Windows 8 CP: To touch or not to touch?

Disclaimer: I have not touched any build of Windows 8. Judgment is based on screenshots, videos, many articles on Windows 8 CP.

With the news of Windows 8 Consumer Preview finally passing, there’s been a lot of negative concerns about the upcoming version of Windows. Commenters and bloggers appear from what I’ve seen to have a mostly negative reaction towards Windows 8, in particular, the new Start screen and Metro design.

I am open to changes, I like the Metro design principles (implementation is another story), but there are some chief concerns I have with Windows 8 that I think everyone is hung up upon. Let’s address them:

1. Can the Start Screen’s design work well with all available input?

It wouldn’t be straying too far to consider that the Start Screen is heavily influenced by Microsoft’s belief in ensuring their OS is wanted for those tablets, laptops and and all-in-ones that come with touchscreens. From the consensus, it does indeed work very great with touch. However, does it work well with mouse and keyboards?

Mouse input has far greater reach in pinpointing small buttons. Touch isn’t. Touch needs enough room to avoid errors of bigger fingers. This generally requires bigger icons. Mouse users don’t care for having bigger icons, because it can generally mean having to move the cursor a greater distance, than it were if the icons were smaller. It also means less information is available at one glance, and you have to scroll around for more. Keyboards have it harder. Metro in the past (think Windows Media Center, 1st and 2nd gen Zune players) would work great with directional input (up, down, left, right), an enter key, and a back button on a keyboard. But being touch-friendly doesn’t confine it to that. Now elements can be placed in many areas, and keyboards may have to resort to using Tab to go around elements. Also, multi-touch gestures won’t work on keyboards period, and some mice or touchpads may not support it if an app requires it.

Voice input is still a mystery and not reported on anywhere I’ve seen. Only decent input on this piece is just a muse by this guy. Microsoft’s implementation for Metro in the Start Screen seems to favor touch, but it doesn’t have to be this way. The Zune software clients on Windows works very well with a mouse, and though I’ve never tried, I think it could also work well with touch as well.

2. Does Metro design mean a ‘dumbing down’ of applications?

The idea behind Metro is for simplicity, but simplicity can also mean getting rid of functions that could be handy. Comparing Windows 8’s Mail, People, and Calendar apps to those of Windows Live Mail, Contacts, and Calendar app, you can see a lot of features have been dropped down to only ones that are deemed essential. (It should be noted that these apps in Windows 8 have a big “App Preview” mark at the top of the apps, so maybe my mention isn’t something to consider too harshly). It appears the same with Music and Video too however. Hopefully Microsoft and developers can achieve a great balance in simplicity and functionality where functionality is still key, but simplicity is something that is attempted to be improved upon.

3. Should the Start Screen be a ‘screen’?

Proponents of Microsoft’s choice to make it a screen point out that it gives them far more viewing room to see more results and content, rather than confine it to a small space like Windows 7 and Vista’s Start Menu. They claim it doesn’t take any longer to search for something on the Start screen than you would on the Start menu, it’s just bigger. Metro apps should be full screen to utilize the most touch space.

On the other hand, detractors point out that searches may involve keywords from windows they currently are viewing but can no longer see thanks to Start being full-screen, full-screen is distracts away from what you’re working on. Plus a lot of results aren’t as good as having the best results show up in the first handful of items shown. Metro apps should be windows like desktop apps, and placed for easy access in the taskbar like how touch already works in Windows 7.

Search-wise, I’d have to agree with the detractors and prefer that searching does not require so much space, and the indexing will place the best results (maybe based on past history and such) towards the top in each category (maybe a left/right key toggle for different search categories?) and being able to type in keywords based on open documents by just a glance, without having to go in and out of full-screen Start. Metro apps though, I think could either way as far I cared. I can see the appeal of putting them full-screen to avoid having to see the cluttered taskbar, or I can see the appeal of just making it windowed and just easy to manage via the taskbar.

