Parenthetically, why don't you ever see in Star Trek someone cleaning the fingerprints and accumulated grunge off all those touch screen displays? There must be a janitorial service just to do that.
Seriously. Nobody ever uses my Android tablet but me, yet whenever I look at it with the backlight off, my first thought is, "petri dish."
What? Did you fail reading comprehension? Whoever said that? I only meant that before you discount it, learn it, try it and then do that. Do not expect it to work like Windows 7 on day 1 and do not expect everything to run like the old OSes starting from day one.
Nice ad hominem. If somebody was scoring this debate, though, I doubt you'd win many points for accusing me of "failing reading comprehension" when you said "it's a new OS." It's not a new OS. And, as a matter of fact, everything does "run" just like the old OSes, from Day One. It's all just buried underneath Metro. The problem is you have to push your way through Metro to access the things that run the same, whether you have any interest in what Metro offers or not.
My point was that they did NOT get rid of the more efficient way, it's a just a different way now and all your desktop apps work exactly the same and some even better.
If by "the more efficient way," you mean a rational application launcher, such as the Start menu, then yes, they did get rid of it.
P.S. As a side note for everybody else, the thing I don't get about pro-Microsoft copypasta trolls like recoiledsnake, here (note that his first post was up just three minutes after the submission was accepted, complete with six pro-Microsoft links, including YouTube videos), is now angry and belligerent they get. Is this some kind of new marketing theory -- counteract rational comments with personal insults and sarcasm? How much does Microsoft pay its basement trolls, anyway? I'd really like to know.
This is one thing that really bugs me about Microsoft's current marketing push. I don't mind talking about "apps" on smartphones or tablets. A lot of those things feel like "apps," as in literally abbreviated forms of applications. But Microsoft has started using the word "apps" to refer to traditional desktop software, too. As in, "You can still run all of your current apps, such as Microsoft Dynamics GP." It's like Microsoft is consciously trying to overload the term so that it doesn't sound like something inferior -- because if apps were inferior to applications, then why would anyone want Metro?
This is very true. It's a problem with a lot of touch-centric UIs: There are no onscreen hints or anything to explain to you how to use the UI.
Anyone who has ever used a word processor can sit down with Microsoft Word and write a letter. There will probably be things you don't know how to do, so you'll end up searching the Ribbon to find them. But that's just it -- you can find them. There will be icons there and the icons will have labels that say things like "Insert Date/Time."
Metro, on the other hand, has a few clever icons, but they don't necessarily mean anything to someone who has never seen them before. Some of the other functions involve gestures or moving the cursor to just the right part of the screen to activate a feature. I found I had to stumble around awhile before I knew how some of the most basic navigational controls worked.
Note: I didn't say search around, as you'd have to do with the Ribbon. I said stumble around, meaning I had to try mouse movements and push icons without knowing what they were actually going to do. Inevitably that meant I'd end up activating controls I hadn't meant to. I might luck out and find the thing I want, or I might immediately think "Undo, Undo, Undo"... but of course, Undo might have been the thing I was looking for in the first place. This is a lousy way to learn a UI. It's a step back from what we've grown accustomed to.
I hope Win8's Metro is better than the sucky "ribbon" interface in office. I just started using it last week, and today I couldn't even figure out how to "undo" a mistake I made in Excel.
for now, There were talks a while ago of integrating IOS with OSX or something along those lines, you can see it start with the mac store
I dunno. It's easy to put two and two together and suggest that a unified OS is the way Apple is heading. No doubt that's why I've read a lot of blog posts along those lines. But I've never seen a story speculating about an integrated Apple OS that includes a source from Apple.
Apple is, of course, notoriously secretive. And it certainly wouldn't surprise me if there were some hybrid OS concepts lurking somewhere in Cupertino. But my gut feeling is that, for the foreseeable future, "Apple OS" is a concept promulgated by the tech press more than anything else. (And I say this as a guy from the tech press.)
You obviously haven't used Ubuntu since they changed to the crappy new Unity UI, which is basically a touchscreen UI converted to be used on a desktop. Their eventual goal is to have Unity on both desktops and tablets and phones. Of course, most Linux desktop users are rebelling and switching to Mint or other distros because of this.
