Posts by kb

Microsoft blasts PC makers: It's YOUR fault Windows 8 crash landed

Re: Well...

Well its not only that, oh and FYI it was NOT "Vista PREMIUM Capable" as that would have meant it could actually run Vista HP, no what got them was it was Vista CAPABLE which they had set the bar so low so that Intel could unload their God awful 9xx chipsets that frankly you could have sold P3 Celerons and gotten that title as the bar was THAT low. It turned out "Vista capable" was Vista"BASIC" capable which the courts ruled wasn't Vista, it was a crippled netbook OS.

Now as far as the turd goes...sigh, when you need a Win 7 PC to Google how to use the Win 8 PC? Something has gone horribly wrong and before any apologists chime in with "Oh you are just a Luddite you don't want to learn new things" or "All you need to do is (ton of keyboard crud)" I learned enough to do basic tasks in Linux, not do anything fancy, just basics, in about an hour, Android even less than that, about a half hour, whereas 4 days later I still couldn't find basic features in Win 8. I mean the UI doesn't even follow any established guidelines or even common sense. You get to the shutdown from a SETTINGS icon, really? And I'm far from the only one, here is a guy that writes fricking tech articles all day and even HE needed a Win 7 PC to Google how to use the brand new Win 8 PC in front of him. There is NO context clues, no consistency on how things work, its just kinda random..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTYet-qf1jo

Everyone should watch that video because as a tech writer he explains exactly what is wrong (he goes so far as to say there should be a recall) I would only add that in my little shop I had a frankly beautiful Athlon triple core running Win 8 for nearly 7 months for people to try and not only did I not get a SINGLE person saying they actually LIKED Win 8, the closest i could get to a compliment is "Well it may be alright on a cellphone" but not a single person made me an offer on that system, even though it was frankly a beautiful machine. I put Win 7 HP on it? Sold it in less than 3 days. Hmmm...7 months VS 3 days...yeah as a retailer that is all i need to know right there.

AMD alllllmost promises profitability by year end

The problem at AMD ain't Intel, its AMD

The problem as written up by a former engineer is that the CEO after Ruiz, can't remember his name ATM, basically did a slash and burn on the company so he could get a quick rise out of the stock and cash out. The guys that made Bobcat? FIRED. The guys that made Athlon64? FIRED.

Pretty much all of the really great chip designers they had were given the boot in favor of computer controlled layouts which is why the bulldozer line is such a power piggie, computers simply don't understand anything about optimizing or most used paths so you end up with a chip that's 15% larger, slower, and more power hungry which when you are already behind is NOT the way to go. But of course firing that many people that got decent paychecks did give a short term bounce to the stock. Here is the link although I don't know if links are allowed here or not, this is my first time trying to post a link here so if I mess it up my apologies.

http://www.insideris.com/amd-spreads-propaganda-ex-employee-speaks-out/

Microsoft to end Windows 8 discounts on January 31

Re: Shooting themselves in the foot?

The reason for this is obvious and simple AC, for the past few years, since the release of WinPhone at least, Ballmer has cared about nothing but Wall Street and NOT the customer base.

A sane CEO would look at the negative indicators across the board and not only not give people the choice of Win 7 or 8 to stop the bleeding but to more than double the price on a product they can't sell at $40? Well wall Street likes high priced products herpa de derpa de derp.

The only nice thing I can say about Win 8 is thus: Windows 8 will finally get people to accept that Vista wasn't the mess they thought it was. At least with Vista by SP2 it worked quite well and as long as you turned off its hyper UAC bugging the snot out of you it was quite usable. With Win 8 frankly it needs a product recall as its BROKEN. I mean when most people need a Win 7 PC to Google how to do basic tasks like close metro apps in Win 8 or even shut down the PC? I mean who thought putting shutdown under the universal SETTINGS icon?

Windows 8 will go down as the biggest disaster since WinME, maybe even as bad as Bob.

Intel's fourth quarter a bummer, as expected

Re: No doubt to be followed in 2014...

I'm sorry but you are wrong and ARM is frankly a fad. The users will soon grow tired of it when it hits the powerwall (Nvidia is already up to 5 cores, Samsung up to 6) and can't squeeze any more performance out of the chips, it just doesn't scale up very well and the best chips being made can't even beat a Cedar Mill P4 in IPC.

No what has happened to Intel and AMD is something we PC retailers have been predicting for quite awhile now which is thus: PCs passed "good enough" and shot straight into "insanely overpowered" several releases back. Look at what I was selling on the LOW end FIVE years ago, Phenom I X4 with 4GB of RAM and a 500GB HDD with a Radeon 4200 IGP. How many of your average users are gonna be able to max out that system? Not many. Heck I love to game and built myself a new system every year and a half, now I'm using a 3+ year old box, heck I didn't even really need to upgrade the Deneb quad to a Thuban Hexacore but when I found Hexacores for $100 I couldn't pass the deal up.

The simple fact is your average user will be WELL served by a first gen Phenom X2 or better or on the Intel side a Core Duo first gen or better because the software just hasn't been able to keep up with the huge leap in processing power since the MHz war became the core war. Take my dad for example whom I use as my perfect "average user" metric because everything he does with his PCs is mainstream. He watches videos and surfs, he chats and checks his webmail, runs his quickbooks and burns discs, as average a user as you could possibly get. When the Phenom IIs went on sale cheap I thought "Ya know, its been a few years since I built him that Phenom I quad home and office systems, maybe I should see if he needs a new unit" so I set up performance logging and came back in a couple of weeks...know what I found? 45%, that was the MAX he had been able to use after 2 weeks of daily use, 45% CPU. Most of the time 2 or more cores were twiddling their thumbs waiting on useful work to do. I found the same is true when it comes to my netbook, I figured that AMD E350 netbook would last me MAYBE 2 years and then I'd get another, instead what do I find? For the things I do when out on service call the netbook works perfectly, so why buy another?

And THAT is why sales are down. I predict the SAME will happen to ARM in less than 2 years, you already have companies piling on the cores trying to get more IPC and yet you have ARM Holdings talking about "dark silicon" because if you turn everything on with their new ARM64 chips you'll have battery life measured in minutes. Other than Apple who has dedicated fans who look at using last year's iPad as practically a sin most companies will end up in a race to the bottom (just like X86) as fewer and fewer feel a need to buy the latest tablet because that Tegra multicore does everything they want it to do. The simple fact is we haven't had a "killer app" since the end of the MHz wars that can actually slam what we have, a few tiny niches like CAD need every cycle they can get but most users? Wouldn't feel any difference between that first gen Phenom X4 or C2Q and a system with the latest and greatest so why buy a new one?

Nvidia takes fight to Sony, Nintendo with Android handheld console

Re: Well when you've been dumped by everyone else...

