The Technology Vent and Rant Thread

[DNSB]

For a look at a piece of rather useless tech, see the Microclimate Air.

$300 US for that?

What was that quote from Bored of the Rings? "This is a rather sizable group, sporting the kind of scorchmarks on their pockets that only the spontaneous combustion of heavy wads of crumpled money can produce."

Edit: Found a review of the Microclimate Air helmet.

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by DNSB

For a look at a piece of rather useless tech, see the Microclimate Air.

$300 US for that?

What was that quote from Bored of the Rings? "This is a rather sizable group, sporting the kind of scorchmarks on their pockets that only the spontaneous combustion of heavy wads of crumpled money can produce."

Edit: Found a review of the Microclimate Air helmet.

Gracious. I wonder if anybody (besides the reviewer's neighbors) will ever see one of THOSE in the wild.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

Gracious. I wonder if anybody (besides the reviewer's neighbors) will ever see one of THOSE in the wild.

Sweet Gullible Gulliver.

Hitch

[poohbear_nc]

I saw an ad for a similar "helmet" - for children in Japan - made to look like Buzz Lightyear's helmet

[Elektron]

Originally Posted by DNSB

For a look at a piece of rather useless tech, see the Microclimate Air.
$300 US for that?
What was that quote from Bored of the Rings? "This is a rather sizable group, sporting the kind of scorchmarks on their pockets that only the spontaneous combustion of heavy wads of crumpled money can produce."
Edit: Found a review of the Microclimate Air helmet.

[tempest@de]

My understanding of the fact Microsoft no longer provides support for Office 2010 is very different from Microsoft, for me it means I don’t get updates, for them it means that I no longer can install or make changes to it. A very god way to force me to buy the program again.

When I bought the office 2010 it didn’t come with a cd, it was a package with the key and information about how to install it from Microsoft website. Being the mistrusting people that I am, I requested I security copy trough the site and also made a copy to an external drive.

I bought a new pc and went to install the program to find out that Microsoft doesn’t allow new installations, I looked for the CD to install using it and the pc can’t open the disc. I can’t use the copy that I had made in the external drive since it died some years ago with all the content in it, so thank you Microsoft.

I think I will look into open office again, I have used it in the past, and it worked ok, but I liked excel more, its time to give it a try again.

[cc_in_oh]

I ran into the same thing with Office 2007, which I actually still use occasionally on an old laptop, but I had to buy Office 2016 for a new PC a couple of years ago. Very few of the "improvements" were even noticeable to me.

What MS really wants is to force users to Office 365 and collect your cash every month, but that isn't worth it for the average casual user. I think they were jealous of the tax and antivirus software companies who force you to re-buy every year.

But in MS's favor, they're supporting WIN10 ongoing instead of selling new versions. And I also give them credit for offering free versions of some fairly sophisticated development tools like Visual Studio with support for several languages including VB.NET - tools that used to cost $$$.

I think the free office alternatives would handle my word processing but the problem with Excel is that I use VBA macros extensively and although the macro language may be similar I believe the object models are different - it would take a lot of effort to migrate that code.

I just have Office Home & Student. I have one app I'd love to redo in Access but it's not worth buying it lust for that.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by tempest@de

I think I will look into open office again, I have used it in the past, and it worked ok, but I liked excel more, its time to give it a try again.

I work from home and have used LIbreOffice for the last few years and for my needs it's absolutely fine. It's ability to handle MSO files keeps getting better too - I send and receive Word & Excel docs to my boss with no complaints about conversion issues. I also like that it's not cloud-based, my files are MY files.

[cc_in_oh]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

I work from home and have used LIbreOffice for the last few years and for my needs it's absolutely fine. It's ability to handle MSO files keeps getting better too - I send and receive Word & Excel docs to my boss with no complaints about conversion issues. I also like that it's not cloud-based, my files are MY files.

Good to know - it's been a while since I looked at it - maybe they've made the macro language more compatible with VBA and the Excel object model? At that time the database component was also considerably less robust than Access...

[tempest@de]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

I work from home and have used LIbreOffice for the last few years and for my needs it's absolutely fine. It's ability to handle MSO files keeps getting better too - I send and receive Word & Excel docs to my boss with no complaints about conversion issues. I also like that it's not cloud-based, my files are MY files.

Thanks, I will look in to it in the weekend, I only need word and excel, so as long has it can handle my excel sheets and its formulas I'm good. That’s why I don’t want to buy Microsoft 365, 10 € a month seems excessive, KU and scribd are cheaper than that and I get more use of them than I do from office.

[Solitaire1]

I just got a new Android smartphone and it seems so over complicated over my previous flip phone (with the flip phone it took me about 5 minutes to take care of all of my settings). All I really need to do is make calls and texting, with being able to go on YouTube as icing on the cake. Yet my smartphone comes with over 20 apps that I will never use (such as games, I'd rather just play games on my console).

Worse, it has dozens of settings that I have to slug through just to find what I'm looking for. As an example, I had to search for over half an hour just to find a way to set it so that I can tap a button to use it (such as picking up a call) rather than having to swipe a button. In my first week I ended up spending hours going through the settings.

