Posts by jason 7 3181 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Jun 2009
Erm my other half makes responsive websites that automatically re-adjust. move content and resize depending on orientation and screen size. Took her about a day to learn that a few years ago and now puts it into all her sites.
But then again we've seen there are web designers and there are people who pretend to be web designers.
You get what you pay for.
Yeah that's the joy of having a proper mobile browser. Mates laugh at me when they say the Playbook has hardly any apps. Well when you have a proper browser you don't need that many.
Whist they are dicking around with some hokey third party app, I'm using the full meat and potatoes version on the web.
Once people get to know more about ChromeOS yes there will be a market for it.
I've had one for a week and already four of the people I've shown it to have bought one. These are ordinary folks and small business people that really do 90% of their computing in the web with a bit of word processing and the odd spreadsheet.
Normal folks just want something quick and simple to use. ChromeOS does just that. No real need for IT support either. That's the big worry for a lot of people here. If ChromeOS goes big a lot of people will be surplus to requirements.
Google just needs to start pushing it. It has a mighty marketing arm and so far I think it's just been doing an extended beta test.
The computing experience for the masses is about to arrive.
I remember seeing a documentary on the TSR2 that had some retired Shop Steward grinning from ear to ear about how it all went down.
Basically management would tell the shop stewards that the next phase of work had to be completed in 30 days. The Steward said that 30 days was perfectly acceptable to do the job in but they would demand 90 days instead so the workers could do as little as possible. Apply that attitude throughout a whole project and you can see why it was canned and jobs were lost.
He however, sat there looking very smug and satisfied with himself. All just a big laugh!
Plus you really don't need anything too cutting edge when your main adversary is roaming around on a donkey or in a toyota pickup truck.
The only likely 'toughish' foe we have on the horizon is Argentina. However, if conditions there go further downhill then the Presidents diversionary tactic of "oh look at the Falklands, not at how shitty things are at home!" wont really come to anything.
Asking that it was about time that the relationship between the MOD and BAE was investigated by the serious fraud squad.
The reply from Peter Luff was most upset that I had raised the possibility of fraud and money wasting.
According to him 89% of BAe's programmes are on budget and 71% are on schedule.
Room for improvement I'd say.
My own MP when sending me the reply back mentioned that "you may be disappointed with it!"
Yes I think some people still feel internet connectivity is still like it was in 2002.
As for the Samsung's screen brightness, mine has a manufacture date of Jan 2013 and at full brightness its really is quite bright. In fact I have to turn it down a couple of notches. Maybe they have made some changes. The viewing angles still aren't that great but....it was £220!
You are thinking old school here.
Just how often is the average small business or home worker not connected to the net when they are actually wanting to work.
Hardly ever. Maybe when I'm on holiday in the wilderness..but I'm on holiday. not working.
For most small businesses and self employed folks their data storage needs are tiny. A USB stick can handle all the data for some firms that have been going for 15+ years.
They don't tend to have 2TB of movies and music installed on their work machines. Being able to share their data and have it backed up is far more important. Plus with ChromeOS the need for a dedicated IT support is pretty much removed. I guess this is what most fear.
For a lot of individuals and small businesses its becoming very attractive.
Well I've run several Office docs on it with no issues and the Docs app appears to have all the core functionality I need. It's at least as functional as Office 2000 it seems.
So should suit 98% of people out there.
But...it does involve a little change (and it is little) in usage patterns and as we've found a few around here do have learning difficulties when it comes to change.
Been out of stock for weeks!
Have to say its a great bit of kit. Great to use. Even works offline for the 2 minutes a week you might not be connected somehow.
Much better than a netbook, for me its far more usable (for the realistic, normal user) without the full linux bloat and an extra 168 pixels of depth. Would have preferred a 900 depth but it is only £220!
Worth a try.
If I get a PC dropped off that looks like a vision of hell inside, then when I take it back I know their house will be a hellhole.
Never fails. Yes people live in conditions that look like those photos.
Since I've been a roving IT tech I've been quite amazed at how many people live in total shitholes. These aren't 'poor' people, these are folks living in large barn conversions that must have cost £400k+. The new BMW 530i is outside but inside, your skin crawls.
Have some self-respect people!
....and quite the novelty at first.
Then after a while the usually crappy trackpad and 600 pixel depth screen just really got on your nerves.
I'm no longer a fan of netbooks. My heart sinks if I go to see a customer and there is one sitting on the dining room table.
My own Acer netbook with its 8 cell mega battery sits collecting dust in the corner. Every time I do bother to switch it on the version of linux has totally changed.
However, my new Samsung Chromebook turned up today so that will be interesting. Gives me a few more vertical pixels after all.
@g e
Indeed, I have long said that Climate Change is the wrong poster boy for the green/eco movement. It's too divisive, just causes arguments and in fighting which distracts from the real problem at hand.
Which is?
Pollution.
A lot of pollution is visible and there for all to see. If we worked to spotlighting this and cleaning up our doorsteps then chances are we'll take care of the other pollutants that may be having further effects on our environment.
I'm sure the big corporations love pumping money into both sides of the climate change debate as it keeps the environmentalists distracted while they go on dumping.
Time to get back to environmental basics with actual visible proof than piles and piles of weather data and graphs,
So you don't use the Taskbar that on a standard 1920x1080p panel will accommodate around 25 applications?
Maybe another dozen on the desktop for lesser used applications? So thats nearly 40 applications in easy fast reach. You don't have to go crazy, but its not like the days of 3.1 when icons ate up the ram and performance.
Much quicker than drilling down through folder after folder of applications in the Start Menu.
