Earlier on Thursday, RIM reported earnings that topped estimates along with sales that were just about what many analysts were expecting. The company said it expects revenue for the current quarter to be around $5.5 billion to $5.7 billion with per-share earnings in the range of $1.74 to $1.80.

It said that it shipped 14.2 million BlackBerrys, up 40 percent from a year earlier, and added 5.1 million new subscribers net in the quarter. However the company is expected not to forecast those figures for the coming quarter, nor does it plan to continue reporting those numbers in future quarters.

Among the things investors are likely to be interested in is what the company forecasts as far as shipments to Verizon in a quarter during which many expect the carrier to start selling the iPhone. Motorola has already warned that it expects its shipments to Verizon to take a hit.

Mobilized will have live coverage of the conference call starting at 2 pm PT.

1:55 pm: RIM shares, which had been trading lower in after-hours trading are now up around 3 percent.

2:02 pm: Call just getting underway with the usual warnings, caveats, etc.

2:06 pm: BlackBerry Torch now in 75 markets, just rolling out in Latin America.

2:06 pm: BlackBerry Style is one-third of BlackBerry sales at Sprint.

2:08 pm: Our relationship with Verizon remains strong, RIM says. A number of new products coming for Verizon including adding the BlackBerry 6 OS to the curve and Bold lines early in the new year.

2:08 pm: Recap of recent developer announcements, including payment service, launch of WebWorks, etc.

2:10 pm: Now more than 16,000 applications in BlackBerry App World, RIM’s App Store.

2:11 pm: PlayBook tablet expected to ship in first quarter in U.S. and will be Wi-Fi only. Other markets and models with cellphone radios will follow.

2:14 pm: Review of Q3 results. Average selling price for BlackBerry was approximately $315, with half of shipments coming in last month of the quarter as resellers prepared for the holidays.

2:16 pm: Company says it is comfortable with inventory levels.

2:19 pm: On to outlook. No plans for PlayBook revenues, with first revenues not expected until following quarter. Sounds like the availability of PlayBook won’t be until at least March. (RIM’s current quarter goes through Feb. 26)

2:24 pm: On to Q&A.

BB6 will eventually work on QNX operating system, but the company says it hasn’t given any sense of timing.

As for what QNX can deliver, co-CEO Jim Balsillie says “You’ll see more at CES.”

2:25 pm: Sorry, some technical problems here at Mobilized. We got disconnected a couple of times, but have switched to the Webcast and are back on.

Seems like the talk is on average selling prices.

2:32 pm: North America is still performing very, very well but dynamics here are different.

Balsillie says he expects stronger year here next year based on product plans in place.

“I feel very, very good,” he says.

“I feel great about where we are sitting in North America for 2011,” Balsillie says, and the company has “knocked the cover off the ball” in a lot of other markets.

2:37 pm: Question on China market. “I think you should have very positive expectations in China,” Balsillie says.

“China does well,” he says. “You’d always want them to do better….All you can do is keep doing the right things and investing in these places. The market is just so big.” Sometimes markets come faster than you expect, sometimes they come slower, he says. But, he says, “I’ve never seen a market not take off.”

Demand strong, he says, for PlayBook in China and Japan.

2:41 pm: Question on payments. Balsillie says one wouldn’t be going out on a limb to predict Near Field Communications integration.

2:44 pm: A lot of talk on why PlayBook is a good bet for businesses with Balsillie talking about its enterprise strength. Not much new information there.

2:46 pm: Will there be a media strategy to promote the tablet’s media abilities to consumers?

“Oh yeah, yeah,” Balsillie says–again, without giving any new details. Lots of game and media partnerships.

2:50 pm: Everything is fine. Things are great. (That pretty much sums up Balsillie’s statements the last few minutes–Just insert a different question or topic).

2:56 pm: “I think the PlayBook redefines what a tablet should be,” Balsillie says, adding that the fact one can create apps without needing to learn a new language are strengths that RIM’s approach s bringing to the table. “We’re way ahead on that and CIO friendliness, we’re way ahead on that too.”

3:02 pm: Call’s done.

