Re:One Point For Gmail
on
Gmail vs Pine
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· Score: 1
I'm currently using a whopping 45 megs of space on my GMail account (this includes about 400 e-mails from particular mailing lists I subscribe to).
While, I might be slightly above normal, I'm using over 600 MB of my Gmail quota. The one thing that Gmail has done for my friends and I is that its generous quota along with a large (10 MB) file size limit allows my friends and I to better pass around media files (Dave Chappelle skits, etc.)
Re:PINE + PortaPuTTY + Thumb Drive
on
Gmail vs Pine
·
· Score: 1
That's hardly an all encompassing solution. The company I work for actually blocks port 22 at the firewall. You're also counting on the fact that USB drives will be allowed by the machine's local policies.
Just about any machine with internet access will have a browser on it. Gmail is more convenient.
How can you have "no hope" of defeating their lawyers in a crime that you didn't commit? If there was "no evidence" then you would have all sorts of legal avenues for reprisal, many of which could possibly lead to a large pot of gold.
There have been documented cases where the RIAA have fingered the wrong person. Witness the case brought against a lady who doesn't even own a computer. Their detection and identification methods aren't at all fullproof, but becuase nobody can afford to go to court with them, their methods have not stood up to a true test in court. Yes, they are opening themselves to various legal avenues for reprisal, but they also realize that most of the defendants can't afford to take the trial that far anyway. Hence, the extortion: the alternative to settling out of court would put such a severe strain on most people's monetary resources that simply giving in to the extortion is a much cheaper solution. Until one of these cases actually goes to court, the RIAA's "evidence" is of such dubious nature that it should not be considered a de facto proof of guilt.
Besides, that's the point of a trial: to determine if the evidence warrants a conviction.
The RIAA certainly has enough evidence that if they were to call in the feds the agents could get a search warrant to seize your computer, search your house and start building a case. Most people, when confronted, wisely choose to take the RIAA up on its offer to settle out of court.
Unless I'm mistaken, the RIAA's lawsuits are civil are they not? IANAL, but I don't believe the "feds" are allowed to get involved in evidence collection for a civil suit. I believe that it is completely up to the plaintiff to collect and present whatever evidence they feel would be necessary for a conviction. Again, the settlements in the RIAA suits are more or less a case of the defendants simply giving in because their pockets a much shallower than those of the RIAA.
I can't wait for the day that the RIAA takes on somebody who can afford a proper defense and take the case all the way to court. That's the only way we'll ever get a decision as to whether or not the RIAA's tactics are legal. Of course, the down side is, if the defendant loses, that sets precedent for the RIAA. We would most likely be assured of a renewed wave of lawsuits backed by this precedent. In reality, we need to change the laws... something that's hard to do when the RIAA has already taken all of your money.
I'm still not sure what their intent is with these lawsuits, though. It seems like they are hasseling people just for the sake of hasseling them. Why don't they just go after the real pirates - the guys who make money from selling bootleg copies of their albums.
It's not real, and you always, ALWAYS know that it's not real (assuming no mental disorders). You just can't trick yourself into thinking it is when you're aiming with a mouse and moving with a keyboard.
I think this should be ammended to say that a mentally healthy person can't trick theirself into thinking it is real and not fake. I'm in the same boat as you here. I have played violent video games for a very long time. Heck, I used to play Doom all the frickin' time and listen to Rammstein, just like those Columbine kids. The difference is I am mentally healthy. Back when I was a freshman in college a friend of mine sent me a video of a guy getting beheaded and it made me sick just to watch it. To the average, healthy person death is a serious matter and not something they ever consider doing lightly.
But here's the real truth of the matter: society always looks for something to blame its problems on. Before video games it was violent television -- I'm young but I think Hill Street Blues was maybe one of those "radical" shows. Before that, it was probably violent movies, hence the establishment of the ratings system. Before that, it was Rock n' Roll, which many ludites still consider "evil" -- I was flipping through channels the other day and saw Kirk Cameron on TV with some evangelist, ripping apart Black Sabbath (although I will grant that Black Sabbath did use satanic imagery as part of their image).
