Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions

[HalloweenDocument12]

And wasn't there a follower mode? I think it was tied to one of the missiles ( I may be mixing it up with Unreal maybe ).

So at the risk of exposing another memory error, tell me one more thing ... Am I recalling the random level generator correctly? ... I think it was RandRott and you ran it standalone, outside the game and it created a new map PAC or WAD or whatever their resource was? I'm stunned that such creative use of automation, especially the randomizing component, has not been exploited since unless I'm mistaken.

Can't remember whether or not missile following was in the game. But ROTT did have RANDROTT and it worked like you remember, though I believe the first FPS level randomizer was for Wolfenstein in the Super Upgrades Pack, and that one had some sort of GUI while RANDROTT was strictly CLI.

[SIW2]

This is exactly what I have been trying to alert people to :

For you geeks, it will only get worse ...more companies will find innovative ways of ruining the accepted, efficient workflows, just for the sake of money...you will see yet more forced online integration and similar crap cropping everywhere.

Then, it will become subscription based s***, with monthly fees and mandatory online check in ... ads in every program...You will not be able to install programs that were not pre-approved... it will happen slowly, so that people do not resist violently.

If you do not want to end up an anally probed guinea pig in the money labs, you will be wise to boycott this latest Microsoft operating system thing...it is an insult to intelligence, to poor people worldwide, and anyone with a basic sense of decency.

Final grade: FAIL. We're done.

Windows 8.1 review - Still stupendously stupid

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Wow, the new Opera (NuOpera?) is even more dumbed down than Windows RT.

Their blog is very sinofskytastic now:

http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/

p***ed off commenters and stupid excuses by the devs galore.

Quite interesting how the companies think: Stagnant marketshare - dumb down! Even when it makes no sense. And with Opera it makes even less sense than the NuMicrosoft route MS has chosen: Chrome is the dumbed down browser, Firefox is for the add-on freaks, IE is the "standard" bare-bones one and Opera was the full-featured one. Creating another Chrome makes zero sense, ZERO. Chrome will always be more popular, thanks to Google's financial power and advertising budget. Why should Chrome users switch to... Chrome (Opera branded)? Opera had an established audience, and they are giving it all up. That audience is p***ed, and there surely won't be a surge of Chrome users coming.

The "nu" disease is spreading.

Right on all counts. I'm in that forum, but haven't been back since the Chrome disaster. I'm glad you reported that there is some signs of an uprising.

There have been Sinofsky style threading tricks there for a while. They have some real Dot OperaTards who troll around, sidetracking the countless important criticism threads, and then they get closed. It is unbelievable. Their purpose ( the trolls ) was to stop anything that seemed to disparage Opera, even though the threadstarters were trying like mad to wake them up. Threads with dozens of posters with positive ideas and complaints would be stopped dead in its tracks. A perfectly identical predecessor to the Destroying Windows Blog with Sinofsky. Just amazing.

And you're right. It is nothing but a Chrome clone with a skin vaguely resembling Opera. They smooshed the Address Bar and Search into one box. They removed toolbar customization ( from what I read ) and lots of other features. I just hope they fork the thing now, spinning off the Presto source code to someone else. Whoever infected their leadership should go commit Seppuku - ( "stomach-cutting", a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment )

[Formfiller]

There have been Sinofsky style threading tricks there for a while. They have some real Dot OperaTards who troll around, sidetracking the countless important criticism threads, and then they get closed. It is unbelievable. Their purpose ( the trolls ) was to stop anything that seemed to disparage Opera, even though the threadstarters were trying like mad to wake them up. Threads with dozens of posters with positive ideas and complaints would be stopped dead in its tracks. A perfectly identical predecessor to the Destroying Windows Blog with Sinofsky. Just amazing.

Amazing indeed. And even crazier than NuMicrosoft. Microsoft has at least a s***load of money and still a monopoly on the desktop; if metro totally fails, their financials can still keep them afloat for a while, giving time for develop some rescue strategies. Opera on the other hand has no such luxuries. Them p***ing users off is utterly suicidal.

I wonder where they teach such genius customer-management strategies.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Just for the record, on the "enterprise" side I remember no particular "wows" at Windows 95 (let alone at FAT32).

Agreed, but why would they? Win95 was all about the standalone personal computer, local storage directly hooking up printers, using modems ( rather than networked comm and file and print servers ). Funny thing is, I'll bet if Microsoft could go back in time, they would have done it completely differently, playing down the user experience and emphasize the hive mentality and steer them into a proto-cloud, even at 56K dialup.

The .pif vs. .lnk argument is simply senseless.

