Posts by Trevor_Pott

Re: A Better Question

So you only use graduates as your comparison barometer? Why? Why not the totality of the industry, including those who have been working in it for some time? The demographics of current graduates probably look nothing like the industry as a whole.

Also, we have to look beyond just the tech industry. CxOs don't have to have tech backgrounds to run a tech company. Same with secretaries, janitorial, marketing, etc...

I'd say your proposed means to answer my questions demonstrates a great deal of bias on your part, almost like you have a predetermined conclusion you'd like to discuss, but need a way to twist facts or narrow the discussion so that the your point seems valid.

Re: firefox ESR updated too

Damned straight. I started converting most of my sites to Chrome or Opera after the UI change. They didn't have a "stop sucking" button in the browser, and I don't particularly enjoy being Microsofted. So fuck 'em, I've got better things to do than try to contort 50 plugins into shape just to make the bloody thing look normal.

Re: Yay!

Once, not so long ago, I to was one of the loudest Microsoft evangelists. I still believe that they employ many of the best and brightest our planet has to offer and that they have some of the best tech.

But I no longer believe in the company, it's leadership, or it's direction. I don't trust Microsoft. Considering how much I once did, that should say rather a lot right there.

Re: Yay!

pokerface.jpg

Re: Yay!

I don't know. A format is just a format. Microsoft still make an office package that has some powerful evangelists. That takes time to chip away at. For Microsoft to lose they'd have to basically piss off the very people who have helped them build an empire over the past 30 years while producing products that the majority of individuals hate.

Surely Microsoft is too smart for that. Look how much their executives get paid! Obviously anyone who makes that much money is incapable of making the kinds of mistakes that could be easily predicted by a commenttard on an internet site.

Even if they were to do the above, is that enough to overcome "incentivization" of the "decision makers" in positions of power? Oracle's still around...

Re: Better but still a bit of a pigs ear

Have you seen the horror Word produces when you save as HTML?

Re: Not wanting to defend plod, but

"You'll get your computers, tablets, laptops etc back eventually...."

Really? Because I know some folk who are damned well innocent who've not gotten their stuff back after two years. Besides, the way laws are structured it's virtually impossible for any of us to be innocent of everything. Our lives are on those machines. Search them hard enough, you'll find something to jail them for, even if it's not what was on the original search warrant.

Re: Not wanting to defend plod, but

"No actually, in court the police and CPS would have to prove it was you, which would be impossible."

Since when? The US and UK moved to "guilty until proven more guilty" ages ago. When it comes to the internet, presumption of innocence was ejected. It's not going to be returning.

But the first - and only - true "Cloud OS" (in the sense that it runs virtually nothing locally and is designed for mobile and cloud apps exclusively) is Chrome OS. So is Microsoft's "mobile first, cloud first" (customer last) approach in fact a ringing endorsement that Google is the future?

Enquiring minds want to know...

Re: "...developers are targeting not just Windows Phone customers..."

"Metro feels like that nasty multi-tasking add-on you used to be able to add to DOS. Just looks nicer."

Geoworks Ensemble 2.0: Metro before it was cool.

I agree. They have been light on sales for some time. That said, they have gone on a big sales hiring spree and have recruited some very good names into the pool. They are capable of recognizing their weaknesses and adapting. Something that - quite frankly - seems to be beyond the big egos of a lot of silicon valley startups.

I would feel sorry for him, except that he's continuously pushing Metro apps and subscription everything as the future. Both are bad for, well, everyone.

Mobile first, cloud first, but customers, developers, partners and staff all come last. That's a bit bass ackwards.

Re: "In test for SQL certifications we ask you to actually create an SQL query"

The command you seek is secedit.

Re: So, let me get this straight...

If I say that I will buy one high-end, enterprise-class server to run a single workload then I can make Azure seem cost efficient. But the thing is, unless I'm a really small SMB, I'm never doing this. I run multiple workloads on a single server. (Thanks, virtualization that is over a decade old.)

The costs of a single workload get very small, very, very quickly. But Azure does not. Azure still costs $virgins for each and every workload. And it doesn't matter if you're using "the cloud" or not, you still need a sysadmin. Someone still has to manage and maintain that workload.

Sorry, but Azure is only most cost effective in niche cases, and it absolutely isn't cheaper for the majority of small businesses.

Re: Microsoft, please don't add a start menu ....

