I pin frequently used applications - to the start menu.
So, you need a little launcher gadget then that lets you put apps on it. Many exist. Pick one and Install it.
Take a look at "Jumplist Launcher" for something dedicated to just creating a single icon on your task bar that you click and will display an organized list of application (and other) shortcuts. (Pretty much exactly what you want.)
Also take a look at the open source launchy for an example of something that not only can replace your startmenu, but can do a lot of things the start menu couldn't.
Why would I want to pin them to the taskbar and have a cluttered mess of icons down there before I even start doing anything?
Why on earth would I want to open the start menu to launch my email client, or skype, or firefox? 99% of the time its running anyway, and if its not, being able to launch it from the taskbar, which is the same place I go to activate it when its in the background just makes sense.
That's ugly
I'd say that's OCD, but I'm not judging;)
You are saying I'm "not supposed to" do things this way, but why is your way "right" and my way "wrong"?
Microsoft is de-emphasising the use of the start menu (now start screen) for launching desktop applications. If you read up on the subject their usage metrics indicated that people were trending away from using the start menu in favor of taskbar pinned apps anyway. So when they changed it to a start screen, part of the rationale was that it was expected to just hasten the transition away from using the start menu as the primary app launcher that was already happening naturally.
It's just personal preference.
That is ultimately true, but you need to understand that you wish to use it in a way that it isn't being designed to support.
The fact that it now sucks as the primary way to launch desktop applications is entirely missing the point.
Its like complaining that your new TV isn't deep enough to put your VCR on top of. Your old console TV in a wooden cabinet was, and for years that's where pretty much everyone who had wooden console TVs put their VCRs, but the new ones aren't designed to have stuff put on top of them.
Its not the end of the world, but you do sound a bit foolish if you complain about the difficulty balancing a VCR on top of a new TV. Nowadays if you really want a VCR, and you really want it above your TV, you buy a shelf.
At least prior to Win8, we could both do things the way we wanted to. Choice is good.
And I agree with you here entirely, and my post goes full circle... there are plenty of options available to achieve precisely what you want, from minimalist launchers to apps that faithfully replicate the windows 7 startmenu to applications that exceed what the old start menu could do in ways you maybe haven't even thought about...
there's no obvious way to discover how to open the Start menu with the mouse.
This is true and a legitimate gripe. But you've given it far too much weight. You only need to be shown once, and then you know, and the "problem" rapidly fades into distant memory.
Operating a modern track pad with 2 finger touch to right click, tap-hold for drag, and so on presents the same "problems" as the new start menu. The old track pads had two physical buttons it was obvious how to left and right click -- the new ones don't have any buttons at all. A couple seconds of someone showing you what is required, and then you are pretty much set... its just not that big a deal.
And you lose context: opening the Start menu completely covers up the application you're using,
This is also true, but misses the point. You are supposed to pin frequently used applications, use jump lists, etc. The start menu screen is sort of the last resort to find something. If you are perpetually jumping into it for everything then you are "using it wrong". The solution is to wean yourself off using the start menu so much. You aren't supposed to use it constantly from desktop mode.
That said, I think the pinned apps and jump lists are great, but they aren't quite powerful enough. And we could use just a bit more power maybe along the lines of OSX spotlight. A variety of desktop enhancing 'gadgets' are available via 3rd parties, but I do hope microsoft delivers something native to augment pinned apps and jump lists. Its close to perfect, but its not quite there yet for us power users.
But us power users are used to having to take a few extra steps to customize our desktops to work better for us; so this is hardly a big deal.
Windows 7 calculator sucks, the taskmanager is poor, notepad is useless, and I had to install something to mount ISO images along with give me better tools for the first two items.
So this round the taskmanager is pretty good, ISOs can be mounted out of the box. The calculator and notepad still suck though and still needed 3rd party 'upgrades'. Plus I had to learn a couple new hotkeys and install a gadget to provide some of the functionality of the start menu so I didn't have to use the start screen as much.
Hardly a big deal. Hardly worth the sort of nonsense I read about win 8 here on slashdot.
So to sum up... I don't use the modern UI at all on my desktop, but its not bad at all on my HTPC. I haven't tried it on a tablet yet, but its pretty good on a smartphone. The desktop mode needs a couple tweaks to be power user friendly but every version of windows has needed some tweaks. Win 8 desktop mode is pretty much the same as windows 7; its just not a big deal.
Sure, and trying to fill a 1 gallon bucket with 2 gallons of water doesn't work. But that's not a reason to under-fill the bucket. The bucket still holds one gallon.
If you've got 20 people trying to use the bucket then encouraging the first person not to fill it to the brim makes pretty good sense.
The net effect of data caps is equivalent to slowing down too. 1TB takes longer to transfer.
If you need to transfer 1TB at maximum throughput, then perhaps you shouldn't be using an inexpensive consumer broadband service with relatively limited resources, lots of users, and caps.
Yes, yes it would. If transportation were cost free, there would be no reason not to saturate the transportation network.
I would still avoid rush hour even if it were completely free to operate my car.
Wow. The fact that the USA is rubbing elbows with the likes of Nicaragua and Zimbabwe should be ALARMING.
Instead you seem to be taking some sort of smug satisfaction in pointing out the fact that Honduras and El Salvador are even worse.
All you've proven with your citation is that the USA really does have disproportionate gun violence. It's a first world developed country with gun violence numbers that lump it in with countries ravaged by shooting wars between drug cartels run by despotic warlords.
But hey, since el salvador is worse, I guess your right, the the USA isn't the worst in the world after all.
You drop the least important packet when your buffer fills up.
Least important is difficult to identify as we gradually move towards https for everything from online banking to torrents.
In any case the point remains that the network has a saturation point, and that if you remove all caps and throttles it only takes a fraction of your customer pool to saturate the network if they have no reason not to.
