Or... maybe, just maybe 8 isn't as bad as some claim.
Shall I go on a rant about how unusable Linux is today for many users and then accuse those who may be a little more used to the system and defend it as being "not that bad" of being shills?
I can deal with something being bad when it's due to a lack of time, funds, talent, resources... almost any reason. For this reason I can deal with Linux being awkward, and readily admit it's not very usable for most people. (or even for me if I'm honest.)
I cannot deal with something being bad when all of the above resources are available in abundance, yet Marketing and C-level suits think it's A-OK to throw everyone under the bus for the purpose of forcing market share for their mobile app dream.
You evidently don't actually use Windows 8.1. The much-maligned UI is actually just the Windows 7 UI with a full-screen Start menu, which I find interrupts my workflow to exactly the same extent that the Windows 7 Start menu does, meaning minimally.
No.
Indeed I can live with the start screen. It's awkward, but I can live with it. The real disaster is elsewhere and I can't believe I still have to point this out after 2-3 years.
1. Default apps for many file formats are ridiculously dysfunctional Metro versions. This means users are cast into Full Screen Hell, showing Beelzebubs re-imagining of a PDF reader, image viewer or music app, designed for those confined in the darkest levels of hell. Escaping from these apps is actually hard. Noone can hear you scream.
2. Charms Bar on the right that pops up usually when I don't want it to. Which is always. Heh.
3. Some other bar on the left with any Metro apps that opened, usually without me wanting them to. What is that thing anyway and why is it there. Why is having two task/app switchers in a single OS ever a good idea? WTF Microsoft! W!T!F!?
4. Settings Schizophrenia. Where is that setting? Full-Screen-Hell-Mode or Control Panel? Or (gasp) BOTH? Oh My @#(&$ing GOD!
5. Installed Apps.. Where do they go? 8.0 Put everything and the kitchen sink in the start menu. 8.1. puts nothing in the start menu. Where are they? They're in a level below in the middle of a huge list of stuff. The only reasonable way to open an app is to search for it. So you better remember what it's called, Mom!
6. Search. I'm running out of expletives. It manages to open yet another full screen abomination in front of me when I'm looking for "Supplier Visit Notes 15Jan.docx", AND it starts finding stuff on the Internet.. What the hell MS!! You've messed up just about the most basic purpose of an OS user interface which is to let me store files, find them back and open them!
Anyway, you may feel less anger and pain about the above than I do but the point remains that Win 8's peculiarity (See, I can be nice too) isn't confined to having a start screen instead of a start menu. I guess I could have made that point in just a single line.;)
Funny, last time I went to the states they nearly refused to let me in because of an "Arab" stamp in my passport. Well I did fly Emirates, and I did have a free hotel in Dubai since it was a 9 hour stopover the first time.
Nearly refused, really? Or they just asked you about your last visited country, which is a routine question? (And if you filled in London for example and your passport shows entry for a day in Dubai, then it's common to ask about it.)
Fake Facebook accounts can backfire, as I've discovered. For my fake Facebook account, I can't remember what fake birth date I used, and somehow my account became locked. Even though I have the password, and access to the email account (under a fake name of course) I used to register, I cannot finish log in. After I log in, Facebook demands that I provide the birth date to "prove" I am really me. Unfortunately, I set the birthday info to "private", so I can't ask the few connections I made on that account what my fake birthday is.
Right, so use your real birth date for the fake account; you know you can make it private anyway. Or routinely use your brother or sister's birth date, that also works and you'll remember.
Any ideas?
Brute Force the birthday date?;) You're more likely to use a year that's a little younger than you are, and more likely to pick the first of a month, or your real day of the month but in a different month.
What's the difference between the fake one and the real one and how does that matter? Is the fake one just used for stupid sites like huffinton post that are starting to require facebook?
Many people who can't or won't figure out how to set an appropriate audience for their Facebook posts do it. So you have one account for the weekend party crowd, and another one for your family and business contacts.
That's wholly unnecessary of course, as long as you assign your FB friends to one or more Lists. They only issue that Facebook won't fix is that they offer an option to keep your Friend's list private (visible to 'only me') but that there are some tricks to very easily get to someone's full friend list, even if you're not FB friends with that person. So that would be a reason to move to separate Facebook accounts for your party friends and hookers and so on.
