Posted on 05/01/2008 5:11:26 PM PDT by Swordmaker
Some of the coolest OS features are nowhere to be found in Windows XP or Vista. Here are 18 brilliant features that Microsoft should beg for, borrow, or steal—plus tips on how you can add many of them to your PC now.
Love it or hate it, Microsoft Windows is the world's most dominant operating system. But when you look at some of the hot features found in competitors such as Linux and Mac OS X, both XP and Vista can seem a little incomplete.
From intuitive interface features like Apple's application dock and Cover Flow to basic media capabilities such as ISO burning, Windows often falls short on built-in goodies. And some features that other operating systems offer by default—such as 64-bit processing and business-networking tools—equire a premium-version license in Windows.
(Excerpt) Read more at pcworld.com ...
I agree... especially where neat and useful thinks like sticky notes are concerned. On the Mac, Sticky Notes is not part of the OS... it is an application, nothing more. It is just included as a freebie from Apple.
And the religious wars continue...half those things exist in Windows XP (and some have existed a lot longer than that), but I guess they don’t work exactly the same as they do on Macs or in Linux so they don’t count.
I know my reaction to Expose and Virtual Workspace is entirely because of how I’ve trained myself to use computers in the last {cough cough} years. At work I always have at least 6 and frequently quite a few more Windows open, but I always have my taskbar visible so they’re all easily accessible with no additional commands. And I got really good with alt-tab back in the 3.11 days, actually that’s when I taught myself to leave visible space for the desktop, if you’ll cast your mind to the ancient history 3.x minimized apps down to icons at the bottom of the screen, guess who could always see those icons. So for other people these could be cool features, there’s no chance I’d ever use them.
I wouldn’t use Time Machine, turn it off. I realized I wasn’t a backup guy when finally something bad did happen and when contemplating going for my backups I decided there’d been a lot of crap on the machine I didn’t actually care about so I decided to rebuild from scratch sans crap. I’m a pack rat at heart so system crashes are an opportunity to clean. I also learned how little of my “important” data was actually important. Again this very well might kick butt, but I’d never use it.
So Application Dock is a lot like Dashboard. Dashboard was a great application, way ahead of it’s time. Not only have Mac and Windows stolen ideas from it OS/2 Warp stole ideas from it, I think IBM even called their quick launch/applet thing Dashboard. Of course it’s no surprise, Quarterdeck are the guys that made Desqview, always ahead of their time and never able to capitalize on it. Then they got bought by Symantec and we all know what they do to good apps.
I don’t know I don’t see that much advantage to the Mac screen shot, OK it’s one keyboard combo to turn it into a file, which probably has some funky non-descriptive name so now you’ll have to get to your desktop and rename the file to something useful and you probably want it somewhere other than your desktop anyway, sure you have to open Paint and paste the image and save it manually, but then you can give a useful name and put it where you want. Seems to me like they’ve got about even levels of handy and nuisance it’s just different parts of the process are handy.
Curse Black & White for making “mouse gestures” a dirty word, it is actually a nifty idea.
Cover flow still doesn’t sound even slightly exciting. I never have that much trouble finding things.
Of course the punchline for any feature “wish list” for Windows is that the most common, and most true, complaint about the OS is that it’s bloated. It’s got TONS of features most folks never use and don’t know about. There’s probably only about 10% of the users that even use 50% of the tools Windows already comes with. So anybody that comes up with a list of features Windows needs really should come up with a list of features they can dump, I mean really dump, truly free up the disk space and end all downward compatibility. And they better not complain if MS does put those features in and the guys who’ve been making 3rd party apps to do those things in Windows go out of business.
You have to be old enough to remember Abbott and Costello, and too old to REALLY understand computers, to fully appreciate this. For those of us who sometimes get flustered by our computers, please read on...
If Bud Abbott and Lou Costello were alive today, their infamous sketch, ‘Who's on First?’ might have turned out something like this:
COSTELLO CALLS TO BUY A COMPUTER FROM ABBOTT
ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?
COSTELLO: Thanks. I'm setting up an office in my den and I'm thinking about buying a computer.
ABBOTT: Mac?
COSTELLO: No, the name's Lou.
ABBOTT: Your computer?
COSTELLO: I don't own a computer. I want to buy one.
ABBOTT : Mac?
COSTELLO: I told you, my name's Lou.
ABBOTT: What about Windows?
COSTELLO: Why? Will it get stuffy in here?
ABBOTT: Do you want a computer with Windows?
COSTELLO: I don't know. What will I see when I look at the windows?
ABBOTT: Wallpaper.
COSTELLO: Never mind the windows. I need a computer and software.
ABBOTT: Software for Windows?
COSTELLO: No. On the computer! I need something I can use to write proposals, track expenses and run my business. What do you have?
ABBOTT: Office.
COSTELLO: Yeah, for my office. Can you recommend anything?
ABBOTT: I just did.
COSTELLO: You just did what?
ABBOTT: Recommend something.
COSTELLO: You recommended something?
ABBOTT: Yes.
COSTELLO: For my office?
ABBOTT: Yes
COSTELLO: OK, what did you recommend for my office?
