Microsoft Giving Away Windows 8.1?

On 3/4/2014 4:45 PM, Roderick Stewart wrote:
On Tue, 04 Mar 2014 15:44:38 -0500, Neil
wrote:

Windows 8.1 gave us back the start button, but as soon as you click it
you're straight back to the Lego tiles, wondering what is the point of
it.

What Start button? The "return to Metro button" is not the same thing as
the Start button, so I think it would be even *more* confusing if it
worked like one.

I'm referring to the button that has been at the bottom left corner of
the screen on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Millennium, Windows NT,
Windows 2000, Windows Vista, and Windows 7, and has always worked in
much the same way, and was then suddenly missing with Windows 8. When
it was put back again in Windows 8.1 after widespread protest about
the absence of a start button, It was natural to expect it to work
like all the previous buttons that had occupied the same position for
the best part of two decades. I don't understand why you think the
familiar would be more confusing than the unfamiliar.
[...]

i have to wonder why people who only want Windows 7 bought Windows 8
anyway? It was clearly not aimed at them.

I didn't buy Windows 8. I bought a laptop computer.

Having bought the particular laptop that I wanted, there was no choice
about what was installed on it. This probably makes any sales
statistics about the supposed popularity of Windows 8 utterly
meaningless.

Isn't it really great that Microsoft leaves stuff out of their OS, so
third parties could still have a job and develop the missing pieces?
After all, if Microsoft did everything, they would be a monopoly, right?
Luckily, some of those Start Menus are even free. ;-)

--
Bill
Asus EeePC 702 ('08 era) - Thunderbird v24.3.0
Celeron 900MHz - 8GB SSD - 2GB - Windows XP Home SP2

On Tue, 04 Mar 2014 16:59:02 -0600, BillW50 wrote:


Isn't it really great that Microsoft leaves stuff out of their OS, so
third parties could still have a job and develop the missing pieces?

I've often wondered why they do that. Altruism is unlikely to be the
reason, as they are a business after all. One of the most glaring
omissions is a large fully configurable clock and calendar on the
taskbar, which they've never included in any version of Windows,
though I'm sure it would have been easy for them to do it. After all,
to many computer users time and date are the most important
information to have available at a glance, as they answer the all
important questions "Is it Friday yet?" and "How long is it till
lunchtime or going-home time?"

Luckily there are good third party efforts for this essential feature,
and various others such as a much better defragmenters than the built
in one.

After all, if Microsoft did everything, they would be a monopoly, right?
Luckily, some of those Start Menus are even free. ;-)

Thank goodness for free software. I'll buy shareware if it's
reasonably priced, meaning more like the price of a book or a movie
than the price of the computer itself. Apart from that I haven't paid
for any software for many years, except for the operating systems
themselves, and nowadays there are even some very good free
alternatives to those as well.

Rod.

Roderick Stewart wrote:
On Tue, 04 Mar 2014 15:44:38 -0500, Neil
wrote:

Windows 8.1 gave us back the start button, but as soon as you click
it you're straight back to the Lego tiles, wondering what is the
point of it.

What Start button? The "return to Metro button" is not the same
thing as the Start button, so I think it would be even *more*
confusing if it worked like one.

I'm referring to the button that has been at the bottom left corner of
the screen on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Millennium, Windows NT,
Windows 2000, Windows Vista, and Windows 7, and has always worked in
much the same way, and was then suddenly missing with Windows 8.

So... if something is located in the same position as in some other product,
it should be expected to work like things in that location on another
product, even though its functions are different? Why does that seem
reasonable to you?

i have to wonder why people who only want Windows 7 bought Windows 8
anyway? It was clearly not aimed at them.

I didn't buy Windows 8. I bought a laptop computer.

Considering the readily available supply of brand new Win7 laptops, I'd say
you bought Windows 8.
--
best regards,

Neil

On 3/5/14 4:16 AM, Roderick Stewart wrote:
On Tue, 04 Mar 2014 16:59:02 -0600, BillW50 wrote:


Isn't it really great that Microsoft leaves stuff out of their OS, so
third parties could still have a job and develop the missing pieces?

