Win8



  • So work has got me a win8 touchscreen laptop - the Lenovo Yoga 13... it has win8. The boss likes them so we can demo our software ‘professionally’ in tablet mode.

    I tried so hard to get used to it, it's crap in tablet mode and laptop mode.  I nearly always use laptop mode (why not when you have a keyboard with you).  I gave up and using classic shell to make the machine at least slightly productive.  Some of the spec on this machine are ok, the size and a decent res on the display.

    Recently I had to connect to a new building WiFi and there are a couple of different networks, so they need setting up to connect in the correct order and might as well delete that coffee shop I connected to once - that used to be easy in Win7.

    I had a quick Google and at best I can find Microsoft suggest to do it via the command line:
     http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-8/manage-wireless-network-profiles

    WTF - Blakey rat has now even lost his argument that windows had better productivity over Linux type OS..



  • @Helix said:

    WTF - Blakey rat has now even lost his argument that windows had better productivity over Linux type OS..
     

     

    I can't belive that is true in the first place after you get past the initial learning curve.



  • @Chame1eon said:

    @Helix said:

    WTF - Blakey rat has now even lost his argument that windows had better productivity over Linux type OS..
     

     

    I can't belive that is true in the first place after you get past the initial learning curve.

    It's not. Helix just hates the idea of actually learning new things, even when they're actually better (or at least equal) once you get used to them.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Helix said:

    I had a quick Google and at best I can find Microsoft suggest to do it via the command line:
     http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-8/manage-wireless-network-profiles

    Almost. Actually, they say:

    Some tasks, such as deleting a profile, must be done at the command prompt.

    Um...wow. You'd think they could at least just hook Excel up.



  • @Helix said:

    Recently I had to connect to a new building WiFi and there are a couple of different networks, so they need setting up to connect in the correct order and might as well delete that coffee shop I connected to once - that used to be easy in Win7.

    And this is one of the reasons why I haven't "upgraded" to Windows 8 yet.

    It seems that every other version of Windows is trash.

    • Windows 3.1 - revolutionary for its time.
    • Windows 95 - some problems.
    • Windows 98 - pretty good.
    • Windows ME - useless and pointless.
    • Windows XP - great.
    • Windows Vista - worthless.
    • Windows 7 - nice.
    • Windows 8 - WHAAA????!!?!?!!!!??

    I have good hopes for Windows 9. :)



  • @Jedalyzer said:

    I have good hopes for Windows 9. :)


    I'm just hoping they don't go full derp and do away with the mouse and keyboard altogether. I can't imagine how hard it would be to use Excel on a pure touch interface.


  • BINNED

    @DescentJS said:

    Helix just hatesWindows users hate the idea of actually learning new things, even when they're actually better (or at least equal) once you get used to them.

    FTFY

    Actually, you can't blame Windows users for that given that people like blakeyrat have been telling them for years that they should be able to just use computers without learning anything.



  • @PedanticCurmudgeon said:

    @DescentJS said:
    Helix just hatesWindows users hate the idea of actually learning new things, even when they're actually better (or at least equal) once you get used to them.

    FTFY

    Actually, you can't blame Windows users for that given that people like blakeyrat have been telling them for years that they should be able to just use computers without learning anything.

    Nothing to do with users or learning this time. I *love* messing with different environments, and have so far tried (and usually enjoyed) most of what's available under the sun (only jwm and awesome remaining) and have used Win8 for about 3 months now (so you can't say I haven't given it a chance), but it's an utterly irredeemable piece of garbage. It's the exact opposite of a usable environment, implementing every functionality in the most dain bramaged way, and if it weren't for third-party hacks I would had been forced to remove it in order to be able to do my daily work. There's nothing to learn here, one can only grow slightly more numb to the constant punishment that is Win8, and some particular individuals seem to develop Stockholm syndrom that they start calling "having learned Win8". And yes, Linux is waaaay more usable in many scenarios (non-.Net development being one of them).


  • @DescentJS said:

    Helix just hates the idea of actually learning new things,
    This is the standard excuse used by shitty programmers to justify their shitty programs - "You just don't want to learn something new". @DescentJS said:
    even when they're actually better (or at least equal)
    If something is better, you've got a valid argument. It its the same, just different, then no. @DescentJS said:
    once you get used to them
    To me, that's a little like saying "getting punched on the face isn't so bad once you get used to it".

