Derek Currie
2006-01-05 20:50:18 UTC
<http://www.nytimes.com/circuitsemail>
This afternoon the great David Pogue posted the following Circuits email
feature to subscribers. Mr. Pogue apparently made one error in his
article regarding 'window miniatures' in the new version of IE. I have
written him with the information I have posted after the article.
Share and Enjoy!
:-Derek
-----------
Gates Unveils Next Version of Windows
Last night was opening night of CES, the Consumer Electronics Show that
packs 2,500 companies' booths into several million square feet of Las
Vegas exhibition space. I've agreed to walk all of it over the next four
days.
The highlight of opening night--OK, the only light--was the annual
keynote presentation by Bill Gates and his team. The talk opened with
mocked-up demos of the wizzy future, like Bill sitting down before a
triptych of 30-inch computer monitors that, as in the movie "Minority
Report," appeared to be nothing more than sheets of clear acrylic.
Everything in the future, we're assured, will work smoothly together,
never crash and never get viruses.
Then there was much self-congratulation about sales of the XBox, Media
Centers and other Microsoft initiatives. Overall, the keynote was long
on buzzwords (if the Microsofties said "functionality" or "compelling
content" ONE MORE TIME...) and short on humor; even the traditional
hilarious Bill-Gates-in-Vegas video was absent this year.
The best part was a demonstration of Windows Vista, the next version of
Windows, which Microsoft still says it will ship before the end of 2006.
The audience in the standing-room-only auditorium was treated to a show
of some features that hadn't been previously demonstrated. Here's an
annotated blow-by-blow:
* Transparent window edges. Well, it's true that Vista looks nicer than
any previous version of Windows. But I'm just not sure about the value
of transparent window edges. They're cool, sure; but exactly how many
times, in your work life, have you muttered, "Darn! If only I could see
just the part of the background window that's currently obscured by the
1/3-inch margin of the foreground window"?
* Widgets. Vista will let you summon, at the right edge of the screen,
widgets: single-purpose, single-window little programs. One's an egg
timer, one's a news ticker, and so on. It's a lot like the Dashboard in
Mac OS X (or the shareware Konfabulator that came before it), except
that apparently, you can't put the widgets anywhere on the screen you
like.
* 3-D application switcher. With a keystroke, Vista can present you with
a stacked deck of every window that's open on your machine, making it
easier to hunt through them for one particular window. It's a lot like
the Expose feature in Mac OS X, except that you don't get to see all of
the windows simultaneously; you have to walk through them one at a time
with the mouse or keyboard.
* Global, fast search. Vista can now find words in any of your files,
quickly and easily, just like the Spotlight feature of Mac OS X.
* Photo organization. Some limited photo editing is now built into
Vista's photo browser, which couldn't look more like Apple's iPhoto
program if you ran it through a copying machine.
If I seem to be laying on the "stolen from Apple" language a bit thick,
you're darned right. Ordinarily, I'm careful about making accusations
like this, because I know I'll get hammered by Apple bashers. But in
this case, there's not a shred of doubt: most of the features Microsoft
demonstrated last night were pure, unadulterated ripoffs from Mac OS X.
I could hear actual whispers of recognition from the audience around me.
Does it matter? Not really. The courts have established that you can't
copyright a software idea (only its code); besides, Apple occasionally
helps itself to Microsoft's ideas, too. Truth is, I use both Mac OS X
and Windows, and I'll be happy to have these features on both platforms.
Besides, there were a few Vista features that Microsoft apparently
dreamed up all by itself:
* Sideshow. This ("sideshow," not "slideshow") is an optional feature of
future, Vista-compatible laptops: an external L.C.D. screen that lets
you look up, for example, your calendar without actually having to boot
the thing up. Sideshow was displayed only briefly and without much
explanation, so that's about all we know.
* Slideshows with movies. The new Vista photo browser won't just show
still photos; it will also integrate your camera's video clips into the
slideshows.
