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Before you mod this "redundant", at the time of this posting, no one else has actually done the math, just guessed...


For that you get a Media Center PC
Averages around $900, but they use the HP z560 at $1800...

Lifeware automation software from Exceptional Innovation
This one took some work. The closest I could get to a price, $5000, includes hardware. But it puts us at an upper limit, at least.

an Xbox 360
The easiest to find, at $400

IP surveillance cameras
They use a pair of Panasonics (not sure of the model number), around $380 each.

automated light switches
FTA: "five dimmers, five switches, two keypads". Home Depot, $80.

a thermostat
Again, no model number given, but the standard model goes for $270

and installation.
Not really - They want you to have the "hard" parts done yourself, by a privately contracted licensed electrician.



The package costs $15,000.

Total so far, $8310 (not counting your own electrician).

So, not counting needing to hire your own electrician, that puts the cost of their installation at roughly ... $6690.



I've made some pretty damned good wages doing contract work, but over $6k for less than a day's work? Wow, talk about a dream job...

Anyone that wants this system - Hunt me down for contact info. I'll do it for a third less (you pay airfair outside the continental US, and though I know how to work safely with home AC systems , you'll probably still need a licensed electrician to do this legally in most places).

hehe, can't wait to see what my mom does when they kill her kitchen tv that has been setup for the last 20? years. Battery died a dozen years ago but the (B&W!) tv is still hanging in there fine. Take the soaps away from too many of these people and you may have problems ;)

I am confused on all this now, can't imagine how parent etc will handle it :(

Do new TVs recieve both? If i buy a new TV now will it be obsolete in 3 years? Does a TV that says 'digital' work for over-the-air broadcasts now?

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Specifications-of-S amsung-24-TV-TX-R2435/sem/rpsm/oid/120394/rpem/ccd /productDetailSpecification.do#tabs

Does digital comb mean digital tuner? Yeah, sure my parents will get that ;/

Guess i either need to learn more about this or more about torrents... :(

Circuit City sells prepaid downloads for eMusic, it's much cheaper than buying CDs, and you get DRM free MP3s that can play on iPods, Zens, car decks, etc.

Checking places like Circuit City, Best Buy, EB Games, GoGamer, Amazon.com, etc... they are all selling the game for ~ $19.99

Best Buy *do* sell turntables. In fact, they have a huge selection of *3* turntables ($90-$280)
        http://www.bestbuy.com/site//olspage.jsp?id=cat030 37&type=category

compared to the selection of 7 "Home Stereo Class" CD Players at Circuit City ($77-$255)
        http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Turntables/sem/rpsm /catOid/-12944/N/20012898+20012924+20012944/rpem/c cd/categorylist.do

Circuit City has *5* systems for sale, though 1 of them looks like it's only purpose is to convert vinyl to Mp3 format.

As far as records/albums, Circuity City has them but on special order. Best Buy does not seem to offer them at all, at least
not through a quick search of their online inventory.

And if America's Largest Retailer (http://www.walmart.com) doesn't sell turntables or vinyl records, then there must not
be any money in selling the item.

In other words, if vinyl is making a comeback then somebody better tell the stores to start stocking players and music.

Vinyl will always be a nostagic item, not a "mass public popular" item.

HDMI cables are only going to run you $20 anyway

Ya, but Circuit City's $125 cable is the same thing as the discount $6 cable in this case. If sony just releases a reasonably priced cable($30) and sells it next to the PS3 then they will make a couple extra million on HDMI cables.

Maybe I am out of touch, in with the wrong crowd, my head in the sand, but I thought that they were gone. They are definately on the way out.

I think that to be "definatly on the way out", you have to NOT be able to get them in stores, or have limited availability (like, it's available in "smaller", less popular stores, but all the big stores quit carrying them).

Here is a list from Circuit City. Looks to be TONS of CD players there. 28 Portables, 7 "home" units.

Best Buy's web page is sorted a bit differently, but there are just as many players (if not a few more) there.

I'll not even comment on Wal*Mart, except to say, when I was in there yesterday, they had a 6' section of shelf FULL of portables. This doesn't even mention the shelf units they have that play only normal CD's (with one or two thrown in that support mp3 and wav).

Soo.. Other than your "techno-elete" friends and yourself, how exactly are CD's "definatly on the way out", again?

