CharlotteTheHarlot

Devastating. If only that were posted in full at NeoWin. The MetroTards and MicroZealots would be slitting their wrists.

True that. There are so many people that use the autoconfig on their routers that I've seen. It's usually a ridiculous xxx-xxx-xxx with the hyphens included. Trying to walk them through correcting it over the phone is a nightmare, and doing it in person is worse because they then feel you should answer every future question about everything once you have "did something to it". I'll bet everyone here knows exactly what I mean. And then there's quite a few more that have no security enabled at all because it is too much of a hassle to have to give the password to a guest ( in itself a bad idea ) or a huge chore to figure out their router's guest mode if it even has it. The people with the open access point may have thankful neighbors, but are actually doing something frowned upon by the ISP ( well, at least the cable companies ) because it is almost the same thing as sharing cable TV except it is the digital pipe now. Wait 'til a neighbor uses Netflix, or worse, trips some terrorist keyword filter. That's gonna hurt. Ironically, being now in the broadband era, when everyone got laptops they obviously got some kind of routers too ( with hardware firewalls and NAT ) which definitely boosted the general state of security from where it was in the earlier era with new broadband but few routers. We are at a huge step up from around 2000 to 2002 when it was open season on broadband, and got so bad that Microsoft added a software firewall to XP. But here we go again. After finally getting to a manageable point with pretty good security from the ISP to the desktop, the tech industry is once again aiming for the sheeple with an incoming tidal wave of must-have home security thingies that will be on Amazon, HSN and QVC. Ironically using the term "Security" for devices that will actually weaken security is the ultimate oxymoron. But it's okay, the sheeple will get to sit around the table at parties showing each other their phones with a live feed of their pets, new curtains or flatscreen TV. The human race is doomed, again ... nuke it from orbit ... it's the only way to be sure.

This one will either make you laugh hysterically or cry, or maybe both ... NSA Says It Cant Search Its Own Emails ( ProPublica 2013-07-23 ) Sounds like a big fat lie to me.

Xbox Live currently experiencing service disruption (Update: It's fixed) ( NeoWin 2013-07-23 ) Yeah, another day another cloud problem, this time Xbox. No biggie though, it was apparently short ( although NeoWin does not specify that bit of information for some strange reason ). The fun part is in the comments where the extremely touchy MetroTards go madly on the defensive. You know they just dread these things because they feel they must explain them since they have been trumpeting how great the cloud is. Their psyche has been damaged from all the battles that Microsoft has forced these loyalists into. They must wake up each day praying that Xbox Live or Office 364 is running flawlessly, else they must don their battle gear and fight some more. These two are talking about the MicroZealots in the thread ... New Microsoft infographic gives Windows XP a retirement party ( NeoWin 2013-07-24 ) Grrrr. How lame can they get! An "infographic" that is childish and Metroish and worst of all, ridiculous. It is supposedly designed to tell businesses why they need to go from Windows XP to Windows 8, yet they offer absolutely zero business reasons and actually embarrass themselves in the process by talking about social and other stuff. Have a look ... Microsoft_RetirementParty.jpg ( 1.5 MB )

--JorgeA We call him Peter not so Bright because of things like this. In Peter's mind, Microsoft sets the rules and we must obey. Where he got this notion is beyond me, but he is one of the primary reasons Ars Technica has been in the toilet with respect to Windows and Microsoft. They're okay for pure scientific if a bit tabloid, but on Windows they are nipping at the heels of The Verge and NeoWin. Anywho, think about his hypothesis that Windows 8 and Metro should be forced into the public consciousness. We are talking about non-Microsoft hardware here ( save for the handful of Surface units out there ). Microsoft has no more expectation of "owning" OEM hardware than XYZ Incorporated from Timbuktu. The truth is that Microsoft is the 3rd party in this case. They just happen to be a very lucky 3rd party that maneuvered their way into this position during the aftermath of the IBM epic fail and the death of DOS as a pure operating system. What is stupendously ignorant is the way Peter and all MetroTards forget with ease how Microsoft violated antitrust and is a convicted monopolist and but for a technicality would have been busted up for old crimes that are dwarfed by new worse crimes that he is cheerleading for. Microsoft was beat up for inserting a browser into a operating system that was still is preinstalled to the exclusion of all others. This time around, in addition to the browser they also have a funnel called the Microsoft Store that leads to ... wait for it ... Microsoft. And the operating system itself is the textbook definition of planned obsolescence, specifically the Metro portion that is a walled garden curated by the aforementioned convicted monopolist Microsoft, and they skim a third from those apps in a Sopranos sized cut. Can anyone imagine John Rockefeller getting away with a second bite at the apple like Microsoft is trying to do? The worse part of all is the fact that the Metro side is a non-x86 architecture, that is to say that even though the underlying CPU and chipset is x86, the operating system on the Metro side is designed to reject the millions of x86 applications developed by scab authors who have not paid their 30% cut to the MicroMonopolists. Oh yeah, like a good MicroBot they'll say "Well the desktop is still there", but it will only remain there until they feel they can get away with killing it forever. Then, the kidnapping of these computers and their users is complete. That's the plan in a nutshell. And either Peter not so Bright doesn't understand it or he does and supports it. Either case explains his nickname. I still can't believe that Intel isn't making more noise about this, because Metro is a threat to them also as it can be visualized as an extra abstraction above the traditional x86 kernel, a new layer that locks out native apps for the physical architecture they invented. Hopefully they have something up their sleeves.

