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CharlotteTheHarlot

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Everything posted by CharlotteTheHarlot

  1. Microsoft reportedly offers $1bn to Samsung for future Windows Phones ( NeoWin 2013-12-12 ) Is there any good news for MicroZealots and MetroTards anywhere? Not really. But for everyone else it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas Get out the salt: Windows Phone said to be getting a new UI ( NeoWin 2013-12-12 ) Rumor: Modern UI May be Optional in Future Windows Phone ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-15 ) Wait, what? They would kill Microsoft Tiles on the one form factor where it actually makes some sense? This is almost believable Microsoft logic therefore it just might be true. Don't miss in the comments where Dot MetroTard drops by to get kicked around a little. Rumor: Microsoft mulling free Windows RT and Windows Phone versions to OEMs ( NeoWin 2013-12-11 ) Microsoft May Offer Windows Phone, RT Free to OEMs ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-12 ) Microsoft planning to compete with Android by offering Windows for free ( TechSpot 2013-12-12 ) Phheeew. The hits just keep on coming. Merge WP. Scrap WP. Give WP away free. My head is spinning. Pity the poor NeoKids. Tom's Hardware commenter: "At first, M$ want to be apple, now they want to be Google...." Yeah. Apple-envy, Google-envy, they swing both ways. We have long identified both of these neuroses in Microsoft in this very thread for ages now. And of course like all the recent articles that are hammering the NuMicrosoft sycophants mercilessly, the comments here include one of our personal favorites, Dot MetroTard again who responds to a sane commenter complaining about the fatal Microsoft decision to impose Microsoft Tiles on everyone ... That's a very nice encapsulation of his and the rest of the short bus riders entire, mistaken train of thought. You see, that other operating system was ALREADY developed. ALREADY supported. ALREADY done. It was already shipped and unlike the Playskool successor, was actually installed and in use on the majority of computers. The new one for retards was the one adding development and support costs. He sidesteps the question of choice even though that is central to the issue. How dare they tell us to choose "something else" when they killed "something else" leaving only the OS For Retards available? Furthermore he skips over the issue of using the previous OS as the very leverage to enter the OS For Retards into the market by inserting it into the dominated and monopolized OEM channels. These sycophants lack any semblance of reason and logic, let alone neutrality and objectivity. Employment headhunters and interviewers would be well-served to screen out this type of personality before they make the mistake of hiring them.
  2. Windows Threshold' may not be a spring chicken after all ( NeoWin 2013-12-10 ) Start Menu Could Return to Windows in Spring 2014 ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-15 ) Yep, that's exactly what I said. If they wait until 2015 they are toast. This semi-confirmation hints that there really might be a change going on, a paradigm-shift if they are sensible, but change for sure as a response to the dismal numbers that have arrived for adoption of this dog called Windows 8. There would be no rush otherwise. Of course this is starting to cause cracks in the wall of cognitive dissonance separating the NeoKids and Verge Tribers from reality, and some are grudgingly showing signs of sanity ... but not all ... ... ... that's the craziest strawman collection yet assembled. Note the big fat lies about Windows 95 ( common talking points among 'Tards ), and Windows XP which had no Fisher-Price UI ever, the user interface operates exactly the same as earlier ones, he is of course confusing the UI with colors. The GUI cannot be changed by two click of the mouse which is what you could do with the Windows XP color scheme, contained in its so-called Visual Style. Strawmen are sometimes from 'projection' and are possible signs of a mental illness that denote a patient who is capable of having a conversation only with himself and never with someone else. One very sensible commenter replied ... So very true. And that particular MicroZealot he is talking to is most likely an actual Softie which makes his lies significant to the reply about "its no wonder why you guys lost and why Windows 8 was a catastrophic failure". Check out the rest of the comments for more stuttering, babbling and spittle. Some are even now playing the role of victim, because you see they are poor put-upon Windows users beset by attacks from Windows haterz who love Apple. Hehehe Stupid is as stupid does. Start Menu to Make a Glorious Return in Upcoming Windows "Threshold" Update ( Maximum PC 2013-12-10 ) Microsoft May Bring Full Start Menu Back in Windows 8.2 ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-11 ) Start menu rumors are heating up, currently referred to as 'mini-Start' internally ( NeoWin 2013-12-11 ) More coverage of the Start Menu rumors mentioned by Thurrott and MJF. More cheers from the hopeful. More tears from the fanboys. Back to the Start: imagining a better Windows ( The Verge 2013-12-12 ) Designer's concept for Windows 8.2 brings Modern UI to the Desktop ( NeoWin 2013-12-13 ) In today's edition of 'ramblings from the short bus' a NeoKid has spent his time illustrating his own fantasies of what the next Start Menu should look like. By all means Microsoft, copy these mockups and screw over the Windows desktop users yet again! Start Menu fantasy of a MetroTard! And yes, he is serious. ( Image Source: NeoWin )
