Unless the actual handset is compatible with both the US and Europe (tri or quad band) just changing the SIM would do no good

Which is why if you ever travel it's always best to get a quad band phone, unlock it, then if traveling you just pick up a local SIM where ever you go, especially as now most countries have them cheap and easy to get. Saves one an absolute fortune in roaming charges

As to the hotel charges, for the wife to use her UK mobile with UK SIM in the US the charges would have probably been even greater than the hotel charges, both for incoming and outgoing and those charges would have been the same even if she was calling the very hotel she standing in

Yes it is possible (both in the US and Europe) but expect to have problems getting loan's, credit, bank accounts, anything that requires a ongoing contract of service for payment (non prepaid mobile, cable/Sat TV, home rental)

Managed to have a blank/no credit records in both the US and the UK (lived in both) until I was in my early 30's, but it made things very difficult as the funny thing is no credit report (which basically means you have never needed a credit line/loan, never mind defaulted) is considered even worse than a credit report full of bad debts and bankruptcies

Eventually caved in and got some "poor credit rating" credit cards (all that one can get with no credit report) to build up my credit rating, within 12 months had a top notch credit rating for very little effort

Aye the Asperger defence is pretty lame but honestly he should not even have to use it, the extradition laws they are using to extradite him should not have been used it this case as not only were they intended only for suspected terrorists but to boot they are completely one sided, requireing no evidence of a crime to presented by the US for someone to be extradited from the UK while the same not being true in reverse

Though wonder why they have not pursued this to the European court level as the extradition treaty is already generally considered illegal at that level, just it has not been tested in their courts yet

Only thing surprising is that 4/10 companies do plan to upgrade next year (at this moment, doubt they will stick to it), I would have expected 1/10 at best.

We are in the middle of world recession, IT budgets have been slashed all over and considering the amount of work a large enterprise has to do to upgrade a desktop OS (all apps, either off the shelf or bespoke have to be tested and upgraded as necessary) I doubt even 1/10 will actually manage to upgrade next year

Windows 7 roll out will not really begin for most major companies until 2011 financial year at the earliest, until then it will mainly be small companies and home users and possibly places that already upgraded to vista if there are not to many incompatibilities or differences and they have the budget for it

" To ensure that we're being absolutely crystal clear, this article isn't focused on the discussion concerning the differences between the pure RPG levelling system versus "player skill-based" games."
Yet that's exactly what the article mainly focuses on., even after taking out the most obvious comments by contributors that "cross the line"

It's a pointless debate really, because unless all things are equal (same level, same class, same gear, same skill tree, same amount of skill points or whatever other flavour of advancement/customization the game might have) and there is minimal RNG, "player skill" can always be called into question.

Simple fact is, once you know a game well, you know who is good and who is not, at least in your opinion, because if you ask around you will probably find 20 people in a few minutes who disagree with you

Certain aspects of any MMO will require player skill, majority will not (otherwise they will locking out too many potential paying customers).

Best to just accept it and move on as debating who/what/where requires/has skill or not, especially on such a grand scale, is totally pointless

The problem was Gov originally tried to make ID cards a LOT more than just your name and photo, to just list some of the things they were talking about putting on them

* Home address
* Telephone number
* National Insurance number (the equivalent of the U.S. Social Security number)
* Medical records
* Criminal record
* Iris scan
* Fingerprint record

And to boot they wanted to put in on pretty unsecured RFID chips and build a massive central database that would also contain all this info and that god only knows how many 100's of thousands of public sector employee's could access (oh yeah lets not forget other countries like USA were already rubbing their hands in glee at the thought of getting all that info on foreign nations that crossed their borders)

If they had just tried just to do what most others countries do, just a name and photo there would have been only a tiny fraction of the opposition against the whole thing and it would have been rolled out years ago at a fraction of the cost

Classic case of the major IT outsourcing company's telling IT illiterate officials what is technically possible (and massively understating the costs/risks) and the officials turning around and saying " we will take everything" without once stopping and asking "just because we can do it does it mean we should do it?"

And to be honest, anyone who thinks this is the end of the ID card fiasco is dreaming, they will still push it though the back door, first by targeting "soft targets", like by requiring foreign nationals living in the UK to have them (already under way), then once it is done they will move to other target sectors (most likely next will be those claiming social security, no ID card? Cannot pick up your dole), before we know it those without a ID card will be a minority and then it will be easy for them to change the law

HTML 5 As a Viable Alternative To Flash? Not really, for one simple reason Flash/Silverlight are controled by their respective plug in's/api's and so forth. Thus no worrys about how something will render if one person is using one browser and another is using something else On the other hand, HTML is controled by the browser and each will do things a little different, either because they have not fully followed standards (MS) or they have added extras in a attempt to out do each other (all of them) Thus there will be always a place for things like flash/SL as with them content is delivered exactly as the designer/developer intended not how the browser decides to interpret it

"So, let's let poor Ralph off the hook because the end result here is more power than Dems dared to even dream about 9 years ago." Which is atually a very bad. Ruling party with not checks or balances that a viable opposition provides quickly becomes democracy's worst nightmare. I would take the Dem's any day of the week before Republicans but Dem's not afraid of getting kicked out would be just as bad as 8 years of Bush were

"You don't call the auto shop and tell them that your engine is broken when your radio breaks! " Knowing some mechanics all i can say is, you could not be more wrong

Not heard of the Patriot Act have you? What's worse is under it you will not even be able to complain because if you tell anyone you got compled via that law, even your lawyer, you will be breaking the law