Definitely if you want to develop anything that is more than trivial, you need to understand the hosting anyway. So roll your own VPS. I just was forced to change providers (the old one closed shop) and settled on http://serveraxis.com/ - Cheap SSD based VPS (2GB RAM, 16 GB disk, 2 TB bandwith - $28/mo no contract) and reasonable VPS with large disks, like +1 TB. Although for the large disk the default bandwidth is not adequate I think. I just can't think of any system that would need that much data but only have a monthly bandwidth allocation equal the disk size.

I wished the http://www.anandtech.com/show/6741/lg-29ea93-monitor-review-rev-125 would be x1200. but in any case it seems to be a good compromise between a single large monitor and two monitors with the bezel, etc.

I'd love to have a plug in electric, for the 85+% of short drives people make, +plus+ a trailer with a gas engine and a generator to power this car for longer distances. In my mind I would not even own this trailer, but rent it at a gas station. In addition that trailer could carry some additional luggage (and may be powered by its own motor).
In that case I'd not even care if this trailer generates electricity from gasoline, from waste cooking oil, liquified gas or hydrogen. All I'd care about is if it gives me sufficient juice to drive my size vehicle and what it's range (tank capacity) would be.
And with all electric we could have a drive by wire system that drives the trailer much more comfortable. I could even see steering in the trailer (which is easy if you have one electric motor per wheel, just run them at different speed) to eliminate the skills needed to back up with a trailer.

http://gettys.wordpress.com/bufferbloat-faq/

How about latency and bufferbloat effects? Since the discovery of bufferbloat (http://gettys.wordpress.com/bufferbloat-faq/) I have become increasingly aware that raw speed is not all there is to Internet quality.

My Verizon FIOS 20/5 should be plenty to do remote screen sessions to work, but it does slow down considerably in the afternoon and becomes painful in the prime time evening hours.

Welcome to the 20th century,
what do you think notification e-mails have been playing as a role in Enterprise communication? It's the feed, it has been since the 1990s.

IMHO, more sensation then fact
[quote]"if Red Hat were to be successful in establishing copyright infringement and obtaining a permanent injunction," the legal blog wrote.[/quote]
If the code in question is GPL 2 licensed, and Redhat holds the copyright, then RedHat has the right to pursue the Copyright infringement. However a permanent injunction can easily be avoided by coming in compliance with the GPL 2. And as the alleged code code is just the mount tool, that should be limited to GPL license of this piece of code.

And one wrong (violation of GPL) does not cure the other wrong (patent infringement), even if both allegations can be proven correct.

Basics? I mean make it usable as a phone, require minimum loudness and call quality, minimum battery life and an ability to use the phone for complex apps while charging (navigation in the car, talking in the car, playing music)

Add value to replace other gadgets. How about requiring or at least clearly advertising that navigation software works w/o network. Google maps is a toy, because it does not store maps and does not find a route, when not tethered. The same for exercise tracking software, etc. A five yr old $99 Navi system can do that, why can't a $650 smartphone which has all the required sensors? A four year old $200 watch can do it too.

Cameras seem to be coming on good in that regard.

Lean on OEMs to make the pricing sensible. NOT $100 for + 16GB more NAND which cost $15?

Oh and with all the power over the market and the apps on it. Publish crash and usage numbers. Nothing speaks louder of quality if people don't only download the software but also load it/use it and have low crash report numbers. That is what is in the interest of the users!!!

Another great way to contribute is through complex testing, such as vulnerability testing, penetration testing, security testing, performance testing.

You do not need to be a great coder to run a test app, if you happen to have access to it. Run it and report the results or even better turn it into singular bug reports.

The same is true for performance testing. If you use a particular project, see what performance characteristics are important to you and distill a canned test with appropriate data (so it is reproducible). If you can run the test against different versions, to show a trend of improvement or not that is certainly helpful. If you can compare different (competing) projects that is helpful too. In the process you have a lot of interesting things to say and write about.

Many, many open source projects need a marketing strategy and execution (did I say execution). It starts with descriptions of the project, the target audience (library for programmers, end users, supported OS, functions/features, competition/comparable projects, positioning (faster, smaller, more beautiful, supported, ...). Also gather stories from users, how they use it why and what they'd like to improve. Also don't forget history.

Make this knowledge available in a thoughtful way, if possible on the projects home page (how often is the home page indecipherable

Then spread this knowledge on websites like http://wikipedia.org/ http://ohloh.net/ and others that catalog open source projects. this makes it easier for potential users to find the project and pinpoint if they want to use it.

In this article it is mentioned that Panasonic has some problem with its links on the site that hosts the GPL code. While the link on that site is broken, there is mention on the net of the TV itself listing the correct and working URL to download the TV's GPLed code

Funnily the site has a note saying the webmaster@ account is not working due to SPAM issues. So you can't contact them to fix their link issue. But then any self respecting web master will discover its mistakes by monitoring the site's logs ;-)

If you are heading to Boston/Cambridge, don't miss the Harvard Museum of Natural History and its excellent glass flower collection.

http://www.hmnh.harvard.edu/on_exhibit/the_glass_flowers.html

I myself waist the most time on the Internet with Spam. So lets fix the most annoying things first.

Start signing your e-mail so I can filter on a reliable source where it comes from and use the web of trust to indicate if I have any 'remote' trust relationship to the sender.

Twitter is technically SMS on the Internet.

For the layman it is subscription to telegrams. Imagine instead a publisher who publishes only telegrams of less than 140 characters, instead of whole articles or a magazine. And you can write back to the editor in 140 chars or less. It so happens that you can get these messages forwarded to your cell-phone and also send them from there. So it opens up some billions of users who don't have personal Internet access but carry a cell phone with unlimited texting/SMS or simply are not at a computer at the moment.

That is all there is to it and like a roller coaster you don't really know what it is unless you tried it.

The difference is that other speculative goods are fixed and sold for a price by someone who has build them or owns them through inheritance. Sure you might not see any value in that old car but someone else has always admired it and wants to rebuild it to its new glory. Or you might offer that old clunker for sale until the desperate person comes along and offers you much money in his desperation. Also your physical goods do age and need maintenance, the value of stock varies with the fortunes and skills of the companies managers, a house costs taxes and repairs, etc.

In contrast you can always buy a new domain for a set cheap fee a yr. IT does not age or need any risky repairs. In fact you don't buy domains, you rent them with a right to renew yearly. You sure can make the domain valuable by using it for a great service and attract some great business or simply visitors at the virtual address.

So you are comparing apples and oranges.

P.S.: I don't mean to defend cyber squatters here at all.