One of the big money makers has been the consoles and except for the Steambox which we haven't heard the specs of yet the big three, Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony are ALL using AMD for their next gen consoles. The PS4 will have an AMD APU covering CPU and GPU, the Xbox Next will have a PPC with an AMD GPU, and the Wii-U has the equivalent of an HD4670 last I heard, so Nvidia is pretty much trapped in PC gamer land for the most part.

Sure there are some takers for Tegra but since you can get a broadcom HD chip for dirt cheap and more people play videos than games on their tablets its gonna be a pretty small niche. as a PC gamer I can tell you that most of us are buying less cards simply because the consoles hamstring the graphics, heck I'm still running an HD4850 which still plays all the games at native res and with plenty of bling. I'm gonna get an HD6850 not because I need it but because its my BDay in a couple of months and the HD68xx use less power, but frankly I don't NEED the card to play all the latest games like Borderlands 2 with full bling and talking to customers that game they are telling me the same thing, they are using 2+ year old GPUs because they see no point in upgrading.

So yeah Nvidia is in a bad way right now. and its obvious that AMD buying ATI was a smart move as when the previous CEO fired all the engineers and bet the farm on netburst...err I mean Bulldozer its the ATI division that is gonna keep the cash rolling for the next couple of years and having 3 major consoles is gonna be a heck of a nice earner, and with both the X360 and Wii having ATI as well as long as those units are still sold that's more money for AMD, less for Nvidia. So while I don't really have a horse in the console race I have to say I probably wouldn't buy Nvidia stock right now, looks like they are gonna be in for a lean patch.

Seagate slips out super-silent 2.5in video hard drive

Re: typo

To me the bigger problem is the name...Seagate. i don't know if you guys have been seeing the same thing on that side of the pond but here in the states Seagate is quickly getting the rep of "the company whose stuff you don't count on" because of all the failures, just look at the BF and Xmas ads, the WDs were selling for as much as 40% more than the Seagates and they would sell out whereas the Seagates have been on sale for weeks and they still can't move 'em.

Now I don't know if this is true or not, just what I heard, but the scuttlebutt going around is this can all be traced back to the Maxtor deal, instead of bringing Maxtor up to Seagate quality they cranked out the cheap garbage Maxtor ARM controller chips and those when combined with frankly lousy firmware code is making these things die left and right. the way I had it explained to me is the firmware screws up and can "lose" where the sectors end at when those cheap ARM chips get too hot and it tries to slam past the physical boundary and bye bye Seagate.

So if it were me I'd just put up with a little more noise and wait 6-8 months before touching anything with the name Seagate on it. In my exp the best is Samsung (if you can find any) followed by Hitachi (both Samsung and Hitachi pre-buyout of course) followed by WD and then at the bottom of the barrel Seagates. I know I've dealt with enough dead Seagates in the past 3 years at the shop I avoid them like the plague and even had to walk a guy through building a clean box so he could try to save his family photos that were on a less than 2 month old Seagate that croaked. The quality just isn't there anymore and when it comes to your data is it REALLY worth such a risk to savea few DBs worth of sound?

Apotheker: HP board was just as culpable for Autonomy buy

I have been saying its a CYA

For awhile now, they are trying to use him as a scapegoat when the simple fact is you look and the SAME BOARD has been there for all of the major foul ups of the last 5+ years! I mean you look at their track record of purchases and you quickly spot an obvious pattern...they always massively overpay for a company then end up having to take a big write down!

Seriously folks this board makes the one at AMD look like Mensa, they have made one horribly bad call after another and blown through cash like Charlie Sheen at a porn convention and now that the stock is nosediving and it looks like the poo might hit the blades the board, which included Whitman BTW, are trying to do a CYA and blame it on the last deal. Well I'm sorry but if you want me to swallow this company was so brilliant they could cook the books to the tune of 5+ billion and not get caught? That is laughable.

'HP has just days to cough what it knew about Autonomy'

Re: When smoke gets in your eyes

I don't know why anybody would mark you down when one only has to look at the history of HP to know their claims are rubbish. I mean they expect us to swallow a 5.5 BILLION dollar book cooking that just so happened to get by not one but two separate accounting firms? Give me a break!

But you look at the past 6 years or so of HP and you quickly see a pattern emerge which is pretty much spot on what you listed with one change to #1 which is "CEO buys company FOR SEVERAL TIMES ITS VALUE then gets bullet along with others". Hp has bought companies multiple times now for several times what the most optimistic outlook would warrant, just look at what they paid for WebOS.

But the part I'm hoping this stink will change is Whitman and the board, because while the CEOs have been through the place like a revolving door the board that rubber stamped these insane moves including Whitman are still there and still filling the air with the stench of failure. This is why going through multiple CEOs hasn't helped AMD either, because its the pathetic board that has stayed and stunk up the place.

So I hope it all ends up getting aired in public and the board get their golden parachutes and just get out before they have completely destroyed the company, because its painful to see what once was a great company just get run into the ground like that.

The best e-readers for Christmas

Frankly they can sing and dance

As its not gonna matter, the tablets are gonna make all the eReaders other than the Kindle look as dated and worthless as 8-tracks. I mean put yourselves in the shoes of one of my customers, I tell them that for $130 I can get them a nice eReader, or for the SAME PRICE I can get them a 7 inch tablet that not only read eBooks but can ALSO play music and watch movies and plays games and even comes with Angry Birds and Cut The Rope? Its really not a hard choice for them, I have yet to have one say "I'd rather just have an eReader, thanks".

The ONLY reason the Kindle will survive and thrive is because Amazon has spent crazy money to make it so, both with the deals with the carriers they made for the "free 3G" and by willing to take a lesser cut from authors so they have an incredible selection at cheap prices. All of the book lovers I know have switched simply because of the combination of it being cheap ( and it having such a huge selection at great prices.

So I have a feeling this time next year the other eReaders will be toast or nothing but a standard Android color tablet with an eReader app, they simply can't compete with the Android tablets that grow ever more powerful while becoming ever cheaper. Heck I pointed a customer to one of those $70 tablets on the week of Black Friday for her grand niece, she loves it so much after seeing how nicely it ran she ended up going back and buying tablets for all her friends. Can't say as I blame her, 1.2Ghz, 512Mb of RAM, 4Gb of space, and with all the apps like FB that people want as well as a bunch of games like Angry Birds? At prices that low most of the eReaders don't stand a chance.

Slash A THIRD off Surface RT price or it's toast, Microsoft told

Re: Said it before and I'll say it again

Actually as a retailer I haven't seen the tablets take much away from the netbooks either, in fact its the OEMs taking AMD's netbook chips and slapping them in 15 inch laptops that is hurting the netbook sales because they are becoming harder to find, at least here in the states.

No what I'm seeing with the tablets is TWO uses, and two uses alone. 1.- Giving them to the kids as a low cost net consumption device that keep the kiddies off mommy or daddy's PCs, and 2.- A "look stuff up from the couch" device so mommy or daddy can find out who that actor is while the commercial is on or do a quick check of their email.

