https://www.pcmag.com/picks/the-best-budget-laptops

Thank you, goodnight.

Do you think it is overpriced?

Given its capabilities and the fact that you can buy used MS notebook/360 device for such a price? Of course.

$498

optional keyboard cover for an extra $101.

Ah, I understand. It’s an attempt to replicate Steve “unwashed” Jobs’ strategy, where buying overpriced stuff makes you BETTER, DIFFERENT and UNIQUE. Am I right?

Truth is dramatic.

Threat to Public Safety

Dude, you forgot which of two worlds is the real one. Hint: it’s not the Internet.

updating hard disc firmware

😆

using WinRAR

And that’s how I know that voting should be a privilege, not a right.

I’m not sure I follow.

Are you claiming that the colors have bigger impact on dopamine production than the actual content?

I absolutely am. You’re simply overthinking it - the scenario I provided makes plaintext *.txt perfect.

Sure, we can spend the rest of the day inventing scenarios, where Mr. NOTECH will be manipulated remotely by aliens, and what then, but that’s an exercise in creativity, not a situation that needs to be taken into account.

Unbeatabe, then.

The “PURPOSE” is the keyword.

If the purpose of the software is to work in closed, offline environment with Mr. NOTECH operating it via “line 5: rotations per minute; line 6: temperature in Fahrenheit” commands, then trust me, it’s going to get the job done.

“Press THIS button if you want to enter anyway”.

I think I need to fill a patent for this idea, since it’s brand new, fresh and nobody has ever heard about it…

Depends on the purpose of the software. In certain specific situations a plaintext *.txt is unbeatable.

Hiring Linux professionals would require competent IT management. Most corporations don’t have that.

And again: you’re allowing for your emotions to dictate your opinion. This is wrong approach and indeed one of main reasons Linux/FOSS is hard to sell on. After all, would you really want to work with, and give your money to people who think yourself to be incompetent in spite of knowing you? 😉

Same.

FOSS is crucial to the survival of freedom in IT (broad sense) - whoever claims otherwise, doesn’t understand what is going on all around him.

But it doesn’t mean that Linux/FOSS is allowed to stay blind and deaf and resist evolution, especially if it wants to become something more than a set of tools for network administrators…

I worked in environments where MS Office and Star/Open/Apache/Libre Office was used, and Tbird was installed in addition to whatever Windows email client. I’m not even discussing other pieces of software, these are enough to make a point, I think. There was hardly a person who prefered the alternatives. These tools were perceived as slow, unreliable, uncooperative and the lack of compatibility, document-wise, only strengthened these opinions.

As for “posts scaring people away…” Do you seriously think that whatever people write in the Internet is enough to convince big corps, governments and other massive groups of recipients? Come on…

I disagree with your take on corpo environment. If what you’re saying would be true, then it’d be far more profitable for corpo to hire a bunch of Linux-oriented technicians and thus save costs of IT layer. But corpos don’t do that. You’re suggesting a paradox - a body that relies on cost-cutting and making everything as profitable as possible, that also is ok with wasting money on something that’s allegedly easy to replace.

Again: you’re doing what Linux/FOSS community usualy does. Instead of acknowledging the points and asking “what can be done to make this work”, you’re saying that your choice is better, good enough to work no matter what environment, what userbase is there, all consequences and the contradictory evidence be damned. It’s users that need to change their ways, certainly not Linux/FOSS.

This might work as Apple’s strategy, but it won’t as hell work in case of Linux/FOSS. 😉

I’m sorry, dude, but now these are emotions talking through you, not actual valid points., especially since it’s obvious that your knowledge about MS dates back to 2010, I assume? It had evolved. Massively. So much it became hard to compete with, even if you take the “money vs free model” argument into consideration.

You didn’t like it, but the fact is that I am now sitting in a corpo office, part of a body spanning across countries and continents, where what you don’t like and think bad, works well enough that nobody complains. It’s very rich corpo. It can afford a legion of experienced Linux technicians and sysadmins, and yet it prefers to pay money, serious money for licences in subscription mode. Think about it for a moment - corpos squeeze money of everything. They are greedy, to the point that they wouldn’t spare a cent to save a dying man. And yet they prefer to pay for MS.

Once again: Linux/FOSS needs to start to listen to what users actually want. Scornful “this is better, use this” won’t do.

Until it changes, “20xx - the year of Linux”. 😉

Literally the only thing MS Office has that LibreOffice does not, is MS Access

Not quite. 😉

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/enterprise/office365-plans-and-pricing

E3 plan is the norm in more complicated workspaces now. Exchange, Outlook, Teams, OneNote, Sharepoint are commonly used in such an environment, followed by Forms (HR department loves these and rightly so), Onedrive and PowerBI. Viva (formerly Yammer) makes waves now. Teams entered the market aggressively during Pandemics and it had evolved almost as fast as Android. It can now connect to great many deal of applications thus expanding the possible workflow and collaboration.

The ribbon being the productivity killer you’re talking about is a non-existent issue, since typical office workers rarely venture further than the main set of icons + they have the most useful shortcuts pinned to the quick access toolbar.

In every environment where people have been using both pieces of software (MS Office and Star/Open/Apache/Libre), the former was preferred for its ease of use.

Again: Linux/FOSS movements tends to produce the mindset that is hard to convince that there’s something wrong about anything it does, while listening to people’s - common people, instead of experienced power users - complains, and following tested and appreciated standards should be preferred.

I haven’t seen an enterprise, where Excel wasn’t present.

…and I am in IT since late 90s.

I agree, but there’s one thing, that needs to be perceived from different perspective: Linux Office suites > ARE < awful.

They look ugly. They overcomplicate certain, simple tasks. They aren’t as compatible with MS’ documents as they need to be. The only exceptions to it are WPS Office, but since it joined the dark side (ads(, it can no longer be suggested, and OnlyOffice - possibly one of the most recent entries to the list of possible MS’ Office alternatives.

Yes, yes, I know “I can do in Libre everything MS packet can do, and more”.

…but the problem is that it’s not you who will need to work with it. People in business need a tool that gets the job done, is well supported and doesn’t get in the way. Libre, unfortunately does - everyone who tried to apply an unorthodox page numbering to a document knows that it’s too complicated for non tech-savvy user.