interesting 3d cad program

On Friday, December 30, 2016 at 11:48:56 AM UTC-5, Jack wrote:
> On 12/28/2016 9:49 PM, [email protected] wrote:
> > On 29 Dec 2016 02:28:40 GMT, Puckdropper
>
> >> Bad UI is kiling Windows. Cell phones are taking over because the
> >> experience is usually much better.
> >
> > I disagree with that completely. I can't imagine Sketchup on a phone.
> > Phones are great as always-with-me devices but they don't in any way
> > replace a decent display, keyboard, lots of memory, and processing
> > power.
>
> My wife's nextbook or whatever it's called looks exactly like a computer
> with a fair sized screen, detachable keyboard so it can be used like an
> Ipad or a PC. It runs on Android and far as I know, so can Sketchup. I
> wouldn't have a problem running sketchup on it, but the wife, and my
> kids, or about anyone I know cares, or even know what sketchup is.
>
> Last Christmas I bought my wife an $800 Toshiba laptop that ran win10.
> She hated it, gave her so much trouble she returned it.
> She bought the Nextbook on her own, set it up herself, and loves it. It
> was around $100 I believe.
>

What did she do with the $700? ;-)

On 12/31/2016 2:35 PM, Jack wrote:

> (I did by her a snow blower for
> Christmas, using our credit card).

> BTW, I
> bought her the snow blower so I wouldn't kill myself shoveling snow
> which would cut her income significantly and end her robust medical
> coverage.
>

Very thoughtful of you. Anyone living in snow country over (or near)
the ago of 60 should invest in one.

On Saturday, December 31, 2016 at 9:32:53 AM UTC-5, Jack wrote:
> On 12/30/2016 12:30 PM, DerbyDad03 wrote:
> > On Friday, December 30, 2016 at 11:48:56 AM UTC-5, Jack wrote:
> >> On 12/28/2016 9:49 PM, [email protected] wrote:
> >>> On 29 Dec 2016 02:28:40 GMT, Puckdropper
> >>
> >>>> Bad UI is kiling Windows. Cell phones are taking over because the
> >>>> experience is usually much better.
> >>>
> >>> I disagree with that completely. I can't imagine Sketchup on a phone.
> >>> Phones are great as always-with-me devices but they don't in any way
> >>> replace a decent display, keyboard, lots of memory, and processing
> >>> power.
> >>
> >> My wife's nextbook or whatever it's called looks exactly like a computer
> >> with a fair sized screen, detachable keyboard so it can be used like an
> >> Ipad or a PC. It runs on Android and far as I know, so can Sketchup. I
> >> wouldn't have a problem running sketchup on it, but the wife, and my
> >> kids, or about anyone I know cares, or even know what sketchup is.
> >>
> >> Last Christmas I bought my wife an $800 Toshiba laptop that ran win10.
> >> She hated it, gave her so much trouble she returned it.
> >> She bought the Nextbook on her own, set it up herself, and loves it. It
> >> was around $100 I believe.
> >>
> >
> > What did she do with the $700? ;-)
> >
>
> It went straight back into her (our) credit card fund.
>

So you originally bought her a gift with money that was her's to start with? What a guy! ;-)

(Please - puuuleeeze - note the wink.)

On Saturday, December 31, 2016 at 5:22:09 PM UTC-5, notbob wrote:
> On 2016-12-31, Ed Pawlowski <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Very thoughtful of you. Anyone living in snow country over (or near)
> > the ago of 60 should invest in one.
>
> And here I though NOT buying one would force one to expend enough
> energy to stay fit. No wonder this forced air heating is killing me!
> ;)
>
> nb

If you want stay fit while using a snowblower...

Buy one without all the fancy steering features so that you have to muscle it
around a bit. Don't use reverse, pull it backwards.

In addition, do the driveways of 2 or 3 neighbors every time you do yours.

If you really want a workout, drop the air pressure in the tires by 8-10 pounds.

Jack <[email protected]> wrote in news:[email protected]:

*snip and trim*

> Also, my modem occasionally gets lost, and requires a re-boot to begin
> working again. Not sure what is causing it, I periodically try to
> figure it out, but generally just reboot. Rebooting takes about as long
> as it did on my 8088 PCXT took in 1982. It's like putting a 10,000
> horsepower jet engine on your go-cart and going the exact same speed...
> real progress there Gates!
>

Did you know that Bill Gates hasn't been very involved with the company for
some time? He was progressing out of day-to-day operations in 2006.

Puckdropper
--
http://www.puckdroppersplace.us/rec.woodworking
A mini archive of some of rec.woodworking's best and worst!

Ed Pawlowski <[email protected]> wrote in news:[email protected]:

>
>
> If you exercise on a regular basis, maybe. If you sit on your ass for
> weeks at a time and suddenly try to move a couple of tons of snow, not
> so much. The ER sees some heart attack victims every snowfall.
>

I build a backyard ice rink every year. It gives me excerise while I'm
waiting for snowfall to run my snow blower. :-)

Puckdropper
--
http://www.puckdroppersplace.us/rec.woodworking
A mini archive of some of rec.woodworking's best and worst!

On 29 Dec 2016 02:28:40 GMT, Puckdropper
<puckdropper(at)yahoo(dot)com> wrote:

>Jack <[email protected]> wrote in news:[email protected]:
>
>> On 12/28/2016 1:41 AM, Bill wrote:
>>
>> Recently my daughter and her husband were playing gin, and she pulled
>> out her cell phone to keep score. I asked what she was using to keep
>> score and she said Excel... I said isn't that over kill, she said it
>> was easy and didn't have a pencil and paper handy...
>>
>> PC's (aka cell phones) are killing windows. None of my kids have
>> desktop computers, they have old lap tops they rarely to never use.
>
>Bad UI is kiling Windows. Cell phones are taking over because the
>experience is usually much better.

I disagree with that completely. I can't imagine Sketchup on a phone.
Phones are great as always-with-me devices but they don't in any way
replace a decent display, keyboard, lots of memory, and processing
power.
>
>> My wife bought herself a computer, I later discovered it was not
>> really a computer, it was a giant cell phone w/o the phone part
>> (Nextbook I think it is), with a detachable keyboard. It runs on the
>> Android OS. The closest thing to a computer she has is an Ipad, that
>> also runs on a Unix based OS. She also has a Kindle (also
>> Android/UNIX). She sits around all day with her cell phone, Nextbook,
>> Ipad, and Kindle all hooked up to the internet, playing games, and
>> buying crap. All are based on UNIX not DOS/Windows. Yep, Window is
>> about over, and the sooner the better as it has always been, and still
>> is, garbage.
>
>There was a quote from Bill Gates I came across a few months ago:
>"Microsoft is always 2 years from being out of business." He knew if he
>didn't keep the company innovating and at least producing usable stuff,
>they'd be gone really fast. Too bad has successor doesn't seem to
>understand that... We might not have a Microsoft soon. (As bad as M$ can
>be, Apple and Google are worse.)

Certainly innovation is the key to survival but (at least) one of
these companies is going to surive.

<snip>

>Like I said, Windows used to be really really good. Windows 7 is
>fantastic in terms of UI, it's set the standard for many UIs and then
>Microsoft screwed everything up completely.

So far (a week), I've found Win10 to be acceptable (too early to tell
more). It seems to have taken the best (very little) of Win8 and
grafted it onto Win7. It's much smoother with a touchscreen than Win7
but functions in a similar manner.

On 12/31/2016 5:22 PM, notbob wrote:
> On 2016-12-31, Ed Pawlowski <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Very thoughtful of you. Anyone living in snow country over (or near)
>> the ago of 60 should invest in one.
>
> And here I though NOT buying one would force one to expend enough
> energy to stay fit. No wonder this forced air heating is killing me!
> ;)
>
> nb
>


If you exercise on a regular basis, maybe. If you sit on your ass for
weeks at a time and suddenly try to move a couple of tons of snow, not
so much. The ER sees some heart attack victims every snowfall.

In article <9vt86c97sippsgqrhp8nu3haod2ootolmi@
4ax.com>, [email protected] says...
>
> On 29 Dec 2016 02:28:40 GMT, Puckdropper
> <puckdropper(at)yahoo(dot)com> wrote:
>
> >Jack <[email protected]> wrote in news:[email protected]:
> >
> >> On 12/28/2016 1:41 AM, Bill wrote:
> >>
> >> Recently my daughter and her husband were playing gin, and she pulled
> >> out her cell phone to keep score. I asked what she was using to keep
> >> score and she said Excel... I said isn't that over kill, she said it
> >> was easy and didn't have a pencil and paper handy...
> >>
> >> PC's (aka cell phones) are killing windows. None of my kids have
> >> desktop computers, they have old lap tops they rarely to never use.
> >
> >Bad UI is kiling Windows. Cell phones are taking over because the
> >experience is usually much better.
>
> I disagree with that completely. I can't imagine Sketchup on a phone.
> Phones are great as always-with-me devices but they don't in any way
> replace a decent display, keyboard, lots of memory, and processing
> power.

Cell phones have remarkable processing power--
they're solidly into '70s supercomputer
territory--but desktops today are real
monsters--if you know how to use it any decent
gamer rig can turn out trillions of operations a
second.

But the screen real estate is the real kicker--
if I want to spend a thousand bucks I can have
20 square feet of screen real estate and all of
it sharp.

> >> My wife bought herself a computer, I later discovered it was not
> >> really a computer, it was a giant cell phone w/o the phone part
> >> (Nextbook I think it is), with a detachable keyboard. It runs on the
> >> Android OS. The closest thing to a computer she has is an Ipad, that
> >> also runs on a Unix based OS. She also has a Kindle (also
> >> Android/UNIX). She sits around all day with her cell phone, Nextbook,
> >> Ipad, and Kindle all hooked up to the internet, playing games, and
> >> buying crap. All are based on UNIX not DOS/Windows. Yep, Window is
> >> about over, and the sooner the better as it has always been, and still
> >> is, garbage.
> >
> >There was a quote from Bill Gates I came across a few months ago:
> >"Microsoft is always 2 years from being out of business." He knew if he
> >didn't keep the company innovating and at least producing usable stuff,
> >they'd be gone really fast. Too bad has successor doesn't seem to
> >understand that... We might not have a Microsoft soon. (As bad as M$ can
> >be, Apple and Google are worse.)
>
> Certainly innovation is the key to survival but (at least) one of
> these companies is going to surive.

