8.

I am not a big television person, in my opinion its already been eclipsed by the superior services of Hulu (ads are terrible), but yesterday I turned it on and saw for the first time a windows 8 ad.

The new OS will be arriving in less than 2 weeks now and I don’t know of anyone who is holding their breath in anticipation.

It’s actually quite the reverse, from all reports Windows 8 could be one of the biggest blunders by Microsoft since the abomination they called Vista. I jumped in on the developer preview almost sixth months ago and watched as it blue screened when I tried to install some drivers… On the upside, they had one of the best Blue Screen images I have ever seen and sincerely hope that they kept it.

Metro – The new flagship layout of all things Microsoft will be an integral feature in Windows 8. Mike has a Windows 7 phone with Metro and I can’t help but say it does have a sleek and well organized appearance. The Developer preview also came with an early layout of Metro and from my experience adding its look and feel was a poor choice.

Metro is perfect for touch interfaces with large panels (easy to tap) and sliding features (simple to drag). However in a mouse and keyboard interface, the reality is that the interface is too simple. Scrolling left to right with the mouse is unintuitive and because of the high fidelity of a normal computer monitor the panels feel as they are a waste of valuable space.

Windows 8 is not all bad. We finally get native multi-monitor support (finally), native USB 3 support, improved Task manager, etc.

But the biggest news will be the introduction of the Microsoft Store, a blatant attempt to copy iTunes, and where everything becomes controversial. Gabe Newell, President of Valve, spoke out against this feature, saying that the top tier PC/OEM’s will leave the market and that margins will be destroyed for a bunch of people.

The issue is that on the Windows RT version will only support applications that are sold directly through the windows store. Which means that only applications they approve will run on these devices, in short they are creating a monopoly on a platform, which has long been open and free for users to do what they want with.