I don't disagree with you, I hate the distinction just as much as you do - it's just a simple way to distinguish between something that has an "uninstall" option in the Programs/Features area and something that only appears on the metro interface.
That or make something like Gridy (or another one... much better than Gridy which just uses a simple XML file to determine drop areas for windows) part of the OS.
It's not accurate. It's that Microsoft blindly follows metrics and doesn't care that it makes assumptions about them. I had a conversation with the UX designer of Windows 7 and he explained some of the decisions that went into Windows 8...
Full Screen as an example. The metrics told them that users spent 95% of their time "in full screen". By this I think he meant maximized. This is why metro apps are full screen. This seemingly minor distinction between maximized and full screen apparently means nothing to Microsoft, but has a lot of implications for the user.
Maximized you have access to a fair amount of information and control:
- Clock
- Start menu
- System tray icons (volume control, network status, battery state, IM messages, etc)
- Start bar (program state info [think Skype or file transfer progress], program switching control without the need to touch the keyboard, etc)
- Minimize/Exit control
- Desktop peek/minimize all
Full screen gives you the benefit of...
- maximized space for apps?
And what about the remaining 5% of the time?
I could go on but it's really pointless. Metro isn't about touch, it isn't about making more money on the next version of Windows. It's about apps. Microsoft wants a successful app store so that they get a piece of every software sale on their platform. They make apps "easier" to use (or access) than desktop "programs" and try to force people to convert. The more difficult they make it for open source software, the easier they make it to buy apps, the more money they will make without having to put in expensive hours developing a product.
I hate it. Hate hate hate hate hate. I could go into detail about the reasons but there's really no point. I would remove myself from that 1.6% if I could just get Windows 7 Pro x64 installed - @!#$%!# UEFI is screwing it up. Legacy boot, the install to crash on disk.sys UEFI: it does nothing. Installing from Win8 gets it to install, but crashes on first load due to disk.sys again.
HDD tools are useless. I recently tried a bunch of them - they all reported my HDD in perfect condition... while it was doing the click of death. HDD failed within a week.
A) the fact that they have that Q&A there means they have a problem B) Dragging down doesn't actually close it, it minimizes it! C) There's no reason you'd want to close an app eh?
I couldn't agree more with the opinions in the video. Win8 is horrid. If I could figure out how to get Windows 7 installed on my new system I'd be there now. As it is, I haven't touched the thing in weeks, instead using a laptop which overheats with any graphics load and is making some seriously horrible clicking noises.
And I wonder how they can determine this from the new Win8 laptop that has sat unused under my coffee table for the past couple weeks. I'd be using it but I've been having trouble with the Win7 setup crashing.
While I don't disagree with the sentiment you do have one error: Google image search by resolution is still available, just buried. You have to click on "Search Tools"->Larger than... and select one. If you want one that's not listed, just select one and change the biw variable before the #
Under the details tab they showed up as no user. Even though the user was completely gone (couldn't be switched to, files were deleted off the hdd, etc) it was still using almost 500mb of RAM. I was able to find a pointer that they were grouped under (first 4 letters of the username_random number) and was able to "log out" the user from there.
Definitely some positives there. Lack of file locking is nice too. Did they fix the copy mechanism so you can add files to an existing transfer? That was one of the more frustrating things that OSX got right. Copying a file while an existing transfer is going on just slowed them both down to the point that neither transfer would do much of anything. OSX just added the file to the transfer queue.
Re: Improved task manager. This one is a jekyll and hyde situation for me. The improved options are nice, but they also did some very strange things: Removing multiple CPU usage displays, incorrect RAM stats (8gb of RAM displays as 1.8/7.8gb, clicking through says 1.7gb in use 6gb available and while it displays "hardware reserved" which is the other.2 it doesn't include that in the overall stats or tell you what hardware is reserving it), startup items being controlled here instead of in msconfig is more cumbersome, processes can run without a username (a simple way to demonstrate this: create a dummy profile, login to it, switch to admin without logging out, delete the dummy account -> all processes are still running/taking up memory but are no longer associated to a username... I almost guarantee someone is going to find a security hole related to this). I like the application history tab for some things but overall I'd like the ability to disable tracking on a program by program basis (or even disable it overall).