Products on a list to be sunsetted–whatever that means–include MyBlogLog, Yahoo! Picks, AltaVista, Yahoo! Bookmarks, Yahoo! Buzz and Delicious. Some of those properties came from acquisitions and others were internally generated.

The news of the Yahoo plans first came out via a screenshot of the Webcast posted on Twitter by Eric Marcoullier that included a slide with a list of impacted products next to an image of Irving, along with EVP of the Americas Ross Levinsohn, announcing the news.

Marcoullier was founder of MyBlogLog, which created one of the products being shut down. (MyBlogLog was bought by Yahoo in 2007 and has been pretty much neglected ever since.)

The slide also shows plans to merge additional products, including Fire Eagle and Yahoo People Search, and make features out of many others, including Yahoo! Alerts and Yahoo! Calendar. (If you have better eyes than I do, please help identify some of those logos in the comments.)

Marcoullier is no longer at Yahoo, although the validity of his Webcast screenshot was confirmed, after he was quickly criticized on Twitter by various current Yahoo employees who didn’t appreciate it getting out, including Irving himself, who insinuated he would fire whoever leaked the Webcast. (Click on image here to enlarge.)

While the layoffs and shutdowns obviously indicate a de-emphasis of technology products by Yahoo, they aren’t necessarily unwarranted. Some of these products were the same as those mentioned on then-SVP Brad Garlinghouse’s infamous Peanut Butter Memo way back in 2006 as candidates for streamlining.

Update 12:21 p.m. PT: Yahoo’s statement on the matter just came through:

Part of our organizational streamlining involves cutting our investment in underperforming or off-strategy products to put better focus on our core strengths and fund new innovation in the next year and beyond. We continuously evaluate and prioritize our portfolio of products and services, and do plan to shut down some products in the coming months such as Yahoo! Buzz, our Traffic APIs, and others. We will communicate specific plans when appropriate.

In response to a follow-up question about Delicious, which seems to be the “sunsetted” product people are most upset about, the spokeswoman replied:

“We continue to operate Delicious today, and will communicate specific details when appropriate.”

Actually, even if you are watching on a big screen, it’s worth playing with the NBC webcast, just for fun: I’ve tried it a couple of times over the past couple of years, and it’s pretty good: The main attraction is the extra camera angles–in the past, they’ve included a shot dedicated exclusively to Favre, which I like. (Some of you, I realize, may choose other angles.)

This is a great, commonsense offering from NBC and the NFL: There’s absolutely no reason to watch football on a PC unless you have to, so it’s hard to see them losing eyeballs here.

Which means every Web visit–and Web dollar or dime–they do get is purely additive. (Note to those of you who like to gripe about this stuff–you will need to have Microsoft’s (MSFT) Silverlight installed to watch the stream.)

But don’t get used to it. After tonight’s game, NBC and the NFL are only offering this once a week, during NBC’s Sunday-night game. And it goes away entirely once the playoffs start. Beyond that, if you want to watch the NFL on the Web, you’ve either got to pay through the nose for a DirectTV package or try to find an illegal stream.

Meanwhile, note the utter absence of a Web marketing campaign telling you about the NBC feed. It’s been up and running since 2008, but I had to reach out to NBC this morning to confirm that it’s still extant.

It’s easy to understand why the Web games are a quiet experiment, unfortunately: NBC and the other broadcasters–CBS (CBS), News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox and Disney’s (DIS) ABC are paying the NFL a collective $3 billion a year in license fees. So both sides have an incentive, for now, to keep the games a TV-only experience.

Big sports–and pro football in particular–are one of the last bastions of old-style TV economics. Once you see cheap and legal access to the games on the Web, on a regular basis, you’ll know that the TV/Web convergence is here for good.

Gillespie’s old unit, the CBS Interactive News Group, has been folded into a group with the company’s “business brands,” including BNET and MoneyWatch. Greg Mason, who was running the business group, now oversees the whole thing.

This one is literally old news, since it was announced internally all the way back on Jan. 26. But as you may recall, tech and business outlets were under a government mandate that week not to write about anything that wasn’t related to what we then called the Apple (AAPL) tablet. (Remember those days?)

