CharlotteTheHarlot

( trying to piece together a missing post ) Statcounter June 2013: Google Chrome reigns supreme, IE comes in second ( NeoWin 2013-07-09 ) Not making the MicroZealots very happy. Naturally they insist these stats are bad. Naturally. I couldn't care less, choosing between Chrome and MSIE is like poop and diarrhea. Microsoft announces partner initiative to improve app design ( NeoWin 2013-07-10 ) Now that is a mouthful of marketbabble. "innovative experiences that engage millions of users" yeah right. Microsoft puts in new security update policy for third party store apps ( NeoWin 2013-07-10 ) You know this is lip service because holding the playskool Metro toy app makers to any such standard, like pulling non-updated apps, means the total in the Store would drop precipitously. Lip service. Microsoft wants Windows XP's market share to be below 10 percent by support cut off ( NeoWin 2013-07-10 ) Now isn't that rich? Here's what the MetroTard-in-chief had to say about Windows XP ... He also adds this industrial strength Idiocracy ... First of all he's a student, he supports nothing, and it's more likely our tax dollars are supporting him. But he's constructed a career in his mind of "supporting" systems somewhere, maybe his grandmother's. Notice the word "workflow". A classroom concept as well as Microsoft MarketBabble, people that work for a living don't have time for droid talk ( and he probably means workflow as checking email and NeoWin anyway ). Think back to when you were in school and remember the fraudster that spent all day making glamorous flow charts while real programmers hammered out code, you know the type, eager to capitalize on others' work. Perfect for Microsoft these days from what I hear, he should apply. But he better hope they don't read all his posts. So Windows XP has no Search? Well it does if you want it ( including indexing ), but there are replacements as well. However, by 'Search' he means specifically the Windows 8 'Tard search that indexes everything and leaves it at their fingertips, no dialog box necessary, so if he turns his back on his Surface tablet I can just press a couple of keystrokes and out jumps everything, including personal documents. If I turn my back on an XP system and he tried the same, he wouldn't have the slightest idea how to mine anything. You really got to wonder if the word "security" was ever explained to MetroTards. The biggest irony is that after admitting he not only doesn't use Windows XP, but also never touches it even if others have it, then he spends time in forum threads slamming Windows XP, doing precisely what he and all MetroTards accuse others of doing - criticizing an OS they don't use or understand! The fail is strong with this one. Meanwhile I and millions of others continue along, not only without problems, but with the full force of the processor available because it is not ( in my case anyway ) tied up with antivirus and all the extra tasks built into Windows 6.x. Lately at NeoWin the non-MetroTards have been having a go at the MicroZealots. They're getting in at the top of the threads, with leadoff posts, driving them batty. Cheers EDIT: 2013-07-12 ( since forum changeover ) trying to adjust formatting to see what sticks. This editor really sucks. Try to go to end of comment and add blank lines and you get them somewhere in the middle of the comment. Choices for large font appear to be 24 pt and 36 pt ( the old "5" appears to fall in between that. No bold on size "1" which is 8 pt apparently. More later.

Was there a 2nd post from me just above yours when you replied? Any chance you have a saved copy? agreed. Does anyone have a copy of this page before the rollback? I can't believe I was stupid enough to make a post without saving a copy. P.S. the one just above this is a spammer, already reported. EDIT: spammer already gone even before I posted. EDIT2: I checked Google, Bing, and DDG, the closest cached page is July 6 in Bing. Cannot determine Google's last crawl but they all definitely were not here yesterday.

Can you elaborate a little on those? The main thrust of the DoJ action, at least publicly, was centered around Netscape being somehow strangled by Microsoft including MSIE in Windows. Barksdale was testifying before Congress, all the Netscape fanboys were up in arms, and Microsoft would need to be punished. Ironically, this is the very point that kept me from supporting the breakup of Microsoft. People on my side of the argument felt that this was incredibly stupid and petty Government action, and it reeked of protecting a specific product, Netscape, and was extremely shortsighted. The reason that many felt this way was because of the dangerous precedent that would be set if MSIE was forced to be removed due to Government action. This is one of those times that an automobile analogy fits perfectly: "Telling Microsoft to not include MSIE in Windows is like telling car-makers to not include a radio". After-market radios work just fine, and no-one is alleging car-makers or Microsoft is preventing after-market hardware or software from being installed later. The Netscape portion of the DoJ case should never have moved past that analogy because it is plain common sense. Now if the Government did step in specifically using Netscape as an injured party and the remedy is to remove MSIE, then the door gets kicked wide open for every other part of the Operating System to be challenged and removed by anyone that produces a "competing" applet. Calculator, Notepad, Wordpad, Scandisk, Defrag, Paint, Media Player, etc. All of these and more would become subject to the whims of lawsuits and Government action and Windows could literally be reduced to a set of DLLs and Explorer.exe. We did not want all the other parts of Windows jettisoned because ACME Media Player or Harry's Calculator or Adobe Photoshop got butthurt by Windows applets. That's the reason so many people fought against the Netscape thing. There is also the little matter of protectionism where the Federal Government would be protecting Netscape's business, a paid browser threatened by a free one, placing the Government in the odd position of serving its citizens by favoring a paid solution over a free one. And there's the more philosophical and political angle that points out that the Federal Government has no business selecting what products should win or lose, or what their price should be. These are more or less beside the point though, because as I said the Netscape portion of the case should never have went past the auto analogy because the mere presence of MSIE did not hurt Netscape. So that explains the most prominent feature of the controversy, Netscape. However, if Microsoft did anything above and beyond merely including MSIE without sabotaging the ability for 3rd party after-market browsers, anything that gets into anticompetitive behavior, then all bets are obviously off. So, the bottom line about the most visible part of the case, Netscape, was this ... the mere inclusion of MSIE is not anticompetitive. Period. Clearly the case went much further, and if you read that Wikipedia extract you will see that they were obstinate, and frankly should have been held in contempt of court. The thing that bothers me the most is that in retrospect is that the Netscape fiasco looks now like a pea-shell game diversion! While thousands of hours were wasted pontificating over MSIE and Netscape, Microsoft was busy monopolizing the back channels of OEM distribution of Windows. So here we sit today with no actual competitors because they were actually strangled out of the market ( Netscape was not ). And the consequence is this ... as Microsoft makes its anticompetitive move with Windows 8 and the wall-garden Store being slipped into non-Microsoft hardware at the OEM factory, those missing competitors are unable to show damage from the OEM monopoly. That's because ... they are missing. In summary, whether it is the Government's or Microsoft's fault, the Netscape diversion allowed the OEM monopoly to flourish, so even though Microsoft lost, they really won. I hope people re-read that previous post, especially the Wikipedia excerpt and still contact the Government, because as the only remaining injured party, the people are the only ones that can start an action. In a perfect world the remedy would be the same, break out the neutral OS division from the company. Better yet, just ask them to release the x86 source code and let them go on their merry way producing a toy operating system for MetroTards.

