The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?
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I forgot about the WiFi issues,.. There is also the weird driver issues that will 'brick' it until you can dock it,.. IF you have a dock so you can reload it. And the process of doing a hard reset is like playing twister where the colors change AND move.
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@Francesco-Provino said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@scottalanmiller said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
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The fourth series as well? Uhm…
If by the third they didn't care, that's not likely to change. MS has established that they don't make reliable devices, their sales don't depend on that. So putting all that money into making them reliable wouldn't make sense at this point.
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@scottalanmiller said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@Francesco-Provino said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@scottalanmiller said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
around
The fourth series as well? Uhm…
If by the third they didn't care, that's not likely to change. MS has established that they don't make reliable devices, their sales don't depend on that. So putting all that money into making them reliable wouldn't make sense at this point.
It's like the roman aqueducts. It sounds like such a good idea but it's actually poisoning you.
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Ok, seems like a lot of problems with that device… I hope I'll be lucky with mine!
What do you use as an alternative? -
@Francesco-Provino iPad pro is a really good product. I'm not even an apple fan. I usually find them to be overpriced, but I'm willing to pay the premium on something of quality.
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For me that does 99% of my work online. I use an Ipad Pro 9.7" till recently, today I get a 12.9" (yeah for awesome presents).
It has done everything I have needed it to. It also has a Screen Connect app so I am able to do tech work etc. from it without any issues. The only complaint I had with the 9.7" is the battery life wasn't great since the keyboard used the tablet's battery and it went down pretty quick(4 hours of heavy use). But that was the only complaint I have had.
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@Francesco-Provino said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
Ok, seems like a lot of problems with that device… I hope I'll be lucky with mine!
What do you use as an alternative?I skip the category, I've not found tablets to be that useful for system admin work. I use an iPad on the rare occasion that I need a tablet, otherwise I use a laptop since I need a stable, fast machine with a keyboard to do any real work.
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@scottalanmiller said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@Francesco-Provino said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
Ok, seems like a lot of problems with that device… I hope I'll be lucky with mine!
What do you use as an alternative?I skip the category, I've not found tablets to be that useful for system admin work. I use an iPad on the rare occasion that I need a tablet, otherwise I use a laptop since I need a stable, fast machine with a keyboard to do any real work.
Agreed but I think it suits what he posted initially: "I want to follow the philosophy of having a thin endpoint just to surf the web and doing basic stuff with text and cli, leveraging cloud or on permise servers for everything requiring big ram, CPU or GPU."
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@wirestyle22 said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@scottalanmiller said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@Francesco-Provino said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
Ok, seems like a lot of problems with that device… I hope I'll be lucky with mine!
What do you use as an alternative?I skip the category, I've not found tablets to be that useful for system admin work. I use an iPad on the rare occasion that I need a tablet, otherwise I use a laptop since I need a stable, fast machine with a keyboard to do any real work.
Agreed but I think it suits what he posted initially: "I want to follow the philosophy of having a thin endpoint just to surf the web and doing basic stuff with text and cli, leveraging cloud or on permise servers for everything requiring big ram, CPU or GPU."
That's exactly where I find them not very useful.
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@scottalanmiller said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@wirestyle22 said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@scottalanmiller said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@Francesco-Provino said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
Ok, seems like a lot of problems with that device… I hope I'll be lucky with mine!
What do you use as an alternative?I skip the category, I've not found tablets to be that useful for system admin work. I use an iPad on the rare occasion that I need a tablet, otherwise I use a laptop since I need a stable, fast machine with a keyboard to do any real work.
Agreed but I think it suits what he posted initially: "I want to follow the philosophy of having a thin endpoint just to surf the web and doing basic stuff with text and cli, leveraging cloud or on permise servers for everything requiring big ram, CPU or GPU."
That's exactly where I find them not very useful.
Why out of curiousity? Text and CLI require virtually nothing
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@wirestyle22 said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@scottalanmiller said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@wirestyle22 said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@scottalanmiller said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@Francesco-Provino said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
Ok, seems like a lot of problems with that device… I hope I'll be lucky with mine!
What do you use as an alternative?I skip the category, I've not found tablets to be that useful for system admin work. I use an iPad on the rare occasion that I need a tablet, otherwise I use a laptop since I need a stable, fast machine with a keyboard to do any real work.
Agreed but I think it suits what he posted initially: "I want to follow the philosophy of having a thin endpoint just to surf the web and doing basic stuff with text and cli, leveraging cloud or on permise servers for everything requiring big ram, CPU or GPU."
That's exactly where I find them not very useful.
Why out of curiousity? Text and CLI require virtually nothing
Doing lots of CLI work on an iPad or Android tablet... or phone? ...without a real, physical keyboard... Not fun.
My Ultratablet is great for doing Remote Desktop and SSH stuff (because it has its own keyboard), but I've never had to spend more than an hour or two using it.
