Aaah, crap. You mean I actually have to *look* at a device I'm using. Good god, how will I cope?
And incidentally, I find I'm pretty good at noticing the feedback when my finger hits a screen. I don't waft it in front of the screen, or push it through any more.
Do me a favour and save your arguments about how the lack of feedback will kill this device until you've actually tried one. The UI has had an awful lot of work put into it, I doubt it's going to be difficult to use.
And to be honest, even in the worst case scenario where you're right and it is slower to use, I think that's a small price to pay for all the benefits. The larger screen, and much larger buttons for dialing numbers are two features I'd sacrifice an awful lot for.
Err... aren't apple dithering to get those quarter million colours you were talking about?
So you're happy with the spacial dithering effect that produces the quarter million colours, but unhappy with the temporal dithering effect to enhance that to several million?
Apple make no mention of dithering because *every monitor ever made* has used dithering. Everything, right back to the early days shows colours by various amounts of R, G and B, and because of that I really don't see how these guys have a case.
Sure, the quality may not be as good as you like, I can't argue with that. But trying to force this case through on a technicality, especially when it looks like Apple already offered them a refund just looks to me like they're being greedy.
Even better, the average consumer buys one of these but it won't play on their DVD player. They don't pirate movies, and know nothing about the technology, but when they go back to Amazon they read about all these other people having problems, and find out that some people have been able to watch the movie by downloading a 'torrent'.
So, they fix the problem themselves by downloading it. Now, what do you think that customer is going to do the next time they want a movie?
WTG Sony, you've just educated another customer in the benefits of piracy...
Re:Will anyone gain anything from this? Not Linux
on
The End is Nigh for XP
·
· Score: 1
Err... this is all running behind the firewall in my home router, so 5900 isn't open, 21 might be but I doubt it, and Apache definately isn't running.
Yeah, I maybe do assume linux is secure without really checking, but that box has been running for months with no problems at all. The real point is that I couldn't do this with windows. Even behind my routers basic firewall I wouldn't trust a windows box for more than 30 minutes. Hell, I even have to download the patches for windows on a separate pc and install them offline because it's not possible to secure a new windows install faster than it gets hacked!
So yeah, good point, but I think I'm still safe:)
Re:Will anyone gain anything from this? Not Linux
on
The End is Nigh for XP
·
· Score: 1
Never said it did, just that the argument of windows being easier to patch is void.
Yes, there's still a lot of software that's windows only, I won't argue with you on that. That's why my main PC is an XP box. However linux is more than good enough for a lot of people now, I'm using it for my 2nd pc because it does everything I need and it's easier to maintain.
And in another year or two I expect linux will be able to run XP software. Emulation is huge now, and hardware support for it is just around the corner. I don't even think it'll be long before you can even run games at near native speed in an emulated XP environment. And once that happens linux will really take off. All the benefits of an open platform, the security of linux, but with all the windows software available... can't wait:D
Re:Will anyone gain anything from this? Not Linux
on
The End is Nigh for XP
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Huh? You really should go download Ubuntu.
I'm a Windows admin too, and started playing with Ubuntu about 6 months ago. It's a damn site easier to patch than windows.
As others have said, Microsoft Update is for MS software, and only selected applications at that. To install software in Ubuntu I just use a repositry and use the "Add Programs" menu. Every single program I've installed is now managed and updated by Ubuntu. My last update patched 40+ programs, in a single operation, without a reboot.
So, under Ubuntu:
- Installing programs means ticking one box and pressing ok
- Patching all programs means clicking ok when the update program asks to run
- Uninstalling programs means unticking one box and pressing ok
And all of this without reboots.
I'm sorry, I'm a huge fan of windows, but Ubuntu amazed me the first time I used it. There is simply no comparison between this and windows in terms of ease of use, and that's only going to improve. Plus the damn thing's more secure anyway. I'm not running firewall or AV software on my linux box, it simply doesn't need it.
