Questions about the "end of Windows 7"

In message , pyotr
filipivich writes:
[]
Was talking with The Wife this morning. If I had the mad skillz,
I'd write a word processor called "My Typewriter." Times Roman or
Courier as default, bold, underline or italics as options. Basic
editing. She said "Typewriters don't have bold and italics!" well,
yes, but ...

I think some fancy ones did - bold by overtyping with slight offset, at
least. Italic would have meant switching in a different
golfball/daisywheel, at least before the ones that weren't really a
dot-matrix printer (basically a word processor for those who "didn't
want a computer" [I _think_ you can still get those]).

Then I got into feeping creatures. Typewriter clicks when you
press the keys, and a Ding! at the edge of the screen, or the Enter

Not the ding, but the click when you press the keys (with a different
sound for space and enter): I use Leeos's "noisy keyboard". I originally
loaded it just as a novelty, but now find the audible feedback very
useful, to the extent that I miss it when using a different machine.
(Depending on their temperament, will drive those you live with up the
wall though; I live alone.) http://leeos.tripod.com/ - works on both XP
and 7 - I've not tried others. (I use his noisy mouse too.)

key. an option to have random capital letters entered as bottom half
the capital above and top half of the lower case letter below.

I'd be surprised if there aren't fonts out there that simulate that (-:.
[Though the _random_ effect wouldn't be included.]

Control H backs up, overstrikes the next key typed.

Oh well.



(-:
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Never be led astray onto the path of virtue.

pyotr filipivich wrote:
"Bill in Co" surly_curmudgeon@earthlink on Sat, 2 Mar 2019 20:22:57
-0700 typed in alt.windows7.general the following:

Except for stuff that is baked into windows like OFFICE,
I run as many apps as possible as portable apps.
I put all my files in a separate directory tree so I never have
any issues writing there. Stuff that automagically writes into
downloads gets moved immediately.

IT is possible to largely decouple yourself from the OS.

It depends entirely on what you are doing. So it may be possible for
some, but not so for others. But admitely perhaps so, at least for most
users simply running their programs.

As I've observed befo most computer users have no idea what is
happening behind the screen. Save to hardrive makes as much sense as
"save to the cloud". ("How can it save tot he cloud when the sky's
are clear?")

Exactly. Ask them where they saved their files, and you get that deer in
the headlights look. They don't care, nor do they need to, in many cases.
It's for us tinkerers that such issues (and related) becomes tres
importante.

pyotr filipivich wrote:
Mike on Sat, 2 Mar 2019 19:28:12 -0800 typed in
alt.windows7.general the following:
On 3/2/2019 7:02 PM, Bill in Co wrote:
pyotr filipivich wrote:
Ken Blake on Sat, 02 Mar 2019 18:05:21 -0700
typed in alt.windows7.general the following:
On Sat, 02 Mar 2019 16:39:53 -0800, pyotr filipivich
wrote:

"Mayayana" on Sat, 2 Mar 2019 15:46:24
-0500 typed in alt.windows7.general the following:
In that world it's not your computer and you
have no business doing much of anything other
than writing Word docs and saving them to your
docs folder.

I have been using Wordperfect since it was Wordstar.

WordPerfect was never WordStar. They were two different competing
products.

You're probably correct.

No probably about it, he is correct. And don't forget PC Write, but I
might be dating myself. PC Write was I think written in assembly, and
was lightweight and super fast. Not as full featured as the others, of
course, but infinitely preferable to EDLIN (egads). My students don't
know how good they have it nowadays, by not having to use EDLIN to
write their reports. Or having to use a typewriter.


You ain't lived until you've had to walk 100 yards across the building
to get a printout to see if your text formatting was was you wanted.
Those who popped out of the womb with an iPad in one hand will never
appreciate what they have.

GF would use the punch card machines. Turn in the deck, go to
class, come back with the results. "Beat waiting for a terminal."

In my Fortran class in college, we typed up our program on those punch
cards, and had to wait a *week* to get back the results (due to
adminstrative job use of the mainframe computer for the entire campus).
Your job was just one in a batch to be run on the system mainframe. I'm
talking about the 1960's here.

In message , Mark Lloyd
writes:
On 3/2/19 2:50 PM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

[snip]
(This was in the context of sensors in cars.)

There's the fly sensor, as in one of the sketches in "Kentucky Fried
Movie" (IIRR) ... (-:
[]

I don't remember that one, but I do remember "The popcorn you're eating
has been ****ed is. Film at 11.".

(In.)

