Am i missing something? Last time i was shopping for a Windows laptop and ended up with a huge Android tablet instead, i had no problems finding laptops under $500 that had SSDs.


I ask again: Why are we talking about $1000 Macs in a thread about $300 or less Windows machines?

 

Not sure if serious?






For a general-purpose PC, you are absolutely correct. All of my daily-use machines now run 7, including the media server in the living room that I had to upgrade for no other reason than because I installed a 4TB hard drive in it which is larger than XP can support.

For a simple dedicated tuning machine, I am aware of no advantage offered by 7 or 8 over XP, especially if the machine is small enough not to benefit from a 64 bit OS.

 

Tell Show me how to program my BMW through the INPA K+DCAN interface using anything newer than Windows XP, and I'll submit to you that I have no further personal arguments against "nobody should ever be using XP".

 

XP support ended in April which means no more security updates. If you're going to disable WiFi and never connect it to the internet then that's fine but you don't want to be running around with an infected tuning laptop to save a couple bucks. That already incredibly slow netbook will slow to a crawl as it gets infected over and over and over.

Windows XP support has ended - Microsoft Windows

 

Thought I posted this earlier, but I guess I never hit post.

I recently started tuning on a Surface Pro 2 instead of a laptop, though I admittedly having been tuning for long, nor am by any means proficient. Once you get the font settings and theme set correctly in TunerStudio, changing settings etc. is perfectly easy, and causes me no problems. The times that I miss my laptop are almost entirely a result of the smaller screen. When using the offline VEAL, it is very difficult to see the cell change while in the car, like when you hover over a cell to see what it originated at. The 3D graphs also leave something to be desired when using.

Basically the way things go for me right now: On the surface I use VEAL, MLV Offline Analyzer, and make Setting changes. I keep my tune files in dropbox. When I get home, it uploads any logs I've taken, desktop downloads them, and then I use that to examine VE tables, 3D graphs, and other things that require more screen real estate.

Tl;Dr: Works just as well as a laptop, but has the grievances that accompany a small screen.

 

This is exactly why you should not be using XP for anything.

 

I'll be blunt, if you can't manage to prevent your tuning laptop from being infected with a virus / malware / whatever in the absence of Windows updates, then you're a retard. Perhaps our definition of "tuning machine" differs, but mine does not involve surfing for **** on sites known to host malware, running Outlook, etc. It involves running TunerStudio and Dropbox, and occasionally connecting to either MiataTurbo.net or MSExtra.com to check some documentation.

I've somehow managed to make it nearly a full decade running a mishmash of Win2k and WinXP on my tuning machines, with Windows Update completely disabled and no third-party antivirus software running, without anything bad happening. When everyone started re-tweeting about how "MICROSOFT HAS DISCONTINUED UPDATES FOR XP!!!!one", my only reaction was "Huh, I didn't even realize they'd still been supporting it."


Now, if you happen to find a machine for $100-$150 that comes with 7 or 8, then great. I'm not poo-pooing either OS- they're just fine. All I'm saying is that if you find a killer deal on an XP machine, there is no reason at all why you should hesitate to buy it merely because "7 is better." For the purpose of tuning a Megasquirt, Windows 98SE would work just fine*.

 

I agree completely, and I acknowledge that "retard" is a relative term.

In this case, "retarded" relative to personal computer security.

I have antivirus software installed on my home desktop and general use laptop. The primary purpose for having antivirus software installed is because other people use my PC. Unfortunately, efforts by Microsoft and other major software developers over the last decade have effectively dumbed the average computer user down. The "golden age" of mass computer user knowlege was probably circa 2000. In those years, you had to actually have a pretty good clue as to what you were doing in order to use a computer. Since then, software has been "easy mode", then "super easy mode", then "so easy a caveman can do it", to now "so easy a mac user / 4-year-old can do it" It just doesn't require any intelligence at all to go online, download some malware, enter your credit card number, address, phone number, social security number, email address, email password, and everything else about you, and then press the "deliver to criminal organization" button at the bottom of the page.

Example: my fiancee works in IT dealing with infrastructure, enterprise and cloud security, BYOD, etc., so I would not really call her a retard with regard to computers - but on Friday of last week she got home from work several hours before I did, and decided she wanted to download a Youtube -> MP3 converter program. (Joe already knows where this is going.) She obviously blew right through all of the installation prompts (Next, Next, Next, I Agree, Next, Install, Finish.) And succeeded in installing her Youtube -> MP3 converter. I have no idea if it actually worked for her - I didn't ask. Experience tells me that it most likely did not work for her, nor did it provide any functionality beyond frustration for her. Several hours later, when I got home from work, ready to enjoy my Labor Day weekend and opened chrome, I let out a loud and angry "****!" upon noticing that my browser homepage had been hijacked. I immediately asked her "what did you download?" Asking her "did you download something?" would have been redundant.

"Don't we have computer virus software installed?"

"Yes, it is great at protecting against computer viruses, but it doesn't protect against stupid."
(I didn't actually say that, but that's what I was thinking. My quote is below.)

"Yes, but if you tell the computer that you want to install a program that happens to do bad things, what's the antivirus supposed to do about it? You told it to install."

Thus began two days of malware removal processes - so much for that enjoyable 3-day weekend. She is apparently great at protecting enterprise networks and proprietary information, but is a complete retard when it comes to personal computer security.

Physical home security is another thing I'm working with her on, progress is slow but good.

 

I'd wondered how it would be on a Surface, nice to hear some feedback from real experience.


You can't stop users from shooting themselves in the foot if they really try. MS was very guilty of this from the pre-Vista days, where everyone runs as Administration with full privileges. Things are a bit better now.

