Should I Wait for Windows 8?

Window 8 becomes available in retail in just a little less than 4 weeks.  With computers still shipping with Windows 7 until then, and most vendors not automatically covering the $15 upgrade charge, does it make sense to buy a Windows 7 computer now, or wait a few weeks and get on with Windows 8 from the factory?

I’ve been using Windows 8 a bit here and there since the first preview release nearly a year ago, and I was given access to the final release version of Windows 8 back in August.  So I’ve had a little time with it now and have had a chance to formulate an opinion on it based on actual hands-on time rather than just by reading articles on the Internet.  I haven’t used it as my primary operating system, but I have spent quite a few hours with it.

So instead of making you read a long drawn-out article that covers every little change that has been made, let’s just get down to brass tacks.  Should you wait for a computer running Windows 8?  Let me answer that question with two of my own: Does the computer you are looking at buying have a touch screen?  And would you be happy running a tablet-style interface?  If the answer to either of these is “No” then sticking with Window 7 is likely your better option at this point in time.

But isn’t Windows 8 supposed to be the latest and greatest version of Windows?  Isn’t Microsoft betting the farm on it?  Yes, and yes.  And while they changes they have made give them the opportunity to provide the best experience on a tablet device, they’ve really sacrificed ease-of-use on computers that are still going to be used primarily with a mouse and keyboard.  The user interface they’ve created is just awkward with traditional input devices, even if it is very well designed for touch-friendly devices.

For those not familiar with what I’m talking about, Windows 8 completely ditches the Start menu that we’ve become used to since it first appeared in Windows 95 just over 17 years ago.  If you’re used to launching your software from the Start menu, you’re in for a real shock as you discover that your precious Start menu is completely gone, being replaced by an entire Start Screen with very large tiles to start your applications.  Even on a large, high-resolution monitor, you’ll only see a few dozen tiles at best.  On a smaller screen, you’ll have to scroll horizontally to find anything that doesn’t in the initial view.  And scrolling is kind of a problem… the only way to scroll efficiently on the keyboard is with the Page Up/Page Down keys (which many laptops have now abandoned), and the mouse’s scroll wheel doesn’t scroll horizontally either.  So you have to use the scrollbar at the bottom of the screen, which is a little awkward. 

Once you’ve started a traditional Windows app, the way to get back to the Start screen to launch another just isn’t apparent.  There is absolutely no visual indication on-screen for how to get back.  Only if you know to move the mouse down to the very bottom left corner of the screen can you figure out how to get back to the Start Screen from the desktop.  It’s mind boggling to me that something so necessary to efficiently use the computer has no button or other visible way on-screen to get to it.  You’ll get used to it, but it seems weird to me that Microsoft didn’t provide even a single button to navigate to the most important part of its interface.  Odd choice.

The good news is that once you’ve gotten used to the strange new interface, that Windows 8 is very fast.  There is as much of a speed improvement going to Windows 8 from Windows 7 as there was going from Vista to 7.  Yep.  It’s just that much faster.  One one of my computers, running an SSD, I was able to get Windows 8 to boot in under two seconds.  I’m not talking about waking from a sleep mode of some kind, I’m talking about a full reboot.  Once the computer got past its system check screens, and the Windows 8 logo first appeared, the login screen was visible and fully usable in under two seconds.  Most computers won’t see that kind of performance, but boot times in less than 10 seconds will be common.

Microsoft has also done a great deal to speed up performance in third party software as well.  They’ve completely revamped all of the graphics code, so everything draws on-screen much faster than it has in the past.  They’ve also done a lot of work to temporarily shut down (or at least pause) programs that run in the background so they don’t slow you down in the software that you’re actually using.  They’ve also dramatically cut back on the number of programs that have to run on the computer in the background for Windows to provide all of its standard functionality… there has been a lot of simplification and consolidation to make sure that everything you need is still there, but that it runs more efficiently.  As a result, your computer will run faster under Windows 8 than it ever has before, and that computers will perform better with less memory (RAM) than they have in the past.

