CharlotteTheHarlot

Xbox in the news again ... Microsoft exec: Xbone nickname for Xbox One will likely "stick" around ( NeoWin 2013-10-05 ) HeHe. Another manifestation of the Streisand Effect Microsoft exec: Kinect for Xbox One won't collect data for advertising ( NeoWin 2013-10-04 ) Yeah, I'm gonna take their word for it They have this one commenter over there who has to be a sock puppet for Dot MetroTard because there cannot possibly be two fanboys this ridiculous ... ~sigh~ Why don't you just come out and say what you're thinking and endorse them using Kinect for spying and advertising?

Microsoft board of directors recommend Gates, Ballmer for re-election ( TechSpot 2013-10-04 ) Isn't it amazing that it has come to this? It won't be long before there is no trace of the original founders and no trace of the reason they originally were successful - software products and software development. Computer programming languages of every flavor that laid the groundwork for the x86 universe came from Microsoft who jumped into that new Intel architecture and made it successful. The company has been thoroughly run into the ground, not for pure revenue, but definitely for reputation and gravitas. Developers were kicked to the curb and all the Windows veterans crapped on. They have truly forsaken their position as leader in exchange for playing in the sandbox of sheeple toys, and all because of Apple-envy and Google-envy. Great job fellas. Steve Ballmer Gets Another Pay Cut After Slipping on Surface ( Maximum PC 2013-10-04 ) Microsoft only paid 79 percent of Steve Ballmer's incentive bonus in 2013 ( NeoWin 2013-10-04 ) Another tiny hand-slap for the bad boy. Meanwhile Microsoft flounders as they morph from the technical juggernaut they used to be, into Playskool or Sesame Street, promoting and manufacturing children's toys and selling them to sheeple that aren't even capable of knowing when they are being insulted. Microsoft dreams of HTC handsets dual-booting Windows Phone and Android ( TechSpot 2013-10-04 ) Would You Buy a Dual Booting Handset with Android and Windows Phone? ( Maximum PC 2013-10-04 ) So we're to believe that Microsoft wants Windows Phone 8 to go head-to-head against Android? I don't think so. If they wanted to do that there is a real simple controlled experiment they could do right now ... release both a WP8 *and* an Android version of the Lumia 1020 and see which one actually sells. HTC better be careful. This is no doubt how the Nokia death spiral began, with an innocent discussion about a collaboration and later a deal for the operating system. Watch your backs! Microsoft Set to Patch Critical Internet Explorer Flaw ( Toms Hardware 2013-10-04 ) Would someone please diagram exactly how that works for me? How do poisoned webpages up and attack government agencies and financial institutions in Japan and Taiwan? Presumably they would only be using MSIE for Intranet apps and not browsing the WWW. Why would they even have access to the larger web? And even if some did would they be the same systems that have access to their secure Intranet? Am I living in crazyland? EDIT: fixed broken tags

--JorgeA Ladar Levison. Bonafide hero. In a just world, Levison would be a witness in a Congressional investigation that sends many of those anti-Constitutional criminals to jail, and also the Congressional members that gave it approval. I would prefer tar and feathers and the gallows pole, but I am willing to cut them a deal for prison time in exchange for further whistle-blowing. .

Congratulations and good work!

Seagate Cloud Storage Backups Unavailable for 2 Weeks ( Tom's Hardware 2013-10-03 ) You know, pretty much every cloud epic fail scenario is coming true for various companies on a weekly basis. I wonder what else might happen? GitHub down for some users due to yet another Denial of Service attack (Update) ( NeoWin 2013-10-03 ) Well, there's another one, DDoS this time. I wonder what else could happen? Cyber attack hits Adobe, 2.9 million accounts compromised ( TechSpot 2013-10-03 ) Adobe Servers Hacked, 2.9 Million Customers Affected ( Maximum PC 2013-10-03 ) Adobe Data Breach Exposes 3 Million Customer Credit Cards ( Tom's Hardware 2013-10-03 ) Adobe: Cyber attackers removed personal info from 2.9 million customers ( NeoWin 2013-10-03 ) That's three, just like a Hat-Trick or Triple Crown. I love this part too ... See, you can just strike that word "Adobe" and fill the space with the name of any other cloud merchant. That exact phrase right there "complimentary credit monitoring membership" is going to become quite popular over time ( already has actually, it showed up in our snail mail when the electric utility had CC numbers stolen ). The worse thing about this remedy though is that after you have already been cloud-raped, the solution is to now hand over your most personal information to yet another 3rd party ... who also lives and operates ... in the cloud. It's like after accidentally smashing your thumb with a hammer and then being treated by putting that thumb in a vice and scrunching it tight. Substitute other body parts as necessary.

