Personal Tech

The Washington Post's Rob Pegoraro was online to answer your personal tech questions and discuss recent reviews, including Apple's Boot Camp and the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet .

A transcript follows.

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Past editions of Rob's e-letter are online here .

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Rob Pegoraro: Greetings, all, and welcome back to the personal-tech chat. What's on your mind today, technologically speaking?

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Chantilly, Va.: What do you think would be the most important features/specs for an Internet-connected, tablet-like device?

washingtonpost.com: Fast Forward: It Does Little, and Not Very Well

Rob Pegoraro: Assuming that we're *not* talking about a laptop (which does the job of portable Internet access pretty well already), I'd want to see these features:

* Superb battery life--at least six hours of continuous browsing

* Hardware keyboard (doesn't have to be full-sized; I can deal with a Treo- or BlackBerry-scale keyboard)

* Screen at least 800 pixels wide, so I can read most Web pages without having to scroll sideways

* Software built in to display any standards-compliant Web page and read (if not edit) any file attachment I'm likely to encounter

* Price under $400

As you can see, the Nokia 770 didn't fall that far short. The price wasn't bad and the screen was an OK size (somewhat to my surprise); it just fell apart with its input mechanism and software.

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Chestertown, MD: What is the easiest way to get data off old floppies that are formatted for Mac (circa 1991-1995)? No one I know has a Mac with a floppy drive, though I do still have my old Mac Performa 200.

Rob Pegoraro: Buy or borrow a USB floppy drive and plug that into any new Mac.

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Chevy Chase, MD: I have not really got a question, but wish you would report on the problems that Microsoft has been causing with its recent security patch KB908531. Google that, and you will see some of the discussions. It causes Outlook, Word, IE, and various other MS programs to freeze. But MS has left the program on automatic update and put no help on its own home screen.

washingtonpost.com: Security Fix: The Skinny on April's Batch of Microsoft Patches

Rob Pegoraro: Looks like we already have. I'm pretty sure I've got this update on my computer here, and Word seems to be working alright. (It is not on my laptop at home, but that problem has been going on for months; if OpenOffice didn't work so well, I'd be a lot angrier about it. But if you've got a solution to suggest that would stop Word from crashing within 10-15 seconds of its startup--even after I've deleted every Word file I can find my Documents and Settings folder, then uninstalled and reinstalled Office--I'd like to hear it.)

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Slashdot: your article on the linux device made slashdot.

http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/06/04/17/1221247.shtml

Rob Pegoraro: And my thanks to chat regular wiredog for the Slashdot link...

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Reston, VA: Why is it so hard to find a modern mobile phone that does NOT include a camera ?

Here in metro DC, many workplaces have an absolute prohibition on cameras. Commercial firms do this to protect intellectual property. Many government offices do this to protect other kinds of sensitive information.

One would think the mobile phone firms would want to serve this market of people who want a modern, capable handset but need a handset that does not have a camera inside.

Thanks !

Rob Pegoraro: From what I've heard anecdotally, some workplaces are relaxing those prohibitions. But, sure, there are very few phones that don't include cameras. People do seem to like them; the carriers aren't putting in this feature just out of spite.

(FWIW, I'm pretty sure that *real* spies don't use cell-phone cameras to snap pictures of confidential documents. There are much smaller, higher-resolution models you can use for that task; stop by the International Spy Museum if you'd like to see a few.)

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Sydney, Australia: Hello rob,

this is a social question about hd-dvd and blue ray that no one seems to answer. Do regular consumers really need hd-dvd or blue ray? On the one hand they can store a lot more information on them but on the other who wants to spend a lot more money on those discs to watch a movie? And speaking of better special features that these discs supposedly will have, I have yet to see a movie that utilizes the multiple angle feature of a regular dvd. do you think movie studios will do dramatic/amazing things with the new discs?

just to let you know that I am a Washingtonian living in Sydney so I always keep up with the news back home.

Rob Pegoraro: Hello, Sydney!

The "do you actually need this" question about these two competing, incompatible high-definition video disc formats is one I hope to answer in my reviews of the first players for each format. HD DVD models will supposedly be in stores tomorrow, with Blu-Ray hardware following next month (or maybe later--I forget what the current status is).

