But claiming that the internet depends on the government not having a master key is silly
The existence of a master key is tantamount to not having encryption at all.
The key would get out.All the bad actors (including the allegedly legitimate ones) that would misuse it would get their hands on it, and they would misuse it.
There may as well be no encryption if you are going to create a master key.
Oh to be sure, hyper-v is one of the reasons I upgraded too. But it's ridiculous to suggest that majority of people upgrading are doing it for hyper-v. Hyper-v isn't even INSTALLED on most desktops, let alone the driving reason for upgrading to 8/10.
Office workers - still form the bulk of PC desktop users IMO Power users - Only a significant fraction of which would use a hypervisor; and only a minor fraction would care about USB3 support passed through to the guest. (which is the context here -- because even I use hypervisors left and right, and USB3 isn't even on my radar as something i worry about.) Power Gamers - Not going to be running hypervisors much. old timers -- Not going to be running hypervisors ever.
Even if I accepted the premise that most of the desktop users didn't know about VM'
Most desktops are still being used by vanilla office workers. I work with a retail chain... 600+ desktops... 3-5 in every location, they all just run the point of sale app and office. Separately I work with a multitude of medical practices... just the practice management software, accounting, etc. Most desktop users still call the desktop the 'hard disk' and need help finding out what version of windows they are actually running.
The flat-out refusal to have kernel level generic usb3 driver means that all hypervisors running on Win7 must either have their own full USB3 implementation or be limited to USB2. This is just an attempt to get people to upgrade from Win7
The number of people looking at Windows 7 USB3 support as a hypervisor host is only slightly more people than "just you".
I mean, Windows doesn't have very good tablet integration still, even with Windows 10
Ok... Ill bite. I gave my daughter an Asus T100Chi with an Atom CPU as an ultraportable for school (she has access to a regular deskop, and laptop as well.)
She spends literally oodles of time with it, in tablet mode.
... ever try to close those tiny close buttons for your non-metro programs?
She doesn't much use those when she's using it as a tablet. And the detachable bluetooth keyboard and trackpad are right there when she needs desktop features.
Secondly, battery life is complete shit.. 3 hours or less I got out of my Surface.
That's the main reason we went with the t100chi for a school portable she gets 10+ hrs easily on the battery doing basic web browsing and ms office etc.
Thirdly, you still have to run anti-virus, and all that other crap just like a desktop or laptop computer.
We use windows 10 built in A/V which is pretty lightweight. And her documents are sync'd to a cloud service. If it were to get infected, deleting the user profile or even an OS wipe would be a fairly minor inconvenience.
And lastly, you pretty much still need a keyboard with Windows.. which makes you think, why didn't I just buy a laptop instead?
It has one. Its there if she needs it. For chatting on skype (video) or watching various streaming services, she doesn't need it. I was surprised at how often she elected to use the onscreen keyboard in tablet mode vs using the bluetooth one.
If you want or need a tablet for the portability, you're still better off with an iPad or Android tablet.
If you want a tablet sure, get a tablet. This is for people who want an ultraportable laptop, that can also do double duty as a tablet.
The surface pro is going gangbusters at work. Our outbound sales teams and managers love it. Its smaller and lighter than the laptops they used to carry around. It runs our point-of-sale/retail software which is windows only. They can do presentations in powerpoint etc with it at client sites. Its connected to our domain; they can run reports, they can save them as PDF, or print them because the company network printers are all setup same as any other computer, they can send them as email attachments -- with none of the usual tablet weirdness about hiding the file system or making printing funky etc.
A tablet, by comparison is worthless. Even Windows RT tablets were worthless. There IS a lot of value to the surface series stuff. It seems to fill a real niche.
The surface pro series isn't going to be affected as they're already further upmarket than the atom. The surface (non-pro) and asus transformer books etc that are atom based... I'm guessing will move into the m3 stuff.
Its really the phone to 8" tablet market that might be screwed by intel's exit... but i don't think anybody but windows phone fans care.
It does raise some questions though; a lot of people think that maybe our computer will 'become' our phone... we'll just set out phone next to our desk and our dual monitors, and desktop keyboard light up and we use the phone as the processor. That "dream" seems a bit further away if intel isn't going to be there.