From what it is said about it, you can make one today DIY by cleverly putting together a Wi-Fi IPcam, a VoiP handsfree phone and a couple more sensors/gizmos. Yeah I did see that, but I meant how does it connect to the outside world, i.e., to you on your cellphone at work? It sends you messages and you can "call it up" and watch a live feed. I interpreted that Wi-Fi reference at the website as meaning it is available for home networking ( e.g., for administration like accessing its firmware ). But Wi-Fi ends maybe a hundred feet away from the access point. There has got to be something else. The curious thing is why the heck it is a secret? It's possible they are going to have it act as a home network client device ( thru Wi-Fi ) and create a giant security hole in the process by leaving open ports on your router, use a static IP, you talk to the cloud from your phone, the cloud accesses the router 24/7/365? Bandwidth limitations for cable broadband are typically 2 MB/s down and if you're lucky 1 MB/s up ( insane for video feeds ) That's crazy. This arrangement can be penetrated. The router IP will be picked up from any device from that network when they use email or forums, if someone has that they'll scan the neighboring incremental addresses for the router and then set about cracking the passphrase which will likely be a wireless auto-config dumb password. Then the intruder has realtime imaging, motion detectors, temperature and other stuff from your inner sanctum. Devolution towards Idiocracy continues. EDIT: thinking about it some more, if they position the cloud in between the router and your cellphone, meaning you cannot directly call this device, then there may be adequate security IF they use strong authentication on their end where no-one besides your cellphone can get in. Quite a big "IF" these days. But there is still the problem of possibly leaving open ports on the router. A hacker would then find it useful information to know if someone has one of these devices because even if they cannot access the device ( there's that "IF" again ), they still have an unsecured home network they may be able to exploit. Once hackers get a hold of one of these things they'll know how it auto-configures ( for MetroTards ) for example what kind of passphrase format ( number of chars ), and what IP address offset to the router IP address it prefers, what ports if any it leaves open, etc. Then the knowledge is out there for the rest of the bad guys. They will have to come up with some randomizing features in the future. Maybe sometimes use 12 chars, sometimes 16, use different port numbers, etc.

Only COLOUR laser printers. jaclaz Yeah that's what I meant. Thanks again. But how can we be really sure that they didn't figure out a way using grayscale on non-color printers ( or any color on bubblejets ). Hmmmmm.

NSA and German intelligence sharing powerful online surveillance tools ( TechSpot 2013-07-22 ) Yesterday it was the UK, today it is Germany. I'm sure everybody else will be exposed as we go forward. Is anyone else starting to agree that what this is all about is the powers-that-be, governments all over the world that is, are simultaneously making their move on the Internet to preserve their own power? The spy scandal is truly about government preservation, not citizen protection. They are implanting themselves at every point of the information infrastructure to be able to respond quickly against "insurrection" ( as they define it ) and also to thwart even the possibility of the people organizing themselves. Stopping terrorists is merely a side project that gets them funded. Microsoft: 3 TB of data uploaded to SkyDrive per day from Windows 8.1 users ( NeoWin 2013-07-22 ) And the worldwide governmental spying network thanks you for your patronage. You know what nobody ever mentions? By intertwining SpyDrive into the operating system as an ambiguous storage location ( yes, this is Microsoft's obsession forever, blurring the distinction between online and offline ), what will happen is that these hipsters using the cloud will wind up in the worst possible security configuration imaginable. They will naturally have more data in the cloud than exists on their local devices. Now when any of their devices gets stolen, all of which have access to the same cloud, the bad guy gets control of far more booty than they could have hoped to get off the dinky little device. The cloud is a force multiplier, but in a bad way. If you get mugged on the street the crook gets away with the rings on your fingers and the wallet in your pants but everything in the dressers and drawers and the vault at home is still perfectly safe. The cloud arrangement is like the crook getting your rings and wallet, and the house key and he runs home to thoroughly clean it out also. Sure, the cloud and your devices certainly can be configured into a safe arrangement, but as is always the case it is being marketed for dummies ( e.g., MetroTards ). I'll bet there is quite a disclaimer in the EULA to cover this gift horse to criminals and spooks. Microsoft Research working on embedding coded tags in 3D printed objects ( NeoWin 2013-07-22 ) Wow, we were just talking about the Laser Printer encoding. Microsoft wants badly to be the first at something, and as usual it jumps in first whenever it will help the government spy on the people. Microsoft's Fresh Paint app now available for Windows Phone 8 ( NeoWin 2013-07-22 ) Look everybody ... Skeuomorphism! ... Why aren't the MetroTards complaining? Besides that little hypocrisy, they completely ripped the thing off anyway ... EDIT: fixed CRLF ( extra lines ) from the editor bug that plays around with the first QUOTE tag in the post

Canary is the world's first smart home security device for everyone ( TechSpot 2013-07-22 ) Oh yeah, what could possibly go wrong here. I tried to figure out how this connects but all they say is that you interface with it through an app on your phone from miles away. The video and the actual website specifically do not show how it connects. It sure cannot be Wi-Fi so I'm guessing the unit itself will need cellular access ( and a plan and a bill ). They say it is all done in the cloud. Wonderful. Regardless, it is a nice portable spy unit, pretty much the perfect thing to be in someone's house ... especially perfect if you're a criminal or a spook ( is there a difference now? ). They are marketing it for dummies, they even say so, therefore I expect zero configuration dumbness and the zero effective security that goes with it. Ironically, both the federal spooks and everyday criminal burglars wholeheartedly approve of these new consumer security devices. Hacking Spree Continues: Apple's Dev Site, Ubuntu Forums Hit ( Tom's Hardware 2013-07-22 ) Apple admits their Dev Center was hacked, some info may have leaked ( NeoWin 2013-07-22 ) Ubuntu Forum Hack Exposes Email and Password Data of 1.8 Million Users ( Maximum PC 2013-07-22 ) Apple developer website hacked, security being overhauled ( TechSpot 2013-07-22 ) Another day another hack. Note that the Apple intrusion has turned out to be non-malicious, it was a security researcher probing their defenses. The point is still the same though, absolutely none of them are safe, Apple, Microsoft, Google, nobody. If an intruder can't easily climb in the window they will just steal someone's laptop or find an employee's device left in some bar. UK unveils plan to block online porn by default ( TechSpot 2013-07-22 ) UK to block pornography by default; it corrodes your childhood ( NeoWin 2013-07-22 ) I'm not in the UK but I find this troubling and it has nothing to do with porn. It is about power and access. Governments right at this very moment are in the middle of the most blatant power play for the "information superhighway" seen yet. It is about controlling access and setting precedents for more control. Many of us warned about letting the governments use ISPs as their henchman. It started with Hollywood with DRM and many said "So what?". Then Big Tech and the BSA with MegaUpload and more "Who cares?". National Security spying "Go right ahead". Now the kiddie porn excuse will also get "Not a big deal". However, if you step back from all these little steps you will see we went to bed in a free land and woke up in Communist China, because our governments are reproducing in small increments what the Chinese regime did all at once with Google. The only difference is scale. In China, Google is expected to and actually has turned over the identities of dissidents to the regime. Over here they already do the same but slightly limiting it to Hollywood Movie downloaders, software pirates, pornographers and terrorists ( unfortunately that last word has quite a bit of flexibility to it ). So, that's today. What will tomorrow bring? EDIT: fixed CRLF ( extra lines ) from the editor bug that plays around with the first QUOTE tag in the post

Cool. Thanks. So it is only laser printers. And indeed that EFF link confirmed that one of my big lasers in fact has the dots! I never properly read up on this story although I meant to. Very interesting site. I feel right at home there. I think their take on planned obsolescence is spot on. :thumbsup:

Rumor: ValueAct wants a seat on Microsoft's board ( NeoWin 2013-07-21 ) These are the group of stockholders that are trying to get Ballmer booted. This has to be worrisome to the fanboys. And they are showing it in the comments with cursing and screeching. Well that description: "don't know much about the market" and "no passion for IT" also describes Ballmer, doesn't it? Karma has a way of popping up when you least expect it. These interlopers are trying to get onto the Microsoft Board of Directors which kind of reminds me of Elop getting into Nokia. The only unfortunate thing is that they won't be able to kill Microsoft's pOS operating system the same way that Elop killed Nokia's.

