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No, but that looks like it would be a really handy thing to show my students.

Just for comparison, a semester at Purdue University here in Indiana in 2010 is $10 - $15000 as a public institution, not inclusive of housing, books or extra fees. Our health care and gun laws aren't the only things here that are fucked up.

I'm almost positive it's 400Mbps.

That city ordinance did nothing to take away the ability to defend oneself. There are all kinds of ways to defend oneself without using a handgun. You do understand that, right? Also, where the hell do these people live that there are marauding bands of home invaders that justify the use of...

I fully support making handguns and ammunition as difficult to obtain as humanly possible, Pradeep's edge case of sport shooting aside, there's no reason to have a handgun except the desire to hurt or kill another human being. Chicago's law was correct and it is unfortunate that the Supreme...

I've seen at least two Thinkpads take desk-height spills on to concrete with similar results. And Thinkpads have up to date hardware. Here are some comments by a blogger paid by Lenovo regarding Thinkpad durability; basically, standard-model Thinkpads compete very well with semi-rugged Panasonics.

You could try Total Commander, too.

76 and breezy. Pretty nice for people who go outside. Also, hi flagreen.

The only comment I can make here is that I've likewise found NFS to be slower than SMB, regardless of implementation or platform. Windows, or at least Server 2008, does seem to be faster than Samba for file transfers. NIC teaming on Windows is mostly a function of drivers rather than an OS...

Some lighter fluid and a match would probably make it less boring.

'Cause that's his house now. Congratulations, ddrueding!

There hasn't been any. Very aggravating since it's a legal issue holding up the game rather than any technical or development problems. Why does Half Life 2 need a 64 bit native executable?

Maybe there aren't any? I'd probably use Spinrite as well. Or whatever else might be on Hiren's bootCD.

Sure, but as an IT guy, I have options to give my customers for those circumstances (he says, looking under his bed, where there are two T41s, an R41, and an R60). Indiana State troopers carry Toughbooks. They're obnoxiously heavy and a bit underpowered. Sure, they're well built and durable...

What exactly is the performance problem?

Ghostbusters has a couple funny moments, but Bill Murray REALLY phoned it in. Also, it has a bad case of console-portitis. I'm still impatiently tapping my foot and waiting for Mechwarrior 5.

For features and specs, it's in desktop replacement territory, but weight is reasonable/tolerable at maybe 2.5kg. There's a high quality screen, a superb keyboard and a titanium rollcage for a frame. Accessories tend to be cheap and readily available ($15 for an extra AC adapter on Ebay) and...

Take a look at this.

That's on my list for the near future. I watched all of Breaking Bad on the advice of someone I will no longer trust to make judgments about anything, based on his favorable comparisons to The Wire. I found it to be mediocre and essentially un-compelling, though I did stick through all three...

I use oversize Scythe Zipang coolers on my i7s, but overall I think the stock cooler on current Intel CPUs is actually a pretty solid product. I think ddrueding went with a Scythe Mugen before he started screwing around with watercooling. Both of those are pretty exotic compared to that...

I paid $900 for an APC Netshelter, but it was fairly decked out with extras. I got another with a broken hinge on the door for $125 (including the freight shipping) from Ebay. It took my a while but eventually I fixed that myself. I put them in my living room and use them as coffee tables.

I don't own one. I've had customers buy a couple and I've been impressed with them, but I have two recent model T-series Thinkpads now that more than meet my needs.

I buy Optiarc drives about 95% pf the time. In the last two years, other than a few LG BD drives and maybe a half-dozen Samsungs, it's all been Optiarc. I'm not sure about media. Does Taiyo Yuden make DVD-DLs? As far as I can tell, bit rot is a valid issue for all writable optical media. I...

I just got a Sandisk Sansa Clip+. $50 for an 8GB player that can be upgraded with a microSD card, that plays .ogg and .flac files, supports audiobook formats, has a minimal monochrome screen, a voice recorder, FM tuner, and needs no special program for access. On top of that, it's tiny, maybe 2"...

