On the other hand, success is not guaranteed, and this way at least they won't have to give $30,000 of their money to Apple.
And on the gripping hand, getting to keep 70% of the retail price while spending nothing on an online store, downloads, credit card processing, etc is pretty amazing compared to previous distribution methods where a developer was lucky to see 10-15%. Apple actually greatly leveled the field for the small developer and provides them far more opportunity than anyone else.
It's so cute you believe that.
But awaken from your dreamy state and look at who really publishes games on the App Store. It's the same big publishers so developers are no longer lucky to receive 10-15% of 100% of revenue, they are now lucky to receive 10-15% of 70% of revenue.
Airlines have a responsibility to limit such liability. This means telling people to put things away and yes, I've been asked politely to put my book in the seat back in front of me for take off and landing and I did so (twice actually, on Singapore Air and Cebu Pacific). Even if the FAA and CASA reversed this policy, airlines would keep it. Being hit by loose objects is the cause of 16% of all aircraft injuries in Australia.
You may as well try to convince us that wearing a seat belt is unnecessary as people dont bounce up and hit their head.
The use of PEDs [Personal Electronic Devices. â"DS] on board will not â" I repeat â" will not cause a plane to go tumbling through the sky like something in a made-for-TV-disaster movie.
But a 250 ton cigar tube, rocketing up to and beyond 250 KPH down 2500 metres will cause a hand-held device to go tumbling out of your hand and into someone else's face (MTOW, take off speed and distance at MTOW for a B777-200, and airliners get bigger than a 777-200).
That's the reason you aren't meant to use them in take off and landing, because there is a lot of force that the average Iphone toting butterfingers cant handle. If it hits anyone, the airline is liable and they may even be forced to turn back and land in order to get medical attention (again, to avoid a law suit) for an person hit by an Ipad or Iphone. This is why every cupboard on the plane is alarmed. If it's not shut properly the alarm will go off during take off, the forces involved in take off make light object dangerous projectiles. Even if it doesn't hit anyone it's still a danger as people are stupid enough to get up during climb to get their gadget.
Every second or third flight I'm on, as soon as we reach cruise altitude (sometimes before we reach cruise) I hear someone shouting out, "Has someone seen my Iphone, I dropped my Iphone and I cant find my Iphone" followed by that person turning the flight attendant call on and off repeatedly as their damned Iphone is more important then anything else.
Your gadgets are banned during take off and landing because idiots cant be trusted and they'll sue the pants off an airline if they get so much as a nasty bruise, even if it's their own fault.
Wow, I wish I could get car insurance for US$220 p/a.
$220 is what I pay for Compulsory Third Party as part of my car registration. If I dont pay it, I cant drive on the roads, my total rego (CTP, tax, admin fee's and car registration) was $450 which is cheap of Oz (I drive a small Honda Civic, registration is judged on car weight in Western Australia). CTP is very limited in what it covers (mostly medical, doesn't cover property damage).
I pay $330 on top of that for Third Party, fire and theft. In the event of an at-fault accident my car isn't insured for a cent, it only covers damage I do to other people's cars and property. If I do crash it I lose the entire car, $4000 worth but I dont owe a cent on it so it's a risk I'm willing to take.
Fully comprehensive insurance for my car, costs $1-2000 depending on my insurer. Young drivers get taken through the cleaners for fully comprehensive insurance here too.
Cigarettes are cheaper in the US, (about US$4 a pack here; I don't smoke, so I don't know for sure), and there is a growing black market for them.
For some reason, there isn't a black market for cigarettes here, I guess when you buy drugs off someone in the street you really want the ones that are worth the risk. It's easier to buy marijuana illegally then it is to buy tobacco illegally.
Isn't that pretty much the exact thing you'd want. At least you get to vote on actual issues, as compared to "liberal" versus "conservative" like most of us. Where the liberals are about as liberal as the conservatives are conservative.
Not really,
We get to vote for candidates, not issues unless there is a referendum. It's still a two horse race in Australia despite the balance of power in the senate being held by the greens. We have the Liberal party (supports business) or the Labor party (supports workers).
Also wouldn't it be cheaper and easier to just pay for insurance, licensing and registration then to try and fool the cameras.
