HippsieGypsie
It's Gururrrrrr8!
- Messages
- 13,547
- Location
- Lilymoor, IL
Hello All. I like 8 for a lot of reasons, but the biggest is the Start Screen for what I call at-a-glance personal information via organized live tiles, which I can view at once upon logging in. I use my Live account to log onto my PC, so all of my cloud accounts (3 email accounts, people, IM, & calendar), weather app, and news/sports apps, are synced upon logging in. It takes about 3 seconds after the Start Screen appears that I see that this is performed because the live tiles start to scroll.
- The email live tile starts scrolling through new emails that I recieved with who sent it, the subject line, and a few beginning words of the message body.
- The 4 (cities) weather app tiles adjust to current temps, conditions, high/low day temps, and a exclamation point if the be a weather alert for any of the 4 cities.
- 3 news apps and 1 sports news apps tiles scrolling with headlines.
- The photo app tile scrolls with pics in my pic library folders.
- My Bing app tile starts to scroll with the day's most-searched-for, which they call Trending and featured home page pic.
- A note app with a live tile so as to see my notes.
- I have an app called Star Chart and that tile starts scrolling upcoming cosmological events.
- The finance app tile scrolls stock exchanges conditions and top story headlines.
Surely a lot of info that takes me roughly 20 seconds to watch and read the live tiles. I can then decide what I want to proceed with next.
I dual boot 7 Ultimate with 8 Enterprise Evaluation. So, to be fair, I decided that if 8 gives me all this info so quickly that I thought I'd set up 7 with start programs that would give me this info. Firstly, I found that it was impossible to do, for I'd have to open up:
- 3 seperate instances of WLM to view all the new emails I recieved from each of the 3 accounts. Each to open with the inbox folder to see new emails.
- 4 seperate instances of my weather gadget configured to view all 4 of the cities.
- 6 gadgets or 6 seperate instances of IE with pages open to Bing home, 3 news home pages, 1 sports home page, and 1 finance/stocks news home page.
- I can't get the Star Chart app for 7, so let's say another seperate instance of IE to open to a Cosmology site page.
- Notepad for notes, of which I have configured already
- A pictures gadget or desktop background app flipping through my pics.
OK, so I can't possibly configure all that, so I opted just to have WLM, one instance of IE with Bing home page, my Notepad, and my 5 gadgets that I already use. I use CoreTemp, which opens and let's say that makes up for all the rest I can't configure to open. Also, I can't configure these to open in organized (rows & columns) in minimized windows with being able to see the info I'm after in each window. It won't be organized like the Start Screen is, that's for sure!
I performed this taking timing averages of 3 boots each, from the BIOS screen appearing to the last bit of info, which is WLM in 7 for it's configured to automatically sign in and download emails. That is the last bit of info that appears.
Boot times:
7 with all configured to open upon boot -> 2 minutes and 43 seconds. This is not including the time I would have to take looking for the info in the program's windows.
8 with all the lives tiles described at the left of the screen of my 19-inch monitor -> 44 seconds. The 3 seconds for tiles to update is included.
Also, don't forget that I don't have to open a Start Menu and search for something, for it's in front of me open already. I realize one may have a Taskbar and/or desktop shortcuts to use, but more times than not I'm checking my email first, so all I do is push enter, for my email tile is #1 on my screen.
Now I ask you -> What's far faster to give me the info I desire? What's more organized? What's more convenient? What's better?
- The email live tile starts scrolling through new emails that I recieved with who sent it, the subject line, and a few beginning words of the message body.
- The 4 (cities) weather app tiles adjust to current temps, conditions, high/low day temps, and a exclamation point if the be a weather alert for any of the 4 cities.
- 3 news apps and 1 sports news apps tiles scrolling with headlines.
- The photo app tile scrolls with pics in my pic library folders.
- My Bing app tile starts to scroll with the day's most-searched-for, which they call Trending and featured home page pic.
- A note app with a live tile so as to see my notes.
- I have an app called Star Chart and that tile starts scrolling upcoming cosmological events.
- The finance app tile scrolls stock exchanges conditions and top story headlines.
Surely a lot of info that takes me roughly 20 seconds to watch and read the live tiles. I can then decide what I want to proceed with next.
I dual boot 7 Ultimate with 8 Enterprise Evaluation. So, to be fair, I decided that if 8 gives me all this info so quickly that I thought I'd set up 7 with start programs that would give me this info. Firstly, I found that it was impossible to do, for I'd have to open up:
- 3 seperate instances of WLM to view all the new emails I recieved from each of the 3 accounts. Each to open with the inbox folder to see new emails.
- 4 seperate instances of my weather gadget configured to view all 4 of the cities.
- 6 gadgets or 6 seperate instances of IE with pages open to Bing home, 3 news home pages, 1 sports home page, and 1 finance/stocks news home page.
- I can't get the Star Chart app for 7, so let's say another seperate instance of IE to open to a Cosmology site page.
- Notepad for notes, of which I have configured already
- A pictures gadget or desktop background app flipping through my pics.
OK, so I can't possibly configure all that, so I opted just to have WLM, one instance of IE with Bing home page, my Notepad, and my 5 gadgets that I already use. I use CoreTemp, which opens and let's say that makes up for all the rest I can't configure to open. Also, I can't configure these to open in organized (rows & columns) in minimized windows with being able to see the info I'm after in each window. It won't be organized like the Start Screen is, that's for sure!
I performed this taking timing averages of 3 boots each, from the BIOS screen appearing to the last bit of info, which is WLM in 7 for it's configured to automatically sign in and download emails. That is the last bit of info that appears.
Boot times:
7 with all configured to open upon boot -> 2 minutes and 43 seconds. This is not including the time I would have to take looking for the info in the program's windows.
8 with all the lives tiles described at the left of the screen of my 19-inch monitor -> 44 seconds. The 3 seconds for tiles to update is included.
Also, don't forget that I don't have to open a Start Menu and search for something, for it's in front of me open already. I realize one may have a Taskbar and/or desktop shortcuts to use, but more times than not I'm checking my email first, so all I do is push enter, for my email tile is #1 on my screen.
Now I ask you -> What's far faster to give me the info I desire? What's more organized? What's more convenient? What's better?
Last edited:
My Computer
System One
-
- OS
- 8.1 Pro X64
- Computer type
- PC/Desktop
- System Manufacturer/Model
- Acer T690
- CPU
- Intel Pentium D Dual Core
- Motherboard
- Acer/Intel E946GZ
- Memory
- 2GB (max upgrade)
- Graphics Card(s)
- Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3000 - PCI Express x16
- Sound Card
- Integrated RealTek ALC888 high-definition audio with 7.1 channel audio support
- Monitor(s) Displays
- Acer AL1917W A LCD
- Screen Resolution
- 1440 X 900
- Hard Drives
- 350 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10
Thumb drives
- PSU
- Standard 250 watt
- Case
- Desktop 7.2" (183mm) W x 17.5" (445mm) L x 14.5"
- Cooling
- Dual case fans + CPU fan
- Keyboard
- Acer Windows PS/2
- Mouse
- Wireless Microsoft Arc
- Internet Speed
- 54mbp/s
- Browser
- IE11
- Antivirus
- Defender
- Other Info
- Office Pro 2013 / Nokia Lumia 1520 Windows Phone 8.1DP GDR1