The Smart "pure" model starts out at "under $12,000" according to their site. Also, to test your theory, I went to toyota.com and configured a Corolla. Once I added in an automatic transmission and power windows/door locks (which is a $500 option on the Corolla!), my MSRP was $16,325. I would imagine that the Corolla will still be a more popular car -- but it's certainly not cheaper.
I guess when it's your parents who tell you these whoppers, you wouldn't bother to check up on this urban legend with Snopes. You can take some consolation in the fact that Snopes points out that false rumors of this variety have been circulating since the late 1970's.
You're not accounting for your time spent at all in that "cost". (Common mistake, I might add.) Maybe you're just doing this for fun and don't want/need to make any money, but I'd expect any artist who does this for a living to make at least a decent hourly rate. That does add significantly to the cost of the CD.
And how would I turn that off? I've already set browser.cache.memory.capacity in about:config to 16384 (months ago in FF 1.5, and it carried over to 2.0.) That helped a little, but didn't solve the problem.
BTW, FF 2 is currently using 181MB, and it keeps going up.
I wouldn't call your post "informative" because you don't actually explain how to fix the problem!
I stopped running Firefox on my laptop (a Toshiba Portege Tablet PC) because after hibernating and resuming a few times, Firefox took up an unbelievable amount of memory. (I once had a screenshot of FF 1.5 using over 600MB.) I typically keep 5-8 tabs open; I do use a browser all the time but I'm not heavy on the tabs.
I decided to download FF2 RC2 yesterday afternoon and try it out. Though it loads more quickly than 1.5 did, it still seems to have memory leak problems. I have been running it since this morning and it's currently using 136MB with 6 tabs open. IE7 beta (which I've also been using heavily) typically runs 35-40MB with 6-8 tabs open.
I like Firefox better, but I'll probably switch back to IE because the memory usage of Firefox, even of the latest version, is unacceptable.
Most credit card companies will decline direct payments to gaming sites, but sites like NETeller already offer the middleman status and work with most banks. I don't know how this legislation would affect "middleman" sites like NETeller. FWIW, I use NETeller for my online poker playing and it works great... but yes, they do take a small cut when you pull money back to your checking account.
While black people compose 12.8% of the population, that ratio is nowhere near representative when you look at executive-level management at large corporations. I don't think it's a stretch to presuppose that of the black people who do climb that high, they have to be exceptionally aggressive.
So yes, I do think it is a sexist anecdote. As far as women claiming they "feel that they have to act like a bitch to get any respect", I think that's a symptom of our society more than anything else. When men act like assholes, especially from the top rung, it's considered being a hardass, but also being a good manager. When women act like hardassess and do the same thing a male would do, from the same position (CEO/CxO), some men consider that "being a bitch." And I'm sure those women you anecdotally quoted are talking about that discrepancy.
As a woman CEO myself, I've noticed that as well. I will be nice to you unless you make it clear that shit is not getting done. Then I will not hesitate to yell, hold back payment (if you're a supplier), give you an ultimatum, or fire you (if you're an employee.) Some people may consider this bitchy. I consider it getting the job done. And it's what any good CEO (male, female, black, white) would do in the same position.
...let's replace every reference to "women" in your post with "black", and see how it sounds.
"I know I'm going to get modded down as a "racist" for saying it, but this is hardly uncommon with black bosses. The last company I worked at had a black CEO, and he was an absolute NIGHTMARE to work with (as were the other two black people I had worked under in the past). He was an absolute control freak, could take NO criticism, let his personal vendettas rule his hiring/firing/demoting decisions, etc.
And, yes, I've worked for some asshole white people in my time too. But none of them even COMPARED to the nightmare of working for the black people."
If you had written the above post, it would get modded down to -1 so quickly it would make your head spin. Furthermore, I'd go so far as to say you wouldn't even bother writing it, because you would immediately be shunned by the people responding to your post, and it wouldn't be taken seriously.
So how is it that you get modded as "insightful" by saying something that is obviously anecdotal, and furthermore, applies to 50.8% of the population? Something that you likely wouldn't even dare apply to the 12.8% of the population that is black.
