On Wed, 12 Apr 2006 22:44:24 +0100, "Mark Spice"
wrote:


"Mark Spice" wrote in message
...
I know this is waaaaaaaay off topic but the guys here seem to be
reasonably
knowledgable about a load of weird stuff so here goes.

Has anyone had any experience with Mesh PC's? Aged parents want to get
their first PC and there is a Mesh one that looks good on paper but I
haven't had any dealings with Mesh so I'm not sure what their service etc
is
like. As I will probably be having to fix/identify any problems down the
phone from 300 miles away I want to minimise any potential cock-ups as
much
as possible.

Cheers for any input

Mark

I know it's bad form to reply to myself but it seems the easiest way.

Thanks to all who responded. I'm afraid I don't know enough Linux to make
that a sensible solution as the aged parents have almost got the hang of
Windows now and I think a total learning curve for both them and I would be
far too much stress.

I have to deal with the same issue, and on balance, for the
application, XP Professional was reluctantly my choice, although I
suppose one could use the home version. Five suggestions:

- Keep the basic installation simple and with as few applications as
possible.

- Use the user accounts to segregate what they do and also set those
up without any admin privileges.

- Set up remote access (e.g. remote desktop or VNC)

- Install a good quality commercial virus scanner and personal
firewall. I've found the Norton one to be good and reliable as well
as lockable.

- Implement a proper imaging and backup setup so that once the machine
is built, you have a disaster recovery DVD which can be reloaded
quickly, plus incremental backups of what they do. It is surprising
how much valuable work ends up going onto the machine. An external
hard drive would be another way to do this. Some come with a DR
arrangement.


That does maintain a setup that remains pretty stable and reasonable
for a period of weeks. It does get rebooted every few days because
it's shut down. It certainly won't run for months on end without
attention of some kind such as applying the myriad of security and
other updates that Microsoft issues to cover its incompetences or
generally tidying it up. Mostly this can be accomplished by remote
access, so overall the availability is pretty good.

I think that that's a workable approach, but now that the wrinklies
have become more computer literate, it will probably be switched to
Linux. I've been using Unix systems for more than 25 years, so it's
not that hard for me anyway, but to be honest, the distributions such
as SuSE are now extremely well packaged to the point that for setting
up a machine for this purpose it's an out of the box solution - i.e.
run the DVD and load. When all is installed, it will run reliably
for months or years on end, deals with network connections properly
and is easily manageable remotely.



The same goes for Macs as well with the addendum that
they are far too much money and I really don't see the point of them - I
have yet to find something that I need to do that a Mac can do that a
cheaper PC can't.

The main points are ease of use and especially reliability. Windows,
even XP is not robust. It still isn't an operating system in the
proper sense. It tolerates having lots of applications installed very
poorly and suffers from a creeping entropy of deterioration just in
normal use. Applications behave badly and leave temporary files and
crud around. In a mobile situation of being away from home with a
notebook, it simply can't be relied upon to remain solid.
If I loaded on a small set of applications it would just about be OK.
However, I need to have a lot of things installed and available and
it simply isn't up to it - even a powerful machine with 3GHz processor
and 1GB memory.

I also run Linux on my notebook and it is very effective and
functional. However, there are certain professional and commercially
supported applications that I need to run to exchange information with
others and these are not available under Linux.

The Mac provides me with a very stable underlying operating system
(Unix) which will run for weeks in and out of standby without
deterioration. I don't need to be able to dig into the operating
system to use it, but I can if I want to. I can get all of the
commercially supported applications that I need. Its use is well
thought out. Those things are worth the extra cost to me.




All in all I would probably get a Mesh if it was for me but having bought a
Dell previously myself I think the aged ones could do with the extra
hand-holding that is available

I have found their desktop machines (have bought several over the
years) are quite reasonable and well made. The notebooks are utter
garbage - never again on those.

They do attend for service quite well, but keep in mind that they will
not restore data, so a disaster recovery setup is important.





