turn it off and on again

[Frequency]

Nope, Motorola Mobility is now under the ownership of Lenovo, and has been since late last year.

Wellllllp.

Will google create a cheap flagship model? Or will we have to settle for searching for a cheap Nexus 5 on craigslist? Find out next time on Dragon Ball Z!

 

[Tsutarja]

Maybe I'm just an ignorant on the subject, but I for one do not understand at all what makes mobile phones different from tablets. I'm looking at you, Google, with the price of a Nexus 7 compared to a Nexus 5. ;)

 

[esperance]

Maybe I'm just an ignorant on the subject, but I for one do not understand at all what makes mobile phones different from tablets. I'm looking at you, Google, with the price of a Nexus 7 compared to a Nexus 5. ;)

These days it seems to be just the size of the screen, the amount of memory a company is willing to stuff on it, and the price. :P

 

[Tsutarja]

These days it seems to be just the size of the screen, the amount of memory a company is willing to stuff on it, and the price. :P

Still doesn't make sense though as to how a tablet can cost less than a phone. hm..

Anyways, having a Windows 8 tablet is great if you use YouTube for music, like me. :P

 

[esperance]

Still doesn't make sense though as to how a tablet can cost less than a phone. hm..

Anyways, having a Windows 8 tablet is great if you use YouTube for music, like me. :P

Must be nice to use Windows 8 as it was intended, instead of the awkward setup for laptops.

 

[Legendary Silke]

I don't find a real use for pure tablets to be honest, then again my use cases tend to involve prolonged typing.

 

[Tsutarja]

Must be nice to use Windows 8 as it was intended, instead of the awkward setup for laptops.

I've been using Windows 8 in a desktop environment for sometime now, and it's really no different than Windows 7. If you don't use the Start Menu often, then it'll feel less and less like an OS meant for tablets. :P

I don't find a real use for pure tablets to be honest, then again my use cases tend to involve prolonged typing.

That's the only thing with tablets that I dislike—they aren't meant for typing for long periods of time. In the case of Windows 8, it'd be neat if they built a Swype-like environment in for the touch keyboard.

By the way, how's your status with a laptop? Any luck as of late?

 

[Circuit]

I used Windows 8 for a long time. It was great. The start menu actually isn't that hard to navigate really, as there is a way to access all programs from the apps page, so it's more like a visual upgrade than anything else. That, and Windows 8 is much more processing efficient than Windows 7, and a lot better for gaming and so on. Sadly I had to down-grade when my PC broke, but hey. I get a free version of 10 I think, from what Microsoft has said, but I've no idea how that will actually work out.

 

[GreenFlame]

It would be nice if Linux was the new Windows, honestly. But since it isn't, I still use Windows, but I'd like to start using Linux too.

 

[Legendary Silke]

I've been using Windows 8 in a desktop environment for sometime now, and it's really no different than Windows 7. If you don't use the Start Menu often, then it'll feel less and less like an OS meant for tablets. :P

That's the only thing with tablets that I dislike—they aren't meant for typing for long periods of time. In the case of Windows 8, it'd be neat if they built a Swype-like environment in for the touch keyboard.

By the way, how's your status with a laptop? Any luck as of late?

Hopefully they do get around to it in Windows 10.

I'm already with my laptop for several weeks. Turns out that the fans were mostly blocked and the thermal paste went. So the fans got cleaned up and the paste reapplied.

Now I have a laptop that runs cool :)

It would be nice if Linux was the new Windows, honestly. But since it isn't, I still use Windows, but I'd like to start using Linux too.

I'd suspect that's extremely unlikely to happen on the desktop space. Not while there's still the problem of too many distributions and lack of application compatibility to deal with. Substitutes mean nothing, really. Sometimes, you really need the real deal.

 

[GreenFlame]

I'd suspect that's extremely unlikely to happen on the desktop space. Not while there's still the problem of too many distributions and lack of application compatibility to deal with. Substitutes mean nothing, really. Sometimes, you really need the real deal.

The compatibility issues are because not as many developers make for Linux, because there is a lack of userbase. And the lack of userbase can be attributed to the lack of compatibility, so....it's an impasse.

Linux feels more "lightweight" as an OS to me than Windows, and I can't say I'm a huge fan of Microsoft either.

 

[Legendary Silke]

The compatibility issues are because not as many developers make for Linux, because there is a lack of userbase. And the lack of userbase can be attributed to the lack of compatibility, so....it's an impasse.

Chicken-and-egg, huh?

I'm also thinking of incompatibility between certain software that were explicitly tested for a select few distributions, too. Sometimes I wish these software got along.

I'm also of the opinion that if you ever had poor default options out-of-the-box for the average Joe, you have pretty much failed in making a good desktop user's OS. I prefer to keep set-up time to a minimum outside of missing drivers (which is basically a fact of life on any OS that didn't come pre-installed, really). I'm also in the camp where a desktop user's OS shouldn't even bother forcing the user to get to the command prompt or a similar shell just to get certain system-level tasks done, either. (I'll admit, the GUI tools are getting better every day, but I'd rather prefer that everything is there. Hopefully that has changed for the better.)

