Guess what? Windows also has a full permissions system. It's even better than the read/write/execute system - much more control and much more flexibility. Windows can also mount drives in folders. And it can also use symlinks (the're called Junction Points) - I use them to keep stupid installers from writing to my (tiny) primary drive.
Guess what? Windows CAN do what you're talking about.
Now, there are a lot of stupid apps from the Windows 9x era that were designed with the idea that it was OK to write anywhere on the disk. Those programs fail on my system because I don't allow write permissions to anything but my home directory (I log on as Administrator to install programs).
"C:\windoze\users\me\desktop\my_documents"
You're using Windows 98 or 95 or ME, clearly, which, as anyone will tell you, doesn't support permisssions or users worth a damn. Switch to Windows 2000 or XP.
(My home directory is "E:\documents and settings\brian\").
Windows can set permissions recursively. Well, Windows 2000/XP can.
Don't bitch about Windows if you're not using at least Windows 2000. Thats no more fair than me bitching about how much OS9 sucked.
You're not supposed to access the drives directly. To be honest, even as a "power user", I don't access my drive directly. My home directory isn't even on my primary drive; nor is my "program files" directory. I have a very funky RAID setup but thanks to "My Documents" and the desktop, I rarely have to traverse the directory structure.
The device manager was not intended for normal users. Remember, most users buy their computer already set up and never know about or see the device manager. It's actually a snap-in for the MMC, the administrative console for windows.
If you care, you can right click on "My Computer", select "Manage" and click "Device Manager". Or you can make your own.msc with the device manager and place it somewhere convenient.
Yes, Luna is a bit "colorful". I personally prefer the earlier Windows interface "Watercolor".
By the way, Windows XP is skinnable with a simple hack (well, simple if you know how to do it). There are also programs that will do it for you. Thankfully, there are hundreds of Windows XP skins, even a close-but-not-quite Aqua clone.
And, Windows classic is alwo available.
"The XP interface constantly screams at you for attention."
I hated Luna at first, but after a few weeks it grew on me. It's really not so bad once you get used to it.
The brushed apps really bug me, though. Why Apple would choose to create a completely different theme for some apps is beyond me. (Something about "device replacement" apps?). Other than that, and the dock, Aqua is quite good.
So what... the program he used didn't support AVI, he converted to MPEG1, and DVDIt is a piece of garbage.
He should have used Sonic Foundry's Vegas+DVD. It's a complete end-to-end editing, encoding, and production package that's fully integrated. And it's not much more than Primere alone.
Or he should have used one of the MANY good DVD packages for Windows.
Personally, I think sunglass contacts will NEVER catch on.
Contacts require:
- Prescription fitting (you definately should see an opthamologist before wearing them) - Careful application - Rewetting in dry climates - Cleaning/disposal
Sunglasses will always be cheaper than sunglass-contacts because of those reasons.
"I rename apps that have ridiculous names, like "Adobe® Photoshop® 7.0" I change to "Photoshop" and it works just fine. "
It's the same in Windows. Windows shortcuts will update themselves if the app is renamed, and good apps will update their file associations when they are launched.
Also, most Windows users don't directly access the app - they access the shortcut in the Start Menu. I can name and organize the start menu anyway I want. (For example, I renamed "Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0" to "Visual Basic" in my Start Menu).
I have seen how it works on OS X. And I don't look foolish. Microsoft has COMPATIBILITY to maintain - and changing something so major requires time and effort.
Look, the Windows system works fine. OK, so it's primitive. Big deal. My copy of Office has only broken once, and that was only because a virus decided to infect the executable (I was running as Administrator, stupidly, at the time).
The US is not struggling to implement 3G. 3G is not common in Europe (GPRS is; but it's not 3G).
All of Sprint's network supports a 2.5G, 144kbps system marketed as "PCS Vision". Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T also have 2.5G networks.
On TV, NTSC was a hack. It allowed a smooth transition from NTS to a color format. PAL has a higher resolution, and it also helps smooth out chromactic errors.
However, many in the US no longer recieve their television through NTSC. I'm not talking about ATSC (the US ditital TV standard), I'm talking about digital cable and satellite TV.
And, within the next fifteen years, NTSC should be gone. It will be replaced with ATSC which has far better error correction and allows for 1920x1080i resolution. The European digital TV standard rejects multipath better than the US system (although modern recievers have made ATSC quite acceptable), but it does not offer true-HDTV resolution.
