Posts by villandra

Linux Mint 22 'Wilma' still the Bedrock choice for moving off Windows

I suggest getting a second hand computer from a reputable dealer, like Discount Electronics, where I used to work. Their refurbished computers come with I think a 1 year guarantee. You can still use something older without breaking the bank.

Ubuntu is highly stable, though not perfect - but it is user friendly out of the box. More important, it doesn't crash easily without the user messing with it, and it is extremely well supported. I have always found answers to problems I had with Ubuntu. There are dozens of detailed books on Ubuntu, as well as training courses, but I usually find my answers through Google, You Tube, or Ubuntu and Linux forums.

Mint, on the other hand, is prone to problems, and it's hardly supported at all. There is little written about how to work with Mint, almost none of it up todate, and little other support on the Internet. When you ask for help on Mint forums with any problem you get told "reinstall". Its developers clearly don't care at all. The operating system and its files are arranged completely differently, which is quite unecessary and must have been done deliberately to make it hard to work with Mint under the hood, since Mint is basically Ubuntu with the desktop made more attractive and user friendly. This means that usually the solution to problems in Ubuntu don't work in Mint.

I have consistently used Ubuntu since support for Windows 7 ended. I have grown used to it and love it. Mint does look more like Windows 98 or 7 out of the box, and Ubuntu isn't the most customizable, but it is customizable enough to get a presentable desktop with a bottom bar you park your often used software on and not a garish orange side thing . And you can change the desktop background.

Otherwise the experience is highly similar between Mint and Ubuntu; Mint is just Ubuntu with the desktop experience rearranged and different apps that do the same things (usually not as well).

'Windows 10 destroyed our data!' Microsoft hauled into US court

Serves you right. What kind of a bloody IDIOT would run Windows 10, OR Windows 8.

If you need a new computer and can't get Windows 7, install Ubuntu or another Linux OS.

If people stop BUYING anything that RUNS Windows 10, Microsoft will give us back Windows 7, believe me. Or they'll just go out of business and good riddance.

In any case, if you have a head, you knew perfectly well Windows 8 or 10 would destroy your system. It does that to everyone sooner or later and always has.

BBC detector vans are back to spy on your home Wi-Fi – if you can believe it

Re: Pay up and stop moaning you tight bastards

If this furor about household searches to see if you have a TV is about watching BBC, no worries. BBC must have few enough viewers already, their programming is so dull!

Are you telling me someone is saying you will NEED TO BUY A LICENSE to watch OFF THE AIR TELEVISION in Britain?

I am SO glad my ancestors left that God-foresaken place. My ancestors were Puritans and Scots. They saw which way English society was heading!

Get a plain old wall antenna and watch away, for God's sake. I can't wait for any protest about it to reach the courts - even in medieval England!

Google buddies up with Intel for this year's big Chromebook push

Our IT corporate leaders need to go back on their medication.

Suffice it to say, I need my software that is on my actual computers, so I won't be using a CHROMEBOOK sometimes soon, or even sometime distant.

Target ignored hacker alarms as crooks took 40m credit cards – claim

BANGALPORE?!!!

Well, that explains it! Target got EXACTLY what they paid for.

That does it. I'm never shopping at Target again! Not I shopped there often. Their prices are too high, and this is hardly the first inkling I've gotten that they just don't give a ___. For instance, they are always automatically bagging purchases, not just in plastic bags without asking you or charging you for them, in violation of law, but they DOUBLE them! And the checkout clerks are very slow.

Honestly didn't occur to me they might have been imported from Bangalapore.

T-Mobile US: AT&T's mobe buyout deal is so 'desperate', we'll do it too

I'm checking; are either of these two companies located in the United Kingdom? If so, is that where all of this action is taking place?

Assuming these companies are in the U.S. (and wondering at why a British paper is interested), the way T-Mobile treated me, I'm not anxious to go back to them. Their network allegedly isn't that great as well.

Let's see. I bought the $20 that is what they were selling at Walmart, which was all I needed at that time, and tried to register it and get features and whatever, and they told me they don't support it because it is a "legacy phone". This phone was a joke. You couldn't delete voice mail without listening to it. You couldn't delete text messages without opening them, and you got charged for each text message opened, even if it was junk. You couldn't delete anyone from the address book. AND, last but not least... wait for it..... you couldn't upgrade a pay as you go account to a regular account.

AT&T is a little expensive; $55 for unlimited text, talk and web at the feature phone rate - but I'm getting what I'm paying for, which is good service. And I have a nice refurbished Blackberry style phone.

So, now, T Mobile wants us to drop all of this for some pink phone?

..... Whatever.