The point is, society will always attempt to blame some form of popular media. It is, however, a shame that our legal system has digressed into such a circus that people are able to bring lawsuits against the produces of controversial media simply becuase a sick person claimes to have been influenced by said media. Yes sir, we live in a "pass the buck" world and that's not likely to change any time soon.
Hahaha. Yeah, a good friend of mine still holds the record for the 4th or 5th fastest Miata in the 1/4-mile in the states. As often as not he broke something, but that's mostly a part of racing.
I guess it could be a factor of the dollar/yen trade rate. I have no idea how much the exchange rate has changed over the last couple of years. I could have sworn somebody said that there was also some kind of legislation involved that contributed, too. Oh well, I guess it's not matter since if you want an imported engine bad enough you'll still buy it at the increased price.
Now, now. I think there is a distinct difference between Ricers and Tuners. Ricers are all about the flashy graphics, park bench spoiler, chopped springs (but without a realignment or proper shock absorbeer adjustments), and most importantly, the coffee can exhaust. They may or may not have an imported motor, but if they do it's usually all chromed up and underneath a plastic hood or some crap.
What I would refer to as a tuner would be the ones who actually spend most of their money to increase the performance of their car, irregardless of its looks. That's not to say that it will look like a beater, but those are these are the guys who typically will put the looks of their car last.
But, I may be a bit biased as I know a few guys in this vein, myself included. The suspension on my old project car cost me about 4 times what the actual car cost, and the car looked like crap, but boy could it handle around an autocross or a road course.
2) Due to space constraints, SUV, Vans, etc. aren't very popular vehicles in Japan. Cost also most likely has something to do with it, as I believe the insurance, registration, and taxes are all cheaper on the smaller classes of cars.
Unfortuantely for us, some of the import/export laws involved have changed and it has started to become more costly to purchase used engines from Japan. I've seen the prices on some imported engines from some vendors increase by up to $1000 over the last year or so. It's a shame really since the American youth tuner crowd was making good use out of old chasis and discarded old motors from Japan. Basically they were implementing a different kind of recycling plan.
possible exception for encrypted stuff. how many 'regular' businesses do that anyway?
Try just about anybody in the healthcare industry. Because of the HIPAA laws, I believe that the majority of healthcare providers now provide for methods to encrypt any and all email that exits their domain. Note that this is a good thing. Most people wouldn't like to find out that an email containing vital personal health information had been sniffed on its way between a medical billing company and an insurance company.
A friend of mine actually met a pretty cool chick one time like this. He called his brother's old cell phone number by mistake and ended up talking to and going to meet this girl who now had the same number. Not sure what actually ended up happening between the two of them, though.
I would always check out the manual during a shitbreak soon after purchasing the game and playing it for the first or second time. Other than that, I only look at it for things that aren't completely obvious. (Example, when I started plaing KOTOR2 I entered into a game of Pazak (or however it's spelled) realizing that I couldn't recall the rules from the last time I played KOTOR1, so out came the manual... and eventually the internet since the manual didn't explain the rules either.)
I have a Sony Ericsson prepaid phone. I can't remember the model, but it was the cheapest one that Cingular had at the time. (I just needed a basically disposable phone with a local number for the area I was visiting.) It had the autokey guard, but for some reason, despite the fact that I would verify the keyguard was turned on, I found myself still making phone calls while it was in my pocket. I never had that problem with any of my other previous brick phones. It was like I would somehow magically hit the Unlock key and then the * key while it was in my pocket.
Who knows, maybe that's exactly what was happening. It was just very frustrating since it was a prepaid phone and therefore it was wasting my money.
So, you're saying that by shelling out ~$100 out of your own pocket, you're costing the cell companies money? Explain the economics of that to me, please.
Actually, back when I used to play it a lot, I felt that Counter Strike was pretty well balanced, assuming you had an equal number of talented players on each team. There really weren't any of the "collect resources to deny the other team" tactics, but that could be solved by simply not getting killed. I can't tell you how many good matches of CS I had simply because I was matched with similarly skilled players. Oh, and one can't discount some of the great one on one battles you would occasionally get into with another player, each of you bobbing and weaving, exhausting the current clip for the primary weapon, then the secondary weapon, then resorting to knives.
