Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions

[jaclaz]

I just wonder, how many people listen my conversation with my wife over the phone or whatever.

The good news are that NOONE is listening to those conversations (essentially those conversations are extremely boring and of no relevance for intelligence work )

The bad ones are that they may be recorded and may be used (against you, your wife or both) IF they contain anything in any way *compromising*.

SCOOP!

I have a transcript (translated from Serbian into English ) of one of such conversations that leaked online:

Transcript of phone conversation #123454789

Started:2014_01_31-12:57:04 Zulu

Ended:2014_01_31-12:58:11 Zulu

Caller: #************ (edited for privacy - mobile phone)

Receiver:#************ (edited for privacy - residential phone)

Caller (Suspect#******1): Hi, honey, I'm coming home.

Receiver (Suspect#******2):Good, lunch is almost ready.

Caller (Suspect#******1): Perfect, I'll be there in fifteen minutes.

Receiver (Suspect#******2):Please, on your way home, get some bread, I have just realized I have only a half loaf from yesterday.

Caller (Suspect#******1): Hmmm, let's see if I can find a bakery that is still open....

Receiver (Suspect#******2):Viktor's, the one in ******* street usually closes late.

Caller (Suspect#******1): I'll try.

Receiver (Suspect#******2):Anyway, there is also some other bread that I can toast.

Caller (Suspect#******1): If Viktor's is already closed when I get there, that will do as well.

Receiver (Suspect#******2):I love you.

Caller (Suspect#******1):I love you too, see you in fifteen minutes, bye.

Receiver (Suspect#******2):Bye.

jaclaz

[JorgeA]

From JeorgeA above:

But sure, the purest solution would be to have an installation (or first-boot) screen that would put the two choices side by side (without automatically selecting a "default") and let the user decide -- and then allowed him to easily switch back and forth.

I would add, and allow the user to set a default and not have to choose every time they boot up. Do something like grub does, give you a few seconds to choose another option, then go into the default if no choice is made.

In other words, give the poor user some control over their system. After all, they have chosen to use your OS and by doing so have acknowledged that the OS maker and various alphabet groups are going to be reviewing the content of the system. So, at least make the user feel like they have at least a tiny bit of control.

bpalone

That sounds good to me.

I'd be happy with a setup where the user would make that choice initially when installing Windows (or the first time that a store-bought PC booted up) and then that choice would remain the default until the user changed it via some simple method. That would eliminate one step during bootup (the Grub multiboot system I have makes me choose every time I reboot -- that's unavoidable of course, but in the case of the Metro vs. Desktop UI it's not necessary to make a selection every time).

--JorgeA

[jaclaz]

That would eliminate one step during bootup (the Grub multiboot system I have makes me choose every time I reboot -- that's unavoidable of course, but in the case of the Metro vs. Desktop UI it's not necessary to make a selection every time).

And all this time I thought that a default entry set with a timeout was avoiding it ...

jaclaz

[JorgeA]

Lest anybody get the impression -- in the wake of the NSA revelations -- that the U.S. government is the only one that snoops into private individuals' business, read this:

Foreign regimes use spyware against journalists, even in U.S.

--JorgeA

What is surprising is IMHO the apparent surprise at these kind of "news" (actually not really "news").

It is obvious that any government will do everything in its powers (and even more) to keep under control dissidents and potential menaces to the status quo.

From a purely technical standpoint this makes little or no sense:

To me, the interesting part isn't so much that governments are doing this -- it was not hard to suspect it -- but the extent to which my suspicions have been confirmed, and even exceeded, in the past year.

I would add, and allow the user to set a default and not have to choose every time they boot up. Do something like grub does, give you a few seconds to choose another option, then go into the default if no choice is made.

In other words, give the poor user some control over their system. After all, they have chosen to use your OS and by doing so have acknowledged that the OS maker and various alphabet groups are going to be reviewing the content of the system. So, at least make the user feel like they have at least a tiny bit of control.

bpalone

But even a simple setting under "Control Panel" (or similar) would do, I mean one can bear looking at the desktop or (once ) to the NCI, at least the strict time needed to navigate to where the custom setting can be changed....

You beat me to expressing the idea (see my previous post).

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

That would eliminate one step during bootup (the Grub multiboot system I have makes me choose every time I reboot -- that's unavoidable of course, but in the case of the Metro vs. Desktop UI it's not necessary to make a selection every time).

And all this time I thought that a default entry set with a timeout was avoiding it ...

