[Wayner]

That's right, I needed a new camera. So I bought a Sony. Of course, the cameras are so wrapped up in software dependency, that it would not really down load any of the pictures that I took, tho I did find a back door to it and was able to down load the pictures, the video was another story. I have a relatively new computer with the old XP for all of my CAD software and other programs, so that is why I needed the XP system.

Well, that was yesterday. Today I decided that I maybe should get a new computer and solve the camera problem, and maybe it was time to upgrade anyway.

Well, after initializing the computer and getting that all set up, I downloaded Sony's software for the camera onto the computer. Of course, that didn't work, so I called the Sony call center. That person spoke broken english and could not understand the difference between a "P" and a "T".

My wife is returning both products to the store as we speak.

The computer industry has destroyed itself. The Windows 8.1 system was filled with short cuts to folks at eBay, Amazon and the likes, but what a f_ing mess of a system. I will not buy anything from A**le, as I don't like buying products from a company that got started by stealing phone calls.

No wonder the computer industry is such a down market.

Your products all suck.

I guess I'll stick with what I have until it doesn't work anymore.

'ner

[dlparker]

That's right, I needed a new camera. So I bought a Sony. Of course, the cameras are so wrapped up in software dependency, that it would not really down load any of the pictures that I took, tho I did find a back door to it and was able to down load the pictures, the video was another story. I have a relatively new computer with the old XP for all of my CAD software and other programs, so that is why I needed the XP system.

Well, that was yesterday. Today I decided that I maybe should get a new computer and solve the camera problem, and maybe it was time to upgrade anyway.

Well, after initializing the computer and getting that all set up, I downloaded Sony's software for the camera onto the computer. Of course, that didn't work, so I called the Sony call center. That person spoke broken english and could not understand the difference between a "P" and a "T".

My wife is returning both products to the store as we speak.

The computer industry has destroyed itself. The Windows 8.1 system was filled with short cuts to folks at eBay, Amazon and the likes, but what a f_ing mess of a system. I will not buy anything from A**le, as I don't like buying products from a company that got started by stealing phone calls.

No wonder the computer industry is such a down market.

Your products all suck.

I guess I'll stick with what I have until it doesn't work anymore.

'ner

Time to give linux a try. I started messing around with it shortly after Linus announced version .9x something. It fit on 1 1.44MB floppy and looked like Unix! Pretty amazing. I had almost every version through all the iterations running on at least one computer, and have been using it exclusively for about the last 10-12 years. I only use one product that is not open source - !transcribe. It's music transcription software similar to something called 'slow down' (?) which runs on MS platforms. At roughly $30 USD per copy it's well worth it. And it's cross platform - separate versions for linux, mac, and windows with pretty much the same interface and functionality across all versions.

The hardest part about linux for most people is learning something new, but I don't see how it can be more difficult that trying to keep up
with every new release of Windows..

[bladesmith]

Wayner,

Amen, brother. .....

V....

[danielgk]

That's right, I needed a new camera. So I bought a Sony. Of course, the cameras are so wrapped up in software dependency, that it would not really down load any of the pictures that I took, tho I did find a back door to it and was able to down load the pictures, the video was another story. I have a relatively new computer with the old XP for all of my CAD software and other programs, so that is why I needed the XP system.

Well, that was yesterday. Today I decided that I maybe should get a new computer and solve the camera problem, and maybe it was time to upgrade anyway.

Well, after initializing the computer and getting that all set up, I downloaded Sony's software for the camera onto the computer. Of course, that didn't work, so I called the Sony call center. That person spoke broken english and could not understand the difference between a "P" and a "T".

My wife is returning both products to the store as we speak.

The computer industry has destroyed itself. The Windows 8.1 system was filled with short cuts to folks at eBay, Amazon and the likes, but what a f_ing mess of a system. I will not buy anything from A**le, as I don't like buying products from a company that got started by stealing phone calls.

No wonder the computer industry is such a down market.

Your products all suck.

I guess I'll stick with what I have until it doesn't work anymore.

