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More Insight On Longhorn's Avalon And Aero Design

Posted by timothy on from the all-on-paper dept.

Lispy writes "While monitoring the Xorg mailinglist I came across this set of WinHEC PPT-presentations (work fine in OOorg) that cover some interesting details on the underlying architecture of Aero, Aero Glass and future font rendering in Microsoft's upcoming Longhorn OS. What does the Slashdot crowd think about the overall design and its downsides, such as power consumption on notebooks?" (KPresenter works fine, too, btw.)

3 of 316 comments (clear)

  1. If you think OS X has too much eye candy... by BandwidthHog · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Icons with reflection and depth

    While I have to admit it sounds cool, I can't really think of a real need for this.

    --

    Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
    1. Re:If you think OS X has too much eye candy... by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I have a really good reason for eye candy, actually. If the icons do shit when the mouse passes over them it's easier to figure out where the mouse is - not just its position in space but what it will do if you click. It doesn't need to be taken to this extent but your video card is mostly idle while you're using the desktop, why not do it?

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  2. Thoughts on LongHorn: by crazyphilman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In the immortal words of Colonel Kurtz, "You must make a FRIEND of the horror".

    What horror, you ask? A major Microsoft upgrade. We cal look forward to the following exciting experiences in the coming Longhorn apocalypse ("I love the smell of burning CPU in the morning... It smells like... Job Security!"):

    1. Indigo, the new .Net secret sauce coming with Longhorn, will no longer use Remoting "over the wire". Everything is going to be SOAP and web services. Sounds wonderful, right? I think so too. BUT, many consultants are busy writing all your company's apps using remoting between servers! Guess what THAT means?

    2. All your computers are going to be landfill fodder, because Longhorn's hardware requirements are going to SMOKE 'em. Ah, well, we didn't need those 20,000 PCs anyway. And, the budget looks so much better cratered. It's like a big empty swimming pool. Makes me think of summer.

    3. Performance? The users are asking about performance? Um... HUSH! Look at the pretty screens, children! Ooh, transparency!

    4. Filesystem? We don't need no stinkin' filesystem. Let's put everything in a DATABASE!!!
    Ok, they might not get this into Longhorn, but it's coming. All your apps that touch the filesystem? Kiss 'em goodbye.

    5. More DRM. What's that? the users didn't ask for it? Let's surprise 'em; they'll be so happy!

    6. A new, different and strange iteration of IE to worry about. Sigh; better set up resources for the recoding of all your web pages, just in case.

    Ah, well. It should be exciting! And, who knows? Maybe the Indians will find it all just too ugly to work with and offshore all the work back here ("Oh, this is just too UGLY, you may take it back, please... No, really. No, I must insist. Oh, you are too kind, sir, but NO, I REALLY must insist... Oh you are making me very ANGRY sir, do not make me go medaeval on your unruly buttocks in the manner of Marcellus!").

    --
    Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!