Having all the Smart crap confuses normal users... especially if they don't work because you disabled Internet connections. I have read of instances of Smart TVs piggybacking on unsecured Wifi connections. Sure, probably operator error, but none of those companies can be trusted.
I don't game on my TV. Okay, that isn't entirely true. I have an old PS2 and a Wii. Both which never are used, but attached to the TV anyway. I dabbled into Steam Machines, with very low end hardware (cheap NUC-like. I got it dirt cheap on sale). It works for casual games, but, frankly, most games on Steam -even the casual ones- are badly adapted for using on TV. The fonts are too small, and if you need to do any significant reading, you have to sit way too close to the TV.
Well, I didn't want to say 'impossible' because I wasn't 100% certain. Still, I prefer my TVs dumb... If I want "smartness", I can build that myself and have more control.
That was the plan. It's pretty much the impression I had in the first place. One of the things I really like abouti it, is that it's a dumb TV. Very hard to find dumb TVs in the higher resolution sets.
If my wife came home one day and said, "Hey, I'm going to open a checking account in my name only and have my pay direct deposited to it, and then contribute some portion of that to our joint account for our joint bills and spend the rest however I want"
There is a significant difference between changing a in-place system, and having a different system from the get-go. Of course, the above scenario would raise red flags, because it changes the well working status quo.
That said, the inverse would also be true: if I came home and I'd say something like "from now on your income must be completely transferred to the common account and we will close our personal accounts", then I'd also expect my wife to be extremely suspicious. It could be an indicator of something else going on. If you change these kind of things, it must be in discussion with your partner and not -as your examples- unilateral decision. It's the unilateral decision that's the problem, not the change of system.
I think you misunderstand: Having a common account requires trust. We have a common account, we trust each other. The common account just has a very specific purpose. In all the years we have been married, there never has been a problem. Still, that doesn't mean we can't have separate accounts for personal purchases.
She has that. She just is sloppy and ends up charging her personal card all the time. I tell her to be careful. I presume this is because the shopping experience on a cellphone isn't as clear as on a computer. She rarely to never uses her computer for amazon. I have a bit of trouble understanding why she does that. Convenience, I suppose.
Anyway, about every 6 months, I just go over her purchases and reimburse her what should have been bought on the common account.
Perhaps it helps understand that her parents had a very very very ugly divorce when she was a teenager. The tensions are there to this day, and it's been something like a quarter of a century ago or so. I don't know if this is common with kids from divorcees, but she seems to think this has to happen eventually to her too. Having it set up this way, soothes my inner accountant and should her fear ever come through, we will have it "easier" to get it through peacefully.
Obviously, I don't plan on divorce, but it's good to be prepared. Thirteen years and counting, with ups and downs...
I know many people think of marriage as a romantic involvement. That is wrong. It is primarily a contractual obligation, and the romantic aspect is a nice bonus. Perhaps I'm just weird. Perhaps I am a heartless cold calculating arsehole... If so, then I have no problem with that. You have the right to judge me.
Envy much? You know why we have such high incomes? Because housing is immensely expensive. Small place, high demand: insane real estate prices. It's perhaps not Bay Area level, but pretty much half of our current income goes straight to housing.
Indeed, Prime doesn't have multiple accounts profiles: It's slightly annoying. It does have allow up to three devices to stream simultaneously. That's not all that bad, really.
As for the content: Netflix was pretty crappy too (for Luxembourg). When we still had it, I bothered to make a list of stuff I wanted to see. One day, I actually wanted to see one of the movies on that list... and it wasn't there any more. It was Guardians of the Galaxy, and I am 100% I had it at a certain point and when I wanted to watch it, it was gone. Prime may have a different selection, but it's not as if with Netflix you could watch anything you could come up with. I haven't used Prime Video much, but I saw they had "The man in the high castle" which is something I might enjoy.
Netflix effectively costs me 42€ per year with 4k since I split with 3 other people (they pay 42 each too).
Unless, you are the same household, you are in breach of Netflixes TOS. I don't judge that, I know tons of people who do, but I try not to risk blacklisting.
