JorgeA

We've talked a little bit about browsers here lately (IE, FF, Opera). Does anybody have an insight into the following, from @ciHnoN's second link two posts upthread? Does that really mean what I think it says -- that in Firefox you can't use the Escape key any more to stop one of those interminable web page loads?? --JorgeA

Thanks a bunch for these links! A couple of telling excerpts: From the first article, a complaint from a Win8 developer: Having a hard time working up sympathy for that fellow. Your troubles are the least that you deserve for promoting the abomination that's Windows 8... The article continues: Now for a possibly apt rendering of Windows 8 and its Metro app developer community: (source: http://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/storymaker-titanic-sinking-news-1204130-515x388.jpg --JorgeA

Fascinating, often caustic analysis as to why the Desktop will not be eliminated: Windows Blue & Desktop death nonsense explained Lots of good insights in there. One example: The author, however, may be underestimating the capacity of MSFT decision-makers to cut themselves off from reality. --JorgeA

Ahhh, that explains why you're in your right mind! --JorgeA The funny thing is that I never buy lefty devices or remap R/L mouse buttons or anything like that because nearly everything I come across is set for righties and I don't want to alter someone's computer just to make me happy. So I guess it is right-brain activity with a twist of flipping that over to quasi-right handedness, right-click is right mouse button for me and everyone else. When I was a kid they actually encouraged us to switch over and some did. Don't get me wrong though, it was okay not to switch and there were lefty scissors and things ( they had the little rubber covering which lent itself to being called handicap scissors ) but I chose to be different and use right-handed "normal" scissors with my left hand and also with my right, and that simply carried forward through the computer era. But it actually can be a benefit because computer games ( before controllers ) using mouse + keyboard I think lends itself better for lefties because the nicely isolated arrow keys with the right-hand are better than any four tightly packed letter keys. But since I also forced myself to throw and eat and write with either hand long before computers and mice came along that really isn't much of a stretch really. I use scissors and play Ping Pong right-handed. That's about it. At a restaurant, I'll even move my glass to the left side of the plate. Never have gotten around to reworking the mouse for left-handed use, though, so I guess we can add that to the right-hand column (so to speak). That was interesting. The ad is funny, with the idea that people would start a fight over the kind of phone they use -- but I never did catch the distinction between the Android people and the Apple people, or even that there were two camps at all. I don't think that I would have ever realized that, had I not read your paragraph above. Without that "partisan" angle, the scene comes off as every man for himself in a free-for-all. My take is that there's a big element of "inside baseball" going on in the ad that a lot of viewers will miss, and the conversation by the two caterers at the end will leave these people thinking, "huh??" Dvorak's analysis was good, but he misses the mark somewhat in the following statement: The thing is, these commercials are in all likelihood created and produced by outside ad agencies, not internally by a Microsoft department. So the ads don't reveal Microsoft's inner thoughts to itself; rather, they show how Microsoft is perceived by people outside the company (i.e., almost everybody else). Not that they're eager to take the hint, one way or another... --JorgeA P.S. Best of the Dvorak commenters:

Ahhh, that explains why you're in your right mind! --JorgeA

Well not surprisingly, I like it. Favorite quote was when he was talking about Ultrabooks and the new "contortionist" form factors: "Both are too expensive, bring the user nothing they want, and still fail at the basic things consumers actually need. In other words they suck more than PCs of old, but you pay a huge premium for it.". Early in this thread I said something like "Great, we'll have $1000 netbooks ..." and repeatedly spoke of spiking prices with no gain. So I like his article because there is a lot of truth in there, and as you alluded to, lots that we have discussed here. When he is talking about the meme and the shills and the big lie making the rounds as fact, he could almost be critiquing the majority of commenters at NeoWin and The Verge, two outlets rife with parrots. Yeah, I have yet to see either statistics or first-party experience to suggest that people are clamoring for Ultrabooks or touch-enabled PCs/laptops. Here's my own favorite paragraph from the article, which is related to the one you picked: --JorgeA

