CharlotteTheHarlot

OMG I just LOVE this story! It's astounding! ... Parallels Desktop 9 for Mac adds Start menu and windowed apps to Windows 8 ( NeoWin 2013-08-29 ) Here is some text and photos taken right from their YouTube announcement ... A classic Start Menu, windowed apps, and functional external storage unified in the Explorer interface. Parallels went right for the jugular! The only way to make Windows 8 work correctly is to use a Mac! This is even more effective than the "I'm A Mac" series of ads during the Vista era and Apple presumably didn't have to lift a finger this time! But wait, it gets better. The fanboys are mad enough to chew Neutronium ... There are no details yet that I can find but either Parallels have written their very own special code or incorporated several utilities from Stardock. Either way it is impressive that they targeted those exact, specific gaping holes in Microsoft's strategy, mistakes that they were warned about for over two full years. The only thing that Parallels does not yet address is the ridiculous removal of Aero glass effects and the other visuals of Windows 7 that Microsoft idi0tically destroyed. Parallels has made Macs more useful than PC's! Now there is a sentence I never thought I would be saying. EDIT: typo, spacing

If you want to really make a difference here is what you can do. Call or write letters ( not email ) to all the involved parties. Gigabyte, Asus, MSI, AMD, Intel ( ... etc ). Tell them to continue supplying drivers for Windows XP and 2003 ( aka Windows 5.1 and 5.2 ) and NOT just Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 ( aka Windows 6.0, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3 ). Remind them that Windows XP accounts for fully 1/3 of all Windows installations. Here's some telemetry they can chew on: If they total up all of Vista and Windows 8 computers and then multiply it by four it is still less than Windows XP. Economically it makes no sense to support Vista or Windows 8. How would their shareholders feel about this sort of fiscal mismanagement? Also mention that by following Microsoft's will they are complicit in their cynical planned obsolescence, willing co-conspirators with a convicted monopolist to obsolete perfectly working current hardware and future hardware. Tell them that you will be contacting your government representatives and asking them to once again punish Microsoft for predatory and monopolistic practices and will be suggesting that all collaborators should also be investigated and punished. They play hardball in their backroom deals, it is time for the customers to do the same. EDIT: typo

Microsoft: YES Windows 8.1 is finished, but NO you can't have it. It's for hardware partners only for eight more weeks ( UK Register 2013-08-27 ) Why Teflon Ballmer had to go: He couldn't shift crud from Windows 8, Surface. Revolting shareholders poised to glom on to Microsoft's non-stick CEO ( UK Register 2013-08-28 ) Decidedly non-sycophantic articles to balance out the fluff from Thurrott, NeoWin and The Verge. Not related really but I found another picture I made but forgot to use ... ( Original Photo Here ) NB: Season 8 for sure.

Very good. At that article at Tom's Hardware ( and others ) they quote some of the marketdroid babble that dribbles out of Microsoft at every opportunity. WTF is that supposed to even mean? They seem to be saying that people are computing 24/7 nowadays therefore we needed to ... what? ... Come up with a more imprecise schedule with ambiguous information for everyone involved, especially the developers they supposedly covet to get their app store up to par. That last part, "need, want and expect" is just random soothing words snatched from the marketeers playbook padded to every communication to appear friendly. But when I see them I immediately think of huge unfriendly bureaucracy. It is yet another consequence of their siege mentality from living in an insulated bubble. They communicate on a phony level in a contrived and condescending manner bordering on childish. The people they are actually communicating to are not the mass of sheeple though, they are not here reading these daily issues and controversies. No, the people here are exactly the ones they should not try to bullsh!t because they can see right through it. Developers especially should not be trifled with at this point in time.

