Windows 8 is a Flop, just as I predicted

On 7/29/2014 5:59 PM, Ron wrote:
On 7/29/2014 5:53 PM, BillW50 wrote:
On 7/29/2014 4:40 PM, Ron wrote:
On 7/29/2014 4:24 PM, BillW50 wrote:
On 7/29/2014 2:23 PM, mechanic wrote:
On Tue, 29 Jul 2014 10:43:59 -0700, Ken Blake, MVP wrote:

As far as I'm concerned, there are no advantages to laptops except
for their portability when you travel, and I always strongly
recommend against using a laptop at home.

Here we use mainly laptops, usually cheap professional grade ones
like Thinkpads that companies are replacing. Batteries are cheap and
easy to replace, if the machine dies just buy another for £100-£150.
Ebay always has plenty. This current laptop is a Dell Vostro
something-or-other with a great screen and keyboard, cost £120
including Win8 Pro. Not enough USB ports but who's complaining. We
used to like Asus eeePCs (901 etc.) but they are a bit out of date
with a 32 bit Atom processor. I don't strongly recommend anything,
no comebacks.

Buy cheap and buy often has been my motto for decades. No sense in
paying big bucks for the latest and greatest for most of us since when
you get it home, setup, and have everything working correctly, it is
already outdated. And in a year or two, it is worth about one tenth of
what you paid for it.

But yet you claim to own more than one Alienware laptop.

Yes indeed. Once they are a few years old you can buy them at one tenth
of their original cost. Why pay thousands for an Alienware when a few
years later you can buy it for a few hundred bucks? ;-)

No, you can't.

Sure you can. I bought five Alienware machines for $250 or less (they
originally cost $2500 to $3500). Sure they needed some work and I paid
like $100 to $150 for them, but even after the the cost of spare parts
and all they still cost $250 or less.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Kingston 120GB SSD - Thunderbird v24.4.0
Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 4GB - Windows 8.1 Pro w/Media Center

On Tue, 29 Jul 2014 09:31:10 +0100, Stephen Wolstenholme wrote:

On Mon, 28 Jul 2014 21:28:03 -0700, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

It goes back to the days of real men (and women) and real operating
systems: totally command line :-)

'Command line' is so modern. You mean the switch panels are no longer
needed!

Steve

You absolutely upstaged me there :-)

Pretty funny...

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On Tue, 29 Jul 2014 08:00:37 -0400, Wolf Kirchmeir wrote:

On 2014-07-28 11:46 PM, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Mon, 28 Jul 2014 16:44:58 -0400, Ron wrote:

On 7/28/2014 4:07 PM, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Mon, 28 Jul 2014 13:03:54 -0700, Gene E. Bloch wrote:

Many laptops (not iPads, AFAICT) have a slot for a microSD card. I have
a 64GB card in my tablet.

I have never seen a laptop with a microSD slot.

s/laptop/tablet/

I meant to add this: thanks for spotting my typo!

To illustrate what I was thinking: I don't think of an iPad as a laptop
:-)


What typo? I still don't know what you are talking about. lol

Did you mean tablet and not laptop?

"s/laptop/tablet" means "replace 'laptop' by 'tablet'"

Actually, Substitute "laptop" for "tablet". Hence the "s/..

Man, you can be picky :-)

What does the V in Ctrl-V (paste) stand for?

You are correct, of course, but I truly felt that a synonym wouldn't
obfuscate.

That editing syntax goes back to early Unix days, but it's probably still used.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_%28text_editor%29

Not to mention the imitation of Unix syntax to other uses, such a
/irony.../-irony.

I'm too lazy (and it's too close to suppertime) for me to look that up
to refresh my memory for that one :-)

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On 7/29/2014 6:49 PM, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Tue, 29 Jul 2014 09:31:10 +0100, Stephen Wolstenholme wrote:

On Mon, 28 Jul 2014 21:28:03 -0700, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

It goes back to the days of real men (and women) and real operating
systems: totally command line :-)

'Command line' is so modern. You mean the switch panels are no longer
needed!

Steve

You absolutely upstaged me there :-)

Pretty funny...


