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The End of Windows

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Re: The End of Windows

#491

Post by keypress »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #442
shados wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2560x1440 on a 27 inch at a reasonable distance is pretty darn close to optimal IMO, so 4k, to me, is for 34" monitors (but 27 inch I feel is optimal on 60-75 inch desks, which is what I usually work with, so 4k rarely matters). I'm with you on accurately calibrated monitors though! God most of them suck out of the box.

I never get comments like these, as if the text just gets smaller as the resolution increases, rather than what actually happens (the text gets crisper). 5120x2880 is so nice because you can’t see the pixels and words almost look like they are on paper.

Bitmap text can look clear as crystal on a very low pixel density display.

You need a higher PPI to make anti-aliasing work on screen (finally looking nearly as nice as print).

Re: The End of Windows

#492

Post by sandov »

Viper007Bond wrote: post #407
young_unixer wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>disappointingly small 8GB. In my world, I consider 16GB a bare minimum My main computer has 8GB RAM. I don't know why I would need more than that. Right now I have firefox with 15 tabs, qt creator and 3 terminals open and I'm only using 2.5 GB of RAM. Unless I suddenly wanted to get into heavy video editing I don't think I'll feel the need to upgrade soon.

The more RAM you have, the more your OS will use. My 16GB laptop is currently using 8-9GB and I don't have much open. What's the point of RAM if you don't use it? If I get low on free RAM, but OS will discard some unneeded stuff but otherwise it properly uses it as a cache.

Almost all operations I command are executed instantly by my computer, so I see no need to use more RAM.

I think a good SSD and GPU are much more important than having a lot of RAM if you want to improve general user experience.

Re: The End of Windows

#493

Post by discreditable »

Silhouette wrote: post #472
discreditable wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might but no one else would. Most people use the OS that came with their computer until it dies.

You might but no one else would. I would. An update to Windows 7 that worked well with modern hardware and had modern security updates but otherwise ignored almost everything Microsoft have done in more recent versions would be a significant improvement on anything currently available for those of us who value stability and security over bells and whistles.

I would and have. My last PC was built with Vista. I bought 7 when it came out and then 8. I'm far from the usual user though. My point was that regular people will not.

Re: The End of Windows

#494

Post by noinsight »

Silhouette wrote: post #383
dralley wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kind of expect that the "let consumers be the beta testers and fire all our QA" approach is going to majorly bite them in the ass at some point and lose a lot of goodwill.

The thing I don't fully understand about Nadella's strategy is what Windows is supposed to be any more. Clearly if all these whizzy subscription-based online services are going to be useful, people need a device to access them. For simple communications and information consumption, the modern generation of devices like smartphones and tablets works just fine, but for anything more involved or with a significant creat…

> So, what if one or more of them really did produce a compelling client platform and moved the whole industry back in the direction of local software and in-house operations?

I've been thinking about this too but I don't see who would stand to gain from it.

If Wine got some serious commercial backing it could be leveraged to run all "legacy" Windows apps on another platform (Linux). Desktop Linux is relatively far along but with solid commercial backing it could become a serious contender. Or something more exotic...

The only question is: cui bono? Who would have a reason to go that route?

Re: The End of Windows

#495

Post by rootusrootus »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #240
rootusrootus wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a counterpoint, my wife runs her own bookkeeping business and pretty much all of her clients are using Quickbooks on Windows workstations, with no real desire to try anything new. I know a couple people myself that are using cloud-based accounting products but they seem to be the exception. In both cases they are tech businesses, which perhaps makes them more open to trying something new than a typical small busin…

Can you even buy a new Quickbooks desktop license now, I got the impression it had all moved to the cloud.

Yes, they don't make it real obvious, but if you look for Quickbooks Desktop you can find the versions you install instead of the SaaS.

Re: The End of Windows

#496

Post by keithpeter »

agumonkey wrote: post #207
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have to run that archlinux/i3wm setup on the x200 to get more data. Well, it's Linux; unless you're running Gentoo, you can probably just swap the hard drive :-) Unless of course the SSD is an important part of this test.

no you're right, I was just not willing to swap the disks

Caddies same size, so just one screw on each machine and a quick swap.

X220/8Gb/xfce4 runs fine for my modest needs.

At one of my employers they are using Windows 10 for Education. We had some atom based small form factor desktop PCs that worked really nicely with Windows 10 just after the upgrade, but then as great grandparent post says began to become noticebly slower as the weeks and months went by. They have been replaced with i5/8Mb machines now which seem fine.

