@JaredBusch said in Time for a mobile phone upgrade:

@WrCombs said in Time for a mobile phone upgrade:

@kamidon said in Time for a mobile phone upgrade:

@scottalanmiller said in Time for a mobile phone upgrade:

I'm pretty sure I'll be getting a OnePlus for my next phone. I like my Samsung but it is so full of bloatware and doesn't give me the freedom to use it like I want. OnePlus is looking great.

OMG that's what I'm getting!
Yeah I've been eyeballing it for months now, the OnePlus 7 Pro. I'm on Verizon though, so I'm still trying to make sure the darn thing is for sure going to work! Well Plus money....so....yeah.

Currently I have a Pixel XL 2. It's a damn good phone, I have no problems with it at all.
Takes incredible pictures, battery still lasts all day and night and...yeah great phone.

Buuuuut I'm divorcing Google out of my life so, there's that.

Wait - Why?

Because Google is a horrid disaster of abandoned projects?

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS TOO!
God it's so refreshing to hear this from someone else.
Google: Start project! half-ass it, leave it be.
Rinse and repeat.

@JaredBusch said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

@black3dynamite said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

What happen to the discussion about building out a new computer or refurbished computers?

It picked up and idiot that cannot understand plain english definitions and already had a single minded know it all that refuses to fork threads.

Speaking of idiot. haaaaahaaaaaaaaa.....haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.......

@scottalanmiller said in Time for a mobile phone upgrade:

I'm pretty sure I'll be getting a OnePlus for my next phone. I like my Samsung but it is so full of bloatware and doesn't give me the freedom to use it like I want. OnePlus is looking great.

OMG that's what I'm getting!
Yeah I've been eyeballing it for months now, the OnePlus 7 Pro. I'm on Verizon though, so I'm still trying to make sure the darn thing is for sure going to work! Well Plus money....so....yeah.

Currently I have a Pixel XL 2. It's a damn good phone, I have no problems with it at all.
Takes incredible pictures, battery still lasts all day and night and...yeah great phone.

Buuuuut I'm divorcing Google out of my life so, there's that.

@black3dynamite said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

What happen to the discussion about building out a new computer or refurbished computers?

Nervously looks around UH uh, he started it!

@scottalanmiller said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

@kamidon said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

At least mostly communist lol.

But even Vietnam

Actually I don't know anything about Vietnam, aside from the war.

@scottalanmiller said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

@kamidon said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

@scottalanmiller said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

@kamidon said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

Venezuela

They are, for example, a federal presidential republic. The same as the US.

Not anymore, they elected a socialist. That socialist and officials took over the economy, distribute wealth, have taken over businesses and or direct control.
They're now communist.

Socialism and communism are extremely different things. And they didn't take over the economy. They screwed it up, but didn't take it over. Companies are still private. All, no, but that's the same in the US. Wealth is always distributed, that's called taxes. US has that too.

*sigh...When you start controlling companies by force, rigging elections, distributing wealth (no...not taxes), again no private property (government has been known to take peoples property on a whim), you're government is then practicing communist.
Marxism, socialism, communism, they're all essentially the same. "Guaranteed jobs! Free everything! Communal (insert community shared crap here)"

@black3dynamite said in MSP Helpdesk Options:

FreshService is what we are using currently.

Scott said that's what they're trialing now, I guess so far they don't like it.

@scottalanmiller said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

@kamidon said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

Venezuela

They are, for example, a federal presidential republic. The same as the US.

Not anymore, they elected a socialist. That socialist and officials took over the economy, distribute wealth, have taken over businesses and or direct control.
They're now communist.

@scottalanmiller said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

@kamidon said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

@scottalanmiller said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

@kamidon said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

Ok but we can agree that communism is bad right?

Is communism bad? Yes. But very bad? No. Is there any communist country to really point to as an example?

Venezuela, Soviet Union, Vietnam, North Korea, and yeah China.

Right, all not communist. Hence my point. All dictators not practicing communism.

All have some communist points, but I covered all this in what I wrote... that specifically these weren't communist, but use it as something that they say to cover up what they actually are... dictators or oligarchies. Very, very different from communism.

State control of the economy, check.
No private property, check.
Distribution of wealth, check.
Well and these dictators have a board of officials, but um...still man, they're communist. At least mostly communist lol.

@black3dynamite said in MSP Helpdesk Options:

Seems like the only way to be completely satisfied with a ticket system is if you build your own.

