ps... You can select the 2.5GHZ processor for (I think it was) $120 more than the 2.4GHZ. That's still not bringing the MacBook Pro back in-line, price wise.
Here's what I priced out (and what I was refering too in my post)...
Dell Inspiron 1720
Cost: $1,654
SYSTEM COLOR - Espresso Brown
PROCESSOR - Intel® Coreâ 2 Duo T8300 (2.4GHz/800Mhz FSB/3MB cache)
OPERATING SYSTEM - Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition
DISPLAY - High Resolution, glossy widescreen 17.0 inch display (1920 x 1200)
VIDEO CARD - 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT
MEMORY 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz
HARD DRIVE Size: 320GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
OPTICAL DRIVE CD / DVD writer (DVD+/-RW Drive)
WIRELESS NETWORK CARDS Intel Next-Gen Wireless-N Mini-Card
BLUETOOTH AND WIRELESS USB Built-in Bluetooth capability (2.0 EDR)
INTEGRATED WEBCAM Integrated 2.0 Megapixel Webcam
BATTERY OPTIONS 56Whr Lithium Ion Battery (6 cell)
SOUND OPTIONS Integrated Sound Blaster® AudigyâHD Software Edition
My Service
WARRANTY AND SERVICE DellCare Plus (3-Year Accidental Damage coverage. I have this on my XPS desktop and it's nice. It's no questions asked, we'll send a guy ASAP to fix you stuff)
ENVIRONMENTAL OPTIONS Recycling Kit and Plant a Tree for Me
Comparing the 17" Apple MacBook Pro, it's a similar processor, same RAM speed but twice the size, same Vid. card, same hard drive speed but more space, same monitor size (I cannot say much about quality diff. but I'd assume Apple makes some darn fine monitors), a much better warranty, blue-tooth, and some other things. And it's even cheaper than when I priced it out yesterday (interestingly, I was already researching this before this article). It's now under $1,700. Yesterday it was just over (and I even added some extra parts). However, the other nice thing is, you can probably call Dell and get them to throw in a 7200 RPM drive, which isn't an option on the website.
This is what I'm comparing too. Now, this is their Inspiron line. The MoBo probably isn't as good as the Apple, but part-for-part it looks like it's pretty much the same hardware specs. and Dell rings in well over a thousand dollars cheaper.
So, I repeat my question... why is Apple so damn more expensive? If it was a couple hundred dollars, I could understand. I know Apple's machines jive better because they've got finer control over the hardware.
And, like I said, for the $3,000+ cost of the fully loaded MacBook pro I could get a lot more hardware for the price by pricing out (say) an Alienware (or other very high end gaming brand).
try comparing a Dell to an iMac while you're at it
I think there was an article I read recently that said the iMac compared to the Dell or HP equivalent (all in one system) actually came out slightly cheaper, near pound-for-pound. However, I'm not planning on ever buying a iMac, MacMini or PC equivalent anytime soon. =)
Cheers, Fozzy
ps. Sorry, I'd link the Dell page, but it doesn't seem to be keeping the selections I picked. However, just plop on over and select the Inspiron model above and I'm sure you can load it up yourself and see the major price diff.
That's an overly simplified view. Are you saying that in public it should be legal to be able to take pictures of anybody from any angle/viewpoint? (eg: upskirt)
Interesting that you should say that... as this was a recent BBC article I read. And it's not even "upskirt", it's just taking pictures of peoples behinds. Of course, the best part is the last sentence...
He might have some explaining to do when he finally gets home.
Apple computers are price competitive if you compare them feature for feature;
Oddly, every time I price out a Mac Book Pro, it's well over $1,000 more than it's PC counter part. Case in point... the 17" Mac Book Pro 2.5Ghz Core 2 Duo starts at $2,799. I priced out a 17" Dell Inspiron 17" 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo and it came up to ~$1,700 with 3-year accidental damage warranty. When I configure the Mac Book Pro to have more similar features (4GB ram, 3-year Apple Care Warranty, etc), the price jumps too $3,348.00 So, how are Mac's Price comparable? That's $1,600 more than the Dell laptop.
For that $3,348.00, you can get a cutting edge AlienWare (a Dell acquisition) with multiple video cards, RAID HD's, etc. So, what am I seeing wrong that makes the Dell Inspiron system not comparable, hardware for hardware, to the Mac Book Pro? Easy enough to load Ubuntu on the Dell giving it a "geek" OS.
