@ Mike Cerm:

Yes, you're "trapped" in the Apple ecosystem.

The key point that everyone forgets to discuss, though, is that in that ecosystem, everything works for everyone.

The "trapping" is intentional...it is the only way to guarantee user experience is the same for everyone whether they are technically savvy or not.

You can choose not to be in the Apple ecosystem, sure. But when you are, you're left wondering: what does this mean? Can I do this with that? Will my widget work with that gadget? Will this product work with that one? If so, how, what do I have to do to make it happen, and how much money do I have to spend on extra stuff? I happen to use both Apple and Microsoft products, but I wish I didn't have to. For example, I bought a Windows-based laptop for a family member and I've done nothing but provide free support for the past year because they aren't technically savvy. If I had gotten them a Macbook, I wouldn't have had to do that.

Contrary to popular belief, Microsoft is getting closed, too. With Vista, they're locking everything down into one ecosystem just like Apple. DRM is everywhere in Vista. They're just not telling you that's what they're doing. Sure, you can maybe choose between 10 different graphics cards instead of getting the one included with a Mac mini or iMac, but all ten of those graphics cards choices have to meet Microsoft's restrictions or they won't work, or at least won't work as promised. When Microsoft is telling you whether your hardware choice will work or not, is that really choice?

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

And this, in turn, raises costs for everyone. So much for Microsoft being "good" by being "open" and Apple being "bad" for being "closed", I guess. The point: at least in the Apple ecosystem, everything works and people get an opportunity to enjoy things and be immediately productive and creative without worrying about mechanicals.

I kinda do.

You should read up on NAS. All of the PCs in the house would share NAS in addition to their internal storage. Then, a scheduled task running rsync or rsnapshot to copy critical files and folders (like "My Documents") to the NAS is trivial to set up. Then PC A never has to worry about PC B. Not to mention "wake on LAN".

Well, Rick, the day you can put something fragile (like a human) into a garbage can, get the garbage can to lift on a propulsion system 285 feet, maintain stability and orientation while doing it, and then land again without breaking said fragile object will be the day you get to criticize their efforts.

Will people please, PLEASE stop calling laptops "lappies"? Freaking lame, just like the dweebs who call Westinghouse flat panel TVs "westies" and the dweebs who say "pull the trigger" when they mean "buy".

Wouldn't you want to be sure your emergency device had power? It wouldn't be that great of an emergency device if the batteries were dead when you needed to hit the panic button, now would it?

KL said:

"It's a toy, nothing else, what are they supposed to learn on it when the interface is so different from anything else out there ? As soon as they are in front of a normal conputer all their knowledge will be useless."

Yeah, that's the ticket to technology innovation and revolution: force everyone to only learn one way to do things.

This is a solution looking for a problem.

There's nothing in your car that needs to get online. The only group this product serves is the multi-CPU group, like 3 or 4 people on a road trip. Each person wouldn't need their own EV-DO account if the vehicle's owner had one of these. Anyone else that needs net access in a vehicle can just get a EV-DO card.

There are security and interference implications, too. What if you're stuck in traffic, and 3 or 4 cars around you also have one of these? That adds a whole new dimension to wardriving.

That's a really high price.

Here's one that supports 1080p and has an IR Remote for about half the price:

http://www.octavainc.com/HDMI%20switch%204port.htm

And that's MSRP...you could probably find it at a reseller for cheaper.

Not to mention that most high-end receivers (like the Yamaha 2700) already support HDMI switching.

I nominate that guy's web site for worst site ever.

I can't believe that a technology professional that makes a living writing software could actually put up a web site so riddled with typos and errors.

Makes me wonder about his code, that's for sure.

Posting monster screenshots of the forum threads he was posting to instead of linking to the forums themselves was really annoying, too.