Today's tech debates: Zuckerberg, Microsoft, and Uncle Sam

Earlier this week, I asked readers if they'd consider buying a Windows Phone 7 device. Reader P. J. C. summed up most readers' sentiments in a rather grisly fashion:

Screeeeeeecccchhhhh. Suddenly you are in a ditch on a lightly traveled road, out of sight of any other traffic. You're trapped in the car so you reach for your trusty Windows 7 phone and dial 911.

Still, even those whizzy non-Windows phones aren't all they're cracked up to be. Former Windows smartphone user S. J. says he swallowed all the Android hype and got a Samsung Captivate with Android 2.1. He immediately ran into problems getting Bluetooth to work the way it did with his AT&T Tilt -- for example, it won't do voice dialing, and it unpairs itself when he plugs the phone into his computer. But that's not all. He writes:

How to navigate

Granted it takes some getting used to how to navigate and set things up, there were some features that seemed to set themselves no matter what I did. The screen went off after 10 seconds no matter what I set it to, and the phone locked every time even though I set it to be always unlocked. Then I downloaded a couple of digital clocks and put them on the display â€"- well, they were there to stay. I gave up trying to get rid of them.

I hear ya. I too am a former AT&T Windows Mobile user who swallowed the Android hype, buying a Moto Cliq. Now I'm saddled with an "ancient" mobile OS that T-Mobile refuses to upgrade, along with a phone that's buggy, crash prone, and increasingly slow, with a battery lifespan shorter than a tse-tse fly's.

S. J. says he's going back to Windows Phobile. I'm not ready to take that drastic step just yet, or go anywhere near AT&T. When is that Verizon iPhone coming, exactly?

Finally, I'd like to leave you with a few words from a reader who goes only by "Wanda" and her prose poem regarding the U.S. Justice Department's desire to snoop on VoIP services and encrypted Net communications ("Government wiretapping: Coming soon to a computer near you?"). Here's one stanza in paranoid pentameter:

my thoughts on this is once you open that door (and with their penchant to control) give them an inch and they will control the whole thing! doubt me? look around you. we have no freedom of the press when the press gets into bed with the government... when we lose the internet we lose our ability to speak out to remain a free thinking people, and where does the control of it end ???