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Author Topic:   Windows 8
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 20 of 97 (753987)
03-23-2015 4:55 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by Jon
03-23-2015 4:30 PM


Re: Open Source vs. Hello Kitty
This sounds similar to the point I made over at Message 17 in the Computer Help Please? thread. If you're already productive in your current environment, then why upgrade? One reason would be if changing provides improved productivity. Another reason may be discontinued support. But short of a good reason my rule of thumb is to not upgrade - if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I broke this rule a few months ago and upgraded the Overdrive app (online book and audiobook library checkout/download software). It no longer works for the wma format for the iPod. I can only check out MP3 audiobooks now.
I use an old editor called Emacs. I'm very productive with it. IDE's are nice, I think I could be productive with them, too, but not so much more productive that it'd be worth switching.
I still don't have a smart phone. They're neat, but I'm not interested in texting or tweeting or Words with Friends or keeping my Facebook page up to date. I already have too many interests.
Everyone in my group at work (before I retired last year) had a smart phone. I used to taunt them into contests. One was where I'd suggest a scenario where their wife has just called and asked them to pick up milk, eggs, cottage cheese and hamburger at the supermarket on the way home. How fast can they enter that list into their smart phone. I would pull out my notepad and be done in about 15 seconds, the first smart phone guy wouldn't finish for at least another minute.
The way I see it, if you don't have enough activities and hobbies and you're bored, technology provides many very entertaining distractions, and upgrading to the latest and greatest can be one of them. But if you're already busy - meh!
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 16 by Jon, posted 03-23-2015 4:30 PM Jon has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 22 by ThinAirDesigns, posted 03-23-2015 5:08 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


(1)
Message 26 of 97 (754000)
03-23-2015 5:33 PM
Reply to: Message 22 by ThinAirDesigns
03-23-2015 5:08 PM


Re: Open Source vs. Hello Kitty
ThinAirDesigns writes:
Not to render your point invalid (because it is valid), but with one click on the front of my android, I can voice record that list faster than you can write it and it will save both an audio and text copy.
To give you more detail, I tell everyone who tries to talk me into getting a smart phone now is that I'm waiting for certain features, and being able to talk to the phone is one of them. I'd love to be able to do what you just described, but I have a feeling that if we went head-to-head I'd still win by a wide margin.
It didn't matter what my friends at work did, whether typing or using voice recognition, they'd always lose. I'm no expert on what went wrong because it was them using the smart phones and not me, but maneuvering to the right app was one problem, and for those using voice recognition getting the recognition part accurate was a big problem. The iPhones using Siri did pretty good, but you couldn't create a new list using voice recognition. Creating a new list had to be done manually.
I will eventually get a smart phone, but they have to get better. For example, I often get my best ideas in the car. I wish I could just talk them into my phone and have them automatically integrated into my database (that exists as notes in files right now) by date and subject.
Or how about this. My wife calls me at work and tells me to pick up some things at the supermarket on the way home, and my phone, listening, automatically puts the items on a list. By the time I'm actually on my way home I've forgotten, but when I drive by the supermarket my phone pipes up and says, "Did you forget that you have to go to the supermarket?" Now that's a smart phone!
--Percy

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 28 of 97 (754007)
03-23-2015 5:51 PM
Reply to: Message 27 by coffee_addict
03-23-2015 5:41 PM


Re: .NET
coffee_addict writes:
Mostly C# and C++ native. I used to code in Java. And back in grad school, I used Fortran a lot more extensively.
Now you've got me curious. From Fortran to Java, C# and C++ is not a transition one sees very often. Either there was long empty space between Fortran and the more recent languages, or grad school was maybe not so long ago and you inexplicably used Fortran. Were you a physics major?
--Percy

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 Message 27 by coffee_addict, posted 03-23-2015 5:41 PM coffee_addict has replied

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 32 of 97 (754045)
03-24-2015 7:19 AM
Reply to: Message 31 by xongsmith
03-23-2015 8:18 PM


Re: .NET
xongsmith writes:
I have never liked C++.
While the object oriented structure of C++ is useful, the language itself is just a verbose pain until you start taking advantage of STL, which makes it possible to prototype very quickly, or at least that was my experience.
I've always felt that the advantages of object oriented design are oversold. Object oriented has value, but one big advantage it supposedly provides and that is described by most introductory texts is how easy object oriented makes it to extend, enhance and update programs without significant data structure redesign. In my own experience the object oriented data structures for real applications tend toward the non-trivial and never anticipate future needs to the point that redesigns aren't necessary. But STL, which deals with fairly simple object types, is an excellent example of the power of object oriented design, and object oriented has other advantages, the big one being polymorphism.
--Percy

