Posts by 43300 1510 publicly visible posts • joined 3 Nov 2021
The difference is that those things you mention were realistically only something which a small minority engaged with - social media is the opposite where it's only the minority which doesn't engage with it. It's also far more pervasive as it's on people's phones wherever they are and whatever they are doing.
The web versions of Office are shit compared to the installed ones, and the files need to be saved to Microsoft's cloudy storage.
It's really bizarre the way the Linux faithful seem to almost take offence that anyone might need to run MS Office, and downvote anyone pointing this out. Will they ever come to understand that not everyone lives in their bubble and business realities dictate what software some people need to run?
And Libre Office is not an adequate substitute if sharing complex documents / spreadsheets - there are too many circumstances where full compatibility cannot be guaranteed. The post to which the one above was responding even specifically pointed this out but was clearly ignored.
Can it run recent versions of Office though? That is what would make it useful for many people, but previous versions have never been able to (I have tried!). It's the Office click-to-run installer, which has been around since Office 2016 and the only installation method since 2019, which was the problem.
If your company's PCs aren't lasting at least five years then they must be buying crap! Business-grade laptops (Dell Latitude, Lenovo Thinpad, etc) easily last longer than that unless severely misused. They are also generally much easier to repair than Macs.
In the case of cars, they are buying a product. If it was the same with computers you would be buying a computer with your OS of choice installed - and most laptop manufacturers offer few or no Linux options, and those which exist are not directed and the non-specialist channel.
An equivalent with cars would be if you were asked what engine management system you wanted on the car, and you would need to install it yourself in many cases.
A lot of the nastiest material from Dounreay gets shipped down the coast to Barrow, then taken by train under armed guard up to Sellafield. The same is true of waste from many other nuclear sites (although most of them don't have the sort of material which Dounreay does). Sellafield has the whole of the UK nuclear industry's crap to deal with, not just its own.
I'm not sure that the current situation is much better, where you might have to use the supersede function in Intune to remove and old version and install a newer one. That has at least as much potential to go badly wrong. Doing it through the Windows Store would be a better idea, although it would probably be sensible to have a pilot ring who get it first before it's rolled out to all users on the tenant.
Dell were the same - the E series docks were very robust. The current USB-C ones have a weakness in the USB-C plug housing - we've had loads which crack down the sides and then the housing falls off.
Dell's new business laptops are also claimed as having stronger USB-C ports, and these are replaceable as they plug in to the motherboard rather than being soldered - still appear to be a pain in the arse to change though as the motherboard will have to come out.
Apple are actually (unusually) among the best on this - recent Macbooks have each USB-C port with a separate connector which plugs into the motherboard. Plus the magnetic power connector makes damage to the USB-C ports much less likely (in my experience, people tripping over charging cables when using the laptop at home is the most common cause of broken ports).
"ut the public transport system is excellent compared to almost any other city in the UK"
Yep, quite! Try the West Yorkshire conurbation (Leeds / Bradford). No light rail / urban rail, and only limited heavy rail so it very much depends where you are wanting to get from and to - large parts of the urban area are further from a station than most would want to walk every day.
And if New Outlook is already installed and you want to get rid of it for all users on that device, this should do the trick:
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | Where-Object {$_.Name -Like '*OutlookForWindows*'} | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers -ErrorAction Continue
But you can guarantee that when some MPs' data gets exposed due to a back door which the government insisted on, there will be howls of outrage from them!
This is the problem with having MPs who are mostly technically illiterate - they are determined not to understand that there is no such thing as a secure back door. If it exists it will, sooner or later, be compromised by criminals / foreign governments / spooks.
"You might be interested in Surface laptops if you need the touch screen, pen input and other accessories. For an average business use they might be too expensive, but that's true for Apple as well."
Touch screens are an option with a lot of Dell models now too.
I can sort of see it with the tablets - I wouldn't buy them, but I can see that they are one of the main offerings in that niche, if you need that sort of thing.
But I really can't see why anyone would buy the laptops. They are overpriced, under-specced (unless you pay a fortune), and don't seem to have a great reputation for reliability. I can get something better from Dell, of an equivalent size and probably at a lower price (and quite probably similarly from Lenovo / HP as well - I've not checked recently what they offer in this sort of area).
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2026
