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Why yes, they certainly do!

> The mobile PC (iPad) replaces the PC just like the mobile phone replaces the landline phone.
> The landline phone is now an alternate kind of phone, and the mobile phone is the "real"
> phone. That is why you see the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display is designed very much
> for the classic Mac customer who is a creative workstation user, running video editing or audio
> editing or photo editing or software development all day long, every day. It's less of a PC than
> any of the Intel Macs. iPad is for PC users, now. The Mac is back to being a creative power tool.

So you reply to a terrible article with a terrible post? If you had claimed the the MacBook as a PC replacement, you would at least had some possible argument. The IPAD is *NOT* a PC replacement. It's an overgrown IPHONE targeted at viewing/listening/reading. For output, it's only suitable for short messages like texting/chat/twitter/Fecesbook-status-updates/etc.

Try doing any serious photo/audio/text editing, long emails, or even taking notes at a meeting, and you'll see why. And don't give me any BS about buying a bluetooth keyboard and mouse. You've essentially converted the IPAD into a laptop or desktop.

Tablets (IPAD and Android) fill a large market for dumbed-down PC's. They do not come close to replacing the desktop. And Apple prices are a joke here in Canada (Toronto to be specific). E.g. desktop Apple (Mac Pro). The "low end " (Quad-Core Intel, 6 gigs of ram, 1 TB drive) is $2,549.00 !?!?! http://store.apple.com/ca/browse/home/shop_mac/family/mac_pro A similar ASUS (Quad-Core Intel, 6 gigs of ram, 1 TB drive) is $999, http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?item_id=042214 and I can get something similar built for less.

For notebooks MacBook "Air" and "Pro" *START* at $1029 and $1229 respectively http://store.apple.com/ca/browse/home/shop_mac/family/mac_pro Regular notebooks can be had for under $500 http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?item_id=046492

IPADS *START* at $419. Android tablets are a lot lower. See http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?cPath=710_375 BTW, the 11.6" notebook I mentioned above is competitive with the IPAD, and it actually has keyboard and mousepad.

Apple has chosen to go for the more-money-than-brains market, like Mercedes/Cadillac/Lamborgini/RollsRoyce/etc. That can be a profitable niche, but I'm not part of that market.

> The mobile PC (iPad) replaces the PC just like the mobile phone replaces the landline phone.
> The landline phone is now an alternate kind of phone, and the mobile phone is the "real"
> phone. That is why you see the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display is designed very much
> for the classic Mac customer who is a creative workstation user, running video editing or audio
> editing or photo editing or software development all day long, every day. It's less of a PC than
> any of the Intel Macs. iPad is for PC users, now. The Mac is back to being a creative power tool.

So you reply to a terrible article with a terrible post? If you had claimed the the MacBook as a PC replacement, you would at least had some possible argument. The IPAD is *NOT* a PC replacement. It's an overgrown IPHONE targeted at viewing/listening/reading. For output, it's only suitable for short messages like texting/chat/twitter/Fecesbook-status-updates/etc.

Try doing any serious photo/audio/text editing, long emails, or even taking notes at a meeting, and you'll see why. And don't give me any BS about buying a bluetooth keyboard and mouse. You've essentially converted the IPAD into a laptop or desktop.

Tablets (IPAD and Android) fill a large market for dumbed-down PC's. They do not come close to replacing the desktop. And Apple prices are a joke here in Canada (Toronto to be specific). E.g. desktop Apple (Mac Pro). The "low end " (Quad-Core Intel, 6 gigs of ram, 1 TB drive) is $2,549.00 !?!?! http://store.apple.com/ca/browse/home/shop_mac/family/mac_pro A similar ASUS (Quad-Core Intel, 6 gigs of ram, 1 TB drive) is $999, http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?item_id=042214 and I can get something similar built for less.

