Slashdot Mirror

I have this Jetway, a slightly different model. I wanted 2 drives in a RAID array. It's designed to hold 1 3.5" and 1 2.5" drive, but I put 2x3.5" drives in (granted, one is mounted with a bit of duct tape). I also added one extra case fan. It's been running great and nice and quiet (and cheap!).

• Jetway Versa J7F4K1G2E (1.2Ghz C7, dual gigE) - $150
• M350 enclosure /w 60W adapter - $75
• 1GB DDR2-667 - $30
• 500GB 2.5" SATA hdd - $90

I get $345 ($405 if I use a 750GB hdd). I think a good low-power system with the right combination of features is hard to get for under $300 new.

Ding Ding ding!!!

I too am using one for an XBMC machine. 2 real cores, 2 hyperthreaded cores, decent price, good performance. NOT the fastest at compiling XBMC but it gets by :-) Overclocked and 100% usage it hits just 40watts.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=40000003&Description=asrock&name=Barebone%20Systems

I too am pondering the old electric bill. My new I7 machine may only be powered up as needed, I'll move my torrent client to this box instead soon I think. Just need to get a WEB client working for it. My unRAID servers all spin drives down and use 80+ PSU for efficiency.

Been running a Jetway VIA box for about six months in a home server role - just added ram, a big cheap HD, and Ubuntu. Installed the OS over the LAN with PXE. Works just fine so far. Meets your budget. Haven't tested actual power draw though. It's small, reasonably quiet - an internal fan for the CPU but the power supply is a fanless external brick. No Ubuntu compatibility hitches at all, so Debian should be fine too.

SATA attach SSD has achieved price parity with enterprise SAS, the density is almost there, and the performance completely blows it away. We're not at the end of spinning disc, but you can see it from here.

The new performance tier of storage is PCIe attach SSD. At two terabytes of storage and 1.5GB/s per slot, we're getting close to what we used to get from Ramdisk in performance and adequate density at 3TB per rack unit including server (HP DL785 G5 or equivalent). Yes, this is expensive right now, but the performance tier always has been. This is for trading platforms, HPC and such. These are approaching 2M IOPS and 40TB per 7U server.

The second tier is 2.5" 256GB SATA SSDs. You get 3TB per rack unit including the server. About the same cost as SAS for 10x the performance. Software options enable you to scale this to infinity in both bulk and performance. Great for databases, VMDK files and iSCSI. Get the hot-swap version and leave some open bays so that when the 1TB 2.5" SSDs come out you can migrate your LUNS with no downtime.

The third tier is SAS spinning disk. At something like 20TB/Rack unit (excluding servers) you can use this to serve frequently used files.

The fourth tier now is SATA spinning disk. At roughly the same density as SAS spinning disk for one-fourth the cost, this is a good candidate for deduplicated targets like virtual tape libraries or deduplicated NAS. It's also a good place to store your snapshots. With modern snapshot technologies there's no good reason to not store snaps every 15 minutes or so. Typically you would park this storage offsite for DR purposes so you can avoid the Premium Microsoft danger eXperience(**).

Storage pros probably would note that I neglected to mention tape and Fiber Channel. That's neither accident nor ignorance. The only reason for tape is legally mandated tape backups, and I consider this the IT equivalent of legally mandated hitching posts outside every business (which laws persist in some places) - if you gotta, you gotta, but there's no reason any more to consider it a necessary or good practice. As for Fiber Channel, it just doesn't fit in the model any more. I know this hurts the feelings of folks who just dropped a million bucks for a single rack of SAN storage with 100TB, or worse - popped for the new 8GBit stuff complete with a converged ethernet/FCoE solution, but it's true. There's just no reason for fiber channel any more. It just doesn't have the bandwidth to support a modern storage solution and it costs too much. Sure, it's got redundancy from the disc to the file server, but so what: modern file servers use redundant storage and clustered redundancy and don't need the diminishing returns of embarassingly expensive drives, head nodes, capacity licensing and annual support contracts. By the time you figure in oversubscribed ports in your FC network, you've lost the supposed reliable performance benefit of the whole thing. This isn't bad news for Cisco - they're going to sell a lot of 10Gbit Ethernet ports before they get cheap and they haven't lost anything by being also compatible with FC. It really bites to be EMC this week, but they'll figure it out.