I am sure there are women boses out there who are tyrants. There are male bosses out there who are tyrants. There are black, white, yellow, red, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and God-knows-what-else bosses out there who are tyrants. The fact is that your anecdotal experiences regarding more than fifty percent of our population cannot be applied as a blanket statement.
Uh... because a T1 is 1.5Mbit both directions. Your 4Mbit line may be 4Mbit download, but its upload speed is likely... what, 256K? 384K? If you need to serve anything heavier than DNS, you'll want a faster upload speed than that. Hence the need for T1s and larger symmetrical UPLOAD pipes.
Since the parent comment was written by an anonymous poster, I would like to add that one of our customers was put in the same situation by GoDaddy. His domain was used in a "joe job" (that is, someone sent out a spam with nonexistent addresses from his domain as the From: header in their spam emails.) He called us (his web hosting provider), furious, wanting to know why his domain name was down. We had received spam complaints as well, but since the spams were not from him and were not advertising his product (he runs a legitimate business that does not use email marketing), we did not shut him down. However, when running a quick WHOIS check on his domain, I noticed that GoDaddy had set his name servers to NS1/NS2.SUSPENDED-FOR-SPAM-AND-ABUSE.COM. This was well over a year ago and since then, I have urged all of our customers to switch away from GoDaddy. Some of our customers have responded, "But I don't spam anything!" Of course you don't. It doesn't matter. If any spammer sends out spam with your domain as the From address, even if you had nothing to do with that spam, and it gets reported to GoDaddy, your domain is toast.
For what it's worth, we use eNom and have never had any problems with them. If you host more than a few domain names, get an eNom reseller account (many providers offer them for free) and pay the same price as GoDaddy. I recommend them highly; we have several hundred domains with them right now.
"The step-by-step people get hired to work for high-school grad business owners."
Absolutely. I am a business owner who never graduated from college. And I have employees, some of whom (at the lower rungs especially) have jobs defined by strict step-by-step procedures. Some of my employees could not function easily without these procedures and do not willingly think out of the box (even though we encourage that here -- some people just don't think that way.)
But wait! I'm a woman and all of my employees are male. Funny that your stereotype again does not add up. I can show you plenty of people who really just want step-by-step instructions on how to do their job. Unfortunately for your stereotype, a lot of them are men!
All that really goes to show is the preference of thinking creatively vs. thinking in terms of step-by-step solutions to problems is not defined by gender at all. There is no need to assign a gender role to personality types. Personality types defy race, gender, etc.
Let's look at it this way. What if you said, "Black people usually like to be led"? Sure, there are plenty of examples that follow that would seem to "prove" your case. Black people were slaves in this country for many years. There are only four black Fortune 500 CEOs. Heck, you may even personally know of a black woman or man with whom you worked who preferred to have direct instructions given instead of thinking creatively and out of the box. But if you said something like that as a general stereotype, most people would be offended and would definitely consider you racist. Why is it not okay to say that about 12.3% of the population of the U.S., but it is okay to say that about 50.9% of the population of the U.S.?
Do you see my point? Even though you may consider this valid based on interactions you've had, it is not valid for a large population of women. (So large, in fact, that I doubt you'd even find that most women in the U.S. would agree with that statement.) Furthermore, even the women I know who choose to be mothers instead of traveling a career path would be offended by that statement... much as most black people would be offended by the statement if you applied it to them.
"Women usually like to be led" is not only not a fact (it's an opinion you have based on your experience with two women), but it is a stereotype that is denigrating and offensive to a lot of women. Since you mention that your wife is raising children, I certainly hope that this conversation will help you raise your daughter to know that she can be anything that she wants to be in this world, or raise your son to treat women as equals and respect their choices (whatever those choices may be -- motherhood, a career, or both!)
"If you'd actually read the post you'd realize it was fair to those women who are unusual."
No, it's really not. You are repeating a stereotype that has plagued women for ages -- that women somehow inherently want children above all else, and "after a year or two of working in the real world they quickly figure out what they really want" (which, according to your post, is to have kids.)
While this stereotype is in place because there are a lot of women out there who want kids, I take issue with your post because you assume that this is some sort of inherent behavior within women -- that after we are in the workforce for a few years, we will somehow figure out that what we really wanted all along was kids. I strongly disagree with this point.
