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Win ME (upgrade): $82.09
Win 2000 (upgrade): $171.95

Debian GNU/Linux: Free for download (I bought it for ~$20 shrink-wrapped)

FreeBSD: Free for the download (or $49.49 shrink-wrapped)

Solaris: Free for the download, or $75 shrink-wrapped, under "Free Solaris Binary License", not sure about commercial users.

------

Win ME (upgrade): $82.09
Win 2000 (upgrade): $171.95

Debian GNU/Linux: Free for download (I bought it for ~$20 shrink-wrapped)

FreeBSD: Free for the download (or $49.49 shrink-wrapped)

Solaris: Free for the download, or $75 shrink-wrapped, under "Free Solaris Binary License", not sure about commercial users.

------

For example, merchants cannot favor the use of one card over the other ("We'll take Amex, but we prefer Visa.").

http://www.us.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=20152 701&loc=2081

I don't know where you're buying your computers from, but they shouldn't cost $2000.

http://www.us.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=20152 701&loc=2081

I don't know where you're buying your computers from, but they shouldn't cost $2000.

d-link makes a wireless access point w/ a built in hub. it's not hard to find if you look. i'll even throw in a link to it

Depending on where you look, many are sold out: Amazon and Buy for instance. I did find some in stock at Kmart (anyone know what model that is? it doesnt say) as well as Circuit City (link may not work, uses sessionID stuff).

-----
If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed...

Does it bother anyone else that buycrack.com redirects to buy.com?

SeekBooks - $10.68
Buy.com - $11.06
Amazon - $11.20
Borders - $11.90
Barnes and Noble - $12.60

Or for those who want an autographed copy, there's one here at eBay selling for $5.50.

Checking the URL, I'm not whoring for some affiliate programs. I did this for the karma.

Not at the present time, although Porivo Technologies has a sweepstakes running. This sweepstakes is currently a $2000 shopping spree from buy.com! Also, better than other sweepstakes that I've heard about, the second and third place winners even get $1000 themselves! I love great prizes :)

One of the nicest things I've noticed is that Porivo's client doesn't actually nail your CPU (and subsequently your power bill :) like other clients. Their main focus appears to be on Web site performance testing. Since I'm a big-time gamer that's much more interested in keeping my CPU free and latencies low, the very slight amount of bandwidth needed doesn't affect me. Combined with the bonus of a nicer sweepstakes prize, they've got me hooked :)

You may remember Porivo from their earlier coverage, here on Slashdot

Testing? What's that? If it compiles, it is good. If it boots up it is perfect -- Linus Torvalds

Because it seems that, while he is good with numbers, he stinks at prices.
I cannot find a single video card at the prices he has mentioned.
The cheapest Gladiac was $170 (pricewatch), and the cheapeast Radeon was $180 (buy.com).
What gives??

-D

If you live in the UK, you can get a fairly cheap USB 100Mb Zip drive if you buy it from gb.buy.com.

So you get the drive itself for £55.22, anything else to take the cost up to £60 (like a blue zip-up 24-CD case (not Zip-related, but still; might be handy sometime), and then use the £30 off £60 coupon for new users (I believe it figures out new users from looking at credit card numbers) that you can get from here.

... meaning that you can get a new 100Mb USB Zip drive for a total of £30.74 with free delivery :-)

If you live in the UK, you can get a fairly cheap USB 100Mb Zip drive if you buy it from gb.buy.com.

So you get the drive itself for £55.22, anything else to take the cost up to £60 (like a blue zip-up 24-CD case (not Zip-related, but still; might be handy sometime), and then use the £30 off £60 coupon for new users (I believe it figures out new users from looking at credit card numbers) that you can get from here.

... meaning that you can get a new 100Mb USB Zip drive for a total of £30.74 with free delivery :-)

If you live in the UK, you can get a fairly cheap USB 100Mb Zip drive if you buy it from gb.buy.com.

So you get the drive itself for £55.22, anything else to take the cost up to £60 (like a blue zip-up 24-CD case (not Zip-related, but still; might be handy sometime), and then use the £30 off £60 coupon for new users (I believe it figures out new users from looking at credit card numbers) that you can get from here.

