CharlotteTheHarlot

NPD: Chromebooks claim 21 percent of all U.S. commercial notebook sales so far in 2013 ( NeoWin 2013-12-25 ) Chromebooks accounted for 21 percent of all notebook sales through November ( TechSpot 2013-12-30 ) And that first story there was from NeoWin! Wow. Who knew. And you gotta love it when the leadoff comment at NeoWin is "Well isn't that a surprise. Neowin made me believe that these things are garbage. Seeing just how many different manufacturers are releasing them, looks like they got more OEM support than RT." because when the NeoKids read that story and that comment all manner of hilarity ensues Apple signs deal with world's largest mobile carrier ( NeoWin 2013-12-27 ) And that means it is pretty much game over for Windows Phone, at least with respect to gaining marketshare compared to the big two. Whatever tiny gains they have made in Europe will be swallowed up by the Chinese tsunami. Microsoft's only chance now is to raise an army and conquer India and then round up and burn all competing phones to even have a chance of a double digit worldwide marketshare, ever. It's over folks. Windows Phone will forever be the desktop Linux of the cellphone universe. Meanwhile NeoWin has a story up called AdDuplex: Nokia Lumia 520 continues to dominate Windows Phone handset market which of course is meant to cheer the NeoKids but which is like saying Metamucil dominates the over-the-counter Procter & Gamble laxative market. Laptop Makers are Feeling Skeptical About Convertible Models Heading into 2014. Vendors don't want to get stuck with a bunch of 2-in-1 devices. ( Maximum PC 2013-12-27 ) Hmmmm. Chromebooks being shipped by the formerly loyal and captive OEM network, Microsoft Scroogle and anti-Chromebook commercials, Microsoft apparent about-face on Windows, perhaps they were all seeing inside information a while back and the symptoms are just now manifesting themselves in public. Of course you would never know any of this by reading the NeoKids comments over the past year. They were busy telling us how it would all turn around when the OEM's stopped slacking off and made yet more devices using Microsoft Tiles. But that's not even close to being accurate. It seems the market wants clear delineation between mobile and classic. Now what?

Target admits encrypted debit card PIN data was stolen during Black Friday hack ( TechSpot 2013-12-27 ) Target Says Hackers Stole Encrypted PIN Numbers ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-27 ) Target: Encrypted PIN numbers taken in recent credit card data theft ( NeoWin 2013-12-27 ) Jeez Louise, this one can't get much worse now can it? Will anyone learn anything from this, probably not. Folks are too busy connecting their Christmas presents online as we speak, opening accounts, buying junk, you know, business as usual. Snapchat Exposed: Angry Hackers Post Exploit Code Online ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-27 ) Four months later, your phone number is still accessible to Snapchat hackers ( NeoWin 2013-12-27 ) Hacker compromised BBC server, tried to sell access on underground forum ( TechSpot 2013-12-30 ) BBC FTP Server Hacked And Access Sold for Christmas ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-30 ) And another week, another round of exploits and hacks. Hey, that cloud thing is really coming along nicely don't ya think? IBM Patents Data Encryption Technique For Cloud Computing ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-26 ) Ummm, what? So I guess that means they can say to the public: 'don't worry it's encrypted' and then let the spooks do their thing? This puts a whole new coat of lipstick on this pig.

