I live in Canada, Universal Healthcare in my province does not cover the cost of prescription drugs. Right now I'm employed, but have no employer healthcare plan.
No offense but if the average life of the components are severely shorter than normal, customers shouldn't be expected to put up with junk that renders their $1000 computer useless. And no offense but manufactures shouldn't be trying to hide such defects.
Not directly, but you can make it work. slow.exe only works properly on CPU 0. Either force your application and slow.exe affinity to processor 0, or put slow.exe on processor 0 and http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Benchmarks/CPU-Burnin.shtml something like this on the rest.
The question was "What would be easier to learn basic mechanics from working on: a '57 Chevy or a 2011 Lexus?" not "Which car is better" or "Which car is more reliable". A fuel injection computer and a sensor just adds a "black box" when you want to learn the basics.
If you ask me, the closest thing people come these days to a CLI is the Location bar in Internet Explorer... maybe even the search bar in Google.
The search bar in Internet explorer? Not so much. Usually to do another google search they will minimize all open windows one by one, double click the Internet Explorer icon on the desktop, type "www.google.com" in the location bar, then type the search. But yes, usually on non-technical user's computers the last thing in Run is the last command I ran.
Use SpeedStep/Powernow to force the lowest clock rating to prevent a CPU burning application from chewing too much power. As well, look at Thermal throttling. http://cpu.rightmark.org/products/rmclock.shtml lets you manually set such throttling states on some processors. You can sometimes get 12.5% of the original speed.
Upgrade from Office 97? Because the compatibility pack is offered free to office 2000-2003 users. And of course docx is interchangeable between 2007 and 2010, and users aren't FORCED to upgrade.
Now, MS is going to have a hard time convincing people to believe any of their long-term promises about much of anything.
B. There are several long-term Microsoft promises in the pipeline right now and people (& media) have bought into them.
People were convinced that when Microsoft killed Courier, they were killing a bug free, complete product which was ready to go into production, and not killing a project that still had a lot of work to go.
Are your arms not strong enough to carry a laptop that weighs more than that? What, specifically, makes lighter better? In my mind, the 5-6 pound average laptop weight is light enough that it's not a problem, so being lighter than that is only a significant virtue if it doesn't bring any significant drawbacks along with it.
Seriously? Ask students if they rather carry around a 6-7 pound laptop (we're talking 17") or a 2 pound netbook / tablet. When I went to school I carried a 15.4" notebook until I got my 2 lbs EeePC 701. Night and day difference. Traveling across the country? The Netbook was a lot more portable than trying to bring a 15.4" laptop. Let alone a 17".
6lbs aught to be light enough for anyone!
More importantly, in my mind, added weight conveys a sense of robustness---a sense that the device can survive whatever abuse you can throw at it. The lighter and thinner the device, the more worried I am that I'll look at it the wrong way and it will break in half. Granted, there are advantages to light weight in terms of resisting damage when you drop it, but I still prefer the solid feel of a laptop.
You prefer carrying around a cinder block because of the "sense of robustness"? Not actual robustness? Good grief.
and toss it on the couch or chair without worrying about hard disk damage?
<voice mode="Duke Nukem">SSDs, baby</voice>. If your idea of a good user experience requires being able to treat expensive electronics like crap, then you deserve to pay more (and pay more again when you accidentally hit the end table with that iPad instead of the couch). That's about the worst argument I've read to date in favor of an iPad. You shouldn't be throwing an iPad any more than you would throw a laptop, a desktop, or a Ming vase....
SSDs for a laptop are expensive. A 500GB Hard drive is $60. A 128GB SSD is over $200. People shouldn't treat their electronics like crap, however the nature of portable electronics is that they will be subjected to rougher conditions than a permanent installation, and they must be able to survive. Look at cell phones. It's amazing they keep working at all with what they're subjected to.
Nobody in the IT industry can honestly think that quality actually gets you anywhere. It's marketing, lawyers and sales, advertisers that are the cockroaches that ruined innovation for good.
If only there was some way of creating a business where the engineers sold their raw prototypes at cost to customers, and tech support would consist solely of an animated GIF of an engineer in a constant eye-roll... This is the vision of a slashdotter's technology company.
That's called FOSS. It's why 2000 was the year of the Linux desktop.
"Have you tried sitting around on the couch browsing the web, watching video, and looking through your pictures on an iPad and on your netbook? Because the iPad is just way better at those things."
I'm sorry but... wha?
Really? Picture browsing? Watching video? Browsing the web? BETTER on a iPad?
Sorry, but WTF have you been smoking?
1. Picture browsing: Irfanview, ACDSee (both the consumer an prosumer versions) and even Picasa all offer an experience far superior to that of the iPad. Each of these pieces of software is more functional by far, not to mention enabling a far faster, more efficient workflow (try batch processing all those holiday photos you just took on that iPad). . .
. . . Obviously some (even many) people will prefer the iOS way of doing these things, but generalizing that the iPad is "way better" at video, picture and internet browsing than a regular Windows or Linux equipped x86 machine is just... well, wrong.