That CPU is only $145.99 at Newegg. So you paid about $400 after rebate plus sales tax on $550 for 1GB of RAM, a 250GB 7200 RPM SATA disk, a Lightscribe DVD-burner, and a non-transferrable OEM license for XP. Maybe not a horrible deal, but not a no-brainer either, considering the time to remove the HP ad/spy/bloatware if you really want to run XP.

Even better, Circuit City HAS a Blu-Ray product for sale. I saw it yesterday, IN STORE. A blank Blu-Ray 25gb recordable disc. Why you'd want it now, I don't know.

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/TDK-Blu-ray-25GB-Re cording-Disc-BDR25AC-/sem/rpsm/oid/149808/catOid/- 12895/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do

Looks like CompUSA has the media too, but the website says it's only available online.

If I buy just 20 games for a system at $50 a game, that comes out to be $1000.

At 50 games for each console, the PS3 only costs 11% more.

At 50 games for a console, all apparently paid for at full price (which you see fond of), you have an insane amount of disposable income, and money doesn't matter.

Meanwhile, 20 games remains a respectable personal library. Many people will pay less than full price, buying some used, getting some as gifts, getting some from friends who are tired of the game. Those 20 games will be spread out over 2 or so years, so a game purchased 2 years after the purchase of the console is effectively much cheaper because that $50 was sitting in a bank account earning a few percent interest instead of having been spent on a more expensive system. Finally, you're assuming that most Wii games are going to run $50. Given Nintendo's goals (to make the Wii mass-market in far beyond any other game console ever), this seem unlikely.

Ultimately, Sony is asking for $500 right now. (Well, when it ships) For many people this means saving up to purchase a PS3 ($500 for the low end) and a single game ($50). For that same amount of saving, someone can purchase a Wii (Let's use the pessimistic $250 estimate), a second controller so they can play with a friend (say $50), and five games (using your pessimistic $50 estimate = $250). They can swap games for controllers, so if they'd rather be able to support a four player game immediately, that still leaves them with two games. Or, if saving up $550 in a single shot is a bit much, they can buy the console and a single game ($300), then purchase more games as they save enough to purchase them.

Putting it in other terms, with the money a college student saves buying a Wii instead of a PS3 he can buy a pretty good 27" SDTV to play it on. Assuming he already has a television, he can buy a $40 DVD player and assuming he pays the ridiculous $40 per disc, 5 movies to watch on it. Or even more realistically, he can have himself 50 pints of beer at the local overpriced college bar.

Price matters. To claim that it doesn't means you're lucky enough to have no real money concerns, or you've been drinking Sony's kool-aid.

If I buy just 20 games for a system at $50 a game, that comes out to be $1000.

At 50 games for each console, the PS3 only costs 11% more.

At 50 games for a console, all apparently paid for at full price (which you see fond of), you have an insane amount of disposable income, and money doesn't matter.

Meanwhile, 20 games remains a respectable personal library. Many people will pay less than full price, buying some used, getting some as gifts, getting some from friends who are tired of the game. Those 20 games will be spread out over 2 or so years, so a game purchased 2 years after the purchase of the console is effectively much cheaper because that $50 was sitting in a bank account earning a few percent interest instead of having been spent on a more expensive system. Finally, you're assuming that most Wii games are going to run $50. Given Nintendo's goals (to make the Wii mass-market in far beyond any other game console ever), this seem unlikely.

Ultimately, Sony is asking for $500 right now. (Well, when it ships) For many people this means saving up to purchase a PS3 ($500 for the low end) and a single game ($50). For that same amount of saving, someone can purchase a Wii (Let's use the pessimistic $250 estimate), a second controller so they can play with a friend (say $50), and five games (using your pessimistic $50 estimate = $250). They can swap games for controllers, so if they'd rather be able to support a four player game immediately, that still leaves them with two games. Or, if saving up $550 in a single shot is a bit much, they can buy the console and a single game ($300), then purchase more games as they save enough to purchase them.

Putting it in other terms, with the money a college student saves buying a Wii instead of a PS3 he can buy a pretty good 27" SDTV to play it on. Assuming he already has a television, he can buy a $40 DVD player and assuming he pays the ridiculous $40 per disc, 5 movies to watch on it. Or even more realistically, he can have himself 50 pints of beer at the local overpriced college bar.

