Yea there is that kind of hardware around but most of it you would not need or want to put windows on. Here at least I can count on one hand the number of general purpose computers that I have seen recently that are not x86 based. SPARC etc are more of a curiosity, PPC was in the Mac but they were insanely expencive and are all so old now that all I know of have been binned.
When you limite it to places where Windows has business being (consumer and work PCs/laptops) the driver support is extremely good. For random gear like the stuff your describing I'd probably have to raid a university basement or something. In consumerland x86 is king for GP PCs. Phones and ultramobile stuff is really something they did not contest with full blown windows, CE and Phone 7 run on it though but that is outside the topic just like routers and APs as they are embedded defined use objects rather than general purpose gear to anyone but those who can customise them.
Ah, yes, you are talking about extremely specific hardware that is compared to x86 stuff is about as common in the general population of computers as unicorns are in the population of horses. Likewise by the processor types.
I do take your point with the printers as many of the cheaper devices never did get signed drivers for the later versions. As you say most of the time a generic, or in hp's case from the same series. To be fair, no one - least of all hp - would have thought that those printers would still be working by now given the quality of their internals which were generally the printer equivilent of a winmodem. They were generally kinder to their laser all in one line as those could concevibly still be working.
There again, printing itself is a bit of an anachronism, I got a printer quite some time ago, and a ream of paper which I still have not made it a quater of the way through. With that kind of usage pattern even the much lower end hp all in ones will keep going forever so long term drivers may be more important but with a new one costing NZD$60 at a supermarket is the hassel really worth it. A wasteful view I know but I have had meals more expencive.
I have installed Windows 7 onto hundreds of machines up to seven years old and have found drivers for everything apart from a few old GPUs and scanners. Almost everything else has just installed automagicly either bundled on the media or grabbed on first boot from Windows update the rest has just required a quick trip to the vendor site. This is even with the 64 bit versions on 6 year old hardware.
Sofware is mostly supported but you are right that there is a lot that was written really badly and won't run as Windows is actually protecting itself.
I am heavily sceptical about - 2 - linux supporting more hardware than windows, almost all the hardware in existance was released with Windows drivers, Windows supporting less just does not make sense and it is not what I have encountered.
You are totally correct, this is the biggest issue that many schools face, yes some are underfunded but a culture of refusing to learn is the biggest issue. It's is kind of silly when they teach for a job and expect others to learn from them.
If you hate the productivity provided by actually being able to launch your preferred apps quickly then remove every single icon from your home screen and replace them with widgets. Or nothing at all. It takes less than a minute to do and I'm sure that's not too much of a burden since you will likely keep your phone for at least a year.
I have a galaxy nexus and saying that anything on the interface looks "16bitish" in any way is pure lies.
Design is subjective, I just get that feel from it, and yes I keep my phones while they are still useful, my current one is around 3 years old but I have been looking for a replacement.
Have you ever considered the possibility that you're just an idiot? Because it has definitely occurred to me that you are probably the dumbest motherfucker on Slashdot today.
Awwwww, how sweet, all ragey that someone has a different opinion than you. I bet you got kicked out of debate club with arguments like that.
There are tons of middle of the road android handsets with 512 MB of RAM that are next to free on contract that perform very well. You are either a shill or you are a completely ignorant dumbass on here spreading FUD. Please remove your head from your ass.
Well I don't live in the US or UK, our plans are much more expencive and it takes a while for the latest phones to get here so I outright buy my phones. I am not "completely ignorant dumbass", I just don't happen to live where you do. We may also have different views on 'very well', the UI lag on some of the phones I have seen with 512mb or RAM has been worse than my WM6.5 device. That seems like a backwards step to me, I don't care if it can compete with a tablet with regard to processing power, I want it to do its job quickly and not get in my way, is that so wrong?
Stacks of the UI just remind me of it unless you have some vendor skin on top of it. The icons on the home screen are just like the old program manager and it has distinctly a 3.1esk look in some places almost 16bitish in some ways.
