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Tupperware is a terrible example. It's not glass.

Once they have you comparing different types of plastic, you've been suckered. Glass is cheap anyway...it comes free with beer, for example.

Try a pyrex bowl. That's small, they have bigger ones.

Or the ultimate cheapness: Ball jars.

Pirating is not free. Everybody takes a risk by pirating of being sued or wasting our time downloading malware, something of bad quality, or bogus files.

But, even still, it is always much easier to pirate a movie (for instance) than it is to purchase it. I think most of us who pirate don't just do so because it is free, but also because the non-pirated versions are often DRM-laden, low-quality, and expensive and we are forced to jump through hoops just to get the content we desire.

For instance, let's say I want to buy the movie "Rounders." What are my options?

1) Go to the store and buy it for nearly $15 after tax. I would have to drive half way across town and waste a bunch of time. Not to mention $15 is a little steep for an older movie.

2) Use an online service like Amazon Video on Demand. What? Rounders isn't available? Darn. Even if it were, I would have to pay $3-4 to watch it once or about $10 to "own" it. But owning it only means I can watch it on amazon.com or download it and watch it through their player. What? Their player isn't available on linux? Darn? And I can't play the videos on my netbook (the only computer I own) because a flash-embedded high-quality video plays at about 3 frames per second.

3) I can go to thepiratebay.org and download Rounders. It takes a half hour to an hour to download a decent quality movie. It uses a standard codec so this high-resolution movie plays wonderfully on my netbook. There is no DRM or flash player to worry about. I have this movie for as long as I want it and can watch it whenever (and on whatever) I want even if I don't have an internet connection.

If a movie studio started selling XVID (or some other decent codec) movies on their website similar to those found on thepiratebay for a reasonable price ($5) without DRM or any of that other garbage, you can bet your youngest child that I would spend the money rather than pirating it. This new distribution channel (the internet) is changing the way we want to get content and also making distribution cheaper. But the movie studios and distributors are trying to fight this change after it has already happened. Pirating is newly part of the free market system just as was copying your friend's MC Hammer cassette tape. You can make all the arguments you want about pirates pirating because it is free; but, until the distributors make their content available in a decent format at a decent price and allow their consumers the freedom to use this content as desired, your claim doesn't hold as much water.

It's not that Windows shouldn't exist its just that overall it is unhealthy for the market to have such a dominant player. Great for making money but not great for following what customers actually want instead of given.

The economies of scale in building for the dominant x86 Windows platform are enormous.

Walmart.com offers the Win 7 PC in about 150 flavors priced from $300-$1000. Toshiba 16" Satellite A505-S6040 Laptop PC with Intel Core i7-720QM Processor & Windows 7 64 Bit Home Premium

It's quite impossible to think of a useful configuration - from the MIL-STD laptop for the Outback to the Extreme Gamer's Special - that isn't readily available off-the-shelf, at something close to a mass-market price.

Windows is a commercial OS with solidly middle class roots.

There is room here for both Corel Draw and Inkscape. Scribus and Serif and MS Publisher. I don't think the geek will ever quite grasp what a relief it can be to tune out the over-heated rhetoric of free and open source.

I have to second the use of a regular tablet (or convertible notebook ... whatever). I also used one similar to: http://www.shopping.hp.com/series/category/notebooks/tm2t_series/3/computer_store for notetaking during my courses. With Office 2007 / 2010 beta the inking support is actually pretty good if you're looking for handwriting recognitions as well.

If you're not interested in a purely digital approach, I have also used the electronic pen/tablet combos and have been very impressed (plus they are cheap by comparison)

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5712837&findingMethod=rr

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Adesso-CYBERPAD-A4-CyberPad-Digital-Notepad/13259130?sourceid=44444444440210055914

I have to second the use of a regular tablet (or convertible notebook ... whatever). I also used one similar to: http://www.shopping.hp.com/series/category/notebooks/tm2t_series/3/computer_store for notetaking during my courses. With Office 2007 / 2010 beta the inking support is actually pretty good if you're looking for handwriting recognitions as well.