I've often wondered why they do that. Altruism is unlikely to be the
reason, as they are a business after all. One of the most glaring
omissions is a large fully configurable clock and calendar on the
taskbar, which they've never included in any version of Windows,
though I'm sure it would have been easy for them to do it. After all,
to many computer users time and date are the most important
information to have available at a glance, as they answer the all
important questions "Is it Friday yet?" and "How long is it till
lunchtime or going-home time?"

I suspect it's a lack of human resources. Given the complexity and
bloat of Windows, and the need for a certain amount of backwards
compatibility, they may not be able to address those finer things.

Years ago, on a news report talking about bugs, the point was made that
while MS may have a couple hundred people looking for bugs, the Linux
community would have a few thousand given the nature of Linux
development. How true that is I don't know, as I've no idea how buggy
some of the major Linux versions are.

Luckily there are good third party efforts for this essential feature,
and various others such as a much better defragmenters than the built
in one.

After all, if Microsoft did everything, they would be a monopoly, right?
Luckily, some of those Start Menus are even free. ;-)

Thank goodness for free software. I'll buy shareware if it's
reasonably priced, meaning more like the price of a book or a movie
than the price of the computer itself. Apart from that I haven't paid
for any software for many years, except for the operating systems
themselves, and nowadays there are even some very good free
alternatives to those as well.

Rod.



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.5
Firefox 24.0
Thunderbird 24.0

"Ken Springer" wrote in message
...
On 3/5/14 4:16 AM, Roderick Stewart wrote:
On Tue, 04 Mar 2014 16:59:02 -0600, BillW50 wrote:

Isn't it really great that Microsoft leaves stuff out of their OS,
so third parties could still have a job and develop the missing
pieces?

I've often wondered why they do that. Altruism is unlikely to be the
reason, as they are a business after all. One of the most glaring
omissions is a large fully configurable clock and calendar on the
taskbar, which they've never included in any version of Windows,
though I'm sure it would have been easy for them to do it. After all,
to many computer users time and date are the most important
information to have available at a glance, as they answer the all
important questions "Is it Friday yet?" and "How long is it till
lunchtime or going-home time?"

I suspect it's a lack of human resources. Given the complexity and
bloat of Windows, and the need for a certain amount of backwards
compatibility, they may not be able to address those finer things.

Years ago, on a news report talking about bugs, the point was made
that while MS may have a couple hundred people looking for bugs, the
Linux community would have a few thousand given the nature of Linux
development. How true that is I don't know, as I've no idea how buggy
some of the major Linux versions are.

That would be nice if it were true of the Linux community. Although for
example the Palm sync has been in many Linux distros for what, 20 years
now? And still virtually all can't get it to work. If Microsoft claimed
Palm compatibility on their package and never delivered, they would be
in court really fast. But Linux operates above the law and can make any
claims they want to. Sad isn't it?

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Windows Live Mail 2009 v14
Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 4GB - Windows 7 Home SP1

BillW50 wrote:


That would be nice if it were true of the Linux community. Although for
example the Palm sync has been in many Linux distros for what, 20 years
now? And still virtually all can't get it to work. If Microsoft claimed
Palm compatibility on their package and never delivered, they would be
in court really fast. But Linux operates above the law and can make any
claims they want to. Sad isn't it?


And what law is that, the "Law of Toyland" ? :-)

You paid $0 for the OS, and should ask for your money back.

Somewhere, the source code for the Palm Sync is available.

As well as a man page, explaining how to pass a debug parameter,
generate a log file, or... whatever.

The idea behind Linux, is *anyone* can contribute. All
it takes is people with sufficient motivation. For example,
the person who wrote Palm Sync, probably had their own Palm
and said to themselves "wouldn't it be neat if there was
a sync for this hunk of junk". And thus, that person, a "contributor",
contributed a package to the 15,000 packages in a typical Linux
repository.

