Windows 8

[Draylor]

[How To] Install Windows 8 Developer Preview in Virtual Machine « Techie Talkz might prove useful to anyone trying to fire this up in a VM.

Short version: freebie VMWare Player doesnt work for this (yet?), use VirtualBox.

Worked for me.

 

[Keitanz]

Bah! I'll stick to Windows XP. It does everything I need it to.

You will have to upgrade to at least Win7 within 4-5 years though, most applications (browsers etc) will not be usable with XP in 2016 I bet.

 

[DaGaffer]

You will have to upgrade to at least Win7 within 4-5 years though, most applications (browsers etc) will not be usable with XP in 2016 I bet.

Windows XP is going out of support in quite a few areas already. I've even binned it on my netbook now, which was a bit of a risk, but win7 is fine so long as don't run Aero and all the crap.

I'm actually quite looking forward to Windows 8; I can see it leading to things like genuinely useful tablets (tab on the move but PC when you're in range of a KB/Mouse etc.) which was supposed to happen as far back as Vista, but a lot of lessons have been learned since then. Also be interesting to see what developments the integration of touch, mouse & kb and even gesture stuff like Kinect in one device will lead to.

I do wonder how the UI is going to play nice with third-party programs though; I can see there being quite a jarring transition between the two for a long time. Sure, some people will develop with this Metro interface in mind, but a lot won't.

 

[caLLous]

Quick sidenote Gaff, what is the spec of your netbook that you just put 7 on? I have an aging Core Duo T2400 1.83GHz (not core 2 duo) Vaio with 1GB of ram and I'm wondering if I should take the plunge with 7 on there or just keep XP going til the laptop eventually keels over.

 

[MYstIC G]

I think PC's will go the way of the Asus Pad Transformer crossed with a TV.

Large ( > 32" ) display, stylised main box underneath like your sky box or PS3, docked tablet for 2nd screen, pull the tablet away and take it with you.

Then when you sit down somewhere else your tablet can push the stuff to a larger box again if more grunt is required. Cloud can be used to sort out licensing, i.e. if I buy word it works on my main box and follows me onto my tablet or phone and back.

 

[dysfunction]

I think PC's will go the way of the Asus Pad Transformer crossed with a TV.

Large ( > 32" ) display, stylised main box underneath like your sky box or PS3, docked tablet for 2nd screen, pull the tablet away and take it with you.

Then when you sit down somewhere else your tablet can push the stuff to a larger box again if more grunt is required. Cloud can be used to sort out licensing, i.e. if I buy word it works on my main box and follows me onto my tablet or phone and back.

I agree. this is definitely the way computing is moving to.
You may not even need a main box to use everything. All you would need is a screen with internet access.

 

[DaGaffer]

Quick sidenote Gaff, what is the spec of your netbook that you just put 7 on? I have an aging Core Duo T2400 1.83GHz (not core 2 duo) Vaio with 1GB of ram and I'm wondering if I should take the plunge with 7 on there or just keep XP going til the laptop eventually keels over.

Standard 1.6GHz Atom with 1GB of RAM. I was nervous about switching to Win7 tbh, but I had spare licence from a three-licence copy and I'd used the compatability tester which said it was OK, so to I decided to give it a go. Worked fine. I doubt it would stand up to any kind of heavy duty productivity work, but I run video, Skype, paintshop pro, that kind of thing, on it all the time.

 

[DaGaffer]

I agree. this is definitely the way computing is moving to.
You may not even need a main box to use everything. All you would need is a screen with internet access.

I don't think that's the MS vision; they're keen on local hardware acceleration rather than going for a fully cloudy solution, and I kind of agree with them. Maybe in the uptopian future where bandwidth is ubiquitous and uncontended, then completely dumb clients might make sense, but that's a pipe dream (see what I did there) that I doubt I'll live to see.

 

[dysfunction]

I don't know about that. MS may not want that now but the speed at which technology and infrastructure is changing I would say it is within our life time that this would happen...

We have already progressed from 56k dial up to 50mb speeds at home in a fairly short space of time...no reason it couldn't double or even triple within the next 20 to 30 years

 

[caLLous]

It's not across the board though. Until there's an infrastructure solution that stretches from the centre of the biggest cities to the most remote parts of the countryside then I can't see that taking off. And that's what isn't going to happen any time soon.

 

[dysfunction]

The thing is technology is moving forwards at an exponential rate. The tech world is a very different place to what it was like in the 70's.

What will the world be like in the next 40 years? Who knows but one thing is for sure it will be just as stark a difference as the 70's tech is to todays!

