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You plan on taping TV shows with a camcorder?

Not only can you do that with any camcorder with a video input, but if that camcorder is a MiniDV camera with video input and the ability to act as a bridge - which even some $500 MiniDV camcorders will do - you can use it to stream DV to your PC for recording.

In case you're looking for a good wireless solution for Linux/BSD, I've recently discovered that Ralink RT2500 chipset based wireless cards work really well. Ralink even has a GPL'ed driver for Linux! I've since replaced all of the POS Intel PRO/2200BG adapters in my house with these, at an amazing $18 a pop.

Ubuntu 6.10 has the RT2x00 driver built-in, and so does OpenBSD. Setting it up in BSD was a breeze; just configure it with ifconfig like any other card. Ubuntu was a little more work-- I tried a number of different GUIs until I found one that addressed all of my issues, and it's probably the best one I've seen so far. RutilT is, unfortunately, not in any of Ubuntu's repos, but compiling it was not difficult. In case you're interested, I ./configure'd it not to use the rutilt_helper, and I just amended my panel shortcut to run it with sudo. Works great, but it only works with Ralink cards.

Linksys wrt54g's originally used linux based firmwares until cisco bought them and then started selling linux based wrt54gs's at a premium...

This statement has a spin on it that I'm not happy with; let's consider the facts instead. See Wikipedia for more details.

Between V4.0 and V5.0 of the firmware, Cisco/Linksys switched from using Linux as the firmware for the WRT54G/WRT54GS to VxWorks. The lower memory footprint of VxWorks allowed them to halve the amount of RAM and flash in the box, substantially lowering production costs.

Cisco still sells Linux based WRT54 boxes as the WRT54GL, but since they have twice as much RAM and flash on them they cost more. This is not the same as selling them at a premium, which implies you're paying more for the same thing. You're not--you're paying more to get more. It's hard to compare directly because so many other things changed, but I don't believe the current Linux-based boxes cost significantly more than similarly configured models used.

What is true is that the VxWorks ones have hit new price lows, and that since you can't get the Linux-based WRT54GL at retail there's no longer frequent sale prices available (although I note that as I write this, newegg has a $10 rebate).

this will be the year PC games make a comeback

As a PC gamer from way back, it's curious to see how the "comeback" year has changed.

It used to be that the PC was generally a couple of years behind consoles in power. This made sense because the average PC spec had to accomodate people that hadn't upgraded whereas each new console itteration would reset the bar.

For the first year of a console's life, it was undisputedly more powerful than a PC and it's games were undeniably better. During the second year, it held the lead over PCs because, even though quite a few people had more powerful systems, games weren't able to expect them yet. By about the third or fourth year, the average PC had caught up, was at least as powerful if not more powerful, games were taking advantage of it and it was taking the lead. By the final year of a console itteration, the PC was now fairly significantly more powerful and held the lead by a good margin - which it promptly lost with the next release cycle a year later.

Thus it was with the NES, SNES, PS1 and PS2/XBox generations.

The interesting thing has been the effect of add in gaming graphics cards. Circa NES/SNES and even PS1 to a degree, there was an incremental step from 386 to 486 to earlier pentiums and from EGA to VGA to SVGA to the early 3DFX cards. In those days, PC gamers couldn't disperse that far from the mid point and games didn't have that much potential to vary for different system specs.

By the PS2/XBox launch of five years ago, just about every gamer was running a GeForce or better card which allowed games companies to make games much more scalable to different hardware setups. The XBox could have great hardware (NV2A) but the GeForce 3 (NV20) had already been in gamers hands for six months and the GeForce 4 (NV25) followed within three or four months. Almost right away, the richest gamers could have just as powerful hardware and so mainstream PC games caught the technical lead up within a year.

With the PS3/XBox360, undeniably exciting things are happening with the processors. The interesting thing is that no one seems to have really figured out how to write good multi-threaded code for the XBox's three processors - let alone the PS3's 7. In the year they've been working that out on the 360, almost every home gamer has a dual core system and quad cores are already an option. Add in DirectX 10 cards with their relative speed boosts and it's little wonder PCs have closed the gap to the point where they easily matched the 360's launch and can handle going up against the PS3's launch year.

