The 101 Issues

From Yahoo.com
Tue Apr 29, 2008 5:06PM EDT

Flowers, chocolates, a greeting card? Sure… but tech-minded kids may want something a little more with the ’00s to give to mom this year. Here are some hot ideas for computer savvy sons and daughters to consider as gifts for Mother’s Day. (Reminder: It’s May 11th!)

Kodak ESP3 All-in-One Printer
What does mom do with all the pictures you send her? She prints them out on a lousy old inkjet and waits for them to shrivel up and fade. Get her a real printer that can make her kids and grandkids look good: Kodak’s ESP3 uses far less ink than other printers and those cartridges are cheap (at $10, for B&W, or $15, for color). Better still: It includes a blemish reduction mode to automatically smooth out wrinkles and other imperfections as it prints, no graphical tinkering required.

Thirsty Lights
If mom’s got a green thumb, you can’t go wrong with these cool gadgets, which I reviewed a few month’s back. Thirsty Lights sit in mom’s potted plants and flash when the greens need water. These things have the bonus feature of being completely non-technologically-threatening, so if mom can open up the package, she should be fine with them even if she’s a total Luddite. We swear by them now at Null HQ.

Digital Keychain
These pocket-sized digital frames used to be bulky, ugly, and have virtually invisible screens. New models are better, and they’re dirt cheap. Digital Foci’s Pocket Album has a 1.5-inch screen, nine hours of battery life, and holds over 70 pictures. Oh, and it looks pretty good, too, even when it’s off!

HALO Ultraviolet Vacuum
Not for every mom (lots of mothers don’t appreciate gifts that imply they’re slobs, after all), but if she’s the kind that’s always wrestling with her old vacuum and complaining about the filthy house, the HALO is a cool way to indulge both your neatnik side and your techie side at once. It’s not just a light and a powerful vacuum, it also features a strong ultraviolet light underneath that kills any viruses and germs the light happens to hit. Even flea eggs get killed by the thing.

A Book of Mom’s Own
If you’re willing to put a little work into, a printed photo album is a very thoughtful and personal gift that any mother will break into tears over. Lulu lets you upload photos and create photo books (in hardcover or paperback) with a minimum of fuss. The real effort is in wittling down your gargantuan photo collection into something more manageable. Hardcover books run a mere $26 for the first 20 pages.

iWaveCube Tiny Microwave
It’s the world’s smallest microwave oven, about one cubic foot in size. Perfect for the spare room or mom’s office if she’s a microwave popcorn junkie or is always looking for a quick reheat on her coffee or tea.

Happy Mother’s Day to all!

Mon Apr 14, 2008 5:28PM EDT

Microsoft originally announced over a year ago that Windows XP would be going off the market in January 2008. XP was later given a brief stay of execution, to June 30, 2008. That deadline is fast approaching, which has led to much panicking from people who aren’t quite sure what XP’s "going off market" means, exactly.

People are still as confused as ever. So let’s take a stab at clarifying, once again, what’s going to happen by answering some frequently asked questions about XP’s imminent disappearance.

Will Windows XP really no longer be on sale after June 30? Sorry for the double negative, but no. All this means is that Microsoft will stop selling the OS. Finding a computer with XP preinstalled will likely be very difficult, as well. However, you’ll still be able to find copies for the foreseeable future, and likely the unforeseeable one, too. See for yourself: You can find copies of just about any Microsoft product, including ancient versions of Windows and even MS-DOS, by simply searching online. But hang on to your current copy of Windows XP. You may need it down the road if you don’t want to move to Vista.

Will I be forced to upgrade to Vista soon? No. But it will get harder and harder not to, especially since new software and peripherals are likely to stop working with XP. That could take years.

Will my XP machine stop working in June? No, but Microsoft will stop releasing non-security software updates to the masses on April 14, 2009. But let’s be clear: XP will continue to "work" even after this point.

Will Microsoft shut off product activation for XP after June? No, that would be crazy. While no one has said this will happen, it’s conceivable that Windows could shut down product activation for XP at some point. But that would only happen after XP reaches its end-of-support term (when all support plans expire). The good news for you: That happens on April 8, 2014, which should be plenty of time to get the kinks worked out of Vista-or switch to a Mac, Linux, or anything else. Bottom line: Your copy of XP will work, totally legally, for at least six more years.

What about this exception for Windows XP Home Edition I hear about? Doesn’t apply to you. Microsoft will continue to sell XP to makers of ultra-cheap laptops like the Asus Eee PC until 2010 because they just can’t run Vista. But it is not going to make XP Home Edition available as installable software to end-users. What about after 2014? Well, that’s unclear. But it’s possible XP will stop being installable at that point. Microsoft’s official policy is that these dates have "no affect [sic] on how long you can use a product," which may imply product activation will work forever. However, two things come to mind: 1) Even the most die-hard XP enthusiast will probably be ready to upgrade at that point (as XP will be nearly 15 years old, and your PC will be dead by then, I’m sure). 2) Even if Microsoft shuts off product activation, the hacker community will certainly make dozens of tools to let you continue using XP with abandon. Fret not.

Can I install XP on a PC that has Vista already on it? Yes. You can delete any partition with any OS on it (and reformat it) during the installation of XP. If you’re feeling brave, you can even run both OSes at the same time by setting up a dual-boot machine.