Re: The End of Windows

#497

Post by rootusrootus »

amyjess wrote: post #120
rootusrootus wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a counterpoint, my wife runs her own bookkeeping business and pretty much all of her clients are using Quickbooks on Windows workstations, with no real desire to try anything new. I know a couple people myself that are using cloud-based accounting products but they seem to be the exception. In both cases they are tech businesses, which perhaps makes them more open to trying something new than a typical small busin…

I'll take a guess and say that these are all older businesses. Businesses that started before the advent of cloud software will continue to use QuickBooks because that's what the owners know, and why fix something that isn't broken? But newer businesses that started in the last few years will be much more likely to use cloud software because it's so much more convenient.

A lot of new businesses (most?) just go with what their accountant and/or bookkeeper tells them to use. A lot of accountants continue to prefer Quickbooks.

One of the accountants I know considers herself computer savvy (she's not, but that's a different topic) and she's pretty young (30s) and she insisted I build her a server for her business to run Quickbooks off of. She won't trust a cloud solution, or even a remotely hosted server. Some of this fear seems to be based on the seminars she goes to which are either held by or attended by FBI special agents. They are pretty good at telling you all the ways you may be hacked, and precious little practical advice on how to avoid that while staying sane.

Re: The End of Windows

#498

Post by wilun »

criddell wrote: post #59
eric_b wrote: post #6

I'll be interested to see how this bifurcation of the Windows team plays out. Windows 10 has been a mixed bag - some nice new features but also a lot of half baked buggy stuff. The evergreen nature of Windows 10 feels like the right move, but I'm worried they're going to let the OS stagnate. There's already a lot of low hanging fruit they could clean up with an update, but haven't. I'm not a huge fan of using my tabl…

> also a lot of half baked buggy stuff This morning I noticed I have a 3D Objects folder pinned to the This PC item that I can't remove. I also have Mixed Reality Portal and Mixed Reality Viewer that I can't remove. Why on earth are those apps part of the default install? Worse though - why doesn't Microsoft make it easy to uninstall them? I don't want their crappy news, weather, contacts, maps, music, and other defa…

In their conference they presented that shit part of their VR strategy or similar completely insane BS.

In the same vein, I don't know what they intent to mean by their AI division (esp as a platform, service, whatever) and probably neither do they, but hey, you got to make the speech of the boss somehow vaguely believable, even if the whole earth know it is just for show.

Re: The End of Windows

#499

Post by ryandrake »

amatheus wrote: post #425
ryandrake wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a developer, the Windows target is baffling. I briefly considered porting a few apps I wrote over to Windows just to re-learn the platform again. Might be fun! Back in the day, the choice was easy: MFC/Win32 Now, I have no idea where to even start! C#? C++? .NET? Win32? MFC? WPF? XAML? WinForms? UWP? What a rat’s next! How did MS let the development ecosystem get so muddied? I know I can go online and research all…

I'm not developing anything desktop right now but when I think about it the conclusion I come to is to give up on MS technologies and go with QT. Much more stable and you get Linux for (almost) free.

Yea, this is where I ended up. If I’m going to port something to oddball non-Unix-based or otherwise less-important platforms, like Windows, Qt makes the most sense.

Re: The End of Windows

#500

Post by larkeith »

Micoloth wrote: post #194
asveikau wrote: post #33

I still can't wrap my head around everything that was wrongheaded about Windows 8, and I was working there for most of its dev cycle. One wonders what would have happened if they just sort of let Windows be Windows. I.e. if they had continued iterating on core stuff but left UI and general philosophy resembling Win7's trajectory and not tried to force people into WinRT/UWP/store. Even though Win10 attempted correctiv…

>immature and unproven technology Wasn't old windows desktop technology the one proven to be bad? I mean I can say this because I like windows, but people have made fun of windows bugs and viruses for three decades now.. Granted, Windows Store still sucks ass years later its introduction, but building a new ecosystem with unified and modern tooling was probably a necessary step for them to make

> Wasn't old windows desktop technology the one proven to be bad? I mean I can say this because I like windows, but people have made fun of windows bugs and viruses for three decades now..

I feel like MS had mostly quashed these problems with XP - it was certainly not bug-free, but after a few years was a solid enough platform many used it all the way to (and probably past) its EoL in 2014.

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