As a Massachusetts resident who witnessed Romney's term as governor up-close, I'm absolutely certain that he's the best candidate, and it has nothing to do with his just being a "hometown guy." Heres why:
Mitt inherited a multi-billion dollar deficit in his governorship and turned it into a half-billion dollar surplus by the end of his term. In so doing, he routed the deeply-entrenched Matt Amarillo (Big Dig bigwig) and crawled several miles up the asses of everyone with a hand in the project to get it completed in a reasonable amount of time, so the state could stop bleeding money into this massive endeavor. Meanwhile, his administration set up a subsidized health care program so pretty much anyone whose income is below or three times greater than the poverty line gets dirt-cheap health insurance from Blue Cross/Blue Shield. Because of it's affordability, it is now illegal to not have health insurance in Massachusetts. Let that sink in for a second: Pretty much anyone can get access to health care in this state because of his governorship. Health care crisis in America? Not here!
I got this sent to me for free a few years ago when I worked in Geek Squad hell. I didn't want anything to do with it until our resident grizzled-veteran (yes, we were lucky to have one of those at my 'Precinct') came in one day saying it's actually pretty unbiased and accurate. In some sections where you're recommended software to execute certain tasks (like a spyware scan,) Norton isn't even listed.
What a lot of people have already harped on is the fact that he recommended a product more than twice as expensive, running an OS that will - in all likelihood - not perform as well on the hardware you've gone and paid a lot more for. Without even checking, any PC running Vista that cost you $450 sucks.
Hell, with some of the crapware-heavy OEMs out there, I'll go so far as to say any PC running Vista that cost you $1000 sucks.
The bottom line is this: If I go into a store looking for a cheap, barebones camera for around $90 - with the knowledge that I will, in fact, be buying a cheap, barebones camera - I don't want to be told I can buy a more powerful camera for $210. I don't want you to start telling me about SLR. I want you to tell me which cheap, barebones camera makes the most out of my $90.
This is true. When I worked in Geek Squad hell, I set up antivirus software on computers people were buying, so I got a lot of exposure to new hardware.
In the months before Vista's release, low-end laptops and desktops had new stickers saying "Vista Capable." (By "low end" I mean any machine with a Celeron/Sempron CPU and integrated graphics.)
Higher-end multicore machines with dedicated GPUs said "Vista Home Premium Capable."
For that reason, I never really foresaw this as being a problem.
Back when I worked in PC repair I found OEMs don't necessarily use the exact same model mainboard for ALL the machines in a certain series. (eMachines/Gateway is the worst offender.) Occasionally there are revisions with, say, a different audio chipset or NIC. Very frustrating, going to the OEM site and finding the drivers for a specific machine don't work.
I've had lots of luck with unknown device (freeware.) You should be able to retrieve a model number from the audio chipset and grab it from the chip mfr's website.
"The funny thing is, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, and followers various other faiths also, by and large, believe in those things, yet liberalism seems to hate only Christians, while simpering at the feet of radical Islam and claiming its attacks are not because it is evil but because its victims. Go figure. Liberals claim to be about "tolerance" but are terribly intolerant of Christianity, while at the same time not only tolerating radical Islam and its atrocities, but blaming those atrocities on the victims rather than the perps."
...What.
I'm sure Papa Bear has been able to conjure up a couple of examples of people who sympathize with radical Islam (and then labeled them as 'Liberals' because I guess everything that isn't conservative and godfearing is radical leftism to you people.) However, it's pretty dumb of you to claim that leftists hate Christians but give Muslims a free pass. It implies that you think a group of people are educated enough to be aware of history's countless atrocities committed in the name of the bible, but stupid enough to think it's okay to kill a few thousand civilians to satisfy your grievances which most of these victims weren't even aware of. Please.
Honestly? I'll be the loudest to admit that I'm intolerant of many forms of theism, Christianity included, because there are too many theist religions that are themselves intolerant by doctrine. Quite frankly, I'd argue that if theism and all theist texts and artifacts disappeared tomorrow, the only people who would start worshiping God(s) again would be the insane.
They've been advertising this service in the TD catalog for a couple of months. The 1,500 warranty is for HARDWARE damage. Obviously, viruses and trojans are unlikely to ever cause a physical hardware problem with the machine, and even if they do it would be impossible to prove. They're essentially promoting a software warranty that they'll never have to honor.
