There are lots of different types of "free" software. I've seen lots of software - commercial AND free abandoned. Just because you pay for software doesn't make it "quality software" either.

I've worked for a company who abandoned prior clients of our commercial software because it didn't fit any strategic desire too. That happens a lot. Google does it, Microsoft does it, and my little company did it. IBM, Oracle, and, yes, even free software developers do it all the time. Not all software is commercially viable - not all free software remains interesting to the developer either.

"Take your chances" - all software makes you "take your chances" - for example, I was a relatively loyal MS-Office user ... then someone (or a team) decided to change it and make it unusable to me and millions of others. The marketing claimed it was "better." Exactly what is my solution to have it corrected? Nothing. I doubt anyone, anywhere, has enough money to make Microsoft correct that mistake. What sort of responsibility does Microsoft have here? My old version of the software still works ... for now. The old version of the "free" software works just as it always did too.

I've read the EULs put out with commercial software. Most have clauses that say "the software is not guaranteed to be suitable for any specific purpose." Most limit monetary value should the software fail for any reason. That's smart whether you are a commercial developer or not.

I have many commercial software games that won't run under Windows7. My printer doesn't work under Windows7 either. Who has the responsibility there? The game developer didn't change anything, yet the OS changed underneath and broke compatibility.

But, you are definitely correct. If a free software developer does it right, the license will protect her from any responsibility. I'm certain that most free software devs would love it should people contact them and ask to pay for the software. Obviously, if the pay isn't sufficient for them to quit their "day job", then reality must come first.

BTW, I do not blame MS for changing their software in a way they feel will gather more customers and serve existing customers better - I'm just making a point. #openthread

That's a strange wifi speed number to be reporting. Is that measured using a tool like [www.coker.com.au] ?

Which wifi standard are you on? Basically, wifi-G claims 54 Mbps, but every device you add effectively cuts the throughput in half - that's a rough approximation. So, with just 1 device on wifi, you'd see about 27Mbps (3.4MBps). You may get better performance, but often not.

With a Wifi-N-150 (and 100% Wifi-N devices on the network), you'd see about 75 Mbps (9.4MBps) real-world throughput. If one device connected were wifi-G, then the entire network would drop back to G speeds. It doesn't matter if the device is actively transferring at the time or not. The connection alone is enough.

I hope this clarifies and helps you find the culprit.

I was actually trying to help you with the best answer that I knew as a former MS-Windows app developer. Software that doesn't do something you wish needs to be changed. That requires one of two choices, which I provided.

Developers usually don't care about alternate colors, they care more about functionality.
We don't know why the color theme wasn't supported. I had written a few thoughts here, but it made the post too long. We don't know the reasons.

If you'd stated the app name, we may have been able to help more. BTW, Firefox implemented many things really well, but they completely screwed up copy/paste IMHO. They do not honor the OS native methods. This bug has been reported for ... decades? To me, that matters much more than theme or color support.

Regardless, I hope that you find a workable solution, but it is just colors. In life, how important is that, really?

I suspect an Android tablet + L2TP + VNC will let me leave important data remote during travel with access to everything important. When you travel to China or eastern Europe, system and network security are real concerns. I asked the local defcon group their opinions today about secure, remote access from Android.

Is this a topic for LH?

Anyone able to setup a blog from the shell could set this up in 30 minutes. #openthread

"Free" is not the same as "freedom."

For a wired 100base-tx network, 9-11MB/s is the best you can expect. These have more info and outside links that will be helpful:
* [blog.jdpfu.com]
* [blog.jdpfu.com]

I see 65MBps writes to my storage server running Ubuntu 10.04 all the time. Almost all my boxes are GigE connected - no wifi. A SW-RAID5 over infiniband sees only 40MBps writes. RAID matters.
I avoid USB2 storage too. USB3 and eSATA are preferred.

Basically, if it is a NAS, wire connect it to the router. As long as it is "on the network"m it doesn't matter where it is, right? Let the wifi clients pay the price.

The easy way is to
* rip the dvd to remove any DRM.
* use handbrake with the iPad setting to produce MP4/h.264 files. If there is stuttering, lower the "constant quality" setting.

Enjoy. DVD is 480p so any Android tablet should handle that perfectly. When you get above 600p, then the settings get more difficult.

HB_OPTS="-e x264 -O -r 29.97 --pfr -f mp4 -x $HB_ADV -Y $Y --loose-anamorphic -m -q $QUALITY"

$HB_CMD $HB_OPTS -i "$IN" -o "$OUT"
-----------------
$QUALITY is an integer between 16 and 35 (I guess) ---- 19 is pretty phenomenal quality, but 22-25 are "good enough".

Change the $ into % to work with cmd.exe. It might be easier to switch to powershell?

# route print

If you see multiple "default" routes, perhaps the wrong one has priority?

