Liam Goodacre

Windows 8: First Impressions

I installed the Windows 8 Release Preview in a VM to try it out. I can see it being very frustrating for the average non-techy to jump in and get started - requiring a tutorial session.

A lot seems configured for touch-based interaction, however they do have keyboard alternatives (for the majority of tasks).

Straight away I started up the OS and was presented with the Lock screen, clicked and it disappeared (also found that escape works). I got to the Metro screen and began playing around. I managed to install the Wikipedia App tile. Opened the desktop, found that pressing the windows key returned me to the Start screen (Metro). Pressing again, sent me to the last focussed application. Windows key and Tab allows you to switch between open tiles. Alt and Tab allows switching between open windows (both desktop application or tile).

I like the window frame visual style, I didn’t like Windows 7’s visual style at all; although this is similar, I do prefer it - it feels much cleaner.

When hearing about Windows 8 and Metro I thought I was really going to dislike it, but it turns out I’m not really bothered by it. It just feels like an enhanced version of OSX’s Launchpad application.

Operating Systems:

Having said all this, I am at the moment preferring Ubuntu 12.04 to Windows 8. To me I rate OSs in the following order: Ubuntu 12.04, Mac OSX, Windows 8, Windows 7. I prefer my mac setup (settings, shortcuts, etc…) to a fresh Ubuntu install. I haven’t yet had the opportunity to setup an Ubuntu system and configure it to how I want to work with it - once I’ve done this maybe I will rank it above my current Mac OS.

[This room is so warm - it’s far too hot]

Slidieo2

I have stopped all current projects in favour of starting and finishing Slidieo2. I think I will also blog my development progress as I go :)

Slidieo

Slidieo is a game I released for iPhone two years ago. I created it using Objective-C - as a project for learning the platform.

The game features a configurable sized grid of coloured blocks. The aim is to rearrange the blocks to group the colours. To rearrange, one must slide a row or a column. Blocks wrap around the grid: if one slides off the left it appears on the right.

Slidieo2

Slidieo2 will be developed for iPad and iPhone, Android, Mac, and Windows. Also depending on when the appropriate Unity release is out, maybe for Linux too. I will mainly write in C#.

I have progressed the game idea since the original. Sliding rows and columns is still the control mechanism. But some rows and columns feature fixed blocks that cannot be moved. The aim is to get each column to feature a single colour (other than any fixed blocks).

One interesting challenge will be to generate level configurations from the level number. This way I don’t have to design and store any levels, just an build an algorithm for generating them. As the level number is used as the random seed, the levels will be generated in the same way each time they are loaded.

More to come later on.

hhdezc:

Retro OS… :P

(via myconsole)