The worrisome thing is that it might be Google,
whose philophy seems to be "all your data are
belong to us"--somebody sent me an email
confirming an appointment the other day and
Google managed to extract the details and add
them to my calendar without my asking, which is
cool as Hell from one viewpoint but scary as all
getout from another.

> <snip>
>
> >Like I said, Windows used to be really really good. Windows 7 is
> >fantastic in terms of UI, it's set the standard for many UIs and then
> >Microsoft screwed everything up completely.
>
> So far (a week), I've found Win10 to be acceptable (too early to tell
> more). It seems to have taken the best (very little) of Win8 and
> grafted it onto Win7. It's much smoother with a touchscreen than Win7
> but functions in a similar manner.

And works well without a touchscreen.

On 12/30/2016 12:30 PM, DerbyDad03 wrote:

>>
>> Last Christmas I bought my wife an $800 Toshiba laptop that ran win10.
>> She hated it, gave her so much trouble she returned it.
>> She bought the Nextbook on her own, set it up herself, and loves it. It
>> was around $100 I believe.
>>
>
> What did she do with the $700? ;-)
>

Probably bought a Festool hair dryer.

On 12/31/2016 7:05 PM, DerbyDad03 wrote:

> If you want stay fit while using a snowblower...
>
> Buy one without all the fancy steering features so that you have to muscle it
> around a bit. Don't use reverse, pull it backwards.
>
> In addition, do the driveways of 2 or 3 neighbors every time you do yours.

There are three of us that help each other and it makes a huge
difference when we get a deep one. Another understanding, if my
driveway is cleared when you come home, you can park there while you
clean yours.

On 2016-12-31, Ed Pawlowski <[email protected]> wrote:

> Very thoughtful of you. Anyone living in snow country over (or near)
> the ago of 60 should invest in one.

And here I though NOT buying one would force one to expend enough
energy to stay fit. No wonder this forced air heating is killing me!
;)

nb

On 12/28/2016 9:49 PM, [email protected] wrote:
> On 29 Dec 2016 02:28:40 GMT, Puckdropper

>> Bad UI is kiling Windows. Cell phones are taking over because the
>> experience is usually much better.
>
> I disagree with that completely. I can't imagine Sketchup on a phone.
> Phones are great as always-with-me devices but they don't in any way
> replace a decent display, keyboard, lots of memory, and processing
> power.

My wife's nextbook or whatever it's called looks exactly like a computer
with a fair sized screen, detachable keyboard so it can be used like an
Ipad or a PC. It runs on Android and far as I know, so can Sketchup. I
wouldn't have a problem running sketchup on it, but the wife, and my
kids, or about anyone I know cares, or even know what sketchup is.

Last Christmas I bought my wife an $800 Toshiba laptop that ran win10.
She hated it, gave her so much trouble she returned it.
She bought the Nextbook on her own, set it up herself, and loves it. It
was around $100 I believe.

Win is essentially as dead as UNIX in the home market. Some will always
use it, my brother still uses OS/2, means nothing though. Unix still
runs the internet, likely always will, and cell phones, Ipads, Nextbooks
took over the desktop market.

So, basically, Unix rules, win is the walking dead...

> So far (a week), I've found Win10 to be acceptable (too early to tell
> more). It seems to have taken the best (very little) of Win8 and
> grafted it onto Win7. It's much smoother with a touchscreen than Win7
> but functions in a similar manner.

The touchscreen on the laptop the wife returned sucked, that's why she
returned it. I've been running WIN10 since it came out. It was OK and
had a great install as far as (almost) everything working after the
install (a major surprise, knowing MS lameness) but, after buying a new
PC which came with win10, I've been having some problems, apparently
after some automatic updates, things can go off track (totally expected
knowing MS lameness). For about a month or two, my mouse would go
haywire. That seems to have magically fixed itself.

Also, my modem occasionally gets lost, and requires a re-boot to begin
working again. Not sure what is causing it, I periodically try to
figure it out, but generally just reboot. Rebooting takes about as long
as it did on my 8088 PCXT took in 1982. It's like putting a 10,000
horsepower jet engine on your go-cart and going the exact same speed...
real progress there Gates!

--
Jack
Add Life to your Days not Days to your Life.
http://jbstein.com

On 12/30/2016 12:30 PM, DerbyDad03 wrote:
> On Friday, December 30, 2016 at 11:48:56 AM UTC-5, Jack wrote:
>> On 12/28/2016 9:49 PM, [email protected] wrote:
>>> On 29 Dec 2016 02:28:40 GMT, Puckdropper
>>
>>>> Bad UI is kiling Windows. Cell phones are taking over because the
>>>> experience is usually much better.
>>>
>>> I disagree with that completely. I can't imagine Sketchup on a phone.
>>> Phones are great as always-with-me devices but they don't in any way
>>> replace a decent display, keyboard, lots of memory, and processing
>>> power.
>>
>> My wife's nextbook or whatever it's called looks exactly like a computer
>> with a fair sized screen, detachable keyboard so it can be used like an
>> Ipad or a PC. It runs on Android and far as I know, so can Sketchup. I
>> wouldn't have a problem running sketchup on it, but the wife, and my
>> kids, or about anyone I know cares, or even know what sketchup is.
>>
>> Last Christmas I bought my wife an $800 Toshiba laptop that ran win10.
>> She hated it, gave her so much trouble she returned it.
>> She bought the Nextbook on her own, set it up herself, and loves it. It
>> was around $100 I believe.
>>
>
> What did she do with the $700? ;-)
>

It went straight back into her (our) credit card fund.

--
Jack
Add Life to your Days not Days to your Life.
http://jbstein.com

On 12/31/2016 12:20 PM, DerbyDad03 wrote:
> On Saturday, December 31, 2016 at 9:32:53 AM UTC-5, Jack wrote:
>> On 12/30/2016 12:30 PM, DerbyDad03 wrote:
>>> On Friday, December 30, 2016 at 11:48:56 AM UTC-5, Jack wrote:
>>>> On 12/28/2016 9:49 PM, [email protected] wrote:
>>>>> On 29 Dec 2016 02:28:40 GMT, Puckdropper
>>>>
>>>>>> Bad UI is kiling Windows. Cell phones are taking over because the
>>>>>> experience is usually much better.
>>>>>
>>>>> I disagree with that completely. I can't imagine Sketchup on a phone.
>>>>> Phones are great as always-with-me devices but they don't in any way
>>>>> replace a decent display, keyboard, lots of memory, and processing
>>>>> power.
>>>>
>>>> My wife's nextbook or whatever it's called looks exactly like a computer
>>>> with a fair sized screen, detachable keyboard so it can be used like an
>>>> Ipad or a PC. It runs on Android and far as I know, so can Sketchup. I
>>>> wouldn't have a problem running sketchup on it, but the wife, and my
>>>> kids, or about anyone I know cares, or even know what sketchup is.
>>>>
>>>> Last Christmas I bought my wife an $800 Toshiba laptop that ran win10.
>>>> She hated it, gave her so much trouble she returned it.
>>>> She bought the Nextbook on her own, set it up herself, and loves it. It
>>>> was around $100 I believe.
>>>>
>>>
>>> What did she do with the $700? ;-)
>>>
>>
>> It went straight back into her (our) credit card fund.
>>
>
> So you originally bought her a gift with money that was her's to start with? What a guy! ;-)
>
> (Please - puuuleeeze - note the wink.)
>
She pays for everything. I make her pay when we go out to eat as well.
She uses her (our) credit card for that as well. She pays for most
everything, I buy almost nothing. (I did by her a snow blower for
Christmas, using our credit card). She also writes all the checks to
pay off the cards each month. All I do is provide the money, which I
never see as it goes directly to her (our) checking account. BTW, I
bought her the snow blower so I wouldn't kill myself shoveling snow
which would cut her income significantly and end her robust medical
coverage.

--
Jack
Add Life to your Days not Days to your Life.
http://jbstein.com

notbob wrote:
> On 2016-12-31, Ed Pawlowski <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Very thoughtful of you. Anyone living in snow country over (or near)
>> the ago of 60 should invest in one.
> And here I though NOT buying one would force one to expend enough
> energy to stay fit.

Out of all the activities one can do to stay fit, shoveling snow has to
be at the bottom of the list!




> No wonder this forced air heating is killing me!
> ;)
>
> nb

I had a rather large 8800 Altair with video terminal (glass TTY), TTY,
Queme 132 column Daisy Wheel printer - could print a square (1") solid
black with a period. Good graphic control... video graphics board and
tube and A-D, D-A plus an interrupt board and serial and parallel
boards. I used it to catalog books, work up my grades (college prof)
and got my beloved to do a news letter on it with graphics. All back in
the 70's. I had 8" hard sector Pertec drives, dual digital tape drives.
I was getting a Pertec reel to reel and Hard disk when the IBM came
out (with Schlumberger by then).

I looked at getting a job at Tandy Computer - but never went back once I
learned their business process. They had three teams to come up with a
computer and one team would win. They would be the managers and the
rest would work for them or not at all. They had 2 suicides by the
time I went in.

Martin

On 12/30/2016 10:23 AM, DerbyDad03 wrote:
> On Thursday, December 29, 2016 at 11:40:32 PM UTC-5, Martin Eastburn wrote:
>
> ...snip...
>
>> Both computers used printers at the end. The program came up and paused
>> asking for printer service. So they could be turned on set up and made
>> sure the paper was correct. (single shot of printout) - never changed
>> that. The 8080 used a daisy wheel printer with 132 column paper. The AT
>> used an OKI 132 column paper. Both had tractors.
>>
>
> I installed hundreds of Radio Shack TRS-80 word processing systems for a
> Fortune 500 company back in the 80's. They all came with a RS Daisy Wheel
> printer.
>
> http://oldcomputers.net/pics/TRS-80-II_table.JPG
>
> The systems were so bad that the first thing we had to do was open up
> every keyboard and ground the plastic case to the circuit board to try
> and eliminate static electricity issues. Even on systems where this was
> done, there were situations where you could walk over to the system, tap
> the case of the keyboard and the printer would spit out a single character.
>
> That didn't do much more than waste a sheet a paper. In other cases, the
> static would corrupt either the 8" floppy that held the WP program or
> one of the data floppies that held the user documents.
>
> In the worst cases, we ran a ground wire to the building's sprinkler system
> pipes and attached it to one of those velcro grounding bracelets that come
> with memory modules. The users were required to put the bracelets on their
> wrist before touching the system.
>

I did factorial 1000 in 11 1/2 hours on my old 8080 in Basic.
Then I did it in machine language and it was down to 3+ hours. 1977.