'ner

2 days ago I tried to download "PrimoPDF" onto my Windows 8 machine.  PrimoPDF is a wonderful little tool that allows you to print to it, instead of a printer, and it creates a PDF file of what was printed.  Its great for sending material to anyone and have everyone be able to open and see it.  Anyway, I must have clicked a wrong button because, before I knew it, I had 8 different programs loaded and running.  A task bar, a clean sweep, a driver update thing, and God only knows what else (no PrimoPDF of coarse).  I tried to un-install all and, 15 minutes later, when I was un-installing program #6 they all re-installed themselves.  Since I know sh@# like this can happen, I always make a full backup before I try to download anything, so I would up building a new hard drive to get back to where I was.  The next day I downloaded PrimoPDF no problem. 

With crap like this happening to a somewhat experienced user, how does a novice or beginner get anywhere?  I'm beginning to like computers less and less.  I already have two, Win8 for online access to secure sites, and WinXP for some old schematic capture programs I use, as well as most everything else as its a lot more user friendly than Win8.  From what I can tell, a Mac is no better...Frank is using 2 Mac machines now, an old one for older programs he has and uses and a new one. 

Last thing I saw after verifying my Win8 machine was back to normal, was a little icon in the lower right that said "get Windows 10".  Oh joy!


Dan

[sfox7076]

Mac's people...  They are more up front, but I got one for my Dad and it made the world of difference.  I use one too.  Anyway, it never breaks, is never obsolete and the pictures download automatically without software...

[ArthurDent]

Just a thought Wayner, you might check around for a copy of Win 7 Pro, they are still out there. And other than requiring a lot more RAM, sets up & runs very similar to XP PRO. I got this machine a little over a year ago thru Azon, with Win 7 Pro on it, even though moving up from XP was not particularly my choice. Win 8 was available at the time, but not having heard anything good about it, and not needing it to work on a pad as I slide across a conference room table surrounded by dancing workmates, I consulted my friend who's built my machines for 15 years. Not sure what version of CAD you have, but I'm running '10 on an old XP machine, and have '14 loaded on this as backup. Due to the increasing file sizes on projects I just had a Win 7 Pro desktop built to upgrade to 64 bit, and be able to take advantage of the newer CAD releases, and maintain speed. Haven't decided for sure whether I'll load '16, or '14 on it. Either way this year was my last for maintaining an annual contract.

Don't know if it's an option for you, but if they (MS) support 7 as long as they did XP, it's the last OS I'll need. I'm not drinking the Win 10 KoolAid at this point.

I know what you mean about new cameras too. Still haven't had time to sit down and work thru the new Sony I bought 3 months back, though I was able to get the pics off by pulling the SD card & putting in a reader. Good luck & good hunting in both the camera & computer dept.

[yeldarb]

Unless there is something wrong with your old computer, take a look at Linux Mint, with the Cinnamon desktop.  I got a laptop preloaded with it and it beats the crap out of Windows.  Current version is 17.2.

[Odal3]

get the pics off by pulling the SD card & putting in a reader.

+1 Pulling the SD card is what I do too. No need to mess with crappy picture loaders that take over your computer (For my more professional DSLR camera I use something like Adobe Lightroom to import the pictures but I still pull out the SD card to read it directly)

Re Linux - It's a bit of a learning curve, but I'm slowly moving over to the linux world as well to get new life in old computers. Boots up super fast. If you do try it, try it out with a second computer so you don't mess up your current one. I use Lubuntu which doesn't use much resources.

If windows - look into older machines on sale that still has windows 7 installed. Very similar to XP. I haven't tried windows 10 yet, but heard it's better than 8

[Odal3]

PrimoPDF is a wonderful little tool that allows you to print to it, instead of a printer, and it creates a PDF file of what was printed. 

Depending on what other software you have installed and what you are trying to do, you may already have the capability. If you are using for example Google chrome as browser and want to print a website, you can print and the choose destination and select PDF. I have Windows office 2013 installed, and it allows me to save as pdf.

[dlparker]

--------------

Re Linux - It's a bit of a learning curve, but I'm slowly moving over to the linux world as well to get new life in old computers. Boots up super fast. If you do try it, try it out with a second computer so you don't mess up your current one. I use Lubuntu which doesn't use much resources.

--------------

Good to hear a couple more testimonials for linux. Another point in favor of linux is that you can attach your old Windows drive and the linux OS will recognize the file system (at least it could up through at least XP) and allow you to mount and access it so you can copy over whatever data files you need. You can also get anti-malware software that runs on linux that will detect and remove most malware without having to fire up windows. In some cases that may prevent the old HD from booting into windows, but you can still mount it as a secondary drive under Windows and access the drive. You can also install a dual boot system and select either linux or windows from a boot menu.