Yes, but by your logic, you could argue that there's no need for databases and everything should be stored in the filesystem;-)
I think there are arguments either way, but I take your point about a file that's treated as a database. There's no control over how it's used, and PST files are a great case for it being a bad idea.
What would probably be better would be an open database standard included with the OS, with appropriate controls & management. That way developers have the choice of storing data in the filesystem, or storing it as a relational database, but if they store it in a database it's appropriately managed.
Heh, I might go post that in a linux forum & see if anyone likes the idea.
huh?? wth not? Haven't you heard of databases? Using a single database for storage makes so much more sense than thousands of individual files cluttering up and fragmenting the filesystem. If you're using a database you can optimise for searches, reduce wastage, etc.
Ok, PST is a horrible implementation of a database, but don't knock the concept for one bad example.
My thoughts exactly. I hope to god this is all possible when we get our hands on this phone. It's already stunning with just the features we've seen. If even a few of the extra ideas work out to be possible it's going to blow everything else clear out of the water.
There's the possibility that it's a small scale upgrade making use of existing hardware. If the workstation he's using only has space for two 3.5" drives then he probably had to remove the existing drive, just to give the 'server' some kind of reduncancy.
A business with 5 pc's isn't going to want to buy a new one as a dedicated server.
We just upgraded from 2006 to 2007. The installation appeared to go great, the MSI deployed across the network, the whole thing was pretty smooth, it even migrated the settings from the previous version.
And then we discovered that the migration tool doesn't simply migrate your custom settings from the previous version... No, it brings ALL your menus too. It's replaced the AutoCAD 2007 ones with the 2006 menus, loosing all the new features!
WTF? What kind of moron produces a software upgrade that takes all the new features, strips them from the menus, and puts your old menus there instead!
God only knows what else we're missing. I'm now faced with the unbelievable situation of having to audit the menus and toolbars of our CAD software to see if I can find any more features that Autodesk have managed to loose in the upgrade.
It's been a week now and I'm still trying to find a way out of this mess. For the time being we're having to run AutoCAD 2007 with the AutoCAD 2006 feature set... I'm just glad we didn't have to pay for the upgrade.
Ok, that's one I hadn't heard of. Which product was that with, and how long ago?
Considering I've been bashing my head against the brick wall that is Autodesk product support for a year or so with a similar problem in their current software I'd be very interested to hear of any problems they had previously.
Yes of course, because a $4,795 product is directly comparable to the $99 we paid for Volo View... I believe you missed my comment about "reasonably priced markup tools".
Autodesk currently charge around $200 for Design Review, that's the closest product I can find for our needs, but it utterly fails to run on our network.
Right now we're stuck using AutoCAD LT... which isn't the easiest to use program when you have non-technical staff using it.
Yes, we've looked at AutoVue, but because of our DMS and the requirement to e-mail content easily we need the ability to keep markups within the original file. Saving markups as a 2nd file doesn't work for us I'm afraid.
I hope to god Autodesk loose this case. Their DWG / DWF strategy is a complete and utter shambles. We use AutoCAD because there are tons of plug-ins for our industry, it makes it a very good tool for our drawing office.
Unfortunately, while AutoCAD itself works fine on our network, most of their more recent tools do not. It's a minor point of them not supporting folder redirection... Attempts to point Autodesk at Microsoft's developer guidelines have so far fallen on deaf ears, and I've been complaining of this for over a year now.
Thanks to Autodesks stranglehold on DWG, nobody else produces reasonably priced DWG markup tools any more. And that leaves us stuck using old, buggy, unsupported software, purely because it's the most up to date package produced by Autodesk that still runs on our network and can markup these files.
The sooner someone reverse-engineers DWG the better.
PS. Whoever at Autodesk thought the best way to update their DWF viewer was to embed it within IE just wants shooting. Yes, you heard me, they took a stand alone program and decided it would be better off if it relied on IE... They even went to the effort of creating the File menu structure in html! And yes, SP2 broke it...
Actually most laptop hard disks can cope pretty well with being thrown about. Motion sensitive models that automatically park the heads before impact have been around a good few years.