Crap, now I'm going to have to go out and buy HL2 just so I can play CS again. (More likely I'll get my ass kicked again since I haven't played an FPS in a looooong time.)
Good call on that one. I doubt it has the same market share as GTA and GT, but that is surely a whole set of gamers there, many of whom may or may not be interested in the GTA or GT franchises.
I guess this proves that Sony doesn't have just one really good exclusive title: it has many, some of which attract different types of gamers. Maybe that has something to do with their success?
In my eyes, Sony has two things: 1) the Gran Turismo series. While there are some competitors on the XBox which probably even look better, the GT series just seems to always come out on top as the better racing sim. (This go around, it is heavily supported by the Logitech wheel with 720 degree movement, like in a real car.) 2) the PS2 is always the first to get any GTA game. If I'm not mistaken, Sony has some sort of exclusivity deal that allows them exclusive licensure of any new GTA games for a period of time.
That said, their overwhelming popularity is probably also a major reason.
I'm pretty much a casual gamer these days and I am ashamed to admit that my computer is indeed infected with Starforce due to the purchase of two games on the infected list. At the time of their purchase I hadn't yet heard much about StarForce, but now I wish I had. Generally, when a game is pretty invasive about their copy protection (FarCry not cooperating with Daemon Tools as an example), I try to stay away from it. But it is the unfortunate truth that I just don't have the time to devote to games that I used to... and it's people like me who will get the shaft because of these technologies.
And people wonder why I prefer to game on consoles these days...
Actually, I for one will be purchasing GalCiv2 simply because of their rather open ended license. I would rather like to support a company who gives the finger to StarForce and their ilk by releasing a game with such a generous license. Stardock is to be commended.
Heck, I don't even know if I'll like or play the game, but they deserve my money as a political statement, if nothing else.
Honestly, why the hell haven't you filled out the forms to become an official 501(c)3 NPO? Yes, it's time consuming and requires much more management, not to mention the probable initial outlay of funds to a lawyer in order to get your 501(c)3 application completed properly. The only reason that I can see for you not to go through the process is that you are either 1) lazy or 2) not very committed to your cause, since you seem unwilling to make the necessary changes to your business in order to achieve NPO status.
In another life, I was a founding member of a 501(c)3 corporation. Yes, it's a PITA to run things in the manner necessary to maintain your status, but it's necessary. The reality is, and keep in mind that this is born from experience gained while attempting to garner some minor intial donations to fund our application, the only way to actually be treated like an NPO is to be able to prove that you're an NPO. Otherwise, why should any corporation or private entity believe your word that you will not take their money and run when there are no legal restrictions to keep you from doing so. I happened to us on a few occasions, but we never got angry and claimed the company was evil on public message boards. Instead, we simply moved on until we achieved the necessary funds to receive our NPO status. After that, the companies that turned us down before had no problems donating to our cause.
A not for profit company without 501(c)3 status asking for donations is akin to a bum on the street asking for money for food. Sure, he might be telling the truth, but how do you really know that he's not going to waste the money on crack?
For the record I forwent modding your post down in order to post in this conversation in the hopes that you might realize the ridiculous nature of your comments.
Besides, I'm sure somebody else will mod it down anyway.
I think a lot of it just comes down to general ergonomics. I tend to do most of my websurfing and Gmail checking via my 800MHz P3 laptop on the couch. I have no problem with this -- the laptop is plenty fast, even when despite my tendencies to leave FF open for weeks at a time with ~20 or so tabs, and it's nice to be able to move it around to the couch or the recliner chair, etc.
That said, if I have to do any serious computer work, I still prefer to do it from a "real" keyboard and using a "real" mouse. I like the feel of a real keyboard underneath my fingers, partly becuause I can find all of the ancilliary keys (arrows, Home, End, etc.) by touch on a full keyboard, unlike on a laptop keyboard. Also, I genuinely seem to type faster on a full keyboard with the slightly deeper key presses. And as much as I am used to using a touchpad, it is easier and quicker for me to user a regular mouse, especially during click & drag operations.
