Windows 8 Teaser (with tablet implications)

[phenomshel]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

If that is the help you are getting, then those people are clueless. Hey I'm not MS fanboi and I think Linux and Ubuntu are startling achievements but Windows is a quite capable OS. Yes, I also agree it that the UI is quite dumbed down and there is a lot of power that is hidden behing the scenes.

BTW: The best OS level search I have used yet is Spotlight on my Macs.

BOb

Would you please explain to me what I'm missing. then? I'm not being sarcastic, I truly want to know. I use it and get half a ton of completely unrelated files.
It's one of the few things I'm NOT liking about using Mac.

Oooops..never mind, BOb - It's not Spotlight that is the problem - unless the Spotlight that's on the apple bar up top and the search function in Finder are the same thing? Spotlight from the apple bar usually works okay - but the search bar at the top of Finder windows is useless, as I said above, all it does is bring up a ton of unrelated files.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by phenomshel

Spotlight from the apple bar usually works okay - but the search bar at the top of Finder windows is useless, as I said above, all it does is bring up a ton of unrelated files.

When I know the filename (or can guess at part of it), usually EasyFind tends to be faster and work better.

Spotlight just tends to have a crappy interface on its own, and you might want to try one of the 3rd party front-ends for fine-tuning your results (or at least prettying-up your view of them).

[toddos]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Thank you; that helps.

I'm still not finding the joy in having a swarm of features that aren't explained anywhere in the internal help files; the idea that I need to search online to learn how to use the OS to do functions that were obvious in the previous UI is ridiculous.

Did you even try the local help files? I did, and there's a page that points out a lot of different filter syntax you can use. It's not as complete as the link I posted above, but the point is that there is in-box help.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Most of my experience with Vista is that it's slower & glitchier than XP. It regularly freezes the explorer window on searches. It's bad with Word 2000--slow, freezes a lot. It's not entirely compatible with Acrobat Pro 7; it won't save customized options when I close the program. (If the answer is, "you should upgrade those"--forget it. Word 03 is more than $200 from legit places, and a lot of my Acrobat plugins won't work if I upgrade. If I was willing to acquire a whole new software arrangement for the new OS, I'd switch to Linux.) And they removed the Windows Image Viewer, which I liked & found useful.

Vista is, however, a dream with Finereader 7, which finally has load & search speeds that make it work well for 1000-page batches. But I really can't tell if that's the OS or the 4GB of RAM.

Note that I've been talking about Windows 7. Pretty much everybody agrees that Vista wasn't great. Windows 7 fixes that. If you're going to upgrade now, you should go to 7, not Vista .

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by phenomshel

Would you please explain to me what I'm missing. then? I'm not being sarcastic, I truly want to know. I use it and get half a ton of completely unrelated files.
It's one of the few things I'm NOT liking about using Mac.

Oooops..never mind, BOb - It's not Spotlight that is the problem - unless the Spotlight that's on the apple bar up top and the search function in Finder are the same thing? Spotlight from the apple bar usually works okay - but the search bar at the top of Finder windows is useless, as I said above, all it does is bring up a ton of unrelated files.

Yes, spotlight is the tool in the menu bar. But, the file search uses it's index.

You might want to go to finders preferences and set some settings. But default it searches the full MacHD rather than your current location. You can change it to default to current location.

You can also modify spotlight, what it indexes and such.

As someone requested there are some enhancements to spotlight's search. Hudaspot seems to be well regarded. Give it a try.

http://www.houdah.com/houdahSpot/index.html

BOB

[kacir]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

The main reason for the Ribbon was to make features more discoverable.

I do not want to be discovering features. I just want to use the bloody thing efficiently. I knew all the features in the old Word by hart. I used to TEACH word. Courses for advanced users.
Nowadays I have to spend lots of time discovering bloody features, because I do not use the new word as often as I used to. Often I have to go to the Internet to find out how to do certain things, only to discover that this particular thing can't be done in the new office.

Often I simply fire up the old version of Word, or OpenOffice.org

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Depends on what the job at hand is, doesn't it? For me my computer is both a tool for work and an entertainment device (reading, browsing, TV, communicating) -- and the new ones can handle that so much better.

But even for work only, files getter bigger, you need more video, more storage, many different tasks are running at the same time. Old machines aren't up to that or become extremely slow.

HansTWN, let me be a little more specific. What do I do with a general purpose computer? (as opposed to an embedded computer on a gadget.)

Listen to music - Wav files. You could do that on an 8088 machine. (The original IBM PC, circa 1981.)

Play "trinket" games. Mah Jong, computer version of Monopoly, ect. I have no interest in compute intensive 1st person shooters, or Massive Mulitplayer Online Games. I run old games from the day on DOSBOX.

Write letters, ect. No fancy layouts, font, mailing lists, ect. Wordpad would do, but Word 97 has a spell checker on it and is paid for.

