Slashdot Mirror
UI Features That Didn't Make It Into Windows 7
TRNick writes "TechRadar talks to Windows 7's Senior User Experience Designer and discovers the interface ideas the Windows 7 team almost, but didn't put into Windows 7, and the stages various UI features went through to their final form. Quoting: '... The next prototype, in February 2007, was called the Bat Signal; when you moved your mouse over an icon in the taskbar, the full window would pop up on screen, highlighted by beams of light (a little like the Batman signal projected over Gotham City). Bat Signal made it easy to find the right window but it caused other problems: 'sometimes people toss the mouse down to the bottom of the screen when they're typing because they don't care where the mouse is and the Bat Signal pops up and that's really intrusive in their flow.' Bat Signal evolved into Aero Peek in Windows 7; you can hover over an icon to get thumbnails and hover over a thumbnail to get a preview of the window."
Go ahead. Mod me down with impunity. You just wait, idiot moderator. You just wait.
Anyone know of something similar for Linux?
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
MS is making a comeback. Win 7 looks great and even as a chrome/ff user I have to say that I'm attracted to IE8.
This is Slashdot, home of the penguin I know. But you have to give MS some credit. They're doing better.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
It makes me nervous enough to have miniature popups of certain windows....
For those of us not all that interested in gosh gee whiz features that require the next iteration of Moore's Law to support, why not a simple uncluttered GUI that operates the hardware and the network and GETS OUT OF THE WAY when you are working? Elegance through simplicity.... Bill is gone now Steve, you could risk excellence of design as a counterpoint
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
Shame on you Firefox/Chrome user, XFCE less is more .. :)
davecb5620@gmail.com
when I worked at MS, I used to always install the IDS and IDW builds. Not the dailies - they never worked. But I got really tired of learning about possible features that would never really exist, and now from the outside world I'm tired of learning about betas, because it's never exactly like the shipping product. Who cares? I'll just learn about it when it's done.
It does me zero good to know about things that I'm not going to create myself. If MS will implement it in five years, I'll learn about it in five years.
...with a desktop backdrop of a clown whose nose lights up whenever you hover over a taskbar icon.
Where hovering over a tab gives a tab preview.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
"Bat Signal evolved into Aero Peek in Windows 7; you can hover over an icon to get thumbnails and hover over a thumbnail to get a preview of the window"
...
How about ALT+TAB that pops up a viewable preview window, with a translucent thumbnail selector in the middle? Less is more
davecb5620@gmail.com
Seriously, look at those potential screenshots, and there's still this giant analog clock taking up 15% of the screen. Vista ships with a giant analog clock AND a digital clock on the desktop by default. Search Google Video for the wuh-wuh-wuh-windows 386 promotional video and you'll see that even Windows 386 featured...a giant analog clock!
now if they used beryl and xgl on there system then it would be sick
"despite all the 'Vista sucks!' being thrown around, it didn't slow down adoption at all"
Where can I go into a shop and buy a PC with the previous incarnation of Windows? And if Vista is such a success why is MS moving to Windows 7 already?
davecb5620@gmail.com
The etch-a-sketch.
Also, you know how the beta background is the beams of light shining down? About two screens above that is Steve Ballmer's ass.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
The recycle bin was changed to a chair icon, and whenever users would hover their mouse over it furniture would start flying around the room at random and howler monkey screams would emit from the computer speakers. This caused way too many worker's comp complaints, not to mention growing hostility in the work place.
Nobody is interested in nifty guis, or transparency, etc.
If you want to have the graphic goodies that actually suit your personality, you probably need Linux.. otherwise you're going to get what the majority wants (or is led to believe they want(or apple put in their previous release))
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
I appreciate all the work that is going into the new features and attempts to make Win7 easier for the "generic" user, but for me the biggest disappointment is the loss of a simple classic start menu with a pop-out menu style hierarchical view of my applications sorted into groups. Having it all crammed into a small scrolling folder/style box inside the start menu is just going to make working with my preferred setup a pain in the ass. Nice innovation on the search functions, task bar, etc. but eliminating the option to have a simple standby classic interface which is productive for many users was a mistake IMO.
Play me online? Well you know that I'll beat you. If I ever meet you I'll "/sbin/shutdown -h now" you. -Weird Al, kinda.
Ignoring number #3 and assuming that "productivity" is a goal of the user, here is my assertion:
;-) And because speed is a critical part of UI, having to swap out memory slows it all down. Chances are, there is ONE APP that dominates your workflow, whether it WordProc, Spreadsheet, Coding Environment, Graphics/Flash. Whatever that is SHOULD dominate your 24" monitor. All the other stuff (the web page yer copying text from, the Email your reading for specs, etc) are in the background, BEHIND the window that's doing the work. What if it were off to the side? And what if your chat and stuff were on the computer beside you. Why buy Moore's Law next machine, when the 1.8GHz, 1GB can run your side-surfing, and it only takes a glance, not an Alt-Tab? And chances are, you have older machines and CRT monitors. Oh, but they use energy? And shipping them to the Third World doesn't?