For notebooks MacBook "Air" and "Pro" *START* at $1029 and $1229 respectively http://store.apple.com/ca/browse/home/shop_mac/family/mac_pro Regular notebooks can be had for under $500 http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?item_id=046492

IPADS *START* at $419. Android tablets are a lot lower. See http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?cPath=710_375 BTW, the 11.6" notebook I mentioned above is competitive with the IPAD, and it actually has keyboard and mousepad.

Apple has chosen to go for the more-money-than-brains market, like Mercedes/Cadillac/Lamborgini/RollsRoyce/etc. That can be a profitable niche, but I'm not part of that market.

> The mobile PC (iPad) replaces the PC just like the mobile phone replaces the landline phone.
> The landline phone is now an alternate kind of phone, and the mobile phone is the "real"
> phone. That is why you see the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display is designed very much
> for the classic Mac customer who is a creative workstation user, running video editing or audio
> editing or photo editing or software development all day long, every day. It's less of a PC than
> any of the Intel Macs. iPad is for PC users, now. The Mac is back to being a creative power tool.

So you reply to a terrible article with a terrible post? If you had claimed the the MacBook as a PC replacement, you would at least had some possible argument. The IPAD is *NOT* a PC replacement. It's an overgrown IPHONE targeted at viewing/listening/reading. For output, it's only suitable for short messages like texting/chat/twitter/Fecesbook-status-updates/etc.

Try doing any serious photo/audio/text editing, long emails, or even taking notes at a meeting, and you'll see why. And don't give me any BS about buying a bluetooth keyboard and mouse. You've essentially converted the IPAD into a laptop or desktop.

Tablets (IPAD and Android) fill a large market for dumbed-down PC's. They do not come close to replacing the desktop. And Apple prices are a joke here in Canada (Toronto to be specific). E.g. desktop Apple (Mac Pro). The "low end " (Quad-Core Intel, 6 gigs of ram, 1 TB drive) is $2,549.00 !?!?! http://store.apple.com/ca/browse/home/shop_mac/family/mac_pro A similar ASUS (Quad-Core Intel, 6 gigs of ram, 1 TB drive) is $999, http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?item_id=042214 and I can get something similar built for less.

For notebooks MacBook "Air" and "Pro" *START* at $1029 and $1229 respectively http://store.apple.com/ca/browse/home/shop_mac/family/mac_pro Regular notebooks can be had for under $500 http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?item_id=046492

IPADS *START* at $419. Android tablets are a lot lower. See http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?cPath=710_375 BTW, the 11.6" notebook I mentioned above is competitive with the IPAD, and it actually has keyboard and mousepad.

Apple has chosen to go for the more-money-than-brains market, like Mercedes/Cadillac/Lamborgini/RollsRoyce/etc. That can be a profitable niche, but I'm not part of that market.

> We aren't completely to the point where I can do my entire
> job on a tablet with a bluetooth keyboard (if needed)

Congratulations. You've just re-invented the wheel; or in this case a small-screen desktop. I'll keep my desktop and my netbook/laptop, thank you. BTW, what can a 10" iPad do that a 10" or 11" netbook can't do for a much lower price? http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?cPath=710_28 And exactly how much free open source software can you load up on your iPad without rooting it?

A Mini has nearly all the same features as a stock Dell, plus bluetooth, two video ports and firewire... all items adding $75 more each to that "budget" PC.

USB CardReader + Bluetooth adapter C$19.49
Radeon HD3450 w/dual display C$34.99
3-Port Firewire card C$16.99

For a grand total of C$71.47.

A Mini has nearly all the same features as a stock Dell, plus bluetooth, two video ports and firewire... all items adding $75 more each to that "budget" PC.

USB CardReader + Bluetooth adapter C$19.49
Radeon HD3450 w/dual display C$34.99
3-Port Firewire card C$16.99

For a grand total of C$71.47.

A Mini has nearly all the same features as a stock Dell, plus bluetooth, two video ports and firewire... all items adding $75 more each to that "budget" PC.

USB CardReader + Bluetooth adapter C$19.49
Radeon HD3450 w/dual display C$34.99
3-Port Firewire card C$16.99

For a grand total of C$71.47.

