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#46
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Best Win 8 Start Button replacement program?
On 5/13/2013 05:27, ...winston wrote:
xfile wrote: So who is going to generate revenues for Microsoft if its major partners go under? System builders selling 2-3 units a day? I wouldn't be so happy if I were you, but I am not you. Who cares if the entire PC industry is done and if other makers are making money, as long as MS is making money, right? Good thinking There is always a choice, and the question has always been that when the choice would be made. Continuing to buy MS products is a rational decision to maintain the current operational infrastructure, and there is no reason to replace otherwise perfectly working infrastructure which is the opposite of MS mentality (let's break things down). The problem is that Microsoft is now been perceived as a selfish, out-of-touch, and unreliable business partner, so for new infrastructures, people are looking for anything but from Microsoft. You think Microsoft doesn't know that or else why would they quickly determine to come up 8.1? Seriously, wake up Lol...this isn't really about the status of the pc market. What it is about is the inability to recognize that while others may be reading your replies in this forum (and who knows where else) that no one here (or elsewhere) has any ability to effect change on what you believe should happen....afaics that is the 'wake up' needing realization (by everyone...you, others, and even I) No reason to replace perfectly working infrastructure ? Well that ~40% of XP infrastructure that remains has two choices (less than a year when XP's entire product and support life cycle ends) if continuing with Windows. MSFT is perfectly comfortable with either choice - Windows 7 or Windows 8 (which means more Windows licenses and hardware will continue to be sold - The OEM's know and for the most part also welcome that...no further need for them to maintain an infrastructure in-house/outsourced to support XP) As far as 8.1 MSFT inferred prior to Win8 GA that updates for Win8 (and obviously later o/s) would happen more often than previous o/s SP's with the first blushes of that plan already occuring twice - the 170 MB Win8 RTM update prior to GA and more recently the deployment of combo updates (bundled product and security) for Win8 apps via the Windows Store and not through Windows Update. Cf. MSFT Oct 2012 qp During the final months of Windows 8 we challenged ourselves to create the tools and processes to be able to deliver these 'post-RTM' updates sooner than a service pack," Sinofsky wrote. "By developing better test automation and test coverage tools ... Windows 8 will be totally up to date for all customers starting at General Availability." /qp Once again...read between the lines...Windows as previously known (the o/s, how and when updates are deployed will never be the same as in the past)...in the long run everyone using any device (pc, smart, mobile, etc.) will adapt too (or be left behind)though do feel free to continue to rant....since for all practical purposes save a few occasional helpful usenet threads the entertainment value is much better than reality TV and Fox news. Well that ~40% of XP infrastructure... XP is an infrastructure"? Sorry, I seriously overestimated your knowledge and the rest of your comments prove. I also forgot you are an MVP, my bad. |
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#47
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Best Win 8 Start Button replacement program?
On 5/12/2013 18:24, Erik Vastmasd wrote:
I caught a glimpse of xfile on Sun, 12 May 2013 17:26:59 +0800, writing in alt.comp.os.windows-8: On 5/12/2013 07:29, ...winston wrote: xfile wrote: On 5/11/2013 18:12, ...winston wrote: "xfile" wrote in message ... ...winston wrote.... As previously noted...a Start Button does not necessarily indicate a Win7 type Start Menu. I can't wade through the rest, we all have to go to the toilet eventually. snip StartIsBack project suits me, $3.00 gives a licence for 2 PC's. Works like a charm. I know, too complicated for you even for self-control |
#48
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Best Win 8 Start Button replacement program?