The other nice thing that Microsoft has done is to drastically reduce the price of Windows 8 as compared to previous versions.  If you already have a computer running Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7, the upgrade price is just $40.  If you purchase(d) a computer after June of this year, the upgrade is $15.  So if you do decide to go with Windows 8, at least it won’t cost you that much.

Bottom Line

So bottom line is… if you’re comfortable with Windows 7 and don’t want to struggle with a completely new user interface, and you aren’t going to be running it on a tablet anyway… and the computer you’re looking at buying is already plenty fast, I’d skip Windows 8… at least for now.  You could always pay the $15 to buy a license for it, but not actually install it just yet. 

As for me, I’ll be keeping one computer around with Windows 8 so I can test my software on it, but other than that I don’t plan to upgrade any of them, and I don’t have any plans to buy a computer with Windows 8 on it.

The other thing to be aware of is the new Windows RT tablets that will be available at Windows 8 launch.  It’s important to know that Windows RT is not Windows 8, and these devices cannot run traditional Windows software.  They can ONLY run Windows RT apps (sometimes also called Windows 8-style apps), so you’re talking about a completely new investment in software, very little of which will be available for a little while yet.  Try thinking of Windows RT as “Not Windows” because it doesn’t even remotely resemble the Windows you are used to.  The software you already own won’t work on it no matter how hard you try.  If you need to run Windows software on a new tablet/computer, Windows 7/8 are your ONLY options.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

After 4 1/2 years of ~90-hour work weeks, there finally seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel.  And it isn’t the light of an oncoming train.

I’ve been involved in a business that creates Point-of-Sale software (or more specifically, whole restaurant management software) since August of 2007.  In less than two weeks from now, our company is going to be announced as the official (and only) POS provider for one of the top five largest pizza chains in the world.  It’s a pretty big deal.  And we’re thrilled to have been selected for such a unique opportunity.

This comes after a lot of work by a lot of people over a long time.  It has required a lot of sacrifice by myself and the other owners of the business, as well as many of our employees.  I’d like to say that the first couple of years were the toughest, with essentially no pay and having to take on every possible role including software design, software coding, hardware and software installation, and answering phones for tech support, but even after we started to bring on employees and get paid a modest salary new challenges have arisen.  I don’t mean that in a negative way, though… the challenges have never really felt insurmountable, and have generally been both interesting and exciting.  Every day is a new adventure.

We’ve actually been working with this company for over two years on this project. We’re doing something very new, exciting, and unique (which I, unfortunately can’t really ever talk about publicly) which involves changing the way they run their stores, and actually increases the quality of their product while improving customer interaction.  It’s a disrupting product, in many very good ways.

We’re pretty excited about this.  It’s amazing to think that a multi-billion dollar company has not just elected to use our tiny company (which at the time we began working with them was basically still just four people working from home) to provide software and support, but is actually altering their business model to accommodate our product.  The most amusing part for me is that at several times during the process we’ve been in meetings with some of their top executives and when problems come up in discussion, even if they don’t really involve our product, that those same executives would turn to me or one of my co-owners and ask for our advice.  Not a situation I thought I’d ever be in -- being asked for business operations advice by executives of a large, very well-known company.

I’ve certainly enjoyed the project, but at the same time it has been kind of tough to dedicate so much of my life so completely.  I’ve had to pretty much give up most of my hobbies.  I’ve had to give up most of the social opportunities I may have liked to take.  I haven’t been able to take time off more than a few hours at a time, just in case something goes wrong and my assistance is required to get it fixed… or to answer questions that no-one else can.  I have to carry a laptop or iPad everywhere I go.  And on those rare occasions when I don’t have something that has to get done immediately and I have a moment to relax I feel like I can’t – not just because something else is always in the queue, but because I am unable to shut down.  So while I’m really excited about the opportunity as a whole, I’m probably just as excited to get some of my life back too.  Being able to drop back from 90-100 hours per week to 60 is going to be a great thing, whenever that finally happens.  I won’t know what to do with myself.

It’s an interesting thing building a new business from the ground up, especially doing it without venture capital or borrowing money. It has been an interesting adventure, as I’m sure it will continue to be.  But it has been fun.

