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Touch Laptops

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Re: Touch Laptops

#41

Post by moe »

sliverstorm wrote: post #36
bjcy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Us Americans do use "Month DD, YYYY" quite frequently, so I don't think that his usage of it is done purposefully.

Indeed. MM/DD/YY is used informally and for datapoints (e.g. the Date field when you sign a form), but any time you are writing formally (e.g. a letter) you use Month DD, YYYY. It's almost like MM/DD/YY is the abbreviation of "Month DD, YYYY"

XX/XX/YY is a terrible format and I wish people would stop using it.

01/02/03 can be January 2nd or February 1st, and often there's not enough context to determine which was meant.

Re: Touch Laptops

#42

Post by HCIdivision17 »

rjd wrote: post #19
meaty wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am British! I haven't used imperial for at least 15 years apart from for speed limits, which I ignore anyway.

Having growing up in a metric country and lived in Britain I must admit its very nice having 60miles per equalling 60 minutes of driving for long trips. Being able to say "I'm 45 miles away from X I'll be there in 45 minutes" without having to do recalculate each time you pass a road sign makes trips all the more pleasant.

This principle is likely the reason imperial units stick: they're fantastic for fast fractional math. For the same reason, it's easier to work with 360 degrees in a circle than 2*pi radians.

Re: Touch Laptops

#43

Post by mkl »

jerrya wrote: post #11

Jeff Atwood writes, The screen bounces when you touch it and for me this just brings up all the reasons I don't want a touchscreen except on a tablet. There is gorilla arms, screen bounces, and screen smudges. Jeez, I hate when people touch my screens. But I am wondering if a reasonable or even better solution is an appropriate touchpad or even Android or iPad touchpad app. Right now there are two (maybe three) touch…

There is gorilla arms, screen bounces, and screen smudges.

These things keep being repeated as if they're showstoppers, and it seems usually by people without any experience in the matter. I have been using a laptop purely by touch screen for 1-8+ hours a day for two years, and here's my experience:

- Gorilla arm simply doesn't exist. I use the laptop in a variety of setups and haven't had any problems. Yes, if your desktop PC suddenly accepted touch you'd probably want the screen much closer, likewise some laptop users with good eyesight (which I don't have - relevant since it makes me close already).

- Screen bounces do exist, but I haven't noticed them since a week or two in. I usually use the laptop with the screen up and facing backward (I don't use the keyboard), so I definitely get them. The Surface form factor does seem better for touch in a laptop, but I haven't tried it yet.

- Smudges do exist, especially if you use an on-screen keyboard so they accumulate, but in most indoor lighting they are not a problem at all. Then again, they don't bother me on my desktop screen either - if I'm looking at the screen content I don't see them.

I'm excited to see what possibilities Leap Motion provides, but at this point I think it's unlikely I'll buy a non-touch screen again. In the meantime, I'd quite like something like your last idea, and have thought about making a program to do it.

Re: Touch Laptops

#44

Post by vitalique »

ygra wrote: post #23
statictype wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the MacBook's touch pad is significantly , significantly better than most other PC laptop touchpads. I don't need a mouse when using a MacBook. I can't use a PC laptop without a mouse. I suspect its a combination of better hardware and better software (I bet Microsoft doesn't write the touchpad interpretation code, its done by the individual hardware makers and so will be total crap).

It's all in the drivers, interestingly. And Synaptics supplies both the Macbook trackpad and other touchpads. There's nothing to prevent them in putting the same features in their Windows drivers, but maybe Apple insists that they don't.

I don't think so. Over the last Х years I've tried using touchpads on Dell, Acer, Asus and other laptops (Apple's family included) with different hardware and software and came to a sad conclusion that there is no way I could use any laptop completely without a mouse, even though I try to avoid using it as much as I can even on a desktop. Touchpads feel like extremely slow and imprecise input method, a real distraction and obstacle in interaction with OS or app. So, I think that while something definitely may be in the drivers, there's another part in this problem where you have to decide which level of comfort do you agree to drop to when switching from a mouse to a touchpad/trackpad.

