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Classic Clips: Bill Gates Chews Out Microsoft Over XP
From: Bill Gates
To: Jim Allchin
Cc: Chris Jones (WINDOWS); Bharat Shah (NT); Joe Peterson; Will Poole; Brian Valentine; Anoop Gupta (RESEARCH)
Subject: Windows Usability Systematic degradation flame

I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don’t drive usability issues.

Let me give you my experience from yesterday.

I decided to download (Moviemaker) and buy the Digital Plus pack … so I went to Microsoft.com. They have a download place so I went there.

The first 5 times I used the site it timed out while trying to bring up the download page. Then after an 8 second delay I got it to come up.

This site is so slow it is unusable.

It wasn’t in the top 5 so I expanded the other 45.

These 45 names are totally confusing. These names make stuff like: C:\Documents and Settings\billg\My Documents\My Pictures seem clear.

They are not filtered by the system … and so many of the things are strange.

I tried scoping to Media stuff. Still no moviemaker. I typed in movie. Nothing. I typed in movie maker. Nothing.

So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying - where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist?

So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated.

They told me to go to the main page search button and type movie maker (not moviemaker!).

I tried that. The site was pathetically slow but after 6 seconds of waiting up it came.

I thought for sure now I would see a button to just go do the download.

In fact it is more like a puzzle that you get to solve. It told me to go to Windows Update and do a bunch of incantations.

This struck me as completely odd. Why should I have to go somewhere else and do a scan to download moviemaker?

So I went to Windows update. Windows Update decides I need to download a bunch of controls. (Not) just once but multiple times where I get to see weird dialog boxes.

Doesn’t Windows update know some key to talk to Windows?

Then I did the scan. This took quite some time and I was told it was critical for me to download 17megs of stuff.

This is after I was told we were doing delta patches to things but instead just to get 6 things that are labeled in the SCARIEST possible way I had to download 17meg.

So I did the download. That part was fast. Then it wanted to do an install. This took 6 minutes and the machine was so slow I couldn’t use it for anything else during this time.

What the heck is going on during those 6 minutes? That is crazy. This is after the download was finished.

Then it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that? I reboot every night — why should I reboot at that time?

So I did the reboot because it INSISTED on it. Of course that meant completely getting rid of all my Outlook state.

So I got back up and running and went to Windows Updale again. I forgot why I was in Windows Update at all since all I wanted was to get Moviemaker.

So I went back to Microsoft.com and looked at the instructions. I have to click on a folder called WindowsXP. Why should I do that? Windows Update knows I am on Windows XP.

What does it mean to have to click on that folder? So I get a bunch of confusing stuff but sure enough one of them is Moviemaker.

So I do the download. The download is fast but the Install takes many minutes. Amazing how slow this thing is.

At some point I get told I need to go get Windows Media Series 9 to download.

So I decide I will go do that. This time I get dialogs saying things like “Open” or “Save”. No guidance in the instructions which to do. I have no clue which to do.

The download is fast and the install takes 7 minutes for this thing.

So now I think I am going to have Moviemaker. I go to my add/remove programs place to make sure it is there.

It is not there.

What is there? The following garbage is there. Microsoft Autoupdate Exclusive test package, Microsoft Autoupdate Reboot test package, Microsoft Autoupdate testpackage1. Microsoft AUtoupdate testpackage2, Microsoft Autoupdate Test package3.

Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up.

But that is just the start of the crap. Later I have listed things like Windows XP Hotfix see Q329048 for more information. What is Q329048? Why are these series of patches listed here? Some of the patches just things like Q810655 instead of saying see Q329048 for more information.

What an absolute mess.

Moviemaker is just not there at all.

So I give up on Moviemaker and decide to download the Digital Plus Package.

I get told I need to go enter a bunch of information about myself.

I enter it all in and because it decides I have mistyped something I have to try again. Of course it has cleared out most of what I typed.

I try (typing) the right stuff in 5 times and it just keeps clearing things out for me to type them in again.

So after more than an hour of craziness and making my programs list garbage and being scared and seeing that Microsoft.com is a terrible website I haven’t run Moviemaker and I haven’t got the plus package.

The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind. I thought we had reached a low with Windows Network places or the messages I get when I try to use 802.11. (don’t you just love that root certificate message?)

When I really get to use the stuff I am sure I will have more feedback.

BBC NEWS | Magazine | Cycling in England’s Amsterdam (with hills)
Puffing on a cigarette while having a chat with his mate - and with every drag neatly destroying the perception that all cyclists are lycra-clad fitness fascists - Sean Kenny says he doesn’t own a car because cycling is cheaper and quicker. The 44-year-old IT support worker spends two to three hours a day on his bike, going between clients.

In his 20 years of cycling in Bristol, he has seen an increase in cycle paths but also in cars.

“I deliberately ride a bike that’s not worth any money because I’ve had many bikes stolen down the years, but nowadays it does seem there are more and more places to lock my bike.