Already mentioned by Jorge, this stuff is very important IMHO ... Shopping for Spy Gear: Catalog Advertises NSA Toolbox ( Der Spiegel 2013-12-29 ) NSA intercepting PC shipments to install spyware ( NeoWin 2013-12-29 ) The NSA Has An Elite Team Of Hackers Nationwide ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-30 ) Leaked NSA document claims covert program grants complete access to the iPhone ( TechSpot 2013-12-31 ) NSA Reportedly Hijacks PCs to Install Spyware, Has Backdoor Access to iPhones ( maximum PC 2013-12-31 ) Well, IMHO this latest revelation is nothing short of huge. We are getting into black bag jobs here and it could lead to big problems for the spooks and those who authorize and enable them. It pretty much indicates that nothing is safe anywhere, the cloud, the comm traffic there and back, or even the local hardware and software. Ironically we were just musing a few weeks ago about the possibility of compromised BIOS code with respect to laptop webcams, and now this thing pops up describing it in a generic fashion. It is a must-read article at Der Spiegel, focusing on several spook methods including grabbing devices in transit to your door, installing bugs and then letting them go on their way. No part of the Fourth Amendment appears to be in effect any longer and at the end of this controversy we just might be looking at the end of these agencies. The Church Committee didn't have a fraction of the evidence we are now seeing, let alone outright crimes against key Amendments in the Bill of Rights. This is shaping up to be the single biggest story in USA history and is on course now to possible revolution. Well, that is if the sheeple ever wake up. The next story, the updated ruling on the recent case dovetails right here very nicely ... Judge rules NSA phone tracking legal ( Politico 2013-12-27 ) NSA collection of phone data is lawful, federal judge rules ( Washington Post 2013-12-27 ) Here's a photo of the perp I mean judge, found on this page. Apparently nothing violates the Fourth Amendment and nothing ever will as long as it is couched in anti-terrorism rationale. In other times this honorless idi0t would be tarred and feathered by now. Personally I would support construction of a tall circular skyscraper where each room is a prison cell dead center in Arlington National Cemetary where all our tyrants and their enablers would be sentenced to hard time in solitary confinement staring out at the acres and acres of granite and marble monuments to so many that died protecting that Constitution. Even that would be too good for them though. Playing Taps, but for a lone soldier or the Constitution itself? ( Image Source: Arlington National Cemetery ) BTW, here is a flashback to six years ago when the government seemingly anticipated the current mess and granted the telcos immunity from lawsuits: New Federal Wiretap Law Granting Phone Companies Retroactive Immunity Challenged in Court ( LawReader 2008-10-18 ) They are of course talking about the FISA court Amendments in 2008 where they allowed the phone companies to become their partners with nothing to lose by granting immunity from lawsuits. Remember how that turned out? From that wikipedia page ... That sure is some twisted rigged system they got going. No way to lose!

Infamous NSA leaker Edward Snowden says he's "already won" ( TechSpot 2013-12-23 ) Snowden cites Orwell in Christmas message ( New York Post 2013-12-26 ) Orwell? Snowden "already won"? Absolutely can't argue with either of those points. But if he won then who lost? The Feds? No. The real losers are not the government spooks, but the peasants I mean citizens of all countries because we are witnessing a worldwide phenomenon where all "governments", the ruling class are erecting a deep network of spying, not to protect their sheeple from terrorist bombings, but as the eyes and ears components of their Praetorian guardship. They are dug in, thorough and omnipresent and with the remaining exception of murder and genocide ( even this is debatable ) they have long left the infamous pioneers of the police state - the SS and KGB, in the rear view mirror. Snowden is clearly the "man of the year" in my book, and favorite for "man of the century". I wonder if there are any people around who haven't been surprised by the content of the leaks. BTW, you really got to give credit to the reporters in this case, particularly Glenn Greenwald at the Guardian ( and I can't believe I just said that ~ahem~ ). They are using a smart strategy of a continuous parade of information rather than dropping them all at once. Had they done the latter the story would have been effectively countered and many details would have been already lost to short term memory. Now each and every facet of the spying is being scrutinized. A New Year's toast to these folks. Security firm RSA "categorically denies" accepting money from NSA to use flawed crypto code ( TechSpot 2013-12-23 ) RSA Denies Secret $10 Million Contract With NSA ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-26 ) Very slippery statements from what I have read. You guys want credibility? Then do a non-restricted interview with Bruce Schneier and even competitors and answer their questions. For example, when did you first learn of the backdoor in Dual_EC_DRBG, and when did you warn your customers about it. And that would be the easiest question I would expect. The fact of the matter is that the spooks would have an elaborate web of plausible deniability concocted for all the private companies they compromise, consisting of answers that avoid perjury yet seemingly absolve them of obvious cooperation. This is quite a mess we have here and for all we know every single company has been compromised. Therefore we will need to crucify a few of them to start rolling back this thing. NSA Lawsuit Attorney: Ignore White House Panel ( U.S. News & World Report 2013-12-23 ) Yeah, wouldn't that be the perfect pea under the shell game. The government spooks compromise all the companies we have and then in parallel do their own spying, and if they ever get caught with their hand in the cookie jar, just fallback to letting the companies do their dirty work. Important Note: this story came out before the latest ruling on the case where the government won on appeal. Metadata Not Anonymous at All, Stanford Researchers Show ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-26 ) Not news to anyone here but perhaps enlightening to the sheeple. Well probably not.