Cheers

Mark



--

..andy

Andy Hall wrote:

Thanks to all who responded. I'm afraid I don't know enough Linux to make
that a sensible solution as the aged parents have almost got the hang of
Windows now and I think a total learning curve for both them and I would be
far too much stress.


I have to deal with the same issue, and on balance, for the
application, XP Professional was reluctantly my choice, although I
suppose one could use the home version. Five suggestions:

And a sixth: get a (free) ubuntu Linux CD set
(https://shipit.ubuntu.com/ if you can't download it and burn your
own) and let them run linux straight from the CD. Without tweaking they
*cannot* write to the HD so they can make as many mistakes as they wish
without affecting your Win install. They'll find the user interface
hardly any different from XP anyway and it will almost certainly give
them all the functionality they need.

(Apols if this has already been mentioned: I haven't been following all
the thread.)

Douglas de Lacey

I am on my 3rd Dell, they have served me very well. In the past I have
had to use their support teams and found them to be very helpful. Like
most users I like an easy access to the box which Dell provides and the
layout is straightforward.
I have always used the 'special offer' route to purchase, thus avoiding
the delivery charge which is high.
Cheers,
Jaycee.

In article . com,
jaycee wrote:
I am on my 3rd Dell, they have served me very well.

If that's serial rather than parallel it's self-contradictory! ;-)

--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
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John Cartmell wrote:

If that's serial rather than parallel it's self-contradictory! ;-)

Not at all - hardware moves on. Sure, if all you want to do is a little
bit of word processing, spreadsheets, email and web you could happily
still be using a 15 year old machine. But there's a whole bunch of other
activities which require that you keep up with hardware fairly closely.

For me, the main one is gaming.

We build all our machines, because that way we end up with exactly the
spec we want. This usually works out more expensive than buying them,
but for us it's worth it. Even so, each machine will only have a
lifetime of 2-3 years. At that point, it needs to be completely rebuilt
(new mobo, cpu, ram, drives, graphics). A nicer alternative is to retire
the old machine and build a new one.

During their life, they serve us very well.


--
Grunff

In article , Grunff
wrote:

[about computers that should be built to last 5-10 years but which reside
within a system that forces users to replace machines much more frequently to
the detriment of users' pockets and the environment]

Even so, each machine will only have a lifetime of 2-3 years.

In that case there is something badly wrong with the system.

--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

John Cartmell wrote:

Even so, each machine will only have a lifetime of 2-3 years.

In that case there is something badly wrong with the system.

Only in that hardware performance continues to increase in accordance
with Moore's law. If hardware constantly gets faster, software (in
particular entertainment software) will be written to make use of the
faster hardware. And as long as the software is appealing, users will
choose to buy it and buy hardware to run it.

So there's the flaw in the system - the continuous improvement of
hardware. What do you suggest we do about it?

From an individual user's POV, it's easy - stick with your old machine,
and choose not to run any demanding software.


--
Grunff

Grunff wrote:
John Cartmell wrote:

If that's serial rather than parallel it's self-contradictory! ;-)

Not at all - hardware moves on. Sure, if all you want to do is a little
bit of word processing, spreadsheets, email and web you could happily
still be using a 15 year old machine.

Well, for most people that is really all they DO want actually.

On Wed, 12 Apr 2006 12:57:06 GMT, "Pet @ www.gymratz.co.uk ;¬)"
wrote:

Geronimo W. Christ Esq wrote:
Colin Wilson wrote:

Dell have one on the "home" side of their site at the moment, £239
inc. VAT & Delivery - that includes a 15" flat panel monitor !

Have you got a link ? The cheapest one I can see that they have is 289.

I have never to this day been able to find one of their "special offer"
PC's like the one described above.

Also don't forget the obligatory £60 delivery charge or whatever.
I don't buy Dell out of principle now after their repeated non-existent
special offers.
I once actually phoned to order one from their mail shot, and ended up
in the Bombay sales centre who conveniently "lost" my order at the
special price.

Some Dell Offers can only be accessed by typing in the promotional
code into the web site or using the old fashioned telephone.

Mark

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Well, for most people that is really all they DO want actually.

