Random thoughts.... [Tech Edition]

With the difference that Apple got permission for the ripoff in exchange for apple stocks. Everyone always forgets that bit.

I’m not a windows user at home but I have to deal with it at work. I still raise an eyebrow every now and then when I’m digging around windows 10 settings and come across an oldschool Control Panel or whatnot. They literally just put the flat windows 10 interface on top. Are you saying this still is the case in 11?

Indeed yes sir, it's like an archeological dig at this point.

(following images not mine)

So you have the new windows 11 settings

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The Win 7 Settings




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And finally, the Win NT Settings


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Windows desperately needs a rewrite. In a world slowly accepting HDR as the norm their HDR implementation is terrible (Not my words, people who actually edit videos for a living). They still have issues with scaling, even on first-party apps, the registry is an enormous elephant on the room and at this point causes more problems that it fixes (Delete a .conf file in most windows programs? Doomed. Delete it on Linux? Creates new default .conf file by itself and all apps are inherently portable). Dave Cutler's/VMS's (and by extension NT's) implementations now stand alone in a sea of POSIX/BSD.

I expected the switch to ARM would cause them to finally abandon the VMS/NT bones like they did DOS and end up with, basically, a Windows UI and Rosetta-like compatibility layer running atop UNIX. This is sadly not the case, and unless they are really working on it, it will come to bite them in the ass as all of their history of ARM implementations demonstrate.

I say this as a windows user for over 20 years now.
 
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Wow.

Then again, if you know your way around macOS and pull up that video of Steve Jobs demonstrating NextSTEP (and firing shots at the mac in the process), you'll recognize lots of stuff that still exists on the Mac today. The Services menu is one of them. I've never used it but I bet some people do and they would raise hell if it went away.

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The TPM 2.0 requirement is just a way to force upgrades, as far as I can tell. Cheap tactics. We're in no rush to upgrade to Win11 at work but do use TPM.

True, but apparently a Core i5 is obsolete also?
Or just my particular one?

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the i5-part isn't the problem, the 3000 part is. officially, only 8000 series and newer are supported.
That seems to only be for onboard TPM 2.0, the specs I have only list 1GHz+ and the report from Systemcenterdudes shows many machines with older CPUs as being supported due to TPM 2.0 chips on the motherboard.

I'm not sure which information I trust, potentially what I've seen only applies to W11 Enterprise.

I only ran the report because I was interested, it mainly shows up a load of old Dell Latitudes with TPM 1.2 and those are slowly being replaced anyway. In fact I'm creating a ticket for the replacement of one right now.
 
That seems to only be for onboard TPM 2.0, the specs I have only list 1GHz+ and the report from Systemcenterdudes shows many machines with older CPUs as being supported due to TPM 2.0 chips on the motherboard.
Yeah it's a bit weird - I also saw the 1GHz dual core / 4 GB / 64 GB requirements, but then additionally MS runs a list of "compatible processors" in addition to that where they're not entirely open whether it's TPM related or not. In any case, there's the additional differentiation which systems can be installed but may be excluded from automatic updates because of something?
... the communication by MS about this is utter garbage in any case, I think we can all agree on that :|
 
I’m not bothered at all, I don’t plan on upgrading to 11 unless at gunpoint. But the whole ‘buy a new computer because we say so’ thing annoys me immensely. Especially since MS is quite good at supporting very old software years after everyone stopped using it.

I also fail to see how ‘safe boot’ and the TPM are ‘requirements’? Sure they’re nice to have but to say they are vital is bollocks
 
I also fail to see how ‘safe boot’ and the TPM are ‘requirements’? Sure they’re nice to have but to say they are vital is bollocks
This is a given, they're just using it as a way to force people to upgrade old hardware in the name of 'safety'. Most people don't understand it so won't argue.

One of the other hilarious requirements is for a screen bigger than 9 inches, how the heck the W11 tool checks this I have no idea, surely they can't have every single model of LCD screen and/or screen controller in a database. I don't doubt that it's to weed out old tablets, I wonder how it would affect virtual machines though.
 
The iPod is now 20 years old. That's right, 20 years old. It was launched on October 23rd 2001.

This makes me feel old...
 
I owned two iPods. I never liked the first one because of the hard drive. It never gave me any issues but I felt like I had to treat it like it was made of glass, due to it having moving parts. I never felt OK carrying it around in a jacket pocket etc.

I sold it and got a 2nd gen Nano instead, the one where they also dropped the silly shiny scratch-prone case in favor of painted metal. Much, much better. I still have it in a drawer somewhere, I wonder if it can hold a charge.
 
I sold it and got a 2nd gen Nano instead, the one where they also dropped the silly shiny scratch-prone case in favor of painted metal. Much, much better. I still have it in a drawer somewhere, I wonder if it can hold a charge.
It will most likely still work, unless the battery has swollen up and broken the screen from behind, that happens with a lot of old nanos.
 
I dont remember why, but I think there was a recall on the nano. My girlfriend had one, sent it in, and they sent back a shuffle with higher capacity (the anodized clip one). I think her Nano was likely a 1st gen...
 
I wouldn't have been happy if they'd replaced my Nano with a stupid paperclip with no screen.
 
Speaking of iPods and hard drives, today I did my first ever iPod flash mod. I had this 2nd-gen Mini I found on a flea market for next to nothing, and I replaced the battery and the Microdrive with a 128GB SD card with a CF to SD adapter. And I didn't break anything in the process!

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Also, IIRC, the first-gen Nano had some sort of a battery issue, so they did a replacement program for it.
 
I do still have my silver gen2 nano. the first apple device I ever owned. it's missing the top and bottom covers after a nasty incident with a brick and it has about 15 minutes of battery life.

Still functions quite well otherwise
 
*grumble*

my laptop the past couple of days is acting weird. I mostly use it these days to as a noise machine, going to sleep to old Top Gear episodes. Last night I went to wake it for the usual evening thing but the screen won't turn on. Put my ear up to the side and I can hear the fan on. I try holding the power button, I am reminded that I've taken this thing apart once for a memory upgrade and again for a new SSD after the original Western Digital unit died. This means the power button is flakey due to me not being as careful taking stuff apart as I could be. Tonight the same problem happened when I wanted to go lay on my stomach and internet. I open it up and pull the battery. Unplug the keyboard and trackpad and move the case lid off. I see the battery seems normal until I run my fingers across the cells. They are starting to swell, greaaaaaat.

New battery should be here Wednesday with some Nespresso pods.
 
New battery should be here Wednesday with some Nespresso pods.
Don't mix them up. :tease:

Spicy pillows are never good, we just had to replace another at work on a Dell Precision, it had pushed the entire trackpad up. For some reason the user didn't feel the need to tell us immediately...
 
Don't mix them up. :tease:

Spicy pillows are never good, we just had to replace another at work on a Dell Precision, it had pushed the entire trackpad up. For some reason the user didn't feel the need to tell us immediately...

Last winter I was on a job site with an OEM and one of the start up techs from the oven company had a spicy pillow in his laptop. It split the frame apart on one side and he was traveling around the country with it. I told him to get that replaced asap unless you want your laptop to explode. He calmly responds “hey thanks for letting me know.” As if this is not a big deal…

I struggle with people I work with on jobs because their level of knowledge stops at the door of the room we’re in. yesterday I was complaining about my work laptop being slow and how it’s “a 6 year old $300 laptop with the most basic intel Pentium cpu.” Guy goes “I have no idea what any of that means.”
 
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I don’t understand skimping on things like laptops for your employees. In the grand scheme of things (and spread out over six years) would it really hurt that much to give your employee a proper machine to work with?
 
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