It isn't simply about cost - though I understand that is the specific issue you are trying to address:

Try sending a letter or small package through the USPS, UPS, and FedEx (and DHL and a local courier service for good measure)
- See which one was more cost effective
- See which one was fastest (or slowest)
- Which offered the best service (up to date tracking, delivery confirmation + signature, etc.)
- Sends thousands of parcels and see which was the most reliable with fewest lost/late arrivals
- See how the service varies by region, distance traveled, etc...

There are a lot of variables, and while cost is certainly and important one - it isn't the only one.

They still use flash unfortunately, but as you describe - it isn't ActiveX Flash for IE, it is the "plugin" version for Firefox/Chrome. It only reared its ugly head in a couple of places for me - specifically the game details / videos and one or two animated marketing things.

The marketing things could easily be addressed in HTML - they are all just sliding/fading/hovering type effects.

The video could be easily addressed using the tag, though the whole h.264 patent nonsense may scare them off from actually doing that.

This is a beta, I am hopeful that they will address these concerns. I am very happy with the new interface personally.

So I am just curious, is there something that is missing from Octave that makes it a viable replacement for MATLAB for you? Particularly if you are lagging a few versions behind?

This is the perfect example of "free" in FOSS. You aren't tied to a specific platform or endless* required upgrades.

*This is an approximation for very small values of forever.

Yeah, I guess I am kind of boring that way. Hooray for utility over aesthetics!

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

Apache is only half the problem at best, the real issue is the lack of compliant clients at a significant level. Server Name Identifcation (the extension to allow for virtual hosts behind SSL/TLS connections) has been supported in Firefox since v2 I believe, and Internet Explorer 7 - though I think that is only on Vista for some reason. I have no idea what Safari, Opera and other browsers and platforms might support.

I would disagree (to some degree) that more features are in fact needed. For example, E4X (and a native XML doc object) being standardized in the browsers would be a huge benefit.

That being said, I think that a lot of the feature bloat going into the proposed v4 was really not all that great. I think this is generally a step in the right direction.