CharlotteTheHarlot

Windows XP antivirus updates for Microsoft Security Essentials could end April 8th ( NeoWin 2013-10-31 ) Well another NeoWin FUDfest consisting entirely of children with an unhealthy obsession-compulsive disorder against XP encouraged by their irresponsible Microsoft parents. Reading these threads makes it easy to understand how world history is littered with examples of easily led sheeple following cults of personality leading to everything from simple financial scams to actual atrocities. Funny thing about antivirus signatures. As they are nothing more than data they are by definition platform independent. The engines of course are allegedly updated to make them work better but most people know it is only a reason to get you to pay for updates, or in the case of Microsoft make you update the OS. Internet scammers have nothing on the antivirus FUD industry. So Microsoft is in a bit of a quandary here. They can choose to play games with the virus definitions which currently appear nightly in Windows Update and block Windows XP from getting them, but that is simple to defeat by updating a Windows 7 system and then simply grabbing the signature and making it available. Or, they can stop playing around and protect the world from malware by letting MSSE work on anything forever. Which will they choose? Naturally whatever serves their own needs and is contrary to their customers. Microsoft is also directly quoted as saying ... Huge irony in that Microsoft quote! Does that "threat landscape" includes the operating system itself? It takes some real gall to even talk about threats when the company doing the talking is the primary partner in the PRISM spook collaboration and willfully adds compromised code to the very operating system that they demand users upgrade to. Yes, there is a way to enable the Surface Ethernet adapter on Windows RT 8.1 ( NeoWin 2013-10-31 ) Boy, that sure brings back beloved memories. The Surface has reinvented early Win9x Plug'n'Pray manual driver repair! And all this just to jump into a wired network via Ethernet, a common scenario for people fixing up computers. Of course if you have a buggy or infected computer in for repairs the last thing you want to do is embark upon a PnP driver trek like this. Personally I can't stand USB adapters for native interfaces like IDE, SATA and Ethernet. All they had to do was build in the original interfaces, even using a new smaller connector if necessary, to avoid this crap. But when you are intent on building your own walled-garden, everything that worked previously looks like legacy to you. EDIT: typo

EU regulators to approve or deny Microsoft's Nokia purchase by December ( NeoWin 2013-10-30 ) Well, as seen in that previous article there certainly are no monopolistic or anti-competitive issues at play here I can't see them having a real concern here unless they use a different definition of a "market" than is traditional. But then again, I know very little about the EU so that means nothing. On the other hand, I am surprised that Finland hasn't pulled a rabbit out of its hat by now to block further destruction of Nokia by a foreign company. They've seen their headquarters sold off and huge layoffs and thousands more to be assimilated by Microsoft under this buyout. And that's not even addressing the infiltration of the place by the Trojan Horse Elop. One must wonder if Nokia employees and Finland itself might see that 8.8 million Lumias as a possible reason to back out now? There was a very important detail I forgot to mention in this post two days back ... From that same NeoWin story ... Ignoring that "better than expected" sentiment that only NeoWin or Wall Street analysts could use here, those numbers are mind-bogglingly strange! ... $7.8 billion revenue and $162 million net ... $ 7,800,000,000 revenue $ 0,162,000,000 profit That's an average of just $2.90 profit per phone ( two dollars, ninety cents )! People must really be wondering about the logic of that deal they made with the devil to use WP without licensing charge in exchange for a Microsoft cash infusion, and whether they would be better off just paying the normal license fee without having to repay those loaned billions which must be the reason for that huge disparity in those figures.

Windows XP's OS share in October down slightly; Windows 8.1 rises up slowly ( NeoWin 2013-11-01 ) First a reminder to correct that NeoWin author mistake stating that we saw Windows XP take a "dip" in the recent past. Net Applications played some kind of statistical game three months ago when they changed their methodology to suddenly reduce Windows XP by almost 6 percentage points ... What actually changed was how they counted all the same computers from one month to the next, and the only "dip" that occurred was in the intelligence shown by fanboys at NeoWin. However, much to the chagrin of those zealots and Microsoft no doubt, Net Applications appear to be unable to squeeze any more "dip" out of it. Since last month according to Net Marketshare Windows XP usage decreased just 0.17 percentage points. Windows 7 share was shaved by a mere 0.01 percent. Most amusingly to me, but no doubt distressing to them is the fact that Microsoft's chickens have come home to roost. By implementing that crazy plan of a point upgrade nomenclature for Windows 8 they have fragmented its versions just like Mac OS X and now are reaping the benefits! Windows 8.0 has gone down 0.49 percent since last month and its successor Windows 8.1 Blew rose 0.85 percent. Most alarmingly for Microsoft that means Windows 8.x achieved just 0.36 percentage net gain in the last month. Therefore the Windows 8.0 share hits its peak last month at 8.02 percent and now begins to fall while Windows 8.1 Blew climbs from out of it. Will it or any version ever break 10% is the real question. If Microsoft continues their fast release schedule the answer is definitely no. There's not much more to say about this whole thing really, except that maybe we can now surmise that 75% of the total "desktop marketshare" is thoroughly owned by Windows 7 and XP, the remaining 25% to be divided between everything else including the fragmented various versions of Microsoft Tiles. Strategy Analytics: 10.2 million Windows Phones shipped in Q3 2013 ( NeoWin 2013-11-01 ) Global Smartphone Operating System Shipments ------------------ Q3 2012 --------- Q3 2013 ----- Android ....... 129.6 million ... 204.4 million Apple iOS ...... 26.9 million .... 33.8 million Microsoft WP .... 3.7 million .... 10.2 million Blackberry ...... 7.4 million ..... 2.5 million Others .......... 5.2 million ..... 0.5 million Well that sure speaks for itself. Naturally the bulk of those 10.2 million WP phones was from the 8.8 million Nokia Lumias sold. And this begs the question of whether the death of Nokia, who was a beloved brand especially outside the USA, will decrease the Lumia sales going forward under the Microsoft label. Nokia is still alive presently on its deathbed Q4 2013 as we speak, and in 2014 Q1 we will see the report from this final quarter, the holiday season against refreshed iPhones and a huge Android tsunami. Next year in calendar Q2 and Q3 of 2014 the reports from Q1 and Q2 show up with MicroNokia phones. Those numbers will tell the tale. I suspect the former independent Nokia just hit its WP high water mark that they will never exceed again. EDIT: typo, clarity

