At home, over Citrix.
On Windows 8.
Does it get much better?

Very impressive. Never learned to do it myself. Kids today tend to use the 5x5 as if the 3x3 wasn't hard enough !markfiend wrote:New Rubik Cube personal best: 38.15 seconds.
OK it's not that impressive when the world record is 5.55 seconds (Clicky) but I'm improving. In May when I last posted about cubing, my PB was about 75 seconds.
KubuntuBartek wrote:And here's the question to local geeks: which Linux distribution is the more newbie-friendly? Which Linux would you recommend someone who has been used Windows since last 15 years?
This is kinda why I replied with a simple link to Kubuntu (especially when Bartek's post specified "newbie-friendly") - the sheer diversity of choice can be off-putting and make it seem over-complicated.markfiend wrote:It depends what you want... (And two posts have gone up since I started typing this!)
Most Linux noobs seem to use Ubuntu as their first distro, but increasing political and practical differences between Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu) and the rest of the Linux world make me slightly reluctant to recommend it or any of its direct offspring.
Linux Mint is a usually seen as a good all-round noob-friendly distro if you just want to run the graphical installer and get going within about half an hour. It's based off Ubuntu, with most of Canonical's insanity stripped out, and has a pretty good support forum.
No discussion of Linux can be had without mentioning the daddy of them all, Debian. There are older distros, but without Debian I don't think Linux would have had the success it has. (Ubuntu is based off Debian's testing branch) Downsides - the "stable" branch is very conservative, if you like your software to be the latest version available, Debian stable isn't the one for you! On the other hand there are the "testing" and "unstable" branches which, despite the names, are usually stable enough for home use.
Then there's the Fedora/Redhat side, which I don't have a great deal of familiarity with. Redhat tends to be used in enterprise situations (the Linux servers here at work run Redhat) and Fedora is (very roughly) to Redhat as Debian testing/unstable are to Debian stable.
All of these distros use a distinct release cycle; a new version is released only every so often (6 months for Ubuntu, others vary) -- your other option is the "rolling release" model, where a new release of each package is made as it comes in from its own development team ("upstream" in Linux jargon) and (in theory at least) any system can be upgraded to the most up-to-date possible state by issuing a couple of commands. The prime examples of the rolling release are Arch and Gentoo (although Debian unstable is also rolling).
Personally I use Arch Linux, One caveat: after a fresh install of Arch you're left with a bare-bones command-line environment with just the package manager and the system tools, and you build your own custom system from there (which can be very powerful, tailoring your system to your own requirements).
Gentoo is a distribution unlike most others; most packages are distributed as the source code only (although they provide binaries for some packages) so you can spend a lot of time compiling things. Gentoo is usually seen as the bleeding-edge distro, and probably too intimidating for the complete noob. Like Arch, once installed you're just left with a base system and build from there.
This style of minimal installation distros tend to attract the more experienced Linux user, but there is IMO a lot to be said for a newbie diving straight in. You certainly learn a lot more about how a Linux system is structured when you build it yourself from the kernel up than you do by simply running an Ubuntu-style graphic installer.
Choosing a distro is only the start though; there is huge choice in desktop environment (GNOME, KDE, XFCE, etc.) and almost any package will have two, three or more alternatives.
TL;DR version:
I would recommend trying out several different distros, and lots of different packages, in a virtual machine (VirtualBox is free for Windows) before actually installing on your real machine.
markfiend wrote:I would recommend trying out several different distros, and lots of different packages, in a virtual machine (VirtualBox is free for Windows) before actually installing on your real machine.
Ooooh, I've only just seen this. So maybe there is hope for me after my iPod classic has given up the ghost (which I hope it won't for a long time).Quiff Boy wrote:The new Sony ZX2 Walkman
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/01/0 ... diophiles/
It's not cheap, and it's not pretty.
What?! Come out. And don't touch anything! You're a clumsy, ham fisted idiot! The trouble with computers, of course, is that they're very sophisticated idiots. They do exactly what you tell them at amazing speed. Even if you order them to kill you. So if you do happen to change your mind, it's very difficult to stop them from obeying the original order. But not impossible. I might've been saying something important. I was saying something important! It seems you have a very large rat Brigadier—maybe you should employ the services of a very large cat?
Have a jelly baby. You may be a doctor. But I'm the Doctor. The definite article, you might say. What?! Come out. And don't touch anything! It may be irrational of me, but human beings are my favorite species. It seems you have a very large rat Brigadier—maybe you should employ the services of a very large cat? Come on! Are you listening to me? Well, of course I'm being childish! There's no point being grown-up if you can't be childish sometimes. Hello-o-o-o. Would you like a jelly baby? Shut up, K-9!
Did you ever get a new thingie? I've just bought a Cowon M2 (upgrade from the J3, which I loved) - plays anything you throw at it, extensive graphic equaliser function, battery is supposed to last 90 hours or something stupid. Highly recommended if you're on the lookout.rien wrote:Ooooh, I've only just seen this. So maybe there is hope for me after my iPod classic has given up the ghost (which I hope it won't for a long time).Quiff Boy wrote:The new Sony ZX2 Walkman
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/01/0 ... diophiles/
It's not cheap, and it's not pretty.
I just want a thing with tangible buttons and good sound and enough storage for listening to stuff comfortably while oot and aboot.
But yeah, it's fugly. And Sony. Hopefully someone else will see the potential and make a similar device.
Can't remember if I posted this before or after I went to Apple with my last one (something was broken, I forgot what happened this time. Probably dropped it once again), but they gave me a new one of the same model for about 160 Euros... probably the last one they had.EvilBastard wrote:Did you ever get a new thingie? I've just bought a Cowon M2 (upgrade from the J3, which I loved) - plays anything you throw at it, extensive graphic equaliser function, battery is supposed to last 90 hours or something stupid. Highly recommended if you're on the lookout.rien wrote:Ooooh, I've only just seen this. So maybe there is hope for me after my iPod classic has given up the ghost (which I hope it won't for a long time).Quiff Boy wrote:The new Sony ZX2 Walkman
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/01/0 ... diophiles/
It's not cheap, and it's not pretty.
I just want a thing with tangible buttons and good sound and enough storage for listening to stuff comfortably while oot and aboot.
But yeah, it's fugly. And Sony. Hopefully someone else will see the potential and make a similar device.
Yep - comes with 32gb native and a slot for a micro SD card up to 32gb. I tend to be picky about what goes on there so 64gb is plenty enough for me. It will also play video (although the screen is very small) so you've got that option as well.rien wrote:Does the Cowon have a slot for more memory? Because my current library is over 100 Gb and I don't want to delete stuff (too much bloody work).