As another pointed out, I was simply pointing out that its ironic that Apple users can point the finger and say that Microsoft "stole" something from Apple but if you look at Project Looking Glass, you can see that ideas such as the 3D task bar and Quick look came from there.
You aren't looking far enough back into history. Apple was, and still is, the company leading the way. One can argue that something was done before, but it was Apple that actually did something with the ideas and others followed. If you take an honest look at the evolution of desktop computing you will discover this to be true.
I stand corrected on the Palo Alto example even though most if the references on the net still do say that there are several controversies still about how much Apple copied form PARC (for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_GUI). However this is the kind of discussion I'm looking for in general. Multiple sides are brought out and dissenting views are not immediately "squashed".
It cannot be assumed that a person has read every single post on the site before one can comment. I reacted to the immediate calling of someone "vile" when they were introducing dissenting views to existing dogmas. My apologies for not reading all of his posts on the site and researching his "tendencies".
But my main point was about allowing viewpoints that do not support the existing dogmas. I do believe my point was already proven a, when I was promptly called an anti-Apple zealot for daring to point this out. Maybe I used the wrong tactics (not a thorough research on the examples), but at least it did prove my main point.
Personally I usually vote for innovation and choice. Thus I prefer to champion linux and Apple for the change in the industry they are forcing to occur. But it's a benefit to all if opposing thoughts are encouraged instead of being immediately extinguished. In this particular case I didn't know the background of the post and poster I defended (should I have?). And yes, I took too much at face value.
I do applaud Apples innovation especially in user interfaces and usability. No question about it.
Regs, Jarkko
And I have absolutely no problem with you doing that. It's just as you said, he has been proven wrong several times and still posts here. It's nothing to do with dogma, all to do with his seemingly incessant need to claim what has already been proven otherwise.
Again, I'm by no means claiming there is anything bad about Project Looking Glass. It's a very interesting set of tools, but the tech Apple is using, while possibly influenced by the project, was secured through acquisitions with other companies several years ago. In terms of PARC, though, as I said, it was basically looked at more along the lines of Project Looking Glass, where it could be applied to multiple operating systems, than as a new OS in and of itself. And as a result, Apple made a stock trade with Xerox in order to acquire some of the tech Jobs and others previewed there. Alot of what happened after that point and how much the LISA project diverged from PARC technologies is where the controversies come in (as it's hard to know what exact rights they paid for the use of).
My issues with Microsoft stem not from my adoration for Apple, but from its actions. As you said, Apple and the open source community continue to innovate while Microsoft sits back and simply adopts popular features created by it competitors. For instance, Google desktop was blatantly ripped off when Vista was released. Not only did it work the same and have the same "gadgets," it also looked exactly the same and was even placed on the same spot on the desktop. I also have a huge issue with the fact that no matter how many open source standards become mainstream, Microsoft always feels the need to adopt a proprietary format in order to leverage its market share to squash them.
Switching to a Dock in Windows 7 is a big mistake by Microsoft. They are assuming that
(1) people have rejected Vista because it is slow and/or buggy
(2) people like the Mac, so it is good to be more like Mac
But what if people are staying with Windows because they know it off by heart (XP has been around since 2001)? In that case, the reason people switched to Mac when Vista came out was not bugginess, but that they were being forced to relearn. If they have to relearn anyway, why not consider switching?
And here they are in Windows 7, forcing people to relearn again, which (if this theory is correct) will create more switchers not less.
And here they are in Windows 7, forcing people to relearn again, which (if this theory is correct) will create more switchers not less.
The only thing they really need to relearn is a few new behaviors. It's still used to launch applications and to switch windows. However, if the user prefers, the user can easily revert to the old Vista-like taskbar behaviors.
A Vista-like behavior would be no grouping and with label (and possibly smaller icons), and that's provided in the taskbar properties. You are not forced to use the new taskbar, because the user can just change it back in its properties. However, the new taskbar will be the default after installation. It took me about an hour before becoming familiar with its workflow, although some people might take longer...