I'd like to say "nobody could be that tone deaf", but this is Microsoft. If there is a way to alienate customers, partners, developers or staff Microsoft will engage in that activity with gusto.

Re: Microsoft, please don't add a start menu ....

I seriously doubt that an official Microsoft Start Menu will "kill" Classic Shell or Start8. Remember that the start menu is a part of explorer.exe. Worst case scenario is that you need to do a complete shellectomy and replace explorer.exe with something less asstastic.

Now, that would be a lot more work than knocking together a new start menu, but it wouldn't be the first time complete replacement shells were created for Windows. They'd cost a big of money, but after some initial proliferation, the world would settle on a standard set of two or three.

We aren't beholden to Microsoft for the UI. Quite frankly, I think Microsoft should go ahead and continue screwing the UI up royally. If Windows 9 doesn't have a positive reception form the market either then there will be real effort put into new shells. The viability of sticking with Windows 7 once Windows 9 comes out is pretty small. But we aren't going to collectively accept the design decisions Microsoft tries to force on us unless we actually agree with those decisions.

What's more, Microsoft can no more lock down the ability to replace the shell than it can throw out it's military contracts, contracts with banks, etc. There are lots of instances in which full shell replacements are in use in critical areas. It's just time they made their way into the public consciousness.

@Orlowski

But there is nothing in Google's Android contracts that prevent you from building an Android-derivative smartphone/tablet/etc if you want. Go right ahead and do so, and put as many services as you want on it, and brand it yourself. Amazon's done it just fine.

You just can't use Google's proprietary services and applications and Google's trademarks unless you use them as a package. I don't see what's wrong with that. Where is this "preventing competition"? How is this preventing competition?

There are decent alternatives for everything Google makes. If you want to ship an Android Smartphone with your custom map software, but not Google Maps, then do so. Go get an alternative version of the rest of the Google stack - Play, Hangouts, etc - and install them alongside your maps software. Brand it under your name and then compete.

If Ford can say "though shalt not use the term Model E unless we say so" then what the merry hell is the problem with Google saying "thou shalt not use our trademarks and branding unless you agree to our terms?"

Apple can say "thou shalt not install OSX on non-Apple PCs" and there's apparently no problem with that. Your media chums can tell me what I can and can't do with the media I purchase, where I can watch it, on what sized screen and with how many friends and that's apparently totally groovy.

But Google saying "use our entire stack of apps and the UI we designed or you can't use our trademarks" is somehow preventing competition? Please explain this to me using little words, because apparently I'm just to stupid to get why this is a problem.

Google doesn't have a monopoly. Apple is a massive competitor in the Smartphone space and it dominates the tablet space. Microsoft is even almost relevant in these spaces. You don't have to use Android if you want a "free" OS for your devices, there are many others. From Android forks to Tizen to open source Android with services like AppBrain.

So this isn't a "Google is a monopoly thing". It isn't really a "Google is doing something completely different than others". It is - sort of - a bundling thing, but in exactly the same way as "OSX on Mac only" and is more closely related to branding and trademark disputes than any "attempt to use a monopoly in one area to create a monopoly in another." Google's monopoly on search is not something anyone has presented any evidence that they have tried to leverage to push companies to accept the "all or nothing" clause for Google's app stack on Android.

So I am going to have to go with "this is about people who don't like Google" more than "something Google is doing that is morally or legally bad". Unless, of course, you can explain to me the issue in terms small enough for my pathetically minute comprehensive capabilities.

I think you're incorrect.

Embrace, Extend, Monetize is the Silicon Valley way. It's Seattle's bizarre rain-soaked hooligans that change "monetize" to "extinguish."

Consider, for a moment, Apple. They embraced a BSD distro. They extended into OSX and eventually iOS. They then raked in eleventy squillion souls dollars.

Google hopes to do the same with the Linux kernel, and many of the other core Linux packages. The results are Android, ChromeOS, and the handful of internal distros used to run their datacenters.

What about this is "extinguishing"? They're not pulling an ADHD Redmondian "embrace, extend, PlaysForSure, restart entire project with a new standard under a different name". And, unlike Seattle majors, Google gives a metric holycrap back to the open source community. When was the last time you saw more than token code filter out of Amazon, for example?

Different cultures, man. Different cultures.

Re: @Trevor

Never played with a Blackarmour...at least, I don't think I have. Sad that they weren't good.