  3. Well I can't remember the tech world being as busy as its been for this past month or two. It's quite dramatic. I'm trying to catch up after shoveling endless sh** I mean freaking snow, not to mention regular work, both running way ahead of schedule. After a couple days I turn around to find another thousand tech stories and articles out here. I hope everyone is okay, I see you guys have gotten hammered down there too Jorge. Anyway, here goes nothing ... Ford board of directors to pressure CEO Alan Mulally for answers on Microsoft job ( TechSpot 2013-12-12 ) Latest Microsoft CEO rumor: Alan Mulally may not be the front runner anymore ( NeoWin 2013-12-12 ) Microsoft Adds Qualcomm COO Steve Mollenkopf to List of CEO Candidates ( Maximum PC 2013-12-13 ) Microsoft rumored to be considering Qualcomm COO for its own CEO gig ( NeoWin 2013-12-13 ) Potential Microsoft CEO candidate Steve Mollenkopf elevated to CEO at Qualcomm ( NeoWin 2013-12-13 ) Qualcomm's Mollenkopf Just Got Promoted to CEO ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-14 ) What a soap opera, and in public no less! Only Microsoft could do this to themselves. No sooner than they float a rumor about another "Steve", then his own company promotes him to keep him! Clearly they want the Ford guy. I love this comment at TechSpot: "They really should be questioning him on the utterly ugly "new" Mustang they just announced." And if this 2015 'Stang is what he's talking about then I would definitely agree. On the other hand, that butchering of the clearly identifiable traditional Mustang lines and curves would in fact make him infinitely qualified for CEO of Microsoft. Steve Ballmer: Longhorn-Vista was the "single biggest mistake I made" as Microsoft CEO ( NeoWin 2013-12-11 ) Leaving Microsoft: Ballmer's exit interview talks lawsuits and Xbox ( NeoWin 2013-12-11 ) Steve Ballmer Offers Management Advice for Other CEOs ( Maximum PC 2013-12-12 ) Well he is certainly correct now about that Yahoo decision, but he merely got lucky, really really lucky that they held out for even more money than he was willing to flush down the toilet. The truth is that it is pure luck that Microsoft still exists today. Had they accepted $45 billion then Microsoft would be busted today after later having spent even more good money after bad trying to alter Yahoo into its corporate image and make it profitable. There is some chance that regulators would have vetoed the acquisition though, but overall it was like a crazy repeat of the DotCom bubble 8 years earlier and it really shows that Ballmer is not as smart as he or the NeoKid sycophants thinks he is. Check out the comments at MPC where there are only a handful of children compared to NeoWin and The Verge Tribe. As far as Vista goes, we'll never know the whole story from someone like Ballmer. Personally I suspect that the spooks set their eyes on the next big Windows OS rollout as their best way into personal computers in everyone's homes. It has since been proven that they are actively exploiting every possible path in every possible device so how can this even be in doubt anymore? Are we to believe the spooks would exploit everything EXCEPT personal computers? That's ridiculous on its face. I truly believe now ( but had no idea at the time ) that the Longhorn rewrite was at least partly about handing the source code to the feds for examination of exploitable weaknesses and perhaps inclusion of backdoors we still don't know about ( to be used only in emergency cases of national security naturally ). The DRM issue and public backlash was a visible manifestation of how customers would react and this is what has driven them crazy since, losing their previous ability to rollout products predictably and unchallenged, thwarting their expectations and messing up their cooperation with the Feds which exactly fits the timeline. The events around the Longhorn/Vista timeframeare the untold story IMHO. Two Windows team members move to Microsoft's Bing team ( NeoWin 2013-12-10 ) NeoWin's take on the story we mentioned earlier from Paul Thurrott and the banishment of several Sinofsky people to MicroSiberia. Pity the poor NeoKids. Every person that touched Windows 8 is vanishing. Some still don't get it though, and one even says: "so basically, they are bringing his genius over to bing. good move." and believe me he means it, it is not sarcasm. Nothing will penetrate some of these kids. Anyway, another commenter offers an educational link: "if you're interested, you should check out Jensen Harris' talk at Mix 08 about the Office Ribbon. The principles behind it, concepts and everything. http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/MIX/MIX08/UX09" where you can watch The Story of the Ribbon. Download the presentation directly as PPT Slides (20 MB) or WMV Video (280 MB) if you are so inclined.
  4. They're really like robots. How could it possibly be worth their time to do this over and over? I wonder if Tripredacus would consider just nuking their spam links and keeping the thread alive : It is the "Funny Farm" and they are pretty funny.
  5. Practically anything that came out in 1990's would work on Win9x, and ironically if you can locate them today they will now run rings around the average Win9x computers most were saddled with at the time. Looking through an old list of folders from Win9x, I believe I had all of these running at onetime or another over the years ... CorelCAD Softkey KeyCAD AutoDesk AutoCAD IMSI TurboCAD CADopia IntelliCAD VariCad And there are probably quite a few more that I missed. I can't help with versions or year of trial without a great deal of trouble I'm afraid. No time at the moment. But you should be able to Google around for info from these leads. You never know, maybe some of these are obsolete and abandonware now. Note that the above doesn't include CAD import/export converters, viewers and light editors of which there are many more. It also doesn't include the well known vector drawing suites which sometimes have overlap with CAD suites. And then there are also more than a few PCB ( circuit board ) CAD programs as well. One word of caution though. These typically came in massive installers adding gobs of files and registry, and often included all kinds of Windows updates ( C libraries, MSVB, VBA, even core system files ) so there is the distinct risk that your package might want to party like it's 1995 and downgrade your system well below what it likely stands at today. If I were doing this I would definitely have a fresh mirror of my system drive sitting on the shelf. I would also have backups of SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT and complete filelists of the drive. Thankfully, such repairs are a pretty simple matter on Win9x. And it's really simple to pop the disk out and fix it up on another computer as a slaved drive.
