MS Courier - Page 3

Fat Abe · 04-30-2010, 02:45 PM

Guys (and gals too), lets not forget Google and its Android OS. This is now a four player game.

But as far as applications are concerned, MS still has the lead. Scott McNealey at Sun Microsystems once parodied Powerpoint using a felt-tip pen and a transparent slide. But Powerpoint, like Word, is a full featured application, and therefore non-trivial to re-create, from scratch. Software/hardware companies can talk all they want about OS speed, API feature sets, etc., but it all boils down to the applications. That's why Steve Jobs should be worried- he does not have the talent pool to challenge MS in desktop applications, nor the ace programmers to turn Aperture into a Photoshop killer.

There are so many bloated egos in the software business that I wonder how anyone ever gets anything accomplished, each building their own tower of Babel. Damn you bit twiddlers!

WillAdams · 04-30-2010, 02:56 PM

There was a time when NeXT ran an ad noting that there would be 10 great innovations which would change computing in the next decade, noting that NeXTstep embodied 7 of them, and provided one w/ the developer tools to make the other 3 --- those developer tools which NeXT used to sell for $4,995 / seat are now freely available to all users of Mac OS X.

Glenn Reid was able to use NeXTstep to develop single-handedly PasteUp.app, a page layout application which competed w/ the contemporaneous Quark XPress and Aldus PageMaker.

John Carmack found NeXTstep the perfect tool for developing a first person shooter game called ``Doom''

Tim Berners-Lee wrote a protocol named http, and a browser / editor application called worldwideweb.app on NeXTstep

There're a number of bitmap editors for Mac OS X which are essentially wrappers around Mac OS X's CoreImage object which is the kind of leverage which object-oriented-development affords.

William

Fat Abe · 04-30-2010, 03:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WillAdams

Tim Berners-Lee wrote a protocol named http, and a browser / editor application called worldwideweb.app on NeXTstep

Truly one of the landmark accomplishments of the 20th century. Thanks for posting this piece of information.

WillAdams · 04-30-2010, 03:15 PM

Fat Abe, if you're interested in the development of the Web, Sir Berners-Lee has written a book on it:

http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee.../Overview.html

Interestingly, early drafts of the book were written in the web browser / editor Navipress (one of my favourite apps before AOL bought them out).

William

WillAdams · 04-30-2010, 03:49 PM

Fat Abe wrote:
>That's why Steve Jobs should be worried- he does not have ... the ace programmers to turn Aperture into a Photoshop killer

Actually, the principals of Caffeine Software, which developed TIFFany.app (described as ``PhotoShop on steroids'' in one review) are now employed by Apple on the Final Cut Pro team:

http://forums.creativecow.net/applefinalcutpro

As regards Office Apps, well iWork is quite nice, especially given the difference in price between it and Microsoft Office. (though I wish Numbers.app were more like Lotus Improv)

William

phenomshel · 04-30-2010, 04:30 PM

My .02 (and that's about all it's worth) is that I lost interest in the Courier when they were talking about putting a stripped down O/S on it. That's the same thing that steered me away from the iPad (although I think it's got an awesome design).

If MS can design and build something that looks like Courier, with similar apps as shown on those demos, and with a full O/S that is powerful enough to run "traditional" Windows apps I'd be all over it.

dmaul1114 · 04-30-2010, 04:39 PM

Keep in mind the trade off of having that power and a full OS will be lower battery life. We're a ways off for having small, light devices with that kind of power than can match the 10 hour battery life of the iPad.

I'm fine with a stripped down OS as I just want to tread books and PDFs, mark them up, and watch some videos, surf the net etc.

The iPad is just too stripped down with it's lack of an accessible file system etc. But I don't need Windows 7 either. Android, WebOS etc. with a file system and Flash support and I'd be a happy camper personally.

I'll still use my laptop and desktop for all my real computing needs. My tablet will just be my reader and sometimes media consumption device.

phenomshel · 04-30-2010, 04:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

Keep in mind the trade off of having that power and a full OS will be lower battery life. We're a ways off for having small, light devices with that kind of power than can match the 10 hour battery life of the iPad.

I'm fine with a stripped down OS as I just want to tread books and PDFs, mark them up, and watch some videos, surf the net etc.

The iPad is just too stripped down with it's lack of an accessible file system etc. But I don't need Windows 7 either. Android, WebOS etc. with a file system and Flash support and I'd be a happy camper personally.

I'll still use my laptop and desktop for all my real computing needs. My tablet will just be my reader and sometimes media consumption device.

Definitely food for thought. I agree that the tech. has yet to catch up with my goal, LOL.
When they get support for all formats for Android (I don't *think* they are there yet, are they?) I'll be a lot less hesitant about it.

Fat Abe · 04-30-2010, 04:43 PM

In a Fortune 500 corporation, the choice of applications is largely dictated by the IT department. If the company is Windows-centric, the opportunity to use iWork is virtually nil. It's fine on my personal Mac Pro and iPad, but it's not the type of software I'd use for major documents or presentations.