Passion

Call me a romantic, but one of my favorite movies of all time is Serendipity.  I love it.  One of the lines in the movie says something about the Greeks and how they didn’t write obituaries… when a man died they just asked if he lived with passion.  It turns out, that isn’t really true, but there is something wonderful about that idea.

People who know me well know that there are many things that I’m very passionate about.  I’m passionate about my job.  I’m passionate about audio, video, photography, and music.  I’m very passionate about being able to build and fix things on my own.  I’m passionate about learning new things and new skills.  I’m passionate about making sure my good friends are happy.  The list could go on and on…

I find, however, that few people I meet are very passionate about many things, if anything at all.  We’ve somehow cultivated a society of people who are content to coast through life.  Frankly, I can’t even come anywhere close to understanding that mentality.

Life is wonderful!  There are so many things to do, so many things to see.  The things that I would love to do could fill ten lifetimes, easily, and by then I’d find enough new things to fill ten more.  I’d love to pursue several different career paths.  I’d love to spend hours or days with my friends and family, just getting to know them better.  I’d love to invent things, make things better.  I’d love to share the knowledge I’ve been given with everyone around me.  I’d like to learn something about everything, then learn something more.  I’d love to develop my weaker talents into something amazing.  I’d love to help friends find and pursue their own passions.

When I see other people that are content with just being, rather than doing, it makes me sad.  How can anyone not take advantage of so many amazing opportunities available to us, especially in this country, with all of the modern conveniences that we have.  It dumbfounds me.  How can anyone sit at home just watching TV or playing on the Internet when there are so many awesome things to do with our time?

One of my responsibilities at work is to interview software developer job applicants to see if they would fit well in our company.  I’ve also worked with a number of software developers over the years.  And one thing that consistently tells me if someone is going to be a good employee is their passion for their work.  Résumés don’t even come close to telling the whole story.  The best predictor I’ve found about who is going to be a great employee is their passion for writing software, and those who are passionate about it don’t wait until college to start to learn how.  They start when they are kids… teenagers at the latest.  Someone could have a 4.0 GPA from a prestigious school in Computer Science, but unless they started tinkering as a kid and continued to improve their skills through their teenage and adult years, they are going to be nearly worthless as an employee.  They may have the piece of paper that qualifies them, but they don’t have passion for the work, so they’ll never invest.

I’ve always said that you should do what you love, and love what you do.  I hadn’t ever really labeled it as such, but isn’t that what passion is?

Have you found your passion?  Are you making the most of it?

Thirteen Months

This 12 months to a year thing is crazy.  Some months have 30 days, others have 31, and February has 28, unless it has 29.  It’s just weird.  And it takes kids a while to figure it all out.  You can’t blame them either… it’s confusing.

Things would be much easier if we went to a 13-month year.

There are 365 (and change) days in a year.  That works out to 52 weeks plus one day.  52 is not divisible by 12, but is divisible by 13.  So 13 months of 4 weeks (each month being 28 days) would get us really close to 365.  The extra day (or two, in the case of leap year) could be tacked onto the end of the last month just to make things easy.  Not in the middle like it is normally done in February.  Again, weird.

There are other advantages too.  Since each month would be exactly four weeks, the days of the month would fall on the same day of the week for the entire year.  So if the 1st is a Thursday in the first month of the year, it will be a Thursday every month of that entire year.

Of course if we switched we wouldn’t be able to call them months any longer, because they wouldn’t be based on lunar cycles. 

I propose that we call the new “month” Smarch.  Except for the fact that Smarch has lousy weather.

The concept of going by the phase of the moon to determine time is pretty outdated at this point.  We all use calendars, computers, and cell phones to know what the date is.  But moving to a 13-period year would make the whole process much easier… it’s easier to remember the date if, for an entire year, the days of the month fall on the same days of the week.

Of course I’m not serious about changing, but it would make things much simpler.  Now we just need days made up of 25 100-minute hours.

Toys for Tots

Yay!  Christmas is coming!

For most of us, Christmas is a very happy time.  Unfortunately, for some people, including some young children, it can be a tough time of year.  Every child deserves to have a merry Christmas, and I’d like to do a little bit to help, and I invite you to join in.

