Not Exactly, the point is that if the "Postulated Illegal Program" is classified, then the bill under consideration will remove whistleblower protection for revealing it.
Not that the bill is in reference to (ahem) *any* particular episode of illegality, but that it would make it illegal to tell about anything illegal.
In such a scenario, MyDepartment of (In)Security could have a project to import drugs from X, to the US, in order to finance MyTerrorist (Freedom Fighter, etc...). Said Drug may have health effects worse than Crack::Heroin::Meth.... If someone in the department notices that MyDepartment is effectively killing lots of people by making the drug available -> It is illegal for them to tell (The Project is classified), and immoral for them not to.
Is that the AG said that since the Newspaper did not show proof that confidential information exists, the Newspaper has no claim not to have the drives examined. (Say for confidential information about weak security at the police IT department.)
In similar news, I understand that Congress is going to pass a law making it a crime to disclose illegal spying by the government.
Assuming you are running XP (and I imagine anything else relatively recent. (ok, my Linux has devolved to...) It just requires that you have a compitant admin for your OS of choice, and someone who is willing to put some time into your workflow.
The main problem you are referring to is often called the "analogue hole." (At least that's what the last column I read about called it.) and it could be minimized by workflow custimization, as well as workstation lockdown. (No USB storage devices, no floppies, no cd-burning, NO IPOD (That was supposed to be a shout))
Of course, this requires someone who is technically compitant - as well as someone who can explain why the computers belong to to company. The big hole you have is prob. printing. (Hard to pitch employees to clients without hard copy somewhere.) Heck, just locking down computers tends to cause a backlash. (MINE!!!!!)
Of course, if you set up a Terminal Server / Citrix Server and LOCKED DOWN Thin Clients. (Can you say if 50-500 people are using the server it better damn well be well locked down.) And started taking time "Fixing" any non Thin Clients (Not the recommended configuration - how about a nice recommended "Quiet Office PC" we can get it in today...) You might get somewhere. Oh never mind, you don't have a good admin anyhow - you got WHAT access within three hours?
Too bad that very few of the posters here seem to be in a place to confirm or deny the report. (Which, I beleive was part of the posters request: Is the story true or not?)
There are a few who have responded with constructive comments to this: - High Bandwith sites (Radio) are blocked. - Porn is blocked - This is how Internet access exists: YXZ
Too bad that many of the people here are knee jerking their wan(ers and saying *Conspiracy* or *Conspiracy of the Left-Wing Unpatriotic Types*
The fact is: If the personell there have time to check the Internet (aka: Down Time), they should not have biased access: The (unverified) story is that they do. Hopefully someone can actually provide a meaningful list of what's blocked - or not. And Hopefully, the list will not be biased by politics.
of how NOT to do an IT project. (No talking to end users before implementation, questionable usage of laptop, wrong choice of laptop for use if OK, and no benefit to effencies or data retention.)
The Desktop Repleacement Laptop, is an interesting read: The machine held up in the LAN Party (E.G. Extremely heave use) for the first 2/3 of the party, then started giving some errors that they have seen in desktops as well. The Machine itself appears to be a desktop shoehorned into a LARGE laptop case.
While personally, transportable computers are anathama to me. (I don't want anything over six pounds (3Kg.) If you really want to run fraggers that most of my machines will choke on... more power to you. No, literally - remember to bring an extension cable.
Perhaps, perhaps not: AOL is simply stating that bulk marketers can pay to ensure their mail gets delivered. That mail may be Viagra, or whatever - but if you pay it will go through. AOL will still filter out all the similar junk from people who don't pay.
The trouble is that many people with small mailing lists find that if one of their recipients (or perhaps competitors) complains - then AOL marks them as spam. I send out a newsletter on the second wednesday of every month telling clients to verify the MS updates that came out the day before. (And cool thing of the month & whatever.) It is pure marketing on my part - Is it also SPAM? It's definately Bulk Mail: Which AOL may or may not block with their new plan, unless I pay to have it delivered.
As far as I'm concerned, this is like the RBOC plan to charge content providers for QoS. If you don't pay, we *may* not offer the quality of service that will allow our customers to use your site: "By The Way, your big competitor (who would suck by comparison on a level playing field) did pay & our users are now going there;)"
The anand machine is significantly upgradable, the Dell is not, that makes all the difference. Additionally: No, $250 does not purchase a usable machine from Dell. Nor does $300 (the lowest price machine now) plus a $50 rebate that may show up. The lowest Dell, upgraded into usability is $399 - and will not be upgradable.