I currently get four HD channels, three from DirecTV (HBO-HD, Showtime-HD, and HDNET), and one on-air (I live north of Denver; most areas have four or more HD channels).
"think the biggest thing to come out of the East or Europe is going to be unified devices. It's already started - Sony equipment all 'talks' to each other through their 'S-link' implementation of IEEE 1394 (aka Firewire)."
S-link is not IEEE 1394 - it is a control protocol for Sony devices. You're thinking of i.link, which is nothing more than FireWire, a technology developed primarily by Apple.
LG is most definately not an American company.
"well. I have a feeling that companies not in USA with less likelyhood of sticking to the legacy standards are going to come out with a unified home control system that will knock our socks off."
Don't bet on it. The most popular home control system, ironically, is also one of the most primitive: X10. Home automation has not taken off due largely to the fact that our homes don't need automation. Voice control of lights, macros, etc. are all nice, but most people find that switches work just fine.
"Unification"
Unification has been one of the largest fallacies of the technology world. Microsoft and other large corporations have long predicted the downfall of the PC. So far, it hasn't happened.
"they're not selling well."
That's because people don't care if their refrigirator or washer can connect to the internet. In some places, connectivity is appropriate (TiVo, for example). In some places, it is not.
There are places in Europe where your GSM coverage WILL NOT reach. I garuntee it.
VZW has CDMA coverage for nearly all the US. GSM coverage in the US is mediocre at best because GSM never took off here. When US carriers were evaluating which digital system to deploy, CDMA had already been introduced. And CDMA is a better technology - some studies have shown that CDMA can handle twice as much bandwidth per same sized channel as GSM and other TDMA technologies. If you don't believe me, just look at the current race to deploy CDMA in Europe.
The original poster's problem would be solved by switching to Verizon.
Your comment is nothing more than a troll. It's also false.
Windows DLL Hell is caused by STUPID installers that overwrite system DLLS with older (or broken) versions.
As of Windows 2000, installers can not overwrite system DLLS. Windows File Protection will replace them with the original version.
Now, DLL hell is not over. But it's a hell of a lot better than Windows 98.
"Most apps can just be dragged around between disks and continue to function just fine because all their components are moved with a single icon drag and their location stays the same relative to the base location of the bundle directory."
Yes, that's a nice feature. Windows apps can do this too, if the're written properly. Office, for example, can be moved, as can most other applications. Instead of dragging the executable bundle, however, you drag the program directory.
With NTFS, in fact, any shortcuts will update themselves.
There are also applications for Windows that are entirely self contained (installers, for example). Most, however, are not.
This page describes how Windows 2000 fights "DLL Hell".
Microsoft knows about DLL hell. They admit the problem. And, as of Windows 2000, it's largely fixed. Stupid installers cannot overwrite system DLLs (well, they can, but they would have to first delete the cached version in \system32\dllcache).
"What's this thing about 500 peak minutes? Who talks on their mobile phone for over 8 hours a month?"
Yeah, it is a little rediculous. But I do know that for many people, 500 minutes is not enough (I am not one of those people). Many people in the US are now replacing their landlines with a mobile phone (This has been happening in Japan and Europe for quite some time, as I understand).
"In Europe you only pay for the mobile phone calls you initiate - not the ones you receive."
Yes, definately a feature I wish would happen in the US.
"If you are outside your own country you pay the difference between the local call and the long distance for the caller, as the caller doesn't know that his call is going to another country."
In the US, callers always pay for long distance. It's not really an issue, though, as long distane is quite cheap over here (ten cents a minute, anytime, with now monthly fees). I don't know if rates in Europe are comparable (I only have experience with payphones, and I know that those are a ripoff).
If you don't want a monthly fee, there are "prepaid" plans. The're more per minute, but you can buy minutes with cash (no credit required). The're also pretty anonymous since you can buy them at gas stations and such.
My point was not that the US is better off with cellular service than everyone else. We're not. Cellular penetration over here is much lower than Japan or Europe (mostly due to landlines being cheaper than cellphones, at least in the past). My point was that we're not living in a mobile stone age over here. No, we don't have cool (a.k.a useless) 3G movie services. We do have SMS and GPRS and other 2.5G data services, color phones, PDA phones, and camera phones.
