ericch1

Shining Arcanine wrote:

The entire reason why you're hovering over it is because you want a closer look at it, not because you're going through one photo at a time. I think that the automatic enlargement is an excellent feature. For people that don't, Microsoft could have an option that controls how big the photo gets and perhaps an option to turn it off.

Yes I agree the reason why you're hovering over a photo is because you want a closer look, but do you ever want to just look at a single picture? Typically, even in this app, pictures are grouped together because they are related somehow. It could be that they are related by date, or because they are pictures of the same trip. How do you know if you want a closer look at the next picture if you don't even know what the next one is?

Look at the current My Pictures implementation in XP, nothing is ever obscured. Look at the Filmstrip view of the pictures, the design puts the larger image above the smaller one, making sure the user can easily determine whether they want a larger view of the next one. Granted the current "My Pictures" implementation is not as "cool" as this one, it does get the job done simply and easily. If you have ever seen a non-techie use a computer, that's ALL they care about. They don't care about the flashy graphics or the smooth transitions, they only care that they can look at their pictures simply and quickly. Do you want to try to explain to your grandfather how the pictures map to surfaces of cubes that get translated and rotated at a certain angle then finally sheared to provide this perspective view?

I like this implementation. I like the fancy transitions and the nice 3d effects. I hope the scripting engine stays so I can write scripts to provide my own fancy layouts and transitions. But then I'm a developer like most people on this site. However, I have met too many non-tech people out there to know that they just don't care about all the fany features. They want something simple, quick, and in the end gets the job done. Anything beyond these goals just make the job more difficult and detracts from the overall experience.

This app is very cool, but I am skeptical about how usable it is. I realize this is just a research app, but here's my opinions on its usability.

For example, when you hover over a photo, the photo highlights and gets bigger... but how about the photos next to it? The single huge picture obscures all the pictures around it! Typically when I look at a single picture, I also want to look at its surrounding pictures. Obscuring the surrounding pictures make it difficult for me to determine whether I care about the next picture to highlight it too or just to skip it. The current implementation would force me to highlight the next picture just to determine whether I care about it or not. 

The transitions are very cool, nice work! However, I also hope there is a way to disable transitions. If I want to do something quick, transitions only make the process longer and more tedious.

Overall I think the app is cool and has potential. However more UI studies would make it even better imo. I have similar complaints about Picasa too, so it's not that I don't like this app, I just like better designed apps.

These are some really great features.  I have some asian friends who would definitely buy a Tablet PC for this feature alone.  If anyone has ever tried to type an asian language using the keyboard know how difficult it is.. having the ability to write it in will make life so much simpler!

Thanks for the video!

Wow, great video as always! I can't wait to get my own CE sewing machine to make my own T-shirts logos! Hopefully it will be less expensive than that picture frame... ouch!

Is it me or did Lenn get off where he got on?

I've been to the main Microsoft Campus multiple times and each time I visit I am more and more impressed. It's definitely a huge place.  Essentially I think of it as a college campus: lots of buildings and lots of smart people walking around, talking about the latest and greatest technology.

I also agree with the other comments, her response is definitelly well thought out and makes sense.  She gives some good insight into what goes on in fixing a bug report. The proactive response by Microsoft is also something good to hear. 

I'm a bit hesitant about the firewall being turned on by default in SP2 though (meaning I'll probably get tons of calls from friends/relatives asking why something's not working...), but if it's implemented properly, I also think it's a good thing.

Also my video quality is ok.

I am definitely one of those who love the command line. Yes the GUI is nice, but sometimes the command prompt is just easier and faster. There definitely is no "DOS days" in my opinion. The command prompt has always been there and should always be there in the future too.