     



  •  I'm using windows atm becuase I have a few pieces of software I need for school that I don't want to try to force to work with wine if it is even possible, but command line Linux strikes me as something that would be dramatically more usable after you get used to it. It's just much more flexible.  Even if it didn't turn out to be just flat out faster, there seems to be a trend in Windows toward bigger and bigger icons with less information density, less configurability and less transparency.  They seem to try to implement everything in the most bloated and overly complicated way possible while still being less flexible.  I just find it annoying to use.  I once gave up reading log files on a netbook in Vista becuase it was just too slow and the screen space was too cramped with all of the extra panels.  I can't beleive it is possible make reading logs so ridiculously slow and awkward even with low end hardware. If they would have just started with a more flexible file format there would have at least been another way to do it.



  • @Helix's link said:

    Stop automatically connecting to a network that's out of range

     

     

    Not sure I'm reading this right, but Windows 8 seriously thinks 'I want to connect to this network but I can't see it. I'll try to connect to it anyway'?

     

    Regarding Linux, I've twice attempted to use Ubuntu, and twice given up. The first time I gave up after about two hours trying to get the computer's built-in wifi to work (a usb wifi adapter sort-of worked, but I needed that for another computer). The second time I somehow managed to make it fail to boot while trying to change screen resolution (though that may have been the fault of a particularly unusual monitor that wasn't sure of its own native resolution).

     



  • @jakjawagon said:

    Not sure I'm reading this right, but Windows 8 seriously thinks 'I want to connect to this network but I can't see it. I'll try to connect to it anyway'?
    Yes, that's been a feature for quite some time. I have my router configured to not broadcast its SSID. Here's a screen shot from Windows 7. I would assume Windows 8 has something similar.




  • @Jedalyzer said:

    And this is one of the reasons why I haven't "upgraded" to Windows 8 yet.

    It seems that every other version of Windows is trash.

    • Windows 3.1 - revolutionary for its time.
    • Windows 95 - some problems.
    • Windows 98 - pretty good.
    • Windows ME - useless and pointless.
    • Windows XP - great.
    • Windows Vista - worthless.
    • Windows 7 - nice.
    • Windows 8 - WHAAA????!!?!?!!!!??

     

    I have good hopes for Windows 9. :)

    I always like how people always omit versions of Windows. No Windows 98SE, no Windows 95OSR2? Why no Windows 2000?

    Also, people said the same thing when XP was released. They said XP sucked, and Windows ME sucked- and stuck Windows 2000 in between as the good version. Because if you need to space out the ones you don't like you can always shove in a few other Windows versions. to try to prove somepoint about how the new version is just following an established pattern that doesn't actually exist.

     



  • @DescentJS said:

    @Chame1eon said:

    @Helix said:

    WTF - Blakey rat has now even lost his argument that windows had better productivity over Linux type OS..
     

     

    I can't belive that is true in the first place after you get past the initial learning curve.

    It's not. Helix just hates the idea of actually learning new things, even when they're actually better (or at least equal) once you get used to them.

    I've always found it funny that so many "power users" who should be most adept at anticipating and accepting change in technology are often the ones most afraid of it. They'll upgrade to the new thing, but then agonize about changing everything so it's just like the old thing. They upgrade to XP and switch the theme back to the Windows 2000 flat grey, they get Windows 7 and turn on the "wide taskbar buttons", etc. Each iteration needs to be like the last iteration because "the last one was better", but they say that every iteration, so I guess they wind up finally giving it a chance each and every time.



  • @jakjawagon said:

    The second time I somehow managed to make it fail to boot while trying to change screen resolution (though that may have been the fault of a particularly unusual monitor that wasn't sure of its own native resolution).

    Nope, the monitor has nothing to do with it. That's like blaming your speakers for ubuntu breaking audio with another rushed update.



  • @Soviut said:

    @jakjawagon said:
    The second time I somehow managed to make it fail to boot while trying to change screen resolution (though that may have been the fault of a particularly unusual monitor that wasn't sure of its own native resolution).