Yes, a pair of $600 graphics cards and a $1,000 processor in a $3,500 gaming rig is still WAY more than a console. The curious thing is that $300 graphics cards and a $300 processor in a $1,000 rig now have most of that power whilst a new console has gone up from $200 to $400 to $600 and availability problems in the first six months likely mean you'll pay over the cost of the $1,000 PC to get a console on EBay anyway.

Powerwise, the war's over. Of course one problem remains: we get to see if PC game makers can harness all that power and compete against the simple ease of installation/use of the consoles.

It should be an interesting year: Now the playing field's equal in terms of power, can the flexibility of PCs along with their availability vs. limited console releases allow them to finally take over?

this will be the year PC games make a comeback

As a PC gamer from way back, it's curious to see how the "comeback" year has changed.

It used to be that the PC was generally a couple of years behind consoles in power. This made sense because the average PC spec had to accomodate people that hadn't upgraded whereas each new console itteration would reset the bar.

For the first year of a console's life, it was undisputedly more powerful than a PC and it's games were undeniably better. During the second year, it held the lead over PCs because, even though quite a few people had more powerful systems, games weren't able to expect them yet. By about the third or fourth year, the average PC had caught up, was at least as powerful if not more powerful, games were taking advantage of it and it was taking the lead. By the final year of a console itteration, the PC was now fairly significantly more powerful and held the lead by a good margin - which it promptly lost with the next release cycle a year later.

Thus it was with the NES, SNES, PS1 and PS2/XBox generations.

The interesting thing has been the effect of add in gaming graphics cards. Circa NES/SNES and even PS1 to a degree, there was an incremental step from 386 to 486 to earlier pentiums and from EGA to VGA to SVGA to the early 3DFX cards. In those days, PC gamers couldn't disperse that far from the mid point and games didn't have that much potential to vary for different system specs.

By the PS2/XBox launch of five years ago, just about every gamer was running a GeForce or better card which allowed games companies to make games much more scalable to different hardware setups. The XBox could have great hardware (NV2A) but the GeForce 3 (NV20) had already been in gamers hands for six months and the GeForce 4 (NV25) followed within three or four months. Almost right away, the richest gamers could have just as powerful hardware and so mainstream PC games caught the technical lead up within a year.

With the PS3/XBox360, undeniably exciting things are happening with the processors. The interesting thing is that no one seems to have really figured out how to write good multi-threaded code for the XBox's three processors - let alone the PS3's 7. In the year they've been working that out on the 360, almost every home gamer has a dual core system and quad cores are already an option. Add in DirectX 10 cards with their relative speed boosts and it's little wonder PCs have closed the gap to the point where they easily matched the 360's launch and can handle going up against the PS3's launch year.

Yes, a pair of $600 graphics cards and a $1,000 processor in a $3,500 gaming rig is still WAY more than a console. The curious thing is that $300 graphics cards and a $300 processor in a $1,000 rig now have most of that power whilst a new console has gone up from $200 to $400 to $600 and availability problems in the first six months likely mean you'll pay over the cost of the $1,000 PC to get a console on EBay anyway.

Powerwise, the war's over. Of course one problem remains: we get to see if PC game makers can harness all that power and compete against the simple ease of installation/use of the consoles.

It should be an interesting year: Now the playing field's equal in terms of power, can the flexibility of PCs along with their availability vs. limited console releases allow them to finally take over?

this will be the year PC games make a comeback

As a PC gamer from way back, it's curious to see how the "comeback" year has changed.

It used to be that the PC was generally a couple of years behind consoles in power. This made sense because the average PC spec had to accomodate people that hadn't upgraded whereas each new console itteration would reset the bar.