Windows XP patches can be made after April 8th, but they will be pricey ( NeoWin 2013-08-28 ) Oh look, another FUDfest with the NeoKids pontificating from their parents' basements. Microsoft Denying Developers Access to Windows 8.1 RTM ( Tom's Hardware 2013-08-28 ) Good headline. Developers Developers Developers indeed. Microsoft uses Bing and SkyDrive to extract text from images ( NeoWin 2013-08-28 ) Microsoft has invented I mean refined OCR. They will be "extracting" text from images stored on SpyDrive probably for purposes of categorization. Okay, I'll bite. Extract this: ( Original Photo Here ) EDIT: added original photo source ( Season 7 Jaclaz, IIRC ), typo

If I may, that effect is more often provoked by cheap booze, not cognac. They were most probably high on moonshine . You may be right, especially considering their actions, but I have this image in my mind of them sipping sissy drinks, maybe Dom or Cristal in snifter glasses. I do retract mentioning Cognac though, because it is strong enough to be considered near-Whiskey which we all know is what real men and women drink when they are out of beer. Boolean operations according to Microsoft: AND is deprecated, please apply one XOR to all previous working code and be sure to use OR for all future projects. Thank you, your product development management team. P.S. did Google just destroy the Google Images interface? Also, they seem to be messing with YouTube also, see here. EDIT: added link EDIT2: Google images is okay now, I had the Opera preference Identify as Internet Explorer set and it serves a radically different page, one with 20 images in small captioned thumbnails instead of a densely packed page. Can someone else using Opera test to see if it happens to them also? Very strange thing.

UPDATE: oops, scratch everything I wrote earlier! ... Here's what happened. Using Opera there is a preference setting for browser identity. I have this preference in a dropdown box at the bottom of the screen and accidentally changed it "Internet Explorer". Setting it back to "Opera" corrected everything including Flash videos at YouTube and also Google Images. I don't know if this applies to the original poster or not, but if you are using Opera check out the preferences. It's possible that you do NOT have this in your preferences as it seems to be well hidden these days, in this case you can go to Tools > Appearance > Buttons > Preferences and add a dropdown box to a toolbar like I did ( it is very convenient ). This is what mine looks like ... ... To use it you just click on it to change the identity and then press F5 to refresh the page ( it re-requests it from the server using the new identity so the server then returns a page based on that identity if the page author used browser sniffing to send different pages ). P.S. If the OP is not using Opera then I apologize for the digression! EDIT: spacing

Troubleshooting must be done logically. First, rule out the network and its hardware ( broadband service, router, cables, etc ). You can just drop another PC in place of his using the exact same ethernet wire as is. Change nothing else. If the problem is still there and identical then it is a network issue and then I would try a bunch of things like removing everything from the router but his wire, a different jack on the router, reset the router and ISP modem, a new ethernet cable to the router, etc. If the problem is NOT seen on a different PC then you know it is either a hardware issue on his computer or a local software problem. Lots of possibilities here ( Hardware: overheating, flaky power supply, noisy or defective fans, BIOS messed up, etc; Software: a million possible Windows issues ). They key here is to not even start messing with those "local" things until you rule out the first item - networking. Only if you definitely see another PC work perfectly should you begin changing things wholesale on that computer.

NYT, Twitter and HuffPo Attacked by Syrian Electronic Army ( Wall Street Journal 2013-08-27 ) New York Times website likely taken down by malicious attack ( CNBC 2013-08-27 ) Oh great. How much you wanna bet that this will result in more calls for enhanced security leading to even more reduced privacy! Microsoft to hold financial analyst meeting Sept. 17; press "are not invited" ( NeoWin 2013-08-27 ) ( mentioned by FiveAcres ) You think the fanboys are starting to worry yet? They should be. They got some rough months ahead, each day waking up and looking at NeoWin articles just waiting for the bad news of which of their pet programs is terminated with extreme prejudice. Microsoft: Windows 8.1 has hit RTM; no early access for MSDN or TechNet ( NeoWin 2013-08-27 ) And the hit parade continues! Developers Developers Developers indeed! "Save TechNet" petition reaches 10,000 signatures as August 31st deadline looms ( NeoWin 2013-08-27 ) Ain't gonna help. Haven't you heard ... There's that telemetry again! A "usage shift" my butt. We have an exact repeat of the Start Menu fiasco. I mean, does that quoted logic even make sense? So some people use free evaluation ( but not all obviously ) so they kill TechNet. Using that logic, if people buy lots more iPads than Surfaces ( 14 million vs 300K last quarter ) then they clearly should cancel them too! Using that logic, if most Windows 8 users bypass Metro and use the desktop ( and they do ) they should kill Metro This usage of telemetry is really just confirmation bias. They have it in their minds and in their plans to do away with TechNet. Then they see some people using "free evaluation" releases and their bias and hopes are confirmed, thus they can kill it with comfortable self-assurance. Microsoft's VP of communications says media coverage has been too harsh lately ( NeoWin 2013-08-28 ) Oh boo hoo. They're picking on us. There's that famous siege mentality again. Their bubble logic from living in a bubble. It is clear that they are never gonna heal themselves from within, they are way too insulated and self-enabling. Their only hope is a team of outsiders coming in and bulldozing out this toxic atmosphere.