Speaking of monkeys, I made a graphic for that ... ( Image Sources: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 )

Read the whole post for the context. Any thoughts on this? Personally, I don't think there is a conscious "master" plan to control how people use their computers (although there may in fact be, for all we know), but I do believe that that is a predictable consequence of what they're doing over at Microsoft with Metro, the Windows Store, secure boot: in the end, the user will lead a computer life whose activities will be strictly constrained by what the powers-that-be in Redmond (and, likely, functionaries in the various capital cities of the world) shall deem it fit to allow; and the PC will become not much better than an interactive TV set. This is motivated IMHO (at least on Microsoft's part) not by control freakiness, but by Apple envy; and the process of OS cretinization will be helped along by folks who can't (or won't) see past the end of their noses and will cheer it all on, as long as they feel "safe" or get cool new toys to play with. Concerning the alleged security rationale, I'm skeptical, and in any event giving up freedom for security is not a bargain I am eager to make. ~sigh~ Lot of shallow thinking going around. Shallow, because they throw this stuff out without thinking it through. Each point there is senseless IMHO ... Do you think the people at Microsoft have some master plan to control how you use your OS or something? Well aside from the industrial strength use of a strawman there, they do control much of how we use it by virtue of what actual OS is released and what is killed. And it would be much worse today if it hadn't been for periodic pushback events in the past, pushback against Draconian DRM ever-present in the OS stationed on-guard watching out for Big Hollywood interests. They do have a master plan though, and I'll get back to this later. The "restrictive" stuff that they put in Windows is for the concern of security and nothing more. Some kind of Irony coming from a commenter in a thread about restoring Aero, which was yanked for reasons completely unrelated to security. As were gadgets, contrary to their lies. As was everything they killed along the way. If security were actually a concern MSIE would never have been allowed to operate. Active-X controls would never even have had an option to silently download and run. The firewall in XP would have been two-sided and the later firewalls would have been backported. MSIE would have been sandboxed years ago and itself would be backported to every version of Windows. If they cared about security there is no doubt that these all of things and more would be front and center, not mere afterthoughts occurring years later. I think he is confusing "paying lip service" with genuine concern about security. It's obvious many people simply do not realize that almost everything done by Microsoft is not for users, but for Microsoft itself. I hope you're not one of those conspiracy theorists who believe that everytime a windows update breaks some hack it's because Microsoft purposely put in some way to prevent it. One of the most obvious coping mechanisms of those in denial is the use of "conspiracy theory theory" ( CTT ), which means to invent a ridiculous strawman, setting the bar to an unattainable level of proof required to defeat it. So in these cases the CTT calls for the dark smoky back room filled with shady characters seen in the X-Files, who are plotting to make Windows users lives miserable. Unless the minutes of these meetings surface and get exposed on NeoWin or The Verge the person in denial gets to sleep comfortably knowing all is right with the world. Back to the "master plan" ... one easy way to test a hypothesis ( e.g., "Do you think the people at Microsoft have some master plan" ) is to invert it and see what you get. So, is it possible that Microsoft has NO master plan? Are they really operating day to day willy-nilly, only reacting to events instead of following a carefully planned agenda? This is a top Wall Street property, AAA rated, to think they are operating their flagship on a day to day basis is absurd. They have stated many times that they are in the midst of converting to a SaaS subscription paradigm, better known as a parasitic leech and you better believe this transition is loaded with carefully laid plans, among which Windows figures prominently. So they have plans for their OS, he can call it a "master plan" if he likes, or not. Doesn't matter. The plan has been deduced and fleshed out all across the blogosphere, especially here in this thread. That plan starts with ... Building a new platform from the ground up, a clean slate that they can control both the hardware and software. This is the Apple-envy portion. WinRT is the goal here, a sad, trivial, amateurish platform that truly is Playskool level but satisfies the sheeples' urge for mass quantities and rapid deployment of Stores full of childish fart apps. And that's fine if they want it. ... but ... What should they do with the x86 universe, the open architecture that brought them to the pinnacle of the technological business world in the first place? That's where it gets icky. And it is where they cross the line of becoming an outright evil corporation by revisiting antitrust and anticompetitive behavior once again. And, yes, it also includes a "master plan". What they are doing is casting a vast wide net to catch as many of the x86 fish as possible before they get away. By inserting all the locked-down walled-garden concepts of WinRT plan into Windows 8, like the Store, they are steering millions of customers on the neutral x86 playing field into a training program for future Apple'tards, err I mean MicroTards. This is the nefarious portion of the plan. And if there was any competition that had survived their previous anticompetitive forays, well, they would be up in arms right now. I firmly believe this plan was hatched around the WinXP timeframe, after Gates stepped down, after the Judgment that was watered down from the original monopoly busting verdict, when they were on a kind of probation which lasted until 2007. They likely planned the move to copy Apple during the Judgment and began executing it since Vista. In short, it means they are getting out of the neutral OS producing business. And with it goes any related developer software, Technet, and all complexity. It is easy to be Apple. It is NOT easy to be neutral. So Apple it is. The consequence of this is that user freedoms will be dramatically impacted without a neutral OS, or even one that only pretends to be neutral. The computing world will become Balkanized once again, as it was from around 1988 to about 1993 when Windows finally became dominant and developers flocked to a monopolized platform but was at least a stationary target. Expect aisles full of Toys'r'us-like stores selling all kinds of children computers appealing to the derp, with nothing matching the extraordinary trajectory we were on and should still following at this point in time. Microsoft's target is even lower than Apple's though, they are scraping the bottom of the barrel for the dumbest of the dumb, and judging by NeoWin, they are being fairly successful. If you can imagine the big record companies that sell a wide range of artists music, Microsoft would be the one only signing Michael Jackson, Madonna and Justin Bieber. The talent ( I'm talking music here, not dancing or showmanship ) is an inch deep but sells millions. Windows 8 is Justin Bieber's idea. Most of the 'Tards find no fault in such a plan. The say it's good business. Sure. It would also be easier to only sell Chevettes rather then Corvettes, it would be much easier to turn a 5-star restaurant into McDonald's, for all whiskey to be generic and no beer to be German, for all furniture to be plywood, and all clothes to be made in China. Catering to the lowest common denominator is business 101 apparently, it is truly sheeplenomics. But catering only to the lowest common denominator means no top-shelf anything. This is called the "race to the bottom" and the 'Tards that embrace it and rationalize it must be called out and ridiculed. The question is how much of it will they accept before they wake up and go "waitaminit, I didn't want that to happen". My guess is they will accept a lot. I suggest people start saving all their personal computers, all the parts, all the software, maybe reup to Technet one last time, in short grab everything for a rainy day because thanks to the sheeple, the forecast for the future is very cloudy. We're only fighting a small piece of the battle here in Windows land. Truly it crosses over into all these other areas of life. We all see it everywhere, all around us, every day. Strip malls full of ever-changing little stores, closed-up big box outlets, a general lack of quality. And it permeates into even service industries that are now staffed with narcissistic spoiled brats yacking on their cellphones and when they can pry themselves away from the social world, they do a bad job anyway. So Microsoft is not unique in this regard, but they are guilty of lack of integrity and quality. In a free market in a free society there is no law that requires a company to make a great product ( rather than a sufficient product ), there is no law that requires anyone to go above and beyond the call of duty. That comes from personal integrity and from high principles and values and from a personal aversion to failure and need for perfectionism. But there are elements in a free market and free society that promote this. Those elements come from high customer expectations, and feedback. They do NOT come from enablers and fanboys and MetroTards. Living through the x86 software era you couldn't help but notice some programs were pure crap, but others were written by devs that really really cared about their code and documentation. So we know we have all kinds of people in the world because we have seen it everyday. The market elements of customer feedback called out the crap and praised the good stuff to the ends of the Internet. It is the only thing that can really save Microsoft, and by extension the Personal Computer itself. The ironic thing is that the original Judgment against Microsoft, and the order to break it up into two parts would have been the absolute BEST thing for us, and Microsoft itself. Getting the neutral Windows OS away from the rest of the clowns up there into a separate place where they would answer to everyone would have been ideal. Most importantly it would have removed the irresistible temptation for Microsoft to use the OS as leverage to steer the Sheeple into the Microverse as they are plotting as we speak. Windows would be far more cross platform friendly and so many developer avenues would not have turned into dead-ends. Unfortunately the government spent so much time hammering them over Netscape ( thanks a lot Barksdale ) that they actually drummed up sympathy for Microsoft. I know this because I was one of them ( boy was I wrong! ). It seemed really dumb to complain about a free browser in the OS because other browsers worked fine. And the downside of making them remove it meant opening the door to every other non-essential part of the OS ( Calc, Notepad, etc ) to also be challenged by every Tom, Dick and Harry on the planet. Meanwhile the backroom OEM deals got stepped over chasing Netscape down a rabbit hole. ~sigh~ Anyway, I'll close with what was said at the time ... You better believe that this is what set current events into motion. They simply bided their time until the remedy ran out and now are making their move. Things are going to become radically different at the end of this story. But there is nothing stopping everyone in the USA from contacting their two Senators and one Representatives as well as their State Attorney General and the FTC and the DoJ directly and remind them of this convicted monopolist that skated away on a technicality and now is right back doing it again. Other countries may have their own bureaucracy that can be contacted personally. Doing nothing is the only way to guarantee that they will get away with it.