"It is amazing how much more productivity you have with multiple computers with multiple screens."
So much of the UI is spent on "switching" apps or discerning between windows/tabs of the same app. Think Office/Email/PhotoWhatever/MSVC. Behind all that is your websurf, Facebook, chat, tunez, Skype, FTP, Remote Sessions, site monitoring, Limewire
I like UI. UI is everything, but... But I like ignoring it while I work. Most UI improvements aren't.
The new Fuschia Screen Of Death was left out after they determined that it would *not* require users purchase new FSOD-Ready video cards and monitors.
Why couldn't the bat signal be a user pref?
Isn't giving options and remembering things what computers are supposed to be good at?
No sig today...
Digital clocks are so 1980s. :-/
(I prefer a digital readout, myself. I've been wearing an analog watch for years now, and still have to do a doubletake at it sometimes.)
It's a good thing Windows has a modular UI, then, right?
So we can expect third-party developers like the Compiz team to add in useful features like multiple desktops?
right?
I have to say that I'm attracted to IE8.
Pervert!
K.I.S.S. is not another way of saying "I am too lazy to implement that feature."
There's a difference between implementing an OS well and cluttering it up with dohickeys and gadgets.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
"... sometimes people toss the mouse down to the bottom of the screen when they're typing because they don't care where the mouse is ..."
Many years ago -- about 25 years, maybe a bit more -- others realized the exact same thing: Users don't want to see the mouse while they're typing. The solution at the time was to simply hide the mouse pointer at the first touch of a printable key. Amazing!
One of the little reasons I like my Mac.
[citation needed]
Seriously, insightful? What's insightful about the parent post, it's just a personal opinion.
Now if the parent had produced some links, and mentioned ways in which Windows 7 is really great, then maybe it would be insightful.
Come on mods, mod this back down to 2, where it belongs, as another 'me too' post.
But after using Win 7 Beta for a couple months, I have grown to appreciate the search bar in the start menu. whenever I need to use an application that isn't already pinned to my taskbar (something like character map, or an obscure control panel option) I just search for it and it comes up. Sure, I'll miss going Start->All Programs-> Accessories->System Tools->Character Map But I think I'll get used to it...
Particularly the auto play of music files when hovered. If you are prepared for it, it's okay. But I usually don't have icons shown on my desktop and that particular day I decided to clean up my download folder of mp3s by moving them all to the desktop. (mv ~/Downloads/*.mp3 ~/Desktop
) Because of some gconf problems I tried resetting my whole gconf folder so my desktop was back.
AGH! The agony! My computer keeps randomly playing mp3s when I didn't want it too! For the whole day I would wonder for about 5 seconds where a sound was coming from until I realized it was music.
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
marketing concept to instill how important right now is and not dwell on how late the product is. ;-)
Yes, they've sucked at software development as far back as the early DOS/Windows days. And they've been riding that DOS monopoly IBM handed them so long ago.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Whoever is designing the interfaces at Microsoft seems to be living in a fantasy world where functionality is irrelevant and the only thing that matters is "wow".
Things have been going rapidly down hill since around 2005 when they reversed the order tabs appeared in Visual Studio. The new arrangement meant that tabs appeared on the left and pushed all the other tabs along so the position of your files was constantly changing making it hard to keep track of where they are. Microsoft could simply provide the option to revert to the sensible behaviour used by every other application where new tabs appear on the right but despite the public outcry they refuse to do this. So much for their claims of "Work your way".
Next came Internet Explorer 7 where they ditched the traditional tool bar and spread the buttons to the four corners of the earth so nobody can ever find the button they one. I don't think there's a single person who likes this arrangement but once again Microsoft refuse to include any customisation to the intereface so you can "Work your way" just as long as "your way" is the way Microsoft tells you to work.
Then there was Windows Vista which adopted the attitude of "why do in 5 clicks what you can do in 20". Everything now takes more clicks to do so productivity is reduced. For example in XP you could change your resolution, theme, wall paper, screen saver and power saving options all from the Display Properties dialog but in Vista they were spread to multiple different places, making it harder to get things done. The functionality and consistency of interface provided by menus was abandoned and now every window has a different interface with stupid pictures and lots of "wow". The new start menu is worthless and abandons the tree structure to replace it with a list of applications you have to scroll through slowly, further reducing the productivity of Vista users.
Then there was Office 2007 which also ditched the consistent menu style interface and switched to ribbons. It makes it impossible to find the options you're looking for and someone who had the misfortune of getting Office 2007 with a PC once said to me "I've just spent 20 minutes looking for one options in the ribbons".