Yep. I mentioned a few posts back that this 1-5 system, the so-called "stack ranking" has been around. It actually came from GE and Jack Welch IIRC. I saw it inside IBM in the 1980's and 1990's back when there were all these copycat methodologies making the rounds in Fortune 500 companies. Stuff from Deming, Six Sigma, and JIT ( Just In Time ) manufacturing. They always pop up during recessions and are only designed to make the company look good to Wall Street so the stock market gamblers can run up the stock price enabling the lucky few to jump out of the plane with a golden parachute and a soft landing. What these chic tactics do to the actual employees is an entirely different matter however. It is poison. Microsoft's implementation of stock ranking looks exactly like one would expect from a bureaucratic monstrosity, an absurd system with even less merit than the others. In fact, "merit" seems to be completely lacking. If there are actual quotas, and all these reports describe exactly that, then "merit" does not even exist. Nothing could possibly be worse than quotas, i.e., a set number of 1's, 2's ... 5's. I worked alongside department managers and employees that were actual well-earned 1's and 2's ( and naturally there were some "loads" also, definite 5's ). Here's what is strange about quotas and what it will destroy - If I were a manager, I would want my department of say 20 people to all be 1's. I would sit them down and tell them that is what I want and let them know what they need to do to accomplish exactly that. If a few were sick a lot, or tardy, or whatever then that's the way the ball bounces, but I would still try to achieve it. It would be good for the company and good for the employees and I would get to tell my next level manager that I got my department to all 1's so it would be good for me. Microsoft's insane system nips this possibility in the bud. I could never imagine anything so thoroughly counter-productive! Trying to get my department to all 1's does NOT cause competition or infighting or backstabbing between the department employees, in fact it does the opposite fostering cooperation. Microsoft's ridiculous quotas means you have to backstab and step over the others. It is patently absurd! These stories, especially the ones mentioned by Formfiller and over at TechBroil ... Microsoft has become everything it 'despised,' insiders tell Vanity Fair ( NetworkWorld 2012-07-06 ) Microsoft employee on stack ranking and its 'most universally hated exec' ( NetworkWorld 2012-07-12 ) Meet 'The Most Universally Hated Exec' At Microsoft: Lisa Brummel ( BusinessInsider 2012-07-12 ) Microsoft Is Filled With Abusive Managers And Overworked Employees, Says Tell-All Book ( BusinessInsider 2012-05-23 ) ... also point out another amazing situation. Apparently these ongoing review periods last about 3 months, twice a year. Simple math means that employees are free to do their jobs one half the time! 6 months of every year is all they have without this office Realpolitik influencing their every move. This is corporate suicide plain and simple. It's no wonder the place is a mess.

