OS and device choices…
Back in 1993, when I was having a very painful experience mousing and typing, I purchased and used a serial port touchpad to use with my desktop and WFW 3.11. It worked very well, and my pain was largely alleviated. Nevertheless, I went on to a “mouse pen”–a stylus with a tiny mechanical mouse ball–in 1994, and I stayed with that device, occasionally switching out to the touchpad, for several years.
During those times, I became very used to the desktop metaphor for a GUI and lost touch with many uses for the command line interface, although it has always remained useful for a few things.
This went on through several iterations of Windows and Linux (and even a GUI-ed BSD), and the desktop metaphor has become ingrained in my computer use. Even departures like Ubuntu Unity were too jarring and disruptive for me to maintain he kind of productivity I desire, and why use something different for just farting around on my desktops/notebooks?
Then… so-called “smartphones”. Don’t need one. I do NOT want to be “always connected” and only want a mobile phone to PLACE calls. That’s me. Tablet format? Look, I really, really, REALLY like my Kindle Fire, but manage email? *feh* Trying to type on the thing is painful–not physically, but painful nonetheless. And iPhads I’ve tried typing on? Just as bad. Mousing around while web browsing is OK–no worse than any of the mush pads I’ve used over the years, better than some. But te things I really love the device for are reading books, watching movies and streaming music from my Amazon account (where I can store just about all the mp3s I have *shrugs* Makes it really convenient). I’ve deleted 90% of the Android apps I’ve tried out. Don’t need ’em.
So, all this to say that most of my computer use–aside from watching movies, reading books and listening to music–will definitely stay on desktops and notebooks until someone can come up with a hardware/software combo that can do what desktops/notebooks do BEST now, without a keyboard/mouse(ing device) combo. A wearable computer with virtual display, WORKABLE voice and gesture commands/transcription, etc.? I’d go for that. But for writing something even as simple as a blogpost, tablets are just an inferior means… unless on were using something like one of these:
*shrugs* Even the Microsoft Surface (not yet available to ordinary mortals) has some if-yness. The RT version is a definite “NOPE!” for me. Won’t run “legacy” Windows apps? Then I don’t want it. Only runs “Windows 8” (formerly “Metro”) apps? Double don’t want it. And then there’s the asinine Metro Start Page. (UPDATED… to close the “strike” tag. *sigh*) *feh* An extra hurdle to get to a crippled desktop, where the underpinnings are almost as hidden, inaccessible and untweakable as on a Mac straitjacketed computer. Now, the more expensive x86 hardware M$ Surface tablet also comes with a built in keyboard/case and WILL run x86 apps, but $1,000 for what is essentially a netbook (with a touch screen)? They’re not as thin, but either of these would seem better for my use:
Hey! it even comes with Win7 Starter (and I have plenty of licenses to upgrade that). Touch screen, about the same size as the Surface, and a (I have no doubt) better keyboard. And… under $400. Or,
Keyboard-dock available to push the price to the range of the M$ Surface RT. Still, no Windows app use, of course. Android OS.
But, on my Windows computers, what are the compelling advantages for me–an avid, relatively advanced user of x86 apps (in various OSes)–in upgrading to something that willput me into a more Mac-like straitjacket and INSIST that I MUST be faced with a stupid, unnecessary (for me) Start Page in order to use a crippled DESKTOP APPLICATION to use the x86 Windows apps I want to use? Again, what exactly are those compelling reasons?
Well, I suppose I have found one nearly compelling reason to make one computer a dual-boot Win7-Win8 computer: people will be buying new computers (assuming The Zero and his co-conspirators and fellow travelers haven’t achieved complete success in their goal of completely trashing the economy) and some of those will be running Win8. Some of those folks won’t be calling me up to roll their computers back to a more usable OS but will call on me to solve issues they’re experiencing, so having a “reference system” (like I did with the execrable Windows XP) will probably be helpful, though actually USING the thing for my own use won’t probably be a daily experience.
Win8 seems to me, for users like me, to be a Very Good Reason to use a ‘nix OS more.