I can't speak for that commenter at ZDNet but I'm not sure he meant PIF versus LNK. I suspect he was just trying to point out the brand new feature of LNK files connected to Windows applications like the older PIF files connected to DOS executables ( but I could be misreading him ). I think these were good ideas. Besides adding LNKs they also improved the PIFs by exposing many more settings to the properties GUI. The fact that they both survived this long means they really nailed it right out of the gate.

The "desktop paradigm" was already common in Windows 3.x (at least in my experience).

No doubt. The desktop was familiar ever since Windows 1.x really, and Win3x ProgMan was really just the latest tweak of it. Of course hardcore users got tired of waiting for Microsoft to stop playing around and likely tried out 3rd party shells on DOS like GEM or even ~shudder~ Apple Macs. All that waiting and searching for a useful shell suddenly ended for good when Win95 arrived. Well mostly, the Explorer shell has never been properly debugged and de-annoyanced.

In Win3x, as good as WinFile was ( and it was certainly better than its Explorer replacement ) the ProgMan shell just plain sucked. Clearly they had two different types of people designing the GUI, one went for tight, efficient use of space, forward looking with two panes ( WinFile ), the other wasted as much of the space as possible with big bright flat folders full of icons ( ProgMan ). I think I remember Sinofsky saying he was involved in Win3x as a rookie engineer, how much you wanna bet he had a hand in ProgMan but not WinFile, ( this would explain a lot of things really ). Anyway, people were certainly familiar with the desktop concept, folders and icons and everything else, but for the life of me I can't remember one that complained about Windows 95 ( contrary to MetroTard lies ).

FAT32 came later than 95, it was first in OSR 2 (which was an OEM only release, i.e. you couldn't have it without having it bundled with new hardware):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_95#Editions

That means (flatly) that FAT32 was NOT available in enterprise before August 1996 and ONLY on new machines.

You're right about August 1996 for the OSR 2 ( I recalled November, probably because of the 11:11 timestamp ). Anyway it is technically true about not for general release, but it was most definitely a normal full retail pressed CD with the same old OEM label ( "only for sale with a new PC" ) that many other versions carried, shrink-wrapped with a thin book and a license sticker. It came with new computers ( and possibly with new motherboards? ) but I'm not sure how these studios got them. I think I was mistaken about the FAT32 converter because I just dug through one of the discs and there is no trace of it outside or inside the CABs, I guess the converter only appeared in Win98 unless it was a file from the Softlib FTP. Regardless, we did full installs from new CD's sometime in late 1996.

The problem in the recording studios at that time was that they needed 2 GB and larger drives for working with wave files. At 650 MB per mastered audio CD plus tons more for processing it was top priority to get these "huge" disks ( which today would be considered a tiny flash drive ). This meant FAT32 or else. The thing I hated most though was the state of motherboard disk controllers, add-in EIDE cards and primitive system BIOS's. These were nightmares. I probably tried to suggest Windows NT plus SCSI hardware but that wasn't going to happen because even though money was no object ( to a point ), it was about budgeting for either a couple of SCSI systems or 10 normal systems. The latter meant that almost a dozen albums could be worked on simultaneously. Then there was the cost for CD Burners, several hundred bucks each in the early years, and they were merely 1x and 2x writers! The more I think about this period, the less I want to remember it!

[JorgeA]

More spying:

http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2013/07/04/revelations-on-the-french-big-brother_3442665_3224.html

Great find, thanks. Government spying is more "popular" internationally than we'd thought.

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

Wow, the new Opera (NuOpera?) is even more dumbed down than Windows RT.

Their blog is very sinofskytastic now:

http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/

p***ed off commenters and stupid excuses by the devs galore.

Quite interesting how the companies think: Stagnant marketshare - dumb down! Even when it makes no sense. And with Opera it makes even less sense than the NuMicrosoft route MS has chosen: Chrome is the dumbed down browser, Firefox is for the add-on freaks, IE is the "standard" bare-bones one and Opera was the full-featured one. Creating another Chrome makes zero sense, ZERO. Chrome will always be more popular, thanks to Google's financial power and advertising budget. Why should Chrome users switch to... Chrome (Opera branded)? Opera had an established audience, and they are giving it all up. That audience is p***ed, and there surely won't be a surge of Chrome users coming.

The "nu" disease is spreading.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall of some of these places and listen in on the thought process that leads them to make these sorts of changes. What exactly are they thinking, and what do they expect to gain from crippling their interfaces and ending up all looking like each other?

--JorgeA

[jaclaz]

I probably tried to suggest Windows NT plus SCSI hardware but that wasn't going to happen because even though money was no object ( to a point ), it was about budgeting for either a couple of SCSI systems or 10 normal systems. The latter meant that almost a dozen albums could be worked on simultaneously. Then there was the cost for CD Burners, several hundred bucks each in the early years, and they were merely 1x and 2x writers! The more I think about this period, the less I want to remember it!