Microsoft May be Working On New Non-Windows OS ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-31 ) Well that is way, way too much speculation there. And I suspect any such plans are subject to scrapping at a moment's notice considering the disaster that Microsoft Tiles has become. If they cannot even get traction with a captive monopolized OEM channel and with the obvious ability to kill the competition by decree ( Windows 7 and Windows XP ) and with the benefit of a multi-billion dollar advertising budget, then what hope does some little geek project have in this bureaucracy. None. They're spinning their wheels. My bet is that this kind of research has but one goal - to lock up ideas into patents to be pulled out of their hat later to thwart actual open source or even retail efforts. Windows 8.1 Causing Wi-Fi Connectivity Issues ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-30 ) I love it. No connection and the best answer is to visit a website, such is the built-in problem to client-server models. It reminds me of in the mid-1980's getting told that some big-iron terminals went down ( 3270's all over a huge building ) and the easiest way to find them was to walk around the plant and look for people slacking off and talking or missing from their station. The funny thing is that as more Microsoft devices arrive on the scene ( well that's their plan ) and less OEM devices, something different will happen this time around. These support calls are going to wind up at Microsoft rather than at Dell or HP. They got off easy in the past as the OS software supplier, even though so many problems originated from the OS itself they managed to divert attention from themselves to the poor OEM hardware maker. It was quite an accomplishment. I'm not sure they really thought this whole thing through. Microsoft offers free 30-day subscription to New York Times on Windows devices ( NeoWin 2013-12-29 ) As it turns out there is no promotion from Microsoft here, it was merely a NYT offer seen on the Microsoft Store that for some strange reason NeoWin took as a Microsoft promotion ( and the page still stands that way ). Whatever. But when I first read this what came to mind was something completely different than the NeoKids would think of, and that is some MicroSheep reading the NYT on their Microsoft Tiles device and then getting news on the Snowden leaks. NeoWin has this image in the article. But I made my own instead which shows some of the headlines from the past few months that the fanboys might have missed ... ( Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 )

