* Posts by jmward007

7 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Mar 2015

Intel inside: Six of the best affordable PC laptops

jmward007

Re: Mid year resolution?

Me too. There's no way I would pay £500 - £600 for something with only 1366x768 resolution. I recently bought an HP8540w EliteBook with a 1920x1080 screen and 8 GB RAM second-hand for £400; that's pretty much my minimum spec. Only problem is that the heat-sink really needs replacing (deterioration of heat-pipe action), but that's not difficult with HP and is par for the course with older laptops.

Windows 10 hands on: Build 10074 is for the brave - but it's pretty snazzy

jmward007

OneDrive - Progress?

Just installed Build 10074, in the expectation that some kind of progress might have been made on resolving the issue of placeholder files in OneDrive, so as to keep data storage on a particular PC low while being able to look at the cloud file structure in File Manager. Unbelievably, considering how fundamental this now is to many people's requirements, Microsoft are still using Version 2013 of OneDrive (yes, from 2013, as used in Windows 7), not even the current Windows 8.1 version.

With every new build, I get the impression of a poorly-managed development team that is finding it hard going just to back up a GUI design team mainly concerned with cosmetics and flashy bolt-on modules. The release of a build unable, even if temporarily, to run 32-bit binaries from the Start menu reinforces this suggestion of incompetence and maybe lack of understanding or documentation of the Windows 7 code on which I suspect all the subsequent relatively superficial stuff runs. What has been achieved so far really shouldn't have taken this long. Yes, it looks OK and seems to function reasonably well in general, but development since the release of Windows 8 has hardly been stellar, considering Microsoft's resources and supposed creative expertise. I'm not holding my breath for an amazing revelation in July. Just as well the upgrade will be free. I certainly wouldn't pay for it.

Sick of Chrome vs Firefox? Check out these 3 NEW browsers

jmward007

Re: Firefox - Still the only Really Useful Browser.

Well, high is better, and a score of 15461 is truly astonishing... This I must see, I thought, so off I went and got me a copy of Palemoon and installed same, and ran Octane first thing. Result: 7689.

Then I went back to Firefox, still heavily laden with open tabs, and ran Octane again. Result: 8893. Please tell me what you did to make Palemoon perform like that. Was it the 64-bit version? Or were you perhaps - forgive me an unworthy thought - not wearing your reading glasses at the time?

jmward007

Re: Firefox - Still the only Really Useful Browser.

Try going to https://developers.google.com/octane/ and clicking the red box on the right, the big one that says: "Run Octane 2.0 now!".

Yes, the comparative results seem to be from mobiles, and I don't understand why either. That's not the point; the point is the comparison between Firefox, Chrome, and IE. The result from Palemoon is close to Firefox, which I guess you would expect for a forked development.

jmward007

Re: Firefox - Still the only Really Useful Browser.

I don't understand your point. Firefox has all the positive characteristics that you mention, and passes the "acid tests" without a problem, as well as being fast.

jmward007

Re: Firefox - Still the only Really Useful Browser.

Here are the benchmark results for Firefox, Chrome, and IE, done on my laptop PC with a lot of tabs open in Firefox:

Peacekeeper Results

Firefox: 2114

Chrome: 1657

IE: 1273

Octane Results

Firefox: 7662

Chrome: 8251

IE: 5142

Pretty conclusive, really.

jmward007

Firefox - Still the only Really Useful Browser.

"...even Firefox, which seems to be sliding further into irrelevancy every day..."

Really? News to me. Firefox is the only browser available that does what I need, and now I can't use another without getting impatient and frustrated very quickly. Its performance has improved a great deal recently, so it now sits quietly in the background when you're not using it without chewing up memory and CPU (although if you've been using it for a long time you may have to disconnect sync, then go directly to your sync account and empty it for a fresh start, to make this happen).

There are many useful extensions, some of which I use on a regular basis, and others which I enable only for specific purposes (like CertPatrol, which has been useful in the wake of FREAK) - if they're not loaded, they don't affect performance of course.

Do browser tests on Peacekeeper (http://peacekeeper.futuremark.com/) and Octane (https://developers.google.com/octane/) in order to get a grip on the realities here.

I occasionally use Chrome and IE, just to remind myself of how inadequate browsers used to be. I've tried Vivaldi, which I assume is an IT high school project. It ran HTML5 video on YouTube impressively, but otherwise makes me wonder, as I do for so many Linux distributions, why the developers are bothering. There must be something better they can do with their time and expertise.