Managed Desktop

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yogi
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Managed Desktop

Post by yogi »

Do you remember way back when, just before Windows 10 became a reality, I was whining about how great Windows 7 is and that it's the last OS of its kind? I lamented back then about the rumors I read where Microsoft will switch over to Windows being a subscription service as opposed to a stand alone operating system you can buy one off. Well, guess what was just leaked ...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkell ... 54211172c1

For now it's targeted at business users. For now...
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Kellemora
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Re: Managed Desktop

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I read many months ago about Windows becoming a Cloud OS, you had to log into one of their servers to access the OS and whatever programs you paid to use.

I believe toward this goal they are also bringing Win7 and Win8 to an end as well.

There are benefits, but at what cost?

The number of high end gaming computers, once Windows Only, are now looking to Linux as Valve and Steam have kept abreast of the newest game demands. Some of the most popular games now run better on Linux than on Windows according to Cnet.

I don't doubt some day in the very near future, everything a computer does, it will have to be on-line to use it.
More or less like glorified Schmartz-Fonze.

Some of the current selection of gaming computers are running around 4 to 7 thousand dollars.
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yogi
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Re: Managed Desktop

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It's hard to say where computers are headed, but they will certainly get there quickly and be flying in The Cloud. The money from technology comes in from The Cloud via many portals. Since laptops and desktops are rapidly being replaced by more mobile devices, Microsoft ran into a problem they didn't anticipate when Bill Gates created the business model. Operating systems are indeed becoming obsolete, which is unfortunate for Microsoft given that is their core competency. Lacking a market for their core product, it's understandable why they would be developing hardware (essentially a terminal) to access the cloud services. I don't like it, but what Microsoft has been trying to do since Gates left the building makes sense.

I don't think desktops and laptops will disappear entirely. However, gamers will be forced to use dedicated boxes - Microsoft's X-Box is a good example of where games are going. Non-mobile devices will be relegated to the same category as Linux: interesting but not very useful to the average person. I can hear you telling me about FOSS and business needs which only Linux can fulfill. While that may be true, look at how you got to be where you are. The rest of the computer world moved on into other realms - mobile devices and cloud computing. You can chose not to migrate with the flock, but our options will become more and more limited as time goes on.

If I can keep beta testing Windows until I get to the end of my timeline, I'll probably keep doing it. When Windows 7 becomes useless I'll be right in the Linux box with you until that too ceases to exist. I'm probably more likely than you to migrate to a smart phone some day. If' I have to pay for my computer services, I may as well be able to make phone calls too as a side app. :mrgreen:
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Re: Managed Desktop

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I remember all the complaints made from folks when they see a messy desktop.
You should use Menu's to keep everything organized. Keep a clean desktop.
Then along came Schmartz-Fonze with a messy desktop.
Windows followed in suit and made a really messy desktop, hi hi.

My wife had to scroll forever to find anything on her Schmartz-Fone, hi hi.
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yogi
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Re: Managed Desktop

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My Windows 7 desktop is only slightly messy. I like it that way. Stuff I need to see frequently is within view. The Windows directory tree (program menu) seems to have evolved from the days when UNIX was a thing. LOL It's interesting to see how over the years technology has advanced by leaps and bounds, but the organization of the basic computer is as it was in 1978. The program menu lends itself to easy navigation by organized and analytical minds. Unfortunately it does not work well for hand held mobile devices. You need something bigger than a mouse pointer to get the blasted mobile device working. Application icons seem to be the logical evolution, but you are correct to point out how cluttered it all appears to be. That's one thing I like about the Windows 10 user interface (and Win 8 to some extent). The icons have tuned into "charms" and you only have to put the ones you want on the flip out desktop. The rest are in that old familiar directory tree format off to the left side.

When Ubuntu thought they were going to conquer the mobile device world, they invented the Unity desktop. It took the worst of all user interfaces and made it a way of life. The only way around Unity was to type in the name of the app you were trying to get running. That worked really well if you knew the name. But then, it dawned on me that Windows 7 was designed to do exactly that. Using desktop icons was a perversion of it's original intent. I now type the name of what I want to do into the search box and, VOILA! Well, not always. I do have some icons on the task bar which eliminates the need to type anything. There also are a few icon shortcuts to documents scattered about. It's an organized mess to be sure, yet it looks nothing like the array of app icons cluttering up smart phones and a tablets. I'm guessing there are ways to cut down on the clutter. Some day, if I ever go mobile, I may discover what they are. :mrgreen:
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Re: Managed Desktop

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My wife's Schmartz-Fone uses a feature similar to our folders, but is an openable icon. You tap it twice to open and it shows all the icons, scrollable, for the programs inside. EG Games Icon, tap it twice and you get a left to right scrollable set of icons, one for each game. Same thing for things. It does help reduce the number of icons to scroll through. She used to have a single icon for pictures she took with the phone. Now if you open it, she has icons for family, pets, outside, inside, and friends. Makes it easier for her to find one faster.

