To Windows 8 or not to Windows 8....

Windows RT: Worthless or the future of Windows?

 

So, this got me thinking.

 

25 January 2013

 

At the time I am writing this, only the opening statements of this debate have been posted, and so there isn't much to go on.

 

I believe that Windows 8 is the future...well, at least for the next two to three years. I do not think that Microsoft is going to do the same thing that they did with Windows XP and Windows Vista. Windows 8 is here to stay. I do not believe that Microsoft is going to rethink its strategy and make Windows 9 closer to Windows 7.

 

Why?

 

Because I think that Microsoft has recognized the trend of the future, fewer and fewer PCs and more and more mobile devices. They have a strong entry in the smartphone market. They dominate the PC market. What they need is an entry into the growing tablet market.

 

The strategy behind Windows 8 and it's sister OS Windows RT is two OSes, one UI. There are constant rumors that Apple is moving in the direction of making MacOS more like iOS, and this is sort of the same thing, except that since Microsoft already owns the PC market, they are working down into the tablet market, while Apple, who grew on the back of iOS in the smartphone market pushed iOS up into the tablet market.

 

Now, think about Microsoft's strategy, one UI to rule them all. This is the Modern (nee Metro) UI, which by the way is similar in appearance to the Windows Phone UI, which had the same name (Metro). You move from your PC to your tablet, and you do not change UI, nothing new to learn, and if you use Windows Live as your log in, all your settings are shared across both devices.

 

That is the future.

 

The problem is when I read the opening statements, I agree with most of what Matt Baxter-Reynolds says. He is right, there are several problems with Windows RT. The reliance on the Desktop Mode for Office is a mistake, and the same is true for the Control Panel, Windows Explorer, etc. These feel a little less like a problem in Windows 8, because there is feels like you are opening the hood and really getting into the engine compartment. That feels really clunky in Windows RT.

 

I wrote before that the success of Windows 8 depends on getting software vendors to write their PC Applications for the Modern UI. I still believe that. Keeping users away from the Desktop makes the experience of the OS much better, and having to go over and over again to the Desktop gives users the impression that the Modern UI is just a thin layer over the real OS. That is not good.

 

Matt Baxter-Reynolds also claims that Windows RT devices are too expensive. Now, this may or not be true, it depends on how you look at it. He points out that "Surface RT is prices around the average selling price of a normal Windows 8 laptop." Okay, I am sure he meant priced, and he is right, it is priced at exactly the same point as the iPad. Now, don't contradict me, the price of a Surface, without the TouchCover is $499, exactly the same as a 32GB iPad.

 

Then again, MB-R does not compare Surface to an iPad on price, which was a good, if deceptive idea on his part. It is priced higher than most Android tablets, but I feel that I can say with little chance of truly being proven wrong that the Surface is better than most Android tablets.

 

Most of the other Windows RT tablets I have seen are clinging to the same price range as the Surface, and that may need to change before Windows RT will really take off. People look at is and ask themselves....

 

Windows 8 portable, or Windows RT tablet?

 

Since the price is about the same, they may choose the more versatile PC. But the question is, do they ever ask themselves either of the following questions...

 

Windows 8 portable or iPad?

 

They are about the same price.

 

Windows RT tablet or iPad?

 

Now, here is the point where I think Microsoft can make some hay. As long as the question is Windows versus Windows, or portable PC versus iPad, I think that Windows RT loses. But, when people look just tablets, then I think Microsoft can make inroads. The real question is....

 

Windows RT tablet, iPad or Android tablet?

 

This is where Microsoft can win. Surface can hold its own against the iPad or any Android tablet, except for the two things usually mentioned, reliance on desktop mode, and lack of apps. I keep hearing price, but that shouldn't be an issue. Yes, as generally priced (with TouchCover) Surface is more, but you get more. You don't want the TouchCover, don't buy it.

Book #4

The Dragon Reborn

Robert Jordan

These books are slowing me down.  There are two things that kept me from really getting into the series before, and they are both rearing their ugly heads again now.  First, some years ago...well, some decades ago, I decided that I did not want to start a series until all the books in the series were out.  Since then, I have only broken that rule twice.  Once was for the Harry Potter books, and once for The Wheel of Time.  I had put off starting the series and then decided to start and read the first two, but then waited at least a decade to start again now.  Of course, now Robert Jordan is dead, before having finished the series, but it is being finished by another author.

 

The second is that they are so damned long, that is each book.

So, this is the first of the books that I have never read before, so I had no idea where anything was going, though I should admit that I only had general memories of the other books, so while I had a general idea where they ended up, I did not remember much of what came in between.

These books have suffered from the beginning from something that I do not like, which is having all the characters go off in multiple directions and having the story switch point of view to follow.  I find that this often fails and makes the book more confusing than it needs to be.  Jordan follows one important rule for doing this successfully, because when you move to a new character, you tend to still with them for a while, so whether you are following Rand, or Mat and Thom, or Egwene, Elayne and Nynaeve, or Perrin, Moraine and Lan, you tend to stay with them for at least a long chapter, and often several.  This allows you to try to keep the bits of the story separate, while seeing how they weave together.

