John Sciacca

As a custom installer, I find that education is one of my main jobs. Every day, people come into my shop seeking advice on how best to spend their A/V dollars. And whether their budget is $1,000 or $100,000, they want to be sure they're getting the best bang for their buck.

Like most S&V readers, I was excited by January's feature story called "50 Greatest A/V Innovations." How could any red-blooded techie not be sucked in by a title like that? But, as with all lists, this one included and excluded some choices that were debatable - and I'm going to weigh in on one of the biggest omissions.

Oil is more than $100 a barrel. Gas is already $4 a gallon in some cities. Subprime mortgages are causing stock-market freefalls. And it's getting to where you can't glance at the news without hearing about a recession.

Whether your music arrives via ripping, streaming, or downloading, it's not difficult to see that hard drives have won the music-storage battle - and it's easy to see why. Once music has been rejiggered into handy data files, so much more can be done with it beyond being able to carry 10,000 songs in your pocket.