Is the PC "Dying"?

from what Linux enthusiasts say, a disk should have teleported into my drive the minute I clicked on the download link :)

So, I came to the office to try to burn the CD there. If that fails, well, I don't know.

It burned.

I hope you're happy I had to come to the office on a day off.

And on a completely unrelated note, Windows 8 must be destroyed.

Back on topic, I've been hearing and reading a lot lately about how the desktop is on the way out. What no one explains is why, aside from Microsoft's bone-headed decision to make it so. I mean, again, who the hell can work on a tablet-like environment? That may be fine on the go, when you can focus on one,a nd only one, thing at a time. But desktop work allows you to focus on multiple items at once, all within easy reach at all times. The taskbar introduced with Win95 is sheer genius. There may be other things that woudl work as well, but the tablet OSs and Windows8 aren't it.

We may as well go back to typewriters and carbon paper.

Not desktop computers. The desktop environment in computers. I fail to see how it makes sense to eliminate it in favor of severely reduced function.

Quote: Pacomartin

But the all in one computer is really nice. It is portable enough that you can change rooms where you are working. Particularly with the wireless mouse and keyboard. But why pay money for a tiny laptop if you don't need it.

I could see the all- in- one replacing the desktop as it's generally thought of now. With the SSD it's faster than anything else, and if the solid state capacity gets big enough and cheap enough I don't see why you need anything else. Unless you're simulating nuclear explosions or Earth weather you should be set for the forseeable future.

That one doesn't have the SSD in the link though.

Quote: Pacomartin

You mean that we will have heads up display like google glass, and virtual keyboards, and a fanny pack containing the link to our computer in the cloud where the software and data storage is located. We won't need desks since we can create a desk anywhere.

Are you being purposefully difficult? I mean the desktop in the computer. You know, the area in the monitor where you do the actual work.

Quote: Nareed

Are you being purposefully difficult?

No, I actually forgot that was what Microsoft calls the primary window a "desktop".

Quote: Pacomartin

No, I actually forgot that was what Microsoft calls the primary window a "desktop".

Likely story. ;)

On other things, speaking of technological change, when CDs made vynil records (mostly) vanish, my parents bought a new home stereo with all the latest components, amssive speakers, etc. Except they didn't get a turntable, because vynil records were "done." Never mind they had tons of LPs, Singles and even some old, old EPs lying around the house, comprising genres from classical music to what passed for pop in their day and even some new(ish) pop.

IMO, buying a turntable, still widely available then, was a better, cheaper option than purchasing many (not all) of the recordings they already owned on CD. But that's what they wound up doing.

CDs, of course, had their own problems. For instance, I refused to buy a CD player for my car back in the day when the only music CDs available were pre-recorded, store-bought affairs. Why? because typically I listen only to a few songs per album. It made more sense to me to buy 90-minute cassettes and record on them what songs I did like, rather than keeping a bunch of CD s in the car and constantly swapping them. When I could burn my own disks, though, then a CD player in the car made sense.

While all that has been "surpassed" by electronic MP3 players, I still carry 90+% of my music collection in a single MP3 CD. It could all fit on my cheap MP3 player, but then there'd be insufficient room for podcasts. And I'm not about to spend serious money on an Apple product just because it's trendy to do so (besides, i odn't get itunes; and I refuse to interCap now and thEn)

BTW, MP3 music lacks the fidelity of old CDs and even vynil. But, to be fair, most people either won't notice or care. I really can't tell (there!), but the experts all claim it's so. It must not be so much, otherwise it would be noticeable (yes, I know about data compression and information densities).

Yes, I'm rambling free associations all over, but that prevents me from yet another Win8/can't get the Linux CD to boot type of rants.

I realize ranting and raving about Windows 8 (and Office) is more than a little unseemly on my part. At the end of the day, fact is Microsoft doesn't owe me an operating system (or an office suite). All I can, and all I should, do if I don't like it (and it), is to get something else.

In part I'm venting pent-up anger and frustration and sheer exhaustion from the job. We've been going at it full throttle since late September, with few breaks. 12-hour workdays are commonplace, 16-18 hour days are not uncommon, and leaving work before dark is nothing short of remarkable. And lot of things get required at the last minute, and there's a ton of job, and it's stressful, and all that. Something as irrational as my job, whch Windows 8 is, makes for a good target; it's not even unfair ;)

There's more. At home I currently have an older Vista PC (Vista Home Basic, to boot), which has slowed and decayed beyond the point where common maintenance tools (defragmenters, registry cleaners, etc) can do much to help; and which wasn't really very good when it was new (after all, it is Vista). Late in 2011 I thought about upgrading it to Win7. But 1) the specs dind't quite match and 2) Win7 cost so much it made more sense to wait and get a new PC. So I waited, especially since Windows 8 was coming.

