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Microsoft Attempts to Woo Students With 'Crowdsourced' Laptops
theodp writes "Q. What do Chris Brown and Steve Ballmer have in common? A. They both want you to Beg for It. GeekWire reports that Microsoft is touting its new Chip In program, a crowdfunding platform that allows students to 'beg' for select Windows 8 PCs and tablets that they can't afford on their own. Blair Hanley Frank explains, 'Students go to the Chip In website and choose one of the 20 computers and tablets that have been pre-selected by Microsoft. Microsoft chips in 10% of the price right off the bat, and then students are given a link to a "giving page" to send out to anyone they think might give them money. Once their computer is fully funded, Microsoft ships it to them.' Hey, what could go wrong?"
Then I don't think anyone wants one. Begging and debasing yourself for a computer makes sense, if you really need one. Doing it for a computer that suffers from delusions of being a tablet? What's the point?
Can we just beg for them to:
Remove Windows 8 from a laptop we already bought
Make Windows 8 and 8.1 (so basically 8.2) not suck so badly
or just beg for them to stop begging us to beg them for Windows 8 machines.
Who in their right minds wants a Windows 8 laptop ?
I'd rather have a damp pizza.
Of course... On x86 you can disabled it with a BIOS setting (okay, technically "EFI setting"). For now I haven't seen one that didn't allow it. It's sometimes pretty hard to get into the BIOS, but hey, once you're in, you're in.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Not that I claim it isn't a problem. SecureBoot is a BIG problem, but for now, they let us work around it.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
So it's a 10% discount for spamming your contact list
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
This almost reminds me of all those e-mails from way back when that say if you forward the e-mail to 10 or so friends, Bill Gates will send you a free PC. I'm already very suspect of any e-mail asking for money, even if it is from someone I know.
You could end up with a laptop with Windows 8 on it.
...but it really doesn't help when this kind of project tries to get people to turn it into spam. Want to drive your early 1980s Vanagon through China on the Silk Road, and write a book about the experience? Good project for crowdsourcing (but didn't make its kickstarter goal). Want to record an album with your band or film a documentary on something super-nerdy? By all means give it a shot.
Poor student wanting to buy a device Microsoft picked for you? Just makes the whole concept of crowdsourcing look like what it is: begging. The appeal of crowdsourcing, in my opinion, is that if the project succeeds, something fun, interesting, or exciting gets brought back that the people who helped it happen get to enjoy. Not just the person who gathered the funds.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Free laptops is the way to go....
So it was true! Shopes was wtrong.
Glad I wasn't the only one to instantly make that connection. :D
Install windows on my workstation? You crazy? Got any idea how much I paid for the damn thing?
1. microsoft already enjoys lock-in at most universities and private colleges. shit like outlook and sharepoint has unfortunately shoved years of well-maintained unix to the roadside in an effort for universities to seem more cutting edge. protracted multi-month outages (ahem, University of Kentucky) requiring expensive consultants drive alongside patch tuesday now in the race to time best wasted.
2. 90% of the engineering labs, the ones we slashdotters fondly pine for, are sadly Microsft lock stock and barrel. each desltop basically exists as a $500 PuTTY workstation.
id be willing to guess microsoft is trying to reduce the amount of apple on campus. in the arm and in the backpack of millions of students rests the most egregious chunk of the student loan, the macbook. Microsoft wants that few inches of space so badly they can taste the sweat off steves greasy forehead, but theyve failed catastrophically in the past and if history is any indicator, this will just serve to ever cement microsoft as the spreadsheet king. the Zune was a godless abortion, the netbook was an underpowered way to piss off university hackers, and the tablets are about the only thing left until you realize apple has been doing it better for years. Now we're going for the laptops...and its worth noting most $college macbooks run XP or 7 so as to comply with university requirements for courseware. Make no mistake however, they roll back over to mac whenever theres a party and someone needs to fire up a jukebox playlist fitting for kegstands.
making college kids beg wont work. at the end of the day sure, theyre accustomed to it with their parents but microsoft doesnt represent anything they inherently need that they cant already download off bittorrent or use a lab for. victory has defeated you microsoft, your ubiquity is the titration point at which college students simply dont care about your products. they all know windows, they all use it, but there is no fundamental 'want' or drive you can possibly conjure up that will spur kids to fall to their knees the way steve jobs could get them to.
