Unless a phone has a full QWERTY hardware keyboard, I don't really care. Unfortunately, the handset makers and carriers seem to think there's little to no market for such devices, so I'll be keeping my Epic 4G for a while.
Fellow Epic 4G user here, and yes, I'll give it up when it is pried from my cold, dead hands. (Or, more likely and less dramatically, when the device itself is dead.)
I've worked with dozens of phones, and have never found a keyboard that was as easy to use as the E4G. Yes, I have used the supposedly fantastic keyboard on Blackberries, but really wasn't impressed. And while Swype is good for jotting out a quick text message or email reply, but when I'm using my phone to SSH into a box, or trying to google the exact error message something is throwing up, or doing just about anything where I would like to be able to use my screen to actually display stuff, nothing beats a physical keyboard.
I don't understand the phone makers' obsession with thinner and thinner phones. At least give us an option for one that's twice as thick, but has an actual keyboard. Especially now that 4.7" screens seem to be the standard for high-end phones. That gives a lot of room for a very usable keyboard. One thing that sets the E4G keyboard apart - an actual row of number keys. They could fit them in because, at the time, the E4G was one of the larger phones out there. Imagine how nice a keyboard you could fit behind the huge phones of today.
To swipe a joke from Rooster Teeth's Red vs. Blue:
I can sum up the argument against getting a tattoo with the following bullet points: 1. Tattoos are permanent. 2. You are a goddam idiot. Point 2 may seem overly argumentative and insulting, but let me explain. Just think about yourself, 10 years ago. 10 years ago, you were a goddam idiot, weren't you? Imagine the stupid sort of stuff that 10-years-ago-You would have wanted tattooed on his body. Now, realize that, 10 years from now, you will look back at now-You, and say, "10 years ago, I was a goddam idiot."
Keep backup images handy and re-blast them if something is fubar.
Almost the right answer.
I'm the one-man IT department at a nursing home. I generally don't provide tech support to our residents, though there are are a few PCs in our library that I'm expected to keep up and running. In addition to the risk of malware, there's always the chance that some "knows enough to be dangerous" user will seriously screw something up.
The answer is here: http://www.faronics.com/products/deep-freeze/ (No, I don't work for them, this isn't a paid endorsement, that's not even a referral link.) Set the PC up once the way it's supposed to be, then install Deep Freeze. Any time you boot the PC, it's back the way I set it up. Aside from hardware failure, any problem that comes up is as simple as, "Have you tried turning it off and then on again?" Staff shuts down the library PCs every night, and I told them to just hit the switch on the power strip. Why bother with a proper shutdown when there's nothing to be written to the hard drive anyway. Next time it boots up, Windows doesn't know it wasn't shut down properly. I don't bother running AV software on those machines. Once a month, I un-freeze them, run Window Update, then re-freeze.
The basic version of Deep Freeze is $45/seat. At a typical IT salary, it pays for itself pretty quickly in avoiding re-installs. The only thing to watch out for is not to use the "boot thawed on next boot only" option when running Windows update. Sometimes you'll get updates that need to run stuff after reboot, then reboot again, and you can get stuck in a boot loop. (There is a fix available.)
If you really need a free-as-in-beer solution, I remember years ago stumbling on instructions for doing something similar with XP by using the Enhanced Write Filter software from XP Embedded. If interested, you can do your own Googling, and I have no idea whether this involves violating licensing agreements or copyrights.
...the problem seems to be that just knowing the IP of your stolen computer is not enough for the police to get it back for you. It seems they also want a photo of the thief taken while using the computer, which complicated matters a lot. At least that's what other users have reported.
Most laptops have built-in webcams these days.
For a while, I had my laptop set up with a "decoy" XP install. Anyone booting up that would have their pics uploaded to a dropbox account I created specifically for that purpose. I also had an Pidgin set up to auto-login to a decoy Instant Message account and start minimized to the system tray, with the tray icon hid. I figured if the laptop was ever stolen, I could watch for the IM account to go active, then chat up the thief and inform him that I had his photo and offer to not call the cops if I could simply have my laptop back. Obviously not a bulletproof solution, I admit. The last time I wiped and rebuilt the laptop, I didn't bother setting it up again. I figured my laptop was protected by a combination of full-disk encryption and the odds that few people are going to steal a 5-year-old netbook.
