I call first dibs if it is not already taken. I will patent the "pinch to unlock gesture". Most screens will recognize a two figure gesture (Multi-touch) Instead of sliding your finger to the side, bring both fingers together on the screen to unlock. I understand it may be difficult for a user missing fingers, and we may be able to come up with a resolution for that, but this will correct the issue for now. When it is pattented, I will open source the patent and then anyone can use it. Sound like a plan?

Why is everyone pushing universal healthcare? Have any of you talked with anyone from a country that provides universal healthcare? Everyone I have ever talked to says it sucks. You are either waiting in line to get to the doctor or you are waiting six months to get treated.
The only way to make insurance affordable to to make it cost money. This will stop people with the sniffles from going to the doctor all the time. Get a health savings plan and a high deductible insurance policy. Pay cash, negotiate with the doctor over costs to get the price down and have the high deductible to pay when there is a high cost issue (Transplant, bypass, etc.).
In turn, keep the physicians code that if you can't pay, they have to trear you anyways.

Imagine the following games with smell added:

Terminator (oil and electric)
Half Life (Creatures and chemicals)
Need for Speed (Oil and Gas)
Army of Two (Gun Powder and Burning wreckage)

And these are the tame games. I'm sure I could come up with some others that would smell worse. Have a good gaming session and no one would come to your house anymore or they would call the cops figuring you were burning the place down with your new maserratti.

The first story comes from an old admin I worked with. Apparently he worked for a hospital as a helpdesk person and received a call from one of the higher ups. The issue expressed over the phone was a request for a larger mouse pad as he kept running out of room. When he heard this, he shook his head and decided to take a walk up to the office to find out what was going on, When he got there and looked in the door, he had to turn around and walk away, because he was laughing so hard. The executive would use his mouse and hit the end of the mouse pad. Instead of picking the mouse up, pulling it back and then moving the mouse again, he would pick the mouse up, slide the mouse pad forward, set the mouse down and then move it. Anytime it hit the edge of the pad, he would do the same thing.

The next story comes from my old beowulf days. I was working for a company as an admin. They staff were programmers that designed DSL Modem Processors and the software that run on them. One day another admin and myself decided to play a prank on the staff. I remebered a tool that we used when creating beowulf clusters that would allow me to issue a command to multiple machines at once. We used it for configuration. Well, it is also good for ejecting cd-roms. We loaded up an inventory of machines and typed eject cdrom. Its amazing the sound of 35-40 cdroms drives opening at the same time. It's even more funny when you hear the expressions of 35-40 staffers saying "WTF?"

Good Times

That's like saying that every car that isn't Chevy isn't a car (but ironically all can carry people?). Someone needs to strung up for this definition.

Its called XP Mode, microsoft ships it with IE6 installed and can be legally run on any Windows 7 Professional PC. Just download and install for free. When the sites are upgraded, swap back over to IE8 and uninstall. Plus it has the added benefit of running all your old software that won't run under 7.

One thing you are not taking into account is labor. By buying a Dell (I don't like Dell, but this applies to any manufacturer), the time and expense in building is included in the cost. When you look at parts, it looks less, but add your time in building, time to diagnose an issue when the machine doesn't boot, and time to RMA parts and repair said machine when it breaks. This adds up quick. I work for a company that built its own machines for sale and we found a company that could build and warranty them for $10 more. That $10 extra was very well spent. So remember, you are getting more than just parts, you are getting the time to assemble, repair and replace.

1. Why not just setup a dual boot system. Hide the offending partition and boot into a clean OS. They're not CS majors and most won't have a clue anyways.

2. What if I have bath shots of my kids on my laptop. You know, blackmail for when they are in their teens or getting married. Many of my customers have swapped over to laptops from desktops and keep this kind of material on them. Are they instantly child porn offenders when they walk in the country?

3. As far as encrypting the drive goes, that may be counterproductive. I'm sure the minute they see a drive that is encrypted, they pull you aside and get a manager involved. Flip side is like I said with #1, they're not CS majors and may figure the drive is blank.

I guess they don't have to change the acronym then. Saves on Apple and Microsoft's marketing budgets next year! First Post!

Come on guys, why haven't you come up with showmypc.com. It uses SSH and VNC in a small utility that they can download from a webpage. Works everytime. It is a free service unless you want to run it as a service. I use it with my clients all the time. The only thing you have to tell the person to do is go to the website, run the software and tell you the passphrase.

The only downfall is that it does not sustain a connection through a reboot. Logmein has this capability. If they could fix this, I would be very happy.

Try coding in a language that MIT designed (LISP) that no one uses outside the classroom, with a bunch of college guys, up all night, no showers, in a computer lab, on monochrome serial terminals, when you are a commuter and home is better than half an hour away. AND, you have to work full time an hour away the next day. AND your attractive live in girlfriend is waiting breathlessly for you at home.... Torture that even Gitmo couldn't beat...