Windows 7 takes Vista and makes things even worse. The combined quick launch bar & task bar makes it hard to see if an application is running or not and impossible to see how many instances of the application are running. The fantastic Windows Classic theme has been removed completely and now you're forced to use wasteful themese where all windows have thick borders and fat title bars. Consistency has been further abandoned and things like the theme selection dialog box has been replaced by something entirely customised which users have to learn to use. Ribbons have been added to other applications like Paint and the whole thing seems to have been designed to be has hard to use as possible.
Other application interfaces have been destroyed, for example Windows Media Player with it's 1 pixel thick jog bar, lack of menus and ridiculous button arrangement.
The one thing Microsoft used to do right was user interfaces but they've now abandoned everything that makes a good interface. Things such as consistency, clarity and efficency have gone and instead all we have is "wow". I used to use all Microsoft applications but by destroying their interfaces across the board I've been abandoning them one at a time. After trying the Windows 7 beta I've been forced to switch to Linux.
I must admit I'm having a hard time with Linux and there's a lot to learn for a 30 year old who has been raised on Microsoft products. However, it's definitely worth the effort since Linux really does let me "Work your way" while Microsoft just makes that claim and in reality you have to work the way Microsoft tell you.
I always wondered what would bring an end to the Microsoft monopoly and it turns out it's Microsoft themselves. They seem intent on making their own products such a nightmare to use that people are forced to go elsewhere and I'm more than happy to oblige them.
Aero Peek isn't totally new. Vista has had Aero Peek all along. The difference is that in Vista's Aero Peek, you weren't able to see ALL the peek preview windows by hovering over the taskbar stack. You had to open the taskbar stack's context window that showed all the different items, then you could peek at each item.
Oh wait, I forgot. Vista doesn't exist. Sorry about that. I must be new here.
This sounds like it will be more irritating and resource wasteful than the context menu icon loading currently in windows XP.
To reproduce: Use your system for a while with some memory intensive app. Then, right click a folder or the desktop to bring up the context menu and you get to wait several seconds while listening to your HD seek all over the place to load the icons before you can access the menu.
This is even worse with the control panel icons/applets and the start menu itself. Those things should be kept in the system cache and never swapped to disk, or not used in the menus in the first place.
Question everything
Are virtual desktops going to be in Windows 7? I haven't tried the beta, and all I get with google is some stuff about RDP. Any desktop without virtual desktops is pretty much unusable for anything non-trivial. What is taking them so long? UNIX has had them since the early 90s.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
"Hoefnagels agrees it's not particularly practical - "It's a lot of work, if I'm reading a lot of text I have to keep rubbing and reading, rubbing and reading" - but the rubbing gesture evolved into the shaking gesture to hide everything except the current window."
Make your own joke.
Once more, MS wants to sell an operating system on the merits of its GUI. Once more, they have completely missed the point. They have failed to address the number one issue that faces all classes of PC users: the lamentable lack of security that is characteristic of all Microsoft operating systems. Please note that this is not an "MS is trash Unix is cool" rant; I think the only reason there aren't more hijacked Unix boxes is that they're a small target, and the people who own them catch on too fast.
I'm particularly hot on this topic because I just blew my last three weekends salvaging two Windows XP boxes that were riddled by multiple trojans, virii, and just plain annoying trash. (They belong to two family members who shall remain unnamed—but I'm married to one of them, and cutting off her internet access could be deleterious to the climate around the ol' homestead.)
Now, I understand that no one can make an OS completely secure, except perhaps by removing all networking features. However, it should not be so easy to infect a PC, and it most certainly should be possible to recover from a malware infection without going through the pain I experienced.
Yes, I had backups—full image backups of the C drives (I use Acronis, and it's very good at what it does). The question was how far back I had to go to find a clean image. And how can I be sure it's clean, when the virus scans themselves couldn't detect all the contamination? For example, one machine was pronounced "clean"—but every time I rebooted it, several Internet Explorer processes not associated with any GUI windows would spawn and start sending packets to all sorts of interesting places. (I think I figured that one out—the malefactor was hiding in the OS System Restore file.)
What do I think MS could do about this? Well, for one thing they could provide an actually useful system recovery capability. I do not consider the "Fix your Windows installation (y/n)? that comes with the installation disk remotely useful. A truly useful recovery capability would reside on bootable media provided along with the OS that does things like:
Until MS "hardens" their OS and provides tools that do what I've described, I see no point in buying any further MS operating systems. One is just as bad as the other.
I don't think it's going to happen, though. You see, building a hardened OS would not be in Microsoft's interests. I talked to the guy who takes care of my swimming pool the other day, and mentioned my malware hassles. He furrowed his brow and said that maybe he had had some viruses too; his computer was running really slow and would reboot a lot. I asked him how he fixed the problem. "I bought a new computer" was his answer. When he said that, it hit me—just how many people decide to buy a new computer for precisely th
Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
When i start typing, my cursor disappears automatically. I didn't know i have to toss it to corner.
