JC, just by reading along you actually know more than 50% of the folks out there.

Seriously, my wife is a typical user and she curses MS weekly for whatever the heck they just did.   She knows when she is getting Micky Frick'd, she does.

She looks longingly at my Linux screen while she complains about being all locked up yet again and I catch her checking periodically to see if she really can really open and save her work using my "Alternative Softwares".

That's her reality test, can she really use it while her machine is "loading upgrades" .....

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And all I am really doing lately is tagging the new stuff to old posts, which keeps the TOP 10 and the MOST RECENT viewing folks happy.   It is a small thing to do for them, and I can certainly do that to keep their lives happy.


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Mickysoft announces a plan to be able to run on anybody's ARM based chipset by the end of 2017.    

Part of this is Intel leaving, part of this is AMD's new stuff is going to be based partially on ARM technology,  part of this is that SO DURN MANY POWERFUL NEW ARM SOCS ARE GOING INTO FULL PRODUCTION AT COSTS FAR BELOW ANY  "x86"  ANYTHING,  part of this is that the Linux Kernel will already run natively on all of the above as they are all currently built into the Linux kernel itself  .....

NEW INFO   MS's plan right now is to run an "x86 emulator level" so what they are planning right now will be slow as dog poop -- once again completely non-competitive to the actual Linux/Android natural product marketplace.   But yes, it would theoretically run on ARM processors ......

              ..... swiping code from the Android x86 project, huh ????

So, you can begin to see why MS is becoming "Linux based" all of a sudden.

Also note, when the 7nm half voltage change rolls through, the x86 world will lose a large part of its supplier base to some degree.

Remember, Intel processors do not run at 2.2 volts .....



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Speaking of Intel and new layoffs, this is brand new "news" from just this week.

https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/18/intel-layoffs/



All of these old tech items represent pending Intel processor based IoT items, all of them representing companies that were all purchased just this past year by Intel intending for them to be the core of their new direction into new IoT realms.  

Each of these things have come up a loser against the pre-existing competitive IoT products such as Fit Bit and the other better working, less expensive ARM based products.

Intel's dreams of the future (the "good" new products design part of the company) is taking the current crop of layoff hits ....

Hewlett Packard Computing has assembled the first test sample of a multi-terabyte new memory based server for testing purposes.

This one uses an Intel server processor for all computational tasks, a GPU from Nvidia and its only claim to fame is that it uses a LARGE pool of new style 3-D memory (as fast as systems memory ever was) to hold the OS, the task at hand and all the data associated with the task.   It all fits into the multi-terabyte chunk of "3-D memory" that the system is built to use in a parallel fashion.

HP reports the system is 2 TO 8 THOUSAND TIMES FASTER in normal complex calculation runs as it make ZERO calls to a hard drive to spool up and read the little magnetic dots and dashes stored on the spinning platters.   ALL THE DATA is all instantly available at the new faster "systems memory" type speeds the new memory uses for everything.

This new style of memory will change computing in fashions we can't really geek right now -- processor speed will become relatively non-important compared to the throughput speed increase which can be had by going with the new memory based systems.

This change will hit around the same time as the 7nm full across the board production wave, in year 2018-19.    2 volt based systems, powerful "many core" half sized CPU chipsets running newly designed OS systems designed to fully use the new memory type to best advantage.

  ..... hey, phones are already getting so thin they aren't strong enough to keep from bending.

First tastes of the new memory will show up from Samsung and Qualcomm as both have their versions of the stuff in motion as we speak.


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BTW info .... so far everything discussed for a 10nm roll out is a hexacore, or an octacore or a decacore big-little arrangement.  

The sole dual core hold outs are Apple and (perhaps if they can pull it out of their butt in time) Intel.    Apple feels their customers are not competing for pure speed and getting somewhat relatively poorer battery life is something that the Apple phone folks are quite used to by now.   Apple will go to 7nm in 2018-19 anyway, so 10nm roll out thoughts don't apply in Apple's longer term plans anyway.

Intel is still pooting little brown vapor puffs about making Apple's SOCs for them in year 2019, so the dual core is being vapor puff planned from Intel as well.

TSMC announces conversion of a third of their 16nm FinFET lines (of which they have more than a few) directly over to their new 12nm Germanium laced process, which is running similar pass counts and numbers of masks needed.    This means a slight modification of existing production lines is all that is needed to make this changeover.
,
    (ie, there will be very similar production costs to the old 16nm products)

This TSMC 12nm change offers a 25%-30% rough chipset performance uptick, so expect to see TSMC 12nm very quickly become "the new industry minimum standard".

Expect to see all the old 28nm stuff begin to roll over to the "new industry standard" -- mind you, this is a new industry standard that laps Intel completely on all performance based metrics.    

Not that Intel has been focused on performance for very much lately, as they also just got main processor price/performance lapped by the AMD Zen 6 and 12 and 18 core chipsets that were just released this week - Zen chipsets are touted as giving the same performance as the Intel"s old product equivalents at half the price .....

