Dynaverse.net
Off Topic => Engineering => Topic started by: Nemesis on March 01, 2014, 12:31:10 pm
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Link to full article (http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/28/5456374/windows-8-1-with-bing-experiment)
Microsoft is currently experimenting with a free version of Windows 8.1 that could boost the number of people using the operating system. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans tell The Verge that the company is building "Windows 8.1 with Bing," a version that will bundle key Microsoft apps and services. While early versions of the software have leaked online, we understand that Windows 8.1 with Bing is an experimental project that aims to bring a low-cost version of Windows to consumers. ZDNet first reported some Windows 8.1 with Bing details earlier this week.
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Win Phone 8 for free. Nokia (remember Microsoft is in the process of buying them) releasing Android phones. Barnes and Noble cancel their Win 8 Metro app. Firefox for Metro canceled. Almost forgot to add this, apparently MS is adding the ability to run Android apps to WinPhone 8.
Sounds like a flop to me.
Times like this I miss Toasty to tell me how none of this is bad for Microsoft and Windows. :(
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At least PC wise W8 isn't a bad OS but the touch centric "features" are the problem. They should have had a optional mouse centric UI instead of the clunkyness of the current one.
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The free Windows 8 (not WinPhone 8 ) with Bing seems aimed at the Google ChromeBook like the one I'm posting from now. Of course I'm using KDE rather than the Chrome OE and browsing with Firefox.
The two companies are both apparently fighting against dual boot Win8 and Chrome OS on tablets and I guess netbooks/laptops. Microsoft has to be careful on that score with prior rulings concerning BeOS in that situation.
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Now they are trying to bribe (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/03/22/microsoft_windows_xp_100_dollars_windows_8/) you to leave XP.
In an attempt to lure people off its 13-year-old Windows XP operating system, Microsoft will pay $100 to XP users who upgrade to a new Windows 8 PC.
The promotion, run via the Microsoft Store website, is open to users who ditch their Windows XP systems and buy new machines.
The money-off offer applies to PCs costing $699 or more that are bought from Redmond's online shop. The deal – which throws in 90 days of tech support and a download of software to migrate files all for free – will run through 15 June, nine weeks after official support for Windows XP is set to expire on April 8.
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I'm not just being contrary here, but I don't get all the hate for Win8, and yes, I've been sitting at one for almost a year now. My day-to-day work (& play) is getting a computer to run multiple applications and processes so that I can do things with it and 8 works just fine. I think "flop" is a word reserved for things like Vista. I've seen plenty of OS come and go in the past 35 years, and there's always pros and cons to change but I'm much happier now than I was paying (again and again) for "big cats" or loading a TRS80 with a cassette. ;)
Read this article from Forbes the other day that points out the benefits to Win8 security
http://www.forbes.com/sites/tonybradley/2014/03/11/microsoft-is-doing-us-all-a-favor-by-killing-windows-xp/ (http://www.forbes.com/sites/tonybradley/2014/03/11/microsoft-is-doing-us-all-a-favor-by-killing-windows-xp/)
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I just think MS is finally getting it through its thick skull that businesses aren't willing to take the time to upgrade their entire OS, network and peripherals, possibly slowing down or stopping work for days, only to have to retrain everyone how to operate their devices and replacement applications, assuming they work reliably at all and have all the functions and useability that the old apps had and if not, figuring a way around those problems in order to continue doing business, unless they have to. Not to mention the cost of new hardware and other considerations. Not every business needs the most up to date everything to operate and computers are still just a tool they use to do business, not the business itself.
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ME, Vista and now 8 all flops.
Each one made changes that the public didn't want and flopped. Microsofts various "acrobatics" trying to get uptake on it shows it to be a flop. When Microsoft has to start finding "creative" ways to get people to upgrade it is a flop.
You can't make an efficient interface and have it span from 3" phone screens to monster desktop screens. It won't be efficient in all those size formats. Programs optimized for one won't be effective on the other formats. Trying to means you will have a dog of an OS on at least some if not all of the sizes.
I just think MS is finally getting it through its thick skull that businesses aren't willing to take the time to upgrade their entire OS, network and peripherals, possibly slowing down or stopping work for days, only to have to retrain everyone how to operate their devices and replacement applications, assuming they work reliably at all and have all the functions and useability that the old apps had and if not figuring a way around those problems in order to continue doing business, unless they have to. Not to mention the cost of new hardware and other considerations. Not every business needs the most up to date everything to operate and computers are still just a tool they use to do business, not the business itself.
Training and hardware upgrades for no performance improvement.
Then there are people like my mother who is only barely comfortable now with Win 7 and telling her that if she buys a new laptop everything is changed and nothing works like she knows is rather a deal breaker. Especially so when I the one she relies on for computer help doesn't use Win 8 at all can't really help her.