It took me maybe six months to install a version of Ubuntu with Unity, and all that time I heard nothing but bitching about it on/. Now that I have it installed, I don't really mind it. It is a little "Fisher-Priceified," but it is nowhere near as bad as Metro.
In fact, though I may be a square for saying so, I really have no problem with Unity. The desktop is still visually pleasing and the Unity UI doesn't get in my way. It still feels a little bit awkward for me, because I don't really use a Linux desktop for my day-to-day work, so I haven't had much time to get used to it. But the important thing is that I feel like that awkwardness is my issue. I don't feel that way with Metro.
I don't agree with Thurrot's analysis that "the desktop is just an app." Oh really? The desktop is still there, with Explorer, the taskbar, the system tray, and every other feature the desktop has ever had, and Thurrot wants us to believe this is somehow just some little "app" that's running inside of Metro? Hardly. The desktop is still the desktop. It is Windows.
What Windows 8 has done is given us this new launcher application, called Metro, which accepts plug-ins, called apps, and which will now launch automatically when you login to the system and again every time you push the Start button. Metro feels like the ultimate terminate-and-stay-resident program from the 80s, where every time you push the hotkey it takes over your entire screen.
Also, try to spend a few minutes learning shortcuts etc. before dissing the experience. It's not a SP for Windows 7, it's a new OS.
No, it isn't. It really isn't. Keyboard shortcuts do not make an "OS." The fact that the device drivers for every weird hardware device on my laptops carried over from Windows 7 to Windows 8 without a hitch demonstrates that the two are essentially the same OS.
What Microsoft has done with Windows 8 is it has taken a UI that works and put a big curtain in front of it (Metro) so that every time you want to use the OS the way you're accustomed to doing, you have to push the curtain aside. And as soon as you push the wrong button (the Windows key) or you want to launch a new application, the curtain drops down again.
They envision that with Windows 8, most new monitors will be touch enabled because of the demand so that for some functions(like clicking on links), people can use touch.
Just because I can use touch doesn't mean I will want to. I am not going to be reaching across my desk to click on links when there's a mouse sitting in my right hand. I don't need a new repeat strain injury and I don't want to smear my monitor with fingerprints. Poking around in midair with your fingers looks cool in movies, but in practice what we do now is more efficient, which makes it preferable. It's not logical to get rid of the more efficient way of doing things for the sake of something that looks cool.
You may disagree with the vision, but you can't disagree that there is a method behind the madness.
I don't disagree that there's a method. But that doesn't mean it's not madness. When your friend guns his engine and says, "Don't worry, I know what I'm doing -- we can make it across the canyon," it's time to get out of the car.
Why can't he release a detailed list of every edit he made (allowing someone else with a nonlinear editing suite, lots of time on his hands, and fewer qualms about BitTorrent to piece it together)? Surely he kept records, if he's studying to be an editor?
The developers are all using Visual Studio through Win2k8 Remote Desktop services on their Macbooks, and we're working towards having them develop completely in browser-based IDEs. We eventually plan on having only Windows on the server side (SQL server, CruiseControl CI autobuild environment).
Mind explaining why? Serious question... because it sounds like you're deliberately setting yourselves up to ensure that you have the worst of all possible worlds. Buying employees MacBooks so they can access Windows-only software through Remote Desktop, just by itself, sounds like madness. And yet if you really don't want to have a Windows-centric environment, one would think the servers would be the first thing to go off Windows. Is there anything in your whole environment that you haven't managed to kluge, hobble, or overspend on?
I believe the DOJ is arguing that between windowing, most favored retailer agreements with Apple, and enforcing a no-discounting sales model, all of which were organized in secret discussions between the 6 companies was a form of price fixing and hence illegal.
I wonder. It seems more likely that Apple met with individual companies than that it met behind closed doors with all of them at once. But then if Apple says. "Just so you know, Publisher X and Y have already agreed to these exact same terms"... does that count as collusion? (Is there a difference between actually meeting in person and a de facto meeting conducted with Apple as intermediary?)
Are you including laptops with that? Because I don't know anyone who doesn't have one or the other.
Or are you not including Macs as "PCs"? (Because if you're talking about the overall market for traditional computer form factors, I think they're the same thing.)