In light of that, and of everything else we've been saying about online and e-mail privacy, I'm wondering if anybody here can comment (helpfully ) on this and this. Thanks. --JorgeA Funny thing is, Steganos ( or Demcom ) is one of the companies I was thinking about. They were around since at least the late 1990's and had some interesting software. One thing they did was the steganography process of coding messages inside things like image files. Another very unusual thing was developing zero emission utilities that used a display method that thwarted the possibility of someone mirroring your CRT monitor contents remotely by reading the EMR emissions. Pretty cool and cutting edge in the consumer space. I looked at the links and can offer no opinion really, I simply haven't kept up with them. But it does resemble the trend of Mega Security Suites with every possible bell and whistle. These things must be huge punishment for the CPU, file activity and memory transactions, and Internet communication. How could they not be. If the darn CPUs were at 8 GHz instead of 4 then I might be able to write off the performance cost of countless realtime security processes. Anytime I see a picture of a screen full of security programs I get a gut wrenching feeling of an underpowered PC slogging along in slow motion. In the home, if people designed a network where there was a single computer doing Internet it might make sense to sacrifice it as the front facing beast loaded down with security software. Everything else being kept offline can run naked and at full possible speed, not saddled down with all the security stuff. Unfortunately most people don't even come close to this arrangement. It is now normal for everything to be connected to the outside, from the PCs to the laptops, phones, etc. Countless points of failure. Software like this needs to be present on everything. ~sigh~ I think the real action in security is going to be found in routers. Using a gateway choke point is economical and and simpler. A router makes a terrific gateway because it has all the features we need, from a hardware firewall to an internal network hub. But we do need further advances here. I would like to see much better firmware for starters. I would also like to see serious testing from multiple independent security researchers to assure us they ( the routers ) have not been compromised by the federales. Recall how all the printer manufacturers also got in bed with government or law enforcement, creating some kind of detectable watermark embedded on all printouts because of special firmware code. Hollywood managed to insert themselves into every piece of A/V consumer electronics also. So it sure would not surprise me at all if the spooks already got to the router manufacturers. I'm hoping we start seeing new super routers specifically tailored for this new age we're suddenly in. They should go out of their way to advertise their independence: "Hacker-proof and Government Spy-proof!. In fact I would like to start seeing this trend everywhere. For pushback to become effective it needs to develop some momentum. Statements like those would start the ball rolling and create peer pressure on the others.

Missed this post earlier. Cool graphic. I don't think we can state with certainty that Vista is clean. On that graphic, September 2007 was the date that Microsoft officially got married to the spook agencies. But I would speculate that the long run-up to Vista, the infamous Longhorn re-write was at least partly about spying. We're talking like 4 years after 9/11 and more importantly a decade after the Carnivore and Echelon and other earlier forays into collaborative spying. Thinking back about this I have always been mystified as to Microsoft's sudden change during the Vista fiasco in 2006-2007 and their seeming anger at the pushback and criticism by end-users. It never made any sense to me. Nothing like that happened with their earlier failures. Yet they were apoplectic and turned on us. We were "doing it wrong". Here, have a Mojave Experiment. It seems possible to me that the Longhorn rewrite was partly about building doors for data collection, not necessarily giving the feds a free pass, but they would be in place if they needed it for court orders ( again, 9/11 already came and went ). Things have changed radically since, but it is very plausible to me that they were sweet talked and massaged into an agreement having no idea what it would evolve to later. In other words it was harmless in their eyes. This I would buy as a reason for their inexplicable panic over Vista. They're thinking, "Shoot, if we can't get this thing into the user base then we can't easily comply with any warrants". It also jives with the inexplicable push to kill Windows XP. Even though SP3 came in April 2008, I don't think it was time enough to develop it into a magic spook plugin pack. So there Windows XP it sits, on 35% of the 1.5 billion computers, relatively secure. All things considered, a real good "conspiracy theory" could be constructed. For example it is possible that the DRM fiasco that Gutmann exposed might have gotten a little too close for comfort as he poked and prodded to see what the OS was snooping for. And then there was the assimilation of Winternals and Mark Russinovich in summer of 2006. He's the guy that did similar heroic snooping of Sony and ferreted out their sneaky DRM. Taking him out of play, so to speak, prevents a very sharp set of eyeballs from snooping in the new Vista OS ( and it was suspicious how his Rootkit Revealer suddenly was killed, a utility that might detect something that is smart enough to hide itself using countermeasures ). NOTE: needless to say, this is all just speculation. I got nothing to show for proof obviously, they are hopefully just coincidences. But after watching them and most of the industry for going on four decades now, you sometimes trust your gut, especially when no-one is talking or likely ever to talk about such matters. I could be completely wrong though, and Vista may be no more dangerous than WinXP or Win9x. I just highly doubt it. I have also wondered just how information could be taken from an operating system anyway. It wouldn't be easy if the user had packet sniffing experience, a hardware firewall and a variety of rootkit detectors. But then I remembered that CEIP thingie. It sets up bundles of collected collated data burst transmitted later. Something like that could be reconfigured, especially if you have the Windows source code which I'd bet the spooks do. These are just wild speculations, just tossing them out there. I'll let others dwell on them and carry it further.