Serious question. I've been wanting a Mac Book Pro, but the prices are astronomical compared to PC laptops.
Yes, Doom3 was a game I only first played a year ago, because I never had a PC I could play it on until then.
It was Doom. You crawling through maze-like corridors slowly turning into Hell and filled with Hell-like creatures.
The graphics where awesome. The level design was awesome (it really felt like a Mars research station). The story... was there one?
Those who where disappointed didn't know what Doom is about. Is it Half-Life? No, Half-Life is a sophisticated Sci-Fi thinker/action film, Doom is a special effects blood and guts action blockbuster.
Do I want to play Doom4? Eh, maybe if it's on sale or if they finally add "real" multi-player story archs. I want to find other people in the hell infested research base who'll blast baddies with me. Not just the pimp scientist locking themselves into a room or talking to me over the intercom.
The problem is the source material isn't as strong. The Hobbit isn't nearly as good as LotR.
Actually, I think most story teller experts would probably consider the Hobbit superior in story telling elements than LOTRs which gets lost in it's epic size.
If anyone else were to suggest this approach, you'd all be saying, "Makes sense."
I disagree with this idea. This will just cause even more pain for web developers who will be forced to do incremental HTML 5 checking to see if a users browser supports "shiny new HTML 5 standard" or not. Then iterate that out across other browsers, who will probably implement things faster than the IE, given their history.
Nope, bad idea. Release it when it's finished. Thank you.
Drivers had to weigh at least 50 kilograms = drivers must weigh => 50 kg.= drivers must weigh => 100 pounds.
So why is this modded "informative?"
Sorry it's too early for me to look up the code for the "equal to or greater than" symbol.
You failed to understand what I wrote, which is why you fail to understand why it's modded "informative". Also, 50kg is approximately 110lbs, not 100lbs.
Seriously, I see third year college students who still don't know what plagerism is. You can't convince me that they all know better than to use an encyclopedia as a primary source.
Exactly, Wikipedia does not create bad research papers, bad researchers create bad research papers. It's time for professors to stop blaming Wikipedia for poor research papers and start blaming their poor teaching skills in teaching kids how to properly do research.
I agree that it's not grinding if there is challenge present. I lost count of the number of hardcore characters I took through Diablo 2
It's interesting that you define "grind" as something that's simply "not challenging". I've always assumed "grind", in the context of MMO's, meant having to do something repeatedly, independent of difficulty settings.
However, since I see so many people passionately talking about MMO's and the designs behind them, I would like to encourage everyone to pick up the massively big book Designing Virtual Worlds by Richard Bartle, one of the "fathers" of virtual wolrds (aka MMO's).
In that book, Richard will talk at great length about the history of MMO's and how they started out as MUD's and where the term MUD came from. He'll go into his famous "Explorer, Achiever, Killer, Socializer" paradigm, and he'll explain why games like WoW are as popular as they are and why there isn't as many games as so many people on these boards "think" should be made. He even covers "perma-death", why it's not popular with the majority, and why companies don't make these types of games en masse.
Long story short, current MMO's like WoW, EQ, EQ2, AC, AO, DAoC, etc. all fall into the same quadrant of a MMO design box, that based on DikuMUD, which is more action based than anything else. However, back in the day of MUD's there existed all kinds of games that went from the fairly static world like WoW, to worlds where people could control every aspect of it. A new city/house/building could pop up anywhere. Trees could be planted and cut down and the landscape entirely changed.
If you're really interested in MMO design, I'd recommend this book and I have many times on/. Warcraft threads. I own it. I've never gotten through it, but it's really fascinating.
Since reading this incredible arrogance from Creative...
Phil O'Shaughnessy, ultimately asked him to stop [modding their drivers], and accused him of "stealing their goods." O'Shaughnessy also wrote that whether or not it cripples its Vista drivers is a "business decision that only we have the right to make."
I don't want to buy another sound card from them again. I was just wondering what might be some good competitors to which it seems you've answered.
Once released, an ex-con is once again able to move about and to vote.
Actually, Necrobruiser (611198) has a good link that shows that this is not always the true.
Your analogy is fallacious
It cannot be because "right" = "privilege". A little reflection or pondering on this topic will probably confirm this for yourself. (in fact, all the comments from this thread prove this as they're all arguing the same thing but changing the term).
