Feels like 3D Printers are making progress like mad lately.

I think it's time to get my hands on one. I will just make myself an xmas present and get a little machine to get going. Currently undecided between getting a small Printrbot for about $400 or a larger Maker Farm for about $600:

http://www.productchart.com/3d_printers/7001_vs_5881

Any suggestions for a complete beginner are welcome.

I bought the Monoprice printer: https://www.monoprice.com/product?c_id=107&cp_id=10724&cs_id...

after a modest amount of research and as a complete beginner, I've been very happy with the purchase. Prints PLA, ABS, HIPS (and probably nylon though I haven't cracked open the spool of nylon I bought yet).

Do yourself a favor and print one of these: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:23257

and buy one of these: http://www.harborfreight.com/1-inch-travel-machinists-dial-i...

That will help you level the bed as a beginner. (It gets a little easier with practice, but having numeric references helps.)

While at HF, buy http://www.harborfreight.com/pack-of-3-8-oz-storage-bottles-... as well. That will come in handy when getting ABS prints to stick (one will hold the acetone slurry, one will hold pure acetone and you have one left over)

Well, I own a printrbot simple maker's edition ( the plywood one, in short ) and one small lesson I've learned with it is this :

Go for a printer with a heated print bed : It will save you many headaches.

Without heated bed : Check if the masking tape still is good enough for a print, if not, remove it and add a few new layers, prep the tape with some glue ( Only way I get something to stick ) and let it dry a little. Then you can attempt a print.

With a heated bed : clean up the glass plate, add some polyvinyl hairspray and you're good to go!

I'll second this about the heated bed. I have the Printrbot Play and I like it but I wish it had a heated bed. I have overcome most adhesion issues by printing larger brims on small prints. Then I have to cut off the brim. This wastes filament and adds another step to the process.

Searching for 'Bitcoin' I got this bizarre message from outer space:

Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/tornado/web.py", line 1443, in _execute result = method(self.path_args, self.path_kwargs) File "application.py", line 314, in get "query": gquery File "/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 127, in urlopen return _opener.open(url, data, timeout) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 404, in open response = self._open(req, data) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 422, in _open '_open', req) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 382, in _call_chain result = func(args) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 1214, in http_open return self.do_open(httplib.HTTPConnection, req) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 1184, in do_open raise URLError(err) URLError: <urlopen error [Errno 111] Connection refused>

As I understand it, an alien called Errno refused to connect. Seems like other members of his tribe were also involved. They have strange names like Urllib, Func and Kwargs.

Bummer about the alien-speak! The problem should be fixed now ;).

The list behind that link says "LCD non-glare" but are those really matte? I see a lot of touchscreens in that list. And I have yet to see a matte touchscreen laptop.

I saw a few that were definitely not matte in there.

Would you consider the lenovo x1 carbon's or the x240's touchscreens to be matte?