  6. These modern nitwits are either too young or, well, too stoopid to know that what goes around, comes around. Once they get almost everything looking barebones simplified chromeless and modern ( which itself is stolen from the past ) they will have accomplished one thing - paving the way for sophisticated and beautiful graphics to come rushing through and eat their lunch. Talented people and actual programmers ( not HTML webslingers ) will take advantage of the massive GPU and CPU power at their fingertips, even on slabs, and create an "experience" that will make the Playskool Metro look utterly ridiculous, well even moreso than today. That is the reason Aero was killed by Sinofsky and Jensen Harris, competition even from within that makes Microsoft Tiles look asinine must be terminated. As far as Firefox goes, expect the same responses from the public that they all got. The main difference being that Mozilla has to listen better than dictatorial Microsoft or Google ( and Opera is the anomaly who needed to listen, had piles of user feedback for years but simply never did ). They will catch hell if they ever plan to replace the standard browser with the Win3x version, rather than offer both. But like I said, all they are really accomplishing is clearing the playing field of talent and replacing it with rookie league back benchers. It's like a baseball or football strike and substitute players. It's like going into The Louvre and every other museum around the world, burning the classic art and replacing it with our child drawings that we hang on our refrigerators. True madness. What happens after that is inevitable though, and they ain't gonna like it one bit. They will be sitting ducks for ads and commercials from new competitors that ridicule their basic interfaces, even the most simple transition effects and other graphic tricks found in an average slideshow maker will suddenly be an "oooh that's nice!" selling point embarrassing the NuGUI retards. Then they will have to reverse course yet again. They're really betting everything on power consumption as the deciding factor, another bad guess on their part. GPU and even CPU tech isn't sitting still! Microsoft and her sycophants once again are busy designing and building for a moment in time, one that has already passed. By the time they finish their lurching movement back to low-power low-visuals for the low-intelligence customer, it will be a laughable memory as others exploit their new, completely voluntary position of weakness selling things that look silly, dated and cheesy. It's hard to believe but they are positioning themselves at the bottom of the food chain, a big fat failure of their Apple-envy. If anything, it is a huge gift to Apple and probably Google who will be cemented above them. Customers will see Apple as high-end boutique classy and pretty, Google as customizable and/or pretty ( Android, Motorola, Nexus ), and Microsoft as the child-level toys with a DVD player interface fit for monkeys. And they are doing it entirely on purpose! Redmond literally mapped this out as their path! No doubt some of them are fans of Bauhaus related "art", and of course some earlier styles like Art Deco, but still had the chutzpah to call the most "modern" GUI style yet - Aero, as dated and cheesy. Art is a personal thing for sure, but I'm not the only one who thinks the Bauhaus related fad itself is dated and cheesy. It's come and gone several times already, lots of things in the 1960's that we cringe at today were of similar reductionism even though back then they thought they were being futuristic. What I'm really saying is that if you are crazy enough to select some period style as your official new image, you are going to look cringe-worthy after a short period of time. It's just dumb.
  7. The pitfalls of blurring online and offline, local and network.
  8. The ZDNet B links don't work. Ah, I see what happened. Once the comments that I linked to at ZDnet moved off page-1 the #message anchor no longer can find it! No problem, I'll PM you.
  9. Wow, that's a low blow right there. Pawning of their black screen problems on others. When I think of a black screen on Windows 6.x it is most often Windows\SoftwareDistribution or Windows\Registration or SxS or Downloaded Installations or any number of FUBAR'd system features, and lately even from Windows Update itself. But not a 3rd party utility. That KB has a neat little thing too, first time I remember seeing it ... "Hot thread for this issue" with a link to a Social.Technet webpage. Definitely a busy thread. The poor users are being dragged through the usual checklist of video drivers, SFC, ... the kitchen sink. ~sigh~ But I didn't see any clear cut case of your SIB program being the culprit ( one guy says he needed an SIB update but it is unclear if a black screen was even involved ). I did see "Windows Activation Technology" as one cause. Another one is the "App Readiness Service" which I would take a hard look at as it sure sounds like a program breaker.
  10. There's that old saying .. "Timing is everything" ... and theirs ... kinda sucks ... JPMorgan Chase data breach exposed half a million customers' data ( NeoWin 2013-12-09 ) As badly as I would like to see a truly anonymous non-PayPal payment portal, I'm starting to believe there will never be an institutionalized method. Hopefully I'm wrong. One thing you can do is buy gift cards at stores that have no name or expiration date on them, they are underwritten by Amex or whatever big credit card company. You use them just like credit cards in checkout carts, but of course whatever you are buying needs to be shipped somewhere. You can use fake names but the shipping address of course will still be sitting on file in the servers of the seller and should they get hacked it will probably be out in the open. But at least the gift card is small and likely inconsequential to the hackers. There is always the old post office box idea, but many places won't ship to them, and naturally the Post Office has your name, but at least that PO Box Name would be kept in a separate file away from the seller. Not that many good solutions at the present time. Still, it will be interesting to see how this JP Morgan idea pans out anyway. And maybe this hack will light a fire under the butts and cause them to lock their windows now.
