Posts by Eadon
2483 posts • joined Monday 3rd August 2009 06:33 GMT
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Posted in Review: HP Spectre XT TouchSmart
The marketers released pictures without shots of the OS
For a laptop running a different operating system, it would presumably show the operating system in the laptop window, but in this case the photos of the laptop avoid the Windows 8 operating system screenshots. This is possibly because they want to avoid showing people the Windows 8 Metro UI.
It's a difficult sell at £1200 to sell a machine with an unpopular operating system. The machine itself, as others have pointed out, has a shiny screen, which means, if you watch a movie on it on a train you only see the reflections, not the movie itself. Bah! And the screen res is too low. High end laptops should be high res by now.
Re: Security issues
@Ian Yates,
"I don't know what industry you work in, but I've never seen such a move on desktops or servers"
FYI I have seen both. Note that windows desktop share and windows server share are both falling, so this isn't just anecdotal.
Re: Where are the register Linux server guides
"@Eadon - Windows is the most installed server OS in the world"
WTF?
Back in 2008 even Ballmer said that 60% of servers run Linux, and if he says 60% then it's obviously more.
And... Linux server market share keeps growing. If you count installations on VM's and so forth. Linux installations are even higher.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/linux-servers-keep-growing-windows-and-unix-keep-shrinking/10616
Sorry AC but you are simply WRONG. I might not be Mr Popular here, but I am correct. Linux is more popular and it is a much better OS, period.
So where are the Reg Linux guides?
Smashing Pope
He came over here on a visit and was highly popular, much to the chagrin of the smug leftie acktors out there. I'm not religious but I was definitely on the pope's side on this one!
Re: This is a standard tactic...
Yes, Apple and Google only sell several million before their supply chain starts to struggle under the demand. MS sold about 324 Surfaces.
Surface Pro does not have a propper OS installed on it. It has Windows 8. A bloated dog about as suitable for tablets as a turd in a swimming pool. Others have documented how MS windows is so bloated that it uses up most of the memory, leaving precious little of the "64 GB" left over for the user.
And at half the battery life of even the Windows RT, it is going to FAIL.
Re: No desirable 128GB versions and too many 64GB ones
@Silverburn, iPads are highly successful but they are losing market share to Android. Nevertheless they are the "prestige" product, and they are highly profitable. Both iPads and Androids have a place in the market side by side.
People like Apple kit because it has a reputation for being good quality, and certain people will pay a premium for quality.
MS on the other hand have a reputation for producing low quality gear (rightly or wrongly) so their brand is such that they should be competing against Android. Instead MS are competing against the iPad. They cannot possibly succeed at this.
Re: MS did not even cover pre-orders in some cases, so they could say "SOLD OUT"
The Surface RT also "SOLD OUT" on the first day of trading. Everyone was saying what a success it was (or at least the gullible press).
Turns out the Surface RT sold b*gger all!
It's a marketing trick, tell people they can't have something to generate a covetous market.
Surface Pro will fail like Surface RT did. MS windows software will run on it, but most windows software is not designed by be used on touch interfaces. Surface Pro has a lousy battery life and is very heavy. It is also very expensive. The hardware specs are poor and it runs Windows sluggishly because Windows is bloated.
Essentially Surface Pro will fail in the same was as Surface RT failed. And I predicted that Surface RT would be a disaster long before the launch, so I'm not bullshitting, I make predictions and those predictions come true.
Where are the register Linux server guides
Why does the register publish ads for MS kit by Windows fanboi sys admins and not guides for Linux kit, that have a far lower TCO?
Are these Advertorials for MS?
Call me when you have some real engineers who know what they are talking about, writing about Linux servers running big data, elastic caches, hadoop and so on.
MS did not even cover pre-orders in some cases, so they could say "SOLD OUT"
At least Apple and Nexus sell millions of devices before they are "Sold out"
The media lapped up the MS marketing bullshit. But people are learning not to believe a word that MS says, or if what it says is literally true, it's manipulated from dodgy axioms and premises.
MS MARKETROID FAIL
Re: Security issues
If you look around you see a world where IE is awaiting new critical patches once again. Same old story. You will also notice that, in industry, managers are choosing to use Apple laptops and tablets (not that I endorse those) and you'll notice that Windows 8 has bombed and that Surface has bombed. Indeed Windows Phone 8 has bombed.