But I haven't met a single customer that is giving up their desktop or laptop for a tablet, keyboard attachment or no. Any retailer will tell you the reason X86 sales are down is because the core wars has caused machines for the past several years to be MASSIVELY overpowered compared to the work the people have for them, hell the netbooks I'm selling are all dual cores with plenty of RAM and HDD space, and the low end desktops I've been selling for nearly 5 years are all triple cores with tons of space and the ability to do 1080p...so what do they need a new one for, when they have the equivalent of a jet fuel burning funny car just to go to the store?

So I predict tablets will continue to race to the bottom so that by this time next year we'll have dual core 7 inchers for $50 USD and then a year after that sales will drop just as they have for X86 because everybody that wants one will have one. And I predict win 8 in ALL flavors will flop, I'm not even gonna carry it because of all the hate and backlash I've seen from customers, they just don't like metro and that is that.

They could cut it in half and it wouldn't help

Because MSFT refuses to accept reality which is thus: NOBODY buys Windows because they LIKE the brand, they buy it because they have a ton of Windows X86 software to run! What you have is a "WINO" Windows In Name Only, and nobody wants a Windows that don't run Windows programs. I mean why would they? Android units are MUCH cheaper, Apple has the better branding, and both have MUCH more apps.

As a retailer who is telling his customers to avoid Win 8 like an STD I'm just gonna kick back and enjoy the fail, because rather than listening to their customers and giving them what they want Ballmer would rather try to make MSFT into an ersatz Apple and nobody wants an ersatz. So I say kick back and enjoy , I'd say you can get them on Woot! in 6 months for $99 but knowing Ballmer's ego he'll probably have them buried in NM next to the ET carts rather than admit he failed.

Windows 8 fails to revive world CPU biz

Re: Could it just be......

Bingo, we have a winner! The simple fact is one we retailers could have told you a couple years back, and that is when they switched from the MHz wars to the core wars the PC quickly outpaced both the users and the software.

I mean look at what I was selling on my low end FIVE years ago, a Phenom I X3 or X4 with 4Gb of RAM and a 500Gb HDD...now what is Joe and Jane Average gonna do that is gonna stress this CPU? Nothing, they just can't come up with enough work to stress the chip so why buy a new one? Heck I've been picking up Athlon X3s for $60 USD and X4s for $80 USD, so I've been able to build dirt cheap units that are frankly insanely overpowered, what is little Timmy gonna do to stress that chip? slap a $100 GPU and you can even game with it, no problem.

So its not "the death of the PC" or "the rise of smartphones" or any of that rubbish, its just users have desktops and laptops that are so much more powerful than what they need that they see no reason to replace them. heck my netbook is going on 3 years old yet it has a dual core with 8Gb of RAM and a 320Gb HDD, what good would a new one bring me? would it make my surfing any faster, my movies somehow better? Nope, so I just won't buy a new one until the old one dies, there just isn't any point.

AMD finishes its 'Piledriver' Opteron server chip rollout

We have a winner!

As Jobs said all those years ago "Microsoft doesn't have to lose for Apple to win" and the same applies here, if AMD keeps the "bang for the buck" while still making decent profits? Well its a lot easier to sell a low priced machine with more cores than a higher priced one with less, i don't care what market you are talking about.

I do have a question though, will those AM3+ Opterons work in a standard board, or are they server only? Because that 8 core one might be a nice upgrade to my Thuban, when you are doing video editing and transcoding no such thing as too many cores ya know.

But as far as ARM? I really wouldn't bet the farm on ARM, I think its time is just about over. they simply haven't been able to bump up the IPC high enough to keep up with the ever higher multimedia and gaming demands and that when combined with the fact you can only bolt so many cores onto ARM before blowing the power savings has them pretty much in a pickle. mark my words you'll see dual core ARM tablets for $50, because without speed or cores they will have a race to the bottom just like x86, you'll have a few companies like Apple make money in the ARM field but most will lose their shirts. if AMD bets the farm on ARM they may as well close their doors now, they have nothing to offer over Apple and Nvidia in that space. The fact that they are the only other source for X86 chips gives them an advantage, and if they can continue dropping the heat while bumping the IPC without pricing the chips out of their low to midrange market? Then they can carve out a nice niche without having to worry about Intel one way or another.

WD to crash down five terabyte desktop job, mutterings suggest

Never hear of the Osborne Effect?

If they confirm it'll get picked up by the big sites and not just the geeky places and with Xmas coming up they don't want everybody going "Well I was gonna buy a 2Tb, but hey, they are coming out with a 5Tb next year! I think I'll wait on that!" and watching their sales dry up.

I just hope that with the release of 4Tb and 5Tb we'll see the return of pre-flood prices on the 1Tb and 2Tb models, because I was paying $35 USD a Tb which was a LOT more affordable, thank you very much. I'm sitting on 3Tb right now and I'd love to double that but not at these prices, i'll wait until they come down.

Revealed: The gift that keeps on giving to Oracle ... is dying

Re: Oracle? That crowd spreading malware?

Who installs stuff like Java manually anymore, when even the little guy can have it automated and toolbar free? just go to Ninite, check the boxes for what you want, that's it. Totally free for personal use and if you're running a business they have really cheap support licenses and will even help you set up a copy of their server so updates to any software you have can be downloaded once and spread to all the PCs, really nice that.

John McAfee remains on the run, but outside Belize

Re: As much as it makes a good story

While this is true just talk to any cops about bath salts and get ready to hear some horror stories, this garbage makes PCP look like a slight pot buzz. The paranoia especially is dangerous, the buzz gives them what they feel is a heightened awareness of what is going on around them and that coupled with EXTREME paranoia makes them VERY dangerous. I have a friend whose ex is in a mental facility now because he did bath salts and went stark raving bonkers, to this day he has extreme bouts of paranoia nearly 2 years after doing it.

Clap Google, Amazon in irons to end tax shenanigans - MPs

Re: But what about muh socialism?

Look up "double dutch" and "Irish whip" tax dodges and you'll see why we here in the states hate them as much as your MPs, basically they are paying jack and squat on their profits (FYI Apple set records for profits while paying less than 2% in taxes) by simply bouncing the money between tax havens and giving itself high interest loans which its pays...itself.

For those that say we shouldn't tax corps then fine, allow regular folks to do the same tricks and see how quickly the government debt becomes unsustainable. As always these tax dodgers have to be made up somehow and the way is usually higher regressive taxes on the poorest workers. Meanwhile these corp CEOs live like Gods and enjoy all the benefits without paying a bit of the cost. look up what the fortune 50 paid in taxes last year but don't do it right after you have eaten, as its liable to make you ill.

Google+ exec declares Facebook 'social network of the past'

Re: Google+

Ditto, on Google+, never use it. Everybody I know is on FB, so what would I need G+ for?

