That's what bumpers are for

Great article there, and I agree with he people here, if you can't use a computer, you shouldn't. But then its a matter of people not wanting to even try. My sister for instance wants me to rip some of her CD's for her, I tried telling her to put the CD in and click rip, but she refuses to believe its that easy. Some people will need Vista to be like that.
As long as you can turn most of it off, I will be fine with all the hand holding in the OS, less wok for me.

 

Just a little tip for using the car.

Its generally not a good idea to put petrol in a derv. The fuel pump tends to die.

(But I guess the back of your filler cap has diesel written on it) *grin*

 

I always found the "My" prefix a bit girly, as though MS were trying to encourage a new audience to play with a PC. Maybe the market's grown (and PCs become so ubiquitous) that the butch guys at Redmond have said, "Enough!"

I know far, far, more people who have all their car maintenance done by the garage than people who do their own. And it's not technically hard to do an oil change. Majority of people think computers and cars are for driving, not tinkering with. KISS.

 

Your article is 100% right, and my christmas is ruined because of it...


In my short time playing with Vista, I keep on thinking about how much I wish it was more like XP, until DX10 games force me to upgrade I will live strong without Vista.

 

Your spelling might

Before IE was Mosaic and Netscape

4DOS - Once upon a time I had some HUGE batch files (complete with ASCII "graphics" & mouse support (with Logimenu & a few other utils)). I remember feeling handcuffed in WeenieDOS 3 & even 95 - Sure it was easier for my mom but it felt so dumbed down to me.

 

the first thing i always do when installing xp is to turn off all visual styles and set the desktop to classic mode (esspecially in control panel i cant stand the menu system) then i turn off error reporting and such

now then with this so called holding of hands im sure that the microsoft devs dont want to have their hands held using an OS so im sure that they will give us the option of turning that off to (or at the very least some one will find the correct registry entry in order to turn them off) so that is not so much a worry for me

i beleive that vista is going to be a good thing it will just take a little getting used to. i for one like IE7 and if that is a sign of things to come then great.

regarding the general use of computers i use the comparison of cooking (to make another analogy) whilst some people find this the easiest thing in the world many people dont know how long to boil an egg. it is a fair comparison across all skills sport, diy, drawing and even social communication. Whilst i beleive that building a computer is easy, and i sometimes feel guilty for charging people, i just think of all the chefs that charge for the meals they cook. I bet some of them laugh at some of the cook books that hold our hands through making a cake.

Where would we be if every one was good at everything

 

OTOH, some of us, have already grow up that phase... I'm attracted to Vista, and in part it's due to that "patronizing" people are talking about.

I'm already past the point when tinkering to solve a problem was fun. Now I don't want to have problems to begin with. I don't want to spend my valuable free time defragmenting the drive, caring and nursing the installation, worrying about patches and bad drivers...I want things done, games running and things working. Yeah, experimenting with new hardware is fun. Getting to know why a game crashes is not.

Of course, I still prefer to have some customizing options...like turning off UAC controls or being able to choose my preferred visual style, but I have better things to do than defragmenting the HDD, or tinkering with msconfig to remove unneeded starting process...and my PC resources would be better used when gaming than being stuck with firewalls, anti-virus, anti-spywares, google desktop search, dvd players and the like.

If Vista is more like OS/X, in the sense of not asking me to be aware of what goes under the skin (is there something more inane that having to maintain a structured and clean folder tree just to be able to locate applications easily? go Vista Search!!!), I'm all for it and it'll make my life easier and my computing time more enjoyable.