Win 8 the answer in search of a question.
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ME, Vista and now 8 all flops.
Each one made changes that the public didn't want and flopped. Microsofts various "acrobatics" trying to get uptake on it shows it to be a flop. When Microsoft has to start finding "creative" ways to get people to upgrade it is a flop.
You can't make an efficient interface and have it span from 3" phone screens to monster desktop screens. It won't be efficient in all those size formats. Programs optimized for one won't be effective on the other formats. Trying to means you will have a dog of an OS on at least some if not all of the sizes.
I just think MS is finally getting it through its thick skull that businesses aren't willing to take the time to upgrade their entire OS, network and peripherals, possibly slowing down or stopping work for days, only to have to retrain everyone how to operate their devices and replacement applications, assuming they work reliably at all and have all the functions and useability that the old apps had and if not figuring a way around those problems in order to continue doing business, unless they have to. Not to mention the cost of new hardware and other considerations. Not every business needs the most up to date everything to operate and computers are still just a tool they use to do business, not the business itself.
Training and hardware upgrades for no performance improvement.
Then there are people like my mother who is only barely comfortable now with Win 7 and telling her that if she buys a new laptop everything is changed and nothing works like she knows is rather a deal breaker. Especially so when I the one she relies on for computer help doesn't use Win 8 at all can't really help her.
Win 8 the answer in search of a question.
It isn't so much that W8 has flopped but more a case of people and businesses not buying new computers. Outside of Graphics, AV professionals, and the gaming community older computers which mean older OS's do everything the average person or business needs out of a computer just fine, there is no need for an computer or OS upgrade for them.
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Do you remember the days when people lined up to buy new versions of Windows for their old computers?
Consider also Vista. Sales dropped while VIsta was the current Windows only to rise again when MS allowed "downgrade rights" to XP. Then with Win7 they went up again. With Win8 just like with Vista they dropped once more.
Microsoft as a company is geared to growth. Growth of revenues and of profits. Mature markets don't have that growth. They also tend to lower profit margins. All markets mature and often the "new companies" that grew up in that market fail when they mature and old companies that were forced into the background take back the preeminence they once had. MS is one of those "new companies" in a market reaching maturity. Unfortunately for them it is also splitting at the same time and in the split others (including the "new company" Google) are grabbing large parts of that market. Will MS be a survivor adapting to the stable lower margin market or will they not adapt and fall by the way side?
Only the future will tell. But Win 8 is still a flop or MS would not be trying all these "acrobatics" to make it succeed.
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I always like to use the railroad analogy when describing the OS problem:
In the 19th century, when railroads were new and and there were several competing concerns trying to carve out their little empires, there was no standardization of car size, track size, schedules or any of the other things we now take for granted running a multi-state transportation system. This made it very hard to get things across the country efficiently as you were forced to load and unload your cargo each time you had to change carriers. It made moving anything even remotely perishable almost impossible. After a couple of decades of this, the few large survivors had their rail baronies and a firm lock on their territories, but still no standarization of equipment and method. It soon became apparent that something had to be done as the move westward was in full swing by then much time and revenue was being lost moving things around for no good reason. Finally the barons got together and hammered out an agreement that made all tracks and cars a standard size and wheel base and anyone's cars could run on anyone's tracks for a small licencing fee. Everyone made a ton more money cooperating than they had competing because moving the commodities was where the real action was, not in the train tracks and cars.
It is the same with computers. Competing OS's and platforms only stunt business growth and innovation by missing the forest for the trees: Applications are where the money is, not OS's. Apple has pretty much proved this time and again and in this particular instance having a single well operating OS that can be upgraded over time until the point new technologies completely surpass it is the way to go. One gauge of track and standardized cars and information can travel more efficiently and applications, old and new, will run as well as they should.
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Just like I compare Open Source software with Pioneer barn raisings.
From an old posting of mine:
One comparison I have used for explaining the philosophy behind free software is the pioneers (and such groups as the Amish today) doing barn raisings. The people doing the barn raising's for free were not just doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, they knew that down the road at some point it would be their turn for the community to get together and help them out. Those who could but wouldn't help others found others wouldn't help them.
Free software people are the same as those pioneers in community working. Each of those on a project want what the project offers and each for the efforts they put out get to have the results of the efforts of all the others. Few of those contributing could have created the whole thing and not as quickly (or in most cases as well) but together they accomplish it and do so faster and usually better. Those who don't contribute code can still do other things, bug reports, manual/help file writing, promoting its wider use and defending it from attacks like these.
