Posts by Jurassic.Hermit 108 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Dec 2022
Yup, I've got one of those laptops, fortunately I don't do auto downloads and installs.
That said, it's been behaving like a tortoise for the past 6 months on Windows 11, it's meant to be a pretty powerful machine with lots of RAM and disk, but this experience now is like going back 10 years.
"6G promises data rates of several hundred gigabits per second (Gbps)"
I get remarkable speeds on my 5G network already -
I have a cell tower half a km direct line of sight from my attic room. The network provider (in Switzerland) stated that given I am just past the edge of the beams I am likely picking up another cell tower a km away. I checked and they were wrong. Then I did a few speed tests. My laptop picks up the wifi from a 5G router hanging from the ceiling, and the signal has to pass through the roof from the tower, so it's not an open window situation.
Ping: 10ms
Down: 722 mbps
Up: 190 mbps
Unlimited.
Cost: CHF 10.00 per month for a dedicated data-only device / SIM on top of my mobile phone contract)
9.42 GBP (British Pound)
10.90 EUR (Euro)
12.56 USD (US Dollar)
Not sure what the Swiss network providers are doing differently to the UK and other places, but I'm not complaining.
.
Goodbye Microsoft.
You were once great. I built businesses with you. Today, sadly, your OS has degenerate into a pile of slop.
It's totally inexcusable to have a new fast CPU with 32 GB of RAM and 1TB SSD in a standard configuration by your partner Dell and still have the fans blasting away under normal work tasks.
Your once superb Office has been simplified for kids using fondleslabs and the design principles which give me acres of empty space on my monitor real estate.
That fine machine will now have Mint installed and another PC has been bought for design, graphics, photo editing, it's a Mac Mini which whips along at a remarkable rate of knots compared to your W11 PoS and whilst the fans stay inaudible.
I'll get downvotes for sure, but one thing is sure, Europe is going to desert you.
Exactly same as me, bought the 13 that way last year, similar price to you. Unopened old stock saves a fortune.
This year I bought a Mac Mini 2 Pro the same way, unopened box from 2023 and more than enough processing power for me with 32GB RAM and 1TB disk as well. Cost me 50% less than the equivalent model of today, full warranty etc.
I have a very similar experience, using Microsoft OS and products since DOS 6.x. They literally set me free, helped me build my professional career, micro businesses, personal stuff, hobbies, games. I stayed "loyal" through thick and thin. I even mocked the smug Apple / Mac / iPhone users and thought many were brainwashed by marketing and status.
That was until just before COVID hit and I dropped and smashed my Windows Phone (stay with me on this one), I loved it, but it was no longer possible to replace it with a Windows phone. For work I had already used a myriad of Android phones for years, always had some kind of issue, but they were affordable and I liked to tinker with settings in those days. Faced with the need to research 200+ Android phones to replace my broken Windows phones, I embarked upon spending / wasting a weekend in comparing dozens of Android phones. After losing Saturday to this task, and it dawning on me that my daily work rate was worth more than the phones I was researching, I turned off the PC for the night.
Sunday morning came and I happened to see an email from a Jurassic / Alpine equivalent of Currys / Dixons who had various phone offers. I happened to notice they had a clearout on unopened stock of iPhone XS for about £400. I though, WT* I might as well give one a try instead of spending another day researching and comparing Androids. So I did. Seven years later I haven't regretted my decision, the XS and subsequent phones, latest is the 16e, just work. No glitches, no running out of memory and slowing down to a grind, no X Y or Z...it all just works, even if my phone-tweaking days were now over. A totally reliable phone.
Then, earlier this year, after spending the past few years buying very powerful laptops with Windows 11 on them, yet experiencing horrendous slowdowns and freezes and hot CPUs and fans blasting, I thought WT* once more and decided to experiment again, this time with a discounted, older, but unopened Mac Mini 2 Pro. After a couple of months now, I haven't looked back, it just EFFING works how its supposed to! Total contrast to Windows 11. I've installed Office, Teams etc on it, and they just work as expected, despite my initial doubts.
Sidenote: I have tried many flavours of Linux over the years, but unfortunately I faced too many issues eventually, despite my love for Linux and open source. I will always support OO and Linux and indeed have Libreoffice running on the Mac. Returning to your point, what Apple have given me, is a fully polished and fully integrated version of Unix/BSD/Linux that just works out of the box, unlike all of my other experiences over the past 40 years.
...then I recently saw the Neo and was taken aback, it's got the potential to harm Windows 11 / MS massively. Good luck to them. Never thought I would think that about Apple, let alone say that.
"One of the reasons they can fix stuff "For free" is the huge margins that Apple have."
Correct, but as a consumer I am buying a product and I expect a decent level of service.
If I buy a car, I don't want to be left alone reading manuals and trying to understand the issue and fixing it myself (I did plenty of that when I was a youngster). Why should owning a Windows PC be a totally sheety experience? I've used MS since DOS 6, some 4 decades ago. I CAN fix problems with Windows etc, but I don't particularly want to spend my time on it.
Windows 11 is a pile of crap. I've given up on it and recently bought my first Mac, a Mini. Wow, what a lovely, stable, very fast and smooth machine compared to my top-end Dell laptop which still ends up crawling when Windows Search kicks off in the background or some other flucked up Windows process that suddenly takes up 32Gb of my RAM.
I wanted to install Mint on the Dell laptop rather than going for the Mac, but the available kernel and drivers aren't fully capable of running my device. I decided to not wait 6-12 months for Mint to catch up and instead took a punt on the little Mac. Best computer purchasing decision I have made in a very long time. I'm sure I'm, not the only one saying this. The Neo is now in my sights for the occasions I need to do a bit of work remotely.
