4 ms·

Is this an ad or genuine? I'd trust it more if it didn't come with an amazom affiliate link.

• chj 14y ago
  Same feeling. I hate apple, but recommending a MBA clone + win8 preview is very weird. Especially the win8 part, the author didn't tell any feature that makes it a big improvement over win7. Perhaps this is not about software after all.
  • bgarbiak 14y ago
    Regarding Win8, the author did write a separate post about it: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/07/betting-the-company-on-windows-8.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/07/betting-the-company...
• jcfrei 14y ago
  yep, definitely an affiliate link. in previous posts atwood would disclose the affiliate links in the post (not sure why he didn't do so this time). amazon usually pays 4% on referrals (in this case 42$), so depending on the loyalty of his readership this "review" might be moderately lucrative.
  • brador 14y ago
    Any idea why it's on the front page? Is he using bots to juice his posts?
    • taude 14y ago
      Probably because he's a well known blogger?
      • edanm 14y ago
        In case anyone doesn't know, he's been one of the most popular Programmer bloggers for many years. He also started StackOverflow with Joel Spolsky (another very popular blogger). So his posts tend to be noticed.
    • chollida1 14y ago
      Well the perfect laptop is something most developers have an interest in, why couldn't the post have made it to the front page on its own merit?
    • deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
• damncabbage 14y ago
  He's been doing the Advertorial thing for a while now: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/06/regular-expressions-for-regular-programmers.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/06/regular-expressions... http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/03/adventures-in-rechargeable-batteries.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/03/adventures-in-recha... http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/11/coding-its-just-writing.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/11/coding-its-just-wri... http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/09/lcd-monitor-arms.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/09/lcd-monitor-arms.ht... http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/04/software-projects-as-rock-climbing.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/04/software-projects-a...
• enobrev 14y ago
  I get what you're saying, but I don't see why adding an affiliate link to an honest endorsement makes it any less honest. While I don't agree with everything Jeff has to say, I wouldn't call him a shill. His reviews have always seemed perfectly honest to me. I've even bought products he's recommended and agreed with said recommendations - not caring whether or not he made a dollar off said purchase. Isn't that the underlying reason for affiliate links? No doubt, they've obviously been bastardized in thousands of ways, but the initial reason for them was to make linking to a product mutually beneficial.
• SilasX 14y ago
  I thought it was parody, myself, because the bottom half of that laptop looks exactly like a MacBook Air, down to the arrows, slot ordering, and specs, and yet not once does he mention the "elephant in the room" of how it compares to the MB-A.