cyrnel

"Want" is the word. They've had a fairly religious thing about Firewire for years. I remember Intel execs ranting at tradeshows as if 1394 was an evil communist technology. It's always been treated as the neighbor's child.

Anyway, agreed on the FW400 ports. ExpressCard/34, eSATA, whatever is better for the high-speed stuff. Small portable devices and legacy things can use fw400 or USB, or possibly transplant into a faster enclosure. Oh, for a native eSATA laptop port.

I keep thinking it's time to get back into Macs.

Oh, and I know you know but to be fair about the reliability and ODM thing, there are different levels of quality within each ODM lineup. None are perfect but I like to think Apple is a little more careful about spec'ing their low-end machines than some vendors.

Now will someone please justify my buying a MacBook?

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There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195