Windows is weird.

Exactly what I find with my Magic Mouse. It would be a good mouse if it weren't for the fact that the *entire* surface acts as a touch pad. If only a small part near the end did, it would be just fine.

The exact reason we didn't purchase the peugot 308 last time around. All the heating controls are on the touch screen.

Never quite understood how many use i-pads etc at home where size and weight etc aren't at a premium.

because they are easy to move from room to room. Recipes in the kitchen, a book to read in bed, catch up with mail whreever, etc.

I dunno. You could build a game into the touch screen as part of the ignition sequence.

If the user does not respond correctly to tests related to reaction time, road knowledge and hazard observances, then the car ain't going anywhere...

Cars are becoming too complicated for some of their drivers, and the servicing required.

What is the modern equivalent of a 2CV?

Citroen Ami?

Indeed. There are some things in 10 which I perceive as better, and some I could really do without.

Whether I like it or not is kind of beside the point though. I am not arguing that 10 is better than 7 in every way - its not. There are many bits I dislike and prefer the 7 route. There are some genuine improvements as well though.

The main thing is that 10 is supported and 7 is not. If you are responsible for the security of customers computers and networks, and unsupported OS is a risk. If you have a business case that needs particular applications that now only work on 10 (Office 2019 for example) you don't have any real choice.

I ran into a compatibility issue the other day with a hardware upgrade on a win 8.1 machine when I discovered there was no driver support for the ethernet controller any version of windows other than ten!

The proliferation of touch interfaces has allot to answer for! Remember when web sites could show you a table with a whole load of transactions on a single page, and now is all large and spaced out to cater for all those uses with meat styli instead of mice?

(and yes 8 was horrid in many ways - even when tempered with classic start some of the irritations still remained like the way to bits of "modern" interface were modal and consumed clicks elsewhere as an indication to close a dialog - hence making it impossible to copy and paste things into multi part forms etc)

You remember program manager (Win 3.1 era) with its groups and no mapping between them and actual folder/ directory structures? In some respects Win 95 was a massive step forward in usability but also a dramatic change in UI.

I frequently switch between 7, 10, assorted Linux boxen and the occasional Mac. The Linux machines are typically accessed via command line, so those don't cause too much issue. Moving to 10 from 7 required some adjustment, however the adjusted ways work on 7[1] mostly so its not too difficult. I find the biggest mental jump is doing OSX since the metaphors are different, and I don't use it often.

Most are still on control panel - although a few have moved. Settings grows a bit in scope with each new update.

There are also one or two facilities that have actually been lost, like the ability to edit the more advanced wifi settings once a connection has been created.

Yup I get caught by that with some Android apps.

How about:

Pasting something into the command prompt (CTRL + V in ten, needs a right click context menu action in 7)

Being able to "queue up" drag and drop file operations, and have the ability to pause and restart the individual operations as required.

Seeing easily what apps are minimised - 10 gives a live window mini preview of each window's content when you hover over a minimised app in the task bar without the need to switch to it.

That's more accommodation of phone users alas...

The best feature being able to delete them all IMHO :-)

(Point B is an interesting modern phenomenon - lots of stuff used to be quite colourful and pseudo 3D etc, and now its all gone flat and few simple colours - applies on phones as well. I expect its a combination of wanting a consistent UI, while at the same time going for a "standard" that is less graphic artist intensive to create)

Profoundly illegal

You cannot get a car through today's MOT without it being stuffed full of sensors and electronics

Which for a home PC user seems to me extremely likely! :-)

I doubt [m]any developers use Windows File History as a source code management system

The Natural Philosopher snipped-for-privacy@invalid.invalid wrote

But can do a lot more than your manual single lens reflex camera/

You can't do a mobile phone that way because it can be in your pocket etc.

Trivially fixed by putting it on the induction charger so its always fully charged. Treat it like the cordless phone.

Nothing complicated about an iphone screen in that situation, just two icons, answer the call or reject it and let it go to voicemail if you don?t want to let it time out automatically.

Not on an iphone it doesn?t.

On an iphone it tells you to swipe if if that is necessary and that?s so you don?t accidentally answer it when you take it out of your pocket to see who is calling and decide if you want to answer it.

That?s just the dementia.