For the first year of a console's life, it was undisputedly more powerful than a PC and it's games were undeniably better. During the second year, it held the lead over PCs because, even though quite a few people had more powerful systems, games weren't able to expect them yet. By about the third or fourth year, the average PC had caught up, was at least as powerful if not more powerful, games were taking advantage of it and it was taking the lead. By the final year of a console itteration, the PC was now fairly significantly more powerful and held the lead by a good margin - which it promptly lost with the next release cycle a year later.

Thus it was with the NES, SNES, PS1 and PS2/XBox generations.

The interesting thing has been the effect of add in gaming graphics cards. Circa NES/SNES and even PS1 to a degree, there was an incremental step from 386 to 486 to earlier pentiums and from EGA to VGA to SVGA to the early 3DFX cards. In those days, PC gamers couldn't disperse that far from the mid point and games didn't have that much potential to vary for different system specs.

By the PS2/XBox launch of five years ago, just about every gamer was running a GeForce or better card which allowed games companies to make games much more scalable to different hardware setups. The XBox could have great hardware (NV2A) but the GeForce 3 (NV20) had already been in gamers hands for six months and the GeForce 4 (NV25) followed within three or four months. Almost right away, the richest gamers could have just as powerful hardware and so mainstream PC games caught the technical lead up within a year.

With the PS3/XBox360, undeniably exciting things are happening with the processors. The interesting thing is that no one seems to have really figured out how to write good multi-threaded code for the XBox's three processors - let alone the PS3's 7. In the year they've been working that out on the 360, almost every home gamer has a dual core system and quad cores are already an option. Add in DirectX 10 cards with their relative speed boosts and it's little wonder PCs have closed the gap to the point where they easily matched the 360's launch and can handle going up against the PS3's launch year.

Yes, a pair of $600 graphics cards and a $1,000 processor in a $3,500 gaming rig is still WAY more than a console. The curious thing is that $300 graphics cards and a $300 processor in a $1,000 rig now have most of that power whilst a new console has gone up from $200 to $400 to $600 and availability problems in the first six months likely mean you'll pay over the cost of the $1,000 PC to get a console on EBay anyway.

Powerwise, the war's over. Of course one problem remains: we get to see if PC game makers can harness all that power and compete against the simple ease of installation/use of the consoles.

It should be an interesting year: Now the playing field's equal in terms of power, can the flexibility of PCs along with their availability vs. limited console releases allow them to finally take over?

this will be the year PC games make a comeback

As a PC gamer from way back, it's curious to see how the "comeback" year has changed.

It used to be that the PC was generally a couple of years behind consoles in power. This made sense because the average PC spec had to accomodate people that hadn't upgraded whereas each new console itteration would reset the bar.

For the first year of a console's life, it was undisputedly more powerful than a PC and it's games were undeniably better. During the second year, it held the lead over PCs because, even though quite a few people had more powerful systems, games weren't able to expect them yet. By about the third or fourth year, the average PC had caught up, was at least as powerful if not more powerful, games were taking advantage of it and it was taking the lead. By the final year of a console itteration, the PC was now fairly significantly more powerful and held the lead by a good margin - which it promptly lost with the next release cycle a year later.

Thus it was with the NES, SNES, PS1 and PS2/XBox generations.

The interesting thing has been the effect of add in gaming graphics cards. Circa NES/SNES and even PS1 to a degree, there was an incremental step from 386 to 486 to earlier pentiums and from EGA to VGA to SVGA to the early 3DFX cards. In those days, PC gamers couldn't disperse that far from the mid point and games didn't have that much potential to vary for different system specs.

By the PS2/XBox launch of five years ago, just about every gamer was running a GeForce or better card which allowed games companies to make games much more scalable to different hardware setups. The XBox could have great hardware (NV2A) but the GeForce 3 (NV20) had already been in gamers hands for six months and the GeForce 4 (NV25) followed within three or four months. Almost right away, the richest gamers could have just as powerful hardware and so mainstream PC games caught the technical lead up within a year.