The downside of moderation systems is seeing highly-rated horrible posts. On a messy free-for-all forum like 4chan, you expect horrible shit. It's far more jarring to see hateful ignorant trolling get +5 insightful. Every time, I reevaluate ever visiting Slashdot again.
Not sure why that is so shocking; hateful or not, it is apparently a widely held view in that case. Go to Bill O'Reilly's Facebook page and read through the comments, that gets pretty hateful, and is then Liked. It's also presumably not anonymous.
But you're right, if you only like free speech when it's something you agree with (or aren't offended by) then don't visit such a forum.
There are loads of topics on which I can contribute with knowledge and personal experience, yet that I don't want to turn up in a 5 millisecond Google search by anyone bothering to Google my name.
So the result is that I won't contribute; easy enough.
Or just maybe I could be bothered to register a fake Facebook account; so far I never saw the need for that.
Also, get rid of ALL the duality. Like the separate task list for Metro apps only: get rid of it. Use a single task bar and task switcher; the desktop task bar seems just fine for that. Also I don't see the point in the charms bar, which is also annoying as it's hidden and pops up mostly when you don't need it. Which, actually, is all of the time: it's really not necessary to have; if anything needs starting, or searching for, use the start screen!
I don't mind if that start screen would have a couple versions to it (or tabs, etc.) such as one for settings / a redesigned control panel.
I don't mind the start screen in itself, it would indeed be nice if it just showed as an overlay with a dimmed/blurred background, I guess similar to what Ubuntu Unity does when you make the dash open full-screen.
Well, two things: They can't do anything other than brush it off, because as a US company they are bound by the Patriot Act to make and and all data available to the US government upon request. They simply can not sell you security and privacy of your data.
It's not just Canada either; many European companies are very strict: no data of any kind can get stored in a US based datacenter or by a US based company.
Any other country is just fine. We are in Thailand. (And hosting in Switzerland.)
I like it. Many Chinese/Taiwanese manufacturers already offer this, either as a HDMI stick or small set-top box running Android, but Dell just has more clout to make the hardware rock solid, make it work very well with the OS and seamless cloud offerings. I'd get this on day one and breathe some life into my TVs.
You see, you're not supposed to use a keyboard or mouse to interface with your Windows 8 desktop/laptop. You're supposed to use your Windows 8 Phone, connected to your desktop/laptop, as your interface. Your Windows 8 Phone is the keyboard and mouse.
That statement makes no sense at all. Who told you that? AND it gets modded up to interesting?
(Well it IS interesting I suppose, just no relation to anything in the real world.)
But yes, the mouse is clearly a thing of the past in the Windows world. Using a mouse with Win 8 is similar to trying to only manage with a keyboard in Win 3.1.. sure it works, but you can't help but notice that you're doing the equivalent of eating soup with chopsticks.
It's designed for touch, with productivity / text entry happenign the usual way with a physical keybaord.
Incidentally, I still cant figure out where Im supposed to go to launch non-pinned non-metro apps. Hooray for useability!
To launch non-pinned legacy apps, you either just start typing the name (that was also supported in Win 7) after hitting the Windows key to open the start screen, or you go to 'All Apps', which means swiping up (or right-clicking) and hitting 'All Apps'.
Not sure why you would ever un-pin an app from the start screen though. That's the same as removing it from your Start Menu's 'All Programs' list in Win 7. Nobody does that unless they were actively (and ineffectively) trying to hide an app.
The only reason people think Windows is easy to install compared to Linux is because they don't do it. Take a blank PC and a fresh Windows install CD and see how easy it is to get running.
With Windows 8 it's pretty *#$&$ easy. Pretty much as easy as installing Ubuntu. This really isn't a factor anymore.
There are only a couple factors that are real factors. Word. Excel. Outlook/Exchange. Those are the ones stopping me from using Linux exclusively. Of LibreOffice didn't make a complete mess of the Word 2010 documents that I have to collaborate on with others in the company (and some external parties) then everything would be solved. (Ignoring the reason why it's so hard for Libreoffice (or Google Docs) to correctly parse a word file with some headers and footers in it, and some revision tracking by a couple people.
