Posts by Nicole D.

Yet the influence of Johnny Ive....

"The problem isn't a failure to ask normal people. It's a problem of a fear of design and abdicating design to normal people. Sinofsky didn't prove Microsoft needed to listen more, he simply proved he was a good politician and a bad designer and he lived in a political environment where the man who promised to save Windows (by welding it onto a tablet design) would survive. At Microsoft pure designer in the mould of Johnny Ive would have remained unpromoted and unloved."

True enough. Yet the minimalist influence of Johnny Ive is where we can trace a decision (or even an "insider" preference) to de-task the Taskbar back to.

I don't know what portion of the customizations I've done to Windows over the last decade or more were so I could bypass Apple's influence on the UI, but I know that most of them were about un-hiding things previously visible, turning off things (like effects) that provide no benefit, or simplifying OS navigation and application use by creating more direct routes to functionality hidden safely away from my prying, end-user eyes.

Apple's influence on UI design as been for shit. Google's may well prove worse (as it follows the same "let's hide stuff from the dummies and shove what suits our purposes down their throats" approach without even the pretense of an aesthetic rationale.) I approach each new version of Windows wondering not "Where do I want to go today," but how will I de-Mac-ify this thing to get it to run like a serious work environment should.

This is why buying a laptop is so difficult.

<< Off-center Trackpad = Instant Failure

I hate those off-center trackpads. They taunt me nonstop with their unevenness, making me feel the urge to lean slightly to the left. I'd much rather have no number pad (I never use it anyway), and center the keyboard and trackpad together. That's one thing I'm glad Apple have done, in keeping the trackpad centered on their Macbooks. >>

It is pretty impossible to get a non-Apple 15.6" or larger laptop without a number pad, which means you will get an off-center trackpad.

If you are very lucky, you will get actual mouse buttons with the the trackpad, instead of the one-piece designs that integrate the pad and the buttons into a single plate, a design from hell that makes accurate clicking a crap shoot.

I'm looking for a 17.3" HD laptop with NO number pad, a centered trackpad, 12 function keys that do not require pressing the Fn key in order to get the conventional functions, with a context menu key between the right Alt and Ctrl keys, and the left-side Ctrl key to the left of the Fn key (which rules out many Lenovos), that will run Windows 7 and for another year and be ready for Windows 10 when it drops.

Seems simple. But I find myself ready and willing to part with my money but unable to find anything I want to spend it on.

Whoever is designing these things should rot in hell.

Re: And the great thing is

Which retailer? Is that in the US?

Before it gets better

This type of confusion probably means things will get a lot worse before they get any better.

Yes, that's the real story here. You can find almost any music by any artist on YouTube, and rip the audio to mp3 as easily as ripping a cd (does anybody remember cds?). Sound quality? Usually more than acceptable, to give a fan a feeling of "yeah I have that song" and add it to their playlist.

Re: last man for a while

"Not sure he'll be the last, but reasonably sure he'll be the last for a while, anyway. Unless, they make it into an annual barbecue."

If they're smart they will ask another prominent man to headline next year, when more eyes than usual will be on the event, then get him, like Satya, on the record on the same set of issues.

Re: Wanna really contaminate the med ad dbs...

yeah that'll show 'em.

...force people with Gmail to have a google+ profile...

"if google force people with Gmail to have a google+ profile then that is another thing, but so far they are not, you can even delete the profile when you set up a Google account"

This seems inevitable

Interesting how a corporation that would champion the avoidance of evil in its mission statement would come to embody it, as though they were giving us advance warning of their intentions.

"Don't Be Evil" is to Google what "To Serve Man" is to the extraterrestrials in that classic Twilight Zone.

Can you think of any other consumer good Re: @ Alan Denman

Can you think of any other consumer good that is light weight, palm sized, and that may well -- in all likelihood -- holds the keys to your identity and economic life?

