Base 20″ iMac
Processor: 2.66Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory: 2GB 1066 DDR3
Video: Integrated GeForce 9400M
Hard Drive: 320GB SATA
Monitor: Integrated 20″ LCD
Other features: Keyboard, Mouse, DVD Burner, Mac OS 10.5
Price: $1199

Fully Loaded 24″ iMac
Processor: 3.06Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory: 8GB 1066 DDR3
Video: ATi Radeon 4850 512MB
Hard Drive: 1TB SATA
Monitor: Integrated 24″ LCD
Other features: Keyboard, Mouse, DVD Burner, Mac OS 10.5
Price: $3249

Now, Mac OS 10.5 retails for $129, the Mighty Mouse and Apple Keyboard retail for $49 each. So we’ll round this up to $230 and credit each iMac. This gives us adjusted prices of

Base 20″ iMac
Original Price: $1199
OS/Accessory Credit: $230
Adjusted Price: $969

Fully Loaded 24″ iMac
Original Price: $3249
OS/Accessory Credit: $230
Adjusted Price: $3119

Now, for comparision, I’ve composed 2 systems from parts at Newegg.com. For each I’ve tried for a rough approximation of the hardware in the iMac. I’ve created “Wish Lists” for each to share them.

20″ dwotMock
Processor: 2.8Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory: 2GB 1066 DDR3
Video: GeForce 9400 GT 512MB*
Hard Drive: 320GB SATA
Monitor: Acer 20″ Widescreen LCD
Other features: DVD Burner, MicroATX Motherboard, MicroATX Case, 500W Power Supply, no OS
Price: $629.91

24″ dwotMock
Processor: 3.06 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
Memory: 8GB 1066 DDR3
Video: ATI Radeon 4850 512MB
Hard Drive: 1TB SATA
Monitor: Acer 24″ Widescreen LCD
Other features: DVD Burner, MicroATX Motherboard, MicroATX Case, 500W Power Supply, no OS
Price: $1005.90

Savings over Adjusted Price

20″ dwotMock vs 20″ iMac
$339.09

24″ dwotMock vs 24″ iMac
$2113.10

Verdict? Well there’s certain concessions to be made, for certain. System building may not be for everyone, though it is certainly more simple that most would imagine. It’s not without it’s challenges, no one enjoys DOA parts and not everyone can troubleshoot a build gone bad. Off the shelf systems like the Mac often come with support, which I suppose someone has found useful sometime, though I couldn’t provide any evidence to support that conjecture.

There’s also the issue of Mac OS. No Apple Hardware, no Mac OS, right? Not quite. While Apple has certainly made their position clear with litigation, Macs run on standard hardware and there is an active underground scene dedicated to running Mac OS on non Apple hardware. It may not be for the Technophobe, but it’s certainly not impossible. Check out Lifehacker’s amazing Hackintosh guides.

That said, the 20″ dwotMock / iMac showdown gives the dwotMock a $339 edge, or 35% of the adjusted price. System building certainly has some financial benefit.

The 24″ dwotMock / iMac matchup, however, is a blow out. The dwotMock’s $2,113.10 edge is 68% of the loaded iMac’s price. For the cost of a loaded iMac you could build 3 equally spec’d PCs.

Check back later this week for our Mac Mini comparison.

With the weekend now gone, it’s time to recap what we saw at PAX08.

PAX was, in short, fucking amazing.  Ken Levine of BioShock fame lead things off with a tremendous Key Note, audio available at Joystiq on what it was that all brought us to Seattle.  As Ken put it, we’re all just a bunch of fucking nerds.  PAX is a nerd mecca, with panels, concerts and guests tailored to the nerdish pallette.

Following Ken’s were Gabe and Tycho, the Kings of PAX and creative geniuses behind Penny Arcade.  They announced the date and location of the new PAX flavor, PAX East Coast, to grace the fine city of Boston in March of 2010.  This is certainly excellent news as cross-country trips to Seattle are not trivial for East Coasters such as myself.

Aside from the Ken’s kick-off, the Penny Arcade Panel with Gabe and Tycho, and concerts, most of my time was spent wandering the show’s floor playing whatever games I could get my grubby hands on.  Left 4 Dead, Fallout 3, Starcraft 2, Wrath of the Lich King, Champions Online, Resistance 2, Red Faction, Rock Band 2, Guitar Hero World Tour, Dead Space and numerous other upcoming titles were represented in delicious playable form.

