I feel the same way about the chips reaching their physical limits. But I keep waiting for a new way we use them. We used to just churn out MHz and that was the metric. Then we got hyper-threading, multi-cores, GPU and other specific processors and new ways of programming to go with it all. I imagine we'll see the same. Just like the brain has different areas of processing, I'm hoping we'll see the same in silicon chips. Just like how we offload work from the general purpose cpu to the more efficient purpose build gpu or sound card etcs. Not saying every computer is going to have a GO chip in it, but maybe someday we'll have machine learning processors or who knows what. But yeah the advancements will be new designs and new ways of processing instead of more power.
I can just imagine a sql server team meeting where they discuss sql server's effect on laptop battery life. Given sql server's intended environment, I almost wonder if its activity is intentional.
Power consumption is a concern even in data centers, but yeah, the power cost of this inefficiency is probably inconsequential in situations where sqlservr is actually being used.
But, VS installed and started sqlservr on millions of developer machines so they should have paid some attention to this issue. Super sloppy.
it's also installed by millions of other applications - a sony laptop I had once shipped with some "music management" app installed by default that used it.
So true, if only more users realized this. I for one really appreciate your work this.
Users don't understand that computer resources like CPU time and battery level are really their property. It is an awful like paying a hidden poor quality tax.
It is not unreasonable to expect software to not waste CPU and battery time.
Windows Longhorn (Vista before the development reboot) actually shipped with SQL Server Express for WinFS. Though dotNet based shell and SQL Server Express based WinFS was too slow and consumed too much CPU resources.
WinFS was too slow and consumed too much CPU resources.
I'm genuinely curious what your source is for this. From the following uncited text on Wikipedia?
"An early revision of WinFS was also included, but very little in the way of a user interface was included, and as such it appeared to early testers to be nothing more than a service that consumed large amounts of memory and processor time."
Well, it's Express. Five years ago, when most development happened on a desktop, I'd agree. These days most developers have laptops. I guess it's time for them to revisit their Express config.
> Attempt to answer the question, or don’t comment at all. Don’t tell them to RTFM, Google it,
I think the point is that if you're going to tell them to RTFM or google it. you should also attempt to answer it or point them in the right direction. but don't tell them RTFM or Google it and nothing else. That doesn't help. A lot of time people have already tried that and don't know enough to know where to look or what to search. At least tell them to try googling XYZ or tell them check section whatever in the docs.
There's enough people out there hacking the echo and looking at the data getting sent back and forth that anything suspect would be all over HN and reddit within hours of the update that caused it. It has some closed source bits but watching the traffic is pretty trivial. Not saying they're not doing or won't do anything sneaky, but there's a good chance it'll get noticed if it does. Hell amazon already has so much info on me just from what I've willingly given them in account details and activity I'd almost be interested to see what more they think they'd get from eavesdropping and my everyday life. Maybe my ads will start being for things i want instead of things i just bought.
Simmer down comment section. So what if it's not the most perfect thing ever. This is neat. Good job by all that worked on it. I'll bet they learned a lot in the process and had fun doing it. thanks for sharing it with us.
From the article, “I started calling them identical twins because they are like identical people,” he said. “They are too similar to just happen by chance, but not absolutely precisely identical to the last molecule.”
geexbox is the closest thing i can think of. You can even use http://www.geexbox.org/iso-generator/ to put the movie and the os on disc/usb and boot to the movie basically.
>people who are not you are confused by it and don't understand it
This is the history of computers and users. So many technologies that seem completely intuitive now started out just like this. being confused by it and don't understand it is only a problem if stays that way like shortcut key combos. Hamburger menus are like "right click". it's not that bad and when people have seen it a few times it won't be some confusing.
The trouble is that so many software developers in particular use this argument to justify every single silly notion they come up with. "Users just hate change, they'll get used to it and then they'll love it" is not a good engine for UI design.
1. the small screen version of big footer menus which conflict with infinite or long scroll on mobile.
2. The new "site map" menu, flash web sites loved where you dump the navigation of your pages hierarchically.
3. Another "design by committee" tool similar to carousel. As a designer you say "yes" to any navigation request and dump it under the carpet (hamburger)
Depends on the user group and the context you're designing for. Only so-called "novice users" struggle with right click. Intermediate to advanced users are well versed in it. The former user group is dwindling by the day.
