More Early Impressions
I'll really have to post something when it's not the middle of the night.
But let that say something about this device - I love using it and tend to use it until I should go to bed. Then I remember I need to post something about my experience for the day and stay up even later.
I'm going to keep this short tonight - I'm exhausted.
The "Formally Known as Metro" UI is good and bad all at once. It gives some basic ability to customize, but it feels very much like iOS in that you can only customize within their specified rules and regulations. I think they could have done much more with it. I don't hate it, and I LOVE it when I have my Yoga flipped into Kiosk or Tablet mode.
In fact, I think that's what MS should have done. Given us a great Desktop like Windows 7 and then, with convertibles, had it swap to "Formally Known as Metro" when you turned it into a Tablet interface. They could also allow for a hot button to swap you into that interface if you didn't have a touch enabled device, but it wouldn't be the default.
Bringing back a functional Start button would be a good step for them - not a start button that takes you to the Start Screen.
That's not to say that I'm hateful of what they've done - quite the contrary. I'm picking out the bits that could use obvious improvements while enjoying the experience of using this device more than I've enjoyed any Apple Product in many years.
A plus in the column for this particular device is that it makes the 13" MacBook Air look and feel chunky, which I didn't think was possible. I have 13" MacBook Air that's my work machine (provided by work). I find myself wishing it was this little Lenovo just about every time I use it now. I want it to be able to do this thing or that thing that t he Lenovo can do, and it's just been about two days at this point.
I'm going to take a moment to sound a little like an Apple Fan, but please know that I'm just talking about technical stuff that Apple does better - that doesn't always translate to the user.
First of all, Apple is built on a stable kernel of FreeBSD - a UNIX build that's incredibly solid and secure. The fact that it sits on UNIX alone makes it, technically speaking, a better OS for super high level geekery - well beyond what I'm able to do with a machine and well beyond the scope of 99.9% of the world's population.
Apple does have some fairly neat technology for pros in certain fields as well, though some say that they're dumbing the technology down and losing their pro customers. I can't speak to that, I don't use Final Cut or Logic Pro.
Okay - this is getting longer than I had wanted and I must sleep. Know that I will continue this when I wake up and I won't post it until it's done.
Good morning! I'm back, though there wasn't a six hour break for you reading this...
One of the other really bizarre things I've just discovered this morning, which is also incredibly aggravating, is that the Windows 8 Mail App will setup correctly with my work email and the Windows 8 Calendar can see my work email (Set up as AES), but I can't make Outlook itself see our work's AES Zimbra server. Why would the free application be able to see the server, but Outlook continually say it can't be found?
I'll be hitting the forums on that at some point in the next day or so when I have time - I'll update you all when I learn more.
And by All, I mean the two or three of you who are currently reading this.
I haven't done much with Office outside of word processing, but I can say that MS Word is probably in its best iteration ever - I just wish they'd gone whole hog on the "Formally Known as Metro" interface instead of having it launch in the Desktop the way it does. Seems like they missed an opportunity to really sell the "Formally Known as Metro" interface there and botched it.
For years, with the exception of Outlook, I have always felt that the Mac Versions of Office were better than the PC counterparts. I think in many regards that's because MS Word and Excel started out on the Mac before Gates went and created Windows. Now, I have to say, that MS Office 2013 has surpassed what's been happening on the Mac. Just looking at how it's setup and how accessible everything is has been wonderful. I started out hating the Ribbon Interface, but within just a couple of days of heavy use on Word, I've come to love it - thanks to a friend of mine who said to give it some time. I thought it would take longer, but he was right. The ribbons are pretty cool.
Update on the track pad issue with right clicking - I found the settings for it and turned off Lower Right Corner clicks for contextual menus. I also turned off Tap To Click as I kept hitting it with my thumb between typing moments and putting the cursor somewhere it shouldn't have been or accidently clicking a tile the "Formally Known as Metro" Interface (I will now abbreviate that to FKMI).
That's it for now. I'm going to try and focus my next post a little more specifically on my feelings about FKMI, the Desktop and what that means for computing (IMHO).
