---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <mjackson74@...> wrote : So how do ya like Windows 8.1 - soon to be replaced by Windows 10?
It is not as bad as I thought. I avoided it because ergonomic specialist Jakob Nielsen http://www.nngroup.com/articles/windows-8-disappointing-usability/ felt it had a confusing Jekyll and Hyde interface, which is true. But for $100 and needing a tablet, I could not refuse, and I had tested Win8 in a Windows store a number of times, so I was familiar enough with the quirks before buying in. On the cheap tablet, it loads on an SSD faster than Windows seven on my desktop by a factor of four at least. If you add a third party utility, you can restore a Windows 7 start menu or classic Windows start menus. On a touch screen if you swipe from the left side of the screen you can run through all the open applications quickly. The desktop is pretty much like Windows 7 except for the missing start menu, which as I said there are applications for. Win8 is more secure than previous versions. I am mostly using a few desktop apps on the tablet avoiding the regular touch interface apps because there is less control on what kind of data they are collecting, so I am getting used to tiny text and hitting tiny buttons on a 7-inch screen mostly using the desktop. I try to keep a small Internet footprint. As a touch tablet, I like the Nexus 7 but mine died - dropped it a couple of timea, but also a number of people had problems with the Nexus with Android OS updates that drained battery power or boot failure, which I experienced, so I don't know if the physical damage or problems with the OS is why mine will no longer boot. There is a third generation of the Nexus 7 due sometime. I do not use a smartphone and really do not like tiny screens, but 7-inch is good for me as it is still fairly easy to carry about but not too large, is about the size of a paperback book. If I plan to read books a lot, I will take a Kindle as the battery lasts much much longer, but I do use Kindle apps on Android and Windows. I have yet to uninstall the Windows crapware that comes with it, but the maker of the tablet did not install any of their own fortunately. If Microsoft gets it together, Win10 should be really good, they usually fuck up every alternate version and fix their major mistakes with the subsequent one. Win10 probably won't be out until at least the middle of 2015. My first Windows machine was a DOS Intel 386 machine to which I later added Windows 386 in the late 1980s. I was doing some work in the TMO at that time, and everyone was enamoured of the Macintosh, but Macs were pricey and there was certain software I wanted and there was not a whole lot for Macs at that time anyway. There is a new deadly malware for the Mac iOS around now called Lurker, and as Mac users tend to be security blind, will be interesting to see what happens. With a PC you know you have to attend to security all the time. The first things I loaded on the tablet were Internet security apps and apps to scan for software security holes.
