Oh, man. The best is when you put the ranch on the pizza before you bake it. Try it sometime.

Like many launchers, it is highly customizeable. You can make it look just like WP7, or make it look completely different with custom backgrounds, differently sized tiles, widgets on tiles, etc. I like it very much.

Their secret weapon is in their desktop dominance. Windows 8 is going to introduce the MetroUI to the masses - and perhaps cross-compatibility of apps between mobile and desktop space. That may not mean much to you or me (I'm an Android user), but what they're doing is effectively creating an ecosystem, and I suspect it's going to be effective. I work in the mobile industry, and on my desk, at this moment, I have an Android tablet, two android smartphones, an iPad, and an HTC Trophy running WP7.

  I can honestly say that WP7 is every bit as polished and functional and smooth as iOS. Everything is silky-smooth, the services integration (read: social networking) is very slick, the browser is excellent... in short, it's a damn good phone.

  I prefer the UI and aesthetics to both iOS and Android. I like the fact that someone finally decided to abandon the 'icons on a desktop' paradigm. To be honest, I am rather shocked that Microsoft - not known for its originality - would be the one to do it. It's a fairly monochromatic experience, and much of it is text-based - lots of lists, etc. But the stark simplicity is actually rather beautiful.

  I'm using an Android handset as my primary phone because there's no Google Voice client for WP7, and I use Google Voice as my primary number, so it's pretty much a necessity. I also rely on pretty much every other Google service out there. I manage a LOT of people (150+), so when I need to send out a spreadsheet, word doc, slideshow, etc., I don't have time to deal with the dozens of email responses about how Joe Schmoe couldn't open the document, etc, whatever, so I simply upload everything to Google Docs which allows everyone to view and print all office filetypes from the browser. I know MS has competing solutions, but I've already been caught up in the Google ecosystem... All my phone calls are synced to my calendar, all the contacts in my phone are synced with Google, I can listen to voicemails and text directly from my Google Voice account on my computer, etc.

  That is Google's strength. They've never been a software manufacturer (Microsoft) or a hardware manufacturer (Apple), yet they manage to be a highly successful organization by being a services provider - even though they don't monetize their services, and pull their money from search.

  Even though I elect not to use it as my primary phone (due to the Google Voice issue), I use my WP7 phone on wifi when I'm at home. And - dirty little secret - I'm using a replacement launcher on my Android phone (Launcher7) which mimics the WP7 interface, because I really do like it.

  Long story short... I consider myself as qualified as your typical industry analyst, because I eat, breathe, and shit this stuff every day, and have for almost a decade - I've seen players like Palm, Nokia, RIM, Motorola rise, fall, rise again, get sold for pennies, rebranded, undercut, absolved, etc. In my opinion, Microsoft can have a winner on their hands here, if they don't fuck it up. They really do have a great mobile OS. I have not rebooted or powered off my HTC Trophy since I applied the leaked Mango update about two months ago, and every time I pick it up, it's always lightning-fast and stable. I can't say the same about either my iOS or Android devices. Believe it or not, MS has beaten iOS at the 'it just works' game. I think if Microsoft could take a page from Google and expand the strength of their services - which is Google's forte - they could not only stand a chance at catching up, but pulling ahead. That, and open up the platform just a WEE bit more, in terms of end-user personalization. Just let me assign an MP3 as a ringtone without having to chop down an MP3 file to 30 seconds, K? I paid for the damn music already, etc. you get the idea. There are a few quirks like that which need TLC.

  TL; DR version: I will recommend Android to my smartest friends, the ones that can make the most of a platform's potential. I will recommend WP7 to everyone else. I actually can't find myself recommending iOS because it has the weaknesses of both Android and WP7 - it has the messy 'icons on a desktop' metaphor of Android (and traditional Windows) and it's MORE opaque and closed than WP7, and in my testing, WP7 'just works' as well or better than iOS.

Two Slashdot articles today about university researchers developing snooping technology - this, and the gizmo that sees through walls. Is it just me or is 99% of all academic research funded by the 'defense department' these days?

Have we already forgotten that Google is buying Motorola?

I don't think citing a work of fiction to support your thesis about video games will get you taken very seriously,

I hear you.

Most of the people here asking, 'Why do you need a watch when everyone has a cell phone and a coffeemaker that tell the time?' apparently aren't very active.