4. Does the use of both Metro and Aero in Windows 8 seem too unappealing?

On this issue, there seems to be a general consensus yes. Going past the obvious respect that not everyone likes Metro to begin with, a lot of people do not like how very clumsy and jarring it seems to transition from Aero on the desktop to Metro in the Start Screen. There are Metro elements in Windows 8’s more refined Aero, like simple sharp corners (rather than rounded ones), and title being centered (rather than left-aligned) to name some. But the glass look doesn’t seem to fit with Metro back-to-basics, and the chrome side and bottom edges continue to take up unnecessary pixel space. Scrollbars are still too ugly looking, the Ribbon UI doesn’t take any Metro hints, and desktop Control Panel and Explorer don’t have the Metro touch either. If anything, Microsoft should get some hints from this Sputnik8 on The Verge forums. I have minor qualms in some aspects of the shots, but overall, I feel it’s in tune with what a proper Windows 8 with a real Metro design should be like. 

5. Will game developers leverage the store to appeal to hard-core gamers?

Games demoed so far appear to be on the rather simple size, and touch friendly. Unfortunately, most hard-core PC games tend to rely heavily on the mouse and keyboard combo. Will developers even consider putting such games in the Windows Store? Even with the Xbox Live integration, there’s no indication whether the Start Screen will be attracting any hard-core games to it.

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Overall, I believe these are major issues regarding the GUI of Windows 8. Looks are important to users. Windows 7 had the Aero touch that everyone seems to have had no complaints about, but Windows 8 with the Metro touch is throwing a lot of haters out there. Microsoft should definitely take into consideration of whether they should make the Start Screen optional for end users, because the polls and comments don’t seem too happy. These are Microsoft’s most vocal users and these people may discourage their friends and family from Windows 8 on non-touch desktops and laptops.

What do you guys think?

Sneak peak at Bing’s new search results UI

Lately, several people have been capturing glimpses at the new Bing search results UI, and I have to say it’s pretty good. It’s very sporadic as to how often this look is showing up, but I’m guessing the Bing team wants to see what reactions there are before they roll it out. As of now, I’m no longer able to get it.

New search (above) v. old search (below)

Some interesting things to note:

1) Left pane is gone – This really helps simplifies the page and makes it less busy looking, but it does take out the “Search History” and “Narrow By Date” filter. “Related Searches” is moved to the right pane.

2) Bing logo is slightly altered – Instead of the text in the logo being blue, it’s now black. It’s also slightly smaller in size. I personally like it. The blue logo always seemed kind of tacky in my opinion, and making it smaller serves to simplify the page and put the focus on the search, not the logo.

3) More search results? – Maybe it’s an odd thing to note, but the new Bing finds 223 million results, while old Bing finds only 222 million results. Of course, most people never go past the first 10 results, but it’s interesting to note.

4) Simplified header – Thin strip across the top, probably relating to the daily image. The various search verticals are reduced to just Web, Images, Videos, News, and More. Facebook login is more prominent with profile image shown, where as in the old Bing, it isn’t. Bing Rewards not shown.

5) Altered search box – The actual search button is no longer orange, but white. In fact, it’s now a boxed out logo either, but right into the search bar with an almost complete line separating it as its own box. They’ve completely done away with the “suggested search headers” that used to appear under the search box. Now you just go with the consistent ones on the top of the page. Much better, as I feel it’s less redundant.

Of course this is probably not anything final. But I like how it looks in comparison to the old one, and I’d even consider it to have the Metro elements. Search results seem to be the focus of the page, and the other background elements are more subdued and less in the way. What do you y’all think?

Microsoft should make a dumbphone OS

Smartphones are all the rage these days, but what about the underestimated dumbphone market? By the way, when I say ‘dumbphone’ I’m referring to general cellphones that aren’t classified as ‘smartphones’. The quasi-official classification is really ‘feature phone’ but ‘dumbphone’ is becoming more common and distinguishes it better in my opinion.

A lot of people won’t get on the smartphone market anytime soon. Price is a heavy factor. Devices themselves cost a lot, even when subsidized by 2-year contracts. Add on the required data plans too. The apps and games are very enticing, and you buy those too. Not to mention a protecting case and other accessories as well. So a smartphone can be a heavy investment.

Not everyone feels the need for a smartphone. It’s nice to have, sure. But is it necessary? Many people can get by perfectly well on a regular cellphone. They don’t feel compelled to switch after analyzing the benefits over the costs. Many people, like myself, can make do with a cheap dumbphone for basic phone & text functionality, and get by with a laptop/tablet on free WiFi for full Internet access, a dedicated portable media player, and a dedicated digital camera that all do their jobs better.