ABBOTT: Office.
COSTELLO: Yes, for my office!
ABBOTT: I recommend Office with Window's.
COSTELLO: I already have an office with windows! OK, let's just say I'm sitting at my computer and I want to type a proposal. What do I need?
ABBOTT: Word.
COSTELLO: What word?
ABBOTT: Word in Office.
COSTELLO: The only word in office is office.
ABBOTT: The Word in Office for Windows.
COSTELLO: Which word in office for windows?
ABBOTT: The Word you get when you click the blue ‘W’.
COSTELLO: I'm going to click your blue ‘w’ if you don't start with some straight answers. What about financial bookkeeping? You have anything I can track my money with?
ABBOTT: Money.
COSTELLO: That's right What do you have?
ABBOTT: Money.
COSTELLO: I need money to track my money?
ABBOTT: It comes bundled with your computer.
COSTELLO: What's bundled with my computer?
ABBOTT: Money.
COSTELLO: Money comes with my computer?
ABBOTT: Yes. No extra charge.
COSTELLO: I get a bundle of money with my computer? How much?
ABBOTT: One copy.
COSTELLO: Isn't it illegal to copy money?
ABBOTT: Microsoft gave us a license to copy Money.
COSTELLO: They can give you a license to copy money?
ABBOTT: Why not? THEY OWN IT!
(A few days later)
ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?
COSTELLO: How do I turn my computer off?
ABBOTT: Click on ‘START’
Um, last I looked, the amount of domain-wide configuration you could do via Apple Server’s Open Directory was really, really small. Nothing, I truly mean nothing, compared to Server 2003/XP’s Active Directory. Has that changed?
Thanks for the help, but the icon scrambling happens in both my Dell PC’s: one PC is 6 yrs old running Win 2K, and the other PC is 2 yrs old running Win XP.
I have Norton only on the old machine (never again, and never again anything Symantec), so it can’t be that because both machines do it.
Also, both machines don’t do it every time I reboot, maybe every other time I reboot.
As for the cursor—I have Word 2003, and my cursor (the blinking “I” shaped thing) remains in the way when I type, as it remains in the way as I write this reply to you.
All in all, these are just some of the annoyances that I live with because I’m tired of making a career of tracking them down to see if they can even be fixed. I have a regular job to do.
Computing is supposed to make work easier and more efficient—I have come to question whether for a very small business that is true.
In any event, I am forced to have PC’s in my business because my clients communicate information to me electronically, and expect replies by the same medium—however ridiculous and inefficient such communication often is (just as like telphoning the worker in the office next door is silly, so to is emailing someone you can telephone often silly and even more inefficient).
As for myself, only spreadsheets and letter-writing are the only two things truly beneficial to my small business.
The rest is hardly worth the headache.
Although some of it seems beneficial at first glance, even without the burden of incredible bug-chasing, those other apparent benefits usually aren’t in actual practice.
I tend to have so many open it gets crowded, full names not showing. I just don't bother, squeeze the mouse and everything's right there, move to the one I want and let go. It is especially useful in Photoshop where I may have a dozen graphics open.
Again this very well might kick butt, but I’d never use it.
It's not necessarily about your apps, but your documents. So far I've used it to grab earlier versions of documents. And if nothing else, flying back through time in your file system is COOL! The only thing I don't like about Time Machine is that I don't need it often enough, but that's probably a good thing.
So Application Dock is a lot like Dashboard.
I used Dashboard too, and Norton Desktop (back when their apps didn't suck). But this is a lot better.
Seems to me like they’ve got about even levels of handy and nuisance it’s just different parts of the process are handy.
I use both. The Mac way is a LOT better, especially being able to pick a section of screen or windows that aren't even in front. It's a lot better to select your screenshot and have it saved than to select, paste, crop, save. I always had to buy utilities if I needed to do that in Windows. You can also hold down Control and get it on the clipboard like a PC if that's what you want.
Cover flow still doesn’t sound even slightly exciting. I never have that much trouble finding things.
You really have to try it to see how great it is. I turn it on about half the time. I can't remember the last time I actually opened a PDF from my hard drive. I just press the space bar in Cover Flow. However, I wouldn't suggest doing that if you're dealing with very large image files, as Cover Flow takes too long to show them, at least on my iMac.
OS X has a lot of features, and it's pretty big too. But I've noticed most of the features are geared towards making life easier, not just checking-off the "We got that" list (paging Vista). Another part of this philosophy is performance improvements. Apple doesn't just concentrate on making the system actually faster, they concentrate on making it feel faster to the user. Perception is everything.
Something is definitely going wrong on shutdown. The only time my icons get re-arranged these days (since the game companies learned to stop being so annoying) is when there’s a crash, then usually only icons I moved during the last up time will get hosed, though every once in a while everything will left justify, but there’s always a crash involved.
My little I thingy goes away the instant a character it typed and won’t comeback until I twitch the mouse. Probably goofball setting somewhere, Word has WAY too many little settings, that options dialog would never pass Windows certification. Mine’s mostly default, except for everywhere the word “automatic” appears, I uncheck all those boxes.