The first one barfs and after refresh shows the directory listing. The second one shows it immediately. You're right! I guess I didn't refresh. As GrofLuigi has said, after it kicks up the error, just press F5 and the list pops up. Now this is interesting .... The list at the 1st link is different in Opera and Firefox. The 2nd link is identical in both browsers. In Firefox ... the most recent folder shown is version 24.0b9 In Opera ..... the most recent folder shown is version 26.0b1 and this exactly matches the 2nd URL as well. Anyone understand this? Can someone compare those FTP directories in FF and Opera and see if you get different listings?

New cybersecurity report details risk of running unsupported software ( Tim Rains, Director, Trustworthy Computing, Microsoft 2013-10-29 ) Microsoft: Windows XP malware infection rate nearly six times higher than Windows 8 ( NeoWin 2013-10-30 ) Oh this is just so wrong, in fact it goes right past lying and into pure evil. They correctly note that Windows 7 has the highest infection rate because of its widespread usage but then they go and label it "Encounter Rate". Then to counter this inconvenient fact they construct a phony chart using numbers pulled from their butts and call that one "Infection Rate" ( which should be called "Imaginary Rate" ). Even for Microsoft this is a new low in lying propaganda. Leaving aside the amusing fact that MSSE ( Security Essentials ) is clearly proving to be an inadequate at best, a laughingstock at worst antivirus utility, the fact is that when Windows 7 computers get infected, they come in with tens or hundreds of different active malware at once. If you run MBAM it inevitably locates things that got by MSSE, and lots of them. Perhaps this phony graphic should simply be described as illustrating their own failure at cleaning malware. Besides, most people on Windows XP probably wouldn't be using MSSE in the first place since it came out after Windows XP and such users either already got used to other antivirus utilities, or simply don't use one like me. If Microsoft had any real integrity they would aggregate details from all the virus suites, not just their already suspect telemetry. Furthermore, what kind of deception is it to say that an unpopular OS like Windows 8 has less malware than the 2nd most popular OS on the planet? Cue Captain Renault in Casablanca! The real takeaway from this FUD piece is just how low can Microsoft stoop? Pretty low indeed. Here is some of the linked Microsoft propaganda ... That's propaganda baby. "Microsoft Windows XP was released almost 12 years ago, which is an eternity in technology terms", is truly twisted logic. Let's check some dates ... Windows Azure was released on February 1, 2010 making this NuMicrosoft cloud platform almost 4 years old already. Hey you Luddites, isn't it time for a change?Skype was released in August 2003. This government approved spyware which is a cornerstone of the NuMicrosoft cloud model just turned 10 years old.Xbox ironically was released a few months after Windows XP in November 2001 and is therefore nearly the same age as their hated Windows XP OS which they are calling 12 years old. The difference being that Windows XP is clearly pre-9/11 and obviously pre-PRISM. Perhaps 9/11 is their religious demarcation similar to BC and AD.Microsoft Office was released, get this, on August 1, 1989. This ancient software just celebrated its 24th birthday. That means its twice as old as the average child posting at NeoWin and The Verge Tribe forums. Microsoft Windows was released November 20, 1985. And what fine pieces of software ( POS ) versions 1 thru 3 were! Yes friends, in a mere three weeks Windows will celebrate its 28th birthday.So we can factually rewrite that quoted Microsoft propaganda to this ..."Skype was released 10 years ago, which is an eternity in technology terms""Xbox was released 12 years ago, which is an eternity in technology terms""Microsoft Office was released 24 years ago, which is an eternity in technology terms""Microsoft Windows was released 28 years ago, which is an eternity in technology terms"Cue the fanboy excuses that "they have all been updated since then". Ummm, you can say that but at the same time you would be calling Microsoft's Tim Rains a deceptive liar for not mentioning that fact with respect to Windows XP ... Vista .............. 2006-11-08 ... 7 years 00 months old Windows 2003 SP2 ... 2007-03-13 ... 6 years 07 months old Vista SP1 .......... 2008-02-04 ... 5 years 08 months old Windows 2008 ....... 2008-02-04 ... 5 years 08 months old Windows XP SP3 ..... 2008-04-21 ... 5 years 06 months old <--- yet this is the evil one! Vista SP2 .......... 2009-04-28 ... 4 years 06 months old Windows 7 .......... 2009-07-22 ... 4 years 03 months old Windows 2008 R2 .... 2009-07-22 ... 4 years 03 months old Windows 7 SP1 ...... 2011-02-09 ... 2 years 08 months old Windows 2012 ....... 2012-08-01 ... 1 years 03 months old Windows 8 .......... 2012-08-01 ... 1 years 03 months old Windows 8.1 ........ 2013-08-27 ... 0 years 02 months old Hypocrites. The 2nd most popular operating system on the planet is Windows XP 32-bit and it is actually newer than Vista RTM and Vista SP1 and is just a year younger than Windows 7 RTM. But that's not all. The key component of the Windows 8 disease, the Playskool Metro interface, is itself getting long in the tooth depending on which part of the stolen Swiss concept you want to focus on. Some of the events follow ( this is a work in progress, corrections are welcome ) ... Windows 8 was hatched on August 1, 2012 and is already two months past its 1st birthday. But wait, the Xbox Dashboard became full Metro on December 6, 2011 over a year before Windows 8 was released and is now almost 2 years old. Windows Metro was heavily hyped back in September 2011 at //build/ a month past 2 years ago. And Windows Metro first got into public hands with the leaks of milestone builds in April 2011 over 2.5 years ago. However way back in January 2011 at CES there was a presentation of Windows Metro nearly 3 years ago. But Metro of course was not even new, it was simply ripped from Windows Phone which was Metrofied since October 21, 2010. So it just had it's birthday and is 3 years old. Or is it? Those leaked Windows