Was the article supposed to be humorous?
Or just plain offensive?
Regardless of the result of the referendum, there are many businesses - known throughout the world - that are proudly and uniquely Scottish.
92 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Mar 2012
I thought I liked Win 8. I've often got thumbs downs on here for supporting it. But then I tried to help some newbies use it and I realized that it is truly, terribly broken. And it doesn't sound as though Win8.1 is going to be much less confusing for newbies than Win 8 - the start "button" and charms change will improve things a little for those that are used to XP and Win 7, but as a tablet operating system that Grandma can use? Forget it!
I think the Win 7 improvements like the quick start up/shutdown time and Hyper-V are great. But the apps suck ass.
I love how you idiots think that it'd be great it companies paid more tax. Companies aim to make a profit; profit in it's simplest form is revenue less costs. If you increase their costs they increase their prices. So you cretins that bang on about how morally wanton these companies are just want to pay even more tax when shopping by forcing retailers to pay more tax, which they will then factor into the price. I guess the PAYE and VAT we already pay just isn't enough is it?
I'm still happy to shop at Amazon. I'd rather retail businesses didn't have to pay pointless taxes, or found a legal way not to, than have to pay (often excessive) P&P. It's just a shame that the tax loopholes are only open to multi-nationals. Of course, the easiest way to close the loophole is to scrap the tax. Courtesy of PAYE and VAT I pay enough tax as it is thanks very much and forcing retailers to pay more will mean they just pass it on and I'll be paying even more tax.
For new-to-Win8 experienced Windows users the Win+R combination really does help get them through - until they've pinned everything they need! We use remote desktop a lot and many use a resolution smaller than their display which means they're not full-screen - then the hot corners are a real pain and you can't do Win+R. My solution to that problem was to to share a shortcut to "%windir%\explorer.exe shell:::{2559a1f3-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}" called Run. Run that and then you can pin "Run" to the taskbar!
Regarding one application on-screen at a time - it's only the Modern (or TIFKAM) apps that are full screen, or 1/3 or 2/3's of the screen - you can run 2 of these at the same time.
But you also have access to the traditional Win7 Desktop where you can run as many apps as you like. You can also have Desktop plus one Modern app if you just have one screen, or you can have Desktop plus 2 Modern apps if you have multiple monitors.
Research indicates most Win8 laptop users are infrequently using the Modern apps at all and are just using the Desktop environment. Makes sense really as most of the Modern apps are just toys for tablets.
Not everyone wants a Start button that displays a start menu.
However for those that really, really can't live without one, you can get the functionality without any third party extensions - just click on your taskbar, add a new toolbar and enter %ProgramData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu as your folder.
You're welcome.
Has the author not been inside the Redmond reality field before? Everyone on campus will be using Win8.1. I can assure you, for them Win8 is old. Yet many in the real world are still using XP and 2003. That's just how it is and it's been that way for years. MS live in the future, the present is the past. The model works quite well, most folk and businesses prefer to live in the stable, but dull, past. But more and more will catch up with Redmond - often reluctantly because the new hardware had it pre-installed for example. By the time the majority move to something newer it's rock solid and people are happy with it, the current realm of Win7 & 2008 R2.
Well all the distros already have customized them. And then every user goes and tweaks it to. That's why the documentation's piss poor on Linux and the forums are often useless because your view of the interface is almost guaranteed to be different than most other peoples.
A good CompSci degree will cover hardware and software but allow the student to specialize in the area they are more interested in. The University of Edinburgh do a Software Engineering degree; I'd hope that you could switch to/from CompSci so long as you've done the required modules.
And btw, new compilers are still needed and developed these days, especially with a lot of development on DSPs and GPUs. It is a bit of a specialist field, but many of the techniques involved are still very useful to know for almost all developers, for example using parsing and tokenising input.
I think having a touch screen on a laptop is useless. Most of the time my laptop sits on my desktop almost out of arms reach. I use Windows 8 daily and don't find that I need to touch anything but my keyboard and mouse. On the occasions I do use it on the move I could see myself dropping the thing on the floor if I start touching the screen. Keep touch to tablets, that what I say.
I can see SP1 being gratefully received to avoid the newbie confusion of getting to the desktop and the start menu though.
It's a hybrid desktop/tablet OS. These numbers show, unsurprisingly, that desktop users can clearly still use Win8 almost exactly as if it were Win7. So they're productivity won't have been seriously impaired by being forced to switch to a tablet mindset. Once you get used to a couple of different interface quirks, it's just Win7 but slightly better and it has a few new toys you can play with if you chose to.
I agree. But if you want the business - and we do - then the rates have to be competitive in a global market. So that probably means scraping corporate tax altogether. At least then the small shops aren't paying taxes that the big boys aren't and also fewer accountants are employed to work out the best way to avoid paying tax.
The box updates itself - but there was another update this week so that I can now chose to have it confirm recording deletes, which is handy as I had deleted some in error. I only know this change because I read it on the Talk Talk website.
I've read the instructions - because I was looking for missing functionality. But of course as they're changing it every month my instructions are out of date! I know it's Linux based, but I didn't expect I'd need to trawl forums and rebuild the box myself.
The problem is that it's still playing catch up with PVRs that have been around for years. YouView was years late and when it arrives it's still "Nearly Ready" - as the box says every time you switch it on!
It sucks in so many ways it was easier to generalise.
The only thing missing is Netflix?! What about BlinkBox and LoveFilm? I seriously don't think they'll bother.
I've had my Talk Talk YV box since December. The interface sucks. It's a very poor PVR. They've only recently added functionality to search in the Guide rather than just for On Demand stuff (and that functionality hasn't made it to Talk Talk yet). You can't see a list of what series you have scheduled to record - either that or it just forgets them once there are no more episodes in the 7 day guide.
On Demand players are crap compared to recorded programmes - rewind, fast forward are painful and it won't remember where you watched to if you don't watch a programme in one viewing.
You search just for free content, or even content which won't require a subscription.
It takes too long to wake up - and that's from the non-eco mode. And then it's only a digibox. If you want to see your recordings or worse start an on demand player you have to wait again.
The iOS app is seriously limited in functionality (i.e. you can only add a recording to your list - you can't see what you have scheduled to record) and there's no word of when the Android app will be available.
A massive underground bunker would be a better insurance policy and has the advantage that they could emerge to actually help the survivors. It'd be much easier to keep the equipment needed to rebuild (and repopulate) society in a hole under a mountain than it is to try and ship it to a remote planet that currently can't sustain life. Even in a worst case scenario we'd have a better chance of terra-forming a ruined Earth than any other planet in our solar system as it's the only one currently in the goldilock zone.
I fully support getting colonies on the moon and Mars, but not for the reasons given in this article.