Of course, if you've running a vertical market or highly specialized proprietary software package that only runs on windows then you're stuck with windows, but there's plenty of softare on linux that will do most of what the proprietary packages on windows will do, and increasingly end users and software vendors are moving to open file/data formats in spite of the efforts of entrenched vendors to prevent that.  I don't follow the industry that closely any longer, but open standards and open file formats seem to continue to gain ground.

Please take everything I just wrote with SEVERAL huge grains of salt. I'm sure I've told you everything I know and more..

[strat95]

Also, Win 7 Pro can be set up with an XP mode.  As others have pointed out that may be a better choice for you.  Still I like XP Pro as the file manager never seemed to get hung up as it does on Win 7 Pro.  My workstation is pretty powerful but geez does it behave all buggered up at times!  Avoid installing software from camera manufacturers unless you don't already have photo editing software but then again there are open source free versions out there, for example Gimp is a free software that gives you functionality like Photoshop.  There is so much good free software out there that you should always do a thorough search.  The only issue with open source or free software is the sneaky prompts during installation to add other software to the install, which often allows the open source software to make some money.  So always read prompts while installing software and be aware when clicking ok at different stages during the install process.  Do not click ok without reading the prompts otherwise there's a good chance you will end up with other software installed you do not want to.

[dlparker]

... The only issue with open source or free software is the sneaky prompts during installation to add other software to the install, which often allows the open source software to make some money.  So always read prompts while installing software and be aware when clicking ok at different stages during the install process.  Do not click ok without reading the prompts otherwise there's a good chance you will end up with other software installed you do not want to.

I've never had that experience in linux, although with windows it wouldn't surprise me. As I said once to a colleague in my previous life as an IT professional - "Of course it makes no sense! There's Microsoft software involved!"

I'd better shut up now before this becomes a windows vs linux thread and it all goes to the IGWB..

[2gumby2]

I bought a new computer last year and had a great buying experience from Mythlogic at  http://www.mythlogic.comm  They can build a computer to your specifications and their warranty and customer service is excellent. The customer service rep I spoke with was a native English speaker and he patiently answered all of my questions for my build. I had an Apple iMac, but much prefer the Windows OS. It may be worth waiting for Windows 10.

[Wayner]

I went thru all of this to get a camera to download easily. It actually downloaded onto my current computer after I found "the back door" to the jpg files. I'm not going to rebuild my computer to accommodate a stupid camera. I wanted to do some video, but those files from the Sony camera never did show up, anywhere.

That is why both products went back to the store. Sony's own software would not work correctly (would not even launch) on the brand new Windows 8.1 machine.

So I still have my good old Canon A520 Power Shot. It takes pretty good pictures, but not so good video (hence the reason for buying the new Sony).

At this point, I'm not sure who the problem was with, but I suspect it was Sony. No wonder they are in trouble. I may try a Canon camera next week. They seem to know what they are doing and there is a model that was similar to the Sony, price wise.

Thanks for the input. BTW, I did run a Unix system at work when we had Pro Engineer. It was way under powered there (insufficient ram) and ProE did not perform well.

Of course the writing is on the wall here as everything will end up on a cell phone. That is probably the time that I will just fade away.........

[Wayner]

The real disturbing thing about the new computer was the apparent commercialism that was built into the machine, MS assuming that I wanted to use their stupid browser, shop at Amazon and eBay and of course, buy anti-virus software (which I have never used in my entire life). The computer people have also lost their target audience. Its not the kid thru 35 year olds that are buying laptops, its us old farts. I don't need all the crap apps that will run on a cell phone (that is why I bought a laptop), or any of the other crap that came with it.

The end.

'ner

[Doublej]

If you buy a business class machine (Dell Latitude for example), you'll sometimes pay a little more but it won't have any craplets on it. The craplets are one of the ways the manufacturers keep the prices so low.

It's not Microsoft that is putting the junk on the machine. It is the manufacturer responding to the consumer saying I don't want to pay more than $X for a machine. OK then we the manufacturers will put all that stuff on it and get a few cents from Amazon, Ebay, Norton, etc. for each machine shipped with it installed.

There are simply ways to remove the stuff or avoid it all together.

[Wayner]

I avoided by not keeping it.

