seawolf

You might give this utility a try to quickly test a few different settings http://www.allocinit.net/apps/suenabler Also, you might want to consider moving to caching server on Mavericks instead of ASUS. Probably less problematic long term.

The Cisco wireless kit isn't in the same league as their switches and routers. I'd much prefer Ruckus, but I could live with Cisco if there was no choice. But, as others have stated, the Cisco kit would generally be more expensive than Ruckus, so I can't see the predicament being one of money?

As they stated in the original article, their previous comparison showed the Lumia won by a considerable margin. So, pitting against the same phones again would likely be pretty pointless. The Lumia also doesn't sell in nearly the same volumes as the other phones. Camera Comparison: Nokia Lumia 1020 vs Galaxy S4, iPhone 5, Lumia 925, One And, of course any article such as this is going to bring out lots of opinions as we've well and truly seen in this thread. That means lots of page views and that's always good for authors and publications. But, what is the point in having it on a smartphone at all? Doesn't it just add to the cost and complexity of the device? Any opinion on this particular question?

Yes, they were being quite selective, but that was the point I think. They looked at several of the most popular smartphones that people frequently take photos with, likely based off of data from Flickr (Top 6 Best Smartphones of 2013 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!). As for the cheap android phones selling in droves, there is no single cheap android phone that rises to the top 10 in sales figures. There are so many different cheap phones that make up the volume. It's generally not the individual cheap android phones (single model) that sell in large volumes. I can't say for sure about registration to vote, but I think this would have been somewhat pointless to do this anyway as they had stripped ALL of the metadata out of the photos so that no one could know what photo was taken by what phone. That's why they called it a "blind taste test". No, it doesn't. I can't see what the point of this is in a smartphone camera anyway. It would just take up much more storage space on the phone and 99.99% of the people buying the phone would probably never use this feature. I would bet that very few people buying the less expensive DSLRs even use RAW (or even know what it means). Professional photographers and hobbyists would, but most others wouldn't. I think this rush to add features such as this that are pretty much pointless to 99.9% of users only adds to the bloat of systems, makes them more complicated and less reliable. That's my opinion, but others mileage may vary...

I would head off to the mountains, set up a campsite near a water source, fish, hunt, trap and grow food. Set up multiple locations to move between due to weather or other dangers. Of course, I grew up on a farm and used to go fishing and hunting for days at a time, camping for weeks at a time, was in the scouts for years, and the military training improved the survival skills further. I expect for many people such conditions would be pretty rough. I'd suggest raiding every store in the area to get about 10 years with if toilet paper because that would be the biggest bummer (pun intended) of roughing it for an extended time :-)

The comparison was of some of the most popular smartphones. That's why it was prefaced with the "major competitors" description. They did a comparison of the best camera phones previously and the Lumia came out on top by a mile as one would expect since that phone is more akin to a phone built around a camera body than a camera built into a phone. The shots were somewhat random and there were no low light shots, but it was again more of a comparison of the general perceived quality of the pictures taken with some of the more popular smartphones.

The Metro interface is designed almost entirely with the idea of a touchscreen in mind though. The large-screen AIO Windows 8 PCs make for fantastic kiosk because of this. And, if MS were intentionally trying to make a great kiosk interface - boy they definitely succeeded. I would say yes, absolutely. Putting a keyboard case onto a tablet and using that extensively is even worse than using touchscreen interfaces on a laptop. At least on the laptop, there is the option of using the trackpad and most people would and should use that (making the touchscreen on a laptop or desktop pretty much a "gimmick" and only increasing manufacturing costs). On a tablet, that is not an option (except on the Surface). The fact that there is a trackpad built into the Surface shows that MS did at least realise that using the touchscreen when in "laptop" mode was less than ideal. The whole interface is designed for touch, so even having to use hot corners and all of the other interface quirks with using Metro on a desktop means much more movement of the mouse to bring up the Metro "start menu". This all adds to the increased likelihood of RSI.

