Technology Ramblings

In 2018 - I've used all 4 of the "major" desktop OS platforms out there - Windows 10, OS X, various Linux distros and ChromeOS.   Here is my take on the state of these OS and where we're going. Let's start with Windows.  Believe it or not the Windows brand is over 33 years old.  Windows 1.0 first released in Nov of 1985 as a shell on top of the MS-DOS operating system and a reaction to the Apple Macintosh of 1984.   Even if you consider Windows 95 - the first of the modern Windows versions you're still talking some 23 years ago.    But what has really changed ?  Sure we've moved from 32bit to 64bit and the hardware has gotten a lot better and some of the underlying components such as memory mgmt and file systems have been updated.  Most recently touch,pen and Hello support has surfaced - but from a general navigation and operation stand-point not much has changed.   When you look at Windows 10 today what do you have ?...

So it's been a several months since I've posted anything regarding Windows 10 19H1 Insider builds and that's because this falls builds have been quite boring and painful.   Obviously a lot of resources were placed on the 1809 release disaster and it wasn't until Dec 24 that MS finally released to the public.  It's was in my mind the worst single OS release issue is the history of MS. There have been a total of 12 Insider releases since my last report on 18234 in September and until recently most of those builds had little to nothing of real value and when the big improvement is an update to the venerable NotePad app - you get the drift. The most recent build is 18305 which I have installed on two devices - a circa 2018 NUC8I5BEH and a circa 2016 HP Elitebook 745G3 laptop.   In both cases MS got over the first big hump with this Insider which was being able to deploy an update in a timely manner.  For most of the fall - updates where taking 2 - 3 hou...

On Oct 2, MS made the formal release of Windows 10 1809 Update available to the public.  Like many that day I updated three machines that my family members use as their daily drivers - all of which were NOT part of Windows Insiders - so where running the April creators update.. I was lucky in that all 3 machines updated successfully.   One took nearly 3 hours - but updated.  My luck may have been due to the fact that for each - I logged in using my MS account versus my wife's, daughters and grand-daughters account which had no real data on the device expect for a few downloads. But many were not so lucky.  Soon after the release users began reporting that all of their data files were missing after the update.  From Documents, to Downloads, Photos, Music, etc.  Basically everything in their users/login folders. The issue became bad enough that MS formally pulled the 1809 update from Windows Update.  Luckily it appears as though via a KB repai...

With the Sept 24 release of Windows 10 build 17763 - MS reached the "RTM" milestone for the Redstone 5 branch.  This is the 7th major release of Windows - we had Threshold 1 - the initial Windows 10 release in July of 2015, followed by Threshold 2 in November of that year.  Since then we've been on the Redstone branch following the twice per year rhythm of releases - typically in April and Oct. Has Windows 10 improved ?  Certainly it has.  We've seen continued improvements in areas like Touch, Pen and Windows Hello support as OEMs continued to update their hardware to support it.   We've also seen more and more control panel functions move to the new Settings "app".   We've seen some improvements in stability and I argue that most of the performance improvements are the result of better hardware - not the OS.   But to me the overall UX is still a hot mess.  Some UI components date all the way back to Windows 2000.  MS sti...

Sept 12 was 2018's "iPhone Day" - Apples annual event where they announce their new devices. This year we saw 3 new iPhones - the Xs, Xs Max and Xr.  All 3 had various updates to the core technologies that make up an iPhone as screen size increases.   What we also saw was a price increase at the top end.  So if you buy an Xs Max with 512GB of storage it will set you back $1,449 + tax - so effectively $1,500+.   In a recent interview - Tim Cook - Apple's CEO stated that Apple can justify these prices because it "replaces every other gadget consumers might need".  So Tim is referring to things like digital camera's, video recorders, music players, etc. But does it really ?   And Apple has been kind of on that band wagon for years back when their flagship iPhone 7 for example was about half the price. My point here is this.  While Apple has always placed itself in a leadership position in the Smartphone marketplace and has positio...

