You can still buy them 2nd hand, and mine still works. Does the job, no BS, no gadgets, just works.
BTW, I also have a Neoi 809 Swiss Air edition (neoi.de) and that is so small it takes too long to find it when it rings - and that *really* has small buttons - but it's very good for running as it has no weight and comes with 2 batteries.
Personally, the most useful phone I have is the Sony Ericsson P1i, although the soft buttons means the "end call" button can vanish in a pile of menus. The company iPhone is IMHO crap in comparison, with the exception of 2 points: it's VERY easy add a 3rd party to a call, and the TapForms app you can buy is IMHO the best personal DB app since the Psion Organiser II "files" option (that is, after I rewrote some of the editing and search functions:-).
In the long list of phones I had, I think the NEC P3 was about the nicest. In the times when everyone was walking around with Motorola bricks "I'M ON THE PHONE! YES, LOOK AT ME" I had the thing discretely inside my jacket. It's so much cooler when you don't have to show off but still have the benefit..:-)
I can't understand why Vista needed so much computing power for the graphics AFTER forcing the use of a mega capable graphics card - it's almost like it doesn't use the graphics card. Especially when compared with Linux compiz/fusion where screen manipulations don't register at all on system load (making it nice and snappy) I have no idea what they did. But it wasn't good.
I would like them asusming they had NO new hardware resources. I'd like to see them work along the lines of LESS resource hungry. Because it would mean they'd have to focus on efficiency, which would be a first. It would also provide an instant update hit because it would mean that for the first time ever people wouldn't have to upgrade. It would make a killing in business sales, for sure.
But I guess that wouldn't be considered an "up"grade..
You *must* know from your XP experience that the desktop appears faster than on W2K, but is simply useless for the first 10 minutes until it's finished hammering the hard disk (and I keep startup services to a minimum, to the point of manually nuking GoogleUpdate every time it gets silently installed). Also, they were the ones to come up with a progress bar that RESTARTED (so, what's the "progress" there) which meant you no longer had an idea whether to just go for coffee or have a full 4 course meal..
I don't want them to come up with more cosmetic scams like that. Your observation about a system needing to be snappy is 100% right, I just wonder where the hell all my computing power goes. Sure, I don't have the fastest box in the world but it's still 3..5x faster than when I was using W2K, yet I have to wait. On a laptop with Vista the system "disappears" for seconds on end (cursor goes away), to then later come back and catch up with my typing, in a boring word processor. That is ridiculous, and that^s why I (a) stuck with XP and (b) use Linux and OSX more and more.
The whole netbooks concept is good: do more with less. After that housecleaning we may want to use what we have then on a box with more power and see it fly at last.
First off, the difference isn't actually that big. Secondly, the hidden costs of Windows is so high that $500 is cheap in comparison (and I say this as someone who uses all 3 OS-es).
If I work on Mac or Linux, I don't get the every-minute-of-the-day interruptions - this gadget wants to update, that thing wants to update, that virus checker needs to update, that word I misspelt and it corrected it for me (i.e. making sure I need that word processor because that combination is now not corrected in my head), this document I should only open when I'm absolutely sure of its origin (which is BS because the "other end" could be virus infested), this website has tried to supply me with a file (well, that's why I clicked on that link), I moved the mouse accept/deny?, hey look, I found wireless networks (switching WiFi off means it merely switches to "hey, there are no WiFi networks" - every 5 &%*$ minutes).
Using Windows is a never ending stream of interruptions (it's typical that MS always claims productivity "improvements"), is a never ending load on the system where patch after patch arrives, is a never ending load on the network (those patches have to get to you). Speaking of networks, I have a feeling that Internet bandwidth is now divided in 75% spam and DDoS supplied by Windows machines for other Windows users, 24% updates to try and keep Windows current against threads and about 1% left for those that need to get their job done.
Oh, and don't tell me I should allow MS to update fully unchecked - they have proven you can't trust them there either, and I don't want WGA on my system so someone in Redmond can screw up and shut the machine down for the ever shrinking time I can be convinced to touch Windows. I could do with a patch that kills off all popups, though. If I don't allow it on websites, why the f*ck does Redmond think it's the right thing to do on my desktop?
