Thumbdrive all the way. I do lots of freelance troubleshooting for family and neighbors in town. I usually have a decent stash of utilities/drivers/av & antimalware, etc on it. Sadly, I even use CD's still if a virus infection is likely (yey for read only media). Also the thumbdrive is nice since I don't have to…

@Priper: But would you rather look at a book and find a mechanic than stop by every place of business in town, hoping that they are a mechanic?

VOTE: Hiren's Boot Disk

I'm running 2 Linksys WRT54G's. One's upstairs (2nd floor) of my house in the office that has the cable modem hooked into it. It has my wife's desktop and my desktop on it. Also serves my laptop, the Wii, the PS3, and my phone (which I rarely turn on wifi as carrier service is fast enough usually).

I've actually been blessed by both worlds. I live about 30 minutes from my workplace, but get to telecommute during bad weather (snow), sickness, and the weekends (so I don't waste an hour on the road to make up my time).

I'd recommend staying with making a LiveCD vs. a USB drive so that you can't reinfect a different computer using that USB drive elsewhere.

@Dreamwriter: Correct, we changed our screen for that. Other systems (anything that doesn't polarize) can use regular screens. They say the downside of silver'd screens is hot spots (spots of high contrast, a reflection pretty much), but I haven't noticed it on our screen.

@boo_radley32: True. Technicolor seems to be doing the running on most of that. Though with the amounts they throw around on advertising/marketing/branding, etc. Glasses ought to be a drop in a very freaking large bucket. When they charge anywhere from 10-50% of ticket grosses (for my theater that equates to .50 -…

RealD I think is getting even more of a stranglehold on the market. They provide the glasses and the shipping free of charge to the theaters.

Here's a hammer, make the CRT's fail.

Or if you want a more "colorful" weather report, check out www.thef*ckingweather.com (nsfw - language)

For those of us not eating out of AT&T's hand, GasBuddy does have several ways of getting the same info from a mobile device ([www.gasbuddy.com]) Granted, it won't map your way there or give you the augmented reality, but cheap gas is cheap gas no matter how you get there.

@Webran61: If you qualify - USAA, hands down.

@UnderLoK: I'm used to it. I started way back with Quicken but I think I got a freebie Money with a new computer. It also bites because I'm the treasurer at my church and we use Money as well so I've got find something to convert to, either Quicken or QuickBooks.

Just an FYI, Microsoft stopped making MS Money on June 30, 2009 and the online services are set to shut down in Jan 31, 2011, which is also the date you need to activate your purchase.

@Yerzriknot: With the computer I was messing with, couldn't get Ubuntu to boot, ah well, good info to have though. Thanks!

Just a heads up, I've recovered files off several botched computers. I've used an external HD case with a spare drive and I think I used KnoppixSTD (it was the only disk I could get my hands on at the moment). Linux doesn't overly like to write to NTFS drives. I was able to reformat as FAT, but it's something to…

@icy_one: The low tech version is to print on out at www.justoneclubcard.com . I printed mine out, laminated it with packing tape and have it in my wallet. Cut down on several cards/key tags. They're running a promo right now with KeyRingThing Cards to make you a nice plastic one.

@Scott Messinger: Water is getting cheaper, but think of how much you still waste with a leaky toilet/faucet/etc? A $6.00 fix will pay for itself fairly quickly.

At the same time, I'd just spend the extra $10-15 and replace all the guts inside. It isn't too hard at all and if you're going to be digging around in there anyways, why not?