First, the good "news" (if that's what it is): And now for the bad news (if that's what it is): Stay tuned: I do believe that source if he is talking about a best case scenario roadmap. However, there is equal chance that such plans will be discarded completely. If an outside team enters Redmond, an external CEO with non-sycophantic staff then almost anything can happen. Just imagine if WP after two or three more quarters is at 3% or less. That will be a huge red mark just crying out for action, and anything might happen including selling it off to Nokia just as an example. Xbox red ink? Kiss it goodbye especially if they look back at its books for the last 10 or 12 years. Even consumer Windows itself might find itself on the auction block. The whole cloud thing really is murky. Any number of future events could tarnish it beyond repair. For all we know it may already be unraveling considering the current spy scandals not to mention the next round of leaks. Besides, pure cloud Windows is an impossibility really. Computers from a retailer shipped to a customer need to work out of the box. The logistics of a cloud-based retail desktop is ridiculous. The only workable solution is a firmware based version of core Windows embedded, that boots okay but connects online incessantly to do anything useful. This is the ultimate shoehorning of a tablet into a workstation and really means the end of x86. I just can't see Intel and AMD going along for the ride. If they are invited to Microsoft's party, rather than ARM ( on the desktop ) then there is local storage and local x86 applications and it is not really cloud-based anyway. If they are not invited then Windows will die as Intel and AMD move to Linux or release their own operating systems. Like i said, that source is citing some optimistic fantasy roadmap hatched in the Redmond Ivory Towers probably while Ballmer and Sinofsky were drinking Cognac. They still believed they ruled the world even as that world was closing in on them. Microsoft simply has no more weight to throw around. Any strong-arm threats they make will be met by resistance from OEMs now, not to mention governments eager to knock them down a few more pegs. If Dell, HP and Lenovo go down, others will take their place and build computers. I think everyone will see these Microsoft plans as a self-serving plot only to pad their own wallets some more.

No need. I was referring to post #15 above which I tried to reconstruct from memory from no backup. Your helpful post above at #18 gave me the actual content that was lost. Thanks again.

@Bad boy Warrior ... Thanks! I completely forgot about that notification facility because I always opt-out ( less email ). So it sends you all posts added to the thread except your own, right? I see that the one I "recreated from memory" was hardly complete. I'll edit it later, maybe.

A little more info on this ... Read through the article at Ocaholic ( there are multiple pages ) for testing results and a very thorough explanation. Here is their summary ... It looks like we can officially say that Windows 7 and Windows 8 have a significant architectural difference, with the latter breaking a core function in order to cater to mobile devices. That core function is the predictability and reliability of a constant realtime baseline and it was done by decoupling certain time routines from reality. Yes, it takes certain conditions to establish this disconnect but that is no excuse whatsoever, on the contrary it is the definition of an unreliable quasi-race condition illustrative of sloppy design and testing. This operating system cannot be considered for any serious use, god forbid it ever sees the inside of NASA, the defense department, scientific lab, hospital, health-care or medical center. Windows 8 overclock-related RTC bug isolated and fixed ( TechSpot 2013-08-26 ) A programmer of great reputation is on the case, Franck Delattre, author of CPU-Z and other highly regarded utilities. Once again, the headline is incorrect as this issue is not "fixed", but merely "understood". The bug lies in Windows 8 and will remain there unless Microsoft undoes the damage they have introduced from their mobile-centric tunnel-vision mindset.

Sprint quickly cuts prices of both of its new Windows Phone 8 devices ( NeoWin 2013-08-26 ) Possible sign of WP sales trouble ... Ya think? Wait until the January 1 marketshare report to see what Android and iPhone holiday sales do to WP ( and Windows itself ). I don't think it will be pretty. Then you will have new management coming into Microsoft soon thereafter. Fanboys are going to be sweating every moment going forward waiting for the other shoe to drop, praying that their little MicroToys are not spectacularly canceled as has happened before. I almost feel sorry for these guys. Almost. But then I see them commenting in the next article and despise them all over again ... Chinese Windows 8.1 RTM screenshots allegedly show new default wallpaper ( NeoWin 2013-08-26 ) Classic example of fanboy logic found in an argument between two MetroTards over the alleged new wallpaper and appearance of Windows 8.1 Blew ... Wait, what! Windows XP has a theme that takes mere clicks to completely change! The interface is compartmentalized from the appearance. Your Playskool operating system is designed from the ground up to be a "Fisher-Price" toy. Oh that just burns me up. And with such irony too. So I made a graphic ... ( Originals: 1, 2 )