They conspired to charge more for their competing products. I do not understand the distinction you are trying to make--that the books are different is irrelevant. If Toyota and Honda meet secretly and agree to charge more for their cars, it's still illegal, even if a Camry is different than an Accord and there may be a difference between the two in price. They are agreeing to raise their prices so they can make more money while mitigating undercutting by their competitors.
A Camry and an Accord are still essentially similar goods. If Publisher A publishes a book of political essays by Al Franken and Publisher B publishes a science fiction novel by Kevin J. Anderson, are the two really competing? And if, on top of that, one book costs less than the other (even under the agency model), can you say there was collusion? What, did one company agree to accept less money for its book... as a favor? What kind of conspiracy would make that a good idea?
As far as I understand it, the agency model doesn't actually define prices. Publishers can still charge whatever they want, but they have to give the store a certain cut of the cover price. If different ebooks tend to have similar price tags, so what? That tends to be the case with print books, too.
They are allowed to "charge what they want" for ebooks.
What they aren't allowed to do by law is get together with competitors and all agree to the same prices.
Except that A.) not all ebooks cost the same; and B.) no two publishers sell the same ebooks.
On the surface, at least, it sounds like all they "conspired" to do is reject Amazon's pricing model for the one Apple suggested, which was more favorable to them.
I always felt the David Lynch version had the right look and feel, it was just too trimmed down. I'd have loved to see a 4 hour version of it.
There is a three-hour version floating around that was aired on various TV networks. I think some versions of the DVD have it as an extra. I wouldn't bother looking for it, though. It's terrible. Nearly unwatchable. A lot of the scenes/shots that have been spliced back into it are redundant or pointless, and they haven't even had the FX put in (e.g. the Fremen don't have blue eyes in those shots because nobody bothered to do the effect). David Lynch had his name removed from that version, so it's an "Alan Smithee" film.
I enjoyed the tone of the film, too, but I don't think it's a very good interpretation of Dune. I'll often meet people who have only seen the movie and I'll tell them, "In the book, Paul Atreides isn't the messiah. In fact, the whole 'religion' is a lie." They just kinda go, "Buh?"
OT perhaps, but I know an architect who still does all his drawings with pencil and paper. He had to train on computerized systems to pass his exams, but then it was right back to pencil and paper. He just prefers it that way.
You see data loss is not insurable, and if we can not trust ourselves to not fuck up, we sure as hell cannot trust a 3rd party who doesnt care about the saftey of our data at all.
Data loss may not be insurable, but surely cloud providers offer some indemnification, or who would use them?
Meanwhile, if you "can't trust yourselves not to fuck up" and you can't trust the cloud provider either, then it's a wash. You go with whichever one is cheaper. (And in the long run, that ain't gonna be paying your salary, healthcare, and other benefits.)
What's more, I think you can trust a nationwide company that spends 100 percent of its capital investments on hosting infrastructure a lot more than you can trust your rinky-dink outfit. I think your assessment of your job stability is overconfident.
However what the people who were trying to tell me about this magnificent future I should expect to find while i was growing up is that you can never underestimate the OTHER guys GREED!
I'm not sure if this is the point you were trying to make, but in my lifetime, there were jobs pumping gas. They went away, and now we all just have to pump our own gas.
I once asked the PHP developers at ZendCon about why they don't gradually clean up the standard library, and the impression that I got was that backwards compatibility is a top priority for PHP and Zend.
That's probably sensible, considering how many people use PHP environments that they don't actually control (on shared hosting providers, for example). Just because there's a new version of PHP doesn't mean everybody who uses WordPress (for example) will be able to take advantage of it. Also, some of the things that need cleaning up in the standard library (inconsistent parameter ordering, for example) could potentially break code in weird ways that won't actually crash. But all that just means the problem is bigger than it sounds; it doesn't mean the current situation is good.
What synchronicity! Just the other day I was thinking about the beautiful and elegant poetry that is PHP's syntax and standard library, and I was saying to myself, "You know... if there's one thing PHP needs, it's multiple inheritance."
Slashdot Mirror
Parenthetically, why don't you ever see in Star Trek someone cleaning the fingerprints and accumulated grunge off all those touch screen displays? There must be a janitorial service just to do that.
Seriously. Nobody ever uses my Android tablet but me, yet whenever I look at it with the backlight off, my first thought is, "petri dish."
