* Posts by big_D

6775 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Nov 2009

Apple gets in on the AI PC hype, claims fanless M3 MacBook Air is fab for LLMs

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It isn't just the SoC, macOS is more economical on memory.

My Windows laptop died a few months back and I was waiting to see what the next generation Intel processors with NPU brought to the game, so I dug out the MacBook Air M1 we used for our old MDM solution for managing our phone fleet. It had been sitting in a cupboard gathering dust for 18 months.

It was the base model, with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage.

My Windows laptop had been expanded from 8 to 16GB, because Teams brought it to its knees, when there was a 5 way or more conference. I'd generally have to start closing every other application to stop Teams stuttering. With 16GB, it was usable.

The MBA with 8GB is just as usable as the Windows laptop was with 16GB - and the MBA is running Windows 11 on ARM with a couple of legacy applications that don't have a Mac equivalent, plus the relevant anti-malware software running on both sides! Performance wise, it doesn't feel any slower than the Windows notebook, which was about the same age. The new 13th Gen. laptops of my colleagues feel a little faster at some tasks - mainly those legacy programs that are running in the Windows VM - but not noticably so, that I am screaming for a new laptop...

I'll probably wait until the MBA dies or wait and see what this years Intel and Qualcomm chips bring to the mix, before I get a new Windows laptop.

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Re: Dual monitors

Yes, I went with a single 44" 4K monitor in the end, instead of dual 24" 1080p displays.

I generally have my work windows spread across the main display and Teams on the internal display. Not ideal for many, but it works nicely for me. Glad to see there are more options going forward.

Dell staff not alone in being squeezed to reduce remote work

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Re: Stupid move

It is also execs looking at long leases on buildings that are standing empty or only partially filled and they can't get out of the contracts...

Australia passes Right To Disconnect law, including (for now) jail time for bosses who email after-hours

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We can't have company email or other communications tools on non-company devices (also no private data on company devices) and mine is also set to do not disturb at 16:30. The only out-of-hours messages we tend to get, apart from the hundreds of emails from the backup servers, are of the "I have to go to the doctor's tomorrow, so I'll be in late" type.

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Re: C-Suite solution?

I was on leave and forgot to turn off my company phone, as I went to turn it off, I noticed a message from another member of the team asking about an issue with a server I had set up. I gave a quick reply and got an answer from my manager saying, "thank you, now, TURN THAT PHONE OFF and enjoy your leave!"

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Re: C-Suite solution?

In Europe, that would break maximum allowed working hours per week (48), and at least 11 hours to recouperate between shifts/working-days.

My employer won't let us use private phones for work (no contact from the company on private phones, no email etc. on private phones) and company phones to be turned off out of hours, we generally leave our phones and laptops in the office, when we go home. Although I sometimes take mine with me, or when I work in home office.

The only messages we tend to get out-of-hours is when one of the team, including our manager, is ill or has to take a kid to the doctor's etc. and they write a quick note to say that they will be arriving late.

Half of polled infosec pros say their degree was less than useful for real-world work

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I didn't learn anything new, when I studied. I had taught myself machine code, Assembler and BASIC, before I went into higher education. The first lesson was to write a simple program to show how much we knew, I finished the task within 10 minutes, for the rest of the hour, I knocked up some machine code (we didn't have any reference books and this was before the Internet). The professor came around at the end of the time to see what we had done. Her reaction was, "wow, I didn't know you could do that with a computer!" The course went rather down hill from there...

That was a general IT course, not cyber security, but the principal remains, if you don't have the lecturers with the real world experience, you won't learn much.

In many areas, especially cutting edge technologies, you can often do better teaching yourself and learning by doing than a college or university course. If you are lucky, you will find a professor who can guide your learning, but the technology changes so quickly, they will often be learning with you.

Wait, hold on, everyone – Mozilla thinks Apple, Google, Microsoft should play fair

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Re: zero cost

You seem to be confusing value with money. They aren't the same thing.

Media experts cry foul over AI's free lunch of copyrighted content

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Re: Ad Revenue

If they AI company could in some way tell, which sources were used for which answers. I believe that, due to the way the LLMs work, unless there is a specific chunk of text that is a verbatim copy, it would be nearly impossible to tell, whether the answer came from NYT, WAPO, Medium, The Guardian or some private blog...

