I got one of these for work the first day they came out. Here's how I use it:
* At the office, I use it like a traditional Windows laptop, running virtual machines and whatnot for development. * On the train, I turn it into a tablet and read books, play games, read the newspaper and magazines. There's a great PDF reader and a Kindle app. Also, I use it in a singing group I belong to for my sheet music.
In short, it's a laptop plus an iPad.
Also, I've had zero problems with smudging on the screen. I've had the device for over a month and have never cleaned the screen. Maybe I'm just super clean? I keep it in a soft case made for a Mac Air, so maybe sliding it in and out of that case cleans it off.
My opinion is this is largely a consequence of how the Maximize functionality works / has worked.
The ability to half-screen maximize by dragging a window to the left or right side of the screen helps quite a bit -- this is in Windows 7 and newer builds of Ubuntu (IIRC).
My typical reason for wanting a second monitor is the ability to maximize documentation/help stuff on one monitor while the other is reserved for the code itself. I find I work much slower on, for example, a laptop where I constantly have to switch back and forth between different windows to get at what I want.
Exactly. People seem to forget that in order for data to become useful, the user has to decrypt it at some point. That involves providing the key, and that's when a clever rootkit will spring into action.
I believe they have a way to change your master password. So, what they'd likely do is decrypt the various keychain files using your old password (which you'd have to enter to change it), and then they re-encrypt with the new password.
Generally, passwords are pretty weak unless you follow specific protocols in how you set them up (passphrases, unusual chars, misspellings). I'd rather they used a public-private keypair, but then that would be cumbersome for users.
There was an open-source project called SAProxy at one point which would put SpamAssassin on your desktop. Not sure what happened to it. It was integrated into a great email client I used to use called Bloomba.
I just can't take these products seriously. Instead of this niche marketing, microsoft needs to focus on something with broad appeal. There's a reason iPhone beat them in that space, and this is exactly it.
Obviously competitors have realized that it's worth it to come out with clone or me-too products much faster than they did in the past with the iPhone. This suggests to me that they'll be at least somewhat more successful than before in taking market share from apple.
On the desert-solar thing, It turns out you need to clean the mirrors frequently, which requires water, which requires energy to bring in since there is little in the desert. It's a big problem.
I have several domains I run on a private DNS server that I access from my house using Comcast. I haven't experienced this. I'm in California if it matters.
I suppose users could tunnel DNS over some other port if they had to.
I'm a Comcast user, and I run a DNS server for a few private domains that only I use. I have not experienced this, and I just verified that it's not currently happening. I'm in California if that matters.
The question is whether there's some product that could be installed for this specific purpose. Laptops with webcams seem like they'd be a reasonable target. Also, I seem to recall something being installed right into the bios to facilitate this sort of recovery. Or even something involving MAC addresses. Most thieves aren't smart enough to change those, and on a laptop I'm not sure you could even really do that in hardware (though I know you can do it in software, on linux at least)
It's not just MMOs where sci fi has been somewhat less popular than other genres. It's also true for traditional roll playing games.
I think it's possible that what's going on here is that when people want to play games, they'd rather have it be about something totally out of the realm of possibility, rather than a possible future scenario, which is frequently the goal of sci fi.
You're exactly right. All someone has to do is set up a Certificate Authority and they can basically construct their own private internet from the ground up. Heck, they could even construct their own version of Wikipedia that touts creationism and eliminates or disputes evolution.
I pretty much agree. It seems possible they may have improved the manufacturing process, but once you put a scratch in that baby, you're probably hosed.
Right. That was my first thought. Now, presumably this device is more advanced than the Wii, so we'll see what Microsoft is able to make of it. I feel pretty confident that most games in 5-10 years will have a Wii-like interface, given the direction of the industry.
Good analysis. The statistics I've read indicate that SSD's don't perform all that much better than hard drives in real-world scenarios. I think this is part of the reason for that performance. On the other hand, they do use less energy, which is a clear positive for a laptop.
Slashdot Mirror
Does $50k remotely make any dent there? Aren't these projects tens of millions of dollars?
I got one of these for work the first day they came out. Here's how I use it:
* At the office, I use it like a traditional Windows laptop, running virtual machines and whatnot for development.
* On the train, I turn it into a tablet and read books, play games, read the newspaper and magazines. There's a great PDF reader and a Kindle app. Also, I use it in a singing group I belong to for my sheet music.