First: you can still use desktop icons for shortcuts. You *can* even do it for "modern" apps, though it requires some effort.
Never said you couldn't. Tiles are what is forced on you as the primary interface and you either need to setup a startup batch file to force you into the desktop on start or click desktop every time you want to use your shortcuts.
Second: Tiles do not, for the most part, have constantly changing icons. Most tiles aren't "live" and you can trivially easily "kill" the ones that are. Also, I've never seen an add on a Live tile except in apps like Newegg (where it's pretty obvious); get back under your bridge.
Live tiles that came pre-installed: Travel, Sports, Weather, News, Bing. Every free game I installed & used became an active or live tile - I'm assuming many others that I did not use would become active after using them.
Third: Tiles do not reflow when you install an app. They only move if you move them. Otherwise, new apps go at the end of the Start screen. You clearly have no fucking clue what you're talking about (or you're a troll; either way implies an atypically low intelligence).
Untrue. Typically new apps get added to the end of the screen. However, it depends what grouping of app they're being added to. If you have 3 groupings and add an app to the 1st group (assuming it doesn't have space in it's column) it will reflow and push the 3rd group off the screen. This is expected, but then when you unpin or uninstall an app everything shifts up/left - so a tile that was once on the upper right is now on the bottom left of a grouping. You move that one back to it's place, the two that were under it originally are all the sudden in that bottom left. There's no way to have a partially empty column or [small][large][small]. You're stuck with their organizational scheme.
Fourth: You can use the Start menu like every keyboard-competent user has used the Start menu since Vista: open it (preferably with the Windows key), type a few letters, hit Enter. You can do this before the Start screen animations (which are quite fast) are complete.
a) see my post about everything the search/run prompts can't do that Launchy can b) I've never used the start menu in that manner. Partly because of Launchy, partly because it would rarely give me what I wanted - it made assumptions about the content I was seeking and gave me those results instead of what I actually typed. c) It can't run them with elevated privileges unless you create a second shortcut for them
Fifth: You can use the command line just fine on Win8; what the hell are you smoking? In fact, you can even launch the command line right from the desktop without typing or pining anything; right-click on the Start button (yes, the one that appears when you mouse to the lower left corner) and then select either "Command Prompt" or "Command Prompt (Admin)". You can also display this menu via Ctrl+X, by the way.
Sixth: How the hell is changing tile sizes (flick them downward then tap the "make smaller" button) or moving them (simple dragging motion) difficult on a tablet?
1) You have to know/remember that gesture exists - this is like keyboard shortcuts. Unless there's a visual cue it's for intermediate/advanced users. iOS realized this for something as simple as sliding the main screen left/right - that's why they added the little dots at the bottom: so basic users would have a visual cue as to what's going on. 2) You need to execute that gesture without triggering a similar gesture like minimizing (downward flick, just
Does Windows Key + typing "dec 15 6pm go to family xmas party" add it to Rainlendar and Google Calendar? Does Windows Key + typing "1234x3.14..." will that automatically give me the answer? Does Windows Key + typing in "google windows 8 sucks" bring up your browser and search google for "windows 8 sucks"? Does Windows Keu + typing "email joe re:widgets" bring up a new email message to joe@notarealaddress.com with the subject "re:widgets" in your default mail client? Is there an option to search everything or do I have to search Apps, Settings and Files separately? If I search files for "cmd" will it bring up any results? No. Searching it under File manager on my system: hundreds of results. Can you specify whether to search inside files? Archives? Encrypted files? What about dates or other meta information? Can I easily add functionality to the windows search app?
Design is for the average user. The average user doesn't have a Thermaltake Xaser case, they have a HP, Compaq or Dell. They don't use Intel's wireless display outside of work
There is no such thing as "an average user". Every user uses the system slightly differently, has a different physical setup, cares about different things.
