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Sorry I keep responding to myself.
But check this out at Walmart.
They have a 360 for sale here:
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_ id=4213561
For $838.52
The also have the Normal Premium System for 400$ BUT ITS OUT OF STOCK! here:
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_ id=4103879

Now really check out that price and what you get for the money.
They 840$ bundle is the same stuff exactly it seems to me, but with 5 games that you can pick. Problem is is cost more than the
Premium System by about 350$ more.

Now how is it that bundle is In Stock and the Premium System is Out Of Stock when its the same thing, except Walmart throws in 5 games that is not packaged with the XBOX 360 in any way shape or form!
I have seem lots of these rip off out there and refuse to buy them not so much because of the money but because of principle, I dont want them to get the idea they can do this BS!

Sorry I keep responding to myself.
But check this out at Walmart.
They have a 360 for sale here:
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_ id=4213561
For $838.52
The also have the Normal Premium System for 400$ BUT ITS OUT OF STOCK! here:
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_ id=4103879

Now really check out that price and what you get for the money.
They 840$ bundle is the same stuff exactly it seems to me, but with 5 games that you can pick. Problem is is cost more than the
Premium System by about 350$ more.

Now how is it that bundle is In Stock and the Premium System is Out Of Stock when its the same thing, except Walmart throws in 5 games that is not packaged with the XBOX 360 in any way shape or form!
I have seem lots of these rip off out there and refuse to buy them not so much because of the money but because of principle, I dont want them to get the idea they can do this BS!

"Operating system is not included"

Yeah, because nothing says "unobtainable" like being able to buy it from Wal-Mart.

You can get a new computer with operating system for $328 or .

And Win95/Win98 will run Firefox just fine. So they don't have to upgrade their OS or spend a penny. They just have to give a crap enough to spend 10 minutes to stay semi-current (within the last 5 years would be nice).

The up side: It was relatively easy and painless to get my Linux machine running wireless.

The down side: Watch your kernel settings! You may have to bump your kernel to 8k stack frames. (I did with FC4.)

This is the song that doesn't end...

Yes, it goes on and on my friend!

Some people started singing it
not knowing what they'd done,
and they'll continue singing it
forever just because...

This is the song that doesn't end...

(EVERYONE!)

WalMart Desktops

Hmm.... this SkepticOptomist gets a score of 1. WOW! ;)

I bought my first Mac - an SE for $3000. MacWorld magazine at the time (1843 ;) ) did a cost study of the parts and assembly costs - and it came to a total $350.

ATI will be coming out with a new Video card soon that will cost around $500 and will encode H.264 video at 5 times the speed of the fastest Mac - cost of the chip that does this - $8.

When you buy a newly built house - a lot of people are convinced by real estates - how little profit is being made. Which of course is not true. When the plumber buys materials - the materials are first of all "marked up" (between 15% to 35% ) to what the consumer would pay for at the building supply store. Then all the money paid to the plumbers workers are also "marked up" by 35%. Then the total for the materials (marked up) and the labour cocts (marked up ) - has a 25% to 30% "profit" (in addition to the (mark up) added.

The electrician, the carpenter, the roofer, the siding compnay, the window company and so.... does the same. The general contractor takes all of the totals from the trades (including mark up for materials and labour plus "profit" and then adds his or her profit of $15% to 35%. The real estate agent loves this and..... of course adds another 6%.

As anyone can see - the majority of cost of buying a home is the sum total of all of the "markups" and "profits".

In the case of computers - other major additional costs are the marketing, and distribution as well as the legal liability insurance. Which costs of course are eliminated by MIT

WalMart is now selling a portable DVD players for $99 (as someone already pointed out) - as well have another DVD portable for $86 http://www.walmart.com/electronics?path=0%3A3944&d ept=3944

In addition WalMart has laptop for $588 with specs way beyond MIT's specs. The Walmart laptop : 15 XGA, 1.5 Ghz, DVD burner and on and on http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_ id=3626438

Hmm.... this SkepticOptomist gets a score of 1. WOW! ;)

I bought my first Mac - an SE for $3000. MacWorld magazine at the time (1843 ;) ) did a cost study of the parts and assembly costs - and it came to a total $350.

ATI will be coming out with a new Video card soon that will cost around $500 and will encode H.264 video at 5 times the speed of the fastest Mac - cost of the chip that does this - $8.

When you buy a newly built house - a lot of people are convinced by real estates - how little profit is being made. Which of course is not true. When the plumber buys materials - the materials are first of all "marked up" (between 15% to 35% ) to what the consumer would pay for at the building supply store. Then all the money paid to the plumbers workers are also "marked up" by 35%. Then the total for the materials (marked up) and the labour cocts (marked up ) - has a 25% to 30% "profit" (in addition to the (mark up) added.