Microsoft, Windows, and Phone News ... HP quietly launches Split x2, 13-inch Windows 8 convertible ( TechSpot 2013-07-17 ) Does HP even want to survive? I said at launch that Windows 8 would drive up prices and we would get $1000 netbooks. Well that came true with the Surface, but this HP thing is even worse! 13" screen, i3 Ivy Bridge, 4 GB RAM and 128 GB disk, 1366 x 768 using onboard graphics. And this can be yours for only $749. Flashback to a snapshot infographic I made nine months ago ... Microsoft: The desktop UI will never go away completely ( NeoWin 2013-07-17 ) Yet another foible, a possible outburst of truth which was quickly retracted. So what of this? As said many times before, a standalone version of Metro aka Windows Tiles would have gone down in flames. Thus by necessity they decided to morph the existing Windows into it. A cynical deception. Add Metro to Windows and later remove the desktop and you have exactly what you wanted in the first place but were too cowardly to birth on its own. This disruptive action, a sneaky underhanded strategy to capture the Windows legacy user base, has cost them dearly. And this particular Softie for a brief moment spilled the beans. In the comment thread we get treated to a repeat performance from the MetroTard-in-Chief, echoing one of his earlier pearls of wisdom concerning his childish love of screen touching ... ... where he is stating that since you don't care about smudges on your mouse or keyboard you shouldn't worry about them on your screen! It kinda proves he is blind, literally that is, as the display quality of the screen in front of him makes no difference to him whatsoever. He really does not see a problem with a smudge on a visual output device, one that you look at with your eyes. That would also explain why he cannot see the offensiveness of a blocky playskool theme sans shadows and 3D and depth and other normal visual clues. There really is no helping some people. Nokia 'very happy' with Windows Phone, saw uncompetitive Android market ( Maximum PC 2013-07-18 ) You know when these guys are lying? When their lips are moving. Android was maybe at 30% of the market when Nokia signed their contract with the devil and switched to Windows Phone. So what is he saying, they were afraid to compete? And what is with that swipe at Samsung like they are some kind of evil force? This guy Elop is a former Softie, yet he worries that "one manufacturer would dominate ...". He came to Nokia straight from a convicted monopolist that only is good at one thing, operating in a field without competition. His little speech there gives away the story. These Softies are full of envy and jealousy and hatred of competitors, particularly those rolling past Microsoft. Microsoft's ads for Surface, Windows 8 and more boost overall tech ad spending ( Maximum PC 2013-07-18 ) An article describing the massive advertising budget that Big Little Brother Microsoft has dumped into the advertising world. What was it they set aside, 3 billion? 4 billion? Apparently it is providing a boost to the world economy, or something. Did anyone ever tell them that a good product advertises itself? Do they think that Apple really sold all those iThings because of their lame commercials? No. They actually hardly ever air. It's just that they are memorable. Advertising can seriously turn off a buyer as well. I've seen enough of those silly Surface ads, especially that idi0tic one with the dancing on the table so many times that I would pay good money to see those hipsters tossed into a vat full of snakes and spiders on Fear Factor. That would be good advertising, and good TV. Microsoft got taken to the cleaners by their advertising agencies. And they never even saw it coming. Microsoft's Surface Team Reportedly Turns Attention to Smart Watch Design ( Maximum PC 2013-07-18 ) If that is transparent aluminum then my pool is full of liquid oxygen. Or hydrogen. Well you get the idea. Actually it is kind of a cool idea they have here because for once it is a uniquely original idea they are using rather than the normal ripping off of something else. The Wikipedia page does describe it as having good properties. Naturally they will find a way to ruin the one unique idea they had in a long time, probably by plastering the Playskool Microsoft Tiles garbage on it. Check out my quick handiwork that compliments the mockup at the article link ... EDIT: typo(s)

Miscellaneous News ... Verizon May Owe Apple $14B Over Slow iPhone Sales ( Tom's Hardware 2013-07-14 ) I think it's safe to say that the party is over for the smartphone boom, actually the big clue was to just watch for when Microsoft makes their big entry, because it is usually right before the bottom falls out, unfortunately Microsoft has Nokia to take the fall for them. Smartphones should be saturated within a few more quarters, at most a year and then the race to the bottom begins. Let's just hope that the rigged subsidy system is taken down with it. It is the only reason that tiny $700 phones ever had a chance to be "purchased" by people who cannot even help from losing their pocketbooks, laptops and even children. Anybody who buys in to the top-end now is nuts, this industry is about to become one big buyer's market. WhatsApp for iOS moves to subscription model ( TechSpot 2013-07-17 ) And there's the business model in a nutshell, and exactly what to expect from Microsoft for Office and Windows. From .99 cents once to .99 cents a year in this case, but $99 dollars works just as well. Spreadsheet economics was the ancient term, now I call it sheeplenomics. Just picture the bean counters playing around with their spreadsheets. How do we squeeze more bottom line out of these numbers? Easy, just fiddle with the revenue column by locking the customers into a subscription instead, and deduct it right off their credit card. Do the numbers ever go down? No. Never. It is a purely synthetic model with no such thing as supply or demand. Moreover, if the cloud ever goes down are there any automatic adjustments crediting the accounts for lost service. Heck no. Speaking of going down ... Ubisoft accounts hacked, email addresses and passwords compromised ( PC Gamer 2013-07-03 ) Bohemia Interactive hacked usernames, emails and encrypted passwords taken ( PC Gamer 2013-07-12 ) Ah, just another day in the cloud. It's gonna be some sight to see the next time Xbox Live goes down. Microsoft, Windows, and Phone News ... Microsoft Demos 3D Printing with Windows 8.1 ( Tom's Hardware 2013-07-13 ) Is this really supposed to be a selling point? Let's see, the government is banning certain items from being printed, forcing the CAD files to be removed from the websites, and we're supposed to believe that printing something from the new government approved Windows 8 is not going to phone home with the details? Come on. Petition wants Microsoft to continue TechNet ( NeoWin 2013-07-13 ) Man, they really screwed the pooch with this one, huh? There are a few die-hard defenders naturally, but none of them are dumb enough to start a petition to 'Keep TechNet Dead!'. Bill Gates jokes Microsoft Bob will make a comeback ( NeoWin 2013-07-15 ) Bill Gates: Microsoft Bob to Make a Return (in Concept) ( Tom's Hardware 2013-07-16 ) Leave it to billg to mess up the punch line for this joke. He should have just said: Microsoft Bob is already here and working! Where do ya wanna go today? Rumor: Windows Phone 9 will be a clean slate, again ( NeoWin 2013-07-15 ) Microsoft's Windows Phone design team deletes tweet on revamp rumor ( NeoWin 2013-07-20 ) More astonishing unprofessionalism. It sure seems that almost anyone can post stuff at Microsoft who have no concept of a public spokesman or information clearinghouse. In this case, the latest of many weird incidents, someone let slip that the next Windows Phone would be a total rewrite, then ... So they tried to correct it with that one tweet, but then pulled them all because they were not "official". This is like Three Stooges comedy. I love how the NeoWin author finished there with: "It's possible that the person in charge of that feed was not authorized to make official statements from Microsoft". Ya think!

