Interesting laptop news articles

kayoh190 said:
I'm just as disappointed in Apple's direction as denverpilot, but let's no go overboard here. Comparing that rig to a netbook? Gimme a break. Install Windows on that same MBP and you know how well it'll perform? *Identically* to any other laptop with a quad i7 at 2.9GHz, 16GB of 2133MHz RAM, and it'll game just like any machine with a 4GB Radeon Pro 460. I agree that the high end of Apple's lineup no longer commands the high end prices, but go ahead and run Handbrake on the same piece of media on this MBP and a netbook and tell me how it goes.
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And how much would that same machine cost of it was just a asus or MSI? Plus not only would be be less than half the price, it would be built to be EASY to upgrade.
 
Palmpilot said:
Here's an article about a city government in Germany that switched to Linux, and is now considering going back to Windows.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/window...17cfd61&bhid=24083753282545551715082267791408
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The article is rather short on reasons. I suspect it has something to do with software availability.

I used Linux exclusively for a few years even though I made my living working on Windows machines. My decision to bring Windows back into my life was based more on software availability than anything else. I could get some, but not all of the software I needed working on WiNE. It also helped that MS finally started making stable versions of Windows.

Still, if I wind up switching from the Adobe software I currently use to open-source applications, I most likely will run them on Linux. I'm comfortable in that world. I still run Linux on all my servers and still have Linux workstations in my office, even though I spend most of my time on Windows these days.

Switching to Linux as my primary OS also would mean not having to deal with Microsoft's increasingly intrusive snooping and forced "upgrades" on machines whose productivity actually mattered to me. No one cares if you want to use a 10-year-old version of Linux. If it does what you need it to, then more power to you.

That being said, Linux is not an especially good desktop OS for average users. Desktop computers should be so easy to use that any idiot can use them. Linux isn't. It's a lot easier than it was, but it still requires more investment in learning than most users are willing (or should be expected) to invest just learning the system itself.

Rich
 
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Palmpilot said:
One of the links in the article leads to another article in which one of the people quoted claims that their version of Linux is being held responsible for "a host of unrelated IT problems."

http://www.techrepublic.com/resourc...windows-to-linux-and-may-be-reversing-course/
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They rolled their own distro, which creates almost instantly a requirement to keep the few people around who rolled it, and also makes support a bit of a nightmare.

I suspect they're tired of being held captive to certain individuals internally, but that'll never get out as the reason given.

Have seen that mistake made a couple of times. Customizing a distro with automation or scripts is maintainable by any good admin you can hire off of the street, they won't be cheap, but they won't be too hard pressed to figure out what the original admin did.

Creating a full distro from scratch triggers a bunch of low level design decisions that nobody has time in the real world to discuss in endless meetings, so it's far more likely to paint you into a corner you want out of, and you might find yourself with an admin or two who won't budge on stuff they never asked anyone about, and egos get involved.
 
James331 said:
And how much would that same machine cost of it was just a asus or MSI? Plus not only would be be less than half the price, it would be built to be EASY to upgrade.
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I dunno man - I go high end on my desktop (it dual boots Slackware and Windows 7), and just buy a laptop that suits my needs. Which right now is a 2015 mid-spec 13" Macbook Pro. It's got a 3.1GHz i5, 16GB of 1866MHz RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a display resolution of 2560x1600. I paid $1250 out the door for it, and it's friggin' awesome. Like I said, Apple has been ****ing me off, but at least I have a command line and don't have to worry about Microsoft's ****ing advertising in their OS (I will *never* run Windows 10 while MS does that garbage). I might have been able to save a couple hundred with ASUS, but half? No way does any $625 laptop come even close to what I have right here in front of me.
 
kgruber said:
Except you have to deal with iTunes.................Yuk!
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But I don't have to deal with iTunes - I run Amarok, and it's great. Granted I've been unhappy with what Apple has been doing with OS X, but it's still a UNIX, and I have more flexibility here than I've ever had with Windows. If I don't have a binary for what I want, all I need to do is compile it.
 