... meaning that you can get a new 100Mb USB Zip drive for a total of £30.74 with free delivery :-)

We can credit W3C for being forward-looking, but I expect that CSSMP will go the way of WAP.

Perhaps not. I believe the point of this newly crafted subset of CSS2 is to provide a stable reference for useful functions that ought to be in mobile devices (meaning ultra-portable devices with limited display capabilities, and not meaning laptops which might have better display capabilities than many quite old desktop computer layouts with small VGA monitors which are still in use throughout the world).

This area is of keen interest to me, and after the long agony with simple HTML 3.2/4.0[1]+ and with CSS1 through the still not-quite-totally-there CSS2, any way to avoid any more standards wrangling will come as a great relief to those of us who have to actually do this stuff for a living. I'd imagine that XSLT 1.0+ engines will do much of the actual work, and it really helps to be able to more or less reuse all that existing work with a near-exact subset of CSS2.

Anyways, I'm back (in a few minutes, after a little more procrastination) to figuring out how to most efficiently split up parts of (simple for now) XML documents for later Java/Python XML/XSLT processing, while allowing simpler, more immediate PHP 4.0+ XML processing. Argh ....

Cheaper Then a Playstation 2:

USB CD-RW drive
Palm IIIxe

Cheaper Then a Playstation 2's rumored eBay sale value:

FireWire CD-RW drive
iBook

Unlimited:

Porsche Carrera GT




Refrag

Is 1-click really easier? It requires over 400 words of explanation!

The media loves Jeff Bezos saying that he wants to make Amazon.com the most "customer-centric company in the world". But whenever I've tried to order something from Amazon, I've gotten so annoyed at the interface that I've given up, and bought somewhere else (usually Buy.com, which is slightly less annoying).

In practice, 1-click is nice only if you have been willing to pay a price in your time to get started, and you have been willing to accept involvement in the complicated issues raised in the explanation above. Once you have paid a price in your time, you pay again in money for the convenience: I've found that Amazon.com is usually more expensive.

The reality, I've found, is that it is necessary to stay flexible and shop around.

According to an Amazon press release, Amazon tries different prices on different customers to survey how much people will pay. Supposedly they give back money to those who paid more during the survey. Playing complicated adversarial games in which the customer is not a player, but is the ball, is not convenient for the customer, only for Amazon.

Convenience is meaningful only if the total experience is convenient.

The bottom line is Amazon is not a monopoly, they have plenty of competition.

So they can charge any damn price they want, reasonable or not. If you don't like it, you can do two things with sound moral ground beneath your feet:

1) Stop doing business with them. (I have, long ago.)

2) Discuss it publicly to show your displeasure to Amazon, and to warn other consumers about the behavior.

Amazon is being assholes again. Is anybody surprised?

Stop doing business with them. Try buy.com or FatBrain.

Or even Barnes and Noble, unless they've screwed you too.

-

3. Uhhh What about all those commercial unixes and other operating systems like QNX that are not free (yet) there are still a few.

I did say "most alternative OS's are free (as in beer)." didn't I?

Hmm... well, how much does a single-user copy of Office cost? Buy.com has $396.95 for a copy of Office Standard... $40 bucks back would be about 10% of the price... not too bad of a return...

Earlier research, released by Soundscan in May, showed declining CD sales at stores near universities

In other news, computer stores and books stores next to college campuses are showing the lowest sales rates in years.

I wonder why? Could there perhaps be a connection?

Seriously. Many digicam and PDA owners report low battery life after switching from flash to the microdrive. 1.2GB type II PC card flash memory is available. Now you know.

• http://www.wvWare.com/, maybe the best open source Word converter? Formerly "mswordview", it's a library and a front-end app, which is currently AbiWord's converter.
• word2x
• AbiSource, a company producing an open source, cross platform, comercial office suite. Their motto was "SHOW ME THE SOURCE!!!", which we had to scream at the March 1999 Linuxworld Expo in order to get their t-shirt.
• Adobe FrameMaker for Linux -- Not sure if it does Office, but it's a commercial word processor!
• VistaSource / ApplixWare -- Cross platform, partially open source, complete office suite and integrated development environment in the form of either a local app, or as a Java-based thin client plus app server architecture. Compare to StarOffice. My experience has been that you can send an un-convertable Office document to Applix's closely-monitored community support mailing list, and they will attempt to modify Applixware's import filters around it, and send you a patch. How cool is that?
• S un StarOffice. Very good as well. Complete office suite. StarOffice and Applixware are capable of replacing Microsoft Office for literally most people.
• Corel Wordperfect -- See also Corel's Linux distribution.
• KDE's KOffice -- Open source office suite.
• Freshmeat.net's index of office apps