xfile wrote:
On 5/13/2013 05:27, ...winston wrote: xfile wrote: So who is going to generate revenues for Microsoft if its major partners go under? System builders selling 2-3 units a day? I wouldn't be so happy if I were you, but I am not you. Who cares if the entire PC industry is done and if other makers are making money, as long as MS is making money, right? Good thinking There is always a choice, and the question has always been that when the choice would be made. Continuing to buy MS products is a rational decision to maintain the current operational infrastructure, and there is no reason to replace otherwise perfectly working infrastructure which is the opposite of MS mentality (let's break things down). The problem is that Microsoft is now been perceived as a selfish, out-of-touch, and unreliable business partner, so for new infrastructures, people are looking for anything but from Microsoft. You think Microsoft doesn't know that or else why would they quickly determine to come up 8.1? Seriously, wake up Lol...this isn't really about the status of the pc market. What it is about is the inability to recognize that while others may be reading your replies in this forum (and who knows where else) that no one here (or elsewhere) has any ability to effect change on what you believe should happen....afaics that is the 'wake up' needing realization (by everyone...you, others, and even I) No reason to replace perfectly working infrastructure ? Well that ~40% of XP infrastructure that remains has two choices (less than a year when XP's entire product and support life cycle ends) if continuing with Windows. MSFT is perfectly comfortable with either choice - Windows 7 or Windows 8 (which means more Windows licenses and hardware will continue to be sold - The OEM's know and for the most part also welcome that...no further need for them to maintain an infrastructure in-house/outsourced to support XP) As far as 8.1 MSFT inferred prior to Win8 GA that updates for Win8 (and obviously later o/s) would happen more often than previous o/s SP's with the first blushes of that plan already occuring twice - the 170 MB Win8 RTM update prior to GA and more recently the deployment of combo updates (bundled product and security) for Win8 apps via the Windows Store and not through Windows Update. Cf. MSFT Oct 2012 qp During the final months of Windows 8 we challenged ourselves to create the tools and processes to be able to deliver these 'post-RTM' updates sooner than a service pack," Sinofsky wrote. "By developing better test automation and test coverage tools ... Windows 8 will be totally up to date for all customers starting at General Availability." /qp Once again...read between the lines...Windows as previously known (the o/s, how and when updates are deployed will never be the same as in the past)...in the long run everyone using any device (pc, smart, mobile, etc.) will adapt too (or be left behind)though do feel free to continue to rant....since for all practical purposes save a few occasional helpful usenet threads the entertainment value is much better than reality TV and Fox news. Well that ~40% of XP infrastructure... XP is an infrastructure"? Sorry, I seriously overestimated your knowledge and the rest of your comments prove. I also forgot you are an MVP, my bad. Well...you did introduce the term " there is no reason to replace otherwise perfectly working infrastructure" which would seem to imply and reference "continuing to buy MS products is a rational decision" any working infrastructure replaced would be using XP, Vista, or 8 with 8.1. Forgetfulness afflicts all of us...in the long run you'll adapt and like the rest of us forget that you did. Fyi..8.1 will be delivered via the MSFT Store. g -- ....winston msft mvp consumer apps |
#49
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Best Win 8 Start Button replacement program?
Winston ? wrote:
snip It's OK to snip, those of us with fuctional newsreaders can reconstruct the thread if we need to do so. -- XS11E, Killing all posts from Google Groups The Usenet Improvement Project: http://twovoyagers.com/improve-usenet.org/ |
#50
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Best Win 8 Start Button replacement program?
"XS11E" wrote in message ...
Winston ? wrote: It's OK to snip, those of us with fuctional newsreaders can reconstruct the thread if we need to do so. === User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.2; WOW64; rv:20.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/20.0 SeaMonkey/2.17.1 -- ....winston msft mvp consumer apps |
#51
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Best Win 8 Start Button replacement program?
Ken Springer wrote:
I think too many users choose Windows and MS Office products because they are sheeple. Everyone else has it, everyone else says that's what they need, so that's what they buy. There's other reasons too, such as it's hard to find Mac outlets, even harder to see a Linux box, but I'm referring to the aggregate result. Surprised no-one picked up on this! Unfortunately the likes of Open/Libre Office aren't compatible (enough) with MS Office to be useful in a mixed platform environment; by which I mean that if you have to collaborate with another author on a document you will have problems unless you both use the same tools. OK for shopping list but not for anything more complex. That's why people choose MS Office. |
#52
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Best Win 8 Start Button replacement program?
mechanic wrote:
Ken Springer wrote: I think too many users choose Windows and MS Office products because they are sheeple. Everyone else has it, everyone else says that's what they need, so that's what they buy. There's other reasons too, such as it's hard to find Mac outlets, even harder to see a Linux box, but I'm referring to the aggregate result. Surprised no-one picked up on this! Unfortunately the likes of Open/Libre Office aren't compatible (enough) with MS Office to be useful in a mixed platform environment; by which I mean that if you have to collaborate with another author on a document you will have problems unless you both use the same tools. OK for shopping list but not for anything more complex. That's why people choose MS Office. This is true, if the two collaborators are using the *same* version of Word. But you have no guarantee of that. Especially if you're collaborating with people outside your company (such as people in standards groups, or dealing with salesmen). Some of the standards people at work, used to use Macintosh SE machines. Just to give you some idea, how old the equipment could be, and how weird the software version issues could be. You can still have issues, even if everyone is using a Microsoft product. I've had to deal with enough "can you open this for me" type requests in the past, to expect incompatibility while using just about any combination of things. (And the patchwork quilt of "compatibility packs" and "converters", still doesn't handle every situation.) Only vanilla (non-Unicode, ASCII) text, is reasonably safe :-) Thank God for standards. Paul |
#53
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Best Win 8 Start Button replacement program?