Maybe ARM will go there... but I wouldn't discount the amount of influence intel and windows have.
No, that's a shitty explanation. They could have handled rejections in the API for accessing Cortana.
Right, but what if you wanted the weather app to work based on your location; but also have the desktop cortana assistant disabled?
I mean, i swear some people simply object because the process name is called cortana. If they renamed it windows-app-services-engine people would suddenly be fine with it.
Its hard to imagine windows 10 getting any traction in the business world if you couldn't turn this consumer nonsense off.
If I'm running a call center, or retail outlet, the PCs are all but kiosks.
If I'm running a law firm or medical practice, there's no way the same user interface i might use to locate client/patient files is going to be sending them out as bing queries at the same time. Or even there as an option.
Cortana never actually goes away even when disabled its still running.
The explanation for this is pretty simple and somewhat reasonable. Cortana is essentially also a backend 'service' for a lot of apps. So it needs to be running to answer app requests for, for example, your location, even if that answer is 'location not available' etc. Its cleaner than having the system throw an error or exception, and possibly crash the app.
I mostly use it for launching 2nd tier applications. (ie stuff I use frequently but not daily) Everything from internet explorer to notepad++ to regedit to powershell to my vpn client,... where I'll just hit the windows key or click in the search box and type a few characters of the name.
I also use it to quickly launch control panels.
I use it for documents occasionally. Again, I know where they are, but its faster to search by name than to navigate to them.
First thing I do when installing windows 10 is to disable cortana, and limit search to the local computer only.
I don't need or want desktop search to go out on the internet; that's what the search in my browser is for.
The is emblematic of the entire issue with cortana on the desktop. There needs to be desktop search. When I want to search my computer for a file that starts with 'kid' i just want results from my computer. I don't care about Nicole Kidman's latest movie, i don't care about 'kid friendly meals'.
I get that microsoft wants to be able to get you to search from the desktop with Cortana... and that's fine I guess for people who want that. But I still need desktop search, and right now, cortana and web results gets in the way of that. If it was a separate UI, I migth leave it on and use.. but its not. So I disable cortana and I disable including web results.
Of course the party leadership has setup rules to be able to influence who is and isn't able to be put forward as their candidate. If you don't like those rules, you have a choice to either get high enough up in the respective party to influence a change of the rules, or go start your own damn party and set your own rules.
Exactly right.
The issue in the united states however, is that 'go start your own damn party' equates to 'go pound sand'. The US is a two party system and they are so well entrenched that its practically inconceivable to create a viable 3rd party. "That's something you see in Canada, it's not the American system".
The people think that their only option is to get one of the two existing established parties to do what they want. And pragmatically they are right. There are no viable 3rd parties in the USA. The entire concept, while theoretically sound, it lacks credibility and legitimacy.
and then instead of simulating, you would just re-run the tape ?
Either nothing would happen. Like watching a movie doesn't affect the original actors.
Or the entities simulated would re-exist and re-experience (for the first time from their perspective) everything that had happened the first time. Pretty scary from a free will perspective though.
What if if you just spool the tape without actually reading the information from it ? What if you just leave the tape on a shelf ?
Nothing probably. Or maybe all the states are constantly playing at once...merely by existing, and infinite 'copies' of the simulated entities are each living there own moment. Maybe the consciousnesses within each are moving to their next state without a player in our universe. OR maybe they are all frozen in time relative to us, but moving about normally from their own perception.
As is typical here (and everywhere else, honestly) people seem to think their intended use case fits all use cases. It doesn't.
Perhaps, but that's not the issue here. The issue here is that apple is catering to very few use cases. The people who want to do a little excel and word on a plane are covered by a macbook air. It's thin enough. It REALLY doesn't need to be thinner.
That use case is covered.
Gamers? Apple doesn't a make a laptop for them. Period. Apple doesn't really make anything for them. That use case is simply not well supported at all.
Professional users? Well there is this this macbook pro. I have 2, one from 2007 and one from 2015. The 2015 is a 'retina model'. I've replaced the battery and upgraded the HD to an SSD on the 2007 model.