That's the sound of someone who has no idea how much insurance costs some people. For a new driver with a £100 car, they could well be paying £1500-2000 per year for third party insurance. When insurance is that much, it hardly surprises me that we have an epidemic of people driving around without insurance.
That sounds like someone who thinks driving is a right, not a privilege and someone who thinks that roads are free.
Roads are not free and it's not your god given right to drive on them. Those of us who have fully paid up insurance and rego do not want to be subsidising people who cant be arsed getting insurance or rego. If you cant afford insurance, even just 3rd party, you cant afford to drive and I dont see why you should be allowed to.
If you cant afford insurance, even just 3rd party, you shouldn't be driving. If your premium is 1500 pounds for a 100 pound car, you are clearly too dangerous to be allowed to drive public (or permitted to hold anything more dangerous then a spoon).
Don't worry, you're probably part of the 49%. The 51% is primarily comprised of furries, klingons, cat videos, our robot overlords, our reptilian overlords, our reptilian robot overlords, and the welsh.
Our insect overlords wish to know why you've excluded them.
My objection has nothing to do with the police enforcing the law. I despise people who drive without insurance. But the effect of this law will be to create a black market for fuel. This creates its own new set of problems.
I dont see how, in order for a black market for fuel to exist, black market fuel needs to be less then the cost of insurance and legal fuel.
In Western Australia, we have Compulsory Third Party insurance (CTP) which covers you for damage to other vehicles, properties or people. Without CTP it's illegal to drive on the road, CTP is A$220 p/a, That's A$4.50 a week, not much profit for a black market, in many cases it wont even pay for itself.
For crying out loud, the high prices of cigarettes hasn't created a black market for tobacco. A pack of 20 ciggies costs A$16 over here (mostly due to tax on tobacco) and that has yet to create a successful black market for tobacco. The only place where a black market exists for legal products is selling alcohol to dry towns even then, it's not a profitable venture without being combined with the illicit drug trade (I.E. the bikies (motorcycle gangs) tend to do both).
BTW, beyond CTP, third party, fire and theft which covers me for damages to my car as well as other additional costs, costs me A$330 a year. I dont intend on t-boning a Merc but I damn well want to be covered properly in the very unlikely event that I do.
Except that W2K was actually decent... It was ME that sucked.
Considering that ME and W2K (NT) are two different product lines.
Not going back too far and keeping the list short, DOS/9x line.
Windows 3.1 - Good.
Windows 95 - Passable.
Windows 98 - Good.
Windows ME - Sucked.
Windows NT line, starting at NT4.
NT 4.0 - Good.
NT 5.0 (2K) - Excellent.
NT5.1 (XP) - off to a rocky start, but Excellent after SP 1.
NT5.2 (2K3) - Excellent.
NT 6.0 (Vista) - Sucked like a Vax cross bred with Jenna Jameson.
NT 6.0 (2K8) - Passable.
NT 6.1 (7) - Good.
NT 6.1 (2K8 R2) - Fixed 95% of the issues with 2K8.
But I dont underestimate MS's ability to screw up with Windows 8. Then again as long as businesses keep buying Office and Window SA licences year after year MS can screw up as much as they like, even if no businesses migrate to Windows 8.
Thats not a mac system that anyone price conscious is buying. The comparison that matters is iMacs and Mac Minis.
Moving goal posts,
Alright, I'll play. Picking BH Photovideo as Apple.com tries to direct me to Apple.com.au and I cant be bothered to try to re-direct it (US Mac prices are high, Oz Mac prices are insane). 13" Macbook Pro. i5 Dual core (2430), 4 GB RAM, Intel 3000 HD graphics, 500 GB 5400 RPM HDD, slot loading drive, 1200x800 Res, USB 2.0, no SD card reader, 1 year warranty.
2.04 KG
US $1,129
Asus U36SD
i5 Dual core (2430), 4 GB RAM, Nvidia Optimus (Geforce 520 switchable with Intel 3000 HD), 640 5400 RPM HDD, tray loading drive, 1366x768 res, USB 3.0 and 2.0, SD card reader, 2 year international warranty.
1.68 KG
US$799
So the Asus has the better graphics, USB3, larger HDD, tray loading driver and twice the warranty life. The mac has the screen (only because I'm biased towards 16:10, the screen on my Asus U46SV is fantastic despite being 16:9).
