I suspect a lot of the people who bought two iPhones or iPods handed their old model down to family. My mom now has my old iPod Touch, since I have an iPhone.

You're correct that not all are in the US, but then again: Does it matter? The internet is already decentralized. Heck, it could be the first step to kill off geoblocking - and wouldn't that be lovely?

Personally I think Linux distributions are clumsy and still not user friendly. I can easily get by with using a given Linux distro (or BSD) for a desktop, but I'd hate the extra hassle that it entails.

Linux has reached the point where it's really easy to install, and often it's a smoother process to set up a Ubuntu install than a Windows install on the same hardware (supposing you don't have hardware out of the ordinary or want to use media center functionality, play back media in non-open formats etc), but once I start using it for my everyday work, I always end up spending more time figuring out solutions than getting work done - and I've used Linux and BSD on and off for about 12 years. In later years I've changed my usage pattern, so I install Linux to play around with instead of getting work done. That works for me.

MorphOS, on the other hand, installed nice and fast, and while the OS lacks a central repository (like OS4 Depot for AmigaOS 4), it's still easy enough to find software for it. Mind you, I'm not using this as my main OS either. I would use my AmigaOS 4.1 machine, if I wanted work done, but it's still a nice OS, and I've set it up so I can use it as an internet terminal in a living room. The Mac Mini is perfect for hiding away, and MorphOS boots so fast that my 3G router is online just after MorphOS has hit the desktop.

There is lots of free software (including some you are used to on Linux) and if you know your way around Amiga software, this is a great way to run it. Aminet is still full of software, and now that there are decent browsers (OWB, Sputnik), SSH software (SSHCON), nice mail clients (SimpleMail, YAM), excellent IRC clients (Wookiechat, AmIRC), graphics tools, music players and video players... really.. what more do you need for home use?

I've switched to Google Docs, so an up to date native office package is no longer a priority.

Amiga Inc. did not force Amithlon off the market.

What happened was that the distributor (Haage & Partner) supplied Kickstart ROM and related software for the developers Bernd Meyer and Harald Frank. It turned out that Haage & Partner were not licensed to distribute said software, so Bernd Meyer terminated his relationship with the company over breach of contract.

After this, Haage & Partner kept selling Amithlon for a considerable amount of time and lawsuits were filed against Bernd Meyer. Initially he tried developing a new version without code related to Haage & Partner and Harald Frank, but eventually dropped the project in 2002, because he was no longer interested in fighting his former partners.

While Amiga Inc. screwed up plenty of things, this was not one of them.

Not really. I, however, am a customer, and this particular rejection doesn't sit right with me. This is exactly the kind of functionality I want my iPad-to-be to have, when I'm not actively using it.

For the same reason I wrote to apple.com/feedback and explained my concern as a customer.

Occasionally Apple listens.

Really? I've got Vista on a gaming rig here, and I've not upgraded because it still largely "just works", but it's still one big update-reboot-update, click away warnings, update anti-virus software, reboot-update-reboot nightmare, because I don't use it every day. Will Windows 7 be better in that respect?

Again and again he tried after the tempting morsel, but at last had to give it up, and walked away with his nose in the air, saying: "I am sure they are sour."

I prefer enabling the column browser. Then it's just a matter of clicking an artist name (or album - or both) and drag the album name across.

I didn't like iTunes till I one day saw the browser enabled. The first thing I did when I came home was to install iTunes, enable browse mode (by clicking an eye back then) and I've been a happy user ever since.

I guess Apple thinks the column browser is too complicated for newbies and leave it off by default, but every time I've seen someone use iTunes like that, I've shown them the browse function and they've all been happier for it.

As I see it there are two ways of using iTunes. One is letting iTunes control everything, the other is manually managing the files while iTunes keeps a database of the files.

In my opinion only the first option should be possible, because the second option basically doesn't work. If the latter should be an option, it ought to be implemented so the databased it created by scanning the directories and automatically adding/removing based on the filesystem.

The first option works really well, though. Manage everything through the iTunes interface, use the playlists and smart playlists, and iTunes is an amazing media player/manager. I've tried alternatives with regular intervals, but there's seriously nothing that comes close. Only thing that will open a world of hurt is if the drive with the music library gets damaged. Hello double entries. Let's just say it's a good thing to have a backup of both the music and the database file.

Anything you've seriously felt, or does it just annoy you that they are there? When I had iTunes running on a P2-333 MHz machine iTunes ran well and had no noticeable impact on the performance.

I ran into this as well. I thought setting the iPod to manual management would allow you to copy back and forth, but this was certainly not the case when I tried it a week or so ago.

