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Comment: $1000 Plasma is Better (Score 1) 202

by wadeal (#45295781) Attached to: Panasonic Announces an End To Plasma TVs In March

When I went to buy my first flat screen TV 6 months ago with a $1000 budget I took my time, read a lot of reviews and made a lot of trips to stores to see the models in person.

At first I was aiming for LCD - there was a Samsung Series 6 LCD, 40" for $1000. But in seeing the "cheaper" LCDs without the full motion control they are frustrating to watch. Everything is too sharp, the movements on the TV don't look real - it's like the thing with humanoid robots standing out hugely to us as the get near human appearance.

All of the LCDs in this price range are like this - even a lot of the more expensive models appear the same to me. (I'm a fan of Samsung) The only Samsungs to not have this were the Series 8 and 9 which were ridiculously out of my price range.

So instead I had a look at Plasma Screens and am very happy with my Samsung Series 6 51" Plasma for $700. The colours are great and feels more "alive", none of the over sharp picture but still looks 100% watching 1080 and such and (not that I use any of it) has all the 3D, Smart TV BS.

Suffice to say low end Plasmas (from actual manufacturers) will give a better TV experience than a similar priced LCD and you'll probably get to upgrade to a larger size and get more features.

Comment: Not to be that Internet Toughguy (Score 1) 159

by wadeal (#44891607) Attached to: One Man's Battle With Patent Trolls

But if I were a struggling developer or such and had a patent troll try this on me, with the only option to defend myself at my cost with no real hope of getting money back, I'd be very inclined to instead find the people behind this and make it very clear they wouldn't see a cent.

Why has this not happened yet? I want to see that news story, just to send a message to the rest of these vampires.

Comment: Just don't check the Spam Filtering? (Score 1) 190

by wadeal (#44722747) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Speeding Up Personal Anti-Spam Filters?

How about instead of sitting there watching it process you just block your own access to viewing this 15 second delay and ignore it. Just don't care about it. Pretend it doesn't happen and your mail just arrived in your inbox.

I can see no situation where email being delays by 15 seconds is going to cause a an issue.

Comment: Re:So it's going to be irrelevant (Score 2) 403

by wadeal (#44141327) Attached to: You Will Get DirectX 11.2 Only With Windows 8.1

And also what are you talking about can't buy a PC with anything but Windows 8? I just bought 15 laptops from Dell 2 days ago and all will arrive with Windows 7. Nothing special at all, not even discussed with my account manager their. Last 3 orders since Windows 8 have all been the same.

Just because you walk into whatever department store and only see Windows 8 doesn't mean that the only reality.


by wadeal (#44141317) Attached to: You Will Get DirectX 11.2 Only With Windows 8.1

From the Microsoft Volume Licensing Brief - Downgrade Rights PDF available here:

Rights to OEM versions of system software are granted in the OEM License Terms. The OEM License Terms for Windows 8 Pro, Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows Vista Business, and Windows Vista Ultimate operating systems grant downgrade rights. See the full text of the OEM License Terms for the specific downgrade rights

So please tell me why you need to purchase anything? If you buy a PC with Windows 8 then install Windows 7 and call Microsoft Activation and advise you have downgraded to Windows 7 as allowed as part of the OEM licensing agreement and would like their assistance in activating.


One person at £32k is still cheaper than 10 people at £320k and given that they have a lot of computers at different sites they damn well should (and for what it's worth do) have staff trained in remote deployment and the software and infrastructure to do it. They just opted to send people around physically instead.

Sorry I thought you had no understanding and actually though the process was going around with a CD, not utilizing GP or SCCM or Altiris or Landesk etc. That's actually pretty shocking that they don't employ something like SCCM, Microsoft give pretty decent discounts to Government as well.

That's why you have a support team. For when these things don't work.

Nope. You plan and test all these things, then test with a few users initially, then fix issues, then test again, maybe fix more issues, then test and if OK you deploy. Slowly deploy as well lol.

No reasons large enough to justify the expenditure at a time when they're making cuts axing meaningful jobs that could've otherwise been saved. The staff could just as well have got by on 2007 for a few more years until 2013 came out or the next version again even and 99% of the staff would have never even noticed the difference or seen any change in productivity.

2010 is the next version. No corporate anywhere is moving to Windows 8/Office 2013. We actually had a third party software purchased by the CEO turn around and say we need all 2010... Despite my protest of this sounding completely retarded the CEO said it had to happen so we made it happen. My experience in this deployment to only hundreds of PCs is what made me jump at your post saying just walk around with a CD.

I do agree though that unless there was a definite requirement there are of course more pressing things - some people do get a hard on for IT lol.


Oh, and of course they hired a bunch of people on £32k a year to install it, because of course you need people paid a 23% premium over the national average wage in a relatively cheap part of the country to stick a CD in and click next next next a few times

Except you would pay someone that wage to come in and deploy to your PCs via an automated method, especially if your current IT has no experience with that product. Not to mention testing compatibility of addons, retraining, reconfiguring settings or GPOs to match your requirements with the new version etc. For instance: Word 2010 by default uses different paragraph spacing than 2007, you probably want to ensure your Office Programs are saving in your companies default extension (doc or docx) and in the required location (each user may have a mapped "user drive" that you want to be the default save location).

And there are reasons to upgrade that improve the user experience (you at least have the ribbon on every product in 2010, not a mix like 2007) and IT Support (2010 DOES have less issues than 2007).

But don't worry, just keep straw manning to success.