I agree with your point. If you don't talk a lot, it's probably cheaper for a $0/month plan. We have those in the US - it's called prepaid wireless. Few people use it because the rates are usually 25 cents a minute or more (off peak is less).
There are also plans in the US with less minutes. AT&T Wireless has one with 50 minutes and unlimited SMS for $20/month.
"Then, the next BIG difference that most people seems not to be aware of is that in Europe you don't pay for incoming calls. (When I lived in the US there was a fax machine that called me every now and then... and it cost me money/minutes to answer and hear the screeeech sound...:-( )"
Yeah, that always bugged me about cellphones in the US. Good point. When I called up Sprint to complain, they offered to give me three months of free incoming calls. The squeeky wheel gets the oil.
"To me the most frustrating thing about living in the US and the cellphones and all was to see the ads online of the cool phones that were out in Sweden and knowing that it wouldn't be in the US for another six months or so - if at all. I suspect this is changing now."
Yeah, this used to be really frustrating. I remember that Nokia had their communicator (PDA/Phone) and it wasn't available in the US. Bugged me a lot.
These days, however, many of the cellphones are coming from Korea and Japan (Samsung, Sony, etc.). They usually appear in the US before Europe because they use CDMA technology. Europe has a great GSM network but faces a long and rocky road to CDMA (It's taken Sprint 7 years to build a half-decent CDMA network).
Yeah, there's a company that offers a similar service in the US, but, unfortunately, it's only available in a limited area of Sacramento, CA. They even have a DMCA policy. It may not be the best poilcy, but at leas they have one.
In my city, we have a wireless coop that has a 5mbps connection. For $70/month, you get 8 GB of transfer per month (billed at 95 percentile).
It WAS true. In the past seven years, however, the US has caught up. In some ways it has actually surpassed Europe.
For $55/month, you can get a plan with 500 peak minutes, unlimited off peak minutes (nights/weekends), no roaming charges, unlimited calls to other Sprint users, unlimited national long distance, and unlimited data. The data runs at 150kbps (well, under real conditions it's only about 65kbps). It runs on a 100% digital CDMA network which covers most of the country (it sucked 7 years ago when Sprint started offering PCS, but it's improved considerably since then).
Coverage is good. Voice quality is good. Rates are low. Data is available and cheap.
So why is Europe in such better shape? I checked around and found Vodafone's website. Their pricing system was much more complex and not nearly as cheap (400 inclusive minutes for £40.00; since Sprint's plan includes unlimited off peak and 500 peak I don't see how Vodafone's plan could be any cheaper). Now, if you have a much cheaper offer, I'd be happy to hear it (I haven't exactly shopped around).
My point is that the US is not as bad off as many would like to think. The idea that Europe kicks our ass is bullshit. It was true seven years ago when there was no digital service in the US. It is not true today. There are now five major nationwide digital providers in the US (Sprint, Verizon, AT&T Wireless, T-Mobile, and Cingular). There is GSM service and CDMA service, GPRS service, and other 2.5G data services.
Once you get to about 500 people, it's all about the same. Tournaments, prizes, exhibitors. The difference between 1,100 people and 4,500 is mostly numerical.
That's the point of building a system: it's for people who don't believe computers are a commodity.
Many people also believe that autos are a commodity. Yet we see many people putting hard work and effort into a car.
What they, and the people who build PCs (like myself), get out of their machine is much more than what someone who buys a Dell gets out of their system.
Buy a Dell if you want a tool. Build a PC if you want a friend.
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Guess what? Windows also has a full permissions system. It's even better than the read/write/execute system - much more control and much more flexibility. Windows can also mount drives in folders. And it can also use symlinks (the're called Junction Points) - I use them to keep stupid installers from writing to my (tiny) primary drive.
Guess what? Windows CAN do what you're talking about.
Now, there are a lot of stupid apps from the Windows 9x era that were designed with the idea that it was OK to write anywhere on the disk. Those programs fail on my system because I don't allow write permissions to anything but my home directory (I log on as Administrator to install programs).
"C:\windoze\users\me\desktop\my_documents"
You're using Windows 98 or 95 or ME, clearly, which, as anyone will tell you, doesn't support permisssions or users worth a damn. Switch to Windows 2000 or XP.
(My home directory is "E:\documents and settings\brian\").
Windows can set permissions recursively. Well, Windows 2000/XP can.