The road network takes up physical space where you cannot have another road network.
Right of way for laying fiber may not be quite as difficult as expanding road networks, but its not exactly trivial either.
And the important point for the analogy is that you have a relatively inflexible total capacity. Sure you can gradually build any network out more, but at any given time its essentially fixed.
Nearly-saturated networks are optimal.
I can agree with that.
Arguably, networks should offer incentives to use the off-peak time.
I agree with that too, and expect that we will eventually get there. Its how electricity works in most places. Its how water works in some place - with watering schedules and sprinkler bans during peak periods etc. Its even how road traffic works - if you CAN avoid rush hour you do. And things like HOV lanes, and tollways with different evening and weekend rates, etc all serve to literally "shape" traffic as well.
Give the industry time to mature. In a sense it is still largely transitioning from when they were metered by how long they were connected to the internet in minutes (e.g. ISDN / Dialup). Half the nonsense about "unlimited internet" still hearkens to the idea with modern connections you are always connected -- there is no limit to how long you connect. (Of course some folks want to interpret unlimited as an entitlement to receive the maximum throughput x 24x7... but really the unlimited was initially market-speak for simply "always-connected".
Now that we're getting used to always on, the new limited resource isn't time on a dedicated POTS circuit (which is very easy to understand) but the much more abstract and difficult to understand bandwidth usage and even that is over simplified because it matters a great deal on the whether you are hitting locally cached content or saturating a peer link... most people barely understand it at all. And marketing has done a poor job of explaining it.
Long term I won't be surprised if data is metered much like electricity. You'll pay fractions of a cent per GB depending on the time of day and how much you used this month... maybe you'll pay-as-you-go or maybe you'll prepay a fixed amount for a certain amount with payg on top and like mobile there will likely be features that include bandwidth to cached content or whatever... the equivalent of in-network calling on mobile.
If Bandwidth is like water pipes, what would the physical wires/cables be like?
Bandwidth is a capacity function of the underlying infrastructure. It is not the data itself. In other words it is not a measurement of "water" it is the measurement of what the "water pipes" will carry.
Or rather, it doesn't go through with an equal probability that other packets won't go through. We all get our fair share of the network, regardless of oversubscription.
Semantics. If the network is full, trying to cram more packets into it doesn't work. It doesn't really matter for the argument ~which~ packets don't get through.
Only a complete idiot would compare IP networks to the roads. Packets don't slow down when there's not enough room. The cost of fuel per packet is negligible, not so with cars. It's not the same at all.
Individual packets don't "slow down" per se, they either get through or they don't. But any sort of aggregate "communication" slows down, and overall impact of a saturated network is the same. The net effect of dropping packets is the equivalent to slowing down. 1MB takes longer to transfer.
Further the "network operator" (e.g. city or state) of the traffic network doesn't pay for your gas either so the fuel cost "per packet" isn't really part of the discussion. And if we were to lower the cost of fuel to "negligible" what difference would it make? Would it somehow support an argument to saturate the highway system? No. Its not relevant. Feel free to assume your car is free to drive for the sake of the argument it doesn't change anything with respect to the analogy.
Bandwidth is not like water, it is like water pipes.
. The cheapest per bit cost is when the network is maximally utilized.
Q: And what exactly happens if it is maximally utilized and you want to send 1 more packet?
A: It doesn't go through.
Incentives that encourage people to use less bandwith are economically unsound.
Nonsense. Another equivalent for bandwidth is the road network. Sure, perpetual gridlock maximizes the 'cars per unit of pavement' metric, and in some twisted logic divides the cost of the pavement between the most vehicles... hurrah!... but only a complete idiot would argue that encouraging people to drive less is economically unsound because it means the roads aren't getting "maximally utilized".
Look I'm with you in principle, but that war is lost. It hasn't been a "web page" for 2 decades. Its 2012. Its a web application, with htlm5, animation, javascript, and asynchronous events, and yes pixel perfect rendering.
Web design is not the same as designing a poster. But it is done by the same set of asshat clowns who, having come from a "design background" that is still wedded to the idea that the "artist" paints the forms and the "plebian" goes gooey over it.
A web page as you define it will never sell anything. As long as there are going to be businesses trying to reach customers: "pretty sells". Deal with it.
THAT is why you do not get to demand "pixel perfect positioning". Because you're giving out information in one form for all these varying needs.
But we do demand it, and it generally works.
Not only that, the text may have to be larger for the hard-of-seeing (large print books). When you do a large print book you use a different typesetter. The words will NOT appear precisely where you wanted and the images will NOT appear right where you think the will and the text reflow will NOT be the same.
So the "hard-of-seeing" will mangle the layout a bit and miss out on the full intended visual aesthetics... how ironic.
What's really hard is that you're thick as pigshit on this: you're using print memes on a non-print medium where you have NO CONTROL over how it is presented eventually.
Except, again, more often than not it does in fact work just fine, and the results are quite striking.
STOP fucking playing artist because it makes you feel creative.
I mostly do implementation and backend, but hey, go nuts. Your clearly having a great rant.
ESPECIALLY if you're going to whine about how hard it is making things "pixel perfect" on a bloody WEB PAGE.
Ah, but its not especially hard after all, and if anything its gotten easier over the last few years as browsers have gotten better at the standards. It does however require defining a number of things in terms of pixel sizes.
What's hard is getting pixel perfect design without using references to pixels, which causes some issues if the display dpi jumps immensely and you want the content to stay the same "size"... which is somewhat counter intuitive anyway because 50% of the people who want high dpi screens want everything smaller so they can have more stuff on their screens at one time... while the other 50% want everything to be the same relative size but use the extra pixels to make things extra "crisp and clear".
There's no winning move's here, their aren't even agreed upon victory conditions.
it's another filter that you can opt in or out of.
