The UI is vastly improved in Windows 7... the XP icons and look are ugly as hell, and it's impossible to find anything. With Win7, it's never even an issue. The start menu is vastly superior (doesn't take any manual mangement), and my work is just so much faster and more efficient with Win7 than with XP, that I've completely moved every PC I work with over. In particular, networking is vastly easier and superior.
In fact, it's so painful now to go back to the stone-knives-and-bear-skins of XP that I refuse to even touch it. It's like awful ancient history.
Even the installs are vastly improved with Windows 7... so smooth and easy to install Win7 vs. the hours of pain and scrounging for drivers that represents every XP install I've ever done.
Honestly, there's no excuse for sticking with XP any more (any more than there's any valid excuse for sticking with IE6).
The Usability of Windows 7 is light-years better than XP.
IE8 is more secure and more proven than IE7 (and handles app crashes much better, has better UI features, and renders HTML in a less sucky fashion than IE7).
IMHO, nobody using Windows should be using IE6 or IE7 now. Period. Only on internal corporate LANs where they have old web apps that depend on IE6 should there be any usage of either of these browsers. And those corporations need to eventually suck it up and rewrite their crap to be standards compliant so they work in modern browsers.
Why does anyone use McAfee? It's crap. In my life I've only ever had two "infections" on my PC... both while McAfee was installed and running. It costs money, and yet free alternatives (like Microsoft Security Essentials) typically rank better in terms of protection. And it constantly causes slow-downs, hangs, and even crashes. It's just utter crap. Why would anyone use it? It should be left to die on the vine.
If you currently use McAfee, you should immediately uninstall it (and top paying for it!) and install Microsoft Security Essentials instead. Say good-bye to the bloat and slowness and other complicated crap, as well as the expense.
Well, you're half right. It's not about saving money. It's about trying to use less fossil fuels, even if it costs a little more. Because there are longer-term and indirect benefits. And yes, it's also about making a statement. But it's not ONLY about making a statement. It's about taking necessary first steps. Without early adopters paying more (which "early adopters" always do, especially in the world of high tech gadgets), the road wouldn't be paved for the masses down the road. Do you think the people who bought the first PS3's did it because they thought it would save them money in the long run? It's not ALWAYS about saving money.
Totally agree. We used Etherpad a lot, until we were forced into Wave. Wave was good, but Etherpad had two features we really wanted/liked that Wave lacked: line numbers, and different-text-color-per-user so you could see who typed what.
If they really did believe their "first, do no evil" mantra (which they've been ignoring of late), they would spen Etherpad back off, let it resume operations, so that the need that it filled can be, well, filled again.
Not sure what we're going to do for collaborative editing/planning now.
What do you suggest as a "specialized tool" to replace it?
We used to use Etherpad for collaborative planning and communication for our (geographically dispersed) scrum/agile team. I liked it better because it had two things that Wave didn't: Line numbers (made it easier to refer to things) and each person contributing had their own text color, so you could see who typed what. But Google bought Etherpad and killed it. So now instead of two possible options, we have zero.
Are there other free collaborative editors out there, that give us the ability to have multiple people collaborate on text in real-time, and see what each other are typing?
Google Wave filled a necessary function for our team (and Etherpad before it). I'd like to find something to replace these two that is at least as good as either.
They should have marketed it as a niche product for scrum/agile development teams with remote members to do collaboration and sprint planning and such. Our team found it very useful for that (as we found Etherpad before it). Problem is, with those two products now gone, what do we use for real-time collaboration and planning? Email cannot cut it, and neither chan "chat". This is seriously going to suck unless we can find a decent (free) tool to replace it.
I used it all the time. Our development team does scrum/agile, and we have some remote team members. We used to use Etherpad for doing collaborative sprint planning, but when Google bought and killed it, folding those developers into Wave development, we were forced onto Wave. It's been useful (though I liked Etherpad better), and now we're in a position of wondering what tool we can use to fill this need.
