Programming My Life

After installing my printer drivers recently, I was faced with this:

I have to click so that my computer does not restart?

First, the line ‘You must restart your computer to finish the install’ is standard for many installations in Windows.  While it would be great to not have to worry about the restart, I have been conditioned to expect it.  What makes this line awful in this context is that I haven’t been conditioned to search for a check box to not restart.

While I love software, I do not love watching install.  In fact, I will go out on a limb here and say most people do not like to sit and watch software install.  Consequently, I imagine others multitask while software is installing, as I do.  When the install finishes, I am ready to click finish or restart later and get on with whatever I am doing.  Here, though, if I am rushing through, I get an unexpected restart.

Someone made a design decision requiring that the user check a box in order that the system not shut down.  I can’t imagine a single user that would, when asked, say they preferred this method to restart now/later or having restart later be the default.  So why is it in my driver, HP?

I recently purchased a well reviewed laptop (ASUS UL80Vt-A1) as well as Torchlight on Steam.  This was the perfect opportunity to see how Steam works on multiple machines.  I downloaded the Steam client to my laptop, entered my password, and all of the games I had purchased both online (Torchlight and Bioshock) and at retail but had authenticated through Steam (The Orange Box) were available immediately.  I simply downloaded and installed Torchlight and Bioshock and was able to play them immediately.  It just works. The download speed was impressive reaching 2Mb/s.

Steam recently announced that its Steam Cloud feature was integrated into Torchlight.  This feature makes gaming on multiple machines much less work.  Previously, I would have had to set up a way to share my game save files and copied them to the appropriate folder each time I moved from one machine to another.  Now, I am able to just load up the game on either machine at any time and find my avatar exactly where I left him on the other machine just seconds before.  Outstanding.

The only thing that doesn’t ‘just work’ with Steam is being signed in on two machines at once. Upon signing into my Steam account on my laptop, I was kicked off on my PC.  I am told that I can avoid this by playing in offline mode on my secondary machine, but I see this as a bug, not a feature.  I can understand not being allowed to play games on multiple machines at once due to piracy issues, but signing me out just for logging onto another machine is bad design.  This is a minor annoyance, though.

Blizzard also has a client for registering retail games.  While creating an account for the Starcraft 2 beta, I decided to register my StarCraft and Diablo Battlechests.  I didn’t have any use for the service when I signed up, but having my disks who-knows-where right now, I found the perfect opportunity to test their service as well.  The ‘my games’ section of the account is a bit buried, so finding it took a few minutes, but upon finding it, I was able to download the games patched to the most recent version in about 20 minutes each.  The system also keeps the CD keys saved so that during the install, I don’t have to search for the boxes.   Considering I would have had to patch up the disk versions, this may have actually been faster than installing from the disk.

Although both systems presented minor annoyances, they represent what is so enticing about the digital age:  I have purchased these games, whether at retail or digitally and am able to access them quickly at any time even if I don’t have the disk at hand.

Torchlight is a recent PC game available digitally for <$20 by Runic Games.   The developers decided to match the low price with a relatively sparse feature set.  Most games based around classes have more options for types of classes (or at least more subsets for those types) and many more spells/skills to learn.  While it may sound like you are getting what you pay for, it is precisely the limited number of classes and skills that seems to make this game so well balanced.

As Jeff Atwood pointed out two years before the release of Torchlight (and in regard to non-gaming software), software should not be measured as a bundle of features.   While Dragon Age (another game based around character classes) easily has a greater number of features, it does not make it a better game, per se.  It would be unfair to compare the two games as they were developed by two teams of differing sizes and are built to entertain is different ways.   However, the smaller feature set allowed the smaller development team to create an incredibly well balanced loot driven game in Torchlight.

While adding more classes and skills would allow more flexibility, and possibly more replayability, who wants to replay an unbalanced loot game?  In addition to providing a reasonably scoped feature set to provide a more focused experience, the developers of Torchlight followed another great traditional software (and gaming) convention:  Let the users determine what is broken.  While Torchlight was initially a solid experience, a few of the mechanics were ripe for breaking the game.  Specifically, enchanting weapons and heirlooming gems multiple times made some items game breaking.