That is true for many, yes - but it doesn't apply to everyone.


--
Grunff

Grunff wrote:
John Cartmell wrote:

Even so, each machine will only have a lifetime of 2-3 years.


In that case there is something badly wrong with the system.


Only in that hardware performance continues to increase in accordance
with Moore's law.

And the first corollary of Moore's Law is that software authors get more
and more lazy as a result and write less and less efficient code. Anyone
remember the Sinclair Z88? It had an operating system and Pipedream
(combined text processor, spreadsheet, database and comms package) in
12K (yes, that's a K not an M).

Douglas de Lacey

Douglas de Lacey wrote:

And the first corollary of Moore's Law is that software authors get more
and more lazy as a result and write less and less efficient code.

Yes, no arguments there. But there are other reasons for wanting faster
machines than just running crappily written office software.

I like RTS games. The current crop of RTS games, which are hugely
superior to those from 5 years (never mind 15 years) ago, need fast
machines to run. Not just to run well, but to run at all. This is mainly
due to the superb graphics, but also to the complexity of the worlds
currently used.


--
Grunff

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Grunff wrote:

John Cartmell wrote:

If that's serial rather than parallel it's self-contradictory! ;-)


Not at all - hardware moves on. Sure, if all you want to do is a
little bit of word processing, spreadsheets, email and web you could
happily still be using a 15 year old machine.


Well, for most people that is really all they DO want actually.


Interested to know what people think about recovery disks. I recently
sorted out a friend's Dixons PC, which was infected with all manner of
nasties. Put My Documents on to a cdrw, booted from the Dixons recovery
CD and the whole thing was running sweetly within the hour. Doing that
periodically seems like a simple maintenance schedule for any level of
user.
So, how easy would it be to create a bootable CD for a home made
machine? I rather fancy a bit of colonic irrigation

In article ,
Grunff wrote:
John Cartmell wrote:

Even so, each machine will only have a lifetime of 2-3 years.

In that case there is something badly wrong with the system.

Only in that hardware performance continues to increase in accordance
with Moore's law. If hardware constantly gets faster, software (in
particular entertainment software) will be written to make use of the
faster hardware. And as long as the software is appealing, users will
choose to buy it and buy hardware to run it.

So there's the flaw in the system - the continuous improvement of
hardware. What do you suggest we do about it?

Avoid Microsoft. Their OSs are designed to make you have to upgrade at
too-short intervals. I'm using a 10+ year old computer. It has had a new
processor, new hard drives, more memory and OS upgrades. I've added the means
to allow networking, USB, &c. But in that time you'll have purchased 4-6 new
Windows machines at far greater expense. I'm limited by speed (though it went
far faster than the equivalent Windows machines when new and when it had a new
processor added) and by colours/resolution (32 thousand colours is its maximum
at a reasonable resolution). But it still runs all the software of the last 10
years. Of course I now have an upgrade - but that also runs all the old
software even if some has to be done through a form of emulation - and the two
will happily run in parallel. I have no expectation of the old machine being
pensioned off for another 3-5 years (or more). That may be exceptional; but
your expectation of PCs is exceptionally bad.

From an individual user's POV, it's easy - stick with your old machine,
and choose not to run any demanding software.

But suppose you buy a machine and then, a few years later, have the option to
add a new card that increases the speed of processing by 5-10 times? ;-)

--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

Grunff wrote:

Not at all - hardware moves on. Sure, if all you want to do is a little
bit of word processing, spreadsheets, email and web you could happily
still be using a 15 year old machine.

We are.

The shop P.C. is a PII 233 running W2K Pro.
Does everything. Though the 4MB graphics card isn't the fastest on the
planet. It still manages to run Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Quickbooks etc etc.

IMO PC's are retired far too early.

For gaming get an Xbox 360 for the same price as a top end PC Graphics card.