For those who call this communist (Microsoft) or unAmerican (Microsoft again) I ask were the pioneers communists or unAmerican with their barn raisings? If not then what is the difference that makes the free software community bad? I have yet to get a response that made any sense.
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I only think it right to share the link to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias) since I doubt there'll ever be a consensus on this topic, since it's also getting clouded with ad hominems and mudslinging.
I agree with Brush Wolf; as one of those AV professionals he mentions, I need an up-to-date machine, and have worked on those types of computers since 1992. So far the Win8.1 box I'm on has performed flawlessly and I like it better than the newest Macs I've been on (the last OS I have on a Mac is either Tiger or Snow Leopard), and while I like some opensource programs, GIMP can't hold a candle to Photoshop and the rest of CC. I'd have to disagree with Corbomite a little, vis a vis Apple - it's not that they've really been pushing applications (See Apple's complete abandonment of Final Cut Pro). As I've had to argue with Mac-heads for decades now, my go-to phrase is, "Apple is a computer company that wants to sell computers, MS is software company that." AS far as Apple's "single well operating system," they've undergone 12 OS changes, 3 of them massive on a scale that would get MS ridiculed to death.
By many metrics Win8 is more successful than 7, but the market has changed significantly due to the influx of tablets and the rise of Android. I'm not trying to defend Win8 to death; IMHO it's good and stable, but if you doon't like, fine.
However, it's not going anywhere
At least until Win9 comes out...
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I just feel that the OS wars are pointless and a waste of resources. Even Apple and MS have partially seen this and allowed some of their products to be able to cross over to one another for convenience. I think that the OS should be sort of like the internet; a public trust type thing overseen by some think-tank somewhere with no profit motive involved. Then you might get a universal OS that everyone can use to do what we like to do faster and better. What that OS is, however, people may never agree on. Just by the available evidence though, it seems that a good, well written OS can effectively last up to ten years or more at a time, yet we have a new one thrust upon us every two to three years for no apparent gain.
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The final judge on Win8 being a flop is whether it is dominant version of Windows when its successor comes out or not. So about a year from now Win8 can receive its final judgment.
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The final judge on Win8 being a flop is whether it is dominant version of Windows when its successor comes out or not. So about a year from now Win8 can receive its final judgment.
It's already decided. MS is pulling the plug on Win 8(up). They fired 2 of their highest level officers and announced the release of a new OS next year. Quite simply, too many people can't do on a Win 8 machine what they did on their Win <8 machines. When mine died (nothing to do with the OS) I decided it wasn't worth fixing. I need a new computer, but I'm going to wait for the next OS. Of course, they're going to alter the features they perfected on earlier versions.
btw I had a Windows ME machine, and except for the illegal delay in launching Netscape Navigator, it was the best computer I've ever owned. I need a new computer, but Win 8 does not run my software, is missing a couple vital utilities, and is just plain obnoxious. In other words, a Win 8 machine would require that I start using my computer for whatever MS intended that I use it for, and I just don't know what that is.
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In other words, a Win 8 machine would require that I start using my computer for whatever MS intended that I use it for, and I just don't know what that is.
Make phone calls. It is a phone OS.
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Win 8 still looked like the old Windows under the hood. It just lacks a lot of features and had this goofy "Metro" with its own applications. If I weren't trying to do the stuff I do on an XP machine, it might be great! I mean, the app designed purely for Netflix works perfectly. When using Silverlight with IE or Chrome, you can get your computer locked up, pretty good. You don't have that problem with the Win 8 app. The problem comes when you want to watch TV, while you open up the week's Excel files, do a little cut and pasting for you Week Ending Report. That's when you find out that it's really Window not Windows.
Now, I'm trying to picture this OS on a telephone. Nope, it's not working. I'm seeing something that is too slow, and counter-intuitive. It reminds me of a Windows phone I'd used over the last few months. That thing was a nightmare. I tried a lot of phones a couple years ago. I really like the menu layout of Verison phones, and while I didn't care for Cricket and a lot of cheaper phones, they all worked. I knew what I was doing. The Windows phone my company stuck me with? What do these icons mean? How do I get back to that last screen? WTF? I guess that experience was too rare, and MS wanted all PC users to experience it: Introducing Window 8! You'll never figure it out, because it simply doesn't do that! It's just like Vista came out with no button to just go up one level. It came back with Windows 7, but what a pain in the butt!
I guess MS is just ornery like that. I wouldn't be surprised if the people running that company got caught rearranging the furniture in a blind person's house for a laugh.
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I've had another thought. Just what is MS doing? The only thing good about Windows XP is that it wasn't a later version of Windows. It was produced, because Windows ME/2000 had legal problems. Win Vista was release without being able to interface with XP, and pretty much all the default settings were deliberately chosen to cause difficulty for the end user. Windows 7 was just a cleaned up version of Vista. Now MS comes out with Win 8.1, where they completely change the interface to something that doesn't make sense, and take out a few tools.
