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Cortana is really bad

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Re: Cortana is really bad

#251

Post by exikyut »

vocatus_gate wrote: post #137
fpgaminer wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, I thought Cortana was Microsoft's name for their voice assistant on Windows 10 or something. Now everything is starting to make sense. I kept having issues using the Windows menu search in Windows 10. I'd type "remov" and it would show the menu item for uninstalling applications. Great. But if I accidentally finished and typed "remove" the result would disappear. I felt like I was going crazy or something. Comfo…

There IS a magic search tool, I've been using it for years. https://everything.en.softonic.com/ "Everything" is a fantastic lightning-fast system-wide search that's tiny and can run standalone.

This program comes with, well, you might describe it as a bit of an easter egg:

https://imgur.com/a/TZVw8

(Screenshots; SFW)

Re: Cortana is really bad

#252

Post by exikyut »

abrookewood wrote: post #219
vocatus_gate wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There IS a magic search tool, I've been using it for years. https://everything.en.softonic.com/ "Everything" is a fantastic lightning-fast system-wide search that's tiny and can run standalone.

Logged in just to upvote you .. Everything is the fastest search tool I have ever used. It is ridiculously good. From memory, it doesn't index files, just reads the File Allocation Table. You have to wonder: how is it that a single developer can build something so much better than a behemoth like MS? They should be seriously embarrassed.

Thanks very much for the info. I've been headscratching about how to read ZFS quickly, now I have some ammunition to convince the ZFS devs with!

Re: Cortana is really bad

#253

Post by rosstex »

vocatus_gate wrote: post #137
fpgaminer wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See, I thought Cortana was Microsoft's name for their voice assistant on Windows 10 or something. Now everything is starting to make sense. I kept having issues using the Windows menu search in Windows 10. I'd type "remov" and it would show the menu item for uninstalling applications. Great. But if I accidentally finished and typed "remove" the result would disappear. I felt like I was going crazy or something. Comfo…

There IS a magic search tool, I've been using it for years. https://everything.en.softonic.com/ "Everything" is a fantastic lightning-fast system-wide search that's tiny and can run standalone.

Everything is truly a gem that makes Windows usable. I use it more than Explorer.

Re: Cortana is really bad

#254

Post by therein »

mysterypie wrote: post #247
panarky wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Type 'upda' to get Windows Update, but instead it shows Java's updater. Type 'updat' and all search results disappear completely. Type 'upd' and now it shows Windows Update but not the Java update. Type fast and get different results than if you type slow. Type the same thing a third time and get different results than the first two times. And now Cortana keeps bugging me with lame notifications. How do I turn this o…

I think that explains what the programmers who wrote Cortana were thinking. The reasoning must have been as follows: - The user types 'upd' and pauses. The most likely thing the user wants is Windows Update, so show that. - The user continues typing (typed 'upda' so far). The user doesn't want Windows Update otherwise they would have picked it earlier. So show Java's updater. - The user keeps typing (typed 'updat' so…

> The logic works unless you're dealing with human beings who don't pause and pick the one correct action at every point.

I think that includes all human beings. None of us pay full attention at all times. Who did the PM think they were targeting?

Re: Cortana is really bad

#255

Post by harshbutfair »

If I type "lync", the default option is to run Skype for Business (Lync's successor).

If I type "skype" the default option is to install Skype for Business, even though I already have it installed.

It is very unintuitive. It is as bad as the search in Jira/Confluence, and that's saying something.

Re: Cortana is really bad

#256

Post by mysterypie »

therein wrote: post #254
mysterypie wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that explains what the programmers who wrote Cortana were thinking. The reasoning must have been as follows: - The user types 'upd' and pauses. The most likely thing the user wants is Windows Update, so show that. - The user continues typing (typed 'upda' so far). The user doesn't want Windows Update otherwise they would have picked it earlier. So show Java's updater. - The user keeps typing (typed 'updat' so…

> The logic works unless you're dealing with human beings who don't pause and pick the one correct action at every point. I think that includes all human beings. None of us pay full attention at all times. Who did the PM think they were targeting?

> I think that includes all human beings. None of us pay full attention at all times.

That's exactly what I meant though I said it in an ironic way.

