Showing posts with label Comes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Comes. Show all posts

Wednesday, 5 September 2012

Gold Coast Moving Simplified: When It Comes to Professional Movers and Removalists, Gold Coast Residents Have It Made

The old way of moving is over. No more spending weeks on end wrapping and packing your belongings, lugging boxes and heavy furniture, renting trucks and equipment or roping all of your family member in to help you move. When there are dozens of reputable Gold Coast moving businesses available to help you with what can be a difficult and time-consuming task, why would you ever attempt to do it all yourself again? Whether they're in need of professional movers or removalists, Gold Coast home and business owners should plan to acquire the help they need.

It's true that not every moving company has the training or skill necessary to make a move stress-free for the home or business owner. Sometimes, if you hire the wrong people, a move can be more of a hassle than it would be had you moved yourself. Disorganized, ill-equipped and lazy movers can lead to delays, items being lost or broken or worse. Sometimes, the people you hire are merely a group with a truck who do moving jobs on the weekends to earn extra money.

For the best results, look for the companies whose services and facilities are well-known to area residents and whose reputations are just as positive and well-known. You want a company that's been working in the industry for some period of time and who own all of the equipment necessary for any type of moving job. Can they meet the needs of residential move? Will they have the equipment you need to move the big pieces of machinery from your office or plant? Do they offer storage services as well, or can they take your excess belongings to a reputable Robina Storage Centre? These are all things you will want to find out before agreeing to hire any moving company.

One of the best pieces of advice, when it comes to Gold Coast moving, is not to leave your search for the right company too late. If you need movers who also double as removalists, Gold Coast home and business owners should start their search even earlier. Click Here for getting more details.
There are some things to keep in mind when looking for a reputable company because, just like any other industry, less-than reliable companies do exist. There are, for instance, many companies who claim to be 'professional' movers but, really, they do moving work as a side business and have no special training or equipment to ensure the move is done safely and properly. Instead, look for companies who have great reputations for Gold Coast moving, have been in the business a long time and who use and provide all of the equipment necessary for ensuring your belongings are safe and sound during every stage of the move.

When it comes to finding good storage, Gold Coast residents should check that the facility has security measures in place so that your goods are never at risk of theft or vandalism. Security gates and cameras, round-the-clock personnel and clean, well-constructed units are good indications that your things will be safe while in storage.

Keep these things in mind when preparing for your next move and leave the hard work to the professionals. Moving day doesn't have to be stressful. You just need to know who to hire.

Robina Storage Centre offers you more than moving services but affords you with comfort and security for your property. It is conveniently located in the heart of the Gold Coast, ensuring easy accessibility to any part of the city and its surroundings.

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Saturday, 17 March 2012

On Keeping An Open Mind When It Comes To Windows 8 – A Response

On Keeping An Open Mind When It Comes To Windows 8 – A Response .download-info .download-button {background-image: url(http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/plugins/download-monitor/page-addon/downloadbutton.gif);}.download-info .more-button {background-image: url(http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/plugins/download-monitor/page-addon/morebutton.gif);} HomeWindowsLinuxSoftwareInternet ExplorerFirefoxChromeOperaEmailContactAdvertiseOn Keeping An Open Mind When It Comes To Windows 8 – A Response

Yesterday Martin wrote up his thoughts and concerns about the forthcoming Windows 8 operating system from Microsoft.  I’ve spent much more time with Windows 8 so far, have given talks about and I’m current writing two books about how to get the best out of it, one for complete novices and another for IT Pros and Enthusiasts.  I thought then that I might be a good person to respond to some of Martin’s concerns and perhaps bring a different perspective to the discussion.

I don’t want you to think though that I will be spouting Microsoft’s official PR line, the company is perfectly capable of doing that on their own and they don’t need me to help them.  What I want to bring to the discussion though are the thoughts from someone who has spent some time with the OS, knows perhaps a bit more about what’s coming than I generally let on  ;)  and understands the different aspects of the OS in some depth.

