[/dev/niall]

Originally Posted by Scott R

I seem to recall Jason pointing out that this was a Pocket PC site when asked why he wouldn't include Palm (and other PDA) forums. Yet these stories don't really have anything to do with the Pocket PC.

I think it's pretty obvious it's a Microsoft/Windows CE site. It's pretty hard to draw a line and say "We will not cover anything beyond this". I mean, all these products are supposed to work together; you synchronize your PocketPC with your desktop, which is likely running a Microsoft operating system. Could be that your PocketPC is also your mobile phone, could be that you also have a SmartPhone. If you have both, don't you want them synchronized? Won't you want your car's computer to be aware of them? It's all about convergance and getting your toys to work together. I've enjoyed the news here lately, even if most of it has not been directly related to the PocketPC.

[/dev/niall]

Originally Posted by Scott R

I seem to recall Jason pointing out that this was a Pocket PC site when asked why he wouldn't include Palm (and other PDA) forums. Yet these stories don't really have anything to do with the Pocket PC.

I think it's pretty obvious it's a Microsoft/Windows CE site. It's pretty hard to draw a line and say "We will not cover anything beyond this". I mean, all these products are supposed to work together; you synchronize your PocketPC with your desktop, which is likely running a Microsoft operating system. Could be that your PocketPC is also your mobile phone, could be that you also have a SmartPhone. If you have both, don't you want them synchronized? Won't you want your car's computer to be aware of them? It's all about convergance and getting your toys to work together. I've enjoyed the news here lately, even if most of it has not been directly related to the PocketPC.

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by Scott R

I seem to recall Jason pointing out that this was a Pocket PC site when asked why he wouldn't include Palm (and other PDA) forums. Yet these stories don't really have anything to do with the Pocket PC.

Hence the "Off Topic" category that Ed used. :roll:

[Ed Hansberry]

Originally Posted by Scott R

I seem to recall Jason pointing out that this was a Pocket PC site when asked why he wouldn't include Palm (and other PDA) forums. Yet these stories don't really have anything to do with the Pocket PC.

And thus we are in the Off-Topic section of the site, which if you will notice is "Completely random things that don't related directly to the Pocket PC, but usually cool technology items.". I also tied it in to Pocket PC's just a bit showing that BMW, for example, would be far more likely to deploy Pocket PC based PDA's to their employees since they have experience CE programmers on staff.

You have somehting to contribute Scott, please do. Want to gripe and complain go elsewhere. :roll:

[CharlieG]

I guess this one just reinforces the analogy of Pocket PC:BMW ; Palm:Honda even more.

Between this board and the buzz, anyone else think we should just rename the "rolleyes" smiley after our buddy Scott?

[Master O'Mayhem]

Will this BMW get me into the FanFests?

[Hans the Hedgehog]

Originally Posted by Ed Hansberry

I suppose. It just gets old people talking about Windows reliability and basing everything on Win3.1/Win9x code base. NT/CE are very stable products and are no more likely to crash than Unix. We have some NT4 & Win2K servers here that haven't been rebooted in months.

Well, Ed, I guess when even Gates said at Comdex ... " ... Bill Gates issued a confession to the computer world this weekend, saying Microsoft's software crashes too often and is too hard to use..." we all tend to joke quite a bit about it.

CE might be stable, but there's no shortage of discussions on all this and other boards about the amount of resetting both soft and hard done to the PPC devices. Sure, it might be poorly written software at times, but what about when it is Media Player or other "official" programs that take the machine down?

Personally, I reboot my machines enough on my own because I like preventative medicine... Just my own paranoia after owning DOS boxes, 3.1, 95, 98, 98SE, 2000 boxes, I guess. :P

Happy tapping... the life of a PDA User.

Hans

[RobertCF]

I wonder how many times we'll have to "soft reset" the car....?

[JMountford]

So I asume that Solitare will be included.

Who covers tech support, BMW or Microsoft?

Who figures out whether it is a CD Tray or REALLY is a cup holder?!

What about the guy who calls and can't figure out how to turn the car on?

When voice recognition and automobile driving functions are integrated into the computer, I wonder what will happen when you tell the car to break, or close all windows? "Leave application running" "Car off".

At the drive through you order a Big Mac while the computer goes on line and orders a G4 from Apple.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by /dev/niall

I will agree that such jokes can get old, but they're funny for a reason. I'm sure you can remember the pain of blue screens and error dialogs because of odd hardware combinations, bad drivers, etc. It helps to laugh.
That being said, my Win2k desktop only crashes when I use my Radeon to view television. I have no illusions as to where the fault lies (ATI and it's poor drivers), but why does it need to take down the entire operating system? That's bad OS design, and proof that NT still has work ahead. I've also had my PocketPC hang because of an errant application. That too is bad OS design, and that's why I find things like this funny - I can relate.

Please read the Microsoft Windows NT history...

Windows NT 3.1, 3.5 and 3.51 all had Graphics subsystems running in user mode. So in the three first versions of Windows NT a graphics driver couldnt crash the computer.
But that ment that graphics were slower due to the extra layers of protection built in. So when NT 4.0 entered the market, Microsoft made the bold move to move the Graphics drivers into the kernel (Where already all the other drivers where running). This made NT4 quick enough to handle graphics intensive applications (like DirectX) but at the same time made Windows vulnerable to badly written Graphics Drivers.

Now I dont know about you, but I prefer to have quick graphics in my system opposed to absolutely bullet proof OS. Just be sure to get stable drivers and dont upgrade until new drivers get certified through Windows Update.
And yes, only buy hardware from manufacturers that are known to supply god drivers.

End of history lesson.