Consider that the average person is not under the hood of their car every day randomly pulling on things. Consider that the average person is not attempting to perform surgery on themselves. Consider that the average person is not going around banging on all the pipes in their house and randomly turning valves. Consider that the average person doesn't go up to their breaker box with a big pair of scissors saying "What are all these wires doing? Do I need these?"

The average person should probably not even be touching a computer. Let computer people use them, the rest of the plebes can go back to paper where they could at least get work done without Facebook and YouTube.

Yes, this is why I don't let AVG use heuristics - lots of scene demos look suspicious because of packers and whatnot. Turn off heuristics and they all pass. I leave that setting for the system drive only.

My favorite "security threat" found on my PC once was in a keygen. I think it was AVG that "identified" it as "harmful" due to being a keygen. The extended details said that the "threat" to my PC was that it would allow unauthorized use of software. Oooh, scary! Also, VirusTotal is awesome.

You have to ask? Anybody who has used iTunes knows that it is the very worst example of the type of program it is. Bar none. The interface is the slowest and clunkiest I've ever seen. Did they write it in BASIC or something? That said, I like my iPod Touch, and I like apps, so I need iTunes around to deal with it. And I hate every second I am in that program. The multitude of background services it requires is also laughable, and those stay disabled on my system until I need to make changes. Then they get disabled again immediately afterward. A portion of the apps I use are on the jailbreak side fortunately, so I can use other means to deal with those at least.

Someone should have told your parents that babies do not thrive when one repeatedly drops them on their head. Oh well.

Because you are incapable of dealing with support issues on your own? That's the only conceivable reason to ignore a potentially lower price. Best Buy doesn't make them, they just sell them. If you trust the brand, and the price is right, why would you pay more for the same piece of hardware somewhere else?

I think the Courier looks awesome, and that enTourage thing looks like it's for a 5 year-old. Do I get to be branded as a shill too? Just curious is all. Let me guess, you're a shill for Apple aren't you? I can play this game too.

It was a laptop apparently. Like you're really going to build your own, AC, or can you simply not read? For the right price, if I needed a laptop, I wouldn't have a problem with getting it at Best Buy. I certainly wouldn't be looking to them for any kind of support, but I also can't remember the last time I needed any.

It made me think more of Frank Herbert's "The Jesus Incident", "The Lazarus Effect", and "The Ascension Factor". The world is even called Pandora. It's very hostile and everything will kill you, and the kelp in the sea is sentient and interconnected around the whole planet. Alpha Centauri always reminded me of Pandora too. Actually some of it I am certain was directly ripped off from the books I mention.

If everything was open sourced, there would have been no need for it in the first place since the world would run on unicorn farts and love.