Alright...you can't respond to my saying it could work if they do it right by saying it might not because they won't do it right.
Wait let me parse that... Yes, I think that's what I was saying. Or, to take it up a level, it's not the mode of transportation per se, it's how the traveler's experience is managed. It could potentially be better, but any airline could potentially be better in most of those factors also. Maybe all of them, if TSA is replaced by reasonably competent private security.
Just one upgrade before replacement can save you quite a bundle. And upgradeable laptops tend to be easily repairable. (Same access.)
> Blue ray requires specific components be installed in order to play blue ray movies
?? Of course, but is that any reason not to upgrade? (Besides, usually when you buy a blu ray drive it comes with a disc with a rudimentary player and often a burner on it.)
Yep, I've worked on a lot of Thinkpads, and all these things are true. I'm currently refurbishing a T30. It all comes apart easily, parts are readily available, and documentation is superb. Of course, it's not all cool and shiny.
Ok, then; how about "Good luck finding a laptop that you can upgrade anything but the main drive and perhaps the RAM. And even the SSD in the MBPwRD is theoretically upgradeable, since it is on a subassembly with a connector.
I'll take that. Just not having to pay Apple's markup on memory would be a good enough reason to buy something else.
Incidentally, I replaced a battery in a friend's ipod mini last month -- was surprised that the storage was a commercial SanDisk card soldered onto the board.
TSA establishes the same long security lines and anal exams to get on a train. (While leaving gaping holes like physical access to the train without going through security.)
Wireless will be made available at a premium price.
Food prices and quality will "be designed to be cost-effective while meeting the expectations of travelers"
The number of cars will be precisely calculated for cost-effective reasons, causing crowding and travelers occasionally being bumped off a route.
sleeping accommodations will be priced out of the range of most travelers
...and we could very well be left with the same experience as flying, only it'll take longer.
But it's still worth a try; who knows? With trains competing with planes, maybe we'll arrive at some middle ground. The only alternative currently is driving, which has its own set of problems.
I don't think anyone said anything about running osx on a $1M machine. I don't think we have a single case where we're running Windows Server on $1M machines. They're typically small servers or blades. Lots of them. The really big servers are running Solaris or RHEL. Or ZOS or OS/400, but that's a different story.
Apple used to have a server product, but I don't think they're pushing it anymore. It's not their core competency. For non-Windows on servers, we have Linux, and that is more than good enough.
At my work, by far the most popular company phone is the iphone. And I observe, struggling along with my Android 2.3 device, that some things are integrated better in the iphone. I'm still not switching, but I admit it's there. The company offers a broad selection of devices including one lonely Windows Phone 7 device. I've never seen one in the field. In fact, the only time I've come close enough to touch one was in the Verizon store.
The application for which I'm responsible is commonly accessed via ipad. There's quite a few of them in the field; they're not just executive toys. We have an established, growing tablet economy and Windows 8 is not out yet. (Note, "established". That's going to be hard for Microsoft to compete for.) On desktops, we skipped over Vista and are just *now* starting to trade out XP for Win7. I'm told we will skip over Win8 entirely.
The issue, I think, is that the largest number of devices a company buys will be individual devices -- pcs, laptops, tablets, phones -- and as much as I'm satisfied with Win7 on the desktop, and think OSX is a little too "THX1138", I note that more and more often I'm seeing company provided Apple laptops and tablets in meetings. Android is in there too, as the second most popular company smartphone. From my own experience (admittedly a single data point) Microsoft is clearly losing their grip in every single market they had (except corporate mail service) and isn't getting any traction in markets they've never dominated (smartphones, tablets). Unless something very profound happens, they're doomed. I don't think I've ever said that before, but I think it's time to admit that Microsoft products are Legacy products.
Ditch Legacy. Seriously, that shit from over a decade ago is holding you back. You can develop an emulator much like WINE for Linux for people who want to run older programs, but redesign and reprogram Windows without the absolute mountain of Legacy bloat.
Agreed! I would expand that to:
1) Ditch Legacy. Emulate if you have to. Apple did it, you can too.
2) Ditch the "Windows Everywhere" paradigm. Make a kernel that works, and then base operating systems on it that work well for the environment they're intended. That *might* mean an OS that works on tablets *and* phones, but it might not. It most definitely does not mean an OS that works on tablets, phones, PCs and control systems. It really doesn't.