Good people go to bed earlier.
I have an ASUS motherboard that refuses to boot from USB unless it's a UEFI image or you manually go into the BIOS each time and tell it to boot from that device.
I can already hear the Internet scams popping up right now.
You go to some family get-together.
Uncle: Hey Jimmy, I got that message about the laptop you wanted. I donated $300 for you!
Jimmy: Umm, I never signed up for any laptop nor did I send you a request to donate to buy one for me.
*crickets*
But I couldn't find the MacBook Pro running Windows 8 via Boot Camp.
#DeleteChrome
Too bad that along the problems with Linux, Secure Boot by itself is actually a nice feature.
except that you have to agree to the MS TOS to get into the BIOS, but hey, what's a little legal agreement that violates your rights? /facepalm
Okay... That's annoying. Isn't there an option "legacy BIOS" or something. The wording is not standardized (typical for BIOS). Anyway, yes, it's terribly annoying if it can't do that. I'll believe you on your word that some manufacturers fucked this up.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
So don't buy the machine.
Hopefully more linux users will start buying linux machines or bare OS machines and we can get some actual reasonable statistics.
I am beging MS to add modern mix and start 8 to the base os in windows 8.1 or newer.
How about they go to the library or computer lab?
Enter the Gift economy
need more hardware choice (to many systems with an small 128gb SSD) and why is cpu speed hidden on so meany of the systems. Also most of the system only have Intel video.
Or get a fucking job?
they contribute 10%
why not just let microsoft foot part of the bill, and then you pay for the rest yourself (assuming you can afford it)?
is this better than not having any laptop?
maybe if he'd said "bitch slap and choke your GF" that would have made it clearer?
"Microsoft like Chris Brown wants to bitch slap and choke your GF." It would have made it more entertaining to say the least.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
It's from a Nigerian prince asking for help for a laptop.
Sanity is the trademark of a weak mind. -- Mark Harrold
I would imagine most college students have jobs.
I had one and it barely paid my rent and food. I had to use money from my loans to buy a laptop at one point.
Work study of 40 hours per pay period, times 26 pay periods means at minimum wage means a yearly wage of around $7000. If you can work 40 hours a week while in university either you program is not challenging enough or you simply do not sleep.
The idea that most college students to do not work is just silly.
The store would receive that one right back. That's BS.
That's weird. I've had no issues booting legacy USB images on a new ASUS board. Of course, it is an AMD board so that may have something to do with it...
Microsoft with another new half baked idea.
Painful to watch and execute me too ad campaign.
A day late and a dollar short.
Say what you will about them, the fuckers are consistent.
Please let me know when Porsche adopts this model.
It's supposed to be completely automatic, but actually you have to press this button.
How EXACTLY is it a "big" problem? Its something that is trivial to disable if you don't want it and frankly if Torvalds wasn't constantly shitting out new kernels it really wouldn't be hard to get your kernel signed and use it in Linux.
Ironically the ones who usually scream about it being a "problem" don't seem to have this "problem" with Chromebooks even though unlike UEFI Secureboot the ONLY way to get around it in a Chromebook is to put in a page and a half of CLI garbage in "dev mode", completely wipe your drive (no dual booting allowed) and then and ONLY then can you use one of a few small select distros that will run on what should be just a bog standard X86 laptop. say what you will but at least with Secureboot I can dual boot and use any OS I want with the hardware.
As for TFA? sigh...Steve, Steve, Steve...give it the fuck up already! Win 8 is a bomb, nobody wants the damned thing, all you are doing now is embarrassing yourself.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Uhh..why are you booting from USB? There is your problem, Asus boards really don't like booting from USB, if you want to boot from USB a lot an Asrock or gigabyte would have been a better choice.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
So I will go buy a machine from a linux only seller.
I highly doubt dell would comply, as redhat would push back on the server and workstation side.
I worked about 40 hours while at Jr College, the program was extremely challenging, mostly physics, math, chemistry and of course general education. It helped that my job gave me the flexibility to take off a few days to study for tests and finals. I was making about $12 an hour installing tires and batteries (and later selling them, or running the job schedule) at Sears, the skin on my hands is still cracked in some areas due to all the incidental battery acid contact. When I transferred to university, I stopped working. I also became a less focused student, probably slept less, and had a lot of time on my hands that I spent playing Foosball, reading, and surfing the newsgroups. Near graduation I got an Engineering job that paid, I think $30/hr. So, my point is that not all students are going to be working for minimum wage. Being that the economy is probably a lot worse than it was 20 years ago though, maybe minimum wage is all there is.
