Windows 10 Nearing Release: Where’s the Buzz?

Microsoft is due to release Windows 10 sometime in January (technical preview was released in October of 2014), yet almost no one is talking about it. Why?

There are a number of changes and improvements that will be welcome to Windows users–welcome to those who switched to Windows 8 as well as those who didn’t. They are also reportedly releasing a new browser (code-named “Spartan”) with Windows 10 that will rival Chrome and Firefox, while still keeping IE 11 for backward compatibility–whatever that means. I assume it means to keep those happy who prefer to use outdated technology. I haven’t used IE for nearly 10 years. Chrome and Firefox have long been superior browsers. Besides you can’t use IE on your mobile device. I use chrome on PC, tablet and phone. Why is this important? Let’s say I look up a recipe on my home PC and we try it for dinner. The next day we are away at a family member’s house and my wife is talking about this recipe and my sister wants us to share it with her, I can grab my phone, open Chrome, look at my history (which is automatically synced between all devices running Chrome) and find that link and open the page, text it to her, or email it. This is a perfect example of how Microsoft trying to keep its technology locked down to its own platforms is making itself useless and irrelevant.

Sure, the desktop world is shrinking as mobile devices assume roles previously played only by desktop PCs, but there is still a desktop market. Yes, the Linux community is growing, but the desktop market is still dominated by Apple and Microsoft, and Microsoft still has majority market-share.  So why aren’t PC users excited about the upcoming changes? I’m a PC user and I’m admittedly following this news rather lethargically as well.  It’s the complete inability to integrate the mobile and desktop experience that I alluded to in the Chrome vs. Internet Explorer example above.

Here’s the thing: Microsoft is head and shoulders above its competitors as the most progressive and cutting-edge developer in this new digital age–even though most who are used to pre-mobile technology don’t like the new development trends. The fact is people no longer process and share information on a single device. We use computers, smartphones and tablets, and we want our information to be synced and readily available on whichever device we happen to have at the moment. This is the problem Microsoft is addressing and solving–sort of. So what’s the problem?

They were late into the mobile market? Most of us use Android phones which run on a Linux-based operating system, and most of the rest use iOS devices. Google and Microsoft haven’t played well together, and Apple doesn’t want to play with anyone. Microsoft wants to force everyone to use Microsoft devices and Microsoft platforms (Operating Systems) to get this integration, and quite frankly their mobile market hasn’t been–and still isn’t–up to snuff. It can’t compete with Google either in terms of number of apps available or the quality of those apps. They became a software giant in the 80s because they didn’t lock their software to their own branded hardware. The IBM PC (which Microsoft software was first developed for) became the IBM “compatible” PC. Hardware vendors sprang up everywhere. It didn’t matter if you had a Compaq, and IBM, a Dell, or a generic build. Microsoft software ran on them all. They aren’t taking this same approach now that we are in the mobile age, partly because they don’t want to give up OS dominance in the PC market, and partly because they still think OS dominance is the key to maintaining their position in the device market. Why they don’t give up on the OS, and instead develop an integration software that includes browsing, word processing, spreadsheets, data collection, note taking, texting, email, and so on; and let that software run and sync on all OS platforms–both mobile and desktop–is beyond me. That seems to be the ticket we are all looking for, but no one wants to print it.

At this point, Microsoft only has a couple of legs left to stand on:

1). One is the Windows platform, and they are losing that leg fast. We are used to–and like–our Android and iOS devices, and we aren’t happy enough with the Windows desktop experience to want that experience on our mobile devices. Yes, I switched to Windows 8 and have really had no complaints versus previous OS’s, but it really wasn’t an upgrade either. It was basically Windows 7 with a Metro interface for downloading and using mobile apps on the desktop. FreeCell and a couple of the traditional games apps look and play better in Metro, and Netflix functions pretty nicely, but other than those few rare exceptions, my PC almost never sees the metro interface. The idea that my mobile experience and desktop experience are going to be identical experiences is still a Microsoft pipe dream. I use PC software that isn’t available on my Android phones and tablets, save the resulting files to the cloud so they can be viewed and shared from my mobile devices. Microsoft really isn’t needed for that. I’m stuck with Microsoft because I really don’t have a better PC alternative, and the PC isn’t my most used device any more.

