[geeks] can't wait for Vista

[Mike Meredith]

On Tue, 7 Nov 2006 23:27:20 -0500, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> Tue, 07 Nov 2006 @ 22:48 +0000, Mike Meredith said:
> > I've seen good and bad Dells too. As it happens, at work we happen
> > to have a recent high end Dell (an accidental freebie) which has an
> > obviously cheap and nasty case. 
> 
> Which model was this?

Well I thought it was a Precision 690 but the Dell site shows a
different case (white instead of black) so either I'm mistaken or Dell
have realised the error of their ways and changed the case.

For the record, the case looked ok until you opened the system up when
you realised that the door that opened was :-

a) Real flimsy

b) Was difficult to close again

c) You are supposed to turn the system on it's side to open the door
  (when some of the problems would be less painful). For such a large
  system, turning it on it's side is something to be avoided whenever
  possible.

> My argument regarding Apple though is similar: If I'm paying that kind
> of money for a system, I should have a good selection of video cards
> and other more flexible hardware options.

I guess Apple just aren't used to selling systems with so many
possible choices. I don't know about Apple, but I do know that the Sun
site doesn't actually list all the possibilities ... by hassling Sun
directly you have a better choice.

> For my own machines, I use things like Lian-Li aluminum cases with my
> own modifications and some third party stuff.

I'd probably go with Lian-Li if I was into building the thing
myself, but frankly given that I'm jumping ship from SGI to PCs, I just
don't have enough parts to make building from scratch worthwhile.

-- 
Mike Meredith (http://zonky.org/)
 Power corrupts; Powerpoint corrupts absolutely.
 -- Vint Cerf