2a) This means, Ditch the idea of a single GUI that works in all environments. That screwed you when you tried to push the desktop environment onto phones (Windows Mobile 5, 6) and it's about to screw you when you try to push a mobile environment onto the desktop.
If they just stopped trying to make one product work in every kind of environment, they'd be halfway there.
This solution would not require a change of technical staff. They're bright people. It *would* require a change of management staff.
Microsoft's hold on personal computing is slipping, partly due to their own lack of foresight, and they are in danger of being resigned to the role of "legacy personal computing". To get back on top, they have no choice but to do a hail mary pass at this stage.
I think the main overriding problem is that Microsoft as an organization doesn't know how to do that. They make money by maneuvering, with innovation coming a poor second. Mind you, there are very bright engineers working there, but management has for too many years been the consumer computer equivalent of a water economy (the government that controls the water can rot until it's just a shell, but will not be toppled from within) that they don't know how to act any differently. And so, they try a variation on a past strategy (come out with a product that's more strategic than useful, incidentally screwing their partners in the process) and assume it'll be business as usual. They might be right, but I don't think so.
Even given the most ergonomic chair, it's unhealthy to sit for long periods of time. Try this: Have your main workstation at a desk with a good chair, and have a separate laptop (to which you can remote into your desktop if necessary) at a height sufficient to stand while you work. Alternate periodically.
A co-worker has his desk set unusually high, and typically stands at his desk to work. When he gets tired he sits on a bar stool.
Understood. As it so happens, my house and both my relatives' houses are relatively close to the coast, so I could still make the case, but you're right, a couple hundred miles is probably good enough (I think I said that). But I was thinking in general terms -- I used to work in the business of providing geographically redundant services, and old habits die hard.
But, as someone who lived thorough a wide scale flood, fortunately with family intact, I can tell you from personal experience that after we all survived and the water receded, among the most precious things to recover were photographs and the like. That may not be practical, but it's the way people think. Mere belongings are replaceable. Personal history generally is not.
I am *not* saying "stagger out to the car with a stack of hard drives under each arm as the hurricane bears down". I *am* saying that after the imperative of keeping your family alive has faded, those personal, irreplaceable belongings will become important again. And you will suddenly remember the box you squirreled away at Grandma's, and know that at least some of it is safe.
I'm also a photographer, don't make a lot of money on it, and I also backup to hard disk (because nothing else is big enough. Blu-ray? It is to laugh.)
My strong (really strong) recommendation: Keep at least one backup set offsite. This is a really really strong recommendation. As a photographer, your images are absolutely the most valuable commodity you own. If your equipment is stolen, burnt or dropped off a bridge, it would really suck, but you could replace it. You can't replace your photos.
...and it's so easy. You have friends, right? (Most people do.) Take a set of hard drives to a friend's house, and put them in a secure, agreed-upon place. A friend of mine has a fire safe, so I keep a set in there, but had he not, I would have bought a small one for his house (they're cheap enough).
This protects your original content from catastrophes up to geological level. If your house burns down or washes off a cliff, you'll lose your most recent photos, but the bulk of your work will still exist.
To protect against geo-scale catastrophies, keep a set at a remote relative's house, swapping in a newer backup each time you visit. I have relatives at 200 and 600 miles away, not really far enough for widespread catastrophes, but better than nothing. I bet you could think of some prospects.
In summary, I don't depend on fire proof safes or detached garages. For protection from natural disaster, nothing beats your data not being there when it happens.
> As it is, there are several keyboard shortcuts that allow this, it's just not possible to do so automatically at boot, which would seem to be what legacy users would want most.
In fairness, according to the cited shortcut article, the shortcut to reveal the legacy desktop is the windows key (just as you can hit the windows key now to see the start menu). I think the rest of his article still applies, (I'm personally going to bypass 8, and my company is just now rolling out 7) but hitting one key after login isn't onerous, I think.
Slashdot Mirror
Not sure what you're talking about. Are you referring to storage appliances?
Alright...you can't respond to my saying it could work if they do it right by saying it might not because they won't do it right.