Specifically for Windows 8: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_(epidemiology) I guess that the release of Windows 8 is comparable in size, and seriousness, think at all the people that won't get anymore CTS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpal_tunnel_syndrome but will start developing the new "GAS" (Gorilla Arm Syndrome) : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchscreen#.22Gorilla_arm.22 In this case, Windows 8 could be considered the vector for the new epidemic of GAS... --JorgeA

Microsoft tries a new Windows 8 damage control message This extremely interesting article touches on several issues that we've been covering in this thread. Instead of picking highlights as usual, I'll ask everybody to read it and hope that you'll all come back with your own favorite quotes. If nobody does that, then I'll inflict my own selections on you... --JorgeA

You make a great point that needs to be repeated more often. The real competitors to Win8 are XP, Vista, and 7 -- particularly Vista and 7, because we have OS adoption data for them that can be compared to Win8. Measuring the PC market performance of each Windows version to the other Windows versions at analogous points in their life cycles is the closest we can get to an "oranges to oranges" comparison. Everybody else (Linux, Mac, Solaris, etc.) is basically a footnote. Now, if we want to count tablet and smartphone OS's in the total, we can do that. In that case, though, if and as the mobile market grows and comes to overwhelm the PC market (as we're told that it will), then Microsoft fans must steel themselves for a loooong (and maybe never-ending) winter of minority status. In terms of market share, they'll be the Linux/Mac/Solaris of mobile -- hardly anything to brag about or look forward to. By cheering on the dubious decisions of Microsoft executives, they will have contributed to the decline of the brand they claim to love so much. --JorgeA

That was very interesting background, thanks! Re: browsers. I was warming up to Firefox until they started messing around with the interface and removed most of the visible controls (after version 3, IIRC). I stayed on version 3 until my Norton 360 stopped supporting it and I had to choose between a useful interface and N360's protections. Since then, I use FF maybe once every other month. Plus, I wish they'd stop issuing new FF versions 15 times a day already... (At least, that's what it feels like.) It IS a nice option to be able to go directly from one tab to another using keyboard commands. In a tabbed IE window, I can use Ctrl+Tab and Ctr+Shift+Tab to go back and forth, although that last combination starts getting physically awkward and I find it easier to use the mouse to click on the desired tab. (Do these keystrokes work in Metro IE10? I can't remember. But in any case, in Metro IE you don't have the tab/window labels constantly visible, so you have to guess or remember which one comes next.) --JorgeA

Ah, so they patented a blacklist. How original. Hey, let's open up another failure vector on hapless user PC's. The hilarity will ensue when malware injects *.Microsoft.com into the blacklist, just like the old days with the HOSTS file and software firewalls, or some that removed it from the trusted site zone. Thanks, but no thanks McAfee ( Intel ). How about you get busy and kick up the specs on these 4th gen i7 processors instead of just screwing around. LOL But more seriously -- wonderful, here's a security suite feature that protects, not the user from outside parties, but outside parties from the user. And given the blocking aspect, it's not hard to imagine how repressive states like China or Iran could put this technology to use on their subject peoples. --JorgeA

The big deal is that fat heads like ^this^ are now in charge. "There's no need to use more than that." Who the [bleep] are YOU to decide how many programs I should be able to efficiently access on MY [bleep]ing computer??? Sheesh... Have you seen the salad dressing aisle of your local supermarket? Well I think there are TOO MANY damned flavors -- who needs this many choices? I say eliminate all except Ken's, they've got 43 flavors, that should be sufficient to please everyone. Because I say so! And if it's good enough for me then it should be good enough for everyone! And if you still prefer Hidden Valley Ranch and just don't like Ken's, well, you're just being ignorant and resistant to change! Meanwhile, I saw this commercial and thought it was just brilliant..."Sometimes circles just make sense." Take a look at the vids in the As Seen on Television section...the woman on the bike with the oval wheels is me bumping through my day trying to get work done with this pOS. I think I'll have some fun with this and Photoshop for my next blog post. Maybe M$ can "purchase" that line from them and reuse it to re-rebrand a return to the old OS, "Sometimes traditional Windows just makes sense"...? Good analogies, both of these. The root of the problem seems to be that Windows 8 was designed (and is defended) by folks who lack the intelligence imagination to realize that other people might prefer to do things differently. (Maybe we can call them cyber-Stalinists.) I raise my hand in response to "pjmasi" to say that I do use the Start Menu regularly to launch programs. I find a cluttered Taskbar to be unsettling. It's much more peaceful for me to have the links tucked away neatly in the Start Menu. That said, I acknowledge that other people may prefer to fill up their Taskbar with dozens of irritating little icons, and that's OK with me. So long as they don't try to make my own work practices conform to theirs. --JorgeA

