Status-Q

[Original Link] This came out a week ago but I’ve only just seen it. Office Depot (which, for UK readers, is the US equivalent of Office World or Staples) is apparently not going to carry hardware or software items unless they have the ‘Designed for Windows XP’ logo on them. So if you want to pop down to your local store for a copy of RedHat, you’ll need to do so before May 30th.

Every mobile I’ve had (I think) allows me to set a personal text greeting so that when I turn it on it says ‘Quentin’s Phone’ or something similar. But in every case, this appears after I’ve typed in the PIN number.

Now, will somebody tell me what this is for? If I’ve typed in the PIN, I know it’s my phone and don’t need to be told. If, on the other hand, I don’t know the PIN, it’s probably somebody else’s phone and the only way I will get it back to them is by knowing their name, which I can’t see…

Or is there some other intended use for this feature? Perhaps an inspiring message for the day? Or a joke to cheer you up when nobody’s left you any voice mails?

But perhaps these days PINs don’t make too much sense. Most operators will disable a mobile using the handset serial number once they know it’s stolen, so there shouldn’t be a great incentive for stealing them. And if you lose it, the more access any well-wishing finder has to your data, the more likely you are to get it back.