But let that say something about this device - I love using it and tend to use it until I should go to bed. Then I remember I need to post something about my experience for the day and stay up even later.
I'm going to keep this short tonight - I'm exhausted.
The "Formally Known as Metro" UI is good and bad all at once. It gives some basic ability to customize, but it feels very much like iOS in that you can only customize within their specified rules and regulations. I think they could have done much more with it. I don't hate it, and I LOVE it when I have my Yoga flipped into Kiosk or Tablet mode.
In fact, I think that's what MS should have done. Given us a great Desktop like Windows 7 and then, with convertibles, had it swap to "Formally Known as Metro" when you turned it into a Tablet interface. They could also allow for a hot button to swap you into that interface if you didn't have a touch enabled device, but it wouldn't be the default.
Bringing back a functional Start button would be a good step for them - not a start button that takes you to the Start Screen.
That's not to say that I'm hateful of what they've done - quite the contrary. I'm picking out the bits that could use obvious improvements while enjoying the experience of using this device more than I've enjoyed any Apple Product in many years.
A plus in the column for this particular device is that it makes the 13" MacBook Air look and feel chunky, which I didn't think was possible. I have 13" MacBook Air that's my work machine (provided by work). I find myself wishing it was this little Lenovo just about every time I use it now. I want it to be able to do this thing or that thing that t he Lenovo can do, and it's just been about two days at this point.
I'm going to take a moment to sound a little like an Apple Fan, but please know that I'm just talking about technical stuff that Apple does better - that doesn't always translate to the user.
First of all, Apple is built on a stable kernel of FreeBSD - a UNIX build that's incredibly solid and secure. The fact that it sits on UNIX alone makes it, technically speaking, a better OS for super high level geekery - well beyond what I'm able to do with a machine and well beyond the scope of 99.9% of the world's population.
Apple does have some fairly neat technology for pros in certain fields as well, though some say that they're dumbing the technology down and losing their pro customers. I can't speak to that, I don't use Final Cut or Logic Pro.
Okay - this is getting longer than I had wanted and I must sleep. Know that I will continue this when I wake up and I won't post it until it's done.
Good morning! I'm back, though there wasn't a six hour break for you reading this...
One of the other really bizarre things I've just discovered this morning, which is also incredibly aggravating, is that the Windows 8 Mail App will setup correctly with my work email and the Windows 8 Calendar can see my work email (Set up as AES), but I can't make Outlook itself see our work's AES Zimbra server. Why would the free application be able to see the server, but Outlook continually say it can't be found?
I'll be hitting the forums on that at some point in the next day or so when I have time - I'll update you all when I learn more.
And by All, I mean the two or three of you who are currently reading this.
I haven't done much with Office outside of word processing, but I can say that MS Word is probably in its best iteration ever - I just wish they'd gone whole hog on the "Formally Known as Metro" interface instead of having it launch in the Desktop the way it does. Seems like they missed an opportunity to really sell the "Formally Known as Metro" interface there and botched it.
For years, with the exception of Outlook, I have always felt that the Mac Versions of Office were better than the PC counterparts. I think in many regards that's because MS Word and Excel started out on the Mac before Gates went and created Windows. Now, I have to say, that MS Office 2013 has surpassed what's been happening on the Mac. Just looking at how it's setup and how accessible everything is has been wonderful. I started out hating the Ribbon Interface, but within just a couple of days of heavy use on Word, I've come to love it - thanks to a friend of mine who said to give it some time. I thought it would take longer, but he was right. The ribbons are pretty cool.
Update on the track pad issue with right clicking - I found the settings for it and turned off Lower Right Corner clicks for contextual menus. I also turned off Tap To Click as I kept hitting it with my thumb between typing moments and putting the cursor somewhere it shouldn't have been or accidently clicking a tile the "Formally Known as Metro" Interface (I will now abbreviate that to FKMI).
That's it for now. I'm going to try and focus my next post a little more specifically on my feelings about FKMI, the Desktop and what that means for computing (IMHO).
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