Fast Forward Live: AOL 9.0

Rob Pegoraro (The Post)

Fast Forward columnist Rob Pegoraro was online to talk about his recent review of AOL 9.0 and the new color BlackBerry 7230.

A transcript follows.

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Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

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Rob Pegoraro: Good afternoon, all. Last week provided two excellent demonstrations of the fallibility of technology--the Blaster worm and the blackout. I suspect there will be a few questions on those topics, as well as the last two subjects of my column, RIM's BlackBerry handheld and America Online's AOL 9.0 and Communicator. Let's go to the first caller...

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Oxford, Ohio: If the newest palm model on the market were to have an "always-online" service, do you think that it would beat the newer blackberry model?

Rob Pegoraro: Good question. I think it would, simply because the Palm OS is a *much* better product overall, and especially in terms of usability, than RIM's software. (The selection of third-party software is also far better than for any RIM handheld.)

I would, however, hope that Palm would think to offer an "off" switch in any "always-online" service. As I wrote in yesterday's column, it's psychologically exhausting to be beseiged by one's own e-mail around the clock.

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Laurel, Md.: One question you didn't address in your review of AOL 9.0 -- some past versions of AOL would reset all the communications settings so that you couldn't dial up any other ISP without a WHOLE LOT of tinkering beyond the skills of most users.

Did you look at this?

Rob Pegoraro: I didn't have any problems at all with AOL 9, which I tested on both Windows 2000 and Windows XP. The problems you refer to really existed only in AOL 5, if I remember correctly, and they were pretty severe, but they've been fixed for awhile now.

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Richmond, VA: Any chance you can convince your compatriots at washintonpost.com to start posting reviews again? At your site http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/technology/personaltech/ , the most recent review seems to be from April.

Thanks.

washingtonpost.com: You can finds links to the latest reviews here: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/technology/personaltech/reviews/

Rob Pegoraro: We aim to please around here...

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Mechanicsville, Md.: Will the new Blackberry be compatible with NEXTEL Networks and if not, is there a color version on the horizon for NEXTEL?

Rob Pegoraro: Nextel sells a BlackBerry of its own, but it's an older version, the 6510--yet it's priced $50 more than T-Mobile's 7230.

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Derwood, Md.,: Rob -

Slashdot is reporting that there is a new Windows worm circulating. This new worm exploits the same holes in Windows that the MSBlaster worm exploits. (MSBlaster is the worm that broke out last week.) Anyway, the new worm actually installs the Windows patches, fixing the problem... sort of like how a white blood cell responds to an infection.

Pretty interesting huh?

Rob Pegoraro: I hadn't read about that. But I did joke with a colleague that the best way for Microsoft to fix all these unpatched computers probably *would* be to send out a worm to do the job.

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No Frills User: Thanks for your always informative columns and chats. Since today's chat centers around AOL and Blackberrys, I thought I would pose this very basic question. I am an AOL user with a desktop computer at home. While I am not a power user, I would like to occasionally check my e-mail and surf the web while traveling. What should I get? A cheap notebook? A Blackberry? A fancy cell phone? This isn't for business purposes, and wouldn't be done often. What should I be considering?

Rob Pegoraro: Nothing. Just use whatever computer is available where you're traveling--a friend's PC, whatever's in your hotel, at a cybercafe or wherever. As long as you can get online, you can check your AOL mail at AOL's own Web site.

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Farragut West, D.C.: What's your opinion of Pocket PCs versus Palm-based PDAs? I think I'm finally going to take the plunge and get a PDA, but was curious about the pros and cons of each.

Rob Pegoraro: Get a Palm. The Pocket PC's few extra capabilities come at a streep price in terms of ease of use. See my review of the new Pocket PC 2003 system if you'd like more detail on why I don't like Microsoft's work so far.

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Annandale, Va.: Thanks as always for a great column and chat.

I wrote a few weeks ago about wanting to stream video (DVDs, downloaded movies, etc.) from my computer to TV as well as be able to record TV programming on my computer and asked about the possibility of using wi-fi to eliminate the wires. You said one of your reviewers was going to be testing something along these lines. Can you give us an update? Grandtec's (www.grandtec.com) Ultimate Wireless seems like it would do the task. I'm just a little leery since nobody else seems to be in this field.

