Maybe you're right. The sales figures will tell in the end, neh? Remember, though, no amount of spin can make a long term impact on what people think about what they consider their tools. Their toys, entertainment, politics, fashion sense, what they think is beautiful - yep. But their tools - no, people know what works.
Personally, I'll keep myself on Win7 as long as possible, and hope that Win9 goes back up to the high standard that Win7 presented.
Except - how many people in a work environment have their data reported? Most competent IT departments don't allow such feedback to be sent.
Which means that the samples were comprised mostly of home users, which are a very different set than the productive business users and developers.
And in fact, most knowledgeable home users would disable the feedback as well as a matter of course.
But - nothing I'm going to say here is going to change Windows 8 at this point. MS has chosen a course, and has committed to it. I'll ride it out, and hope that the following Windows learns. It would follow the pattern of good-bad-good-bad-good-bad that seems to be the norm.
So - given that for certain games and software development (yes, I do develop under Windows as well as Linux), what desktop choices, exactly, do I have with Windows 8? Where is the option for the Windows 7 look and feel?
Oh, wait. It doesn't exist.
So, no, I don't have a choice. And given how tightly the desktop is bound to the OS in Windows, I won't. There might be some mods and add ons that I can use, but not from MS, and probably not with the complete blessing of MS.
"All editions of Windows 8 offer a no-compromise experience."
No, we won't compromise about the start button. Nor the greasy finger interface on a desktop. Nor the AOL look and feel. Nor the inability to have multiple windows open at once.
Wish it was for ReTro - as in, the Windows 7 interface. Which, despite some flaws, seems to me to be extremely usable - one of their best offerings ever.
The start menu may be flawed in some ways, but it is the evolution of years of interface feedback.
Metro is not an evolutionary jump. It is Microsoft, for what I perceive as more marketing and business reasons than usability reasons, attempting to force a misguided UI on PC users. I'd note that the Win 8 interface is probably great for tablets and cell phones; however, for the very reasons that it is, it is awful for a PC.
And it's way more than the start menu. It's the distance one has to move the mouse (to "invisible icons" in the corners). It's the mandatory whole screen paradigm. It's the AOL look and feel. It's the snapping smart corners that are great on a touch screen - but not so much with a mouse. It's the assumption that people want their desktop screen to be touch - and deal with everything from greasy fingerprints to bad posture to having to have their monitor within arms reach to issues of how to deal with a 40 or even 50 inch monitor.
As noted previously, as far as I can tell, Metro is a business driven attempt to leverage their PC market in order to further their tablet and cell phone interests by making a homogeneous platform for all. This makes the interface known on all to anyone who uses one, while encouraging software development across all. However, by making the only tool they provide, it does make is pretty hard to drive screws.
Metro is about MS making a homogenous look and feel across all possible platforms, and thus, having to go to the least common denominator (cell phone interfaces) for all of them.
It's about attempting to leverage their PC market share to make a push into the tablet and cell markets.
Once you realize this, the rest follows naturally.
Glad that MS knows exactly how I'll focus, and what will make me focus better. Looking forward to coding on my giant monitor with no distractions from documentation, other code snippets, test windows and the other tools that I use on a day to day basis.
In fact, I'm shocked. Shocked! That I've ever been able to get any work done during my entire career, what with all those other windows cluttering up my workspace.
If we want good education for our kids (and thus, to maintain our position as an economic world power), there's two things that need be done.
First, hold teachers accountable. As you note, having the tenured gym teacher teach algebra because he can use a calculator must stop.
But the other bit is that we have to pay the true professionals what they're worth. Look at the teachers in the nations that lead on the test scores (Finland, Japan, etc) - they're not only highly respected, they're highly paid.
If you read TFA, you'll find that this isn't assuming that student's won't know something yet - it is defining a predator as an organism that gets its nutrients from consuming another organism (meaning a cow is a predictor).
And even if it was the first, consider the impact on anyone with an advanced-for-their-age understanding, and the impact on them. It knocks down their confidence in their budding intelligence, reduces to the least common denominator.
No, this is wrong in every way, and not defensible.
Good for making the magic iBoxes work so I can watch porn, but not so much for anything important, like resource utilization or climate modeling. And anyway, math is hard. Who needs it when you can just be a landscaper or stripper anyway?
