I installed it on a machine that was running 7 perfectly and it took me two days of casual use to overcome the "who moved my cheese?" feeling. The eBay app was probably the first that showed me why even on a normal sized 15" laptop the de-cluttered interface works well. Now I'm just hoping that more and more applications are re-done for the modern UI.
Offer the ability to create / edit documents via a free MS Office suite on the iDevice.
Offer a subscription service to be able to save/open those files off the device.
Then someone would find a little app that works around this limitation of where the files can be saved and MS would have given away a product that is really important for their overall sales. Giving discounts and freebies is really difficult to undo.
They are a pernicious monopoly that is now beginning to realize that they are threatened. They are starting to act like a cornered animal, trying to pull out many of their old monopolistic tricks out of their war chest.
Interesting this. If we consider personal computing to be revolve around of beige tower-shaped boxes and grey laptops, then yes, MS has something installed on 90%+ of devices. If however we consider personal computing to be made up of x% "PCs" and a growing share of mobile phones and tablets where MS is a challenger, then how can we see these new formats MS wants to push as an attempt to leverage a monopoly on the desktop rather than an attempt to improve their products in a changing personal computing market?
There's a shop I walk past everyday where I could go and print something in 3D , a phone case would be perfectly harmless thing and cheap enough to just to try it out. At some point I imagine there will be more printers, both at home and in shops.
I don't get it. If the serial numbers unlock the applications what is the relevance of the activation servers being off? When someone downloads this stuff and uses those SN do they get a fully working copy of an obsolete version of Adobe software or not?
It's a Microsoft device. It was designed to run Win RT. This is quite clearly marked on the box and the device itself.
Careful there. My laptop had a Windows 7 sticker and its manufacturer recommends Microsoft Windows. That old slashdot saying "yeah, but does it run Linux?" surely must have started when a lot of devices were not expected to run Linux. Why is it that a change from x86 to ARM change the game from general purpose computing to "I'm the hardware manufacturer and I have the power to decide what software runs on the stuff I build"?
Hi. Even if you don't understand their reasons, the fact is a LOT of people are buying mobile devices. More than the number of PCs in the USA in 2012. These guys even expect that the current trend will lead to the number of PCs being much smaller than the number of mobile devices. One of the slides I linked to there even says that these new consumers add up to a $10Bn market, growing at 100% per year. So yes, you'll prefer your more conventional PC to work, which is fine, but if companies overlook the mobile/tablet user, they'll risk missing out on a lot of $$$. In these circumstances, do you really think that you will call yourself and PC users as "the real users" for a lot longer?
I don't see how tablets are any different from netbooks.
I see tablets as sufficiently different from PCs to be worthwhile for people who dislike and/or are not interested in having a PC. Netbooks were an attempt to have the usual applications available in a small and cheap machine with the usual x86 standards components.
Since tablets and smartphones are seen as sufficiently separate and different from PCs, different sales strategies and products were tried and have been very successful. By uncovering a brand new market space, made up of people who accept subscription pricing and pay as you go for "apps" and related services, many companies are selling stuff that just was not practical to sell to PC users.
If the country already has nuclear weapons in its possession why do we need to bother with such concerns?
I think the worst case scenario people worry about is that a rogue state or group with loads of nuclear weapons might decide to use the threat of deploying the WMD to blackmail other countries. A weird but scary scenario could be North Korea causing huge environmental damage in the region at the expense of countless civilian deaths in their own territory if they are not given money or whatever their dictator asks for.
The other scary scenario would be some ultra-religious leader being pushed into a situation where they cannot win their regional conflict so he orders nukes to be used over their own territory in a way that damages electronics and/or the atmosphere for a much broader area. They'd still go to heaven and take many enemies with them in the process.
Really? Because most places here have options on the source of the tomatos, or bread.
I live in London and I am concerned about what happens to food quality when large supermarkets use certain food products as "loss leaders" until there are no alternatives in the region other than gourmet/specialty items that I really can't afford.
I don't know if your view on this matter is that common or if it is specific to your context (many readers here are from the USA, right?). In my view, having assisted a friend during an employment dispute, I can see a lot of value in having specialists representing and helping you as an employee. Surely you've noticed that the employers always have representation provided by legal firms specialised in employment affairs!
I'm in the UK I was even told that the proportion of cases settled before escalating is significantly higher from the moment that the employee says they'll call their union representative to attend the disciplinary hearing.
What the guy said was "Android Desktop" and if taken literally, I think he's got a point. The smartphone and tablet boom has shown (to me at least) that a) people are actually OK with using new UIs; b) people dislike the complexity that comes with normal PCs and will accept some compromise.
If people are willing to use an ugly keyboard add-on with their iPad; if they are OK with web-based office applications; if they are OK with beta-quality apps and adverts on their screen... I think some would be fine with using an android-based desktop PC, be it standalone or embeeded on their 23" screen.
That's all reasonable that you don't want to use 100% MS products, but that's not their angle. They are not trying to improve the world of computing, they are not trying to please Stallman, they are not trying to make the best advertising platform ever and give you software in return... they are selling their own software+services+hardware.
