Windows 8.1 Update 1

[kevm14]

http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/25/53440 ... tion-rumor

The comments are just out of control.

This one is good:

catonkatonk

"Computers have much less value than a toilet or even a fork."

Which is why people spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars on them, right?

It pays to take ten minutes (and, really, that’s all it takes) to learn how to operate your computer, your car, your cable box, your smart TV, your microwave, your washing machine.
At least, that’s been my experience.
Maybe there are people who have had a lot of success just pressing random buttons and getting annoyed all the time. Maybe that’s what life is for the non-“Geek”.
I want to say, “hey, whatever works”, but God help these people when a light comes on in their car dashboard and they’re like, “what does this squiggly icon mean”.

If you think people are who are unable to shut-down their PCs without relying on muscle memory developed from using Windows 95 could easily move to MacOSX or Linux without frustration, you’re deluded, frankly.

Posted on Jan 25, 2014 | 12:01 PM Reply Recommend (4)

[kevm14]

CtrlAltDel121

It isn’t about being unable to do it or unable to learn it. It is unintuitive. When something is unintuitive, the retort of “just get used to it” isn’t good enough. There’s no reason for it to be unintutitive, and I’m glad Microsoft is fixing it.

Posted on Jan 25, 2014 | 3:35 PM Reply Recommend (3) Flag

kevm14

Almost everything in your life that you think was intuitive was actually something you learned once and “got used to.”

Posted on Jan 27, 2014 | 8:35 PM Edit 75 Reply Flag

[Adam]

Rewire

We have to train employees how to use ipads and android tablets regularly because they cant figure out simple tasks. So apparently no one has ever made a well designed UI.

Posted on Jan 25, 2014 | 5:37 PM

You have to train everyone to do everything. I spend most of my time at work training myself how to do things with computers.

[Adam]

catonkatonk
If you think people are who are unable to shut-down their PCs without relying on muscle memory developed from using Windows 95 could easily move to MacOSX or Linux without frustration, you’re deluded, frankly.

Posted on Jan 25, 2014 | 12:01 PM Reply Recommend (4)

For Linux: open a terminal and type

Code: Select all

poweroff

Pretty intuitive if you like using a keyboard which, apparently, no one does anymore.

Edit: another option is

Code: Select all

shutdown -h now

just in case the above is too confusing.

[kevm14]

I think the whole idea of what constitutes intuitive computer UX is skewed. Someone ought to write an article about it.

For example, if it is supposedly intuitive to shut down a computer by pressing the start menu, we could easily examine someone's experience before they used the start menu, or before the start menu existed. In fact, if I recall, there was a lot of "confusion" surrounding the idea that you had to first "Start" before shutting down. That's not "intuitive." Yet that became a learned behavior.

[bill25]

msdn article from 2003 talking about people complaining about pressing start to shutdown.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/arc ... 54559.aspx

It basically says that more people were to stupid to even do anything at all if the button didn't say start than the number of people smart enough to think that it was a little weird to have to press start to shutdown.

Wow.

[kevm14]

There are a bunch of ways to shutdown Windows, as there have always been. Here's a new one with Windows 8.1. Winkey+X. OR, right click on the start button in 8.1.

Or for 100% keyboard control, Winkey+X u r to restart, or Winkey+X u u to shutdown.

Or from a command prompt (more work to pull up since this is WINDOWS)

Restart: shutdown /r
Shutdown: shutdown /s
Type shutdown /? for a list of options.

Alt+F4 works if everything is already closed (has since like Windows 3).

The charms aren't hard to get to and work anywhere in the OS, even a fullscreen metro app (just one more reason they had to get rid of the start menu).

This may also be helpful: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/wind ... -shortcuts

The point is there's a lot of idiots on the interweb making a whole lot of noise about this.

[Adam]

They should be celebrating the simplicity that is the gnome desktop!

[kevm14]

Same number of clicks...

[Adam]

Same number of clicks...

2 clicks. But pretty intuitive. Isn't the main complaint now about how hard it is to find the shutdown controls?

I actually know a better one. The default behavior under Win7 and most Linux distros is to shutdown the machine when you press (just press, not hold) the power button. So 1 "click" and pretty intuitive (same button that turns it on).