kayoh190 said:
I dunno man - I go high end on my desktop (it dual boots Slackware and Windows 7), and just buy a laptop that suits my needs. Which right now is a 2015 mid-spec 13" Macbook Pro. It's got a 3.1GHz i5, 16GB of 1866MHz RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a display resolution of 2560x1600. I paid $1250 out the door for it, and it's friggin' awesome. Like I said, Apple has been ****ing me off, but at least I have a command line and don't have to worry about Microsoft's ****ing advertising in their OS (I will *never* run Windows 10 while MS does that garbage). I might have been able to save a couple hundred with ASUS, but half? No way does any $625 laptop come even close to what I have right here in front of me.
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We built a screaming fast desktop for that price which would completely smoke ANY MacBook, two years ago for one of the office DBAs who was crunching stuff that required eight fairly busy VMs at the same time on the same machine while driving four monitors at high res. From parts. New. It'd be cheaper today.

We couldn't find anything other than $4000+ "workstation class" machines that would even keep up with it from the usual brand name sources.

Hate to say it, but using an Apple laptop of any sort for a workstation class desktop machine is wasting money and/or a horsepower tradeoff. Many do it for the portability, but if the thing never leaves the desk, it's not the best solution.

An i5 is not "high end on the desktop".
 
^^^ I think you misunderstood me. I have a high powered desktop (built myself), which means that I don't feel the need to have a high end laptop. Thus the i5 MacBook Pro suits my needs. Obviously a $1200 desktop will outperform almost all laptops, Mac or otherwise.
 
My son and I were going to build a desktop, for gaming. We went into Fry's and loaded up a big cart full off stuff. We were just about to check out when a salesman pointed out a Fry's branded machine that was just as fast or faster for about 1/2 the cost. That was 2004, and I still use it as a dedicated scanner, out in the hangur.
 
Anyone know of a good free or cheap "cookie monitoring system" for Windows 10? Everyone is putting who knows what on my computer.
 
kayoh190 said:
^^^ I think you misunderstood me. I have a high powered desktop (built myself), which means that I don't feel the need to have a high end laptop. Thus the i5 MacBook Pro suits my needs. Obviously a $1200 desktop will outperform almost all laptops, Mac or otherwise.
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Ah I see. Yeah I didn't follow.

coloradobluesky said:
Anyone know of a good free or cheap "cookie monitoring system" for Windows 10? Everyone is putting who knows what on my computer.
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Cookies, probably. ;)
 
coloradobluesky said:
Anyone know of a good free or cheap "cookie monitoring system" for Windows 10? Everyone is putting who knows what on my computer.
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There are a bunch of them for Firefox. "Cookie Culler," "Cookie Manager," etc., etc.

I just specify the ones I want to keep, and delete the rest every time the browser closes. I also edit some of them on my non-mobile computers to make them last forever (or at least long past my lifetime) to avoid the stupid security questions when logging into various sites that expire the device tokens after a month or so.

Rich
 
kgruber said:
My son and I were going to build a desktop, for gaming. We went into Fry's and loaded up a big cart full off stuff. We were just about to check out when a salesman pointed out a Fry's branded machine that was just as fast or faster for about 1/2 the cost. That was 2004, and I still use it as a dedicated scanner, out in the hangur.
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Stores like Micro Center and Fry's never have all the stuff you need to build a PC on sale at the same time. More often, they'll drastically reduce one of the components as a loss leader and hope you buy the rest of the components while you're there.

I've also found that high-end mobos are rarely discounted more than a few dollars. That's where the big difference in store-bought versus home-built computers usually lies. Performance and price curves on motherboards are decidedly non-proportional. Paying five or ten times as much for a motherboard as a computer manufacturer pays doesn't yield five or ten times the performance. For most uses, in fact, there will be no noticeable performance difference at all. The differences only show up at the extremes.

Most store-bought computers have motherboards that are just barely "good enough" for the computers' advertised uses. The motherboard in an average business-class PC probably cost the manufacturer between $25.00 - $50.00, if that much. And if you stay within the computer's intended uses, you'll never have a problem.

When I was still in that end of the business, I could only compete on the high end. I could beat any major manufacturer in both performance and price for bleeding-edge machines designed for the most resource-intensive computing tasks. I built a lot of them for architects who ran AutoCAD, for example. My machines came in at about half what the major manufacturers wanted for their highest-end machines, and I was making quite a good profit on them.