I know there are lots of differences but I just can't shake the 3.1 feel that it gives me.
That and the buy top of the line or deal with aweful performance issues that many of the handsets have without needing to kill the default firmware to optimise for low ram/get rid of vendor filth.
Fuckers, I am upset, I don't know about the other guy:)
The phone is still good though and still does 90% of what phones 3 years newer do. On the plus side it does not actually need an app store as you can just get apps from anywhere but the supply of new apps is dwindling fast.
Still I refuse to get an iPhone and I am no fan of Windows 3.1 (Android interface). I may just wait till W8 phones show up as I don't trust them to upgrade the WP7 devices to Apollo.
No, arogant users, the job it to work with, not against the company and its interests. Only one of those interests is catering to all the whims of some prissy dev. Security, stability, liability and supportability are some of the other large factors your self centered world view completly misses.
The providers 9s mean nothing if you need it locally and you're upstream links have a flapping route, just ask some NZ schools about their recent Google crApps issues where all their traffic got sent the long and slow way areound for a day or two. Funnily all our local gear was fine.
OMG, you mean instead of having the mainframe at your building you have it on teh internetz and instead of owning you're own stack of them you rent usage on a much larger stack owned by someone else. You are so right, that is SOOOOOOOO! different. Yes there is more redundancy thanks to better infrastructure that allows for stacks of 'mainframes' in different locations but the vast change is basicly the business model.
If you are really that amazed by this 'new, unpresidented' tech perhaps you should go and work in sales as their KoolAid obviouly works quite well on you.
It's not exactly the same implementation the the model is very simmilar, just a bit updated.
Write up a few examples of stupidity that ends up wasting more money than it saves, ie cheap laptops, inkjets in every room etc. Send this to the people at the top end of handling the money along with an estimate of how much it is costing and what issues is is and will cause. Hopefully when seen in dollars and sense (:) ) they will step in and give you the mandate to fix the issues.
Also check out this site: www.edugeek.net for experiences and advice from lots of other school techs.
Having worked in this environment if the above options don't work for you and being forced to do a substandard job annoys you, your best bet is to simply leave. Some people are simply too stupid for their own good and its not worth the stress trying and failing to fix their decisions afterwards.
Bad form replying to my own comment but I just thought I'd add we also killed of the 1 and 2 dollar bill more than a decade ago, replacing them with coins, there has even been talk of doing the same for the five dolar bill. Before anyone tried to pin this on a currency worth so much less per dollar than the USD, check the exchange rate, its getting quite close.
Seriously, we ditched 1c, 2c and even 5c here in NZ ages ago almost everyone pays with eftpos - direct bank account debit cards - anyway so actual physical money is more of an inconvenient throwback than anything else.
Every so often the US makes me think I'm living in the future, this is one of those times.
They were apparently sutibly brutal and uncompromising using all sorts of overkill for a few unarmed people in a house so I'm guessing they got a kindly pat on the head at least.
A possibly more effective solution: Refuse to fly. Take a bus, take a train, drive, or forgo travel, but don't pay into the system by buying a plane ticket.
Or, don't fly to the US. They don't like us foreigners there anyway.
Thats my solution, no United States of Iran oops America for me.
Disclaimer: I have no experience in this situation this is just my take on this so take with lots of salt (well.. try and keep it under 1500ml if you are watching your sodium.. )
Fair, if shortsighted given the current trends, surely we'll all be jibbering and swiping our way through computer interactions in future. If we beleive the hype presented by various companies and organisations that is. Aren't they trying to obsolete themselves?
Slashdot Mirror
Click with the mouse wheel or the middle (centre) button, this will trigger a new instance or right click then click the app icon just above unpin.
Yea there is that kind of hardware around but most of it you would not need or want to put windows on. Here at least I can count on one hand the number of general purpose computers that I have seen recently that are not x86 based. SPARC etc are more of a curiosity, PPC was in the Mac but they were insanely expencive and are all so old now that all I know of have been binned.