More rumors on Microsoft's "Threshold" Windows plans pop up ( NeoWin 2013-12-26 ) NeoWin article with supposedly new information but it really just looks like clickbait for NeoKids since there is nothing new or solid that I can see. Using history as a guide, and by that I mean Microsoft always being "a day late and a dollar short" that timeline would be believable, but it will be fatal. In fact it might already be too late. Over this holiday season I was continually stunned by the amount of TV commercials for apps and services which always said "now available for iOS and Android" and never a mention of WP or Windows 8. I almost began to feel sorry for Microsoft and all the NeoKids who must be madder than hell when these commercials air. That also reinforces the huge problem they got themselves into with the stupid idea of not clearly differentiating mobile from the native OS. When an app is for Android or iOS you know you can use it. Thanks to Microsoft Idiocracy even a fabulous hypothetical app written for WP would start out with a disadvantage - no clear platform identification. If they had kept "Metro" and reserved that name for "apps" it would have been so simple. What a disaster. Now the rumors are they will take their time and maybe iron things out in another year! They will be screwed beyond hope. Two Microsoft Windows veterans depart the company today ( NeoWin 2013-12-31 ) Hmmmm, the NeoKids always tell us Sinofsky saved Windows 7 ( yeah right ). Anyway, the carnage continues ( reminds me of lyrics in a famous Black Sabbath song: "In the fields of bodies burning" ). The comments just got started but already a few are pouring gasoline into the thread. Expect a nice fire. Google files lawsuit to fight off patent consortium that includes Microsoft ( NeoWin 2013-12-25 ) Google Files Lawsuit Against Apple- and Microsoft-backed Patent Group. Rockstar Consortium under fire after targeting Android. ( Maximum PC 2013-12-26 ) If you can't beat Android, sue 'em and tax 'em. What a perfect case for a sane judge to rollback the patent craziness. Let's hope this one ends well.

You can trust them whenever they happen to update a particular page. Looks like they haven't updated it since 4.33 though. But if you want to be accurate, always go by what Irfan's website says. I have 4.36 and it still works on everything since Win98se ( earliest version I tried ).

All true. But the difference between "optimal" benchmarking and "typical" is very important. I think optimal conditions should be strived for here because they constitute the best case scenario. All normal-use cases will fall somewhere below that. The best case benchmark results then can become a goal to strive for in normal use by tuning and tweaking ( you know, eliminating un-necessary services and stuff ) and though you will never match them you do know what the machine is capable of and limited to. It is similar to when you weigh yourself. It is best IMHO to record your minimum weight ( ~ahem~ after you wake up and do your business ... ). This is because you only have one minimum weight at any given moment, but many different "normal-use" weights during the course of your day ( + several pounds even if you are trim ). You can easily skew the historical record by weighing yourself at inopportune times and then you scratch your head thinking the scale is broken. That 1.8 MB/s was clearly an inopportune time ( it recalls the PIO days of hard drives, and believe me when we finally got disks and controllers that routinely did 16 MB/s and more it was like Christmas ). One thing that slow benchmark result does underline though is the propensity for even modern Windows to slow to a crawl during normal operation. You can still get CD/DVD coasters and have a game freeze up and have Explorer become unresponsive and any other number of sour experiences. However, one thing that slow benchmark does not show is a bad or failing disk or even a bad Windows installation. And that is precisely the problem. It is business as usual. When running benchmarks on a typical system ( without all the painstaking optimizing ) I think it best to run them a few times. And like I mentioned, if you own HDTach, run it as well to get an idea if something is anomalous by comparing them. In one sense though you already have useful results because when the drive is slaved you have better numbers showing that the drive hits expected performance when Windows isn't dragging it down. So it kind of could be used accordingly ( were you to ever use it as a system drive again ) as a guide to optimizing. But now you're on an SSD so it is a moot point. SSD drives are the best thing to happen to Windows design in a long time as their access time and throughput thoroughly swamps the design flaws of Windows, burying the normal-use collisions of everyday tasks and services. Oh, the original question: "So any ideas why the internal drives don't look like that?" ... blame Windows. The later question: "All I want to know is if the spikes are normal and if so, why I don't get them with the USB3 drive?" ... normal for Windows - on those particular test runs. Run them again to have something completely different to wonder about though. That USB disk result using that very short Y axis is essentially showing the interface throughput capped, whatever spikes were present from the HDD itself were smoothed by the lower bandwidth of USB, it acts like a low pass filter. In short, USB was slower than the worst performance of the physical disk in that test. However, If there was a way to use the USB disk as the primary system drive, and if it were to get hammered by some task or process that drives it down to 1.8 MB/s again, then you would see some downward spikes. All in all it looks pretty much business as usual given the circumstances.

