BarbaraHudson's Journal: We've gone past "good enough" computing ...

Time was when most of us were complaining about needing more ram, more cpu, more storage. Today? Computers are cheap, fast, multi-core, more energy-efficient than ever, with more storage than many of us will ever use ... and by the time we fill up those huge hard disks, we'll just buy a newer, faster computer with several times the storage and even more ram for less.

And if that's not enough, there's online storage. It's not just Linus Torvalds who can say "Only wimps use tape backup: real men just upload their important stuff on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it." Everyone does it - even when they really shouldn't.

"Fast, good, cheap - pick two?" Not any more. For most users and use cases, we really can have it all, literally right in the palm of our hand if that's what we want. Sure, a lot of the old skills that were needed when hardware sucked are now obsolete, but I for one don't miss those days. Not when I can concentrate on doing what I want instead.

Yes

[jawtheshark]

What do you want me to say, except "yes".

It's all very nice

[fustakrakich]

I do hope recycling improves along with it. So much good stuff gets thrown out.

And simple file management, it's almost out of the 90s... When I see "Some files could not be copied", I think, *Somebody must die*...

And laptop track pads, they still suck. They will always still suck. Bring back the button thingy

And where's my damn reset button?

Re:

[BarbaraHudson]

Me, Ive always been into recycling computers. Every machine eventually gets upgraded to linux. I void the whole keypad and trackpad thing on laptops by plugging in a standard mouse and keyboard, though I admit that my current laptop has decent usability in that respect.

As for the reset button - YES. When a laptop locks up hard enough that a soft reset won't do, your only real option is to unplug the adapter and remove the battery. And when you're doing development, you know that there are going to be l

Re:

[jawtheshark]

Hold the power button N seconds (typically 5), has always done the deed for me on any computer. Laptop or otherwise.

Re:

[BarbaraHudson]

When it's really jammed, it's really jammed. Even 30 seconds doesn't do it. But popping the power and battery always does.

Re:

[jawtheshark]

Weird, never had it jammed that bad... On any laptop...

Re:

[plover]

Except it's not "good stuff". When you look at the whole picture, including high power consumption and time wasted on doing stuff that isn't "what you want", the cost of the old stuff is absurdly high, especially compared to adding a process to an existing machine, or dropping it on a low power box like a RasPi.

And yes, trackpads still suck.