Re: Eadon's Verdict... (SPOILER - FAIL)

@dogged - what happened, did your AC button break?

Re: @ Eadon Wrong title...

@Dapprman - as I said earlier, there's always overlap - but as I said, Apple create whole new markets. Whereas MS waits for other companies to create markets then tries to take them over (e.g. Word Perfect etc) or buy their way into them. (Windows 7/8) using dirty tactics (Danger, Sendo, Nokia destructions and Android patent trolling).

Re: Ugly @Eadon

@1Rafayal - "Windows 8 is not impractical - it has the Windows desktop"

So all the people complaining about Windows 8 being impractical are lying? Or you know better? That the PC market has BOMBED since Win 8 came out is not giving you a clue?

"like are the devices any good etc "

They're not. Hope this helps.

Re: Eadon's Verdict... (SPOILER - FAIL)

"Oh do toddle off to dev/null"

It's /dev/null

NOOB FAIL

Re: Eadon's Verdict... (SPOILER - FAIL)

"The manufacturers do, after all, want to sell a few of them at least"

Well, they're not.

Re: Eadon's Verdict... (SPOILER - FAIL)

"You're never going to get linux pre-installed when there are so many different distros and the more shoutey advocates change their mind what's the one that everyone should want on a regular basis"

You can replace the word "different distros" with "different windows versions". The leading distro over the last ten years, give or take a bit, is Ubuntu. However, Ubuntu lost their way a bit, and now Linux Mint is taking over the hot spot. So the choice for Linux is, "Ubunutu" or "Mint", there's more difference between Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8.

There are many niche distros out there too - Server distros, Bleeding edge distros for technophiles, distros for mobile and distros for embedded. This entire "ecosystem" of distros is extremely healthy. They are all compatible as they use Linus' Kernel, and you can use whatever windows manager you like, if you wanted to change the default.

Re: Wrong title...

@AC and others - I do accept that this is a grey area - and in fact, I approve of copying. But what happens is that MS makes a product, and it fails. e.g. it made stylus-dependent tablets (themselves based on the Apple Newton) and they failed. It made a spot watch thing, and it failed. But MS mostly wait until another organisation creates a new market, then MS attempts to move in on that market.

Apple are not hugely original but their genius is taking an existing concept and then producing a must-have product based on that. In retrospect such innovations kind of seem obvious, but they're not. However once Apple create that market, MS quickly boosts R&D in an attempt to steal some of that market. Zune, Windows Phone 7/8 and Surface being a classic examples of failure in this area.

It's not just Apple that MS copies either, MS emulated the Google search engine and ad business, for example, and also they emulated the Sony Playstation.

Re: Too expensive

@JDK "Then you can continue to buy 4Kg 2" thick laptops that meet your needs."

- False dichotomy my apologist friend. For that money you can buy superior kit from Apple or superior kit from Android OEMs (and have enough spare to buy a decent laptop/tablet).

Re: Wrong title...

@Longrod_von_Hugendong

When you get 10 downvotes (at time of writing) for telling the truth - you know that you have angered the Redmond pro-MS downvoting marketroid army.

Original Mac -> Windows 3.1. Mac OSX -> Vista/Aero. iPod -> Zune. iPad -> Surface. Macbook Air -> Ultrabooks, iPhone -> Windows Phone 7/8. Everything in the MS Windows world is copying Apple badly, always has been. Now MS are scrambling to make a windows smart-watch, after it was revealed Apple are working on one.

MS/INTEL APPLE COPY FAIL

Re: Ugly

@Will Godfrey - trouble is, windows 8 is notorious for being unpractical. So it's ugly AND useless at the same time. It's not just Windows 8 - Ubunutu Unity and Gnome 3 made similar mistakes, but Windows 8 has taken things to extremes of annoying UI-ness.

Re: Missing matter

@JDX - "Just because WIMPs are shown to exist" -

They have not been shown to exist. This is a weak signal that may be a statistical fluctuation.

Re: Sexy and Windows 8 - yes but only after seven pints....

... of wine. If you're blind. And have no taste. And are desperate...

Re: Corporate Speak From Hell

"They are just as evil as all the others"

I very much doubt Yahoo are as evil as MS. Or even as evil as Apple or Google. MS attacks open source systems such s Linux and Android with patents and patent threats. Apple is also litigious with patents. And Google is evil in a privacy-invading kind of way. Yahoo just does not strike me as being in that same league, so they are less evil :)

Re: Ant's IT career

@Tchou C / C++ both have pretty much the same kudos factor. C++ is more complex but with C one is often emulating OO with modules ;-)

Re: Corporate Speak From Hell

@PM. "their search engine is powered by Bing"

That's true - Yahoo became more evil when they semi-sold out. But at least they went public shortly after, saying that they regretted the decision. They declared that the partnership with Microsoft was a disaster and they were losing money from the deal.