At the moment, AI is a parasite that will kill off its host. There are certainly some uses for AI, but if it continues like this, there won't be any current affairs sources left to plunder in the future.

They have to learn to become a symbiot with the creators of content. Without fresh information, the AI will quickly become useless, but if it then fails, we won't have any traditional reporters to fall back upon.

Michael Dell: Don't worry about AGI, after all we solved that ozone layer thing

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Re: New nouns, old tune

I'm putting in my application to join the Turing Police today, no time to waste, I always loved the idea of the TP, now it looks like it might become reality.

Microsoft pulls the plug on WordPad, the world's least favorite text editor

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It was also a great tool for recovering Word documents that Word and other word processors couldn't read.

BT misses deadline for removing Huawei from network core

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The kit that is still in use is 2G and 3G, which is planned to be phased out anyway.

It wouldn't surprise me, if they have replaced all 4G and 5G kit, they don't get an extension for legacy 2G/3G kit and allowed to push the cut-off date for turning off 2G and 3G services, as opposed to replacing that kit.

Amazon already has a colossal ads business and will extend it to Prime Video in January

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Re: No comment on how this has been received by Prime members?

Amazon has been doing pre-roll ads on its shows for years - usually promoting other shows, but an ad is an ad...

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Re: No comment on how this has been received by Prime members?

I just got the email in Germany this morning, that in February, they are going to start showing adverts in films & TV shows, so they can continue to provide live sports coverage...

I didn't know they did live sports coverage. I'm not interested in sports coverage. Why not charge people who watch sports for the live sports coverage?

‘I needed antihistamine tablets every time I opened the computers’

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Re: These stories are crazy

It is also logisticall easier and cheaper to put the PC near the screen, rather than have it in a back room and a 20M+ HDMI cable run all around the public area to the screen. I've seen both ways, neither is a very good solution.

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Smoking room? Server room?

When I first started work in the 80s, we had a network of Macs and a Mac Plus was set aside as a file server, with a "massive" 40MB external hard drive. But where to put it? It and the network printer were put in the smoking room! Thick stale smokey air, not pleasant, when you went in to get a printout, even worse for the health of the "server".

My dad used to work for a company that did piping in the 60s and early 70s, they'd plan and build the pipes for factories. One was, allegedly, the a sugar based drink manufacturer that wanted to teach the world to sing, there, all the piping had to be glass, where possible, as stainless steel pipes would need replacing every 6 months due to corrosion.

They also did work for breweries, they were taught to drink beer "quickly", in one go, just opening the throat and pouring it in. They'd have to drink 3-4 pints, before they could enter the brewing area, otherwise the fumes would make them drunk. One guy didn't bother, one morning, just went straight in. When the others had drunk their ration and were ready to enter, they found the guy up in the rafters, balancing on the beams and running backwards and forwards, totally off his head!

You can't deepfake diversity, and that's a good thing

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Re: Reverse diversity...

In 18 months, with the ads on the website and all of the job portals for Germany, we had less than 8 responses for admins. We took 4 of them, but 2 were re-trained and have no real knowledge of IT, so we are having to train them up.

We just happen to be in a region that isn't fashionable - we are in a rural town and a lot of people only want to work in the big cities, so finding anybody is often hard.

On the other hand, I get head hunters contacting me constantly for jobs in Munich, Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt or Berlin. Thanks, but not thanks. I like the job I have and I like the region I live in. I have a higher standard of living than when I would work in a big city, even though I'd theoretically earn more.

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It just works...

I do remember sending out an application to the customer in the late 90s. It was issued to their regional offices in around 60 countries around the world. After 2 years, we'd had 2 bug reports! And one of those was a bug in Windows.

I'd written the spec and the test cases before the other programmers started on the project and everything just seemed to click with the project. It was probably my proudest moment.

The Windows bug? There was a Win32 API for returning the month names in the local language... I tested it on German and French Windows, as well as British English. It worked fine. Then we started getting bug reports when it landed in the different countries. They weren't using local language versions of Windows, they were all using "International English" and a bug in the API meant it returned "January" as the name of all 12 months! After talking to the client, we just hard coded it to January through December as all employees had to speak English and the local translation wasn't necessary.