Xbox was also in the News ... Who Needs PC When You Can Have Xbox One at Work ( Tom's Hardware 2013-07-14 ) Considering the broad spying scandal, this sounds like the last thing anyone put on the factory floor or business office. But that's just me. Microsoft Research uses Kinect to translate sign language ( NeoWin 2013-07-16 ) This is gonna sound like a nitpick to some people but I have to say, what the frig took so long? Frankly I expected this to be the absolute first thing that was done using Kinect. But I can see they were too busy with table tennis and other nonsense. And what Microsoft Research actually shows isn't really that incredible ... ... note the phrase "translated to text or speech". Why not both? It seems to me that this is the perfect application to shake out the bugs with, and that means pushing it to do it all, at once. I have a deaf relative and struggled to learn some signs and understand them, so I tend to watch for breakthroughs in this kind of AI. Frankly there is too little real progress. Even relatively simple related technologies like transcription and OCR and teleprompters are littered with errors. If these companies like IBM and Microsoft weren't too busy extorting patents, milking profits and holding back end-user technology, we would have had this licked a while ago. Realtime closed captioning and other things are so far behind expectations it is not even funny. I'm very disappointed. Microsoft could bring some Xbox One digital sharing features back ( NeoWin 2013-07-13 ) Rumor: Microsoft Upgrading Xbox One Specs, Features ( Tom's Hardware 2013-07-16 ) "The GPU core clock has been increased, and Microsoft will likely bring back Family Sharing." See what a little competition can do? Microsoft win out, finally take ownership of xboxone.com ( NeoWin 2013-07-17 ) Grrrrr. The rigged system for Big Technology swallows up yet another victim. This guy had the name long before Microsoft ever even thought about Xbone. The fair thing would have been to buy it for a decent chunk of change or simply live with the fact that they blew it in the first place by not reserving it. Listen to the venom from the MicroZealots in there. "Hey they used the word 'Xbox' so they deserve to lose". Really? Should Microsoft have every domain with "Windows" or "Office" in the alias? Utterly ridiculous. Windows RT was also in the news and definitely had a bad week ... Surface RT at $350: Time to Buy? A sale is not a sale if you do not need the thing being sold ( Thurrott 2013-07-14 ) Paul Thurrott is definitely not going to make any new friends at Microsoft or NeoWin or The Verge with this column ... That's gonna leave a mark! I don't have time to skewer him and his upsey-downsey mood swings right now, but this downsey column contradicts key parts of his infamous The Desktop Must Die! article I covered here. Lenovo stops selling Windows RT Yoga 11 notebook on its website ( NeoWin 2013-07-17 ) Whoopsie. Another one bites the dust. Poll: Should Microsoft build a Surface RT 2? ( NeoWin 2013-07-19 ) Two-Thirds of the MetroTards, 68% say YES. Funny thing is, I doubt very many of even them have bought one. So why would they really want Microsoft to lumber ahead? Do they want to see another write-down? Nvidia Sees Great Future with Windows RT ( Tom's Hardware 2013-07-19 ) Pheewww. The nVidia dude is back, singing the praises of Windows 8 Retard Edition. It's sad really. And no-one is buying it. Check this out ... Wow! I don't recall seeing that quote mentioned at NeoWin.

News from the competition ... Intel, Samsung Dishing Out Over $4 Million to Tizen Devs ( Tom's Hardware 2013-07-09 ) They go on to say that Tizen might be a threat to Android and Firefox operating systems, maybe so, maybe not, but it will in no way help Microsoft or Apple, that's for sure. Actually it will more likely serve as some needed Linux competition for Android, Firefox and Ubuntu, and that cannot be a bad thing. Especially if one of them or all of them figure out a way to circumvent and defeat whatever it is that Microsoft ( and Apple ) are extorting out of them as royalties. That should be topic number one at their little meetings. Now git'er done. Deals July 12: Lenovo 7" Android 4.0 16GB Tablet $119 ( Tom's Hardware 2013-07-12 ) This is from the periodic sale postings at Tom's, but I wanted to show that insane price of $119 for a Lenovo Android tablet. Now who can possibly compete with that? This is the critical "mobile" space that Ballmer and Co. decided to chase after and kill Windows for. But by the time they arrived, the manufacturers had driven prices down to levels that Microsoft cannot even fathom. Indeed, they are used to getting at least half of that just for the OS alone. It is also sweet because Lenovo is pretty much the one and only darling of the MicroVerse. Needless to say this tablet mention will not appear at NeoWin where it would only serve to rile up the natives. Is an Ubuntu Phone in Verizon's Future? ( Tom's Hardware 2013-07-13 ) Verizon joins the CAG ( Ubuntu Carrier Advisory Group ) leading some to think that these carriers are serious about some alternative phone operating systems. Naturally the MicroZealots will laugh at even the suggestion of this, fine. But one thing is for sure, it can not help WP, only hurt it. All it will take is a percentage point going to Firefox and another to Ubuntu and the Microsoft Tiles WP8 will be right back to the bottom from its current tenuous 3-4% marketshare. Laugh at your own risk fanboys. Crytek in Need of a Programmer to Port CryEngine to Linux ( Maximum PC 2013-07-15 ) Hmmmm. This is how it could start. A couple of big names like Crysis and Far Cry running native on Linux would start the leaks popping in the platform dikes and Ballmer would run out of fingers to plug them up with. This may be totally unrelated to Steam too, the story does not say because it is merely a tidbit of information about a job position. But it has to be good news, unless you are a MicroZealot that is. The key really is to get a bunch of different game engines ported and up an running, once that happens many more releases should follow. Rockchip Bringing Windowed, Tiled Capabilities to Android ( Tom's Hardware 2013-07-19 ) There is some speculation there that Google might not like this and somehow clamp down on them ( good luck with that ), but you know that one or all of them will eventually get there anyway. It is inevitable since there are well over a billion people already familiar with the desktop concept, the same billion people that Microsoft took a giant crap on, therefore there are exactly a billion reasons to get this concept on Android. If Google does not want this clear shot across Microsoft's bow, then there are some backroom shenanigans that we really ought to know about.