2). Secondly, the Microsoft Office suite is still the bread and butter of Microsoft. Certainly, they have the business world locked up, but even for home users Microsoft Word and Excel are still the best productivity apps available. I know there are alternatives, and I’ve used OpenOffice for years, but Word and Excel are vastly superior. They used to be price prohibitive for home users, because they required purchasing the entire suite–and let’s face it, most of us home users don’t really need PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, or even OneNote. But with Office 365, you can now purchase annual subscriptions on eBay for $50 bucks a year and get a terabyte of cloud storage included, which makes it a pretty sweet deal. However, the question is whether it’s a sweet enough deal to keep someone locked into Microsoft technology, especially considering the OfficeSuite mobile experience is sadly lacking compared to the desktop environment?

Here’s the problem, no one else is working on an integrated experience either. Google has released a Chromebook, and Chrome extensions for the PC, but they are content with dominating the mobile market and browser-based services. Yes, you can switch to a Linux-based OS on your PC, but it’s not going to give you an identical computing experience between PC and mobile devices. If you’ve used Google Docs, you know they are adequate for basic text documents and basic spreadsheets, but they aren’t up to scale with Word and Excel. If you are doing budget spreadsheets with extensive calculations, importing or linking data from other sheets, etc., it starts to get awkward really quickly, and the mobile experience gives you even less features.

Apple has also done a very poor job integrating its desktop and mobile experience. Its mobile apps don’t translate well to its desktop software, and in some cases even syncing data requires a fair amount of tech savvy. Worse, it still maintains a market where you must pay for these mobile apps which don’t replicate the desktop experience. Unless, you just happen to be a long-time Apple loyalist, switching from Microsoft to Apple is just jumping from fire to the frying pan. Not much of a choice.

Of course, the obvious solution is for Google and Microsoft to collaborate. Yeah, I know. I’m not holding my breath either. And therein lies my ambivalence to the Microsoft updates. Yeah, I could switch to Linux, but it wouldn’t give me the integrated experience we all want, and much of my desktop software isn’t available for the Linux OS (e.g., Quicken, Photoshop, etc.). So, yeah, I’ll probably upgrade to Windows 10 when it comes out and I’ll hope it has some improvements over Windows 8, but I’ll know that I’ll still be using Dropbox, Chrome, Gmail, Google Calendar, and using 3rd party apps to integrate my Android devices to my Windows PC as best I can.

The best we can hope for, really, is that it will be a somewhat better bad experience–and that’s really not much to get excited about.

Adversity — the Seedbed of Greatness

An excerpt from the introduction of Chuck Swindoll’s book “Paul: A Man of Grace and Grit.”  I found this to be extraordinarily inspirational.  I hope you do as well.

Each time we engage in a serious study of a great life, we need to brace ourselves for surprises. Interestingly, the greater the life the more shocking the surprises. You can count on it, the circumstances and events that led to greatness in that person took place in the hidden years when few were looking and no one cared.

That’s certainly true of America’s sixteenth and probably greatest president, Abraham Lincoln. Most would assume the office of President of the United States would be a fitting climax to an already prestigious life. After all, anyone who becomes president surely grew up with sort of a silver-spoon background, emerging naturally into the limelight before beginning an easy slide into the role of president. Hardly.

Lincoln was born in 1809 in a primitive log cabin in what was then known as Hardin County, Kentucky. His father was an illiterate, wandering laborer, his mother a frail sickly woman. They were forced out of their home when he was only seven. His poor mother died when he was nine. He had virtually no formal schooling.

He first attempted a career in business in 1831 and failed miserably. A year later he ran for state legislature unsuccessfully. That same year he lost his job and applied to law school but was laughed out of consideration because of his miserable qualifications. Not long after that humiliating ordeal, he started another business using money he borrowed from a close friend. Before the year closed, however, that business faded and failed. Lincoln claimed bankruptcy and spent the next seventeen years paying off debt.

