Win8



  • @Daniel Beardsmore said:

    My issue isn't so much that programs and settings are separated, but rather that you can't cycle Programs/Settings/Files with something obvious like ctrl+tab or ctrl+pg down — if I had ONLY that, I'd be perfectly happy with the split, because it would be an easy keystroke away.
    I suggest you try StartIsBack - I use it for 2 things: search and quick access to Control Panel and Administrative Tools. It's search on Windows 8.1 seems to be better than Microsoft's on the Start Screen (which doesn't find half of the classic Control Panel icons for me).



  • @ender said:

    I suggest you try StartIsBack - I use it for 2 things: search and quick access to Control Panel and Administrative Tools. It's search on Windows 8.1 seems to be better than Microsoft's on the Start Screen (which doesn't find half of the classic Control Panel icons for me).

    That's like Windows lacking an equivalent to sudo ("solved" using a third-party tool): no use if I have to install it on dozens or even hundreds of computers just to fix a broken UI, including ones that are not under my own control.

    On my own computer, I rarely change settings, so it's not an issue there. I love aftermarket products for customisation of my own system (for things that are not reasonable to expect from the OS itself), but it's absurd when there are fundamental UI mistakes either created by senseless fiddling, or from ignoring existing industry knowledge (sudo has been around for a long time!)

    BTW I still use your Win32 wget.exe builds any time I need it on a Windows system, so thanks!)



  • @Daniel Beardsmore said:

    @ender said:
    I suggest you try StartIsBack - I use it for 2 things: search and quick access to Control Panel and Administrative Tools. It's search on Windows 8.1 seems to be better than Microsoft's on the Start Screen (which doesn't find half of the classic Control Panel icons for me).

    That's like Windows lacking an equivalent to sudo ("solved" using a third-party tool): no use if I have to install it on dozens or even hundreds of computers just to fix a broken UI, including ones that are not under my own control.

    On my own computer, I rarely change settings, so it's not an issue there. I love aftermarket products for customisation of my own system (for things that are not reasonable to expect from the OS itself), but it's absurd when there are fundamental UI mistakes either created by senseless fiddling, or from ignoring existing industry knowledge (sudo has been around for a long time!)

    BTW I still use your Win32 wget.exe builds any time I need it on a Windows system, so thanks!)

    There is always a trade-off to be made between userfriendliness and flexibility and I think that Microsoft is making the right choices lately by offloading all advanced stuff on the PS api and other command-line tools. 95% of people only use the GUI for light stuff, and it's their needs that has to take priority. For the remaining 5%, like the people who need to push drivers on multiple network nodes or want to rename network connections (i.e.: you), everything can be done in PS.

    Metro is there to stay, Microsoft made that pretty clear with the start button in 8.1, and the recent increase in sales for Surface and WP8 devices is a clear indicator that it's the way forward. Those devices would not sell if they came only with a good ol' desktop GUI. You can bet that as soon as Microsoft has a reliable Metro build for its cash cows (Office, VS, etc) the desktop will die, including all the MMC-based or Explorer-based widgets. The future of GUI is basically the WPF/Metro paradigm: no right-click, single windows (pages instead of dialogs), lean.

    You won't stop that from happening so just go with the flow, get used to PS.



  • @TehFreek said:

    @Soviut said:

    @jakjawagon said:
    The second time I somehow managed to make it fail to boot while trying to change screen resolution (though that may have been the fault of a particularly unusual monitor that wasn't sure of its own native resolution).

    Nope, the monitor has nothing to do with it. That's like blaming your speakers for ubuntu breaking audio with another rushed update.

    Sure, if you had speakers with a digital connection that let you find out how large they are, what impedance they have, and how much power you need to send to them in order for sound to be audible. And then none of what it told you was actually correct.

    Fair enough. My point was that usually monitor issues on desktop linux stem from configuration errors (which are notoriously easy to make) rather than the hardware connected.