Remind me, if my phone is lost or stolen, why am I not supposed to want to be able to call my carrier and have them brick the thing? I call my credit card company to void lost cards. In terms of functional desirability, how does this differ? Because it would be a guvmint mandate? Right. It's almost 2014, your 20th century talking points are past their expiration date.

The ability to brick a phone that is not within arm's distance would be a feature and selling point, which pretty much does away with any objections based on profits that isn't rooted in (as the article says) more thefts = more sales. Nice. Almost Googlerian in its cold logic.

As for "their" ability to do this, this isn't my area of expertise, but it seems to me if they're able to download to your phone at their leisure, without your knowledge or direct consent at the time, it should be easy enough for them to locate and zap your phone of all value once you give them your mother's maiden name.

Re: Unsettling...

When Google looks into the future, way out beyond what today appears the horizon, they see the United States as a competitor on many fronts. Partnering with the US sooner than later, while Google remains technically answerable to US rules, laws, and regulations, best positions Google to eventually exercise decisive leverage over an American government that will need Google more than Google will need or feel itself still answerable to it. If it isn't already, Google will be the first corporate sovereignty. What today we recognize as the US will provide police and janitorial services to Google.

Are you feeling lucky, punk?

Re: New years resolution

"In short, you have the same issue that Google and Microsoft have. Your traffic goes everywhere, you'll have to either wrap it up end to end, or accept it can be had."

Indeed. That's where meaningful analysis of modern privacy must start.

It's not like we're going to go back in time to a way of life before surveillance on this scale was both possible and practical. No one WANTS to.

So then what?

The line that "if you got nothing to hide you got nothing to fear" is wrong on all kinds of levels in all kinds of ways. But the rejection of that as a matter of principle doesn't mean it isn't one of the terms we will live under. And it's a deal we make with ourselves.

When Eric Schmidt sings the no hide/no fear song, it's not because he likes things that way and sees nothing wrong with it, it's because he knows it to be true. He's not making an ethical statement but stating a technological fact. And how many are in a better position to know? I'd rather he be candid than coy.

When Google and Microsoft and Yahoo and Facebook play the righteous victims, they deflect attention from themselves in hopes of hiding the fact that what the NSA has been doing in secret, they've been doing in broad daylight. With our enthusiastic cooperation and consent to the terms of service.

It would be easier and less inconvenient to renounce your citizenship, move to a different continent, and adopt a new identify, than to give up Google and never again have your bitstreams intersect.

OK, so what are you going do about it?

Re: Arse

"These are thing China has done well in the past and could easily again."

And can do even more efficiently in a socially networked environment.

Schmidt's problem is that he believes his own dog food.

Re: A fine line between Vision and Arrogance

"How the fuck am I supposed to know that?"

Oh please. How are you supposed to know that Ctrl-v will paste? The c in Ctrl-c makes some mnemonic sense. But (and this is not a complaint) why is Ctrl-z undo? And why -- oh god, please, WHY? -- with Ctrl-z being one of the easiest single-hand key combos, did Ctrl-y, one of the most difficult, ever become redo, possibly the second most important command in all of computing? And why do some popular softwares still insist on Ctrl-y without also implementing Ctrl-Shift-z?

Weird key combs are not the problem.

Almost forgot... that's Command if you're on a Mac.

Re: And a lovely player it was

"...but after they tried to sideload crap with the installers..."

That was my experience too. I went years without updating it because of the stuff it (AOL) insisted on installing. A few years ago I found that was no longer the case, or that it was easily bypassable (I forget which) and went to far as to buy Winamp Pro so I could rip to mp3, or was it FLAC... one or both of those, or something else that I wanted, was only available with Pro. I use it all the time, every day, it's my audio player and library manager of choice. So this is sad news.

But not surprising. It's been chaos over at Nullsoft for a long time. An email exchange I had recently with one of its programmers about a dodgy feature implementation and a suggested enhancement left me with the impression that there was really no direction to how the thing was being developed. Ad hoc and free form.

Just downloaded the latest version. It should suffice for for some time. Have no idea what I'd move to next.