Rob Pegoraro: It looks like this product uses basic RF analog technology, which my reviewer Daniel Greenberg has had real problems with as implemented in earlier products. I'd be wary.

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Lexington, Ky.: My sister, who has only one phone line, needs to change her dial-up ISP. Will AOL's version 9.0 permit her to take phone calls when she is online? Jim

Rob Pegoraro: Only if she signs up for AOL's online call-waiting service. It's a few extra bucks per month. If, however, she has a new computer (like, made in the last couple of years), she may be able to get that capability for free. She should check with the PC's manufacturer to see if it has a "v.92" modem, then look for an ISP that offers v.92 compatibility. That setup will let you pause an Internet connection to take an incoming call.

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Silver Spring, Md.: Rob, you were right and the Apple tech guy was wrong: I did need a crossover Ethernet cable to connect two Macs to share data. One wasted cable later, I was transferring data at >1 Mb per second. Note to all Apple support people, your web-site has a definitive list of computers that require a crossover cable, and in my case, both the new iMacs and the old G3 (blue and white) require them.

Rob Pegoraro: An update from my last chat, in which somebody asked about transferring data from an old Mac to a new one.

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Sterling, Va.: Hello Rob. I wanted to hear your personal take on AOL's "Bring Your Own Broadband" strategy. It seems to me that AOL is trying to reposition itself as an enhancement to the Internet experience. I think there is is no doubt that AOL cannot compete simply as a pipe to the Internet, give the low cost substitutes. In addition, with the price of broadband dropping it seems to me that this strategy has become more viable as far as the realm of price elasticity and how much the consumer is willing to spend on a monthly basis for internet.

Do you feel that AOL 9.0 is a suitable platform, as far as features and added value, for spearheading this initiative?

Rob Pegoraro: I gotta ask--do you work for AOL marketing or something? People don't usually throw around terms like "price elasticity" around here.

My answer to your question, in any case, is: no. AOL's BYOA pitch makes zero sense to anybody who already has an Internet account. Existing subscribers might get some value out of it, but that $15/month bill looks pretty steep next to the $35/month Verizon charges for consumer DSL.

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Oxford, Ohio: Hi, what do you think of United Online stealing customers from the big ISP's under their very noses for a cheap price? Is there anything these big names can do to get back lost customers?

Rob Pegoraro: "Stealing"? It's called competition. The ISPs losing customers either need to persuade their ex-subscribers that they offer a service and quality worth the extra cost, or they need to suck it up and deal--match Juno/NetZero's price, or accept that they're going to lose some customers.

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Washington, D.C.: Rob, I just purchased and installed Adobe Photo Album and when I open the program it tells me I am low on memory and should adjust my virtual memory settings or shut down other programs. I had nothing else running so I looked at the virtual memory settings and switched it from the auto mode to the manual mode with over 3,000 MB for the memory. I still got the message and the Adobe program froze up. Might I honestly need more memory - it seems like I have a lot - or could it be something else?

Thanks!

Rob Pegoraro: Not sure. How much memory does your computer have right now? If it's anything below 256 MB, then, yeah, you need to upgrade the RAM.

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Gaithersburg, Md.: Will AOL 9.0 E-mail software make it easier to include incoming e-mail with e-mail replies? That's one reason I don't use AOL e-mail. I get annoyed with AOL users who don't know how to include incoming e-mail in their replies. Thanks.

Rob Pegoraro: Nope, that part of AOL's software hasn't changed. You'll need to use Communicator to get that option.

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Gaithersburg, Md.: I've been using a Sony camcorder with mini DV tapes for the last few years. For quality purposes, I've not transferred them onto VHS but have been buying and using new DV tapes as I need them. (This is getting expensive.) I recently got my hands on a new PC with read/write DVD drive that will work with either + or - mode. I believe affordable technology is there now to transfer these digital tapes to DVD.