A motivated person such as yourself, could at least do
a little research, and be less of a "consumer" and more
of a "contributor".

For a guy with 30+ computers, I'm surprised you don't
know how the world works.

Look for some info on GPL sometime...

"This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details."

That was put there for a reason. In case you were
using a single copy of Linux to control your Space Shuttle,
or control the pump on your heart/lung machine.

Paul

"Paul" wrote in message
...
BillW50 wrote:


That would be nice if it were true of the Linux community. Although
for example the Palm sync has been in many Linux distros for what, 20
years now? And still virtually all can't get it to work. If Microsoft
claimed Palm compatibility on their package and never delivered, they
would be in court really fast. But Linux operates above the law and
can make any claims they want to. Sad isn't it?


And what law is that, the "Law of Toyland" ? :-)

You paid $0 for the OS, and should ask for your money back.

Somewhere, the source code for the Palm Sync is available.

As well as a man page, explaining how to pass a debug parameter,
generate a log file, or... whatever.

The idea behind Linux, is *anyone* can contribute. All
it takes is people with sufficient motivation. For example,
the person who wrote Palm Sync, probably had their own Palm
and said to themselves "wouldn't it be neat if there was
a sync for this hunk of junk". And thus, that person, a "contributor",
contributed a package to the 15,000 packages in a typical Linux
repository.

A motivated person such as yourself, could at least do
a little research, and be less of a "consumer" and more
of a "contributor".

For a guy with 30+ computers, I'm surprised you don't
know how the world works.

Look for some info on GPL sometime...

"This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details."

That was put there for a reason. In case you were
using a single copy of Linux to control your Space Shuttle,
or control the pump on your heart/lung machine.

That is great Paul. Problem is good programmers are too busy to
contribute. Thus what are left are poor programmers who couldn't get a
real job if they wanted to. Not a very promising endeavor if you ask me.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Windows Live Mail 2009 v14
Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 4GB - Windows 7 Home SP1

On Wed, 5 Mar 2014 09:02:11 -0500, "Neil Gould"
wrote:


Windows 8.1 gave us back the start button, but as soon as you click
it you're straight back to the Lego tiles, wondering what is the
point of it.

What Start button? The "return to Metro button" is not the same
thing as the Start button, so I think it would be even *more*
confusing if it worked like one.

I'm referring to the button that has been at the bottom left corner of
the screen on Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Millennium, Windows NT,
Windows 2000, Windows Vista, and Windows 7, and has always worked in
much the same way, and was then suddenly missing with Windows 8.

So... if something is located in the same position as in some other product,
it should be expected to work like things in that location on another
product, even though its functions are different? Why does that seem
reasonable to you?

Windows 95 etc were computer operating systems. Windows 8 is a
computer operating system. Most people wouldn't see that as "another
product", but a more modern version of the same product. Accordingly
they would expect it to perform the same functions in the same kind of
way.

If you had a new tap fitted to a washbasin, you would still expect to
turn it anticlockwise to turn the water on. It would be perverse to
make it different just because it was new.

i have to wonder why people who only want Windows 7 bought Windows 8
anyway? It was clearly not aimed at them.

I didn't buy Windows 8. I bought a laptop computer.

Considering the readily available supply of brand new Win7 laptops, I'd say
you bought Windows 8.

The particular laptop I wanted was not available with Windows 7
already installed, otherwise that's what I would have bought.

Rod.

BillW50 wrote:
"Paul" wrote in message
...
BillW50 wrote:

That would be nice if it were true of the Linux community. Although
for example the Palm sync has been in many Linux distros for what, 20
years now? And still virtually all can't get it to work. If Microsoft
claimed Palm compatibility on their package and never delivered, they
would be in court really fast. But Linux operates above the law and
can make any claims they want to. Sad isn't it?

