Short ~Stories
Metro-Style Windows 8 vs. Windows 7 UI vs. my sanity and productivity
The Metro interface in Windows 8.1 makes sense on a touch-enabled device, but on a traditional computer, it’s enough to have me pulling out my hair)). Those of you who know me will know there isn’t much hair to pull, but see I need you need to fully appreciate my pain. By-the-way, if you aren’t as anal as I about such things then this blog will bore you. If you want however, to
free your inner geek; read on... fact, says I – that the new UI is aimed at tablets and phones, which makes it utterly useless on desktops and laptops. Arguably the most controversial pain point of Windows 8 and my current reason to rant, is the new Start screen, which is Microsoft’s new way of starting and managing apps. You may already be thinking – ‘this is old news no?!!’ as Windows 8.1 has been improved and includes features that will allow you to boot directly to the desktop and keep Metro elements out of your way if you prefer to stay on the traditional desktop as much as possible. Hey, if you didn’t know that – email me and I’ll give you some pointers but I want to rant – so I’m not sharing that info at this point. Lemmie get this out first okay.
Maybe it’s just me, but doesn’t it seem to you too that focusing on one (maybe two) tasks at a time dumbs down the entire user experience.? I find myself constantly switching between the new Start screen and the classic Windows 7-ish desktop (which includes the taskbar, desktop, explorer and so forth). Here’s an example of how my kinda fake annoyance goes:
Say, for example, you’re checking on your e-mails, using Outlook which is a traditional desktop application and one of your contacts is asking for a specific document. The next obvious step is to launch a file search right. The problem is: once you click on the Start orb or hit the WIN key to launch the search feature, the classic desktop disappears with all the fanfare and swoosh, you’re back on the new Start screen (as in the background of the picture above), since the Start menu search is now only available in the new Metro-style environment. You find the file, open it and with another swoosh it throws you back to the desktop. I realise soon that I’m basically spending 95% of my work time on the classic UI.
The same happens when you switch between the built-in Metro apps (such as Twitter@ama or Socialite) and your classic desktop applications. In terms of raw productivity, it’s a very noticeable UI break.
Solution: Well, there isn’t one as such, but you could turn the new Start screen off. Will I downgrade this laptop to Windows 7 ? or do I keep geek alive and buy another PC/laptop with Windows 7 – and enjoy moments of child like curiosity during off work times = play with both and enjoy blogging my faux exasperation? or I know.. really enjoy Bills hard work of Windows 8 by buying a Tablet – not try to use it on a desktop PC & mouse setup.
If only NASA had sent a football player into space
Animals had been used in aeronautic exploration since 1783 when the Montgolfier brothers sent a sheep, a duck and a rooster aloft in a hot air balloon. The first animals sent into space were fruit flies aboard a U.S.-launched V-2 rocket on February 20, 1947. The purpose of the experiment I’m lead to believe, was to explore the effects of radiation exposure at high altitudes. The rocket reached 68 miles (109 km) in 3 minutes and 10 seconds, past both the U.S. 50-mile and the international 100 km definitions of the edge of space.
On August 31, 1950, the U.S. launched a mouse into space.
On May 28, 1959, aboard the JUPITER AM-18, Able, a rhesus monkey, and Miss Baker, a squirrel monkey, became the first monkeys to successfully return to Earth after traveling in space.
Then later in August 19, 1960 Russia launched Sputnik 5 (also known as Korabl-Sputnik 2) which carried the dogs Belka and Strelka. It was the first spacecraft to carry animals into orbit and return them alive.
On April 11, 1967, Argentina also launched the rat Belisario, atop an Orion II rocket from Cordoba military range, which was recovered successfully.
The first tortoise in space was launched September 14, 1968 by the Soviet Union.
Two bullfrogs were launched on a one-way mission on the Orbiting Frog Otolith satellite on November 9, 1970, to understand more about space motion sickness.
if only they’d sent a footballer into space.
So we fast-forward through the years until we get to 2013 and boy what an age we live in. This whole racism issue surrounding The current England football manager beggars belief. So the guy is a racist for having said ‘…feed the monkey‘ in reference to a situation where what is needed and intended as the advice, is: ‘more of the same’..its working; don’t change a thing‘ – THAT, says Roy, was what he meant and here is more on why I think I understand where he’s coming from.
The joke is one that became popular at Nasa, the US space agency, in the 1960s and 1970s after it sent monkeys into space before humans. One version of the joke is that the first time Nasa sends a man up into space a monkey goes with him. The monkey is highly trained having had previous experience unlike the man, and so it’s the monkey manning the life support systems, operating the flight controls and responding to NASA control expertly by the use of programmed buttons with speech responses and does all the skilled technical jobs inside the rocket. It’s going great. Finally the astronaut gets frustrated and radios Nasa to ask what he should do.
Nasa replies: “Don’t touch anything – just feed the monkey.”
So the phrase becomes popular (i’m guessing not as popular as Roy would have thought) and perhaps we should really be blaming NASA since if only they had sent a football player at the time; we’d not be in this mess right now. Or if only the duck had done a better job in the initial years testing.