I recently saw adds for Pinnacle Instant CD/DVD software. When I looked up reviews on cNet, they were not very positive. Although the cNet's rating was "good". What software and hardware should I be investing in to finally transfer these digital tapes to DVD format?

Thanks for your help. Doug

Rob Pegoraro: Can you wait a week or two? I've got a writer working on a review of several of these DVD/VCD-creation apps.

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Boiling Springs, Penn.: Hi Rob. Submitting early since I'll be tied up on Monday afternoon. Why is AOL charging for PDA clients when the ubiquitous AOL CDs are distributed freely? AOL told me they contracted out the development of the PDA clients. I find that excuse really weak, since it also costs AOL for their Windows and Mac clients. AOL is apparently trying to gouge its PDA using customers because they think they will pay a premium for mobility. So why should I pay AOL an additional $20-40 premium to download client software that if the device was a Windows or Macintosh the software would not only be free, but it would be highly likely that I would have several CDROMs containing the free software. Any idea when AOL will get their head out of the sand?

Rob Pegoraro: No idea at all. That pricing policy doesn't make sense to me either. Sounds like you might want to go with another ISP if you want to use your Palm or Pocket PC online--with any company that sticks to standard Internet protocols, all you need is the software already included in each kind of handheld.

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Please help me with T-Mobile!: Why is their GSM network so awful? I got better signals with my phone in Northern British Columbia, Puerto Rico and St. Lucia than I get in Arlington. I had left Verizon because of customer service issues, but I cant wait to go back to them. Is GSM ever going to catch on? TMobile keeps telling me they are expanding their service, but I don't really see that helping us in the near future.

Rob Pegoraro: I didn't have room to get into this in the BlackBerry column, but this is a real issue. I had one conversation drop three times in five minutes--once on I-395 in D.C. as I was going south (right by the FCC's headquarters, in fact :), a second time on the T.R. Bridge and a third time on U.S. 50 in Arlington. I'm sorry, but that's really lame.

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Washington, D.C.: I understand that Microsoft has its issues with software security, but, would it be fair to say that part of the reason they have so many security problems is because they are the most prominent. If Linux, Sun or some other company was in Microsoft's position, would they be just as if not more vulnerable?

You don't really hear about security holes in say Apple or Linux because there is very little to gain in going after anyone other than Microsoft from a software standpoint.

Rob Pegoraro: I'm going to be writing about this very topic in my column this Sunday, so I'll save the details for then. What I can say now, however, is this: So what? The reality is that people who were running a Mac or a Linux box last week had a lot less to worry about than anybody running Windows 2000 or XP.

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Burke, Va.: A little off topic, sorry. I have an Olympus digital camera. I have been routinely transferring pictures to my hard drive and erasing them off the SmartMedia card. Can I transfer them back to the card? It would be easier to carry to family/ friends to view and print. Also, do you like any particular photo printing software package? Thanks.

Rob Pegoraro: Yes, you can put photos back on the card. But how will depend on your camera. If (to get into some technical details) it identifies itself to your computer as a "USB mass storage device," the card should show up as a removable drive automatically, and you can drag and drop photos right onto it. If that's not the case, you may need special software (perhaps what Olympus bundled with your model), or you might want to buy a card reader peripheral.

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Silver Spring, Md.: I was so happy to get a new PC with a P4 so I could finally download the RealOne Player. However, all the speech files I play back on it sound way too fast, like the Chipmunks. I've run all the diagnostics and checked all the settings on my 2000 Prof OS Dell, and Real does not respond to inquiries. How do I get it adjusted?

Thanks, --Stan

Rob Pegoraro: This is a new one. You've got me stumped... can anybody in the audience today relate to this experience?

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Washington, D.C.: My father is having a problem with his Windows ME computer. Since Tuesday or Wednesday (the time of the virus), he's been getting windows messages and popup ads.

I thought it was Cox's firewall (he uses a cox cable modem) that could have been damaged from the virus, but Cox says it's not their fault.

He has Zone Alarm and Free Surfer. The ads are not normal pop-up ads. He doesn't get the pop-up ad from washingtonpost.com or cnn.com.