Asus even beat them in the Ultrabook stakes,
Both are, 1.7 GHz i5, 4 GB RAM, 256 SSD. Macbook Air 13" 1400x900 res, No SD Card reader, USB 2.0 1.34 KG, US$1,498. Asus Zenbook U31E 1600x900 res, SD card reader, USB3 and 2, 1.3 KG, US$1,275.
Looks like Asus is both better priced and better spec'd in both scenarios.
I have one problem with my Asus U46SV (the 14" model) is that Asus' naming convention is fucking confusing when you dont understand it. However that doesn't seem to bother me much now I've bought it.
These aren't compatible systems. The graphics card in the PC is 2 generations above that on the Mac, it's got 13 GB more RAM a HDD twice the size and a 256 GB SSD, the 256 GB SSD is US$300 alone.
A Dell Vostro 460 with an i7 quad core, 8 GB of RAM, AMD 6450, 1 TB HDD is only US$1,099.
And a Dell is about the same quality as a Mac but with next business day on-site support.
The challenge is cost. What I have always looked for is a "security appliance" capable of least two WAN ports for load balancing and fail over. Dial up fail over that was available on some Netgear models was a freakin joke.
So Sonicwall, with its drawbacks, comes in at many many times cheaper in price to get the job done then Cisco and Fortinet. Sonicwall starts at around $270 and gives you a *heck* of a lot more than any consumer level router has by far.
I think Fortinet, at the bottom starts at $1500 the last time I checked?
Sonicwall is not perfect, but is the beginning of prosumer devices. You get what you pay for. Considering that I don't think Sonicwall is all that bad. They are a ton more stable than any Netgear or Linksys/Cisco piece of shit:)
You can get a Fortigate 60C for $500. I understand a Cisco Pix 501 is about the same
A 60C will run a business up to 50 employees easy, I've got clients using a 60C for 80+ staff with no problems. Fortigate support adds more, but Sonicwall do the same thing. Just try getting a Sonicwall support member to even talk to you without a support contract and without that, they are as useful as a Cheap-o Dlink.
I've had a complete nightmare getting SSL and IPSEC VPN running on Sonicwall, after 4 days of failure and no support from Sonicwall I just installed RRAS on a Windows server. With Fortinet, setting up both SSL and IPSEC is dead easy even without the user guides Fortinet publishes. Realistically, if you require more then an El-cheapo D-link and aren't willing to spend $500 to do it properly you will just end up flushing more then $500 of your time down the drain, especially with Sonicwall.
Media is only subject to the Australian Goods and Services Tax (GST) of 10%. So that's A$72 per game Ex GST (no tax). All prices in Australia are Inc GST unless explicitly stated otherwise.
The problem is local publishers having a stranglehold on the market. They set the price at an artificially high price point based on an exchange rate that hasn't been seen for a decade (not even the GFC got that low and we're pretty much consistently above US$0.70 since 2004).
A while back the Australian government made it legal to parallel import many products including games, movies, digital media, clothing and electronics from overseas. Shipments of A$1000 or less are GST exempt (but other duties like alcohol tax still apply). So I just import from the UK or Hong Kong for half the price of buying it locally, the OP pointed out Mass Effect which is A$88 for the PC, I can order it from Zavvi.co.uk for GBP 28 which is around A$45.
This year alone I've bought a laptop and 2 SSD's from the US saving nearly A$1000 in the process (Asus U46SV in Oz A$1400, in the US US$850, tax is still only 10% but seeing as it was under A$1000, I didn't have to pay it).
That works in the extreme southern trim only. The U.S. border is an 8 hour drive from here, IF I'm speeding, and it's two tanks of gas, each at the cost of a game. Vancouver, Toronto, etc. can do that. Much of the country can't.
Cant you ship to Canada? I get games shipped from the UK to Australia for a pound (A$1.50), even DHLing them direct from the US to Oz costs about A$15?
$60 Games? I'd LOVE to see the price drop to $60 games. Most new PC Titles in Australia debut at between $89 and $99. The collectors edition of...Dragon Age I think it was, was $109.
$60 games... luxury.
Import games from Hong Kong, the US or the UK.
My last game from Zavvi.co.uk was GBP 30, which is A$45. That was a new release.