Metro milestone builds were actually determined to have been compiled even earlier in September 2010, a month over 3 years ago. And there is serious controversy over alleged mockups seen even earlier in 2010, and is related to the iPad release in April of that year. The Jensen Harris video and other information seems to be aimed at revising the history of this period. Ironically if their propaganda is true, then Metro will be now approaching 4 years old. But, the roots of the Metro disease are clearly seen in the Xbox Dashboard NXE on November 19, 2008 when they stole the MCE interface style. That was almost 5 years ago now. Windows Media Center itself on Windows XP of course was released to OEMs for PC's in 2005, 2004, 2003 and 2002. Interestingly the first Media Center was apparently released way back on January 9, 2001 ( Wikipedia ). So the typographic interface that Metro is stolen from is itself even OLDER than Windows XP RTM at almost 13 years old. Of course, we are now seeing some direct Metro copying from Encarta 95, particularly with the Charms idiocy, an interface over 18 years old. Much more research is needed here, hopefully someone still has the CDROMs! Live Tiles are nicked from Windows 95 era SysTray icons and Windows 98 era channels and of course Vista era gadgets. And much of the icon style in Metro is a direct ripoff from public handicap, parking and street signs seen around NYC since at least the 1970's and perhaps earlier, and maybe in other cities as well. Therefore this dumbed down icon style is likely at least 40 years old. So what's the point here? Well for one thing, age is apparently a highly selective thing when you are a fanboy. The modern interface that they worship is 4 years old from Microsoft, and uses charms that are 18 years old and icons that are 40 years old. Their hypocrisy knows no real bounds as they turn around and single out Windows XP as old and dated and "cheesy". Lastly, we are treated to Tim Rains, Director, Trustworthy Computing, Microsoft. "Trustworthy Computing" is in actuality Untrustworthy Computing, it has nothing to so with trust or security whatsoever, but is instead the catch-all phrase used by Big Technology corporates to wrestle back control of the PC ( personal computer ) away from the user to the industry. Both Big Data ( the computer hardware and software makers ) and Big Hollywood serving their own interests and only their own interests. These "trustworthy" folks are the all-time kings of euphemisms. Their plan is to standardize PC technology hardware in a manner similar to the captive consumer electronic industry which is a stunted technology living under the thumbs of Big Hollywood and their lobbied lackeys in government. The PC is the enemy to all of them: government, Hollywood, and the tech manufacturers. That means it is under attack from all angles and people had better realize this before it is too late. So why is this man even talking about Windows XP in the first place or about security at all? The only logical reason IMHO is that Windows XP is pre-9/11 and pre-PRISM and someone in that position at Microsoft is most likely to be the de facto contact person for the government spooks to be pressuring or is receiving the instructions from pressured members of the Board and CEO. The facts as far as we can see tell the likely story ... 2001-08-24 ... Windows XP RTM 2001-09-11 ... 9/11 Terror Attacks 2001-10-26 ... USA Patriot Act 2001-11-02 ... DoJ agrees to settle with Microsoft instead of breakup 2002-??-?? ... Telecom Companies spying underway ( New York Times ) 2004-05-?? ... Microsoft announces Palladium "trusted platform" in Longhorn 2004-08-27 ... Longhorn plans scrapped, Windows XP code jettisoned 2005-07-22 ... Vista development official 2006-03-?? ... Dual_EC_DRBG RNG flaws first noted 2006-11-08 ... Vista RTM 2007-03-?? ... Dual_EC_DRBG recommended by NIST 2007-08-?? ... Dual_EC_DRBG backdoor discovered 2007-09-11 ... Microsoft joins PRISM as first spying partner 2007-11-12 ... DoJ Microsoft settlement expires 2007-11-15 ... Did NSA Put a Secret Backdoor in New Encryption Standard? ( Bruce Schneier ) 2008-02-04 ... Microsoft now adds Dual_EC_DRBG to Vista SP1 2009-07-22 ... Windows 7 RTM ... compromised or not? 2012-08-01 ... Windows 8 RTM ... compromised or not? There are still many unknowns but we can see clearly that things really got rolling after 9/11. That sequence of events there is especially troubling and IMHO proves that Microsoft ( and probably all of the Big Technology and Big Data companies ) cannot be trusted, EVER. The known backdoor RNG was clearly identified by security experts and still went into Vista SP1 and presumably everything ever since. Note, the Dual_EC_DRBG is the only one we actually know about, but who is to say it is the only existing one? It's unlikely Snowden got every possible evidence that exists. Still, the point is that the sequence of events shows that Microsoft added this is regardless of what was being said at the time, and has very little to say about it. If you were part of the Vista era when it was called out for various DRM infractions and typical annoyances and then you saw Microsoft's arrogant and inexplicable reaction by attacking the critics and the public for "doing it wrong" you might have suspected that something smelt bad about the whole thing. It's not a huge leap to believe they were under pressure to perform their patriotic duty and help the government keep its citizens safe from Terrorists, and Vista with its infamous complete rewrite ( formerly "Longhorn" with Windows XP codebase ) may have been the vehicle to satisfy federal "suggestions". The public backlash and low uptake with Vista would naturally come as an unwelcome surprise to them and to the feds, leading directly to the erratic behavior of Microsoft going forward, particularly with radical moves into the cloud, against user privacy, draconian EULAs and alienation of their PC developer community. One thing is for sure, with Windows XP sitting at the top of that list prior to all those other events it sure looks like an angel now by comparison. This is the most plausible and simple reason for the mad push to destroy Windows XP. IMHO. ( Lots of this comment is a work in progress, corrections welcome )