So yes, the drives don't like being thrown in a car seat while spinning, but if you listen closely that drive will quite probably stop spinning as you throw it, and just start up again once it's landed safely.
Oh good god. Can some non MS mods please sort out the parent post.
OpenDoc is not robust enough to deal with real world documents? Huh? You are aware of the size of the companies that worked together to create that specification? No? Let me clue you in:
Adobe, AMD, BEA, Cisco, CA, Debian, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, National Archives of Australia, Nokia, Novell, Sun, Boeing, UK Inland Revenue (Tax office), UK Ministry of Defence, VISA
These are some large companies, some *very* large companies. All of which were involved in this format because they wanted a format 'robust' enough to cope with their requirements. I heard that Boeing in particular had very specific requirements, they have some huge technical documents and were very interested in aiding the development of a format capable of meeting their needs.
I also find your choice of the word 'robust' interesting. You are aware of how often word documents become corrupted? I believe OpenDocument being an open xml standard is far, far more robust than any current MS format, and would be very interested in any evidence to the contrary.
Also, exactly what did OASIS need to be more 'open' about including? Specifically which features are missing from OpenDocument that are possible in the MS format? Oh, right, you mentioned them... Ink, sound & video... You're right, what were OASIS thinking, video is a VITAL feature in a document, and has to be embedded right into the format.
Huh? What's that you say? OpenDocument does support embedded video? Hey look, so it does...
And finally, you will find that nobody expected Microsoft to drop features to move to this format. All that was asked was that MS provide the ability to *export* documents to this format. They manage to export files as RTF or TXT, and I think you'll find OpenDocument has far more features than either of these two.
Tell me about it, every time I see that retarded advert I wish I *had* pirated the movie. Either in the hope that the pirates will have edited that piece of crap out, or just so I can have the satisfaction of saying "Yes I fucking would" to their "You wouldn't pirate a movie." line.
It's one of the most irritating things I've ever come across, especially when it's targetted directly at *legitimate* customers with no way to skip it. It galls me no end to know that I'm watching this piece of junk while the pirates are either laughing at it or editing it out of the copied DVD's they sell. It's definately affected my willingness to buy DVD's, I've probably only bought half a dozen this year.
I haven't stooped to buying pirated movies yet, but if anything is going to drive me to piracy it's that advert.
Tell me about it. We had just started purchasing HP/Compaq laptops when I had the misfortune to speak to their tech support department.
The fault with the laptop was straightforward - the internal modem had failed, pointing to a motherboard fault, something I diagnosed in about half an hour before shipping them the laptop. Despite promising a 5 day turnaround, it took HP over two months to actually get a working laptop back to us. I made dozens of phone calls, and ended up with nearly 20 pages of notes trying to keep track of the chaos that was their support department. HP kept us waiting so long we actually had to buy a new laptop from Dell while we were waiting for the original to be returned.
I've had 12 years experience supporting computers and they were by far the worst tech support department I'd ever spoken to. They people I spoke to were clueless, they had no means of finding out the state of the repair, and despite being given numerous chances to put things right, failed every single time.
Some of the specific things they did wrong:
- Promised a 5 day turnaround. 13 days later admitted that they had not even looked at the laptop, nor did they have any idea what fault it had been returned with.
- Failed to return calls when promised, over a dozen times.
- Failed four times to ship the repaired laptop on the date they promised.
- Failed to respond to four written complaints, cc'd to their complaints department.
- Directly lied to me on 3 occasion
A specific example: I was told that one particular lady had been fired and was no longer working for the company. I called back 10 mins later to have her answer the phone!
- Offered a new replacement if the laptop took over 3 weeks to replace, then withdrew that offer when 3 weeks passed.
- Returned faulty laptops to me twice.
We don't buy HP now, 100% of our machines come from Dell.
Hmm... d-link... would that be the company that recently tried to claim the the GPL was invalid in a german court case? Yeah, can see Linux fans climbing all over each other to buy stuff from this company...
