Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 13th Jul 2012 23:39 UTC
Ars Technica is running an interesting article about the Mail application on Windows 8. It's one of the first party Metro applications, and Ars' conclusion is that it's really, really not up to snuff - it can't even compare favourably to the mail application on Windows Phone. The sad thing is, however - this applies to virtually all Metro applications.
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Member since:2005-11-13
the apps built into windows were never a windows strength. they are a joke really. how many jokes can be told about solitaire or internet explorer. please.
I was just about to say this. Who uses ANY of the built-in Windows apps anyway?
- Internet Explorer? Crap
- Media Player? Crap
- Windows Explorer? Brings the crappiness to a whole new level
- Paint? LMAO
- Mail? Not even included in Windows 7
Hell, even Notepad is pretty lame. I guess about the only one I use is Calculator, as it generally does what I need it to do (which, admittedly isn't much).
RE[2]: Comment by Luminair
by moondevil on Sat 14th Jul 2012 09:00
in reply to "RE: Comment by Luminair"
Member since:2005-07-08
RE[2]: Comment by Luminair
by Neolander on Sat 14th Jul 2012 12:38
in reply to "RE: Comment by Luminair"
Member since:2010-03-08
Some of the bundled Windows software does have some use, IMO...
-The file explorer. It's far from perfect but it does the job, especially when tweaked with Classic Shell to bring back the up button. And unlike the alternatives, it's free. Still a shadow of its former XP self, though, in my opinion.
-Paint did save my life from time to time when I couldn't install something else (locked-up PC).
-MSconfig and the "management console" (or whatever it's called in English) are great for turning off bloatware when removing them through a fresh install is not an option.
-While Notepad is pretty bad, Windows 7's Wordpad is decent. As an example, it does properly open text files from all OSs. It can also offer Abiword-like basic formatted text editing (which is sadly enough for many people, who have never learned how to get the most of a word processor).
-And the basic photo viewer and scanning tool do their job, sometimes better than the manufacturer-provided bloatware for the latter.
Edited 2012-07-14 12:42 UTC
RE[2]: Comment by Luminair
by WereCatf on Sat 14th Jul 2012 13:06
in reply to "RE: Comment by Luminair"
Member since:2006-02-15
I was just about to say this. Who uses ANY of the built-in Windows apps anyway?
Hm, I use Explorer to browse and handle my files and I use Notepad, Calc and cmd.exe every now and then. More-or-less everything else I have replaced with better applications, though I still would like to find some application for helping me use multiple monitors more effectively.
RE[2]: Comment by Luminair
by tidux on Sun 15th Jul 2012 01:47
in reply to "RE: Comment by Luminair"
Member since:2011-08-13
RE[2]: Comment by Luminair
by BluenoseJake on Sun 15th Jul 2012 01:59
in reply to "RE: Comment by Luminair"
Member since:2005-08-11
RE[2]: Comment by Luminair
by viton on Sun 15th Jul 2012 18:04
in reply to "RE: Comment by Luminair"
Member since:2005-08-09
Member since:2010-01-22
"the apps built into windows were never a windows strength. they are a joke really. how many jokes can be told about solitaire or internet explorer. please.
I was just about to say this. Who uses ANY of the built-in Windows apps anyway?
- Internet Explorer? Crap "
nothing personal, I know how you feel and I agree - but you would be surprised how many companies (customers of us) still use IE in some version as company standard :/
Tom UK
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 21:50 UTC
PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:15 UTC
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:11 UTC, submitted by Drumhellar
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 21:41 UTC
Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.More News »
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Member since:
2007-03-30
the apps built into windows were never a windows strength. they are a joke really. how many jokes can be told about solitaire or internet explorer. please.
that windows 8 takes one of the well known historical weaknesses of windows and places them front and center with no powerful third party ecosystem to back them up tells you how blind microsoft management is. people use metro and go "pretty, this is it?"