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Chris Maunder wrote: Why does this have to be so painful?
I often ask myself the same question, and I often get no answers. 
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That was when he was an elite programmer/writer/teacher. Now he's a rich company owner, what did you expect?  Also, I bet he's not remotely involved in the software design/functionality - probably spends most of his time in his beach mansion on some fancy pacific island. 
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Peter hasn't been involved with Norton Utilities for aeons. Unfortunately.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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They'll say the same about you too soon I'd imagine.
Remember Chris Maunder, the Aussie MFC hacker who wrote all those neat controls. Well, now he's a fat middle aged beer drinker living in Canada
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Hey - I didn't call Peter fat! (But if being fat and drinking beer is what's needed to be as successful as he is, where do I sign?)
cheers
Chris Maunder
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Are you insinuating something about him (CM)? 
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I was on the support team at Symantec when they released Norton Utilities v.3 for Windows 95. I always felt bad for the callers who were mystified that after installing the entire product they could not find their deleted files in the recovery tool. They didn't read the manual; didn't use the floppy boot disk DOS-based recovery tool. Oops...
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I remember fixing a PC pestered with bloatware and the Norton uninstaller didn't work. It simply didn't want me to uninstall Norton.
So I surgically removed it. Looked for everything where Norton was sittng and removed it carefully.
After removing all things Norton, the network stack was broken. Those imbecils @ Symantec whom ought to be forbidden from touching a computer ever again managed to tie Norton with the network stack in a way to make the network stack not work without Norton components! This is meaner than what most parasites do, this is pretty much what the facehugger does: Making sure that it's poor host dies when the parasite is removed.
After this occurence, I made an oath to never ever touch Norton again except for killing it with holy fires of "Down with crap".
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Please do not repost the same thing immediately if it doesn't appear - it was sent to moderation and required a human to let (and it's two identical twins) through. I then had to chase it down and delete the spares.
Have a little patience, we are all volunteers and we get to it as fast as possible. In this case, at most a minute or two had passed...
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I haven't reposted it because it went into moderation and I apologize for making you think I think you're lazy. While I'd like to know what exactly flagged my post for moderation, I never assumed that I had to resubmit again to make the post appear. That would be rather stupid.
It was a typo I tried to fix. I posted it, noticed the typo and because the form was still there, on my screen, and the tab was still loading, I assumed it haven't submitted (as I've seen several other forums working this way) so I've corrected my typo and clicked submitted again, assuming the previous submission wasn't sucessful.
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Kirill Illenseer wrote: While I'd like to know what exactly flagged my post for moderation
Not something you will find out: the automated system is heuristic, and has a mind of it's own! Nobody - except moderators - gets told why it's there to prevent spammers getting clues that might help them bypass it.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Does anyone have a Surface Laptop with the Alcantara keyboard surround?
If so, how dirty does it get?
cheers
Chris Maunder
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Um ... not seen one, but ...
Surface Laptop is just a laptop, making it Microsoft’s most baffling release yet | Ars Technica[^]
Quote: Colors aside, the one novelty of the Surface Laptop is the keyboard surround. Rather than bare metal or some kind of composite, Microsoft has covered it with Alcantara, a synthetic fabric. Microsoft has used Alcantara for keyboard surrounds before, as most of the new Surface Pro keyboards use it, for example. Alcantara is more commonly used in a range of automotive applications, such as to cover steering wheels. It's designed to be hard-wearing and tolerant of the sweat and grime that are features of this kind of use.
There's a chance that in three or four years I'll be proven wrong, but today the fabric strikes me as an entirely inappropriate choice for lining a laptop's interior. I've seen many disgusting-looking Alcantara Type Covers for Surface Pro 4, and after regular usage, they just get dirty and grimy and are impossible to clean. The Alcantara used in the Surface Laptop is supposed to be better—more resistant to dirt, easier to wipe down—but I simply don't buy it.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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OriginalGriff wrote: strikes me as an entirely inappropriate choice for lining a laptop's interior
Pretty much my thought too.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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Here is how I view them: Some people prefer a traditional laptop form factor, but still want the beautiful Surface screen and may not be as interested in using a pen (the Surface Laptop supports the pen, but doesn't come with it included.) If you haven't seen one in person, they're (IMO) pretty stinking sexy.
Also, for what it's worth: The wife approval rating has been a solid "holy crap I love this thing." 
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I have the Surface Pro 4 with one of these keyboards/covers in teal. 1 year in and I'm still happy with it. Almost as clean as the day I got it. Fairly easy to wipe clean although you feel odd doing it.
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Yes, there are four members of my family with one and I've got a the Surface ergonomic desktop keyboard with the same alcantara material on the wrist rest. It holds up extremely well over time (my keyboard gets 14+ hours of use a day for the past year, looks brand new.) I've only had to wipe it down once because of me spilling soup all over it, the process on this page does this trick.
Alcantara is crazy durable and the Surface Laptops are (IMO) a solid contender. The i5 has no cooling fan so it's completely silent, they're blazing fast, light and thin. The one thing you need to be cautious of is that they're shipped with Windows 10 S, meaning you can't install any win32 apps outside of the Windows Store ... but it's a free upgrade to Pro so it's pretty moot.
Full disclosure: I'm a MS employee. I try to keep my opinion unjaded though, I really do think these are strong machines for the price.
Jon
[edit: fixed this link, oops]
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How's battery life?
cheers
Chris Maunder
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Too early for me to know for certain and the folks in my family that have one are all extremely light users. Reviews I've seen out there look pretty solid, though. It's likely not a workhorse but for the common human I believe it'll serve very well for quite some time.
Jon
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I'm constantly at my desktop keyboard also. How long did it take you to get used to the ergonomic keyboards? I already had some 10+ years of working on standard computer keyboards before they came out, so I've always been very hesitant about an ergonomic learning curve. Also, how well do you do switching back to standard keyboards when you have to?
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I think it just took me a few hours to adjust, it wasn't too bad. I switch several times a week back to a traditional keyboard when I'm visiting customers with my Surface Book, and don't seem to find much issue -- I guess my brain has just finally adjusted and wired accordingly.
The only gripe I have with the ergonomic keyboard is the overall size. I'm in a tiny Manhattan apartment with a small desk and desktop space is at a premium. I've got the non-ergonomic keyboard w/ fingerprint arriving next week and will see how that goes.
Jon
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I checked at my job, the entire sales department use surface pro's with removable alcantara keyboards. They get about as dirty as normal keyboards, slightly more work to clean them though, but they're all very happy with them.
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Hmmm.
I'm wanting everyone to say "they are terrible, filthy, grotty things. Move on". It would make my life easier.
All I'm left with at this point is
a) Surface Laptop has poor battery life
b) Surface Laptop has no USB-C ports
c) Surface laptop is a nothing'th of an inch too long for my current laptop sleeve
Of course there's always "I just can't afford it", but that's why we have 2 kidneys, right?
cheers
Chris Maunder
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The plumber just got the new hto tank out of the van to bring up and it's the wrong elephant size!
Back in the van and off to the merchant for a new one, then he'll fit it [stiffles giggle] tonight.
In other news are toes supposed to be black?
veni bibi saltavi
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