If you're not interested in a purely digital approach, I have also used the electronic pen/tablet combos and have been very impressed (plus they are cheap by comparison)

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5712837&findingMethod=rr

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Adesso-CYBERPAD-A4-CyberPad-Digital-Notepad/13259130?sourceid=44444444440210055914

I don't even know what a netbook is now. At the start they were defined by their tiny form-factors, low-ish power-consumption. The revolutionary part was the LOW price. Then microsoft moved in and netbook grew in size and power

The "tiny form factor" becomes a deal breaker as you grow older.

The keyboard awkward and uncomfortable to use. The display hard to read. It's surely no coincidence that Walmart's in-store selection of netbooks has been reduced to a single Nickelodeon branded laptop for kids.

The netbook strikes me as being a second or third purchase - and not the first choice for the low income buyer that the geek fondly believes. That's the second shoe you hear dropping at Walmart.

The low-end netbook competes for attention and sales with a dozen other high-tech gadgets at the same price point - and it just might be the product that gives the retailer most grief.

'Microsoft has become a clumsy, uncompetitive innovator' and how 'it has lost share in Web browsers, high-end laptops and smartphones.

What is a "high end" laptop?

More importantly, what is the value of the high-end laptop to Microsoft?

To the user?

Microsoft sells the OS not the hardware.

The decision whether the high-end is worth entering is for the manufactuer and the retailer.

The most expensive laptop at Walmart.com is an $1800 HP - an i7 with 6 GB DDR3 RAM and Radeon 4830 video. Laser-etched Magnesium case. 64 bit Win 7 Home Premium.

That strikes me as a perfectly plausible alternative to the MacBook Pro.

IE8 is competitive.

But the browser wars may no longer matter.

H.264 has Mozilla tied up in knots.

Meanwhile, hardware-accelerated H.264 video is in the Flash 10.1 Beta 2 player for Windows. Silverlight 4 will support protected H.264 content and Chrome.

Users don't give a damn about standards - or ideology. They simply download the player and watch the movie.

At the 2008 CES dozens of ARM "netbooks" running Linux were displayed and a big hit at the show. They were produced on ARM and Linux because Intel didn't have Atom yet so no cheap x86 processor with any horsepower, and Microsoft charged $89 for XP.

$89 as the wholesale price - the OEM price - for XP?

Quoted for purchases of 10,000 units? 100,000? A million? To put this in perspective, the brand-name Win 7 netbook has already broken the $300 price point. HP Mini 210-1010NR 10.1-Inch Black Netbook

So you ask what killed the Arm Netbook?

Sales.

No one in big box retail fought longer and harder to make a go of Linux than WalMart.

Nothing came of it.

Walmart.com currently lists 111 laptops, 48 desktops, all Windows, and all but a bare handful running Win 7 Home Premium.

What I find most surprising - and significant - is the disappearance of the netbook from WalMart's retail shelves.

Down to a lone Dell Nickelodeon branded laptop for kids.

It could just be that WalMart's customers are finding other products more compelling: Kodak Zi8 Aqua Pocket 1080p Video Camera $180.

At the 2008 CES dozens of ARM "netbooks" running Linux were displayed and a big hit at the show. They were produced on ARM and Linux because Intel didn't have Atom yet so no cheap x86 processor with any horsepower, and Microsoft charged $89 for XP.

$89 as the wholesale price - the OEM price - for XP?

Quoted for purchases of 10,000 units? 100,000? A million? To put this in perspective, the brand-name Win 7 netbook has already broken the $300 price point. HP Mini 210-1010NR 10.1-Inch Black Netbook

So you ask what killed the Arm Netbook?

Sales.

No one in big box retail fought longer and harder to make a go of Linux than WalMart.

Nothing came of it.

Walmart.com currently lists 111 laptops, 48 desktops, all Windows, and all but a bare handful running Win 7 Home Premium.

What I find most surprising - and significant - is the disappearance of the netbook from WalMart's retail shelves.

Down to a lone Dell Nickelodeon branded laptop for kids.