Now, I'm a computer nerd. Let's take this one step further to your average luser, like the people I support at my office every day. Complaint number one from the laptop users: they hate the touchpad and trackpoints. They also seem genuinely shocked when I give them an extra mouse and show them how to plug it in to the USB ports on the back of their laptop. They didn't know they could use anything else.
Complaint number two always has to do with the keyboard. Despite the fact that I have done a side by side comparison of a full size keyboard, showing that the home row keys are standard sized, many users refuse to accept this fact and insist that the keyboard on their D600 is smaller than the one in their office.
Complaint numbers 3 and 4. Many people like to complain that their screen is smaller on the laptop. This is pretty much true, and IMHO, the laptops with the 17 inch screens start to encroach on the "too big to lug around" territory. Not to mention, they look stupid since they usually use the same keyboards found in the 15" laptops. The other complaint I get about screens is from people who feel that they need the screen at eye level, but their keyboard at lap-level. That's not possible without external peripherals.
So, the best solution to solve all of these complaints would be a docking station, right? That's what most offices do. But is there really any reason for a home user to spend an extra $200 - $300 on a docking station just so they can actually make their laptop comfortable? They really would be better off purchasing a desktop.
Bingo. That's the one downside to the T-Series. It is nice that it has parallel, but whether you choose to believe it or not, a serial port is still useful in this day and age. That's one area where the Dell D6xx series has an advantage over the T-Series.
I would consider HP's newer printers only marginally OK at best. We still buy them becuase we've always bought HP. It makes the maintenance a little easier when your LaserJet 4 and LaserJet 4250 are really similar in design. That said, empirical evidence would suggest that the 42XX lines have a much higher mean time between failure than the LJ4s that we are still using. Specifically there seems to be a faulty gear mechanism in the 42XX series that, according to our printer support contractor, will fail within the first 1.5 - 2 years of service. I'm inclined to agree after having four 42XX printers down at the same time awaiting the replacement of that part; a replacement which was backordered from HP and didn't come in for 2 to 3 weeks.
I'll still buy HP, mostly because we always have, but I don't like them anymore.
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Clearly you didn't read his .sig. Read it. All will make sense then.
(insert obligatory Bush joke here)
I'm currently using a whopping 45 megs of space on my GMail account (this includes about 400 e-mails from particular mailing lists I subscribe to).
While, I might be slightly above normal, I'm using over 600 MB of my Gmail quota. The one thing that Gmail has done for my friends and I is that its generous quota along with a large (10 MB) file size limit allows my friends and I to better pass around media files (Dave Chappelle skits, etc.)
That's hardly an all encompassing solution. The company I work for actually blocks port 22 at the firewall. You're also counting on the fact that USB drives will be allowed by the machine's local policies.
Just about any machine with internet access will have a browser on it. Gmail is more convenient.
How can you have "no hope" of defeating their lawyers in a crime that you didn't commit? If there was "no evidence" then you would have all sorts of legal avenues for reprisal, many of which could possibly lead to a large pot of gold.
There have been documented cases where the RIAA have fingered the wrong person. Witness the case brought against a lady who doesn't even own a computer. Their detection and identification methods aren't at all fullproof, but becuase nobody can afford to go to court with them, their methods have not stood up to a true test in court. Yes, they are opening themselves to various legal avenues for reprisal, but they also realize that most of the defendants can't afford to take the trial that far anyway. Hence, the extortion: the alternative to settling out of court would put such a severe strain on most people's monetary resources that simply giving in to the extortion is a much cheaper solution. Until one of these cases actually goes to court, the RIAA's "evidence" is of such dubious nature that it should not be considered a de facto proof of guilt.
Besides, that's the point of a trial: to determine if the evidence warrants a conviction.
The RIAA certainly has enough evidence that if they were to call in the feds the agents could get a search warrant to seize your computer, search your house and start building a case. Most people, when confronted, wisely choose to take the RIAA up on its offer to settle out of court.
Unless I'm mistaken, the RIAA's lawsuits are civil are they not? IANAL, but I don't believe the "feds" are allowed to get involved in evidence collection for a civil suit. I believe that it is completely up to the plaintiff to collect and present whatever evidence they feel would be necessary for a conviction. Again, the settlements in the RIAA suits are more or less a case of the defendants simply giving in because their pockets a much shallower than those of the RIAA.
