The War for Windows

In 2009 Microsoft Windows made a huge leap forward with Windows 7. it provided a better experience for all users. with a completely revamped taskbar, better boot times, and all around better performance, it was an instant hit. I for one felt extraordinarily excited when I started installing on my family’s main computer.
while Windows 7 took the operating system in a new and powerful direction, there are still weak spots. People still associate Windows with failure, and with the cheap option. I write this blog post to out-line what I believe Windows needs to accomplish with the next version, Windows 8.
starting with the small leaps forward.

The media problem:
Windows media player, even after the upgrade in 7, is an old and slow platform. I don’t see why Microsoft hangs on to this antiquated piece of software. Also there is the redundancy of Windows Media Center. It serves no real purpose, other than on media center PCs, and I don’t think it fits in with Microsoft’s plan for the simplification of their operating system.
The media solution:
Replace windows media player with the Zune software. The polish of the Zune software is incredible. Not only would it bring a new take on the media player, but it would also make a viable replacement for Media Center, as it is already more remote control friendly than media center. As an added bonus, it integrates the Zune Pass service. This is the most obvious move Microsoft could make in improving the user experience of Windows.

The speed problem:
Windows 7 is blistering fast and efficient…when you first install it. as you install new software, your computer gets slower, and slower, and slower.
The speed solution:
prevent software from running in the background. most software companies take the easy rout for speeding up their software, and build in the “feature” of running in the background before you even need it. by disabling this option, Microsoft would be able to make their software more efficient. it would have the added bonus of making windows more secure, as long as there was a user enabled option for security software.

Now for the big leaps.

Make it more like a cell phone.

Although an app store has been announced for windows 8, Microsoft needs to take the concept further.

Starting with…make it social

Integrating social networks, like twitter and facebook, would make Windows seem cooler to the masses.

Next…notify me

notifications have been a hallmark of cellphones for more than five years. notification on windows could tell you when you get an email, integrate with your phone to tell you when you get a text, and integrate with social networks to tell you when new comments are posted.

Then…get rid of the taskbar

"WHAT???" you ask. it is simple, cell phones have done without a task bar for…well…ever. The “start” button on your key board could bring up and app menu with a task manager.

Add a CRAZY clean browser. just tabs and an address bar.

I’m probable crazy, but that is what I want.

*this post has new and improved capitalization!

Google Chrome Review

Google Chrome, when it was released, was the most advanced browser yet. The minimalistic design drew attention to the website, but hid many features behind menus. It also innovated on many fronts; from the unified search and address bar, to the tiles that showed your most visited websites for easy access. This is the browser that reignited the browser wars, and showed other companies how to innovate the internet.

Features

As far as features go, the Google Chrome browser is very well endowed, the difficulty is finding all those features behind the minimalistic user interface. One trouble spot is the extensions menu; in order to access the menu you must click on the wrench icon, then click on the tools button, and then click on extensions. Unfortunately that is the price you pay for a clean interface.

Chrome has innumerable features that can be easily taken for granted. Auto-complete is a feature that records the websites you visit and automatically inserts the address; for instance typing F+enter takes you to facebook.com, and if you were to visit frys.com more often than Facebook, the combination of F+enter would take to the Frys website. Another feature that I can’t live without is the most visited grid; just like auto-complete it records the pages you visit, and displays them in order of most visited, and if you want to keep a certain web site on your grid forever or if you want to remove it, simply hover over the box and those two options appear. To add to the fray of features you also have the option to “pin” tabs; if you right click on a tab you will see the option to “pin this tab”; basically what happens is the tab is minimized down to the website icon, and the web sites you have pinned will open every time you open Chrome.

Now on to what features I think it needs. One feature that is sorely lacking from Google Chrome is a good way to organize a large number of tabs; if you open 57 tabs with a 23 inch screen you lose any way to tell what web site is in each tab. Of course the likely hood of you having 57 tabs is slim, but most computer screens aren’t as big as the one I use, so a way to control and organize your tabs would be a welcome addition. another feature that is missing is only noticeable if you are running Windows 7, that is the ability to see all your open tabs when you hover over the icon on the taskbar; I don’t see why after 2 years on the market and 6 versions they can’t include this simple feature. Then there is the poor full-screen functionality, when you enable full screen on the browser by pressing “F11” you are greeted with an overly minimalistic screen, as in you can’t do anything except look at the tab you had open; you can’t go to a different tab, you can’t type in a web address, you can’t do anything you could do when in normal mode.

While I was not able to cover all the features that are in this browser, I mentioned my favorites and my least favorites. There are also limitless ways to customize the features of the browser, simply by getting free extensions.

Look and feel

As far as looks go Google Chrome is pretty far up on the totem pole. The unified search and address bar works like a dream, when you start typing in “ican” a series of things appear: first you get an auto fill of icanhascheezburger.com, then it finds you some search suggestions, looks at your favorites, and checks you history; and after It does all that it shows the information in an intuitive order that makes it easy to get to what you need. Another incredible thing that Chrome features is a “smart tab organizer”, the organizer keeps your tabs in a logical order, for instance: while reading an article online you see a link, you then open the link in a new tab, Chrome automatically opens the tab in the background, after you read the content in the link and close the tab, Chrome takes you back to the original tab; it may sound like a strange thing to say, but you won’t even notice it, and that is a very good thing. If you are used to using other browsers you may initially be put off by the lack of a status bar at the bottom of the screen, but don’t worry, you won’t miss it, when you are loading a page a little bar showing what you where the content is coming from pops up at the bottom, and if you need to see behind it, simply mouse over it and it will move to the other side of the screen.

As far as negatives go I really don’t have anything to say, sure there are things they could do better, but there are always things that can be improved.

As with the features, the look and feel of chrome can be changed in a nearly endless amount of ways. Through the options menu you can find the themes gallery, included are many artist designs and some Google made themes.

Summery

Google chrome is a great browser that gets better the more you use it, of course that can also be a bad thing. Whenever anyone else uses chrome on my desktop I get autocompletes that I never put in the browser, so if someone else will be using Chrome on your desktop, I don’t recommend it, but if you will be the sole user of this browser you can’t go wrong, as always what browser you use is personal preference.

Credit to icanhascheezburger.com, engadget.com, and Carla zampatti