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 Message 31 by xongsmith, posted 03-23-2015 8:18 PM xongsmith has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 34 by coffee_addict, posted 03-24-2015 10:22 AM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


(2)
Message 35 of 97 (754107)
03-24-2015 1:00 PM
Reply to: Message 34 by coffee_addict
03-24-2015 10:22 AM


Re: .NET
coffee_addict writes:
I think it is the perfect language for fake programmers like myself who never had formal training and had to learn everything on my own.
I'm an EE myself.
Hey Percy, what do you think of C#?
I've never used it. I did look into it, but that was long enough ago that I don't remember much. I was investigating whether development in Java or C# might provide significant enough advantages over PHP to make it worth switching.
In the end I decided that what's most important for building dynamic pages is Javascript, that the base development language isn't so important. I've shied away from the various Javascript libraries like jQuery and AngularJS because I usually have a clear idea of what I want, while the various JS libraries have their own idea of what you should want, so even if I began using them I think I might end up implementing from scratch a good deal of the time anyway. Plus these libraries add their own layer of bugs and idiosyncrasies.
To be more clear about why I avoid the JS libraries, has anyone else noticed that webpages are increasingly using JS libraries that detect whether you're on a computer versus a mobile based platform based on the width of your browser window? One example is DHMC and Clinics. If you're on a normal computer, visit that webpage and then gradually lessen the width of the browser until it's around 700 or less. The nice handy menu bar at the top will disappear to be replaced by one of those little icons consisting of three horizontal lines in the upper left. You're now using the website in mobile-mode on a normal computer.
The first time I encountered a website like this I just figured they hadn't gone to the trouble to properly detect whether they're on a mobile platform or not, but then I began encountering more and more websites doing this. I assume the behavior just comes along for free with whatever JS library they're using. I definitely wouldn't want my website to behave this way (mobile support is coming), and would prefer not to have to work around idiosyncrasies in the JS library. That's why I'm a bit skittish about using JS libraries.
About that Dartmouth/Hitchcock website, the width at which it used to go into mobile mode used to be 800. I reported the issue to them last year and exchanged a few emails with their web development manager. I haven't been back to the site until today, finding that they changed the mobile-mode width to 700. At the resolution I use I can still fit their full menu bar down to a width of 600.
One facet of the website experience I focus on when developing my own webpages is making sure that a webpage is useful across a wide range of aspect ratios and visible areas, but more and more websites seem to be assuming that your browser page will be at least 900 pixels wide, and they're making their minimum page size 900 pixels, forcing those of us using lesser browser widths to have to use left/right scroll to see the page, though what I often do is hit Ctrl-Minus to zoom out a bit. I use an 800 pixel width for browsers because it enables me to have two browser windows side by side. Anyway, I suspect this flood of 900-pixel width webpages is in some way connected to their JS libraries.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 34 by coffee_addict, posted 03-24-2015 10:22 AM coffee_addict has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


