[vinifera]

MagicAndre1981, on 27 January 2012 - 02:43 PM, said:

Apple made a study and came to the conclusion that Working touch only on PCs is an ergonomic disaster.

a study is needed to conclude this ? ... oh my whatever...

one can do it by simply raising hands and holding them for 20 seconds

[MagicAndre1981]

CoffeeFiend, on 27 January 2012 - 05:02 PM, said:

The only somewhat logical explanation I can think of it that they believe we're only going to be using tablets and phones starting this year.

this is Microsofts logic, but this is wrong. here is why:

They see that PC sales drop or stay the same but Tablet sales increase. Now they made the MISTAKE: Business economics only accepts endless growing, but todays PC are so powerful that you can use them for 3-5 years. So the users buy tablets as ADDITIONAL devices, NOT AS REPLACEMENTS!!!!!!!! This is why Windows 8 was completely wrong designed with this ugly Metro hell and will fail completely.

[JorgeA]

MagicAndre1981, on 28 January 2012 - 08:10 AM, said:

CoffeeFiend, on 27 January 2012 - 05:02 PM, said:

The only somewhat logical explanation I can think of it that they believe we're only going to be using tablets and phones starting this year.

this is Microsofts logic, but this is wrong. here is why:

They see that PC sales drop or stay the same but Tablet sales increase. Now they made the MISTAKE: Business economics only accepts endless growing, but todays PC are so powerful that you can use them for 3-5 years. So the users buy tablets as ADDITIONAL devices, NOT AS REPLACEMENTS!!!!!!!! This is why Windows 8 was completely wrong designed with this ugly Metro hell and will fail completely.

Excellent point, Andre!

Microsoft's obsession with making it in the tablet market -- and its subsequent move to drag its customers into a tablet OS -- is truly a case of the tablet tail wagging the PC dog. If we look at the raw figures for units sold in 2011, we see that, for all the hype about tablets, PC sales were MORE THAN FIVE TIMES those of tablets. It would take 1) continued skyrocketing tablet sales (a speculative projection) and 2) a catastrophic decline in PC sales (which has never happened) for tablets to even catch up to PCs. And yet Microsoft would have us believe that tablets are the future, and so we must all adjust to an environment designed for the 10-inch screen.

Far too many news reports misleadingly focus on percentages of change rather than actual unit sales, which leaves the public with the impression that the underpowered and underfeatured tablet is killing off the desktop PC.

--JorgeA

This post has been edited by JorgeA: 28 January 2012 - 10:03 AM

[CoffeeFiend]

MagicAndre1981, on 20 January 2012 - 04:19 PM, said:

censorship of negative feedback

I thought it might have been that you said something a bit extreme but it looks like you're right. They most definitely are censoring comments. Even the calm, non-threatening, level-headed kind.

"We're open to comments -- so long as it says what we want to hear". Next they'll claim that they're getting "overwhelmingly positive feedback about Metro" Too bad it won't translate into sales I guess (besides the forced kind, where you have to use downgrade rights to get a sane OS, while still counting in their stats showing it's selling great)

[jaclaz]

I think that the basic mistake is to attempt to find a on-size-fits-all-solution (actually making a single product and then convince everyone that it is the "rigth product" for them).

I mean, you know how dinosaurish I am, but the usage paradigm in a business office has not changed much in the last 20 (twenty years) or more, a typical employee will have before him/her a screen, and he/she has to input in it some data, little matters if the object is a business letter, an e-mail or some data in a "vertical" dedicated program, and most of the time what they have before them is nothing but a "thin client" or a terminal to a server.
They won't *need* anything more than a plain video card and display and a keyboard, even the mouse is something mostly unneeded. (just for your interest a few years ago I tested in the same office side by side a good ol' "DOS like" accounting program with it's Windows counterpart and almost everyone that used them was happier about the easyness of the workflow with just the keyboard and a few F keys)
Same goes for another vast category of non-graphical professionals, writers, solicitors, technicians, programmers (of non-graphical apps), etc., etc.
Then there will be the professionals, architects, designers, graphical artists, programmers that need each and every CPU cycle, byte of RAM, pixel number and colour shade, and responsiveness they can get (and even more), AND need a stable OS, a very secure filesystem and backup/redundancy reliable solutions.
Then there are the gamers that need if possible even more juice than the above, but couldn't care the least about secure filesystems, permissions, quotas, etc.
On the other hand, if you are on the move you might actually want to have a portable solution, touch and what not, notwthstanding my dinosaurish approach I bought in 1993 or 1994 a Compaq Concerto, tablet with pen (and keyboard) and found it at the time a perfect business solution on the move.
Then there are the "grandmothers", they have three main uses:

• read/write e-mails to/from their relatives and friends
  
• watch photos and (lousy videos) of their nephews
  
• search on the internet something (textual) they may be interested in

And finally there are the kids (the few that are not in the gamers group ), they want multimedia (and very little more), and as long as they can get a lousy video from Youtube in low resolution they are OK.

