Posts by mmeier

Re: @mmeier

Simple. I use what is best for the job and/or has the widest installed base and the software I want/need. And that is Windows on the client and Unix on the server for most of the stuff I have done the last 15 years(3). Linux is not good enough on either platform.

Servers: Long term (10+ years) stability is a must have for APIs, Drivers, Libraries etc. Availability of certified hardware from a big vendor is as well. Not having "Distribution wars" makes hiring Admins(1) easier and installing commercial software like RDBMS as well(2)

Clients: Support for all hardware our customers use. That includes notebooks and tablet pc since the early 2000s. Also central software delivery, company wide policies etc. In some cases (not all) our clients also use software that simply requires Windows.

With a 90+ percent market share on the desktop and a useable platform for tablets Windows is the easiest target with the best chance of sales. Add in that it is also the easiest target to develop rich / fat clients that work on Macs and Unix as well and our customers demand those client type for certain tasks. Oh and most use it as an internal platform (the rest uses Macs)

Running J2EE stuff is bette, faster and with less hassle on Solaris same for stuff like Oracle RAC. And most of our customers use that (or AIX) anyway on servers so Linux is a non starter

I don't hate Linux. It was evaluated (and is basically once a year) and found lacking for the needs of my employer so it is not used there. And for my privat use I see no benefit(server) or can not use it (Client - no penable support(4))

(1) I am not an admin by trade. I can do the job if needed (and did) but my specialities and certifications are in software, mainly Java

(2) With Linux the only "will work" platforms are those that come with commercial priced licences for support negating the last Linux benefit

(3) Before that is also included stuff like Step5, ORG/M, QNX, RTOS/UH. Also worked with Win/CE and Android.

(4) Or one not good enough compared to Win7 / Win8 if I count the Samsung Note as a Linux

Re: @mmeier - This sounds like shit to me

Nope. Last time I worked for or with"the man" was in the 1980s when I was an armed typist [60 character or 900 rounds per minute] Last time I wrote Windows only stuff was 1993 to 1999 and even than that was only part of the work. l prefer Windows as a client and getting it to run there is prime due to the market share but l use Java and used C and C++ in the past. ServerS are Unix. SCO in the old days, Solaris now.

Re: They should have...

That would have required a teacher that can be taught. Most can't they have THE Knowledge and if politically active THE Truth

Re: I wonder what happened to the infected machines

Oh believe me ever since Gerhard gutted Auntie SPD before escaping to Russia the "party formerly known as Sozial and Democratic" has stopped being either and handles graft etc. quite nicely. And the Greenies have been looking for their voters pork barrels for a loooong time.

Re: @ Vlad

Oh, the germans are even very efficient with computers. The problem is the german GOVERNMENT. Back in 1918 we went cheap and used one train to the netherlands to get rid of the Emperor. Would have been cheaper in the long run to use 10 and get rid of the politicks.

Re: This sounds like shit to me

"Linux" Munich has double the PERMANENT IT staff per computer of any compareable city. And in germany permanent staff is something you hire if you plan to keep him for years because once past the 6month "trial" period (Probezeit) it is hard / costly to fire him. Even more so for a city that have the OTV<<<Verdi "trade union parody" to deal with.

There is a lot of smelly stuff in Munich and it's not last years Oktoberfest-Chicken

Re: mmeier strikes again

So there are no benefits of manned spaceflight. Thanks for the proof

What benefit did Manned spaceflight bring? Unmanned has uses but man in can is a waste of money and payload

Re: Was out with a full sized DSLR last weekend and nobody gave a damn

They never did in Germany. As long as you stay in public space and do not target a person without consent shooting photos is legal, actually written in the law (Panoramafreiheit)

So say shooting the Ulmer Munster and having Timmy Tinfoil in the picture because he was just walking around there is legal. If Timmy disagrees - tell him to FO. If he gets agressiv - punch him, call the police, sue him and win

VR glasses are already out and have been for a while. Same for HUD systems that clip to a glasses frame or headband. Prices are similar. And if you take away the camera that is all that is left when you take the camera out.

The camera would allow Augmented Reality on a new level. Not with the Google version since that has a low capacity computing platform as an achilles heel but the general tech is there. Look into an cars engine, have the AR camera and image reconing do the magic and get the components highlighted. Can't do that kind of stuff without the camera OR a static setop with tons of fixed sensors and "place car exactly so and so".

The same works for recognizing people or locations. GPS is of limited use/precision in a city but GPS+ImageRegoc and "This is the oldest still occupied house in the citie. It was build in...." tourist guides work. Indoor museum guides are even better. No more tracking down the warden to ask, the AR glasses can do.

So the camera is a must be there equipment.

Re: meh

503 million citizens in the EU

314 million in the colonies

Customer-wise the EU wins easily. And Japan, South Korea etc. have similar network densities.