All prices in Canadian $$$ Buy 2 of these to fit a total of 8 SATA drives: http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=021484&cid=516.690 (289.98 + taxes) Buy 8 1.5TB Drives: http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=019453&cid=HD.443.877 (1119.92 + taxes) Total: 1409.90 + taxes for 2 external SATA enclosures & 12TB of disk space. Setup takes less than 1 hour. You can always just start with 3GB + 1 enclosure for a total of aprox 450.00 to begin with and keep adding on to it as drive prices go down and as you need disk space...you will save even more that way

All prices in Canadian $$$ Buy 2 of these to fit a total of 8 SATA drives: http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=021484&cid=516.690 (289.98 + taxes) Buy 8 1.5TB Drives: http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=019453&cid=HD.443.877 (1119.92 + taxes) Total: 1409.90 + taxes for 2 external SATA enclosures & 12TB of disk space. Setup takes less than 1 hour. You can always just start with 3GB + 1 enclosure for a total of aprox 450.00 to begin with and keep adding on to it as drive prices go down and as you need disk space...you will save even more that way

I also question whether the tax is actually collected on all imported media, since I pay 23 cents per CD-R at a local shop, and the tax is supposed to be 21 cents each, soon to be raised to 29 cents if it hasn't already. I have trouble believing the manufacturing, distributing, and retailing revenues total a mere 2 cents a disc.

It's not. The second link there explicitly says "blank audio recording media". There was an outcry when the levy was introduced on CDs since they were already heavily used for computer data. So there are two distinct-in-name but otherwise completely identical classes of CDs: CD-Audio and CD-R. CD-Audio is marketed for copying music CDs and CD-R is marketed for data. CD-Audio bears the levy, CD-R does not.

Also, blank cassettes bear the levy, but I do not believe that anything else does. Yet.

...Stu

As a professional your brother should be claiming CD-R's as a business expense anyway. I'm a sound tech who goes through 2-3 100 CD-R spindles monthly, entirely on content I record legitimately myself, much of it live demo recordings. I write it all off, so they can levy it all they want as far as I'm concerned. I also write off half my "entertainment" expenditures from every outing where I discus music with anyone, so roughly 45% of my restaurant/bar bills. It's quite an easy subject to bring up!

I also question whether the tax is actually collected on all imported media, since I pay 23 cents per CD-R at a local shop, and the tax is supposed to be 21 cents each, soon to be raised to 29 cents if it hasn't already. I have trouble believing the manufacturing, distributing, and retailing revenues total a mere 2 cents a disc.

As an artist who knows I'll never see dime of any such levy, it's pretty irritating. How the music industry is supposed to benefit by making internet traffic more expensive is beyond me. This is typical of the music industry's back-end approach to combating music piracy rather than the value-added approach which is generally the most successful.

Worse yet is the "SOCAN tax" for live performances. 3% of the pay for an artist or band is collected by SOCAN (Tariff 3A) to be redistributed to SOCAN members. If an artist or band plays all original music, they have to submit a setlist and wait to get that money back. If they play no original or SOCAN member compositions (i.e. all American-written songs) the collected money is basically swallowed by SOCAN. So the organization whose mission is to compensate Canadian songwriters for 3rd party performance and broadcast actually taxes Canadian performers unfairly and profits from the performance of non-Canadian compositions.

Fortunately, virtually no small live music venues across the country cooperate until they are compelled by SOCAN, and of the 200+ small venues I've played I've only encountered two such venues, one has since closed. So just avoid the Boar's Head Pub in Stratford Ontario and you're ok...

I didn't say anything "didn't exist", and you linked to DDR3 which is completely different. This is what I was talking about. Or maybe this, for the american consumers. $33.99 and free shipping seems like a pretty sweet deal. You can get ram with even lower latency for the same price, but it'll be a lower rated speed.

I've never had problems with OCZ. I've built 4 different systems in the last year, all using OCZ RAM. They all run perfectly. My personal comp even has the memory overclocked by about 30%. Haven't had any issues at all.

