Alternative to Windows

[miasmum]

It's probably best if I don't get involved except to say 'I'm with nanna'

I hate all the layers of windows, open this, click this.

Sorry no I'm not getting involved

[Suff]

Operating systems are very emotive things. On this you will have to trust me, my day job is changing the way people work either with their machines or the software they use. For some people, simply changing their mail client with absolutely nothing else changed in their day job or their computer is enough to cause near breakdown and absolutely irrational behaviour.

Over the last 26 years I've been involved with computers, of all types, I have seen people devote, quite literally, thousands of hours creating nice little comfortable personal environments on computers. Only to find that 8 or 10 years down the road they have to do it all over again.

These people work against the very principles of the operating systems in order to avoid learning new things and moving onto new ways of using their computer.

I'm not just talking about ordinary people here, I'm also talking about computer professionals who absolutely refuse to engage in changes to technology.

I find this constant in all but ONE area. I've worked with almost every operating system in common use since 1990 except HP-UX and DEC. The only company able to buck this trend is Apple.

People buy Apple goods, even computer professionals, seduced by the stories of a computer which _ALWAYS_ works, never goes wrong, does everything that you ask and, let's face it, is pretty.

Of those statements above, only the last is true. But it's not about what is true, it is about what people believe. Apple used to advise that the Mac was so secure that you didn't need Anti Virus. Which led to a botnet of 650,000 Apple computers which were used by hackers to attack systems like credit card companies and paypal. Eventually Apple had to climb down and advise their users to get and use Anti Virus. As a percentage of the installed user base, 650,000 Mac's is the highest ever recorded. Much, Much higher than Windows95/98 or WindowsXP.

Yet people still believe that Apple tech is indestructible and it just works and you are totally safe to use it.

Apple have this knack of making some very complex things in computing simple to use. They analyse the things that users do and then make 60% of the most common either simple or seamless. However, god help you if you need the other 40% because Apple has already decided how you should resolve them and to change what they have decided is not easy.

It is no kind thing that Apple did to offer free setup of your iPad in store. It is very necessary in some cases. I am very aware of this because I bought Mrs S an iPad for Christmas (at her request as I would never have bought her something like that on spec). Knowing what she's like, I made sure it was fully charged and then left her to it.

She threw her toys out of the pram. Now just to level set this, Mrs S has worked with Mac's before, Windows 3.1, 95, 98, NT, XP and currently uses Windows7.

Nothing worked. What was all this stupid tapping and stuff. She'd hammer her finger into the display and activate the drag then complain that the tap function didn't work. Oh and she was absolutely ranting about _HAVING_ to have an apple account in order to even set the machine up. She was SERIOUSLY NOT AMUSED.

Then the "wonderfully easy" mail setup didn't work. She ranted and raved, iPads are supposed to be intelligent aren't they? She should be able to set up her mail server shouldn't she? Well yes she should. But the only offer on the "wonderfully easy" iPad screen which might actually work was the option to create a new mail account on the Apple system (or some other free systems if you really must). I wonder just how many people did that and created an Apple or yahoo or Microsoft or gmail account because they were completely unable to set up any other mail account????

In the end after the toys out of the pram and shouting and the ranting and the "This is rubbish it's going back", I offered to set the mail account up myself. During this little "rant", I was asked "How do people set this up". The answer, of course, is that unless they use a public account or an Apple account, they don't. Someone who knows what they are doing has to do it for them. Unless, of course, you use BT or Sky or a few other accounts which Apple has built in (the 60%). As I reminded Mrs S, I set up her mail on all her windows PC's every time. Then my father reminded her that every time he gets a new laptop or new mobile phone, he calls me to remind him how to set up his email so that he can use all 3 accounts and send mail whilst on wireless networks all over the world.

It took me about 30 minutes to do a job I do in 30 seconds on any other system. Eventually I realised that Apple pre set IMAP as the mail choice, it is a very Un obvious setting on the very first setup page and they DO NOT LET YOU CHANGE IT AGAIN ONCE THE ACCOUNT IS CREATED.

Very helpful. I don't think.

However Mrs S did finally get over all this. I found and printed out the iPad manual for her, all ~150 pages of it and she has never even looked at it. Another rant story in there.

So now it works. She can do most of the browsing activities on it, she can do her banking on it, but she can't pay the telephone bill on it as the France Telecom site doesn't support iPad Safari (probably best for a secure payment anyway). She has finally learned how to tap accurately, install apps, play games. But that is about all. She found the DFS app very useful when we were ordering our new Sofa's and chairs, but, again, it was all relative. The perspective on the app was really bad and we wound up with much less space than she (not I), expected in one area. We can live with it, but it was not quite what we wanted. DFS _ONLY_ do an iPad app.....