From trying out the MovieBeam set-top box two weeks ago, I can tell you that even standard-definition content "upconverted" to a high-def resolution can look terrific on an HDTV--and lots of cheap DVD players can do just that. So your choice may not be between HD video from one disc and crummy regular video from a DVD, but HD and near-HD video.

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Tina in Falls Church, Va.: Will you get to be on Washington Post Radio today? Thanks, Tina

washingtonpost.com: Washington Post Radio

Rob Pegoraro: No Nats game today (my understanding is that our relief pitchers are spending the day having their arms surgically reattached after all the overuse they've seen this month), so, yes, I should be on the air at 3:50.

(I was also on the air at 9:10 this morning for a quick interview about Sprint's Family Locator cell-phone service, if any of y'all happened to be near the radio at the time.)

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washingtonpost.com: MovieBeam Proves a Novelty With Lukewarm Reception

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Washington, DC: I have an LCD TV question. What is the difference between 720p and 1080p? Is it a bad idea to buy a 720p TV? Thanks!

Rob Pegoraro: Both 720p and 1080p are high-definition resolutions, but TV broadcasts don't come in 1080p, just 720p or 1080i. At the moment, you can't watch *anything* in 1080p unless you download it off the Internet. And even if you could find some 1080p content, you wouldn't see any of that higher resolution from your couch unless your TV screen was bigger than about 50 inches or so.

So: Go ahead and buy a 720p set! You have my explicit permission and, indeed, encouragement, to disregard all the marketing hoo-hah about 1080p as "true" HD.

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Davenport, Iowa: Is keylogging a problem we need to be concerned with?

Rob Pegoraro: Considering what you've been typing in your e-mail to your spouse--yes, you should be worried :)

(Sorry, couldn't resist that one.)

Keystroke logging programs are only a symptom of the same problem that Windows users have had to deal with for this whole decade--if a unfriendly program gets on your computer, it can do *anything* it wants without your consent. That "anything" might be recording your keystrokes, or it could be editing or uploading your Quicken file. Bad news either way.

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Alexandria, VA: Rob:

Last week, you mentioned that "over time, any Windows system will slow down as the shards of old programs (good word, "shards") accumulate in the Registry. Deleting those leftover stubs and bits of code can speed up your system--but if you make a mistake, you can also cause serious damage." Do Macs have the same problem, and if so is there a simple and safe way to track down and delete the shards?

Rob Pegoraro: No, Macs don't have that problem.

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Sherman Oaks, CA: Rob,

Thanks for another chat.

Last week we stayed at an upscale hotel in Palm Springs for a few nights. One of the amenities in the room was a 50" flat-screen TV.

But the only channels that were offered for viewing were 'analog' channels. (When you changed channels the screen flashed that information for a few seconds.)

So, everything we watched looked 'flattened' or 'squished.' I'm assuming this comes of watching TV broadcast in 4:3 but being shown in 16:9.

A waste of technology on the hotel's part? Could they have 'set' the screens to show a 4:3 image, with black spaces on the left and right of the screen? Or is that a 'burn-in' issue?

I've seen the same thing at a couple of friends' homes, who seem to have the technology but don't know how to take advantage of it or show it off to its best ability.

I'd appreciate your input.

ValleyDriver

Rob Pegoraro: Sounds like you found yet another HDTV that was set up by somebody without any knowledge of how to set up an HD set--there was no HD content for you to watch, and the TV wasn't set up to scale or stretch the 4:3 content. (What most HD sets will do is selectively stretch the video, so that everything in the middle is a normal width, but things on the sides do get widened. I.e., the quarterback's head won't look like a football, but every noggin at each end of the line of scrimmage will.)

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Bethesda: Rob

How important to my Nano are the updates Apple provides on the iTunes website? I just got one and wonder if I want to sit through some interminable procedure.

Thanks.

Rob Pegoraro: It's not interminable; you download the update, you run it, the iPod reboots. They usually provide one new feature or another that's worth having (the most recent one added a volume-limiter control, in case you were otherwise inclined to keep turning up the volume even after your ears start to bleed).