Ummm...don't know where you are, but I walked into CanadaComputers on College St. in Toronto, just down the street from University of Toronto, and bought a linux notebook off the shelf, no problems at all! :-)

Torontonians (or visitors), you can purchase linux installed notebooks from a number of computer places. Not a problem. :-)

Here's a sample:
http://canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=020348&cid=896.862

Landfill? Have you any idea what size you are talking about?
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2052/1573558430_f4523e7c8f.jpg?v=0 and http://toolazytofail.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/onfinger.jpg where the blue is the USB sleeve.

Even better would be something like http://www.canadacomputers.com/ProductImages/015995/929.jpg so that you have also the SD card.

They are SMALL and cheap to make. The sleeves will be cheaper then a CD case.

TFA appears to be slashdotted, but I would suggest that it's just a matter of trying different (often smaller) suppliers until you find somebody who is willing to oblige. Smaller local shops can put together a system built exactly to your spec, and will happily install Windows XP, all drivers, test the entire rig before delivering it to you, and offer a warranty equivalent to the big boxes.

Substantiated and confirmed by an owner.

Moreover, if a wireless router doesn't support basic WiFi security mechanisms, if anything the manufacturers should be held to task, not the laptop owning consumers who stumble upon them.

Here's the thing, if I buy a PC to play DVD's, browse the Internet, etc, I can get something for $400-600 that does the job adequately. However, that system will not play games. If I want to play games I'm looking at a $1000-1500 box at a minimum. That premium is entirely about playing games and that extra horsepower goes almost entirely unused when playing a movie, etc.

I'm not a big PC game player, but $1000-$1500 to play games at a minimum? You must be talking about bleeding edge games. A Geforce 8600GT 256MB DDR3 costs about CDN$120. Add that on to a $400 dollar computer (2GB DDR2, AMD X2 5000+) and you're playing games. Maybe not the newest games or games at 8x antialiasing. But you're playing games and having fun for much less than $1500.

Heck my brother and his girlfriend get some good mileage out of their 3 year old computer for playing older games like Elder Scrolls and Wolfenstien ET. A modern $600 computer that includes a decent graphics card and a non Semperon/Celeron proccess seems like it will go a long way. But then again, I'm somewhat out of the loop where modern gaming is concerned.

http://canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=016825&cid=896

Asus EEE Notebook. Solid state hard drive (2gb, 4gb, 8gb), linux preloaded. Light. Small. Comes in groovy colours. Prices in Cdn start at $300.

I purchased one here for list price no problem last week - they have them in stock all the time.
http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=016825&cid=896

You can find them available in store as well. They have 4 just in this colour in stock in my local store.

NCIX has a nice site, lots of inventory but their prices are not that great. Given the choice I would much rather order from one of these guys...

Don't forget Tiger direct has a canadian site and you won't get dinged for duty/border fees if you order from there.

One of my favs has always been PC Canada. They are almost always cheaper than NCIX and they have always been fast with my orders. I had to return some RAM once upon a time and had no hassles at all. The only real strike against them is they don't carry as broad of an inventory as a place like NCIX does (take a look at their vid card selection, you will see what I mean).

If you want the absolute cheapest, it's hard to beat Canada Computers. I can not vouch for online ordering since anything I've bought from them has been in person but they usually have the cheapest price around. I've heard some people say they are pretty unforgiving when it comes to returns so be aware of this.

If it delivers it will replace most home networking, upstream will be a problem but ISPs will love that (They sell the upstream as web server, bloody bastards)...

I don't want the $130 - $20 price drop we got with 802.11 (http://www.canadacomputers.com/cc/index.php?do=Sh owProdList&cmd=pl&id=NT.541 I'd like this one to go straight to mobo's and given it's power requirements it will probably have to...

It's going to royally suck if people switch to this and you can't set up a private network anymore, it's been nice to know that no matter how bad residential ISP's get you could always get some commercial cable and share it.

