I’ve always been an early adopter of the latest electronic media gadgetry. I was fascinated by the first Compact Discs that appeared in record stores (most which are out of business) and I was hooked. Besides offering superior sound, they seemed indestructible; I have CDs I purchased 30 years ago that still play perfectly. Soon afterwards came the Laser Disc video format; although it never reached mainstream mass, not because you couldn’t record with it—that was the rationalization of people with huge video tape collections they didn't want to replace—but because the discs were oversized and the hardware bulky and sometimes unreliable in operation. Nevertheless, I was taken in by (relatively) superior video quality “indestructability” and the fact that the early releases tended to back catalogue classic titles. There was no pussyfooting around releasing popular titles; the Star Wars trilogy was an early release, while music rights issues under the VHS release contracts were continued (without original rights’ holders approval) with LD, which explains why Looking For Goodbar was an early LD release, while still awaiting an official DVD release.
When the DVD format arrived, this was a godsend opportunity
to build an extensive library of classic films on a format that was compact and
with proper care, virtually indestructible; I still have disks I purchased in
1999 that have avoided the “rot” that was supposed to develop in air pockets
between the recorded surface and the resin protective cover, and play as if
new. The next “wow” item was mp3 players, no doubt aided by the proliferation
of (not yet illegal) download sites like Napster. The first Nomad Juke Box was
gigantic compared to today’s mp3 players, and the initial asking price was an
astonishing $600. The reason for its bulky size was that it was essentially a
6-gigabyte hard drive which contained mp3 playback software; 6-gigabytes was a
lot of space even for computers of the day, and you could potentially fit 2,000
songs at a 128-kb rate on it. Of course the problem with it was that if you
dropped it, the hard drive could be damaged and useless.
As for computers, I have mentioned that I was an Apple
fanatic early on starting with the all-in-one Classic II. But by 1997, keeping up
with Apple had become too expensive with less to show for the expenditure; it
was easier to predict what you would be getting with a Wintel PC and its subsequent
shelf life, plus there was much more software available for it. That wasn’t the
only problem with Apple computers; for me, my computer has to be a multimedia
entertainment center, not for “streaming” media off the Internet but what I can
play independently from the machine itself. This means having sufficient hard
drive space and an optical drive—preferably a Blu-ray drive, which Apple has
sworn-off and making it even more unpalatable an option in my mind. It should
be obvious from a comparison that you get more “bang” for your buck with a Wintel
machine, at least insofar as hardware is concerned.
I have not jumped into the latest fad of “smart” phones or
tablets, however. I have a modest
cellphone that has mobile wi-fi for news and sports, but otherwise its only use
to me is as a time keeper and alarm clock; frankly, when I am forced to listen
to someone sitting behind me on a bus shouting into their phone in an
incomprehensible tongue, I think the cellphone to be most annoying invention ever conceived by
man. Tablets and “electronic books” seem to me to be less functional than
gimmicks—more of an “accessory” to one’s wardrobe. I need something that is
productive and I can be productive with. Writing this blog would be impossibly
cumbersome and time-consuming using anything other than a full-size keyboard.
And that brings to me to rumors of the death of the personal
computer, which has received greater “credence” upon news that PC sales have
dropped 14 percent in the first three months of the year. Much of the blame for
this has fallen on the lap of Microsoft’s latest Windows 8 operating system—a
charge which frankly has some merit. According to a technology website called
Channel Eye,
“While Microsoft’s (MSFT) launch of Windows 8 was supposed
to be the big change that the company needed to help personal computers keep
pace with touch-based devices such as tablets and smartphones, new research
from Information Data Corporation (IDC) suggests it has so far had the opposite
effect. According to IDC’s latest numbers, PC shipments posted their “steepest
decline ever in a single quarter” in Q1 2013, as the 76.3 million PCs shipped
represented a 13.9% decline from Q1 2012. To make matters worse, IDC analyst
Bob O’Donnell says that Windows 8 bears at least some of the blame for the
accelerated decline in PC shipments.”