It could just be that WalMart's customers are finding other products more compelling: Kodak Zi8 Aqua Pocket 1080p Video Camera $180.

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=13031301#ProductDetail Not really more powerful, but for $300 less, you could buy 2 or upgrade the RAM/HDD/etc

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=13023166

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=13031301#ProductDetail Not really more powerful, but for $300 less, you could buy 2 or upgrade the RAM/HDD/etc

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=13023166

Last April, Microsoft argued that it controlled the netbook OS market for devices sold in certain Microsoft-friendly US retail stores, while ABI Research claims that Linux actually has 32% of the worldwide netbook market, and that its market-share is growing

The Microsoft friendly shop is damn near every office supply house or general merchandise outlet in the states with four walls and a roof.

Walmart carried the flag for Linux in big box retail for ten years.

This holiday season it is all Windows:

Entry level for a full size brand-name 64 bit Win 7 Premium laptop is $350. Acer 15.6" AS5517-5136 Laptop PC

That may come as an eye-opener for the geek.

The ARM netbook like the Google PC is still a phantom - no one quite knows quite when or where it will materialize or how much it will cost.

Chrome's value seems utterly dependent on cheap - reliable - universal - broadband. I am not sure we are there yet.

Of course, one reason why the retailer is Microsoft friendly is the prospect of significant aftermarket sales.

Hardware, software, peripherals. Inks and papers.

That helps keep the price of the Windows PC competitive - and it raises the question of whether retailers will make an all-out push for the next generation network appliance.
   

I grabbed this for my 9 year old last year last-minute and he loves it: Radio Shack snap kit. (Although I thought the kit I bought him was much bigger than this one). He even went beyond the included instructions and started experimenting with some interesting (and scary) things.

This year, he's getting this book: We dare you

Also saw one of these on woot the other day, but missed out. Still thinking about getting him one though: Excalibur Space Navigator

WoW is paid, presumably by credit card.

WoW is potentially paid, in fact, by cash money, and always has been. Walk into WallyWorld with $120 or so and walk out with the complete software suite to play WoW. After your initial 60 (? 30? It's been a while) days of play time has expired, walk back into WallyWorld with $30 cash money and walk out with a playtime card good for another 60 days of your favorite sweet, sweet MMORPG addiction. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I played WoW for over a year without Blizzard ever getting a sniff of my CC number.

The only problem becomes Junior getting Mom to take him to the local discount emporioum, and that's obviously not a problem.

Wal-mart in particular is fond of advertising their big $1.14 discounts on an otherwise $15 pack of socks, which actually costs them $2.

With the quarter ending 31-10-2009 Walmart had total revenue of $99,411.00 million and gross profit of $24,862.00 million. That's a return of about 25% Where'd all that profit go to? Or did you make up numbers to make it look like Walmart was making a killing? It's competitor Target had a better return. Not in absolute numbers but in percentages Macy's had a much better return, about 33%.

The web is a good opportunity to turn this around... Do a quick search, and find the cheapest supplier among many thousands of stores, and you're likely to find one selling with small margins, and without the brand name and retail mark-up.

Walmart is one of those stores and it sells many of the same stuff as other stores, sometimes with a lower price.

Which is it, Walmart is making large profits or Walmart is dropping prices?

Falcon

What? Walmart: $14.49 Amazon: $14.50

The cited prices applied at the book's release. They've gone up in the intervening month.

Last Wednesday, Wal-Mart dropped the price of the oven to $17, from $28, as part of its "Black Friday" deals. Later the same day, Amazon cut its price, which had also been $28, to $18.

Well, color me confused, I see it as $18 on both Walmart's and Amazon's site.

It began last month with what appeared to be a public-relations-oriented competition on book prices, with both companies (along with Target, based in Minneapolis) dropping prices on books like "Under the Dome," by Stephen King, to below $9.

What? Walmart: $14.49 Amazon: $14.50

Don't get me wrong, this is great news for consumers but I think you're just seeing preperation for a Black Friday feeding frenzy and not actual 'price wars.'

'I applaud Wal-Mart. It's about time multichannel retailers stood up and refused to let their business go away.'

