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The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be

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Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be

#371

Post by neya »

I am a die hard Mac fan. I upgraded from Windows and never looked back. Recently, I thought Windows might have improved over the years and decided to give it a shot with my girlfriend's Windows 10 laptop and it was because she wanted me to setup a new user account for her.

And you wouldn't believe me if I told you that it's near impossible to create a normal user account without a Microsoft Live account along with it. You need to google for it and find some specific workflow to make it happen.

I felt so outraged and I totally lost all trust and confidence in MS. It felt really a cheap and scammy way to get more people into their walled gardens. It's a shame because I really wanted to give Windows a chance.

Now imagine, if Apple had forced you to use an Apple ID to sign into your Mac. How outraged you'd feel?

Having said that, I think the Surface series have a far superior design than any of my Macs. I sometimes feel jealous when I see these guys in coffeeshops playing with it by directly interacting with its screen and the sleek keyboard that comes with it.

Ever since then, I've been seriously investigating if there's a way to get Mac OS run on a Surface almost flawlessly. That'd be the perfect laptop for me.

Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be

#372

Post by listenallyall »

phonon wrote: post #279
0x00000000 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The instantaneous system wide search is my number one favorite thing about Mac OS. I wonder how many hours of my life I have spent waiting for a Windows explorer search to complete only to accidentally click on one of the results, hit back, and have it start the search all over.

Use https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_(software)

"Everything" is the among the greatest pieces of Windows software ever written. It is wonderful. I cannot figure out why, with all of their money, Microsoft doesn't just pay the guy a little cash and make it a built-in feature of Windows. It would increase the usability of Windows, especially among novice users, enormously.

Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be

#373

Post by bhauer »

whitepoplar wrote: post #53
WesleyLivesay wrote: post #6

I would love to see more laptop manufacturers use the 3:2 aspect ratio, especially on screens smaller than 15".

If Apple made a 12-13" laptop with a 3:2, non-glossy display, an all-day battery, and a non-broken keyboard, I'd probably pay double for it.

There needs to be a renaissance of non-glossy (matte) screens, for the sake of the eyesight of us all.

Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be

#374

Post by malloryerik »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #190
makecheck wrote: post #103

It’s 2018 and I still see people walking around with Windows laptop lids open because they presumably have no confidence in Windows’ ability to sensibly preserve state after closing the lid. Software matters, and how it integrates with hardware. And I keep waiting for them to fix just the basics in Windows 10. Not utterly losing both the sizes and positions of all windows just because the laptop was undocked. Not fai…

Not spying on me and not transmitting unknown to me personal information to unknown parties would be a killer feature. I treat any windows machine as if it has a keylogger and submits all my activity to all major governments (maybe only one today and “all” in a few years when my data gets sold, shared or stolen). This is a serious issue for me.

I guess you should stay away from North Korea's Red Star Linux, in that case.

Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be

#375

Post by listenallyall »

olyjohn wrote: post #147
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s 2018 and I still see people walking around with Windows laptop lids open because they presumably have no confidence in Windows’ ability to sensibly preserve state after closing the lid. Software matters, and how it integrates with hardware. Interesting. I've never seen or even heard of this. Windows didn't do a great job at this in general like a decade ago and the Surface Pros had a bug that was eventually fi…

I manage a few hundred Windows notebooks. Probably about half of them have issues hibernating. Despite the fact that they are identical systems, identical image, etc. I just tell everybody to shut it down before you put it in your bag. Otherwise we end up with overheated, melted laptops. It's always been this way in my experience. Windows is certainly better than it used to be at this, but I would be willing to belie…

What enterprise security tools do these systems run? What Anti-virus? Systems management? Logging? Hardware diagnostics? What group policies have you set?

Windows is far from perfect, but these other tools that are supposed to help you are more often the source of site-wide problems like what you've described.

Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be

#376

Post by fsloth »

nailer wrote: post #266
ymse wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is Apple's OSX, which exhibits a lot of the same behavior with spotlight, exempt from this concern? They aren't. Neither is Ubuntu[0]. Luckily there are plenty of other operating systems that take your privacy seriously. Join the bright side. [0] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ubuntu-spyware.en.html

Realistically, you probably shouldn't be running them on anything with Intel Management Engine, which has a Minix OS with an IP stack that you don't control.

