I wish that were true. For $250-$300, you can get a 2 in one machine, i3 or i5, 8 gigs of RAM, and a 5400 RPM HDD, or at best a 64 GB MMC SD card, which renders the machine entirely unusable. It would be nice if a low-end M.2 SATA or even NVMe SSD were tossed in, but no PC vendor wants to make a usable machine at that price point.
The ironic thing is that SIM cards support apps that can run solely on the SIM card and not leave it. AT&T had something called Softcard. This used an app on the SIM card to authenticate transactions. It didn't matter what the phone did as all the authentication happened on the individual SIM card.
Google bought this technology, and is sitting on it. Wish they would use it.
One of the benefits of SSDs is that they have a significantly longer MTBF than HDDs. They also can stand worse environments as well. However, when the ECC fails and the gates stop keeping in the electronics, there is no way to recover a SSD. When they fail, they fail hard.
This is what RAID and backups are for. It isn't if a drive fails; it is when. Don't ever count on drive recovery services. Especially with how relatively inexpensive backups are. Backups are not difficult. Veeam, Borg Backup, Arq, Time Machine, Windows Backup (wbadmin), and many more are available. At the minimum, CrashPlan.
Overall, SSDs have more advantages than disadvantages, especially newer ones. I wouldn't want to go back to spinning disks on the desktop or active use.
SLS was doing this in 1992, Slackware had a better system in 1993, and both Debian and RedHat came out with decent package managers that used PGP/gpg signatures in 1994.
Modern packaging systems do remember the hash of the files. A "rpm -Va" can easily point out changed binaries, and there are dedicated utilities like Tripwire and AIDE which do better.
I have heard about someone converting a 74 'Vette. It isn't going to win any races, and the hackneyed emissions stuff made it a PITA. So, they took the engine and other junk out, put some batteries behind the driver and the rest under the hood, to balance the vehicle out. Supposedly greatly improved not just performance, but handling, and the upfitters even used the fuel fill port for the charging port, so there were not any additional holes made in the fiberglass.
Anything 1973 or earlier, I'd never do that on, because those had great performance, but anything from 1974 to early 1980s would probably be better off being made into an electric vehicle.
It gets tiring because the "GDPR" ads result in full pop-overs stating that someone has to accept an entire EULA, be it no sue clauses, opting into data collection, with the site saying, "if you want to decline, leave the site immediately."
The Internet worked for decades without massive data collection. It worked for decades without ads.
I'm just hoping the GDPR gets enforced and adapted more places. A few years ago, I had a friend of mine take a photo of me in a humidor and slap it on Facebook for friends only. A week later, I got a physical mail from my health insurance company demanding I take a physical or pay smoker's rates.
I wonder about having a mode setting on the vehicle. Set it, it only listens to the lock/unlock buttons. When locked manually, it ignores key proximity until the unlock button is pressed.
I will say this about Excel. It can do a crazy amount of stuff. It, by itself, can do almost all the stuff a SMB needs when it comes to finance, and it can be added on with macros and add-ons. Excel may not be as edgy as whatever people to try to replace it with at crazy prices, but it has stood the test of time.
There are programs which can do most of what Excel can, like Libre Office's Calc, or Apple's Numbers, but Excel tends to be the standard when it comes to this stuff.
Defense in depth. Yes, IT can have something in place to mitigate damage if a user clicks/downloads/runs stuff, be it AppLocker, FSRM, backups that store documents in real time, and so on. However, having users not click on things in the first place adds a "layer 8" protection in place.
Even with protective measures, having them not as needed is a wise thing.
What I've seen banks, even the local power company, is to have an internal messaging system. This way, any E-mails at most will alert you to log in (also warning to manually type in the URL, and not click on a link) and check your messages, with a warning that anything else is likely a phishing attempt.
Plus, because everything is handled via the internal system, there is more control, which is a help when it comes for GDPR/PCI-DSS/HIPAA/FERPA/whatever compliance, as messages never leave the site.