True, but then there's also the wait necessitated by the delay that's required to give you time, should you want to change the selection. Call me impatient if you must , but in my multiboot system it's a little annoying (though, again, unavoidable) having to wait for the Grub menu to disappear (or having to click on it to make it go away a couple seconds faster) if I want to go into the default selection. In the case of a Metro vs. Desktop choice, this click (or delay) would be avoidable since the UI setting change could (presumably) be made from within the OS (i.e., in Control Panel) before you reboot.

But of course, either of our approaches would be preferable to what we have today.

The analogous solution for the Grub multiboot system would be a simple way to select, when you're in (say) Windows 7, that on the next reboot you want to go into XP.

--JorgeA

Edited February 13, 2014 by JorgeA

[JorgeA]

This piece of footage is good for so many examples, when something works, do not mess with it.

That video clip IS oddly fitting somehow.

--JorgeA

[jaclaz]

The analogous solution for the Grub multiboot system would be a simple way to select, when you're in (say) Windows 7, that on the next reboot you want to go into XP.

--JorgeA

And all this time I thought that editing menu.lst from the booted 7 (or XP, or any other OS for that matters) changing the default entry was possible ....

jaclaz

[JorgeA]

The analogous solution for the Grub multiboot system would be a simple way to select, when you're in (say) Windows 7, that on the next reboot you want to go into XP.

--JorgeA

And all this time I thought that editing menu.lst from the booted 7 (or XP, or any other OS for that matters) changing the default entry was possible ....

jaclaz

Good to know that. However, we're talking here about making things simple and easy for users who are not übergeeks. As a practical matter, I doubt that many users would know that they can edit menu.lst (let alone how to do it), compared to changing a setting that they can see in (say) the Control Panel. It takes a far higher level of computer expertise to even know about menu.lst (since its use is not shown as an option anywhere), than it does to discover a setting in Control Panel.

So, for the intelligent but non-expert PC user who's happy with the Desktop and would find Metro/NCI annoying, there could be a first-boot (installation) screen that would offer a choice of UI, as well as images of what each UI looks like , maybe a quick description of them, and brief instructions as to how to change the UI setting in Control Panel (e.g., Start --> Control Panel --> Appearance and Personalization --> Change environment).

For example (and let's not get hung up on details, these are simply illustrations), the installation (first-boot) screen could say: "Windows has detected that your computer screen lacks touch capability. Would you like to install the touch-first Modern interface anyway, or the classic Windows Desktop environment?"

Come to think of it, this idea sounds somewhat like the browser-selection screen that users in the EU were or are supposed to see when installing Windows. You pick IE or FF or Chrome, whatever, but presumably you don't need to keep making that selection (or wait for a selection menu to time out) every time you reboot the PC.

--JorgeA

Edited February 13, 2014 by JorgeA

[jaclaz]

Well, I was only pointing out how your posted as examples of "problems" what are not actually "problems".

The intelligent but non-expert PC user would IMHO either NOT use grub (or grub4dos, or GRUB2) or become on-the-spot (and limited to this niche of multibooting) expert enough in order to survive , particularly if he/she is also lacking the patience to waste what? two seconds at boot time for the timeout .

I am pretty sure that if you ask in the "programming" section a request for a simple GUI tool capable of accessing menu.lst or grub.cfg and change "default 0" to "default 1" or "set default="0"" to "set default="1"" some kind soul would be able to put one together for you.

jaclaz

[JorgeA]

jaclaz,

We are losing track of the whole point of this discussion, which is to consider ways that users of future PCs could be offered their choice of UI (Metro or Desktop) in an easy-to-apply manner when they first get their new computer. (And then to easily change it afterward if they inexplicably want to switch to Metro.) Rather than expecting users to edit little-known files (such as menu.lst in the case of Grub) in order to change their UI selection, all I'm suggesting is that this selection menu might be integrated as a standard part of (for example) the Windows Control Panel tree (i.e., not something that would be custom-made by someone in the programming subforum), so that it would work much the same way as checking for Windows Updates or changing the desktop background.

The main benefit of having the command in (say) the Control Panel is that it would be visible. You see the Start Button; you see the Start Menu; you see the Control Panel entry; you see the Appearance and Personalization item; you see the choices in that category. Keep in mind that the whole idea is to implement UI choice as conveniently as possible for as many users as possible -- in contrast to the way things are today where Metro is thrust into users' faces and they need to have a certain level of knowledge to even realize that it's possible to reconstruct the Desktop interface with Aero Glass, a Start Button, and the Start Menu (let alone how to do it).