Work is fine and all, however ...

It's good

"PC's don't come with drives" and "What's a DVD?" Like I said, if it were left up to the 'tards all these years, Microsoft would have died long ago. Their fanboys are like Dr. Kevorkian. How is it that the Softie and fanboys in that thread using Windows 8 are talking about every possible codec option except for K-Lite? Dumb question I guess. Windows 8 was designed for them.

I love Surrealism. Sign me up. I posted these earlier, Metatools and KPT kind of did it already. Drove sane people crazy. I'm not perfectly sane, so I dig this stuff. EDIT: typo

From The Forums: Windows 8.1 mini-review ( NeoWin 2013-06-07 ) Nothing Earth-shattering here except that it is a review from a lukewarm Windows 8 user, so naturally the MetroTards are nitpicking his points and lack of 100% love for Microsoft Tles. The thread veers into Aero Glass and the Start Menu so naturally our most special MicroZealot pops up, rattling off all the usual propaganda and some new angles. There is too much to quote in context but this is a classic. One smart commenter sets them up and ropes them in by describing ways they could improve the right-click Start Menu ( that abominable little thing that gives a quasi-similar looking traditional Start Menu ) ... And that ladies and gentlemen is MetroTardia. You gotta love that clever setup, right? The last comment from the MetroTard-in-chief boils it right down to the core though, because they cannot even understand the purpose of the unobtrusive traditional Start Menu. He immediately cites the fact that it isn't full-screen as a negative. The purpose of the Start Menu was to open and disappear, this was in stark contrast to the huge folder interface in Windows 3.x. Now here's where the cognitive dissonance comes in. The traditional Start Menu is a quick appearing and disappearing pop on and off menu, and this is alien to them ... but ... the MetroTards embrace and extol the virtues of the Charms bar and other Metro GUI elements that do what? That's right, appear and disappear. These guys are stuck on stupid. One more thing about this. If you read enough of this silliness you will notice that they really never used the traditional Start Menu correctly! You keep hearing about same number of clicks to do this or that. But the traditional Start Menu allows access to any part of it, no matter how many levels deep, with less than one click. That means a half-click ( button down ) to get to any part of it, and then release to execute it. Try it. You click on the Start Menu button and hold it and then can go anywhere from there. I don't know how it would be possible to do it in less clicks except for a GUI that uses mouse-over as a click ( and I think Vista and 7 might just have this in some quirky situations from what I have seen ), but it really is perfect as it is from a security standpoint or accidental click prevention. From The Forums: Readers post their Windows 8.1 Start screens ( NeoWin 2013-07-04 ) Okay, so it's been two years since this twisted nightmare of a Playskool interface was hatched. Two years. Now all the MetroTards have had their time to tweak and customize their toys, you know, to differentiate themselves from each other and their MicroBorg collective. How have they done? Well not so good if you ask me. Visit the link to scroll through a bunch of examples and there are even more to see if you go to the forum link. The point is simple, after all their blathering about fixing it up and personalizing all they have done is to re-create a cluttered desktop that we have seen for 18 years now, and in some ways even longer. I made this a while ago and this is the perfect place for it ...

Facebook and Flickr photo integration dropped from Windows 8.1 ( NeoWin 2013-07-03 ) This would be like removing CD Burning because there are 3rd party burners. I was gonna say it would be like removing the DVD playing, but, well, they already did! That's some operating system we got here. Lots of ticked off MetroTards in the comments showing that Microsoft isn't quite through yet reducing the size of its fan base. Naturally there are some MicroZealots there as well, repeating the mantra that there are good enough replacements, so no worries mate! Be happy. Thank God all these enablers didn't exist years ago because Windows would have never survived even this long. Windows 8.1 preview removes Windows Experience Index ( NeoWin 2013-07-07 ) Poof goes another feature. Check out the thought progression of the NeoWin writer, this style skeleton gets a lot of use over there ... First they butter you up with fluff about some added features, then drop the hammer telling you a certain thing has been killed, then they finally slip in the official propaganda, this time a strawman about "outside software makers" not really using it ( wait, what? ) to shelve the whole story for good. Needless to say that the point of that benchmark was not for "outside software makers" at least not that I can recall, but as a basic layman diagnosis for weak points in performance for the purposes of hardware upgrading, and also as a rough estimate of the entire system rating. One does wonder though why they would remove it at all? It was working, now it is not. Why kill it? Battery life again? What it tells me is that as we said long ago they should have forked the OS for mobile and workstation. But we know they tied it around Windows neck like an albatross in order to save Metro from failing as it would all by itself. Then they proceed to strip down Windows "workstation" until it matches the original design of "mobile", that means kill Windows, period. ( Fanboys just STFU now! ) I've said it before and I'll say it again - their vision for a mobile OS is nothing more than a ripoff of common consumer electronic firmware ( those little menus that overlay the screen when you use a DVR or DVD or Camera or whatever ). It is not Windows. It was never going to be Windows. Microsoft is leaving the Windows business and going into the firmware menu business. The name Windows attached to this abomination is merely a distraction. Don Mattrick could get $50 million with move from Microsoft to Zynga ( NeoWin 2013-07-05 ) That's a big wow. Whether this guy is worth any of that money doesn't concern me at all. But wow. I find it hard to believe that Zynga could possibly offer this deal and still face their stockholders and customers. This is a real reinforcement to the stereotype of an out of touch Wall Street mentality. It also tells me that Zynga is quite possibly in trouble ( more than we thought ) before hiring him because it sounds like a "this is it" moment, meaning "If this guy can't turn us around no-one can". But hey, there's no law against it, more power to him for nabbing this offer. It would have probably been cheaper to just sell the company to Microsoft though, rather than bring an Elop type invader into the fold. And why bring a Softie in anyway? Zynga isn't exactly a Windows stalwart. ... Yet. Nokia credit rating downgraded again amid cash concerns ( NeoWin 2013-07-05 ) Oh man, there are some real dead-ender type MicroZealots in that thread denying the undeniable. They got their little WP8 handset so therefore all is right with the world. You know there is some scrambling going on up in Redmond. They almost blew $45 billion on a crazy urge to buy Yahoo, but they seem willing to let Nokia flounder and won't ante up enough cash to buy them. That should tell us one thing - even Microsoft doesn't have enough faith in the WP product to put their money where their mouth is. I hope they don't buy them, Nokia should be independent and viable. But one of two things is going to occur, either Microsoft does buy them or the phone device business, or, Nokia breaks the pact with the devil and offers an Android line in addition to WP in order to get its head above water.

