Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions

[TELVM]

Angry anti-NSA hackers pwn Angry Birds site after GCHQ data slurp. Developers Rovio blame third-party ad networks for leak ( UK Register 2014-01-29 )

Click the spoiler. That is priceless! Well done. :

^ Homeric!

[Formfiller]

MEGA-revealing comment from "Avatar Roku" on Neowin (the number two metrotard after DotMatrix) about the boot-to-desktop rumor:

http://neow.in/news/report-windows-81-update-defaults-to-desktop-on-startup

I would have to sell my mom's tablet and get her an iPad. She doesn't use the desktop, way too complicated for how she uses a computer. Her last computer was an iPod Touch and she expects similar ease of use and touch responsiveness.

I think I would be done with Windows as well. Maybe switch over to Android if Microsoft has given up this quickly on the consumer market. I have almost no use for desktop anymore (it syncs our fitbits and updates harmony remotes). Basically once those companies make Metro apps that sync I was ready to delete the desktop tile for good.

Wut? The desktop is used for: Office, non-appy PC games, video editing, music editing, writing more than two sentences, developing, blogging, accounting, image editing, homework assignments, work etc. (most of this either doesn't work on tablets or is so gimped that it's outright useless, in handling and functionality)

If he isn't doing any of this stuff on his computer, why was he on Windows and PCs in the first place? The iPad is four years old already! He should have bought one years ago and be done with Windows if it is useless for him.

Why are the metrotards so adamant turning Windows into a bad copy of the iPad if they could get the iPad? (or Android pad)? Hate for Apple/Google?

Complete comment:

I would have to sell my mom's tablet and get her an iPad. She doesn't use the desktop, way too complicated for how she uses a computer. Her last computer was an iPod Touch and she expects similar ease of use and touch responsiveness.

I think I would be done with Windows as well. Maybe switch over to Android if Microsoft has given up this quickly on the consumer market. I have almost no use for desktop anymore (it syncs our fitbits and updates harmony remotes). Basically once those companies make Metro apps that sync I was ready to delete the desktop tile for good.

I shudder at the thought of installing any software on the desktop because it sneaks in all kinds of adware and extraneous toolbars and programs. Also slows down the computer and boot times the more stuff you install on desktop. Shifting support back to desktop is a death march for MS. Modern devices do not slow down or boot slower from installing apps. Only a matter of time before all consumers realize Windows desktop is an obsolete relic. If they don't move to Metro then those consumers will move to iOS and Android. If MS has retreated to desktop then it's no different than BlackBerry putting out phones with keyboards.

I'm a diehard and my patience with MS is wearing thin. The PC sales are dying because that style of computing is outdated.

"I am a diehard"? Diehard what? Microsoft fan? How and why if he had no use for a PC in the first place?

Edited February 2, 2014 by Formfiller

[jaclaz]

The PC sales are dying because that style of computing is outdated.

Hey, kid, remember that the particularly outdated "style of computing" is what very likely allowed your dead (or mom, or both) to procure what you eat and the place where you live and that it is the thing that allowed you grow long enough to be able to express your (senseless) opinions now.

Consider also how the electricity that you are using to operate your hardware gets to your home because a number of engineers used and still are using that style of computing and do it rightly.

jaclaz

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

MEGA-revealing comment from "Avatar Roku" on Neowin (the number two metrotard after DotMatrix) about the boot-to-desktop rumor:

FF, I got two more contenders for the crown.

EXAMPLE-1 ...In this corner a heavyweight NeoKid adding his two cents to the thread entitled: "5 Reasons To Get Over The Hype And Start Loving Windows 8.1" ( or perhaps: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb sorry, way too easy! ). Anyway, his extraordinary logic? Here it is in a discussion of touch versus keyboard/mouse ...

The bias in favor of pointing devices has been there (in terms of the Start menu) - since Windows 95. I never said OR implied that getting rid of it was going to be painless. (It certainly wasn't painless ending racial discrimination in the United States - not even outside the South.) However, as much as nobody believed that the decision would be made by the passage of time, the decision in terms of UI/UX support will largely be done by sales of hardware - as much as they may hate the idea, is the insistence on retention of the pointing-device bias of up to Windows 7 even winnable? Lastly, if - by some miracle - that argument is actually won BY the insisters on that rollback, will that basically doom Windows to irrelevance? (Winning the battle, but losing the war as a result.) Governor "Segregation now, segregation forever!" got a clue - he got elected to his last term as governor of Alabama by winning the majority of Alabama's Black vote. Could banishing the bias in favor of pointing devices be a "teachable moment" in terms of Windows itself?

So, the role of victim is being played and amazingly he is using the race card no less. I have to admit that I didn't see this one coming. So, in their mind the "touchies" have been kept down by years of institutionalized "input discrimination" and if we continue pursuing the rollback of Microsoft Tiles then we are effectively creating Jim Crow laws. God, I can't decide whether to be angry or stunned in amazement.