I then ported it to an updated AT computer - 16 bit not 8 and it was
in floating point - and Double precision... Pig. It took days.

I didn't use high math - only integer. Integer on new computers drove
them crazy.

Both computers used printers at the end. The program came up and paused
asking for printer service. So they could be turned on set up and made
sure the paper was correct. (single shot of printout) - never changed
that. The 8080 used a daisy wheel printer with 132 column paper. The AT
used an OKI 132 column paper. Both had tractors.

Martin

On 12/28/2016 9:38 PM, [email protected] wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Dec 2016 22:25:51 -0500, "J. Clarke"
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> In article <9vt86c97sippsgqrhp8nu3haod2ootolmi@
>> 4ax.com>, [email protected] says...
>>>
>>> On 29 Dec 2016 02:28:40 GMT, Puckdropper
>>> <puckdropper(at)yahoo(dot)com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Jack <[email protected]> wrote in news:[email protected]:
>>>>
>>>>> On 12/28/2016 1:41 AM, Bill wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Recently my daughter and her husband were playing gin, and she pulled
>>>>> out her cell phone to keep score. I asked what she was using to keep
>>>>> score and she said Excel... I said isn't that over kill, she said it
>>>>> was easy and didn't have a pencil and paper handy...
>>>>>
>>>>> PC's (aka cell phones) are killing windows. None of my kids have
>>>>> desktop computers, they have old lap tops they rarely to never use.
>>>>
>>>> Bad UI is kiling Windows. Cell phones are taking over because the
>>>> experience is usually much better.
>>>
>>> I disagree with that completely. I can't imagine Sketchup on a phone.
>>> Phones are great as always-with-me devices but they don't in any way
>>> replace a decent display, keyboard, lots of memory, and processing
>>> power.
>>
>> Cell phones have remarkable processing power--
>> they're solidly into '70s supercomputer
>> territory--but desktops today are real
>> monsters--if you know how to use it any decent
>> gamer rig can turn out trillions of operations a
>> second.
>
> 70s supercomputers didn't have multi-gigabit-per-second graphics
> interfaces. That takes CPU, as well as GPU, power.
>>
>> But the screen real estate is the real kicker--
>> if I want to spend a thousand bucks I can have
>> 20 square feet of screen real estate and all of
>> it sharp.
>
> For low values of "sharp". You can't drive much higher resolution
> than 4K with current hardware.
>>
>>>>> My wife bought herself a computer, I later discovered it was not
>>>>> really a computer, it was a giant cell phone w/o the phone part
>>>>> (Nextbook I think it is), with a detachable keyboard. It runs on the
>>>>> Android OS. The closest thing to a computer she has is an Ipad, that
>>>>> also runs on a Unix based OS. She also has a Kindle (also
>>>>> Android/UNIX). She sits around all day with her cell phone, Nextbook,
>>>>> Ipad, and Kindle all hooked up to the internet, playing games, and
>>>>> buying crap. All are based on UNIX not DOS/Windows. Yep, Window is
>>>>> about over, and the sooner the better as it has always been, and still
>>>>> is, garbage.
>>>>
>>>> There was a quote from Bill Gates I came across a few months ago:
>>>> "Microsoft is always 2 years from being out of business." He knew if he
>>>> didn't keep the company innovating and at least producing usable stuff,
>>>> they'd be gone really fast. Too bad has successor doesn't seem to
>>>> understand that... We might not have a Microsoft soon. (As bad as M$ can
>>>> be, Apple and Google are worse.)
>>>
>>> Certainly innovation is the key to survival but (at least) one of
>>> these companies is going to surive.
>>
>> The worrisome thing is that it might be Google,
>> whose philophy seems to be "all your data are
>> belong to us"--somebody sent me an email
>> confirming an appointment the other day and
>> Google managed to extract the details and add
>> them to my calendar without my asking, which is
>> cool as Hell from one viewpoint but scary as all
>> getout from another.
>
> M$ isn't any different, if you believe their EULA.
>>
>>> <snip>
>>>
>>>> Like I said, Windows used to be really really good. Windows 7 is
>>>> fantastic in terms of UI, it's set the standard for many UIs and then
>>>> Microsoft screwed everything up completely.
>>>
>>> So far (a week), I've found Win10 to be acceptable (too early to tell
>>> more). It seems to have taken the best (very little) of Win8 and
>>> grafted it onto Win7. It's much smoother with a touchscreen than Win7
>>> but functions in a similar manner.
>>
>> And works well without a touchscreen.
>
> Not sure what your point is, above. A touchscreen is another,
> valuable, tool. It's almost as useful as it is on a phone. The
> difference is that a phone is useless without it.
>

On Thursday, December 29, 2016 at 11:40:32 PM UTC-5, Martin Eastburn wrote:

...snip...

> Both computers used printers at the end. The program came up and paused
> asking for printer service. So they could be turned on set up and made
> sure the paper was correct. (single shot of printout) - never changed
> that. The 8080 used a daisy wheel printer with 132 column paper. The AT
> used an OKI 132 column paper. Both had tractors.
>

I installed hundreds of Radio Shack TRS-80 word processing systems for a
Fortune 500 company back in the 80's. They all came with a RS Daisy Wheel
printer.

http://oldcomputers.net/pics/TRS-80-II_table.JPG

The systems were so bad that the first thing we had to do was open up
every keyboard and ground the plastic case to the circuit board to try
and eliminate static electricity issues. Even on systems where this was
done, there were situations where you could walk over to the system, tap
the case of the keyboard and the printer would spit out a single character.

That didn't do much more than waste a sheet a paper. In other cases, the
static would corrupt either the 8" floppy that held the WP program or
one of the data floppies that held the user documents.

In the worst cases, we ran a ground wire to the building's sprinkler system
pipes and attached it to one of those velcro grounding bracelets that come
with memory modules. The users were required to put the bracelets on their
wrist before touching the system.

In article <sr096cpmspgji91m8qmi8m9oa5ichkh7q1@
4ax.com>, [email protected] says...
>
> On Wed, 28 Dec 2016 22:25:51 -0500, "J. Clarke"
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >In article <9vt86c97sippsgqrhp8nu3haod2ootolmi@
> >4ax.com>, [email protected] says...
> >>
> >> On 29 Dec 2016 02:28:40 GMT, Puckdropper
> >> <puckdropper(at)yahoo(dot)com> wrote:
> >>
> >> >Jack <[email protected]> wrote in news:[email protected]:
> >> >
> >> >> On 12/28/2016 1:41 AM, Bill wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> Recently my daughter and her husband were playing gin, and she pulled
> >> >> out her cell phone to keep score. I asked what she was using to keep
> >> >> score and she said Excel... I said isn't that over kill, she said it
> >> >> was easy and didn't have a pencil and paper handy...
> >> >>
> >> >> PC's (aka cell phones) are killing windows. None of my kids have
> >> >> desktop computers, they have old lap tops they rarely to never use.
> >> >
> >> >Bad UI is kiling Windows. Cell phones are taking over because the
> >> >experience is usually much better.
> >>
> >> I disagree with that completely. I can't imagine Sketchup on a phone.
> >> Phones are great as always-with-me devices but they don't in any way
> >> replace a decent display, keyboard, lots of memory, and processing
> >> power.
> >
> >Cell phones have remarkable processing power--
> >they're solidly into '70s supercomputer
> >territory--but desktops today are real
> >monsters--if you know how to use it any decent
> >gamer rig can turn out trillions of operations a
> >second.
>
> 70s supercomputers didn't have multi-gigabit-per-second graphics
> interfaces. That takes CPU, as well as GPU, power.

So?

It seems to have escaped your notice that a
modern GPU can be used for purposes other than
showing pretty pictures on a screen. In fact
the manufacturers of those GPUs sell different
versions of them that eliminate the video
components completely that are intended to be
used as computation engines.

> >But the screen real estate is the real
> >kicker--
> >if I want to spend a thousand bucks I can have
> >20 square feet of screen real estate and all of
> >it sharp.
>
> For low values of "sharp". You can't drive much higher resolution
> than 4K with current hardware.

That would be news to nvidia. All their version
10 boards handle 7680 x 4320.

> >> >> My wife bought herself a computer, I later discovered it was not
> >> >> really a computer, it was a giant cell phone w/o the phone part
> >> >> (Nextbook I think it is), with a detachable keyboard. It runs on the
> >> >> Android OS. The closest thing to a computer she has is an Ipad, that
> >> >> also runs on a Unix based OS. She also has a Kindle (also
> >> >> Android/UNIX). She sits around all day with her cell phone, Nextbook,
> >> >> Ipad, and Kindle all hooked up to the internet, playing games, and
> >> >> buying crap. All are based on UNIX not DOS/Windows. Yep, Window is
> >> >> about over, and the sooner the better as it has always been, and still
> >> >> is, garbage.
> >> >
> >> >There was a quote from Bill Gates I came across a few months ago:
> >> >"Microsoft is always 2 years from being out of business." He knew if he
> >> >didn't keep the company innovating and at least producing usable stuff,
> >> >they'd be gone really fast. Too bad has successor doesn't seem to
> >> >understand that... We might not have a Microsoft soon. (As bad as M$ can
> >> >be, Apple and Google are worse.)
> >>
> >> Certainly innovation is the key to survival but (at least) one of
> >> these companies is going to surive.
> >
> >The worrisome thing is that it might be Google,
> >whose philophy seems to be "all your data are
> >belong to us"--somebody sent me an email
> >confirming an appointment the other day and
> >Google managed to extract the details and add
> >them to my calendar without my asking, which is
> >cool as Hell from one viewpoint but scary as all
> >getout from another.
>
> M$ isn't any different, if you believe their EULA.

Microsoft doesn't snoop every search you make on
the Internet and then fill your screen with ads
based on the stuff you searched.

> >> <snip>
> >>
> >> >Like I said, Windows used to be really really good. Windows 7 is
> >> >fantastic in terms of UI, it's set the standard for many UIs and then
> >> >Microsoft screwed everything up completely.
> >>
> >> So far (a week), I've found Win10 to be acceptable (too early to tell
> >> more). It seems to have taken the best (very little) of Win8 and
> >> grafted it onto Win7. It's much smoother with a touchscreen than Win7
> >> but functions in a similar manner.
> >
> >And works well without a touchscreen.
>
> Not sure what your point is, above. A touchscreen is another,
> valuable, tool. It's almost as useful as it is on a phone. The
> difference is that a phone is useless without it.

