Windows 10

[gmattson]

Any comments about the new Windows 10? I just updated this version to my laptop and found a couple programs that won't work. I'm a little nervous about updating my desktop. . . especially since I've just become comfortable with win 8.1 .

[Glenn]

I installed 10 on my wife's laptop this week, because she absolutely hates 8. For us, there was no question about upgrading, my wife has been anxiously awaiting this ever since we bought a new laptop that came pre-loaded with 8. I waited a few days to see if there were any major issues with the upgrade before running it, and the upgrade went smoothly. So far she seems to like 10 better. I have 7 on my laptop (a work-provided laptop and they never went to 8 ) so I am not particularly familiar with 8 myself, but from what we can tell 10 is a blend of 7 and 8. Here is a decent article providing more detail on how 10 compares to 7 and 8 (page 1 covers why you might want to upgrade to 10, while page 2 covers why you might not want to upgrade):

Windows 10 Vs Windows 8 Vs Windows 7: What's The Difference?

Given the complaints against 8, a common sentiment expressed in what I have read online is that those who have 8 want to upgrade as soon as possible while those who have 7 want to wait to make sure any bugs get worked out first. Something to keep in mind if you plan to go to 10 eventually is that the upgrade is free only if you install it by July 28, 2016. If you wait and install after next July 28, it will cost you to do the upgrade ($119 for Home Edition and $199 for Pro). Of course Windows is not truly free, depending on what you use, Microsoft is just changing its business model for how it generates revenue. This article provides a good overview of that aspect of 10 (although the costs seem to be for nothing my wife or I use):

Why Windows 10 isn't really free: The subtle new world of built-in costs

The main issue I see with 10 is how invasive it is. I spent about two hours reading up on, finding, and turning off all of the settings that allow Microsoft (and its 'partners') to see, record, and track everything done on the laptop...no thanks, I will pass on allowing that. I also fail to see why our laptop should automatically become a portal to share updates to other computers throughout the world, which might ease the pressure on Microsoft's servers but could hurt the performance of our laptop...and do I really want our laptop randomly connecting to unknown computers around the world to share updates, that seems like a security disaster waiting to happen. Here are some good links to learn more about the invasiveness of 10, and how to turn those features off:

Windows 10 is spying on almost everything you do – here’s how to opt out

Windows 10 Is Spying On You: Here’s How To Stop It

Windows 10 Vs Windows 8 Vs Windows 7: What's The Difference? (this is page 2 of the article I linked earlier, which under the section entitled "Broadband Hog" discusses the update sharing between computers and how to turn this off (although the instructions are close but not exact for how to do it on the 10 I installed))

All in all though, I think 10 will be better for us. I have seen independent assessments predicting that it will become considered one of the best Windows OS platforms thus far, we will have to wait and see on that.

I hope this helps, George!

[gmattson]

thanks for the information Glenn.

I actually like windows 8.1! windows 8 was full of bugs and very undependable, which caused the quick update to 8.1.

I plan to hold off awhile on 10 until I read more about it and learn how to avoid all the build-in pitfalls.

thanks again Glenn.

[Glenn]

I am pretty sure my wife's laptop was 8.1 as well, but she just could not warm up to any version of Windows 8 at all. My mother has the same problem. Both were 'classically trained' keyboard-based typists/computer-users whose typing speeds were in the 70+ words per minute range back when such things used to be measured, and the increasingly mouse-dependent nature of Windows frustrates the heck out of them. That is a big part of why they will also always favor WordPerfect over Word. For a hunt-and-peck typist such as myself who struggled to reach 40 wpm, these things are not such a big deal.

[Bill Glasheen]

When I got my Dell Latitude E6540, I did so as a business. In other words...

• My machine doesn't have preloaded cr@p on it. I pay more not to have this invasive junk annoying me and dragging my processing power down. It's worth it.
  ...
• I insisted on Windows 7 Professional. It's rock solid. Until my business switches, I see no reason to switch. Windows 8 has nothing on it that I want, and it takes away some of the capabilities I have with Windows 7 Pro. I don't need my OS dumbed down, and I don't have a whole slew of toys to synch up to my machine. I have no pen or touch screen input. I earn a living off my laptop by linking in with a company server that has a virtual machine on it.

