Dear silicon.com... XP lives, the femtocell 'truth', BlackBerry bashing…

Windows XP was getting a lot of attention this week, with silicon.com readers undecided whether the OS should live on or not… And data losses never seem far from the reader comments page, with this week being no exception… Another item on the agenda is those lovely little mobile base stations - femtocells - and lastly, readers have time for a BlackBerry-related rant.

XP lives?
Dell and HP find ways to keep Windows XP alive

I don't know why Microsoft don't do the blatantly obvious thing, allow downgrade rights on any Windows Vista to XP.

Microsoft gets the Vista sales they want, Joe Public gets what they want with XP.

Everyone would be happy ?
-- Anonymous, Birmingham

To quote Anonymous, Birmingham - "everyone would be happy"…

…Except the PC manufacturers who sell the machine with one OS and have to support and provide drivers for a different OS.
-- Karen Challinor, UK

If it becomes too difficult to have XP, the best option becomes open source. That's where I shall be going.
-- Christopher Quinton, South Oxfordshire

Most of my stuff is open source so going all the way might be the easy option.
-- Galley Slave, London

Editor's choice

silicon.com editor Steve Ranger flags up his picks on the site this week...

♦ Peter Cochrane's Blog: Airport insecurity
♦ Video Cheat Sheet: Data Breaches
♦ Photos: The Birth of Hi-Tech Britain
♦ India's high-tech cities, web whispers, Babbage's Difference engine and more...
♦ iPhone vs BlackBerry: What the users love...

Data laws
House of Lords backs data loss law change

Would such a law cover disclosure of email addresses? For example, by sending an email to multiple recipients (without consent) with all addresses showing?
-- Paul Seligman, Wales

So long as, in the event of things going wrong the appropriate people go to prison, it's fine.

Make "Data Security Director" a position with statutory authority, responsibility and power - requiring a little book learning and certification - to take executive action to make the organisation take security seriously.
-- Haydn Rees, London

Get the police to do the job the Data Protection Registrar isn't bothering to do!
-- James Button, London

Mr Button - you mean get the police to do the job the ICO doesn't have the authority to do.

And whatever happens with the law, government departments will be carefully and scrupulously made exempt from it.
-- Karen Challinor, UK

The price of a femtocell…
Mobile market ripe for femtocell loving

Here's how I understand it: I install the femtocell and use my broadband connection to improve my provider's 3G/HSDPA coverage, and they want me to pay them for it.

Am I missing something?
-- Julian Nicholls, Lymington

BlackBerry not so smart?
iPhone vs BlackBerry: What the users love...

I have a Blackberry for work, and an iPhone that I use everywhere. The only reason to use the Blackberry is because of the corporate support for it's email. But if that changed, and the company I worked for allowed for iPhone use, the Blackberry would be in the trash bin immediately. I feel like I've stepped back in time about five years whenever I use that vs using the iPhone. There's just no comparison.
-- Anonymous, Minneapolis

How can you call blackberry email access seamless and easy?

When BlackBerrys were the only device to have push mail, they were good. Now everyone has it. BlackBerrys are expensive proprietary devices for magpies to show off at the golf club.
-- Richard Davies, North Yorkshire

Being a long time PC user, I'm predisposed to dislike Apple.

Annoyingly, the iPhone is really easy to use and provides a great user experience. It does indeed, "just work"! (I feel so dirty.)
-- Anonymous, North England

Please note, comments may be edited for clarity, grammar, spelling, punctuation and style. The views expressed are not necessarily the views of silicon.com. You can write to silicon.com by posting a Reader Comment below, or emailing editorial@silicon.com.