Time for another plug for this thread at Mini-Microsoft ... They are up to 275 comments in this thread now, the majority are probably from current Microsoft employees. As an outsider it is fascinating reading, both this thread after the Ballmer announcement and the previous one about Sinofsky's firing. Between the two of them there are 536 comments which help to put the larger issue of Microsoft itself into focus, rather than the smaller issue of Windows and other products. There are many anecdotes that shine a light on the inner workings and toxic atmosphere at Baby Blue. Here's one example ... I can tell you one thing. This looks like a repeat of what happened to IBM in the late 1980's to early 1990's which I personally witnessed weekly and even daily right inside two of their largest plants as a consultant. It is a pure form of the Peter Principle because once employees start clocking up years there is nowhere to go but middle management really, there just are not enough spots in upper positions to accommodate everyone. Consequently the large mass of humans making up the bottom 90% will fight mercilessly for those few slots and it is inevitable that backstabbing and butt kissing become their main weapons. Ironically, if I recall correctly IBM even had a nearly identical ranking system with 1-5 scoring. Good and bad managers were known by name, the resultant reviews directly corresponded to the manager's competency and integrity, so the morale of a department was directly related. It is hard to believe that a better system could not be developed in all these years since. Either they will bring in new blood that will do what this and many other commenters are suggesting, that is, tear the system down, fire all the posers and start over, or they will follow IBM down the road to oblivion (*). What they did at Big Blue was massively hire overseas and layoff here at home, then they shifted more to cloud and services. The likelihood is probably a Baby Blue repeat. (*) "Oblivion" is a relative term. In IBM's case, they still exist and are a huge corporation but the plants I mentioned are shells of their former selves, where they used to have tens of thousands at these sites and every single parking spot taken is now a ghost town. Most importantly, every single trace of the PC division is gone, sold off to a Chinese company called Lenovo, as if the 1980's PC boom never even existed! Project that result onto Microsoft and the equivalent is Windows ruined and then sold off to someone else. One thing is for sure IMHO, the best thing that could have happened for everyone involved is for Microsoft to have been split up as ordered by the 2000-06-07 judgment, sending the Windows division off elsewhere, far away from the politics and the marketing knuckleheads up in Redmond. The result could have been a neutral Windows operating system that considers both "3rd parties" and Microsoft software -equally- as customers with no advantageous collaboration between Microsoft software and that operating system allowed. Look what we have now!

Thank you for reconstructing (or pasting back in) many of your original posts. It's amazing that you were able to more-or-less rebuild, from memory, some of the longer ones. Me, if i write something and then it goes *poof*, I can never reconstruct it as well as the first time -- the inspiration is gone. Second time around it comes off mechanical, warmed over. --JorgeA Actually I had copies of most of them, it was just a couple where I mentioned "recreated from memory" that were missing completely. That was because I still forget to "save" the page from Opera after posting a quick shorter comment. EDIT: I should add here a note to you ( Jorge ) that while fighting with this editor for that previous post upthread I noticed that it tries to embed YouTube videos when the URL is simply pasted as text into the comment! That kind makes my earlier post about using {media} tags a moot point. In fact, it seems to do it even when changing HTTP to HxxP and H**P. We'll have to do a more thorough experiment of all the possibilities to see what this editor logic looks like. All I know is that it was a pain to NOT embed that link in that quote.

Windows 8 RTC Bug analyzed and fixed! ( Ocaholic 2013-08-22 ) HWBot now banning Windows 8 benchmarks from AMD as well ( NeoWin 2013-08-26 ) They mean "fixed" in the sense of "understood", NOT "corrected" because it has not been corrected at all. In fact I do not believe Microsoft has even acknowledged this mistake yet, they certainly have not gotten back to NeoWin who asked for comment. Ocaholic has identified the software and hardware timers that affect one another and how to create the situation(s) that lead to time errors. Read through the article at Ocaholic ( there are multiple pages ) for testing results and a very thorough explanation. Here is their summary ... It looks like we can officially say that Windows 7 and Windows 8 have a significant architectural difference, with the latter breaking a core function in order to cater to mobile devices. That core function is the predictability and reliability of a constant realtime baseline and it was done by decoupling certain time routines from reality. Yes, it takes certain conditions to establish this disconnect but that is no excuse whatsoever, on the contrary it is the definition of an unreliable quasi-race condition illustrative of sloppy design and testing. This operating system cannot be considered for any serious use, god forbid it ever sees the inside of NASA, the defense department, scientific lab, hospital, health-care or medical center.

