tuesdayDeveloper;

So the most recent Windows 8 preview is out:

Initially my thoughts are pretty generous. The new Windows 8 stuff looks like a well thought out system, but then they also show a full version of Windows desktop running on this touch screen laptop.

While I wonder about how well a system like this would do (partially built for keyboard and mouse but crammed into a tablet, but also a system obviously built for touch expanded to a desktop) my real questions go deeper than the UI.

Tablets (at least all of the ones that I know of that aren’t just convertible laptops) all use solid state storage. This is good for several reasons. First, it keeps a device small and light. Second, it makes devices faster than a slow rotating harddrive based system would be. Solid state storage is ideal for tablets, but it also has its drawbacks.

At the moment, solid state storage is expensive. At tigerdirect.com, solid state harddrives with 120 GB run around $300, if you search for regular harddrives, your first results show 2TB for a mear $80. That’s 16 times the storage for about 25% of the cost!

The cost of solid state drives is typically the reason you only see tablets with 16 – 64GB. Of course solid state harddrives will come down in cost eventually, today they are only affordable by the masses with less capacity.

So coming back to a Windows 8 tablet, how much storage will just the operating system take? If you take Windows 7 and add more onto it for the touch stuff you’re looking at a significant chunk of storage. My Windows 7 VM (with only a couple added programs) takes up more than 20GB of storage.

So without any files, I’d expect Windows 8 to take up the same amount of storage. Not including any programs. Not including huge music/video collections.

One of the reasons iPad has been successful is because it is so affordable, its base model starts out with 16GB. Most of that storage is free when you get the device. For Windows to provide the same amount of free space on a Windows 8 machine they would have to have at least 32GB. Of course that is still in competition with iPad and its upper models, but it also means that Windows tablets can’t compete with the lower models on price.

Perhaps I’m blowing this out of proportion. Maybe an OEM will make an inexpensive model with lots of storage and still beat Apple on its pricing. What do you think?

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I love America. I was born and raised here and I do have national pride, but one area of frustration that I’ve had as long as I can remember is that America doesn’t conform to standards. I spent 2 years in Germany and when I would talk to my family at home about the weather the inevitable question would be, “how hot is that in Fahrenheit?” When I would describe the places I was working in the question was, “how far is that in miles?”

You may be of a different opinion, but I don’t understand why America hasn’t conformed to metric standards. In fact, I’ve decided that this is one way that Internet Explorer is just like America, the both feel that they are the standard—their not—let me tell you, there’s a reason why us geeks make and maintain consistoriums!

Now, I’m all for pushing the envelop and developing new standards. You see Apple setting the bar for mobile phones, but you, Microsoft, you continue to disappoint. I admit that have a glimmer of hope for IE9, but I’ve been disappointed before. You told us that standards would be supported in IE7, they weren’t. We were told that IE8 would support standards, not really. In the tests that I’ve done with IE9 I’ve only noticed a few smaller problems (and that was when using jQuery or with CSS3) so you’re starting off on a better foot.

So, while I think that America is great, I sure do get frustrated with them. And while I get frustrated with you, IE, I can’t really say you’re great. But since I’m a pragmatist, and I’ve been known to to change my views before, I’m willing to work with you again, but you must understand that this will be a tenuous relationship. I don’t know if I can live with you if your next iteration turns out to be as bad as the rest of your lot.

What are your thoughts? What do you want to see in IE9? What has disappointed you in the past with IE?

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Disclaimer: I wrote this post after I looked at the results (see below) of a project I’m working on. IE did not preform well.

I make no secret to my dislike of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. It is, in a word, primitive. IE has made some great strides recently, but it’s still lagging behind the rest of the market. If I were rank my favorite browsers the order would be thus: First place: Google Chrome. Tied for Second Place: Apple Safari, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera. After that, there’s no one worth mentioning. Of course, if you look at the market the order would be Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Apple Safari (pretty much tied for now), and then Opera.

So why my acidic review of IE? There’s a few reasons. First and formost is because when developing web sites all of the different browsers look alike (or at least mostly alike) until you get to IE. IE is a pain to develop for while keeping all of the other pages pristine. If you’re using IE, then you probably see a great big gaping error on this page which I haven’t gotten around to fix yet… someday. Anyway, compare a recent screenshot of IE compared to the exact same code as rendered in Chrome.

Now I will admit that I used a lot of CSS3 code which isn’t officially supported by a few browsers, but you can see that IE will be causing me a lot of work that I won’t have to do with the other browsers. I estimate that it will probably take be about five times as long to work out the solution for IE than it took for me to write the code for Chrome. I’m convinced that Internet Explorer (or at least its programmers) enjoy inflicting pain on developers.

Of course, I have other reasons why I don’t particularly like IE. It’s slow. It takes up my precious screen real estate. It’s not very customizable (meaning it forces me to work the way it wants me to rather than the way I want to work). Oh, and there’s the fact that a lot of websites only work for IE and since I’ve been a Linux/Mac guy for a while now, it’s rather frustrating when I can’t view a page.

I would call it poor practice to only support IE, but well, let’s face it, almost everyone in the industry uses Windows and uses IE and even if they do use another operating system they probably have Windows too. So I completely understand why companies develop exclusively for IE.

