This assumes you know the specific brand of the laptop you are buying.
I am not very picky when it comes to laptops. I do have a couple of favorite brands (Lenovo, Dell) like everyone else, but when it is time to upgrade my laptop I must for laptop A, then check if there is Linux support, then look at laptop B, any Linux support, rinse and repeat until I find a laptop that is both compatible with Linux and satisfies my humble needs (mainly, robust, long battery life and long life span, ideally 4-5 years).
Since my time is precious to me, I'd rather not engage in this dance if I can avoid it, since it is going to cost me around 10-15 hours to properly research unless I stumble upon a good laptop by chance. I will gladly pay a few dollars extra if it means I can get rid of the hassle...
If you wish to stream movies, you have to get an account at Netflix for $10/month (or whatever). Then, a new interesting show comes out on HBO, that's also $10/month. Then Amazon Prime has even more interesting content at $10/month. And then you want ESPN because gotta have that football coverage... For $10 a month. Et cetera.
So if I were to get all of this legally I would need to easily burn $50-$70 a month, which amounts to $300-$400 a year. I would be willing to pay say $2 per episode of a certain series and only that series however, or $10 for say a two-time viewing of an entire season. Also, I do not watch Netflix consistently - sometimes I am on Amazon and sometimes I am on HBO, if I spend an entire month without looking at any series I'm burning money for no reason. Et cetera.
The problem here is that the infrastructure is crazy conservative, and instead of fixing the infrastructure the companies are content to let piracy rule.
Seriously, Microsoft will keep doing stupid shit like this. And their users will just gobble it up. Because where should you run to?
MacOS? Yeah, because a jail cell does not become less of a jail if you are treated like a prince and wear shackles of gold instead of iron. And you have to pay twice as much for that privilege.
Linux? Desktop is currently in a big state of disrepair ever since Gnome 2 was abandoned, with lots of shit broken and no one caring enough to fix the brokenness. systemd and wayland aren't helping things either. Sure it'll be sorta-kinda awesome eventually... Maybe... But I need it to work today, dammit.
BSD? Slowly shrinking, slowly losing compatibility with all Linux software that matters, as well as less hardware support. Not going to happen.
GNU/HURD? With systemd replacing most of the GNU operating system, and Linux replacing the rest, this system is more dead than Ada Lovelace.
Android desktop? Actually kinda viable, but needs to mature a lot more first.
I seriously wish there was a good enough free(ish) OS out there, but as long as Linux OSes insists on broken shit like systemd, well...
For all the time I have known him, he has always been able to give a sound technical reason as to why things work as they do.
Suffice to say, there is a reason everyone defaults to PulseAudio, these days, and it's because ALSA is *hard*, with lots of undocumented functionality.
Many people advocate you should use $LANGUAGE and that $LANGUAGE is the best language to learn first. But really, the first thing you should do is find out some program you wish to create, and then choose the language accordingly.
Do you want to create a web application? Learn JavaScript and maybe PHP / Java / Python. Do you want to create an Android App? Learn Java. Do you want to create a desktop utility application? Learn C#. Do you want to create a command line program? Learn Python. Do you want to program a microcontroller? Learn C, and then Assembler.
Each language has their own pros, and cons. If you just want to learn programming for the sake of programming, then there are four languages I recommend:
Python for it's non-intrusive syntax and enforcement of indentation order. Java (or C#) for it's enforcement of Object-Oriented Programming. C for the way it forces you to deal with pointers and pointer arithmetics. And finally, JavaScript for the way it forces you to think asynchronously (e.g. threads).
You can start with any of these, but don't get stuck with a single language in the end. That said I suggest starting with Python, but it's up to you.
No, it's probably a down quarter for 13W, because many people shop on the sales directly after x-mas or get promised a cell phone at x-mas and buy it afterward because they don't know the color they'd like or something like that.