And what law is that, the "Law of Toyland" ? :-)

You paid $0 for the OS, and should ask for your money back.

Somewhere, the source code for the Palm Sync is available.

As well as a man page, explaining how to pass a debug parameter,
generate a log file, or... whatever.

The idea behind Linux, is *anyone* can contribute. All
it takes is people with sufficient motivation. For example,
the person who wrote Palm Sync, probably had his own Palms
and said to himself "wouldn't it be neat if there was
a sync for this hunk of junk". And thus, that person, a "contributor",
contributed a package to the 15,000 packages in a typical Linux
repository.

A motivated person such as yourself, could at least do
a little research, and be less of a "consumer" and more
of a "contributor".

For a guy with 30+ computers, I'm surprised you don't
know how the world works.

Look for some info on GPL sometime...

"This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details."

That was put there for a reason. In case you were
using a single copy of Linux to control your Space Shuttle,
or control the pump on your heart/lung machine.

That is great Paul. Problem is good programmers are too busy to
contribute. Thus what are left are poor programmers who couldn't get a
real job if they wanted to. Not a very promising endeavor if you ask me.


Real programmers, work on doing things to improve their
resume, for the next employer. Contributed programs may serve
as a demonstration of their skill. Later (ten years later),
there would not be much motivation to do support for a package.

The Linux distros do have "maintainers", who accept the job of
supporting packages. But for some packages, they add nothing
themselves, perhaps just doing bug fixes for errors in the code.
(Like fix something with a stack overflow in it.)

As an example, I had a very nice TV Tuner application called TVTime.
It works with BT848 or BT878 tuners. It was originally written
with ALSA audio. It worked fine. Later, some idiots created
something called Pulseaudio. It ended up being a replacement
for ALSA. Pulseaudio had some compatibility stuff added, so it
initially didn't break stuff. Then later, Ubuntu decided to turf
the compatibility support. This broke TVTime. I can pop in a later
Ubuntu disc, attempt to watch TV, and... no sound. I can watch TV
as long as I like, with... no sound.

I would fix this myself, if I could find an actual article that
demonstrates what ALSA calls to replace with equivalent native
Pulseaudio calls. If you happen to see one of those around
somewhere, post a link :-)

Paul

"Paul" wrote in message
...
BillW50 wrote:

I would fix this myself, if I could find an actual article that
demonstrates what ALSA calls to replace with equivalent native
Pulseaudio calls. If you happen to see one of those around somewhere,
post a link :-)

Will do, Paul! :-)

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Windows Live Mail 2009 v14
Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 4GB - Windows 7 Home SP1

On 05/03/2014 12:09 PM, BillW50 wrote:

Years ago, on a news report talking about bugs, the point was made
that while MS may have a couple hundred people looking for bugs, the
Linux community would have a few thousand given the nature of Linux
development. How true that is I don't know, as I've no idea how buggy
some of the major Linux versions are.

That would be nice if it were true of the Linux community. Although for
example the Palm sync has been in many Linux distros for what, 20 years
now? And still virtually all can't get it to work. If Microsoft claimed
Palm compatibility on their package and never delivered, they would be
in court really fast. But Linux operates above the law and can make any
claims they want to. Sad isn't it?

GNU/Linux works in theory but in practise, it's an absolute mess.
Earlier this week, it was revealed that there was a bug in GnuTLS which
was worse than what Mac systems faced some time earlier. The bug is in
actuality worse than the Mac one. However, what wasn't revealed so
easily is that the bug existed since 2005. You would think that with
'thousands of eyes looking at the code' like what GNU/Linux advocates
claim for the software, SOMEBODY would have picked up on it in nine
years and fixed it. However, it was not the case.

--
Silver Slimer
Wikipedia Supporter
Embrace mediocrity. Install GNU/Linux today.

