* Posts by DiBosco

40 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Sep 2012

Food, water, batteries, medical supplies, ammo … and Windows 7 PCs

DiBosco

Re: Linux, still not the way

Yes, REALLY point and click. Windows is *WAY* more difficult to install than Windows. the fact you think otherwise means you've either never installed Windows, not installed Linux in the last ten years or both. All this poking around in the command line fear that people come up with is SO out of date it's not true.

Linux has all the drivers you need on the install DVD or the repository. Windows you have to search all over the web to find drivers, which if you're lucky you'll eventually get your hands on. Also, Linux installs in a about a third of the time that Windows does AND has most of the apps one needs already installed.

If you don't believe me, get hold of Mageia and try it. You'll soon see for yourself just how easy Linux can be.

DiBosco

Re: Linux, still not the way

>> To the Linux crowd. No, just plain no. People are used to it just plain working, finding stuff and doing stuff. If you want to become a credible alternative to Windows, to those of us who are finally through with M$ and their 'ways', then you have to become like Windows. <<

I use Linux apart from an odd occasion when a customer demands I have to do something for them on Windows and I can tell you that Linux "just works" FAR more often than Windows.

DiBosco

Re: the day when Microsft becomes irrelevant...

>> There are problems with Linux, but it's certainly a viable choice. <<

There are FAR more problems with Windows than Linux. Linux is way more than a viable choice.

Hear that sound? It's the Windows XP PC bubble popping

DiBosco

Re: put Linux on the kit

I really think a KDE distribution is better for a Windows user as the UI is much more familiar. Mageia works an absolute treat. The printer set-up there is so easy. It'll find your NAS by browsing through the file explorer (Dolphin). Stuff just works these days and the install time is very short.

DiBosco

Re: Whats the matter with these people

The ticket machine for the Metrolink in Manchester threw a wobbler the other day and I was amazed to see it was running what looked exactly like Win 2k! It looked older than XP. I thought it was NT, but my geeky friend said because it was looking for a file in C:\Documents and Settings it had to be Win 2k or later!

DiBosco

Re: Upgrade to Linux and keep using your existing PC for another 10 years.

I have a Windows 7 laptop that I use on the rare occassions there's a bit of software that only runs on Windows. I regularly get BSODs on it. If I'm running it all day I'll get a couple or three. The rest of the time I run Lnux (probably about 98% 0f the time these days) and have no issues. I know a lot of people praise later versions of Windows for additional stability, but I honestly don't see it.

I'm not trying to be inflammatory, this is just my genuine experience.

Chipmaker FTDI bricking counterfeit kit

DiBosco

I'm not sure I'd agree with that. Having worked for a major component distributor, I know that they wouldn't buy grey market stuff of parts of one of thier official suppliers. With that in mind, as long as you buy from an official supplier you won't have a problem with supply and you know your product will always work just fine.

I think FTDI are problably in a difficult situation in that if their driver didn't actually alter the counterfeit product, but did stop it from working, it seems that people would still end up with the same situation. ie Their product no longer worked. Then again, why should FTDI allow the market to be flooded with counterfeit parts?

You could argue that they could roll back to older drivers if they didn't change the EEPROM, but then again, you can use the FTDI tool to change the part's EEPROM value back. I honestly don't know what's harder as I stopped using Windows years ago and can't remember how hard it is to find and install drivers. From FTDI's persepctive, at least this has brought a big issue to light.

As far as the legal standpoint is concerned, you'd have thought that they would have consulted lawyers about whether or not it was legal. There's lots of opinions stating catagorically one way or another that what they have done is legal or not, but I'm assuming no-one really knows. It would seem that Apple has done essentially the same thing previously and it didn't cause them an issue, so why would it affect FTDI? (Honest question, I am no lawyer so there could be a good reason why this is different.)

As for changing to other suppliers, who's to say exactly the same thing won't happen there? I'd bet that in a few weeks this'll be forgotten about. People like Arduino will have to replace a load of boards with counterfeit parts and hopefully learn a lesson in legitimate sourcing. Maybe FTDI will look back on it and learn a lesson if the publicity does affect them, but I'd be fairly surprised if any major manufacturers changed from FTDI because of this.

Internet Explorer 11 at it again, breaks Microsoft's own CRM software

DiBosco

Re: Microsoft

"The only software you can use for Serious Work. It works for work."