I do telecommute. If I'm assigned a new project, I almost always try to be atleast 50% at work when working on a new project, because it's so much easier to get a 5-second answer from a coworker than send a text or email that gets replied to who-knows-when. People-to-people interaction is much easier in the office.
Don't agree that these interactions should be forced on you however - just that in-office work does strengthen your bonds.
1. If the source is from Russia, it's entirerly possible that some emails were withheld, or that fake emails were injected. The source therefore cannot be trusted to 100%. I have no doubt 99.99% of those emails were true.
2. It's not just that the servers were in Russia. There are also other incidents, like the fact that the hacker communicates almost entirerly in the russian language. If it walks like a duck...
This is the option for those of you that wish to keep on using Windows. It may not be the option you want, but face reality. Windows 7 (and 8.1) is, at this point, deprecated (as opposed to XP, Vista and 8.1 which are considered obsolete). Now you can fight this kicking and screaming but it won't change the fact that Windows 7 is deprecated. And that means at some point in the future it will no longer be supported. Imagine installing Windows XP today, on your new PC. It does not make sense. Same thing will be true for Windows 7 in a few years.
2. Switch to something non-windows.
There is Linux, BSD or OSX. All based on UNIX and all fine choices. You might also want to consider iOS, Chrome OS or Android. This may or may not be viable for you and WINE may or may not help you in the transition. But it is about the only other true choice.
3. Don't upgrade or switch.
I can't honestly see any reason why you'd want to stay on Windows 7, unless you plan to switch from Windows entirerly in a year or two, or certain key applications won't yet work with Win 10. This only prolongs the inevitable until such a time where you *have* to upgrade to Windows 10 - or switch.
Apple could buy the major three no problems. Apple Corps, however, is NOT part of the major three. The question is, would THEY sell themselves to Apple Inc.? My guess is, most probably not.
This is not a "Open Source will fix everything!!!11!1!1One" suggestion.
Ponder this.
1. Government writes software. 2. Government is elected by the people and should therefore be held accountable by the people. 3. The only way a Government can be held accountable would be if the people can inspect what it's doing as much as possible (some areas like national security may make this problematic).
Would it not, given these three facts, then be logical to say:
If the government writes software, or hires someone to write software for the government, then the software SHOULD be open for inspection.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but Microsoft is slowly fading away, being replaced by Chromebooks, Androids and yes even Linux. They once had an iron grip on the desktop market - still has one actually - but everywhere else they are slowly fading away. Mobile is a joke at this point, tablets were never a big seller. The Enterprise they still rule and the consumer market follows that lead... For now. However, Android/Chrome is making some fierce inroads there as well.
And before you ask, Apple platforms like OSX will never move outside their niche since Apple isn't interested in catering to everyone, only those with money and purchasing power. Which, long-term, will get them on a slowly shrinking 10% market share...:)
Because Apple Corps (of Beatles fame) made sure that Apple Computer/Inc. could never ever launch their own record company. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Look. The entire Streaming rights/*Copy*right thing doesn't make any sense whatsoever on the internet. It's like getting angry on fish for swimming in the ocean and avoiding a bathing tax. A very futile effort.
What does make sense is regulating who makes money on certain content. Something like, a content creator has the right to all revenue that can directly or indirectly be tied to his or her work - unless otherwise contracted, of course. But that won't ever happen because it's not in the record companies interest.
Therefore we're looking at atleast 50 more years of these copyright shenanigans. Weee...:)
Not everyone is cut out to do Linear Algebra or Calculus either; that does not mean learning how to multiply and work with fractions is a useless skill to have.
Learning the basic foundations of programming teaches you so much more than just programs - it teaches you how the computer actually *works*, and it teaches you how you can use things like regular expressions to automate certain tasks.
Even if you will never code a single line ever again, the knowledge you get in general is invaluable in a world where computers are everywhere.
Seriously. If you are that concerned about Youtube profiting off your work - go and help with say, Diaspora, or ZeroNet, or BuddyCloud, or Identi.ca, or any of the other P2P social networks.