I also recall D-link being in the press recently for configuring their hardware to synchronise to someone's private timeserver, costing the individual running it several thousand in bandwidth fees.
At one point I'd have said D-link were a quality brand. Now I'm not so sure...
Many people above are suggesting Citrix, Altris, etc... but what nobody seems to have mentioned is that there are several companies already doing this (Clearcube for one), and that VMware are partnering with IBM, Citrix, Altiris, and many more, to push their recently launched Virtual Desktop Initiative (VDI).
VDI does pretty much exactly what E1ven is asking for, however instead of downloading a complete image to your computer every day, the virtual machine runs on a central server, with thin clients at the desktop connecting to it through a remote session.
I first heard of this about 6 months ago, when I heard that IBM were working with VMware & Citrix to provide a solution they called VHCI (Virtualized Hosted Client Infrastructure). IBM have shown it's possible to run up to 12 virtual machines on a single blade server. Hot swop and automatic failover is possible too, with no downtime for the user. IBM's blade hardware actively looks to warn of failures before they occur, and they've integrated this with VMware's management software, allowing live client sessions to be automatically moved off failing hardware.
We've got around 100 clients at our firm and we're very interested in this idea. We looked at Citrix but it just wasn't viable. We've a huge variety of software in use, much of which is updated 3-4 times a year, and configuring that on a bank of Citrix servers would be a management nightmare. The VMware approach lets us keep our current network management and software deployment tools, provides a simple migration route, and offers all the benefits of thin client computing without needing to retrain all our staff.
Right now virtual desktops are just a little too expensive (about £500 per desktop instead of £300 for a new Dell), but all the signs are that in the next 6-12 months it'll become a viable option for us.
Actually, have a read of the EULA for XP OEM. I don't believe it states anywhere that you have to use *that particular key* with that installation of windows.
Yes it states that the version of windows you purchased is only to be used with the qualifying hardware (ie. the computer with the licence key stuck on it). But the licence doesn't actually say that you're restricted in using that key.
You could argue that you are in fact complying with the licence. You're using the software you bought on the hardware you purchased it with. Ok, you entered a different serial code because you found activation too much hassle, but Microsoft didn't tell you that you weren't allowed to do this and you're only using one copy of Windows.
I think Microsoft would have a hard time arguing that you've done anything wrong.
Why do I think this? I've been reading the EULA to see if I can run XP OEM under a virtual machine. Of course Microsoft say I can't, but after reading the EULA myself I don't think they've got a leg to stand on.
Ooookay... let's have a look at these points shall we...
1) You're calling bullshit on the £200, well that reputable manufacturer would be Dell... go take a look at the special offers they advertise in the UK press.
2) I'm wrong about the operating system.. Ok, yes, technically it does come with an operating system... Now you tell me how I'm going to run AutoCAD on WindowsCE
3) "Way to pull random numbers out of your arse." Well wohoo, just because I didn't include the 2 weeks of background research in my post I'm "pulling numbers out of my arse". Tell you what, you go research thin client PC's with a virtual server backend and come back to me when you can get the price under £600 a user.
4) Yes, thin clients do reduce administrative costs, very, very slightly... Our users already can't install viruses, trojans or words on their machines. Their web access is restricted, they don't have CD-ROM drives, floppy drives are disabled as are USB drives. And I've done all that for about £400 less than a thin client. My point is that these benefits don't even begin to cover the additional cost of thin clients for most organisations.
I'm not saying thin clients are always the wrong choice, but for an average company they're way too expensive. We'd love to go for thin clients but there's just no way we could justify it.
Hell, I can get a basic dell computer for £150, including monitor, keyboard, mouse and XP home... that's £50 less than a thin client with none of those.
My post got modded informative by being informative. Oh look, yours didn't.
Slashdot Mirror
Aaah, crap. You mean I actually have to *look* at a device I'm using. Good god, how will I cope?
And incidentally, I find I'm pretty good at noticing the feedback when my finger hits a screen. I don't waft it in front of the screen, or push it through any more.