While not everyone uses a case like mine, the point is ease of access. People I know have their box in a closet, others use wireless keyboard/mouse with a projector, my father uses the Intel wireless display so the computer can sit upstairs and he can access it on the living room TV, sometimes it's just pushed back so far under the desk it's a pain to get to. None of these people are techies, these are all just family/friends that I end up having to support because I'm the techie.
honestly they don't care about the charm bar.
Half of them can't figure out it's there (even with on screen instruction), the other half even if they know it's there they find it confusing and annoying. Here are just a sample of your so called average user complaints so far (paraphrasing):
- "I'm trying to follow instructions on x website, but the search covers them up when I start to type in what it says to. When I switch back to see the rest of what I need to type, the search is gone and I have to start over"
- "I want to close x program, but whenever I go to the X this thing shows up with a bunch of pictures on it and then I can't close the program" - [this happens when you move the mouse to the top corner, then down a bit or bottom corner then up a bit]
- [this one is mine] Same sort of thing for moving the mouse out of the way: the off screen gutter for the mouse has always been on the right of the side, Vista and Win7 bottom right went to desktop peek so I got used to pushing the mouse to the upper right to hide the mouse. Now both corners are the harm bar and there's just a hidden show desktop button (only visible as a button when you click it) which you can right click to enable the peek option. So you want to do a quick desktop peek to check your schedule, you can, but the harm bar comes up as well and covers half of it. Move away to get rid of the harm bar? Oh, you lose your peek too. @#@#$%
- "How do I turn off the computer?" - from a person who's anal about not wasting energy (you know, the type who actually unplug the powerbar to conserve phantom loads)
- "Sometimes this thing shows up on the side and has a big clock, what's it for? and why does it show up randomly?
- "I open up that thingy on the side but when I try to move down to click on the button it goes away - how do I keep it there?"
- "I'm trying to watch a movie but there's these 5 icons that won't go away" (from the person with the projector setup)
People care about interfaces - a lot. Just take a look at digg.com http://readwrite.com/2010/09/23/digg_redesign_tanks_traffic_down_26 (it's why I left digg and came here, which I'm sure you'll have a snippy retort to). Facebook too - I left after their major re-design 3-4 years ago and it's only gotten worse since then.
The fact is that users want options and they want to have things their way. Forcing something on them that pisses them off, even if it does have it's benefits, is just going to drive away customers.
And if your physical power button is difficult to access (My Thermaltake Xaser case requires a key to get to the power button)? Using Intel's wireless display? What about remote access reboots for when your mother needs support?
I'm not saying that the harm bar is that difficult to access, a user should not be forced into Metro to do something desktop related. I should also not have to go onto a second (or third) monitor to be able to access the harm bar.
Tablet, phone, desktop: visual clutter is visual clutter. Some people, usually procedural users who have trouble with "where things went", used crap tones of desktop shortcuts and they're good with that. Those users might have liked the tiles. Unfortunately those users are usually the ones who identified shortcuts by the icon and placement, not the text. Tiles have constantly changing icons (great for advertising! @!#$), and will shift unexpectedly whenever you install a new app.
Others don't use desktop shortcuts because it's too much visual information to process in a timely/efficient way. Those users tend to use the start menu, command line interfaces, and the like. Those users really have no option on this system. In tablet form about the best you could hope to do is manually change every tile to the same size, and group/order them yourself. Unfortunately this is insanely hard to do on a tablet, and must be re-done with every update/system refresh/new app/etc.
Umm Win Key + R for Run but seriously, key combinations are for intermediate/advanced users. Try getting someone over 40 to remember all these combinations? Ya right. Get someone who uses computers in procedural manner to do that? Even worse. Not everyone is a techie and those that aren't will be turned off.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't disagree with you, I hate the distinction just as much as you do - it's just a simple way to distinguish between something that has an "uninstall" option in the Programs/Features area and something that only appears on the metro interface.
That or make something like Gridy (or another one... much better than Gridy which just uses a simple XML file to determine drop areas for windows) part of the OS.
It's not accurate. It's that Microsoft blindly follows metrics and doesn't care that it makes assumptions about them. I had a conversation with the UX designer of Windows 7 and he explained some of the decisions that went into Windows 8...
