bithush

Like Joey I hate fans in my machines. I am a long term ThinkPad user. My main machine is still a T420s (the s model is a bit lighter than the regular T420) however I would love something like the Yoga 3 Pro but with a ThinkPad design. The Core-M is fine for my local computing needs the only thing lacking from the Yoga 3 Pro is a TrackPoint as I can't stand touchpads.

My ideal machine would be something along the lines of - fanless Intel CPU, 14" 1080p or better IPS display, excellent backlit keyboard with TrackPoint, 12+ hour battery life for 60% screen brightness and wifi, 3+ USB ports, 512+GB fastest local storage possible (so PCIe x4/M.2 or something). I don't care for anything else although I would take an HDMI or DP out and Bluetooth if possible :)

I checked a few months ago but there was nothing specifically for desktop apps only universal ones and even then they were mostly voice-oriented things so you can "plug in to Bing". Ugh.

As far as I can tell it is not [yet?] possible to integrate features from a classic Win32 application into Cortana to do things like I listed. Shame as that would have been very cool.

My examples are very specific to my domain for sure but they were just some examples for my use, the general concept of using Cortana as an actual digital assistant to automate/speedup boring and often done tasks.

When I first used Cortana as part of Windows 10 I was quite disappointed when I found out it lacked quick commands like this. Sure it has some understanding of what is written such as "remind me to call Jim at 2pm" but it is very limited.

I was hoping I would be able to things like the following -

  * backup Fizz Buzz project (and have it intelligently backup the Fizz Buss Visual Studio project to a default location)

  * open Fizz Buzz issue 131 (and have it open a browser to the github issue tracker to the correct issue #)

  * email the Fizz Buzz project plan to Jim (you can *kind of* do this but it hardly ever works as you would want)

  * open Fizz Buzz todo.txt when I next login

  * copy the Fizz Buzz project plan to my Dropbox projects folder

You know things that I will otherwise need to open the command prompt for or do some mundane UI task. Sure some of these things will require applications have such support but from what I can tell Cortana offers no real way to do this other than integrating with the Windows search service.

Considering most (all?) of these things could be done with PowerShell cmdlets it is annoying there is no way to script Cortana via PowerShell in such a way.

Maybe one day.

I came here to say just this. Considering he had no prior experience and by his own accounts he is quite the geek I thought he spoke very well. He was articulate, kept his answers on point and not too long, perhaps a little wordy but people tend to over talk when nervous.

I am really loving this new Microsoft. What I would love would be for Microsoft to offer resources to get Clang/LLVM working on Windows as well as MSVC so it can be a first class compiler in VS.

I am surprised things such as Cinavia[1] isn't more widely used for tracking. It is designed to cut off the audio after 20 minutes which you see on a PS3 with many Bluray Disc rips released on torrents.

For that to work obviously you need the player to implement the feature but this isn't about disabling playback but simply tracking a leak. Just tweak it audio on each early release copy and you are good to go.

The really interesting thing about Cinavia is that it survives even an audio transcode/re-encode so even converting 5.1 DTS to MP3 or similar won't kill it. It is extremely robust in that sense.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinavia

My point was that it doesn't seem to offer anything more yet costs more. Yes $100 is a little under 3 hours work so justifying the cost isn't a problem but considering I already paid for VAX I am not one to just throw money away :)

Looks good but I will stick to VisualAssistX as it is cheaper, at least in the UK.

Yeah 21CC and U&UCP are for once you are comfortable with the language not for beginners. U&UCP will be a book to keep by for many years as well as it is pretty much the gospel for pointers IMHO.

K&R is a great book however I feel there are better books these days. My two personal recommendations are C Programming A Modern Approach by K N King (2nd edition) and Programming in C by Kochan.

However the exercises in K&R are excellent so make sure you do them all. Actually the cost of K&R is justified just for the exercises IMHO.

Also get Understanding and Using C Pointers by Richard Reese, it is a must have.

Two other books I very much enjoyed are Head First C and 21st Century C (2nd edition). Head First has some nice "extra" bits like threads and networking in C. 21st Century C explains sensible, modern ways to do things in C and, more importantly, things you should NEVER do in C!