  11. Cool. : So as you can imagine, on that other system with Firefox you should find the exact same problem. Check those two extension handlers and determine the class "xxx" they are pointing to. [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\.htm] @="xxx" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\.html] @="xxx" You will then follow it down to something like this with ( but the "xxx" being the actual class name ) ... [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\xxx] [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\xxx\ShellEx] <------ Delete this key if there is only the next one beneath it [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\xxx\ShellEx\IconHandler] <------ This is the actual icon handler @="{42042206-2d85-11d3-8cff-005004838597}" Naturally, save the registry ( export it completely from the top ) to have something to refer to if it gets messed up.
  12. Big Changes Are Coming to Windows ( Thurrott 2013-12-10 ) Desktop users will no longer be treated like second-class citizens That's his own subtitle, but it remains to be seen if there is any truth to that statement. Paul Thurrot posted this article to Windows IT Pro which inexplicably has 0 comments thus far. He offers a few bits of intrigue from his sources, some of which is definitely news to me but cannot be corroborated since Mini-Microsoft is still quiet presently ( has been since the Ballmer retirement announcement ). Let's see some of the tidbits ... Very interesting that bit. Sounds almost like a task force with the assignment of unscrambling the NuMicrosoft omelet. It is a pretty darn sensible idea too. Hopefully that doesn't mean it can't be true because Microsoft has not been flirting with anything vaguely resembling "sense", common or otherwise in at least 3 years. Okay, I gotta stop right there to smack Thurrott around a little. For a long time I have been questioning whether he actually has all these "inside sources" he claims, backing that up with the countless examples of being caught as flat-footed as the rest of us. Start Menu, Aero, Sinofsky, Ballmer, all the key events have been missed by his sources. However, as the rest of the article will show and if true, then Paul definitely does have some seriously good sources ( again, if these things are true ). But this begs a rather serious 3-part question - How did he miss the Sinofsky firing, why hasn't he obtained the inside story in the year since, and why hasn't he interviewed Sinofsky by now to get the scoop? I have to first point out that such a scoop would be the highlight of a crack, independent tech writer's career, obviously not quite reaching but certainly vaguely reminiscent of Woodward and Bernstein. A cynic like me will offer one possibility and that is that someone who is not independent and perhaps on the payroll from time to time ( that doesn't mean a company check BTW ) would not want to rock the boat and dig deep. This is why Paul and Ed MicroBott are routinely called shills out here. They are quick to the presses with Microsoft's self-serving announcements, quick to defend, and even quicker to argue against detractors. But they are never there with the important stories that catch everybody off-guard and NEVER follow them up later. Sorry, if the shoe fits you gotta wear it ( or is that 'if the glove fits'? ). Well that part we all figured out on our own ( the ladies being pushed aside ). He goes on to describe his "vision" for a bit. Again, we can easily size him up for ourselves. But continuing on, here comes the interesting part and if true will confirm that Paul at least has someone for real on the inside ... That's the part that I noticed, particularly Jensen Harris who near as I can tell was most central to the nuts and bolts ( mostly nuts ) of the Microsoft Tiles nonsense and the destruction of the Desktop GUI. He was the one that Sinofsky let make the announcement of the Death Of Aero ( glass, and other things ) in the official Destroying Windows Blog, which clearly marked him as the key destroyer. ( Kind of a landmark thread BTW, with Sinofsky ducking and weaving to dodge the incoming flak once the world caught on and swamped the blog ). Jensen Harris being yanked out of there really means something, well unless the Peter Principle is now in full effect and they are promoting them based on their incompetence. Personally I would argue about the Apple coup a little but it's really not related to this. Thurrott also goes on about the possible merging of phone and tablet, praising some possible strategy he has heard about, whatever. This next sentence tells me Paul doesn't really get the big issue due to how fast this propaganda rolls off his tongue without thinking ... Again with this sh!t?! Okay, I'll bite, where was the Start Button "added back" from? The betas? Does he even hear himself? And how does that fake Start Button make anything easier ( as if that's the problem ) or what exactly does it accomplish? Paul is regurgitating propaganda there, word for word, as it has been spewed by fanboys and astroturfers for months now. Zero critical thought here. And who the heck was asking for a Metro Button in the first place? And Paul steps back yet again from his often displayed "Desktop is Dead" and other mantras displaying of NuMicrosoft bias. Speaking softly and making nice with all of us who are mad enough to chew Neutronium. Fine, whatever. I expect quite a few partisans to do the same depending on what Microsoft sees fit to do here. Personally I don't believe a word of it yet. It's probably them just testing the waters a bit anyway, but who knows. One thing for sure is that their timeline is way off. If they wait until 2015 it is going to be so over it ain't funny. They do not have a year and a half to unscramble this omelet. Next spring at the latest, beyond that it's over for Windows.
