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Chris, face it - you're getting older. This phenomenon started years ago in the video game market, and then exploded with the advent of smartphones. "UX" designers are creating modes of interaction that 'tweens and twentysomethings seem to inherently understand from prior exposure, but anyone older hasn't a clue how to use. The move toward the 'modern' UI, with flat monochrome graphics and little or no guiding text, is symptomatic. A lot of smartphone apps require dexterity that older folks can't achieve, due to small icons and close positioning. I've even seen desktop apps that call for triple-clicks  to perform certain actions.
The end result will be a divide between those that can speak to the machines, and those that cannot. Those that cannot, the aged and the poor, will therefore not be full participants in the society being created.
Software Zen: delete this;
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To quote a tropism, kill it with fire.
Software Zen: delete this;
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I don't think dexterity equates to discoverability. I also think that all those old people (ie over 35's  ) using new products probably have more patience than the younger generations.
We had to fight to understand how to use that old IBM AIX box!
cheers
Chris Maunder
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You aren't the only one who has been noticing the degradation in UI.
Interesting article discussing the UI designs:
How Apple Is Giving Design A Bad Name[^]
My experience has been that it's getting more like a point-and-tap adventure game, and less like a productivity tool every release. The flat UI fad is particularly horrible for being able to tell what are active elements.
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Excellent article. Thank you.
I especially liked
Quote: Apple, you used to be the leader. Why are you now so self-absorbed? Worse, why does Google follow all your worst examples?
cheers
Chris Maunder
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Moshe Katz wrote: Why are you sending them an old version
/Points at Google and glares
cheers
Chris Maunder
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zinnias in space,
their grace in the shadow of
clandestine arms' race
[^]
«Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.» Benjamin Franklin
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Ever since I converted my Dell desktop to UEFI boot, I have been fiddling with the BIOS settings to see how I can speed up my boot time. For the purposes of this discussion, I define "boot time" as the time lapse between pressing the power button and the log-in screen appearing.
My apologies for a shameless plug: You can read more about my UEFI exploits in this CP article: (Take careful note of the warnings in this article!)
Preparing a Drive for UEFI Boot[^]
UEFI is supposed to boot faster than legacy boot, but I was disappointed because my boot time hovered around 38 seconds. That was until I noticed in my BIOS that I had the Legacy Boot ROMs enabled. There was a note from Dell that enabling these ROMs will cause them to load at boot time. This unnecessary load must take a few seconds, because when I disabled the legacy ROMs, the boot time dropped to 19 seconds. Wow! I have never had a machine boot this fast. This setup is really smoking. By the way: My Dell is a 64 bit machine with a 3.41GHz processor and DDR4 memory, running Windows 10 Pro.
Note that this comment applies to Dell desktops. I do not know if legacy ROMs can be disabled in other machines.
How do we preserve the wisdom men will need,
when their violent passions are spent?
- The Lost Horizon
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Is your system drive an SSD? Mine is and my year old system (Gigabyte Brix i7, 16G RAM, 500GB SSD, Win7) boots in about 5-7 seconds.
/ravi
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Yes, I have a Samsung SSD. Does your system boot in 5-7 seconds from the moment you press the power button?
How do we preserve the wisdom men will need,
when their violent passions are spent?
- The Lost Horizon
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Well, I have 32GB of memory. I wonder if the BIOS is doing some kind of memory check at boot time, that may take a few seconds. However, there is no way I am removing memory from my machine, just to speed up the boot process!
How do we preserve the wisdom men will need,
when their violent passions are spent?
- The Lost Horizon
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Perhaps it's doing an exhaustive RAM test? If my foggy memory (no pun intended) serves me right, I think there's an option that toggles between a cursory and full RAM check. I think it used to be called "Quick Boot".
/ravi
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I will check my BIOS for a "quick boot" option.
How do we preserve the wisdom men will need,
when their violent passions are spent?
- The Lost Horizon
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Cornelius Henning wrote: Does your system boot in 5-7 seconds from the moment you press the power button?
Mine too. SSD drive, Dell Precision M3800 laptop, 16 GB RAM.
Marc
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Ok, Let's compare apples with apples. I tried my Dell Inspiron laptop and the boot time is 7 seconds. However, my desktop is still checking out disk drives at 7 seconds. (I have two internal drives and two external drives connected.) That may explain the longer boot time for the desktop?
How do we preserve the wisdom men will need,
when their violent passions are spent?
- The Lost Horizon
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That's probably it. I have no external drives connected at boot time.
/ravi
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Cornelius Henning wrote: my desktop is still checking out disk drives at 7 seconds
I vaguely remember one of my machine having options in the BIOS to either automatically detect all drives on every boot, or set them up once permanently and skip any subsequent attempt to auto-detect drives. I think that had saved me a few seconds on every boot.
The drawback of course was that if I ever changed or added drives, I had to remember to go back in the BIOS to update things. YMMV.
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Cornelius Henning wrote: That may explain the longer boot time for the desktop?
Sounds reasonable. 
Marc
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On my Win10 machine the booting is vastly faster if the external USB drives are not connected.
My long term goal is to live forever. So far, so good...
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With AHCI enabled? The AHCI scanning is where my system spends a good portion of its boot time.
If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't. — Lyall Watson
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You cannot explicitly enable AHCI on my Dell when you are booting UEFI? I believe UEFI includes AHCI by default, but I am not sure.
How do we preserve the wisdom men will need,
when their violent passions are spent?
- The Lost Horizon
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AHCI is indeed, independent of UEFI or legacy BIOS, and it may be turned on or off, depending on your model...
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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