When you limite it to places where Windows has business being (consumer and work PCs/laptops) the driver support is extremely good. For random gear like the stuff your describing I'd probably have to raid a university basement or something. In consumerland x86 is king for GP PCs. Phones and ultramobile stuff is really something they did not contest with full blown windows, CE and Phone 7 run on it though but that is outside the topic just like routers and APs as they are embedded defined use objects rather than general purpose gear to anyone but those who can customise them.
Ah, yes, you are talking about extremely specific hardware that is compared to x86 stuff is about as common in the general population of computers as unicorns are in the population of horses. Likewise by the processor types.
I do take your point with the printers as many of the cheaper devices never did get signed drivers for the later versions. As you say most of the time a generic, or in hp's case from the same series. To be fair, no one - least of all hp - would have thought that those printers would still be working by now given the quality of their internals which were generally the printer equivilent of a winmodem. They were generally kinder to their laser all in one line as those could concevibly still be working.
There again, printing itself is a bit of an anachronism, I got a printer quite some time ago, and a ream of paper which I still have not made it a quater of the way through. With that kind of usage pattern even the much lower end hp all in ones will keep going forever so long term drivers may be more important but with a new one costing NZD$60 at a supermarket is the hassel really worth it. A wasteful view I know but I have had meals more expencive.
3 - Really, How old are your machines?
I have installed Windows 7 onto hundreds of machines up to seven years old and have found drivers for everything apart from a few old GPUs and scanners. Almost everything else has just installed automagicly either bundled on the media or grabbed on first boot from Windows update the rest has just required a quick trip to the vendor site. This is even with the 64 bit versions on 6 year old hardware.
Sofware is mostly supported but you are right that there is a lot that was written really badly and won't run as Windows is actually protecting itself.
I am heavily sceptical about - 2 - linux supporting more hardware than windows, almost all the hardware in existance was released with Windows drivers, Windows supporting less just does not make sense and it is not what I have encountered.
You are totally correct, this is the biggest issue that many schools face, yes some are underfunded but a culture of refusing to learn is the biggest issue. It's is kind of silly when they teach for a job and expect others to learn from them.
+1 wire, the basis for most of the cool stuff you can add.
Windows has had Volume Shadow Copy since XP which does the same kind of thing, it just does not have a flashy interface.
Wow, somethingBook, even Apple has valid prior art on that
If you hate the productivity provided by actually being able to launch your preferred apps quickly then remove every single icon from your home screen and replace them with widgets. Or nothing at all. It takes less than a minute to do and I'm sure that's not too much of a burden since you will likely keep your phone for at least a year.
I have a galaxy nexus and saying that anything on the interface looks "16bitish" in any way is pure lies.
Design is subjective, I just get that feel from it, and yes I keep my phones while they are still useful, my current one is around 3 years old but I have been looking for a replacement.
Have you ever considered the possibility that you're just an idiot? Because it has definitely occurred to me that you are probably the dumbest motherfucker on Slashdot today.
Awwwww, how sweet, all ragey that someone has a different opinion than you. I bet you got kicked out of debate club with arguments like that.
There are tons of middle of the road android handsets with 512 MB of RAM that are next to free on contract that perform very well. You are either a shill or you are a completely ignorant dumbass on here spreading FUD. Please remove your head from your ass.
Well I don't live in the US or UK, our plans are much more expencive and it takes a while for the latest phones to get here so I outright buy my phones. I am not "completely ignorant dumbass", I just don't happen to live where you do. We may also have different views on 'very well', the UI lag on some of the phones I have seen with 512mb or RAM has been worse than my WM6.5 device. That seems like a backwards step to me, I don't care if it can compete with a tablet with regard to processing power, I want it to do its job quickly and not get in my way, is that so wrong?
Oh I see, in which case it is Apple's fault and/or a conspiracy perpetrated by Sony... Better?
Hmmm, moded down for an opinion and a spot of MS bashing, this is the 'new' slashdot.
Stacks of the UI just remind me of it unless you have some vendor skin on top of it. The icons on the home screen are just like the old program manager and it has distinctly a 3.1esk look in some places almost 16bitish in some ways.