(1)
Message 61 of 97 (754593)
03-29-2015 8:50 AM


Why I Fear Upgrading
Here's a list of items that affect me each time I upgrade to a new OS or have to configure a new computer. Some of these types of things may be what Jon was referring to when he said something about making us learn new processes with every new OS version:
  • Key Swap: Since XP, this can only be done through the registry. I can edit the registry myself using regedit, but typing hexidecimal values is both klunky and error prone. I prefer that a program do this, which leads me to the next item.
  • X-Setup Pro: This is the program I use to edit the registry. It worked fine in XP, not so well in 7. If it doesn't work in 8 I'll have to find a new program.
  • X-Mouse Behavior: Focus follows mouse. Will this behavior still be available in 8? In 10? To Windows credit, at least they can do it. Mac's can't (some will claim it can - it really can't - because of some inherent properties of the Mac OS it can only sort of partially provide it).
  • Classic Alt Tab Behavior: This went away with 7. Restoring classic alt-tab behavior requires editing the registry. Will this still be possible in 8? In 10?
  • Classic Quicklaunch Toolbar: This went away with 7. Restoring the classic Quicklaunch toolbar requires creating and carefully positioning a new toolbar, then modifying its properties. Will this still work in 8? In 10?
  • Combining Taskbar Icons with Labels: Labels were new in 7. The intent was to eliminate the need for the Quicklaunch toolbar by moving the function into the taskbar. Combining taskbar icons with labels restores the old behavior and appearance of the taskbar. The only way I found to do this was a program called 7 Taskbar Tweaker. Taskbar properties also must be edited. Weill this still work in 8? In 10?
  • HandyThing: A window sizing/positioning tool. Single key clicks size and place windows at predefined positions. Some functions don't work in 7. Will this work in 8? In 10?
  • Microsoft Office: Has to be reinstalled. Make sure you save your PST's (emails) so you can restore them after the OS install. There's a lot of details to getting the exact same configuration you had before, and some of them have to be selected during install.
  • Alt-Tab: The number of rows and columns for alt-tab can only be controlled from the registry.
  • CygWin: Unix emulation on Windows. Will it work the same on 8? On 10?
  • CygWin Xemacs: I'm most productive with the emacs editor. Will it be available on 8? On 10? Is it even still available? Last time I was at CygWin I didn't see Xemacs in the list, but maybe I forgot what sub-category they put it in.
  • Quicken: Have to reinstall, which means I'll have to pay to upgrade to the current version. Have to make sure to save the data files before the OS install.
  • Apache: With every new Windows OS Apache becomes ever more difficult to install.
  • MySQL: In 7 you could install MySQL and Apache at the same time, but it was very confusing. What will installation be like in 8? In 10?
  • PHP: In 7 you have to install it and update the httpd.conf file. What will installation be like in 8? In 10?
  • Perl: This has always been an easy install, hopefully it remains that way.
  • Subversion: Should be an easy install, but I will have to check everything back in to the server before the upgrade.
  • Random Other Applications: AutoHotKeys, Answers-1Click, Pandora, Norton Ghost, VNC, Inkscape, security software.
  • And a question: Upgrading to a new OS on a Mac doesn't require completely reinstalling all your tools. When will Windows catch up?
--Percy

Replies to this message:
 Message 62 by coffee_addict, posted 03-29-2015 11:32 AM Percy has replied
 Message 63 by Jon, posted 03-29-2015 11:34 AM Percy has replied
 Message 91 by JonF, posted 04-12-2015 8:45 AM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 64 of 97 (754652)
03-29-2015 4:58 PM
Reply to: Message 62 by coffee_addict
03-29-2015 11:32 AM


Re: Why I Fear Upgrading
coffee_addict writes:
I noticed that most of what's on your list are hack tools. Yes, it is true that with each OS upgrade, MS has made it harder and harder for people to hack their system. I don't think it's fair to judge an OS based on what you can hack.
What's a "hack tool"? With each new release of Windows I'm only trying to do the same thing I could do in previous releases, and I'm not making any judgments about OS's. What i notice in the progression from Windows 95 to XP to Windows 7 is that each new release makes it increasingly difficult for me to maintain the development environment I'm accustomed to and that enables me to be most productive. Given this history my fear of what difficulties future Windows OS's might introduce seems justified.
Regarding upgrading and reinstalling all your tools, again I don't think it's fair to compare PC with MAC.
Sure it is. PC has its own advantages, such as more applications and earlier availability of new releases of applications. Comparisons are not only fair but essential so that both producers and consumers make intelligent decisions.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Grammar.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 62 by coffee_addict, posted 03-29-2015 11:32 AM coffee_addict has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 66 by coffee_addict, posted 03-29-2015 6:20 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


(1)
Message 65 of 97 (754653)
03-29-2015 5:07 PM
Reply to: Message 63 by Jon
03-29-2015 11:34 AM


Re: Why I Fear Upgrading
When I upgraded from XP to 7 I'd estimate it took around 40-60 hours. Hard to say exactly. Some things I took care of that first week and I pretty much know what they are. Other things I only became aware of over time.
I don't consider my experience typical. Most people use OS's pretty much as is out-of-the-box. Coming from a Unix background beginning around 30 years ago, when I began also using Windows I of course tried to make the environment as similar as possible, since I was constantly moving back and forth between them.
Doing my web development on Windows while the server runs on Linux helps me cover both OS's with a minimum of effort.
I haven't taken a look at Windows 8 yet, but my current development machine is showing signs of unreliability, so I might be forced to look into it more soon. Can't tell right now.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 63 by Jon, posted 03-29-2015 11:34 AM Jon has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 69 of 97 (754663)
03-29-2015 8:51 PM
Reply to: Message 66 by coffee_addict
03-29-2015 6:20 PM