Microsoft to update Xbox Live Terms of Use with new app privacy rules ( NeoWin 2013-10-29 ) WTF? Who would really understand that? Both the NeoWin article and the direct Microsoft quote are clear as mud to the average EULA clicker out there. I get a distinct sense that Microsoft is imitating Google but is trying to use every possible literary obfuscation to disguise it. U.K. ISPs ordered to block 21 pirate sites, including top torrent destinations ( NeoWin 2013-10-29 ) Which inversely complements other news from just a few days ago mentioned above ... Victory for tech giants on EU data laws ( FT.com 2013-10-25 )... where the UK PM snookered EU citizens by getting Merkel to allow the Big Data corporates free reign to milk the consumers of their private data like cows. Let's recap: unrestricted government spying is good, and corporate Big Data privacy violations are good, but smalltime "pirates" are terrorists ( probably because they don't hand over big bucks in lobbying and play golf with Cameron ). It's a Brave New World and the fix is in. We're gonna need a new Internet. Florida police testing GPS tracking device tasked with ending high-speed pursuits ( TechSpot 2013-10-29 ) Well now, how's that gonna fly considering the recent decision just days ago mentioned above ... Ruling on GPS Tracking Could Protect Cellphone Privacy ( Tom's Hardware 2013-10-24 )... Who am I kidding, they'll just ignore that decision or get Congress to write an exemption. Spying is good as long as it is done by authorized personnel. Like the government spooks. And Big Technology companies.

'Titanfall' developer didn't know game would be Xbox One exclusive forever ( NeoWin 2013-10-29 ) Confirmation that the reviled publisher EA took a deal from Microsoft to make this developer's company's game 'Titanfall', an Xbox only release rather than Xbox first, and he had no idea of it. Monopoly business activity on an empty playing field where Microsoft is the only player present is the only strategy that Redmond is truly comfortable with, and with deep pockets they can pave the road to monopoly with greenbacks to achieve their ends. EA and Microsoft, a match made in heaven. Huge Adobe Data Breach Gets Even Worse ( Tom's Hardware 2013-10-29 ) More on the recent Adobe hacking incident. But please don't be worried, the cloud is our friend. Microsoft says it has offered to help fix issues with Healthcare.gov site ( NeoWin 2013-10-29 ) Oh dear God no! Even Stevie Wonder can see what a disaster this is gonna be. Confidential medical information plus all the usual personal information like names, addresses, phones, Social Security numbers. Being managed by a Big Data corporation who is the principal member of Club PRISM. Talk about privacy issues! Is there any bad idea that is not going to be fully explored now, any line that will not be crossed?

Surface works with official Ethernet adapter thanks to Windows RT 8.1 (Update .... or not?) ( NeoWin 2013-10-28 ) And they're still not sure if it works. Seriously, Apple is bad enough by ignoring standardized ports like USB and failing to add standard card slots for removable storage. But when you have a Wi-Fi or cellular only device in for repairs or cleanup, exactly what would you do without wired local network access? There is often a need to jump on the Internet to use Windows Update and to get copies of Opera or Firefox or Flash or Java or whatever. Ethernet into a network is fast and painless and temporary, and the alternative is giving the device the passphrase for the router wireless security which naturally is then stored on the device permanently, or into the cloud which defeats the purpose of the network security. Sure, you could disable your router security temporarily I guess, or add the device as guest if it has that facility, but jacking up the device with Ethernet to a router port takes no effort at all and is the best option IMHO. But I guess they're thinking what good is a walled-garden device model if it has such convenient connectivity options. Microsoft will give you 11 pizzas for free if you optimize your website ( NeoWin 2013-10-28 ) Too bad we just couldn't get together a group of creative developers into a standards committee and produce a common base set of webpage rendering elements which then are carefully implemented by the developers of web browsers to display webpage code correctly and consistently. Then, if webpage authors code their sites following these hypothetical standards they would be guaranteed that their website will then render correctly and consistently on those web browsers. We could call this standard HTML and describe it as platform independence. ( Sorry, I guess I'm feeling a bit sarcastic today ) William C. Lowe, the man responsible for leading the project to create IBM's first PC, dies at 72 ( TechSpot 2013-10-29 ) Well not exactly. Lowe was definitely a big part of IBM's entry into microcomputers, essentially getting the project approved in Armonk, but the driver of the PC train was Don Estridge ... The birth of the IBM PC (IBM)Philip Don Estridge (Wikipedia) That's how important this man was managing a radical innovative product through a bureaucracy that is only rivaled by the USA federal government itself. Bill Lowe was very important as well, and this is certainly not to take away from his own accomplishments at all. But when Estridge died tragically in a 1985 plane crash, he literally took IBM's PC ambitions with him.

