I've had quite a few desktops and laptops in my life. After a while I decided that building my own desktop only led to problems from specific incompatibilities. Most software is going to be tested on a well sold Dell model.
I don't know about build quality of the exact specs on every component but I know this:
My Toshiba laptop's screen was dead after 1 year. Most other workers who had one also died within 2 years.
My Dell's screen was OK but the sound card was terrible; you could hear the HD spinning. Also I really hated XP vs OSX
I currently have another Dell which has OK screen and sound but all colors on the screen are very cold vs normal LCD. Works pretty well with Windows 7.
As for my own money. I have a 4 year old Mac mini who is now a DLNA server for my PS3 and iTunes server also. Works amazingly well and dead silent.
I have a macbook pro and so does my wife. They work perfectly and have great screens and soundcards.
I also use an iPhone 3GS which work well enough that I don't want a 4. My kids watch movies on netflix ipod touch.

My experience with Toshiba,Dell and Apple products tell me one thing. Buy Apple again. the margin might be thinner now that windows 7 is here because it is pretty good. I would say that a current Dell with a good LCD panel with good colors and windows 7 would probably do the job just as well.

Then there are the little things like time machine. configure it once on the wife's computer and never worry again about forgetting to click on the backup icon.

How does your morals matter?

How is someone looking at NSFW content worse than someone reading /. ? Does it somehow mean that the person is working even less because it's also amoral to you?
Maybe ./ is not so bad because to many of us it can be work related at least a little. But my argument still stands. Either you are allowed to browse the 'net for non-strictly work content or not, content should not matter.

1- Buy an unlocked Nokia S60 phone such as the relatively cheap E71.. not the locked E71x
2- Get a SIM with data plan on a GSM carrier.. let's say AT&T
3- Buy joikuspot for 9euro and you can turn your phone into a wifi hotspot.. it also works as a phone at the same time. Really.. you can talk on the phone while browsing on the web via wifi. It does eat the battery really quick so you will want to plug the phone into the charger

I have been doing this in the car so that my passengers can use their laptops/ipods/psp/whatever and it works great

politics.

Is there a direct link between liberal/conservative and democrat/republican? Even more annoying is that in Canada we do have political parties that are called Liberals and Conservatives but I'm guessing they don't mean the same thing.

My gut feeling is that the conservatives are the republicans and those most likely to be pro-corporation and use religion heavily in their platform. So the liberals would be the democrats???

Am I even close?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-06-28/nokia-technologist-and-symbian-veteran-davies-leaves-company-for-tomtom.html

I actually called my cable provider and asked for BBC Canada so I could watch Top Gear. Found out after that BBC Canada only has re-runs. So I cancelled it and downloaded the torrents instead. I hope next season is different.

Most shows I only watch once so I'd rather pay a smaller fee for a rental of the episode and just watch it once.

What I currently is to download the first 2-3 episodes of a show on torrents and then buy the DVD season if I like it. It would be cheaper for me to be able to rent by episode and I would still get to watch them without ads at whenever I want on whatever device I want.

All the movies I have are either recorded from TV or ripped from a DVD that then sits unused in the case. This way my kids can have their movies at home both on the big tv via ps3 or on the computer screen via vlc. I can also copy them to my ipoh touch or my psp so they can watch in the car on long trips.

Why anyone would prefer DVDs is beyond me just like getting a discman in the era of the mp3 player makes no sense to me.

Now if only the media lobby would allow scientific atlanta to enable a feature to copy from my PVR to my computer I would be all set.

I know absolutely nothing of Ireland politics but it seems to me that it is the same everywhere. Invent a good story for the media to focus on and then you can let the real problems slide.

I have only seen a single news source doing stats on this and it pointed to the fact that the problem seems to discriminate by age even after accounting for age repartition among toyota owners.

It seems to me that seeing a simple review of accidents blamed on this correlated with age/country could easily disprove the whole thing unless it's a real problem. My gut tells me that somehow the problem would happen mostly to older people as 2 persons already demonstrated but also that it seems to happen mostly in the USA where the media is milking this story.

Or any other closed source company that makes a software you need/want?

I mean would you get a better charge by carrying the phone in your hand than on your belt because it moves more? Maybe even on your shoes but then picking up a call is not much fun.

They are expensive but the hierarchy is clear and they are not THAT expensive if you compare them to other PCs with exactly the same specs.

They are so good at it that each model is just a few $$$ more than the one you are looking at so that you tell yourself... mmm for just a little more money I could get that. After a few minutes you end up wanting the top of the line when the entry level would do what you need it to do :)