  • @Soviut said:

    My point was that usually monitor issues on desktop linux stem from configuration errors (which are notoriously easy to make) rather than the hardware connected.
    That was certainly the case back in the days when dinosaurs ruled the swamps and xorg.conf ruled the frame buffer. But for quite some years it's been the case that xorg.conf is usually nonexistent, with all the things it used to specify now being worked out dynamically based on information collected over DDC. Which means that shitty monitor EDID blocks and/or noisy VGA cables can now screw Linux up every bit as badly as Windows, though at least on Linux you can still specify kernel boot options and stuff modelines into xorg.conf to fix it; on Windows post-Vista, the only way I know of to regain anything like that degree of control involves physically breaking off VGA pin 12 to make Windows treat the monitor as "non plug-and-play".



  • @flabdablet said:

    @Soviut said:
    My point was that usually monitor issues on desktop linux stem from configuration errors (which are notoriously easy to make) rather than the hardware connected.
    That was certainly the case back in the days when dinosaurs ruled the swamps and xorg.conf ruled the frame buffer. But for quite some years it's been the case that xorg.conf is usually nonexistent, with all the things it used to specify now being worked out dynamically based on information collected over DDC. Which means that shitty monitor EDID blocks and/or noisy VGA cables can now screw Linux up every bit as badly as Windows, though at least on Linux you can still specify kernel boot options and stuff modelines into xorg.conf to fix it; on Windows post-Vista, the only way I know of to regain anything like that degree of control involves physically breaking off VGA pin 12 to make Windows treat the monitor as "non plug-and-play".

    If you bought an analog monitor in the last 8 years you deserve all the shit you're getting. I don't care if it was 5 bucks less. You remind me of this one client I had who bought some brand-new widescreen monitors for his computers, and then wanted to know why they weren't working as good as the one I got for them. I came in and saw that they were all bargain-bin VGA, like the computer this guy bought on his own. He reported happily that he spent $100 instead of $120 on them. I'm supposed to work with this shit? At least the main computers I worked with were DVI (I had made sure to specify what they were to buy).

    So the question stands -- why the fuck are you still using VGA? I mean, I could understand if it was the early 2000s. Heck, I can understand doing it today with stand-alone servers, but then you should be deploying headless servers with out-of-band-management. Otherwise, get a digital only monitor and board.

    And chuck your old VGA screens. Those landfills aren't going to fill them-fucking-selves.



  • @Scribbler said:

    why the fuck are you still using VGA?

    Because replacing all the classroom data projectors in a school is a really fucking expensive exercise, and is not likely to happen while the old ones are still working just fine.



  • @ender said:

    I suggest you try StartIsBack - I use it for 2 things: search and quick access to Control Panel and Administrative Tools.
     

    You don't need StartIsBack if you truly only need those two things. Just right-click the start corner.



  • @Scribbler said:

    why the fuck are you still using VGA?
     

    Because my monitor isn't broken yet.



  • @Scribbler said:

    If you bought an analog monitor in the last 8 years you deserve all the shit you're getting.
    What, because even if that's true, Linux shouldn't have got VGA working at any point in the prior decade? Of course it's not true anyway. I've ordered high-end business laptops which did not have DVI ports less than five years ago.



  • @dhromed said:

    You don't need StartIsBack if you truly only need those two things. Just right-click the start corner.
    Search in Windows 8.1 Start Screen is broken and randomly doesn't find Control Panel items for me, and right-click on the Start button doesn't open Control Panel and Administrative tools as submenus (why is it that opening Control Panel as a submenu is so much faster than opening the Small icons view anyway?).
    Also, while I did say only, I do occassionally use the All Programs view (because browsing through the Programs view on Start Screen is an exercise in futility on a 30" monitor with roughly 1300 icons).



  • @Ronald said:

    Metro is there to stay, Microsoft made that pretty clear with the start button in 8.1, and the recent increase in sales for Surface and WP8 devices is a clear indicator that it's the way forward. Those devices would not sell if they came only with a good ol' desktop GUI. You can bet that as soon as Microsoft has a reliable Metro build for its cash cows (Office, VS, etc) the desktop will die, including all the MMC-based or Explorer-based widgets. The future of GUI is basically the WPF/Metro paradigm: no right-click, single windows (pages instead of dialogs), lean.