I remember when Win8 was in beta. All the reviews complained about how awkward it was switching between Metro and the standard desktop. I've managed to mostly banish Metro from my work PC, except for occasionally bringing up the Metro version of a control panel item instead of the useful one.
Another hater of the XP Search Dog right freakin' here! And yes, the "going out the doggie door" animation always pissed me off, for the same reason you describe.
I once spent way too much time trying to diagnose a "My PC keeps making a funny noise" call. It was a rare, intermittent noise; sounded a bit like a hard drive seeking, but louder. I was worried about an impending drive failure, or something like that.
Turns out there was a search results window open in the background, and the damn dog periodically scratches himself. With sound effects.
This is just as stupid as the other stuff Sears has done (or not done) over the last 20 years to slowly go out of business. Sears and K-mart stores are "retail" land uses and are located on land appropriate for retail. This means that there is a) a sizable nearby population base to draw customers from, b) access via high-volume roadways, c) lots of onsite parking, d) other retail nearby to draw retail customers, etc.
All of the KMart stores in my area - and I include in this the ones that are currently closed, which is most of them - are located in parts of town that used to be high-traffic retail but aren't anymore. The other businesses in the area are mostly commercial services and specialty. One I can think of that is still open is pretty much surrounded by large car dealerships. The KMart where I had my first part-time job closed over a decade ago. The building is now used as a warehouse for a construction supplier. Other businesses in the area is a farm equipment dealership, an auto parts store, and some place that I think sells well drilling equipment.
My point is that in my, admittedly anecdotal experience, the KMart stores are no longer in prime retail locations. It certainly makes sense for Sears to say, what the heck can we do with all these buildings we own?
I'd say he took the case more seriously then Prenda. Their entire business model stemmed from filing cases hoping they wouldn't go to trial, and dropping them if it looked like they might. I see the Star Trek references as the Judge saying, "If you're going to make a mockery of the Judicial system, then the system retains the right to mock you back."
This. And seriously, don't do a half-assed job of it either. Don't try to find the "One True Interface" that will work for all platforms. Make your iOS and Android version with a touch-friendly interface. Now, and this is very important: Don't use the touch-friendly interface on the desktop version!! If you want to have it as an option, fine. Maybe even an option to automatically switch to touch mode when there's no mouse, but stop trying to cram a touch interface down the throats of your desktop users. That's a pretty sure way to guarantee that a whole lot of business users will hold of on upgrading as long as possible, and when it comes to Office, business users are your bread and butter.
I think that the DOJ would have been doing Microsoft a favor if they had forcibly broken up the company into separate OS and Office divisions years ago. The Office division would be free to realize, "Hey, lots of people have iPads, let's make a really great version of Office for iOS." Instead, Microsoft looks at the tablet market and thinks, "Hey, people are buying tablets. We should make a tablet too, and try to use our Office dominance to convince people to buy our tablet instead of Apple's or Samsung's or Amazon's."
Reading your comment just made me (and probably thousands of current and former help-desk staff) involuntarily twitch. The first two in particular remind me of a conversation I've had dozens of time in some variation.
Me: "Where did you save your file?" User: "It's in Excel"
Those rubber mouse pads sure are nice for when you need to bang your head against the desk.
Microsoft is fustrated that still, no one gives a shit about windows 8,
Not quite true. Your statement implies ambivalence, and by suggesting that everyone is ambivalent about Windows 8, you are ignoring the substantial number of people that deeply loathe it.
On the other hand, I believe the Wright Brothers were right into the free flow of information when they were trying to break into the airplane business.
Not really, no. It's not like they were the only ones trying to achieve powered flight at the time. They were obsessively paranoid about protecting their secrets from their competitors. One example: their propellers were carved out of laminated wood, but they painted them silver to avoid giving any clues about their construction.
I'll agree that Win8 has some really good parts. I use it on my work desktop, and, like you, I almost never see Metro. But there's a very good reason for that. I've spent a fair bit of time trying to make it that way.
I've been using Launchy since the XP days, and saw no reason to stop, with the wonderful benefit of almost never having to look at the Start page. Any time I open a file that defaults to using a Metro app, I try to find something to replace it. Most of the settings can be accessed through the classic Control Panel, and I'm always pissed whenever a Metro settings panel pops up, because the option I actually want to change is almost guaranteed not to be there.