On the low- and mid-range of the spectrum, however, I couldn't even build a computer for myself for less than I could buy one. I still can't unless I wait for months to buy each of the components when it goes on sale.

Rich
 
kgruber said:
iTunes sucks as well.
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denverpilot said:
Yeah big time. But it's sucked for a decade so we're all kinda used to it like frogs slowly boiled.
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I know this is an old thread, but I had to comment when I read this. I've used MacBook Pros since '07, and also have an iPad, and I still just have just a basic understanding of iTunes if that. It still confuses me with how it works.
 
Here's what's ****ing me off with Apple - not supporting hidden network names. This is simple stuff, what's the problem?

From Apple tech Jeff: "Referring to this documentation under Section “Hidden Networks” - Our advised setting is to disable this function as hding a network does not secure your network because the SSID can still be discovered using other methods. We advise enabling broadcast of the SSID and enabling router security with password protection."


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Linux, the underlying operating system isn't bad (and it's not bad for servers). The user facing graphical stuff is still horrendous. Apple spent a lot of time develping a better system (OS/X is a UNIX based system underneath). Frankly, X was great for its time but it has a lot of issues these days.
 
flyingron said:
Linux, the underlying operating system isn't bad (and it's not bad for servers). The user facing graphical stuff is still horrendous. Apple spent a lot of time develping a better system (OS/X is a UNIX based system underneath). Frankly, X was great for its time but it has a lot of issues these days.
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It's a heavily modified BSD.
 
denverpilot said:
It's a heavily modified BSD.
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No, it really is not anywhere near close to that. I've worked with V6, PWB, V7, SysIII, SysV, 2BSD, 4BSD, FreeBSD, LINUX, Mach in various flavors, AIX (in various flavors), A/UX, Minix, and Linux in various flavors. Linux is not BSD based.
 
Flying_Nun said:
Here's what's ****ing me off with Apple - not supporting hidden network names. This is simple stuff, what's the problem?

From Apple tech Jeff: "Referring to this documentation under Section “Hidden Networks” - Our advised setting is to disable this function as hding a network does not secure your network because the SSID can still be discovered using other methods. We advise enabling broadcast of the SSID and enabling router security with password protection."


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Are Apple devices unable to connect to gateways with hidden SSIDs, or are their gateways incapable of hiding them?

I rarely bothered hiding SSIDs because if anything, I thought that made them more attractive to war drivers and other pests. I did it sometimes when there were numerous WiFi networks in a particular place just to reduce accidental connection attempts, but I never considered it to improve security in any real way. Any 10-year-old running Kismet could find a hidden AP in seconds.

Rich
 
Just wait for the new version of iOS to come out with the anti-text (or anti-use) while driving stuff. If it's defaults on, is complex to turn off or a passenger can't easily use their phone while riding it will torque off a LOT of folks.

MS seems to be determined to create it's own walled-garden, which isn't any better than Apple's walled garden (except MS still supports outside hardware vendors that Apple won't do). But the more spyware and data collection that MS does on it's end users is likely to be problematic. Privacy will become a bigger issue going forward.
 
flyingron said:
No, it really is not anywhere near close to that. I've worked with V6, PWB, V7, SysIII, SysV, 2BSD, 4BSD, FreeBSD, LINUX, Mach in various flavors, AIX (in various flavors), A/UX, Minix, and Linux in various flavors. Linux is not BSD based.
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OS X is BSD based. I wasn't saying Linux was BSD. Apple could not have closed source code if they didn't base it off of BSD.
 
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wsuffa said:
Just wait for the new version of iOS to come out with the anti-text (or anti-use) while driving stuff. If it's defaults on, is complex to turn off or a passenger can't easily use their phone while riding it will torque off a LOT of folks.

MS seems to be determined to create it's own walled-garden, which isn't any better than Apple's walled garden (except MS still supports outside hardware vendors that Apple won't do). But the more spyware and data collection that MS does on it's end users is likely to be problematic. Privacy will become a bigger issue going forward.
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Android is a disaster, too. The recent published IEEE paper that the authors gave Google a YEAR to clean up remote root exploits via security features the user can't even audit or turn off, is awful. Google continues to say they don't care.