As an aside, the new Win10 computer I bought her that is so slow, now replaced with a 10 year old fast computer with Win7, came with a touch-screen. It was cool for about two or three weeks, then she reverted back to using her mouse. Said it was faster and easier to use the mouse, and didn't leave dust catching fingerprints on her screen, hi hi.
Good thing she didn't like using the touch-screen because something went wrong with it.
If you touch anywhere on the screen, the mouse pointer is supposed to jump under your finger if you have it set to visible during touch. Normally you have the pointer turned off when parked so it doesn't show when using the touch screen. Move the mouse and the pointer shows back up again.
I wanted to write her a little message so used the touch screen to bring up the notepad window, that part worked, but I couldn't get the cursor to appear on the blank page. It tried using the mouse and clicking on the page and the cursor finally appeared. I typed a couple of sentences and saw I misspelled a word so touched the word with my finger to either set the cursor back there or highlight the word. Didn't work, so back to the mouse to do it.
Later when she got home, she said the screen has not done what it is supposed to for a long time. Not even after a reboot and checking the touch-screen settings.
Since she won't be using the new computer anymore, and wanted her other big monitor back I brought it up to the office.
Played with it to see what the problem was. A little test program for calibrating the touch screen showed it had several bad lines and would highlight on the screen where the dead spots were. I also loaded the Paint program and tried drawing on the screen. It had several spots where the drawn wiggly line was broken, plus two corners and the right edge were like dead.
As far as working like a monitor it works great, even on grayscale tests. I gave it to my bro-in-law since the size was just right for where he keeps his monitor, and he gave me his antique ViewSonic monitor with fading light. It works well enough to see what I need to on an old computer I only use for reading text.
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Re: Managed Desktop

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My wife has an iPad. She loves it. It's pretty cool as far as mobile devices go but suffers from all the intrinsic flaws required to use such devices. The screen is the largest one you can get for an iPad and thus the touchscreen aspect of it is reasonable. When she bought the tablet she go a cover for it. It's like a book cover but it has three folds instead of the traditional two. Two of the three folds form a triangle with the display so that it almost looks like a conventional computer. She keeps the third fold tucked away because it is actually a keyboard. Wife prefers touch screens as opposed to keyboards. Whenever I use the iPad I use it with the mechanical keyboard. It's good enough to make me think I could learn to like this hybrid of a laptop mobile device. I guess Microsoft is doing the same thing with it's Surface, but I have yet to even see a real Surface device. LOL

Touch screens come in resistive and capacative forms. Apparently capacative is better for swiping and mouse gestures. Back in the test lab at Motorola they also had infrared touch screens. Beams of light were run parallel to the screen and your finger position was thus determined by which light beams were interrupted. They had limited use but I thought they were cute. :grin:

As Windows 10 continues to evolve, it has become noticeably slower in response time. I don't think this is a flaw with Windows but rather an indication of inadequate hardware. The more mature Windows 10 becomes, the more resources it consumes. The processor maxes out when I use their Edge browser. This cause pages to load slower and scrolling to be intermittent. I've been thinking of upgrading the laptop and this might be a good time to do it. Next time they update, I'm sure a lot of people will have the same problem.
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Re: Managed Desktop

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I remember back when they invented transistors, and as a result, a portable radio went from the size of a heavy lunchbox, down to a small device the size of a pack of cigarettes and fit in your shirt pocket.
I had to laugh because now that we had such a small portable radio, look what happened.
Kids bought console size boom boxes they had to carry on their shoulders.

Cell phones started out fairly large and heavy too, eg. the Bag Phone.
They too got smaller and more convenient, down to fitting in a shirt pocket.
So what does everybody buy, bigger and bigger Schmartz-Fonze.
I don't doubt I will see kids carrying around 55 inch Schmartz-Fonze on their shoulder in the near future!
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Re: Managed Desktop

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Your observations are too true. :grin:

My first "portable" radio was packed inside a (real) wooden box and had vacuum tubes. The batteries tripled the weight of it all - and I'm pretty sure one of them was a 67.5 volt storage cell too. Then came the transistor radios. I carried them in my pocket too. I never wanted a boom box, but people get them for the "boom" effect. They sound a heck of a lot better than those 7 transistor jobs you carried in your shirt pocket. But, guess what. Boom boxes today don't have transistor radios inside. The entire radio, power amp and all, is on a single chip about the size of your thumb nail. Thus, the box's only purpose is to house the speakers.