Every time I think about using Final Cut, I keep backing off because of the price, and the fact that I don't own a Mac laptop or an external Blu-ray drive. Avid and Pinnacle are the apps on my PCs, two of which have internal Blu-ray burners. I own Logic and Digidesign Pro Tools, but here again, I lean toward the latter for its multiplatform support. For image editing, it's all Photoshop or PSP. It's just too hard to switch, and that's the user inertia that Apple has to overcome.

The big deal breaker turns out to be the application which most people are not even aware of. This application is a suite of higher order language compilers and an integrated development environment. Software is a means to an end for me, and not my primary career field. There is no time to become proficient in the tool sets on Unix or Apple based systems. We already have Microsoft Developer Studio and its powerful debugging environment. Fortran - C++ - Java. This is the pièce de résistance.

dmaul1114 · 04-30-2010, 05:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by phenomshel

Definitely food for thought. I agree that the tech. has yet to catch up with my goal, LOL.
When they get support for all formats for Android (I don't *think* they are there yet, are they?) I'll be a lot less hesitant about it.

I don't really no much about Android--trying to learn more now in anticipation of some Android tablets coming out.

By formats do you mean ebook formats?

If so I think ebook apps would roll out pretty quickly once their are Android tablets. Probably more demand for reading apps on those than on smartphones.

Kindle App is all I really need though, as that's the only place I buy ebooks currently.

wodin · 04-30-2010, 06:57 PM

For me it was the electronic journal paradigm that MS was pushing for the Courier. That was also the reason for dual screens, one resistive touch for pen based input, and the other capacitive for finger input/navigation. That would work very well for my needs as at least half (more) of what I would use it for would be pen based.

So lacking two screens I will have to either make do with a resistive screen, which is not ideal for finger nav and gestures, or a capacitive screen which doesn’t perform well in a pen passed environment. Think about resting your hand on the screen while jotting notes.

Neither scenario is ideal for me, so until something better comes along, I’ll just have to adapt.

Kosst Amojan · 05-01-2010, 12:10 AM

Lets just all keep in mind that the only thing that matters any future tablet should be able to run Calibre

Worldwalker · 05-01-2010, 02:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kosst Amojan

Lets just all keep in mind that the only thing that matters any future tablet should be able to run Calibre

Indeed.

fjtorres · 05-01-2010, 10:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by phenomshel

If MS can design and build something that looks like Courier, with similar apps as shown on those demos, and with a full O/S that is powerful enough to run "traditional" Windows apps I'd be all over it.

Actually ASUS and MSI have both designed that creature.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/18628..._netbooks.html

Its just a matter of time (months) before one of them shows up for sale.

They're a natural for the higher-education market; if only a consortium of Universities would simply sit down and talk to those guys they could get an optimized version out the door in weeks.

For all we know that is why MS folded Courier; if anybody, *they* would know if dual screen netbook tablets are coming.

pilotbob · 05-01-2010, 11:16 AM

The main advantage I see of a dual screen reader is that it can be folded to present a smaller form factor to carry around. As far as usability everything done on two screens can be done on one.

Of course, the eDGe is an exception since it has different types of screens each dedicated to the tasks that they do well.

BOb

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04-30-2010, 02:45 PM	#31
Fat Abe Man Who Stares at Books Posts: 1,826 Karma: 10606722 Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: 50th State, USA. Also, PA, NY, CA, and elsewhere. Device: All of the Above	Guys (and gals too), lets not forget Google and its Android OS. This is now a four player game. But as far as applications are concerned, MS still has the lead. Scott McNealey at Sun Microsystems once parodied Powerpoint using a felt-tip pen and a transparent slide. But Powerpoint, like Word, is a full featured application, and therefore non-trivial to re-create, from scratch. Software/hardware companies can talk all they want about OS speed, API feature sets, etc., but it all boils down to the applications. That's why Steve Jobs should be worried- he does not have the talent pool to challenge MS in desktop applications, nor the ace programmers to turn Aperture into a Photoshop killer. There are so many bloated egos in the software business that I wonder how anyone ever gets anything accomplished, each building their own tower of Babel. Damn you bit twiddlers!

04-30-2010, 02:56 PM	#32
WillAdams Wizard Posts: 1,258 Karma: 3439432 Join Date: Feb 2008 Device: Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (300ppi), Samsung Galaxy Book 12	There was a time when NeXT ran an ad noting that there would be 10 great innovations which would change computing in the next decade, noting that NeXTstep embodied 7 of them, and provided one w/ the developer tools to make the other 3 --- those developer tools which NeXT used to sell for $4,995 / seat are now freely available to all users of Mac OS X. Glenn Reid was able to use NeXTstep to develop single-handedly PasteUp.app, a page layout application which competed w/ the contemporaneous Quark XPress and Aldus PageMaker. John Carmack found NeXTstep the perfect tool for developing a first person shooter game called ``Doom'' Tim Berners-Lee wrote a protocol named http, and a browser / editor application called worldwideweb.app on NeXTstep There're a number of bitmap editors for Mac OS X which are essentially wrappers around Mac OS X's CoreImage object which is the kind of leverage which object-oriented-development affords. William