He doesn't have gatorware. Could there be a way to find out what he has?

Thanks!

Rob Pegoraro: That sounds like "Messenger Service" spam (see Microsoft's tech-support article), but I thought Win Me wasn't vulnerable to it. Are these pop-up windows just plain text?

My first suggestion would be to download a copy of the free ZoneAlarm firewall (www.zonelabs.com). I suspect that will fix the problem right away.

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Joliet, Fort Lauderdale, Missoula, San Jose, San Francisco and DC: Now I hear a rumor that Microsoft wants to force us to accept its auto-updates. I don't want to do it because when I finally broke down and bought a Windows machine in 98, and a few months later accepted an auto-update of Win98, it so botched up my beautiful little laptop that I had to wipe the hard drive clean. No auto-updates!; Will you lead a resistance movement? To the barricades!;

Rob Pegoraro: I don't think I can bring myself to agree with you. Yes, Microsoft is not immune to shipping buggy patches. But while the odds of computer trouble from an update gone awry may be substantial, the odds of an unpatched computer (if not protected by a firewall) of getting "owned," as the hackers like to say, are 100 percent.

And once your computer has been thus cracked into, the odds of it being used to launch attacks against other computers are also exceedingly high. At that point, your problem becomes my problem, and everybody else's. So download the critical updates, and keep your fingers crossed that they actually work.

One last thought: If you don't trust Microsoft to provide a quality product, why did you give it your money?

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Washington, D.C.: re: Adobe photoalbum memory issue - Thanks Rob - I think I have only 128 MB RAM now, so I suppose I should upgrade. Maybe this can be my first do-it-yourself PC project!

Rob Pegoraro: Bingo! Yes, throw in another 128 megs--better yet, another 256 megs. It's a negligible cost, adding the memory isn't hard (pop open the case, push a memory module into a slot), and your computer will feel a lot faster afterwards.

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Teaching Online: Rob -- I'm going to be teaching an online course this fall for my local college. I'd love to be grading papers and answering emails and the like at my local coffee house -- is there a product out there that would allow me to connect my laptop to the internet when I go out and about? I know the new Treo handhelds will allow some internet capability, but can they be plugged into my laptop? What's my best option?

Thanks!

Rob Pegoraro: Get a laptop with a WiFi receiver built in. A lot of the more clueful caffeine purveyors out there offer wireless Internet access with this technology; many do so for free (knowing that, as people sit and surf, they will want to sip as well).

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Fallls Church, Va: It's "off topic" but I wonder what is your opinion about how much responsibility individual computer users have to make sure they update/virus protect/system protect in order to prevent Msblaster type worms and other devilish dangers out there? I am a home user and I figured out how to use the above mentioned protections. When I heard about folks scrambling to patch when the worm hit it made me kinda step back and think.It's not like the info is hard to find- can't read a newspaper without the cautions about protecting your system. Am I being too hard on users? Tina

Rob Pegoraro: You're not. OTOH, it would be grossly unfair to let Microsoft off the hook. These patches and firewalls are necessary in large part because Microsoft keeps building systems without thinking of the way things can fail. (Again, more details coming this Sunday!)

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20615: AOL 8.0 Loaded Windows XP onto my computer. Suddenly my computer is silent! No sound! What do I do?

Rob Pegoraro: Try the old Device Manager runaround. Open the System control panel (under the Peformance & Maintenance category), click on the Hardware tab, click the Device Manager button, delete the icon for the sound card, restart, and let Windows recognize the card afresh. This *should* work--in my experience, XP has had an excellent track record at supporting hardware, even on very old PCs.

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Georgetown: Care to field some iPod questions?

I got mine a month ago and am LOVING it!;

My problem revolves around Apple's iTunes for Windows, which will have the capability to rip CD's to the AAC/mpeg 4 standard.

I used Music Match, which ships with the iPod, to rip all my CD's on MM's recommended MP3 Pro setting. However, no one told me that the iPod doesn't support MP3 Pro.

So now I am wondering if I should re-rip everything on a better MP3 set-up, or is the AAC format worth waiting for? Do you have any inside info as to when it will be released?

