7 ms·

An iPad Lover’s Take On The Surface With Windows RT

41 points by jkaljundi 14y ago

Cbasedlifeform 14y ago
Can anyone confirm this part? With all that up-and-running, I immediately headed to the Windows Store (the virtual one with apps, not the physical one with Surfaces) to get some apps. Total nightmare. In the ten days I’ve been using the Surface, that Store has either been down or completely unresponsive a large percentage of the time. It just hangs and hangs and hangs, seemingly forever. I restart, re-open and some things work, then it hangs again. I’ve been trying to download one app for days — still no luck. I’m sick of restarting. And the back-button just isn’t working. Joy. I expect a dirth of apps at the start but this sounds like a PR disaster if true.
- jspaur 14y ago
  I've had some issues with it being a little slow to display..but usually no more than a few seconds. My bigger gripe with the store is that it shows N updates on the live tile but N-M (with M<N) actual updates available. Otherwise, I've had zero problems with finding apps in the store...on the desktop and the Surface
- RyJones 14y ago
  While it might be a little overstated for dramatic effect, his overall statement is true. Access to the store is not a given; apps might not download; and restarts are in your future. I've run into availability issues with the Apple App Store, and they're much less severe. Then again, the Apple App Store is more mature; the Windows 8 app store is new. I'd like to chalk all of this up to teething pains, but by gum Microsoft has run the Xbox thing fairly well overall, and the lessons should have transferred.
- ladzoppelin 14y ago
  Yea its not true or its authors connection. I have been using Windows 8 for months all day with not one problem with app store. He also says other false statements in article the but its really not worth the effort posting them.
- marshray 14y ago
  On my Surface, I have seen lag in the Store app occasionally, but nothing like this author described. I suspect one factor that may be affecting a lot of first impressions is that the Windows and Office will be downloading and applying a few hundred MB of updates sometime in the first day or two after unboxing. This is perhaps worthy of some criticism, too, but it's not the normal state of operation. Disclosure: I recently accepted a position at Microsoft, but in an unrelated part of the company. My Surface was purchased at full retail.
- Encosia 14y ago
  I've been using a Surface RT for about three weeks. I've never experienced anything like what he's describing. Further, there are apps already in the store for some of the things he mentioned no official apps being available for. Dropbox access is available through a free app named "New File Manager v2", for example. I don't know if he just didn't put in the effort to look for them or purposely used the "official" wording to paint the picture he wanted to, but it's somewhat misleading.
kineticflow 14y ago
- Written by MG Siegler. Spoilers: he tosses his Surface into a trash can at the end. Now that's what I call quality journalism.
- allsystemsgo 14y ago
  I don't know anything about this writer but, it is his take on the Surface. I'm not really expecting journalism. It's not consumer reports. It's TechCrunch.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - corin_ 14y ago
    I can't stand Seigler, but completely agree with you, this is a piece for people who want his opinion, I see nothing wrong with how he wrote it.
untog 14y ago
Seigler's articles usually enrage me, but this one isn't so bad. He makes a mix of valid points and (IMO) less valid ones. If the Store crashes as much as he says it does, that's a huge failure. On the other hand, complaining about the alert box the Flash Player popped up struck me as particularly funny- of course that wouldn't have appeared on an iPad. It doesn't have Flash. I think the MS tablets (and they are tablets, despite Seigler saying they aren't because they're the "wrong shape") are between a rock and a hard place. On one side, the locked-down, user-friendly world of Apple. On the other, the free, tweaking, custom ROMing world of Android. It's trying to sit somewhere between the two and I'm not entirely convinced that it can.
- webwielder 14y ago
  >On the other hand, complaining about the alert box the Flash Player popped up struck me as particularly funny- of course that wouldn't have appeared on an iPad. It doesn't have Flash. I think that's kind of the point. Using the iPad is just a cleaner, nicer experience because it's not bogged down with a lot of the desktop cruft.
  - untog 14y ago
    Right- and that's sort of the point I was trying to make in the second paragraph- not everyone is willing to pay the price for a cleaner, nicer experience. There is a market for a less locked down but more feature-capable device. I just think that Android may already be there. There is a trade-off between features and complexity, but Siegler doesn't try to evaluate that once in the article.
- madoublet 14y ago
  I honestly find that reading his articles (and Techcrunch in general) are like banging my head against the wall. Did he say anything good about it at all?