    Nope, the monitor has nothing to do with it. That's like blaming your speakers for ubuntu breaking audio with another rushed update.

    Sure, if you had speakers with a digital connection that let you find out how large they are, what impedance they have, and how much power you need to send to them in order for sound to be audible. And then none of what it told you was actually correct.



  • When I started work in 1984 you turned on the computer, waited a few seconds for CP/M to load and then you typed the name of the program you wanted and it started running.

     In 2013 you turn on the computer, waited a "few" seconds for Windows 8 to load. Got to the screen of useless tiles, and then you typed the name of the program you wanted and it started running. 

    As the French put it.. Plus ca change plus la meme chose.

     

    My employer gave me a shiny,fast 6 core 16GB Windows 8 machine.  It is only ever  used to host a development Server 2008 VM . The keyboard and mouse are jammed out of reach into a bookshelf beside it. 

    Set the power profile to never turn off and get on with actually being able to use Windows 7 on my crippled old PC.

    Waiting for Windows 9 and the sacking of the Windows  marketing droids who have wrecked a fundamentally good OS by giving it a user experience which works great with hand waving at an X-Box with Kinect but is not any good for doing lots of things.


     



  • @El_Heffe said:

    My problem with "Connect automatically when this network is in range" being off, as I like it, is that when the connection drops Windows won't reconnect again automatically.
    Ok, that's what the option says; but I wish it meant "don't connect on startup, but when I tell you to connect keep the connection alive even if it means reconnecting, then when I tell you to disconnect stop connecting".

    Anyway, why the fuck did Microsoft stop selling Win7? I won't buy Win8 on principle, so they will be losing potential money if/when I get a new computer.



  • @jakjawagon said:

    Not sure I'm reading this right, but Windows 8 seriously thinks 'I want to connect to this network but I can't see it. I'll try to connect to it anyway'?
     

    Some people have funny ideas about security, like port knowcking, or changing the port of services... That option is there because of one of those funny ideas: hidden networks. Theory goes that if you don't anounce your network, hackers won't know it's there, so you are safe. The fact that this theory is completely false don't stop such kind of people, thus Windows has to support it.

     @jakjawagon said:

    Regarding Linux, I've twice attempted to use Ubuntu, and twice given up.

    Just a small secret: I mainly use Linux for more than 10 years... I was never able to get a fully working installation of Ubuntu.

     



  • @Zecc said:

    Anyway, why the fuck did Microsoft stop selling Win7?
    They did?  That's news to me.



  • @Zecc said:

    Anyway, why the fuck did Microsoft stop selling Win7? I won't buy Win8 on principle, so they will be losing potential money if/when I get a new computer.
    1. I bought a laptop with Windows 7 about a month ago for my mom; where are you shopping?
    2. Windows 8 Professional comes with full downgrade rights to Windows 7 http://www.microsoft.com/oem/en/licensing/sblicensing/pages/downgrade_rights.aspx#fbid=PtavZrAVIr6

    That said, I like W8.1. Like most major Windows UI revisions for client software (I haven't played with a Windows Server yet with the Modern UI), the first major service pack seems to always be what the software should have been at launch. (Boot to desktop option, fully integrated settings in Modern, etc.)



  • @Zecc said:

    My problem with "Connect automatically when this network is in range" being off, as I like it, is that when the connection drops Windows won't reconnect again automatically.
    I can't say I've ever had that problem. If the connection drops, Windows at least tries to reconnect automatically (although the problem was usually that my crappy router needed to be reset).


  • BINNED

    @Mcoder said:

    Just a small secret: I mainly use Linux for more than 10 years... I was never able to get a fully working installation of Ubuntu.


    I wouldn't go around telling people that if I were you.



  • @Zecc said:

    I wish it meant "don't connect on startup, but when I tell you to connect keep the connection alive even if it means reconnecting, then when I tell you to disconnect stop connecting".
    That's exactly what it does. You tell Windows to connect or not somewhere else - on the available networks screen.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @PedanticCurmudgeon said:

    @Mcoder said:

    Just a small secret: I mainly use Linux for more than 10 years... I was never able to get a fully working installation of Ubuntu.