According to Nielsen, dumbphones still rule the market at 60% usage in the United States as of September 1, 2011. Yes, smartphone growth has been rapid, but is that a surprise when most dumbphones look pretty pathetic?

So why Microsoft? I like Microsoft software. Windows Phone is a very good smartphone OS, and I think if they could create a light version of it, it may take the dumbphone market by storm. Now you might point out that Microsoft’s brief history with the Kin in 2010 shows that Microsoft is incapable of producing a good dumbphone, or the market rejects a mid-level phone somewhere between a dumbphone and smartphone. I disagree. If you want to bother reading through my Kin assessment, here’s the link.

The gist is that the Kin wasn’t just a failure; it’s an important lesson about trying to change the dumbphone market with half-baked implementation, poor niche marketing, and missing necessities. Microsoft can learn from its mistakes and try again, having had the experience. I know I’m not an expert, but when many experts and critics are sharing the same view, I think that speaks for itself that some of the the stuff with the Kin could have been easily avoided with better development and ensuring the launch was at least a safe product rather than something that was bound to flop.

Getting into the dumbphone market is also a good idea, because it’s a starter phone for many people. Making the user experience and design similar to Windows Phone might encourage them to adopt Windows Phone as their smartphone when they’re ready. Or at least use more Microsoft services like Bing and Zune or Xbox. As well as in developing markets like Africa and Asia. Considering how Windows Phone runs well on lighter resources, perhaps they could accomplish something similar on even lesser hardware specs that dumbphones have.

Apps are something that dumbphone users will still want. Some might say having a smartphone OS and a dumbphone OS will mean ‘fragmentation’ for developers and users. I find that the market for both of them are completely different. Dumbphones will continue to have lower hardware specs to make them affordable, and thus any app will not reach the level of complexity as they would on a smartphone. It may be easier to code for a dumbphone OS as well, and hopefully MS could provide a very good SDK  so developers can make the most they can out of a dumbphone. Or there maybe a limited official app selection like Microsoft has had for the Zune players.

This dumbphone OS should be licensed to OEMs with fairly good minimum requirements to ensure the integrity of the OS would work well enough, but obviously the specs won’t match the ones required by Windows Phone. Microsoft can also take advantage of their strong partnership with Nokia to get the ball rolling.

In my next post, I’ll go in depth of what I’d think a basic dumphone OS from Microsoft would be like and look like.

Why the Microsoft Kin failed

I know this is rather late, but I though I had previous typed this up before, but couldn’t locate it on WordPress. So here it is.

The Kin failed because of poor research into what the market wanted, especially baseline features, and Verizon’s issues as well. Here’s a quick list of what killed the Kin:

• Verizon – MS and Verizon had a break down prior to launch. Microsoft wanted it to be billed as a dumbphone with a low-cost data plan, But Verizon ended up labeling it as a ‘smartphone’ with an expensive smartphone data plan. Only during the 2nd revision did Verizon shift it to Microsoft’s want. When it was too late… Why didn’t they get T-Mobile, like their predecessor with the Sidekick/Hiptop?
• The marketing – All their ads completely targeted to ‘hipsters’, which if any smart person could tell Microsoft, is a very niche group, super hard to please, and isn’t representative of most of America’s youth. It was a disaster.
• Missing features, day one – Calculator and calendar came with the 2nd revision and update, but they weren’t there Day 1! I’ve used at least 2 dumbphones, and they had basic calendar support years ago and today. It wasn’t web connected, but it existed. Calculator? Come on. They were still gimpish during the 2nd revision. No IM clients for a phone billed as a social phone. Dumb. No spelling correction or predictive text input. No accessible expansion slots. GPS is only good for geocoding photos and local search, not for navigation. Apps? It’s a dumbphone, but it should have better built-in apps.
• The ‘social’ was gimped – 15-minute delay in updating your Loop, unless you manually refresh or lock-unlock your phone. It’s like that because of “battery life” and “immature social networking APIs”. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea? Twitter was very gimped. It’s pretty much read only, reply, and tweet. And no IM clients. Or calendars.