Voting is a right, and it's also a privilege. The confusion is when the GP implied that they cannot be the same thing, when in fact, they are. It actually through me for a loop for awhile as well until I went and double checked the facts. (Magna Carta, France's Human Rights Declaration, and the definitions of right and privilege). So the point is, there is no point to try and argue the difference, because there actually isn't any except those self defined by oneself. And one cannot argue points if one is using a different, personnel, definition of a term than the other.
In the end, we're all just arguing semantics.
the moderators who modded you up are clueless.
The moderators are, in fact, cluefull given that they probably understood the same before I ever did.
I'm 21, going to college [...] I am now looking seriously at [programming] as an eventual full time job.
I think the first thing you should do is decide if you're interested in programming as a career and not just as a "full time job". As a wise person once said, "Love what you do and you'll never work a day in your life."
Weird, it appears that depending on when I refresh my page, I may or may not get PPC ads. I just happened that I choose keywords that where too general. But you're correct, there are indeed ppc ads depending on the keyword.
Yes, it is. I just tested it out, and know what? It's the exact same thing that's been around for YEARS! It's just doing an "advance search" with "site:bestbuy.com". That's all. And it appears Google has already responded...
It means they're vendors reselling what Google is selling
Except, those sites I listed are not reselling Google AdWords (at least, not that I can see, without pouring over their source code) so I guess that means there's competition out there in the market place and the EU probably figured that out in their ruling, no?
Do you think the guy selling Windows out of his shop competes with Microsoft?
Anyone who's worked for a manufacturer knows this happens. Granted, in the past this wasn't as popular as today, though "Outlet stores" where not uncommon, they where more limited by region. But with the advent of the Internet, a lot of manufacturers are going direct to customers via their websites, even at the displeasure and anger of their vendors. It's such a big movement that there are companies that have popped up for this very reason, such as Reshare, who sell a "cross-channel conflict" solution product to manufacturers.
you twit
Aww, did I hurt your feelings? If you haven't figured it out, name calling is often used by those who have a poor argument in attempts to discredit those with a strong argument by baseless personnel attacks because they have no other means of discrediting their rival. Generally, it's a sign that one don't know what they're talking about. I recommend, refraining from doing so in the future and you're argument will look much more intelligent. Of course, it wouldn't be as fun, but thanks for calling me a twit, I got a good chuckle out of it.
Google doesn't make money off search, they make money off ads. They make pretty much ALL their money off ads.
Your comment is overrated. Popular World of Warcraft database sites Thottbot.com and Wowhead.com make their money of ads. I imagine Slashdot makes a good deal of money off ads as well. So, does that mean they're competing with Google?
Slashdot Mirror
ps... You can select the 2.5GHZ processor for (I think it was) $120 more than the 2.4GHZ. That's still not bringing the MacBook Pro back in-line, price wise.
Here's what I priced out (and what I was refering too in my post)...
Dell Inspiron 1720
Cost: $1,654
SYSTEM COLOR - Espresso Brown
PROCESSOR - Intel® Coreâ 2 Duo T8300 (2.4GHz/800Mhz FSB/3MB cache)
OPERATING SYSTEM - Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition
DISPLAY - High Resolution, glossy widescreen 17.0 inch display (1920 x 1200)
VIDEO CARD - 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT
MEMORY 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz
HARD DRIVE Size: 320GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
OPTICAL DRIVE CD / DVD writer (DVD+/-RW Drive)
WIRELESS NETWORK CARDS Intel Next-Gen Wireless-N Mini-Card
BLUETOOTH AND WIRELESS USB Built-in Bluetooth capability (2.0 EDR)
INTEGRATED WEBCAM Integrated 2.0 Megapixel Webcam
BATTERY OPTIONS 56Whr Lithium Ion Battery (6 cell)
SOUND OPTIONS Integrated Sound Blaster® AudigyâHD Software Edition
My Service WARRANTY AND SERVICE DellCare Plus (3-Year Accidental Damage coverage. I have this on my XPS desktop and it's nice. It's no questions asked, we'll send a guy ASAP to fix you stuff)
ENVIRONMENTAL OPTIONS Recycling Kit and Plant a Tree for Me
Comparing the 17" Apple MacBook Pro, it's a similar processor, same RAM speed but twice the size, same Vid. card, same hard drive speed but more space, same monitor size (I cannot say much about quality diff. but I'd assume Apple makes some darn fine monitors), a much better warranty, blue-tooth, and some other things. And it's even cheaper than when I priced it out yesterday (interestingly, I was already researching this before this article). It's now under $1,700. Yesterday it was just over (and I even added some extra parts). However, the other nice thing is, you can probably call Dell and get them to throw in a 7200 RPM drive, which isn't an option on the website.