It's a credible bid at the tablet market. I think most people hear approach it wrong, they take a desktop centered approach. But on the desktop Microsoft has nothing to prove; the traditional desktop environment as it exists in Windows 7 is done; complete; finished; no major improvements needed.
In the tablet UI/UX however there are great strides to be made. If you use Win 8 on a tablet it feels vastly more advanced than an iPad. You can actually have two apps open simultaneously, by snapping one of them on the side; can't do that on an iPad. Gestures work really well and really smooth.
The main question becomes: why is the tablet UI forced on desktop users. That's a good question, with a perfectly sane answer: to increase the appeal to tablet app developers. Of course MS could have released the RT environment for tablets separately and leave the desktop essentially the same. But by the admittedly awkward marriage, the overall ecosystem for app developers becomes much larger. This will result in more apps, more games, and better quality apps. So it does make sense from MS' point of view.
So is it risky... not really; if the goal of jump-starting a solid app offering succeeds, and if indeed Windows tablets succeed then MS really doesn't care if corporations sit this one out and stick with Windows 7, or Windows 8 configured in such a way that Metro apps don't show. The main opportunity is in non-desktop devices, that's the target for Win 8.
Slashdot Mirror
Or... maybe, just maybe 8 isn't as bad as some claim.
Shall I go on a rant about how unusable Linux is today for many users and then accuse those who may be a little more used to the system and defend it as being "not that bad" of being shills?
I can deal with something being bad when it's due to a lack of time, funds, talent, resources... almost any reason. For this reason I can deal with Linux being awkward, and readily admit it's not very usable for most people. (or even for me if I'm honest.)
I cannot deal with something being bad when all of the above resources are available in abundance, yet Marketing and C-level suits think it's A-OK to throw everyone under the bus for the purpose of forcing market share for their mobile app dream.
You evidently don't actually use Windows 8.1. The much-maligned UI is actually just the Windows 7 UI with a full-screen Start menu, which I find interrupts my workflow to exactly the same extent that the Windows 7 Start menu does, meaning minimally.
No.
Indeed I can live with the start screen. It's awkward, but I can live with it. The real disaster is elsewhere and I can't believe I still have to point this out after 2-3 years.
1. Default apps for many file formats are ridiculously dysfunctional Metro versions. This means users are cast into Full Screen Hell, showing Beelzebubs re-imagining of a PDF reader, image viewer or music app, designed for those confined in the darkest levels of hell. Escaping from these apps is actually hard. Noone can hear you scream.
2. Charms Bar on the right that pops up usually when I don't want it to. Which is always. Heh.
3. Some other bar on the left with any Metro apps that opened, usually without me wanting them to. What is that thing anyway and why is it there. Why is having two task/app switchers in a single OS ever a good idea? WTF Microsoft! W!T!F!?
4. Settings Schizophrenia. Where is that setting? Full-Screen-Hell-Mode or Control Panel? Or (gasp) BOTH? Oh My @#(&$ing GOD!
5. Installed Apps.. Where do they go? 8.0 Put everything and the kitchen sink in the start menu. 8.1. puts nothing in the start menu. Where are they? They're in a level below in the middle of a huge list of stuff. The only reasonable way to open an app is to search for it. So you better remember what it's called, Mom!
6. Search. I'm running out of expletives. It manages to open yet another full screen abomination in front of me when I'm looking for "Supplier Visit Notes 15Jan.docx", AND it starts finding stuff on the Internet.. What the hell MS!! You've messed up just about the most basic purpose of an OS user interface which is to let me store files, find them back and open them!
Anyway, you may feel less anger and pain about the above than I do but the point remains that Win 8's peculiarity (See, I can be nice too) isn't confined to having a start screen instead of a start menu. I guess I could have made that point in just a single line. ;)
Han.
Funny, last time I went to the states they nearly refused to let me in because of an "Arab" stamp in my passport. Well I did fly Emirates, and I did have a free hotel in Dubai since it was a 9 hour stopover the first time.