With the PS3/XBox360, undeniably exciting things are happening with the processors. The interesting thing is that no one seems to have really figured out how to write good multi-threaded code for the XBox's three processors - let alone the PS3's 7. In the year they've been working that out on the 360, almost every home gamer has a dual core system and quad cores are already an option. Add in DirectX 10 cards with their relative speed boosts and it's little wonder PCs have closed the gap to the point where they easily matched the 360's launch and can handle going up against the PS3's launch year.

Yes, a pair of $600 graphics cards and a $1,000 processor in a $3,500 gaming rig is still WAY more than a console. The curious thing is that $300 graphics cards and a $300 processor in a $1,000 rig now have most of that power whilst a new console has gone up from $200 to $400 to $600 and availability problems in the first six months likely mean you'll pay over the cost of the $1,000 PC to get a console on EBay anyway.

Powerwise, the war's over. Of course one problem remains: we get to see if PC game makers can harness all that power and compete against the simple ease of installation/use of the consoles.

It should be an interesting year: Now the playing field's equal in terms of power, can the flexibility of PCs along with their availability vs. limited console releases allow them to finally take over?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16813131568

2 onboard raid controllers, one of which IIRC is a hardware (the SI chip) and one is software (the NV chip)

not that he said anything about having an onboard hardware raid chip anyway...

I just bought a laptop. It came with XP, not Vista. Why is that?

Because Vista isn't out yet.

http://www.microsoft.com/Windowsvista/

January 30, 2007 is when Vista will be available. You can not buy it now. You can buy XP and get a free upgrade to Vista at select retailers, such as NewEgg http://promotions.newegg.com/microsoft/vista/index .html but you can not buy Vista.

https://www.scientificlinux.org/

http://www.newegg.com/

http://www.tigerdirect.com/

http://www.linuxquestions.org/

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/

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).

Shhh, if HP knew we were modifying their laptops they would probably sue the hell out of all of us hax0rs.

Shit, just talking like that makes my underground supplier edgy!

All it takes is one person to ruin the fun for everyone I'm afraid.

Why not just buy real RAM, instead of using a flash drive. For a couple hundred dollars you can get yourself 2 Gigs of real memory. That should be just about enough for any desktop user. If it's not, then you're probably need a lot of power, and are still better off buying real memory. Flash drives would die pretty fast if you tried to use them as swap space. They might offer some advantage if you had all the boot information on there, and booted from it, but I don't think you'd notice a significant increase over using the hard drive for swap that would pay off when you had to buy a new memory stick every 2 months.

Out of curiosity, did you order this card.
It looks good but I can't tell from the MSI site if it support OTA high-def or just unencrypted cable high-def.

The tapes. We usually buy 5 cases at a time, each case is 4 boxes of 5 for 100 total. I assume we probably get a discount.

Here is a link to referenced HD for $110
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16822152046

YMMV with the quality.

That is a good point. You would figure that without a tuner you should be able to pick up a 19" LCD TV for around $250, and with a tuner for around $500...

There are some of those available though:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16889251010

Seems like there should be a lot more. The price of a 19" Aquos, for example, is practically criminal. The profit margin must be 150%.

If you're going to use a cable box, you may as well just buy a computer monitor.

Fuji brand CDs that are "Made in Japan" are pretty much guaranteed to be manufactured by Taiyo Yuden. The cases they are stored in usually have a somewhat rounded bevel on top about 1 cm thick. Some Fuji CDs are made in Taiwan, so be sure to check. I don't know any DVD brands in the US that distribute Taiyo Yuden.

The ever-loving NewEgg.com supplies media direct from Taiyo Yuden as well.

FCC mandates that all phones sold in the US be programmed for their providers, so locked.

Really? Or, do you mean that all phone sold by providers must be locked?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16822116156

Or maybe you are.

--S (not that you'll find SAS in laptops, but hey, this is slashdot.)

A Blu-ray writer that can also write to all other optical disks (apart from HD-DVD of course) is coming in cheaper than the first gen cd *players* did.

