How mobile device interfaces are Influencing desktop computing environment designs
19th September 2011
Could 2011 be remembered as the year when the desktop computing interface got a major overhaul? One part of this, Windows 8, won't be with us until next year, but there has been enough happening so far this year that has resulted in a lot of comment. With many if not all the changes, it is possible to detect the influence of interfaces used on smartphones. After all, the carry-over from Windows Phone 7 to the new Metro interface is unmistakeable.
Two developments in the Linux world have spawned a hell of an amount of comment: Canonical's decision to develop Unity for Ubuntu and the arrival of GNOME 3. While there have been many complaints about the changes made in both, there must be a fair few folk who are just getting on with using them without complaint. Maybe there are many who even quietly like the new interfaces. While I am not so sure about Unity, I surprised myself by taking to GNOME Shell so much that I installed it on Linux Mint. It remains a work in progress, as does Unity, but it'll be very interesting to see it mature. Perhaps a good number of the growing collection of GNOME Shell plugins could make it into the main codebase. If that were to happen, I could see it being welcomed by a good few folk.
There was little doubt that the changes in GNOME 3 looked daunting, so Ubuntu's taking a different approach is understandable until you come to realise how change that involves anyway. With GNOME 3 working so well for me, I feel disinclined to dally very much with Unity at all. In fact, I am writing these words on a Toshiba laptop running UGR, effectively Ubuntu running GNOME 3, and that could become my main home computing operating system in time.
For those who find these changes not to their taste, there are alternatives. Some Linux distributions are sticking with GNOME 2 as long as they can, and there apparently has been some mention of a fork to keep a GNOME 2 interface available indefinitely. However, there are other possibilities such as LXDE and XFCE out there too. In fact, until GNOME 3 won me over, LXDE was coming to mind as a place of safety until I learned that Linux Mint was retaining its desktop identity. As always, there's KDE too, but I have never warmed to that for some reason.
The latest version of OS X, Lion, also included some changes inspired by iOS, the operating system that powers both the iPhone and iPad. However, while the current edition of PC Pro highlights some disgruntlement in professional circles regarding Apple's direction, this does not seem to have aroused the kind of ire that has been abroad in the world of Linux. Is it because Linux users want to feel that they are in charge and that iMac and MacBook users are content to have decisions made for them so long as everything just works? Speaking for myself, the former description seems to fit me, though having choices means that I can reject decisions that I do not like so much.
At the time of writing, the release of a developer preview of the next version of Windows has been generating a lot of attention. It also appears that changes are headed for Windows users too. However, I get the sense that a more conservative interface option will be retained and that could be essential for avoiding the alienation of corporate users. After all, I cannot see the Metro interface gaining much favour in the working environment when so many of us have so much to do. Nevertheless, I plan to get my hands on the developer preview to have a look (the weekend proved too short for this). It will be very interesting to see how the next version of Windows develops, and I plan to keep an eye on it as it does so.
It now looks as if many will have their work cut out if they are to avoid where desktop computing interfaces are going. Established paradigms are being questioned, particularly as a result of touch interfaces on smartphones and tablets. Wii and Kinect have involved other ways of interacting with computers, too, so there's a lot of mileage in rethinking how we work with computers. So far, I have been able to deal with the changes in the world of Linux, but I am left wondering about the changes that Microsoft is making. After Vista, they need to be careful and they know that. Maybe, they'll be better at getting users through changes in computing interfaces than others, but it'll be very interesting to see what happens. Unlike open-source community projects, they have the survival of a massive multinational at stake.
Why the delay?
17th September 2011
The time to renew my subscription to .Net magazine came around, and I decided to go for the digital option this time. The main attraction is that new issues come along without their cluttering up my house afterwards. After all, I do get to wondering how much space would be taken up by photos and music if those respective fields hadn't gone down the digital route. Some may decry the non-printing of photos that reside on hard disks or equivalent electronic storage media, but they certainly take up less physical space like that. Of course, ensuring that they are backed up in case of a calamity then becomes an important concern.
As well as the cost of a weekly magazine that I didn't read as much as I should, it was concerns about space that drove me to go the electronic route with New Scientist a few years back. They were early days for digital magazine publishing and felt like it, too. Eventually, I weaned myself from NS and the move to digital helped. Maybe trying to view magazine articles on a 17" screen wasn't as good an experience as seeing them on the 24" one that I possess these days.
That bigger screen has come in very handy for Zinio's Adobe AIR application for viewing issues of .Net and any other magazine that I happen to get from them. There's quite a selection on there, and it's not limited to periodicals from Future Media, either. Other titles include The Economist, Amateur Photographer, Countryfile, What Car and the aforementioned New Scientist as well. That's just a sample of the eclectic selection that is on offer.