Yes, that's right... it's a massive conspiracy of tens of thousands of scientists from hundreds of countries across the world, crossing all scientific disciplins, out to get you by putting their scientific reputations on the line to propose a total lie to squeeze a few more tax dollars out of YOUR pocket. (rolling eyes)
That makes SO much more sense.
It's like you have no clue what scientists are like. And you have no clue who is funding all the Global Warming denialism. It's the most ludicrous conspiracy theory I've heard yet, and I've heard a lot of completely crazy ones.
So basically, you admit to being living proof of Upton Sinclair's famous quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
So you're essentially admitting to refusing to believe something with overwhelming scientific evidence, because believing it would affect your business model? You really think that's the rational response?
I think the Zune HD is a counterpoint to your argument. It's a pretty nice piece of hardware AND software.
What MS really needs to do short-term is to create a Zune HD 2 which is basically a WP7 device without the phone (including the camera), compatable with all apps for the WP7 devices out there (once everything is released of course).
Re:Back to the original subject...
on
Time To Dump XP?
·
· Score: 1
To be fair, Vista was a half way step between XP and WIn7, and since I didn't skip, I didn't have such a huge learning curve at all. Or rather, all the pain was back in Vista, and the move to Win 7 was therefore super-smooth for me.
But honestly I hate going back to XP now. It's not just uglier, the organization seems so much more antiquated and hodge-podge. It's much more logical now, easier to find things, faster to use. There are only a few very minor "rough spots" left, imho. Most of the stuff is ultimately in much more "intuitive" locations (though it doesn't seem so when you're looking for it in the "learned" place... I have to say most of the time when I found out where something moved, my reaction was usually "Oh, that makes more sense!").
I see lots of compelling reasons to move from XP to Win7: Better security, more stability, better hardware support and support for newer standards, easier to use, better organization, lots of useful new features and short-cuts, better graphics and typography, cleaner folder structure, much easier networking setup and use, device stage, libraries,...
Every time I go back to XP, it's just painful.
Re:Back to the original subject...
on
Time To Dump XP?
·
· Score: 3, Informative
XP is on the development PC. XP works, it's stable. End of story.
We do all our development on Win7. Win7 just works. It's stable. It's faster and feature-rich and up-to-date. It has a lot of great short-cuts and productivity enhancers in the UI. End of story.
C# 4.0 allows dynamic types (including adding methods on the fly)... so you pretty much get "Duck Typing" abilities.
And I'm curious what it is you hate most about the.Net framework? I admit I don't do a lot of Web(ASP.NET) or UI code... mostly back-end/server stuff, but I like it fine. I'm much happier working in C#/.Net than I was working in Java for whatever reason.
And Visual Studio + ReSharper is a really kick-ass development environment, imho.
But I'm curious as to why you'd want to move it. It's in a perfectly logical place. I can't imagine being bothered by it. I also can't imagine wanting it BELOW the menu bar? Where the menus pop down and obscure it? That makes no sense.
And I've never heard it called the "address bar" before. Addresses are like, web addresses. It's the bread-crumb control or location or whatever. It's the path.
Honestly, I use Explorer heavily, and the Win7 explorer never once bothered me. Did you ever take any time to get used to the new layout? Or did you just insist "It's not the way I'm used to so it sucks and I must complain and bend over backwards and expend tons of energy trying to make it look like the old way"?
It's one of the more important things... why wouldn't you want it at the top where it's always very visible and easy to access?
I'm running Win7 right now just fine on Dell hardware that was purchased in 2006. Just FYI.
Others at my company are running it just fine on even older hardware (machines max out at 2GB of memory).
This same box had XP on it. When Vista came out, I upgraded it to Vista (which sucked until SP1 came out, and then was only annoying). When Win7 came out, I upgraded it again to Win7. Same hardware. And right now, it's running better than it ever has before.