- Encosia 14y ago
  I've been using Windows 8 as my primary OS for nearly a year and a Surface RT (which has successfully replaced my iPad and MacBook Air, so far) for a little over three weeks now. I've only had trouble with the Store app once, and that wasn't even on the Surface. I also haven't had any trouble with apps downloading slowly or not at all, like he was talking about. I came away from his article really not understanding how he could have legitimately had some of the experiences he wrote about.
srpablo 14y ago
Ugh, can we please mention this was authored by MG Siegler in the title so I know not to click it? I find his work awful and do my part by not visiting his site or reading his published articles, but it's hard to do when you don't know it's his work being linked.
- gggggggg 14y ago
  +1 to this please. This could be a new standard even?
- supercoder 14y ago
  It was prefixed with 'An iPad Lover's take' and linked to techcrunch. I'm not sure what you were expecting.
IanDrake 14y ago
Short version: iPad lover insists everything should function like an iPad, then gets upset when it doesn't.
- VMG 14y ago
  Like a working app store?
  - IanDrake 14y ago
    The app store works. Never seen it not work. Have you?
    - VMG 14y ago
      That's beside the point. He claims the app store doesn't work at all, not that it doesn't look like the apple app store. He may be a liar, but that is a different offense than what you accuse him of.
bitwize 14y ago
I'm reminded of Andy Rooney's segment about purchasing a small, gasoline-powered scooter for himself so he could travel New York in ease and comfort. The problem was he ran a real risk of hitting pedestrians if he tried to use it on the sidewalk, but felt vulnerable using it on the street. The final sentence of his segment was: "So I packed it back in its box and put it in a closet -- never to be used again." Windows RT tablets have a lot of the same neither-fish-nor-fowl nature. They are clunky and inefficient compared to an iPad or good Android tablet, but weak and underpowered compared to a Windows PC.
- webwielder 14y ago
  I am eternally indebted to you for filling my brain with the image of Andy Rooney (wearing a scarf and goggles) on a scooter, barreling down a New York sidewalk, pedestrians leaping out of the way in terror.
nollidge 14y ago
> In hindsight, I now see why Microsoft did not want me to review the Surface. What a ridiculous amount of self-importance. Microsoft probably stopped sending out review units because reviews have been bad.
- mistercow 14y ago
  That's all I interpreted that as meaning anyway. I don't think the author thought he was being blacklisted individually.
kenjackson 14y ago
The weird thing with most of these reviews is that they're so predictable. Those who you'd expect to hate the Surface have, and those you'd expect to like it -- have (probably the biggest exception being Paul Thurrot). I know several people will Surface's and I haven't heard of the app store crashing from any of them. And I use the app store on a standard Win8 w/o a crash in the months I've used it. And of the couple of people I've read who have had app store crashes, they have been people who typically don't like MS products. The Surface is becoming more of a Rorschach test than anything else. Did anyone seriously think that MG would like the Surface? Does anyone seriously think that MG won't like WHATEVER Apple ships next?
- webwielder 14y ago
  >Did anyone seriously think that MG would like the Surface? No, but you might expect Paul Thurrott and Peter Bright to, if you were judging it on the basis of their general opinion of Microsoft. The problem with ascribing opinions of the Surface/Windows 8/RT to one's general opinion of Microsoft and/or Windows is that so much of it is incongruous with what we think of as "Microsoft". People who like one Apple product tend to like most Apple products because there is a clear thread of simplicity and elegance that runs through them. I'm not sure what thread has traditionally run through Microsoft products (lots of buttons, lots of choices, lots of legacy?), but the Surface, with its vertical integration model, and Metro, with its "non-power user" interface, breaks that thread. But then at the same time you have the desktop mode, which tries to maintain a connection to the Microsoft of old. So in conclusion it's a big mess and old biases don't necessarily apply.
  - kenjackson 14y ago
    No, but you might expect Paul Thurrott and Peter Bright to, if you were judging it on the basis of their general opinion of Microsoft. I mention Thurrott as an exception. Peter Bright covers Microsoft, but certainly not someone who typically likes MS products. He tends to strongly dislike as often as he likes MS products (if not moreso). People who like one Apple product tend to like most Apple products because there is a clear thread of simplicity and elegance that runs through them. Really? Like the simplicity that is iTunes? The elegance that is AppleTV? The simplicity/elegance of OSX? Apple has been consistently elegant in hardware, but their software has been as jumbled a mess as anything from Microsoft or Google. It's just been coupled with much superior hardware -- and maybe that's enough, but it certainly not a thread that runs through all their products. So in conclusion it's a big mess and old biases don't necessarily apply. Yet old biases still seem to apply. Odd isn't it. And IMO the biases come out so clearly when you read what they write -- whether about the Surface or not, but especially about the Surface. How is it possible that so many find it a joy to use, and so many can find no use for it at all. And it seems to fall completely along party lines?