Windows 8 didn't work well without a
touchscreen. Windows 10 does. Our work laptops
have touchscreens. Nobody uses them.

"J. Clarke" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

> Windows 8 didn't work well without a
> touchscreen. Windows 10 does. Our work laptops
> have touchscreens. Nobody uses them.

Win 8 worked fine without a touch screen if one dumped the MS tile stuff and
used Classic Shell, Start8, etc. Of course, it lacked Win 10 goodies such
as Edge, Cortana and forced updates.

On Wed, 28 Dec 2016 22:25:51 -0500, "J. Clarke"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>In article <9vt86c97sippsgqrhp8nu3haod2ootolmi@
>4ax.com>, [email protected] says...
>>
>> On 29 Dec 2016 02:28:40 GMT, Puckdropper
>> <puckdropper(at)yahoo(dot)com> wrote:
>>
>> >Jack <[email protected]> wrote in news:[email protected]:
>> >
>> >> On 12/28/2016 1:41 AM, Bill wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Recently my daughter and her husband were playing gin, and she pulled
>> >> out her cell phone to keep score. I asked what she was using to keep
>> >> score and she said Excel... I said isn't that over kill, she said it
>> >> was easy and didn't have a pencil and paper handy...
>> >>
>> >> PC's (aka cell phones) are killing windows. None of my kids have
>> >> desktop computers, they have old lap tops they rarely to never use.
>> >
>> >Bad UI is kiling Windows. Cell phones are taking over because the
>> >experience is usually much better.
>>
>> I disagree with that completely. I can't imagine Sketchup on a phone.
>> Phones are great as always-with-me devices but they don't in any way
>> replace a decent display, keyboard, lots of memory, and processing
>> power.
>
>Cell phones have remarkable processing power--
>they're solidly into '70s supercomputer
>territory--but desktops today are real
>monsters--if you know how to use it any decent
>gamer rig can turn out trillions of operations a
>second.

70s supercomputers didn't have multi-gigabit-per-second graphics
interfaces. That takes CPU, as well as GPU, power.
>
>But the screen real estate is the real kicker--
>if I want to spend a thousand bucks I can have
>20 square feet of screen real estate and all of
>it sharp.

For low values of "sharp". You can't drive much higher resolution
than 4K with current hardware.
>
>> >> My wife bought herself a computer, I later discovered it was not
>> >> really a computer, it was a giant cell phone w/o the phone part
>> >> (Nextbook I think it is), with a detachable keyboard. It runs on the
>> >> Android OS. The closest thing to a computer she has is an Ipad, that
>> >> also runs on a Unix based OS. She also has a Kindle (also
>> >> Android/UNIX). She sits around all day with her cell phone, Nextbook,
>> >> Ipad, and Kindle all hooked up to the internet, playing games, and
>> >> buying crap. All are based on UNIX not DOS/Windows. Yep, Window is
>> >> about over, and the sooner the better as it has always been, and still
>> >> is, garbage.
>> >
>> >There was a quote from Bill Gates I came across a few months ago:
>> >"Microsoft is always 2 years from being out of business." He knew if he
>> >didn't keep the company innovating and at least producing usable stuff,
>> >they'd be gone really fast. Too bad has successor doesn't seem to
>> >understand that... We might not have a Microsoft soon. (As bad as M$ can
>> >be, Apple and Google are worse.)
>>
>> Certainly innovation is the key to survival but (at least) one of
>> these companies is going to surive.
>
>The worrisome thing is that it might be Google,
>whose philophy seems to be "all your data are
>belong to us"--somebody sent me an email
>confirming an appointment the other day and
>Google managed to extract the details and add
>them to my calendar without my asking, which is
>cool as Hell from one viewpoint but scary as all
>getout from another.

M$ isn't any different, if you believe their EULA.
>
>> <snip>
>>
>> >Like I said, Windows used to be really really good. Windows 7 is
>> >fantastic in terms of UI, it's set the standard for many UIs and then
>> >Microsoft screwed everything up completely.
>>
>> So far (a week), I've found Win10 to be acceptable (too early to tell
>> more). It seems to have taken the best (very little) of Win8 and
>> grafted it onto Win7. It's much smoother with a touchscreen than Win7
>> but functions in a similar manner.
>
>And works well without a touchscreen.

Not sure what your point is, above. A touchscreen is another,
valuable, tool. It's almost as useful as it is on a phone. The
difference is that a phone is useless without it.

On Sat, 31 Dec 2016 08:37:43 -0700, Brewster <[email protected]> wrote:

>On 12/30/16 3:21 PM, Leon wrote:
>> On 12/30/2016 3:01 PM, Puckdropper wrote:
>>> Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet> wrote in news:ZM2dndIOKfFqEPvFnZ2dnUU7-
>>> [email protected]:
>>>
>>> *snip*
>>>
>>>> OH and keep HP and Norton products off of your computer.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I regret my recent purchase of a HP printer. My old HP PSC1210a (does
>>> anyone have one laying around? I miss that printer!) was fantastic
>>> but the
>>> new one insists on cutting off the page numbers because it can't print on
>>> the bottom 1/2" of the page. Apparently it's a driver problem, but
>>> everything I tried doesn't work. Oh, and I've got 27 documents "in
>>> queue"
>>> that have been printed since the last time I started Windows. They just
>>> don't go away.
>>>
>>> No more HP!!!
>>>
>>> Puckdropper
>>>
>>
>>
>> Since the 90's my HP printers have always had a feed problem, the paper
>> loaded at an angle and the print was not parallel to the top and bottom.
>>
>> About 8 years ago we bought an expensive HP, about $500, thinking it
>> would be our last. Ha Ha It broke just out of warranty and HP
>> suggested buying a new one with no repair solution. I vowed, that was
>> my last HP printer.
>>
>> Also when we bought that last HP and installed the software it increased
>> my boot time to just over 7 minutes, more than double the normal boot
>> time. Tech service advised to uninstall and not install certain
>> features. Great!
>
>
>HP was the king of test equipment. I'll never understand why they pipmed
>out the HP name for cheap consumer electronics. Now when I hear "HP" I
>think of plastic, Agilent? who's that?

You mean "Keysight"?

They pimped the name because they could. They knew their test
equipment buyers were smart enough to remember their new name (twice
over).

On Thu, 29 Dec 2016 08:08:11 -0500, "J. Clarke"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>In article <sr096cpmspgji91m8qmi8m9oa5ichkh7q1@
>4ax.com>, [email protected] says...
>>
>> On Wed, 28 Dec 2016 22:25:51 -0500, "J. Clarke"
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> >In article <9vt86c97sippsgqrhp8nu3haod2ootolmi@
>> >4ax.com>, [email protected] says...
>> >>
>> >> On 29 Dec 2016 02:28:40 GMT, Puckdropper
>> >> <puckdropper(at)yahoo(dot)com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> >Jack <[email protected]> wrote in news:[email protected]:
>> >> >
>> >> >> On 12/28/2016 1:41 AM, Bill wrote:
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Recently my daughter and her husband were playing gin, and she pulled
>> >> >> out her cell phone to keep score. I asked what she was using to keep
>> >> >> score and she said Excel... I said isn't that over kill, she said it
>> >> >> was easy and didn't have a pencil and paper handy...
>> >> >>
>> >> >> PC's (aka cell phones) are killing windows. None of my kids have
>> >> >> desktop computers, they have old lap tops they rarely to never use.
>> >> >
>> >> >Bad UI is kiling Windows. Cell phones are taking over because the
>> >> >experience is usually much better.
>> >>
>> >> I disagree with that completely. I can't imagine Sketchup on a phone.
>> >> Phones are great as always-with-me devices but they don't in any way
>> >> replace a decent display, keyboard, lots of memory, and processing
>> >> power.
>> >
>> >Cell phones have remarkable processing power--
>> >they're solidly into '70s supercomputer
>> >territory--but desktops today are real
>> >monsters--if you know how to use it any decent
>> >gamer rig can turn out trillions of operations a
>> >second.
>>
>> 70s supercomputers didn't have multi-gigabit-per-second graphics
>> interfaces. That takes CPU, as well as GPU, power.
>
>So?

You're the one who equated a '70s supercompuer to a cell phone. I'm
pointing out that that's a false comparison.

>It seems to have escaped your notice that a
>modern GPU can be used for purposes other than
>showing pretty pictures on a screen. In fact
>the manufacturers of those GPUs sell different
>versions of them that eliminate the video
>components completely that are intended to be
>used as computation engines.

No, it hadn't escaped my notice but it's completely irrelevant.

>> >But the screen real estate is the real
>> >kicker--
>> >if I want to spend a thousand bucks I can have
>> >20 square feet of screen real estate and all of
>> >it sharp.
>>
>> For low values of "sharp". You can't drive much higher resolution
>> than 4K with current hardware.
>
>That would be news to nvidia. All their version
>10 boards handle 7680 x 4320.
>
>> >> >> My wife bought herself a computer, I later discovered it was not
>> >> >> really a computer, it was a giant cell phone w/o the phone part
>> >> >> (Nextbook I think it is), with a detachable keyboard. It runs on the
>> >> >> Android OS. The closest thing to a computer she has is an Ipad, that
>> >> >> also runs on a Unix based OS. She also has a Kindle (also
>> >> >> Android/UNIX). She sits around all day with her cell phone, Nextbook,
>> >> >> Ipad, and Kindle all hooked up to the internet, playing games, and
>> >> >> buying crap. All are based on UNIX not DOS/Windows. Yep, Window is
>> >> >> about over, and the sooner the better as it has always been, and still
>> >> >> is, garbage.
>> >> >
>> >> >There was a quote from Bill Gates I came across a few months ago:
>> >> >"Microsoft is always 2 years from being out of business." He knew if he
>> >> >didn't keep the company innovating and at least producing usable stuff,
>> >> >they'd be gone really fast. Too bad has successor doesn't seem to
>> >> >understand that... We might not have a Microsoft soon. (As bad as M$ can
>> >> >be, Apple and Google are worse.)
>> >>
>> >> Certainly innovation is the key to survival but (at least) one of
>> >> these companies is going to surive.
>> >
>> >The worrisome thing is that it might be Google,
>> >whose philophy seems to be "all your data are
>> >belong to us"--somebody sent me an email
>> >confirming an appointment the other day and
>> >Google managed to extract the details and add
>> >them to my calendar without my asking, which is
>> >cool as Hell from one viewpoint but scary as all
>> >getout from another.
>>
>> M$ isn't any different, if you believe their EULA.
>
>Microsoft doesn't snoop every search you make on
>the Internet and then fill your screen with ads
>based on the stuff you searched.