To name a known competitor, the Ipad is IMHO the perfect thing, though overpowered, for grannies, the perfect thing, though underpowered, for kids, and completely UNLIKE useful to any of the other "profiles".

jaclaz

[MagicAndre1981]

CoffeeFiend, on 31 January 2012 - 08:01 PM, said:

MagicAndre1981, on 20 January 2012 - 04:19 PM, said:

censorship of negative feedback

I thought it might have been that you said something a bit extreme but it looks like you're right. They most definitely are censoring comments. Even the calm, non-threatening, level-headed kind.

yes, the b8 blog is extreme censorship. I wonder that some complains about Ribbons were not deleted because a lot of users like the Aero Ribbons from Office 2010 much more:



Look at the mock-up from an user who commented there. This look 1000% times better.

CoffeeFiend, on 31 January 2012 - 08:01 PM, said:

"We're open to comments -- so long as it says what we want to hear". Next they'll claim that they're getting "overwhelmingly positive feedback about Metro"

that's exactly what MS wants and that's why they have their Most Valuable Brown Noser program. Those users you like everything from MS just to be (re-)awarded. This reminds me of the Simpson S08E21 where Mr Burns lost all his money because his layers only said that he did everything right by buying totally useless stocks.

That is how Sinosfky thinks about feedback. He only accepts what he wants to hear, nothing else. He did this in Office and also did this in Win7 and now in Windows 8

[JorgeA]

jaclaz,

Excellent analysis, right on target.

Microsoft does seem to be trying to be all things to all people. Can't blame them for that. But if they are wise, they'll achieve their goal by offering both the Metro and Desktop interfaces and letting the customer decide which of them we're going to default to.

Very interesting to hear about your office experiment with Windows vs. DOS-like programs! I've always wondered: if they had figured out (or created) a simple way to use 64MB (or 512MB or 4GB) in DOS, then would Windows today be a niche market like the Mac. Was it really technically impossible to engineer DOS so that it could address large amounts of memory?

--JorgeA

[jaclaz]

JorgeA, on 01 February 2012 - 10:38 AM, said:

Very interesting to hear about your office experiment with Windows vs. DOS-like programs! I've always wondered: if they had figured out (or created) a simple way to use 64MB (or 512MB or 4GB) in DOS, then would Windows today be a niche market like the Mac. Was it really technically impossible to engineer DOS so that it could address large amounts of memory?

DOS in this case is only a "short-name", DOS-like (in the sense of no graphical nonsense for non-graphical use) is a more correct definition, the test I was talking about was running on NT or 2K machines, the app was running in a window, with a DOS-like interface.

For NO apparent reason:
http://www.baara.com/q10/

jaclaz

[JorgeA]

jaclaz, on 01 February 2012 - 11:37 AM, said:

DOS in this case is only a "short-name", DOS-like (in the sense of no graphical nonsense for non-graphical use) is a more correct definition, the test I was talking about was running on NT or 2K machines, the app was running in a window, with a DOS-like interface.

jaclaz,

Thanks for pointing out the distinction. Originally I had typed "Windows vs. DOS programs," but then changed it to "DOS-like programs" for that very reason.

BTW, speaking of graphical nonsense, many years ago (I think it was about 1987) when CompuServe used to publish a monthly print magazine, I remember reading an article about a research study showing that PC users had a higher average IQ than Apple users. Immediately I thought that it must have something to do with the command-line interface vs. the graphical user interface...

jaclaz, on 01 February 2012 - 11:37 AM, said:

For NO apparent reason:
http://www.baara.com/q10/

Wow, how DO you find these things? I'll have to try this out.

--JorgeA

[jaclaz]

JorgeA, on 01 February 2012 - 12:38 PM, said:

Wow, how DO you find these things?

I don't think you really want to know that.

http://www.911cd.net...pic=16534&st=23
the explanation given there does not apply to Q10, this may:
http://texteditors.o....pl?EditorIndex

And the good Mac guys are not as dumb as you might think , actually the origin is likely to come from them:
http://www.hogbaysof...ducts/writeroom

Ideas/inspirations are exchanged between the Windows and the Mac (and the Linux) guys, some more examples:
http://they.misled.us/dark-room
http://www.codealche....com/jdarkroom/
http://writer.bighugelabs.com/

But again, someone here may be old enough to remember Qedit (q.exe):
http://texteditors.o...n/wiki.pl?QEDIT
possibly the best DOS text editor EVER

jaclaz

This post has been edited by jaclaz: 01 February 2012 - 01:10 PM

[MagicAndre1981]

JorgeA, on 01 February 2012 - 10:38 AM, said:

Microsoft does seem to be trying to be all things to all people. Can't blame them for that. But if they are wise, they'll achieve their goal by offering both the Metro and Desktop interfaces and letting the customer decide which of them we're going to default to.

but this doesn't work. You can't have 1 universal thing which works best for all platforms. This doesn't work. Go into your kitchen and look how many different knifes or spoons you have.