Price matters. To claim that it doesn't means you're lucky enough to have no real money concerns, or you've been drinking Sony's kool-aid.

Yes, you can get an HDTV for $300. But for $300 (or, say $340), I can get a giant 32 inch television. This isn't carefully hunting for a sale; this walking into Best Buy or Circuit City with $340 (plus tax) and walking out with a big television. We're (mostly) Americans here. Bigger is better. I like having a big television. For 32 inches of HD I'm paying $700 or more. I've been promised cheap HDTVs for years now, but they keep failing to arrive. HD is nice, but given that most of my signals are SD (vast majority of cable channels, all of my DVDs, all of my current generation video game systems) it's not really worth doubling how much I spent on my television. My existing 30" television (5 years old, $300 off the shelf without a special sale at Best Buy) serves me well.

HDTV is coming. But it's going to be a slow, painful transition. Lots of SD televisions are going to linger on for a long, long time. When the mandatory cut over occurs there will be mostly ED televisions until HD prices fall much, much further. For most people HDTV still remains in the unclear future.

Yes, you can get an HDTV for $300. But for $300 (or, say $340), I can get a giant 32 inch television. This isn't carefully hunting for a sale; this walking into Best Buy or Circuit City with $340 (plus tax) and walking out with a big television. We're (mostly) Americans here. Bigger is better. I like having a big television. For 32 inches of HD I'm paying $700 or more. I've been promised cheap HDTVs for years now, but they keep failing to arrive. HD is nice, but given that most of my signals are SD (vast majority of cable channels, all of my DVDs, all of my current generation video game systems) it's not really worth doubling how much I spent on my television. My existing 30" television (5 years old, $300 off the shelf without a special sale at Best Buy) serves me well.

HDTV is coming. But it's going to be a slow, painful transition. Lots of SD televisions are going to linger on for a long, long time. When the mandatory cut over occurs there will be mostly ED televisions until HD prices fall much, much further. For most people HDTV still remains in the unclear future.

At Crutchfield the cheapest HDMI cable is $60. At Circuit City, they're $120 and up. To me, that's a mighty pricey cable.

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-Xr97zu029xe/cgi-bin/P rodGroup.asp?search=hdmi+cable&skipvs=T&o=v&g=2310 0
http://www.circuitcity.com/rpsm/catOid/-12885/Ntk/ All/Ntt/hdmi%20cable/rpem/ccd/categorylist.do

http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/productDetail.do?oi d=145402&cm_keycode=85

A bigger, yet cheaper option for anyone that is willing to do a mail-in rebate and doesn't need to put it in their pocket.

Anyways, back on topic, at $0.15 a gig, it would take a long time before buying a hdd would be more affordable for me. (my hdd is 250g, I use about 100g, 100g = 15$, so after 10 months thats 150$... Still cheaper than this HDD that I didn't even get a year ago, on sale, for 200$)

Um, you should look at hard drive prices of today if you're going to be comparing server prices of today. Even retail prices put a 160 GB hard drive at $120. If you are willing to count the rebate price of that drive (it was at the top of the list; I didn't choose it because of the rebate explicitly), it's $50. That's 80 cents and 31 cents per gig respectively. Even if you count just the 100 GB, with rebate that's only 50 cents/gig. In under 4 months that way you'll break even.

Besides, whatcha gonna do? Run your programs remotely? Run your OS over the internet? I don't think so. You'd need a local mirror anyway, so you'd need that new hard drive.

This service has a lot of use, but from a backup standpoint I do NOT think it's at all a good option. Too expensive and too much hassle transferring that much data to make it worth it. (Are you really going to upload 100 gig? Even at a sustained rate of 150 KB/s upload (quite good from my experience over cable) that'd take over a week.)

I haven't had much time to finish looking through all the sites for specs, but I'm assuming for the price it can't really beat out a laptop. Just a quick search over at Circuit City shows me that I can get a decent laptop (suitable for work, mp3s, etc) for close to the price of one of these things.

Here's my link

I'm working, as much as possible, with the same rules they did, except that I'm pricing everything after rebates.

