OT: Can someone help me pick out a desktop machine?

[Eric Smith]

Dan Gahlinger wrote:
 > The only basic recommendation I can make is, make sure it has an AMD cpu.
 > Now, before this gets into another CPU flame war,
 > Intel has for a while decided that the users/owners rights don't matter,
 > it's DRM (digital rights management) all the way for them,

In case anyone might think that this is only Dan's opinion, I would 
point out that Intel actually publicly stated this as their position:

"The actual user of the PC -- someone who can do
anything they want -- is the enemy."
           -- David Aucsmith of Intel, quoted by Robert Lemos in
              "The biggest security threat: You", ZDNet, 26-FEB-1999

Aside from that, I prefer systems with AMD processors because all AMD 
desktop processors have support for ECC memory, while Intel mostly 
reserves that for its more expensive Xeon brand, and few Intel "Core" 
processors have it.