Activity for October 15

Review - Floola for Windows
5.0 (Mar 27, 2009)

Great, except I had to stick with 4.9 since 5.0 doesn't want to close on either of my Windows (XP and Vista) machines. I'm sure 5.1 will fix the issue, as others have experienced it as well.
Review - EVEREST Ultimate Edition
5.00.1650 (Mar 26, 2009)

Simply awesome! This version was released nearly 2 months ago though...
Review - Microsoft Internet Explorer for Windows XP
8.0 (Mar 19, 2009)

Nice job, but can't get Betanews to display in IE8 under Windows 7 or Windows XP. Firefox is fine on the same machines, so it's not a firewall issue... For that alone, IE8 gets a star deducted...
Review - Adobe Reader for Windows 2000/XP/Vista/2008
9.1 (Mar 10, 2009)

Standard version includes Air and Acrobat.com. The "lite" version includes only the reader.
Review - Mozilla Firefox for Windows (v3)
3.0.5 (Dec 16, 2008)

Thanks for helping beta test Firefox??? Guess this isn't quite final...
Comment - Senate GOP: FCC's net neutrality 'will limit the freedom of the Internet'
3.0.5 (Oct 15, 2009 - 11:16 AM)

Have you been paying attention to what the Left in the United States has been doing over the past 12 months?
Comment - Senate Republicans suspend opposition to FCC net neutrality regulation
3.0.5 (Sep 24, 2009 - 11:29 AM)

I trust the profit motive over government concern any day of the week.

As for Net Neutrality, as much as I am a champion of the idea, having government get involved is a sure way to fail. Consider free speech. Governments are now getting restricting the free speech rights of some to "enhance" the free speech rights of others. I fear that Net Neutrality may end up going down the same road.

It would have been best to stay out of the fray until intervention, either through the court system or potentially at some point through legislation were needed to address a problem. Legislation passed to prevent a potential problem that has not yet manifested itself is the worst way to address the problem. Even when the problem is clear, present and well defined, and especially in the technology arena (i.e. SPAM) government solutions are largely ineffective at best, and often introduce negative unintended consequences.
Comment - Windows 7 is coming: Don't upgrade
3.0.5 (Aug 20, 2009 - 1:52 PM)

"Hardware vendors devote significant resources tuning it to support their PCs. Tweaking the Windows image to work cleanly with a given hardware build is a critical value add that explains why more of us don't build our own systems from scratch."

Huh? Other than laptops, I'd wager that most folks here build their own systems. Does the writer realize this is a tech enthusiast site whose community enjoy tinkering, tweaking, testing, and playing with the latest hardware and software?
Comment - Windows XP SP3 runs browsers 13% faster than Windows 7 RTM
3.0.5 (Aug 13, 2009 - 8:28 PM)

In other breaking news...Windows 98 runs 40% faster than XP! I sure wish they had kept that one around longer....
Comment - New bill could make texting while driving illegal nationwide
3.0.5 (Jul 29, 2009 - 8:05 PM)

Totally agree. Too many laws, far too many of them either at or "strongly encouraged" by the Federal Government. Constitutionally, they don't have the authority. Period. States may have such authority, depending on the state.

I'll go one further, though. Why have a law specifically banning texting while driving? Every state I know of has an ordinance for "inattentive driving", "reckless driving", driving while distracted" or a similar statute. By enacting such highly focused specific laws, they open up avenues of defense for people doing equally stupid things. "Your Honor, there is no law that specifically says I can't drive while playing my PSP".

The point is, all of the issues with talking on a phone, texting, eating while driving, etc. are already covered under a myriad of other statutes. Passing specific laws such as this are just feel good acts by politicians that will only serve to be counterproductive in the long run.