Will I stop developing for IE? I’ve thought about it, but there’s that whole 60% of the market thing. Will I ever succumb and make IE my default browser? Never!

What are your thoughts on different browsers? Why do you prefer your browser of choice or dislike another? Have you noticed the same issues I’ve had?

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I don’t have a lot of respect for Steve Ballmer, he always seems to be speaking rashly—not to mention, he often mocks things I like. When ever I read something that Ballmer has said, it always seems that there is something interesting and new coming out and he says, “that’ll never work. We’re going to keep doing it our way because we don’t want to think about it in another way.” It almost seems like wishful thinking on his part, but maybe I’ve misjudged the guy (he makes more money than I do after all, maybe he has a point), but his comments always have a less-than-thought-out feel to me.

Steve Jobs on the other hand seems to have a more calculated approach. Last Tuesday, at the D8 conference, an obviously upset iPhone user asked Jobs when AT&Ts network problems would be fixed—it was obviously a hard question—but Jobs addressed the question with a lot of poise, I thought, though not without some stumbling. Now, I’ve been a little upset with Apple and the way they seem to close off developers, but if I had to chose a product based on Jobs or on Ballmer, I’d choose Jobs.

All this said, I thought that a remark by Ballmer on Thursday was actually somewhat true. He said it in contradiction to a statement that Jobs had made. Essentially, Jobs said that eventually everyone will have a tablet, Ballmer said that everyone will want only one device, a PC, that does it all (not a limited-use device). They are both right.

The irony is that Ballmer hit it right on the head and was completely wrong at the same time. What Ballmer doesn’t realize is that the PCs that he is talking about will be the tablets that Jobs is talking about. Jobs even said that in his interview. Yes, the iPad is a limited-function device now, but it’ll get better. I predict that in 5 – 10 years tablets will be good enough to replace most people’s need for a PC—a desktop or laptop—the PCs in a few years will be tablets.

Yes, it’s true that we’ll still have desktops and laptops, but they’ll be like trucks (just like Jobs says).

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I’m a Mac. I love my Mac. I’ve used Windows, I’ve used Linux, and while I like them both, but when I have my way, I use a Mac.

There are a few reasons I choose to use a Mac—it’s not for the “cool factor” (though that is a nice perk). My reason for using a Mac is because of usability. As a software developer, that is an area of primary focus for me, how do I make it usable? How do I make it so that anyone can pick it up and just use it? I’ve found that Macs are easier to use, and have a lot less problems than PCs, and that’s why I chose to use a Mac.

But, while I’m a Mac, I’m also a pragmatist.

If you like Windows better, that’s great, use Windows. A lot of people like Windows and that’s just fine. In fact, my purpose in writing this post is to explain to everyone that I think it is okay for you to be devoted to whichever OS you prefer.

The best analogy I’ve herd comparing two operating systems compared two cars. Each car is the same. They are the same color, brand, model. They have the same radios, interior, and tires. They are exactly the same in every detail except one. One car was built for America and the other was built for England. Americans think that English cars are “weird” because the steering wheel is “on the wrong side of the car.” Does that matter really? If an American person took an English car for a spin, chances are he could get used to it, though it may take some time. That is the same for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. If you spend enough time with any of them you’ll be able to use them quit proficiently. Chances are, you wont have to spend a ton of time either to become proficient. You may develop a preference, but you could probably drive an English car just as well as an American car with some practice. All cars are about the same the pedals of the car may be in different places, the car may look completely different, but really they are designed for the same purpose. Operating systems aren’t much different, they may have different buttons and menus, they may test your adaptability, but they were all designed to add another layer of abstraction from running the computer.

What about security?
People are always comparing the securities of different operating systems. Here’s the truth: any system build by man can be broken. Any security device someone can build can be bypassed by someone else. The best thing anyone can do for security is to know what your doing on the web. Don’t go to suspicious sites, even if it promises you a brand new car if complete 50 offers. Don’t forward those “cute” email messages that have been forwarded 100 times before that say that “someone who cares about you sent this to you, send it to someone you care about” (that’s were you get a lot of your spam, by the way). I’ll always advocate security measures, but ultimately, users can still have computer problems because they didn’t know any better. If you want security, the best thing to do is to know how to interact with the web.

But which is better?
I’m also not going to tell you that I’ve never ever had any problems with my Mac (less problems, yes, but I’ve still had problems). In fact, I write this post on my wife’s Mac because mine in being repaired (the screen started wigging out on me). I’ve had other problems on my Mac too. Now, I will say that I’ve had a lot less ID10T errors (what can I say, Macs make more sense to me).

The reason for my choice?
Ultimately, the reason I chose my OS is because I really think Apple puts a lot of thought into the end user experience. Everything from the look and feel to the key strokes make more sense on a Mac. Because things make more sense to me on a Mac, I got a Mac. I suggest you do what makes sense to you. I think that Macs are the best and I’ll continue to use them until something better comes along.

So buy a Mac, buy a PC, use Linux, buy a granite boulder and chisel it out to look like a new computer, I’d recommend getting or waiting for a tablet computer, but really, it is all up to your preferences what is best for you. If you don’t know much about computers, ask someone you trust, but you may want to take it all with a grain of salt.

What do you think? Is one OS better than the other? Am I off my rocker? Feel free to say so.

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