I don't think there is a human being out there who doesn't want to do something of real importance. The variation is on what people consider to be important. For instance, I run a successful business. I've run it for almost 5 years; I have 5 employees and several hundred customers. Everyone in my company works hard and believes in our ability to succeed, and we have managed to succeed in a crowded industry with cutthroat competition. That's really important to me. Would I give that up to have kids? Absolutely not.
"Writing another report for the CFO is not important. Having and raising children is."
This is a false dichotomy. It's not always about the choice between a job that makes money but is not considered to be of "real importance" and having a family. There are a lot of people out there who are so passionate about their jobs that they would be hard-pressed to even consider them jobs (like me!) Those of us who feel our work is of real importance often aren't interested in having kids because we do not need kids to feel fulfilled.
My point is that your stereotypes, which may work for your family, certainly do not fit all (or perhaps even a majority of) women. You would do well in the future to refrain from comments such as "Women usually like". Instead, explain the situation as it relates to you and your wife, but don't forget that there are millions of women out there for whom that does not apply (and likely, we are not just "exceptions" to your "rule".)
From the article: "The U.S. Office of Personnel Management encouraged federal agencies to more aggressively promote fuel-consuming options such as teleworking in a September memo."
Darn that Bush. I always knew he was conspiring with the oil companies!;)
Dvorak doesn't mention what is probably the greatest profit center related to IE: MSN.com. It's highly unlikely that MSN.com would be the #3 search engine if it weren't for MSN being the default search engine for IE. It's rumored that Google averages 12 cents of revenue per query on google.com... if MSN makes even half of what Google does per query, we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars per year in revenue. This recurring revenue stream is more than enough to justify an investment in a browser.
Other possible revenue streams for Microsoft IE include toolbar buttons and bookmarks, as well as the licensing of Internet Explorer to AOL and other companies to use as their default browser. Whether IE is profitable or not is still a mystery, but I definitely wouldn't say it has been a zero for Microsoft.
It makes sense for a lot of software applications to move online. For instance, I filed my taxes online using TurboTax.com today. The application was easy to use and worked just fine in Firefox. It makes sense to the companies behind these applications because instead of having to deploy multiple versions for every possible obsolete platform (from Win98 to Mac OS 9) that customers may have, they can deploy to specific browser configurations. Plus, as another poster mentioned, bug fixes are built in.
In 10 years' time, I doubt we'll use CDs or DVDs for much. I don't have a CD drive on my current laptop and I have only missed it once since my initial install -- and that was to install an older version of Quickbooks (newer versions are available for download instead of on a CD.) CD-ROM only drives are quickly becoming as obsolete as floppy drives as we move to the Internet for software, music, and movie distribution. As online storage and backup services take over, the idea of backing up to a CD-RW or DVD-RW will also become obsolete. We'll be able to "jack in" anywhere, from any PC/Mac/Internet cafe terminal, authenticate ourselves, and have instant access to all of our data. TurboTax, SalesForce.com and other services like it are just the beginning.
The Portege M200 that I have is 4.2 pounds; I don't consider that "big", but you may.
If you want a really tiny notebook, check out the Fujitsu Lifebook P1510D; it only weighs 2.2 pounds. That's starting to be PDA size.
As far as your price concerns, most of the tablet notebooks are selling in the $1400-$1800 range these days, which I consider reasonable for a full-featured notebook. You're right; they won't be as cheap as regular notebooks, but I also think the tablet features are worth the premium. I especially enjoy reading online with my notebook in tablet mode. The scroll keys make it easy to do a long session of reading. And watching movies in bed is fabulous with the Tablet PC.:)
You must not have looked very hard; there are plenty of tiny tablets with keyboards. The tiny Thinkpad X41 tablet weighs less than 3 pounds. I didn't want a 1024x768 screen, so I went with the Toshiba Portege M200, which is 4 pounds and offers a 1400x1050 resolution. Both are convertible tablet PCs with keyboards. After a year of owning the Toshiba, I'm quite happy and have recommended Tablet PCs to many other people.