[CoffeeFiend]

jaclaz, on 01 February 2012 - 01:03 PM, said:

But again, someone here may be old enough to remember Qedit (q.exe):
http://texteditors.o...n/wiki.pl?QEDIT
possibly the best DOS text editor EVER

I'm offended by this. Possibly? Pfft. That's an established FACT. How dare you question this? Seriously, it was fantastic to use in its time (so far ahead of edit, or *shudder* edlin if you want to play the "old enough to remember" game) The only thing I didn't use it for is creating ANSI graphics for BBS'es, in which case something different like TheDraw worked nicely.

MagicAndre1981, on 01 February 2012 - 01:28 PM, said:

You can't have 1 universal thing which works best for all platforms. This doesn't work. Go into your kitchen and look how many different knifes or spoons you have.

Exactly. They chose to force a horrible touch-based interface on all desktop/laptop users, making it suck badly for everyone, just so if we end up buying a Windows phone (because those are popular, right?) we'll already be familiar with the interface. If anything, I think it's just going to hurt them. Yeah, you'll buy a phone which has the exact same interface as the one you very much hate that's already on your PC (they might as well try selling phones by saying they have Vista on them). Or perhaps it's supposed to be for tablets (yes, let's make everyone suffer, for tablets' sake) which probably won't run your existing apps (ARM-based tablets won't) which aren't meant for a touch interface anyway, etc -- and as such offers little to no advantage over an iPad or Android tablet.

MagicAndre1981, on 01 February 2012 - 07:59 AM, said:

that's exactly what MS wants and that's why they have their Most Valuable Brown Noser program. Those users you like everything from MS just to be (re-)awarded.

Well, I can't say I exactly agree with the MVP program. These days there's far too many MVPs (over 4000), and many people awarded with it sometimes seem to not be all that knowledgeable -- just that they spent a LOT of time trying to help others, while being on the right forums. Yes, I've seen some great C# MVPs back then on MS' old newsgroups, but most of the "Windows Expert Consumer" MVPs and the like often fail to impress. It's not a really fair system, where many seem to help just for the MSDN sub, and where many genuinely helpful people just don't get anything.

[JorgeA]

CoffeeFiend, on 01 February 2012 - 04:22 PM, said:

MagicAndre1981, on 01 February 2012 - 01:28 PM, said:

You can't have 1 universal thing which works best for all platforms. This doesn't work. Go into your kitchen and look how many different knifes or spoons you have.

Exactly. They chose to force a horrible touch-based interface on all desktop/laptop users, making it suck badly for everyone, just so if we end up buying a Windows phone (because those are popular, right?) we'll already be familiar with the interface. If anything, I think it's just going to hurt them. Yeah, you'll buy a phone which has the exact same interface as the one you very much hate that's already on your PC (they might as well try selling phones by saying they have Vista on them). Or perhaps it's supposed to be for tablets (yes, let's make everyone suffer, for tablets' sake) which probably won't run your existing apps (ARM-based tablets won't) which aren't meant for a touch interface anyway, etc -- and as such offers little to no advantage over an iPad or Android tablet.

CoffeeFiend (and @MagicAndre),

So, youi're saying that it's not possible (or maybe not practical) to have a Windows 8 that contains both the Metro and Desktop interfaces, yet allows the user to choose which of them will show on their screen when they boot into Windows?

If it has to be "one or the other, but not both," then of course I prefer the Desktop, but I wonder if there isn't room for compromise? How about making Metro like the DOS box -- an environment that stays totally out of the way but you can open it when you want it?

--JorgeA

[jaclaz]

JorgeA, on 01 February 2012 - 05:17 PM, said:

If it has to be "one or the other, but not both," then of course I prefer the Desktop, but I wonder if there isn't room for compromise? How about making Metro like the DOS box -- an environment that stays totally out of the way but you can open it when you want it?