Wal-Mart stays away from heavily populated areas and makes most of its bank from the heartland anyway. I actually see this as Wal-Mart trying to steal a piece of the online pie if it isn't just a little bit of good ole capitalistic competition. If you think Wal-Mart's been losing business, their stock sure isn't showing it.

Last Wednesday, Wal-Mart dropped the price of the oven to $17, from $28, as part of its "Black Friday" deals. Later the same day, Amazon cut its price, which had also been $28, to $18.

Well, color me confused, I see it as $18 on both Walmart's and Amazon's site.

It began last month with what appeared to be a public-relations-oriented competition on book prices, with both companies (along with Target, based in Minneapolis) dropping prices on books like "Under the Dome," by Stephen King, to below $9.

What? Walmart: $14.49 Amazon: $14.50

Don't get me wrong, this is great news for consumers but I think you're just seeing preperation for a Black Friday feeding frenzy and not actual 'price wars.'

'I applaud Wal-Mart. It's about time multichannel retailers stood up and refused to let their business go away.'

Wal-Mart stays away from heavily populated areas and makes most of its bank from the heartland anyway. I actually see this as Wal-Mart trying to steal a piece of the online pie if it isn't just a little bit of good ole capitalistic competition. If you think Wal-Mart's been losing business, their stock sure isn't showing it.

All I ever here from people here, is how insurance companies deny claims and the huge amounts of co-pays

That is because there is no competition. In this post of yours you say you had employer provided health insurance. Guess what? Your employer got a tax deduction for offering the insurance. On the other hand if you, I, or almost anyone else goes and buys their own health insurance then we not get a tax deduction. That is a distortion of the market.

Also I have to pay $50 in co-pays for my meds every month while in Germany it would be capped at 10 euros irrespective of total amount.

Guess what? I am on Medicare right now and if it weren't for Walmart's commitment to offer thousands of drugs for $4 I couldn't afford my prescriptions, not that I can now.

Falcon

A lesson for Windows Engineers. Aim for 256MB, not 2GB. The era of Netbooks is upon us, and it looks like Microsoft will miss the bus

WalMart.com lists 12 Win 7 netbooks for sale on line, 3 in-store.
  Netbooks

Atom CPU. 10 inch screen.
1 GB RAM and a 160 or 250 GB HDD. Prices start at $300 US.

The life of the geek is hard:

This is a nice little netbook.
I got it home and installed Mandriva 2009.1 on it. I ran into a couple problem I want to share. The Ethernet is not recognized by 2009.1 and the wireless requires additional packages, so your left without any Internet connection. I went and bought a usb to Ethernet adapter "linksys usb300M plugged it in and had Internet in seconds. Another flavour of Linux may work fine without issues, I just like Mandriva. Acer Purple 10.1" Aspire One [Comment Posted Oct 23]

WalMart doesn't sell a netbook with less than 1 GB RAM.

The geek's obsession with "saving" RAM puzzles me.

RAM is generally the simplest and cheapest way to improve the performance and reliability of any system:

ReadyBoost works with most flash storage devices. In Windows 7, it can handle more flash memory and even multiple devices--up to eight, for a maximum 256 gigabytes (GB) of additional memory. This feature comes with all versions of Windows 7. ReadyBoost

If your computer has a hard disk that uses solid-state drive (SSD) technology, you might not see an option to speed up your computer with ReadyBoost when you plug in a USB flash drive or flash memory card. You may instead receive the message, "Readyboost is not enabled on this computer because the system disk is fast enough that ReadyBoost is unlikely to provide any additional benefit. This is because some SSD drives are so fast they're unlikely to benefit from ReadyBoost. Using memory in your storage device to speed up your computer

A lesson for Windows Engineers. Aim for 256MB, not 2GB. The era of Netbooks is upon us, and it looks like Microsoft will miss the bus

WalMart.com lists 12 Win 7 netbooks for sale on line, 3 in-store.
  Netbooks

Atom CPU. 10 inch screen.
1 GB RAM and a 160 or 250 GB HDD. Prices start at $300 US.