No, it really, really doesn't. As a grade one example, I've been working on a project that uses Bluetooth SPP (serial port profile) to talk to the embedded product I've been developing. A mobile phone talks to my product, so I knocked up a program on Qt under Linux [on my personal laptop] to emulate the phone and send the appropriate messages to my embedded product - because I was waiting for Android iOS teams.

I'm off on holiday so we spent TWO DAYS trying to get Windows to send Bluetooth serial messages after the five minute job of porting the Qt app to Windows so that other people could run the app in my absence.. In the end, we gave up and installed Mageia Linux on two old laptops. This took about an hour to install Linux, install Qt and leave them with a laptop that runs muy Qt app perfectly and sends the Bluetooth messages send over an SPP.

At one point a colleague who works abroad and was over here working for a few days offered to ring anyone he might know to help us out. When I said yes, please do, we need somoene who knows how to get Windows to send SPP messages he just laughed at us and told us to forget it because this doesn't work even on commercially released products.

Windows just works? Don't make me ****ing laugh.

Samsung's new Galaxy S 4: iPhone assassin or Android also-ran?

DiBosco
Stop

Re: Never mind the width - feel the software

You mean copycat software like the excellent continuous input function that's, oh, yes, that's *not * on the iPhone.

a. It's total nonsense to say that almost all Android software is crap. It quite simply is not.

b. It's also total nonsense to say it doesn't have software not available on other platform.

Please note, I am not saying iPhone software is crap, but sweeping statements like almost all Android software is crap is, er, crap.

Mark Shuttleworth: Canonical leads Ubuntu, not 'your whims'

DiBosco

Re: Seriously I have trancended time and space.....

I say this as someone who, other than Raspberry Pi, has always used Mandrake and its successors (and recently Open SuSE). Also, I have always used KDE so I have no love for Unity at all. However...

...I'm not sure sure it's fair to say the window sizing controls are on the "wrong" side. Surely it's just a completely random thing? As far as I understand it, Shuttleworth wants something more like the OS X desktop (which also has its controls on the left hand side and confuses the crap out of me on the rare occasions I'm exposed to it). I suspect, though, if I used it all the time I'd soon get used to it.

In general, even though I have no desire to use Ubuntu and think Mageia and SuSE to evey bit as good a job as Ubuntu in making Linux very easy to use, I have a sneaky admiration for him and his work. He's really brought Linux to a much bigger audience and he really is doing the right thing in trying to get it on prebuilt hardware.

I think he absolutely right in that he needs to show leadership and he can't listen to every opinion. If he's wrong, his company will fail, but if he's right and lots of new people use Ubuntu starting with Unity maybe they'll just accept it and even like it?

IT'S HERE: Seagate ships 'affordable' desktop hybrid drive

DiBosco
WTF?

Impressive. My BIOS takes at least twenty seconds before it even decides it's going to let me HDD have a go at loading the OS! Although it's not as bad as my Blu Ray player which takes a good twenty seconds from pressing eject to actually spitting the disk out!

That Firefox OS mobe: The sorta phone left behind after a mugging

DiBosco
Thumb Up

Re: even I recognise that a new OS entering the market can only be a good thing

Actually, I really like your point about interoperability. with HTML5 and Qt. I really hate and resent the whole lock-in with Apple and Microsoft (and Android), whether it might be on the phone or the desktop.

I don't know why more platforms aren't built with Qt. I use a package for writing embedded code which is called Crossworks. It's written using Qt and it's available not only for Linux, Windows and OS X, but also Open Solaris (and yes, I bought it to run on Linux, we *do* buy software, us Linux users!). It [Qt] makes fast, good looking truly cross-platform applications, every night Rowley do an automated build for each platform. It bemuses me that [third party] companies that make applications limit themselves to one OS. I really don't care about which platform has biggest market share; if people want to get locked-in with MS or Apple, that's their lookout, but it doesn't make sense for the third party app writers (and frankly, it doesn't really make sense for the users).

"More choice, more diversity, yet essentially one shared ecosystem - what's not to like?" Spot on!

Ubuntu? Fedora? Mint? Debian? We'll find you the right Linux to swallow

DiBosco

Re: The Truth

For me, the reason I use Linux is precisely because I wanted to spend less time tinkering with the OS and more time just using something that is rock solid. I really got fed up of Windows' flaws especially back in the days of Win98 when my machine would regularly fall over in heap while writing Delphi programs. Also, I was fed up of Winrot, viruses and disk defrag which meant regular maintenance. All these things made me want to look for something more reliable where I would have to spend less time worrying about fixing the OS and more time just using the computer.