Only I can judge you.
$12 an hour would have been a fortune to me. I was working for $5 and spending 100+ hours a week in the labs. Working off campus was not much of an option since I could never really get the flexibility I needed out of other employers. The lab was only open a set of hours, and I was not going to hurt my grades for their meager wages.
That 10% discount is almost as much money as you could save by forgoing Windows for something useable and free.
I think it's interesting the way they're describing this. "Windows has already contributed 10% off the PC cost." Not "Microsoft" the company, but "Windows" the operating system. As if the software itself were somehow tapping into a bank account to contribute. Is Microsoft trying to avoid its own brand here? (All of which is just a bunch of marketing nonsense. Microsoft isn't "chipping in" 10%; it's offering a 10% discount. In exchange for... your personal info, and that of your friends and family with money.)
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
That doesn't sound like GP's problem, it sounds like ASUS' problem. Yours is accepting that "doesn't boot well from USB" is an acceptable state to sell a motherboard in.
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
Uhh..why are you booting from USB? There is your problem, Asus boards really don't like booting from USB, if you want to boot from USB a lot an Asrock or gigabyte would have been a better choice.
I have used ASUS boards exclusively for almost a decade, from early Athlons, to an Athlon64, to a Core2 notebook, to both an 1156 and 1155 Core i5, as well as a few replacement boards for dead computers repaired for friends. I have never had an issue booting from USB, ever.
While that's anecdotal evidence, your claim contained no evidence, so I guess my point is... ummm... neener neener?
Seriously, I've never had an issue with ASUS products, except for Steam suddenly (and mysteriously) breaking my ASUS wifi adapter.
frankly if Torvalds wasn't constantly shitting out new kernels it really wouldn't be hard to get your kernel signed and use it in Linux.
So let me get this straight; your against getting security patches and improvements that come with new kernels?
also its not Torvalds that controls when you distro pumps out a new kernel that is entirely up to the distros kernel team all Torvald does that relates is push source code into the mainline trunk in a git.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
Its something that is trivial to disable if you don't want it
Various reports say it is *not* trivial on many PCs. Maybe you've been lucky, but there have been reports of:
- Need to guess undocumented key to get into setup
- Timing so sensitive that you might have to try many times to hit the key at the right time
- In some cases, you can't get into setup at all without booting windows and accepting the license first (great if you want to get a windows refund, which *is* possible in some countries).
- Many people report that they can get Windows or Linux running but not a dual boot setup; or they have to go into setup and switch secure boot on/off to switch between OSes.
Old hands at Linux will probably get around most of this with some messing about and inconvenience (though acording to some reports, even that's not guaranteed). But it's ideal for putting off Linux first-timers who want to try Ubuntu etc. and until secure boot they could often just put a CD or USB key in, reboot and go.
Summary: It *is* a problem and it's *not* trivial no matter how much you pretend it is.
As for the Chromebook, that's a complete red herring; it's a tiny fraction of the market. Very soon 99% of all desktops and 98% of all laptops (-1% extra for Chromebooks) will have secure boot.
I said "it's not so bad, you can disabled it", and then we get many people posting that on their machine they couldn't .... yeah, it is a big problem... Perhaps not for you, perhaps not for me... but for many people... And FSM knows I'm going to curse a lot if I get a machine where I can't disable it completely.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
If it weren't so very complicated to actually sign your own binaries and have a nice keystore... userfriendly and all (within the firmware of course), perferably standardized that once you know it for one machine, you know it for all... Yes, then it would be nice...
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Aside from the Win8 issue. I don't see how this is a bad idea. Graduating highschool students do this all the time. They tell their relatives and friends of the family that they are graduating or whatever, everyone sends them a few bucks and then the graduate can use this money to buy something. I can totally imagine sending out and email to everyone I know saying my kid needs a new laptop for college and to chip in just a few cents or whatever you can afford.
Windows 8: so bad, they can't even *give* it away!