This is what I'm comparing too. Now, this is their Inspiron line. The MoBo probably isn't as good as the Apple, but part-for-part it looks like it's pretty much the same hardware specs. and Dell rings in well over a thousand dollars cheaper.
So, I repeat my question... why is Apple so damn more expensive? If it was a couple hundred dollars, I could understand. I know Apple's machines jive better because they've got finer control over the hardware.
And, like I said, for the $3,000+ cost of the fully loaded MacBook pro I could get a lot more hardware for the price by pricing out (say) an Alienware (or other very high end gaming brand).
I think there was an article I read recently that said the iMac compared to the Dell or HP equivalent (all in one system) actually came out slightly cheaper, near pound-for-pound. However, I'm not planning on ever buying a iMac, MacMini or PC equivalent anytime soon. =)
Cheers,
Fozzy
ps. Sorry, I'd link the Dell page, but it doesn't seem to be keeping the selections I picked. However, just plop on over and select the Inspiron model above and I'm sure you can load it up yourself and see the major price diff.
Interesting that you should say that... as this was a recent BBC article I read. And it's not even "upskirt", it's just taking pictures of peoples behinds. Of course, the best part is the last sentence...
Oddly, every time I price out a Mac Book Pro, it's well over $1,000 more than it's PC counter part. Case in point... the 17" Mac Book Pro 2.5Ghz Core 2 Duo starts at $2,799. I priced out a 17" Dell Inspiron 17" 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo and it came up to ~$1,700 with 3-year accidental damage warranty. When I configure the Mac Book Pro to have more similar features (4GB ram, 3-year Apple Care Warranty, etc), the price jumps too $3,348.00 So, how are Mac's Price comparable? That's $1,600 more than the Dell laptop.
For that $3,348.00, you can get a cutting edge AlienWare (a Dell acquisition) with multiple video cards, RAID HD's, etc. So, what am I seeing wrong that makes the Dell Inspiron system not comparable, hardware for hardware, to the Mac Book Pro? Easy enough to load Ubuntu on the Dell giving it a "geek" OS.
Serious question. I've been wanting a Mac Book Pro, but the prices are astronomical compared to PC laptops.
Yes, Doom3 was a game I only first played a year ago, because I never had a PC I could play it on until then.
It was Doom. You crawling through maze-like corridors slowly turning into Hell and filled with Hell-like creatures.
The graphics where awesome. The level design was awesome (it really felt like a Mars research station). The story... was there one?
Those who where disappointed didn't know what Doom is about. Is it Half-Life? No, Half-Life is a sophisticated Sci-Fi thinker/action film, Doom is a special effects blood and guts action blockbuster.
Do I want to play Doom4? Eh, maybe if it's on sale or if they finally add "real" multi-player story archs. I want to find other people in the hell infested research base who'll blast baddies with me. Not just the pimp scientist locking themselves into a room or talking to me over the intercom.
What would replace them?
Actually, I think most story teller experts would probably consider the Hobbit superior in story telling elements than LOTRs which gets lost in it's epic size.
I disagree with this idea. This will just cause even more pain for web developers who will be forced to do incremental HTML 5 checking to see if a users browser supports "shiny new HTML 5 standard" or not. Then iterate that out across other browsers, who will probably implement things faster than the IE, given their history.
Nope, bad idea. Release it when it's finished. Thank you.
You failed to understand what I wrote, which is why you fail to understand why it's modded "informative". Also, 50kg is approximately 110lbs, not 100lbs.
From the article, drivers had to weight 110lbs or more, not less.
Exactly, Wikipedia does not create bad research papers, bad researchers create bad research papers. It's time for professors to stop blaming Wikipedia for poor research papers and start blaming their poor teaching skills in teaching kids how to properly do research.
It's interesting that you define "grind" as something that's simply "not challenging". I've always assumed "grind", in the context of MMO's, meant having to do something repeatedly, independent of difficulty settings.
However, since I see so many people passionately talking about MMO's and the designs behind them, I would like to encourage everyone to pick up the massively big book Designing Virtual Worlds by Richard Bartle, one of the "fathers" of virtual wolrds (aka MMO's).