Check the specs on this server, this card, this drive and this array. This is off-the-shelf stuff, not pie in the sky. The interconnect people need to get off their butts, but this is all doable right now. The compute side becomes an almost trivial cost of what it takes to maintain this storage bandwidth and capacity. If you like proprietary solutions HP sells a thing called the LeftHand Virtual San App

Yes SLC prices are getting better :)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227484

Someone missed the news - Apple's new mouse has no buttons.

And it's dumb - just like all these MS has been playing with http://www.gizmag.com/microsoft-multi-touch-mouse-prototypes/13081/ .

Looks like I need to stock up on mice as well as keyboards now.
This is the only keyboard layout I will accept: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823126013 (I could do without the stupid circle bumps and ms logo on the windows key, though)

Notice the non-retarded layout - nothing is curved, separated, or oddly angled for some bullshit ergonomic reasons. The return key isn't a fucking sea cow, and backspace isn't a damned midget. Backslash is right where it should be, and it has a respectable size. (Sandslash is right where he should be too, in my pokeball, bitches.)
I've got a 3(horizontal)x2(vertical) layout for my home bank, I've got a full numpad, and I still have my scroll lock and pause/break keys.

For mice, I want two real buttons. A scroll wheel is nice to have, too. And if it's there, is should be clickable. Give it a left/right tilt if you want, but I don't give a shit. 2 buttons on the left side by my thumb are fine too, but anything else is overkill. Sorry lefties.

Don't want a fucking led screen, fucking weights, fucking 8 million dpi, or whatever other bullshit the think of. I won't be doing fucking gestures instead of a single button click.

How does this do anything at all to prevent a determined cheater? If you have the genuine Microsoft-branded XBox 360 hard drive, you can open it up and it's just a plain old SATA drive inside - which you can then proceed to plug into any computer. Or if you have the Official Microsoft memory stick, there exists a way to add a USB connector - at which point it's just mass storage.

It's a money grab, plain and simple. $99 for a 60GB 2.5" hard drive with some plastic around it? Piss off, Microsoft - in the computer world, $99 will get you 500 GB in a 2.5" drive without trying. The prices on their brand of flash memory are even more atrocious. $30 for 512 megs? Again, in the computer world that's 16GB in a USB key, which is what the XBox memory stick is, with added plastic.

I've never seen people anywhere other than slashdot try to do some of the things I've seen here. Bluetooth headset for your computer audio that you also use for your mobile phone? Seriously? That's the LAST thing I want to listen to my music on let alone let it drain battery life from...

Not if you're like me and own a Motorola S805 Bluetooth DJ Headphones.

It has a crappy Mic and can probably handle phone calls to an "ok" extent (it has stereo audio and phone controls). However, I don't use it with my cellphone, I have a separate simpler (one ear) Bluetooth headset for that.

After going wireless it's _very_ hard to return to a wired set. I don't do anything professional with these, just music/youtube/etc., so the sound quality fits me just fine. It works with Ubuntu (my laptop) and Windows 7 (my workstation), although I have to admit that the Ubuntu experience leaves a lot to be desired (i.e. buggy-ness, writing a shell script and modifying .asoundrc do not come off as very user friendly).

So to sum it up, for someone like me a better Linux/PA/Bluetooth experience would be great. I've actually wanted to dig into the code and see how I can improve things, but I've never done that kind of programming before nor have I had the time lately to learn/do it.

P.S.: Final plug for the headset, sound is great if you're not an audiophile, battery life is amazing, and it charges over mini-USB, just like my cell phone and other headset.

I don't think knocking out 3rd party MU's is to protect the profits of 1st party peripheral business -- i think it's to protect xbox live.

