Bits and PCs - a Computers and Tech Miscellany

[JoeP]

Ooh. I need a new phone.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

fondly remembering in 2013 when microsoft made a hail mary to try to convince everyone to put an online camera in their living rooms for fun

— wint (@dril) September 30, 2019

[SR71]

I know this kid who's a senior at an underfunded high school. They've been doing things right, taking AP classes, calc, chem and all that, on the student board. I wrote them a letter of recommendation and handed it over on a thumb drive. Guess what, they don't have a computer. I printed up the letter and ordered a refurb Dell laptop. I didn't get Office on it. They don't use it at school, they use what is I guess a similar suite on Google? I wonder if I should have gotten them Office? The idea is to get them used to having and using a laptop so they're not behind the power curve when they get to college.

[specious_reasons]

Originally Posted by SR71

I know this kid who's a senior at an underfunded high school. They've been doing things right, taking AP classes, calc, chem and all that, on the student board. I wrote them a letter of recommendation and handed it over on a thumb drive. Guess what, they don't have a computer. I printed up the letter and ordered a refurb Dell laptop. I didn't get Office on it. They don't use it at school, they use what is I guess a similar suite on Google? I wonder if I should have gotten them Office? The idea is to get them used to having and using a laptop so they're not behind the power curve when they get to college.

There's a Google office suite that my son's school uses, and this high school isn't underfunded. I don't think it's a particular advantage to have experience in one software suite or another. In general, if you know what you want to do, it's easy enough to find out how to do it.

When they get into college, the college may offer free or discounted software. My daughter is currently using the Office 365 subscription that her college offers to all students.

So, no, you didn't need to get them Office, but I wouldn't complain if you had.

[SR71]

Ah thanks, this is what I was wondering, point by point. I remember getting a student version of Office, and I wondered if that was still done, twenty years on.

[Ari]

Omg education discounts are where it’s at!
In the past I’ve used my Mom’s teaching credentials to buy multiple things through CreationEngine.com which gives sometimes massive educational discounts. Many brands are quite happy to sell their product for a more reasonable price if it means getting college students to learn their software.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

"First hit's free."

Many smaller puhlishers distinguish between a commercial enterprise and a small user. I have an app that was priced at $25 Student, $99 small business/personal, $500 medium/large licence. I used the trial so much I paid them the lousy $99.

Big publishers? Student rate or $5000, nothing in between.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

imagine how much chaos this would cause with a bomb squad being called in for a variety of situations

— Internet of Shit (@internetofshit) October 11, 2019

[JoeP]

From the comments

Is it made of sapient pearwood?

I would have been really disappointed if I was the only one who immediately thought of The Luggage.

I am somewhat ashamed that I didn't immediately think of The Luggage.

Too busy watching it crashing into the displays and actually knocking a light off. And imagining the autonomous bomb-disposal robot following it with the same programming.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Today it was announced that Yahoo! Groups is shutting down, and taking with it a piece of critical national infrastructure: the Oftel Yahoo Group which is used for managing UK phone number assignments.

Yes, really: See Ofcom's website https://t.co/zuT1fPIzka pic.twitter.com/RsPyGlwfxs

— stressed depressed lemon zest (@erincandescent) October 16, 2019

Info still on Ofcom site, the Group was just an informal. But really, a Yahoo Group? What?

[lisarea]

Telco has always been big on early adopting, and it is lousy with nerds. So there is a lot of essential but non-official information cataloged in weird places like Angelfire pages and people's personal websites on their own servers and stuff like that. So Yahoo Groups doesn't really surprise me too much.

I'm sure the official database is safe and secure on an AS/400 somewhere, remotely accessible via some 30 year old homegrown gateway.

[JoeP]

[Corona688]

Originally Posted by SR71

Ah thanks, this is what I was wondering, point by point. I remember getting a student version of Office, and I wondered if that was still done, twenty years on.