People buying smart phones these days are finally discovering what I knew when I saw the very first one. They are too damned small to be useful for anything other than making phone calls. Well, the ability to make phone calls is an added bonus in today's smart phones. The main purpose for them is to be a mobile computer. They are intended to replace laptops and desktops. That is why they must have larger screens each generation. Us old folks (and nearly each one of us have one) can't see or handle the smaller phones. Too many icons to fill the screen ... :lol:
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Re: Managed Desktop

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My first portable radio was like you said, had vacuum tubes. Mine had two batteries, one was 90 volts, and one was probably like yours, but I don't remember the size. I had to replace the 90 volt one several times, but the other one only once and that was after a year or more of use. I imagine the 90 volt ran the heaters in the tubes and some other stuff.

My first transistor radio only had ear plug type head phones. My second one had a built in speaker, tinny as you said, however, it also came with a pair of speakers inside a cardboard tube, this add-on speaker sounded better than my old battery powered radio. Over the years they improved portable radios considerably.

I still use a little Flip-Phone, and don't want a Schmartz-Fone.
I have tablets and laptop portable computers, but I rarely if ever use them for anything.
The last laptop I bought for the frau is still sitting on the hearth. I sometimes use it to show photos to visitors.
I spend all day, 8am to 10pm, other than breaks for lunch and dinner, at my computers in the garage office.
The correct ergonomic angles for everything and a comfortable chair are paramount to keep from getting posture problems and things like carpal tunnel.
When I see kids sitting at a dining table reaching up to a laptop keyboard and the improper angles they have to work at under those conditions, I see every one of them having serious medical problems long before they should.
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Re: Managed Desktop

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The high voltage batteries in those tube radios were connected to the plates of the tubes. The lower voltages were for the grid and heaters. Given the amount of current those old tube heaters needed to glow, I'm surprised any battery lasted more than a day or two. The plate and grid(s) hardly drew any current at all to speak of which is why you didn't have to replace those batteries very often.

I use a flip phone too. It has a camera and can connect to the Internet, for a price. Texting is a given. I will give Virgin Mobile a lot of credit for keeping me on their books this long. My phone is pay-as-you-go and very expensive for the connect time and messaging. Even so, my monthly cost is substantially lower than my wife with unlimited data and phone time from T-Mobile. Virgin doesn't offer my plan any more and my phone has to be of 3-G vintage. Why they would bother to keep me on their books is a mystery, but I'm glad they do. The end is near, however. One of the critical buttons on my phone is starting to malfunction - the SEND button. I'll be dead in the water when that can't function anymore and probably go "smart" at that time. I'm undecided at this point if I'll go with minimum functionality or go for the snob appeal of Apple or Google's Pixel phone. Either one of those will be 97% useless for me, but they will look good when I'm standing in line at the resale shop waiting to check out. :mrgreen:
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Re: Managed Desktop

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Every time the frau upgrades her service, they give her a new flip-phone for me.
Sadly, each successive one has been worse than the one before it.
The first one I had I used forever, and only had to charge it once every month. It did take pictures, but they were not downloadable, could only be uploaded to their website then downloaded if you paid a fee to do so. I never did.
The second phone I had to charge once every two weeks, it usually still had pretty much of a charge in it, but I charged it on the same day every other week so I wouldn't forget. It took pictures that I could download.
The phone I have now is close to dead within a week, and comes up with a battery low warning on the 7th day. It too takes pictures, but I've never done so or tried to download any from it yet. I'm told it has a sim card that holds everything, so if all else fails, you could copy stuff from the sim card. I can send a photo to the frau's phone if need be and she can download it. None of my other phones let me send a photo to another phone without a data plan.
All of them can send and receive texts, but I don't use that feature and wish it could be turned off.
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Re: Managed Desktop

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Battery life depends on a few things. An idle phone will consume more or less battery depending on how often it needs to handshake with the local base station to identify it's location. I got my phone in Chicago and it didn't need that handshake very often. Down here the network has a hard time finding me. It's all the same Virgin Mobile network, but I'm on the fringe here. Up north I was in the middle of the playing field. Then too, the various software in the phone runs in the background. I'd guess the newer phones "run idle" more often than the older ones. It could also be the FBI keeping track of you. You may not know they are spying on you, but your phone's battery does. :lol:

There is software behind the texting feature, and it might be possible to turn it off. However, the text messages are inserted between the voice frames, which was unused bandwidth before texting became popular. Thus, the service providers are picking up an extra profit for no cost to them. The vacant spaces of bandwidth is always there. My data plan is $5/month to send 200 text messages or 100 photographs. It's the minimum I could buy and I don't think I ever used it fully ever since I started the subscription. The only problem I have now is that some photographs cannot be received by my ancient flip phone. The new smart phones have different formats and huge data files attached to their pictures. It's one more reason I'm thinking of moving up to something smarter.
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Re: Managed Desktop

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I've got most of my family conditioned to send me things via e-mail.
They know I don't respond to text messages, but sometimes they send one anyhow so I know what's going on.

