Installing and configuring Linux is difficult. Some slashdot readers will disagree with me, but as CS degree-holder and Linux user who has spent hundreds of hours troubleshooting fresh Linux installations on my own machines (and in several cases reverting back to windows because of some deal-breaker hardware incompatibility issue), I can confidently say that I would NEVER recommend to any of my family members that they attempt to install Linux on their own.
In other words, I view the ability to google for solutions when a strange error message pops up (i.e. when the SecureBoot check fails) as a prerequisite to installing Linux (or any operating system, really) on a system.
For the majority of PC buyers, I think that the added security of SecureBoot far outweighs the potential risk that they might get flustered when attempting to install Linux.
Sure - for developers working on Live CDs, I can see how this would be a pain in the ass. But try to think of the bigger picture.
Are you running BitTorrent? I tried out two separate D-Link routers about a year ago, when I was looking to replace a dying wrt-54G. Both of the D-Link routers would crash in a big way within minutes of firing up BitTorrent. I ended up buying another wrt-54G from Newegg, which still works perfectly, and vowed never to buy another D-Link product again.
To answer the original poster's comments - I actually ended up buying a refurb Linksys E2000 on sale for cheap (less than $30). I continue to run my 54g, with my E2000 running alongside it in 5ghz mode. I would recommend this approach of running two separate routers for 2.4ghz and 5ghz access, as It's a lot cheaper to buy 2 selective dual-band routers than a single simultaneous dual band router. Also, if one of the routers should die on you, you'll have a backup.
Keep in mind that the originally poster is from New Zealand. Broadband internet in New Zealand is not like we are used to in the United States; it's all based on metered billing and has been since the start. In fact - as a student in New Zealand I used to get charged per MB (and quite a bit, actually) when using the school's computer labs.
The result is that monthly quotas end up being just as important (if not moreso) than bandwidth to a typical user. For example, take a look at these broadband prices and the extremely low (by US standards) "data allowances".
I'm pretty sure that the case where a employee has a better connection at home than at work would be quite rare in NZ.
You're correct that they don't update as often as other review sites - but they do still release new reviews periodically, and their reviews are the best for anyone who is first and foremost interested in building a silent PC.
I'd also add that not a lot has changed in fan technology over the past few years. The Noctua and Nexus 120mm fans at the top of the page are still very high quality fans that are as quiet and reliable as anything else you'll find on the market.
The review on the Zotac box doesn't include any noise measurements. In fact - the only mention of noise that I found in the review was:
I worry about its aural characteristics trending toward a high-pitched whine over time, and I'd actually prefer a slightly larger enclosure if it accommodated a bigger heatsink-and-fan assembly that ran quieter under load.
Probably not a great recommendation for a user who is looking for a silent pc.
My relatively small company of about 300 employees has a dedicated "legal counsel" who ranks as a VP - and she's well worth whatever amount we pay her. Part of her job description includes handling an litigation that we may be involved in.
Not sure why it would surprise you at all that a company as large as sprint would also have someone dedicated to legal issues, or even specifically to litigation.
It's not like I'm being dishonest here. When I return the item to Best Buy and they ask my reason for returning I tell them up front "I didn't like the product" or "I found it for $50 less online" - and they've never cared.
If they wanted to discourage this behavior they could do any number of things, like charging a restocking fee, offering to price match online retailers, or... and I know this is a stretch... just price things competitively to start with.
The reason that they don't do any of these things is that Best Buy is all about the impulse buy. They don't want their customers to research reviews or shop for the best price. Instead they offer up the guarantee that you can price match the product later or return it if you are unhappy, and bank on the fact that most people are going to be too lazy to take them up on the offer.
The Acer Iconia has been selling at $399 with a $100 gift card or rebate at several stores recently (Best Buy, Amazon, Target, etc.) - which is effectively a $299 price point. The Iconia is pretty much a piece of shit, but I bet they were selling a lot of them at that price.
The Asus Transformer can be purchased at $349 or less right now.
The problem is that right now it is still too expensive to manufacture a decent iPad competitor and sell it at $200. Each HP TouchPad, for example, was estimated to cost about $300 to manufacture. Costs will continue to drop though, and we will see Android tablets start to each into the iPad's market share - just as we are currently seeing in the smart phone market.
Even with the loss in market share, Apple will still continue to dominate the high-end market and make huge profits - just like they do with iPhones and Macs today.
They've got a pretty liberal return policy. Sometimes I "rent" from them until I am sure I want to buy something, and then I return it to best buy and order it online from Newegg or Amazon.
I applied the 80-20 rule here: It's got a web browser which means it can do 80% of what the iPad can do at 20% of the price, discontinued or not.