Ignoring the above, the Kin did offer stuff over the regular dumphone:

• Modern look – It was kinda smooth, the graphics looked better with the high-res screen, and the animations weren’t bad. It’s not choppy and ugly like most dumbphones you see out there.
• The Spot – You could hold, drag, and drop items to a tiny circle that’s always on-screen, and click on the circle to organize and send to the friends or social networks you want.
• The Loop – It’s the homepage, and it’s pretty much the same as Window Phone’s “People” hub.
• The Kin Studio – A major winner as an idea to most people. All your photos, videos, text messages, contacts, and such can be backed up to the cloud, all accessible with unlimited storage for free. No dumbphone or smartphone has done that for free.
• Decent cameras – 5MP standard-def video on Kin ONE and 8MP 720p video on Kin TWO is pretty good, especially for a dumbphone.

Basically, if Microsoft had marketed it better as an awesome dumbphone without the stupid hipster factor, and remembered that this was first and foremost a dumbphone, not a smartphone, they might have had a slight chance of success.

Dumbphones should NOT require an expensive data plan, nor should the features (meant for bigger data plans) be gimped to make cheaper data plans possible. User experience goes down a lot when the feature you use just doesn’t work good. If practically every dumbphone has certain features like a basic calendar and calculator, please include it. If you’re going to claim it’s a “social phone”, you better have like the best social networking features available, and multiple/integrated IM clients too, or you’re just lying. Even a Blackberry would be a better “social phone” with Blackberry Messenger, calendar, e-mail and all that. If it’s not doable, then don’t.

I think it’d be great if Microsoft could redo their dumbphone thing, and do it right. I think they should license the OS to other OEMs, like they do with Windows Phone, but with lighter hardware requirements of course. Redesign the OS to just make it a better dumbphone, without too much expensive extras.

Why bookstores are NOT going to ‘die’ out

There’s been a lot of ridiculous hype that bookstores are going to be dead in the near future. These people mainly contribute it to the rising use of eBooks and how Kindles are making bookstores obsolete and whatnot.

I personally would like to call it BS. I’m not going to go into super factual analysis or attempt to dig up a lot of links to prove any assertions or whatever; I’m just going to suggest you go to your favorite search engine instead or add some of your own logic here.

People point out that Borders Group Inc., an international book and media retailer got bankrupt this year, suggesting the premise of bookstores in the future. Thing is, Borders was totally slow in being competitive. For a long while, Borders didn’t sell any books online; they outsourced it to Amazon until about a year or two ago, and Barnes & Noble got a earlier head start as well. Barnes & Noble also brought in their Nook as soon as they could, while it took about 2 years later for Borders to get a Kobo in their stores. Check it out from Forbes. The gist is, is that Borders didn’t have good management and direction as to what consumers want, and they didn’t adapt quickly enough.

So digital sales may have some part to do with some bookstores closing out. But there has to be more than just digital sales. Do a lot of people you know or see own Kindles or Nooks or other eReaders? Maybe it’s just me, but I may see a couple sometimes, but they’re not as prevalent as the online world would like you to believe.

Here’s my theory. Something many media outlets haven’t touched on when they talked about Borders going down is:

• the rise in secondhand bookstores
• the rise in library check-outs
• people buying online at cheaper prices

I know it’s all anecdotal, but I don’t buy books as much as I used to when I was younger. It may have to do with how books have risen like a dollar per paperback (from $3.99 to $4.99) in the past couple of years, and how being an adult means I’ve got to use my money more sparingly. Books are a luxury in a way. It’s not totally necessary for survival, but they can be educational or entertaining. I mostly bought books for entertainment through mystery fiction.

When I can, I mostly go to the library to get books. Sure, there are downsides to not owning them: having to return it back on time (or renew), dealing with any potential nastiness from being used for a long time, and so on. But I usually read my fiction books only once, and rarely ever again. So it makes sense for me to avoid books that are a one-time only thing. If I like it a lot, I may buy a personal copy somewhere.

That’s when I might usually hit a secondhand bookstore, but they are usually farther for me from where I live, so I might head to a national chain bookstore (usually Barnes & Noble) instead. Independents don’t really show up on the radar where I live, and the perks and selection of Barnes & Noble is hard to resist, so sorry independent owners. Borders had few locations in this city, so it wasn’t usually a place I visited, though I like the store’s atmosphere as well.