Many of Martin’s concerns centre around the new dual-interface between the desktop and the Metro UI.  This is a legitimate question about why we either need or should have a dual-interface in an operating system.  I feel that Windows 8 is a transitional OS between the way we’ve been doing things now for around 30 years and the way we’ll be doing them in the future.  Anybody who has spent any time working with a tablet will intuitively use Metro and won’t even think about the fact that they’ve only got one (or two) apps open at a time.  We’ve just gotten used to it.

Martin is quite right though that people often have other things running in the background such as messenger apps, multiple browser tabs and so on.  If you look at the way some tablet operating systems handle these you can get some idea of the direction that we’re going in with Windows 8.  Don’t assume for a moment though that Metro in Windows 8, as seen in the Developer Preview or as expanded in the Consumer Preview (beta) will be anything like Metro when Windows 9 arrives, or even Metro when Windows 8 Service Pack 1 is delivered.  As a UI it’s still a concept, even though it’s roots can be traced back almost a decade ot Windows Media Centre, and as such much is set to change and evolve in the next three years.

So how this multi-application space works in Metro with Windows 8 will be determined by how people and companies write their apps.  We will see a great many different ways of doing things as many imaginative people bring their own ideas and concepts to the Metro UI, and it will be interesting to see where these take us and what Microsoft officially adopt.

Ultimately then we will lose the desktop.  The fact that we’ve been using it for the last thirty years doesn’t mean there isn’t a better way of working.  Metro may not be it, but we have to start somewhere.  I’m not sure how much I’ll use Metro myself but despite having a very uncluttered desktop, the prospect of having an interactive one that is telling me, all in one place, what my latest email is, who’s mentioning me on Twitter, what the forecast is for tomorrow, what my next appointment is, the current currency rate between the £ and the US$ and more is very appealing.

Regards using the desktop, Microsoft have said that, even if it’s just in group policy, you will be able to set the desktop as your default UI.  This will be important for people for whom all their software requires it.  While we’ve seen some very imaginative tablet apps appear such as Adobe Photoshop Touch, it will be several years before top quality professional-grade apps appear for Metro.

Martin also raised concerns about using Metro and the new Windows-orb’less desktop with a mouse and keyboard.  While Microsoft have not announced anything yet, they have said that everything you can do with touch you will be able to do with the mouse and keyboard.  Personally I’m looking forward to seeing what new mouse gestures they offer.  Also don’t forget that very soon we will have monitors and laptops with Kinect sensors in them as well.

Martin is quite right though that as things stand the dual-interface, and how you switch between them and control them, can be confusing.  It’s partly for this reason that one of my new books “Windows 8: Out of the Box” has been commissioned where it probably wouldn’t have been for Windows 7.  On this we’ll just have to see what Microsoft offer us to increase usability and to minimise the learning curve.

So what about the Start Menu?  Microsoft wrote a very long blog post detailing why they were making the changes they were back in October.  I am of the opinion however that the Start Menu should have been dropped when the Windows 7 taskbar was introduced.  These essentially offered us two completely different ways to find and launch programs.  All Microsoft need to do is find a way to control (or bucket) all the extra programs (uninstallers / utilities etc.) that appear in the Start Menu and all new programs should be pinned to the taskbar by default.  For my part, I won’t be sad to see the Start Menu go.

To reassure you Martin there is a great deal more coming for desktop users and IT Pros, but that none of it was finished in time for the Developer Preview.  When the Consumer Preview is released in a couple of weeks we will all see what these features are but Microsoft have promised several hundred small and large features in total still to come.

Let’s be honest that Windows 8, as I said earlier is a transitional OS, much in the way early builds of Apple’s OS X were when the company was moving people off old PowerPC software.  It is probably going to be painful for some, but if there really is a new way of working ahead of us that can genuinely help productivity, usability and most importantly accessibility with computers, then I believe we should embrace it.  For a while though it will have to co-exist with the traditional desktop and there can never be a truly integrated way to do that.