Do me a favour and save your arguments about how the lack of feedback will kill this device until you've actually tried one. The UI has had an awful lot of work put into it, I doubt it's going to be difficult to use.
And to be honest, even in the worst case scenario where you're right and it is slower to use, I think that's a small price to pay for all the benefits. The larger screen, and much larger buttons for dialing numbers are two features I'd sacrifice an awful lot for.
Err... aren't apple dithering to get those quarter million colours you were talking about?
So you're happy with the spacial dithering effect that produces the quarter million colours, but unhappy with the temporal dithering effect to enhance that to several million?
Apple make no mention of dithering because *every monitor ever made* has used dithering. Everything, right back to the early days shows colours by various amounts of R, G and B, and because of that I really don't see how these guys have a case.
Sure, the quality may not be as good as you like, I can't argue with that. But trying to force this case through on a technicality, especially when it looks like Apple already offered them a refund just looks to me like they're being greedy.
Wine's there in 7.0.4, installed it while messing around not 5 minutes ago.
Even better, the average consumer buys one of these but it won't play on their DVD player. They don't pirate movies, and know nothing about the technology, but when they go back to Amazon they read about all these other people having problems, and find out that some people have been able to watch the movie by downloading a 'torrent'.
So, they fix the problem themselves by downloading it. Now, what do you think that customer is going to do the next time they want a movie?
WTG Sony, you've just educated another customer in the benefits of piracy...
Err... this is all running behind the firewall in my home router, so 5900 isn't open, 21 might be but I doubt it, and Apache definately isn't running.
:)
Yeah, I maybe do assume linux is secure without really checking, but that box has been running for months with no problems at all. The real point is that I couldn't do this with windows. Even behind my routers basic firewall I wouldn't trust a windows box for more than 30 minutes. Hell, I even have to download the patches for windows on a separate pc and install them offline because it's not possible to secure a new windows install faster than it gets hacked!
So yeah, good point, but I think I'm still safe
Never said it did, just that the argument of windows being easier to patch is void.
:D
Yes, there's still a lot of software that's windows only, I won't argue with you on that. That's why my main PC is an XP box. However linux is more than good enough for a lot of people now, I'm using it for my 2nd pc because it does everything I need and it's easier to maintain.
And in another year or two I expect linux will be able to run XP software. Emulation is huge now, and hardware support for it is just around the corner. I don't even think it'll be long before you can even run games at near native speed in an emulated XP environment. And once that happens linux will really take off. All the benefits of an open platform, the security of linux, but with all the windows software available... can't wait
Huh? You really should go download Ubuntu.
I'm a Windows admin too, and started playing with Ubuntu about 6 months ago. It's a damn site easier to patch than windows.
As others have said, Microsoft Update is for MS software, and only selected applications at that. To install software in Ubuntu I just use a repositry and use the "Add Programs" menu. Every single program I've installed is now managed and updated by Ubuntu. My last update patched 40+ programs, in a single operation, without a reboot.
So, under Ubuntu:
- Installing programs means ticking one box and pressing ok
- Patching all programs means clicking ok when the update program asks to run
- Uninstalling programs means unticking one box and pressing ok
And all of this without reboots.
I'm sorry, I'm a huge fan of windows, but Ubuntu amazed me the first time I used it. There is simply no comparison between this and windows in terms of ease of use, and that's only going to improve. Plus the damn thing's more secure anyway. I'm not running firewall or AV software on my linux box, it simply doesn't need it.
Myx
Yes, but by your logic, you could argue that there's no need for databases and everything should be stored in the filesystem ;-)
I think there are arguments either way, but I take your point about a file that's treated as a database. There's no control over how it's used, and PST files are a great case for it being a bad idea.
What would probably be better would be an open database standard included with the OS, with appropriate controls & management. That way developers have the choice of storing data in the filesystem, or storing it as a relational database, but if they store it in a database it's appropriately managed.
