I also have a three story house and a WAP in the middle. Reception is horrible, horrible, horrible. I think it's all the insulation material (class B house) and the floor heating (a lot of water in the floors) and on top of that the floors are concrete. I now have a second access point, one on the second floor.

Cellphone reception is also terrible in the middle of my living room. My best bets are turning off Data on my cellphones so that it doesn't try to negotiate quicker speeds.

I'd really like to know how to improve things. House has been built last year. I expect this to be a common problem in low energy houses.

Yes, that the famous model where a BIOS was leaked and where you need to short to pins to be able to flash it. It's a special case, not applicable to most Chromebooks.

You can't do that. Chromebooks don't have a BIOS/EFI as we know it. Not 100% sure, but pretty sure tough.

SQA as a red-headed stepchild has been an issue for many, many years. It's just that most troubles/failed software systems don't have the widespread public exposure that Healthcare.gov has; even the most brain-dead corporation would not have launched such an incomplete and bug-ridden system to a vast end-user bases.

Some years ago, I led a review of a late (4 yrs vs 2 yrs estimated) and very over-budget ($500M vs. $180M estimated) corporate software project. The core problems had everything to do with SQA, starting with the fact that there was no SQA organization; all testing was done on an ad hoc basis by individual teams and organizations. Adding to that problem was the fact that there was no coherent architecture. After 4 years and $500M, there were no systems that were ready to go into production. Far too common in industry and especially in government. ..bruce..

That was going to be my suggestion as well. Has the added benefit that, unlike Vista, it will still be supported by Microsoft for years to come.

I still wince when I remember being the only person in my old workplace still stuck with an ageing PC running Windows 2000, long past when Microsoft had stopped supporting it and many newer applications required XP or later. Don't go there - it ain't a fun place.

I thought it was just a (relatively) common phrase..? Maybe I've watched Firefly too many times.

I meant the way how Google manages G+. By coercion (Youtube!) and "my way of the highway".

I like Windows XP. I have ranted before that the IT industry totally lack a concept of maturity. XP is a prime example of it: sure, it's not perfect, but it is so well known, that securing it and managing it is a breeze. Oh, well, I stand alone with that opinion. What can I say?

Thanks for the infographic. :-D

I'm using Twitter a fair bit now myself - at least on there I'll actually see most people's posts, something that's now a distant memory on Facebook.

Microsoft-like? No thanks, I had my fill of 'Modern' Windows - back on 7 again.

Speaking of which, this was on one of the occasional Microsoft newsletters I received today - Happy Retirement, XP - I'm sure the placement of those balloon strings is entirely coincidental. ;)

Oh, and I did notice you were using G+ more frequently. There is not much going on on G+, but I still post, just to keep my social network usage diversified. This is also why I have an increased usage on twitter.

It does feel very Microsoft-Like, eh? ;-)

The only custom URL I have for by G+ business page is the *entire* business name in full, minus spaces - RedunserCreativeSolutions - needless to say, not much use to give out to people. No option is allowed to specify a shorter versions (say, RedunserCreative). I guess I will have to consider changing my business name, since Google evidently aren't going to budge. No wonder they're trying to hoodwink as many users as possible of their other products into acquiring a G+ profile - the way they're operating G+ definitely ain't selling the service to people as an alternative to Facebook or Twitter.

[I really want to like G+, but I keep being reminded that I'm supposed to use it the way Google wants me to rather than let me find a way that works for me. Hell, the main reason why I don't post more stuff to G+ is that many sites still don't have an option to share stuff to it, whereas it's trivially easy to do so to either Facebook or Twitter.]