Freakonomics and Microsoft trade words over 'Bing It On' challenge accuracy ( NeoWin 2013-10-03 ) This caused Microsoft to post its own response on the official Bing blog. Matt Wallaert, Bing's behavioral psychologist, defended the number of people used for its original study, saying, "A 1,000 person, truly representative sample is actually fairly large. As a comparison, the Gallup poll on presidential approval is just 1,500 people." As far as releasing the data on the Bing It On website, Wallaert says it's not being posted because of privacy concerns. He stated: Now wait a minute. They have a real sample of millions that took the test but only used 1,000 of them as their propaganda? And as one of the commenters pointed out, what's this crap about privacy? They use the word "Tracking" as a diversion here, no-one wants to know who their identieis! Near as I can tell they are using these terms solely as a shield to not report the actual results, which is weird because they supposedly collect no user-identifiable data on the test-takers in the first place. So the federal government spooks first partner is suddenly concerned about privacy but only when it suits their own purposes. The funniest part about that challenge is how it makes Bing look like a Google-clone. That's what I took away from it ...

Rumor: Three top Microsoft investors want Bill Gates to resign as chairman ( NeoWin 2013-10-01 ) Just a rumor and the thread just opened but already a bunch of comments, wait for tomorrow. This is the kind of story that really frightens the fanboys because it's in that zone that they have no control over, the zone called reality. In their world Microsoft is king and nothing but sunshine and unicorns can ever occur, well, unless that reality thing gets in the way. You know that each day they wake up and check NeoWin for the shoe to drop: who's the next CEO? Did they cancel Metro, or backtrack further? Did they sell Xbox? It just has to suck to be them. New York City Mayor announces new free public Wi-Fi networks across all five boroughs ( TechSpot 2013-10-01 ) Ordinarily I would approach this from a fiscal point-of-view, as in why am I paying for this in some form ( those of us upstate pour lots of money into the NYC black-hole particularly for mass transit, we even supply their water ). "We gotta stay competitive in the world economy ..." says the idi0t mayor. Yeah sure. However, and I hope others are wondering the same, why the sudden benevolence, especially from this mayor who is such a nanny-stater that he tries to ban large sodas, cigarettes and texting while walking? Hotspots necessarily draw crowds even up to the street itself which is actually dangerous unlike super-sized Pepsi. Well my theory is that this entire network is aimed at being the largest funnel into the information vacuum that the spooks are busy building. This will obviously be very convenient for that terrorist without an ISP so they would naturally take advantage of the city hotspot network. What people don't realize is just how much info is left in even the most basic routers used in Wi-Fi hotspots. It far exceeds the metadata gleaned from roaming past cell towers. Routers scoop up everything now including cellphones with Wi-Fi enabled in addition to the usual cache of laptops and tablets. And you better believe that these industrial grade routers that can handle so many simultaneous devices have much more NVRAM, maybe even flash or HDD storage to keep a monstrous record of every ping. It's a trap. Doh! It's amazing to remember 10 years ago watching Alias and 24 which at the time I thought it was a bit far-fetched for the spooks and crooks to be yanking out their SIM cards and smashing them, pulling out the batteries, and seeing the bad guy who forgot to do get quickly nailed. Now I have to believe that every single plot device in those shows were not only accurate but massively understated. ( Original Photo Here ) IE exploit publicly released; could lead to more attacks ( NeoWin 2013-10-01 ) Another day, another ... no, cancel that.. It's still the previously identified exploit known as CVE-2013-3893 that for some reason has yet to be distributed. Very strange. For anyone concerned, there is a manual page for obtaining the fix here supplied by one of the commenters. Symantec grapples with one of the largest botnets in history ( TechSpot 2013-10-01 ) Symantec takes down 1/4 of a botnet, a half million supposedly compromised PC's. meh. Seems like I read these every week, Norton took this down, Microsoft took that down, yada yada yada. It would be much more interesting if they charted the configurations of those alleged infected computers, specifically three things: {1} Operating System, {2} Antivirus or lack of, {3} NAT Router and Firewall or lack of. That's all I ask. In the meantime we're just supposed to take their word for this accomplishment. Okay. You can bet that there are a majority that are Windows 7 ( not XP ) using MSSE or Symantec.

Security news ... Your Privacy Is Not Our Responsibility, Says Verizon Exec ( Tom's Hardware 2013-09-30 ) Following on the heels of self-serving remarks by the Verizon CEO a few days ago now we get treated to some more in-your-face bragging from a subordinate employee, Marcus Sachs, Verizon's vice president of "national security policy" ... What a knucklehead. Imagine if someone at Microsoft said those exact words! The fact there is even a position called "vice president of national security policy" is all you need to know to confirm that these regional monopolies are first and foremost in place to run the infrastructure that our benevolent government uses to monitor it's lucky citizens. Their second job is to collect duties from us to finance this infrastructure. The third is to make sure the mail gets delivered on time. Somewhere way down the list is the concept of privacy. Or maybe not. NSA-Free Cloud Storage Promised by Finnish Company ( Tom's Hardware 2013-09-30 ) This company is the highly regarded F-Secure who used to distribute a decent antivirus called F-Protect. Interesting or meh, you decide. But this gives me an idea! There is a huge opportunity for someone to step in and offer offshore services for data exiles. My nomination would be for Switzerland and I'd be surprised if they haven't thought of this yet. The government of the land of clocks and cheese and private bank accounts should add cloud services to their portfolio. They should pass a law making an ironclad contract for private data farms off-limits to all government agencies foreign and domestic, and become the world's favorite hosting option. Naturally we still would need a leap of faith that it wouldn't just be a front for security agencies, but if the Swiss cannot accomplish it, then nobody can. John McAfee is developing a $100 device to block the NSA ( TechSpot 2013-09-30 ) McAfee's device could disallow the NSA from accessing your phone ( NeoWin 2013-10-01 ) More coverage of that story mentioned by Jorge. McAfee the man, not the Intel owned company, is developing a local encrypted wireless networking device with a range of "about three blocks" which means less than a mile in most towns and cities. Kind of like advanced walkie-talkies. BitTorrent announces decentralized, secure messaging service ( TechSpot 2013-10-01 ) And another one, this time from BitTorrent. Like I said, p2p communication will be the next growth industry, well, let's hope so.. Ex-Microsoft privacy adviser: I don't trust company after NSA revelations ( UK Guardian 2013-09-30 ) An ex-privacy advisor for Microsoft claims he no longer trusts the company ( NeoWin 2013-10-01 ) This guy's opinion should carry some weight IMHO. The way I read it is that he is likely a bit offended at being kept in the dark while effectively being used to lie to customers about privacy assurances from Microsoft. I suspect he knows enough to make some waves for the government spooks primary partner.

