If you are referring to the development of a police state.. then you are absolutely correct ! My adopted brother from the old soviet union use to tell me about 'political officers' on street corners watching you and listening for dissent. Here in Chicago we have street Cameras. Now on the internet we have a massive cloud database storing everything about us. Did they at least write a rule that says it has to be stored in something other than plain text? (Remember Sony?) I bet they forgot that part ;) Wait till it gets hacked, then they will remember. Also, Just a thought, since this law is to 'protect the children,' will their scope of using it be limited to child pornographers? Or will they start that slippery slope with Copyright infringers that I expect is really behind the creation of this policy? :) allhailprince.info

@ archen - TRUE STORY ! I always find it amazing they hire engineers to design these systems and ref./cold rooms to do X Y and Z but they NEVER ONCE consider maintenance or repair. I once worked at a place where they had the equipment installed before the inside of the building even finished construction so once it was all done, they had to knock down a wall and shut down 100+ servers to get to the encapsulated equipment (Cooliing Unit) when repairs were needed. You should ALWAYS consider the opinion of the 'repair guy' and the costs of repairs or service. For example, I am a huge fan of open source, but it rarely comes with enterprise level support, most cases the best you can do is a a forum or IRC Channel (try getting the standard office drone to understand that = brain bleeding). So Yes you will save 1000's on licensing costs (THANKS BSA!), but you will spend 40K a year on an IT guy to provide support.

Nope and I bet most of the 40,000 units were bought by Microsoft employees to bolster their stock options or by company mandate. The rest were bought by those bitches that hang from steve "bumblefuck" ballmer's cock like micheal dell or what ever cunt they hired to run HP this week.

Is our government's most important and highly funded intelligence agency using Microsoft Operating systems and Windows Networking? Really? After DARPA came up with a secure networking system now recognized as THE INTERNET... and the obvious security benefits to ANY *NIX system over Wintendo... REALLY? Meanwhile the Chinese are working on their own *NIX system to remove the need of Wintendo and Microsoft Licensing Fees from their entire way of life we are letting a company run by Steve "BumbleFuck" Balmer to support the Operating System for the NSA's computers? Have none of them ever ran windows at home? Wow... All I gotta say is learn your Mandarin.

Apple is the best contender to bring one to market successfully however Apple's software approval process will kill it. Next in line Sony and Nintendo. Sony is known for overpriced great hardware, shitty support and on top of that until they lowered their prices they pissed off a lot of developers. Nintendo on the other hand upgrades its platform every few years and does a great job of making software backwards compatible, unfortunately unlike Sony (Ericson) Nintendo has never made a Phone so their entry into that market will be difficult because they are behind the curve for Cell Phone R and D by about 20 years. Now if Apple was willing to co-brand (which they wont) and bring Nintendo's reputation (and loyal customers) into the iPayTooMuch Platform they could have a solid winner that would rival the PSP. I loved my PSP but it was a bulky and closed so hacking it was a P.I.T.A. (attempt->brick->repair->attempt->brick->repair->attempt->brick->drink vodka , turn on xbox and say screw it). Same reason I gave up on iPhone, they locked their phone with AT&T I had T-Mobile. Hack-update-Hack-Update it was an annoying cycle plus apple lost out once I hacked my iPhone I was able to put free software on there which eliminated the requirement to PAY for anything from itunes before deciding if I wanted it. While Apple claims that its policies are to enforce brand management etc etc They basically don't want to admit they fucked up by being exclusive with AT&T when they knew the phone was not unhackable (only a sucker would believe something like that). The first company to successfully bring a true all in one portable device that doesn't lag, actually works and has a compliment of reputable developers actively supporting that platform will win. I know that statement is kind of obvious but if thats true shouldn't someone have achieved this already? Oh and if no one remembers reading their slashdot and techdirt Nokia pulled the plug on N-Gage servers a few months ago so those that made the investment in software and hardware were effectively screwed. I feel the same way about Nokia as I do about Sega or Canon or my little brother Great Ideas, No follow through. For example the N series phones great hardware No support from Nokia and No support from developers = cool device but dead platform (Anyone remembering the Sega 32X Saturn Dreamcast or Canon Bubble Jet Series Printer right about now?) The unfortunate reality is as much as I HATE microshaft if I wanna game I have to do it on an Xbox 360.