The main reason I upgraded from flip phone was an issue involving text messages. I had no way to get the text messages off of the phone when I needed to give it to someone (forwarding it wasn't an option). The smartphone lets me do screenshots so I can save the messages off of my phone if I need to (such as if I need to archive them). Although there is software to get text messages off of a phone, it seemed to be far too complicated. There should be a simple built-in way to export the messages as text files, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Most irritating are the regular updates. It wouldn't be a problem if I could update it via my smartphone's data plan, but usually it requires me to use wi-fi which I don't have ready access to. Often, it is a couple of days before I'm able to get to a place with wi-fi so I can update my smartphone.

I wish they'd release a smartphone with a basic setup that you can then add to as needed, rather than giving you everything and requiring you to pare it down and get rid of what you don't need.

[BetterRed]

↑ ↑ ↑ ✔ this a 100 times over.

[DNSB]

When I read a rant like that, it makes me happy that I'm still using an iPhone. Settings tend to stay in the same place, I don't have to do a Google search to find out how to disable private/random MAC address settings*, most of the Apple applications are now easily removable, etc.

And yes, random MAC addresses are important to me since our corporate WiFi uses the MAC address to associate a device with a user during the registration process. Addresses with the multicast or universal/local bit set are not accepted as valid MAC addresses for registration. I.e. if the first octet of the MAC address is not xxxxxx00, it's bit bucketed. Every <expletives deleted> Android device seems to place that setting in a different spot.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by DNSB

When I read a rant like that, it makes me happy that I'm still using an iPhone. Settings tend to stay in the same place, I don't have to do a Google search to find out how to disable private/random MAC address settings*, most of the Apple applications are now easily removable, etc.

And yes, random MAC addresses are important to me since our corporate WiFi uses the MAC address to associate a device with a user during the registration process. Addresses with the multicast or universal/local bit set are not accepted as valid MAC addresses for registration. I.e. if the first octet of the MAC address is not xxxxxx00, it's bit bucketed. Every <expletives deleted> Android device seems to place that setting in a different spot.

Based on my experience with this smartphone, I've thought of giving an iPhone a try. Viewing YouTube videos, it seems the main negatives about the iPhone are: (1) the cost, (2) having to use iTunes on your computer to put items on/off your phone, and (3) the locked-down nature of iOS. I view my smartphone as a separate device, rather than as an extension of my computer, and I don't want to be mandated to have to use specific software to connect my phone to my computer. I only want to have to plug in my phone using a cable, and then use drag-and-drop to add/remove items from my phone.

While it seems that I'm contradicting myself by seeing the locked-down nature of iOS as a negative, in some ways it is actually freeing. As a related example, when writing on my word processor I used to spend a lot of time trying to figure out how things should look. What I found freeing is to limit myself (I'll just use Times New Roman 12 Point for the main text, Calibri 18 Point for headings, and a blank line between each paragraph...done). In the same way, I've made things easier for myself by just putting the apps I will actually use (13 total) on one screen (the only screen I have) and hide everything else.

In some ways, Android reminds me of the ribbon in Microsoft Word (MS Word) where related settings are scattered all over the place. It's the reason I'm still using OpenOffice.org. I didn't care for MS Word but had to use it at work but that was before the Ribbon, but for me the Ribbon makes it so hard to use that at times I think I'd rather just use Notepad and write basic HTML instead.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

Based on my experience with this smartphone, I've thought of giving an iPhone a try. Viewing YouTube videos, it seems the main negatives about the iPhone are: (1) the cost, (2) having to use iTunes on your computer to put items on/off your phone, and (3) the locked-down nature of iOS. I view my smartphone as a separate device, rather than as an extension of my computer, and I don't want to be mandated to have to use specific software to connect my phone to my computer. I only want to have to plug in my phone using a cable, and then use drag-and-drop to add/remove items from my phone.

except I have never considered getting an iphone mainly on cost, and because I dislike walled gardens.

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

While it seems that I'm contradicting myself by seeing the locked-down nature of iOS as a negative, in some ways it is actually freeing. As a related example, when writing on my word processor I used to spend a lot of time trying to figure out how things should look. What I found freeing is to limit myself (I'll just use Times New Roman 12 Point for the main text, Calibri 18 Point for headings, and a blank line between each paragraph...done). In the same way, I've made things easier for myself by just putting the apps I will actually use (13 total) on one screen (the only screen I have) and hide everything else.

I'm a life long minimalist and a card carrying iconoclast. My Desktop has 4 icons - garbage can, keyboard shortcut cheat sheet, latest weekly progress report, and a link to some checklist pro-formas. I only use Georgia or Helvetica, and only have 8 apps, the eighth is for symmetry

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

In some ways, Android reminds me of the ribbon in Microsoft Word (MS Word) where related settings are scattered all over the place. It's the reason I'm still using OpenOffice.org. I didn't care for MS Word but had to use it at work but that was before the Ribbon, but for me the Ribbon makes it so hard to use that at times I think I'd rather just use Notepad and write basic HTML instead.

- total opposite, could never find things in the old menus, things were never where I expected them to be, and being an iconoclast and mouse averse button bars are a bête noire.

Fell in love with the Ribbon, things are usually where I expect them to be, and because the Ribbon is customisable and that I can drive it with one finger, it suits me to a T (tee ?). I use things in Word today that I didn't even know existed in older versions. When I have to use Writer on other peoples rigs I'm back to

BR