Windoze 8

Quote: Face

I've almost posted a hundred times, but declined due to ignorance.

I thought we'd setteld that :)

Quote:

I hate change. If it was still supported, I'd probably still be using Win93, or Win95, or anything that didn't require change.

Win93 merely requires a change to the timeline. it's a good thing you don't like change and that time machines don't exist (yet) :P

Quote:

That "pin to the taskbar" thing you find pointless is a godsend to me. When I'm doing my image manipulation (GIMP) to paint cars for my race team, I can't do tabs as not all of the stuff is browser based. I also can't do desktop or Start menu because some of it is. Pinning allows me to have all my resources bing-bang-boom right where I need them.

Good for you. And BTW you're the first person I've heard who likes it rather than simply not minding it.

Me, well let's see. When at work, I will have one or two Word or PDF files open, and anywhere from two to four Excel windows. Plus at elast one browser window and Outlook. That takes up the whole taskbar. If I pinned anything there, I wouldn't have room enough. Unless, of course, I chose to combine tasks. But if I do that, then I'd ahve to mouse over Excel, say, wait for the miniatures to come up, then decide on the basis of four very similar-looking previews which one I want. Whereas if I don't pin anything and don't combine the tasks, I merely glance over, read the names and directly click on the one I want (for example: samples, technical, economic, cost).

At home I'm either browsing the web or writting. For browsing I keep two to five browser windows opened (I can do tabs, but as I tend to hover the mouse pointer on the lower half of the screen, then having several windows opened makes more sense). Again, I need the room. and again the miniatures are as likely to be helpful as to get in the way. Shopping websites tend to look alike when dimminished.

When I write I have one or two browser windows (I often either do specific research or check up the dictionary while writing), plus two Word windows (one with the outline, one with the story). Again, the tiny previews look too similar. I preffer the labels (example: OUTLINE-Betrayal, BETRAYAL).

So, no, I do not ever, ever pin anything to the taskbar.

Quote:

MS's fight to stay on the cutting edge allows stuff like this to develope. Most times, it seems they are a hit. One doesn't amass a fortune of their size by botching many things. But in the case of Win8, it appears they reached too far. As the snippet so succinctly stated, "They lost sight of who their cstomers where".

MS has taken lots of hits, many deservedly so. How such a company stayed in business and thrived is a complicated story. In short it can be resumed thus: MS DOS was a very good OS, which allowed MS to entrench itself in the enterprise market. Later on there were few alternatives. Those which existed were either expensive (Apple), not very user friendly (Linux), not well known (Linux), not spoon-fed by IT departments (Linux), or lacked compelling software (Apple).

Quote: Nareed

I thought we'd setteld that :)

We did. That's why I'm here =)

Quote: Nareed

Good for you. And BTW you're the first person I've heard who likes it rather than simply not minding it.

I think this has been Win's strong points in their history, at least as far as my oblivious observations go. When they do something new, it seems to be mostly little tidbits that don't affect the main operation. The operation they keep the same, just make it better, faster, stronger. The "new" stuff they do is like the taskbar. For someone like me, it's a homerun. For someone like you, totally unusable, but that lack of use doesn't really affect you. It's just something you ignore. So the end result is anywhere from 0 (don't care) or 10 (ZOMG Awesome!). There isn't a negative.

In the case of Win8, it seems they fiddled with the very core. I haven't read a thing about it except your thread or even seen a single still shot of the screen, but even I have the impression of "wtf?".

I mean, you'd think they'd have learned with Vista. I remember much of the rage was just a simple thing, that dumb notification of "You chose to do this. Are you sure you want to do this?", and people went apeshit over just that little change, that one-click inconvenience. Yet somehow they thought an entire overhaul was gonna fly?

Silly Microsoft =)

Quote: Face

For someone like you, totally unusable, but that lack of use doesn't really affect you.

It doesn't affect me much. I had a hard time disabling the miniatures (I find them distracting and annoying). But then I do know one can customize a system and how to go about it (and how to google it when I don't). Lots of people simply leave the four pinned icons pinned, pin nothing else besides, and never choose not to combine opened programs.

Just last week i showed this to someone and he was amazed you could do it. he'd been using Win7 since it came out.

Quote:

In the case of Win8, it seems they fiddled with the very core. I haven't read a thing about it except your thread or even seen a single still shot of the screen, but even I have the impression of "wtf?".

Oh, you should see it. I even ran the Win8.1 preview (It wasn't that easy). To call it a radical change doe sinjustice to the word "radical." Not only was the change HUGE, it gave not a single option to previous means of doing thigns. For instance, Win95 preserved both DOS and the File manager from older versions of Windows. Win8 dumped you unceremoniously on the M/M/W interface and still lacks a start menu.

Quote:

I mean, you'd think they'd have learned with Vista. I remember much of the rage was just a simple thing, that dumb notification of "You chose to do this. Are you sure you want to do this?", and people went apeshit over just that little change, that one-click inconvenience. Yet somehow they thought an entire overhaul was gonna fly?