My father has a masters in applied economics, and he taught us (and my siblings) how to do accounting correctly and all under the motto "Les bons comptes font les bons amis". I am not aware of a English equivalent of the saying, but it means as much that if you keep money affairs honest, friends will stay friends. If you are married, or in a partnership having your own account, her/his/xir own account and a common account is immensely useful. This stops financial disagreements: I want something, and she doesn't agree (new computer, new camera,...), I pay it with my money. The same for her. The common account is for everything that concerns us both and the kid: mortgage, food, healthcare, etc. We both have access to the common account: if I do weird stuff on it, she can see it and ask for explanations. I can do the same.
We also have separate computer accounts, separate facebooks, but nobody finds that strange, right?
Having your finances sorted out helps to stabilize marriages. It's the singlemost important advice I would give to newlyweds.
I like the idea of keeping accounts separate. I realise you can work arounds, but I just would have liked it to work without messing around. It's already bad enough that my wife mixes up her credit cards from her personal account and our joint account all the time.
My wife got the free trial prime, earlier this year by not paying attention (they really push it now it's available in Luxembourg). Not a big deal, just cancel it after the trial is over. However, it turned out she forgot to renew our Netflix subscription and I explained her that Prime Video is included in the Prime subscription. Give it is significantly cheaper: Netflix is 12x10.99EUR=131,88EUR/year, vs Prime 49.90EUR/year and prime offers a lot more.
So, we decided to continue it... She has next day delivery and still has video on demand (albeit, not Netflix). She's happy.
What I didn't like is that your normally should be able to share some of the Prime membership advantages with other people in the household. I thought: sweet! I can get next-day delivery too now on my account. Yeah, well, turns out, that sharing feature isn't available in Luxembourg. Yes, I contacted support about it. They confirmed it's not available in my region. Sad.
Oh, well, usually when I order stuff, I can wait... There is no way, I pay for a second prime membership though.
Point was: compared to the past, it's become much better. I used to count two days to configure a Windows machine. Today, half a workday should suffice. However, I usually refuse. As you might have understood it was a quick and dirty test in order to exclude a potential problem.
On a decent connection, from PXE to fully installed (all applications included) for Ubuntu is 20 minutes. Been there, done that.
I just happen to have installed Windows 10 on a HP ProBook 4340S. It normally runs Ubuntu from a 275GB SSD. I had trouble with Garmin Express under Virtualbox, and wanting to exclude problems caused by visualization, I snagged a 32GB SSD I had lying around, burned a freshly downloaded Win10 1709. The exercise from downloading burning the DVD (using Ubuntu) to finishing the install and testing Garmin Express (Still doens't work as expected.) was 1h30 tops. Two system devices had a warning sign, but I didn't bother because everything I actually needed worked. Not sure what they were, everything seemed to work. Windows 10 was activated with its digital entitlement. I have now swapped back to my original SSD, because my test is done. Technically, an unactivated Windows 10 would be more than fine enough to do tests like these.
Granted, for many people you can add another couple of hours to setup the desired software and disabling/enabling all stuff Windows 10 gets wrong in the default settings... but, if you're after a working computer, you can get one really quickly these days. We are far far far away from setting aside two days to configure a Windows machine.
You did not have a second computer to download the ISO
You did not have time, nor motivation to fix it yourself.
That is fair enough. These are (relatively) good reasons to spend money on a new computer. However, that was besides the point: Your original statement was that you didn't want to wrestle with Microsoft to get a working and activated copy of Windows. As much as I hate to say it, Microsoft finally does the right thing and allows re-installation from an ISO you can get with them. Not only that, their (end-user) licensing has been simplified so that a re-installation is not the headache it once used to be. Your statement was simply factually untrue.
Even if you only had only that computer, as a tech professional, you surely had a bootable Linux somewhere. This would have allowed you to boot the machine, go download the Windows 10 ISO, and make a bootable USB or burn it to disc. From there, you could have reinstalled the machine. I'm just saying. I understand you were angry and probably didn't have the time, but the machine could have been salvaged pretty easily.
Still, the above would have taken a few hours. Hours which you didn't want to spend. So, I understand.
As for the two SATA connectors and lack of cables in your new machine. OEMs always go with the most bare bones they can get away with. Two SATA is common, limited power supplies too. My experience is that you best do not buy a computer on a hunch, without research. I have done quite a few time and pretty much always something ends up annoying me endlessly. As often, taking decisions while angry, are usually bad decisions.