Ok, I am going to say this really simple for all the Windows users out there: Microsoft has managed to copy almost everything from OS X. The new taskbar looks identical to the dock in OS X. be original for once microsoft!!
Good, we need something mac-like for the pc. I love Leopard but I have to say, I have been running the beta of windows 7 and it is actually quite stunning and beautiful. It seems that Microstuffed finally cut out some of thge bloat to make it more lean, mean and responsive. The new taskbar is hella useful and I love it much better than the dock!
Good, we need something mac-like for the pc. I love Leopard but I have to say, I have been running the beta of windows 7 and it is actually quite stunning and beautiful. It seems that Microstuffed finally cut out some of thge bloat to make it more lean, mean and responsive. The new taskbar is hella useful and I love it much better than the dock!
What level of hardware are you running it on that it's lean, mean and responsive?
You aren't looking far enough back into history. Apple was, and still is, the company leading the way. One can argue that something was done before, but it was Apple that actually did something with the ideas and others followed. If you take an honest look at the evolution of desktop computing you will discover this to be true.
you mean all the way back to to where xerox was leading the way?
i too wondered about looking glass and how leopard looked a lot like it...
What level of hardware are you running it on that it's lean, mean and responsive?
For me, I'm running Windows 7 on both my netbook and laptop, and the netbook came with XP, and Win7 runs as responsively as XP does on it. That's rather impressive, as it's also has Aero running on it's GMA 950, and I haven't had a single app crash yet. Only issue, was not being able to tap on the trackpad to click, and wireless, but a Windows Update took care of wifi, and I just used the Synaptics Vista driver.
The laptop came with Vista Home Premium SP1, and Win7 is pretty much identical, function-wise, just much faster, which is a good thing. Power management seems improved in Win7 so far too.
I've read of posts, of people getting acceptable performance with Win7 on old PIII's.
I find it questionable on the integrity and true motives of the author's writings, and indirectly of AI, since neither the author nor AI has fixed any of the blatant misinformation. This was explained earlier in my first post on Page 2. I am not talking about who copies who and the politics of, but inaccuracies like showing concept shells designed by Microsoft, when they were in fact mockups made by enthusiasts.
Or the claim that, "Resizing the Taskbar neither [this removed part is correct] nor provides more vertical room for organizing Taskbar items (as Windows users might expect)," is provided as true, when any Windows 7 testers know full well a double-height taskbar can include additional items including an address bar if wanted. If anything, the new taskbar provides MORE customizability than Vista and XP - not less as the author implies.
Or the claim that, "You can’t organize icons in vertical rows, making it fairly useless to change the vertical height of the Taskbar." Did the author actually write this, knowing full well this is completely wrong?
I have so far refrained myself from using the word "lies," so I will settle for "inaccuracies" and “misinformation” for now.
The new taskbar really is something you need to try before you judge it. Thumbnail previews were a gimmick in Vista that I turned off. In 7, they are extremely well-integrated. Together with Aero Peeks they become an intuitive, attractive and efficient way to manage windows.
In OS X, window-management is done by Expose. Superbar is I think, on the whole, better than Expose. Unlike Expose, it is still usable even with many many windows open. The Superbar groups windows under their apps, so if you want a notepad window, you go to notepad. Then to find the window you want, you either read the titles on the thumbnails - which are there without mouseover, unlike Expose - or mouseover and see the windows at full size, again unlike Expose (where they appear small and details are hard to make out).
This behaviour is all very fluid and is really a delight to use. I was surprised how well it works when I tried it out. I think when the features of the Superbar are described in bullet points, its hard to imagine how they fit together, but when you try it, it really makes sense.
Don't get me wrong, I like Expose, but it doesn't deal with lots of windows well. For Expose to be useful, it needs to be used along with CMD + H. Actually the Hide All Windows functionality is one I really like, I hope that Windows 7 has an equivalent.
There a quite a lot of differences in the new Windows 7 taskbar or Superbar comapred to OS X's Dock.
