Posts by Tim99 2146 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Apr 2008
I was told by somebody in the trade to use 3.5" (or even 2.5") drives instead of 5.25".
The rationale was that even though you need fewer of the bigger drives, the overall reliability of the smaller drives was much greater because they were designed for laptops where they would be expected to receive rough handling - The larger drives were for desktop use where they would "not be subjected to abuse".
Apocryphal, but they claimed to have evidence based on warranty returns.
@Getriebe
Thank you for your reply. In my career, I was one of the steam train people, generally being at the forefront of changes in IT over the last 40 years.
As I lack false modesty :-) I should tell you that I saw, and took advantage of many opportunities - Large systems replaced by fridge-sized and desktop minis, C and BASIC instead of FORTRAN, PCs replacing Minis, *NIX replacing VMS, NT and Linux displacing *NIX, Oracle replacing Rdb, Microsoft displacing providers like Novell and Sybase - Mostly increasing computing power and generic systems allowing the introduction of higher-level languages and more complex structures. I have also avoided stuff that looked as though it was going nowhere like the original SaaS frameworks. The last stuff that I did involved tablets and phones connecting to the main business, instead of laptops/desktops (Yes I bought the original iPad on the day that it came out, realizing that it was, potentially, a game-changer).
I, too, have worked on production lines before my first "real" careers, generally there was a possibility of progression for some; and for those whose job was boring, they created a life outside of work. I think that the insight that I can offer is that I have actually done most of this, including running technology/science based businesses for business types like bankers; and later setting up my own.
As I said, I suspect that there will be many fewer jobs in IT. You are right about the need for soft skills, but many of the people who got into the IT business did so because they really don't have that type of personality.
I am actually an imposter, my qualifications include Chartered status in one of the fundamental sciences, so I often think that my career was based on an objective analysis of the use of IT to actually get the work done. Least-ways that is what one of my bosses told me, because I did not automatically recommend whatever was hot in IT, and therefore something that would be deployed for my own career progression - Also not having my mind contaminated by COBOL and batch job processing :-)
I suspect that my gift, and my curse, was being one of people who were taught to actually think, so that we could all take advantage of the "white heat of technology".
Do I think that for the majority of humanity things have got better? Yes, particularly if you live in China or India. Do I think that things will get better for the majority of people who work in white-collar jobs in the developed economies? No, and it will be poor for most of them who currently work in IT.
As an aside, look at seeing what work you CAN do without needing to work for a large conventional employer - Cooperatives of peoples with many skills might be a way to go (until somebody decides that they need to be "in charge" to "get things done").
@AC 07:51
Too right, renting stuff to people is actually evil. I wrote this on my own server, powered by my own power station...
Funnily enough, I do have my own server, and power station (Solar Panels). A DCF analysis has shown that is not worth my while going completely off grid - We only get an average of 7.9 hours of sunshine a day; but as I am retired, I can use much of my electricity while it is being generated by sunlight.
Not to be too smug about it, I worked hard and am enjoying the benefits before I cark-it. I hope that you are not relying too much on IT as a long-term career. If you are, MS and the rest of the rentiers will try and eliminate your job soon. I'm sorry to say that this may well apply to most of the management droids, spread-sheet jockeys, marketers, sales people, network software support, database admins and general admin bunnies too. It may even apply to lawyers (Most of their work is already carried out by software and paralegals at <$40/hr). Perhaps it has something to do with nearly half of the workforce aspiring to an NQF level of 5 or above. In the 1970's this would have been equivalent to less than one in 10, because most of us did not need it.
I was told in the 1980s (When I was implementing and managing this stuff), that it was all for the good of humanity - We would all be working <20 hrs a week, our standard of living would be much higher and, that because of this, leisure industries were the way of the future. They lied - Work has become the art of more and more with less and less, supported by at least 10% structural un/under-employment. The majority of industrial jobs have gone - Or haven't you noticed the general "dumbing-down" of work. Decisions are now only made by a very select few, whilst the rest of the workforce do what that are told. Market forces and iability avoidance suggest that the people who have power and capital will soon destroy many of the "middle-class" jobs that El-Reg readers rely on. This makes it a bit easier to re-introduce C19th employment practices when your labour pool is a fungible commodity.
I would not have thought that as I got older I would start sounding like a reactionary socialist, normally people become more conservative in their views. Don't believe me - Google "Amazon working conditions"...