I thought the controversy here was that you couldn't opt out of it. It used to be you could turn safesearch off and that did it. it sounds like that isn't enough now, and that even with safesearch off results are still being filtered.
It's really disappointing that so many applications (web pages most emphatically included in this list) decide that things should be sized in terms of pixels.
Anything using images as a major component of a web design pretty much needs pixel dimensions for things to line up properly and/or to avoid ugly scaling issues.
There is no elegant way around it.
IMHO, if you MUST use a bitmap for something, use one that's way obnoxiously large for any display you might anticipate using, then scale it to the right device-independent size in device dependent coordinates using a high-quality scaling algorithm before you display it.
Firstly scaling things that are "icon" sized doesn't work. Algorithms can't do it well. Try it, take a few obnoxiously high resolution logos and scale it to the size needed for your browser address bar "favicon". (16x16 and 32x32) and odds are it looks like a mess.
Usually they need to be hand-edited at the pixel level for each targeted resolution. Icon files actually hold multiple versions of the icon at different resolutions. (Although frequently developers omit many of the resolutions.)
Secondly, the idea of all the images being "obnoxiously large" and then scaled might be ok for a locally installed program, but its completely unacceptable on the web to download megabytes of images to scale down to icon sized button even if it would work.
Or better yet, use a vector drawing for your icon.
These don't usually scale down to 16x16 or 32x32 pixels any better. They scale up better (smoother), though, which is a start, although its still better to just use a higher resolution more detailed version for the higher resolutions.
b) When a company sells digital software themselves, they don't get to keep 100% of the sale price. They have to pay for hosting, bandwidth, marketing, sales processing, manhours involved in all of this, etc., etc., etc. Those numbers start to add up very quickly and anyone who's been even vaguely involved in producing and selling a product knows that they can quickly add up to near or above 30%...
Uh-huh.
But if I run an art auction house, and release an app that lets users bid on art, why should apple get 30% of every million dollar Picasso I sell?
Apple hosts the app, they don't do squat with the artwork.
Why should they get a 30% cut of THAT?
Sure you could counter and say, that apple is taking on some expense by hosting my app. (Which they give me no choice on.) And you can say that there is value to that (and I would agree.) But I'd be happy to pay them something reasonable for the service they are actually providing.
But 30% of the art sales revenue is absurd given their role.
That would be insane. VLC is ported to pretty much every platform there is -- anyone who would think VLC is going metro-only needs to stop posting while high.
"How do I avoid these full-screen programs" is the first question I get when I'm helping someone with a new Windows 8 laptop.
And how do I get this video to play full screen without all the controls and bars and menus is the first question I get when I'm helping someone playback movies with VLC.
Personally I'd love a VLC app for windows 8, which I'm using on my HTPC right now, where the large pastel tiles etc are a good user interface.
I find it odd that the pro-linux crowd here is all about user choice... a thousand distros with mix and match desktops so everyone can have exactly what they want... but god forbid VLC release a windows 8 app that they don't even have to use.
its the sort of place where you take carrying water and emergency gear, keeping your car maintained, carrying reputable maps and planning your journey carefully rather seriously.
Is the US "the sort of place where you take carrying water and emergency gear, maps, and planning your journey seriously?"
No, not usually, not unless you are actually planning on heading off the grid. As long as you are heading somewhere reasonably populated and keeping to the main roads you'll be perfectly fine, and you won't pack a tent, rations, nails, tools, blankets, snares, and a crossbow...
Of course, if your gps/navigation system takes you off the main roads and into the wilderness you can get into scary wilderness mode fast... even in relatively civilized places.
Must say I haven't tried them, but you appear to be in the industry - have you?
The instruments I'm involved with are driven by windows PCs. Both at the practice/patient facing end with the software to capture the corneal data from the imaging devices, and at the backend on the contact lens/intraocular lens lathes that actually manufacture the lenses, and in the middle tier the specialized optical CAD/CAM software where the lenses are actually designed. There's just no getting around that.
The fact that there may be a suitable linux EHR solution to handle patient scheduling, invoicing, and office management is just one small piece of the puzzle, in just one place.
That said, a number of those packages are cross platform, and run on windows, and could potentially be integrated with the other pieces, or just run alongside. But that's hardly "running a practice on linux".
I don't know offhand whether there are any FLOSS EHR systems interacting directly with the systems I deal with. I don't work with those directly; its all through their vendors or if it were FLOSS it would be through the company offering support for it -- from my end the license on the actual software wouldn't matter. I do know that I've run into EHR solutions hosted on MySQL and FirebirdSQL as their back-ends... so maybe.:)
It would be perfectly fine to review exams in a browser.
Not all exams are simple "pictures". Medical imaging is a lot more than just pictures. A topography is a polar map with elevation, axial, and tangential curvature data for each point, for example. Another instrument takes 3d video of the inside of your eye looking in through your pupil. These are not something you can play back with VLC or generic picture-viewer.
That exam data often needs the vender supplied software to (interactively) visualize. They could potentially one day deliver that via the cloud, and that's the direction everyone is moving these days. But right now, today, you provide a windows PC, and they provide windows software. And because it renders 3D via directx and opengl it doesn't even run well over RDC.
If you want to review an exam, you want the software running locally on your PC running windows. If you want to use that instrument. That is it. Period.
You just need to see Google Maps in action to realize it is perfectly doable to view high resolution images in a browser.
Yes, theoretically, such a thing can be imagined. If the software were written for it.
The actual imaging hardware needs more performance to process the images in real-time but this could be done in a Linux workstation.
Yes, theoretically, if the software were written for it.
The software has not been.
If it is good enough for Hollywood studios doing 3D production for large screen displays it would certainly be enough for them as well.
What?