What I’ve done is setup an Amazon Affiliate account specifically for providing a better Christmas for children in need through Toys for Tots.  Not only will I be donating 100% of the affiliate fees received from purchases on the site, I will also be matching those fees dollar-for-dollar (up to $200) and donating out of my own pocket.

How do you participate?  Follow the link below and just do your Christmas shopping as normal.  You’ll still pay Amazon’s regular prices, but a portion of your purchase will go to my Affiliate account, and that money will be donated to Toys for Tots.  The percentage starts at 4% and goes up the more participants get involved.

Shop Doug’s Toys-for-Tots Site Now!

Because payments for Amazon’s program come long after sales are completed, I will be monitoring the site regularly and making all donations (both from Amazon sales as well as my own matching contribution) out of my own pocket.  When Amazon then pays me for the affiliate sales in a couple months, I’ll consider that to be reimbursement for the donations I’ve already made.  Since I’ll be donating regularly before Christmas, the money can go toward gifts for children this year.

I selected Toys for Tots because, well, it’s a great cause helping less fortunate children have a great Christmas, but it’s an all done on a volunteer basis and they spend 98% of donations on their cause. No money is wasted on paying those who have elected to help out.  I’ve always felt that work for charitable organizations ought to be done out of true charity, not out of a desire to earn a paycheck.

So this is an easy way to help, and it won’t cost you anything.  Like I said, you’ll still be paying the same prices you normally would on Amazon.  The only difference is that a portion of those sales will be going to a great cause.  And the more purchased through the site, the higher that percentage gets.

Please pass along the link to others.  Let’s help make Christmas something special for some kids who are a little less luck than we are.

I’ll post updates here on my blog as things progress.

P.S. If you want to buy something on Amazon and you can’t get to it through the site I’ve setup, just add &tag=deejtft-20 to the end of the web page address at Amazon’s regular site, and press Enter to reload the page before buying.  That’s it!

Amazon Kindle Fire

The Amazon Kindle Fire shipped this week as their answer to a need for a color e-reader.  And, if you look at it from a certain perspective, as their answer to the iPad.  But it's really something somewhere in between.

Amazon has set a very aggressive price for this device at $199.  They’ve created a device that is essentially a tablet, but at a price that undercuts their competition by a pretty wide margin.  Why not? The whole point of the Fire is to sell you more Amazon content, so they can more-or-less count on making their profits on the content you buy rather than the hardware itself.  Everything about the Fire is designed to entice you to purchase content from Amazon… not just books, either.  It also plays music, movies, TV shows, lets you purchase apps to run on the device, and it even comes pre-installed with an Amazon shopping app, already linked to your account.  In a way, it’s genius.  You’ve just got to resist the urge to go crazy with content purchases.

Reviews on the Internet have been all over the map.  Some are praising the Fire as an iPad killer (it’s not).  Others are essentially saying it’s the worst piece of electronics to come out in a long time (again, it’s not).  Like so many opinions out on the Internet, the truth lies somewhere in between.

There are a lot of things I like about the Fire.  It’s pretty easy to use.  It’s a nice size and it isn’t too heavy to hold for long reading or video watching sessions.  Amazon’s $79 per year (via Amazon Prime) access to a substantial streaming video library is quite intriguing.  The screen is very good.  It provides a low-cost point-of-entry into the world of Android apps.  But, on the other hand, it also provides a low-cost point-of-entry into the world of Android apps.  Yes, that is a backhanded compliment.  It lets you install Android apps, but I’m not so sure this is a great thing.