Well - is "freezing the market" into a form where anyone cal play; where you don't have to be one of a half dozen giants to be a content generator, or to write software, really freezing it?
Or, to put it another way... if you say that the market will remain open (for even the current limited definition of open), as opposed to "evolving" into a truly locked and controlled market, is this a bad thing?
Except that even this one installed itself and worked without the password:
As PCMag's Security Watch noted yesterday, Mac users did not have to download or even interact with the malware to become infected. Websites exploited a Java flaw that let Flashback.K download itself onto Macs without warning. It then asked users to supply an administrative password, but even without that password, the malware was already installed.
The password was icing on the cake. Fundamentally, this was a virus with a trojan addon to get the admin password; however, it was not necessary to the functioning of the virus.
Funny how the word egotistical is thrown around by both "sides" here (even though there shouldn't be sides; Apple dropped the ball with an exploit in Java that was patched by Sun months ago, but because Apple owns their own version of Java, porting it from Oracle, they didn't get to it in a timely manner).
Egotistical is not fixing a known exploit. Egotistical is ignoring a security firm with a history of legitimacy that a google search would have revealed. Egotistical is saying that the kernel will protect you from everything.
I'm not one for holy wars, but sheesh - the Apple enthusiasts attitude on this thread make me want to Office Space an Mac big time.
Slashdot Mirror
Drill baby drill is actually an environmental push.
Drill ALL the oil - no more spills.
Simple!
It's actually just rot-15 of "CE"...
Explains why they've poured hundred of millions of dollars into file reliability and recovery....
Maybe you're right. The sales figures will tell in the end, neh? Remember, though, no amount of spin can make a long term impact on what people think about what they consider their tools. Their toys, entertainment, politics, fashion sense, what they think is beautiful - yep. But their tools - no, people know what works.
Personally, I'll keep myself on Win7 as long as possible, and hope that Win9 goes back up to the high standard that Win7 presented.
Except - how many people in a work environment have their data reported? Most competent IT departments don't allow such feedback to be sent.
Which means that the samples were comprised mostly of home users, which are a very different set than the productive business users and developers.
And in fact, most knowledgeable home users would disable the feedback as well as a matter of course.
But - nothing I'm going to say here is going to change Windows 8 at this point. MS has chosen a course, and has committed to it. I'll ride it out, and hope that the following Windows learns. It would follow the pattern of good-bad-good-bad-good-bad that seems to be the norm.
When in a hole and caught trolling, it's usually best to stop digging. /tip
So - yeah. This thread is about Windows 8. Which is both an OS and a DE. What point, exactly, are you trying to make?
Not sure if you're trolling or just ignorant.
You get no real choices about certain things that make some people's work significantly easier.
You get no start button choices. Yes, there might be a mod out there, but MS will provide you with no choice.
You get no choice about hot corners, single apps displayed (no multiple movable windows allowed), or a number of other things.
You've talked about choices elsewhere in this thread - but you consistently miss the point that you. get. none. from. Windows. 8.
So - given that for certain games and software development (yes, I do develop under Windows as well as Linux), what desktop choices, exactly, do I have with Windows 8? Where is the option for the Windows 7 look and feel?
Oh, wait. It doesn't exist.
So, no, I don't have a choice. And given how tightly the desktop is bound to the OS in Windows, I won't. There might be some mods and add ons that I can use, but not from MS, and probably not with the complete blessing of MS.
"All editions of Windows 8 offer a no-compromise experience."
No, we won't compromise about the start button. Nor the greasy finger interface on a desktop. Nor the AOL look and feel. Nor the inability to have multiple windows open at once.
Sheesh - this stuff almost writes itself.
Wish it was for ReTro - as in, the Windows 7 interface. Which, despite some flaws, seems to me to be extremely usable - one of their best offerings ever.
Here's the fundamental problem.
The start menu may be flawed in some ways, but it is the evolution of years of interface feedback.
Metro is not an evolutionary jump. It is Microsoft, for what I perceive as more marketing and business reasons than usability reasons, attempting to force a misguided UI on PC users. I'd note that the Win 8 interface is probably great for tablets and cell phones; however, for the very reasons that it is, it is awful for a PC.