RAM: Corsair 1GB PC3200, $48.99 after rebate http://shop4.outpost.com/product/3746086

Optical Drive: NEC 3550A, same as they did, $38.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Subm it=ENE&N=50001326&Manufactory=1326

Keyboard, Mouse and Speakers: About as generic as they come, cheap PS2 keyboard, USB mouse, and some sort of speakers, $12.99 including shipping http://www.chiefvalue.com/app/productdetails.asp?l inkid=119&item=23-174-003

Monitor: 17" X2Gen LCD, $129.99 http://www.onsale.com/onsale/shop/detail~dpno~7181 70.asp

Case/PSU: Generic silver case with a generic 450W PSU. $29.50, free shipping http://www.supergooddeal.com/ProductDetails.asp?Pr oductCode=BCC204-4HA-S-P4&Click=17583

Hard Drive: There's either a 160 GB WD drive for $50 http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/productDetail.do?oi d=67646&cm_keycode=85 or a 100 GB Maxtor for $40 http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?p roduct_code=320167&pfp=feb19sale.

Now, here I left a choice, and a bit of a nasty one. I've got $189.54 left for a motherboard, CPU, and hopefully a video card. I'm going to offer it both ways, one with the best processor I can fit into this, the other with a cheaper processor and a real video card.

Motherboard: Again, there aren't any great motherboard/CPU combo deals at the moment. For those wanting to go all-out on the CPU, I found an Athlon64 3400+ (socket 754, obviously) with a PCCHIPS 861-G (Yeah, crap, but it has onboard audio and video) motherboard for $184 (optioning to update the BIOS and including thermal paste). http://www.pc-infinity.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen =PROD&Store_Code=P&Product_Code=MB7543400

Now, if you do plan on doing a bit of gaming on this, a video card might be a good idea. Unfortunately, one really can't be put in without dropping the processor to a Sempron, so that's what I'll do. Let's face it though, with the video card that could still be afforded, CPU limiting will probably be a non-issue. As far as Semprons go, the 2800+ they chose seemed to be at a very nice price point, so I went with it and an ECS 761GX motherboard, $75 and $49.50 respectively at http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16819104245 and http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16813135002

Now there's $65 left for a video card, but I'm going to offer four options; two each for ATI and NVidia, going to $525 as they did or keeping it under $500 (with the strong recommendation of spending the extra $25; performance increases a lot). For the cheaper two, we have a choice between the ATI X1300 128MB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N8

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Samsung-27-HDTV-Mon itor-TX-R2765-/sem/rpsm/oid/120396/catOid/-12867/r pem/ccd/productDetail.do

but with no wires how are the wire monkeys gonna make their money? i mean.. what will they do without HDMI Cables to shower upon the unwitting masses? after all they have finally gotten those low brow buisness types needing their gold plated USB cables to push all of them 480 mbps.

Spend the money and get a RAID card. Forty Bucks..

Read the fine print on the rebate, it probably says it will take up to 3 or 4 months. That's legalese for it will take 3 to 4 months. But really, the reason for this seems to be to allow offering huge doorbuster sales without people coming in and buying ten or twenty of an item (usually at a loss to the company) and then turning around and selling them at a higher price on Ebay or wherever (note that the fine print allows only one rebate per household, although they usually let you get away with two or three.)

That's the price you pay for getting a halfway decent 120 gig Western Digital Hard Drive for about $40 (or rather about $100, and then you get $60 back in a few months.) If you're not comfortable with this, you can just go and buy pretty much the same hard drive from Best Buy for about $110. Or just get it from Newegg, well, closest I found is a 160 gig, pretty much same drive otherwise, for $76.00.

But the point of the really good deal on the Circuit City stuff isn't for them to make money on the sale. The point is for them to get you in the store, where you will hopefully buy something else. But I've never really been pressured into buying more thigns, and have generally found the staff to be very helpful when there are stocking issues... Last time I got something that they had on massive rebate, they didn't have any in stock buy did tell me when the next expected shipment was (about 2-3 hours later.) Are they offering the rebates out of a sense of benevolence? No, but I didn't take them out of a sense of pity for the company either. I bought the stuff I wanted and filled out and mailed in the rebates cause that was a way for me to get stuff I wanted at a pretty decent price.

Well, I just bought a 32" TV 2.5-hours ago at Circuit City. It was between the Sony and the JVC. Both looked good and were at similar price points. Guess which one I bought? Thats right, I bought the JVC. Thats $500 less for Sony. All because of this XCP fiasco. They better wise up and remember that they are in the business of selling music and electronics. Not treating their computers like thieves and fscking up their computers.

