Posts by PhilBack

P-p-p-pick up a Pengwin: Windows Subsystem for Linux boffins talk version 2

Hyper-V meh

I need VMWare and have to disable Hyper-V for it to work...

So WSL2 is not going to run on the box. VMWare runs Linux properly anyway.

Azure VMs borked following Meltdown patch, er, meltdown

VMs not coming back have not been waiting for Spectre or Meltdown to happen

Got biten for weeks with these problems on Azure West.

Not going there anytime soon.

Hey, you know why it's called the iPhone X? When you see Apple's repair bill, your response will be X-rated

Just a status symbol

I moved away from Apple.

Expensive stuff with quality going downwards year after year.

For someone who has money, well, sure they can afford everything.

I'd rather buy myself nice clothes than a pocket computer at that tune.

Forget One Windows, Microsoft says it's time to modernize your apps

More changes, less incentive to invest precious time

They always change the tech, making it uninteresting to invest time and energy in learning it.

In Creator Update they removed the ability to even have UI fonts bold etc, requiring one to use AeroTweaker to fix it. Very annoying for accessibily. I wonder how grandpa can actually see those super fine characters (actually, a lot of managers have the same issue as far as I can see).

I've got a 4K screen and having all of that font stuff right in Win10 is doable, despite Microsoft actively being actively blocking the abilities.

So, it is all nice to have the super goodies but get the basics right first.

I always end up thinking that there are various groups inside MS that have their view on things should work and this ultimately gives that pile of historical leftovers (read more or less failed experiments).

FWIW I am writing this from a box running MATE on CentOS.

Microsoft tries to Spark relationship with cluster lusters: Promises 5-min big data bang on Azure

Hadoop on Windows is a joke as only base services are supported.

Recent HDP releases have dropped support for Windows.

HDInsights is running on Linux.

https://community.hortonworks.com/questions/58663/hdp-25-support-for-windows.html

Free Windows 10 upgrade: Time is running out – should you do it?

Using them as they come with new PCs

Got a new PC for hooking it up to the telly, it came with Win10.

But for the real work, it is 8.1 Pro. I do not want telemetry etc.

Anyway, most of the time, this is to boot some Linux VM to do development.

What Windows is good at is to get the hardware supported properly. Provided the hardware maker follows up. Samsung actively discouraged to upgrade to Win10 due to driver issues.

FWIW, I am typing this from an old MBP mid 2009, which works perfectly well with the latest macOS.

I doubt I could get things working that seamlessly with the equivalent laptop of old. I tried and it failed.

Chaps make working 6502 CPU by hand. Because why not?

Re: I'll really be impressed when..

6809, what a nice processor. Too bad the 6847 VDU in my CoCo was such a piece of crap and didn't do justice to it.

The PC is dead. Gartner wishes you luck, vendors

800W is not the standard part

Nor are silent fans or usable cases.

DYI all the way!

Confirmed: IBM slurps up Bruce Schneier with Resilient purchase

Blue wash ahead

I wonder how the product will end up after the treatment.

Coding with dad on the Dragon 32

Re: Made in Port Talbot

Ah 6847, what a crappy chip.

Had a TRS-80 CoCo 1 16K, got quite a mileage out of it, especially with the EDTASM cartridge.

It was cool to have the wiring schematics, especially when I wired stuff from my 200-in-1 electronics kit.

This was the Pi and Arduino of the day.

iOS motion control iRing here at last ... but it's NOT made by Apple

Actually a good idea to control some stuff on Ableton

I am using a controller on the iPad and it works pretty nicely.

Rings could be interesting for creating movement patterns to control filters indeed.

Apple blings up new iMac with latest Intel chips, next-gen Wi-Fi

Re: I don't mind

Same here. Got an i7 and 32GB RAM w/ a GTX770 Gfx card and tons of screen estate (2x 27 inch monitors + 1 extra 24), +SSDs, all under EUR 2000.

.

And run OSX in a VM or on my old MBP2009 upgraded to 8GB

Sorry, Apple - China's just not that into your iPhone 5

Who cares?

Doing any extrapolation on such a changing market is really silly.

Look at phones from a year ago. What? So old? So out of date already?

What about next year? What about things like WhatsApp and stuff that will change the whole ecosystem?

These devices are *all* turning into powerhouses. I wouldn't be astonished to see these running emulations of each other (ala VMWare) in a couple of years rendering all of this Apple vs Samsung vs whoevere ridiculous.

And let's face it: Apple makes damn cool hardware that is not giving us stuttering framerates like we can still see on a quad core Android box. It is going to be creative destruction all the way down.

And I was playing with a windows phone some time ago, things were quite smooth as well!

Tim Cook: Apple to manufacture Macs in US in 2013

Foxconn: China labor, yes but taiwanese company first.

So, why not Foxconn USA?

Nobody knows what to call Microsoft's ex-Metro UI

The Askeuo design language

As in "Askeuomorphic as can be"

Or "MCRWSIT" - Moving Coloured Rectangles With Stuff In Them

Google upgrades Gmail interface, now less 'drafty'

Reverted back to the standard within seconds

Yeah, looked interesting.

Until noticed that:

1) doesn't work with Streak's CRM snippets (damn)

2) is stuck in the bottom right unless I do some kata moves to get the window to float

So, some fixes needed.

RIM reports more losses, lower sales, lots of cash

I for sure would love to see them coming back into the arena

Frankly, my Bold 9000 suffered problems and the customer care of RIM was basically utterly low end. There isn't any other word for their ability to serve me as a customer.

