I have found Windows 7 to be a pretty good OS, I am happy to say. I just wish Microsoft would make the intergrated Windows 7 Install DVD ISOs available for download, like the do for MSDN and Technet, even if they charged a small fee for it.

Yeah, true.

Fortunately the MSDN subscriber downloads inventory is publicly browsable: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/downloads/defa...

From there we can see the download details for all "Windows 7 with Service Pack 1" ISO files (all Windows 7 editions, all processor architectures and all languages).

From there we can for example see the following information for the English Professional x64 version:

  File Name: en_windows_7_professional_with_sp1_x64_dvd_621750.iso
  Date Published (UTC): 2/16/2011 8:49:08 AM	Last Updated (UTC): 2/16/2011 8:49:08 AM
  SHA1: 5ED2584110E03F498DB4458BA9FAFD5A7EF602ED	ISO/CRC: 74F3CB73

With this information, I can be confident in downloading an ISO from a peer-to-peer torrent. When the hash matches, I can be assured that the file is legit and not backdoored.

What do you mean integrated? I bought Home Premium and Pro version from Microsoft online store and they did provide ISOs and even USB tool to put the ISO on flash drives.

He wants an ISO that packs in SP1.

They don't provide that on MSDN - the ISO there just contains the SP1 installers for Win2K8 and Win7.

I am currently considering my first smart-phone, and I want really want to go with Apple because I do like the refinement of iOS and the hardware that runs it, but their App Store policies are giving me pause. It seems to me that Apple's greed is getting the better of them.

I really hope that Apple will realize that even if they aren't getting a cut of in-App purchases, these Apps do add desirability to the iOS platform.

Our website does this too. (I work part-time at a B&N.)

If Google starts incorporating blacklists into their search results, then couldn't groups of people coordinate their black lists to suppress sites they didn't like?

Personally, I've always used Jhead for this. It is available for Unix and Windows, and I also use it to rename my photos.

http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/jhead/

Personally, I would like to see an app like Instapaper combined with a licensed AP news feed. I don't really need images or fancy graphics or movies; I just want to read the news.

Cool. I've been a member of the Kink site in the past and found it to be fast and well done. Did you just work on the back end stuff or did you also work on the design/layout of the site as well?

I did the backend stuff, but wrote a lot of the jsp pages as well. It is all Java/J2EE/JBoss/EJB3/Hibernate with some fairly complicated single sign on stuff going on to allow cross domain auto-login.