So, here I am over ten years later and I am so much happier and relaxed using a computer. Far less tinkering.

I do agree with you though, that Linux needs to come pre-installed. Most people cant install any OS, whether it be Windows or Linux. My experience is that for people wanting to change, if I do the install for them they are up, running and very happy. There has to be that desire to change though, otherwise you're trying to get them to use something they're not really interested in.

I also agree it's not a great article for noobs.

As for things working off the Internet without faff, I think it's been a few years now since Windows was better than Linux at that. I would agree that at one point there was so much IE specific stuff, some sites could be problematic, but those days are long gone.

How to destroy a brand-new Samsung laptop: Boot Linux on it

DiBosco
Linux

Re: It's Amazing...

It's also amazing how many of the people calling Linux users Freetards do not understand that the Free we embrace is free as in freedom, not free as in free beer. Quite how that makes you retarded is beyond me.

If you look at the Humble Indie games takings, the biggest payers are the Linux users, a pretty good indication that Linux users are not cheapskates. I contribute to KDE and my distros of choice and many others do too because I am incredibly grateful that I have an operating system where there is no chance of hiding spyware, no crappy licences and I have the freeDOM to with it what I want.

DiBosco
Linux

Re: Well actually

I bet you a bottle of Bruichladdich (*) I can get your Vaio working just fine.

* If you don't like Bruichladdich, name the similarly priced spirit/case of beer of your choice.

Help us out here: What's the POINT of Microsoft Office 2013?

DiBosco
Happy

Re: "The ribbon makes more features visible"

Rocket surgery! :D

Microsoft tries to sell home Office users on subscription pricing

DiBosco

Re: I'm still using Office 2000

More to the point, even though for power users Open Office/Libre Office might not be good enough, it staggers me how many people use a tiny fraction of Microsoft Office's functions, yet think they need it and only it. I would guess that at the very least 80% of home users would be able to use OO/LO just fine and I suspect tablets are making people realise just this in the shape of things like Google docs. So, MS trying to charge a subscription, a fecking subscription, strikes me as being utter insanity. I seriously think Microsoft are making some insane decisions at the moment.

Cash-ravenous Sony will flog Manhattan HQ for $1.1 BEELLION

DiBosco
Big Brother

Re: Unfortunately the building is not compatible

This partly sums up why I stopped buying Sony. That and things like hidden, secretly installing programs on CDs, their whole DRM crusade etc. I would always buy Sony stuff as it lasted for years and was good quality stuff. That changed around ten years ago when their attitude towards customers really started to stink. I genuinely wonder how many other people they have ****ed off with this attitude.

The Spherical Cow lands, spits out Anaconda

DiBosco
Linux

I really don't get this RPM bashing that comes up from time to time. I have always run Mandrake/Mandriva/Mageia and have never had any sort of issue at all with RPMs. The whole point is that the package manager takes care of it for you. The fact is that RPM is every bit as good as yum or deb or anything else, it's just different.

NRA: Video games kill people, not guns. And here's our video game

DiBosco
Facepalm

Re: What if?

Your argument is nonsense.

The difference between a gun and a knife is that by the time you've managed to empty around of ammo into a boat load of children, the nutter with knife might, *might* have got one kill before before being overpowered. And an axe? Seriously? "Oh hello headmistress, you don't mind me walking into school with this nob-off axe, do you now? I'm hear to chop firewood. Honest."

The thing about better checks on ownership is a nonsense. The latest head case to run riot in a school took his dear ol' mom's weapon stash to wipe out the poor little mites.

I know the pen is mightier than the sword, but, well, it really fuckin' isn't.

The difference between a gun and screwdrivers, pens and knives is that a gun is made for the sole purpose of killing living things. There's absolutely no need for a normal person to carry one. You cling on to your precious second amendment like a religious fanatic who holds dear bizarre and outdated laws that maybe made sense hundreds and hundreds of years ago in [even more] misogynistic times. The weird thing about it is that the amendment has been taken out of context and become a twisted excuse to carry implements of death around with you.

Goldman Sachs: Windows' true market share is just 20%

DiBosco
Linux

Re: Err really?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_adopters

Lots of companies, educational authorities and government organisations have successfully migrated to Linux. There was an article on lxer the other day going on about Linux having a 9% share of the corporate desktop now. If there's one place desktop Linux stands a great chance it's business where the potential savings are massive once the employees are trained on something new. When you consider how KDE is so similar to Windows desktops (other than TIFKAM), this is hardly difficult.