Nearly refused, really? Or they just asked you about your last visited country, which is a routine question? (And if you filled in London for example and your passport shows entry for a day in Dubai, then it's common to ask about it.)
Thank GOD!! I hate it especially how this causes an entire URL not to be selected in a browser when clicking the URL.
Just because someone may have highlighted some text to middle-click-paste, which they don't want to mess up.
NOT WORTH IT.
Kill it now, kill it with FIRE!
I was so sure that was going to read: "The USA was founded by Anonymous Cowards." :-)
Fake Facebook accounts can backfire, as I've discovered. For my fake Facebook account, I can't remember what fake birth date I used, and somehow my account became locked. Even though I have the password, and access to the email account (under a fake name of course) I used to register, I cannot finish log in. After I log in, Facebook demands that I provide the birth date to "prove" I am really me. Unfortunately, I set the birthday info to "private", so I can't ask the few connections I made on that account what my fake birthday is.
Right, so use your real birth date for the fake account; you know you can make it private anyway. Or routinely use your brother or sister's birth date, that also works and you'll remember.
Any ideas?
Brute Force the birthday date? ;) You're more likely to use a year that's a little younger than you are, and more likely to pick the first of a month, or your real day of the month but in a different month.
What's the difference between the fake one and the real one and how does that matter? Is the fake one just used for stupid sites like huffinton post that are starting to require facebook?
Many people who can't or won't figure out how to set an appropriate audience for their Facebook posts do it. So you have one account for the weekend party crowd, and another one for your family and business contacts.
That's wholly unnecessary of course, as long as you assign your FB friends to one or more Lists. They only issue that Facebook won't fix is that they offer an option to keep your Friend's list private (visible to 'only me') but that there are some tricks to very easily get to someone's full friend list, even if you're not FB friends with that person. So that would be a reason to move to separate Facebook accounts for your party friends and hookers and so on.
The downside of moderation systems is seeing highly-rated horrible posts. On a messy free-for-all forum like 4chan, you expect horrible shit. It's far more jarring to see hateful ignorant trolling get +5 insightful. Every time, I reevaluate ever visiting Slashdot again.
Not sure why that is so shocking; hateful or not, it is apparently a widely held view in that case. Go to Bill O'Reilly's Facebook page and read through the comments, that gets pretty hateful, and is then Liked. It's also presumably not anonymous.
But you're right, if you only like free speech when it's something you agree with (or aren't offended by) then don't visit such a forum.
There are loads of topics on which I can contribute with knowledge and personal experience, yet that I don't want to turn up in a 5 millisecond Google search by anyone bothering to Google my name.
So the result is that I won't contribute; easy enough.
Or just maybe I could be bothered to register a fake Facebook account; so far I never saw the need for that.
rest in peace
E: Unable to lock the administration directory, are you root?
sudo rest in peace. Bitch.
Also, get rid of ALL the duality. Like the separate task list for Metro apps only: get rid of it. Use a single task bar and task switcher; the desktop task bar seems just fine for that. Also I don't see the point in the charms bar, which is also annoying as it's hidden and pops up mostly when you don't need it. Which, actually, is all of the time: it's really not necessary to have; if anything needs starting, or searching for, use the start screen!
I don't mind if that start screen would have a couple versions to it (or tabs, etc.) such as one for settings / a redesigned control panel.
I don't mind the start screen in itself, it would indeed be nice if it just showed as an overlay with a dimmed/blurred background, I guess similar to what Ubuntu Unity does when you make the dash open full-screen.
It's proton torpedoes. Photon torpedoes are from Star Trek.
Haha, annoy two sets of fans at once. :)
Don't asteroids usually spin? If you blast a crater on one side, then you have some serious aiming to do to hit the crater?
Then again, clearly it's possible to hit with photon torpedoes, and using the Force.
Don't asteroids usually spin? If you blast a crater on one side, then you have some serious aiming to do to hit the crater?
Well, two things: They can't do anything other than brush it off, because as a US company they are bound by the Patriot Act to make and and all data available to the US government upon request. They simply can not sell you security and privacy of your data.
