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Yes, it's true. The FBI had a file on Steve Jobs. It's not what you might think, though. The FBI performed a "level III" background investigation on Jobs as a potential presidential appointee in 1991. He was described by most witnesses as an "individual of good character and integrity" that would be suitable for a "position of trust and confidence with the Government." Jobs also had a brush with the FBI when Apple received a bomb threat in 1985.

It seems like every advance in digital music brings with it a debate about whether the latest format degrades quality in exchange for convenience. This was true when CDs first came onto the scene, and it's probably even more true today with MP3s and their digital audio brethren. Heck, even the advent of the gramophone in 1889 sparked debates over whether its sound quality was worse than Thomas Edison's phonograph.

Last week, rock veteran Neil Young chimed in with his assertion that the digital music files we listen to today are of much lower quality than the original recordings. Speaking at the D: Dive Into Media conference, he said that the technology now exists to deliver much higher-quality audio to music fans, and that he had even talked to Steve Jobs about a possible solution.

At this point there's probably nothing in geekdom, no matter how arcane, that hasn't ended up on someone's skin. "In" someone's skin, to be precise. From ASCII art, to xkcd comics, to video games, to binary, to parts of your childhood you just can't leave behind, there are entire sites like Geeky Tattoos now devoted to nerd ink.

Back in 2010 we put together our first list of the 30 best and worst Web tech tattoos. Here's our latest compilation, including an augmented reality tattoo, HTML tags, Javascript and C++, Debian, Wordpress, Google, Microsoft, RFID, QR codes, even Bill Gates' face. If you have work that's better, or worse, show it off in the comments.

The death of Steve Jobs has rocked people the world over, affecting everyone from the most hardcore Apple fanboy to Barack Obama to all those gathered outside the new Apple store in Shanghai. While Steve Jobs will be remembered for revolutionizing personal computing, the music industry, consumer mobile products, film animation and even fonts, the other side of his legacy is one of hyper-control: Apple's proprietary software, the iPhone's closed-off ecology, App Store censorship and the company's labor law violations. If there was ever a company that capitalized on American consumers languishing in late-stage capitalism, it was Apple. And they did it by inventing "cool" products that we didn't even know we needed - till we needed them.

I promise I didn't write this in advance, waiting for the appropriate moment to unleash it from the vault of pre-conceived, pre-digested stories about the deceased the way one fills in the Free Space in the middle of "N" on the Bingo card. When people would ask me, what will you write when Steve Jobs dies, I declined to answer because I didn't want to think about it. I sincerely believed if anyone could beat pancreatic cancer, it would be him.

This year was another huge one for the Web and the companies, technologies and individuals that make things happen on it. We saw groundbreaking new devices unveiled, key companies go public, a few tech fumbles and we lost some visionaries.

Narrowing down the ten biggest Web news stories of 2011 was no easy task. Lots of stories had a massive impact. Some of them fit into a larger, ongoing trend, while many are singular, important events. Some stories broke to extensive attention and fanfare, only to see their significance fizzle out within a few weeks. We've painstakingly whittled down ten of the biggest stories of the year and rounded them up for you here.

While thus far, there's general consensus that Tim Cook is doing, and may continue to do, a fine job at Apple stepping into the shoes of his lauded predecessor, Steve Jobs, there looms a bigger issue. There appears to be, at least in the public conscience, a lack of leadership and direction from the chief executives of corporations, including tech firms. And in fact, 2011 may be characterized as a year of misdirection from the head office.

Is this actually a problem; do Americans and Canadians actually need a CEO they can look up to? Or are CEOs typically glorified by virtue of a lack of deserving leaders in the public space? This American reporter discussed these questions with our favorite Canadian contributor, CTV News Channel analyst Carmi Levy.

Over the weekend I finished reading the authorized biography of Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson. It's a hefty 650 pages and spans the entire life and career of Steve Jobs, the iconic Apple co-founder who sadly passed away a month ago. The biography is well worth reading, I gave the book 5/5 stars. I'll even say that it should be required reading for technology entrepreneurs and anybody who wants to be a leader in our industry. The biography is a sympathetic one, so don't expect to read a great deal of criticism about Steve Jobs. Despite that, it's a well-rounded portrayal of a man destined to be remembered as one of the great product visionaries of our time.

There's plenty to learn from the biography. Here are three of the main lessons that I took from the book. Each comes from an aspect of Steve Jobs' own personality, which he managed to instill into his company Apple. (Note: don't worry, there aren't any spoilers in this post!)

However underwhelmed the initial response to its launch may have seemed, the iPhone 4S just broke Apple's sales records. The company's latest smartphone, which was unveiled last week, sold over 1 million units in its first 24 hours of being available to pre-order.

To put things in perspective, when the iPhone 4 launched last year, it set a record for Apple by racking up 600,000 pre-orders in a single day. Even though it's not the dramatically overhauled iPhone 5 many were hoping for, Apple's latest gadget has smashed the company's previous single day sales record by more than 66 percent. In terms of first day pre-orders, the iPhone 4S is the most successful product Apple has ever released.

It's time for free software to find a new voice. Once again, Free Software Foundation founder Richard Stallman is putting his feet firmly in his mouth. This time, Stallman says that he's glad Steve Jobs is gone.

It's no secret that RMS and Steve Jobs held firmly opposed views when it comes to software freedom. I didn't expect Stallman to hold a vigil at an Apple store for Jobs, or even to say much of anything at all. But his ill-considered response does nothing for the cause of free software, and actually does a lot of damage.