Charlotte Foust
charlotte.foust at gmail.com
Sun Jan 11 11:30:58 CST 2015
Well I am firmly in the Win 8+ camp for my own uses. It outperforms Win 7 handily, as I notice repeatedly in my contracts when I work on client machines. I love the win 10 preview and will jump to it as soon as it's released. Win 7 will remain the market workhorse for some time because OEMS will still be able to provide it. IT departments are allergic to being guinea pigs for new OSes. Charlotte On Jan 11, 2015 6:37 AM, "Arthur Fuller" <fuller.artful at gmail.com> wrote: > Gustav and Jim, > > I definitely hear you both on the subject of massive out-rolls. Not a > pleasant experience,even with a few dozen computers,letalone a few hundred. > I have the pleasure, in my semi-retirement, of having only two boxes to > worry about. One runs Win 8.1 and the other is a dual-boot Win7 + Ubuntu > 14.xxx. Over time and much experimentation, I have finally managed to get > all the USB peripherals to be visible from both boxes. Only the laptop is > USB 3 capable so that's where everything is plugged into.I got this > hub-thing that lets me connect four USB devices into a single port, and > thence share all these peripherals. So the USB-Blu-ray burner is visible to > both boxes and that lets me back up important stuff from either box, > regardless of OS. It was difficult to set up, and I can only imagine the > complexities of doing the same with 100 boxes. > > I have really grown to love Win 8.1:faster boot, less energy and skip the > tiled UI, which is relatively easy. The only time I see tiles is the result > of an accidental keystroke, but hitting the Escape key gets me back to > where I was. I think that Win 8.1 is a great OS, and once you figure out > how to bypass the tiles then it's way better than Win 7. > > But I understand why an SMB might want not to go there. Win 7 is pretty > nice, and although now depracated, it still works just fine. I'd hate to be > the one who has to migrate a large number of XP boxes to Win7 or Win8.1. > One of the many joys of being semi-retired. As in the memorable line from > The Godfather, "I keep tryiing to get out, but they keep dragging me back > in." It seems that once you've committed yourself, there's no easy path > out. Clients whom you haven't heard from in a year or two suddenly > re-emerge, and you built their systems so who else are they going to turn > to?, for which they > > The up-side is that occasionally a few bucks travel my way. The down-side > is that I'd rather devote my time to learning to improve my chess game > (speaking of which, I am currently reading Vukovic and Nimsowitsch. both > tough slogs but worth the effort). > > And I thought that retirement was going to be easy! LOL It doesn't work > like that. Currently I'm at work on an eBook about Alpha Anywhere, and a > coupe of projects to take Access apps I wrote to the new world of > web/mobile and disconnected scenarios. The avenues are highly specialized > (for example, safety-engineering, whose total market is perhaps one or two > per state in the US: not a large potential market. Story of my life, I go > where the needs go, and damn the torpedoes. > > Currently I'm at work on two apps, both in Alpha Anywhere, because the core > requirements are web/mobile deployment + disconnected capability. One of > these (Volumteer Manager) wil be donated free to any organization which > uses a body of volunteers; the other one (Campaiign Manager) I might sell > to a relatively small number of clients, maybe 1000 in the Canadian market, > counting federal, provincial and city levels; after that I will look at the > markets in the USA and Europe. > > What drives both of these apps is the need for disconnected use: the user > is assumed to be disconnected from the central database and then synchrize > upon re-connection.Alpha handles this aspect splendidly. All other > alternatives look lame in this respect. > > A. > > > On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 6:54 AM, Gustav Brock <gustav at cactus.dk> wrote: > > > Hi Jim > > > > Personally, I have the same experience as Arthur. I try to force Win8.1 > on > > everything I can get access to because it is so much better. Alone the > > reduced boot time makes people feel they've got a new machine, not to > > mention the wake-up time which is a couple of seconds only even on > machines > > hooked up to Active Drectory. > > Windows Update is another wast improvement. In earlier versions it > bothers > > you regurlarly and bugs the machine if it hasn't been in use for a while; > > in Windows 8 it runs nearly silent, updates much faster, and steps back > > when you work. > > > > What you describe is comparable to FUD. People are told from so many > > sources, that Windows 8 is scary, so they of course refrain and install > an > > OS from 2009. > > Recently, I had an interesting experience. A friend running Windows 8 at > > home was given the choice between Win7 and Win8 for his new office > machine. > > He chose Win7 because it was "probably the safest" - who looks for > trouble > > at work? > > Now he regrets. Among other things, he misses the large start screen > where > > he nicely has organized his tiles/shortcuts. > > > > The reasons why large corporations are behind is traditional. It just > > takes time to get everything tested and approved. That's why you have > > extended support for Windows 7 after the 15th of this month. I recall > when > > Windows XP was out and we started offering it to clients, Novo Nordic - a > > Microsoft reference customer who lacked neither knowledge, resources, nor > > money - was just about to roll out Windows 2000. > > > > /gustav > -- > AccessD mailing list > AccessD at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com >