'Brit Bill Gates' Lynch: Only Mad Leo Apotheker understood Autonomy

Re: Anyone ever heard of due diligence

Jesus, what are you, four years old? the guy made it very clear, even explained what goodwill IS which should be pretty damned obvious if you have goodwill ABOVE the actual value of the corporation itself there is a serious problem, yet you seem to act like these concrete facts are some kind of smokescreen...WTF?

For a company to pay 5.5 BILLION more than the company was worth and then try to blame that on accounting? I'm sorry, this isn't Enron, no way to cook the books THAT much without even a first year accountant catching that. Their explanation is simply beyond belief. They would have to be the most incompetent company on the planet (possible) PLUS have not one but TWO accounting firms that would be willing to risk the destruction of their firms and even serious jail time to cover up the fraud, or again they would have had to magically pick the absolute most clueless and incompetent accounting firm ON THE PLANET who just so happen to be as completely clueless as the firm hired by Autonomy.

The set of circumstances required for this to truly be a case of fraud on this scale are simply beyond the plausible, especially when you are talking about a company with a proven undeniable track record of massively overpaying for companies.

So just quit when you're behind dude, there is a difference between arguing a point on its merits and being purposely obtuse for the sake of keeping the sh*t stirring, and you sir are firmly in the latter.

Re: Anyone ever heard of due diligence

To anyone who believes the "accounting" BS I have this to say...what about Palm? EDS? If everything a company touches turns to poo poo it ain't the acquisitions, its the COMPANY. The reason HP has been all over the map the last few years if they have no clue what direction they want to go and when a CEO couldn't wave a magic wand and turn them into Apple he'd be canned and another one brought in, see AMD for another example of this stupidity.

I have NO doubt that a 2+ year investigation will turn up jack and squat, but by then the ones that would have gotten the blame for throwing away another pile of money will be out the door. At the end of the day with both HP and AMD there is only ONE place to lay the blame, and that is incompetent boards.

Hearts, minds and balls: Microsoft's Windows 8 Surface gamble

Re: The good new is...

$550 pounds...that is like $880 USD right? Give or take a few? Yeah Dell tried that but the thing is...nobody wants the Atom here in the states, its just not a good chip. Its too weak for most X86 programs while getting worse battery life than ARM, its really the worst of both worlds. Its really a shame that the former CEO of AMD shot the company in the face by firing most of the engineers because most of us retailers had NO problem moving the Bobcat netbooks, those were going for $350-$400 USD and did 1080p over HDMI and still got over 5 hours on a battery, they were pretty impressive.

At the end of the day the reason MSFT will fail is they are a Walmart brand trying to force their way into Apple's world and it just isn't gonna work. if they wanted to do this they really should have spun off their mobile division, call it "Nu Mobile" or something so they could build up the brand without having the history of MSFT being a Walmart brand hanging around their neck. But MSFT can't just hit the reset button on history and the simple fact is the race to the bottom has cemented in the public's mind that MSFT is the band of low cost devices than run Windows software, that's it.

Why do you think Intel is now pushing 15 inch, when last year it was all about 12 inch ultrabooks? because nobody bought 'em, the warehouses are full of unsold ultrabooks, just as next year they'll be pushing 17 inch because the warehouses will be full of 14-15 inch ultrabooks nobody bought. Just as Intel has priced too many of their chips right out of the market so too has MSFT priced the RT and Pro right out of the market, you aren't gonna get the masses to pay a thousand USD for a Walmart brand like MSFT, not when they can get a MacBook Air for the same price, just not gonna happen.

Re: Poor sales?

Talking to a friend in the mobile phone biz I can tell you why that is, its because the carriers HATE Skype and by buying Skype MSFT has sealed their fate when it comes to the carriers. Unless they intend to buy their own mobile networks (seriously doubtful) all those WinPhones will end up on some website for 90% off because the carriers have made it clear that MSFT is not welcome there.

When Ballmer is finally kicked out of the big chair the writers of history will point to the 8 billion Ballmer wasted on Skype as the torpedo that killed any chance MSFT had in the mobile space, it was about the dumbest move they could have possibly made.

Re: (Insert El Reg tombstone)

Way to miss the point! Ask ANY retailer and we'll tell you the same thing...$400-$550, what's that? that is the "sweet spot" where a good 90% of your sales will come from. You go over that sweet spot? And I don't care if you have the thing delivered on a golden platter by porn stars the public WILL NOT BUY so you end up with a pile of units you just can't move.

And it is THIS, this right here, that has doomed Win 8, both RT and pro. MSFT is trying to pretend they are Apple by slapping a high sticker on their units but NOBODY looks at MSFT as an upscale brand. It would be like slapping a $100k USD price on a Mustang and expecting it to compete with the exotic sports cars, all you'd end up with is a warehouse full of Mustangs.

Mark my words the Win 7 machines that meet this price point? Will be cleaned out by Xmas, the Win 8 machines that meet this price point? Will be less popular but people will take them if they have no choice. The Win 8 systems over that price point? Well I hope the retailers that pick up a pile of those don't mind having a ton of systems gathering dust because that is EXACTLY what will happen. And remember tech has an expiration date, when the new chips come out people won't pay premium for the old chips unless its Apple, so if they don't move 'em quick they will never move at all. yeah great job MSFT, I can see why Forbes labeled your CEO as the worst.

Why IT chiefs are irrelevant to Microsoft's Windows 8 strategy

Re: really?

Not to mention that they changed Win 8 so damned much with Metro and the changes to the guts that frankly much of the software businesses use (and a lot of home user software as well) won't run on the stupid thing so MSFT can try to "end run" all they want but who cares if the user's software won't run on the thing?

And if they are betting on consumers they are betting on the wrong pony as consumers HATE Win 8, I had a Win 8 unit set up in my shop for nearly 7 months and NOBODY wanted the thing, even though it was a damned nice unit, I put Win 7 Home on it? BAM its walking out my door less than 5 days later. 7 months...FIVE DAYS, is there anything else a retailer needs to know? Just look at how Newegg is pushing Win 8 units while you don't hardly see a unit on Tigerdirect that isn't win 7. I'd love to see their recent sales figures as i would not be surprised to see Tiger moving twice the PCs simply by not carrying the turkey on their popular models.

So you have an OS that isn't made for business, has trouble running all but the most bleeding edge software (Quickbooks has already said NOTHING but QB 2013 will be supported, want anything else tough cheese, for just one example) and that consumers fricking hate...yeah, great plan their MSFT, I have to give you credit though, you did finally manage to make Vista look good in comparison as its fricking easier to sell a Vista Home unit than it is a Win 8 one.

Ten Linux apps you must install

Anyone that think Linux can't get bugs

Is just deluded and can join the Apple users on the "most shocked when they find out they've been pwned" list. modern malware? NOT obvious and in fact many will just sit in the background quietly leeching resources for spamming or other nefarious purposes. just look up the KDELook bug which infected a ton of people, or the Quake 3 that sat on virtually every repo server for nearly a year and a half and was infected for just two examples. Hell Kernel.org got hacked not long ago, so pretending Linux doesn't need an AV is just plain wrong.