I can't wait for the day that the RIAA takes on somebody who can afford a proper defense and take the case all the way to court. That's the only way we'll ever get a decision as to whether or not the RIAA's tactics are legal. Of course, the down side is, if the defendant loses, that sets precedent for the RIAA. We would most likely be assured of a renewed wave of lawsuits backed by this precedent. In reality, we need to change the laws... something that's hard to do when the RIAA has already taken all of your money.
I'm still not sure what their intent is with these lawsuits, though. It seems like they are hasseling people just for the sake of hasseling them. Why don't they just go after the real pirates - the guys who make money from selling bootleg copies of their albums.
It's not real, and you always, ALWAYS know that it's not real (assuming no mental disorders). You just can't trick yourself into thinking it is when you're aiming with a mouse and moving with a keyboard.
I think this should be ammended to say that a mentally healthy person can't trick theirself into thinking it is real and not fake. I'm in the same boat as you here. I have played violent video games for a very long time. Heck, I used to play Doom all the frickin' time and listen to Rammstein, just like those Columbine kids. The difference is I am mentally healthy. Back when I was a freshman in college a friend of mine sent me a video of a guy getting beheaded and it made me sick just to watch it. To the average, healthy person death is a serious matter and not something they ever consider doing lightly.
But here's the real truth of the matter: society always looks for something to blame its problems on. Before video games it was violent television -- I'm young but I think Hill Street Blues was maybe one of those "radical" shows. Before that, it was probably violent movies, hence the establishment of the ratings system. Before that, it was Rock n' Roll, which many ludites still consider "evil" -- I was flipping through channels the other day and saw Kirk Cameron on TV with some evangelist, ripping apart Black Sabbath (although I will grant that Black Sabbath did use satanic imagery as part of their image).
The point is, society will always attempt to blame some form of popular media. It is, however, a shame that our legal system has digressed into such a circus that people are able to bring lawsuits against the produces of controversial media simply becuase a sick person claimes to have been influenced by said media. Yes sir, we live in a "pass the buck" world and that's not likely to change any time soon.
Hahaha. Yeah, a good friend of mine still holds the record for the 4th or 5th fastest Miata in the 1/4-mile in the states. As often as not he broke something, but that's mostly a part of racing.
I guess it could be a factor of the dollar/yen trade rate. I have no idea how much the exchange rate has changed over the last couple of years. I could have sworn somebody said that there was also some kind of legislation involved that contributed, too. Oh well, I guess it's not matter since if you want an imported engine bad enough you'll still buy it at the increased price.
Now, now. I think there is a distinct difference between Ricers and Tuners. Ricers are all about the flashy graphics, park bench spoiler, chopped springs (but without a realignment or proper shock absorbeer adjustments), and most importantly, the coffee can exhaust. They may or may not have an imported motor, but if they do it's usually all chromed up and underneath a plastic hood or some crap.
What I would refer to as a tuner would be the ones who actually spend most of their money to increase the performance of their car, irregardless of its looks. That's not to say that it will look like a beater, but those are these are the guys who typically will put the looks of their car last.
But, I may be a bit biased as I know a few guys in this vein, myself included. The suspension on my old project car cost me about 4 times what the actual car cost, and the car looked like crap, but boy could it handle around an autocross or a road course.
1) What's a USV?
2) Due to space constraints, SUV, Vans, etc. aren't very popular vehicles in Japan. Cost also most likely has something to do with it, as I believe the insurance, registration, and taxes are all cheaper on the smaller classes of cars.
Unfortuantely for us, some of the import/export laws involved have changed and it has started to become more costly to purchase used engines from Japan. I've seen the prices on some imported engines from some vendors increase by up to $1000 over the last year or so. It's a shame really since the American youth tuner crowd was making good use out of old chasis and discarded old motors from Japan. Basically they were implementing a different kind of recycling plan.
possible exception for encrypted stuff. how many 'regular' businesses do that anyway?
