* Posts by LeedsMonkey

15 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Jul 2012

Complete with keyboard and actual, literal, 'physical' escape key: Apple emits new 16" $2.4k+ MacBook Pro

LeedsMonkey

Re: Selective deafness

Thinkpad X1 Carbon, Dell XPS

LeedsMonkey

Re: Selective deafness

How can a school mandate the choice of laptop - did they provide it? I fail to understand how they can do this unless they are paying for it.

LeedsMonkey

Re: Selective deafness

If you are comparing bargain-basement consumer-grade crap to Apple then yes I agree with you on the build quality issues. Comparing it to a business-class laptop and that's a different story. Dell latitude and Lenovo Thinkpads are so popular with businesses because they are built really well and don't cost the earth.

As for Windows 10 data slurping you can for the most part disable this, and the bit that is left isn't much to worry about. I'd be more concerned with your choice of browser and your surfing habits!

LeedsMonkey

Re: Selective deafness

Couldn't agree more. All the glossy reviewers seem to miss the point this is a 3k+ laptop being touted as a mobile workstation yet it has no ports and will be a pig to maintain if anything breaks. Where's the onsite warranty option Apple? I get this might not be a free option like it is with some vendors, but at least allow me to buy this rather than having to go see a 'Genius'.

Apple need a separate 'Pro' division to the one that makes all the itoys. Most people who buy a computer (laptop or desktop) for work don't care so much about looks. Functionality, performance and reliability are much more important. If Apple would have made a pig-ugly laptop, but one with loads of useful I/O, user upgradeable RAM and storage, and pro maintenance I would buy one. Instead I'll be getting a Thinkpad.

Pushed around and kicked around, always a lonely boy: Run Huawei, Google Play, turns away, from Huawei... turns away

LeedsMonkey

This is pretty dumb. Huawei and other Chinese manufacturers have both the resources and a massive local market to release their own OS, and they have never been too shy with just copying stuff either. They will just replace Android with their own OS. They might not be able to sell these in the US, but there is this thing called 'the rest of the world', and that's a fairly big market. Not to mention the US will have absolutely no control over this at all.

Lenovo kicks down door of MWC, dumps a stack of sexy new ThinkPads

LeedsMonkey

Re: 13.3" display in a 12" chassis

Look at the Lenovo P72.

Good news: Apple designs a notebook keyboard that doesn't suck

LeedsMonkey

Or just make a proper keyboard and stop making everything so thin...

All this nonsense has started because the keyboard is just too thin. It's an absolute pile of shite to type on, but why cares if it looks cool eh? I waited for a replacemnt for my 2012 rMBP and when the replacement was announced I just bought a ThinkPad. Limited to 16GB RAM, only 3 useable ports (need one for the charger) a dreadful keyboard and that crappy touch bar, the current MBP would cost me around £4k. Plus another £200+ in dongles! No thanks Apple.

Thankfully Lenovo have stopped trying to be Apple, at least with their ThinkPads anyway. I wish more manufacturers would do this - realise the strengths in their own products and build on that. This would be even better if Lenovo to moved away from the chicklet style keyboards and back to the ones they had in the 90's. Yes they were chunky, but they were a joy to type on.

User stepped on mouse, complained pedal wasn’t making PC go faster

LeedsMonkey

Re: Old as the hills

Most parents with toddlers these days also have lots of marks on the TV as their kids just think it's a big iPad.

LeedsMonkey

You see coampared to some of the numpties I've worked with, who are supposed to know what they are doing and are very quick to point out how good they are in meetings, I'd quite happily take a gig training a load of OAP's how to use the internet. I think it would be a breath of fresh air compared to a corporate gig. Yes it would be frustrating at times, but to see the look of joy on someones face when they discover something or finally are able to do something right, not to mention the banter that old people seem to have between themselves, would be much more satisfying than watching you boss get brownie points for your hard work.

Microsoft Surface Book 2: Electric Boogaloo. Bigger, badder, better

LeedsMonkey

Re: Runs Windows...

Why? Seems a bit narrow minded. Yes Windows has it issues, but you seem to forget it's about the applications you need to support your workload not the operating system at the end of the day.

iPhone 8: Apple has CPU cycles to burn

LeedsMonkey

The biggest issue for me with the iPhone is that I could go from an iPhone 6 to an iPhone 8 and not really be able to tell the difference, but it would cost me the best part of £1k to do so. There is no sense of occasion when you get a new iPhone, after half an hour you forget you bought the new one, and only when you go to plug in your headphones do you remember.

And then there's the price. You really want the iPhone X, but it's going to cost a small fortune and is not really worth more than £500.

70% of Windows 10 users are totally happy with our big telemetry slurp, beams Microsoft

LeedsMonkey

Re: No need to change the default settings! Erase all of WIN 10

My only potential issue with darktable is printing. I've not had a chance to test the print module, but would be interested to see how effective it is.

Ubuntu 'weaponised' to cure NHS of its addiction to Microsoft Windows

LeedsMonkey

Re: Makes perfect sense

Not true. Look at jobserve, a large number of organisations are now going down the cloud (internal/external/hybrid) route with agile development. The job market is usually a pretty good measure of what is actually happening.

LeedsMonkey

Makes perfect sense

I've been involved in Windows, storage, etc for many, many years now, but of late have been getting more involved in AWS, Linux and agile workloads. If the NHS can embrace these concepts and move to an open source platform it would be of huge benefit. There are plenty of Linux skills around and there's simply no need to have ancient PC's running Windows XP. Yes some applications will need to be migrated/redeveloped, but gone are the days where an application should be tied to an operating system.

As for proprietary hardware, which there will be loads of in the NHS, suppliers will simply have to decide whether or not they want their contracts renewed. Once the messages gets through that Linux will be the new platform they will all follow suit or be replaced by competitors who will. And where there are no competitors, yes some money will need to be spent.

I'm not underestimating the size of the task here, or trivialising how important application availability is, but this culture of pockets of IT that exist within our public services, not just the NHS, has to change. Nor am I underestimating the costs - it will be damn expensive to make the move - but the long-term benefits will be worth it.

Microsoft lobs licensing liposuction at Server 2012

LeedsMonkey

Going the opposite way to Apple

While both Apple and Microsoft are ignoring portions of their user base they are going in opposite directions. It appears MS only want the corporate world now ($400 for WHS replacement, are they smoking crack?), while Apple have no interest in this after ditching the X Server platform and having a very strong focus on consumer products.

How long do we think that it will be before they will do a u-turn out of necessity?