Posts
http://rwmj.wordpress.com/2012/03/01/windows-8-worse-than-gnome-for-usability/
In few words, he gives the new Windows 8 "Metro" user interface a real bashing, saying that "it's even worse than GNOME for usability." If it's worse than GNOME 3, we're all in big trouble. Those who have regularly followed my blog for the last few months know what I think of GNOME 3. GNOME 3 is unusable on my laptop, though the same quad core machine runs Windows 7 with all its graphics just fine. Richard indicated that Red Hat will include the new GNOME shell in its upcoming RHEL 7 release, and expressed his concern that they may lose some loyal users over this decision. Let's hope Red Hat will actually clean it up its implementation of GNOME so it works properly.
Microsoft Office 2010 - Tied Up In Ribbons:
Lately, I've been using a borrowed computer from work to complete some assignments. The machine is running Windows 7 and MS Office 2010. I'm using it to edit some Word documents with the "track changes" feature - which isn't, to my knowledge, duplicated in Open Office. The work machine has what Microsoft calls its new "Fluent User Interface." I haven't seen this "Fluent User Interface" on my own laptop, which is a year old yet came with Windows 7. Their "Fluent User Interface" consists of a new "ribbon" which runs across the top of the application window, replacing the usual and customary toolbars that Windows and LINUX users alike have grown to recognise as standard. It's not just a feature of Office, the 'Paint' program I used for saving the screen shot below also has it.
The thing I noticed immediately while using Office 2010, besides their new ribbon, was that I couldn't find spell check. There is no "Help" dropdown menu, and no, not even an "Edit" dropdown menu, either. The "Help" dropdown menu has been replaced with a little blue question mark that I didn't immediately notice in the low contrast coloring of the ribbon. Eventually I found the Spell Checker in a very non-intuitive place: A dropdown menu called "Review".
So, as GNOME did with their latest creation, Microsoft had to take something I previously could access in a fraction of a second with ONE mouse click and make it into an operation that now takes several seconds and two or more mouse clicks. After a considerable time getting acquainted with the new regime I can now, more or less, get my work done.
What's The Rationale For All This?
I spoke with a colleague at work who has worked in IT for many years. His comment was that "all the 'old school' folks who have written all the stuff we have used for years are all starting to retire. All the twenty-somethings who grew up texting on their iPhones are now getting software development jobs and starting to impact the industry."
All I have to say about that is I hope and pray that some companies will consider those of us who do NOT want their PC to look like an iPhone, and who simply want to continue to get their work done.