    I wouldn't go around telling people that if I were you.
    Probably hardware - I managed to get it installed and running on a 2GB CF card, after a few attempts, on some embedded hardware.





    Why I had to do that, however, is another matter - and it wasn't by choice. (It involved a mobile company's modem and their WTF-worthy API for communicating with their modems.)



  • @Mcoder said:

    Theory goes that if you don't anounce your network, hackers won't know it's there, so you are safe. The fact that this theory is completely false don't stop such kind of people, thus Windows has to support it.
    Doesn't disabling SSID broadcasting reduce the amount of radiation around us, though? Serious question.

    Edit: assuming wireless clients that don't go around trying to connect blindly, but only when told to.

    @El_Heffe said:

    @Zecc said:

    Anyway, why the fuck did Microsoft stop selling Win7?
    They did?  That's news to me.

    Sure, but Newegg isn't Microsoft. I've asked them if I could buy from them, even just serial numbers because I already have the DVD, they said they're no longer selling.

    @rad131304 said:

    Windows 8 Professional comes with full downgrade rights to Windows 7
    Cool. Didn't know that.

    @TDWTF123 said:

    @Zecc said:
    I wish it meant "don't connect on startup, but when I tell you to connect keep the connection alive even if it means reconnecting, then when I tell you to disconnect stop connecting".
    That's exactly what it does. You tell Windows to connect or not somewhere else - on the available networks screen.
    Sure, that's where I go tell Windows to reconnect every time the connection drops. I just wish I didn't have to. Yeah, the problem wouldn't be there if the connection wasn't so crappy, but two wrongs don't make a right.

     



     


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Zecc said:

    but two wrongs don't make a right.

    But how many wrongs make a git?



  • @Zecc said:

    two wrongs don't make a right
    But three lefts do.



  • @Zecc said:

    Doesn't disabling SSID broadcasting reduce the amount of radiation around us, though? Serious question.
    No. It still transmits the exact same packets to notify wireless clients that it exists, but the SSID field is left blank.@Zecc said:
    Edit: assuming wireless clients that don't go around trying to connect blindly, but only when told to.
    Well, that's exactly what wireless clients do. So in fact it just increases the amount of radiation.



  • @anotherusername said:

    @Zecc said:
    Doesn't disabling SSID broadcasting reduce the amount of radiation around us, though? Serious question.
    No. It still transmits the exact same packets to notify wireless clients that it exists, but the SSID field is left blank.
    That seems rather stupid. I thought disabling SSID broadcasting meant disabling broadcasting altogether.

    @anotherusername said:

    @Zecc said:
    Edit: assuming wireless clients that don't go around trying to connect blindly, but only when told to.
    Well, that's exactly what wireless clients do. So in fact it just increases the amount of radiation.
    Are you telling me my RF kill switch is a lie? My belief system is broken, my world view is shattered! I need to lie down.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Zecc said:

    @anotherusername said:
    @Zecc said:
    Doesn't disabling SSID broadcasting reduce the amount of radiation around us, though? Serious question.
    No. It still transmits the exact same packets to notify wireless clients that it exists, but the SSID field is left blank.
    That seems rather stupid. I thought disabling SSID broadcasting meant disabling broadcasting altogether.
    No - it stops it broadcasting the SSID. Like the name indicates. Here's a pikiweedia article on what is broadcast. Of course, since this isn't the only way of discovering the SSID, it's on a par with changing the default ports for services as a way of obfuscating how it can be used.



  • @Zecc said:

    @TDWTF123 said:
    @Zecc said:
    I wish it meant "don't
    connect on startup, but when I tell you to connect keep the connection
    alive even if it means reconnecting, then when I tell you to disconnect
    stop connecting".
    That's exactly what it does. You tell Windows
    to connect or not somewhere else - on the available networks
    screen.
    Sure, that's where I go tell Windows to reconnect every time the connection drops. I just wish I didn't have to. Yeah, the problem wouldn't be there if the connection wasn't so crappy, but two wrongs don't make a right.
    You've turned off automatic reconnection. This is a different thing to whether you manually connect to a network or connect automatically when it's detected or on startup or whatnot. You should turn on 'automatically reconnect' and set the connection to manual. Then you go and click on it to connect, and again to disconnect when you're done.



