AMD Hates Laptop Stickers As Much As You Do 597
pickens writes "David Pogue writes in the NY Times that when you buy a new Windows PC, it comes festooned with stickers on the palm rests: one for Windows, one for Skype, one for Intel, one for the laptop company, maybe an Energy Star sticker and so on. 'It's like buying a new, luxury car — and discovering that it comes with non-removable bumper stickers that promote the motor oil, the floor mat maker, the windshield-fluid company and the pine tree air freshener you have no intention of ever using,' writes Pogue. But the worst thing is that when you peel them off, they shred, leaving adhesive crud behind. 'When you've just spent big bucks on a laptop, should you really be obligated to spend the first 20 minutes trying to dissolve away the sticker goop with WD40?' But AMD has a solution. Starting next year, AMD will switch to new stickers that peel off easily, leaving no residue; after that, it's considering eliminating the sticker program altogether."
Two words: rubbing alcohol (Score:5, Insightful)
A bottle of rubbing alcohol costs 99 cents. Lasts for years. A tiny dab on a microfiber cloth and that sticky residue is history. Takes about 30 seconds. Leaves your laptop looking nice and bare.
I like the stickers (Score:5, Insightful)
Next step: (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow great! So I can buy a shiny new laptop and not have to spend the first twenty minutes of its life removing the ugly mess of stickers that the manufacturer seems obliged to festoon upon its creation? Or no, I just have one fewer to remove because AMD is just one company (or two, I suppose, depending on the motherboard chipset and graphics subsystem). So all that would be left for many is that ugly "Windows" sticker...
Wonder if AMD will do anything about that? Sure would be nice to be able to buy a shiny new laptop and not have to spend the first hours of its new life formatting and loading an operating system that doesn't suck.
Ah, who am I kidding? It could come loaded with the latest and greatest uber-Ubuntu and I'd still reload it just because it's not partitioned the way I want it...
Re:Really? Stickers on your laptop? (Score:3, Insightful)
Which contains the same shitty foxconn made parts.
This is one place Apple has it right (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stickers (Score:2, Insightful)
I wouldn't mind if they. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't mind a single technical information summary sticker on the underside of the laptop. You know, where the manufacturer typically puts a sticker with serial number, model number, etc.? Something which is sort of the computer equivalent of the 'nutrition facts' box on food packaging, which included info about:
* CPU make/model/revision/speed/number of cores.
* Amount of RAM originally installed
* List of built-in devices (wifi chip, ethernet chip, audio chip, GPU, memory card reader chip, etc)
Only thing is, I think putting all that info on a sticker, in text large enough to read, would lead to a giant sticker, which might interfere with things like removable batteries, removable access panels (e.g. the panel you normally remove to access the memory slots, etc), cooling vents, removable drives, etc, which are all usually accessed on the bottom of the laptop.
Re:Not on Mac? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
And aside from that, a PC running Windows plus a bunch of YourPCNameHere bloatware plus all the requisite security software might have better specs, but it may or may not run any faster.
"A GB is a GB" is a myopic way to look at things.
Stickers are everywhere! Worst Experience? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The solution. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:That's why (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:lol, of course this is coming from AMD (Score:3, Insightful)
Never mind the fact that AMD will be the source of confusion for "normal" folks in the not-too-distant future [anandtech.com]. Yay for having Intel and AMD stickers on the same system!
Note: yes, I'm aware that most nerds won't be affected by this...but it will certainly confuse some normal folk, I guarantee it.
Nah. Most normal folk don't even know what companies do what. Sure, they've probably heard the names Intel and AMD... And maybe even know that they both make processors... And maybe they've even noticed that you typically only have one or the other on a box... But normal folk aren't even going to ponder why they've now got both on a box. They'll just buy the machine with the most gigawhosits and call it done.
Re:lol, of course this is coming from AMD (Score:3, Insightful)
No, normal folk will have no idea what AMD is and will think, rightly, that it must refer to some magical component inside the computer.
They only vaguely know that Intel has something to do with people in clean-room bunny suits.
Re:Not on Mac? Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is one place Apple has it right (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it is like a coca cola bottle with a coca cola logo on it.
Re:Goo Gone or limonene (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether or not it's "natural" depends entirely on your definition of the word.
Are we going to start calling citric acid artificial because a lemon tree made it? Or call honey artificial, because a bunch of bees made it?
We're just as a part of nature as bees and lemon trees, so why is stuff we made suddenly unnatural?
Moreover, since it's completely arbitrary, why does it matter where we draw the line?
It's a completely useless definition. That is, unless you want to make millions off of people who think "natural" things are better than "unnatural" things. Barnum called those people "suckers".
Re:"Designed for Microsoft Windows XP" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Next step: (Score:3, Insightful)
Horseshit. If you *think* you're a geek guy and you don't have a handful of random solvents in your garage/basement/car trunk/etc then you need to reconsider your claim to geekdom. Solvents are right up there with pencils, duct tape, and string as must-have accessories.
