Thanks for the reports. Changed jobs this year and could not go. :(

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millenium falcon?

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Man, those old systems really take me back.

I used to call that Acer Aspire case "what happened when an Acer engineer had too many beers while watching Apollo 13 one weekend". I also remember drooling over the Compaq P90 desktop when that came out, and when that SystemPro 486 was top-end hardware.

Thanks for the memories. Reminds me of the first system I actually built rather than bought (386DX/20MHz with a whopping huge 8MB of RAM and 106GB hard disk).

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106MB hard disk?

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Thanks for the article!

This content protection BS is making me seriously consider other software (and possibly hardware) platforms. While Linux would be ok for most of what I do, it lacks a bit on the digital imaging side (no easy, fast, and reliable way to run the latest version of Photoshop). Does anyone know what Apple's stance on hardware content "protection" is?

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that alphastation was ridiculously faster and less expensive than the 486 server, and yet alpha died. RIP alpha

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My personal experience is that most consumers don't really give a damn about the interests of the content providers and are, when the opportunity exists, unapologetic theives. Remove limits on content access (via the 'net), limits on quality (via digital copying), and limits from technical ability (via easy to use programs), and everyone and their grandma are perfectly happy to never purchase "content" again.

I'm continually surprised to see content providers so maligned for trying to protect their material from copying. We've seen what happens when the barriers to theft get drastically lowered, and what happens is the providers take it in the ass.

The existence of iTunes isn't proof that people "want" to pay for content, it's evidence that people really like easy to use software with slick functionality. And maybe even proof that lawsuits really do scare people into taking the legal route. If an illegal but free version of iTunes existed with the same ease-of-use, speed, iPod integration, availability to the clueless masses, and if on top of that there were no threats of legal recourse -- how popular would the legal, pay-per-song version be?

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If Longhorn has media protection in it, I won't use it. Period. And that's not because I use illegal downloads. I just don't want someone to tell me I can't rip my CD and play it back on my iRiver.

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#7 a law that is unenforceable is not a legitimate law

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Can Iwatch TV dad? Hang on while I go through the menu system to set it up for you whilst I play these tunes in the bathroom record that HDTV program to hard disk. Save that film on the DVD brecorder and.........f*ck whats that blue screen for?

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