Microsoft's stock price is up 7.5% this morning.

Why would someone change their Apple ID email address to someone else's? It's not like you type in my full name by mistake (well, I found a chick with the same name as mine who messed up on her Facebook account, but Andy Mahon has no such excuse). Is there some sort of angle? Like, can he get into my Apple shit, or something--is email address the unique key for those?

Like, can he get into my Apple shit, or something--is email address the unique key for those?

No; he would need your password, too. That's happened to me before. Do you use a Gmail address for your Apple stuff? Gmail does this thing where adding a period into the part of the address before the @ doesn't actually change the recipient. For instance, I will get e-mail to smlang @gmail .com, but also sm.lang or s.mlang, etc.

Someone registered as s.mlang and I got an email from Apple welcoming "Steve" to his Apple account, so I immediately went in to my account and changed my password. Take THAT, Steve who doesn't understand e-mail!

Do you use a Gmail address for your Apple stuff? Gmail does this thing where adding a period into the part of the address before the @ doesn't actually change the recipient. For instance, I will get e-mail to smlang @gmail .com, but also sm.lang or s.mlang, etc.

Which is fair, since it was sent to my full name without the period, but still--what business does Andy Mahon have with any variant of my full name?

(I got into a weird fight with someone who tried to pull some shit with an itaitaita gmail address (I usually use ita.ita.ita) and a sketchy looking site, so I changed passwords on them, and they promptly signed the address up for a bunch of Filipino spam (yeah, I had it translated to see) in retaliation.

If my laptop battery will only charge to 99% no matter how long I leave it plugged in, that's a sign it will soon die, isn't it. If I replace the battery again, that will be three in 6 years - there's no way 2 years is a standard lifespan for Macbook Pro batteries. Ugh.

Do you get the "Service Battery" message is you click on the icon? I've been ignoring both the Service Battery and that the battery never fully charges for at least a year, probably two, and it's only recently begun to not charge past about 50% rather than 90-something, so you may have more time than you think. Although I keep the laptop plugged into the wall the vast majority of the time (which is why I can be so blasé about it) YMMV, of course.

Oh, huh. Yep. I guess I should take it in. Or wait until it dies and replace my laptop, which is 6+ years old.

I have decided that today will be "shop for a new laptop" day. I don't need anything fancy. I cruise the internet, have a huge iTunes library, and do minor graphics editing. I prefer Windows over Apple.

Every time I shop online I get confused - way too many options. It seems like many of the laptops don't include optical drives. I think I want a BluRay drive.

I'm trying to figure out my minimum requirements.

Well, I don't like to recommend laptops I haven't actually used, so the only one I can suggest is the Thinkpad Edge. It looks like it costs: $642 for i5-3230M processor, 4GB of RAM (as 1 DIMM), 500GB Hard Drive, 24GB Caching Solid State Drive, DVD drive, and the larger battery of the two offered. 14" or 15" is about the same size. Figure another $40 to buy another 4GB of RAM to stick in (you can get already installed for $80, but that's a terrible price.) BlueRay isn't offered, but like I said, I can't really suggest anything else.

I really like mine. Unfortunately they no longer offer the big 9-cell battery though. I usually get 8-10 hours. The newer ones are probably more like 6-8 even with the bigger battery.

Cable cord cut. My TimeWarner box was rebooting over and over and over and I couldn't watch it.

le n, you were awesome helping me survive this last year with them. Thank you.

I am boggled that I haven't had a problem with their internet services. I still have it. Fingers so crossed.