Instead of holding the game for months to find these subtle problems, Runic released a game that was fully functional with a few exploits (that they likely were unaware of).  When users found these exploits, Runic was quick to patch a solution.  Version 1 may have ‘sucked’, but they shipped it anyway.  When problems were found, they responded.

While Torchlight may not be the biggest selling, or most epic game of this holiday season, it succeeds in being great software with great support.

This week I discovered several new applications for personal use.   I plan to review most of them in the near future, but it would not be fair to review them without diving into most of the features.  Therefore, I’ll be waiting on the more complex programs.  Stardock’s Fences is a simple enough application that I feel comfortable reviewing it after only a few days of use.

Fences is a simple program that organizes a user’s desktop icons into groups such as ‘Programs’, ‘Recent Things’, etc.  The icons for these groups are then sectioned off into fences whose size and location can easily be changed.  Previously, I had organized my icons into groups this way, but with no real structure or formality.   Just the small change of having them in identified groups makes the desktop a bit cleaner.  It also makes for easier sorting when I create a new icon.  Additionally, Fences allows the user to double click the desktop to hide all icons for a cleaner look.  Another double click brings them all back.

While these features are great for organization, the most useful feature is the time saving Snapshots feature.   Instead of simply taking a picture of the desktop (my previous way of remembering how things were arranged), Snapshot actually creates a backup of the fences and their locations at the time of the Snapshot.  Now, instead of matching the icons to an image I took if my icons get jumbled after a Windows crash, I can just restore a Snapshot.

I am generally a software minimalist.  That is, I don’t like having large numbers of plug ins for Firefox or mounds of applications to do everything; I find that just means more troubleshooting if something is giving me problems.  But Fences is such a small program that performs its simple task so well, I can’t imagine not using it on any future Windows machine I work on.

Moore’s Law states that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every 24 months.  Clearly, with ever increasing transistor counts the consumer can expect increasing performance.  The performance increases seen up until the early 2000′s allowed software (from games to, more recently, web applications) to increase in complexity as well to take advantage of the boosted performance of new hardware.  But in the last few years, most software has reached a point where the increases in hardware performance just don’t affect their day-to-day use.  This has given rise to a new category of laptops, dubbed netbooks, which forgo the ultimate in performance for cheap, low power parts.

Netbooks were originally created for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, which allowed less fortunate children around the world to gain access to laptops for simple tasks, such as word processing and accessing the internet.  Around the time the first netbooks were coming to market, manufacturers and consumers alike seemed to reach an epiphany that ‘hey, there is a significant portion of the laptop market (read: me, in the consumer’s case) that only needs to be able to access the internet and do some word processing.’  Thus, instead of one market for laptops, we now have market segments for gaming laptops and power users, as well as netbooks and lower end laptops that are either much cheaper or much smaller than their desktop replacement counterparts.

A similar trend has been seen in gaming in recent years.  With the previous generation of consoles, most games were delivered in the form of disks.  Nearly every game was made to take advantage of as much of the processing power as was possible on a given console, take up all of the space available on the disk it was delivered on, and arrive at market for full price.  However, with the proliferation of  smart phones and digital systems for delivering games, companies small and large have begun reverting back to retro style games that focus more on intuitive, fun gameplay mechanics rather than the most in depth physics or graphics simulations.  Now, in addition to the blockbuster games, we see segments for all types of smaller games across the range of platforms.

In both instances, consumers have increased options because someone decided to move laterally rather than forward.  Perhaps this is just forward in a different direction.

I recently finished Batman: Arkham Asylum on PC and enjoyed it.   The gameplay was fun and the mix of puzzles, combat, and stealth made the game rarely feel repetitious.  What really makes Arkham Asylum interesting, though, is the storytelling.   There are many games known for their story (for better or for worse) that tell the large majority of the story, especially the major plot points, in the form of lengthy cutscenes.   I have enjoyed a number of stories told this way but, it is not the best use of the medium of video games for storytelling.  Arkham Asylum forgoes the lengthy cutscenes and tells the story through sections of gameplay and short cutscenes that mostly flow with the action.  This made me feel as though I was a part of the story rather than driving through a game to unlock the story.

