Posts by serendipity
31 posts • joined Thursday 4th February 2010 08:58 GMT
Re: Conspiracy theory
Wrong and wrong again: Microsoft don't have any market share in the mobile space to eat into. And with the patent royalties they receive on Android sales, they probably make more money from Android than Google does! So why would they pay someone to develop an anti Android trojan?
But anyhow. how come Android has exploitable security bugs? How many times have I read that open source software is inherently more secure because of the 'many eye balls on the code' factor - looks like some of those eye balls belong to the bad guys!
Posted in Ten ancestors of the netbook
Re: Less is more
Err Not necessarily.
I had the misfortune to be given one of the early Acer tiny screen netbooks recently. What a laughable piece of junk compared to my 11" Samsung NC10. My NC10 might be running XP and have a 'slow' (but capacious) disk drive but its such a capable machine even to this day. On a trip, I once loaded Visual Studio and it handled that pretty well. And build quality is great, and after 3 years I still get 4hrs + battery life.
I think that the problem with Netbooks is that the vociferous naysayers were exposed to the early tiny screen Linux models and found them wanting and have slagged off Netbooks ever since. If they'd tried the much better later models they'd have a different opinion. But then again, the anti-MS brigade never got over the fact that most people wanted to ditch Linux and have something that could run Windows. (And I'm not anti Linux, I use it every day, I'm just OS agnostic - I use whatever is best for the job in hand.)
Given the choice between one of the later Win 7 based Samsung, Acer, Dell etc dual core netbooks and one of the earlier 7" or 9" early Linux models, I'd have the dual core machine every time.
Sometimes more is more
Re: With a PC it is generally straight forward to replace the OS
Err, neither are you. You can turn it off, so its no barrier at all.
Re: Surprise
AC? Eadon we know its you!
Re: Samsung N120 still going strong
Me too, I have an NC10, had it for 3 years + I still get over 5 hours running XP. It might be just plastic but fantastic build quality for such a cheap bit of kit. Its not my main machine either but I still use it regularly when I have to visit a site and need USB ports and a decent crop of mature applications to work with.
I'm beginning to wonder myself if in a few years when everyone is so over the iPad etc whether cheap tablets might go the way of the Netbook. Perhaps decent (ie. by that I mean they have a useable selection of ports and 100's of gigs of internal storage, proper multi-tasking etc) netbook-tablet hybrids will be the next big thing.
Re: Ah the Woolworths syndrone....
Don't waste your time, Robert Long 1 is just a rabid anti MS troll. There's no reasoning with these people.
Re: Surprise
Oh dear, just another clueless troll.
Posted in 2012: The year that netbooks DIED
Re: they came with Linux to keep the price down
@Eadon - talk about don't let the facts get in the way of your prejudice. The higher return rates of Linux based netbooks are well documented. See this article for example;
http://blog.laptopmag.com/ubuntu-confirms-linux-netbook-returns-higher-than-anticpated
"In reality windows notebooks were returned in larger numbers due to their being slow."
Care to back that up with any facts?
If you mean in terms of absolute numbers rather than return rates, well that wouldn't be all that suprising given that the vast majority of netbooks sold came with Windows.
I recently had the misfortune to try and sort out one of the early Acer 7 inch screen netbooks that came with Linux and a tiny SSD. What a dog slow machine!! Fortunately, my netbook is one of the later Samsung 10" NC10 with good ole Windows XP on it. I've used it for all sorts of tasks over the last three years - Its even got a full version of Visual Studio on it which runs tolerably well. Its still going strong and is really handy to sling in a bag for when a real Keyboard and a good selection of ports are needed.
Posted in 2012: The year that netbooks DIED
Re: sad to see them die
@Eadon - you've got that the wrong way round. Initially they were Linux only and the market rejected them. It was only when they came preloaded with Windows did they sell in huge numbers.
Re: slow death of VB.NET
your loss then as VB.Net is 99% like C# but with nicer syntax - unless you like squiggly brackets and semi-colons that is :-)
Re: Shifting languages / platforms
"NET as a platform is also encumbered with submarine patents."
Yeah right. Let me put things right for you; As an MS hater what you really wanted to say was "I hate that .Net runs on Linux under Mono!" - there you go, fixed it for you :-)
"In contrast, if you learned C/C++ / python / java (Java excels as a serverside language / platform, so no need to hit with me "Java is slow" and other out of date, noob myths) : if you learned those languages and platforms, then your skills will have accumulated and be even more relevant in the future than they are today."
I partly agree with you but learning any modern programming language (MS or not) will stand you in good stead - it will make it easier to pick up whatever new language/framework comes along - even in the none MS world things can change rapidly. And today's hot ticket language can rapidly fall out of fashion. So there are no guarantees.
Re: Really? I would never have guessed!
@Miek
Life in the Ivory Tower would be great except for those damn users!! I mean, who do they think they are writing VBA macros. Sacre bleu, they haven't even read our IT department coding standards manual! I say, make em all use Ipads, that way they won't be able to any DIY coding.
Posted in The $35 android tablet, a snip at $50
If you'd thought about your comment for just two seconds before posting you would have realised how daft it is. Have you never heard of the World Trade Organisation. Do you think India (or any country) can just make up its own trade rules and ignore patents and continue to trade internationally? I think not. How long do you think India's huge IT sector would survive if it followed your prescription?
IE and MS Haters of the World unite!