Same with DVD's, a season box set of Star Trek (pick your series) is GBP 11-13 (A$16-20) whilst local stores sell them for A$75. I dont blame local retailers (except Gerry Harvey, the utter tosspot) because these prices are forced on them by distributors who refuse to adjust their pricing structure but that doesn't mean I'll submit to being ripped off. As a result, of the inflexibility of local suppliers the Australian government made parallel importing legal.
The issue with compulsory licensing would get very muddy if Natco Pharma is allowed to export the medication outside of India's borders.
You can guarantee this drug will be available in Thailand, Cambodia and maybe as far as China less then 2 weeks after manufacture begins.
It's not difficult to buy prescription meds over the counter in Thailand, the cheap generic stuff sometimes comes in original Indian boxes printed in Sanskrit with Thai/English labels stuck on top.
I know I'm going to burn karma for saying this (wouldn't be the first time), but do keep in mind that the R&D costs for developing these drugs is paid from
Universities and other publicly funded organisations (including the military) who do a lot of the research which is published freely and turned into a product by for profit corporations.
Have you considered that in many cases one need not be proved to have been the person to have committed the offense to be held responsible for the "crime". You receive a notice of violation via mail and must prove someone else did it to avoid responsibility. What happened to "innocent unless proven guilty"?
Because they've already proven you guilty and have the photo to prove a car registered to your name has exceeded the speed limit. The onus is on you to disprove that evidence.
The state I live (Western Australia) in gives 75% of camera revenue to the Road Trauma Trust Fund (RTTF) which fixes the roads when speeders have accidents, It's not enough. Fuel tax barely pays for maintenance, we still require federal funds for repairs and new roads. In July, that amount goes up to 100% of revenue. Part of the problem is that speed camera revenue is actually dropping due to WA police putting cameras in high risk areas, not high traffic volume areas. The area of the Kwinana Freeway after Mill Point Road northbound changes from 100 KPH to 80 KPH and few people slow down, a camera would literally print money getting hundreds, if not thousands of morons doing 19-29 K's over the limit, that's A$250 per infraction (A$150 for those only doing 9-19 K's over) yet I have never seen a single speed camera there and this one of Perths busiest roadways. Instead police have installed cameras further up the Mitchell Freeway where there have been several fatalities.
If you have that much hatred for speed cameras, there is a simple solution to attack their evil business model, dont fucking speed. No speeders == no revenue.
Law enforcement needs to be prohibited from having a profit motive. If they profit from certain behavior, they are no longer doing "law enforcement"... they're a business at that point. You can call it "revenue enhancement" or "budget augmentation," but it's still a stinky turd.
The sad truth is, they dont do "revenue raising", if that was the goal they do a piss poor job of it. Camera's aren't revenue raisers because they dont raise much revenue if they raise any at all.
In Western Australia where I live, 75% of speed camera revenue goes to the Road Trauma Trust Fund (RTTF) which repairs broken roads and yet it's still not enough, as of July this year that figure goes up to 100% so who's making money (apart from WARP and other private contractors who are paid to fix the roads)? Considering this cost has to be paid for regardless of where the money comes from, speed cameras aren't revenue raisers as much as they are tax minimisation for those of us smart enough not to speed.
In WA, we have a fuel tax and the RTTF, it's not enough to fund all the states roads, we still require federal funds. That's how effective cameras are at revenue raising.
Why wouldn't you buy a good one? The hotel I stay at for business has a sonicwall firewall, and it isn't the greatest. I can see a lot of vulnerabilities in it; I just don't exploit them.
Lets look at it this way, Sonicwall is already so bad Dell couldn't screw it up any more.
So glad I dont work on SonicWall's any more, Cisco Pix/ASA and Foritgates are much better to work with.
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On the other hand, success is not guaranteed, and this way at least they won't have to give $30,000 of their money to Apple.
And on the gripping hand, getting to keep 70% of the retail price while spending nothing on an online store, downloads, credit card processing, etc is pretty amazing compared to previous distribution methods where a developer was lucky to see 10-15%. Apple actually greatly leveled the field for the small developer and provides them far more opportunity than anyone else.
It's so cute you believe that.
But awaken from your dreamy state and look at who really publishes games on the App Store. It's the same big publishers so developers are no longer lucky to receive 10-15% of 100% of revenue, they are now lucky to receive 10-15% of 70% of revenue.