    In your view, why did they redesign Explorer with a ribbon and an (admittedly rather lame) multi-monitor taskbar, if they're trying to wean people off the desktop? Windows 8 doesn't really feel like they have any idea what they're trying to do. For example, you can't open two PDFs at once! (I don't know if you ever used a Psion EPOC32 PDA, but there was a simple setting to choose whether, by default, opening a file would replace the existing file, or whether you'd get another process and thereby two or more files of the same type open at once — I always went for the latter.)

    As for VGA vs DVI: VGA is far more stable. My right-hand monitor at work (HP LP2065) really struggles with the DVI signal during the mornings and evenings in the colder months, with the picture disappearing or jumping sideways. The office isn't cold, but the subtle drop in temperature pushes the DVI signal tolerance over the edge. I'd have to reinstall Catalyst Control Center and play with the DVI Appeasement Settings, which did help somewhat. I guess I'm just unlucky; on my home desktop, I just get a subtle ~1.5 mm jump sometimes when the screen is just warming up, and that's it (it's the same S-IPS panel, but in an LG display). However, I had a weird rolling band problems with the picture when I changed from VGA to DVI at home, that didn't go away with DVI at work (though it did eventually).

    On the one hand, I'm looking forward to OLED becoming mainstream. On the other, I love 4:3, especially at work, where 2 × 1600×1200 is the most practical arrangement.

    I am just a dinosaur :)



  • @Daniel Beardsmore said:

    ...............

    Often, all this random fiddling with things breaks things that used to work or used to be possible. Vista used to let you name your network connections. In 7, this wasn't all that relevant. Windows 8 now has a hugeass sidebar for connecting to VPNs and wireless, which makes it all the more irritating that your LAN has some generic name. Why not just call it "Ethernet" or "Wired LAN" if I'm banned from giving it a useful name? Instead of "Network Connection 3" …

    ...............

     

    Try copy-pasting a username then a password into a VPN connection  on windows 8 without putting your fist through the monitor.

     



  • Occasionally after resuming from hibernation, the network panel shows my LAN as connected, but the VPN as disabled. The reason? I can't connect to the VPN because I don't have an active network connection. But but but …

    The solution is to use rasdial, which for whatever reason cannot use the stored password — I've got to type the username, domain AND password out on the command line in addition to the name of the connection itself, because the stupid machine won't use the ones I've already entered and saved.

    Once I disconnect, the network panel still insists that I lack a working network connection …

    To be fair, considering how many bugs I find in software in general (I crashed my video driver within minutes of playing with an Excel roller coaster simulator) and considering what a blatantly unfinished mess 8.0 is, I'm pleasantly surprised how little I've actually found wrong with Windows 8, when just treating it as Windows 7. Explorer still trips over thumbs.db sometimes, though … [Edited to make sense]



  • @ender said:

    browsing through the Programs view on Start Screen is an exercise in futility
     

    Amen.



  • @Daniel Beardsmore said:

    In your view, why did they redesign Explorer with a ribbon and an (admittedly rather lame) multi-monitor taskbar, if they're trying to wean people off the desktop?
    Don't know if it's what Ronald meant, but Microsoft is clearly not trying to wean people off desktop PCs, or at least a desktop-PC-like workstation with keyboard and mouse. They are, correctly in my view, trying to deprecate the Windows Desktop because it doesn't make sense anymore. When's the last time you looked at your desktop? I switch from application to application using the taskbar, so why would I minimise everything and look at it?


    Whether they've got the alternative arrangement right is another question entirely.
    @Daniel Beardsmore said:

    you can't open two PDFs at once!
    I have no idea why you think that. Of course you can. It's a multi-tasking OS. Perhaps the settings on the built-in viewer are broken?



  • @TDWTF123 said:

    I have no idea why you think that. Of course you can. It's a multi-tasking OS. Perhaps the settings on the built-in viewer are broken?