:¬)

--
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John Cartmell wrote:

Avoid Microsoft. Their OSs are designed to make you have to upgrade at
too-short intervals. I'm using a 10+ year old computer. It has had a new
processor, new hard drives, more memory and OS upgrades. I've added the means
to allow networking, USB, &c. But in that time you'll have purchased 4-6 new
Windows machines at far greater expense. I'm limited by speed (though it went
far faster than the equivalent Windows machines when new and when it had a new
processor added) and by colours/resolution (32 thousand colours is its maximum
at a reasonable resolution). But it still runs all the software of the last 10
years. Of course I now have an upgrade - but that also runs all the old
software even if some has to be done through a form of emulation - and the two
will happily run in parallel. I have no expectation of the old machine being
pensioned off for another 3-5 years (or more). That may be exceptional; but
your expectation of PCs is exceptionally bad.

You're missing the point entirely. I'm not a Windows fan, but I *have*
to use Windows, at least some of the time. When I can get away with
using other OSes, I do. I'll explain.

At work: All of the web work I do *must* be tested on multiple browsers
on Windows. This is despite the fact that it works happily
cross-platform. You simply can't guarantee that stuff will look/work as
intended without this testing.

But - our servers run Linux and FreeBSD. These OSes are great for
servers, and do an excellent job.


At home: All of the games that I like playing will only run under
Windows, and *require* fast hardware. That's not the fault of the OS,
it's the way the games work (heavy graphics, huge numbers of game
components).


--
Grunff

Pet @ www.gymratz.co.uk ;¬) wrote:

For gaming get an Xbox 360 for the same price as a top end PC Graphics
card.

Not my kind of gaming :-(


--
Grunff

I don't buy Dell out of principle now after their repeated non-existent
special offers.

Very foolish as their special offers probably make them the cheapest (by
far) in the UK. There are special offers pretty much every day. Look
at hotukdeals.com and you will get the codes.

I buy a lot of PCs of all specifications and dont even look elsewhere
now. I have never once paid a Dell delivery charge as the special
offers always include free delivery.

I don't buy Dell out of principle now after their repeated non-existent
special offers.

Very foolish principle as it costs you money! Their special offers
probably make them the cheapest (by far) in the UK. There are special
offers pretty much every day. Look at hotukdeals.com and you will get
the codes.

I buy a lot of PCs of all specifications and dont even look elsewhere
now. I have never once paid a Dell delivery charge as the special
offers always include free delivery.

In article , Grunff
wrote:
John Cartmell wrote:

Avoid Microsoft. Their OSs are designed to make you have to upgrade at
too-short intervals. I'm using a 10+ year old computer. It has had a new
processor, new hard drives, more memory and OS upgrades. I've added the
means to allow networking, USB, &c. But in that time you'll have
purchased 4-6 new Windows machines at far greater expense. I'm limited by
speed (though it went far faster than the equivalent Windows machines
when new and when it had a new processor added) and by colours/resolution
(32 thousand colours is its maximum at a reasonable resolution). But it
still runs all the software of the last 10 years. Of course I now have an
upgrade - but that also runs all the old software even if some has to be
done through a form of emulation - and the two will happily run in
parallel. I have no expectation of the old machine being pensioned off
for another 3-5 years (or more). That may be exceptional; but your
expectation of PCs is exceptionally bad.

You're missing the point entirely. I'm not a Windows fan, but I *have* to
use Windows, at least some of the time. When I can get away with using
other OSes, I do. I'll explain.

At work: All of the web work I do *must* be tested on multiple browsers on
Windows. This is despite the fact that it works happily cross-platform.
You simply can't guarantee that stuff will look/work as intended without
this testing.

But - our servers run Linux and FreeBSD. These OSes are great for servers,
and do an excellent job.

At home: All of the games that I like playing will only run under Windows,
and *require* fast hardware. That's not the fault of the OS, it's the way
the games work (heavy graphics, huge numbers of game components).

