Slashdot Mirror
ZDNet Proclaims "Windows: It's Over"
plastick writes "You can think Windows 8 will evolve into something better, but the numbers show that Windows is coming to a dead end. ZDNet is known to take the side of Microsoft in the past. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols explains: 'The very day the debate came to an end, this headline appeared: IDC: Global PC shipments plunge in worst drop in a generation. Sure, a lot of that was due to the growth of tablets and smartphones and the rise of the cloud, but Windows 8 gets to take a lot of the blame too. After all, the debate wasn't whether or not Windows 8 was any good. It's not. The debate was over whether it could be saved.'"
Perhaps they are: Windows 8.1 will include boot to desktop. Good news if true, all they need to do then is bring back the Start button & menu.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
for a couple of dollars
Try free as in beer and freedom. http://sourceforge.net/projects/classicshell/files/
It used to be you could + and cycle through windows in a predictable manner, so you weren't required to remove your hands from the freakin' keyboard when you're working at 90 miles an hour.
I finally found out wtf they did with alt-tab. Turns out, they keep the first 6 apps in the usual MRU order we're used to (and that's sensible and can be remembered). Then they inject the desktop into the 7th slot (because ignorant people clutter their desktop with all kinds of crap), and then every application after the desktop is in alphabetical order. By window title, I believe.
The most wildly useless arrangement they could think of that still has some sort of order to it. As if I remember my programs by window title, especially when there's absolutely no consistency in titling. Some programs prefix their name with the open file. Some suffix it. Some don't list the open file. So where the program falls in the list may (or may not) depend on what document you have open at the time. One of their stupider ideas, which successfully sabotaged an interface that worked, for the people that knew about it. And there's no registry key to turn off the braindead sort order, either. You can disable it entirely, and go back to program icons only. (And you can set registry settings to change the spacing of the application image thumbnails. 'cause that's what needed to be customizable...)
I double dog dare you to step into multiple manufacturing environments. Hey, guess what, Manufacturing does still exist in America, and *shock* we actually make enough money to stay in business. Stop looking at that @$#%#%# thing in your hand and step out into the real world. Come talk to those of us that actually have to support things like a building that has such large voltage drops that the battery backups are nonstop frying up....or making a Dos 6.22 machine try to just find that Windows Server 2008 share to pull it's programs.....
We are trying something as simple (and fun to design) as making the shop floor paperless. NOT AS EASY AS ONE WOULD THINK...when you actually break down where the paper is really at. You can't just take the paper away and shove a tablet in their hands....these guys work in 115 degree heat sometimes, with a layer of metal dust caking their fingers. Some of these guys have been in the business 40 years....and their eyesight isn't exactly capable of reading the dimensions on that drawing of a part that is 7 ft tall, and 5 ft wide on a device that is 5-10" in size.
Heck, I can't even get a mobile device that doesn't require Internet to function. Look at the Google Apps. Just using a Nexus to try to take a picture of that Aerospace part is already, out of the gate a huge no-no. Why? ITAR regulations. The App Dev is in the UK. You are taking a picture of a part that is required by ITAR regulations to not be accessible to persons outside the US. Just by buying that app from the Google Store made you give permission for that App to have access to the camera....which is the Devs....that are located outside the US. Any Google Apps and Devices are already eliminated out of the gate for our use.
The problem is with IT nowadays is that everyone is looking for a niche product to get rich quick off of, and not trying to really solve problems.
Which is true ... if you do not read PDFs ... have javascript disabled ... or never go onto the net!
I have seen the same corporate computers get infected over and over again by java exploits. They ran java 1.4.2 and only went on business websites. I looked at the logs. No porn, no downloading free screensavers, just doing the occasional Google image search and using corporate websites with infected ad servers.
The sysadmin in all his good wisdom decided not to allow updates after May 2009! Gee viruses keep coming and coming. Can't imagine why?! You can get infected just by doing a Google Image search of OBL killed back in 2011. With javascript exploits you could get infected even without clicking the images! Goole would pass the XSS domain cross vulnerability and your browser would run whatever the hacker would want.
Little girls searching for puppies got infected constantly this way. Adobe reader, flash, and even 0 day browser exploits all target Windows after they get through the browser security to run. These XP machines will be infected immediately. Hell slashdot tried to serve malware on my laptop though an infected ad a year or two ago too. If you ran unpatched flash, XP, without adblock you got 0wned.
http://saveie6.com/