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Reverse diversity...

When I started in IT, about 40% of the office was women and there were diverse races in the mix as well. That was in the 80s. I worked at a large consultancy and 2/3 of my bosses over the 15 years I was there were women and they were much better managers than most of the men I worked for.

In more recent years, each new job I've had has been less diverse - and not for want of trying, in my current job, we looked for a couple of new co-workers for 18 months, no females applied, although we did end up with a Ukranian and a Turk joining us, as well as 2 native Germans. I suppose you could call me diverse, as I am a British immigrant, working in Germany...

Your online store down? Can't get to your fave web shop? Maybe blame Shopify

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Re: You know the drill

Funny you should mention that, on Tuesday, our anti-malware solution was flagging assets coming from the Shopify domain as malware...

SolarWinds says SEC sucks: Watchdog 'lacks competence' to regulate cybersecurity

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Headmaster

Zero day?

The same danger was exemplified in October's Atlassian zero-day, which was exploited eight days after disclosure.

If it was first exploited 8 days after disclosure, it wasn't a zero day. Zero day means that it was being actively exploited before the developer was informed... So, it can't be a zero day and only exploited after disclosure...

Italy seizes from Airbnb $836M in alleged unpaid taxes

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It was similar when I moved to Germany. A German friend advised me, "there are two groups of people you don't mess with in this world, the Mosad & the German Finanzamt!"

Microsoft pins hopes on AI once again – this time to patch up Swiss cheese security

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Re: Use defensive programming

It isn't just the programming, it is the security of their systems in general. The exposure of the certificate that allowed hackers to compromise government email in M365 Exchange, for example, were captured in the clear.

MS announced they are now "leading the way" by putting those sorts of keys (and code signing keys) into hardware secure enclaves, just like everybody else has done, following best practices for years!

YouTube cares less for your privacy than its revenues

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Re: Cognitive dissonance

My daughters don't live here, I am a grandfather, so they are no longer adolescent and even as they lived here (they've been gone nearly a decade), they had their own phones and PCs.

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Re: Cognitive dissonance

Exactly, profiling the content is a lot more sensible and a lot more accurate and it doesn't invade privacy. BUT it won't work for the big advertising tech companies, because anyone can do that, there is no "special sauce"...

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Re: Unblock and get infected

The same here. 90% of the virus warnings we get at work are adverts on legitimate sites.

At home, I run PiHole, which blocks most things.

Interestingly, as I was reading this article, I suddenly realised that there were no ads being displayed. I am not at home and we don't have any DNS blocking at work and I am not using an adblocker in Firefox... Just tried Safari as well, a couple of Register house ads and that was it and just checked Edge running under WoA, no ads there, either - and just checked another site, no ads there either.

Maybe our AV software has had an upgrade that blocks ads? I'll have to check the settings. Very strange, but nice.

Edit: Nope, just tried a colleague's PC and Chrome and I'm getting adverts, so not AV either. Maybe macOS? :-S

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Re: Chrome

It isn't standard on Windows, that would be Microsoft Edge - Chromium without the bad bits from Google, but with the bad bits added by Microsoft. And if people didn't care what browser they were using, all those Windows users would be using Edge...

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Re: Cognitive dissonance

Judging by the adverts, I am a 60+ female, with a newborn baby that needs vaccinating and I wear make-up aimed at teenagers and I need hair products for my voluminous hair.

All this is derived from me watching motoring videos, GTA 5 videos, Wreckfest videos and various Simon Whistler documentary channels...

In fact, I am a 50 something bald man and I don't wear makeup - for teenagers or otherwise.

Sorry Pat, but it's looking like Arm PCs are inevitable

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I know, but it still won't connect to our old Exchange, whilst we are in migration.

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Re: Apple's League

It depends on the software. A lot of industrial software is Windows only and then only certain patch levels, if you install the latest Windows security patches with the authorisation, the software is no longer supported. If it is running a multi-million dollar production facility and an outage can run to 6 figures in a couple of hours, you really don't want to be running the software on any hardware/software combination that is going to get the support desk to laugh in your face and hang up, with the words, "until it is running on a supported platform, there is nothing we can do, but thanks for the monthly maintenance payments."