The Competition ... Tripwire: SteamOS, Steam Machines, and Steam Controller will be the best thing to happen to PC gaming since digital distribution ( PC Gamer 2013-09-30 ) More coverage from PC Gamer. Note that the site is largely made up of hardcore gamers favoring the PC so consoles do not necessarily get a great reception there, which explains the mild level of skepticism over the Steam announcements. I think it's good feedback nonetheless. Game devs go hands on with Steam Controller, here's what they think ( TechSpot 2013-09-30 ) A collection of various opinions of the Steam announcements, particularly their new controller which a few have been able to test. Consumers Prefer PS4 Over Xbox One for Holidays, Poll Finds ( Tom's Hardware 2013-09-30 ) More about that story from yesterday, this time at TH where the commenters have a decidedly different reaction than the children at NeoWin.

Apple, Google, Microsoft among 10 most valuable brands ( NeoWin 2013-09-30 ) If anyone is really wondering where Apple-envy and Google-envy comes from, this is it. It really has nothing to do with iPhones or Chrome or Android, it is simply that ancient example of one of the seven deadly sins - jealousy. As it stands now ... Apple ........ $ 98.3 billion Google ....... $ 93.2 billion Coke ......... $ 79.2 billion IBM .......... $ 78.8 billion Microsoft .... $ 59.5 billion GE ........... $ 46.9 billion McDonald's ... $ 41.9 billion Samsung ...... $ 39.6 billion Intel ........ $ 37.2 billion Toyota ....... $ 35.3 billion Feel pity for the green-hearted souls in Redmond because it will only get worse. First Apple, then Google will break through the $ 100 billion dollar barrier to great fanfare on "the Street". Then Samsung will inevitably rise past Microsoft. These future events ought to be good for a spike in sales of Rolaids and Tums in the greater Seattle vicinity. Microsoft Touts Windows 8.1s SkyDrive Smart Files Feature, OCR Search ( Maximum PC 2013-09-30 ) Windows 8.1 to let Bing search for text inside photos on SkyDrive ( NeoWin 2013-09-30 ) This is that SpyDrive feature that OCR 's any text seen on images. Kinda begs a question I think ... what if very few people use this feature? Then all those photos were scanned for nothing and tons of processing power was wasted I guess which proves whatever power they saved by removing Aero and other stuff will be spent somewhere else :yes Of course it is described as a great thing for users and they use this ridiculous far-fetched scenario ... Oh yeah! Now there is something the world was waiting for someone to invent! Hypocrites. I swear I am gonna fill a folder full of these meme images and then test to see how well SpyDrive presents all the "Metro Sucks" and "Windows 8 Blows" text. Windows 8.1 TV Ad Highlights Return of Start Button ( Tom's Hardware 2013-09-30 ) Another story from yesterday highlighted at TH, and again with a completely different reaction in the comments than at NeoWin. It is still hard to believe that they pulled this cynical stunt, practically a hoax, of "returning" the Start Button. The thing they returned only appeared in the Windows 8 betas and launches Metro. So right there is a blatant lie with respect to real customers that never saw a beta and only know the real Start Button. It's an astounding deception for those customers. But to those people actually familiar with the betas who tried like mad to communicate this disaster to Sinofsky and his team of destroyers, it is nothing short of a kick in the nuts. Microsoft: Kinect on Xbox One can listen to two people at once ( NeoWin 2013-09-30 ) Wanna impress me? Let's see it close caption text a person talking in realtime onto the screen. Let's see it realtime convert a person using sign language to text or voice output on the screen, and vice versa. The reason it can't do that is because they taught it far more important things like "Xbox On" and "Play Halo". EDIT: fixed icon, fixed spacing from ridiculously buggy IPB editor

