitter is not like Skype or IM at all. It's more like IRC but you can choose (mostly) who you associate with. It's also one of the first services that let you easily participate via client, web, SMS and included an API.

It is a bit revolutionary in extending communication further.

Because I, the ISP, have formed a pact with your local government to prevent Speakeasy (or any other meaningful competition) from servicing your area of the country.

Economics has stopped competition. Speakeasy could service your part of the country if they wanted to run cables through right of ways to complete the local loop, build a bunch of CO's to interconnect the local loops. It's too frigging expensive to build the plant.

Are they talking about anonymity in general or a group that called Anonymous? Confused.

So for a submarine, the use of active sonar is useful to get a final target and bearing before firing a torpedo. Passive sonar is good for getting a ball park range track.

Torpedos aren't perfect, so getting an accurate range and bearing is pretty imporant. Active sonar really doensn't give anything away since once you launch a torpedo, the target, or anyone else in the area, is going to know where the sub is anyway.

What is news is that in 2009, this is still being discussed. The problem is the old guard running news sites don't know how or don't want to adapt.

Come on. Creating relevant content on a daily basis is hard and takes money. I read or watch the news and a dozen questions pop into my mind about the story, but finding the answers is work and the news cycle is so quick, that those answers can't be had in time.