  13. I just now noticed the name of this forum! Maybe it's just really clever humor?
  14. Microsoft FAT patent loss endangers its Android revenue ( ZDNet SJVN 2013-12-10 ) Some important comments from SJVN on this potentially huge case. He cautions that it is not a certainty and adds a few links to historical background on this issue. However, if the rumored numbers are correct and are indeed milking BILLIONS out of these patents each quarter, then MSFT could very easily move from swimming in black ink to drowning in red ink overnight. It literally would be a driving force for massive and unprecedented change at Microsoft. And it's not that far-fetched to think that the sudden talk of accommodating Windows users is related to this. Let's put it this way, if this cash spigot gets turned off, that will really hurt all their marginal products that only exist on the back of Tools, Office and Windows. Remove some of that revenue slack and all those wishful products like Xbox could be sold off or killed instantly. Furthermore, removing that extortion price from the cost to Android and other OEMs would generate a bumper crop of new competitive products nipping at Microsoft's heels, even more than we already see today, because they would instead keep those BILLIONS for themselves. IMHO ... out of all these incredible developments in the last several days, the file system patents have the most potential to change the landscape by changing Microsoft itself. It is not hyperbole to say this is an Earthquake level event.
  15. Yep, and you called it first a while back. Probably just a few dead-enders will refuse. In fact, check out this rabid one ... Better hide the pills, razor blades and weapons. His "progress" is regression back to Win3x and earlier full-screen single-tasking, a new whack-a-mole GUI, screen display elements that are insulting to the capabilities of modern hardware and a multitude of other devolutionary mistakes. These children missed the CLI era completely or else they wouldn't always fall back on typing out something in a search as the answer to everything. One person who will jump ship as you predicted is Dot MetroTard, but he will do it stealthily, and gradually, and not at NeoWin at first. Formfiller, you'll love this. Compare ... A / B ... A / B EDIT: formatting
  16. Okay, I see what happened here. No biggie. That ShellEx handler is to {42042206-2d85-11d3-8cff-005004838597} which is an MSIE ( Internet Explorer ) class that takes over the displayed icon. It must be from something that is automated in the "Open With" procedure. As I have never used that "Open With" dialog I never see this issue. In a nutshell, MSIE decided to use a different method to display icons rather than the simple, visible, traditional \DefaultIcon] subkey, for what reason, I can only guess that it is about abstracting things further away from the user. You can just run this script, reboot and you will be good to go regarding that icon problem ... REGEDIT4 [-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\Opera.HTML\ShellEx] However, you should really run this one instead, it is a more complete script that resets the keys to what they should be ( see notes below ) ... REGEDIT4; never delete these two keys because there are subkeys below them ...[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\.htm]@="Opera.HTML""Content Type"="Text/HTML""PerceivedType"="Text"[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\.html]@="Opera.HTML""Content Type"="Text/HTML""PerceivedType"="Text"; this one can be safely deleted first ...[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\Opera.HTML][HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\Opera.HTML]"FriendlyTypeName"="Opera Web Document"[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\Opera.HTML\CLSID]@="{25336920-03f9-11cf-8fd0-00aa00686f13}"[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\Opera.HTML\DefaultIcon]@="\"C:\\Program Files\\Opera\\Opera.exe\",1"[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\Opera.HTML\ScriptHostEncode]@="{0cf774d0-f077-11d1-b1bc-00c04f86c324}"[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\Opera.HTML\Shell][HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\Opera.HTML\Shell\Edit]@="&Edit"[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\Opera.HTML\Shell\Edit\Command]@="\"C:\\PROGRA~1\\MICROS~1\\Office11\\Msohtmed.exe\" %1"[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\Opera.HTML\Shell\Open][HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\Opera.HTML\Shell\Open\Command]@="\"C:\\Program Files\\Opera\\Opera.exe\" \"%1\""[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\Opera.HTML\Shell\Print]@="&Print"[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\Opera.HTML\Shell\Print\Command]@="\"C:\\PROGRA~1\\MICROS~1\\Office11\\Msohtmed.exe\" /p %1" Finally, if you want to give all HTML related duties to Opera, this next one adds the other possible filetypes as well ... Note-1 ... The ShellEx key is now gone. I added in two keys that were missing ( CLSID and ScriptHostEncode ) which are Windows MSHTML related ( scripting and viewer ). Note-2 ... In that last script, I included all the earlier extension keys we discussed. You can save either of those scripts as a "repair" REG file just in case MSIE or something else creeps in again. For example it includes MHT as well as EML ( these are saved webpages and email in MIME single file format ). This way if you click on an MHT or EML, you will get Opera instead of an "Open With" dialog. This helps plug an extra security hole by preventing MSIE from ever opening a saved webpage or email and subsequently resetting itself ( or icons or ... ) as the default. In an earlier comment I used a separate key for Opera.MHTML, but have since changed that to just Opera.HTML as they were really identical. Note-3 ... I escaped the \DefaultIcon] subkey command the way that Opera 11 did it. Others should take note that Opera 12 does not escape that command ( at least not on mine ). I verified all the same registry keys between v11 and v12 except for this escaping. In the DefaultIcon subkey Opera 11 uses "/" escaping, but Opera 12 does not. Note-4 ... It is very possible that the "Edit" and "Print" handlers which call a Microsoft Office HTML Editor could be the original culprit here. In other words, when editing an HTML file using MSOHTMED.EXE that program just might go about resetting things to Microsoft's liking. All the more reason to keep this script around for emergencies. The next time you find yourself in that Office program, keep an eye out for changes. Also look for options or preferences that change the default browser ( or other 'hijacks' ) and uncheck them. Note-5 ... To anyone except vinifera, keep in mind that this REG file is for Opera 11 and only when installed to that exact folder he has used. Others would need to modify that path. They also would need to be sure they have Office11 components in place for those "Edit" and "Print" subfeatures to work. Caveat Emptor. Note-6 ... To everyone, "REGEDIT4" is used instead of "Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00" for backward compatibility with Win9x, it is inconsequential on WinXP, Vista, and 7. Also note that case corrections in the REG scripts are for legibility and are also inconsequential in this case.