AthenaHealth's solution is just a small piece of the puzzle. A general practitioner / family doctor -- you have more flexibility, and it tends to work ok because they don't have any onsite speciaized hardware, etc. They are pretty low tech. Optometry tends to be higher tech, and they do often have medical imaging.
One tradeoff with the hosted model, is that you give up software integration. The practice management system may have the ability to link to the topography software so that if you are on patientX in the practice management, you can push a button and it will open that patient in the exam review software so that you can review the exams (or create that patient link if it doesn't already exist, and you are ready to create exams for that patient). That sort of functionality is much harder to do in a hosted solution in the browser, and nearly impossible to do in the latest trend which is app virtualization / virtual desktop infrastructure.
You tell me no solutions exist. But this doesn't mean no solutions can be done.
Sure, there are some people whose needs are 'just so' and the support infrastructure they need is there, and they can make one work. But deciding to go linux really limits your options, and if you run any specialized hardware you need what vender requires.
One final note I'll make -- clinics are everywhere. Literally. Everywhere. A lot of these guys don't have broadband, some of them don't have internet at the office. For a lot of them they have a yahoo or hotmail or gmail address they check from home, and that's the extend of their internet. And that's without even leaving the united states. Now head out to the rest of the world.
I was dealing with a non-profit that is putting a used instrument in a clinic in the Dominican Republic a couple weeks back...
The Practice Management system could be web based and run on an intranet.
What would be the point?
We've already established the software to review the exams taken from the imaging hardware needs windows, and if they run windows they can review the exams at any computer. A lot of that software is network friendly, multiuser, client server, etc.
If they run linux they can... uh... severely limit where they can review exams, and uh... severely limit their options for practice management to web hosted solutions and intranet based systems?
Not to mention that the performance would suck... since a lot of this hardware imaging stuff lets you export high res stills and video for storage in the patient management syste. When you hear phrases like 3d corneal topography, and high resolution retinal camera video does that scream "lets make it web based" just so they can dodge running the OEM windows that came with the pc anyway? W-T-F.
Anyone going that route is being guided by OS evangelism, not rational selection of the OS that makes the most sense for the environment.
Just because you CAN contort and squeeze (even partially) into linux doesn't necessarily mean it makes any business sense.
Use linux where it makes sense. Use windows where it makes sense. But at least acknowledge that linux doesn't make one bit of sense in a lot of situations, even if you technically could "make it work".
"One of the newer technologies youâ(TM)ll find in your doctorâ(TM)s office is the optomap® Retinal Exam."
And keep scrolling down to the big section on "Innovation in the Eye Doctor's office" where they feature the Optomap retinal exam. Which is very clearly attached to a PC with the windows logo sticker.
And if you think it just came that way and they put linux on it, think again... here's the software it uses:
they didn't let Linux prevent them from running an optometry and eye glass operation.
Of course they didn't, because they used windows where they had to, which is apparently in every single location.
I'm not saying they don't use linux extensively, but its pretty clear they didn't stop using windows. Remember, i was responding to a post that said "Windows isn't required for anything but games". I call that statement pretty thoroughly debunked.
For your car example, the hood can fly up into your field of view when you take it out on the highway and you could crash into anything.
Lots of people have DIY add-ons and modifications to their cars.
I don't deny the possibility for catastrophic tragic failure modes exist for all of them...
That spoiler the kid bolted onto his honda civic in front of you on the highway could be loose and fly through your windshield and embed itself in your face...
I build systems to meet requirements and demands, not the other way around. Most businesses operate the same way.
And knowing what exists, and how what exists can improve your business drives those requirements and demands.
I migrated a business from a vanilla imap/smtp provider to google apps for enterprises because soley because it met my needs better in terms of managing things; and I was able to justify the cost increase with another system I was winding down, allowing me to realize a net reduction in their overall IT expenses despite the increased cost for mail.
1 year later, after being able to do things they never thought was possible like contacts and calendar sync with mobile, calendar sharing, the rich webmail client, the large mailboxes...
They can't imagine going back.
Meanwhile, me, I've butted my head with several of the limitations of google's enterprise mailbox management -- all things that exchange does effortlessly. Even so, I'm very happy with google for that environment -- the cost for hosted exchange wasn't worth it. And bringing exchange inhouse made even less sense.
In gun safety they show you what even an obstructed barrel can result in when firing a gun.
Yes, but I'm having a harder time imagining what a defect in the lower receiver would cause that would be equivalent to firing a bullet into an obstructed barrel.
That's the car equivalent of 3D printing a new hood and then saying man that's crazy risky -- just look at the damage that can happen when the brakes fail.
Your imaging instruments run on windows; the software to analyze corneal topography: windows only. The software to run the automated perimeter also windows only.
Now pick a Practice Management system; to manage your patients, scheduling, track patient records, and ideally it needs to support DICOM so it can receive data from the above instrumentation, and of course it should conform to HIPAA.
Finally, its also a small business, so you need some accounting, payroll.
Yeah, lets install linux. Only gamers requires windows.
I don't know what you do at work, but there are countless different types of business that require specialized software and tools and choosing linux is simply not possible.
Of all my clients, not one could simply switch to linux. They ALL run some software or other that is windows only. In most cases a subset of the environment could be converted to linux, but running a mixed environment isn't all that desireable.
Slashdot Mirror
Warfighter:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/6492-Medal-of-Honor-Warfighter-Doom-3-BFG-Edition
I pin frequently used applications - to the start menu.
So, you need a little launcher gadget then that lets you put apps on it. Many exist. Pick one and Install it.
Take a look at "Jumplist Launcher" for something dedicated to just creating a single icon on your task bar that you click and will display an organized list of application (and other) shortcuts. (Pretty much exactly what you want.)
