Windows XP Closes Up Shop...Or Does It?

-
Windows XP is on it's way out. As April 8 2014 looms closer, the lights are slowly being turned off, and the shutters drawn.

I remember when I first upgraded from Windows 2000 to XP. The cartoonish, Fisher-Price-like interface made me cringe. But I didn't want to use the "Classic" view because then I'd be seen as old-fashioned. So I got used to the big, bright buttons, which, over the many, many years, have become warmly familiar. But all good things must come to an end...or must they?

If you think that 13 years is too old for an operating system, perhaps Microsoft should take a leaf out of Chevrolet's book. As they say, "Old Chevys never die, they just go faster!". Well, perhaps Microsoft and Chevy have something in common: I just noticed that my modern, touch-screen, in-car navigation system is running..wait for it...Windows CE, first released in 1996, now in it's 8th major iteration. That's 18 years, folks.

As hard as Microsoft is trying to kill it, it looks like Windows XP might stick around for a while longer. Recent articles around the web suggest that Windows XP will continue to be used by ATMs and other embedded computers. At work, I still operate an XP computer "on the side" to access legacy programs that my Windows 7 laptop can't run. At home, I can't decide whether to keep XP, switch to Linux Ubuntu, buy Windows 8, or replace the whole computer (which has been on its last legs for about two years). I suspect that indecision will mean I'll be running XP for a while longer (and may the Lord have mercy on my soul).
Yossi's Magazine: Everyone Needs One of These www.ykarp.com/magazine
Follow on Twitter: @ykarp
Follow on Google+: +Yossi Karp
Subscribe to Y. Karp? Why Not! or follow on Facebook (see the side-bar).
Add this blog to your RSS feed reader.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Playing With My Mind

-
G-d is playing with my mind. A few months ago my wife and I decided to buy a lottery ticket. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. What irked me was knowing, not so very deep in my heart, that I was flushing money down the drain. I mean, what are the odds? According to this site on Lottery Math, The odds of a "Lotto" style lottery can be found with the formula: n! / (n - r)! r! where n is the highest numbered ball and r is the number of balls chosen. This is called in math a combination . An easier way to think about it is if there are 40 balls and 6 are chosen, there are 40 possible numbers that can come up first, leaving 39 that can come up second, then 38, 37, 36, and finally 35 on the final number. To find out how many numbers that is you multiply 40 ×39 ×38 ×37 ×36 × 35 = 2,763,633,600 making the odds 2 and a half billion to one. Two and a half billion to one?! The money spent on the ticket could easily have gone to purchasing at least one bottle of beer with a 100% cha...
Read more

Act Your Age, Not Your Shoe Size

-
Image
The other day I was traveling to work and the conversation on the bus was more animated than usual, which means that there was conversation on the bus. One of my colleagues joked that although he is 40, he has a mental age of 17. In other words, he still thinks he's Superboy when he's actually more like the father from the Wonder Years. This got me thinking about what my mental age is. I also sometimes feel like I'm still a teenager. In fact, I cracked a joke the other day and my daughter's friend remarked that my jokes are just as good as Eitan's. Who'se Eitan? Her nearly-thirteen-year-old brother. The phrase "act your age, not your shoe size" would not really apply in this situation because using the  Australian shoe size chart , my joke was almost spot on, give or take 2.5 years. There are a number of ways I can measure my mental age: Self assessment Friend Psychologist I decided that none of these options would be accurate enough. For st...
Read more

Lessons from a Couch

-
Image
I was looking around at the electronic devices we use everyday. None of them are single-function, for example: My mobile phone is also my camera, diary, MP3 player, GPS device and multimedia device My camera is also a YouTube uploader, GPS tracker and a photo-editing device My desk phone at work is also an address book My MP3 player is also a radio and a storage device My e-book reader also surfs the web Mark Zuckerberg recently announced that HTC has developed a number of smart phones with Facebook deeply embedded into the interface and that there are dozens more planned for release in the near future. I recall the good old days when a phone was used to make phone calls. Now, every device we have needs to be able to do more than one thing. In fact, one of the hallmarks of a modern smart-phone is that it is "multitasking" - that it has the ability to run two or more applications simultaneously with the ability to switch between them. Older smart-phone operating syste...
Read more