Ballmer comes not to praise Sinofsky but to bury him

Re: Nothing to see here

Here let me give a more accurate translation "Windows 8 has BOMBED, we spent 2 billion and only sold 4 million, even when pricing it at a lousy $40 a copy, and since the board is breathing down my neck to give up my comfy chair somebody had to go and it sure as hell wasn't gonna be me" Steve Ballmer.

I'm sorry to all the Win 8 apologists but when you spend 2 BILLION on a launch and can only get 4 MILLION sold, even when you are practically giving the product away at less than a third of your normal price? its a flop. To use a car analogy what MSFT did was replace the steering wheel with a bike's handlebars and said "Its new, you're a Luddite if you don't embrace the new hotness!" while ignoring the simple fact that ITS NOT AN IMPROVEMENT because something that works well on one form factor, be it tablets or bikes, does not magically work better if you jam it onto a completely different device with a different purpose!

What Sinofsky did was tell the planet "We don't care if its a recession, throw away your nice flat panel monitor and spend crazy money on a touchscreen you don't want, because that's all we care about now, touchscreens" and naturally it failed, I mean who thought it wouldn't? hell 98% of the PCs sold NOW don't come with a touchscreen, not to mention those hundreds of millions of PCs sold in the last 5 years MSFT wanted to upgrade.

So somebody had to fall on the sword to save the sweaty one for one more release, and it was Sinofsky. I predict that either Win 9 will be Win 7, a real desktop with some bling to get people to buy, or ballmer will be out the door, one of the two. the man has blown over 30 billion in the past decade on plans that haven't even broke even, much less made a profit, and with Windows sales tanking the board has GOT to be seriously pissed right about now. So long Sinofsky, enjoy your money, shame you had to take one for the team instead of taking Forbe's worst CEO down with ya.

Vaunted Windows 8 RTM updates 'actually featured from Win2000'

Re: Is the Register sponsored by Apple/Google these days?

So speaking the truth is a "pro Apple" bias these days? WinRT is an app wasteland, even less than WinPhone, the reviews of Windows 8 have had such colorful titles like "Windows Frankenstein" and "Win 8..yes its THAT bad" and you are surprised when The Reg joins in on the mockery?

I have NEVER owned an Apple device, not even an iPod, I only use Gmail for a spamdump, and I sell and service Windows devices exclusively...and Win 8 is full of fail, its a fail cake with a feces icing! MSFT tried to keep the OSes apart like Apple with iOS and OSX...only to find they couldn't give away WinPhone 7, so they are now forcing WinPhone onto the desktop to try to "get people used to it" in the hopes they'll buy WinPhones and WinTabs because X86 has slowed to a crawl sales wise because the chips have been crazily overpowered for years.

I've had a Win 8 system set up in the shop for people to try since Feb, its a pretty typical NON TOUCH system as that is what 95%+ of X86 units are, know what the reaction is? "This is stupid" "Who thought this was a good idea?" "I can''t find anything!" "How do I close?" "Can I make it act like Windows XP?" and my favorite, from a little old lady.."Why would I want my computer to be a cellphone?"

So its NOT about "resting on it laurels" its about MSFT IGNORING the customers, the grunts that sell their product, and everyone else in Ballmer's never ending quest to be an ersatz Apple. Well we already have an Apple, we don't need an ersatz and certainly not for the same price as an iPad. I've advised my customers to avoid Win 8 unless they are getting a tablet, because that is the ONLY place where it is better than Win 7, everywhere else its a bad Apple knockoff and if they keep the MSRP of their WinRT units I'll advise them to buy iPads, at least they have a good resale value.

Windows 8: Is Microsoft's new OS too odd to handle?

Can we all just speak the truth?

Look guys we ALL know what this is...its a Hail Mary pass, that's all. MSFT spent $450 a pop in advertising for each WinPhone customer and frankly still couldn't give them away, and tablets are owned by Apple and Google, so Ballmer and Sinofsky are throwing a Hail Mary and hoping that if they force the desktop to use a WinPhone UI that people will "get used to it" and buy WinPhone and WinTab...is it dumb? you betcha, but there is a dirty little secret nobody wants to admit that has MSFT backed into a corner.

The "dirty little secret" is that when Intel and AMD hit the thermal wall and switched from a MHz war to a core war frankly machines became monsters, so powerful that you average user simply can't stress the units made even 5 years ago and so there is no need to constantly upgrade like they did during the MHz wars. you see its easy to take advantage of faster single core performance but its a LOT harder to take advantage of massive thread counts. I mean just look at what I was selling as a "low end build" five years ago folks...Phenom I X3 or X4 with 3-4Gb of RAM and 300Gb+ HDDs. Now is there ANYTHING your average user gonna do that will really stress that monster? Heck I'm playing the latest games on an X6 released over 3 years ago and its gonna cycles up the ying yang left!

The simple fact is we ALL know this is stupid, but MSFT has their backs against the wall. Their "world's worst CEO" got spoiled by the MHz war and thought people would just keep right on buying every 3 years and what happened is even on the laptop front I'm seeing people with 4 year old units quite happy because they just can't slam that Core Duo or Turion X2, they just can't feed them enough useful work. AMD has been bleeding, Intel is down to 50% capacity and their warehouses are full of chips, the simple fact is X86 has become so crazy powerful its like a washer or TV, you don't replace it until the previous one dies.

There are still plenty of people who haven't picked up a tablet and are using dumbphones or switch their phones every other year, so no matter how dumb this is MSFT is gonna throw a Hail mary and hope to score some of that cash.

Why is solid-state storage so flimsy?

Re: Downvoters

Or maybe they are just old greybeards who have been hearing about PRAM and holo-drives for years yet they never seem to end up on the shelves?

As far as SSD? The problem is everyone assume it can always take the place of HDD and that's wrong, like any tool it has its uses and its downsides. Here is what I tell my customers if they ask about SSDs: If it is going in a mobile device that the data is NOT mission critical, or if you keep a rigorous religiously adhered to backup schedule? it makes sense there, lower power but unless you drop the device often the head parking on the new HDDs mean it'll be for the speed and lower power more than for protection. if its just gonna have the OS and again backups made often? Makes sense here, slap a 64gb or 128Gb and keep your data on the HDD. if it is something mission critical, where it going down is really gonna hurt? it does NOT make sense there, because i've seen too many SSDs die without warning and even if you have a drive waiting to take over there is still the time required to place the image on the new drive and to swap them out.

So it all comes down to what you are using it for, but buying anything over 128Gb right now is frankly nuts because watching the forums as well as my customers it seems like you are only gonna get about 3 years no matter what you buy, and its not the cells, its the controller. Just FYI but OCZ seems to be the worst, Intel and Samsung the best, but in any case about 3 years tops before the controller fails.

