System: The following 4 messages were cut out of thread at:
http://www.webmasterworld.com/windows8/4512356.htm [webmasterworld.com] by bill - 4:49 pm on Jan 4, 2013
(jst +9)
Well a new laptop preloaded with Windows 8 fell into my lap over the holidays! I think I've arrived! 2.5Ghz, Core i5, 8GB RAM. I just went from an old desktop with 512MB of RAM to this. You can all imagine the smile on my face. Best of all, a client of mine bought it for me! Wow, I was moved considering it's me who should be gifting my clients right?!
But on to the OS itself. I was going to be buying a new laptop about this time (the client had no knowledge of this btw) but I was intent on getting a Windows 7 OS. Also, the brand is one that I personally would not have bought from; only because I worked for them as a contractor for 2 years and wasn't well treated. So, I would not have wanted to give them my consumer dollars. But hey a gift is a gift and I am very grateful for it.
For the first 36-48 hours of use -- I wanted to pitch it against the wall so many times, and I rarely have anger or a temper in me. They REALLY moved the cheese in this thing! Keep in mind that I went from XP to this so I never got the warmup by experiencing Windows 7.
In the first hours I managed to figure out how to open a browser ;) then went straight to Firefox to get a real one. After that I locked it down and went ecom browsing for an OEM version of Windows 7. I found a source with a good price and filed it. Figured I would sit with this thing for a few days. I continued to use the old box and just played on this one (everything is now transferred to it).
For the first week I REALLY didn't like it at all. But now into the end of the second week (he didn't wait for Christmas to give it to me so I didn't wait for Christmas to open it) I have to admit I am absolutely loving this laptop and Windows 8 OS. Of course I turned it into a desktop with an HDMI connected 24" LED monitor and wireless keyboard and mouse :)
There are soooooo many nice features about it that I would have to go on all day about them and probably still forget a few good ones.
But it's not all fun and games. There is something about it that very seriously got my monkey in a knot. On the first day I was experimenting with the default desktop apps (the tiled push ones) and was getting ads pushed to my desktop! when browsing the weather or news ones, can't remember which. I messed around with a bunch of settings and eventually got rid of them. Keep in mind this was not via a browser, it was ads for a Cadillac Esplanade SUV.
There is something VERY fundamentally wrong with that. This is not a free OS or hardware that has to be supported by ads. It is a paid-for system. MSFT what the heck are you thinking pushing commercialism to my desktop via the OS?! Seriously there is something extremely wrong with this.
I eventually got rid of the ads but still don't know how. Then I uninstalled most of the desktop tiles that were receiving live pushes. The parasites seem to be gone now. But if they rear their ugly heads again I'll have to decide how bad I want up-to-the-minute weather details in my face. It will probably come down to a choice of pretty colours, numbers, as well as exquisite flow and design (and tolerating trying to be sold an SUV) vs licking my finger and hanging it out an open window.
I was going to wait a while and write a full review of this beast but I cannot contain myself any longer and had to jump in with the preliminary report.
It has been a bumpy ride though. I have already reinstalled the OS from the original recovery but I was intent on trying to break it anyway to see what it was made of. The reformat and reinstall (they've assigned a consumer-friendly term to it -- reset), took 3½ hours from the partitioned recovery drive. It was pretty much a 2 or 3 mouse click event then walk away.
I have had issues with software not working properly, WAMP in particular, but eventually got it tweaked and running fine. There have also been run-time errors which I have not seen since way back in 2000 which would have been blue screens of death but now you just dismiss it and carry on. I guess those will be the woes of any early adopter prior to at least the first service pack being rolled out.
Somewhere I remember incrediBill saying it was counter-intuitive -- it really is. But I stuck with it and forced my brain to rewire itself to the new environment. I'm glad I did, I won't be looking back.
As for my old box it's going to be reborn as a Ubuntu beast so I can begin my preparation for the coming future of a Ubuntu world :)
I would NOT recommend this OS in it's current skin to be adopted by the corporate culture. Having worked many years as an IMAC tech I know it would be total chaos to throw this OS into the business culture. It's clearly geared towards being a transition OS bridging the gap between desktop/laptop and mobile.
That's it for now but I'm sure I'll have more to say about it down the line.
