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As someone who has used both OO.o and MS Office extensively I'll say this:

IMHO, MS office is reliable, easy to use, has a smaller memory footprint, and is universal in the business world.

OO.o is free, in every sense of the word.

If your class is Business Admin 101, tell your students to get MS Office.

If Timmy needs to write his book report, save the $122 and spend it on something else. Hell, $122 will buy school supplies for the rest of the year

Just my $0.02.

That's what I was thinking. The $140 CF card is rated 40X or 6 MB/s transfer rate. But most 5400RPM 2.5" hard drives can barely do that in a sustained write, in my experience.

If you put two of those $140 CF cards in a striped RAID-0 with the dual-card Addonics adapter, you'll have a 32gb solid state disk, with a speed approaching 12 MB/s rate, for about $300 ($280 for the two CF cards, and $20 for the dual adapter).

Certainly cheaper than the 32gb solid-state disk for $430 from Transcend. And you can upgrade it piecewise as larger CF cards come out.

• I can make my own 16gb solid-state IDE disk for only $150 (and 32gb CF cards are coming out in a few months).
  
• Does the $300 Transcend solid-state disk include any additional caching features or other speed-up? (the web site doesn't say: http://www.transcendusa.com/Products/ModDetail.asp ?ModNo=164&SpNo=3&LangNo=0)
  
• Are the 32gb disks anything more than just a little RAID0 chip with two 16gb CF cards attached?
  

• I can make my own 16gb solid-state IDE disk for only $150 (and 32gb CF cards are coming out in a few months).
  
• Does the $300 Transcend solid-state disk include any additional caching features or other speed-up? (the web site doesn't say: http://www.transcendusa.com/Products/ModDetail.asp ?ModNo=164&SpNo=3&LangNo=0)
  
• Are the 32gb disks anything more than just a little RAID0 chip with two 16gb CF cards attached?
  

Corsair 1GB stick for $34.99

Four of those run you $139.96.

With shipping it comes to $147.88.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82 E16834280004

For the low, low price of just $38.99 I can solve all of your browser problems.

Last one should have been this.

Even with the MS tax, can you realistically buy or assemble a full PC with those specs for that kind of price?

Sure. This plus this plus this plus this plus this plus this. Similar or better stats for $299 (and that includes shipping). And I guarantee the components are of better quality.

Even with the MS tax, can you realistically buy or assemble a full PC with those specs for that kind of price?

Sure. This plus this plus this plus this plus this plus this. Similar or better stats for $299 (and that includes shipping). And I guarantee the components are of better quality.

Even with the MS tax, can you realistically buy or assemble a full PC with those specs for that kind of price?

Sure. This plus this plus this plus this plus this plus this. Similar or better stats for $299 (and that includes shipping). And I guarantee the components are of better quality.

Even with the MS tax, can you realistically buy or assemble a full PC with those specs for that kind of price?

Sure. This plus this plus this plus this plus this plus this. Similar or better stats for $299 (and that includes shipping). And I guarantee the components are of better quality.

Even with the MS tax, can you realistically buy or assemble a full PC with those specs for that kind of price?

Sure. This plus this plus this plus this plus this plus this. Similar or better stats for $299 (and that includes shipping). And I guarantee the components are of better quality.

then are you saying the $530 "now" price in that table is...? the MSRP? the cost per chip in a lot of 1000? the street price for the chip is lower than $530. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16819115017

I've never equated $222.90 to "giving away free" before...but in comparison to $999 for the QX6850, it does seem like a steal. Especially since I can't find the QX6850 on sale anywhere yet....

Sorry about the URL.

Umm, maybe you haven't checked, but HD ready TVs can be had for as low as $200 these days: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Sub mit=ENE&N=2102640411+4018&name=%24200+-+%24300
If your not working so many jobs that you dont have time to read /. you can afford an HDTV, even if its not a big one. The price went back up, but my roommate and I just split this Hitachi 55" TV, which we got for 899 from Circuit City right before the 4th of July. The picture quality on SD and HD content is amazing. Its only 720p but still looks great, and the price was impossible to turn down. So I would definitely say at this point, anyone can get an HD tv. Getting HD content to watch is another story though, and maybe more expensive than the TVs now.