With the command line comes the power to automate a lot of process.

Now that MSFT has created PowerShell that is especially true.

The typical Windows user probably doesn't even know what it means to automate a process.

On 7/29/2014 6:55 PM, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
What does the V in Ctrl-V (paste) stand for?


I always thought it was pictorial, representing a wedge creating room to squeeze the new contents into.

Since I'm not a touch typist, I'm always regretted not having three keycaps on the keyboard clearly
labeled COPY CUT PASTE -or- maybe better still extra three buttons on the mouse labeled like that.

Alias écrivait news:lr2e0i$hv1$1@dont-
email.me:

http://www.computerworld.com/s/artic...nts_you_to_for
get_Windows_8

Even Vista did better.

Of course, this is in line with MS' good/bad, good/bad Windows roll out.

Win 98 good
Win Me bad
XP good
Vista bad
7 good
8 bad

9? If it becomes a rental in the cloud, so much for Windows; that's the
end.


To bad because W8 works very well. (Who am I to tell, I used to like
WinME).

DevilsPGD écrivait
:

In the last episode of ,
Stephen Wolstenholme said:

On Sun, 27 Jul 2014 12:32:24 +0100, Ed Cryer
wrote:

If MS can split Win into two; one for PCs, one for tablets, then they'll
get back on track.

They're nearly the same so why try to split them? What MS should be
doing is making them even more alike.

Ironically Windows 8.1u1 does a very very good job of this, but it gets
lumped into the people that tried Windows 8, weren't smart enough to
figure it out and throw tantrums.

Luckily for Microsoft, this means they've fleshed out the issues and
Windows 9 will likely be a hit since it reboots people's expectations,
and people who haven't tried 8 since 8.0 RTM will compare their memory
with Windows 9, find it's usable and be happy.

That being said, Windows 8 did sacrifice a lot of what people expected
out of the desktop for the sake of trying to force people to try the
Modern UI, without having a complete experience on the Modern UI, and it
just didn't work unless you were on a touch screen. But as I said, 8.1u1
has smoothed over these rough edges and is very usable even on a
keyboard+mouse driven desktop environment.


I think it's the best; so far on my desktop. The main complaint seems to be
the lack of "Start Menu"; it's there, it just needs to be "enabled
(created)".

PAS wrote:


As a side, inflation only appears to be low. In the USA, the cost of food
and fuel was
removed from the inflation index during the Clinton administration. The
rate of inflation is higher than is being reported if you take the cost of
food and fuel into account and those two take up a large part of one's
income.



Food and energy are not included in the 'Core' CPI (Consumer Price
Index). Food and energy prices are included (about 20% impact in the
consumer market basket) in the 'Headline' CPI.

Food and Energy prices are also not consistently driven by or drive
inflation but more likely due to fundamentals affecting supply and demand.

There are thousands of published CPI indexes. None of the prominent
legislative uses of the CPI excludes Food and Energy.



--
...winston
msft mvp consumer apps

Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Mon, 28 Jul 2014 16:44:58 -0400, Ron wrote:

On 7/28/2014 4:07 PM, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Mon, 28 Jul 2014 13:03:54 -0700, Gene E. Bloch wrote:

Many laptops (not iPads, AFAICT) have a slot for a microSD card. I have
a 64GB card in my tablet.

I have never seen a laptop with a microSD slot.

s/laptop/tablet/

I meant to add this: thanks for spotting my typo!

To illustrate what I was thinking: I don't think of an iPad as a laptop
:-)


What typo? I still don't know what you are talking about. lol

Did you mean tablet and not laptop?

"s/laptop/tablet" means "replace 'laptop' by 'tablet'"

That editing syntax goes back to early Unix days, but it's probably still used.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_%28text_editor%29


Lol...iirc isn't this the second time in this forum you've had to
explain the s/replace 'this'/with 'this'


--
...winston
msft mvp consumer apps

PAS wrote:


Right, and as more and more apps are developed, the "difference" between RT
and full Win8 won't matter for many users.


