A quick rundown of links from today's show topics:

• US Cellular customers in St. Louis and Chicago are being moved to Sprint, which means they'll have to buy new phones and get used to a new service provider.
  
  
• eBay is trying to lead a push against new Internet sales taxes that would put a huge burden on small sellers.
  
  
• Please save and fill out this checklist of passwords and leave it in a safe place where people you know and trust can find it in case something unexpected happens to you.
  
  
• Facebook is building a data center in Altoona, which will mean 31 new jobs and a lot of new construction to house the computers.
  
  
• By the way, my photo of the Microsoft data center in West Des Moines shows that there's not much to see when a new data center is built. They're big, but not very exciting.
  
  
• Does Microsoft have a leg up on Google when it comes to your expectations of online privacy? They think so.

Thanks for listening this week! - Brian Gongol / mail@gongol.com / wiseguys@whoradio.com

Listen online to the April 20th show anytime.

• Microsoft is still making a ton of money -- $6 billion in the last quarter -- even if they're not doing anything sexy. Virtually every business must pass through Microsoft in order to make money. And so, even if Windows 8 and the Windows Phone still don't light people's hearts on fire, don't be surprised when Microsoft is still around long after some other high-profile names in technology flame out.
  
  
• "Wired" reported this week that Apple keeps records of questions posed to Siri for two years after they're asked. You as a consumer really should be informed about who keeps data on you and why and how and for how long, in a manner as easily understood as the nutrition label on a box of cereal.
  
  
• Apple is having a really tough time in China right now. The company is facing government pressure over supposed "obscenity" being spread through access to the App Store. The question for any tech company right now is how much is it worth to go through the huge growing pains as China expands its economy without expanding personal freedoms?
  
  
• Google says they're launching Google Fiber in Provo, Utah, and Austin, Texas. In Provo, they're going to take over an existing network and build on it. In Austin, they're hoping to tap into the city's "cool" factor. In both places, they'll offer free Internet at 5 Mbps (not bad, but not outstanding by broadband standards), and higher speeds for people who pay up.
  
  
• Dish Network offered this week to buy Sprint for $25.5 billion. Convergence of voice and video and data products may be the future, but this merger proposal smells like trouble.

Thanks for listening this week! You can read my complete set of show notes for this week over on my personal site.

- Brian Gongol - mail@gongol.com - brian@gongol.com

Listen online to the show from April 13, 2013.

Notes from this week:

• "Multi-tasking" is a terrible idea. Focus on what you're doing, instead of trying to divide your attention. Attention-division caused four people to die in a 2011 helicopter crash, according to an NTSB report. The pilot was texting during the pre-flight checks and missed serious errors.
  
  
• Samsung is planning to introduce a giant 6.3" Galaxy Mega smartphone. It's so big people call it a "phablet" (a portmanteau of "phone" and "tablet".
  
  
• A public-health study says people believe inaccurate information they read online much more than they believe the truth.
  
  
• Organizing a group? Starting a business? Thinking of applying for a job somewhere? Register your domain name right away. For as much credit as President Obama's online strategists have gotten for helping him get elected, they dropped the ball when they formed "Organizing for Action" and forgot to register the domain name. Someone else got there first, and a court says the domain name was taken fairly.
  
  
• Will Fox and other broadcast television networks leave the airwaves? Maybe -- in 15 years or so. They're getting really worried about the rise of zero-TV households.

Thanks for listening! For the extended version of the show notes, visit my personal site.

- Brian Gongol - mail@gongol.com - wiseguys@whoradio.com