> What were they thinking? Facebook has designed a feature which makes me hate my friends.
That's funny. It's a little like chalk and cheese. I had a friend on Facebook who posted political links religiously, he swamped my news feed and it was pretty depressing. In the end - I somehow muted him. He's more recently moved over to a blog (I think he was annoying others too.) Can't say that I've bothered to tune in though. I miss it in a way.
My stream is even more flooded on G+. I'd rather a page full of teasers with click down stories. G+ is just overwhelming even if you do create circles.
I have privacy concerns about Facebook, and resent the fact that it's such a silo, but in the main in succeeds where other technologies have failed.
It's useful for finding people - a directory. If I want to get in touch with someone - and I don't have their contact details I can probably find them on Facebook and fire them a message.
If email was just as easy, people would have probably taken to that. Which is a shame, because Email could have been that easy. Privacy used to be more of a concern, and spam drove people away from publishing their addresses in directories.
I've left (privacy and personal reasons.) I since have missed the community. It's encouraged me to pick up the phone more, which is a nice thing. You just can't have the same rich interaction with people when typing compared to talking. But you can have a greater audience. Perhaps you communicate to more people with less content over something like Facebook, compared to having richer relationships with fewer people. It might all balance out.
Ultimately time is a premium. I certainly don't think G+ is the answer - it's much of the same.
That's true. An old net book or second hand laptop could be re-purposed as a NAS. I've found though that getting smooth HD out of older hardware, isn't that good. And the desktop OSs are pretty crappy on a TV. There's certainly a gap in the market here. Currently this is a very confusing landscape. It's bad enough trying to find a machine that will handle multiple codecs.
The difference between an Xbox say and a NAS is one of power. Low power set top boxes are a must. The amount of electronics piling up in people's houses is just ridiculous.
The consoles are guzzlers - with the exception perhaps of the Wii.
Try right clicking (or menu key), copy the url, open new tab (CTRL+T), go to location bar (CTRL + L), and paste (CTRL + V). It's the Javascript I think that hijacks the click.
I can't stand timeline. I find it really difficult to read them for some reason - probably something to do with having more than one column - and poor alignment - it's cognitively difficult.
I use a couple of belts, that I can adjust to exactly the right length - to get a good height. The laptop sits in that like a dream and makes for a good laptop desk. With a desktop PC - I just sit the monitor somewhere practical, the keyboard spans the stand it just rests there.
My main desk is actually a drop leaf table. I sit my desktop PC on it. When sitting, the monitor is placed in front of the PC. When standing the monitor goes on top of the PC, and I drop the desk bit.
I'd actually prefer a drop leaf that I could hide the PC in. But currently the PC serves as a good stand for the monitor. It also makes the PC very accessible. The trickier part of my setup is accommodating a mouse. But I could just place a board on the piano/keyboard stand.
I appreciate the portability part of the article. For me an iPad is too large. The Playbook looks like a better size. I'm hoping that the new Google tablet betters the existing offerings.
They actually appeal to the older generation - judging from some of my family members (the over 60s.) My Aunt uses her iPad oddly enough as a camera more than anything - she loves the way she can easily show off what she has taken. Before than she owned a Dell laptop - which was occasionally used for Email now it just gathers dust.
My uncle has both an Android tablet and an iPad and an iMac! He seems to be quite fond of the droid. I don't know his reasons why. He's not tech savvy in anyway - he can barely install an App on his Mac.
And I think the appeal as a desktop replacement is that they are easier to use. But both could be far better.
At home I use a keyboard stand (or rather a stand designed for an electric piano), it's adjustable for both sitting and standing, and you can easily put it away.
There's lots of good advice on building silent PCs. I actually have a roomy desktop case, a Lian Li, a passive GFX card, an energy efficient CPU and only one big CPU fan, and a pretty silent energy efficient PSU. These were all picked with noise in mind when I last built my desktop PC. My case actually is pretty thin alu, it resonates because of the hard drive and thin chassis, so I've had to tediously dampen the drives with rubber (I wouldn't recommend that case.) Some of the older cases - I'm talking a naughties case, can be found (probably at the local tip) that are incredibly thick, and these make for a better quieter unit in my opinion - but at the same time they can be quite ugly. But then again - most PCs are ugly!
A friend of mine just picked up a Pentium 4 (yes all my friends have P4s), for £20, with a nice thick case, but the thing sounded like a helicopter taking off - the fans were so loud. We replaced the CPU fan (something like an Arctic freezer), and now it's quite easy on the ears.
My PC case is hugely bloated for my needs, I barely touch the DVD unit anymore, so I could just throw it in a trunk. Or make a new chassis for it. I only keep it as the size doesn't make me curse whenever I have to go in there. How about a piano stool for a case?
I think my favourite case I ever had was a micro ATX case that I modded to accommodate the PSU on the front. I could then keep it on the floor and still turn it off easily. As it was low down it was quieter. It also served as a rather nice foot warmer.