Fujitsu assigns team of women to design PC for women

There is one place..

While I agree that "girl themed" laptops are just dumb, there is ONE place where "built for girls" does make a difference and that is one place most would never think...cars, more specifically car seats. A woman's hips and lower back and a man's are simply different and what will feel really comfortable to a woman who has to drive a long distance and what will feel good to a man are different thanks to the differences in hips. men tend to like a more solid straight seat while women usually prefer a more "sunk in" kind of seat that cradles the hips better.

Microsoft has no plans for a second Windows 7 Service Pack

Re: Learning from XP

Uhhh...you ALREADY get 10 years from MSFT, the 2015 is just mainstream support where you get new features, which lets be honest MSFT never came through on the new features thing, just ask those that bought Win Vista Ultimate on that promise.

The end date for Win 7 as far as security patches, which lets be honest is all anybody really cares about, is 2020. So you have more than enough time to just skip Win 8, the trainwreck franketstein baby of Windows and WinPhone, and stick with Win 7 which is nice. in fact so far I've managed to skip two MSFT OSes, I went from Win2K to WinXP X64 (which was really Win2K3 Workstation) thus skipping XP, and I went from XP X64 to Win 7 thus skipping Vista. It really isn't hard to do.

As for those that complain about not having patches rolled into a service pack? WSUS Offline is your friend, and is even easier than a MSFT SP since it will let you roll in .NET, MS Office, and MSE updates along with the OS patches if you so choose. Its "clicky clicky, go have a sammich" easy and frankly beats MSFT service packs by a country mile, i highly recommend.

AMD posts $157m loss, will lay off 15% of workers this quarter

Re: The AMD quandary

Actually I don't know how it is there across the pond but the Phenom II line is still a REALLY good bang for the buck here in the states. i have been getting 1035T and 1045T chips for less than $120 and the Phenom X4 BEs for less than $100 and you can find the Athlon X3s for as low as $60 if you keep an eye out. You can build a VERY nice system for less than $400 USD that will do anything you want it to do, even game.

But you are right the FX Bulldozers and Piledrivers are a massive fail, the chips are too weak, too hot, suck too much power, and because they are so expensive to make they end up priced too close to the Core i5s to make them worth having, its just a bad design and AMD is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

lets hope that former Apple chip designer they recently hired who worked on both the A6 as well as the Athlon 64 back in the day can come up with something truly competitive, because the last thing we need is Intel having a monopoly. I have to wonder if it looks like AMD may go under if intel will end up giving them a hand just to avoid antitrust, just as MSFT did for Apple back in 97.

Re: The AMD quandary

Fraid so Bulldozer is a disaster, its sucks as much as 4 times the wattage of an Intel in the same price range (and up to 7 times as much if you OC the BD to get halfway decent performance) and frankly on many benches the BD loses to the Thuban X6, sometimes by a pretty decent amount.

See they made several mistakes in the design, the biggest was using computer layouts instead of hand design for the CPU, but also they used less integer (4 shared per module VS 3 per core with Thuban) and floating point units (shared for BD, individual for Thuban) with the theory that they could have simpler cores but just put more of them to make up for their lower individual performance. The problem with that is threefold, 1.- Many programs don't thread massively, thus making them run slower on BD than on even a Pentium G series, 2.- Even those that do thread well tend to hit core zero HARD and then have light loads for other cores, games being a good example, again Pentium G and the Core i series stomps BD, 3.-Finally the weak core design is soooo weak that they end up having to ramp up the clocks which causes BD to just blow through the power.

So as someone who has been building AMD system exclusively for the past 4 years or so yes, the AMD CPUs coming out now are shite. that is why I have been hanging onto AM3+ for dear life, the sub $100 Denebs and sub $120 Thubans still give good bang for the buck while having decent IPC and single core performance. Sadly with BD unless you are gonna be running databases and web pages, aka server loads, pretty much exclusively? Its just not a good chip, and the little gains they've made with Piledriver haven't fixed the root of the problem which is lousy IPC, weak single core performance, and horribly high power usage due to the fundamental flaws in the arch.

I'd say its pretty obvious they sank a huge amount of money into R&D only to find the design at its core is a dog, but with no plan B in the wings, thanks to the previous CEO killing Phenom II, they had no choice but to try to recoup some of their losses by selling a turkey and these numbers show folks just ain't buying. I know when i can't get anymore AM3+ I'll be looking at Intel, BD/PD is just not a good chip any way you slice it.

AMD unveils 'sweet spot' processor for 'sexy' tablets

Re: I suspect that AMD are being economic with the actualite again..

You've made a few mistakes AC, I'll be happy to correct them..

First of all because AMD uses turbocore and ramp up and down parts of the chip depending on the role their TDP naturally reflects that> I can tell you that on a year old 6 cell I'm getting 5 hours of video watching and 6 hours of websurfing on an E350 and that is a faster chip than this one, my customers with the C60 chips which i'm sure this is based on get between 6.5-7.5 hours depending on task, so any way you slice it they are getting respectable battery life on these systems.

Second the reason they changed the GPU series is because while its true the graphics core is based on the HD5000 series they have been adding the latest UVD acceleration and so the number reflects the same as which chips the current UVD is released on. i believe Bobcat next will have UVD acceleration from the HD7000 series so whether they change the shader cores or not that is what it pertains to. Since most people aren't buying these with gaming in mind, although to be fair i have run portal 2 and L4D just fine on mine and there are vids on YouTube of guys running Crysis 2 on an E350 they know that HD video is what most people are gonna want on these so that is what they are concentrating on. Personally i can see no fault to that logic, as while i might play a little LOTRO or Torchlight II when I'm out and about I do a LOT more video playing and having a tablet that does 1080P over HDMI? Sounds nice.

Finally AMD supplies the chipsets for their chips so you really only need one vendor to build an AMD device and their southbridges are quite nice and very small, especially on a Bobcat. Look up the Hudson chip and you'll see its smaller than your pinky nail yet gives you Sata 6, USB 3.0, they could even have an Expressgate slot on the tablet if they wanted as hudson supports that as well, its not a bad setup at all.

So I really don't think Intel will be very competitive in this segment, after all they don't want you buying tablets but Ultrabooks so they've been crippling the Atom for years and the latest rumors indicate this will be true of the next chip, with hard limits of 2Gb of RAM and several features turned off or not built in that the Celeron and above have. AMD on the other hand has never crippled the bobcat, all the features of their big brothers like Hyper-V, support for 8Gb of memory and full speed PCIe support is built in and its simply up to the OEMs which features they chose to have.

As someone who owns an E350

I have to say...I REALLY like these little Bobcat chips. I get 5 hours playing video, a little over 6 surfing, and that is with a battery that is over a year old. Heck the thing even plays Portal 2 and L4D just fine if I want a little mobile gaming goodness. Also unlike the Intel chips the Bobcat IS NOT CRIPPLED which means it can support 8gb of RAM (unlike 2Gb in the Atom) and has full virtualization support and all the power saving features. Again intel cripples atom to try to upsell you on a Celeron on Pentium, AMD doesn't.