'ner

[floresjc]

I hate to sound like a young kid/snot (I'm only 33 which is probably on the lower end of forum average), but computers have had all these issues for years. The issues you speak of in your original post are the same issues that folks like my parents have that for whatever reason they just can't navigate the computer market like they can other ones.

I haven't had a store bought computer since 2000 when I bought a 900Mhz Athlon in a crappy HP box when I went to college. I got rid of it in 2002 and built my own. Even when I worked IT for the local school system in 1998, it was well known that pretty much any off the shelf system you are going to buy, is going to come with more crapware and shovelware and ads for AOL than it was anything useful.

And maybe its just my personal bias, but of the "off the shelf brands" Sony has long had a history of being way overpriced stuff. And second only to Apple (and maybe not even second) in trying to use proprietary software and hardware connections to keep you in their particular ecosystem.

Most consumer electronics can be safely used *without* installing all the bloatware software that come with. Whether its a camera or printer or whatever, you can hook the thing up to a USB connection and get photos off the thing without putting 500MB worth of Sony adware on your machine. Just another note, anything that installs, in one of the 3 or 4 screens that ask you where you want to put it and stuff, will almost always have a checkbox that says "please install a Yahoo search bar and make some other browser than the one I have my default stuff", and most people just click right through it.

With cameras in particular, most of them use some sort of card, whether its compact flash or SD or whatever the flavor of the moment is, and you spend $15 on a card reader (which is waaay faster than hooking the actual camera up in transfer speed) and the camera should never touch the computer to begin with.

So in summary:

1. If you are going to buy a computer, the most amount of risk for overpriced, underpowered, filled with bloatware option is to walk into a local store and buy what they have sitting there. Ordering from Dell or HP custom is a better trade because you have some control over configuration, and building your own is best.

2. Sony is the devil

3. One doesn't need the software that comes with consumer electronics in general, most of its built to steer you towards industry partner products or buy accessories for the printer you will likely never use. Or its filled with adware.

[floresjc]

Time to give linux a try. I started messing around with it shortly after Linus announced version .9x something. It fit on 1 1.44MB floppy and looked like Unix! Pretty amazing. I had almost every version through all the iterations running on at least one computer, and have been using it exclusively for about the last 10-12 years. I only use one product that is not open source - !transcribe. It's music transcription software similar to something called 'slow down' (?) which runs on MS platforms. At roughly $30 USD per copy it's well worth it. And it's cross platform - separate versions for linux, mac, and windows with pretty much the same interface and functionality across all versions.

The hardest part about linux for most people is learning something new, but I don't see how it can be more difficult that trying to keep up
with every new release of Windows..

Linux on the desktop is not for most people. A guy that's having problems with the simple adware that comes with a consumer device is not going to like futzing with Linux on the occassions it will need futzed with.

About a week ago, I reformatted my desktop and put openSUSE and Mint on it, and while they are admirable releases, they still aren't to a level where most any computer can have confidence that what they want to do with it, will be plug and play.

It will install just fine sure, but then you have to do something with it. I was about 3 minutes in when I realized that even though the system was telling me it recognized my sound card (which is built in to the motherboard), I had no sound. I played with various configuration settings to no avail, and after about 45 minutes googling through forums, figured out what the issue was, redownloaded a new driver, figured out the proper command line to unwrap  and install and, and then finally back into the control panel to set the sound options.

Or trying to install Steam (a gaming front end for all you old folk). Installer tells me that the included repositories don't have it, but if I add XYZ one, its there, would I like to add? Click yes. Tells me its now installing. Downloads, gives me a bunch of error about dependent libraries missing, have to go find a libc package and install, etc.

People that can't/won't tolerate a Sony windows app installer, are not going to tolerate all that funny business. Those items above are easily handled in Windows (most users never have those particular problems to begin with), and even if one has to futz with things, there is zero command line ninja ing in Windows.

[Phil A]

I have Windows 8.1 on the two music servers and it can be a pain at times, however, I just use JRiver on it and nothing else.  Windows 7 Pro on the desktop which is probably almost 4 years old works well.  I still have an old Windows XP machine (not connected to the internet) and an old Mac G5 Tower.  I have a few programs that work with XP (like one of those video tape players with USB out to copy home made VHS tapes to a file and sometimes I get asked to to that and once I have the file - the XP machine does not have a DVD drive - it is easy to make a DVD).