Merchant accounts are IMPOSSIBLE to get these days even for NEW legitimate businesses. Emerging companies have to goto paypal and google checkout (more secure for same price) to be able to conduct business. If these companies can unilaterally decide to freeze assets it hurts their legitimacy and is counter to their fiduciary duty to their share holders. It was because of stunts like this that the company I worked for decided long ago to switch to Chase Quick Pay and Google Checkout because PayPal can not be trusted and the only money they keep safe is their own. When PayPal first opened they were a legitimate escrow service now they are a sham organization trying to shave points on all electronic transactions going through their house.

Treating it like a business is a VERY bad idea. Most businesses depend on their IT/IS Infrastructure to operate and some utilize their infrastructure to operate efficiently. In both cases the IT department is who engineer's or maintains this infrastructure that every company depends on. When your business needs to grow your infrastructure will be the first thing that needs to be modified to facilitate that growth. Having an experienced and integrated IT department is the best way to ensure a successful and painless transition. That integration comes from not separating IT as a separate business but integrating the IT staff so that they have a full understanding of operations and can better serve the company. Specifically when it comes to new technologies and how they can benefit the company by increasing profit margin, efficiency, reliability or reduce downtime. Or how to manage the flow of data from customers to maximize revenue and reduce the length of sales cycles. As far as cutting IT costs the best thing to do is to take purchasing out of the loop so that efforts on concentrated on making things WORK instead of replacing what ever is broken with a purchase of something similarly or differently flawed. Ever since out company switched over to buying from PriceHonest.com we have saved over 20% of our normal budget for IT and now our IT people can concentrate on internal software solutions and quality engineering of IT solutions for our Internal customers. Our IT staff writes up a RFQ on PriceHonest.com we get cheap tax free bids from CDW Dell Ingram Micro the same people our purchasing agents usually call anyways to negotiate prices and rates and we purchase everything we were getting from the same vendors except we are getting it a LOT cheaper and tax free. That gives us room in our IT budget for other expenses to make our jobs easier or to add to our rainy day fund or to have enough left over to get a bump at bonus time.

Treating it like a business is a VERY bad idea. Most businesses depend on their IT/IS Infrastructure to operate and some utilize their infrastructure to operate efficiently. In both cases the IT department is who engineer's or maintains this infrastructure that every company depends on. When your business needs to grow your infrastructure will be the first thing that needs to be modified to facilitate that growth. Having an experienced and integrated IT department is the best way to ensure a successful and painless transition. That integration comes from not separating IT as a separate business but integrating the IT staff so that they have a full understanding of operations and can better serve the company. Specifically when it comes to new technologies and how they can benefit the company by increasing profit margin, efficiency, reliability or reduce downtime. Or how to manage the flow of data from customers to maximize revenue and reduce the length of sales cycles. As far as cutting IT costs the best thing to do is to take purchasing out of the loop so that efforts on concentrated on making things WORK instead of replacing what ever is broken with a purchase of something similarly or differently flawed. Ever since out company switched over to buying from PriceHonest.com we have saved over 20% of our normal budget for IT and now our IT people can concentrate on internal software solutions and quality engineering of IT solutions for our Internal customers. Our IT staff writes up a RFQ on PriceHonest.com we get cheap tax free bids from CDW Dell Ingram Micro the same people our purchasing agents usually call anyways to negotiate prices and rates and we purchase everything we were getting from the same vendors except we are getting it a LOT cheaper and tax free. That gives us room in our IT budget for other expenses to make our jobs easier or to add to our rainy day fund or to have enough left over to get a bump at bonus time.

Academia is the problem starts. You have to compete with idiots for good grades in classes you dont need to get a certificate that doesn't matter for a job that you wont get. In the IT field any jerk who can take a standardized test can get certified a Microsoft/Cisco expert so now that guy with an IT or Engineering Degree that he spent years studying for and around $100k has to compete for a job with the idiot that took weekend classes at a productivity point. In the Medical field they spend years making you take classes that have nothing to do with medicine or general practice yet if you do not get through organic chemistry and calculus you cant be a doctor. My doctor is an idiot he couldnt solve a calculus problem if his life depended on it. Corporations constantly want to drive the bottom line down so they create a competitive market place for jobs that is almost counter productive to corporate interests. CEO's that do nothing but manage stock price are given million dollar bonuses but engineers that create new technologies are given the axe as soon as they have a budget cut. The bean counters get the bonuses but when things get screwed up they depend on the engineers and doctors to get them out of the jam poor bean counting got us in.

Dude i paid for i,t ill fucking write it in.... if you have the cash to pony up for a book its yours to shit on if you want to... the fact is ur lucky if you get half from the book store so do what you want with it before you get raped trying to sell it the value does not go up if you leave it unmarked.... for those of us who want to save money on used books remember just that we decided to be cheap asses and get something second hand... beggers cant be choosers.