You don't know that and their EULA makes them the *OWNER* of
everything you do. I know pwople who can't run Windows because of
legal restrictions are contrary to the M$ EULA. The same people don't
use Google, for the same reasons.

Same, same.

>> >> <snip>
>> >>
>> >> >Like I said, Windows used to be really really good. Windows 7 is
>> >> >fantastic in terms of UI, it's set the standard for many UIs and then
>> >> >Microsoft screwed everything up completely.
>> >>
>> >> So far (a week), I've found Win10 to be acceptable (too early to tell
>> >> more). It seems to have taken the best (very little) of Win8 and
>> >> grafted it onto Win7. It's much smoother with a touchscreen than Win7
>> >> but functions in a similar manner.
>> >
>> >And works well without a touchscreen.
>>
>> Not sure what your point is, above. A touchscreen is another,
>> valuable, tool. It's almost as useful as it is on a phone. The
>> difference is that a phone is useless without it.
>
>Windows 8 didn't work well without a
>touchscreen.

I didn't think it worked well with a touchscreen. It's always
blocked. Either way, Win8 was a loser. Win10 seems to be much more
robust.

>Windows 10 does. Our work laptops
>have touchscreens. Nobody uses them.

I've used a touch screen on my home laptops for five years and
wouldn't give it up (on a laptop). I'm not sure I'd use it on a 27"
workstation screen (even connected to a laptop), mainly because it
would be beyond my reach. I sure would use it on a work laptop but my
CPoE doesn't buy them. The laptops they buy are pretty lame. The
whole IT department is worse than lame.

On Tue, 27 Dec 2016 11:55:27 -0500, "J. Clarke"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>In article <[email protected]>,
>[email protected] says...
>>
>> On 12/25/2016 10:22 PM, Keith Nuttle wrote:
>>
>> > When I got my first computer the first thing I did was install OS/2.
>>
>> My first computer ran DOS 2.1, because 2.0 never worked.
>>
>> >I ran several computers on OS/2 including a LAN server until the
>> 1990. and
>> > when the company I worked for was purchased by a company who ran the
>> > Windows server.
>> >
>> > When I purchased a new personal computer and was forced into the of
>> > world Windows 98, it was like going back into the dark ages.
>>
>> I ran OS/2 at home for many years, until IBM saw it was about to kill
>> windows, then they, (and I begrudgingly) let it go.
>
>It was never "about to kill Windows". If it was
>achieving any significant market penetration IBM
>would have kept producing it. Why would IBM have
>any qualms about killing Windows?
>
>> My brother still
>> runs it. There is a company somewhere that keeps it going.
>
>The product is called "ecomstation". I ran OS/2
>for a long time but eventually the difficulty of
>obtaining applications rendered it of no real
>utility.
>
>> OS/2 WARP
>> not only made WIN 95 and Win 98 look like they were from the dark ages,
>> it would make WIN 10 look like it is from the dark ages.
>
>That's a matter of opinion. Yours is much in
>the minority.
>
>> You could run DOS, WIN95 and OS/2 apps all at the same time, seamlessly.
>
>No, you could not. The built in support for
>Windows ended at Windows 3.1. There was no
>support at all for native Windows 95
>applications, EVER.
>
>> When WIN would crash, like it has always done since it's first
>> version, everything else kept running, and all you need to do was close
>> the WIN session and open another.
>
>If Windows 10 is crashing on you you need to
>repair your computer. The ones that I've seen
>that do that either are on broken hardware or
>were upgraded from an older version--the upgrade
>doesn't clean house thoroughly enough
>apparently.
>
>> Windows (Microsoft) is the scourge of computing. It is a perfect
>> example of why the government invented anti-trust laws, and
>> unfortunately, what can happen if they are ignored/bought off. Another
>> feather in the Clinton reign of corruption.
>
><sound of world's tiniest violin>


OS/2 was also subject to a gorilla marketing campaign by microsoft on
usenet, to bad google fucked up the old archives.

Mark

On Sat, 31 Dec 2016 09:20:09 -0800 (PST), DerbyDad03
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On Saturday, December 31, 2016 at 9:32:53 AM UTC-5, Jack wrote:
>> On 12/30/2016 12:30 PM, DerbyDad03 wrote:
>> > On Friday, December 30, 2016 at 11:48:56 AM UTC-5, Jack wrote:
>> >> On 12/28/2016 9:49 PM, [email protected] wrote:
>> >>> On 29 Dec 2016 02:28:40 GMT, Puckdropper
>> >>
>> >>>> Bad UI is kiling Windows. Cell phones are taking over because the
>> >>>> experience is usually much better.
>> >>>
>> >>> I disagree with that completely. I can't imagine Sketchup on a phone.
>> >>> Phones are great as always-with-me devices but they don't in any way
>> >>> replace a decent display, keyboard, lots of memory, and processing
>> >>> power.
>> >>
>> >> My wife's nextbook or whatever it's called looks exactly like a computer
>> >> with a fair sized screen, detachable keyboard so it can be used like an
>> >> Ipad or a PC. It runs on Android and far as I know, so can Sketchup. I
>> >> wouldn't have a problem running sketchup on it, but the wife, and my
>> >> kids, or about anyone I know cares, or even know what sketchup is.
>> >>
>> >> Last Christmas I bought my wife an $800 Toshiba laptop that ran win10.
>> >> She hated it, gave her so much trouble she returned it.
>> >> She bought the Nextbook on her own, set it up herself, and loves it. It
>> >> was around $100 I believe.
>> >>
>> >
>> > What did she do with the $700? ;-)
>> >
>>
>> It went straight back into her (our) credit card fund.
>>
>
>So you originally bought her a gift with money that was her's to start with? What a guy! ;-)

What's so unusual about that? We have a 50/50 marriage. I make it
and she spends it. ;-)
>
>(Please - puuuleeeze - note the wink.)

Indeed. ;-)

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
>
> [email protected] wrote:
> > On Fri, 3 Feb 2017 00:59:28 -0500, Bill <[email protected]>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Contrarian wrote:
> >>> Bill <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> I have created web sites which made ample use of Oracle databases--they
> >>>> were mostly navigable by mouse. So, stop, take a deep breath. I
> >>>> suppose the idea that someone might be able to query a database "with
> >>>> spoken words" is even stranger to you--but if you think about it, you
> >>>> can find a few examples on the market today. Right?
> >>>
> >>> not *especially* appealing.
> >>>
> >>> nor are mouse-only navigable sites, for me
> >> Yeah, I was surprised the graphical operating systems like Windows have
> >> flourished the way they did. Though, I also didn't foresee the day when
> >> everyone would want a computer. That was back when we used monochrome
> >> monitors.
> > I forsaw that day before the microprocessor existed.
>
> That goes without saying. ; )

It's rather sad that so few of the
"visionaries" in the early days saw it coming.

On 12/31/2016 6:09 PM, [email protected] wrote:
> On Sat, 31 Dec 2016 11:29:39 -0600, Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet>
> wrote:
>
>> On 12/31/2016 9:37 AM, Brewster wrote:
>>> On 12/30/16 3:21 PM, Leon wrote:
>>>> On 12/30/2016 3:01 PM, Puckdropper wrote:
>>>>> Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet> wrote in news:ZM2dndIOKfFqEPvFnZ2dnUU7-
>>>>> [email protected]:
>>>>>
>>>>> *snip*
>>>>>
>>>>>> OH and keep HP and Norton products off of your computer.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I regret my recent purchase of a HP printer. My old HP PSC1210a (does
>>>>> anyone have one laying around? I miss that printer!) was fantastic
>>>>> but the
>>>>> new one insists on cutting off the page numbers because it can't
>>>>> print on
>>>>> the bottom 1/2" of the page. Apparently it's a driver problem, but
>>>>> everything I tried doesn't work. Oh, and I've got 27 documents "in
>>>>> queue"
>>>>> that have been printed since the last time I started Windows. They just
>>>>> don't go away.
>>>>>
>>>>> No more HP!!!
>>>>>
>>>>> Puckdropper
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Since the 90's my HP printers have always had a feed problem, the paper
>>>> loaded at an angle and the print was not parallel to the top and bottom.
>>>>
>>>> About 8 years ago we bought an expensive HP, about $500, thinking it
>>>> would be our last. Ha Ha It broke just out of warranty and HP
>>>> suggested buying a new one with no repair solution. I vowed, that was
>>>> my last HP printer.
>>>>
>>>> Also when we bought that last HP and installed the software it increased
>>>> my boot time to just over 7 minutes, more than double the normal boot
>>>> time. Tech service advised to uninstall and not install certain
>>>> features. Great!
>>>
>>>
>>> HP was the king of test equipment. I'll never understand why they pipmed
>>> out the HP name for cheap consumer electronics. Now when I hear "HP" I
>>> think of plastic, Agilent? who's that?
>>>
>>> -BR
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> I replaced it with a Lexmark and it worked pretty good until it broke,
>> physically, and was replaced 3 times under their 5 year warranty.
>>
>> I bought a brand that I thought I would never buy, Epson. It is about 3
>> years old and has not given me any problem. It was cheap and
>> replacement ink cartridges are as expensive as the printer but you go
>> with what works. :~)
>
> I just replaced the HP laser with a cheap ($69) Canon inkjet. I found
> aftermarket ink (pretty highly rated) cheap. The printer is cheap
> enough that if it doesn't work well, I'll just buy another. My only
> worry is that we don't print enough to keep the inkjet in good woring
> order but SWMBO wanted a printer to print pictures of the
> granddaughter.
>

I once had a Canon Bubblejet black ink printer, BJ300 IIRC. That was a
fantastic printer that could print really really fine lines. I screwed
it up by going with an after market ink.
http://obligement.free.fr/gfx2/canon_bj300_0.jpg

On Sun, 01 Jan 2017 09:36:04 -0600, Leon wrote:

> My only
>> worry is that we don't print enough to keep the inkjet in good woring
>> order but SWMBO wanted a printer to print pictures of the
>> granddaughter.
>>
>>
> I once had a Canon Bubblejet black ink printer, BJ300 IIRC. That was a
> fantastic printer that could print really really fine lines. I screwed
> it up by going with an after market ink.

I gave up on inkjets some time back because of low use - if I didn't use
them every day or so, the heads clogged up - or the cartridges if they
had an integral head. We currently have one Brother color laser and two
Brother B&W lasers. Best Buy has a Brother color laser for under $200.