* Stacks. In the new Windows Media Player, when you sort by Genre, your
albums' icons appear as piles of album covers, neatly grouped by kind of
music.
* Thumbnail tabbed browsing. Internet Explorer will finally get tabbed
browsing (a feature that Firefox, Safari and other browsers have had for
years), in which you can keep multiple Web pages open at once, all in
the same window; you switch from one to the next by clicking little
file-folder tabs at the top. But in the Vista browser, you can also view
all your tabbed Web pages as window miniatures, so that you can jump to
one according to what it looks like (rather than just its name). A great
idea.
Anyway, all of this will be nice to have, if it works and doesn't
require us all to buy new computers to run it.
But I think that what most people want from the next Windows isn't more
stuff added, but rather stuff to be taken away--like crashes, lockups,
viruses, error messages and security holes.
-------------------
Derek sez: In the paragraph above called '* Thumbnail tabbed browsing'
Mr. Pogue apparently was not aware of the 'window miniatures' feature
having originated in the Mac OS X application OmniWeb by the OmniGroup.
Without having yet seen screen shots of this new IE feature, I have to
say that this is another Vista feature imitated from the Mac. To access
this feature in OmniWeb: Open a window. In the upper left corner is an
icon that lets you open the tabbed browsing sidebar drawer. At the top
of the sidebar drawer are two button icons that let you choose to view
your tabbed windows as a list, or as window miniatures, meaning that you
see miniature versions of each window in the sidebar.
As Mr. Pogue has points out, Apple is now resigned to being ripped off,
and has turned the tables by doing some ripping off of their own. Such
as, um, uh, oh yeah, you can swiftly change between user accounts using
a menu bar icon in the Finder. It has this great 3D cube effect when
changing desktops, something Microsoft has not yet imitated.
This afternoon the great David Pogue posted the following Circuits email
feature to subscribers. Mr. Pogue apparently made one error in his
article regarding 'window miniatures' in the new version of IE. I have
written him with the information I have posted after the article.
Share and Enjoy!
:-Derek
-----------
Gates Unveils Next Version of Windows
Last night was opening night of CES, the Consumer Electronics Show that
packs 2,500 companies' booths into several million square feet of Las
Vegas exhibition space. I've agreed to walk all of it over the next four
days.
The highlight of opening night--OK, the only light--was the annual
keynote presentation by Bill Gates and his team. The talk opened with
mocked-up demos of the wizzy future, like Bill sitting down before a
triptych of 30-inch computer monitors that, as in the movie "Minority
Report," appeared to be nothing more than sheets of clear acrylic.
Everything in the future, we're assured, will work smoothly together,
never crash and never get viruses.
Then there was much self-congratulation about sales of the XBox, Media
Centers and other Microsoft initiatives. Overall, the keynote was long
on buzzwords (if the Microsofties said "functionality" or "compelling
content" ONE MORE TIME...) and short on humor; even the traditional
hilarious Bill-Gates-in-Vegas video was absent this year.
The best part was a demonstration of Windows Vista, the next version of
Windows, which Microsoft still says it will ship before the end of 2006.
The audience in the standing-room-only auditorium was treated to a show
of some features that hadn't been previously demonstrated. Here's an
annotated blow-by-blow:
* Transparent window edges. Well, it's true that Vista looks nicer than
any previous version of Windows. But I'm just not sure about the value
of transparent window edges. They're cool, sure; but exactly how many
times, in your work life, have you muttered, "Darn! If only I could see
just the part of the background window that's currently obscured by the
1/3-inch margin of the foreground window"?
* Widgets. Vista will let you summon, at the right edge of the screen,
widgets: single-purpose, single-window little programs. One's an egg
timer, one's a news ticker, and so on. It's a lot like the Dashboard in
Mac OS X (or the shareware Konfabulator that came before it), except
that apparently, you can't put the widgets anywhere on the screen you
like.