 

Thing is computers should be easy to use, and shouldn't be the exclusive right of a few techies. I draw on paper, I don't need to know how the paper was made, I don't need to know how to make a pencil from a tree. A computer is a tool, and one we rely on more and more in the modern world. This reliance has created the need to make the use of computers an easier experience as they are used more and more in the work place. When you think about it, the car analogy is really inaccurate; as if I were to purchase a car, even twenty years ago, there would only be the remotest possibility that after driving it for 3 minutes, the thing would actually fall to pieces by the side of the road and require me to dismantle the whole engine, rebuilding it, adding upgraded parts and seeking out a new fuel. Consumers have put up with Microsoft's half made, ropey, held together with string, over priced products for years, and this in itself has created 'uber geeks,' who enjoy the techie side of computers and hardware. The mainstream consumer does not want to be burdened with this just to send an email to Aunty Dorris, watch a film etc, and why should they. Remember Microsoft ME operating system? At the time my friend spent £1000 on a machine, it never worked properly, crashed continuously. How did Microsoft get away with this?
I personally am a graphics artist and above anything else, I require reliability, I cannot afford down time, and a day to reinstall Windows and all my software. With this in mind, I am going to get a hair dressers computer on Friday, a nice silver one with two cores and ram upgrade...lol

 

It seems as though Digg.com users felt your article, was well, stupid.

http://www.digg.com/software/Windows_Vista_Dumbing_Down_for_Joe_User

You, though, have to remember there are many technically educated people on Digg and some who are no where near that.

Sad to say I actually agree with most of the technically advanced ones on Digg.

 

OK, I seldom look at stuff on digg but from the few times I have I'd have to say that a FEW of the posters actually have more than two brain cells - as for the rest - I think I have posters on my wall with greater wisdom and a more diverse vocabulary.

 

*shrug* I stopped reading the comments in digg about a month after the site came out.. reminded me of Usenet just with more tools and less vocabulary.

 

Read about 4 comments, made a guess that the average person there is just making a comment because they can.

Ignored.

Laughed at the VB script

 

Beautiful. And so true. I don't know what to say because i am still willing to learn new things. I don't want to be offensive, but just out of curiosity why do some people like DOS and the old stuff still. It confuses me.

 

Oh my god, that is why I stay with bit right there. People who have no sense of humor and are totally ignorant. These people are the type that disgrace the internet geeks such as us.
That there alone has prevented me from ever going to digg again, how could they say that about this site?
[/angry rant]

 

I agree with the article wholeheartedly, but the title continuously reminds me of the Bond movie "Goldeneye."
from IMDB:
[Ourumov's car has just entered a crowded marketplace]
General Ourumov: Use the bumper! That's what it's for!

 

For me it's a combination of nostalgia, and the fact that using DOS required more skill (which in turn, made you look good).

Saying that though, I always remember setting up EMS memory being a major pain in the ass - I'm glad we don't have that nonsense anymore..."right, only 640kb, and I need 560kb set up as EMS - should I disable the mouse driver, just to free up a little more? Hmmm, can I get away with running HIMEM.SYS? Damn it! I forgot about the SET BLASTER environment variable!".

The amount of boot disks I had was rediculous - well, at least is was before I discovered boot menu's.

 

Nice, however I'd bet Windows 95 is safer than XP without a firewall

 

crikey riggs, thanks for the insight.

 

Yep, riggs nailed it: nostalgia, the sense of learning, the feeling of POWER!!! <insert evil laugh here> The challenge made you feel Great when you succeeded - but, do I use the command line from XP (there is actually some good stuff in there now)? - heck no! (If I had been able to keep using 4DOS things might be different though )

 

Heh, i still prefer oldschool any day... No vista before i absolutely have to... I love tinkering with my 1986 Alfa Romeo 75 (Milano) and enjoy driving it much more than a 2006 VW Golf for example..
I can actually open up the hood of my old car and repair stuff with a screwdriver and a wrench, without plugging in a diagnostic machine... This requires skill none the less as does computing, and the fact that the majority of car/pc owners dont care how it works as long as it works, Vista will be good for Joe Average just as the Golf is for Mr. Smith, who, given a selection of tools would ruin the car he drove in 5 minutes..
This and the fact that the diagnostic machine for the new golf costs more than i would spend on repairs on the old 75 in a year, I think I'll keep my old car without ABS, ASR, DSP and all the gimmicks there is out there... Only thing i like about this old car is lots of BHP, the option of LSD (figure that one guys ) and a set of alloy wheels