William Kempf
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Ping 140: Hyper-V on Technet, Wordament, Nook, Windows Phone Marketplace
May 08, 2012 at 12:19 PMIs that a Win8 tablet Eric is using here?
Windows Phone Minute: Group your pals
Mar 29, 2012 at 1:10 PMYeah, the problem here is there's an arbitrary and rather constrained limit of 20 contacts that can be added to a group. This would be a killer feature, if not for that limit.
Hot Apps: Toy Soldiers Booot Camp, Flashlight-X Pro, BuildDown, MealTimer, Puzzle Time
Mar 28, 2012 at 7:18 AMFlashlight programs can be very worth it, when done well. The do a lot more than just turn your screen white. However, when there's already free versions available that are better...
Defrag: Admin Accounts, Block Sizes, PerfView
Jan 11, 2012 at 7:30 AMInteresting that you talk on the show about crapware, but despite saying "we're on the same page" I still don't think you get it. It's not bad that you allow OEMs to install this crapware (and to be fair, as you say on the show the term crapware isn't necessarily an indication of the usefulness or quality of the software, but if the owner of the PC isn't going to use it, it's crap). In fact there's a lot of this crapware that's very useful to some people and I've known people that have complained when they buy a new PC that didn't include some specific crapware that was included in their previous PC purchase. So forget the idea that we're asking Microsoft to prevent OEMs from installing this stuff.
The issue is with removing it. You spent quite a bit of time explaining how you often can't just run add/remove programs to get rid of this stuff properly. Instead you search the Internet for a standalone uninstaller and use that. THAT IS WRONG ON SO MANY LEVELS. You can't expect the average user to do this. Washing your hands by saying "everyone has a goto tech support friend or family member" is not a good answer. Even for those of us who can (and do) deal with this issue, it's still wrong. What should be a 30 second fix requires several minutes or sometimes even more if it's difficult to find an uninstaller. When the solution to all of this is so simple (don't give the OEM a Windows Logo if they install software that doesn't cleanly uninstall from add/remove programs) all of these excuses and "we understand" remarks (when I'm not sure you actually do) are infurating.
I realize you don't have the power to fix this problem, and in many ways I'm preaching to the choir here. But the responses on this topic have still been "lacking" as a polite euphamism.
Defrag: So You Just Got a New PC
Jan 05, 2012 at 7:10 AM@LarryLarsen: I think you misunderstood me. I didn't say you shouldn't have to uninstall apps. I understand the need for OEMs to install this crapware. However, I shouldn't have to be an expert and spend significant effort to uninstall the apps. Add/remove programs should "just work". Microsoft shouldn't provide the Windows logo for machines that install crapware that can't be easily removed this way.
The signature stuff is fine, but not everyone has access to a Microsoft store, and more importantly any machine that has a Windows logo should be held to a higher standard than it is today. It doesn't give Microsoft a good image when machines come with software that causes performance isues and/or the average user can't remove. If Microsoft doesn't solve this, eventually people will speak with their wallet... they'll by non-Windows machines.
Defrag: So You Just Got a New PC
Jan 04, 2012 at 11:14 AMMicrosoft needs to solve the crapware issue. I understand the OEM's "need" to sell "space" to other vendors in order to make a profit here, and I'm not suggesting that there need to be a policy that disallows this practice. Rather, what needs fixing is the problem with REMOVING this crapware. You can't expect most users to be able to do what's talked about in this video. Even those of us that can, we shouldn't have to. It's way too much work. A solution to this problem that Microsoft could enforce:
1. OEMs can only install software that's been certified.
2. Certified software has to provide a clean uninstall process through add/remove programs.
3. Reinstallation images must exactly match the installation originally found on the system (can't tell you the number of times I've seen different crapware and even drivers between the image on the system and the image on the disc/restore partition).
In other words, the OEM can include the crapware, but removing it should be as simple as running add/remove programs.
On another topic, The Brain looks great, but OneNote REALLY should include this type of functionality. Outlining and linking are great, but mind mapping is a technique used by most creative folks and OneNote suffers from not being able to do this.
Announcing the Official Release of Rx!
Jun 29, 2011 at 11:27 AMWhat about Tasks for 2008?
Hot Apps: Sonic 4, Robozzle, Career Tips, Chicken Implosion, TatZooom
Jun 29, 2011 at 6:45 AMChannel 9 is not a developer site. Further, Hot Apps has been a weekly show for quite some time, so it's kind of silly to start complaining about it now.
A Quick Look At "Windows 8"
Jun 03, 2011 at 12:42 PM@Tom Servo: Nothing has been said to indicate this, and in fact there's plenty of information to suggest otherwise. I doubt that HTML/JavaScript will be the only way to write "immersive" applications in Win8. Like I said, this is not what concerns me. What concerns me is:
1. Microsof is once again very bad at communicating.
2. HTML/JavaScript even as an option is, to me, a pretty clear indication that Microsoft just doesn't "get it". It's a waste of resources and time better spent elsewhere.
A Quick Look At "Windows 8"
Jun 03, 2011 at 7:52 AMThis summarizes my problem fairly well. I'm not concerned that WPF/Silverlight/AnythingElse will be dropped. They obviously won't be. I'm also not concerned with whether or not they are the "premier" technology, as that mostly shouldn't matter in choosing what to use (though it can mean problems with things like supporting new features). What bothers me is the fact that HTML/JavaScript is a ("new") story here.
HTML/JavaScript are not good technical choices here. People use HTML/JavaScript because that's what the Web is built on, and so it gives you reach. Even then, there's plenty of reasons to make other choices (i.e. desktop applications or "browser plugin" solutions like Silverlight or Flash), and many of us do. Trying to use HTML/JavaScript for building applications outside of the Web has been tried several times (even by Microsoft) and it has always failed. There's a reason for this. HTML is a document centric language and does very poorly when designing other types of user interfaces. To work around this you have to bolt on other things, like XUL or SVG and Canvas and do a lot more work. Meanwhile, JavaScript is a dynamic language well suited to quick and simple tasks, but horribly suited to larger and/or more complex applications. I've done this, and I'm not going to willingly do it again. It's very much like driving a nail with a screwdriver... you can do it, but not without a lot of effort and pain.
I understood the push towards HTML/JavaScript when it started, because it was about web development. Becoming more standards compliant and providing better tooling and libraries for web development is a very good thing. However, if this strategy is bleeding (again) into trying to push HTML/JavaScript into the "desktop" then I firmly believe Microsoft is losing their way, and are likely to lose their "Developers! Developers!" along with it.
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