Post #257,126
5/30/06 7:29:33 AM
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A comment from the peanut gallery.
On #2, I took Peter's comment to be an allusion to a fancy [link|http://www.dogsinthenews.com/issues/0204/articles/020420a.htm|flasher]. An impressive exterior appearance covering lots of inappropriate behavior underneath. Oh, and flashers are usually men.
The vision was not at all appealing to me, and in fact seemed to me to fit very well with his earlier description of Vista.
YMMV. :-)
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #257,141
5/30/06 9:21:41 AM
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Oh I don't know...
I'd say, for a modestly attractive female...I'd be very much in favor of her coming to my house in a fur coat with no knickers! In a word...WOOHOO!
If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. Fudd's First Law of Opposition
[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
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Post #257,153
5/30/06 9:34:24 AM
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Even Eleanor of Tsort?
Regards,
-scott anderson
"Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson..."
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Post #257,186
5/30/06 1:15:33 PM
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Guess I have a reading assignment
haven't read those yet.
If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. Fudd's First Law of Opposition
[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
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Post #257,207
5/30/06 3:23:27 PM
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Read them all!
You won't be sorry...
Imric's Tips for Living
- Paranoia Is a Survival Trait
- Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
- Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.
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Nothing is as simple as it seems in the beginning,
As hopeless as it seems in the middle,
Or as finished as it seems in the end.
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Post #257,167
5/30/06 11:32:19 AM
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It's weird.
There's clearly been an immense amount of effort put into the visual design of Vista, by people who appear to be able to turn out polished, professional results.
But it just doesn't work. It looks dark, oppressive and cluttered.
Peter
[link|http://www.no2id.net/|Don't Let The Terrorists Win]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Home]
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Post #257,170
5/30/06 12:13:19 PM
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Sounds like "educated opinion syndrome"
Any activity or event that has professional arbiters of taste -- art, music, figure skating, ballroom dancing, beauty pageants -- develops an aesthetic that requires an educated viewer to appreciate. The "best" examples seem so contrived and stilted that the "man on the street" doesn't like it any more, but the "experts" all agree on its quality. I guess we've gotten to that point with computer interface design.
===
Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]
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Post #257,183
5/30/06 12:52:39 PM
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Kindasorta
I bet you a pint that the design process was basically "well, we put in EVERYTHING that came from EVERY SINGLE focus group we had, so it's digital sex on a screen! It has to be, right? Look, we're user oriented!"
And behold, it's Winders Vista. With seethrough bits that aren't, and navigable bits that don't, and side panes you close by hiding them under another one, and I still can't find how you alter the UI font.
Peter
[link|http://www.no2id.net/|Don't Let The Terrorists Win]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Home]
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Post #257,184
5/30/06 1:06:38 PM
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Other factors
While you probably wouldn't lose your pint, I think part of their problem is that they have a LOT of groups, each concerned with their own little part. They've made some agreements and assumptions about how things are going to get together and over the course of time, these may or may not be still valid.
The NDIS bunch, for example, may have set things up so it is optimized perfectly for their purposes. They may not have kept in touch with the wireless networking team and that interface is possibly less than optimum. Both teams may have to make compromises that they don't really like. Enough of these and you get a Vista looking thingy.
Just my guess...
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Post #257,198
5/30/06 1:58:55 PM
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You got it
It's called "We don't got no Steve Jobs, and boy, does it show".
Although Gates and Ballmer talk a lot and have bad billionaire hair a lot, there doesn't seem to be that vision thing going on at MS.
Peter
[link|http://www.no2id.net/|Don't Let The Terrorists Win]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Home]
Use P2P for legitimate purposes!
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Post #257,204
5/30/06 2:59:07 PM
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Holy crap, Vista is Bruce Almighty
We've all seen the LRPD about Windows and Jennifer Aniston. In a "one degree of Jennifer Aniston" moment:
Vista is [link|http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0315327/|Bruce Almighty]: just say "yes" to every request and see how that works out.
===
Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]
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Post #257,308
5/31/06 4:48:10 PM
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Screenie. 1MB image.