So BYOD is all about allowing people to use computers and mobile devices that they want to use, and, more important, are more productive on. Industry is moving away from MS because MS systems are more insecure and they are worse for productivity.
Those are the trends. Personal attacks against me do not change the truth of what I am saying.
Re: My prediction
"rogue software installed that will infect any visiting Android device with malware"
- that type of attack is nothing new. It requires a remote exploit in the operating system. Remote exploits are far more common in 'Windows systems than in Unix-based systems such as Android and iPad etc.
Re: Naff off
Even if the company pays you to buy it?
Re: BYOD is a way of avoiding lockin
@Evil Gav1 - "BYOD will force enterprises to move to linux"
I did not say that. I said it would reduce lock-in by making sys admins support more than just windows kit.
As for redundant boxes, if you can do on one linux box what you can do on 3 windows boxes, then, with redundancy of, say, one redundant system running in parallel, you need 2 Linux boxes versus 6 windows boxes. Your logic fails mathematically.
Re: Pay for my own device, and have them lock it down???
@dogged
"Do you need a linux box in McDonalds these days?"
Doubleplus good. You can actually be amusing, I would never have thunk it.
Security issues
A) Most technical security issues are caused by Microsoft security holes.
B) An even greater number of security issues are caused by social engineering or by employees making mistakes or up to nefarious activities, either out of incompetence, disgruntlement or out of a desire to defraud.
BYOD is a security concern but generally not as bad as the above security concerns, the extra risk of BYOD is nowhere near as great as fixing the above would reduce risks.
In fact if BYOD meant fewer MS boxes, then it might improve security. iPads and Androids are more secure than windows laptops or tablets - which need anti-virus and suffer from poor MS code and a monoculture. To anticipate the usual misguided objections, yes I know that trojans can affect all this kit. Trojans fall into category B above.
Re: @Eadon (was: BYOD is a way of avoiding lockin)
@jake uh huh. So, my friend, please bestow upon us your wisdom. Explain to me, please, exactly where the error in my analysis is. Otherwise it just looks like you are in deep denial.
Re: Pay for my own device, and have them lock it down???
@pavsmith "I have steadfastly refused to connect my personal mobile devices to work's network"
- I would agree with that. However I'd happily have BYOD if it meant I could bring a Linux box to work. That would make me both more productive and happier than using the usual Windows boxes. LibreOffice is good enough for most stuff these days, and better at other stuff. If there are mission critical windows apps, they can run in a VM or under Wine. In any case new biz apps are being written for the browser not the OS.
BYOD is a way of avoiding lockin
It encourages vendors of software such as Microsoft and clouds such as Google to be fully interoperable if they want to maximise their profits in the Enterprise.
For too long now lazy, cluseless sys admins have been Microsoft Mouse Monkey jobsworths. Now it is time for them to get out of their MS tar pit and into the real world and learn some non-MS stuff for a change!
Of course existing Linux admins are already the gods of the sys admin world, they get the same work done as three MS admins, as LInux is superior at generic sys admin tasks and you need fewer linux boxes to do the same jobs. BYOD will bring enlightenment to other admins. And once they taste the power and the genius of Linux, then MS are in real trouble...
BYOD = PARADIGM SHIFT = WINTEL DOOM
Privacy is vital
The young don't seem to care about it. Schools should be teaching the importance of privacy, as both Governments and Corporations are becoming highly Orwellian.
Social networks are clouds - a snooper's paradise - DATA ENTROPY
Publish online and be damned. Nothing you put in a social network is under your control. Sooner or later that data will be sold, or extorted into the hands of governments and other third parties.
Eadon would call it data entropy. Even data that is restricted with "Private" markers, even data in private clouds, let alone public social networks, will thermodynamically spread from an organised state, in a single organisation's data repositories, to a disorganised state - scattered all over countries and indeed the world.
Wintel are Dead, so where is the strategy?
The only way to drum up profits now is in mobile and in Linux server systems. Windows is on the wane, and Intel still have no answer to ARM and are in dire straits as the PC market shrinks. MS have no answer to Android or even Chrome OS and on servers MS are being beaten up by leaner, meaner Linux systems.