The items were all very fitting! --JorgeA

Yup. You can do that if you come in with a product that's better than what's already out there, but it's far from clear that Windows phones or Windows 8/RT tablets are better than what's already on the market. --JorgeA

Boy, that Neowin guy must have very simple needs (and/or a very limited imagination) if he can't fathom why anybody would want to have more than one window showing on the screen at the same time. I'm flabbergasted. Where have they been for the last 25 years?? Don't they know or remember that that's how things started, and that we moved to overlapping windows for a reason? It's been a while since I fired up one of my Win8 previews, but it seems that even on the fanbois' own terms, Windows versions featuring the Taskbar are more practical for task-switching than this Metro cr*p. In Metro you have to first call up the list of open apps, then locate the one you want, and then select it. In the classic Taskbar, every open window is always listed along the bottom of the screen and you can simply click it. Not to mention that if your windows are overlapping you can just click on it directly. That involves fewer steps than in Metro to get to the desired application, and just as importantly it doesn't require you to shift your mental focus from the tasks at hand to the tedious process of calling up the list of open apps, then visually scanning for the little thumbnail with the one you need next, then selecting it and hoping you still remember why you wanted to switch to it. Anybody who's ever done serious work on a PC realizes that the majority of these tasks is done in short-term memory, such that anything that slows down or interrupts the process (like Metro app switching) is liable to break your flow and you have to start over again. We've been car shopping the last several days. It's extremely useful to be able to set up IE tabs, each with a specs page from one of five different varieties of a model, to do a quick visual comparison to see where exactly the differences in features and options lie. At one point I had three browser windows open side by side. (I do know that there are charts that purport to show these things at a glance with red X's and green checkmarks; but they're never as detailed or complete as the actual specs page, plus they introduce their own confusion with separate lines for items with minor differences and then you have to figure out why all the red X's. No matter how you cut it, it's faster to be able to have multiple tabs or windows open at the same time on the same screen.) --JorgeA

Well, too bad the article degrades after this and instead of blaming Windows 8 or metro, the main problem, they go on about how it's mostly the fault of Microsoft's bad image because of 90s anti-trust. Ridonkulus. But at least they are making some progress. A few months ago even this article wouldn't appear on Neowin. Yeah, for Neowin that definitely counts as progress! The article does deteriorate in the second half. Funny how the writer says that -- -- and yet it's exactly the hardware boasting this "unified visual experience" that are the ones failing to set the tech market on fire. One more gold nugget in the article: he really skewers the "increased earnings in the Windows division" spin that was reported last week -- The sample Start Screen used in the article may help to explain Microsoft's commercial difficulties: What a royal mess. Who can imagine a more disheveled mishmash of clashing colors and designs (squares and rectangles; logos and photographs; nearly wordless symbols and full tiles of graphics-free text... in every chromatic value on the palette)? Gimme those elegant floating iPad icons over this, any day! --JorgeA

A crack in Microsoft's OEM front: http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/Laptops?SearchParameter=%26%40QueryTerm%3D*%26CategoryUUIDLevelX%3DjeEQxXjbj14AAAE0syxcZzOW%26os_compare_dte2%3DChrome%2BOS%26%40Sort.TieredPricing%3D0&PageSize=15. Hasn't HP been one of the OEMs most loyal and committed to Windows? Maybe their introduction of a Chromebook says something. Ultimately, I'd like to see them offer a model (any form factor) with Linux preinstalled, or better yet no OS preinstalled. Thoughts? --JorgeA