Don't bitch about Windows if you're not using at least Windows 2000. Thats no more fair than me bitching about how much OS9 sucked.
You're missing the point.
.msc with the device manager and place it somewhere convenient.
You're not supposed to access the drives directly. To be honest, even as a "power user", I don't access my drive directly. My home directory isn't even on my primary drive; nor is my "program files" directory. I have a very funky RAID setup but thanks to "My Documents" and the desktop, I rarely have to traverse the directory structure.
The device manager was not intended for normal users. Remember, most users buy their computer already set up and never know about or see the device manager. It's actually a snap-in for the MMC, the administrative console for windows.
If you care, you can right click on "My Computer", select "Manage" and click "Device Manager". Or you can make your own
Yes, Luna is a bit "colorful". I personally prefer the earlier Windows interface "Watercolor".
By the way, Windows XP is skinnable with a simple hack (well, simple if you know how to do it). There are also programs that will do it for you. Thankfully, there are hundreds of Windows XP skins, even a close-but-not-quite Aqua clone.
And, Windows classic is alwo available.
"The XP interface constantly screams at you for attention."
I hated Luna at first, but after a few weeks it grew on me. It's really not so bad once you get used to it.
The brushed apps really bug me, though. Why Apple would choose to create a completely different theme for some apps is beyond me. (Something about "device replacement" apps?). Other than that, and the dock, Aqua is quite good.
Buy the right ethernet card, and it does. MDI-X is a feature on my Gigabit card.
When you build a PC, you get what you want.
So what... the program he used didn't support AVI, he converted to MPEG1, and DVDIt is a piece of garbage.
He should have used Sonic Foundry's Vegas+DVD. It's a complete end-to-end editing, encoding, and production package that's fully integrated. And it's not much more than Primere alone.
Or he should have used one of the MANY good DVD packages for Windows.
Don't blame the platform for crappy apps.
Personally, I think sunglass contacts will NEVER catch on.
Contacts require:
- Prescription fitting (you definately should see an opthamologist before wearing them)
- Careful application
- Rewetting in dry climates
- Cleaning/disposal
Sunglasses will always be cheaper than sunglass-contacts because of those reasons.
" I need to put my phone and PDA into pockets and take care that they don't get lost or stolen."
Man, you need a PocketPC/Phone.
It's a:
- Pocket PC, the 2nd most popular PDA on the planet
- GSM phone
- MP3/WMA/WMV player, with an SD memory slot
Not quite as cool as a phone on your writst, but much easier than carrying both a phone and PDA.
"They're loud. They die with distressing regularity. They're louder *as* they die - the death rattle can last for a year or more."
You need to buy the right fans.
80mm Panaflo fans, $8 at 1coolpc.
Lifetime warranty, he'll replace them if they ever get louder or die
"Based on Windows 9x?"
Not by a long shot. It's a stripped version of NT 5.0 (Windows 2000)
Ahhh.... where are mod points when you need them.
50%+ of the US voted for someone OTHER THAN BUSH. I am part of that majority.
Our Airport here in Colorado, DIA, cost 5 billion dollars to design and construct.
A single US fighter can run fifty million.
What makes you think that an extremely complex space elevator can be built for $6 billion? Maybe in thirty years, but not today.
"I rename apps that have ridiculous names, like "Adobe® Photoshop® 7.0" I change to "Photoshop" and it works just fine. "
It's the same in Windows. Windows shortcuts will update themselves if the app is renamed, and good apps will update their file associations when they are launched.
Also, most Windows users don't directly access the app - they access the shortcut in the Start Menu. I can name and organize the start menu anyway I want. (For example, I renamed "Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0" to "Visual Basic" in my Start Menu).
I have seen how it works on OS X. And I don't look foolish. Microsoft has COMPATIBILITY to maintain - and changing something so major requires time and effort.
Look, the Windows system works fine. OK, so it's primitive. Big deal. My copy of Office has only broken once, and that was only because a virus decided to infect the executable (I was running as Administrator, stupidly, at the time).
On cellphones,
The US is not struggling to implement 3G.
3G is not common in Europe (GPRS is; but it's not 3G).
All of Sprint's network supports a 2.5G, 144kbps system marketed as "PCS Vision". Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T also have 2.5G networks.
On TV,
NTSC was a hack. It allowed a smooth transition from NTS to a color format. PAL has a higher resolution, and it also helps smooth out chromactic errors.