"Silver Slimer" wrote in message
...
On 05/03/2014 12:09 PM, BillW50 wrote:

Years ago, on a news report talking about bugs, the point was made
that while MS may have a couple hundred people looking for bugs, the
Linux community would have a few thousand given the nature of Linux
development. How true that is I don't know, as I've no idea how
buggy some of the major Linux versions are.

That would be nice if it were true of the Linux community. Although
for example the Palm sync has been in many Linux distros for what, 20
years now? And still virtually all can't get it to work. If Microsoft
claimed Palm compatibility on their package and never delivered, they
would be in court really fast. But Linux operates above the law and
can make any claims they want to. Sad isn't it?

GNU/Linux works in theory but in practise, it's an absolute mess.
Earlier this week, it was revealed that there was a bug in GnuTLS
which was worse than what Mac systems faced some time earlier. The bug
is in actuality worse than the Mac one. However, what wasn't revealed
so easily is that the bug existed since 2005. You would think that
with 'thousands of eyes looking at the code' like what GNU/Linux
advocates claim for the software, SOMEBODY would have picked up on it
in nine years and fixed it. However, it was not the case.

I know, isn't that something! There was a Linux server passing out a
trojan for 7 months before anybody ever noticed it. Kind of like the
blind leading the blind, isn't it?

Linux: Infected by Complacency - Computing on Demand
http://computingondemand.com/linux-i...y-complacency/

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Windows Live Mail 2009 v14
Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 4GB - Windows 7 Home SP1

On 05/03/2014 8:25 PM, BillW50 wrote:

GNU/Linux works in theory but in practise, it's an absolute mess.
Earlier this week, it was revealed that there was a bug in GnuTLS
which was worse than what Mac systems faced some time earlier. The bug
is in actuality worse than the Mac one. However, what wasn't revealed
so easily is that the bug existed since 2005. You would think that
with 'thousands of eyes looking at the code' like what GNU/Linux
advocates claim for the software, SOMEBODY would have picked up on it
in nine years and fixed it. However, it was not the case.

I know, isn't that something! There was a Linux server passing out a
trojan for 7 months before anybody ever noticed it. Kind of like the
blind leading the blind, isn't it?

Linux: Infected by Complacency - Computing on Demand
http://computingondemand.com/linux-i...y-complacency/

For my tastes, Windows kicks ass. It has a ton of software, a familiar
interface, every game ever released on the PC as well as support for
every technology the manufacturers ever release. It's attacked by
viruses, the price of success I guess, but there's a load of software
out there - free and paid for - that protects against that. Besides,
people who know what they're doing don't get viruses even without an
anti-virus though that extra level of protection doesn't hurt.

People will say all sorts of stuff about the interface and the code
behind the system but Windows 7 and 8 runs beautifully even on
decade-old hardware due to how well it was rewritten and optimized
starting with Vista. The interface, on its side, is not everyone's cup
of tea yet it seems to be the majority's favourite as it has been
imitated countless times by the GNU/Linux community. Cinnamon, XFCE,
KDE, MATE, the original Gnome and LXDE all use a Windows-like interface
despite the fact the advocates hate Windows. It says a lot.

--
Silver Slimer
Wikipedia Supporter
Embrace mediocrity. Install GNU/Linux today.

Silver Slimer wrote:
On 05/03/2014 12:09 PM, BillW50 wrote:

Years ago, on a news report talking about bugs, the point was made
that while MS may have a couple hundred people looking for bugs, the
Linux community would have a few thousand given the nature of Linux
development. How true that is I don't know, as I've no idea how buggy
some of the major Linux versions are.
That would be nice if it were true of the Linux community. Although for
example the Palm sync has been in many Linux distros for what, 20 years
now? And still virtually all can't get it to work. If Microsoft claimed
Palm compatibility on their package and never delivered, they would be
in court really fast. But Linux operates above the law and can make any
claims they want to. Sad isn't it?

