I’m Pretty Much Done with Windows 8

Author: JoshMiller

Mar 20

Ok, so the new and excitement has worn off.  I am back to using Windows XP on my Laptop.  Windows 8 is still there on a second partition but I’ll probably recover that space once I bother to figure out the best way to remove Windows 8’s bootloader.

I have no major issues with it, it runs pretty quick and all and looks, mostly nice.  There are just a lot of really annoying minor issues that all sort of meld together into enough justification to say why bother.  Most of these issues are with Metro, which is of course “the cliché”.  People argue that “it’s just different” blah blah blah.  Guess what.  That’s great.  Just because something is different doesn’t mean it’s useful or better.  After previously working some in IT support (secondary to being a TV Engineer) and doing support for family etc, I can say, that for the most part, I can tell what is going to frustrate people. 

I think what really sealed it for me, was some conversations on the Windows Weekly podcast.  It’s kind of funny, because it seems to me, listening to his deflection and comments, that Paul Thurrott doesn’t really care for Windows 8, but he sort of faux supports it because he needs to keep good with Microsoft.  Anyway, I already wasn’t using the built in IE Metro browser because switching tabs is cumbersome.  When Thurrott made the assertion that they are encouraging people away from Bookmarks towards just pinning a handful of regular sites, this pretty much was the last little point that made me realize I’m totally fooling myself by “giving this a chance”.

Don’t mistake what I’m saying though, Metro, is neat.  I think it will be fantastic for a tablet, it kind of makes me want a Windows Tablet or a Windows phone.  It seems like it’s doable.

Mixing this crappy Tablet interface with a desktop, is terrible.  It is a terrible idea.  Great great, people who use iPads want their lame single tasking and huge buttons and flippy crap.  Guess what, on the desktop, that is inefficient.  When my browser takes up the entire screen, that’s a problem.

“But Josh, you’re a power user, normal epople don’t care”.  I watch my family use the computer, these people are NOT power users, hell my wife still calls the PC itself the “modem”.  I did finally get them to realize that the monitor is not the computer, etc etc.  All of them know how to navigate tabs and do things like, run Youtube in the background, or my daughter opens multiple tabs when browsing for books for her nook.  Then there is the part where they all know how to drag and drop music/ebooks/photos/whatever between two windows for sorting or putting it on an Ereader or MP3 player.

Doing this is not obvious in Windows 8, and it is the sort of thing that’s doable but will frustrate them.  Hell, I can barely get two Explorer Windows open at the same time and I know what I’m doing.  The expected action: Open Explorer, Navigate to Folder A, open explorer again, navigate to Folder B.  Windows 8 seems to just re-bring-up Window A when you try to open a second Explorer Window.

It’s little crap like this.

Also, Metro is really inefficient for a mouse and keyboard.  I have to admit, I barely use the Start Menu anyway and keep most of what I use pinned to the task bar.  Now, when I need the start menu, instead of a list of programs right there next to the mouse, I get this huge ugly ass list of icons that are hard to read and see the more I add.  I get to scroll through mutliple pages of this junk too.

Then there is annoying little features like the stupid sidebar task switcher, which half the time seems to just close and reopen the app making it hard to quickly jump between two apps.  The apps themselves all look similar in Metro, so it’s difficult to tell which thumbnail I want to start with.  One thing that may factor in to this, I have always hated these pop up Window thumbnails and generally disable them in Vista/7 anyway.

Enough just random bitching.  It’s nothing new that others have not already complained about all over, everywhere.  It just sucks.  Good for a touch interface…

Maybe…

I had the chance to try Windows 8 on an HP Touchsmart PC recently.  Maybe the drivers just aren’t there or the Touchsmart isn’t properly compatible but I could not figure out how to make any of these annoying pop out side menus work on this PC using touch.  I still had to flip the mouse over to bring up the menus.  So all of this ludicrous stupidity doesn’t even seem to work in the interface method it was intended for.  Also, Solitaire was still laggy as hell, which is pretty lame because it’s Windows Solitaire.

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Filed under: 2012, Windows & Microsoft | Tagged as: , , ,

Linux or Windows…

Author: JoshMiller

Jan 9

So I’m stuck in the middle of a bit of a quandary here.

The PC i was using as a Miscellaneous server lost it’s hard drive during the move.  Nothing major was lost, it was a small 40 gig that was probably past it’s lifespan anyways.  I lost my OpenSIM instance, which mostly just means a bit of legwork reimporting everything.  I lost my Minecraft server, which wasn’t very built up anyway.  Possibly the most important, though still replacable, I lost all of the clever scripting I’d done to get Radio DJ to update podcasts on it’s own.

