ASUS Eee - deal you may know of

[Madison Kelly]

Lennart Sorensen wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 02:02:58PM -0500, Madison Kelly wrote:
>> Not to defend the Apple Air, but it does have a wired jack. It's on a 
>> hidden drop-down door on the righ-rear side.
> 
> Then why isn't this in the specs, and why does the specs suggest an
> apple usb ethernet adapter and why has no review of it ever found this
> port?  THe spec page even has "No Wi-Fi?  Connect to wired networks with
> this simple one-piece external adapter" (USB Ethernet Adapter MB442Z/A).

*shurg*... Maybe my client has an older version of it? All I know is 
that last week when I had to fix it after it barfed on an update I 
plugged in an ethernet cable.

Or had a heck of a hallucination.

> Only putting display port on the thing was another nut job move,
> although perhaps apple users never use external displays.  I did see
> recently some complaints that you can't play videos on external monitors
> if they require copyprotection, since the copyprotection doesn't work on
> vga or dvi connections only native display port.  Apparently that isn't
> going over well with some users.

That was just announced, I don't think it's on any machines in the 
market yet. However, I do think it is certainly one of the most 
boneheaded moves Apple has made.

>> Though I agree with this view 100%, I don't think it's fair to impart 
>> this on non-geeks. Many people have an unrealistic view of computer 
>> reliability. Just yesterday I had a client, whose optical drive is 
>> failing, exclaim "That happens!?" when I told her.
> 
> It is reality.  Explaining reality to people IS a good idea.  Trying to
> hide reality from people is what makes them think computers are magic
> and then get upset when they turn out not to be.
> 
>> What we need to do, as geeks, is better educate the non-geek population 
>> on the inherent lack of reliability and, thus, the need for frequent 
>> backups.
> 
> Exactly.

There has been a general trend away from "reality" and personal 
responsibility in the last twenty years. Particularly in the last ten 
years. If anything good comes out of the current social and financial 
mess, I hope it's a good date with reality.

Madi
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