Trevor,
Some people call this rentier capitalism - Wikipedia Link.
Generally, the idea is that you invent something once and then continue to be able to keep charging for it. If you are powerful enough, you can get legislation to help you - An example would be Disney still having almost exclusive rights to selling Mickey Mouse products. Another way would be to become sufficiently powerful in the market to be able to buy or undercut any prospective competition to your model.
<OLD FART's RANT>
One of the reasons for my cynicism is that I was around in this business when Gates and Allen were still running Traf-O-Data. In the early 1980s I worked for a very large public utility where I helped displaced some complex and expensive mini-based scientific applications with cheaper MS/PC-DOS systems.
When Windows 3 came out we started to move everything over to it. I had lunch with our MS Rep (No, I am not Mike Cox), over coffee we gave him a bad time about Windows 286 and some of the 2-steps-forward-one-step-back "upgrades" to MS-DOS. Someone around the table asked what MS slogan was. The Rep was baffled. We said, you know, like DEC's is "Honesty and respect for customers and employees"; or IBM's "Think". He blurted out "Bill said $100 a year from everybody, for ever". Laughter all around the table. As Windows 3 became 3.1/3.11/95/98 etc, I realized that this was essentially true, and that Microsoft was a "Service" company. You only thought that you owned something.
I set up a company that (amongst other things) wrote Windows software. It became obvious to me that the MS idea of only supporting the current and the previous version of Office and Server Applications with each version of Windows; and requiring you to upgrade from older versions of Windows to use later Office and Server products; may well have been driven by this simple thought. This certainly appeared likely with NT 3.1/3.5/3.51/4.0 multiple service packs/2000 multiple service packs etc.
So, in conclusion, In My (Not So) Humble Opinion, this is not new. Microsoft are now formalising their existing long-term business strategies. They have managed to stay on top by clever marketing to developers, "lock-in" monopolies, a functional and "standard" suite of Office products, very strong developer tools and an ecosystem that relies on almost everything being MS based. If I was still running this sort of stuff for people, I would be worried. As the "Cloud" (horrid description) is deployed in more applications, Microsoft may not be your long-term friend.
</OLD FART's RANT>
To big-note myself Link - TheRegister, I previously wrote:-
Goods & Services Tax... we who are fortunate to live in the Antipodes do often get ripped off. Some of this is because of our relatively small population, some of it is because of our long supply chain: As explained to me many years ago when I imported goods: a $100 item imported into Oz may have an importers markup of 30%, a distributer/wholesaler markup of 30%, then a retailers markup of at least 30%. Now adding local taxes could give a final price to the punter of ~$250. A direct import from an internet supplier including shipping would have the final price of ~$130 (At the moment, a personally imported item of less than $1000 has no tax payable).
....
@Neoc
Thanks. Licensing is not a problem - I have a few old WinXP licences from dead machines, a spare Win7 Home licence, I play around with Linux/BSD and I think I have a disk with MacOS X Leopard on it with two spare install licences - although I understand that last OS may be a moot point in terms of install on non-Apple hardware.
Licence compliance is one reason why large consultants "justify" their prices, although they often get licencing deals that you can't. While it is a "home setup", it is unlikely that anyone will care too much. If you try and charge money, things can go wrong quickly.
If you do earn a crust from this, the Mac Licences are more than a moot point, they are not kosher. Check that the WinXP licences are retail, because otherwise they are probably OEMs and are not transferrable to other machines. The Linux stuff (unless it is, say, Red Hat, or Oracle commercial) is probably OK - You may need to be a registered developer though. The BSD stuff is likely to be OK.
Your power bill may be a bit more than you think too :-)
@DainB
My down-vote was because I have never seen an installation of an "out of the box supported" version of Windows, other than that for home or small business use...
Oh! Perhaps you meant that you could use expensive ^H standard ^H third-party tools to run out Windows in the Enterprise.
I speak as a user of and fan of MySQL, which I've been using for years, but outside of the core database engine, it's just not up to the level of the commercial packages. From my experience with the others FOSS alternatives, the same applies. Hell - Most of them don't even have backup agents for Networker/NetBackup/TSM, and this is a very good measure of readiness for Enterprise use.
As you are a fan of MySQL, perhaps you have not tried Postgres. It does the Networker/NetBackup/TSM backup thing. Writing as someone who has created Oracle, Rdb, Informix, SQL Server, Sybase, and other SQL based business applications, I have been favorably impressed by PostgreSQL - MySQL, not so much...