So I have to say they are truly great little chips, and I've sold a lot of C50-C60-E350 netbooks and even laptops in my shop as well as using the E350 mini boards as small office units, truly great chips that just sip power and yet have enough GPU to give you full 1080P and HDMI for HTPCs or just enjoying some movies.

So while i never thought Bulldozer was a good design, its basically a server chip they tried to shoehorn into the consumer market, insult to the name FX if you ask me, on the other hand I have nothing but good things to say about the Bobcat. After having mine 6 months I sold my full size laptop, the E350 did everything I wanted a portable to do while only weighing 2.5 pounds with a 6 cell. And don't let the benches fool you, I've even set mine up in the band's practice space and used it to do playback and editing on multitrack audio, sometimes as many as 8 tracks, and the E350 handles the load just fine. Truly a sweet little chip and I can't wait to see what others they come out with. Hey AMD, can we have a quad Bobcat please? Maybe Asus could put one in a 12 inch EEE maybe?

Ballmer aims chair at Apple after Windows package miss

Just great

We'll have Apple..and Ersatz Apple, just wonderful. Luckily Win 7 is good until 2020 so lets hope that the board fires his sweaty behind before then, because I don't know about you but I DO NOT WANT everything I watch and listen and play coming from an appstore so they can nickel and dime me to death. Not to mention look at how lousy MSFT has been with regards to support, even worse than Apple. Kin, Zune, Playsforsure, WinPhone 7 ring any bells?

Ubuntu goes fishing for donations with new download page

Proof the GPL just doesn't work on the desktop..

It works in embedded because its not about the OS, its about the hardware you are selling. it works in server because its not about the software, its the services. Linux can never and will never get any share on the desktop because the GPL simply doesn't work in that use case. Not saying its a bad license, just saying like all licenses it doesn't fit all uses and desktop is one of them.

Sadly the license could be fixed...if RMS wasn't a hypocrite. You see all you would have to do is remove the redistribution clause, that's it. you can still hand them the code, which would solve the problem of "the printer story" that caused RMS to make the GPL in the first place but there is simply no way for someone to spend the millions of dollars it would take to bring linux up to the level it would need to be to stand toe to toe with OSX and Windows if somebody can just copy the entire thing and give it away for free. Again this does NOT mean you can't use it in servers and make money, RH proves that, but desktop users don't buy support contracts so its either that or the tin cup begging model we are seeing here.

Oh and as for why RMS is a hypocrite? have you EVER seen him say that doctors or lawyers or CEOs should work for free? nope JUST programmers. in fact if programmers actually follow what he says and then finds a way to make money off of FOSS he turns on them, probably because he is a failed programmer whose only claims to fame were forked away from him. For example when it was pointed out that nobody could pay their bills if they gave all their work away for free he said they should sell documentation, so what happens when programmers start withholding documentation from GPL so they CAN actually sell it? He screams that "documentation should be free!". Of course he is a self proclaimed squatter at MIT so maybe he doesn't have any uses for money, the programmers of this world? they generally like to eat and not sleep under a bridge, thanks anyway RMS.

The mistake Shuttleworth made was using Linux as the base, he should have learned from Jobs and used BSD instead, then he could have given back changes to the core components while keeping the GUI and userland changes proprietary and actually been able to stay afloat. but that's too late now and soon Canonical will join Xandros, Linspire, mandriva, and all the other failed linux desktops.

Microsoft to devs: Bug users about security … now!

What I find hilarious

is that this is coming from the SAME COMPANY that to this very day gives you jack and squat for info on patches from Windows Update without launching your browser! Would it REALLY kill them to give us more than a pointless KB number that doesn't tell us what the patch is for? maybe a teeny tiny summary, would that be so hard.

Glass houses and stones MSFT, glass houses and stone.

ARM cranks up cache and memory designs for servers

The problem with ARM..

Is it doesn't hold a candle to even first gen Core and Phenom based chips when it comes to IPC, which is instructions per clock for those that don't know. The IPC of the new Xeon and Opteron chips just curbstomps anything that ARM has and while you can try to make SOME of that up by adding more cores as we've seen with AMD that approach only goes so far.

To get an ARM chip to even Phenom I levels of IPC would basically blow the power budget all to hell thus killing the big selling point of ARM There has already been talk from ARM holdings about "dark silicon" in their latest mobile chips because using all the transistors at once would give you a battery life of squat so unless they can come up with a new design that can give Xeon performance at closer to ARM power envelopes i don't see this catching on except for maybe some niche applications. After all if the ARM systems sucks instead of sips power why not just use X86 which has a much larger software library?

Win8 tablets may cost MORE than iPads – AND LAPTOPS

Atom stinks

Sorry Tony but Atom runs worse than pretty much any chip out there, AMD's low end E350s curbstomp it and that's the chip they put in $300 netbooks, so you can imagine how weak this chip is.

Which is why I'm sitting here literally gobsmacked..an Atom? On a system THAT high? Are they insane? You can get an AMD quad or Intel i3 laptop for less than half that that would just beat the living heck out of that chip!

Anybody who pays THAT much for an Atom system should at least get a free CAT scan, just as a public service to make sure they don't have a tumor or brain injury!

Re: who cares?

But have they made a cent? We honestly don't know because we can't see the books to see whether their "profits" account for the over 2 billion they spent on RRoD warranty, nor do we know if the billion plus spent on R&D for the XBox 1 or the billion plus in R&D for X360 is included.

Re: @David Cantrell Shiny stuff is cheaper." Well, actually that was pretty much what........

Then they are dead in the water because as a retailer in a little PC shop in a college town i can tell you, from both my own exp as well as talking to fellow retailers in the state capital that $800 is NOT the "sweet spot" its between $450-$550 with of course lower priced units selling more.

$800 USD may have been the sweet spot before the housing market bubble burst but in case Ballmer didn't get the memo the economy is lousy and people by and large aren't gonna pay that high a price, not when they can get a transformer that doubles as a laptop for less than $530 and I can sell them quad laptops for $500 and still make a profit.

Re: @David Cantrell Shiny stuff is cheaper." Well, actually that was pretty much what........

The problem is, if the numbers are to be believed, MSFT is charging $75 a copy for an OS that needs the tablets to be NO MORE than $200-$350 to compete with the Kindle and iShiny. when you figure in cost of manufacture and comopnents and shipping, not to mention a few bucks for the OEMs to make it worth doing? Its priced right out of the ballpark.

This is gonna be the Touchpad all over again, priced too high for the market. I can only hope Asus is smart enough to only make a few of these so they don't take a bath on them as HP did on the touchpad because at these prices they are DOA.

Re: Sigh

Why Ballmer...you didn't have to get me anything for XMas!