While I agree with your post overall, Microsoft could prove to it's customers that it isn't about the money by selling memory devices that aren't 5x the price of flash memory with twice the capacity and hard drives that aren't over 2.5x the price of equivalent computer drives. Note that the cheapies ALREADY have markup built in, and, hell, those companies are making money. It's not like Microsoft will eat a loss on each sale by simply being competitive.

I'm surprised the same content providers that Microsoft is assuring that the platform is "pretty safe" aren't coming back and asking why the peripherals are so expensive and making projections to how many more people would be buying XBox Live content if they didn't blow all their cash on peripherals and didn't have to worry about the exploitative cost of buying space upgrades.

I don't think knocking out 3rd party MU's is to protect the profits of 1st party peripheral business -- i think it's to protect xbox live.

While I agree with your post overall, Microsoft could prove to it's customers that it isn't about the money by selling memory devices that aren't 5x the price of flash memory with twice the capacity and hard drives that aren't over 2.5x the price of equivalent computer drives. Note that the cheapies ALREADY have markup built in, and, hell, those companies are making money. It's not like Microsoft will eat a loss on each sale by simply being competitive.

I'm surprised the same content providers that Microsoft is assuring that the platform is "pretty safe" aren't coming back and asking why the peripherals are so expensive and making projections to how many more people would be buying XBox Live content if they didn't blow all their cash on peripherals and didn't have to worry about the exploitative cost of buying space upgrades.

I don't think knocking out 3rd party MU's is to protect the profits of 1st party peripheral business -- i think it's to protect xbox live.

While I agree with your post overall, Microsoft could prove to it's customers that it isn't about the money by selling memory devices that aren't 5x the price of flash memory with twice the capacity and hard drives that aren't over 2.5x the price of equivalent computer drives. Note that the cheapies ALREADY have markup built in, and, hell, those companies are making money. It's not like Microsoft will eat a loss on each sale by simply being competitive.

I'm surprised the same content providers that Microsoft is assuring that the platform is "pretty safe" aren't coming back and asking why the peripherals are so expensive and making projections to how many more people would be buying XBox Live content if they didn't blow all their cash on peripherals and didn't have to worry about the exploitative cost of buying space upgrades.

I don't think knocking out 3rd party MU's is to protect the profits of 1st party peripheral business -- i think it's to protect xbox live.

While I agree with your post overall, Microsoft could prove to it's customers that it isn't about the money by selling memory devices that aren't 5x the price of flash memory with twice the capacity and hard drives that aren't over 2.5x the price of equivalent computer drives. Note that the cheapies ALREADY have markup built in, and, hell, those companies are making money. It's not like Microsoft will eat a loss on each sale by simply being competitive.

I'm surprised the same content providers that Microsoft is assuring that the platform is "pretty safe" aren't coming back and asking why the peripherals are so expensive and making projections to how many more people would be buying XBox Live content if they didn't blow all their cash on peripherals and didn't have to worry about the exploitative cost of buying space upgrades.

... or more likely, pick up the $99.99 60GB Live Starter Pack for Xbox 360.

Or (in an even more likely scenario if you're reading Slashdot) you will opt to do it yourself to get twice that storage for a little over half the cost. This is, of course, assuming that locking out "unauthorized storage" does not also target in some crazy way locking out hard drives.

That would be true, except that even crappy computer speakers these days can produce high frequencies just fine. Consider the following speakers that are among the least expensive on Newegg. They have an advertised frequency response of 100hz to 20,000khz, plenty of range to reveal encoding flaws. Yes, the actual frequency response might not be as good as advertised, but if they're anywhere close, they will not have any trouble revealing encoding flaws.

In my experience, medium-high frequency reproduction is probably the chief problem with poorly encoded music. From the article, "Some also noted that cymbals, hi hats and vocals in particular sounded better" (referring to the better encoded stream). Cymbals and hi-hats are dead on - they end up sounding like 60s sci-fi if encoded badly. Even the most modest of computer speakers and earbuds will reproduce a cymbal frequency range without breaking a sweat.