Someone made a very good point above in that if people are creating documents on tablets on the move they will soon wonder why they need MS Office. MS has nothing like a 99% "coalface" market share. Apple have way more than 1% on top of Linux's share. I have a two or three reps that come see me who now use iPads or Samsung tablets instead of laptops. You can bet your arse this number will grow rapidly.

DiBosco
Happy

Re: mmmm

Linux monitor calibration:

http://www.hughski.com/

Linus runs Photoshop under WINE. What else can we help with? :~)

The GPL self-destruct mechanism that is killing Linux

DiBosco

Re: @Pete : Divide and conquer

@PhilBUK

How?

DiBosco

Re: @Pete : Divide and conquer

Yes, and he wouldn't have been able to install Windows either. That's a completely different argument.

As for taking a day to install and needing to compile wireless drivers, I again say, use a more non-techy, user friendly version such as the hugely underrated Mageia or Mint or similar. I've not had to compile wireless drivers for at least two years since even the Broadcom drivers are now open source.

As for not understanding a repository, I just do not accept that a two minute explanation is beyond the understanding of someone with the most basic amount of intelligence. No-one says they can't understand the Apple app store or the Android Play store and that they need certain things installing to carry out certain tasks. A repository is exactly the same thing. Linux comes with an office suite, acrobat readers and all sorts of other stuff that Windows does not have; do people run away from having to install those on Windows and without the benefit of the wonderful repository system?

What I do understand is the people just come out with an endless list of invalid excuses and FUD when it comes to talking about Linux and conveniently forget that for every issue Linux has, Windows its own problem.

DiBosco
Linux

Re: @Pete : Divide and conquer

Bullshit. Utter and total bullshit.

You go into your repository (that's the app centre for the braincell challenged and unimaginative of you), select libdvdcss and, er, hit "install". Oh my gosh, how much of a geek do you need to be to do that. How did anyone without a degree in rocket science ever work it out?

Or...

..install something like Mageia, Mint or a whole load of other distributions where it's installed by default. Sheesh the FUD that people come out.

Nvidia heralds Steam for Linux debut with 'double-speed' drivers

DiBosco
Unhappy

Re: Graphics @ double speed

I don't think so, I thought I saw on the Valve site that it only works on Ububtu running Unity.

Naughty-step Apple buries court-ordered apology with JavaScript

DiBosco

Re: Apple is behaving like the kid who throws a strop at his own birthday party.

It's up to the likes of us, in that case, to do like I did and post links to it on Facebook, mail it to all our Apple fanboi friends etc!

Apple's poisonous Touch silently kills the GNOMEs of Linux Forest

DiBosco

Wrong. KDE4 is a fantastic, easy to use, intuitive, good looking desktop.

British judge: Say you're sorry Apple... this time like you MEAN it

DiBosco
Happy

Re: Here is the apology apple should write

Your post brought a smile to my face and I detest Apple, but...

...OS X most definitely is a *lot* better than Windows.

UK's Intellectual Property Obliteration office attacked by Parliament

DiBosco

Re: Rights don't exist in isolation

>> The GPL is essentially incompatible with commercial interests like getting paid so you can eat. <<

That is totally and utterly wrong. There is *nothing* about the GPL that precludes payment for your work. Other have the opportunity to see your work, but it doesn't mean you can't be paid for the hours you spent writing it.

Your mouse may actually be a RAT in disguise

DiBosco

Presumably, and as usual, the author forgets to say Windows malware and that *nix based OSes are not affected. Maybe, eventually, the world will catch on to how shit Windows really is.

Microsoft: Just swallow this tablet ... the rest will take care of itself

DiBosco

Re: "Microsoft actually writes fantastic software."

Pah. Qt.

DiBosco

Re: "Microsoft actually writes fantastic software"

I couldn't read the rest of the article for laughing once I'd got that far.

Microsoft has no plans for a second Windows 7 Service Pack

DiBosco

Ah, the old and fallacious porting apps/retraining argument comes out again. Another old favourite of those scared of change.

Porting/retraining is a one-off cost. Savings gained not being tied in to expensive, proprietary software, ongoing and far outweigh those one-off costs. It's being shown again and again by BIG users such as French police, city of Munich etc etc. All full of non-techy users. It is an utter fallacy to say Linux is harder to use than Windows. It quite simply is not. If you started out with one person using Linux and one using Windows who have never touched a computer before you would have no difference in how long it took them to get going.