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@wirestyle22 said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@scottalanmiller said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@wirestyle22 said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@scottalanmiller said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@Francesco-Provino said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
Ok, seems like a lot of problems with that device… I hope I'll be lucky with mine!
What do you use as an alternative?I skip the category, I've not found tablets to be that useful for system admin work. I use an iPad on the rare occasion that I need a tablet, otherwise I use a laptop since I need a stable, fast machine with a keyboard to do any real work.
Agreed but I think it suits what he posted initially: "I want to follow the philosophy of having a thin endpoint just to surf the web and doing basic stuff with text and cli, leveraging cloud or on permise servers for everything requiring big ram, CPU or GPU."
That's exactly where I find them not very useful.
Why out of curiousity? Text and CLI require virtually nothing
They require a stable device the same as anything else, and a good keyboard. Specifically the two things the Surface don't have. Nowhere in our concerns was performance one of them, so regardless of how much something "doesn't require" it wouldn't be applicable to our reasons for the Surface not being useful.
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@gjacobse iOS unfortunately lacks the ability to run any Windows or Linux specific software, or to virtualize them, of course. The list could be very long… I had an iPad Air 1st gen, great device (but it was stolen). I'm not anti-apple or anti-iOS at all, other than the iPad I've an iPhone and a MBP :D.
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It really does depend on how you are using a tablet. You are looking for something to really just access cloud based everything. The Ipad Pro might be great for that. It is for me. But 99% of what I do is not tech based, it is MS office, and online everything for me.
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@Francesco-Provino said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@gjacobse iOS unfortunately lacks the ability to run any Windows or Linux specific software, or to virtualize them, of course.
Right, so if you are doing the thin client thing that @wirestyle22 is talking about the iPad does it as well or better than the Surface. None of us run software on our end points for Windows or Linux, even though that's what our platforms are, so that doesn't affect us. What software do you need to run locally?
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@Minion-Queen said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
It really does depend on how you are using a tablet. You are looking for something to really just access cloud based everything. The Ipad Pro might be great for that. It is for me. But 99% of what I do is not tech based, it is MS office, and online everything for me.
So you need a Windows machine even more than the techs. We just remote into things, so the platform doesn't matter. Only that it supports our graphical remote access tools and SSH.
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@scottalanmiller said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@wirestyle22 said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@scottalanmiller said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@wirestyle22 said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@scottalanmiller said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@Francesco-Provino said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
Ok, seems like a lot of problems with that device… I hope I'll be lucky with mine!
What do you use as an alternative?I skip the category, I've not found tablets to be that useful for system admin work. I use an iPad on the rare occasion that I need a tablet, otherwise I use a laptop since I need a stable, fast machine with a keyboard to do any real work.
Agreed but I think it suits what he posted initially: "I want to follow the philosophy of having a thin endpoint just to surf the web and doing basic stuff with text and cli, leveraging cloud or on permise servers for everything requiring big ram, CPU or GPU."
That's exactly where I find them not very useful.
Why out of curiousity? Text and CLI require virtually nothing
They require a stable device the same as anything else, and a good keyboard. Specifically the two things the Surface don't have. Nowhere in our concerns was performance one of them, so regardless of how much something "doesn't require" it wouldn't be applicable to our reasons for the Surface not being useful.
So, in the case that I'll find the Surface uncomfortable and return it, what devices can you suggest me?
I mean, in the class of very thin ultrabook or similar stuff. I like the new Macbook, but the keyboard is not so good and the single port leave me cold. And… the webcam! I looked at dell XPS 13 and some HP (Spectre and, uhm… that 13' ultrabook), also the Asus ux305 is nice. -
The keyboard case I have has always done well for me. What makes iOS unstable @scottalanmiller? Honest question. I have literally never had an issue
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@wirestyle22 Oh, and there's something related to the hardware of the iPad, also… of course I cannot connect anything ethernet or serial, and this is a BIG downside when some support is required. Neither I can use an USB drive the right way: lack of support for filesystem, I cannot burn an iso etc.
Way too inflexible for what I need. With a standard laptop I can install or virtualize any os and use at least standard usb, video output and ethernet. -
@Francesco-Provino said in The Sysadmin / CTO machine - A Surface + Cloud to rule them all?:
@wirestyle22 Oh, and there's something related to the hardware of the iPad, also… of course I cannot connect anything ethernet or serial, and this is a BIG downside when some support is required. Neither I can use an USB drive the right way: lack of support for filesystem, I cannot burn an iso etc.
Way too inflexible for what I need. With a standard laptop I can install or virtualize any os and use at least standard usb, video output and ethernet.Right, which is why I use a laptop. With a laptop I can type easily and whatever. But unless I'm all set up at a desk or whatever where the laptop makes sense, none of those other things would I be doing from a tablet.