The grandparent is dead on here - sound reproduction is not a chain, it's a relay race. Any particular member of that race can single handedly improve or worsen the reproduction.

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Full - Retail: $299.99

What! people actually pay MONEY for an operating system? Yes, and worse still they can only use it on one computer the way M$ say they can. Find sanity in an insane world.

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional $139.99 Cheapest Nehalem Processor: $199.99 Latest Office 20xx: $119.99 Total : $459.97

Uh where to start. The core on that CPU is a Lynnfield -- not the Nehalem that Dell was talking about (despite Lynnfield being better). I'm mean there are tons of cheaper cores out there, I was just listing what he quoted. The Windows 7 is a pre-order price with no support or warranty ... the latest office 20xx looks like a student and home, not standard (again no support). So if you're addressing businesses at the Churchill Club ... ? All I was listing was the retail prices -- they are same as the prices from Microsoft's site. If you want to go bargain hunting, I'm certain there are lower prices out there than retail but the point is a retailer is telling you what you need to love your computer again so there are the retail prices.

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional $139.99 Cheapest Nehalem Processor: $199.99 Latest Office 20xx: $119.99 Total : $459.97

Uh where to start. The core on that CPU is a Lynnfield -- not the Nehalem that Dell was talking about (despite Lynnfield being better). I'm mean there are tons of cheaper cores out there, I was just listing what he quoted. The Windows 7 is a pre-order price with no support or warranty ... the latest office 20xx looks like a student and home, not standard (again no support). So if you're addressing businesses at the Churchill Club ... ? All I was listing was the retail prices -- they are same as the prices from Microsoft's site. If you want to go bargain hunting, I'm certain there are lower prices out there than retail but the point is a retailer is telling you what you need to love your computer again so there are the retail prices.

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional $139.99 Cheapest Nehalem Processor: $199.99 Latest Office 20xx: $119.99 Total : $459.97

Uh where to start. The core on that CPU is a Lynnfield -- not the Nehalem that Dell was talking about (despite Lynnfield being better). I'm mean there are tons of cheaper cores out there, I was just listing what he quoted. The Windows 7 is a pre-order price with no support or warranty ... the latest office 20xx looks like a student and home, not standard (again no support). So if you're addressing businesses at the Churchill Club ... ? All I was listing was the retail prices -- they are same as the prices from Microsoft's site. If you want to go bargain hunting, I'm certain there are lower prices out there than retail but the point is a retailer is telling you what you need to love your computer again so there are the retail prices.

I've been using Windows 7 for a long time now, and if you get the latest processor technology and Office 2010 with it, you will love your PC again. It's a dramatic improvement.

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Full - Retail: $299.99

Cheapest Nehalem Processor: $279.99

(note, can't buy Office 2010 yet)

Latest Office 20xx: $399.95

Total: $979.93

You are astroturfing. No-one gets the normal retail version of Windows. Normal people get the SB-version, which will cost you around $192.00
for the Ultimate edition.
Office 2007 costs $294.99 on amazon.com

Makes $766 instead of $979. And as he's been using Windows 7 for a long time, he cannot have ment the latest Nehalem processors. More like core2duo or core2quad.

I've been using Windows 7 for a long time now, and if you get the latest processor technology and Office 2010 with it, you will love your PC again. It's a dramatic improvement.

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Full - Retail: $299.99

Cheapest Nehalem Processor: $279.99

(note, can't buy Office 2010 yet)

Latest Office 20xx: $399.95

Total: $979.93

You are astroturfing. No-one gets the normal retail version of Windows. Normal people get the SB-version, which will cost you around $192.00
for the Ultimate edition.
Office 2007 costs $294.99 on amazon.com

Makes $766 instead of $979. And as he's been using Windows 7 for a long time, he cannot have ment the latest Nehalem processors. More like core2duo or core2quad.