"Why there is no decent consumer organization in the US is a mystery to me. And by 'decent' I don't mean another corp that makes profit by 'certifying' other corps 'consumer friendly'. I mean an organization of consumers. Big enough to raise a stink about a monopoly being abused. Big enough to scare the politicians. Big enough to organize a meaningful economic boycott."
Sure there is. Take a look at Consumers Union, publishers of the great "Consumer Reports" magazine. While you're at it, become involved by subscribing to their magazine. (The product reports alone are worth it.) Consumers Union does lobby the government to make products safer and also brings attention to products that simply don't work. Plus, they are non-profit and buy all products (including the cars they review!) at retail.
Tom, I'm sorry, but that's just not true. Like the old adage, "Guns don't kill people; people kill people"... it is not Dreamweaver that makes bloated code, but a tool such as Dreamweaver being put into the hands of unskilled people that makes bloated code.
As a reference, I designed the simpli.biz website back in 2001/2002 in Dreamweaver and have done incremental updates since. (It's now getting a much-needed redesign from a professional design team, but that's a different story.) You'll find that simpli.biz validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional, and it was coded entirely within Dreamweaver, using default settings. It's not the tool that's the problem; it's the people who don't know what to do with it. Dreamweaver will generate standards-compliant code by default. If you see crappy code, it's because someone who didn't know what they were doing copy-pasted some crappy code in there.
Microsoft Word can be used to write papers that defy English standards and rules completely, but no one says that Microsoft Word is the cause of bad papers. Dreamweaver is no different than Word in this regard.
Slashdot Mirror
The Smart "pure" model starts out at "under $12,000" according to their site. Also, to test your theory, I went to toyota.com and configured a Corolla. Once I added in an automatic transmission and power windows/door locks (which is a $500 option on the Corolla!), my MSRP was $16,325. I would imagine that the Corolla will still be a more popular car -- but it's certainly not cheaper.
I guess when it's your parents who tell you these whoppers, you wouldn't bother to check up on this urban legend with Snopes. You can take some consolation in the fact that Snopes points out that false rumors of this variety have been circulating since the late 1970's.
You're not accounting for your time spent at all in that "cost". (Common mistake, I might add.) Maybe you're just doing this for fun and don't want/need to make any money, but I'd expect any artist who does this for a living to make at least a decent hourly rate. That does add significantly to the cost of the CD.
It's not made for people who understand what "decentralized version control systems" are. :)
And how would I turn that off? I've already set browser.cache.memory.capacity in about:config to 16384 (months ago in FF 1.5, and it carried over to 2.0.) That helped a little, but didn't solve the problem.
BTW, FF 2 is currently using 181MB, and it keeps going up.
I wouldn't call your post "informative" because you don't actually explain how to fix the problem!
I stopped running Firefox on my laptop (a Toshiba Portege Tablet PC) because after hibernating and resuming a few times, Firefox took up an unbelievable amount of memory. (I once had a screenshot of FF 1.5 using over 600MB.) I typically keep 5-8 tabs open; I do use a browser all the time but I'm not heavy on the tabs.
I decided to download FF2 RC2 yesterday afternoon and try it out. Though it loads more quickly than 1.5 did, it still seems to have memory leak problems. I have been running it since this morning and it's currently using 136MB with 6 tabs open. IE7 beta (which I've also been using heavily) typically runs 35-40MB with 6-8 tabs open.
I like Firefox better, but I'll probably switch back to IE because the memory usage of Firefox, even of the latest version, is unacceptable.
Most credit card companies will decline direct payments to gaming sites, but sites like NETeller already offer the middleman status and work with most banks. I don't know how this legislation would affect "middleman" sites like NETeller. FWIW, I use NETeller for my online poker playing and it works great... but yes, they do take a small cut when you pull money back to your checking account.
"In fact, if someone would give me as clean an interface I'd switch away from its search in a heartbeat..."
http://search.yahoo.com/
While black people compose 12.8% of the population, that ratio is nowhere near representative when you look at executive-level management at large corporations. I don't think it's a stretch to presuppose that of the black people who do climb that high, they have to be exceptionally aggressive.
