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This isn't for everyone, but if you fit the demographic it is truly sweet.

I have never really watched television much. BBSs followed by the Internet have been my entertainment for a long time. When I got married we got cable but never really used it. Then came Dattebayo, then Netflix, then redbox, then hulu and crunchyroll and Windows Media Center... I can't think of anything I want to watch that I can't get online cheaper and more easily.

So just last week I bought an ASRock HTPC to replace my aging silent pc build and it is better than any HTPC I could have made myself. Oddly enough I am finally watching TV again. There is more content, available any time I want, in better quality, for less money. I am thinking of buying one for my semi-computer-illiterate mother-in-law because it is so easy to use, and it will pay for itself in about a year of cable TV. I just need to see if she can stream Jeopardy.

Buy one:
ASRock Core 100HT-BD2
ASRock ION330 HT-BD
ASRock HTPC list @ newegg

This isn't for everyone, but if you fit the demographic it is truly sweet.

I have never really watched television much. BBSs followed by the Internet have been my entertainment for a long time. When I got married we got cable but never really used it. Then came Dattebayo, then Netflix, then redbox, then hulu and crunchyroll and Windows Media Center... I can't think of anything I want to watch that I can't get online cheaper and more easily.

So just last week I bought an ASRock HTPC to replace my aging silent pc build and it is better than any HTPC I could have made myself. Oddly enough I am finally watching TV again. There is more content, available any time I want, in better quality, for less money. I am thinking of buying one for my semi-computer-illiterate mother-in-law because it is so easy to use, and it will pay for itself in about a year of cable TV. I just need to see if she can stream Jeopardy.

Buy one:
ASRock Core 100HT-BD2
ASRock ION330 HT-BD
ASRock HTPC list @ newegg

This isn't for everyone, but if you fit the demographic it is truly sweet.

I have never really watched television much. BBSs followed by the Internet have been my entertainment for a long time. When I got married we got cable but never really used it. Then came Dattebayo, then Netflix, then redbox, then hulu and crunchyroll and Windows Media Center... I can't think of anything I want to watch that I can't get online cheaper and more easily.

So just last week I bought an ASRock HTPC to replace my aging silent pc build and it is better than any HTPC I could have made myself. Oddly enough I am finally watching TV again. There is more content, available any time I want, in better quality, for less money. I am thinking of buying one for my semi-computer-illiterate mother-in-law because it is so easy to use, and it will pay for itself in about a year of cable TV. I just need to see if she can stream Jeopardy.

Buy one:
ASRock Core 100HT-BD2
ASRock ION330 HT-BD
ASRock HTPC list @ newegg

Being unable to get Vista/7 to run on Netbooks didn't help them either.

All these netbooks prove you wrong.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=netbooks+with+windows+7&x=0&y=0

Exactly. I'd mod you up, but I'm out of points ;)

It takes a decade to really swap formats. Until 1997 or 1998, even, records were still competing with CD. VHS took a decade to die off as well. Blu-Ray, if you consider only the time since it "won" the format wars, is only a few years old. As HDTVs become the default medium in ten years, Blu-Ray will follow.

And I remember, as do all of you, how just a couple of years ago, a burner was $1000 or so. For $80-$120 (dual layer BD-R!), it's stupid at this point to not get one in a new system instead of a DVD burner. If for nothing else that or future-proofing your investment.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817287017
name-brand media is barely over $1 each, so it's certainly replacing DVD at this point, or quickly will. At this price, I'd not even bother buying DVDs any more than I'd buy CDs or floppy discs.

Right there on NewEgg.

Which is really talking about computer-backed burners, which is what I assume the OP was referring to. If you're looking for a standalone component, it might run a little more.

Sorry not $100, only $80.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136181

The largest SSD I could find is 2TB and costs $8200. If it follows Moore's law, then the price of that drive should hit $70 -- achieving parity with *today's* 2TB magnetic media drive -- in about 10 years.

The fact that manufacturers are consolidating, and hence various avenues of R&D are becoming fewer, is very much a bad thing, not only for the price we're paying for storage capacity directly, but indirectly through all the web-based services we enjoy as well. Sure, multi-TB seems like a lot today, but the same was true of multi-GB fifteen years ago, and multi-MB thirty years ago. But there are many among us who have no trouble filling that capacity and more, and when it comes to technology, today's corner case is frequently tomorrow's norm.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001149

This was the beast that I had back then - beast as in huge and ugly, not beast as in awesome and powerful.