The entire world depends on this single company to produce an OS to run their computers, and yet this single company goes off the deep end every three years with something that can't be used. This consistent production of unusable Operating Systems demands an alternative. The problem is that there is no alternative. Linux cannot run copyrighted software, Mac is overpriced, and neither are being used to develop high end 3d applications. This means that there are three year intervals where one has to buy an outdated OS with their new computer.
Companies depend on their 50 year old secretaries being able to use a new computer, after the old one burns up a motherboard. Companies depend on Million dollar equipment being able to interface with the $500 computer. A computer is something so basic and so common that any business person should be able to pick one up at any office supply store on the way to a job, but no. All the brick and mortar stores are selling Win 8 machines, and Win 8 is unusable. You can but Win 7 Machines on-line, but they are not in stores. This is because MS seems to have a slight itch where their large scale customers are concerned, and not a hang for individuals or small companies. This should concern all businesses as every few years, the new MS OS does not integrate with the existing computer network.
This represents an obvious and, now with Win 8, predictable loss of production due to MS releases new OS's ready or not. One way large companies can deal with this is by purchasing in bulk, whenever MS puts out a functional OS. The other way would be to invest in an alternative. Linux is not for the faint of heart. To make it work, one needs to be connected with Linux people, and every company that want out of the MS dependence would have to pay big bucks to have people that knew what they were doing to integrate computers that don't have a chain of licenses on their software. On top of that, businesses use MS Office. Law offices used to use Word Perfect, but pretty much, your resume' needs to be in Office or Plain Text format. Only when businesses start taking documents in Open Office formats can we even imagine a real alternative to MS.
That's the key. Open Office needs to spread, long before anyone is going to fool with Linux. The applications come first. This is why I can't deal with new versions of Windows. Since MS Office is the standard of the business world, that standard needs to be changed.
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Linux cannot run copyrighted software,
I think you need to explain that. Virtually all software including Linux itself is copyrighted. To not be copyrighted it must be explicitly put in the public domain.
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GIMP cannot compete with Adobe Photoshop. While you may be able to put WINE on a Linux computer and run a pirated version of Photoshop on your Linux machine, if you're doing everything above board, you still have to buy that Windows or Apple machine and pay a butt-load to Adobe if you're going to be a serious photographer.
What has happened in the world of software is that the bigger companies with the better products have completely obliterated the competition. Wherever you go to buy industry standard software there is monopoly publishing an excellent product at an inflated price. MS Office gets a few more bells and whistles every year, but it's your basic word processor and spreadsheet. The monkey-model (Home and Student) costs $150.00, while the professional version costs $300.00. There's no reason they need to bill that much, but they can, so they do.
One thing that really struck me is that a lot of industry specific software is completely primitive. The bread and butter software for synchronizing databases, customer accounts look like something borrowed from the 1980's, and believe me, this stuff is expensive. Five different companies in your town have hundreds of machines using this software, and it's all trying to integrate a few dozen Windows machines with a Unix server. It would probably be easier to have a company write the software for Linux, knowing their customers are going to pay for support, but companies cannot break out of their MS Office environments. They still have to communicate with other companies in the MS Office format.
The power of MS is astounding, when you come to think about it. You hear Republicans go on diatribes against governmental power, but who elected Microsoft? We are paying these companies handsomely for residuals. Patents are too complicated to go into, but copyright law was created before the typewriter. Think about that for a minute. Now think of all the trustfund babies that are living fairly luxurious lifestyles while hardly doing any meaningful work. This is what most of your software dollars are going for. We're paying for a new aristocracy. Bill Gates might not be simply giving his money to his children, but the B & M Gates Foundation is doing the kind of thing the Peace Corps used to. A small number of people are getting powerful enough to displace our government. Add to that the power of wealth to influence elections and the people who win our elections, the government starts to become exactly the type of foreign entity the Republicans characterize it as.
At some point, the government is going to get on top of the private entities vying to control it. The first way is that some individual or consortium are able to dominate the government so completely that they are able to impose their lackey at which point they invest that lackey with greater and greater power, until one day, their lackey is replaced with somebody they can't control. Conservatives try to make out the Nazis as "Socialists," but that was in name only. The Nazis bragged about not having any economic plan what so ever, and in fact, they were heavily financed by private companies like Krupps and multinationals like I.G. Farben. The 1930's were hard times, but somebody was buying a lot of nice, new brown shirts. Well, the companies supporting the NAZI Party didn't so much lose control as fell in line with Hitler. The Nazis never really went to a hard core socialist war economy, like we did right from the time we declared war on Japan. Roosevelt made sure the American People were serious about winning the war, while the German leadership was so out of it that at least one company was still making wallpaper, even as the Russians surrounded Berlin.