Yes, i use KDE.
Hey now, don't paint us all with the same brush. We're not all dicks you know. And FYI to others, as far as I know, GP's links do not reveal a sufficiently similar feature in OS X, and I certainly haven't found one on my mac.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
Again, no native implementation in Windows ... what year is it again?
A bit random, but how about this for a feature to make Windows generally more 'snappy'.
Button widgets only function once the mouse button has been *released*, rather than on the initial click of the button. If this was corrected, the GUI would feel more responsive due to the latency involved in releasing the mouse button.
Any thoughts?
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
Only with computer graphics development can we talk about 3 years ago as if it were ancient history that needs to be dug up and re-defined. Heck, I'm a Ubuntu newbie still, I just wanted to play with Compiz scripts back then so I remember pretty well as it was the most interesting changes I could learn to make to the system at that point.
Stupidity is its own reward.
"Where can I go into a shop and buy a PC with the previous incarnation of Windows?"
Where can I go to a car dealership and buy a brand new 2004 model car? Where can I go buy a new 8-track tape player?
This would be right up his street.... oh god, did i really write that?
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Hmmm. I loved 3.5. 4.0 was kinda sucky, so I switched to Gnome. Having read that KDE4.2 is the only desktop environment to make full use of hardware acceleration, I'm interested again - but info specific to acceleration is a bit hard to find. Do you have any leads?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Your company doesn't care about you. PERIOD. Your company would do anything to keep you from doing a lot of things. You live in a world of restrictions under your company, even to the point of spying on you in order to view your phone calls, who you hang with, investigating your past. Everything. If you don't believe it could happen then you don't remember HP nor have you come to grips with the Bush admin and what they did.
This is ammo. Document it and keep it safe.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
I probably spend way too much time using a computer.
Windows just isn't changeable enough. Microsoft generously offers dozens of free tools and utilities to change things a little bit at a time but, There isn't one central utility to access the many things that can be changed. Yes, there is the registry but that often takes many minutes of Google-ing to find what is needed.
15TW = 15,000 Nuclear Reactors. (Approx. one accident a month.)
You should be fine with any non-ancient graphics hardware. KDE 4 does hardware checks during startup and disables desktop acceleration on hardware that fails the checks. You can alternatively switch to an XRender backend in that case which will disable most of the fancier effects, though, as it only accelerates 2D.
Full OpenGL desktop acceleration works on my eee 701 netbook (Intel 910GM) but not on my crappy old laptop (Mobility Radeon M6).
Want to hear the voice of GOD? cat
Remote cockpunch feature still unimplemented
First things first. We need to invent a device that remotely stabs people in the face, first.
Where can I go to a car dealership and buy a brand new 2004 model car?
Some car makers in at least the United States offer programs where a dealer will inspect and refurbish a vehicle according to the maker's specification, and the maker will provide a warranty. I first heard about such a certified pre-owned program from a Lexus commercial.
We were talking about new products that were made years ago.
Products that, unlike automobiles, can be physically reproduced for negligible cost. Besides, in this analogy, the 2004 Lexus uses half the petrol of the 2009 model.
I'm shocked, 200 some posts and no one mentions the windows 95/98/2k start menu is now a thing of the past, totally taken out of explorer in Win7. Apparently everyone here hasnt really tried Win7 or they just don't use it. In my opinion, all the newer incarnations of the start menu were crap and "Why fix what isn't broken?"
Ok ignore the subject, I'm just getting your attention.
As I've mentioned many times previously on slashdot I'm fairly opinionated when it comes to UI changes to Windows.
I've been trialling the Windows 7 beta, both 7000 build legitimately and 7057, well not so legitimately.
There are distinct changes to the interface from Vista which are a vast improvement, it simply feels cleaner and neater and infact I've emailed someone to congratulate them on addressing this./
Sadly though, there are still foolish and un-necessary changes to Vista / Windows 7 which Microsoft seem to be unwilling to fix or discuss (thus far)
Example, under Windows 7, the status bar no longer shows drive space free. Why? I do not know myself.
It's small, it's tucked down the bottom, it's in a consistent location AND it's optional to turn it on and off, so surely having drive space free there won't hurt anyone, if you find it too cluttered, turn the thing off.
Also, the breadcrumb bar, time and time again I've tried to hassle people for an OPTION to disable the ghastly thing, I don't mind if new users prefer it, good for you! I work on machines to get things done, I need it quick and efficient and the breacrumb bar frankly frustrates me.
I don't know about you guys but I 'think in' paths, directories and drives, even if Microsoft doesn't want me to think that way anymore, it's likely how I will ALWAYS think of things on a machine, I translate things back in to paths when using the breadcrumb bar, so it's just slowing me down and... again I'm not 'getting the data' to my brain quick enough.