Anandtech generally recommneds a machine that can be used for 3+ years with only a memory upgrade. This is not the Dell, which does not even have a Video Slot (Look at the Tech Specs for the B110. I had never heard of such a thing either.)
Consider this personal opinion: "A minimum machine with WinXP is a Processor, 512MB memory (more if Norton or moderate use), HDD, and archival storage."
Even just surfing requires an anti-virus product. This requires more memory than the minimum Dell. Add $$ ($$$ if Norton)
If you are actually doing work, add $$ for a backup method. (CDRW? ok, your dell just went to $370 with an $80 rebate that may show up.)
The basic Dell for $250 (after rebate) is a Celery 2.5GHz/256MB/80GB/CD machine. Any person doing ANYTHING with this machine needs more memory, and some way to back up data. Now we are talking about another $100 of parts +~ $70 labor. (Remember, most people don't do this themselves, it can be cheaper but then you have to factor in time to take it to somewhere...) More if you order parts from Dell.
If you take the lowest end Dell, Remove the monitor, add memory to get to 512MB, and a DVD/CDRW - Your Dell is now $399. Without a graphics slot (????) Expect it to run for about a year and it's entirely non-upgradable in any meaningful manner. The Ananadtech machine is $550(?) but will run rings around the Dell, and can actualy be upgraded into something better. And that makes all the difference.
AKA: If no one wants to use your product on it's merits: Offer more.
Can you say Google. Everyone uses them (not everyone, but most) because they are historically good. No one is going to change unless something is drastically better AND they know it. No one will know unless they try some other engine. Ergo, to get traffic people offer "prizes."
Basic PR. Unless the engines are really better than google, everyone will go back (Unless they really pay out the wazoo.)
Good luck to them if they can improve on G. (Although MS may subsidize it just to hurt G. No one else can afford to do that.)
This is the sky is falling arguement that SBC/Verizon/others have been promoting for awhile. E.G. Unless we can double bill content providers.. we'll go broke. It's also utter BS.
The Arguement:
1) Our customer (end user / ROBC customer) has paid for a certain speed connection to the Internet.
2) They cost us more than we thought they would.
3) We are afraid to charge our clients more, so we want to charge someone else's client. (content providers)
4) If we can't charge the content providers... we'll go out of business.
The Reality:
1) Charge what the service costs. 2) In the Internet Boom, many companies built out dark networks & went bust because they could not charge what stuff actually costs. 3) The remaining companies got the dark fiber for pennies on the dollar. 4) If they don't start charging what stuff costs, they will go out of business. 5) Charging other peoples customers breaks the share-share_alike internetworking argeements that construct the Internet.
On the other hand: Although the Cable and RBOCs have a (publically funded (via monopoly and monopoly pricing)) monopoly on wire access to the consumer... the powers that be (in the US) have decided that Data services should not be considered for regulation..... It's likely that the RBOCs will be able to break the Internet anyhow. (I won't honor your traffic unless you honor my traffic and pay me $$loads.)
This is not VHS vs BETA all over again, and porn is not the deciding factor.
1. The Key Difference between Blu-Ray/HDVD & VHS/Beta: Home Video Exists. 2. Porn is not the deciding factor, because content exists. In the Home Video industry infancy, none did - except for porn. 3. Blue-Ray will probably win due to computing convergence. (assuming relatively equal prices on a recording capacity basis)
When the Home Video Player war came out, there was no home video standard - and no home video content. Pornography drove the industry because there was no existing content, and people would (will) pay for porn videos. Since the movie industry was reluctant to make any move - the only content was porn. Perhaps VHS won because it was cheaper (lower cost for content providers), or becuase Sony really refused to license Betamax to Porn. In any case, at that time Porn was the content provider for the early home video industry. (Side note, I remember seeing Record size Video Disks of non-porn-Movies before ever seeing tapes. (I also remember that piracy was going to distroy the motion picutre industry.)
Today, the home video industry is a large (booming) industry. Tapes have been supplanted by Digital Disks for content providers, and for recording. I suspect that the key difference in who wins the Blue-Ray/DVD battle is going to be price. People were willing to pay $$$$ for video decks when none existed, but are unlikely to pay $$$$ for video that is only of improved quality. (See the takeup rates for HDTV)
The short version is that whomever can reach critical mass production & lower costs first wins. The key difference may be storage capacity for computers. Why, you ask, will computers be a key factor for a Home Video technology? Because the replacement of Computer Backup Tape drives may provide enough of a market to gain true Mass Production capacity first.