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
nohorse 14y ago
That was a waste of time. Hacker news seems to be drawn to controversy. links like this are just feeding the least interesting aspect of our industry: controversy created by wanna-be journalists that have nothing substantial to say.
boyter 14y ago
The problem with this is that the surface isn't aimed at consumers. I think (despite the ad's etc...) it's aimed at large business. I can already hear the IT department drooling over the prospect of a locked down machine that's cheap but still has the Office Suite and IE (the browser or large business) which frankly covers what 95% of office workers actually need. It's a response to BYOD iPad's in the Office, not iPad's at home. Its also why I think Steven Sinofsky had to go. He wanted Microsoft divisions to fight each other, not work together. Think of it this way, assuming Microsoft works on close integration between its products (without Sinofsky this might fly) it is in a unique position. They can offer the most complete end to end business solution for large companies. Hardware (Surface RT and x86), Phones (Windows Phone), Desktop OS, Server OS, Programming Languages, BI suites, Email (exchange), Database etc..... I can't think of any other company that comes close to offering this except possibly Oracle and they are still missing a few things (Maybe they should offer to buy RIM?).
- pinaceae 14y ago
  no. Surface/Windows RT is aimed at consumers. SurfacePro is aimed at businesses. Source: Micrsoft, who has approached our company to build a Surface Pro app to compete in the enterprise space.
  - boyter 14y ago
    Interesting. That's certainly not the case in my world. Very few run applications beyond Excel, Word, Outlook and IE. Most things are web applications hence the Surface RT is a brilliant proposition.
    - pinaceae 14y ago
      we are focused on mobility, field force solutions. for this you need offline capable apps. always online is still a pipe dream and will be for quite some time.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- 14y ago
uvTwitch 14y ago
Read the headline, skip the article and look at the last picture, then scroll back up and read the headline again, particularly the first three words. You're done.
enraged_camel 14y ago
I don't know where to put this observation, but here it goes. I got a chance to play with a Surface last weekend. The very first thing I noticed was the placement of the "home" button. I guess it might be called the Start button? No matter. It was located along the long edge of the device, as opposed to the short edge, which was really odd. At first, I thought this was because the device is meant to be used horizontally with a keyboard attached to it, so having the button closer to the keyboard makes it more accessible. But then I realized this is unlikely to be the case, because the keyboard already has a (much more) accessible Start button! Which leaves the button on the device useless, because even when you're holding it in your hands, your thumbs are too short to reach it. It's little details like this that killed the experience for me. It confirmed my suspicion that Microsoft does not understand user experience.
- Encosia 14y ago
  If you're holding it horizontally in your hands (that case where you can't easily reach the hardware button), you can swipe in from the left and the Windows button/tile/whatever-it-is appears in the bottom-left. I'm sure it depends on your hands and how you hold it, but I'm able to swipe it in and go back to the start page with barely any effort and no hand movement that way. You can also swipe in from the right and get the "charms bar" which has a start button on it too, positioned midway up, which might be easier to reach for some people/grips.
habosa 14y ago
The thing that annoyed me most in this article was the author's insistence that the aspect ratio of the Surface was in some way weird or unusable. The iPad is 4:3 but almost every other tablet is 16:9 (or close to it). I have an Asus Transformer and I prefer the aspect ratio, it allows me to use landscape when browsing the web or watching to get a full view and then portrait when I am reading long-form text to avoid excessive scrolling. This is a case of "I'm not used to it and therefore I hate it"
erickhill 14y ago
I'm not an MG hater. In fact I often agree with his general assessments. But good lord his writing style is horrid. I lost count of how many times he (overused) the parenthesis. But, it's a blog post. If I want solid content I must force myself to expect a lower bar, particularly on TC.