--
What if a much of a which of a wind gives the truth to summer's lie?

[email protected] wrote:
> On Fri, 3 Feb 2017 00:59:28 -0500, Bill <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>> Contrarian wrote:
>>> Bill <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I have created web sites which made ample use of Oracle databases--they
>>>> were mostly navigable by mouse. So, stop, take a deep breath. I
>>>> suppose the idea that someone might be able to query a database "with
>>>> spoken words" is even stranger to you--but if you think about it, you
>>>> can find a few examples on the market today. Right?
>>>
>>> not *especially* appealing.
>>>
>>> nor are mouse-only navigable sites, for me
>> Yeah, I was surprised the graphical operating systems like Windows have
>> flourished the way they did. Though, I also didn't foresee the day when
>> everyone would want a computer. That was back when we used monochrome
>> monitors.
> I forsaw that day before the microprocessor existed.

That goes without saying. ; )

On Fri, 3 Feb 2017 00:59:28 -0500, Bill <[email protected]>
wrote:

>Contrarian wrote:
>> Bill <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> I have created web sites which made ample use of Oracle databases--they
>>> were mostly navigable by mouse. So, stop, take a deep breath. I
>>> suppose the idea that someone might be able to query a database "with
>>> spoken words" is even stranger to you--but if you think about it, you
>>> can find a few examples on the market today. Right?
>>
>>
>> not *especially* appealing.
>>
>> nor are mouse-only navigable sites, for me
>Yeah, I was surprised the graphical operating systems like Windows have
>flourished the way they did. Though, I also didn't foresee the day when
>everyone would want a computer. That was back when we used monochrome
>monitors.

I forsaw that day before the microprocessor existed.

On Sun, 1 Jan 2017 09:44:15 -0500, Jack <[email protected]> wrote:

>On 12/31/2016 7:04 PM, [email protected] wrote:
>> On Sat, 31 Dec 2016 14:18:44 -0500, Jack <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>> On 29 Dec 2016 02:28:40 GMT, Puckdropper
>>>>>
>>>>>>> Bad UI is kiling Windows. Cell phones are taking over because the
>>>>>>> experience is usually much better.
>
>>> 315 million people in the US, 327 million cell phones, almost all are
>>> running on andriod (unix) or Apple (Unix). Windows has a totally
>>> insignificant chunk of the market.
>>
>> More than that use light bulbs, so I guess Android is obsolete, too.
>
>What OS are your light bulbs running? Just more nonesense from the
>village idiot.

I was just being as logical as you are. I can see that you don't like
the competition.
>
>>>>> So, basically, Unix rules, win is the walking dead...
>>>>
>>>> Utter nonsense.
>>>
>>> Your assertions have no value, a complete waste of words. At least your
>>> empty statements are brief, just not brief enough.
>>
>> No, you're making the absurd assertion. The proof is up to you.
>
>I gave you enough proof, you are too dumb to comprehend. If you don't
>know the difference of a computer and a light bulb, not likely you are
>smart enough to converse, which explains you two word, meaningless empty
>assertions.

You gave no such thing. You've just tried to make the irrelevant
somehow relevant. It didn't work. You're just spouting nonsense.
>
>>>> Modem? What century are you living in? This laptop boots Win10 in
>>>> about ten seconds. It's almost not worth putting it to sleep.
>>>
>>> You are an idiot. You never heard of a cable modem? It's how all
>>> comcast customers are hooked up to the internet.
>>
>> You can't find your cable modem and *I'm* the idiot. Seems you don't
>> know much about computers (or, it seems, anything else).
>
>You have no clue what a modem is, so as usual your statements are
>meaningless drivel. When you find out the difference between a light
>bulb and a computer, you might want to learn about cable modems and all
>that rot that seems to have you helplessly confused.

You really are an idiot's idiot.

On Sat, 31 Dec 2016 11:29:39 -0600, Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet>
wrote:

>On 12/31/2016 9:37 AM, Brewster wrote:
>> On 12/30/16 3:21 PM, Leon wrote:
>>> On 12/30/2016 3:01 PM, Puckdropper wrote:
>>>> Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet> wrote in news:ZM2dndIOKfFqEPvFnZ2dnUU7-
>>>> [email protected]:
>>>>
>>>> *snip*
>>>>
>>>>> OH and keep HP and Norton products off of your computer.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I regret my recent purchase of a HP printer. My old HP PSC1210a (does
>>>> anyone have one laying around? I miss that printer!) was fantastic
>>>> but the
>>>> new one insists on cutting off the page numbers because it can't
>>>> print on
>>>> the bottom 1/2" of the page. Apparently it's a driver problem, but
>>>> everything I tried doesn't work. Oh, and I've got 27 documents "in
>>>> queue"
>>>> that have been printed since the last time I started Windows. They just
>>>> don't go away.
>>>>
>>>> No more HP!!!
>>>>
>>>> Puckdropper
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Since the 90's my HP printers have always had a feed problem, the paper
>>> loaded at an angle and the print was not parallel to the top and bottom.
>>>
>>> About 8 years ago we bought an expensive HP, about $500, thinking it
>>> would be our last. Ha Ha It broke just out of warranty and HP
>>> suggested buying a new one with no repair solution. I vowed, that was
>>> my last HP printer.
>>>
>>> Also when we bought that last HP and installed the software it increased
>>> my boot time to just over 7 minutes, more than double the normal boot
>>> time. Tech service advised to uninstall and not install certain
>>> features. Great!
>>
>>
>> HP was the king of test equipment. I'll never understand why they pipmed
>> out the HP name for cheap consumer electronics. Now when I hear "HP" I
>> think of plastic, Agilent? who's that?
>>
>> -BR
>>
>
>
>
>I replaced it with a Lexmark and it worked pretty good until it broke,
>physically, and was replaced 3 times under their 5 year warranty.
>
>I bought a brand that I thought I would never buy, Epson. It is about 3
>years old and has not given me any problem. It was cheap and
>replacement ink cartridges are as expensive as the printer but you go
>with what works. :~)

I just replaced the HP laser with a cheap ($69) Canon inkjet. I found
aftermarket ink (pretty highly rated) cheap. The printer is cheap
enough that if it doesn't work well, I'll just buy another. My only
worry is that we don't print enough to keep the inkjet in good woring
order but SWMBO wanted a printer to print pictures of the
granddaughter.

On 12/31/2016 3:28 PM, Puckdropper wrote:
> Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet> wrote in
> news:[email protected]:
>
>>
>>
>>
>> I replaced it with a Lexmark and it worked pretty good until it broke,
>> physically, and was replaced 3 times under their 5 year warranty.
>>
>> I bought a brand that I thought I would never buy, Epson. It is about
>> 3 years old and has not given me any problem. It was cheap and
>> replacement ink cartridges are as expensive as the printer but you go
>> with what works. :~)
>>
>
> I've been kinda eyeing their new Eco-tank system. I really don't *need*
> another printer *yet*, having the page number cut off isn't that big of
> faux paux in my business, but there may come a time...


Yeah me too, the eco-tank printers look a lot like the models with out
the big reservoirs. From what I can tell the refill ink would cost
about $12 per color/bottle and last 5 times longer.




>
> Anyway, I wanted to ask about the drivers. Did they install a huge
> amount of bloatware or was it pretty much the driver and let you manage
> things? I hate ink monitors, they work by guessing rather than actual
> measurement (kinda like shoe sizes.)
>
> Puckdropper
>

Relatively light weight on install, not intrusive at all. IIRC you can
opt for letting the software look for updates behind the scenes and then
pick and choose which to update.
Nothing fancy at all, no software or trial stuff For dealing with
pictures. Mostly just the minimal to make the printer/scanner work. It
does monitor the ink but I prefer to see something rather than let the
print head go dry and cause print problems.

FWIW I am using a WF3640. Swingman is using the same printer IIRC and I
believe he has had good results too.

It is directly hooked up to my computer via USB but works with my wife's
computer via WiFi along with our iPad and iPhones. And getting that to
all work the first time was a snap.

The only feature that I wish it had is an auto on when you send a print
command. You still have to manually turn it on but it will go into
stand by and eventually shut down by itself.

I will also add that most everything is intuitive so features you do not
use often are easy to remember. It does have a color touch screen
display that walks you all the way through any procedure. I understand
the non screen versions are a bit more difficult to operate.

On Tue, 27 Dec 2016 15:56:34 -0500, woodchucker <[email protected]>
wrote:

>On 12/27/2016 2:39 PM, Puckdropper wrote:
>> Jack <[email protected]> wrote in news:[email protected]:
>>
>>> On 12/25/2016 1:26 PM, Puckdropper wrote:
>>>
>>>> Yep, I know. But, at a young age I came to realize Windows is
>>>> actually really really good.
>>>
>>> Windows was never really good, let alone really, really good. Well,
>>> there was one version of windows that was really good, and that was
>>> OS/2. The only version of Win that actually worked.
>>
>> Well, we'll disagree there. Windows 9x had a good UI, but did lack in
>> stability and security wasn't a big concern until Windows XP SP2. NT 4.0
>> had the stability (mostly) and UI of Windows 98, which is what I was
>> running for quite some time.
>>
>> I had a Mac running OS 8 at the same time (I couldn't be bothered to
>> spend the cash for OS X, which Btw is a GUI on top of Unix), and Windows
>> NT was much better. Maybe it was what I was used to, maybe it was that I
>> treated the Mac as a toy and didn't do any real work... Or maybe Windows
>> NT was much better.
>>
>>>> We're seeing a shift, more people than ever are talking about Linux.
>>>> I won't say "2017 will be the year of Linux on the desktop" because
>>>> it won't. Linux will take over like Firefox... Slowly. All of a
>>>> sudden you realize Firefox has to be taken seriously. (That's a
>>>> whole 'nother can of worms... because now you realize Firefox *can't*
>>>> be taken seriously anymore. The fork Pale Moon is really good.)
>>>
>>> The desk top is dying a fast death. Kids (under 40) today don't use
>>> them, they use their cell phones. Actually they use todays Portable
>>> Computer (PC), which is incorrectly called a cell phone. Almost no
>>> one uses the cell phone part of their PC much, they use text for that.
>>> Otherwise it's social media.
>>>
>>> As for Linux, (which of course is really just a hacked copy of Unix)
>>> that has already killed Windows dead as hell. 99% of PC's (aka cell
>>> phones) are powered by UNIX based OS's. Android and Mac OS are based
>>> on UNIX, not windows. The Desktop is dead, killed by so called cell
>>> phones. The entire internet runs on Unix, almost all cell phones
>>> (PC's) run on Unix based OS's.
>>>
>>
>> The desktop is not dying, but it is severly shrinking. When you need to
>> sit down and get some work done, there's little better interface out
>> there than the ultra-precise mouse and confident keyboard.
>>
>> What will happen is every family will have a computer for typing reports
>> and the like, but will also have multiple portable devices OR perhaps the
>> portable device with multiple interfaces will finally catch on. When you
>> need to type and mouse, your portable device can be plugged in to another
>> device that provides that hardware and maybe a bigger screen and your
>> phone can become your computer. This isn't a new idea, I've got a
>> LapDock for my Pi. (It might have caught on if the LapDock didn't have
>> to cost so much.)
>>
>> There's more servers running Windows Server and IIS than you'd think. I
>> wouldn't say the entire Internet runs on Unix, but a significant portion
>> does.
>>
>> Puckdropper
>>
>That number is dropping. Most of the places I have worked for had a
>linux back end with an IIS middleware. IIS is a POS in my book, it's
>constantly requiring resets. But the powers that beeeeeee. Cost is
>driving everything. I now run my databases on windows.. They are so much
>more unstable than the Unix O/S's I used to run on. But cost has been
>pushing that direction, also companies are finding less and less
>expertise in the Linux / Unix area and are moving to Windows. I can't
>tell you how many issues I have related to windows, it's astounding. but
>people up top don't care about stability, only cost.. and it cost them
>less to get a few MS idiots than a few good Linux gurus. So that's part
>of the cost. I am in the medical imaging field now, and we can't afford
>downtime, Imagine not being able to view a CT scan or MRI during an
>operation or after a stroke...
>
>Oooohhhh lets reboot the POS.
It's the "linux" low cost model that is killing Unix. It's user
supported - meaniung there really is no support to speak of, but it is
driving "legitimate unix" out of business.

