Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] good gift for your favorite geek...

[Jonathan King <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On 12/1/05, Shawn Parker <EMAIL:PROTECTED> wrote:
> http://www.projectblackdog.com/index.html
>
> that looks bad ass. i'm thinking about making it 'my christmas gift.'
> from my wife.

Cute, but there are problems:

1) Only 64 MB of real RAM; yeah, it can have 512 MB of flash, but that's
    presumably what you use for user files plus your need to swap on this thing.
2) no networking of its own, apparently.
3) Requires XP or Linux (due I guess to (2)).
4) Price uncompetitive with a lot of things, I think.

So, for example, you can get the (surely not underpriced) Mac mini
with 512 MB of RAM (which you can expand), a real hard disk, real
networking, real graphics, and a CD burner for under $500.  And if
Linux is your game, you can have that on it instead of Mac OS X (or
along side it).  It's a bit bigger and heavier than this thing, but
not much.  The BlackDog thing does have some neat features of course
(runs off of USB alone is pretty spiff).  Apple is moving to Intel
more rapidly than expected, and it's believed that an updated mini
will be released next month for probably less money than the current
model.  I'm guessing that somebody has (by now) an extremely small
form factor cheap PC you could use for this, too.

jking

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