• StarOffice for Dummies http://www.us.buy.com/books/pr oduct.asp?sku=30490259 $14.99 (Save $1.00 over amazon.com) Replaces: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764505769/ ref%3Dsim%5Fbooks/103-4415661-32230 16

• Special Edition Using StarOffice, replaces htt p://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0789719932/ref =sim_books/002-2291160-6260020.

• Applixware 5 Bible for Linux w/cd-rom http://www.us.buy.com/books/pr oduct.asp?sku=30546347 $29.99 ($2 less than amazon.com) Replaces: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764534033/ qid%3D959095708/sr%3D1-3/002 -2291160-626002

• http://www.us.buy.com/books/pr oduct.asp?sku=30400392 $14.99 ($1 less than amazon.com) Replaces: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0672314126/ ref=sim_books/002-2291160-6260020

• Mastering Koffice for Linux w/ cd-rom http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/b ooksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=4LAQC2IL93&mscssi d=DLK6S46966S92MG1001PQUW78818A314&srefe r=&isbn=0782126529, replaces http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0782126529/ qid%3D959095770/002-0803865-4820213

• http://www.wvWare.com/, maybe the best open source Word converter? Formerly "mswordview", it's a library and a front-end app, which is currently AbiWord's converter.
• word2x
• AbiSource, a company producing an open source, cross platform, comercial office suite. Their motto was "SHOW ME THE SOURCE!!!", which we had to scream at the March 1999 Linuxworld Expo in order to get their t-shirt.
• Adobe FrameMaker for Linux -- Not sure if it does Office, but it's a commercial word processor!
• VistaSource / ApplixWare -- Cross platform, partially open source, complete office suite and integrated development environment in the form of either a local app, or as a Java-based thin client plus app server architecture. Compare to StarOffice. My experience has been that you can send an un-convertable Office document to Applix's closely-monitored community support mailing list, and they will attempt to modify Applixware's import filters around it, and send you a patch. How cool is that?
• S un StarOffice. Very good as well. Complete office suite. StarOffice and Applixware are capable of replacing Microsoft Office for literally most people.
• Corel Wordperfect -- See also Corel's Linux distribution.
• KDE's KOffice -- Open source office suite.
• Freshmeat.net's index of office apps

• StarOffice for Dummies http://www.us.buy.com/books/pr oduct.asp?sku=30490259 $14.99 (Save $1.00 over amazon.com) Replaces: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764505769/ ref%3Dsim%5Fbooks/103-4415661-32230 16

• Special Edition Using StarOffice, replaces htt p://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0789719932/ref =sim_books/002-2291160-6260020.

• Applixware 5 Bible for Linux w/cd-rom http://www.us.buy.com/books/pr oduct.asp?sku=30546347 $29.99 ($2 less than amazon.com) Replaces: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764534033/ qid%3D959095708/sr%3D1-3/002 -2291160-626002

• http://www.us.buy.com/books/pr oduct.asp?sku=30400392 $14.99 ($1 less than amazon.com) Replaces: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0672314126/ ref=sim_books/002-2291160-6260020

• Mastering Koffice for Linux w/ cd-rom http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/b ooksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=4LAQC2IL93&mscssi d=DLK6S46966S92MG1001PQUW78818A314&srefe r=&isbn=0782126529, replaces http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0782126529/ qid%3D959095770/002-0803865-4820213

