stilldavid

I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at here. Should we stop selling Arduinos because they can be programmed for nefarious purposes, in addition to lowering the barrier to entry for embedded electronics in the classroom? How about spools of wire because wire can be made a part of something far more sinister than we can imagine? Should Apple stop selling the iPhone because it's also bluetooth-enabled?

I understand where you're coming from, but think it's entirely ungrounded in this case. We actively work with the DHS on export control. There is a very real risk involved in selling the products we do, but I don't think that should stop us from our goal of education and - right there at the bottom of every page on our site - sharing ingenuity.

This is not the first time[1] we've had issues with our products showing up in the news for less than stellar reasons - luckily nothing as awful as an explosive device. As Nate said in the article, we know our parts can be used for good or for evil. If only there was less of the latter...

[1] http://www.sparkfun.com/news/308

Maybe check out: http://svbtle.com/

It's been many years since I've used Windows, but that's one thing that always bugged me. In XP, you could (with the window in question in focus, using alt+tab if necessary) Alt+Space, M (move), then use the arrows to position the window where you'd like - no mouse needed.

Funny what we remember.

We've got an issue in our application routing that redirects to non-ssl for tutorials, which sometimes breaks HTTPSEverywhere. If you're using it, whitelist sparkfun.com and give it another go.

"Receives more than 1 billion searches per day" ... "Google receives 88 billion searches per month".

Not necessarily wrong, but I wonder about their data. Then claiming "103 megawatts can power 80,000 homes for one month"? Do they mean MWh?

Not to be nit-picky, but do you really mean 0.03 cents, or 0.03 dollars on the Slingshot Labs slide?

Almost 100% identical to what SparkFun did a year ago: http://sprkfn.com/n305

The inventor's kit is really great if you are getting started or re-started. If you've got a specific project in mind you want to work on, I'd highly recommend any of the Arduino "shields" that match your project. We (and others) have them with GPS, LCDs, an Ethernet stack, GSM modules, wifi -- you name it. It keeps the simplicity of the Arduino platform, but lets you play with more advanced stuff.

I work for SparkFun and feel the same way: there is simply never enough time for projects :) I was just talking to marketing to see if I could get a HN discount code if anyone wants to play with an Arduino for the first time. If you're interested shoot me an email and I'll see if I can convince them; dave@sparkfun.com

To put my two cents in on the antenna issue, I believe that Gruber is just saying it how it is in this case. I have an iPhone 4, and nearly everyone that sees it asks me about reception issues. I've talked on it for a total of probably 4 hours now, in various locations with various signal strength and have had no issues with dropped calls or reduced reception of any sort. During many of the longer calls, I've tried holding the phone upside down, bridging all the metal gaps, left handed, right handed, etc... and it made no difference.

So call him "optimistic" in his analysis, but if his experience is anything like mine, he is right to be wary of all the reports of the "death grip" as much as I am.

... is still not quite $899, the floor of the expectations.

Another nod for the Dell Mini-10. I bought it with Ubuntu preinstalled, but wound up swapping Netbook Remix for a plain install of Karmic. With Google Chrome running fullscreen, it's a very usable and capable web browsing machine, but I echo Steve's comments about trying to do any real coding on it.

6-Cell battery is worth it, the keyboard is well laid-out and decently large, and I went with the 32 Gig SSD so I don't have to worry about bumping it during operation. It's a bit unnerving hitting the power button waiting for the comforting hum of starting up, as the whole system is passively cooled and makes zero noise.

My main gripe is that it's near impossible to click and drag on the small touchpad with the integrated button.