Developers, developers, developers, developers

I kind of like how multitasking in Windows Phone works.

7.0 didn't have any such fancy thing.

7.5 has the OS take over tasks, iOS-style.

8.0 can run just fine on the background.

Background tasks aren't too bad on Windows Phone, but what I wish was possible was for things to work more properly.. as such when I tried using an IRC client, every time I backed away from it, it disconnected.

Zach said:

Background tasks aren't too bad on Windows Phone, but what I wish was possible was for things to work more properly.. as such when I tried using an IRC client, every time I backed away from it, it disconnected.

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And yet, on the other hand, WhatsApp and the like stay online just fine, even on Windows Phone 7.5.

Strange, isn't it? Perhaps it has to do with the nature of the connection.

I do remember the first versions of then-called Nokia Maps and Angry Birds Star Wars running on the Windows Phone 8 had a problem with chewing up system resources (and hence, battery) if you didn't quit them completely using the Back button. They got fixed, obviously, but it does also show that Windows Phone is capable of Android-like multitasking if need be.

What I wish Windows Phone could improve on though is closing tasks, similar to the fashion in which you close them in iOS and Android.. instead of having to back out of them to the home menu that is.

It's for that exact reason that I don't run too many apps simultaneously on my phone.

Zach said:

What I wish Windows Phone could improve on though is closing tasks, similar to the fashion in which you close them in iOS and Android.. instead of having to back out of them to the home menu that is.

It's for that exact reason that I don't run too many apps simultaneously on my phone.

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Update 3 is coming, which gives you a Close button for apps.

You shouldn't worry about apps running in the background on a Windows Phone or iPhone, though. It's mostly pointless.

That's at least good to hear that we're getting an option to close apps, really.. because what is a smartphone that cannot allow you to close apps? :P

Zach said:

That's at least good to hear that we're getting an option to close apps, really.. because what is a smartphone that cannot allow you to close apps? :P

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I'm thinking it's a concession to the average smartphone user coming to Windows Phone.

Hmm, so earlier this evening my ISP was having DNS problems, and switching to Google DNS worked.. but to further complications about an hour later my internet went out for nearly an hour after that. Fun early evening there.

I tend to stick with what the ISP provides for DNS unless I absolutely have to. I've suffered only one DNS outage last year, and it's more of a "wrong address" problem. Something about servers and corruption.

I'm wanting to switch providers because Time Warner is becoming pure crap now, but unfortunately we have to deal with them for the rest of our lives because it's the only thing for internet in this town I live in. Not even Satellite internet exists here, which is what I was considered switching to.

Ugh, satellite internet. I really dislike at how low the bandwidth cap is for satellite internet (from what I've heard, it's like 250MB a month), and the bandwidth is crap as well. And whenever it rains your reliability of service becomes limited.

Time Warner isn't all that bad. We've had it before, and it was pretty fast. Well, not as fast as our current provider, but still fast nonetheless. It wasn't that expensive, either. For us, it cost only about thirty dollars a month.

Ah, the simplicity of living in Europe. The internet has no limits, except for your data speed, and you have no nannying from your ISP. Plus its cheap, considering that it comes with phone service. 20 euros for 8mbps with little to no slowdown periods is very good, especially as its not a direct provider and has to channel through the main phone company to give us service.

Most of Europe isn't as large as United States of America, though.

On another topic, changing the shot battery of my laptop was a good thing to do. Now I'm managing to have a lot of leftover battery after a three-hour class.

Twiggy said:

Most of Europe isn't as large as United States of America, though.

On another topic, changing the shot battery of my laptop was a good thing to do. Now I'm managing to have a lot of leftover battery after a three-hour class.

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Lucky, my old laptop won't even last 3 hours without having to charge. :c

Also, I have a question!! Guys, what would be a good laptop for $700 or under?