In a few years we might not be able to do that anymore :( I guess I'll have to add 5 usb wifi's to my stack of ethernet cards :(

Don't talk such rubbish. I can buy a D-Link DI-804HV for CAD$77 (probably about 60 or 65 USD$). There's got to be other reasonably priced ones out there too.

For consumer stuff I've yet to see a place with better prices than Canada Computers

Its not in the Canadian channels yet.

Yes it is.

• $288 (G.T.A., ON)
• $306.66 (Ships Nationally)
• To name a few of the top of my head...

CPUs like the Pentium III can be underclocked and underpowered to the point that they work just fine without a fan. The VIA C3 is a Socket 370 / P-III compatable processor designed for low power and fanless operation. Check out the mini-itx motherboards for examples of these in operation.

Most video cards don't need a fan at all, although passively cooled cards can still heat up the interior of your case. It's doubtful that you really need the absolute latest and most powerfull leaf-blower video card on your home server.

Hard drives and power supplies are the other big sources of noise. Hard drives noise is noticable because it comes and goes, while power supplies need to push all the heat that those passively cooled components have been producing out of the case. A well made drive seated on noise absorbing padding, rather than bolted directly onto a steel frame, can be reduced to a low, cricket-like chirping noise while large, slower case fans can take a lot of the load off of the PSU without raising noise levels significantly. Take a look around Silent PC Review for more on this topic, or just look for a retailer in your area who carries quiet PC parts.

I have been slowly replacing all the computers around my home with silent parts over the last few years, and the difference is stunning. Just last week I needed to replace a power supply and used a spare that I had sitting on a shelf -- It sounded like a jet engine compared to everything around it. If that's the kind of noise that's coming out of your server, then I understand your frustration. You don't need to turn to rare, high tech prototypes from military labs to quiet down your PC -- All you need now is to shop around a bit.

I jstu bought a 19 inch lcd for $378 EUR 599canadian http://www.canadacomputers.com/monitors.html#lcd

Linux is a fantastic operating system, but for the price of those computers and the specifications, it makes no sense to buy anything there just to get Linux preinstalled on it. Check out the great deal business system for $299 CA which doesn't even have a hard drive or any name brand parts. You're better of building one yourself and not being so lazy and putting Linux on yourself. If you are looking for cheap name brand parts go to Canada Computers where you can build your system with name brand components for less than $500 CA. I guess people will always try to cash in on something, in this case it's Linux.

"We already pay $0.25 per cd-r, "they" want to increase it to around $0.59"
so what your saying is when i buy cds for 30*c each 25*c goes to tax? oh for the land of the 5*c cd!

i have never noticed a tax. here buy cds for 33cents each here

oh sorry 34 cents

they wont do this were not americans. if they make a tax it will be small and unoticable same as the cd tax.

It's $69, not $66 (I try not to remember the details of the worse parts of my box)

A couple solid choices for Canadians are
Premier Computers Canada
or
Canada Computers

They sell parts on the cheap and have great return policies.

Well, now that I've just bought the supposed to be awesome CD burner from TG

Not to poo-poo ThinkGeek (I've ordered from them before), but I can get the Sony CRX-1611 16x10x40 CD-RW drive with BurnProof for C$158 (about US$99) at several local computer stores here in Toronto (although one is my favourite).

And to think you paid twice as much, plus shipping... ouch...

I have nothing against Intel, but I really don't care for thier monopoly on desktop computer processors.

For $98 Canadian (about $65 US) I bought a Duron 700 which I now have running quite happily at 1GHz. How's that for value?
--
Patrick Doyle

Hmmm... don't know where you are but the Radeon has been available in Canada for quite some time. Furthermore, I've seen the Radeon 64Mb version for around $440 Cdn (~$290.00 US using 66% exchange rate) for the video in/out version. So, to answer your question, a very misinformed individual would throw down $400 for a Radeon 64Mb version.

The card I'm waiting for is the All-in-Wonder Radeon. I just wish Asus would come out with a GF2 with a tv tuner. Carrying around a vcr just to watch tv on your computer sucks & buying an additional tv box is too expensive. So until then I'm stuck with ATI.

jacob