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DC: Rob-What kind of added vulnerability to viruses comes with Mac's Boot Camp? Will my computer still ask me, even in Windows, to enter a password before executing anything potentially harmful?

Rob Pegoraro: No. Windows is Windows, whether it's on a Mac or a PC, so you need to take every precaution you'd take on a Dell or an HP or whatever. But: A Windows virus can't do *anything* to the Mac side of a Mac, not unless it was somehow written to include software that would let it write to a Mac-formatted disk (Windows doesn't support that on its own).

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Arlington, VA: I saw the news on the new ".tel" rollout by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. I'm wondering if this could be a new way for us to think about virtual business cards? or do you think it'll just be an online Yellow/White pages?

washingtonpost.com: Internet Agency Weighs New Domain Name

Rob Pegoraro: I think it'll be largely ignored in practice. Most companies and people still want a "real" .com, .net or .org address; there are a reasonable number of .info and .us addresses out there, but all these alternative domain-name extensions have remained a niche market compared to the original, er, trinity.

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Washington, D.C.: Rob, have you heard any insider chatter about the new Dual Tuner Tivo? It has been the subject of all sorts of rumors on a Tivo users forum that I read, and at one point it was listed for pre-sale on Amazon.com with an expected ship date of "End of May." I am planning on buying a Tivo in the next few weeks, but this development is upending my plans to get the Humax with the DVD burner. Any intel you have on this is very much appreciated.

Rob Pegoraro: I have nothin' for you. TiVo's Series 3 box--exhibited only behind closed doors at CES in January--is still a big of an enigma four months later.

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Bethesda, MD: I'm mostly a _former_ Mac user (I owned an original 128K mac that Ibought in January '85), but I'm now ready to buy a Mac mini, mostly torun Windoze. The merits of this approach include the small formfactor, the ability to run OS X when needed, the ability to pass italong to my kids in a few years, etc. Downsides of course include lackof expandability and the relatively poor hardware graphicscapabilities.

At this point I'm planning to buy the low-end (1.5 Ghz) CPU with theRAM bumped-up to 1GB. I'm also planning to pickup this copy of WindowsXP, which I believe meets the requirements: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16837102059

Questions:

(1) Is this version of Windows XP indeed OK for Boot Camp?

(2) Are there any significant known hardware problems with thisIntel-based Mac Mini, e.g. overheating?

(3) My kids run Windows games such as Zoo Tycoon and Backyard Baseball. Is the graphics hardware adequate for this, both in terms ofperformance and driver support?

(4) Is this approach (BootCamp on Mac Mini) too bleeding-edge to take a chance on?

Rob Pegoraro: 1) Maybe not. That page says it's "OEM," meaning an Original Equipment Manufacturer copy--it's licensed only for sale with a new computer. I dunno what NewEgg is doing selling it publicly like that.

2) Haven't heard of any issues with the Mac mini besides the horribly WiFi performance I noted in my review (maybe that's been fixed by now? We can only hope...)

3) A Mac mini should be fine for those games. But if you want to play action titles like Halo 2 or whatever, I think you'd be better off with an iMac.

4) Maybe not too bleeding-edge. Apple has issued one of the stronger warnings you'll see about not using Boot Camp with data you consider valuable, but it seems to working just fine for most users in practice.

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DC: Back to the iPod question, do new upgrades include all previous upgades as well, so that you're always cumulatively downloading all possible upgrades?

Rob Pegoraro: Yes.

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Gaithersburg, MD: Help! My tech savvy fiance has decided that we need VoIP to cut our expensive Verizon landline bill and get the features we want and crave. I am less convinced, but ready to take the plunge. Any word on local experience with Comcast DigitalVoice versus Vonage versus the other options?

Rob Pegoraro: Can anybody share their experiences with those two services? I don't subscribe to either myself...

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Arlington, VA: Rob,

I work in counterintel and security for DOD and yes camera phones have been used to copy sensitive and classified information. And so have thumb drives etc. It is a real pain in the neck. No more Jonathan Pollard or John Walkers with boxes of classified. Just a few DVD s or thumb drives etc.

Rob Pegoraro: Surprised to hear that--most camera phones take horrible pictures. Were the documents in question printed in large type?

