Jack Bauer released the list as a ploy to lure the terrorists in...

Yea, umm, really? I just dumped my Curve for an iPhone and I gotta say, I couldn't be happier. Of course mine is jail broken so I can run all the extra crap that really makes the iPhone shine but still, comparing what I have to what I had, it's no comparison.

My main issue with Blackberry phones is the lack of software. How long did Pandora have an iPhone version before finally releasing a Blackberry version? How many websites have iPhone versions vs how many have Blackberry versions? Have you tried Mobile Safari? What does Blackberry have that compares?

I thought my Curve was tits until I really sat down and gave an iPhone an honest try and then I was sold. Sure it's not perfect, but I think Apple has done a much better job than any other player in the game, and considering that they've only been at this for a couple years, what excuse does Rim have for being passed up so easily?

The Pirate Bay? Really? You do know there are better sites out there, right? I don't know why but I've just never cared for TPB. I've wanted to, since they are popular and I like the stance they've taken and all that. Just don't care for their site though.

The funny thing for me is that I have an HP computer that had Windows on a restore partition. It had the license sticker on the case. The license on the sticker on the case did not work with the Windows on the restore partition. Rather than spend time on the phone to HP, I "pirated" a copy of Windows and then after the install I updated it to use my license... which was more trouble than it was worth. But I'm once again legit... I guess. Funny that pirating it is faster and almost always easier than going through the proper channels.

The memory usage is pretty insane and I find myself having to restart it quite a bit lately. I miss the days when Firefox was lean and mean. I guess I could dump the latest version and reinstall an older one... which was the best? 1.5.x? I don't even remember anymore. I know 2 added some stuff that was cool but I don't recall if it was where the bloat really started or not.

Give me the $$ needed and I'll build myself a pc for playing my media. Until then, I'll use the xbox 360's I already have in various rooms to stream my media. Oh wait, you'll need to give me $$ to build 3 pc's because I currently have and stream to 3 xbox 360's.

And wait again because I just realized I don't really want yet another device in these rooms, especially not one that could get viruses or have other problems. Sure my 360's can get the RROD or crap out for some other reason but I already have them and they work just fine right now. Why add yet another device to the loop when I already have something that works?

Maybe it's just me and what I watch but I don't have any problem with streaming. I'm using TVersity, Grid something or other, and PlayOn to stream from one of my pc's to the network. I can watch stuff on my pc's, Revision3 (DiggNation, Totally Rad Show), stuff on Hulu, NetFlix, and a bunch of other stuff. I also run SimplifyMedia and stream my audio collection to my iPhone when I'm out and get bored with Pandora.

What you seem to be missing is the current consoles ARE pc's. MS and Sony could both add other codecs and completely remove the need for transcoding and I would love that. Why do I need my computer to transcode videos? For divx the 360 handles it just fine. Why not add support for a bunch of other ones? And maybe that's the plan. Maybe that is how Windows 7 will handle streaming... you'll install an update for your 360 that will allow it to stream a lot more formats without any transcoding. That would be pretty sweet.

I bought one a 360 a couple years back and it just failed two months ago. I went online, filled out a quick form, MS sent me a box, I sent in the unit, had it back right away and it's working great again. Less than 2 weeks total downtime. Sure it would be great to have no downtime at all, but hardware fails. If MS hadn't extended the warranty on the unit to cover these failures then I would be upset but I feel like they've done a fairly good job of taking care of the mess after the fact.

To me the PS3 is too spendy and the games I really like are all 360 titles. Gears of War, Halo, and lately the big one has been Fallout 3. Sure I can get that on PS3 but the dlc isn't avail for PS3. The first expansion wasn't all that great IMO but for the money it wasn't all that bad either. Second one comes out tomorrow and then the big one in a month or two. If I had a PS3 and had bought this for PS3, I would have paid the same $$ for the game but wouldn't be able to buy the expansions that make the game that much better. The third expansion will lift the level cap from 20 to 30 and change the ending. That's significant.

So yea, the hardware failures suck but they aren't the end of the world when you can just mail your unit in and get it repaired pretty quick. MS even covers shipping.

I'm still in awe of the phone and I have one! I don't get it to show off but I do have it out quite a bit. Waiting in line, while I'm driving (kidding!), anytime I bored really. It's great for making the lines at theme parks suck a little less.

