Core i3 shouldn't even have shipped with Window 7, let alone 8!

It's an absolute fucking joke what companies like Acer, etc, do to the consumer. They sell these cheap laptops with i3 and Starter Edition that can't even do proper graphics. Colors are absolutely disgusting , and applications hang all the time.

Windows 8 has good colors on high-end hardware, but if you're going high-end, by a Mac. an iMac costs a few buck more than a high-end, say, HP or Acer, with the additional feature that it's Mac OS X, and not Windows ;P

That is such a fucking lame reply.

Dude, if you want games you should have a dedicated gaming platform: PS3.

Security you say ?!?!?! With JavaScript integrated to your always on-line desktop tiles ?!?!

HahahahahahahHAHHhhahahhHhhHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhssadk jasdkjjjsdkaka kakjkxmcn aksjssssttssssalslaskdszasss!!!!

You should try PC-BSD. It's really a true FreeBSD with a great innovation called PBI (it just install packages like you do on Mac or Windows).

If you need anything else there's the famous ports, except that now FreeBSD has a binary package manager for apps , e.g., like apt-get. See also pkgng - next generation package management for FreeBSD.

(NB: binary system upgrades was made possible years ago).
PS: Right now, packages are on hold because of the recent security incident, so only ports are active (they're source files). BTW, before any Linux fanboy says anything, shall I remind them how many times Debian has been hacked?

I agree.

Besides, Window 7 sucks, it hangs apps all the time.

It's just that Windows users are sorry fuckers who don't really have a choice but to claim they're happy now that they've adapted to the new crap MS came up with.

People don't even know what Linux is, and it's not really a great Desktop OS. Ubuntu is piss-poor in appearance and in the number of apps.

Besides, with Apple's App Store strategy, developers want to move to a platform in which you can actually cash in the money for programming. Even trivial stuff, like writing apps to unrar stuff (and they cost very cheap).

Linux has no pull. They really lost the desktop wagon when it passed. You can't have a solid ecosystem with a GPL-based product, because the license is always a liability. If free software enthusiasts had any clue, they should be helping out BSD-based systems.

Exactly. Metro is just a trojan designed to harvest your data.

What they really want is you using Windows Live, getting news from their sites, searching with Bing, using Internet Explorer, play with their XBox, etc.

This is Microsoft's strategy to catch up to Google. If you can't bring the desktop to the web, you bring the web to the desktop.

There's always a new demographic. I'd say Windows 8 will appeal to younger users (those who think the computer was invented for tweeting or for Facebook). It's likely Microsoft has factored this is and is aiming in potentially new customers in the Asian markets, which are predicted to move to the middle class by hundreds of millions in the next few years.

Is it too late? I don't know. People are used to their iTunes for buying songs. The iPhone has sold a lot in China last year (when people don't have the money, they buy the Android). We are all used to Google (and Bing sucks too).

They do have the potential to bring innovation. Kinect could bring a whole new paradigm to interfaces, but we don't know if that's in the pipeline. Apparently, they are pretty much failing with the gestures thing (Apple is much better in this on the new iMacs).

We'll see.

You can if you have the code. Even then, libraries might have changed. But it's mostly about using deprecated C standards -which should be easily fixable. This, by the way, is one reason that I don't trust languages like Python, Ruby, or anyone of these little languages-du-jour. Developers are still struggling with their design. Guido is still learning about programming language features, such as closures, or inheritance, or metaclasses, LOL!. That means that Real Soon Now, they'll get around to what the good and smart people decided on about language design long ago. Hey, maybe they'll even read their papers ;-). OTOH, I can take C code from 1996, or I've ran Common Lisp code from 1998 without a problem. Same goes for Smalltalk. Vendors are still around, but there's open source if you wish to use it, good stuff, too.

Of course, you're talking software for John Doe, not some weird C code for wavelets or genetic programming.

GUI stuff is completely horrible in that way in Linux. If you want stuff to keep working you better stick with some very old toolkit for X Windows, like Athena, Motif, etc.

See here, for example: this libXaw(Athena) repository goes back to 2003 and patches are incoming in 2012, still.

There are lots of apps professionals use that Linux users don't, stuff for document scanning and formatting, engineering apps, etc.

Also, Windows protects your investment in expansive proprietary applications. Say, if you buy Matlab, you know you're going to keep it for a few years in your Windows, because Windows 7 has a 10 year life cycle. If you purchase one of these things for Linux, it'll break within 6 months when the developers change ABIs, move libraries around, or do any other of those thoughtful acts they always do. Besides, usually things work in a distro, but not in another, because they have no standard.

Proper library version isn't even an issue Linux distro developers worry about. If you complain, they'll tell you to fuck off and stop using proprietary software.

s/than/then

You mean you love having to click 4 times to open a photo on the explorer, than opening on a Metro app, than closing it, then back to Metro, then back to explorer...

Windows 8 usability is so fucked up right now there are lots of videos on YouTube of teenagers asking dad to open their documents after a Windows 8 install...They just can't do it...

Now, usability is considered optimal when it is so obvious how to perform a task that you hardly need to instruct the user.

Of course, teenagers get to think they're cool and extra-smart because they can do it, since they've spent many hours (since they don't really have a life or anything better to do).

So Windows 8 is going to be a huge success amongst teenagers who tweet all day, and who'll think they are superior human beings, while older adults are just stupid.

But, come to think of it now, Ballmer was probably right in firing the guy who designed this horrible annoyingware that is Windows 8. I have it installed in a machine and I can't bear the thing. It gives you head aches.

Of course, Ballmer fired him for the wrong reasons, but breaking shit up like they did in 8...you deserve to live on skid row.

"Cloud" is a marketing term that means: "We'll keep all your data, and we'll tax you too. We'll make you depend on us, just like you depend on your healthcare provider. This is because you've chosen to remain computer-illiterate, and now you must pay us."

100GB is too small for today's average computer user, IHMO.

With Dropbox, at 500GB you're looking at $499.00/yr which is outrageous. Unlimited storage is $795.00/yr. Now, that's one heavy, yearly "cloud tax", if you ask me.
Is it cheaper to run a home NAS with ZFS support, if you're doing it for 4 years? Yes.OTOH, the problem is, home solutions require security maintenance. You might wanna factor that in, but I still think they have outrageous prices.

Rapidshare is much cheaper, but they create an md5 hash for each of your files. They say they don't check the user's files, but if they get a court injunction, all they have to do is hunt down all the files with the same md5 hash, if they're looking for pirated material, and then it's goodbye your account. And I pretty much doubt there is a human out there who hasn't at least one pirated file (even unknowingly possessing it). So that single file might jeopardize your whole back-up plan. At least they come clean on their policies. Others, I'm not sure what they'll do (e.g., Google Drive).

Also, a NAS that isn't Linux-based, because that sucks too, since it doesn't have support for ZFS. Which is crazy and lame, just lame.