What? Did you fail reading comprehension? Whoever said that? I only meant that before you discount it, learn it, try it and then do that. Do not expect it to work like Windows 7 on day 1 and do not expect everything to run like the old OSes starting from day one.
Nice ad hominem. If somebody was scoring this debate, though, I doubt you'd win many points for accusing me of "failing reading comprehension" when you said "it's a new OS." It's not a new OS. And, as a matter of fact, everything does "run" just like the old OSes, from Day One. It's all just buried underneath Metro. The problem is you have to push your way through Metro to access the things that run the same, whether you have any interest in what Metro offers or not.
My point was that they did NOT get rid of the more efficient way, it's a just a different way now and all your desktop apps work exactly the same and some even better.
If by "the more efficient way," you mean a rational application launcher, such as the Start menu, then yes, they did get rid of it.
P.S. As a side note for everybody else, the thing I don't get about pro-Microsoft copypasta trolls like recoiledsnake, here (note that his first post was up just three minutes after the submission was accepted, complete with six pro-Microsoft links, including YouTube videos), is now angry and belligerent they get. Is this some kind of new marketing theory -- counteract rational comments with personal insults and sarcasm? How much does Microsoft pay its basement trolls, anyway? I'd really like to know.
I have an Android tablet and a Chromebook. In the situations you describe, I'd rather use the Chromebook.
This is one thing that really bugs me about Microsoft's current marketing push. I don't mind talking about "apps" on smartphones or tablets. A lot of those things feel like "apps," as in literally abbreviated forms of applications. But Microsoft has started using the word "apps" to refer to traditional desktop software, too. As in, "You can still run all of your current apps, such as Microsoft Dynamics GP." It's like Microsoft is consciously trying to overload the term so that it doesn't sound like something inferior -- because if apps were inferior to applications, then why would anyone want Metro?
If there are no on screen visuals I'm lost.
This is very true. It's a problem with a lot of touch-centric UIs: There are no onscreen hints or anything to explain to you how to use the UI.
Anyone who has ever used a word processor can sit down with Microsoft Word and write a letter. There will probably be things you don't know how to do, so you'll end up searching the Ribbon to find them. But that's just it -- you can find them. There will be icons there and the icons will have labels that say things like "Insert Date/Time."
Metro, on the other hand, has a few clever icons, but they don't necessarily mean anything to someone who has never seen them before. Some of the other functions involve gestures or moving the cursor to just the right part of the screen to activate a feature. I found I had to stumble around awhile before I knew how some of the most basic navigational controls worked.
Note: I didn't say search around, as you'd have to do with the Ribbon. I said stumble around, meaning I had to try mouse movements and push icons without knowing what they were actually going to do. Inevitably that meant I'd end up activating controls I hadn't meant to. I might luck out and find the thing I want, or I might immediately think "Undo, Undo, Undo" ... but of course, Undo might have been the thing I was looking for in the first place. This is a lousy way to learn a UI. It's a step back from what we've grown accustomed to.
I hope Win8's Metro is better than the sucky "ribbon" interface in office. I just started using it last week, and today I couldn't even figure out how to "undo" a mistake I made in Excel.
Ctrl-Z, just like always.
for now, There were talks a while ago of integrating IOS with OSX or something along those lines, you can see it start with the mac store
I dunno. It's easy to put two and two together and suggest that a unified OS is the way Apple is heading. No doubt that's why I've read a lot of blog posts along those lines. But I've never seen a story speculating about an integrated Apple OS that includes a source from Apple.
Apple is, of course, notoriously secretive. And it certainly wouldn't surprise me if there were some hybrid OS concepts lurking somewhere in Cupertino. But my gut feeling is that, for the foreseeable future, "Apple OS" is a concept promulgated by the tech press more than anything else. (And I say this as a guy from the tech press.)
You obviously haven't used Ubuntu since they changed to the crappy new Unity UI, which is basically a touchscreen UI converted to be used on a desktop. Their eventual goal is to have Unity on both desktops and tablets and phones. Of course, most Linux desktop users are rebelling and switching to Mint or other distros because of this.
It took me maybe six months to install a version of Ubuntu with Unity, and all that time I heard nothing but bitching about it on /. Now that I have it installed, I don't really mind it. It is a little "Fisher-Priceified," but it is nowhere near as bad as Metro.
