Comment Re:And suddenly (Score 1) 313
I will join now just so I can close my account and make a statement.
I will join now just so I can close my account and make a statement.
You see, you're not supposed to use a keyboard or mouse to interface with your Windows 8 desktop/laptop. You're supposed to use your Windows 8 Phone, connected to your desktop/laptop, as your interface. Your Windows 8 Phone is the keyboard and mouse.
That statement makes no sense at all. Who told you that? AND it gets modded up to interesting?
(Well it IS interesting I suppose, just no relation to anything in the real world.)
But yes, the mouse is clearly a thing of the past in the Windows world. Using a mouse with Win 8 is similar to trying to only manage with a keyboard in Win 3.1.. sure it works, but you can't help but notice that you're doing the equivalent of eating soup with chopsticks.
It's designed for touch, with productivity / text entry happenign the usual way with a physical keybaord.
That way there's no cognitive effort when switching between your phone and your desktop.
I'm looking forward to the Microsoft car, which will have a bicycle seat and controls.
And swipe up to brake.
They do have a tendency to hide some of the most used functions, requiring a swipe.. (Move message in the mail app comes to mind)
Incidentally, I still cant figure out where Im supposed to go to launch non-pinned non-metro apps. Hooray for useability!
To launch non-pinned legacy apps, you either just start typing the name (that was also supported in Win 7) after hitting the Windows key to open the start screen, or you go to 'All Apps', which means swiping up (or right-clicking) and hitting 'All Apps'.
Not sure why you would ever un-pin an app from the start screen though. That's the same as removing it from your Start Menu's 'All Programs' list in Win 7. Nobody does that unless they were actively (and ineffectively) trying to hide an app.
Duh, you've got it, young padawan.
The only reason people think Windows is easy to install compared to Linux is because they don't do it. Take a blank PC and a fresh Windows install CD and see how easy it is to get running.
With Windows 8 it's pretty *#$&$ easy. Pretty much as easy as installing Ubuntu. This really isn't a factor anymore.
There are only a couple factors that are real factors. Word. Excel. Outlook/Exchange. Those are the ones stopping me from using Linux exclusively. Of LibreOffice didn't make a complete mess of the Word 2010 documents that I have to collaborate on with others in the company (and some external parties) then everything would be solved. (Ignoring the reason why it's so hard for Libreoffice (or Google Docs) to correctly parse a word file with some headers and footers in it, and some revision tracking by a couple people.
It's a credible bid at the tablet market. I think most people hear approach it wrong, they take a desktop centered approach. But on the desktop Microsoft has nothing to prove; the traditional desktop environment as it exists in Windows 7 is done; complete; finished; no major improvements needed.
In the tablet UI/UX however there are great strides to be made. If you use Win 8 on a tablet it feels vastly more advanced than an iPad. You can actually have two apps open simultaneously, by snapping one of them on the side; can't do that on an iPad. Gestures work really well and really smooth.
The main question becomes: why is the tablet UI forced on desktop users. That's a good question, with a perfectly sane answer: to increase the appeal to tablet app developers. Of course MS could have released the RT environment for tablets separately and leave the desktop essentially the same. But by the admittedly awkward marriage, the overall ecosystem for app developers becomes much larger. This will result in more apps, more games, and better quality apps. So it does make sense from MS' point of view.
So is it risky... not really; if the goal of jump-starting a solid app offering succeeds, and if indeed Windows tablets succeed then MS really doesn't care if corporations sit this one out and stick with Windows 7, or Windows 8 configured in such a way that Metro apps don't show. The main opportunity is in non-desktop devices, that's the target for Win 8.
Here in Iceland I get my TV service through something called "myndlykill"; I don't know the English word for it, but it's a box with a Cat5 on the back that plugs into your hub and downloads channels from the net and yeilds an HDMI signal.
I'd buy that just for the name alone.
They (FB) must have felt it was cheaper to buy the whole company then to litigate about stupid patents and copy rights.
One billion buys a lot of litigation.. And besides, Instagram wouldn't be the only company in the world with any patents related to messing with saturation and hue of a digital image.
That's no moon...
They'll demand you add them as a friend!
No matter; you are aware of Facebook's 'List' feature right?
Just add your boss on the same list as your mom and your wife and any others that shouldn't see what you're really up to.
Well, that's not quite the same thing.
With the old Gnome2 menu, you have Accessories, Office, Games, etc. Click once on the menu, and you have all your apps, categorized.
Even a 4-year old can do it (and they do).
But throwing all your apps in a huge list, and then you have to click "94 more installed", and then you have to click on a a filter name, is much more work.
Not only that, but for some reason, the filter uses a logical OR, so that you can't just easily click on one filter or another to browse apps in various categories. Instead of just moving your mouse around to browse apps, you're having to constantly click. So, basically, you're not going to browse. Meaning that the apps list becomes a no-go zone for most users.
I have to agree those are valid points. Maybe an alternative application lens could address those.. (either official or third party)
Could be staking their dwindling future on windows phones.
But if they don't innovate (read port to android and ditch the hardware business) they're doomed.
If they port to Android and ditch the hardware business they're still doomed.
Agreed; I'm quite happy with the 64 bit version though. Not sure why 32 is recommended either.
The launcher doesn't auto-hide anymore in this version. They realized it's more trouble than it's worth. People who actually prefer it can still enable it of course, there's a setting. (Even when auto-hiding and auto-appearing It shouldn't cover any part of an active window though; I believe that was a bug.)
:rolleyes:
Anyway, on to your points:
> Task bar is a must.
Task bars are used to see which apps are running and switch between apps. The Launcher does that; it indicates which apps are running and you can bring a running app into focus. In addition you now have the quick lists on right-click for many apps. It's all rather similar to the Apple Mac dock. (Though some will yell blasphemy at that notion.
> Moving tray items is a must.
Why, actually? In Gnome 2 I spent more time trying to put them back in a sane place on the side after they went walkabout every time I connected an external display and the resolution changed. It was near impossible to just keep them in the same order, in the same place, on the side. Unity does this all by itself; it's a blessing.
> I don't want a tablet look and feel.
It's not a tablet interface. It's actually more keyboard-centric than Gnome 2 was, which forced everyone to go to the mouse quite a lot. Have a look at all the keyboard shortcuts, and how Unity selects what you want with 2-3 keystrokes starting to type the name of an app (in the dash) or a function (in the menu HUD)
> Die, die, die.....Unity...Die.
Well, okay. I'd say you deserve your money back.
All seems condemned in the long run to approximate a state akin to Gaussian noise. -- James Martin