UK asks Google to revise privacy policy or face enforcement action ( TechSpot 2013-07-05 ) UK government gives ultimatum to Google to change privacy policies ( NeoWin 2013-07-05 ) UK Demands Google to Change Privacy Policy ( Tom's Hardware 2013-07-06 ) How do you spell hypocrisy? G-o-v-e-r-n-m-e-n-t, that's how. What industrial strength chutzpah is going on here. And it is not exclusive to the UK either, we have had similar hypocrisy by pompous asses in our own Congress and the White House too. These hypocrites are {1} actively spying as a matter of standard operating procedure, but most stunningly they are {2} using Google as one of its "partners" just the same as Microsoft, the first government partner. One must wonder if those stories about Google ( and Twitter as well ) challenging the government program lately are actually true and this is a form of payback or intimidation. Note that at the NeoWin link they use a different Google logo in the article, this one is red instead of multicolored, and sports a pair of horns like the devil. The site full of MicroZealots and MetroTards that root for Scroogle campaigns and defend everything that Microsoft does considers Google the Devil, but sends boatloads of love to Microsoft, the first partner with the government spy program. In Secret, Court Vastly Broadens Powers of N.S.A. ( New York Times 2013-07-06 ) Now I'm regularly reading newspapers that I normally wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole ( you have to live here and have grown up here to understand ) but there is no question they are producing real information on this story. This one is chock full of hardcore details of the star-chamber secret court, how it began and how it works today. Basically this is like the epitaph being etched on the tombstone of privacy and freedom. It's a short jump from here to every bad nightmare that was ever dreamed by free people. Read this story to get a rough idea of what is occurring today as we speak. But if you want to get really depressed then ponder this: should one more large scale terrorist attack occur despite all the spying ... just imagine what will become standard operating procedure five minutes later. Federal authorities seize Bitcoins for what may be the first time ( NeoWin 2013-07-07 ) Naturally. The Fourth Amendment is being stomped on daily. When "authorities" come for a visit, whether it is random crime, drug war or terrorist related, or simply at the behest of the RIAA or MPAA or BSA ( still terror related, especially for that grandmother they thought downloaded songs ) they take a whole lot of private property. Everything from phones to computers to paper records, everything except your neighborhood library card because that would be prying. So why not take the money too. I would say that eBay PayPal would be next, but that's just plain ridiculous, everyone knows they will just hand it over to whoever asks. EDIT: typo(s)

Dell has sold 'hundreds of thousands' of Windows 8/RT tablets; could make wearable PCs ( NeoWin 2013-07-04 ) Wow, that's almost enough to equip a whole city. But it begs a huge question ... how many of the Windows RT devices were returned because the victim confused the word Windows with the word Windows? DirectX 11.2 said to be a Windows 8.1 / Xbox One exclusive ( NeoWin 2013-07-04 ) I'm shocked. Shocked I tell you. Not really. Microsoft simply continuing their evil ways here with planned obsolescence. What's ironic is listening to the fanboys over the past few months decrying the state of PC gaming, insisting that this makes Xbox such a great idea. But the truth of the matter is that Microsoft itself has splintered and fragmented PC gaming intentionally and maliciously over the years ever since DirectX 9. Let's just cut to the chase here ... Microsoft showed their malice towards the PC right at the end of the WinXP era. Sometime during the MCE years is when their future plans were hatched, plans that meant scrapping the free and open x86 platform and transitioning to a locked-down fiefdom. Vista was merely the alpha step, Windows 7 the beta, and well, here we are at Walled-Garden.RTM with SP1 waiting in the wings. It won't be much longer waiting for MicroApple. Here's some customer feedback ... Report: Microsoft to now include headset with Xbox One [update: It won't] ( NeoWin 2013-07-04 ) Back and forth again on yet another recent Xbox issue ( see Post #3387 ). This story made the rounds that Redmond would relent and include a cheap headset, which according to those earlier stories, is suggested as a must-have accessory. But no, this alleged about-face were merely rumors, they will NOT include a headset, buy one yourself! But don't worry though, they will be including the rather expensive Kinect device for free! ( Man, they really want this thing in living rooms, eh? ). Marie Antoinette Baller says, let them eat Kinect. Here's some more customer feedback ...

Somewhat heartening to have made it through two long pages of comments over there with no obvious shills stinking up the place so far. That's pretty frickin' unusual for Ars Technica these days. The sheeple over there are still lagging way behind us in the Windows camp though, only recently having had had their own Ox gored - their precious Xbox. What strikes me though is the undercurrent ( maybe 10% of the ones I read ) who keep saying "Microsoft needs better marketing" or "They should have released and said nothing". Kinda missing the whole point, ya know?

I was going to post this later today myself, great minds... You read it exactly as I did. Thurrott had a rare moment of common sense criticizing the lockout of Ethernet from Surface RT ( maybe all WinRT or just everything on ARM ) and his fanboys showed they are MicroZealots first, incapable of criticizing Microsoft under any conditions. It is pretty crazy making the thing wireless or sneakernet only. If someone has Wi-Fi in their home then they have a router. If they have a router it has Ethernet ports ( God forbid they ever become Wi-Fi output only ). The only easy way to sling various random devices into your router network temporarily is a quick wired Ethernet connection. The only two Wi-Fi methods are {1} granting them normal access by giving them the security passphrase which is a bad idea because it will remain in the device, or {2} letting them use a restricted Guest login ( if the router firmware even has it ) but that can be a bit of a hassle ( of course I am talking about the situation where the wireless security is actually turned on, the way things are going with Microsoft they will end up telling everyone to leave the security turned off for easy access ). So Paul was right this time and I suspect he does the same thing many of us do, which is you leave an Ethernet wire hanging out of the router and that wire is available for quickly hooking up anything from a PC you are fixing, a laptop, any random device that you want to temporarily get maximum speed internet access ( Windows Updates, etc ) or local network access. It is hysterical to read about his fanboys scratching their heads over this. Here is a non MicroZealot and I liked his comment very much ... 100% agree And the reason for this mess must be either ... an ARM related issue they themselves messed up in the operating system ( other ARM devices can and do have Ethernet so it is not technological or legal ) ... or ... yet another case of product differentiation, which is another form of planned obsolescence but occurring in the present ( they want the Surface Pro flagship to have the capability but not RT ). Another day, another MicroCrisis.