Young guy leaps into his performance car. All sorts of alarms go off. He
ensures his door is closed properly, puts on his seatbelt, ensures the
glove compartment is shut, and so on; with each action, one of the
alarms stops sounding. But one remains. He looks round puzzled, then
reaches down and adjusts his clothing ... peace (-:
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Never be led astray onto the path of virtue.

pyotr filipivich wrote:
"Mayayana" on Sat, 2 Mar 2019 23:52:36 -0500
typed in alt.windows7.general the following:
"Bill in Co" surly_curmudgeon@earthlink wrote

Did you ever consider the much leaner Kingston Office (aka WPS Office
now), or Softmaker Free Office? They are both a LOT less bloated then
either OpenOffice or LibreOffice, but may not have everything you need,
not sure. Just wondering.

Sounded interesting but I jut went to check them out.
WPS - website's a mess, mostly embedded in javascript.
Not much to see otherwise. The source code looks like
they require an email address.
Free 2018 - Website not much better. XP not supported.
No sign of older versions. Requires registration.

Was talking with The Wife this morning. If I had the mad skillz,
I'd write a word processor called "My Typewriter." Times Roman or
Courier as default, bold, underline or italics as options. Basic
editing. She said "Typewriters don't have bold and italics!" well,
yes, but ...
Then I got into feeping creatures. Typewriter clicks when you
press the keys, and a Ding! at the edge of the screen, or the Enter
key. an option to have random capital letters entered as bottom half
the capital above and top half of the lower case letter below.
Control H backs up, overstrikes the next key typed.

Oh well.

Typewriter??? What is a typewriter? LOL.

Mark Lloyd wrote:
On 3/2/19 4:00 PM, Bill in Co wrote:

[snip]

Yup, considered it. Spent "a bit" of time using Cinnamon Lint, but for
me it's just not worth all the hassle (like in getting and customizing
the programs, etc). Plus I expect most of us are already too heavily
"invested" in Windows, both program wise and knowledge wise. Mac is a
closed off, walled garden, and expensive, so that's out for me. I like
more freedom of choice. :-)

The change is MUCH easier it you don't try to do it all at once. My
first use of Linux was with the web (on Firefox which I was already
using on Windows). I've done over 90% of that change. There's no need to
make it complete, when you can keep Windows for when you need it.

BTW, most things I heeded help with on Linux, have solutions on the web.

I know. But what's the point? What does Linux give you that you miss in
Windows, except for something to just play around with for kicks? If the
latter, then I understand.

On Sun, 03 Mar 2019 09:04:46 -0700, Ken Blake wrote:
It's very common for someone to complain about some particular program
being "bloated." What they mean by that, I assume, is that it consumes
a lot of disk space.

Maybe "they" do. :-)

"Bloated" to me means that it has a lot of features that I'll never
use in a million years. A very personal definition, obviously.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://BrownMath.com/
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...

On Sun, 3 Mar 2019 18:01:01 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , Char Jackson
writes:
[]
In the past 10+ years, to me bloated means that the features in a
program that I want and use are slowly disappearing into a mist of
ever-expanding other features that I don't care about. IMHO, the poster
child for bloated software is IrfanView. In the various Windows groups,
users defend and promote IV, so every couple of years I dutifully
download and install IV to take a look. A few minutes later I uninstall
it because its UI is such a mess. Others proclaim that IV can do
everything, which perhaps it can, but where in the sam h*ll is the stuff
that I want it to do? So to me, it's bloated beyond belief. I don't care
about disk space or any of that other stuff. The program itself is
bloated to the point of being entirely unusable.

Now there, I disagree completely. Not only is it small (to the extent of
it being the poster child for compact software - and I still feel it
works perceptibly faster because of that), but to do what I used to do
with a version from several years ago, I still press the same keys.
(Unlike, for example, Word, where the commonest question type is "where
has xxx gone?") Because all (or nearly all - there may be _some_ that
have changed, but I can't think of any) its functions are where they've
always been, any extra functionality that has been added _isn't_
intrusive.

Well, I did say people defend IV. ;-)

As with any software, you have to use it a bit to learn where things
are; I note you don't tell us what you use to do what IV does, but I
suspect if you did I'd find it just as non-intuitive as you find IV (and
I bet it'd be slower to do things, too).

(What was it you were wanting to _do_ in IrfanView that you found so
frustrating? What _do_ you normally use instead to do that?)

I need just a couple of things, and I want just a couple of additional
things.

Needs:
1. Quickly open and display a photo.
2. Easily and intuitively move forward and backward through a series of
photos.

Wants:
3. Easily rotate left/right. Auto-save the results.
4. Ability to delete the current photo.

IV does #1, fails at #2, and I didn't get as far as checking how to do
#3 and #4. What does IV use to move through a series of photos, J and K
or some such? Is there a modifier involved? I don't remember, but I
figure if he can't get that part right, then it's not for me.

I use the built-in Windows Photo Viewer. It loads and displays a photo
in less than a second, navigation is via the cursor keys (!), rotation
and or deleting can be done via the keyboard or mouse. We have a winner.