---
The same thing applies. Notice that both blacks AND women (and any other minorities) are sorely underrepresented in the Fortune 500 CEO list. African-Americans still hold less than 1 percent of the tens of thousands of senior-level, corporate posts at America's 1,000 largest public corporations. And, as a further note, black WOMEN hold 0 Fortune 500 CEO positions.
So yes, I do think it is a sexist anecdote. As far as women claiming they "feel that they have to act like a bitch to get any respect", I think that's a symptom of our society more than anything else. When men act like assholes, especially from the top rung, it's considered being a hardass, but also being a good manager. When women act like hardassess and do the same thing a male would do, from the same position (CEO/CxO), some men consider that "being a bitch." And I'm sure those women you anecdotally quoted are talking about that discrepancy.
As a woman CEO myself, I've noticed that as well. I will be nice to you unless you make it clear that shit is not getting done. Then I will not hesitate to yell, hold back payment (if you're a supplier), give you an ultimatum, or fire you (if you're an employee.) Some people may consider this bitchy. I consider it getting the job done. And it's what any good CEO (male, female, black, white) would do in the same position.
...let's replace every reference to "women" in your post with "black", and see how it sounds.
"I know I'm going to get modded down as a "racist" for saying it, but this is hardly uncommon with black bosses. The last company I worked at had a black CEO, and he was an absolute NIGHTMARE to work with (as were the other two black people I had worked under in the past). He was an absolute control freak, could take NO criticism, let his personal vendettas rule his hiring/firing/demoting decisions, etc.
And, yes, I've worked for some asshole white people in my time too. But none of them even COMPARED to the nightmare of working for the black people."
If you had written the above post, it would get modded down to -1 so quickly it would make your head spin. Furthermore, I'd go so far as to say you wouldn't even bother writing it, because you would immediately be shunned by the people responding to your post, and it wouldn't be taken seriously.
So how is it that you get modded as "insightful" by saying something that is obviously anecdotal, and furthermore, applies to 50.8% of the population? Something that you likely wouldn't even dare apply to the 12.8% of the population that is black.
I am sure there are women boses out there who are tyrants. There are male bosses out there who are tyrants. There are black, white, yellow, red, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and God-knows-what-else bosses out there who are tyrants. The fact is that your anecdotal experiences regarding more than fifty percent of our population cannot be applied as a blanket statement.
"Of course that was in the days where computer rooms had raised floors and separate air conditioning systems."
;)
They still have those. They're just called "datacenters" now.
Uh... because a T1 is 1.5Mbit both directions. Your 4Mbit line may be 4Mbit download, but its upload speed is likely... what, 256K? 384K? If you need to serve anything heavier than DNS, you'll want a faster upload speed than that. Hence the need for T1s and larger symmetrical UPLOAD pipes.
Just FYI, it's not $600... it's $300 (less if you don't want Powerpoint.)
_ Office/269-09977/partinfo-id-555211.html
http://www.trustprice.com/Microsoft_OEM_Microsoft
Since the parent comment was written by an anonymous poster, I would like to add that one of our customers was put in the same situation by GoDaddy. His domain was used in a "joe job" (that is, someone sent out a spam with nonexistent addresses from his domain as the From: header in their spam emails.) He called us (his web hosting provider), furious, wanting to know why his domain name was down. We had received spam complaints as well, but since the spams were not from him and were not advertising his product (he runs a legitimate business that does not use email marketing), we did not shut him down. However, when running a quick WHOIS check on his domain, I noticed that GoDaddy had set his name servers to NS1/NS2.SUSPENDED-FOR-SPAM-AND-ABUSE.COM. This was well over a year ago and since then, I have urged all of our customers to switch away from GoDaddy. Some of our customers have responded, "But I don't spam anything!" Of course you don't. It doesn't matter. If any spammer sends out spam with your domain as the From address, even if you had nothing to do with that spam, and it gets reported to GoDaddy, your domain is toast.
For what it's worth, we use eNom and have never had any problems with them. If you host more than a few domain names, get an eNom reseller account (many providers offer them for free) and pay the same price as GoDaddy. I recommend them highly; we have several hundred domains with them right now.
"The step-by-step people get hired to work for high-school grad business owners."