The life of the geek is hard:

This is a nice little netbook.
I got it home and installed Mandriva 2009.1 on it. I ran into a couple problem I want to share. The Ethernet is not recognized by 2009.1 and the wireless requires additional packages, so your left without any Internet connection. I went and bought a usb to Ethernet adapter "linksys usb300M plugged it in and had Internet in seconds. Another flavour of Linux may work fine without issues, I just like Mandriva. Acer Purple 10.1" Aspire One [Comment Posted Oct 23]

WalMart doesn't sell a netbook with less than 1 GB RAM.

The geek's obsession with "saving" RAM puzzles me.

RAM is generally the simplest and cheapest way to improve the performance and reliability of any system:

ReadyBoost works with most flash storage devices. In Windows 7, it can handle more flash memory and even multiple devices--up to eight, for a maximum 256 gigabytes (GB) of additional memory. This feature comes with all versions of Windows 7. ReadyBoost

If your computer has a hard disk that uses solid-state drive (SSD) technology, you might not see an option to speed up your computer with ReadyBoost when you plug in a USB flash drive or flash memory card. You may instead receive the message, "Readyboost is not enabled on this computer because the system disk is fast enough that ReadyBoost is unlikely to provide any additional benefit. This is because some SSD drives are so fast they're unlikely to benefit from ReadyBoost. Using memory in your storage device to speed up your computer

There are many music download and music access services available. Just go elsewhere. Like so many "firsts" on the Net - e.g. eBay, Yahoo, etc. - iTunes seems old in the tooth. Couple that with egregious DRM policies and attempts to choke interoperability. Why bother. I like Apple products, but who really needs iTunes for music. Other than as a software platform for playback, I could care less about the iTunes music store. Try these: http://www.amazon.com/MP3-Music-Download/b?ie=UTF8&node=163856011 http://pandora.com/ http://www.emusic.com/ http://www.slacker.com/ http://www.napster.com/ http://music.myspace.com/ www.youtube.com http://www.rhapsody.com/home.html http://www.walmart.com/music http://www.last.fm/ http://social.zune.net/music/ http://www.seeqpod.com/

I'm now convinced that you have a valid point. But your original posting sounded too much like the organic nutcases, and not enough like a person with independent thought.

What organic nutcases? Different people get in organics for different reasons. Heck even Walmart now sells organic food. Though she didn't sell only organic food a friend started her own business selling what was called ecologically friendly products, the Eco-Store. People asked her if she wasn't concerned that large stores like Walmart may start selling the same things and she answered she wanted large businesses to sell them. To her the point was not to make money but to help and protect the environment. Well she got her wish, while her store is closed Walmart and Home Depot now sell CFLs. I see it says the store served the community until 2002 but 7 years later a webpage is still there, if only a single page.

Falcon

OK, here you go.

Or maybe this.

Once linux/mac software is available at Wal-Mart, then we might be talking.

You mean like this?

We'll probably be running 64-bit Windows by 2030.

WalMart.com lists 37 Vista desktops with a free upgrade to Win 7. 25 are 64 bit. Windows 7 Tech Upgrade

Because joysticks aren't commonplace? Just because they aren't doesn't mean they are: 1. not available 2. not in use 3. not configurable for most games the strawman is burning.....

Yes, PCs are good for everything given enough peripherals. But seriously, the vast majority of PC do not have joysticks, therefore the vast majority of PCs suck for single screen MP.

I don't play many of this genre, but wal-mart's site says there are a few "fighting & shooting" games for pc, just take a look here

Walmart (the ultimate authority on all video gaming) doesn't know the difference between a fighting game and an FPS. I'm guessing you don't either.

Yes, it worked 15 years ago, but 15 years ago is when mice became the standard game controllers instead of joysticks. Multiple mice don't work well together and modern keyboards don't support many simultaneous keypresses; mice and keyboards simply suck for single-screen MP. Joysticks don't have either of those problems, but they're pretty rare nowadays. No, modern PCs can't handle single-screen multiplayer.

