I suspect those are junction points. Will have to check when I get home this evening, unless someone else can beat me to it.

Tangent: I do wonder when MS will announce their next update to NTFS. Or, for that matter if/when they'll natively support mounting more file systems. I'm certainly not expecting WinFS to arrive anytime soon!

That's a tough wager when 90% of PC's natively support NTFS and FAT[32] but not much else. Perhaps you mean exFAT is more "open" than NTFS?

I agree with you in principal, but think that your comment (and the MANY like it) actually miss the point of this new feature. This labs feature is NOT to replace POP or IMAP. It is for people who want to use the WEBMAIL interface even when they have no internet connection. The reasons for this could be many: perhaps they have no POP/IMAP client installed, do not know how to setup a local client, or simply prefer the Gmail interface. I don't know why - but I do know that we all know - and that the Google developers know - that IMAP and POP have been available for a long time!

I recently read an amazing blog by the Windows kernel master himself, Mark Russinovich.
http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/archive/2008/11/17/3155406.aspx

Some of it blew over my head, but other bits were very interesting. In the article, he explains physical, paging, and virtual memory usage - and my favorite, the only REAL way to calculate what the size of your paging file should be! (How many opinions have you read on that one?!)

If you're curious, here is the short version of how to calculate your needed paging file size:

1. Open all of your normally used applications with your typical data set,
2. Open Task Manager to the Performance tab
3. Look at the Commit Charge (K) Limit
4. Subtract the amount of your physical memory from this number
5. The result is basically all you need for a paging file.

Hope that helps! I suggest you read the rest for more info on this approach.

There is nothing good at all about this kind of plan. Education costs, for one, are already high enough. I remember being a student not too long ago, and it was annoying to have to pay for cable tv that I rarely watched. Now students have to subsidize the music industry as well?

Two words: SEO.

Oh wait, that's one word. You could say the same thing about a unique domain vs. a sub-domain. Sub-domains feel longer and can confuse some people. ("Huh, I don't use w's?" "It's a web site?")

A locally-named domain is easier to recognize, easier to type, more unique, etc. Even the fact that the name appears to be local makes it feel much more "friendly" to the person that sees the sign for the first time. The only challenge to either of these approaches is cities like Springfield, Auburn, Portland, or others that can be found in multiple states.