(The ONLY THING slowing me down when working on a machine, should be me, not the controls or interface, not the performance, me! same with video games, if I die it should be due to skill, not due to frame rate or controls)
The control alt delete menu (the grey box under XP with 6 buttons) previously you could just hit space to lock the machine or t for the task manager - now you have to hold down alt. (I admit this is a small problem)
Now here's the real issue, which to be frank guys, it fucks me off.
I've brought several of these issues, minor as they may be, up on forums in several places yet Microsoft "MVP's" or Microsoft staff or forum posters simply dispute the validity of my point saying 'it's fine for me'
These people don't realise what suits one, may not suit another.
Example one of the actual Microsoft staff, operating a Win 7 UI blog has responded to my email saying essentially "you realise, you can simply hit control shift esc for the task manager? rather than control alt del - t"
He's absoloutely right, but the problem is WHY, WHY! and WHY did they introduce a 'requirement' to hold down alt before using the shortcut keys on the control alt delete menu?
The problem isn't the issue itself the problem is WHY did they do this when it simply changes something which didn't needed to be changed and adds a layer of complexity.
I attempted to explain this to him, precisely that. Making un-necessary changes is pointless and if you're going to do things which don't need to be done, you're just going to frustrate people.
It's now MORE difficult for me to bring up the task manager (using the CAD menu) than it was previoously
It's now MORE difficult to see drive space free in the explorer interface
It's now MORE difficult to see what 'true path' I'm in, when in an explorer window (I have to press "ALT-D" for the address bar to come up and show the proper DOS style path)
Just to re-state, the problem isn't that these are huge, mind blowingly bad changes, the problem is they are WORSE changes which are UNNECESSARY and benefit no one, furthermore there's no OPTION to put it back to how it was previously!
(sorry for the caps words but I'm pretty passionate about this)
So the long story short is Microsoft are making some positive changes but they aren't 'thinking differently' they are still being closed minded and assuming X is best, deal with it.
The other main issue
And your "half the petrol" doesn't hold up either. Newer processors may use less electricity, but it isn't half. (I know you were actually referring to hardware requirements being less, but in this case, petrol and electricity, are the consumable resources being used by the products.)
Then please allow me to refine the analogy further: The 2004 model has more cargo space than the 2009 model (i.e. less HD taken by the OS), and it handles more responsively (i.e. less RAM and CPU use).
Sorry, just to quickly respond to my post.
This is the blog which clearly shows that some thought is being put in to the OS.
http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/
I've been in correspondence with one of the gents from there and while he was polite and somewhat helpful, that's where I stumbled across the attitude of 'there's nothing wrong with this backwards change, you can always do this instead'
Hmmm. I loved 3.5. 4.0 was kinda sucky, so I switched to Gnome. Having read that KDE4.2 is the only desktop environment to make full use of hardware acceleration, I'm interested again - but info specific to acceleration is a bit hard to find. Do you have any leads?
Here is the 4.3 feature plan:
http://techbase.kde.org/Schedules/KDE4/4.3_Feature_Plan
underscore that the USPTO needs to be fixed, or empowered to shoot down all-reaching patents.
For example, suppose company A invents that flying suit, modeled after a given species of bird, and even gets a patent for a "novel" invention (though we've already seen many cloth, mechanical, and thruster types of flying attachments). Nature, as we all can readily observe, has created (or allowed the long-term existence of) many species, colors, sizes, and flying capabilities of birds.
Now, company/entrepreneur B comes along and models a suit after a wildly different species of bird that either flies better than Company A's bird, or flies worse, but nevertheless allows a human short, economical flying. If the USPTO granted Company A's patent and the patent was set up as a minefield with "We claim an apparatus, device, fixture, assemblage, attachment, and cloth known and to be developed over time...", then the patent should be revoked, challenged, diluted...
Now, if Company B's suit/wing is obviously different, but functions the same in the end, then why should B be denied a patent, or, just as insulting, be forced to pay royalties to A? I like to ask whether there are cartels forcing the payment of royalties on "infringement" on design and manufacturing patents (or even copyright) for:
pencils
windows
shoes
pants
bookshelves
car chassis
steering wheels
CD/DVD jewel cases
filing cabinets
desk organizers
binders
office partitions
hair combs
mixing bowls
spatulas
and on and on and on.
Anyway, in one of the UK magazines (can't remember if it's PC Pro) there is an article about making win XP & vista have multiple desktops, 3D effects, shortcuts, etc. Some even outright strip out the ms GUI and replace it, turning off services and things, too, and running in under 44 MB of RAM. Some of them look as if lifted right out of KDE. I suppose if ms DID include the features KDE and Apple and the ms-oriented 3rd party addons/replacements the Open Source crowd would cry bloody foul. Actually, tho, i am glad that ms didn't include them. This way, when i ride the train or sit in Borders i can play around as people peak to see what is going on.