Windows XP loses over 2% of OS share in September; Windows 8 makes slight gain ( NeoWin 2013-10-01 ) Windows 8 Continues to Make Gains as XP's Share Erodes ( Maximum PC 2013-10-01 ) That's exactly how misinformation gets around, all it takes is two bumbling ignorant fools that don't do their homework and just read the numbers given by a Microsoft shill. But one month ago it was revealed that NetMarketshare adjusted their methodology which removed some Windows XP computers from their tracking. It was a synthetic action which IMHO was clearly designed to benefit Microsoft's FUDfest to rid the world of Windows XP, the last popular pre-9/11 operating system. There is no way to honestly compare the numbers before and after July/August 2013 because they use different sampling, period. The fact that this is not prominently displayed by NetMarketshare ( like right on the graph ) reinforces my opinion that they are financial prostitutes, for sale to the highest bidder. I have rounded up all of the publicly available historical results from NetMarketshare and dumped them into a spreadsheet ... If anyone has any information of other methodology adjustments please let me know and I will update that spreadsheet and we will see if we can visualize anymore of their hanky panky.. NOTE: If you want all this data for yourself, here it is in CSV ... EDIT: added CSV

More Security news to give you heartburn ... Meet the machines that steal your phones data ( Ars Technica 2013-09-25 ) Details of the actual devices being sold to your government, whoops, I mean to us since we pay the bills for the spooks to spy on us. Real exhorbitant pricing naturally. N.S.A. Gathers Data on Social Connections of U.S. Citizens ( New York Times 2013-09-28 ) That's a very small sample of yet another long and detailed article from the Snowden spy leaks. Faces of Facebook is an interactive mashup of all 1.26 billion profiles ( TechSpot 2013-09-29 ) This is, well, umm, to be expected, I guess. If you open the page called The Faces Of Facebook it will construct a mad screenful of pixels that each are one of the 1,262,090,313 Facebook profile photos. Clicking on a pixel brings up that photo and a nearby ones, well, you get the idea. There's gonna be a lot of strangely upset people when they see that they are on this ( yes, also a lot of happy ones too ~sigh~ ). It's a brave new world. More thoughts on the Steam announcements ( links from TechSpot ) ... That's not a Steam console; it's a Steam PC ( Tech Report 2013-09-26 ) Making sense of Valves Steam Box: Windows vs. Linux, OpenGL vs. DirectX, and the impact of support from AMD & Nvidia ( ExtremeTech 2013-09-27 ) Analyzing Valves SteamOS, Steam Machines, and Steam Controller Announcements ( AnandTech 2013-09-28 ) Valve's Controller Has Been Tested. Here Are Some Impressions. ( Kotaku 2013-09-28 )

Nokia's cheapest Windows Phone now world's best-selling Windows product ( NeoWin 2013-09-29 ) Now that's what I call ironic. The #1 selling Windows device has nothing to do with "Windows" at all, either the platform ( x86 software ) or the GUI concept! Both WP and Windows ReTard Edition are truly Windows In Name Only. We can call them WINO Microsoft working on Kinect-based project to control Windows with gestures ( NeoWin 2013-09-29 ) That's kind of ironic too. They apparently spent all their efforts making Kinect into that creepy spycam that they completely forgot to program it for normal non-spying activities, like being a controller ... All in all a really great example of skewed prioritization. That spying ability was designed completely for the benefit of Big Hollywood and Big Media to let them cash in on even more pay/per scenarios even monitoring eyeballs and headcounts. Meanwhile the supposed real purpose of Kinect, as an input device was postponed. Way to go. Poll: Consumers significantly more likely to purchase PlayStation 4 than Xbox One ( NeoWin 2013-09-29 ) Well there's another reality check for the fanboys that will likely go over like a ton of bricks.

From the competition ... Valve plans to take the joy(sticks) out of games with Steam Controller ( UK Register 2013-09-27 ) Valve unveils Steam Controller, promises PC-like accuracy ( TechSpot 2013-09-27 ) Steam Controller announced by Valve ( PC Gamer 2013-09-27 ) Valve's Third and Final Reveal is a Steam Controller ( Maximum PC 2013-09-27 ) Valve's New Steam Controller Will Work With All Games ( Tom's Hardware 2013-09-27 ) Valve announces Steam Controller; unique gamepad with trackpads instead of joysticks ( NeoWin 2013-09-27 ) Some developers offer hands-on opinions on Steam Controller ( NeoWin 2013-09-28 ) Apparently a lot of people were expecting an announcement for Half-Life 3 and are disappointed that they got this instead. Looks very nice for a game controller IMHO, and different. If Valve puts their substantial muscle behind this I would say there is a very good chance for this completely new platform to take root, and that will mean a completely non-Microsoft option acting as true competition. Steam Family Sharing program starts for first 1,000 beta testers ( PC Gamer 2013-09-26 ) Steam Family Sharing program beta begins, email invitations being sent out ( TechSpot 2013-09-27 ) Holy crap, this thing is almost note-for-note identical to the cancelled rumored Xbox One sharing plan. Gabe and Valve are going straight after Microsoft's jugular now. Nvidia VP: Theres no way a 200-watt Xbox is going to beat a 1,000-watt PC ( PC Gamer 2013-09-26 ) I guess you can definitely chalk up nVidia into the pro-Linux column now. After taking a beating with Windows ReTard Edition on their ARM chips and then being passed over for Xbox it seems they have something to prove. A perfect storm of occurrences that only Microsoft could have helped accomplish. More reaction pieces ... Valve shows Linux love with SteamOS for gamers ( UK Register 2013-09-23 ) Paradox: SteamOS is a great thing for PC gaming, confirms CK2 and EU4 will run natively ( PC Gamer 2013-09-26 ) John Carmack shares thoughts on Steambox and AMDs Mantle ( PC Gamer 2013-09-27 ) Linux developer says focus on free OS will benefit both players and programmers ( PC Gamer 2013-09-27 ) Double Fine: Were rooting for Valve and SteamOS ( PC Gamer 2013-09-27 ) What is the SteamOS Game Operating System? ( Tom's Hardware 2013-09-27 ) Microsoft Keeping Close Eye on SteamOS, Steam Machines ( Tom's Hardware 2013-09-28 ) ( Just to get a overall feel for how this whole thing is shaping up. ) EDIT: typo