This is actually the only thing holding me back from getting a new machine. I need one, badly. But I also need at least 16GB RAM. I have 8 in my current (very old) machine and it is by far the biggest restriction I have. Getting a new machine with the same amount of RAM is pointless and I don't want to get another machine this big but my options are limited. I can't find many ultrabook's with 16GB though :(

I find it strange they still use this as a selling point. My only computer is a Dell laptop from 2008 (Studio 1737) and it wakes from sleep (Windows 8.1) in ~1 second. Sure I don't have connected standby but to be honest I don't really care for it. I open the lid and in a second Windows is up and running again. This machine originally came with Vista and it has always worked this quickly as far as I can remember.

Also not sure if related but Slashdot is also down as of 16:59

So far it looks like the whole site is down. Not a single project I have tried to access works. No word on their Twitter as of 16:58 GMT https://twitter.com/sfnet_ops

Indeed. While this is a nice hack, GIF really needs to just die now.

I would love a bigger battery for a slightly bigger device but this isn't what Apple is aiming for.

Apple design the hardware to work with what they want it to look like not design a device around the hardware.

I used to think that was stupid but it clearly works for Apple. Their business is not making the best device spec wise but the "best" device design wise (in their view obviously).

In my opinion salary information should not be kept a secret except on personal request. Openness in pay, responsibilities and performance[0] leads to a far healthier company in my opinion and experience. That is not to say you stick the salary information out in the open in a database for all to check at will but during [pay] reviews I feel it is important to be able to see how much you earn compared to your direct colleagues. This is also good for a company as it means they actively working towards equality.

[0] This is obviously quite difficult because performance can be very tricky to measure fairly and can cause problems in comparisons to other positions. The same is true of performance related bonuses which I am fine with keeping private.

If you live in a "no knock" state you are not nuts at all. I am from the UK and think the whole no knock thing is insane when everyone has easy access to guns (both legally and illegally). It is just asking for people to die.

Clang currently supports my freedoms more than GCC with its political limitations holding it back.

Especially with the Community Edition of VS making it really easy for pretty much anyone to get access to VS.

I like GCC and everything but I will be happy to leave it behind if I am honest. The politics are just too damn much for me these days. GCC should be about building a great compiler collection for the world but politics plays too big a part in it as seen with the whole AST debate going on again because of RMS. I just want a good compiler and standard library implementation. Between Clang/LLVM and VS Community I don't know if GCC will really have a huge place in the future for me.

I am looking forward to the day when I can have a full Clang/LLVM environment on my Windows machines without relying on MinGW. Hopefully this year!

Maybe I am just getting old but in 2015 it shouldn't be this much work to get an OS installed on a computer. Getting pretty much any Linux or Windows installed on my ThinkPad is a piece of cake. As pretty as a Bacbook Pro is I just don't have the time for this kind of thing anymore.

#GetOffMyLawn ;)

Windows 9x just stored your password in a pwl file. All you had to do to "hack" into an account was rename this file and it would accept any new password. Of course Windows 9x had no file system security and this hack didn't give you any network resource access but you could brute force the pwl file if you really wanted too. Although it did require quite a bit of CPU for the time obviously.

This is a beautifully done hack.

Using a legitimate USB charger. The GSM radio for 2G internet broadcast. The built in battery for short term unplugged continued sniffing. Trigger word SMS messages. Live streaming web portal.

That is very, very cool. This is the kind of stealth monitoring device people just would never think to check and could easily be replaced without the user being any the wiser.

This is a beautiful example of a real hack superbly executed. Bravo.

Edit: Just realised this is the guy (or team?) behind EverCookie.

Also see http://green-park-jobs.co.uk/dwpcto/index.php

If you liked this you might also enjoy these videos about writing a NES emulator in C++11

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y71lli8MS8s

For anyone who has picked up a copy of K&R wanting to learn C and hit a wall I highly recommend C Programming: A Modern Approach, 2nd Edition by K N King.

Having read many books on C over the years I think King's book is without doubt the best intro book to C. K&R is great but it is a reference more than a tutorial in my opinion and is better to read once you have the basics of C (and programming) under your belt.

Wow. That is a pretty crazy setup. I would worry about neck problems with the position of the top row. How long have you worked with this setup? Also what make/model/spec is the laptop you run it all from?

That is some beautiful code.

I really like the look of Material but not all the animations.