Actually they do have some provisions for this sort of thing. I have an iPhone and while I was skimming over what was allowed on my plan, I noticed that there was something about running my laptop through my iPhone connection. If what I use the connection for violates their rules then they have the right to bill me for the data usage. Using anything like a p2p program or streaming data to another device all falls outside of what they list as allowed. They specifically list several things but also mention that anything not expressly allowed is disallowed. In this case the guy was streaming data to watch a football game. If I did that using my iPhone to any device other than my iPhone itself, then I could be billed. Apparently watching it on my iPhone is ok though. Then again, programs like Joost block access over 3g although there is an easy workaround so I'm not sure how much they are allowing anyway.

I know the term Rambus but what is this Slashdot that you speak of?

Consider for a moment what console owners save in hardware and frustration. For pc gaming I need a newer computer with the right graphics card. Then I need to buy a game, bring it home, and most likely install patches to get it to work. I may even need to update my graphics drivers and possibly my sound card drivers. Then I need to hold my mouth just right and howl at the moon until the planets align just so and the game plays.

For my 360 I go to the store, pick up a game, bring it home and I'll be damned, it just works. If there is a patch for it I'm told when I go to play the game and it automatically installs. If MS pushes an update for my 360 it's the same deal. I don't have to go to one site for my graphics card drives and another for sound cards and another for my input device and whatever.

I'm willing to pay extra up front to know that I won't have to worry about problems down the road. Not to say that console gaming isn't without some issues. I've been playing Fallout 3 a lot and it's crashed a few times and other times I simply get stuck somewhere and have to reload. But overall it seems to be more pain free and much cheaper than pc gaming.

That's the beauty of the 360. You can't lock a game to a single console because the consoles break so damn often. Although to be honest, I've had mine for nearly 2 1/2 years and it just broke a month ago after which it was less than 2 weeks turn around on getting it fixed by Microsoft at no charge. Didn't even have to pay for shipping so I think they are handling the issue as well as they can. They should NOT fail as often as they do, but what's done is done I guess.

Anyway, I recently got into Fallout 3 on my new xbox while I was waiting for my old one to be repaired. After it came back I put the old one in my living room and then found that my downloadable content would only work on my account, not my wife's account. I had to login to the xbox live site and move the licenses from the one console to the other. Solved the problem. It was a bit frustrating but I can understand why they do it. Keeps me from going to a friends house, logging into my account on live and then downloading DLC packs to other consoles. I mean I can do that, and I can play it on the other console just fine, but I guess other users on those consoles would not be able to access it. Seems like a fair trade off. I can still get to it from any console, but other users can only play it on the console that I have a license on.

Or maybe I've got it all wrong and there was just some issue with other users playing it on the one console until I did the license move thing.

Yes, yes, yes!!!

I've bought several games that were great in theory but that I just couldn't enjoy if you paid me. I recently went through about 20 demos and found that of all of them, I only really liked one. These were 20 games that I would have otherwise just bought and hoped for the best, only be to be disappointed in the end, and quite a bit poorer considering that new xbox games are $60 each. To make matters worse, the actual games does not always match the demo. Conker Live & Reloaded was great in the demo. I couldn't wait for it to finally come out so I could play the whole thing. I picked it up on release day and raced home. Popped it in and immediately noticed that the game play was quite a bit different than what I had played on the demo disc from some magazine.

It's one thing to buy a game and end up not liking it. It's quite another to play a demo of the game only to buy the full game and find out that the game company decided to make some major changes to how the game was played. Of course I couldn't return the game so I was out $$$.

I use the same setup for poker. Nothing beats five aces!!!

Tom Daschle thought he was a lock to be a senator forever until he got the boot. Seniority can go a long way but being popular in your home state can go farther.

But if you really just wanted a phone to make calls, why did you buy an iPhone? Sure it's phone features are great and I dig the visual voice mail although some sort of way to view text of the voice mail so I don't have to listen to the audio at all would be even better. Not using it as a media player or using any of the other cool features just seems silly though. I totally agree with you that doing anything at anytime with an iPhone will suck the battery right out of it. I've never had a device that could drain a batter like an iPhone. Even so, I bought mine to do lots of stuff and I charge it regularly. I've also seen cases for it that have a battery inside and I'm going to look into getting one of those I think.

Also, I've noticed that Stanza doesn't use much battery. Obviously if you have the screen really bright it will use more than if it's dim, but I have mine on the default setting and I didn't notice it using much battery at all, at least not compared to everything else I do on the phone. Will it last anywhere near as long as a Kindle? Of course not. But it will last plenty long for you to read a book now and again throughout the day without adversely affecting your talk time too much.