Anyone REALLY interested in TCO should look at productivity. I think using a Mac for average computer users (i.e. 80%) pays back the higher purchase cost in about a week, and you can use Linux for the more complex demands (Linux *does* need a little bit more savvy to run IMHO) - and there you start with lower costs but should count on a little bit of ramp up time..
Q. When he went, had you gone and had she, if she wanted to and were able, for the time being excluding all the restraints on her not to go, gone also, would he have brought you, meaning you and she, with him to the station?
MR. BROOKS: Objection. That question should be taken out and shot.:-)
Better be careful with that. Full disk crypto doesn't work unless you're disciplined enough to properly shut Windows down at the end of the day, which means every time you boot you'll lose the usual 15 minutes before you have a usable system.
File based crypto can be set to disconnect on a more useful set of circumstances..
Orwell's approach took too much manpower (in principle you still need to trust a few people to do the monitoring).
What the UK Government is doing is imprisonment of innocent people: it is creating a Panopticon out of a whole country.
The signs are all there:
- continuous, seemingly unbroken coverage of the people watching you (the idea is to make you feel you're always being watched) - penalties of minor infringements (also easier than solve the odd murder*) - pretty much random justice ("We're the state, we have the power, we don't care, you don't count") - total absence of humanity in the system
AFAIK, the original idea of patents was to give an inventor (read: the actual people who come up with an idea) a TEMPORARY market monopoly so that they could benefit from their invention without all & sundry copying it.
So far, so good. However, note "temporary" - the concept there was that eventually the idea would contribute to the common good. That, however, happens rarely.
Combine that with a questionable approach (I'm putting this mildly) to approving patents with plenty of prior art of falling well outside the boundary of what can be patented and you have an innovation stifling mess that only lawyers derive any benefit of - and very rich companies that can afford those lawyers.
I'm all for paying of what is due. I'm against a system that can be abused to stop competitive innovation or take an invention without paying.
Make sure you can supply it from abroad or over the Net, and then do some astroturfing in the Sun (one of the UK screech papers) to decry it as a threat to the children (etc etc, just use the Sun as a sample) so that it gets banned in the UK.
There is no better ad for the game possible - soon you'll be rich.
"Their railway system is known as being beyond terrible. Trains don't show up, break down, disappear, bypass stations, ticketing doesn't work, there's bugger all security."
It appears you have more than a bit of British legacy..
Tell me, do you also have the wrong kind of snow? Just curious..
Yeah, right. Following your reasoning you can keep your missiles at home and nuke Washington and Wall Street instead. I vaguely recall that that is where quite a bit fraud started - how much tax money has been converted into private equity via the purchase of weapons?
AFAIK no tax haven has even plunged the world into a financial crisis, which is the bit that all those fine governmental words are trying to hide when they go after the rich.
The courts are overloaded because the system is being abused. Until such time as the courts start acting in a decent way against those that are abusing the system the situation will continue to exist - to the benefit of the abusers.
I vaguely recall that there was a concept of "justice" wrapped up in this..
ROFL, 5 years is missing out the other 15 that they been selling crap.
However, they have brought one HUGE innovation, but it isn't a positive one: MS have actually developed the Scientology method of selling.
The process is as follows. Once they have forced, bullied or bought an appointment with the management of a company or, say, people in charge of a military department (which is where I witnessed this) they will call a meeting at a nice venue.
If this meeting is for 50 people you will find management at the front, and the rest of the room is approx 50% MS staff. They have one job, and one job only: blocking any interruption to the sales flow up font. This means any member of the audience who innocently objects to the *cough* "facts" on display (by asking for source, or pointing out discrepancies) is immediately engaged in local whispered discussion, thus allowing the front to keep management in the glazed status that all this make-believe creates.
During break time, the protocol is to ensure any disturbances are removed before the management is escorted out, and they are held strictly separate from anyone who dissented during the morning, or whoever looks like he/she knows what he/she's talking about. And people wearing sandals. Normally a separate "lunch" (more a banquet) is laid on, just to ensure the segregation is maintained and the gloss/glaze can't come off.
After lunch, more of the same. Copies of presentations are promised, at military level usually contained by "confidentiality" ("we're in the club", nod nod wink wink) but are held back so long that major decisions will be taken before the facts get near anyone competent enough to expose them for the frauds they are.