The electrician, the carpenter, the roofer, the siding compnay, the window company and so.... does the same. The general contractor takes all of the totals from the trades (including mark up for materials and labour plus "profit" and then adds his or her profit of $15% to 35%. The real estate agent loves this and..... of course adds another 6%.

As anyone can see - the majority of cost of buying a home is the sum total of all of the "markups" and "profits".

In the case of computers - other major additional costs are the marketing, and distribution as well as the legal liability insurance. Which costs of course are eliminated by MIT

WalMart is now selling a portable DVD players for $99 (as someone already pointed out) - as well have another DVD portable for $86 http://www.walmart.com/electronics?path=0%3A3944&d ept=3944

In addition WalMart has laptop for $588 with specs way beyond MIT's specs. The Walmart laptop : 15 XGA, 1.5 Ghz, DVD burner and on and on http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_ id=3626438

Walmart sells beer but not violent games.

Not true. But I do agree that the 18+ tag is a real stigma. If we could change the rating system to acknowledge the levels of each element in a game, I think we would be on the right track. Rate for Violence, Sexual Content, Language, and Adult Themes and you can then make decisions with more confidence.

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product_listing.gsp ?cat=231791&path=0%3A3944%3A3951%3A41937%3A231785% 3A231791

There ya go. Walmart sells clean PCs. They also are the main distributor of Linspire machines.

1. Wal-Mart (1)
2. Best Buy (2)
3. Target (3)
4. Amazon.com (4)
5. FYE (10)
6. Circuit City (Tied for 5)
7. Apple\iTunes (14)
8. Tower Records (Tied for 7)
9. Sam Goody (Tied for 5)
10. Borders (9)

This list has some tough implications for the RIAA and its members. None of the top four companies gets most of its revenue from music. They're all very strong companies used to telling their suppliers what prices they want to see. The classic "record store" chains, Tower and Sam Goody, are falling off the list.

Some of the changes just reflect consolidation in the record store industry. FYE is a classic "record store" chain. It's really Trans World Entertainment, the result of mergers between Wherehouse, Record Town, Camelot Music, and Strawberries. Stores in malls carry the FYE brand ("offering a consistent mall-based retailing experience"), while freestanding stores bear the names Wherehouse Music, Coconuts Music & Movies, Strawberries, Spec's, CD World, Streetside Records and Planet Music.

Also, don't forget that Wal-Mart sells music on-line. Even if the RIAA can bully Apple into raising the song price for iPods, that's not going to work with Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart just won't tolerate suppliers increasing their prices. They'll find other suppliers. Note the growing list of "Wal-Mart exclusives".

This is the same line argument they used with the original xbox. Let's see... the current xbox uses a 733MHz processor. That may have been top of the line at the time, but that's hardly cutting edge now. As such, the prices have gone down considerably for those chips since the time they originally came out. It's the same story with all the rest of the hardware components.

As for the price cuts, that's a load of nonsense. The original xbox still sells at Wal-Mart for $180. Certainly, that's less than the original $299 they went for, but Microsoft is certainly making money on their hardware sales now.

but you do... your monitor's rez can go higher than any hdtv i've found..... and this xbox actually has a cable that be used for vga Wally World Sells It
so why not just throw it on an extra monitor u have layin around the house??? I plan on using the cable w/ my 21" and digital projector.... atleast till i can get my hdtv later.

correct me if i'm wrong....but they are offering a vga cable for $40 *wally-world link here*. and since most monitors can support atleast 1024x768 what's the need for the hdtv? i'm just going to get the svga cable and use my 21" monitor and digital projector until i get my hdtv for xmas.

Of course, this sidesteps the whole stupid issue of whether a photo that I wholly commissioned and paid for is my property or owned by the photographer. Never in a million years will I concede that the results of work I paid for are not mine to do with as I please.

http://www.addonshop.com/
http://www.emperorlinux.com/
http://www.ibexpc.com/
http://www.linare.com/
http://www.linspire.com/
http://www.linuxcertified.com/
http://www.microtelpc.com/
http://www.outpost.com/
http://shoprcubed.com/
http://www.sub300.com/
http://www.systemax.com/divisions.htm
http://www.walmart.com/
http://www.xandros.com/

http://tuxmobil.org/reseller.html
http://www.us.debian.org/distrib/pre-installed
http://www.linux.org/vendor/system/index.html

http://tuxmobil.org/ (general information)

No OS

(Sabio made by Quanta, like Dell-latitudes)
http://www.avadirect.com/
http://www.asimobile.com/
http://www.powernotebooks.com/

Now that Motorola has the hardware working, they can consider cutting Apple out of the loop. By, say, cutting a deal with WalMart.

