Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions

[vinifera]

dunno if anyone here watches betanews

but it seems a alpha build of 9 is leaking

 

tho 2 louzy screenies given to me look fake

and theres harsh debate at MDL it is fake

 

even though WZOR did announce soon leak

 

*** FAKE ***

 

---

doubt winblows 8 will stand longer

with .2 update it will be last one

 

this (P)OS doesn't have bright future

Edited July 13, 2014 by vinifera

[JorgeA]

Mission statements...  Meh.  From my experience, usually that means the organization is incapable, so they feel they have to talk the talk.  Think Dilbert.

 

There's been altogether too much blah blah blah BS and WAY too little actual engineering lately.

 

-Noel

 

I agree. There was surprisingly litle actual content in that 3000-word essay by Nadella, things you could put your finger on.

 

--JorgeA

Edited July 14, 2014 by JorgeA

[JorgeA]

Strangely something On Topic:

http://betanews.com/2014/07/10/windows-8-xs-failure-will-be-the-making-of-windows-9/

 

More interesting to me was the part of the blog post that focused on Windows 9 (as opposed to Nadella's hot air):

 

So how will Windows 8.x’s failure help Windows 9 to succeed? By providing a solid foundation.

 

A desktop-first approach for keyboard and mouse PCs will help to win over all those users still on Windows 7 and XP. Sure, some of them won’t move on to a new OS regardless of what Microsoft is offering (the fact XP still has a 25 percent market share, despite having reached its end of life months ago is testament to that). But a large portion will be tempted to move to Windows 9 if there’s a good enough reason to do so.

 

For Windows 9 to succeed, Microsoft needs to get its core user base back onboard. If it can do that, then it can work on building decent share for Windows tablets and hybrids, something it’s desperately failed to do thus far.

 

The biggest alienating part of Windows 8.x is the new UI. Move that into the background on desktop systems (to the point where you need to really seek it out to use it) and there’s a good chance Microsoft can get people to make the leap.

 

Soiunds good -- make Metro about as easy to get to as Windows Media Center or the Management Console (i.e., you have to specifically ask to see it, no surprise apparitions when you're trying to do something else) and I'll be OK with that.

 

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

dunno if anyone here watches betanews

but it seems a alpha build of 9 is leaking

 

tho 2 louzy screenies given to me look fake

and theres harsh debate at MDL it is fake

 

even though WZOR did announce soon leak

 

*** FAKE ***

 

---

 

How was it determined that the screenshots out there are fakes? (Just curious, not arguing...)

 

this (P)OS doesn't have bright future

 

 

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

The software design trends that we love to hate

 

Too-flat, text-only "buttons"

 

and...

 

A dearth of density

 

 

A pretty good indictment of the Windows 8 look.

 

--JorgeA

 

[JorgeA]

Igor comes back at Windows 8 with his usual, uh, force:

 

The most annoying apps in the world

 

After skewering Skype, uTorrent, Flash,Java, and the newly designed Firefox, he aims the guns at Win8:

 

Now, you really do not have to use this colossal failure. But your workplace may force you to use this pseudo-touch bullsh!t in your office, and you don't really have a choice, and so I sympathize with you, dear readers. Or you simply might be testing the software, like I do, and constantly encountering tons of problems that are the highlight product of moronity.

 

The moment Windows 8.X restores the standard menu, I will bow down in humility and admit the greatness of the company called Microsoft, because it is virtually unheard of in the enterprise world that someone acknowledges a mistake on their end. And even though the decision may be entirely financial, it makes no difference. It will be a great moment, and a chance for Microsoft to restore some of its dignity and boost the sales back, and if not, they will keep failing and wonder why. This from the same house that giveth you a legendary XP, a jolly good Windows 7 and the aforementioned EMET, an awesome little program. Windows 8.X gets a solid 5/5

 

You will have to visit his site to find out what the units are in that 5/5 score. 

 

--JorgeA

 

[TELVM]

The software design trends that we love to hate

 

... The invasion of ALL CAPS MENUS in Microsoft’s current-generation applications and operating systems is LITERALLY TERRIBLE. Other than making the text white-on-white, there isn’t really anything Microsoft could do to so massively decrease readability ...

 

:lol:

[NoelC]

From the "lemons to lemonade" department...  Believe it or not I've actually found a small advantage to the ALL CAPS MENUS under a particular condition...  In my case I'm often developing / debugging Photoshop plug-ins.  I like using dark UI choices for applications whenever they're offered - which they are with both Photoshop and Visual Studio 2013.

 

It turns out that under certain conditions, when the windows overlap just a little, it's easy to tell which are Visual Studio's menus and which are Photoshop's because only Visual Studio's are in capital letters.

 

 

That's a pretty tenuous advantage, eh? 

 

Otherwise...  I agree.  Departure from standard styles does nothing good.

 

-Noel

[JorgeA]

The ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control

 

William Binney is one of the highest-level whistleblowers to ever emerge from the NSA. He was a leading code-breaker against the Soviet Union during the Cold War but resigned soon after September 11, disgusted by Washington’s move towards mass surveillance.

 

[...]

 

"...At least 80% of all audio calls, not just metadata, are recorded and stored in the US. The NSA lies about what it stores.”

 

[...]