Well, I beg to differ.

Set aside the "niche" needs of audio producing, those were the times when (a VERY brief period, UNfortunately) I had ALL Windows NT 4.00 machines, with data saved on a separate partition (casually around 650 Mb in size) and a single SCSI external CD burner.

Backup meant that every day of the week a different user would get the SCSI burner, and simply burn to a CD the WHOLE set of DATA out of his/her machine before going at home.

When the need arose for tape backup, then the headaches started.

Till today there is NOT such a simple way (short of replicating/duplicating on other hard disks) way to backup, of course the reason is to be attributed to industry that failed to deliver a storage media (optical, Magneto-optical, holographic, *whatever*) capable of enough capacity AND to the good MS guys (and ALL or almost ALL the programmers that followed and still follow their stupid "guidelines/approaches") and spread meaningful info *anywhere* (the Program Files, the Registry, the actual place where DATA is, the User folder(s), etc.).

jaclaz

[JorgeA]

This is exactly what I have been trying to alert people to :

For you geeks, it will only get worse ...more companies will find innovative ways of ruining the accepted, efficient workflows, just for the sake of money...you will see yet more forced online integration and similar crap cropping everywhere.

Then, it will become subscription based s***, with monthly fees and mandatory online check in ... ads in every program...You will not be able to install programs that were not pre-approved... it will happen slowly, so that people do not resist violently.

If you do not want to end up an anally probed guinea pig in the money labs, you will be wise to boycott this latest Microsoft operating system thing...it is an insult to intelligence, to poor people worldwide, and anyone with a basic sense of decency.

Final grade: FAIL. We're done.

Windows 8.1 review - Still stupendously stupid

That was a fantastic review, he pulls no punches.

We need to come up with a short slogan that encapsulates the message you've been alerting people to. Something like:

"Get ads on your PC! Make your computer like a TV, buy Windows 8!!"

--JorgeA

[Formfiller]

WTF, according to that review you can't create local accounts anymore? (without hacks at least)

I thought MS would come with stuff like that only in Windows 10 or so. Even after all the recent mishandlings by Microsoft, this comes unexpected. That's like an open invitation for anti-trust.

[jaclaz]

WTF, according to that review you can't create local accounts anymore? (without hacks at least)

NOT really:

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/windows-8-1-beta.html

I guess it's also partially my fault, because I connected to my Wireless routers beforehand, allowing Windows 8.1 access to the Internet. Maybe if I had not given it any network, it would have allowed me the option to use the local account, too. However, the way my testing of the preview version was going, I had to use a Microsoft online account.

The specific matter has NOT been tested properly/thoroughfully.

jaclaz

[Formfiller]

Well, it looks like local accounts are crippled indeed in 8.1, at least until the RTM:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Windows-8-1-Preview-Won-t-Support-Local-User-Accounts-362922.shtml

It appears that the Preview version of the operating system will only allow users to log in with the Microsoft accounts, as local user accounts won’t be supported until the RTM version is released.

“In order to use Windows 8.1 Preview you must sign in to your PC with a Microsoft account. The option to create a local account will be made available at the final release of Windows 8.1,” it’s mentioned in the leaked documents.

Even though it's apparently a beta-only thing, it's still very disturbing that Microsoft has added this requirement. With NuMicrosoft, it's certainly a possibility that this could be the state of things from now on after Windows 8.1.

Edited July 6, 2013 by Formfiller

[Formfiller]

Windows and Line of Business Applications: No Good Options

Great article, you should read it. It points out well how insane the WinRT paradigm is for business applications.

The fanboys are now in pure denial mode, fantard on Channel9:

I stopped reading after the first paragraph. The assumptions that he makes are completely inaccurate, especially for anybody who's paid any attention to what came out of Build. I don't even know where to begin.

If an article produces such responses from the metrotards, it's good.

[JorgeA]

Another interesting exchange about the changes in Windows 8.1 between Leo and Paul in the next episode of Windows Weekly. Start at about 31:00:

LL: ...I don't care about the Start Button, I think that doesn't do that much. I think the Start Menu and Boot to Desktop would make people very happy. And that's what I've got with Start8.

[...]

LL: And we should make the point that this is likely not going to be the default, this will just be an option.

MJF: Right.

LL: I can't imagine -- oh, there's no way -- Microsoft would make this the default --

PT: No, but what they're doing what they should have done in the beginning, which is simply make it available, allow us to go back to the old thing as much as possible.

LL: What I don't understand is, even if it's 20 percent of your users, why would you ignore them? Why don't you just give them what they want -- what's the problem?