And so it goes. The management takes decisions based on, well, vapour, staff gets to implement a complete dog, consultancies involved know better than to speak up (they won't get the work otherwise, and MS work means a LOT more consulting time before it all works - and guess who sells time when it works badly) so the whole farce keeps itself alive.
Until they ruined it with Vista. That was SO bad even management noticed.
However, fear not - that's what consultancies are for. They will soon get the execs back on track. The MS track. And that's why, for instance, everything continues to fail spectacularly in the UK.
In a way it's art. A sort of Damien Hirst I-do-something-totally-daft-and-call-it-art kind of art. Not for sane people, no use whatsoever and an unabashed waste of money.
Just that in the case of government, it's YOUR money wasted.
Well, as long as the sheep keep getting fed the same entertainment about how New Labour's Gordon Brown "takes responsibility" and has to "rescue the world" from basically the mess the party has helped creating (the bit that curiously never makes it into the press) and then go to vote with glazed over eyes I don't think much will change.
I'm perpetually bemused by a country that once produced astonishingly clever engineering and was at the forefront of the industrial revolution and that seems now more or less have lost the will to bloody live.
Moaning will NOT fix the problems. Calling people to account, getting to the streets and asking the hard questions that are being dodged, asking why a report can state that speed cameras save lives at a huge while the hard evidence is against it (I know why, but it's off topic), demanding that CCTV operators are observed themselves, blocking government people from taking up job offers in the companies they regulate or control (Tony Blair at Morgan Stanley - who is buying up companies at the cheap after destroying the global economy with his mate Bush), and FORCING TRANSPARANCY into government - that is what's needed to fix the mess. And sack the idiots currently running the country. If I hear stuff like "a good day to bury bad news" and "we lead" and see that the facts are 180 degree different I know I'm dealing with a Grade A BS-er who cannot be trusted to tie their shoelaces without asking for advice.
People have a right to privacy, and the politician's private life is to some extend off limits too. But there is ZERO argument for the working of Government to be as opaque as they are in the UK. Regardless of which lid you lift, at present it always seems to cover a stinking mess of abuse, corruption, jobs-for-the-boys (and their friends) and plain embezzlement.
If I have an IT company or a consultancy or whatever entity that alleges to supply services to the government I should have a right to know what they do. The whole "commercial secret" is a farce anyway because government accounting is supposed to be open anyway so the numbers are there. Just a basic value-for-money review will identify quite a bit.
OK, rant over. Short summary: Guy Fawkes was right..
We should vow that if we ever get to present to the MPAA we should a. lock the doors so nobody can get out b. read the copyright notice for your presentation in full - through a loudhailer c. introduce them to at least 3 other services which have no bearing on the topic of the presentation (that takes care of the preview rubbish). d. then refuse to present because they gave you the wrong room. Zone limiting doesn't allow you to present in any but the right location.
The prevailing driver for buying new versions of Windows has always been the hope that the next version would be decent and safe (a bit like Bush & Blair promising glory to get elected).
Sigh. These guys obviously have never heard of the Streisand effect..
What's happening now is that anyone who wants to annoy the Royals sets up a site outside Thailand and puts crap on it. It's turned into a (very questionable) sport, leaving the Thais to commit a Denial of Service on themselves.
If they had simply ignored this rubbish as being well below them (as most other Royal houses do) the "fun" would have gone off it in a week. Actually, I don't think you can even assume a Royal will sit there telling his cohorts "I don't like this" - it could be the familiar effect of overzealous staff who suffer from a God complex..
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You can still buy them 2nd hand, and mine still works. Does the job, no BS, no gadgets, just works.
BTW, I also have a Neoi 809 Swiss Air edition (neoi.de) and that is so small it takes too long to find it when it rings - and that *really* has small buttons - but it's very good for running as it has no weight and comes with 2 batteries.
Personally, the most useful phone I have is the Sony Ericsson P1i, although the soft buttons means the "end call" button can vanish in a pile of menus. The company iPhone is IMHO crap in comparison, with the exception of 2 points: it's VERY easy add a 3rd party to a call, and the TapForms app you can buy is IMHO the best personal DB app since the Psion Organiser II "files" option (that is, after I rewrote some of the editing and search functions :-).