I honestly don't think the 2015 retina screen is significantly better than the 2007 one for nearly all tasks.
The 2015 one is faster though, AND gets better battery life, AND runs cooler. It's also thinner and lighter.
I actually do like that its thinner and lighter than the 2007 one, but really the 2007 one was light enough. And if weight was my priority... I'd get an Air. But weight is not my top priority.
And the 2015 one... I'd prefer it be heavier and thicker than it is, with a gigabit ethernet port built in. The extra space could extend the battery life by making more room, the extra space could be used to further improve the cooling. Its cooler than my 2007 model, but it still can get warm. And the extra space could be used to make it easier to service (add ram and ssd upgrades) something I appreciated that I could do on my 2007 model to extend its life, but which I don't think I can do on my 2015 model at all.
But frankly I don't understand the rationale for the 2015 macbook pro design, they gave up the ethernet port, and all its upgradability and ease of battery replacement etc, and sacrificed even more battery life and power that they could have added just to make it just a bit thinner.
They ALREADY make the mac book air line for people who prioritize that. If I wanted one, I'd have bought one. What I wanted... no needed, was a more powerful macbook pro. What I got? Was a macbook pro that had shifted considerably towards the macbook air use case.
So why did I buy it? I still think its a well built laptop, and decent value for the money. I don't regret it. But it fits my use case less well than it used to. Needing ethernet dongles is irritating. But apple doesn't offer anything else. I know other people have different use cases than I do, but those people appear to be already satisfied by the few other models in the lineup, all of which cater to 'travel, thin, light'.
They've steadily made the macbook pro more and more like an air, making it thinner and dropping ethernet etc. They discontinued the 17" macbook pro.
They now basically have 3 lines for people who want a small thin lightweight computer. Macbook, Macbook Air, and Macbook Pro.
They really don't have much of anything for anyone else.
SO this isn't a case of people assuming that everyone elses use case is the same, this is a case of of apple really only satisfying one.
And on the desktop, I would never touch a mac, the macmini and imac and macpro are so far away from my use cases that none of them make any sense. Under powered and inflexible in the case of the mini and imac and just outright STUPID (and currently absurdly out of date) in the case of the mac pro.
IMHO however their complex scheme requiring a CAL for a users phone in addition to their computer just to check email is yet another of the long list of reasons why MS Exchange is very well named - trade it in for something els
Its a trade off. If you have a lot of users with multiple devices, it makes more sense to get user cals, and then one user is licensed and any devices he uses are licensed and you don't need separate cals for computers and phones etc. I think most companies these days are finding user cals starting to make more sense. I'd be interested in microsoft sales stats.
But there historically at least, and even today, still lots of businesses where a 100 people shared a few computers on a factory floor or something, and licensing each user using the same device is unreasonable... so device licensing still makes sense. But then yes, if you do go that route, then the CEOs 5 devices each count separately.
If you are willing to do that, you would probably just take a crowbar to the vending machine. That lock wasn't picked, it was destroyed. And it wasn't particularly discreet, quick, or quiet.
Really the only use for it would be as in the video where you wanted to open the vending machine without the keys while doing minimal damage to it... which would only be a concern if you owned it.
But now consider if you could get one, off-the-shelf, for a few hundred, with a bunch of Wii-like games to entice people and have a laugh at parties with them.
Most people are not going to be inclined to put on any sort of headset that isolates me from rest of the people at the party. It ~might~ get a brief run as a fad, but its not going to have staying power. Once everyone's seen it, the appeal will be done.
VR for hardcore gaming, has potential. Its already a solo activity (or where the only people you interact with are also in the game) so the isolation isn't an issue.
But I'm not terribly impressed with it yet; its not comfortable enough yet, its expensive, it's... more exhausting.
And I'm not sure it suits how I play. I frequently alt-tab out of games to look at external stuff. When I play games like binding of isaac i often have the wiki open on my laptop or another screen so I can lookup items and effects. In team games I sometimes alt-tab to another screen and browse etc instead of spectating after I've died while i wait for the round to end, etc. This stuff is a lot clumsyier in VR.
