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Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

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Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#241
post #226
post #16

I'm starting to see more and more Surface devices in my area. It seems to be getting popular with the Starbuck's salesguy crowd who need something as compact as a tablet, but they can use real applications on. I know that's kind of cliche, but you don't really "get" that meaning until you walk into a coffee shop and see 2 or 3 people sitting around with tablets sticking up on the tables. The Android and iPad guys are…

Check out the asus t100. It's what a low end surface would be like. I have one and i really like It.

Wow, that looks great. Even with a 500GB dock (which is exactly what I need) the 32GB version is I've just added this to my wish list.

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#242
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're going to live forever disappointed. The command prompt shell is one of those programs that just doesn't get updated and/or any new features. Like notepad.exe, there are so many easy things they could do to make it actually _useful_, but won't.

Not disagreeing, but I suspect notepad.exe is the way it is for a reason - it's the Windows equivalent of vi, the thing you use to try to recover when everything else is falling to pieces. As such, it doesn't and shouldn't have dependencies on anything that isn't absolutely essential. I believe Task Manager eschews the common control library and reimplements a lot of UI stuff itself. Same reason.

I would agree, except for the lack of support for Unicode and LF line endings.

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another is Git Bash ( http://git-scm.com/downloads ) which gives a reasonable terminal/shell on Windows including many of the standard utilities (e.g. ssh).

Git Bash is just cmd.exe

Not if you launch bash.exe, then it's GNU bash, version 3.1.0

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#244
post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell the surface pro 3 is still not lap friendly, which makes it a no go for my working preferences (a sofa chair at Starbucks sans table). I'm interested in what the OEMS will produce, if only I could get a true convertible with hi dpi + decent stylus support! I would buy that (yoga pro 2 is tempting, but no stylus + crappy trackpad...). Competition is good (and I say that as an MS employee).

>As far as I can tell the surface pro 3 is still not lap friendly Huh? Din't they demonstrate that on the video? he was using it on his lap at multiple angles and including his legs stretched. If they missed that part watch it here[1]. It starts around 41 minute mark. [1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2014/may14/05-20w...

I use my laptop on my lap for about 4 hours a day coding. I really need a laptop that works as a laptop in that case, nit just something I can use on my lap occasionally. Perhaps someone will make a counterweighted and braced keyboard like they have for iPad to solve this problem.

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#245

Warning, rant. Why the duck isn't there information on the Surface Pro 3 on the MS website? Apple has done this so well, for so long, I am pissed-off MS can't get its act together. You make an announcement, you need presence on the web. You need to start your customers expectations building, whet their appetite, and tease them. Their experience starts now and right now that experience is reading news articles and rea…

> Apple has done this so well, for so long, I am pissed-off MS can't get its act together. Apple doesn't pre-announce products at all, do they? This was sloppy (Microsoft is going to have something up for preorders tomorrow, why not just put it up when the speech is finished?) but it's not something Apple even does.

Sloppy, or simply "not evil"?

http://appleinsider.com/articles/09/12/15/apples_worldwide_l...

The lengths at which Apple goes to prevent leaks is straight up evil.

    According to the source, Apple takes leaks very 
    seriously. When a leak is suspected, a very specific 
    protocol is followed, involving the confiscation of all
    cell phones and a total blackout of all unmonitored 
    communication. "It is like a gag order, and if the 
    employee does not want to participate they are 
    basically asked to leave and never come back," says Tom.

    "The same Worldwide Loyalty Team does many other things 
    to keep everyone in check, from searching out the email 
    history of every employee, to seeding fake images to 
    catch potential leaks and diffuse the hype about some 
    product introductions."

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#246

No wonder it's cheaper - N-trig instead of Wacom. (I'm not commenting on the technical merits of either choice, just that one tends to be cheaper than the other.)

The parallax and purported improvements in accuracy are a big deal though. Even with a >100 point calibration, the stylus on my Surface Pro gets weird tracking on the screen's edges or when the pen is held at off angles. I was sold once Panay clicked the Stylus and popped up OneNote instantly. There's a lot of value in that for people like me who still prefer to use a pen to take notes.

Yes, N-trig's edge performance is better. But Wacom is better supported in terms of software, has more granular pressure sensitivity and the pen does not require a battery.

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#247
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OSX is less unix than it can get. No X. Crazy apple-only-standards... Heck you can't even use vim! i will eat my hat if you open vim in OSX and be able to copy/paste. The + register just goes to nowhere. OS X is broken unix. windows sucks in many regards, but it always had million more devs than OSX... i know implementing fixes on top of windows goes against the free software philosophy, but there are already too man…

Not sure I understand your post. I use vim everyday with copy & paste on my mac. Maybe the commands are slightly different than when ssh'ed into some box, but us vim users are capable of remembering many obscure keystrokes.

if you use the + register, you probably compiled it to workaround OSX limitations.

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

cygwin has a license problem b/c it's GPL. So it's a no-go. You can't bundle your proprietary software with it easily.

That is very untrue. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#MereAggregation You can even ship it with a proprietary installer. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLCompatInstaller

The links you gave leave the issue ambiguous.

It still seems that you can't for instance launch an executable that runs cigwin in the background.

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#249

Warning, rant. Why the duck isn't there information on the Surface Pro 3 on the MS website? Apple has done this so well, for so long, I am pissed-off MS can't get its act together. You make an announcement, you need presence on the web. You need to start your customers expectations building, whet their appetite, and tease them. Their experience starts now and right now that experience is reading news articles and rea…

http://surface.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/html/pbP... ?

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#250
post #77
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the surface is better?

Yes, because you can switch to a full desktop mode without being constrained to a jailed mode as in iOS and Android. For example, you cannot do programming on the go, without being connected to a server that handles your development tasks.

But is it better than a MacBook Air?
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