The other way is for the people to remember that the government is there to support their interests over the interests of a powerful few. When my mother died, my state legislator read into the legislative record his condolences for my family. Apparently, one of my siblings worked on his campaign. When my sister gave me the parchment that state documents are printed on, I thought about it for a long time. On one level, it looks like a politician paying back his cronies by producing some honorarium at state expense, but it goes a whole lot deeper. The basic unit of politics isn't the individual, but family Families provide the money and warm bodies to get politicians elected, which imposes the responsibility on the politician to act as a friend of the family. This means that our government is not composed of "them" but of "us." While there are those that make politics seem petty and ugly to keep people from putting their money behind politicians or going to the polls, there can be nothing more honorable in a republic than to stand behind your choice of representation. Otherwise, your representative will necessarily represent somebody else. If I may quote Lincoln, "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Just how the government will reign in companies like MS, I do not know. Market forces work in favor of the monopoly, so there has to be some outside actor. The government is the only thing I can think of, but then, the US is not the only country in the world that has a government. While we may delude ourselves that our irreverent society will keep coming up innovating the new things that will keep us on top, that's really wishful thinking. The Chinese can throw people at just about any problem. If the Chinese government wants to have Photoshop capabilities on the state Linux computers, they can put together the coders and develop the capability, and they can shrug off any patent suite that Adobe may present, just like the developers of television did the man who invented FM radio. China is moving slowly, but effectively to dominate the world. They are not as rash and violent as we are, but they are determined. Perhaps with their population, that dominance is inevitable. The thing is, that in competition with the Chinese people, I would like to think the US government promotes my interests. It doesn't. For the most part it seems that it supports the interests of the monopolists, who's short term interests lie with China. Of course, China will turn of them the moment their interests run contrary, but that is not today.
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There is a lot to reply to but first this makes no sense.
While you may be able to put WINE on a Linux computer and run a pirated version of Photoshop on your Linux machine, if you're doing everything above board, you still have to buy that Windows or Apple machine and pay a butt-load to Adobe if you're going to be a serious photographer.
What would stop you from using a legally bought version? No different from my running various legitimately bought games which though made for Window ran under Wine. Crossover Office was created specifically to allow running MS Office on Linux - legally.
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Back during the US DOJ vs Microsoft antitrust trial a friend of mine asked what *I* would like to see done about Microsoft. My desire then and now was for governments to adopt (and if need be create) public standards and insist on using them. Any software not capable of using them with full compliance (including being capable of defaulting to the standard format) would be frozen out of government use. This would balance the playing field in many ways as anyone could write compliant software and it wouldn't matter when submitting (or receiving) data to the government if you used the same software they used. So long as the standard is "How Microsoft does it" people are stuck using the same software as the government does.
I've been very gratified to see others come to the same conclusion resulting in ODF being standardized and some limited adoption by governments around the world but not enough.
Patents need a few features restored.
1/ Specificity. Don't just say what say HOW. Then someone designs a new way to do the same thing isn't blocked (like it used to be)
2/ Working model (no more teleportation using the conical psychic eye, whatever that is unless you can demonstrate it)
3/ Restore requirements of originality. None of this "Do that old thing but ON THE INTERNET" nonsense.
4/ Don't write them in legalize. Write them so that people "skilled in the field" can read them and KNOW what is meant. Right now they try to be as vague as possible so they don't inform competitors of how they do things and so they can claim damages regardless of whether they even thought of the competitors way of doing things.
5/ Some type of punishment for violating the above especially when doing so in a flood.
6/ No more patenting things that you discover rather than invent. Natural genes in their original plant/animal should not be patentable. Algorithms should not be patentable.
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I'm no expert in how things should be done. I agree 100% that genetically modified life forms should not be patented.
When it comes to computer operating systems, this is world standard. Imposing standard is just about the most ancient function of government. The inch derives from the length of King James' fingertip. Just as every merchant needs to have a common sense of the volume of one gallon, every software coder has to know the standards for writing machine code. As it is, small software companies complain MS won't the standards for writing code, and why does MS have to bill individuals $150 to build their own Windows machine? That's just gouging. These are the abuses of a natural monopoly. There was a time that our government created systems to regulate monopolies.
Water, Electricity, Natural Gas, and Telephone lines are all controlled by local commissions, empowered by government to oversee that customers receive adequate service at reasonable prices. Somehow, cable has been free of this regime. It is a natural monopoly, but there are some legal fictions that create the illusion of competition. The indisputable fact is that once somebody has strung cable lines throughout a community, nobody else is going to the expense of stringing up another set of lines to compete with an established service provider.