I'm not a games person but I have to have access to a range of hardware
because of the need to compare & contrast the machines. That means that I do
have a Windows machine that (mainly) acts as a printer facilitator and
time-slipped radio - in addition to half-a-dozen RISC OS machines. ;-) for the
latter. ;-)

--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

Owain wrote:
Stuart Noble wrote:

Interested to know what people think about recovery disks. I recently
sorted out a friend's Dixons PC, which was infected with all manner of
nasties. Put My Documents on to a cdrw, booted from the Dixons
recovery CD and the whole thing was running sweetly within the hour.
Doing that periodically seems like a simple maintenance schedule for
any level of user.
So, how easy would it be to create a bootable CD for a home made
machine? I rather fancy a bit of colonic irrigation


Very easy under Linux, not sure about MSWindows. The problems with
Windows recovery disks are that they often format the whole hard disk,
install lots of things the manufacturers include but the user doesn't
need, and that Windows doesn't keep user files and settings in one
coherent easily-restored place.

My Documents doesn't usually hold address book or mailbox files, custom
spelling dictionaries etc.

Owain


I suppose docs and settings might be a better bet in XP but possibly a
lot of the garbage you're trying to get rid of would be there too.

Grunff wrote:

At work: All of the web work I do *must* be tested on multiple browsers
on Windows. This is despite the fact that it works happily
cross-platform. You simply can't guarantee that stuff will look/work as
intended without this testing.

Er, it will if it's written in conformant html/xhtml. Just run it
through validator.w3.org and bob's yer uncle[1].

But - our servers run Linux and FreeBSD. These OSes are great for
servers, and do an excellent job.

And the server can happily be a 486:-)

Dunno anythig about games...

Douglas de Lacey
[1] Once you've fixed the 56 errors in writing the code, of course.

Douglas de Lacey wrote:

Er, it will if it's written in conformant html/xhtml. Just run it
through validator.w3.org and bob's yer uncle[1].

ROFL....
ROFLMAO....

Ok, in the *real* world, where each browser has its own bugs and
oddities, it doesn't quite work out that way.

Valid code is all very well, but if you need a site to look *exactly the
same* in a number of browsers (as most clients require), you need to
test and tweak until you achieve this.


And the server can happily be a 486:-)

Some of our busier sites get such a load that you need more than one (P4
3GHz+) server per site.


--
Grunff

On Thu, 13 Apr 2006 15:44:55 UTC, Douglas de Lacey
wrote:

Grunff wrote:

At work: All of the web work I do *must* be tested on multiple browsers
on Windows. This is despite the fact that it works happily
cross-platform. You simply can't guarantee that stuff will look/work as
intended without this testing.

Er, it will if it's written in conformant html/xhtml. Just run it
through validator.w3.org and bob's yer uncle[1].

An extremely naive view. Not long ago I wrote a set of pages for a small
site, and they validated as XHTML 1.0, and I also validated the style
sheet.

On one version of IE there was a major hissy fit and each paragrahph
came out as a single line.

This is the real world...

--
The information contained in this post is copyright the
poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by
Avenue Supplies, http://avenuesupplies.co.uk

In article ,
Grunff wrote:
Valid code is all very well, but if you need a site to look *exactly the
same* in a number of browsers (as most clients require), you need to
test and tweak until you achieve this.

You need to tell your clients that they're asking for crap sites. *No*
properly designed site looks the same in a true range of browsers and anyone
who promises such is a fool or a rogue.

--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

John Cartmell wrote:
You need to tell your clients that they're asking for crap sites. *No*
properly designed site looks the same in a true range of browsers and anyone
who promises such is a fool or a rogue.

Erm, ok, will do.

On second thoughts, maybe I'll just keep doing a great job and getting
paid for it.

I hate hobby web developers, they always come up with clueless cr@p like
this.


--
Grunff

In article , Grunff
wrote:
John Cartmell wrote:
You need to tell your clients that they're asking for crap sites. *No*
properly designed site looks the same in a true range of browsers and
anyone who promises such is a fool or a rogue.

Erm, ok, will do.

On second thoughts, maybe I'll just keep doing a great job and getting
paid for it.

I hate hobby web developers, they always come up with clueless cr@p like
this.

I'm not a hobby web developer. I don't develop web sites at all. I employ
professionals to produce advice. If you offer to produce a web site that
'looks the same' to all/most web browsers then you are a poor amateur.