This is my work PC. I already have an account on the company's domain. I don't want to create a Microsoft account to install software from your store, or sync my calendar, mail, and contacts, and speaking as the company sysadmin, I don't really want my users doing so either. The Start page wouldn't be so completely useless if I could link the mail, contacts, and calendar tiles to the company Exchange server, but apparently Microsoft knows that they've got their corporate customers by the short-and-curlys, so why bother thinking of them when designing "the new paradigm in user interaction and abuse".
Windows 8 really does have some good things going for it. But Metro is a god-awful abortion of an interface that seems geared toward looking at stuff rather than doing stuff. I've said it here before, and I'll say it again. With early versions of Windows Phone, Microsoft learned - the hard way - that a desktop interface doesn't work on a portable device. With Windows 8, they are learning - the hard way - that the reverse is also true.
Plenty of games had places where you would be required to look up something in the manual to prevent game copying. Some were more blatant, like the "What is the 3rd word on page 20?" mentioned above. (I remember encountering this in one of the Carmen Sandiego games.) Others somehow tied it it to the actual gameplay. I remember the Star Trek adventure game; every time you were directed to warp to a specific system, you were shown an incredibly complex "star map" and you'd have to click on the target system, but none of the systems were labeled on screen. You'd have to consult the star map in that manual, where the systems were actually labeled.
Since you mention Leisure Suit Larry, I'll mention another game by the same team, Freddy Farkas, Frontier Pharmacist. At several stages of the game, you'd have to consult the "Pharmacy Handbook" that was bundled with the game in order to solve a puzzle. It might be looking up the exact sequence to mix up a specific medicine, or comparing the results of a gas chromagraph with several pictured in the handbook to determine why all the horses in town had gas.
I believe the Klingons and Romulans were crudely based on the USSR and Communistic China respectively. Keep in mind that China in the 60s was pretty much as isolated from the West as North Korea is now, which is a better match for the secretive and xenophobic Romulans than the Soviet Russians who tended to have schemes brewing everywhere and had a far more interventionist approach (which fits the Klingons much better).
Interesting. If we assume the analogues were deliberate, it makes me wonder about the Vulcans. My first guess would be Japan - an ancient society that turned away from its violent past in pursuit of logic and knowledge. I'm by no means an expert on international relations back in the '60s - not sure how good a fit this is. Particularly since the Vulcan's violent period is ancient history in all the Trek cannon, whereas it was still very fresh in the middle-aged WW2 vets back in the '60s.
Gotta say, stuff like this is part of why I love Slashdot. Where else can you start from the North Koreans cribbing video game footage for a propaganda film and end up discussing the geopolitical symbolism of Star Trek?
In most cases, you're right. I do know that the Samsung Epic 4G Touch has a bug that can permanently brick your phone. Not "brick" as in, "reboot into download mode and re-flash," but rather "brick" as in, "your phone will never be usable again". XDA Developers even have a thread, How not to brick your E4GT At this point, it's well documented as to how to avoid the problem, but if you come to the Touch from a different Android phone and you just jump in and start flashing ROMs, you might end up with an expensive paperweight.
Absolutely agreed! I put Win8 on my work PC. Once I've tweaked it a bit, it's not *too* bad. (Tweaking consists mostly of disabling everything Metro.) But what really strikes me is how it seems completely designed for the home user, completely ignoring the business/enterprise market.
It keeps nagging me to set up a Microsoft account. I don't want to sync my stuff between my work and home PCs, and as IT Manager, I *really* don't want my users doing that. Playing around with the settings, I noticed an option to show upcoming calendar events on the lock screen. Except I can only tie it to my *Microsoft* account - no way to point it to the Exchange server.
There is certainly things to like about Win8. The multi-monitor support is a lot better, provided you disable Metro crap.
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Unless a phone has a full QWERTY hardware keyboard, I don't really care. Unfortunately, the handset makers and carriers seem to think there's little to no market for such devices, so I'll be keeping my Epic 4G for a while.
Fellow Epic 4G user here, and yes, I'll give it up when it is pried from my cold, dead hands. (Or, more likely and less dramatically, when the device itself is dead.)