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RE: Washington Post Radio: This may run counter to the whole point of having a radio station, but wouldn't be nice if appearances by Wa Po were made available via podcast for those of us outside the DC market?

Rob Pegoraro: I'm told that we will have podcasts available Real Soon Now.

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washingtonpost.com: Security Fix: Problems With Latest Windows Patches

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Fairlington, VA: I have a new infant, bought a good digital camcorder. Now I feel like an idiot, though. I bought a DV camera so I can edit the footage down (I didn't want to force family and friends to watch 20 minutes of my son doing nothing to catch the 1 minute that was good). While editing is a breeze, the quality of the tape appears to be lacking. Even on my modestly sized 15.4 inch computer screen, the footage is not high quality enough. What am i doing wrong? I tried importing the video again on "high quality large display" in Windows Movie Maker, but it still wasn't good enough.

Rob Pegoraro: Under its default settings, Windows Movie Maker will compress your video to a format that it thinks your processor can handle. You'll need to set it to capture video in its original format--"Digital device format (DV-AVI)"--by clicking the "Show More Choices" button in the video-settings window.

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Dayton, Ohio: I have researched HDTV's since Christmas and have been leaning toward purchasing a LCD HDTV. But with two small children(4 & 2) I am concerned with the potential of one of them damaging the screen. It is my understanding that the Plasma has strong glass protective screen, so with falling Plasma prices it might be the way to go. But can I watch the upcoming NFL draft all day long and not get burn in? Any thoughts I should be aware of as I continue to gather information before making a final decision? Thanks!

Rob Pegoraro: I haven't heard of any meaningful difference in the strength of the screen on LCDs versus plasma TVs.

Burn-in can happen, but that takes a *long* period of having the same image parked on the screen. Like, days and days. (Try buying one of those plasma TVs showing the same TSA graphics in airport security lines.)

You may, however, see "temporary image retention," where the ghost of a static image lingers on the screen but then goes away in an hour or so. It's not a long-term problem, but it can be an annoyance if you keep noticing the name of the album you were just listening to on the Mac mini plugged into the plasma TV (to use one example from my own experience.)

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Philadelphia, PA: Hey Rob,

Thanks for the chats - they are really helpful. Just wanted to know if you have seen Mac OSX on a windows machine and, if so, how that worked? Do you foresee a day when you call up, say, Dell and they give you the option of one or the other, or possibly both? Would it even be a good thing for Mac OSX to be on anything other than an Apple Machine?

Rob Pegoraro: Yes--a couple of Windows boxes in the IT lab have been running OS X on and off, with the help of a third-party hack.

I don't see that becoming a commercial, mass-market reality anytime soon. Apple has tried licensing the Mac OS to other companies before and, for better or worse, has decided conclusively that it doesn't work for them.

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Indecisive, America: So I can't make up my mind on a new HDTV. I really want a bigger TV (I have a 8-year old 20-incher), but my TV cabinet will only get so big (around 36 inches wide). So I've been looking for a good LCD TV HDTV. But its like buying a computer -- the models keep getting better -- and I can't decide when to buy. I want a 32 inch LCD HDTV, but should I ensure it has a digital tuner if I get cable anyway? Should I hold out for one that is CableCard compatible? And Consumer Reports insists that CRT is still a better picture, so should I buy one of those DynaFlat CRT's that would fit in my cabinet but weigh 130 pounds?

And I don't want to spend too much for a TV, so should I wait for the prices to fall? I can't make up my mind.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Rob Pegoraro: Being indecisive has yet to be a terribly wrong answer when it comes to buying HDTVs--month after month, year after year, they keep getting cheaper and better.

Yes, get a TV with a digital tuner. You never know when that might be handy--and on a 32" or larger HDTV, you'll now have a hard time finding a screen without one. CableCard is also worth getting, since you subscribe to cable now.

I'd lean towards the LCD myself. CRTs are such a nuisance to haul around, they use more electricity than LCDs, they take longer to turn on than LCDs and they don't work as well as computer monitors (say, if you want to plug in a Media Center PC or Front Row-running Mac). CRTs do generate deeper blacks and they have much faster refresh rates than LCDs, but if you look at a quality LCD you may very well find that the differences don't bother you at all.

