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Multiple machines, multiple OSs, narrowing apps?
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Posted by Hugh
Jun 18, 2019 at 09:00 AM
Slightly OT: a book recently published in the UK, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: the Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, by Shoshana Zuboff, professor emerita at Harvard Business School, explores some of the concerns expressed above.
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Jun 23, 2019 at 07:14 PM
Interestingly, my experience as in-house computer administrator is almost the same, but with Windows 10 replacing all previous Windows versions :)
The one occasional issue we’ve had is with specific updates which turned out to be incompatible with older hardware—graphics adapters mostly. But this could be expected; due to our ideology, line of work (we are a sustainability/communication agency) and economic reasons, we stick to our PCs for the better part of a decade at least, and buy almost exclusively refurbished machines. A side benefit of this approach is that we can afford redundant PCs, so when one doesn’t work for whatever reason, we can replace it immediately and deal with the problem itself later.
MadaboutDana wrote:
>The most notable observation about the transition to Macs? How much
>easier it’s made my life as our in-house computer administrator. Users
>no longer complain about crashes, about how to do stuff, about updates,
>about weird unexplained “events”... they just get on and work - and
>appear to enjoy it. In the 30 years or so since I started managing our
>computer systems, that’s a first. I’m not saying there are never any
>problems, but they only appear occasionally, and tend to disappear
>again.
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Jun 23, 2019 at 07:16 PM
Can you provide more details and/or some specific reference on this?
washere wrote:
>MS is not going to keep Windows as is if leaks are correct.
washere wrote:
>If the leaks from inside MS are correct, Windows will change in a few
>years in big ways, and will be in trouble.
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Jun 23, 2019 at 07:29 PM
I agree that at the level of ‘webware’ you can run just about anything anywhere (though this may imply using specific browsers), as long as you have an internet connection.
But in the offline world this is not so evident. And we often discuss here niche products that are unlikely to become truly multiplatform. For one thing, their lone developers may not be able to afford this.
After many efforts to bring everything under a single OS—my preferred choice being Linux—I’ve gone back to combing multiple machines, with different OSs, dedicated to specific purposes. Interestingly, I feel saner; e.g., I can switch off my comms tablet, and enjoy focused work on my main laptop. I’m even considering getting a hardware calculator…
jaslar wrote:
>I’d argue that the general theme is convergence. People talk on this
>site, persuasively, about the many advantages of running Windows on a
>Mac. Now Windows 10 is launching a full Linux kernel
>(https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/6/18534687/microsoft-windows-10-linux-kernel-feature).
>Android and Linux apps are running on Chromebooks. Apple is working on
>single programs that will run on the Mac and the iPhone
>(https://www.zdnet.com/article/iphone-ipad-mac-apps-merging-apple-sdk-will-create-ios-apps-that-work-on-mac/).
Posted by Dr Andus
Jun 23, 2019 at 08:05 PM
jaslar wrote:
>Dr. Andus, is Dynalist replacing Workflowy for you?
The way things are going I’ll probably be subscribing to both.
It’s a bit of a luxury, as I could just switch everything over to Dynalist, but I do like to use WorkFlowy for most things (managing day-to-day tasks, an external brain, memory management), and keep Dynalist for my academic research only (basically a Zettelkasten), given its extra capabilities.