I've worked with dozens of phones, and have never found a keyboard that was as easy to use as the E4G. Yes, I have used the supposedly fantastic keyboard on Blackberries, but really wasn't impressed. And while Swype is good for jotting out a quick text message or email reply, but when I'm using my phone to SSH into a box, or trying to google the exact error message something is throwing up, or doing just about anything where I would like to be able to use my screen to actually display stuff, nothing beats a physical keyboard.
I don't understand the phone makers' obsession with thinner and thinner phones. At least give us an option for one that's twice as thick, but has an actual keyboard. Especially now that 4.7" screens seem to be the standard for high-end phones. That gives a lot of room for a very usable keyboard. One thing that sets the E4G keyboard apart - an actual row of number keys. They could fit them in because, at the time, the E4G was one of the larger phones out there. Imagine how nice a keyboard you could fit behind the huge phones of today.
To swipe a joke from Rooster Teeth's Red vs. Blue:
I can sum up the argument against getting a tattoo with the following bullet points:
1. Tattoos are permanent.
2. You are a goddam idiot.
Point 2 may seem overly argumentative and insulting, but let me explain. Just think about yourself, 10 years ago. 10 years ago, you were a goddam idiot, weren't you? Imagine the stupid sort of stuff that 10-years-ago-You would have wanted tattooed on his body. Now, realize that, 10 years from now, you will look back at now-You, and say, "10 years ago, I was a goddam idiot."
Keep backup images handy and re-blast them if something is fubar.
Almost the right answer.
I'm the one-man IT department at a nursing home. I generally don't provide tech support to our residents, though there are are a few PCs in our library that I'm expected to keep up and running. In addition to the risk of malware, there's always the chance that some "knows enough to be dangerous" user will seriously screw something up.
The answer is here: http://www.faronics.com/products/deep-freeze/ (No, I don't work for them, this isn't a paid endorsement, that's not even a referral link.) Set the PC up once the way it's supposed to be, then install Deep Freeze. Any time you boot the PC, it's back the way I set it up. Aside from hardware failure, any problem that comes up is as simple as, "Have you tried turning it off and then on again?" Staff shuts down the library PCs every night, and I told them to just hit the switch on the power strip. Why bother with a proper shutdown when there's nothing to be written to the hard drive anyway. Next time it boots up, Windows doesn't know it wasn't shut down properly. I don't bother running AV software on those machines. Once a month, I un-freeze them, run Window Update, then re-freeze.
The basic version of Deep Freeze is $45/seat. At a typical IT salary, it pays for itself pretty quickly in avoiding re-installs. The only thing to watch out for is not to use the "boot thawed on next boot only" option when running Windows update. Sometimes you'll get updates that need to run stuff after reboot, then reboot again, and you can get stuck in a boot loop. (There is a fix available.)
If you really need a free-as-in-beer solution, I remember years ago stumbling on instructions for doing something similar with XP by using the Enhanced Write Filter software from XP Embedded. If interested, you can do your own Googling, and I have no idea whether this involves violating licensing agreements or copyrights.
...the problem seems to be that just knowing the IP of your stolen computer is not enough for the police to get it back for you. It seems they also want a photo of the thief taken while using the computer, which complicated matters a lot. At least that's what other users have reported.
Most laptops have built-in webcams these days.
For a while, I had my laptop set up with a "decoy" XP install. Anyone booting up that would have their pics uploaded to a dropbox account I created specifically for that purpose. I also had an Pidgin set up to auto-login to a decoy Instant Message account and start minimized to the system tray, with the tray icon hid. I figured if the laptop was ever stolen, I could watch for the IM account to go active, then chat up the thief and inform him that I had his photo and offer to not call the cops if I could simply have my laptop back. Obviously not a bulletproof solution, I admit. The last time I wiped and rebuilt the laptop, I didn't bother setting it up again. I figured my laptop was protected by a combination of full-disk encryption and the odds that few people are going to steal a 5-year-old netbook.
Somebody with mod points, please mod parent up.
I remember when Win8 was in beta. All the reviews complained about how awkward it was switching between Metro and the standard desktop. I've managed to mostly banish Metro from my work PC, except for occasionally bringing up the Metro version of a control panel item instead of the useful one.
Another hater of the XP Search Dog right freakin' here! And yes, the "going out the doggie door" animation always pissed me off, for the same reason you describe.
