It was definitely Spideroak.

They didn't reset the password, they reset the account. (Essentially they deleted the account and allowed me to sign back up again under the same email address).

Naturally none of the data was been recoverable, however they happily deleted the account without verifying I was the owner.

Give Wuala a go. It supports client side encryption, and is much more polished then Spideroak.

SpiderOak has some serious security issues of its own.

1. The desktop client allows you to change the password without entering the old one. This means that if somebody steals your laptop, they can lock you out of your own account. Permanently.

2. I forgot my password on an account, and emailed support requesting an account reset. They happily complied without verifying in any way, shape, or form that I was the owner of the account. I didn't even send this request from the same email account that was attached to the account.

Major issues like this make me think their understanding of security is not as rock solid a they think it is, and makes me question how good their encryption is.

The desktop software is also woefully bad to the point of being unusable, their service is slow (at least from Australia), and their "Sync" support doesn't work particularly well.

Sure, but absolutely any software on (a windows) machine could be a keylogger by that logic.

Microsoft don't generally have a habit of being a Patent troll, so are unlikely to be overly concerned if some of their patents are invalidated. Just like IBM, they would generally only hold patents only as a defensive measure against being sued themselves. It's "Mutually Assured Destruction" applied to patents.

Wait, what? The hivemind has started hating Ubuntu now? Damnit, why didn't anybody tell me, I need somebody to tell me how to think.

Can somebody explain to me what Canonical has done wrong? (Other than, you know, being profitable while creating a great distro).

What the fuck? I've just checked them out and am flabergasted. You're probably right about the subsidy thing; the shipping alone would be more expensive than many of the items they sell.

We may laugh, but when I first graduated in 2003 there was a plethora of job advertisements in my area asking for 5 or more years experience with .NET

I'm not so sure there's much of a difference.

Perhaps the existing antivirus companies can stop making bloatware and start making an antivirus that actually works. Just like Microsoft has done.

Australia has unlimited plans, and plans with over a TB of quota per month these days.

Can't speak for NZ however.

I bought a WD Live the other day, and it's utterly fantastic.

It's small (About the same size as an Apple TV) and uses very little power. It can connect to a Wired network, or you can plug in a USB WiFi adapter. You can also plug a USB Hard Drive or Memory Stick into it and play movies directly off that.

As for networking, it can browse DLNA and Samba shares with a somewhat reasonable interface, and will happily play full bitrate 1080p content.

It seems to play most popular formats (Specifically, it'll handle h264/MKV and Divx/Xvid perfectly).

It also has built in support for Youtube, Live365, and Pandora radio.

There are a few flaws with it, but nothing major.
    * Copying via samba *To* the attached hard drive is very slow
    * Very occasionally loses lipsync. Can be fixed by pausing it for a second.
    * Corrupt/broken files sometimes crash it, and it requires a full power cycle (Turned off at the wall) to fix.

In Australia ISPs tend to not lock you out of your modem. You either purchase outright pay off as part of a contract, but in either case you own it and have full access to it.

(Some ISPs will rent a modem to you as well, but again they still give you full access to it).

Because I currently have three boxes sitting in the corner of my living room taking up space, causing a cable mess, wasting electricity, and just generally being annoying.

Putting them all in the one device makes perfect sense for me, when they are all essentially components of the same system.

That's like saying "Why would I want an email client, twitter client, ipod, *and* telephone in the same device"

Agreed. I don't care in the slightest about any advanced features. What I want in a router.

* 802.11n (duh).
* 5+ Gigabit ports
* ADSL2+ Modem
* Reliable NAT, including basic UPnP port mapping
* Software that isn't entirely shit (I'm looking at YOU d-link).

I'm happy to pay $300+ for a reliable router, but it's damned hard to find one even at that price range. D-Links products are notoriously bad. The web interface for the last one I used would only work in IE6. (And specifically only IE6).