Before anyone brings up "apps" as the reason to go with the iPad at a 400% price premium - let me say that I own an iPhone and the overwhelming majority of time I spend with it is in the email and safari apps. Apps are nice when they are available - especially given the iPhone's small form factor that makes interacting with some websites painful - but not a necessity.
I bought two from the HP website last night. I figured one would make a good e-reader for myself, and the other would make a good present for a family member. At this price, you really can't go wrong.
reading exclusively scifi and fantasy just makes you a dork idiot
...you probably don't want to follow it up immediately with a statement like this...
though if you have time there's no reason why you shouldn't have read potters, if only to rip on it's stupid text and print edit techniques which are straight from elementary school to increase page count.
... because reading through several thousand pages of text only to blog about how bad the typesetting is seems a lot like something the comic book guy on the Simpsons would do.:)
As a seller you would accept payment in the form of bitcoins in the hopes that it will drive incremental sales from buyers who would prefer to use bitcoins (either for the convenience or the novelty) over credit cards or paypal. It's the same reason that the mom and pop store down the street accepts credit card payments even though each transaction costs them a pretty penny.
You would convert those bitcoins to real cash as soon as possible to avoid accumulating large quantities of bitcoins and putting yourself at risk of market fluctuations.
I'm assuming the patents referenced are not OS-specific, so whether Android is Linux-based or Windows-based isn't going to make a bit of difference in court.
As long as the law is on their side and it is in their best interest to do so, Microsoft will continue to sue Android handset makers.
This is a valid complaint, and I'm sure it would frustrate the crap out of anyone who needs to make heavy use of equations in a document or presentation. However, I don't think that the majority of Office users would even know that this problem exists. I didn't even know, and I "majored" in Mathematics in university (quoted because my university was generous enough to give out math degrees for free to students who completed the compsci requirement).
To say that nobody in my sales department would know about this issue would be an understatement. In fact - and I'm crying a little inside as I say this - I'm pretty sure that I would be laughed out of the boardroom at my company for being too "theoretical" if I were ever to include a properly formatted exponential or subscripted equation in one of my presentations.
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This just isn't a concern for me.
Installing and configuring Linux is difficult. Some slashdot readers will disagree with me, but as CS degree-holder and Linux user who has spent hundreds of hours troubleshooting fresh Linux installations on my own machines (and in several cases reverting back to windows because of some deal-breaker hardware incompatibility issue), I can confidently say that I would NEVER recommend to any of my family members that they attempt to install Linux on their own.
In other words, I view the ability to google for solutions when a strange error message pops up (i.e. when the SecureBoot check fails) as a prerequisite to installing Linux (or any operating system, really) on a system.
For the majority of PC buyers, I think that the added security of SecureBoot far outweighs the potential risk that they might get flustered when attempting to install Linux.
Sure - for developers working on Live CDs, I can see how this would be a pain in the ass. But try to think of the bigger picture.
"The Final Countdown" just popped into my head. Thanks. :)
Just guessing, but maybe by full they mean "not a mobile browser"?
I love the fact that there are at least 5 answers above mine, and no one has actually RTFA, so no one actually knows.
I'm deducting 10 nerd-credits from this post for failing to mention G.
Are you running BitTorrent? I tried out two separate D-Link routers about a year ago, when I was looking to replace a dying wrt-54G. Both of the D-Link routers would crash in a big way within minutes of firing up BitTorrent. I ended up buying another wrt-54G from Newegg, which still works perfectly, and vowed never to buy another D-Link product again.
To answer the original poster's comments - I actually ended up buying a refurb Linksys E2000 on sale for cheap (less than $30). I continue to run my 54g, with my E2000 running alongside it in 5ghz mode. I would recommend this approach of running two separate routers for 2.4ghz and 5ghz access, as It's a lot cheaper to buy 2 selective dual-band routers than a single simultaneous dual band router. Also, if one of the routers should die on you, you'll have a backup.
Keep in mind that the originally poster is from New Zealand. Broadband internet in New Zealand is not like we are used to in the United States; it's all based on metered billing and has been since the start. In fact - as a student in New Zealand I used to get charged per MB (and quite a bit, actually) when using the school's computer labs.
The result is that monthly quotas end up being just as important (if not moreso) than bandwidth to a typical user. For example, take a look at these broadband prices and the extremely low (by US standards) "data allowances".
I'm pretty sure that the case where a employee has a better connection at home than at work would be quite rare in NZ.
Link?
If I can get an i3 and H61 board for $89 I'd probably buy that instead.
You're correct that they don't update as often as other review sites - but they do still release new reviews periodically, and their reviews are the best for anyone who is first and foremost interested in building a silent PC.
I'd also add that not a lot has changed in fan technology over the past few years. The Noctua and Nexus 120mm fans at the top of the page are still very high quality fans that are as quiet and reliable as anything else you'll find on the market.
Wow that is a very nice price for a silently cooled cpu+mobo - I might need to order one.