You NEED to be a Unix guru to maintain a unix server, while much of
the Windows Server architecture and interface is common to desktop
windows. THAT is what is driving Windows Server adoption in the
indusatry.
We are still running on a Linux webserver - just upgraded to a
current release - and the switchover to the new server was rife with
problems and took almost a week, because, in large part, there was
inadequate support. I had nothing to do with the switchover, and have
nothing to do with the server maintenance (thankfully).

The internal servers at the insurance office are Windows servers, but
the virtualization server is not windows based - it is a VMWARE unit
which is based, at least loosely, on a Linux kernal.
A MISERABLE thing to manage compared to the Windows Hypervisor. When
they switched to VMWare I handed the network administration over to
the contractor who recommended it -" hook line and stinker"

The virtual servers have been ROCK SOLID, but the backup and other
management has been "less than stellar".

My Windows 10 desktops have also been rock solid - better than Windows
7, and very comparable to my previous WinXP SP2 machines (which would
run for months and months on end without a reboot or a crash -
basically only requiring a reboot after certain updates).
At the time we were running the old NT servers, non virtualized, mu
wife worked in Health Services at a local University where they were
running the MAC Medical system on an Apple (Unix based) server - and
it crashed on a regular basis - MANY times oftener than the old NT
system - which was not nearly as "solid" as WinServer 2012 and 2013.

Bill <[email protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:

> [email protected] wrote:
>> Like to see anyone get any productivity running a high end CAD
>> application on an I-Phone!!! Or even a decent database .
>
> You don't think you cell phone is capable of invoking database
> transactions? Think of your phone as containing the "on" switch.
>

Oh that's not it... He's thinking about doing complicated database work,
not just pushing buttons and making stuff go into databases. Things like
SELECT * from LEFT JOIN users, administrators where ID='';DROP TABLE
administrators; -- 10T' order by name;

It was hard enough to type that gobblygook in on a real keyboard, let alone
an emulated one on a tablet.

Puckdropper
--
http://www.puckdroppersplace.us/rec.woodworking
A mini archive of some of rec.woodworking's best and worst!

Jack <[email protected]> wrote in news:[email protected]:

> On 12/28/2016 1:41 AM, Bill wrote:
>
> Recently my daughter and her husband were playing gin, and she pulled
> out her cell phone to keep score. I asked what she was using to keep
> score and she said Excel... I said isn't that over kill, she said it
> was easy and didn't have a pencil and paper handy...
>
> PC's (aka cell phones) are killing windows. None of my kids have
> desktop computers, they have old lap tops they rarely to never use.

Bad UI is kiling Windows. Cell phones are taking over because the
experience is usually much better.

> My wife bought herself a computer, I later discovered it was not
> really a computer, it was a giant cell phone w/o the phone part
> (Nextbook I think it is), with a detachable keyboard. It runs on the
> Android OS. The closest thing to a computer she has is an Ipad, that
> also runs on a Unix based OS. She also has a Kindle (also
> Android/UNIX). She sits around all day with her cell phone, Nextbook,
> Ipad, and Kindle all hooked up to the internet, playing games, and
> buying crap. All are based on UNIX not DOS/Windows. Yep, Window is
> about over, and the sooner the better as it has always been, and still
> is, garbage.

There was a quote from Bill Gates I came across a few months ago:
"Microsoft is always 2 years from being out of business." He knew if he
didn't keep the company innovating and at least producing usable stuff,
they'd be gone really fast. Too bad has successor doesn't seem to
understand that... We might not have a Microsoft soon. (As bad as M$ can
be, Apple and Google are worse.)

> Think about this, in 1994, OS/2 could cut and paste between DOS, WIN
> and OS/2 apps all running concurrently. Windows figured out how to do
> it between DOS and WIN, (albeit lamely as hell) over 20 years later
> with Win 10.
>
> WINS scripting language (Power Shell) is a diabolical piece of crap,
> designed by the morons of the computing world. OS/2 had REXX for it's
> scripts which was powerful, yet any moron could learn it.

It's worth the time to install Perl or something. I tried Power Shell,
it was a bigger piece of junk than batch files, and doing intelligent
things with batch files is pretty awful.

> OS/2 used standard config files anyone could master. Win uses the
> convoluted piece of garbage called the registry. Anyone that has the
> balls to fool around with that mess knows the meaning of labyrinth.
> It must have been designed by the same fools that created the almost
> unlearnable Power Shell script language.

The fellow who created the registry had one thing to say about it:
I'm sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry,
sorry.

There's a few good things the registry is good at, but it's such a mine
field I don't know what that thing hasn't been replaced yet. The
problem was a configuration file would take 4K on disk because of a 4K
sector size, but only had 16 bytes. It's no big deal now, we've got
tons of 4K sectors but that kind of waste is why modern systems run so
slowly compared to their late-90's counterparts.

> Yep, Kids today have little use for Desktops, and it's convoluted
> piece of crap OS. The ironic thing is Win was supposed to be an easy
> user interface designed for the computer illiterate. In reality, it is
> a horrible user interface that is next to impossible for even the
> computer literate to have a clue how to fix when it breaks, which it
> always does, because it is crap. Now, everyone is using UNIX, with
> user interfaces any computer illiterate (my wife) can use, and they
> never seem to break.
> Very cool.
>

Like I said, Windows used to be really really good. Windows 7 is
fantastic in terms of UI, it's set the standard for many UIs and then
Microsoft screwed everything up completely.

Puckdropper
--
http://www.puckdroppersplace.us/rec.woodworking
A mini archive of some of rec.woodworking's best and worst!

Jack <[email protected]> wrote in news:[email protected]:

>
> Well DOS batch were/are real crap, perfect example of Gate's stupidity.
> UNIX Bourne, bash, cshell etc batch programing, combined with AWK,
> GAWK SED was/is sweet and unlike DOS crap, can do most anything. REXX
> is even better and super easy to learn and use.

That's because the batch "language" evolved and couldn't get rid of the old
cruft. I remember when it came out with DOS 6. Batch files were
originally a way of running several commands in a row again and again
without typing them, but they added control structures and had to fit it
all within what command.com could understand. It's no wonder things were
so bad.

I've written one somewhat complex shell script in Linux, so am not
qualified to comment much on it. I wasn't really impressed, though... I
should just look at how to get Perl to handle the shell stuff and rewrite
that script.

*snip*
> Personally, I think millions of new computers have been sold because the
> registry became totally F***ed up and people just went out and bought a
> new computer.

Definitely the source of millions of reinstalls. Some people claim you
have to reinstall Windows every 6 months. It's simply not true with
Windows 7, I ran it for years before trying a reformat just to get rid of
the extra little bits on my HD. Log files that aren't written to %temp%
and deleted, etc.

> Like I said, OS/2 was the only "windows" that actually worked. It worked
> perfect, really, really, really a lot better than any version of
> windows. XP, 7 and 10 are OK, but they are still far behind OS/2 in
> most everything, including stability and ease of use. Take a look at
> your start up files in Services and see what a convoluted mess win is.
> It's a wonder this crap even works at all.
>

My XP and 7 boxes are pretty stable. The crashes I have can be tracked
down to: (a) Software crash (nothing the OS can do about it) (b) Driver
Crash (less common, but boy are some drivers awful!) with OS crashes being
rare.

Some of it is bad hardware, I took apart an old HP laptop to try to fix the
headphone jack and one of the chips popped right off the board. How can
anything cope when your environment is not sane? 1+1=10{2} unless there's
excesive static then it's 1+1=11{2}?

You're absolutely right about the garbage and services starting up. Adobe
and Oracle (owns Java) both install garbage if you are unfortunate enough
to use their products. (Realtek and Synaptics include garbage you don't
need as well.) A quick run of msconfig allows you to look at the start up
tab and disable anything you don't need.

You have to start msconfig from the run dialog box, there's no shortcut on
purpose. It's a power user program (most of it's gone in Windows 10), and
it makes it really easy to screw up your system. It's also the best way to
turn off startup programs.

Puckdropper
--
http://www.puckdroppersplace.us/rec.woodworking
A mini archive of some of rec.woodworking's best and worst!

Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet> wrote in news:ZM2dndIOKfFqEPvFnZ2dnUU7-
[email protected]:

*snip*

> OH and keep HP and Norton products off of your computer.
>

I regret my recent purchase of a HP printer. My old HP PSC1210a (does
anyone have one laying around? I miss that printer!) was fantastic but the
new one insists on cutting off the page numbers because it can't print on
the bottom 1/2" of the page. Apparently it's a driver problem, but
everything I tried doesn't work. Oh, and I've got 27 documents "in queue"
that have been printed since the last time I started Windows. They just
don't go away.