--JorgeA

[jaclaz]

No, we are not losing anything, rest assured.

It is clear that the UI switch should be implemented in an easy and visible way , I was just suggesting you how to solve the problem rectius non-problem with Grub you used as example.

Remember what I posted before you :

I would add, and allow the user to set a default and not have to choose every time they boot up. Do something like grub does, give you a few seconds to choose another option, then go into the default if no choice is made.

In other words, give the poor user some control over their system. After all, they have chosen to use your OS and by doing so have acknowledged that the OS maker and various alphabet groups are going to be reviewing the content of the system. So, at least make the user feel like they have at least a tiny bit of control.

bpalone

But even a simple setting under "Control Panel" (or similar) would do, I mean one can bear looking at the desktop or (once ) to the NCI, at least the strict time needed to navigate to where the custom setting can be changed....

jaclaz

jaclaz

[JorgeA]

Excellent, I'm glad to hear it. When you wrote above that:

And all this time I thought that a default entry set with a timeout was avoiding it

[i.e., avoiding having to make a choice at boot time], because I had been analogizing to Grub I then developed the (mistaken) impression that you were making a more general argument for the superiority of having to either click through, or choose one's UI, or wait for the timeout on every reboot.

So we both maintain that a Control Panel setting for switching between the Metro and Desktop UIs would be preferable to a scheme where the user would have to make the choice every single time he rebooted the machine. Good.

Now as far as Grub is concerned: in my case, the boot-time OS selection menus (two of 'em) and their timeouts are not a BIG annoyance, just a small one. This is a secondary machine that mostly runs Vista, sometimes XP, and every so often a version of Linux as practice for what it would be like to get my work done in a Linux environment in the event that MSFT never does mend its ways. But if I did frequently reboot and switch OSes on that machine, I would definitely follow up on the ideas that you have kindly suggested. I may just go ahead and do that anyway, out of curiosity...

--JorgeA

EDIT: for clarity

Edited February 14, 2014 by JorgeA

[JorgeA]

Microsoft has extended by one year the time that it's making Windows 7 (Professional) available for preloading on OEM PCs:

What the Windows 7 Pro sales lifecycle changes mean to consumers and business buyers

Businesses have voted with their pocketbooks: Windows 7 Pro is the long-term support edition, especially well suited to traditional PC form factors; Windows 8 and beyond will predominate in consumer channels, especially on smaller, touch-enabled devices intended for mobile use.

Despite Ed MicroBott's attempts at spin (if Win8 were so wonderful, businesses would be looking to move to it rather than to Win7), clearly this extension wouldn't be happening were Windows 8 selling as well as they'd hoped.

These changes make it possible for PC manufacturers to continue to offer new PCs with Windows 7 Pro preinstalled until at least October 31, 2015, with a reasonable likelihood of the actual end-of-sales date being extended even further.

By allowing the building of PCs for sale with Win7 pre-installed until the end of October 2015, Microsoft's move also puts Win7 in the curious position of continuing to be officially sold (i.e., not as remainder copies) past the end of mainstream support in January 2015.

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

Wzor strikes again:

From the rumor mill: Windows 9 to hit Beta in May of this year, Release Candidate close to September

According to Wzor, Windows 9 will reach Beta in May of this year. This will be the only Beta version of the operating system. A Release Candidate build of Windows 9 will then arrive sometime between late August and September of this year. Sign-off for the final build of Windows 9 will take place sometime between the end of October to the middle of November. Wzor is sticking to his claim that Windows 9 will hit RTM between October 21st and October 25th.

Ahh, it's so much fun to speculate!

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

Apple, Samsung Face Slowing Smartphone Sales

The smartphone, like every other tech gadget before it, is maturing into commodity status.

Growth is slowing and shifting from high-end sales in the U.S. and Europe to less profitable low-end handsets in emerging markets.

[...]

"The smartphone is no longer an emerging technology," said Jack Gold, an analyst at research firm J. Gold Associates. "They're getting close to being an everyday appliance."

[...]

"Much of the low-hanging fruit in the U.S. smartphone market has been picked," said Neil Mawston, an analyst at research firm Strategy Analytics. The sector "is approaching maturity," he said.

To mix metaphors, it iooks like Microsoft came to the smartphone party too late and missed the boat. And for all that, Windows users got stuck with Metro.

Although of course, they'd been trying to join that party for years even before introducing Modern Madness and the folks weren't letting them in. Now the party's winding down. It's high time they took the hint and went back home to where they're loved (PCs and business).

--JorgeA