I think this comment from Wikipedia best explains them:
Quote:
I'm running Windows 7 with the new taskbar, and Mac OS X Leopard on the same machine; my opinion is that they aren't really all that similar, except for superficial visual stuff. There are a lot of differences; for example, if you click on an icon of a visible application on the Windows 7 taskbar, the application is hidden. On OS X, the same action does nothing. OS X uses a blue oval underneath an icon to denote that an application is running; Windows 7 draws a box around it, makes the background behind the icon darker, and uses a shadow on the box to give the impression that the box is sitting on top of the taskbar. Windows 7 has a start button, OS X doesn't. OS X minimizes windows to a separate section on the right-hand side of the dock; Windows doesn't. The taskbar extends all the way across the side of a screen; the OS X dock doesn't unless you tell it to. Right-clicking the dock icon of a running application in OS X gives you a menu of commands that you can send to the application; right-clicking the taskbar icon in Windows 7 gives you the same old "Maximize/Minimize/etc/Close" menu that has been on taskbar items since Windows 95. You have to left-click the area to the right of the icon to see these commands in Windows . The Windows 7 taskbar can be configured to show the window's title beside the icon, so that it look and works more like the taskbar in prior versions of Windows; OS X only shows the name of the application if you hover the mouse over an icon. Windows 7 lets you represent each distinct window with a separate icon; OS X doesn't. You can put the trash can on the OS X dock, but you can't put the recycling bin on the taskbar in Windows 7. The Windows 7 taskbar has icons for sound, network and security; OS X puts these sorts of things on the menu bar at the top of the screen. Same with the clock. Oh yeah, and the Windows 7 taskbar can be placed at the top of the screen, but the dock can't. You can resize the OS X dock to any arbitrary size; you can't in Windows 7. The dock in OS X is reflective, the taskbar in Windows 7 has partial transparency but only if you are using the Desktop Window Manager. The dock is centered; the taskbar is left-justified; neither of these are configurable.
I could go on, because there's quite a bit more, but I think I've made my point well enough -- they really aren't that similar. About the only similarities I can see between the OS X dock and the Windows 7 taskbar, is that you click on an icon to start an application, and that icon becomes the running representation of the application. Otherwise, Windows 7 works more or less along the principle of taking the Quick Launch and the taskbar (both of which first appeared in Windows), and mashed them together into one thing.
Comments
As another pointed out, I was simply pointing out that its ironic that Apple users can point the finger and say that Microsoft "stole" something from Apple but if you look at Project Looking Glass, you can see that ideas such as the 3D task bar and Quick look came from there.
You aren't looking far enough back into history. Apple was, and still is, the company leading the way. One can argue that something was done before, but it was Apple that actually did something with the ideas and others followed. If you take an honest look at the evolution of desktop computing you will discover this to be true.
I stand corrected on the Palo Alto example even though most if the references on the net still do say that there are several controversies still about how much Apple copied form PARC (for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_GUI). However this is the kind of discussion I'm looking for in general. Multiple sides are brought out and dissenting views are not immediately "squashed".
It cannot be assumed that a person has read every single post on the site before one can comment. I reacted to the immediate calling of someone "vile" when they were introducing dissenting views to existing dogmas. My apologies for not reading all of his posts on the site and researching his "tendencies".
But my main point was about allowing viewpoints that do not support the existing dogmas. I do believe my point was already proven a, when I was promptly called an anti-Apple zealot for daring to point this out. Maybe I used the wrong tactics (not a thorough research on the examples), but at least it did prove my main point.
Personally I usually vote for innovation and choice. Thus I prefer to champion linux and Apple for the change in the industry they are forcing to occur. But it's a benefit to all if opposing thoughts are encouraged instead of being immediately extinguished. In this particular case I didn't know the background of the post and poster I defended (should I have?). And yes, I took too much at face value.
I do applaud Apples innovation especially in user interfaces and usability. No question about it.
Regs, Jarkko
And I have absolutely no problem with you doing that. It's just as you said, he has been proven wrong several times and still posts here. It's nothing to do with dogma, all to do with his seemingly incessant need to claim what has already been proven otherwise.
