Really? I thought that the new Start button is kinda cool. I like how it has shortcuts to most of the commonly used admin tools when you right click on it, in what could be considered to be the mother of all pop-up context menus. Someone has to backport that option to Windows 7!
I keep all of my favorite programs in the dock, so the only time I need to use the Start button is to get into a Control Panel or shut down the system. All of those options are there when I right click.
And disabled it a few minutes later. Facebook's Home application seems to operate under the impression that the primary use of my smartphone is to visit their site, as it makes everything else that the phone can do more time consuming to reach. Funny me... I thought that I bought my smartphone to check e-mails and answer phone calls. What a novel idea:)
Oh well... might as well download this. I'm probably already on some government terrorist watch list for those couple of bitcoins I mined a few months ago:)
Microsoft also "sold out" of the Surface RT on launch day as well... and that thing has sold poorly after it's initial launch. They were originally expecting to sell 2 million units in Q4 2012, and they only sold about half of that.
It seems that this tactic has become a common way for Microsoft to generate some additional post launch hype for their products. I wonder how many times they can get away with it before the mainstream press catches on...
The ThinkPad T30 also had the "burn your legs if you put it on your lap" issue. The Pentium 4 M processor in that thing ran really hot, and sucked down a fully charged battery in under 90 minutes under load.
At this rate, it's only a matter of time until Microsoft does a liquidation sale on this product to get rid of excess inventory.
Has anyone been able to hack this tablet and get Android on it yet? If so, I might pick one up when a liquidator like Woot starts selling excess Microsoft Surface inventory as "refurbished" for around $189,
Keep in mind that Windows Mobile 6.x users also recently screwed over a few years ago by having their application marketplace shut down, even though many of them still had a year left in their two year phone contracts.
Buying a Windows Phone 7 phone right now would be downright foolish, because they aren't going to get a Windows 8 upgrade and the same problems with dwindling application support is likely to happen to them as well. Looking at past support of their legacy phones, it would make me think twice before buying a Windows 8 phone as well.
I think that these two will be back a year from now, posting their new indie game idea on Kickstarter. They just don't want to work for EA anymore, and who can blame them?
Odds are that it will be their best idea in years, considering that they'll no longer have to through EA's focus groups and finance guys to get the project green lit.
What's even more amusing that the #1 currency exchange for his product is still MtGox, which was formerly famous for trading Magic The Gathering playing cards.
Oh, and not only was that site hacked, but that hack was responsible for wiping out 2/3'rds of the currency's reported value overnight. Even now, it still hasn't fully recovered that value.
Wow, this sounds MUCH better than the existing monetary system! Sign me up!
Come on Apple... The iPad 2 and iPhone 4S have basically the same CPU, storage, and memory specifications. Both have a microphone and speakers. Siri should run fine on both platforms.
That said, why is Siri available for the last generation iPhone but not the last generation iPad?? It makes no damn sense.
I'm just glad that they're finally working on the issue. The Facebook apps for both iOS and Android were complete rubbish, and was often both faster and more reliable just to use the mobile version of the web site.
The new iOS version of the app seems a lot more responsive. I hope that they do something similar for Android soon.
It will get even more interesting once you get lobbyists from the various hardware and software manufacturers involved. I could easily see this getting into a situation where companies need to switch from Vendor X to Vendor Y for their antivirus or firewall software to get that government contract, because only the latest version of Vendor Y's product is on the "Homeland CyberSecurity Approved" list.
Companies like Microsoft and Oracle will love this, because it's one more way they can lock out smaller open source competitors that can't afford whatever fees Homeland Security might charge to certify their products.
Here is how I would recommending making the Linux desktop better:
1) Improve the Control Panel applications so you can make practically all OS configuration changes without having run a command or hand edit a configuration file. If I have to open a command prompt or a text editor to fix a problem, you've made configuration more difficult than what 90% of computer users are willing to put up with?
