That's old waterfall terminology and hasn't been valid for many years.
Nowadays, most developers use some form of iterative development. The product is in Alpha until the first iteration has been completed, then there are multiple "beta" iterations where new features are added to each iteration. One could consider the new features to be "alpha" for each iteration, but previous iterations features are "beta".
Microsoft has never really promoted XPS. It's largely a behind the scenes thing, and useful as a "print to file" feature. Microsoft has not tried to make it a dominant format. It's a pretty good technology, but it's not capable of doing everything PDF can do (Forms, for instance, or annotations).
You can bet that Microsoft's PDF reader will not be full featured, but rather useful for common PDF viewing. It's just that Microsoft wants to have basic support for common things. They leave more full featured stuff to third parties in most cases.
90% of people who need to view PDF's don't need adobes full featured reader, and that means it can be simpler and less prone to vulnerabilities. After all, Apple has PDF reading built into their OS as well.
Other than basic format icons, which have been pretty standard for 20 years, every item in the ribbon has a text label. You can look for text or icons as you see fit. Whatever works for you. It confuses the hell out of me how people like yourself bitch about having to find things by icon when the text is plainly visible.
Menus do even worse in confined spaces. You either have to scroll, or you have to make them stack up. And don't even get started on the submenus, and sub-sub-menus and sub-sub-sub-menus. Plus, once you click an item, they have to disappear so you can see your work again. If you need to do the action again, you have to find it again in the menu, possibly several levels deep. Or if you need a similar action, you have to do the same thing. With the ribbon, the item is there with a single click.
Menus have so many flaws. The more functions you add, the harder they are to navigate. They're difficult for people with poor dexterity to use. And it's a sea of text that you're lucky if it has an icon next to the command to help you pick it out.
I'm not sure I follow you. How are organizing functions in logical tabs, then organizing them into logical (and named) sections "crammed everywhere in ways that don't make much sense". Certainly there's a few odd ducks in there (like View->Macros) but those are few enough that you should be able to remember them.
Can you give an example of something that doesn't make sense?
That's not true. As you shrink the window, the least used features are put into the chevron menu. Still there, still accessible no matter what size the window is.
The problem with reverting back to the old style is that people like you won't ever learn the new one. So, Microsoft has to keep supporting the old style indefinitely. Then when the next interface comes along, they have to support 3 of them, then 4, then 5... at some point you have cut the cord or your support effort increases into infinity.
But what if you need to access something on the same tab? It's now just saved you clicks, because you don't have to click on the Menu, and drag down to the submenu, then drag over and down to what you want... again.
It likely all averages out. What you lose when having to click back, you save in not having to find the menu item again. Most common tasks are on the right click or in the popup menu when you highlight something anyways.
It should be noted also that Ribbons are MUCH easier to use for those who have limited manual dexterity, shaky hands, etc.. ever watched an older person try to navigate menus and slide off then have to start over again? Sometime 3 or 4 or 5 times to get it right?
The ribbon has all the same functions that were available before. And it takes up the same space as the toolbars before, and it's hidable in a single button or keyclick. Plus, the most common tasks are available on the context menu. The only people that say these things are the people that refuse to even try it for more than 15 seconds.
If you watch that target date, you will notice it always seems to move. 2013 is 10 years from the original start date, and their original plan was to convert 100% of computers by 2005. then it was 2006, then 2008, then 2010, now it's 2013. 6,000 computers in 8 years. That's about 2 computers a day.
Burlington, Pep Boys, and Autozone all use Linux as POS devices. Basically, just appliances. Linux works well for that. When a computer has a single purpose, such as being a terminal to a single app.. then it can run anything as long as the app runs.
When a computer has to be a general purpose computer, and do multiple tasks.. then the user has to know how to use the OS. And, more importantly, you now have to have multiple apps that all work on the OS. The more apps you add to it, the greater the chance you will find one that doesn't have a Linux version.
You shouldn't be getting a UAC screen when opening a rar file. That doesn't even make any sense. Winrar opens files in a read-only mode. If you mean when you extract a rar, then the reason you're getting a UAC prompt is because your folder permissions are net set correctly, and the user you are using doesn't have write permissions to that folder.
Embedded icons do not cause uac prompts either. All executables have embedded icons, and this is a good thing (Apple does the same thing). The icons are read from the file, not written to them.
IE also has not allowed unrestricted clipboard access since IE6. Since IE7, there has been a popup for untrusted web sites that you have to say yes to allow clipboard access. This is what IE Security zones are for.
Actually, you have it backwards. They sell crippled products to users who don't need all the functionality of the more expensive versions. Why should people pay for features they're not using?
They LOWER the price of crippled versions, they don't raise the price of the more capable versions.
I love when people say this. It makes me chuckle. A lot.
All it shows is that you didn't even bother to TRY, because if you had, you would have noticed that nearly all the keyboard shortcuts are exactly the same as previous versions.
So why do I laugh? Because it makes you seem worse than the people you're complaining about. It makes you seem like a mathematician that claims he can't use a calculator because it's not the one he learned on.