  17. Inevitable suggestion of Outlook Converter Software incoming in ... 3 ... 2 ... 1
  18. Microsoft Pledges to Protect Your Data From Snooping ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-08 ) Tech Giants Launch Site for Government Surveillance Reform ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-09 ) Microsoft, Google and others unite to call for "government surveillance reform" ( NeoWin 2013-12-09 ) 6 Ways Tech Companies' 'Reform Government Surveillance' Fails ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-09 ) I'd say that the spy leaks exposing the secret collaboration of these companies with the spooks is really taking a toll now. And to that I say - excellent. Especially if their little cloud preoccupation and plans for private little walled-garden fiefdoms becomes the first casualty. In the meantime, I wouldn't believe a single word of this or any other face-saving exercise. How strong is your password? Microsoft's Telepathwords may well predict it ( NeoWin 2013-12-08 ) NeoWin's mention of that Microsoft password site called Telepathwords. Comment after comment by NeoKids who joyfully pumped their passwords into the form. Just a few of them ... No you're not good. You're special. And you're just a statistic waiting to be counted. Only a single commenter senses the risk here and leaves this witty remark ... Naturally another NeoKid has a kneejerk response ... But who really is the one really wearing a hat that blocks incoming information? The NeoKids of course! They have some super-duper head-ware that blocks all information questioning their MicroGod and leaves them compliant sheeple prepared to trust them at all costs and reflexively attack everyone that disagrees. They'll even trust the government's first and primary PRISM partner to discard their personal passwords entered into their website, and even disregard the external threat of interception outside of this Microsoft domain, perhaps the local Wi-Fi in their neighborhood or school or Internet cafe they might be located in. Absolutely unerring trust is a significant component of blind fanboyism.
  19. JPMorgan Chase data breach exposed half a million customers' data ( NeoWin 2013-12-09 ) Another day another hack, and another content-free statement from the company. Without knowing the real facts we can't say whether the company is a victim here, because they may have done it all on the cheap, no encryption, no security, whatever. The actual victims are the cardholders, but even that is stretching it if these customers really expects that the company cares about security in the first place. It's a case of blind leading the blind, or sheeple leading sheeple with lots of wolves crouching out of sight picking off targets at will. This begs the question, if the world's largest banks and credit card companies are sitting ducks and the most sensitive data is routinely captured, then why on Earth would we want to add more stuff to the cloud like personal networked devices or home security monitoring equipment? The first commenter at NeoWin asks a good question IMHO ... Exactly. How is it possible for any of these hackers to not be instantly nailed unless our government protectors simply don't give a crap ... or are once again afraid to use the information because it might disclose methods ( like the WWII codebreakers ). Ummm, that horse has left the barn, eh? The FBI can turn on your webcam without you knowing ( NeoWin 2013-12-09 ) Here's the NeoWin coverage of the webcam story mentioned earlier. I thought you guys would like to get a glimpse into the minds of the NeoKids, obedient little sheeple already well broken in and ripe for shearing. No story, not even one about using your webcam to watch and listen is enough to penetrate their protective force field rationalizing everything in exchange for the promise of shinier toys. In fact, many of them in the comments go to great lengths to exculpate Xbox and Kinect as possible spy avenues using various bogus analogies and comparisons. Then, as fate would have it, along comes this next story .. Government agents reportedly spied on World of Warcraft and Xbox Live gamers ( TechSpot 2013-12-09 ) NSA Has Secret Agents Planted Inside World of Warcraft? ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-09 ) NSA, GCHQ Caught Spying on Online Games ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-09 ) Report: Xbox Live among online gaming services infiltrated by NSA ( NeoWin 2013-12-09 ) So ironic to see this story after so many NeoKids circled the wagons protecting Xbox and Kinect in that other thread. I feel a little sorry for these kids though, because it is only a matter of time until stories about spooks exploiting the abilities of Kinect become public.