Re: Not so surprising...

What problems? Some "screaming minorities" and "building picture scramblers"? Sorry but I never took Timmy Tinfoil serious.

Was out with a full sized DSLR last weekend and nobody gave a damn. And we are not a "tourist town", I was just taking building shots for my hobby.

Re: meh

Well here in the 1st world (Most of Western Europe) and even the second world (Germany) we do have good high speed wireless.

Re: Surprising...

Actually the prototypes of this tech where from the late 1990s and offered more options than this rather restricted kit. Don't get me wrong a good set of AR glasses would be something I sell my neighbours grandma for. But these are not.

Re: @Ian Yates - Not from my Android phone!

Okay Mr. Tinfoil-Head tell us: Why did you BUY a smartphone in the first place? And no, reading mails I do not believe since mail connections surely can be tracked so THEY know where you are.

After all http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Live they are among us (and GG might show them!)

Re: The fact that

AugmentedReality glasses - sure they have applications. The industry has experimented with the tech for at least a decade. Deliver a set that is light weight, has good endurance, no need to use the GMail man / StJobs and interfaces with Windows/x86 and commercial Unix boxes(1) and you have a winner in the tech sector and designers ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_automatic_virtual_environment )

Google Classes - no use. Tied to a toybreed OS and the GMail man. Not that SaintJobs version would be any better. GG has the same problem as Evernote since both force you to give your data to a non trustworthy, non government observed third party (Unlike say DATEV in germany)

Re: @DrXym

The only places where this stuff is restricted are the same typ of places that restrict cameras, camera phones etc. as well. And that is "disallowed because of privat / government property" not because of legal reasons

I definitly need a pair. Has been a decade since I was allowed to hurt someone and get away free by claiming self defence.

Re: Consumers to Microsucks...

The SUN does not shine any more, it is in a drug haze with the Oracle these days.

Re: So obvious...

Actually MS complained about TABLET hardware. And for MS based tablets - TOUCH is the bastard stepchild. Windows tablets have been and still are Pen first, touch second.

The vendors all failed to deliver the Atom based penables they showed mid 2012 in time for the Win8 launch. Some started delivery as late as March 2013. THAT was the complain.

Re: Once again...

Open source is basically useless unless it is actively developed by a steady core of programmers that stay with it for long times. Anyone who has worked on a living software project, even a commercial one where coding guidelines, commenting and documentation can be enforced knows that reading code is more complicated than writing it (Joel on Software had an article about it). And within a company there is a decend chance the author is still there or did a decend transfer job. With OSS he might. Or he just picked up and left.

Used to program in a "pool" software developed by a group of companies with the same special needs and not a concurrency situation back in the 80s/90s. We had strict guidelines, used a very long term stable (15+ years) system in almost identical configurations and still we arranged regular trips and meetings to "talk about details". Now do the same over mail/chat with people who speak a different native language, are not held to well-defined and enforced standards in programming and testing(1) and more diverse systems...

There is a reason the high quality OSS is

Company backed

Typically dual licenced and typically not using the full GPL (Apache is more common)

Often part of a "value added" commercial package

The backing company pays the core dev team and enforces standards. If the company pulls out - the software dies.

(1) Our software needed government certification before we could use it in production - human lives depended on (and where saved by) it

And John156 joins the "I never tried Win8 but I have a false opinion and shout it out" crowd.

Re: At least Lenovo are listening

Nonsense. Commecial buyers with an IT worth the name run extensive tests with the future OS to make sure all needed components run. And most of those tests where done in 2012(1) and therefor with Win7. That is all there is.

Two of our customers (Think 4000 and 10K+ workstations) are currently testing Win8 for mobile devices (Dell and Lenovo tablet pc) since unlike iThingy/Fragmentdroid the Win8 units can run the full set of legacy software. Java Swing/SWT applications do not run on touchy toys but run fine on Win8. Same for Word and Symphony.

(1) No, the 20+ percent XP are mostly NOT in companies. Those are mostly in countries where stealing software is more likely than buying it.

Re: one thing they do not understand ...

Touch is the part of "tablet" that thankfully is NOT emphasized by MS. Keyboard use (for desktops/notebooks) and pens (or mouse). Fingerprinting is a (IMHO useless no matter what OS) add-on for those who want to produce (Acer W-Series) or buy a cheap tablet instead of a useful tablet pc.

Actually the systems works very nice on non-touch notebooks since the keyboard optimization reduces the need for trackpad/trackpoint (or external mouse)

Re: Even the touch UI is piss

Maybe due to the fact that Windows 8 thankfully is NOT optimized of fingerprint gathering units. The OS is well optimized for full-scale penables where most of the "smear to do" gestures are not needed.