I live in South Florida (Ft Lauderdale/Miami area). I've recently taken up biking as a hobby and got a very nice hybrid bike. Almost every weekend I go for a 25-50 mile bike ride on A1A along the beach. If you've ever been on a bike, you'd understand that pulling a cell phone out of your pocket while on a bike is fucking *impossible*. It's also uncomfortable to have it in said pocket in the first place, so I usually keep the phone in my backpack or 'saddlebag', making it even more impossible to access. When on the bike, I just glance in the direction of my wrist.

I also snorkel. In fact, I bike to the beach, and THEN snorkel. The great thing about a water-resistant dive watch is that I can still tell the time even when I'm away from the shore or underwater - or in the shower, which is great on those mornings in which I want to put off getting dressed and going to work until the last possible second. :)

Furthermore, I often leave my cell at home or in the car when I'm having 'me time'. I don't absolutely HAVE to be available to the whims of other people at all times. When I'm off work, I leave the keychain with my work keys at home and frequently do so with the phone, if I don't want to be reached. Besides, having a modern smartphone is awesome, but it sort of sucks to have in your pocket or hanging from your belt all the time if you're not using it, and it's rather silly to carry around such a thing just to tell the time.

My wristwatch is a Seiko 'Black Monster' which I've had for around 7 years or so. The hands are luminous, and glow all night long. If I wake up at random in the night, I can glance at my watch and immediately know what time it is without being blinded by waking up my cell phone. I don't keep any electronic gadgets with glowy clocks (or LEDs of any sort) because those things are annoying when you're trying to get to sleep - I prefer a completely dark room.

Being an automatic mechanical watch, I've never had to change a battery in the 7-odd years I've worn the watch. And it has kept great time all the while.

I'm 30 years old, and I've been wearing a wristwatch of some kind or another since around the 3rd grade or so (when a Christmas stocking yielded my first cheap plastic Casio). I feel more naked when one is not on my wrist than I do when I'm actually naked. It's not a status symbol or affectation - my Seiko, while beautiful to my aesthetic tastes, is neither expensive nor flashy. The reasons for wearing a wristwatch can be very practical ones. I have to admit that I don't understand the $4,000 Rolex crowd.

I will say that there is another very non-practical reason why I love a mechanical wristwatch. Have you ever looked into how these things work? It's incredible. These were created by what must have been some of the most brilliant minds in history - before electricity was discovered. A mechanism of cogs, springs, balances, and the like, that keep accurate time for YEARS before they have to be re-lubricated. If you check out one of those wristwatches with the transparent display back, you can watch all the gears turning, the spring unwinding. It's a gorgeous thing to watch. I regard it, along with architecture, to be a rare perfect intersection between art and science. If you've never seen one before, just search Youtube for 'watch movement' and check out a few videos. It's a marvelous thing.

For what it's worth, I also shave with shaving soap and a safety razor. Razor - $30. Six months' worth of blades - $20. The shave is both cheaper and better than multibladed monstrosities that create so much friction, with their multitude of blades, that they threaten to rip your fucking face off rather than just slice the hairs, and even the cheap single-bladed disposables are more expensive in the long run.

I also choose to drive a manual transmission automobile because it is more engaging, and gives me greater control over how power is delivered to the wheels.

You don't have to be a hipster, or a slave to the current trends - as the article suggests - to appreciate the value in these things. For me, at least, they make life easier/better.

I was thinking the same thing. A decent lawyer will make the case that a crime wasn't committed. Seems to me like you really can't pass a sensible law against cheating on a scholastic entry exam, but you could create a contract which provides suitable penalties for cheating.

Are you serious? All you have to do is look at his posting history to determine that he is in fact probably *not* an astroturfing shill. Paranoid much?

That said, I thought this was obvious. The very first time I got that 'no Internet access' message, I reasoned that Windows had to determine this by connecting to a known server, certainly a Microsoft one. It's the same troubleshooting step that I take myself when diagnosing a connection failure - I login to the router and use its tools to ping google or something (to eliminate computer configuration problems).

This shouldn't be surprising, or particularly important.

Dude, you pinch to zoom in and out.

Who did you say was a retard, again?

You must miss out on a lot of stuff, then.

While true, I imagine the risks of using Google Docs are no greater than using Gmail to email documents to yourself and others.

It's possible the submitter requests open source because he doesn't trust running closed source software on his machine, which would make Google Docs kosher, as it's 100% web-based.

Unfortunately, the international standard kilogram of water decayed even faster than the metal brick when it evaporated.

...prescriptions for ADHD medication among Australian high school students skyrocketed 400%.