New commercial fails to differentiate between Surface 2, Surface Pro 2 ( NeoWin 2013-09-28 ) Wow! NeoWin just noticed that now? This was one of the very first things I remember saying after the ARM announcement over a year ago. This blurring of products which capitalizes upon the "Windows" name, reputation and capabilities is a clear FTC violation ( think of a pharmaceutical drug being cleverly marketed to imply that it cures something it doesn't ). It is just asking for a class-action lawsuit, oh waitaminit, those lawsuits are banned by EULA. That's two violations then. A third crime is the lack of disclaimer on all the touchy commercials not making clear that a touch-screen is needed ( think of the recent Apple waterproofing 4chan hoax ). They deserve to fry for all of three of these cynical and evil strategies that they willfully allow to confuse the sheeple and are actually designed to get customers under false pretenses. Contact the FTC if you want to make a difference. Microsoft doesn't want to support Windows 7 as long as Windows XP ( NeoWin 2013-09-28 ) Here's a NeoWin article via Paul Thurrott "Short Takes" ( also mentioned by TELVM just above ) about the recent Microsoft company meeting. No hard facts, just some vague promise to not let it happen again. So will there be a SP2 and SP3 for Windows 7? They ain't saying. Remember this day when you do a Windows 7 SP1 reinstall in 2018 and then you get sent to Windows Update for 1745 critical updates and 904 optional ones because that is pretty much what is going to happen provided Microsoft is still in the OS business or any business at that point. Tons of FUD in the comments as usual, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention this comment which lit a little fire inside one fanboy ... I will resist the urge to capitalize on that one due to the loss of life, so I'll just say that let us hope the postal service is also not undergoing a Windows 7 "upgrade". Windows 8.1 Ad Featuring Start Button ( Maximum PC 2013-09-28 ) New Windows 8.1 TV ad shows the Start button, small and big Live tiles and more ( NeoWin 2013-09-28 ) Ummmm, hey NeoKid, are you implying that customers were asking for a "Start Button" that brings up Metro? For real? You think so little of the customers that you believe they wanted a "Start Button" that copies the Windows key? How far these fanboys have sunk. So here's the advertisement, and I see that they did it again. They used transition after effects on the ad that will not appear in real life. Decorative transition effects that if they were actually part of the OS would have to be considered fluff, power-wasting, eye-candy, right? Right. Hypocrites. And false advertisers too. Microsoft reportedly making a single app store for Windows, Windows Phone ( NeoWin 2013-09-26 ) Microsoft working on single app store for Windows, Windows Phone ( TechSpot 2013-09-27 ) How wonderful. I made them a logo that they can use ... EDIT: oops, forgot to box up that quote!

Rumor: Ford CEO Alan Mulally the current leading candidate for Microsoft's next CEO ( NeoWin 2013-09-27 ) Fords Alan Mulally said to be the frontrunner for top job at Microsoft ( TechSpot 2013-09-27 ) Ford's Alan Mulally Could Be Next Microsoft CEO ( Tom's Hardware 2013-09-28 ) Meh. Break 'em up instead. ( I see just above Jorge also saw this story! ) NSA Head Grilled on Capitol Hill as Senators Hint at More Revelations ( Tom's Hardware 2013-09-26 ) Dog and Pony show. Softballs thrown, softballs hit. Move along, nothing to see here until the next spy revelation. Huge Identity-Theft Ring Exposed by Lone Security Researcher ( Tom's Hardware 2013-09-26 ) That cloud thing is just looking incredibly safe and useful. NOT. Microsoft got 37,196 law enforcement info requests in first half of 2013 ( NeoWin 2013-09-28 ) Jeez, check out NeoWin's article wording ... Ummm, why didn't they just say that 79% of the time they gave up some manner of user information. And 2.19% of the time they gave up everything. The comments are pretty sad as the NeoKids have convinced themselves that Microsoft's cloud design is like a safe, as secure as being in your own home. And yes, they really really believe that.