It's been over a month since I've posted anything regarding Windows 10 - either the upcoming Redstone 5 - 1809 release or the 19H1 builds... So two reasons - first on the 19H1 side there have only been 3 builds released in the last 40+ days and to be honest they've all been kind of a yawner as MS have been focusing more effort around the RS5 release builds. I tried my first RS5 update in a while on my Dell Venue 8 Pro and I really can't report on anything - because it won't install.   I had previously been on Build 18219 of 19H1 and the Venue continued to fail to install the latest 18234 build. So this morning I downloaded the production RS4 - 1803 build and performed a fresh install - then joined the Fast Ring.   While the latest RS5 Release build 17755.1 update showed up immediately - it failed at the end of the download stage - not moving on the Installation phase with a 0x8844018 error.    To me this kind of reinforces the issues with Windows 10...

When it comes to automating your home there are a lot of choices out there.  From the early days of things like X10 and Powerline (PCS) to today's mix of Zigbee, Z-Wave, Insteon and WiFi. So how do you make the right choice ?   Over the years I've purchased and installed dozens of different home automation devices from lighting to thermostats to cameras, doorbells & locks, irrigation, fireplaces, etc.  You name it I've probably installed it. So here's my take on the current state and how I'm making my purchasing decisions. First - you need to make some decisions on what you really want to automate.  Is it lighting, security, HVAC, Water mgmt, whatever.  The good news is there is a broad choice.  The bad news is there is a lot of crap out there. The one common ground you'll find is that for the non-WiFi systems to work you either need a "gateway" or "bridge" device that then connects to your home network - sometimes wired - somet...

Whole Home Audio systems are just a cool thing.  The ability to fill a home with music whether from a single source or playing different content in different areas of the home is just a nice thing to be able to do. And while these systems have been around for a while, new technologies in terms of the content choices, control of the systems and how you distribute around you home can raise questions on the best approach for your budget. The following is a discussion on key use cases and design criteria that will help you make a decision.  I have designed and built several systems over the years and am preparing to do a new one - so I'm going through the very process I am going to describe. To me there are three key design criteria that you have to have a clear decision on in order to build the system that best meets your needs. The first criteria is content - basically what do you listen to.  Is is over the air (OTA) content like AM/FM or Satellite Radio ?  Is ...

IDC released it's 2018 Q2 Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker report yesterday and there is one interesting change to note. First WW sales in Q2 of 2018 were down 1.8% to 342M units in Q2 with the biggest drop being outside the top 5 in the "others" category where sales fell 18.5%. Samsung is still #1 WW but saw year over year unit sales fall 10.4% to 71.5M units and a 20.9% market share.  Sales of the new Galaxy 9/9+ are not as brisk as expected.  But the big news is that Huawei surpassed Apple as the #2 WW OEM with a whopping 40.9% year over year sales increase to 54.2M units and a 15.8% market share.   Even with the rejection by US Telco's - that's a remarkable feat and shows that the growth potential outside the US is still huge. Apple sales were nearly flat @ 41.3M units a 0.7% increase over 2017 and carry a 12.1% share.    The other Chinese OEMs did well also - #4 Xiaomi saw a 48.8% sales volume increase to 31.9M units and at that pace ...

So here we are a little past Mid year in 2018 - so here's a quick check in on the PC Market. According to IDC - the industry saw the first sales increase in over 6 years of 2.7% to 62.2M units sold worldwide vs 60.6M in 2017. The top five OEMs (HP, Lenovo, Dell, Apple and Asus) control over 77% of that market as the "Others" category continues to consolidate - showing an 11.4% drop in sales.    MS does not report Surface sale unit numbers - but based on their $1.094B revenue number and an estimated average selling price of $1000 - you can guestimate unit sales around 1.1M or around 1.7% market share.  Surface is weird as well since depending on the model may be considered a tablet or a PC and therefore counted differently. Total PC sales for H1 of 2018 are around 122- 123M units - so really about the same as last year.   So unless there are some earth shattering new releases that drive significant demand or some major upgrade cycles - 2018 should come in...

