It's a real thing. We have a couple of I think either Techtronix or Agilent scopes that run Windows 2000 or XP. A few years back someone plugged one of the 2k scopes into our network, at which point it became a movie server, hosting "Mr. Deeds". It is no longer allowed to be plugged into the network.

One group just updated a crazy analyzer to a Pentium M with 1 GB of RAM. Cost: $40k. It's obscene.

Reading through the imagur link, which is fantastic, tells me that the new projector does 20 million stars. Fritz, the old Zeiss, did 3,000.

Although the old Zeiss was super impressive, technologically it was old hat -- lots of burnt out bulbs, etc. And while I understand that it's not about the specs, here's something that maybe makes it a bit better: I work for some folk at CU that have some degree of involvement with Fiske. One of the professors said to me of the new display: "It can resolve 2 million individual points of light with incredible detail. You could go into a show using the new projector with binoculars and looking at the display would be similar in effect to looking at the actual night sky with binoculars."

I'll definitely miss the imposing nature of the old Zeiss, but the new projector should have some of the best star shows around. I'm really looking forward to seeing it. And probably Laser Pink Floyd and Laser Nine Inch Nails, too, heh.

I'd say follow the same rules as any archiving of media:

Pick one format and migrate all of your messages to that: In this case, I'd say mbox. Thunderbird and most other mail programs read it and you can get most of your mail into mbox format via IMAP/Thunderbird from whatever mail client can read your old ones. You can store your mbox files locally in Thunderbird and gain Thunderbird's searching (for instance) without the need for an actual back-end. I was able to read some mail stored in Netscape Mail because it was just mbox files and opening them in Thunderbird was a breeze.

Most importantly: Every 5-10 years, re-evaluate your storage choice. Is Thunderbird still around? Is mbox still pretty well regarded? If you find you need to migrate again, do it! If both are still active / supported, then hold onto 'em. The only way to perpetually maintain media access is to make sure your choices are still valid on a regular basis. This is true for any media: As the old formats go obsolete (cassette tape, VHS), you need to migrate that data to the next readily accessible format (CDs, DVDs; FLACs, MPEG(?)).

I think the biggest problem is that you have a mish-mash of stored files right now. You'll save yourself a headache in the future by tearing the band-aid off now and taking the time to get all of your mail into one format. Then, in the future, when you need to convert, it'll be many steps easier since you won't have to visit Slashdot and find out what to do about your mail again next time. :)

This is a fight I constantly have with CenturyLink here in Colorado. I want faster than 896kbps upstream, but they have zero capacity to offer that because the DSLAM in my area "is scheduled to be upgraded", which may not happen for "years". So I'm stuck with Comcast for now, which has been raising the price of my 16Mbit connection without offering any better service every few years... Just typing about it makes me angry. Argh.

I have very little value in accessing my data on a website, but it's very convenient for me to have a folder synced between two disparate computers. It's like copying data to a flash drive to take it home from work except that you don't have to worry about accidentally putting the flash drive through the washing machine. It's just there by the time I get home.

As a Windows user, I had been using Windows Live Mesh to take care of this (as well as remote desktop). Microsoft is replacing Mesh with SkyDrive, though, which is limited by the amount of storage they give you. The replacement that I HAVE been using is Cubby, from LogMeIn. Visiting their website now, though, I find that what they are calling "DirectSync" is going to become a $7/mo paid feature. Seeing that, I am very excited about this development from the BitTorrent crew.

100% agreed.

I love to collect old video games. How can I do that when the download services don't offer them anymore and/or have been turned off? What if the games have to authenticate against a server to install and that server or the company is long gone?

There's been a lot of speculation that the new consoles will start focusing on digital-only downloads. There are a lot of reasons that this is a ridiculous idea (25 GB download of a fully-packed blu-ray disc on American broadband? Sigh...), but most of all for me is for the future: What happens when that service goes away and my hardware dies and the games are gone?

I don't like where gaming is going.

There are a lot of tech people out there for not quite as many jobs. The market's saturated, so pay doesn't need to rise. That's my take...

I guess I feel like I should be properly /caught/ speeding, which leaves the opportunity to get away with it, if you will. If there are flawless machines everywhere, I can't speed anymore, haha.

You're right. Good point.

That was the first episode of Season 2, I think. A scary glimpse into the future at the time, but now it's becoming the normal state of things. :/

I don't know how much information it actually uploads, nor have I seen any reports of what it does submit back. I also haven't looked, though. I think that Microsoft is probably not too bad about collecting user data when the user opts out these days; but I could be very, very wrong. If I were them, I would want to correct that perception, but they're also a huge giant corporation. Shrug.

In those cases, check out Avira, Avast!, AVG, Kaspersky, ClamAV, et cetera...

I'm a big fan of Microsoft Security Essentials. I know it's cool to dislike Microsoft products, but MSE does its job pretty well without being annoying.

I've used AVG in the past, but it has a history of deciding things like iTunes or Windows dlls are viruses and screwing things up, so I avoid it. I used Avira in the past as well, but I think it had ads suggesting I upgrade often.

In the end, I settled on MSE and have had a perfectly cromulent experience with it; no complaints.

*hands himself the correct version of the word "piece"*

Oh man, wifi syncing of data is the missing peace on my pre2. I don't use it for too much data these days, but it'd be nice.

As much as I love the Touchstone, I'm all for Standards. So hearing about this new "Qi" charging standard makes me happy. I just hope that it gains a lot of acceptance.