Power timers like these [www.amazon.com] to turn our lights on and off when we're on vacation work too.

Sorry, I was joking after so many people were unhappy with my prior stance on gaming here: [lifehacker.com] .

Invest in non-retirement accounts too. Learn how to invest smarter and earn better than average returns. [www.betterinvesting.org] is less than $100/yr to learn these skills. I did that and was able to retire 20 yrs before most people do. Saving and investing turned into a game for me and I did really well at it.

RAID5 can be much slower than a non-RAID "black" HDD in performance and it will definitely be slower than an SSD on the network. It all depends on the RAID controller or SATA controller if you use SW-RAID. My RAID5 array is much slower than a "black" HDD or even a USB3 HDD on the same box. Real-world performance…

Facts and data are needed to determine where your current slowdowns are happening. After you figure that out, only then would I try for a faster GPU. You may not have any slowdowns at all. That is also an option.

I started using Tree Style Tabs a few yrs ago in firefox to move the tabs to the left side (widescreen monitors still suck). With tabs at the top or bottom, it simply eats too much vertical screen space - especially when lazy web devs assume 1024px or 800px as widths.

I regret that I didn't spend more time gaming.

Oh yeah - Apple [www.macrumors.com] should be trusted - NOT.

I have used a different password for the last 12+ years on every website. I also use different email addresses on 80% of the websites.

I'm not so worried about what every company will do with the data as I am that they have it in the first place. If they have the data, governments can demand it be surrendered. I'm paranoid about my government AND others having access to data that is stored by FB, Goog, Yahoo, MS, and all the little web-service…

I take it you've never been hacked? I have. The hacks had nothing to do with my password, however. I've written about them here before, if you'd like to not more.

Knowing that something is possible is the first step.

You're in a tough place. I was there too.

I have to admit, I didn't read the article - it seemed too complicated for my needs.

Don't you get 1 SD cable box for free that supports on-demand? The output from that should be either s-video or a yellow cable. Then you can use the coax into the TV for HD clear-QAM. Further, the non-DCA cable boxes, like Motorola or Scientific Atlanta boxes are often controllable using IR-Blasters from TiVo or…

Your "pilot" is about 18 months behind reality here.

Digital, encrypted cable devices must support CableCARD. That's what our lawmakers have forced. That doesn't help any of our legacy equipment, but there is a path for encrypted QAM recording. Bidirectional services do not work - no On-Demand. Here's a networked 3 or 6 tuner device [www.silicondust.com] that lets you…

I have a $9 USB Nokia battery charger from Amazon and 5 batteries that I swap through while on travel. BTW, I still use my Nokia N800 daily - much more than the Android smartphone I have too. The N800 is so powerful and open in comparison to Android. I must be doing something wrong or just have unrealistic…

XBMC is an end-point device, not a server.

(not walking alone at night, etc)