ZD Net has a good upgrade FAQ. Will I upgrade? Friends who have tested Windows 7 say it is substantially faster and easier to use.

If the health care industry currently accounts for 1/6th of our economic activity, about $7.5 trillion a year, $1 trillion is not an outlandish amount to spend to fix it.

jparham -- public-private insurance is what the Senators have. At least get your terminology right. If you don't think that medical bills that are "discounted" by 90 percent for "in-system" docs are making the system inefficient, who is at fault? Obama's idea of creating a central price administration would cut that mark-up out and leave bills easy to understand and not subject to backroom discounting.

The problem of bad security using hometown and other easily discovered information could be eliminated by the combination of a cloud office service and an application on the user's PC.

Counting all the costs doesn't end at the plastic bag -- what about the people who opt for their own bags, carrying two mesh bags to the store and going to the store more frequently because they buy less each time (since only so much fits in the two bags)? They may use twice as much gas to shop, but think they are saving the planet.

We need ways to do full-cost accounting at the individual consumer level.

Being "green" is only expensive in the short term.

The consumer no longer has to worry abou lock-in. That's the change I see. Moving from Google Docs to Office should be easy and quick. Microsoft might win back some of its customers by making it easier to work together, but no one is stuck in an application silo anymore.

I like free services. You get what you pay for. Using Google Docs is handy and I don't think people at Google are dropping into my docs to check out what I am doing.

She's a troll

Can a Microsoft person join in? We have questions, they should be listening!

I have not had problems moving files around between Office and Google Docs. Google lets me save in formats that open in Word and Google opens Office files. Calendars import/export is hard online and in Office. If outlook Connector does that, I'll use it.

All bottled H2o tastes like plastic. That's why I don't drink it.

Good points, RedLetterDuke. I think matching Google online and making Office run better on my PC is enough to make the upgrade worth it.

Sotomayor has done very well in the hearings. She's answering questions people have by calmly answering the senators' questions. Good for her.

Has Microsoft let pricing info out?