John Sciacca

Ever drive a car where the controls just didn't feel right? Recently, my wife and I were shopping for a small SUV, and we looked at the Honda CRV. But at nearly 6-foot-4, I was unable to get my knees under the steering wheel. It might be the best SUV in the world, but ergonomically, it just didn't work for me.

With all the hullabaloo over format wars and switching to server-based storage, many of you are probably planning new additions to your home theater system. Well, I'm planning one, too, but it won't be a Blu-ray or HD DVD player, a hard-disk video server, or any other cutting-edge piece of technology.

Step 1: Check file compatibility While computers can accept a variety of music file types, servers have more limited compatibility. If your server isn't "friendly" with your formats, you'll either have to re-rip, download, or buy them all over again, or convert them to a compatible format, which will cause additional compression artifacts.

You can't rush a good thing, and some things just aren't ready until they're ready. With electronics, coming to market too early usually means a product that's lacking in features, full of bugs, and short on performance.