Category: Microsoft

i’m not a “windows guy” anymore

whbeebe

I’ve been a Windows user since Windows 1. I still have my Windows 1.03 SDK from the late 1980s, siting in its genuine cardboard box, complete with three-ring binders and 5 1/4″ floppy drives.

I have suffered through every release, including Windows 2, 286, 386, 3.0, 3.1, Windows for Workgroups 3.11, Windows 95/98/ME. I was a beta tester for both Windows NT 3.1 and Windows 95. Along with that cardboard box of Windows 1.03 SDK I have a huge crate filled with every Chicago/Windows 95 beta CDROM Microsoft ever shipped to me. And I faithfully installed every one and reported every problem I ran across. When it was finally released I personally drove down to a local FedEX office to pick up my gold copy. And I drove to Comdex Atlanta in 1995 to be at the local launch party.

And not just a Windows user, but a Windows developer, using Borland’s tools (Turbo Basic and C) through the Microsoft tools (VB, C, C++, etc), Java, Eclipse, and on and on. I used it, helped sell it, developed on it, and supported it across many decades.

With NT I have installed an run every single release and service pack since Windows NT 3.1, with the notable exception of Vista. I skipped from Windows XP to Windows 7. When Windows 8 came out I actually bought a full-blow Samsung 17″ notebook with Windows 8 installed. I loved it, far better than any previous release of Windows. And then a funny thing happened.

The majority of Windows users decided they didn’t like Windows 8, especially the start screen. No matter that it was dead simple to set it up to navigate between it and he desktop with mouse and keyboard, in spite of what its detractors said. The dissing of Windows 8 got so bad that Steven Sinofsky left Microsoft (quit or fired, it doesn’t matter). And Windows 8 began to change, to move back to what had come before in earlier releases. Microsoft went from being a leader to being a mere follower of public whim.

But I kept faithfully upgrading my Samsung through all the Windows 8 updates to Windows 8.1, and then when Windows 10 came out I upgraded to that. I even upgraded the 1TB spinning HD on the Samsung to a 1TB SDD, a Samsung 850 Pro. The change to SDD was amazing and breathed new life into the system as a whole.

A funny thing happened during the transition to Windows 10. Maybe it was the forty years of continuous Windows exposure (even more if you consider DOS before that). Maybe it was how Microsoft transitioned from Windows 8 to Windows 10. Or how Windows 10 just feels, well, odd. But within a month of upgrading to Windows 10 I bought my current Macbook Pro, and that’s the system I now turn to for day-to-day work as well as anything of significance. I still have the Samsung because it still has a number of important (“legacy”) applications and data I bring up from time to time. And I still faithfully power it on at least once/month to pick up the latest OS and Microsoft application updates. But all my interesting creative work (with the notable exception of Lightroom and photography) is done on my Mac, and special work with my Raspberry Pi is done with (ironically) an even older Samsung notebook running Ubuntu 15.10.

I’ve read the critics of Mac OS X complain rather noisily about how poorly it currently runs, but based on my experiences with all three (Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux), I find I turn to the Mac for nearly everything. It has its quirks to be sure, but every OS does.

I like where the Mac and OS X are at. Far better than where Windows 10 seems to be headed. If there was one word that summed up my overall feelings about the Mac and OS X, it would be quality. Windows 8 had it. Windows 10, not so much. The Mac is my insurance against the strange path Microsoft has plotted and seems to be headed down, a path I’m not comfortable following myself. I’m not accusing Microsoft of some sort of evil and nefarious plot like other noisy critics have cried and seem to continue to cry out. I’m just not all that crazy about it anymore. For me, if I want to do commercial OS development and support I can turn to Linux, and for the more complex work, I can turn to Mac OS X, which is a nice balance between standard Microsoft Office workflow and Unix/Linux tools and philosophy. Odd things are happening at Microsoft and as a consequence to Windows. Mac OS X is my safe harbor against the unknown and unknowable happening in Redmond.

portable bluetooth keyboard for the iphone

whbeebe


Today during lunch I stopped by a big-box store and picked up the Microsoft Universal Foldable Keyboard for $99. I wrote a few posts back about wanting to find a portable Bluetooth keyboard that would work flawlessly with my iPhone and allow me to shift my creative writing urges as much as possible to my iPhone, especially while on the go. A highly portable keyboard such as Microsoft’s is key to this, as trying to type complex post entries quickly and efficiently using the on-screen keyboard is an exercise in sadistic futility.

Having had the keyboard for several hours, this is certainly no in-depth review. But based on what little experience I’ve had so far (writing this entry), it looks to be a solid keeper. It took less than 30 seconds to pair the keyboard with the phone. I like the fact that the keyboard folds up in the middle as you can see by the vertical indentation on the keyboard as well as the illustration on the box. Once folded it slips into my jean’s front pocket along with my iPhone.

Using the keyboard motivates me to stick to using the phone’s camera as much as possible. I took the photo of the keyboard, post-processed it with Snapseed on the phone, then used the WordPress app to upload the final image from my camera roll into the post. The keyboard allows me to quickly write out the post within the app. It takes more time to try and explain the actions than it does to actually perform them.

The only other item I really need to carry with the phone and keyboard are chargers for the phone and keyboard. The con about the keyboard is it requires a micro USB connector to charge. The mitigating pro is that it lasts for three months between charges. Still it would be nice if the power connector matched the iPhone’s lightening connector. As it is I’ll carry the Apple wall-wart and two cables to plug into it, one for the iPhone and the other for the keyboard.

I’ve more experimenting to do with this combination, such as building a post with photos interspersed with text. So far, with this style of WordPress post layout, the universal foldable keyboard is the bee’s knees.

Update Today

I’m not quite so enamored with the WordPress app. Several problems have reared their ugly little heads:

  1. I couldn’t push out a link to this post on either Google+ or Twitter. The controls on the app are there to do this, but when I tried to send out the link I was presented with a login screen for both that wouldn’t allow me to log in. I find this annoying as I’m already logged into both services through their respective apps, as well as being logged into WordPress via the WordPress app.
  2. When it uploaded the lead photo of the keyboard it left it in an odd state. Normally I keep everything at a 500 px width and center aligned, going back in with the web browser editor to adjust both later as needed. When I tried to do that just now I couldn’t set a custom width. I eventually deleted the photo and re-inserted it from my media storage again. Then I was able to adjust it’s width.

I may need to look for an alternative to the WordPress app. More to come…

Update Today #2

It didn’t take long, like ten minutes, for me to discover there are no other real alternatives to the WordPress app on iOS. Maybe if I ask the WordPress folks nicely I can get a copy of the app’s code and make the fixes myself.