MS have a finger in the DELL pie with a massive "Loan" aka a possible bribe to "do the right thing". So they will be pushing DELL away from Linux, Android, Chrome OS etc. From the POV of MS, their loan is an attempt to pump the chest of the dying OEM patient.
So there you have it. Dell are falling behind as the PC market goes softer than custard. And it is due to a lack of strategy that it's players are going to become relatively insignificant compared to today.
The mobile asteroid has hit and the dinosaurs are braying.
WINTEL FAIL.
Privacy
The other issue is that the copyright maffia spy on the public to see who to sue.
Lawyers paradise
The problem with suing the public is that you're creating a lawyer based administration that will self-perpetuate. What happens in situations like this is, they extort money from people by offering to "settle" for 3,000 and they'll quietly drop the charges. People settle even if innocent, out of terror. They pay the protection money.
When Megadownload was taken out, only the very largest blockbusters benefited with extra profits. Smaller movies lost profits. The "freetards" buy the most stuff. It's a try before you buy and word of mouth phenomenon.
Munich doesn't pay more. It uses Linux and open source
What the Aussie govt should be doing is promoting Linux and open source and giving directives to publicly funded organisations to do so. They should standardise on ODF and other open standards. they should eduacte the public to do the same.
That way money STAYS in Australia and does not go abroad, weakening its economy.
Munich saved 11 billion Euros and counting by moving to Linux.
That's the way to save money, not barter over licence fees. MS are pushing them up faster than inflation in the enterprise - CALs went up 15% last year.
Re: Look at our new v9...I mean v10 model!
@Dave 126 and others,
I agree with you that there is no standardisation of Linux UI / Window managers, though Gnome was standard before the Gnome 3 and Unity debacles. But even Gnome 3 and Unity have some excellent innovations here and there.
My hope is that people standardise on KDE, which is a great UI. But what we are seeing right now is a battle over the future most popular UI. This battle is intensely interesting to watch and will continue to lead to a lot of innovation.
In response to the limitations of my car analogy, yes cars have basic things in common, a wheel to steer, but they also differ - indicators on left or right, dashboard controls, displays etc. So cars have UI's that differ. Window managers tend to have certain things in common too. If you move your mouse a pointer moves on the screen, for example. Basic things in common but differences elsewhere.
A lack of a standard UI might hurt Linux, I agree, but it's also a strength - there's a UI to suit everybody out there! In the windows world, people tend to skip versions because of the UI, Linux doesn't have that issue. You can have a UI you like.
Re: for beautiful control there is LATEX.
@Thad I too have been using Scribus - it's excellent for a task I am doing and I haven't scratched the surface yet. I'll find a tutorial I think to learn it more deeply.
Re: Schools should be using LibreOffice
"I don't think schools pay very much for ms office licences"
Our schools should not be teaching our kids how to use Microsoft products. Forcing this flawed commercial product upon our kids in schools wrong in so many ways. The same would be true of Google Docs, only Open Source software should be used to teach in schools. It's not just a licencing issue, it's a moral issue.
Re: @Nick Ryan
@ShellUser -= "With a few lines of VBA code you can make it do whatever you want, and it can save you hours and hours of work"
- you can do the same with LibreOffice and use other scripting languages also.
Re: Lies...
@The Original Steve,
MS are still abusing their monopoly position. Look at the way OEM's are discouraged from installing Linux in case they lose their MS licence "Discounts". As a result the desktop has stagnated. Contrast that with the mobile market, that is on fire with innovation, where MS is not a player.
MS are a force of destruction, and they acted illegally. They play dirty tricks, Elop inserted into Nokia to destroy it, stacking of the ISO committee to push through their "OOXML" "standard" despite it containing stuff like "format like windows 95". They gave SCO 60 million bucks to sue users of Linux.
MS are abusive of their power more so than any other IT corporation and they deserve no sympathy. They have held computing back ten years.
Re: Microsoft stuff... just works.
"Microsoft stuff... just works." - ha ha aha ha ha ha ha ha h ah aha that's a good one! LOL!!!
Re: MS is feeling BLUE. MS is on DEATH ROW.