One of the claims why Sony lost the Beta/VHS battle was that it took two tapes for many movies. That is, it cost 2x to produce a Beta Tape set relative to a VHS set. This is not going to be a problem, as both camps are stating that they will have the capacity to put movies in HD with extras on their disks. Since Sony, et. al., are claiming that they will have much higher capacity for Blu-Ray, they will probably be used for computer backups in business systems. (You know, the Autoloaders that currently cost $15,000 & $100/tape) This will help Sony get the cost down faster. In the end, price matters & we are only talking about imporoved video. No one really cares if Sponge-Bob is in High Defination or not anyhow.
They claim that the White House (&NSA) is not following the law. The existing secret (FISA) courts and regulations allow for wiretapping without a warrent application for 72 hours. The wiretapping is done without any courts. The claim is that that wiretapping must follow existing law and regulations, and is not.
Actually, How about a wallet with ONE (or two) RFID resistant pockets. Then you can have a leather wallet that functions normally, allowing you to use your metro smart pass, and RFID security for the 1-2 cards you don't want transmitting.
German: Fehler im allen Teilen (Fails in all parts) English: Fix It Again Tony
Fiat cannot make a car with a profit. Their problem is that the line quality control is so bad that they have to fix the cars before they are shipped. then they have to sell at a discount because no one wants the cars.
Even the "Italian" goods are often manufactured in third world countries.
I can't speak specifically to shoes, but I can speak for sweaters. Production has largely moved out of shops in Italy, and into (Pakistan, Malaysia,...) other countries. My mother in law used to own & operate a sweater assembly shop. Even using immigrant labor that was low paid by Italian standards, they could not compete with the no pay of Pakistan. (Yes, I know that the workers there are their familys breadwinners.)
The problem of jobs moving from high paid countries to low ones is endemic, and a good example of a beggar thy neighbor approach to economic production. (You offer companies more incentives to work in your place, and let them pay less for the work.) Eventually everyone works for nothing;(
Better country of origin laws would work if everyone was willing and able to pay more for goods made in *well paying* countries. However some sort of horrible tax regime based on how much workers receive would probably make more sense.
my $.02 ($.02, that's more than an hourly wage in a Burma sweatshop;))
In an old rattely car, the advantage of Hi-Fi is drowned out by the wind/engine/exaust. I mean, really: If I drop the top on my 91 Miata, no way am I going to hear fidelity. Not even with the top up.
Now for Hi-Fi, How about the Zahlman flower? (Top Ten List of stuff: Quiet PC's)
Not so much marketed to gamers, as to the wealthy grandparents of wannabe gamers. The real gamers know why they should get the X2. (Now if I only had enough power to run civ IV;)
For many items, everything works out fine, but for things like barebones computers: They may return something for a search like "Socket 939, windows" that has a different configuration when you click on it... Something like, the price goes up when you use the drop-down configuration box to choose that motherboard in the box.
Also, I have had some experience (albiet not recent) when going to the store (Sometimes you need it NOW) and having the end store play games.
Some places are great, others not so much. But the site gives you a good starting point. And they do show NewEgg in the results: so you know what the good service price is...
Pricewatch is better for getting the feeling of what something should cost, rather than a good pointer. Many of the shops on Pricewatch are shady, and may substitute something "equilivent" but less good. (Say higher-spec pc-chips motherboard for lower-spec, but stable, abit motherboard.)
Remember, most of the sites like pricewatch simply spider member sites for prices. If the member has some other system on the page, with hidden text of what you want - you may find what you were not looking for.
(Yes I still use Pricewatch exclusively, but there are some merchants that will give you exactly what you ask for (and won't fit), and some merchants who will help you (more), and some who are....)
Slashdot Mirror
Not Exactly, the point is that if the "Postulated Illegal Program" is classified, then the bill under consideration will remove whistleblower protection for revealing it.
Not that the bill is in reference to (ahem) *any* particular episode of illegality, but that it would make it illegal to tell about anything illegal.
In such a scenario, MyDepartment of (In)Security could have a project to import drugs from X, to the US, in order to finance MyTerrorist (Freedom Fighter, etc...). Said Drug may have health effects worse than Crack::Heroin::Meth.... If someone in the department notices that MyDepartment is effectively killing lots of people by making the drug available -> It is illegal for them to tell (The Project is classified), and immoral for them not to.