For untrusted software, virtual machines are great. These days it's easy to make a small VM, throw on junk apps, and not worry about your real machine being compromised.

Ultimately people still need to know what they're doing.

For a dedicated tuning laptop, it doesn't hold anything critical so who cares if it gets hacked. But in general it's better to VM an older OS like WinXP for tuning software that can't run on newer versions. Nobody can guard against remote exploits, and I'm sure WinXP has some good ones left in it.

 

I'll be blunt. It is irresponsible to recommend running XP on a public forum with varying levels of computer skills.

You might be surprised at the content served up by ad servers by malicious advertisers and the ad servers weak security. Legit sites can and do serve up malware through advertisers from time to time.

Wordpress has an incredibly poor track record and is often deployed by those not familiar with running publicly exposed services and don't know that it is essential to subscribe to security notices and stay up to date on patches. That link you just clicked from MT or MSExtra to some random guys blog that was just owned yesterday? Yeah it's serving up malware.

Connect to your buddies WiFi to share maps? Guess what, one of his machines is owned and now your tuning laptop is too.

Good for ******* you. Nobody gives two ***** about how careful you are when their tuning laptop gets infected with ransomware and they lose every historical tune. Or even just the "this worked great before I tried all these settings but it hasn't made it to DropBox yet" tune.

Our reactions were quite different. Mine was more along the lines of "I sure ******* hope all the Point of Sale and ATM vendors are paying MS for extended support". Perhaps Home Depot's PoS vendor is not and that is why millions of people will receive new credit and debit cards in the coming weeks.

"7 is better" has nothing to do with avoiding an XP laptop (although it is a much better OS, irrespective of TS). XP should be avoided as it will save people a ton of aggravation. Buy that piece of **** atom-powered netbook and run Linux if you really want to save a couple bucks. I personally can't understand why anyone would want to tune on one but whatever. My Core2Duo Macbook is faster, has more memory, and is still ******* slow. I can't even imagine running TS on an Atom. That's personal preference though, and why I tried to stay out of this thread.

Thank you for skipping the worst OS MS has ever created!

 

Again, this thread is about a simple, inexpensive, lightweight computer for the purpose of tuning an ECU. Discussions of virtualization are not relevant here.

 

Back in my day we used to walk uphill, both ways, in the snow manually find, fetch (over dialup) dependencies, and compile everything just to install an updated piece of software / new program. It's all relative. Kids of today/tomorrow will take everything we know and love to tinker with for granted and use their time to do something amazing and cool and we'll sit back and say "get off my lawn holy ****, you can do that?"

Last time I infected myself (not on purpose that is)... downloaded some new pr0n videos. Looked at them and thought "VLC isn't the default launcher for anything, is it? Shouldn't be but maybe it set itself as default for something I don't normally have". <double click> "Why didn't VLC open?" Oh because that's a 2MB "video" and I bet it's an exe. ****. Made myself clean it up and then re-format as penance for my stupidity.

Doesn't matter how safe / smart you are. **** happens. Sure would suck to lose a bunch of tunes and log files over a mistake though.

 

Let's keep this thread on topic here please.

Good to know. Thanks for your input. I kind of do the same currently as well. Everything just syncs with google drive so I can do my logging and autotuning on the go but do actual troubleshooting and manual tweaking on my desktop when I get home. The surface seems ideal for that type of setup.

 

Dont do that on your tuning laptop. Problem solved.

Who downloads **** anyway?
Imbedded player + adblock + not clicking on anything = boner time - computer aids


If you need a PDF reader and google it, click the first link, and start hammering on big "DOWNLOAD HERE" buttons, then you should not use XP.
No pro hacker is going to waste his kung fu trying to break into your PC directly. You get viruses from downloading them and you get "hacked" by letting yourself get phished.

My idea of a perfect tuning laptop is an old toughbook of thinkpad with XP on it.

 

I am going to append my previous advice. While I still support the use of old Asus EeePCs of the 900/1000 series, it turns out that it is possible to install Windows onto some Chromebooks as well, such as:

Acer 11.6 C7 Chromebook 2GB 16GB Chrome OS| C710-2856 | Refurbished (NU.SH7AA.016) at TigerDirect.com


While I have no personal experience with this unit, the Celeron 847 in it does outperform the lower-tier Atoms (so that Erat can surf for **** while he tunes), it has a 1366 x 768 display (so that Leafy can run crappy tuning software on it without having to suffer the indignity of scrolling) and it can run Win 7 (so that midpack can have a false sense of security while he accidentally installs malware onto it.)

For $160 refurbed, this particular unit would be competitive against an Eee, and at 11.6", it's on the larger end of "small enough to comfortably use in a Miata."

 

Small enough to comfortably use in a miata? Hey I've used the like 18" work station type laptops in the miata before and it was perfect, like filled the whole seat. The only problem is the whole like 15minutes of battery life that full size normal laptops have.

 

That's why you use a 12v adapter and can even run without the battery.
Thinkpad T400 isn't the pinnacle of tech, but better than the previous T42. Ubuntu helps, with XP on a VirtualBox

 

Tune while on an inverter? I dont want to nuke my ECU thankyouverymuch.

 

No, use a dedicated 12V adapter, which of course is switched DC-DC.
Have worked nicely so far.

Running on pure battery gives less ground loops, preferably using galvanic isolated signals. BT or WiFi would solve that though.

 

What would you do about hard drive space? W7 alone takes more than 16gig in my experience. Just take it apart and dump a bigger drive in it?

Oof, nevermind... watched the video. That looks scary!


How well does Tunerstudio and stuff play with Linux and/or will a serial Windows user like myself be able to even use Linux without feeling incredibly stupid?