A user in the production doesn't care about the OS, he just wants the system to work and to have support when it goes pear-shaped. They wouldn't know a Linux from a SCADA, or a Windows from a SCADA for that matter, they just know, when they turn up to work, the PC shows their production facility and that's it. They don't know or care what OS is running, why virtualise a Windows PC on a Linux PC, when the user spends 100% of their time in 1 application on the Windows side?

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Most don't have a computer at home, or they have an aging Windows PC from the previous decade.

Most people really don't care about the hardware or the operating system. They just want to be able to do their job, which is usually some LoB software, ERP system, with a bit of email and Excel thrown in for good measure. They have learnt enough about Windows to log themselves in and start the software they need, and they've learnt to use the software they need. At home they probably use a smartphone and/or a tablet these days.

My wife, for example, has my old laptop, but she powers it up maybe once a month (and then complains that every time she turns it on, it needs to perform an update!), at work she has a 15 year old Dell Vostro laptop that she uses to make her weekly orders. The rest of the time, she uses her iPhone and iPad, she doesn't care about computers and would happily thrown the damned thing out the window! This seems to be pretty typical of the users where I work as well. The PC is a sufferance they need to use to do their job, they don't care about it and they don't want to actually learn how the OS works, let alone what OS they have, just as long as the UI doesn't change.

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We generally have a 400€ PC in the production areas, connected to WinCC and our Windows based ERP software. A Mac mini would be nearly double that and would need Parallels and a Windows license on top of that, and they'd still spend most of their time in Parallels.

It very much depends on what software you are using and whether it is cross platform.

Also, most of our users don't care about computers, they don't care what operating system it is using, they don't care what brand it is, they just need to know want to know which icon to click to start their ERP software and mail client and that's about it. They live in those 2 applications, everything else is irrelevant, as long as it works. Probably less than 10% of our users care about computers, let alone know how to use Windows or macOS for more than starting their programs.

big_D Silver badge

Re: Apple's League

It also very much depends on the corporate software. Office 365 runs anywhere, as you say, but most of the important software, like ERP, CRM, manufacturing control, warehouse management etc. are a lot more limited and for a majority of users, they live in those applications, with Outlook and a bit of Excel on the side, so their PCs have to run the OS that those tools dictate and for many, that means Windows...

(Says he, writing this reply on a MacBook Air M1, but the only one in the company and it was a fight to get it connected to the domain and I have Windows on ARM running in a VM for some of the legacy software, not something I'd be happy putting the average user through.)

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Re: Apple's League

I had a first generation Intel 24" iMac, Apple dropped support around 2012, when the motherboard died in 2019, Windows.7 on the Bootcamp partition was still in support.

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Re: Apple's League

It only matters to, say, end users? :)

Except the end users usually don't get a choice. Here they get a Core i3 desktop in the production or a Core i5 laptop in back-office due to the Corona Lockdowns, otherwise they would generally still be on Core i3 or i5 desktops as well.

In most businesses, there are very few users that actually need a powerful PC. The only ones here that get something more than a Core i5 laptop are the CAD engineers, who get workstations, but that is less than 1% of the workforce. For the majority, a Core i3 or i5 (or an M1 Mac) is more power than they will generally need.

I use a MacBook Air M1 that was left over from an MDM project and had sat in a cupboard for 2 years, until my Windows laptop broke last month. With Parallels and Windows on ARM for a couple of legacy applications, it works fine for me - and I use a Mac at home for photo retouching work, it replaced a Ryzen 1700 desktop PC, it was a little faster than the Ryzen at the tasks I need, but uses much less power.

from a software prespective I find that Apple supports an older OS a lot longer than Redmond does.

That is the argument that got me to buy a 24" iMac with Intel processor, when they can out. Apple dropped support for it in 2012, when the motherboard finally failed in 2019, Microsoft Windows was still in support on the Bootcamp partition and was all it ever got booted into.

I'm hoping that my M1 Mac will fair better...

Not where I work and have worked. The capital writeoff tends to align with how taxation allows you to write it off, and Apple's warranties are sensibly in sync with that.