I have gone through 2 laptops since when I started school 2 years ago. Both HP, one a replacement for the original which died due to electronical noise from the 60 year old wiring in this 110 year old Victorian house but the second one has been sent back 2 times as well. Frankly I think I'm just going to buy either the cheapest slave made laptop or splurge a wad on a toughbook. My geologist friend swears by his, he has taken the thing to the far reaches of the Earth without a problem.

I'll take that bet. The high end is beginning to look like MCE Home Theater.Plix Entertainment Media Center. The Sixpacks won't be buying OEM Linux until a media player can handle subscription services and other DRM'd content gracefully (and legally) out-of-the-box.

Microtel SYSWM5014 Desktop PC, 1.5 GHz AMD Sempron 2200+ Processor!!!

Wow! Reeeading the fine print:

"Not included: Hard drive, CD-ROM drive, modem, floppy disk drive, operating system."

and on a separate line:

"Purchase your choice of monitor separately"

errrrr... no thanks

And here is where you have been able to get PC's without OS's at Walmart for some time: http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product_listing.gsp ?cat=231791&path=0%3A3944%3A3951%3A41937%3A231785% 3A231791

You might like this Pelican Face Armor to protect the screen instead of a bulky case.

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?dest=999 9999997&product_id=3650773&sourceid=01000000306608 04502498

As for the boot up times, I've learned to use sleep mode more.

As for the PSP's size, it's larger than the GBA/SP/Micro, but compared to the original GB/GBC, Lynx, Game Gear, Nomad, etc. it's not that large at all.

1. No ghosting
2. No snow
3. Much lower signal strength requirements for good reception (get more channels sufficiently)
4. More channels. Metro stations all, at a minimum, simulcast in digital. Some, such as PBS, broadcast different programming on their several digital sub channels.
5. You can add the HD monitor later when they get cheaper or plug your computer monitor in for special occasions (if you make sure connectors are compatible.)

Tuner at WalMart's for $200.

I think Wal-mart tried this and was strong-armed by M$soft.

Evil though the Walton empire may be, they are still selling systems with no os.

My friend got this one recently. He hated to admit he got it at walmart, but it's super tiny orange cube with a blue display. It looks awesome and hilarious, and everyone's always asking about it. I'm sure the Dell's nice, but why does everything they make have to be ugly?

I linked to that specific player only as a generic example of a $120 player because in a couple minutes of searching, I couldn't find the exact model of $120 player that I had seen a few days prior at a brick-and-mortar Wal-Mart store. If you want to find other entry-level portable DVD players, search walmart.com for portable dvd player. Here's another; here's one that's a bit more expensive but still demonstrates the point.

I linked to that specific player only as a generic example of a $120 player because in a couple minutes of searching, I couldn't find the exact model of $120 player that I had seen a few days prior at a brick-and-mortar Wal-Mart store. If you want to find other entry-level portable DVD players, search walmart.com for portable dvd player. Here's another; here's one that's a bit more expensive but still demonstrates the point.

DVD-ripping software and a big honking memstick for the PSP are your friends.

When the FBI (or foreign counterpart) comes after you for breaking the DMCA (or foreign counterpart), Bubba will be your new (butt-)friend. Besides, can't you buy a portable DVD player for the price of a big honking Memory Stick PRO Duo card?

DVD-ripping software and a big honking memstick for the PSP are your friends.

When the FBI (or foreign counterpart) comes after you for breaking the DMCA (or foreign counterpart), Bubba will be your new (butt-)friend. Besides, can't you buy a portable DVD player for the price of a big honking Memory Stick PRO Duo card?

Well one thought would be that not everyone can afford both a PSP and another portable system to watch DVDs on

Price of Nintendo DS + price of entry-level portable DVD player = price of PSP. And if you're waiting for a title to come out on UMD, time is money.

For some, it's pretty convenient to have the one device.

If you're going to be sitting in one place long enough to watch a whole feature film, then aren't you carrying a bag into which you can stuff a portable DVD player?

They will be available at times when no other way to watch a movie of my choice. E.g. on a flight, train, stuck in town waiting for inconsiderate tardy people.

For less than half the price of a PSP, you can have an even bigger screen so that you can watch G-rated movies other than Disney/Pixar's Toy Story, which was the only G-rated movie available on UMD Video when I checked a week ago at Meijer.

http://www.addonshop.com/
http://www.sub300.com/
http://www.linare.com/
http://www.linspire.com/
http://www.linuxcertified.com/
http://www.microtelpc.com/
http://www.outpost.com/
http://shoprcubed.com/
http://www.systemax.com/divisions.htm
http://www.walmart.com/
http://www.xandros.com/
http://tuxmobil.org/
http://www.us.debian.org/distrib/pre-installed
http://www.linux.org/vendor/system/index.html

Are things much better? I'm not asking if iTunes has improved, as I've used it more recently and still not been impressed. I'm asking if there's sane ways to just dump mp3s and AAC files onto the Nano and other recent iPods and make them play with minimal pain-in-the-assedness.