Again, I'm by no means claiming there is anything bad about Project Looking Glass. It's a very interesting set of tools, but the tech Apple is using, while possibly influenced by the project, was secured through acquisitions with other companies several years ago. In terms of PARC, though, as I said, it was basically looked at more along the lines of Project Looking Glass, where it could be applied to multiple operating systems, than as a new OS in and of itself. And as a result, Apple made a stock trade with Xerox in order to acquire some of the tech Jobs and others previewed there. Alot of what happened after that point and how much the LISA project diverged from PARC technologies is where the controversies come in (as it's hard to know what exact rights they paid for the use of).
My issues with Microsoft stem not from my adoration for Apple, but from its actions. As you said, Apple and the open source community continue to innovate while Microsoft sits back and simply adopts popular features created by it competitors. For instance, Google desktop was blatantly ripped off when Vista was released. Not only did it work the same and have the same "gadgets," it also looked exactly the same and was even placed on the same spot on the desktop. I also have a huge issue with the fact that no matter how many open source standards become mainstream, Microsoft always feels the need to adopt a proprietary format in order to leverage its market share to squash them.
(1) people have rejected Vista because it is slow and/or buggy
(2) people like the Mac, so it is good to be more like Mac
But what if people are staying with Windows because they know it off by heart (XP has been around since 2001)? In that case, the reason people switched to Mac when Vista came out was not bugginess, but that they were being forced to relearn. If they have to relearn anyway, why not consider switching?
And here they are in Windows 7, forcing people to relearn again, which (if this theory is correct) will create more switchers not less.
And here they are in Windows 7, forcing people to relearn again, which (if this theory is correct) will create more switchers not less.
The only thing they really need to relearn is a few new behaviors. It's still used to launch applications and to switch windows. However, if the user prefers, the user can easily revert to the old Vista-like taskbar behaviors.
http://www.istartedsomething.com/200...super-taskbar/
A Vista-like behavior would be no grouping and with label (and possibly smaller icons), and that's provided in the taskbar properties. You are not forced to use the new taskbar, because the user can just change it back in its properties. However, the new taskbar will be the default after installation. It took me about an hour before becoming familiar with its workflow, although some people might take longer...
Ok, I am going to say this really simple for all the Windows users out there: Microsoft has managed to copy almost everything from OS X. The new taskbar looks identical to the dock in OS X. be original for once microsoft!!
Good, we need something mac-like for the pc. I love Leopard but I have to say, I have been running the beta of windows 7 and it is actually quite stunning and beautiful. It seems that Microstuffed finally cut out some of thge bloat to make it more lean, mean and responsive. The new taskbar is hella useful and I love it much better than the dock!
Good, we need something mac-like for the pc. I love Leopard but I have to say, I have been running the beta of windows 7 and it is actually quite stunning and beautiful. It seems that Microstuffed finally cut out some of thge bloat to make it more lean, mean and responsive. The new taskbar is hella useful and I love it much better than the dock!
What level of hardware are you running it on that it's lean, mean and responsive?
You aren't looking far enough back into history. Apple was, and still is, the company leading the way. One can argue that something was done before, but it was Apple that actually did something with the ideas and others followed. If you take an honest look at the evolution of desktop computing you will discover this to be true.
you mean all the way back to to where xerox was leading the way?
i too wondered about looking glass and how leopard looked a lot like it...
What level of hardware are you running it on that it's lean, mean and responsive?
For me, I'm running Windows 7 on both my netbook and laptop, and the netbook came with XP, and Win7 runs as responsively as XP does on it. That's rather impressive, as it's also has Aero running on it's GMA 950, and I haven't had a single app crash yet. Only issue, was not being able to tap on the trackpad to click, and wireless, but a Windows Update took care of wifi, and I just used the Synaptics Vista driver.
The laptop came with Vista Home Premium SP1, and Win7 is pretty much identical, function-wise, just much faster, which is a good thing. Power management seems improved in Win7 so far too.
I've read of posts, of people getting acceptable performance with Win7 on old PIII's.
