JorgeA

That was pretty funny. I liked especially her reaction to the Mail app, around 1:47: What she doesn't realize, of course, is that Metro is for those who only ever receive e-mails. The task of composing an e-mail is too advanced and serious for the new, cool, Modern interface. --JorgeA

Makes sense to me. I'll stay on Vista and 7 until they're no longer getting security patches, then I'll have to decide whether to "go naked" or switch to Linux. The most I would do, in extremis, would be to hold my nose and install 8 with all the UI fixes we have lying around to make it halfway tolerable. If Windows Blue doesn't become an automatic, obligatory "update" to 8, then this might put off the final decision for another 2-3 years. But there is some hope that Microsoft can be made to come to its senses. See this, for example -- Microsoft flips Flash whitelist policy after Windows 8 fails to drive HTML5 adoption (emphasis added)Gee, and I thought that their UX decisions were based on unquestionable, rock-solid telemetry data. --JorgeA

"Deeper Impressions" is back!! A big Thank You to EVERYONE who's online! --JorgeA P.S. And when I submitted it and checked again, the figure was up to 180!!

That's the crux of the matter, isn't it. --JorgeA

If confirmed, that would be the worst possible news we could get. Monomania to the point of certifiable insanity out of Redmond. :angrym: --JorgeA

I have to admit, that is a pretty cool tool there. I'd never heard of it. But maybe that's precisely the reason that these sorts of things haven't caught on: not enough people know about them. The maxim "Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door" isn't quite correct -- the world needs to learn about your better mousetrap somehow. Word-of-mouth can do it, but not every time! Yup. Going along with your keyboard analogy, these Start Menu replacements have come into being because Microsoft eliminated (for example) the Delete key, and so OEMs and third-party developers have developed various different ways to replace the lost functionality with utilities that issue the necessary commands. --JorgeA

You're right, the problems run much deeper. And it is ironic that by trying to create a unified experience, Microsoft is ending up creating more of a fragmented, discombobulated experience. The root of the problem IMO is that they already did have a unified experience for a certain type of machine, but then they tried to create a new one that would extend to different kinds of machines. Sorry Steve B., but a motorcycle just isn't the same as a car, although they do operate on the same basic idea. --JorgeA

The headline says it all: Microsoft's Windows 8 turning off PC buyers I'm not sure that we linked to this one before. --JorgeA

We saw similar headlines last week, but this article provides some additional interesting points: Four months in: Windows 8 adoption is almost at a standstill --JorgeA

That was an extremely cool rundown, thanks! My favorite (not surprisingly) would be fvwm95. What's the closest to it nowadays in the Linux world? I'm talking of course about a Windows-like Linux start menu. I've been flirting with Zorin OS, which seeks to emulate the Windows look-and-feel, but I am not altogether happy with the grainy appearance of the menu, window frames, and other elements where there are extensive blank areas. There's a Windows 7-style window theme available, but at best it mimics the crude Aero Basic look rather than Aero Glass. Under Windows, the same kinds of areas usually look very sharp. This graininess seems to hold for every flavor of Linux I've tried except for Netrunner, which also has sharp-looking graphics. --JorgeA

Ouch! Life in the Windows Phone 8 shanty town --JorgeA

Thanks for the warning. I happened to see images of the new Avast in a magazine and they have the new Windows 8-style look with big square buttons/tiles, so I had already decided not to accept the new version. Your report reinforces my decision, so it's appreciated. --JorgeA

Yes, that's a pretty good piece, even if I don't agree with all of his points (the XP Start Menu has never made sense to me, and I find the ways that Vista handles Windows Updates, both manual and automatic, to be much more intuitive). And going Mac is somewhat puzzling if the idea is to maintain maximum flexibility in your computing; I'd much sooner go Linux. Needless to say, I do totally agree with his view of Windows 8. --JorgeA

That Maximum PC comparative was generally fair, I thought, although I'll be curious to hear what @xpclient has to say about it. Good idea to report reviews and reports of entries on our list. (Nice to see that a project launched on MSFN got featured on another big website, too.) Maybe we can start doing that (linking to reviews of Start Menu replacements) on a regular basis here. --JorgeA