Spoilers follow.

One surprising thing is that we do not follow Rand much in this.  Perrin, Moraine and Lan, along with a new addition to the story, Zarine, are following Rand and we see the effect that Rand has as he passes.  Mat starts off one direction, trying to get away from Aes Sedai control, but then ends up chasing Egwene, Elayne and Nynaeve.

Now, as much as I dislike it generally, at the end of the story, the various stories are woven together nearly perfectly at the end.  Mat, Rand, Perrin, the three girls, and Moraine all travel separate routes to the final denoument, but Jordan does an excellent job of keeping them separate and yet showing how each sees the effect of the other as they near the final scene.

I won’t give anymore away, but while some of the middle of The Dragon Reborn is as boring as the long middle haul of the first two, the ending is completely satisfying.  The first three books are each probably a full 25% too long and would be better for significant tightening.  That tightening and the intensifying that it would bring are what hold these books back from joining the ranks of The Lord of the Rings at the very summit of the genre.  As they are, they are good, but not great.

The Post-PC Era

Once again, an article on Tech Republic got me thinking.

What's behind the slump in PC sales? Can the industry turn around?

Specifically, it was the following lines at the end of the article.

‘Between now and the next "crucial holiday buying season," it's imperative that PC makers who want to avoid that fate put together product lineups that aren't so, you know, PC-like.’

This got me to thinking about the whole concept of the PC, and what a post-PC era might be.

First, I didn’t buy the post-PC era BS when Steve Jobs said it, and I still don’t…well, maybe not.  PCs are not going anywhere.  We are going to be using PCs for the next several decades.  There is still a need for powerful desktop PCs. 

The problem is that most of us are learning that we don’t really need a PC for most of what we have done on a PC for the last couple of decades.  We really do not need PCs to surf the web, to check our email, check Facebook, watch a video or two.  Netflix and Hulu Plus are both available on tablets and smartphones (Hulu too, if you work at it).  Some tablets even have HDMI ports, so you can push it to your TV.  You can even do Word Processing on a tablet, if you add a keyboard. 

It is beyond these simple tasks where I start to see the weakness of my tablet, but I do not do them very often.  Picture editing is possible, but I find nothing to match Paint.net, which I have on my PC (it’s free).  But, as I said, I do not need Paint.net very often. 

I can easily imagine a future where there is one PC in my house.  Right now there are 4.  As a family, we have not made the switch to tablets.  My son likes PC games too much, and I am the only one with a tablet.  But, I can imagine each of us with our own tablet, and one PC for the things that require a PC.  I cannot yet imagine not having a PC at home.

The PC has dominated for the last two decades because of its versatility.  It could be anything.  It could be a lightweight portable for hauling across the country.  It could be a multimedia machine for listening to music, watching videos, even recording and producing them both.  It could be a graphics workstation, handling the largest pictures with ease.  It became our window to the internet, to email and webpages, to social networking and Wikipedia and all those other things.  For many, that window to the internet is really all a PC was…at home.  That job is being taken over by smartphones and tablets.

I quoted the end of the article above, but I am now going to quote the beginning.

“PCs are for work, tablets are for fun.”

And he quickly followed with…

“No one climbed on Santa's lap and asked for a new laptop. They wanted a Kindle or an iPad, or maybe even a cheap Android tablet, all of which cost less than a PC and are easier to wrap.”

Tablets were the hot gift of the season.  Now, it could be that tablets are just this season’s Tickle Me Elmo, but I don’t think so.  The momentum has shifted away from PCs towards tablets, but the real momentum is for the hearts and minds of users.  Lots of people still use PCs, but people don’t want PCs.  They may still need them, but that need is like how some people actually need Minivans.  They may need it, but it is not what they want, what they desire, what they dream about.

So, maybe we have entered the post-PC era.  The era when the PC slips from being an object of desire, like a sports car, and becomes the tool that we use because we need it, like the Minivan.

Book #3

Yes, it took me 17 days to reach 3 books, but at least I am still moving forward.

The Great Hunt
Robert Jordan

Rand al'Thor is back, with his friends from Emond's Field.  So are the Aes Sedai (lady wizards) with their Wardens (companion warriors), the Children of the Light (zealots), Darkfriends (bad guys), and Trollocs.  One old lesser nemesis emerges as a major nemesis, and one new player arrives.

Rand, Mat and Perrin are on a hunt for the Horn of Valere, which is supposed to call dead heroes to fight in the final battle.  It was stolen in the first book, and so they set out to find it with a company of soldiers, and Hurin, who is a sniffer.  Hurin can smell violence and evil...well, sort of.  I do not think it has anything to do with his nasal passages.