My brother lives at the Duck Club, where most cell phones don't work.
As you pointed out, when in a fringe area, the batteries get zapped super fast, probably from something like roaming for their own service towers.
You'll see many of the folks who live there always taking the battery out of their phones, because just turning it off don't seem to save the battery from draining.
From what I've heard, a cell phone, even when turned off, can be turned back on remotely, so it's not really off.

As long as I have my computers, I don't need to worry about a cell phone except to make an emergency call.
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Re: Managed Desktop

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You are correct about cell phones never resting unless the power pack is removed. The network to which the phone is connected, service provider et al, need to know where that phone is located at all times. A handshake signal is received and transmitted at regular intervals to assure the location is up to date. Some networks do the query more often than others, and when on the fringe it needs to be verified more often. Thus the battery drain increases. All that makes sense. What bothers me the most about any cell phone is that it can be put into the listening mode without a call being made and with the device turned off. Again, the only way to stop this is to remove the battery. This feature is not new either. It's just part of how cell phones actually work.

I like texting. However, it's absolutely absurd that people feel a need to send written messages over a device that is designed to exchange voice signals. The reason for texting to be popular escapes me. It was popularized by teenagers using cell phones, but I don't know why. Perhaps it has something to do with being able to communicate silently. Maybe. But, it's not entirely silent. The ringer goes off with incoming messages. Texting is great when on the road and your computer isn't exactly at your side. I know. I know. There are laws governing that, but it's still very convenient. :grin:
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Re: Managed Desktop

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It might be my age, but I've never understood why texting took off like it did. It is so much faster and easier to say something than it is to type it out, especially on a micro-miniature keyboard where on many cell phones you have to press the same key several times to get a single letter.
I see kids getting impatient if someone doesn't respond to their text instantly too. Crazy!
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Re: Managed Desktop

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So ... I asked my friend Googly "Why is texting so popular?"
What do you do? You gather a crowd by "texting" people, which is typing and sending them very short messages, using the readout screen on a cell phone or a pager with a tiny keyboard. It's cheaper than actually calling everyone you know and can be used to reach many people at once, so it takes less time.
Now that I think about it, texting is how all those street rallies/protests get organized. I dunno. I'm sticking with the fact it's more private and people like that part of the deal. Hell, if the president favors it, it can't be all bad. Right? :lol:
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Re: Managed Desktop

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About ten years ago, I could write a note on my computer, and send it to a cell phone telephone number as a text message. It didn't work both ways though. It was handy to send my son short text messages so he knew to send me an e-mail or give me a phone call. Then the service just quit working, so I'm thinking perhaps it was a feature of his cell phone provider. Although I did send out a few to other folks a couple of times. That don't mean they went through though.
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Re: Managed Desktop

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Back in the day ... most of my texting was as you describe. I used a Yahoo Chat Client on my computer. One feature it had that no other chat client had was the ability to exchange SMS messages. I was given a special phone number for the Yahoo account to which the sender would send the text. Any messages I received showed up on my desktop in a small pop-up window. I stuck with Yahoo for that reason only. Then, as you say, one day it all stopped working. I got no explanation from Yahoo, which was fine because that's about the time I bought my first mobile phone.

These days Skype has the same ability but only by subscription. I like the idea of using my computer instead of those micro keyboards on the cell phones. Apparently it's not profitable so that the service is not offered universally.
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Re: Managed Desktop

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You are jogging my old failing memory banks, hi hi.
I think Yahoo is how I got my sons text messages as well via a pop-up box.
I preferred Eudora for my e-mail, but I also had Yahoo and Netscape back then too.

My wife's Schmartz-Fone can send e-mails, including pictures. Works about the same way as posting to Farcebook.
She selects what she wants to send, adds a message, and gets a drop down box to enter an e-mail or select from specific URLs. She has to set up the URL first to one of her own accounts and under which category she uses. But once it is set up, it is no problem for her to post to her Farcebook Wall.
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