Posts by Zane

Re: Standardisation is always welcome

You don't use a keyboard much, do you?

Re: 4 CPU's - That's a lot!

Question is what kind of "common business applications" the typical workstation user will run.

I doubt these guys need Excel or Powerpoint for their tasks.

/Zane

Re: Dosent stack up with my findings

Either you are just lucky, or you users don't use the devices regularly.

My personal statistics:

100% of friends with Surface complain about hardware problems. Some are just annoying, others are bigger problems. Repair seems to cost a lot.

Same impression here

Exactly.

The developers are good. Decision for the operating systems seems to be business decision. Strategic partnership with Microsoft. I am tempted to say "I told you so".

Re: Thanks for the memories

Good idea. Done.

Re: The writing should be on the wall

Well whatever you wish for - there never was more than Android and Apple in the smartphone market, and the Winphone never had a chance to change the game.

Mobile market experts have been saying this from the very beginning.

...but its tedious...

Yes you are absolutely right - even in Windows you can program in C and use the command line.

However, it's so much easier in a unixoid OS - so why bother?

Re: The irony ???

Nice phones - not sure how you define that. Seems there are even 34 people here that share your opinion - that's near to 100% of all customers, is it?

Anyway, I wouldn't even know 34 people who use the WinPhone. I know about two or three. My only experience with the WinPhone was when one of those guys called me - the call got dropped. He called me again on the fixed line.

I think that's funny.

Maybe other people call that nice.

Re: This is going straight to Karlsruhe

> I also think there should be prosecution of members of the Bundestag who vote yes on issues that are in clear violation of the Grundgesetz. Now that would be fun, wouldn't it?

Agree. Shall we start a petition?

/Zane

Re: People who use adblockers...

Agree.

I'm not only fine with ads, I will even click ones that are interesting. It's also ok if they're personalized, although that can be embarrassing in a lot of ways.

Hate everything that disturbs me or gets in the way. Please - no overlays, no stuff that hides the content I was looking for, no autostart vids, no vids that delay access, even worse: vids with sound - especially if you have lots of tabs open. I wonder when the people using these adverts understand that this works backwards - if at all, it's an indication to avoid the company.

Sure

Sounds as if you never found out how to switch it on.

Maybe you would like to see a picture from yesterday's Taylor Swift show to see what other people do with their mobiles once they are switched on.

/Zane

Re: Obvious

This is one of the best descriptions why M$ is such a low quality company - they don't do the testing internally, they just test at the customer.

/Zane

Re: Oh look

Thanks for making me aware - would not have noticed the girl without your comment.

/Zane

Re: Ringtones

Very nice answer. Seems we have some WinMobe fans here that never used an Android or an iPhone. What can I say - my iPhone just works.

/Zane

Re: Preloaded apps

First: you got the upvote. Because you are absolutely right, pen & paper is more productive than using Office products.

But then, however, it's not only better than using Office on a tablet, it's also better than using Office on a desktop.

/Zane

Re: caused by human error and inattention

Well the fact that the software is written by humans is not that big issue... because the software for driving a car is rather simple. You'd be surprised, but there is not much in there on the algorithmic part.

The point why autonomous vehicles are better than humans is not that there is some clever software inside - one major reason is that they have better senses...eh sensors... and that their calculation is more accurate. Driving itself is basically keeping the steering wheel so it follows the road + avoid collisions with others.

/Zane

Yep - sometimes I will even send them a mail that their password policy is plain stupid. So far I never got an answer.

/Zane

Re: So blameMicrsoft because it doesn't innovate...

It is possible to design user interfaces that are intuitively usable.

The point is you need to put a lot of testing in it. Microsoft doesn't, that's why their user interfaces suck. They suck even if you have used them for ten years - just watch Windows fan bois using Word - takes them hours to get things done.

Steve Jobs did an amazing job designing a smartphone where you do not need to think while you use it. That's the reason why so many people are willing to spend money on it - using an iPhone is fun. I'm a developer, so I prefer to play around with Android as it gives so many possibilities. But when I'm on business trip, I use my iPhone - it just works.