Operating systems that attempt to cater to power users tend to...fail.

Linux feels more "lightweight" as an OS to me than Windows, and I can't say I'm a huge fan of Microsoft either.

I'd probably agree with you on that, but there's also the beauty of an operating system that can work with everything.

In addition, Windows requirements ha been on a standstill for almost a decade, while the baseline hardware that you can get today have just kept getting better. We're now at the point where $99 Windows tablets can run pretty well and play some last-generation console ports. These systems are more than fast enough for most productivity tasks, too - the current Intel Atoms have about the same aggregate performance as a Core 2 Duo, and that thing is still perfectly workable today. (Intel really got it with Conroe.)

If Windows can ship with such devices and run well, I wonder if there's even a place for Linux on the desktop.

Speaking of computers, I think I'm going to just keep wondering what I'll be getting as a replacement for my Surface RT.

 

[GreenFlame]

In addition, Windows requirements ha been on a standstill for almost a decade, while the baseline hardware that you can get today have just kept getting better. We're now at the point where $99 Windows tablets can run pretty well and play some last-generation console ports. These systems are more than fast enough for most productivity tasks, too - the current Intel Atoms have about the same aggregate performance as a Core 2 Duo, and that thing is still perfectly workable today. (Intel really got it with Conroe.)

If Windows can ship with such devices and run well, I wonder if there's even a place for Linux on the desktop.

Microsoft shipping hardware that includes their OS is a little irrelevant to the actual OS.
I haven't done it yet (I'd love to do it soon), but I personally would be building a gaming PC for my Linux use (perhaps with Windows installed on the side for Windows-exclusive games and features).

I wouldn't mind not having limited out-of-the-box compatibility (and it's not that bad, anyway), since Linux is far less bloated than Windows anyway. In the end, I would doubt Linux would ever replace Windows, but I do hope it gets almost as much support as it - Linux deserves it :).

 

[Legendary Silke]

Microsoft shipping hardware that includes their OS is a little irrelevant to the actual OS.
I haven't done it yet (I'd love to do it soon), but I personally would be building a gaming PC for my Linux use (perhaps with Windows installed on the side for Windows-exclusive games and features).

Read what I wrote again. I never said anything about their shipping hardware that includes their OS for that part - it's just an observation on Windows and the hardware that ships with it these days, Microsoft or not. The baseline hardware has caught up, really, so it's kind of difficult to get a poor Windows experience, performance-wise these days.

I wouldn't mind not having limited out-of-the-box compatibility (and it's not that bad, anyway), since Linux is far less bloated than Windows anyway. In the end, I would doubt Linux would ever replace Windows, but I do hope it gets almost as much support as it - Linux deserves it :).

Haha! I guess we can dream.

Though, I don't think "bloat" is always a bad thing - in fact, calling it bloat might be a bit...harsh, as sometimes, the so-called "bloat" is actually a constraint due to the need of supporting, well, everything remotely relevant. You'd be surprised how small Windows can actually get if you never needed these stuff (Windows on phones, anyone?).

Though, there's also the rule of "A user probably doesn't need 90% of the features in something, but every user has a different 10% that he/she needs". Good luck shipping something light if it doesn't cover all bases.

 

[Tsutarja]

since Linux is far less bloated than Windows anyway

I do want to comment on this and say that Windows is not bloated at all if you install Windows from a Microsoft CD, rather than from a manufacturer's CD.

 

[GreenFlame]

I do want to comment on this and say that Windows is not bloated at all if you install Windows from a Microsoft CD, rather than from a manufacturer's CD.

I suppose so. I like the lightweight feel of Linux though, and other things as well. I do still use Windows, and it's not a bad OS, but I would definitely like to attempt to use Linux in the long run and see how it turns out. From the experience I have with Linux though, it's nice.

I do hope Linux gets more support.

 

[Tsutarja]

I can't wait for Windows 10 for this. I can get rid of all the Acer bloatware on my laptop finally.

Does your laptop not have a product key label on it? That'd be the only reason I assume you aren't able to install from scratch.

 

[Tsutarja]

Nope. However, since the product key is tied to the motherboard, I could if I wanted to. From what I've heard though, installing from scratch on this laptop is a bit of a task because of drivers and whatnot.

Wow, that's strange. I think I remember one time trying to find my laptop's original product key and it didn't work with other installations of Windows 8 when I tried to use it. Luckily for me, as a STEM student, I have access to Windows 8.1 Pro.

 

[GreenFlame]

I finished a little utility program in C++ :D

I'm gonna release it in a blog post, though it's sort of a prototype.

 

[Tsutarja]

I finished a little utility program in C++ :D

I'm gonna release it in a blog post, though it's sort of a prototype.

Nice! I wish I could code some things for personal use, but at the same time, I never have ideas. ;;

So this evening I experimented with a new ROM on my Android phone. While it was really nice, the SIM card didn't like it. So I'm trying to get my phone working because now the kernel isn't cooperating with the stock backup. Welp.

Ugh. Hopefully the folks at XDA can be a bit of help if you've asked over there already.