All-in-One PCs

In article , Tony Cooper wrote:

Tony Cooper:
That last part is not "real world". If the
person who doesn't know the value expected, the Windows unit
would win out because the person who can't be bothered to
determine the value expected is most likely to go with the
unit with the lowest initial cost.

Sandman:
And would "lose out" due to it, without even knowing it, of
course.

Tony Cooper:
That's not a given. It depends, largely, on the application.

Sandman:
As a general rule, it doesn't "depend", it's been studied and the
Mac has lower TCO.

But we need not apply general rules to specific situations.

Since no specific situation has been stated, this has only been about general
rules.

--
Sandman

In article , Tony Cooper wrote:

Hiring a person isn't the same as buying a computer, I know.

Indeed, which is why the process for hiring a person is wholly different from
the process of buying a computer, and should be used as an analogy in any
capacity.

--
Sandman

In article , Eric Stevens wrote:

"no malware"? That's a myth.

Nope.

--
Sandman

In article , Eric Stevens wrote:

Jolly Roger:
And by god, tools are meant to have no resale value, because Peter
says so! Get that through your thick head! ; )

I don't know about you but I buy tools for what they will do for me
*NOW* and not for whatever diminished value they might fetch at some
distant time in the future.

And that's perfectly fine. If we leave the topic of computers for a while and
bring this to cameras, you may think the same way.

But if you ask me, if I am choosing between a Nikon D750 or a Nikon D810, I
might be inclined to get the D810 even though it is more expensive. For one,
it's a better camera, so I get more use out of it NOW, secondly, a lot of that
price difference will be regained when I sell the camera some years up the
road. While the price of the camera affects your wallet "now", if you see the
cameras as an asset, it can mitigate that price further down the road, and I
think it's wise to consider this when purchasing any tool.

--
Sandman

On 2/1/2016 9:59 PM, Savageduck wrote:


snip

I have been guilty of making stupid provocative comments, as have you
and Tony, and not to be forgotten, Jonas.



MOI?
I would never deliberately provoke nosense. ;-)

--
PeterN

On 2016-02-02 11:15:14 +0000, "J. Clarke" said:

In article 2016020121122946600-savageduck1@REMOVESPAMmecom,
says...

On 2016-02-02 04:40:36 +0000, Lewis said:

In message
PeterN wrote:
3. nospams "point" about the need for an accessory would apply to all
TVs that require a card, or other accessory device.

There are not TVs here that require a card or other accessory device.
Maybe where you ware, though I doubt it very much.

In the USA no accessory device is needed to access over-the-air
broadcasts.

Depending on the age of your TV. If it's old enough that it doesn't
have an ATSC tuner then an external box is needed.

However, not all americans live where they can receive
over-the-air broadcasts, so the integrated tuner is useless for them.
Their options are cable, satellite, or streaming, and in all those
cases they will need a CableCARD, a cable box, a satellite system
tuner, or an appropriate modem.

Actually in many localities no box is needed to get the "basic cable"
services, just plug the cable into the TV and click through the menus to
tell it that it's on cable instead of OTA and it's fine.

Somewhere in this thread I said just that. No cable box is required to
receive *basic cable*. I can't receive premium channels/programing
without an intermediate cable box or CableCARD.

If you don't
have basic cable they put a physical lock on the cable box or disconnect
you at the street, they don't try to disable it by doing something fancy
with the signal.

That depends on the local infrastructure. Before Charter Cable, which
was owned by Paul Allen of MS back then, ran 13 miles of fiber-optic
cable out here from Paso Robles, we could subscribe to cable which was
a feed from a massive dome protected, satellite dish owned by the cable
company. There was no cable to the main urban system. it was a truly
isolated cable service.
Before DirectTV and the mini-dish, satellite viewers had the big back
yard dishes. We could get one local NBC channel over-the-air broadcast
which had the signal repeated from a hill top tower.

Now that we have FO cable the NBC repeater is dead and we get zero OTA.

I only had dial-up in those days. no broadband. ADSL was not available
due to the distances involved.