One thing I'd be very careful about is how well your devices work with a new OS. If you've got a significant investment in a laser printer (for example), you'd want to make sure your new OS has a driver for it. It's been my experience that things can be iffy when you jump ship early and your peripherals haven't caught up.

Eventually I'll switch over to reading on tablets rather than books. I'll also be doing more of my entertainment online (e.g. MLB.com, Netflix, etc.) as opposed to fixed cable. In fact I haven't used cable for forever except for 3 years I was stationed in Louisville and a package was forced on me when I got Internet. So as I get more of these peripherals, I suppose Windows 10 will make sense.

Bill

[Glenn]

Windows 8 has nothing on it that I want, and it takes away some of the capabilities I have with Windows 7 Pro. I don't need my OS dumbed down, and I don't have a whole slew of toys to synch up to my machine. I have no pen or touch screen input. I earn a living off my laptop by linking in with a company server that has a virtual machine on it.

This has been a complaint of mine. Microsoft's efforts to make a one-style-fits-all OS has tended to benefit the entertainment-oriented users at the expense of professional (i.e., corporate and science) users. I would prefer that they had continued to keep those as separate OS lines.

Eventually I'll switch over to reading on tablets rather than books.

Personally I cannot stand to read books or articles on a screen of any type. I spend so much time on computer screens for work, particularly since I teach online classes now and I have been doing side projects such as making maps for a book on the 16th Century Swiss confederation, that the eye-strain is already horrendous, I do not like to add to that further by reading on screens. I do not even own a tablet for myself (others in the family do), nor do I have any interest in one.

It is increasingly difficult to access journals in hard-copy, even older ones. About two years ago my university's library decided to throw away all of the past volumes of several of my field's top journals, going back to 1910 (as well as the journals of many other fields), because all of the articles are accessible online. The problem with this decision is that the copies online tend to be in black-and-white, which does not represent originally color images such as maps very well. I first discovered they had made this decision when I was reading up on research into the accommodation of color-blindness when making maps. Articles from the 1990s and 2000s available online were in black-and-white; no problem, I will just run over to the library and check out the volumes containing those articles to see the illustrations in color...but those volumes are no longer there because they were thrown away (a decision made by the library without consulting anyone in my department). So I ended up having to request the volumes via inter-library loan, wait for those to arrive, and make color scans/print-outs of the articles before they were sent back to the libraries that had loaned them, requiring more time, effort, and waste than was really needed. As more and more libraries divest themselves of all those journals to save space, getting access to hard-copies by any means will become increasingly difficult, meaning that important information could be lost in the long run.

[Bill Glasheen]

The path to digital I believe is inevitable.

What an incredibly lame-brained oversight on the part of the librarians archiving your work. How hard would it have been to do scans in color? No doubt someone subcontracted the work to the lowest bidder, and they used the least expensive high-volume methods. But you would think someone on the doing end would have noticed something stupid-simple like a color map. Even in my dissertation I had some color pictures and I actually had them done separately by hand and inserted into the stack. This was before color laser printers weren't a big deal. Anyhow... if you're having to get some of these volumes on loan, can you find some grant money to have them digitized in color before you return them? If not professionally, isn't this what grad students are for?

One thing worth noting is how I moved for three years from a suburb of Richmond to Louisville and - for a first time ever - took almost no books with me. These days I can find almost anything I need with Google and a few accounts to special peer-reviewed publication services. I haven't bought a book on SAS or SQL in ages. If I'm not going online to get digitized sections from SAS themselves, I can often find class notes from some odd professor in San Diego. It's how for instance I scarfed an algorithm to figure out someone's age based on their date of birth. That's not as easy as you think.

I still read paper books. But as my presbyopia advances, I can see enjoying the ability to change font size on something I'm reading, or blowing up a picture to see detail. Even now I'll go outside, take a picture of one of my dragon fly buddies, bring the camera inside, upload the picture, and blow up the face to see the compound eye. That's better than what I can see in real life.