Do you have any technical preferences (RAM, hard drive space, resolution, etc.)? That may help us a little more, but the majority of the laptops nowadays that are less than $700 are Toshiba, HP, and Acer. Alas, that also depends on what YOU want in a laptop. xD

Only if laptops were able to be built from scratch like desktops could things be easier to decide on when it comes to portability and specs..

But yeah, agreeing with Megan. Anything specific you wish to have?

Zach said:

Only if laptops were able to be built from scratch like desktops could things be easier to decide on when it comes to portability and specs..

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Specs, yes; portability, no. The reason laptops can fit so much in such a small space is that they use proprietary parts, which they can have made in any particular shape, such that it fits within their design. Should they be using standardised parts (which would be crucial for scratch-built/home-built systems), then there is no way thing would be as portable or as energy-efficient. Sure, it's frustrating, but it's a tradeoff that people often aren't aware of.

Same goes with phones - sure, we could have modular, upgradable phones, but they'd be much bigger, likely with worse battery life.

The internet in Australia is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it's pretty reliable (some more than others, mine has had 1 hours of downtime in the last 3 years) and you have a lot of choice with ADSL2+ networks (you don't get the kind of monopoly that seems to exist in the States), however it's fairly expensive, not always terribly fast and almost always has data limits.

eg. I am with Internode and we pay AU$79/month (including a landline phone bundled, mind you) at get 200GB download/upload quota for the month. They don't artificially limit the speed, although we have a (very) consistent 5.5 Mb/s Down/1.0 Mb/s up. You can get cable, which is much faster, but it's also well over $100 for the same kind of data limit and is only available in certain areas (Australia has very low population density, lower than Canada and Russia).

Ah, well guys. I want a laptop that's able to at least run League of Legends and maybe Borderlands 2 and Team Fortress 2. I'm also planing on putting Photoshop on it, and possibly illustrator. I also want it to be fast.

Did that help?

Archer said:

Specs, yes; portability, no. The reason laptops can fit so much in such a small space is that they use proprietary parts, which they can have made in any particular shape, such that it fits within their design. Should they be using standardised parts (which would be crucial for scratch-built/home-built systems), then there is no way thing would be as portable or as energy-efficient. Sure, it's frustrating, but it's a tradeoff that people often aren't aware of.

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I know, right? A desktop can only dream about achieving an idle power usage of 10 watts or less :3

Bruce Banner said:

Ah, well guys. I want a laptop that's able to at least run League of Legends and maybe Borderlands 2 and Team Fortress 2. I'm also planing on putting Photoshop on it, and possibly illustrator. I also want it to be fast.

Did that help?

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A lot of laptops will run all them just fine as long as it's not an ARM-based "tablet" or something running an Atom/Bay Trail Celeron/Pentium (Ivy Bridge/Haswell Celeron/Pentiums are OK). I'm willing to bet you want something better than "fine", though. If possible, aim for at least an Ivy Bridge/Haswell Core i5 (ULV processors are OK, and desirable if you want to use the laptop for a long time unplugged), and some sort of NVIDIA graphics with Optimus (again, battery life), of at least GeForce GT 630M level (I'd advise a 740M personally) (so you can play everything but Company of Heroes 2 and Metro: Last Light well enough at 720p (yes, a 630M is just fast enough for CoD: Ghosts and Battlefield 4 (!)). Aim for at least 4 GB of RAM, but some current-generation games won't run with such a configuration, so try for 8.

If possible, try to give a laptop a personal look. Try the keyboard and the trackpad, especially if you see yourself using the laptop outdoors a lot. The display resolution isn't terribly important - the display brightness, cover material (matte or glossy?), and whether any mottling exists is more important for a normal Windows laptop, since Windows desktop apps don't handle high-PPI displays well once you go beyond full-screen games and Microsoft apps.

If it comes with a replaceable normal 5400 RPM HDD, don't upgrade the HDD if there's no hybrid option. Buy a Seagate Laptop SSHD separately. You will never go back to non-SSD/SSHD solutions.