I live in an area where I cannot receive over-the-air broadcasts and so
subscribe to a cable service which also provides my broadband. I have
two cable boxes and the tuners in my TVs are not used.

Just for hohos, try plugging the cable directly into one of your TVs
sometime and see what happens.

I know what happens, I get *basic* only, premium programming gets ****canned.
That said I have a 2003 vintage Sharp HDTV and a 5 year old Sony.


--
Regards,

Savageduck

On 2/2/2016 3:00 AM, Eric Stevens wrote:


snip


I don't know about you but I buy tools for what they will do for me
*NOW* and not for whatever diminished value they might fetch at some
distant time in the future.


Eric.
There is a simple analogy. If I want a car with a high resale value, I
would purchase a Bentley, a Ferrari, or another in that price category.
These appleseeds won't admit that.

--
PeterN

On 2/1/2016 1:56 PM, nospam wrote:
In article , PAS wrote:
I have tow Subarus and I like what they do - they color code things like
the oil dipstick, master cylinder cover, and others with yellow plastic
so you can easily identify them and find them. Also, on their 2.5L
engine, the oil filter is under the hood, you don't have to get under
the car to remove and replace it. An oil change takes me less than 30
minutes. I replaced the oil drain plug with a Fumoto valve. I attach a
hose to the valve, put the valve in oil drain bucket, and then flip the
valve and the oil drains.
if it takes you 30 minutes to do an o/c, then it's not saving you any
time, but more importantly, just hope it doesn't fail while driving.
Really?
really.

i can change my oil in about 10 minutes. sometimes i let it drain a
little longer to get the last few drops, as that's the dirtiest, but
sometimes i don't really care. 15 minutes tops.

Sure you can. The whole process takes longer than ten minutes if you do
it correctly.

Have you ever changed the oil on a car that has an engine bay
undercover that has to removed? I have, plenty of my cars had them and
no provision was made to remove a drainplug and/or filter without having
to remove the undercover.
most cars don't have undercovers. that obviously adds more time but i
still can't see how it would take 30 minutes, especially if you have a
valve instead of a normal drain plug.
Most cars I've had recently have had undercovers. VW Jetta, VW Eos,
Chrysler 300, VW Routan minivan (a Chrysler-built Town&Country
rebrabded), Subaru Forester, Subaru Outback...

The VW Eos had a metal undercover held on by eight bolts and eight
screws. It would take you longer than ten minutes just to remove the
cover and don't forget that it has to put it back on too.

Don't you clean up after an oil change? Do you clean the drain pan, put
the used oil in a receptacle to bring it to a recycle center? The whole
process of putting the car on ramps, draining the oil, removing the
filter, replacing the oil, replacing the filter, and cleaning up takes
longer than ten minutes, at least for most of use mere mortals. You,
however, are a god.


i know someone who had a car where the only way to get to the oil
filter was by removing the left front wheel. he rotated his wheels
every time he did an oil change.

Subaru has made those provisions. Using a
Fumoto valve allows me to do the job without having to lift the car or
put it on ramps. By the time I took the ramps out and drove the car up
onto them, changed the oil, and cleaned up, it was more than 30
minutes.
i've always used a jack & jack stands. quick and easy. ramps are a pain.

Getting out the ramps and driving the car up onto them takes far less
time than using a jack and stands. Stands leave indentations in the
asphalt too, ramps don't.


Now, the entire process takes 30 minutes, sometimes even less
depending on how energetic I'm feeling. For $30.00 worth of synthetic
oil and a filter I'm putting in exactly what I want - I choose which oil
and filter to use. I can go to a dealership or reliable shop and wait
around wasting time (you do know that someone's time is valuable) and
then pay about $70.00 for an oil change.
$70 to do an o/c is a ripoff.

So is Apple's price for a memory upgrade but that's what they charge.