    I think it was fairly obvious that I was referring to the built-in reader. It looks like 8.1 fixed this too, though the official instructions are overwrought and probably program-specific. I don't intend to spend any time at all in the "metro" UI, let alone enough to figure out whether MS have managed to push a 100% application independent way to open an indefinite number of files per program, and select between those the same way in any program. (One of the problems with tabs, incidentally, is that the OS is not aware of them, so they are not first-class window management objects, unlike windows. Some programs like IE push them to the taskbar as fake windows, defeating the whole objective of tabs in the first place as being one level below windows, for management. Somehow I doubt "metro" will seize the opportunity to revolutionise the ability to manage large amounts of window manager objects at once.)



  • @TDWTF123 said:

    When's the last time you looked at your desktop?
    Five minutes ago.

    The desktop is for most purposes just another place to store files and shortcuts and could easily be replaced by a folder or a launch bar. But it's a pretty convenient one, in particular if you use something like Fences to keep your icons logically organized.

    Which looks a lot like the formerly-known-as-Metro Start screen.



  • @dhromed said:

    You don't need StartIsBack if you truly only need those two things. Just right-click the start corner.
    Closest I get to Win8 is Server 2012, which runs in a VM. I put IObit's Start Menu 8 on it because the native invisible 1-pixel Start button inside the VM's window got old real quick.



  • @Daniel Beardsmore said:

    I've got to type the username, domain AND password out on the command line in addition to the name of the connection itself, because the stupid machine won't use the ones I've already entered and saved.
    Why not just make a desktop shortcut that invokes rasdial with appropriate arguments? Then all you'd need to do is double-click a thing.



  • @flabdablet said:

    Closest I get to Win8 is Server 2012, which runs in a VM. I put IObit's Start Menu 8 on it because the native invisible 1-pixel Start button inside the VM's window got old real quick.

    Yes, hot corners aren't all that useful when the remote session is not full screen! Also, the Start hotkey doesn't follow the taskbar: with a top taskbar, the hot corner remains at the bottom left.

    @flabdablet said:

    Why not just make a desktop shortcut that invokes rasdial with appropriate arguments? Then all you'd need to do is double-click a thing.

    98% of the time, the entry in the network connections panel works. It just randomly fails, but comes back after another hibernate cycle. The OS seems to run a check at resume and won't rethink that decision again.



  • @flabdablet said:

    I put IObit's Start Menu 8 on it because the native invisible 1-pixel Start button inside the VM's window got old real quick.
    Recently I had to fix a client's PC, which wouldn't boot. First thing I noticed was that the software and system registry hives in C:\Windows\System32\config were empty - the files were just 256kB, but there were full-sized copies in the same directory with .iobit extension. After I fixed this and booted to the system, I noticed that the user has installed some optimizer thingy from IObit, which also installed it's broken Start Menu (despite there already been StartIsBack installed), and apparently optimized the system by destroying the Registry.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Daniel Beardsmore said:

    @flabdablet said:
    Why not just make a desktop shortcut that invokes rasdial with appropriate arguments? Then all you'd need to do is double-click a thing.
    98% of the time, the entry in the network connections panel works. It just randomly fails, but comes back after another hibernate cycle. The OS seems to run a check at resume and won't rethink that decision again.
    I've found that sometimes you have to explicitly disable and reenable the network device driver to make things work; even a cold reboot wasn't fixing it. I've no idea why.

    Has anyone ever found a Windows Troubleshooting Wizard that genuinely helped? Or are they as totally useless as my biased view of them has indicated?



  • @dkf said:

    Has anyone ever found a Windows Troubleshooting Wizard that genuinely helped? Or are they as totally useless as my biased view of them has indicated?

    lol! They really are rather useless, aren't they?

    I've had trouble with brand new Windows 7 PCs breaking Windows Update while the PC is still being set up (some typical garbage hex number comes up), and the troubleshooter for that always sorts it out (no idea what actually fails, just that Windows is able to fix it so long as you patronisingly point its own troubleshooter back at itself, since it can't figure that out without your help). One or twice the NIC repair option has worked.



  • @Daniel Beardsmore said:

    @dkf said:

    Has anyone ever found a Windows Troubleshooting Wizard that genuinely helped? Or are they as totally useless as my biased view of them has indicated?

    lol! They really are rather useless, aren't they?