Full Screen as an example. The metrics told them that users spent 95% of their time "in full screen". By this I think he meant maximized. This is why metro apps are full screen. This seemingly minor distinction between maximized and full screen apparently means nothing to Microsoft, but has a lot of implications for the user.
Maximized you have access to a fair amount of information and control:
- Clock
- Start menu
- System tray icons (volume control, network status, battery state, IM messages, etc)
- Start bar (program state info [think Skype or file transfer progress], program switching control without the need to touch the keyboard, etc)
- Minimize/Exit control
- Desktop peek/minimize all
Full screen gives you the benefit of...
- maximized space for apps?
And what about the remaining 5% of the time?
I could go on but it's really pointless. Metro isn't about touch, it isn't about making more money on the next version of Windows. It's about apps. Microsoft wants a successful app store so that they get a piece of every software sale on their platform. They make apps "easier" to use (or access) than desktop "programs" and try to force people to convert. The more difficult they make it for open source software, the easier they make it to buy apps, the more money they will make without having to put in expensive hours developing a product.
That makes no sense since you can't seem to recognize humour either way.
Hope you have a better day tomorrow.
Cheers
wow... someone can't take a joke. Note the smiley face.
Water is not wet, it just feels that way ;)
I hate it. Hate hate hate hate hate. I could go into detail about the reasons but there's really no point. I would remove myself from that 1.6% if I could just get Windows 7 Pro x64 installed - @!#$%!# UEFI is screwing it up. Legacy boot, the install to crash on disk.sys UEFI: it does nothing. Installing from Win8 gets it to install, but crashes on first load due to disk.sys again.
I think he was being sardonic, or maybe factious, either way definitely not requiring of a serious response ;)
citation needed ;)
No, not SMART. I did a full range of tests with all suits on top of SMART (surface tests, etc)
The only HDD tool I trust is the ancient one from GRC.
Add to the above:
HDD tools are useless. I recently tried a bunch of them - they all reported my HDD in perfect condition... while it was doing the click of death. HDD failed within a week.
A) the fact that they have that Q&A there means they have a problem
B) Dragging down doesn't actually close it, it minimizes it!
C) There's no reason you'd want to close an app eh?
I couldn't agree more with the opinions in the video. Win8 is horrid. If I could figure out how to get Windows 7 installed on my new system I'd be there now. As it is, I haven't touched the thing in weeks, instead using a laptop which overheats with any graphics load and is making some seriously horrible clicking noises.
And I wonder how they can determine this from the new Win8 laptop that has sat unused under my coffee table for the past couple weeks. I'd be using it but I've been having trouble with the Win7 setup crashing.
While I don't disagree with the sentiment you do have one error: Google image search by resolution is still available, just buried. You have to click on "Search Tools"->Larger than... and select one. If you want one that's not listed, just select one and change the biw variable before the #
Thanks for the CPU tip.
Under the details tab they showed up as no user. Even though the user was completely gone (couldn't be switched to, files were deleted off the hdd, etc) it was still using almost 500mb of RAM. I was able to find a pointer that they were grouped under (first 4 letters of the username_random number) and was able to "log out" the user from there.
Definitely some positives there. Lack of file locking is nice too. Did they fix the copy mechanism so you can add files to an existing transfer? That was one of the more frustrating things that OSX got right. Copying a file while an existing transfer is going on just slowed them both down to the point that neither transfer would do much of anything. OSX just added the file to the transfer queue.
Re: Improved task manager. This one is a jekyll and hyde situation for me. The improved options are nice, but they also did some very strange things: Removing multiple CPU usage displays, incorrect RAM stats (8gb of RAM displays as 1.8/7.8gb, clicking through says 1.7gb in use 6gb available and while it displays "hardware reserved" which is the other .2 it doesn't include that in the overall stats or tell you what hardware is reserving it), startup items being controlled here instead of in msconfig is more cumbersome, processes can run without a username (a simple way to demonstrate this: create a dummy profile, login to it, switch to admin without logging out, delete the dummy account -> all processes are still running/taking up memory but are no longer associated to a username... I almost guarantee someone is going to find a security hole related to this). I like the application history tab for some things but overall I'd like the ability to disable tracking on a program by program basis (or even disable it overall).
