TR Out Loud - February 6, 2009

Sonja Thompson: Here we are again... the lights are on, and someone's back at home! Well, I'm back in the studio right now -- or am I, santeewelding? I could REALLY be in a confectionery, obscured by little marshmallows.

I'm Sonja Thompson, a senior editor for TechRepublic, and this is TROLOV -- or TR Out Loud on Video -- for February 6th, 2009.

After wrestling with a new database query -- okay, I made someone else wrestle with it, but that's beside the point. Here are the top five discussions of the week:

#1. "Why can't President Obama keep his Blackberry?" According to Michael Kassner, host of the Network Administrator blog, "all sorts of regulations and security concerns were going to force President Obama to relinquish his BlackBerry.  Michael asked the TR community if they think Obama should or shouldn't keep his BlackBerry. There are a lot of interesting opinions in this discussion thread, and I encourage everyone to check it out. I'll be sure to link to this and the other top discussions of the week in the blog notes.

#2: "A gross violation of user support trust - What would you do? Take the poll." Joe Rosberg, aka Maxwell Edison and host of the User Support blog, created this post based on an off-topic discussion in the TechRepublic forums. This particular member discovered that a support tech working on his computer changed settings, snooped around the hard drive, and actually copied pictures, music, and videos onto an external storage device. Joe asked the TR community what they would have done in this situation. The last time I checked, the majority selected the option, "Demand an acknowledgement and an apology from the tech." 

#3. "Frustrated by a coworker s use of old-school programming techniques." Justin James, the host of the Programming and Development blog, provides some advice to a reader who is dealing with a veteran developer who isn't open-minded about the benefits of modern programming techniques. Check out this discussion to see what other advice is offered by the TR community.

Justin James is also responsible for the 4th most popular discussion of the week: "How intuitive should developers make software?" J.Ja says that the expectation that developers must create intuitive software is unrealistic. Read this post to find out why, and then jump in the discussion and let us know if you agree or disagree.

#5. "Use Excel's Text To Columns command to separate first and last names." Alright, so this isn't an off-topic post, but a Microsoft Office tip is just about as close as you can get. Mary Ann Richardson wrote this gem for those of you who want to learn an easy way to split a list of names into two columns. If you have an Office tip, don't forget to send it to trol@cnet.com so that we can feature it in the Community Central newsletter. Remember, if we use your tip, we'll send you a TechRepublic coffee mug.

In last week's TROLOV discussion thread, ThumbsUp2 asked me how I was able to tabulate the correct number of Thumbs Up if the information you all see is screwy lewy on the site. You all are just going to have to trust me on this one. Here are the members with the most thumbs up over the past week:

Two people tied for 5th place: robo_dev, and Peconet Tietokoneet. Great to see you again, PT!

#4: Old Mycroft

#3: ThumbsUp2

#2: OH Smeg

And #1: Jacky Howe

And here are the 5 members with the most posts in the past seven days:

#5: OH Smeg

#4: Old Mycroft

#3: seanferd

#2: boxfiddler

And #1: jdclyde

Sonja Thompson: TR's moderator, Tammy Cavadias, abandoned us last week -- and I know we're all deeply wounded, but now she's baaaaack. Take one, Tammy Cavadias... aaaand ACTION!

Tammy Cavadias: HI, everyone. Hi, Sonja. Well, here we are. We're back for another spam report. We get a lot of new members that join TechRepublic, pretty much every day -- a lot looking for friends that end of making enemies. Where's the love? And for all you horror movie lovers, coming soon to a theater near you -- The Wrath of TR. So, all you spammers out there, be afraid... be very, very afraid! Well, that will do it for me this week. I'll see you guys all next week, and I hope you have a great weekend. Bye.

Sonja Thompson: As for the TR community participation part of the show, I'd like to start with a little shout out and a big thanks to sarpri for this Purdue t-shirt. GO, BOILERS! If you'd like me to wear a shirt or hat or other piece of clothing -- within reason -- that displays your Alma mater or some other symbol or message (again, discretion is advised), please send me an e-mail to trol@cnet.com, and I'll reply with my mailing address.

I received a picture from TR Member Vindora, who lives in Egypt and is a first-year student in the Faculty of Science in the Zoology Department.

This week's Question of the Week was submitted by w2ktechman: "How many 'new' software packages seem to perform worse than previous versions?" Send your answers to trol@cnet.com.

The TR Pet of the Week was sent in by Michael Jay. Here is Mr. Rio, 20 lbs of attitude, and according to MJ, the best cat in the world.

Many thanks to sarpri, Vindora, w2ktechman, and Michael Jay for participating in the show. Also, thanks to TR Member anchorbill who send in a comment about last week's show. He said, "In my part of the world (North Carolina), the name Tom Trevathan (which I had such a hard time saying last week) is pronounced Tree-VAY-thun. See? This is just good information to know. For those of you who heard your name on today's show, please send me an e-mail with your mailing address and swag item of choice.

Now, if you don't have any TechRepublic swag, or if you have some but would like some more, all you have to do is become an active part of the show. You can send me an e-mail with an answer to the Question of the Week, a brand new Question of the Week, a comment about the show, a photo, or even a small video clip to trol@cnet.com. Or you can leave a voice message by calling our toll free number, which is (866) 414-CNET, that's (866) 414-2638 -- or you can leave a voice message via Skype, and our Skype ID is tr.out.loud.

I'm Sonja Thompson, and this is TR Out Loud.