I doubt the gain would be zero. There are a number of factors that will be hitting you soon, given you can no longer buy new computers with XP installed (except in rare circumstances, and those circumstances will be disappearing relatively soon). And over time, more and more applications will require Vista/Win7 APIs (IE9 and the next version of Windows Live Essentials are just the start). But Win7 is also vastly more secure, nags the user less (especially when paired with Microsoft Security Essentials -- which is free -- as the anti-virus/anti-spyware/anti-malware suite), has a more responsive UI, supports newer hardware and software standards that XP likely never will, is easier to use with lots of productivity enhancements and key combinations, is easier to support, supports a lot of things "out of the box" that XP didn't (playback of mov files in media player, as just one example) requiring less 3rd party software, and making support even easier... I could go on and on.
I understand the cost vs return may still be "in the negative" for you. I'm only pointing out that the "return" is NOT zero.
BTW, I'm not aware of any "file locations and methods" that XP used that won't work in Windows 7. The scripting environment (DOS batch/command shell) is largely the same. But there's a new PowerShell scripting environment built in that is way more powerful (and admittedly a lot more difficult to learn) as well, which can make management and automation much better.
And the learning curve for Win7 has proven to be suprisingly short.
While it might not be worth considering switching now, it MIGHT be worth having someone spend some time with Win7 to gain some experience and see exactly where the pain points might be. Evaluation might prove useful.
I used Vista for three years and have been using Win7 for six months, and have yet to run into a single instance in the real world where there's any limitations on anything I do, with respect to DRM.
I think your fears are way over-blown. I think the solid and proven benefits of Windows 7 (productivity, security, stability, etc) far, far outweigh some nebulous theoretical issue regarding DRM that I have yet to hear anyone actually experiencing in real life.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow... you must be REALLY resistent to change.
The UI is vastly improved in Windows 7... the XP icons and look are ugly as hell, and it's impossible to find anything. With Win7, it's never even an issue. The start menu is vastly superior (doesn't take any manual mangement), and my work is just so much faster and more efficient with Win7 than with XP, that I've completely moved every PC I work with over. In particular, networking is vastly easier and superior.
In fact, it's so painful now to go back to the stone-knives-and-bear-skins of XP that I refuse to even touch it. It's like awful ancient history.
Even the installs are vastly improved with Windows 7 ... so smooth and easy to install Win7 vs. the hours of pain and scrounging for drivers that represents every XP install I've ever done.
Honestly, there's no excuse for sticking with XP any more (any more than there's any valid excuse for sticking with IE6).
The Usability of Windows 7 is light-years better than XP.
IE8 is more secure and more proven than IE7 (and handles app crashes much better, has better UI features, and renders HTML in a less sucky fashion than IE7).
IMHO, nobody using Windows should be using IE6 or IE7 now. Period. Only on internal corporate LANs where they have old web apps that depend on IE6 should there be any usage of either of these browsers. And those corporations need to eventually suck it up and rewrite their crap to be standards compliant so they work in modern browsers.
It's still in beta.
They shouldn't be working around issues, they should be reporting any issues and demanding that MS fix them prior to official release.
Why does anyone use McAfee? It's crap. In my life I've only ever had two "infections" on my PC... both while McAfee was installed and running. It costs money, and yet free alternatives (like Microsoft Security Essentials) typically rank better in terms of protection. And it constantly causes slow-downs, hangs, and even crashes. It's just utter crap. Why would anyone use it? It should be left to die on the vine.
If you currently use McAfee, you should immediately uninstall it (and top paying for it!) and install Microsoft Security Essentials instead. Say good-bye to the bloat and slowness and other complicated crap, as well as the expense.
Seriously. Episode 2 was ridiculously late. Episode 3 is beyind ridiculous. I've pretty much given up at this point.
Heck, I'm half expecting Portal 2 to be delayed again, and then canceled, and then released in "Orange Box 2" with Episode 3.
Well, you're half right. It's not about saving money. It's about trying to use less fossil fuels, even if it costs a little more. Because there are longer-term and indirect benefits. And yes, it's also about making a statement. But it's not ONLY about making a statement. It's about taking necessary first steps. Without early adopters paying more (which "early adopters" always do, especially in the world of high tech gadgets), the road wouldn't be paved for the masses down the road. Do you think the people who bought the first PS3's did it because they thought it would save them money in the long run? It's not ALWAYS about saving money.