Also take a look at the open source launchy for an example of something that not only can replace your startmenu, but can do a lot of things the start menu couldn't.
Why would I want to pin them to the taskbar and have a cluttered mess of icons down there before I even start doing anything?
Why on earth would I want to open the start menu to launch my email client, or skype, or firefox? 99% of the time its running anyway, and if its not, being able to launch it from the taskbar, which is the same place I go to activate it when its in the background just makes sense.
That's ugly
I'd say that's OCD, but I'm not judging ;)
You are saying I'm "not supposed to" do things this way, but why is your way "right" and my way "wrong"?
Microsoft is de-emphasising the use of the start menu (now start screen) for launching desktop applications. If you read up on the subject their usage metrics indicated that people were trending away from using the start menu in favor of taskbar pinned apps anyway. So when they changed it to a start screen, part of the rationale was that it was expected to just hasten the transition away from using the start menu as the primary app launcher that was already happening naturally.
It's just personal preference.
That is ultimately true, but you need to understand that you wish to use it in a way that it isn't being designed to support.
The fact that it now sucks as the primary way to launch desktop applications is entirely missing the point.
Its like complaining that your new TV isn't deep enough to put your VCR on top of. Your old console TV in a wooden cabinet was, and for years that's where pretty much everyone who had wooden console TVs put their VCRs, but the new ones aren't designed to have stuff put on top of them.
Its not the end of the world, but you do sound a bit foolish if you complain about the difficulty balancing a VCR on top of a new TV. Nowadays if you really want a VCR, and you really want it above your TV, you buy a shelf.
At least prior to Win8, we could both do things the way we wanted to. Choice is good.
And I agree with you here entirely, and my post goes full circle... there are plenty of options available to achieve precisely what you want, from minimalist launchers to apps that faithfully replicate the windows 7 startmenu to applications that exceed what the old start menu could do in ways you maybe haven't even thought about...
Its a brave new world.
there's no obvious way to discover how to open the Start menu with the mouse.
This is true and a legitimate gripe. But you've given it far too much weight. You only need to be shown once, and then you know, and the "problem" rapidly fades into distant memory.
Operating a modern track pad with 2 finger touch to right click, tap-hold for drag, and so on presents the same "problems" as the new start menu. The old track pads had two physical buttons it was obvious how to left and right click -- the new ones don't have any buttons at all. A couple seconds of someone showing you what is required, and then you are pretty much set... its just not that big a deal.
And you lose context: opening the Start menu completely covers up the application you're using,
This is also true, but misses the point. You are supposed to pin frequently used applications, use jump lists, etc. The start menu screen is sort of the last resort to find something. If you are perpetually jumping into it for everything then you are "using it wrong". The solution is to wean yourself off using the start menu so much. You aren't supposed to use it constantly from desktop mode.
That said, I think the pinned apps and jump lists are great, but they aren't quite powerful enough. And we could use just a bit more power maybe along the lines of OSX spotlight. A variety of desktop enhancing 'gadgets' are available via 3rd parties, but I do hope microsoft delivers something native to augment pinned apps and jump lists. Its close to perfect, but its not quite there yet for us power users.
But us power users are used to having to take a few extra steps to customize our desktops to work better for us; so this is hardly a big deal.
Windows 7 calculator sucks, the taskmanager is poor, notepad is useless, and I had to install something to mount ISO images along with give me better tools for the first two items.
So this round the taskmanager is pretty good, ISOs can be mounted out of the box. The calculator and notepad still suck though and still needed 3rd party 'upgrades'. Plus I had to learn a couple new hotkeys and install a gadget to provide some of the functionality of the start menu so I didn't have to use the start screen as much.
Hardly a big deal. Hardly worth the sort of nonsense I read about win 8 here on slashdot.
So to sum up... I don't use the modern UI at all on my desktop, but its not bad at all on my HTPC. I haven't tried it on a tablet yet, but its pretty good on a smartphone. The desktop mode needs a couple tweaks to be power user friendly but every version of windows has needed some tweaks. Win 8 desktop mode is pretty much the same as windows 7; its just not a big deal.
Sure, and trying to fill a 1 gallon bucket with 2 gallons of water doesn't work. But that's not a reason to under-fill the bucket. The bucket still holds one gallon.
If you've got 20 people trying to use the bucket then encouraging the first person not to fill it to the brim makes pretty good sense.
The net effect of data caps is equivalent to slowing down too. 1TB takes longer to transfer.
If you need to transfer 1TB at maximum throughput, then perhaps you shouldn't be using an inexpensive consumer broadband service with relatively limited resources, lots of users, and caps.
Yes, yes it would. If transportation were cost free, there would be no reason not to saturate the transportation network.
I would still avoid rush hour even if it were completely free to operate my car.
Wow. The fact that the USA is rubbing elbows with the likes of Nicaragua and Zimbabwe should be ALARMING.
Instead you seem to be taking some sort of smug satisfaction in pointing out the fact that Honduras and El Salvador are even worse.
All you've proven with your citation is that the USA really does have disproportionate gun violence. It's a first world developed country with gun violence numbers that lump it in with countries ravaged by shooting wars between drug cartels run by despotic warlords.
But hey, since el salvador is worse, I guess your right, the the USA isn't the worst in the world after all.
Now salute the flag and be proud. U-S-A. U-S-A.
You drop the least important packet when your buffer fills up.
Least important is difficult to identify as we gradually move towards https for everything from online banking to torrents.
In any case the point remains that the network has a saturation point, and that if you remove all caps and throttles it only takes a fraction of your customer pool to saturate the network if they have no reason not to.
The road network takes up physical space where you cannot have another road network.
Right of way for laying fiber may not be quite as difficult as expanding road networks, but its not exactly trivial either.
And the important point for the analogy is that you have a relatively inflexible total capacity. Sure you can gradually build any network out more, but at any given time its essentially fixed.
