If you haven't seen them yet, take a look!
http://msftkitchen.com/2010/06/windows-8-plans-leaked-numerous-details-revealed.html
http://www.windowsette.com/2010/06/sfuggite-slide-segretissime-sullo.html
One of the most annoying things in the current version of Windows is the poor sense of identity. When I was a kid each member in my family had their own Windows account. Unfortunately, it was too slow and too much of a hassle to switch users so we all used my father's account. It makes it difficult to personalized a computer when it is public or shared. Any personalization has to have enough value to over come the pain-in-the-neck of switching users. This also leads to reduce security, privacy, and restrictions. Could you imagine sharing your phone like that?
Windows 8, on the other hand, looks marvelous to this effect for a few reasons.
- Focus on reducing user switching time.
- Identify users automatically - if I could just sit down and it would bring up my user in a matter of seconds that would be amazing. Maybe load additional user settings into memory in the background after the first user is logged in. Predict when I'll be using my computer to preload before then for best memory usage and you'll get a gold star.
- Cloud Identity - I recently switched from my MS based groundings with Outlook to a better cloud-based identity with Google. I love the fact that I can log in anywhere with a browser and have my settings. More importantly, my wife and I each have a laptop but we each frequently use the living room desktop. Having my bookmarks, history and extensions (via Dev channel) in Chrome automatically sync between computers is like a dream. Over the weekend I set up a Linux box and again, all my Chrome settings came with me! If I can have everything but my large games and archived files (which I can
- sync everywhere I go and remote to or network share everything else, my computing experience becomes something totaly different.
Windows 8 will be something I will be watching closely.