The main problem with Vista wasn't the notification, but the misscalculation of hardware requirements. My Vista PC was a nigtmare to use. add the constant notifications adn it's enough to drive you crazy.

The latest on Win8.1 update 1: http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/2/5372662/windows-8-1-update-1-leaks-ahead-of-release

Notice the orange tile in the lower center labelled "help and tips"? That's been there since Win8.1 final release (it wasn't in the preview). Though I maintain the entire release was a mistake, by far the worst mistake MS made with the original Windows 8 was the failure to provide a tutorial or any help at all. Come on, there were such things for Win98, XP, Vista and 7 just to help with the new features. Now you come out with an OS that is completely different from what people are used to and what does MS do? Simply a prompt that said "Touch any corner!"

Anyway, this time the tech press is stressing the fact that this update is meant to make the system more friendly to mouse and keyboard users. Quite so. What they're not saying this time, as they did when Win8.1 was previewed, is "This is what Windows 8 should have been from the start."

The good thing is Microsoft has stopped digging. The bad thing is that's pretty much all they've done so far. Let's see if they even try to get out of the hole when Windows 9 comes out (and I still think they should not use a number this time around).

White smoke issued from Redmond today (figuratively) and MS annointed a new CEO (again figuratively) from withing the comapny (literally) who until now ran the cloud business and is named Satya Nadella.

Of course everyone at Microsoft will praise him to the heavens, then we'll hear anonymous comments from inside as what a big, whopping mistake this is, etc etc. As yet it's too soon to tell what Mr. Nadella will do. Let him get settled, then let him set policy, then we can rip him to shreds (figuratively) if developments so warrant. But as long as he gives us back a desktop version of Windows, we'll know he's in the right track.

No word on whether finally having an NFL champion in the state had any influence on the timing of this decision ;)

Saw this and it reminded me of this thread.

In other words, people will gravitate to the familiar, the tried and true. Sure, feel free to try something new. But abandon the known only if you're prepared to fail.

Quote: Face

In other words, people will gravitate to the familiar, the tried and true. Sure, feel free to try something new. But abandon the known only if you're prepared to fail.

When I first started scouting tablets, i gravitated in that direction. There was an Asus with keyboard and touch pad and USB ports, which detached from the 10" screen. Fortunately I took my time and realized two things 1) a tablet cannot and should not replace a laptop and 2) what I was thinking of was more like a netbook anyway and the screenw ould be too small to work on.

So I got the Nexus 7, mostly for reading ebooks, audio books and on the go email and web browsing and web apps (facebook, pinterest, et al). I'm happy with it and it's a great addition to the quality of my life. Still, I'm resisting getting a keyboard for it. I figure either I'll have a desktop PC at home and the office or my laptop while away handy if I need to work or send email, so why weigh the tablet down?

A new leak by Paul Thurrot shows a taskbar for the M/M/W interface:

http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/windows-81-update-1-preview-hands-build-16610

Now, see, this is just one more thing that had it been in the original Win8, it might have saved MS a big, big, big, and I mean, big headache.

BTW, the taskbar chock-full of icons in the picture looks a lot like one of my worst PC nightmares.

Quote: Nareed

BTW, the taskbar chock-full of icons in the picture looks a lot like one of my worst PC nightmares.

=O! Yeah, that's bad lol. Pretty much defeats any purpose of it whatsoever. Save the mass of icons for the desktop, if you must. But I can't even handle them there.

I think I might have 10 total icons on my desktop. Frequently played games, setup analyzers / telemetry programs, and image manipulation software. Maybe the recycle bin and Firefox. That's it.

If I don't use a program but once every few days or less, then it's relegated to start menu only. It's not worth the clutter to have it on the desktop.

And if I'm actively using multiple programs, THEN I use the taskbar.

What they're doing in the pic... that's just madness

Quote: Face

=O! Yeah, that's bad lol. Pretty much defeats any purpose of it whatsoever. Save the mass of icons for the desktop, if you must. But I can't even handle them there.

I think I might have 10 total icons on my desktop. Frequently played games, setup analyzers / telemetry programs, and image manipulation software. Maybe the recycle bin and Firefox. That's it.

I tend to leave OEM icons on the dekstop. Then i tend to fill the desktop with icons from installed programs I mean to run soon, but rarely get around to (mostly games), or documents I mean to look into (and mostly don't). Then i get lazy about claning it up.

But it doens't matter. The reason I never get around to the stuff on the desktop is I rarely ever even see the desktop. And because I ahrdly ever see it, i don't much mind what's on it.

That's one morereason, BTW, why I don't like "widgets" or the Win8.1.1 "live" "tiles."

Speakingof Win8.1.etc, the most annoying aspect of the start screen si that it doesn't overlay the desktop, but rather goes elsewhere. So when I ahve anything running, rather than the "tiles" apeparing on top, it takes me to the M/M/W interface, away from my work, and then back.