Heh, I might go post that in a linux forum & see if anyone likes the idea.
huh?? wth not? Haven't you heard of databases? Using a single database for storage makes so much more sense than thousands of individual files cluttering up and fragmenting the filesystem. If you're using a database you can optimise for searches, reduce wastage, etc.
Ok, PST is a horrible implementation of a database, but don't knock the concept for one bad example.
My thoughts exactly. I hope to god this is all possible when we get our hands on this phone. It's already stunning with just the features we've seen. If even a few of the extra ideas work out to be possible it's going to blow everything else clear out of the water.
There's the possibility that it's a small scale upgrade making use of existing hardware. If the workstation he's using only has space for two 3.5" drives then he probably had to remove the existing drive, just to give the 'server' some kind of reduncancy.
A business with 5 pc's isn't going to want to buy a new one as a dedicated server.
Oh god, don't talk to me about upgrading.
We just upgraded from 2006 to 2007. The installation appeared to go great, the MSI deployed across the network, the whole thing was pretty smooth, it even migrated the settings from the previous version.
And then we discovered that the migration tool doesn't simply migrate your custom settings from the previous version... No, it brings ALL your menus too. It's replaced the AutoCAD 2007 ones with the 2006 menus, loosing all the new features!
WTF? What kind of moron produces a software upgrade that takes all the new features, strips them from the menus, and puts your old menus there instead!
God only knows what else we're missing. I'm now faced with the unbelievable situation of having to audit the menus and toolbars of our CAD software to see if I can find any more features that Autodesk have managed to loose in the upgrade.
It's been a week now and I'm still trying to find a way out of this mess. For the time being we're having to run AutoCAD 2007 with the AutoCAD 2006 feature set... I'm just glad we didn't have to pay for the upgrade.
Ok, that's one I hadn't heard of. Which product was that with, and how long ago?
Considering I've been bashing my head against the brick wall that is Autodesk product support for a year or so with a similar problem in their current software I'd be very interested to hear of any problems they had previously.
Yes of course, because a $4,795 product is directly comparable to the $99 we paid for Volo View... I believe you missed my comment about "reasonably priced markup tools".
Autodesk currently charge around $200 for Design Review, that's the closest product I can find for our needs, but it utterly fails to run on our network.
Right now we're stuck using AutoCAD LT... which isn't the easiest to use program when you have non-technical staff using it.
Yes, we've looked at AutoVue, but because of our DMS and the requirement to e-mail content easily we need the ability to keep markups within the original file. Saving markups as a 2nd file doesn't work for us I'm afraid.
I hope to god Autodesk loose this case. Their DWG / DWF strategy is a complete and utter shambles. We use AutoCAD because there are tons of plug-ins for our industry, it makes it a very good tool for our drawing office.
Unfortunately, while AutoCAD itself works fine on our network, most of their more recent tools do not. It's a minor point of them not supporting folder redirection... Attempts to point Autodesk at Microsoft's developer guidelines have so far fallen on deaf ears, and I've been complaining of this for over a year now.
Thanks to Autodesks stranglehold on DWG, nobody else produces reasonably priced DWG markup tools any more. And that leaves us stuck using old, buggy, unsupported software, purely because it's the most up to date package produced by Autodesk that still runs on our network and can markup these files.
The sooner someone reverse-engineers DWG the better.
PS. Whoever at Autodesk thought the best way to update their DWF viewer was to embed it within IE just wants shooting. Yes, you heard me, they took a stand alone program and decided it would be better off if it relied on IE... They even went to the effort of creating the File menu structure in html! And yes, SP2 broke it...
Actually most laptop hard disks can cope pretty well with being thrown about. Motion sensitive models that automatically park the heads before impact have been around a good few years.
So yes, the drives don't like being thrown in a car seat while spinning, but if you listen closely that drive will quite probably stop spinning as you throw it, and just start up again once it's landed safely.