If I ought to re-rip in another MP3 set-up, should I go with ephpod or MC-9? Or is there a Window-based AAC recorder that is newbie-friendly?

Any advice is greatly appreciated!;

Rob Pegoraro: Switch your copy of MusicMatch to use "variable bit rate" (VBR) MP3 encoding. That gets you better quality than standard MP3 (it's a more efficient version).

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Olney, Md.: I promise I will go look for the digital camera reviews on the Post's web site (although a link would be nice!), but why is it so hard to find a digital camera that:

has at least a 5x optical zoom

runs on AA batteries

uses Compact Flash cards (cheapest format out there)

and is less than $500?

I would be willing to settle for as little as 2 megapixels, since most of my pics would be shared on the computer and very few printed at 8x10.

washingtonpost.com: The 2003 Digital Camera Guide is on the Personal Tech page at technews.com.

Rob Pegoraro: Look at Canon and Nikon digicams--both generally stick to CF cards and AA batteries. I wouldn't buy less than 3 MP, but more than 4 MP seems overkill.

Unfortunately, you might be stuck with the 5x zoom lens requirement--the only digicam I could find in a quick search with that kind of lens was the Minolta Dimage 5, which is both expensive and old. If you can live with a 3x optical zoom or SD Card memory, you'll have a better selection to choose from.

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Arlington, Va.: Rob, I'm in the market for a used Apple notebook (iBook or Powerbook). What's the best place to look? This is for doing take-home design work and number-crunching from the office, so I need a little more than a lightweight system, but I don't see the need to spend $1600 for something I'll primarily use a few weekends a month.

Rob Pegoraro: If the numbers to be crunched aren't too big, an iBook (second generation, not the earlier models with the built-in handle) should suit you fine.

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Washington, D.C.: I would be interested in what you think about the Segway. As an owner of 5 months - I have been finding it very useful in doing quick trips - as well as fun. - WWH

Rob Pegoraro: I think it's way too expensive, especially compared to the going rate for a bike.

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Bethesda, Md.: The Blackberry does not require a stylus and it seems much quicker to use one's thumbs instead of the stylus. Everyone I work with loves their Blackberry. Which PDA do you prefer and why?

Rob Pegoraro: I'm a big fan of the Palm OS. Unlike the folks at RIM, the people at Palm really grok good interface design. They sweat the details, and it shows in a product that's much easier to use.

The BlackBerry's thumbwheel seems at first like an elegantly simplified control, but the device makes too much use of it. You can never use it just to select an object--an e-mail message, a link, whatever--and instead you have to go through a huge pop-up menu full of obscure or irrelevant entries. In terms of usability, this is a minor disaster.

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No Frills User (Again): I am the AOL user wanting occasional access to email and the web while traveling. Your answer made too much sense. I know cost-wise it is better to just grab whatever computer I can find on my trip, but I am thinking of something I can use in a hotel room while waiting for friends to get ready, or for a quick web search for information when plans go awry. Those are precisely the times when a computer doesn't ever seem to be available.

Rob Pegoraro: At a lot of hotels, there's been either in-room Internet access, or an equivalent has been available nearby--say, at the nearest copy store.

Your other option, which I didn't think to mention before, was just a basic cell phone. The screens on most new cell phones now offer a sufficiently high resolution that it's actually bearable to do quick searches and look up basic info.

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Bethesda, Md.: Just got an iPod, and I'm very fond of it-- but people don't tell you how much work it takes to set things up. I've been going at it the past two weeks to get the music (around 200 CDs) from my CDs to the pod- it's time-consuming and resource consuming (on your computer)!

Rob Pegoraro: Yes, that's why most of my CDs remain unripped, even though at the end of this process I'd have a great music library ready. Maybe I should hire an intern for this job :)

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Washington, D.C.: re: "The reality is that people who were running a Mac or a Linux box last week had a lot less to worry about than anybody running Windows 2000 or XP."

Okay, assuming that you are saying that Mac and Linux are more secure, if they were 90% of the software market, would they be attacked as often as Microsoft?

