This is all very ridiculous and offensive. I started at 45K on a job with a startup about three years ago. I was very determined and did not stop looking for a job until I found one. Fast forward three years to today. My salary is over 150K a year in the Midwest, where the cost of living is much much lower than the coast . It takes a certain mindset to be a successful software developer. One must be determined, motivated, participate deeply in the community, take risks when they present themselves, always be eager to learn and try new things, and once again - be determined. It is not easy money, not everyone can do it, and it is one of the few fields that you are almost always utilized 100% or more. Those who think its not good money are either not intelligent enough to do it or are not determined enough to REALLY try. Oh and by the way, I'm still not finished with school and I mostly write web apps. Try again.

"It will run Windows, Linux, BSD, and Mac OS/x so if you are going multi-platform on the PC it is the way to go."

One thing about this that really bothers me:

There are many tools (many even free) that allow you to run VMs on both Linux and Windows. Yet you can't EVER run Mac legally on anything but a Mac. Why is that? Because Macs are the single most proprietary computer in existence. I'll be darned if I'd ever waste upwards of $2,000 on a machine that I could build or even purchase from another large computer manufacturer for less than $1,000 (if I build it MUCH less than). But, Apple has to make a TON of profit and charge a TON over fair market value for their hardware- or a more adequate way to look at it is they charge $1,000 for their OS because... its that good?

You can certainly count me out.

Seriously. What can't you do with Hibernate anyways? And who would actually want to write JDBC code? yuck.