No more HP!!!

Puckdropper
--
http://www.puckdroppersplace.us/rec.woodworking
A mini archive of some of rec.woodworking's best and worst!

Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet> wrote in
news:[email protected]:

>
>
>
> I replaced it with a Lexmark and it worked pretty good until it broke,
> physically, and was replaced 3 times under their 5 year warranty.
>
> I bought a brand that I thought I would never buy, Epson. It is about
> 3 years old and has not given me any problem. It was cheap and
> replacement ink cartridges are as expensive as the printer but you go
> with what works. :~)
>

I've been kinda eyeing their new Eco-tank system. I really don't *need*
another printer *yet*, having the page number cut off isn't that big of
faux paux in my business, but there may come a time...

Anyway, I wanted to ask about the drivers. Did they install a huge
amount of bloatware or was it pretty much the driver and let you manage
things? I hate ink monitors, they work by guessing rather than actual
measurement (kinda like shoe sizes.)

Puckdropper
--
http://www.puckdroppersplace.us/rec.woodworking
A mini archive of some of rec.woodworking's best and worst!

Jack <[email protected]> wrote in news:[email protected]:

> One of the main problems with MS junkware. The OS didn't protect it's
> memory, so any software could screw it up and boom, make that BOOM.
> OS/2 and UNIX protect it's system memory so any john doe could not get
> to it.
> That's why my OS/2 WARP system and UNIX system 7 never ever needed
> rebooting. The unix system had 100 users running concurrently on two
> 386's. Windows couldn't even Print and write to a file at the same
> time w/o slowing down to a crawl. I still think windows is incapable
> of opening a real pipe w/o sending data to a file first. Anyone using
> Windows to write code knew that mistakes generally would lock up the
> entire computer. OS/2 and UNIX not so much. Bad code might lock up
> that session, but the rest of the system was not effected at all.
> Simply close the session and open a new one, took about 1/50th of a
> second rather that a system reboot.
>

Yep, that was the culture and the thought at the time. When Windows was
being developed, Microsoft trusted people to not do bad things. They
figured a company that would abuse their users wouldn't be around for
very long. (I can look up the Raymond Chen blog post, just his opinion
and remembrances.)

Microsoft was perhaps a little late to the party, they should have been
learning about security around Windows ME (we have the benefit of
hindsight here) rather than waiting for XP SP2.

For the sake of argument, though, I'll say that it generally worked:
People could do some really cool things with (and to) windows like
Windows Blinds and animated mouse cursors, so they spent time writing
software for it. The platform with the software gets the users!

Puckdropper
--
http://www.puckdroppersplace.us/rec.woodworking
A mini archive of some of rec.woodworking's best and worst!

Leon <lcb11211@swbelldotnet> wrote in news:--WdnRAcJd6MrPXFnZ2dnUU7-
[email protected]:

*snip*
>
> The only feature that I wish it had is an auto on when you send a print
> command. You still have to manually turn it on but it will go into
> stand by and eventually shut down by itself.
>
*snip*

Oh yeah... stupid "power saving" things that really aren't. I had to
install the full bloated HP drivers to send the command to the printer to
keep it on all the time. Then uninstall and install the minimal (but
still awful) driver set. In terms of power, I'm willing to bet that that
transformer draws more current than the rest of the printer just sitting
there waiting. If they'd turn the LEDs off, it'd probably drop the power
consumption by more than 100%.

Puckdropper
--
http://www.puckdroppersplace.us/rec.woodworking
A mini archive of some of rec.woodworking's best and worst!

"Bill" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Larry Blanchard wrote:
>> On Fri, 03 Feb 2017 00:59:28 -0500, Bill wrote:
>>
>>> Yeah, I was surprised the graphical operating systems like Windows have
>>> flourished the way they did. Though, I also didn't foresee the day when
>>> everyone would want a computer. That was back when we used monochrome
>>> monitors.
>> And a graphic monitor emulated a Textronics! I bought one of those (as a
>> business expense) for $999!
> Was that "vector graphics"?
>
>>
>> And I didn't think much of Windows either. But I never foresaw online
>> shopping and tutorials.
> Yeah, me too. I laugh at myself, I may never be a stock picker. I didn't
> like Apple when it was a new company. And I was ready to click the buy
> button for Amazon (AMZN) for $42 when shares first started trading, and I
> let someone on CNBC talk me out of it because "it was only a book store".
> I've still owned it over short periods, but a missed the chance for a
> a 20-1 return! I probably could have never hung onto it after doubling
> my money anyway.
>
>
>
>> Although I still prefer clicking on a menu list
>> to searching a cluttered screen for the right icon :-).

If only I'd bought a thousand shares of DELL at the initial offering!

Dave in SoTex

On 12/30/2016 11:40 AM, Leon wrote:

>>
>> Personally, I think millions of new computers have been sold because the
>> registry became totally F***ed up and people just went out and bought a
>> new computer.
>
> I think you are probably right on that count but I do not think it is a
> fault of Microsoft rather the programs that are added/installed over the
> years.

Especially games and graphics. Seems like many third party software
makers had a 'better idea' and circumvented the Microsoft protocols.
Apple was much more stringent.

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
>
> Puckdropper wrote:
> > Bill <[email protected]> wrote in
> > news:[email protected]:
> >
> >> [email protected] wrote:
> >>> Like to see anyone get any productivity running a high end CAD
> >>> application on an I-Phone!!! Or even a decent database .
> >> You don't think you cell phone is capable of invoking database
> >> transactions? Think of your phone as containing the "on" switch.
> >>
> > Oh that's not it... He's thinking about doing complicated database work,
> > not just pushing buttons and making stuff go into databases. Things like
> > SELECT * from LEFT JOIN users, administrators where ID='';DROP TABLE
> > administrators; -- 10T' order by name;
> >
> > It was hard enough to type that gobblygook in on a real keyboard, let alone
> > an emulated one on a tablet.
>
> My point is that it's just a character string. It could be returned to
> a phone as a jpg file or as an Excel-like spreadsheet for instance.
> This topic is called "distributed computing".

OK, Bill, type "SELECT * from LEFT JOIN users,
administrators where ID='';DROP TABLE
administrators; -- 10T' order by name;" into
your cell phone a hundred times and see if you
still prefer it to a keyboard.

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
>
> J. Clarke wrote:
> > In article <[email protected]>,
> > [email protected] says...
> >> Puckdropper wrote:
> >>> Bill <[email protected]> wrote in
> >>> news:[email protected]:
> >>>
> >>>> [email protected] wrote:
> >>>>> Like to see anyone get any productivity running a high end CAD
> >>>>> application on an I-Phone!!! Or even a decent database .
> >>>> You don't think you cell phone is capable of invoking database
> >>>> transactions? Think of your phone as containing the "on" switch.
> >>>>
> >>> Oh that's not it... He's thinking about doing complicated database work,
> >>> not just pushing buttons and making stuff go into databases. Things like
> >>> SELECT * from LEFT JOIN users, administrators where ID='';DROP TABLE
> >>> administrators; -- 10T' order by name;
> >>>
> >>> It was hard enough to type that gobblygook in on a real keyboard, let alone
> >>> an emulated one on a tablet.
> >> My point is that it's just a character string. It could be returned to
> >> a phone as a jpg file or as an Excel-like spreadsheet for instance.
> >> This topic is called "distributed computing".
> > OK, Bill, type "SELECT * from LEFT JOIN users,
> > administrators where ID='';DROP TABLE
> > administrators; -- 10T' order by name;" into
> > your cell phone a hundred times and see if you
> > still prefer it to a keyboard.
>
> You really missed the point. All I have to do is browse to my mobile
> website and choose and/or modify one of the options there. If you are
> going to innovate, you need to think out the box!

OK, show us the link the option which one
modifies to enter that exact query into any
randomly selected SQL database, including the
ones behind corporate firewalls.

You clearly have never programmed for a living
if you think everything can be done by clicking
links on a web page.

In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
>
> J. Clarke wrote:
> > In article <[email protected]>,
> > [email protected] says...
> >> J. Clarke wrote:
> >>> In article <[email protected]>,
> >>> [email protected] says...
> >>>> Puckdropper wrote:
> >>>>> Bill <[email protected]> wrote in
> >>>>> news:[email protected]:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> [email protected] wrote:
> >>>>>>> Like to see anyone get any productivity running a high end CAD
> >>>>>>> application on an I-Phone!!! Or even a decent database .
> >>>>>> You don't think you cell phone is capable of invoking database
> >>>>>> transactions? Think of your phone as containing the "on" switch.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> Oh that's not it... He's thinking about doing complicated database work,
> >>>>> not just pushing buttons and making stuff go into databases. Things like
> >>>>> SELECT * from LEFT JOIN users, administrators where ID='';DROP TABLE
> >>>>> administrators; -- 10T' order by name;
> >>>>>
> >>>>> It was hard enough to type that gobblygook in on a real keyboard, let alone
> >>>>> an emulated one on a tablet.
> >>>> My point is that it's just a character string. It could be returned to
> >>>> a phone as a jpg file or as an Excel-like spreadsheet for instance.
> >>>> This topic is called "distributed computing".
> >>> OK, Bill, type "SELECT * from LEFT JOIN users,
> >>> administrators where ID='';DROP TABLE
> >>> administrators; -- 10T' order by name;" into
> >>> your cell phone a hundred times and see if you
> >>> still prefer it to a keyboard.
> >> You really missed the point. All I have to do is browse to my mobile
> >> website and choose and/or modify one of the options there. If you are
> >> going to innovate, you need to think out the box!
> > OK, show us the link the option which one
> > modifies to enter that exact query into any
> > randomly selected SQL database, including the
> > ones behind corporate firewalls.
> >
> > You clearly have never programmed for a living
> > if you think everything can be done by clicking
> > links on a web page.
>
> Oops, I have. In fact, I have a MS in CS with an emphasis in distributed
> computing.

That explains much. When you've actually had a
programming job get back to us.

> I have created web sites which made ample use of Oracle databases--they
> were mostly navigable by mouse.

That's nice. Did you create them by pointing
and clicking on web sites?

> So, stop, take a deep breath. I
> suppose the idea that someone might be able to query a database "with
> spoken words" is even stranger to you--but if you think about it, you
> can find a few examples on the market today. Right?

Why don't you provide us with an example that
lets me query, say, the policy database at a
Fortune 100 life insurance company with spoken
words.