Do not throw out well engineered software, maintain it.

Hold the phone. I thought we were discussing upgrading. Too many of these comments assume an "upgrade" necessarily means replacing the old software with something completely different. I believe this is a bad assumption! The poster specifically mentions IE 6, which is only eleven years old. So we are well into the era of MVC programming where the code talking to IE6 is the View. Therefore in order to upgrade it for newer browsers, you should not be touching the business logic. I full recognize that you may have inherited a pile of spaghetti logic without any comments (as I did three years ago), in which case I wish you luck in your replacement endeavors (after getting some radical new requirements, I am just now getting close). I also realize that "updating for new browsers" could mean adding missing closing tags to replacing an ActiveX plug-in with AJAX components. However, in a great many cases we are working with the Controller's and Model's APIs and not touching the business logic (nor moving heaven and earth).

Businesses need to view both computers and software as a durable good. You maintain durable goods until they either catastrophically fail or are so outstripped by newer technology that a new one actually saves you money or makes you more money.

First, these are some of my experiences with Windows 8, they may be atypical. Second, I'm running Office 2010 (one version old).

Windows 8 is initially very snappy, for reasons that I cannot diagnose (no high CPU usage or low amount of available memory), after I have run it for 24-48 hours it becomes slow and so I have taken to shutting it down every eventing (something I wasn't doing with Windows 7, but did do with every version of Windows prior).

These all run outside of metro, however this is suppose to be "Windows."

• Word: Crashes, if I have more than one window open.
• Outlook: Strange trouble switching between windows (often takes three clicks).
• PowerPoint: Certain slides (some that I used previously) crash Windows 8.
• SciTE (text editor): Syntax highlighting complete broken (just under Windows 8).

I've run all this by our head of IT and rather than try to fix any of it, he is trying to get us off of Windows. However at the same time we are deploying new SharePoint 2010 sites, so I do not think we are giving up on the brand.

That is what I thought, then I picked up my laptop running Windows 8.

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

I have been running Window 8 for nearly a month and I have found the start screen/metro impossible to ignore. The start screen keeps taking over and other metro interface components (most often the charms bar) keep popping up while I am working with classic applications. What am I missing? Is there a setting? Perhaps a script? I am already running a start menu replacement.

I know I said previously that running it this way was a mistake. However when many people are telling me to try something and many more are asking me about it, I feel it is only right to give it a real chance.

Oh you poor saps, Apple will still sell me an AMD Radeon HD 5870 for my Mac Pro for $449.00.

Feel free to cry for me.

Not just a "touch screen" but a "multi touch screen," do you know what one of those costs? I cannot blame the OEMs for trying to offer desktop bundles and laptops at a decent price.

Yes it is! That is why I find the many people saying, "I like Windows 8, I am just ignoring the new UI" crazy. Folks the legacy compatibility layer will not always be there! If you do not like/use the new UI (three of the four listed platforms only have the new UI), you do not like or really use Windows 8.

First, Steve is no longer here to save us from ourselves.

Second, what is most interesting to me is how little it changed (still the same width).

Third, given the resulting aspect ratio this tweak seems to have been done for the benefit of media playback.

Fourth, all the apps still work and the black bars (which I am not thrilled about, I was hoping for a multitasking interface that was always up except when playing 16:9 content) are just like the ones I see on my HDTV.

The result is that I am much more comfortable with the resulting "new screen size" than I expected. However I still think it will be slightly less usable, just look at these arcs.

A: Hello

B: Wow, you are skilled in Japaneses.

I hope this helps someone.

Try Jacob Black

Ducks!

Get with the program people.

Pokes head up and gets nailed by a shoe

Yeah, the thing is the shells that have taken this form (since Windows 3.11) over the years usually were administer by someone else and presented you with the few options you were supposed to use.

At Ease

Novell Application Launcher

Tiotha

AOL Kids

iOS

Microsoft is probably planning to distribute Metro apps exclusively through their online store. So they are adopting the user interface used when controlling what the user may run. They do this for the money, let's not pretend there is any other reason.

I really hope apple keeps this option!

They did!

The teacher of my senior physics class opened the year by explaining that for the entire first half of the class and the bulk of the second all one needed to know was these three equations. I wrote them down and committed them to memory. The class was a breeze. For me!

The teacher did a few unusual things for my high school. First, he graded on a curve. Second, he handed back tests in rank order. Mine was always the first or second test back; in addition I turned in all my homework. By the end of the semester I was "setting the curve" by a wide margin and everyone knew it. One day after class there was an intervention.

This intervention boiled down to one question. "What are you going to do?" I simply responded with, "Let me talk to the teacher."

So I went to our popular instructor and asked, "Do I really need to take the final?" His surprising response, "That is a good question, let's figure it out." Up came the Grade Book and the what if scenario. If someone else got a perfect score, I would have to receive three percent on the final to keep my A. He then informed me I had to take the test. So back I went to the group of concerned students.

It was not an easy conversation, however we settled on some middle ground. I would not do any preparation for the final. Of course I knew all I needed was the same three equations I had mastered months earlier; however an agreement where you come out the winner is a good one, or so I thought. Somehow I failed to foresee the dilemma ahead of me.

I opened up my test, answered the first three questions, and paused. Should I stop now? Answer a few more, just in case? Take the whole test? I then realized that if I stopped, I would have nothing to do for the next two hours. I decided to take the rest of the test, strictly because it was the most entertaining option available to me. Soon I would sit in judgement.

The first day of the second term our educator saunters to the center of the room, places the stack of finals on his stool and breaks into a long rant. To sum it up, he had expected better of the entire class. Except one! He then grabs the top test and calls my name. It wasn't pretty.

Yells rang out, "You said you wouldn't study!" Everyone around me turned towards me with murderous looks on their faces. Three students from the other side of the room stood and started in my direction. The teacher's wrath was like a judge trying to keep his court in order; however I was far from safe.

Hours later, as I left English, some of the people I had helped the most dumped a metal trash can and it contents over my head. In retrospect they were socially well connected and had probably told others that they would handle it, greatly reducing the level of reprisal. In the end I would learn a lesson that had nothing to do with physics.

If one person shines too brightly, the team tends to fall apart.

Generally I speak out for the free market, however it has some historically discovered limits. For instance, financial products have to be traded on an open/transparent market, this means they can (and unfortunately should) be regulated (congress can see what is going on and therefore is able to do something about it, usually pass a law). Otherwise people buy AAA rated "investments" promising double (or more) the going rate and then they lose their money.

What happened the last time Microsoft coupled their browser to their OS (and then they let you run a different one along side it)? Interoperability across the entire Internet was broken. Thousands of people developing websites big and small had to do (about) double the work. My approach was to find something all major browsers rendered acceptably, others parsed the User-Agent header and served different pages for different browsers. The serving of different files lead to problems, like this. Now we are finally recovering from these problems and we find we have come full circle (Microsoft is going to do it again). This gets to an unpopular position I hold (bye-bye karma), interoperability in established software markets (web browsing, word processing, spreadsheets, and etc.) needs to be mandated and regulated.

Disclaimer I work for a standards body. However, I work there because of my beliefs (I was a volunteer for years before I was hired), not the other way around.

I took four flights over the last week. Monday I left SEA and I did not notice anything new. Friday I flew out of SEA again and the security guard took my boarding pass, scanned it, my name came up on the readout, he then did the usual comparisons against my ID and let me through. I gestured at the scanner and said, "That is not a trick I have seen before," there was glint in his eye and a small smile but no audible reply.

If you are still traveling on other peoples return flights (when the buy a round trip), it is time to stop!