On 3/9/2013 7:43 AM, Keith Nuttle wrote:
On 3/9/2013 8:29 AM, Swingman wrote:
Bill wrote:
Gramp's shop wrote:
Bill ...

I bought a Lenovo with 4gb ram and a 500gb HD. $350 from Best Buy. No
touch screen. Like the computer but (H)8 Windows 8.

Lrry
It sounds like you did real well! I was mainly looking for something to
attach to a big screen tv, so I have been looking at those with HD,
1080P
(1920x1080)--matching the TV. Most (all?) of the candidates seem to have
"4000HD" (integrated) graphics. Has anyone tried streaming video from
web
pages this way with success in the way of video quality? I have a hunch
it will be hit and miss. I doubt Roy Underhill's show is recorded (at
PBS) in HD, for instance, but I'm assuming a laptop as described would
give the best possible configuration. I'll be sure to try to avoid
Windows8until I hear kinder words said about it! I was mildly
enthusiastic aboutthe touchscreen concept, but now I think I'll sit on
thesideline and hear more what those on the front line have to
report.

Bill

Don't believe all the naysayers about the underlying OS itself, as
technically it is one of MSFT's best operating systems yet, very resource
efficient, fast and relatively more secure than any MSFT consumer OS to
date (notice the word "relatively", no such thing as a totally secure OS,
just one that hasn't been targeted).

It is the GUI that throws everyone, and that can be infuriating
because it
is such a drastic sea change and humans simply don't like change. I'm
not a
big fan of the Win8 GUI myself, but having run it on a seven year old
laptop since it came out I find myself getting used to it, and
appreciating
most parts of it.

Short story - because you are human you will NOT like it at first because
of the GUI, but you will like the benefits of the underlying technical
aspects, so try it for an extended period and see if the angst doesn't
become more tempered than not ... and do keep in mind it is a first
iteration, and you do have the option to use the classic desktop.

And yes, it does run Sketchup, handily.

As far as your media center:

Get a Raspberry Pi for $40 and load up xbmc:

http://lifehacker.com/5929913/build-...5-raspberry-pi




My objection is to the touch interface. On anything of any size, the
motion of the hands and fingers on the touch screen will create a whole
new set of syndroms. The act of hold your arms outward for any lenght
of time is going to create stress in the upper arm shoulder areas. To
move the to the exteme for the point imaging use 70" screen with a touch
screen.

That is not the way things are headed, and a good argument can be made
that the necessity to "hold your arms outward" is fast becoming a thing
of the past, AND _particularly because of the advent of technology very
similar to the Win8 GUI!_

"Any size" is any thing that one would use for spreadsheets, accounting,
word processing, or presentation programs. Serious user will not be
running these programs on a 4X6 screen.

For those people alread with movement problems, the extra arm movement
will be impossible.

Personnally my screen has not icons. All of my programs are accessed
from the tool bar at the bottom of the screen.

The screen is for my photographs that I use as wall paper. I don't like
the idea of having the screen covered with large icons that prevent
seeing the background.

You are with most folks ... and I actually agree with you to a large
extent with regard to the Win8 GUI.

But, lets look forward to the future big picture, particularly in the
context of historical human behavior/interaction with "content"
presented by advances in technology (the quill pen, paper, the Gutenburg
press, computers, et al).

Until the last 30 years, most of human reading and writing as been done
on a horizontal surface, with a book or paper on a desk top.

It has only been in the last 50 years that the switch to a predominant
vertical display has been present in human interaction with
technological advances in the display of content ... basically since the
advent of the computer, movie screens, etc.

There is no doubt that the vertical display (computer monitor) excels in
the area of "presentation" of content, but not necessarily in the world
of "design" and other similar workplace tasks, particularly with regard
to "collaboration"in those areas.

Fast forward to the current cutting edge of technology where there have
been many studies relating to the benefits of horizontal displays
(displays built into the desktop itself), particularly in enterprise
situations where collaboration is most often a necessity.

Now, take a look again at Win8 and tell me where MSFT is betting the
future of computing is headed (the traditional PC, as we have known it
for 30 years, is fading fast, witness declining sales and prices),
particularly with regard to a more traditional human form of computer
interaction.

Enter tablets, mobile devices, and _horizontal displays in the
workplace environment_.

IOW, it all depends on how you look at it. LOL

http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ahci/2012/137686/

What's ironic is that the one's screaming the loudest about the Win8
glimpse of the future, the Enterprise (their IT departments, mostly),
will most likely be the biggest beneficiaries over time.

Human's just don't like their damn cheese being moved ... G

--
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KarlCaillouet@ (the obvious)