@Camilla Smythe - getting someone to implement your idea in the Linux kernel is probably going to be difficult. But without context of what feature it was that you were asking for, it's hard to form an opinion of your post. What did you request? Maybe what you suggested was a bit of a dumb idea.
But maybe what you suggested was a brilliant idea. In general it's hard to get other people to spend time coding your idea because they're busy coding their own ideas or being paid to code other people's ideas. So the best way is to code the feature yourself or pay someone else to do it, then submit it.
Now compare that to closed source systems, with closed source systems you have the same situation or a worse situation. Sorry if I'm sounding a bit patronising, it's for the benefit of others here too ;-)
Re: this is not by choice
@SMabille - free as in beer but not as in liberty. If you want liberty then you need Linux, LibreOffice and other open source systems.
Re: this is not by choice
@Spearchucker Jones
You can get an excellent office suit for free, LibreOffice (newly released version 4), that is *guaranteed* to be free from snooping, spyware, ads etc. (Guaranteed in the sense that, being a big open source project, if source code that spied was inserted into the code base, it would be quickly found and there would be an instant scandal).
If you do not want to be spied on, or snooped on, don't use MS Windows. Don't use Google Docs or Gmail etc. Don't use MS Office or Outlook (client or online). Avoid the clouds and FB etc
If not being snooped on is important to you, then use Linux Mint (not Ubuntu with its WTF Amazon in desktop search crap) / LibreOffice and an open source email client. Also use Firefox and adblock, NoScript and cookie monster plugins and generally be paranoid about what sites you surf to.
Re: Blue ?
@The Original Steve,
Yes, but now the company is FREE of the buggy Access crap and can move forward with LibreOffice, which is much better for maintenance of the scripts in the future.
It's about removing a dependency on MS Office or some kind of MS Office library. Remember also, LibreOffice is cross platform and has better development API's, especially as of LibreOffice 4.
Re: MS is feeling BLUE. MS is on DEATH ROW.
@km123
"Do you even know how many products MS delivers? Although Windows and Office may have been its must have offerings, it also produces MS Project Server, Commerce Server, XBox, Sharepoint, Exchange Server."
@km123 - that's where MS makes a fortune, by locking in Enterprises and Governments. But that can unravel.
Let's take MS Office. An enterprise switches to LibreOffice. Then it doesn't need outlook anymore. So it ditches Office. Then Sharepoint doesn't make sense anymore. So it ditches sharepoint (hell there are far better alternatives that DON'T SUCK DONKEYS BALLS. You don't need Sharepoint, you don't need Outlook, guess what, you don't need Exchange either. And if you don't need Echange, you don't need Windows. Not on servers. Not on desktops. And certainly not on mobile devices. Obviously.
There are always VM's for those that need specialised MS products now and then. But everyone else can move to Linux and save a FORTUNE! (Or Chrome OS come to that). It's just a matter of time before people do what Munich did. Munich council saved 11 million euros SO FAR by ditching MS in favour of Linux.
Switching to Linux saves you a hell of a lot of money - this is TCO!
As for XBox - this makes no difference at all to MS's bottom line. It's till $10 billion in the red and currently makes a loss. Consoles are hardly very profitable right now and the rise of upcoming Linux consoles, including the Valve Box will be new competition.
To return to my point, Enterprises and Governments etc do not need all those crap Microsoft products. There are far better alternatives out there. But MS locks them in. But now bean counters have Apple kit, iPads, Mac Book Air etc, they are starting to question the wisdom of using MS Office and all the other shit. They could save so much money if they simply took a step back and said, do we really need all this expensive yet low quality, slow, buggy, insecure MS sh!t on our servers?
Enterprises are now cutting back on costs, and those MS licences are getting very expensive, between 8% and 400% is how much they went up last year, with CAL licences increasing 15%.
SUCKERS!
Re: MS is feeling BLUE. MS is on DEATH ROW.
"A counter-example of the luddite using rocket-surgeon scalpels is my girlfriend. She's an economist at a rather large central bank and loads the most insane financial models into Excel that run overnight"
Your gf sounds cool, but should be fired for incompetence. No wonder banks screw up all the time.
Re: Look at our new v9...I mean v10 model!
