[Gavisann]

Shane Hudson, on 09 September 2011 - 07:45 AM, said:

They seem to have been working on making bootup fast... http://www.youtube.c...h?v=Ivx3W2ipdeI I wonder how long it will stay that quick!

Knowing windows, speeds like that will not last past the second or third boot.

[modi123_1]

More information on that boot time. Quite a load of info on how windows7 boots as well.

https://blogs.msdn.c...-windows-8.aspx

[alias120]

Is anyone here going to attending the BUILD conference? Apparently this will be the first reveal of Windows 8. I wonder how this will affect Microsoft's play in the mobile/tablet market. They have obviously fallen behind competitors, though if I imagine that if they go too "tabletesqe" with the Desktop people won't be happy.

http://arstechnica.c...=1#comments-bar

[Ionut]

I'm watching right now the conference and I love what I see at Windows 8. For live streaming
here

[alias120]

Thank you for the link Ionut, I'll be sure to check it out.

[modi123_1]

A very agreeale keynote. I am glad there's still a "desktop view"... I am not sure if I am still grooving on the terminology, ("charms", "metro", etc), but I can deal.

The development silo was... interesting. I can't tell if microsoft is attempting to blur every line between languages or what. The WinRT apis are great, but what's the difference between c, VB.NEt, or Java script? Syntax and the generic libraries that come with each language?

I am also a bit suspect on this "drop an app in and suddenly that functionality is available to everything". I get this idea of a "Operation: Swordfish" where Hugh Jackman is dragging and dropping cubes into a larger cube and they all interact fine and magically.

I'll see how it turns out with a bit of hands on action.

[Shane Hudson]

I believe I heard that the beta comes out tomorrow?

[Ionut]

No, tomorrow comes out the developer preview. Beta version in the future weeks. Steven Sinofsky didn't announce a date for any version, he said that "they want to deliver quality" and Windows 8 will be released when they think is ready(somehow is the Blizzard concept )). I don't know if tomorrow we will get the whole thing, but for sure we will be able to download Visual Studio 2011, Expression Blend 5(developer preview also)

EDIT: I forgot the link

This post has been edited by Ionut: 13 September 2011 - 02:01 PM

[Skaggles]

Just installed the developers preview. I feel like Microsoft just shit all over my laptop and let me clean it up. This new mosaic UI thing that Microsoft is doing just isn't working for me. Where's the off switch?

[Atli]

Did they mention whether that new Windows API can be used for normal window applications too, or is it just for that metro crap? Would be interesting to try developing an actual desktop app using HTML and Javascript

modi123_1, on 13 September 2011 - 07:25 PM, said:

I am also a bit suspect on this "drop an app in and suddenly that functionality is available to everything". I get this idea of a "Operation: Swordfish" where Hugh Jackman is dragging and dropping cubes into a larger cube and they all interact fine and magically.

Sounds kind of like that thing we have in Android, where all the apps can send "events" (don't remember the official phrase... "activity" or some such) across the OS and other apps can "catch" it and step in to provide whatever functionality is required. - It seems to work great on Android. Can't see why it wouldn't work fine in Win8 too.

[modi123_1]

This gives me some hope for the desktop. I guess I'll be downloading it tonight and installing in a VM.

http://arstechnica.c...-the-pc-age.ars

[Gavisann]

Quote

Only in fact, it works a bit better, at least for users of multimonitor systems. The inability to span the taskbar across multiple monitors has long been a source of frustration for multimonitor users. In Windows 8, 16 years after the taskbar first hit our computers, we'll finally be able to span the taskbar across multiple screens, without needing third party applications or special drivers.

I cheered when I read this. My dog looked at me, with the best WTF? expression I have ever seen...

[giggly kisses]

modi123_1, on 09 September 2011 - 07:37 AM, said:

More information on that boot time. Quite a load of info on how windows7 boots as well.

https://blogs.msdn.c...-windows-8.aspx

Microsoft can only do so much since the main reason boots are so slow is due to legacy BIOS, once EFI becomes more main stream boot times wont seem nearly as slow.

[modi123_1]

https://blogs.msdn.c...-windows-8.aspx

Funny - already a registry edit that gets back the old start menu!

[Atli]

Ok, the whole "mobile" interfance on the "metro" version of IE is starting to bug me. I right click in this text box and get a context menu about the same size as the whole of my Android phone, looking like what most of my HTML menus look like before I get around to put some CSS on it. And I could swear the tab bar looks exactly like a blown up version of the one on the first version of Opera for Android. Kind of like it's built for visually impaired people. (Which is great for them, no doubt, but I see just fine!) -- Feels like a serious regression. Needs a lot of work.

The Ink Pad app is kind of cool though. Finally something that can understand my handwriting!

And the metro "tile" thing isn't as annoying as it looked. Might even get used to it... as long as I can kepp ducking into desktop mode when needed.

Anybody else had a chance to try this yet?


By the way, anybody know how to get the Visual Studio stuff for building metra apps, without downloading the 4.8GB ISO? It won't fit on a 4.7GB DVD, which is all I have, and I'd rather not waste the bandwidth if I can help it. I Googled (or rather "Bing'ed" it) but couldn't locate it anywhere.