Windows 8 Teaser (with tablet implications)

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by wodin

Yes! CP/M ran on an 8080.

No Z-80 chip/ Cheapskate...

[Elfwreck]

Windows RG (ReallyGood) Edition: http://www.cs.umd.edu/~meou/Flashes/WINRG/WINRG.html

[wodin]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

No Z-80 chip/ Cheapskate...

Supported platforms:
Intel 8080, Intel 8085
Zilog Z80
Intel 8086
Motorola 68000

[phenomshel]

Very interesting. Thanks for posting, KK. I wouldn't have seen it otherwise.

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

Seriously...? The Win7 task bar, start menu, search, and window tiling is enough of a reason to move from XP to Windows 7.

The Windows 7 search function? It's dreadful. I had to install 3rd party software because it is so bad. In XP I could search by filename, date, text within files. It was simple and effective. Windows 7 search? Maybe it works, maybe, but I don't understand it.

I am tempted to install similar software to replace the file explorer. Half the time I have to press F5 (refresh) before a copied file will show up. Unbelievable. And then the folder on the tree pane does not sync with the folder view on the right. I mean, Duh!

Try Live Mail. Go on. I dare you. Microsoft seem not to care.

[toddos]

Originally Posted by Rizla

The Windows 7 search function? It's dreadful. I had to install 3rd party software because it is so bad. In XP I could search by filename, date, text within files. It was simple and effective. Windows 7 search? Maybe it works, maybe, but I don't understand it.

I am tempted to install similar software to replace the file explorer. Half the time I have to press F5 (refresh) before a copied file will show up. Unbelievable. And then the folder on the tree pane does not sync with the folder view on the right. I mean, Duh!

Try Live Mail. Go on. I dare you. Microsoft seem not to care.

You realize Windows 7's search functionality is simply the evolution of Windows Desktop Search (the add-on to XP, since XP didn't have search built-in), right? Everything works the same, though they've streamlined the interface somewhat which makes it somewhat less-obvious how to use it. Rather than having a dedicated search interface, every Explorer window has a Search bar on it (the old winkey+F shortcut that used to bring up the search interface now just brings up an empty Explorer window with focus on the search bar). You can still search by filename, extension, a ton of attributes, and even contents of various files. Third-party filters still work, such as filters for PDF, zip, etc (somebody ought to write a search filter for epub and mobi ...). The start menu even has full search functionality (I just tried "author:todd" and found a bunch of documents, emails, etc where I'm listed as the author).

Of all the reasons not to use Windows 7, this is the first time I've ever heard search listed. Search is usually the number 1 reason to use it. :P

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by toddos

You can still search by filename, extension, a ton of attributes, and even contents of various files.

I have Vista. I hate the search function. I want to search by "word in filename + filetype"--I know a single keyword and I want the final PDF; I *don't* want results that include every tiff in the OCR folder and 235 jpgs of I-don't-even-know with 9-digit filenames.

I want to search by "phrase in file" + ".xls"; I can't do that with Vista. Or I want to search by ".xls files edited between Mar 2009 & Dec 2009." Can't do that with Vista either. Is it different with Windows 7? (I can't even figure out how to search by date range in Vista. Instead, it gives me results based on metadata from who knows where.) And the search doesn't stop when I tell it to, and is incredibly slow to sort by filename or filetype after it's run.

I *also* want to be able to switch between "search filenames only" and "search file contents" for a single search, not change the settings for all future searches every time I want to do one differently.

Vista's atrocious search function is the reason I'm looking into learning Ubuntu. I have 9gb in my "ebook projects" folder, which includes a lot of duplicate & semi-duplicate files (downloaded PDFs, convert to single-page tiffs, throw those into Finereader, export as searchable PDF, export with different resolution, export as Word, edit the Word file...) and I get tired of all of them turning up for every search.

The search function is obviously much more efficient, in terms of code, than XP's--but since it won't search by the categories I need, it works out to being annoyingly slower.

