Discussions

http://windowsitpro.com/paul-thurrotts-wininfo/microsoft-has-sold-over-100-million-windows-8-licenses-first-6-months

9 minutes ago, Bas wrote

*snip*

Don't they? OEMs aren't just rolling a bunch of dice and then buying whatever number comes out of that times a million.

No, this simple figure doesn't tell you who is buying - consumer, business - or what they are being used for - tablets, laptops, desktops.

I know that MS has a long history of apparently random product version numbers and names (who can forget the first version of Windows-NT being V3.1) but this business of using years to indicate versions is just so stupid.

Someone must have re-written the sales reporting macro - I thought it was hard-coded to report 20 million / month.

This is apparently down on expectations, but not quite the unmitigated disaster that had been claimed.

Of course, sales to OEMs doesn't tell you about end-user purchases, or how (if) they are being used or downgraded, but that's a separate issue.

a moment ago, PopeDai wrote

*snip*

The iPhone has the best picture-taking experience of every phone I've used - though it's a combination of having a great lens, great sensor, great screen to display pictures on, and a great processor to reduce latency and startup times. All of the other phones tend to get something wrong. (Disclaimer: I still haven't used a Windows Phone handset yet).

When I use the camera on my Lumia920 I never consider things like that. I guess that means either that I'm totally clueless (very possible) or that the Nokia 'just works'.

Mind you, this is not a Microsoft commercial, which is perhaps why it works.

What happens when you take Google Glass into the men's restroom?

Scoble announced that he was headed to Amsterdam's Red Light District later in the evening, and that anyone in the crowd was welcome to follow him and his Glass.

@figuerres:Yes, I can well appreciate that for larger implementations (like a 'News' website) the ability to quickly scale from minimal to as far as you need, as the demand varies during the day, would be very attractive. However, for small business requirements, I'm yet to see anyone justify the entry level. This is where cheaper hosted VPS solutions using Hyper-V or Citrix-XEN come into their own.

Self-hosting a server (out of your garage, no less) just doesn't compare to something sitting in a datacentre with a high-speed internet connection and 24/7 support. If uptime and latency are important, don't even think about doing it yourself, unless you can provide that level of performance/reliability.

I've been using CrucialParadigm's Citrix-XEN based VPS.

http://www.crucialp.com/virtual-dedicated-servers-vds/windows-2008-server.php

There are add-on services available, such as R1Soft-Backup (for data versioning backup) and external 'hardware' firewall.

I'm using one to support multiple specialized websites, with different domains, and running specialist local services, that my CMS application requires, and that I wouldn't be allowed to install with traditional web-hosting.

As with any hosted VPS, you get to call the shots on how the O/S is configured and what you do with it, just as you would a dedicated server - e.g. security config is your problem/choice. 

I have customers with their own VPS service (running additional apps that I don't support) and am able to configure a 2nd private LAN to move files between multiple VPS.

Strictly speaking, the self-managed service means re-boots only (if RDP doesn't respond for some reason) but in practice I've found them far more helpful than that, and prepared to assist troubleshoot every problem I've encountered (which are usually Windows software based). I have never been left waiting for a tech-support response for more than 10 mins. Mind you, I'm using the local (Australia) branch, so can't vouch for elsewhere, 

I'm sure there are other services out there that are cheaper, and others that are equally as good - but this is what I've used.

58 minutes ago, cbae wrote

...is networking equipment. It's not even close. I can't recall how many times I've had to replace a network switch or WiFi router over the past several years.

I think you perhaps need to qualify that with the equipment quality and environment.

All of the networking equipment in our server room is either HP or CISCO, is all a minimum of 3 years old, and is all totally reliable.

I even have 3 x HP 10/100 switches that are now 12 years old, but I can't bring myself to throw them out, because they just keep doing their particular job perfectly.

Of course, this is all expensive equipment (or was when we bought it) and is running in a controlled environment.

However, even at our remote home-offices, I've only had one failure over many years - and even that was caused by a lightning strike on the comms link to the cable-modem.

Where possible, I prefer to use SOHO equipment with metal chassis, as I believe it dissipates the heat better for environments that are typically not air-conditioned.

For our remote offices we typically use Cisco-800/900 and Netgear-ProSafe equipment, and always install an APC UPS with comms surge-suppressor options. None of it's cheap, but it all just keeps working, so I don't have support issues with it.