None of them are any good at this point, security wise.
 
denverpilot said:
Android is a disaster, too. The recent published IEEE paper that the authors gave Google a YEAR to clean up remote root exploits via security features the user can't even audit or turn off, is awful. Google continues to say they don't care.

None of them are any good at this point, security wise.
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Of course G doesn't care. As long as they are making money from advertising, who cares whether there's a flaw. Not like Android itself is a revenue product. Don't trust Chrome, either. Firefox has been less than stellar, too.

I like linux (and FreeBSD), but that can easily have security holes in the hands of an unknowing user.

But don't worry, some government agency will come to the rescue!
 
RJM62 said:
Are Apple devices unable to connect to gateways with hidden SSIDs, or are their gateways incapable of hiding them?

I rarely bothered hiding SSIDs because if anything, I thought that made them more attractive to war drivers and other pests. I did it sometimes when there were numerous WiFi networks in a particular place just to reduce accidental connection attempts, but I never considered it to improve security in any real way. Any 10-year-old running Kismet could find a hidden AP in seconds.

Rich
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The devices will not automatically connect if the connection is lost (leave the house). I can type the SSID in and it will connect immediately but that's a real PIA. It also doesn't happen with the 2 Kindles, Nook, Nintendo DS, or Andriod phone that live here.

I guess I have a different opinion on whether not broadcasting has any benefits. But, I say why advertise. My network is also password protected and I utilized an access list.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
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Both OS/X and iOS have no problem with non-beaconed SSIDs. You just type the SSID you want to join in the "other network" choice.
I have a couple of non-beaconed wifi networks because I've got these stupid stearable webcams that can't do WPA, so I have them on their own dedicated, highly restrictive wifi network. No problem connecting to them from my macbook.
 
wsuffa said:
Just wait for the new version of iOS to come out with the anti-text (or anti-use) while driving stuff. If it's defaults on, is complex to turn off or a passenger can't easily use their phone while riding it will torque off a LOT of folks.
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This is a pet peeve I have with built in Nav systems in cars. I travel a lot for work and often with co-workers. I can't have them type in an address without pulling off the freeway.
 
My wife's car allows you to say OK and go on. My car refuses to believe that even with someone in the right seat (and it knows there is because it turns on the airbags and complains about the seatbelts) that you should be allowed to enter addresses in the GPS while moving.
 
flyingron said:
My wife's car allows you to say OK and go on. My car refuses to believe that even with someone in the right seat (and it knows there is because it turns on the airbags and complains about the seatbelts) that you should be allowed to enter addresses in the GPS while moving.
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Maybe they'll implement this in the Cirrus since they're going for the luxury car feel? ;-)
 
denverpilot said:
Right now, as much as it pains me to say it, Google's ecosystem is better at unified behavior and usefulness than Apple's. Mainly because they don't have a desktop OS to maintain really. Chromebooks won't replace what OSX does, without a Net connection though, so you're stuck with Windows or Linux talking to Android or their web interfaces, but their web interfaces are light years ahead of iCloud's.
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This is good to hear. I've been exclusively iPhone since the original. I'm no Apple fan boy and only use PC at work, but the stability of the iPhone and the suite of apps I've come to rely on are pretty compelling. That said, the morons at Apple have forced me ... next phone is a S8.

When they removed the headphone jack, I decided I might buy another iPhone 6 but would never go to the 7. I go through 6-8 sets of $10 ear buds a year ... lose them on commercial flights, fall in the water, etc. The last thing I need is to be chained to yet another battery powered accessory and then lose a $70 ear bud. Amazingly ignorant choice by Apple, but they are smarter than us so less choice means I go to Android.

Was really thinking I'd buy the last iPhone 6 to stretch out the move to Android, but these f'ing morons have done something with the DTMF setting and I can no longer join about half the conference calls I need to make because the receiver doesn't recognize the code. The morons at Apple blame it on the service provider, but the guy next to me with an Android doesn't have a problem. They've monkeyed with something and if you need a business tool, the iPhone isn't it.

Done, out, Apple can say goodbye to a 10 year customer.
 
Odd, in order to pick up my calls from the autoforwarded I have to dial DTMF 1. Never had a problem with the phone but boy the ONSTAR kludge in the car is a PITA.