I carry the full PortableApps suite http://www.portableapps.com/ (89.5MB) on one of my Transcend my 2GB SD card that I swap between my camera, Treo 650 & a Rosewill SD/MMC USB 2.0 pocket card reader ($5 at http://www.newegg.com/. here is a list of some of the apps included:
7-Zip Portable
AbiWord Portable
Audacity Portable
ClamWin Portable
FileZilla Portable
Firefox Portable
Gaim Portable
GIMP Portable
Miranda IM Portable
Nvu Portable
OpenOffice.org Portable
Sudoku Portable
Sunbird Portable
Thunderbird Portable
VLC Media Player Portable
Plus more

I'd go with the QuadFX platform just so I could swap in two quadcore AMD chips mid-2007, or one quadcore and one Torrenza platform coprocessor... if I had a few $thousand lying around and could make proper use of all that firepower. I suspect that quadcore + coprocessor combination is going to be really, really interesting within a year.

Dual-socket Xeon platforms, which can accept Clovertown, are available today.
By next week, you could have 8 cores in your box!

LaCie makes a nice bus-powered hard drive that is sufficiently low-draw on the USB port that it works on *all* of my computers (even my laptop), and several of the aforementioned computers are incapable of supplying various other bus-powered drives that I've tried.

Newegg prices

As you can see, a blue ray drive for your computer is approximately the same price as the PS3, or more expensive. The PS3 also plays various games and... (gasp) can run linux :p. Can your blue ray player do that? The only real reason I personally would buy a blue ray disk drive is to burn copies of the disks, but if you only have 1 blue-ray drive think of how much data you must store to your computer in order to burn a copy. Ha, no thanks.

I recently bought a projector that took HDMI, that is when I startedlooking for HDMI cables. Turns out the cheapest HDMI cable 3ft is for 30$-40$. if u want anything longer, your are looking at 100$ plus. Researching more I discovered that reason for this is the specs, strangly yes, the specs. An article I read says the HDMI spec (an off shoot of DVI) was designed by computer engnineers and not video engineers. HDMI uses 4 twisted pair with no error correction (unlike TCP/IP) to send real time data and has a huge bandwidth requirements (HDTV). if they were video engineers they would have choosen coaxial. Anyhow, due to this, there are complications in the manufacturing of HDMI cables and achieving 100 ohm impedence is a big issue on these twisted pair cables.

You mean this $7.69 HDMI cable cannot exist? And that this 16 foot HDMI cable for $29.99 is a figment of my imagination??? Eghads! How in the world was I ever able to get a usable signal from my home theater?

Perhaps that's because you should have spent more time researching, or at least talking to a real expert, and not the pimply-faced sales droid at your local electronics store who will spin more lies in pursuit of that 75% premium cable profit margin than a politician chasing re-election.

And, by the way, comparing HDMI to TCP/IP is like comparing Apples to Stainless Steel Cookware. And TCP/IP does not demand error correction (UDP is best effort). But TCP/IP does run over Ethernet or Token-Ring, either of which can run over 100-Ohm UTP. In fact, TCP/IP over GB-Ethernet on 4-pair 100-Ohm UTP has sufficient bandwidth to carry multiple real-time HDTV feeds up to 100 meters.

Finally, there is nothing magical about making 100 Ohm UTP cable. It's been around for dozens of years and is the most common specification. It is certainly MUCH SUPERIOR FOR CARRYING DIGITAL SIGNALS compared to coaxial cable, which attenuates and degrades the digital waveforms over distance due to its inherent capacitance characteristics.

I will concur that HDMI cables longer than 30 feet are unheard of, and that this is because of the specification. Every network standard has distance limitations. It's a trade-off between performance, convenience and cost. In defense of the standards team I can only say that most people tend to put their TV and tuner/dvd/etc on the same side of their house. Sort of like putting the oven in the kitchen with the fridge. But I'm kind of conservative that way.