I once spent way too much time trying to diagnose a "My PC keeps making a funny noise" call. It was a rare, intermittent noise; sounded a bit like a hard drive seeking, but louder. I was worried about an impending drive failure, or something like that.
Turns out there was a search results window open in the background, and the damn dog periodically scratches himself. With sound effects.
This is just as stupid as the other stuff Sears has done (or not done) over the last 20 years to slowly go out of business. Sears and K-mart stores are "retail" land uses and are located on land appropriate for retail. This means that there is a) a sizable nearby population base to draw customers from, b) access via high-volume roadways, c) lots of onsite parking, d) other retail nearby to draw retail customers, etc.
All of the KMart stores in my area - and I include in this the ones that are currently closed, which is most of them - are located in parts of town that used to be high-traffic retail but aren't anymore. The other businesses in the area are mostly commercial services and specialty. One I can think of that is still open is pretty much surrounded by large car dealerships. The KMart where I had my first part-time job closed over a decade ago. The building is now used as a warehouse for a construction supplier. Other businesses in the area is a farm equipment dealership, an auto parts store, and some place that I think sells well drilling equipment.
My point is that in my, admittedly anecdotal experience, the KMart stores are no longer in prime retail locations. It certainly makes sense for Sears to say, what the heck can we do with all these buildings we own?
Craftsman is no longer a Sears exclusive. Can't guarantee this is the case in all areas, but my local Ace Hardware carries Craftsman.
I'd be (slightly) more likely to trust Anonymous Coward's explanation of the process if he could spell nickel properly.
That would make for a freakin' awesome aviary.
Plus the amazing possibility of bacon and hot wings from the same animal!
If you're working on embedded systems, you're not going to be using Ubuntu.
I'd say he took the case more seriously then Prenda. Their entire business model stemmed from filing cases hoping they wouldn't go to trial, and dropping them if it looked like they might. I see the Star Trek references as the Judge saying, "If you're going to make a mockery of the Judicial system, then the system retains the right to mock you back."
This. And seriously, don't do a half-assed job of it either. Don't try to find the "One True Interface" that will work for all platforms. Make your iOS and Android version with a touch-friendly interface. Now, and this is very important: Don't use the touch-friendly interface on the desktop version!! If you want to have it as an option, fine. Maybe even an option to automatically switch to touch mode when there's no mouse, but stop trying to cram a touch interface down the throats of your desktop users. That's a pretty sure way to guarantee that a whole lot of business users will hold of on upgrading as long as possible, and when it comes to Office, business users are your bread and butter.
I think that the DOJ would have been doing Microsoft a favor if they had forcibly broken up the company into separate OS and Office divisions years ago. The Office division would be free to realize, "Hey, lots of people have iPads, let's make a really great version of Office for iOS." Instead, Microsoft looks at the tablet market and thinks, "Hey, people are buying tablets. We should make a tablet too, and try to use our Office dominance to convince people to buy our tablet instead of Apple's or Samsung's or Amazon's."
Reading your comment just made me (and probably thousands of current and former help-desk staff) involuntarily twitch. The first two in particular remind me of a conversation I've had dozens of time in some variation.
Me: "Where did you save your file?"
User: "It's in Excel"
Those rubber mouse pads sure are nice for when you need to bang your head against the desk.
OT, but I love your sig. It does, however, hold frightening implications for those working in the data recovery field.
Microsoft is fustrated that still, no one gives a shit about windows 8,
Not quite true. Your statement implies ambivalence, and by suggesting that everyone is ambivalent about Windows 8, you are ignoring the substantial number of people that deeply loathe it.
On the other hand, I believe the Wright Brothers were right into the free flow of information when they were trying to break into the airplane business.
Not really, no. It's not like they were the only ones trying to achieve powered flight at the time. They were obsessively paranoid about protecting their secrets from their competitors. One example: their propellers were carved out of laminated wood, but they painted them silver to avoid giving any clues about their construction.
I'll agree that Win8 has some really good parts. I use it on my work desktop, and, like you, I almost never see Metro. But there's a very good reason for that. I've spent a fair bit of time trying to make it that way.
I've been using Launchy since the XP days, and saw no reason to stop, with the wonderful benefit of almost never having to look at the Start page. Any time I open a file that defaults to using a Metro app, I try to find something to replace it. Most of the settings can be accessed through the classic Control Panel, and I'm always pissed whenever a Metro settings panel pops up, because the option I actually want to change is almost guaranteed not to be there.
