All my teens I grew up hearing that America is a free country but what I see today is exactly opposite. A guy can loose 10 years of his life for modifying a circuit ? And the homeland security is after a college guy instead of chasing a criminal ? Clearly this seems to be an act written by a manger who is trying to spoil others lives just to save his high paying job... or homeland security guys are getting scared of being laid off in times of recession so they are running after low hanging fruit like college kids to rake up brownie points in the eyes of seniors ? I cannot understand how can people accept DMCA, something that takes away your freedom. You paid full price for the hardware and you are not allowed to modify it, why ? If this violates the guarantee/warranty I can understand but sracthing the itch becomes a crime can only be classified as blunder by the lawmakers. Each innovation is a modification of an existing design/solution and now laws are being passed not to allow anyone to touch the stuff... If I am not allowed to modify the device that means I am renting the device and I should not be paying full price... this also means manufacturer should take the device back when I am not interested in using it... Looking at so many copyright/DMCA related issues I seriously thinking if the dark age is returning ? You pay full price for something but you dont own it... This is outright stupid... the matter of fact is innovation is dying from US and business are trying to hide behind stupid methods to keep themselves profitable. What is more shocking here is that lawmakers are helping these rich guys and blocking innovation. As if we did not have enough stupid patents to prevent development of lots of new technologies in US, we now have DMCA, RIAA, MPAA and what not. Is the era of freedom ending ? Are we moving from freedom to control ?

So you can have a settlement clause that will block the consumer from suing at a later stage but ordering a family to remain shut about the terms of settlement is just going overboard. I am using apple for long time myself and sometimes the policies are more frustrating than microsoft. The most frustrating is the iphone/ipod which is locked down so badly that I as an owner of device cant utilize the full potential of the device As for customer service I had bad experiences with Apple. Once the hinges of a macbook gave up within 3 weeks of purchase under normal use and apple refused to replace saying they dont cover 'accidental' damage, whereas the laptop never moved an inch from my table. The hinges gave up just by opening and closing of the screen. The replacement came after I informed the customer care about my decision to move to consumer court. Overall I will do my best to avoid apple where ever I can :) But that is a personal opinion and others might had good experiences...

Someone ask these idiots when you are willing to allow the usage without royalty why on this earth you want a patent on it ? Why cant we modify the law to ensure that any patented technology can be used without royalty when it becomes part of an open standard ? Infact the US patent law allows government to use any technology without paying patent fees to anyone, so why cant the same be applied to open standards which are going to be useful for a wider number of humans on this earth ? This seems to be the Exterminate phase of standard microsoft policy of 'Embrace extend exterminate'.

Apple is known to be arrogant and have a 'screw they customer' policy in place for years. Now they are only extending that policy to refund a minuscule amount that wont even buy lunch to Steve jobs. Why on this earth will a company want the consumer to be silent for rest of the life for asking a refund of a defective piece ? Is there anything called consumer protection law in America ?

I find all the discussion on RIAA cases totally useless. We have seen that in every case RIAA manages to have a pro copyright judge/jury and ensure a decision in lower court that will favor RIAA. The root cause for this is money, the greed that drives RIAA. When you buy music the artist gets only a tiny fraction and most goes into the pockets of those who are already rich. Who decides the cost of a music album ? Has RIAA published any mechanism to for deciding the price of music album ? RIAA knows that they can sell stuff at whatever price they want to with no one to question. Nothing wrong is charging a premium when you sell good stuff but the problem is most of the music sold by RIAA is sub standard. The real cause of falling sales is the bad quality of the music being produced by RIAA. We listen to the tacks once or twice and throw it away. The music doesnot have a shelf life anymore. Neither technology (DRM) not legal battles can improve the sales of the music industry as long as they are not producing good music. If we as consumers stop buying this sub standard music there is hardly anything RIAA can do, they will not be left with many options other than producing good music. All other things seems futile to me as RIAA has money and lawyer muscles to bend things the way they want to. Instead of fighting we can always ignore them and take them out by not buyng the crap shit they are selling...

Firstly I cant understand why you need cad for circuit simulation. As for pure cad we use BRLcad and it is industrial quality for sure. Pentagan uses it too.