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Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

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Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#251
post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

>Perhaps someone will make a counterweighted and braced keyboard like they have for iPad to solve this problem.

Did you watch the video I posted above? He does show the feature where the top of the keyboard can be folded and magnetically attached to the bezel to provide a stable structure.

I am just curious, what kind of job requires you to place your laptop on your lap for 4 hours a day? I learned it the hard way not to put laptops on lap after getting a burn (it was an old hp laptop), one of the reasons that prompted the name change from laptops to notebooks. Although now most have moved the vents to the side, I still feel unsafe to place it on my lap for a long period of time. Then there is also [1]

[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/11/05/us-laptop-testicle...

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#252
post #250
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

How do you turn a MacBook Air into a tablet?

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#253
I don't see GPS anywhere mentioned in the article or the specs on Microsoft site[1]. Is this taken for granted or did they really not included a GPS sensor with this?

It even mentions the digital compass and gyroscope sensors. I'm having a bad feeling about this.

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/products/surface-pro-...

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#254
Was anyone else really uncomfortable with Panos singling out Joanna Stern during the event? I don't know if he was trying to praise or berate her, but it just looked terrible and made me feel uncomfortable about the whole thing. Really weird why they would do that--I have no idea what message they were trying to send but it doesn't seem like a good one.

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#255
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because some of us have to deal with hundreds/thousands of servers. Lots of Windows boxes without Chef/Puppet bootstrapping them is a miserable experience. I don't know how many times I've disabled IEESC and made cmd quickedit enabled in my life just to be able to use the box (prior to doing it via bootstrapping).

Let me enlighten you then. Just create a shortcut to the cmd prompt, change the settings in the shortcut and keep a copy of that shortcut. The seetings for teh command prompt are saved in the shortcut. Now you just have to go around with it on your USB key and double-click on it to have a command-prompt with all your settings already done. You can thank me later.

I wish all other windows were this easy to resize. I could simply have an array of shortcuts for all the different browser window sizes I might want. It's a much better system, really. Thank you later? I'm thanking you right now! Thank you.

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

[citation needed]

The corporate lawyers that I've talked to at my previous day jobs have told me that this is an obviously legal thing to do.

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#257
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The differentiator is the OS. One of them is for play, the other is for productivity. Comparing full Windows 8.1 to iOS is Apples to Oranges.

Keep telling yourself that. Meanwhile, back here in reality, iOS dominates the enterprise: http://media.www1.good.com/documents/rpt-mobility-index-q413...

Hacker News 2014: where empty, baseless Microsoft marketing regurgitation gets upvotes and actual statistics get downvotes.

Keep making enemies, Microsoft. That'll be a very effective strategy.

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#258
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Perhaps someone will make a counterweighted and braced keyboard like they have for iPad to solve this problem. Did you watch the video I posted above? He does show the feature where the top of the keyboard can be folded and magnetically attached to the bezel to provide a stable structure. I am just curious, what kind of job requires you to place your laptop on your lap for 4 hours a day? I learned it the hard way no…

I've seen he old one many times, it just doesn't seem like the typing experience would be very good...try typing on a piece of cardboard....for example. A beefier keyboard is really needed for laptop usage, braced in somehow into the tablet. The new video isn't loading for me right now, but I'm in china so....

It's my preference to use a laptop on lap, and I don't have a problem with it using modern ultra books (like an X1).

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#259
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because some of us have to deal with hundreds/thousands of servers. Lots of Windows boxes without Chef/Puppet bootstrapping them is a miserable experience. I don't know how many times I've disabled IEESC and made cmd quickedit enabled in my life just to be able to use the box (prior to doing it via bootstrapping).

Here's the regkey that controls this setting: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc978570.aspx Should be fairly easy to script deploying that to all your machines.

Long, long ago, I wanted a way to launch arbitrary numbers of CMD.EXE windows with arbitrarily-chosen foreground and background colors. The standard settings only let you store a finite number of color entries (something like 16) to choose from. However, the registry key it finds the settings in is based on the executable name, so if you make a copy of cmd.exe called cmdb.exe and run it, you have N more slots of colors to choose from. So I wrote a little hack that took --fgcolor rrggbb --bgcolor rrggbb values and then made a hard link to cmd.exe in the temp directory called something like cmd_rrggbb_rrggbb.exe, set up the appropriate registry keys, and then invoked it with whatever other args you provided. Subsequent invocations with the same args would find the temp executable and reuse it. It was an absurd hack, but it worked really well and it amused me to write it. edit: and is a testament to how idiotic the CMD settings scheme is.

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#260
post #252
post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is it better than a MacBook Air?

How do you turn a MacBook Air into a tablet?

The whole point people are making is that tablets aren't good for work, which is why the surface is so great.

So the surface has to be better than the MacBook Air for work, or better than an iPad as a tablet.

Otherwise it's just a compromise that is worse at both.

[edit: the downvotes are pretty indicative of the nature of this thread given that all I've done is ask valid questions to which I don't know the answer]

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