“With the level of commitment that the council has shown to cycling, I would say I’m surprised at this but maybe it’s an opportunity.”

More from the “actually we don’t have a clue what we’re f***ing doing” department

BBC SPORT | Football | Internationals | Iraq attempts to reverse Fifa ban
Iraq attempts to reverse Fifa ban

The Iraqi government has told the national football association that it is not affected by the disbanding of the Iraqi Olympic Committee.

A government decree on 20 May declared the Committee and all of Iraqs national sport federations dissolved.

Fifa threatened to ban Iraq from international events for a year if the decision was not reversed by 29 May.

But it is now hoped the government statement is enough to save Iraqs World Cup qualifying campaign.

Iraq, the Asian champions, are due to play Australia in a World Cup qualifier in Brisbane on 1 June.

“We received a letter from the secretary-general of the cabinet which clarifies that the decision does not include the sports federations, including the soccer federation,” said the head of the Iraqi Football Association Hussein Saeed.

Moores Law appearing in other technologies?
Photovoltaic Moore’s Law Will Make Solar Competitive by 2015 (Tech Talk)
In recent years, global PV production has been increasing at a rate of 50 percent per year, so that accumulated global capacity doubles about every 18 months.

Yee ha!

On Top of Splashtop | Splashtop - Instant on OS experience
A Million Motherboards a Month is a Good Start
May 14th, 2008

Well, this morning we have a BIG announcement. Thanks to our growing partnership with Asus, Splashtop is going to be shipping on over a million motherboards a month.

“In response to great user feedback, our plan is to proliferate Express Gate across our entire motherboard product portfolio, starting with over one million motherboards per month,” says Joe Hsieh, General Manager, ASUS Motherboard Business Unit. “Consumers want to turn their PCs on and off like any other appliance, and Express Gate has made that possible.”
Note that Express Gate is what Asus calls Splashtop.

I loved this analysis of the market forces at work

Microsoft To Discount Windows XP for ULPCs > Comments
At a price difference of US$ 50.- I could accept 20,- coming from using a smaller hard drive, the rest is Microsoft dumping itself into the market.

Remember, there now already exists a Version of Linux which is custom - taylored to the Asus EeePC. Hence, the per-unit cost of Linux is US$ 0.- for every additional computer sold.

Tayloring Windows XP to the Hardware costs something upfront, I expect Microsoft to do the work for Asus.
But additionally Microsoft would need to somehow beat the $ 0.- price tag of Linux, which must be a hard thing to do. Beating a US$ 0.- price tag by approximately US$ 30.- would mean, that Microsoft actually pays ASUS to use XP, or they pressured them by threatening higher OEM license fees than ASUS pays right now for the non-ultramobile stuff.

Well, MS can do that for some computers some times, but never for all computers all the time.

What today is an UMPC could be upgraded to 13, 14 and 15 inch displays as displays get thinner, cheaper and lighter, the processors in this cheap segment will continue to get more and more power, and Microsoft will see the Market becoming bigger and bigger.
Other producers will also get onto the Linux bandwagon, seeing that ASUS got a REAL good deal out of it. Because if you are the New Manufacturer On The Block, and you want to bargain with Microsoft, you better had 1 Million sales a month OR got to market with the lowest price and Linux and let yourselves being approached by Microsoft.

Linux gaining critical mass at a market close to the desktop market Microsoft currently dominates must be their greatest fear, that is why they are willing to spend big money on preventing that happen.

Given enough time, the Windows OEM price might come down to a few dollars. On that price tag we can see if the market starts working again. In the UMPC market that seems to be the case.

Incredible database of English nouns!
80 Million Tiny Images

This gentrification and destruction of historic city centres for fun and profit is going on everywhere - when we were having a holiday in Portugal a couple of months ago we came across the campaign to save Bolhao market in downtown Porto. Some Dutch company had bought it to convert into a modern shopping centre a la Cabot Circus (and for that we’ve waited nearly 20 years since the demise of the WSDC!). Anyway I thought I’d let people know, as Porto is Bristols twin city.

Created with flickrSLiDR.

Making the World A Billion Times Better
Making the World A Billion Times Better

By Ray Kurzweil
Sunday, April 13, 2008; B04

M IT was so advanced in 1965 (the year I entered as a freshman) that it actually had a computer. Housed in its own building, it cost $11 million (in today’s dollars) and was shared by all students and faculty. Four decades later, the computer in your cellphone is a million times smaller, a million times less expensive and a thousand times more powerful. That’s a billion-fold increase in the amount of computation you can buy per dollar.

Yet as powerful as information technology is today, we will make another billion-fold increase in capability (for the same cost) over the next 25 years. That’s because information technology builds on itself — we are continually using the latest tools to create the next so they grow in capability at an exponential rate. This doesn’t just mean snazzier cellphones. It means that change will rock every aspect of our world. The exponential growth in computing speed will unlock a solution to global warming, unmask the secret to longer life and solve myriad other worldly conundrums.