There are actually 75 premises connected to the NBN in Western Australia.
You what? You really should not believe this rubbish.
I live in WA on the Perth/Mandurah NBN segment. My street has 87 premises connected, with a further 14 being built within the next couple of months. Admittedly, because of a problem with the contractor, we "only" get about 44Mbps down/14Mbps up.
Combat Wombat. Thanks for your reply.
I suspect that the truth is more nuanced than either of us first thought.
The election data from the ABC (Vote Compass?), is self selected. It may be that it is biased in favour of the old and the young, compared to the majority of the population. Older people, in spite of their perceived under-utilisation of technology have more time to fill this stuff in. Younger people may have the time, and are generally more likely to engage with social technology.
When I looked at Vote Compass Link ABC Important Issues my immediate reaction was that the economy was much more important to all respondents than asylum seekers. The young and old had ranked similarly on asylum seekers ahead of the 35-54 demographic. Broadband was generally of less importance than asylum seekers; but as we might expect, was considered to be more important to those aged 18-34. These statistics are based on what the respondent thought was important, and not their actual opinion on each topic.
There is more information on Vote Compass data by importance here: Link ABC
If we look at the ABS age demographic date Link ABS it shows that of those who were able to vote only ~19% of them were over 64, so other issues than the perceived biases of older people about migrants were more likely to have influenced the result. It would seem that what got Abbot over the line was the economy. If we do take the ABC data as valid, the economy was of much more importance to retirees (This might support your "getting the most out of their retirement" idea).
If we ignore any political biases that we may have, the implied perception that Labor are bad economic managers could be thought ironic when we consider the LNPs indifferent performance in this area. One of the more inspired tactics of the previous Howard Governments was to tell us how well the economy was going and then to reinforce this by repaying our heavily taxed dollars to the aspirational (West Sydney?) voter as "middle class welfare".
A cynical person, like me, might think that what got the LNP over the line was actually Murdock's media.
@Combat Wombat
Mine was a "Grey vote". You might be surprised to know that many of us want FttP. I am fortunate to have the NBN where I live. We use it to FaceTime/Skype our friends and relatives and watch movies.
Many of us (particularly migrants) don't have a problem with brown people. The guy who just came and replaced the screen on my iMac was Pakistani, pleasant, and competent - Admittedly he was over 50 :-)
I am self-funded, so I don't know how your 'getting the most out of their retirement' bit applies. I take little responsibility for the unfolding disaster. I, and many of our retired friends, did not vote for the Mad Monk and his idiots - It would seem that many of those who did vote for them were from the younger "aspirational" group who generally do better under the Liberals than retirees...
You come over as at least as narrow-minded as your assumed target group.
Bit of a step down from $1.05bn verdict, though
Iain, another masterly subheading. It would seem that so far Koh has awarded 0.89bn of the original 1.05bn. I know that to many of us $160,000,000 would be real money, but Samsung or Apple might be able to find it down the back of the sofa...
Apple will be investigated in Italy for allegedly owing almost £1bn to the Euro nation's taxman, it was claimed last night............ It's claimed Apple is accused of understating its Italian revenue to the tune of about €1bn, which works out to £840m or $1.35bn. According to anonymous legal system insiders, Milanese prosecutors will claim Apple failed to declare €206m in 2010 and €853m in 2011.
I don't understand - The way El Reg has reported this, it implies that the Italian rate of tax is ~100% of revenue.
Trevor, an interesting article. I would go further, big boys are never needed for the majority of systems.
By majority, I mean small businesses (<20 employees) and medium businesses (<200 employees) [Ref: Australian Government]. Small businesses employ almost half of those who work in industry and contribute over a third of industry value added. For service based businesses the proportion is even higher. When taken together, Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) employ more people than large businesses and generate more wealth (similar to Canada?).
I have seen many "big boy" systems installed in medium businesses (and even occasionally in small ones). It might not be popular to say this on El Reg, but for them, consumer level systems are often adequate.
Need a switch? Buy consumer/entry level 8, 16 or 24 port 1Gb devices - They will cost <$200. If it is "mission critical" kit, buy two and put one away. For firewall/routers/WiFi kit companies like ZyXEL are OK. Even Apple is OK for WiFi for 50 or so users. If you have to, buy NETGEAR stuff, you can get it from your local consumer warehouse.
