Call me old fashioned. But when I press the brew button on my coffee machine, it works every time. No internet, apps, or ‘smarts’ required. Just consistent quality.

There is very little quality control. Amazon mixes supply from different sellers, so bad actors often supply garbage into legitimate listings.

B&H is a great source for electronics, computer parts, and photography.

Microsoft could be massively less dickish and drop the requirement for TPM 2.0. It doesn’t do anything notable and that one decision would change OP’s experience from ‘stop pestering me to switch if you won’t even let me switch’ to ‘I guess I’ll press the button’.

All in good time. Many industries are already moving to web, which is OS agnostic. And it’s easier than ever to recompile a native program for different OSes.

Yeah, uBlock Origin continues to work great.

They are going to have less m.2 slots as they require a ton more data lanes. If you do need another m.2 slot, a PCIe adapter card or a SATA adapter are both good options.

I’m very excited for the day I can replace my spinners with SSDs. That day is coming, but it is not today.

It would have to be a voluntary thing, not just handed to everyone. “Put your name on this sheet if you want one.”

That sucks. They probably could give them out to employees as a little bonus thing. Build a bit of goodwill. Rather than have them sit on a shelf.

Everyone is going to buy M.2 SSDs first, and only buy SATA if they don’t have enough M.2 slots. I really doubt SATA SSDs are selling well.

With that said, I don’t see SATA going anywhere. It’s (comparatively low) bandwidth means you can throw a few ports on your board and not sacrifice much. For some quick math: a M.2 port back-hauled by PCIe 4.0 x4 has 7.8 GB/s of data lines going to it. While SATA 6.0 has only 0.75 GB/s of data lines going to it.

I think it may be time to install CoD4 again. Damn was that campaign good.

Vote with your dollar and go to Jellyfin, or even simpler, a folder with your media in it.

Yeah, forwarding a port to a server with SFTP allows you both to have two-way links. Have done this with some of my friends as well.

Sneakernet via a HDD is also damn helpful for initial bulk transfers.

Yeah, some people get really defensive when you suggest they can get all the things they are asking for, and all they have to do is stop giving money to user-hostile developers. And saying kernel-level anti-cheat is hostile to the user is a massive understatement. Why would you defend Saudi Arabia having kernel-level access to your computer just to play a game? (It’s crazy that that statement isn’t even a joke in the context of EA.)

I understand if someone decides not to take the suggestion, but it is still a reasonable suggestion to make.

and now they are saying they will never upgrade from 10 to 11

The stats show people are committing this time. English speakers are jumping ship at historically unprecedented rates. Steam stats

the old-style devices and printers menu is still in the OS, you just have to dig for it a bit, and it works 1000x better.

For the last 13 years this has been the most infuriating part of the incomplete control panel migration. I find myself struggling to use the new settings, and having to then resort to digging for the old ones that actually have the option I need.

Win 11 finally pushed me over the edge with ads and spying. But I still have to deal with Windows at work.

LibreOffice is good. While people don’t like learning new things, I found it does everything I could want.

I actually switched years ago because I didn’t want to pay for MS Office.

Have you seen any traction with Framework in the corporate space? They are mostly marketed at individuals, but since you specifically mention people wanting higher quality machines, Framework fits the bill.

It was possible to skip Vista and go straight from XP to 7. You could even use the same PC.

It was possible to skip 8 and go straight from 7 to 10. You could even use the same PC.

This time around, Microsoft is forcing Windows 11 as the only option, forcing people to throw away their machines, and it is backfiring on them. People are rejecting it and the competition (Linux) has never been as good as it is today.

The executive also noted that 500 million PCs don’t meet Windows 11’s system requirements

So much unnecessary e-waste. I never want to hear about how ‘green’ or ‘sustainable’ Microsoft is again.