I could not disagree more. Oliver is adept at something that geeks are not: Appealing to the masses. He and his writers have great skill in making dry subjects such as PRISM and net neutrality entertaining and thus impactful to non-geeks (read: mostly everybody). Impact is REQUIRED to get the momentum you need to enact change. You can spin your wheels all you want trying to take the high road and "educate" non-geeks on why they should be outraged. In fact, NSA and Comcast prefer we do this because THEY WILL WIN.

I say carry on, Mr Oliver. I prefer results.

I always use and recommend QuickBase for ad-hoc tracking solutions. It is both simple and powerful. It is not free but has a free trial for you to try. It is web-based / SaaS but honestly I would not go any other way in your case. This greatly simplifies management and support, and generally supports any platform (windows, ipad, etc) that has a modern web browser. I have also heard good things about Base Camp, another web-based solution.

Would you say the lines are ..... blurred?

...I'll show myself out.

I disagree completely! I would contest our political system has mutated to a something that is NOT, as Lincoln said, "a government of the people, by the people, for the people". Somehow I doubt our electorate is any more gullible, irresponsible, and/or swayed by the media compared to any other in the world. The slime balls have found a way to game the system. The system needs to change.

I guess I have less faith. The XBox (360 that is) is the last thing MS that I can remember breaking into a market...and that was largely in spite of themselves (as proven so far by the One). I just don't see MS as an innovator. Maybe new leadership will change this.

Doesn't mean they are very good at it, or go about it very intelligently. Anyone can say "Hey we should get into this market". Its the execution that matters.

Again: Execution. Apple saw this, and basically took its existing iphone and ripped out the wireless radio. Bam, there's your iPod and at negligible manufacturing and R&D cost. MS on the other hand developed Zune and Phone completely separately. Not only is this a massive waste, it is a huge reflection of MS's silo'd corporate culture in general.

I think prior purchases (apps, vids, music, hardware) and apples vertical integration of their products are a couple significant obstacles. You have to come up with something special for users to ditch all of these ancillary purchases that "just work" and start fresh on a new platform. Maybe a more innovative and agile company can acheive this, but I don't think MS has it in them

I guess I was thinking in the context of WP7, which was MS's first modern generation of app-centric, internet- focused, touchscreen phones; Released around the same time as iPhone 4, but with the feature set of iPhone 1. Android was quicker to adapt to this market and thus is very successful in it.

When the final iteration of the Zune rolled out, it was largely considered a terrific product. However, the summary of that particular review is a chilling reminder of MS's tendency to arrive late to the party:

The Zune was cancelled shortly thereafter. The product finally became good, but it was too late. I smell the same fate for windows phone.

I've always wondered why manufacturers floviate the shlondpuffa when it comes to bundled utilities, know what I'm sayin? ....How's that?

I've always wondered why manufacturers reinvent the wheel when it comes to bundled utilities. Why does Lenovo develop its own power controls, wireless manager, driver updater, display management, etc when there are standard OS utilities to handle these things? Isn't it sort of a waste of their time? It's always fun when the 3rd party utils start fighting with the native OS tools for control.

One motivation for this may be to address their fragmentation issue. My guess is MS is tired of supporting multiple versions of OS concurrently, and multiple concurrent versions of software that run on those concurrent OS's. Think of the costs associated with trying to manage/test/support all this compatibility (not that they have been great at this in recent years).

So maybe they are taking an Apple approach and de-fragmenting their own walled garden, reducing products, cutting costs, and hopefully providing a more uniform experience for its customers.

But really I am just dreaming of the day I can stop developing for IE6 compatibility in websites :-)

I think its more a general frustration that Obama has waited until his lame duck term to attempt to do something useful for the American people.

Better later than never, I guess.

Yeah, so.....Thanks, Obama?

...Asks the Anonymous Coward.

To use TFA's illustration: "The address is removed from the phone book" ... Yes but the store is still there and open for business. Those who really want the content will obtain the IP address and bookmark that....or put it in their hosts file. or publish an app that does this for non power users automatically. If the content is there, it will be found.

So graphic violence against men is acceptable?