Posted 08/22/2008 at 07:43:26am

I used Vista for a few months--even after SP1 was released. I saw a LOT of blue screens and I didn't have anything else on my computer that I know of that would have caused it. I wound up finally downgrading to XP Pro and love it just like I loved XP for all those years. Didn't take me long to find out what a bust Vista actually was. What a waste of money! I won't upgrade again until the next version of Windows. Sure, it had fancy graphics, but the BSOD's that I saw were one of the reasons I did it. Besides that, I had a couple of pieces of hardware that I liked that wouldn't run under Vista--or worked in a 'reduced' manner.

Posted 08/12/2008 at 10:06:28pm

Unlike the reviewer, I had no problem with the zoom key. Also, I found the placement of the side buttons works very well. I just use my 3rd finger to access the left button. (I am right-handed.) I have had no problems so far, except that both seem to take batteries fairly often. My rating? I'd give it an 9.

Posted 07/25/2008 at 03:01:36pm

Sorry for the dual posting. I didn't think my first post went through, so I tried it again. The website seemed to hang. Sorry, folks!!

Posted 07/25/2008 at 03:00:07pm

I'm kind of split 50/50 on it. I like the idea of having free internet, but having the government do it sounds a little Orwellian to me. Do you want Uncle Sam spying on you? I'm pretty sure that sometime during this, they'll figure out a way to do that, as well--without you knowing about it. Besides, the government has a tendency to screw up a lot of the things they get their hands on.

 As far as filtering out websites, what happened to the first amendment? Even some of the porn sites are (supposedly) covered by the 1st Amendment. 

The only good thing the government did regarding the internet was when they parceled it out all over and let individual ISP's decide what could/could not be done. For the most part, though, the ISP's have stayed out of it and left it up to the subscriber. (Which is how it should be.)

I could probably get used to advertising on the web. Heck, we have it on the radio, the TV and now in movie theaters. Why should the internet be any different?

Posted 07/25/2008 at 03:00:06pm

I'm kind of split 50/50 on it. I like the idea of having free internet, but having the government do it sounds a little Orwellian to me. Do you want Uncle Sam spying on you? I'm pretty sure that sometime during this, they'll figure out a way to do that, as well--without you knowing about it. Besides, the government has a tendency to screw up a lot of the things they get their hands on.

 As far as filtering out websites, what happened to the first amendment? Even some of the porn sites are (supposedly) covered by the 1st Amendment. 

The only good thing the government did regarding the internet was when they parceled it out all over and let individual ISP's decide what could/could not be done. For the most part, though, the ISP's have stayed out of it and left it up to the subscriber. (Which is how it should be.)

I could probably get used to advertising on the web. Heck, we have it on the radio, the TV and now in movie theaters. Why should the internet be any different?

Anyway, except for the free part, I think I'd rather keep it as it is. So, I guess I'm not quite split 50/50 on it. More like 70/30.

Posted 07/13/2008 at 07:13:08am

There is one BIG reason that people copy content that a lot of people ignore:

A lot of the DVD's are WAY overpriced! Some of these movies are selling for $40-$50, when it costs them only a few bucks to make the copies and sell them. The movie industry is making a killing on selling the stuff.

What they should do to curtail the illegal copying is to reduce their prices drastically. That would make it less worthwhile to copy them. You don't see a lot of the bargain-bin stuff being copied, now, do you? (Sure, there will be people who copy them just for the sake of copying them, but the majority of people do it because they can't afford to actually BUY some of these titles.)

Pricing their stuff less than they are now will still reap profits, but will also have the added benefit of curtailing copying.

Some season box sets are selling upwards of $100 or more, which is completely ridiculous and giving them a 5000% profit.