Welcome back everyone, to another edition of “The Roundup”! And Happy 3^rd Birthday to The iLife!

This week I’m talking about Sidekick users having no data, Finland requiring internet, and Amazon giving you your products even faster.

This week I have three stories for you. Let’s get started.

1: From : Technologizer
Microsoft to Sidekick Users: We Seem to Have Lost Your Data
Sunday, October 11, 2009

If your one of the few people who still uses a Sidekick then, as you probably know, you’re having some issues. See, the Sidekick doesn’t actually save its data to the phone, it is stored in volatile (meaning if you turn the power off, it’s gone) flash memory and it’s synced it to a Danger (the company the makes the sidekick, now owned by Microsoft) server. This may sound cool, since theoretically if you ever lose your phone, you still have your data and you can access it via the internet. But that means you’re dependent on some server, somewhere. And this week, that server failed. Danger/Microsoft managed to lose all of their customers’ data. To make matters worse, there only advice was to “not turn your sidekick off” and that your data was almost certainly lost. Luckily, they were lying and managed to recover most of it. However, do you really trust them to keep your data safe? Plus, it’s time to move on from the side kick, I mean wouldn’t you want to switch to the much more open and interesting T-Mobile G1 or MyTouch?

Take a look at the rest, after the jump.

2: From : TechCrunch
Applause For Finland: First Country To Make Broadband Access A Legal Right
Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Tired of only having slow access to the internet (especially if you live in a rural area)? If you lived in Finland this is no longer be a problem. Finnish government has just passed a law stating that every person living in Finland is guaranteed to have the right to buy internet access of at least 1 Mb / s. If you tell an ISP that you want an internet connection, they have to set you up with one; as long as you’ll pay. This may not sound like that much right now, but this is just the start. The goal is by 2015 to have the legal right to be upped to 100 Mb / s. Now that’s fast. From what I’ve seen, the law doesn’t have any restriction on price, so that could be the only factor preventing people from gaining internet access, especially at the high speeds targeted for 2015. But, there is no doubt to me that if the law doesn’t have a price regulation clause, it will soon enough. I would say that I wish something like this would be passed in the US; but right now, I think our government has bigger fish to fry.

3: From : Consumerist
Amazon Same Day Delivery: Will You Ever Leave The House Again?
Thursday, October 15, 2009

Ever feel the need to have a item you ordered off of Amazon right this second? Well, now that is almost possible, if you live in New York, Seattle, Philadelphia, Boston, D.C., or Las Vegas. Amazon is rolling out a new service / delivery option called Local Express Delivery, or really just same day delivery. In most cities you will need to order before 10 AM, but it varies by product and city. Don’t live in any of these cities? Don’t fret; Amazon is planning on expanding the program to Chicago, Indianapolis, and Phoenix “in the coming months”. The surcharge of the delivery will also vary by product (item type and sometimes weight is a factor), but it will average around $20. If you’re a Amazon Prime customer, you’re in luck because they only have to pay $6 per item to use the service. I personally don’t think that I would use this service, but I;m sure there are plenty of people who would prefer to have the same turnaround time of going out to a local store and picking up an item, all from the convenience of your couch.

On a side note, The Roundup is going on a Hiatus, so there won’t be another weekly update for at least 6 months. Hopefully I can use the time to write other informative articles for The iLife.

I also want to mention that today is The iLife’s third birthday! It been a great ride so far, and everyone here is looking forward to what we can bring to the blogosphere.

That’s it for this week, see you after an indeterminate length of time, right here at The iLife.

Photo Credit: Technologizer (Sidekick), Wikipedia (Finnish Flag)

–Keith Hobin