What the Surface 2 Teaches Us About Microsoft ( John Dvorak PC Magazine 2013-09-25 ) New Dvorak column. His part about 'extending the agony' is just so true! Rename Vista to Mojave or 7, rename RT to well, nothing, and in almost every case they press ahead like a stubborn mule. And it has always been true, even the oldest Windows annoyances get extended over time so naturally they are going to continue again. That second bit there about Ballmer is totally believable too. Ballmer Exits, Windows 8.1 Is Finished ( Thurrott 2013-09-26 ) First of all, as it turns out that is the worst title in history because he is not really saying what you think, he meant to say "completed". Still, this is a mostly rational piece but for one typical sloppy blunder ... While there is a lot of truth in there, there is a giant shadow darkening it because Paul Thurrott demonstrates the same cynical and devious ( and I would say criminal ) rationalization that his benefactor Microsoft utilizes - justifying that leveraging of the ubiquitous Windows presence thanks to a monopoly from backroom dealings to force Windows 8 into the public. THIS is the biggest crime of all, it is literally violating antitrust and should have no support from anyone including sycophants like Thurrott. Even the radical Playskool GUI pales in comparison to this obscenity. He also drifts off for a second into crazy land with this ... So with that bit he completely brushes off all of the detailed user complaints for well over two years, and in the exact same manner as Sinofsky in his censoring "Destroying Windows" blog. He brushes it off by simply ignoring it. This is why Thurrott is such a shill. Contrary to his protestations when he summons the courage to engage in comments, he reflexively is a shill when push comes to shove. His entire article makes some good, if obvious points, and then he himself takes a mulligan on the big one - the murdered desktop. Keep playing dumb Paul. EDIT: fixed spacing from error-ridden IPB editor

NOTE: I hope this isn't a double post but this one seems to somehow have gotten eaten. Strange! Dell drops Windows RT, only Microsoft remains selling the OS ( NeoWin 2013-09-25 ) Is Dell not out of the Windows RT business after all? ( NeoWin 2013-09-25 ) Did they or didn't they bail? That is the question. We'll find out soon enough but in the meantime enjoy the funeral procession in that first thread comment section. Microsoft Goes After iPhone Users with Minimum $200 Trade Offer Towards a Windows Phone ( Maximum PC 2013-09-26 ) Report: Microsoft to Pay iPhone Users to Trade-in Phones ( Tom's Hardware 2013-09-26 ) Rumor: Microsoft to launch iPhone cash trade-in program Friday ( NeoWin 2013-09-26 ) This has got to be the most novel approach of gaining marketshare. Has anyone ever tried this before? Buying the competing PRODUCTS rather than the competitor itself! Maybe we'll see a stunt similar to that one in the 1980's when someone hauled a boatload of Seagate hard drives out into the ocean. Microsoft to delay Surface mini launch until early 2014 ( TechSpot 2013-09-26 ) It's hard to believe that they are actually planning to go up against Nexus and iPad 7 inch devices at all! Out of all the strategic possibilities they could ponder this simply has to be the one with the most predictable result. Bill Gates: using Ctrl-Alt-Del as a login command was a mistake ( TechSpot 2013-09-26 ) Bill Gates Says Control-Alt-Delete Was a "Mistake," Points the Finger at IBM ( Maximum PC 2013-09-26 ) Bill Gates: Making people press Ctrl+Alt+Del to log into Windows 'was a mistake' ( NeoWin 2013-09-26 ) ~yawn~ no Bill, that wasn't your mistake. The real problem was not designing an extremely low-level hook tying CTRL-ALT-DEL to a non-maskable interrupt. From the beginning of DOS and right through to this very day it is still possible for Windows or a hosted application to scramble kernel code and lock out the keyboard entirely requiring a warmboot and sometimes a coldboot. This could also have been solved at the chip level if Intel and IBM had thought to design a separate pushbutton that doesn't warmboot and signals the OS to display a maintenance menu. I used to opine for a larger interrupt controller with more than the typical 16 ( being generous ) signals seen for so many years. Even with the modern dynamic APIC's there still are situations where collisions or lockups occur. They have always been doing this particular critical function on the cheap. Of course none of this would be necessary if the OS disn't seize up in the first place. EDIT: typo