Re: Why I Fear Upgrading
coffee_addict writes:
quote:
What's a "hack tool"?
You don't consider changing the registry around as hacking?
You do?
Seriously, if you want a discussion you're going to have to give me more to go on. I have no idea why you think that.
Apples and oranges.
Apple only needs to maintain support for the drivers and utilities that they created for their devices. Again, how many PC manufacturers are out there? How many 3rd party hardware and software manufacturers are out there?
You made that argument already.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 66 by coffee_addict, posted 03-29-2015 6:20 PM coffee_addict has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 70 by coffee_addict, posted 03-30-2015 2:34 AM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 71 of 97 (754683)
03-30-2015 8:00 AM
Reply to: Message 70 by coffee_addict
03-30-2015 2:34 AM


Re: Why I Fear Upgrading
coffee_addict writes:
If you and Jon want to tell me that I haven't really been productive with 8.1, I need more specific things.
Though I do think there's some overlap in our positions, I won't pretend to speak for Jon.
I think you might be imagining a different argument than I'm actually making. By way of example, let's say the IDE you like on 8.1 won't run on 10. How might that affect your eagerness to migrate to 10?
Or here's an example from my own experience. Imagine you have an app, let's call it Answers 1-Click, that allows you to position your mouse over any word on the screen and with one key click bring up a little window box with its definition, and with links that will take you to its thesaurus and Wikipedia pages. Now imagine that you upgrade from XP to 7 and Answers 1-Click no longer works.
Now imagine that a dozen other tools are also affected in variously severe ways.
I'm assuming that the migration from 7 to 8 will be roughly just as painful as the migration from XP to 7, so I'm naturally going to avoid it as long as possible. This is a migration issue, not a claim that Windows 8 sucks. Sure, Microsoft sucks, but that's a different issue.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 70 by coffee_addict, posted 03-30-2015 2:34 AM coffee_addict has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 72 by dwise1, posted 03-30-2015 10:49 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied
 Message 73 by coffee_addict, posted 03-30-2015 10:55 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


(2)
Message 75 of 97 (754721)
03-30-2015 4:28 PM
Reply to: Message 74 by DrJones*
03-30-2015 2:05 PM


Re: Why I Fear Upgrading
DrJones* writes:
My main problem with every single version was "Where the hell are they hiding it this time?
That's been mostly my problem with Win8...
In my own opinion it has been a consistent problem with all the releases from Win 95 on. I didn't appreciate the Win 7 changes to the way the Control Panel was organized, nor the changes to the folder appearance, nor how network settings are presented and modified.
Speaking of network settings, they give you a link to disable your LAN, and you expect that if you click on it it will be replaced with a link to enable your LAN. But no, the link just disappears. You have to go elsewhere to turn your LAN back on.
Here's another one. I have Windows 7 Professional edition, and after a couple years one of the Windows security updates changed the way some software automatically updates itself. Actually, the only software affected was the Chrome browser. I only became aware of the problem when Chrome released a bug fix and I didn't get it. Fortunately this auto-update issue is a known problem, but I had to use my administrator privileges (which in 7 are handled differently than XP, and better I might add, but it's yet another thing that's different) and follow a lengthy set of instructions to get Chrome to continue to automatically update itself.
--Percy

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 Message 74 by DrJones*, posted 03-30-2015 2:05 PM DrJones* has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 76 by Jon, posted 03-30-2015 8:25 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 77 of 97 (754736)
03-31-2015 7:11 AM
Reply to: Message 76 by Jon
03-30-2015 8:25 PM


