"Compiled by more than 300 scientists from 48 countries, including Canada ..." Hmm. I can't tell if the inclusion of Canadian scientists in the 300 is supposed to make me more or less skeptical.

We've had good success with the following at each location:

- Mac Mini

- DVI Splitter (active not a simple cable -- bought ours at Fry's)

- Wacom Intuos (integrated tablet and video monitor -- the smaller model is recommended)

- DVI Projector (Sharp Electronics WXGA 2500) + screen

- Polycomm conference phone (new model with the cellphone noise-cancelling)

It's hard to have a technical conversation without a whiteboard, and while webex/dimdim/vyew/etc. have shared whiteboard apps, trying to draw with a mouse on a pad DOWN THERE while looking UP HERE while discussing your topic is just too danged disruptive (like trying to walk while rubbing your belly and patting your head). Drawing right on the "whiteboard" (screen) with a stylus removes most of the cognitive friction.

The only tricky bit is that you really need to project the screen if you'll ever have more than one person in the room. An *active* DVI splitter (passive cabling won't work) does the trick, but you have to ensure that the Mac only "sees" the Wacom monitor initially when it sets up it's display modes. Every time we have a power outage, we need to temporarily unplug the projector from the splitter then force the Mac to re-discover its displays (the Wacom needs the Mac to have the display resolution exactly right). It's also necessary to get a decent projector that can sync to the Wacom's resolution (we use the Sharp Electronics WXGA 2500 which has been terrific).

The biggest complaint: "too loud of fans"

Unfortunately it adds cost to remove noise (sigh) but I'm quite pleased with the way my last home-built PC came out. Nice fast box with raid-striped drives and far, far less noise than any other PC in my house (or at work for that matter).

Check out QuietPC.com -- they are a Canadian company but they recently added online ordering in the US and UK. The "flower cooler" for my AMD Athlon XP 1900+ works like a champ. Took a few days longer to receive the stuff I ordered from QuietPC than it did to get the stuff I ordered at the same time from Googlegear, but I live a lot closer to Googlegear.