The “radical” changes to the user interface are largely to
blame for Windows 8’s problems. If the changes were merely significantly
different from an appearance perspective, that would not be an issue that could
not be overcome; the problem with the new operating system—in particular with
computers that do not have touch screen capability—is that the “apps” design makes
it harder, not easier, to access data and applications. People who buy PCs want
them for specific purposes. Sure, there are “gamers” who want as much
horsepower they can get, but for the most part people want them as productivity
aids—as in word and data processing, graphics, CGI—and if you are like me, full
screen capable DVD and Blu-ray-quality playback. If I wanted to, I could plug in
a television tuner as well, and I could have an all-in-one entertainment system
without having to worry about download speeds, or having wi-fi access at all.
What I don’t want is a cluttered interface papered over with
useless icons that do nothing when I press them except pop-up in an empty full
screen with no menu options, with only the same icon staring at me (except
bigger and even more pointless). If I wanted this, I’d have bought a “dumb”
phone. But I didn’t, and millions of other PC and laptop users didn’t want this
either; they expected Windows 8 to be an improvement, but except for a few
tweaks it seems more a chore to use. We
use a handful of programs for work and play, and stunned by the fact that
Windows 8 no longer has a Start Menu, and that means that it is a pain in the
ass to access the programs, do searches and even shut off the damn thing, all
this requires waving the mouse in the right corner of the screen, hoping that a
sidebar will eventually appear, and not disappear until you’ve had time to move
the mouse down to, say, the power button. If you want to access programs or
search—well, I’ll get to that later.
Further disconcertingly, Microsoft did away with a dedicated
word processing program built-in. Microsoft Works was removed years ago,
vendors stopped paying for Microsoft Word, and now even Word Starter is gone,
leaving something called Word Pad, which does not have any spelling or grammar
tools, nor does it save text as a Word document. Just as bad is the removal of
DVD playback codecs for Windows Media Player.
That is not to say that there is nothing good about Windows
8; some of its new features are an improvement. When you plug in a USB drive,
its contents automatically appear on the screen. The Task Manager also seems to
provide more useful information; but frankly most of the “improvement” is
cosmetic at best, such as a copy-file
screen that gives you a graphic of the speed a file is being copied at—but what
good is that, really? And you can get out of the new interface by hitting the “desktop”
icon, although there is still no Start Menu; you have to clutter your desktop
with shortcuts to get easy access to the programs you want to use. Of course, you always did this with previous
versions of Windows, but now you have to do it because you have no choice. The “search”
option is certainly strange; before, you could type in a word from the Start
Menu or from an open window. Now, you have to coax open that sidebar, and then
you have to choose between three different search modules, because each one is
designed to “search” for specific items. While I presume the operating system
is more stable, any performance improvement is probably due to my Sony laptop
having a new third-generation i7 processor and 2 Gb of dedicated video memory.
I still say that I prefer Wintel computers over Apple, because
the latter skimps on hardware while charging you out the nose for the privilege
of using its operating system, while the former does the opposite;
unfortunately, you can’t have the best of both worlds, especially since Apple
not only refuses to offer Blu-ray drives in its computers, but now has sworn-off
any optical drives completely. Apple claims that this is because users prefer
downloaded media; I think it is because a Blu-ray compatible PC or laptop
requires more robust hardware, and that would hurt the company’s profit margin.
PC users know this; they use Wintel machines for serious business, and Apple computers
are for showing off. If Steve Ballmer listened to me, I would say to him that
he should get his operating system people to work on a free software patch that
defaults to the desktop screen—or do away with current “apps” screen altogether—and
provide more intuitive access to needed programs and functions. It’s a job to
even to shut down a computer safely, and you even have to use the search function
to find the Control Panel.
As it is now, people out buying a new PC or laptop are
confronted with a surface interface that is confusing, irritating and has no
obvious application. People who use computers and those who spend their time
touching tiny screens are two different animals with different needs; a
computer that functions like a tablet or “smart” phone fails in its reason for
being. For those who have “figured” out
Windows 8—meaning how to get out of its useless IU, and work around its
unintuitive features—Microsoft has not created a “final” version of its
operating system merely in need of occasional updates, but one in need of an
overhaul to its interface almost as drastic as moving from DOS to the original Windows.
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