Draclvr,

Can you explain to me what the difference is between (for instance) a Weather App on the desktop and a Speed Dial image of my chosen weather site on my browser that takes me right to it if I click on it?

I mean, I know that I have to open my browser (without typing in a keyboard shortcut, just pointing at the icon and clicking on it) to find Speed Dial but really, what is the difference otherwise? I honestly can't figure this out.

Gil.
a mouser

I suppose it depends on what your chosen weather site is. On my Windows 7 drive, I like the Intellicast.com weather website and I keep an Intellicast gadget on my iGoogle home page. Windows 8 comes with some apps already available and the Bing weather app is one of them. I like it even better than the Intellicast website because I have all the information available in the app without having to click on different links to look at satellite or radar or temperatures or forecasts. It's all in the app and all I have to do is scroll to the right to look at all the different information. The apps are getting better all the time. My favorite so far is the Allrecipes.com app - had to drag myself out of that one!

I thought I had a handle on this last night when it struck me that my magicJack might be called an App. But then you seem to be using one (All Recipes) that's nothing more than a replacement for a website in which recipes are stashed.

When I look it up in Google, the answer as to what an App is, is either too technical for me (especially when my coffee hasn't kicked in), or absurd: "there are lots of them and they do lots of things". And most of them are installed on your computer and cost - that I get.

So far, I understand an App is a program. That's about it. So this is slang for program?

Gil.
generally speaking, gadgetless

traveler, you're starting to sound like me. I don't get all this stuff.

Draclvr, I just get the emails from All Recipes everyday and if I want to go on the site, I go through there. Simple enough to me!

Since I don't own a smartphone or any Apple products, I am relatively new to the concept of "apps" too. Obviously, it's a slang term for application, but it's also much more than that. You can find a ton of good explanations on the internet, but this one is better than most. What is an App? Maybe someone here who has used a lot of apps can explain better.

I have a Magic Jack, but it's not an app at all. It's a little piece of hardware that allows me to use my internet connection to make phone calls. They have one now that does not even need a computer - you just plug the hardware into your router and the phone into the hardware. And that fabulous little piece of hardware allows our German family who are here visiting for 3 weeks to call home and check up on their elderly parents daily and even talk to their friends as much as they want very, very cheaply. I think I bought 250 minutes for $5. But it's definitely not an app.

All of the apps I'm talking about that are available for Windows 8 are free, although there obviously will be some that are not as things develop further. The Apple App Store has tens of thousands of apps for $1 to $5 and probably more. I have an app for my local newpaper for my Kindle Fire that makes it really easy to read. Lots of banks have apps for iPads because people use them for their banking.

The Allrecipes app is not just a regurgitation of the website. It's the website packaged to be able to use in a completely different way. When I start the app I'm presented with options to find recipes by icons representing ingredients or categories. I can say I want to find recipes that have tomatoes, but not onions in them. This is what it looks like... Allrecipes Windows 8 App My step-daughter has an Allrecipes app on her smartphone and if she doesn't like what it comes up with, she just shakes the phone and it will scramble things up. We were playing with it the other night and it came up with recipes for eggs and chocolate!

I saw that but when he didn't explain well enough to me in the first few paragraphs, I went on to something else equally mind numbing. However, since you recommended it, I went back and read again. I'm a little wiser now because of a comment he made concerning Apps, which I gather are fragmented software applications that do a little rather than a lot.

"On the one hand, we get many variations of the same thing that can surprise us when refashioned in different permutations. (chocolate and eggs) But on the other hand, we get fewer coherent, complete takes on things. And there's a risk that deep meaning slowly seeps out of every unit as each does less and less."

Oy vey. Since one of my serious complaints now is about the difficulty of finding authoritative, in-depth information on subjects I'm delving into, that disturbs me. Pretty obvious I won't be using an App to search.



Well, there you go, I thought it was a piece of software. I guess it's hardware if you plug it into your computer, eh?

I love magicJack (for anyone who thinks of getting it). It's so nice to have a great connection and pay less for it in a year than I did for my landline in a month, back when.

Gil.

I agree that explanation was mind-numbing! That's why I hope someone who knows more than I do can explain - simply!

Love my Magic Jack too! I keep our land line for a couple of reasons, but only with the most basic of service. Especially when the Germans are here, it saves me at least $150 every year.

Best place to go for a quick definition is the Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_software


An app is a program -- usually a small program that does a specific thing. Apps are not so different from the little widgets and gadgets that were in the Vista Sidebar and Googlebar.

