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Author: Moog, Matthew M.Maisonneuve, MarkBarker, BobSwartz, Martin E.Spence, JohnCohen, Dave

Thank you! Thank you! And thank you! Being a Ham Radio (or Amateur Radio if you prefer) operator, it's heart-warming to see a magazine other than a Ham publication pointing out the services we provide. We strive to provide a communications network when all other methods fail. In fact, the Ham Radio motto is "When all else fails…." Every year we run through a mock disaster known as Field Day where we set up in local parks (or other nonmodern areas) and set up tents, generators, radios, and antennas in order to operate for 24 hours as if it were a disaster. It gives us the ability to hone our skills as well as make the public aware of why we exist. I encourage anyone who is interested in learning more about Ham Radio to visit the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) Web site (www.arrl.org) and join the incredible community! Thank you again for bringing our efforts to the mainstream media, and keep up the great work at PC Magazine.

After downloading iTunes Version 6 and perusing the specs for the iPod Video, I sat down to read the November 8 issue with a First Look at the iPod nano and iTunes Version 5. With Apple's current rate of innovation, you may have to convert to a weekly.

Don Taber wrote, "A huge number of people want the benefits of a computer but don't want to spend any time understanding it" (Feedback, November 8). Exactly right. You could say the same thing about automobiles. People want to go someplace without having to understand the difference between fuel injection and carburetion. What's wrong with that? People want to exchange e-mail and search the Web without having to understand the difference between a modem firewall and an antivirus program. What's wrong with that?

It's time the industry started providing a service that's as easy to grasp as learning to drive. Blaming the customer just leads even more people to want to throw the computer out the window.

In regard to "What About Linux-based Firewalls?" (Feedback, November 8), I admire the goals of the SmoothWall group, but they will run up against the difference between can and should. Yes, one can take a PII boat anchor and turn it into a state-of-the-open-software-art firewall, but the greater need is for an even simpler firewall for millions of people who need one, but can't/won't build one, or want one with lower energy cost. (What's that PII going to take, 100 watts, minimum?)

I have two better suggestions. No power supplies, no hard drives, hardly any space taken at all! (1) Go to eBay and buy a Linksys BEFSR11 router for $6 and be done with it! Rock-solid, cheap, and 10 watts to run. (2) Here's an entrepreneurial opportunity. Many homes have just one computer and a classically carefree owner; how about a self-contained firewall on a PCI card? One RJ45 jack for connection to the system's Ethernet jack, one RJ45 jack for the DSL modem, and touch the PCI interface only for a sip of 5-volt DC power. Or how about a tiny external brick that plugs in between the DSL modem and the computer, and a USB connector for power? A thing of beauty: platform-independent, zero footprint, low energy usage.

I have been a PC user since DOS was Version 1.1. I have been through Microsoft Windows rollouts for all versions except Windows 2000. I read your Vista review and it came over me like a flood. Not another one, no more. I went out and bought a Mac PowerBook. I just could not do it again.

The September 20 issue of PC Magazine (page 24) discussed Google's AdSense program in the Internet Business column. Great concept, but very un-Google like in execution. I manage an animal-rescue site, and ended up getting fed mainly ads for selling animals over the Internet. This was worse than getting porno ads, and is akin to an adoption site displaying ads for selling babies! We quickly dropped AdSense and hope that Google does a better job at matching ads and sites sometime in the future. For now, sites using AdSense need to watch what gets advertised!

"With Apple's current rate of innovation, you may have to convert to a weekly".

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By Matthew M. Moog; Mark Maisonneuve; Bob Barker; Martin E. Swartz; John Spence and Dave Cohen