PDP selling Xbox One Kinect TV mount with 'privacy cover' ( NeoWin 2013-10-28 ) And this of course leads to quite a parade of sheeple, even for NeoWin. Here are some of the NeoKids reactions to the mere thought of covering up the Kinect cameras ... Well I'm convinced! Microsoft is actually the one fighting for our rights, it's all the others who are evil. And what's wrong with a camera setup peering into our homes. Get with the times you Luddites! In all seriousness, most of these children will probably reach adulthood someday and become voters. Food for thought. And how about that "in for a penny ..." type argument. "Well since you already have a cellphone, you might as well go whole hog and invite a camera into your living room". Never mind that they are two completely different concepts, a static camera in a phone and a live console camera designed to recognize you and others, count you and even bill you if you are watching the TV. Amazing lack of logic. "Well since I am someday gonna die anyway, why not inject this heroin in my veins!". Mozilla to support Firefox on Windows XP after Microsoft ends support for the OS ( NeoWin 2013-10-28 ) Well that is a nice bit of news from one of the few organizations that don't say "how high?" when Microsoft says "jump". The NeoKids on the other hand not only say "how high?", but they instinctively drop them and bend over as well. They are definitely not going to take kindly to this development ... Well that last one is certainly true. You can't fix stupid, and there is a whole lot of that going here with Pavlovian children who bark on command at the mere mention of Windows XP. It's a lot like what happens their parents mention "asparagus" to them. Or "homework". Or "bedtime". I just love the nonsense about Windows XP being 12 years old! Would someone please ask the NeoKids how old Skype is? And Xbox? Inquiring minds want to know! One other little tidbit from the comments ... NeoKids like Dot MetroTard know that letting Windows XP out into the public would be then end of the party for Microsoft and all her fanboys. The end to interface dictatorship, planned obsolescence and forced upgrades. Freedom from being annoyed by color-blind hipsters pretending to be interface designers. Crowd sourced improvement to all those endless Windows annoyances would work for me just fine and is something that would cut them right to the bone. But don't worry MetroTards, you would still have your Playskool sandbox, no one wants to take that away. The only differences is that the adults would no longer be forced to occupy it along with you. We simply have better things to do than to keep you company all day long.

Apple reports quarterly revenue of $37.5 billion, sells 33.8 million iPhones ( TechSpot 2013-10-28 ) Apple sells 33.8 million iPhones and 14 million iPads in fiscal Q4 2013 ( NeoWin 2013-10-28 ) So now we have Apple's numbers. $37.5 billion revenue, $7.51 billion net. And they actually give hard numbers ( unlike Microsoft ) for calendar 2013 3rd quarter units sold ... iPhones ... 33.8 million iPads ..... 14.1 million iPods ...... 3.5 million Macs ....... 4.6 million If anyone actually locates the Microsoft data for Surface, WP and Windows ( UPDATE: see article below for Nokia Lumias figure of 8.8 million ), let me know and I will try to update this for a direct comparison! Now we can add Apple's numbers to that list of "Top Ten Most Valuable Companies" according to Interbrand ... Apple ........ $ 98.3 billion ... Q3: $37.5 / $7.51 billion Google ....... $ 93.2 billion Coke ......... $ 79.2 billion IBM .......... $ 78.8 billion Microsoft .... $ 59.5 billion ... Q3: $18.53 / $5.24 billion GE ........... $ 46.9 billion McDonald's ... $ 41.9 billion Samsung ...... $ 39.6 billion ... Q3: $55.59 / $9.56 billion Intel ........ $ 37.2 billion Toyota ....... $ 35.3 billion So Apple's showing also looks weak as does Microsoft's. Clearly they both need to be watching the 800 pound Gorilla in this room, which is clearly Samsung. Most importantly, in April 2014 when the this current period calendar Q4 and the next Q1 are completed, we will see the completed story, no more excuses! There are no more critical products missing, all the teams have all their players on the fields now. NuMicrosoft will be 4 years old, as will be Apple's iPad, and Windows XP will be undergoing its euthanasia. And Microsoft will be right where it is now, a distant 3rd in phones and tablets. Nokia sells 8.8 million Lumia Windows Phone devices in Q3 2013 ( NeoWin 2013-10-29 ) To be honest that is more than I expected for Nokia and WP. It's still only 1/4 of the amount of phones that Apple sold though and far far less than Samsung, let alone Android as a whole, but a respectable number nonetheless. However, I think this is their highwater mark since Microsoft has killed Nokia as a brand. Unfortunately we'll never know what would have happened if Nokia had offered their phones with a choice of WP or Android what the sales would have looked like. I suspect Android would have swamped WP and Samsung and Nokia would be neck-and-neck for world handset leader today. New Windows 8.1 patch fixes SecureBoot watermark bug ( NeoWin 2013-10-30 ) Well there's the official fix for that above-mentioned mighty convenient "bug" ( or rather, "feature" ) of Windows 8.1 Blew protecting its users from the evils of multibooting. ( I see MagicAndre has already mentioned the Microsoft KB : )

It does that under heavy traffic. Just hit refresh a few times and it will show. I've experienced it a few times in the last year or so. Still doing it on the old FTP. New one is fine though. What happens if you try these ... ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/ ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases I'm guessing that new FTP is the official one and the old is deprecated and whatever they changed causes Opera to bounce. Doesn't matter though since the old one has no releases past v23, except for some betas of v24.