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional $139.99
Cheapest Nehalem Processor: $199.99
Latest Office 20xx: $119.99

Total : $459.97

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional $139.99
Cheapest Nehalem Processor: $199.99
Latest Office 20xx: $119.99

Total : $459.97

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional $139.99
Cheapest Nehalem Processor: $199.99
Latest Office 20xx: $119.99

Total : $459.97

I've been using Windows 7 for a long time now, and if you get the latest processor technology and Office 2010 with it, you will love your PC again. It's a dramatic improvement.

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Full - Retail: $299.99
Cheapest Nehalem Processor: $279.99
(note, can't buy Office 2010 yet)
Latest Office 20xx: $399.95

Total: $979.93

So Michael Dell, the CEO of the company that is the largest dealer of PCs to businesses and individuals, suggests you opt for the extra grand in order to 'love your PC again.' You don't say. I would be shocked if anyone was willing to fork over more than $900 for an entire computer these days. How am I to differentiate this from any salesman saying, "Buy the most expensive one for the best experience."

I've been using Windows 7 for a long time now, and if you get the latest processor technology and Office 2010 with it, you will love your PC again. It's a dramatic improvement.

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Full - Retail: $299.99
Cheapest Nehalem Processor: $279.99
(note, can't buy Office 2010 yet)
Latest Office 20xx: $399.95

Total: $979.93

So Michael Dell, the CEO of the company that is the largest dealer of PCs to businesses and individuals, suggests you opt for the extra grand in order to 'love your PC again.' You don't say. I would be shocked if anyone was willing to fork over more than $900 for an entire computer these days. How am I to differentiate this from any salesman saying, "Buy the most expensive one for the best experience."

"Intel segments the market intentionally!"

Don't forget virtualization. With AMD, you don't have to pay a premium if you plan to run virtual machines.

You no longer have to pay a premium with Intel either. I've noticed that Intel recently began adding their "Virtualization Technology" to all new CPU models, even their entry-level Celeron and Pentium Dual-Core lines. Example: this $53 Celeron E3200 at Newegg.

I think Intel did this in response to Microsoft's announcement of Windows 7's "Windows XP Mode" and its requirement of on-CPU virtualization technology. AMD also recently started adding their "AMD-V" to their previously-excluded Sempron line of CPUs. Newegg has one for just $40.

For a long time (since the Pentium D days), Intel had a confusing market segmentation strategy where some models had it and some didn't, even within the same CPU family (Pentium D, Core 2 Duo). In contrast, after AMD-V was introduced, AMD added it to all of their newly released Athlon 64 and x2 CPUs (but not Sempron). And after the Core 2 Duo was introduced and kicked major butt, AMD dramatically dropped their prices, resulting in cheap AMD virtualization platforms.

Anyhoo, AMD isn't the only option anymore for cheap virtualization.

"Intel segments the market intentionally!"

Don't forget virtualization. With AMD, you don't have to pay a premium if you plan to run virtual machines.

You no longer have to pay a premium with Intel either. I've noticed that Intel recently began adding their "Virtualization Technology" to all new CPU models, even their entry-level Celeron and Pentium Dual-Core lines. Example: this $53 Celeron E3200 at Newegg.

I think Intel did this in response to Microsoft's announcement of Windows 7's "Windows XP Mode" and its requirement of on-CPU virtualization technology. AMD also recently started adding their "AMD-V" to their previously-excluded Sempron line of CPUs. Newegg has one for just $40.

For a long time (since the Pentium D days), Intel had a confusing market segmentation strategy where some models had it and some didn't, even within the same CPU family (Pentium D, Core 2 Duo). In contrast, after AMD-V was introduced, AMD added it to all of their newly released Athlon 64 and x2 CPUs (but not Sempron). And after the Core 2 Duo was introduced and kicked major butt, AMD dramatically dropped their prices, resulting in cheap AMD virtualization platforms.

Anyhoo, AMD isn't the only option anymore for cheap virtualization.

more like 50% cheaper http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=23482&vpn=OCZ2G8004GK&manufacture=OCZ%20Technology http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=41650&vpn=KTH-XW4400E6%2F2G&manufacture=KINGSTON%20TECHNOLOGY%20-%20MEMORY

(Those links are $80CAD for 4GB DDR2-800 non-ECC and $80CAD for 2GB DDR2-800 ECC.)