More on the security and cloud related front ... Kremlin returns to typewriters to avoid computer leaks ( UK Telegraph 2013-07-11 ) Back in Time: Russian Agency Seeks Typewriters for Secret Documents ( Spiegel International 2013-07-11 ) The Kremlin is Going Back to Typewriters, and You Should Too ( PolicyMic 2013-07-14 ) Russia considers going back to typewriters ( NeoWin 2013-07-14 ) Very cool story mentioned by Jaclaz earlier. Russian intelligence possibly reverting to typewritten paper archives for sensitive information. The "eyes only" approach is time tested and fairly secure but unfortunately it was easily defeated by tiny cameras and that weak link has also progressed a bit in the intervening years since cameras are smaller and more capable. But of course this story is probably just another smokescreen anyway. The real point is larger than typewriters, it is the fact that people are much more aware of what is going on. The spying scandal has effectively launched a new information arms race, not just between national capitols, but between everybody and those that allegedly govern them. Look for the next big thing to be end-to-end security applications. It's amazing how PGP and Steganography and text cipher programs were all the rage in the 1990's and suddenly they disappeared from the public eye for at least the past decade. Secure P2P communication and end-user crypto will likely become quite the growth field of the next decade. And they will not be programs developed by Microsoft, Apple or Facebook. Some examples are already surfacing ... Pirate Bay co-founder plans Hemlis, an encrypted messaging app where 'no one can listen in' ( The Verge 2013-07-09 ) Pirate Bay co-founder planning "secure" WhatsApp rival ( NeoWin 2013-07-10 ) Pirate Bay co-founder to develop encrypted mobile messaging app ( TechSpot 2013-07-09 ) The real problem I guess is determining just who you can trust. At this particular point in time the Pirate guys no longer automatically sound like the enemy, do they? Of course this is "encypted messaging", which means they supply everything and is transparent to end-users. A lot of trust is placed into them which doesn't really solve the issue IMHO. An alternative is for both parties to have shared passkeys in advance and use offline standalone decrypters to unscramble coded messages they themselves create but send over such an encrypted service. This looks like a workable and secure arrangement given what we know. If anyone else has ideas or links about this I'd love to hear them. Google testing encryption methods to foil government snooping ( TechSpot 2013-07-17 ) Google Testing File Encryption to Protect Drive Users ( Tom's Hardware 2013-07-18 ) Somewhat related, Google is clearly moving to shore up the reputation of its cloud which is smart considering the situation with Microsoft and Office and Azure. If they play their cards right they might just peel away some of that user base which I do believe is very nervous at the moment. Google will have to do much more than this however, perhaps move their servers offshore because anything less cannot really guarantee security. And therein lies the real consequence to the spying scandal, which John Dvorak correctly IMHO mentioned several times in posts cited earlier in this thread. The USA will be considered positively insecure for data storage of any kind, and quite rightly so. Meanwhile, back in Redmond, the tone-deafness continues ... Microsoft expands Office 365 to 38 new markets ( NeoWin 2013-07-13 ) I think one commenter had it right: "Office 365.. NSA 365 rather. I wonder which companies are so stupid to use this service anymore.." Rumor: Shared file lists, folder mounting and more coming to SkyDrive ( NeoWin 2013-07-14 ) The article cites a laundry list of features for the cloudboys. Noticeably absent is anything about customer security from prying eyes inside their walls. We'll see how this pans out in their next earnings report. Watch for possible slowing cloud growth as an indicator. Skype to retire Desktop API support by end of 2013 ( NeoWin 2013-07-15 ) Andrews added that the decision "was not made lightly" and they wanted to give developers who still use the Desktop API in their applications time to modify them before their support ends. So the desktop API, pre-Microsoft acquisition, is retired and devs should rewrite their stuff now. Now there's a familiar story. Not to mention that there is a pretty good suspicion that "old code" now simply means not easily accessible by spooks. I suspect this is also very true with Windows in general and that is why there is such a mad push to kill their uber-successful Windows XP. I'd have to say that "old code" now means "safer code", but that's just me. Regardless, Skype must now be the most radioactive of all Microsoft products. They have had substantial security and outage incidents, and are prominently mentioned in the spying scandal. See upthread for more. I wouldn't use it if my life depended on it.

On the security front the bad news still outweights the good ... NSA and GCHQ siphoning huge quantities of data from undersea fiber optic cables ( TechSpot 2013-07-18 ) They pretty much decided to monitor everything, everywhere, all the time. I'm having a hard time thinking of something they might NOT be spying on now. Note that the USA is using the UK as yet another vendor, just like all the tech companies. This is an important point because they get to say that they themselves are not spying, so-called plausible deniability, letting others get their hands dirty and then forcing them to shut up about it. Yahoo! Resisted PRISM, And Can Now Prove It ( Tom's Hardware 2013-07-16 ) Okay, we'll give them a merit badge for trying at least. However, since Yahoo uses Bing as its actual search engine who do they think they are fooling? Also, if you read the article though you will see just how bad this whole thing is with that secret star-chamber FISA court rubber stamping the fed spooks and dismissing all challenges with the back of their hand. Microsoft defends against data sharing allegations ( NeoWin 2013-07-16 ) Lots of weasel words in there, leaving a hole big enough to drive a fleet of government trucks through. Microsoft and others asks for the US government's permission to reveal data requests ( NeoWin 2013-07-18 ) Microsoft, Others Requesting More NSA Transparency ( Tom's Hardware 2013-07-18 ) Tech giants come together to demand NSA surveillance transparency ( TechSpot 2013-07-19 ) Actually, that request for transparency is more like translucency or opaqueness. That request language is merely asking for some minor rollbacks but nothing that would satisfy me or anyone else I know. IMHO there is just one important thing to take away from all these stories, and it could be construed as good news ... these companies are actually getting some real heat now, specifically Microsoft who were exposed in the leaks as Big Brother's FIRST partner in crime ( perhaps we should call them Baby Brother ). So anyway, these guys are feeling pressure now, and I find this intriguing, very VERY intriguing. How exactly would Microsoft and the others receive angry feedback? How does anyone penetrate that force field? They are completely oblivious and tone-deaf to two years of criticism about the Windows 8 fiasco, so the pressure cannot logically be coming from the retail sector. Developer opinions carry no special weight, nor would they particularly care about end-user privacy, so I doubt it's them. Big business perhaps? Nah, I doubt any big American company gives a crap about privacy because if they are based here in the USA they are already subject to other forms of domestic spying, court orders, etc. So who else is there? I think there is only one thing left, and that is foreign interests ( business, government, utilities, retailers, end-users ), people who actually have something to lose by signing up with Microsoft. This is only speculation but I would guess that Office and Azure and even Windows contracts are suddenly in jeopardy. What form this might be taking I don't know, but there is no doubt that something has suddenly lit a fire under them. U.S. Commerce Department unnecessarily destroyed $170K worth of IT gear to hunt down malware ( TechSpot 2013-07-09 ) Forgot about this one from a few weeks ago. This should drive fellow USA citizens mad. From both a financial wast point of view, and from a tech standpoint ... What! Malware infected printers, cameras, mice, keyboards! These must be MetroTards. Windows 8 was clearly made for them.