• http://www.wvWare.com/, maybe the best open source Word converter? Formerly "mswordview", it's a library and a front-end app, which is currently AbiWord's converter.
• word2x
• AbiSource, a company producing an open source, cross platform, comercial office suite. Their motto was "SHOW ME THE SOURCE!!!", which we had to scream at the March 1999 Linuxworld Expo in order to get their t-shirt.
• Adobe FrameMaker for Linux -- Not sure if it does Office, but it's a commercial word processor!
• VistaSource / ApplixWare -- Cross platform, partially open source, complete office suite and integrated development environment in the form of either a local app, or as a Java-based thin client plus app server architecture. Compare to StarOffice. My experience has been that you can send an un-convertable Office document to Applix's closely-monitored community support mailing list, and they will attempt to modify Applixware's import filters around it, and send you a patch. How cool is that?
• S un StarOffice. Very good as well. Complete office suite. StarOffice and Applixware are capable of replacing Microsoft Office for literally most people.
• Corel Wordperfect -- See also Corel's Linux distribution.
• KDE's KOffice -- Open source office suite.
• Freshmeat.net's index of office apps

• StarOffice for Dummies http://www.us.buy.com/books/pr oduct.asp?sku=30490259 $14.99 (Save $1.00 over amazon.com) Replaces: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764505769/ ref%3Dsim%5Fbooks/103-4415661-32230 16

• Special Edition Using StarOffice, replaces htt p://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0789719932/ref =sim_books/002-2291160-6260020.

• Applixware 5 Bible for Linux w/cd-rom http://www.us.buy.com/books/pr oduct.asp?sku=30546347 $29.99 ($2 less than amazon.com) Replaces: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764534033/ qid%3D959095708/sr%3D1-3/002 -2291160-626002

• http://www.us.buy.com/books/pr oduct.asp?sku=30400392 $14.99 ($1 less than amazon.com) Replaces: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0672314126/ ref=sim_books/002-2291160-6260020

• Mastering Koffice for Linux w/ cd-rom http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/b ooksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=4LAQC2IL93&mscssi d=DLK6S46966S92MG1001PQUW78818A314&srefe r=&isbn=0782126529, replaces http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0782126529/ qid%3D959095770/002-0803865-4820213

Hear, hear. This camera is monstrously huge. In the same price range, Fuji makes a camera only moderately larger than a Canon Elph with better resolution and which takes the tiny SmartMedia cards. Are the cards slightly more expensive then I'd like? Sure. Is the transfer speed of the camera's built-in connection fast enough to make the $30 SmartMedia PC Card unnecessary? No. But you throw it into a coat pocket and completely forget it's there; I use mine (the prior model) all the time. I really can't even imagine why I'd want something like this Sony.

Speaking of the Linksys router, I just bought the same one you have, but without the 4-ports (I already have a hub). Supports the same features and is just $103 at buy.com. There should be a a $20 coupon available on orders of $100 or more for first-time and returning customers, which drops the price down to $83.

Sure, a linux router is a fun solution, but if you don't have the hardware to spare, this router does a great job.

You can get a D-Link 100Mbps 8-port switch for $80.95 from buy.com...

Well the game looks like a perfect fit for someone like me, even if it is 'Quake 2'. For one, at least it's a few different maps. Second, it runs on an NT machine which doesn't happen to be owned by someone with enough cash to drop on a P-III and a massive video card. And, you can get Daikatana from buy.com for $32.94 plus shipping. Using one of these coupons and the price goes down to $22.94 plus shipping or $32.94 with no shipping. Thanks to pricescan.com and amazing-bargains.com for finding the price and coupon, respectively. The point being, go out, buy the game, judge for yourself. If nothing else the story, whatever its faults, seems original enough to perhaps at least prod the FPS world out of the 'boom boom boom' mode (even if not in the same way as Thief 2). Of course, nothing looks as cool as what the people over at artifact entertainment are doing: Demise and Horizons. Both labors of love in their own right. (Demise is, btw, the successor to Mordor, and was formerly called 'Infinite Worlds'.) Demise is out and ready for order, and Horizons is pretty alpha atm.

He's called 'The Wolf' in the film, maybe if only as a nickname. Maybe if you had watched it recently, you might have known that. and yes, why there are more, this one just recently came out on DVD.

--
Gonzo Granzeau

So why does buy.com already have it up for sale?

So why does buy.com already have it up for sale?