  • @PedanticCurmudgeon said:

    @Mcoder said:

    Just a small secret: I mainly use Linux for more than 10 years... I was never able to get a fully working installation of Ubuntu.

    I wouldn't go around telling people that if I were you.
     

    Why? From Linux from scratch, to distros that don't exist anymore to the more maintream Debian and Red Hat (and several derivatives of both), I've used them all. Are you saying that a distro giving me problems is a signal that I'm not competent enough for using it?

     

    And yes, it was always hardware. Every time I tried Ubuntu there was a hardware problem. Always different hardware, but there was always something that didn't work specificaly on Ubuntu. Yeah,  I could always compile another kernel, replace the initrd, change the udev rules and threaten the computer untill it works. But I always choosed to just install something that I could update later.

     



  • @Zecc said:

    That seems rather stupid. I thought disabling SSID broadcasting meant disabling broadcasting altogether.

    Nope. http://blogs.technet.com/b/networking/archive/2008/02/08/non-broadcast-wireless-ssids-why-hidden-wireless-networks-are-a-bad-idea.aspx

    It is possible to configure most wireless Access Points (AP) to not broadcast their SSID (Service Set Identifier). The intent of this feature is to prevent unauthorized users from being able to detect the wireless network from their wireless clients. APs send beacon frames to advertise capability information and parameter sets for the network. Turning off broadcasting on the AP does not prevent the beacon frame from being sent. The wireless AP still sends a beacon frame, but it is sent with the SSID value set to NULL.

    ...and then you have the wireless clients, which periodically send probe requests that include the SSID (in the clear) of the network that they're trying to connect to.

    So to summarise, if you had a wi-fi access point that you never ever used, then a sniffer would be able to determine that you had it (by the beacon packets) but would not be able to determine the SSID; as soon as you connected a device the sniffer would be able to get the SSID because the device needs to transmit that to connect.

    @Zecc said:
    Are you telling me my RF kill switch is a lie?
    No... the airplane mode switch should work fine. And then you can just unplug the useless wi-fi hub as you won't be able to use it anyway.


  • @Helix said:

    Recently I had to connect to a new building WiFi and there are a couple of different networks, so they need setting up to connect in the correct order and might as well delete that coffee shop I connected to once - that used to be easy in Win7.

    I had a quick Google and at best I can find Microsoft suggest to do it via the command line:
     http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-8/manage-wireless-network-profiles

    Try doing it on an iOS device. The only way to make it forget an SSID is to be within range of an AP that has that SSID.


  • @Jedalyzer said:

    It seems that every other version of Windows is trash.

    • Windows 3.1 - revolutionary for its time.
    • Windows 95 - some problems.
    • Windows 98 - pretty good.
    • Windows ME - useless and pointless.
    • Windows XP - nice.
    • Windows Vista - worthless.
    • Windows 7 - great.
    • Windows 8 - WHAAA????!!?!?!!!!??

    I have good hopes for Windows 9. :)


    They've gone Star Trek.


  • BINNED

    @Mcoder said:

    @PedanticCurmudgeon said:

    I wouldn't go around telling people that if I were you.
     

    Why? From Linux from scratch, to distros that don't exist anymore to the more maintream Debian and Red Hat (and several derivatives of both), I've used them all. Are you saying that a distro giving me problems is a signal that I'm not competent enough for using it?

    No, it makes you sound more like the "I've been a sysadmin for 20 years but I can't get Linux to work" sort of troll that used to frequent Linux forums.
    @Mcoder said:

    And yes, it was always hardware. Every time I tried Ubuntu there was a hardware problem. Always different hardware, but there was always something that didn't work specificaly on Ubuntu. Yeah,  I could always compile another kernel, replace the initrd, change the udev rules and threaten the computer untill it works. But I always choosed to just install something that I could update later.

     

    So what did you use instead of Ubuntu?



  • @CodeNinja said:

    @Jedalyzer said:

    I have good hopes for Windows 9. :)


    I'm just hoping they don't go full derp and do away with the mouse and keyboard altogether. I can't imagine how hard it would be to use Excel on a pure touch interface.

