I work for an IT consulting firm. Within the last week I've received over 2000 emails; this is normal. A lot of these messages will be service ticket notifications, which are very useful to keep and access via Exchange for Android when I'm at a client. The rest of these will be important notifications about server health and other important monitoring information. With 52 weeks per year, that's over 100,000 emails in my inbox, which is a phenomenal amount to index. Sorting my email into folders helps to keep my inbox manageable. I'll point out that I don't use my inbox as a to-do list either.

In any case, modern versions of Outlook can easily search in all folders at once, and have the ability to sort email automatically based on patterns. Logically we can assume that a smaller inbox is faster to search through for more relevant information, hence in a real-world test the filers would be more efficient. Being able to see the my recent important messages also helps to keep me focused should I be doing 40 jobs at a time.

This may not apply to everyone, but those who have enough email that they actually need to sort it will probably have a similar experience. Searching may help to free up a few extra seconds here and there, but a clutter will always create a bottleneck. Quickly glancing at my screen once every 30 minutes to see if I have anything new and noteworthy is far more efficient than compulsively checking every 5 minutes and marking all of those misc notifications as read.

There is only one truly great Avenger. He who fights creases with his anvil of steam. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Extermeironingrivelin.jpg

One of the stupider things I've seen in the past, was when an old girlfriend's parents actually created a facebook account for her 6 year old sister, then let her run free with it, complete with fully tagged photo albums, check-in locations, status updates and favourite pages (much of this information was provided indirectly by the parents through tagging).

I find it hugely concerning when a pair of adults (both of whom are middle-aged) decide to completely ignore the terms of service so they can list their both of their daughters on their profiles. This is probably the case with many young children who don't have the technical knowledge to sign up for an email account, then use the email account to open a facebook account.

Sure, it doesn't seem like facebook have gone to exceptional lengths to enforce their own ToS, but you can't say they're completely at fault.

Can anyone honestly say they're surprised though? I mean, Google haven't had a great track record when it comes to privacy.. They obviously don't seem to think it matters too much, as to only highlight it as a medium priority.

So in effect, to use said extension, you will need to either:

a) Upgrade your XP/Vista box to Windows 7
b) Say goodbye to your Mac
c) Ditch your *nix distro

I can't really see many people doing that. However for anybody using the operating system, it's really not such a bad idea. While the idea of Microsoft developing a Firefox extension may turn heads, they're only doing it to benefit themselves.

I've never had one part in any of my desktop machines fail on me. In saying that, my PSU will probably die and kill every component in my rig next week. I've always done a lot of research into failure rates on all parts I buy, and spent a long time working for an online computer store, so I have a good idea of which parts were more reliable than others.

Interestingly, high-end parts are more frequently returned than cheap generic brands, though that's usually because people don't bother with their $20 stick of memory and just shell out for the good stuff when it fails.

When it comes to my notebook however, the poor thing (Eee901 xubuntu) barely works at all. I'm on the second charger now after 2 years, the batter no longer charges above 34% and there is something wrong with the sound device (hopefully just a buffer issue, but I doubt it). I've also had to replace the fan, but this is due to a design flaw; the metal plate at the base of the fan is usually screwed in too tightly, loosen it and it runs beautifully, provided it is not already damaged. I couldn't be bothered with the RMA process, so I ordered the replacement directly from Europe and installed it myself.

There was one last one that I didn't happen to see..

"Fly over the rainbow with pink Viagra!"

"When we have put Joey into buttons, he will do very well to attend to the door." - Erm..

"PLEASE READ" - Not terribly funny, but it does grab ones' attention.

"I am confounded what these people do with ladies!" - I am confounded that you sent me the link to the site too..

"If you want to be a real man - be him!" - OK I will! Thankyou for the sound advice!

and finally..

"Your Accounnt Was Banned" - Well how about that? Which account you say?

I hear a lot of people complaining about insufficient backhaul between Australia and the rest of the world. This is a problem, getting the data from one place to another is costly, and has some risks. Unless of course mirrors are set up in Australia. Think about it, big sites like youtube, metacafe, rapidshare, etc.. set up mirrors here, and every major ISP caches the data when it's accessed. The mirrors would be built using the cached data from the ISPs. Using local traffic would be far cheaper than wasting bandwidth over and over again on the international submarine cable, and could generate a higher profit margin with advertising. This would also create more jobs in IT, and would ease the strain on the flow of data between countries. It would also give more incentive for overseas companies to build cable out here, and vice-versa. If the content is all here on a high-speed fibre network, why not take advantage of it? This would also bring more profit into Australia, with other countries buying access to the data, and would lower the cost for Aussie consumers too.