In that book, Richard will talk at great length about the history of MMO's and how they started out as MUD's and where the term MUD came from. He'll go into his famous "Explorer, Achiever, Killer, Socializer" paradigm, and he'll explain why games like WoW are as popular as they are and why there isn't as many games as so many people on these boards "think" should be made. He even covers "perma-death", why it's not popular with the majority, and why companies don't make these types of games en masse.
Long story short, current MMO's like WoW, EQ, EQ2, AC, AO, DAoC, etc. all fall into the same quadrant of a MMO design box, that based on DikuMUD, which is more action based than anything else. However, back in the day of MUD's there existed all kinds of games that went from the fairly static world like WoW, to worlds where people could control every aspect of it. A new city/house/building could pop up anywhere. Trees could be planted and cut down and the landscape entirely changed.
If you're really interested in MMO design, I'd recommend this book and I have many times on /. Warcraft threads. I own it. I've never gotten through it, but it's really fascinating.
Except we get to bring more than 40 people max, allowing us to effectively zerg an encounter to victory.
It looks like the by-product of ethanol is only good for some livestock but not others. If you're not dairy or cattle, you're left in the cold, kind of like Maple Leaf Duck Farms. I found this article to be quite interesting and worth a read.
Thanks,
Since reading this incredible arrogance from Creative...
I don't want to buy another sound card from them again. I was just wondering what might be some good competitors to which it seems you've answered.
Bad form, but my grammar should be "threw me for a loop".
Actually, Necrobruiser (611198) has a good link that shows that this is not always the true.
It cannot be because "right" = "privilege". A little reflection or pondering on this topic will probably confirm this for yourself. (in fact, all the comments from this thread prove this as they're all arguing the same thing but changing the term).
Voting is a right, and it's also a privilege. The confusion is when the GP implied that they cannot be the same thing, when in fact, they are. It actually through me for a loop for awhile as well until I went and double checked the facts. (Magna Carta, France's Human Rights Declaration, and the definitions of right and privilege). So the point is, there is no point to try and argue the difference, because there actually isn't any except those self defined by oneself. And one cannot argue points if one is using a different, personnel, definition of a term than the other.
In the end, we're all just arguing semantics.
The moderators are, in fact, cluefull given that they probably understood the same before I ever did.
Cheers,
Fozzy
I think the first thing you should do is decide if you're interested in programming as a career and not just as a "full time job". As a wise person once said, "Love what you do and you'll never work a day in your life."
Go commit a felony and you'll see.
Interesting, I read the GP in the context of talking about text books the Prof. has written, which I've seen happen, as oppose to academic papers.
Weird, it appears that depending on when I refresh my page, I may or may not get PPC ads. I just happened that I choose keywords that where too general. But you're correct, there are indeed ppc ads depending on the keyword.
Yes, it is. I just tested it out, and know what? It's the exact same thing that's been around for YEARS! It's just doing an "advance search" with "site:bestbuy.com". That's all. And it appears Google has already responded...
Doing a site specific search isn't even showing a single PPC ad.
Lastly, it doesn't seem to be too big of a problem when not doing a site specific search.
So, yes, it's not even worth reading the article.
All m'alls eyes are bleeding from reading that.
Except, those sites I listed are not reselling Google AdWords (at least, not that I can see, without pouring over their source code) so I guess that means there's competition out there in the market place and the EU probably figured that out in their ruling, no?
Anyone who's worked for a manufacturer knows this happens. Granted, in the past this wasn't as popular as today, though "Outlet stores" where not uncommon, they where more limited by region. But with the advent of the Internet, a lot of manufacturers are going direct to customers via their websites, even at the displeasure and anger of their vendors. It's such a big movement that there are companies that have popped up for this very reason, such as Reshare, who sell a "cross-channel conflict" solution product to manufacturers.
Aww, did I hurt your feelings? If you haven't figured it out, name calling is often used by those who have a poor argument in attempts to discredit those with a strong argument by baseless personnel attacks because they have no other means of discrediting their rival. Generally, it's a sign that one don't know what they're talking about. I recommend, refraining from doing so in the future and you're argument will look much more intelligent. Of course, it wouldn't be as fun, but thanks for calling me a twit, I got a good chuckle out of it.
Cheers!
Your comment is overrated. Popular World of Warcraft database sites Thottbot.com and Wowhead.com make their money of ads. I imagine Slashdot makes a good deal of money off ads as well. So, does that mean they're competing with Google?