Points to note: You can see an explorer window, with all its added wossnames, and Vista mournfully trying to identify my extremely rare and exotic soundcard, a Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2.
The Sidebar is on. It's pointless. No, really, it is. Yahoo! Widgets is much better.
You can see IE7's fucked up interface. Speaking of, there's Control Panel. Good luck finding what you want in that lot. Too. Much. Interface.
I tried to capture the utter uselessness of Windows Vista Instant Search Extreme Ultimate, or whatever it's called. I failed.
I quite like the UI font, though. Even though I can't figure out how to change it.
[image|http://homepage.ntlworld.com/peter.whysall1/vista_desktop.png||||]
Peter
[link|http://www.no2id.net/|Don't Let The Terrorists Win]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Home]
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Post #257,310
5/31/06 4:50:57 PM
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looks like they are working very hard...
...to copy Aqua.
If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. Fudd's First Law of Opposition
[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
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Post #257,312
5/31/06 5:06:09 PM
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That Control Panel in full. 360K image
Note that this is in "Classic" view.
[image|http://homepage.ntlworld.com/peter.whysall1/control_panel.png||||]
Peter
[link|http://www.no2id.net/|Don't Let The Terrorists Win]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Home]
Use P2P for legitimate purposes!
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Post #257,401
6/1/06 2:33:00 AM
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3 more than XP, BFD (and not the default view)
--
Chris Altmann
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Post #257,421
6/1/06 8:06:17 AM
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Do I detect a Vista fan in the house?
*tweak tweak*
Peter
[link|http://www.no2id.net/|Don't Let The Terrorists Win]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Home]
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Post #257,319
5/31/06 5:44:27 PM
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Lesse Insecure exposer now has * and + buttons...
..in the place where everybody is by now used to finding "Page Back" and "Page Forward" buttons. I don't suppose these oh-so-intuitive (NOT) widgies actually map to Page Back" and "Page Forward", now do they?
All this is making W2K sound (and look, and work, and...) sooooo much better! And that's even before I try (K)Ubuntu!
jb4
"So don't pay attention to the approval ratings that say 68% of Americans disapprove of the job this man is doing. I ask you this, does that not also logically mean that 68% approve of the job he's not doing? Think about it. I haven't."
— Stephen Colbert, at the White House Correspondent's Dinner 29Apr06
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Post #257,328
5/31/06 5:59:41 PM
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No...those are for tabs. IE 7 has them.
If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. Fudd's First Law of Opposition
[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]
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Post #257,453
6/1/06 2:03:35 PM
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Kewl...so where'd they hide the Forward and Back buttons?
Or must you use the keyboard?
jb4
"So don't pay attention to the approval ratings that say 68% of Americans disapprove of the job this man is doing. I ask you this, does that not also logically mean that 68% approve of the job he's not doing? Think about it. I haven't."
— Stephen Colbert, at the White House Correspondent's Dinner 29Apr06
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Post #257,476
6/1/06 3:27:17 PM
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Right above the * and + buttons
--
Chris Altmann
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Post #257,339
5/31/06 9:11:04 PM
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And the purpose of these distracting . . .
. . translucent borders is?
Oh! I know! It's so when someone looks at your screen they can say, "Wow! You're running Vista!".
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #257,382
6/1/06 1:34:16 AM
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Re: And the purpose of these distracting . . .
I can't think of any sensible reason for them, either. They provide no visual cue of anything nor do they provide useful information of any sort.
Peter
[link|http://www.no2id.net/|Don't Let The Terrorists Win]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Home]
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Post #257,494
6/1/06 6:54:21 PM
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Useful information? From MS? Pass me what you're smoking.
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Post #257,400
6/1/06 2:31:13 AM
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Another Screenie (1.8MB PNG)
Things to note in this one are:
- Shows default control panel instead of classic.
- Menu bars are off by default
- Sidebar is not on top by default, so even if it's useless, it doesn't impact your desktop area. Note that sidebar widgets can be dragged off the sidebar onto the desktop if you prefer that.
- Shows a search window.
