I also thought it was very effective. I mean, if you are normal person [read: NOT an engadget reader] who checks email, surfs abit, occasionally writes up a Word doc and looking for a 600-700 laptop/desktop - Apple has no answer.

That market is most people I think.

My new website - nutrition wonderland - needs some off-site backing up. A couple BASH scripts later and Drobo could be the answer. So really, you are stimulating the economy directly and, well, my couple of part-time freelance writers. I'll go out and buy some falafel and Rolex.

If you really want to fix the economy, put those damn banks into a receivership of the FDIC. The rest is gravy baby.

@linuxamp

Thats what journalism is supposed to be - harsh and unrelenting. Advertisers buy space based on eyeballs and everyone wants an honest voice they can rely on. Engagdet will be fine. Keep the good reporting up guys.

Creating a contract and charging someone for breaking it isnt illegal. The illegality comes from charging the fee in violation of one of the numerous FCC ultimatums.

Read the WSJ article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121562983731640019.html

Fellow 'creative pros' -
The easy way to avoid reflect laptop screens: just go buy an a matte external LCD. Im doing this with a macbook/samsung 22" right now - costs about $250 and you can write it off on your taxes if you are a freelancer and worried about cost. I dont know which one of you are using 13" macbook screens to design stuff, but you should probably stop doing that.

how about some eSATA love already?

Do you find any irony in the fact the only way these views would be so publicly visible is the internet? What are your words worth to you?

One more for you to read:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080608-mpaa-wants-to-stop-dvrs-from-recording-some-movies.html

Birds of a feather...

Your missing the bigger argument because of your vested interest - and position - in the matter. What if you are a small guy trying to distribute some music and you haven't paid the bandwidth god enough so you decide to release your stuff P2P - should people not be able to d/l your stuff as quickly? And who makes that call? What happens when someone decides your net activities are too burdensome and slows down your connection? Tiered net only benefits telcos who want the marketing cache of offering unlimited service while neglecting to upgrade their infrastructure to offer that service.

If I told you, even a year ago, that you could get a ultraportable notebook for under $700 that has a 1.6Ghz/1 GB/20GB SSHD/9" screen and bluetooth, wireless, etc, you'd have been very excited. Maybe the deal isnt quite as sweet, but this computer is still a bargain.