Other games, I play upstairs on the couch, Xcom/Xcom2, Binding of Isaac, etc... I play on the couch to hang out with my family; while they read, do homework, watch youtube on thier laptops etc, skype etc. I don't want to be in VR for that time.
Not to mention that a good portion of the games I play aren't even 3D, and I don't see that VR would do anything for them. Steam's virtual theatre for games that don't support VR... seems a lot like a solution to a problem nobody has.
So for me, most of my gaming time... I'm just not interested in VR. But still.. I think there's definitely potential. I think a game like Mechwarrior is made for VR; and a truly good mechwarrior VR game could move VR sets.
I don't see law enforcement going around warning people about bump keys.
Everybody knows they exist, and lots of information exists and info is readily available about them. You can buy locks if you like that defend against them.
If law enforcement found a bump key, and then kept it for themselves, and then used it on suspects, and refused to show it to anybody... well that hasn't actually happened...
Anyone who think law enforcement = security guards is literally retarded.
What precisely do you think they are? Crime prevention, and crime investigation are their two main functions.
On a product unused for more than twelve years and twelve years since the licence expired?
Agreed. If you aren't using anything then you aren't auditable. I'm not arguing otherwise.
And sit through a time consuming marketing exercise after revealing a lot of information that should be confidential?
Nevertheless, it is what an active VLA user has agreed to. Its a bit naive to think they'd never exercise these terms.
The only way to win is not to play.
Sometimes yes. Other times no. Perfect is the enemy of good. And using MS products is often the quickest and most efficient solution to the problem at hand. Sometimes even Oracle is the right move.
How they behave with this security vulnerability today is how they will behave with the next one tomorrow.
It's literally a... "first they came for the X, but I was not a X, so I did nothing" situation.
And theirs is the wrong action, law enforcement should disclose vulnerabilities to the manufacturer and owners so that they can be corrected in future, not so that they can exploit them themselves.
Its fundamentally the exact opposite of what they should be doing, FBI & NSA both, and the government in general. Their function is to 'serve and protect' the public. I am in no way being served by there being known security vulnerabilities in the products I use. If the government knows them, then so do other actors. I don't trust those other actors, and based on government behavior I don't trust them either.
There were questions about phones - zero relevance apart from marketing purposes.
Smartphones that access server resources need CALs. IP phones that integrate with AD / Exchange and use unified communications features etc need CALs.
If you are using device cals, you can run into needing cals for this.
If you are using user cals than you don't, but then the questions about how many employees you have become relevant.
I cannot recall how many pages of questions since I gave up in anger even flicking through the first 20
It was an attempted shakedown.
Of course it was. The guy probably has quotas to meet too.
BUT that doesn't mean the audit was somehow unreasonable. You did agree to them as part of your VLA license.
And as other posters have mentioned, there is a lot of grey area; I prefer to avoid it myself as much as possible. But if you are organized and in control of your network, you should be on solid ground arguing with them.
When was the last time you didn't have a browser window open?
About the same time I didn't have my email client open. (Usually for the first few seconds after a reboot.) So yeah, they're both open about 100% of the time. so the advantage goes to the mail client, becuase its easier to find mail windows; since they're a separate icon and group on the dock/taskbars.
No need to use a bookmark either, just type the first couple letters of the domain in the address bar and let it autocomplete.
including questions about the number of android, mac and linux devices
If you are using them to access a windows or exchange server resources for example, and you are using device CALs then they need CALs. So its not completely irrelevant.
So it's not just about satisfying them that you have current licences, they want to know about what else you have from other vendors, number of employees, company income etc which is none of their business.
number of employees is a barometer on whether you have enough CALs etc. but go ahead and leave it blank. not every question is relevant to every product. its like a tax audit... there's lot schedules that only really apply if you are claiming a specific deduction.
You can leave them blank if they aren't relevant to the licensing you are using.
I put n/a in lots questions that weren't relevant, and they didn't seem to much care.
Slashdot Mirror
But claiming that the internet depends on the government not having a master key is silly
The existence of a master key is tantamount to not having encryption at all.
The key would get out.All the bad actors (including the allegedly legitimate ones) that would misuse it would get their hands on it, and they would misuse it.
There may as well be no encryption if you are going to create a master key.