Wait let me parse that... Yes, I think that's what I was saying. Or, to take it up a level, it's not the mode of transportation per se, it's how the traveler's experience is managed. It could potentially be better, but any airline could potentially be better in most of those factors also. Maybe all of them, if TSA is replaced by reasonably competent private security.
Just one upgrade before replacement can save you quite a bundle. And upgradeable laptops tend to be easily repairable. (Same access.)
> Blue ray requires specific components be installed in order to play blue ray movies
?? Of course, but is that any reason not to upgrade? (Besides, usually when you buy a blu ray drive it comes with a disc with a rudimentary player and often a burner on it.)
Yep, I've worked on a lot of Thinkpads, and all these things are true. I'm currently refurbishing a T30. It all comes apart easily, parts are readily available, and documentation is superb. Of course, it's not all cool and shiny.
Ok, then; how about "Good luck finding a laptop that you can upgrade anything but the main drive and perhaps the RAM. And even the SSD in the MBPwRD is theoretically upgradeable, since it is on a subassembly with a connector.
I'll take that. Just not having to pay Apple's markup on memory would be a good enough reason to buy something else.
Incidentally, I replaced a battery in a friend's ipod mini last month -- was surprised that the storage was a commercial SanDisk card soldered onto the board.
Does it warn you that since the battery can't be removed then in 3 years the laptop will be tied to a power outlet in the future?
I think according to the business model you're not supposed to keep it that long.
's a good idea. Possible problems include:
TSA establishes the same long security lines and anal exams to get on a train. (While leaving gaping holes like physical access to the train without going through security.)
Wireless will be made available at a premium price.
Food prices and quality will "be designed to be cost-effective while meeting the expectations of travelers"
The number of cars will be precisely calculated for cost-effective reasons, causing crowding and travelers occasionally being bumped off a route.
sleeping accommodations will be priced out of the range of most travelers
But it's still worth a try; who knows? With trains competing with planes, maybe we'll arrive at some middle ground. The only alternative currently is driving, which has its own set of problems.
I don't think anyone said anything about running osx on a $1M machine. I don't think we have a single case where we're running Windows Server on $1M machines. They're typically small servers or blades. Lots of them. The really big servers are running Solaris or RHEL. Or ZOS or OS/400, but that's a different story.
Apple used to have a server product, but I don't think they're pushing it anymore. It's not their core competency. For non-Windows on servers, we have Linux, and that is more than good enough.
At my work, by far the most popular company phone is the iphone. And I observe, struggling along with my Android 2.3 device, that some things are integrated better in the iphone. I'm still not switching, but I admit it's there. The company offers a broad selection of devices including one lonely Windows Phone 7 device. I've never seen one in the field. In fact, the only time I've come close enough to touch one was in the Verizon store.
The application for which I'm responsible is commonly accessed via ipad. There's quite a few of them in the field; they're not just executive toys. We have an established, growing tablet economy and Windows 8 is not out yet. (Note, "established". That's going to be hard for Microsoft to compete for.) On desktops, we skipped over Vista and are just *now* starting to trade out XP for Win7. I'm told we will skip over Win8 entirely.
The issue, I think, is that the largest number of devices a company buys will be individual devices -- pcs, laptops, tablets, phones -- and as much as I'm satisfied with Win7 on the desktop, and think OSX is a little too "THX1138", I note that more and more often I'm seeing company provided Apple laptops and tablets in meetings. Android is in there too, as the second most popular company smartphone. From my own experience (admittedly a single data point) Microsoft is clearly losing their grip in every single market they had (except corporate mail service) and isn't getting any traction in markets they've never dominated (smartphones, tablets). Unless something very profound happens, they're doomed. I don't think I've ever said that before, but I think it's time to admit that Microsoft products are Legacy products.
In Capitalist Russia..... sorry I got nuthin.
How to fix:
Ditch Legacy. Seriously, that shit from over a decade ago is holding you back. You can develop an emulator much like WINE for Linux for people who want to run older programs, but redesign and reprogram Windows without the absolute mountain of Legacy bloat.
Agreed! I would expand that to:
1) Ditch Legacy. Emulate if you have to. Apple did it, you can too.
2) Ditch the "Windows Everywhere" paradigm. Make a kernel that works, and then base operating systems on it that work well for the environment they're intended. That *might* mean an OS that works on tablets *and* phones, but it might not. It most definitely does not mean an OS that works on tablets, phones, PCs and control systems. It really doesn't.