I've never worked anywhere that has worked on replacing equipment on capital wirteoff timescales. Everything beyond the writeoff timescale is a bonus. We generally replace any remaining kit between year 8 and year 10, if it breaks sometime after year 5 it gets replaced, if it is under 5 years, it is assessed to see if it is economical to repair.

First off, repair is a skill that you have to acquire and is in most businesses a cost Most companies I've worked with tend to call out a Dell or Lenovo engineer to come and fix parts when they go wrong so it's not inhouse to start with,

Again, not my experience. We've replaced 3 batteries on Dell laptops this month (first ones we've had to change in the 5 years I've been with the company) and it was very easy. We had a new laptop with a defective cooling system, Dell did send an engineer out for that, as it was under warranty. And we've replaced a few SSDs, you don't generally need an engineer for that either. But over the last 5 years, with around 500 PCs in total, I'd say we've had hardware problems with less than 1% of them - ages between new and 10 years.

But I'd go further in that insofar that I also have to consider supporting people when they're travelling, and here is where Apple has a massive advantage: I can send people down to an Apple shop to either get a fix or a replacement.

Fine if you have Apple Stores near you. Our nearest one is a 3-4 hour drive away. But for the equipment under warranty, we have next-day on-site, worldwide support. The user doesn't have to go anywhere, the support comes to them. For the older kit, it will be replaced and shipped to them.

What's more, most of the tools they need are already built in - at no extra cost. Remote viewing? Messages - Conversation - Ask to share screen. Open Standards compliant SMTP/IMAP/carddav/caldav support? Part of the default loadset. Do I HAVE to use Microsoft? Hey, it's cloudy now so just start up Safari or Firefox (IMHO still better)

We are chemical production, so everything pretty much does have to be Windows - for most of the industrial equipment and lab equipment, you have the choice of Windows or Windows... And often that is connected via serial ports. We are also in an area where cloud is not an option, pretty much everything is local applications and information stored within the company firewall.

If you work in an industry where you aren't limited by the software you have to use only being available on Windows, that is fine, you have more options, but a lot of LoB software is still Windows based.

In the case of remote support about the only language issue may be the keyboard, but it appears Apple sorted the international language issue eons ago - Microsoft is STILL stuggling with multilingual setups after only being in business for what? 30 years or so?

We support users in many different coutnries, mainly Germany and USA, but Finland, Japan, Brazil, Belgium etc. and we've not really had many problems with remote support.

AD control is an absolute dog.

And a neccessity for many. If you can get along without it, fine. But many places don't really have a choice. I got my MBA connected, but I'm glad that is a one-off.

Do you want to take about card slots or USB? The USB-C socket is quite universal (and came actually from the work that Apple did with the Lightning connector) and the card slot was re-introduced recently

I thnk the OP meant PCIe card slots, as opposed to memory card slots. USB-C is fine for many general things, but again, like you SCADA example, you can't beat a genuine serial port, for example. We have a lot of PLCs, industrial scales, weighbridges and lab equipment and a lot of it doesn't like Serial to USB, let alone direct USB. Most of it has the option of Windows software, if you are lucky, it will run on Windows 10 (but not 11), we still have a lot of kit that requires XP or Windows 7, which means we have a lot of isolated PCs that can't talk to the backoffice network, let alone the Internet. For most of it, there is no Linux option, let alone Apple option for software.

Then there is our LoB software, most of that is Windows only as well. We could use Macs (I do, but I am the only one), but it adds unneeded complexity and cost, because each one would need Parallels and Windows on ARM to get that LoB running - and some of it won't run on ARM, even under emulation.

Teams works better on Mac, Microsoft's RDP client on the Mac is better, but all the important software we use is Windows only, so everybody only gets the choice of Windows. If you are in an industry where the software works on multiple platforms or is cloud based, you have a lot more options for hardware and operating system. But there are still a lot of places that need specific hardware and operating systems.

I'd like to do a lot of things differently and use different hardware and software, but I am limited to what our LoB software runs on and that is simply Windows. Many businesses can't just unplug one OS and plug in another, the software is what is important, the operating system and the underlying hardware are an afterthought, dependent on the software that is being used.

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Re: Apple's League

I agree for the most part. I use a Mac at home and now at work, because my Windows laptop died and we had a MacBook gathering dust in a cupboard. But all of our software (industrial scales, weighbridges, lab equipment, production controllers, warehouse management, PLC management etc.) is mainly Windows only, so for a majority of our users they would be a non-starter.