Eh, I haven't had any issues with Zendesk at all.
Other than that one time the internet had a giant DDos attack that took down AWS.
When was that....2017?

Otherwise, I have 0 complaints with it.

@scottalanmiller said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

@kamidon said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

Ok but we can agree that communism is bad right?

Is communism bad? Yes. But very bad? No. Is there any communist country to really point to as an example?

Venezuela, Soviet Union, Vietnam, North Korea, and yeah China.

@scottalanmiller said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

@kamidon said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

@scottalanmiller said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

@kamidon said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

I'm not sure what you mean in your last two sentences though.

I mean your logic should result in this. Avoiding Huawei or any other specific vendor should be based on the actions and risks of that vendor, not a concern about the "evilness" of their government. Because the two are separate no matter what people like to claim.

BUT... if you do buy from Huawei, then even though Huawei has been pretty solidly shown to be completely clean on their own, their corporate tax revenue will flow to the Chinese government. And that is bad. So avoiding Huewei because you think that they are risky, doesn't make sense. Avoiding them because you don't want to support the Chinese government through taxable revenue, does make sense.

Basically... the more we analyze it, the less risk Huewei has as a company or product. Reality is, it's probably just about the safest gear that you can buy today, there is no vendor more heavily monitored, tested, questioned, suspected, etc. If there was anything to be found, it would have been found for sure. Moreso, if there is one vendor that the Chinese gov't is going to want to avoid being anywhere near, it is them. There is a massive political and market pressure to make sure that if the gov't is going to interfere with someone, that it be anyone but them.

Basically, if the Chinese gov't is interfering with companies, and likely they are just like the US does, the place that they are least likely to do it is Huawei at this point.

It is pretty ridiculous to ban one company from a country. Why not instead just tell consumers to watch out for their products, then when they are forced to remove the backdoor or whatever the issue may be, they can continue making money.
Consumers should be left to choose whichever products they want.

Right, if "the government can interfere" is the logic, we need to close the border and ban all trade with that country. If a single product (okay, maybe not simply plastic stuff) is allowed through, then it implies "intentionally promoting foreign spying" if the first logic was true. Since everything isn't banned, and especially that Lenovo who is known to spy over and over again, is not banned, then the gov't has no actual concern and the ban is fake.

But that's a separate issue from the risk to business vs "just doing good things" logic. Huawei simply isn't a business risk, that much is clear. It's neither a known spy, nor a likely spy, nor as risky as any other major vendor. But money that goes to Huawei will be taxed and fund a government that you don't want to support is very real and a reason to not buy any Chinese product... but requires not buying any Chinese product because shoes, shirts, boxes, toys, servers all equally have the problem of funding the regime.

Ahhhh, yeah so this was likely more of a ploy to say, "In your face China! We're banning Huawei because, tariffs."
lol.........

Ok but we can agree that communism is bad right?

I had this issue with my HP Omen, but it went away after going back to Windows from Fedora...when I failed miserably to play games on Linux....lol

My workaround was just to turn sleep mode off. I just did this via the GUI in settings.

@scottalanmiller said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

@kamidon said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

I'm not sure what you mean in your last two sentences though.

I mean your logic should result in this. Avoiding Huawei or any other specific vendor should be based on the actions and risks of that vendor, not a concern about the "evilness" of their government. Because the two are separate no matter what people like to claim.

BUT... if you do buy from Huawei, then even though Huawei has been pretty solidly shown to be completely clean on their own, their corporate tax revenue will flow to the Chinese government. And that is bad. So avoiding Huewei because you think that they are risky, doesn't make sense. Avoiding them because you don't want to support the Chinese government through taxable revenue, does make sense.

Basically... the more we analyze it, the less risk Huewei has as a company or product. Reality is, it's probably just about the safest gear that you can buy today, there is no vendor more heavily monitored, tested, questioned, suspected, etc. If there was anything to be found, it would have been found for sure. Moreso, if there is one vendor that the Chinese gov't is going to want to avoid being anywhere near, it is them. There is a massive political and market pressure to make sure that if the gov't is going to interfere with someone, that it be anyone but them.

Basically, if the Chinese gov't is interfering with companies, and likely they are just like the US does, the place that they are least likely to do it is Huawei at this point.

It is pretty ridiculous to ban one company from a country. Why not instead just tell consumers to watch out for their products, then when they are forced to remove the backdoor or whatever the issue may be, they can continue making money.
Consumers should be left to choose whichever products they want.