I recently bought a projector that took HDMI, that is when I startedlooking for HDMI cables. Turns out the cheapest HDMI cable 3ft is for 30$-40$. if u want anything longer, your are looking at 100$ plus. Researching more I discovered that reason for this is the specs, strangly yes, the specs. An article I read says the HDMI spec (an off shoot of DVI) was designed by computer engnineers and not video engineers. HDMI uses 4 twisted pair with no error correction (unlike TCP/IP) to send real time data and has a huge bandwidth requirements (HDTV). if they were video engineers they would have choosen coaxial. Anyhow, due to this, there are complications in the manufacturing of HDMI cables and achieving 100 ohm impedence is a big issue on these twisted pair cables.

You mean this $7.69 HDMI cable cannot exist? And that this 16 foot HDMI cable for $29.99 is a figment of my imagination??? Eghads! How in the world was I ever able to get a usable signal from my home theater?

Perhaps that's because you should have spent more time researching, or at least talking to a real expert, and not the pimply-faced sales droid at your local electronics store who will spin more lies in pursuit of that 75% premium cable profit margin than a politician chasing re-election.

And, by the way, comparing HDMI to TCP/IP is like comparing Apples to Stainless Steel Cookware. And TCP/IP does not demand error correction (UDP is best effort). But TCP/IP does run over Ethernet or Token-Ring, either of which can run over 100-Ohm UTP. In fact, TCP/IP over GB-Ethernet on 4-pair 100-Ohm UTP has sufficient bandwidth to carry multiple real-time HDTV feeds up to 100 meters.

Finally, there is nothing magical about making 100 Ohm UTP cable. It's been around for dozens of years and is the most common specification. It is certainly MUCH SUPERIOR FOR CARRYING DIGITAL SIGNALS compared to coaxial cable, which attenuates and degrades the digital waveforms over distance due to its inherent capacitance characteristics.

I will concur that HDMI cables longer than 30 feet are unheard of, and that this is because of the specification. Every network standard has distance limitations. It's a trade-off between performance, convenience and cost. In defense of the standards team I can only say that most people tend to put their TV and tuner/dvd/etc on the same side of their house. Sort of like putting the oven in the kitchen with the fridge. But I'm kind of conservative that way.

Make a 8" square motherboard, with the same power and expandability as current machine, and you'll make cube shaped cases and built into monitor style designs more possible.

No, you have no idea what TurboCache means, and just because you may have read something about it on a site doesn't mean you're an expert on it.
Example. It has 512MB TurboCache. Yeah, it doesn't have 512MB of dedicated memory. But it does have 256MB. It lets you expand that 256MB it has into 512MB by using system memory.
From Wikipedia: "NVIDIA's TurboCache technology is a method of allowing more framebuffer memory on select graphics cards by using both video memory and system memory by taking advantage of the high bandwidth provided by the PCI-Express bus."

Even the site you linked to explaining TurboCache proves you didn't even read it. If you had read it, you would have noticed this little bit: "There will be two entry level graphic cards, called the GeForce 6200 TC, based on TurboCache that'll be available soon; one is equipped with 16MB of local memory, the other with 32MB. Both will use up to 128MB of main memory, a forthcoming 64MB version will support up to 256MB though, which means that the GeForce 6200 series will be available as effectively 128 and 256MB graphic cards."
That was just on page one of three.

So, in other words, shut up.

which customers? Most people I know are still watching a 30" (or less), 5 year old TV.
We are just now looking into an HDTV because the prices are coming down to a reasonable range...

I watch over the air HD on my PC with this ATI tuner card.

So, HD on the computer is an option also, even if it is windowed it looks good. I also am starting to look at HD TVs, but it would be nice to have those movies available for download and be able to transfer then to my laptop or desktop, so that I could watch them wherever I happen to be goofing off.

"Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 has a recommended retail price of 289.99 pounds ($550), but is currently available for 234 pounds ($444)."?!?!

Amazon.co.uk has insane prices, apparently.

Newegg has XP SP2 with an upgrade coupon for $139.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16832116175
Even their retail XP SP2 is $269.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16837116195

"Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 has a recommended retail price of 289.99 pounds ($550), but is currently available for 234 pounds ($444)."?!?!