Until fairly recently I was open to the possibility of the Android platform being a decent alternative to the iPhone and iPad of the world.  That is, until I used an Android device.  While some who complain about Android do so because they’re purchasing $49 phones, I used two different high-end models to take the hardware out of the equation.  And I was not impressed.  Not in the least.  Every Android device I’ve tried now is clunky, generally sluggish, and incredibly inconsistent in the way it works.  Having apps pause and stutter is just the normal way of doing things on Android devices… you have to expect it.  And because there are no standards for how apps should look, feel, or work, everything is all over the map.  One application might use on-screen touch buttons to get around.  Others rely on the Back button.  Some use an iPhone-like hierarchy of commands, others do everything through flat linking.  Some apps look like the launcher that HTC has created, others like Samsung’s, others like nothing else.  I can’t believe how incredibly fragmented and inconsistent things are under the Android OS.  I am not impressed at all.  Frankly, I am actually stunned that anyone could love their Android phone… I have to chalk it up to lack of knowledge of alternative choices.  I may have gotten spoiled by my Windows Phone, but I really don’t believe how bad Android is, and have a hard time understanding how anyone could get excited by it, let alone put up with it.

With that, back to the Fire.  Even though the Fire uses the Android OS at its core, Amazon has tried to isolate its users from it.  To some degree it has done it fairly well.  If you stick to the Books, Videos, Music, and Docs libraries, everything runs great.  The device is responsive and (mostly) easy to use.  The reader is everything you’d hope for in an e-book reader (aside from the e-Ink paper-like display), and videos play smoothly.  If you’ve been populating Amazon’s music cloud with your own content, the music player is alright (although I will contend that anything larger than a phone is just too big for playing music).  Pretty much everything in those areas of the device is great.

That is, until you get to the Apps library.  The way Amazon has this setup is that don’t use Google’s App Market, but rather they have their own Android app store.  And the Fire can run nearly everything in that store, within the inherent limitations of the device (you won’t be making phone calls, for example).  Shopping for apps is pretty easy (although I would like to see more filtering capabilities to narrow down searches) and purchasing is even easier.  There are, of course, a broad range of apps available for free, but since Amazon is in this to make money they don’t do much to make these super easy to isolate. 

Where things really break down is actually running and installing these apps.  It’s really a mixed bag.  Most of the problems aren’t Amazon’s fault, so we have to give credit where credit is due, but it still doesn’t make for a great experience.  Among my complaints…

• As mentioned, the sluggishness of Android is fully present here.  The majority of apps are affected.  Scrolling and navigation is clunky most of the time.  It isn’t at all uncommon to tap something on the screen and not see any sort of response for as much as a second or longer.  On a modern consumer electronics device, this is unacceptable.
  
• Most of the apps are written for phones, not something the size of the Fire.  Very few apps have been designed to take advantage of a larger screen.  This means that one of two things tends to happen: either everything on-screen is small (sized as if it was being displayed on a screen 1/3 the size) and it shows more content to you, or everything is blown up much larger than normal as if you were using a phone with a 7” screen.  Neither experience is ideal. 
  
• There are many first-rate apps in the store, but there is a lot more junk.  There are a lot of no-good apps to sort through to find the gems.
  
• While Amazon’s Android App Store does have a lot in it, there are still a lot of popular Android apps that aren’t in it.  You can, if you choose to, install other apps if you have access to their .APK files, but there isn’t really a good online repository of them.  Most people who run Android get their apps from Google’s App Market (and as such, there hasn’t been much need for another repository), but that isn’t available here.  I was able to find .APK files for several apps missing from the Amazon store (Skype, Zinio, for example), but only once I was willing to wade into some rather seedy areas of the Internet.  I do not recommend doing this to the faint of heart.  If an app isn’t in Amazon’s store, skip it.

So overall my thoughts on having the ability to install apps are mixed. Yes, you can install third party apps on the device, as if it were a full-fledged Android tablet.  The real question is, are you really sure you want to?

Things are a little more muddy when it comes to the built-in web browser.  The browser seems to do a decent job rendering most web sites.  Better than the iPad in most cases.  And since it supports Adobe Flash you can view many sites that the iPad can’t handle.  But the trouble is, the browser is based on, you guessed it, is the Android WebKit browser.  So it’s slow.  Amazon has tried to speed it up by using their high-power cloud servers to accelerate the experience, but several online tests, and my own experience, show that this actually slows things down, and the feature should be turned off.  Even something as simple as scrolling a page is slow and clunky.  As if you’re the device to do something it doesn’t want to do, like asking a child to leave a toy store.  You can absolutely browse the web.  But not if you’re in a hurry.

