Martin Reid
mwp.reid at qub.ac.uk
Wed Feb 26 02:08:04 CST 2014
I am sort of in both camps here I have 8.1 Pro on tablets with Office Pro Plus and its fine. I hate the 2 interfaces though and wish they had made the leap one way or the other. iPad in a work environment is totally useless other than email and browser. Windows Pro 8.1 Pro on a tablet is a working machine once you get used to it. I also have an iPad and my kids hate it because they can only do one thing at a time on it, can't use Word, PowerPoint etc, the open in stuff drives them nuts. I am also running a pilot with Windows 8.1 Pro tablets and so far user response has been great and we use no third party apps at all. But I do hate the way it bounces you between metro and the desktop. Drives me nuts. Windows Tablets here outside the pilot I run seem to be the user device of choice now. That really surprised me as we were thinking it would be iPADS. Martin -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Jim Lawrence Sent: 25 February 2014 21:51 To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving Subject: Re: [AccessD] Ramblings of a nutcase Hi Arthur: I see Windows 8.x as a great user computer...but in a full office environment it becomes hard to use. My thought is, "Why should the system have to be adapted to?", with all sorts of third-party apps just so it becomes business friendly. People, in an office, need a number of applications open just to do their work...for around home and just play, Windows 8.x is great. But then the question has to be asked then why not just get an iPad for home use? Back in the day, when Windows 95 was first introduced, the company I was working for, put on a number of training sessions and these training sessions were very well attended. We also went from office to office giving training in certain programs. Introducing Windows was not a minor task...but after a while people just got-it. Microsoft, in those days, gave a number of open conferences for the tech and user community. Again, they were well attended. It is amazing how quickly everyone forgets just how hard it was introducing the new windows and the new Office. The UI did not appear obvious to all but everyone really wanted to learn. Today it is a similar problem but this time the average user, or anyone for that matter, is on their own and must figure out things by themselves. What results is that a few figure some way to do something, other figure out another way and some just quit as there are many simple alternatives, that just work. Jim ----- Original Message ----- From: "Arthur Fuller" <fuller.artful at gmail.com> To: "Access Developers discussion and problem solving" <accessd at databaseadvisors.com> Sent: Tuesday, 25 February, 2014 12:05:27 PM Subject: Re: [AccessD] Ramblings of a nutcase IMHO, you folks are all pussies and refuse to see what's great about Windows 8. With the proviso that you download and install ClassicShell (google it). This free tool goes a long way toward making Windows 8 palatable for old-timers. In fact it goes further than that; it's smarter and better than the old classic start menu. Even without this wonderful tool, there are a few key things you can do to smarten up your startup tile UI: most notably, you can drag the tiles into an arrangement of your choice, and also create groups of tiles containing associated programs (i.e. a Media group, a SQL group, etc. And most significantly, you can drag your most frequently-visited programs to the top left of the tile groups. In my tile setup, the first tile is Desktop. I have two monitors and the desktop opens on the large monitor. I also make extensive use of the QuickLaunch bar, and the programs soon learn which monitor they should load on. That custom setup accomplished, you are now in a position to see some of the startup, performance and memory management advantages of Windows 8.1. I can only say that I'd never consider going back to Windows 7. I still have a copy of it, but it's on a separate box entirely, and I find myself using that box less and less -- just for large downloads and for running Ubuntu Linux. I have one more customization of the Win 8.1 laptop planned. I recently read a net piece on how to hook up two external monitors to a laptop. That's next. I'll have three monitors, two external and the laptop monitor. That will be very cool. My $0.02. Arthur -- AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com -- AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com