Computing isn’t supposed to make work easier, I mean sure that was the big lie the industry used to sell them in the 80s, but it was a lie and some parts of the industry are finally starting to admit it. The only people whose work is made easier by computers are the spreadsheet commandos that analyze a business’ various statistics, everybody else does more work to feed the data into those spreadsheets. Of course it’s too late, the computers are entrenched and they’re never leaving. My only defense is I wasn’t actually in the industry when it was using the big lie.
"Hide cursor when typing" in the mouse settings?
That’s the one. AR found your answer AOR, it’s an OS setting, win2K might not actually have it (I don’t have a 2K machine handy to check) but XP definitely does, Control Panel, Printers and Other Hardware, Mouse, Pointer Options, down near the bottom is Hide Cursor When Typing. Of course navigation would be completely different in 2K, other than starting in Control Panel, if it has the option.
See, lots of little checkboxes. I knew there was an option for this, but I was poking around in Word’s settings looking for it, not the OS.
Every ripoff of Dashboard is better, of course it was a win3.x app with a completely different concept of how to run the Windows interface. It’s a sign of where they were in the curve though that 14 odd years later Windows still doesn’t have all those features and Mac barely has it covered. Glad somebody else remembers it, high up on my list of best apps ever, also high up on my list of apps that people I mention it to have never heard of.
I can see potential usefulness for those thing, I just doubt I’d use them. Which kind of puts the lie to PC World’s idea that Windows is incomplete without them. If you’ve got a decent chunk of the install base that wouldn’t use them, and readily available 3rd party apps for the folks that want them, do these feature really need to roll into the OS? When MS first started adding features willie-nillie to the OS there was a lot of complaining about what it would do to the 3rd party guys. I suppose most of the writers now are too young to remember those days though.
I do all my serious Photoshop, web site development, etc., on my Mac. If I had to do anything more significant than run a web browser or a Word document, I think I’d take you up on it. This is really a backup, backup machine.
To be fair, Mac stole 2,6,15, and arguably 16 from the Linux community.
I have some to add:
* Filesystem mounting to make a virtual disk drive out of a file like an ISO file (Linux, PC-BSD, Mac)
* Transparent network extension to Explorer to save directly to FTP, NFS, WebDAV, etc (Linux KDE)
* Real userspace and administration/application separation (Linux, PC-BSD, Mac)
* Real filesystem symbolic links (Linux, PC-BSD, Mac)
* A decent shell
Have you tried powerhsell?
OpenSuse 11 is looking promising in the client area. I'm going to give it a shot when they release.
Office environments will be perfectly happy running XP for the next five years if they need to.
Microsoft needs to create an extremely small and flexible alternative to XP/Vista--maybe growing out of its Windows Mobile product. Systems out there are getting smaller and slower as the market demands longer battery life and more portability. MIDs are set to take off next year.
Plus the development tools for the Microsoft product dwarf the tools used by other OS's.
Visual Studio is very nice and serves an admirable job of making the horrendous API that Microsoft built somewhat manageable. However, Apple's XCode (if you're open to learning objective-C) is a dream by comparison. Interface Builder is absolute genius for GUI programming.
Expose is by far the most useful desktop command I have ever seen. Alt-tab, task-bar, workspaces, and everything else pales in comparison. Flicking the mouse to a corner and watching the windows shift gives much more utility than any other desktop organizational concept. And being able to shift everything out of the way to get to the desktop and open an item is icing on the cake. Unless you have used Expose for a week in a working environment, you have no idea how useful it is.
Maybe, but the point is not to be able to install another shell, it is to be able to send someone a much more powerful shell script and just have things work.
Inventory and invoice tracking should be a no-brainer to do on a computer. Web research, ordering, and marketing (web site) is a good idea too.
The problem with a lot of these things is that there is a lot of bad software out there. Also, if you buy a computer through a major company like Dell, HP, Sony, etc. A lot of bad software comes pre-installed, and is difficult if not impossible to remove. There has to be some company out there that sells a computer with Office and QuickBooks, but without WeatherBug, PopCap games, and worthless trial software installed.
No kidding, yet you're going to recommend Apache, instead, and leave them at the command line for configuration? Ridiculous.
Prior to IIS 6 (and Win98 was referenced so PWS/IIS 3/4(?) is fair game) this was a very big mistake since most everything got installed and left open by default.
What "most everything"? PWS hardly had anything other than a WWW publishing service to begin with. I shouldn't even waste my time trying to convince you, but recommending Apache for basic home users is a silly idea, both then and now.
Look at the Apache home page for it, not a single screen shot because it's all command line driven, yet you want to foist it on hapless home users just so you can look chic criticizing Microsoft:
I wouldn’t even use it. I’ve been using icons (on a task bar or not) and alt-tab for more than a decade and a half. And the quick launch has a minimize everything button (which when you push it a second time does not put everything back, which really irritates me) so getting to the desktop is one click.
Like I said, it could be awesome but there is simply no way I’d use it, ever, not once. I already know how to do absolutely everything it can do quicker, and I’ve been doing them long enough that it’s instinctual so if I actually tried to use Expose it would take me longer.
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