Well, a lot of the Vista issues were addressed in SP1, prior to that, there were a lot of commonly occurring issues. I like Win7's UI changes a lot... it's probably my fav. UI at this point... If nothing else, I can see Win8 bringing a rebirth of the explorer shell replacements like LiteStep in the Win9x/2000 days. Which might be nice, I remember using a customized litestep theme as my main desktop shell until win7 came out. I wouldn't mind something fairly modifyable as a desktop... though win7's is hands down my current fav, there's always new ways... I just don't see myself liking metro on multiple monitors.
I have to whole-heartedly agree... Chrome is always (within a few days) up to date... a break/fix for one is a fix for all... unlike, make it worek in ie9, now 7-8 are broken. That, and all the malware extensions riddled in ie7-8 systems, and no upgrade for xp users... 7 is finally round 2.5% at work, and mostly ignored... people are finally accepting old ie doesn't get background gradients and rounded buttons... but it's still pretty far from a panacea... maybe if the IE team finished the common parts of css2-3 before working on a wizbang accelerated canvas... I mean rounded corners + bg gradient support is a bit more important imho. IE6 was best in breed when it came out... the world has moved forward.
Umn, there are RDP clients for linux and mac... the mac one is from MS... as for VPN, I haven't had issue on my macbook pro... Though, I generally use my windows desktop for work stuff. For the most part, I'm not big on the OS wars... I'm pretty platform neutral, I use what works best for a given scenario.
There are implicit rights when someone buys something... if you aren't selling that, then you should be forced to buy back after use at a pro-rated amount... if your game isn't desired after even a week, then 90% of the money you charged for the ticket should be returned... The fact is, when you sell someone a copy of something you have no true rights to determine how they use that copy other than what the government grants... as you say, "Feelings of entitlement =/= rights"...
Being able to re-gift or pass something you buy on to someone else is exactly that.. a "right"... stopping someone from doing so *after* you sold them something, is exactly "wishful thinking"...
That's generally been my stance as a libertarian... I'm personally for the elimination of business taxes... though I'm also for eliminating protective status of companies equal to people, and holding corporate officers accountable for the actions of the corporations they manage, including fines on personal assets, and requirements for dividend returns and limits on liquid assets for companies, as well as unused assets. Use it, or give it back to investors to invest elsewhere... I think about my only non-libertarian point of belief is that health care probably could/should be more centralized, I just don't agree with how most people propose it be done... Having the government's employees and elected officials covered by a non-profit insurance company, that anyone can also buy policies from would probably be more effective as a starting point. Combine that with the funds used for medicare/medicaid, VA retirement benefits and other government funded healthcare programs as a baseline of coverage. I think that might have a chance of working.... forcing a tax on someone for doing nothing is wrong imho.
Asus RT-N16 with TomatoUSB.. works pretty damned well for consumer use... note: I'm not using it for network storage, or for VPN... so can't comment on that.
Wish I had mod-points for this... for that matter, you could go to a polling site, and show your ID, they can check that you are registered, and give you a token to access an https website and cast your vote there... without correlation between your registration, and the vote token, it can be recorded, and you can check your token against the recorded vote later.
In us-AZ, the ballots are optical scan AND have the person(s) you are voting for printed on the ballot... scanning is digital, and there is a physical record... works very well.
I was thinking something similar... taken a step farther... if the system registers that the voter voted against one system, and the actual vote group to another system, with no correlation data between the two available, it would be reasonable to have online voting... would just need to ensure that both the registration that the person voted, and the record of the vote are separate... give the voter a token, that can be checked against their own vote record, but doesn't tie that token to their id, or that they have voted.
I'm pretty sure that taxation has always been a way for the government to pay for it's infrastructure. The social engineering, afaik is relatively new.
This is actually why I'm surprised that BSD variants haven't been more popular... plenty of userland tools are GPL on top of it, and will continue to be so, but the core is always really stable in terms of versioning.
I had thought that multiple changes would help... software/process/design patents limited to 5 years (not that I think any of them are really valid, but hey)... Increase the file/refile fees to be more in line with the cost of actually researching a patent application. Don't have reduced fees for re-filing... limit to 5 re-filings. Annual license fees for software/process/design patents. Also, a simpler process to call a patent into review by the community... perhaps, again with a review fee towards the cost of said review... would at least limit things like the eolas patents, and similar. Would also discourage war-chest actions.
I paid about a $200 premium for my MBP about 2.5 years ago mainly for the case design and better trackpad... Put a 160GB SSD in it before the first boot, and it's been doing well ever since... I run a Linux and Windows under VMWare and both work fine, though with the windows vm it kills my battery life.
So don't buy a mac... it's pretty simple... I built all of my own PCs, but laptops it's what you buy, on PCs I don't do the cheapest thing possible, I look to get 3-5 years of life with minimal upgrades out of a desktop... Apple simply has the best build quality these days. I'd say Lenovo's business laptops are a fair second, and everything else is far behind. If you're going under $1200 (where apple starts), I'd suggest getting the best under $500 you can. Generally Acer or Asus are your best bets there, and do a clean windows install. The 500-1200 range really isn't worth buying in, imho it's better to save the money, and plan on swapping out in around 2 years or so. My desktop build, about 2.5 years, and my macbook pro about the same age are both running fine today. I've yet to see anyone that uses a cheap laptop daily that hasn't had a key pop off the keyboard after 2.5 years of use.