Talking about the iPad Mrs S tells me that it is a toy which makes it easier for her to get information when she's relaxing. But for real work? Back to Windows. She'll write a mail on it, but not a letter. She'll play games on it, but would never consider creating her tickets in word processing on it. The on screen keyboard may work but she'd never consider using it for anything other than a short message.

One thing she did listen to me about and has taken to heart is the fact that the battery has 1,000 charges before it degrades significantly and the iPad Air has a virtually non changeable battery as it is glued into the case. A charge can be 0 - 100% or 95% to 100%.

As I have said before, Mrs S has used Mac's, uses a Mac every time she is at my Uncle's and uses his 27" iMac. I asked her if she ever thought about replacing her PC/Laptop with a Mac. The answer was unequivocal. NO, they're too damned difficult to use!

Most people I talk to about Apple equipment say the same thing when I ask them which one they got.

The white one
The black one.....

etc.

Of all the most useless and completely irrelevant things about the technology you buy, the colour is the least important. Even in the iPad, it comes in memory sizes from 16GB to 128GB and in variants from Wifi only to 3G phone enabled. Depending on what you do with it, these requirements are absolutely vital given that if you get it wrong you have to go and buy another one....

So which iPad did I buy for Mrs S? I bought the Ipad Air Wifi only 16Gig. Oh and it was White....

I wonder, of all those satisfied iPad users how many:

Know how to fully switch it off? (If you are an iPad owner and are wondering what I'm talking about, it takes about 7 minutes for an iPad Air to start from fully switched off.)
Kill a hung Safari?
Kill a hung application?
Find out how much free space is left on the device for e-Mails, music, downloads, apps, movies?

All things I have had to learn to do for Mrs S since Christmas because, contrary to the myth, iPad's are not self healing and do fail.

In my experience and I have to admit that is quite extensive, but absolutely not all encompassing, operating systems are what people make of them, but the opportunities to make things depend on your starting place.

Windows is like your home, you need to clean it, maintain it and buy things for it or it will fall apart around you. It's pretty much what you do on a daily basis, but who want's to do their own plumbing, electrics or other DIY stuff? Unless, of course, you have an interest and it will save you £000's.

Apple products are like living in a hotel room with a small TV and a controller with very few buttons on it. Fine if you have all the channels you want, but if you're stuck with the main 5 channels and CNN for entertainment, you're going to get bored pretty damned quickly. The mini bar and the room service are expensive and you have one main door to upgrades. Of course there are a few hidden doors too, but when you open it, it's a metal fire escape 1,000 feet up with no hand rail....

Linux, in all it's variants is like a sitting room in the middle of a field with a tin metal roof and no walls. All around you in the field are rocks, lumber, saws, hammers, chisels and the rest of the equipment to make a home. But you really do HAVE to make a home. Quite literally, the tools are there but the materials are at the Raw level.

Unix you do not venture into without a professional around. It is simply not worth it, nobody is interested in helping you unless you _PAY_ and everyone looks down on the "Know Nothing Newbie".

I Can use a Mac, I Can and Do use Linux and I Do use Unix. But, in the end, I Choose to use Windows. With a small effort at learning, it's more rewarding, has more opportunities, is cheaper and quite simply, can do almost everything I want.

Why would I choose to do anything else?

Unless, of course, I simply didn't want to learn what someone else wanted me to learn.

This is a particular bugbear with me. (you hadn't noticed right?), because I live with someone who thinks a computer should do what she thinks it should do and not what she tells it to do. She refuses to learn how to tell it to do what it should do and constantly rails about a computer which is not doing what she want's.....

God help me if she ever decides to buy a Mac....

[Workingman]

I could have written some of that......

I refuse, absolutely refuse, to be locked in to AppleWorld, so I do not go there.

I did Unix and Linux and, well, no thanks, not now.

I like Windows! I know that in popular culture I shouldn't, and that it is easy to bash, but I quite like being out of step.

Windows is like one of those houses offered by developers with all mod-cons included. However, once bought, if you do not like the decor you can decorate, if the fridge is not to you liking you can get an alternative. Chuck the furniture and curtains out and get new stuff. If you want to leave the doors and windows wide open, you can, but you can also get part or full security, it is up to you.

The only real problems I had with Windows, when working, came with the introduction of W95 and on. It was so user friendly, and there was such a large user base, often of people who knew how to dig deeper into its guts, that it was sometimes very hard to lock down a system within a business to stop Sharon and Jason getting in and changing things. That has now largely been addressed, but still.......

For me it is Windows 1 - 0.0 to 0.1 the rest.

[Diflower]

I like windows

Suff I do know just what you mean about lots of people at work not wanting change (but a lot of people are just like that, about anything).
I don't remember the names of the systems now, but when we changed from one type of email to another all hell broke loose! My attitude was always to wait and see, since the decision to change had already been made, and learn as much as possible about the changes.
This particular one was brilliant; almost all of our jobs arrived by email. Some were 3-second replies, all the way up to 3-month full-time jobs, with not much in the way of being able to organise them so our completely pc-based job depended on us keeping paper files.
We went from having huge long lists of emails in either date or initial order, to being able to make our own folders, with labels chosen by us We could keep jobs as 'pending', we could assign them to different people, it was magic
Seems like 100 years ago doesn't it

[Aggers]

Operating systems are very emotive things. ...................................
etc
etc
..................................................................God help me if she ever decides to buy a Mac....

