Funny that to replace one device, you need to have three.

There are a couple of reasons why I don't think PCs are going away: keyboards and fact that the vast majority of web sites are not optimized for touch screen. Fact is, typing in anything on any of these devices is a pain in the ass. I hate using touchscreen keyboards and I've hated the trend of going away from built in keyboards. Yes, there are bluetooth keyboards, but it isn't always practical to carry those around with you.

As for web sites, while most are usable, most are also designed to be used with a full PC, not a hacked down browser of many of these machines.

Generally, I feel the same way. I was in three years of a project that was on a ten year contract. It was fairly easy work for me and the pay was good. Thing is, it was boring the hell out of me, and my skills were starting to atrophy by using older development tools. So, I asked off, bounced around for a year, and was eventually laid off because they couldn't find a place for me. That ended up being fine, because my skills were in high demand.

That being said, the skill atrophy did have some effect on my job choices, since some felt I wasn't up to date. Never mind that I've proven in the past that I can pick up things quickly. In any case, I'm picking up the pieces in a job that isn't ideal, but isn't horrible either. While I took a hit in benefits, I did get a pay raise. It will give me some time to rebuild my skillset and maybe in 6 months I'll have some better job prospects.

GSM and LTE are not mutually exclusive items. AT&T uses LTE for its 4G.

Now, you can talk about GSM vs CDMA, which is more of an apples to apples comparison. All of those services tho (except for T-Mobile, which uses HSPA+ (really 3.5G) as a stopgap) are using LTE for their 4G service.

I use JR Media Center for my media library and I have a mix of formats: FLAC for all of my rips and MP3s for the stuff I buy off of Amazon and other sources. When I sync to my MP3 player, there is a setting that will only perform transcodes on the files which the player doesn't support playing. So, it will simply copy the MP3 files to the player, but transcode the FLAC files.

Also, you do not need to transcode every time if you don't want to. In JR Media Center, I can set up a cache which can store such files if you use them again.

When the real battle is Net Neutrality? If that falls, it will be the telcos who will control the web and the gatekeeper for all of these other companies.

I also find it laughable that people think the Government is going to "control the internet", when many in the government are owned by corporate interests. That's the tail wagging the dog.

Am I the only one who read the title as "Publisher's Clearinghouse Proposed For Evoting Failures"? I was wondering how Ed McMahon was going to be involved with it...

I'd say probably early next year. There is a build and phone UI for Meego already testing on the N900.

No doubt that a lot goes into that ink. In the past, every time I've used a 3rd party ink cartridge, I'd come back with a dead inkjet soon enough. That's part of the reason you don't see the 3rd party ink companies anymore in stores. That being said, we do need someone to figure it out so that we can get some reasonably priced ink. Until then, there isn't anything stopping these companies from charging whatever they want to charge.

Different strokes for different folks. I still want to get under the hood and tinker. Jobs wants to take that away from me.

The customer I'm working for won't be deploying Windows 7 anytime soon because they are in the middle of rolling out Vista. Of course we kinda thought about waiting, but to deploy a new operating system requires lots and lots of testing to make sure that most of the applications work. It probably takes almost a year to get it to the point where it can be approved.

Heh, we cheered at a previous company when we finally changed from Notes to Exchange for our company E-Mail. It kept going for years because the man in charge liked the encryption functionality of Notes, apparently. No matter that it was a PITA for the rest of us to use.

No doubt. I kept my Calculus textbook for just that reason.

Often for a class, tho, you will need a textbook since often the professor will teach to that textbook. Sometimes you will need the questions or problems defined in the text book for some assignments.

Then again, some subjects don't hold up for 20 years. For example, history text books tend to reflect the times that they were written in. One that was written in the 60s would have a different slant than one written in the 90s.

Considering that textbooks get replaced all the time, your estimate for 20 years is unrealistic.

You are correct that the information doesn't change much, but the companies who make textbooks want to sell more, so they issue a new edition, rearrange some of the information in there, and then suddenly the secondary market now has an obsolete book which isn't acceptable for whatever class you are taking.

As for lifespan, my Sony Reader is still going strong after a year of pretty heavy usage. Considering that the original Kindle has been out for barely over a year, you can't say that the Kindle's lifespan is 2 years. No Kindle has reached 2 years yet!

Correct, it isn't that old, but it doesn't have the latest "security" features.

Which doesn't work with my monitor, since I have an older flat panel that isn't HDCP compliant. It makes the service completely useless to me.