Amazon.co.uk has insane prices, apparently.

Newegg has XP SP2 with an upgrade coupon for $139.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16832116175
Even their retail XP SP2 is $269.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16837116195

Ah, but people do shell out that kind of cash for games and bleeding edge technology... and that's just the video card!

This one might be a bit hot for an HTPC. Hope that at least helps.

i've never trusted pc makers. they constantly put the cheapest possible parts in their products in order to minimize costs. but for some reason, when i compare a cost of pc versus the cost of all of its parts, the pc always costs more. even though i know that i'll get tons of bloatware and other shit that i don't need with my new pc. their excuse for bloatware is that it will reduce cost of the pc to the user. yeah right, it will make pc makers' pockets larger, that's it.

do you know what a cheaply manufactured part does to the pc? creates a bottleneck. a power supply that is poorly made will not deliver clean voltage to the devices, which will cause various very subtle problems that are hard to diagnose and impossible to prove when claiming a warranty!

oh, also.. most pc's come with windows pre-installed. you're paying for windows without even knowing it! do you really need windows? most of slashdot users would have to say "no!", right? they're happily running their open source apps on their open source OS's.

want to have a pc that is fast, quiet, trouble-free, and easy to upgrade? go to newegg and get the damn parts! that'll save you about 30% of the cost. plus you'll know what you're getting. buy with future upgrades in mind. for example, choose a dual-socket motherboard or larger power supply. and if you're having trouble deciding what parts to buy, go to hardware guys and read their recommendations (you can trust them).

who in the hell would want a ready-built computer for him/herself? technology is so good right now, assembling one is easier than ever...

I'd been deferring any sort of upgrade, since Win98SE has been sufficient for games, and I don't like spending money before I need to. At some point this summer/fall I started thinking maybe I should just get Vista, since I'll be waiting long enough. Now I'm beginning to think it should be XP, because the machine is "only" an AthlonXP-2600, 512MB RAM, 40GB HD, 256MB 5700LE. I get the impression that it will run Vista, but won't be that far above minimum requirements.

You may have read last week's news announcing Microsoft's Express Upgrade program, which is in effect from October 26 to March 15. Qualifying systems (or OEM copies of XP) come bundled with a coupon for either a free upgrade to Vista or 50% off an upgrade for Vista, depending on which version of XP you bought:

• XP Home Edition (which I would not recommend for a college student) gets a 50% discount off Vista Home Basic ($50) or Vista Home Premium ($80).
• XP Media Center Edition gets a free upgrade version of Vista Home Premium.
• XP Professional Edition, Tablet PC Edition, and Professional x64 Edition get free upgrades to Vista Business Edition.

1)Buy Blu-ray burner 2)Download some Blu-ray movies 3)??? 4)Profit!

...but I'm more likely to be swayed by the first company to offer me a break on a display that can even view this high-def content ...

As far as I can tell in a cursory glance over the net, the cheapest "TV-sized" display that will do 1080P with HDMI is the Westinghouse for $1100 shipped, and the cheapest panel is $800 for some 24" display ...

That means I'm spending around $1500 for this "experience" they're peddling, all told. Sell me the display for $400 and we can talk. :-)

--
Slashcode bug # 497457 - unfixed since December 2001 - Go look it up!

Once the industry decides on a tech to use, and huge mass manufacturing begins, the prices drop quickly.

Look at flash since we're talking about it. Only a few years ago 128mb was considered a big module, and costed close to $100.

Now we are seeing 8gb modules coming out. Here is an 8gB for 256$ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16820171091

Course, compared to a HDD this is expensive. Very expensive. You need 32 of these to make a 250gB drive. This would cost 8 grand just to make a modern HDD. But if prices keep dropping as they have been (I see no reason why not?) and capacities keep going up, we could be seeing 32gb modules in a couple years. It is going to take time, but I cant see why we should be switched to all-flash drives within maybe ten years? It will start with these hybrid drives because they make a good compromise, but our current HDDs are startlingly unreliable compared to any other system component, and are a severe bottleneck on performance.