Or the claim that, "Resizing the Taskbar neither [this removed part is correct] nor provides more vertical room for organizing Taskbar items (as Windows users might expect)," is provided as true, when any Windows 7 testers know full well a double-height taskbar can include additional items including an address bar if wanted. If anything, the new taskbar provides MORE customizability than Vista and XP - not less as the author implies.
Or the claim that, "You can’t organize icons in vertical rows, making it fairly useless to change the vertical height of the Taskbar." Did the author actually write this, knowing full well this is completely wrong?
I have so far refrained myself from using the word "lies," so I will settle for "inaccuracies" and “misinformation” for now.
you mean all the way back to to where xerox was leading the way?
i too wondered about looking glass and how leopard looked a lot like it...
Xerox sold commercial personal computers?
In OS X, window-management is done by Expose. Superbar is I think, on the whole, better than Expose. Unlike Expose, it is still usable even with many many windows open. The Superbar groups windows under their apps, so if you want a notepad window, you go to notepad. Then to find the window you want, you either read the titles on the thumbnails - which are there without mouseover, unlike Expose - or mouseover and see the windows at full size, again unlike Expose (where they appear small and details are hard to make out).
This behaviour is all very fluid and is really a delight to use. I was surprised how well it works when I tried it out. I think when the features of the Superbar are described in bullet points, its hard to imagine how they fit together, but when you try it, it really makes sense.
Don't get me wrong, I like Expose, but it doesn't deal with lots of windows well. For Expose to be useful, it needs to be used along with CMD + H. Actually the Hide All Windows functionality is one I really like, I hope that Windows 7 has an equivalent.
I think this comment from Wikipedia best explains them:
I'm running Windows 7 with the new taskbar, and Mac OS X Leopard on the same machine; my opinion is that they aren't really all that similar, except for superficial visual stuff. There are a lot of differences; for example, if you click on an icon of a visible application on the Windows 7 taskbar, the application is hidden. On OS X, the same action does nothing. OS X uses a blue oval underneath an icon to denote that an application is running; Windows 7 draws a box around it, makes the background behind the icon darker, and uses a shadow on the box to give the impression that the box is sitting on top of the taskbar. Windows 7 has a start button, OS X doesn't. OS X minimizes windows to a separate section on the right-hand side of the dock; Windows doesn't. The taskbar extends all the way across the side of a screen; the OS X dock doesn't unless you tell it to. Right-clicking the dock icon of a running application in OS X gives you a menu of commands that you can send to the application; right-clicking the taskbar icon in Windows 7 gives you the same old "Maximize/Minimize/etc/Close" menu that has been on taskbar items since Windows 95. You have to left-click the area to the right of the icon to see these commands in Windows . The Windows 7 taskbar can be configured to show the window's title beside the icon, so that it look and works more like the taskbar in prior versions of Windows; OS X only shows the name of the application if you hover the mouse over an icon. Windows 7 lets you represent each distinct window with a separate icon; OS X doesn't. You can put the trash can on the OS X dock, but you can't put the recycling bin on the taskbar in Windows 7. The Windows 7 taskbar has icons for sound, network and security; OS X puts these sorts of things on the menu bar at the top of the screen. Same with the clock. Oh yeah, and the Windows 7 taskbar can be placed at the top of the screen, but the dock can't. You can resize the OS X dock to any arbitrary size; you can't in Windows 7. The dock in OS X is reflective, the taskbar in Windows 7 has partial transparency but only if you are using the Desktop Window Manager. The dock is centered; the taskbar is left-justified; neither of these are configurable.
I could go on, because there's quite a bit more, but I think I've made my point well enough -- they really aren't that similar. About the only similarities I can see between the OS X dock and the Windows 7 taskbar, is that you click on an icon to start an application, and that icon becomes the running representation of the application. Otherwise, Windows 7 works more or less along the principle of taking the Quick Launch and the taskbar (both of which first appeared in Windows), and mashed them together into one thing.
And I certainly don't want to see any more of Daniel Eran Dilger's poorly researched half-baked articles here at AppleInsider.