Also, a lot of people sell books on Amazon.com for cheap. So that helps a ton. I usually bought out-of-print books, that bookstores don’t usually keep since they’re a bit outdated.

I personally don’t care about the eBook craze at the moment. I can’t justify spending over a $100 for an eReader when printed books work fine for me, and I don’t have to deal with DRM issues if I wanted to read elsewhere, or ensure I have a physical back-up. The DRM issue is what hits me the most, and prevents me from even considering buying an eBook until that gets resolved. I kind of wish Microsoft might offer a solution at some point soon.

Plus I like to think any business model will at least try to change and adapt first, before it dies out. I see so many possibilities for bookstores before anything digital will overtake them. Maybe I’m optimistic, but I’m an idea guy and could think of a lot of ways bookstores can be even better than what’s out there.

Bookstores in some form will be here to stay for a long time. Whether it’s a big-chain selling a big selection with discounts and a built-in coffee shop, or a specialized independent, or a secondhand place, I don’t see them dying off in droves.

My stolen laptop: 10 lessons learned

Well my laptop got stolen through no fault but my own. Over the past week, I’ve learned a good many lessons. First, let me start off with the background story:

November 18, 2011, 5:15PM – I leave my laptop inside my backpack, under a table, in the usual spot where we drop our things to help volunteer to pick up recycling content in classrooms and hallways around one particular college. It’s something outside of the college’s janitorial duties, so we volunteer to help. I only have to do it every so often as an officer of the organization, and I picked this day because I thought I had a test on another day I was supposed to do it, but I was wrong.

So I’m late, about a 1/2 hour because I got the time wrong (usually starts at 5PM, but it was supposed to be 4PM) and luckily (or unluckily) there was someone that came back. I drop my stuff, he had none, and we got out to do our stuff. We come back at around 5:50PM I go to my backpack, discover the top part was opened and my laptop was removed. We run to the hotel’s front desk (it’s a hospitality college), check lost and found and nada. We call the campus police and they come in 20 minutes. I file a report, pressed charges if they found him/her, and we hunted around to see if maybe the thief hid it somewhere because it might be to hot to move. Nothing.

There are pretty much no cameras in that room, or even the entire college. I didn’t register my PC with the campus police, so I still have to find the serial number in case the thief pawns it. I post flyers about 4 days later, offering a $250 reward if the laptop is found, or $50 reward if you have information. Even said the thief can pretend to find it and still get the reward. Nothing as of almost one week later. So what have I learned?