Nearly-saturated networks are optimal.
I can agree with that.
Arguably, networks should offer incentives to use the off-peak time.
I agree with that too, and expect that we will eventually get there. Its how electricity works in most places. Its how water works in some place - with watering schedules and sprinkler bans during peak periods etc. Its even how road traffic works - if you CAN avoid rush hour you do. And things like HOV lanes, and tollways with different evening and weekend rates, etc all serve to literally "shape" traffic as well.
Give the industry time to mature. In a sense it is still largely transitioning from when they were metered by how long they were connected to the internet in minutes (e.g. ISDN / Dialup). Half the nonsense about "unlimited internet" still hearkens to the idea with modern connections you are always connected -- there is no limit to how long you connect. (Of course some folks want to interpret unlimited as an entitlement to receive the maximum throughput x 24x7... but really the unlimited was initially market-speak for simply "always-connected".
Now that we're getting used to always on, the new limited resource isn't time on a dedicated POTS circuit (which is very easy to understand) but the much more abstract and difficult to understand bandwidth usage and even that is over simplified because it matters a great deal on the whether you are hitting locally cached content or saturating a peer link... most people barely understand it at all. And marketing has done a poor job of explaining it.
Long term I won't be surprised if data is metered much like electricity. You'll pay fractions of a cent per GB depending on the time of day and how much you used this month... maybe you'll pay-as-you-go or maybe you'll prepay a fixed amount for a certain amount with payg on top and like mobile there will likely be features that include bandwidth to cached content or whatever... the equivalent of in-network calling on mobile.
If Bandwidth is like water pipes, what would the physical wires/cables be like?
Bandwidth is a capacity function of the underlying infrastructure. It is not the data itself. In other words it is not a measurement of "water" it is the measurement of what the "water pipes" will carry.
Or rather, it doesn't go through with an equal probability that other packets won't go through. We all get our fair share of the network, regardless of oversubscription.
Semantics. If the network is full, trying to cram more packets into it doesn't work. It doesn't really matter for the argument ~which~ packets don't get through.
Only a complete idiot would compare IP networks to the roads. Packets don't slow down when there's not enough room. The cost of fuel per packet is negligible, not so with cars. It's not the same at all.
Individual packets don't "slow down" per se, they either get through or they don't. But any sort of aggregate "communication" slows down, and overall impact of a saturated network is the same. The net effect of dropping packets is the equivalent to slowing down. 1MB takes longer to transfer.
Further the "network operator" (e.g. city or state) of the traffic network doesn't pay for your gas either so the fuel cost "per packet" isn't really part of the discussion. And if we were to lower the cost of fuel to "negligible" what difference would it make? Would it somehow support an argument to saturate the highway system? No. Its not relevant. Feel free to assume your car is free to drive for the sake of the argument it doesn't change anything with respect to the analogy.
Bandwith is not a commodity like water.
Bandwidth is not like water, it is like water pipes.
. The cheapest per bit cost is when the network is maximally utilized.
Q: And what exactly happens if it is maximally utilized and you want to send 1 more packet?
A: It doesn't go through.
Incentives that encourage people to use less bandwith are economically unsound.
Nonsense. Another equivalent for bandwidth is the road network. Sure, perpetual gridlock maximizes the 'cars per unit of pavement' metric, and in some twisted logic divides the cost of the pavement between the most vehicles... hurrah!... but only a complete idiot would argue that encouraging people to drive less is economically unsound because it means the roads aren't getting "maximally utilized".
Saturated networks are not optimal.
IT IS A WEB PAGE NOT A FRIGGING POSTER.
Look I'm with you in principle, but that war is lost. It hasn't been a "web page" for 2 decades.
Its 2012. Its a web application, with htlm5, animation, javascript, and asynchronous events, and yes pixel perfect rendering.
Web design is not the same as designing a poster. But it is done by the same set of asshat clowns who, having come from a "design background" that is still wedded to the idea that the "artist" paints the forms and the "plebian" goes gooey over it.
A web page as you define it will never sell anything. As long as there are going to be businesses trying to reach customers: "pretty sells". Deal with it.
THAT is why you do not get to demand "pixel perfect positioning". Because you're giving out information in one form for all these varying needs.
But we do demand it, and it generally works.
Not only that, the text may have to be larger for the hard-of-seeing (large print books). When you do a large print book you use a different typesetter. The words will NOT appear precisely where you wanted and the images will NOT appear right where you think the will and the text reflow will NOT be the same.
So the "hard-of-seeing" will mangle the layout a bit and miss out on the full intended visual aesthetics... how ironic.
What's really hard is that you're thick as pigshit on this: you're using print memes on a non-print medium where you have NO CONTROL over how it is presented eventually.
Except, again, more often than not it does in fact work just fine, and the results are quite striking.
STOP fucking playing artist because it makes you feel creative.
I mostly do implementation and backend, but hey, go nuts. Your clearly having a great rant.
ESPECIALLY if you're going to whine about how hard it is making things "pixel perfect" on a bloody WEB PAGE.
Ah, but its not especially hard after all, and if anything its gotten easier over the last few years as browsers have gotten better at the standards. It does however require defining a number of things in terms of pixel sizes.
What's hard is getting pixel perfect design without using references to pixels, which causes some issues if the display dpi jumps immensely and you want the content to stay the same "size"... which is somewhat counter intuitive anyway because 50% of the people who want high dpi screens want everything smaller so they can have more stuff on their screens at one time... while the other 50% want everything to be the same relative size but use the extra pixels to make things extra "crisp and clear".
There's no winning move's here, their aren't even agreed upon victory conditions.
it's another filter that you can opt in or out of.
I thought the controversy here was that you couldn't opt out of it. It used to be you could turn safesearch off and that did it. it sounds like that isn't enough now, and that even with safesearch off results are still being filtered.