[]

--

Char Jackson

On Sun, 03 Mar 2019 09:41:13 -0800, pyotr filipivich
wrote:

Was talking with The Wife this morning. If I had the mad skillz,
I'd write a word processor called "My Typewriter." Times Roman or
Courier as default, bold, underline or italics as options. Basic
editing. She said "Typewriters don't have bold and italics!" well,
yes, but ...
Then I got into feeping creatures. Typewriter clicks when you
press the keys, and a Ding! at the edge of the screen, or the Enter
key. an option to have random capital letters entered as bottom half
the capital above and top half of the lower case letter below.
Control H backs up, overstrikes the next key typed.

Oh well.

These days, you could target the folks who have touch screens by adding
a widget that you swipe right to left when you get to the end of line.
You could call it a "Carriage Return!" :-)

--

Char Jackson

On Sun, 03 Mar 2019 09:41:13 -0800, pyotr filipivich wrote:
As I've observed befo most computer users have no idea what is
happening behind the screen. Save to hardrive makes as much sense as
"save to the cloud". ("How can it save tot he cloud when the sky's
are clear?")


In their defense, every new version of Microsoft software, both
Windows and Office, makes it significantly harder to _know_ what is
going on behind the screen. I remember the whole Libraries stuff that
was introduced in Windows 7, so that we could no longer know where
files were being saved.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://BrownMath.com/
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...

On Sat, 2 Mar 2019 11:00:13 -0600, Mark Lloyd wrote:
That is the most important reason I don't use Windows above 7 if I can
avoid it. I don't know yet what I'm going to do about income tax
software, once it no longer works on 7.

I when with H&R Block to file 2016 taxes in 2017, and it was quite
painful. (I chose Block because reviews made Turbotax out to be even
worse.)

In 2018, I did my 2017 taxes at Credit Karma ( creditkarma.com ).
It's free, unlike desktop software. And though it uses the same
interview approach as Block and Turbotax, the prompts are much better
written. I'm sticking with Credit Karma this year.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://BrownMath.com/
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...

On Sun, 3 Mar 2019 11:30:15 -0700, Bill in Co wrote:
Mark Lloyd wrote:
[quoted text muted]
using on Windows). I've done over 90% of that change. There's no need to
make it complete, when you can keep Windows for when you need it.

BTW, most things I heeded help with on Linux, have solutions on the web.

I know. But what's the point? What does Linux give you that you miss in
Windows, except for something to just play around with for kicks? If the
latter, then I understand.

Freedom from spyware, at least from spyware that ships as part of the
OS. Freedom from forced updates (usually buggy, these days). Freedom
from ...


--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://BrownMath.com/
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...

Stan Brown wrote:
On Sat, 2 Mar 2019 11:00:13 -0600, Mark Lloyd wrote:
That is the most important reason I don't use Windows above 7 if I can
avoid it. I don't know yet what I'm going to do about income tax
software, once it no longer works on 7.

I when with H&R Block to file 2016 taxes in 2017, and it was quite
painful. (I chose Block because reviews made Turbotax out to be even
worse.)

In 2018, I did my 2017 taxes at Credit Karma ( creditkarma.com ).
It's free, unlike desktop software. And though it uses the same
interview approach as Block and Turbotax, the prompts are much better
written. I'm sticking with Credit Karma this year.

Interesting. It says it does free tax filing. Does that mean free email
filing, for both federal and state?

On Sun, 3 Mar 2019 12:08:03 -0700, Bill in Co wrote:

Stan Brown wrote:

In 2018, I did my 2017 taxes at Credit Karma ( creditkarma.com ).
It's free, unlike desktop software. And though it uses the same
interview approach as Block and Turbotax, the prompts are much better
written. I'm sticking with Credit Karma this year.

Interesting. It says it does free tax filing. Does that mean free email
filing, for both federal and state?

Yes, as it says. Well, efiling, not "email filing.")

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://BrownMath.com/
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
Shikata ga nai...

Stan Brown wrote:
On Sun, 3 Mar 2019 11:30:15 -0700, Bill in Co wrote:
Mark Lloyd wrote:
[quoted text muted]
using on Windows). I've done over 90% of that change. There's no need to
make it complete, when you can keep Windows for when you need it.

BTW, most things I heeded help with on Linux, have solutions on the web.

I know. But what's the point? What does Linux give you that you miss in
Windows, except for something to just play around with for kicks? If the
latter, then I understand.

Freedom from spyware, at least from spyware that ships as part of the
OS. Freedom from forced updates (usually buggy, these days). Freedom
from ...

Well, ok, but I think you can have that freedom with Windows XP or Windows
7. Unless you're stuck on having to use Windows 10, for some reason.