@scottalanmiller said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

@kamidon said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

China loves stealing US technology, so a backdoor being open, is a big problem

Only if you have secrets worth stealing, which while that might feel common, it actually isn't. At most maybe .1% of companies have something even worth stealing, and having a back door and being able to steal them is a big gap yet. If you are in that .1%, absolutely, things like this are potentially a big concern. Totally, I'm with you.

But for most companies, even if 100% of their data was packed up and shipped to CHina in a box with a bow, it would be worthless.

Well of course, but regardless, I still wouldn't be comfortable knowing that my hardware has a backdoor broadcasting our companies information to China, or anyone for that matter.
What if China takes PCI related information and leaks it either intentionally or unintentionally (data gets hacked for example)?
Then my fictional company would be liable for that information being out in the open.
Is this sort of situation possible? Of course. Is it probable? No lol...But that's not the point either.

@scottalanmiller said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

So if we use logic and standard risk management, things like "its a bad government" never really area factor, because that itself doesn't affect us. It's terrible that they are bad, yes, but that's an unrelated matter and doesn't influence the server situation.

Now, you don't want to buy a server to give money to people who will ultimately be taxed by that government, sure. But that would need to be stated in a completely different way.

Oh well I mean as long as the server doesn't have a backdoor to a foreign government, then sure, wherever a given piece of hardware or software doesn't matter.
I'm not sure what you mean in your last two sentences though.

@scottalanmiller said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

All while ignoring actual governments and companies repeatedly getting caught for doing the same thing.

Also, ignoring the risks. The risks of China putting a back door into a US server is trivial. The risk of the US doing so is huge. China ha essentially nothing to gain by doing so to most of us, but the US has something to gain from all of us.

Also, the US losing hundreds of billions per year is a big problem. (Not that we're already spending ourselves to death on our ridiculous programs, but still.)
China loves stealing US technology, so a backdoor being open, is a big problem. https://money.cnn.com/2018/03/23/technology/china-us-trump-tariffs-ip-theft/index.html
I still hate the tariff BS though, there are other ways to combat China...

@scottalanmiller said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

@kamidon said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

@scottalanmiller said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

@PhlipElder said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

Dude, I find it very perplexing that one can separate the government backing the companies in a country when they essentially own all of the companies in that country and can, and do, dictate the direction of said companies.

That's not actually how it works. Plus one can clearly say the same about the US. It's perplexing to think that by the nature of being an Chinese investor, that one must be a communist, and to think that by being a communist itself, is somehow a bad thing. It's a government form, and nothing to do with good or bad.

Everything about that logic is just... illogical.

China is communist, it is a very bad thing. They've killed countless millions over the years of China's communist existence.
From an economic standpoint, Communism never works, however, thanks to the change in Private property and loosening of economic law, China thrives, mostly.

Have you heard what's going on in Hong Kong? China is trying to take control of it, despite their agreement with Hong Kong. (Which Hong Kong by the way, is arguably the most successful capitalistic society next to the US)

That a bad government is also communist doesn't make being communist the problem. You can point to terrible things under all kinds of governments.

Well this certainly gives both China and communism a bad name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_China
And even further, this is Communism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism
Now, Communism, if you're reading about what it is from a book, sure, it doesn't sound so bad, but it requires doing horrendous things to other human beings every time.

@scottalanmiller said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

@PhlipElder said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

Dude, I find it very perplexing that one can separate the government backing the companies in a country when they essentially own all of the companies in that country and can, and do, dictate the direction of said companies.

That's not actually how it works. Plus one can clearly say the same about the US. It's perplexing to think that by the nature of being an Chinese investor, that one must be a communist, and to think that by being a communist itself, is somehow a bad thing. It's a government form, and nothing to do with good or bad.

Everything about that logic is just... illogical.

China is communist, it is a very bad thing. They've killed countless millions over the years of China's communist existence.
From an economic standpoint, Communism never works, however, thanks to the change in Private property and loosening of economic law, China thrives, mostly.

Have you heard what's going on in Hong Kong? China is trying to take control of it, despite their agreement with Hong Kong. (Which Hong Kong by the way, is arguably the most successful capitalistic society next to the US)

@scottalanmiller said in Spec'ing a new computer from Dell or?:

Pretty weird if there was an actual back door found, that it was deemed so unimportant that no news outlet has picked it up yet.

Because Orange man did something with Huawai and mainstream media is incredibly deadset on ignoring all good he does and portraying 100% bad things they think he's doing or saying.

You know, like "Trump's a racist!!!", when he's...obviously not.