JOhn

The ideal unit for that type of setup is a nice receiver. Run all your svideo, composite, component, digital audio connections to it, and then one set of video cables (composite, component, and s-video) to your TV.

Is one example (from Onkyo)

Some of the new ones even have HDMI support (but those are quite a bit more).

It was simple to find so many reviews to back up my comments, that being the Sony's CRT is the best out there. http://reviews.cnet.com/Sony_KV_34XBR910/4514-6485 _7-30536650.html http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/productDetailReview .do?oid=96194&com.broadvision. session.new=Yes&BV_SessionID=@@@@1779814821.113043 5483@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccdeaddgd hdiiijcfngcfkmdffhdfkl.0 http://hardware.gamespot.com/Story-ST-1341-x-10-11 -x http://reviews.cnet.com/Sony_KV_34HS510/4514-6481_ 7-20886712.html Yes they are more expensive than any other type, but you truly get what you pay for. It is like buying fine furniture made of real solid wood or the stapled together crap that you get at the brick. The CRT industry is being phased out just like fine furniture did a long time ago. People bought crap because it was cheap and served their immediate purpose. Fine furniture is a rarety, but it is better. So too is the CRT. It is being pushed aside by inferior products that are cheaper and of less quality because most consumer demand it. This is why Sony is turning down the product lines. Unlike fine furniture, technology will make the competing products better Just not yet. Until that time, I'll stick to my Sony 34" HDTV CRT thank you.

• Power: Radio Hand-crank power, Solar power, DC or AC input, LED light, replacable batteries
  
• Receives most available radio frequencies: AM, FM, audio for VHF TV (Channels 2-6) & VHF TV (Channels 7-13), audio for UHF TV, NOAA Weather Band and Shortwave.
  

I'll grant you the optical cable is still missing, yet they only go for $10 (more if you need longer runs I suppose).

Of course, this set won't work on the 360, and the optical cable port placement was really pathetic, but it certainly wasn't all that expensive.

I went into Circuit City just today. They had a giant section at the store front selling just Stealth the DVD. I guess Hollywood is trying hard to make sure they recover the expense. Here comes the funny part.... not one box was missing on the shelf. Not one!

You're either lying or not telling the whole truth. Stealth has not yet been released on DVD. It will be released on the 15th of November according to Circuit City's website. This is the same date that article text above says the UMD will be released on.

So: was it really only a promotional pre-order stand you saw - or did you make up everything you wrote?

Update: It's finally available via circuit city for $855 (not cheap).

In fact, right now, both circuitcity.com and compusa.com list AMD Sempron-powered Compaq Presarios among their top sellers in the desktop computer category. It's not merely geek-chic now... but in all honesty, it never really was.

Choose something else as your lost cause; this one never qualified.

I was at circuit city yesterday and apparently Belkin already has a similar product available (although it's for the ipod mini).

What is the major reason for people still sticking with VHS?

Perhaps it's a conspiracy propagated by the all powerful automatic tape rewinder industry.

Yes it is.

It has been a few years since I price matched, but every time I did, it seemed like the pattern of macs being twice as much held true. I'll do a couple price matches, new and used.

Since you mentioned Dell, I will start with their PC's. Just clicking on desktops, I see a sale, Celron 2.4 Ghz machine with 256 megs, 40 gig hard drive, and 17" monitor is $299. http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/category. aspx/desktops?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd. Looking at laptops, they have a 14" Celron M 1.3ghz laptop with 256megs and a 30 gig hard drive with what appears to be a free printer, for $549. Those are their deals, sales.

Looking at new macs, I find the following are their lowest priced options. The cheapest mac mini is $599 (G4 1.4ghz, 256megs, 80 gig hard drive, cd-rw), the cheapest emac is $799 (G4 1.25 with Velocity Engine, 40 gig hard drive, what appears to be an integrated 17" monitor). http://microcenter.com/search_results_e.phtml?coor dinate_group=F1AX&page=1&search_id=5f3a71072149b6e 75a39f1f05873a7d7&per_page=&sort_price_direction=A SC&sort_by=product.retail The cheapest "traditional" destop is a Power Mac G5 1.8 ghz with 256 megs, 80 gig drive and dvd-rw for $1499.00. http://microcenter.com/search_results_e.phtml?coor dinate_group=F1BX&page=1&search_id=d10aa8d0b3c7536 e2100bbe953281f70&per_page=&sort_price_direction=A SC&sort_by=product.retail

