I really want a WindowsRT device with a stylus as I want to take it to meetings and draw. Unfortunately seems like all Windows tablets with a stylus are Intel ones. As for legacy apps it doesn't bother me really, WinRT has a remote desktop app which is excellent especially if logging into a Windows 8 machine (then you get remotefx connection). I will just use that for legacy apps. Has anyone been able to try a RemoteApp file rather than a full remote desktop? Not usr eif it works, but would be great if you could use remote apps on the WinRt desktop.

Thanks for the tip I had one dell 27" IPS monitor and two cheap 24" in portrait. Just gone and bought two korean panels I went with ones that have displayport, HDMI and some other connectors, a little more but worth it for me. If they work well I may sell my Dell and get another save myself some money as the sale of the Dell is probably equivalent to two of these at least. Have you tried them in portrait mode some people prefer the side monitors in portrait?

I didn't notice any particularly bright LCD's until a couple of years ago. I don't know if that is just the evolution of the technology or that I am buying higher up the range than I used to when I was a poor student. My Apple Cinema display on full brightness actually hurts my eyes until I adjust to it. Obviously I don't keep it at that level, my HP envy laptop is much the same. They boast about the screens but full brightness is ridiculous.

Jeff have you considered after market fans/heatsinks for your GPU's. I can't tell if they are already or not, your image looks like it has heat pipes sticking out but i'm not sure if they were part of the normal 5870. I have a single 6950 flashed bios to be a 6970 it was just too noisy with the small fans though. I added a Thermalright Shaman heatsink and fan (14 cm fan) and now its virtually silent especially as I reduce the PWm fan speed and still cooler. Admittedly this takes a third available PCI space but the difference is incredible compared to stock. Not sure if you could fit two cards in though even blocking all your PCI/PCI-express spaces. Think we need better motherboard and case designs for GPU's to be honest we shouldn't have to block expansion ports so often.

"I just bought a Radeon 6870 and that low 37.3 benchmark score makes me think I should take it back and get something else. " The 6870 is no slouch. If you look at the chart this is at 2560x1600 resolution with max settings. I doubt if you are on a budget you have a monitor at that resolution. Also the chart is mainly SLI/CF configurations. The GTX 580 is the fastest single card for this particular game and still only manages 57 fps. If you feel you must get a better card I would look at a HD6950 these have the same hardware as a HD6970. A firmware modification can swap it for you and unlock the extra processing free of charge. Nice little trick.

I agree with the sentiment and this has always put me off developing anything for iOS. Well that and the fact you have to write in objective-c or something that will compile into it. I don't see iOS as solely an operating system though. It is more an appliance, out of the box you are getting a set of applications to achieve the common tasks you will use your phone/tablet for. They continually add features they find people will commonly use who's ideas no doubt come from other apps and operating systems. Microsoft got all the anti-trust issues because at the time there was a clear cut what an OS should be and what it shouldn't. Since then Linux distributions and OS X have started to contain everything you need for a full computing experience, the lines are blurred much more than before. Can you imagine getting an OS without a web browser built in now. I can't see Microsoft getting into legal issues again now the competition bundles so much together.

I used to really love Windows Media Center but it has failed to update over the last few years as technology has moved on. At this point we should have really cheap extenders that have the full functionality of media center desktop. Extenders in their current form are half baked at best. Good to see so many people using XBMC its a great project and there is some very low power hardware available to run it now. Apple TV 2 being one of them although only at 720p hopefully Apple TV 3 will up this and it will be the perfect silent XBMC hardware.

If you have the money why not. I have 12gb in my i7 and it works great when I need to use a virtual machine or two. Not needed more than that yet. Future proof not so much though the main thing with memory now is speed not capacity as we can afford capacity. The ram you bought runs at 1333Mhz this is pretty standard. But its pretty common to get 1600Mhz ram especially for i7's and OCing you can even go as high as 2200. I can see you having a ddr3 upgrade for faster ram before the move to ddr4.

@Matthew Ishii me too anything that requires me to create a login for very basic things like forum posting, blog posting... I just don't care if someone hacks it I have given no real personal information the most they will get is my email address. For important things email, paypal, email , bank... secure all the way.

@Flavius Chis you have no idea what you are talking about. The Intel ones have a Sata 2 (3 gigabit) interface and pretty much max it out on sequential read. The C300 has a Sata 3 (6 gigabit) interface and is implemented well enough to use some of that extra bandwidth. Also the read rate is based on the interface quality not drive size for instance intels for sata 2 is pretty good it has a good size cache and 10 parallel channels meaning it is reading from ten places in memory. The value ones being cheaper use less channels and that is why they are slower. When intel later this year bring out their new X25's with a sata 6 interface and small processing node (sub 25nm) and whatever other speed improvements no doubt they will be top of the list again.

Among other things http://www.supertalent.com/products/stt_usb_detail.php?type=Pico# really tiny usb drive. http://www.trueutility.com/pocket-tools-store/true-utility-tu45-keyring-system.html key organizer. Works great I like the bit that holds your keys flat against each other, keeps them small in your pocket and it has easy disconnects for other things. They have some other cool stuff on the website too like a cash stash for attaching emergency money onto your keys.

The different ports are very annoying there is currently no out and out best between displayport and HDMI. Display port has the most bandwidth and therefor supports higher resolutions at higher framerates this may be important in 3D TV (120hz). It is also usable internally for things like laptops, has an ethernet channel but doesn't have an audio return channel (for tv to av receiver or similar), xvYCC colour space or Consumer Electronics Control signals. Things that HDMI has. HDMI being more expensive on royalties and manufacture however and not usable internally.