All linux desktops in my office are Ubuntu + Unity except one OpenSuse + KDE. This is like a 10 to 1 proportion. And everybody here installs whatever they want. It used to be all Windows XP 5 years ago. Now there is one Mac, about 10 Ubuntus, one Opensuse and 30 Windows.

If flash or other plugin hangs, Firefox does not hang since 3.6. Chrome is uses much more memory just because evey tab is a process, so reducing memory footprint and making every tab a process are in conflict.

"My gf, who doesn't have a clue how to unlock and root phones, is using CM7 nightlies on her HTC just fine."

Amazing.

I think U.S. carriers are either too pressed by competition or too greedy. In Argentina (only 3 nationwide) you can get 500 voice minutes, 250 SMS, 250 MMS plus unlimited data (2GB full speed, after that 128kbps) for about USD 50. That includes tethering if you happen to chose an Android 2.2 phone with your plan. You can also have 500 MB (plus 200 minutes and 200 SMS) for USD 30 and also do tethering if your phone supports it.

That's right. If you use Linux you are more secure by default. For example one of the tips is to limit the use of administrator account and to configure auto-update. Both things are by design unless you brake them on purpose.

I always use a local dns recursor server so I point my dns settings to 127.0.0.1. I can only see advantages privacy and performance-wise. The kind of problem described in this article seems to be another advantage to my apporach over using an external DNS server, but at the same time I rarely see anybody recommending it. What are the disavantages of using things like pdns-recursor?

http://gramps-project.org/
Gramps is the only I know. It is quite good.