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Bing is good enough (for me) that I am now down to Google Earth as the only Google related service allowed on my computers. And when Bing’s saving and printing aerial images matures, I’m totally done with Google.

Google’s intrusiveness into everyone’s lives should scare the crap out of people with any semblance of a heartbeat.

Questions: How much of our opinion is affected by the comfort level we hold with any given product or service? Does the new-kid-on-the-block have to be better to be fairly rated or considered? Do we believe better is so just because it is what is familiar to us? Probably the consensus answers to these are: A lot; Yes; Yes.

about 7 hours ago on Bing Vs Google Image Search For "Xbox One" 1 reply

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agreed…

1 day ago on So what did I receive in my Inbox this morning from Lenovo?

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Not being a gamer, I can’t address the issue of backward-compatibility with regard to games or devices such as Xbox. However, this seems to be the direction we’re headed. With Autodesk’s Revit BIM software, not even point upgrades were backward-compatible. Today, full blown releases are just crazy wild, even to the point of requiring new workstations or, at the minimum, graphic cards. Can I open a file created in Revit 2012 with Revit 2014. Certainly can. But I’ve lost so much content (ie, material libraries) that the model comes in “greyed” as 2014 doesn’t recognize all the materials and the new rendering engine becomes useless until you remap all the materials. This is why I maintain at least three previous versions.

1 day ago on Can somebody help me understand this no backwards compatibility nonsense

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I just checked out the pricing options and the opening price is 1679? Really? They just made a super expenisve product even more expensive.

I believe those who have followed Lenovo over the years anticipated the $2,000 price for a fully optioned Helix. Having said this, what was Lenovo thinking of with a starting price of $1,679 (i5/4gb memory/128gb ssd) when the Surface Pro (15/4gb memory/128gb ssd) goes for $999? I understand the tech/option differences, but does the entry level Helix offer 68% more value than the Surface Pro?

1 day ago on So what did I receive in my Inbox this morning from Lenovo?

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Tell me about it! I’ve been trying to buy a Lenovo tablet since the X60 days and it has always been the next greatest “whatever” is just around the corner. And this applies to the Helix as well considering the impending release of Haswell. First it was Sandy Bridge, then Windows 8 — these are not minor system tweaks.

I understand everything is relative, but IMO $2,000 is not disposable in the sense that you’re not buying a $300-$500 device from BestBuy with the expectation that it won’t be around much longer than a year.

Having setup my wife’s Surface RT and my son’s Surface Pro, if it were not for the i7/8GB RAM/256 SSD, I’d get the Surface Pro in a heartbeat. The problem is that I need as much performance and storage as my wallet can afford.

2 days ago on So what did I receive in my Inbox this morning from Lenovo?

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should have posted the link: http://www.lenovo.com/products/us/tablet/thinkpad/thinkpad-helix/?cid=EDM_20130521_NA_US_CON_TP_Helix_NotifyMe_MC&RRID=223280249&esrc=NOTIFYME

2 days ago on So what did I receive in my Inbox this morning from Lenovo? 1 reply

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No one can, or ever will, beat FREE. And with 90%+ of Google’s revenue generated thru advertising, they can give every product away at no cost. I look at all my non-corporate or small business friends who simply cannot afford or have the need for MS Office and expensive high powered PCs, and Google is the perfect fit for them. And this will likely not change, regardless of how inferior Google products may or may no be. It just works for the masses.

IMO, it will be a very long time, if ever, for Google to make substantial gains in the corporate and government eco system. So I’d be happy to see MS maintain the corporate crown and settle for second place in the consumer arena.

6 days ago on Google has Microsoft by the balls and there's not much it can do in return.

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exactly!!!

7 days ago on MS should probably just give up in the consumer space

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yeah, i’m getting the same private video notice on all these links

15 days ago on Windows 8 ad: quirky, weird, hilarious. Microsoft? 1 reply

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Unless Grandma is a tech freak like most of us here, she will appreciate the HTC 8X. Good build quality, good camera, good audio.

FWIW, Paul Thurrott did a decent review some months back on both the Lumia 900 and 820. His opinion was that when considering the cost differential, in many respects the 820 was better than the 900.

24 days ago on HTC 8X/Lumia 820 owners, HELP!

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I understand the correlation between the x86 application shortcuts on the Start Screen. When I set up my son’s Surface Pro, I installed MS Project. From the Start Screen to Desktop was like less than 1 second. However, given the vast number of project files I work on simultaneously, I exist inside the Windows Explorer, often having 3 or more instances running. The Windows Explorer is the link to all my projects.

I love the Start Screen, as it separates and organizes the casual and communication (social networks, mail, websites, etc) world from my production world. In fact, my desktop is organized with shortcuts that mimic the Start Screen.

25 days ago on Genuinely curious: How often do you reboot your PC that you need a boot to desktop option?

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I shut down and reboot my Windows 7 desktop twice each day — shut down, not restart. After several hours of heavy use (Revit 3d modeling, Photoshop, InDesign, MS Outlook, several IE tabs, etc.), a degradation to performance begins to set in and the system just bogs down appreciably. I’m looking at my task manager now, 112 processes running and Revit is using 2.75GB memory.

Even at this, when I pickup either the Helix or comparable unit, I don’t see it an issue whether the device boots to Metro or the Desktop. So, I need one more step? Far too many things to be concerned about that I will allow myself to be annoyed by an additional click.

26 days ago on Genuinely curious: How often do you reboot your PC that you need a boot to desktop option? 1 reply

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I believe Apple proved the fact that quality sells. Lenovo advanced the $2,000 +/- x60t series tablets thru x230t tablets. Companies don’t survive by keeping losers in their stables very long.

28 days ago on Windows gains 7.5% Tablet market share in recent quarter

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BestBuy is going to purchase and stock the most railed against OS since the beginning of time just so they can pump up Windows 8 sales figures? That will certainly go over with the stockholders when the company is in the fight of its life looking for survival options. At any rate, Microsoft sold the OS to Dell, Lenovo, HP who in turn sold their Windows 8 devices to BestBuy. Who shipped anything that wasn’t sold?

What I would like to know is how many naysayers happily promoted stories of Windows 8 non-existent sales when the OS was released?

28 days ago on Windows gains 7.5% Tablet market share in recent quarter 1 reply 1 recommend

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The only nagging issue I’ve found with the Surface Pro is the lack of an acceptable docking solution for the stylus. Of course, permanent docking becomes a catch 22 situation. The magnetic docking is clever, but only when using the Pro.

29 days ago on Surface Pro Owners: May i have your honest opinion? 1 reply