I think you missed the point. sitting around on the couch was the key point to the post. If I'm doing batch processing I more likely to be sitting at a desktop or table with a laptop. If I'm processing video I'm likely to do it at a desktop. The point is that in the context of sitting on the couch, a slate format computer is better than a fumbling with a clamshell. Particularly if you want to flip through pictures, where you can hand the whole unit around. Watching a video? No clunky keyboard to get in the way. 10 Hour battery life so no cord to get tangled up in. No spinning HDD to worry about damaging while handing it around running.
Disclosure: I own netbooks and fumble with them on my lap on the couch. I don't own any Apple products and don't have any intention of buying any, particularly with the walled app store concept. However I see how for some applications an iPad is better UI experience than a netbook or standard laptop. In my case I'm willing to compromise on the sitting on the couch aspect for some of the benefits a Netbook provides (access to full fledge desktop applications on the go, full keyboard for extended typing, etc)
Flash still sucks and barely runs on devices / platforms that are supported. Play a flash video online, and if you don't have one of the magically supported video cards, it will rev one of your cores up to 100%, and scribble into the 2D frame buffer. It will start to stutter if you go full screen. Take the raw FLV file, play full screen in VLC (or whatever), and it will use a third of the CPU time, taking advantage of DirectX and whatnot instead of relying on the 2D frame buffer.
It's one thing to use Flash for a specialized widget, and it's quite another when web pages feel the need to code the whole site as a massive CPU revving Flash blob. I really would rather everyone migrated away from Flash.
Even better would be if people didn't half ass engineer their system. Hospital computers autorebooting causes a problem? Disable it and manage reboots for updates some other way. Relatively critical system? Lock it down. No web surfing access, no external drives, no unapproved binaries etc.
Slashdot Mirror
So it's Microsoft's fault that people can't use the software?
I live in Canada, Universal Healthcare in my province does not cover the cost of prescription drugs. Right now I'm employed, but have no employer healthcare plan.
No offense but if the average life of the components are severely shorter than normal, customers shouldn't be expected to put up with junk that renders their $1000 computer useless. And no offense but manufactures shouldn't be trying to hide such defects.
Sample of one? http://hplies.com/ http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&docname=c01087277 http://support.apple.com/kb/ts2377 http://www.nvidia.com/object/io_1215037160521.html http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/Direct2Dell/b/direct2dell/archive/2008/09/12/nvidia-gpu-update-limited-warranty-enhancement-details.aspx
It started to get cold over two years ago... http://port25.technet.com/archive/2008/04/01/open-source-day-at-microsoft.aspx
I bought an nVidia 7200 in my laptop and have it explode out of warranty. No way was I going to buy another nVidia.
Me and everyone I know with an nVidia Go 6150/7200 had them explode and render laptops unusable. http://hplies.com/
On windows you can delete usbstor.sys or disable driver in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USBSTOR
Not directly, but you can make it work. slow.exe only works properly on CPU 0. Either force your application and slow.exe affinity to processor 0, or put slow.exe on processor 0 and http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Benchmarks/CPU-Burnin.shtml something like this on the rest.
The question was "What would be easier to learn basic mechanics from working on: a '57 Chevy or a 2011 Lexus?" not "Which car is better" or "Which car is more reliable". A fuel injection computer and a sensor just adds a "black box" when you want to learn the basics.
If you ask me, the closest thing people come these days to a CLI is the Location bar in Internet Explorer... maybe even the search bar in Google.
The search bar in Internet explorer? Not so much. Usually to do another google search they will minimize all open windows one by one, double click the Internet Explorer icon on the desktop, type "www.google.com" in the location bar, then type the search. But yes, usually on non-technical user's computers the last thing in Run is the last command I ran.
I have some PIIs and PIIIs I will sell you.
Have a look at http://www.adrianboeing.com/tools.html "CPU Speed Adjuster".
Use SpeedStep/Powernow to force the lowest clock rating to prevent a CPU burning application from chewing too much power. As well, look at Thermal throttling. http://cpu.rightmark.org/products/rmclock.shtml lets you manually set such throttling states on some processors. You can sometimes get 12.5% of the original speed.
Look up "xbox foxconn". As far as Dell, the power cable coming out of my Dell monitor says "Foxconn"
Upgrade from Office 97? Because the compatibility pack is offered free to office 2000-2003 users. And of course docx is interchangeable between 2007 and 2010, and users aren't FORCED to upgrade.
I thought Office for Mac was a bi-product of Microsoft spying on early GUI technology? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office#Macintosh_versions
Now, MS is going to have a hard time convincing people to believe any of their long-term promises about much of anything.
B. There are several long-term Microsoft promises in the pipeline right now and people (& media) have bought into them.
People were convinced that when Microsoft killed Courier, they were killing a bug free, complete product which was ready to go into production, and not killing a project that still had a lot of work to go.
But what kind of idiot keeps his wallet in back pocket?