I'm sorry you have such trouble understanding basic physics.
A trip in a plane should give you an indication of the forces involved but some people do seem to have trouble noticing the most obvious things.
Here you go
Airlines have a responsibility to limit such liability. This means telling people to put things away and yes, I've been asked politely to put my book in the seat back in front of me for take off and landing and I did so (twice actually, on Singapore Air and Cebu Pacific). Even if the FAA and CASA reversed this policy, airlines would keep it. Being hit by loose objects is the cause of 16% of all aircraft injuries in Australia.
You may as well try to convince us that wearing a seat belt is unnecessary as people dont bounce up and hit their head.
But a 250 ton cigar tube, rocketing up to and beyond 250 KPH down 2500 metres will cause a hand-held device to go tumbling out of your hand and into someone else's face (MTOW, take off speed and distance at MTOW for a B777-200, and airliners get bigger than a 777-200).
That's the reason you aren't meant to use them in take off and landing, because there is a lot of force that the average Iphone toting butterfingers cant handle. If it hits anyone, the airline is liable and they may even be forced to turn back and land in order to get medical attention (again, to avoid a law suit) for an person hit by an Ipad or Iphone. This is why every cupboard on the plane is alarmed. If it's not shut properly the alarm will go off during take off, the forces involved in take off make light object dangerous projectiles. Even if it doesn't hit anyone it's still a danger as people are stupid enough to get up during climb to get their gadget.
Every second or third flight I'm on, as soon as we reach cruise altitude (sometimes before we reach cruise) I hear someone shouting out, "Has someone seen my Iphone, I dropped my Iphone and I cant find my Iphone" followed by that person turning the flight attendant call on and off repeatedly as their damned Iphone is more important then anything else.
Your gadgets are banned during take off and landing because idiots cant be trusted and they'll sue the pants off an airline if they get so much as a nasty bruise, even if it's their own fault.
- Generic brown cover based shooter, check
- Quick Time Events, check
- Muscle covered generic American protagonist with dry wit, check.
- Cliche'd sidekicks, check.
They could just go all the way and call it Pong of Duty.
I'd vote for the pair.
He was born in Australia, can he even run in the US presidential elections.
In Australia that doesn't matter, our current PM was born in Wales and the opposition leader was born in England.
Wow, I wish I could get car insurance for US$220 p/a.
$220 is what I pay for Compulsory Third Party as part of my car registration. If I dont pay it, I cant drive on the roads, my total rego (CTP, tax, admin fee's and car registration) was $450 which is cheap of Oz (I drive a small Honda Civic, registration is judged on car weight in Western Australia). CTP is very limited in what it covers (mostly medical, doesn't cover property damage).
I pay $330 on top of that for Third Party, fire and theft. In the event of an at-fault accident my car isn't insured for a cent, it only covers damage I do to other people's cars and property. If I do crash it I lose the entire car, $4000 worth but I dont owe a cent on it so it's a risk I'm willing to take.
Fully comprehensive insurance for my car, costs $1-2000 depending on my insurer. Young drivers get taken through the cleaners for fully comprehensive insurance here too.
For some reason, there isn't a black market for cigarettes here, I guess when you buy drugs off someone in the street you really want the ones that are worth the risk. It's easier to buy marijuana illegally then it is to buy tobacco illegally.
Isn't that pretty much the exact thing you'd want. At least you get to vote on actual issues, as compared to "liberal" versus "conservative" like most of us. Where the liberals are about as liberal as the conservatives are conservative.
Not really,
We get to vote for candidates, not issues unless there is a referendum. It's still a two horse race in Australia despite the balance of power in the senate being held by the greens. We have the Liberal party (supports business) or the Labor party (supports workers).
Also wouldn't it be cheaper and easier to just pay for insurance, licensing and registration then to try and fool the cameras.
That's the sound of someone who has no idea how much insurance costs some people. For a new driver with a £100 car, they could well be paying £1500-2000 per year for third party insurance. When insurance is that much, it hardly surprises me that we have an epidemic of people driving around without insurance.
That sounds like someone who thinks driving is a right, not a privilege and someone who thinks that roads are free.
Roads are not free and it's not your god given right to drive on them. Those of us who have fully paid up insurance and rego do not want to be subsidising people who cant be arsed getting insurance or rego. If you cant afford insurance, even just 3rd party, you cant afford to drive and I dont see why you should be allowed to.