Re: Touch Laptops

#45

Post by gadders »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #9
meaty wrote: post #2

Why does everyone still have to use imperial/US measurements. Metric please or I have to break out the calculator.

Try being British, you basically have to understand both intuitively.

It's weird, because it is Imperial for some things,and Metric for others.

Temperature: Either

Building Materials: Metric

TV Sizes: Imperial

Beer: Imperial

Soft Drinks: Metric

Re: Touch Laptops

#46

Post by ygra »

vitalique wrote: post #44
ygra wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all in the drivers, interestingly. And Synaptics supplies both the Macbook trackpad and other touchpads. There's nothing to prevent them in putting the same features in their Windows drivers, but maybe Apple insists that they don't.

I don't think so. Over the last Х years I've tried using touchpads on Dell, Acer, Asus and other laptops (Apple's family included) with different hardware and software and came to a sad conclusion that there is no way I could use any laptop completely without a mouse, even though I try to avoid using it as much as I can even on a desktop. Touchpads feel like extremely slow and imprecise input method, a real distracti…

Well, my point was that Apple's trackpads are the same hardware as what's used in Windows laptops out there too, so any difference in usability and features (e.g. gestures) is driver-dependent and there is no technical reason why they would exist only on one platform.

For actual usage I definitely prefer a mouse or a trackpoint.

Re: Touch Laptops

#47

Post by pgsandstrom »

Am I the only one that prefers my widescreen monitors flipped to portrait mode? I have it both in the office and at home, I only flip them when watching a movie.

Re: Touch Laptops

#48

Post by Ygg2 »

moe wrote: post #41
sliverstorm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. MM/DD/YY is used informally and for datapoints (e.g. the Date field when you sign a form), but any time you are writing formally (e.g. a letter) you use Month DD, YYYY. It's almost like MM/DD/YY is the abbreviation of "Month DD, YYYY"

XX/XX/YY is a terrible format and I wish people would stop using it. 01/02/03 can be January 2nd or February 1st, and often there's not enough context to determine which was meant.

Actually it can be February 3rd. I've seen YY/MM/DD format in use. But yeah it's horrible.

Re: Touch Laptops

#49

Post by kevingadd »

octotoad wrote: post #39

This got me thinking about the whole Windows ARM port and x86 compatibility. I'm sure it's been mentioned before, but, why the hell didn't Microsoft make use of .NET for cross-platform compatibility? Have developers write applications in C# or any other language supported by the CLR and let .NET work out the x86/ARM differences. I'm sure there are valid technical and possibly political reasons this didn't happen, but…

Judging by Microsoft's recent choices to kill .NET-based products like XNA and Silverlight it seems to be the case that management aren't fans of it anymore. Dropping support for XNA is particularly mysterious given Microsoft's struggles to get game developers to support Windows 8 - they literally had a dedicated community of game developers that could have put titles on the Windows 8 store on day 1 if Microsoft had provided any support. Instead, even game developers with titles being published by MS are stuck using MonoGame for Windows 8 support. It's insane.

Re: Touch Laptops

#50

Post by gjm11 »

ygra wrote: post #23
statictype wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the MacBook's touch pad is significantly , significantly better than most other PC laptop touchpads. I don't need a mouse when using a MacBook. I can't use a PC laptop without a mouse. I suspect its a combination of better hardware and better software (I bet Microsoft doesn't write the touchpad interpretation code, its done by the individual hardware makers and so will be total crap).

It's all in the drivers, interestingly. And Synaptics supplies both the Macbook trackpad and other touchpads. There's nothing to prevent them in putting the same features in their Windows drivers, but maybe Apple insists that they don't.

I think it's something like 7 years since Apple's touchpads were made by Synaptics. They don't supply the touchpads in all Windows machines, though the non-Synaptics ones I've used are (in my judgement) consistently inferior.

(I worked at Synaptics until late 2006. It's possible that my information may be outdated.)

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