Apps went downhill when IAP was introduced into iOS, around the 5.0 mark. Games went from entertaining and interesting to way difficult, forcing one to buy in game currency to get past a hurdle, or wait 8-16 hours. Apps also started doing everything they can to try to upload as much data as possible. For example, why would a flashlight app demand access to the phone, contacts, music library, GPS, text messages, and everything else.
Now, we are just seeing the next step in this. Apps trying to phone home with as much data as possible are not making money, so we are now seeing them hit IAP. Realistically, the app makers who can pull this won't be punished. At worst, Apple might find a mechanism to stop that, but the people who crafted the scam will end up making money big time.
Any app can do this. For example, a security app which prompts the user to authenticate to log in can ask for that... then pop up an IAP dialog and make a couple C-notes. This could be done randomly, even perhaps with some AI scanning to find the ideal mark, perhaps teenagers who wouldn't be reporting this to parents for fear their device would be taken away.
This can be an easy fix on Apple's part. Just like when an app asks for permissions with the camera or accessing contacts, iOS should prompt the user and state that the app is wanting to have access to the fingerprint scanner for payments. Perhaps have a dialog that only allows access for "x" amount of time before iOS requests permissions for the app to use the fingerprint scanner again, and showing the user what things the app might ask for in in-app payments.
Apple tends to wait and let others be the pioneers and die of dysentery first. The iPod is the first example where Apple was not new to the market, but hopped in once it was being established.
I would probably give Apple a year or two until they start advertising the "fastest bandwidth for iPhone ever". In the meantime, we will see some more "S" releases, similar to how the iPhone 8 was to the 7.
This is where having a mail client, be it Thunderbird, mail.app, or even Outlook comes in handy. This completely bypasses these types of shenanigans and psychological tricks.
I just want a driver install package that only installs the files for the architecture it is running on. For example, if I'm on amd64, I don't need drivers taking up space for Sun3, MIPS, POWER, SPARC32, and ARM.
It is not uncommon, if you don't have an ad blocker in place on iOS, especially if you use FB's browser, to wind up being dumped to a site offering free iPhones or gift cards. So much so, that an ad blocker is a must for browsing on iOS, otherwise, your browsing screeches to a halt by a redirect and a takeover for these scams. Even legit sites get these fairly commonly.
On Android, Dolphin Browser is the best way to browse, and that also gets rid of this problem with its innate ad-blocking.
There are so many transistors on chips now, that the layer it takes to handle the "shell" around x86 and amd64 instructions to make them RISC is a tiny piece of the die.
It would be nice if we could go with a better CPU architecture like Itanium or something with a ton of registers, with 128 registers, but it seems ARM is doing a good job with 13 registers, and amd64 does OK with 16 registers.
I can see when there isn't any real way to shrink dies, that we go back to looking at the basic CPU design and improving that, but for right now, what we have is "good enough" for business, and any major changes to CPU architecture likely won't happen for a number of years.
Intel/AMD gives the best computing ability out there, well, perhaps next to SPARC and POWER, but those CPUs are not really relevant here.
If you want CPU power, it will be Intel/AMD. If you want best CPU power per watt, ARM by far. Both have their niches. The car example would be saying a Prius is better than a class 8 Kenworth because of its fuel consumption, but the Prius is going to be hard-pressed to move 80,000 pounds of cargo.
It would be nice if SPARC or POWER were relevant to this. I wonder if they would offer not just top tier compute power, but a better MIPS/watt radio than Intel/AMD CPUs.
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I wish that were true. For $250-$300, you can get a 2 in one machine, i3 or i5, 8 gigs of RAM, and a 5400 RPM HDD, or at best a 64 GB MMC SD card, which renders the machine entirely unusable. It would be nice if a low-end M.2 SATA or even NVMe SSD were tossed in, but no PC vendor wants to make a usable machine at that price point.