04-30-2010, 03:15 PM	#34
WillAdams Wizard Posts: 1,258 Karma: 3439432 Join Date: Feb 2008 Device: Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (300ppi), Samsung Galaxy Book 12	Fat Abe, if you're interested in the development of the Web, Sir Berners-Lee has written a book on it: http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee.../Overview.html Interestingly, early drafts of the book were written in the web browser / editor Navipress (one of my favourite apps before AOL bought them out). William

04-30-2010, 03:49 PM	#35
WillAdams Wizard Posts: 1,258 Karma: 3439432 Join Date: Feb 2008 Device: Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (300ppi), Samsung Galaxy Book 12	Fat Abe wrote: >That's why Steve Jobs should be worried- he does not have ... the ace programmers to turn Aperture into a Photoshop killer Actually, the principals of Caffeine Software, which developed TIFFany.app (described as ``PhotoShop on steroids'' in one review) are now employed by Apple on the Final Cut Pro team: http://forums.creativecow.net/applefinalcutpro As regards Office Apps, well iWork is quite nice, especially given the difference in price between it and Microsoft Office. (though I wish Numbers.app were more like Lotus Improv) William

04-30-2010, 04:30 PM	#36
phenomshel ZCD BombShel Posts: 4,793 Karma: 8293322 Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: The Frozen North (aka Illinois, USA) Device: iPad, STB Kindle Oasis	My .02 (and that's about all it's worth) is that I lost interest in the Courier when they were talking about putting a stripped down O/S on it. That's the same thing that steered me away from the iPad (although I think it's got an awesome design). If MS can design and build something that looks like Courier, with similar apps as shown on those demos, and with a full O/S that is powerful enough to run "traditional" Windows apps I'd be all over it.

04-30-2010, 04:39 PM	#37
dmaul1114 Wizard Posts: 2,300 Karma: 1121709 Join Date: Feb 2009 Device: Amazon Kindle 1	Keep in mind the trade off of having that power and a full OS will be lower battery life. We're a ways off for having small, light devices with that kind of power than can match the 10 hour battery life of the iPad. I'm fine with a stripped down OS as I just want to tread books and PDFs, mark them up, and watch some videos, surf the net etc. The iPad is just too stripped down with it's lack of an accessible file system etc. But I don't need Windows 7 either. Android, WebOS etc. with a file system and Flash support and I'd be a happy camper personally. I'll still use my laptop and desktop for all my real computing needs. My tablet will just be my reader and sometimes media consumption device.

04-30-2010, 04:43 PM	#39
Fat Abe Man Who Stares at Books Posts: 1,826 Karma: 10606722 Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: 50th State, USA. Also, PA, NY, CA, and elsewhere. Device: All of the Above	In a Fortune 500 corporation, the choice of applications is largely dictated by the IT department. If the company is Windows-centric, the opportunity to use iWork is virtually nil. It's fine on my personal Mac Pro and iPad, but it's not the type of software I'd use for major documents or presentations. Every time I think about using Final Cut, I keep backing off because of the price, and the fact that I don't own a Mac laptop or an external Blu-ray drive. Avid and Pinnacle are the apps on my PCs, two of which have internal Blu-ray burners. I own Logic and Digidesign Pro Tools, but here again, I lean toward the latter for its multiplatform support. For image editing, it's all Photoshop or PSP. It's just too hard to switch, and that's the user inertia that Apple has to overcome. The big deal breaker turns out to be the application which most people are not even aware of. This application is a suite of higher order language compilers and an integrated development environment. Software is a means to an end for me, and not my primary career field. There is no time to become proficient in the tool sets on Unix or Apple based systems. We already have Microsoft Developer Studio and its powerful debugging environment. Fortran - C++ - Java. This is the pièce de résistance.

04-30-2010, 06:57 PM	#41
wodin Illiterate Posts: 10,279 Karma: 37848716 Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: The Sandwich Isles Device: Samsung Galaxy S10+, Microsoft Surface Pro	For me it was the electronic journal paradigm that MS was pushing for the Courier. That was also the reason for dual screens, one resistive touch for pen based input, and the other capacitive for finger input/navigation. That would work very well for my needs as at least half (more) of what I would use it for would be pen based. So lacking two screens I will have to either make do with a resistive screen, which is not ideal for finger nav and gestures, or a capacitive screen which doesn’t perform well in a pen passed environment. Think about resting your hand on the screen while jotting notes. Neither scenario is ideal for me, so until something better comes along, I’ll just have to adapt.

05-01-2010, 12:10 AM	#42
Kosst Amojan Addict Posts: 207 Karma: 19597 Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Northern Virginia Device: Nook Glowlight Plus	Lets just all keep in mind that the only thing that matters any future tablet should be able to run Calibre

05-01-2010, 11:16 AM	#45
pilotbob Grand Sorcerer Posts: 19,832 Karma: 11844413 Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Tampa, FL USA Device: Kindle Touch	The main advantage I see of a dual screen reader is that it can be folded to present a smaller form factor to carry around. As far as usability everything done on two screens can be done on one. Of course, the eDGe is an exception since it has different types of screens each dedicated to the tasks that they do well. BOb