Re: Good encapsulation, Dr S
I cannot imagine that LP keeps getting his suspended laptop stolen and processed by people who freeze the RAM. So for one man's obsessive theory-based "itch" the rest of the world has to be disrupted.
47 publicly visible posts • joined 8 Jul 2009
In 1947 the Allies established the Nuremberg Code, the first international document to support the concept that "the voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential" for biological experiments upon human subjects. TETRA is formally a biological experiment which does not end before 2018. Sadly, no consent was obtained, nor were the expected biological hazards pointed out to police officers or staff. Even more sadly, there are now many who have developed cancers of the eye, ear, brain, and body where they attach their TETRA set.
I remember Ballmer near the start of Windows 8 betas saying he was nervous, its a risk, a gamble, one of the biggest Microsoft had taken. When you look at that, it was a stunningly wrong view. For phones and tablets it wasn't a risk, more of a sheer necessity. Writing OSes is what they do, and they just had to crack on with it. But how in the blazes can you balls up the Desktop and call that a risk or a gamble? How can it be anything other than an immediate catastrophe? Did they think the Desktop somehow doesn't matter? It makes you wonder why executives get paid megabucks for being more stupid than a village idiot.
This is partly because they don't have the ballache of constantly restoring deleted data. A few years ago some sales people (who I would love to shoot) rang around the managers and somehow told them that tape is bad. Then, another batch of execution-by-firing-squad candidates let it be known that Filesystem Imaging was the future of Backup strategy. Anyone with Acronis shares out there? And all the Managers and Executives nodded wisely.
Nah - it aint like that at all. 90% of the time you want Files, not from 12 hours ago, but from 4 days ago. If you're lucky. Not there? Bloody user is wrong again - Try 5 days ago, then a week, then a fortnight. And for good measure, you'd better take account of incremental events.
In case you hadn't realised, I am a non-Executive tape advocate. I don't believe everything Sales people tell me (until I've proved it).
Smartphones are a horribly immature market. Immature markets are unstable and virtually impossible for predictions of the future. Basically, in 5 years time a better, more usable, more user-friendly and adaptable kind of device will have emerged.
What we can say however is that several things are dwindling. Microsoft is one. Another is the concept of proprietary anything, except Apple, and Apple aren't for the mass market.
Signs of maturity and readiness to move forward are perhaps seen in Samsung, Google, and Android. But don't gamble on anything!
Free software is more expensive to support, but the APIs, quality and performance are MUCH better. And, you are free to alter and share.
The big difficulty is: None of these strong points are of much interest in government or public sector circles.
Rubbish for two reasons. Firstly, the hyperlink where it says that Ubuntu is doing better than Red Hat as a cloud OS goes to an article that says the exact opposite. Ubuntu have suggested that, and been vigorously disputed. Secondly, the graph here is clearly rubbish created by someone who doesn't know operating systems.
1. Being forced to by EVERYTHING from computers to t.paper from 1 supplier.
2. Nothing to trawl, because you are denied any choice. Place order.
3. Be sent the wrong product. Spend a fortnight answering stupid questions to explain why its not what you clearly ordered.
4. Eventually get the expected product.
5. Note that you could have got it 15% cheaper down the road.
Yes folks, GCAT is burning your hard-earned taxes, every day.
The internet is a public place in full view of everyone.
A person on stage in a stadium wouldn't have 'privacy' and a document in view there wouldn't be private or restricted.
Google are the only ones who seem to understand this.
Things like newspaper Paywalls are a sort of corruption which tries to fight against the fundamental nature of the thing.
All data can now be made public - by someone else - with or without our consent. And THAT's what the RIAA doesn't like.
I think MS have blown it with this one, as it doesn't have a single redeeming feature for Desktop use. My guess is that Windows 9 will follow, rapido, and will be a Desktop-centric OS.
The stupid, stupid people should have written at least 2 new OSes, not expect 1 to do for all three kinds of devices.
There will be those who will continue to work when there is no network connection. These will use 'proper' computers with built-in software and storage! There will also be a few who require confidentiality.
Gartner can shove off into their own smelly little cloud.
Microsoft are cheapskates. Windows 8 is a cellphone gui, and possibly (though not necessarily) suitable even for touch pad computing. For the desktop, its totally inappropriate. If they wanted a better Windows they should have written the very best they could do FOR THE DESKTOP. I hope they come unstuck over this, because they're taking the P out of the customers by trying to fob us off with rubbish!
I suspect that if you (journalists) delve deeper, you might come face to face with... Microsoft. I heard an identical push for computer education in the States, on this-morning's news. Microsoft WERE behind that push, so I guess they've also been on the phone to the British education minister. In which case, this is just about software sales and raising another generation of Microsoft junkies.
More records, different type of data, different load on the rest of the machine, changes in network environment, etc, etc. I just can't help being sceptical about their claim. And how big are their binaries? What's the performance like? How much longer does it take them to write (and tune) their program? Is it going to be a free and open source compiler?
The lucky suppliers may find that satisying the application requirements is loose and easy. I doubt whether any have been properly specified. On another aspect, all users must have an ID, and the UK and public sector doesn't have any federated login system or ID. What's the betting we'll have multiple public sector networks (criminal justice, national health, social work, etc) each with different and incompatible id management...
Although 'attitude' wasn't the article's subject, the most important words were probably these:- "plain-speaking with a common touch", "photographs taken with him", "appreciating every customer and channel partner and employee".
These are the things that have differentiated Dell from HP and IBM, and apparently, they're part of the company's dna and ethos. Every customer matters, no matter how small. It's key to success, and poor attitude was the reason why some competitors faded away (or are fading now!).
The government's cuts mean that all departments have to re-invent the way they work, in an attempt to survive on a smaller budget. While this distraction is going on, less work gets done, ie. productivity suffers badly. But to cap it all, the deep changes are being made without any planning or change-management processes. In other words, a state of dysfunction with broken systems and demoralised staff. Some skilled staff then leave, and can't be adequately replaced.
Why should it be a mistake for a company to have its application running in someone else's browser? Quite the opposite - we all want common standards such as HTML, and all companies want to reach the widest audience. Also users shrink away in instinctive avoidance of proprietary software. I think Matt Asay had a brain-fart today (as he often does).
The published policy is that Free Software will be given equal consideration and evaluation and used unless there is some demonstrable reason why it can't be used. But in practice the public sector and all their outsourcing companies are so infested with Windows people that everything gets done in the most expensive and badly-designed way possible.
Free Software is plainly and obviously better for a number of reasons than any proprietary setup can ever be. That will never change. The fact that commercial interests also have an existence and manage to survive in the short term doesn't mean that they are better!