However, many in the US no longer recieve their television through NTSC. I'm not talking about ATSC (the US ditital TV standard), I'm talking about digital cable and satellite TV.
And, within the next fifteen years, NTSC should be gone. It will be replaced with ATSC which has far better error correction and allows for 1920x1080i resolution. The European digital TV standard rejects multipath better than the US system (although modern recievers have made ATSC quite acceptable), but it does not offer true-HDTV resolution.
I currently get four HD channels, three from DirecTV (HBO-HD, Showtime-HD, and HDNET), and one on-air (I live north of Denver; most areas have four or more HD channels).
"think the biggest thing to come out of the East or Europe is going to be unified devices. It's already started - Sony equipment all 'talks' to each other through their 'S-link' implementation of IEEE 1394 (aka Firewire)."
S-link is not IEEE 1394 - it is a control protocol for Sony devices. You're thinking of i.link, which is nothing more than FireWire, a technology developed primarily by Apple.
LG is most definately not an American company.
"well. I have a feeling that companies not in USA with less likelyhood of sticking to the legacy standards are going to come out with a unified home control system that will knock our socks off."
Don't bet on it. The most popular home control system, ironically, is also one of the most primitive: X10. Home automation has not taken off due largely to the fact that our homes don't need automation. Voice control of lights, macros, etc. are all nice, but most people find that switches work just fine.
"Unification"
Unification has been one of the largest fallacies of the technology world. Microsoft and other large corporations have long predicted the downfall of the PC. So far, it hasn't happened.
"they're not selling well."
That's because people don't care if their refrigirator or washer can connect to the internet. In some places, connectivity is appropriate (TiVo, for example). In some places, it is not.
As I said before,
Bullshit.
There are places in Europe where your GSM coverage WILL NOT reach. I garuntee it.
VZW has CDMA coverage for nearly all the US. GSM coverage in the US is mediocre at best because GSM never took off here. When US carriers were evaluating which digital system to deploy, CDMA had already been introduced. And CDMA is a better technology - some studies have shown that CDMA can handle twice as much bandwidth per same sized channel as GSM and other TDMA technologies. If you don't believe me, just look at the current race to deploy CDMA in Europe.
The original poster's problem would be solved by switching to Verizon.
Your comment is nothing more than a troll. It's also false.
Cheers,
Brian
So does this.
Windows DLL Hell is caused by STUPID installers that overwrite system DLLS with older (or broken) versions.
As of Windows 2000, installers can not overwrite system DLLS. Windows File Protection will replace them with the original version.
Now, DLL hell is not over. But it's a hell of a lot better than Windows 98.
"Most apps can just be dragged around between disks and continue to function just fine because all their components are moved with a single icon drag and their location stays the same relative to the base location of the bundle directory."
Yes, that's a nice feature. Windows apps can do this too, if the're written properly. Office, for example, can be moved, as can most other applications. Instead of dragging the executable bundle, however, you drag the program directory.
With NTFS, in fact, any shortcuts will update themselves.
There are also applications for Windows that are entirely self contained (installers, for example). Most, however, are not.
None, but as of Windows 2000, DLL hell has officially frozen over.
Or he could have just installed Windows XP.
This page describes how Windows 2000 fights "DLL Hell".
Microsoft knows about DLL hell. They admit the problem. And, as of Windows 2000, it's largely fixed. Stupid installers cannot overwrite system DLLs (well, they can, but they would have to first delete the cached version in \system32\dllcache).
DLL hell has frozen over.
Yeah, but IBM is still a $90 billion company with 300,000 employees.
"What's this thing about 500 peak minutes? Who talks on their mobile phone for over 8 hours a month?"
Yeah, it is a little rediculous. But I do know that for many people, 500 minutes is not enough (I am not one of those people). Many people in the US are now replacing their landlines with a mobile phone (This has been happening in Japan and Europe for quite some time, as I understand).
"In Europe you only pay for the mobile phone calls you initiate - not the ones you receive."
Yes, definately a feature I wish would happen in the US.
"If you are outside your own country you pay the difference between the local call and the long distance for the caller, as the caller doesn't know that his call is going to another country."
In the US, callers always pay for long distance. It's not really an issue, though, as long distane is quite cheap over here (ten cents a minute, anytime, with now monthly fees). I don't know if rates in Europe are comparable (I only have experience with payphones, and I know that those are a ripoff).