Begging for Windows 8? That's got to be a real case of scraping the bottom of the barrel.
There are more problems with UEFI than 'secure' boot. I bought an HP box with Windows 7 and secure boot disabled. The thing wouldn't boot Windows after I installed the drive from my old PC as a secondary SATA drive (believe me, I tried every available BIOS setting). The Windows EFI bootloader insisted on trying to boot from the secondary (MBR-formatted) drive if it was there - even though a live-booted linux CD was fine with it. But if I left a gap in the SATA drive numbers, Windows would boot (and mount the SATA3 dirve as drive F:), whereas my live linux CD didn't even see it as SATA3 (apparently the BIOS didn't report it there with the gap).
Essentially, I was only able to 'use' this drive after I completely wiped it and replaced its MBR partitioning scheme with a GPT scheme. But my point is UEFI has 3 problems as I see it:
1) Secure boot locking out non-signed stuff (why can't it just warn you when you try to boot non-signed stuff and let you continue).
2) Weird implementations producing crazy, inexplicable behaviors. Including inconsistent ability to boot from external media, and some systems actually getting bricked by booting a Ubuntu CD.
3) Forcing use of GPT partitioning, which many Linux distros don't handle yet, and which even Windows doesn't need till you go over 2 TB drives.
Most of this is the result of an awkward transition to a possibly better partitioning and booting scheme, but forcing it on everyone - combined with poor implementations of much more complex firmware. Maybe it only seems intended to make dual booting hell. In any case, it succeeds beautifully.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
The way that Jimmy seemed already prepared with that statement, not caught off guard at all, makes me think he was in on it.
Also, the sound of crickets imply this "get-together" was at night and outside, a park perhaps? It's seems that the Uncle suspected Jimmy the whole time, too, considering the time and place the event was setup. The uncle may have wanted to meet at a place with no witnesses, to confront Jimmy, lynch him, and then later dispose of his body.He probably invited you along to "get your hands dirty", so he could initiate you into his crime ring.
Same for me. I had no issues installing Win7 From USB on my Asus Crosshair Formula V.
Why does Linux need a half a dozen kernels a year when BSD, Solaris, OSX, none of those need a half a dozen kernels a year?
Maybe because it has more active developers than any other kernel, maybe because it is used in more places, supports more features, and more hardware than other kernal.
why can my friend go through 3 Apple upgrades and ALL of HIS drivers work,
Ever consider that might be because apple has so little hardware? They have what 4 lines of computer running OSX that only some of which get changed each year, not much hardware really to support in the first palce, I would be surprised if it didn't have decent support considering.
i take take[sic] 7 year old drivers and run them in the latest Windows just fine, but Linus can't even keep his shit together long enough to allow 2 year old drivers to work, hmmm?
Maybe that is the device manufacturers fault for not supporting or updating their Linux drivers, and instead supporting the illegal monopoly abusing operating system do to install base. Also no one forces you to upgrade to a new kernel you could just stay with what works or use a distro with longterm support, I think Redhat supports OS installs up to 10 years old with there extended support cycle, or you could use Debian which focuses on stability, Ubuntu supports lts server installs for 5 years and are contemplating longer on the next lts.
I'm sorry but bullshit is bullshit, its a kernel not fucking bread, no need to rush it out for "freshness" here. if he can't keep his shit together and bring enough QC that a kernel can't even last 24 months?
No its not bread but it does need putout more quickly because there a lots of crackers out their looking for zero day exploits, and the sooner you patched the better or you could stick with XP SP1 and IE6 and see just how long it is until you are some Russian hackers botnet-bitch.
get another damned job Torvalds.
what is with your vitriol toward Torvalds in this post did he run over your cat or something?
as Torvalds is there to cockblock you can give it up, it'll remain a hobbyist OS,
Oh you mean its not used on what percent of servers, phones(smart and dumb), tablets and embedded in more random devices than you can count? Hobbyist only; ah, no.
where the only gains are when a corp bitchslaps him out of the way and just takes it like Google did.