Rob Pegoraro: Perhaps. But they don't have 90 percent, so the question is irrelevant. This isn't a philosophical question to me; it's just the way the world is now. Mac and Linux users have to accept having fewer choices in third-party software, and Windows users have to stay on top of security issues.

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Tmobile is awful - you should have mentioned it: I left TMobile after only 3 months. Couldn't stand all the dropped calls and wondered why their network wasn't getting any better. I think this is a huge issue you should have covered before people start going out and asking about the product you reviewed.

Rob Pegoraro: We've got our annual cell-phone review coming up at the end of September--this will be something to follow up on then...

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washingtonpost.com: Details on the new variant of the Blaster worm are now online.

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College Park, Md.: Hi Rob,

I set up Verizon DSL a week or two ago...the DSL service itself has been reliable, but Verizon's pop/smtp service is ridiculous. They are sporadically unreachable, in fact this weekend they were out..and just returned today.

Do you know if verizon has any alternative _normal_ (no screwy smtp authentication) and reliable email servers--besides incoming/outgoing dot verizon dot net?

I should probably file a complaint. Thanks.

Rob Pegoraro: Nope, that's it. Verizon used to offer another SMTP server, but *that* one was far worse--you couldn't use any other return address on your e-mail. If you had a personal domain name or you wanted to send mail from your work address, those e-mails would be rejected by this server. It was a dumb policy, a lot of people (myself included) said as much, and Verizon finally got its act together and set up an authenticated SMTP server.

(Note: SMTP = the server that sends your mail out to the Internet. POP = the server where your incoming mail arrives. SMTP servers have to be authenticated or otherwise restricted from public use to keep spammers from using them to send out their junk.)

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IPOD for PC software: I have held out buying an IPOD because I cant stand the software that comes with it for PC. Is there any chance of Apple changing the software or offering other options?

Rob Pegoraro: I agree with you there--MusicMatch is a tremendously ugly program next to something as elegant as the iPod. I hope that when Apple releases iTunes for Windows at the end of this year (something it's said it's working on, as part of its effort to open its iTunes Music Store to Windows users), it ships that with new iPods instead of MusicMatch.

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Arlington, Va.: Rob - the person who was asking about the used Apple laptop also asked WHERE he should shop for one....

Rob Pegoraro: Hey, I'm typing as fast as I can here :) I'd check the classifieds in the Post and the City Paper, and I'd look for models on sale at eBay--by sellers in this area only. (Always check out the merchandise first-hand; used laptops can conceal all sorts of hardware issues). Or buy a refurbished model from Apple itself.

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Washington, D.C.: Rob - I love your columns and chats. You made my life so much easier by recommending Photo Album for organizing my digital pics. I have another question for you - - - I've been thinking of keeping my desktop and getting a laptop and then making a wireless network in the house so I can roam around with the new computer. I love the look and feel of the Mac laptops but haven't used any Mac products. The PC is Windows-based, so I wonder if I am precluded from getting an Apple if I plan to network. Any laptop recommendations?

Rob Pegoraro: Mac OS X now does a pretty good of connecting to Windows networks--it can even act as a Windows server. (Mind you, I haven't been able to get this to work at home, but that's because my Windows laptop is set up to hook into the Post's office network in some way that defies the Windows networking support in OS X).

So, yes, check out an iBook or a 12-inch PowerBook. And speaking of PowerBooks... I don't mean to get people's hopes up falsely, but the Mac rumor mill is buzzing this week (again!) that there will finally be an updated 15-inch PowerBook. The evidence, which I think is somewhat plausible, is that the old 15-in. model seems to be sold out everywhere.

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cell phones: If you are going to do a review of cell phones please address each company's transition plans. ATTWS befuddled me with a lack of GAIT technology given the metro-only nature of their GSM network.

Rob Pegoraro: Yup. After writing in earlier years that wireless technology (GSM vs. CDMA vs. TDMA) doesn't matter, I am going to have give myself a big helping of crow and eat it in my column in late September. The TDMA-to-GSM transitions that AT&T and, soon, Cingular are going through here have made this an issue that *does* matter.