This is my work PC. I already have an account on the company's domain. I don't want to create a Microsoft account to install software from your store, or sync my calendar, mail, and contacts, and speaking as the company sysadmin, I don't really want my users doing so either. The Start page wouldn't be so completely useless if I could link the mail, contacts, and calendar tiles to the company Exchange server, but apparently Microsoft knows that they've got their corporate customers by the short-and-curlys, so why bother thinking of them when designing "the new paradigm in user interaction and abuse".
Windows 8 really does have some good things going for it. But Metro is a god-awful abortion of an interface that seems geared toward looking at stuff rather than doing stuff. I've said it here before, and I'll say it again. With early versions of Windows Phone, Microsoft learned - the hard way - that a desktop interface doesn't work on a portable device. With Windows 8, they are learning - the hard way - that the reverse is also true.
Not true. Tunnels actually lead somewhere.
I'd suggest "septic tank vision", except someone in a septic tank would at least recognize crap when they saw it.
I'm not sure what anyone would do with a Beowulf cluster of VCRs, but I think it would be awesome!
Plenty of games had places where you would be required to look up something in the manual to prevent game copying. Some were more blatant, like the "What is the 3rd word on page 20?" mentioned above. (I remember encountering this in one of the Carmen Sandiego games.) Others somehow tied it it to the actual gameplay. I remember the Star Trek adventure game; every time you were directed to warp to a specific system, you were shown an incredibly complex "star map" and you'd have to click on the target system, but none of the systems were labeled on screen. You'd have to consult the star map in that manual, where the systems were actually labeled.
Since you mention Leisure Suit Larry, I'll mention another game by the same team, Freddy Farkas, Frontier Pharmacist. At several stages of the game, you'd have to consult the "Pharmacy Handbook" that was bundled with the game in order to solve a puzzle. It might be looking up the exact sequence to mix up a specific medicine, or comparing the results of a gas chromagraph with several pictured in the handbook to determine why all the horses in town had gas.
I'm not sure why, but there's something inherently funny about "Isn't this a concrete fence?"
I believe the Klingons and Romulans were crudely based on the USSR and Communistic China respectively. Keep in mind that China in the 60s was pretty much as isolated from the West as North Korea is now, which is a better match for the secretive and xenophobic Romulans than the Soviet Russians who tended to have schemes brewing everywhere and had a far more interventionist approach (which fits the Klingons much better).
Interesting. If we assume the analogues were deliberate, it makes me wonder about the Vulcans. My first guess would be Japan - an ancient society that turned away from its violent past in pursuit of logic and knowledge. I'm by no means an expert on international relations back in the '60s - not sure how good a fit this is. Particularly since the Vulcan's violent period is ancient history in all the Trek cannon, whereas it was still very fresh in the middle-aged WW2 vets back in the '60s.
Gotta say, stuff like this is part of why I love Slashdot. Where else can you start from the North Koreans cribbing video game footage for a propaganda film and end up discussing the geopolitical symbolism of Star Trek?
Nearly no phone can actually be bricked.
In most cases, you're right. I do know that the Samsung Epic 4G Touch has a bug that can permanently brick your phone. Not "brick" as in, "reboot into download mode and re-flash," but rather "brick" as in, "your phone will never be usable again". XDA Developers even have a thread, How not to brick your E4GT At this point, it's well documented as to how to avoid the problem, but if you come to the Touch from a different Android phone and you just jump in and start flashing ROMs, you might end up with an expensive paperweight.
Absolutely agreed! I put Win8 on my work PC. Once I've tweaked it a bit, it's not *too* bad. (Tweaking consists mostly of disabling everything Metro.) But what really strikes me is how it seems completely designed for the home user, completely ignoring the business/enterprise market.
It keeps nagging me to set up a Microsoft account. I don't want to sync my stuff between my work and home PCs, and as IT Manager, I *really* don't want my users doing that. Playing around with the settings, I noticed an option to show upcoming calendar events on the lock screen. Except I can only tie it to my *Microsoft* account - no way to point it to the Exchange server.
There is certainly things to like about Win8. The multi-monitor support is a lot better, provided you disable Metro crap.