Posts by Jamie Carpenter

Huawei Ascend G300 budget Android

Re: sadly no bargain

Think you were unlucky. I've got one, love it. Especially when people see what it can do (i.e. run any android app that their £500 phone can) and they find out I only paid £100 for it. Torque works perfectly on it which was my main reason for buying it. There was a major firmware update for it, including a fix for the poor speaker and reliability updates. But that won't fix your dodgy screen! On mine, the screen is plenty sharp enough and touch is better than any touchscreen I've used apart from the Samsung Galaxy S2 and S3. You must never have used a Blackberry Storm if you think it's bad..! I think you got a dud I'm afraid.

But yeah the vodafone software is annoying. If I get bored one day I might try and hack it off.

Dear Dell and Microsoft: You're not Apple

TO AC 16:13

Naa, not old skool, that would make me old skool too :-)

In open converstation, yea we used to use netware too, but from what I remember, it wasn't doing anywhere near as many things as we push our modern windows servers to do? Much better for file and print services, lousy terminal server! :-)

IE on servers, I would say that is on there, so you can download patches and updates for 3rd party software. I use it quite a bit on servers, especially if you have some things that detect the OS through the browser. I would say Microsoft did think of that, hence IE ESC. Microsoft don't know what roles you are going to use on a server, no IE on a Terminal server wouldn't be too good. Patching IE, well you can use WSUS or SCCM to manage those updates. Chances are that IE updates will come out the same time as other updates, so we install the lot in mainatance windows.

Can't say I've ever seen video driver issues from Server 2000 until today. (NT4, another story!) But that might be because we use Dell, with the OpenMangle installer, and it puts the right drivers on from the start. Then use Dell Server update utility, so no rogue drivers can go on.

I'm not saying if you cut me I bleed Microsoft, we've had some issues with some not so written sofware, DFS, and SCCM to name a couple. But I personally think that the current enterprise kit is great. We use 16 blades, with Terminal servers serving up to 100 users on each. Attached to iSCSI SANs. They give us hardly any issues these days, they just run like the old days! With remote app, app-v, hyper-v, I think things are getting better and better!

And I think that back to the original point of this article, my above paragraph shows that MS aren't trying to be Apple. Enterprise is thier core.

Thanks

Thanks for explaining, if that's why the majority of people think. You seem unbiased and fair so that's a good case.

I too remember the IE / Netscape battle, and the anti-trust cases. However from my personal point of view, isn't that like hating Germans because of WW2? Or the french for our past wars?

In the modern era, I see Microsoft making some good products, I think (again personally, don't shoot me!) better than the competition. XP and W7, Server 2003 and 2008 R2, yea Vista and 'ME' were terrible.

I don't see them doing anything differently to any other corporations, yeah the practices might not be good, but I don't beleive that Ford don't steal ideas from Seat, or that Bosch don't steal ideas from Makita etc etc.. so for that reason, I can't really hate them! I like thier products, and I find accepting Microsoft and Dell for who they are and what they do, makes my job so much easier and something less to stress about each day! Here come the tumbs down :-p

Enterprise

I still to this day don't understand why there is so much hatred for Microsoft. Can someone elaborate? Why is IE9 so bad?

I've been in I.T. a fairly long time, I'm not the old skool, but I'm hardly new either. I'm an infrastucture engineer, and my company is a Microsoft house.

I've used Linux, OSX, and Microsoft products. In the business, trying to keep things lean, easy to fix, and managable, and we haven't had any reason to think Microsoft isn't right for us.

Is it just because they are big? Is it anti-corporationalism? I really don't understand why there is this massive fanboi base for apple, and all Linux lovers seem to love hating anything mainstream!

And we're also a Dell house, we're very happy with them. No one can get us spare disks, raid cards, CPU's etc faster than Dell. WE call up with failed SAS disk, 20 mins later the new one is in my hand. Can't moan at that!

Windows on the Desktop? There's a group policy for that

SCCM

Totally agree, I get worried whenever my boss mentions anything 'System Center' now!

I think the article was more about GPO though, written by the enterprise server team of course. SCCM 2007 R2 has worked a bit better for us. Maybe the next version will be better.. I don't do the software roll out side of it, but the guys that do have said it's much better now.

I can't fault GPO though. Most people commenting on here it would appear, haven't seemed to notice that it's how GPO is implemented that can be the problem, not the technology itself.

@ chipshopman

Community? Or business?

Have you used group policy before? I assume you know you can push out printers, mapped drives, software, proxy settings, favorites (IT Helpdesk perhaps?) icons, logon scripts? Is any of that a hinderance?

So you think we should just give users a computer and say 'there you go' and let them get on with it? Just a bare OS. That would be productive. Users would be happy with that? No internet, software, help, mapped drives?

When my CTO asks how a user managed to get illigal software on the domain, (and the company is liable) should I say, 'we let them, because we're treating them like adults'

Do you think Terminal servers should also have no group policy? What about updates?

Do you think there should be no rules or laws in the world? That people don't push boundries when they can?

Do they really own the 'desktop's they use? Who paid for it?

Is the driver of a fire engine allowed to paint the truck any colour they want and spray petrol out of the hose?

Do you see your argument is falling apart?

@ AC 10:39

For an apparent software 'engineer' you don't seem to have much logic!!

As someone else said, ever heard of change control? Don't blame everyone else for your, and your company's failings.

GP is a tool, yeah, people should use it cautiously, and with testing and change control.

If you show that attitude to your AD admins, are you sure they didn't do it on purpose?!

And for trolling, grenade thrown right back at ya. Have fun in the enterprise Mac world! PMSL!

Desktop Linux: That dog will mount

Linux?

I have been reading therigister for ages now, and only just signed up for an accont as I feel I have to make a few points!

I must admit MS do annoy me. So wilth all good intentions I decided to make the major switch to Linux. Now to all those who like to say 'Everything works fine'.. I haven't used one distro that does what I want it to! Ubuntu... can't log in as root to install some software packages that require root. Fedora.. seems ok, but I tried to use it as a very basic operating system, opened an internet radio station, and it tried to install Adobe flash player from Adobe's site. It failed miserably. That was a new install. SuSE.. Most packages I try to install just don't work. Errors always appear when installing. Once again this is a new install.

So how come when I use Windows programs just install and work? Thats what I expect, and thats what home users and corperate users expect.

Now I know you are all thinking 'Newbie' or whatever quirky words you use, but I have been in I.T. for 15 years, and I manage a 1000+ user network. Do I have the time to be faffing around with install scripts? No.. Do I have the time to be trying to get even basic web sites to work? No! When I buy a car, although I am the equivelent of a mechanic, I don't expect to rebuild the engine everytime I want to replace my tyres or change the wipers.

So until Linux can do these extremely basic tasks as well as Windows, I don't think it will ever be mainstream. Don't get me wrong, I would would like to see it out there, but there is no way joe ordinary could use it. I have tested random people on my own computer using Ubuntu, and although they could figure out how to open Firefox, OpenOffice etc, the file system was totally baffling to them.

In short, you shouldn't need to know how to program, or understand the deep dwellings of an OS just to use it for something productive.

If someone can tell me where I am going wrong please do, I don't need for everyone to be telling me what an Idiot/newbie/ms lover I am. I am just saying it how I see it! So I think the reporter has made some interesting points.