    I've had trouble with brand new Windows 7 PCs breaking Windows Update while the PC is still being set up (some typical garbage hex number comes up), and the troubleshooter for that always sorts it out (no idea what actually fails, just that Windows is able to fix it so long as you patronisingly point its own troubleshooter back at itself, since it can't figure that out without your help). One or twice the NIC repair option has worked.

    The troubleshooter is good when you have to fiddle with input/output default devices, like when you have fancy speakers and a monitor with speakers and a tv out. Without the wizard one has to dig and randomly click on checkboxes in hidden tabs.



  • I've had the troubleshooter fix a malfunctioning ethernet connection a couple of times.

    I could probably have done all the things it tried one by one myself, but that's tedious. That's why we have computers in the first place.

    There are some things about computers that should just be washer-level simple.



  • @dhromed said:

    There are some things about computers that should just be washer-level simple.

    You don't buy a dog and then bark yourself. So why do you buy a computer and do all the computing for it?



  • @Daniel Beardsmore said:

    @dhromed said:

    There are some things about computers that should just be washer-level simple.

    You don't buy a dog and then bark yourself. So why do you buy a computer and do all the computing for it?

    Recently we did a big update of the summer house and when we picked the appliances that was my point: I don't want to learn how to use stuff, I want stuff to just work as is. So the new appliances are pretty cool:

    • The same machine does the washing and drying of clothes, and can be started with a single button (no need to choose cycles)
    • The dishwasher has a single button (on/off)
    • Both the washer and dishwasher have built-in detergent containers/dispensers
    • The microwave oven knows when to stop so i don't need to punch in a time
    • I can tap on the kind of stuff I want to cook and the 3 sections of the element (center, middle rime, outer rim) on the stove will automatically start heating when I put a pan or wok on it (but not if it's my hand!).
    • The ice cube dispenser on the fridge's door comes with 3 sizes (big cubes, small cubes, crushed) and it remembers the last kind I asked for!
    • The fridge has a built-in inventory/grocery list/recipe widget (allegedly it can scan barcodes and do all kinds of fancy stuff that I haven't tried myself)

  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Ronald said:

    The same machine does the washing and drying of clothes, and can be started with a single button (no need to choose cycles)

    I guess this might be alright for a summer house or if you have no family. But it would be terribly inefficient to have to wait for the drying to finish before starting another load.



  • @boomzilla said:

    @Ronald said:
    The same machine does the washing and drying of clothes, and can be started with a single button (no need to choose cycles)

    I guess this might be alright for a summer house or if you have no family. But it would be terribly inefficient to have to wait for the drying to finish before starting another load.

    I could buy two of those when we update the main house next year, it would be the optimal setup, but in the current situation at least the housekeeper can justify all the time she spends watching telenovelas in the kitchen



  • @Ronald said:

    @boomzilla said:
    @Ronald said:
    The same machine does the washing and drying of clothes, and can be started with a single button (no need to choose cycles)

    I guess this might be alright for a summer house or if you have no family. But it would be terribly inefficient to have to wait for the drying to finish before starting another load.

    I could buy two of those when we update the main house next year, it would be the optimal setup, but in the current situation at least the housekeeper can justify all the time she spends watching telenovelas in the kitchen

    No, the optimal solution is having no washer and no dryer in your house and taking a trip to the laundromat.  Someone I dated once had a nervous breakdown and when she snapped out of it we had to do twenty loads of clothes; with about eight washers and a similar number of dryers we staggered the start times and finished in the same time it would take your "two-dryers household" to do just the first three loads.

    Plus you save on electricity.  When it's 118 degrees outside, you don't want to be dumping hot moist air into your living space that you then have to air-condition away.

     



  • @da Doctah said:

    Someone I dated once    had a nervous breakdown
    Heh.



  • @da Doctah said:

    No, the optimal solution is having no washer and no dryer in your house and taking a trip to the laundromat.
    ...those things are supposed to turn a profit, you know... it's not exactly an economy of scale, it's cheaper to own your own washer and dryer.@da Doctah said:
    Someone I dated once had a nervous breakdown and when she snapped out of it we had to do twenty loads of clothes; with about eight washers and a similar number of dryers we staggered the start times and finished in the same time it would take your "two-dryers household" to do just the first three loads.
    That's a rather unusual example and calls for unusual measures. With a can of diesel and a pack of matches I could have finished her laundry in even less time.@da Doctah said:
    Plus you save on electricity.  When it's 118 degrees outside, you don't want to be dumping hot moist air into your living space that you then have to air-condition away.
    Your dryer is supposed to pipe that outdoors... if it's not working, I suggest you see about fixing it, because it could also be a fire hazard (dryer lint is quite flammable).


