Windows 8

[Kersus]

I've gotten used to the Metro GUI that Windows 8 uses overtop the Vista engine. Yes, Windows 7 was just a rebranded Vista to take people's minds off the hatred, just as Windows 9 will do it for 8. All will still use the same engine (Vista) with changes to the interface.

As part of my living, I buy and setup computers for people. Windows 8 is causing me stress because of how it does the initial setup. I'm required to give them an email address or create a Microsoft (MSDN) account. This would be great if my client knew her actual email address or the password. So, we have to create a new one just to log into her Windows machine.

Then it requires her birthdate, phone number, and more. This is just to use a computer that you think you own. Well, it's too late to call the customer and ask all of her personal information just to set up her computer.

Bah. It is like the nightmare of dealing with Android. Yes, let's force elderly people to make Google accounts they don't understand.

Rant rant rant.....

Believe it or not, I think Windows 8 has potential. What really bothers me is this App craze. We need 10,000 apps for everything. We don't care if they work properly, but we need them instead of just browsing to a web page that has more functionality. Oh, they can control our access better with an App and force us to pay for it. Oh great. The Internet becomes more fascist every year.

Oh, and Lenovo, thanks for delaying the computer order for 3 weeks forcing me to cancel it and buy the computer from Best Buy (which was cheaper than wholesale) but then ship the computer and charge my credit card anyway after guaranteeing me you wouldn't. I like your keyboards, but this was the third Lenovo I've tried to order only to have it backordered. The last two went three months before I cancelled and this one I cancelled after 3 weeks. It hadn't been built yet. Now it's on it's way to UPS in China and nothing can stop it and I can't get a refund until I return it. $2600 sitting on my credit card. I wonder if they'll even refund it. Bah.

[Oedipussy Rex]

Yay, Linux. My laptop cost less than $400 US and is the mot powerful computer I've owned to date. Granted, I use it primarily to find porn, so how much computer do I really need? Apparently, less than $400-worth.

[Kersus]

Well, I just installed OpenSuse on my budget Windows 10 laptop. Unfortunately it really can't run Windows, so I'm hoping Linux will work better.

In order to install Linux, I had to turn secure boot off and switch UEFI to Legacy. Finally I get to see a BIOS. The interesting thing is Windows 10 now boots quite a bit faster.

I crossed my fingers when randomly partitioning things and went with the butter file system as a gas. At first the thing crashed trying too boot from the HDD but it works now.

[Kersus]

My Mac was obsolete a few months after paying the $2500 for it (late 2010).

I have a client who bought a refurbished late 2009 iMac and two months later (yesterday) offered it to me for $500 because she hates it. I'm not sure at this point if any Apple product is worth $250, much less $500.

[Oedipussy Rex]

It depends. How much of a douche do you want the world to think you are?



I shouldn't say that. It's not nice to imply that just because someone owns an Apple product that s/he is a douche. I'm sure some of them are nice people.


That wasn't nice, either. I'm going to stop now because my dislike of people who own Apple is making me not like myself which makes me dislike those Apple douches even more because they're making me not like myself.


Oh, and the reason to not like Apple products isn't the quality of the product but the quality of their business philosophy.

[Kersus]

I would be the first to judge someone for judging people, because it's wrong.

BUT, anytime I see someone with an Apple product, they will now have to prove they aren't a douche whereas anyone else I wait and see or give the benefit of the doubt.

Well Apple and being whatever a hipster is.

I have a few Apple products, but I hide them in shame. One under the stairs in the basement unused (iMac - Tiger maybe?), another as the sound system for the painting of minis (slightly newer iMac?), the third a failed media centre as Apple just sucks for media anymore. That said, anything Snow Leopard and earlier seems to have less problems than Lion or newer. The first two were throwaways from clients who moved to Windows, the last one was the first big purchase I made for my business. It was essential and may well be the reason about half of my clients are Mac people. No one else in the area services Apple products. They have far more problems than Windows machines (and both are PCs despite the commercials). Of the few who are actual MAc people from the days when an Apple product had any quality left, they still mainly use their old machines and bitch and moan about everything newer than Lion which is what I am usually fixing.

[Groo The Wanderer]

Oh, and the reason to not like Apple products isn't the quality of the product but the quality of their business philosophy.

This. A thousand times this.

I own a venerable iPod Classic that took one too many hits to the head and started making a troublesome clicking noise (then stopped working completely).

Took it to the nearest Apple store where their "genius" advice was to buy a brand new product because they don't make the Classic anymore.

I politely took my business to a third party repair shop, who replaced my busted hard drive for a fraction of the cost.

That iPod was the last product I'm ever going to buy from that company.