Catch - 22
Is that the AG said that since the Newspaper did not show proof that confidential information exists, the Newspaper has no claim not to have the drives examined. (Say for confidential information about weak security at the police IT department.)
In similar news, I understand that Congress is going to pass a law making it a crime to disclose illegal spying by the government.
HumanFirewall.org
The site is being updated, but google the concept. (AKA This is such old news)
Assuming you are running XP (and I imagine anything else relatively recent. (ok, my Linux has devolved to ...) It just requires that you have a compitant admin for your OS of choice, and someone who is willing to put some time into your workflow.
The main problem you are referring to is often called the "analogue hole." (At least that's what the last column I read about called it.) and it could be minimized by workflow custimization, as well as workstation lockdown. (No USB storage devices, no floppies, no cd-burning, NO IPOD (That was supposed to be a shout))
Of course, this requires someone who is technically compitant - as well as someone who can explain why the computers belong to to company. The big hole you have is prob. printing. (Hard to pitch employees to clients without hard copy somewhere.) Heck, just locking down computers tends to cause a backlash. (MINE!!!!!)
Of course, if you set up a Terminal Server / Citrix Server and LOCKED DOWN Thin Clients. (Can you say if 50-500 people are using the server it better damn well be well locked down.) And started taking time "Fixing" any non Thin Clients (Not the recommended configuration - how about a nice recommended "Quiet Office PC" we can get it in today...) You might get somewhere. Oh never mind, you don't have a good admin anyhow - you got WHAT access within three hours?
Too bad that very few of the posters here seem to be in a place to confirm or deny the report. (Which, I beleive was part of the posters request: Is the story true or not?)
There are a few who have responded with constructive comments to this:
- High Bandwith sites (Radio) are blocked.
- Porn is blocked
- This is how Internet access exists: YXZ
Too bad that many of the people here are knee jerking their wan(ers and saying *Conspiracy* or *Conspiracy of the Left-Wing Unpatriotic Types*
The fact is: If the personell there have time to check the Internet (aka: Down Time), they should not have biased access: The (unverified) story is that they do. Hopefully someone can actually provide a meaningful list of what's blocked - or not. And Hopefully, the list will not be biased by politics.
$.02 - now pay up
of how NOT to do an IT project. (No talking to end users before implementation, questionable usage of laptop, wrong choice of laptop for use if OK, and no benefit to effencies or data retention.)
The Desktop Repleacement Laptop, is an interesting read: The machine held up in the LAN Party (E.G. Extremely heave use) for the first 2/3 of the party, then started giving some errors that they have seen in desktops as well. The Machine itself appears to be a desktop shoehorned into a LARGE laptop case.
While personally, transportable computers are anathama to me. (I don't want anything over six pounds (3Kg.) If you really want to run fraggers that most of my machines will choke on... more power to you. No, literally - remember to bring an extension cable.
my $.02
Perhaps, perhaps not: AOL is simply stating that bulk marketers can pay to ensure their mail gets delivered. That mail may be Viagra, or whatever - but if you pay it will go through. AOL will still filter out all the similar junk from people who don't pay.
The trouble is that many people with small mailing lists find that if one of their recipients (or perhaps competitors) complains - then AOL marks them as spam. I send out a newsletter on the second wednesday of every month telling clients to verify the MS updates that came out the day before. (And cool thing of the month & whatever.) It is pure marketing on my part - Is it also SPAM? It's definately Bulk Mail: Which AOL may or may not block with their new plan, unless I pay to have it delivered.
As far as I'm concerned, this is like the RBOC plan to charge content providers for QoS. If you don't pay, we *may* not offer the quality of service that will allow our customers to use your site: "By The Way, your big competitor (who would suck by comparison on a level playing field) did pay & our users are now going there;)"
AKA: it sucks
The anand machine is significantly upgradable, the Dell is not, that makes all the difference. Additionally: No, $250 does not purchase a usable machine from Dell. Nor does $300 (the lowest price machine now) plus a $50 rebate that may show up. The lowest Dell, upgraded into usability is $399 - and will not be upgradable.
Anandtech generally recommneds a machine that can be used for 3+ years with only a memory upgrade. This is not the Dell, which does not even have a Video Slot (Look at the Tech Specs for the B110. I had never heard of such a thing either.)