First: you can still use desktop icons for shortcuts. You *can* even do it for "modern" apps, though it requires some effort.
Never said you couldn't. Tiles are what is forced on you as the primary interface and you either need to setup a startup batch file to force you into the desktop on start or click desktop every time you want to use your shortcuts.
Second: Tiles do not, for the most part, have constantly changing icons. Most tiles aren't "live" and you can trivially easily "kill" the ones that are. Also, I've never seen an add on a Live tile except in apps like Newegg (where it's pretty obvious); get back under your bridge.
Live tiles that came pre-installed: Travel, Sports, Weather, News, Bing. Every free game I installed & used became an active or live tile - I'm assuming many others that I did not use would become active after using them.
Third: Tiles do not reflow when you install an app. They only move if you move them. Otherwise, new apps go at the end of the Start screen. You clearly have no fucking clue what you're talking about (or you're a troll; either way implies an atypically low intelligence).
Untrue. Typically new apps get added to the end of the screen. However, it depends what grouping of app they're being added to. If you have 3 groupings and add an app to the 1st group (assuming it doesn't have space in it's column) it will reflow and push the 3rd group off the screen. This is expected, but then when you unpin or uninstall an app everything shifts up/left - so a tile that was once on the upper right is now on the bottom left of a grouping. You move that one back to it's place, the two that were under it originally are all the sudden in that bottom left. There's no way to have a partially empty column or [small][large][small]. You're stuck with their organizational scheme.
Fourth: You can use the Start menu like every keyboard-competent user has used the Start menu since Vista: open it (preferably with the Windows key), type a few letters, hit Enter. You can do this before the Start screen animations (which are quite fast) are complete.
a) see my post about everything the search/run prompts can't do that Launchy can
b) I've never used the start menu in that manner. Partly because of Launchy, partly because it would rarely give me what I wanted - it made assumptions about the content I was seeking and gave me those results instead of what I actually typed.
c) It can't run them with elevated privileges unless you create a second shortcut for them
Fifth: You can use the command line just fine on Win8; what the hell are you smoking? In fact, you can even launch the command line right from the desktop without typing or pining anything; right-click on the Start button (yes, the one that appears when you mouse to the lower left corner) and then select either "Command Prompt" or "Command Prompt (Admin)". You can also display this menu via Ctrl+X, by the way.
Command line interfaces does not mean just command prompt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_application_launchers or Ubiquity for firefox would be an application specific command line interface.
Sixth: How the hell is changing tile sizes (flick them downward then tap the "make smaller" button) or moving them (simple dragging motion) difficult on a tablet?
1) You have to know/remember that gesture exists - this is like keyboard shortcuts. Unless there's a visual cue it's for intermediate/advanced users. iOS realized this for something as simple as sliding the main screen left/right - that's why they added the little dots at the bottom: so basic users would have a visual cue as to what's going on.
2) You need to execute that gesture without triggering a similar gesture like minimizing (downward flick, just
Does Windows Key + typing "dec 15 6pm go to family xmas party" add it to Rainlendar and Google Calendar?
Does Windows Key + typing "1234x3.14..." will that automatically give me the answer?
Does Windows Key + typing in "google windows 8 sucks" bring up your browser and search google for "windows 8 sucks"?
Does Windows Keu + typing "email joe re:widgets" bring up a new email message to joe@notarealaddress.com with the subject "re:widgets" in your default mail client?
Is there an option to search everything or do I have to search Apps, Settings and Files separately?
If I search files for "cmd" will it bring up any results? No. Searching it under File manager on my system: hundreds of results.
Can you specify whether to search inside files? Archives? Encrypted files? What about dates or other meta information?
Can I easily add functionality to the windows search app?