In short, it's a laptop plus an iPad.
Also, I've had zero problems with smudging on the screen. I've had the device for over a month and have never cleaned the screen. Maybe I'm just super clean? I keep it in a soft case made for a Mac Air, so maybe sliding it in and out of that case cleans it off.
That and the "turbo" button. Anyone miss that?
My opinion is this is largely a consequence of how the Maximize functionality works / has worked.
The ability to half-screen maximize by dragging a window to the left or right side of the screen helps quite a bit -- this is in Windows 7 and newer builds of Ubuntu (IIRC).
My typical reason for wanting a second monitor is the ability to maximize documentation/help stuff on one monitor while the other is reserved for the code itself. I find I work much slower on, for example, a laptop where I constantly have to switch back and forth between different windows to get at what I want.
Exactly. People seem to forget that in order for data to become useful, the user has to decrypt it at some point. That involves providing the key, and that's when a clever rootkit will spring into action.
I'm not sure why one would view this as surprising -- given our own Solar System it seems like a highly likely outcome.
That being said, it's great the the resolution has reached the levels where features like this can be distinguished for such faint objects.
I believe they have a way to change your master password. So, what they'd likely do is decrypt the various keychain files using your old password (which you'd have to enter to change it), and then they re-encrypt with the new password.
Generally, passwords are pretty weak unless you follow specific protocols in how you set them up (passphrases, unusual chars, misspellings). I'd rather they used a public-private keypair, but then that would be cumbersome for users.
There was an open-source project called SAProxy at one point which would put SpamAssassin on your desktop. Not sure what happened to it. It was integrated into a great email client I used to use called Bloomba.
Doesn't Xbox lose money still?
I just can't take these products seriously. Instead of this niche marketing, microsoft needs to focus on something with broad appeal. There's a reason iPhone beat them in that space, and this is exactly it.
Sure, but people have been speculating about the iPad for at least a year and a half.
Obviously competitors have realized that it's worth it to come out with clone or me-too products much faster than they did in the past with the iPhone. This suggests to me that they'll be at least somewhat more successful than before in taking market share from apple.
On the desert-solar thing, It turns out you need to clean the mirrors frequently, which requires water, which requires energy to bring in since there is little in the desert. It's a big problem.
I have several domains I run on a private DNS server that I access from my house using Comcast. I haven't experienced this. I'm in California if it matters.
I suppose users could tunnel DNS over some other port if they had to.
I'm a Comcast user, and I run a DNS server for a few private domains that only I use. I have not experienced this, and I just verified that it's not currently happening. I'm in California if that matters.
The question is whether there's some product that could be installed for this specific purpose. Laptops with webcams seem like they'd be a reasonable target. Also, I seem to recall something being installed right into the bios to facilitate this sort of recovery. Or even something involving MAC addresses. Most thieves aren't smart enough to change those, and on a laptop I'm not sure you could even really do that in hardware (though I know you can do it in software, on linux at least)
That's sort of the same thing I was thinking. I mean, maybe they should have users that opt in to such an experience before they start degrading it.
It's not just MMOs where sci fi has been somewhat less popular than other genres. It's also true for traditional roll playing games.
I think it's possible that what's going on here is that when people want to play games, they'd rather have it be about something totally out of the realm of possibility, rather than a possible future scenario, which is frequently the goal of sci fi.
You're exactly right. All someone has to do is set up a Certificate Authority and they can basically construct their own private internet from the ground up. Heck, they could even construct their own version of Wikipedia that touts creationism and eliminates or disputes evolution.
I pretty much agree. It seems possible they may have improved the manufacturing process, but once you put a scratch in that baby, you're probably hosed.
I know this is a joke, but I wonder if you're sort of right. When I first installed Chrome I used it a few times, but then moved back to Firefox.
Right. That was my first thought. Now, presumably this device is more advanced than the Wii, so we'll see what Microsoft is able to make of it. I feel pretty confident that most games in 5-10 years will have a Wii-like interface, given the direction of the industry.
Hah. I think he meant 256GB.
Good analysis. The statistics I've read indicate that SSD's don't perform all that much better than hard drives in real-world scenarios. I think this is part of the reason for that performance. On the other hand, they do use less energy, which is a clear positive for a laptop.
No doubt. But, I really think that within 5 years you're going to see most laptops using only an SSD.