Look over here, I think your example of ECC pricing might not by typical.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882339047

And it's only that high because I'm too lazy to look at other sources.

That is, if you have enough slots. A slim case might have room for only one or two PCIe cards on a riser. If you've replaced the integrated graphics with ATI and the integrated wired networking with a WLAN card, what do you do once the onboard audio gets sick, other than build a new PC out of the remaining working parts?

I'm late to the show on answering you, but if all you are missing is broken audio, they have USB audio devices these days. The mini-jack plug went out on my wife's computer, and she had no spare PCI slots to replace the onboard audio with. The solution was a USB stereo audio adapter. (Here is one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812186035) they even go up to 7.1 surround, but I'd imagine it isn't a great solution for a gaming computer.

Sell it and make yourself a mini-itx box.

Pick up something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813500030

$170 for a dual-core 64-bit capable mini-itx machine with real nvidia graphics. After you add a couple 2gb ram sticks and a decent HD you will still have a few hundred bucks left over from the trade to get all your friends drunk, or whatever. And, you won't have to worry about your hardware manufacturer constantly doing everything possible to prevent you from using your own hardware.

Short answer, If you're a 'plop down some cash and be done with it' type of guy. Get the Acer Aspire Revo AR1600-U910H at newegg for $199US.

Long answer, get hat ever the hell makes you happy, Just make sure that it runs an Nvidia video card that supports VDPAU and you're in the money.

There are nightly .deb builds here: http://sshcs.com/xbmc/ (Also available for other platforms). There are a ton of tutorials available on xbmc.org.

Most people are fond of the ION series, it's a 9300 series GeForce paired with an Intel processor. There's one guy who is working on getting a $30 broadcom chip working in the AppleTV that can decode everything up through 1080p, however it seems to be 'a month away'. Plus there aren't any legal drivers for any OS out there yet.

You can even boot it as a 'live' CD/USB. I'm thinking about getting a small CF card and using that. I have the XBMC Debian install down to around 700MB. Most of the Devs and other users prefer Ubuntu. (as far as linux goes).

XBMC has taken leaps and bounds since forking from the original XBox hardware. It's absolutely gorgeous. The skins ... wow. There are companies out there that can't come up with an interface as nice or slick as this that works as well. UPnP, Bonjour, SMB, ReplayTV, even Live TV with some plugins.... which also kick ass. There are plugins for Youtube to Apple TV trailers to YouPorn :).

I rarely buy software (and stick to freeware) and even more rarely donate much (I'm just frugal). However XBMC just got $100 from me. For $50 and I got a used xbox with a broken DVD drive 6 years ago. It has been hands down the best multimedia device I have ever seen. With the addition of a CPU/GPU that can do 1080p... no questions asked.

Well, as a home user there are several things on the Mac Mini that home users end up using a lot, like the Bluetooth synch with the phone (my daughter uses this to transfer pictures) or the FireWire port for the video camera. But (bad car analogy time here) many other people have pointed out the little things that make up the price such as the form factor. The Mac Mini compared to the Dell is like comparing a 2009 BMW Mini with a 2009 Fiat Panda.

I think you're in a minority on using Bluetooth OR firewire (especially firewire - even Apple is dumping it these days on some models), but even if you wanted, they're not hard problems to solve.

Toss $13 at the Bluetooth problem:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833156069

and $6 at the firewire problem:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815124032

And you're back in business. It'll take a WHOLE lot more stuff to make up the $330 price difference between the two systems.

Now, I realize that the form factors are different, and that does matter to some. If that's you're deciding factor then by all means go for the Mini. It's just that I'd wager that 99% of computer users don't care. Most of the lower cost "beige boxes" (should call them "black boxes" these days as an actual beige PC has become as rare as hen's teeth) are small enough. The systems are still desktops,and so most are under the desk or stashed to the side out of the way anyways.