Just yesterday I was reading an article about Dr. Frank Jobe - the person who did the first ulnar collateral ligament implantation in an elbow. If that doesn't ring a bell, perhaps "Tommy John surgery" does. The procedure was named after Tommy John - a pretty good pitcher with a shredded UCL. Dr. Jobe wanted to give him some relief from his elbow pain so he could retire pain free. What he didn't know was that Tommy John would be back playing baseball in 18 months and pitch for 14 more seasons. Now for many pitchers, "Tommy John surgery" is sadly a right of passage. Dr. Jobe was lamenting that he didn't have the courage to do this a decade earlier on Sandy Koufax and extend his stellar career past the tender age of 30 when he was forced to retire from elbow pain.

In this and other articles on the epidemic of Tommy John surgery, they talk about the mechanics of a pitcher that leaves them vulnerable to the UCL wear and tear. Here's a section from an excellent paper on the subject.

Most delivery problems begin below the waist. It is widely believed that the most telling moment in a pitcher's delivery is the foot strike. This is when the lead foot makes contact with the mound and marks the beginning of the late cocking phase. Correct mechanics call for the pitching arm to be up and ready to throw at the instant of foot strike. During that instant, a right-handed pitcher should be showing the baseball to the shortstop, a lefty to the second baseman. If at the moment of foot strike, a pitcher's elbows come higher than his wrists and shoulders with the ball pointing down, he's said to be demonstrating an "inverted W" [Figure 3]. The “inverted W” is a hallmark sign that a pitcher’s sequencing is off and is often considered a predictor of future Tommy John recipients. Such poor timing leads to arm lag, evident when the throwing elbow trails the shoulder once the shoulders square to home plate. Current major league pitcher and Tommy John surgery recipient, Adam Wainwright [pictured below] exhibits both problems.

This forces him and others like him to rely more on the arm's relatively small muscles instead of the more massive ones in the legs and torso. Throw after throw the shoulder and elbow are under extra stress. The higher the pitch's velocity, the worse the flaw becomes and the more the arm suffers. In addition, the more a pitcher throws, the worse the injury becomes.

You have to go to the original paper to see the picture. Bummer... A picture of Adam Wainwright in the frozen inverted-W posture is on the top of page 19.

..... Ulnar Collateral Ligament Injury in Overhead Throwers

I do have another angle from another publication. Here's Mark Prior demonstrating the infamous inverted-W posture.

.....

Here' Stephen Strasburg.

.....

Yep... all these guys blew out their UCL, and had to go under the knife.

Now imagine if you had a video of Stephen Strasburg doing this.

.....

Can you do that in a book? I think not.

Should we be publishing Uechi stuff with videos like this? Why not?

Thanks to the folks at DriveLine Baseball for some of these pictures. I'm going to give them some free publicity (below) because they helped me make my point. *Very* cool video below in their marketing! We need some Uechi publications just like it. It's time we westerners stepped it up to the next level.

- Bill

..... Hacking the Kinetic Chain

[Glenn]

Yes, it is inevitable. And I work in a very digital field (geospatial technology, particularly cartography and geographic information systems), which I entered in the early-1990s just as the transition of cartography to digital was nearing completion. I was in the first generation to only take cartography classes completely taught on the computer, without any training in old-school cartography using illustrator tools and paper on a light-table (although the traditionalist in me regrets missing out on that).

The library got some 'feedback' from me about it. As for having a grad student digitize them, I am the grad student and I do not have the time!

These days I can find almost anything I need with Google and a few accounts to special peer-reviewed publication services. I haven't bought a book on SAS or SQL in ages. If I'm not going online to get digitized sections from SAS themselves, I can often find class notes from some odd professor in San Diego. It's how for instance I scarfed an algorithm to figure out someone's age based on their date of birth. That's not as easy as you think.