Now, I've used Win7 only a little, only in borrowed equipment (at work I have XP). There are a few details I mislike, but nothing I couldn't correct with 5 minutes of tweaking (I did in fact tweak a laptop in order to be able to work on it). Overall it looked and performed better than Vista (naturally). So in my naivette, if you will, I thought Win8 would be even better.

The disappointment I gradually encountered was jarring. perhaps it would have been best had it all hit at once, rather than being revealed a little at a time between reading reviews, commentaries and actually trying out the thing in display machines.

Disappointment just begins to describe it. Vista was a disappointment, as that it wasn't really better, when being used, than XP. But aside from some irritating delays and a couple of annoying features, it wasn't that different from XP (or, for that matter from Win95 and 98). No, Windows 8 actually makes me angry (or angrier), for reasons I've mentioned before.

So add the frustration over Win8 and having to delay getting a new PC indefinitely. To what that sum gets you, add all the idiocy (and it is idiocy) about the "end" of the PC, which after all is what precipitated the crippled Windows 8 out of Redmond (assuming it wasn't concocted in Hell itself, though I hear that's in California...)

The PC isn't dead nor is it dying. It simply is less necessary for a subset of PC users. Granted, a very large subset. A lot of people who shelled out big bucks for a conventional PC for things like email, social networks, and some light web surfing (including shopping), may do as well with a big tablet. I can even see some advantages for such people, in particular married coulpes with children. I can even see tablets replacing some functions of traditional PCs and especially laptops in some cases

But this subset, large as it may be, does not comprise anywhere near the entirety of users, maybe not even the majority. There remain other subsets, like people who work in offices, students who do homework and papers, programmers, scientists, etc etc, and home users who do more than light web browsing and email. I dont' do that much, but the idea of switching all that to a tablet is repellent, even a tablet with a keyboard.

Speaking of tablets, my experience with them is rather limited. I've been thinking about getting one for when I'm on the move, which isn't that often. Mostly I've used different kinds of ipads, and I dind't like any of them at all (do not ask). The few Android tablets I've handled were better, but not quite comfrotable. So when Micrrosoft announced its tablet which would run Windows, and it would include a keybaord, I was again quite expectant.

Yet much as I've said Win8, specifically the "Metro" interface, is fit for a tablet, it seems about the same or worse than the Android interfaces I've seen. I can't say for sure without handling both, of course. It would seem to be obsessed with touch, and I really don't like navigating by touch. The press, moreover, is nearly unanimous concernign the bad quality of the Win8 "apps." That can be a bit subjective, but with widespread agreement,a nd some examples, one can at least wonder, sight unseen, there probably is something to that.

So, to sumarize, I'm angry and frstrated because my job is too hard, too long and too stressful, and because I'm stuck with a clunky PC, and because it looks like other people's idiocy and hunger for BIG HEADLINES is pushing me to learn a different operating system altogether, and I've ben taking it all out on Microsoft, because, really, they should know better.

Quote: Nareed

...

Sounds like you need a nice, long trip to Vegas :)

Speaking of which, I hesitate to ask, but is there any chance your work will cancel your vacation, since it's been so crazy there? Or is that sacred enough not to be buggered with by the higher-ups?

I think I forgot to mention Windows 8 must be destroyed...

I was at the local Costco today and looked at the latest Win8 PCs. They were all displaying the desktop, and had the "charms" bar and "hot" corners disabled. I found that very funny.

It still must be destroyed.

Quote: AcesAndEights

Sounds like you need a nice, long trip to Vegas :)

Well, doesn't everyone? ;)

Quote:

Speaking of which, I hesitate to ask, but is there any chance your work will cancel your vacation, since it's been so crazy there? Or is that sacred enough not to be buggered with by the higher-ups?

It's very unlikely. I'm not high enough to really mater much. Though the new guy who'd do some of the things I usually do, if necessary, is rather clueless about it and doesn't take instructions well.

But if that happens, I'll blame you ;P