Try just about anybody in the healthcare industry. Because of the HIPAA laws, I believe that the majority of healthcare providers now provide for methods to encrypt any and all email that exits their domain. Note that this is a good thing. Most people wouldn't like to find out that an email containing vital personal health information had been sniffed on its way between a medical billing company and an insurance company.
A friend of mine actually met a pretty cool chick one time like this. He called his brother's old cell phone number by mistake and ended up talking to and going to meet this girl who now had the same number. Not sure what actually ended up happening between the two of them, though.
I would always check out the manual during a shitbreak soon after purchasing the game and playing it for the first or second time. Other than that, I only look at it for things that aren't completely obvious. (Example, when I started plaing KOTOR2 I entered into a game of Pazak (or however it's spelled) realizing that I couldn't recall the rules from the last time I played KOTOR1, so out came the manual... and eventually the internet since the manual didn't explain the rules either.)
I have a Sony Ericsson prepaid phone. I can't remember the model, but it was the cheapest one that Cingular had at the time. (I just needed a basically disposable phone with a local number for the area I was visiting.) It had the autokey guard, but for some reason, despite the fact that I would verify the keyguard was turned on, I found myself still making phone calls while it was in my pocket. I never had that problem with any of my other previous brick phones. It was like I would somehow magically hit the Unlock key and then the * key while it was in my pocket.
Who knows, maybe that's exactly what was happening. It was just very frustrating since it was a prepaid phone and therefore it was wasting my money.
So, you're saying that by shelling out ~$100 out of your own pocket, you're costing the cell companies money? Explain the economics of that to me, please.
Actually, back when I used to play it a lot, I felt that Counter Strike was pretty well balanced, assuming you had an equal number of talented players on each team. There really weren't any of the "collect resources to deny the other team" tactics, but that could be solved by simply not getting killed. I can't tell you how many good matches of CS I had simply because I was matched with similarly skilled players. Oh, and one can't discount some of the great one on one battles you would occasionally get into with another player, each of you bobbing and weaving, exhausting the current clip for the primary weapon, then the secondary weapon, then resorting to knives.
Crap, now I'm going to have to go out and buy HL2 just so I can play CS again. (More likely I'll get my ass kicked again since I haven't played an FPS in a looooong time.)
Good call on that one. I doubt it has the same market share as GTA and GT, but that is surely a whole set of gamers there, many of whom may or may not be interested in the GTA or GT franchises.
I guess this proves that Sony doesn't have just one really good exclusive title: it has many, some of which attract different types of gamers. Maybe that has something to do with their success?
In my eyes, Sony has two things:
1) the Gran Turismo series. While there are some competitors on the XBox which probably even look better, the GT series just seems to always come out on top as the better racing sim. (This go around, it is heavily supported by the Logitech wheel with 720 degree movement, like in a real car.)
2) the PS2 is always the first to get any GTA game. If I'm not mistaken, Sony has some sort of exclusivity deal that allows them exclusive licensure of any new GTA games for a period of time.
That said, their overwhelming popularity is probably also a major reason.
I'm pretty much a casual gamer these days and I am ashamed to admit that my computer is indeed infected with Starforce due to the purchase of two games on the infected list. At the time of their purchase I hadn't yet heard much about StarForce, but now I wish I had. Generally, when a game is pretty invasive about their copy protection (FarCry not cooperating with Daemon Tools as an example), I try to stay away from it. But it is the unfortunate truth that I just don't have the time to devote to games that I used to... and it's people like me who will get the shaft because of these technologies.
And people wonder why I prefer to game on consoles these days...
Until you memorized the answers to all of the questions. After a while of playing Civ1 I got to where I didn't have to even crack the manual anymore.
Thank you. Those were my thoughts exactly.
Actually, I for one will be purchasing GalCiv2 simply because of their rather open ended license. I would rather like to support a company who gives the finger to StarForce and their ilk by releasing a game with such a generous license. Stardock is to be commended.
Heck, I don't even know if I'll like or play the game, but they deserve my money as a political statement, if nothing else.
