Computers Back in the Old Days

[JamesSavik]

For years I was a Unix Systems Administrator

We called it Big Red Unix because of the Big Red Books.

But the best books were written by the guys who designed it.

In Unix, shutdown is restricted to root.

#shutdown -i0 -y -g30

where i == init level 0 or off

y == answer all questions yes

g == grace period warning to log off shutdown in 30 seconds.

No sissy graphics for command line code monkies!

[DesDownunder]

Running Windows 7, there has been a recent problem with sleep mode and Skype's latest update.

Skype is not returning when the computer is awakened from Sleep mode.

Work around is to sign out from Skype when entering sleep mode, but of course this means you have to sign back into Skype when you come out of sleep mode. A little annoying.

[Lugnutz]

I have Windows 8. Not bad, was very annoying until you got used to the quirks. I had to shelve that box for a while so I can figure out why I can't open my email, use my Youtube or Photobucket along with a few things on the new system all of a sudden. My old box is fine with XP.

[The Pecman]

I remember the problem with Wordstar was that it was far from intiuitive - the command to save your work and close the file was Ctrl+K,D which, along with all the other commands, you just had to learn.

Hey, I still know a bunch of WordStar commands. Some of this stuff, you never forget. Control-K-S, Control-K-Q... not that big a deal. The dot-commands for formatting were a total pain in the ass, though. In truth, I rarely delivered anything to magazines except a plain manuscript, 12 pt. Courier. WordStar was remarkably efficient if all you needed was the text in cold, hard green letters on a monochrome display.

Also, a bit of defense for Microsoft: They do a lot of user studies.

The insider's joke is: how many people inside Apple's Human User Interface department? 3000, working around the clock, testing new ideas, coming up with new menus and new icons. How many work at Microsoft? 3. Their job is to find out what Apple is doing.

[Jeff Ellis]

Hold tight guys... the first computer I programmed was in 1959... a Stantec Zebra that could remember 24 numbers, and the memory required to do that weighed five tonnes. Ferrite ring memories came a few years later. The memory of the zebra was acoustic! Needless to say I was the youngest on the course.

[dude]

Have been running Windows 8.1 for a couple of months now. What a bust, it's a real pain in the ass. It'll take me forever adding third-party software to make work as well as Windows 7.

What a waste of money!

[DesDownunder]

I'm running Windows 7 with Classic Shell which also works on Win 8 :

Classic Start Menu is a flexible start menu that can mimic the menu behavior of Windows 2000, XP and Windows 7. It has a variety of advanced features: •Choose between “Classic” and “Windows 7” styles

•Drag and drop to let you organize your applications

•Options to show Favorites, expand Control Panel, etc

•Shows recently used documents. The number of documents to display is customizable

•Translated in 35 languages, including Right-to-left support for Arabic and Hebrew

•Does not disable the original start menu in Windows. You can access it by Shift+Click on the start button

•Right-click on an item in the menu to delete, rename, sort, or perform other tasks

•The search box helps you find your programs and files without getting in the way of your keyboard shortcuts

•Supports jumplists for easy access to recent documents and common tasks

•Available for 32 and 64-bit operating systems

•Has support for skins, including additional 3rd party skins. Make your own!

•Fully customizable in both looks and functionality

•Support for Microsoft’s Active Accessibility

•Converts the “All Programs” button in the Windows menu into a cascading menu

•Implements a customizable start button

•Can show, search and launch Windows Store apps (Windows 8)

•And last but not least – it's FREE!

and a whole lot more.

The latest version can be found on the Classic Shell website:
http://www.classicshell.net/

Also see comparison with other Start Menu progams

[colinian]

I'm running Windows 8.1 with Start8 (gives Win 8/8.1 a Start button) and I always start in desktop mode. I don't use "Modern" mode for anything except the nook app (which is better in that mode than the version for the 7/8/8.1 desktop) and occasionally for playing solitaire. Photoshop CC 64 bit version editing huge multi-layer images is significantly faster in Win 8/8.1 than the same tasks in Win 7. Dreamweaver CC is faster. The only program that isn't faster or at least as fast is Firefox, but I think that's due to the latest version, not to the version of Windows.

So my recommendation is get Start8 and install it, then configure it so Win 8/8.1 always starts in desktop mode and just stick to desktop mode for everything.

If you want a quick way to shut down Windows 8.1:

* Press Ctrl-Alt-Del, and on the next screen click on the little close icon in the lower right corner. Easy!

or

* With Start8 click the Start button, then click the > symbol on the right end of the Restart button, then from the popup menu click Shut down. Or click Sleep or Hibernate or Sign out or Switch user or Lock. Or just click the Restart button to restart your PC.