On 5/16/13 11:30 AM, mechanic wrote:
Ken Springer wrote: I think too many users choose Windows and MS Office products because they are sheeple. Everyone else has it, everyone else says that's what they need, so that's what they buy. There's other reasons too, such as it's hard to find Mac outlets, even harder to see a Linux box, but I'm referring to the aggregate result. Surprised no-one picked up on this! Unfortunately the likes of Open/Libre Office aren't compatible (enough) with MS Office to be useful in a mixed platform environment; by which I mean that if you have to collaborate with another author on a document you will have problems unless you both use the same tools. OK for shopping list but not for anything more complex. That's why people choose MS Office. I've been saying this so much I'm almost hoarse. :-( But Paul is correct in his post, you are (almost) guaranteed compatibility if everyone is using the same version of Word. And then it can be iffy. Someone may have updated their Word with repairs and fixes, and others have not. Potential? You're screwed. :-( I used to work for an organization that utilized a very high end maintenance management program. The vendor touted the ability to export reports in Word format. Didn't work. Know why? I looked into the actual file, discovered the exported file was in Word 2.0 format. Do you have a clue how old that is???????? This is when Office 2003 was current. FYI, Windows for Workgroups is Word 6. But you cannot make blanket statements that people need MS Office for compatibility reasons. The first thing to do is determine what level of compatibility is needed. Then you can start to determine if MS Office is necessary. My sister works for a business that uses Open Office. No problem with the Word files they receive. And there's considerable difference between OO and LO these days. So, one may work, the other not. -- Ken Mac OS X 10.8.3 Firefox 20.0 Thunderbird 17.0.5 LibreOffice 4.0.1.2 |
#54
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Best Win 8 Start Button replacement program?
On 5/16/13 2:07 PM, Paul wrote:
mechanic wrote: Ken Springer wrote: I think too many users choose Windows and MS Office products because they are sheeple. Everyone else has it, everyone else says that's what they need, so that's what they buy. There's other reasons too, such as it's hard to find Mac outlets, even harder to see a Linux box, but I'm referring to the aggregate result. Surprised no-one picked up on this! Unfortunately the likes of Open/Libre Office aren't compatible (enough) with MS Office to be useful in a mixed platform environment; by which I mean that if you have to collaborate with another author on a document you will have problems unless you both use the same tools. OK for shopping list but not for anything more complex. That's why people choose MS Office. This is true, if the two collaborators are using the *same* version of Word. But you have no guarantee of that. Especially if you're collaborating with people outside your company (such as people in standards groups, or dealing with salesmen). Some of the standards people at work, used to use Macintosh SE machines. Just to give you some idea, how old the equipment could be, and how weird the software version issues could be. You can still have issues, even if everyone is using a Microsoft product. I've had to deal with enough "can you open this for me" type requests in the past, to expect incompatibility while using just about any combination of things. (And the patchwork quilt of "compatibility packs" and "converters", still doesn't handle every situation.) Only vanilla (non-Unicode, ASCII) text, is reasonably safe :-) A lot of the time, I simply send PDF files. OS X can create them natively from the Print option, and for Windows you can install a free PDF printer driver. Thank God for standards. Paul -- Ken Mac OS X 10.8.3 Firefox 20.0 Thunderbird 17.0.5 LibreOffice 4.0.1.2 |
#55
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Best Win 8 Start Button replacement program?
On Thu, 16 May 2013 20:13:18 -0600, Ken Springer wrote:
But you cannot make blanket statements that people need MS Office for compatibility reasons. The first thing to do is determine what level of compatibility is needed. Then you can start to determine if MS Office is necessary. Impossible to tell what docs you may get to deal with in advance, so best to go for MS-Office for the max compatibility. Why make things harder for yourself? |
#56
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Best Win 8 Start Button replacement program?