If you don't want a monthly fee, there are "prepaid" plans. The're more per minute, but you can buy minutes with cash (no credit required). The're also pretty anonymous since you can buy them at gas stations and such.
My point was not that the US is better off with cellular service than everyone else. We're not. Cellular penetration over here is much lower than Japan or Europe (mostly due to landlines being cheaper than cellphones, at least in the past). My point was that we're not living in a mobile stone age over here. No, we don't have cool (a.k.a useless) 3G movie services. We do have SMS and GPRS and other 2.5G data services, color phones, PDA phones, and camera phones.
I agree with your point. If you don't talk a lot, it's probably cheaper for a $0/month plan. We have those in the US - it's called prepaid wireless. Few people use it because the rates are usually 25 cents a minute or more (off peak is less).
... and it cost me money/minutes to answer and hear the screeeech sound... :-( )"
There are also plans in the US with less minutes. AT&T Wireless has one with 50 minutes and unlimited SMS for $20/month.
"Then, the next BIG difference that most people seems not to be aware of is that in Europe you don't pay for incoming calls. (When I lived in the US there was a fax machine that called me every now and then
Yeah, that always bugged me about cellphones in the US. Good point. When I called up Sprint to complain, they offered to give me three months of free incoming calls. The squeeky wheel gets the oil.
"To me the most frustrating thing about living in the US and the cellphones and all was to see the ads online of the cool phones that were out in Sweden and knowing that it wouldn't be in the US for another six months or so - if at all. I suspect this is changing now."
Yeah, this used to be really frustrating. I remember that Nokia had their communicator (PDA/Phone) and it wasn't available in the US. Bugged me a lot.
These days, however, many of the cellphones are coming from Korea and Japan (Samsung, Sony, etc.). They usually appear in the US before Europe because they use CDMA technology. Europe has a great GSM network but faces a long and rocky road to CDMA (It's taken Sprint 7 years to build a half-decent CDMA network).
Yeah, there's a company that offers a similar service in the US, but, unfortunately, it's only available in a limited area of Sacramento, CA. They even have a DMCA policy. It may not be the best poilcy, but at leas they have one.
In my city, we have a wireless coop that has a 5mbps connection. For $70/month, you get 8 GB of transfer per month (billed at 95 percentile).
That's bullshit.
It WAS true. In the past seven years, however, the US has caught up. In some ways it has actually surpassed Europe.
For $55/month, you can get a plan with 500 peak minutes, unlimited off peak minutes (nights/weekends), no roaming charges, unlimited calls to other Sprint users, unlimited national long distance, and unlimited data. The data runs at 150kbps (well, under real conditions it's only about 65kbps). It runs on a 100% digital CDMA network which covers most of the country (it sucked 7 years ago when Sprint started offering PCS, but it's improved considerably since then).
Coverage is good. Voice quality is good. Rates are low. Data is available and cheap.
So why is Europe in such better shape? I checked around and found Vodafone's website. Their pricing system was much more complex and not nearly as cheap (400 inclusive minutes for £40.00; since Sprint's plan includes unlimited off peak and 500 peak I don't see how Vodafone's plan could be any cheaper). Now, if you have a much cheaper offer, I'd be happy to hear it (I haven't exactly shopped around).
My point is that the US is not as bad off as many would like to think. The idea that Europe kicks our ass is bullshit. It was true seven years ago when there was no digital service in the US. It is not true today. There are now five major nationwide digital providers in the US (Sprint, Verizon, AT&T Wireless, T-Mobile, and Cingular). There is GSM service and CDMA service, GPRS service, and other 2.5G data services.
RAID0 is great when you don't care about your data and only want speed.
If you have a good, regular backup schedule it's really not an issue unless you're running a database server (or something else that can't fail).
Once you get to about 500 people, it's all about the same. Tournaments, prizes, exhibitors. The difference between 1,100 people and 4,500 is mostly numerical.
That's the point of building a system: it's for people who don't believe computers are a commodity.
Many people also believe that autos are a commodity. Yet we see many people putting hard work and effort into a car.
What they, and the people who build PCs (like myself), get out of their machine is much more than what someone who buys a Dell gets out of their system.
Buy a Dell if you want a tool. Build a PC if you want a friend.