tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post1944999018770813804..comments2024-03-19T07:48:54.021-06:00Comments on Gus Van Horn: Four-Letter FailureGus Van Hornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-59458979771633042612011-10-20T17:47:43.761-06:002011-10-20T17:47:43.761-06:00Regarding your question, I have the same one for c...Regarding your question, I have the same one for computer vendors in general and <a href="http://rs.io/2011/10/19/i-hate-my-smartphone.html" rel="nofollow">smartphone</a> vendors in particular. It's rhetorical, though: These guys are selling convenience, or at least their conception of it, and that comes at a price they dictate.Gus Van Hornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-89082647162534724512011-10-20T15:06:19.245-06:002011-10-20T15:06:19.245-06:00I'd love to know why Microsoft is so bound and...I'd love to know why Microsoft is so bound and determined to eliminate command menus. From Media Player to IE to other apps, MS consistently deprecates the full command menu and leaves a ribbon of options at the top of window. Casual users have a pile of screen cruft in the way AND power users don't have easy access to deep functions. It's lose-lose.<br /><br />Compare this to OS X Lion, which maintains an exhaustive command menu at the top of the SCREEN (matching the functions of the active window) and then has just a few, simple, elegant top-of-app commands instead of a fat ribbon full of chunk. Casual users will rarely or never need to go to the command menu; power users who do use it are not inhibited from using the full range of operations the app makes available. Win-win.Mikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10125745545009130612noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-40426359336946767912011-10-19T09:52:37.009-06:002011-10-19T09:52:37.009-06:00As someone who prefers keyboard shortcuts and plen...As someone who prefers keyboard shortcuts and plenty of vertical real estate, they'd bother me less if they could be hidden. (For all I know, maybe they can. I don't know. I fired Bill Gates back in the mid '90's and have used Linux almost exclusively since.Gus Van Hornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-27181706980714566512011-10-19T07:41:53.558-06:002011-10-19T07:41:53.558-06:00Ribbons have been a huge part of Office for a whil...Ribbons have been a huge part of Office for a while now. I love them and don't find them kludgy at all. The telemetry data appears to have assisted them in determining how to distribute commands through the ribbon, but the inclusion of the ribbon itself is obviously an attempt to formalize the new Office design through Windows itself.Mark Lindholmhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14184361531569761797noreply@blogger.com