Disclaimer, my day job involves software development using MS tools, deploying to MS servers... though I've had some success in some beachhead projects or parts of that use other tech...
First, I think the issues surrounding WinPhone are not from the technology, or interface reasons so much as marketing. I really liked the Windows Phone 7 experience far better than other devices I've worked with. I own an Android phone because I like to tinker, and put what *I* want on my devices. On tablet, it could very well be nice. I don't think force-feeding Metro on the desktop is a good fit... I often like to keep multiple windows obscuring one-another to swap them around quickly... I don't need all of one visible, or event obstructed... With multiple monitors in particular I feel it's a very bad fit.
Second, You *CAN* re-utilize a lot of development investment for over a decade with the new platform... Pretty much anything heavily written in managed code should require minimal rework. Also a lot of development has been web-based tools which aren't particularly tied, though many are hamstrung to early versions of IE.
My favorites are currently as follows Phone: Windows Phone, Tablet: webOS, Desktop: Windows 7. At home, I have a mix of windows, webos, linux, bsd and android devices. They each have their purpose.
My last 3 laptops had restore disks.. an asus netbook (though the DVD would have been difficult without an external drive) my macbook pro, and a lenovo business laptop...
Microsoft didn't stop letting them include OEM disks.. they allowed the vendors to not have to send them... minor quibble... This is cheap vendors here, not MS.
This was going to be my comment as well... I'll usually swap out the mfg drive before a first boot... Even for OSX, and Windows when they're being installed over the top... Usually because I won't pay "upgrade" pricing for SSDs, also as a security blanket for returns. What irks me is when the pull crap to make it harder/impossible to swap the drives out of consumer hardware.
I would argue that wifi support isn't necessarily "every random device" being accounted for... I think that an expectation today, is that any desktop/consumer OS have at least wireless support of some devices/chipsets. I was actually surprised by the lack of support for it... I know more than a handful of people since the G3 era that used wifi on those devices.
Actually, using C# (.Net) you can share a lot of the same codebase for all of the above platforms. There are some UI differences, but most of the underlying libraries/code is the same.
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I thought the "Nexus" line was vanilla... slightly locked, but not so much.
Well, a lot of the Vista issues were addressed in SP1, prior to that, there were a lot of commonly occurring issues. I like Win7's UI changes a lot... it's probably my fav. UI at this point... If nothing else, I can see Win8 bringing a rebirth of the explorer shell replacements like LiteStep in the Win9x/2000 days. Which might be nice, I remember using a customized litestep theme as my main desktop shell until win7 came out. I wouldn't mind something fairly modifyable as a desktop... though win7's is hands down my current fav, there's always new ways... I just don't see myself liking metro on multiple monitors.
I have to whole-heartedly agree... Chrome is always (within a few days) up to date... a break/fix for one is a fix for all... unlike, make it worek in ie9, now 7-8 are broken. That, and all the malware extensions riddled in ie7-8 systems, and no upgrade for xp users... 7 is finally round 2.5% at work, and mostly ignored... people are finally accepting old ie doesn't get background gradients and rounded buttons... but it's still pretty far from a panacea... maybe if the IE team finished the common parts of css2-3 before working on a wizbang accelerated canvas... I mean rounded corners + bg gradient support is a bit more important imho. IE6 was best in breed when it came out... the world has moved forward.
Umn, there are RDP clients for linux and mac... the mac one is from MS... as for VPN, I haven't had issue on my macbook pro... Though, I generally use my windows desktop for work stuff. For the most part, I'm not big on the OS wars... I'm pretty platform neutral, I use what works best for a given scenario.
There are implicit rights when someone buys something... if you aren't selling that, then you should be forced to buy back after use at a pro-rated amount... if your game isn't desired after even a week, then 90% of the money you charged for the ticket should be returned... The fact is, when you sell someone a copy of something you have no true rights to determine how they use that copy other than what the government grants... as you say, "Feelings of entitlement =/= rights" ...
... stopping someone from doing so *after* you sold them something, is exactly "wishful thinking" ...
Being able to re-gift or pass something you buy on to someone else is exactly that.. a "right"
Oh, you mean like video rentals? guess you don't do that either...
That's generally been my stance as a libertarian... I'm personally for the elimination of business taxes... though I'm also for eliminating protective status of companies equal to people, and holding corporate officers accountable for the actions of the corporations they manage, including fines on personal assets, and requirements for dividend returns and limits on liquid assets for companies, as well as unused assets. Use it, or give it back to investors to invest elsewhere... I think about my only non-libertarian point of belief is that health care probably could/should be more centralized, I just don't agree with how most people propose it be done... Having the government's employees and elected officials covered by a non-profit insurance company, that anyone can also buy policies from would probably be more effective as a starting point. Combine that with the funds used for medicare/medicaid, VA retirement benefits and other government funded healthcare programs as a baseline of coverage. I think that might have a chance of working.... forcing a tax on someone for doing nothing is wrong imho.