That was an interesting post, thanks! I can only guess that the idea is that users want to do LESS with their e-mail rather than MORE , "therefore" there's no point in leaving visible more buttons, menus and other function options. Microsoft's naming policies seem to run in overlapping cycles. First there's an explosion of different names for every service, then they try to bring everything together under one umbrella (remember Windows Live?), meanwhile other areas are sprouting new names and then they try to lasso all of those. It's hard to keep track of all the changes back and forth. Wish they would leave it alone already. I have no experience with their cloud e-mail services, so I didn't know about this. Unbelievable! Wow, that's the first time I've heard of Passport in years. Had no idea it was still around. Matter of fact, back when MSFT first tried to implement this was the first time I considered weaning myself off Windows and dual-booting Linux. Never did get around to it (although at the time I did buy a boxed SuSE Linux to install alongside my Windows 98 machine). It sounded to me like a move to control/manage commercial transactions on the Internet. No, thank you!! --JorgeA

Now for more bad news (but a ray of hope) for Windows RT: (emphasis in original)The writer also suggests including Outlook among the applications that can be installed on the crippled RT desktop mode. As we know, however, MSFT is making a big push for cloud computing, so allowing a full-blown, local version of Outlook on these devices would mean changing course for them. Not that that would be such a bad idea... --JorgeA

An Ars Technica reviewer isn't bowled over by the touch feature in a new Windows 8 Ultrabook: And, echoing something we've pointed out before, the additional hardware cost for touch capability is brought into question: Once again (and again, as we've said here before), the OEM shows that it has a better handle than does MSFT on end users' needs and preferences, by including its own Start Menu replacement. --JorgeA

Yeah, at the very least the move caused a hiccup in the discussion as some people dropped out in anger and others saw that the thread was locked (if only for a few hours, as it turned out). Most (AFAIK) of those who dropped out in anger are now back. With any luck, the discussion will slowly keep getting back on track. Just before typing this, I saw that we had 26 people reading the thread. EDIT: 37 after submitting this post. (of course, not specifically because I posted, but because people decided to come see what's up) And then OTOH, spring is in the air and the weather outside's getting nice. --JorgeA

[trying to de-escalate...] Yeah, I did read the thread but what threw me was the part about "RyanVM." I'd never heard of this (him? it?) and it sounded like somebody's nickname, so when you mentioned it I went looking for a "RyanVM" in that Neowin thread to see what they had said about us. (I didn't have a clear idea of the affiliation thing, either.) Of course I didn't find anybody posting under that name, which left me confused. Now I know better. Thanks for explaining. --JorgeA P.S. For the record, I enjoy and value Charlotte's frequent, in-depth, and incisive reporting/analysis.

submix8c, Welcome to this discussion! Not a problem you joining in. Can you elaborate on what you said? I'm not sure what RyanVM has to do with our main forum page OR that neowin thread. (I'm probably missing something here.) --JorgeA

While looking for something else, I came across this dictionary definition, which is curiously fitting to our discussion. Note the time frame for when the term originated. Maybe an example of Santayana's maxim that, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Except that you'd have thought Sinofsky and especially Ballmer would have remembered. Or maybe Santayana was literally right and they can't remember... --JorgeA

Evidently that guy prefers what he calls... So he wants people to buy Ferraris (and the makers to offer ONLY Ferraris) when a Corolla will get them to the office and back just fine. More likely, the "stake" that would be placed, would go straight into the heart of the laptop market (that is, killing it). The trouble with his proposed approach is that, as the writer himself acknowledges, And that's the point. Requiring the features and specs he wants would at least double the cost to the buyer, and buyers are demonstrating that what they get for the additional cost is simply not worth it to them. Trying to ram this down their throats would qualify as a consumer ripoff. Not everyone has a spare $1000 lying around to spend on a nifty device with the latest bells and whistles. Or even if they do, they do not necessarily see enough value in it. Either way, these buyers would rather more sensibly spend $400 on a decent machine that will do what they need it to do, and save the other $600 for other things. Not many years from now, Windows 8 may go down in history as, "The Unnecessary OS." --JorgeA

Thanks very much, jaclaz. That IS disturbing. In the article from the second link, it says: And just as troubling: Even more control taken away from the user, in his own device. The article doesn't specify that this applies to RT only, so one may assume that Windows 8 NCI apps are also vulnerable. --JorgeA

Can anyone comment on this? In another recent episode of "Security Now!", Steve and Leo discuss a new encryption app for the iPhone and iPad which is said to be "uncrackable" to the point where governments might lean on Apple not to offer it. And then there was the last comment in the following passage, almost as an aside: (emphasis added)So, what I'd like to know is -- is it true that Apple (or the other curator of any other online app store, like, say, for example, umm... Microsoft) has the technical capability to simply zap a program that you downloaded from the store and installed on your own device?? If so, that would be yet another reason to be leery of these app store "walled gardens." --JorgeA

Pretty amazing -- thanks for the link! There must be real trouble behind the scenes, when your own partners are badmouthing you in the open. --JorgeA