Off-Topic ... NeoWin mentioned another Firefox update, v25, so I went to grab it. Then I noticed something weird in the FTP servers. I've been using this for a while now ... ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/ ... but Opera is now complaining ( "The server requested a login authentication method that is not supported." ). Not believing that message at face value I then tested it in Firefox and sure enough, it displayed just fine, but the releases stop at v24 beta. Trying this one instead ... ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases ... works fine in Opera and has all releases ( v24 and v25 included ). Did they switch servers just before the v24 release? Notice that the only difference is that extra subfolder ( or an alias link maybe? ) with an extra "mozilla.org" inserted ... ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases

UPDATE TO POST #1 The top post has been re-written to describe the current ZIP package suite dated: 2013-10-25. Win9x fans will notice 2 more utilities no longer function in Win9x. -CTH-

Check out the article for the visual demonstration of that point... Once again, SemiAccurate is right on target. --JorgeA That's nicely done. The moves by Microsoft in the past three years still require much more criticism. They embarked on this suicide right around the time the iPad came along ( who knew it would be so easy for Steve Jobs to destroy Microsoft! ). They whipped up that early mockup of Microsoft Tiles and began the back-end strategy of inventing NuMicrosoft, even green-lighting the sacrifice of Office and Windows along the way. The biggest sacrifice however is ultimately the respect of Microsoft that so many had. Not enough can be said the GUI shenanigans too. They violated everything they ever documented and wrote about user interfaces and guidelines. The abstract hiding of things in the GUI has been underway since Vista, and was bad enough, but going whole-hog into chromeless, invisible, mystery screens was a Herculean step, even for them. I'm not sure everyone is getting the entire picture yet though. Microsoft and many others are intent on destroying the PC entirely, leaving only a consumption tablet in its place for almost all scenarios. And to do this they will violate every rule in the book, legal, moral and ethical. It's about the GUI, but not only the GUI. It's about the cloud, but not only the cloud. It's about DRM, but not only DRM. It's about privacy, but not only privacy. In total it's about who owns what, and what can they do on it. Big Data sees the Big Hollywood and Big Media system as something they want to re-engineer for themselves. The long-lived "push" paradigm of Hollywood to Broadcaster to Customer model has shoveled tons of money to Big Hollywood and Big Media. So Big Data will design their own playground from the ground up with portable Orwellian devices that feed the sheeple IP that Big Data is controlling. That other model, PC's living happy independent lives sometimes connected but almost entirely a "pull" paradigm. Big Data will change this to a "push" model as fast as they can. Microsoft made their first attempts as far back as Windows 98 with active desktop channels. It's no secret really, but for some reason all the critics are still nibbling around the edges of the big picture.

If the only metric that matters to them is "shipments" then we can kiss everything goodbye. It becomes an easy self-fulfilling prophecy to predict a downturn, screw the product up and kill it, and then watch the "shipments" metric magically fulfill their stunning prediction. "Shipments" is what concerns Wall Street, to our own detriment. They seem to forget that it is possible ( and formerly normal ) to have no growth in "shipments" ( i.e., same exact number of customers as last release ) and still keep the business humming along successfully. Could you run a business that sells say 200 million OS copies every three years? Of course. Same for computer hardware. The "growth" or "stagnate" or "slumping" or "declining" shipments nonsense is drummed up by analysts that sit on their butts watching spreadsheets and making grand pronouncements about the future based on a view that growth must be continuous regardless of the customer wants and needs. Isn't it good to know that tens of centuries of craftsmen who built and sold things to a close customer base, and who listened to and answered to them directly had it all wrong for so long. These fools have us on the fast-track to mass assembly line economics where everything is fungible and nothing lasts, and customers are faceless entities that deliver payment upon demand. The only thing we're still missing is a Soylent Green assembly line for the end-stage of the customer life to ensure an orderly transition back into the system once we are completely useless.

I agree. And that's yet another great illustration of the difference between a hardware company versus a software company where so many things are opposite. Imagine if Apple released their Mac OS to the general public, presumably with no service or warranty, just the software and you're on your own. They have been on x86 for quite a while now and have been surprisingly good at it ( well I was surprised, I remember all the Motorola years and could not imagine them making the switch ). Also imagine if they got their hands into the system building OEMs like Microsoft has done. It is not hard to envision substantial penetration of user share, 15%, 30%, maybe even 50% someday ( I would never personally want it except for curiosity and experimenting ) because its reputation is very high among creative people and Windows is seen as fragile crap. Head-to-head it would be quite a battle indeed. But this is entirely an illusion. There is no battle, never was and never will be ( at least now without Steve Jobs who might have considered something like this in retaliation against Microsoft ). The real reason Apple would never do this is because it would completely remove any purpose of buying Mac hardware. It's not the main selling point ( I would suggest that OOBE, reputation, warranty, and prestige rank higher than the OS ) but it is one selling point. Inversely, porting Office to every platform ( more completely than it is thus far ) and placing it into the cloud removes any purpose of buying Windows. Microsoft really is flirting with suicide by even considering using Office as bait because of exactly what you said: "Imagine if business would just buy Surfaces and no Office suites any more! They would make a huge loss.". Office and Windows have been cash cows and the mere consideration of breaking that formula smells of desperation and shows great recklessness in Redmond and maybe is evidence of very bad information they have but we don't know. Perhaps its a consequence of tampering with these two that has caused their stellar reputation to wear thin. There is some evidence ... Short Takes: October 25, 2013 (Microsoft Earnings Special Edition) ( Thurrott 2013-10-25 ) I just don't understand their optimism, it's almost crazy because those numbers are abysmal! 5 months to get to one million, 10 months to get 2 million! TWO MILLION? This article from two years ago said they sold 31 MILLION copies just of Office 2010 by that time, and also that Office is used on ONE BILLION Windows computers in total. Thurrott and NeoWin are seriously off their rocker. A real board of directors would locate the CloudTards in Redmond and tar and feather them in front of the entire campus on a hot summer day as a lesson to warn others of why you don't mess with success.

