phatj wrote:

VoxOrion wrote:

phatj wrote:It's going to be a long time before I'm willing to believe that WP7 doesn't suck. Literally the only Microsoft product whose user interface didn't routinely piss me off was Excel prior to v2007, and then they went and added the goddamn retarded ribbons.

Besides, I like the fact that Android is a relatively open platform, with all the warts that brings with it.

This is one of those moments when you realize "Oh crap, I sound like my {insert old man}"

"There was nothing wrong with DOS and function keys, then they added all this mouse $#@! and started treating me like a child with all these pictures and arrows"

I know I sound like that, but here's the thing - I never was a DOS user. My first "real" computer (I played with a TI-99/4A for a while), starting in around 1988, was a Mac, and I was a whiz with that thing. So I'm very comfortable using a mouse. But even with that old Mac, I learned the keyboard shortcuts whenever possible, because Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V (or whatever the Mac equivalents are now; I haven't used Macs regularly since 1993) are way the hell faster than their mouse equivalents. I can run circles around most of the people I work with because I'm super-efficient at the simple stuff. When I started using Windows PCs, I learned to get at all the menu choices without using the mouse as well, as that let me access certain things efficiently even if they didn't have dedicated keyboard shortcuts. But the Ribbons in Office 2007 and later screw that up. Everything that I had memorized no longer works, and a lot of the new equivalent commands take more keystrokes. Makes me want to punch things. Especially if those things are Bill Gates.

/thread highjack

I too find 2007 awkward for lots of things. I can't specifically remember what they are at the moment, but as soon as I try to do one of those things, I'll remember. I don't use excel much, but it does seem like Excel was really fucked up.

I initially found office 2007 to be painful, but about this time last year I committed to using it and now I really like it. The pivot table support is far better in excel 2007 and outlook 2007 allows much more advanced email composition specifically altering images in the program and overlaying lines and boxes. Snagit also integrates pretty awesomely with 2007 as well.

IF you don't like the ribbon, you can minimize it by right clicking on it, I do that in excel, it looks better to me in there.

Windows 7 > Snow Leopard, and you guys know I'm a mac fan.

As for 2007, I got used to that but really hate 2010.

I'm trying to go 100% Google Docs.

meatball wrote:

phatj wrote:It's going to be a long time before I'm willing to believe that WP7 doesn't suck. Literally the only Microsoft product whose user interface didn't routinely piss me off was Excel prior to v2007, and then they went and added the goddamn retarded ribbons.

Besides, I like the fact that Android is a relatively open platform, with all the warts that brings with it.

I hear you. Trust me. But after a day using it I was hooked, against all instincts otherwise. I now use it as my primary phone, and it's hard to go back to Android when I have to.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/16/windows-phone-7-camera-settings-keep-going-to-default-microsoft/#disqus_thread

This is the kind of shit I'm talking about. How fucking obvious is the solution here?

that actually seems reasonable

The Dude wrote:that actually seems reasonable

It would be reasonable if this had to be an either-or decision. But it doesn't.

i just know from experience that i'll take a pic with my phone on weird settings, and later want a regular photo, and have to change the settings. everything is amazing and nobody's happy

The Dude wrote:i just know from experience that i'll take a pic with my phone on weird settings, and later want a regular photo, and have to change the settings.

You can have it both ways. Give the user a box to check or something if he wants to keep the settings for the next time he uses the camera.

The Dude wrote: everything is amazing and nobody's happy

Everything is less amazing when shitty design gets in the way of using it.

idk, not shit design to me. when you change the settings to something weird, you usually don't want them. you're bitching about a minor thing about a phone's camera

the dude, ffs

you're not good at doing that

yea?

waiting for him to bust out an "i'm rubber and you're glue"

The Dude wrote:idk, not $#@! design to me. when you change the settings to something weird, you usually don't want them. you're bitching about a minor thing about a phone's camera

It's shitty design because it's possible to give the user the choice -- have settings revert to defaults unless the user specifies otherwise.

I happen to be an avid amateur photographer. And while a smartphone isn't ever going to replace my main camera, the camera features are important to me and I don't want the software telling me what the best settings are. But more to the point, this kind of baffling UI fuck-up is so typical of Microsoft that it leaves me wondering "what else did they botch?" Even if overall, the interface is really slick, these little things add up.

I guess the point is that most phone either keep the past settings or revert back, and you're bitching like its unique to Microsoft. Seems very petty when reviews are saying its a great PHONE

The Dude wrote:I guess the point is that most phone either keep the past settings or revert back, and you're bitching like its unique to Microsoft. Seems very petty when reviews are saying its a great PHONE

What's unique here is that Microsoft apparently made a conscious choice to handle camera settings differently from most or all other phone manufacturers (or OS designers, perhaps), but did so in a way that didn't actually make it better, when a real improvement was right there, staring them in the face. (That the change wan't an improvement is, of course, my opinion. But I should note that every standalone camera I've ever used retains the settings that were last used when it's first turned on, so presumably most people are accustomed to that. It's certainly true that sometimes, when you take a picture with "weird" settings, you don't want them the next time you take a picture, but it's just as true that sometimes you do.)

This issue probably wouldn't be a deal-breaker to me by itself. But as I said before, this kind of thing is typical of my experience with Microsoft, to the point that I can't help but wonder what other issues lurk beneath the surface of WP7? The reviews rarely mention this kind of thing because they're usually based on a day or two of using the phone. (And as far as the camera issue is concerned, many reviewers may be like you, and not even consider that the change might not be helpful to everyone.)

my new 23 inch HD monitor (connected to my laptop) is amazing.

Ah-maz-ing

aren't the cameras usually a product of the hardware manufacturer and not the OS vendor? My prior WM device (LG) had a different camera than my current (Samsung) although they both ran 6.0 (with the samsung having been upgraded since).

damn tablet - girl should not have to contort her 'control' hand like this:



guess I'm bitchin' about gadgets