Well, I beg to differ. Set aside the "niche" needs of audio producing, those were the times when (a VERY brief period, UNfortunately) I had ALL Windows NT 4.00 machines, with data saved on a separate partition (casually around 650 Mb in size) and a single SCSI external CD burner. Backup meant that every day of the week a different user would get the SCSI burner, and simply burn to a CD the WHOLE set of DATA out of his/her machine before going at home. When the need arose for tape backup, then the headaches started. Till today there is NOT such a simple way (short of replicating/duplicating on other hard disks) way to backup, of course the reason is to be attributed to industry that failed to deliver a storage media (optical, Magneto-optical, holographic, *whatever*) capable of enough capacity AND to the good MS guys (and ALL or almost ALL the programmers that followed and still follow their stupid "guidelines/approaches") and spread meaningful info *anywhere* (the Program Files, the Registry, the actual place where DATA is, the User folder(s), etc.). Well you're probably right, there were many things worth remembering so I shouldn't throw it all out as bad times. I guess it's just human nature to always remember specific nightmare issues, especially when they're Windows related.. I forgot about MO drives ... I remember adding Adaptec cards and going through a succession of SCSI MO removeable disks, IIRC they were mostly SyQuest. It actually worked pretty well for the time period. They were I think 100 or 120 MB cartridges so their use in audio was rather limited. They were mostly used for storage of artwork and publicity data. I remember sending some off to a printer ( literally that is, houses with Agfa equipment and Macs that run off thousands of copies ) only to find out how fragile those MO disks were. Whoops. So we were right back to Iomega Zip floppies again. Technological detours on the information superhighway. For a short period of time after Win95 came along, the overall less expensive solutions in the Windows universe made some fiscal sense even with all the headaches. But I should just skip to the end of the story and point out that by the late 1990's to early 2000's all the places I worked with had settled into using Macs + ProTools and ADAT for everything audio and video related in house, from recording to processing, storage and final output ( masters duplicated and sent offsite for pressing ). Ironically, finally stable Windows XP systems arrived just in time to find use in the more mundane chores of bookeeping, some artwork, publicity, online access and the odd A/V project when a studio was swamped. Microsoft and Windows was simply late to this party ( the creativity community that is ) mostly because of how long it took to pull everything together seamlessly and to finally get NT's much more reliable data-integrity into the hands of the masses. Apple deserves a lot of credit for smooth sailing with a steady rudder in this field. Microsoft on the other hand, well, . I've often remarked of how I very rarely came across that stereotypical Mac user ( arrogant, hating the DOS/Windows world, turning their nose up like the Apple commercials, the type that MetroTards obsess over ), and it's true. The ones that actually were Mac'tards I rarely come across, instead I met them on telephone calls and in email. Thinking back on this I can recall a few insufferable people, inevitably it would stem from us trying to get them to send us their Agfa profile ( "Errr, what's an ICM? We use Macs here" ) or even just tell us the exact model or various details about how their artwork department processed this or that. There were these little inconsistencies in CMYK between Mac and Windows versions of identical software and worse ones between Corel and just about everyone else. Truthfully though, it wasn't so much Mac arrogance, but instead it was these guys protecting their little corner of the universe. They saw what was coming on the PC with Windows 95 - the ability of any person to do almost anything that big expensive production studios had cornered in their market, and to easily do almost anything that a Mac could do. So I never really held it against them, again, it's human nature. Our MetroTards on the other hand ... they're worse .... much, much worse..

Agreed, but why would they? Win95 was all about the standalone personal computer, local storage directly hooking up printers, using modems ( rather than networked comm and file and print servers ). Funny thing is, I'll bet if Microsoft could go back in time, they would have done it completely differently, playing down the user experience and emphasize the hive mentality and steer them into a proto-cloud, even at 56K dialup. I can't speak for that commenter at ZDNet but I'm not sure he meant PIF versus LNK. I suspect he was just trying to point out the brand new feature of LNK files connected to Windows applications like the older PIF files connected to DOS executables ( but I could be misreading him ). I think these were good ideas. Besides adding LNKs they also improved the PIFs by exposing many more settings to the properties GUI. The fact that they both survived this long means they really nailed it right out of the gate. No doubt. The desktop was familiar ever since Windows 1.x really, and Win3x ProgMan was really just the latest tweak of it. Of course hardcore users got tired of waiting for Microsoft to stop playing around and likely tried out 3rd party shells on DOS like GEM or even ~shudder~ Apple Macs. All that waiting and searching for a useful shell suddenly ended for good when Win95 arrived. Well mostly, the Explorer shell has never been properly debugged and de-annoyanced. In Win3x, as good as WinFile was ( and it was certainly better than its Explorer replacement ) the ProgMan shell just plain sucked. Clearly they had two different types of people designing the GUI, one went for tight, efficient use of space, forward looking with two panes ( WinFile ), the other wasted as much of the space as possible with big bright flat folders full of icons ( ProgMan ). I think I remember Sinofsky saying he was involved in Win3x as a rookie engineer, how much you wanna bet he had a hand in ProgMan but not WinFile, ( this would explain a lot of things really ). Anyway, people were certainly familiar with the desktop concept, folders and icons and everything else, but for the life of me I can't remember one that complained about Windows 95 ( contrary to MetroTard lies ). You're right about August 1996 for the OSR 2 ( I recalled November, probably because of the 11:11 timestamp ). Anyway it is technically true about not for general release, but it was most definitely a normal full retail pressed CD with the same old OEM label ( "only for sale with a new PC" ) that many other versions carried, shrink-wrapped with a thin book and a license sticker. It came with new computers ( and possibly with new motherboards? ) but I'm not sure how these studios got them. I think I was mistaken about the FAT32 converter because I just dug through one of the discs and there is no trace of it outside or inside the CABs, I guess the converter only appeared in Win98 unless it was a file from the Softlib FTP. Regardless, we did full installs from new CD's sometime in late 1996. The problem in the recording studios at that time was that they needed 2 GB and larger drives for working with wave files. At 650 MB per mastered audio CD plus tons more for processing it was top priority to get these "huge" disks ( which today would be considered a tiny flash drive ). This meant FAT32 or else. The thing I hated most though was the state of motherboard disk controllers, add-in EIDE cards and primitive system BIOS's. These were nightmares. I probably tried to suggest Windows NT plus SCSI hardware but that wasn't going to happen because even though money was no object ( to a point ), it was about budgeting for either a couple of SCSI systems or 10 normal systems. The latter meant that almost a dozen albums could be worked on simultaneously. Then there was the cost for CD Burners, several hundred bucks each in the early years, and they were merely 1x and 2x writers! The more I think about this period, the less I want to remember it!

Right on all counts. I'm in that forum, but haven't been back since the Chrome disaster. I'm glad you reported that there is some signs of an uprising. There have been Sinofsky style threading tricks there for a while. They have some real Dot OperaTards who troll around, sidetracking the countless important criticism threads, and then they get closed. It is unbelievable. Their purpose ( the trolls ) was to stop anything that seemed to disparage Opera, even though the threadstarters were trying like mad to wake them up. Threads with dozens of posters with positive ideas and complaints would be stopped dead in its tracks. A perfectly identical predecessor to the Destroying Windows Blog with Sinofsky. Just amazing. And you're right. It is nothing but a Chrome clone with a skin vaguely resembling Opera. They smooshed the Address Bar and Search into one box. They removed toolbar customization ( from what I read ) and lots of other features. I just hope they fork the thing now, spinning off the Presto source code to someone else. Whoever infected their leadership should go commit Seppuku - ( "stomach-cutting", a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment )

Technology-wise, ROTT was an upgrade over Wolf3D and was originally supposed to be another Nazi game, which is evident in the game itself. The project was delayed, though, and Doom beat it to market. ROTT was still awesome, though, and was the best multiplayer FPS of its time. The influence on other multiplayer FPSes like Quake is obvious. ROTT introduced several staple multiplayer modes and had the most total modes at the time and allowed the most players, 11, over the usual 4 or so. Doom had pseudo Z-axis in that one could move up and down stairs, elevators, etc, but no objects could occupy the same space vertically, so Doom was something like 2.5D. ROTT didn't entirely eliminate this restriction as those platforms were hardcoded spites. As in, literally hex edited into the game because while they figured out how to remove the Z restriction, they couldn't build it into the engine. ROTT had unique weapons for its time. Doom had introduced the vanilla rocket launcher, plasma gun, and BFG, but ROTT introduced what you mentioned plus the baseball bat (and balls), dog mode, magic wand, god hand, and others I am surely forgetting. It also introduced begging enemies (that would get you back if you didn't kill them). Besides allowing character selection, there were subtle differences between the characters. Another first, I believe, but this is usually attributed to Goldeneye I think, probably due to Oddjob's obvious and extreme advantage. EDIT: ROTT also introduced modifiable environments (smashing pots, bullet holes) and disintegrating enemies (burning, explosions). Okay, I'll stop now. Doh, you're right! Doom was out before ROTT. Thanks for that . Don't know how I forgot it. Oh yeah, dog mode! That's what I mean by outside the box thinking. God hand too. And wasn't there a follower mode? I think it was tied to one of the missiles ( I may be mixing it up with Unreal maybe ). So at the risk of exposing another memory error, tell me one more thing ... Am I recalling the random level generator correctly? ... I think it was RandRott and you ran it standalone, outside the game and it created a new map PAC or WAD or whatever their resource was? I'm stunned that such creative use of automation, especially the randomizing component, has not been exploited since unless I'm mistaken.

All that stuff seems to have been forgotten and even assumed as features. FAT32 was absolutely necessary. The hard drive capacity explosion caught FAT16 with its pants down and by 4Q 1995 2 GB partitions with 32K allocation units, the best FAT16 could do without hacks, was beyond end of life. People were also sick of basically having to name files like hex codes. That poster was correct about almost everything, but FAT32 arrived in the OSR for November 1996, not Win95 RTM. I remember this because we had just set up a bunch of Win95 production machines in a music studio and had to face the possibility of reformat or gamble on the in-place FAT32 converter. Microsoft's reputation on the consumer side was not as solid as NT yet ( if ever ) because the Win3x era was still fresh in all our memories. We reformatted. The list of positives for moving to Win95 was simply overwhelming though, and that is his point. In fact it was an extraordinary upgrade, none like it ever since. It lit a fire under Microsoft Windows users because it was an Apple-killer. Not that we wanted them dead, but it ended the envy we all had, that desire for a stable OS, with unlimited program size, unlimited running programs and multiple instances of programs. The shortcut concept with multiple customization options was well thought out. The GUI was icing on the cake because while ProgMan could be tamed into submission with enough fiddling with groups, the Start Menu collapsed it all into a drawer saving real estate on a 14 or 15 inch screen. Long Filenames was very useful but I suspect that people like me who had been doing the 8.3 dance for well over a decade could manage just fine without it, but I certainly didn't complain. It's a shame that ( contrary to laughable current Microsoft propaganda ) no upgrade since has come close to its pure value. Even Win98 was a mostly sideways step once the pluses and minuses were tallied ( the slow down of performance using current processors had begun, and that active desktop demonstrating their instinctive need to blur the lines between online and off ). Win95 was an upgrade with no downside. Not only did it carry forward everything from the previous OS, and not only did it add new features ( not a short bullet list, but a bucket full of new features ), it did all of this without breaking anything for the end-user ( breakage being the trademark feature of every OS upgrade since ). Just getting the Resource Kit book knocked your socks off because it was a two inch thick encyclopedia detailing change after change and really set a new bar for documentation.. If I had to state one potential pitfall that could be described as breakage it would have to be the Plug 'n Pray scenario where cards were not yet flexible enough to use more than a narrow range of resources, resulting in IRQ juggling by the BIOS and/or OS from a working state to a collision state on another reboot. That really sucked and you sometimes simply had to get different cards. In those scenarios I wished there was a workable off switch for PnP allowing manual expert settings of resources ( the Windows Device Manager options are just too limited ) if the cards physically even had jumpers that is. I've argued for static hardware resource management many times, so that on every boot the same IRQs and I/O and Memory addresses were in effect and predictability was preserved, unlike the situation of removing or adding a card and after a reboot and BIOS and OS juggling some new problem pops up. But this horse has clearly left the barn. Plug and Pray won. Personally I think the real surprise success was NT4. I think everyone knew 95 would be a hit but while NT3 had a growing market it was decidedly a niche product. NT4 was an overnight success and penetrated unforseen markets like computers used for word processing and gamer builds. There were howto sites detailing how to hack in DirectX and drivers into NT 4, and people were spending more on computers that were capable of handling NT. Businesses upgraded quickly, and some of them jumpted directly to NT4 and skipped 9x entirely (though that wasn't always practical). It was kind of crappy that NT had that lag every single time with NT 3.1 getting the Program Manager interface years after Window 3.0 and then NT 4.0 getting the new Start Menu GUI well after Win95. Come to think of it, I'll bet this is what is confusing all the MetroTards. They keep talking about some controversy during Win3x to Win95 transition. The only controversies that had merit and were argued in the magazines and on USENET were over differences between NT and 9x. The NT branch kept waiting for the GUI to catch up. The Win9x users were complaining about the half-baked PnP. Somehow this has percolated up into their mindless rants about the Start Menu which had no controversy because it was optional. There were also complaints about the price of NT, the lack of any publicity, and the memory requirements and the talk already was about "Does Microsoft want it to fail?" that kind of thing. But if you read between the lines it was because the complainers wanted it to succeed and were trying to stop Microsoft from making a blunder. These things are all the opposite from what they are alluding to. They weren't complaining about a horrible new Start Menu. Screw the MetroTards and that dishonest propaganda they are pushing. It's a combination of plain ignorance and outright lying. EDIT: typo, clarity

I'm still leaning towards the medication see-saw. It would be very interesting to chronicle his alternating positions on everything. I mean just pick an obvious one like Microsoft Tiles and cite dated quotes over the past two years since //Build/ 2011. The problem is that it would require quite a bit of time. I just recently noticed that on his site once the older articles fall off the bottom they are lost forever. Then when you use his search it throws them up in a random dated selection. He must be using Bing.