41 points by jkaljundi 14y ago

Can anyone confirm this part? With all that up-and-running, I immediately headed to the Windows Store (the virtual one with apps, not the physical one with Surfaces) to get some apps. Total nightmare. In the ten days I’ve been using the Surface, that Store has either been down or completely unresponsive a large percentage of the time. It just hangs and hangs and hangs, seemingly forever. I restart, re-open and some things work, then it hangs again. I’ve been trying to download one app for days — still no luck. I’m sick of restarting. And the back-button just isn’t working. Joy. I expect a dirth of apps at the start but this sounds like a PR disaster if true.

jspaur 14y ago
I've had some issues with it being a little slow to display..but usually no more than a few seconds. My bigger gripe with the store is that it shows N updates on the live tile but N-M (with M<N) actual updates available. Otherwise, I've had zero problems with finding apps in the store...on the desktop and the Surface
RyJones 14y ago
While it might be a little overstated for dramatic effect, his overall statement is true. Access to the store is not a given; apps might not download; and restarts are in your future. I've run into availability issues with the Apple App Store, and they're much less severe. Then again, the Apple App Store is more mature; the Windows 8 app store is new. I'd like to chalk all of this up to teething pains, but by gum Microsoft has run the Xbox thing fairly well overall, and the lessons should have transferred.
ladzoppelin 14y ago
Yea its not true or its authors connection. I have been using Windows 8 for months all day with not one problem with app store. He also says other false statements in article the but its really not worth the effort posting them.
marshray 14y ago
On my Surface, I have seen lag in the Store app occasionally, but nothing like this author described. I suspect one factor that may be affecting a lot of first impressions is that the Windows and Office will be downloading and applying a few hundred MB of updates sometime in the first day or two after unboxing. This is perhaps worthy of some criticism, too, but it's not the normal state of operation. Disclosure: I recently accepted a position at Microsoft, but in an unrelated part of the company. My Surface was purchased at full retail.
Encosia 14y ago
I've been using a Surface RT for about three weeks. I've never experienced anything like what he's describing. Further, there are apps already in the store for some of the things he mentioned no official apps being available for. Dropbox access is available through a free app named "New File Manager v2", for example. I don't know if he just didn't put in the effort to look for them or purposely used the "official" wording to paint the picture he wanted to, but it's somewhat misleading.

kineticflow 14y ago

- Written by MG Siegler. Spoilers: he tosses his Surface into a trash can at the end. Now that's what I call quality journalism.

allsystemsgo 14y ago
I don't know anything about this writer but, it is his take on the Surface. I'm not really expecting journalism. It's not consumer reports. It's TechCrunch.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- corin_ 14y ago
  I can't stand Seigler, but completely agree with you, this is a piece for people who want his opinion, I see nothing wrong with how he wrote it.

untog 14y ago

Seigler's articles usually enrage me, but this one isn't so bad. He makes a mix of valid points and (IMO) less valid ones. If the Store crashes as much as he says it does, that's a huge failure. On the other hand, complaining about the alert box the Flash Player popped up struck me as particularly funny- of course that wouldn't have appeared on an iPad. It doesn't have Flash. I think the MS tablets (and they are tablets, despite Seigler saying they aren't because they're the "wrong shape") are between a rock and a hard place. On one side, the locked-down, user-friendly world of Apple. On the other, the free, tweaking, custom ROMing world of Android. It's trying to sit somewhere between the two and I'm not entirely convinced that it can.

webwielder 14y ago
>On the other hand, complaining about the alert box the Flash Player popped up struck me as particularly funny- of course that wouldn't have appeared on an iPad. It doesn't have Flash. I think that's kind of the point. Using the iPad is just a cleaner, nicer experience because it's not bogged down with a lot of the desktop cruft.
- untog 14y ago
  Right- and that's sort of the point I was trying to make in the second paragraph- not everyone is willing to pay the price for a cleaner, nicer experience. There is a market for a less locked down but more feature-capable device. I just think that Android may already be there. There is a trade-off between features and complexity, but Siegler doesn't try to evaluate that once in the article.
madoublet 14y ago
I honestly find that reading his articles (and Techcrunch in general) are like banging my head against the wall. Did he say anything good about it at all?
Encosia 14y ago
I've been using Windows 8 as my primary OS for nearly a year and a Surface RT (which has successfully replaced my iPad and MacBook Air, so far) for a little over three weeks now. I've only had trouble with the Store app once, and that wasn't even on the Surface. I also haven't had any trouble with apps downloading slowly or not at all, like he was talking about. I came away from his article really not understanding how he could have legitimately had some of the experiences he wrote about.