If the top 100 most famous artists were to say "Allright, so here's the deal - we're going to start releasing our shit on this network" that network will take off like a space shuttle rocket.
But, no, Youtube is good, preserve the status quo...
But thing is, 90-95% of the time, people who download would not have paid for it anyhow. They would simply have found another movie/song to download.
People download because it's available, and also there is a positive aspect of file sharing, namely, free advertising.
Let's say 5% of those filesharing turn into a legitimate customer. Would you rather have 100 000 paying customers and NO filesharing, or 110 000 paying customers and another 200 000 filesharing fans?
There is solid evidence from independent research that filesharing is a zero-sum game at worst - e.g. you lose about as much as you get. And often you even get positive net results out of it.
Neither is the average file sharer making any money whatsoever on what they download.
The only thing harsher laws will net the content industry is next-generation youtube-esque infrastructure untouchable by the law (see, for example, zeronet).
One must start to rethink this entire information business. Control of copies does not matter anymore. Control of distribution does not matter anymore. Internet has made both of these obsolete. Control of publishing (the act of making private information public) is more important than ever though.
Try installing Windows 8.1 that has been out a few years by this point.
Windows in general is pretty good at keeping up-to-date with their drivers - But after a year or two that windows release is still shipping with the same, now two-year old drivers.
Slashdot Mirror
This assumes you know the specific brand of the laptop you are buying.
I am not very picky when it comes to laptops. I do have a couple of favorite brands (Lenovo, Dell) like everyone else, but when it is time to upgrade my laptop I must for laptop A, then check if there is Linux support, then look at laptop B, any Linux support, rinse and repeat until I find a laptop that is both compatible with Linux and satisfies my humble needs (mainly, robust, long battery life and long life span, ideally 4-5 years).
Since my time is precious to me, I'd rather not engage in this dance if I can avoid it, since it is going to cost me around 10-15 hours to properly research unless I stumble upon a good laptop by chance. I will gladly pay a few dollars extra if it means I can get rid of the hassle...
If you wish to stream movies, you have to get an account at Netflix for $10/month (or whatever). Then, a new interesting show comes out on HBO, that's also $10/month. Then Amazon Prime has even more interesting content at $10/month. And then you want ESPN because gotta have that football coverage... For $10 a month. Et cetera.
So if I were to get all of this legally I would need to easily burn $50-$70 a month, which amounts to $300-$400 a year. I would be willing to pay say $2 per episode of a certain series and only that series however, or $10 for say a two-time viewing of an entire season. Also, I do not watch Netflix consistently - sometimes I am on Amazon and sometimes I am on HBO, if I spend an entire month without looking at any series I'm burning money for no reason. Et cetera.
The problem here is that the infrastructure is crazy conservative, and instead of fixing the infrastructure the companies are content to let piracy rule.
Seriously, Microsoft will keep doing stupid shit like this. And their users will just gobble it up. Because where should you run to?
MacOS? Yeah, because a jail cell does not become less of a jail if you are treated like a prince and wear shackles of gold instead of iron. And you have to pay twice as much for that privilege.
Linux? Desktop is currently in a big state of disrepair ever since Gnome 2 was abandoned, with lots of shit broken and no one caring enough to fix the brokenness. systemd and wayland aren't helping things either. Sure it'll be sorta-kinda awesome eventually... Maybe... But I need it to work today, dammit.
BSD? Slowly shrinking, slowly losing compatibility with all Linux software that matters, as well as less hardware support. Not going to happen.
GNU/HURD? With systemd replacing most of the GNU operating system, and Linux replacing the rest, this system is more dead than Ada Lovelace.
Android desktop? Actually kinda viable, but needs to mature a lot more first.
I seriously wish there was a good enough free(ish) OS out there, but as long as Linux OSes insists on broken shit like systemd, well...
For all the time I have known him, he has always been able to give a sound technical reason as to why things work as they do.