  20. Justin Bieber BEGGED for a $200k RIM JOB and got REJECTED ( UK Register 2013-12-06 ) <---- Headline Award! Report: BlackBerry passed on Justin Bieber as a spokesperson; Nokia still wants him ( NeoWin 2013-12-08 ) Well the first thing that comes to my mind is the fact that Justin Bieber would be the perfect mascot for Microsoft Tiles. Like chocolate and peanut butter or Jack Daniels and Coke, the two truly belong together. However, if you read the article here it looks like MicroNokia has really gone out on a limb here by soliciting him publicly, after Blackberry refused him. For one thing he might just say no. For another, he might just say yes. Finally, what if he got onboard and then later jumped ship like Jessica Alba! Amazingly, most of the NeoKids recognize this potential disaster, even Dot MetroTard. The comments are priceless. One commenter ( not me ) says: "Fisher price UI that looks like it was done by a child, guy barely out of puberty. It's hideous but it fits." Also note the Register article title, which I nominate for headline of the year! Samsung tries to silence user whose S4 caught fire, it doesn't go over well ( NeoWin 2013-12-08 ) Galaxy S4 Catches Fire, Samsung Tries to Silence Customer ( Maximum PC 2013-12-09 ) Samsung Accused of Trying to Silence Report of GS4 Fire ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-09 ) Interview: We chat with the man behind the exploded Samsung Galaxy S4 video ( NeoWin 2013-12-09 ) No clearer textbook example of the Streisand Effect can be imagined! Samsung lawyers must come out of the same law school that Microsoft's do, because they are both 100% incompetent. Unlike most of the commenters I don't think Samsung should be trying to make the issue disappear, instead they should have moved quickly to purchase back that phone and all the related equipment it may have been plugged in to and done a thorough investigation to find the true cause(s) here. The should be done with complete public transparency and voluminous communication with the public, flooding them with updates, and even an official forum thread. That response would protect the company reputation and show integrity and the negative would become a positive. And you never know, maybe it was a user screwup, or a budget component in a charger, or defective part. None of those reasons would cause the company to suddenly be painted as a bad guy. However thanks to the lawyers here, they managed to pull a publicity fail out of nowhere.
  21. The BIG story just mentioned by MagicAndre1981 ... Further Changes Coming in Windows "Threshold" ( Thurrott 2013-12-09 ) Windows 'Threshold' may bring back the Start menu ( TechSpot 2013-12-09 ) Start menu may return with Windows Threshold' update ( NeoWin 2013-12-09 ) I just knew Jorge had a scoop earlier and now confirmation is appearing! : The story is really making the rounds after Mary Jo Foley wrote this article here. I'll let others pick through the details because I'm not ready to believe it yet. As one Thurrott commenter said: "I don't know, this sounds too intelligent to be true....". But if it actually happens here's a financial tip ... start buying stock in pharmaceutical companies that make anti-depressants and perhaps liquor or bullet manufacturers. The NeoKids are going to empty the shelves of everything along these lines. As of this writing that NeoWin thread already has 347 comments, and it's being helped along by some adults who are twisting the knife around a little just for fun And the other big story just mentioned by Aero7x64 ... Did Microsoft just extend the retail sales life of Windows 7? ( NeoWin 2013-12-08 ) Microsoft: Sales of PCs preinstalled with Windows 7 have no deadline yet ( NeoWin 2013-12-09 ) Microsoft racing to put out another fire, the one started a few days ago when people noticed that the clock ran out on new Windows 7 licensing. I don't suppose it has anything to do with the November operating system report. In the first article there are a string of comments from one particular NeoKid ( pointed out by a reader at TechBroil ) who is campaigning ferociously for MetroTard Of The Year and knock Dot Matrix out of his previously secure perch. One gem that he spouted out: "There's no such thing as an intuitive user interface" is an amazing example of cognitive dissonance. These jokers begged for Microsoft to remove Skeuomorphism from the GUI leaving a skeleton of flat two-dimensional text and/or icons that are a throwback to Windows 3.x but with icons from public road signs 30 old at least. Skeuomorphism actually ensured use of pictures that represent the function that the user would get by clicking it. That is the literal definition of "intuitive". EDIT: formatting
  22. Yep. And be sure the domain is digital river before downloading anything!
  23. Okay, there are no HKCU overrides. Run this script on the system with Opera ... REGEDIT4[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\.htm]@="Opera.HTML"[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\.html]@="Opera.HTML"[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\.url]@="Opera.HTML"Next thing I would do with the Opera system is go to Tools > Preferences > Advanced > Programs and then check the box "Check if Opera is the default browser on startup" and then click OK and exit Opera. Now restart Opera and if it asks to become the default tell it YES or OK ( or whatever the affirmative answer is ). Finally, export the following key and post it here, paste all of it exactly as it appears ( note that the ones you just posted above seems to have the syntax stripped out ) and wrap it in {code} an {/code} tags ( note, those will need to be square brackets! ) ... [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\Opera.HTML] I need that to see the target path to Opera and to check for differences. Important, what is the exact path to your Opera.exe file? One other question ... When you see webpages with that strange icon, what happens when they are clicked? ( what program actually opens? )