Well, as a home user there are several things on the Mac Mini that home users end up using a lot, like the Bluetooth synch with the phone (my daughter uses this to transfer pictures) or the FireWire port for the video camera. But (bad car analogy time here) many other people have pointed out the little things that make up the price such as the form factor. The Mac Mini compared to the Dell is like comparing a 2009 BMW Mini with a 2009 Fiat Panda.

I think you're in a minority on using Bluetooth OR firewire (especially firewire - even Apple is dumping it these days on some models), but even if you wanted, they're not hard problems to solve.

Toss $13 at the Bluetooth problem:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833156069

and $6 at the firewire problem:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815124032

And you're back in business. It'll take a WHOLE lot more stuff to make up the $330 price difference between the two systems.

Now, I realize that the form factors are different, and that does matter to some. If that's you're deciding factor then by all means go for the Mini. It's just that I'd wager that 99% of computer users don't care. Most of the lower cost "beige boxes" (should call them "black boxes" these days as an actual beige PC has become as rare as hen's teeth) are small enough. The systems are still desktops,and so most are under the desk or stashed to the side out of the way anyways.

Last time I checked Newegg doesn't sell them yet

Well, I just bought a Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 from NewEgg and immediately slapped Tomato on it:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833162134

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.16489

+

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134912 x2

Or any other combination you want... 2 8GB microsdhc cards are much cheaper however.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134717 Like this.

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.16489

+

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134912 x2

Or any other combination you want... 2 8GB microsdhc cards are much cheaper however.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134717 Like this.

Unless you watch movies on your computer (which I don't) I don't see the point.

Or work with spreadsheets/financial software. Movies aren't the only purpose of a widescreen monitor and your experiences do not represent everybody else who uses a PC.

But go shopping for a monitor today, and it's impossible to find 4:3.

Yeah, it's as hard as going to Newegg, clicking on 'monitors', clicking on 'advanced search' and setting 'widescreen' to 'no'. I can see why you haven't been able to find any 4:3 monitors. Maybe a few links will help you?

Unless you watch movies on your computer (which I don't) I don't see the point.

Or work with spreadsheets/financial software. Movies aren't the only purpose of a widescreen monitor and your experiences do not represent everybody else who uses a PC.

But go shopping for a monitor today, and it's impossible to find 4:3.

Yeah, it's as hard as going to Newegg, clicking on 'monitors', clicking on 'advanced search' and setting 'widescreen' to 'no'. I can see why you haven't been able to find any 4:3 monitors. Maybe a few links will help you?

Unless you watch movies on your computer (which I don't) I don't see the point.

Or work with spreadsheets/financial software. Movies aren't the only purpose of a widescreen monitor and your experiences do not represent everybody else who uses a PC.

But go shopping for a monitor today, and it's impossible to find 4:3.

Yeah, it's as hard as going to Newegg, clicking on 'monitors', clicking on 'advanced search' and setting 'widescreen' to 'no'. I can see why you haven't been able to find any 4:3 monitors. Maybe a few links will help you?

Unless you watch movies on your computer (which I don't) I don't see the point.

Or work with spreadsheets/financial software. Movies aren't the only purpose of a widescreen monitor and your experiences do not represent everybody else who uses a PC.

But go shopping for a monitor today, and it's impossible to find 4:3.

Yeah, it's as hard as going to Newegg, clicking on 'monitors', clicking on 'advanced search' and setting 'widescreen' to 'no'. I can see why you haven't been able to find any 4:3 monitors. Maybe a few links will help you?

"If you can settle for G instead of N then you might want to look at the Asus WL-520GU for only $45."

Why are so many routers now 2 1/2 times the previous prices?

I bought 4 of the Netgear WGR614NAR 802.11b/g for $15 each, delivered. They seem fine.

Err...no. There are tons of negative reviews on NewEgg.

No, NewEgg have lots of negative reviews.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125282 ... mmmmm, functional

> Uh, yeah. Because they don't.

Oh really? Do you have any evidence for that besides personal anecdotes and old people's rants?