Absolutely. I am a business owner who never graduated from college. And I have employees, some of whom (at the lower rungs especially) have jobs defined by strict step-by-step procedures. Some of my employees could not function easily without these procedures and do not willingly think out of the box (even though we encourage that here -- some people just don't think that way.)
But wait! I'm a woman and all of my employees are male. Funny that your stereotype again does not add up. I can show you plenty of people who really just want step-by-step instructions on how to do their job. Unfortunately for your stereotype, a lot of them are men!
All that really goes to show is the preference of thinking creatively vs. thinking in terms of step-by-step solutions to problems is not defined by gender at all. There is no need to assign a gender role to personality types. Personality types defy race, gender, etc.
Let's look at it this way. What if you said, "Black people usually like to be led"? Sure, there are plenty of examples that follow that would seem to "prove" your case. Black people were slaves in this country for many years. There are only four black Fortune 500 CEOs. Heck, you may even personally know of a black woman or man with whom you worked who preferred to have direct instructions given instead of thinking creatively and out of the box. But if you said something like that as a general stereotype, most people would be offended and would definitely consider you racist. Why is it not okay to say that about 12.3% of the population of the U.S., but it is okay to say that about 50.9% of the population of the U.S.?
Do you see my point? Even though you may consider this valid based on interactions you've had, it is not valid for a large population of women. (So large, in fact, that I doubt you'd even find that most women in the U.S. would agree with that statement.) Furthermore, even the women I know who choose to be mothers instead of traveling a career path would be offended by that statement... much as most black people would be offended by the statement if you applied it to them.
"Women usually like to be led" is not only not a fact (it's an opinion you have based on your experience with two women), but it is a stereotype that is denigrating and offensive to a lot of women. Since you mention that your wife is raising children, I certainly hope that this conversation will help you raise your daughter to know that she can be anything that she wants to be in this world, or raise your son to treat women as equals and respect their choices (whatever those choices may be -- motherhood, a career, or both!)
"If you'd actually read the post you'd realize it was fair to those women who are unusual."
No, it's really not. You are repeating a stereotype that has plagued women for ages -- that women somehow inherently want children above all else, and "after a year or two of working in the real world they quickly figure out what they really want" (which, according to your post, is to have kids.)
While this stereotype is in place because there are a lot of women out there who want kids, I take issue with your post because you assume that this is some sort of inherent behavior within women -- that after we are in the workforce for a few years, we will somehow figure out that what we really wanted all along was kids. I strongly disagree with this point.
I don't think there is a human being out there who doesn't want to do something of real importance. The variation is on what people consider to be important. For instance, I run a successful business. I've run it for almost 5 years; I have 5 employees and several hundred customers. Everyone in my company works hard and believes in our ability to succeed, and we have managed to succeed in a crowded industry with cutthroat competition. That's really important to me. Would I give that up to have kids? Absolutely not.
"Writing another report for the CFO is not important. Having and raising children is."
This is a false dichotomy. It's not always about the choice between a job that makes money but is not considered to be of "real importance" and having a family. There are a lot of people out there who are so passionate about their jobs that they would be hard-pressed to even consider them jobs (like me!) Those of us who feel our work is of real importance often aren't interested in having kids because we do not need kids to feel fulfilled.
My point is that your stereotypes, which may work for your family, certainly do not fit all (or perhaps even a majority of) women. You would do well in the future to refrain from comments such as "Women usually like". Instead, explain the situation as it relates to you and your wife, but don't forget that there are millions of women out there for whom that does not apply (and likely, we are not just "exceptions" to your "rule".)
From the article: "The U.S. Office of Personnel Management encouraged federal agencies to more aggressively promote fuel-consuming options such as teleworking in a September memo."
;)
Darn that Bush. I always knew he was conspiring with the oil companies!
Dvorak doesn't mention what is probably the greatest profit center related to IE: MSN.com. It's highly unlikely that MSN.com would be the #3 search engine if it weren't for MSN being the default search engine for IE. It's rumored that Google averages 12 cents of revenue per query on google.com... if MSN makes even half of what Google does per query, we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars per year in revenue. This recurring revenue stream is more than enough to justify an investment in a browser.