Be very careful about conflating the two issues. Usability studies have shown that users struggle with inappropriately labelled hamburger menus. Usability studies have also shown that users of intermediate to advanced skill do not struggle with right click. One is an issue regarding appropriate labelling and visual affordance, and the other is one of system and hardware affordances.
Yeah, me too. And its amusingly frustrating to watch. And we know why double-clicking is a thing, and why it's not consistent across widgets, but I wonder if we'd be better off if the mouse originated not with "left" and "right" buttons, but instead "do" and "select" buttons. The Do button would open the files and visit the hyperlinks, the Select button would add the object you're looking at to a stack of selections, or provide more information about the thing you're pointing at, or some other lower-cost action.
(I just changed the setting on my desktop to use single-click-to-open, and was immediately punished by it. Couldn't merely select files anymore without fear :) )
Middle button (usually) on a three button mouse: Activate a menu to invoke an action concerting the contents of a window; e.g. carrying out an editing operation on text withing the window. (...)"
Right button on a three button mouse: Activate the menu or invoke an action concering the manipulation of the window (view / Morph) itself; e.g. moving or closing a window.
Shouldn't you also have a third button to list available actions, or would you throw that away? Overloading the select button would be just as confusing; I hope you don't want to do that.
You're right of course. At some point a trade off has to be made among usability, discover-ability, and simplicity. (Pick any two).
Adding another button reduces simplicity, but enhances the other two. Apple's one-button mouse—at the other extreme—makes things simple and discoverable, but often not as useable as I'd like. I still don't know how OSX's equivalent to Windows' [Alt] key access to menu items (does it exist?)
I do think using three buttons are good -- I'm not so happy with the classic "Xerox Parc/Smalltalk" layout -- I'd prefer to have a button on the thumb (like many logitech mice have) and a scroll-wheel in the middle that's not a button.
Which leaves us with a bit of a problem for touch screens. While it might be ok to demand users to learn one and two-finger touch -- three finger touch might be going a bit too far...
I used to use an MX Revolution mouse[1] that had what you describe. Multiple thumb buttons, that amazing flywheel scroll wheel, that other thumb wheel. I loved that mouse.
Unfortunately I love trackballs more than mice now, and am severely limited in my choices. The Trackman is nice, and has a couple of extra buttons, but it would be so nice to have something close to what I had with that Revolution mouse.
In response to your comment above, no I wasn't being ironic :). I'm sure I've seen similar schemes before that informed my "idea", though.
Which is why most right click menu options also can be found in another place. The right click menu is a shortcut much like hotkeys. Not essential, but convenient.
Yet oddly we appear to be going down a route where UI is hidden a lot:
a. long-press on a touch-screen device to select text, show a menu etc.
b. buttons with hieroglyphics to indicate what to do (worse than the old floppy disk for save) - eg. iOS' share button is a box with an arrow going into it (which is confusing to me as I do not want to put my concept into a box - I want to share it OUTSIDE my box of a device).
c. Sliding from sides of the screen to show notification areas, control panels (iOS), or "split screen" apps (Samsung Note), or charms (Windows).
d. Using different gestures to do things like take screenshots on Samsung note devices (swipe your entire hand across the screen)
e. Hiding UI elements until something is done, eg. scrollbars on OSX by default until you scroll (which you would need the scrollbar to actually do...)
They are all very simple once you know them but it must be very difficult as a first-time user, particularly if you are an older first-time user where your ability to absorb information like a sponge is diminished.
Every couple of years interaction is reinvented it seems! This differs from the decades of computer use where the only massive changes were scrollwheels on mice.
Why is this hard to understand? The map is not the territory! Any data you didn't record yourself may not be complete.
If you controlled the firmware of a device that surreptitiously records more than it should be recording, would you show those "extra" recordings to the mark nicely chronologically sorted with the legitimate recordings?
If you were a criminal (or government agency) attacking these devices with bad firmware or buffer overrun, would you have even the slightest care about making sure echo.amazon.com is updated to show your eavesdropping?
// only five karmas and a username that is a googlewhack (!) bringing up exactly 5 posts and nothing else smells a bit like JTRIG
...I guess i just misunderstood the nature of your question. Yeah there's no way to tell if the history is everything they send or just the commands it heard. But at least it's something. Guess you're looking for something more along the lines of this type stuff
