randomhunt

I travel on a train for a medium length journey 2-4 times a week. In the last 12 months I've noticed that the transition from never seeing a Surface (Pro) to seeing 5-10% of tablets being a Surface (Pro). The vast majority are iPads still but its interesting that Surface has made such inroads. Based on what I see the main reason is the combination of the keyboard and Outlook.

> I'm well aware that Skype did not change for the better after MS took over

While I'm acutely aware of the negative impact various changes had on privacy, cf the leaked documents referencing it, however I'm not sure that statement is blanketly true.

I can now have Skype running on my phone where previously it used to drain the battery in a few hours flat. That is, personally, a huge improvement.

Another thing I've noticed is I get both better video quality (when I use video, I prefer audio only) and I get less disconnects due to "network" reasons.

I only use Windows 10 in a VM for browser testing but I just disable the Windows Update service. I have a PowerShell script which can enable it, hang around and disable it again later which I use when I want to do updates, i.e. when I'm not busy focusing on a task.

I guess it will slightly reduce the overall security but as I only use it as a VM and am generally testing locally its an acceptable trade off in my opinion. The reason I set it up this way was to avoid the time sinks that come from when I do use Windows and then have to wait an age for updates to be done when I'm focusing on work. Previously I always used the option to be notified about updates rather than auto install which was a reasonable trade off. I understand why Microsoft made the change but I strongly disagree with it.

> The real and politically-incorrect reason for the higher prices is that the cost of doing business is higher in Australia. For example, the minimum wage is very high and consumer protection laws require the company to provide a 2-year warranty at no additional cost.

I wonder what the price differential between Australia and Europe is, at similar points in time, then as these 2 example reasons also apply within Europe. Such a comparison might go some way to explaining if there are structural reasons, as suggested by these specific examples, or if it is simply price gouging.

I'm hoping that Android gets a lot better on the battery usage before that happens in earnest though. I've read they've focused on this recently but I haven't had time to drill into details.

I love Windows Phone and have had 3 different models since Windows Phone 7. I'm currently on a Lumia 830 for my private phone and get about 3.5-4 days of battery life. Granted I don't call/text a lot relying on email, Lync and Skype. My previous Lumia 520 was about the same, and the previous LG E900 was 2.5-3 days.

My partner has a Moto G (1st Generation) and loves it but only gets about 1-1.5 days of battery life. Good phone, similar price levels after offers on the Lumia 830, but dramatically lower battery life.

"It's evident from watching these that he is almost without exception the smartest person in every room he's in."

Careful...your "idealogical function [is] leaking through"...

Perhaps re: HN, and if so I apologise for confusion, but for Ninite it's CouldFront (d3doxs0mwx271h.cloudfront.net).

I spent a short while investigating if there was an easy way to get it working but ended up just giving up on the site.

Please don't go to Cloudfront, it's truly horrendous (wearing my end user hat) to see so many sites have problems and timeouts because of them.

For example Ninite.com moved to them and now the site is virtually unusable because of it, over 90% of the time I get a "403: Forbidden" error when trying to do anything...like send them feedback on how the website doesn't work...

I even see more HN problems this week and I'm sure its because of them.

Wouldn't it be ironic if both the established newspaper brand and the Q&A site both used Google advertising...

Don't you think Win9x would _scream_ on your GS3 though? ;-)

QNX?

In The Netherlands a lot have migrated to Nokia Windows Phones. KPN have been doing some very good deals which make the phones free and the contract prices very competitive with a guarantee of a new phone yearly if you migrate from their BlackBerry business packages.

The right tool for the job. I wouldn't try to cut a piece of wood to length by using a hammer.

Declarative languages tend to lend themselves to being used at a much higher level, for example easily encoding rules regarding salary payments rather than low level bit twiddling.

I'm impressed by your ability to ignore good advice and common sense.

I presume you haven't been in an organisation where all the hot new things come in and screw things up with this kind of thinking?

In general you just get that lot trained when the next wave are incoming...