NB:  There will be spoilers in the following sections for the story of the game.

Instead of beginning with a cutscene, you begin in control of Batman walking Joker (surrounded by guards) into Arkham.  While you can’t do much at this point other than walk, it sets the tone for feeling as though you are part of the action rather than just watching it.  There are several other story moments where simply walking around tells the story better than a cutscene.  For example, rain begins falling in the halls of Arkham Mansion.  As Batman advances down the corridor, the mansion walls are replaced by one of the most famous scenes from Batman.   After walking through the scene, Batman opens a door to reveal that the hallucination was caused by Scarecrow.

It would have been simple to make a cutscene showing Batman under Scarecrow’s ‘spell’ similar to what was done in the movie Batman Begins, but changing the scenery while the player is still in control makes it significantly more visceral; it is as though the player is being influenced by Scarecrow as well.  This occurs on more than one occasion and each time is done in such a way to make the player experience it rather than just watch it.

Interactions with The Joker, the game’s primary villain, are also handled primarily while the player is in control; he toys with Batman during the game on the TVs scattered throughout the Asylum.  The backstory for many of the villains is handled in a similar way.  Instead of TVs in the game telling the stories, the player collects disks containing audio recordings of therapy sessions with the inmates/villains, which can be listened to as the player explores Arkham.

Although it deepens the experience, the implementation of the audio tapes breaks up the flow of the game occasionally.  By default, the recordings start up when the player picks up a disk, which sends the player out of the gameplay and into a menu.  The extra information in the menus is interesting, but the experience would be smoother if the audio started up still allowing the player to be in control.  This option is clearly available as there is an option to exit the menu and continue playing while the audio finishes up.

Batman: Arkham Asylum has its share of problems and poor design decisions; it’s not perfect.  However, the developers surprised me with their effective use of the medium of video games to tell an interactive story.  This certainly isn’t the first game to adopt this style, but I was surprised to see it so well implemented in a game that could have easily sold well (thanks to a powerful license in Batman) with much less care taken in the design.  Hopefully, more developers come up with ways to let players experience stories rather than watch them.

“It just works” is one of the highest compliments I can give a piece of software or a feature within that software.  For this series, I will highlight features in software that impress me in their simplicity and ease of use.

First up, iTunes playlist exporting.  I recently upgraded to Windows 7 and during the move, one of the few things I went out of my way to keep was the collection of playlists I had amasses in iTunes.  I dreaded doing it because I was convinced that the playlist files would point directly to the music files on my PC (C:\Music\Awesome Song.mp3), and I would have to modify the file to point to wherever the files were on my newly upgraded hard drive.  In fact, I was so convinced that before I tried exporting the playlists, I went hunting for the files and was pleasantly surprised to see no file names, just artist and song names.

The playlist files are consistent within iTunes meaning they have no need to look at the file names on the computer.  Nice work, Apple engineers!

I will give an ‘it almost just works’ (and a free plug) to my web host, MochaHost.  After filling in my information, I was told my phone number was in the wrong format.  I used 888-555-1234 as the format, and they apparently wanted 1.8885551234.  When I scrolled down to see what format they were looking for, they had already corrected it.  Why they couldn’t format it and accept it without me looking, I am not sure.  But, I was impressed by the fact that I didn’t have to correct it myself.  Now if only someone would standardize those forms and auto-correct typical format types for credit cards, phone numbers, etc.

Before giving my experiences with Windows 7, it is important to discuss my ‘recent’ history with Microsoft operating systems (I have used Linux for work and installed it in virtual machines, but have not seriously used it on my home PC.  I have not used any of Apple’s operating systems).  Since Fall of 2004, I have been using Windows XP exclusively.  I was excited when reading about the launch of Vista; however, I decided to wait until after the launch bugs were ironed out before jumping in (I rarely, if ever, by software or hardware close to launch windows).  After reading about the driver issues and seeing no significant reasons to upgrade, I decided to hold out until a good service pack and deal came along.