For an entry level server, an HP ProLiant MicroServer is fine for 5-10 users (~$400). For more shared storage a QNAP 4 Bay Hotswap works (~$600). Want an easy to use general server for <50 users - An Apple Mac Mini for $1,300 will do almost everything that the average SMB needs (If you need more capacity, buy another one and migrate your intranet or mail server to it). Whilst not necessarily popular in these fora - For SMBs who are buying iFondle devices the Apple route is a no-brainer; particularly as they may now only be using desktops and laptops for a couple of people providing admin/clerical support or business spreadsheets...
If your medium business has more than, say, fifty employees, you may be particularly vulnerable. The smaller business can use its flexibility and lower costs to compete with you. Large businesses may use their power with legislators to pile on administrative and compliance issues so that you cannot compete with them. It is an unfortunate fact of life that organizations do not necessarily become more efficient as their size increases.
If you can't do this stuff yourself, most of it can be done by a small business IT solutions company to look after it for 1 day a month. If you are a one of their customers, ask yourself whether your solutions company is pushing you towards customised specialist solutions. Can simple CalDAV / cardDAV systems do all you need? If so, this gives a lot of flexibility and stops you being reliant on your contractor.
In my (not so) humble opinion, systems for SMBs can, and should be, put together cheaply and reliably using consumer and entry level equipment. When I did this for a living, we realised that as soon as you could buy a tech item from your local superstore, that was the time to get out of supplying and servicing it.
To quote Rockhound in Armageddon when they're sitting on the launch pad:"You know we're sitting on four million pounds of fuel, one nuclear weapon and a thing that has 270,000 moving parts built by the lowest bidder. Makes you feel good, doesn't it?"
I think that this is art following life. I remembered a similar quote from John Glenn talking about what Alan Shepard had said:
"People asked him [Alan Shepard] that [question] after the flight," Glenn noted. "And Shepard said: `I wasn’t scared, but I was up there looking around, and suddenly I realized I was sitting on top of a rocket built by the lowest bidder.’
There was a thread from QI about it a while ago.
I also wish foxconn would burn to the ground and free Apples slaves the two faced lying bastardsI do not own a apple product and will never own one while Apple keeps using FOXCONN
So you don't own products made by Foxconn for these companies either?
Acer, Amazon.com, Cisco, Dell, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Motorola Mobility, Nintendo, Nokia, Sony, Toshiba, and Vizio. (Wikipedia)
Perhaps all of your electronic kit is made by that paragon of best practice Samsung?
I'm sure that the following is not an issue in this case, but it might be worth dissemination.
I'm retired now, but have spent (a lot of) time getting our software working in remote and regional communities. A common problem is that of the "local expert". Typically it is someone from the very small local IT shop, who can smell public money and over-specs the job to an unbelievable degree - Or a council or community centre manager who has a main network up and running in their local offices, library, or community centre. Their "consultant" will tell them that they need to consolidate everything from the remote community into their main domain, citing that this is necessary for ease of management and security.
Typically they will connect the remote systems to the local Windows AD forest using an ADSL or ISDN link. Surprisingly when nothing works, because they are waiting for a directory token down a flakey 1<Mb link, they will call out the expert consultant again, who will often suggest that their problems will be solved if they set up local replica servers. That does not help either.
Generally, if the local politics allowed, we tried to help the end-user by simplifying everything such that they could be empowered to be self sufficient - Otherwise using Terminal Services/Remote Desktop Services would often work.
I would recommend that everything is on an UPS, as power to these communities can be very flakey, and that consumer grade equipment is chosen as repairing/replacing professional kit is usually a nightmare. As a rule Windows 7 based stuff was OK-ish. Linux support locally is generally poor, as the council type guys almost exclusively know Windows. I have no personal experience with Windows 8, other than with seniors who only seem to use IE and mail. In a couple of Aboriginal communities that I worked with, Apple stuff was generally liked (It just works - Provided they kept the doors and windows shut to stop the local red dust getting inside their iMacs, where it was not generally feasible for them to clean it out themselves). Mac Minis were OK.
@Tim Worstal
" You can't understand how web pages work without at least a basic comprehension of JavaScript. You can't set up anything more than the most basic web site without PHP or Python."
Bah, script kiddies...
All you need is C and FastCGI - Link: fastcgi.com
@AC 08:48
A full published support road map for all products - for instance XP will have been supported for circa 13 years by the time it is retired - and paid support is still an option after that.....
