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The bizarre role reversal of Apple and Microsoft

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Re: The bizarre role reversal of Apple and Microsoft

#181

I keep reading about how unhappy people are with Apples latest reveal. I feel the same way. No way am I upgrading my 2015 Mac Book Pro with the new one. Still, Apple will not change a thing unless people actually vote with their wallets. If you're really so upset, do NOT buy this damn computer! If this latest line sees very little sells, they'll get the idea.

> If you're really so upset, do NOT buy this damn computer!

Many of the people complaining were never going to buy a mac anyway.

Re: The bizarre role reversal of Apple and Microsoft

#182
post #123
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Cortana was launched on Windows, I went to a Microsoft Store to try it out. I found a Surface and tapped the Cortana button, and it opened a "Microphone Calibration Setup Wizard" that looks like it was from Windows XP. So yeah, taste is one thing, but execution is a different ball game.

Any thoughts about Cisco? We're literally trying to be the taste and execution. I work for Cisco. Curious about candid thoughts.

Personally, I say ditch IOS completely and give me a flat ecosystem of Linux or BSD well tuned to the hardware and completely open sourced. Allow interesting features like SNABB-switch type userspace packet management. Throw in some (k)ASLR and other such security mechanisms. Perhaps most important: make an ecosystem that can compete with Ubiquiti for both "average" consumers and developers in terms of hardware but especially software.

Re: The bizarre role reversal of Apple and Microsoft

#183
post #176

I don't use apple products because of the shiny, sexy hardware. It doesn't hurt to have a visually nice looking device to look at when you are spending most of your day on it. I use apple computers (don't use iPhone), specifically because of the OS. I just can't see myself working on Windows ever (unless it makes some major leap of improvement). MacOS has its problems, but its still many time better than the POS Wind…

I can agree with that and felt the same way until I realized (or was forced to admit repeatedly) that 90% of my time using Windows or OS X is now spent either in an SSH session, a web browser, or a virtual machine. Frankly all of these releases, from both companies, come off as rather boring to me. I think all the most interesting innovation, from my perspective, is happening in software now and less "flashy" embedded systems.

Re: The bizarre role reversal of Apple and Microsoft

#184
post #160
post #76

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https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/globalization/keyboardlayou...

That's a tool you have to download. It doesn't come with the OS.

And yet OSX doesn't have such a tool from an official or even unofficial source without a daemon running and wasting CPU cycles.

I bought a non-apple keyboard and still can't map home+end keys in all applications without a daemon running.

Re: The bizarre role reversal of Apple and Microsoft

#185
post #178

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Linux is most definitely not for masochists; when did you last use it? Ubuntu, elementary OS, Mint, etc all offer pretty polished user experiences.

I try to install Ubuntu every 18-24 months or so. A problem occurs in about 2 days that I have to google and spend hours in frustrations. No, thanks. 2016 is not the year of Linux on the desktop.

Did you try it on a desktop or a laptop? It doesn't work as well on laptops because of the graphics cards drivers and sleep/hibernation.

Re: The bizarre role reversal of Apple and Microsoft

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

macOS has something better: all the settings in one place. Windows used to have something like that too, I think it was called the Control Panel.

No, it doesn't. Preferences, but also 'defaults write ...', or just edit a plist...

Which is a thing of beauty compared to windows and linux. Fine grained control, yet all per-user file based and thus can easily be reset to factory.

Re: The bizarre role reversal of Apple and Microsoft

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

macOS has something better: all the settings in one place. Windows used to have something like that too, I think it was called the Control Panel.

No, it doesn't. Preferences, but also 'defaults write ...', or just edit a plist...

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Re: The bizarre role reversal of Apple and Microsoft

#188
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they still have tons of high-DPI bugs where some apps work with it and some get all garbled?

Well to be fair HiDPI issues are application issues as opposed to core Windows issues.

It's not. Win10 doesn't even have a proper HiDPI installation dialog.

Re: The bizarre role reversal of Apple and Microsoft

#189
post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose you need a new computer for work. Your other options are Windows or a Linux desktop experience, both of which are vastly worse in other ways. (No, I don't want to dork around with spending days compiling kernel patches and installing soundcard drivers before I can use the computer.) I'd gladly buy any other laptop that was simple and just worked out of the box in the sense that a Mac does. But there aren't an…

> No, I don't want to dork around with spending days compiling kernel patches and installing soundcard drivers before I can use the computer. You are badly misrepresenting the current state of mainstream Linux distributions. I've done probably 20 Linux installs, and by and large it always just works. If there is some necessary proprietary driver, it's almost always as simple as Menu --> Administration --> Driver Mana…

I am using Linux distros on both laptops and a desktop as the only OS and you are definitely misrepresenting the current state of things. It takes a lot of work.

For the laptops, the clickpads never work well. You have to mess with synaptics settings a lot and eventually you get a slightly worse config than the default on Windows and a lot worse than OSX clickpad. This is coming from someone who looked into hardware compatibility and bought a laptop that didn't seem to have any problems.

For Desktops (and laptops * 10), you have a lot of issues if you want to

A) Use CUDA in general for neural networks.

B) Resize VM encrypted hard drive after creation.

C) Dual boot with Windows (things like updating windows or reinstalling a Linux distro after digging yourself into a hole with CUDA drivers mentioned above can wipe grub in a way that wouldn't let you boot).

D) Allow hibernation in a dual monitor setup with proprietary drivers.

E) Use a tablet for drawing on a system with multi-monitor setup and proprietary drivers.

F) Mess with Compiz settings too much when you have proprietary drivers.

G) Dual booting with one hard drive with Linux full disk encryption and non-default partitions and another hard drive regular Windows.

H) Dual boot from one disk and encrypt Linux partition with luks and forgo swap partition.

Having said all this:

I would still use ubuntu/linux because almost all non-.NET/Java tools are easier to use on Linux. Lets you customize your system and code without VM overhead and inconveniences.

The system doesn't get slower over time and nothing unexpected randomly happens (except after updates to graphics drivers).

Re: The bizarre role reversal of Apple and Microsoft

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is kind of what I like about Windows 10; it can be a dumbed-down experience for people that don't care, but if you want, there are gradually escalating levels of configurability. Settings -> Control Panel -> fuck it, I'll edit the registry directly. I would definitely not want to maintain this codebase, but as an end user, I'm happy.

macOS has something better: all the settings in one place. Windows used to have something like that too, I think it was called the Control Panel.

> macOS has something better: all the settings in one place.

All twelve of them.

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