Re: Why I Fear Upgrading
Jon writes:
Not to mention you wouldn't even need it for this since XP gives you Enable and Disable options right from the taskbar icon.
After reading your message I began playing around a bit with the network icon, and it turned out to be an illustration of how familiarity with with a different OS version can actually be a handicap. From XP I'm accustomed to enabling/disabling the LAN being a 2-second right-click operation. Once I right-click in 7 and open up the Network and Sharing Center window I already feel I've devoted too much time to this. I'm in a rush to get back to what I was doing while the details are still fresh in my mind. Learning how 7 has reorganized the network controls is not what I expected to be doing. Because of this it was only just now while taking my time that I discovered that 7 has done some pretty nice things with the network controls, I was just so rushed that all I was actually doing was looking for something that looked at least vaguely similar to how I would do it in XP.
The nicest improvement is the beautifully organized list of LANs to choose to connect to. Very nice. Who knew! Three years on 7 and I had no idea. You can reach this list in several ways, the simplest being left-clicking on the network icon. Being used to right-clicking in XP caused me to miss this.
I also wonder if this nice LAN list did not exist a few years ago when I first installed 7 and was actively trying to learn and understand it as well as I possibly could. Hard to believe I could have missed the LAN list during that first week when all I did was setup and installations. There have been many updates since January of 2012, maybe this nice list was part of one of those updates. But it's also possible I just somehow missed it.
To put what you're saying another way, gaining familiarity with an OS represents a significant investment of time and learning. Change or upgrade your OS and significant portions of that investment could suddenly lose all value.
If you're looking for something that looks different and, especially, flashy; if you like newness for newness' sake; if all you do on computers is watch YouTube videos and play Facebook games; then update away.
Right. If most of your interaction isn't with the OS, if you're only using the most popular apps and programs, if you're seeking novelty, if you're risking little, update away.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 76 by Jon, posted 03-30-2015 8:25 PM Jon has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 78 by xongsmith, posted 03-31-2015 4:48 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied
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Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 83 of 97 (754977)
04-02-2015 12:30 PM


ESPN Website Redesign
Websites aren't OS's, but the principle is the same. After years of staying fixed on a specific website design and improving and refining it over the years, ESPN has completely redesigned their website.
The redesign isn't anything amazing. There's a lot more white space as they've followed the trend of many websites and made the information much less dense. Top headlines for a sport used to be a list of maybe 12 articles in a little box near the top right, but now they're just listed in a much larger font below the top graphic - you have to scroll to see the headlines, but now there are a lot more of them.
They've also implemented the type of lazy loading where as you scroll down the page it loads more of the page. This means that only part of the page is initially loaded. If you go to the NFL page and search the browser page for "Hernandez" (i.e., hit Ctrl-F) you'll find one article. But scroll down and more of the page loads, and if you scroll all the way to the bottom (takes a while because the scroll bar repositions itself out from under your mouse every time more content loads) then you'll find there are actually eight articles on the Hernandez trial. This is both an improvement and the opposite at the same time. It's great that older articles are on the same page, but having to scroll before they load is an inconvenience.
Another mild convenience is that the pagetop menu of different sports is no longer displayed if your browser window is narrower than 900 pixels. My browser windows are 800 pixels wide because my screen width is 1600 pixels, and this allows me to fit two browser windows side by side, very convenient because you can drag/drop links between browser windows.
One annoyance: the "More" dropdown menu won't go away by clicking on some random place on the webpage. To make it go away without selecting anything you have to click on a blank place on the dropdown itself. It's a long dropdown, so if your browser window isn't full page height there will be no visible blank place to click on.
They're using the same principles, so it doesn't look like information will be any harder to find, just a bit more scrolling and clicking than before, although I still haven't found where the columnists are listed.
--Percy

Replies to this message:
 Message 84 by coffee_addict, posted 04-02-2015 1:09 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied
 Message 85 by Jon, posted 04-02-2015 3:52 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 97 of 97 (755863)
04-12-2015 4:20 PM
Reply to: Message 91 by JonF
04-12-2015 8:45 AM


Re: Why I Fear Upgrading
JonF writes:
Remap Keyboard Keys with These 3 Free Apps (I use SharpKeys).
That's what I use too! Nice program.
Alt-tab changed in Vista but changed back in 7 AFAIK. What difference do you see?
Wow, it's been over two years since I saw how 7 did alt-tab, let me see what I can remember. I think the main thing it did that was different from XP is that it would display a smaller and semi-transparent version of the window of the application you were selecting. Also, with XP, while alt-tabbing you could cancel it by hitting the control key, and this went away in 7. 7, at least to me, didn't feel like a modification to the existing alt-tab function - it felt much more like a reimplementation.
Have you looked into XAMPP? Apache, MySQL, Perl, and more in one bundle.
No, I haven't looked at that. Thanks for the tip.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 91 by JonF, posted 04-12-2015 8:45 AM JonF has not replied

  
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