They have to protect their trademark. I'm actually pretty sure that the Pork Board lawyer who drew up the C&D in the first place got a chuckle over having to write it. Our legal system is more than a little ridiculous.

You know, I don't think we hit kids enough these days. Especially the ones that mess up computers. I developed this philosophy during my kid classes but it seems to apply just fine to your situation too, Paugie.

Netgear's baseline N router (WNR834B? I think) has anemic range, maybe 50 feet indoors, but good transfer speeds. I bought several of them for $20 apiece and that's about what they're worth. The only recent DLink routers I've dealt with were DIR-615s. I've never been a fan of DLink's firmware...

I'm thoroughly unimpressed with the Linksys E3000, which is the current "expensive" model.

I am having a shitty month.

I just found a torrent of the various LucasArts SCUMM-engine games. Apparently they've been modified to support more modern graphics settings so for example Loom can be played with a full VGA palette now. I'm looking forward to playing Grim Fandango. Absolutely every modern PC game that isn't...

Why does your office not have effective antispam, Lunar?

I've used Lenovo's warranty. I always just do depot. Most repairs I do myself, but screens and board swaps I let them handle. I can only think of one time I didn't get a system back in five business days.

I hate everything.

Doesn't look like it. If you're itching to test a commercial product out, you could always give Forticlient a go.

There are options for the various options that you can set. It shouldn't be THAT bad. I use Format Factory more for video files though. It's very handy for that.

These days I use xrecode, but only the 1.0 product that is freeware. Version 2.0 is nagware and pisses me off. Nice thing about xrecode is that it'll process .cue files. FormatFactory is also very nice for batch processing, albeit for a shorter list of formats.

Kind of seems like a grasp at remaining relevant on the part of Garmin. But that's a pretty decent array of specifications and the price is downright reasonable compared to most smartphone plans here.

They were $99 two weeks ago. I bought a couple at that price.

I wouldn't call a computer that has to have HDMI output a basic computer, for one thing. I don't build "linux computers" very often any more. If I did, I'd probably use the same parts I use for any other PC. The only place where hardware is any kind of a big deal with Linux is 802.11 chipsets...

Those cards are almost all much newer than the ones I played with. Nitsirk has suggested that I try Munchkin sometime. It's a card game, but it comes with all the card you need to play.

My favorite play deck was Black Vises, The Racks, Millstones, Hypnotic Specters and some assorted low-cost black cards. I also had a hilarious deck designed to discard high-value summons so I could use Resurrection and Timetwister to get those cards in play. I was always surprised how well that...

I mostly build budget systems for small businesses or basic consumer PCs, Lunar.

These two sentences make up the majority of my complaint (with the singular exception of Soundstorm on the A7N8X, which did make me happy), but I've gone entire years without having to replace an Intel-branded motherboard that I installed, which reminds me of something Tannin said about Intel...

I had at least two of each of the Moxes and five Black Lotuses. And a complete set (four each) of the dual land cards. I was collecting Magic cards in high school because I liked the artwork but didn't really play much until college. Even then I caught a lot of flak for having "expensive" cards...

I really think Intel-based motherboards are more robust. If there's no price difference, or minimal price difference, I'll go in the direction of higher reliability. The multimedia features that make AMD appealing for budget desktops aren't that interesting for a WHS system, either.

It was 65F and stupidly humid all weekend, but it didn't rain much.

I had to throw out about 95% of my Magic cards. They were in my car when it got crushed by tree, and they were soaked and eventually covered in mold. Kind of a shame, since most of my collection were the oldest cards. Sometimes-lurker Nitsirk is a big board game fan.

Other than ripping media, none of those things require much in the way of CPU horsepower.

That amount of CPU power seems exceedingly excessive, ddrueding. A C2D celeron like an E2200 on a G31-based motherboard would probably work just fine though, and the whole rig would only run $100 - $130 for MB, CPU and RAM, or about what that motherboard probably costs by itself. Does WHS...

I'm not given the authority to do that. Or any disciplinary authority at all. Which is part of the reason I hate teaching kids. They're bribed to be in these classes. They're given a computer. I'm asked to present complex information; taking their laptop apart, using a backup program and...