Keep in mind that Windows "8.1" is really just a service pack for Windows 8. Only the marketing department ran amok and decided to bump the version number to make it look like this "rapid release" shit.

It is hilarious watching all the betaz folks getting all crazy excited over a damn service pack.

when I need to find an app by name), I hit the Win key and start typing

Congratulations, you just rediscovered the command line.

Microsoft has changed UI name, seemingly due to trademark clash. It was even on /.

Since then "Metro" has taken on a slightly derogatory connotation for this user interface. Some who refer to it as Metro do so to be mildly insulting.

You know, Microsoft also tried to call it "Modern UI" for a while, which was very ironic since much of this design of full screen, typing commands in to a box, and memorizing key combinations is a major throwback to the DOS/Windows 1.x days.

I thought the plan was to keep the Windows 8 Numbering for now, and then push towards yearly updates for Microsoftâ(TM)s OS. In fact I thought that is what 8.1 was. I thought it was a great idea.

It is not a great idea. Unless they plan to give it away as an update to 8.0 users, (it is not quite 100% clear if they are going to do that), then they will fragment their market. And on the other hand even if they give it away, if they make more "above the hood" changes than a service pack would normally include, then it will likely break things for vendors and companies trying to support the platform.

But releasing every year gives the "latest and greatest" kids a hard on, so it must be the right thing to do, right?

During Windows 95 setup you could choose to use the Program Manager. No hacks or third party software needed. No such luck with Windows 8, it's either metro or the highway.

I remember how many problems the Start menu solved. When helping someone over the phone, Start -> Settings -> Control Pannel was ALWAYS in the same place. (No more finding the Program Manager window, clicking File->Run and then typing CONTROL.EXE !)

And if they wanted large icons, they could create a shortcut to the Start Menu folder on their desktop and browse it through Windows Explorer. - That is actually how early Chicago builds did it. Feels just like the Program Manager except no MDI window and more flexible.

The big problem with the Start Menu at the time was that vendors continued to organize things just like in the old Program Manager. That is, a program group for each program with a dozen different icons instead of just one icon in the root of the menu.

This reminds me more of what happened to the TI-99/4a right before TI dropped it and got out of the home computer market.

These things will be sitting in peoples attics for the next 30 years.

Not that anyone cares, but there was also a less common "Windows 3.1 for Workgroups" that bundled Microsoft's DOS network client, as well as a non "Workgroups" version of Windows 3.11. There was even a patch that updated the core Windows 3.1 files to the 3.11 versions. And on top of that, Windows 9x basically used the same protected-mode network stack as WFWG 3.11, just with a whole new UI so people thought it was completely different.

In a way, WFWG and Win9x was revolutionary at the time, as it meant people could easily share files and printers across a network without paying $$$$$$ for some big dedicated file server.

If you are going to encode it in a non human readable format, there is little point to storing it on hardcopy over electronic storage medium (hard disk, USB flash, floppy, etc). You will still need a computer to access it.

There are some fonts out there specifically designed for OCR, but in practice any little spec of dust or dirt can change how the computer reads it (an "O" can become a "Q" for example. And "1" is easily misread as "i" - in some fonts they are even 100% identical). So OCR is OK for text that you can spellcheck, but not for other kinds of data.

Depending on the kind of data, you could include something like a printed checksum to verify you read it write.

To conserve space, just make the fonts as small as you feel comfortable reading, use both sides of the paper, possibly reformat the data to utilize more space on the page, and use thin lightweight paper. And include an additional electronic backup so you don't have to bother OCRing until the world ends next Thursday.

They're only photographing the *outside* of the mail

Are you sure about that? It took this long to find out they were photographing the outside. They very likely do have some way to examine the general contents of the inside, probably using x-rays or something similar. And you can be sure any information gathered is also stored.

I remember when the original URL was http://altavista.digital.com/

In the early days it even recognized Pathworks Mosaic 1.0 by its user agent, and served up a really, really simple HTML page just for it.

There was even a Personal version of the search engine that you could download and run on your own server to index your Intranets.

Sad to see it go because the world really needs more diversity when it comes to search engines. If there is something the Big Engines don't want you to have, it might as well not exist.

Until the first big virus hits that exploits a security hole that won't be fixed. When you realize you machines that can't be patched and will continuously be infected you may think differently about corporate security.

At which time you discover that continuously re-cleaning the machines is STILL easier and less work and money than replacing the poorly written proprietary corporate dreck resembling a Rube Goldberg machine that only runs under Windows XP.

Of course, I've already dropped FIrefox's power consumption significantly using Adblock, Noscript and so on, so it's unlikely I'll see a full Watt of improvement by switching to IE, but for others, this could be huge.

And you have found the real power guzzling culprit!

Browsers wouldn't have to waste so much power if they didn't have to spend so much time processing crap rather than just displaying your content. On some web sites I have managed to vastly increase the speed and responsiveness of the sites just by blocking certain "analytics" scripts. And only the insane would browse the modern web without Adblock. Less processing time translates in to power savings, and which browser someone is using is mostly irrelevant since they all have to process the same junk.

If a large company really wanted to save power and increase productivity, they would install such blockers on clients or a central proxy. Or better yet, demand sites embed less of this crap to start with.

I've still got my ET cartridge somewhere. I played it back in the day, an I don't recall it being all that horrible. Like most games of the time you HAD to read the manual to know what each little pixelated object was supposed to be and what to do with it. There was one really nasty "bug" or perhaps mis-feature where trying to get out of a pit involved immediately changing directions right as you reached the top. Not obvious, no visible indication it was needed, and not mentioned in the manual - but most Windows 8 users should be used to that sort of things these days.

Anyway once you got past that, the game was rather easy.

If you want to talk about stupid games, I remember an arcade game called "Firetruck" where you drive a fire truck... and that is it. No score, no fire... just driving. Nice scrolling random monochrome graphics... to just drive through. It is emulated in MAME if you want to gawk at that.

I think the new UI is different, which is good. We've been using the same interface since Win95.

Changing things for the sake of change is not good. I see you are still speaking English? Why don't you start using that "new" Esperanto instead? If you don't, then you are doing things the oooooooolllllld way.

The Windows 95/NT 4 user interface, was - unlike Windows 8's - well researched, very solid, and very usable. Most of its "flaws" came from application developers not using it right (such as cluttered Windows 3.1 style program groups in the Start menu)

there's plenty of OSS packages to revive the old menu. Like really, in less than 60 seconds you can have it back.

Which is great for a few personal machines that are under your control, but when you have to deal with larger numbers of machines, or machines that are not under your control, installing third party software or making significant changes to system options is not feasible. In fact, you can easily get in to big trouble for doing so.

A proper "start" menu is something a large number of people need and expect from Microsoft Windows. So it doesn't it make sense to include one by default?

Now, if only they had removed Internet Explorer instead of the Start menu...