CompactFlash is much easier to handle than SmartMedia... I'm the kind of person that scratches CDs easily, and I'd be scared to have those (relatively) delicate SmartMedia cards. Can anyone here adapt this hack ("hack this hack"?) to be able to use CompactFlash? Plus, there are more applications for CompactFlash (The TRGPro for example) that would offset the cost of an IBM MicroDrive.

Could this control a Hard drive as well? It'd be nice to be able to make your own EMPEG type device.. Throw on your own LCD and one of these monsters and you're set. 75 Gigs of MP3 storage. Is there a better way to do this than with these schematics?

A must have, though, is a card reader. This RADICALLY changes how you use your camera. I have the USB Cameramate from Microtech. If you're a Wintel user, it allows you to mount the card reader as lettered drives (e.g. G:\), then getting pictures off your card is just a matter of inserting the card, then browsing to the drive and copying pictures off like files. And it's quick since it's USB.

To me, the main benefit of a digital camera is that because there's essentially no marginal cost to taking pictures, I take a lot more of them, which makes the digital camera more fun.

Current discounted street prices are around $450. FWIW, here's a buy.com link to the camera. I understand that Fuji has higher res models in this form factor now, but you'll naturally pay more.

HELL-OOO portable server! =) Just plug 'er into the wall and the 'Net and you're good to go. If something goes wrong, plug it into the TV and pop the keyboard on. (Wiggling with excitement) AWESOME!

David E. Weekly

I bought a nice 19" CTX short-neck from buy.com, and am very happy with it, and the proce was excellent. They also make 21 inch models: buy.com listings. They seem to be reasonably priced ($657-$771).

1. The Cobalt Qube2 starts at an MSRP of $995 and can be found for well under $900
2. The Qube2 will allow you to do alot more development than the Interjet ...
3. Sure, the Sun server is probably more reliable and faster, but show me where you can find a sun server for that $1500 that includes all the necessary services and the web-GUI
4. don't need the GUI? Able to make your own? Don't buy a Qube2 or an Interjet ... you're not their intended market
5. Sorry to sound gritchy ... been a long day and have a hangover :)

While definately not as nice a price as the Circuit City $150-$190
Circuit City online has them listed at $179.99
http://www.circu itcity.com/detail.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0228002481. 0950906976@@@@&BV_EngineID=dalhckjeegibe mfcfkmcgcg.0&bookmark=bookmark_0&oid=18772&index=0

Buy.com also seems to have a limited lot of them for sale also at $255.95.
http://www.buy.com/clearance/ product.asp?sku=70000060

I thought I would throw that in for the geek that must have one and can't find them anywhere else or doesn't want to get out of bed :)

(also interesting in terms of comparison)

While definately not as nice a price as the Circuit City $150-$190
Circuit City online has them listed at $179.99
http://www.circu itcity.com/detail.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0228002481. 0950906976@@@@&BV_EngineID=dalhckjeegibe mfcfkmcgcg.0&bookmark=bookmark_0&oid=18772&index=0

Buy.com also seems to have a limited lot of them for sale also at $255.95.
http://www.buy.com/clearance/ product.asp?sku=70000060

I thought I would throw that in for the geek that must have one and can't find them anywhere else or doesn't want to get out of bed :)

(also interesting in terms of comparison)

It looks like the attack on Yahoo! is not an isolated incident. Several major websites suffered similiar attacks today. Among them were ebay, buy.com, amazon.com, and cnn.com. The NY Times story can be found here. This is particularly interesting, as Buy.com had their IPO today. Furthermore, it appears that the FBI is becoming involved. Thoughts?

Whoever is doing this (obviously a large group coordinated somehow) has got a LOT of power behind what they're doing. eBay goes down like a cheap whore, but Yahoo, Amazon, and Cnn are not known for their vulnerability.

ABC News is reporting that two more web sites were hit in the last 24 hours, in attacks remarkably similar to the one that hit Yahoo. One website was Buy.com, which was hit just as their stock was going IPO with 800 megabytes of traffic per second in a coordinated DoS (smurf?) attack. The other website was eBay. The Yahoo attack used one gigabyte of traffic per second, according to ABCNews. Full story is here.

It's cheaper ($138.95) from Buy.com (as opposed to $169.95), but it's back ordered. Does Slashdot have issue with buy.com?