How many companies do you hear that have been screwed by MS having the guts to say so publicly? Nokia? I guess the Danger guys spoke out but only after they had been utterly destroyed. Ditto with Sendo.

I think that there were some rumblings from OEMs about how their Windows tablets have non-existent sales.

What is unusual is that analysts such as Gartner, IDC etc are now critical of MS. Looks like they have new pay masters now.

Re: Ant's IT career

@danR2

Good point

Re: Literally?

"Literally refers to literature"

Actually the definition is tangential to this: "Being in accordance with, conforming to, or upholding the exact or primary meaning of a word or words"

Re: Higgs Mass Myth

"it is the Higgs field which gives things mass"

- that's the myth. Mass is an intrinsic property of particles, but the Higgs coupling is what gives rise to inertia effects and the like. It's a subtle point, but saying that Higgs gives rise to mass is not strictly correct.

Also, technically, the Higgs boson is an excitation (or resonance) of the Higgs field.

Re: SUSY is already dead

@Loyal Commenter "only some of which predict SUSY"

That's not how the game is set up, - SUSY is a foundation on which String Theory rests, it's not a prediction but a dependency.

Re: SUSY is already dead

@Tim Parker - "Some string theories involve SUSY but string theory per se is most certainly not dependent on it"

Bullsh*t - if SUSY is dead, then String Theory is dead too, unless you make it *even more* contrived. But as Superstring Theory makes no predictions whatsoever, at the planckscale or lower, then it doesn't really matter, because one can always make an assumption that SUSY happens at energies beyond our colliders.

Re: SUSY is already dead

@The Lone Lurker "Less career ruining, more like career expanding"

It doesn't work that way, the SUSY experts really don't have skills that are transferable, they have expertise in SUSY and to have to start from scratch in a new area is not easy for them. It's not easy to be told that you've wasted 30 years of your professional career on a wild goose chase.

Re: This is not rocket science...!

"How can any anti-virus company release an update without comprehensive testing on a range of machines "

Here's another rhetorical question. How can a Software company release an OS that is VULNERABLE TO VIRUSES in the first place?

Re: Awesome pictures

Funnily enough, a dodgy cable was the cause of a recent embarrassment of a group of experimenters who thought that they had seen superluminal Neutrinos.

Re: Just had an Asus Vivo delivered (#2 on the list)

@CADmonkey "full Outlook was the main deciding factor"

One born every minute.

Annoying phrases

@Fred M "It's the most annoying phrase in the world"

- Indeed! And I'll raise you a "Just sayin" or "haters gonna hate" and even "to be fair", which is surprisingly irksome, especially as it is always wielded by those that are not.

Re: Ten Windows Tablets - the Eadon Review

@AC 11:46 "0/10 for trolling."

If I am a troll (IF), then surely my post scored 10/10.

As it happens, my post was (though tongue in cheek) making a serious point. My point is far too close to the truth for some here, who seem very keen to shoot down my alpha-geek rep.

Let me explain - every one of those tabs is: Expensive (terrible value for money). Crap UI. Lousy battery life. Hardware that is one generation at least behind the curve. Closed, locked down systems. Dearth of decent apps, run hot and are heavy. And if you showed it your mates, they would laugh at you for buying a dorky MS-based product.

So 1/10 is about right, MS are 5 years behind the competition here, just as they are with their phones.

Re: Just had an Asus Vivo delivered (#2 on the list)

@CADmonkey

"Although we spent the best part of 2 months trying to find a decent UK stockist. Simply unavailable."

Red Flag - no demand.

"Having full win8 AND an Atom processor appears to be a niche within a niche. Full win8 needed due to full desktop-Outlook requirement."

What normal human being uses marketing language like this?

"Win8 on dedicated hardware is a completely different experience. Now it all makes sense, I tell ya!"

Translation: you need expensive kit to run it, and it has metro UI - and we all know how popular that is.

"Haven't had time to check the battery(s) life yet, but will definately be making use of the ability to charge the phone from the keyboard."

Ah yes, the battery life - the less said about that the better.

"Cost lots, I grant you, but a beautiful piece of kit nonetheless."

If something costs lots then people expect beautiful kit. Apple has that market all to itself. People see Windows gear as a low quality OS that tends to run on cheapish kit. They are not willing to pay "lots" for it. This is not just opinion. Surface has failed badly. OEMs are openly saying that Windows tabs are failing to sell.

Re: Not surprising

@JDX - whether IE 10 is "good enough" is highly debatable. In any case, that's the problem with Microsoft's software, they make it so that it is "good enough" and call it a day.

That's why everyone are fed up with them, as their definition of "good enough" relies on them having a monopoly to keep out competitors such as Linux, which are EXCELLENT. You also point out, perhaps inadvertently, that IE is losing the browser war despite their advantage, i.e. that people have to bother to replace the wretched thing.