I agree with that. They still are "refining" their tablet strategy, nibbling around the edges, tweaking prices, but it won't matter. They lost this war years ago. According to IDC in Q2 2013 it was a 50:1 ratio of iPads sold to Surface. They would need a miracle to reduce that to even 25:1. They'll never get to 10:1 which ironically is about the reverse of the Windows versus Apple desktop ratio. And in cellphones it is even a worse case for them. Currently they are still premium priced devices with high profit margins and will stay there for a while longer but eventually they will be among the cheapest of all popular mobile commodities which means Microsoft is toast here as well. They will have gotten "their act together" just in time to start bleeding money as phone devices appear in shrink wrapped packages in drugstores. The fat end of the profit curve is at the front for most hardware - Apple's strength ( quite the opposite of software really - Microsoft's strength ), once it gets mainstreamed and mass produced by the lowest paid workers in the poorest countries they can only recoup on big volume. Software famously is a burden on up-front development costs and usually becomes highly profitable later. That is unless you are incompetent like Microsoft, who have all the R&D into Windows XP in the past and could whip up a Workstation release in no time at all and reap huge profit at almost no cost ( yes, I know they built so many planned obsolescence bugs into the kernel of Windows 6.x, but that was their own doing, an act of suicide ). And by the time of phone saturation and consumerization and the race-to-the-bottom ( tablets too, which will most likely occur first ) Apple will have moved on to the next thing, and the next thing beyond that. Apple-envy is such a stunningly misguided business model, and would sink anybody except for Microsoft who happens to be diversified enough to weather this mistake. However, if those other areas like servers, tools, back-end services and cloud also get pinched they will just as capable of falling as many other before them.

Great info right there. I have already assumed that many people who never really needed a full-blown PC would make the transition to small devices and some would use all form factors. The real question is how many? Considering that 100% of computing was done on full-blown desktops, barring the fits and starts of early "mobile" computers like this one here in the mid-1980's of which I saw quite a few ... (inside this thing was a 1st generation IBM PC-1 ) ... so maybe 99% was the correct number. 99% of all personal computing since the mid-1970's for at least two decades was on desktops by necessity because there simply was nothing else practical ( just like 99% of all computing two decades before that required an entire room ). Naturally after so many years of Moore's law and other miniaturization breakthroughs the "mobile" form factor would finally become practical. And laptops were the first real inroads made, with iPods and other specialized devices also pulling away some of those ill-fitted customers, people that never wanted or needed a desktop for their email and Facebook ( or playing their music collection ) naturally moved to a much more appropriate fit for their needs. NOTE: this is this point where emotionalists and logical-underachievers like Thurrott and all the fanboys make their ridiculous leaps of logic by suggesting the sky is falling and the PC is dead or dying ( such a quote should rank right up there with "640KB" ). Now according to the above sample shown by TELVM we can say that the transition thus far has peeled off just over 10%. We're currently seeing 90-10 or 85-15 distribution to be generous, and that somehow merits all the idiocracy coming out of Thurrot's columns and Microsoft's strategy geniuses. The real question is where will this end-up after another decade or two? Certainly not the desktop Armageddon that those nitwits predict. I believe that no less than 1/3 of all computing will always be done on stationary, powerful desktop computers that can do anything asked of them. a maximum 33-66 distribution desktop-mobile, but that's a long, long way down the road from now. And even that is not Armageddon. So this chart will be a good one to monitor. I'd be surprised if it moves at even a couple of percent a year. And it would be moving even slower if Intel had their act together and didn't freeze performance a couple of years ago, and especially if Microsoft hadn't lost their minds and sold a pure Workstation OS.

OMG! Thread Winner right there! And that must be Dot MetroTard herself there in the foreground. I can tell because of the constant pacing and blabbing and how all the other sheep are looking at her in astonishment. So what is the guy yelling to all sheep? Can anyone make out the words?

There is an issue with the update that nukes power profiles, I mentioned it here. It could easily be related to the OP failure. Source ... NeoWin

Microsoft Explains Why to Buy Surface Instead of iPad ( Tom's Hardware 2013-10-26 ) Surface 2 Buyers In For An Ugly Surprise ( NJN Network 2013-10-25 ) That 2nd article I found in the comments at the 1st article at Tom's Hardware still discussing the remarks by Frank Shaw. There sure is a lot of talk about how Microsoft's toys are much more productivity based than competitors. It's all talk, because the sheeple want to buy toys. Here's more proof ... Official Facebook app zooms to first among free Windows 8.1 apps ( NeoWin 2013-10-26 ) I'm fully prepared to accept this at face value, statistics like this do not lie. The Microsoft Store is now officially a social marketplace and Microsoft Tiles is officially another consumption toy rather than the productivity platform that they keep trying to convince the world of. Therefore they bring nothing new to this 3 year old market after all, and are stuck competing against the iPad and other toys in a battle they already lost long ago. Both the paid apps and the free ones are led by consumption titles. Bring back the dance commercials!