I would agree with that advice. Two realtime antivirus applications that actually worked correctly would lead to a race condition and 100% CPU as they each battled each others' "suspicious" cloaked background processes. Having said that, you already know my advice for savvy non-sheeple, no realtime antivirus, a hardware firewall in NAT router, not using MSIE and switching the default browser to something else. Keeping a separate HDD mirror of the main drive, incrementally updated, ready to drop in as a replacement at a moment's notice covers the worst case scenario. Funny thing is, I never get to that worst case scenario. It's all FUD IMHO. Regaining 100% CPU is the main benefit, because so many Windows annoyances are harder to pinpoint when you have these extra tasks, autoruns, services and processes as variables to almost impossibly rule out as the root cause of a crash or slow or unresponsive application. But other benefits include less programs that are autoupdating ( MSSE seems to have new definitions every single night ) and the pay-for suites always seem to be updating engines, probably to either justify their subscription price or simply to thwart people from non-paying somehow. Another crazy thing is that when they try to protect your online activities such as scanning attachments it usually means that it first downloads everything locally, then scans them and finally deletes them. A lot of security professionals don't even realize this, instead believing it somehow remotely scans whatever server is holding the attachments, which is crazy because running software on the server side ( pretty much taboo and impossible anyway due to the variety of online server hardware and software ) would be even dumber than on your PC. Protecting you from malicious websites is another farce because it often means pre-visiting all the links on the webpage you happen to be looking at, and there are even worse ideas than that involving using your browser history and a predictive algorithm to guess what you might do. Performance, bandwidth, privacy, security ... everything is taking a severe hit. Most of these suites monitor your own file access so that when you click on a folder or insert a flashdrive it first scans and "cleans" it and then finally allows you to do what you wanted to do a moment ago. It is a maddening way to work. They routinely wipe out utilities like NirSoft ( almost anything that is or looks like UPX is routinely quarantined ) and open ZIPs and RARs as well. The biggest nightmare is when you go to play a game or do something highly CPU bound like diff'ing drives full of files or do audio, photo and video processing. There is no reason on Earth for some crazy set of processes to be watching and chaperoning these local tasks when that local disk is already supposedly clean because of the antivirus suite. Almost none of these antivirus have a useful "game mode" or "expert mode" anyway. Well, their definition is pretty loose about this, my definition is the easy ability to disable the thing, perhaps right from the systray. As it stands every one causes you to go through a different set of hoops to "disable" it, and even then check out AutoRuns and ProcExp to see that it is not really disabled at all. If we had 8 core 10 GHz CPUs with the ability to assign a core or two to service these stupid antivirus suites it would be more tolerable. But even that wouldn't help regain lost I/O bandwidth from them opening and scanning gigantic archives, and nothing will save the lost networking bandwidth which is the narrowest bottleneck for most people.

Hi FF, Sorry I didn't mention your posting that first, you must have got in here as I was proofing those last four comments! It takes a lot longer now thanks to this insane IPB editor that changes the content with each pass. Unbelievable story though.

And from the competition, the 2nd of three Valve announcements ... Valve's Steam Box made official as 'Steam Machines', beta coming soon, final hardware in early 2014 ( TechSpot 2013-09-25 ) Valve's Second Big Reveal is a Steam Box Prototype with Third Party Steam Machines to Follow ( Maximum PC 2013-09-25 ) Valve announces Steam Machines, coming in 2014 from multiple hardware manufacturers ( PC Gamer 2013-09-25 ) Valve announces Steam Machines; opens beta testing sign-ups ( NeoWin 2013-09-25 ) Valve Reveals Steam Machines Program, Protoype Testing ( Tom's Hardware 2013-09-25 ) Nvidia pledge to help Linuxs open source driver community ( PC Gamer 2013-09-25 ) Nvidia Played a Part in SteamOS Development ( Tom's Hardware 2013-09-25 ) NVIDIA helping Valve with SteamOS development ( NeoWin 2013-09-25 ) Some Reaction pieces ... Multiple Manufacturers May Confuse Steam Machine Buyers ( Tom's Hardware 2013-09-25 ) Valves SteamOS and Steam Machines announcements: developers react ( PC Gamer 2013-09-25 ) Ken Levine: SteamOS is a brave and powerful idea ( PC Gamer 2013-09-25 ) Lots of confused commenters, mostly at NeoWin who see threats against their Xbox under every rock, but they are blind to what is pretty obvious to me. Rather than a single Valve "product", a SteamBox, Valve has chosen to put its weight behind something completely different, a new "platform". That makes it comparable to the concept of a Windows platform which became a reality in the wake of the late 1980's PC wars around 1990-1993 with Win3x. The difference between a computer and a platform is clearly lost on fanboys of any particular device but I think it is a stroke of genius myself. Using upgradeable parts, hardware and software, the Steam boxes and OS already have rolled back the very thing that Microsoft has been fighting for, planned obsolescence for both. By getting both nVidia and AMD to cooperate they have performed a miracle it seems and only Microsoft could bring about all these events. A "platform" actually is about the future, unlike Microsoft's cynical walled garden dreams, those very dreams that Gabe has famously commented against, so now his remarks come into focus. A lot of people discounted what he said thinking he was just making a competing console, but the real plan was to start a new platform that could grow on its own. Another stroke of genius here is the concept of streaming any PC or Mac ( or PS4 or Xbox ) to a user's SteamBox whether or not it was purchased or built from scratch. You can think of this as transitional backwards compatibility during the period that sees the selfish walled gardens hopefully fail under their own weight. What is not said is also very important - and that is that the SteamBox or GameBox, an upgradeable non walled Garden being Steam-based, is a fertile platform for eventual Linux non-gaming growth. It is not hard to imagine a few killer non-gaming apps being used here natively and then the exodus from the lock-ins can begin. One successful email program, one killer office suite and one good web browser will siphon off a lot of the sheeple that Microsoft is exploiting. That is true competition. The question then becomes will Microsoft do the smart thing and kill its illegal walled garden fantasies? I doubt it. That last article with the thoughts of one developer is very good. It is quite interesting to follow the thoughts of the devs as they process this early information just two days into the new platform reveal. This is a bit like the Windows 3.0 period in 1990 IMHO, nothing was truly certain back then until Win32, WFW and Windows 3.1 finally sealed the deal by 1993.