It's really disappointing that so many applications (web pages most emphatically included in this list) decide that things should be sized in terms of pixels.
Anything using images as a major component of a web design pretty much needs pixel dimensions for things to line up properly and/or to avoid ugly scaling issues.
There is no elegant way around it.
IMHO, if you MUST use a bitmap for something, use one that's way obnoxiously large for any display you might anticipate using, then scale it to the right device-independent size in device dependent coordinates using a high-quality scaling algorithm before you display it.
Firstly scaling things that are "icon" sized doesn't work. Algorithms can't do it well. Try it, take a few obnoxiously high resolution logos and scale it to the size needed for your browser address bar "favicon". (16x16 and 32x32) and odds are it looks like a mess.
Usually they need to be hand-edited at the pixel level for each targeted resolution. Icon files actually hold multiple versions of the icon at different resolutions. (Although frequently developers omit many of the resolutions.)
Secondly, the idea of all the images being "obnoxiously large" and then scaled might be ok for a locally installed program, but its completely unacceptable on the web to download megabytes of images to scale down to icon sized button even if it would work.
Or better yet, use a vector drawing for your icon.
These don't usually scale down to 16x16 or 32x32 pixels any better. They scale up better (smoother), though, which is a start, although its still better to just use a higher resolution more detailed version for the higher resolutions.
b) When a company sells digital software themselves, they don't get to keep 100% of the sale price. They have to pay for hosting, bandwidth, marketing, sales processing, manhours involved in all of this, etc., etc., etc. Those numbers start to add up very quickly and anyone who's been even vaguely involved in producing and selling a product knows that they can quickly add up to near or above 30%...
Uh-huh.
But if I run an art auction house, and release an app that lets users bid on art, why should apple get 30% of every million dollar Picasso I sell?
Apple hosts the app, they don't do squat with the artwork.
Why should they get a 30% cut of THAT?
Sure you could counter and say, that apple is taking on some expense by hosting my app. (Which they give me no choice on.) And you can say that there is value to that (and I would agree.) But I'd be happy to pay them something reasonable for the service they are actually providing.
But 30% of the art sales revenue is absurd given their role.
That would be insane. VLC is ported to pretty much every platform there is -- anyone who would think VLC is going metro-only needs to stop posting while high.
"How do I avoid these full-screen programs" is the first question I get when I'm helping someone with a new Windows 8 laptop.
And how do I get this video to play full screen without all the controls and bars and menus is the first question I get when I'm helping someone playback movies with VLC.
Personally I'd love a VLC app for windows 8, which I'm using on my HTPC right now, where the large pastel tiles etc are a good user interface.
I find it odd that the pro-linux crowd here is all about user choice... a thousand distros with mix and match desktops so everyone can have exactly what they want... but god forbid VLC release a windows 8 app that they don't even have to use.
its the sort of place where you take carrying water and emergency gear, keeping your car maintained, carrying reputable maps and planning your journey carefully rather seriously.
Is the US "the sort of place where you take carrying water and emergency gear, maps, and planning your journey seriously?"
No, not usually, not unless you are actually planning on heading off the grid. As long as you are heading somewhere reasonably populated and keeping to the main roads you'll be perfectly fine, and you won't pack a tent, rations, nails, tools, blankets, snares, and a crossbow...
Of course, if your gps/navigation system takes you off the main roads and into the wilderness you can get into scary wilderness mode fast... even in relatively civilized places.
Must say I haven't tried them, but you appear to be in the industry - have you?
The instruments I'm involved with are driven by windows PCs. Both at the practice/patient facing end with the software to capture the corneal data from the imaging devices, and at the backend on the contact lens/intraocular lens lathes that actually manufacture the lenses, and in the middle tier the specialized optical CAD/CAM software where the lenses are actually designed. There's just no getting around that.
The fact that there may be a suitable linux EHR solution to handle patient scheduling, invoicing, and office management is just one small piece of the puzzle, in just one place.
That said, a number of those packages are cross platform, and run on windows, and could potentially be integrated with the other pieces, or just run alongside. But that's hardly "running a practice on linux".
I don't know offhand whether there are any FLOSS EHR systems interacting directly with the systems I deal with. I don't work with those directly; its all through their vendors or if it were FLOSS it would be through the company offering support for it -- from my end the license on the actual software wouldn't matter. I do know that I've run into EHR solutions hosted on MySQL and FirebirdSQL as their back-ends... so maybe. :)
It would be perfectly fine to review exams in a browser.
Not all exams are simple "pictures". Medical imaging is a lot more than just pictures. A topography is a polar map with elevation, axial, and tangential curvature data for each point, for example. Another instrument takes 3d video of the inside of your eye looking in through your pupil. These are not something you can play back with VLC or generic picture-viewer.
That exam data often needs the vender supplied software to (interactively) visualize. They could potentially one day deliver that via the cloud, and that's the direction everyone is moving these days. But right now, today, you provide a windows PC, and they provide windows software. And because it renders 3D via directx and opengl it doesn't even run well over RDC.
If you want to review an exam, you want the software running locally on your PC running windows. If you want to use that instrument. That is it. Period.
You just need to see Google Maps in action to realize it is perfectly doable to view high resolution images in a browser.
Yes, theoretically, such a thing can be imagined. If the software were written for it.
The actual imaging hardware needs more performance to process the images in real-time but this could be done in a Linux workstation.
Yes, theoretically, if the software were written for it.
The software has not been.
If it is good enough for Hollywood studios doing 3D production for large screen displays it would certainly be enough for them as well.
What?
AthenaHealth's solution is just a small piece of the puzzle. A general practitioner / family doctor -- you have more flexibility, and it tends to work ok because they don't have any onsite speciaized hardware, etc. They are pretty low tech. Optometry tends to be higher tech, and they do often have medical imaging.