Uh...RT is a limited lifecycle product

In 2013 MSFT stated
""We have the Windows Phone OS. We have Windows RT and we have full
Windows. We're not going to have three."

It's easy to figure out which will meet is maker first.


--
...winston
msft mvp consumer apps

Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
On Tue, 29 Jul 2014 04:58:03 -0400, ". . .winston"
wrote:

Ken Blake, MVP wrote:

I like, have, and use both--the desktop when I'm home, the tablet when
I'm traveling. But I see the possibility of that changing in the
future; as tablets and tablets apps become better and better, they
might replace desktops in my home too.


That evolution started years ago when folks starting bringing smart
devices into the workplace and schools and contrary to the good-old-boy
IT departments that incorrectly thought they could protect their wired
turfdom by policy and or prevention. Subsequent wifi improvements in
scale and security proved that position futile.

It's inevitable...desktops will still have a place, but all those
naysayers who believe smart devices won't become the tool of choice
across the entire system on this planet will easily be proven wrong by
the generations that follow them.


I'm not a naysayer on this, and I agree that what you say is very
likely. I'm just not as strong about it as you are.




Another comment in this thread where someone noted that in time as apps
are developed the different in RT and Win 8x (or later) will be less.

RT is a limited lifecycle operating system.

In 2013 MSFT stated
""We have the Windows Phone OS. We have Windows RT and we have full
Windows. We're not going to have three."

It's easy to figure out which will meet is maker first.

Imo, the model of one o/s for all remains distant. The shorter term
would seem to be one for phone and one for all other devices with the
ability to install the appropriate features for the hardware on which it
is deployed (i.e. not multiple version but flexible versions that can
accommodate both purchased and subscription based Windows)


--
...winston
msft mvp consumer apps

On 7/30/2014 1:36 AM, . . .winston wrote:
Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Mon, 28 Jul 2014 16:44:58 -0400, Ron wrote:

On 7/28/2014 4:07 PM, Gene E. Bloch wrote:
On Mon, 28 Jul 2014 13:03:54 -0700, Gene E. Bloch wrote:

Many laptops (not iPads, AFAICT) have a slot for a microSD card.
I have
a 64GB card in my tablet.

I have never seen a laptop with a microSD slot.

s/laptop/tablet/

I meant to add this: thanks for spotting my typo!

To illustrate what I was thinking: I don't think of an iPad as a laptop
:-)


What typo? I still don't know what you are talking about. lol

Did you mean tablet and not laptop?

"s/laptop/tablet" means "replace 'laptop' by 'tablet'"

That editing syntax goes back to early Unix days, but it's probably
still used.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_%28text_editor%29


Lol...iirc isn't this the second time in this forum you've had to
explain the s/replace 'this'/with 'this'



Yeah, that is just ****ing hilarious, because almost everyone knows what
that lingo means.

On 7/29/2014 5:49 PM, BillW50 wrote:
On 7/29/2014 9:16 AM, PAS wrote:
"Alias" wrote in message
...
Wolf K wrote:
On 2014-07-28 12:38 PM, Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
On Sun, 27 Jul 2014 23:23:02 -0400, ". . .winston"
wrote:

But desktops are still the norm for older people and especially
office work; and those number millions.

Agreed.

Currently true and should continue for some time but the number of
tablet-smart type devices brought into the workplace by employes has
already changed that ecosystem. The 1980 and later generations will
inevitable determine the future for both.


I like, have, and use both--the desktop when I'm home, the tablet when
I'm traveling. But I see the possibility of that changing in the
future; as tablets and tablets apps become better and better, they
might replace desktops in my home too.

My Surface Pro 2 128GB replaces the desktop while travelling. It can do
everything the desktop can do. It can connect automatically with pretty
well any current wi-fi device, and many of the older ones too
(sometimes
a driver is needed). With the dock, it becomes desktop at home, with
both wi-fi and wired connections to external devices. I've added a 64GB
micro-SD card, which serves as the data-backup drive. I've noticed that
it shows my brother's smart TV, to which it connected automatically
while we were there. It's also a camera and a video recorder. Only
downside: it's a tad heavy. I've added Start8 and Modernmix so that the
GUI is desktop standard.