For those of us that HATE the metrosexual UI abortion that is Win 8 this couldn't be better news, with prices THAT stupid these things will go over about as well as a chili fart in an elevator. As a plus in 6-8 months you'll see these things on Woot! for $99 each when the OEMs dump like HP did the touchpad and maybe...just maybe...the stockholders will realize what Forbes and many of us have been saying for awhile, Ballmer is a pathetic CEO and needs to go.

The hilarious part is MSFT is gonna be selling Win 8 pro downloads at just $40 USD so if one truly wanted metrosexual they could buy one of those nice AMD quad laptops and a copy of Win 8 and STILL end up more than $200 less than what these are going for! I'm gonna buy my $40 copy, it'll go next to Vista in the "wall of shame'

Ballmer: Win8 'certainly surpasses' Win95 in importance

Re: @Doug: Windows 95 was significant, because ... IBM

Funny story that...it was IBM's fault that Windows won. You see IBM had the right to second source and to build their own 286 chips thanks to their contract with intel but intel was tired of making chips and then having to compete with their own designs so they refused to allow IBM to have a license to second source 386.

Now you couple this with the fact that IBM had recently tried to gouge the cloners, the famous "gang of nine" by trying to switch the industry to the MCA bus which they controlled and you had a "perfect storm" that practically handed the market to MSFT on a silver platter. No OEM wanted to take OS/2 after IBM had tried to slit their throats on MCA, IBM refused to carry 386 and was charging IBM prices for 286 units while the clones were half price with MUCH faster 386 units, and MSFT frankly didn't have to do anything more than cash the checks.

So while they spent a lot of money promoting Win95, it was to get all those that thought PCs were "scary geeky things" as evidenced by the Jennifer Aniston infomercial showing how simple to use Win95 was. They were in NO danger from IBM, because IBM had burnt so many bridges with the other OEMs and carried obsolete hardware for so long they simply couldn't give OS/2 away. Funnily enough for awhile they did just that, gave away an OS/2 demo that you could unlock so simply that many even did so by accident, it still went nowhere.

Re: They changed the UI more than "a bit"

Sorry but that crippled ribbon sucking "thing" is NOT a desktop, no way and no how. It flips and flops between Metro and the "half desktop" worse than a politician, most of what is supposedly "improvements" are hacks like hybrid boot instead of a proper cold boot, the whole OS is a mess where they couldn't decide what they wanted to make.

Re: "Not a chance, too many businesses require Windows software."

Its been the same, converted hundreds of customers over, either through upgrades if they had bought from me in the last 5 years or new systems if they hadn't and I had ONE, just one mind you, problem with a Windows XP to 7 migration and it was with my dad of all people.

It turned out he was using a scanner from 1997, we're talking 240x180 or some such, just ancient, and he was using a REALLY old version of Quickbooks that was tied to Flash 7. I bought him a little all in one with a much better scanner than he had, he bought the low end version of QB and I imported the data...and that was that.

Re: Better than 95 because?

Because, if you spent even one second to think, it would be VERY obvious. What happened to PCs during the MHz war? Why every 3 years they got sent to the dump for a new one. Now what did that do for MSFT? Well considering they are an OS COMPANY that meant every 3 years they got another check...get the picture? Being designed for the dump BENEFITS MSFT because that means they sell more copies, whereas PCs now lasting 7 years or even longer means they sell less copies.

BTW did I say ARM was junk? No I said the systems it is put in is considered worthless to the masses because the phones are "given free" and thanks to so many companies making ARM cores the economies of scale are enormous. With X86 you have a grand total of TWO companies, and one of those sadly dominates the other, so the prices simply can't fall there like it does with ARM. You might want to look up the article "hardware is dead" to see sub $50 dual core Android tablets already being sold in Hong Kong, the parts are getting so cheap you can sell the whole system cheaper than a HDD for a laptop or desktop goes.

And No you will NOT get WinRT for that price, in fact because ballmer is the worst CEO since Apple's Pepsi guy who cares more about stock prices than actual performance he'll price them right out of the market. tell me, when i could buy a quad core laptop running X86 for $400, and a dual core ARM tablet for $100, why would I pay $700 for an ARM tablet running Windows, when the ONLY selling point for Windows, the ability to run X86, won't be there? I wouldn't and nobody will, its DOA.

So final verdict? Windows WILL be the new IBM, X86 is here to stay but it'll be flatline as nobody will replace until they die, ARM will become so cheap you can get one in cracker jacks (See the Pi which does HTPC for under $50 for an example) so Android will rule the cheapo end, Apple the high, and they'll be chunked like Kleenex for new ones simply because nobody will bother to fix them.

Re: La la la la la

Wait until it thrashes your hard drive or drives you up a wall by forgetting your shared folders THEN get back to us.

The machine I had at the time was frankly better than most and at the time was running WinXP X64 well, so I was actually jazzed to get Vista. The system was a 3.6GHz P4 with 4Gb of RAM, dual 400Gb hard drives, and a Geforce 7600GS. Even on the MSFT drivers the system would have "senior moments" where it would just stop for several seconds, not enough to pull the plug, just enough to irritate, and the constant thrashing of the HDD killed a brand new Seagate. I tried every trick in the book, every tweak on the net, and gave up when SP1 came out and didn't fix it.

Now when someone says they have Vista I automatically say "I'm sorry" and they almost always agree, especially if they have ever used Win XP or 7. In fact I've met exactly ONE person who likes Vista, she only uses the browser to go to Youtube, that's it, that's all. She got one of the last Vista laptops and to do only that one task? it works decent. problem is most of us want to use our laptops as more than an iPad with a keyboard and for those tasks it sucks on ice.

CFO Seifert finds AMD's executive exit door, walks through it

Re: Lets hope they can..

They hired one of the Apple chip designers so let us have hope.

Until they right the ship there are still a few chips that are VERY good buys. The Thuban 6 cores are selling cheap and make great gaming and video transcoding systems, The Brazos and soon Brazos II chips make kick butt netbooks, where you can play 1080p video through HDMI and still get 6 hours on a system that costs less than an Atom system, and the Liano chips make great 15 inch laptops and budget desktops that will give you a decent GPU and CPU for a heck of a decent price.

Just avoid anything based on the Bulldozer "half core" design unless you really really REALLY want Windows 8, since MSFT has already said they won't fix the scheduler bug except in win 8, which is gonna bomb like WinME. For those that don't know you can turn off half the modules and get MORE performance in Windows, because Windows doesn't know that each module has a half a FP per chip instead of a full one so it'll drag the system down by having modules get overloaded instead of smart scheduling. in any case its a BAD design, as if anything we need MORE floating point not less, as everything becomes more multimedia heavy it requires more not less FP support.

But we ALL know the truth...its a server chip. They can try to tap dance around the truth, do stupid moves like killing Thuban, but in the end we have a chip designed to do lots of heavily threaded integer jobs (ala server loads) and they tried to dump it on consumers to make more money and it failed.