If you cant afford insurance, even just 3rd party, you shouldn't be driving. If your premium is 1500 pounds for a 100 pound car, you are clearly too dangerous to be allowed to drive public (or permitted to hold anything more dangerous then a spoon).
You ask then question and then answer it in the following paragraph.
In any case, do you really think the system won't simply deny you fuel if it cannot read your number plate?
Also wouldn't it be cheaper and easier to just pay for insurance, licensing and registration then to try and fool the cameras.
Don't worry, you're probably part of the 49%. The 51% is primarily comprised of furries, klingons, cat videos, our robot overlords, our reptilian overlords, our reptilian robot overlords, and the welsh.
Our insect overlords wish to know why you've excluded them.
My objection has nothing to do with the police enforcing the law. I despise people who drive without insurance. But the effect of this law will be to create a black market for fuel. This creates its own new set of problems.
I dont see how, in order for a black market for fuel to exist, black market fuel needs to be less then the cost of insurance and legal fuel.
In Western Australia, we have Compulsory Third Party insurance (CTP) which covers you for damage to other vehicles, properties or people. Without CTP it's illegal to drive on the road, CTP is A$220 p/a, That's A$4.50 a week, not much profit for a black market, in many cases it wont even pay for itself.
For crying out loud, the high prices of cigarettes hasn't created a black market for tobacco. A pack of 20 ciggies costs A$16 over here (mostly due to tax on tobacco) and that has yet to create a successful black market for tobacco. The only place where a black market exists for legal products is selling alcohol to dry towns even then, it's not a profitable venture without being combined with the illicit drug trade (I.E. the bikies (motorcycle gangs) tend to do both).
BTW, beyond CTP, third party, fire and theft which covers me for damages to my car as well as other additional costs, costs me A$330 a year. I dont intend on t-boning a Merc but I damn well want to be covered properly in the very unlikely event that I do.
Except that W2K was actually decent... It was ME that sucked.
Considering that ME and W2K (NT) are two different product lines.
Not going back too far and keeping the list short, DOS/9x line.
Windows 3.1 - Good.
Windows 95 - Passable.
Windows 98 - Good.
Windows ME - Sucked.
Windows NT line, starting at NT4.
NT 4.0 - Good.
NT 5.0 (2K) - Excellent.
NT5.1 (XP) - off to a rocky start, but Excellent after SP 1.
NT5.2 (2K3) - Excellent.
NT 6.0 (Vista) - Sucked like a Vax cross bred with Jenna Jameson.
NT 6.0 (2K8) - Passable.
NT 6.1 (7) - Good.
NT 6.1 (2K8 R2) - Fixed 95% of the issues with 2K8.
But I dont underestimate MS's ability to screw up with Windows 8. Then again as long as businesses keep buying Office and Window SA licences year after year MS can screw up as much as they like, even if no businesses migrate to Windows 8.
Thats not a mac system that anyone price conscious is buying. The comparison that matters is iMacs and Mac Minis.
Moving goal posts,
Alright, I'll play. Picking BH Photovideo as Apple.com tries to direct me to Apple.com.au and I cant be bothered to try to re-direct it (US Mac prices are high, Oz Mac prices are insane).
13" Macbook Pro.
i5 Dual core (2430), 4 GB RAM, Intel 3000 HD graphics, 500 GB 5400 RPM HDD, slot loading drive, 1200x800 Res, USB 2.0, no SD card reader, 1 year warranty.
2.04 KG
US $1,129
Asus U36SD
i5 Dual core (2430), 4 GB RAM, Nvidia Optimus (Geforce 520 switchable with Intel 3000 HD), 640 5400 RPM HDD, tray loading drive, 1366x768 res, USB 3.0 and 2.0, SD card reader, 2 year international warranty.
1.68 KG
US$799
So the Asus has the better graphics, USB3, larger HDD, tray loading driver and twice the warranty life. The mac has the screen (only because I'm biased towards 16:10, the screen on my Asus U46SV is fantastic despite being 16:9).
Asus even beat them in the Ultrabook stakes,
Both are, 1.7 GHz i5, 4 GB RAM, 256 SSD.