The move would be bigger news if it augured a bigger shake-up at CBS’s digital side, especially since CBS Interactive head Quincy Smith has finally left the company to open up his own M&A shop. But CBS spokeswoman Sarah Cain says that’s not the case.

In a few hours, we’ll get a better sense of how CNET has performed for CBS (CBS) since the company acquired it in a $1.8 billion deal in 2008. CBS is set to announce Q4 earnings shortly, and estimates range widely depending on which analyst you listen to. Anthony DiClemente of Barclays Capital, for instance, thinks Interactive revenue will increase 10 percent, while the unit’s earnings will decrease by 8.8 percent; the consensus calls for an increase of 31 percent and a 36.2 percent drop respectively.

Meanwhile, for completists: Here’s Interactive boss Neil Ashe’s announcement explaining Gillespie’s move and the subsequent changes.

From: Neil Ashe
To: CBSi-ALL
Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 2010 1:15 PM
Subject: Tech, News & Business Announcement

Team:

We begin 2010 in an exciting position. Our brands are growing, and we continue to attract huge audiences and many of the world’s largest advertisers. As we look to the future, our focus remains on creating great content and experiences for our users, and great marketing solutions for our customers.

To that end, we are making changes today that streamline our division by bringing two business units into one. Tech & News and Business will now operate as a single business unit led by Greg Mason. Dave Morris will directly manage the sales organization for this new business unit while remaining in his role as Chief Client Officer for CBS Interactive. Joe Gillespie will work closely with me, Greg and Dave on making this transition a success. He’ll be with us until the end of March, at which time he has decided to leave the company to pursue new opportunities and his other interests, including a new appointment to the board of Jinni.com.

The creation of this new business unit will let us capitalize on the combined power of some of our biggest and most influential brands including CNET, CBSNews.com, CBS MoneyWatch, BNET, ZDNet and TechRepublic. It will also allow us to create better alignment between properties like CBS MoneyWatch and CBSNews.com where there are natural synergies between the content and audiences. This is good for CBS Interactive, as well as CBS as a whole.

For our marketing partners, this change helps simplify how clients work with us.  Individually, each business unit has seen great success cross-pollinating content and selling programs. Combined, we have the ability to do even more of these types of programs, but even faster and on a much larger scale. Dave will work closely with the sales team to create programs that take advantage of the combined power of these leading brands.  And of course, Dave will continue to be our primary representative in the marketplace for CBS Interactive as a whole.

Those of you that have worked with Greg know that he has an incredible track record of building and operating world-class brands, and repeatedly transforming businesses into success stories. He joined CNET Networks in 2000 and was instrumental in rebuilding our business after the bubble burst. He helped lead the charge to launch the Messaging Plus ad units in 2001, which put CNET Networks on the map in terms of industry leadership and innovation. From 2004-2007 Greg led CNET Content Solutions, which he transformed into one of our fastest growing and most consistently profitable businesses. Since 2007, Greg has been at the helm of our business portfolio, during which time he has launched two important new brands–BNET and CBS MoneyWatch, as well as led the continued success of our storied IT brands–ZDNet and TechRepublic.

Greg’s unique ability to manage large businesses, as well as infuse them with his entrepreneurial spirit will serve this new team well as we build upon our success and look to the future.

During his 6 years at CNET Networks and CBS Interactive, Joe has been a driving force in the continued success of CNET.  Under his leadership, CNET is recognized today as the #1 tech media brand in the world, and CBSNews.com became a site worthy of the legacy of CBS News. In 2008, Joe architected the complete relaunch of CNET, which has resulted in record traffic growth ever since. The site recently eclipsed 100 million users for 3 consecutive months (an all-time record). Early on, Joe initiated the use of video across the site, taking CNET beyond just product reviews and making it the definitive resource for people who love technology and want to get the most out of it. This vision also included broadening the coverage model with new content additions like Car Tech and Crave.