In fact, though I may be a square for saying so, I really have no problem with Unity. The desktop is still visually pleasing and the Unity UI doesn't get in my way. It still feels a little bit awkward for me, because I don't really use a Linux desktop for my day-to-day work, so I haven't had much time to get used to it. But the important thing is that I feel like that awkwardness is my issue. I don't feel that way with Metro.
I don't agree with Thurrot's analysis that "the desktop is just an app." Oh really? The desktop is still there, with Explorer, the taskbar, the system tray, and every other feature the desktop has ever had, and Thurrot wants us to believe this is somehow just some little "app" that's running inside of Metro? Hardly. The desktop is still the desktop. It is Windows.
What Windows 8 has done is given us this new launcher application, called Metro, which accepts plug-ins, called apps, and which will now launch automatically when you login to the system and again every time you push the Start button. Metro feels like the ultimate terminate-and-stay-resident program from the 80s, where every time you push the hotkey it takes over your entire screen.
Also, try to spend a few minutes learning shortcuts etc. before dissing the experience. It's not a SP for Windows 7, it's a new OS.
No, it isn't. It really isn't. Keyboard shortcuts do not make an "OS." The fact that the device drivers for every weird hardware device on my laptops carried over from Windows 7 to Windows 8 without a hitch demonstrates that the two are essentially the same OS.
What Microsoft has done with Windows 8 is it has taken a UI that works and put a big curtain in front of it (Metro) so that every time you want to use the OS the way you're accustomed to doing, you have to push the curtain aside. And as soon as you push the wrong button (the Windows key) or you want to launch a new application, the curtain drops down again.
They envision that with Windows 8, most new monitors will be touch enabled because of the demand so that for some functions(like clicking on links), people can use touch.
Just because I can use touch doesn't mean I will want to. I am not going to be reaching across my desk to click on links when there's a mouse sitting in my right hand. I don't need a new repeat strain injury and I don't want to smear my monitor with fingerprints. Poking around in midair with your fingers looks cool in movies, but in practice what we do now is more efficient, which makes it preferable. It's not logical to get rid of the more efficient way of doing things for the sake of something that looks cool.
You may disagree with the vision, but you can't disagree that there is a method behind the madness.
I don't disagree that there's a method. But that doesn't mean it's not madness. When your friend guns his engine and says, "Don't worry, I know what I'm doing -- we can make it across the canyon," it's time to get out of the car.
Yeah. That movie would have been better if it was about the length of a trailer inserted into the middle of another movie.
Uh, no. Please, for the love of God, stop assuming everyone has the same preconceptions as you. "Creativity" = ability to entertain other humans.
No, actually. Not in the slightest. So for the love of god, find a dictionary.
Why can't he release a detailed list of every edit he made (allowing someone else with a nonlinear editing suite, lots of time on his hands, and fewer qualms about BitTorrent to piece it together)? Surely he kept records, if he's studying to be an editor?
The developers are all using Visual Studio through Win2k8 Remote Desktop services on their Macbooks, and we're working towards having them develop completely in browser-based IDEs. We eventually plan on having only Windows on the server side (SQL server, CruiseControl CI autobuild environment).
Mind explaining why? Serious question... because it sounds like you're deliberately setting yourselves up to ensure that you have the worst of all possible worlds. Buying employees MacBooks so they can access Windows-only software through Remote Desktop, just by itself, sounds like madness. And yet if you really don't want to have a Windows-centric environment, one would think the servers would be the first thing to go off Windows. Is there anything in your whole environment that you haven't managed to kluge, hobble, or overspend on?
I believe the DOJ is arguing that between windowing, most favored retailer agreements with Apple, and enforcing a no-discounting sales model, all of which were organized in secret discussions between the 6 companies was a form of price fixing and hence illegal.
I wonder. It seems more likely that Apple met with individual companies than that it met behind closed doors with all of them at once. But then if Apple says. "Just so you know, Publisher X and Y have already agreed to these exact same terms"... does that count as collusion? (Is there a difference between actually meeting in person and a de facto meeting conducted with Apple as intermediary?)
Non-hobby home PCs are fading fast
Are you including laptops with that? Because I don't know anyone who doesn't have one or the other.
Or are you not including Macs as "PCs"? (Because if you're talking about the overall market for traditional computer form factors, I think they're the same thing.)