/Zane

Re: This is *NOT* how you do interfaces

Yep this will one of the very big problems of software systems in the future - there is a bunch of developers (developers! developers!) out there who do not know anything about how communication works.

I don't know how many examples I have seen: first they need to come up with their own protocol, or at least with their own version of a protocol. Then they will write some spaghetti code that works for a while - as long as bandwidth is not a problem. Then things get more complex, and at some point they start getting into problems with packet loss, bandwidth problems etc. Takes them a while to understand what the problem is (if they either get it at all), and then they will come up with often very weird solutions, which only will work by magic. In the best case, they will re-invent the wheel.

One of the examples, the company had a working product for years. Then suddenly, there was a real demand on the bandwidth. The first build of software could only cope with 5% of the traffic. They had some rather hectic months, but finally got it working. They proudly presented their solution to the rest of the company - it was a bit sliding window with size 2 (that was 20012, not 1953).

/Zane

Re: Keep on hating......

Hate Microsoft - why should we? They're a bit annoying, but in fact always good for a laugh. And it's pretty amazing that they can sell 15 year old technology as novelty on the market.

The thing is: we are not using Microsoft. Because we need to get our work done.

/Zane

Say what you will about MS's products...

I would say their PR is in fact the only part of the company that is doing a good job.

/Zane

Re: A money burning exercise

Can you explain what is so great about VS?

Have you ever used a different IDE? I must say that some are really great, and I cannot think of one that is as old-fashioned and hard to use as VS.

/Zane

Biggest problem is the quality of the Apps

Yes. In fact the biggest problem of Microsoft is the quality of their products - and no light at the end of the tunnel.

/Zane

Re: Still too big

Yea right get rid of this crappy light-weight JSON - better to use XML, XSL, XSLT and then lots of SOAP. This way we'll be clean - and can simply ignore the REST.

/Zane

Re: For me

Hm - I agree that VB is nice and simple for... simple things.

I am not sure what you mean by "development" - but when I think of development, I am thinking of applications of 10,000 or 100,000 LoC, or bigger. Have ever tried things like that in VB? Have you ever seen a VB applications written by a team of 20 developers jointly?

All examples of "VB tools" I have seen were either really really simple, or they grew into a complexity that could not be handled with VB - in other words: they were dumped when they started to become useful.

/Zane

Yep - what is this guy really talking about....

Well, living in Germany and working here, I tend to claim that most of what William says will not be true at your work place. No, I don't think he's in NRW. My house is expensive, my car is not, my salary could be better (and would be in several places in the UK). And you can get Cadbury at Edeka here - but it's expensive as well.

So all William is saying might be true for some places in Germany, but I would not generalize too much of it.

/Zane

Missing the point...

Hm - seems you miss the point of the argument. What you are saying is exactly that: there is no machine that could produce these thoughts. Your post in fact proves Penrose to be correct.

Re: Average?

Are you really surprised?

Salary is low, quality is low. Seems to be a perfect match.

/Zane

Re: RE: And that is why mobile Windows is so shite - they want you to use Android

Ok - and so why is it that your colleagues laugh about people using phones that actually do what you want and where you can install apps you really need?

Yes I also know some people you have a WP - most hate it. The ones who like surprisingly have never had an Android or an iPhone.

/Zane

Re: This article's about the minority

Yep, you are right. It's a minority - and a damn stupid one... does any of this ever work on any girl?

While, besides, you might like to read this:

http://iangent.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/the-petrie-multiplier-why-attack-on.html

/Zane

Read between the lines

I cannot speak for the whole of London, but I can say that I wrote a prototype for a time-criticial application for TfL, and my company took away the business from MS as we could show we were able to handle critical stuff MS couldn't. My impression is that MS cloud is for low bandwidth customers only. So I must admit that MS is at least clever enough to know this.

/Zane

Re: Fire a few people?

Balmers' 'yes men' will stay for sure.

If you're clever, now is the time to leave MS.

/Zane

Re: Really

One thing where Microsoft is really successful,

is that they were able to make people think that their data is more safe with Microsoft than with Google or Apple.

A Microsoft "private" cloud? Just look how often your Windows likes to phone home.

/Zane