Macbook Air 13" 1400x900 res, No SD Card reader, USB 2.0 1.34 KG, US$1,498.
Asus Zenbook U31E 1600x900 res, SD card reader, USB3 and 2, 1.3 KG, US$1,275.
Looks like Asus is both better priced and better spec'd in both scenarios.
I have one problem with my Asus U46SV (the 14" model) is that Asus' naming convention is fucking confusing when you dont understand it. However that doesn't seem to bother me much now I've bought it.
"The problem Win7 has now is that there isn't that big a price difference between comparably equipted macs and PCs."
Mac quad-2.8(45nm) 3GB-ram(3x1) 5770 1TB-hd $2500 (Mac store right now)
PC-Custom quad-3.3ghz(32nm) 16GB-ram 2x8(Corsair) AMD7950 2TB-hd 256GB SSD(Samsung 830) Seasonic Gold(89% low 92% avg 95% max efficient) 650watt PSU Win7 prof $1850 (NewEgg right now) .......
These aren't compatible systems. The graphics card in the PC is 2 generations above that on the Mac, it's got 13 GB more RAM a HDD twice the size and a 256 GB SSD, the 256 GB SSD is US$300 alone.
A Dell Vostro 460 with an i7 quad core, 8 GB of RAM, AMD 6450, 1 TB HDD is only US$1,099.
And a Dell is about the same quality as a Mac but with next business day on-site support.
a lot of online stores refuse ship to canada, due to increased cost.
Same with Oz, I thought it would be a bit different with Canada being right next door.
The challenge is cost. What I have always looked for is a "security appliance" capable of least two WAN ports for load balancing and fail over. Dial up fail over that was available on some Netgear models was a freakin joke.
So Sonicwall, with its drawbacks, comes in at many many times cheaper in price to get the job done then Cisco and Fortinet. Sonicwall starts at around $270 and gives you a *heck* of a lot more than any consumer level router has by far.
I think Fortinet, at the bottom starts at $1500 the last time I checked?
Sonicwall is not perfect, but is the beginning of prosumer devices. You get what you pay for. Considering that I don't think Sonicwall is all that bad. They are a ton more stable than any Netgear or Linksys/Cisco piece of shit :)
You can get a Fortigate 60C for $500. I understand a Cisco Pix 501 is about the same
A 60C will run a business up to 50 employees easy, I've got clients using a 60C for 80+ staff with no problems. Fortigate support adds more, but Sonicwall do the same thing. Just try getting a Sonicwall support member to even talk to you without a support contract and without that, they are as useful as a Cheap-o Dlink.
I've had a complete nightmare getting SSL and IPSEC VPN running on Sonicwall, after 4 days of failure and no support from Sonicwall I just installed RRAS on a Windows server. With Fortinet, setting up both SSL and IPSEC is dead easy even without the user guides Fortinet publishes. Realistically, if you require more then an El-cheapo D-link and aren't willing to spend $500 to do it properly you will just end up flushing more then $500 of your time down the drain, especially with Sonicwall.
Why is that? Taxes? or what?
Media is only subject to the Australian Goods and Services Tax (GST) of 10%. So that's A$72 per game Ex GST (no tax). All prices in Australia are Inc GST unless explicitly stated otherwise.
The problem is local publishers having a stranglehold on the market. They set the price at an artificially high price point based on an exchange rate that hasn't been seen for a decade (not even the GFC got that low and we're pretty much consistently above US$0.70 since 2004).
A while back the Australian government made it legal to parallel import many products including games, movies, digital media, clothing and electronics from overseas. Shipments of A$1000 or less are GST exempt (but other duties like alcohol tax still apply). So I just import from the UK or Hong Kong for half the price of buying it locally, the OP pointed out Mass Effect which is A$88 for the PC, I can order it from Zavvi.co.uk for GBP 28 which is around A$45.
This year alone I've bought a laptop and 2 SSD's from the US saving nearly A$1000 in the process (Asus U46SV in Oz A$1400, in the US US$850, tax is still only 10% but seeing as it was under A$1000, I didn't have to pay it).
That works in the extreme southern trim only. The U.S. border is an 8 hour drive from here, IF I'm speeding, and it's two tanks of gas, each at the cost of a game. Vancouver, Toronto, etc. can do that. Much of the country can't.