Really? I've got 30 gigs on my old clickwheel iPod, and while finding songs on my iPhone is certainly faster, the old iPod is no slouch. It's vastly faster than my Sansa Fuze player, SE W810i and everything else I've tried using as a dedicated player. Perhaps the problem is due to the hardware issue, you were talking about?

You can set up accounts without credit cards (google it).

That was true to an extent for the classic iPods. My iPod Photo 30 gig certainly has lots of tiny scratches. My touch devices (iPod Touch and iPhone) looks as the day I bought them, however.

I know people love to hate iTunes, but I've still not seen any realistic alternatives. I agree it could be improved (it's getting too cluttered with all the things that have been added), but the functionality and possibilities are amazing - especially on the Mac platform. I'm no programmer, but I still manage to control my music playback as if I were extracting database entries, and it's so fast I do it all the time.

I've been using Fring to make Skype calls over 3G on iPhone since January. It even works with SkypeOut. It's just a matter of logging in to your Skype account from Fring's client.

The main difference here is that the official client gets the 3G support. The SDK terms were changed in January to allow 3G, so basically Skype have been slow / bound by contracts (they've claimed the latter).

It's well worth noticing that the Amiga was born with the chipset that played the audio in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DL6HYGwEwM - so we're talking 1985 tech in that video.

While the Amiga version had only 32 colours, the sound was pretty rockin' for the time. Personally I only like the Roland version better in terms of sound - purely based on audio taste and not technicalities.

I have a fairly decent rig that I bought for gaming. I'd been absent from "hardcore" PC gaming for a while because of the increasingly *ss-raping DRM models that came out.

However, Steam seemed like an elegant solution where DRM works for you instead of against you, and Games for Windows showed promise to make gaming on PCs as coherent an experience as it is on consoles, so I went ahead and bought a nice rig that can play most games nicely.

While I've had some good experiences (Dragon Age, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars), I still get frustrated at times by gaming on PCs. I knew some games on Steam still employed SecuROM, but to the best of my knowledge I hadn't bought any. Well, turns out I had. I bought GTA 4 while on sale, and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening to get the game running. Turns out something was dodgy on the server end and it was solved in the end by a patch. It was incredibly frustrating as a consumer, though, as all I was told was my codes were invalid.

Another fun experience is Gears of Wars for Windows, where you actually have to install a patch to get the game running in the first place these days.

Today I installed Halo 2 to see how well it runs with my new(er) graphics card. Sound that breaks up during cutscenes, 5+ minute loading screens and a computer that more or less stopped responding was the result.

Add fun things like Bioshock 2 not supporting the 360 controller despite being a Games for Windows title, thus killing fun for HTPC gamers, Ubisoft and EA always online DRM and lots of similar things, and there's just no one place where gaming is always fun and no hassle. To be fair lots of PC games run well, but let's just not pretend everything smells like roses on the PC.

I've got all the consoles as well, and I have to say I get more fun out of them (and for a smaller investment) than I do out of my PC. I'm glad I have the option to pick and choose when I go games shopping, though.

On the other hand EA requires logging in to their servers for online multiplayer and they inevitably close those servers down sooner or later. While you can still play all other games on original Xbox Live (till they flip the switch on April 15th), plenty of EA games were cut off ages ago.

With Live there's no reason to require external servers, and oh boy do I wish Microsoft hadn't caved in to EA's demands that they be allowed to operate their own servers. It basically compromised the premise of Live, where you could always play a game online no matter what happened to the company, as long as the Live service stayed up. Also we'd probably have Links 2010 this year instead of being forced to play Links 2004 as that's still the last decent golf sim on consoles.

I really don't know which is worse (ok, Ubisoft is a strong contender), but EA definitely aren't perfect either. I guess the smaller developers that can't afford to enrage their fan community are the ones doing the best job (Telltale Games, 2D Boy).

It plays a fair bit - just like the 360. Just saying neither one is perfect. I certainly need transcoding now and then.

Actually there is no longer any way to run homebrew on PS3, unless you manage to run it as BD-Live content from a disc somehow (like BluTV).

With PS3 Slim the ability to run "Other OS" disappeared with Sony citing costs to maintain the feature as the reason to kill it off.

The homebrew option was never really that interesting as (like others have pointed out) there was no direct GPU access and there was no option to VSYNC, which makes for horrible media playback.

While both PS3 and 360 have reasonable video playback features, we all know they come nowhere near the power of XBMC and similar solutions. If you only want one device under your television and would prefer not converting/transcoding everything, this hack might well end up being very useful.

I certainly hope to add XBMC functionality to my PS3, because now that the Slim is out, it's pretty easy to move around the house and hook up to and old device (easier than moving my 360s).