I love the fact that "It's the best thing in the world!" right now... and you can't get in! I'm usually really late to these social things (i only got into Facebook a year ago), so maybe I'll get in early this time?

--Pathway

I'm sorry, but that's just Crazy!

Forgive my ignorance on the subject matter, but why can't we fix this?

Is it because the infected machines have no anti-virus or anti-malware? Would a free AV program installed on the maxhine fix the problem on an individual machine?

Is it because it is too hard for most AV programs to detect a Bot?

Is it because there are too many older computers that don't have a supported AV solution?

Could a free AV check on the most popular homepages (google.com, yahoo.com, live.com, etc) inform users that they are potentially compromised? This would only check to see if an up to date AV program was installed, not a full AV check...

Is it something else all together? Do we even know?

Thanks for helping me understand the problem.

--Pathway

Lies! I refuse to believe it!

Sm:)e.

Fast. Good. Cheap.

Choose any two.

I would suggest Tor. (Good and Cheap.)

--Pathway

You want a SIP phone. Have an iPhone 3GS or 4G? I'm sure there is a paid for app that will allow you to make SIP calls. Hopefully there will be one that is iOS4 compatible that allows you to receive calls, too. The free LinPhone app works well enough, but only while the app is open.

Have an Android phone? I think there are SIP clients for Android as well.

Don't have either, just want something that's a WIFI SIP phone? Check out VoipSupply.com. They have a WIFI phone section. I'd either go cheap with the QuickPhones GA-342 or spend a little more for the Hitachi IP3000.

You'll need a SIP VOIP service. Check out Voip-Info.

Of course, test before you commit to something! There are free "toll-free-only" sip providers, which will allow you to test to see if it really works.

--Pathway

When the Apple iPhone was released, Apple managed to get a carrier to provide internet access to it's users for a flat rate of $20 a month. As Apple/AT&T moved to 3G, that rate "upgraded" $30 a month. Admittedly, there were plenty of slashdotter's here who felt this was completely unfair at the time, but I'm sure many of them do enjoy the speed difference from EDGE to 3G... (I'm curious if there are any $20 Unlimited EDGE plan users still out there?)

Now, AT&T is looking at this model and realizing that they are backing themselves into a corner: Users are using more and more bandwidth for the same $30 a month. This is a natural occurrence in all uses of the Internet. Unlike a wired network, the Cell network can easily be over-saturated, and if they can't compensate for users who download huge chunks of data they will begin to falter on delivering reasonable data rates to the rest of their customers.

Metering is the answer. Is this the right price? We will have to wait and see. I for one just checked my "Cellular Network Data" usage, and I have downloaded 1.0 GB, uploaded 200 MB. Last Reset: Never. I've owned this iPhone for 6 months. So 2 GB a month doesn't sound unreasonable. In fact, I think most of my downloads come over WiFi. I bet most of yours do too.

--Pathway

When I think of Nintendo, I think of their tier 1 titles. That's not to say there aren't any good 3rd party titles, but Zelda, Mario, Metriod... These games are a driving force which the big-N uses to drive sales. And the strategy has worked for them for the past 25 years. Now, who is Nintendo marketing for? The answer is simple:

Everyone. Let me do a little hypothetical for you:

Think of your favorite game on an Xbox 360 or Playstation 3. Got that game in your head? Now, imagine you were playing that game at Thanksgiving time in front of your whole family, including your Grandma. 9 games out of 10, I'm thinking that at best your grandma will simply not understand, or at worst be offended.

Now do the same thing with the Wii. 9 times out of 10, it's a game you and everybody you know can at least appreciate, if not be interested in.

That, and the revolutionary easy to use controls (which are now being emulated), make the Wii a killer social platform focused on games and having fun. That's why it's been a big success.

And the idea that "The CPU is too slow" is the reason for the Wii not making yet-another-year-of-record-sales... That doesn't make sense. As we all know, Super Mario Brothers (the original one for the NES) is fun despite having ugly graphics. It's not how the game looks, it's how the game _plays_.

--Pathway

It might not be exactly what you're looking for, but check out http://whynot.net/ for idea exchange.

Less important: It appears that Google Docs does support SSL. See the Following: http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?answer=100181

More important. If Google sold an appliance, much like the Google Search Appliance, that allowed you to run Google Docs from your own network... or anywhere on the internet, that's bringing the cloud to your business. I see things going that way.

Google already does something like this with Google gears, but I haven't tried it yet.

--Pathway