All Things Technology Related Thread

[That Guy]

History of the Mozilla Project — Mozilla

it was a fork that took over (in popularity) by stripping out excess features (namely the integrated mail client) to load web pages as fast as possible. still under the umbrella of the mozilla corporation, i don't really know much about the corporate history *shrugs*.

they also got a lot of press about being immune to scripting/hacks... but after getting popular (and having enough user to merit specific attacks), that proved to be untrue and they've slowly bloated the thing up too. chrome has faster load times for me, and unlike firefox, doesn't sit open in memory after i close it (firefox does that so subsequent browser openings happen faster, or at least, it used to).

[skinsguy]

I still miss Netscape.

[BDBohnzie]

I miss Netscape as well. Navigator Gold with Composer, which was my first HTML editor.

I switched to Chrome (with Adblock and Flashblock on PCs) many moons ago when I got sick of Firefox having to be reloaded constantly to release the resources it sucked up, and never looked back. I keep it synced across several laptops, phone, tablets, which makes it so easy to pick up where I left off. I do touch all browers when doing web development, so I usually have each one with a fairly standard load.

I switched from using a Windows machine every day to a Macbook Air a little over a year ago. For Windows tasks, I have VMWare Fusion loaded on my Air with a Windows 7 VM when I need it. I'm still getting used to the Unix commands in Terminal, but find doing day to day items on a Mac quite appealing. I do have 2 older desktops at home with XP loaded on them (RIP), from which I will reload with some flavor of Linux eventually.

[TheMalcolmConnection]

BD, interesting about your Macbook. They used to burn me up because our students are probably 80% and they tell me honestly, "I bought it because it's cool." I had a huge chip on my shoulder against Apple products that has cooled down since.

Do you ever find that Apple breaks down physically sooner than PCs? I work on Apple hardware just as much as I work on PC software. The past two weeks alone I've replaced a dozen Macbook HDs, at least 3-4 motherboards and numerous iPhone requests (that I don't touch because that's a DELICATE operation).

Apple is rock solid software-wise, but damn, nobody seems to have one older than 3-4 years from what I've seen.

[BDBohnzie]

Originally Posted by TheMalcolmConnection

BD, interesting about your Macbook. They used to burn me up because our students are probably 80% and they tell me honestly, "I bought it because it's cool." I had a huge chip on my shoulder against Apple products that has cooled down since.

Do you ever find that Apple breaks down physically sooner than PCs? I work on Apple hardware just as much as I work on PC software. The past two weeks alone I've replaced a dozen Macbook HDs, at least 3-4 motherboards and numerous iPhone requests (that I don't touch because that's a DELICATE operation).

Apple is rock solid software-wise, but damn, nobody seems to have one older than 3-4 years from what I've seen.

My boss (CIO) has been an Apple guy for years, and Apple has slowly infiltrated our hardware inventory. Before that, it was Dell and only Dell. We have 2 Mac Minis (2010), 4 MacBook Airs (Mid 2011, Mid 2012), and 2 MacBook Pros (Retina, Late 2013) in use right now, and the only hardware issue we encountered were the 128GB flash drives that were recalled. Before I got mine, I just saw Mac as completely overpriced for what it is. Now that I've used it everyday for a while now, I dig it, but glad I'm not paying for it LOL. I've thought about getting a Mac Mini for home. Fairly affordable, small form factor, solid software, and since my wife and I have iPhones, iTunes runs so much better on Mac than Windows.

I'm using Mac at work because of mobile app development. I'm able to keep tabs on the iOS Developer in XCode while I develop for Android in Eclipse.

With our company moving more and more resources to the cloud it'll be a matter of time before we move to Chromebooks and Cloud Desktops for a majority of our users.

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by BDBohnzie

With our company moving more and more resources to the cloud it'll be a matter of time before we move to Chromebooks and Cloud Desktops for a majority of our users.

We're piloting a small VDI implementation. Just got our first batch of zero clients. They're just monitors basically. Pretty cool.

[TheMalcolmConnection]

Originally Posted by FRPLG

We're piloting a small VDI implementation. Just got our first batch of zero clients. They're just monitors basically. Pretty cool.

