if for no other reason than that, should I die, my laptop shouldn't be forced to be a brick, ya know?

You don't need a password to reformat the machine and start over. Which is what I'd like my successors to do with my hardware thanks. Okay, except for the TiVo. They can keep my TiVo season passes. In fact, I may just insist they do.

I'm with Yahoo! but I sympathize with the family too. I hope they can find some way not to erase the data and maybe appoint a trustee of some sort to parse it for publication.

And FTR, someone else has been writing all my posts. And my emails. And surfing the web from my computers. Poncy bugger.

Ears are not definitive enough. He could just have her locked up in a closet somewhere.

Two ears and a tail?

Hey, ita? That little iPod car device thingie you linked to? What does it mean that it has "no FM modulation"? Does that mean it sounds like shit?

Thanks, all, by the way, for the Tivo remote info.

I'm backing Yahoo! on this one. If the lad wanted anyone to see the contents of his yahoo email account, he sh/would've left provisions for his password to be made available. If Yahoo were to give in on this one, they'd have to give in on every request and that could spell the end of yahoo email.

Actually, if I understand it correctly, FM modulation sounds like shit. Relatively. Connecting your iPod via FM is the lowest quality option.

But it'll take a bigger audio geek than me to confirm.

The thing that ita linked to is something that would take the place of an external CD changer, so the iPod's audio output would go directly into the car stereo. So no conversion to FM radio would happen, and the sound would be far superior to FM based adaptors, or even a cassette adaptor.

The other advantage of this technology is that you would use your regular car stereo controls to control the iPod. You'd also use the stereo's CD change control to select different iPod playlists.

eta:

if I understand it correctly, FM modulation sounds like shit.

I have one of the best FM thingies around, and the sound quality does suffer a lot. (The stereo in my '73 Mercury can't even pick it up in stereo.) ND has stated that FM has a large quality loss.

Could be worse. Could be AM.

Ooh, that sounds good. I've had two different thingies in my life that are supposed to play my iPod through my car stereo and they both sucked.

Could be worse. Could be AM.

I think I will build an iPod car adaptor that uses tin-cans-and-string technology.