I know there are lots of differences but I just can't shake the 3.1 feel that it gives me.
That and the buy top of the line or deal with aweful performance issues that many of the handsets have without needing to kill the default firmware to optimise for low ram/get rid of vendor filth.
Fuckers, I am upset, I don't know about the other guy :)
The phone is still good though and still does 90% of what phones 3 years newer do. On the plus side it does not actually need an app store as you can just get apps from anywhere but the supply of new apps is dwindling fast.
Still I refuse to get an iPhone and I am no fan of Windows 3.1 (Android interface). I may just wait till W8 phones show up as I don't trust them to upgrade the WP7 devices to Apollo.
No, arogant users, the job it to work with, not against the company and its interests. Only one of those interests is catering to all the whims of some prissy dev. Security, stability, liability and supportability are some of the other large factors your self centered world view completly misses.
Depends on if they need help lugging out their big bags of money I guess.
The providers 9s mean nothing if you need it locally and you're upstream links have a flapping route, just ask some NZ schools about their recent Google crApps issues where all their traffic got sent the long and slow way areound for a day or two. Funnily all our local gear was fine.
OMG, you mean instead of having the mainframe at your building you have it on teh internetz and instead of owning you're own stack of them you rent usage on a much larger stack owned by someone else. You are so right, that is SOOOOOOOO! different. Yes there is more redundancy thanks to better infrastructure that allows for stacks of 'mainframes' in different locations but the vast change is basicly the business model.
If you are really that amazed by this 'new, unpresidented' tech perhaps you should go and work in sales as their KoolAid obviouly works quite well on you.
It's not exactly the same implementation the the model is very simmilar, just a bit updated.
Community quote, nice #sixseasonsandamovie etc :)
Write up a few examples of stupidity that ends up wasting more money than it saves, ie cheap laptops, inkjets in every room etc. Send this to the people at the top end of handling the money along with an estimate of how much it is costing and what issues is is and will cause. Hopefully when seen in dollars and sense ( :) ) they will step in and give you the mandate to fix the issues.
Also check out this site: www.edugeek.net for experiences and advice from lots of other school techs.
Having worked in this environment if the above options don't work for you and being forced to do a substandard job annoys you, your best bet is to simply leave. Some people are simply too stupid for their own good and its not worth the stress trying and failing to fix their decisions afterwards.
Bad form replying to my own comment but I just thought I'd add we also killed of the 1 and 2 dollar bill more than a decade ago, replacing them with coins, there has even been talk of doing the same for the five dolar bill. Before anyone tried to pin this on a currency worth so much less per dollar than the USD, check the exchange rate, its getting quite close.
Seriously, we ditched 1c, 2c and even 5c here in NZ ages ago almost everyone pays with eftpos - direct bank account debit cards - anyway so actual physical money is more of an inconvenient throwback than anything else.
Every so often the US makes me think I'm living in the future, this is one of those times.
They were apparently sutibly brutal and uncompromising using all sorts of overkill for a few unarmed people in a house so I'm guessing they got a kindly pat on the head at least.
A possibly more effective solution: Refuse to fly. Take a bus, take a train, drive, or forgo travel, but don't pay into the system by buying a plane ticket.
Or, don't fly to the US. They don't like us foreigners there anyway.
Thats my solution, no United States of Iran oops America for me.
Disclaimer: I have no experience in this situation this is just my take on this so take with lots of salt (well.. try and keep it under 1500ml if you are watching your sodium.. )
Metric fail, 1500mL is 1.5 Liters and almost certainly toxic if only as a descicant: http://www.google.co.nz/#sclient=psy-ab&hl=en&site=&q=1500mL+in+liters&pbx=1&oq=1500mL+in+liters
Fair, if shortsighted given the current trends, surely we'll all be jibbering and swiping our way through computer interactions in future. If we beleive the hype presented by various companies and organisations that is. Aren't they trying to obsolete themselves?