In 1835 he fell deeply in love with Ami Rutledge, only to have his heart broken when she died soon after their engagement. The following year he had a complete nervous breakdown and spent the next six months in bed recovering.

In 1838 he sought to become speaker of the state legislature and was defeated.

In 1840, two years later, he sought to become the elector of the state, and was defeated.

Three years later he ran for Congress and lost.

In 1846 he ran again for Congress and won. Only two years later he ran for reelection and was soundly defeated.

In 1849 he sought the job of land officer in his home state but was rejected.

In 1854 he ran for the Senate of the United States. Again, he lost.

In 1856 he sought the vice-presidential nomination at his party’s national convention. He got less than one hundred votes, suffering yet another embarrassing defeat.

In 1858 he ran for the U.S. Senate and lost again.

Finally in 1860 Abraham Lincoln was elected to the presidency of the United States and soon after endured the most devastating war our country has ever experienced. His perseverance rewarded him with unprecedented political success, and he was reelected for a second term. Sadly, only five days after Lee surrendered, on the fourteenth of April 1865, Lincoln was assassinated. He was dead before reaching sixty years of age.

Not knowing any of that, we reflect on a presidency like his and our tendency is to think, my, what a magnificent background he must have had. Then we peer deeper into the dark cave of his past and realize it’s riddled with failure and tragedy, heartache and pain. We’re surprised. Even shocked.

The steel of greatness is forged in the pit. It’s true of all of us. Don’t ever forget that, especially when you’re in the pit and you’re convinced there’s no way anything of value will come of it.

I Can Admit When I am Wrong — Sort of

Those who know me know I think putting fruit or nuts in coffee is both fruity and nuts. Okay, so I’m a full-blown nut case now, because this was good. Don’t think I’d want it every day or in every cup, but it was weirdly good. I imagine it would be good in a glass of 7-up or Sprite as well …. maybe even Pepsi or Dr Pepper.

Did I mention it’s $1 at Walmart?

Software Review: PDF Fusion

Have you ever wanted to be able to create or edit PDF’s but don’t want to spend (or can’t afford) several hundred dollars for Adobe’s Acrobat?  Sure, you can download free or inexpensive printer drivers such as Bullzip or PDF 995, but have you ever wanted to include word processing documents with spreadsheet data and database reports like you can do with a Powerpoint slide show, but don’t want the hassle of putting together a Powerpoint presentation and then trying to convert that to PDF, or converting Excel or dBase reports to screenshot images, then inserting them into your Word document?  You may have found your solution in Corel’s inexpensive consumer level application PDF Fusion, which has been discounted for the holiday season from$69.99 to $39.99

With Fusion you can drag and drop over 100 different file types onto any view (assembly view, page view, flick view, etc.) and simply drag and drop pages to assemble your new PDF document (See screenshot below).

Simply drag and drop over 100 file types onto any view icon

For example, you drag your Word file, your Excel file, and your database report which you’ve previously saved or printed as a PDF file.  Now you can go to Assembly view in PDF Fusion and it will show all three files in separate thumbnail view windows (see screenshot below).  Now you can simply drag and drop the pages you want onto a new document window to create your new PDF file.

Simply drag and drop pages into new window to create your new PDF document.

Now, that you’ve created your new document you may want to make some minor edits or tweaks before saving or publishing your new PDF file.  Simply go to Page View (see screenshot below) where you can highlight text and edit in right in place, or you can add comments or sticky notes for other readers to view.

Do "in place" editing, or add comments and sticky notes from Page View

Again, this is not Acrobat.  If you need to do massive editing such as moving or replacing photos, changing page layouts, or rewriting large sections of text this application won’t work with PDF files like a word processor.  However, for most common editing needs — correcting misspellings, updating names, addresses, email addresses, adding links, adding notes/comments, redacting phrases, etc. — this is just what the doctor ordered.  Creating new documents from multiple sources couldn’t be easier, and at just $39.99 it’s a can’t lose proposition.