At CBSNews.com, Joe led a major site redesign, which has reinvigorated the site, driving growth and attracting new advertisers with a renewed focus on photos and original content. Since its debut in mid-June, unique users are up 22%, page views are up 12% and video streams are up 28%. Joe and his team were also instrumental in helping Katie Couric launch her online presence, executing her Campaign and Inauguration webcasts, and most recently the @KatieCouric webcast.

In addition to being a good friend, Joe has been an invaluable member of my management team and I want to thank him for all his contributions over the years. Please join me in wishing him all the best in his new endeavors.

I’m excited about the possibilities this new business unit creates for us. We’ve got great leaders in Greg and Dave, and world class brands with exciting opportunities in front of them. I know that this new, combined team will achieve great success and I look forward to a prosperous 2010 with the entire CBS Interactive team.

Best, NA

Ugly times. But what a difference a year makes.

Microsoft (MSFT) just reported earnings for its second fiscal quarter, posting significant gains in sales and profits. Net income for the period rose to $6.66 billion, or 74 cents a share, from $4.17 billion, or 47 cents a share in the same period last year. Meanwhile, revenue rose 14 percent to $19.02 billion. Analysts had been expecting earnings of 59 cents a share, and $17.9 billion in revenue.

“Exceptional demand for Windows 7 led to the positive top-line growth for the company,” chief financial officer Peter Klein said in a statement. “Our continuing commitment to managing costs allowed us to drive earnings performance ahead of the revenue growth.”

The release below. Kara Swisher will be covering Microsoft’s earnings over at BoomTown later this afternoon.

Microsoft Reports Record Second-Quarter Results

REDMOND, Wash., Jan 28, 2010 — Microsoft Corp. today announced record revenue of $19.02 billion for the second quarter ended Dec. 31, 2009, a 14% increase from the same period of the prior year. Operating income, net income and diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $8.51 billion, $6.66 billion and $0.74 per share, which represented increases of 43%, 60% and 57%, respectively, when compared with the prior year period.

These financial results include the recognition of $1.71 billion of deferred revenue, an impact of $0.14 of diluted earnings per share, relating to the Windows 7 Upgrade Option Program and pre-sales of Windows 7 to OEMs and retailers before general availability. Adjusting for the deferred revenue recognition, second-quarter revenue totaled $17.31 billion, and diluted earnings per share totaled $0.60 per share.

“Exceptional demand for Windows 7 led to the positive top-line growth for the company,” said Peter Klein, chief financial officer at Microsoft. “Our continuing commitment to managing costs allowed us to drive earnings performance ahead of the revenue growth.”

Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 launched globally on October 22 as anticipated. Through the second quarter, Microsoft has sold over 60 million Windows 7 licenses making it the fastest selling operating system in history.

“This is a record quarter for Windows units,” said Kevin Turner, chief operating officer at Microsoft. “We are thrilled by the consumer reception to Windows 7 and by business enthusiasm to adopt Windows 7.”

Business Outlook

Management will discuss second-quarter results and the company’s business outlook on a conference call and webcast at 2:30 p.m. PST (5:30 p.m. EST) today.

In addition, Microsoft offers operating expense guidance of $26.2 billion to $26.5 billion, for the full year ending June 30, 2010.

You get a lot of video streams. Close to 10 million, says YouTube, adding that Sunday’s live Webcast of U2′s Rose Bowl concert was the single largest event it has streamed so far.

Granted, Google’s (GOOG) video site only started streaming live events last year, and doesn’t do them very often. But this was a pretty good muscle-flexing event, and by all accounts it went pretty well–I read some gripes about the site limiting transfer speeds, but many more raves about the quality of picture and sound.

That 10 million number, spread out over two-plus hours, doesn’t really tell us how many people watched the concert or how many did so concurrently. YouTube’s first attempt at live streaming, its weird “YouTube Live” concert/award show, may have attracted a peak audience of 700,000.

For some context, consider that last week’s episode of “The Mentalist” on CBS (CBS) drew 11.8 million viewers, which made it the 20th-ranked show in the U.S. But the fact that YouTube is even playing in the same league gives you a sense of the site’s reach.

And recall that YouTube boasted this month that it is now streaming more than one billion streams per day, which means that the overwhelming majority of its users were watching something other than Bono and company on Sunday.