Suffice to say, there is a reason everyone defaults to PulseAudio, these days, and it's because ALSA is *hard*, with lots of undocumented functionality.
Many people advocate you should use $LANGUAGE and that $LANGUAGE is the best language to learn first. But really, the first thing you should do is find out some program you wish to create, and then choose the language accordingly.
Do you want to create a web application? Learn JavaScript and maybe PHP / Java / Python.
Do you want to create an Android App? Learn Java.
Do you want to create a desktop utility application? Learn C#.
Do you want to create a command line program? Learn Python.
Do you want to program a microcontroller? Learn C, and then Assembler.
Each language has their own pros, and cons. If you just want to learn programming for the sake of programming, then there are four languages I recommend:
Python for it's non-intrusive syntax and enforcement of indentation order.
Java (or C#) for it's enforcement of Object-Oriented Programming.
C for the way it forces you to deal with pointers and pointer arithmetics.
And finally, JavaScript for the way it forces you to think asynchronously (e.g. threads).
You can start with any of these, but don't get stuck with a single language in the end. That said I suggest starting with Python, but it's up to you.
No, it's probably a down quarter for 13W, because many people shop on the sales directly after x-mas or get promised a cell phone at x-mas and buy it afterward because they don't know the color they'd like or something like that.
Oh well... :)
Actually, mentoring is a good reason.
I do telecommute. If I'm assigned a new project, I almost always try to be atleast 50% at work when working on a new project, because it's so much easier to get a 5-second answer from a coworker than send a text or email that gets replied to who-knows-when. People-to-people interaction is much easier in the office.
Don't agree that these interactions should be forced on you however - just that in-office work does strengthen your bonds.
Except, they will get the news.
From American sources. Or Canadian sources. And so on.
The internet is global. Deal with it.
1. If the source is from Russia, it's entirerly possible that some emails were withheld, or that fake emails were injected. The source therefore cannot be trusted to 100%. I have no doubt 99.99% of those emails were true.
2. It's not just that the servers were in Russia. There are also other incidents, like the fact that the hacker communicates almost entirerly in the russian language. If it walks like a duck...
Because most sane editors do not wrap lines, instead preferring to let the user scroll to the right in order to read the entire line.
Take, for instance, SDL...
*window = SDL_CreateWindow("My pretty game", SDL_WINDOWPOS_UNDEFINED, SDL_WINDOWPOS_UNDEFINED, 1024, 768, SDL_WINDOW_SHOWN);
In my editor that line gets truncated at around "1024".
You are aware // are not legitimate C comments right?
(But they are legitimate C++ comments and many C++ compilers also compile C code)
Here are your options.
1. Upgrade to Windows 10.
This is the option for those of you that wish to keep on using Windows. It may not be the option you want, but face reality. Windows 7 (and 8.1) is, at this point, deprecated (as opposed to XP, Vista and 8.1 which are considered obsolete). Now you can fight this kicking and screaming but it won't change the fact that Windows 7 is deprecated. And that means at some point in the future it will no longer be supported. Imagine installing Windows XP today, on your new PC. It does not make sense. Same thing will be true for Windows 7 in a few years.
2. Switch to something non-windows.
There is Linux, BSD or OSX. All based on UNIX and all fine choices. You might also want to consider iOS, Chrome OS or Android. This may or may not be viable for you and WINE may or may not help you in the transition. But it is about the only other true choice.
3. Don't upgrade or switch.
I can't honestly see any reason why you'd want to stay on Windows 7, unless you plan to switch from Windows entirerly in a year or two, or certain key applications won't yet work with Win 10. This only prolongs the inevitable until such a time where you *have* to upgrade to Windows 10 - or switch.
Resistance is futile. You will be upgraded.
Apple could buy the major three no problems. Apple Corps, however, is NOT part of the major three. The question is, would THEY sell themselves to Apple Inc.? My guess is, most probably not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
This is not a "Open Source will fix everything!!!11!1!1One" suggestion.