- My image is bigger than Peter's :P
[image|http://home.surewest.net/altmann/vista1.png||||]
--
Chris Altmann
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Post #257,420
6/1/06 8:05:01 AM
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Re: Another Screenie (1.8MB PNG)
Things to note in this one are:
- Shows default control panel instead of classic. Ah, yes. The old "Click 'em all till you find what you want" view. - Menu bars are off by default Yeah. That's a bone-headed move by MS right there. Are they trying to make people hate it? - Sidebar is not on top by default, so even if it's useless, it doesn't impact your desktop area. Note that sidebar widgets can be dragged off the sidebar onto the desktop if you prefer that. That's still less useful than the Dashboard/Yahoo! Widgets thing. - Shows a search window. Which doesn't find applications - given the clusterfuck that is the new (and, to be honest, the old) Start menu, that's a Bad Thing. Here's how search is supposed to work: [image|http://homepage.ntlworld.com/peter.whysall1/spotlight.png||||] You type stuff, it finds stuff - including the application you were looking for in the first place. - My image is bigger than Peter's :P It's the only thing you've got that's bigger than mine, mister. OK, your computer is probably bigger than my Mac Mini
Peter
[link|http://www.no2id.net/|Don't Let The Terrorists Win]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Home]
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Post #257,472
6/1/06 2:46:27 PM
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Re: Another Screenie (1.8MB PNG)
Ah, yes. The old "Click 'em all till you find what you want" view.
Well, you can search it like with Spotlight:
[image|http://home.surewest.net/altmann/vista3.png||||]
- Menu bars are off by default
Yeah. That's a bone-headed move by MS right there. Are they trying to make people hate it?
Maybe, but I've found no need to access them yet, except to investigate how much functioning "classic mode" stuff still exists. I've found everything I need so far in the toolbar buttons of IE7 and Windows Explorer, though I'm not all that happy with the "Views" button in the later.
That's still less useful than the Dashboard/Yahoo! Widgets thing.
Other than there being a dearth of useful Sidebar Gadgets at the moment, I'm not all that clear how this is the case.
Here's how search is supposed to work:
Agreed:
[image|http://home.surewest.net/altmann/vista2.png||||]
--
Chris Altmann
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Post #257,506
6/1/06 10:41:52 PM
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Re: Another Screenie (1.8MB PNG)
Fonts: Still can't change GUI font. Puzzled.
Search: Well, either I've been doing it wrong or something changed, because it never used to work like that; I always put it down to the latter-day Windows paranoia about presenting executable things up to something that might run 'em automatically (i.e. the search API).
Dashboard: If you have the sidebar on top, you waste a lot of space. If you have it not on top, you have to move things out of the way to get at it. With Dashboard/Y! Widgets, you press a button and your widgets appear floating on top of everything else. Press again, and they bugger off whence they came. That's what I'm on about.
Toolbars/Menus: They're flat-out spacky, and not being about to move them around blows chunks.
Peter
[link|http://www.no2id.net/|Don't Let The Terrorists Win]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Home]
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Post #257,522
6/2/06 1:57:15 AM
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Re: Another Screenie (1.8MB PNG)
Fonts: You can't change them in Mac OS X either. So unless you stick to Windows Classic theme or a Linux desktop I guess you're SOL. I do think that GUI customization has been F'ed up ever since XP introduced it's "visual styles" (and even before that , odd font sizes never worked that well), and would too like some more control over such things, but I think it does look pretty good as is (as does Mac OS X). Both Vista and Mac OS X Tiger have the underpinnings to make adjustable GUI fonts work well, but I don't think this is going to get fully realized in Vista, and Apple is going to beat them to it in Leopard.
Search: I dunno. Search in general was broken in the last build I had (5308), but searching for apps on the start menu worked even then.
Dashboard: If you click on the background of the sidebar it will come to the top. Otherwise, I was going to suggest hitting Win+D to show the desktop, but that hides all the gadgets too. I think that's stupid so I filed a bug asking to leave them visible and/or add a "Show Gadgets" keyboard shortcut. Even though I'm not an official beta tester, they've fixed a couple of the bugs I've filed in the past so we'll see.