At least with a "repair install" I can confirm this is indeed possible and does in fact give you the expected speed boost ( faster access to install files from HDD rather than optical ) and is likely more reliable. The nice thing is that Windows will remember the install media source file location and record it for future use. See this thread where I first wondered about this idea myself ... Is it possible to Repair Install from a HDD? Yes it is. First thing to note though is that was a "repair" install ( Windows is already existing and usable and my goal was to avoid using an optical disc to boot and call up the repair option, but to instead boot the existing usable Windows and then manually start the "Setup" from HDD based files on a different partition ). The main difference here is that you are one step below this, and will need to format a disk and start completely fresh. In my case at that thread it was one HDD partitioned into several disks, as is the typical Dell fashion, and one of those partitions was created by Dell to contain the install media ( RTM version ). I manually updated the partition files to SP1 install media taken right out of the ISO, essentially replacing their files with updated files. Believe it or not, at the time I couldn't get a straight answer to this either. Even at SevenForums it appears no-one had tried this ( or else they discussed it in a buried thread I couldn't find ). If you read the links I supplied you will see that even the moderator over there wasn't 100% clear on this idea. What you want to do is like I said, slightly different ( and I haven't done this exactly ) but logically it really should work. It would mean creating a partition to hold the files, getting them extracted to the partition. Then booting and starting the Setup.exe. One other huge difference presents itself here. In my case, as I started Setup.exe from within Windows I was therefore running the Windows portion of the dual-mode executable. In my case I got the same menu choice you would see if you inserted the CD/DVD optical media while Windows was running. You would be running most likely from a CMD processor prompt and running the "DOS-like" portion of the executable. I would expect it to be okay and automatically jump into the full install routine, but you never know. This could be further enhanced by doing a variation on what DosProbie suggests. Customize the installer and then copy those files to the partition and then execute. But I do understand what you are trying to do here - avoiding the optical media is very sensible. Many of us have been doing exactly what you said from the Win9x era ( and even longer ). BTW, my suggestion is that if you succeed here you might consider detailing all the steps for others, kind of a parallel guide to the one I mentioned ( mine was "Repair", yours would be a "Full" install ). Take pictures and stuff.

Certainly you're right it is from the channel and position change. The registry entries are apparently not getting updated for some reason. An 80-wire ribbon correct? You mentioned 40 pin but both 40/80 wire have the same 40 pin IDE connector. Make sure it is the fine 80 wire, blue end in motherboard, and not the thick 40 wired ribbon. The BIOS might be defaulting to some legacy IDE mode and passing the wrong data for the IDE devices to Windows. After verifying the jumpers and cables and positions, here is what I would do ... Delete the optical in device manager ( but not the HDD or controllers ), shut down. Flush the CMOS ( pull the battery to be sure ). Reconnect battery, boot and then go straight into the BIOS and autodetect the IDE drives including the empty channels. Then look for dumb Dell duhfault settings that forget to check "use DMA", or automatically checked "Cable Select" and get rid of that. Examine all BIOS options. It might need manual setting to UDMA. The drive order might be wrong too. Also look for any settings that hide the BIOS messages in case something important gets displayed. Look for "reset configuration data" or similar wording and enable it. Save the BIOS settings, let Windows re-enumerate the optical. It might take a couple of reboots, with a few more visits into the BIOS to see what sticks. Note, when I pull the battery I always test it. Less than 2.8 volts is asking for trouble. A new one should read 3.x volts. Do it now or else you will be back later. Since this is Windows XP it should be fixable from this method. On Win9x I would go straight to pulling the IDE registry entries and hand editing them as its cfgmgr32 seems hit or miss when changing around ATAPI devices.