    You joke, but my wife has to do that. The IT department bought everyone iPads because they're cheaper than giving everyone laptops.

    The iPad essentially does nothing but logs into a VMWare VDI instance and from there they use a few webapps and, of course, Office. She does a decent amount of work in Excel (not real Excel work, mostly just formatting crap into nice columns and copy-pasting stuff from one spreadsheet into another spreadsheet). She does it all w/o a mouse, but they did get her and her co-workers a bluetooth keyboard that blows goats.

    She's actually gotten pretty good at it. I suppose when you fool around with an iPad for 20-30 hrs/wk, you can do all kinds of fun stuff in Excel with nothing but a touch interface.



  • @Chame1eon said:

    I can't beleive it is possible make reading logs so ridiculously slow and awkward even with low end hardware.
    Don't worry, even with high-end hardware (Xeon E5, SSD, 32GB RAM) the logs are still slow (it takes a bit less than 2 minutes for the Event Viewer to load in this configuration - I'll never understand how they managed to screw that up). Also, trying to filter often results in "Event file is corrupt" message or something similar.



  • @CodeNinja said:

    @Jedalyzer said:

    I have good hopes for Windows 9. :)


    I'm just hoping they don't go full derp and do away with the mouse and keyboard altogether. I can't imagine how hard it would be to use Excel on a pure touch interface.
    Well, since they seem to be badly copying Apple, maybe they'll badly copy The Onion badly copying Apple.



  • @PedanticCurmudgeon said:

    So what did you use instead of Ubuntu?
     

    Debian, Knopix (don't recomend installing it), Red Hat, Slackware. Yeah, I tried it a few times, for a while, I liked to switch distros.

    By the way, I'm not a sysadmin.



  • @anotherusername said:

    So to summarise, if you had a wi-fi access point that you never ever used, then a sniffer would be able to determine that you had it (by the beacon packets) but would not be able to determine the SSID; as soon as you connected a device the sniffer would be able to get the SSID because the device needs to transmit that to connect.
    I knew the latter. It's not a problem because firstly I didn't have any illusions of added security, and secondly because my wireless clients are two stay-at-home laptops that don't go around being chatty.

    I didn't know the former because I misinterpreted "disable SSID broadcasting" as "disable broadcasting". But now I know better.

    Anyways, WPA2 with a random password of over 20 characters should be secure enough, right?



  • @Zecc said:

    Anyways, WPA2 with a random password of over 20 characters should be secure enough, right?


    Well, yes, as long as your router doesn't support WPS.



  • @Zecc said:

    Anyways, WPA2 with a random password of over 20 characters should be secure enough, right?

    I'd certainly hope. I suppose anyone with the time and dedication could eventually crack it but it's unlikely enough to not fret over.

    I actually have two wi-fi access points: a home router (WPA2 and a non-hidden SSID) and a portable hotspot (WPA2, hidden SSID, and MAC filtering). Main rationale for the hidden SSID on the hotspot is because I don't necessarily want any and everyone to be able to see the hotspot that I have in my pocket (or am I just really glad to see them?). Of course they could tell if they had any sort of wi-fi sniffing equipment (but then, it's not really like it's a secret). The rationale for the MAC filtering is because turning it off/on is an easy way to allow/prevent someone connecting, because I wanted to give them access once but in general I don't want their phone to try to connect whenever I'm nearby. Although I've since rethought that strategy and realised that, since they are already set up to connect to my home wi-fi, it's simpler to just change the SSID and password of the hotspot to match that and turn SSID broadcast on when I want to allow them to connect to it.



  • @anonymous234 said:

    @Zecc said:

     

    Anyways, WPA2 with a random password of over 20 characters should be secure enough, right?

    Well, yes, as long as your router doesn't support WPS.
    It does but I had already turned it off.

     



  • @anotherusername said:

    The rationale for the MAC filtering is because turning it off/on is an easy way to allow/prevent someone connecting, because I wanted to give them access once but in general I don't want their phone to try to connect whenever I'm nearby.