You can see an amazingly high-quality version of the concert here, though it isn’t embeddable. But here’s a clip of a fake U2 concert from a couple of years ago.

This morning, BoomTown will be onstage at California First Lady Maria Shriver’s well-known Women’s Conference in Long Beach, to moderate a panel titled “Changing the World Through the Web” for a crowd of 1,800 people.

The panelists for my session at what has become one of the top forums for women’s issues include Hollywood actor/producer, Katalyst co-founder and Twitter demigod Ashton Kutcher (pictured above, of course); Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg, who leads the social networking site’s elections, breaking news and social change initiatives; Premal Shah, president of online microloan site Kiva.org; and Joe Rospars, founder and creative director of Blue State Digital and new media director for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

In other words, as a group, they are all either prettier, smarter or better for the planet than anything I have ginned up so far.

But, to be safe, send some question suggestions quick that you think I should ask in the interview–via Twitter @karaswisher.

In any case, I shall press on and try to conduct myself with some kind of tech dignity, as I query the group on how the Web–especially social media–can empower people to change the world and be more than just one big pool of mundanities, meaningless status updates, silly apps and online gossip.

Speaking of which, it was a minor shock to run smack into reality show whatever-she-is Kate Gosselin at a speaker party last night, who is here to flack a book about–of course–her kids, titled “Eight Little Faces.”

No, I did not make that title up and I suppose it takes all kinds.

But it was especially surreal, since other speakers include–how shall I put this delicately?–much more serious and substantial women, such as primatology legend Dr. Jane Goodall, women’s rights activist Eve Ensler, Obama Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett, a spate of women news legends such as Katie Couric, and even–my personal favorite, for her cheery butter-loving nature–celebrity chef Paula Deen.

For those interested in seeing some of the all-day event online, there’s a live Webcast from the Web site, which you can access here (the Twitter hashtag is #wc09

I will, natch, post a video report later.

A lot of entertainers have been using the Web increasingly to promote upcoming material, so it comes as no surprise that the Jonas Brothers have turned there aggressively to do a countdown for their latest music release.

The new album, which is inexplicably called “Lines, Vines and Trying Times,” is set to debut next week on June 16.

Thus, the pop trio have been doing a lot of online promotions, such a live Facebook Webcast on their fan page today at 5 pm PDT.

And they are also posting a lot of original online videos, especially at their YouTube channel.

Unfortunately, the digital hawking includes the one below, which is due to some fan request that has landed Joe Jonas in spike heels and a leotard, doing a bizarre dance interpretation of Beyoncé’s infectious and very viral music video, “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It).”

After that video soared last fall, a lot of fans did their own versions, including a very funny spoof by Justin Timberlake, essentially doing the same gig as Jonas (except funny).

But, you be the judge.

Here are all three: Beyoncé in the original, TImberlake in the spoof (a bad version–sorry) and Joe Jonas in, well, it is hard to describe:

After factoring out one-time charges and write-offs, Bob Iger and company earned 43 cents a share on revenue of $8.1 billion. Wall Street had been looking for 40 cents and $8.15 billion, respectively.

Iger: “We had a difficult second quarter due to the weak economy and other factors.”

The bright spot for the entertainment conglomerate is the same one you see at every media giant these days: Disney’s cable business. Revenue at ESPN and the Disney Channel was up four percent and operating income was up five percent. That’s because those powerhouse channels have locked in payments from cable operators that show up regardless of the economy’s state.

And that’s why you won’t see (much) programming from those channels on Hulu–there’s no way Iger is going to rile up the cable operators who pay for that programming by running it for free online.

Disney’s interactive group, which includes videogames and sites like Club Penguin, but not revenue from ABC.com and sales from Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes store, saw revenue decline 17 percent, and operating income drop two percent.

Here’s the breakdown by segment (click to enlarge):

Write-down watch: Disney took $203 million in “impairment charges”–accountant-speak for “the stuff we bought back then isn’t worth much now.” That includes “$108 million related to radio FCC licenses and $46 million related to an investment in an Indian media company.”