120hz.

What is so bad about makeing it easier to swap the HDD in the imac / mini?

Get a NAS box and call it a day.

FTA:

The feature with the coolest potential is a gyroscope, which tells the remote which side is facing upright. That means you can hammer away at the miniature keyboard without triggering an unintended volume change from the buttons on the other side.

Except when I'm laying in bed watching TV and I want to use the remote upside-down. I think I'll keep my AVS Gear infrared remote for now, kthx.

AFAIU at the time the hardware is on sale, Google will also allow access to honeycomb. Before that time, you'll not be able to get a device running honeycomb.
Of course, the manufacturers should in principle be allowed to already distribute the code they got. However, I don't think it's in their best interest to do so, because they would lose their early-access advantage.

*checks online stores*
*spots Motorola Xoom, which runs Honeycomb, currently for sale on NewEgg*
*Notes that Honeycomb source is not currently published*

TL;DR: You understand incorrectly. Honeycomb tablets are in stores now, but the source hasn't been published.

Question:Why not just buy two cheap 16:9 widescreens and use a stand to mount them on top of each other? Even cheap graphics cards nowadays support multimonitor, and the price of 2 bog standard 19 inch wides would be cheaper than finding a decent 4:3 monitor now anyways. That wouldn't give you perfectly square but would certainly give you more height.

That said you CAN still get square monitors you know, they just don't come any bigger than 19 inch, at least I couldn't find any. So why not keep the wide and use something like this for when a square view would be best, thus getting the best of both?

eventhough its one of the cheapest crap routers out there

Ahem. The WNR3500L they're giving away is a linux-based (openwrt) high-end wireless router. It was $150 when new, now can be had for $80. Its successor the WNDR3700 retails for $185 and it's freaking awesome. A customizable linux-based router is precisely what I'd choose if I wanted to do an experiment like this.

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=407&name=Tablet-PCs

You can still buy OEM copies of Windows OS. http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=368&Tpk=windows

Right now, at Walmart and Newegg.com (and probably many other places), you can buy a family 3-pack of Windows 7 Home Premium licenses for essentially 50%.

Oh, wait, that's the upgrade version (and it does check for a dirty system beforehand, ie WinXP is installed). Yeah, Windows regular install disks are flippin' expensive.

Right now, at Walmart and Newegg.com (and probably many other places), you can buy a family 3-pack of Windows 7 Home Premium licenses for essentially 50%.

Oh, wait, that's the upgrade version (and it does check for a dirty system beforehand, ie WinXP is installed). Yeah, Windows regular install disks are flippin' expensive.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115987

Ask and ye shall receive. Just got one of these. Plays wow and dragonage like a champ. I'm not sure if that video card is supported by Premier but thats easy to look up.

exactly. I have been trying to find a cheap version of windows 7 for a while. I have even hunted down some wholesalers, and I can't seem to find it for less than retail, unless I am part of some ultra special group.

You used to be able to buy XP OEM disks from certain builders but I can't even do that anymore.

Try Newegg... its about $100 ($99.99) for an OEM version of Home Premium, $140 for the Professional version, $180 for Ultimate. Same price for 32 bit or 64 bit. Free shipping even.

A Windows license is around $200.

$180
And that's if you don't go for the $99 OEM version.

But to the GP's point.. I was considering going the BootCamp route, but it sounds like there are too many issues (sleep mode, trackpad, drivers, etc) offsetting the neat Mac hardware.
Then there's the generally annoying keyboard layout, though that's a pretty common "feature" across all laptops.

A Windows license is around $200.

$180
And that's if you don't go for the $99 OEM version.

But to the GP's point.. I was considering going the BootCamp route, but it sounds like there are too many issues (sleep mode, trackpad, drivers, etc) offsetting the neat Mac hardware.
Then there's the generally annoying keyboard layout, though that's a pretty common "feature" across all laptops.

A windows license is considerably less than $200 here. Dunno where you're doing your shopping.

As for a laptop? If she really only needs it for email and surfing, then pretty much anything will do the trick. With the exception of some flash games, nothing accessible via browser or email client is going to require much in the way of processor power.