This highlights some of the problems with the Metro interface (requirement for browser to be the default to use), but also says to me that some people are being unrealistic or short-sighted about touch interfaces. A touch interface works great in many applications - phones, tablets, touch tables, kiosks, point-of-sale, controls in cars, etc. However, they do not translate well onto laptops or desktop computers where the screen is sitting in the upright or vertical position. If a large mass of the population suddenly started using touch controls on laptops and desktop computers in place of a mouse or trackpad, we would see a large increase in RSI-related shoulder and neck problems as the result of constantly lifting the arm horizontally and reaching forward, up down, and to the side. These movements are natural for a person in a standing position for short periods of time (kiosks) or when the touch surface is on an angle or sitting horizontally (as tablets are most often used). There is a risk of RSI in any touchscreen device, but the risk goes up considerably when the screen being used is sitting in the vertical position. Are Windows 8 Touch Laptops Bad For Your Health? This is why I think MS blew it in failing to understand the distinction between a touchscreen interface and a desktop/laptop interface. Trying to merge the two interfaces makes the resulting interface inferior on both types of devices. It's not about a technological issue such that just improving the interface or touchscreen technology is the solution, it's the reality of human physiology and therefore breaks one of the cardinal rules of human interface design.

True that best SLR camera is always going to take the best photos. But smartphones are the most used "cameras" in the world these days because the best camera is always the one that you have with you. The great SLR that you have back home isn't much good if you need to take a photo right now.

Yes and no. We still have a trolley of iPad 1's in regular daily use in the library. They can't be upgraded past iOS 5, but this hasn't been limiting until recently with a few iOS7-only apps coming out. We also can't use iMovie and other apps that require a camera. Still, they are certainly useful and can run just about all of the apps, eBooks, etc. that our Primary students need and 90% of what the secondary teachers want to use. I expect that iOS 8 will still run on the iPad 2 as Apple are only discontinuing them On my way!, after that it might be the end of iOS upgrades.

I've seen that post, and ehem, most of us would not be able to get away with doing some of those things. I have a good relationship with our Media and Art teachers and doing some of these things would absolutely sink that. Perhaps in a primary school I could get away with it.

@zag - you have to remember that your circumstances are really quite rare and most people could not use external 512GB SSDs as their rotational backup media. It's just not feasible for most people. I couldn't even hold my two file servers on a 512GB SSD let along our 21 other VM servers. Then there are configuration backups from our firewalls, switches, etc. and...nope, not until there are some 6TB SSDs available for a reasonable cost.

Apparently, it's only a gimmick if you are Apple since loads of Smartphones are expected to have one in the near future. And the Galaxy S5 already has one although they are apparently running into production problems What is the market share of the Lumia smart phones? Is it a major market share competitor with Apple and Samsung, no Nokia is in the "Other" group when top smartphone manufacturers are listed (according to market share). Therefore, it didn't make the cut. If it was a comparison of ALL smartphones available, of course the iPhone wouldn't be at the top. It was a test of some of the most popular.

Now, that's a more appropriate argument. Point taken. It's a nice feature. It is rare in a smartphone though. Happy to consider any relevant facts. Actually, what usually happens is someone takes a dig at anything Apple such as you did when you hadn't actually read the article and made a rash comment. If you worked with me, you would know I'm no fanboy. I call it like it is and sometimes Apple does stupid just as good as other companies do stupid. OS X 10.7 received a lot of grief from me. So has their VPP program. That one still gives me the #!$!@ sometimes. I didn't know rebutting an argument with facts amounted to a flame war. Well, there you go. You learn something new every day.

It could be the: - Faster A7 processor - Fingerprint scanner - all metal body - Better camera - Minimal price difference That makes people buy the 5S over the 5C. I actually think Apple made a misstep in selling a phone with those distinctions that was only slightly less expensive than their flagship model. I think an iPhone "mini" (iPhone 4 size) with the 5C processor and camera sold for 30-40% less or so might have worked, but not as it is.

Hey, don't get me wrong. I think there is a lot to like with Windows Phone. I actually prefer it to Android and the build quality of the Lumia's is a lot better than the Samsung phones IMO. But, there have been some far-fetched numbers being thrown about the market share of WP on this thread, so I have to call that out.