Re: Cortana is really bad

#257

Post by ethbro »

contextfree wrote: post #234
ethbro wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used "smart" because ML / AI seemed overly charitable for what was going on behind the scenes. And it's certainly distinct (or tries to be) from "you must type in exactly and only the name of the thing you want to find". The issue with MS post-ribbon, and I would say this applies to Settings as well, is that I've yet to see them form a good answer to "Where do I go if the thing I want isn't on the Ribbon?" Strictly…

I'd say the Office ribbon is still sort of hierarchical, just laid out differently. tab -> section/group -> item -> submenu/subdialog. If something isn't on the ribbon or in any of the subdialogs it's almost certainly because it's deprecated and only still exists for some obscure compatibility reason. As for Windows Settings, it's unfortunately weird not for some principled or philosophical reason, but just because t…

> If something isn't on the ribbon or in any of the subdialogs it's almost certainly because it's deprecated and only still exists for some obscure compatibility reason.

Am I using it wrong then? I don't dive into Office if I can avoid it, but just yesterday there was some Powerpoint function I needed that didn't appear on the ribbon.

Had to pull out the "everything" right/left boxes, add it to the ribbon, and then I could use it.

I know they've been trying to fix that with context, selected-object specific tabs that appear, but it still has a ways to go.

Re: Cortana is really bad

#258

Post by ethbro »

WorldMaker wrote: post #183
ethbro wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used "smart" because ML / AI seemed overly charitable for what was going on behind the scenes. And it's certainly distinct (or tries to be) from "you must type in exactly and only the name of the thing you want to find". The issue with MS post-ribbon, and I would say this applies to Settings as well, is that I've yet to see them form a good answer to "Where do I go if the thing I want isn't on the Ribbon?" Strictly…

The driving guideline behind discoverability in a ribbon (and to a lesser extent the Settings) is to balance a combination of the most common tasks and the most powerful ones front and center. The answer to "Where do I go if the thing I want isn't on the ribbon?" is sometimes "Maybe there's a more common way or a more powerful/capable way to do it" because sometimes "it's no longer meant to be discoverable". (Though…

I'll shortcut my rant about the focus on cheese and moving thereof by noting that we're talking about two different things.

If any option is buried in an archaic path, that's not a well-formed system of discoverability to me.

I could care less that the top 90% of functionality is front-and-center, because I'm still going to use the remaining 10% once a week. And if it takes 100x as long as finding something on the ribbon and requires non-intuitive logic (because see previous comment about deprioritizing deep discoverability), then that's what I'm going to remember.

Re: Cortana is really bad

#259

Post by WalterGR »

skizm wrote: post #189
CydeWeys wrote: post #38

Every single interaction I've ever had with Cortana has been complete garbage. It's worse than the old-school "simple string match on installed applications and files on disk" in every way, yet has somehow supplanted it?! I wish there were some easy way to completely uninstall this frustrating garbage in Windows 10 and go back to the simple interface that just worked. I cannot even begin to count how many times I've…

Microsoft gets to harvest your data more easily, has a "feature" that can "rival" Siri, and artificially increases Bing's marketshare in terms of total number of searches. Win-win-win for MS. That said, I have no idea how they managed to mess up file/program search so badly. I have had the same experience as you searching for files/programs I know for a fact are installed and it refuses to find them.

Microsoft gets to harvest your data more easily, has a "feature" that can "rival" Siri

This is exactly why I use a ChromeBook.

Re: Cortana is really bad

#260

Post by gmueckl »

dboreham wrote: post #192
gmueckl wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skype... I am actively trying to get rid of it these days. That ridiculous bloated and slow HTML user interface that many native clients have transitioned to (especially Linux and Android) is beyond description. Why does it need to take up 50% of one core when it is idling in the background? On an i7-6800k no less! On my note 8 it drains the battery in no time while managing to be extremely sluggish and unresponsive.…

Skype (on Windows specifically) just doesn’t work for me now. Fails to deliver chat messages, freezes (not necessarily both at the same time).

It works for me on Windows but has the annoying habit of popping up s notification for each and every message that arrived while that client was offline. It does not matter if I had already read it in another client. And the notifications come one after the other with some 5 seconds of delay. I cannot find polite words for how annoying that is.
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