1) We are on a 7-10 year replacement cycle, if the kit doesn't die first, but no extended warranties, kit over 3 years just gets replaced, if it fails, but a majority of kit holds at least 5 years and we still have a lot in the 8 year + range that have never had any problems.

2) Yep, getting my MacBook Air into the domain involved jumping through many hoops, but it eventually worked. Okay for one device, but not something I'd want to do on a regular basis.

3) For 98% of our users, not a problem, but there are a couple of PLC programmers, where finding a Windows laptop that still has a real serial port is hard to find!

4) I use and external keyboard 99% of the time (MacBook is docked at work or at home to a 44" 4K monitor with an external keyboard and mouse), but I find the keyboard is okay, not as good as a Lenovo or HP, but better than the cheap keyboards our desktops get delivered with..

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Given most of our hardware (industrial scales, weighbridges, laboratory equipment, PLCs and warehouse management systems only have Windows based applications to control them, Macs, let alone tablets or phones, are well down on our list of PCs we'd consider.

I am using a MacBook Air as an interim replacement for my old Windows laptop, which died (the MacBook Air was a left-over from an MDM project & surplus to requirements, sitting unused in a cupboard). I like it a lot, and with Windows on ARM running under Parallels, it does a great job and I'm in no hurry to order a replacement Windows device. But for the majority of our users, Macs would be non-starters as they know how to use their control software, but even getting them to do something as simple as starting an RDP session to access the ERP software is confusing enough for many, let alone trying to explain having to start Parallels to actually get to the software they need, it is just added complexity. A 400€ Core i3 PC with a 256GB SSD and a 24" monitor is a much cheaper and simpler solution that fits their needs much better than an expensive Mac plus Parallels + a Windows license.

There are a lot of places where Macs are a much better solution (and I use a Mac at home as well), but in normal industrial businesses they aren't even on the cards. It still comes down to the best device for the job at hand, for the types of job usually found in industry, a Windows PC is still the go-to choice.

I'm lucky, my boss (IT Manager) is open minded and doesn't care what we in the IT use, as long as we can do our jobs. One has Linux, the rest have Windows and I have the only Mac the company ever bought, But for the users, it is the simplicity plus the fact that the software they use is only available on Windows that limits their choices.

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My ThinkPad died last month. I looked at ordering a new laptop, but wanted to wait for the 14th Gen stuff to come out... We had an old MacBook Air M1 sitting around in a cupboard doing nothing (bought for MDM purposes, but never needed), so I thought I'd use that as an interim solution, while I wait for the new models to come online. I can run 85% of what I need on the MacBook natively, but with Parallels and Windows on ARM, it fulfills 100% of my needs and it is faster than my old ThinkPad T480 for the Windows stuff - a couple of legacy applications, plus Outlook, because Outlook for Mac can't talk to Exchange, only Outlook.com, Yahoo! and GMail...

With it connected up to my 44" monitor, it is doing a fine job and it is silent. I'm now not really in a hurry to see what new Intel processors come along, maybe wait and see what 2025 brings...

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Trollface

Re: Strategy

As long as it is efficient and passively cooled...

Meta's ad-free scheme dares you to buy your privacy back, one euro at a time

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Trollface

Re: My simple way of avoiding Zuck's ads ...

I'm the same, although I also have a PiHole at home and that puts a blanket ban on all known Meta domains.

My daughter came to visit and complained that the Internet wasn't working. I checked, all fine. Then she said, that she couldn't view Instagram, I told her, Internet working as expected. :-D

Apple lifts the sheet on a trio of 'scary fast' M3 SoCs built on a 3nm process

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Re: We need a new metric

I currently have around 20 tabs open, plus my day-to-day sys admin applications running, plus Outlook and Excel and my MBA is using 7GB from 8GB - including Parallels and Outlook and some legacy tools running in the VM.

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Re: We need a new metric

Same, I have a 32GB Ryzen, which I replaced with a 16GB Mac mini M1, same performance and no memory problems.