Oh to be sure, hyper-v is one of the reasons I upgraded too. But it's ridiculous to suggest that majority of people upgrading are doing it for hyper-v. Hyper-v isn't even INSTALLED on most desktops, let alone the driving reason for upgrading to 8/10.
Office workers - still form the bulk of PC desktop users IMO
Power users - Only a significant fraction of which would use a hypervisor; and only a minor fraction would care about USB3 support passed through to the guest. (which is the context here -- because even I use hypervisors left and right, and USB3 isn't even on my radar as something i worry about.)
Power Gamers - Not going to be running hypervisors much.
old timers -- Not going to be running hypervisors ever.
There were many close calls during the cold war, roughly 10 to 20 serious ones, depending on how you score them.
Hard to say. Nuclear war doesn't necessarily mean "extinction".
Even if I accepted the premise that most of the desktop users didn't know about VM'
Most desktops are still being used by vanilla office workers. I work with a retail chain... 600+ desktops... 3-5 in every location, they all just run the point of sale app and office. Separately I work with a multitude of medical practices... just the practice management software, accounting, etc. Most desktop users still call the desktop the 'hard disk' and need help finding out what version of windows they are actually running.
The flat-out refusal to have kernel level generic usb3 driver means that all hypervisors running on Win7 must either have their own full USB3 implementation or be limited to USB2. This is just an attempt to get people to upgrade from Win7
The number of people looking at Windows 7 USB3 support as a hypervisor host is only slightly more people than "just you".
I mean, Windows doesn't have very good tablet integration still, even with Windows 10
Ok... Ill bite. I gave my daughter an Asus T100Chi with an Atom CPU as an ultraportable for school (she has access to a regular deskop, and laptop as well.)
She spends literally oodles of time with it, in tablet mode.
... ever try to close those tiny close buttons for your non-metro programs?
She doesn't much use those when she's using it as a tablet. And the detachable bluetooth keyboard and trackpad are right there when she needs desktop features.
Secondly, battery life is complete shit.. 3 hours or less I got out of my Surface.
That's the main reason we went with the t100chi for a school portable she gets 10+ hrs easily on the battery doing basic web browsing and ms office etc.
Thirdly, you still have to run anti-virus, and all that other crap just like a desktop or laptop computer.
We use windows 10 built in A/V which is pretty lightweight. And her documents are sync'd to a cloud service. If it were to get infected, deleting the user profile or even an OS wipe would be a fairly minor inconvenience.
And lastly, you pretty much still need a keyboard with Windows.. which makes you think, why didn't I just buy a laptop instead?
It has one. Its there if she needs it. For chatting on skype (video) or watching various streaming services, she doesn't need it. I was surprised at how often she elected to use the onscreen keyboard in tablet mode vs using the bluetooth one.
If you want or need a tablet for the portability, you're still better off with an iPad or Android tablet.
If you want a tablet sure, get a tablet. This is for people who want an ultraportable laptop, that can also do double duty as a tablet.
The surface pro is going gangbusters at work. Our outbound sales teams and managers love it. Its smaller and lighter than the laptops they used to carry around. It runs our point-of-sale/retail software which is windows only. They can do presentations in powerpoint etc with it at client sites. Its connected to our domain; they can run reports, they can save them as PDF, or print them because the company network printers are all setup same as any other computer, they can send them as email attachments -- with none of the usual tablet weirdness about hiding the file system or making printing funky etc.
A tablet, by comparison is worthless. Even Windows RT tablets were worthless. There IS a lot of value to the surface series stuff. It seems to fill a real niche.
The surface pro series isn't going to be affected as they're already further upmarket than the atom. The surface (non-pro) and asus transformer books etc that are atom based... I'm guessing will move into the m3 stuff.
Its really the phone to 8" tablet market that might be screwed by intel's exit... but i don't think anybody but windows phone fans care.
It does raise some questions though; a lot of people think that maybe our computer will 'become' our phone... we'll just set out phone next to our desk and our dual monitors, and desktop keyboard light up and we use the phone as the processor. That "dream" seems a bit further away if intel isn't going to be there.
Maybe ARM will go there... but I wouldn't discount the amount of influence intel and windows have.
