ActuaryTm

Grew up in Melbourne, and my parents still live there as well.

RossMAN's townhouse.

You can read more about sniping here (and even try the service for no cost).

And so begins my next Keatsian endeavor: Ode on a CostCo Urn. http://www.costco.com/Images/Content/Product/894388L.jpg

Translation: we're patiently awaiting the United States implementation of an affiliate program for Canadians wishing to immigrate to the States.

You might start with the Product Advisor, which is essentially a digital camera wizard for end-users. Also, difficult to go wrong with one of Dave's Picks.

(dying laughing Brad) I should register this.

While I am certain many can empathize with the situation you describe, it's important to note that no single manufacturer produces a flawless product. There are unfortunately horror stories for all manufacturers, and for the most part customer experience varies from model to model (and even revision to revision within the same model number). As a purchaser and end-user, the best advice is to choose the most cost effective solution (not to be confused with the cheapest solution), factoring not only the initial purchase cost but additional criteria as well (such as product reliability, build quality, typical turnaround time for service/repairs, your lost time, etc). Ross' signature advice rings true in this arena as well: in most cases, you get what you pay for. This of course does not mean a sub-$400 notebook can't serve you well for a number of years for a variety of different tasks - just that the expectation of such can't be as high as say the expectation of a $4,000+ notebook. As it bears some importance in this thread, the above especially holds true with regard to mobile machines. Unfortunately, notebooks are an amalgam of extremely complex and proprietary components in a very compact area of space. Heat and the sheer wear and tear of daily use (especially of the more rough variety) can contribute significantly to degredation in product life if not attended to properly. Also, the internal integrated components are sadly not as interchangable by the end-user as their desktop counterparts, save the more major components (processors, memory, hard drives, optical drives, and to some extent wi-fi/media components). As you might expect, the mobile version of even these interchangeable components are much more expensive than the desktop version - often as much as double the price, or more. For these reasons, I always highly recommend a comprehensive warranty be purchased for however long the end-user plans to make regular use of the notebook. It is one of the few products where additional coverage beyond the default offered by the manufacturer is warranted. One simple repair (e.g., a failed motherboard, an LCD replacement, etc) can easily run well over $1,000 depending on the make and model machine.

</thread>

Perhaps you could explain what is meant by this statement? None of the router's settings should be terribly machine specific. Although this isn't the technical forum per se, perhaps we could be a bit more helpful than Linksys support.

One of my particularly favorite features is the ability to run the WRT54G in client or WDS mode. Rather than attempt to offer an explanation in technical terms, I drafted up this simple diagram (courtesy of Visio) quite a while back: http://img119.echo.cx/img119/5351/clienttopologywrt54g9um.gif

Just a reminder that this promotion is due to end in a few days - that is, unless it is extended again.

The Standard Action Pack subscription is $299.00 initially, and $199.00 for renewals. The Plus version of the action pack is $399.00 initially. The only discernable difference between the Plus and Standard editions is the former grants one year of access to bCentral List Builder.

My apologies. I should have been a bit more specific regarding "business use" (and enumerated it to be "in-house business use"). In general, the software is NFR (Not For Resale/Not For Redistribution). The licensing agreement for most products applies only to the Partner which purchased the Action Pack. As chance would have it, I was actually at a Microsoft Partner event today, and this subject arose as a solution provider was loaning out an Action Pack copy of SQL Server as a "trial" to a client of their specific solution. When the solution provider attempted to convert that particular license to a stand-alone, purchased license of SQL Server, there were a number of licensing problems apparently. I believe that in-house business, personal, or family use (as long as the Action Pack is renewed appropriately) generally falls within the spirit of the EULA. For machines that are sold however, an OEM/retail/etc version of said software would likely be required. As alluded to above however, there are a few exceptions in the Action Pack. At times, OEM versions of products are included, which I believe can be transferred to others. Also, a number of trials are often included. For example, in the current version there is a full-featured trial to Small Business Accounting 2006 which can be converted to a fully licensed version by someone other than the Partner him/herself. If you'd like more detail, I can certainly give you a number of excellent personal contacts directly at Microsoft through which you can attain a wealth of information.

Incorrect. The $20.00 Amazon Visa discount is completely separate from this current promotion. The current price (as of 10/26) for all Amazon customers is $54.99. Less 5% and the $15.00 mail-in rebate yields $37.24. One can however opt for the Amazon Visa promotion in addition to the above deal, which should net an end result of $18.24 for the WRT54G.

For those unaware, this is one of the more definative sites for information about the WRT54G - especially regarding third-party firmware options.

A venerable plethora of informative articles available here and here. (be certain to look through the table of contents on each)

For personal/business use, you might consider the Action Pack as it is very cost effective.

A better choice might be the 120GB Seagate at Best Buy this week for $29.99 AR, especially considering the warranty differential (1 year - Western Digital v 5 years - Seagate).

Late to the party (as per usual), but wanted to reiterate much of the previous sentiment: truly excellent work, both Brad and Ross. The integration between the main site and the forum is now nearly seamless. One thing I noticed offhand was the minute difference between the quick links bar on the main site, and that of the forum. The main site has the lovely drop-down menus, while the forum does not (this seamed persistent across Opera, Firefox, and IE) . Any chance of extending that functionality to the forum as well, or is that too much to ask of vBulletin?

Was attempting to ascertain when I made this thread. It may be time for me to change to a non-public avatar to avoid my own confusion.

I had absolutely no idea on this one, and thus defer to this thread on the Skype forum. It (that is, your SkypeIn number) doesn't appear to show on SkypeOut calls as of that post, according to the Skype staff member that posted. According the FAQs, CallerID support on Skype is hit or miss. You may want to contact Skype support as they may have a more definitive answer.

Review.

At second (and more in-depth) glance, it does not appear the above card possesses hardware MPEG-II compression. If you plan to do much capture at all, this is a feature that will be sorely missed.

I stand corrected. It does indeed. I should have picked up on that with the PC portion of the model number (being "Personal Cinema"), but I confess I merely glanced at the card features in the title rather than taking an in-depth look. Some of the reviews seem mixed with regard to the tuner performance and compatibility with SP2, though I suppose that is true of any piece of hardware (depending on the end-user). Also, should note this card will absolutely not be compatible with MCE should that be any consideration at all. I've always preferred discrete tuner solutions (as opposed to integrated or ATI's AIW), but that may just be a personal preference.