Re: stuff that used to be buried in menus

@Tom35:

How many regular use programs do you have on your box? A standard Modern screen can hold 72 program icons plus a box for some Modern apps (or another set of IIRC 12 Icons)

Re: It's not just a case of bringing back the start button

Thanks but no thanks. Been there, sold the Android tablet. The current system works well on both types of systems - desktops and penables and does so in exactly the same way. One UI, one concept, one set of software.

If you want "specialist" UI - buy an iThingy

Re: So obvious...

And McFly went out to tell the world that he has never used Windows 8 but has developed a lot of misconceptions about it anyway.

Re: Windows 8? Sooo easy to fix

That's okay IF I can disable that "boot to desktop" crap and retain Metro as my start screen. For my style of work the new interface is far more efficient that the "ton of programs pinned to desktop/taskbar" POS of Win7 and before.

Re: Bullshit

Sarbanne-Oxley my rear. They are of no interest for those outside the US

Re: Meanwhile on planet Earth...

BYOD for me was(1) a 12'' penable I use as a

notepad

presentation device

proofreading and commenting tool

design tool for ui drafts

etc. It produces Windows compatible results (It's a Win8 device). It's not the main work device but a supplement.

OTOH later this year I will likely get a T902 with "all the bells" and a dock privatly replacing my aging privat tablet pc and desktop. At that point discussing with the company if

They buy a second dock

They pay for the upgrade to 3G/LTE

and use that as my only box is an option.

(1) Currently have a company convertible for that job

Re: It works in the construction industry... in the US

Well given the less than 10 percent chance the next job will use CoJ devices instead of Windows clients this is acceptable. Add in that as a software developer you either

+ Use a OS independed language - in that case working clients have limited problems(1)

+ Use a OS dependend language - in that case you likely won't apply work that job

(1) There can be some when "Can be edited by the boss" is a demand an MS Office does not run on the 1.4 percent system

Re: Bad news for Intel and Microsoft

Been doing BYOD for some time. The requirements IT departments put down left me basically two choices:

Microsoft Windows

Church of Jobs

(Solaris would have been an option)

As an Atheist I choose Windows. BYOD is mostly about clients not about server/infrastructure. Nor about software in many cases. "Must be editable on the bosses maschine" was a killer for the Note 10.1 as a BYOD device since SNote is not generally available while every Windows box since at least Vista has Journal

Re: BYOD - The other side of the coin

So do we have to expect the chief of IT security (Abwehr) supporting assasination attempts on the CEO (Hitler) with HR (The SS) spying on both while supplying cheap labour?

Re: toadwarrior - Duh, it's hard to do real work on a touch screen

The Samsung N7x00 series needs the extra screen size since it is designed as a "penable" mini notepad and for writing/reading handwriting the screen size is barely large enough. Makes them big as phones go, first time I use Bluetooth

Re: gamers and pirates

Home taping never was a problem. A single copy of a 60min record took at least 60min to make and the quality was lower. The resulting copy could be used as a "master" once more than the quality generally was so low it no longer worked. That's why limited privat copies are "accepted" and paid for by a charge on empty media in i.e germany.

The CD burner changed that. Copying became fast and even the 10th "generation" copy was still as good as the original. Even that was not too bad since it still required physical exchange of the media and was mostly restriced to friends/family.

The same was true for copied computer games. It (often) was an effort and the physical exchange reduced the spread. "Professional" sellers more often than not where tracked down after a while since there was a mail trace. Access to illegal sources was limited for most. Add in that many games had a paper handbook and it was often needed and the Web was not there and it worked.

Then came the eMules, Torrents etc. Suddenly it no longer worked. The games/musik where spread extremly wide. Scans of the manuals (and the manual on cd typically theses days) added more problems for the publishers.

Re: @LilCricket

Depending on the game I could think of some nice ways to kick Frank Freeloader where it hurts. Simply make some parts of the game require an external component, check the game ID and if it is an illegal/suspect copy switch to a version of the component that makes the game unplayable. Say in an adventure the merchant component always sells too high/has limited stocks and buys to low

Re: Business Critical apps

With the type of user we are talking about EVERY change takes 8h of training. Those are not IT persons, those are office drohnes. They do their work by memorizing click pathes not by understanding the way it works. So if one switches OS and takes away Word - 8h for the new OS and 8h for OO.

Those users do not use the OS (nor do they understand the concept) they use programs. As long as those remain the same training is easy. The 8h come because training always takes a day since essentially it is

Assemble the 5-8 person training group (Anything larger does not work)

30min show and tell (At this point IT personal is done and can use the software)

Let them try, hand-coach each one (15-30min/person)

Lunch

Repeat show and tell

Repeat try

The would need that even for a device with a single icon labeled "WORK"