I thought the same thing, "late adopter's guide to USB 3.0". Really? Late adopter? USB 3.0 couldn't get more green, it's not even a sort option on Newegg yet and Newegg is usually as fresh as it gets... hence "new". When I searched by keyword, only 64 out of ~300 motherboards popped up. USB 3.0 "Late adopter"? Really?

$270+ is kinda steep... Plus you've got to rely on rooting the tablet, and you never know when Barnes & Noble will fix the root exploit that lets you run whatever you want. This looks nice, but I've yet to read anything good about sub $200 tablets :(... Plus I'm not sure if the Marvell Aspen CPU is the right kind of ARM chip.

"Seagate claims to be shipping a 3TB flavor of its Barracuda XT, but we haven't been able to find one that's actually for sale."

You can find them here. You can also find an article at Anantech called,The World's First 3TB HDD: Seagate GoFlex Desk 3TB Review here. There's a description about how to open the case and use them as internal drive. The Seagate external version is also $20 cheaper than the internal Hitachi 3TB.

From someone whose Hitachi backup drive just saved his bacon when his 4th WDC drive this year failed, I'd say this is bad news.

Maybe its time to buy a shedload of these 3Tb drives before WDC gets their hands on them and they become Deathstars again.

Newegg sells them in a 20 PK for $3700.

If you want the bare drive, you can pre-order it here:

        http://www.provantage.com/seagate-st33000651as~7SEGS27K.htm

If you want it in the special packaging that doubles as a USB harddrive enclosure, you can get it here:

      http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148580&cm_re=3tb_seagate_usb-_-22-148-580-_-Product

i go way back to the Riva TNT2 and voodoo2 days. i bought a top of the line voodoo2 the day it came out back in 1998. cost me $299. these days a top of the line card is $500 or more and it sucks enough electricity to power a small town.

x-box 360 cost me $299 same as my PS3. i can also use each one to watch media on my tv without the hassle of doing it on the PC which is usually in the opposite side of the house or room. the games are usually the same which means that the gameplay experience is the same. most people won't spend the money just for the graphics card. the "gamer" is now a 40 year old person that plays Cityville on facebook. not a nerd playing Doom, command and conquer or starcraft on their PC

That is because you are still thinking you need to have the flagship product from whatever graphics card company. You can do better than just get by with an Radeon 5570, the model I bought is even fanless, and doesn't require any extra power connectors like those damn 6-pin molex power ports that older PSU's don't support! some cards even want 2 of them! and yet it still runs most games for me at 1920x1080 with most everything turned up. You can get this card for ~$70. It ran the Valve Source SDK Base 2007 benchmark with everything maxed was 122 fps (on a rather low end AMD Phenom II X2 555 3.2ghz cpu).

Honestly, if you keep an extra (or even use your current) computer case, PSU, DVD-ROM, and HDD, you can build out a better / faster gaming computer for under $299.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103846
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130290
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146748
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161342

i go way back to the Riva TNT2 and voodoo2 days. i bought a top of the line voodoo2 the day it came out back in 1998. cost me $299. these days a top of the line card is $500 or more and it sucks enough electricity to power a small town.

x-box 360 cost me $299 same as my PS3. i can also use each one to watch media on my tv without the hassle of doing it on the PC which is usually in the opposite side of the house or room. the games are usually the same which means that the gameplay experience is the same. most people won't spend the money just for the graphics card. the "gamer" is now a 40 year old person that plays Cityville on facebook. not a nerd playing Doom, command and conquer or starcraft on their PC

That is because you are still thinking you need to have the flagship product from whatever graphics card company. You can do better than just get by with an Radeon 5570, the model I bought is even fanless, and doesn't require any extra power connectors like those damn 6-pin molex power ports that older PSU's don't support! some cards even want 2 of them! and yet it still runs most games for me at 1920x1080 with most everything turned up. You can get this card for ~$70. It ran the Valve Source SDK Base 2007 benchmark with everything maxed was 122 fps (on a rather low end AMD Phenom II X2 555 3.2ghz cpu).