Now the Surface Pro 3 is out, a couple inches larger screen, about 30%
thinner and lighter, with an i7 CPU (instead of i5). Beautiful design,
too. I'm trying to persuade myself that I Really Really Need That. ;-)

Whatever, the Surface Pro 3 shows that you can have the power and
functionality of a desktop in a tablet. I expect even better
versions of
this concept in future.

Have a good day.

IOW, they are turning tablets into desktops to succeed and the clueless
public is lapping it up and paying more. Can you replace the video card
with a new one? How about the power supply or hard drive? Or do you just
have to pony up some more bread for a new one?

It's more like replacing a laptop with a tablet. There are plenty of
people
who use laptops at home. I'm the only one who uses a desktop at home,
everyone else uses a laptop. For some of us, a tablet or laptop cannot
replace a desktop. Gamers are n that group too. But I suspect that
there
is a huge group of people who only use laptops and the move to a tablet
replacing them will happen.

Whoa! I am a gamer and I dropped all of my desktops in 2005 (they just
take up too much space) and switched over to laptops. And I guess you
haven't heard of of things like Alienware? Yes since then all of my
gaming laptops are Alienware laptops. Although they are insulted by
calling them laptops (even though they look like laptops). But they call
them as desktop replacements. Ok, they use desktop components and throw
them into a laptop housing and now they are desktop replacements instead
of the laptop. But if you are looking for long battery life, forgot it
as it isn't going to happen. As to do anything with them you really need
an AC line close by.


You paid a hefty price in both money and weight for a gamers laptop.
Last time I looked, ot was about twice what a more or less equivalent
desktop would cost.

You can also double or triple any repair costs.

On Tue, 29 Jul 2014 17:27:13 -0500, BillW50 wrote:

Question: What is the advantage of having a tablet that is about the
same size, an external drive, and the other items that you mentioned
when that is all in my laptop. My laptop has a 500gb disk and 4gb ram.
and occupies a space of about 15 X 10 x 1.5 inches.

Easy... you have a tablet, a laptop, and a desktop all in one tablet. A
desktop can't act like a laptop or a tablet. And a laptop can't act like
a tablet. But a tablet can act as all three.

It'a a pointless compromise if you don't want all three.

Why not? Ever watched Star Trek before? They all use tablets. If you
ever used pencil and paper before, it is just like that as far as
advantages, plus tons more.

Erm, excuse me... Star Trek is fiction. What on Earth (or in space)
have the activities of a bunch of imaginary characters in a space
fantasy got to do with the relevance of a gadget I don't need or want
in real life?

I realise I *could* have the equivalent of a desktop, a laptop and a
tablet all in one device, if I wanted them, but I don't. I am content
with a desktop that has a 24" screen and a tough mechancal keyboard,
and a laptop that has a reasonable mechanical keyboard and a screen
that isn't covered in smudges. There's no point in trying to emulate
these things in an inferior manner for the sake of having a third
device if it's one that I don't want.

Rod.

Good Guy wrote:

On 27/07/2014 14:04, Darklight wrote:
There's nothing wrong with windows 8. Here's the thing i bet it is only
old people who are complaining about win8.

I agree. People haven't mastered the Kurt Lewin's three-step change
management model developed in the 1950s. This can very well be adapted
to software industry if implemented properly.

Unfreeze Change Refreeze

From XP Microsoft went to Vista then Win7 and now Win8.

Between Vista and Win7 there wasn't much difference. People were simply
not prepared to learn its new interface otherwise it was identical to
XP. Win7 and Vista is almost identical. People accepted it because of
better documentation, training packages and online help. Windows 8
should be the same and Microsoft needs to produce better documentation
and provide free training sessions like they did with XP. I remember I
attended Microsoft XP training session in Central London and we were all
given freebies of XP disks and serial numbers and goody bags containing
Microsoft's Windows XP Resource Kit book. There was also a 50% discount
voucher to get Office 2003 book.

I remember that in win xp they had a little tutorial after install.
I will now admit that is what win8 was missing. It would have made all the
difference.