> No one is suggesting going out and purchasing a 20 year-old laser printer for its original sticker price. That's why there's eBay. And pawn shops. And Craigslist. Etc.

Of course not, I wasn't suggesting that either. The point was that if you want a printer on which the manufacturer didn't try to cut costs, you can just pay more money (but still less than the old hardware cost) and get a brand new printer which will be better than the old piece of junk in every way. Like, oh I dunno, this LaserJet 9040.

Sometimes it makes sense to buy used hardware, obviously last year's printer for $10 is a better deal than a new one with minor changes for $100, so I'm not denying that. However, this is already getting too far from the original point, which was that for less money you can now buy better hardware than you could n years ago.

Some people are indeed stupid, though maybe it's just early dementia.

"Can someone find the old slashdot article about petabyte holographic storage? I don't remember how far back it was, but talking about hundreds + layer holographic storage basically." Every year there's another "hundreds of layers of storage" article, and we're still sitting here with dual layer DVDs. By the time we see terabyte discs we'll probably all have petabyte hard drives. I remember them talking about blu ray in the 90s, with the prototype arriving in 2000. Back when we had 6gb drives the idea of 50gb discs was amazing, but they dragged their feet so bad creating a standard that by the time it reached market we all moved on to terabyte hard drives. Blu ray burners are still too damn expensive, costing five times ($160 vs $30) more than a DVD burner costs. And once you have one then what? Pay $3 to $7 for each BD-R disc? No thanks, even at $3 for 25gb that's $120 per terabyte, 50% more than a 1 terabyte hard drive. So forgive me if I don't get all excited every time they announce a new high capacity disc format because they haven't fixed the one they have out now.

Makes you stop and think when the cost of a disk + disk drive is lower than just a disc... At what point do they just scrap the whole optical media idea altogether and just package removable magnetic hard drive disk's.

"Can someone find the old slashdot article about petabyte holographic storage? I don't remember how far back it was, but talking about hundreds + layer holographic storage basically." Every year there's another "hundreds of layers of storage" article, and we're still sitting here with dual layer DVDs. By the time we see terabyte discs we'll probably all have petabyte hard drives. I remember them talking about blu ray in the 90s, with the prototype arriving in 2000. Back when we had 6gb drives the idea of 50gb discs was amazing, but they dragged their feet so bad creating a standard that by the time it reached market we all moved on to terabyte hard drives. Blu ray burners are still too damn expensive, costing five times ($160 vs $30) more than a DVD burner costs. And once you have one then what? Pay $3 to $7 for each BD-R disc? No thanks, even at $3 for 25gb that's $120 per terabyte, 50% more than a 1 terabyte hard drive. So forgive me if I don't get all excited every time they announce a new high capacity disc format because they haven't fixed the one they have out now.

Makes you stop and think when the cost of a disk + disk drive is lower than just a disc... At what point do they just scrap the whole optical media idea altogether and just package removable magnetic hard drive disk's.

"Can someone find the old slashdot article about petabyte holographic storage? I don't remember how far back it was, but talking about hundreds + layer holographic storage basically." Every year there's another "hundreds of layers of storage" article, and we're still sitting here with dual layer DVDs. By the time we see terabyte discs we'll probably all have petabyte hard drives. I remember them talking about blu ray in the 90s, with the prototype arriving in 2000. Back when we had 6gb drives the idea of 50gb discs was amazing, but they dragged their feet so bad creating a standard that by the time it reached market we all moved on to terabyte hard drives. Blu ray burners are still too damn expensive, costing five times ($160 vs $30) more than a DVD burner costs. And once you have one then what? Pay $3 to $7 for each BD-R disc? No thanks, even at $3 for 25gb that's $120 per terabyte, 50% more than a 1 terabyte hard drive. So forgive me if I don't get all excited every time they announce a new high capacity disc format because they haven't fixed the one they have out now.

Makes you stop and think when the cost of a disk + disk drive is lower than just a disc... At what point do they just scrap the whole optical media idea altogether and just package removable magnetic hard drive disk's.