No, that's a shitty explanation. They could have handled rejections in the API for accessing Cortana.
Right, but what if you wanted the weather app to work based on your location; but also have the desktop cortana assistant disabled?
I mean, i swear some people simply object because the process name is called cortana. If they renamed it windows-app-services-engine people would suddenly be fine with it.
Its hard to imagine windows 10 getting any traction in the business world if you couldn't turn this consumer nonsense off.
If I'm running a call center, or retail outlet, the PCs are all but kiosks.
If I'm running a law firm or medical practice, there's no way the same user interface i might use to locate client/patient files is going to be sending them out as bing queries at the same time. Or even there as an option.
Cortana never actually goes away even when disabled its still running.
The explanation for this is pretty simple and somewhat reasonable. Cortana is essentially also a backend 'service' for a lot of apps. So it needs to be running to answer app requests for, for example, your location, even if that answer is 'location not available' etc. Its cleaner than having the system throw an error or exception, and possibly crash the app.
Why have search for local computer?
I mostly use it for launching 2nd tier applications. (ie stuff I use frequently but not daily) Everything from internet explorer to notepad++ to regedit to powershell to my vpn client, ... where I'll just hit the windows key or click in the search box and type a few characters of the name.
I also use it to quickly launch control panels.
I use it for documents occasionally. Again, I know where they are, but its faster to search by name than to navigate to them.
First thing I do when installing windows 10 is to disable cortana, and limit search to the local computer only.
I don't need or want desktop search to go out on the internet; that's what the search in my browser is for.
The is emblematic of the entire issue with cortana on the desktop. There needs to be desktop search. When I want to search my computer for a file that starts with 'kid' i just want results from my computer. I don't care about Nicole Kidman's latest movie, i don't care about 'kid friendly meals'.
I get that microsoft wants to be able to get you to search from the desktop with Cortana... and that's fine I guess for people who want that. But I still need desktop search, and right now, cortana and web results gets in the way of that. If it was a separate UI, I migth leave it on and use.. but its not. So I disable cortana and I disable including web results.
"Roughly two-thirds of respondents to the survey -- which was administered online and drew 1,300 respondents"
Enough said.
I'm not so sure. The establishment may be pushing cruz to force a contested election so that they don't have to pick either Trump or Cruz.
The media also wants a contested convention because that's ratings gold.
Of course the party leadership has setup rules to be able to influence who is and isn't able to be put forward as their candidate. If you don't like those rules, you have a choice to either get high enough up in the respective party to influence a change of the rules, or go start your own damn party and set your own rules.
Exactly right.
The issue in the united states however, is that 'go start your own damn party' equates to 'go pound sand'. The US is a two party system and they are so well entrenched that its practically inconceivable to create a viable 3rd party. "That's something you see in Canada, it's not the American system".
The people think that their only option is to get one of the two existing established parties to do what they want. And pragmatically they are right. There are no viable 3rd parties in the USA. The entire concept, while theoretically sound, it lacks credibility and legitimacy.
What if
Good question. How should I know? :)
and then instead of simulating, you would just re-run the tape ?
Either nothing would happen. Like watching a movie doesn't affect the original actors.
Or the entities simulated would re-exist and re-experience (for the first time from their perspective) everything that had happened the first time. Pretty scary from a free will perspective though.
What if if you just spool the tape without actually reading the information from it ? What if you just leave the tape on a shelf ?
Nothing probably. Or maybe all the states are constantly playing at once...merely by existing, and infinite 'copies' of the simulated entities are each living there own moment. Maybe the consciousnesses within each are moving to their next state without a player in our universe. OR maybe they are all frozen in time relative to us, but moving about normally from their own perception.
As is typical here (and everywhere else, honestly) people seem to think their intended use case fits all use cases. It doesn't.
Perhaps, but that's not the issue here. The issue here is that apple is catering to very few use cases. The people who want to do a little excel and word on a plane are covered by a macbook air. It's thin enough. It REALLY doesn't need to be thinner.
That use case is covered.
Gamers? Apple doesn't a make a laptop for them. Period. Apple doesn't really make anything for them. That use case is simply not well supported at all.
