Microsoft. Who only licenses XP Home for use on machines below a certain screen size and spec. I think there may be some restriction on Windows 7 Starter Edition as well.
I know the conversation is "who needs Windows on netbooks?", but it's still at 68%:P
I'm replying on behalf of flight passengers, long-distance car- and bus-riders, cottage vacationers, and campers. In all of these (and more) situations, power may absolutely be available (with the exception of the last one), but it's a blinking inconvenience. It's not until you have an MP3 player that gets 40+ hours of battery life that you realize just how nice it is to have devices with ludicrously long running times.
Long battery life: you should try it some time. You know you want to.
I proofed the beginning multiple times but somehow missed the half-finished sentence. Wow. What I was going to say was,
On top of that, some multiplayer games, such as TF2, and buy-once,-play-continually MMO's, such as GuildWars, provide dozens of hours of content for around $20 now.
To finish, because I only just realized that I didn't:
On top of that, some multiplayer games, such as TF2, and buy-once,-play-continually MMO's, such as GuildWars, provide dozens of hours of content for around $20 now.
Let's work something out: a $60 game will get you what, hopefully 10+ hours of playtime? (Sidenote: oh how I long for days gone by when that would've been considered short...) That's less than $6/hour. Blu-ray discs are about $20; given a movie length of about 2 hours, that's around $10/hour - almost twice as expensive. On top of that, some multiplayer games
The summary seems to suggest that audio needs a new physical format. Why? It's not like the so-called "musicians" of today want to make longer records (for which more storage would be necessary), and it's not like consumers want higher-quality audio, either - it's been repeatedly (although I wouldn't say conclusively) shown that most consumers can hear no problems with 128Kbps MP3's, and that they're perfectly happy with said bottom-of-the-barrel quality. CD's aren't great, but it's not as anybody's starving for something better (as opposed to video, where people seem to want constantly higher and higher resolution). Also - and I hate to say this, but - it seems as if the music industry is starting to "get" digital distribution which further negates the need for a new format (as opposed to the movie industry, who still totally less-than-three's physical distribution).
Presumably, his office's IT dept. has some basic ground rules for users, such as, "Don't use flash drives of an unknown origin." In a case like that, this would not be a prank, but offensive defence of the system. Admittedly, firing does seem a little bit much, but I don't know the situation - perhaps this is a high-security environment, and it's been made clear that there's zero tolerance for things like this.
The joke is that most Torontonians (and a lot of foreigners) treat Toronto like it's the capital of Canada, not just Ontario. (In fairness to them, were a new capital to be chosen today, Ottawa probably wouldn't even make the shortlist, but that's not the point.)
Mod parent up - he's totally right on this one. I know a guy from Toronto who's lived in a rural town West of Ottawa for almost (over?) two years now, and he still won't shut up about how Toronto is better in almost every way. (For those wondering why he even moved, it's because his wife's parents are out there.)
Of all the so-called "social" sites whose services I use, Last.fm probably has the best uptime and overall availability. I think I've only seen the main Last.fm site down once or twice in over two years, and I've never seen the Scrobbling service go offline. On top of that, they can actually run a database - unlike Facebook, with its oft-inaccurate or missing data, all of my Last.fm profile is always there. Kudos to these guys for sticking to it and figuring out how to manage high loads properly instead of just whining about how inadequate the tools they have to work with are.
Y'know, the Microsoft JVM EULA (or maybe it was the Windows 98 EULA?) had a clause almost identical to that for years before iTunes was even a concept. It bugs me every time I hear someone call it the "iTunes clause"...
I often enjoy commercials the first time I see them. By the fifteenth time (or worse, second time in one commercial break - curse your advertising directors, CBC!), I am utterly sick of them and wish they'd never been made. Except for that one [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QW3bInxgmc]Subaru Canada ad[/url]. I'm still not tired of that one.
I was surprised by Levono's ranking (6th) since ThinkPads usually have a solid reputation which makes them popular among corporate users.
