headline “It’s 2015 - Time to buy my first Laserdisc Player.”
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…I consider if I can ditch Windows at last.
The next iteration of Chrome looks as though it will be able to multitask Android apps. I may just install W7 on a NUC or equivalent and remote into it when needed.
These days I’m nostalgic for our Unix box of 1986 vintage. Two whole megabytes of RAM.
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BBSes - Bulletin Board Systems - were a key part in forming net culture. Before Usenet became 'ugely popular, folks used to set up personal computers as a BBS that people could dial into, play (asynchronous) games on, post messages on. A few of them are still around today (Benj Edwards has an excellent article on them ).
(Book recommendation: Underground by Suelette Dreyfuss)
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The early hacking and phreaking crews LOD, MOD and others would find unused corners of the phone company’s computers and host their BBSes there rather than on their own equipment, which is just so cool.
I had to read about it in books years after the fact, unfortunately. All of my early computing was in school when I lived in MI. No home computer and, after I moved, almost no school computing except word-processing (when a teacher required a typed assignment) until I was in my 30s and finally bought my own. This is all to say that I sadly didn’t experience any BBSes personally (a friend made me a printout of anarchist-cookbook-type posts once, which I never did anything with but thought it was so damned neato)
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Yes and no. Having been the guy trying to wrangle the users and desktops I have a lot of liking for locking things down (within reason) and using the tool provided by employer/school only for the work it is supposed to be used for.
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This may be a little niche-- but the version of VLC in the Windows Store doesn’t play copy protected DVDs… Presumably, you can’t chose to install the binaries available from videolan that do.
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People still buy DVDs?!?
I’m not saying to torrent them all, just saying that pirate portals are still legal to view in Canada (for now). Use browser protection, though!
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This is for you!
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I have quite the DVD collection. Don’t really use it that often, and I don’t update it anymore. but when I installed Windows 10 for the first time, I noticed the player’s absence. (The store does sell a Microsoft approved player for $$)
Conceivably, I could rip them all with handbrake, but I haven’t even gone so far as to estimate how much space I’d need or how much time I’d spend.
I haven’t checked what torrent clients are available in the Windows Store.
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Haven’t got my '80s-vintage boxes anymore, but I do still have my old P6-200 Vectra with 32 Mb of RAM set up with OS/2 Warp Server…
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I’ve never installed anything from the “Windows Store” and VLC (installed from the videolan site) works fine for me. I don’t use it to play DVDs though. I have a USB DVD-RW drive in case I wanted to, but so far the only thing I’ve needed that for was installing Windows itself from the disc.
Why would you limit yourself to one ‘app store’ when there’s an entire internet of places to get things? (I use Deluge by the way, can’t say if it’s the best, but it’s free, simple, and works well for me.)
I kind of fear a future where we’ve raised an entire generation that’s never heard of getting or distributing things outside an approved Apple/Google/Windows ‘App Store’. At that point we’ll be right back to total vendor lock-in with proprietary everything, only this time with in-app purchases.
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It’s a built in limitation of “Windows S”. (I accidentally installed this limited version before I realized my mistake and reinstalled the correct version.)
ONLY WINDOWS STORE APPS WILL WORK
The biggest change to Windows 10 S is that it’s locked to only work with Windows Store apps. That means you’ll need to find apps in the Store to download and install them, and many desktop apps like Photoshop and Chrome simply aren’t in the Store yet. Microsoft does allow developers to port their desktop apps into the Windows Store, but not many have taken advantage of this feature just yet.
It’s the future. A garden of pure ideology.
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The S stands for shit. (Or starter, or secure, or whatever Redmond defines it to next)
I can no longer recommend a Surface, since it comes with S, and requires EXTRA PAYMENT just to frigging use Windows executables. Glorified netbooks is wot they are. At least netbooks were portable and had easily upgraded batteries.
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That is only on the Surface Laptop that gets S. And I believe it is still eligible to convert to pro at no cost.
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No vost ubtil 1 Jan 2018 according to store documentation 
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I love my Surface Laptop. Is running Win 10, pretty sure. It’s the older one not the latest and greatest. Love love love it.
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And we can think back to the golden days when AOL would just leave discs in every puplic place known to man instead of remotely trying to hijack your computer.
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Them’s not “good old days.” Them’s “bad old days.”
Speaking of, remember super 8?
Made some crude animated films for high school back in the day . . .
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I remeber seeing people carrying around their 44 or 88 Syquest cartridges in the mid 90s and thinking how impressive they looked. It was the badge of a true professional. By the late 90s I could aford such a device, and I soon realized how buggy and unreliable it was. Give me magneto-optical any day!
Imcould figuratively bet my life in that drive. (This is not actually a picture of mine, but it’s the same type)
I only had the opportunity to male one movie with Super 8. Wish I could have done more.
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