In the long list of phones I had, I think the NEC P3 was about the nicest. In the times when everyone was walking around with Motorola bricks "I'M ON THE PHONE! YES, LOOK AT ME" I had the thing discretely inside my jacket. It's so much cooler when you don't have to show off but still have the benefit.. :-)
I can't understand why Vista needed so much computing power for the graphics AFTER forcing the use of a mega capable graphics card - it's almost like it doesn't use the graphics card. Especially when compared with Linux compiz/fusion where screen manipulations don't register at all on system load (making it nice and snappy) I have no idea what they did. But it wasn't good.
I would like them asusming they had NO new hardware resources. I'd like to see them work along the lines of LESS resource hungry. Because it would mean they'd have to focus on efficiency, which would be a first. It would also provide an instant update hit because it would mean that for the first time ever people wouldn't have to upgrade. It would make a killing in business sales, for sure.
But I guess that wouldn't be considered an "up"grade..
You *must* know from your XP experience that the desktop appears faster than on W2K, but is simply useless for the first 10 minutes until it's finished hammering the hard disk (and I keep startup services to a minimum, to the point of manually nuking GoogleUpdate every time it gets silently installed). Also, they were the ones to come up with a progress bar that RESTARTED (so, what's the "progress" there) which meant you no longer had an idea whether to just go for coffee or have a full 4 course meal..
I don't want them to come up with more cosmetic scams like that. Your observation about a system needing to be snappy is 100% right, I just wonder where the hell all my computing power goes. Sure, I don't have the fastest box in the world but it's still 3..5x faster than when I was using W2K, yet I have to wait. On a laptop with Vista the system "disappears" for seconds on end (cursor goes away), to then later come back and catch up with my typing, in a boring word processor. That is ridiculous, and that^s why I (a) stuck with XP and (b) use Linux and OSX more and more.
The whole netbooks concept is good: do more with less. After that housecleaning we may want to use what we have then on a box with more power and see it fly at last.
After I learn touch typing. :-)
First off, the difference isn't actually that big. Secondly, the hidden costs of Windows is so high that $500 is cheap in comparison (and I say this as someone who uses all 3 OS-es).
If I work on Mac or Linux, I don't get the every-minute-of-the-day interruptions - this gadget wants to update, that thing wants to update, that virus checker needs to update, that word I misspelt and it corrected it for me (i.e. making sure I need that word processor because that combination is now not corrected in my head), this document I should only open when I'm absolutely sure of its origin (which is BS because the "other end" could be virus infested), this website has tried to supply me with a file (well, that's why I clicked on that link), I moved the mouse accept/deny?, hey look, I found wireless networks (switching WiFi off means it merely switches to "hey, there are no WiFi networks" - every 5 &%*$ minutes).
Using Windows is a never ending stream of interruptions (it's typical that MS always claims productivity "improvements"), is a never ending load on the system where patch after patch arrives, is a never ending load on the network (those patches have to get to you). Speaking of networks, I have a feeling that Internet bandwidth is now divided in 75% spam and DDoS supplied by Windows machines for other Windows users, 24% updates to try and keep Windows current against threads and about 1% left for those that need to get their job done.
Oh, and don't tell me I should allow MS to update fully unchecked - they have proven you can't trust them there either, and I don't want WGA on my system so someone in Redmond can screw up and shut the machine down for the ever shrinking time I can be convinced to touch Windows. I could do with a patch that kills off all popups, though. If I don't allow it on websites, why the f*ck does Redmond think it's the right thing to do on my desktop?
Anyone REALLY interested in TCO should look at productivity. I think using a Mac for average computer users (i.e. 80%) pays back the higher purchase cost in about a week, and you can use Linux for the more complex demands (Linux *does* need a little bit more savvy to run IMHO) - and there you start with lower costs but should count on a little bit of ramp up time..
$500 more for a Mac?
It's still worth it at TWICE that.
You're OK, you haven't quite reached the bottom yet:
http://www.lawschoolbound.net/TO/humor2.htm
Q. When he went, had you gone and had she, if she wanted to and were able, for the time being excluding all the restraints on her not to go, gone also, would he have brought you, meaning you and she, with him to the station?