Yes and no. Student editions used to be such a good deal that people used them well past the point of graduation. They belatedly caught on, and student editions have become universally shit - locked down, feature-deprived, often timelocked and pointlessly cloudwared too.

[JoeP]

I too require a desktop weasel.

[JoeP]

Tech from cavechicken days.

[Pyrrho]

Have been seeing various blurbs about "no code" app development and I'm confused about how would that work, exactly? Drag and drop? How would a "no code developer" implement a complicated SQL query? Things like that.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Originally Posted by Pyrrho

Have been seeing various blurbs about "no code" app development and I'm confused about how would that work, exactly? Drag and drop? How would a "no code developer" implement a complicated SQL query? Things like that.

It's called the Wesley Crusher Dev Tools Package.

[Ari]

Typing this on an ipad pro that I’ve had for 2 years now, and I’m totally sold on the future of computing being a combination key and touch screen device. However I’m not sold on getting another iPad and just like their desktops I’m considering looking somewhere else for the next touch screen device.

While there are plenty of little issues it all comes down to nothing feeling finished, there’s lots of little quality of life interface adjustments that would have been clear to a developer that used its products seriously but were just skipped over, even in the most recent ‘iPad OS’.

Everything is best summed up in the keyboard, the overpriced ‘optional’ keyboard, which attaches cleverly but also poorly using magnets in a way that works 80% of the time. Feels flimsy even though it isn’t. Oh and provides additional features like good old fashion shortcut keys and quick keys that you just can’t easily access on the touch interface. So here we have the optional accessory that’s required to gain back functionality seen in every old school computer, and you are locked into that specific accessory, making it not really optional anymore.

If this was a first gen early adopter product I would be amazed, but it’s not.

[lisarea]

Originally Posted by Pyrrho

Have been seeing various blurbs about "no code" app development and I'm confused about how would that work, exactly? Drag and drop? How would a "no code developer" implement a complicated SQL query? Things like that.

Heck, I missed that, but I cannot find an explainer that's not a press release, to elaborate on how it's not just relatively sophisticated code libraries tied to a specific framework.

I was working on corporate code libraries for novice developers in like 1992.

[ShottleBop]

Originally Posted by Ari

Typing this on an ipad pro that I’ve had for 2 years now, and I’m totally sold on the future of computing being a combination key and touch screen device. However I’m not sold on getting another iPad and just like their desktops I’m considering looking somewhere else for the next touch screen device.
. . .

This might not be your cup of tea (it's not a touchpad, but a convertible laptop) but: three years ago I bought (through Woot) a refurbished Dell Latitude 3189 2-in-1 (approx. 11" diagonal) for my grandaughter to use for the remote portions of her home schooling. (At the time, she was living in India with our daughter and son-in-law.) It cost about $350.

I liked the 3189 so much that, when my daughter's Mac failed and I lent her my MacBook Air to finish up some vidoe editing for her doctoral project, I bought the 8BG version for myself. It's got a lower-end processor (N4200), but it was ruggedized for school use (Gorilla Glass screen, bumpers all around, spill-resistant keyboard), and I don't do any photo/movie editing or play games. I used it for surfing the web and for general word-processing (e.g., when I had work to do on a weekend and didn't want to lug my work machine home). It fit into a smallish shoulder bag with room to spare. Battery was good for 5-6 hours (vs. less-than-two for my MacBook Air, running Windows under Parallels). It's great on airplanes.

I paid to extend the (one-year) warranty for an additional two years, and during that time Dell replaced my motherboard (and more) to fix a headphone jack that had stopped working, and sent me an new (125GB SSD) hard drive when a diagnostic indicated that it was failing.

This year, it would have cost over $200 to extend the warranty for another year. Instead, for $325 (on Amazon), I bought a refurbished 3190 2-in-1 (has a slightly better processor). I have that set up for work, but I still have the 3189 (nothing wrong with it but a sticky "," key), and I can play with it. It's currently running Zorin OS 15.1, and doing well.