Consider this personal opinion:
"A minimum machine with WinXP is a Processor, 512MB memory (more if Norton or moderate use), HDD, and archival storage."
Even just surfing requires an anti-virus product. This requires more memory than the minimum Dell. Add $$ ($$$ if Norton)
If you are actually doing work, add $$ for a backup method. (CDRW? ok, your dell just went to $370 with an $80 rebate that may show up.)
The basic Dell for $250 (after rebate) is a Celery 2.5GHz/256MB/80GB/CD machine. Any person doing ANYTHING with this machine needs more memory, and some way to back up data. Now we are talking about another $100 of parts +~ $70 labor. (Remember, most people don't do this themselves, it can be cheaper but then you have to factor in time to take it to somewhere...) More if you order parts from Dell.
If you take the lowest end Dell, Remove the monitor, add memory to get to 512MB, and a DVD/CDRW - Your Dell is now $399. Without a graphics slot (????) Expect it to run for about a year and it's entirely non-upgradable in any meaningful manner. The Ananadtech machine is $550(?) but will run rings around the Dell, and can actualy be upgraded into something better. And that makes all the difference.
AKA: If no one wants to use your product on it's merits: Offer more.
Can you say Google. Everyone uses them (not everyone, but most) because they are historically good. No one is going to change unless something is drastically better AND they know it. No one will know unless they try some other engine. Ergo, to get traffic people offer "prizes."
Basic PR. Unless the engines are really better than google, everyone will go back (Unless they really pay out the wazoo.)
Good luck to them if they can improve on G. (Although MS may subsidize it just to hurt G. No one else can afford to do that.)
$.02
This is the sky is falling arguement that SBC/Verizon/others have been promoting for awhile. E.G. Unless we can double bill content providers .. we'll go broke. It's also utter BS.
.... It's likely that the RBOCs will be able to break the Internet anyhow. (I won't honor your traffic unless you honor my traffic and pay me $$loads.)
The Arguement:
1) Our customer (end user / ROBC customer) has paid for a certain speed connection to the Internet.
2) They cost us more than we thought they would.
3) We are afraid to charge our clients more, so we want to charge someone else's client. (content providers)
4) If we can't charge the content providers... we'll go out of business.
The Reality:
1) Charge what the service costs.
2) In the Internet Boom, many companies built out dark networks & went bust because they could not charge what stuff actually costs.
3) The remaining companies got the dark fiber for pennies on the dollar.
4) If they don't start charging what stuff costs, they will go out of business.
5) Charging other peoples customers breaks the share-share_alike internetworking argeements that construct the Internet.
On the other hand: Although the Cable and RBOCs have a (publically funded (via monopoly and monopoly pricing)) monopoly on wire access to the consumer... the powers that be (in the US) have decided that Data services should not be considered for regulation.
my $.02
of Aphrodite! (You Hoser.)
'nuff said.
www.good.com
This is not VHS vs BETA all over again, and porn is not the deciding factor.
1. The Key Difference between Blu-Ray/HDVD & VHS/Beta: Home Video Exists.
2. Porn is not the deciding factor, because content exists. In the Home Video industry infancy, none did - except for porn.
3. Blue-Ray will probably win due to computing convergence. (assuming relatively equal prices on a recording capacity basis)
When the Home Video Player war came out, there was no home video standard - and no home video content. Pornography drove the industry because there was no existing content, and people would (will) pay for porn videos. Since the movie industry was reluctant to make any move - the only content was porn. Perhaps VHS won because it was cheaper (lower cost for content providers), or becuase Sony really refused to license Betamax to Porn. In any case, at that time Porn was the content provider for the early home video industry. (Side note, I remember seeing Record size Video Disks of non-porn-Movies before ever seeing tapes. (I also remember that piracy was going to distroy the motion picutre industry.)
Today, the home video industry is a large (booming) industry. Tapes have been supplanted by Digital Disks for content providers, and for recording. I suspect that the key difference in who wins the Blue-Ray/DVD battle is going to be price. People were willing to pay $$$$ for video decks when none existed, but are unlikely to pay $$$$ for video that is only of improved quality. (See the takeup rates for HDTV)
The short version is that whomever can reach critical mass production & lower costs first wins. The key difference may be storage capacity for computers. Why, you ask, will computers be a key factor for a Home Video technology? Because the replacement of Computer Backup Tape drives may provide enough of a market to gain true Mass Production capacity first.