To be intellectually honest/clean, though, now that i have seen the articles showing that XP & Vista & 3rd party tools CAN INDEED do (graphically) what KDE does, i cannot any longer smugly ask, "Can windows do THIS?!" However, I CAN ask "How do YOU explain that ms did the thinking for YOU and decided that YOU could not possibly possess the intelligence to efficiently use these features?"
It may become the case that ms gets 7 out the door, but later "congratulates" the other parties for bringing new, useful, lean features in an effort to undermine the "superior" KDE GUI distinctions.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
2 things BOTHER me about Windows VISTA, Windows Server 2008, & doubtless their offspring in Windows 7 (unless you can tell me otherwise on the latter), & 1 has to deal with A GUI FEATURE THAT DIDN'T "MAKE IT" INTO WINDOWS 7:
http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/02/25/feedback-and-engineering-windows-7.aspx?CommentPosted=true#commentmessage
----
1.) The removal of IP Port Filtering GUI controls for it via Local Network Connections properties "ADVANCED" section
(This is up there w/ when MS removed the GUI checkbox after NT 4.0 for IP Forwarding, only, this time, the difference is (and, it's a PAIN) is that it is NOT a single 1 line entry to hack via regedit.exe, but FAR MORE COMPLEX to do by hand)... port filtering is a USEFUL & POWERFUL security (& to a degree, speed also) enhancing feature!
Afaik, on THIS case (vs. #2 below)? It has always been that way in VISTA &/or Windows Server 2008... & not just the result of a Patch Tuesday modification.
&
2.) The removal of being able to use 0 as a blocking IP address in a HOSTS file
(vs. 0.0.0.0 or 127.0.0.1, which are bigger, slower on load into the local DNS Cache (as well as slower flushes via ipconfig /flushdns) & also occupy more RAM once loaded, for NO GOOD REASON - 0 blocks as well as the other 2 do, & is smaller + faster!)
In this case, this happened on 12/09/2008 Microsoft "Patch Tuesday" updates, it wasn't LIKE that before then!
E.G.-> Here, using 0 as my blocking IP address in a FULLY normalized (meaning no repeated entries) HOSTS file with nearly 650,000 bad sites blocked in it, I get a 14++mb sized HOSTS file... using 0.0.0.0 it shoots up to 18++mb in size (& even worse using 127.0.0.1, to around the tune of 24++mb in size)... senseless & bloat creation is the result!
----
APK
P.S.=> WHY HAS THIS BEEN DONE? Makes NO sense people!
The reason for removing the PORT FILTERING gui, per the Microsoft VISTA resource kit is flimsy, & makes NO SENSE either!
I.E.-> Microsoft left IP Security Policies usage, Software Firewalling, & RRAS methods alone, & only pulled PORT FILTERING...
(The VISTA resource kit states because they each work @ diff. layers of the IP stack & don't immediately "sync" from a single point due to being powered by diff. drivers & working @ diff. levels of the IP stack, MS pulled the PORT FILTERING gui front controls from your local area connection object's advanced TCP/IP properties, & that one, ONLY (so, why leave the other 3 then? MS contradicts itself, right there, in doing so...))
No good reasons have been presented by MS to myself @ this point for EITHER 1 or 2 being done above, @ the URL where I stated it @ MSDN... @ least, none for efficiency & security @ least that I can see & thus? I'd like to know WHY these crippling things were done to otherwise possibly FINE OS (these things DO affect my decisions to upgrade & possibly those of others as well, something to consider)... apk
The solution to the Ctrl-Alt-Del spacebar issue is Windowskey+L. This will lock your system.
Cheers
2 things BOTHER me about Windows VISTA, Windows Server 2008, & doubtless their offspring in Windows 7 (unless you can tell me otherwise on the latter), & 1 has to deal with A GUI FEATURE THAT DIDN'T "MAKE IT" INTO WINDOWS 7:
http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/02/25/feedback-and-engineering-windows-7.aspx?CommentPosted=true#commentmessage
----
1.) The removal of IP Port Filtering GUI controls for it via Local Network Connections properties TCP/IP properties "ADVANCED" section
(This is up there w/ when MS removed the GUI checkbox after NT 4.0 for IP Forwarding, only, this time, the difference is (and, it's a PAIN) is that it is NOT a single 1 line entry to hack via regedit.exe, but FAR MORE COMPLEX to do by hand)...
I.E.-> Port Filtering is a USEFUL & POWERFUL layered security (& to a degree, speed also) enhancing feature!
Afaik, on THIS case (vs. #2 below)? It has always been that way in VISTA &/or Windows Server 2008... & not just the result of a Patch Tuesday modification.