Because joysticks aren't commonplace? Just because they aren't doesn't mean they are: 1. not available 2. not in use 3. not configurable for most games the strawman is burning.....

Sure, Internet play works for the games that have to be played on a split screen (FPSes for example), but there are types of games that are naturally shared screen, most notably fighting games. Even if playing online, both players will see the same view. These are pretty much exclusive to consoles now.

I don't play many of this genre, but wal-mart's site says there are a few "fighting & shooting" games for pc, just take a look here

I thought the point of netbooks was to have a computer for accessing the internet and that's about it.

That is the network appliance.

The geek's all-time-favorite pipe dream.

The rock bottom price and specs for the XP Atom Netbook at Walmart.com is $238 with 512 MB RAM and your choice of an 8 GB SSD or a 160 GB HDD.

$348 buys an 11" screen, 2 GB RAM and a 250 GB HDD.

That makes the netbook a viable budget platform for mobile media and games and pretty much everything else as well, of course - and the dual-core ATOM netbook with NVIDIA graphics is just around the corner.

If it weren't for Windows' stranglehold, OS design would be probably a decade ahead of where it is now

Linux isn't to be found anywhere on site. But Walmart.com lists 53 desktops and 43 laptops eligible for a free upgrade to Win 7.

The most interesting, perhaps, is a $1300 64 Bit Vista Toshiba Satellite with a 64 GB SSD and 320 GB HDD. 4/8 GB RAM.

[The cheapest Walmart netbook is a $238 Win XP Acer with 512 MB RAM and an 8 GB SSD.]

Win 98 SE was released in May 1999.

I don't know how the consumer OS advances faster than the commodity tech it both advances and supports.

I don't see Linux and OSX as being a decade ahead of Win 7 - despite following their own line of development.

_____

US-based outfit to distribute three million laptops to poor Indian rural kids

If it weren't for Windows' stranglehold, OS design would be probably a decade ahead of where it is now

Linux isn't to be found anywhere on site. But Walmart.com lists 53 desktops and 43 laptops eligible for a free upgrade to Win 7.

The most interesting, perhaps, is a $1300 64 Bit Vista Toshiba Satellite with a 64 GB SSD and 320 GB HDD. 4/8 GB RAM.

[The cheapest Walmart netbook is a $238 Win XP Acer with 512 MB RAM and an 8 GB SSD.]

Win 98 SE was released in May 1999.

I don't know how the consumer OS advances faster than the commodity tech it both advances and supports.

I don't see Linux and OSX as being a decade ahead of Win 7 - despite following their own line of development.

_____

US-based outfit to distribute three million laptops to poor Indian rural kids

It's easy to make up 91% of a segment when all your products fit in that segment and none of your competitors do. Of the 67 PCs sold on Walmart.com, only 10 are over $1,000

"Windows 3.11 was the first usable version of Windows"

I agree. The versions of Windows earlier than 3.1 were terrible. They had limited, buggy font support and often crashed. My experience with Windows 1.0 and 2.0 was that they were just toys. It was reported in the book Barbarians Led by Bill Gates that the early versions were made only to kill Go Corporation. To me they seemed at the time to be pointless products. It is a very unhappy realization that Microsoft wasted my time because it was trying to stop the success of another company.

That book was also very helpful because it explains why the Windows API is so disorganized.

I think it is not an answer to abusiveness that someone else is abusive, also.

It appears to me, and apparently to many people, that Microsoft deliberately releases unfinished software. It was reported that many people inside Microsoft were extremely opposed to releasing Microsoft Windows Vista when they did.

Wal-Mart has a laptop for $298.00 that would be acceptable for most people who check email and write letters. Three GB of memory, 15.4 inches, 160 GB Hard Drive, but I get the impression its just abusive advertising; apparently they won't have many. More and more, however, Apple's prices look huge.

I'm very interested in the sociology of business management. Once a company gets a negative reputation, it becomes difficult to hire the best people. That tends to push a company in the direction of further degradation.

What's destroying local knowledge is the video baby-sitters in the back-seat. When I was a kid we knew what our neighborhood LOOKED like.