--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

John Cartmell wrote:

[about computers that should be built to last 5-10 years but which reside
within a system that forces users to replace machines much more frequently to
the detriment of users' pockets and the environment]


Even so, each machine will only have a lifetime of 2-3 years.


In that case there is something badly wrong with the system.

If you want to stay close to the leading edge you don't in reality get
much choice no matter ow much care you put into chosing the original
spec with the intention of having an expandable platform. There is
always a show stopper that will bite you IME.

For example you want to upgrade the CPU but the two year old mobo does
not support the latest ones for any of a muktitude of reasons: the front
side bus speed, the DRAM type, the voltage, the standby current, the
number of pins in the socket, there is no BIOS available for the CPU etc.

The latest graphics card requires AGP 8x rather than 4, or you need PCI
express, or SLI

Hard drives and disk subsystems in general are easier to future proof,
although you top of the line ultra 160 SCSI controller may not get best
performance from your new 15K rpm iltra 320 drive...

So in many cases some drives, the case, and your floppy drive live on -
the rest has to change from time to time.

--
Cheers,

John.

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John Cartmell wrote:

Avoid Microsoft. Their OSs are designed to make you have to upgrade at
too-short intervals. I'm using a 10+ year old computer. It has had a new
processor, new hard drives, more memory and OS upgrades. I've added the means
to allow networking, USB, &c. But in that time you'll have purchased 4-6 new
Windows machines at far greater expense. I'm limited by speed (though it went
far faster than the equivalent Windows machines when new and when it had a new
processor added) and by colours/resolution (32 thousand colours is its maximum
at a reasonable resolution). But it still runs all the software of the last 10
years. Of course I now have an upgrade - but that also runs all the old
software even if some has to be done through a form of emulation - and the two
will happily run in parallel. I have no expectation of the old machine being
pensioned off for another 3-5 years (or more). That may be exceptional; but
your expectation of PCs is exceptionally bad.

You are not really comparing like with like. Your old system is no
longer leading edge. If you thrust software on it that required 10 times
the CPU performance to even work, it would not hack it at anything
approaching a suitable speed. That was what Grunff was attempting to
maintain.

I still use a 10 year old platform for email and other tasks. It does
them as well as it ever did and never suffers problems with the usual
Wintel malware but I can hardly claim it is in any way comparable to
modern hardware performance wise in spite of having a hugely efficient
multi tasking OS.




--
Cheers,

John.

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Stuart Noble wrote:

Interested to know what people think about recovery disks.

In general - Evil b*stard things...

Some are better than others - but some are downright evil.

sorted out a friend's Dixons PC, which was infected with all manner of
nasties. Put My Documents on to a cdrw, booted from the Dixons recovery
CD and the whole thing was running sweetly within the hour. Doing that
periodically seems like a simple maintenance schedule for any level of
user.

However if you were a user who had convinced they needed to do a repair
install of windows and had not realised that the recovery CD would vape
the complete machine and all your data, you could be a bit miffed!

So, how easy would it be to create a bootable CD for a home made
machine? I rather fancy a bit of colonic irrigation

Easy enough. You can create a slipstreamed windows install CD if you
want that includes all the updates and drivers for your PC. However if
you just want a fast recovery to a known state then either look at an
imaging product like Ghost - that will let you image a drive to a file
and then later recreate the drive state from the image in a matter of
mins. Alternatively look at one of the virtual PC solutions. Lets you
create a complete virtual PC running in its own sandbox that you can
simply restart to be back to a default state.

If you want a boot CD that will let you tinker with the remenents of a
crashed windows box then I find the "Bart PE" bootable CD quite handy.
Lets you boot from a CD, get a network up and running and run a file
manager utility with full disk access - way better than the MS recovery
console.


--
Cheers,

John.

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| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
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On Thu, 13 Apr 2006 11:48:10 UTC, Mark wrote:

Some Dell Offers can only be accessed by typing in the promotional
code into the web site or using the old fashioned telephone.

I notice they do 'open systems' versions without a copy of Windows. But
you have to phone for that. Anyone know why they are so coy about those
prices?