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Herndon, VA: Hi Rob:

2 years ago you fixed a hidden porn site tag that was on my computer that no one could find or fix!

Anyway, have you written anything on portable GPS for cars? They range from cheap to mortgage level and I was wondering what the most useful units were, regardless of price.

I can get lost in a tunnel and I'm a traveling salesman!

Rob Pegoraro: I don't remember that instance, Herndon--but I'm pretty sure that it was *you* who fixed the problem. I couldn't have done anything more than tell you where to look or what to look for. (Sorry, I *don't* do house calls :)

We've run a few different reviews of add-on GPS hardware for cars; here's one from last year:

Showing the Way More Affordably (washingtonpost.com)

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Burke, VA: So which one are you buying, HDDVD or BluRay? I know a Java programer who is stumping for BluRay, but Sony always seems to find a way to screw up new formats.

How much more will it cost for a new HiDef player that is backwards compatible for old-fashioned DVDs?

Rob Pegoraro: None of the above--at least not until I can try out the hardware and movies available for each. And as long as there are two incompatible formats, at least one of which will most likely die a painful and prolonged death in the market, why would I want to risk my money on either one?

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Tempe, AZ: I would submit that AC/DC's overall "albums only" sales model is annoying, sure, but far from insane. AC/DC ain't the Beatles. Each record has only one or two songs you'd want to own. If they made the hits available a la carte, the album sales would plummet. There's never been an "AC/DC's Greatest Hits" record released for the same reason. Wrongheaded? Misguided? Possibly. But far from insane.

Witness how completely the Eagles "Greatest Hits 1971-75" record supplanted the 1st 5 Eagles records (on its way to becoming the best selling album of all time.)

Rob Pegoraro: See, that's the thing--AC/DC's hits are already available a la carte. You can get any of them off a peer-to-peer site if you really want them, and Bon Scott's heirs won't earn another penny off that "sale." Fundamentally, a band can't make that choice anymore; it can either cede some business to peer-to-peer, or it can meet their customers where they want to be met. (Sorry if that reads like the kind of ecstatic handwaving you'd read in some Wired magazine cover story, but I feel pretty strongly about this--sticking your head in the sand, or anywhere else, is not a viable business model.)

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Long Island City, Queens, New York, NY: 18 months ago I bought a very fancy Mac G5 and I'm a very happy convert. But now comes Mac with this Boot Camp arrangement, so I'm obsolete sooner than I could have imagined. That's because I have hundreds of downloaded documents with the .mht suffix that turn out to be "proprietary" with Microsoft. I haven't yet tried Virtual PC and perhaps I should. I'm not sorry I got Mac when I did --- I couldn't wait for Spotlight, which is magical --- but is there nothing to do but buy a whole new computer?

Rob Pegoraro: Nope. I did some quick looking around, and it seems that a $9 shareware app called File Juicer can read those .mht files. I'm told that Opera 9 for Mac OS X will be able do so as well.

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San Francisco: How do you know when it's time to put one's computer out to pasture? My Dell Inspiron laptop is still chugging along at nearly 5 yrs of age, but I feel the clock is ticking & the thing could up & quit on me at any time. No glaring performance issues, but I've heard the shelf life is more like 3 years.

My second question is how to decide between PC and Mac, and I realize the answer is largely personal preference. For me, it all comes down to price. I'd get a PowerBook in a second, but it's hard to justify spending three times as much as I would for a Windows machine. I keep finding reasons to delay the decision -- Intel switch, BootCamp, advent of Leopard, etc. -- but, as I said, I worry that my current laptop will die suddenly & I want to be prepared to act. What questions should I ask myself to determine which computer will be the best fit for me?

Thank you!

Rob Pegoraro: Great questions, S.F.

Computers don't come with expiration dates stamped on them, so it's always a judgment call for the individual user. If the machine works fine at its assigned tasks and is in good working order--keep using it, by all means. But if you'd have to invest significant amounts of money to get it in shape for one use or another (say, adding memory, then some USB 2.0 ports and a bigger hard drive), you should think about the time you'll spending tinkering with the old machine.

In some cases, upgrading isn't an option at all. For instance, if you've got a laptop or an all-in-one desktop like an iMac, you probably can't do anything but add memory.