This follows on the heels of a lousy February quarter in which the company didn’t hit expectations.

Disney (DIS) is the first of several big media companies to report this week. News Corp. (NWS) weighs in tomorrow, followed by CBS (CBS) on Thursday.

The Disney earnings call is starting now. I’ll listen in and update as warranted.

Disney CFO Tom Staggs on ad market, economy: “While we believe the pace of decline has generally stabilized, we believe ad buyers and consumers remain cautious.”

During Q&A, Iger has a long monologue about online philosophy, Hulu, etc., but my Webcast cut him off before he was finished. Don’t know whether to blame Disney or Time Warner Cable (TWC) for that one….

In any event, here’s my paraphrase of what I could get down, with a smattering of quotes:

“We found that as we move product to the Web…at least [with regard to] piracy that we’re aware of, there’s been a stabilization….We feel that if we don’t put it online…it will be demanded by consumers, and they’ll find ways.”

Research on cannibalization and piracy in general is inconclusive and some research conflicts with other research we’ve seen. “Some of this is instinct, by the way. It’s not all based on research.”

We feel media consumption is moving to the Web and that media consumption may be expanding. We think we’re better being online than not being online. We realize that Web monetization doesn’t exist yet, at least not at TV-like levels, but we believe that eventually it will.

A lot of the consumption that we’re seeing is incremental because it’s a different demographic. The average age of consumers watching ABC.com and itunes is younger than the average age of those watching network TV. The Hulu demographic is generally younger than prime-time network demographics. So we don’t believe it’s cannibalization.

It has not yet been given a price or a release date, but Palm’s forthcoming Pre handset continues to have a remarkably restorative effect on the company’s share price. It wasn’t so long ago that Palm shares were trading just above a dollar. Today, they’re hovering around $8.67, bouyed up by little more than the device’s Consumer Electronics Show debut, an uneventful media Webcast, some hyperbolic remarks from one of the company’s investors and the enthusiasm of a few bullish analysts. Among them, Deutsche Bank’s Chris Whitmore and Jonathan Goldberg, who boosted their price target on Palm (PALM) to $12 from $10 today claiming that Palm will not only ship the device on schedule, but will follow it up with other form factors. “Since their earnings release last week, we have conducted a round of checks on Palm and remain confident in the potential for their new Pre smartphone to turnaround the company’s results,” the two wrote in a note. “The Pre timetable seems on track at least, and both carrier and developer interest remains high….We also confirmed earlier checks and vague hints on their recent call that the company is working on other form factors which we could see in the market sooner than expected.”

Quite a vote of confidence. Though to be fair, it’s not shared by everyone. Certainly, Needham analyst Charlie Wolf is looking askance at claims that the Pre will turn out to be Palm’s iPhone. “The stock appears fully valued even if the Pre turns into a stunning success,” he wrote in a recent research note. “To have management tell it, WebOS is the best thing since sliced bread and the Pre is a thing of beauty. Obviously, with the platform launch still weeks away, it’s impossible to challenge them.”

Fascinating.

AT&T initially characterized the deletion of unkind statements about the White House from Pearl Jam’s performance as “an unfortunate mistake” and “an isolated incident.” But after music fans pointed out that the company deleted remarks critical of the Bush administration from its Webcast of the Bonnaroo Festival as well, AT&T came clean. “It’s not our intent to edit political comments in Webcasts on the Blue Room,” said AT&T spokesman Michael Coe. “Unfortunately, it has happened in the past in a handful of cases. We have taken steps to insure that it will not happen again.”

AT&T’s mea culpa, though seemingly earnest, didn’t carry much weight with Net-neutrality advocates, who said the incidents highlight the need for regulations barring large telephone and cable companies from excercising too much control over the data transmitted over their networks. “AT&T is really getting into its role as content nanny in a big way,” Art Brodsky, communications director for Public Knowledge, wrote in the Huffington Post. “First, it starts monitoring all sorts of conversations for the National Security Agency. Then it promises to work with the movie studios and NBC to come up with some super software to tag copyrighted material that flows through its network, regardless of how that content is used. Now it puts ‘content monitors’ on its Webcasts. We must ask: This is the company that wants to be left alone to run the Internet as it sees fit? The corporate officials of AT&T like to give speeches and to tell the FCC and Congress that they won’t block people’s access to content. They made that promise when they bought BellSouth for $80 billion last year. Former AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre made it in a speech last March. They protest too much. Despite the denials from Whitacre and others in the telecom industry, this incident is just one more count in the indictment. Millions of people all over the country have signed petitions and told the government that they don’t want companies like AT&T to have control over what goes over the Internet. If you have to ask why, this is why.”