Professional users? Well there is this this macbook pro. I have 2, one from 2007 and one from 2015. The 2015 is a 'retina model'. I've replaced the battery and upgraded the HD to an SSD on the 2007 model.
I honestly don't think the 2015 retina screen is significantly better than the 2007 one for nearly all tasks.
The 2015 one is faster though, AND gets better battery life, AND runs cooler. It's also thinner and lighter.
I actually do like that its thinner and lighter than the 2007 one, but really the 2007 one was light enough. And if weight was my priority... I'd get an Air. But weight is not my top priority.
And the 2015 one... I'd prefer it be heavier and thicker than it is, with a gigabit ethernet port built in. The extra space could extend the battery life by making more room, the extra space could be used to further improve the cooling. Its cooler than my 2007 model, but it still can get warm. And the extra space could be used to make it easier to service (add ram and ssd upgrades) something I appreciated that I could do on my 2007 model to extend its life, but which I don't think I can do on my 2015 model at all.
But frankly I don't understand the rationale for the 2015 macbook pro design, they gave up the ethernet port, and all its upgradability and ease of battery replacement etc, and sacrificed even more battery life and power that they could have added just to make it just a bit thinner.
They ALREADY make the mac book air line for people who prioritize that. If I wanted one, I'd have bought one. What I wanted ... no needed, was a more powerful macbook pro. What I got? Was a macbook pro that had shifted considerably towards the macbook air use case.
So why did I buy it? I still think its a well built laptop, and decent value for the money. I don't regret it. But it fits my use case less well than it used to. Needing ethernet dongles is irritating. But apple doesn't offer anything else. I know other people have different use cases than I do, but those people appear to be already satisfied by the few other models in the lineup, all of which cater to 'travel, thin, light'.
They've steadily made the macbook pro more and more like an air, making it thinner and dropping ethernet etc. They discontinued the 17" macbook pro.
They now basically have 3 lines for people who want a small thin lightweight computer. Macbook, Macbook Air, and Macbook Pro.
They really don't have much of anything for anyone else.
SO this isn't a case of people assuming that everyone elses use case is the same, this is a case of of apple really only satisfying one.
And on the desktop, I would never touch a mac, the macmini and imac and macpro are so far away from my use cases that none of them make any sense. Under powered and inflexible in the case of the mini and imac and just outright STUPID (and currently absurdly out of date) in the case of the mac pro.
IMHO however their complex scheme requiring a CAL for a users phone in addition to their computer just to check email is yet another of the long list of reasons why MS Exchange is very well named - trade it in for something els
Its a trade off. If you have a lot of users with multiple devices, it makes more sense to get user cals, and then one user is licensed and any devices he uses are licensed and you don't need separate cals for computers and phones etc. I think most companies these days are finding user cals starting to make more sense. I'd be interested in microsoft sales stats.
But there historically at least, and even today, still lots of businesses where a 100 people shared a few computers on a factory floor or something, and licensing each user using the same device is unreasonable... so device licensing still makes sense. But then yes, if you do go that route, then the CEOs 5 devices each count separately.
If you are willing to do that, you would probably just take a crowbar to the vending machine. That lock wasn't picked, it was destroyed. And it wasn't particularly discreet, quick, or quiet.
Really the only use for it would be as in the video where you wanted to open the vending machine without the keys while doing minimal damage to it... which would only be a concern if you owned it.
But now consider if you could get one, off-the-shelf, for a few hundred, with a bunch of Wii-like games to entice people and have a laugh at parties with them.
Most people are not going to be inclined to put on any sort of headset that isolates me from rest of the people at the party. It ~might~ get a brief run as a fad, but its not going to have staying power. Once everyone's seen it, the appeal will be done.
VR for hardcore gaming, has potential. Its already a solo activity (or where the only people you interact with are also in the game) so the isolation isn't an issue.
But I'm not terribly impressed with it yet; its not comfortable enough yet, its expensive, it's ... more exhausting.
And I'm not sure it suits how I play. I frequently alt-tab out of games to look at external stuff. When I play games like binding of isaac i often have the wiki open on my laptop or another screen so I can lookup items and effects. In team games I sometimes alt-tab to another screen and browse etc instead of spectating after I've died while i wait for the round to end, etc. This stuff is a lot clumsyier in VR.