That is the same for OS's. Even though the original MS DOS machines were pieces of crap compared to Apple or Commodore, the bore the IBM logo. Even though this was a product inferior to everything that was on the market at the time, everybody knew that this was going to be the standard for business simply because of the name "IBM." The executives at IBM should have been shot for stupidity for letting their name be used to establish somebody else's empire.
The fact is that MS has become so successful that everybody is dependent on the standard they create. Yes, even the hermit that living in a national park, in a part so remote that the rangers don't even know he exists, will eventually go to a hospital where he will have a file generated on a computer using a MS OS. Everybody meas everybody. The Constitution of the United States charges the Congress with the responsibility to write laws that "promote the general welfare." Monopolies allow a rarefied few to abuse the many. MS is a monopoly, but the vocal anarchists in our society have made our government too pansy-butt to do what is required. In business and banking, we're pretty much limited to "the Law of the Jungle."
We live in a world of monopolies. The most powerful monopolies are entrusted to the government. Courts and armies cannot be entrusted to individuals, so we created governments to handle these monopolies. Anarchists make something of this to make government power appear very scary, and go on to make out that the government can't do anything right. They go on to make out the government as being something foreign. The more centralized the government, the more foreign it is, and what makes the government most foreign is when your people are not part of it. A government that sides with a monopoly is much more likely to use it's scary powers on individuals and be exactly what anarchists characterize it as.
I still find the cable monopoly scarier than the OS monopoly. Cable controls the public's access to information. We've been told over and over again that the press is "liberal." 90% of all political commentary carried be the "liberal media" is conservative. The conservatives running NBC saw that no one was catching the potential revenue from putting ads in front of liberals, so they launched a few liberal commentary shows on MSNBC. That is not a news network by any stretch of the imagination. The fact is that the "liberal press" died in the 1970's, and we are fed this continuous about the nature of the lies we are being fed.
The thing is, that people eventually vote their own interests. As more and more people make too little money for the government to bother taxing them, they will be less and less inclined to worry about their tax situation. Cable companies (should I just say "Time/Warner") are already hated for abusing their monopolies and will increase their control over individuals' access to the internet. Any fool can see the inherent conflict between a TV/ISP and Netflix. The cable industry has vowed WWIII should the government try to regulate the industry. Every other physical infrastructure monopoly is regulated as a monopoly, so what makes cable different? My local Natural Gas distributer is regulated, even though I can buy an electric heating system. What makes cable different? Internet access is a luxury. Oh, yeah? Try applying for a job without it!
Everybody knows that a government can tolerate no rival. The cable industry has complete control of the most powerful privately controlled propaganda apparatus the world has ever seen. This means that Time/Warner, through the networks and programming it allow has the power to allow in people's homes, can control the political conversation, and thus control the government. Through CNN, cable took control of American politics, and Fox turned the conversation even more to the right. Either, the leadership of the cable industry will dominate the government or the government will dominate the cable industry. I would rather see WWIII than surrender the Republic.
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When IBM created the PC they were in a bit of a hurry as it appeared they were going to be broken up. The PC was created to give one of the parts that otherwise wouldn't have a computer type one. They were trying to draw "Cut here" lines for the government so as little damage as possible would be done. Outsourcing the OS both was quicker and sent the right message to the government/judges. The anti trust case was dropped (President Carter I think) leaving IBM with the PC which they really were not sure what to do with.
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The final judge on Win8 being a flop is whether it is dominant version of Windows when its successor comes out or not. So about a year from now Win8 can receive its final judgment.
Less than a year till Windows 10 is released and how is 8 dong?
Link to full artcle (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/01/20/windows_10_review/)
Today Windows 7 runs on 55 per cent of the World’s PCs. Number two is Windows XP, released in 2001 and now so old it’s dangerous to run – as Microsoft now no longer makes security fixes for new hacks or threats.
Already MS is trying to buy makert share for 10..
Link to full artcle (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/01/22/windows_10_good_bad_news/)
We won't claim the credit for Microsoft’s decision to give its next version of Windows as a free upgrade for 12 months to those on Windows 7 and 8.x.
Yet we did say this week that Microsoft couldn’t risk re-imposing charges on Windows 8.1 that it had started giving away for free – on small-screen tablets.
Also on Wednesday, Microsoft’s vice president of operating systems Terry Myerson said once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, Microsoft will continue to keep it current for the supported lifetime of the device “at no cost”.
Win 8 still flopping. Less market share stll than XP.