This. What does it matter what OS you are running if you want nothing to leak unless you do complete vetting of the hardware as well. Preferably by ordering many in the same configuration and dismantling one to see it does not have anything extra. And if you do that, there is still the case of the firmware of oh so many components that are integrated to a modern pc. How do you know your network stack is not spying on you.

To be dogmatic, either you have to have enormous amount of resources to create your own secure hardware, or abandon all computing devices.

I prefer using off the shelf computing devices. The only level of security I excpect of them is that no-one will abuse my credit card if I don't act stupid.

Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be

#377

Post by ymse »

KirinDave wrote: post #354
ymse wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is Apple's OSX, which exhibits a lot of the same behavior with spotlight, exempt from this concern? They aren't. Neither is Ubuntu[0]. Luckily there are plenty of other operating systems that take your privacy seriously. Join the bright side. [0] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ubuntu-spyware.en.html

Ubuntu used to, and Apple's measures are wholly ineffective. They're token gestures. But I don't trust any given computer os very much. They're all projects run by folks that have given me 0 reason to trust them. One of the most insufferable parts of your post is the assumption I don't use Linux as a primary OS. I do. I hate it slightly less than OSX. But they're all awful in equal but unique measures.

I'm sorry if the post came across as assuming. I just wanted to spread awareness, not necessarily aimed at you.

There are good and trustworthy projects out there IMO. I use GuixSD and OpenBSD for all my computing needs and have 0 reason not to trust them. Curious to hear any arguments against either.

To paraphrase the venerable Mutt email client: All operating systems suck. These ones just sucks less...

Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be

#378

Post by city41 »

edaemon wrote: post #243
stefan_ wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IO performance is atrocious. git status on a Linux tree takes a 10s of seconds.

I don't know when you last tried it, but IO performance is much better in the new (Fall Creators Update) version. I had the same problem with git status but after updating it's much quicker. Things also seem like they're faster in the WSL file system than when you're using WSL in the Win32 file system.

It is much better (and even better if you disable Windows Defender on your WSL stuff), but it's still not nearly as fast as actual Linux. I switched from WSL to a Linux VM primarily due to IO still being slow enough to be a problem for me.

Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be

#379

Post by Lazare »

makecheck wrote: post #103

It’s 2018 and I still see people walking around with Windows laptop lids open because they presumably have no confidence in Windows’ ability to sensibly preserve state after closing the lid. Software matters, and how it integrates with hardware. And I keep waiting for them to fix just the basics in Windows 10. Not utterly losing both the sizes and positions of all windows just because the laptop was undocked. Not fai…

> And I keep waiting for them to fix just the basics in Windows 10. Not utterly losing both the sizes and positions of all windows just because the laptop was undocked. Not failing to recognize the external display upon docking, despite the display working a few minutes earlier.

I use and seriously like OS X but...those are two of my biggest pet peeves with the OS. I constantly need to re-arrange my windows every time it notices that an external display had been added or removed, and it frequently (maybe 2 per week) will inexplicably refuse to recognise an external display until I go through a little dance of power cycling things, unplugging them, plugging them in, and trying again.

Worse, it also periodically stops working with my (bog standard USB) keyboard and mouse until I unplug them and plug them back in. It's amazing how confusing it can be trying to debug why a UI element isn't working when clicked until you determine that the computer has decided a modifier key is stuck down.

The Apple ecosystem was fantastically stable and reliable a few years back, but things are changing, sadly.

Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be

#380

Post by wvenable »

neya wrote: post #371

I am a die hard Mac fan. I upgraded from Windows and never looked back. Recently, I thought Windows might have improved over the years and decided to give it a shot with my girlfriend's Windows 10 laptop and it was because she wanted me to setup a new user account for her. And you wouldn't believe me if I told you that it's near impossible to create a normal user account without a Microsoft Live account along with it…

> Now imagine, if Apple had forced you to use an Apple ID to sign into your Mac. How outraged you'd feel?

Have you ever used iOS? Microsoft is maybe a little ahead of the game here but I have little doubt it will come to the Mac as well.

I have a normal user account without a Microsoft live account; this was several Win10 versions ago but it wasn't too hard to do -- just an option during setup. You can even connect and disconnect them from each other at will. Or just you use your account in the store.

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