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Comment Seconding the TekSavvy recommendation (Score 1) 349

Where you located? If in Ontario, check out teksavvy or start.ca. Also check out your provider, a lot of them recently have been offering unlimited for an extra $10-30 a month depending if you have stuff bundled with them or not.

Actually, TekSavvy should be available throughout Canada at this point. Definitely recommended, they know their poop and have built a solid reputation on great customer service.

Comment Re:You're Doing It Wrong (Score 5, Interesting) 108

That's interesting. The case could be made that MetaFilter is to liberal/progressive politics what Slashdot is to tech -- it fosters lively, informed discussions on any number of topics. I tend to lurk on both sites these days, but I will say that the active moderation over there has generally made a _much_ more civilised site than anything Slashdot could claim nowadays.

Note: I am specifically not really talking about MeTa's cash cow, the Ask MeFi section, but rather the main site itself.

Comment Re: Warranty Shouldn't Matter (Score 1) 359

This sounds to my [admittedly uneducated] ears just like the yellow light of death issues affecting the PS3, particularly the launch models. Same issue, more or less; the PS3 gets cooked when the lead-free solder cracks and allows the GPU to physically separate from the board.

[I am sad, I have a launch model that's been taken in twice for reflowing; it's now failed a third time, so no more]

I did have a 2011 mbp as well, but a 13" without the discrete graphics that I've since passed to my girlfriend. I reckon the next revision of the retina MBP will likely remove discrete cards altogether. =(

Comment Re:Sign up for Entrepreneurship 101 (Score 3, Interesting) 167

Sorry, I forgot to sign in.

I'm sitting in a free entrepreneurship lecture in Toronto, Ontario offered by MaRS Discovery District.
Available here: http://marsdd.com/

I agree with others here: do it, you'll need it.

The course's lectures are free and archived, so there's no cost involved, just the time needed to watch and learn.

GNOME

GNOME 3.8 Released Featuring New "Classic" Mode 267

Hot on the heels of the Gtk+ 3.8 release comes GNOME 3.8. There are a few general UI improvements, but the highlight for many is the new Classic mode that replaces fallback. Instead of using code based on the old GNOME panel, Classic emulates the feel of GNOME 2 through Shell extensions (just like Linux Mint's Cinnamon interface). From the release notes: "Classic mode is a new feature for those people who prefer a more traditional desktop experience. Built entirely from GNOME 3 technologies, it adds a number of features such as an application menu, a places menu and a window switcher along the bottom of the screen. Each of these features can be used individually or in combination with other GNOME extensions."
Firefox

Emscripten and New Javascript Engine Bring Unreal Engine To Firefox 124

MojoKid writes "There's no doubt that gaming on the Web has improved dramatically in recent years, but Mozilla believes it has developed new technology that will deliver a big leap in what browser-based gaming can become. The company developed a highly-optimized version of Javascript that's designed to 'supercharge' a game's code to deliver near-native performance. And now that innovation has enabled Mozilla to bring Epic's Unreal Engine 3 to the browser. As a sort of proof of concept, Mozilla debuted this BananaBread game demo that was built using WebGL, Emscripten, and the new JavaScript version called 'asm.js.' Mozilla says that it's working with the likes of EA, Disney, and ZeptoLab to optimize games for the mobile Web, as well." Emscripten was previously used to port Doom to the browser.

Comment Apple's been playing about with other fuckery too (Score 3, Interesting) 195

Couple of observations:

- Apple reset the number of views in that thread about 6 months ago. Plenty of discussion about this in the thread itself. So 367k views really only means, '367k views since whenever it was reset'

- The atrocious customer service many of the complainants on the thread received coincided with the arrival and brief stay of John Browett, a British national and former head of Dixons, a particularly terrible UK computer / consumer electronics chain. Browett on arrival at Apple immediately started implementing a number of changes that reduced morale and positively fucked the chain's plummeting reputation for customer service. He sucked so badly, that he was summarily fired at the end of October along with Scott Forstall: http://www.cultofmac.com/198726/why-scott-forstall-and-john-browett-got-fired-from-apple-today/

- Apple quietly took out the LG screen (part number 661-6529) from their supplies of replacement displays sometime in late summer / early fall. The only replacements you can get from Apple now are Samsung parts (661-7171). I confirmed this myself with an Apple authorised 3rd-party supplier as I did not trust Apple to be honest about their supply situation after they fobbed me off initially with a 2nd LG display that developed IR.

- However, their plants in Shanghai are still assembling retinas with the LG screen (see thread for confirmation of this) - why, I don't know; maybe they have supplies to use up.

Comment Re:Mildly annoying (Score 5, Interesting) 195

I have one as well, and the original screen was an LG (purchased a week after they launched the computer, but not delivered for another month). I heard about this defect in the above-mentioned thread about two weeks after launch, but didn't notice anything for about 6 weeks after receiving it. Then the trouble started.

Exchanged for another screen - except it was another LG. Which promptly developed image retention after two weeks. This time, Apple Store 'geniuses' made out with a bullshit test that it was 'normal' and 'expected' - to which I pointed out that the Samsung equivalents had no such 'normal' ghosting at all.

Fought with the fuckers for 3 weeks. Finally, I had to threaten to return it for a full refund off my credit card when they finally gave in. I kept pointing out that a laptop costing over $3k Cdn has no business exhibiting such behaviour, and that otherwise I actually was very happy with the computer besides this one issue. They finally replaced it with a Samsung-manufactured screen - and this was back in September; totally flawless screen since the final replacement.

The clincher? You just have to ask them if they would be happy with an expensive machine that showed this shitty display themselves.

The computer itself is really a dream to use now. And yes, it's the best purchase I've ever made as well. Despite all the bullshit to get there.

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