srpablo 14y ago

Ugh, can we please mention this was authored by MG Siegler in the title so I know not to click it? I find his work awful and do my part by not visiting his site or reading his published articles, but it's hard to do when you don't know it's his work being linked.

gggggggg 14y ago
+1 to this please. This could be a new standard even?
supercoder 14y ago
It was prefixed with 'An iPad Lover's take' and linked to techcrunch. I'm not sure what you were expecting.

IanDrake 14y ago

Short version: iPad lover insists everything should function like an iPad, then gets upset when it doesn't.

VMG 14y ago
Like a working app store?
- IanDrake 14y ago
  The app store works. Never seen it not work. Have you?
  - VMG 14y ago
    That's beside the point. He claims the app store doesn't work at all, not that it doesn't look like the apple app store. He may be a liar, but that is a different offense than what you accuse him of.

bitwize 14y ago

I'm reminded of Andy Rooney's segment about purchasing a small, gasoline-powered scooter for himself so he could travel New York in ease and comfort. The problem was he ran a real risk of hitting pedestrians if he tried to use it on the sidewalk, but felt vulnerable using it on the street. The final sentence of his segment was: "So I packed it back in its box and put it in a closet -- never to be used again." Windows RT tablets have a lot of the same neither-fish-nor-fowl nature. They are clunky and inefficient compared to an iPad or good Android tablet, but weak and underpowered compared to a Windows PC.

webwielder 14y ago
I am eternally indebted to you for filling my brain with the image of Andy Rooney (wearing a scarf and goggles) on a scooter, barreling down a New York sidewalk, pedestrians leaping out of the way in terror.

nollidge 14y ago

> In hindsight, I now see why Microsoft did not want me to review the Surface. What a ridiculous amount of self-importance. Microsoft probably stopped sending out review units because reviews have been bad.

mistercow 14y ago
That's all I interpreted that as meaning anyway. I don't think the author thought he was being blacklisted individually.

kenjackson 14y ago

The weird thing with most of these reviews is that they're so predictable. Those who you'd expect to hate the Surface have, and those you'd expect to like it -- have (probably the biggest exception being Paul Thurrot). I know several people will Surface's and I haven't heard of the app store crashing from any of them. And I use the app store on a standard Win8 w/o a crash in the months I've used it. And of the couple of people I've read who have had app store crashes, they have been people who typically don't like MS products. The Surface is becoming more of a Rorschach test than anything else. Did anyone seriously think that MG would like the Surface? Does anyone seriously think that MG won't like WHATEVER Apple ships next?

webwielder 14y ago
>Did anyone seriously think that MG would like the Surface? No, but you might expect Paul Thurrott and Peter Bright to, if you were judging it on the basis of their general opinion of Microsoft. The problem with ascribing opinions of the Surface/Windows 8/RT to one's general opinion of Microsoft and/or Windows is that so much of it is incongruous with what we think of as "Microsoft". People who like one Apple product tend to like most Apple products because there is a clear thread of simplicity and elegance that runs through them. I'm not sure what thread has traditionally run through Microsoft products (lots of buttons, lots of choices, lots of legacy?), but the Surface, with its vertical integration model, and Metro, with its "non-power user" interface, breaks that thread. But then at the same time you have the desktop mode, which tries to maintain a connection to the Microsoft of old. So in conclusion it's a big mess and old biases don't necessarily apply.
- kenjackson 14y ago
  No, but you might expect Paul Thurrott and Peter Bright to, if you were judging it on the basis of their general opinion of Microsoft. I mention Thurrott as an exception. Peter Bright covers Microsoft, but certainly not someone who typically likes MS products. He tends to strongly dislike as often as he likes MS products (if not moreso). People who like one Apple product tend to like most Apple products because there is a clear thread of simplicity and elegance that runs through them. Really? Like the simplicity that is iTunes? The elegance that is AppleTV? The simplicity/elegance of OSX? Apple has been consistently elegant in hardware, but their software has been as jumbled a mess as anything from Microsoft or Google. It's just been coupled with much superior hardware -- and maybe that's enough, but it certainly not a thread that runs through all their products. So in conclusion it's a big mess and old biases don't necessarily apply. Yet old biases still seem to apply. Odd isn't it. And IMO the biases come out so clearly when you read what they write -- whether about the Surface or not, but especially about the Surface. How is it possible that so many find it a joy to use, and so many can find no use for it at all. And it seems to fall completely along party lines?