Totally agree. We used Etherpad a lot, until we were forced into Wave. Wave was good, but Etherpad had two features we really wanted/liked that Wave lacked: line numbers, and different-text-color-per-user so you could see who typed what.
If they really did believe their "first, do no evil" mantra (which they've been ignoring of late), they would spen Etherpad back off, let it resume operations, so that the need that it filled can be, well, filled again.
Not sure what we're going to do for collaborative editing/planning now.
What do you suggest as a "specialized tool" to replace it?
We used to use Etherpad for collaborative planning and communication for our (geographically dispersed) scrum/agile team. I liked it better because it had two things that Wave didn't: Line numbers (made it easier to refer to things) and each person contributing had their own text color, so you could see who typed what. But Google bought Etherpad and killed it. So now instead of two possible options, we have zero.
Are there other free collaborative editors out there, that give us the ability to have multiple people collaborate on text in real-time, and see what each other are typing?
Google Wave filled a necessary function for our team (and Etherpad before it). I'd like to find something to replace these two that is at least as good as either.
They should have marketed it as a niche product for scrum/agile development teams with remote members to do collaboration and sprint planning and such. Our team found it very useful for that (as we found Etherpad before it). Problem is, with those two products now gone, what do we use for real-time collaboration and planning? Email cannot cut it, and neither chan "chat". This is seriously going to suck unless we can find a decent (free) tool to replace it.
I used it all the time. Our development team does scrum/agile, and we have some remote team members. We used to use Etherpad for doing collaborative sprint planning, but when Google bought and killed it, folding those developers into Wave development, we were forced onto Wave. It's been useful (though I liked Etherpad better), and now we're in a position of wondering what tool we can use to fill this need.
Anyone have any suggestions??
Yes, that's right... it's a massive conspiracy of tens of thousands of scientists from hundreds of countries across the world, crossing all scientific disciplins, out to get you by putting their scientific reputations on the line to propose a total lie to squeeze a few more tax dollars out of YOUR pocket. (rolling eyes)
That makes SO much more sense.
It's like you have no clue what scientists are like. And you have no clue who is funding all the Global Warming denialism. It's the most ludicrous conspiracy theory I've heard yet, and I've heard a lot of completely crazy ones.
So basically, you admit to being living proof of Upton Sinclair's famous quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
So you're essentially admitting to refusing to believe something with overwhelming scientific evidence, because believing it would affect your business model? You really think that's the rational response?
I think the Zune HD is a counterpoint to your argument. It's a pretty nice piece of hardware AND software.
What MS really needs to do short-term is to create a Zune HD 2 which is basically a WP7 device without the phone (including the camera), compatable with all apps for the WP7 devices out there (once everything is released of course).
To be fair, Vista was a half way step between XP and WIn7, and since I didn't skip, I didn't have such a huge learning curve at all. Or rather, all the pain was back in Vista, and the move to Win 7 was therefore super-smooth for me.
But honestly I hate going back to XP now. It's not just uglier, the organization seems so much more antiquated and hodge-podge. It's much more logical now, easier to find things, faster to use. There are only a few very minor "rough spots" left, imho. Most of the stuff is ultimately in much more "intuitive" locations (though it doesn't seem so when you're looking for it in the "learned" place... I have to say most of the time when I found out where something moved, my reaction was usually "Oh, that makes more sense!").
I see lots of compelling reasons to move from XP to Win7: Better security, more stability, better hardware support and support for newer standards, easier to use, better organization, lots of useful new features and short-cuts, better graphics and typography, cleaner folder structure, much easier networking setup and use, device stage, libraries, ...
Every time I go back to XP, it's just painful.
XP is on the development PC. XP works, it's stable. End of story.
We do all our development on Win7. Win7 just works. It's stable. It's faster and feature-rich and up-to-date. It has a lot of great short-cuts and productivity enhancers in the UI. End of story.
