I saw this question on a certification exam for WSS 3.0. I narrowed down the answer and it appears that I was right. I wasn't sure if I was correct, so I consulted someone and they looked up the answer. I also went around google to see what is the actual answer. It turns out if you don't run Item.Update(), but instead Item.SystemUpdate() it doesn't end up modifying the Modified and Modified By fields. This basically means that no alert will get sent when you choose this option over the regular update option. It’s almost as if a ghost is modifying the fields, because you can’t really tell the fields are updated without paying close attention to what they were beforehand. Pretty cool in theory, but if you use this option too much I can see it becoming unregulated code. As Uncle Ben says, “with great great power comes great responsibility.” You as the SharePoint Developer need to make sure you run all the options before using one piece of code over another piece of code. With that I will catch you guys later. That concludes your daily tip for today and possibly the week.