Honestly, why the hell haven't you filled out the forms to become an official 501(c)3 NPO? Yes, it's time consuming and requires much more management, not to mention the probable initial outlay of funds to a lawyer in order to get your 501(c)3 application completed properly. The only reason that I can see for you not to go through the process is that you are either 1) lazy or 2) not very committed to your cause, since you seem unwilling to make the necessary changes to your business in order to achieve NPO status.
In another life, I was a founding member of a 501(c)3 corporation. Yes, it's a PITA to run things in the manner necessary to maintain your status, but it's necessary. The reality is, and keep in mind that this is born from experience gained while attempting to garner some minor intial donations to fund our application, the only way to actually be treated like an NPO is to be able to prove that you're an NPO. Otherwise, why should any corporation or private entity believe your word that you will not take their money and run when there are no legal restrictions to keep you from doing so. I happened to us on a few occasions, but we never got angry and claimed the company was evil on public message boards. Instead, we simply moved on until we achieved the necessary funds to receive our NPO status. After that, the companies that turned us down before had no problems donating to our cause.
A not for profit company without 501(c)3 status asking for donations is akin to a bum on the street asking for money for food. Sure, he might be telling the truth, but how do you really know that he's not going to waste the money on crack?
For the record I forwent modding your post down in order to post in this conversation in the hopes that you might realize the ridiculous nature of your comments.
Besides, I'm sure somebody else will mod it down anyway.
I think a lot of it just comes down to general ergonomics. I tend to do most of my websurfing and Gmail checking via my 800MHz P3 laptop on the couch. I have no problem with this -- the laptop is plenty fast, even when despite my tendencies to leave FF open for weeks at a time with ~20 or so tabs, and it's nice to be able to move it around to the couch or the recliner chair, etc.
That said, if I have to do any serious computer work, I still prefer to do it from a "real" keyboard and using a "real" mouse. I like the feel of a real keyboard underneath my fingers, partly becuause I can find all of the ancilliary keys (arrows, Home, End, etc.) by touch on a full keyboard, unlike on a laptop keyboard. Also, I genuinely seem to type faster on a full keyboard with the slightly deeper key presses. And as much as I am used to using a touchpad, it is easier and quicker for me to user a regular mouse, especially during click & drag operations.
Now, I'm a computer nerd. Let's take this one step further to your average luser, like the people I support at my office every day. Complaint number one from the laptop users: they hate the touchpad and trackpoints. They also seem genuinely shocked when I give them an extra mouse and show them how to plug it in to the USB ports on the back of their laptop. They didn't know they could use anything else.
Complaint number two always has to do with the keyboard. Despite the fact that I have done a side by side comparison of a full size keyboard, showing that the home row keys are standard sized, many users refuse to accept this fact and insist that the keyboard on their D600 is smaller than the one in their office.
Complaint numbers 3 and 4. Many people like to complain that their screen is smaller on the laptop. This is pretty much true, and IMHO, the laptops with the 17 inch screens start to encroach on the "too big to lug around" territory. Not to mention, they look stupid since they usually use the same keyboards found in the 15" laptops. The other complaint I get about screens is from people who feel that they need the screen at eye level, but their keyboard at lap-level. That's not possible without external peripherals.
So, the best solution to solve all of these complaints would be a docking station, right? That's what most offices do. But is there really any reason for a home user to spend an extra $200 - $300 on a docking station just so they can actually make their laptop comfortable? They really would be better off purchasing a desktop.
Bingo. That's the one downside to the T-Series. It is nice that it has parallel, but whether you choose to believe it or not, a serial port is still useful in this day and age. That's one area where the Dell D6xx series has an advantage over the T-Series.
I would consider HP's newer printers only marginally OK at best. We still buy them becuase we've always bought HP. It makes the maintenance a little easier when your LaserJet 4 and LaserJet 4250 are really similar in design. That said, empirical evidence would suggest that the 42XX lines have a much higher mean time between failure than the LJ4s that we are still using. Specifically there seems to be a faulty gear mechanism in the 42XX series that, according to our printer support contractor, will fail within the first 1.5 - 2 years of service. I'm inclined to agree after having four 42XX printers down at the same time awaiting the replacement of that part; a replacement which was backordered from HP and didn't come in for 2 to 3 weeks.
I'll still buy HP, mostly because we always have, but I don't like them anymore.