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

nohorse 14y ago

That was a waste of time. Hacker news seems to be drawn to controversy. links like this are just feeding the least interesting aspect of our industry: controversy created by wanna-be journalists that have nothing substantial to say.

boyter 14y ago

The problem with this is that the surface isn't aimed at consumers. I think (despite the ad's etc...) it's aimed at large business. I can already hear the IT department drooling over the prospect of a locked down machine that's cheap but still has the Office Suite and IE (the browser or large business) which frankly covers what 95% of office workers actually need. It's a response to BYOD iPad's in the Office, not iPad's at home. Its also why I think Steven Sinofsky had to go. He wanted Microsoft divisions to fight each other, not work together. Think of it this way, assuming Microsoft works on close integration between its products (without Sinofsky this might fly) it is in a unique position. They can offer the most complete end to end business solution for large companies. Hardware (Surface RT and x86), Phones (Windows Phone), Desktop OS, Server OS, Programming Languages, BI suites, Email (exchange), Database etc..... I can't think of any other company that comes close to offering this except possibly Oracle and they are still missing a few things (Maybe they should offer to buy RIM?).

pinaceae 14y ago
no. Surface/Windows RT is aimed at consumers. SurfacePro is aimed at businesses. Source: Micrsoft, who has approached our company to build a Surface Pro app to compete in the enterprise space.
- boyter 14y ago
  Interesting. That's certainly not the case in my world. Very few run applications beyond Excel, Word, Outlook and IE. Most things are web applications hence the Surface RT is a brilliant proposition.
  - pinaceae 14y ago
    we are focused on mobility, field force solutions. for this you need offline capable apps. always online is still a pipe dream and will be for quite some time.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
14y ago

uvTwitch 14y ago

Read the headline, skip the article and look at the last picture, then scroll back up and read the headline again, particularly the first three words. You're done.

enraged_camel 14y ago

I don't know where to put this observation, but here it goes. I got a chance to play with a Surface last weekend. The very first thing I noticed was the placement of the "home" button. I guess it might be called the Start button? No matter. It was located along the long edge of the device, as opposed to the short edge, which was really odd. At first, I thought this was because the device is meant to be used horizontally with a keyboard attached to it, so having the button closer to the keyboard makes it more accessible. But then I realized this is unlikely to be the case, because the keyboard already has a (much more) accessible Start button! Which leaves the button on the device useless, because even when you're holding it in your hands, your thumbs are too short to reach it. It's little details like this that killed the experience for me. It confirmed my suspicion that Microsoft does not understand user experience.

Encosia 14y ago
If you're holding it horizontally in your hands (that case where you can't easily reach the hardware button), you can swipe in from the left and the Windows button/tile/whatever-it-is appears in the bottom-left. I'm sure it depends on your hands and how you hold it, but I'm able to swipe it in and go back to the start page with barely any effort and no hand movement that way. You can also swipe in from the right and get the "charms bar" which has a start button on it too, positioned midway up, which might be easier to reach for some people/grips.

habosa 14y ago

The thing that annoyed me most in this article was the author's insistence that the aspect ratio of the Surface was in some way weird or unusable. The iPad is 4:3 but almost every other tablet is 16:9 (or close to it). I have an Asus Transformer and I prefer the aspect ratio, it allows me to use landscape when browsing the web or watching to get a full view and then portrait when I am reading long-form text to avoid excessive scrolling. This is a case of "I'm not used to it and therefore I hate it"

erickhill 14y ago

I'm not an MG hater. In fact I often agree with his general assessments. But good lord his writing style is horrid. I lost count of how many times he (overused) the parenthesis. But, it's a blog post. If I want solid content I must force myself to expect a lower bar, particularly on TC.