I used to write software for XP - In quite a lot of instances there was not a lot of similarity between the original XP and XP SP1, SP2 and SP3.
I note that, so far, there are about 12 fairly extreme posts from ACa for Windows compared to about half that number biased towards Linux. A cynical person might suspect that astroturfers and shills are busy...
Just wondering why you need to refer to them as the "Apple-assembling firm", whenA) they were making Sony PS/4's and
B) they manufacture for at least::
Apple Inc.,ASRock, Asus, Barnes & Noble, Cisco, Dell, EVGA Corporation, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, IBM, Lenovo, Logitech, Microsoft, MSI, Motorola, Netgear, Nintendo, Nokia, Panasonic ,Philips ,Samsung ,Sharp, Sony, Toshiba, Vizio as far as I can see..
Is Apple bashing THAT big a money-click earner ?
Yes, perhaps, because Apple bashing is a that much of money earner and Jasper may be a click-whore?
@AC 08:48
Many years of mangling management, including systematization of processes, developing new businesses and running them (including my own), has shown that when something is stuffed-up it requires more than twice the original effort to fix.
So when 10-30% of what you do is stuffed, it takes more effort to fix the stuff-ups than it does to deal with the 70-90% that you got right. This leads to fire brigade management, potential loss of your most talented staff (who see what is happening); increased sick-leave because of stress; and a reduction in what the organization can charge for its products- Unless or course you are running an oligopoly.
@Hollerith 1
Copyright can be said to have been formalized in 1710 with the Statute of (Queen) Anne when the rights were granted to the Author for a period of 14 years - If the Author was still alive at the end of 14 years the right was extended for another 14 years, after which period the work went into the public domain. The purpose of the new act was for "the Encouragement of Learned Men to Compose and Write useful Books". This cannot really be compared to the present systems where, courtesy of the likes of Disney, works can be copyrighted by corporations with a term of 75 years...
For 150 years or so before Anne works were controlled by the Stationers Company who had exclusive rights to print and publish in return for censorship on behalf of the Crown. The US was bound by Anne until after 1776 when the government realised that they had little significant works to protect, and that most of the works that they wanted came from Europe. It was not in the interests of the US to encourage copyright until, as you mention, the C19th when they had significant quantities of original works that they wanted to protect internationally. I find that it is useful to remember this when criticizing the newer rapidly developing economies who can have a cavalier attitude to "Intellectual Property" (horrible weasel words).
I should mention that I am a copyright holder myself, although much of mine is available to the Commons.
@Tom 7
I live where it is sunny for most of the year. Our government subsidized 1.5KW solar systems so that they cost about $2,000.00. The subsidy has since been reduced and the systems still cost about the same. A 3KW system costs about $4,000.00. Originally there was a supplier's subsidy of $0.42 a unit generated, it is now about $0.11 a unit (about half the cost that the supplier charges to normal customers). The buy-back time for many users is less than 4 years, which is why most houses around me have solar panels. The take-up in older suburbs is now constrained by limitations in what their infrastructure can take when the generated solar electricity is pushed back to the grid. Replacement of the older systems is a significant cost to the utility.
@monkeyfish
As in the post above, we use DSL and demonstrate Puppy. We also use Ubuntu and Debian (both too hard for most pupils).
After spending too much of my working life writing (DOS and Windows) software; in retirement I run a small Debian server, an IMac and a MkI iPad. My wife is waiting for the Mk5 iPad before she buys herself one.
If I have to help my successors, I fire Windows up in a VM. Other than as a volunteer, I don't do Windows stuff. Hypocritically, Windows was great when I was getting paid quite a lot of money to work with it - Bill's IT job creation project - But not so good when you have to support it for yourself. The *NIX stuff I learnt 30+ years ago is a comfortable place to be in both Linux and OS X. I play with a Raspberry Pii.
For some of the older people that I know computing is now a tablet and WiFi.
I am a volunteer teacher of computing stuff for the over 50s (I'm retired). These statistics for older people are probably about right. Older people's use of Internet can often be constrained by financial circumstances and physical frailties.
We group our pupils in several ways, and can predict fairly reliably how successful "The Internet" will be for them:-
@AlexS
To be fair, the authors did state:-
"Why Samsung's Android? Simple: "We have chosen Samsung's implementation of Android," they write, "since, given the overwhelming market share of Samsung in the smartphone market, it is clearly the most widely used version of Android currently distributed."