Honestly, if you keep an extra (or even use your current) computer case, PSU, DVD-ROM, and HDD, you can build out a better / faster gaming computer for under $299.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103846
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130290
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146748
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161342

i go way back to the Riva TNT2 and voodoo2 days. i bought a top of the line voodoo2 the day it came out back in 1998. cost me $299. these days a top of the line card is $500 or more and it sucks enough electricity to power a small town.

x-box 360 cost me $299 same as my PS3. i can also use each one to watch media on my tv without the hassle of doing it on the PC which is usually in the opposite side of the house or room. the games are usually the same which means that the gameplay experience is the same. most people won't spend the money just for the graphics card. the "gamer" is now a 40 year old person that plays Cityville on facebook. not a nerd playing Doom, command and conquer or starcraft on their PC

That is because you are still thinking you need to have the flagship product from whatever graphics card company. You can do better than just get by with an Radeon 5570, the model I bought is even fanless, and doesn't require any extra power connectors like those damn 6-pin molex power ports that older PSU's don't support! some cards even want 2 of them! and yet it still runs most games for me at 1920x1080 with most everything turned up. You can get this card for ~$70. It ran the Valve Source SDK Base 2007 benchmark with everything maxed was 122 fps (on a rather low end AMD Phenom II X2 555 3.2ghz cpu).

Honestly, if you keep an extra (or even use your current) computer case, PSU, DVD-ROM, and HDD, you can build out a better / faster gaming computer for under $299.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103846
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130290
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146748
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161342

i go way back to the Riva TNT2 and voodoo2 days. i bought a top of the line voodoo2 the day it came out back in 1998. cost me $299. these days a top of the line card is $500 or more and it sucks enough electricity to power a small town.

x-box 360 cost me $299 same as my PS3. i can also use each one to watch media on my tv without the hassle of doing it on the PC which is usually in the opposite side of the house or room. the games are usually the same which means that the gameplay experience is the same. most people won't spend the money just for the graphics card. the "gamer" is now a 40 year old person that plays Cityville on facebook. not a nerd playing Doom, command and conquer or starcraft on their PC

That is because you are still thinking you need to have the flagship product from whatever graphics card company. You can do better than just get by with an Radeon 5570, the model I bought is even fanless, and doesn't require any extra power connectors like those damn 6-pin molex power ports that older PSU's don't support! some cards even want 2 of them! and yet it still runs most games for me at 1920x1080 with most everything turned up. You can get this card for ~$70. It ran the Valve Source SDK Base 2007 benchmark with everything maxed was 122 fps (on a rather low end AMD Phenom II X2 555 3.2ghz cpu).

Honestly, if you keep an extra (or even use your current) computer case, PSU, DVD-ROM, and HDD, you can build out a better / faster gaming computer for under $299.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103846
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130290
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146748
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161342

I've got a $200 video card that appears to run everything on the ultra settings, including the original Crysis. That being said, even the reviewers are forced to run the same 5-6 titles again and again because there are so few titles that really stress video cards anymore. So why pay $500-1500 for less than a half dozen titles?

You don't have to pay $500-1500... the low end cards in this generation sell for as low as $250. Those cards being the AMD Radeon HD 6950 and nVidia GTX 560 Ti.

I've got a $200 video card that appears to run everything on the ultra settings, including the original Crysis. That being said, even the reviewers are forced to run the same 5-6 titles again and again because there are so few titles that really stress video cards anymore. So why pay $500-1500 for less than a half dozen titles?

You don't have to pay $500-1500... the low end cards in this generation sell for as low as $250. Those cards being the AMD Radeon HD 6950 and nVidia GTX 560 Ti.

I found six with "Recommended Resolution" of 2560 x 1600 from $1-3k.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=Property&Subcategory=20&PropertyCodeValue=1099%3A25153

At least 9 higher then 1080 here
http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=20&name=LCD-Monitors#

4 here
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Category/guidedSearch.asp?CatId=12&name=Monitor-LCDs

15 here
http://www.buy.com/SR/SearchResults.aspx?tcid=3494

Not really a rare and exotic thing. Its becoming more common place all the time.

I'm much more excited on speeds from products such as PCI-E Based SSDs. That one has 740 MB/s, with sustained write speeds of around 600 MB/s. I don't own one, and i'm not in the market for an SSD, but if I got one, I would definitely be going this route.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820183254

64GB only $99.99.
I have paid a lot more for drives a lot smaller.