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As a Massachusetts resident who witnessed Romney's term as governor up-close, I'm absolutely certain that he's the best candidate, and it has nothing to do with his just being a "hometown guy." Heres why:
Mitt inherited a multi-billion dollar deficit in his governorship and turned it into a half-billion dollar surplus by the end of his term. In so doing, he routed the deeply-entrenched Matt Amarillo (Big Dig bigwig) and crawled several miles up the asses of everyone with a hand in the project to get it completed in a reasonable amount of time, so the state could stop bleeding money into this massive endeavor. Meanwhile, his administration set up a subsidized health care program so pretty much anyone whose income is below or three times greater than the poverty line gets dirt-cheap health insurance from Blue Cross/Blue Shield. Because of it's affordability, it is now illegal to not have health insurance in Massachusetts. Let that sink in for a second: Pretty much anyone can get access to health care in this state because of his governorship. Health care crisis in America? Not here!
I got this sent to me for free a few years ago when I worked in Geek Squad hell. I didn't want anything to do with it until our resident grizzled-veteran (yes, we were lucky to have one of those at my 'Precinct') came in one day saying it's actually pretty unbiased and accurate. In some sections where you're recommended software to execute certain tasks (like a spyware scan,) Norton isn't even listed.
It's a good read; don't write it off.
What a lot of people have already harped on is the fact that he recommended a product more than twice as expensive, running an OS that will - in all likelihood - not perform as well on the hardware you've gone and paid a lot more for. Without even checking, any PC running Vista that cost you $450 sucks.
Hell, with some of the crapware-heavy OEMs out there, I'll go so far as to say any PC running Vista that cost you $1000 sucks.
The bottom line is this: If I go into a store looking for a cheap, barebones camera for around $90 - with the knowledge that I will, in fact, be buying a cheap, barebones camera - I don't want to be told I can buy a more powerful camera for $210. I don't want you to start telling me about SLR. I want you to tell me which cheap, barebones camera makes the most out of my $90.
This is true. When I worked in Geek Squad hell, I set up antivirus software on computers people were buying, so I got a lot of exposure to new hardware.
In the months before Vista's release, low-end laptops and desktops had new stickers saying "Vista Capable." (By "low end" I mean any machine with a Celeron/Sempron CPU and integrated graphics.)
Higher-end multicore machines with dedicated GPUs said "Vista Home Premium Capable."
For that reason, I never really foresaw this as being a problem.
Back when I worked in PC repair I found OEMs don't necessarily use the exact same model mainboard for ALL the machines in a certain series. (eMachines/Gateway is the worst offender.) Occasionally there are revisions with, say, a different audio chipset or NIC. Very frustrating, going to the OEM site and finding the drivers for a specific machine don't work. I've had lots of luck with unknown device (freeware.) You should be able to retrieve a model number from the audio chipset and grab it from the chip mfr's website.
Typical cost of a 802.11n card:
$80-110
Typical cost of a 10/100 NIC:
$10-20
QED
"The funny thing is, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, and followers various other faiths also, by and large, believe in those things, yet liberalism seems to hate only Christians, while simpering at the feet of radical Islam and claiming its attacks are not because it is evil but because its victims. Go figure. Liberals claim to be about "tolerance" but are terribly intolerant of Christianity, while at the same time not only tolerating radical Islam and its atrocities, but blaming those atrocities on the victims rather than the perps."
...What.
I'm sure Papa Bear has been able to conjure up a couple of examples of people who sympathize with radical Islam (and then labeled them as 'Liberals' because I guess everything that isn't conservative and godfearing is radical leftism to you people.) However, it's pretty dumb of you to claim that leftists hate Christians but give Muslims a free pass. It implies that you think a group of people are educated enough to be aware of history's countless atrocities committed in the name of the bible, but stupid enough to think it's okay to kill a few thousand civilians to satisfy your grievances which most of these victims weren't even aware of. Please.
Honestly? I'll be the loudest to admit that I'm intolerant of many forms of theism, Christianity included, because there are too many theist religions that are themselves intolerant by doctrine. Quite frankly, I'd argue that if theism and all theist texts and artifacts disappeared tomorrow, the only people who would start worshiping God(s) again would be the insane.
35 grand for an "SLi-ready" machine? Pass.
They've been advertising this service in the TD catalog for a couple of months. The 1,500 warranty is for HARDWARE damage. Obviously, viruses and trojans are unlikely to ever cause a physical hardware problem with the machine, and even if they do it would be impossible to prove. They're essentially promoting a software warranty that they'll never have to honor.