Also, note all the open box offers at the bottom here: Gigabyte Intel Processors.

They are getting so many returns that there is a long list. May be a bad indication, depending on how the web site works concerning open box offers.

Before getting excited about this motherboard, read the reviews: Customer Reviews for GIGABYTE GA-N680SLI-DQ6.

Samples:

"The creator of these [this] BIOS is still living in the 1990's."

"In an attempt to RMA this board with Newegg, they stated that this board has been discontinued by the manufacturer, thus I got a 100% refund. But apparently after more research, there are 2 versions of this board."

"It runs WAY TOO HOT..."

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16827135145 $29.99 3 Business Day Shipping $5.84 how is that not "reasonable"

There really isn't a significant premium for SATA anymore. A quick check of newegg came up with at least one example:

Lite-On 20x DVD burner (IDE): $28.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16827106048

Lite-On 20x DVD burner (SATA): $30.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16827106070

There really isn't a significant premium for SATA anymore. A quick check of newegg came up with at least one example:

Lite-On 20x DVD burner (IDE): $28.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16827106048

Lite-On 20x DVD burner (SATA): $30.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16827106070

Do we -know- C is a reason? I would think it's backwards, actually. Here's my reasoning:

Emotion hardware is only 'on' when using PS2 games, and the PS3 hardware is fairly idle at that point.
Emulating another hardware take more CPU than the original hardware needed, and thus produces more heat.

So at best, it's the same heat while playing PS3 games, and more when playing PS2.

In the end, I don't think the extra backwards-compatibility will matter. I think the number right now is 90% for the emulation, and that's pretty doggone good. Sony will be able to patch later (just like MS does) and gain ground on that, if they want.

As a side note, I recently learned that MS finally (in April) got backwards-compat for one of my favorite games on the XBox, Phantom Dust. I had pretty much given up on it. I had to order a copy off EBay ($12!) as I can't find mine, though... Oh well.

Oh, and anyone that's seriously considering the 80GB PS3 should snag a 60GB one and http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16822136071 and have twice the hard drive space. I've got a 20GB that I got dirt cheap and if that drive wasn't most of what I paid for the PS3, I'd have already bought one and upgraded. ;) ($250 for a PS3 and $120 worth of accessory/game/guide.)

My mistake, here are SATA prices.

Hitachi - 60gb: $73.99
Hitachi - 80gb: $79.99
Fujitsu - 60gb: $49.99
Fujitsu - 80gb: $58.99

The point remains, there's still a significant price difference between analogous drives favoring the 60gb as cheaper, one that isn't likely to completely reverse in 18 days.

My mistake, here are SATA prices.

Hitachi - 60gb: $73.99
Hitachi - 80gb: $79.99
Fujitsu - 60gb: $49.99
Fujitsu - 80gb: $58.99

The point remains, there's still a significant price difference between analogous drives favoring the 60gb as cheaper, one that isn't likely to completely reverse in 18 days.

My mistake, here are SATA prices.

Hitachi - 60gb: $73.99
Hitachi - 80gb: $79.99
Fujitsu - 60gb: $49.99
Fujitsu - 80gb: $58.99

The point remains, there's still a significant price difference between analogous drives favoring the 60gb as cheaper, one that isn't likely to completely reverse in 18 days.

My mistake, here are SATA prices.

Hitachi - 60gb: $73.99
Hitachi - 80gb: $79.99
Fujitsu - 60gb: $49.99
Fujitsu - 80gb: $58.99

The point remains, there's still a significant price difference between analogous drives favoring the 60gb as cheaper, one that isn't likely to completely reverse in 18 days.