MR. BROOKS: Objection. That question should be taken out and shot. :-)
Better be careful with that. Full disk crypto doesn't work unless you're disciplined enough to properly shut Windows down at the end of the day, which means every time you boot you'll lose the usual 15 minutes before you have a usable system.
File based crypto can be set to disconnect on a more useful set of circumstances..
IMHO you need BOTH for good protection.
Orwell's approach took too much manpower (in principle you still need to trust a few people to do the monitoring).
What the UK Government is doing is imprisonment of innocent people: it is creating a Panopticon out of a whole country.
The signs are all there:
- continuous, seemingly unbroken coverage of the people watching you (the idea is to make you feel you're always being watched)
- penalties of minor infringements (also easier than solve the odd murder*)
- pretty much random justice ("We're the state, we have the power, we don't care, you don't count")
- total absence of humanity in the system
So, it's not 1984 - that's just a part of it.
I guess there's also the desire not to worry people by showing in real time what the result of such retarded cognitive development would be..
AFAIK, the original idea of patents was to give an inventor (read: the actual people who come up with an idea) a TEMPORARY market monopoly so that they could benefit from their invention without all & sundry copying it.
So far, so good. However, note "temporary" - the concept there was that eventually the idea would contribute to the common good. That, however, happens rarely.
Combine that with a questionable approach (I'm putting this mildly) to approving patents with plenty of prior art of falling well outside the boundary of what can be patented and you have an innovation stifling mess that only lawyers derive any benefit of - and very rich companies that can afford those lawyers.
I'm all for paying of what is due. I'm against a system that can be abused to stop competitive innovation or take an invention without paying.
I don't care for their opinions. It would be nice if MS could, for once, stick to the facts.
But hey, that's like asking the NSA not to snoop..
Make sure you can supply it from abroad or over the Net, and then do some astroturfing in the Sun (one of the UK screech papers) to decry it as a threat to the children (etc etc, just use the Sun as a sample) so that it gets banned in the UK.
There is no better ad for the game possible - soon you'll be rich.
At which point that bank collapses too.
My P3 ME laptop boots in 12 seconds including login time
Yes, but then you're running Windows ME :-).
"Their railway system is known as being beyond terrible. Trains don't show up, break down, disappear, bypass stations, ticketing doesn't work, there's bugger all security."
It appears you have more than a bit of British legacy..
Tell me, do you also have the wrong kind of snow? Just curious..
and 'talk'.., and in general shell accounts.
IMHO, XWindows was only invented to get more command lines on one screen...
Yeah, right. Following your reasoning you can keep your missiles at home and nuke Washington and Wall Street instead. I vaguely recall that that is where quite a bit fraud started - how much tax money has been converted into private equity via the purchase of weapons?
AFAIK no tax haven has even plunged the world into a financial crisis, which is the bit that all those fine governmental words are trying to hide when they go after the rich.
The courts are overloaded because the system is being abused. Until such time as the courts start acting in a decent way against those that are abusing the system the situation will continue to exist - to the benefit of the abusers.
I vaguely recall that there was a concept of "justice" wrapped up in this..
All IMHO, of course, IANAL..
How would you know they are violating your rights?
Ever tried to get hold of someone at Google (or Youtube, for that matter)?
http://127.0.0.1/
Enjoy.
ROFL, 5 years is missing out the other 15 that they been selling crap.
However, they have brought one HUGE innovation, but it isn't a positive one: MS have actually developed the Scientology method of selling.
The process is as follows. Once they have forced, bullied or bought an appointment with the management of a company or, say, people in charge of a military department (which is where I witnessed this) they will call a meeting at a nice venue.
If this meeting is for 50 people you will find management at the front, and the rest of the room is approx 50% MS staff. They have one job, and one job only: blocking any interruption to the sales flow up font. This means any member of the audience who innocently objects to the *cough* "facts" on display (by asking for source, or pointing out discrepancies) is immediately engaged in local whispered discussion, thus allowing the front to keep management in the glazed status that all this make-believe creates.
During break time, the protocol is to ensure any disturbances are removed before the management is escorted out, and they are held strictly separate from anyone who dissented during the morning, or whoever looks like he/she knows what he/she's talking about. And people wearing sandals. Normally a separate "lunch" (more a banquet) is laid on, just to ensure the segregation is maintained and the gloss/glaze can't come off.