Couldn't the cyanogen package be made without those apps then simply download those apps from the market place later? its pain ni the ass but its still better than the garbage Google sends out on its un modified firmware. If the modding for the Android stops Google will successfully kill its launch into the mobile phone market. People wanted an open alternative to iPhone. I even put of with the incredible amount of glitchyness that comes with the G1 just so I dont have to be locked down to closed platforms like Darwin with Cocoa on the iPhone. If I have to be locked down.. then apple has the better phone. its not like HTC is the only one making money from the sales of the hardware, Google gets paid when they sell the phone whether you use their software or not like when you buy a computer with windows and wipe it to install linux, microshit still gets paid for the license... why cut off the revenue stream by giving the consumers a reason not to purchase in the first place? HTC will still sell phones it will just have Windows Mobile on it instead. Google is only hurting them selves. Besides with Apple kicking the google voice app out the only way google is going to make money from that service is to have a stable foot hold on the marketplace, by cutting off a source of distribution they are in turn shooting them selves in the foot. Again.. Google is only hurting them selves. With t-moblie changing their overage rates recently a lot of customers are eligible to be released from their contract under the condition that t-mobile unilaterally changed the terms of service under US Commercial Codes the original contract is no longer enforceable. So now we have the option to sell our Unlocked G1's for twice what we paid for them by signing a contract and take that money to another service provider like Verizon or AT&T. Simply put if google kills the best of the modders, they kill any future revenue stream from users like me. I still have my unlocked iPhone all i have to do is put the SIM chip back in. Goodbye Google Market Hello Apple App Store. No but seriously leave the modders alone i hate that i have to use itunes for my iPhone but not more than i hate a glitchy G1 that i cant do anything about.

Other inherent problems include that the GPS tracker will be sending data about miles traveled even when your car breaks down and needs to be towed... You want me to pay a per mileage charge on my towed vehical when the car is not even in working condition. And what idiot decided that any money should be spent on GPS devices when there is already an odometer in the car.? and yes i heard "well people can roll back the odometer" yes thats true but people can also "HACK THE GPS DEVICE" its electronic and it sends and receives signals, If there is an input and out put some electrical engineer or hacker will figure out a way. (Apple spent millions developing the iPhone and a 17 year old kid from the east coast hacked it in a few days, How long do you think it would take some one to hack a government project? Come on they cant even keep DoD computers safe from overseas hackers...)

I have been successful in getting a lot of people switched over to Ubuntu at least but then there are the few that were seduced by the dark side and downloaded the free Wintendo 7 RC... But every one i know so far regrets it and says while its a vast improvement over Vista it still sucks... My room mate is mostly displeased cause once he told me he put windows on his machine and complained about it not working and asked me for help, i punched him in the nuts... he learned his lesson. Microsoft still has no clue as to its own identity. This new BING.com service has a 100 million dollar ad campaign behind it, but windows vista still crashes after paying for an overpriced software license. Everything microsoft is halfassed and never works. My windows phone crashed if i dared to take a phone call and look up a spreadsheet at the same time. My iPhone just works. My windows machines were buggy as hell and costs thousands to keep up to date with new versions and licenses. My linux machines are almost as buggy but it never cost me anything. and please dont tell me you pay for support, have you ever talked to some one at microsoft tech support? you are better off calling a borderline retarded helper monkey to jerk off on your keyboard. THE only thing good i can say about microsoft is that SO FAR their system on netbooks seems to be the best and smoothest running so far. No one else has quite got the task management and memory addressing just right for efficient operation on a netbook.

come on dont lie you know you already switched to linux...

The us economy is suffering and major us corporations that make up a majority of the worlds economy avoid paying taxes there by placing the entire burden on individual tax payers to support the country. the same country that creates a free market for them to operate freely and profitably. Instead of supporting the economy in which they need to operate they move funds and jobs offshore. And now people wonder why our economy is in the dumps? The country's number 1 defense contractor Haliburton moved to DUBAI to avoid paying us taxes when in fact the majority of US Taxes are being paid to them for services rendered. On top of that Haliburton does not employ US citezens that would be paying into the US economy in the form of income taxes instead they hire people from Pakistan for cheap and violate their rights all in the name of spreading democracy, peace and 'human' rights... 'human' meaning FAT CAT US EXECS. GROW UP AMERICA our politicians sold us out and now they want us to pay for the service after the sale too...