Re:This is one place Apple has it right (Score:1, Insightful)
You have one big fat apple "sticker" on the back. With that everybody knows your are a Apple whore. It's like a t-shirt with coca cola commercial that you have to wear everywhere.
There are so many people posting things like this, that I wasn't sure who to respond to.
I've got a Toshiba notebook here. It has the name TOSHIBA written on the top. It is not a sticker, or screen-printed on top of the case, it is permanent and non-removable. I've got a desktop here with the word eMachines stamped into the front plate. Have you seen any of Dell's computers lately?
This is not the problem. Would you complain that your BMW has a BMW logo on it?
The problem is the crappy stickers and the residue they leave when you try to remove them. On notebooks it is even worse because the sticks are often placed on wrist-rests where they'll eventually be rubbed off, exposing the sticky gunk, even if you don't wsant to do that.
Re:"Designed for Microsoft Windows XP" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not on Mac? Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
I have a mac because I like UNIX and I like native versions of common software packages that I actually enjoy using without having to resort to a compatibility layer. That's worth a premium to me.
i.e. Photoshop and Logic Audio
That and the proprietary Apple API's and subsystems are actually pretty good. I like Core MIDI and Core Audio for example. And for multimedia/creative work, Apple's GUI layer is far more capable than X. Native PDF output from any app is neat as well. System-wide spellchecking that works with EVERY native app in a consistent manner. Wish they kept the network transparency from NeXTstep in current OSX releases for GUI apps but for that I still have X11.
Before people get pissy, believe me, I love GIMP and use the crap out of it but it is not Photoshop yet when it comes to huge RAW images and CMYK work. YET. I believe it will be one day and I hope they get around to doing a Cocoa UI for it some day as well.
Ardour is cool but it has nothing akin to "Flex Time" and having native common commercial plugins instead of relying on a VST plugin hack is way preferable. Ardour's interface is more akin to something like MOTU DP and doesn't fit well with my typical workflow and I spend too much time dicking with Ardour and less recording or composing. And I like Core Audio and Core MIDI. And yes, there's FOSS plugins and some are pretty good but show me a real suitable replacement for Amplitube.... or a Korg M1 emulator......
It ships with a decent X server and Macports makes it easy to get my FOSS fix as well.
The base-model Macbook is actually very capable and comparable in price to a similar Dell, Acer, etc. At least when I bought mine in Feb 2009 it was. The rest of the lineup is a bit overpriced but that's why we have the OSx86 project. And for people who can't pull it off, it may be worth the extra price to make the leap just for the nice OS and great hardware integration.
On PC's and servers I typically run BSD but there's simply no FOSS replacement for some things that I do and OSX really is pretty awesome. Even if Steve Jobs is an engineer-abusing, manipulative dick. I have nothing against PC's, just never cared for MS OS's or running software targeted for MS OS's in a compatibility layer.
I also, for the record, HATE the glowing Apple on their laptops. It's like a big bullseye that says STEAL ME. I got one of the fake leather MacAlly form-fitting cases just to cover this. It also just seems kinda pompous.
Re:Not on Mac? Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Two words: rubbing alcohol (Score:3, Insightful)
When I was a kid, I always took that to mean: "Try it now!"
Re:Not on Mac? Really? (Score:3, Insightful)
Dell wouldn't be much nicer in that regard. Same rules apply. If you know how to remove a screw or 2, save $500 and spend $75 at TigerDirect or NewEgg.
Re:Goo Gone or limonene (Score:1, Insightful)
Whether or not it's "natural" depends entirely on your definition of the word. We're just as a part of nature as bees and lemon trees, so why is stuff we made suddenly unnatural?
Because that's the common definition of the word. The bigger question is why some people assume natural means better and why some people, like you, get so upset by them that they feel they need to challenge the definition of a perfectly useful word. Seriously. You know what the word means and so do I, so it's useful for communication. Just because some new age hippie thinks natural means better doesn't mean you need to change the definition.
Re:Stickers (Score:1, Insightful)
I've switch jobs and gone from a Mac to a HP laptop. I do miss the cleanness of the Mac in regards to stickers. Though I haven't scratch off the Windows 7 sticker even though I don't run Windows.
Other thing I miss going from Mac to PC is the single power light*. The HP right now has 13 lights/LEDs on. It's like a disco.
*A hard drive light on the Mac would be good though. But there is a software alternative for that.
Re:Goo Gone or limonene (Score:4, Insightful)
Modern staple foods are almost universally descended from plants that were deliberately exposed to high levels of artificial ionizing radiation or chemical mutagens in order to induce mutations. Mankind induced the mutations, then mankind artificially and selectively bred the mutations into the food supply. Outside a few minor heirloom varieties, there is virtually no maize, wheat, rice, or soy on the planet which isn't the result of these artificially-induced alterations of the plant genomes.
Which is to say, no, there is almost nothing you can eat "which is part of the ecosystem without human intervention." It's all been meddled with.