On July 25th - MS released two Windows 10 builds - build 17723 (RS5_Release) to Fast Ring Insiders and 18204 (RS_PreRelease) to Skip Ahead Insiders. While both builds were identical in terms of their contents - the 18204 build indicates the beginning of the 19H1 or Redstone 6 branch as far as Insiders are concerned. So in effect the development "window" for 19H1 is going to be effectively 9 months if MS sticks to current release rhythm.  So not sure if this means we will get a much larger feature set in 19H1 or if MS is just hedging to insure a clean release which has been a bit of an issue (re: 1803). As mentioned both builds were identical and contained nearly 40 fixes, plus some unique feature adds like the "mixed reality flashlight", the Emoji 11 collection, some time accuracy updates and kiosk mode updates.  So many features that the vast majority of folks will never use. I configured all 3 of my test machines for Skip Ahead - so all upgraded to 18204. ...

During this weeks MS Inspire Conference (i.e. World Wide Partner Conference) - Satya Nadella performed a "demo" of both an Android and Apple devices he referred to as MS 365 endpoints.  In Satya's mind - the phone itself is not as important as the MS apps running on it. Basically these were devices that primarily utilized MS apps - so from Outlook, Office & Cortana to Bing and Edge.   The concept did peak my interest a little and I figured I'd give it a whirl and see how much of a MS 365 endpoint I could make out of an Android device. So I started with a 2 year old Moto G4.  This is an entry level device that costs around $200 and runs Android 7.0.   After a complete reset of the device and initial login using my Google account - I started the transformation. So I started with the MS Launcher - followed by the usual suspects of Outlook, Office Apps & OneDrive.    The next tier of apps include Office Lens, Translator, Skype, Corta...

On July 6, then July 9 MS released Windows 10 builds 17711 and 17713.   Build 17711 was primarily a bug fix build (nearly 30) with some updates to Edge,  some Fluent design updates and an update to the Registry Editor.  17711 was also the official end to the Windows Sets feature - which was dropped for the RS5 branch. Build 17713 again added some Edge, Inking and Windows Defender Updates as well as some updates to old favorites like NotePad.  The nice new inclusion was improved login and support for Azure Active Directory (AAD) and the ability to register your machine with the AAD.   With Sets now gone - 17713 also did a reset on the Skip Ahead Ring.  All Insiders were returned to the Fast Ring and Skip Ahead registration will be opened up soon.   Similarly - RS5 builds will now be marked as RS5_Release and we soon see a new fork for RS6 or whatever the next branch of Windows is probably sometime in August.   As with re...

On July 9, MS announced it's rumored low cost Surface device - the Surface Go. The $399 10" 2-in-1 format device announces the return the small tablet form factor to the Microsoft Portfolio.  You can pre-order now or wait until general availability on August 2.   While other OEMs like Chuwi have been selling small tablet and 2-in-1 form factors for a while - the fact that MS decided to release a product is significant - more on that later. MS choose an Intel Pentium Gold 4414Y CPU with HD 615 to power the device that sports a 1800 x 1200 Pixel Sense 3:2 aspect ratio 10 point touch screen with pen support.  While it seems odd to still be thinking Pentium vs Intel's Core line - the nice thing is - it's fanless and very low power so think 6W TDP. There is Intel 802.1ac WiFi & BT 4.1 support along with a 5MP Front & 8MP 1080P rears cameras with Hello facial sign-on support.    One very absent feature was the lack of LTE support.   ...

So it's been a while since I've posted regarding Windows 10 builds.  In the last 3 weeks there have 2 - first was build 17692 released on June 14, then most recently 17704 released June 27. 17692 actually contained quite a few new features ranging from Swiftkey and Fonts to Game Mode, Narrator, etc., while 17704 focused on Edge, Security, the new ScreenSnip App, Task Manager and more. But the big news that also came with 17704 is that Windows Sets - the tabbed UI experience - has been shelved for RS5.    I've had a mixed experience with Sets and MS called out that several programs had compatibility issues with things like the title bar and other menu related items that couldn't be supported in time for the fall release - 1809.   My test machines also had a mixed bag with updating.   My little Venue 8 Pro failed multiple times during the 17704 update with an "attempt to switch from DPC" GSOD after after like reboot #4 it finally took. ...