If you don't mind waiting a week for content, and then only having a subset of available content available.. sure. I find Hulu and Netflix only have about 20% of the content I like to watch. Meanwhile, it's filled with crap i don't like.
You don't get the variety of, say, the discovery channel and History channel via those services because the content is so varied and doesn't lend itself well to a subscription based episodic service. Of course, I consider the cost of cable to be relatively cheap compared to the cost of fast internet in most places.
It takes a significant amount of time to hash a 50gb file. By the time it was done, you'd have to start over again to make sure nothing else had changed, essentially meaning dropbox would have to be constantly hashing the file, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This would slow performance on any computer a great deal, and on a laptop would drain the battery extremely fast.
I'm unsure how dropbox would deal with container, which would be a single gigantic file (or possibly multiple gigantic files). If you change one file in the container, it has to upload the entire container again i would think, though it's possible it may be smart enough to figure out how to upload just the changed blocks.
That would be fine if your container were 50MB, but if it's 50GB, that's a different story.
I still really don't get your point. Your image demonstrates exactly what I said, all the information is available textually. If the icons don't mean anything to you, then look at the text. Big deal. Next to the park bench it says "public network", which is all the information you need.
For a list of wireless networks, you just click once on the icon in the lower right corner, all the wireless networks pop up. Or click the "connect or disconnect" link on the page you linked to. Very easy to do.
That dialog isn't used for file sharing, although it is used to configure file sharing options. Homegroup is used mostly as a means of setting up file sharing simply. This is why it's called "homegroup", not "businessgroup". It's for people that have a couple of computers in their home and want to share files or printers.
I'm also confused about your "wasted space" comment. Wasted space is the opposite of cluttered space. Which is it? Cluttered? Or Wasted? I don't find the top half useless at all, as it tells me if i have a connection to the internet or not, it allows me to see a map of my local network (by clicking full map), and it lets me see how the network connection is configured (locked down firewall settings for public, more open for business, etc..)
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That's old waterfall terminology and hasn't been valid for many years.
Nowadays, most developers use some form of iterative development. The product is in Alpha until the first iteration has been completed, then there are multiple "beta" iterations where new features are added to each iteration. One could consider the new features to be "alpha" for each iteration, but previous iterations features are "beta".
Gamma has been replaced with "Release Candidate".
I just tested a line graph in Excel 2010, double clicked on the Y axis and the Format Axis dialog popped up. Same for the X Axis.
You seem to be wrong.
No, Windows 8 is not the official name (yet), and it's version number is 6.2 (7 was 6.1).
It's more like how Chrome increments version numbers.
Microsoft has never really promoted XPS. It's largely a behind the scenes thing, and useful as a "print to file" feature. Microsoft has not tried to make it a dominant format. It's a pretty good technology, but it's not capable of doing everything PDF can do (Forms, for instance, or annotations).
You can bet that Microsoft's PDF reader will not be full featured, but rather useful for common PDF viewing. It's just that Microsoft wants to have basic support for common things. They leave more full featured stuff to third parties in most cases.
90% of people who need to view PDF's don't need adobes full featured reader, and that means it can be simpler and less prone to vulnerabilities. After all, Apple has PDF reading built into their OS as well.
Other than basic format icons, which have been pretty standard for 20 years, every item in the ribbon has a text label. You can look for text or icons as you see fit. Whatever works for you. It confuses the hell out of me how people like yourself bitch about having to find things by icon when the text is plainly visible.
Menus do even worse in confined spaces. You either have to scroll, or you have to make them stack up. And don't even get started on the submenus, and sub-sub-menus and sub-sub-sub-menus. Plus, once you click an item, they have to disappear so you can see your work again. If you need to do the action again, you have to find it again in the menu, possibly several levels deep. Or if you need a similar action, you have to do the same thing. With the ribbon, the item is there with a single click.
Menus have so many flaws. The more functions you add, the harder they are to navigate. They're difficult for people with poor dexterity to use. And it's a sea of text that you're lucky if it has an icon next to the command to help you pick it out.
I'm not sure I follow you. How are organizing functions in logical tabs, then organizing them into logical (and named) sections "crammed everywhere in ways that don't make much sense". Certainly there's a few odd ducks in there (like View->Macros) but those are few enough that you should be able to remember them.
Can you give an example of something that doesn't make sense?
That's not true. As you shrink the window, the least used features are put into the chevron menu. Still there, still accessible no matter what size the window is.
The problem with reverting back to the old style is that people like you won't ever learn the new one. So, Microsoft has to keep supporting the old style indefinitely. Then when the next interface comes along, they have to support 3 of them, then 4, then 5... at some point you have cut the cord or your support effort increases into infinity.
Dude, Ctrl-F1 auto hides the ribon. Now it takes up even less space than the old way.
But what if you need to access something on the same tab? It's now just saved you clicks, because you don't have to click on the Menu, and drag down to the submenu, then drag over and down to what you want... again.