1) It's certainly not a defense... there are millions of VB apps, and everyone know VB (especially VB6 and earlier) is crap.
2) He said "I just can't do it"... meaning he couldn't bring himself to do it. Not that something technically couldn't be done.
There are a lot of things I could conceivably do that i just can't bring myself to do.
C# 4.0 allows dynamic types (including adding methods on the fly)... so you pretty much get "Duck Typing" abilities.
And I'm curious what it is you hate most about the .Net framework? I admit I don't do a lot of Web(ASP.NET) or UI code... mostly back-end/server stuff, but I like it fine. I'm much happier working in C#/.Net than I was working in Java for whatever reason.
And Visual Studio + ReSharper is a really kick-ass development environment, imho.
Dunno why, but this story immediately reminede me of this:
http://friendlyatheist.com/2010/05/29/non-overlapping-magisteria-not-at-all/ :-)
Okay, I'll grant you it cannot be moved.
But I'm curious as to why you'd want to move it. It's in a perfectly logical place. I can't imagine being bothered by it. I also can't imagine wanting it BELOW the menu bar? Where the menus pop down and obscure it? That makes no sense.
And I've never heard it called the "address bar" before. Addresses are like, web addresses. It's the bread-crumb control or location or whatever. It's the path.
Honestly, I use Explorer heavily, and the Win7 explorer never once bothered me. Did you ever take any time to get used to the new layout? Or did you just insist "It's not the way I'm used to so it sucks and I must complain and bend over backwards and expend tons of energy trying to make it look like the old way"?
It's one of the more important things... why wouldn't you want it at the top where it's always very visible and easy to access?
Their keyboards rock. Their mice rock. Their Zune80/120 and ZuneHD rock.
I'm talking about explorer, not IE. There is no "Address Bar" in Explorer.
Still not seeing the the problem.
So their user name is a little longer. How is this a serious impediment?
I'm running Win7 right now just fine on Dell hardware that was purchased in 2006. Just FYI.
Others at my company are running it just fine on even older hardware (machines max out at 2GB of memory).
This same box had XP on it. When Vista came out, I upgraded it to Vista (which sucked until SP1 came out, and then was only annoying). When Win7 came out, I upgraded it again to Win7. Same hardware. And right now, it's running better than it ever has before.
I doubt the gain would be zero. There are a number of factors that will be hitting you soon, given you can no longer buy new computers with XP installed (except in rare circumstances, and those circumstances will be disappearing relatively soon). And over time, more and more applications will require Vista/Win7 APIs (IE9 and the next version of Windows Live Essentials are just the start). But Win7 is also vastly more secure, nags the user less (especially when paired with Microsoft Security Essentials -- which is free -- as the anti-virus/anti-spyware/anti-malware suite), has a more responsive UI, supports newer hardware and software standards that XP likely never will, is easier to use with lots of productivity enhancements and key combinations, is easier to support, supports a lot of things "out of the box" that XP didn't (playback of mov files in media player, as just one example) requiring less 3rd party software, and making support even easier... I could go on and on.
I understand the cost vs return may still be "in the negative" for you. I'm only pointing out that the "return" is NOT zero.
BTW, I'm not aware of any "file locations and methods" that XP used that won't work in Windows 7. The scripting environment (DOS batch/command shell) is largely the same. But there's a new PowerShell scripting environment built in that is way more powerful (and admittedly a lot more difficult to learn) as well, which can make management and automation much better.
And the learning curve for Win7 has proven to be suprisingly short.
While it might not be worth considering switching now, it MIGHT be worth having someone spend some time with Win7 to gain some experience and see exactly where the pain points might be. Evaluation might prove useful.
I used Vista for three years and have been using Win7 for six months, and have yet to run into a single instance in the real world where there's any limitations on anything I do, with respect to DRM.
I think your fears are way over-blown. I think the solid and proven benefits of Windows 7 (productivity, security, stability, etc) far, far outweigh some nebulous theoretical issue regarding DRM that I have yet to hear anyone actually experiencing in real life.