@Andy Prough 01:11 GMT
[What's not to love about Apple? A company that imprisons its customers in the luxuries of its walled garden of closed source software, locked-down hardware, and a closed app and content ecosystem. A company that, without a shadow of a doubt, builds backdoors for the NSA into its proprietary blobs, making every one of those shiny iToys into a useful government surveillance device.]
-
Andy from his posting history, has an Android:
http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2013/07/06/samsung_isnt_alone_htc_profits_take_a_huge_dive/#c_1884256
and writes how he prefers Windows 8 to 7...
Perhaps he forgot that Microsoft was on-board with PRISM in Nov 2007 and Google in Jan 2009; but Apple was not added until Oct 2012:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/06/snowden-powerpoint/#slideid-57994
When you are going to troll, perhaps you should use another account.
Sorry in my previous post (Senility strikes) I should also have mentioned that you can start the Mac in single user mode (Command-S). Then connect the external drive. You can then run UNIX (BSD-ish) stuff from the command prompt like: -
ls –l /dev/disk* (or Apple's diskutil list )
and:
mount -r –t hfs /dev/disk1s2 /drive2
then rsysnc or cp whatever...
@Rick Damiani
[OSX is a lot less forgiving of hard drive issues than Windows is. A bad external drive will halt OSX, preventing recovery of the data. With Windows you can usually recover stuff from a failing drive as long as you avoid writing to the drive.]
Rick try SystemRescueCD www.sysresccd.org - The ISO will boot from a Mac optical drive (I haven't tried the USB bootable version), you then have all of the Linuxy goodness stuff to mount the drive as read only, and then cp or rsync the drive's files to the internal drive...
@Martin Budden
{What if you just hide it under the bed?}
Somebody would get paid a quite a lot of money to construct the extensions on the bed legs, the ladder to climb up into bed, and the safety rail around the mattress to stop you falling out.
A billion dollars is 10,000,000 $100 notes, so assuming that you have a kingsize bed (You are, after all, a billionaire), a very rough calculation suggests that the pile would be about 10 feet high...
"Coder is a second signal that the Pi may be a little more confronting than its makers intended. ®"
Or more worryingly, for Google, something that does not immediately leak privacy.
Can't have a generation growing up without using Google for everything, can we?
Using this icon, but would like to use AC instead although not anonymous >>===>
@psychonaut
Link for Eric Blair - George Orwell
"Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist and critic. His work is marked by lucid prose, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism and commitment to democratic socialism".
@Frumious Bandersnatch
[OK, it was Communists then, Terrorists now, but plus ça change ...]
Yes, but since then, the Communists were declared to have been beaten, so we need a new bogeyman. The good news for the "intelligence" and military businesses is that the "War on Terror" has no well defined enemy and no way of measuring victory - Now the war can last indefinitely.
-
"The purpose of the unwinnable, perpetual war is to consume human labour and commodities, hence the economy of a super-state cannot support economic equality (a high standard of life) for every citizen".
Ref: the fictional book "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, by Emmanuel Goldstein" in Eric Blair's "Nineteen Eighty-Four".
@AC 09:26
<blockquote>
So?? That has no more relevance than it mentions the word watch.
</blockquote>
The relevance is that Samsung are hoping to charge a lot of money for a device that has a likely useful life of <2 years, is only marginally useful, and like an old watch will only run for a day without being repowered.
I would be very surprised if many of them are in working order in 5 years. Smartphones work because they are a useful stand-alone compromise hybrid of a phone, calendar, address book, map, camera, diary, note book and computer. The Samsung only appears to do one thing well (tell the time) with most of its other functions a fairly poor compromise.
I have seen previous "world changing" hybrid electronic watch/technology hybrids fail because they really are far more trouble than they are worth to the average user - You also risk looking like the sort of person who thought that a Casio Calculator Watch was really cool :-)
On the other hand (wrist?) a single function analogue watch tells you immediately that it is nearly time to go to the pub...
The watch that I am currently wearing is a Longines "Professional" purchased in 1942 by my father for £5 in Cairo (admittedly quite a lot of money back then). He bought it as being better than the standard RAF aircrew Observer's (Navigator/Bomb-Aimer) watch.
So far in 71 years it has been cleaned 5 times, has had a new crystal and a number of new straps. The radium luminescence is now very weak so it only glows very faintly.. Usually I remember to wind it up, and so, generally, it is wrong by less than a minute/month. Apparently it is now worth ~£1,000.00.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