I gotta give mad props to Formfiller who has been busy mopping the floors with MicroZealots at MSDN's Channel 9 ( saw it mentioned at TechBroil ). WM6 Dejavu ( Channel 9 2013-08-2x ) The part I love is when they are discussing Pokki being added in-factory to Lenovo PC's ( you know that just burns them up ) and the Zealots start saying things like 'they always did this kind of thing' or implying that adding Pokki does NOT really mean the lack of a Start Menu is significant. Check out the logic from these people ... Formfiller him destroys this with ... Here comes another ... See the pattern in their thinking? Formfiller stomps him with ... It was an experimental product made by a first timer, full with "multimedia" and "3D" buzzwords (remember those hypes?). Marketed like a "Sony appliance". Absolutely not comparable the biggest Windows OEM veteran replacing "Microsoft's biggest bet" on their established computer products. By the way, scan from the Vaio manual: http://www.manualowl.com/m/Sony/PCV-90/Manual/61874 Highlights again how NOT comparable the comparison is. That's gonna leave a mark. One of the 'Tards has somehow seen fit to declare victory ... Wait what? I see plenty of "provided examples" but they are clearly mopping the floor with you guys! Somehow Formfiller keeps his patented patience ... He hasn't gotten around to addressing this one yet but now a self-identified Softie has added a ridiculous comment showing himself completely clueless to the entire point here ... Yes, you certainly don't understand it at all. They are adding, in this case Pokki, to fix that glaring error identified and warned about over two years ago. The fact that you associate a replacement Start Menu as "crap" boxes you into MicroBox thinking, where the world revolves only around you and your little universe of 100,000 fellow arrogant Softies trying to decide what end-users should see on their PC screen and how they use their own property. What you cannot comprehend is that the software isn't there to drum up a cash return, no, it is to help sell the d*mn thing in the first place because your playskool Windows 8 is killing their sales. Furthermore, he does not understand historically why so much OEM crapware was installed in the first place. Big box makers have typically collected razor thin margins on these PC's they have sold, I've heard sometimes as small as $50 to $100 on a $500 to $1000 computer. They collected their profits which pale in comparison to Microsoft through high volume. Microsoft meanwhile was also taking an equal sized chunk from the final shipped computer from the "Microsoft Tax" ( the license for the installed copy of Windows ). And to make matters worse for the OEM they completely offloaded all responsibility for that copy of Windows to the OEM who got to field all inevitable the phone calls and questions about both the hardware and OS. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that a single return or refund or support incident could eat up the entire OEM profit margin in one shot. It's a miracle that anyone bothers to build and ship a computer under these circumstances. And we're not even addressing the shady backroom deals and monopolistic strong-arming that got us to this place. What a scam Microsoft has pulled over the OEMs. They physically manufacture and assemble the entire computer, doing all the work, stocking and shipping and fielding returns and irate phone calls and they receive a small profit while Microsoft gets to sit back and rake in the dough sitting on their butts. Anyway, good job FF! EDIT: fighting with the IPB editor to not embed those two quoted YouTube links!

Reports indicate Windows 8.1 has hit RTM stage ( TechSpot 2013-08-25 ) Screenshot shows Windows 8.1 at build 9600; no leak yet ( NeoWin 2013-08-25 ) ~yawn~ Now that's funny right there!