It's not just Canada either; many European companies are very strict: no data of any kind can get stored in a US based datacenter or by a US based company.
Any other country is just fine. We are in Thailand. (And hosting in Switzerland.)
Yay Patriot Act.
I just met you
and this is crazy
so here's my number
have my cave baby..
This is one of those days I wish I had a uterus.
Elton John found someone to carry his baby; how hard can it be?
I like it. Many Chinese/Taiwanese manufacturers already offer this, either as a HDMI stick or small set-top box running Android, but Dell just has more clout to make the hardware rock solid, make it work very well with the OS and seamless cloud offerings. I'd get this on day one and breathe some life into my TVs.
I will join now just so I can close my account and make a statement.
You see, you're not supposed to use a keyboard or mouse to interface with your Windows 8 desktop/laptop. You're supposed to use your Windows 8 Phone, connected to your desktop/laptop, as your interface. Your Windows 8 Phone is the keyboard and mouse.
That statement makes no sense at all. Who told you that? AND it gets modded up to interesting?
(Well it IS interesting I suppose, just no relation to anything in the real world.)
But yes, the mouse is clearly a thing of the past in the Windows world. Using a mouse with Win 8 is similar to trying to only manage with a keyboard in Win 3.1.. sure it works, but you can't help but notice that you're doing the equivalent of eating soup with chopsticks.
It's designed for touch, with productivity / text entry happenign the usual way with a physical keybaord.
That way there's no cognitive effort when switching between your phone and your desktop.
I'm looking forward to the Microsoft car, which will have a bicycle seat and controls.
And swipe up to brake.
They do have a tendency to hide some of the most used functions, requiring a swipe.. (Move message in the mail app comes to mind)
Incidentally, I still cant figure out where Im supposed to go to launch non-pinned non-metro apps. Hooray for useability!
To launch non-pinned legacy apps, you either just start typing the name (that was also supported in Win 7) after hitting the Windows key to open the start screen, or you go to 'All Apps', which means swiping up (or right-clicking) and hitting 'All Apps'.
Not sure why you would ever un-pin an app from the start screen though. That's the same as removing it from your Start Menu's 'All Programs' list in Win 7. Nobody does that unless they were actively (and ineffectively) trying to hide an app.
Duh, you've got it, young padawan.
The only reason people think Windows is easy to install compared to Linux is because they don't do it. Take a blank PC and a fresh Windows install CD and see how easy it is to get running.
With Windows 8 it's pretty *#$&$ easy. Pretty much as easy as installing Ubuntu. This really isn't a factor anymore.
There are only a couple factors that are real factors. Word. Excel. Outlook/Exchange. Those are the ones stopping me from using Linux exclusively. Of LibreOffice didn't make a complete mess of the Word 2010 documents that I have to collaborate on with others in the company (and some external parties) then everything would be solved. (Ignoring the reason why it's so hard for Libreoffice (or Google Docs) to correctly parse a word file with some headers and footers in it, and some revision tracking by a couple people.
It's a credible bid at the tablet market. I think most people hear approach it wrong, they take a desktop centered approach. But on the desktop Microsoft has nothing to prove; the traditional desktop environment as it exists in Windows 7 is done; complete; finished; no major improvements needed.
In the tablet UI/UX however there are great strides to be made. If you use Win 8 on a tablet it feels vastly more advanced than an iPad. You can actually have two apps open simultaneously, by snapping one of them on the side; can't do that on an iPad. Gestures work really well and really smooth.
The main question becomes: why is the tablet UI forced on desktop users. That's a good question, with a perfectly sane answer: to increase the appeal to tablet app developers. Of course MS could have released the RT environment for tablets separately and leave the desktop essentially the same. But by the admittedly awkward marriage, the overall ecosystem for app developers becomes much larger. This will result in more apps, more games, and better quality apps. So it does make sense from MS' point of view.
So is it risky... not really; if the goal of jump-starting a solid app offering succeeds, and if indeed Windows tablets succeed then MS really doesn't care if corporations sit this one out and stick with Windows 7, or Windows 8 configured in such a way that Metro apps don't show. The main opportunity is in non-desktop devices, that's the target for Win 8.