At work, I just replaced my dead ThinkPad with an MBA M1 8GB and it is just fine for the work I do (sys admin work). It was supposed to be an interim replacement, until I ordered a new Windows laptop, to be honest, I've seen no need to order a replacement yet.

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Re: We need a new metric

On Windows, I'd agree with you. Doing a 5-way conference, Teams was stuttering on my 8GB Windows laptop and I had to quit Outlook, browser andjust about everything else that was running. On the Mac, with 8GB, Teams doesn't cause any problems in the same situation. I'm actually pleasantly surprised how good the M1 MacBook Air is with 8GB, that I am using as an interim replacement. To be honest, I'm happy to wait a year or so, to see what happens on the Intel/Qualcomm front, before ordering a replacement.

That said, our desktops are still 8GB for the most part and most users don't have any problems with that. Most of the laptops are now 16GB, but I'd say 75% of our fleet is 4GB or 8GB.

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I would have said the same thing 2 years ago.

I bought a Mac mini with 16GB, which was a step down from the 32GB Ryzen system it was replacing, but it was fine for my needs.

My ThinkPad T480 died recently and I dug an 8GB MacBook Air out of the cupboard, which had been bought for activating iPhones for our old MDM system. It was surplus to requirements and just shoved in a cupboard. I was surprised, it runs better than the ThinkPad, with Parallels and WoA for a couple of legacy applications. It is probably at its limits, in terms of memory use (Outlook, Firefox, WoA Parallels, TeamViewer Manager, TeamViewer, Teams, VOIP client, Microsoft RDP client, Safari, Books, Excel and shell running, it takes up 7.5GB from 8GB), but it doesn't pause, doesn't stutter, it just works.

Even with a 5-way Teams conference, I don't have to quit other applications - on the ThinkPad, I had to quit just about all running applications, because it ground to a halt and started stuttering.

For normal office use, 8GB seems to be more than acceptable, although, coming from a Windows world, I wouldn't spec it with less than 16GB for my own use, but I do do photo editing on the side.

Amazon workers are in a warehouse of pain, independent report finds

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Re: Amazon warehouses are sweatshops

If you watch their adverts, you'd think you were working in Shangrila!

I'm currently being bombarded with 2 ads, one of a young woman who is being encouraged by Amazon to improve herself and become a manager and they are paying for her training and the other is a new father, who, thanks to the Amazon Family Bonus, could afford to take a 3rd month off after his daughter was born to help is wife.

Ask a builder to fix a server and out come the vastly inappropriate power tools

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Mushroom

Re: Shocking!

Talking of which, a colleague was sent on a project to a flour mill. The IT manager of the customer set up a trestle table wih power strips in the production hall for the consultants to use.

"It was dreadful, smell of mould and flour and the air was thick with flour dust!" He recalled.

Cue H&S appearing on the scene & evacuating the whole site, before shutting down the power to the section of the building where the table was! The IT Manager had just ignored the overhead pipes transferring flour from one side of the building to the other, which weren't 100% air-tight and were constantly letting flour fall down onto the table...

Bad Vibrations: Music publishers sue Anthropic AI for using copyrighted lyrics

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And pay for the licenses to use the copyrighted material in their training model or remove it all.

The problem is, theoretically, if you listen to music, you have paid for a license to listen to it - either via a streaming service or buying a license/CD/LP etc. Obviously, there are the black sheep out there, who download the music illegally, but that is the same argument as the AI using unlicensed music for training.

EU threatens X with DSA penalties over spread of Israel-Hamas disinformation

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Re: Only X ?

As stated in the story, it isn't the only one, but it is the only one that seems to be blatantly ignoring its legal duties.

Volkswagen stuck in neutral after 'IT disruption'

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Rumours...

The rumours circulating in German IT forums are, that the networking gear licenses ran out and nobody bothered to renew them.

Rumour has it, that the person who switched from 5 or 10 year licensing for the network gear to annual left the company a few months back and nobody took over the responsibility for the licensing, so when the invoice turned up, nobody countersigned it, so accounting didn't pay, as it hadn't been signed off... The networking gear then stopped working, when the licenses expired...

When that is the case, big oops!

Feds raise alarm over Snatch ransomware as extortion crew brags of Veterans Affairs hit

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RDP in 2023?

Why, people, why? :-(

At least put it behind a VPN with MFA.