George Costanza
Are your arms not strong enough to carry a laptop that weighs more than that? What, specifically, makes lighter better? In my mind, the 5-6 pound average laptop weight is light enough that it's not a problem, so being lighter than that is only a significant virtue if it doesn't bring any significant drawbacks along with it.
Seriously? Ask students if they rather carry around a 6-7 pound laptop (we're talking 17") or a 2 pound netbook / tablet. When I went to school I carried a 15.4" notebook until I got my 2 lbs EeePC 701. Night and day difference. Traveling across the country? The Netbook was a lot more portable than trying to bring a 15.4" laptop. Let alone a 17".
6lbs aught to be light enough for anyone!
More importantly, in my mind, added weight conveys a sense of robustness---a sense that the device can survive whatever abuse you can throw at it. The lighter and thinner the device, the more worried I am that I'll look at it the wrong way and it will break in half. Granted, there are advantages to light weight in terms of resisting damage when you drop it, but I still prefer the solid feel of a laptop.
You prefer carrying around a cinder block because of the "sense of robustness"? Not actual robustness? Good grief.
<voice mode="Duke Nukem">SSDs, baby</voice>. If your idea of a good user experience requires being able to treat expensive electronics like crap, then you deserve to pay more (and pay more again when you accidentally hit the end table with that iPad instead of the couch). That's about the worst argument I've read to date in favor of an iPad. You shouldn't be throwing an iPad any more than you would throw a laptop, a desktop, or a Ming vase....
SSDs for a laptop are expensive. A 500GB Hard drive is $60. A 128GB SSD is over $200. People shouldn't treat their electronics like crap, however the nature of portable electronics is that they will be subjected to rougher conditions than a permanent installation, and they must be able to survive. Look at cell phones. It's amazing they keep working at all with what they're subjected to.
If only there was some way of creating a business where the engineers sold their raw prototypes at cost to customers, and tech support would consist solely of an animated GIF of an engineer in a constant eye-roll... This is the vision of a slashdotter's technology company.
That's called FOSS. It's why 2000 was the year of the Linux desktop.
"Have you tried sitting around on the couch browsing the web, watching video, and looking through your pictures on an iPad and on your netbook? Because the iPad is just way better at those things."
I'm sorry but... wha?
Really? Picture browsing? Watching video? Browsing the web? BETTER on a iPad?
Sorry, but WTF have you been smoking?
1. Picture browsing: Irfanview, ACDSee (both the consumer an prosumer versions) and even Picasa all offer an experience far superior to that of the iPad. Each of these pieces of software is more functional by far, not to mention enabling a far faster, more efficient workflow (try batch processing all those holiday photos you just took on that iPad). . .
. . . Obviously some (even many) people will prefer the iOS way of doing these things, but generalizing that the iPad is "way better" at video, picture and internet browsing than a regular Windows or Linux equipped x86 machine is just... well, wrong.
I think you missed the point. sitting around on the couch was the key point to the post. If I'm doing batch processing I more likely to be sitting at a desktop or table with a laptop. If I'm processing video I'm likely to do it at a desktop. The point is that in the context of sitting on the couch, a slate format computer is better than a fumbling with a clamshell. Particularly if you want to flip through pictures, where you can hand the whole unit around. Watching a video? No clunky keyboard to get in the way. 10 Hour battery life so no cord to get tangled up in. No spinning HDD to worry about damaging while handing it around running.
Disclosure: I own netbooks and fumble with them on my lap on the couch. I don't own any Apple products and don't have any intention of buying any, particularly with the walled app store concept. However I see how for some applications an iPad is better UI experience than a netbook or standard laptop. In my case I'm willing to compromise on the sitting on the couch aspect for some of the benefits a Netbook provides (access to full fledge desktop applications on the go, full keyboard for extended typing, etc)
Flash still sucks and barely runs on devices / platforms that are supported. Play a flash video online, and if you don't have one of the magically supported video cards, it will rev one of your cores up to 100%, and scribble into the 2D frame buffer. It will start to stutter if you go full screen. Take the raw FLV file, play full screen in VLC (or whatever), and it will use a third of the CPU time, taking advantage of DirectX and whatnot instead of relying on the 2D frame buffer.
It's one thing to use Flash for a specialized widget, and it's quite another when web pages feel the need to code the whole site as a massive CPU revving Flash blob. I really would rather everyone migrated away from Flash.
Even better would be if people didn't half ass engineer their system. Hospital computers autorebooting causes a problem? Disable it and manage reboots for updates some other way. Relatively critical system? Lock it down. No web surfing access, no external drives, no unapproved binaries etc.
How great does the serial console work if the system won't boot?
Some wines pair "magically" with the right foods. The wine tastes better and the food tastes better.
Apple needs to get into the Wine business. iWine
They'll just make sure to compile it with Intel compiler, which optimizes for Intel, and doesn't optimize for AMD, even if it has the required instruction sets. http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1567108/intel-compiler-cripples-code-amd-via-chips