"mechanic" wrote:
On Thu, 16 May 2013 20:13:18 -0600, Ken Springer wrote: But you cannot make blanket statements that people need MS Office for compatibility reasons. The first thing to do is determine what level of compatibility is needed. Then you can start to determine if MS Office is necessary. Impossible to tell what docs you may get to deal with in advance, so best to go for MS-Office for the max compatibility. Why make things harder for yourself? And there's the outbound compatibility issue: if you generate a document using tool X and send it to your customer who uses (supposedly) compatible tool Y, in the general case you're not guaranteed that the customer will see the document exactly as you saw it. If your employer's business is delivering information to its paying customers, you do NOT want to risk even a minor formatting glitch that could alter the interpretation of the report. As noted upthread there's always the issue of different versions of a program having different nuances, but for Office as long as the two endpoints are within a version or maybe even two it's likely (but not guaranteed!) that the version-related differences will be relatively minor as long as the endpoint using the more recent version pays attention to the downward compatibility features. Personally, I would love to dump Office at my POE, and that option has been formally considered...but our biggest customers are firmly wedded to Office so we don't have much wiggle room. Joe |
#57
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Best Win 8 Start Button replacement program?
On 5/17/13 5:24 PM, Joe Morris wrote:
"mechanic" wrote: On Thu, 16 May 2013 20:13:18 -0600, Ken Springer wrote: But you cannot make blanket statements that people need MS Office for compatibility reasons. The first thing to do is determine what level of compatibility is needed. Then you can start to determine if MS Office is necessary. Impossible to tell what docs you may get to deal with in advance, so best to go for MS-Office for the max compatibility. Why make things harder for yourself? And there's the outbound compatibility issue: if you generate a document using tool X and send it to your customer who uses (supposedly) compatible tool Y, in the general case you're not guaranteed that the customer will see the document exactly as you saw it. If your employer's business is delivering information to its paying customers, you do NOT want to risk even a minor formatting glitch that could alter the interpretation of the report. As noted upthread there's always the issue of different versions of a program having different nuances, but for Office as long as the two endpoints are within a version or maybe even two it's likely (but not guaranteed!) that the version-related differences will be relatively minor as long as the endpoint using the more recent version pays attention to the downward compatibility features. Personally, I would love to dump Office at my POE, and that option has been formally considered...but our biggest customers are firmly wedded to Office so we don't have much wiggle room. Joe and mechanic, I'm not saying there are no situations where MS Office isn't the best choice. I'm saying it's not the best choice 100% of the time. I'd bet for all the Office sales, Office/OO/LO is the best choice less than a third of the users out there. As for the argument that everyone in a collaborative project needs to have the same program, at one time it was probably necessary. These days, I think it's a bogus argument. In such a situation there should only be one person doing all the editing of changes to the final document product. If you send Word files out, you might get 10 Word documents all with changes. Some of those people may not know how to use the editing and annotation markup features of Word. So they simply edit your document, and you have to figure out what's been changed. Been there, done that, not a pretty picture. After you have those edited copies, and you now have 11 Word documents to keep track of, and not lose sight of which was the original. Send out PDF files, and tell them annotated PDF files as a reply is the only thing that will be accepted. Otherwise, the reply will not be considered. Now you will have 10 PDF files returned, guaranteed to contain both the original text and the suggested text, all in one document for you to work with. And if you do it this way, who cares what word processor everyone else is using. It's not your job to deal with your collaborators' ignorance. It's their job to learn how to use the software of choice. Harsh? Yes. But you are guaranteed to be more cost and time effective, increasing your productivity level. Change your paradigm. Think outside the box. Look for something better for your situation. I'm retired, and in the summer I'm a combination steam locomotive engineer/tour guide/interpreter. This year I have to have a new spiel. And frankly, I've found office software to be cumbersome at best. But I recently found a word processor called Scrivener, and for my purpose at the moment, I'm so impressed, and finding it so easy to use and be able to keep track of all my research information at the same time. So far, it seems to kick the c**p out of office suite software. But if I was a secretary for a lawyer, this program would truly suck! LOL It's a case of finding a program that fits your needs and the way you work, not changing your needs and the way you work to fit the program. -- Ken Mac OS X 10.8.3 Firefox 20.0 Thunderbird 17.0.5 LibreOffice 4.0.1.2 |
#58
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Best Win 8 Start Button replacement program?