    Unless someone spots a machine on the network, which at that point they can steal the MAC address because it's broadcast in the clear. Then the attacker can choose to bump the authorized user from the network or just wait for them to disconnect and hop on later. WPA2 makes MAC filtering nothing more than a security theater hurdle to jump to legitimately add someone to your network.



  • @Zecc said:

    @anonymous234 said:

    @Zecc said:

     

    Anyways, WPA2 with a random password of over 20 characters should be secure enough, right?


    Well, yes, as long as your router doesn't support WPS.
    It does but I had already turned it off.

     

    Well you should be fine then.

    ...as long as your router is not one of those that pretend to turn WPS off but don't actually do it.



  • @rad131304 said:

    Unless someone spots a machine on the network, which at that point they can steal the MAC address because it's broadcast in the clear.
    I realise that, but I trusted them enough to give them the password, so I trust them enough to not try to spoof their MAC address and get on when I'm nearby. It's mainly just to prevent their phone from connecting automatically without them even realising it. It's a 4G data plan so my usage is limited and I don't want them using it without me knowing.



  • @BC_Programmer said:

    @Jedalyzer said:

    And this is one of the reasons why I haven't "upgraded" to Windows 8 yet.

    It seems that every other version of Windows is trash.

    • Windows 3.1 - revolutionary for its time.
    • Windows 95 - some problems.
    • Windows 98 - pretty good.
    • Windows ME - useless and pointless.
    • Windows XP - great.
    • Windows Vista - worthless.
    • Windows 7 - nice.
    • Windows 8 - WHAAA????!!?!?!!!!??

     

    I have good hopes for Windows 9. :)

    I always like how people always omit versions of Windows. No Windows 98SE, no Windows 95OSR2? Why no Windows 2000?

    Windows 98SE, 95OSR were mostly service packs, Windows XP SP2 isn't included either besides probably being the SP with the most extensive modifications. Vista SP1 is the only Windows SP to date that actually replaces the kernel.
    Windows 2000 omission is somewhat justified in that is was a mostly-business OS, just as Windows NT isn't included. Windows XP was the real first consumer NT OS.

    Still doesn't change the fact that these things are mostly for fun and could probably be constructed in whatever way you want.



  • I've been using Windows 8 for nearly a year — it's not too bad.

    It's just that Microsoft love to fiddle with stuff. For example, in the Windows 7/Server 2008 UI you can access \\SOME-SERVER and click a toolbar button to show its Devices and Printers panel, and thereby push out 32-bit or 64-bit drivers onto it. In the Windows 8/Server 2012 UI, you can only click that button in the ribbon from the view of all servers on the network: the command was moved up a level in the UI. If the computer doesn't show in the list of computers on the network (probably something to do with it being on the wrong side of a VPN), you can't push out drivers any more.

    Often, all this random fiddling with things breaks things that used to work or used to be possible. Vista used to let you name your network connections. In 7, this wasn't all that relevant. Windows 8 now has a hugeass sidebar for connecting to VPNs and wireless, which makes it all the more irritating that your LAN has some generic name. Why not just call it "Ethernet" or "Wired LAN" if I'm banned from giving it a useful name? Instead of "Network Connection 3" …

    I'm not averse to change, but I am averse to the human obsession that you must change every visible detail otherwise people will cry that it's not "new" (it's not unique to IT) — the concept of improvement without overt visual change is lost on anyone in marketing, while most users would prefer things be left alone. This is what leads to all the senseless fiddling that breaks all the little but important things that the fiddlers lose sight of.

    For example, if I want a control panel in Vista or Server 2008, I'll type it into the Start menu before realising that that wasn't implemented yet. Nothing wrong with that, it's just an improvement in 7 that sadly makes Vista/Server 2008 retrospectively annoying. However, 8 took a step backwards and in 8 or Server 2012 I'm back to cursing the Start screen for not handing me control panels when I type something in! If I wasn't switching between XP/Vista/7/8/2003/2008/2008R2/2012 constantly I'd remember to use the Win+W for wettings. My issue isn't so much that programs and settings are separated, but rather that you can't cycle Programs/Settings/Files with something obvious like ctrl+tab or ctrl+pg down — if I had ONLY that, I'd be perfectly happy with the split, because it would be an easy keystroke away.

    (8.1 has apparently reversed this decision again …)


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