As I said above, I'd be interested to see the Lenovo category broken down into "ThinkPads" and "everything else". It's quite possible that Lenovo's own IdeaPads and the ThinkPad R and SL series' laptops are dragging down (or rather, up) Lenovo's number.
...and Lenovo, Acer, Gateway, and HP are less reliable...
Somewhat off-topic to your tangent, but I really wish they'd broken the Lenovo category down into ThinkPads and IdeaPads, or maybe ThinkPads other than the SL and R series' and everything else plus those two lines of ThinkPad.
Are you perhaps using business-class laptops? I would really like to see some numbers showing the difference in failure rates between consumer- and business-oriented laptops. Overall, I've found business laptops, while slightly pricier, disproportionately better-built than equivalently-spec'd consumer models. For instance, I wouldn't touch a consumer HP laptop with a 10'-long pole even before seeing these numbers, and yet, while I wouldn't want one, I'd be OK with an HP business-class machine.
On a related note, working as a techie for the last three years, I've seen far more dead or defective consumer-level HP's than any two other brands put together (and by "dead or defective", I'm referring to motherboard failures, not just bad hard drives or anything like that).
Have you ever been to a place without cellphone coverage (and I don't mean because the building's walls are blocking).
Yes. It's called Canada. An utter lack of signal from any major providers can easily be found anywhere around where I live, about 15 minutes away from a town of 10000 people which is, in turn, less than an hour away from Canada's parliament buildings. And this is just regular coverage, not anythingG.
Pst - it was actually Microsoft who developed Altair Basic, and they bought the first version of DOS for $50k off a guy Paul Allen knew (although your big point still stands with that one).
Slashdot Mirror
I have yet to see worse than overloading IP to mean both "Internet Protocol" and "Intellectual Property". Now that's confusing.
--- Mr. DOS
Microsoft. Who only licenses XP Home for use on machines below a certain screen size and spec. I think there may be some restriction on Windows 7 Starter Edition as well.
I know the conversation is "who needs Windows on netbooks?", but it's still at 68% :P
--- Mr. DOS
I'm replying on behalf of flight passengers, long-distance car- and bus-riders, cottage vacationers, and campers. In all of these (and more) situations, power may absolutely be available (with the exception of the last one), but it's a blinking inconvenience. It's not until you have an MP3 player that gets 40+ hours of battery life that you realize just how nice it is to have devices with ludicrously long running times.
Long battery life: you should try it some time. You know you want to.
--- Mr. DOS
It seems that the spies' knives always bump into me first :P
--- Mr. DOS
I proofed the beginning multiple times but somehow missed the half-finished sentence. Wow. What I was going to say was,
--- Mr. DOS
To finish, because I only just realized that I didn't:
On top of that, some multiplayer games, such as TF2, and buy-once,-play-continually MMO's, such as GuildWars, provide dozens of hours of content for around $20 now.
--- Mr. DOS
--- Mr. DOS
Let's work something out: a $60 game will get you what, hopefully 10+ hours of playtime? (Sidenote: oh how I long for days gone by when that would've been considered short...) That's less than $6/hour. Blu-ray discs are about $20; given a movie length of about 2 hours, that's around $10/hour - almost twice as expensive. On top of that, some multiplayer games
--- Mr. DOS
The summary seems to suggest that audio needs a new physical format. Why? It's not like the so-called "musicians" of today want to make longer records (for which more storage would be necessary), and it's not like consumers want higher-quality audio, either - it's been repeatedly (although I wouldn't say conclusively) shown that most consumers can hear no problems with 128Kbps MP3's, and that they're perfectly happy with said bottom-of-the-barrel quality. CD's aren't great, but it's not as anybody's starving for something better (as opposed to video, where people seem to want constantly higher and higher resolution). Also - and I hate to say this, but - it seems as if the music industry is starting to "get" digital distribution which further negates the need for a new format (as opposed to the movie industry, who still totally less-than-three's physical distribution).
--- Mr. DOS
What're your thoughts on Samsungs?