Now the MS products will be more consistent across different devices they are trying to add value to all of them, giving you good reasons to adopt more of their stuff. Might work, might fail.
I once watched the whole 90 minutes of this video here where Dr Robert Lustig (MD) went a few steps beyond saying "sugar is bad". There were many things I did not know about the sugar and soda drink health implications and I considered that time well spent. The most important thing that actually changed my drinking habits was the explanation that Coke (and similar drinks) contain a lot of salt, which is then disguised by adding a sweetener. I believe this goes a long way into explaining why large servings of soda are more likely to sell than large servings of orange juice.
Rolling stock is owned by ROSCO companies, not by government. Essentially companies in the finance business. When Virgin trains found they lost this bid, Branson said that the staff would be transferred to First Group. Essentially there's a bunch of companies where a state monopoly used to operate. More overheads or less? I wasn't here to be able to compare - I just take the train and pay through the nose if I don't plan the booking carefully.
I'm OK with Wikis as manuals. I trust that reputable organisations will have some sort of instructions that are current when I buy the product but I do appreciate having updates to it I can refer to as and when I need them.
Silly example from the consumer electronics world: Last week I bought a Behringer iAxe USB guitar which according to the paper manuals had drivers for Windows XP and OS X. The consumer reviews from a few years ago were good, the recent were bad because people would not get the thing to work with Windows Vista and 7. I bought it as "clearance" with about 60% off the price of a few years ago.
After a few hours of trial and error, I got it right and have the guitar working with Windows 7 64 bits. I have added my step-by-step explanation to the reviews in the retailer's website but feel that it will be difficult that other people out there will find it. The site shows there's still 20 in stock, despite the sizeable discount and that the guitar will work plugged in to a normal amp. If my instructions were copied over to some official wiki, perhaps the last 20 would move for a normal non-clearance price and the previous buyers would feel less annoyed with Behringer.
I've been using Windows since 3.0, so they all look more or less familiar to me. I see this "metro controversy" as a non-issue at a time when so many people own smartphones/tablets and add apps with random UIs on them. so why should familiarity be more important than usability if all websites look different and all apps have their "skin"?
Slashdot Mirror
yeah, yeah. +5 funny. Easy joke on Windows 8.
I installed it on a machine that was running 7 perfectly and it took me two days of casual use to overcome the "who moved my cheese?" feeling. The eBay app was probably the first that showed me why even on a normal sized 15" laptop the de-cluttered interface works well. Now I'm just hoping that more and more applications are re-done for the modern UI.
Offer the ability to create / edit documents via a free MS Office suite on the iDevice.
Offer a subscription service to be able to save/open those files off the device.
Then someone would find a little app that works around this limitation of where the files can be saved and MS would have given away a product that is really important for their overall sales. Giving discounts and freebies is really difficult to undo.
They are a pernicious monopoly that is now beginning to realize that they are threatened. They are starting to act like a cornered animal, trying to pull out many of their old monopolistic tricks out of their war chest.
Interesting this. If we consider personal computing to be revolve around of beige tower-shaped boxes and grey laptops, then yes, MS has something installed on 90%+ of devices.
If however we consider personal computing to be made up of x% "PCs" and a growing share of mobile phones and tablets where MS is a challenger, then how can we see these new formats MS wants to push as an attempt to leverage a monopoly on the desktop rather than an attempt to improve their products in a changing personal computing market?
There's a shop I walk past everyday where I could go and print something in 3D , a phone case would be perfectly harmless thing and cheap enough to just to try it out. At some point I imagine there will be more printers, both at home and in shops.
I'd wager that OP is more interested in using 5 free accounts supplying 10GB each than to pay a monthly rent for 50GB.
I don't get it. If the serial numbers unlock the applications what is the relevance of the activation servers being off? When someone downloads this stuff and uses those SN do they get a fully working copy of an obsolete version of Adobe software or not?
Stop. Just stop.
It's a Microsoft device. It was designed to run Win RT. This is quite clearly marked on the box and the device itself.
Careful there. My laptop had a Windows 7 sticker and its manufacturer recommends Microsoft Windows. That old slashdot saying "yeah, but does it run Linux?" surely must have started when a lot of devices were not expected to run Linux. Why is it that a change from x86 to ARM change the game from general purpose computing to "I'm the hardware manufacturer and I have the power to decide what software runs on the stuff I build"?
Hi. Even if you don't understand their reasons, the fact is a LOT of people are buying mobile devices. More than the number of PCs in the USA in 2012. These guys even expect that the current trend will lead to the number of PCs being much smaller than the number of mobile devices. One of the slides I linked to there even says that these new consumers add up to a $10Bn market, growing at 100% per year. So yes, you'll prefer your more conventional PC to work, which is fine, but if companies overlook the mobile/tablet user, they'll risk missing out on a lot of $$$. In these circumstances, do you really think that you will call yourself and PC users as "the real users" for a lot longer?
I don't see how tablets are any different from netbooks.