Roy was trying to illustrate the need for England’s defenders to play the ball early to Townsend while he was in space on the flanks. The anti-racism group Kick It Out have deemed the furore surrounding Roy Hodgson’s ‘space monkey’ joke to have been “concluded” (taken from the guardian newspaper) following the Football Association’s investigation into the comments made by the England manager and good on them – in my opinion but should help put this matter to rest, that is, after you’ve read, shared and commented on this blog of mine okay.
Tile: ‘Optional’ – (musings of a man?)
If you’re living in the body then you must surely already know. That the body is
primarily only concerned with its own state of affairs. And it will often complain. But you’re still not listening.
Caring for others still remains of the utmost importance if we should ever figure out how we can sustain this beautiful thing ain’t it something? ,.. its a wonderful life. How many breaths have I taken? does it matter to me? How many moments have taken my breath away? now that’s something far greater ; don’t you see?
byitSizepro.co.uk ~ one small step for man, one giant leap for websites.
I’m HyperVEX at Markup Language 5
Well, as an aspiring professional Web designer who produces websites designed first in my mind’s eye based on meetings with whoever it was that wanted me to make them a website, then constructed using HTML & CSS; I guess I have to love and support HTML5.
But at the same time I want to discuss the technology openly in hopes that them that can, do – and make steps towards improving the HTML to make my life building websites with it, easier.
A Jamaican friend said to me once, ‘boy mi hyperVex‘, ….which at the time made me crease up with laughter.
His problem at the time had to do with the fact that a lot of mobile browsers deliberately do not support position:fixed; mainly I think, on the grounds that fixed elements could get in the way on a small screen or something like that.
Now I’ve found need of his lingo, because my beloved Hyper-Text Markup Language 5. Part of me hoped that issues I have with HTML, would be fixed in HTML5. Stuff like the fact that applications are mostly insecure and prone to data theft. I learned some of that the hard way when I wrote in my email address in one of my websites. Gosh, the SPAM I get now.
I’m guessing it’s more the case that a consortium of major companies & organizations – not a community, results in the code that I’m left with to use. I believe in Open Source movements in any way and not only because mostly that means free stuff for me. Erm, while I’m on that point.. Big up to the Android crew!. Anywho…HTML5 should be developed more openly, and with agreed-upon, cross-platform-device solutions so that when I sit to build a website using HTML, I don’t then spend time pulling my hair out over Browser issues. I want it so that the code I implement works the same everywhere. I don’t want it to continue where some results are published on the W3C site way later. I’ve got grey hairs – (no comment needed btw Kate) thanks to these guys. Is implementation on the browser side even being discussed right now as HTML5 guys? because right now, HTML5+JS+CSS script I use will not necessarily provide the same result across all browsers/devices.
Bob Marley said,’ Let’s get together and Browse alright’
Didn’t he?…coulda sworn…well anyway, browser creators and the W3C committee, please make it so that l don’t have to rely on weird looking hacks to solve cross-platform website and Web Browser issues.
When push comes to Shove
Yesterday on what was my 14th day back on the island, I met a guy called Glen, who sat with me as I drank Jamaican white rum and relaxed in the sunshine. Who out of seemingly no-where, asked me:
why is it that the physical over-rules the emotional?
I asked him what he meant by that, and his response stunned me,:
I’ve hurt my wife, I’ve hurt myself too in the process. But everyone I know hates me and everyone she knows hates me too. And even as I continue to love her, I’m left as my only counsel.
I was intrigued. This guy was sat no more than 2 feet away from me. This was not the sort of conversation topic I expected, but I tilted my head slightly and looked in his face ~See, I wanted to hear more about his reasons and predicament. I’d ‘known’ him when we were both young men growing up in Jamaica, but the term knowing, even when applied in this situation, was perhaps somewhat misleading. Yes I knew his name, I knew his parents names, where he lived, that he liked playing football and cricket, and I’d spent many days playing and interacting with him as lives lived in the same small village and attending the same school classes as the years between age11 to 15 passed away,..but did I really KNOW him?. I mean given that now we were both 40year old men who hadn’t seen each other at all in over 20 years. Until today, I’d lived the last 20 years 3000 miles away in 6 different countries. Glen had remained in this very part of our then shared life, this very island, this town even.
she says things which cut and hurt me deeply. Makes me blind with anger and sadness,..which makes me feel like just killing myself to backside. You know what I mean? and I can never seem to get my words out before my hands can reach out and push her away. But when a push, becomes a Shove,..how do I undo that wrong?
I didn’t know what to say to this last outburst from Glen. I felt like sobering up really quickly. Reminded me of the time when I’d left a nightclub, drinking the night away…then watching the police approach my car window having pulled me over. This guy was venturing into thoughts and circumstances that I’d delved into myself, ..that I’d heard often from other male friends too. Not quite what I had in mind as I took another swig from the rum and coke mixture occasionally secured between my legs as I sat balanced on a make shift stool, on a hot summer day..on my holiday break from life’s problems. I didn’t speak. I searched for words but could only divert my eyes towards the ground. I sought words of solace but none surfaced to my lips. And instead, more questions arranged themselves in my mind. I looked back at him and caught him wiping his eyes. My heart sank but there was something I wanted to say.
………….wanna hear more?
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