Asus RT-N16 with TomatoUSB .. works pretty damned well for consumer use... note: I'm not using it for network storage, or for VPN... so can't comment on that.
Wish I had mod-points for this... for that matter, you could go to a polling site, and show your ID, they can check that you are registered, and give you a token to access an https website and cast your vote there... without correlation between your registration, and the vote token, it can be recorded, and you can check your token against the recorded vote later.
In us-AZ, the ballots are optical scan AND have the person(s) you are voting for printed on the ballot... scanning is digital, and there is a physical record... works very well.
I was thinking something similar... taken a step farther... if the system registers that the voter voted against one system, and the actual vote group to another system, with no correlation data between the two available, it would be reasonable to have online voting... would just need to ensure that both the registration that the person voted, and the record of the vote are separate... give the voter a token, that can be checked against their own vote record, but doesn't tie that token to their id, or that they have voted.
I'm pretty sure that taxation has always been a way for the government to pay for it's infrastructure. The social engineering, afaik is relatively new.
for that matter, you could use nodejs without installing to system space... also, you could ude c9.io (cloud 9) as an in-browser ide
This is actually why I'm surprised that BSD variants haven't been more popular... plenty of userland tools are GPL on top of it, and will continue to be so, but the core is always really stable in terms of versioning.
I had thought that multiple changes would help... software/process/design patents limited to 5 years (not that I think any of them are really valid, but hey)... Increase the file/refile fees to be more in line with the cost of actually researching a patent application. Don't have reduced fees for re-filing... limit to 5 re-filings. Annual license fees for software/process/design patents. Also, a simpler process to call a patent into review by the community... perhaps, again with a review fee towards the cost of said review... would at least limit things like the eolas patents, and similar. Would also discourage war-chest actions.
agreed, I didn't find the 3D at all worthwhile in Prometheus
I paid about a $200 premium for my MBP about 2.5 years ago mainly for the case design and better trackpad... Put a 160GB SSD in it before the first boot, and it's been doing well ever since... I run a Linux and Windows under VMWare and both work fine, though with the windows vm it kills my battery life.
So don't buy a mac... it's pretty simple... I built all of my own PCs, but laptops it's what you buy, on PCs I don't do the cheapest thing possible, I look to get 3-5 years of life with minimal upgrades out of a desktop... Apple simply has the best build quality these days. I'd say Lenovo's business laptops are a fair second, and everything else is far behind. If you're going under $1200 (where apple starts), I'd suggest getting the best under $500 you can. Generally Acer or Asus are your best bets there, and do a clean windows install. The 500-1200 range really isn't worth buying in, imho it's better to save the money, and plan on swapping out in around 2 years or so. My desktop build, about 2.5 years, and my macbook pro about the same age are both running fine today. I've yet to see anyone that uses a cheap laptop daily that hasn't had a key pop off the keyboard after 2.5 years of use.
Disclaimer, my day job involves software development using MS tools, deploying to MS servers... though I've had some success in some beachhead projects or parts of that use other tech...
First, I think the issues surrounding WinPhone are not from the technology, or interface reasons so much as marketing. I really liked the Windows Phone 7 experience far better than other devices I've worked with. I own an Android phone because I like to tinker, and put what *I* want on my devices. On tablet, it could very well be nice. I don't think force-feeding Metro on the desktop is a good fit... I often like to keep multiple windows obscuring one-another to swap them around quickly... I don't need all of one visible, or event obstructed... With multiple monitors in particular I feel it's a very bad fit.
Second, You *CAN* re-utilize a lot of development investment for over a decade with the new platform... Pretty much anything heavily written in managed code should require minimal rework. Also a lot of development has been web-based tools which aren't particularly tied, though many are hamstrung to early versions of IE.
My favorites are currently as follows Phone: Windows Phone, Tablet: webOS, Desktop: Windows 7. At home, I have a mix of windows, webos, linux, bsd and android devices. They each have their purpose.
I've met three other people with the exact same name... I figure, if I ever win the lottery, they'll be easier to find than me.. :)
My last 3 laptops had restore disks.. an asus netbook (though the DVD would have been difficult without an external drive) my macbook pro, and a lenovo business laptop...
Microsoft didn't stop letting them include OEM disks.. they allowed the vendors to not have to send them... minor quibble... This is cheap vendors here, not MS.
This was going to be my comment as well... I'll usually swap out the mfg drive before a first boot... Even for OSX, and Windows when they're being installed over the top... Usually because I won't pay "upgrade" pricing for SSDs, also as a security blanket for returns. What irks me is when the pull crap to make it harder/impossible to swap the drives out of consumer hardware.
I would argue that wifi support isn't necessarily "every random device" being accounted for... I think that an expectation today, is that any desktop/consumer OS have at least wireless support of some devices/chipsets. I was actually surprised by the lack of support for it... I know more than a handful of people since the G3 era that used wifi on those devices.
Actually, using C# (.Net) you can share a lot of the same codebase for all of the above platforms. There are some UI differences, but most of the underlying libraries/code is the same.