Where in the world (literally) are you getting your 15% market share figures? Care to provide the source, because Microsoft and Nokia would like to know where their revenue has gone. Worldwide, Android and iOS have 92.5% of the world market share. Windows Phone has 3.7%. In Europe, Windows Phone seems to have peaked at around 10% based on the latest stats I could find. In Italy, it seems to be popular, but 17% is still a far cry from the 25% you've cited. I prefer to deal with facts rather than fantasy mate. https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24257413 Windows Phone growth plateaus in Europe, Xiaomi beats Samsung in China | ZDNet I can play this game too. Did you know the Mac has a 17.61% market share? It's true and I have the evidence to back it up. Just ignore the rest of the data in that link though. Look away, look away.... Firstly, who in their right mind would take their smartphone scuba diving or snorkelling unless it was some sort of stunt? Proper cases and cameras work much better underwater. Larger lenses gather light much better and purpose-built cameras are much better to be using so you aren't stuffing around with trying to get a touch screen to work properly underwater where you are probably wearing gloves anyway (unless you're in the tropics). Speaking from experience as a licensed diver here mate. And yes, sure every magazine in the world has caught the "shiny shiny syndrome" and makes every test favourable to the iPhone. Really, seriously. Without a doubt. Oh, so you actually didn't read the original article or check the source. OK.

This study was about the iPhone's major (and actual) competitors. With a market share of almost zip, there is NO Windows Phone that can be considered a major competitor to the iPhone. If it was a study about the best camera that happened to be attached to a smartphone, one of the Lumia models would almost certainly have won. But it wasn't. This was a study of the cameras in the phones that most people in the world are likely to have on their person.

Hmmm...I didn't know that Phone Arena - Phone News, Reviews and Specs was an Apple rag? But, since I'm sure you aren't the type who would make rash judgements without actually reading the study that was cited in TUAW I'm sure you were probably referring to something else. iPhone 5s tops our blind camera comparison, Xperia Z1 Compact takes last place

In a blind camera taste test pictures from the iPhone 5s beat out ones from its five main competitors | Breaking Apple News, Tips and Reviews from The Unofficial Apple Weblog OK, so it's a bit of an oxymoron to have a "blind" camera test, but you get the drift. Despite being "outclassed" in the megapixel and features (bling bling) categories, the camera on the iPhone 5S was deemed the best of its major competitors. No surprise really, because as any good photographer will tell you megapixels along don't make a camera. It's quality that counts.

Except it only runs on Mavericks 10.9 We won't be moving to 10.9 until later in the year. EDIT: Hmm, after looking at the reviews and what is missing in OneNote, I'm not so miffed about it only being available on 10.9. It looks like MS has (yet again) crippled their software offering for the Mac and left OneNote quite underdone. First impressions: How Microsoft's new OneNote stacks up against Evernote - GeekWire Some of the very important features that OneNote for the Mac is missing: Importing PDFs Exporting to PDF Web clipping with rich text. Currently web pages are saved as images Printing support At the moment, Evernote is still far better in many ways that OneNote on the Mac. And if you want to spend a few dollars, the Notebook app pretty fully blows the doors off of OneNote. Of course, you don't get that cross-platform goodness with Notebook that a full-featured OneNote would provide, but until MS actually add in a few basic features to OneNote - sorry boys.

Hadn't seen that press release or heard about these yet. I expect they will have a limited use case. Probably for archival of digital media (Videos and Pictures) exclusively for studios and independent film makers and photographers. Pretty useless in backing up a large storage array.

Very cool.

You might want to use this opportunity to set up MDM. You could initially use Configurator to do the initial enrol of the iPads with an trust and enrolment profile imported from Profile Manager. You have to us Configurator and the mini-USB - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5437

38,000 downloads? Heck, that's peanuts when there have been over 200 million Windows 8/8.1 licenses sold. By my calculations that is only 0.00019% of Windows 8/8.1 users. Sounds like throngs of people are crying out for Metro apps...