 

[DaGaffer]

The thing is technology is moving forwards at an exponential rate. The tech world is a very different place to what it was like in the 70's.

What will the world be like in the next 40 years? Who knows but one thing is for sure it will be just as stark a difference as the 70's tech is to todays!

Don't get me wrong; there are a lot of vested interests who want an on-demand-only internet to happen; media owners, Google, politicians, but I don't necessarily think its in the interest of the general population, and I can see that becoming a political issue; I just hope people don't just sleepwalk into letting the likes of Google or Amazon run everything for them remotely without thinking it through; I'd rather not live in a world where a company can change the content of a book or a movie without me even knowing about it, on the whim of a politician or a censor (for example).

I think (hope) there'll be enough people who think the same way as I do to maintain a market for local storage and processing

 

[MYstIC G]

I don't want anybody owning my stuff, fuck that.

 

[Embattle]

Windows XP support officially runs out in 2014, it has only lasted so long because of business customers.

I view Microsoft's use of Windows 8 as an attempt to push into other markets via the familiarity of a UI. In essence they'll get users of Laptops and Desktops to eat Windows 8 in the market they remain dominant in and thus hope this means they'll want to use the same sort of interface in the various smaller mobile devices.

The market Microsoft exists in is technology and it is a very fast moving market, the dominant position Microsoft has had certainly resulted in it being the sloth of animals when it comes to exploiting the technology market and a good part of me feels it'll be too late again.

 

[soze]

It's not across the board though. Until there's an infrastructure solution that stretches from the centre of the biggest cities to the most remote parts of the countryside then I can't see that taking off. And that's what isn't going to happen any time soon.

I think (but i can't find the artical) that fttc (50mb) has to be spead over a very large portion of the UK by 2015 or BT have to pay a large fine as some of the money for the infastucture is being provided by the EU, so fingers crossed. I had to laugh i checked when i will get FTTC (if i can as i think i go direct to the exchange not a cabint) and its late 2012 yet Frinton On Sea has it. I found that strange till i read one of BT's top guys in new technology live there lol

 

[caLLous]

Aha but that's for a densely populated country like England. In France they have just got my area onto 512kbit DSL, which (if I understood the blurb correctly) is their obligation until something like 2018. There's just so much bloody space between the exchanges.

They are currently doing a big rollout of mini-exchanges called NRA-HD's (Noeud de Raccordement d'Abonnés au Haut Débit). They connect them to the main local exchange with fibre and they basically just extend the reach but it's far from an ideal, long-term solution. I'm 12km from the nearest proper exchange and still 6850m or something from the new NRA-HD so they are going to have to go some to get the speeds up on the continent.

 

[DaGaffer]

Aha but that's for a densely populated country like England. In France they have just got my area onto 512kbit DSL, which (if I understood the blurb correctly) is their obligation until something like 2018. There's just so much bloody space between the exchanges.

They are currently doing a big rollout of mini-exchanges called NRA-HD's (Noeud de Raccordement d'Abonnés au Haut Débit). They connect them to the main local exchange with fibre and they basically just extend the reach but it's far from an ideal, long-term solution. I'm 12km from the nearest proper exchange and still 6850m or something from the new NRA-HD so they are going to have to go some to get the speeds up on the continent.

I doubt rural areas will get fibre at all in the long run. The gaps will get filled in with HSPA+/4G. Voda have just started selling 42Mb mobile in here in Ireland. . Now I know there's a qualitative difference between broadband delivered by mobile v fibre if you're bothered about things like latency, but the economics of FTTC or better yet, FTH, mean mobile is certain to take up the slack for at least a certain section of the population.

 

[caLLous]

True, but they will also need to beef up the mobile coverage quite considerably.

The Digital Agenda for Europe is one of the seven flagship initiatives of the Europe 2020 strategy. The objective is to bring "basic broadband" to all Europeans by 2013 and also to ensure that, by 2020, all Europeans have access to much higher internet speeds of above 30 Mbit/s and 50% or more of European households subscribe to internet connections above 100 Mbit/s.

 

[Gahn]

I think PC's will go the way of the Asus Pad Transformer crossed with a TV.

Large ( > 32" ) display, stylised main box underneath like your sky box or PS3, docked tablet for 2nd screen, pull the tablet away and take it with you.

Then when you sit down somewhere else your tablet can push the stuff to a larger box again if more grunt is required. Cloud can be used to sort out licensing, i.e. if I buy word it works on my main box and follows me onto my tablet or phone and back.

Quite a good forecast. I see more and more the Tablet as the bridge to the nuke hard computing base, prolly used as a keyboard near the dock station and synching docs and shit while in Wifi Range.

 

[Aoami]

a new BSoD!