12 Month Windows

After a hiatus, I think I'm coming back to this blog. I am still fascinated by what Windows has to offer as it tweaks and tries to perfect the Windows 8/8.1 experience. While I am still primarily a Mac OS X user, I have installed the latest version of Windows 8.1 Pro on my 15" Retina MacBook Pro. Since the original inception of my failed experiment, there are still the nuggets of gold that I saw as potential, and initially loved, about Windows 8/8.1. Now that I'm using it more as a Desktop and less like a Tablet, I have a new perspective on how it functions for millions of people, and it's not half bad. Coupled with the release of the new Surface Pro (3) and you're looking at something that is actually appealing as a Laptop/Tablet hybrid with the power of an ultra book and the portability of a tablet. Many people note that when they compared the new Surface Pro on a scale, it was to a 13" MacBook Air and not an iPad. I think those people are missing the ...

I lasted about 2.5 months, give or take, on the experiment that was supposed to last 12. As of this moment, I am typing this entry on my MacBook Air which replaces the Lenovo I had purchased for the experiment. Now let me say here that I'm not dissing Lenovo in any way. The system was everything it was advertised to be, but it couldn't be what I needed it to be and when I upgraded to Windows 8.1, it failed. I honestly don't have the time to deal with attempting to fix issues, hunt down drivers and manually patch things up that seems to be par for the course with Windows Machines. I'm retracting anything I said regarding Windows when I started out on this experiment, but I am going to provide some further insights I've had since my last post. I went into this experiment because people hated Windows 8 with such a passion I wanted to see what all the hate was about. Jumping from Mac to Windows 8 wasn't that difficult in most regards. The interface found on ...

If there's one thing that Apple nailed right on the first go round, it was iTunes. I'm an iTunes junky and will always be an iTunes Junky regardless of what OS I end up using as my primary. Most of the complaints I've heard about iTunes are invalid complaints because they revolve around either A) They have to pay for the music/TV Show or B) They don't have a particular artists/television show/movie they feel should be available and C) There's DRM on them and I can only watch them through iTunes. For all of these issues, I will point past Apple to the content providers who are stuck in a model that's now severely outdated and which they cannot seem to divorce themselves from. "Sure, you can have our show, but you can't let the customer burn it to a disk or share it out to anybody who's not them." It's been found that, in general, the people who pirate music are also the ones who spend the most money on it. Why is this? That's sim...

Jumping off my experiment for a moment, I'm going to take some time to share my thoughts on Steve Balmer leaving Microsoft. This could be the best news that Microsoft has had in years. Why they allowed him to stay as long as he has is still a mystery to me. The man has taken good ideas and managed to murder them. The Courier, which was far more interesting and impressive than the iPad ever was, was killed with the reason being, if I recall correctly, they couldn't figure out the battery life on the device. Then there was a huge jump in battery life technology which made that reason completely stupid. The rest of the time Balmer was trying to play Catch Up with Apple and then Google. They have been watching as their business becomes more of a joke than anything else. Now is the time for them to take charge, hire a CEO with some new vision and a willingness to take risks in innovation and bring some new product ideas to the table. One thing Microsoft can't do is continu...