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Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

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Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#241

Post by adestefan »

mortenjorck wrote: post #208
quink wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever are you complaining about? Little as I am a fan of the WYSIWYG philosophy, Office is a genuinely spectacular product.

Indeed, apart from that WYSIWYG. If Word were focused only on text editing (at which it is peerless) and not at all on design and typesetting (at which it is execrable), it would be a nearly perfect product.

I've learned there is one rule when it comes to design in Word: Thou shall only use styles.

Once someone tries to muck with settings for individual pieces external of the style then it just goes to hell. I wish they'd take all the formatting tools out of toolbar and only have them accessible via the style formatter.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#242

Post by BrandonLive »

Anderkent wrote: post #230
hyperliner wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There’s no good way to collaborate with multiple authors without hellish document synchronization effort." Based on just that, I don't think you have used Office in a really long time.

No, actually, collaborating in office as compared to google docs or tex + git is hell.

Misleading troll is misleading.

Word has great co-authoring support if you use Word Online (free equivalent of Google Docs which the desktop/tablet/phone client can work with natively), SharePoint, or Office 365.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#243

Post by BrandonLive »

jodrellblank wrote: post #219
reallysure wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Actually MS has always listened." Really? http://www.jax184.com/projects/filenames/filenames.html

Your one link to demonstrate Microsoft "don't listen" is where the person refuses to report it through the proper channels, gets it reported via an unofficial channel then after Microsoft have listened, doesn't like their answer therefore pretends it didn't happen? Convincing.

Indeed. Also, I thought for sure that 8.3 file name creation was off by default starting in either Win8 or Win7. Maybe it depends on whether you upgraded from an older version or which SKU you install?

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#244

Post by BrandonLive »

rasz_pl wrote: post #175
flogic wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure they did draw on it. But, there's a difference between drawing to make sure drawing works and drawing because that's your job. In the first, people would be more likely to say "oh I brushed the home button". In the second, they're much more likely to suffer a critical flow interruption.

They had plenty of feedback on numerous ms forums of people asking for a way to disable or rebind home button, they ignored all of it. Currently the only way to influence it is to delete registry key [-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SurfaceHomeButton] and kill all physical buttons completely.

Stop saying they ignored it.

A) The product hasn't even shipped yet. That may be an option or made into one in an early update.

B) There may be a technical limitation to disabling or rebinding it (e.g. without impacting either other buttons, or the behavior of actual keyboard buttons).

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#245

Post by BrandonLive »

trobertson wrote: post #111
Aissen wrote: post #66

> I could see some of them shaking their heads and looking at each other. They were very obviously bothered that they had not seen this before. To me this looks like engineers that had foreseen the problem but were promptly ignored by UX people. Or maybe the other way around.

Rather than single out engineer and UX guys, it would be more accurate to say that some person(s?) foresaw the problem, and their concerns were dismissed by someone above them.

That's all baseless speculation. In fact in Microsoft's culture decisions like that are almost entirely made by individual contributors working with trios of front-line managers/leads (dev/test/pm).

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#246

Post by rthomas6 »

taude wrote: post #234
rthomas6 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for my use case, which is when you have a 1,200 page document with hundreds of tables, lists, and pictures. The thing grinds to a halt and has all sorts of problems. Yes, I know that MS Word is not the best choice for documents that big, but it's not up to me.

That's weird you can't break it down into smaller parts? I worked on a big book, about that size with several people and the major, mainstream publishing company wanted it in individual documents mapping to individual chapters.

We actually did break it up into several parts when making and editing it, but for the "official release" of the document (It's a big-ass test procedure document), they wanted it in one file. And of course there's always some changes you find after you release something.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#247

Post by BrandonLive »

dman wrote: post #145
phaus wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's admirable that MS is responding to criticism of their device and working for a solution. It is admirable, but their work towards a solution will be fruitless. N-Trig's pressure sensitive stylus technology is vastly inferior to Wacom. Sure, most people can't tell the difference, but most artists can. Sure, artists can still produce professional quality work with an N-Trig stylus, but the experience of using an N…

The possibility also remains that Wacom did not want the kind of business that the Surface brings to them. The surface is the first product that does a reasonably good job of cannibalizing cintiq sales. I would expect their margins on Cintiq to be higher than selling a digitizer component to Microsoft. I think Wacom is in a really tough place here - they have to balance between limiting access to their crown jewels w…

Absolutely nothing to do with that. Wacom would love to be in the SP3. But weight, thickness, cooling, display quality (and writing feel due to extra layers between the glass and display panel), and battery life all conspired against them. The N-Trig solution trades off some drawing precision (at a degree very few will notice) and the requirement of a battery in the pen for improvements to all of those things. Seems like a no-brainer.

When I was at MS folks were working super closely with Atmel (touch panel vendor for most early Win8/RT tablets) and really pushed the limits of their technology. There was a tight feedback loop there and I personally had found issues which eventually were solved via iterations of back-and-forth with Atmel and with software tweaks to work around hardware limitations.

It may not happen over night, but I suspect they're doing the same thing with N-Trig and pushing them to improve the experience in a way which other PC/tablet vendors never have or would. So don't assume that just because other OEMs haven't cared enough to get the most out of N-Trig's text that Surface doesn't have a shot at doing better.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#248

Post by richardlblair »

mikestew wrote: post #112
richardlblair wrote: post #43

When MS is cornered (when they are losing in one area or another), and they are determined to win the competition should be scared. They are very good at committing to a project, and being in it for the long haul.

> They are very good at committing to a project, and being in it for the long haul. How so? I can think of several projects ( especially hardware) that they abandoned after the first version. Granted, they gave the Zune a fair shake (though I don't think the iPod had much to be scared of). SPOT, too, considering that smart phones were starting to get useful about a year after SPOT's release. But as a counter example,…

Excel immediately comes to mind.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#250

Post by rthomas6 »

oatmeal_coffee wrote: post #228
rthomas6 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for my use case, which is when you have a 1,200 page document with hundreds of tables, lists, and pictures. The thing grinds to a halt and has all sorts of problems. Yes, I know that MS Word is not the best choice for documents that big, but it's not up to me.

A document that large must have some kind of a structure that you and your team can use to break it apart into smaller, more manageable chunks. One thing to consider is to place the content into a content management system of kind (a wiki comes to mind) to allow the content to more easily be maintained and grow without the limitations Word creates. The decision may not have been up to you to keep it all in one Word d…

We actually did break it up into several parts when making and editing it, but for the "official release" of the document (It's a big-ass test procedure document), they wanted it in one file. And of course there's always some changes you find after you release something.
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