;;;;;; THIS WAS A POST LOST IN THE ROLLBACK ... ... No backup, recreated from memory ... This is Ed MicroBott telling us not to worry. As usual ... Don't let paranoia over the NSA and TPM weaken your security ( Edd Bott 2013-08-23 ) But we should be worrying because "Trusted Computing" is really Untrustworthy Computing. It is only designed to benefit those that developed it, and it is primarily a Microsoft initiative so there you have it. It is a hardware interface inserted into your "personal" computer. It is something out of your reach, by design. Sure you can currently disable it in the BIOS ( in some implementations ) or just yank out the module ( in other implementations ). But that is just for today. Later, the powers-that-be can simply decide to demand it's use for their software or operating system to function. In consumer electronics this bridge was crossed long ago. They missed their chance with cassette decks, but corrected that mistake by using some DRM in VCR decks later. Then for DVD they went whole-hog with required chips, laws to prevent disabling or circumventing them, FBI warnings on the media, and firmware based warnings when the player "thought" your disc was bootlegged but was most likely just defective. Only personal computers were outside their reach. Computers that span an infinite amount of complex permutations of hardware and software. So they went to the largest common denominator, Microsoft, to see about doing something about it. Some small forays into DRM followed with MacroVision drivers sometimes being installed around 2000. There were also the infamous 3rd party ( better described as 4th party really ) attempts at supplying the DRM on media like CD's from Sony but the backlash helped to stunt this growth. Then we had Vista with its Microsoft facilliatated system software DRM watching the hardware for Hollywood. Part of the backlash, a major part indeed, was over this very thing. Looking back now it makes perfect sense too. Microsoft caved-in to Hollywood at the users' expense just the same way they caved in to government spooks, also in secret and at the same point in time. Now today, we have the next step in the evolution, hardware based ( like consumer electronics ) but using the promise of "security" to sugar coat their medicine. Expect them to later promise the end of child porn, racism, terrorism, and a cure for Cancer. With DRM, it is really all about the industry cabal colluding together to creep into your home to keep an eye on you because they cannot easily accomplish this on their own. Well, that is what the description usually was prior to two months ago when the breadth and extent of the government spying became well-known. People would be crazy to let this pass now. To me, it is absolutely certain that government spooks are drooling for a common interface present on most personal computers. An interface already compromised by these alphabet agencies and just awaiting deployment. I often tell people to save their older computers, and software, and operating systems. Rather than toss them, put them on a shelf in the basement. It's not like they take a ton of room! You can bet that there will be rainy days in the future requiring you to dust these things off. They may become very valuable commodities indeed.

;;;;;; THIS WAS A POST LOST IN THE ROLLBACK ... Some more coverage of this ... Did the Germans Catch the NSA Spying on Windows Users? ( Tom's Hardware 2013-08-22 ) German agency warns about Windows 8 use for federal systems ( NeoWin 2013-08-23 ) The comments at NeoWin are nothing if not predictable!

Thanks for unlocking it, but I'm not sure if there is a good reason to update it further ( unless others also thinks so ). As you know they split it off into two others after that locking presumably because there was too much information about IPB screwups detailed at once. Anyway, I sincerely wish that the "view posts" limit can be increased to 150 again. We are seeing examples all the time now of why a backup is necessary, and it is far better to save only 14 long pages versus 155 small ones. Also, it greatly helps prevent unnecessary duplicate reposts because a quick CTRL-F of the current page ( showing 150 comments ) covers a vast posting period.

;;;;;; THIS WAS A POST LOST IN THE ROLLBACK ... ... No backup, recreated from memory ... Excellent, that now makes it two out of the three in the Windows-wrecking triumvirate who will be gone. (The other two, of course, are SS and JLG.) I did this when SS left last year, and with today's good news it's in order once again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usfiAsWR4qU (Hmmm, I couldn't find any way in the new forum software to embed the video. The "My Media" button takes me only to images that I've previously uploaded.) One to go. Oh, and did anybody notice that MSFT stock is up today? --JorgeA Yep, the IPB Editor is a disaster. Invision needs to be smacked around for this failure. Just manually wrap the URL with {media}xxx{/media} tags as shown but using square brackets instead of the curlies I used. EDIT: fixed spacing

Just for curiousity I have checked for cached pages ... GOOGLE ... only to post #3 on August 23 BING ... unfortunately it is August 25 AFTER the rollback! DuckDuckGo ... no caching? StartPage.com ... no caching? Yahoo! ... frickin diaster of a site on Opera Yandex ... none found WayBack ... no archive yet