Yet, here you are...

It's about balance. My view is that to actively stop them playing what has been a normal part of kids lives for towards 40 years is wrong. My son got into games very early, the new Donkey Kong in 2010 when he was 3 and a bit. The next Christmas he took an interest in Zelda and actively played Twilight Princes and Skyward Sword - with me checking it wasn't TOOOO scary. He's playing Skylanders Swap Force as I type, now 6 ands a bit.

However, he's also one of the 3 good swimmers (he can 'do' butterfly, most are on the doggy paddle and many still have floats) and 4 kids who get a separate reading class out of the 44 in his Kindy year. We didn't teach him to read, he didn't get tutored like the other 3 but in Zelda you have to read and in Minecraft he was insistent on writing hundreds of signs and needed to know how to spell. He's strong in Karate, something we enrolled him for of course, and when I took him onto a real golf course just a week ago after a year or so of kids golf clinics, he hit his drive 130m and reached the par-4 green for 4. He's doing that because he sees me to golfing every chance I get and I guess is copying there too like he did with games.

Within reason, I won't force my kids to DO or NOT do anything. I will force them to eat their veggies though.

You mean "imagine Teletext".

I've avoided all painfully DRM'd titles, but I genuinely want the latest Settlers but just can't buy into the DRM requirement. Every time I see a headline like this I hope the detail is that they are getting rod of the DRM. Disappointed again, so no Settlers 7.

Issue 1, New Zealand Story coverdisk. I bought the magazine out of interest and fantasised about having the actual computer to put the disk into for a few months. I may have even made the motions to the side of my c64! Eventually I raised the 400 quid but there was certainly something magical about that era.

SOME Folks? Since 2007 or 2008 it's more like "Some folk DON'T run multiple VMs on a single system". Wasted RAM, CPU and Disk IO is now expensive for most companies as you actively need to beef up for it.

Novell NetWare had MANY GUI installers (first and third party) that ran on workstations but installed on the server. In fact, I think that was the most common situation. As one of many options, that could be done for Windows Server. Getting the compulsory GUI (2008 Core didn't count...), Solitare and 3D screen-savers off the server can only be a good thing. I'm glad MS has stopped beating that horse.

This may finally explain why our "open defects" presentations are both so long and use the woodgrain background.

Well, my 4 years does, and has done for 6 months or so and I didn't teach him. He has a logon on my Mac (no password, just has to click to switch user etc) and access to nothing but Office. He calls it "doing letters" and types basic sentences and formats. He's found lots of features. There's a reason the Amiga GUI was called "Intuition" and the promise of the GUI on all platforms has been just that.

Maybe you're suggesting that schools should teach "pulling up pants after wee-wee" because they won't magically know? Parents and intuition should be allowed to to their bit and keep school for the really non-obvious stuff.

The thing is, they have been progressively dumbing this down. I did BBC Basic at primary school (P7 1984-1985) as well as some weird 3D cube thing which I remember loving. Then I kept going on my Vic-20 (had from 81), other kids had their Amstrads, CPCs, PCWs etc. Then at high school around 3rd year we picked up again and while getting BBC Basic again, some assembly was included and other reasonably simple but worthwhile concepts were taught. Roll forward 5 years and my brother played games in primary school and was taught what a word processor was in those same classes that showed my class assembler. I'm relieved to see that this is starting tog et fixed, and can't help feel it's because my generation (late 30's) is now starting to be pretty representative in government and can see how big an opportunity has been missed.

The headline says that IT Pros can't resist, which got me clicking as I have never had any difficulty 'not peeking'. Then I see it's only 26% which actually means the majority ARE resisting. I'd have been annoyed if it was the other way around as it's one of the strongest points I make to juniors as they get started - the need to respect that elevated access is a privilege not to be abused.

Or more correctly, according to what I'd always understood but never checked(!): "Queensland And Northern Territory Aerial Services"

I work in an office of 300 (company of 35,000) and all I see are iPhones for those who can and 'other' (mostly Android) for those picking the cheapest bundled plan. Most that I see arer iPhones, ie people actually using them as a smartphone. My wife put an open water bottle in her handbag in May and her 3GS was gone. Maybe my fault for thinking that charging it might help. Eitherway, with the iPhone 5 on the way I told her she had to get something non-contract to pass the time. The Galaxy S whatever has been enough for her to beg for a 4 regardless of what was coming. All she wants is a phone that hangs up when she asks it to, has a decent UI etc. I've put the time into rooting it, gingerbreading it, samgunghacksFTW.com'ing it (yes, i made that up) and had the Andriod geek at swimming tell me all about the kernel hack I need to apply that "everyone knows" that will speed up the general responsiveness but not the battery issue, but frankly I'm not interested. Junks Junk.

At last. I've long cringed when I discover what passes for computer studies in school AND Uni (not counting comp sci degress etc, I mean the computer studies classes in non computer degrees). Primary school in the early 80's introduced these principals on the BBC's and high schools tried to add a little more. It was a good grounding which I know I still benefit from even though I ended up in the infrastructure rather than development space.

I was fairly horrified at the story early this week that the colour Kindle is LCD. I've got an iPad and a Kindle for precisely the reason that I just don't enjoy the Kindle as a book replacement the way I do the Kindle. Hopefully the timing here isn't a coincidence and Amazon are sticking with e-ink.