http://www.smh.com.au/news/digital-life ... 98192.html
Check out the screenshot of Windows Explorer. Not only have the Fisher-Price icons survived... they seem to have EXPANDED.
Is there anyone (who has the first clue about using a computer), anywhere, who hasn't immediately changed the default "We designed it for 4 year old computer users who like big, colourful building blocks" icons in Explorer to "Give me useful information like when the file was saved, how big it is, what its file extension is, etc, etc"?
Is there anyone who prefers a dozen big, chunky icons to 30 or 40 smaller ones with relevant information?
Well, it's good to see Gartner still making a living by stating the bleeding obvious.Michael Silver, an analyst for Gartner, said a smoother debut for Windows 7 is critical for Microsoft.
"The real hurdle is to get Vista's reputation behind them," he said.
Weren't... fully... tested... on... users.In an interview, Julie Larson-Green, a Windows vice president, offered one small example: In Vista, Microsoft took the "add printer" feature out of the Start menu, but is restoring it in Windows 7 after users complained.
Larson-Green said some changes in Vista made sense to developers but weren't fully tested on actual PC users - a misstep she seems committed not to repeat.
Right.
I mean, why bother testing it on users?
Suddenly the genesis of Vista is a whole lot clearer to me.
I know that this is supposed to be the Next Big Thing, but I still don't buy it. My notebook spends more time off line than on line, and is often used on the move. The last thing I want to have to worry about is whether "the cloud" will evaporate when I hit a train tunnel. The second last thing that I want to have to worry about is a wireless internet bill that looks like the GDP of a Central American country.Building on a broader strategy to meld the best elements of web and desktop software, Microsoft also showed off lightweight versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote software that work in web browsers and look as they normally do, but don't have to be installed on a PC.
The new programs were running "in the cloud" on the new Windows Azure system Microsoft unveiled on Monday, a move aimed at helping it catch up with Google and other nimbler web companies.