Solid State Notebooks, Also Linux

superscaper

asininity wrote: »

£35 is ok, (EDIT: even £70 doesn't sound that bad) microsoft always did look to the long term. Maybe they'll treat their customers a bit better with subscription based payment.

The bit you quoted is saying thats they way the do it now, one off payments that when they update things they have to persuade people to buy the updated version (ie office 2003 to 2007, xp to vista, etc) not how they'd do it with subscriptions.

$70 is about £35 so yes seems reasonable, but I bet if/when introduced to the UK they'll get confused as normal and make $=£ so probably will be £70 over here.

As for the updates, I suppose people can choose to upgrade or not and just update their present version with their existing subscriptions, they'll just be offered the upgraded version to install if they want to. Like any subscription software I have, I'm offered the new upgrade version (2 to 3) but there's nothing forcing me to upgrade and I could stick with existing version and keep updating it (2 to 2.1) until it's no longer supported. Although I think 2003 to 2007 is the largest jump in interface design and future upgrades are unlikely to be as different. So since this Equipt programme is starting with 2007 I don't think people will have as great an aversion to upgrade as well as update. Since the upgrading is also part of the price as well as updating I think people will MORE likely upgrade to make full use of their paid subscription.

As for me personally I'm happy with my Eset security and I paid under £40 for Office 2007 Ultimate so I'm not in any hurry to upgrade or find it a better financial deal than I'm essentially on already.

superscaper

be_alright wrote: »

I have given Open Office a try before, but I can't get used to it. I've been using Office 2007 for a while now and the new interface and general appearence of the program sets it miles apart from OO. Different strokes for different folks though.

Me too, still use Office 2003 at work as well. The Fluent/Ribbon interface seemed like a steep curve at first but after a bit of adjusting (and being resistant to change in computers and software is kind of defeating the point) I find I'm actually far faster on it after a year than several years of using 2003. In fact I now wish more of my apps had a "Ribbon" interface.

asininity

I'm waiting for OpenOffice 3 it should be a good release, I've never tried 2007 the missus has 2003 so I can't comment on the new interface, the better part of £300 is way too steep for me. How'd you get it for £40? Student?

superscaper

asininity wrote: »

I'm waiting for OpenOffice 3 it should be a good release, I've never tried 2007 the missus has 2003 so I can't comment on the new interface, the better part of £300 is way too steep for me. How'd you get it for £40? Student?

Yep, www.theultimatesteal.co.uk although the offer doesn't appear on at the moment. It's a retail licence so I get to keep it after being a student (although at the moment I'm not sure I qualify now anyway, I'm registered as a PhD student still, one of these days I'll finish my thesis, but I'm also in full time permanent employment). I do like OpenOffice but I personally at present equate it to maybe midway between MS Office 2003 and 2007 (especially with upcoming version 3). But at £40 I couldn't pass it up and you get all the extra stuff such as Outlook, Onenote etc which I do actually use.

Conor_3

asininity wrote: »

Ever try upgrading from xp to vista?? Guess what not only did most of the software not work, neither does most of the hardware.

Mine worked fine. But I did upgrade from Ubuntu 7.10 to 8.04, my wifi stopped working and my lappy would no longer go to sleep...

Why is it people expect a lot more from something thats completely free than something they pay for??

Because people like you keep bleating on about how wonderful it is, how it is so easy to use, how it doesn't crash and how much easier it is to use than Windows when even sites like Linux.com say it still has major issues.

superscaper

Conor wrote: »

Because people like you keep bleating on about how wonderful it is, how it is so easy to use, how it doesn't crash and how much easier it is to use than Windows when even sites like Linux.com say it still has major issues.

One problem as I see it is you get determined advocates of both "sides", as if commercial software and opensource/freeware are somehow mutually exclusive, and that's when propoganda seeps in. At home I have a mixture of software I've paid for and freeware and free open source (also whenever I have a sandbox machine to hand I play with Ubuntu). At work it's the same, there's really expensive commercial software and there's also freeware if it does what we need and also opensource if it's advantageous. They each have their place and benefits depending upon individual circumstances. Freeware may not even be more economical than commercial software for some circumstances.

asininity

@ Conor

You must be lucky then the majority of people have had massive problems with the vista upgrade, and a lot of people downgrade to xp on new computers.

If you have problems with the upgrade put your home directory on a different partition and do a fresh install, only takes 10 mins thats what I do.

Wifi is one of those areas where if the hardware manufacturers dont help out its a case of reverse engineering, which isn't the best way to do things. The wifi should work fine now 8.04.1 is out.

Guaranteed I've never said anything you've just blurbed. If you're used to windows theres a learning curve, if its too much for you go pay for windows. Linux.com is being honest issues there are, they'll be fixed.

[Deleted User]

In all fairness, the furrore caused by the 98 > XP, XP > SP1 & XP > SP2 have long died down in people's memories even though they were catastrophic at the time, much worse than most Vista experiences.

asininity

Not to mention SP3:-)

superscaper

be_alright wrote: »

In all fairness, the furrore caused by the 98 > XP, XP > SP1 & XP > SP2 have long died down in people's memories even though they were catastrophic at the time, much worse than most Vista experiences.

I definitely remember having to go and buy new hardware when I changed from 98 to XP, simply because the manufacturers refused to bring out XP drivers. The hardware was working and capable (think main thing was my modem at the time) but I had no choice but to buy new just to get something with XP drivers available (and even recently I had to use the disable intelppm workaround to get SP3 installed). So all this uproar over Vista certainly seems like deja vous. And although I haven't upgraded my home machine to vista yet, I'm not put off by the "upgrade horror stories" as I've lived through OS upgrades already and I've yet to hear of anything out of the ordinary and most of the problems seem to be the typical manufacturers too lazy to make drivers problem. So I'll just check all my hardware beforehand to see if drivers are available. But also it appears Vista has an unprecedented number of inbuilt drivers as well anyway even if the manufacturers haven't brought them out.