Good for Pentax! Eliminate the horrible little P&Ss

In article <47CAB7B4.DA00B69E.TakeThisOut@concentric.net>, John Turco
<jtur.TakeThisOut@concentric.net> wrote:

> Oh, rest assured, I've been doing my fair share of relevant research. I'm
> still somewhat undecided on my choice of Windows operating systems, however.
> XP seems to be the safest bet, at the moment, but Vista is the wave of the
> future, obviously.

Real men use OS X.

> I'll likely pick XP and then "upgrade" to Vista, within the next few years.

Unless they do something to dramatically improve it, I wouldn't call
Vista an upgrade. It's Me all over again.
 >> Stay informed about: Good for Pentax! Eliminate the horrible little P&Ss 

John Turco wrote:
[]
> Hello, David:
>
> Yet, of all those aforementioned firms, none was ever a true industry
> giant, such as Kodak.
>
> [General Electric >is<, certainly, but it's a multinational
> conglomerate, of which its British branch is (was?) one of many,
> worldwide.]
>
>
> Cordially,
> John Turco <jtur.TakeThisOut@concentric.net>

John,

The General Electric Company (GEC) had no connection to other companies of
similar names. It was possibly even bigger than Kodak, at it's height.
Digital not an industry giant? IIRC it was number two to IBM at one time.
Do we shed tears for these companies any more? Are we happy with what
Panasonic, Canon, Nikon, Pentax and the rest provide today?

Cheers,
David
 >> Stay informed about: Good for Pentax! Eliminate the horrible little P&Ss 

John Turco wrote:
[]
> Hello, David:
>
> Oh, rest assured, I've been doing my fair share of relevant research.
> I'm still somewhat undecided on my choice of Windows operating
> systems, however. XP seems to be the safest bet, at the moment, but
> Vista is the wave of the future, obviously.
>
> I'll likely pick XP and then "upgrade" to Vista, within the next few
> years.

A year ago I would have agreed. Today, I see few problems with Vista, and
would no longer recommend people to start with XP. I'm not saying you
shouldn't - simply that it wouldn't be my default recommendation.

>> Suddenly everything seems squashed up in the top-left corner......
>
> Huh?

When you run a program designed for 1024 x 768 or even 800 x 600 on your
1920 x 1200 display, it can look awfully small, and not fill the screen as
it used to. That's all I meant.

[]
> 1920x1200 happens to be the X24WG's native resolution, which I'm
> using, now. (Alas, text is a bit tiny, yet I can live with it.)
>
>
> Cordially,
> John Turco <jtur.RemoveThis@concentric.net>

My 1200 pixels vertically is occupying 12 inches, and I'm using the
default text size from Windows XP. I got my optician to optimise my
"reading" glasses for computer screen, rather than book reading, use. No
problems, and having all those spreadsheet rows visible at one is rather
nice.

Cheers,
David
 >> Stay informed about: Good for Pentax! Eliminate the horrible little P&Ss 

In article <oKzyj.16640$XI.7350@text.news.virginmedia.com>, David J
Taylor <david-taylor DeleteThis @blueyonder.neither-this-bit.nor-this-bit.co.uk>
wrote:

> Well, Mr. Strat, it has run all the software I've thrown at it over
> several months, and the performance in general has been very pleasing.
> Yes, you will get UAC messages when you try and do some admin type task,
> but you don't get these during the normal operation of Vista. Of course,
> it takes a little getting used to compared with XP, but I think the effort
> is well worthwhile. Others I have spoken with who are also using Vista
> are also pleased with it.

So, I guess you like its ugliness and stiff hardware requirements? And
the annoying confirmation messages hardly constitute a decent security
model.

This summer, I will be responsible for deploying 100 or so new
computers with Vista and Office 2007. I'm not really looking forward to
that task or the resulting support calls.

> Last year I would have recommended sticking with XP, but today I see no
> reason to do so.

I see no reason to use Windows...period.
 >> Stay informed about: Good for Pentax! Eliminate the horrible little P&Ss 

Mr. Strat wrote:
> In article <oKzyj.16640$XI.7350@text.news.virginmedia.com>, David J
> Taylor <david-taylor DeleteThis @blueyonder.neither-this-bit.nor-this-bit.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
>> Well, Mr. Strat, it has run all the software I've thrown at it over
>> several months, and the performance in general has been very
>> pleasing. Yes, you will get UAC messages when you try and do some
>> admin type task, but you don't get these during the normal operation
>> of Vista. Of course, it takes a little getting used to compared
>> with XP, but I think the effort is well worthwhile. Others I have
>> spoken with who are also using Vista are also pleased with it.
>
> So, I guess you like its ugliness and stiff hardware requirements? And
> the annoying confirmation messages hardly constitute a decent security
> model.
>
> This summer, I will be responsible for deploying 100 or so new
> computers with Vista and Office 2007. I'm not really looking forward
> to that task or the resulting support calls.
>
>> Last year I would have recommended sticking with XP, but today I see
>> no reason to do so.
>
> I see no reason to use Windows...period.