Certainly the stand-out game was Left 4 Dead.  Left 4 Dead was playable on the 360 platform for those who braved the lines, which seemed interminable for the entiriety of the con, whoever, I doubt any who did were disappointed.  In fact I overheard numerous attendees planning to wait through the lines again for another brief taste.  It was that good.  The game, in case you are unfamiliar, pits you and your co-op cohorts as 4 survivors against the odds in a genuine zombie apocalypse.  However, these are no Romero stumbling, fumbling brain-dead zombies, but more the fast and deadly 28 Days Later variety, with some interesting mutations.  Wandering around the level with 3 other survivors, outfitted with Molotov Cocktails, Firearms and Med Packs, we hardly progressed a few short blocks before one of us nudged a parked car setting off an alarm and triggering a zombie blitz.  This game is challenging, creepy and a fucking blast.  This will be another hit for Valve.

Fallout 3, as well, will certainly be a hit.  The game oozes depth and complexity, and frankly that may be a bit much to try to wrangle with in one small demo play.  Plot, world size and variety, and other such lofty elements are far behind the scope of what one can glean from 15 minutes or so, so it was mostly game mechanics that were on display.  The world seemed open and ready to have it’s every ruined building and mutated landscape explored and it’s secrets revealed.  This should be a tremendous game, perhaps along the lines of Oblivion, who it shares an engine with.  Even in the short demo there were many paths to travel, although most players I observed made it little past the opening village as they immediately started a firefight with the locals.

Red Faction and Resistance were admirable console shooters, accessible and entertaining.  Red Faction’s backpack powerups seemed reminisicent of Tribes, an FPS I hold in high esteem.  Rock Band 2 appeared to correct many shortcomings and annoyances of it’s previous incarnation, building on an already stable platform.  Guitar Hero is of couse playing catch up, but World Tour appears poised to balance the scales.  It’s nice to see Guitar Hero actually evolve rather than just regurgitate the same game with new songs and a new goofy theme.  Gears of War 2 appeared to be more of what made Gears of War a blast, some kick-ass multiplayer.  I actually got a chance to play it against the guys from the Totally Rad Show, who cut to the front of the line, but fortunately not the front of the line I was in.  Always fun when you can chainsaw gun some internet celebrities.

The concerts of PAX were a mixed bag.  Although Freezepop seemed to have a following, I could have done without their dual keytar over synthesized sound.  Jonathan Coulton and the OneUps put on a hell of a show.  I only caught bits and pieces of the Saturday night shows as I was enjoying some dinner and some Rock Band free play.

And that’s roughly it.  Be sure to check out the photo galleries of those who take far better (and more) photos than I, some of the cosplay was truly outstanding.  Hit the links below to check out more info.

Kotaku’s Omega PAX Post
Kotaku’s Cosplay Gallery
Joystiq’s Cosplay Gallery Day 1 & Day 2 & Day 3
Joystiq’s PAX Posts

Tradition requires that every ended lapse in posting be preceded by the obligatory apologies and assurances that the updates will again flow and order has been restored.  Inevitably, these promises are proven false over time, but for a while, we lie to ourselves and pretend that dwot is back for good.  This post will have to cover for the most recent lapse in content.  Then gentle prodding of a formal request for updates has stirred the mighty dwot from it’s slumber.  Let’s see how far it rumbles before ceding to it’s slothful ways again.  Enjoy the ride.  And thanks for the kick LdL

Juno – Oscar winner for best writing, stars Ellen Page and Michael Cera in the funniest move about teen pregnancy in recent memory.  Directed by Jason Reitman, who also directed the brilliant Thank You for Smoking.  A great movie, worth a trip to the rental store.

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead – Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman are brothers plotting to rob the family jewelry store when all goes awry.  Pulled a 7.9 on IMDB and an 88% on Rotten Tomatoes.   Certainly worthy of a watch.

Also out this week, Aliens vs Predator: Requiem, Lars and the Real Girl, and In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, if you’re into crappy monster movie mash-up sequels, goofy indie-flicks about love dolls or wretched Uwe Boll abominations, respectively.