Lets face it, it wouldn't matter if IE9 was the best browser on Earth, or in the Universe even. That would not be good enough for most contributers above who seem to harbour a latent hatred of all things MS.
For what its worth, I tried IE9 for the first time today (I mostly use IE8, shock horror! but have Chrome and Opera as well on this PC). Inspite of the claims of whizzy performance, it doesn't make that much difference to my browsing experience. Just as I wasn't blown away by Chrome, I'm not with IE9.
The one thing I don't like (and this applies to Chrome) is the lack of user customisation options. Want to edit the Navigation toolbar so the Favorites button is on the left (where it should be!), forget it, can't do it! They also messed up the menus. Where's 'Find on this Page' now? Buried in the File sub-menu which is accessed via the Tools menu. As someone on another forum said, the interface is one step forward, two steps back.
Safari anyone?
Will the current version of Safari run on the version of OSX released in 2001? I think not!!!
Just get real, it was inevitable that MS would stop realeasing new stuff that would run on XP at some point. I actually think its quite creditable that they've supported it this long.
Yes and there's
no need to 'drone' on about it ;-))
Posted in Oracle demands another $211.6m from SAP
Relentless or what !
Wow those Oracle guys make the Israeli Defence Force look warm and cuddly :-))
$120 million in legal fees!! Those lawyers know a gravy train when they see one!!
More closed and controlling than open.
On my PC, I can of Windows of course and I can also easily dual boot or virtualise Linux. Can I run OSx as well? No not legally, I have to have an Apple Mac for that and pay over the odds for the 'privelege'.. But I can run Windows and Linux on a Mac. Conclusion: OSx is the most 'closed' OS of the three.
@Lewis Mettier 1 - try getting your facts straight!!
The early court decisions to which you are referring were superceded by a settlement with the Department of Justice which was ratified the US appeals court!
So presumably you also think that Apple should not be able to bundle Safari, and that Ubuntu should be barred from including Firefox!
What?
The link you give just reports on Microsoft's record quarter results. What's that got to do with image?
Oh and please, this whole MS tax business is just lame bleating. Try buying an Apple Mac Book without OSX! If there was big demand for Linux, Toshiba would surely offer Netbooks with it on. But as we saw when netbooks were lauched primarily running Linux, Joe Public didn't want it, so manufacturers stopped offering it. And down the line, when you come to sell your Netbook, it will be worth more with a Windows licence, so you'll get your money back.
Its The Cloud init!
You've no control over your apps, they can be changed on a whim and you've no say on where your data might end up!!!
Is that because you're just an idiotic sheep?
"People WANT Apple devices, they desire them and will pay silly money for them - me included"
Oops
Read your post and thought the job was at Apple. Then I noticed the location is in Seattle ;-))
Posted in BCS Linux-baiting sparks flame war
SHOCK! I read the article and thought it was reasonably balanced
Much less well balanced were some of the comments. The author did NOT conclude that OSS was unfit for purpose, he just went through some of the pros and cons of using it in a business environment. Admittedly the article was quite generalised. But reading some of the replies, one would have thought he'd said that OSS was the work of the devil himself! The religous zeal of some open source advocats is a bit freaky/scary in my opinion.
@Anonymous Coward
"It's not so long ago that a colleague of mine demonstrated a Win exploit that allowed him to effectively wipe the hard-drive on the test machine..."
Or it could be you just made that up to add false gravitas to your point. Or put another way, I think its boll*cks!!
Freetards rule!
The bottom line here is that consumers don't want to pay for software anymore (or music or videos). If they can't kick it, and can easily copy it, they see no value!
Hence why this kind of story raises hackles. They only want to pay for software indirectly as part of a hardware purchase and/or through the hidden cost of advertising built into the price of every product.
Its a challenging world for commercial (sorry to use that dirty word) developers!
Final thought; Is Linux an OS, a religion, a political movement or all three?
@John Smith 19
"In .Net's case what else does it run on." ?
Well er let me see...oh that's it, how about Linux!! Check out the Mono project John!
Oh and if that doesn't float your boat, you could always write ASP.Net web apps. They'll run in all the major browsers across all the main platforms.
But having said that, I think MS should push .Net's cross platform capabilities much much further, particularly on mobiles. Forget the iPhone it's a closed book but wouldn't it be great if MS agressively developed .Net to run on all the other major mobile platforms.
Posted in Open source - the once and future dream
I agree and ...
I seriously doubt the 32% Linux market share that ABI Research were predicting for 2009.
Here in the UK, just try and find Linux Netbook! Have a look at the PC World website for example. How many Linux netbooks are they selling? That would be a big fat ZERO!
And its a similar story in the US I believe - take a look on the Walmart site, how many Linux based Netbooks are they selling? You guessed it, that would be zero again.
@Cantankerous Old Buzzard
Oh Please, if you can't generally get a modern Windows installation to run with stability and reliability, I think it says more about your lack of technical competance!!
Its 'Simples' people
In IE8 just go Tools-Manage Addons, click on Shockwave Flash Player and then click on 'More Information'. From there click on 'Remove All' to disable Flash for all sites.
Then for sites you Trust, re-enable Flash by allowing Flash to run the first time you visit one of your trusted sites.
For all other sites (particularly dodgy Chines ones!!!) Flash won't run, so no exploit.
Unlike Firefox, IE8 doesn't need a 3rd party add-on to block Flash!