--
The information contained in this post is copyright the
poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by
Avenue Supplies, http://avenuesupplies.co.uk

In article , John Rumm
wrote:
John Cartmell wrote:

Avoid Microsoft. Their OSs are designed to make you have to upgrade at
too-short intervals. I'm using a 10+ year old computer. It has had a new
processor, new hard drives, more memory and OS upgrades. I've added the
means to allow networking, USB, &c. But in that time you'll have
purchased 4-6 new Windows machines at far greater expense. I'm limited by
speed (though it went far faster than the equivalent Windows machines
when new and when it had a new processor added) and by colours/resolution
(32 thousand colours is its maximum at a reasonable resolution). But it
still runs all the software of the last 10 years. Of course I now have an
upgrade - but that also runs all the old software even if some has to be
done through a form of emulation - and the two will happily run in
parallel. I have no expectation of the old machine being pensioned off
for another 3-5 years (or more). That may be exceptional; but your
expectation of PCs is exceptionally bad.

You are not really comparing like with like. Your old system is no longer
leading edge. If you thrust software on it that required 10 times the CPU
performance to even work, it would not hack it at anything approaching a
suitable speed. That was what Grunff was attempting to maintain.

I know what my system will and will not do. If I wanted to play the latest
games I'd buy a games machine. What is *not* happening here - but does happen
with Windows machines - is the pernicious step of new applications (or
essential updates) being made available only for the new OS even where they
don't need the 'power' of the new OS. That's the ratchet that forces users to
buy new machines - and where they then find that old software doesn't work and
has to be re-purchased.

I still use a 10 year old platform for email and other tasks. It does them
as well as it ever did and never suffers problems with the usual Wintel
malware but I can hardly claim it is in any way comparable to modern
hardware performance wise in spite of having a hugely efficient multi
tasking OS.

My hardware/software is comparable to 'modern' performance except in clearly
defined ways (speed/resolution). It makes working in parallel with new
machines easy and transitions comfortable. At the moment I'm switching between
4 machines with peer-to-peer networking, using the same monitor/keyboard/mouse
and moving applications and day-to-day working over to a beta status computer;
if I encounter problems I can slip back to the old machine at a second's
notice.

--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

In article ,
John Rumm wrote:
If you want to stay close to the leading edge you don't in reality get
much choice no matter

With computers the problem now is that a monopoly supplier is telling you what
the leading edge is - and the direction you're travelling in is not your
choice anymore. You get more/faster and forget what you leave behind.

--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

John Cartmell wrote:

I'm not a hobby web developer. I don't develop web sites at all.

Ok, that explains the ridiculous statements you've made.


I employ
professionals to produce advice. If you offer to produce a web site that
'looks the same' to all/most web browsers then you are a poor amateur.

Look, there really is no point in discussing this further. You clearly
have very little idea of what the market demands. Perhaps this is
because you're stuck in a horribly outdated RISC OS world, I don't know.

But either way, these days clients are very demanding. They want high
functionality sites, and they want high graphics sites. By their very
nature, high graphics sites rely on pixel perfect positioning of some
elements relative to others. If this isn't achieved, things don't line
up correctly and the site looks crap. This means that you *have* to
build your sites to look the same across different browsers/platforms,
and that takes way more than a pass through with a validator.


--
Grunff

On Fri, 14 Apr 2006 09:45:18 UTC, (Andrew
Gabriel) wrote:

I notice they do 'open systems' versions without a copy of Windows. But
you have to phone for that. Anyone know why they are so coy about those
prices?

See http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10...l_linux_tough/
"Reg readers take the Dell 'Open-source PC' challenge"

Aha. I see. Thank you. It's all a con then!

Probably I'll get an IBM instead...at least last time they were happy to
sell me machines with no OS...

--
The information contained in this post is copyright the
poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by
Avenue Supplies, http://avenuesupplies.co.uk

John Cartmell wrote:

I make no reference to what the market demands - but what is possible and
appropriate using html. There is nothing stopping you from producing web-pages
produced entirely of high quality graphics (including text), and they will
look the same on all browsers - but don't pretend that they are appropriate
for public consumption.