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Alternate Browser Reviews: You have reviewed browsers like Opera/Mozilla. Could you review K-Meleon or Firebird as well and see how they compare to the major players?

Rob Pegoraro: I talked about Firebird in my Safari review, but am holding off on further coverage until it hits 1.0. Hope that's sometime soon--it's a very promising product, better than Mozilla in a lot of ways. Haven't tried K-Meleon, though.

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Boiling Springs, Penn.: Follow up to PDAs and AOL: Their first versions of the clients for the PDA were free! When I called AOL to complain and threatening to drop the service, AOL ended up giving me a forty dollar credit toward future service. They also dropped the price of the bring your own broadband plan to $9.95 a month. (I can't get my wife to drop AOL, since she's got her email tied to several discussion groups, or I would have dropped AOL like a hot potato when we got DSL over a year ago.) AOL must be really Desperate to stem the hemorrhage of users. Still likely to drop AOL after the four free months, unless of course they give me more free time!

Rob Pegoraro: Sometimes playing hardball works!

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Washington, D.C.: Rob, 2 questions: First, I work at a 4 attorney law firm. We have various incompatible systems working right now and need to update technology, i.e. only on computer has Internet. Should we go with 4 new desktops and some small server and some Internet router thing or what?

Second, my wife and I are considering a new computer for home. She does a lot of CD burning and our current system (window '98) seems to always crash. Would windows whatever be better or should we consider a Mac?

Thanks

Rob Pegoraro: Yes, using a router to split the connection four ways should work. (I am, however, typing this w/out knowing how you get on the Internet--if it's only occasional dialup use, the Internet-connection-sharing software built into Windows might be enough.)

Both Windows XP and Mac OS X crash a lot less than their predecessors, but neither is immune from crashing. If you spend most of your time on the home computer dealing with digital music, the Mac is a better tool--iTunes is *far* better than any program I've used under Windows.

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Washington, D.C.: Hi Rob,

Here at Gallaudet, the university for deaf and hard of hearing students that lives and breathes by our pagers, T-Mobile's Sidekick has really taken off. They are now offering a data only plan which is perfect for deaf people who don't use the phone. How does the Sidekick compare to the Blackberry?

Rob Pegoraro: The BlackBerry is a mail-first product; voice is secondary. The Sidekick seems (I say this not having used one) more oriented towards IM and limited Web browsing. It's appears to be built for consumers, while the BlackBerry is clearly aimed at people with an IT staff to support them.

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Apple connection: I may be too late for the chat...but I didn't need an ethernet to connect my iMac to my new iBook. I just used a firewire cable. worked like a charm and super fast.

my 2 cents

Rob Pegoraro: That's true--although FireWire didn't become standard equipment on Macs until the last few years. I think the earlier question concerned a move from a first-gen PowerPC Mac.

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Damascus, Md.: Re: T-Mobile, I have similar poor coverage problems in upper-Montgomery County. To add insult to injury, one of the reasons I switched to T-Mobile was that when I found out they use GSM, I thought I'd be able to use my phone in Europe when on an occasional business trip. Europe is almost exclusively GSM. The problem is, Europe is GSM low-band and T-Mobile uses GSM high-band frequency in the USA, therefore, since my Nokia 3390 is fixed at GSM high-band, I'm completely out of luck in Europe. (T-mobile subscribers with other models of phone that switch through GSM spectrum may not be shut out as I am.)

Rob Pegoraro: I thought most of the GSM phones sold these days were multi-band, but maybe not. Even if you did have a "world phone," however, I confess that I don't get the appeal of taking your home cell phone number overseas. Any calls you make to the locals there will get billed at international rates or a high roaming charge; ditto for any calls the locals make to you.

Sure, your calls from back home will be free, but if you're overseas, why would you want to talk to anybody back home? Maybe there's something I'm not getting here--if you regularly use a GSM phone here, tell me about it (e-mail me at rob@twp.com, since we're out of time on this chat).

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Rob Pegoraro: And with that, my time is up. Thanks for all the great questions... we'll talk again soon.

- R

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