Good luck with your new computer. However, if you really want to leave the Windows world entirely, take that old computer slam a distro of your choice on it and start using it. I did that a decade ago, and never looked back. The main "trick" is not to look back and decide to look for the "Linux" way of doing things and eventually look for alternative programs.
Look, I'm a Linux user, but if you've got a Windows 10 resulting from a Windows 7 or Windows 8(.1) upgrade (or the Windows Store), you have a digital entitlement. In any other case, you should have a product key. A digital entitlement is (relatively) cool in the sense that you simply boot with the Windows 10 ISO, which you can download directly from Microsoft, when a product key is asked, you say "skip" and after installation, your copy auto-activates the digital entitlement. This is even relatively flexible: hardware changes like hard disks/ssds/optical drives do not seem to be included in the digital entitlement hash. So, upgrading from HDD to SSD is no problem with a digital entitlement.
As said, any other way of acquiring Windows 10 gives you a product key which you can use on the hardware it's coupled to. If you do not have a product key, well, perhaps you should do some introspection. It's not as if getting Windows 10 keys is very expensive, especially if you live in Europe
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Having all the Smart crap confuses normal users... especially if they don't work because you disabled Internet connections. I have read of instances of Smart TVs piggybacking on unsecured Wifi connections. Sure, probably operator error, but none of those companies can be trusted.
Standard monitors don't have CI+ slots for DVB-C.
I just may have really bad eyeshight.
I don't game on my TV. Okay, that isn't entirely true. I have an old PS2 and a Wii. Both which never are used, but attached to the TV anyway. I dabbled into Steam Machines, with very low end hardware (cheap NUC-like. I got it dirt cheap on sale). It works for casual games, but, frankly, most games on Steam -even the casual ones- are badly adapted for using on TV. The fonts are too small, and if you need to do any significant reading, you have to sit way too close to the TV.
Well, I didn't want to say 'impossible' because I wasn't 100% certain. Still, I prefer my TVs dumb... If I want "smartness", I can build that myself and have more control.
That was the plan. It's pretty much the impression I had in the first place. One of the things I really like abouti it, is that it's a dumb TV. Very hard to find dumb TVs in the higher resolution sets.
Perhaps... but enough for spending money on a new TV? Hell fuck no!
I have a 1080p dumb 50" TV... does the job. Only cost 225EUR.
There is a significant difference between changing a in-place system, and having a different system from the get-go. Of course, the above scenario would raise red flags, because it changes the well working status quo.
That said, the inverse would also be true: if I came home and I'd say something like "from now on your income must be completely transferred to the common account and we will close our personal accounts", then I'd also expect my wife to be extremely suspicious. It could be an indicator of something else going on. If you change these kind of things, it must be in discussion with your partner and not -as your examples- unilateral decision. It's the unilateral decision that's the problem, not the change of system.
Wise words ;-)
I think you misunderstand: Having a common account requires trust. We have a common account, we trust each other. The common account just has a very specific purpose. In all the years we have been married, there never has been a problem. Still, that doesn't mean we can't have separate accounts for personal purchases.
Anyway, about every 6 months, I just go over her purchases and reimburse her what should have been bought on the common account.
Just as smart as people buying housing in the Bay Area, really... *shrug* One does need a place to live in the end.
Yup. You totally get it...
Obviously, I don't plan on divorce, but it's good to be prepared. Thirteen years and counting, with ups and downs...
I know many people think of marriage as a romantic involvement. That is wrong. It is primarily a contractual obligation, and the romantic aspect is a nice bonus. Perhaps I'm just weird. Perhaps I am a heartless cold calculating arsehole... If so, then I have no problem with that. You have the right to judge me.
Envy much? You know why we have such high incomes? Because housing is immensely expensive. Small place, high demand: insane real estate prices. It's perhaps not Bay Area level, but pretty much half of our current income goes straight to housing.
As for the content: Netflix was pretty crappy too (for Luxembourg). When we still had it, I bothered to make a list of stuff I wanted to see. One day, I actually wanted to see one of the movies on that list... and it wasn't there any more. It was Guardians of the Galaxy, and I am 100% I had it at a certain point and when I wanted to watch it, it was gone. Prime may have a different selection, but it's not as if with Netflix you could watch anything you could come up with. I haven't used Prime Video much, but I saw they had "The man in the high castle" which is something I might enjoy.