(And if you don't believe the statement above, consider yourself lucky. You obviously haven't been doing much tech support for "regular" computers lately. The command line scares the hell out of them.)
2) Standardize on a single method of packaging and installing applications..RPM's,.DEB's, yum, apt-get... It's too many choices for the average computer user.
3) Get some of the major PC game developers like EA and Blizzard to start making their products Linux native. Make those versions available for $5 less than the Windows versions. That will get you some market-share growth quickly!
I started my career as a Windows NT and AIX admin, but my customers and clients decided to switch to x86 servers running Red Hat Linux to cut their software license costs.
My boss at the time asked me if I heard of Linux. I said that I did, so he declared me an "expert" to our clients and had me building servers with it a few days later.
Fortunately, Linux and AIX are somewhat similar so the learning curve wasn't all that steep.
Personally, I think that any consumer driven Linux distribution developers should make fixing things from the command line a no-no when possible.
In the consumer world, the only time you should need to bring up the command line is when something broke and the development team forgot to come with a user friendly way of fixing it. That logic should be the same with Linux, Windows, OR Mac OS.
Just slap an Apple sticker on the $45 Windows laptop, give it a skin that looks like Mac OS X on Windows or Linux. Ship a bunch of them to Canal Street in NYC, and slap a $60 price tag on it.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, and I still think that the "Modern UI" sucks. At least Windows 8.1 lets you bypass it, and go straight to the desktop.
Really? I thought that the new Start button is kinda cool. I like how it has shortcuts to most of the commonly used admin tools when you right click on it, in what could be considered to be the mother of all pop-up context menus. Someone has to backport that option to Windows 7!
I keep all of my favorite programs in the dock, so the only time I need to use the Start button is to get into a Control Panel or shut down the system. All of those options are there when I right click.
Ah, so it's kinda like VNC vs. RealVNC.
Maybe I should hold out for Ultra IRA, now with more violence!
Funny... I don't remember Comcast reimbursing me for extra electricity that their fancy new public hotspot router is using.
Given their love of tacking fees to my cable bill, I would have figured that there would be a credit on there somewhere...
And disabled it a few minutes later. Facebook's Home application seems to operate under the impression that the primary use of my smartphone is to visit their site, as it makes everything else that the phone can do more time consuming to reach. Funny me... I thought that I bought my smartphone to check e-mails and answer phone calls. What a novel idea :)
Hey you, be quiet! You're giving Diane Feinstein ideas on what to add to her next anti gun legislation bill :)
Oh well... might as well download this. I'm probably already on some government terrorist watch list for those couple of bitcoins I mined a few months ago :)
Microsoft also "sold out" of the Surface RT on launch day as well... and that thing has sold poorly after it's initial launch. They were originally expecting to sell 2 million units in Q4 2012, and they only sold about half of that.
It seems that this tactic has become a common way for Microsoft to generate some additional post launch hype for their products. I wonder how many times they can get away with it before the mainstream press catches on...
The ThinkPad T30 also had the "burn your legs if you put it on your lap" issue. The Pentium 4 M processor in that thing ran really hot, and sucked down a fully charged battery in under 90 minutes under load.
The problem is that parts of new law aren't reasonable, especially the new 7 round magazine limit.
The standard magazine capacities right now are 8, 10, 12, 15, and 30. Nobody makes 7 round magazines for most guns.
So, basically, New York has just succeeded in making most existing semi automatic weapons with a magazine illegal to sell.
Perhaps I'm getting old, but I kinda expect my new PC to be somewhat usable out of the box without spending a day installing additional crap on it.
Was once quoted a few years ago that he didn't invest in technology companies like Microsoft because he didn't understand how they operated.
Apparently his knowledge of how the Internet works hasn't improved much since then.
At this rate, it's only a matter of time until Microsoft does a liquidation sale on this product to get rid of excess inventory.