I don't find Vista ugly, and almost any new PC today has the hardware to
run Vista with dual-core and 2GB memory being the current standard. As
ever with an operating system, security is how /you/ choose to configure
it.

I haven't played with Office 2007, but with Vista I would suggest you do a
pilot implementation and produce a set of FAQs for the new users. Perhaps
get a classroom where you can demonstrate what's new. If your users are
anything like the ones I used to have, as long as they can get their
e-mail, start Excel and Word, print and save their documents, they will be
happy.

Cheers,
David
 >> Stay informed about: Good for Pentax! Eliminate the horrible little P&Ss 

In article <D8Oyj.16919$XI.3550@text.news.virginmedia.com>, David J
Taylor <david-taylor.DeleteThis@blueyonder.neither-this-bit.nor-this-bit.co.uk>
wrote:

> I haven't played with Office 2007, but with Vista I would suggest you do a
> pilot implementation and produce a set of FAQs for the new users. Perhaps
> get a classroom where you can demonstrate what's new. If your users are
> anything like the ones I used to have, as long as they can get their
> e-mail, start Excel and Word, print and save their documents, they will be
> happy.

We're working on it.

Office 2007 is an excellent example of Microsoft's lack of clue when it
comes to designing user interfaces. It's downright putrid. I'm glad my
personal computer are Macintoshes.
 >> Stay informed about: Good for Pentax! Eliminate the horrible little P&Ss 

tony cooper wrote:
[]
> If I purchase a new computer, I'll go Dell because Dell still offers
> XP and everyone else wants to stick only Vista on one.
>
> I'm not a Microsoft basher, I don't give a damn if Vista's a bloated
> system, and I do feel that whatever extant problems there are with
> Vista that Microsoft will resolve them.
>
> What does affect me is that I work extensively with Adobe Photoshop 7,
> with Adobe Elements 5.0 (for quick and dirty photo work), with
> CorelDraw 9, and a few other non-Microsoft products. I read the
> Photoshop newsgroups and see the problems that other people have in
> using older versions of software on new computers with Vista.
>
> I don't want to upgrade my software. I've played around with the
> newer Photoshop versions on other people's computers and see no
> advantage in the CS X versions for what I do. I don't want to upgrade
> my CorelDraw for the same reason.
>
> You can't just look at the OS when it comes to this type of decision.
> Conceivably, it could double my cost, when I add in software updates,
> to buy a system with Vista on it.

I'm sorry to hear about the Adobe and Corel software problems. You have
to ask why people write software which doesn't run on Windows Vista. Is
it a deliberate policy to get you to upgrade? Most software I've tested
which works on XP works just fine on Vista. Programs which write to
C:\Program Files\ are handled a little differently.

Cheers,
David
 >> Stay informed about: Good for Pentax! Eliminate the horrible little P&Ss 

On Mon, 03 Mar 2008 08:02:54 GMT, "David J Taylor"
<david-taylor.RemoveThis@blueyonder.neither-this-bit.nor-this-bit.co.uk> wrote:

>tony cooper wrote:
>[]
>> If I purchase a new computer, I'll go Dell because Dell still offers
>> XP and everyone else wants to stick only Vista on one.
>>
>> I'm not a Microsoft basher, I don't give a damn if Vista's a bloated
>> system, and I do feel that whatever extant problems there are with
>> Vista that Microsoft will resolve them.
>>
>> What does affect me is that I work extensively with Adobe Photoshop 7,
>> with Adobe Elements 5.0 (for quick and dirty photo work), with
>> CorelDraw 9, and a few other non-Microsoft products. I read the
>> Photoshop newsgroups and see the problems that other people have in
>> using older versions of software on new computers with Vista.
>>
>> I don't want to upgrade my software. I've played around with the
>> newer Photoshop versions on other people's computers and see no
>> advantage in the CS X versions for what I do. I don't want to upgrade
>> my CorelDraw for the same reason.
>>
>> You can't just look at the OS when it comes to this type of decision.
>> Conceivably, it could double my cost, when I add in software updates,
>> to buy a system with Vista on it.
>
>I'm sorry to hear about the Adobe and Corel software problems. You have
>to ask why people write software which doesn't run on Windows Vista. Is
>it a deliberate policy to get you to upgrade? Most software I've tested
>which works on XP works just fine on Vista. Programs which write to
>C:\Program Files\ are handled a little differently.
>
I think the whole industry is geared to supplying that which must be
upgraded later. Is not Vista just an upgrade?

In defense of the industry, programs are designed to work with what is
currently used in the way of an OS. You can't blame Adobe for
designing a program that worked on the OS that was current at the time
the program was launched, but doesn't work if major changes are made
in the OS.