When you were a kid, were you strapped into a government-mandated, reclined, winged cocoon? It's not so bad now that my kids are older, but I can't blame them for wanting to play their DSes during the 17-hour drive to the in-laws'.

Sansa Clip, very good sound quality, ogg and flac support, starting at below $50, sold at every WalMart (although you should buy it ANYWHERE else.)

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=8466133
- $29.88 This might say it's not in stores near you, because the stores have 4GB ones that aren't on the web site..)

Stop the whiny douchebaggery.

"Why would it need specs? This is a web appliance, not a general purpose computer."

Because for $299 you can get a decent name brand netbook now days, so if I'm gonna spend $299 on a "web appliance" it better provide something a netbook can not

here's a short list of examples:
ASUS Eee PC 901 XP with 8 hr battery life for $298
ASUS Eee PC with Linux for $298
Acer Pink 8.9" Aspire One for $248 = Pink for geek gurl Dell Inspiron Mini 10" Netbook with Intel Atom Z520 Processor for $298

"Why would it need specs? This is a web appliance, not a general purpose computer."

Because for $299 you can get a decent name brand netbook now days, so if I'm gonna spend $299 on a "web appliance" it better provide something a netbook can not

here's a short list of examples:
ASUS Eee PC 901 XP with 8 hr battery life for $298
ASUS Eee PC with Linux for $298
Acer Pink 8.9" Aspire One for $248 = Pink for geek gurl Dell Inspiron Mini 10" Netbook with Intel Atom Z520 Processor for $298

Most netbooks exceed the capabilities of full business laptops from just four years ago

Most netbooks sold in the developed world.

But that isn't SE's primary market.

Microsoft just doesn't like the idea of cheap computers where they will struggle to compete with their expensive OS.

The Linux netbook is "Not sold in stores." Netbooks

You know you've hit rock bottom when you're given the boot - pounded into the alsphalt - by the granny greeters at WalMart.
 

It looks like they have several models which use SIM cards. For example, this one.

My wife and my son shop at WalMart. No, they don't spend 200 bucks on printers. There is a printer sitting in my kitchen which is connected to a Ubuntu machine. Let me pick my dead arse up, and see what brand it is - be right back.

HP Deskjet f4325 $45 at Walmart http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=10710285

I'm pretty sure that the printer was plug and play because they brought it in the house, and within an hour, it was connected, and running. We'll assume that the kid did his homework before going to the store with his mother, and he KNEW that it would work. A quick google for HP Linux drivers takes me to http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=bpu00658&cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en&product=3571316 where I click another link http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/index.html

Oh, looky, I spent less than 5 minutes duplicating my son's work!!

I would assume that having spent several hours, or perhaps a week or two, developing that dream machine, you would have already identified those printers that will work with your machine. Further, I would assume that you informed YOUR customer of your findings, so that he wouldn't waste time and money on a printer that will not work. Actually, I would assume that you ASKED THE CUSTOMER if he wanted to use a printer, and offered to SELL HIM a compatible printer, thereby saving him a trip to Walmart.

Sorry, your argument carries no weight. Just 'fess up that you are incapable of designing a "dream machine", and you are further incapable of supporting that dream machine.

Apparently, my son could do it. I'll have to consider putting him into business.......

I think that's a little over the top.

Perhaps so.

Desktop without monitor

But Windows has solid OEM entries at every price point. With Linux, it's often more a question mark.

A lot of gadgets will be competing for attention in the space the geek sees for the ARM.

The e-book reader. The mp3 player. The hand-held video game. The Jitterbug cell phone, and so on.

Hmm.. Like a Roomba for your lawn. I'd buy one

Just go ahead and buy one then... It's even available from Walmart.
Or better yet, buy the Husqvarna Automower which actually is available in a solar power version as the GP suggested. It's been around for quite a few years also, it might actually be older then the Roomba...

You said people weren't buying Vista.
Therfore, those people wouldn't be looking to replace their non-existent Vista with XP, would they?

In case you haven't noticed, DELL is the largest OEM there is, and they still offer plenty of XP options.