Linksys 4 station switches are great. They do both at and ps/2 type connectors on the same switch (necessary for older equipment), can be cascaded for multiple machines, are electronic and only cost $104 at buy.com (http://www.buy.com/comp/product.as p?SKU=10022032 You can also use the cheaper Belkins cables to connect everything (http://www.buy.com/comp/product.as p?SKU=10029779 The downside to the fancier Linksys 8 station device is that you have to buy their more expensive special cables. When using this switch I have found that you have to be viewing a booting machine through hardware mouse detection (if the system does it) and sometimes (NT/2000) through mouse driver loading in the operating system. After that everthing works flawlessly for my two AT/Serial attached devices, one PS/2 attached device and laptop with PS/2 splitter for kb and mouse. Do not get this device confused with LinkSys' newer compact PS/2 only switches for $70 on buy.com.

Linksys 4 station switches are great. They do both at and ps/2 type connectors on the same switch (necessary for older equipment), can be cascaded for multiple machines, are electronic and only cost $104 at buy.com (http://www.buy.com/comp/product.as p?SKU=10022032 You can also use the cheaper Belkins cables to connect everything (http://www.buy.com/comp/product.as p?SKU=10029779 The downside to the fancier Linksys 8 station device is that you have to buy their more expensive special cables. When using this switch I have found that you have to be viewing a booting machine through hardware mouse detection (if the system does it) and sometimes (NT/2000) through mouse driver loading in the operating system. After that everthing works flawlessly for my two AT/Serial attached devices, one PS/2 attached device and laptop with PS/2 splitter for kb and mouse. Do not get this device confused with LinkSys' newer compact PS/2 only switches for $70 on buy.com.

Try cascading the CS144 KVM switch from Hawking Technology. Buy.com sells them for $104. You'll also need to buy the cable sets for each PC and each cascading switch. Should be less than $600 for 12 machines. Plus, there's a nifty foot switch available for cycling through machines.

The real difference happens either very early in childhood or is hardwired into the geans. I suspect the former based mostly on a child I know ( 12 now ) who would spend hours before the mirror fighting her hair and "simulating" makeup but would also "repair" small appliances. The latter probably has more to do with walking through my "lab" every day.

It is not hardwired. If you want to know why... I suggest you read the following:

The Body Project is basically about how our culture teaches women that their time should be spent preening, losing (or gaining) weight, putting on makeup, etc... Self image is warped.

It's a pretty cheap book and it will definitly change they way you view the world. If any of you are parents or soon to be parents, I suggest you read it. It will help you understand what the world will teach your daughters.

-pos


The truth is more important than the facts.

Western Drive Caviar 30.0GB, 5400 RPM, EIDE Hard Drive: $223.97
http://store.westerndigital.com:80/store/product.a sp?registered=0&dept%5Fid=2&pf%5F id=101

Seagate Barracuda 28.0GB, 7200 RPM, EIDE ULTRA ATA/66: $199.99
http://www.computers4sure .com/Product.asp?ProductId=80260

Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 27.2GB EIDE UltraDMA/66 5400 rpm internal hard drive: $191.99
http://www.egghead.com/ca tegory/inv/00041912/02351925.htm

Maxtor 40.0GB EIDE, ULTRA-DMA/66, 5400 RPM, 9 ms: $252.95
http://www.buy.com/comp/product.as p?sku=10227545

So, basically, $7.47, $7.14, $7.07, and $6.33 per a gigabyte. A single-sided DVD holds 4.7 GB (which most movies come on). Thus, it will cost about $35, $33.50, $33.20, or $29.75 for the storage space to keep a single DVD on each of the above drives, respectively.

I'm not sure about how effective software data compression programs will work on MPEG-2 encoded video, but that could be a further means to reduce space (thus cost).

Basically, the price per gigabyte of hard drives is not yet where it needs to be to make DVD backup cost effective, but next year it will be.

Anyone else care to present an analysis?

Alpha costs more? When's the last time you priced a top of the line Intel Xeon? I found a PIII Xeon 550/2MB priced at $ 3795.95 - and that's just the processor! (and these guys are cheap!)

For general merchandise, I usually use Buy.com; I've been happy with them, though a friend of mine ran afoul of their returns policy a couple of times.