Has anyone been able to hack this tablet and get Android on it yet? If so, I might pick one up when a liquidator like Woot starts selling excess Microsoft Surface inventory as "refurbished" for around $189,
Keep in mind that Windows Mobile 6.x users also recently screwed over a few years ago by having their application marketplace shut down, even though many of them still had a year left in their two year phone contracts.
Buying a Windows Phone 7 phone right now would be downright foolish, because they aren't going to get a Windows 8 upgrade and the same problems with dwindling application support is likely to happen to them as well. Looking at past support of their legacy phones, it would make me think twice before buying a Windows 8 phone as well.
I think that these two will be back a year from now, posting their new indie game idea on Kickstarter. They just don't want to work for EA anymore, and who can blame them?
Odds are that it will be their best idea in years, considering that they'll no longer have to through EA's focus groups and finance guys to get the project green lit.
What's even more amusing that the #1 currency exchange for his product is still MtGox, which was formerly famous for trading Magic The Gathering playing cards.
Oh, and not only was that site hacked, but that hack was responsible for wiping out 2/3'rds of the currency's reported value overnight. Even now, it still hasn't fully recovered that value.
Wow, this sounds MUCH better than the existing monetary system! Sign me up!
Come on Apple... The iPad 2 and iPhone 4S have basically the same CPU, storage, and memory specifications. Both have a microphone and speakers. Siri should run fine on both platforms.
That said, why is Siri available for the last generation iPhone but not the last generation iPad?? It makes no damn sense.
I'm just glad that they're finally working on the issue. The Facebook apps for both iOS and Android were complete rubbish, and was often both faster and more reliable just to use the mobile version of the web site.
The new iOS version of the app seems a lot more responsive. I hope that they do something similar for Android soon.
It will get even more interesting once you get lobbyists from the various hardware and software manufacturers involved. I could easily see this getting into a situation where companies need to switch from Vendor X to Vendor Y for their antivirus or firewall software to get that government contract, because only the latest version of Vendor Y's product is on the "Homeland CyberSecurity Approved" list.
Companies like Microsoft and Oracle will love this, because it's one more way they can lock out smaller open source competitors that can't afford whatever fees Homeland Security might charge to certify their products.
Here is how I would recommending making the Linux desktop better:
1) Improve the Control Panel applications so you can make practically all OS configuration changes without having run a command or hand edit a configuration file. If I have to open a command prompt or a text editor to fix a problem, you've made configuration more difficult than what 90% of computer users are willing to put up with?
(And if you don't believe the statement above, consider yourself lucky. You obviously haven't been doing much tech support for "regular" computers lately. The command line scares the hell out of them.)
2) Standardize on a single method of packaging and installing applications. .RPM's, .DEB's, yum, apt-get... It's too many choices for the average computer user.
3) Get some of the major PC game developers like EA and Blizzard to start making their products Linux native. Make those versions available for $5 less than the Windows versions. That will get you some market-share growth quickly!
And actually get it delivered to you? I ordered mine back in mid June, and I'm STILL waiting for it.
Latest ETA was late September.
I started my career as a Windows NT and AIX admin, but my customers and clients decided to switch to x86 servers running Red Hat Linux to cut their software license costs.
My boss at the time asked me if I heard of Linux. I said that I did, so he declared me an "expert" to our clients and had me building servers with it a few days later.
Fortunately, Linux and AIX are somewhat similar so the learning curve wasn't all that steep.
Personally, I think that any consumer driven Linux distribution developers should make fixing things from the command line a no-no when possible.
In the consumer world, the only time you should need to bring up the command line is when something broke and the development team forgot to come with a user friendly way of fixing it. That logic should be the same with Linux, Windows, OR Mac OS.
I wonder if Google can make it through their tablet presentation without one of their tablets locking up in the middle of a browser demo...
Just slap an Apple sticker on the $45 Windows laptop, give it a skin that looks like Mac OS X on Windows or Linux. Ship a bunch of them to Canal Street in NYC, and slap a $60 price tag on it.
Profit!