And it's way more than the start menu. It's the distance one has to move the mouse (to "invisible icons" in the corners). It's the mandatory whole screen paradigm. It's the AOL look and feel. It's the snapping smart corners that are great on a touch screen - but not so much with a mouse. It's the assumption that people want their desktop screen to be touch - and deal with everything from greasy fingerprints to bad posture to having to have their monitor within arms reach to issues of how to deal with a 40 or even 50 inch monitor.
As noted previously, as far as I can tell, Metro is a business driven attempt to leverage their PC market in order to further their tablet and cell phone interests by making a homogeneous platform for all. This makes the interface known on all to anyone who uses one, while encouraging software development across all. However, by making the only tool they provide, it does make is pretty hard to drive screws.
Metro is about MS making a homogenous look and feel across all possible platforms, and thus, having to go to the least common denominator (cell phone interfaces) for all of them.
It's about attempting to leverage their PC market share to make a push into the tablet and cell markets.
Once you realize this, the rest follows naturally.
but you'll focus better without them.
Glad that MS knows exactly how I'll focus, and what will make me focus better. Looking forward to coding on my giant monitor with no distractions from documentation, other code snippets, test windows and the other tools that I use on a day to day basis.
In fact, I'm shocked. Shocked! That I've ever been able to get any work done during my entire career, what with all those other windows cluttering up my workspace.
If we want good education for our kids (and thus, to maintain our position as an economic world power), there's two things that need be done.
First, hold teachers accountable. As you note, having the tenured gym teacher teach algebra because he can use a calculator must stop.
But the other bit is that we have to pay the true professionals what they're worth. Look at the teachers in the nations that lead on the test scores (Finland, Japan, etc) - they're not only highly respected, they're highly paid.
If you read TFA, you'll find that this isn't assuming that student's won't know something yet - it is defining a predator as an organism that gets its nutrients from consuming another organism (meaning a cow is a predictor).
And even if it was the first, consider the impact on anyone with an advanced-for-their-age understanding, and the impact on them. It knocks down their confidence in their budding intelligence, reduces to the least common denominator.
No, this is wrong in every way, and not defensible.
Good for making the magic iBoxes work so I can watch porn, but not so much for anything important, like resource utilization or climate modeling. And anyway, math is hard. Who needs it when you can just be a landscaper or stripper anyway?
Well - is "freezing the market" into a form where anyone cal play; where you don't have to be one of a half dozen giants to be a content generator, or to write software, really freezing it?
Or, to put it another way ... if you say that the market will remain open (for even the current limited definition of open), as opposed to "evolving" into a truly locked and controlled market, is this a bad thing?
I won't discard the possibility of business motivation.
On the other hand, this is absolutely an ad hominem argument; it says nothing about what is being said, only about who is doing the saying.
If you control the clients, it doesn't matter what server feeds exist.
It's just client based control, as opposed to what we're used to in the way of censorship, which tends to be from the server side.
On second thought, maybe not so much.... maybe not so wise...
... than this one:
http://www.cracked.com/article_18530_5-pop-culture-classics-created-out-laziness.html
Except that even this one installed itself and worked without the password:
As PCMag's Security Watch noted yesterday, Mac users did not have to download or even interact with the malware to become infected. Websites exploited a Java flaw that let Flashback.K download itself onto Macs without warning. It then asked users to supply an administrative password, but even without that password, the malware was already installed.
www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2402641,00.asp
The password was icing on the cake. Fundamentally, this was a virus with a trojan addon to get the admin password; however, it was not necessary to the functioning of the virus.
Funny how the word egotistical is thrown around by both "sides" here (even though there shouldn't be sides; Apple dropped the ball with an exploit in Java that was patched by Sun months ago, but because Apple owns their own version of Java, porting it from Oracle, they didn't get to it in a timely manner).
Egotistical is not fixing a known exploit. Egotistical is ignoring a security firm with a history of legitimacy that a google search would have revealed. Egotistical is saying that the kernel will protect you from everything.
I'm not one for holy wars, but sheesh - the Apple enthusiasts attitude on this thread make me want to Office Space an Mac big time.
Here's PC Mag's article, which also does attribute the finders to be Dr. Web - but also links the Apple patch for the vulnerability (months late):
www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2402641,00.asp