PT: Because they hate those people, Leo. <laughter>

LL: I think there's a little bit of a mistaken shift in how companies in the tech industry consider their customers. There's a lot more -- and Apple started this, it made it OK -- paternalism, where hey, we know what's best, we're gonna do it this way and you'll get used to it -- is not the right answer. The right answer is: whatever you want! This is your software, we;'re making it for you! It's like Burger King saying "No, you have to have ketchup"...

[...]

LL: There was a good industrial reason for that, [but] it's software, there's no industrial reason.

PT: Yeah, yeah... You know, Apple had a pretty small business there for a long time, and they could push changes on people and nobody would complain.

LL: Exactly.

PT: You know, Windows is a little different, and that's what makes this decision to not provide legacy UIs in Windows 8 so strange, because they have so many customers, and such a diverse customer base, different ranges of expertise and so forth, and to not provide any way to go back is such a crazy decision. It really alienated a lot of people. And I think that's the important part of it and the reason why they're finally changing.

LL: Yeah. And maybe, in my opinion, too little too late.

--JorgeA

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

I probably tried to suggest Windows NT plus SCSI hardware but that wasn't going to happen because even though money was no object ( to a point ), it was about budgeting for either a couple of SCSI systems or 10 normal systems. The latter meant that almost a dozen albums could be worked on simultaneously. Then there was the cost for CD Burners, several hundred bucks each in the early years, and they were merely 1x and 2x writers! The more I think about this period, the less I want to remember it!

Well, I beg to differ.

Set aside the "niche" needs of audio producing, those were the times when (a VERY brief period, UNfortunately) I had ALL Windows NT 4.00 machines, with data saved on a separate partition (casually around 650 Mb in size) and a single SCSI external CD burner.

Backup meant that every day of the week a different user would get the SCSI burner, and simply burn to a CD the WHOLE set of DATA out of his/her machine before going at home.

When the need arose for tape backup, then the headaches started.

Till today there is NOT such a simple way (short of replicating/duplicating on other hard disks) way to backup, of course the reason is to be attributed to industry that failed to deliver a storage media (optical, Magneto-optical, holographic, *whatever*) capable of enough capacity AND to the good MS guys (and ALL or almost ALL the programmers that followed and still follow their stupid "guidelines/approaches") and spread meaningful info *anywhere* (the Program Files, the Registry, the actual place where DATA is, the User folder(s), etc.).

Well you're probably right, there were many things worth remembering so I shouldn't throw it all out as bad times. I guess it's just human nature to always remember specific nightmare issues, especially when they're Windows related..

I forgot about MO drives ... I remember adding Adaptec cards and going through a succession of SCSI MO removeable disks, IIRC they were mostly SyQuest. It actually worked pretty well for the time period. They were I think 100 or 120 MB cartridges so their use in audio was rather limited. They were mostly used for storage of artwork and publicity data. I remember sending some off to a printer ( literally that is, houses with Agfa equipment and Macs that run off thousands of copies ) only to find out how fragile those MO disks were. Whoops. So we were right back to Iomega Zip floppies again. Technological detours on the information superhighway.

For a short period of time after Win95 came along, the overall less expensive solutions in the Windows universe made some fiscal sense even with all the headaches. But I should just skip to the end of the story and point out that by the late 1990's to early 2000's all the places I worked with had settled into using Macs + ProTools and ADAT for everything audio and video related in house, from recording to processing, storage and final output ( masters duplicated and sent offsite for pressing ). Ironically, finally stable Windows XP systems arrived just in time to find use in the more mundane chores of bookeeping, some artwork, publicity, online access and the odd A/V project when a studio was swamped. Microsoft and Windows was simply late to this party ( the creativity community that is ) mostly because of how long it took to pull everything together seamlessly and to finally get NT's much more reliable data-integrity into the hands of the masses. Apple deserves a lot of credit for smooth sailing with a steady rudder in this field. Microsoft on the other hand, well,

.

I've often remarked of how I very rarely came across that stereotypical Mac user ( arrogant, hating the DOS/Windows world, turning their nose up like the Apple commercials, the type that MetroTards obsess over ), and it's true. The ones that actually were Mac'tards I rarely come across, instead I met them on telephone calls and in email. Thinking back on this I can recall a few insufferable people, inevitably it would stem from us trying to get them to send us their Agfa profile ( "Errr, what's an ICM? We use Macs here" ) or even just tell us the exact model or various details about how their artwork department processed this or that. There were these little inconsistencies in CMYK between Mac and Windows versions of identical software and worse ones between Corel and just about everyone else. Truthfully though, it wasn't so much Mac arrogance, but instead it was these guys protecting their little corner of the universe. They saw what was coming on the PC with Windows 95 - the ability of any person to do almost anything that big expensive production studios had cornered in their market, and to easily do almost anything that a Mac could do. So I never really held it against them, again, it's human nature. Our MetroTards on the other hand ... they're worse .... much, much worse..