Loose ends from the previous week or two ... Security, Privacy and Cloud related ( continued ) ... Encryption defeated wiretaps for the first time ever in 2012 ( TechSpot 2013-07-01 ) Well I ain't buying this bullcrap at all. This is disinformation. And a ruse to get more powers. What I think they're saying is that FBI and law enforcement might have been thwarted, since they are not equipped with a black budget and mountains full of computers. Now here is a prediction I think you can bank on : expect legislation to outlaw any strong encryption. No-one would have dreamed it possible a few years ago, but the precedents are now in place. They already outlawed strong encryption for export. They have outlawed "circumvention" in your own private property ( DVD's, Satellite and Cable boxes, etc ). They have only the lonely PC device now to target, and target it they will. We are reaching a fundamental crossroad now. Will everyone sit around playing Angry Birds and let it happen? New ICANN agreement requires domain registrars to verify user identity ( TechSpot 2013-07-01 ) This is another brazen move against anonymity and it is no coincidence that it comes on the heels of the spying news. Governments are making a play for the Internet now. Sales taxes are in the pipeline. They think the party is over, and they just may be right. The people are mostly sheeple and are apparently welcoming their new overlords. Speaking of sheeple, listen to the clueless conclusion the TechSpot author comes too ... That's what you take away from this? Illegal goods? Accurate WhoIs? Go back to sleep. ~sigh~ AT&T Says It Can Accurately Track P2P-Shared Content ( Tom's Hardware 2013-07-01 ) Yup, it's all about torrents, NOT. We now have the ISPs exerting government approved snooping in the service of Big Hollywood. Oh wait, we've had that for quite a while now. So this is the next step, still disguised as serving the greater good looking after Hollywood intellectual properties, but actually putting names and places on download events. Okay, here's a question. If our government cannot even check and see someone's library records, the books they read, etc, how can this even be remotely acceptable? I have no love for crooks, torrents or pirates, but at this point I would take them in a heartbeat over the Big Brother that government and the sheeple are putting into place. Ubisoft Hacked, User Accounts Compromised ( Tom's Hardware 2013-07-02 ) Ubisoft website hacked, account information compromised ( TechSpot 2013-07-03 ) Ubisoft accounts hacked, email addresses and passwords compromised ( PC Gamer 2013-07-03 ) Ah the joys of the cloud. The hacked company isn't important, nor is what they took. The point is obvious though, another day, another hacking. I'm pretty sure now that we can just stop reporting these events completely, because it would be far simpler to just make a list of companies that have NOT been penetrated. Can anyone think of any example? Anyone? Bueller? I got nothin'. IIP bureau of U.S. State Department spent $630,000 on Facebook ‘likes’ ( TechSpot 2013-07-03 ) I just threw this one in to make everyone even more angry ( USA citizens obviously ). So, just to rub salt in the wounds from all the domestic spying against ourselves which we masochistically pay for, other government agencies are on a social spending spree! Isn't that just great? And what are the chances really that this is the extent of it all? The real number blown by all taxpayer funded bureaucrats will be in the millions. I don't suppose we could prevail on all these companies taking our money to consider reporting all the government entities wasting our money on their social sites? [update] Xbox Live currently experiencing a service disruption ( NeoWin 2013-07-03 ) Xbox Live was Dead. So how's that cloud thingy supposed to work again? Anyway, it is already restored so all connections are working. For now. Until next time. Bwahahahaha! ( evil laugh ! ) Microsoft, former Windows head Sinofsky agree to $14.2 million retirement package ( NeoWin 2013-07-03 ) The article details the severance package Sinofsky receives for either getting fired by Ballmer or for getting fired by Ballmer ( Stevie left shortly after the Windows 8 launch, on a Monday night a week and a half before Thanksgiving with no warning for Wall Street ). He is to receive some $14.2 million according to NeoWin, with some strings attached ... Thanks to this hush money no-one including Wall Street shareholders will get to learn the truth of what is going on up in clownsville for at least three more years. Well unless he gets offered a book deal worth more than that substantial bribe he receives if he stays quiet.

Loose ends from the previous week or two ... Security, Privacy and Cloud related ... SSL encrypted communications intercepted and stored by PRISM ( TechSpot 2013-06-26 ) Yep, that sounds like a workable, logical and well-thought out plan to me. And it has been executed flawlessly. And remind me who is in charge of certificates again? My friends, we've been had. FDA seizes 9,600 domains and $41 million from illegal online pharmacies ( TechSpot 2013-06-27 ) The FDA with Internet policing powers? How wonderful. I don't automatically jump for joy when I read these stories these days. The Mega fiasco was similar as it was painted as saving someone from someone else. Unfortunately that was about saving Big Hollywood and Big Technology ( alleged pirated software and movies ). So what exactly do we got here then? Saving Big Medicine? That's what I would guess from those keywords “potentially dangerous and unapproved”. The old Internet is quickly shaping up to be policed for those with the deepest wallets, the highest bidder. Once that occurs our Internet for all practical purposes becomes their Internet. Verizon now covering 500 markets with LTE, VoLTE coming in 2014 ( NeoWin 2013-06-27 ) And Big Brother thanks you for your business. But seriously, Verizon. After all the spying stories and their fiberoptic pipeline right into the spymaster headquarters. How do you monitor 300+ million people? It's easy if you put your mind to it. Just set up a handful of trusted ISP's and offload your dirty work to them. You may now notice there is a thread running through all these stories, and believe me, these are but the tip of the iceberg. Reject DRM and you risk walling off parts of the web, says W3C chief ( ZDNet 2013-06-27 ) Thank you W3C for helping us get our minds right. What a dolt. He goes on to worry about walled-gardens, consoles for example that might instead be used if the web doesn't itself build in DRM. Of course web browsers and website designers who are too busy to standardize core functionality like displaying a web page correctly and will somehow find the time to incorporate DRM to satisfy Big Hollywood and Big Media. W3C, how far they have fallen. Researchers see through walls with Wi-Fi ( TechSpot 2013-06-28 ) Well at least it's not as bad as it sounds ... yet. It is kind of a pseudo-radar. Probably no-one will find it useful, well, except maybe government spooks. But why trouble themselves if they can just get to your Kinect? The main concern going forward should be in the whole uPnP ( remember when that was considered bad? ) and new router interfaces that are adaptable for use by external devices. Yes, external. Outside your network, outside your security bubble. The hook is all the promise of watching a baby monitor from work, a webcam, having Metro Tiles that show these things, etc. Sheeple really go for this kind of thing, even if it means busting down all the security walls created along the way. And bust them they will. Windows, Router firmware, firewalls, everything. Duhfaults will be set, ports will be open, remote access will be enabled, it has to be because the baby monitor and webcam makers will insist on it. And hackers everywhere will thank them for it. Facebook Android App Found Collecting Phone Numbers Without User Consent ( Maximum PC 2013-06-30 ) Brazen stealing or accidental data collection by Facebook? Does it matter? I say stealing and they would have gotten away with it except for those pesky kids Symantec ( wait, what? ). Finally a good accomplishment by Symantec. However there is a real problem here, bigger than this case, and it was achieved in baby steps with Microsoft leading the way. At some point it became an acceptable standard operating procedure for communications to be sent from your computer to them ( phoning home ), naturally under the guise of an operating system function, most importantly WITHOUT a prompt or notification. They created a new normal where they can "take" stuff from your PC completely at will and completely under their control. This wiretapping is bad enough but they even use your Phone / Cable / DSL / Fiber / Satellite connection and bandwidth, your CPU cycles and electricity in the process. If someone came into your house and planted a bug or used your phone or electricity they would be in trouble, but instead we have somehow approved of this radically more efficient mechanism and we actually pay for it in cash. These precedents of unapproved communications taking place on our computers at the behest of Microsoft and countless 3rd parties is not even questioned by anyone. So again, why wouldn't Facebook brazenly steal a few bytes here and there. And how about that scoffing response they gave.