1. NEVER leave it unattended – Don’t make yourself a victim. You leave it out without watching it, and it can get snatched in no time. Don’t depend on the possibility of a camera picking the crime up, or a seemingly innocent stranger nearby to watch it for you. Surveillance cameras are often low quality & are lucky to pick up any good details. Strangers might not notice, or even if you tell them, there’s no guarantee they’re honest, though I’ll admit I’ve done that in the past w/o repercussions. Theft due to negligence is worse than a thief taking it right out from you, b/c it’s avoidable.
2. Always back-up data frequently – I luckily managed to back-up my data about 3 weeks before the incident. I probably wouldn’t have even done that if my roommate was a tad worried about wanting to back-up his laptop with something, changed his mind, and I had already opened everything up to use. Thought I might as well do it now, even though I had it for months but had yet to open the box. Lucky I did. I’d recommend backing up at least 2 times a week.
3. You might miss the data more than the hardware – My HP laptop is a mid-range type, it was pretty good for around the $800 price tag, but it had busted external sound speakers, a missing hinge, and the vent slightly busted all after one or two terrible falls. Hardware is easy to replace, but data created is almost impossible to recreate if you didn’t back-up. Again, if you got data worth saving, please do so, because you can’t get it back if it’s gone.
4. Document your laptop information – Know the serial number, model, price, features, distinguishing parts, and even take pictures of it in case it ever gets stolen. The cops can use the serial number to track if it hits a pawn shop or gets recovered in evidence in another crime. I had trouble finding mine, and still do, because I didn’t bother to properly do so in the first place. I at least got the model type down.
5. Register your laptop – If you can register your laptop with the PC maker, college police, or even city/county police, do so. It’s one less thing you’ll have to do when your laptop is stolen so they already have all that info. there.
6. Password protect – You don’t want the thief to access your important files or anything, so password protect with a good strong password. It might be a barrier if you have to log back-on, but it’s worth it. Even nosy friends sometimes might stumble upon your laptop when you’re not looking. Of course, they can still wipe the drive and start fresh, but at least they won’t get your stuff.
7. Mark your laptop up – Set your laptop to be easily identifiable by leaving your mark on it in someway. Like maybe throwing a bunch of stickers, getting an inscription, permanent market, leaving something in the battery case, a hinge mark, replace a keyboard key with a stylized color one, anything. Take a photo of the distinguish mark with yourself in a place that isn’t common. At least it offers some sort of proof it could be yours if you had contact with it before. NOTE: You might not want to if it’s something you think you might try to resell later.
8. Have flyers ready – If your laptop does get managed to be stolen (negligence or out-right theft) or even lost, you go to do what you can to salvage it. Make a flyer now, with a photo of it, anything distinguishing on it and who or where to contact to return it or give information to the person. Even a reward maybe. One less thing to do later.
9. Check pawn shops or online classifieds – If it got stolen or taken, the thief might try selling it online or through a pawnshop as being used, with a wiped hard drive. Even though the police might do this themselves, it’s worth giving it a try yourself if you might want to expedite the search, rather than to leave it to the cops to possibly solve your case right away. Craigslist is one example.
10. Consider tracking services – Like Lojack, Adeona, and others are something you can consider if you have the money or patience in dealing with it. Some of them may erase everything remotely, or even let you take a snapshot or video of the thief with your webcam. NOTE: A savvy thief might easily look out for these things and disable them on spot rendering them useless.

Hopefully these 10 lessons can help prevent or soften the blow of having your computer or probably anything of your stolen. Just don’t be dumb, and if it happens, think of ways you can get it back.

This was by far not the best experience. I’ve had a digital camera and my Zune stolen in a similar fashion and I felt like I should have learned by now. I just did it regardless at the time, because I felt it was a low risk with almost nobody in the college that late on a Friday evening, and assumed that there were cameras or other people nearby that would deter a criminal away like the other times we’ve left our stuff under or at the table. Never going to happen again if I can avoid it.

Hotmail False Positive #2

So I guess something from Newsvine, owned by MSNBC, which is a partner with MSN.com, which is owned by Microsoft, comes under suspicion of Hotmail?

What’s funny is that Hotmail does recognize Newsvine though, as a friendly person, because of that pale blue section at the very top saying “Better together; You can do more when you connect this sender to Windows Live. Find our more”. Talk about double ridiculous.

Hotmail recognizes Newsvine as some sort of partner, yet an e-mail from them poses a safety risk. Strange. Just strange.

Microsoft makes monitors

Check out these awesome monitors by Microsoft.

See the Microsoft logo on the top left of the bevel? And the Windows logo smacked dab in the center of the bottom of the bezel?

Here’s the back.

Ok, so it’s really just taken from a TV show. Screen captured from Bones (The Pinocchio in the Planter, Season 6, Episode 20) in the Hulu desktop app.

But it’s still neat though, right? Not exactly sure what image Microsoft is trying to get here, except that it’s not the usual Apple computer (though there was one of those in this episode).

University of Houston Library Catalog goes Metro–kinda

Noticed this on my university’s library website awhile. Pretty similar to Metro, kind of.

Square icons, solid backgrounds, though the font can use some work, and the icons are very meh. Ok, so it’s not really Metro, but it is Metro-esque. At least it’s good for touchscreens.

Hotmail False Positive #1

I’m not sure what the rate of other  free e-mail service providers are, but Hotmail always has issues recognizing legitimate e-mail addresses.

For instance, here’s one from the epa.gov. How likely is it that someone who manages to have that domain, is going to do something against you?

It also doesn’t help that the largest e-mail provider in the world isn’t exactly liked by a government e-mail server.

Seriously, Microsoft? Come on. You can do better than this. I think I’ll start a series of “Hotmail False Positives” to show how ridiculous some of Hotmail’s worries are.