On 5/18/2013 10:12, Ken Springer wrote:
On 5/17/13 5:24 PM, Joe Morris wrote: "mechanic" wrote: On Thu, 16 May 2013 20:13:18 -0600, Ken Springer wrote: But you cannot make blanket statements that people need MS Office for compatibility reasons. The first thing to do is determine what level of compatibility is needed. Then you can start to determine if MS Office is necessary. Impossible to tell what docs you may get to deal with in advance, so best to go for MS-Office for the max compatibility. Why make things harder for yourself? And there's the outbound compatibility issue: if you generate a document using tool X and send it to your customer who uses (supposedly) compatible tool Y, in the general case you're not guaranteed that the customer will see the document exactly as you saw it. If your employer's business is delivering information to its paying customers, you do NOT want to risk even a minor formatting glitch that could alter the interpretation of the report. As noted upthread there's always the issue of different versions of a program having different nuances, but for Office as long as the two endpoints are within a version or maybe even two it's likely (but not guaranteed!) that the version-related differences will be relatively minor as long as the endpoint using the more recent version pays attention to the downward compatibility features. Personally, I would love to dump Office at my POE, and that option has been formally considered...but our biggest customers are firmly wedded to Office so we don't have much wiggle room. Joe and mechanic, I'm not saying there are no situations where MS Office isn't the best choice. I'm saying it's not the best choice 100% of the time. I'd bet for all the Office sales, Office/OO/LO is the best choice less than a third of the users out there. As for the argument that everyone in a collaborative project needs to have the same program, at one time it was probably necessary. These days, I think it's a bogus argument. In such a situation there should only be one person doing all the editing of changes to the final document product. If you send Word files out, you might get 10 Word documents all with changes. Some of those people may not know how to use the editing and annotation markup features of Word. So they simply edit your document, and you have to figure out what's been changed. Been there, done that, not a pretty picture. After you have those edited copies, and you now have 11 Word documents to keep track of, and not lose sight of which was the original. Send out PDF files, and tell them annotated PDF files as a reply is the only thing that will be accepted. Otherwise, the reply will not be considered. Now you will have 10 PDF files returned, guaranteed to contain both the original text and the suggested text, all in one document for you to work with. And if you do it this way, who cares what word processor everyone else is using. It's not your job to deal with your collaborators' ignorance. It's their job to learn how to use the software of choice. Harsh? Yes. But you are guaranteed to be more cost and time effective, increasing your productivity level. Change your paradigm. Think outside the box. Look for something better for your situation. I'm retired, and in the summer I'm a combination steam locomotive engineer/tour guide/interpreter. This year I have to have a new spiel. And frankly, I've found office software to be cumbersome at best. But I recently found a word processor called Scrivener, and for my purpose at the moment, I'm so impressed, and finding it so easy to use and be able to keep track of all my research information at the same time. So far, it seems to kick the c**p out of office suite software. But if I was a secretary for a lawyer, this program would truly suck! LOL It's a case of finding a program that fits your needs and the way you work, not changing your needs and the way you work to fit the program. Send out PDF files, and tell them annotated PDF files as a reply is the only thing that will be accepted. Otherwise, the reply will not be considered. Now you will have 10 PDF files returned, guaranteed to contain both the original text and the suggested text, all in one document for you to work with. And if you do it this way, who cares what word processor everyone else is using. We have been doing this since Office 2007 era when we noticed confusions and complaints arouse from partners and customers about the old and new word file extension (.docx vs. .doc). I decided to have all of our company's outgoing documents to be converted to PDF format first and added a standard line: For your convenience, we have prepared the document in PDF format so you may view and edit with any editor of your choice. We didn't force nor lecture anyone to use a different word processor, but I haven't seen any internal or external documents including long and complicated ones that is not in PDF format for a long time. Nowadays, PDF format is especially convenient because people can read it with smartphones and tablets on different platforms. Ironically, if Microsoft have not had changed the default file format, we wouldn't change. This is a typical Microsoft way of innovation - pushing customers away. |
#59
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Best Win 8 Start Button replacement program?
On Tue, 21 May 2013 20:17:48 +0800, xfile wrote:
I decided to have all of our company's outgoing documents to be converted to PDF format first and added a standard line: For your convenience, we have prepared the document in PDF format so you may view and edit with any editor of your choice. I've used a bunch of editors over the years but I don't think I've ever seen one that can edit pdf files. Can you please name one or two? |
#60
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Best Win 8 Start Button replacement program?
On 5/28/2013 16:22, Ron Fey wrote:
On Tue, 21 May 2013 20:17:48 +0800, xfile wrote: I decided to have all of our company's outgoing documents to be converted to PDF format first and added a standard line: For your convenience, we have prepared the document in PDF format so you may view and edit with any editor of your choice. I've used a bunch of editors over the years but I don't think I've ever seen one that can edit pdf files. Can you please name one or two? Adobe Acrobat (I haven't tried 9.x later), one can use Text Edit functions, or Sticky Note, or simply highlight the text and use the text box tool. Or, use a word processor with similar editing functions and re-export, re-save as or print it to a PDF file. Too complicated? |
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