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Thursday, 15 March 2012

On Keeping An Open Mind When It Comes To Windows 8

On Keeping An Open Mind When It Comes To Windows 8 .download-info .download-button {background-image: url(http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/plugins/download-monitor/page-addon/downloadbutton.gif);}.download-info .more-button {background-image: url(http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/plugins/download-monitor/page-addon/morebutton.gif);} HomeWindowsLinuxSoftwareInternet ExplorerFirefoxChromeOperaEmailContactAdvertiseOn Keeping An Open Mind When It Comes To Windows 8

As a Windows user, I’m keeping a close eye on all Windows 8 development tidbits and leaks that I can find online and offline. Most of what I know comes from the developer preview version of the operating system that was released last year, and leaks that seem to have picked up in pace recently. I have to admit that I have not used the Windows 8 Developer Preview that much, mainly because I could not find a suitable way to work with both the Metro UI and my desktop applications.

It always felt like I had to switch between the Metro UI and the desktop constantly to start and work with the programs I wanted. I never warmed up to the idea of gadgets or icons on the desktop either, and it feels to me as if Metro UI is a modern version of that.

The Metro UI start page feals out of place, like something that would make life more complicated instead of easier. I have to admit that I did not test it on a touch enabled device, and it probably makes more sense there. Most Windows PCs on the other hand are not connected to touch screens, and even if that number will increase in the future, I cannot see myself connecting my desktop PC to a touchscreen for a number of reasons.

The switching between the desktop and Metro UI does not make much sense to me at all. Why do I have to use Metro UIs search to find applications that I want to launch on the desktop? Why is there no file launcher directly on the desktop?

For me, it is nothing more than a startpage, just like Opera’s Speed Dial feature for instance but with the difference that it does not make it more comfortable to open applications I want to run. Another thing that bothered me in the developer preview was the limit of two open application windows at a time in the Metro UI interface. On my desktop, I always have two web browser windows displayed next to each other. More often than not, I also have a video player open, an instant messenger, image editor or another program that I’m also using regularly.

Recent leaks highlight another change that is likely going to make it into the beta and final release of Windows 8. Microsoft has removed what’s left of the start button from the desktop interface of Windows 8. If you have worked with the developer preview you may remember that the start menu was limited to five charms links there. With the start menu gone in current builds, users need to activate the charms menu otherwise to access its functionality.

Charms appear when you move the mouse over the area the start menu button was all those years. You can open them with the keyboard shortcut Windows-c as well. Moving the mouse to the lower left corner to open the charms menu on the rightmost location does not seem to make lots of sense from a usability point of view. It is likely that Microsoft will improve that to make it more intuitive to use.

The core problem as it stands right now is that users do not see options to return to the Metro UI interface. There is no button or tooltip that explains how this is done. If Microsoft fails to provide those, or at least a thorough tutorial after installation, it could end disastrous.

Why has Microsoft removed the full start menu, and now the start menu button from the Windows 8 desktop interface? The most likely reason is to get users to use the Metro UI interface. With all their programs gone from the start menu, the only option users have is to place shortcuts on the desktop or taskbar, to use the search, or the Metro UI start page to launch their applications.

It is hard to keep an open mind at the moment. Everything that I have seen and tested so far looks like it is impractical for the desktop. Still, it is too early to tell and leaks are not always a reliable source anyway. It is likely that we will know more after the Windows 8 beta gets released by Microsoft.

I still hope that Microsoft will pull something out of a hat that will make all my worries go away. The only thing that I can think of right now that would do that is an option to turn off Metro UI, or give me more control when Metro UI is activated, and when it is not.

Am I the only one who thinks that two user interfaces is one too many? That Metro UI is impracticable on desktop PCs?

Update: After reading through this again it appears to have become more of a rant than what I intended it to be.

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