Loose ends from the previous week or two ... Miscellaneous ( continued ) ... Internet Explorer 11 Will Use Your GPU to Make Everything Fast ( Tom's Hardware 2013-07-01 ) Yeah, yeah. Can anyone tell me exactly what is so slow in a web browser that the GPU is needed? Don't get me wrong because I'm not against it, I just want to know what the heck is meriting this dubious feature? YouTube? Actually I know this is just another planned obsolescence strategy so it is a moot point, I just wish more people would figure it out. BTW: Another outright hypocrisy by Microsoft is pointed out by commenters. If you decide to go with the GPU it is unavoidable that the power cost ( which means dollars, heat and electricity ) must increase. This flies right in the face of the bogus Windows 8 streamlining for power savings, such as the removal of all frills like Aero glassy transparency. So we have crystal clear proof of self-serving lying once again. TechSpot Subscriptions and Licensing ( technet.microsoft.com ) Microsoft to retire TechNet subscription model for IT professionals ( TechSpot 2013-07-01 ) Microsoft killing off TechNet subscriptions ( Ars Technica 2013-07-01 ) Microsoft you are blowing it ( SBS Diva Blog 2013-07-02 ) Microsoft to stop new TechNet subscriptions after August 31st ( NeoWin 2013-07-02 ) I can't believe anyone is really defending this, but there are a handful. Well we sure know what the answer to the question of who they are going to p!ss off next is, don't we? This time it is the Microsoft professional community, the important one that exists beyond users and developers. This is that base that actually supports Windows, the folks that have been applying string and ductape to this Rube Goldberg machine all along. These are the people that save the phone calls to Microsoft support, so this is one of the dumbest moves in history. I guess it's time to re-up one last time ( before August 31st ) and load up on all the images and get that last extremely reduced set of keys. Might as well before their transformation into just another toy software maker, and a footnote in history, is complete. DirectX 11.2 an Xbox One and Windows 8.1 Exclusive ( Tom's Hardware 2013-07-02 ) Microsoft once again presses ahead using planned obsolescence to lure victims into an operating system "upgrade". 'We care deeply for our customers' - said Microsoft never. The only problem is that there is a greater chance now that people might just not care anymore about Direct-X. So this dog might not hunt anymore. New AMD Beta Driver Drops Windows XP Support ( Tom's Hardware 2013-07-01 ) Son of a ... That's right, AMD has been sipping the Koolaid. Microsoft wants Windows XP dead. No doubt in my mind whatsoever that this is coordinated. AMD got the big contract for APU chips for Xbox and this was the catch. Count on it. Rather a shame to read so many ignorant comments at a normally sane Tom's Hardware though, ah well, children. But no more proof is needed about this collusion than what one great commenter said ... Yep. No possible reason to write off 1/3 of all possible customers, unless Microsoft put you up to it. Busted! This is a great opportunity for people to make their voices heard. Email them, call the support numbers, make them waste time and money discussing it. Tell them not to collude with a convicted monopolist that was set to be broken up because of predatory and self-serving tactics. Put your money to work, get nVidia next time and Intel and most importantly let them know what you did. They are now co-conspirators. Microsoft sues Atlanta-based company over 'unauthorized' software sales ( NeoWin 2013-07-03 ) 'Nuff said. Doug Engelbart, inventor of the computer mouse, dies at 88 ( TechSpot 2013-07-03 ) Inventor of the computer mouse dies ( NeoWin 2013-07-03 ) Douglas C. Engelbart, computer visionary and inventor of the mouse, dies at 88 ( PC Gamer 2013-07-04 ) So what's the tie-in to Windows 8 or Metro? Well aside from the fact that it is a shame that this pioneer lived to see his patent expire and then get pounced upon and milked by other companies like Microsoft who design nothing and exploit everything, and aside from the fact that he had to witness Microsoft raising a generation of MetroTards who would rather fingerpaint on the computer interface, well there's no tie-in at all. Seriously, this man's passing should be marked by two things: {1} appreciation for quite a forward looking invention way back in 1963 ( ) that is so ubiquitious that it sold billions of units which very few things do, and {2} sadness from reflecting upon the cut-throat tech industry chock of thieves and exploiters like Apple and Microsoft, who like the borg assimilated this person's intellectual property into their collectives. Engelbart got the patent in 1970 and it "ran out" in 1987, but I can find no explanation why it was not at least the usual 20 years ( and that is some wicked poor timing for that expiration date ). There is some kind of amazing backstory here to be written yet. Especially that critical mid-1980's era where both Microsoft and Apple capitalized on a whole slew of other people's inventions around the personal computer GUI, including Mr. Engelbart's mouse already in use at Xerox PARC ( interestingly, one Wikipedia page says: "Several of his researchers became alienated from him and left his organization for Xerox PARC..." which tells me they took it with them ) so the inventor seems to have been shafted multiple times. Regardless, today we should remember that the title of that TV movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley" was very much understating things. EDIT: typos(s)

Loose ends from the previous week or two ... Miscellaneous ( continued ) ... EDITORIAL: Microsoft's Customer Relationship Status: It's Complicated. ( NeoWin 2013-06-29 ) An editorial by a NeoWinner and quite a fine one at that! Good writing and contrary to the screams and cries in the comments, he's very accurate IMHO. Here's a good zinger ... I won't spoil it. He's good and he's ticking off the MetroTards and MicroZealots. Read it for yourself! ComScore: Microsoft's US smartphone market share down in May 2013 ( NeoWin 2013-06-29 ) I'm sure others have probably mentioned this already, but I'm just getting the headline and chart together in here for the record. WP sinks lower. Tsk Tsk. Shame about Blackberry in the USA though. We really do need more than a couple of choices. Microsoft loses in court in SkyDrive UK trademark dispute but will appeal ( NeoWin 2013-06-30 ) UK's BSKYB Wins 'SkyDrive' Suit Against Microsoft ( Tom's Hardware 2013-07-03 ) Another legal blunder, and it mirrors or exceeds the Metro fiasco. I'm not sure how they expected to win this case, it seems iron-clad. The UK "Sky" name is even known over here, unlike Metro AG in Germany ( speaking for myself of course ). I'd argue that they could have kept "Metro" because from what I remember the trademark doesn't carry to different industries and product types. Now "Sky" is different because it is transmission of data, and clearly they were going for the primary definition of it as a metaphor. If NewsCorp ever considered online storage or even a plain website the confusion to "SkyDrive" would be patently obvious. So what to make of this? I say it is doubtful that Microsoft employs lawyers dumb enough to believe they could snake the term "Sky" away from them. So what does that leave exactly? I guess it means they never expected to win, and this whole thing came up out of nowhere, catching them flatfooted like before, because they did no due diligence in selecting the name. Even regular people who buy a house or property know they need to pay for a title search. It only leaves incompetence as an excuse. Ah well. Another day another screwup I guess. Microsoft starts offering Surface tablets via authorized resellers ( NeoWin 2013-07-01 ) Microsoft partners with resellers to boost Surface tablet sales ( TechSpot 2013-07-01 ) So I guess Best Buy and Staples isn't cutting it? Let's review. They started out as exclusive to Microsoft stores. FAIL. Then they add to some big box retailers like Best Buy. FAIL. Then they expand into MicroStores inside Best Buy. FAIL. ( remember all the incredible excuses at each step! ) Now they go for general release in any store. What will be the result? FAIL. Well maybe. With enough availability and the right price they could probably sell the things. So what about that price then ... 256 GB Surface Pro for $1,199.99 on sale at CDW ( NeoWin 2013-07-01 ) Let's just look at the specs like we were buying any old laptop ... 10 inch screen, i5 CPU, 4 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD, Integrated Video, Windows 8, NO keyboard, 1-year warranty all yours for just $1200 . I said it a long way back in this thread. By the time this Windows 8 nightmare gets going we will have $1000 netbooks. I guess I was wrong. I should have said $1200 netbooks. ( Note to MicroZealots, the much maligned netbooks do run x86 software ).