2a) This means, Ditch the idea of a single GUI that works in all environments. That screwed you when you tried to push the desktop environment onto phones (Windows Mobile 5, 6) and it's about to screw you when you try to push a mobile environment onto the desktop.
If they just stopped trying to make one product work in every kind of environment, they'd be halfway there.
This solution would not require a change of technical staff. They're bright people. It *would* require a change of management staff.
Microsoft's hold on personal computing is slipping, partly due to their own lack of foresight, and they are in danger of being resigned to the role of "legacy personal computing". To get back on top, they have no choice but to do a hail mary pass at this stage.
I think the main overriding problem is that Microsoft as an organization doesn't know how to do that. They make money by maneuvering, with innovation coming a poor second. Mind you, there are very bright engineers working there, but management has for too many years been the consumer computer equivalent of a water economy (the government that controls the water can rot until it's just a shell, but will not be toppled from within) that they don't know how to act any differently. And so, they try a variation on a past strategy (come out with a product that's more strategic than useful, incidentally screwing their partners in the process) and assume it'll be business as usual. They might be right, but I don't think so.
That scored a troll? Does anyone not know someone who chose not to get a degree and regretted the decision?
Seriously. You'll regret it for the rest of your paltry existence if you don't.
...as in an inkjet printer that doesn't clog up from dried up ink, so it it has a lifetime of over a year.
Sadly, there's no financial reason to offer such a printer.
Hmm. Good point.
"You will love it. That wasn't an observation, nor was it a request."
Even given the most ergonomic chair, it's unhealthy to sit for long periods of time. Try this: Have your main workstation at a desk with a good chair, and have a separate laptop (to which you can remote into your desktop if necessary) at a height sufficient to stand while you work. Alternate periodically.
A co-worker has his desk set unusually high, and typically stands at his desk to work. When he gets tired he sits on a bar stool.
Wow, that's way out of range of the Yellowstone supervolcano. Congratulations.
Replacement for skype.
Understood. As it so happens, my house and both my relatives' houses are relatively close to the coast, so I could still make the case, but you're right, a couple hundred miles is probably good enough (I think I said that). But I was thinking in general terms -- I used to work in the business of providing geographically redundant services, and old habits die hard.
But, as someone who lived thorough a wide scale flood, fortunately with family intact, I can tell you from personal experience that after we all survived and the water receded, among the most precious things to recover were photographs and the like. That may not be practical, but it's the way people think. Mere belongings are replaceable. Personal history generally is not.
I am *not* saying "stagger out to the car with a stack of hard drives under each arm as the hurricane bears down". I *am* saying that after the imperative of keeping your family alive has faded, those personal, irreplaceable belongings will become important again. And you will suddenly remember the box you squirreled away at Grandma's, and know that at least some of it is safe.
I'm also a photographer, don't make a lot of money on it, and I also backup to hard disk (because nothing else is big enough. Blu-ray? It is to laugh.)
My strong (really strong) recommendation: Keep at least one backup set offsite. This is a really really strong recommendation. As a photographer, your images are absolutely the most valuable commodity you own. If your equipment is stolen, burnt or dropped off a bridge, it would really suck, but you could replace it. You can't replace your photos.
This protects your original content from catastrophes up to geological level. If your house burns down or washes off a cliff, you'll lose your most recent photos, but the bulk of your work will still exist.
To protect against geo-scale catastrophies, keep a set at a remote relative's house, swapping in a newer backup each time you visit. I have relatives at 200 and 600 miles away, not really far enough for widespread catastrophes, but better than nothing. I bet you could think of some prospects.
In summary, I don't depend on fire proof safes or detached garages. For protection from natural disaster, nothing beats your data not being there when it happens.
> As it is, there are several keyboard shortcuts that allow this, it's just not possible to do so automatically at boot, which would seem to be what legacy users would want most.
In fairness, according to the cited shortcut article, the shortcut to reveal the legacy desktop is the windows key (just as you can hit the windows key now to see the start menu). I think the rest of his article still applies, (I'm personally going to bypass 8, and my company is just now rolling out 7) but hitting one key after login isn't onerous, I think.