I still say we cant switch fast enough.

I misquoted the price. At the time I got them, it was $80 for EACH 1GB module at Newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16815168001

devices like these?

On my laptop I use a bluetooth mouse to avoud the hassles of dealing with plugging and unplugging the mouse from the laptop.

And you can solve this problem by leaving your USB mouse and keyboard plugged into a hub on your desktop, so you only have one thing to plug in. As a bonus, you could get a USB-powered laptop cooler with a built-in hub (like this one), so you're not only cleaning up cable clutter, but also reducing heat-related stress on your hard drive. -- Paul

You can get 1TB of disk for $300, cap'n.

Bad Solution: USB extender cable
Good Solution: Don't buy them

You say you don't need the latest?

Fine then, Get a Pentium 4.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Subm it=ENE&N=50001157+2010340343+1050706985&Subcategor y=&description=&Ntk=&srchInDesc=

If you want to compare apples to oranges, why not include Intel's more affordable chips? For $84 you can get one with 64Bit support even. For $89 you can get it with an 800MHz FSB and HT.

If you just want to surf the web and run a word processor, these will do it, and the 90nm ones aren't too bad on heat. If you want one that runs as cool as an AMD, you'll need the 65nm one, and it's a lot more.

But then again, all you want to do is run a word processor and surf the web, how much will that tax your chip anyway?

I have to say, $180 for a dual-core Conroe is a pretty good deal, very probably a smart $90 upgrade whether you were considering the AMD or P4.

Ever since news started filtering out about Conroe, the AMD fanboys have been deserting their old object of worship faster than it takes to cook an Athlon XP. It was a 'no-brainer': Conroe was turning the tables on the Athlon 64, and 'ass mastering' it at lower clock speeds -- with faster versions already on the way.

Intel has clearly made a huge comeback, and intends to drive home its advantage still further with the Kentsfield quad-core part.

Ever since news started filtering out about Conroe, the AMD fanboys have been deserting their old object of worship faster than it takes to cook an Athlon XP. It was a 'no-brainer': Conroe was turning the tables on the Athlon 64, and 'ass mastering' it at lower clock speeds -- with faster versions already on the way.

Intel has clearly made a huge comeback, and intends to drive home its advantage still further with the Kentsfield quad-core part.

I have an Acer Aspire 5672WLMi and it's pretty good as a gaming system for my needs. It plays HL2 and CS:S admirably at the display's native resolution of 1280x800. Mine has a core duo T2300 (1.66GHz dual core), 1GB of RAM, and a Radeon X1400 (newer revisions come with an X1600)

The screen is a little glossy, but so far it has not proved to be a problem for me, though there have been times when some sort of anti-glare coating would be nice.

The price isn't too bad, either. I gave just under $1100 for it.

Here is a current version of it on Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16834115246

...for masturbation.

I'm serious. Wireless rumble controllers FTW. I've had this one for about 8 months now and I've only had to replace the AA batteries once. I've just recently started to use it as a sex toy, when I realized I could just keep pressing the button on the controller labeled, well, "VIBRATION" every half second or so and it would constantly vibrate. It's uh, pretty sexy. AHem. So far I haven't "soiled" the controller, but I'm very careful about that.

Oh yeah, it's also great for emulators, driving games, and fighting games. Street Fighter 2 is totally playable, compared to skimping along on a keyboard getting owned by Zangief. GTR2 (new hardcore racing sim, just came out) is totally playable with the two analog sticks for steering and throttle/brake. You just gotta have some analog inputs or a wheel for GTR2. Stomp the gas from 0% throttle to 100% instantly and you'll surely lose traction and go off. Brake digitally and you'll skid right off the turn.

I've seen something like this before, in a cigar humidor. I think I like it much better than these monstrosities.

here's a picture of the humidor: http://images10.newegg.com/UploadFilesForNewegg/hu midor_description.html

You mean KVMs right?

They're actually really cheap these days and a great way to flaunt your geek status.