Macs have an Applications folder instead of a Program Files folder, and I think that's where the word "App" comes from, back when the iPad was the only thing that had them. Apps aren't Mac-specific though. You can find them on Androids and other handhelds and now even on Windows PC's.

You can certainly live without apps, but some people find them convenient.

Thank you, Jenny! See, I told you someone could explain it easily and simply. The app world is new to me too.

Well, thank heaven, so an application is a program. I could not decide if they were the same thing or not. A little program. Aha!

Googlebar? I hate to be such a Luddite, but I've never used anything 'on the side' except that area Windows keeps crunched up to the right of my Desktop above the Sound icon and the flag, so that allusion was lost on me.

Thank you both! I'll just keep asking questions that prove I should still be engraving on clay tablets as they occur to me.

Gil.

Ah, the good old fun times going from DOS to Win95 But I have to agree on it being easier to find everything with the icons/shortcuts

Yes Apps are just small and usually pretty basic utilities or utils (which is what they used to e called) and were very often written specifically for the Public Domain (free) or Shareware(small usually optional fee) by programmers. I remember in the Amiga days they had a HUGE archive called Aminet where people would upload utils they had written (I wrote a few myself).

One of the big shocks when I finally got a PC was the fact that the sort of things that we used to get for free we now had to pay a stiff charge for.

I always put that down to the different sensibilities of the US and Europe. The first instinct of Americans (generalisation I know) is to monatize (that the right word?) everything whereas outside the US there is more of an attitude of 'do it for the community':-)

I usually think of utilities being related to computer maintenance, while apps can be most anything but are usually oriented toward the needs of the non-technical user. From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_software

I'm sorry Draclvr. I just fail to see any difference in the Allrecipes Windows 8 App link above and going to All Recipes through my email if I'm interested.

Sadly my Win95 machine bit the dust - probably a year ago at least - but I still have my old Win98(SE) machine and still use the DOS facility on it for some of my very old games.
And I have a two Desktop Icons on it for that !!
One that boots me to DOS and one that boots me to DOS EMS.

I finally got to see an app that blew my mind tonight! We have German family visiting for 3 weeks plus my step-daughter from the DC area. She has an app on her smart phone called Flyby or something like that. It told us the ISS (International Space Station) would be be flying by tonight. So I turned off the dusk-to-dawn light on the barn and we started scanning the sky. Her app said it would be coming into our view in one minute and a minute later, there it was! It was just too cool!

Wow! I think I could get used to this whole "app" concept.

Must be cool to be able to see the sky well enough to see satellites. We've got too much "light pollution" around where I live to see very much.

Yeah, the last time I remember seeing anything spectacular was when Venus came so close to the earth. That was awe inspiring. I'd go out to look at it every night.

Oops, that was Mars. 2003.


Gil.

The view of the night sky is one of my favorite things about living in the country.

You're making me feel bad. It's been so many years since I had a clear view of the night sky.

I was in my forties before I was ever far enough from a city to really see the stars. I was stunned. Not only were there millions of them, it seemed, but they were gold!!

We gain a lot, I guess, from civilization but there's a lot we don't even know we're missing. Is that sad...or isn't it? I suppose if you don't know, it might not be. I'll think about it.

Gil.

We, too, live where there's too many street lights, etc, to really see the stars at night. When we lived on Bettis Road, it was up on a hillside so I was able to see a bit more of the stars, and in Nov/Dec. '88 Mom got me a Star Gazing kit that contained clear vinyl constellation maps and an instruction book from Hills Department store, & on clear nights I used to go out in our yard & look at the stars, trying to find the constellations. Then when we moved here (were we live now) I used to go across the road to the neighbor's yard to look for the constellations, but then in 1995 this neighbor died, new people with real big dogs moved in her house, they built a chain link fence, apparently to confine these huge dogs, so I had to give up star-gazing - this is about the time I got into PC gaming, starting to play "Where in the USA/World Is Carmen Sandiego?" on our Packard-Bell desktop PC running DOS 6.2, so its like they say, when the Star Gazing Door closes, the PC Gaming Door opens.

Ok, let's go back to Windows 8, shall we?

I still haven't used my consumer preview of Win 8 that I d/l back in Jan/Feb of this year, but these days I'm thinking of someday/somehow getting my hands on a copy of windows 8 after I upgrade the Acer, hopefully over the Xmas 2012 holidays.

How much is Win 8?

Where can buy it?

Why don't you try it in a virtual machine?


You can download the current release preview here
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/download

You can sign up to be notified when it is released at places like ***Amazon***. Microsoft will probably sell a download version.

Interestingly,
***Samsung is planning to include a Start button their computers sold with Windows 8.***