I have my laptop set to Sleep when I close the cover. If I press the Power button it goes into Hibernate which saves all the programs and files that are open, everything I've been doing, on the hard drive, then shuts down. When I restart it later it sees that it was in Hibernate mode so it reads what was stored on disk into memory so it loads faster.

Hibernate is also available on desktop PCs, not just laptops. It's useful there too.

Colin

[DesDownunder]

Classic Shell has considerably more customisation options available than Start8, and Classic Shell is free. Please see the comparison link in my post, above.

[colinian]

I tried Classic Shell with Windows 8 when I first got it. Classic Shell kept crashing, so I uninstalled it. Then I got an email from Stardock about Start8 and I installed it and it worked, and I paid for it (I think it's $5.00, and updates are free). I assume the Classic Shell developer resolved the problems, but I'm used to my environment with Start8 now and don't see (from the list of features) any reason to change. For anyone just getting started with Windows 8/8.1 checking out the freeware start menu programs like Classic Shell first; it you don't like any of them then you can try Start8 – it has a free trial period.

The Ctrl-Alt-Del trick for quickly quitting Windows 8/8.1 should work no matter which start menu programs you're using. Ctrl-Alt-Del brings up a menu with Lock, Switch User, Sign Out, and Task Manager. This is needed so you can select and run Task Manager in case an application program locks up and won't shut down, or keeps giving you the same dialog box over and over again. Task Manager (starting with the first version of Windows I think) lets you shut down such programs. Now it also gives many other options including the ability to find an app (i.e., a program) or background process that is hogging the CPU, memory, disk access, and/or network. Click on the title and that column is sorted with the largest values at the top. Be careful about shutting down windows processes; close the wrong one and your next step might have to be restarting your PC from the power button. There's a lot of interesting information available, like App History. I found that the app that transferred the most data across the network was Barnes and Noble's nook – and I only used it once. Go figure.

Colin

[DesDownunder]

Thanks Colin, I have only been using Classic Shell with Windows 7, so I was unaware of any problem with Windows 8 until your alert, and Classic Shell history file does indeed show that an incompatibility problem with Win 8 has been addressed, so it should be fine now.

I have to say I have had no problem with Classic Shell on Win 7, and I like the range of customisation it offers.

It is astounding to me that we should even need these programs to tailor the GUI to our preferences. In a perfect world the operating system would come complete with access to such customisation.

[colinian]

I like being able to do some customization of the GUI and the way my desktop looks. I'm using Stardock's Fences to organize my desktop into three areas, applications, utilities, and links. I also changed my desktop wallpaper so what I have in the office is very different than what I have at home and on my laptop so I'm less likely to go looking for something that's on one of the other PCs.

Colin

[Nick Deverill]

I use Classic shell with Windows 8.1. Not perfect, but pretty good.

Laptop doesn't auto sleep at all well, but it's so simple to instruct it to, I've given up worrying. The trick for me is to set the power settings differently between plugged in, and not. For me, a press on the on/off button puts the laptop to sleep if it has mains, and shuts down if on batteries. For the way I use it - ideal.

[The Pecman]

Have been running Windows 8.1 for a couple of months now. What a bust, it's a real pain in the ass. It'll take me forever adding third-party software to make work as well as Windows 7.

The failure of Windows 8, Windows Surface, and the Windows Phone was a huge part of CEO's Steve Ballmer's forced retirement. Maybe he'll have better luck owning the Clippers.

I agree with you that taking away the Start menu was a bizarre step. I have no idea how Microsoft comes up with this crap. I'm almost as upset with Apple taking away the three-dimensionality of all the icons, making everything flat. Some changes, I get; others, they're just F-ing with it.

I still laugh at Microsoft using the Stones' song "Start Me Up" when they introduced Windows95 in late 1994. Note that they never used the part of the lyric that went "you make a grown man cryyyyyy...", which is too true when it comes to Win95. I can remember a three-month period where I swear to god, we were doing a re-install of Win95 about every two weeks due to horrific crashes. It eventually got a lot better, but Jesus...

BTW, just to be an equal-opportunity OS slammer, I just went through 24 friggin' hours of Mac OSX hell, because Apple went behind my back and automatically updated the OS without telling me. This caused a bunch of programs to become unstable, and we went nuts trying to figure out what new installation was causing this erratic behavior. It's very, very hard to roll back an OS, but in our case, we did have a week-old backup and I was able to painstakingly bring it up to yesterday through careful restores and copying. I'm just now back to normal, but godamighty, that was a pain in the ass.

And let me just say on the record that Avid Technology might be the single worst computer software company on the planet. I hated them when I was using Pro Tools; I hate them still now that I'm using Avid editing and other tools. The programs are great; the company is about 10 times more evil than Microshaft (and that's saying something).

[Jeff Ellis]

Oh dear, I recognised the Wordstar page!