One tradeoff with the hosted model, is that you give up software integration. The practice management system may have the ability to link to the topography software so that if you are on patientX in the practice management, you can push a button and it will open that patient in the exam review software so that you can review the exams (or create that patient link if it doesn't already exist, and you are ready to create exams for that patient). That sort of functionality is much harder to do in a hosted solution in the browser, and nearly impossible to do in the latest trend which is app virtualization / virtual desktop infrastructure.
You tell me no solutions exist. But this doesn't mean no solutions can be done.
Sure, there are some people whose needs are 'just so' and the support infrastructure they need is there, and they can make one work. But deciding to go linux really limits your options, and if you run any specialized hardware you need what vender requires.
One final note I'll make -- clinics are everywhere. Literally. Everywhere. A lot of these guys don't have broadband, some of them don't have internet at the office. For a lot of them they have a yahoo or hotmail or gmail address they check from home, and that's the extend of their internet. And that's without even leaving the united states. Now head out to the rest of the world.
I was dealing with a non-profit that is putting a used instrument in a clinic in the Dominican Republic a couple weeks back...
The Practice Management system could be web based and run on an intranet.
What would be the point?
We've already established the software to review the exams taken from the imaging hardware needs windows, and if they run windows they can review the exams at any computer. A lot of that software is network friendly, multiuser, client server, etc.
If they run linux they can ... uh... severely limit where they can review exams, and uh... severely limit their options for practice management to web hosted solutions and intranet based systems?
Not to mention that the performance would suck... since a lot of this hardware imaging stuff lets you export high res stills and video for storage in the patient management syste. When you hear phrases like 3d corneal topography, and high resolution retinal camera video does that scream "lets make it web based" just so they can dodge running the OEM windows that came with the pc anyway? W-T-F.
Anyone going that route is being guided by OS evangelism, not rational selection of the OS that makes the most sense for the environment.
Just because you CAN contort and squeeze (even partially) into linux doesn't necessarily mean it makes any business sense.
Use linux where it makes sense. Use windows where it makes sense. But at least acknowledge that linux doesn't make one bit of sense in a lot of situations, even if you technically could "make it work".
While I cannot say what Lenscrafters runs on the back end, they do use Linux extensively in their shops
Alright, I'll bite; check out:
http://www.lenscrafters.com/lc-us/eyecare/doctor
"One of the newer technologies youâ(TM)ll find in your doctorâ(TM)s office is the optomap® Retinal Exam."
And keep scrolling down to the big section on "Innovation in the Eye Doctor's office" where they feature the Optomap retinal exam. Which is very clearly attached to a PC with the windows logo sticker.
And if you think it just came that way and they put linux on it, think again... here's the software it uses:
http://www.optos.com/en-CA/Products/Retinal-imaging-products/Retinal-imaging-products/V2-Vantage-Dx-software/
they didn't let Linux prevent them from running an optometry and eye glass operation.
Of course they didn't, because they used windows where they had to, which is apparently in every single location.
I'm not saying they don't use linux extensively, but its pretty clear they didn't stop using windows. Remember, i was responding to a post that said "Windows isn't required for anything but games". I call that statement pretty thoroughly debunked.
For your car example, the hood can fly up into your field of view when you take it out on the highway and you could crash into anything.
Lots of people have DIY add-ons and modifications to their cars.
I don't deny the possibility for catastrophic tragic failure modes exist for all of them...
That spoiler the kid bolted onto his honda civic in front of you on the highway could be loose and fly through your windshield and embed itself in your face...
I build systems to meet requirements and demands, not the other way around. Most businesses operate the same way.
And knowing what exists, and how what exists can improve your business drives those requirements and demands.
I migrated a business from a vanilla imap/smtp provider to google apps for enterprises because soley because it met my needs better in terms of managing things; and I was able to justify the cost increase with another system I was winding down, allowing me to realize a net reduction in their overall IT expenses despite the increased cost for mail.
1 year later, after being able to do things they never thought was possible like contacts and calendar sync with mobile, calendar sharing, the rich webmail client, the large mailboxes...
They can't imagine going back.
Meanwhile, me, I've butted my head with several of the limitations of google's enterprise mailbox management -- all things that exchange does effortlessly. Even so, I'm very happy with google for that environment -- the cost for hosted exchange wasn't worth it. And bringing exchange inhouse made even less sense.
Server: SMTP, IMAP, CalDav, LDAP
Client: Evolution
Looks like Exchange and Outlook to me...
Someone must have poked both your eyes out.
You can substitute exchange with that, but it won't be a replacement for exchange, not by a long shot.
In gun safety they show you what even an obstructed barrel can result in when firing a gun.
Yes, but I'm having a harder time imagining what a defect in the lower receiver would cause that would be equivalent to firing a bullet into an obstructed barrel.
That's the car equivalent of 3D printing a new hood and then saying man that's crazy risky -- just look at the damage that can happen when the brakes fail.
Windows is required for gaming, nothing else.
Open an optometry practice on linux.
Your imaging instruments run on windows; the software to analyze corneal topography: windows only. The software to run the automated perimeter also windows only.
Now pick a Practice Management system; to manage your patients, scheduling, track patient records, and ideally it needs to support DICOM so it can receive data from the above instrumentation, and of course it should conform to HIPAA.
Finally, its also a small business, so you need some accounting, payroll.
Yeah, lets install linux. Only gamers requires windows.
I don't know what you do at work, but there are countless different types of business that require specialized software and tools and choosing linux is simply not possible.
Of all my clients, not one could simply switch to linux. They ALL run some software or other that is windows only. In most cases a subset of the environment could be converted to linux, but running a mixed environment isn't all that desireable.