At approximately the same time SP1 was released for Vista, Microsoft announced its successor, Windows 7.  I decided to hold out for Windows 7, which I recently obtained when the retail version was released on the Microsoft Developers Network (MSDN).  My experience with Vista is limited to a few half hour sessions on friends’ computers.  This is important because I will be comparing Windows 7 directly to XP, and while some of the features may have been implemented in Vista, I may treat them as though they are new to Windows 7.  I am comfortable with this primarily because Windows 7 feels like what Vista was promising to be.

I want to be clear here that what follows is not intended to be a review of Windows 7 or to be taken as criticism of Windows Vista.  Simply, I want to present my experiences with Windows 7.

The look of Windows 7 is different enough from XP to make clear to the user that this is a brand new operating system, but familiar enough so as not to cause a learning curve in the adjustment period.  To be fair to Vista, it had this same fresh but familiar feeling as well.  However, Windows 7 seems just as quick, if not quicker than XP.  You can search elsewhere for numerical comparisons, and they wouldn’t be fair here as I went from a ~2 year old XP install (with all of the bloat I had accumulated) to a fresh Windows 7 install.

When I made the switch, I kept my XP install thinking I might need it for some legacy applications that would give me problems.  The fresh yet familiar feel of Windows 7 along with a large number of convenient features caused me to make the decision to switch to Windows 7 full time within just a few hours (and compatibility checks) of installing it.  I found out later my compatibility concern was in vain as the free download of Virtual PC (with XP mode) allows me a free, licensed copy of XP should I need it for any incompatibility issues.  The XP mode installed and was up and running in less than 10 minutes, which amazed me.  I have used it for one application with a driver issue in Windows 7, and for Visual Studio 2005, which I use because I have specific libraries I need to install to that version for a project.  Both of these may have had a workaround in Windows 7, but it seemed easier to just install them in XP mode and test it.  The virtual PC application also allows the user to create shortcuts directly to programs in XP mode for a few less clicks when starting them up.  With such a useful, quality application, I am confused as to why Microsoft made this an optional download rather than a stock feature.

Another feature excellent feature included in Windows 7 is Windows Backup.  I committed a terrible techie sin in not creating full backups of my XP installs in the past.  However, Windows Backup is a quick, easy to set up system that yields full backups of a windows install on any time interval you choose (every week, month, etc.).  I did encounter some strange bugs while working with Windows Backup.  When I hit the accept buttons too fast, it said a few categories of files wouldn’t be backed up.  I also got an error the first time I started to set a schedule, but I couldn’t reproduce the error.  The system seems to have trouble if you change the ‘daily, weekly, monthly’ drop down and don’t specify the day of the week or month.  It defaults to the first of the month, but gives an error, when you try to save the setting if you use weekly backups.  Despite these slight hiccups, I was able to set up a working backup that I haven’t touched since setting it up a couple months ago.  In addition to the ease of use of full backups, the application also allows for not including specific folders if you prefer to manually back them up elsewhere.  This is especially helpful if you have large media folders.

In order to back up a few large media folders manually, I plugged in my external hard drive. I was amazed at the quickness with which it was installed and ready for use compared to the time it took in XP.  I did have a few problems with compatibility in hardware, though, specifically my printer (HP psc1315) and my ethernet card (off brand).  Ironically, the reason I have an ethernet card is because I deduced that the gigabit port on my motherboard was malfunctioning.  To resolve my Windows 7 issue, I ended up using that port.  So despite the fact that I didn’t have drivers, I was able to use the port that Windows XP seemed to stop recognizing.  No real loss there.  My printer was a bit more of a hassle.

After being unable to use the drivers from HP, I searched and found a set of drivers specifically for this printer in Windows 7.  They work for printing, but I am unable to scan because that functionality requires the HP software package which I did not bother installing.  These two cases (along with other small problems) bring to light why I am so happy with Windows 7:  Despite not even being on store shelves, for the most part, it just works.  I can get over these small incompatibilities and hiccups because I am dealing with a faster, more user friendly operating system.