Other games, I play upstairs on the couch, Xcom/Xcom2, Binding of Isaac, etc... I play on the couch to hang out with my family; while they read, do homework, watch youtube on thier laptops etc, skype etc. I don't want to be in VR for that time.
Not to mention that a good portion of the games I play aren't even 3D, and I don't see that VR would do anything for them. Steam's virtual theatre for games that don't support VR... seems a lot like a solution to a problem nobody has.
So for me, most of my gaming time... I'm just not interested in VR. But still.. I think there's definitely potential. I think a game like Mechwarrior is made for VR; and a truly good mechwarrior VR game could move VR sets.
I don't see law enforcement going around warning people about bump keys.
Everybody knows they exist, and lots of information exists and info is readily available about them. You can buy locks if you like that defend against them.
If law enforcement found a bump key, and then kept it for themselves, and then used it on suspects, and refused to show it to anybody... well that hasn't actually happened...
Anyone who think law enforcement = security guards is literally retarded.
What precisely do you think they are? Crime prevention, and crime investigation are their two main functions.
On a product unused for more than twelve years and twelve years since the licence expired?
Agreed. If you aren't using anything then you aren't auditable. I'm not arguing otherwise.
And sit through a time consuming marketing exercise after revealing a lot of information that should be confidential?
Nevertheless, it is what an active VLA user has agreed to. Its a bit naive to think they'd never exercise these terms.
The only way to win is not to play.
Sometimes yes. Other times no. Perfect is the enemy of good. And using MS products is often the quickest and most efficient solution to the problem at hand. Sometimes even Oracle is the right move.
Because its a policy / precedent.
How they behave with this security vulnerability today is how they will behave with the next one tomorrow.
It's literally a ... "first they came for the X, but I was not a X, so I did nothing" situation.
And theirs is the wrong action, law enforcement should disclose vulnerabilities to the manufacturer and owners so that they can be corrected in future, not so that they can exploit them themselves.
Its fundamentally the exact opposite of what they should be doing, FBI & NSA both, and the government in general. Their function is to 'serve and protect' the public. I am in no way being served by there being known security vulnerabilities in the products I use. If the government knows them, then so do other actors. I don't trust those other actors, and based on government behavior I don't trust them either.
There were questions about phones - zero relevance apart from marketing purposes.
Smartphones that access server resources need CALs.
IP phones that integrate with AD / Exchange and use unified communications features etc need CALs.
If you are using device cals, you can run into needing cals for this.
If you are using user cals than you don't, but then the questions about how many employees you have become relevant.
I cannot recall how many pages of questions since I gave up in anger even flicking through the first 20
It was an attempted shakedown.
Of course it was. The guy probably has quotas to meet too.
BUT that doesn't mean the audit was somehow unreasonable. You did agree to them as part of your VLA license.
And as other posters have mentioned, there is a lot of grey area; I prefer to avoid it myself as much as possible. But if you are organized and in control of your network, you should be on solid ground arguing with them.
When was the last time you didn't have a browser window open?
About the same time I didn't have my email client open. (Usually for the first few seconds after a reboot.) So yeah, they're both open about 100% of the time. so the advantage goes to the mail client, becuase its easier to find mail windows; since they're a separate icon and group on the dock/taskbars.
No need to use a bookmark either, just type the first couple letters of the domain in the address bar and let it autocomplete.
True, but that's not "faster".
including questions about the number of android, mac and linux devices
If you are using them to access a windows or exchange server resources for example, and you are using device CALs then they need CALs. So its not completely irrelevant.
So it's not just about satisfying them that you have current licences, they want to know about what else you have from other vendors, number of employees, company income etc which is none of their business.
number of employees is a barometer on whether you have enough CALs etc. but go ahead and leave it blank. not every question is relevant to every product. its like a tax audit... there's lot schedules that only really apply if you are claiming a specific deduction.
You can leave them blank if they aren't relevant to the licensing you are using.
I put n/a in lots questions that weren't relevant, and they didn't seem to much care.