Come Monday, I won't have to worry about the lack of a headphone jack. The iPhone will bluetooth stream direct to my hearing aids.
 
iflyforfun said:
This is good to hear. I've been exclusively iPhone since the original. I'm no Apple fan boy and only use PC at work, but the stability of the iPhone and the suite of apps I've come to rely on are pretty compelling. That said, the morons at Apple have forced me ... next phone is a S8.

When they removed the headphone jack, I decided I might buy another iPhone 6 but would never go to the 7. I go through 6-8 sets of $10 ear buds a year ... lose them on commercial flights, fall in the water, etc. The last thing I need is to be chained to yet another battery powered accessory and then lose a $70 ear bud. Amazingly ignorant choice by Apple, but they are smarter than us so less choice means I go to Android.

Was really thinking I'd buy the last iPhone 6 to stretch out the move to Android, but these f'ing morons have done something with the DTMF setting and I can no longer join about half the conference calls I need to make because the receiver doesn't recognize the code. The morons at Apple blame it on the service provider, but the guy next to me with an Android doesn't have a problem. They've monkeyed with something and if you need a business tool, the iPhone isn't it.

Done, out, Apple can say goodbye to a 10 year customer.
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Jut for updates -- we've had the company over on GSuite for a while now and there are a couple very minor annoyances. The use of Google Groups for Mailing List behavior is a little wonky.

For admins, also not as enthused about Google's IAM/security stuff and the setup as AWS' -- AWS is complex but workable, Google's is significantly weirder.

How those two relate is that there's some command line interfaces that are mixed Google and community supported for admin roles that are a complete PITA to configure, compared to just loading AWS' fully supported command line interfaces and using them to automate things.
 
flyingron said:
Odd, in order to pick up my calls from the autoforwarded I have to dial DTMF 1. Never had a problem with the phone but boy the ONSTAR kludge in the car is a PITA.

Come Monday, I won't have to worry about the lack of a headphone jack. The iPhone will bluetooth stream direct to my hearing aids.
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I don't want to derail this thread - but I am interested in feedback on the hearing aids that are blue tooth. I wondered if they are battery killers. I tested some at the audiologist and wondered how people like them. I listen to music or podcasts all day at work through earbuds. I am likely going to get hearing aids in the next year and was thinking about the Bluetooth ones. I just did not want to be buying batteries every other day.
 
Jim_CAK said:
I don't want to derail this thread - but I am interested in feedback on the hearing aids that are blue tooth. I wondered if they are battery killers. I tested some at the audiologist and wondered how people like them. I listen to music or podcasts all day at work through earbuds. I am likely going to get hearing aids in the next year and was thinking about the Bluetooth ones. I just did not want to be buying batteries every other day.
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Paging @flyingron ...
 
It's BLE I think. Streaming does cut down on battery life so I opted for the larger housing that holds a larger capacity battery (still much smaller than the old BTE hearing aids). My dad's oticons have a neckloop which I don't really like. I'll let you know on the Resounds after I've used them.
 
Jim_CAK said:
I don't want to derail this thread - but I am interested in feedback on the hearing aids that are blue tooth. I wondered if they are battery killers. I tested some at the audiologist and wondered how people like them. I listen to music or podcasts all day at work through earbuds. I am likely going to get hearing aids in the next year and was thinking about the Bluetooth ones. I just did not want to be buying batteries every other day.
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I know this is late but I have Bluetooth hearing aids with the necklace. I listen to music for hours. There seems to be no effect at all on my hearing aid batteries but the necklace itself has a battery that lasts less than one day. That is very annoying because the necklace costs $300 so I don't want to buy a spare so when it dies before night time I am without it until it recharges. This is not good because I use it for phone calls. That was the whole reason I got it, phone calls were becoming very difficult.
 
Bottom line for me is that I can pick up my 2 1/2 year old MacBook pro, flip the lid open, and start USING it. My desktop PC, not so much. The PC has a mind of its own. Even though I've tried configure it to only update the OS when I want it to, it still takes FOREVER to start up, load all the resident firewall and antivirus crap and then decide whether or not its drivers are current enough to ALLOW me to use it and that all DLL files haven't been corrupted. I still use the PC. But, not as often as the Mac, and only with some trepidation.
 
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