No one said anything about producing sites made up entirely of graphics.


If a web-designer doesn't show his clients the
limitations - and possibilities - of web sites then they are prostituting
their 'profession'.

Ok, whatever.


--
Grunff

In article , Grunff
wrote:
John Cartmell wrote:

I make no reference to what the market demands - but what is possible and
appropriate using html. There is nothing stopping you from producing
web-pages produced entirely of high quality graphics (including text),
and they will look the same on all browsers - but don't pretend that they
are appropriate for public consumption.

No one said anything about producing sites made up entirely of graphics.

If you don't the site looks different in different browsers and according to
the settings chosen by the user. But then you cannot claim that the site
'looks the same or similar' in all or most browsers.

--
John Cartmell john@ followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
Qercus magazine FAX +44 (0)8700-519-527 www.finnybank.com
Qercus - the best guide to RISC OS computing

On 14 Apr 2006 10:08:46 GMT, "Bob Eager" wrote:

On Fri, 14 Apr 2006 09:45:18 UTC, (Andrew
Gabriel) wrote:

I notice they do 'open systems' versions without a copy of Windows. But
you have to phone for that. Anyone know why they are so coy about those
prices?

See http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10...l_linux_tough/
"Reg readers take the Dell 'Open-source PC' challenge"

Aha. I see. Thank you. It's all a con then!

Probably I'll get an IBM instead...at least last time they were happy to
sell me machines with no OS...


If they bundle Windows, that is the case...... :-)


--

..andy

On Fri, 14 Apr 2006 11:04:06 UTC, Andy Hall wrote:

On 14 Apr 2006 10:08:46 GMT, "Bob Eager" wrote:

On Fri, 14 Apr 2006 09:45:18 UTC, (Andrew
Gabriel) wrote:

I notice they do 'open systems' versions without a copy of Windows. But
you have to phone for that. Anyone know why they are so coy about those
prices?

See http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10...l_linux_tough/
"Reg readers take the Dell 'Open-source PC' challenge"

Aha. I see. Thank you. It's all a con then!

Probably I'll get an IBM instead...at least last time they were happy to
sell me machines with no OS...

If they bundle Windows, that is the case...... :-)

Lats time they bundled nothing at all...and the time before..and the
time before. I fear it's changed, though..

--
The information contained in this post is copyright the
poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by
Avenue Supplies, http://avenuesupplies.co.uk

John Rumm wrote:
Stuart Noble wrote:

Interested to know what people think about recovery disks.


In general - Evil b*stard things...

Some are better than others - but some are downright evil.

sorted out a friend's Dixons PC, which was infected with all manner of
nasties. Put My Documents on to a cdrw, booted from the Dixons
recovery CD and the whole thing was running sweetly within the hour.
Doing that periodically seems like a simple maintenance schedule for
any level of user.


However if you were a user who had convinced they needed to do a repair
install of windows and had not realised that the recovery CD would vape
the complete machine and all your data, you could be a bit miffed!

So, how easy would it be to create a bootable CD for a home made
machine? I rather fancy a bit of colonic irrigation


Easy enough. You can create a slipstreamed windows install CD if you
want that includes all the updates and drivers for your PC. However if
you just want a fast recovery to a known state then either look at an
imaging product like Ghost - that will let you image a drive to a file
and then later recreate the drive state from the image in a matter of
mins. Alternatively look at one of the virtual PC solutions. Lets you
create a complete virtual PC running in its own sandbox that you can
simply restart to be back to a default state.

If you want a boot CD that will let you tinker with the remenents of a
crashed windows box then I find the "Bart PE" bootable CD quite handy.
Lets you boot from a CD, get a network up and running and run a file
manager utility with full disk access - way better than the MS recovery
console.



Isn't there some utility with a big numpty button saying, "create
bootable cd" to include OS, installed updates, address book, mail
folders and my docs? Slipstreaming and the rest are all too complicated
for the type of user that would benefit most.