New Movies

88 Minutes – The director of Fried Green Tomatoes and the writer of Hollow Man, The Fast and the Furious and Timecop 2 bring you Al Pacino overacting for oh, 88 Minutes or so while trying to solve his own murder.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall – The writer behind Fun with Dick and Jane makes his directorial debut with Forgetting Sarah Marshall, starring Jason Segel and Mila Kunis.

The Forbidden Kingdom – Jet Li and Jackie Chan with a mop on his head team up with an American teen obsessed with Kung Fu to free the imprisoned Monkey King.

Television

South Park – Wed @ 10PM on Comedy Central
After last week’s New England Patriot-bashing episode, I’m not so sure about this season of South Park.  We’ll see what’s in store on Wednesday.

My Name is Earl, The Office (and 30 Rock, Scrubs) – Thurs @ 8PM on NBC
Earl and the Office continue with new episodes this Thursday.

Doctor Who – Friday @ 8PM on SciFi
The US Series 4 of Doctor Who starts this week with the Christmas episode Voyage of the Damned, guest starring Kylie Minogue.  Not a bad episode and certainly a welcome return.

Battlestar Galactica – Friday @ 10PM on SciFi
Season 4 continues with the Cylons recently starting a bit of a civil war.  Also, who the frak else is a cylon?

Video Games

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (PS3)
Gran Turismo sees something of an interim release with Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, bringing the popular racing series to the PS3 with full high-definition, sure to impress.

Rainbow Six Vegas 2 (PC) / Turok (PC)
Two recent console releases make their PC debut.  Turok brings you dinosaurs in space, Rainbow Six brings terrorists to Las Vegas.

Okami (Wii)
The PS2 action-adventure title set in classical Japan gets ported to the Wii, bringing a solidly reviewed title to Nintendo’s title-starved platform.

The Shipyard Brewery in Portland, ME has a solid line-up of brews, including this week’s Beer of the Week, Old Thumper.  Old Thumper is an ESB, or Extra Special/Strong Bitter.  Here’s what Shipyard has to say:

Old Thumper Extra Special Ale was created in 1979 by veteran British brewer, Peter Austin, foundr of the Ringwood Brewery in Hampshire England and mentor to Shipyard’s master brewer, Alan Pugsley. A British Grand Champion beer, Old Thumper is a non-traditional English Bitter, brewed in the United STates soley by the Shipyard Brewing Company.

Pulling in a B at BeerAdvocate, Old Thumper is no slouch, having won several awards, including Best in Show at the 2004 LA County Fair.  Track some down this weekend and enjoy, it’s a perfect brew for watching the Sox trounce the Yankees.  Happy Weekend!

The Final Beta of Firefox 3 dropped last week and I wholeheartedly recommend picking it up to everyone who uses a web browser, whoever the hell that might be.  Firefox 3 adds updated page rendering, improved memory handling, tighter integration with the Look and Feel of the operating system, a revamped download manager, and a wealth of other improvements.  In non-web-geek talk, it runs better, eats less memory and looks prettier.  It installs fairly well in parallel to Firefox 2 on Windows at least which makes it a fairly low-risk install if you don’t feel it’s ready for you yet.  Also, be sure to check out Lifehacker’s awesome Field Guide to Testing Firefox 3

Get Firefox Beta 3

#10 Bernie & Phyl’s Furniture

Which one is Bernie?  Which one is Phyl?  WTF are they saying?

#9 Dr. Credit

I’m not sure, but I don’t think Dr. Credit finished Med school.

#8 ETZ Video

Where’s my rocket tricycle?

]]> http://www.dwot.com/2008/04/08/top-10-annoying-local-commercials/feed/ 0 http://www.dwot.com/2008/04/07/podcast-pick-webbalert/ http://www.dwot.com/2008/04/07/podcast-pick-webbalert/#comments Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:19:24 +0000 shea http://www.dwot.com/?p=176

Like Tech News?  Enjoy snarky commentary?  Can’t get enough Morgan Webb?  Well WebbAlert is certainly for you.  With a new episode roughly 80% of weekdays, WebbAlert is a great tech news podcast providing headlines, insight and commentary about all the important or at least interesting or humourous tech news of the day.  X-Play co-host Morgan Webb delivers what you need in about 5 minutes each episode with mild commercial interruption.  Certainly a worthy and informative way to waste a little time each day.

WebbAlert
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