And they don't get nearly as much use as all the other alternatives out there.

Interesting, I didn't know that VMWare was one of those companies that was afraid to have their product compared to those of others. Do they have something to hide?

I wasn't a VMWare user already, but hearing this kind of thing, if true, makes me even less inclined to try their product. If they're going to tell me I can't talk about a product I've paid for, well, I'm not going to pay for it.

You forgot DisplayPort, DVI, and VGA connectors, an ExpressCard slot, Firewire, and an integrated colour calibrator.

I'm surprised they don't have serial and parallel ports on this thing as well, but I guess they needed to make room for the four exhaust ports for the cooling fans. Something tells me that this 11 lbs behemoth moves a lot of air. I wonder what the battery life is, an hour maybe?

Not to nitpick, but the Thinkpad line was sold to Lenovo ages ago. IBM isn't shipping this notebook at all.

In Montreal at least, you can go with Colbanet's ADSL2+ service. They've got their own equipment, separate DSLAMs and pipes, and don't rely on Bell for anything.

A previous roommate worked for them on their ADSL2+ rollout. Turns out it was cheaper for them to move the customers they had on Bell's equipment (where they didn't pay for bandwidth) over to their own (where they did). Pretty crazy.

If you're in Montreal, give them a call and see if they cover your area. If they do, they might be worth the switch.

You seem to have used my post as a reason to talk about yourself. This I don't really understand. Regardless...

The 'Apple is more expensive' line has been debunked over and over. The reality is that Apple isn't trying to gain market share at any cost, and since there are no competitors producing macs (well, not legitimately anyway) they can keep their prices reasonable, make a profit, and put that back into R&D, whereas companies like Dell have to slash their margins in order to sell more units and compete on price.

Well good for you. I've never found any reason to buy any Ford, BMW, Sun, or Prada product. That doesn't mean there isn't a market for them, or that people who buy their products don't enjoy using them. I have, however, purchased several Apple products, but only after products from Dell, HP, and so on proved themselves to be unreliable and Windows proved cumbersome and insecure.

Again, good for you. I'm very interested in computers, and going to conferences, meetups, and events, I find that Apple products are in good supply. Three years ago, half of the laptops at a given conference were Macs. A few weeks ago I went to another conference, and this one was nearly 100% Apple. And none of these conferences were the least bit Apple-related, incidentally. The only conference I went to at which that this wasn't the case was a Microsoft conference, but at that one, almost no one had a laptop out.

Ok, so Linux is used on servers, which isn't news, and people write apps for Windows. None of this is a big surprise. It's a question of market penetration, and Windows nets you a bigger piece of the pie. That doesn't mean that Apple isn't making significant strides and rapidly gaining in mindshare.

What gets me is that you seem to have packaged this rant up for delivery whenever the least opportunity presents itself. Not a single measure of what you said has anything to do with what I said. You simply used a position that you disagree with, apparently passionately and vehemently, to spring off into your own personal diatribe. That's kind of sad.

Ballmer has also stated that the iPhone and RIM don't have 'momentum' (despite selling in colossal numbers), whereas the real market momentum is in 'windows mobile and android'. Which no one buys.

It's all marketing and PR BS. Apple's in a fantastic position, and will continue on that trend. Microsoft may have more money, people, and market share, but they've got nothing worth using it all for. The best they can come up with is a few stolen features, a few half-assed 'innovations', the occasional good idea, and a lot of competitors besieging them on all sides.

Probably by looking at the source code. WebKit, WebCore, and JavaScriptCore are all open-source. This is why they're used everywhere, including in recent GNOME browsers, QT 4, on Symbian, Android, and WebOS on the Palm Pre.

Google Gears does this.

The reason NOT to do it with Adobe Air is the same as the reason not to use any cross-platform toolkit - all you end up with is the lowest common denominator experience and functionality.

It should be definitely doable to make Bespin Gears-aware, so that you don't need your internet connection for the duration - just when you're done editing, want to save to the server, etc.

The problem with that is that you end up with a graphical interface being shipped pixel by pixel over the network to your machine, and your keystrokes shipped back to the server.

With Bespin, for example, your editing work happens on the local end, and is sync'ed over the network to the server.

Yes, web apps are even more efficient than X11 for such things. Crazy, huh?

There's been an abundance for the last eight years, the cost has dropped substantially.

And 2 better girls?

From my understanding of the DMCA, Apple is entirely correct that this is a DMCA violation - despite the fact that it shouldn't be illegal, the real problem is the law, not Apple's interpretation of it.

On my iPhone, I use an app called SBSettings. By doing a swipe gesture across the status bar at the top, I get a drop-down that allows me to quickly and easily enable/disable WiFi or 3G, or to adjust the brightness. This single feature alone is what I jailbreak for. I also like to be able to SSH into (or out of) my iPhone, and having a UNIX terminal that I can do basic administration from.

Theming is nice, there are some neat apps like MxTube, which lets you download YouTube videos to store and watch offline (but not re-share), but in the end, there are things for everyone. Unfortunately, quick and easy piracy is now one of those things.

It's the same familiar concept that encourages people to use a lot of products â"Âwhat Palm was offering was the least worst. If you hated WindowsCE/PocketPC, your only other choice was PalmOS. Despite how awful it was, it was the least-worst option.