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I think much of the slow upgrade rate is Win 8, or even 7 don't have anything that makes them must haves. Win 8 really isn't a bad OS but the Metro UI which you can bypass for 99.9% of you use is a big put off.
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You can't really judge the OS itself when the interface is too difficult to use. Even the way Win 7 cascades multible windows of a program can be difficult compared to XP. I'm sure if I had a Win 7 machine, I would eventually learn how to juggle a week's worth of spreadsheets. As for the Metro interface on Win 8, I don't even see how to open more than 4 windows.
My Win 8 machine bit the dust. Since it had a crumby little processor, I didn't see any reason to spend money fixing it. I'm waiting on my W-2's so I can blow my return on something useful. I don't miss the PoS one bit.
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Looks like Win 8.x is still less popular than XP making it the 3rd most popular Windows in current use. Its a flop just months before the "Wave release" of Win 10.0. Sorry guys but it IS a flop.
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Looks like Win 8.x is still less popular than XP making it the 3rd most popular Windows in current use. Its a flop just months before the "Wave release" of Win 10.0. Sorry guys but it IS a flop.
But... But.... But, if you live in a community of hackers that are up on everything MS does, and they tell you the little secrets you need to know, and you're really good at figuring them out yourself, and you really don't mind relearning your job....
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But... But.... But, if you live in a community of hackers that are up on everything MS does, and they tell you the little secrets you need to know, and you're really good at figuring them out yourself, and you really don't mind relearning your job....
You forgot spending fortunes replacing production lines the new OS is not compatible with but the old one runs. Yep that is what they would need to do where I work replace ALL the production lines to "upgrade" to the more recent Windows.
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op 10 Platforms
1 Windows 7 23.72%
2 iOS 9 14.16%
3 Android 4 12.16%
4 Windows 10 12.16%
5 Android 5 10.59%
6 Windows 8.1 5.10%
7 Android 6 4.41%
8 Mac OS X 3.82
9 Windows XP 2.83%
10 Linux 2.48%
From (https://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php?year=2016&month=6) Don't forget Android is built on Linux. Win 8? Still a flop. Win 10? Flopping too.
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Because more people are using their cell phones to get on the Internet. Not so much that Windows flopped as that times have changed. Windows mobile has flopped however, Microsoft needs to cut its losses on that front.
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Windows 7 is number one. 10 is 4. 8 is 6. With all the pressure and shenanigans by Microsoft 7 shouldn't still be dominant if the users were not solidly resisting it. 8.x is a flop and always was, it never passed 7 in popularity.
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If you add the Android versions and iOS together, it equals over half the market share. Most people upgrade their phones about every two years which is why the list shows so many of the Android versions. To see a real apples to apples OS PC comparison, all of the phone OS's need to be stripped out.
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Windows 8 flopped. Not Windows.
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Prediction. Due to the relatively slow upgrade to Win 10 Microsoft will extend the free upgrade past July 29th 2016.
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Windows 8 flopped. Not Windows.
This, W8 was actually a good OS but the tablet centric Metro interface that they tried to force on people turned them off. W8.1 partially got rid of it and W10 only has a vestige of it within the start menu but you never have to deal with it.
Prediction. Due to the relatively slow upgrade to Win 10 Microsoft will extend the free upgrade past July 29th 2016.
It wouldn't surprise me if the do but it also wouldn't surprise me if they didn't and basically told the procrastinators tough, break out the wallet.
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One of the first things I did when I bought my 8.1 Convertable was to install a mod that restored the desktop and start menu (not Start8, although that's a good one - I found a free widget to do it). It does a pretty good job of replicating the desktop, so it doesn't feel much different at all than the Vista install I'm typing on now, although it has some newer stuff that is, to be frank, quite nice. Win 8.1 manages my wi fi connections and my 4g modem connection much better, and I don't need to start up my 4g software in order to make a connection in 8.1, I just click on the networking icon in the start tray, turn on wifi or the other thing that turns on my modem, pick my network and connect.
My 8.1 system tends to find my 4G modem much faster when I plug it in to the USB port, and finds the 4G network MUCH faster than the software on my Vista machine, usually within 15 seconds, as opposed to several minutes on my Vista machine.
Everything else that I've installed so far works pretty well now on my 8.1 machine, but as it only has a 13" screen, I tend to use my Vista computer (17" screen) for more serious stuff, like photo editing and playing SFC. I haven't tried installing SFC on my 8.1 machine though, mainly because that machine didn't come with a CD drive. I have an external BluRay/DVD/CD drive now, and maybe someday I'll install SFC on the smaller machine so that I can use the HDMI port to play on my TV...
So I'd say that the 'bones' of 8.1 are actually pretty good, as long as you install a widget to make it more user friendly (i.e. restore the desktop environmnet).