Egwene, and Nynaeve are off to the White Tower in Tar Valon to learn to control their talent for magic.  We spend a good bit of time with them, and learn that Elayne, the princess we met in the first book is also their, and the girl Min, who we met along the way in book 1 and then left behind.

The new old enemy is Padan Fain, who we first meet as a merchant at the start of the first book.  He has turned into rather more than he was, and it looks like we are going to see more of him in future books.

I think I will leave the rest for anyone who wants to read it.  The Great Hunt is pretty good.  There was some of it that I did not like, but it has to do with the kind of thing that I do not want to read about, cruelty without purpose from people who are not necessarily evil, just stupid and arrogant.

Book #2

Travels Through the South of France and in the Interior of the Provinces of Provence and Languedoc
Lt.-Col. Pinkney
1809

Yes, you are reading that date correctly, 1809.  I came across this as a free book for Amazon Kindle while searching for travel books.  I started another written a few years later, but it was more of a political polemic than a travel book, so I quit that one and start on Pinkney's account of his travels in France.  Pinkney did a rather extensive tour, starting at Calais, traveling through Paris, then down the Loire valley and then moving over to the Rhone, to travel down to Avignon and finally to Marsailles where he ended his voyage and sailed back to the United States. 

A couple of things to note, this is during the reign of Napoleon, and foreigners were not always welcome in France, something that Pinkney mentions, but fortunately, he was American, and not English.  Also, this is only 32 years after the Declaration of Independence and only 20 years after the ratification of the Constitution.

It is a rather quaint travelogue, because almost nothing that we would recognized existed in that time.  The towns are drastically different than one would find them today, but the chateux along the Loire are still there, and Avignon is still Avignon, at least the old part of the city.  He travels part of the way alone, and then travels with a couple and a young lady of their acquaintance who Pinkney describes in rather glowing terms.

He comments on the people, the scenery, which is also describes in glowing terms, and  he gives us information on land prices, as well as prices of lodging, and food. Obviously, there are no trains or cars, so he travels by horse, and also by carriage after he meets up with those to accompany him on the later part of his trip.

I am not sure that anyone will find it interesting, but I found it fascinating, though I have one quibble.  The title mentions the region of Languedoc, where I spent nearly a year.  Lt.-Col. Pinkney never enters Languedoc.  He transits the Loire valley, which is well north of Languedoc, and then moves over to the Rhone valley, which is well east of Languedoc, so do not read this for information on Languedoc, but do read it for an intimate look at rural France in the time of Napoleon.

Book #1

The Eye of the World

By Robert Jordan

So, here is the first book of the New Year, and as I mentioned, I had a little head start on this one, but I can start where I am, and this is the first book finished during 2013.

Many of you will know this book, but it concerned Rand al’Thor and a few of his friends, as they discover that they are part of a huge cycle that repeats periodically.  The series is called The Wheel of Time, and that is the cycle that repeats.  Everything hinges on the return of the Dragon, and at the end of that, which of them is actually the Dragon Reborn is revealed.

In most ways it is pretty standard stuff.  A nearly emotionless warrior, a wizardess, young people caught up in something much larger than themselves, something that they do not understand and up against supernatural bad guys they cannot defeat.  Lots of running from the bad guys keeps the story moving along.  They take a short cut through a very scary place, and eventually save the day.

Yes, I am trying to avoid any spoilers.  It is well written, but if you are a fan of fantasy fiction, then it feels a big formulaic.  Also, this is the first book in a 14 Book series that had to be finished by another author after Robert Jordan died in 2007.

I like the book, but it is not on my list of all-time favorites.

Back with a Goal

I don't do resolutions, though I did think of two.

I resolve to be resolute.

I resolve to achieve resolution.

Okay, enough of the silliness (is there really such a thing?)

I have other goals for the new year, but a post on Gizmodo gave a new old goal.

How to Read a Book Every Single Day of the Year

Now, I consider 365 Books a year to be a bit much, but back over 30 years ago, I set myself the goal of reading 100 books in a single year.  The first year was 1980 and I made the total...okay, well not really.  I got to 99 and then read a Sesame Street Book for number 100.  But, in 1981, I did it for real, with 102 books.  In 1982, the total was 104 books.  1983 I fell short again, only this time I left it at 99.  In 1984 I was back on the wagon, with 114 books read.

Those five years are the only ones where I kept track of what I was reading.  I've always been a prodigious reader, but those five years were different.

I've decided to be different once again.  I intend to attempt to read 100 books in 2012.  Now, there are no rules for the types of books I intend to read.  A couple of the years in the list above I had a goal to have at least half the books I read not be Science Fiction or Fantasy.  No goal like that this time, just 100 books, big, small or in between.

I am giving myself a tiny bit of a headstart, and yes it is a cheat.  I am in the middle of reading two books right now, and those two books will be the first books that I put on the list for 2012.  Now, I will prove to you, my loyal readers, if there are any out there, that I am reading the books by giving a brief review of each on the pages of this blog.  Hopefully, there will be a few other posts along the way.

So, off to the reading.