journal: win

So, um, Windows 7

By Liam, October 28, 2008

There really isn’t any other way I can think of to introduce an entry where I talk about Windows 7.

So, after seeing a run-down of the new taskbar in 7, I have to say that I’m cautiously optimistic. On one hand, there was the somewhat bad decision to eliminate separation of open applications and shortcuts in the taskbar, as well as remove the titles from view. On the other hand, some of the other enhancements, such as the Jump Lists, the pinning applications in position, and the Peek slab sounds like a useful feature in theory, though it hasn’t yet been implemented. This is one situation where Microsoft’s position on deprecating old features can be appreciated, as it appears the current style can be chosen over the new one. I do like the direction Microsoft has taken with the system tray, which will, by default, suppress all third-party icons and notifications.

Aero Snaps could actually catch on like hot corners have on other operating systems. I can see myself making use of the left and right edges often, though I do wonder how it’ll handle dual-monitor situations. Gadgets should have retained the sidebar as I preferred them that way,…
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Note to Apple: Vista is fixed.

By UnnDunn, October 21, 2008

Apple’s relentless anti-Vista smear campaign continues, with its latest round of “Mac vs. PC” commercials accusing Microsoft of spending money on marketing that it could be spending to “fix Vista.”

Here’s a note to Apple: Vista is fixed. It’s called Service Pack 1, a release that, by all accounts, addresses the vast majority of issues Vista had at launch. Windows Vista with SP1 is fast, stable and highly capable, and despite Apple’s relentless smear campaign, people are gradually beginning to realize that Vista isn’t as bad as they’d been led to believe.

It’s time for Apple to stop the smearing and go back to focusing on the positive aspects of Mac OS X.

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Just For The Record

By Liam, October 20, 2008

Since over the years it has become increasingly clear that Apple’s developers cannot for the life of them write Windows applications with any sort of the attention to detail for which they are known, and since it is also an arduous task to educate those who have not personally experienced the cavalcade of mediocrity that is anything made by Apple with the extension .exe, I want to array out just how oddly inconsistent and sometimes frustrating these applications are. Rather than start right in with the evisceration, however, I want to go over the sole Apple application that actually took Being a Windows Application 1-2: Software Update, for some mysterious reason.

Apple Software Update

Ignoring the obvious aberration that under no circumstances should bug fixes necessitate a 75MB download, Software Update by and large is the best application of the four. It’s consistent with the visual theme of the system rather than foisting it’s own look upon everyone, it (mostly) uses Windows design conventions (except for one big one: Tools>Options is the preferred way, not Edit>Preferences. An entire menu in the menubar could have been eliminated by following this simple paradigm.)

Quicktime

I’ll start with the most mature application of…
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NY Times: Microsoft walks away from Yahoo bid

By Nick, May 3, 2008

Well, there you go.

The New York Times reports that after months of wrangling, Microsoft has walked away from its attempt to purchase Yahoo.¹ The reason? Microsoft and Yahoo couldn’t come to terms on a price, so instead of launching a long and difficult proxy fight, Microsoft decided to give up on its takeover bid. You can read the details here.

Personally I think this was a good idea on Microsoft’s part. For one, the Yahoo takeover was becoming a bit of a distraction at a time when Microsoft has larger fish to fry (like convincing the world that Windows Vista doesn’t suck). For another, I still have a hard time how a Microsoft-Yahoo merger makes sense. Sure, Yahoo’s more popular than MSN and Windows Live, but Yahoo is still far, far behind Google, and with some exceptions, hasn’t been particularly innovative in recent years. What Microsoft needs is innovation to keep up with Google. Yahoo wouldn’t have brought it. And then you have the messy issue of trying to blend the two companies. Will it blend? Probably not. My guess is that Yahoo would have survived as a Microsoft subsidiary.

Where do Yahoo and Microsoft go from here? In…
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EXCLUSIVE: Microsoft moves up Windows 7 release date

By Nick, April 1, 2008

Deep Thought has received word from an anonymous source that Microsoft is set to release Windows 7...next month. The reason? People just don’t like Vista. Our source sent us an excerpt from an internal memo:

TO: All Microsoft Employees
FROM: Steve Ballmer
RE: Windows 7

Dear team,
We have decided to move up the Windows 7 release date to sometime next month. The Windows development team has been working around the clock to get Windows 7—which will be branded as Windows the Magnificent --ready years ahead of schedule. In fact, we have had a secret team working on Windows 7 since before Vista’s development concluded. We were hoping to release it at a later date, but unfortunately Vista was such a commercial failure that we couldn’t wait any longer and had to move up Windows 7 by a little bit.

More information will be forthcoming in the coming days.

What does this mean for Microsoft? “They have learned how to listen to their customers, without a doubt,” noted analyst A.P. Rulfulse from the firm Lawson, Mayer, Aldridge, and Owens, LLC. “It’s unfortunate for Microsoft that Vista was such a miserable failure, but I believe they learned their lesson. Moving up…
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