This has become vitally important in my field as well. As well as with education, and the one area where I have become 'anti-book' per se is with textbooks. I am part of a small but growing group of instructors of all fields that are rejecting the traditional, outrageously-priced, changes-editions-every-two-years textbooks, which is also becoming an increasingly hot topic at national conferences. For example I am teaching Intro to Geographic Information Systems this Fall, the cheapest textbook that would be adequate is over $100 new, and most of the top-of-the-line books aimed at this course approach $200 new (slightly less if rental or used copies are available, sometimes less for digital copies). It is ridiculous for students to have to pay that much for one book for one class just because the instructor is too lazy to hunt down alternatives. So I make one of those textbooks "recommended" to satisfy the die-hard GIS students who really want or need the reference (although I do suggest to them that getting copies through inter-library loan work just as well for the purpose of a class), and then provide about 10 pages of links (organized by topic) to free online sources that cumulatively provide the same substantive information as a textbook. The key is to keep the students informed as to which links they need to be reading for any given lecture or lab. It also helps that I build my own lectures (including illustrative images and videos to help students visualize) and do not just teach straight out of a textbook (another lazy habit of too many instructors), so the textbook is truly supplementary for my courses. An added benefit in doing the course this way is that it exposes the students to where to find reliable information about GIS online.

The availability online of resources like the algorithm you needed, and the need for students to be able to find them as you did, is why I also do not just give my students all of the data sets they use in the lab portion of the course. Part of the lab instruction throughout the semester is in finding free, reliable spatial data online and incorporating them into the software to use for mapping or analysis, and of course we go over the potential pitfalls associated with getting data online. Invariably the fluid nature of the internet creates problems almost every semester with at least one of the data sets they need to find, which is a good lesson in and of itself but there are times when I think it sure would be easier to just give them all of the data so that I can control all of the outcomes!

My goal with taking these extra steps is that by the time they are finished with the course the students not only have an understanding of GIS processes, procedures, and technology, but also have a fairly good idea about how to hunt down GIS resources online.

I still read paper books. But as my presbyopia advances, I can see enjoying the ability to change font size on something I'm reading, or blowing up a picture to see detail. Even now I'll go outside, take a picture of one of my dragon fly buddies, bring the camera inside, upload the picture, and blow up the face to see the compound eye. That's better than what I can see in real life.

That is in my future as well, I already have to use bi-focals. The other important ability in digital books/articles is that many of them have searchable text, which is a whole lot easier than trying to remember on which page in which book I saw a piece of info.

But I am a book addict and so far I am not aware of a support group for that, so I will resist the conversion to digital reading for more than a few paragraphs for as long as I can!

One condition that I have read about, and have seen first-hand with my family, is that it is more difficult to unwind and get sleepy with digital reading at bedtime compared to paper reading. Both the light from the tablets and the ease in jumping around from one thing to another tend to keep the mind more stimulated, which makes fighting sleep easier. My wife seems particularly susceptible to this, she can lay in bed reading on a tablet for hours complaining that she is not sleepy yet, but if she reads a book or magazine she is out in 15 minutes.

[Bill Glasheen]

Thanks to Bruce Hirabayashi for finding this. I'm not surprised.

Welcome to some unwanted deja vu. Last week Microsoft released a cumulative bug fix for Windows 10 which caused endless crash loops. Now Microsoft has released a cumulative bug fix to address it and guess what? Yes, it is also causing Windows 10 computers to crash over and over again…

Read more here.

Windows 10 Warning: Latest Updates Are Crashing PCs

It'll take time to get all those bugs out. So essentially the early adopters are their beta testers. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing. I wrote my dissertation on a beta version of WordPerfect because it was the first word processing package to have an equation editor in it. It served its purpose and saved me an enormous amount of time.

- Bill

[gmattson]

I ended up installing win10 on my desktop and laptop. Susan just purchased a new laptop and I installed win10 on hers as well.
why? because it was working so well on my two machines.
However. . . I discovered that my contact management program ACT, will not sync to other IUKF helpers using win10 and ACT doesn't know when they will be able to fix the problem.
Solution: pull out an old machine from the garage with win7 on it and operate ACT from it.

Next time I will listen to my own recommendations and hold off on updating!

[Bill Glasheen]

Sounds about right, George.

Keep that Windows 7 machine around for a bit. It'll serve its purpose, and you should be able to pass files around w/o too much trouble.

- Bill