&
2.) The removal of being able to use 0 as a blocking IP address in a HOSTS file
(vs. 0.0.0.0 or 127.0.0.1, which are bigger, slower on load into the local DNS Cache (as well as slower flushes via ipconfig /flushdns) & for NO GOOD REASON - 0 blocks as well as the other 2 do, & is smaller + faster!)
In this case, this happened on 12/09/2008 Microsoft "Patch Tuesday" updates, it wasn't LIKE that before then!
E.G.-> Here, using 0 as my blocking IP address in a FULLY normalized (meaning no repeated entries) HOSTS file with 650,000++ bad sites blocked in it, I get a 14++mb sized HOSTS file... using 0.0.0.0 it shoots up to 18++mb in size (& even worse using 127.0.0.1, to around the tune of 24++mb in size)...
(Senseless, & bloat creation is the result!)
----
WHY HAVE THESE 2 CRIPPLING REMOVALS BEEN DONE? Makes NO sense people!
APK
P.S.=> The reason for removing the PORT FILTERING gui, per the Microsoft VISTA resource kit is flimsy, & makes NO SENSE either!
I.E.-> Microsoft left IP Security Policies usage, Software Firewalling, & RRAS methods alone, & only pulled PORT FILTERING...
(The VISTA resource kit states because they each work @ diff. layers of the IP stack & don't immediately "sync" from a single point due to being powered by diff. drivers & working @ diff. levels of the IP stack, MS pulled the PORT FILTERING gui front controls from your local area connection object's advanced TCP/IP properties, & that one, ONLY (so, why leave the other 3 then? MS contradicts itself, right there, in doing so...))
No good reasons have been presented by MS to myself @ this point for EITHER 1 or 2 being done above, @ the URL where I stated it @ MSDN... @ least, none for efficiency & security @ least that I can see & thus? I'd like to know WHY these crippling things were done (these things DO affect my decisions to upgrade & possibly those of others as well, something to consider)... apk
2 things BOTHER me about Windows VISTA, Windows Server 2008, & doubtless their offspring in Windows 7 (unless you can tell me otherwise on the latter),
(& 1 has to deal with A GUI SECURITY FEATURE, especially for the concept of "Layered Security", THAT DIDN'T "MAKE IT" INTO WINDOWS 7)
http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/02/25/feedback-and-engineering-windows-7.aspx?CommentPosted=true#commentmessage [msdn.com]
----
1.) The removal of IP Port Filtering GUI controls for it via Local Network Connections properties TCP/IP properties "ADVANCED" section!
(This is up there w/ when MS removed the GUI checkbox after NT 4.0 for IP Forwarding, only, this time, the difference is (and, it's a PAIN) is that it is NOT a single 1 line entry to hack via regedit.exe, but FAR MORE COMPLEX to do by hand)...
I.E.-> Port Filtering is a USEFUL & POWERFUL layered security (& to a degree, speed also) enhancing feature!
Afaik, on THIS case (vs. #2 below)? It has always been that way in VISTA &/or Windows Server 2008... & not just the result of a Patch Tuesday modification.
&
2.) The removal of being able to use 0 as a blocking IP address in a HOSTS file
(vs. 0.0.0.0 or 127.0.0.1, which are bigger, slower on load into the local DNS Cache (as well as slower flushes via ipconfig /flushdns) & for NO GOOD REASON - 0 blocks as well as the other 2 do, & is smaller + faster!)
In this case, this happened on 12/09/2008 Microsoft "Patch Tuesday" updates, it wasn't LIKE that before then!
E.G.-> Here, using 0 as my blocking IP address in a FULLY normalized (meaning no repeated entries) HOSTS file with 650,000++ bad sites blocked in it, I get a 14++mb sized HOSTS file... using 0.0.0.0 it shoots up to 18++mb in size (& even worse using 127.0.0.1, to around the tune of 24++mb in size)...
(Senseless, & bloat creation is the result!)
----
WHY HAVE THESE 2 CRIPPLING REMOVALS BEEN DONE? Makes NO sense people!
APK
P.S.=> The reason for removing the PORT FILTERING gui, per the Microsoft VISTA resource kit is flimsy, & makes NO SENSE either!
I.E.-> Microsoft left IP Security Policies usage, Software Firewalling, & RRAS methods alone, & only pulled PORT FILTERING...
(The VISTA resource kit states because they each work @ diff. layers of the IP stack & don't immediately "sync" from a single point due to being powered by diff. drivers & working @ diff. levels of the IP stack, MS pulled the PORT FILTERING gui front controls from your local area connection object's advanced TCP/IP properties, & that one, ONLY (so, why leave the other 3 then? MS contradicts itself, right there, in doing so...))