BTW, I've tried several flavors of Linux on this machine (Bodhi, Manjaro, Debian, Fedora, Ubuntu Mate, Kubuntu, Mint), and Zorin is by far the best distro I've found for use with a 2-in-1.

P.S. We have the MacBook Air (2015 model) back from our daughter, but the 2-in-1 actually fits my needs better, so Mrs. S uses it. Her 2008 iMac is getting long in the tooth (no longer really supported), and she won't let me get her a new one unless they revive the original Bondi blue all-in-one.

[ShottleBop]

Originally Posted by lisarea

Heck, I missed that, but I cannot find an explainer that's not a press release, to elaborate on how it's not just relatively sophisticated code libraries tied to a specific framework.

I was working on corporate code libraries for novice developers in like 1992.

Pardon Our Interruption

Excerpt:

Minimal app complexity — One of the biggest limitations of using no-code development platforms is that the complexity and feature-richness of an application can be limited. The elimination of coding means that platform users are stuck with whatever functionalities, themes, and frameworks the platform offers, and there’s no real way to work around that because source code access is nonexistent. If looking to get a no-code development platform, keep this in mind: If you’re wanting to create a complex app, this type of software might not be for you.

Difficulty meeting business requirements — Because of the relatively minimal complexity of features and functions offered by no-code development platforms, it’s difficult for them to meet more complex business needs. Some functions that businesses perform daily might not be "standard" enough to be included as a prebuilt app functionality. Or the functionalities might exist in the basic sense but can’t scale to the size or complexity a business needs. This may make it difficult to justify a no-code platform, since it would not be worth spending money on the platform if it will not end up meeting your business’ needs.

[Pyrrho]

I Am Devloper on Twitter: "hi, I'm a javascript developer, I like to take software design patterns from the 70s and present them as new ideas to front-end developers"

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

I've been using Jira for the last year and here it is added to my ranking of top project management tools:

1. Trello
2. Piece of paper
3. Word document shared via ftp
4. Shouting to each other over the table
5. Not tracking tasks at all
6. Jira

— Gregory Witek ���� (@arnvald) January 22, 2020

[JoeP]

I sympathise. Plus, we are using a feature called "new-generation projects" where all the features that you could add it to make it actually work are mysteriously absent.

From a comment:

preferred order of task management tools always:
1. The one you've not used.
2. The one you used to use and you've forgotten you hate.
3 - N-1. literally anything but the current one.
N: the current one.

[Ari]

I decided to start learning python, it’s amusing what things it’s picky about and what it’s ok with. Somewhere in previous programming I got in the habit of using indents to make things more readable to me, this is both good and bad. Omg yes Python, I know that’s not supposed to be indented.

My previous programing experience includes a variety of different basics and a little bit of C but where I spent most of my time was a combination of assembly and hypercard (which is a hilarious combination, given hypercard is basically scripted powerpoint and in assembly you’re controlling individual clock cycles and memory registers), which means I focused on fighting with the languages to do what I wanted as much as actually making things.


I wrote a quick Fizz Buzz* program and a terminal tic tac toe game, and my versions feel quite kludgy and BASIC style, so now it’s time to find some videos and do some reading, if anyone has any suggestions of Python for intermediates, I’ve found lots of Python for beginners but some are a bit too beginner.

There are a lot of code in my tic tac toe game that feel like there should be an option to condense things and let the language take over, like I’m sure there’s a way to make an array or matrix for my tic tac toe board instead of faking one with a few dozen independent variables.

*Fizz Buzz was stolen from a youtube video and is said to be an interview question. Write a program that outputs 1 to 100 but where ever there’s a multiple of 3 say Fizz, whenever a multiple of 5 say Buzz and a multiple of 3 and 5, FizzBuzz. I think FizzBuzz should be adopted as the thing after Hello world, since Hello World always felt a bit too simple to me for any language beyond assembly.