I don't want to be unfair. You mentioned quality, so I figured I would pricematch a brand many consider to be high end. Looking at the Sony Vaio Desktop P4 2.8ghz with HyperThreading (guessing that is like the velocity engine, although I don't know what either term means, probably slick marketing). The Sony comes with 512 megs, 160 gig hard drive, dvd+-rw, for $756 on sale from $999. http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Sony-VAIO-Desktop-P C-PCV-RS610-/sem/rpsm/oid/94849/rpem/ccd/productDe tail.do

Looking at used computers, I went to ebay and I see G4 desktops selling used for around $350. These are G4 400 mhz machines with 128 megs and a standard dvd player. I did not even look for PC's because I know a 500+ mhz PIII can be had for under $100. So, what am I getting for the extra money?

I want to try a Mac, I really would. I saw on ebay G3's around 300 mhz for $150, but I don't know how good a 300 mhz machine would be. Even for just testing. Is a G3 still usable? Or does all the new software require G4's?

So to compare, cheapest new Dell $299, cheapest mac mini $599. Mid-range Sony Vaio $749, midrange Mac G5 $1499. Dell laptop 1.3ghz $549, Mac laptop 1.0 ghz G4 $899. And in every instance, the PC had a faster processor.

How about this:
1 TB Harddrive

Imagine a service where music could be transmitted wirelessly, and you could have a receiving device even smaller than an iPod to listen to the music with.

No need to imagine. It's called a radio.

My bad, the averatech was at circuit city.

That has to be a first for me: my roomates cat walked across the keyboard and somehow managed to submit the post before I was done with it. Meant to read something like:

MP3 has only now started to make them reconsider? I bought my MP3 Diskman (Diskman being a Sony trademark) almost three years ago. Something like this, but of course a much older version.

MP3 has only now started to make them reconsider? I bought my MP3 Diskman (Disabout almost three years ago. Something like this, but just a much older version.

Automatic iTunes sync, and the iTunes shuffle playlist thingie, both of which sound pretty cool. Plus, 512MB for $99 is extremely competitive for one of those little doohickeys. A quick search found similar 512MB devices for $139.99 to $199.99. 1GB devices were even more expensive.

You mean like the Panasonic CT27HL14?

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Panasonic-HDTV-Moni tor--CT-27HL14-/sem/rpsm/oid/90895/rpem/ccd/produc tDetail.do

Its 499.99 right now. It isn't taking the world by storm.

To be quite honest, 27" is simply too small, especially for use with wide screen DVD's and with HD. Even 32" is a bit of a stretch once you rastor 1/3 of the screen.

As for the rest of the technology being affordable during your life time...unless you are 50+, I disagree. Hell, I disagree right now. The fact that there are more than a hand full of 42" plasmas for around $2500+ is more than affordable. This includes actual first rate brands, not just knock offs and cheap garbage. The average amount that someone coming into a Circuit City spends on a big screen TV is about $2000 or so. This is just above the average.

DLP and LCD based projections are only in their second or third generations, and are already just barely more expensive than comparable sized CRT based projection televisions were about 3-4 years ago. Once the novelty wears off, and they become the defacto, much like widescreen HD sets have over the past five years, they will be even cheaper.

As for your comments on the CRT monitor, show me an 'affordable' 21"+ CRT. There isn't any. Not to mention that a TV has exponentiallly more to it when it comes to additional hardware than a PC monitor. Speakers, tuner, input board, scaler/de-interlacer, remote, picture-in-picture, close captioning, ect, all cost money.

Lord Of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy [12 Discs] - 12/14/2004. Do you think they would wait until next christmas??

Agreed. I almost didn't buy my iRiver 790T because the excellent free driver said it was "for Linux." Instead, I investigated a little more, compiled it for my OpenBSD system, and went out and grabbed a great flash player (plays Oggs--woot!).

A situation which causes similar pain is when people write non-free software for Linux/x86. I've mostly lived in the "totally free" world (by necessity) because I use Linux on PPC and OpenBSD. And believe me, you start to bemoan the ignorance of folks who are pleased when software is available "for Linux" but don't understand what freedom is supposed to be about.

