Swype. Comma and period are on the default layout; all the other common punctuation symbols are long-presses.

Swype does that. Tap ‘w’ for ‘w’, tap-and-hold to pick ‘w’ or ‘2’

Are you talking about Apple’s default keyboard, which is very meh compared to the alternatives, or their third-party keyboard implementation, which is embarrassing compared to Android?

To be honest, Apple’s implentation of third-party keyboards is rather like having a Takata airbag in your Honda... It will probably work when you need it to. Then again, it might completely fail when you need it.

Well, “a little crippled” is really soft-selling the shitty job Apple has done with third party keyboards. They’ve worked — mostly — since iOS8, but Apple hasn’t bothered to fix the same stupid os-level bug for calling a third party keyboard since then. It’s been nearly three years, and you still have a 50/50 shot…

Don’t knock it until you try it. Five minutes with a replacement keyboard, and you’ll be cursing at Apple every time the default keyboard pops up.

Yep. I’ve lost count of the number of notes I’ve received from people my age and older. I’ve yet to count a thank you note from someone my kids’ ages or younger.

I think you’re missing the point of this whole article, RF... “Proper” thank you notes aren’t rote; “Thank-you notes are meant to be thoughtful pieces of correspondence...”

Nah, it says they think enough about you and what you did for them that they took time to stop, grab a pen and a note card, and put some thoughts down to send you.

Yeh, I’d probably go with cleaning the data from your laptop and connecting via VPN to access it from the US. It’s also safer from a “crap, my laptop got fried” emergency that way as well.

A big point you missed — don’t be so focused on your question that you ignore the discussion beforehand. It’s possible that your question was covered thoroughly, but if all you’re doing is thinking about what you plan to ask, you may miss the whole discussion...

If it’s appropriate to pull out your phone, write yourself a note. Then when it’s time, you’ll already have a question ready. You’ll be doing everyone a favor.

Then don’t take it with you on your trip. Put it in DropBox or Google Docs, or anywhere online. Don’t have the clients for whatever service you use installed on your laptop/phone/tablet to lead them to look for stuff. DON’T go to great lengths to hide a USB drive in your mouse or try some other equally stupid “I…

I can’t get over how big a deal people make out of thank-you notes. How damned hard is it to say “Hey, I appreciate you taking time to help me out when I had a flat tire Monday”? You don’t need humor; you don’t need big words; you just need to show that you appreciate that thing that that person did that time. That.

If the cables are down, it doesn’t really matter whether you need 30 seconds or 30 milliseconds, does it?

You’re wildly optimistic that the the internet is more robust that the infrastructure its built upon.

Sure. There’s been an explosion, and LTE is saturated/cut off by the authorities. Just stroll on down to the Starbucks and log into their wifi access point. That won’t be affected by the disaster, or law enforcement, or swamped by 900 people trying to connect to it at the same time.

What do you think that LTE signal is transmitted over? Carrier Pigeon?

Perhaps not; but Mrs. Snow Dog is. . .

That goes over great with the in-laws, let me tell you.