Toolbars/Menus:, If they hadn't laid them out pretty good I might be with you but I like what they've done so... Anyways, I see what dragable toolbars and "cool"bars and menus get you on our employees' displays. Toolbars end up in bizarre positions, where they have no idea how they got there and no idea (or willpower to find out) how to put them back. Maybe well designed fixed position toolbars are the way to go (I again note that Mac OS X does this as does GNOME now I think). I will admit to a certain desire to be able to add and remove toolbar buttons however.
--
Chris Altmann
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Post #257,526
6/2/06 3:12:22 AM
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Re: Another Screenie (1.8MB PNG)
Fonts: You can't change them in Mac OS X either. So unless you stick to Windows Classic theme or a Linux desktop I guess you're SOL. I do think that GUI customization has been F'ed up ever since XP introduced it's "visual styles" (and even before that , odd font sizes never worked that well), and would too like some more control over such things, but I think it does look pretty good as is (as does Mac OS X). Both Vista and Mac OS X Tiger have the underpinnings to make adjustable GUI fonts work well, but I don't think this is going to get fully realized in Vista, and Apple is going to beat them to it in Leopard. You can, actually, but you need something like TinkerTool to do it. For a lot of people, though, that the same as "can't". Search: I dunno. Search in general was broken in the last build I had (5308), but searching for apps on the start menu worked even then. I can't remember which previous build I had installed, but it didnae work. Dashboard: If you click on the background of the sidebar it will come to the top. Otherwise, I was going to suggest hitting Win+D to show the desktop, but that hides all the gadgets too. I think that's stupid so I filed a bug asking to leave them visible and/or add a "Show Gadgets" keyboard shortcut. Even though I'm not an official beta tester, they've fixed a couple of the bugs I've filed in the past so we'll see. I'm one of the "install it for 14 days" beta testers too :) The "show gadgets" shortcut is basically what Y! Widgets and Dashboard do. Although OS X does have the neato feature of being able to trigger this by using a hot screen corner. So I fling my mouse into the top left corner, and presto, the Dashboard appears. It has a dictionary, my Dynamic DNS updater status doodad, the weather and a calendar (I'm alarmingly bad at remembering what day of the week/date it is). Toolbars/Menus:, If they hadn't laid them out pretty good I might be with you but I like what they've done so... Anyways, I see what dragable toolbars and "cool"bars and menus get you on our employees' displays. Toolbars end up in bizarre positions, where they have no idea how they got there and no idea (or willpower to find out) how to put them back. Maybe well designed fixed position toolbars are the way to go (I again note that Mac OS X does this as does GNOME now I think). I will admit to a certain desire to be able to add and remove toolbar buttons however. The toolbars thing is going to generate huge training issues for no real benefit. There are hundreds of millions of users out there who, for better or worse, know how to work Explorer and IE with the interface that it's got as at Windows 2000/XP. It's going to take vast leaps of new productivity and ease of use to convince me that the wholesale change that's been implemented is a good idea. I don't believe that such vast leaps are forthcoming. This bit also applies to the new interface in Office 2007 (I downloaded the beta of that today, too). Whilst a "power user" (ugh, I hate the term) such as myself can adapt (I think it's pretty funky, and it might even be proper good, although I haven't done any proper work with it yet - I'm going to have to reserve judgement on this), I can see the rank'n'file Office users floundering and floundering badly. If you're used to Edit->Fill->Series in Excel, and have been since Excel as of Office 4.3, this is a Big Lose.
Peter
[link|http://www.no2id.net/|Don't Let The Terrorists Win]
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
[link|http://guildenstern.dyndns.org|Home]
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Post #257,426
6/1/06 10:00:22 AM
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Someone get a tape measure-Gotta find out who is bigger ;-j
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. (Herm Albright)
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Post #257,429
6/1/06 10:06:27 AM
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*NO* rulers at the BeepBash
Although if anyone happens to have a yardstick ...
===
Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]
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Post #257,495
6/1/06 6:56:24 PM
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Now who's dreamin'? ;-)
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