The current 60 gig PS3 is now out of production and is now $499 as anyone can see

There will be a 80 gig model that is introduced next month that will have partial software emulation - right now European PS3s with EE emulation are at ~90 percent PS2 compatibility. As the remaining stock of 60 gigs get sold the 80 gig will come down to the same price as the current 60 gig model.

As most people know, harddrives don't really drop in price they just get larger capacity for the same price and eventually the low end drives start to become more expensive. That is happening with the 60 gig laptop drives and Sony is moving on to the cheaper in bulk 80 gig drives. So costs will be about the same for the larger harddrive. The removal of the EE hardware and the usual manufacturing cost cutting, including 65nm later this year, will mean the 80 gig PS3 model will be actually cheaper to manufacture than the current 60 gig models.

So by the time you can't get a 60 gig anymore 80 gigs will have moved down in price to $499.

In America, yes ... what the US are offering from the 1st of August is a USD $599 version with one game.

The current 60 gig PS3 is now out of production and is now $499 as anyone can see

There will be a 80 gig model that is introduced next month that will have partial software emulation - right now European PS3s with EE emulation are at ~90 percent PS2 compatibility. As the remaining stock of 60 gigs get sold the 80 gig will come down to the same price as the current 60 gig model.

As most people know, harddrives don't really drop in price they just get larger capacity for the same price and eventually the low end drives start to become more expensive. That is happening with the 60 gig laptop drives and Sony is moving on to the cheaper in bulk 80 gig drives. So costs will be about the same for the larger harddrive. The removal of the EE hardware and the usual manufacturing cost cutting, including 65nm later this year, will mean the 80 gig PS3 model will be actually cheaper to manufacture than the current 60 gig models.

So by the time you can't get a 60 gig anymore 80 gigs will have moved down in price to $499.

In America, yes ... what the US are offering from the 1st of August is a USD $599 version with one game.

The current 60 gig PS3 is now out of production and is now $499 as anyone can see

There will be a 80 gig model that is introduced next month that will have partial software emulation - right now European PS3s with EE emulation are at ~90 percent PS2 compatibility. As the remaining stock of 60 gigs get sold the 80 gig will come down to the same price as the current 60 gig model.

As most people know, harddrives don't really drop in price they just get larger capacity for the same price and eventually the low end drives start to become more expensive. That is happening with the 60 gig laptop drives and Sony is moving on to the cheaper in bulk 80 gig drives. So costs will be about the same for the larger harddrive. The removal of the EE hardware and the usual manufacturing cost cutting, including 65nm later this year, will mean the 80 gig PS3 model will be actually cheaper to manufacture than the current 60 gig models.

So by the time you can't get a 60 gig anymore 80 gigs will have moved down in price to $499.

In America, yes ... what the US are offering from the 1st of August is a USD $599 version with one game.

The current 60 gig PS3 is now out of production and is now $499 as anyone can see

There will be a 80 gig model that is introduced next month that will have partial software emulation - right now European PS3s with EE emulation are at ~90 percent PS2 compatibility. As the remaining stock of 60 gigs get sold the 80 gig will come down to the same price as the current 60 gig model.

As most people know, harddrives don't really drop in price they just get larger capacity for the same price and eventually the low end drives start to become more expensive. That is happening with the 60 gig laptop drives and Sony is moving on to the cheaper in bulk 80 gig drives. So costs will be about the same for the larger harddrive. The removal of the EE hardware and the usual manufacturing cost cutting, including 65nm later this year, will mean the 80 gig PS3 model will be actually cheaper to manufacture than the current 60 gig models.

So by the time you can't get a 60 gig anymore 80 gigs will have moved down in price to $499.

In America, yes ... what the US are offering from the 1st of August is a USD $599 version with one game.

The current 60 gig PS3 is now out of production and is now $499 as anyone can see

There will be a 80 gig model that is introduced next month that will have partial software emulation - right now European PS3s with EE emulation are at ~90 percent PS2 compatibility. As the remaining stock of 60 gigs get sold the 80 gig will come down to the same price as the current 60 gig model.