 

“The ultimate goal of the NSA is total population control”, Binney said, “but I’m a little optimistic with some recent Supreme Court decisions, such as law enforcement mostly now needing a warrant before searching a smartphone.”

 

I wonder if we may be contributing to the building of our own cages by doing ever-increasing amounts of our business online, destroying bricks-and-mortar enterprises (bookstores, music stores, newspapers, etc.) in the process so that in fact we leave ourselves with no choice but to make our purchases where the snoops can easily keep track of them.

 

As we go marching...

 

--JorgeA

 

[JorgeA]

What's good for the goose is good for the gander:

 

Woman Claims NYPD Has Practice Of Arresting People For Recording Officers

 

The NYPD on Tuesday was hit with a First Amendment lawsuit, alleging the department has a practice of arresting people for shooting video of officers.

 

Plaintiff Debra Goodman claimed her rights were violated when she tried to record police activity last September on the Upper West Side.

 

Goodman was arrested at 73rd Street and Broadway, and alleged that she was pushed by officers and then detained for more than 24 hours.

 

Hahaha -- police types have been telling us for years that "there is no expectation of privacy in public places." So suck it up.

 

To borrow a favorite totalitarian question: if you've got nothing to hide, then what are you afraid of? 

 

Or have we reached the state where "all animals are equal, but some animals [government officials] are more equal than others"?

 

--JorgeA

 

[Formfiller]

Ouch:

 

http://recode.net/2014/07/17/ax-falls-at-microsoft-as-company-looks-to-cut-18000-jobs-this-year/

 

18.000 job cuts.

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-layoffs-2014-7

 

 

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced plans to cut 18,000 jobs, the largest in history.

In a memo to employees Nadella, said the majority of the cuts — 12,500 — will come from newly acquired Nokia.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-layoffs-2014-7#ixzz37jGRjXUG

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced plans to cut 18,000 jobs, the largest in history.

In a memo to employees Nadella, said the majority of the cuts — 12,500 — will come from newly acquired Nokia.

 

I am tempted to say it's the fruit of the crazy strategies the last two-three years, but it looks more like they are basically ejecting almost the whole former Nokia workforce. It's certainly more than what Google cut at Motorola.

 

Isn't it cozy when companies take over other companies only for the brands?

[Ponch]

By deciding to phase out Windows "as we knew it", Microsoft is sawing the branch it's sitting on. The tech world needs to know what the future is made of.

->18.000 job cuts.

[JorgeA]

This story (linked to in the Business Insider piece above) gives some background on what's going on at Microsoft:

 

Satya Nadella Is Cleaning Up Steve Ballmer's Mess

 

Some tidbits:

 

It's now clear that Microsoft's new CEO, Satya Nadella, thinks the Nokia acquisition was a big mistake.

 

Tuesday's announcement that thousands of Nokia employees were going to lose their jobs is perhaps the biggest signal yet that Nadella thinks the Nokia acquisition never should've happened and that Microsoft should focus less on hardware. It's a waste of time and effort to invest so much in Windows Phones from Nokia that have failed to gain significant market share in a world dominated by the iPhone and Android.

 

Nadella recognizes the reality of that situation; Ballmer did not.

 

 

In light of the spectacular failure of Windows-based  mobile devices to catch on...

 

Microsoft admits to a 14% device share, 'we have to rethink how we look at our business'

 

...Nokia evidently had therefore decided to save their skins by developing new phones based on the most popular smartphone platform -- Android. But their acquisition by Microsoft put an end to that strategy, hence all of a sudden they have a bunch of employees with (1) nothing to do and (2) nothing to sell that people want to buy.

 

If Nadella thinks that buying Nokia was a mistake, then the obvious move is to undo the mistake by selling Nokia back. But of course that would mean allowing the embarrassment of a former partner defecting to the competition (Android).

 

--JorgeA

 

[JorgeA]

Here's an illustration of what can happen when we live in the cloud.

 

You had a smooth operation running, everything working the way you wanted it to -- and then the software gets "updated" beyond your control and you can't do with it what you could do five minutes before. All of a sudden you're forced to learn how to use the software all over again or even to start scrambling for alternatives to recover the lost functionality.

 

Sounds like a good argument for keeping locally running software where the customer decides if and when to "update/upgrade".

 

--JorgeA

[NoelC]

Most software can be reconfigured to update only when the user initiates or allows it.  The only thing I allow to be updated in real time automatically on my system is my antivirus definitions, and so far that hasn't bitten me. 

 

Everything else - Windows Updates, Office updates, Adobe software updates, various browser plug-ins, various tools - is only updated when I choose to do it.  Usually that's once a month or less.

 

Unfortunately, it sometimes takes the full expertise of a career software engineer to discover all the settings to accomplish this.  Often it involves research and disabling "auto updater" applications that are set to start in the background.  This has another advantage in that fewer processes are normally running, keeping the system lean and fast.

 

For what it's worth, Avast antivirus comes with a nice little tool called, not surprisingly, "Software Updater", which can watch various applications for updates available online, and can be set to tell you (via a notification from the system tray) when a new version  is available.

 

 

Let me know if you'd like more detail on how to accomplish setting for manual updates only with Windows or specific application software.  If I've done it I'm happy to share the technique (it's also in my books).  Might be good to start a separate topic on this, now I think about it...

 

-Noel