The only reason I haven't upgraded my 8.1 machine to 10 is because of the size of the download. If Microsoft offered a 'send CD/flash drive in mail' option that was free, I might consider it, but my 4G connection costs $10/gig, and I tend to hit/exceed my 5gb/mo allotment already. Since 8.1 is working fine for me, and since I am perfectly happy with things the way they are (new fangled is overrated), well there ya go...
My other (3rd) laptop is XP, but I hardly use it anymore as it is pretty dated/significantly slower hardware wise/only 15". My Vista machine is also slower than my 8.1 machine, but fast enough that I can use it well enough. I'll get a 17" replacement eventually, and I'm sure it'll probably have 10 on it.
I will miss having a 'hardwired/physical' networking switch on my replacement DTR (Desktop Replacement) laptop when I finally upgrade. My Vista machine has a slider switch for my wifi next to my headphone ports, and it's a quick and easy way to shut off wifi (it's off most of the time, I only use the WiFi card when I'm traveling/visiting other people that have wifi). On this machine, if I simply unplug the 4G modem from the USB slot and shut off the wifi card using the switch, i KNOW that this laptop is isolated from the internet. I don't fully trust software switches, as there is always the opportunity of them being hacked/activating in the background to 'phone home to Microsoft,etc.' Sometimes the old ways are best when you want to isolate your computer from any outside networks - too many home users IMHO leave their computers on networks 24/7, which increases the chances of hackers finding their way into said systems, and putting them to use.
Anyways, regarding to that list above. Go diehard XP users!
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Even if you didn't install a desktop widget for W8 you only had to deal with the Metro Interface on logging in and after that you spent 99% of your time on the desktop. The Metro Interface was really only bad because of being tablet centric and if it had been properly adjusted for the PC environment I don't think there would have been as much push back.
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Even if you didn't install a desktop widget for W8 you only had to deal with the Metro Interface on logging in and after that you spent 99% of your time on the desktop. The Metro Interface was really only bad because of being tablet centric and if it had been properly adjusted for the PC environment I don't think there would have been as much push back.
You forgot to mention the lack of a start button.
Personally, I think Windows 8 was Steve Jobs having the last laugh. He went on about how tablets were going to replace PCs, and MS were the ones who were stupid enough to believe him. They would have been better off designing seperate PC and tablet editions.
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Even if you didn't install a desktop widget for W8 you only had to deal with the Metro Interface on logging in and after that you spent 99% of your time on the desktop. The Metro Interface was really only bad because of being tablet centric and if it had been properly adjusted for the PC environment I don't think there would have been as much push back.
You forgot to mention the lack of a start button.
Personally, I think Windows 8 was Steve Jobs having the last laugh. He went on about how tablets were going to replace PCs, and MS were the ones who were stupid enough to believe him. They would have been better off designing seperate PC and tablet editions.
The widget I installed boots me directly to desktop, after the blue bootup/login screen appears. And I have a start menu/button in the lower right, with the usual stuff in the bottom bar (app tabs, processes/control section, and of course date & time). So I don't see the 'Metro' interface at all, unless I deliberately go there somehow (as I never need it, I'm not sure how I would bring the 'tile' menu up in the first place on my desktop). I have no need to know, as the desktop environment has everything I need.
As Dr McCoy said in TMP (paraphrasing) 'gotta luv engineers, they just love to change things'. Hopefully the staff at Microsoft learned their lesson with 8 about the downside of changing things just for the sake of changing them... (not holding my breath).
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If you add the Android versions and iOS together, it equals over half the market share. Most people upgrade their phones about every two years which is why the list shows so many of the Android versions. To see a real apples to apples OS PC comparison, all of the phone OS's need to be stripped out.
It also has to do with hardware. Alot of the droid phones are lower end budget models which can't run andorid 5 and later. Likewise, 6 is the newest version of android which only comes pre-installed on the newer phones that were released this year, and hasn't been ported to alot of the existing models which can run it yet.
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I'll get a 17" replacement eventually, and I'm sure it'll probably have 10 on it.
I just bought a 17" refurb (Acer 1.8ghz A4 processor, 4gb/500gb I upgraded it to 16gb/1TB hybrid HD) and ran it for a week off the DVD to avoid the preinstalled Win 8.1. Now it has Netrunner 17 and the upgrades. I no longer own a Windows machine.
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Windows 10 just passed Windows 7 for the number 1 version of Windows. Windows 8 has now definitely been shown by history to be a FLOP.
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Windows 10 just passed Windows 7 for the number 1 version of Windows. Windows 8 has now definitely been shown by history to be a FLOP.
Interesting.
Didn't knew that.