I'd like to see a waterproof tablet. Eliminate the headphone jack and the USB port. Then, shrink-wrap the entire thing. Everything goes over Bluetooth, WiFi and NFC, including charging, syncing and streaming.

In other words, survive a trip through the washing machine, a dunk in the pool or having sugary remnants rinsed off.

I'm guessing that you upgraded to iOS6.

Having worked in the recycling industry for years, solving the "sales" side of this is easy.

A posted and implemented policy of paying by check if the payout is greater than $20 makes most of these problems go away.

This works because large volumes comes in trucks and legitimate businesses generally prefer to receive a check (prevents employee skimming).

After that, invest in a few video cameras, particularly one trained at the parking lot exit (to pick up rear license plates). Attach these to a motion-detecting video recorder and make sure you know how to burn DVDs. The few times we have had to involve law enforcement, they were pretty happy with a plate number and footage including a face and "the goods".

So far, we have never had the check cashed, but if we did, the cops would then have a tie to the criminal's financial institution and we would join their case with a counter-suit to get our money back.

Keep in mind that we really do not want to make an illegal buck, but at the same time, we also want to earn the legal bucks as efficiently as possible.

In the office area, hanging ceilings everywhere, with at least 1.5 inches free space above the tiles so that any given tile can all be lifted when necessary.

As possible, put HVAC over offices and power/data over hallways. Any filters should be changeable from hallways so that you don't need to stand on somebody's desk a few times a year.

Above hallways, cable trays for data (with tops if required by code), with clear space above and adjacent to the tray. Trays are much easier to deal with than conduit.

In offices, double-gang boxes for data with 0.75 inch conduit running above ceiling tiles and turning to point towards the trays. If code requires, they can be run into the sides of the trays. Adjacent to each data, put a duplex outlet. Generally, two boxes per office on opposite walls that allow a base cable to reach anywhere in the office without crossing a door or window.

Use structured wiring (RJ45) for telco, even if you have a PBX that would prefer 110 blocks. It is much more future-proof.

Unless union rules preclude your use of a man-lift, put IT assets in the shop area 8+ feet above ground to protect against fork-lift damage. Even better, if distance limitations permit (generally, 80 Meters) keep electronics in office area -- especially those devices with fans.

If cables and fibers do not arrive pre-terminated, insist on a good testing tool to validate reliability. Come to think of it, a good testing tool is needed period.

I stopped letting my kids use my PC after I realized they could "break" it and prevent me from using it to earn a living. If you PC is used for anything other than recreation, I strongly recommend a dedicated PC.

Over the next few years, they will start "needing" it for school and it will invariably happen at the same time as you need it for work. My youngest actually likes working on his laptop next to Daddy. He got a (reimaged) hand-me-down at age 6 1/2. Although he is rough on toys, he seems to understand how to care for a laptop and knows the rules (for instance, it stays on the table).

It might be useful to discuss with the pricipal/teachers how you can best match what is used in school, especially looking forward a few years. I have found that in the 4th/5th grade, the computer becomes pretty necessary for homework. We are now to the point where the school actually has a "bring your own device" policy, so I fully expect to see my older kids bringing their laptop to school at (special) times.

Although you might think that a specialty O/S and open-source word processors are "cool", you ought to balance this against the fact that to the school, the PC is simply a tool, and not the goal.

Comments that describe why you are doing something or that explain strategy are exceptionally useful. Please include them. When I need to look at your code in two years, they will make me very happy.

Comments that describe how the language works (e.g. "//loop through the arguments") or what something is (e.g. "int i; // loop counter") have the possibility of being eliminated through careful selection of names, code organization, etc. Doing this will also make me very happy.

Also, please live within the language definition. Substituting "argv" with "CommandLineArgumentVector" when programming in C makes your code less clear because it no longer matches what is taught in every C book. Same goes for brace placement. If you want to call yourself a "C" programmer, your code will look like it came out of K&R.

I'll climb down from my soapbox now.

FF15 just auto-installed on my machine. When I clicked relaunch, it re-logged into my sites, including those which do not survive quitting the browser (e.g. those that use session cookies). So, it is possible for it to work right.

If the failing site is publicly accessible (e.g. slashdot), it might be helpful to submit a report into bugzilla.

The downside, of course, is the admin who turns it off and then never updates. Eventually, malware catches up to the vulnerabilities that have not been fixed in the now obsolete version. Since the version is uniformly applied across your organization, the infection spreads like wildfire. Been there, mopped up after that mess.

The thing I have long wished for is a setting to delay automatic updates for 24-48 hours on the PCs belonging to users who do not make good guinea pigs. That way, automatic updates can be left on to save our bacon, but we have a fighting chance of blocking a bad update.

Also, this is a much easier problem in the world of web broswers because there is a possibility of putting up a "use firefox till chrome is fixed" announcement. OS patches are a bigger concern because one generally does not have a ready alternative.

In unrelated news, Apple announces a price increase in the cost of iPhones due to sudden, "unexplained" price increases from critical suppliers.

Perhaps the award (if not decision) would have been much less had it not bee for plaintiff's exhibit 44 (http://www.scribd.com/doc/102322739/Samsung-Comparison-Report).

Guess our bodies are just complying with the company rules to periodically change our passwords.

1) Focus on making it readable on mobile devices. Today, the threshold selector is awkward and the indentation of child posts make it more difficult that necessary. Separate settings for layout, threshold, etc on mobile vs large screen might help too.

4) Infinite scrolling both forwards and backwards (many more is a start) in articles, even if I click the "Tuesday" link or manually set my start date.

3) A place marker. When I am a week behind ( I know it's hart to believe, but not all of us are single teenage males living in our parent's basement), It would be handy to jump to the last article I opened in the article list.

2) Provide a mechanism to show "top N comments", rather than focusing solely on the threshold.

I too have a Tankless; in my case Rinnai for 6 years.

My biggest negative is that my (large) family likes it too much, resulting in long showers and high water bills.

This happens because the output temperature is thermostatically controlled (it blends in cold water) so my hot water is always 120 degrees, no more, no less. My shower stays exactly where I set it, the entire time. Since it never runs out of hot water, the "but my sister used all the hot water" fights are non-existant.

Oh, another "odd" benefit is that I can turn its temperature down to 104 when I refill my hot tub, resulting in it being ready for use the moment it is full.

If mine were to die today, I would put another one in its place. I can not imagine going back to a tank heater with a permanent pilot light and that would not let me take a shower after my kids get out.

Keep in mind that they need to be installed on an outside wall because the exhaust pipe is expensive and they need a nearby electric outlet.

Take the money you would have spent on this and putit into a college fund. Odds of seeing a return on your investment are much greater.

I find a 16:9 much more useful if I move the menubar onto the left-hand side. This makes the "usable rectangle" somewhat similar to what I had on a 4:3 with the menubar at the bottom.