Design is for the average user. The average user doesn't have a Thermaltake Xaser case, they have a HP, Compaq or Dell. They don't use Intel's wireless display outside of work
There is no such thing as "an average user". Every user uses the system slightly differently, has a different physical setup, cares about different things.
While not everyone uses a case like mine, the point is ease of access. People I know have their box in a closet, others use wireless keyboard/mouse with a projector, my father uses the Intel wireless display so the computer can sit upstairs and he can access it on the living room TV, sometimes it's just pushed back so far under the desk it's a pain to get to. None of these people are techies, these are all just family/friends that I end up having to support because I'm the techie.
honestly they don't care about the charm bar.
Half of them can't figure out it's there (even with on screen instruction), the other half even if they know it's there they find it confusing and annoying. Here are just a sample of your so called average user complaints so far (paraphrasing):
- "I'm trying to follow instructions on x website, but the search covers them up when I start to type in what it says to. When I switch back to see the rest of what I need to type, the search is gone and I have to start over"
- "I want to close x program, but whenever I go to the X this thing shows up with a bunch of pictures on it and then I can't close the program" - [this happens when you move the mouse to the top corner, then down a bit or bottom corner then up a bit]
- [this one is mine] Same sort of thing for moving the mouse out of the way: the off screen gutter for the mouse has always been on the right of the side, Vista and Win7 bottom right went to desktop peek so I got used to pushing the mouse to the upper right to hide the mouse. Now both corners are the harm bar and there's just a hidden show desktop button (only visible as a button when you click it) which you can right click to enable the peek option. So you want to do a quick desktop peek to check your schedule, you can, but the harm bar comes up as well and covers half of it. Move away to get rid of the harm bar? Oh, you lose your peek too. @#@#$%
- "How do I turn off the computer?" - from a person who's anal about not wasting energy (you know, the type who actually unplug the powerbar to conserve phantom loads)
- "Sometimes this thing shows up on the side and has a big clock, what's it for? and why does it show up randomly?
- "I open up that thingy on the side but when I try to move down to click on the button it goes away - how do I keep it there?"
- "I'm trying to watch a movie but there's these 5 icons that won't go away" (from the person with the projector setup)
People care about interfaces - a lot. Just take a look at digg.com http://readwrite.com/2010/09/23/digg_redesign_tanks_traffic_down_26 (it's why I left digg and came here, which I'm sure you'll have a snippy retort to). Facebook too - I left after their major re-design 3-4 years ago and it's only gotten worse since then.
The fact is that users want options and they want to have things their way. Forcing something on them that pisses them off, even if it does have it's benefits, is just going to drive away customers.
Yup. Add Launchy + Rainlendar into the mix and it's wonderful.
Why do I never have mod points when I need them? +1
And if your physical power button is difficult to access (My Thermaltake Xaser case requires a key to get to the power button)? Using Intel's wireless display? What about remote access reboots for when your mother needs support?
I'm not saying that the harm bar is that difficult to access, a user should not be forced into Metro to do something desktop related. I should also not have to go onto a second (or third) monitor to be able to access the harm bar.
Also accessed in the same place with no alternative.
Tablet, phone, desktop: visual clutter is visual clutter. Some people, usually procedural users who have trouble with "where things went", used crap tones of desktop shortcuts and they're good with that. Those users might have liked the tiles. Unfortunately those users are usually the ones who identified shortcuts by the icon and placement, not the text. Tiles have constantly changing icons (great for advertising! @!#$), and will shift unexpectedly whenever you install a new app.
Others don't use desktop shortcuts because it's too much visual information to process in a timely/efficient way. Those users tend to use the start menu, command line interfaces, and the like. Those users really have no option on this system. In tablet form about the best you could hope to do is manually change every tile to the same size, and group/order them yourself. Unfortunately this is insanely hard to do on a tablet, and must be re-done with every update/system refresh/new app/etc.
Umm Win Key + R for Run but seriously, key combinations are for intermediate/advanced users. Try getting someone over 40 to remember all these combinations? Ya right. Get someone who uses computers in procedural manner to do that? Even worse. Not everyone is a techie and those that aren't will be turned off.