I sometimes wonder when the MacBook Wheel will actually become a reality. Definitely will solve the key issues.
I remember one city having a municipal network. For Internet access, the town residents were able to choose from a list of ISPs.
This seems to be the best balance between public/private interests, and provides a low barrier of entry for companies that want to hop on.
The ironic thing is that SIM cards support apps that can run solely on the SIM card and not leave it. AT&T had something called Softcard. This used an app on the SIM card to authenticate transactions. It didn't matter what the phone did as all the authentication happened on the individual SIM card.
Google bought this technology, and is sitting on it. Wish they would use it.
Could be worse. At a previous job, I've had someone demand "7200 RPM SSDs", and no amount of explaining could change the person's mind.
One of the benefits of SSDs is that they have a significantly longer MTBF than HDDs. They also can stand worse environments as well. However, when the ECC fails and the gates stop keeping in the electronics, there is no way to recover a SSD. When they fail, they fail hard.
This is what RAID and backups are for. It isn't if a drive fails; it is when. Don't ever count on drive recovery services. Especially with how relatively inexpensive backups are. Backups are not difficult. Veeam, Borg Backup, Arq, Time Machine, Windows Backup (wbadmin), and many more are available. At the minimum, CrashPlan.
Overall, SSDs have more advantages than disadvantages, especially newer ones. I wouldn't want to go back to spinning disks on the desktop or active use.
SLS was doing this in 1992, Slackware had a better system in 1993, and both Debian and RedHat came out with decent package managers that used PGP/gpg signatures in 1994.
Modern packaging systems do remember the hash of the files. A "rpm -Va" can easily point out changed binaries, and there are dedicated utilities like Tripwire and AIDE which do better.
People can do that with vending machines and gas cards. This type of theft is definitely factored into the price of stuff.
I have heard about someone converting a 74 'Vette. It isn't going to win any races, and the hackneyed emissions stuff made it a PITA. So, they took the engine and other junk out, put some batteries behind the driver and the rest under the hood, to balance the vehicle out. Supposedly greatly improved not just performance, but handling, and the upfitters even used the fuel fill port for the charging port, so there were not any additional holes made in the fiberglass.
Anything 1973 or earlier, I'd never do that on, because those had great performance, but anything from 1974 to early 1980s would probably be better off being made into an electric vehicle.
It gets tiring because the "GDPR" ads result in full pop-overs stating that someone has to accept an entire EULA, be it no sue clauses, opting into data collection, with the site saying, "if you want to decline, leave the site immediately."
The Internet worked for decades without massive data collection. It worked for decades without ads.
I'm just hoping the GDPR gets enforced and adapted more places. A few years ago, I had a friend of mine take a photo of me in a humidor and slap it on Facebook for friends only. A week later, I got a physical mail from my health insurance company demanding I take a physical or pay smoker's rates.
I wonder about having a mode setting on the vehicle. Set it, it only listens to the lock/unlock buttons. When locked manually, it ignores key proximity until the unlock button is pressed.
Maybe the remote needs an on/off switch. Flip the switch off, no attempts at communication would be made.
I will say this about Excel. It can do a crazy amount of stuff. It, by itself, can do almost all the stuff a SMB needs when it comes to finance, and it can be added on with macros and add-ons. Excel may not be as edgy as whatever people to try to replace it with at crazy prices, but it has stood the test of time.
There are programs which can do most of what Excel can, like Libre Office's Calc, or Apple's Numbers, but Excel tends to be the standard when it comes to this stuff.
One issue with LARTs... sometimes users really enjoy it when you bring it out, so it might just encourage the behavior that you want to discourage.
Defense in depth. Yes, IT can have something in place to mitigate damage if a user clicks/downloads/runs stuff, be it AppLocker, FSRM, backups that store documents in real time, and so on. However, having users not click on things in the first place adds a "layer 8" protection in place.
Even with protective measures, having them not as needed is a wise thing.