I see tablets as sufficiently different from PCs to be worthwhile for people who dislike and/or are not interested in having a PC. Netbooks were an attempt to have the usual applications available in a small and cheap machine with the usual x86 standards components.
Since tablets and smartphones are seen as sufficiently separate and different from PCs, different sales strategies and products were tried and have been very successful. By uncovering a brand new market space, made up of people who accept subscription pricing and pay as you go for "apps" and related services, many companies are selling stuff that just was not practical to sell to PC users.
If the country already has nuclear weapons in its possession why do we need to bother with such concerns?
I think the worst case scenario people worry about is that a rogue state or group with loads of nuclear weapons might decide to use the threat of deploying the WMD to blackmail other countries. A weird but scary scenario could be North Korea causing huge environmental damage in the region at the expense of countless civilian deaths in their own territory if they are not given money or whatever their dictator asks for.
The other scary scenario would be some ultra-religious leader being pushed into a situation where they cannot win their regional conflict so he orders nukes to be used over their own territory in a way that damages electronics and/or the atmosphere for a much broader area. They'd still go to heaven and take many enemies with them in the process.
Really? Because most places here have options on the source of the tomatos, or bread.
I live in London and I am concerned about what happens to food quality when large supermarkets use certain food products as "loss leaders" until there are no alternatives in the region other than gourmet/specialty items that I really can't afford.
What is it without the Office package?
I don't know... is it possible to delete it for those who really want to maximise the free storage on their Surface tablet?
I don't know if your view on this matter is that common or if it is specific to your context (many readers here are from the USA, right?). In my view, having assisted a friend during an employment dispute, I can see a lot of value in having specialists representing and helping you as an employee. Surely you've noticed that the employers always have representation provided by legal firms specialised in employment affairs!
I'm in the UK I was even told that the proportion of cases settled before escalating is significantly higher from the moment that the employee says they'll call their union representative to attend the disciplinary hearing.
and it actually runs Linux.
What the guy said was "Android Desktop" and if taken literally, I think he's got a point. The smartphone and tablet boom has shown (to me at least) that a) people are actually OK with using new UIs; b) people dislike the complexity that comes with normal PCs and will accept some compromise.
If people are willing to use an ugly keyboard add-on with their iPad; if they are OK with web-based office applications; if they are OK with beta-quality apps and adverts on their screen... I think some would be fine with using an android-based desktop PC, be it standalone or embeeded on their 23" screen.
After "developers, developers" and the chair incident, Ballmer wants another quote for the hall of fame :)
That's all reasonable that you don't want to use 100% MS products, but that's not their angle. They are not trying to improve the world of computing, they are not trying to please Stallman, they are not trying to make the best advertising platform ever and give you software in return... they are selling their own software+services+hardware.
Now the MS products will be more consistent across different devices they are trying to add value to all of them, giving you good reasons to adopt more of their stuff. Might work, might fail.
I once watched the whole 90 minutes of this video here where Dr Robert Lustig (MD) went a few steps beyond saying "sugar is bad". There were many things I did not know about the sugar and soda drink health implications and I considered that time well spent. The most important thing that actually changed my drinking habits was the explanation that Coke (and similar drinks) contain a lot of salt, which is then disguised by adding a sweetener.
I believe this goes a long way into explaining why large servings of soda are more likely to sell than large servings of orange juice.
Rolling stock is owned by ROSCO companies, not by government. Essentially companies in the finance business.
When Virgin trains found they lost this bid, Branson said that the staff would be transferred to First Group. Essentially there's a bunch of companies where a state monopoly used to operate. More overheads or less? I wasn't here to be able to compare - I just take the train and pay through the nose if I don't plan the booking carefully.
I thought that MS mouse and keyboards were re-badged Logitech products? If it is still the case, then it's quite different from Zune and Xbox?
It is a phenomenon very similar to road rage if we think about it.
I'm OK with Wikis as manuals. I trust that reputable organisations will have some sort of instructions that are current when I buy the product but I do appreciate having updates to it I can refer to as and when I need them.
Silly example from the consumer electronics world: Last week I bought a Behringer iAxe USB guitar which according to the paper manuals had drivers for Windows XP and OS X. The consumer reviews from a few years ago were good, the recent were bad because people would not get the thing to work with Windows Vista and 7. I bought it as "clearance" with about 60% off the price of a few years ago.
After a few hours of trial and error, I got it right and have the guitar working with Windows 7 64 bits. I have added my step-by-step explanation to the reviews in the retailer's website but feel that it will be difficult that other people out there will find it. The site shows there's still 20 in stock, despite the sizeable discount and that the guitar will work plugged in to a normal amp. If my instructions were copied over to some official wiki, perhaps the last 20 would move for a normal non-clearance price and the previous buyers would feel less annoyed with Behringer.
imagine how many gay people they have on that solar system to cause such wrath...
I've been using Windows since 3.0, so they all look more or less familiar to me. I see this "metro controversy" as a non-issue at a time when so many people own smartphones/tablets and add apps with random UIs on them. so why should familiarity be more important than usability if all websites look different and all apps have their "skin"?
astrology is so awesome.