* 3-D application switcher. With a keystroke, Vista can present you with
a stacked deck of every window that's open on your machine, making it
easier to hunt through them for one particular window. It's a lot like
the Expose feature in Mac OS X, except that you don't get to see all of
the windows simultaneously; you have to walk through them one at a time
with the mouse or keyboard.
* Global, fast search. Vista can now find words in any of your files,
quickly and easily, just like the Spotlight feature of Mac OS X.
* Photo organization. Some limited photo editing is now built into
Vista's photo browser, which couldn't look more like Apple's iPhoto
program if you ran it through a copying machine.
If I seem to be laying on the "stolen from Apple" language a bit thick,
you're darned right. Ordinarily, I'm careful about making accusations
like this, because I know I'll get hammered by Apple bashers. But in
this case, there's not a shred of doubt: most of the features Microsoft
demonstrated last night were pure, unadulterated ripoffs from Mac OS X.
I could hear actual whispers of recognition from the audience around me.
Does it matter? Not really. The courts have established that you can't
copyright a software idea (only its code); besides, Apple occasionally
helps itself to Microsoft's ideas, too. Truth is, I use both Mac OS X
and Windows, and I'll be happy to have these features on both platforms.
Besides, there were a few Vista features that Microsoft apparently
dreamed up all by itself:
* Sideshow. This ("sideshow," not "slideshow") is an optional feature of
future, Vista-compatible laptops: an external L.C.D. screen that lets
you look up, for example, your calendar without actually having to boot
the thing up. Sideshow was displayed only briefly and without much
explanation, so that's about all we know.
* Slideshows with movies. The new Vista photo browser won't just show
still photos; it will also integrate your camera's video clips into the
slideshows.
* Stacks. In the new Windows Media Player, when you sort by Genre, your
albums' icons appear as piles of album covers, neatly grouped by kind of
music.
* Thumbnail tabbed browsing. Internet Explorer will finally get tabbed
browsing (a feature that Firefox, Safari and other browsers have had for
years), in which you can keep multiple Web pages open at once, all in
the same window; you switch from one to the next by clicking little
file-folder tabs at the top. But in the Vista browser, you can also view
all your tabbed Web pages as window miniatures, so that you can jump to
one according to what it looks like (rather than just its name). A great
idea.
Anyway, all of this will be nice to have, if it works and doesn't
require us all to buy new computers to run it.
But I think that what most people want from the next Windows isn't more
stuff added, but rather stuff to be taken away--like crashes, lockups,
viruses, error messages and security holes.
-------------------
Derek sez: In the paragraph above called '* Thumbnail tabbed browsing'
Mr. Pogue apparently was not aware of the 'window miniatures' feature
having originated in the Mac OS X application OmniWeb by the OmniGroup.
Without having yet seen screen shots of this new IE feature, I have to
say that this is another Vista feature imitated from the Mac. To access
this feature in OmniWeb: Open a window. In the upper left corner is an
icon that lets you open the tabbed browsing sidebar drawer. At the top
of the sidebar drawer are two button icons that let you choose to view
your tabbed windows as a list, or as window miniatures, meaning that you
see miniature versions of each window in the sidebar.
As Mr. Pogue has points out, Apple is now resigned to being ripped off,
and has turned the tables by doing some ripping off of their own. Such
as, um, uh, oh yeah, you can swiftly change between user accounts using
a menu bar icon in the Finder. It has this great 3D cube effect when
changing desktops, something Microsoft has not yet imitated.
--
"To create a new standard it takes something that's not just a little bit
different. It takes something that's really new and really captures people's
imagination. And the Macintosh, of all the machines I have ever seen, is the
only one that meets that standard." -Bill Gates
"To create a new standard it takes something that's not just a little bit
different. It takes something that's really new and really captures people's
imagination. And the Macintosh, of all the machines I have ever seen, is the
only one that meets that standard." -Bill Gates