As most people know, harddrives don't really drop in price they just get larger capacity for the same price and eventually the low end drives start to become more expensive. That is happening with the 60 gig laptop drives and Sony is moving on to the cheaper in bulk 80 gig drives. So costs will be about the same for the larger harddrive. The removal of the EE hardware and the usual manufacturing cost cutting, including 65nm later this year, will mean the 80 gig PS3 model will be actually cheaper to manufacture than the current 60 gig models.

So by the time you can't get a 60 gig anymore 80 gigs will have moved down in price to $499.

In America, yes ... what the US are offering from the 1st of August is a USD $599 version with one game.

The current 60 gig PS3 is now out of production and is now $499 as anyone can see

There will be a 80 gig model that is introduced next month that will have partial software emulation - right now European PS3s with EE emulation are at ~90 percent PS2 compatibility. As the remaining stock of 60 gigs get sold the 80 gig will come down to the same price as the current 60 gig model.

As most people know, harddrives don't really drop in price they just get larger capacity for the same price and eventually the low end drives start to become more expensive. That is happening with the 60 gig laptop drives and Sony is moving on to the cheaper in bulk 80 gig drives. So costs will be about the same for the larger harddrive. The removal of the EE hardware and the usual manufacturing cost cutting, including 65nm later this year, will mean the 80 gig PS3 model will be actually cheaper to manufacture than the current 60 gig models.

So by the time you can't get a 60 gig anymore 80 gigs will have moved down in price to $499.

In America, yes ... what the US are offering from the 1st of August is a USD $599 version with one game.

Note that the x6800 costs nearly 5 times more than the x2 6000.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16819103773
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16819115001

Note that the x6800 costs nearly 5 times more than the x2 6000.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16819103773
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16819115001

There's no on-board video that will outperform your 6600GT. You go to Core2Duo while preserving your RAM and video card though by going with this board:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16813157107

This'll let you upgrade later to DDR2 and a PCI-e vid card later. Even supports quad core if you want to go there.

(pardon the off-topicness, but this set up saved me a ton of money by upgrading in phases and I like sharing it with people who will benefit from doing the same)

...if I'm spending thousands on a new laptop, I'll still take the OS if it's optional. I can pick up Ubuntu for nothing later on. Vista would cost me hundreds.

Also, I think there's significant value in a preinstalled Linux distro that's been tested and confirmed to work with all of the hardware (especially notebooks). Even for supposedly user-friendly distros like Ubuntu, I've read many anecdotes about minor driver problems and manually editing config files. Sure, you can have the same problems with Windows. However, every PC hardware vendor writes Windows drivers first. Linux drivers are almost always secondary if they are written at all. We can at least be somewhat assured that Dell chose Linux-friendly hardware and tested the drivers on these Ubuntu PCs.

1 TB Hard Drive

I'm sitting next to two computers right now, both running Ubuntu. One was purchased in 1996, the other's hard drives were purchased three years ago. The one from 1996 has a 16 GB hard drive, which, as I recall, was the biggest Gateway offered at the time. The other has four 320 GB drives on a RAID 5 (960 GB/894 GiB), which, as I recall, was the second largest behind the 500 GB drives at the time. 30 times larger in about 8 years.

Perhaps you've heard of perpindicular recording, which started early last year. Pretty soon it's going to be impossible to get a hard drive that doesn't have this new technology. You can easily argue that the technology can't go anywhere after this, but it does offer a 10x storage density increase, and you know somebody will be cramming more data blocks on a platter soon enough.

You see, the great thing about hard drives is that they're not critical to the operation of your computer. My Myth frontend has a 40 GB hard drive. The backend, located in a different room and accessed through the network, has 8 500 GB drives on a RAID 5. With the ever-increasing speed of networks, putting things somewhere else is getting easier every day. Sun has taken this idea to the next level with Project Blackbox. Another great thing is that if you need more space, it's fairly easy to just add another drive to your contraption - something you really can't do with processor speed or memory (to a certain point - 4 GB per stick is the highest I've seen).