Not enough room for compromise, at the most you can have a (lousy) animated assistant, since the Office Assistants, and particularly Clippy were bashed for years :
http://www.computerh...on/c/clippy.htm

you can now only choose between Chaos and Scuzz (the other all retired in the meantime)
http://toastytech.com/guis/bob4.html




jaclaz

[CoffeeFiend]

JorgeA, on 01 February 2012 - 05:17 PM, said:

youi're saying that it's not possible (or maybe not practical) to have a Windows 8 that contains both the Metro and Desktop interfaces, yet allows the user to choose which of them will show on their screen when they boot into Windows?

That's what we're all wishing for. That would make Win8 a decent OS (being able to disable Metro and keep the start menu). But at this point it seems very unlikely. We'll know for sure when the beta comes out sometime this month.

If it goes Metro-only, then we'll be able to pretend it didn't happen and keep running Win7 for a few years, or wait 'till they reverse their decision (hopefully). But tut if it happens, we're going to start having a serious look at porting our apps, and moving legacy stuff to vSphere/Citrix, and starting to buy Macs instead whenever possible.

[JorgeA]

jaclaz, on 01 February 2012 - 06:43 PM, said:

Not enough room for compromise, at the most you can have a (lousy) animated assistant, since the Office Assistants, and particularly Clippy were bashed for years :
http://www.computerh...on/c/clippy.htm

CLIPPY, my love, there you are!!!

jaclaz, on 01 February 2012 - 06:43 PM, said:

you can now only choose between Chaos and Scuzz (the other all retired in the meantime)
http://toastytech.com/guis/bob4.html

Wow, vestiges of Microsoft Bob are STILL floating around?!

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

CoffeeFiend, on 01 February 2012 - 08:35 PM, said:

JorgeA, on 01 February 2012 - 05:17 PM, said:

youi're saying that it's not possible (or maybe not practical) to have a Windows 8 that contains both the Metro and Desktop interfaces, yet allows the user to choose which of them will show on their screen when they boot into Windows?

That's what we're all wishing for. That would make Win8 a decent OS (being able to disable Metro and keep the start menu). But at this point it seems very unlikely. We'll know for sure when the beta comes out sometime this month.

CoffeeFiend,

That would be nice, though from what I hear we shouldn't hold our breath.

That beta -- it's not available for download by just anybody like the Preview was, is it?

CoffeeFiend, on 01 February 2012 - 08:35 PM, said:

If it goes Metro-only, then we'll be able to pretend it didn't happen and keep running Win7 for a few years, or wait 'till they reverse their decision (hopefully). But tut if it happens, we're going to start having a serious look at porting our apps, and moving legacy stuff to vSphere/Citrix, and starting to buy Macs instead whenever possible.

Yeah. Personally, if MS insists on being obnoxious I'm already looking ahead to a Linux solution.

--JorgeA

[CoffeeFiend]

JorgeA, on 01 February 2012 - 09:18 PM, said:

That beta -- it's not available for download by just anybody like the Preview was, is it?

It seemingly doesn't exist yet, so that would be a no. It should be once it's available though.

CoffeeFiend, on 01 February 2012 - 08:35 PM, said:

I'm already looking ahead to a Linux solution

Totally not an option for me (using Linux means giving up on almost every application that makes a computer useful), but if it works for you then why not

[JorgeA]

CoffeeFiend, on 01 February 2012 - 10:04 PM, said:

JorgeA, on 01 February 2012 - 09:18 PM, said:

That beta -- it's not available for download by just anybody like the Preview was, is it?

It seemingly doesn't exist yet, so that would be a no. It should be once it's available though.

CoffeeFiend,

You're right -- I should have written "it won't be available for download by just anybody..." I'd thought that you needed to sign up to get the beta, and then when the time came MS would decide whom to send it to. I'm curious to see if the beta fixes any of the problems that so many people have identified, but if I had to sign up to get a copy I doubt that they'd see any reason to choose me, as I'm just an end-user.

I had based my belief on this page, but then there is this one that says anybody can get it (scroll down to the end).

--JorgeA

[MagicAndre1981]

JorgeA, on 01 February 2012 - 05:17 PM, said:

CoffeeFiend (and @MagicAndre),

So, youi're saying that it's not possible (or maybe not practical) to have a Windows 8 that contains both the Metro and Desktop interfaces, yet allows the user to choose which of them will show on their screen when they boot into Windows?

Giving the users a choice during setup is what all logical thinking people expect! I mean the MS point of forcing the users to use 1 UI (metro) on all devices (tablets, phones, PC, laptop) makes no sense. All have different needs and all need a different UI that works best on this specific platform and not 1 UI which works a bit on all. That's why I posted the knife example. You don't have only 1 knife which you use for all tasks. You have different ones which work perfect in their special usage.




Zorin is based on an older Ubuntu (11.04 Natty) so you run into issues (Gnome 2.x removed from 11.10).