Just wanted to add that for a PSU in this system you would definitely want to go with a picoPSU.
I worry about its aural characteristics trending toward a high-pitched whine over time, and I'd actually prefer a slightly larger enclosure if it accommodated a bigger heatsink-and-fan assembly that ran quieter under load.
Probably not a great recommendation for a user who is looking for a silent pc.
My relatively small company of about 300 employees has a dedicated "legal counsel" who ranks as a VP - and she's well worth whatever amount we pay her. Part of her job description includes handling an litigation that we may be involved in.
Not sure why it would surprise you at all that a company as large as sprint would also have someone dedicated to legal issues, or even specifically to litigation.
Did you check Office Depot? A friend of mine picked one up for $129 at Office Depot earlier this morning.
It's not like I'm being dishonest here. When I return the item to Best Buy and they ask my reason for returning I tell them up front "I didn't like the product" or "I found it for $50 less online" - and they've never cared.
If they wanted to discourage this behavior they could do any number of things, like charging a restocking fee, offering to price match online retailers, or... and I know this is a stretch... just price things competitively to start with.
The reason that they don't do any of these things is that Best Buy is all about the impulse buy. They don't want their customers to research reviews or shop for the best price. Instead they offer up the guarantee that you can price match the product later or return it if you are unhappy, and bank on the fact that most people are going to be too lazy to take them up on the offer.
Don't hate me for being a rational consumer.
The Acer Iconia has been selling at $399 with a $100 gift card or rebate at several stores recently (Best Buy, Amazon, Target, etc.) - which is effectively a $299 price point. The Iconia is pretty much a piece of shit, but I bet they were selling a lot of them at that price.
The Asus Transformer can be purchased at $349 or less right now.
The problem is that right now it is still too expensive to manufacture a decent iPad competitor and sell it at $200. Each HP TouchPad, for example, was estimated to cost about $300 to manufacture. Costs will continue to drop though, and we will see Android tablets start to each into the iPad's market share - just as we are currently seeing in the smart phone market.
Even with the loss in market share, Apple will still continue to dominate the high-end market and make huge profits - just like they do with iPhones and Macs today.
They've got a pretty liberal return policy. Sometimes I "rent" from them until I am sure I want to buy something, and then I return it to best buy and order it online from Newegg or Amazon.
I applied the 80-20 rule here: It's got a web browser which means it can do 80% of what the iPad can do at 20% of the price, discontinued or not.
Before anyone brings up "apps" as the reason to go with the iPad at a 400% price premium - let me say that I own an iPhone and the overwhelming majority of time I spend with it is in the email and safari apps. Apps are nice when they are available - especially given the iPhone's small form factor that makes interacting with some websites painful - but not a necessity.
I bought two from the HP website last night. I figured one would make a good e-reader for myself, and the other would make a good present for a family member. At this price, you really can't go wrong.
and I can guarantee that it has a nearly 100% finish rate
What data do you have to back this up?
reading exclusively scifi and fantasy just makes you a dork idiot
...you probably don't want to follow it up immediately with a statement like this...
though if you have time there's no reason why you shouldn't have read potters, if only to rip on it's stupid text and print edit techniques which are straight from elementary school to increase page count.
... because reading through several thousand pages of text only to blog about how bad the typesetting is seems a lot like something the comic book guy on the Simpsons would do. :)
As a seller you would accept payment in the form of bitcoins in the hopes that it will drive incremental sales from buyers who would prefer to use bitcoins (either for the convenience or the novelty) over credit cards or paypal. It's the same reason that the mom and pop store down the street accepts credit card payments even though each transaction costs them a pretty penny.
You would convert those bitcoins to real cash as soon as possible to avoid accumulating large quantities of bitcoins and putting yourself at risk of market fluctuations.
The old guy went to the grave 4-5 years ago still convinced procedural programming was a fad
Serious question here: if he wasn't writing procedural code, what was he writing?
Ewww... old people smell...
*craps diaper*
I'm assuming the patents referenced are not OS-specific, so whether Android is Linux-based or Windows-based isn't going to make a bit of difference in court.
As long as the law is on their side and it is in their best interest to do so, Microsoft will continue to sue Android handset makers.
This is a valid complaint, and I'm sure it would frustrate the crap out of anyone who needs to make heavy use of equations in a document or presentation. However, I don't think that the majority of Office users would even know that this problem exists. I didn't even know, and I "majored" in Mathematics in university (quoted because my university was generous enough to give out math degrees for free to students who completed the compsci requirement).
To say that nobody in my sales department would know about this issue would be an understatement. In fact - and I'm crying a little inside as I say this - I'm pretty sure that I would be laughed out of the boardroom at my company for being too "theoretical" if I were ever to include a properly formatted exponential or subscripted equation in one of my presentations.