  24. I'll tell you what, even a year ago I thought the idea of using webcams for spying was far-fetched and ridiculous because I pretty much understand the visible methods within Windows to access it. Not to mention the fact that it is as clear cut a case of intrusive trespassing as you can create and would violate the sensibilities of the most ignorant sheeple and even ardent law and order judges. Definitely a crazy idea ... back then ... Now, not so much. So let's looks at the old checklist of means, motive and opportunity ... Opportunity? Well it is everywhere. Add-on webcams for desktops, built-in webcams on laptops, cameras on phones and tablets. Opportunity, check. Motive? That has become clear this past summer. Spying is the main business of government now, and a rich source of data would be a visual portal into the lair of the peasants, I mean citizens. Their interest is self-preservation. They can always justify it by saying that they are looking for people making bombs or molesting children or whatever. It certainly wouldn't be a constant surveillance but targeted. I can easily imagine the head of No Such Agency sitting in his Star Trek TNG bridge room browsing the dossier of a current person of interest up on the big screen and he says: "Ensign, do you have any resources for recon nearby?" The lackey at the helm says: "Yes sir, two Smart TV's, a laptop webcam and a cellphone. Do you want me to patch them in?". The fearless Commander, I mean General says: "Make it so." Have they actually gotten this far? Well, why not? If they can do it in the extreme cases ( and I now believe they can ) then all that separates them from doing it to everyone else is an arbitrary decision guided by their personal ethics, morality, and level of belief in the Constitution. There is no way to properly oversee this, even if we had competent people in the elected Congress ( so very few IMHO ) and the unelected permanent bureaucracy. And what about crossing the old lines of spying for blackmail where where lurid details are compiled for use later? That actually happened for many years and was business as usual in the District Of Criminals, so it is a viable motive as well. Under the guise of preventing terrorism, or merely in addition to it, they would love to keep tabs on "anti-government" groups of troublemakers protesting government or taxes or power plants or whatever. Again, not routinely, just when someone in charge crosses that Maginot Line of a vaguely defined threshold of a "matter of national security". I don't think motive was ever in doubt, there are a multitude of motives and even more possible excuses. The only question was whether the technology would ever catch up to their imagination. It seems to have already done that by today, and certainly will have wider implications in 10, 20, 50 more years. Means? This always was the wildcard. But Big Technology has handed them a steady stream of Christmas presents with each toy surpassing the last and fulfilling their wildest dreams. We've moved from closed circuit to everything networked. Those little baby monitors and stuffed toy cams whose audio and video used to be only available in the next room are now routinely connected to the Internet, as are Webcams, Laptops, TV's, all VOLUNTARILY! We now carry tiny phones with audio and video that connect to access providers ( who were compromised ages ago ) VOLUNTARILY! The only thing missing from the hybrid Orwell/Huxley/Rand stereotype is government-issued free cellular and broadband, and free Smart TVs, Laptops and Phones, a step made unnecessary by inviting everything in ourselves. The powers-that-be only need to stitch it all together. And they have the means to do it. So back to the webcam issue. On a personal computer there has always been enough code in firmware ( and in not-so-firm-ware ) to consider the computer a read-only hardware device. Chips or BIOS code that allow displays, input devices and peripherals to work fine not just outside Windows, but even outside DOS. That's in fact how they started, almost as a super-Commodore 64 with a keyboard and display and LPT printer and Serial ports all available in the firmware BASIC environment or even in the elaborate firmware diagnostics ( in fact the PCjr even had native cartridge support too ) and you could spend all day doing stuff and never even seeing a byte of DOS code. This world exists in IC's, most significantly in BIOS. And these have gotten BIG. Once just 64 KB ( or maybe smaller ) we went to 2MB and 4MB and 8MB quietly and few people noticed. What this means is that there is a lot room in there now ( even moreso that the ROM BASIC environment has disappeared ). So I might speculate now that disabling camera software within Windows is a rabbit hole distraction or at least only an additional concern, if the worry is about clandestine use of built-in cameras by spooks or hackers. Why? Because I can very easily imagine a tiny bit of code cooked into the BIOS with enough logic to allow rudimentary use, or even elaborate use. If it's tightly programmed in ASM ( the spooks are nothing if not thorough and well-financed ) it would be smaller than the once gigantic ROM BASIC which was like 32KB ( but famously grew later ). No-one would even notice KB's of code today. So the motherboard makers, including laptops, get modules of core code boilerplate that handles the common items like display, keyboard, mouse ( and USB and ... ) and then they of course add their own board specific code for settings ( and etc ... ) and the result is a 8MB image containing lots of stuff we expect and also God-knows-what. If I were a black-hat, I mean white-hat spook ( it's getting hard to keep that straight ) I would be exploiting this avenue for my entry point when laying out an infrastructure into personal computers. This infrastructure naturally would only be used in extreme cases, with court orders and under strict oversight guiding their actions ... /sarc ( had ya goin? ) ... Sadly, we're not even talking about the whole unTrustworthy Computing initiative which naturally comes with it's own secret code in their modules. There are so many paths here. Whacky conspiracy theories? Heck yeah I would have thought precisely that even half a year ago. But this is already precedented. The spooks have been confirmed to have compromised a RNG algorithm seeding it into another alphabet agency called NIST ( plausible deniability or opportunism ) from which it matriculated into the public thanks to their position of trust and from there of course companies like Microsoft added it to what could have been 90% of the world's computers but since Vista flamed out ( and I'm seriously starting to believe that the reason they became so bitter was because of this crisis of Vista non-acceptance threw a monkey-wrench into their cooperation roadmap with the spooks because Microsoft just joined PRISM as the first partner ) it did not gain the expected foothold of powering the bulk of all personal computers on the planet which would have made the SP1 release ( with the Dual_EC_DRBG plus whatever else ) an extremely effective spying vector. Consequently, it is logical to assume they have many other avenues of penetration in play, and it is not a big leap now to think that both the BIOS and TPM are compromised. I went way out on a limb there ( hope it doesn't snap off ). But it is seriously how things look today IMHO given all the information publicly available, and enhanced by observing the actions of all these companies lately. I'm finding it hard to believe any of them would even consider saying no to 'an offer they can't refuse' from our benevolent government protectors. Especially if it is couched in salable terms like 'national security' or 'for the children'. And if the soft sell doesn't work, there is always money, and that's even harder to refuse. For some reason this picture seems to belong here ... ( Image Source: here ) EDIT: typo
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