Surf the web.

Watch SD level video. My machine won't upscale to 1080P, but SD is fine for me. If I want to watch 1080P, I go to home theatre and fire it up...

Run an Atari 800 emulator to play old games I bought 25 year ago, that I still enjoy.

Edit e-book typos

None of this needs the latest and greatest...

As to storage, I keep it external anyway, connected by USB 2. That is a govenor on how fast I can process the data anyways. If the data can only get to the CPU so fast, I don't need to keep spending money for idling resources.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

HansTWN, let me be a little more specific. What do I do with a general purpose computer? (as opposed to an embedded computer on a gadget.)

Listen to music - Wav files. You could do that on an 8088 machine. (The original IBM PC, circa 1981.)

Play "trinket" games. Mah Jong, computer version of Monopoly, ect. I have no interest in compute intensive 1st person shooters, or Massive Mulitplayer Online Games. I run old games from the day on DOSBOX.

Write letters, ect. No fancy layouts, font, mailing lists, ect. Wordpad would do, but Word 97 has a spell checker on it and is paid for.

Surf the web.

Watch SD level video. My machine won't upscale to 1080P, but SD is fine for me. If I want to watch 1080P, I go to home theatre and fire it up...

Run an Atari 800 emulator to play old games I bought 25 year ago, that I still enjoy.

Edit e-book typos

None of this needs the latest and greatest...

As to storage, I keep it external anyway, connected by USB 2. That is a govenor on how fast I can process the data anyways. If the data can only get to the CPU so fast, I don't need to keep spending money for idling resources.

To each his own I guess. I basically replied because you gave the impression that upgrading would be a terrible waste under almost all circumstances. And if we all only got what we absolutely needed instead of what we wanted we would still be living in the stone age. The key is to stay within the limits of what you can easily afford.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

To each his own I guess. I basically replied because you gave the impression that upgrading would be a terrible waste under almost all circumstances. And if we all only got what we absolutely needed instead of what we wanted we would still be living in the stone age. The key is to stay within the limits of what you can easily afford.

Fair enough. What I (and others) are pointing out, is that there is a large populace out there whose computing needs are already met (and then some) by current computing levels. (Unlike, say, 20 years ago.) For those people, system upgrades are of questionable value.

This isn't to say that others don't need the latest in hardware/software, but it's not everybody. I'd rather spend the perpetual upgrade costs on another day or two of vacation each year. (But that's me, other people's mileage will vary, which makes the world a better place.)

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

This isn't to say that others don't need the latest in hardware/software, but it's not everybody. I'd rather spend the perpetual upgrade costs on another day or two of vacation each year. (But that's me, other people's mileage will vary, which makes the world a better place.)

I would never argue with that. However, to say the we are not getting any benefit by upgrading is also quite a bit of hyperbole.

So, lets agree to disagree... those that like the new features and benefits of new changes can talk and pine without regret.

BOb

[Dylrob]

Eww! Not those same clunky tiles from Windows Phone 7.

[DMB]

Ha-ha! I started on Word 1.0 and MSDOS. Word 1.0 seemed better than a really clunky wp program (whose name I forget) that I used before that. Having been through many upgrades since then, I would say that the MS trend has been to make things easier for the really dumb user by automating everything in sight and in the process drive everyone else mad until they learn how to disable the new automatic features. Perhaps they finally learned their lesson from the reaction to the awful "Clippy".

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by DMB

Having been through many upgrades since then, I would say that the MS trend has been to make things easier for the really dumb user by automating everything in sight and in the process drive everyone else mad until they learn how to disable the new automatic features.

I completely agree. Their evolution seems to be going according to: we've told people what to do for the maintenance of their PC, and they aren't doing it, with the next OS, this work will be done for them. I was used to defragging my computer once in a while and I know that many people do this, mainly because they had no idea what it was. With Vista it is done automatically, and even if you do it manually, it is a process that runs in the background, so you don't see what it is doing.

Now I have a laptop with Vista and a laptop with Ubuntu, and I don't plan on buying the next version of Win OS. I have a netbook with Windows 7 at work and I'm not impressed. I don't think that this new OS is any better.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

Now I have a laptop with Vista and a laptop with Ubuntu, and I don't plan on buying the next version of Win OS. I have a netbook with Windows 7 at work and I'm not impressed. I don't think that this new OS is any better.

But what OS do you have on your television? MS is hoping it will be Windows 8.

[toddos]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

But what OS do you have on your television? MS is hoping it will be Windows 8.

I already have Windows 7 on my TV (well, it's not technically on my TV, but it's on the computer that acts as my DVR and is connected to my TV).

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by toddos

I already have Windows 7 on my TV (well, it's not technically on my TV, but it's on the computer that acts as my DVR and is connected to my TV).

Yes, but can you point your finger(from the couch) at one of the big buttons(on the TV) and bring up a list of shows to watch?