In the late 90's I used a Pentium II along with a huge 1600x1200 CRT. Fifteen years later, my computer is a thousand times as fast, and my monitor has...8% more pixels.

Exactly! The way I use it on my desktop, it might as well be 7 — just faster, and with slight improvements all around. So maybe 7.1. :-)

"improvements in...multi-monitor support"

Really? I've found the opposite. I've been using it full-time for enterprise web service development on a workstation with three monitors, a keyboard and mouse for about 3 months now. My take is that it's a faster, slightly better version of Windows 7 — but with the added ability to run Metro-style apps. Course, I…

And now that you've prepped your PC for Windows 8, here's a Quick-Start guide I wrote with a few tips to prep yourself: http://ohawiseguy.blogspot.com/2012/12/getting-started-windows-8-with-keyboard.html

Think of it this way: If Microsoft executes it right, this is the world's best tablet, ever.

How many MacBook Air owners also own an iPad?

That $9 balance is easily applied to their next $66 purchase. And with the store-branded gift cards, you don't have to track the exact balance like you do with the generic Visa/MC gift cards (yuk). Just had it to the cashier who swipes it and says, "That took $9 off," and pay the rest as you normally would.

It brings up a context menu in the bottom-left corner of your screen. (Incidentally, you get the same menu by moving the mouse to the bottom-left corner and right-clicking.) That menu contains:

Oh, gotcha! I agree; I find that sort of thing fascinating! Maybe even more so than the intended point of the poll, which I kind of suspected anyway.

It also helps to tell them you got terrible grades in school, because otherwise they'll say to themselves, "This schmuck will only get us to pay for his bachelor's/master's/Ph.D., then quit for a better job!".

You're right — for a small sample group. But with truly random ordering, the amount of "first in the list" bias toward any one would even out as the number of respondents rose. By the time you had a large enough group of respondents, the amount of bias would be added to all choices pretty equally, so no one choice…

Gub's point is, to eliminate the "bias from appearing first in the list of audio samples," the order of the audio samples should be randomized for each person visiting. In other words, make it so the 160kbps sample may be first for you, third for me, and last for someone else (instead of first for everyone). Doing so…

The 7.8 update is a nice gesture, but to do it right and build more loyalty, it'd be nice to see them offer a trade-in program on discounted WP8 phones for WP7.5 users.

In the layout they demo'ed with all the small tiles, they called it a "power user" setup. In other words, it won't default to that, but the option is there for people who want it. You could fill the home screen with three big boxes, if you want.

The Corolla may make the list for Most Boring or Most Soulless, but certainly not Worst. Who wants to sit in a Lotus Elise on a torn-up road in bumper-to-bumper commuter traffic, especially when the Yukon driver behind you is more interested in Angry Birds than in watching for stopped traffic? Yuck. Give me a…

The Ultimate Browser/Email Extension would combine this with Snopes or the like, and prevent certain things from being forwarded or posted to Face-Book or The Twitter. Not for you and I *directly*, but maybe for the people whose computers we fix regularly...

The user's tolerance for running a "slow" computer has to be taken into account. If they are the patient type for whom money is tight, needs are light and "good enough" is just fine, then any of today's bargain-basement machines will probably be more than enough.

True, but large organizations are almost always slow to change. Windows 7 usage STILL hasn't caught up to Windows XP,* even though the market was ripe for 7.

Agreed. My wife's still running a Vista laptop that was a pretty decent machine in 2007. She won't let me replace it until it dies, but (unfortunately?) it's still rock-solid!