No good reasons have been presented by MS to myself @ this point for EITHER 1 or 2 being done above, @ the URL where I stated it @ MSDN... @ least, none for efficiency & security @ least that I can see & thus? I'd like to know WHY these crippling things were done (these things DO affect my decisions to upgrade & possibly those of others as well, something to consider)... apk
"Read the rest of this comment..."
I've always been irritated by this feature. Yes, it does make sense to limit visible comment lines to a certain amount, but all too often it turns out that only very few lines had to be hidden.
The above comment (which I agree on, btw) is a beautiful example: the additional info being displayed when you follow the link is the last empty line.
Thus, instead of a brutal "if NumberOfLines > n then", how about replacing it with something more brainy like "if NumberOfLinesOverLimit > n then"?
Ciao,
Klaus
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
2 things BOTHER me about Windows VISTA, Windows Server 2008, & doubtless their offspring in Windows 7 (unless you can tell me otherwise on the latter),
(& 1 has to deal with A GUI SECURITY FEATURE, especially for the concept of "Layered Security", THAT DIDN'T "MAKE IT" INTO WINDOWS 7)
http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/02/25/feedback-and-engineering-windows-7.aspx?CommentPosted=true#commentmessage [msdn.com]
----
1.) The removal of IP Port Filtering GUI controls for it via Local Network Connections properties TCP/IP properties "ADVANCED" section!
(This is up there w/ when MS removed the GUI checkbox after NT 4.0 for IP Forwarding, only, this time, the difference is (and, it's a PAIN) is that it is NOT a single 1 line entry to hack via regedit.exe, but FAR MORE COMPLEX to do by hand)...
I.E.-> Port Filtering is a USEFUL & POWERFUL layered security (& to a degree, speed also) enhancing feature!
Afaik, on THIS case (vs. #2 below)? It has always been that way in VISTA &/or Windows Server 2008... & not just the result of a Patch Tuesday modification.
----
&
----
2.) The removal of being able to use 0 as a blocking IP address in a HOSTS file
(vs. 0.0.0.0 or 127.0.0.1, which are bigger, slower on load into the local DNS Cache (as well as slower flushes via ipconfig /flushdns) & for NO GOOD REASON - 0 blocks as well as the other 2 do, & is smaller + faster!)
In this case, this happened on 12/09/2008 Microsoft "Patch Tuesday" updates, it wasn't LIKE that before then!
E.G.-> Here, using 0 as my blocking IP address in a FULLY normalized (meaning no repeated entries) HOSTS file with 650,000++ bad sites blocked in it, I get a 14++mb sized HOSTS file... using 0.0.0.0 it shoots up to 18++mb in size (& even worse using 127.0.0.1, to around the tune of 24++mb in size)...
(Senseless, & bloat creation is the result!)
----
WHY HAVE THESE 2 CRIPPLING REMOVALS BEEN DONE? Makes NO sense people!
APK
P.S.=> The reason for removing the PORT FILTERING gui, per the Microsoft VISTA resource kit is flimsy, & makes NO SENSE either!
I.E.-> Microsoft left IP Security Policies usage, Software Firewalling, & RRAS methods alone, & only pulled PORT FILTERING...
(The VISTA resource kit states because they each work @ diff. layers of the IP stack & don't immediately "sync" from a single point due to being powered by diff. drivers & working @ diff. levels of the IP stack, MS pulled the PORT FILTERING gui front controls from your local area connection object's advanced TCP/IP properties, & that one, ONLY (so, why leave the other 3 then? MS contradicts itself, right there, in doing so...))
No good reasons have been presented by MS to myself @ this point for EITHER 1 or 2 being done above, @ the URL where I stated it @ MSDN... @ least, none for efficiency & security @ least that I can see & thus? I'd like to know WHY these crippling things were done (these things DO affect my decisions to upgrade & possibly those of others as well, something to consider)...
Linux people, keep THIS as "ammo", for your regular "Anti-Windows" rants here, because if you did, I wouldn't blame you 1 bit in these cases... apk
I think you missed the point. The problem is that if the mouse is moved by accident [in that place], the cursor will be shown and the "batman highlighter" will also become active.
This is similar to the problem of accidentally moving the mouse by letting the hand rest on the touchpad (the touch of the palm is treated as a "mouse moved" event).
I think the solution is to insert a small delay; I am using it myself, but in a different context (a 290 ms delay solved my problem).
The saddest poem
That document is called a HIG (Human Interface Guidelines) and most of today's systems or desktop environments have one; see the wiki page for a list of references. The documents are very good and everyone who works on UIs must read them.
The saddest poem
And Ctrl-Alt-Esc will open task manager directly.
Make that Ctrl-Shift-Esc
KDE 4.2 is perfectly usable on a SiS 690 graphics chip with 256MB of RAM. Of course it won't do flashy transparency effects on there, though it does a pretty good job of faking it.