After lunch, more of the same. Copies of presentations are promised, at military level usually contained by "confidentiality" ("we're in the club", nod nod wink wink) but are held back so long that major decisions will be taken before the facts get near anyone competent enough to expose them for the frauds they are.
And so it goes. The management takes decisions based on, well, vapour, staff gets to implement a complete dog, consultancies involved know better than to speak up (they won't get the work otherwise, and MS work means a LOT more consulting time before it all works - and guess who sells time when it works badly) so the whole farce keeps itself alive.
Until they ruined it with Vista. That was SO bad even management noticed.
However, fear not - that's what consultancies are for. They will soon get the execs back on track. The MS track. And that's why, for instance, everything continues to fail spectacularly in the UK.
In a way it's art. A sort of Damien Hirst I-do-something-totally-daft-and-call-it-art kind of art. Not for sane people, no use whatsoever and an unabashed waste of money.
Just that in the case of government, it's YOUR money wasted.
Well, as long as the sheep keep getting fed the same entertainment about how New Labour's Gordon Brown "takes responsibility" and has to "rescue the world" from basically the mess the party has helped creating (the bit that curiously never makes it into the press) and then go to vote with glazed over eyes I don't think much will change.
I'm perpetually bemused by a country that once produced astonishingly clever engineering and was at the forefront of the industrial revolution and that seems now more or less have lost the will to bloody live.
Moaning will NOT fix the problems. Calling people to account, getting to the streets and asking the hard questions that are being dodged, asking why a report can state that speed cameras save lives at a huge while the hard evidence is against it (I know why, but it's off topic), demanding that CCTV operators are observed themselves, blocking government people from taking up job offers in the companies they regulate or control (Tony Blair at Morgan Stanley - who is buying up companies at the cheap after destroying the global economy with his mate Bush), and FORCING TRANSPARANCY into government - that is what's needed to fix the mess. And sack the idiots currently running the country. If I hear stuff like "a good day to bury bad news" and "we lead" and see that the facts are 180 degree different I know I'm dealing with a Grade A BS-er who cannot be trusted to tie their shoelaces without asking for advice.
People have a right to privacy, and the politician's private life is to some extend off limits too. But there is ZERO argument for the working of Government to be as opaque as they are in the UK. Regardless of which lid you lift, at present it always seems to cover a stinking mess of abuse, corruption, jobs-for-the-boys (and their friends) and plain embezzlement.
If I have an IT company or a consultancy or whatever entity that alleges to supply services to the government I should have a right to know what they do. The whole "commercial secret" is a farce anyway because government accounting is supposed to be open anyway so the numbers are there. Just a basic value-for-money review will identify quite a bit.
OK, rant over. Short summary: Guy Fawkes was right..
.. this case stinks.
Sorry, someone had to say it. Instead of investigating why the guy can be detected upwind they go to court for 10 years. Duh.
PS, why did nobody offer him a bio weapons contract? On offer is a very portable solution which doesn't require any logistics. And you save on socks..
We should vow that if we ever get to present to the MPAA we should
a. lock the doors so nobody can get out
b. read the copyright notice for your presentation in full - through a loudhailer
c. introduce them to at least 3 other services which have no bearing on the topic of the presentation (that takes care of the preview rubbish).
d. then refuse to present because they gave you the wrong room. Zone limiting doesn't allow you to present in any but the right location.
So there :-)
Why can't a Bishop be a prop? Closer to real life :-)
The prevailing driver for buying new versions of Windows has always been the hope that the next version would be decent and safe (a bit like Bush & Blair promising glory to get elected).
At least they have given up on that.
I still won't buy it.
Sigh. These guys obviously have never heard of the Streisand effect..
What's happening now is that anyone who wants to annoy the Royals sets up a site outside Thailand and puts crap on it. It's turned into a (very questionable) sport, leaving the Thais to commit a Denial of Service on themselves.
If they had simply ignored this rubbish as being well below them (as most other Royal houses do) the "fun" would have gone off it in a week. Actually, I don't think you can even assume a Royal will sit there telling his cohorts "I don't like this" - it could be the familiar effect of overzealous staff who suffer from a God complex..
Some will never learn.