Re: What are Vista's problems.. really?

"ed" <news@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> stated in post
2118f02f-46db-4b64-88f4-6a5fa8f5fe75@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx on 11/3/08
9:29 PM:

On Nov 3, 5:00 pm, Snit <use...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"ed" <n...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> stated in post
cb4a68b0-9038-4381-8fb1-2e528f377...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx on 11/3/08
5:39 PM:

On Nov 3, 4:02 pm, Snit <use...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Daniel Johnson" <danieljohns...@xxxxxxxxxxx> stated in post
<snip>
It is true it has a lot of dialogs that do very little if any good - and
clearly disrupt work.

statements like that are a clear indicator of someone that has not
done anything other than play with vista a little bit- from my
experience, the uac dialogs are a pain when you first set up a system
(i imagine that's a big part of the reason it got so much flack in
reviews- it's on a new install / new system); after you have your
settings the way you want, there simply aren't that many uac dialogs.

it also doesn't hurt that some software that required higher
priviledges than they needed have been reworked to be better behaved.

Why do you always start your replies being snide... trying to sound holier
than thou.  And then you deny it.  As you will do now.  :)

i 'deny' because i 'disagree', as you 'deny' in such instances.
there's nothing deragatory about my reply- it's my experience that
those who complain about uac either have limited, or NO, experience
with vista. but what *i* wonder is why you always reply to my replies
by trying to start a meta discussion rather than discussing the
topic. and no, i won't engage in a meta discussion beyond this reply,
and attempts to do so will be snipped and ignored, at which point you
will likely try to claim i'm snipping and running, but i won't be
baited. :P

If you can actually stay on topic and not focus on your views of myself and
others I would appreciate it. And when you slip I think it is great that
you will snip that out...

I have been quite clear with my personal experience with Vista.  

yes, you clearly state your experience is limited, in support of what
i said above, so i don't know why you think what i said was snide. :P

You implied that I should take your word over the many, many other people
who I have talked to about Vista... and my own personal experience. But,
again, please stop focusing on people and focus on the topic. Are you able?

And I have
been quite clear about talking to *many* people about it.  

many people- which you've said were your students. and you've
previously said many of your students are... beginners.

This semester, actually, most of my students are not. But many are. I also
talk to coworkers in both formal and informal settings. Oh, and I have
talked to the IT folks as to why they have opted to skip over Vista (but
not, for example, Office 2007 or OS X 10.5).

Remember, I teach computer classes - do you think people's experience with
Vista does not come up?  I hear people often talk about how annoying the
dialogs are -

and you've said that you largely teach beginners. who by definition, have
little experience. again, validating my statements. :P

Beginners can have a lot of experience with the system they are using...
but, again, you are leaving the topic behind to talk about people. The
topic, if you recall, is *Vista*, not your views of people.

and I understand basic cognetics.

I don't know what you mean here; if you are referring to UAC, well, that
seems to have done a world of good. Remember how you had to run as an
administrator to make many apps work? That's history now.

That's more than "very little good" right there.

There are a bunch of dialogs that do little but disrupt work and build bad
habits of ignoring dialogs.  It is against cognetics research.

well, the "do little" is largely to enhance security, and it *seems* to be
working- i can't recall any large scale social-engineering type malware
being an issue like it was on xp...  of course that could be users getting
more sophisticated in general...

Curious: do you even know what cognetics is?

i'm familiar with the term as used in raskin's book, but not beyond that.
you?

I have done some research on it and used it in my own studies of GUI
usability, especially in areas of human attention and how people interact
with dialogs and other screen elements (mostly dialogs, though, in what I
have looked at).

It is true that much software and hardware did not work with it... and
might not still (I do not have it or use it... so I am not sure).

That is indeed a problem for Vista. This kind of thing can really impede
uptake- but it remains to be seen if it will actually ever do so. It's
still too soon to expect a lot business uptake as yet, but if anyone will
avoid Vista for compatibility reasons, it will be the business market.

I know many large businesses are not planning on going to Vista... waiting
for Windows 7.  What other version of Windows has been so heavily
skipped... other than ME.  

businesses often take a long time to migrate to newer versions of software
to begin with and with windows 7 (supposedly) coming with a relatively quick
release after vista, it's just about guranteed there are more businesses
that are not going to go vista no matter what they think of it.  we just
upgraded company wide to xp within the last couple years for example- that
doesn't mean the corporate it folks didn't like xp or had problems with it-
there just wasn't really any need.  if we were a mac house, i could almost
gurantee we'd be on 10.3.x or 10.4.x.  that says nothing about how good or
bad 10.5.x is.


You ignored my question.  Oh, and the college where I work: 10.5 and XP.  No
plans for Vista.  This is common.

the question is largely irrelevant without context. when did the
company you work for upgrade to xp, what was the decision to upgrade
based on, and what testing was done before the upgrade?

They did extensive testing with, at least, the core software needed in each
class... and they did their own internal usability studies. They found,
with Vista, that their were incompatibilities with classroom software and
drivers and that it would be likely to lead to usability problems. I do not
have their reports. :)

--
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments
that take our breath away.



.

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