Recapping the big story just 3 days ago ... Microsoft: $19.90 billion in revenue for Q2 2013; $900 million charge for Surface RT ( NeoWin 2013-07-18 ) Microsoft takes $900 million charge on unsold Surface RT tablets ( TechSpot 2013-07-19 ) Microsoft's Failed Surface RT Strategy Leads to $900 Million Charge on Unsold Inventory ( Maximum PC 2013-07-19 ) Microsoft released their FY2013 results, numbers which are heavily massaged as they end their accounting year and now move into FY2014. Even after juggling numbers around and spinning it as positive, the overall negative undertow was obvious to all except die-hard MicroZealots at NeoWin. In that comment thread one sensible commenter tries in vain to clue them in on what it all means and what Wall Street will do later in the day. I mean in post after post he tries to tell them that this is bad news and not spin-able, and that the market is not going to like it. Note that the NeoWin headline itself is ambiguous, stressing revenue instead of profit, and using "charge" which is not language understandable by most fanboys. Slight digression here, there was one typical comment in there rationalizing Microsoft's collection of extortion money from Android device makers ... Yeah right, Microsoft "birthed" Android only if he means by screwing up Windows people feel comfortable looking elsewhere. As for the patents, keep in mind that no-one at MicroApple, who both are busy pirates collecting duties from Android, are actually talking about what they claim to have invented, and the extortees are not talking because of some kind of gag order. So we don't really know what Microsoft and Apple are extorting for sure. There are strong suspicions that the file system is claimed by Microsoft and some other mobile functions by Apple, but they successfully extort them and then get them to hush up about it. Wikipedia currently has this ... Clearly Microsoft has went right back to their old ways of Standard Oil style anticompetitive monopolistic practices. Their "agreement" extracted by extorting Samsung is illustrative, getting them to promise to build devices using Microsoft's pOS because nobody wants them by choice. I don't know if Microsoft and Apple even realize it but they are really setting themselves up for a momentous fall. We can be certain that Google is not happy about this, nor the hypocritical Scroogle campaign, so they will have something up their sleeve, perhaps even writing their own royalty-free file system. The bad-will about these patent issues will also return to bite Ballmer's big fat butt because when you live by the patent suit, you also die by it. All it will take is the next big case that reverses this extortion and the house of cards will come tumbling down. It is within the realm of possibility that a future without Apple and Microsoft will arrive, and they will deserve all that comes with it. Now back to the earnings report. After the denial of any whiff of bad news in the announcement, and despite the warnings from one intrepid commenter they stood fast on their religious belief in their MicroGod. Then reality hit them int their face as it always does ... Microsoft Shares Tumble On Q4 Earnings Miss ( Forbes 2013-07-18 ) I said a while back that the big Microsoft re-org thingie was nothing more than a preemptive strike to tamp down negative reactions on Wall Street. It is obvious to me that they had their preliminary FY2013 numbers a month ago and proceeded to do everything they could think of, including re-arranging the deck chairs, to keep the stock afloat. NeoWin eventually posted a more accurate headline in the followup ... Microsoft stock price down 11.40 percent in trading Friday ( NeoWin 2013-07-19 ) Although with a clear expression of head-scratching disbelief seen in the opening paragraph ... It's all kinda funny because this was completely predictable if you read that first article at the top because they obviously had prepared all along to spin it in their favor. Such are the ways of the fanboy cult. Microsoft also eventually had to respond to the obvious. Microsoft CFO Amy Hood: "We know we have to do better" ( NeoWin 2013-07-19 ) But it's just more gobbledygook really. They have learned nothing.

I mentioned this bug and many others back in the original IPB Update thread. Since it is locked I cannot properly quote it, but I'll try to re-create it ...

I don't know the answer for WinXP. FWIW, the last time I did a repair install it was on Windows 7 ( see here ), it has been years since I did this on a Windows XP computer and I know it wasn't as controlled as that Windows 7 occasion. I mean, I don't have any snapshots of an XP repair before and after to examine what was really done by the process. In that Win7 case I did grab filelists and registries but even they are not perfect because I was rushed. Anyway, let me start by explaining one thing - the only way to say with certainty what was actually done is to get copies of the registry, registry exports, and filelists, but done from outside the operating system. Either pop out the HDD and drop it in another computer setup for this kind of thing and collect the registries and a thorough filelist, or alternatively, if you have access to ERD/DaRT you can boot it up and do the same plus a complete registry export from its registry editor, dumping to a flashdrive. The reason I am explaining this is because filelists and registry exports done on a live system are limited, not everything shows up. Comparisons using them will be totally inconclusive. Now I can say that the Win7 repair process is a really impressive thing they pull off with multiple reboots and replaced in-use files and such. It preserves installed programs and "settings", this means that non-Windows files are not tampered with, and most importantly the registry with its myriad intertwined keys and data are carried forward - but - additionally, Windows is reinstalled as well. ( Again, I cannot answer about WinXP here ). When I did some diffing ( NOTE: this was a bear of a task, huge registries, needed bigtime CPU overclocking and other prep, Windiff froze, ExamDiff finally worked ) I learned that large swathes of the original registry were copied verbatim, perhaps the whole thing at once, and then machine settings were punched in and/or completely replaced which "fixed" so-called registry corruption. However, "corruption" means different things depending on whose asking. Real registry corruption, like a broken database from file defects like missing delimitters causing a key to run into another should be fixed because when the original file is read-in and written-out they presumably use error checking to toss any bogus keys or data. Corruption can also simply mean changed values in machine keys like device driver settings that leaves hardware not working properly. These would also be fixed in the Win7 process by the ( presumably ) 2nd step that reinstalls Windows. So I would say IMHO, that in Win7 at least that the "registry corruption" is in fact corrected as well as it can be. User programs that were buggy before will still be buggy though, that is by design because no user items are tampered with. My suggestion is this. You have an WinXP installation with a possibly corrupt registry? Get another equivalent HDD and clone this WinXP system drive from outside the operating system using HDD tools like Seagate DiskWizard. Now you have a nearly identical copy to work with, use this new HDD for experiments. Do what I said above, either pop the clone into another reliable computer and grab the filelists and registry hives or boot ERD/DaRT and get them that way. The latter has an Explorer app for poking around the HDD and collecting files, a CMD window for doing a filelist and a registry editor that can export. Dump them all to a flashdrive marked "before". Then after doing a repair install, repeat the process and get files "after". Later on, 'Diff them to see exactly what changed ( if anything ), you will then have an absolute answer to the original question. P.S. you will notice from that link that I was also trying to determine whether I could do the repair install directly from the HDD. That means copying the full updated SP1 ISO to the HDD and executing it from there without using an optical. The answer was yes, it works. But again, that is Win7. Now it should be do-able for WinXP considering that there are ways to install from a flashdrive ( and I believe from a HDD ), but I can't recall ever trying it. I suggest that experiment might be done separately to not make it too complicated. But the good news is that if you work from a cloned copy, you can always just start over with another clone if necessary. I would never do this on the one and only system disk though.