So, after going through that, I went Android. And boy, that wasn't as good for my productivity when it comes to texting and writing content on the phone. So, there is a definitive advantage to all of their shortcuts and stuff for the power user.

If they do get their act together, like merge Android with their expertise on keyboards and productivity, I'll all be back in with them. Now, we have WhatsApp that covers much of what BBM has to offer. And it works nicely on even a super cheap phone.

Let's have RIM give us value for money and we may be back with them. Not sure the dismal failure of the Playbook (that heavy little brick) and the bad customer service will help in getting there in any way.

Acer Iconia Tab A700 32GB HD Android tablet review

Good for development

I would sure pick one as a target for games development on Android.

Got an iPad2 for iOS target, this one would be perfect as Droid target.

The question is now: 3-screens, 2 tablets, 1 or 2 mobes on the desk... Well, I will need to wall mount them in this age of mobile. Mobile development is not that mobile for sure :-)

BOFH: The back-up backdown smackdown

Excellent episode!

"Age is no guarantee of reliability. Just look at senior management"

This one made my day for sure!

Death to Office or to Windows - choose wisely, Microsoft

Matt is on crack on this one

Office on the iPad. All right, now what?

Microsoft does a ton of business in the enterprise. I can look all I want but at a lot of places, CxOs may have their iPads but these aren't on the corporate network. 3G links but no direct.

Apple is not interested in the enterprise space, it is now a customer company.

And stop forcing us to jailbreak to get decent features (like basic file upload in Safari, filesystem access, USB port that works without bugging me with "Too much power", and other stuff).

I own an iPad, quite a bunch of apps, develop on the device. It is still in infancy and not ready to take on the ton of things MS Win does. Do CAD/CAM work on an iPad, we'll talk later.

And the tablet is a slow beast. Vector editing with several layers just sucks when things gets tough.

RIM's apps revolution swings on Blackberry 10

They are dead

I was a BB fan. No more.

Switched to iOS and couldn't be happier.

Ten... stars of the Consumer Electronics Show

Hugely disappointing

A large TV, a bunch of laptops and some gadgets that will gather dust.

I guess that the gold rush is over and this is all mainstream by now with only incremental improvements instead of innovation.

Maybe biotech will bring us some consumer fun... Well, until Deux Ex era comes to reality that is...

Is Bill Gates mulling a return to Microsoft throne?

This would be interesting

Especially if Gates focuses on education!

Kinect 2 said to read lips, sense mood

Can do whatever it likes

There is still not enough time in the damn day to gets basic things done.

Games consoles are collecting dust most of the time... Kinect will end the same way. No amount of lip reading and mood sensing will help.

Apple MacBook Pro 13in Core i5 laptop

They are good.

If money's not an issue (and if you run your own business, 1K is really ridiculous pocket change), that's really a great box.

2 USB? So what, it is hooked to a 7-port stackable USB hub here and there is no single problem. You can stack hubs on hubs for "as many ports as you need."

I've got a MBP 13 from 2 generations before and it is really a pleasure to work with it.

Mine lives into a Henge dock http://www.hengedocks.com/ and is hooked on a 24" display.

There are plenty of other PCs with XP, Vista, ... and Linux Mint over here. Needless to say, most work happens on the MBP13". And I was a PC guy. That says a lot.

Take me down as well :-)

How are we going to search our hard disks now?

Agent ransack

Not too bad and still around. May be slow but works.

Google's Moto move spells iPhone doom

So what?

We will not affect this much. We'll buy devices based on our financial capacity.

And I have no issue having Android and iOS tablets. Basically, tablets are for consumption of media. And games.

But the developers are what makes a brand work. And Apple currently has a huge lead here. AppStore, iTunes, those are what kids use. They even buy MBPs.

Jailbreak or become a dev

And yes, I can play MKV files all I want on my iPad2.

People don't want tablets, they want iPads

iPad just works and the hardware is excellent

As an iPad 2 user, I have to say that the tablet is great. There are computers all over the place here but I find myself using the tablet for most mundane computing tasks: surfing the web, reading docs, email and photos. Watching movies is also working nicely.

The key success factors is the instant-on functionality, the fact that I can hand it to someone else for a quick review and the Notes+ app that helps me keeping notes. And the ecosystem of apps is better than on Android. I am currently developing an app for kids and making money there will be much easier than on any other tablet. So, why concentrate on other platforms?

Atmos 2.0 now shipping

Ah Oric Atmos... So 80s :-)

And it had a less stellar history than the Oric1. Better keyboard tough.

Back to the cloud, everytime I see "Cloud", it just feels like a synonym for "online". As in "Online Storage" and "Online Drive".... What's so new about that?

Save the planet: Stop the Greens

The french brigade says...

"un soupçon de suscpicion" means "a tiny bit of suspicion, just enough"

Don't let China hold rare-earths to ransom again

Great Article. Back to raw!

Maybe this is prefiguring the new tech. New stuff, instead of the same old again and again.

Google snips Facebook's Gmail line

Good move

I am eager to see the consequences!

Apple threatens Java with death on the Mac

Linux runs on Apple hardware...

And then all the Java development can be done there...

OOo's put the willies up Microsoft

OO great for fast equations writing

OpenOfffice has DMaths and the equation writer, something that makes MS products irrelevant for me in that area.

Agreed that OO may not be for everyone, but it works well enough for us. Even if I do have Office2003 here, I have no intention of using that crappy ribbon interface from hell.