Here are a few questions about computers I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. This week my mailbox contained questions about watching Major League Baseball’s streaming Webcasts of games, the capacity of digital music players and the security of Wi-Fi.

I just bought a new Mac and I love it, but I am a die-hard Yankees fan and I find that, with the Mac, I can’t watch Major League Baseball’s streaming Webcasts of games. Is there a way around this?

Since I am a huge Red Sox fan, I hesitate to help you … but I will.

It doesn’t work, because MLB.com this year switched to a Microsoft video format that the Mac version of Windows Media Player can’t handle and it doesn’t support the Safari Web browser that Apple includes on every Mac. There is a workaround: download and use Firefox, instead of Safari; and download and install Flip4Mac, a free program that allows QuickTime to handle the newest Windows Media video format. You can get it at: http://flip4mac.com/.

But even this solution is seriously flawed. The problem — and the Flip4Mac people are working on it — is that it plays only for a few batters or so, and then you have to restart it by relaunching the TV feed in the Web site. This is a pain, but it does work, sort of.

A better solution is to simply run Windows on your Mac, and then play the MLB videos on that. I do this using a product called Parallels desktop, which runs Windows inside a window on your Mac. It’s available at: www.parallels.com.

I am not clear about capacity on digital music players. As far as I can determine, most music CDs run to about 600-700 MB, so a mere 10 CDs would fill most of a 10-gigabyte iPod, correct? On the other hand, I recently read that all of Mozart’s works would fit on a 10-GB iPod. So what’s wrong with my calculations?

When companies calculate the capacity of digital music players in terms of songs or CDs, they base their calculations on the use of music files that have been drastically shrunk from their original size on a CD. This is done by converting the songs to compressed file formats, including the MP3, WMA, or AAC formats. This is what happens when you import, or “rip,” a CD into iTunes or Windows Media Player on your computer in preparation for loading the songs onto a portable player.

A typical MP3 file compresses CD music by a factor of 10 or more. So, a 650-megabyte CD might take up just 60-65 megabytes on a computer or a portable player. There is a price to this compression: The quality of the music file is degraded. However, most people find the quality acceptable, especially with common types of music — pop, rock, country and hip-hop.

Many audiophiles and classical-music fans choose to compress their CDs less drastically, seeking a balance between space-saving and quality. This can be achieved by changing the settings in your music software. Others opt for no compression at all, though, as you noted, that severely limits how much music you can squeeze onto a portable player.

I would like to link up the computers in my home wirelessly but am apprehensive about the security aspects. Is it safe to use Wi-Fi?

Yes, in almost all cases. Wi-Fi networks come with an optional security feature that requires anyone using them to know your password. So, you can turn that on. Even if you don’t, your files would be at risk only if you had a neighbor close enough to access the network who is both skilled enough and nasty enough to want to poke around in your files. In most neighborhoods, that combination is pretty rare, as is the likelihood that hackers will drive down your street in a van with a laptop and steal your secrets.

However, I would also maintain a software firewall and turn off all file-sharing features of your operating system and other software.

There are exceptions. If you live in a large apartment building, the number of potential snoopers who are strangers goes way up, since many more people will be close enough to access your network than they would be in a suburban neighborhood of single-family homes. Also, no security system is perfect. Determined hackers could theoretically break into any wireless network.

But, in most scenarios, I believe Wi-Fi is safe.

* * *

Because of the volume of e-mail I receive, I can’t routinely answer individual questions by e-mail, or consult on individual problems or purchasing decisions. I read all questions I receive and select three each week to answer in the column.

• Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com