Adding fans for cooler temps ... maybe, may not. Fortunately it is a simple thing to test! Open the case, run the system, note the temps, now just rig a spare fan ( to an old PS if necessary ) and hold it so it blows air directly over and under the HDD and watch the temps. NOTE: as obvious as this sounds, beware of the spinning fan blades with both your fingers and wires in the case! For real hot things like chips you get several variables you can play around with: thermal paste, heat sink, fan. But for packaged components like a disk drive you only got one, air flow. Convection depends on moving air to transfer heat from a heat sink ( which in the case of a HDD is the entire surface area ). And it really requires just a little air movement to work well, indeed you'll hit diminishing returns eventually with more and more fans, all the gain is on the low end of the curve, moving from no air-flow to some air-flow is a big jump. So when you say adding fans might not help you might be right, but most likely there is not continuous good airflow over both sides of the HDD package, the metal top and the PCB bottom. Or perhaps an unusual circumstance where warm air is being blown right over the HDD, it can happen from a ribbon cable having moved and diverting air movement. A 120mm fan can perfectly "cool" ( well, increase convection on ) three internal HDD's, and a fourth can be fitted in a pinch. BTW, we are also in a heatwave, 90 degrees F with about 100% humidity for nearly 3 weeks now. No HDD or any other temp problems though.

Agreed that this one at MSFN is getting better, and especially agree about the quotes! Do you notice what I am noticing here? Because of the lightness of the text and background, the quote blends into the post. Remind you of anything? If you just add in angle brackets we will have come full circle to USENET era style. Check this out ... > ----- SITE & FORUM ISSUES appended at 04:56:00 on 13/07/14 GMT (by JACLAZ at MSFN) > Subject: this forum - how to change skin? > From: dflkjks sfkljlkfjlk ljflkjljf lkjdflk > Message-ID: <kjjrkeljkjdfiouoijlksdjflkj> > Date: 14 Jul 13 04:56:00 GMT > From: sdlkjlk slkjfsljlkjl'ljkjdfkl kljsdflkj > > represent "universal" concepts on readability: > > 1. Colours (foreground text/background) > 2. Fonts > 3. Contrast > > DO MATTER, and the choices to produce something readable are limited. > > The eyes and the brain work in a given way and the "mindless" can do *whatever*, but ignoring several tens years of research and experience in readability is simply foolish. > > BTW IMHO the current MSFN theme is not at all that bad , the only really senseless setting is the "quoted" text having been dimmed/faded into the background to such an extent that is HARDLY readable (if readable at all). > It really hurts my eyes. > > jaclaz Am I right? In the text-only era in the 1980's there were no good ways to nest quotes so they used what they had available with angles ( and yes it got ugly as the nesting deepened ), and this is still seen in low bandwidth settings in email. The problem from that era was that reading the thread is challenging because the quote is ambiguous, the angles blending into the margin, thus the quote blending in to the reply ( yielding the wonderful invention of the SNIP ). After reading these for years you get message blind! Then came HTML and the concept of tags and containers, and finally CSS to allow tweaking of these objects using all available formatting styles ( rather than the styles preassigned to tags by Tim Berners-Lee and W3C ). Now this was hugely important because going forward we could address the text in the quote container via CSS and instantly push it around, color it, and everything else. The results were quotes that could be easily made to stand out prominently and unambiguously ( satisfying due credit ) and simultaneously promoting legibility by preventing blindness B) Now here's the ironic part. Thanks to the MetroTards with their fondness for flatness and disdain for "frills" and "chrome", they are reverting the world back to the bad old days. It's ironic because they say "You hate change you Luddite!". But this is change BACK. And this is a perfect demonstration of how wrong they are because nobody who lived through the USENET pre-Internet era wants > brackets instead of CSS quote boxes. We made this change ourselves, gladly! So in reality with this ( and indeed with Metro ), we are resisting change BACK to the worse case of all. The past! Thank you RetroTards! UPDATE: Just want to point out that when I originally posted this comment the above quote box and the simulated USENET section both matched almost perfectly. Xper is busy tweaking the style and has improved things as the text color in that quote box is now much darker. All we need now is to get that gray background out of there! The general appearance of the theme with white and light gray is kind like a cellphone flashlight app. Indeed it actually brightens the space around my screen more than before. But it is terrible for the eyes.

No stone unturned. I hear that. Ah yes, LLL, that was the first Larry, right? I got it somewhere. And I know exactly what you mean. Add in King's Quest and Black Cauldron too. You could breeze through the game okay but you would most likely miss something in an earlier window pane ( up/down/left/right screen paging ). You had to be sure to pick up everything or you would later be doubling back through already visited panes until you find what you missed. Did that a few times. I guess our new OS interfaces and forum themes are the new Quests! BTW, as limited as those Sierra games were, they were like quake/unreal engine graphics compared to the earliest PC text games. I think Zork was the first or maybe Microsoft Adventure. Take this, take that, look up, etc. ( Come to think of it, maybe Zork should be released in the Microsoft Store for all those MetroTards that tell us how fond they are of typing the names of their files and folders instead of clicking through hierarchies. It should be an absolutely huge hit! )