You might think that Adobe should make a patch available that makes
their old software compatible with a new OS, but then you have to
wonder why the new OS doesn't have a patch to make old software
compatible.


--

Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida
 >> Stay informed about: Good for Pentax! Eliminate the horrible little P&Ss 

Mr. Strat wrote:
[]
> Office 2007 is an excellent example of Microsoft's lack of clue when
> it comes to designing user interfaces. It's downright putrid. I'm
> glad my personal computer are Macintoshes.

So if you don't like Microsoft Office 2007, aren't there free alternatives
you can use instead? Perhaps they even have the older user interface?

Cheers,
David
 >> Stay informed about: Good for Pentax! Eliminate the horrible little P&Ss 

tony cooper wrote:
[]
> In defense of the industry, programs are designed to work with what is
> currently used in the way of an OS. You can't blame Adobe for
> designing a program that worked on the OS that was current at the time
> the program was launched, but doesn't work if major changes are made
> in the OS.
>
> You might think that Adobe should make a patch available that makes
> their old software compatible with a new OS, but then you have to
> wonder why the new OS doesn't have a patch to make old software
> compatible.

I'm saying that /most/ programs which work on XP will work on Vista. Why
does Adobe or Corel write their software so that it doesn't, when many
other companies can?

As far as I know, nothing has been taken away from Vista to make it
incompatible....and as Microsoft doesn't have a competing product to
PhotoShop, it would be in their interest to make Vista deliberately
incompatible.

I think this problem should be laid at Adobe's door, not Microsoft's.

David
 >> Stay informed about: Good for Pentax! Eliminate the horrible little P&Ss 

On Mon, 03 Mar 2008 18:52:02 GMT, "David J Taylor"
<david-taylor RemoveThis @blueyonder.neither-this-bit.nor-this-bit.co.uk> wrote:

>tony cooper wrote:
>[]
>> In defense of the industry, programs are designed to work with what is
>> currently used in the way of an OS. You can't blame Adobe for
>> designing a program that worked on the OS that was current at the time
>> the program was launched, but doesn't work if major changes are made
>> in the OS.
>>
>> You might think that Adobe should make a patch available that makes
>> their old software compatible with a new OS, but then you have to
>> wonder why the new OS doesn't have a patch to make old software
>> compatible.
>
>I'm saying that /most/ programs which work on XP will work on Vista.

What are "most" programs? Name some. Name some that are not
Microsoft products because, naturally, Microsoft knows what will and
will not work with a new OS.

> Why
>does Adobe or Corel write their software so that it doesn't, when many
>other companies can?

Who are these other companies? Adobe and Corel are major players. In
just the readership of this one newsgroup, I would imagine that an
Adobe product is used by more people than any other software provider
other than Microsoft.

>As far as I know, nothing has been taken away from Vista to make it
>incompatible....and as Microsoft doesn't have a competing product to
>PhotoShop, it would be in their interest to make Vista deliberately
>incompatible.

>I think this problem should be laid at Adobe's door, not Microsoft's.

Why does the problem need to be laid at any one company's door? It's
a problem of the industry, not a problem of this company or that
company.


--

Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida
 >> Stay informed about: Good for Pentax! Eliminate the horrible little P&Ss 

In article <ufTyj.17047$XI.15192@text.news.virginmedia.com>, David J
Taylor <david-taylor RemoveThis @blueyonder.neither-this-bit.nor-this-bit.co.uk>
wrote:

> So if you don't like Microsoft Office 2007, aren't there free alternatives
> you can use instead? Perhaps they even have the older user interface?

Personally, I use Office 2008...but on my employers' PCs, it's Office
2007.
 >> Stay informed about: Good for Pentax! Eliminate the horrible little P&Ss 

tony cooper wrote:
[]
> What are "most" programs? Name some. Name some that are not
> Microsoft products because, naturally, Microsoft knows what will and
> will not work with a new OS.

Here are some non-Microsoft programs I have working correctly:
PlanePlotter, ShipPlotter, BaseStation (special hardware), SBS populate,
FlightDisplay, AutoHotKey, AMD Catalyst, ProcessExplorer, Dexatek DVB TV
reception (special hardware), T-systems TelliCast, IrfanView, MRTG, NTP,
SQLlite browser, Garmin (hardware), some software I have written,
mstDefrag, Perl, SNMP informant, WinTV (USB).

So not just programs which use the operating system, but programs which
interface with hardware as well.

> Why does the problem need to be laid at any one company's door? It's
> a problem of the industry, not a problem of this company or that
> company.

If all these companies can have software which works with Vista, but Corel
and Abode don't, I would start by asking the company whose programs don't
work.

Of course, I would like to know more about just why certain software
doesn't work to have a better understanding of the problems - at least I
would if I had purchased that software myself.

Cheers,
David
 >> Stay informed about: Good for Pentax! Eliminate the horrible little P&Ss