If not, I'd go with the Wal-Mart Special. A proper, intelligently designed mass-storage device/mp3 player should Just Work.

Ubuntu?

Actually, despite being a moderator on the Ubuntu Forum I would say that Linspire is closer to what a home user wants. They can buy it preinstalled on a computer from Wal-Mart. And it has many things like codecs and such out of the box that Ubuntu won't have (because one of the goals of Ubuntu is to be a libre OS).

I'm not saying that new users shouldn't use Ubuntu, but in those cases I recommend that you- the nerd- set it up for them.

"you don't just wake up one christmas morning and have a card that can compete with the big boys"

NEC with the latest PowerVR chip (Kryo) actually could keep up. The problem was that it was fundamentally different, and most didn't want to program for something different.

These seem to be competing at Wal-Mart (just like Linux was at one time).

I work in a *very* big company (can't say right now, in the office... but we're possibly the biggest on Earth by at least one metric)

Not hard to guess where.

"The labels price things based on what they believe they can get -- a pricing philosophy a lot of industries have. But we like to price things as cheaply as we possibly can, rather than charge as much as we can get. It's a big difference in philosophy, and we try to help other people see that." - WalMart senior VP (entertainment) Gary Severson.

WalMart pushed the labels into a $9.97 retail price for CDs. Then they started signing deals with artists on their own. WalMart now has exclusive rights to Garth Brooks.

It's hard to cheer for either side here. But from the music industry's perspective, WalMart is scarier than Apple. Apple needs the music industry. For WalMart, audio CDs are a minor business. WalMart sometimes threatens to cut back on audio CDs and devote more shelf space to DVDs and games. And Apple doesn't care about content. WalMart imposes censorship on both music and cover art.

I've always found trolls to be interestingly ignorant creatures.

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?product _id=3264563

True, it's not Apple branded but now that the HP deal's over, it soon will be. They'll be at Radio Shack too.

Many people don't like the iPod. I'm sure you'll find a legitimate reason.

Lost Season 1

Lost where? In space? Or Land of the Lost? What about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World? Oh, it appears you're looking for Walt Disney's Lost. One word: Bleh.

I'm normally getting about 35Kb/s.

Except remember that BitTorrent reports rates in bytes, not bits. A rate of 35 KB per second is better than you'd get on HTTP.

I'd say thats scaling pretty well. :D [assuming sarcasm]

Just go to bed and it'll speed up. Often the Peers will remain online overnight, and they'll turn into Seeds, freeing up other Seeds to send to you. If a lot of Seeds jump off before they build up a share ratio, then you're on the wrong tracker.

I thought you needed a Monster Cable Xbox Ethernet Cable to get the most out of Live. Your bits simply don't flow as smoothly through brand-X cables.

The major computer OEMs such as Dell, HP, and
Gateway are refusing to offer CONSUMERS a
non-Microsoft choice.
These OEMs are anti-competitve and
anti-consumer-choice. They continue to maintain Microsoft's desktop
monopoly.

I suggest not doing business with these companies until they offer a serious non-Microsoft choice to CONSUMERS.

Here are some companies that DO offer consumers a choice.

http://www.systemax.com/divisions.htm
http://www.microtelpc.com/
http://www.linuxcertified.com/

http://www.outpost.com/ (search for linspire)
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/catalog.gsp?cat=395 1&path=0%3A3944%3A3951
http://www.sub300.com/Skins/greyTech/greyTech_inde x.aspx
http://www.linare.com/
http://www.linspire.com/featured_partner/featured_ partner.php
http://www.us.debian.org/distrib/pre-installed
http://www.linux.org/vendor/system/index.html

Do you also think Wal*Mart is evil?

State Farm?

IBM?

Microsoft? (just kidding, I'm not seriously asking about that one)

if mainstream retailers allowed the customer pay for just the hardware and choose which OS to add on

Well, you could always just go to, say, Wal-Mart, but that may not be mainstream enough for some people. Point is, this landscape is changing very, very rapidly. The real nerds are going to just buy parts anyway.

It's nigh upon impossible to even find a phone that doesn't require AC to operate any more.

Not so.

In fact, it's trivally easy.

My VOIP phone box even comes with a battery pack that keeps the phone alive for a few hours even with the power off. Along with the corded phone I've had since before I was married, I don't have any worries of not being able to dial "9-1-1" in an emergency.

See where that got him?

According to http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?product _id=3756867
it uses USB 2.0

Perhaps there are different models, but I would imagine most people would buy this one from walmart (when it's back in stock).

Or perhaps Walmart is confused and doesn't know the difference between USB 1 and 2?

The one sold at walmart is usb 2.0

...here's a link to Wal-Mart's website. They appear to be nearly sold out of the 1 gig ones, though.