Ponder this.
1. Government writes software.
2. Government is elected by the people and should therefore be held accountable by the people.
3. The only way a Government can be held accountable would be if the people can inspect what it's doing as much as possible (some areas like national security may make this problematic).
Would it not, given these three facts, then be logical to say:
If the government writes software, or hires someone to write software for the government, then the software SHOULD be open for inspection.
Iceland might be that country, seeing as their Pirate Party is poised to become the biggest member of parliament... :)
MS only spend $1.5M because that is what they need to spend right now. Why pay more than you must?
If Redhat were to engage in spending wars, you can be sure that MS will follow.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but Microsoft is slowly fading away, being replaced by Chromebooks, Androids and yes even Linux. They once had an iron grip on the desktop market - still has one actually - but everywhere else they are slowly fading away. Mobile is a joke at this point, tablets were never a big seller. The Enterprise they still rule and the consumer market follows that lead... For now. However, Android/Chrome is making some fierce inroads there as well.
And before you ask, Apple platforms like OSX will never move outside their niche since Apple isn't interested in catering to everyone, only those with money and purchasing power. Which, long-term, will get them on a slowly shrinking 10% market share... :)
Because Apple Corps (of Beatles fame) made sure that Apple Computer/Inc. could never ever launch their own record company. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Look. The entire Streaming rights/*Copy*right thing doesn't make any sense whatsoever on the internet. It's like getting angry on fish for swimming in the ocean and avoiding a bathing tax. A very futile effort.
What does make sense is regulating who makes money on certain content. Something like, a content creator has the right to all revenue that can directly or indirectly be tied to his or her work - unless otherwise contracted, of course. But that won't ever happen because it's not in the record companies interest.
Therefore we're looking at atleast 50 more years of these copyright shenanigans. Weee... :)
Not everyone is cut out to do Linear Algebra or Calculus either; that does not mean learning how to multiply and work with fractions is a useless skill to have.
Learning the basic foundations of programming teaches you so much more than just programs - it teaches you how the computer actually *works*, and it teaches you how you can use things like regular expressions to automate certain tasks.
Even if you will never code a single line ever again, the knowledge you get in general is invaluable in a world where computers are everywhere.
Seriously. If you are that concerned about Youtube profiting off your work - go and help with say, Diaspora, or ZeroNet, or BuddyCloud, or Identi.ca, or any of the other P2P social networks.
If the top 100 most famous artists were to say "Allright, so here's the deal - we're going to start releasing our shit on this network" that network will take off like a space shuttle rocket.
But, no, Youtube is good, preserve the status quo...
You forgot the fourth future... The Matrix (either the robots put us in it voluntarily or they put us in there involuntarily). :)
But thing is, 90-95% of the time, people who download would not have paid for it anyhow. They would simply have found another movie/song to download.
People download because it's available, and also there is a positive aspect of file sharing, namely, free advertising.
Let's say 5% of those filesharing turn into a legitimate customer. Would you rather have 100 000 paying customers and NO filesharing, or 110 000 paying customers and another 200 000 filesharing fans?
There is solid evidence from independent research that filesharing is a zero-sum game at worst - e.g. you lose about as much as you get. And often you even get positive net results out of it.
Neither is the average file sharer making any money whatsoever on what they download.
The only thing harsher laws will net the content industry is next-generation youtube-esque infrastructure untouchable by the law (see, for example, zeronet).
One must start to rethink this entire information business. Control of copies does not matter anymore. Control of distribution does not matter anymore. Internet has made both of these obsolete. Control of publishing (the act of making private information public) is more important than ever though.
So start there. :)
Windows 10? Explains it.
Try installing Windows 8.1 that has been out a few years by this point.
Windows in general is pretty good at keeping up-to-date with their drivers - But after a year or two that windows release is still shipping with the same, now two-year old drivers.