On 2/1/2016 2:17 PM, Sandman wrote:
In article , PAS wrote:

Sandman:
I hear you. I'm your typical "handy man". When we moved to a new
house a year ago, the kitchen needed to be rebuilt. Since it was
wall-to-wall with a huge bathroom, the decision was to tear down
the wall and make a huge kitchen. Since there are drainage,
electricity and plumbing involved, I hired a firm that took care
of those parts, since it's actually illegal to do it yourself
unless you're licensed here.
Anyway, when they were done, I built the entire kitchen myself.
Still expensive, but the money saved are enormous if you can do
it. And while it took the better part of two months to do it, one
could argue that my "time is worth money" but I disagree
wholeheartedly. I enjoy doing it and it was time well spent.
Here's the process:
http://imgur.com/gallery/nChyf
That is a beautiful kitchen you built there!
Thanks! I'm very pleased with it! Very fun to build and it's a place everyone
fits in.


Really, you did a fabulous job. I'd love to have a kitchen like that.
I'm handy but I'd never attempt to do a job like that.

On 2/1/2016 5:09 PM, Savageduck wrote:
On 2016-02-01 20:44:57 +0000, dorayme said:

In article ,
Tim Streater wrote:

In article , PeterN
wrote:

On 1/31/2016 10:16 PM, nospam wrote:
In article , PeterN
wrote:

Our main TV is a Sony XBR. It was a floor model I bought, I think in
1989. The CRT is starting to degrade, but is still usable.

where 'usable' means 'can't be used as a tv anymore because it can't
receive digital tv signals'.

Wrong again. It works just fine with the cable box. But there you go,
just being a jerk again, while ignoring the point.

What's a cable box when it's at home?

It's a TV tuner that is in a separate box and connects to your TV. Had
a cheap one (talking $30 or so nothing bucks here!) for years, work
well. In my case eventually did not actually need it for a new digital
TV. But a similar one had a PVR function (you can record live TV via
it) and it proved useful addition to the inbuilt tuner to the digital
TV. It also gives the ability to watch one program and record another.
Some such boxes can record more than one program at a time.

Nowadays, there are excellent and much dearer boxes which market
mainly as TV recorders with internal HDs. Mine is pretty classy and I
should have let the moths fly out of where I keep my dough earlier. It
not only records reliably more than one station but is on my WIFI
network and can see all the catchup free to air TV programs available
as well as get onto such as Netflix and other providers.

Now, quite a few TVs have PVR recording built in, but a quality
dedicated HD recorder has many advantages (the least of which is the
actual internal HD).

Too much information? I'm sorry Tim. I just can't help typing
uncontrollably before breakfast.

The cable boxes provided by the Cable TV companies, or owned outright
by the cable service subscriber are a little more than "just a digital
tuner". In the US, generally, they are the gateway to your premium
channels, OnDemand, & Pay-per-view. To get those services you have to
have a cable box (I have a Scientific Atlanta), or for digital TVs
which have a slot, a CableCARD, or a combo DVR/digital tuner.

For years, the cable company here on Long Island had Scientific Atlanta
boxes. The DVR boxes were nothing but trouble. I had to have them
replaced at least once a year. I was thrilled when the company switched
to Samsung boxes and the built-in DVR was no longer used, the recordings
were now on the company server. My "thrill" didn't last long. The
software used by the Samsung boxes was not ready for prime time.
Switching channels took about five seconds. That may not sound like a
long time but a five-second lag is a long time to wait for a channel to
start playing. Bringing up the channel guide took far too long and it
wouldn't display properly. There were always problems with recorded
shows. It seemed like the cable system's clock wasn't synced to the
network's clocks. Shows would either start recording after they began
or finish recording before they ended. I had to set each show to begin
recording one minute before the start time and end one-minute after the
end time to make sure the whole show recorded. Recordings on the server
sometimes would not play, there were problems on the server end. I
switched to DirecTV and haven't looked back.

To get basic cable programing on a contempory TV a cable box/card is
not required. Then if you are in an area where you can recieve
broadcast TV a digital TV antenna is needed. Where I live I cannot get
broadcast TV so I have the choice of cable, or satellite.
Charter.net has a fiber cable out to my neighborhood which provides me
with good fast broadband and decent programing beyond basic cable.

My old 27" non-digital Samsung CRT I gave to my neighbor and he has it
hooked up to a DVD player for his young kids.