[A note: writing portable free software isn't that hard. I've written software at work that I know is intended for a single machine running Linux, but I usually keep it running on a BSD and Solaris too, just to keep it portable. It's a habit I'd like to see more widely adopted.]

When I heard that name I couldn't shake the image of Hugo Weaving's, (Agent Smith in the Matrix), voice saying that to Neo all the time.

In fact every time I see Hugo, like in the Lord of the Rings, I still hear him saying that...
"Mr. Anderson!"

Anyway, I'm glad to see that Best Buy is finally being recognized more for their money grabbing. Being an independent computer consultant, I'm tired of the Compaq/HP pushers filling the market with crap.
Further, the Geek Squad is now eating into my profits from service.

Irregardless, I for one welcome our new overlords. I've simply switched purchasing from OEM vendors to purchasing from Best Buy, Staples, Future Shop and so forth when rebates and discounts make it profitable.

What I dislike the most is that it's such a GAME.

Here is how you play and what you get:

1. Comb the flyers weekly, (both online and mailbox versions).
CircuitCity.com
FutureShop.ca
Staples.ca
BestBuy.ca
BestBuy.com
LondonDrugs.ca
OfficeDepot.com
RadioShack.com
(Please add more, I'm sure there are many)
2. Compare prices from Ebay, factoring in landed costs like shipping and duty.
3. Compare reviews and comments on items you are thinking of buying.
Tomshardware.com
Zdnet.com
4. Try to take advantage of 150% buyer protection by pitting store against store.
5. Now go and purchase what you can at the lowest possible price.
6. You will now get sales pitches, reams of paper receipts and mumbling twitchy eyed sales people running about checking the validity of your homework.
7. Don't forget to use any Airmiles, Reward Cards etc. to get even more discounts.
8. Before you leave the store, make sure you have everything you'll need to make a proper rebate.
9. Immediately test the product(s) you buy.
10. Do any returns ASAP.
11. If you do a return, make sure you go back to see if it's on the bargain table :->
12. Immediately fill out and make copies of your rebates, receipts and UPC codes.
13. Check everything for accuracy and dates.
14. Call help lines if you are missing any critical items or are unsure of anything in the rebate process before hand.
15. Immediately mail in rebates and keep postal receipts for your records.
16. Goto 1.

What you get is a product for a price you should have gotten right from the #$%king beginning.
Welcome to the rat race of buying and selling.
There are no winners, just lots of wasted time making paper for bureaucrats, lawyers and accountants.

Maybe we are just living in The Matrix.

Best Buy's service plans are a joke. We bought and installed an over-the-range GE microwave from Best Buy. The receipt and service plan specifically stated "in-home service". However, on both occassions where the microwave required servicing, they flatly refused to honor the "in-home" portion of the clause. On the first occassion, they told us to bring it to the store--not the store we got it from but a store 15 miles further away. They kept it for a week, never called us, and we returned to pick it up, found the box was tagged 5 days previous with "no service". It took 2 more days and many phone calls to find where we should take it for service plan work. When I demanded a refund, all they would refund was the service plan. They would not take return on the microwave, which I would never have purchased without a service plan.

My experiencs with Sears and Circuit City have been completely different and wholy satisfactory. Circuit City's replacement warrenty is Number One in my books: Even when my son's minidisc player was two years old and completely out of date, they gave us a full refund without question, which more than covered a new and greatly improved player.

good thinking: you can view their contact page here
i'm pretty sure they'd like that idea

My bad for the prices, that was used ones ;-(. As for CRTs, you can find some for around $120 (Here).

eMachines at $400
Compaq at $430
HP for $530

So that sums up to $520 for the eMachines one. Oh! And where do you find iMacs for $699? I'm just out of an Apple store and the iMacs start at $799 (as you can see Here).

So that rolls up to $280 difference. More than half the price of the PC.

My bad for the prices, that was used ones ;-(. As for CRTs, you can find some for around $120 (Here).

eMachines at $400
Compaq at $430
HP for $530

So that sums up to $520 for the eMachines one. Oh! And where do you find iMacs for $699? I'm just out of an Apple store and the iMacs start at $799 (as you can see Here).

So that rolls up to $280 difference. More than half the price of the PC.