Suff - I read your long message twice, and then read it out loud to Mrs A. We both enjoyed it, and we are both
pleased that you wrote it, which will now definitely stop us from buying an Apple. I can't understand our gentleman
friend's motives when he said that Apple was easier to use than Windows. Your comments on your wife's struggles
with her iPad were particularly apt - and certainly amusing.

Many thanks.

[Suff]

I like windows
Seems like 100 years ago doesn't it

Indeed it does Di. I recall when people still created charts for presentations by hand.... I also recall the bad old days of having to set one of 5 free interrupts on any add in board you plugged into the computer. They had to be unique and free. In those days one of these could be the hard drive, as the old systems booted from floppy.

It was an art form made completely redundant by progress....

[Suff]

Aggers, I don't know everything but I do know about differing operating systems and I also know how different they look and feel and what might be confusing to someone who knows one system but not another. Windows7 from XP is a progression. Frustrating sometimes, but still a progression. Much of the learned knowledge helps or can be used.

Moving to Apple OSX or iOS is a complete break with what you know. I know this extremely well as I know that OSX is or OS 10 as it is in reality, is based on Debian Unix and was bought back into Apple when Apple bought out NeXT Step owned by Jobs. NeXT Step was used as the foundation for the new Apple operating system.

I know that having the window management buttons on the left of the window instead of the right is a PITA. I know that having a task/menu bar at the top and a floating dock at the bottom is a real sea change for Windows users. Even the fact that the task/menu bar is contextual and changes itself for each application you run/last ran, is a serious and major change. I keep having to remind myself when using it.

I know that the Finder is one of the worst file managers that has ever been created. Apple users are supposed to create zillions of folders and files on the desktop and then nest both files and folders within those folders. Then open window after window after window after window to find and work with these files. Because if they used hierarchical file management and tried to use the finder, they'd be looking for a new operating system. Even my MAC aficionado tech friend can't argue with me on this one, it's gruesome.

Hierarchical is how I work. Even my media library is ordered 1-C D-H etc, to reduce the amount of scrolling required to find a film. This is totally incompatible with the Apple ethos.

You ask how this person could recommend that you use an Apple and that it might be "easier". Well for those who have grown up in the Apple world, it's just the way it is. They think it's easy and simple. They live in a world ordered by Apple in which applications have to do all the work for them. Because god help them if the applications do not, as they would have no clue how to do it otherwise. Debian command Shell's are NOT for the faint hearted and make DOS look like a friendly, happy, meeting place.

Hopefully your Windows7 will become somewhat easier as things settle down. Many issues are seen during migration and transition which never normally turn up. But as time goes on, things just become easier. During that time, you will probably come across many of the changes they made to make simple operations much easier for people. Or not depending on what you do.

Today I was playing with my Son's Windows8.1 tablet machine. It's the first time I've had a chance to play with Windows 8 or 8.1 with a touch interface. Much of it makes sense when not using a keyboard and I found I could use it quite easily whereas I find desktop use both annoying and that it slows me down.

It's all a journey. I doubt it will end any time in the next 500 years. But we'll see.

[Aggers]

Thanks, Suff.

Most appreciated.

[cruiser2]

Suff and WM

Very interesting.
I am thinking of buying a tablet so your information will be a help.

I am now using W8.1 after having an upgrade for my hardware. It is a learning curve but I am enjoying it.

[Suff]

Hi Cruiser,

You have to Analyse your own experiences and willingness to experiment.

Much as I hate Apple Tech and Apple "lock in" for myself, I recognise that this is probably the best way for Mrs S. So when she talked about getting a tablet, I suggested Apple. Not because I like it but because the Windows tablets are still too expensive for what she wanted (just as the iPad was at the beginning), and because I recognised that her complete unwillingness to learn how an OS works and to experiment with features meant that she was best in a restricted and controlled environment.

I could not conceive of trying to support Mrs S on an Android tablet. Even though I have an Android phone and am relatively comfortable with the OS and the fact that my mother has one and Mrs S' Friends have them, I would not put myself through that torture.

Windows 8.x Tablet would have been the best for both of us, but, simply, Microsoft is not there yet. I could then have, eventually, upgraded her Laptop to W8, then convinced her to get a simple W8 phone and the experience would have been much more complete than in the Apple world.

But timing is all.

If you already know W8 and are enjoying it, then it might be worthwhile finding a shop which has them on display, reading a few articles on the difference between W8 RT and W8 desktop then playing with it in the shop.

Just a thought.