Good thing there is competition.

Has the connectors you want.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882438004

Seems unimpressinve when compared to the PCI-E cards that are out there. For instance check out this PCI-E SSD. Sure they're expensive, but they're much faster then you will ever get over SATA. To me, it makes almost no sense to be continuing down the SATA route and touting faster speeds when we already have a much faster way of transferring data.

No there is no reason, as can be seen by the first card to appear in Google The PCI-e card simply needs a sata controller.

*Yawn* More reality distortion crap. This spanks the top end Macbook Pro and costs almost a thousand dollars less.

Sorry, in a day when you can buy a laptop for under 399 these premium laptops are absurd.

Sorry, in a day when you can buy a car for under US$ 13,000 these premium cars are absurd

Sorry, in a day when you can buy a TV for under US$ 100 these premium TVs are absurd

If you don't want one - don't buy one. I'm fairly certain Apple isn't holding a gun to your head, forcing you to buy any of their products.

Thanks for explaining, I missed the joke at first.

On a related topic, there already exist controllers that use brain impulses. How is this situation special? I'm assuming it's already possible to make cars completely using digital logic inputs to replace mechanical functions, if you had a car like that, you could just hack a game controller into the car.

Seems like old news.

and why is the 80gb faster than the 40gb version of the otherwise identical product?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=Intel+310&x=0&y=0

That is EXACTLY what I'm saying buddy, as I have seen these things overheat just from having 3 PCs pumping so yeah, those "12 bytes" will kill it pretty dead. You should really take a look at the code for one of these things, IIRC some of the old Trendnet code is floating around the web. They literally have maybe 2 bytes worth of "wiggle room" for flashing the firmware and that is pretty much it.

I'm running a sub $25 Trendnet right now (the most popular by a long shot for SMBs around this part BTW, similar in popularity to the Linksys wireless) and just pumping two PCs full bore for an hour or two will heat that little sucker up, although it won't drop packets. Just look at this page at some of the routers and try Googling their specs, they are really bargain basement. BTW notice that even after all the big talk about IPV6 they are STILL selling these things? Talk about premade garbage!

The simple fact is these things have almost no CPU, almost no RAM nor NVRAM, there just ain't no room at the inn bud. For the job they were designed for? They work great. They are tough, they are dependable, I have had a couple of Trendnet wired routers pulling in the middle of a lumber mill where the foulness of these things are unbelievable, yet they keep on humping year after year.

But when the switch is flipped nobody is gonna try to update these things, there just isn't any room. Hell take the one on top (which is the same model I use and the one in many SMBs) and see if you can find squat for it...you won't. Not wwdrt, not tomato, hell I doubt Trendnet has even put out a single flash for them. They just have enough juice to do that single job and when that job no longer cuts the mustard some poor family in Africa is gonna be sitting on a bonfire made out of a mountain of these things.

It is a damned shame but what I knew this would happen years ago when it came out that IPV6 wouldn't be backwards compatible. If it did these machines could be saved from the landfill and slowly replaced by IPV6 capable over time, instead they will poison the environment. Between that and refusing to allow NAT thanks to engineering prejudice (which IMHO will leave MANY networks waving in the breeze when their addresses are all public when they meant private) IPV6 is just a clusterfuck all around, and I'm damned glad I don't work corporate consulting anymore so I don't have to try to clean up the mess. Either way it is gonna be fucking nasty.

Linksys routers that will flash easily to DD-WRT are getting harder to come by.
 

This is all you need:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833124190

Newegg even touts it in their description:
"Linksys WRT54GL 802.11b/g Wireless Broadband Router up to 54Mbps/ Compatible with Open Source DD-WRT (not pre-load)"
$50 delivered, load DD-WRT or Tomato, done.

BUFFALO WZR-HP-G300NH 802.11b/g/n Nfiniti Wireless High Power Gigabit Router up to 300Mbps/ Open Source DD-WRT Support

400mhz CPU
32MB Flash
64MB RAM
USB support for printers and NAS
Comes with a Buffalo branded DD-WRT out of the box.
OpenVPN comes with the DD-WRT that is pre-installed.
$79.99 from Newegg with free shipping.

Buy this 1920 x 1200 HP monitor and maybe HP will make more of them. We have one at work. Fancy.

...ironic?