Posts by spidercrab 14 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Jun 2011
This is an interesting exercise and there is a wealth of good and varied advice here.
However, standing back a bit, I can't help but think what an absolute mess the world of computing has got itself into. What should be a straight forward path is a journey riddled with pitfalls.
The answers to this problem should be just to buy the latest MS OS, insert disc and upgrade. Of course that could not be further form the solution. It is all a royal mess and an utter outrage.
"Anybody running Windows XP after that date will face malware and virus writers targeting the OS alone unless they pay Microsoft for custom support."
Really?
Firstly, everybody using all versions of Windows can and often does, experience malware and viruses. Microsoft have been supporting all of these versions with updates and this has not stopped infection with malware and viruses.
Secondly, if you pay Microsoft for XP support will they refund you if you get attacked by malware and viruses? I really doubt that very much.
There is a great deal that is yet unknown about life after XP support stops.
This article is very poorly written and I am most disappointed at The Register for including it. Shame.
What an interesting article and one that illustrates the utter mess that real users can find themselves in.
I would suggest that the solution is to do a fresh installation of XP SP3 and install Firefox or Chrome and also Office and Dropbox. Then keep a mirror disc image for when things go slow or wrong. To hell with there being no more updates for XP. It isn't as if the updates have kept XP free of problems anyway.
Also there is a very valid argument for giving your kids an old slow computer that does little else at an acceptable (to them) pace, than web browsing, email and MS Office.
Bing! What are they thinking? I understand the whole let's sever all ties with Google stuff. Google is the best search provider by anyone's standards and Apple choose to use Bing just so they don't use Google.
As a committed Apple user, this is one more example of the inter company rivalry that is spoiling the customer experience. Steve Jobs would not have done this.
The title of this News item could well have been "What is the point of Microsoft. Fullstop?"
The vast majority of new and existing computer/phone/tablet consumers just don't need anything at all from Microsoft. Nobody seems to be shedding tears either.
Microsoft used to dominate the technology news and a new Windows OS version was huge new for months before and after the event. Those days are long gone. Also the days when Microsoft would make a decision that was well received are also well gone. Shame on Microsoft.
So this is a 160g phone that doesn't work very well as a phone? And it needs to have more memory added by the user to increase the low memory? As an absolute minimum I would expect that a phone from Nokia would be a good phone to make and receive calls.
And it costs £400! Have I missed something?
Shame on Nokia.
"The other guys skate toward the puck. I skate toward where I think the puck is going to be."
Unfortunately, I don't think that Steve Ballmer even knows what a puck is. His solution for success is to get off the ice and smack rugby balls with a golf club, from the goal posts into the center of the pitch. Sadly there is not one Microsoft employee with the pucks to get him to understand what needs to be done.
I have a houseful of XP with Office 2003, machines that I was considering upgrading. BUT - MS wants me to buy a WIndows 8 for each machine for £25 each, a new copy of Office for each, and reinstall all of my programs on each machine. That will take hours and hours and I am still unaware of a compelling reason to upgrade. There was a time when I would always upgrade to the latest MS OS because of real tangible benefits. That stopped at XP. Shame on Microsoft.
This will be looked back on as the last chance that Nokia got. Microsoft's last big chance too IMO. They had everything to gain by wooing us with must have features and competition stopping must haves. They have lost the plot - both of them and show no signs of doing what they need to do.
They introduced wireless charging and then fitted a huge battery! With wireless chargers in place in your home, car, office, etc, you can use a smaller battery and make a smaller lighter phone!
They have also assumed wrongly that the camera is the killer feature.
Even if they knocked this out for £100 with Android, it still wouldn't be competitive.
I can't understand why they think they would need a store. What value do they think they would add and why would a customer want to shop there?
Microsoft have become so deluded that they are acting like a headless chicken that doesn't even register that it's head is missing. Five years ago if they brought the Surface to market for half the price of an Ultrabook, then we would all have had a reason to queue outside the MS Store. Had they then shown some understanding of the market and allowed the creative juices to flow unhindered for the next 5 years, we would still be queuing. Shame. Shame. Shame.
Watch the presentation here at about 14:20 in (http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/19/3096420/microsoft-surface-event-video-live).
Anyway, it's a promising looking device even though it is clearly a long way off. It really needs to ship with Office and if it is priced at say 20% less than the base iPad, it will appeal to many people and will be a success for Microsoft but a disaster for the Windows Tablet market.
There is however, a great deal of detail and working demonstrations missing from this early announcement.
Also why so much focus on the keyboard? That's an admission that the tablet format if flawed.
I signed up to 3 £10 a month Blackberry's with unlimited web access for the family. This month my daughter's one came with a £111 monthly bill. Apparently if you use over 50Mb per day you get charged an arm and a leg for it. They told me there is a fair usage policy for the term unlimited and it means up to 1Gb per month.
My daughter' online account tells her that she has 1.23 Gb left in her monthly allowance which she checks regularly. Go figure.
I pointed out to Virgin Media that on the day when the usage was high my daughter was in our house and the phone was connected to our WiFi so there should have been no excess data charge. Then they admit that if you use the Blackberry web browser, BTW there is no other way to browse the web, you incur a high charge which is outside of your normal unlimited 1Gb monthly limit and the phone will bypass your WiFi and use the astronomic charge Blackberry system!
So take great care with Virgin Media.http://www.reghardware.com/Design/graphics/icons/comment/stop_32.png
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