--- Mr. DOS
Because their job requires use of authorized flash drives?
--- Mr. DOS
Presumably, his office's IT dept. has some basic ground rules for users, such as, "Don't use flash drives of an unknown origin." In a case like that, this would not be a prank, but offensive defence of the system. Admittedly, firing does seem a little bit much, but I don't know the situation - perhaps this is a high-security environment, and it's been made clear that there's zero tolerance for things like this.
--- Mr. DOS
The joke is that most Torontonians (and a lot of foreigners) treat Toronto like it's the capital of Canada, not just Ontario. (In fairness to them, were a new capital to be chosen today, Ottawa probably wouldn't even make the shortlist, but that's not the point.)
--- Mr. DOS
Mod parent up - he's totally right on this one. I know a guy from Toronto who's lived in a rural town West of Ottawa for almost (over?) two years now, and he still won't shut up about how Toronto is better in almost every way. (For those wondering why he even moved, it's because his wife's parents are out there.)
--- Mr. DOS
Of all the so-called "social" sites whose services I use, Last.fm probably has the best uptime and overall availability. I think I've only seen the main Last.fm site down once or twice in over two years, and I've never seen the Scrobbling service go offline. On top of that, they can actually run a database - unlike Facebook, with its oft-inaccurate or missing data, all of my Last.fm profile is always there. Kudos to these guys for sticking to it and figuring out how to manage high loads properly instead of just whining about how inadequate the tools they have to work with are.
--- Mr. DOS
Y'know, the Microsoft JVM EULA (or maybe it was the Windows 98 EULA?) had a clause almost identical to that for years before iTunes was even a concept. It bugs me every time I hear someone call it the "iTunes clause"...
--- Mr. DOS
Oh wow... too much foruming. I sincerely apologize for the BBCode; should I hand in my card on the way out?
--- Mr. DOS
I often enjoy commercials the first time I see them. By the fifteenth time (or worse, second time in one commercial break - curse your advertising directors, CBC!), I am utterly sick of them and wish they'd never been made. Except for that one [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QW3bInxgmc]Subaru Canada ad[/url]. I'm still not tired of that one.
--- Mr. DOS
As I said above, I'd be interested to see the Lenovo category broken down into "ThinkPads" and "everything else". It's quite possible that Lenovo's own IdeaPads and the ThinkPad R and SL series' laptops are dragging down (or rather, up) Lenovo's number.
--- Mr. DOS
Somewhat off-topic to your tangent, but I really wish they'd broken the Lenovo category down into ThinkPads and IdeaPads, or maybe ThinkPads other than the SL and R series' and everything else plus those two lines of ThinkPad.
--- Mr. DOS
Are you perhaps using business-class laptops? I would really like to see some numbers showing the difference in failure rates between consumer- and business-oriented laptops. Overall, I've found business laptops, while slightly pricier, disproportionately better-built than equivalently-spec'd consumer models. For instance, I wouldn't touch a consumer HP laptop with a 10'-long pole even before seeing these numbers, and yet, while I wouldn't want one, I'd be OK with an HP business-class machine.
On a related note, working as a techie for the last three years, I've seen far more dead or defective consumer-level HP's than any two other brands put together (and by "dead or defective", I'm referring to motherboard failures, not just bad hard drives or anything like that).
--- Mr. DOS
Yes. It's called Canada. An utter lack of signal from any major providers can easily be found anywhere around where I live, about 15 minutes away from a town of 10000 people which is, in turn, less than an hour away from Canada's parliament buildings. And this is just regular coverage, not anythingG.
--- Mr. DOS
America isn't the only country in the world. In England and Canada, "honour" is the correct spelling and "honor" is the "alternative" spelling.
--- Mr. DOS
Pst - it was actually Microsoft who developed Altair Basic, and they bought the first version of DOS for $50k off a guy Paul Allen knew (although your big point still stands with that one).
--- Mr. DOS
Yeah; the others have the tick(er)less kernel.
--- Mr. DOS