Microsoft provides fix for battery issues found by some Surface RT owners ( NeoWin 2013-10-26 ) NeoWin couldn't quite bring themselves to admit it, but Windows 8.1 Blew obviously nuked the power profiles which is just stunningly amateurish. It shows complete lack of testing and rushing of their code pushing, something they should be quite expert at by now. It really shoul makes you nervous when Windows Update reaches into your stable system to set things according to a script prepared by nameless underachievers who remain at Microsoft because they were denied employment at Amazon and the other companies picking off their talent. Victory for tech giants on EU data laws ( FT.com 2013-10-25 ) ( NOTE: not sure if you can get that page as it is using some kind of referrer string. ) Yep, the fix is clearly in. It seems Google got their hands on Cameron and he somehow influenced Merkel. And what else could be expected? Those 10 or so companies making up Big Corporate Data plus the 20 or so major ISP's are now the preferred class, the feudal nobility. They are the sheepdogs that the government farmers use to corral the sheeple. There is pretty much no chance for anything of substance to occur on either the spying or privacy front. Why would government care about privacy? It directly conflicts with their one and only need to maintain their position of authority over the bourgeoisie and the peasants. The ruling class and its favored aristocracy are in it to win it. They are carving the world into private little fiefdoms. Big Data makes tons of money, kicks some of it back to politicians in lobbying and golden parachute board jobs, and government looks the other way as long as they cooperate by letting spooks access the works. It's a Brave New World that even Orwell wouldn't believe. Only The Matrix even comes close, but with a fair bit of Idiocracy mixed in.

That was the ranking by Interbrand first mentioned at NeoWin ... http://www.neowin.net/news/apple-google-microsoft-among-10-most-valuable-brands This is the current Interbrand list from 1-100 ... http://www.interbrand.com/en/best-global-brands/2013/Best-Global-Brands-2013-Brand-View.aspx# And their page about methodology is ... http://www.interbrand.com/en/best-global-brands/2013/best-global-brands-methodology.aspx Yeah, it's confusing because it is not a straight ranking of capitalization or ROI or earnings/profits or total assets. It is a complex weighted ranking from multiple analysis. I should have used better wording though. Top Ten "Most Valuable" according to Interbrand :

Government Spying ... Leaked documents reveal NSA spied on the phone conversations of 35 world leaders ( TechSpot 2013-10-25 ) Germany proposes locked-down national internet after recent NSA scandal ( TechSpot 2013-10-25 ) How about a new Internet without any government allowed? Citizens only, corporations enter at their own risk with no crying to government to save them from the people. It's quite convenient this crisis. Government first involved themselves by spying on everyone to save us from the terrorists, completely removing all expectation of privacy in exchange for the promise of security, ignoring Benjamin Franklin and other prophets. Then, once they fouled it all up government proposes locking the thing down completely. It almost looks like a carefully designed plan. So how bad is it with an out of control government bureaucracy whose sole purpose is self-preservation? Here's a story that doesn't even involve technology but shows the lengths that government will go to protect themselves ... Exclusive: Feds confiscate investigative reporters confidential files during raid ( Daily Caller 2013-10-25 ) In a nutshell, the government wanted the identities of her sources at "Homeland Security" and "TSA" which violates all whistle-blowing statutes and the First Amendment. Then they trump up a search warrant using her husband and some "resisting arrest" nonsense from 1986. Resisting is a charge padded onto all police encounters and is used in the pleading process to get the arrestee to agree to some other charge. It is almost always bogus, applied to people that talk back or any minor thing, and is all about power and police superiority. 1986 is astonishingly deep digging and patently obvious to everyone except the retarded judge that OK'd this invasion. Then they show up in force, and search for weapons while some swine locates and steals unrelated journalistic materials. This was an operation right out of a novel or movie and that is precisely how bad it is. The ends justify the means to the corrupted government. Her sources in those two federal gestapo agencies are screwed for sure, but the bigger picture is that we all are. The sheeple will guarantee that "little things" like this get swept under the rug and won't even notice when bigger things happen ( and they already do with SWAT teams ). This operation was all about government self-preservation, nothing more. It is why the Internet has been compromised secretly and completely. They cannot have citizens communicating privately and cannot tolerate whistle-blowing "traitors" in their ranks exposing government malfeasance. EDIT: typo

Another astroturf article, this time Blackberry ( allegedly but highly doubtful IMHO ) ... BlackBerry denies any involvement in questionable reviews of BBM for Android ( TechSpot 2013-10-25 ) What, this they notice but somehow turn a blind eye to the incessant MetroTard spewing of the past two years? Have a look at the screencap at the link to see examples of copy/paste reviews. Just substitute in the words fast and fluid and you have the most common Microsoft employee and/or fanboy astroturfing. Privacy software at long last? ... Mozilla's Lightbeam tool will expose who is looking over your shoulder on the web ( UK Independent 2013-10-24 ) New Firefox add-on allows you to see how, when and where sites are tracking your browsing history ( TechSpot 2013-10-25 ) Hopefully a new era of pro-user privacy software is coming but there have been a few stabs at this already. I'll wait for some solid reviews before trying this myself. Needs Firefox 19 or later ( not sure why though ).