For some reason, Future seem to wait a few days for the paper versions of their magazines to arrive in shops before the digital ones become available. To me, this seems odd, given that you'd expect the magazines to exist on computer systems before they come off the presses. Not only that, but subscribers to the print editions get them before they reach the shops at all anyway. This is the sort of behaviour that makes you wonder if someone somewhere is attempting to preserve print media.
In contrast, Scientific American get this right by making PDF's of their magazines available earlier than print editions. Given that it takes time for an American magazine to reach the U.K. and Eire, this is an excellent idea. There was a time when I was a subscriber to this magazine and I found it infuriating to see the latest issues on newsagent shelves, and I am still waiting for mine to arrive in the post. It was enough to make me vow not to become a subscriber to anything that left me in this situation every month.
Some won't pass on any savings with their digital editions. Haymarket Publishing come to mind here for What Car, but they aren't alone. Cicerone, Cumbrian publishers of excellent guidebooks for those seeking to enjoy the outdoors, do much the same with their wares, so you really want to save on space and gain extra convenience when going digital with either of these. In this respect, the publishers of Amateur Photographer have got it right with a great deal for a year's digital subscription. New Scientist did the same in those early days when I dabbled in digital magazines.
Of course, there are some who dislike reading things on a screen, and digital publishing will need to lure those too if it is to succeed. Nevertheless, we now have tablet computers and eBook readers such as Amazon's Kindle are taking hold too. Reading things on these should feel more natural than on a vertical desktop monitor or even a laptop screen.
Nevertheless, there are some magazines that even I would like to enjoy in print as opposed to on a screen. These also are the ones that I like to retain for future consultation, too. Examples include Outdoor Photography and TGO, and it is the content that drives my thinking here. The photographic reproduction in the former probably is best reserved for print, while the latter is more interesting. TGO does do its own digital edition, but the recounting of enjoyment of the outdoors surpassed presentation until a few months ago. It is the quality of the writing that makes me want to have them on a shelf as opposed to being stored on a computer disk.
The above thought makes me wonder why I'd go for digital magazines instead of their print counterparts. Thinking about it now, I am so sure that there is a clear-cut answer. Saving money and not having clutter does a have a lot to do with it, but there is a sense that keeping copies .Net is less essential to me, though I do enjoy seeing what is happening in the world of web design and am open to any new ideas too. Maybe the digital magazine scene is still an experiment for me.
Setting VIEWTABLE to show column names in SAS
15th September 2011
The following is the default behaviour in the DMS: Base SAS opens datasets from its Explorer using VIEWTABLE and with variable labels in the column headings and not variable names. Because I have been fortunate to use systems with SAS/FSP both installed and licensed, I have taken to using FSVIEW for browsing SAS datasets as a workaround and, though the interface may look old to some, it proves to be a very flexible tool that still has a few things to teach newer ones. With SAS Enterprise Guide, the dataset viewing functionality is different to both VIEWTABLE and FSVIEW, but I have been to make it work for me. While the SAS EG dataset viewing tool may appear like the former of these, it has a few tricks to teach its forbear.
Now that I find myself working again with the traditional SAS DMS interface and without SAS/FSP, I decided to see if there was a way to get VIEWTABLE to display variable names instead of variable labels by default. As it happened, the answer was found in an internet forum discussion. From the SAS command line, you can achieve the result by issuing a command like the following:
VT SASHELP.VCOLUMN COLHEADING=NAMES
Above VT is the VIEWTABLE shortcut, while it is the COLHEADING=NAMES option on the line that gets variable names shown in column headings. Taking it further, you can set this as the default setting for datasets opened using a mouse from Explorer panes using the following procedure:
- Click in or on the Explorer pane to highlight the Explorer window.
- Select Tools > Options > Explorer in the menus.
- Select the Members tab.
- Double-click on the TABLE icon.
- Double-click on the
&Openaction. - Set the Action command to:
VIEWTABLE %8b.'%s'.DATA COLHEADING=NAMES. - Click on the Set Default button.
- Save changes and close the Explorer Options window.
Because the DMS looks similar across versions 8.0 through to 9.2, the above instructions should be relevant to all of those. While I have yet to get the opportunity to use SAS 9.3, I would be surprised to find that the traditional SAS interface has changed there too, even though much else has changed about SAS. In fact, the latest version of SAS has brought quite a few interesting new features for programmers, so it appears that you can do more through a familiar interface, not entirely a bad thing. It looks as if this VIEWTABLE tweak could be useful for a while yet.