One of the claims why Sony lost the Beta/VHS battle was that it took two tapes for many movies. That is, it cost 2x to produce a Beta Tape set relative to a VHS set. This is not going to be a problem, as both camps are stating that they will have the capacity to put movies in HD with extras on their disks. Since Sony, et. al., are claiming that they will have much higher capacity for Blu-Ray, they will probably be used for computer backups in business systems. (You know, the Autoloaders that currently cost $15,000 & $100/tape) This will help Sony get the cost down faster. In the end, price matters & we are only talking about imporoved video. No one really cares if Sponge-Bob is in High Defination or not anyhow.
They claim that the White House (&NSA) is not following the law. The existing secret (FISA) courts and regulations allow for wiretapping without a warrent application for 72 hours. The wiretapping is done without any courts. The claim is that that wiretapping must follow existing law and regulations, and is not.
I see no claim to rights here...
Move along folks, nothing to see
Actually, How about a wallet with ONE (or two) RFID resistant pockets. Then you can have a leather wallet that functions normally, allowing you to use your metro smart pass, and RFID security for the 1-2 cards you don't want transmitting.
Not every signs up for a shoppers card with their real identity:
Come on, be a hacker...
Your ID:
My Name
123 Know way
Anonymous, PA 15213
555 555 1212
They may know that I shop somewhere, and what I buy - but not who I really am (unless I pay by CC)
I'd give you my $.02, but then you'd have my fingerprints
Bad Example:
Fiat
German: Fehler im allen Teilen (Fails in all parts)
English: Fix It Again Tony
Fiat cannot make a car with a profit. Their problem is that the line quality control is so bad that they have to fix the cars before they are shipped. then they have to sell at a discount because no one wants the cars.
Even the "Italian" goods are often manufactured in third world countries.
...) other countries. My mother in law used to own & operate a sweater assembly shop. Even using immigrant labor that was low paid by Italian standards, they could not compete with the no pay of Pakistan. (Yes, I know that the workers there are their familys breadwinners.)
I can't speak specifically to shoes, but I can speak for sweaters. Production has largely moved out of shops in Italy, and into (Pakistan, Malaysia,
The problem of jobs moving from high paid countries to low ones is endemic, and a good example of a beggar thy neighbor approach to economic production. (You offer companies more incentives to work in your place, and let them pay less for the work.) Eventually everyone works for nothing;(
Better country of origin laws would work if everyone was willing and able to pay more for goods made in *well paying* countries. However some sort of horrible tax regime based on how much workers receive would probably make more sense.
my $.02 ($.02, that's more than an hourly wage in a Burma sweatshop;))
No. My wife is Insalata de Tata. My son is Tata's tot.
I ad-libbed Ron White on my own.
(At least, according to my wife.)
In many states - If you kill us, we kill you back;)
In an old rattely car, the advantage of Hi-Fi is drowned out by the wind/engine/exaust. I mean, really: If I drop the top on my 91 Miata, no way am I going to hear fidelity. Not even with the top up.
Now for Hi-Fi, How about the Zahlman flower? (Top Ten List of stuff: Quiet PC's)
Not so much marketed to gamers, as to the wealthy grandparents of wannabe gamers. The real gamers know why they should get the X2. (Now if I only had enough power to run civ IV ;)
Not exactly so:
For many items, everything works out fine, but for things like barebones computers: They may return something for a search like "Socket 939, windows" that has a different configuration when you click on it... Something like, the price goes up when you use the drop-down configuration box to choose that motherboard in the box.
Also, I have had some experience (albiet not recent) when going to the store (Sometimes you need it NOW) and having the end store play games.
Some places are great, others not so much. But the site gives you a good starting point. And they do show NewEgg in the results: so you know what the good service price is...
Pricewatch is better for getting the feeling of what something should cost, rather than a good pointer. Many of the shops on Pricewatch are shady, and may substitute something "equilivent" but less good. (Say higher-spec pc-chips motherboard for lower-spec, but stable, abit motherboard.)
....)
Remember, most of the sites like pricewatch simply spider member sites for prices. If the member has some other system on the page, with hidden text of what you want - you may find what you were not looking for.
(Yes I still use Pricewatch exclusively, but there are some merchants that will give you exactly what you ask for (and won't fit), and some merchants who will help you (more), and some who are
http://filthycritic.com/filthy/
No seriously, read it: I cannot begin to summarize how bad he considers the movie.
Off to see Harry Potter at 70mm...