EXAMPLE-2 ... On the undercard we have this contender earlier in the same thread. What he is doing is attempting to counter an earlier post where a commenter used this famous graphic ...

That's one of the now legendary "AOL 1996 vs Windows 8 2012" images that drive MicroZealots and MetroTards certifiably crazy. So our friendly neighborhood NeoKid responds by posting this one ...

That's just a silly comparison. But in a similar line...

Stagnation isn't a great thing either.

Does he or the author have any clue at all that they are making the case against Windows 8! The quote in both images is "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" is enlightening here because its use in the 2nd one comparing Windows 95 and Windows 7 exposes that they believe Windows 95 was a mistake! Yes, that slam dunk victory which cemented Microsoft's position in the center of the x86 universe, in the home, office and everywhere else is considered a mistake to our special friends. The wildly successful launch and reception is something that should NOT be repeated! What's next, pictures of classic Mustangs and Camaros as something that those companies should avoid repeating?

Honorable Mention ...Finally, from a real old thread not at NeoWin but referenced by top post I saw this little comment at Motley Fool, posted a year ago, buried in an avalanche of astroturfing comments. It's short, and not much, but I found it illuminating ...

Firstly this site needs to link in with yahoo and gmail so that signing in is easier. you cannot expect people to have different account for each site. Ironic that a site which emphasizes on technology articles fails to do that. Secondly I use windows 8 and I am very satisfied. The media has been on a campaign to bash win 8, but sales figures report that over 60 million copies of win 8 have already been sold since launch. Does this author ever get the meaning of "desktop mode" in the main win 8 interface. Just click that and its desktop. Just clike IE icon and the browser opens. As for searching files, just point the mouse cursor to lower right corner of screen and click settings icon. Control panel icon will pop up. It is not difficult. In few days a person becomes proficient. The media journalists it appears are not even willing to try. Win 8 is here to stay and won't change. So get used to it by learning it, or continue using 7. Its your choice.

I just love that! "Gimme those social icons so I don't need to do nuthin to sign in, and BTW I use Win8 and I am very satisfied!". That folks, is the target demographic in a nutshell. Forget all the FOSS hype about freebie-seekers, this is all about fat and lazy monkey button pushers. The entitlement society has clearly shifted from freebies to lazy. The collective IQ of society is falling in a fiery re-entry.

The good news is that in the future young non-Tard computer techies will have easy pickings, even easier than we had. All the world's your oyster. I had expected the computer age to bring up the general IQ and knowledge base and indeed it did for a while ( in the 2000's I was often surprised by how some average computer users had picked up genuinely useful skills compared to the 1990's and 1980's ), but that turned around sharply in 2010 when the iPad came along and Microsoft lost their mind and dived head first into the idi0t pool trying to out-Tard them. Going forward it seems that Microsoft will maintain a core philosophy catering to chimpanzees even if they still make the rare step backwards to normalcy. Once they killed the Start Menu and Aero and individuality and put Microsoft Tiles on Server editions and produced hipster dance commercials and contracted street graffiti artists there was no more proof needed.

Security pros should have it easy also. Read that comment again and notice he doesn't want to maintain separate accounts at different sites, that's just too much trouble. Whatever security inroads have been made are in the process of being erased now, you know this type of sheeple logs into his bank, and CC companies, shopping carts, private servers, forums, ( ... the list is endless ) all from his Tard Tablet. So what happens when it is stolen or borrowed? Oh man.

[TELVM]

Got inspired by the luminary above.

... The collective IQ of society is falling in a fiery re-entry ...

LOL I like that phrase.

Edited February 3, 2014 by TELVM

[Formfiller]

MEGA-revealing comment from "Avatar Roku" on Neowin (the number two metrotard after DotMatrix) about the boot-to-desktop rumor:

FF, I got two more contenders for the crown.

I admit it, your favorites outclass Avatar Roku by far. "Race guy" is not only a contender for being the metrotard-prince, that one posting alone catapults him almost into the same sphere as DotMatrix.

It's like Mozart in reverse: You can't believe one single person is able to craft such pieces...

Watch out Dottie, compared to the metrotard Wunderkind, you could end up as Salieri soon.

Edited February 3, 2014 by Formfiller

[JorgeA]

Everyone knows that MS lied during Win8 development. Mister arrogance (Sinofsky) simply wanted to force users to use the new Metro crap.

Sounds plausible. Not long after he left, they started to backtrack on enforcing Metro, with the return of the (pseudo-)Start Button and especially with the new option to boot direclty to the Desktop.

Steven S. wasn't the only member of the Metro gang, but he was (shall we say) the ringleader.

--JorgeA

[MagicAndre1981]

the marketshare of Win8(.1) is now 10.58 compared to 10.49% in January.

[JorgeA]

Got inspired by the luminary above.

Very nice.