@MyBackDoor - "Creative entities do not find failure a "luxury""
ha ha you didn't quite understand my argument, which is, on Linux there are many windows managers UI's with different styles and ambitions. That accelerates evolution - with some failures and some successes. Often what happens is that killer features are copied, so the quality of all the windows managers can benefit from innovations made by one another.
It is that "luxury" that MS and Apple lack, despite their massive resources. Money doesn't buy everything.
Re: Look at our new v9...I mean v10 model!
@Dave 126 - er, thanks for the "credit", but unless it can be converted into beer, it's not so coveted ;-)
Yes Linux has choice of UI's but then again, there are a lot of car manufacturers and they offer a choice of models. Kids these days grow up with video games and are fairly computer literate, and they will appreciate the choice of UI's that Linux provide. Older users will buy a pc and suffer the OS that comes with it, or they will take the recommendation of a friend, and, depending on if they have money or whether the friend is a geek or a been counter or (you get the idea) buy a Mac or a PC - and maybe have Linux installed on that PC. A geek will install a user-friendly UI like KDE, or Mate. Or if the Linux is on old hardware he might put on XFCE or E17 which runs very fast on low spec machines.
I don't see a downside of having competing windows managers any more than I see a downside to having a choice of cars to buy or a choice of phones or cameras to buy.
You might disagree and point to the paradox of choice, that lots of choice leads to misery - and there is some truth in that.
MS don't innovate they copy
What have MS innovated exactly?
Re: Lies...
@404 "Unix and Linux were basic kernel OS framework with roll your own addon software"
Just to clarify for others who only know Windows. Linux distros, e.g. Linux Mint, install the operating system out of the box PLUS they also install LibreOffice (office suit) a text editor, a terminal, a movie player, an mp3/music/media player (Linux Mint includes the codecs etc so it works out of the box), GIMP (Photoshop style image editing tool), PDF reader, archive manager plus a plethora of utilities, accessory applications, games and tools etc.
That's an install out of the box. That just works.
With MS Windows you get nothing much. You get the OS, plus MS paint, Notepad, Wordpad and some casual games.
Also, if you buy a PC with Windows on it, it also comes loaded with crapware - virus scanners, trialware, adware, nagware and god knows what else. You start out with a bloated system with all this crap taking up your RAM as in-memory "services".
Re: Blue ?
@JohnB
In the 90's everyone had stuff in Word Perfect, Lotus 123 and DBase. It didn't take long for them to shift away from those apps.
With Excel you may find people needing it, but these days you can have excel running in a VM, so you can move away from Windows even if you really really really must have Excel.
Another example - VB6 - Microsoft themselves killed VB6. Somehow industry coped fine. It's easy to overestimate how important an app like Excel is. If the company wants to save money and move away from MS office towards, say Google Docs or LibreOffice, then you'll find that sooner or later those Excel scripts can fairly easily be ported to LibreOffice.
A friend of mine ported Access DB scripts to LibreOffice Base, it wasn't a huge job, but he saved his company a fortune because they don't need to buy Access.
MS is feeling BLUE. MS is on DEATH ROW.
The cloudy and mobile revolutions are creating competition for MS and now it can't just sit back and chase Apple's tail lights because suddenly Apple's tail lights are out of sight and there are many more important tail lights to chase. And in the rear view mirror there are new cars fast approaching. Oh how I love car analogies..;.
Anyway, now MS actually has to do some work just, and get its work force making stuff that people actually want for a change.
The people do not want Metro, so now MS is in the brown stuff up to it's neck, as Metro was the foundation of their mobile strategy and they even put it on desktops to promote it.
Anyway, with waves of announcements of Google Chrome OS based laptops and desktops appearing, which will sooner or later run android apps, MS is looking at a threat to its desktop monopoly that is SERIOUS. REALLY F****ING SERIOUS.
Remember how fast Chrome Browser beat up IE? (Firefox having already weakened IE's hold on the market of course)? Well if Chrome browser can beat up the default browser on Windows, and if Google search beats Bing, the default search on Windows, then IMAGINE what a Google OS can do to Windows itself?
So Google is bending MS over a desk once again. MS needs to make prophylactic moves to stave off Google. And "Blue" is the knee jerk reaction.
Blue Screen Of Death is what comes to mind when I think of MS and blue but there you go.