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @anotherusername said:

    dryer lint is quite flammable
    Don't all dryers have a filter to catch that stuff?



  • @anotherusername said:

    Your dryer is supposed to pipe that outdoors
     

    Depends on the model.

    Most modern dryers (here anyway) have a reservoir that fills with water for every load. The kind with a pipe that goes outside is a little outdated.



  • @PJH said:

    @anotherusername said:
    dryer lint is quite flammable
    Don't all dryers have a filter to catch that stuff?
    Yes, but it doesn't capture 100% of the lint, at least it doesn't on any dryer that I've ever seen.



  • @anotherusername said:

    Your dryer is supposed to pipe that outdoors... if it's not working, I suggest you see about fixing it, because it could also be a fire hazard (dryer lint is quite flammable).
    The dryer I have at home nicely warms up the toilet where it's situated. It doesn't have any pipes - excess water is pumped to a container at the top, which has to be emptied after each load, and the lint it caught in a filter under the door (which according to manual should be cleaned every 5 loads, but I clean it after each load, because I use it so rarely).



  • @dhromed said:

    @anotherusername said:
    Your dryer is supposed to pipe that outdoors
    Depends on the model.

    Most modern dryers (here anyway) have a reservoir that fills with water for every load. The kind with a pipe that goes outside is a little outdated.

    I have never seen a design like that here in the U.S. Everything is piped to the outside.

     



  • @El_Heffe said:

    Everything is piped to the outside.
    Including NSA secrets, apparently...



  • @ender said:

    The dryer I have at home nicely warms up the toilet where it's situated. It doesn't have any pipes - excess water is pumped to a container at the top, which has to be emptied after each load, and the lint it caught in a filter under the door (which according to manual should be cleaned every 5 loads, but I clean it after each load, because I use it so rarely).

    And in the summertime, when you don't need the excess heat in your home, ... ?

    (Or don't you have summertime there?)



  • @El_Heffe said:

    @dhromed said:

    @anotherusername said:
    Your dryer is supposed to pipe that outdoors
    Depends on the model.

    Most modern dryers (here anyway) have a reservoir that fills with water for every load. The kind with a pipe that goes outside is a little outdated.

    I have never seen a design like that here in the U.S. Everything is piped to the outside.
    I have never seen one that (intentionally) condenses the water vapor, whether into a reservoir or pipe. The hot air and water vapor is normally ducted outside. Some probably condenses in the duct, but not by design. The dryer instructions state that if, for some reason, no duct to the outside is available, the lint that is being blown into the room must be cleaned up frequently due to its flammability.

     



  • @El_Heffe said:

    I have never seen a design like that here in the U.S. Everything is piped to the outside.
     

    What if you have no room to pipe?

    Poor soul. No dryer for you. :(



  • @HardwareGeek said:

    @El_Heffe said:

    @dhromed said:

    @anotherusername said:
    Your dryer is supposed to pipe that outdoors
    Depends on the model.

    Most modern dryers (here anyway) have a reservoir that fills with water for every load. The kind with a pipe that goes outside is a little outdated.

    I have never seen a design like that here in the U.S. Everything is piped to the outside.
    I have never seen one that (intentionally) condenses the water vapor, whether into a reservoir or pipe. The hot air and water vapor is normally ducted outside. Some probably condenses in the duct, but not by design. The dryer instructions state that if, for some reason, no duct to the outside is available, the lint that is being blown into the room must be cleaned up frequently due to its flammability.