They conspired to charge more for their competing products. I do not understand the distinction you are trying to make--that the books are different is irrelevant. If Toyota and Honda meet secretly and agree to charge more for their cars, it's still illegal, even if a Camry is different than an Accord and there may be a difference between the two in price. They are agreeing to raise their prices so they can make more money while mitigating undercutting by their competitors.
A Camry and an Accord are still essentially similar goods. If Publisher A publishes a book of political essays by Al Franken and Publisher B publishes a science fiction novel by Kevin J. Anderson, are the two really competing? And if, on top of that, one book costs less than the other (even under the agency model), can you say there was collusion? What, did one company agree to accept less money for its book... as a favor? What kind of conspiracy would make that a good idea?
As far as I understand it, the agency model doesn't actually define prices. Publishers can still charge whatever they want, but they have to give the store a certain cut of the cover price. If different ebooks tend to have similar price tags, so what? That tends to be the case with print books, too.
They are allowed to "charge what they want" for ebooks.
What they aren't allowed to do by law is get together with competitors and all agree to the same prices.
Except that A.) not all ebooks cost the same; and B.) no two publishers sell the same ebooks.
On the surface, at least, it sounds like all they "conspired" to do is reject Amazon's pricing model for the one Apple suggested, which was more favorable to them.
I always felt the David Lynch version had the right look and feel, it was just too trimmed down. I'd have loved to see a 4 hour version of it.
There is a three-hour version floating around that was aired on various TV networks. I think some versions of the DVD have it as an extra. I wouldn't bother looking for it, though. It's terrible. Nearly unwatchable. A lot of the scenes/shots that have been spliced back into it are redundant or pointless, and they haven't even had the FX put in (e.g. the Fremen don't have blue eyes in those shots because nobody bothered to do the effect). David Lynch had his name removed from that version, so it's an "Alan Smithee" film.
I enjoyed the tone of the film, too, but I don't think it's a very good interpretation of Dune. I'll often meet people who have only seen the movie and I'll tell them, "In the book, Paul Atreides isn't the messiah. In fact, the whole 'religion' is a lie." They just kinda go, "Buh?"
a pencil and paper draughtsman?
OT perhaps, but I know an architect who still does all his drawings with pencil and paper. He had to train on computerized systems to pass his exams, but then it was right back to pencil and paper. He just prefers it that way.
You see data loss is not insurable, and if we can not trust ourselves to not fuck up, we sure
as hell cannot trust a 3rd party who doesnt care about the saftey of our data at all.
Data loss may not be insurable, but surely cloud providers offer some indemnification, or who would use them?
Meanwhile, if you "can't trust yourselves not to fuck up" and you can't trust the cloud provider either, then it's a wash. You go with whichever one is cheaper. (And in the long run, that ain't gonna be paying your salary, healthcare, and other benefits.)
What's more, I think you can trust a nationwide company that spends 100 percent of its capital investments on hosting infrastructure a lot more than you can trust your rinky-dink outfit. I think your assessment of your job stability is overconfident.
With the rise of stuff like Puppet, Chef, etc., I cannot for the life of me imagine where these jobs are meant to come from.
However what the people who were trying to tell me about this magnificent future I should expect to find while i was growing up is that you can never underestimate the OTHER guys GREED!
You grew up in Miami in the early 80s?
I'm not sure if this is the point you were trying to make, but in my lifetime, there were jobs pumping gas. They went away, and now we all just have to pump our own gas.
I once asked the PHP developers at ZendCon about why they don't gradually clean up the standard library, and the impression that I got was that backwards compatibility is a top priority for PHP and Zend.
That's probably sensible, considering how many people use PHP environments that they don't actually control (on shared hosting providers, for example). Just because there's a new version of PHP doesn't mean everybody who uses WordPress (for example) will be able to take advantage of it. Also, some of the things that need cleaning up in the standard library (inconsistent parameter ordering, for example) could potentially break code in weird ways that won't actually crash. But all that just means the problem is bigger than it sounds; it doesn't mean the current situation is good.
What synchronicity! Just the other day I was thinking about the beautiful and elegant poetry that is PHP's syntax and standard library, and I was saying to myself, "You know... if there's one thing PHP needs, it's multiple inheritance."