Are you doing Citrix? If so, we're 3 years into it right now and I can give you a ton of input on that. We're going with streaming applications this summer because honestly, people just HATE waiting for a Citrix desktop to load.

[TheMalcolmConnection]

Originally Posted by BDBohnzie

My boss (CIO) has been an Apple guy for years, and Apple has slowly infiltrated our hardware inventory. Before that, it was Dell and only Dell. We have 2 Mac Minis (2010), 4 MacBook Airs (Mid 2011, Mid 2012), and 2 MacBook Pros (Retina, Late 2013) in use right now, and the only hardware issue we encountered were the 128GB flash drives that were recalled. Before I got mine, I just saw Mac as completely overpriced for what it is. Now that I've used it everyday for a while now, I dig it, but glad I'm not paying for it LOL. I've thought about getting a Mac Mini for home. Fairly affordable, small form factor, solid software, and since my wife and I have iPhones, iTunes runs so much better on Mac than Windows.

I'm using Mac at work because of mobile app development. I'm able to keep tabs on the iOS Developer in XCode while I develop for Android in Eclipse.

With our company moving more and more resources to the cloud it'll be a matter of time before we move to Chromebooks and Cloud Desktops for a majority of our users.

That makes good sense. I only ask because I've seen more people switch from Apple BACK to PC this year than I ever had.

[JoeRedskin]

Ummm, I think I burned out motherboard, and probably the fatherboard and, when I tried to restart, I couldn't find the "any" key. Oh, and I accidentally spilled my soda in the machinery box thingy. ... you can fix that right?

[TheMalcolmConnection]

Originally Posted by JoeRedskin

Ummm, I think I burned out motherboard, and probably the fatherboard and, when I tried to restart, I couldn't find the "any" key. Oh, and I accidentally spilled my soda in the machinery box thingy. ... you can fix that right?

I know this in jest, but allow me to blow your mind: I just helped a recent hire (less than 30 years old) learn how to DOUBLE CLICK.

[That Guy]

mac's cost like 40% more for the same hardware (apple is a hardware company, after all), but most of it is the same, so i doubt there are any more hardware issues than pc. and once they went BSD/intel... well, it's hard to mock technically.

if you want to save money you can buy min spec'd and up the ram/hds/etc yourself if it's a big enough lot.

[FRPLG]

We do use GPOs to manage everything and have laptops specially configured to allow all users to manage network connections so they can get on wifi and such as needed.

[RedskinRat]

We use Big Fix for patching and updating. That covers a lot of systems connecting to our domain. GPOL refuses connection if they're too far out of compliance.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk

[CRedskinsRule]

Ok,

So a question for everyone.

background - My mom is nearing 80 years old, uses XP, and Money 2003 for all her needs - she does do online banking with the couple of credit unions she uses, and outlook express (yes it's still out there). I keep her antivirus up, run malwarebytes often and don't think that she needs to worry about microsoft's end of support for XP. She uses a kindle, but gets very flustered with any small glitches. Personally, I dread the day she would have to go to windows 8, or even a Chromebook.

Question: In each individual's opinion, is the end of Microsoft support going to cascade quick enough to cause her enough grief that she ought to get a new system sooner rather than later? A sidebar is that her sister in Germany has no tech saavy family/friends, and if my mom ought to change should my aunt, who has a similar system there.

[TheMalcolmConnection]

Originally Posted by CRedskinsRule

Ok,

So a question for everyone.

background - My mom is nearing 80 years old, uses XP, and Money 2003 for all her needs - she does do online banking with the couple of credit unions she uses, and outlook express (yes it's still out there). I keep her antivirus up, run malwarebytes often and don't think that she needs to worry about microsoft's end of support for XP. She uses a kindle, but gets very flustered with any small glitches. Personally, I dread the day she would have to go to windows 8, or even a Chromebook.

Question: In each individual's opinion, is the end of Microsoft support going to cascade quick enough to cause her enough grief that she ought to get a new system sooner rather than later? A sidebar is that her sister in Germany has no tech saavy family/friends, and if my mom ought to change should my aunt, who has a similar system there.

Hmmm, how about just taking away the admin rights like we were talking about above? Install Teamviewer (TeamViewer - Free Remote Control, Remote Access & Online Meetings) and set up an unattended install, so you can remote in anytime you need just in case. That would at least prevent some...