Oh good god. Can some non MS mods please sort out the parent post. OpenDoc is not robust enough to deal with real world documents? Huh? You are aware of the size of the companies that worked together to create that specification? No? Let me clue you in: Adobe, AMD, BEA, Cisco, CA, Debian, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, National Archives of Australia, Nokia, Novell, Sun, Boeing, UK Inland Revenue (Tax office), UK Ministry of Defence, VISA These are some large companies, some *very* large companies. All of which were involved in this format because they wanted a format 'robust' enough to cope with their requirements. I heard that Boeing in particular had very specific requirements, they have some huge technical documents and were very interested in aiding the development of a format capable of meeting their needs. I also find your choice of the word 'robust' interesting. You are aware of how often word documents become corrupted? I believe OpenDocument being an open xml standard is far, far more robust than any current MS format, and would be very interested in any evidence to the contrary. Also, exactly what did OASIS need to be more 'open' about including? Specifically which features are missing from OpenDocument that are possible in the MS format? Oh, right, you mentioned them... Ink, sound & video... You're right, what were OASIS thinking, video is a VITAL feature in a document, and has to be embedded right into the format. Huh? What's that you say? OpenDocument does support embedded video? Hey look, so it does... And finally, you will find that nobody expected Microsoft to drop features to move to this format. All that was asked was that MS provide the ability to *export* documents to this format. They manage to export files as RTF or TXT, and I think you'll find OpenDocument has far more features than either of these two.
Tell me about it, every time I see that retarded advert I wish I *had* pirated the movie. Either in the hope that the pirates will have edited that piece of crap out, or just so I can have the satisfaction of saying "Yes I fucking would" to their "You wouldn't pirate a movie." line.
It's one of the most irritating things I've ever come across, especially when it's targetted directly at *legitimate* customers with no way to skip it. It galls me no end to know that I'm watching this piece of junk while the pirates are either laughing at it or editing it out of the copied DVD's they sell. It's definately affected my willingness to buy DVD's, I've probably only bought half a dozen this year.
I haven't stooped to buying pirated movies yet, but if anything is going to drive me to piracy it's that advert.
Tell me about it. We had just started purchasing HP/Compaq laptops when I had the misfortune to speak to their tech support department.
The fault with the laptop was straightforward - the internal modem had failed, pointing to a motherboard fault, something I diagnosed in about half an hour before shipping them the laptop. Despite promising a 5 day turnaround, it took HP over two months to actually get a working laptop back to us. I made dozens of phone calls, and ended up with nearly 20 pages of notes trying to keep track of the chaos that was their support department. HP kept us waiting so long we actually had to buy a new laptop from Dell while we were waiting for the original to be returned.
I've had 12 years experience supporting computers and they were by far the worst tech support department I'd ever spoken to. They people I spoke to were clueless, they had no means of finding out the state of the repair, and despite being given numerous chances to put things right, failed every single time.
Some of the specific things they did wrong:
- Promised a 5 day turnaround. 13 days later admitted that they had not even looked at the laptop, nor did they have any idea what fault it had been returned with.
- Failed to return calls when promised, over a dozen times.
- Failed four times to ship the repaired laptop on the date they promised.
- Failed to respond to four written complaints, cc'd to their complaints department.
- Directly lied to me on 3 occasion
A specific example: I was told that one particular lady had been fired and was no longer working for the company. I called back 10 mins later to have her answer the phone!
- Offered a new replacement if the laptop took over 3 weeks to replace, then withdrew that offer when 3 weeks passed.
- Returned faulty laptops to me twice.
We don't buy HP now, 100% of our machines come from Dell.
Hmm... d-link... would that be the company that recently tried to claim the the GPL was invalid in a german court case? Yeah, can see Linux fans climbing all over each other to buy stuff from this company...
I also recall D-link being in the press recently for configuring their hardware to synchronise to someone's private timeserver, costing the individual running it several thousand in bandwidth fees.
At one point I'd have said D-link were a quality brand. Now I'm not so sure...