You know things move on and change.
How hard do you find it to buy spats and antimacassars these days?;-)
@Chad H
Erm just set your application defaults to the desktop ones. Have you not done that before? I've got three or four items of software open on my Windows 8 desktop right now. Still haven't seen Metro since 9.03am this morning.
I rolled out a Windows 8 laptop to a 75 year old lady yesterday. She took to it just fine. In fact she was really pleased with it. I skyped her today to check up and she's still there, happy and getting on with it.
At no time did she jump up and down screaming that it was terrible, pissed her pants, threw shit around the room and shouted "Windows 8 lover FAGGGG!!" in my face.
I know it's crazy isn't it.
Just hitting Enter after start up shifts me into Desktop and that's where I stay for the rest of the day. Metro/Modern never appears till I switch it back on again the next day. Metro time per day? About 1 second.
And we keep saying, like concerned parents with puzzled looks on our faces as though talking to a distressed 5 year old, "but you don't have to use Metro!"
Yet the haters just still keep going "but I have to use Metro!" or "You cant avoid Metro!" or "Metro is unusable!"
You do really have to wonder at whether they have actually used the damn thing or their claimed level of IT proficiency.
Never has so much hate and anger been wasted on something so trivial and almost non-existent.
DPA issues is something that really appears to have been brushed under the carpet by all concerned in the 'cloud arena'.
Not that long ago I was hunting round for cloud storage that was contained in the UK. The couple of companies that fitted the bill were totally clueless about it when I called them.
Needs a major investigation and kick up the arse to clarify.
Yep I bought one in September. Great little bit of kit. Since I've had it, several friends and family have picked one up too. Robust, simple to use and a decent range of the core apps and games that you would want.
Oh and it has a proper web browser and multi-tasking too.
Be interesting to see what happens if and when it gets the BB10 update. Though its a pretty sorted as it is.
The decline in desktop sales is only down to the fact that the software isn't there to take advantage of any CPU tech since 2007. I'm not including games in this though that sector is still lagging.
Take any old dual core enterprise PC off the IT Stores shelf and slap a new build on it and its good to go
Folks still want and need desktops just not in the sheer numbers we needed 10 years ago. We can just sweat the assets far longer.
As for needing more CPU power, other than video transcoding software, anything in the basic business software remit that would make a CPU spin up to 100% for more than 5 seconds would be viewed with suspicion.
My customers just ask "what do I need that's a bit better than what I have?"
When what they have is an old Compag from 2005 with a single core Celeron, 512MB and a 4200rpm 40GB HDD, its hard to justify them spending more than £400.
I tell them to get a cheap one, run it into the ground over the next 3-4 years and then get another for a third less than what you paid for that one.
"Windows 8 was never intended to be a corporate / business product."
Well done. I'm amazed so few have realised this.
MS knows the way its operating systems get taken on by the corps and enterprise. The schedule was set with most corps switching to NT4in 1999 for Y2K, XP by the mid 2000's and 7 for the past couple of years.
MS knows full well 8 isn't going to be a enterprise/corp OS so it's taken the move to bring out a more domestic consumer orientated one. They can do this as the corps will be still rolling out 7 for the next couple of years.
MS is now back on its new OS every 2-3 years schedule so it knows that corporate take up wont probably come around in any great numbers till Windows 10. In the meantime it's trying some new stuff on domestic consumers than the corporate ones. The next Windows could well be a further enhanced version of 8. 10 could well be quite different and more business style. A lot can happen in 7 years or so.
Any IT Manager/consultant that hasn't figured this out should really try and be a little more perceptive, or find a new job.
The problem is that most companies have got rid of the old 'people manager' the person who kept an eye on staff, monitored the work, did all the staff management duties, appraisals, training etc. etc.
Those people largely don't exist any more, Instead you have a manager that's only interested in how good he or she looks to the guy above them and maybe the guy above them too.
As long as there are not sh*tstorms heading their way they don't care what the staff are doing.
I and my other colleagues used to have to submit a lengthy and tedious weekly progress report. After a few weeks of doing this I took a gamble and started just submitting the same report every week with just the date changed at the top. Never got noticed.
If you have to do reports like that try it. Just create a an actual report for that first week just in case it gets noticed (oops I sent the wrong one!) and then send in last weeks weeks. If it works carry on. If it happens for several months and then gets noticed you have the comeback of advising them would it be worthwhile for everyone else to be made aware that their reports were not being looked at most of the time?
...since MS bundled the rebabdged MSE in Windows 8.
Now the gentleman's agreement is over its gloves off and a right slanging match has ensued.
The fact that the worst virus stuff is written and released on a daily schedule, it's a no win situation.
I always say getting a virus is like a broken windscreen. You can go years without one and then get two in as many weeks.
I slapped Windows 8 (£25) on a old Tecra M7 from 2005/6. I upped the CPU to a 2Ghz C2D (£15 on Ebay) and it had 4GB of ram already. I also slapped a 64GB Samsung SSD in it (£65)
Absolutely flies with 8 on it. In fact I took it along to one of my small business meetings to show it off to let folks know that they didn't have to buy a new laptop to get decent performance. Managed to get several SSD/Win8 upgrade orders out of it as a result. They all didn't seem to mind Windows 8 either.
Google's supply chain team need sacking or a good flogging.
I have a Nexus on order. It's like it's 1981 again and the terms "allow 28 days for delivery" are back but only worse.
I'm also trying to buy a Samsung Google Chromebook. Nope cant get them for RRP either. All gone.
It's an odd way to try to gain market share.
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