After that, check that your DNS resolver is working the way you desire. I don't know how to manage this on Widnows, but in most other OSes, there's a file /etc/nsswitch.conf which specifies the order - usually files, DNS, NIS, and db. If yours is setup this way, then the hosts file is checked first, then DNS, that is as far as it goes usually. Windows doesn't use NIS last time I checked.

Then check that your router can be accessed by any network cards.

If you don't need a GUI, ssh rocks. A nice text-based IMAP program like alpine means never being forced to trust some 3rd party with your email.

If you do need a GUI from a remote location, nothing compares to NX protocol for security and speed. It is at least 10x more efficient than RDP and probably 15x more efficient than VNC. It includes ssh tunneling, so you don't need to setup a VPN like you do with RDP and VNC tools. For standard "productivity" apps, NX over a 56K modem rocks. I imagine that it would rock over 2G-data too.

Like others here have said, ssh first, then NX. ssh works perfectly under OSX. FreeNX [freenx.berlios.de] or Neatx-NX [code.google.com] are Linux only. There are NX-clients for all desktop OSes ... I haven't found one for Android, yet.

Wikipedia has lots of remote desktop apps in their list [en.wikipedia.org] . Some might be useful if you have non-standard requirements ... like using FreeRDP [en.wikipedia.org] on a Windows7 Home license (since only professional and above have RDP built-in).

Sadly, the security of VNC-based solutions has been pretty lacking - no protocol encryption and allowing weak-ass passwords (no userid specified).

The actual security is unknown during the lifetime of an OS. I worked on a program where we believed - and 7 levels of testing believed - there were ZERO critical errors in the software. 20 years later and the program was shut down ... with an extensive database of all known bugs, when each was discovered and when the bug was introduced into the software. Like I said, we thought there were 0 bugs. Turns out there were over 100 at the time. This was not a trivial piece of software.

I don't need root explorer. I have a root shell and I'm not afraid to use it. I just did a
# more /dev/mem
and saw everything in RAM on Android 3.2.1.

I'm pretty certain I could make a system call, change to root, and tell users that I need this for XYZ. Users are trained to click "ok".
How many people give Titanium Backup Root? I could easily work my way down the app-account list and 'su - app1' ... then pull all the data out. Obviously, having knowledge of the app(s) would help, but I suspect any data stored locally could be snagged from a few sqlite queries. .schema ... then perform a row count on each table and transmit all the data from the largest table "somewhere." For someone who knew Android development and could hook up a back end server, not too tough. Snag everyone's contact list .. you know, just like twitter does on Windows.

I'm a linux guy and believe that it is the most secure OS for those that have 2% or more of the user base. I do not have any facts to prove this since Linux desktops do not see the same level of attack effort that Windows desktops see.

I hope you are right, but I've seen training on iphone and android phone security. It is really scary. Best advice is trust nothing. Encrypt everything. Convenience is the enemy of security, please, please, please stay patched and run the most current version of an OS that your device can handle.

Heck, even my N800 and Android devices have names so I can remote in from a more comfortable computer display/keyboard setup - beautiful IBM 101M keyboard.

Or did you just choose not to share your machine names here?

BTW, I also have a Dell 1558 - it has a beautiful 1080p display, but most of the time it is connected to a 24" 1920x1200 monitor. Plenty fast, plenty of RAM, discrete GPU, eSATA ... it is the best laptop I've ever owned. I've had this one 18 months and still love it ... except the wide screen - I hate wide screens, but I'm willing to give up on that fight ... for now. ;)

The best RSS reader I've found is included with the Maemo on the N800. I was just looking for a good RSS reader for Android. All the choices I found sucked our privacy away.

I was not aware that FF had built-in RSS reader support. I'll have to look that up ... once I get through all the current feeds.

I also remember people saying that increased CO2 would help plants become more productive and hopefully provide slightly longer growing seasons.

Unrelated, but certain "sciences" aren't really based on science. They are people looking for a good story (i.e. any hypothesis) that could, maybe, once in a billions years, be possible ... maybe. Their hypothesis is just as valid as someone elses' who spent 10 yrs studying mathematics, worked on analogue or digital models for 20 years, and who understands statistics. I'm not going to pick on any single field of study since there are good people in all fields too.

People who study climatology as a profession, outside Washington D.C., do not call it "global warming." Even a 100 years of data is a speck on geologic time scales. There isn't enough data, statistically speaking. I'm not saying that anyone is right or that anyone is wrong, just that there is not enough data for a scientific conclusion. They are all guessing.

The Earth's climate has been changing for billions of years and it will continue to change. Regardless, we must adapt until we can get off this death trap.

I recall hearing about freezing in Florida too. Watched the prices for frozen orange juice skyrocket!

I personally worry about much more tracking for people who have rooted their devices, since that breaks lots of security. Of course, others will claim that rooted phones with new firmware will be more secure because it doesn't have the CarrierIQ stuff loaded. Once rooted, any app that has root access (or tries to get it and you say "ok") will have access to everything on the device. NOTHING is hidden from root - [www.s-gms.ms.edus.si]