Nothing critical lost.  This gives me an excuse to update the machine anyway.  I don’t mean buying another whole new rig, I have a replacement machine already that’s probably twice the specs all around than the weak machine I had everything running on.

The problem I have, is Windows or Linux.  There are pluses and minuses to both really.  With Windows, everything is generally easier to set up.  I’m more familiar with it.  Also, Radio DJ is Windows only, so there won’t be anymore Lameazoid Radio with Linux.  I’m kind of over that little short lived fetish anyway, I like the idea but it could never be public since actually licensing the music would cost a fortune.  I do lots of “Proof of Concept” style project anyway.

I do want to bring back Minecraft and OpenSIM though.  I can do both on Linux or Windows.  I like using Linux because it forces me to tinker and learn a bit more.

The other angle here, the machine I want to use is decently powerful, I’m really wanting to hook up a PC to the TV to use as an arcade/emulator box.  I even feed the VGA cable back into the office so the box can hide there instead of in the family room.

I actually also have a really nice Emulator Front end that I bought many years ago that runs through Windows.

I also still have the old box, which is probably ok aside from the dead drive, and I have a stack of old drives to throw in machines.

So this is the “tough choice”, at this point I’m leaning Windows. 

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Filed under: 2012, Linux & Open Source, Windows & Microsoft | Tagged as: , , , ,

Change Desktop Icon size in Windows Vista

Author: JoshMiller

Oct 16


Here we go with our first windows Vista Tip!

I recently upgraded my work PC to windows Vista from Windows XP. This opens a whole new realm of possibilities for topics.

For my first tip and suggestion, it’s changing the icon size on the desktop. Anyone who has switched like I have may notice that by default, the icons are freakishly huge at any resolution. This may be some people’s cup of tea, it’s not mine however. I like to use as few icons as possible and make the ones I do use a discrete as possible.

The simple way to handle this, assuming you have a mouse with a wheel, is to first click the desktop, then hold “Control” or “CTRL” and then scroll the wheel. Scrolling up will make the icons even more freakishly huge. Scrolling down will make them ridiculously tiny.3

If you don’t have a scroll wheel you can get a more comfortable size by right clicking on the desktop, then selecting View->Classic Icons. It’s not as fun or dynamic however.

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Filed under: 2008, Windows & Microsoft | Tagged as: , , , , ,

Empty Your Recycle Bin

Author: JoshMiller

May 19

Just a quick suggestion.

Empty your recycle bin!

I can’t count the number of times I sit down at a person’s PC and notice they have never or very infrequently emptied the recycle bin. This thing can account for some loss of Hard Drive space, and if it’s never been emptied it can add up quickly.

So find that old Recycle Bin on your computer’s desktop, right click it, and select “empty Recycle Bin”. I recommend doing this AT LEAST once a week, preferably more. If you’re feeling really ambitious you can turn it off completely and have all of your deleted files instantly fly into nothingness.

We all make mistakes sometimes though so I don’t actually recommend doing this procedure.

If you’re still feeling like a daredevil, right click the recycle bin and select “Properties”. You’ll get a menu like this.


Check the box there that says “Do not move files to the Recycle bin…”. If you’re limited on hard drive space you can also move the slider to shrink the available size of your recycle bin. Keep in mind this will cause some larger files to delete instead of being recycled. If your recycle bin has 5% of a 50 gig drive, anything over 2.5 gigs will automatically go straight to delete land. No easy recovery possible.

You can also select the check box to configure the drives independently. Maybe you never want to recycle files when deleting from your C drive but you have a 500 gigabyte D drive that you want to devote 50% of it’s capacity to recycled files (why is beyond me but hey, whatever gets you going).

Now, let’s say you’ve accidentally delete a file and it’s gone to your recycle bin. This is your safety net, this is why the thing exists! Maybe in a fit of rage you went and deleted all of the poetry you wrote to your ex girlfriend but now you’ve decided you may want to reuse those clever bits for your next gal. Assuming you haven’t emptied it, right click the recycle bin and select “Explore”.

A windows should pop up showing all of the files in the recycle bin. Now, right click and select “Restore” on the files you want to keep.

They will return to their original location, unscathed. Note: If you’ve deleted an entire folder you’ll need to restore the entire folder even if you simply want individual files.

On the off chance that you’ve deleted something critical you’ll need to break out some more complex file recovery software (I have had good luck with R-Studio). that is however a more complex topic for another day.

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Filed under: 2008, Windows & Microsoft | Tagged as: , , ,