eBay agrees to buy PayPal competitor Braintree for $800 million ( TechSpot 2013-09-26 ) And the regulatory agencies of the world continue to snooze. Consolidation baby, that's the ticket. Joke Of The Day winner ... iPhone users fall for fake iOS 7 'waterproof feature' ad, rage ensues ( NeoWin 2013-09-25 ) I'm sorry but that is simply hysterical. Imagine what they can do to the MicroZealots and MetroTards. RealNetworks launches RealPlayer Cloud, cross-platform storage and video playback service ( TechSpot 2013-09-25 ) Could you possibly set about to design a worse nightmare than this! Every bad idea rolled into one. Okay, now remember how RealPlayer pioneered the concept of taking away user privacy in return for some lame tradeoff ( a crappy media player that was the only one to show those .rv and .ra files ) and see where it has led to ... Facebook Sparks Debate on Right to Use Teens in Ads ( Tom's Hardware 2013-09-25 ) Facebook is like Real Networks on steroids. They're doing everything and more and rubbing your nose in it. What a disaster. And the compliant sheeple will drag us right down the toilet bowl with them Yahoo! Users Receiving Emails Meant for Past Users ( Tom's Hardware 2013-09-25 ) Who didn't foresee this? Well apparently Yahoo didn't. It's like we are living in CrazyLand now. It's like people actually need to stick their hands into the stove to see if it burns. When something is so obvious and is right in front of your face and yet we still need to go through the motions to see it through, well, humanity is doomed. Why don't we all drink some cyanide next?

Microsoft trying to keep its top execs with bonuses of up to 150 percent ( NeoWin 2013-09-25 ) They spin this as trying to keep their execs from being poached by other companies but there is a bit of closing the barn door after the horses have going on here. Google and Amazon and others have already picked off lots of talent, the formerly loyal employees who cared about Microsoft and Windows and their hard fought reputation. Secondly, Ballmer himself has depleted the ranks in almost Stalinesque fashion by removing any possible challenger to his throne. Between the exodus and Ballmer's manipulations they have the lightest bench of any company. Now what do they do? Throw money around for show. Report: Nokia asked Stephen Elop to reduce his bonus but he refused ( NeoWin 2013-09-25 ) Wow, just when you thought things couldn't get any more strange! I still don't get how you ride a golden parachute into the company that is buying you. If Microsoft promotes Elop to anything, let alone CEO, they are finished. It will be among the dumbest moves in history. What they should do is fire him. He makes Ballmer and Sinofsky look competent and has nowhere near their experience in the company. Oh, and just check out this insane fanboy logic ... Nokia hints PureView brand could be dropped with Microsoft acquisition ( NeoWin 2013-09-26 ) The information is still sparse here but it is enough to get the fanboys worrying. PureView is one of the primary talking points that they trumpet in every 'MicroNokia versus the world' argument they engage in. Things are not so clear-cut now for their superiority complex. Microsoft: Security Essentials provides "baseline" protection ( NeoWin 2013-09-26 ) High level my butt. Any level threat is more like it from what I have seen. In truth though, MSE ( ummm wouldn't "MSSE" be a more logical acronym? ) is probably no worse than anyone else out there. They all demand that you sacrifice a huge chunk of CPU performance on realtime protection and yet you still get infected or compromised. The comments naturally are full of clueless sheeple who just happen to be the target audience for MSSE anyway. Many are on about the "a hardware firewall is no protection". Where do these people come from? A hardware firewall is no protection for sheeple, that is true, but it is a critical layer. Meanwhile the customer machines pile up here containing malware to be removed. Keep up the good work Microsoft, and AVG, and Norton, and Intel/McAfee, and Avira, and ...

Thanks for the report! Any other changes worth considering? Features missing, GUI differences, licensing?

Microsoft relents: 'Go ahead, install Windows 8.1 on clean PCs' ( UK Register 2013-09-17 ) Almost forgot this one from earlier. Another bit of backtracking that I believe shows they are coming to the realization that the "team" botched up every possible thing from top to bottom, including the basics like making it difficult to install the thing in the first place. My guess is that the Start Menu and Aero Glass are also on the itinerary, we just haven't been told yet ( which is itself the most egregious of their countless mistakes ). Like I said just above, the board shouldn't have stopped with Ballmer, the entire strategic braintrust that gambled with the mighty "Windows" reputation should be fired. Then they should fire themselves for negligence for allowing this last 2.5 years of disasters. Devices + Services? What About Software? Is Microsoft's devices and services strategy just a pipe dream? ( Thurrott 2013-09-24 ) Thurrott is back on the seesaw, this time making almost perfect sense. Literally he writes a column that IMHO is entirely comprehensible and accurate, unlike that ridiculous article a week ago. I won't bother quoting it since it pretty much is one continuous, cohesive read that others should check out for themselves. EDIT: fixed spacing from defective IPB editor