[toddos]

"filename:foo type:pdf"

"search phrase type:xls"

"type:xls modified:>=March 2009<=December 2009"

Even better, save your various searches as "search folders" so that you don't have to remember the syntax every time. Then it just becomes what looks like a normal folder, but as you add files that fit the filter in any location that's indexed, they show up in your saved search.

As I said, the search is powerful, it's just not nicely exposed from the UI.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

<shrug> I always keep 2 machines, one sterile (no commuication attached to anything) and one dirty - Internet connected. For my sterile machine, extra communication means nothing. For the dirty one, why have two different OS's. It gets confusing. and the old one still does the job for me.

Is it better to know one interface well, or keep relearning a new one every 3 years?

As to Ribbon, I have to use it at work. I find it more confusing that the older interface. <shrug> I don't live in Word, and I don't use 98% of the feature it has. Adding a boatload of new features I'll never use isn't reason enough for me to go through the interface learning curve.

As to the car analogy, old software isn't going to kill me more that the new software, and quite frankly, the old software uses Less resources. They had to use less resources because back in the day, the computers had less resources. So I use Acer Aspire Revo 1600 Atom based machines. each one pulls less the 40 watts. And cost $200 each. And should last 10 years.

Why is frugal and familar so bad?

I guess you really enjoy that old 14" TV of yours?

Well, frugal and familiar isn't necessarily bad. Have fun with it. But what is so wrong with spending some of our money to get something new to enjoy, rather than just watching the money collecting dust?

And antique cars are real money pits, by the way, unless you can repair them and make your own parts. Sure, I would love to have one of those 1959 Benz gullwings! But I won't spend 500 grand on one. Unlike computers, old cars cost a lot more than new ones!

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

I guess you really enjoy that old 14" TV of yours?

Well, frugal and familiar isn't necessarily bad. Have fun with it. But what is so wrong with spending some of our money to get something new to enjoy, rather than just watching the money collecting dust?

And antique cars are real money pits, by the way, unless you can repair them and make your own parts. Sure, I would love to have one of those 1959 Benz gullwings! But I won't spend 500 grand on one. Unlike computers, old cars cost a lot more than new ones!

My point is - I'd rather spend my time using a tool, rather than spending time (and money) learning to use a new tool over and over. My tool may be obsolete, but if it does the job, and I'm used to using it, I get more "work" done by using the old tool.

The latest "shiny" means nothing to me....I see no have-to-have features for me with the new OSes...

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by toddos

"filename:foo typedf"

"search phrase type:xls"

"type:xls modified:>=March 2009<=December 2009"

Even better, save your various searches as "search folders" so that you don't have to remember the syntax every time. Then it just becomes what looks like a normal folder, but as you add files that fit the filter in any location that's indexed, they show up in your saved search.

As I said, the search is powerful, it's just not nicely exposed from the UI.

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.

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.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

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.

And you want to move the Linux...

BOb

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

And you want to move the Linux...

BOb

At least then I'd know I was getting a fresh start from nothing. And I've got more Linux support among my circle of friends than Windows support. Which isn't surprising, because a lot of the official Windows support is "um.... restart the computer and see if that fixes it?"

I haven't switched because I expect Linux to have a steep learning curve, or at least an annoying and frustrating learning curve. But after another couple of shifts in Windows, and that curve will have the same frustration level, *and* still have all the nuisance of "you don't need to know why it's not working; just restart and that will fix it."

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

My point is - I'd rather spend my time using a tool, rather than spending time (and money) learning to use a new tool over and over. My tool may be obsolete, but if it does the job, and I'm used to using it, I get more "work" done by using the old tool.

The latest "shiny" means nothing to me....I see no have-to-have features for me with the new OSes...

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.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

Which isn't surprising, because a lot of the official Windows support is "um.... restart the computer and see if that fixes it?"

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