I find it a little odd that Amazon is only offering a WiFi version of the Fire.  If any of the Kindles screams “I need 3G” it’s the Fire.  It’s the only model that has a supported (non-“experimental”) web browser, and the only model that can play music and videos from Amazon’s stores.  We can speculate as to why there is no 3G model, but the fact remains that if you want to access Amazon’s stores or the web while away from home or the office, you need to either find or bring your own WiFi hotspot.

I hope Amazon works out some of the little kinks, because I really think the Fire has a lot of potential.  I’m not saying that I dislike it, because it does do what it is supposed to do, it doesn’t crash or lock up, and at $199 it’s a steal for what it is.  I’m just disappointed that Amazon has selected Android and all of its required baggage to run the thing.  They could have done so much better.

My overall rating for the Kindle Fire is “good enough.”  It isn’t a stellar device, but it really isn’t bad either, especially if you aren’t interested in the ability to run Android apps, or browse the web quickly.  As long as you stick to the other libraries (Books, Video, Music, Docs) it’s excellent.  Just don’t have high expectations once you wander outside of the Amazon-created areas of the device.  You don’t have to use Android Apps on the device, and you don’t have to browse the web… as long as you consider those two features to be a bonus you’ll be very happy with the Fire.  But if you buy it specifically for those features, you’re likely to be at least a little bit disappointed.

It is not an iPad, but it isn’t intended to be, and it costs, depending on the model you’re comparing it to, between 24% and 40% of what the iPad does.  For that, you can make some compromises.  A $20,000 Honda isn’t a BMW, either.  If you’re happy with a Honda or Ford, you’ll probably be happy with the Fire.  If you prefer to shop at Target rather than Nordstrom, you’ll be happy with the Fire.  The Fire is a Honda sold at Target.

Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide!

The Invisible Killer

Dihydrogen monoxide is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and kills uncounted thousands of people every year. Most of these deaths are caused by accidental inhalation of DHMO, but the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide do not end there. Prolonged exposure to its solid form causes severe tissue damage.

Symptoms of DHMO ingestion can include excessive sweating and urination, and possibly a bloated feeling, nausea, vomiting and body electrolyte imbalance. For those who have become dependent, DHMO withdrawal means certain death.

Dihydrogen monoxide:

• …is also known as hydroxyl acid, and is the major component of acid rain.
• …contributes to the "greenhouse effect."
• …may cause severe burns.
• …contributes to the erosion of our natural landscape.
• …accelerates corrosion and rusting of many metals.
• …may cause electrical failures and decreased effectiveness of automobile brakes.
• …has been found in excised tumors of terminal cancer patients.

Contamination Is Reaching Epidemic Proportions!

Quantities of dihydrogen monoxide have been found in almost every stream, lake, and reservoir in America today. But the pollution is global, and the contaminant has even been found in Antarctic ice. DHMO has caused millions of dollars of property damage throughout the world.

Despite the danger, dihydrogen monoxide is often used:

• …as an industrial solvent and coolant.
• …in nuclear power plants.
• …in the production of styrofoam.
• …as a fire retardant.
• …in many forms of cruel animal research.
• …in the distribution of pesticides. Even after washing, produce remains contaminated by this chemical.
• …as an additive in certain "junk-foods" and other food products.

Companies dump waste DHMO into rivers and the ocean, and nothing can be done to stop them because this practice is still legal. The impact on wildlife is extreme, and we cannot afford to ignore it any longer!

The Horror Must Be Stopped!

The American government has refused to ban the production, distribution, or use of this damaging chemical due to its "importance to the economic health of this nation." In fact, the navy and other military organizations are conducting experiments with DHMO, and designing multi-billion dollar devices to control and utilize it during warfare situations. Hundreds of military research facilities receive tons of it through a highly sophisticated underground distribution network. Many store large quantities for later use.

It's Not Too Late!

Act NOW to prevent further contamination. Find out more about this dangerous chemical. What you don't know can hurt you and others throughout the world.  Write to your Senator and Congressman to express your outrage that this dangerous chemical is still legal!