The MetroTard's graphic (and logic) makes zero sense. Repeating the unremembered past means doing something that had been done before but isn't being done currently (hence the new generation can't remember what it was like). The Windows 7 Start Menu is neither a break from current practice nor a return to an earlier one, but rather an evolutionary development in a steady, unbroken progression from the Windows 95 Start Menu.

Metro, OTOH, does fit the "can't remember the past hence repeating it" model. It's a return to the bad old days of Windows 3.x where the user was presented with all the program icons grouped on the screen (as in the Metro Start Screen) and if you maximized one of them there was no way to just see at a glance what else was also open (exactly as in the "immersive" Metro UI).

That interface never made any sense to me and I never got used to it. For me, the Start Menu was a stroke of design genius as I slipped right into it like a custom-made shoe. Why would I want to go back to the same sort of cr*p thing that came before it?

--JorgeA

[jaclaz]

The issue is IMHO far beyond the NCI, it is about level of abstraction.

We are used to replicate in the virtual environment which is the desktop/PC a structure not unlike what we have in the real word:

now, that kind of hierarchical way to store things is the same since the first need of storing information arose.

You had a "real thing" (be it a scroll, a clay tablet or *whatever*) and you placed them in separate rooms ( following some logic) on some shelves (and again using some logic) in a given order and took note on where you put the items.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebla_tablets#Archaeological_context

The evolution of the same approach was the modern "archive" with it's file cabinets, containing convenient (manilla) folders, containing documents (A4 or letter sized paper):

The moment in which:

1. you do not need to "index" the contents of a file cabinet i.e. store items in a logical order (because you use mega/meta/para/fanta search every time)
2. you do not need to have the maximum amount of compactness (because you have senselessly large drives, i.e. the same as an infinite amount of rooms/cabinets)
3. you do not actually need to produce some work, i.e. new documents containing meaningful things (because LOL and there is an app for that )

the thousand years old approach loses most of it's sense.

So instead of using the room/cabinet/folder/file real life paradigm for your virtual environment, you can use another thousands years old model (actually older than "order") which is chaos or randomness.

And this allows the OS designer to get inspiration from another common model of storing items, which brings us back to the Fisher-Price looks:

which is BTW very good for the children and kids (as it helps their growth, fantasy, and what not) but that traditionally tends to get the grown-ups mad at them .

I will repeat that there is a difference between playing and working.

Try a Ruzzle or Candy Crush round on a mouse+keyboard , but also try making an Excel spreadsheet or an Autocad drawing with just the touch screen ....

jaclaz

[Agorima]

the marketshare of Win8(.1) is now 10.58 compared to 10.49% in January.

While the marketshare of Windows 8(.1) increased by 0.09 %, in the same period Windows XP increased its marketshare by 0.25%

And in this period you see around the net people saying "Let's kill it! It's too obsolete!"

Do they really think that everybody is dumb enough to switch to Windows 8?

Edited February 4, 2014 by Agorima

[TELVM]

the marketshare of Win8(.1) is now 10.58 compared to 10.49% in January.

At this overwhelming pace of 0.09% increase per month world Metrofication (100% marketshare) will be achieved by 2096, give or take.

[bpalone]

Satya Nadella Named Microsoft CEO

A quote from the article:

He devoted the rest of the email to explaining his philosophy of technology, and how that will ultimately influence his leadership. “The opportunity ahead will require us to reimagine a lot of what we have done in the past for a mobile and cloud-first world, and do new things,” he added. “We are the only ones who can harness the power of software and deliver it through devices and services that truly empower every individual and every organization.”

The emphasized portion above leads me to think that Windows as we have known it is going to be a thing of the past. Yes they are back tracking at the moment, but if my memory serves me correctly, they have back tracked in the past, only to baby step us to where they wanted us to begin with. His comments about "cloud-first world" is the clincher for me.

The entire article can be read here: http://slashdot.org/topic/cloud/satya-nadella-named-microsoft-ceo/

Just noticed that the PR folks must of had a go at the email before he sent it out. The wording of portions just sound to good to be true.

bpalone

Edited February 4, 2014 by bpalone

[MagicAndre1981]

so Windows will be transformed to a cloud OS in the future like ChromeOS

[jaclaz]

Hmmm.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2014/feb14/02-04mail2.aspx

Many companies aspire to change the world. But very few have all the elements required: talent, resources, and perseverance. Microsoft has proven that it has all three in abundance.

...particularly the latter

Quick reality check:

http://www.angelfire.com/rings/ladypp/perseverance.html

KEY POINT

It's good to persevere, and not good to be stubborn. When you persevere, you are working toward a positive goal that's attainable. You are flexible and creative in pursuing possible alternatives toward your goal.

When you're being stubborn, you're either being negative to yourself (refusing to give up when you should), or to others (refusing to do what they want or to give them what they want), or to something (being in denial and refusing to face the facts).

jaclaz