"It would be interesting to see a stripped-down version of Word"
Not only for reduced RAM (hopefully) but also a segregated fubnctionality with Office 364, MS could do well to bring back MS Works. It had more than enough funtionality for 80-90% of users. They could then leave Office 363 as a power-users / professional suite
That’s not my experience at all. Swiss voters are actually very well informed.
For each voting occasion a detailed information pack is supplied which explains all the positions of the parties or the specific referendum pros and cons.
My family ( i can’t vote) sit down together around a table and spend hours reading it all and then clarifying and debating it between themselves. Also at school and work, friends, etc. They take democracy, especially this unique direct democracy, very seriously indeed. And they cherish it deeply, especially after witnessing the lack of real democracy, faux democracy elsewhere.
It's way better than it used to be. Let's remember that it was a small project by CERN techies that caught on and has grown to now be a vry popular and secure mail product, despite its tiny budget compared to Microslop and Giggle. It's now my main personal email system and I only use my outlook.com for shopping and other guff.
I've nearly always bought brand new laptops, but always waited for sales and older spec items, typically at 50-75% to their original price. I do this to ensure I get a 2+ year warranty with basic support and sometimes a cheap extension. I'm a heavy user and can't afford my laptop to fail, then be left to try and troubleshoot and fix it myself, or pay eye-watering repair prices in this part of the world.
When I wasn't self-employed and used to work for corporates, I'd often take 3-4 year old Dells which had depreciated fully and got them for free or very low price.
I can fully understand why people buy second-hand, realy innovation has almost toped out. That said, my latest Dell, less than a year old, has a battery that lasts for a full working day, even 12+ hours when not browsing the web. That 2-3 times longer than my previous models. That makes a big difference when travelling on business, also, chargers are generally smaller and lighter now.
Just wait until they have a French version of Office 361. Thinking again, they won't get sued for that if they name it in French as Bureau 365 (and it WILL be 365 unlike MS' 361 and falling...)
The word processor: Mot
The spreadsheet: Excellez
The consultant slides app: Point d'Appui
...and all run on a new OS called Fenêtre...
No comparison. Concorde was a rocket ship that more than halved the time to around 3 1/2 hours between London and New York.
In fact, it was so fast that it allowed me to do something once in my life, which is impossible on any other passenger plane, that’s a day return LHR-JFK-LHR, and spending a couple of hours in the Concorde lounge at JFK drinking Krug and trying caviar for the first time in my life.
12 minutes LOL
I had the fortune to be in the right place at the right time and got to fly this remarkable feat of human capability three times, all work related, I happened to work for the airline.
Once was a totally unplanned upgrade to the jump seat in the cockpit sat next to the flight engineer and his myriad of dials.
Asking the captain after a while when his workload tailed off as to when we’d go supersonic, he replied “about 20 minutes ago!” I didn’t notice the transition to supersonic, it was so smooth.
I was also glancing occasionally at the speedo which had topped out around “600”, I couldn’t see the units, I was too far away. When I mentioned the speedo indicator and my surprise we were supersonic, he replied with a laugh, “oh that? It’s the subsonic speedometer, the supersonic one is over here to the right!” I looked, and sure enough, we were whipping along at Mach 1.5 at 40,000 ft and slowly increasing speed to almost 2,0 and an eventual altitude touching almost 60,000 feet, a couple of hundred lower.
A quarter of the way into the flight the flight engineer remarked that one engine was indicating a temperature a few degrees higher than expected. He used a programmable scientific calculator to predict if and when the engine would fail. He checked over the radio back to base. He concluded that they could safely continue to JFK, and that once the engine was turned off it wouldn’t be able to restart and would need a thorough service.
Memories that I’ll never forget, especially since it wasn’t even planned to happen.
And Android. And Chrome OS. And iOS. And Mac.
Everyone out there using everything but Windows in their daily lives, they eventually realise they don't need to put up with all of the crap and inconvenience which bored Richmond marketers and devs decide to throw upon them just to justify keeping themselves in a job.
Windows 11 is a shitfest, I'm going to Mint permanently next year.
...as in ten in Roman numerals, and iPhones.
Pluto was recognized as the ninth planet for many decades—until Earth's overzealous scientific authorities, evidently lacking more pressing concerns, reclassified it as a 'dwarf planet.'
I have filed an appeal with the United Federation of Planets, and my Tellarite lawyer assures me that victory is not only probable—it’s inevitable.
Indeed, SoftMaker is a great alternative, it looks very similar to MS Office, unlike LibreOffice.
I use LO, in fact I used its granparent StarOffice back in the 1990s, but it's ideal for IT enthusiasts and professionals, NGOs with no money, students and academia. It serves a great purpose, but there's a much steeper learning curve than SoftMaker Office.
Given that it's a German company, I am surprised that the Danes appear to be ignoring it as an option, or at least evaluating it. Or maybe the Danes are not only not so keen on the USA / Trump, but also not keen on their German neighbour, the latter also having a habit of invading their territory.
No, smells of even more snooping for me.
Notepad is where I write down ideas, temporary even long term passwords, all manner of brain dumps. Some are saved but most are just there as temp files which reopen every time I restart Windows / Notepad. Then when no longer needed I just close the tab and it's gone from view, then removed from the disk time to time. Now it'll be permanently sitting somewhere in Microsoft's vast cloud network by default.