In fact, when these companies and organisations change to Linux there is a notable drop in how many support calls IT gets because fewer things go wrong.

The Win2k argument is bizarre; no-one is saying stick with something old, we're saying go with something modern that doesn't leave you at the behest of proprietary companies that want to lock you into their ever more locked-down and expensive systems.

DiBosco

Ah, the old "tried it before" bullshit.

Linux, hands-down, works a lot better and more smoothly than Windows and has done for some time now. If you really had tried Linux more recently than five years ago you would know this. So many people tried it ten years back, probably with Slackware or Debian or something else hard for a newb and dissed it as unusable.

We've had our own [free] app-store for years before it was a twinkle in Appl€'s bank balance, let alone Micro$oft's typical oh-we'd-better-get-in-on-the-act-after-everyone-else's effort; we don't have to use pathetic anti-virus programs that grind the machine to a halt; we have mature, journaling file systems that negate necessity for disk defrag and are much more robust in terms of hardware problems; the whole system runs way faster (it amuses me watching poor saps running Windows and all the waiting they have to do while Windows grinds away); we aren't at the mercy of a bunch of bullies who want to charge you more for their latest, unnecessary fix.

The "screwing-around" with Linux is practically non-existent with a modern, user-friendly distribution such as Mageia, SuSE or Mint to name but three. You cannot say the same of Windows. On top of this you have complete freedom to do as YOU want, WHEN you want and it costs you absolutely nothing.

You can legitimately point at Linux having fewer mainstream applications than Windows, but if you're willing to use different apps, you can certainly run a company using nothing but Linux desktops. I know, because I do and I have a lot less stress because of it.

Microsoft plans big licencing price hikes, shifting to per-Device model

DiBosco

Re: The Price of FOSS...

Ah, that old chestnut. The problem with that argument is that is only true for that first period of training. Once people are trained in something new (hardly difficult) the long terms savings are massive. Don't let a short time excuse for fear of change get in the way of a long term benefit though, eh?

Microsoft Surface: Designed to win, priced to fail

DiBosco

Re: We're already Appled-up but

If everyone boycotted Apple, Microsoft, Nestlé, Nike etc etc, then they wouldn't make money. It's simple. Some of us have seen how simple it is and started using Linux years ago.

DiBosco

Re: Being as good isn't going to cut any ice in market share

Eh? Because Microsoft are totally open and have never tried to have any control over what you have bought?

Microsoft have totally missed the boat on all this. They are a company with zero innovation, very low cool factor, high price and a reputation for making unreliable software, even with those who don't know computers that well. Why the Hell would anyone buy these over über Cool Apple or much cheaper, better specified, [much] more-apps Android? Other than the ever diminishing breed of MS fanbois?

The idea that Office will win over buyers is beyond hilarious. Tablets in general are useless for anything but basic surfing and [very] simple work. Next to no-one is going to buy these for serious work when you could spend less on a [much] more powerful machine with a keyboard, that is not that much bigger and heavier and is probably cheaper.

Microsoft: becoming a little more irrelevant by the day.

The iPHONE 5 UNDERMINES western DEMOCRACY: 5 reasons why

DiBosco

The best reason for not buying an iPhone

The best reason, to me, for not buying an iPhone is that Apple are a company of very low morals and a desire to lock you in at all costs. The ding-dongs between fanboys of Apple and the anti-apple brigade largely avoid this hugely important point. Mostly they focus on FUD (or should that be outright lies) about how HTC Desire's keys don't work well or how hard it is to transfer music. The examples of non-replaceable batteries and no SD cards *are* important because they are the embodiment of how Apple are a company of lock-in and a lack of desire to conform to standards. The comment about charging via USB was quite amusing because even that is non-standard with Apple gear, you have to have a special lead, not a micro-USB cable.

Having said all this, it won't stop Apple fans buying Apple because it is a status symbol. Apple didn't invent the smart phone, they don't make the best smart phone any more by any method of measuring it (if people are honest), but they are cool. Apple are, or at least were, genius at marketing. It's probably like Armani, Hillfiger or other clothes brands: they aren't any better than many other cheaper clothes, but they have the cool brand name.

The Apple fans who claim Android are copying Apple are talking utter nonsense and they need to learn more about the short history of these devices. Apple were the first to market these phones correctly and, in all fairness, they probably, at first, engineered them better than predecessors. They now look clunky and outdated,

All this won't stop the purile exchanges here and other web sites though.