Another small improvement Microsoft has made is in the accuracy of ‘time remaining’ estimates for manual file transfers.  Coupled with a previously unavailable (in XP) readout of the transfer speed, the user now has more information when transferring files.  Even transferring multiple files, Windows 7 was able to (for the most part) equally allocate HDD bandwidth among the transfers.  I was able to seriously disrupt this process, though. While copying ~50GB of files, I began an install of Company of Heroes.  Not only did it mess up the ‘time remaining’ on the transfer for the majority of the transfer, it also made the install incredibly slow (I had just installed the game moments before) even after the file transfer completed.  The file transfer, however, didn’t seem to slow much.  The install seemed to pick up speed a bit after the transfer had been completed for a few minutes.  It would be nice to have even more control in prioritizing transfers/installs, but this is a step in the right direction.

Microsoft has also introduced some aesthetic and usability changes that improve the user experience.  For example, the start menu’s ‘All Programs’ list in now automatically alphabetized with folders and executables separated.  This also extends to all explorer windows, which is great initially, but I have not been able to find a way to undo it.  You can organize files in several ways, but I prefer to be able to put files in my own order on occasion, and was not able to find a simple way to do this (trying to uncheck the sort by ‘name’ box is not allowed).  The new explorer also has a great accessibility feature that turns the current folder address into a series of links allowing the user to click to any of the directories above the current location.

The organization of the task bar is also much improved.  Customization is what makes the new task bar so convenient.  If the user has too many instances of a given program, Windows 7 has a setting to combine all instances of that program (10 aim conversations and the buddy list, for example) into one icon.  The only improvement I would make here, would be to allow this option to be selected for individual programs rather than either all programs or not at all.  Another useful feature is the ability to pin programs to the task bar.  This works similar to the old quick launch icons, except when you open the application in windows 7, the launch icon turns into the application icon rather than remaining next to the start menu as a link to a program that is already open.

One feature I am aware is a carryover from Vista is the Aero visual system.   I’m not sure if any upgrades were made to it for the jump to Windows 7, but providing me with a graphical preview of the application has all but eliminated my use of ALT-TAB.  The only downside to the new system is that right-clicking the icon only allows me to close, pin, or see recent files used by the application.  This means that I have to wait for the preview window to appear before I can choose the move or resize options.  This is a feature I use semi frequently because I occasionally leave windows on my second monitor, and I prefer to be able to move them without turning the monitor back on.

The feature from the aero system that I am not too impressed with is the new ‘see desktop’ button, a transparent rectangle to the right of the clock.  This same effect can be had using WINDOWS KEY-D. I was hoping the new functionality would allow me to go to the desktop, open a new program, and then restore everything I was looking at, but this is still not the case.   Windows 7 attempts to keep track of the order of the stack of visible programs, evidenced by the (sometimes incorrect) popping up of the ‘next highest’ window whenever the ‘highest’ closes.  Thus, implementing a memory holder to be able to restore the applications after clicking to the desktop and opening a new application should be manageable.

I have also had some problems with desktop icons.  When upgrading to Windows 7, I placed a large number of broken icons (broken in the sense that they linked to uninstalled programs) on my desktop that were promptly removed when the computer went into (or woke up from) sleep mode.  Broken icon removal would be a reasonable feature if the user were prompted first, but I can’t see any benefit to having it be automatic.

Entering sleep mode is the default setting for the OS after a period of non-activity.  I changed this after two separate instances when I was forced to restart after trying to return from sleep mode to find my machine locked up.  I have not encountered any lockups since disabling sleep mode.

In addition to task bar changes, Windows 7 also allows for simpler ways to view applications.  Dragging the top of an application being resized to the top of the screen causes the bottom of the window to automatically be set to the bottom of the screen; dragging the window to the top of the screen (not resizing) maximizes the window; and dragging a window to the side of the screen resizes the window to exactly half of the screen size allowing for easy side-by-side viewing of separate windows.  To take snapshots of any area of the screen, the Snipping Tool is included.  This provides a much easier way to share a section of the desktop with a colleague when compared to the old method of copying a print screen into paint (or some other photo editor) and trimming the size.

The final application I would like to address us the self-explanatory Sticky Notes.  Instead of piling my desk with note cards reminding me of various things, I can simply put them on my screen and delete them as necessary.

Perhaps I will write a follow up to this in the coming months complaining about network settings and how slow Windows 7 feels after weighing it down with all of my applications.  However, after approximately 2 months of using Windows 7 as my primary operating system, I couldn’t imagine going back to XP.