Walmart?
Go to?
Let's look at their in-store items:
http://www.walmart.com/browse/Computers/Desktop-Computers/_/N-2pbh?ic=48_0&catNavId=41937&ref=125875.126125%20501457.501458&tab_value=37_Store

XP!

XP exists if you want, and yes, you can still get the retail version. If it's not pre-installed on the PC of your choice, simply ask the OEM to give it to you. They will happily comply most of the time.

You can buy a robotic lawnmower from Walmart. It's about $1600. For much less than that, you can pay a landscaping crew or the kid down the street to mow the lawn. This is one of those tasks that doesn't make sense to automate. It can be done cheaply by willing humans without putting them at unacceptable risk.

This lawnmower? The one that requires a wire be placed around the lawn, and is intended for lawns of only about a 5th of an acre?

You don't seem to get the point of this at all. It's not for mowing small lawns. This is for large fields or parks for which a tractor-mower was the most practical option anyway. I suspect that after a year or two of not needing to hire someone to drive around mowing on that expensive tractor, you can save quite a bit.

Sometimes its labeled "Non-Aspirin Pain Reliever"

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=10324473

This is my coffee maker, it does say "10 cup". Not that I'm seriously upset about it, I haven't ever needed to make more than 8 "cups" yet. It's just disingenuous.

BTW, I'd recommend that coffee maker. I like not having a breakable carafe. My only real problem with it is that my 16 oz travel mug won't fit under the spigot. But then I just transfer it with another cup.

"The 512 mb sd cards, OTOH, pitch 'em. I can't believe I'm saying this, but half a gig just isn't enough space to do anything with..."

Usually you'd be right, but there's TONS of "old" devices that can't use SDHC, so anything 4gb and larger it can't be read. Some of the devices really aren't that old, like the Motorola Q cellphone, which some US carriers just started carrying late 2007 (original Q, not Q9).

If it was 32 or 64 or 128mb I'd say yeah, toss that, but 512mb SD non-HC would breath new life into older Palms, Qs, mp3s players, digital cameras and many other devices that are not SDHC compatible.

Put it on ebay, you might find a buyer. I recently bought a 2gb SD for a device on ebay and paid over triple what a 4gb SDHC would have cost me. Or heck, message me, I have devices that could use it.

I'm facing the same issue but with hard drives: What do you do with a 6gb or 12gb or 20gb hard drive? Suppose I could get a $20+ enclosure (cheaper enclosures risk bad PSUs) for the 20gb, but for $56 I could get a 160gb external drive locally.

Dell and HP sell both servers and desktops with Linux or FreeDos pre installed. Or as you pointed out you can build your own. Or buy an Apple, which these days is essentially PC hardware running OS X, i.e. their own OS.

If you go to a store all the cheap netbooks are running some version of Linux. Infact if Microsoft hadn't kept XP alive and cut the price, all netbooks would run Linux. They're rushing out Windows 7 because it doesn't suck on a netbook, unlike Vista.

Wallmart sell desktops running Linux. It's possible to install OS X on pretty much any PC with a bit of fiddling around. Or Linux, or any of the BSDs. Or you could write your own OS from scratch, buy a machine with Freedos on it (i.e. you pay $0 for an OS license with the machine) and install that. If your OS became popular you could even get Dell to offer it as preinstall option along with Windows, Linux and Freedos. I'm sure if Apple wanted to do this they would be able to. IIRC it was Microsoft preventing OEMs like Dell from bundling BeOS that lead to the original monopoly judgement in the US.

Microsoft should go back and get the original monopoly judgement in the US overturned.

It's time the geek stopped wallowing in his own FUD.

The Acer XP laptop with an Atom CPU, a 9" screen, 1 GB RAM and a 160 GB HDD is $298 at Walmart.com.

In six months to a year the OS will be Win 7, the specs significantly better, and the price will still be cheaper than OEM Linux.

The lone Linux netbook?

A Dell Inspiron with 512 MB of RAM and 4 GB of Flash for $350.

"Not sold in stores."