Many people above are suggesting Citrix, Altris, etc... but what nobody seems to have mentioned is that there are several companies already doing this (Clearcube for one), and that VMware are partnering with IBM, Citrix, Altiris, and many more, to push their recently launched Virtual Desktop Initiative (VDI).
s /
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VDI does pretty much exactly what E1ven is asking for, however instead of downloading a complete image to your computer every day, the virtual machine runs on a central server, with thin clients at the desktop connecting to it through a remote session.
If you want to know how big this is going to be, just have a look at some of the names working with VMware on this:
http://www.vmware.com/partners/alliances/solution
I first heard of this about 6 months ago, when I heard that IBM were working with VMware & Citrix to provide a solution they called VHCI (Virtualized Hosted Client Infrastructure). IBM have shown it's possible to run up to 12 virtual machines on a single blade server. Hot swop and automatic failover is possible too, with no downtime for the user. IBM's blade hardware actively looks to warn of failures before they occur, and they've integrated this with VMware's management software, allowing live client sessions to be automatically moved off failing hardware.
We've got around 100 clients at our firm and we're very interested in this idea. We looked at Citrix but it just wasn't viable. We've a huge variety of software in use, much of which is updated 3-4 times a year, and configuring that on a bank of Citrix servers would be a management nightmare. The VMware approach lets us keep our current network management and software deployment tools, provides a simple migration route, and offers all the benefits of thin client computing without needing to retrain all our staff.
Right now virtual desktops are just a little too expensive (about £500 per desktop instead of £300 for a new Dell), but all the signs are that in the next 6-12 months it'll become a viable option for us.
Some background info for anyone interested:
Eweek article on IBM's VHCI
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1873113,00.a
IBM Press Release: October 2005
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/79
VMware's VDI Page
http://www.vmware.com/solutions/desktop/vdi.html
VMware's VDI discussion forum:
http://www.vmware.com/community/forum.jspa?forumI
Actually, have a read of the EULA for XP OEM. I don't believe it states anywhere that you have to use *that particular key* with that installation of windows.
Yes it states that the version of windows you purchased is only to be used with the qualifying hardware (ie. the computer with the licence key stuck on it). But the licence doesn't actually say that you're restricted in using that key.
You could argue that you are in fact complying with the licence. You're using the software you bought on the hardware you purchased it with. Ok, you entered a different serial code because you found activation too much hassle, but Microsoft didn't tell you that you weren't allowed to do this and you're only using one copy of Windows.
I think Microsoft would have a hard time arguing that you've done anything wrong.
Why do I think this? I've been reading the EULA to see if I can run XP OEM under a virtual machine. Of course Microsoft say I can't, but after reading the EULA myself I don't think they've got a leg to stand on.
ROFLMAO!! Just 5 points doesn't even begin to do this post justice. Devs, extra points over here please :)
Ooookay... let's have a look at these points shall we...
1) You're calling bullshit on the £200, well that reputable manufacturer would be Dell... go take a look at the special offers they advertise in the UK press.
2) I'm wrong about the operating system.. Ok, yes, technically it does come with an operating system... Now you tell me how I'm going to run AutoCAD on WindowsCE
3) "Way to pull random numbers out of your arse." Well wohoo, just because I didn't include the 2 weeks of background research in my post I'm "pulling numbers out of my arse". Tell you what, you go research thin client PC's with a virtual server backend and come back to me when you can get the price under £600 a user.
4) Yes, thin clients do reduce administrative costs, very, very slightly... Our users already can't install viruses, trojans or words on their machines. Their web access is restricted, they don't have CD-ROM drives, floppy drives are disabled as are USB drives. And I've done all that for about £400 less than a thin client. My point is that these benefits don't even begin to cover the additional cost of thin clients for most organisations.
I'm not saying thin clients are always the wrong choice, but for an average company they're way too expensive. We'd love to go for thin clients but there's just no way we could justify it.
Hell, I can get a basic dell computer for £150, including monitor, keyboard, mouse and XP home... that's £50 less than a thin client with none of those.
My post got modded informative by being informative. Oh look, yours didn't.