Intel HAS GOT to do something better than 14nm, fast.    Some minor "incremental improvements" on 14nm really isn't going to cut the cheese in year 2017 (much less in year 2018 & 2019).



Apple is rumored to have just slapped Intel across the chops by opening the quotes up for 2018-2019 laptop chipsets to also include TSMC, Samsung and AMD.  

Apple says "If you want to build this chip for us to be shipped in mid 2018 please provide a 50 piece sample run of this design by xx/xx/2017".

    Using Apple's design .....               .... Intel, dust your arse off and cut you a really sweet deal with Apple, or lose it all to TSMC ....


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Microsoft and Intel are now putting out a brand new fresh crop of anti-Chrome articles and ads again for Christmas.   Wintel is also trying to get dumb looking Olympic swimming jocks to get you to upgrade your old laptop to a new Intel processor (and lock yourself totally into Win 10, btw).    

Go Sheldon, go ....

Wintel does this to try to keep Chromebook momentum from building whenever they see Chromebooks becoming a "more serious threat".  
It is cheaper to do this than build a more affordable, better Wintel laptop.

HP now makes their new printers support the New Android Chromebooks -- supposedly all it takes is a USB cable and a current HP printer.   Just plug it up and turn it on .....  

Is a Chromebook ready to jump into MS Land and do all the things a MS user would want to do ???    Heck no, but it costs 1/2 to 2/3 as much to buy a Chromebook and it does 90% of what a MS users needs to do -- hey, it does exactly as much as MS has built into Office for Android.

If you are a Chromebook user from way back, you know you can do a whole lot more now-a-days than you used to do as Chromebooks are getting more mainstream support from HP and others now-a-days.

IS IT THE SAME ????    Heck no, both sides love to toss up lists of stuff both pro and con.

Is Chromebook growing ??   Yes. about twice as fast as before.   Chromebooks have overtaken Apple everything everything (no vagueness here, simple facts) and are working at MS's piece of the market share pie right now.    Google is working it so hard MS has had to join the Linux Federation and is now going to write a compatibility layer into Win 10 for next year so it can run (slowly) on all ARM processor based laptops.

You know, it's funny --- within a calendar year Mickysoft promises you can run ALL OF WINDOWS on a Chromebook (or on an Android laptop).  

Why?   Because Windows 10 machines aren't selling as well as like Mickysoft would like.

So Micky wants to sell you a Win 10 license for your Chromebook.....


    .... hey, you can always go to Mickysoft on line for free ....

I dunno, my wife's Vista machine recieved a Mickysoft emergency security upgrade and immediately died with the screen going to bruised brown black & blue ......  

..... wait a second, isn't that what yours just did to you ????


    I guess the fact they were still running Vista constituted an "emergency" to good 'ol Mickysoft.

Mickysoft officially says very little about the current hot potato issue .....


When you start a Windows Vista-based computer, the system may stop responding (hang) at a black screen

Support for Windows Vista without any service packs installed ended on April 13, 2010. To continue receiving security updates for Windows, make sure you're running Windows Vista with Service Pack 2 (SP2). For more information, refer to this Microsoft web page: Support is ending for some versions of Windows

SYMPTOMS
When you start a Windows Vista-based computer, the system may stop responding (hang) at a black screen.

Additionally, you may experience the following symptoms when you try to recover from this problem:

If you restart the computer, press F8 before the Windows Vista progress indicator appears, and then click the Safe Mode option, the same problem occurs.

If you start Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) to restore the Windows Vista-based computer, WinRE stops responding.

If you try to use Windows Vista installation media to repair the system, the system stops responding.

CAUSE:

This problem may occur because of file system corruption within the $Txf directory. This corruption causes a deadlock condition between the Transactional NTFS (TxF) process and the Autocheck process.

WORKAROUND
To work around this problem, perform a clean installation or a parallel installation of Windows Vista.

Warning In a clean installation, existing data is deleted. This data includes personal data and settings. After you install the operating system, you must also reinstall all programs.

For more information about how to reinstall Windows Vista, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
918884 How to install Windows Vista

STATUS
Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section. This problem was corrected in Windows Vista Service Pack 1.

MORE INFORMATION
Windows Vista introduces the TxF technology. TxF enables file operations on an NTFS file system volume to be performed in transactions. For more information about TxF, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa365456.aspx

Properties
Article ID: 946532 - Last Review: 04/10/2008 05:19:13 - Revision: 2.2

Applies to:
Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Enterprise, Windows Vista Home Basic, Windows Vista Home Premium, Windows Vista Ultimate, Windows Vista Business 64-bit Edition, Windows Vista Enterprise 64-bit Edition, Windows Vista Home Basic 64-bit Edition, Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit Edition, Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit Edition

Keywords:
kbtshoot kbexpertiseinter kbprb KB946532

If there are slots, then pop in a video card.

usually, you can deactivate the internal card with bios settings.

well... at least you're not on your way to Timbuktu.