As for your laptop decision, my advice is to wait if you're interested in getting a Mac at all. Apple *has* to come out with an Intel-based iBook soon, and that ought to be far more afforable than the PowerBook--er, MacBook Pro. You shouldn't have to hold out with your Inspiron that much longer... well, I hope.

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Mt. Pleasant, Washington, DC: Hi, Rob,

Hope I'm not too late to advise the chatter thinking of buying a Humax with the DVD burner to think again. I went through two of them in less than a week. They severely glitch-prone and the company will not replace a broken unit with a new one--only a refurbished unit. I ditched Humax and bought a TiVo box and a separate DVD burner for about the same amount as the Humax.

Rob Pegoraro: Thanks, Mt. Pleasant!

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Washington, DC: Rob, I went with a subscription music service (Yahoo) and I'm happy with it for two big reasons:

Higher quality audio files.

I've downloaded over 600 songs already in two months -- at the $594 that would have cost on iTunes, if I never downloaded another track, I'd break even in about 5 years.

What bothers me is that it seems that EVERYTHING in the "accessories" category is specifically made for iPods only. For example, Seth Hamblin's article yesterday states that many cars will offer iPod integration next year. Nothing about mp3 integration - are any manufacturers embracing non-AAC-proprietary technologies?

Rob Pegoraro: I didn't assign or edit Seth's story--but I suspect that accessories manufacturers are simply following the market at large. The iPod is dominating the music-player business in a way that few devices ever do.

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Washington, DC: Hello Rob, just wanted to vent my frustration that when I finished Turbo Tax and wanted to file online I saw for the first time they are charging to file online - what a rip and after you pay for the software!

Rob Pegoraro: Filing online in TurboTax has always cost money--at least all the years that I've been doing it. (Why'd you have to remind me of all those hours of my life that I'm never going to get back? :(

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Odenton, MD: Rob, as a Directv user stuck with Baltimore stations when I'd rather watch D.C.'s, this week's Help File sounded like I could have written.

Two points you forgot to mention:1. Even though the writer is now a "Baltimore-area" viewer, they will still get MASN on Directv (Channel 626 incase they check the chat), so they're not going to miss out on any Nationals games this season.2. They didn't mention whether they have HDTV, but I do, and I get the Washington DC stations using an indoor OTA antenna (and its in a basement!). Except for windy days sometimes making the signal bounce in and out, everything works perfect. I've got to imagine Laurel would get signal just as well.

washingtonpost.com: HELP FILE

Rob Pegoraro: Good tip about MASN and HD reception--although I'd like to know what kind of HD tuner you've got that can pull in a D.C. signal from that far away, Odenton. Most people seem to need rooftop or attic antennas at that distance.

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Arlington, VA: Do you have any advice for a fellow Nats fan who wants to watch the games in a Comcast area? Are there any high-tech ways to get the games, besides satellite? How are you watching them?

Rob Pegoraro: You could sign up for MLB.tv ($15/month or $80/season) and watch the games in streaming online video, but you'd need to use a credit card with an out-of-area billing address--the idiots at MLB black out Nats games to D.C. area subscribers, even though most people can't watch them any other way.

Or you could just ditch Comcast for DirecTV. Really, why not? Satellite is a lot cheaper than cable--I didn't hesitate to kick Comcast to the curb once we had that option.

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Washington, DC: I am thinking about getting TIVO. I do not have cable (and do not plan on getting cable). I want to use it in place of a VCR. I do not have a phone jack close to my television. Do the converters that change electrical outlets to phone jacks really work? What is so special about the TIVO service (i.e., do you get additional channels or is it just required to run the TIVO box)? Thanks

Rob Pegoraro: You need that phone jack so the TiVo box can dial up to the TiVo server and get updated program listings. If you've got broadband Internet and a home network, I think you can replace that link by adding a network adapter to your TiVo.

Three are also wireless phone-jack adapters you can buy for the occasion. Or you could just have somebody run a phone jack to the living room--it doesn't have to cost that much if you can just run the wire along the ceiling of the basement, then drill one hole in the floor or at the bottom of the living-room floor.