What I've seen banks, even the local power company, is to have an internal messaging system. This way, any E-mails at most will alert you to log in (also warning to manually type in the URL, and not click on a link) and check your messages, with a warning that anything else is likely a phishing attempt.
Plus, because everything is handled via the internal system, there is more control, which is a help when it comes for GDPR/PCI-DSS/HIPAA/FERPA/whatever compliance, as messages never leave the site.
Apps went downhill when IAP was introduced into iOS, around the 5.0 mark. Games went from entertaining and interesting to way difficult, forcing one to buy in game currency to get past a hurdle, or wait 8-16 hours. Apps also started doing everything they can to try to upload as much data as possible. For example, why would a flashlight app demand access to the phone, contacts, music library, GPS, text messages, and everything else.
Now, we are just seeing the next step in this. Apps trying to phone home with as much data as possible are not making money, so we are now seeing them hit IAP. Realistically, the app makers who can pull this won't be punished. At worst, Apple might find a mechanism to stop that, but the people who crafted the scam will end up making money big time.
Any app can do this. For example, a security app which prompts the user to authenticate to log in can ask for that... then pop up an IAP dialog and make a couple C-notes. This could be done randomly, even perhaps with some AI scanning to find the ideal mark, perhaps teenagers who wouldn't be reporting this to parents for fear their device would be taken away.
This can be an easy fix on Apple's part. Just like when an app asks for permissions with the camera or accessing contacts, iOS should prompt the user and state that the app is wanting to have access to the fingerprint scanner for payments. Perhaps have a dialog that only allows access for "x" amount of time before iOS requests permissions for the app to use the fingerprint scanner again, and showing the user what things the app might ask for in in-app payments.
Apple tends to wait and let others be the pioneers and die of dysentery first. The iPod is the first example where Apple was not new to the market, but hopped in once it was being established.
I would probably give Apple a year or two until they start advertising the "fastest bandwidth for iPhone ever". In the meantime, we will see some more "S" releases, similar to how the iPhone 8 was to the 7.
This is where having a mail client, be it Thunderbird, mail.app, or even Outlook comes in handy. This completely bypasses these types of shenanigans and psychological tricks.
I just want a driver install package that only installs the files for the architecture it is running on. For example, if I'm on amd64, I don't need drivers taking up space for Sun3, MIPS, POWER, SPARC32, and ARM.
It is not uncommon, if you don't have an ad blocker in place on iOS, especially if you use FB's browser, to wind up being dumped to a site offering free iPhones or gift cards. So much so, that an ad blocker is a must for browsing on iOS, otherwise, your browsing screeches to a halt by a redirect and a takeover for these scams. Even legit sites get these fairly commonly.
On Android, Dolphin Browser is the best way to browse, and that also gets rid of this problem with its innate ad-blocking.
Looks like the opt-out option is to leave the page...
This makes me wonder if this violates the GDPR's spirit.
There are so many transistors on chips now, that the layer it takes to handle the "shell" around x86 and amd64 instructions to make them RISC is a tiny piece of the die.
It would be nice if we could go with a better CPU architecture like Itanium or something with a ton of registers, with 128 registers, but it seems ARM is doing a good job with 13 registers, and amd64 does OK with 16 registers.
I can see when there isn't any real way to shrink dies, that we go back to looking at the basic CPU design and improving that, but for right now, what we have is "good enough" for business, and any major changes to CPU architecture likely won't happen for a number of years.
Intel/AMD gives the best computing ability out there, well, perhaps next to SPARC and POWER, but those CPUs are not really relevant here.
If you want CPU power, it will be Intel/AMD. If you want best CPU power per watt, ARM by far. Both have their niches. The car example would be saying a Prius is better than a class 8 Kenworth because of its fuel consumption, but the Prius is going to be hard-pressed to move 80,000 pounds of cargo.
It would be nice if SPARC or POWER were relevant to this. I wonder if they would offer not just top tier compute power, but a better MIPS/watt radio than Intel/AMD CPUs.