Actually no, all you needed was a dumb phone with text messaging. Some of us have no desire for a smartphone... I hate touch screens... I hate the size of the smartphones themselves... all I needed was my little dumbphone and a text messaging plan to, gasp, make phone calls, and send/receive text messages. Now, I lose a lot of functionality for finding basic address/phone number information with my phone because this service is gone. I have no problem with people who want/use smartphones. However, I for one, like many others, have no desire for their size/expense.

Exactly. I have been using my Samsung Alias 2 for 4 years now. I LOVE this phone. I don't WANT a smartphone, with it's larger size and attached data plan I won't use. I'd actually have gladly paid maybe $1.99/month to have SMS search from google, because I use it at least once a week. It was so simple - Send a text with "business/city/state" and it sends you a text back with the address and phone number. Very efficient, simple, and I don't need a "f*ing handheld computer" to do it.

And I'm not talking about this article. I'm talking about Slashdot as a whole.

You are implying that MS Office & Open Office are equals. They simply are not. To use your analogy of lawyers, Open Office is like sending a firm sending junior attorney's into this poor neighborhood, and counting the "value" of their service at the senior partner's $500/hour rate, instead of the junior attorney's $100/hour rate. The value of Open Office is less than the value of MS Office, therefore, the argument grossly inflates the "value" of Open Office.

But, if Office was valued at $150, and Open Office is valued at $150 ($139 for the home edition, +tax), regular office would win over MOST of the purchases. A doctor going into a poor neighborhood is providing the SAME service to those people as he/she would to the paying public. I dare say that Open Office does NOT provide the same functionality that regular Office does. Similar, but not identical. Using your analogy, changing it to a lawyer, this is like sending a 2nd year law grad into the poor neighborhood and counting his billing time at the senior partner's $500 an hour, instead of the junior attorney's $100 an hour.

I would buy the real Office... I wouldn't pay half that for Open Office. Most of the reason people DL Open Office is that it is free. I dare say they wouldn't have 1% of their download numbers if it was $150 a pop. Propaganda post. Not that I don't support the OO effort, but this is about as good an article as a Fox News report.

A lot of business-model PCs (namely HP) come with Windows 7 downgrade already. Try looking for laptops like the 4540s that have been factory downgraded.

Not so easy. Microsoft eff'd consumers with Windows 8 by embedding the keys in the BIOS - they are not use-ably retrievable. My shop used to clone PC batches by building a clean install of 7, then cloning it to others, and activating Windows with the key on the box. Not possible anymore - they are trying to force us into getting a volume license agreement, stating that cloning is a "right granted to volume license customers". Total crap by M$.

+1. Me too. But then again, your average amateur isn't going to shell out the $2000 we did for just the body.

Canon point and shoots are definitely the best of the point in shoots. I prefer and shoot Nikon for my DSLR (D700) but my quick little pocket camera is a Canon. It was a $149 Wal Mart special about 5 years ago and still does a great job.

Forgive me if I'm incorrect here... But Facebook isn't trying to charge him to post on his page with 1 million fans; Facebook is trying to charge him for "promoting" [read: advertising] his post more prominently in peoples timelines and around the site. I don't have a problem with this. You let Facebook's news feed dynamic work for free just like everyone else, your you pay up to reach others. Why is he pitching such a hissy fit over advertising not being free?

...and hate it once a year. I love gaining an hour of sleep each fall, but hate losing an hour of it in the spring!

Mid-late 90's: We played lots and lots of SimCity :)

Stripper pole, keggerator, speakeasy w/ hidden door. Jeffries tubes to access everything would be a hilarious idea too. In all seriousness, I always wish my office had a shower.

No smiles in Virginia either. Granted, my last license pic I looked stoned out of my mind (I was 17 and it was 8am - not my brightest hour of the morning) - but now I just look like I'm mad at the world, one of those people you see as the perpetrator in one of those hilarious workplace violence training videos...