For some adults of a certain age, the personal computer has been a form of technology we have been running neck and neck with, rather than at a pace well ahead of its own improvements. I started learning about computers when Wang was an office staple and screens were two shades of green: dark green background, and lots of text in luminous light green. I learned some aspects of DOS and WYSIWYG just to program standard office applications. All that training went obsolete months after I learned them, but fortunately not every office I worked in kept up with technology and I was able to use it until the joys of Windows came along.
With Windows 8, I feel like I’m back in front of that green-screened Wang again.
The newest operating system is designed to work with regular computers and touch screen devices. However, I don’t use it on a touch screen device, and there is a different experience with using a mouse. Clicking on the screen icons does not produce the thing you want right away: there is always a screen with a symbol meaning you have accessed a program, followed by your main screen for that program. Like opening a screen door before the interior door, it’s superfluous. To get the system up and running I had to endure set-up, configuration, identity features up the yoo-hoo, and I still can’t figure out how to set up my photos to present a slide show on the main screen. I did manage to load a picture from the Internet twice by mistake, and that produced a two-photo slide show on a screen tile that I looked at for about two months. I hope nobody else noticed: it makes me look like I only have two photos, and neither of them are of me.
Those of us who like Windows have been deprived in the past of several iconic features. I mourned the demise of “Clippy,” the cute paper clip character in Word applications who sat contentedly in the corner of my screen and performed for me when I saved a document or printed something. Now we have lost the “Start” button, a corner feature that will help even the most casual computer navigator find anything. Since I’ve had Windows 8, the only things I’ve found easily are games. I am now a certified “Tap Tiles” addict, and am fluent in five types of solitaire.
Fortunately a version 8.1 is coming out soon with a reintroduced “Start” button. Maybe it will come in green.
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