I see your point - we don't want a datacenter in the basement of every home, but we don't NEED a better system of information storage NOW. There are a lot of ideas out there; most will fall through, but we'll get one, eventually, and that one will make all the difference in the world.

If you look at the number of reviews, though, compared to something like a more modest 500W PS it would seem that not too many people really use/need a 1KW PS.

In fact, those high-end 1KW supplies might even be better for power consumption since they tend to have higher efficiencies than the cheapo options.

With the availability of PC power supplies* in excess of 1000 watts, and the mine's-bigger-than-your's demographic, I wonder what bearing this has on power consumption also. Perhaps peripheral manufacturers need to concentrate on power usage also.

[*] - http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Sub mit=ENE&N=2010320058+1131428171

Too bad they left out Intel's newest low-end core2 duo proc, the e2160.
It's basically an e4300 with less l2 cache and 40 bucks cheaper.
The e2160 starts to put a lot of pressure on AMD's low cost dual-core offerings.

The DX10 out now are crap and a year from now won't be able to play any of the demanding DX10 games coming out. If your looking for a cheap but very fast card I recommend the X1950Pro http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16814102061 $112 after rebate including shipping. This will last you while without putting a huge hole in your pocket, plus if you end up running Vista at least the performance won't totally suck like it does if you try to use an Nvidia cards under Vista.

I'm trying to figure out if that's a joke. Nine mouse buttons?

No, not a joke. It's one of these.

Newegg says 7 buttons, which is technically true, but it's a little more complicated setting it up in X. The main scroll wheel goes forward, backward, left, right, and can be clicked, so that counts as 5 as far as X is concerned. The wheel on the right thumb goes forward, backward, and can also be clicked, so that's 3. To make it more confusing, the little button on top, behind the scroll wheel gets sent as a key press.

In addition, for whatever reason, there are a few numbers skipped, so xev reports some of the buttons as being 15, 16, 17 and 18.

Other than the price and the weird button numbers, the mouse is awesome.

I just picked up one of these color lasers a few weeks ago because I was spending so much on ink. I can't run out to the store and buy new ink every month. After MIR this printer was under $300. I also had a coupon for 10% off which put the price at $235. You can't beat that. Sure toner may be expensive, but with a toner cartridge lasting a lot longer than an ink cartridge I think it is a good investment.

• You Apple's BootCamp which sets up a dual-boot for you. It is very easy to do. This lets you run a "real" version of XP/Vista and all the needed drivers come with BootCamp. BootCamp is a free download.
• You some virtualization software such as Parallels or VMWare (which I think is beta for OS X).

Try one of these http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16833315041. Works for me, and even works out-of-box in Ubuntu (Ralink chipset)

Yes, but what value does that $1.84/month give you over a regular 2GB SD card?

A regular 2GB SD card costs between $15 and $34 (5 year amortized at 4% blah blah blah is $0.28 to $0.63 per month). Essentially the advantage this card adds is not having to get up off your ass and walk 10 feet across the room to get your camera if it's not next to the computer. To me, that's of very little value -- far less than $66-85, especially given how prone SD cards are to getting lost. Then again, this is just me, I'm sure to some people with fatter asses than myself this is a value worth far more than the price difference.

Yes, but what value does that $1.84/month give you over a regular 2GB SD card?

A regular 2GB SD card costs between $15 and $34 (5 year amortized at 4% blah blah blah is $0.28 to $0.63 per month). Essentially the advantage this card adds is not having to get up off your ass and walk 10 feet across the room to get your camera if it's not next to the computer. To me, that's of very little value -- far less than $66-85, especially given how prone SD cards are to getting lost. Then again, this is just me, I'm sure to some people with fatter asses than myself this is a value worth far more than the price difference.