Unless, you are the same household, you are in breach of Netflixes TOS. I don't judge that, I know tons of people who do, but I try not to risk blacklisting.
My father has a masters in applied economics, and he taught us (and my siblings) how to do accounting correctly and all under the motto "Les bons comptes font les bons amis". I am not aware of a English equivalent of the saying, but it means as much that if you keep money affairs honest, friends will stay friends. If you are married, or in a partnership having your own account, her/his/xir own account and a common account is immensely useful. This stops financial disagreements: I want something, and she doesn't agree (new computer, new camera, ...), I pay it with my money. The same for her. The common account is for everything that concerns us both and the kid: mortgage, food, healthcare, etc. We both have access to the common account: if I do weird stuff on it, she can see it and ask for explanations. I can do the same.
We also have separate computer accounts, separate facebooks, but nobody finds that strange, right?
Having your finances sorted out helps to stabilize marriages. It's the singlemost important advice I would give to newlyweds.
I like the idea of keeping accounts separate. I realise you can work arounds, but I just would have liked it to work without messing around. It's already bad enough that my wife mixes up her credit cards from her personal account and our joint account all the time.
So, we decided to continue it... She has next day delivery and still has video on demand (albeit, not Netflix). She's happy.
What I didn't like is that your normally should be able to share some of the Prime membership advantages with other people in the household. I thought: sweet! I can get next-day delivery too now on my account. Yeah, well, turns out, that sharing feature isn't available in Luxembourg. Yes, I contacted support about it. They confirmed it's not available in my region. Sad.
Oh, well, usually when I order stuff, I can wait... There is no way, I pay for a second prime membership though.
On a decent connection, from PXE to fully installed (all applications included) for Ubuntu is 20 minutes. Been there, done that.
I always have to watch those with sound disabled, because I understand German and the subtitle/sound mismatch makes it hard to follow.
Granted, for many people you can add another couple of hours to setup the desired software and disabling/enabling all stuff Windows 10 gets wrong in the default settings... but, if you're after a working computer, you can get one really quickly these days. We are far far far away from setting aside two days to configure a Windows machine.
That is fair enough. These are (relatively) good reasons to spend money on a new computer. However, that was besides the point: Your original statement was that you didn't want to wrestle with Microsoft to get a working and activated copy of Windows. As much as I hate to say it, Microsoft finally does the right thing and allows re-installation from an ISO you can get with them. Not only that, their (end-user) licensing has been simplified so that a re-installation is not the headache it once used to be. Your statement was simply factually untrue.
Even if you only had only that computer, as a tech professional, you surely had a bootable Linux somewhere. This would have allowed you to boot the machine, go download the Windows 10 ISO, and make a bootable USB or burn it to disc. From there, you could have reinstalled the machine. I'm just saying. I understand you were angry and probably didn't have the time, but the machine could have been salvaged pretty easily.
Still, the above would have taken a few hours. Hours which you didn't want to spend. So, I understand.
As for the two SATA connectors and lack of cables in your new machine. OEMs always go with the most bare bones they can get away with. Two SATA is common, limited power supplies too. My experience is that you best do not buy a computer on a hunch, without research. I have done quite a few time and pretty much always something ends up annoying me endlessly. As often, taking decisions while angry, are usually bad decisions.
Good luck with your new computer. However, if you really want to leave the Windows world entirely, take that old computer slam a distro of your choice on it and start using it. I did that a decade ago, and never looked back. The main "trick" is not to look back and decide to look for the "Linux" way of doing things and eventually look for alternative programs.
Look, I'm a Linux user, but if you've got a Windows 10 resulting from a Windows 7 or Windows 8(.1) upgrade (or the Windows Store), you have a digital entitlement. In any other case, you should have a product key. A digital entitlement is (relatively) cool in the sense that you simply boot with the Windows 10 ISO, which you can download directly from Microsoft, when a product key is asked, you say "skip" and after installation, your copy auto-activates the digital entitlement. This is even relatively flexible: hardware changes like hard disks/ssds/optical drives do not seem to be included in the digital entitlement hash. So, upgrading from HDD to SSD is no problem with a digital entitlement.
As said, any other way of acquiring Windows 10 gives you a product key which you can use on the hardware it's coupled to. If you do not have a product key, well, perhaps you should do some introspection. It's not as if getting Windows 10 keys is very expensive, especially if you live in Europe