This is going to be a really really fun year! MS has all but failed on Mobile, having been CRUSHED. Now it has to defend its desktop turf against Google, and it's MS Office turf against Google Docs and Libre Office. LibreOffice is improving FAST! It has a real energy to it, now it is free from the dead corporate hand of Oracle. LibreOffice 4 is professional quality, better than MS Office in some ways too. Better UI for starters. Open ODF formats etc.
MS is seeing it's own cash cows of Windows and Office seriously under fire and now it wants to evolve them as fast as the competition is evolving it's wares.
On the Server, MS is losing out to Linux. In a world of Clouds, VM's and Big Data we have geeks using Linux, because Linux is king! Fast and scalable.
Linux is also on Raspberry Pi, which geeks and kids alike adore! And Linux powers Android, of course, as does Java. And that brings us back to Google.
So MS is under serious threats from all directions. And it has hit the panic button - called "blue"
Eadon has analysed the situation, you are free now to launch personal attacks.
Re: Obama hack
It's not even a good forgery - see http://www.infowars.com/new-obama-birth-certificate-is-a-forgery for an entertaining analysis.
It's the chinese
Did it. If the hackers over there don't hack enough intelligence every week for the govt, then they're executed.
Re: Completely unrelated
Have you seen the absolutely clueless drivel spewed by gold star dudes? It's a dubious badge indeed!
Re: Look at our new v9...I mean v10 model!
Linux is criticised sometimes for not having a standard UI but different UI's that can be swapped in or out, e.g. Gnome, KDE, etc.
That allows for a lot of innovation as different UI's appeal to different groups. Lightweight windows managers like XCFE and E17 for example, or heavier weight KDE or Gnome for those that want lots of eye candy.
Gnome 3 is a bit of a failing experiment - but some love it. Gnome 2 has been forked as has Gnome 3, to make Mate, Cinnamon etc.
Monolithic orgs like Apple and MS don't really have that luxury that Linux enjoys as they don't want to confuse their customer base with different look-and-feels.
However, MS went and did it anyway by pushing two conflicting UI's into Windows, making it somewhat schitzo.
A lot of innovation has been done by KDE over the years, and it's a fantastic UI, now it's finally fixed the broken 4 release.
Big business starting to demand users use LibreOffice
""This might do for very basic home users but it's simply not an option for business"
FUD
I saw first hand at a mega-corp - use LibreOffice unless you can justify using MS Office. If you do want to use MS Office then you have to fill out a long form.
Business is moving AWAY from MS Office. It's expensive and it is, let's face it, not very good.
Re: I wish they'd STOP closing the gap with MS Office!
@Thad - I agree with you completely!
Just in case you (or others) are not aware of it, it's a bit of a learning curve but for beautiful control there is LATEX. It's one of those things that is definitely not for everyone, requiring more steps - it's a niche tool. But a lot of users have a religious passion for it. It might fit a need you have.
Scientific academics use it to write papers, for example.
Re: Says it all, really
@Tom Maddox
- dodgy code might exist in open source for many reasons - often a vestige of code BEFORE it was opened up.
If you want to know about *nix - read "The Art Of UNIX Programming" - it's a masterpiece of a book.
With open source you often have strong source code as developers are more self conscious about doing things well if their code can be seen by others. And open source code does go through cycles of adding features followed by refactoring to improve it and clean it up.
I've worked on many proprietary projects and you should see some of the coding horrors there!
LibreOffice is extremely good!
I have downloaded 4.0 I'm expecting it to have a few rough edges as a lot of it has been rewritten.
Once complaint is that the F3 short cut for find next only works if the cursor is in the find box at the bottom of the screen. WTF! They reckon that F3 is overloaded but a short cut key for Find Next is really really important!!!
Just as bad, you can't configure it, as "Find Next" seems to be missing from the customisable operations. Hopefully they'll fix this soon.
As I say, always expect some rough edges in a brand new branch release, and this usability complaint is minor compared to the horrors I have using the MS Office "ribbon" curse it's horrible tabby soul!
Apart from that, I really like LibreOffice and even more so with version 4. It's a miracle that such sophisticated software is available for free, someone else even pays for the server to download it! It's wonderful. All schools and govt depts should be switching to this mature product instanta. Why pay the Microsoft Tax when schools can't afford to pay teachers?