Ads on the Outlook.com page?? No, thanks! Like a commenter gruffly suggested: yes, I'd rather use my own offline client. In any case, Microsoft's record on privacy (as seen many times in this thread) hardly inspires confidence. Other people (including that commenter) can be sliced and diced for all the data they're worth, if they prefer. Best commenter there on this Outlook.com ad thing: --JorgeA

I see a HUGE conflict with Microsoft's Apple-envy mentality of the past few years here. Good that Sinofsky left in time.. Yup. The problem is that Microsoft wants to be all things to all people, but it can't. Nobody can. The "serious" segment of the market (business, IT, professionals, hobbyists) has a different focus and needs from the "entertainment" side that's happy with Angry Birds and YouTube videos. Trying to satisfy one segment means ticking off the other, as we've seen with the Metro mess. I sympathize with Ubben's goals and recommendations as outlined in the linked article; unlike the present management, he seems to get what Microsoft is really all about. But I'm wondering what he means when he says, "forget about Windows." Does he mean "just leave it alone already," or does he mean "spin it off for somebody else to maintain." --JorgeA

If they were to frame this effort as a "kill Metro" project, I'll bet they could raise a ton of capital on a crowdfunding website... --JorgeA

I wonder whether software companies could somehow sue Microsoft if they remove the desktop? I don't know how that could work, given that you don't sign a contract by developing software for a platform. But given the huge money involved here, I just don't see that Adobe et. al. would just call it quits and move on without a fight. Not to mention all the governments of the world who depend on the desktop for.. pretty much all their entire governing! How will they react when they find out that all their investments in MS infrastructure and desktop software is sharing the fate of the dodo? (There's a huge amount of custom Windows software there) If you think about it, that's a real insane plan. Abandoning the desktop would mean turning the most powerful people on the planet against Microsoft. I don't even think Microsoft themselves are fully aware what kind of madness their "strategy" is. I doubt that software companies could sue Microsoft for removing the Desktop, unless they could plausibly bring into play some kind of antitrust angle. But it sure would destroy the business model of Adobe and so many application vendors that depend on a useful Desktop. They might be driven to porting their software to Linux and/or Mac and then forging marketing alliances with Linux distributors to push penguins. As you point out, MSFT would absolutely make a lot of enemies if they killed the Desktop. As to whether that'd be enough to discourage them, we'll have to wait and see. There appears to be a bit of a monomaniacal, "mad scientist" quality to this Metro drive that may overrule all reason, as it had so far 'til we started hearing the rumors about the Start Button coming back. --JorgeA

Good question. Here's something else that caught my eye in the article: Hmm... --JorgeA

http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/maybe-they-should-just-call-it-windows-78?page=1 This suggests one of two outcomes: (1) Microsoft goes all-Metro, killing the Desktop and leaving Adobe (and other indepndent software companies) with the choice of either shifting to a friendlier milieu (Linux, Mac) or going the way of the dodo; (2) Microsoft never kills the Desktop off completely, due to outrage by both third-party software companies and professional and other serious PC users. The question going forward will then be one of how sensitive Microsoft will be to independent software makers and serious/professional users. --JorgeA

More news and views on Windows 8 sales and its effects: Analyst: Microsofts Windows 8 Strategy Was A Disaster The Microsoft number we all want to know: Windows 8 sales to date It's safe to say that if sales of Windows 8 were anything more than mediocre (not to say disastrous), Microsoft would be trumpeting the news for the whole world to hear. What a Windows 8 U-turn will mean for the PC (emphasis added)The commenters there are particularly sensible and well worth reading. The top three at the time I visited the site: --JorgeA

More news and views on Windows 8 sales and its effects: Analyst: Microsoft’s Windows 8 Strategy Was A Disaster The Microsoft number we all want to know: Windows 8 sales to date It's safe to say that if sales of Windows 8 were anything more than mediocre (not to say disastrous), Microsoft would be trumpeting the news for the world to hear. What a Windows 8 U-turn will mean for the PC (emphasis added)The commenters there are particularly sensible and well worth reading. The top three at the time I visited the site: --JorgeA