It likely all averages out. What you lose when having to click back, you save in not having to find the menu item again. Most common tasks are on the right click or in the popup menu when you highlight something anyways.
It should be noted also that Ribbons are MUCH easier to use for those who have limited manual dexterity, shaky hands, etc.. ever watched an older person try to navigate menus and slide off then have to start over again? Sometime 3 or 4 or 5 times to get it right?
Bzzzt. Sorry, you lose.
The ribbon has all the same functions that were available before. And it takes up the same space as the toolbars before, and it's hidable in a single button or keyclick. Plus, the most common tasks are available on the context menu. The only people that say these things are the people that refuse to even try it for more than 15 seconds.
"Works for me" seems to be the motto of the Linux crowd. I guess that makes sense. If it didn't work, you'd probably hate Linux too.
If you watch that target date, you will notice it always seems to move. 2013 is 10 years from the original start date, and their original plan was to convert 100% of computers by 2005. then it was 2006, then 2008, then 2010, now it's 2013. 6,000 computers in 8 years. That's about 2 computers a day.
Burlington, Pep Boys, and Autozone all use Linux as POS devices. Basically, just appliances. Linux works well for that. When a computer has a single purpose, such as being a terminal to a single app.. then it can run anything as long as the app runs.
When a computer has to be a general purpose computer, and do multiple tasks.. then the user has to know how to use the OS. And, more importantly, you now have to have multiple apps that all work on the OS. The more apps you add to it, the greater the chance you will find one that doesn't have a Linux version.
The Ubuntu forums are filled with people who can't get their sound working. Is that just a figment of his imagination?
You shouldn't be getting a UAC screen when opening a rar file. That doesn't even make any sense. Winrar opens files in a read-only mode. If you mean when you extract a rar, then the reason you're getting a UAC prompt is because your folder permissions are net set correctly, and the user you are using doesn't have write permissions to that folder.
Embedded icons do not cause uac prompts either. All executables have embedded icons, and this is a good thing (Apple does the same thing). The icons are read from the file, not written to them.
IE also has not allowed unrestricted clipboard access since IE6. Since IE7, there has been a popup for untrusted web sites that you have to say yes to allow clipboard access. This is what IE Security zones are for.
Actually, you have it backwards. They sell crippled products to users who don't need all the functionality of the more expensive versions. Why should people pay for features they're not using?
They LOWER the price of crippled versions, they don't raise the price of the more capable versions.
I love when people say this. It makes me chuckle. A lot.
All it shows is that you didn't even bother to TRY, because if you had, you would have noticed that nearly all the keyboard shortcuts are exactly the same as previous versions.
So why do I laugh? Because it makes you seem worse than the people you're complaining about. It makes you seem like a mathematician that claims he can't use a calculator because it's not the one he learned on.
Sounds more like "Google Chrome, only Worse, much worse" to me.
If you don't mind waiting a week for content, and then only having a subset of available content available.. sure. I find Hulu and Netflix only have about 20% of the content I like to watch. Meanwhile, it's filled with crap i don't like.
You don't get the variety of, say, the discovery channel and History channel via those services because the content is so varied and doesn't lend itself well to a subscription based episodic service. Of course, I consider the cost of cable to be relatively cheap compared to the cost of fast internet in most places.
It takes a significant amount of time to hash a 50gb file. By the time it was done, you'd have to start over again to make sure nothing else had changed, essentially meaning dropbox would have to be constantly hashing the file, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This would slow performance on any computer a great deal, and on a laptop would drain the battery extremely fast.
So that means, if you need to access the file from another location you have to download the entire container. Kind of defeats the purpose.
I'm unsure how dropbox would deal with container, which would be a single gigantic file (or possibly multiple gigantic files). If you change one file in the container, it has to upload the entire container again i would think, though it's possible it may be smart enough to figure out how to upload just the changed blocks.
That would be fine if your container were 50MB, but if it's 50GB, that's a different story.
More importantly, how does this affect other open source projects that are not GPL based? Can *BSD's use them?
Remember, the term "viral license" was not coined by Microsoft, but rather BSD proponents.
I still really don't get your point. Your image demonstrates exactly what I said, all the information is available textually. If the icons don't mean anything to you, then look at the text. Big deal. Next to the park bench it says "public network", which is all the information you need.
For a list of wireless networks, you just click once on the icon in the lower right corner, all the wireless networks pop up. Or click the "connect or disconnect" link on the page you linked to. Very easy to do.
That dialog isn't used for file sharing, although it is used to configure file sharing options. Homegroup is used mostly as a means of setting up file sharing simply. This is why it's called "homegroup", not "businessgroup". It's for people that have a couple of computers in their home and want to share files or printers.
I'm also confused about your "wasted space" comment. Wasted space is the opposite of cluttered space. Which is it? Cluttered? Or Wasted? I don't find the top half useless at all, as it tells me if i have a connection to the internet or not, it allows me to see a map of my local network (by clicking full map), and it lets me see how the network connection is configured (locked down firewall settings for public, more open for business, etc..)