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Tampa, FL: You know how in the movies they've got super-intelligent robots who turn on their masters and enslave mankind? Is a Mac susceptible to this problem or is it just a Windows thing?

Rob Pegoraro: How do you know those super-intelligent robots aren't running Mac OS X? I, for one, welcome our new Mac robot overlords...

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Winchester, Va.: Re PC hijacking, keyloggers, etc.... If they make it past the firewall, virus scanners, etc. will their processes show up in Task Manager, or are they truly incognito? In other words, if you have got one, can you find it if you know where to look?

Rob Pegoraro: Probably not--keyloggers can hide from the Task Manager, and even those that show up can hard to find (I'm told that they usually don't have obvious names like "evilkeylogger.exe" or "iknowwhatyoureypting.exe" or "bwahahaha.exe")

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Falls Church, VA: Your 770 review was harsh, I have one and although you make some valid points, I haven't had so many of the issues you have. Jumping online hasn't been an issue for me, and while opera does have a tendency to crash every few days on me, its pretty reliable if you keep browsing to one or 2 windows.

What is it good for then? Its good for blog reading, and checking the news. Nokia should've put in more though in creating something that took advantage of all the new features on the web out there (which you pointed out, video, newer flash implementation), but I do feel like the 770 is a prelude to something much greater that will probably manifest itself in a version 2.0. I think Nokia put this out for the early adopters and techno geeks to learn how their next model will be able to penetrate the consumer market.

One other point, although you can shut down and boot up every time, I just treat the tablet like a phone. I keep it on, and it goes into standby and when I want to use it, I touch the screen and its instantly on. Are you sure your test unit had the newest firmware? Because I have yet to experience the bugginess of the operating system you've mentioned.

I do like that I don't have to haul my powerbook into bed and have it burning up my lap to just do some casual internet surfing, and that's what the 770 is good for. I've had it for over 2 months now, and I've actually cut back my laptop usage and use my 770 almost everyday.

Rob Pegoraro: Oddly enough, I find that my Treo 650 is perfectly fine for following the news and reading blogs. And that's a device that I already need to have. Any WiFi-enabled handheld organizer--a Palm TX or a Dell Axim, for instance--would be just as good. And all of those devices also do things besides just show me the Web.

Yes, I did have the latest firmware.

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Severna Park, MD: Last minute question!

This detente twixt Direct TV & Tivo: all that does is memorialize the status quo, right? They're not going to be bringing out any new (read: HD) Tivo products for Direct TV, right?

Rob Pegoraro: That's my understanding of it, although I haven't asked the involved parties for a clarification yet.

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About VOIP for Gaithersburg- From Daniel Greenberg: I reviewed Vonage for the Washington Post when the service debuted and gave it good marks for call quality-- so good that I bought an account not long after the review account ended.

However, in a few months, call quality deteriorated noticeably, to the point that people (like Rob) could not stand hearing my phone. I went through numerous rounds of tech support that temporarily cleared it up, but quality always dropped again.

After more than a year, I dropped Vonage for another VOIP service, Speakeasy (also my DSL provider) and call quality is vastly improved-- though even then there have been hiccups that I rarely hear on a Verizon line.

If you sign up, make sure you can cancel without cancellation penalty if the quality is poor. And if you do cancel, make sure to put in a second call to ensure that they stop billing you after the switch to another carrier (evidently that's the consumer's responsibility).

Rob Pegoraro: Thanks, Daniel!

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Strasburg, Va: Hi Rob, are there any pros or cons to flash memory compared to a regular hard drive, or vice versa?

Rob Pegoraro: Flash memory's more expensive but smaller, faster and sturdier--and it and needs less electricity in use (read: better battery life). If flash memory cost the same as hard disk space, we'd probably only use that. But it doesn't, so there.

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Pittsburgh, PA: Does you know if wireless service for a laptop can be obtained for a three month periodonly.

Rob Pegoraro: Sure--if you leech off open access points for free, you can do that for as long as you want. (Note to my mom's nameless neighbor with the open wireless router: Thanks! :) But you can also buy month-to-month Web access from companies like Boingo.

And that's all the time I have today, folks. Thanks for all the great questions--I should be back here in two weeks.

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