     

    The model I have does not use any kind of air duct. It's basically hooked like a regular washer (two pipes in, one pipe out to a drain) and there is no heat vented out in the room when it's drying the clothes, so I guess it does some kind of condensation magic and converts humidity to water that is flushed down the drain. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but apparently this is not a new technology, the appliances guy told me that they have been using this on high-end boats for years. He also told me that there is a new model that does not even require a hot water pipe, it does the heating straight in the washer as needed, but I was not thrilled and anyways the entire house is plugged into a big pass-thru water heater so it did not seem like a good idea to wait for that new model.

    Each time I buy new appliances it's the same thing: I feel like I was in jail for the last 20 years and technology left me behind... I still remember that super heavy duty maytag washer I had in college that had a built-in thick concrete base to prevent it from rocking during the spin cycle... it's a long way from that totally silent washer+dryer unit that sends a text message when it needs detergent and that is physically disconnected of the power circuit by my home automation system when it's not needed so it's protected from surges and does not use power for its standby mode.

    I have no idea what's next, a shower/washer/dryer/haircomber unit that also does the dishes and reads out loud the CNN headlines while I shower?



  • @anotherusername said:

    And in the summertime, when you don't need the excess heat in your home, ... ?
    I only use the dryer in spring and autumn. In summer, I hang the clothes on the balcony (where due to heat and wind they're usually dry as fast as in the dryer), and in the winter I hang them in next to the stove in my livingroom.



  • @dhromed said:

    @El_Heffe said:
    I have never seen a design like that here in the U.S. Everything is piped to the outside.
     

    What if you have no room to pipe?

    Poor soul. No dryer for you. :(

    I guess. But I have never seen such a thing. You would have to have a very small house to have "no room to pipe" and houses that small are fairly uncommon in the U.S.

    If you live in an apartment then you most likely don't have anywhere to put a washer/dryer and you have to go to an outside laundry. But any house built in the last 40 years or so has a pipe going to the outside that you connect the dryer to. And older houses have all been "modified" -- in many cases that might mean just cutting a hole in the wall and connecting a pipe from the dryer. That's just the way it's been done forever.

     



  • @El_Heffe said:

    If you live in an apartment then you most likely don't have anywhere to put a washer/dryer and you have to go to an outside laundry.
     

    Having a roomy apartment with space for washing and drying is standard here. Mine has a fairly large kitchen with ample working space, plus stove, washer, dryer, and potential dishwasher.



  • @dhromed said:

    Having a roomy apartment with space for washing and drying is standard here. Mine has a fairly large kitchen with ample working space, plus stove, washer, dryer, and potential dishwasher.

    Very convenient, that way you can work on your blog while keeping an eye on the pasta sauce and you know immediately when it's time to move clothes from the washer to the dryer, something you can do without interrupting your dinner. I guess this qualifies as "open space", but here in the civilized world we called that "cramped".



  • @ender said:

    I only use the dryer in spring and autumn. In summer, I hang the clothes on the balcony (where due to heat and wind they're usually dry as fast as in the dryer), and in the winter I hang them in next to the stove in my livingroom.
    In various places in the US there are laws against hanging clothes outside to dry ( "unsightly nuisance to neighbors" sort of thing - google it if you want, there are heaps of references to this sort of thing.)

    The county I live in also has laws against using furniture intended for indoor use in the outdoors. Sort of meant as a law to stop people putting old, busted couches on their front porch, but a few years ago a guy was prosecuted under this law because he had an old bath in his back yard that he was using as a planter. It was only visible from his back yard and from the photo I saw of it in the papers it looked pretty tasteful.



  • @Ronald said:

    Very convenient, that way you can work on your blog while keeping an eye on the pasta sauce and you know immediately when it's time to move clothes from the washer to the dryer, something you can do without interrupting your dinner.
     

    Unfortunately, I'm two rooms away from all kitchen goings-on.



  • @OzPeter said:

    In various places in the US there are laws against hanging clothes outside to dry ( "unsightly nuisance to neighbors" sort of thing - google it if you want, there are heaps of references to this sort of thing.)
    Which is why I'm glad I don't live in the US (not that it'd matter - my balcony is more like a terrace, and you can't see what's in it from the street, or the building on the other side of the street). Also, the (real) balconies at the lower levels have clothesdryers built-in to the outside railing - and nobody's bothered when they're being used.


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