It seems that Microsoft’s all-in-one strategy on support for different devices is still progressing. Windows 8 will have interfaces for both the desktop and touchscreen devices. This is akin to how Windows Media Center works. This model must have an unusual level of attraction to Microsoft due to the large base of existing applications, but it makes assumption that you’d want to use all the applications on all the devices, if only you could — that may turn out not to be right.

Microsoft has for years tried to get into mobile devices. Here you see Bill Gates really uncomfortable with the notion that Apple has succeeded more than Microsoft in this space. He is not wrong, since for a time Windows phones and tablets were the only ones out there, while Apple’s Newton was forgotten memory. Those devices either used a slightly modified Windows OS or one that copied all of its metaphors. The latest Windows phones are an exception, but with Windows 8, it will no longer be. It cannot be disputed that there are important applications that do not exist on mobile devices (currently), and therefore mobile devices are not complete (currently). So people argue that mobile devices will be full-fledged computers or desktops will not die. The idea of a dual interface seems to be aimed in this direction. However, a third possibility exists. Applications, after all, merely solve real life problems. They are not themselves holy. If there were a different way of accomplishing the same things, the applications could be replaced. One could argue that data is the rather more holy object. Back to this later.
(Read the article)

Comments(0)

I went ahead and installed it. Windows 7 is compelling, but still, it has been overhyped.

Good:

1. I get the impression that most reviews became enamored with the new task bar, which, while compelling and does save a lot of time, is not entirely critical to me.
2. If the tablet functions of Vista were its only must-have features, then the alternate input improvements are the key selling points of Windows 7 for me. Here we have much improved Chinese handwriting recognition and speech recognition (in particular, dictation) in multiple languages. These have passed the critical threshold of being useable and indeed I can say they are better than keyboard input. That is no small feat.
3. Math input panel, as mentioned previously, is not quite up to par yet, but I can see a lot of potential. While it is faster than typing straight LaTeX, it is not faster than LyX. But for labeling figures, this is perhaps useful.
4. PowerShell, i.e. Monad, is beautiful.
5. The volume controller has been restored to usefulness, with audio loopback for devices now possible.
6. Libraries could be a very useful feature, but seems to be lacking something that helps ease their management.
7. Per-file versioning (from system restore) should be very helpful.

Bad:

(Read the article)

Comments(0)

To get IR remote working, use:

June 2006 update for MCE 2005 Rollup 2

Comments(0)

This tuner card kind of sucks, but it is supposed to work with Windows Media Center Edition 2005.

It doesn’t work out of the box, though. The way to get it to work is to install the following:

1. The driver, version 1.20.45, from nVidia
2. Forceware Multimedia 3.62 from XFX (with these two, the card will work with nVidia provided applications)
3. April 2006 update for MCE 2005 Rollup 2 (that makes the card work under MCE)

It still craps out occasionally, but it works. Image quality is pretty good.

Edit: Wow, a couple of days playing with MCE made me realize that PC’s these days can be woken from hibernation on schedule programmatically — that’s right, hibernation, not standby, and that’s right, by software, not via wake-on-hardware. I wonder how that happens… I gotta try this on an older PC now to see if it works there, too.

Comments(1)