Other possible revenue streams for Microsoft IE include toolbar buttons and bookmarks, as well as the licensing of Internet Explorer to AOL and other companies to use as their default browser. Whether IE is profitable or not is still a mystery, but I definitely wouldn't say it has been a zero for Microsoft.
It makes sense for a lot of software applications to move online. For instance, I filed my taxes online using TurboTax.com today. The application was easy to use and worked just fine in Firefox. It makes sense to the companies behind these applications because instead of having to deploy multiple versions for every possible obsolete platform (from Win98 to Mac OS 9) that customers may have, they can deploy to specific browser configurations. Plus, as another poster mentioned, bug fixes are built in.
In 10 years' time, I doubt we'll use CDs or DVDs for much. I don't have a CD drive on my current laptop and I have only missed it once since my initial install -- and that was to install an older version of Quickbooks (newer versions are available for download instead of on a CD.) CD-ROM only drives are quickly becoming as obsolete as floppy drives as we move to the Internet for software, music, and movie distribution. As online storage and backup services take over, the idea of backing up to a CD-RW or DVD-RW will also become obsolete. We'll be able to "jack in" anywhere, from any PC/Mac/Internet cafe terminal, authenticate ourselves, and have instant access to all of our data. TurboTax, SalesForce.com and other services like it are just the beginning.
The Portege M200 that I have is 4.2 pounds; I don't consider that "big", but you may.
:)
If you want a really tiny notebook, check out the Fujitsu Lifebook P1510D; it only weighs 2.2 pounds. That's starting to be PDA size.
As far as your price concerns, most of the tablet notebooks are selling in the $1400-$1800 range these days, which I consider reasonable for a full-featured notebook. You're right; they won't be as cheap as regular notebooks, but I also think the tablet features are worth the premium. I especially enjoy reading online with my notebook in tablet mode. The scroll keys make it easy to do a long session of reading. And watching movies in bed is fabulous with the Tablet PC.
You must not have looked very hard; there are plenty of tiny tablets with keyboards. The tiny Thinkpad X41 tablet weighs less than 3 pounds. I didn't want a 1024x768 screen, so I went with the Toshiba Portege M200, which is 4 pounds and offers a 1400x1050 resolution. Both are convertible tablet PCs with keyboards. After a year of owning the Toshiba, I'm quite happy and have recommended Tablet PCs to many other people.
"Seeing as how I run FreeBSD amd64, I'd bitch if they didn't have a format that wasn't supported by 64-bit clean open source codecs."
:P
And you wonder why you're sitting in your underwear posting on Slashdot on a Saturday night?
"Why there is no decent consumer organization in the US is a mystery to me. And by 'decent' I don't mean another corp that makes profit by 'certifying' other corps 'consumer friendly'. I mean an organization of consumers. Big enough to raise a stink about a monopoly being abused. Big enough to scare the politicians. Big enough to organize a meaningful economic boycott."
Sure there is. Take a look at Consumers Union, publishers of the great "Consumer Reports" magazine. While you're at it, become involved by subscribing to their magazine. (The product reports alone are worth it.) Consumers Union does lobby the government to make products safer and also brings attention to products that simply don't work. Plus, they are non-profit and buy all products (including the cars they review!) at retail.
Tom, I'm sorry, but that's just not true. Like the old adage, "Guns don't kill people; people kill people"... it is not Dreamweaver that makes bloated code, but a tool such as Dreamweaver being put into the hands of unskilled people that makes bloated code.
As a reference, I designed the simpli.biz website back in 2001/2002 in Dreamweaver and have done incremental updates since. (It's now getting a much-needed redesign from a professional design team, but that's a different story.) You'll find that simpli.biz validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional, and it was coded entirely within Dreamweaver, using default settings. It's not the tool that's the problem; it's the people who don't know what to do with it. Dreamweaver will generate standards-compliant code by default. If you see crappy code, it's because someone who didn't know what they were doing copy-pasted some crappy code in there.
Microsoft Word can be used to write papers that defy English standards and rules completely, but no one says that Microsoft Word is the cause of bad papers. Dreamweaver is no different than Word in this regard.