Cant you ship to Canada? I get games shipped from the UK to Australia for a pound (A$1.50), even DHLing them direct from the US to Oz costs about A$15?
$60 Games? I'd LOVE to see the price drop to $60 games. Most new PC Titles in Australia debut at between $89 and $99. The collectors edition of .. .Dragon Age I think it was, was $109.
$60 games ... luxury.
Import games from Hong Kong, the US or the UK.
My last game from Zavvi.co.uk was GBP 30, which is A$45. That was a new release.
Same with DVD's, a season box set of Star Trek (pick your series) is GBP 11-13 (A$16-20) whilst local stores sell them for A$75. I dont blame local retailers (except Gerry Harvey, the utter tosspot) because these prices are forced on them by distributors who refuse to adjust their pricing structure but that doesn't mean I'll submit to being ripped off. As a result, of the inflexibility of local suppliers the Australian government made parallel importing legal.
The issue with compulsory licensing would get very muddy if Natco Pharma is allowed to export the medication outside of India's borders.
You can guarantee this drug will be available in Thailand, Cambodia and maybe as far as China less then 2 weeks after manufacture begins.
It's not difficult to buy prescription meds over the counter in Thailand, the cheap generic stuff sometimes comes in original Indian boxes printed in Sanskrit with Thai/English labels stuck on top.
Universities and other publicly funded organisations (including the military) who do a lot of the research which is published freely and turned into a product by for profit corporations.
Fixed that for you.
A lot of Pharma R&D is done with public money.
Have you considered that in many cases one need not be proved to have been the person to have committed the offense to be held responsible for the "crime". You receive a notice of violation via mail and must prove someone else did it to avoid responsibility. What happened to "innocent unless proven guilty"?
Because they've already proven you guilty and have the photo to prove a car registered to your name has exceeded the speed limit. The onus is on you to disprove that evidence.
The state I live (Western Australia) in gives 75% of camera revenue to the Road Trauma Trust Fund (RTTF) which fixes the roads when speeders have accidents, It's not enough. Fuel tax barely pays for maintenance, we still require federal funds for repairs and new roads. In July, that amount goes up to 100% of revenue. Part of the problem is that speed camera revenue is actually dropping due to WA police putting cameras in high risk areas, not high traffic volume areas. The area of the Kwinana Freeway after Mill Point Road northbound changes from 100 KPH to 80 KPH and few people slow down, a camera would literally print money getting hundreds, if not thousands of morons doing 19-29 K's over the limit, that's A$250 per infraction (A$150 for those only doing 9-19 K's over) yet I have never seen a single speed camera there and this one of Perths busiest roadways. Instead police have installed cameras further up the Mitchell Freeway where there have been several fatalities.
If you have that much hatred for speed cameras, there is a simple solution to attack their evil business model, dont fucking speed. No speeders == no revenue.
Law enforcement needs to be prohibited from having a profit motive. If they profit from certain behavior, they are no longer doing "law enforcement" ... they're a business at that point. You can call it "revenue enhancement" or "budget augmentation," but it's still a stinky turd.
The sad truth is, they dont do "revenue raising", if that was the goal they do a piss poor job of it. Camera's aren't revenue raisers because they dont raise much revenue if they raise any at all.
In Western Australia where I live, 75% of speed camera revenue goes to the Road Trauma Trust Fund (RTTF) which repairs broken roads and yet it's still not enough, as of July this year that figure goes up to 100% so who's making money (apart from WARP and other private contractors who are paid to fix the roads)? Considering this cost has to be paid for regardless of where the money comes from, speed cameras aren't revenue raisers as much as they are tax minimisation for those of us smart enough not to speed.
In WA, we have a fuel tax and the RTTF, it's not enough to fund all the states roads, we still require federal funds. That's how effective cameras are at revenue raising.
The accepted method in the UK is to loop an old tire over the camera, fill it with gasoline, and set fire to it.
I beleive that's a Joburg necklace.
Why wouldn't you buy a good one? The hotel I stay at for business has a sonicwall firewall, and it isn't the greatest. I can see a lot of vulnerabilities in it; I just don't exploit them.
Lets look at it this way, Sonicwall is already so bad Dell couldn't screw it up any more.
So glad I dont work on SonicWall's any more, Cisco Pix/ASA and Foritgates are much better to work with.