GNU/Linux works in theory but in practise, it's an absolute mess.
Earlier this week, it was revealed that there was a bug in GnuTLS which
was worse than what Mac systems faced some time earlier. The bug is in
actuality worse than the Mac one. However, what wasn't revealed so
easily is that the bug existed since 2005. You would think that with
'thousands of eyes looking at the code' like what GNU/Linux advocates
claim for the software, SOMEBODY would have picked up on it in nine
years and fixed it. However, it was not the case.


A code quality report from *six* years ago. It's a question of
who is listening, when an observation like this is made.

http://www.openldap.org/lists/openld.../msg00072.html

"GnuTLS considered harmful"

Who should be reviewing that code, is any developer who reuses it.
You can't expect naive users like me, to be able to make
heads or tails of what is in there (as a potential member of
the "thousands of eyes"). Some stuff, like cryptography, you
need subject matter experts so spot the stupid stuff.

The bug in the Apple one though, I think that was covered in
my one week long C programming course :-) (I'm a hardware guy,
and programming has always been a necessary evil taught by
short courses.)

There have been other embarrassing slip-ups, such as
two image libraries (JPG and PNG?), that had exploitable
issues. When it comes to programming, modern programmers
are used to "classes" of bugs, which spread by word of
mouth when doing modern development. Years ago, nobody
would even be thinking about those. (They would not be
reviewing file formats, for evidence of exploit-ability.)

To give an example, a language like Pascal is tightly
typed. And can have range checking on arrays. This prevents
stepping outside of an array. C code has fewer checks of that
nature (for "speed reasons"), and it means that each and every
C programmer has to look out for bad programming idioms.
Constantly. In a professional organization, you'd spot these
in a colleagues code, during a code review. Who reviews what,
is going to be a "loose end" in lots of other environments
(collaborative projects on the Internet).

You can also thank the NSA, for encouraging code reviews
and getting people to look under rocks, for evil. We've probably
had more cryptographic-related reviews now, than have ever been
done in the history of computing.

Paul

"Silver Slimer" wrote in message ...
On 05/03/2014 8:25 PM, BillW50 wrote:

GNU/Linux works in theory but in practise, it's an absolute mess.
Earlier this week, it was revealed that there was a bug in GnuTLS
which was worse than what Mac systems faced some time earlier. The
bug is in actuality worse than the Mac one. However, what wasn't
revealed so easily is that the bug existed since 2005. You would
think that with 'thousands of eyes looking at the code' like what
GNU/Linux advocates claim for the software, SOMEBODY would have
picked up on it in nine years and fixed it. However, it was not the
case.

I know, isn't that something! There was a Linux server passing out a
trojan for 7 months before anybody ever noticed it. Kind of like the
blind leading the blind, isn't it?

Linux: Infected by Complacency - Computing on Demand
http://computingondemand.com/linux-i...y-complacency/

For my tastes, Windows kicks ass. It has a ton of software, a familiar
interface, every game ever released on the PC as well as support for
every technology the manufacturers ever release. It's attacked by
viruses, the price of success I guess, but there's a load of software
out there - free and paid for - that protects against that. Besides,
people who know what they're doing don't get viruses even without an
anti-virus though that extra level of protection doesn't hurt.

People will say all sorts of stuff about the interface and the code
behind the system but Windows 7 and 8 runs beautifully even on
decade-old hardware due to how well it was rewritten and optimized
starting with Vista. The interface, on its side, is not everyone's cup
of tea yet it seems to be the majority's favourite as it has been
imitated countless times by the GNU/Linux community. Cinnamon, XFCE,
KDE, MATE, the original Gnome and LXDE all use a Windows-like
interface despite the fact the advocates hate Windows. It says a lot.

Absolutely! Linux has no hope of ever being as useful as Windows is.
Even Linus Torvalds said he uses the "best tool for the job" and said he
too uses Windows in his book. Heck, remember this one?

http://imageshack.com/a/img202/2057/...sathumbsup.jpg

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Windows Live Mail 2009 v14
Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 4GB - Windows 7 Home SP1