Ditto.

I do that every f****ng day.

Because they are f*****ts.

Because of your dementia.

That?s bullshit too.

It?s the only thing that works with a tablet.

No. Stuff a digital sensor in those old manual cameras and they would do exacty as much, Take a digital picture.

My point is not about the whole camera, its about the autofocus. After many ghastly mistakes I now set it to the one setting that actually works, focus on a center spot, and hold that focus till I compose the shot My point is that it less usable and slower than the manual camera used to be because you end up spending time fiddling with settinggs instead of taking pictures

It used to be you pressed a green button to answer and a red button to hang up, That was worses, but acceptable]

What induction charger?

No, it isnt

Exactly, and "F*****ts Buy Features" is written on the wall of every marketing department in the world

I am afraid it is you that is talking bullshit. My phone fails to respond to finger taps at least 50% of the time unless I lick my finger

But tabletst are just s*it anyway.

Or writing on Windows at all. Linux is what most developers used .,

And that illustrates the point . It is a feature that you can convince people is useful BUT no one has actually ever used it

If they REALLY need it they will use a special purpose tool, like sccs or RCS or a more modern equivalent - many development toolsets do this inside the development environment- you dont need the operating system to do it I HAVE used sccs and RCS. But I dont need my operating system to gratuitously provide their functionality for everything I do and slow te machine down in doing so

If you are so stupid you need a backup of everything you do you are too stupid to be able to restore it anyway.

Yep.

But can't do the fancy stuff that the best smartphones can do.

But the best digital cameras do a hell of a lot more than that.

Wrong with the best digital cameras.

That?s what you still do on an iphone when the phone isnt locked.

And was necessary.

Charges the smartphone without plugging it into the charger. You place the phone on the charger.

Corse it is if you fail half the time.

Because you have a steaming turd of a phone.

No one gets that with an iphone.

Mindlessly silly.

Bert Coules - are you involved with complex software/hardware developments where multiple people are involved and customers are on multiple releases?

Anyway, as an alternative (additional?) approach to what W7 offers, it has its uses.

(I have been involved in large-scale development. I wouldn't rely on anything within Windows to do backups in such circumstances. No-one with two brain cells would ever think File History was appropriate for that.)

That's me! Once learned, I have been happy with Windows up to 7.

The banks were a bit sniffy when support was removed but seem OK at the moment.

As hinted up thread, all I actually need is mail, news feed access, decent search facility, photo handling/storage, pdf reader and peripherals management (printer/scanner, back up storage etc.)

I suppose a Netflix feed to my TV might be tempting. Something else to learn:-(

I suppose Microsoft need to keep upgrading in order to keep selling. Not much income from patching existing stuff!

They are rather more convenient than a laptop if you don?t do a lot of text input.

How would they do things like automatic detection of eye position to select a focus zone? So you simply look at the bit you want in focus while maintaining the final picture composition?

I would expect if you have the camera set in centre spot focus mode you simply point centre field of view at your target, and half press the shutter release, that will set focus and exposure on that point, you then recompose and take the picture. Something even basic digital cameras have had for a long time.

This is probably more your style:

Lack of mental plasticity? :-)

Works pretty easily on my stock Android motorola - touch the answer button, and slide toward the green answer swash to answer it, or toward the red reject one to not. It achieves unlocking and answering (or rejecting) in a single gesture.

I would expect that is about the one option that anyone could achieve as it's the basic default on most ovens - enter a cook time and hit start.

So with your oven, can to do cook on full power for 2 mins, rest for a min, and then two mins on half power in a single instruction?

So, let's have your vision of a better interface for a device like a modern phone then?

No, that's true - I know people who can't use capacitive touch screens since they simply don't register their touch.

You can get phone compatible gloves these days... or go for a phone with a stylus like a galaxy note.

I find mine quite good.

You need to read what he asked and answer that, not the question you think he asked.

Having tried a smart phone and finding that the only thing I use (and which I can in any case do without) is WhatsApp, when this iPhone packs up I'll just go back to the clamshell. I don't need the camera because since having theis iPhone I've not noticed an increase in the number of plane crashes, robberies, or other everyday occurences that I might feel impelled to take a picture of. And it has a lousy battery life.