I don't recall Google "bitch slapping Linux" if by bitch slapped you mean used the kernel added a few hooks for there java vm and contributed code upstream some of which is still being added to mainline, and used a different user space and gui, in fact they enternally use standard linux for all of their desktops and servers. the only thing that may in anyway of been bitch slapped by Google is the gnu tool chain and user space and x11 but plenty others don't use gnu either instead using busybox or some other.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
So, what you're recommending is that Linux users buy from a smaller and more expensive range of computers? And that anybody who wants to try a Linux distro can acquire one of those first?
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
For your "neener neer" I'm guessing you only bought their high end boards, yes? i have found the experience between the high end and low end boards all ALL the major OEMs is VASTLY different...well with the exception of Biostar and those appear to be shitty all the way around.
But if you bought low end boards and never had a problem? Congrats you rolled the dice and they went your way, I have had the same happen with asrock and gigabyte but what you fail to grasp is on the low end the boards are VERY inconsistent and you may have one board that like it, the next don't, hell with the asrock boards the RAM speed detection is all over the place so one board will fire straight up and the next have the default RAM speeds set so damned high it won't even go past post, that don't make them bad boards though, it just means you have to know the "quirks" when it comes to the companies.
You've had...what? 4 boards? 5? maybe 6? Do you have ANY idea how many boards pass through your typical PC shop on any given month? New boards, refurbs, OEMs, I've handled more boards than you've had hot meals son but just because a board has a quirk doesn't make them bad, hell they all have quirks to one degree or another, and from what I've seen the low end and OEM boards by Asus can be picky when it comes to USB booting. If you find the right stick or drive? Its all gravy, but you may have to try a few before you find one it really likes. i don't know if its voltage differences or drive geometry or what, that is just the way it is. It no different than how asrock is with RAM timings, Gigabyte can be picky about mismatched RAM,boards built for Compaq can be picky as hell when it comes to CPUs, like I said they ALL have quirks.
If you haven't run into any quirks? Congrats, you got lucky.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
If all you are gonna do to defend is quote bits of the circle of loon do us both a favor and don't bother, okay? What is sad is every bullshit defense of Linux and Torvalds bad practices i can cover with 7 or less TMs from linux TM repo which is a fricking joke site made to highlight how much of it is just the same old bullshit excuses.
lets see, just from looking at the first couple of lines you've invoked our developers can do no wrong, the more developers the better the software linux supports more hardware and Linux friendly hardware AKA "blame the victim" just for good measure.
You know why its soooo damned easy to pick apart yours or any other defends arguments JUST using the TM Repo? because its the same shitty pathetic excuses we've gotten from linux for the better part of the decade, the exact same ones over, and over, and over, it never changes. Its like the old joke "If I gave you a sandwich that is 95% shit and 5% ham, would you call it a ham sandwich?" because THAT is what you get, the devs can go "its everybody else's fault" and you'll buy it, they can say "works for me!" and you'll take that as a legitimate excuse, and when there is obvious fail rubbed in your nose, like with Dell having to run their own God damned repo just to keep the drivers from shitting on themselves thanks to those "great devs" shitting all over the internals? why the community will counter with you don't need that.
This is why I have anything to do with linux blocked from my feeds, because its pointless, its like talking to young earthers, there is no amount of evidence or citations that will change their mind because it ALL comes down to religion and faith. I mean for the love of Christ the ONLY argument against a driver ABI you've gotten from a dev is so damned Church of GPL he actually writes "And I hope all non free drivers are broken often"? I mean WTF more evidence do you need? RMS dropping his pants and showing a GPL tat on his ass? In ANY other org his ass would be FIRED with a capital F, but because FOSS has become a fucking Scientology style religion he was cheered!
So do us all a favor, if you can't come up with an argument that wasn't covered by TM Repo a half a decade ago? Keep your pamplets to yourself. You know what the definition of insanity is, right? Well its been 20 years, Linux is down to 0.97% and falling, if that doesn't wake the fucking community up nothing will, let 'em sit in the corner and wonder why you have tens of millions that would rather take the risk of stealing the other guy's product than take yours for free.
Of course i'm sure you'll counter with stable kernel API nonsense and maybe imaginary problems kill windows just to be safe.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I never said that the Linux devs can do no wrong, I also never blamed the user and I never said that our devs are better than anyone else's. What I said is that there are more of them and the community is more active as such progress is faster resulting in a faster development cycle.
as for your quoting rms his opinon on that is a non-sequitur as the kernal isn't his and if he had his way it would be gpl3.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.