Well, I would say that the first thing that jumps out is the radically different Y axis on the four benchmarks for transfer rate ( one uses 200 MB/s, two use 150 MB/s, one is 90 MB/s ) consequently the amplitude delta of the transfer rate plots aren't good for fast visual comparison. It looks like this to me ... SATA Western 2TB aux ... +/- 25 MB/s SATA Samsung 2TB aux ... +/- 12 MB/s SATA Samsung 2TB sys ... +/- 85 MB/s .USB Samsung 500 aux ... +/- 08 MB/s So they're tighter than they appear at first glance. If there was some way to use the same scale for all plots then a visual comparison would make some sense. But then you clearly have the anomaly of that Samsung 2TB when it was a system disk. The temp was way higher at the time ( 11 degrees C and 20 degrees F higher ) and the dead giveaway of a bad benchmark was that minimum of 1.8 MB/s during that test. These should generally be thrown away and the test re-ran because outliers cause exactly this kind of discrepancy later when you look back to rate its performance in an earlier case. Most likely it was any number of Windows 7 services ( housecleaning, update check, event logging, RAM paging out, perf monitoring, registry flush, CEIP compiling or transmitting, file relocation, indexing, polling ). Polling occurs often because even though Windows "waits" for you to not be doing something to perform optional tasks and maintenance, it still has to cut in and determine if you are doing something ( kind of a paradox ). Just run ProcMon for a few seconds to get an idea of how many things are really going on. Of course any realtime antivirus will sour a benchmark in a variety of ways since it literally monitors everything you do. If there is any 3rd party software running ( anything from an open application to a Google, Bing, Java, Flash, Apple, HP, Norton or other updater services ) they can also pop in invisibly to make a quick update check or whatever. A lot of these events consist of reading a file that is isn't paged in memory from the disk, in order to see when the last update was, or whatever, and this might occur during the test and tank the benchmark maybe giving you that 1.8 MB/s. In this case the fact that the tested disk is also the system disk has a big penalty, but many of those things can affect an aux disk too. Things I do to get smoother, comparable numbers. First of all know that the first three tabs in HDTune offer text copy/paste which I always dump into a text file ( naturally on the first tab you run the test first or you get blank results ). The data can later be added to a spreadsheet and you can do some math to get averages, min, max, whatever. This of course implies that you re-run the test multiple times and discard any outliers. Run the test after a reboot, but not immediately after reboot though. Give it a few minutes. And don't run it after sitting idle for a long period either. When I make these HDTune text files I make sure they are identical format internally ( CRLF matching ) because I can then load a bunch of these separate files into a text editor and fast-switch between them for an A/B/C/... comparison ( think of how astronomers discover comets and asteroids using photos and ignoring stationary stars ). So any big changes jump right out of the data like temp, speed, SMART stats, etc. These are things you need to know. But of course this is dependent on first screening out bogus data due to Windows or some Windows program coming along and cutting in to your party. I also run HDTach right before or after HDTune for a sanity check. If CPU is high on either, or the data differ by more than a few MB/s then I re-run them until they are very close. It's a very imperfect Science, in fact I'd say it is closer to Art at this point in time. Windows isn't designed with any real modes for gaming, benchmarking, or even core maintenance. Nor does it accept a request to "back off and do nothing while I play this game or benchmark my computer". It should, but it doesn't ( and even if it did, it wouldn't prevent 3rd party apps or realtime AV from jumping in, often you can go in and disable the realtime AV or at least most of it ). So it makes sense to create an Administrator account where you go in and set it up for minimum distraction. Disable everything not needed and only benchmark from there ( leave the other user accounts set up for daily use ). It still isn't anywhere near perfect, especially on later versions of Windows, but you can get closer to the desired "Idle" state that is needed. I also try to control the physical parameters as much as possible. The temps of the drives should match over time when they are still in the same physical location. Differences in temp means there is something that needs to be addressed. Most likely it is either dust build up, a fan is not running at the same speed or dead, a ribbon cable or something has altered airflow, or something far worse. I wouldn't proceed until I got the temp back to where it should be ( note: this does NOT describe your case here ). In your case I suspect the drive was in a different physical location when it was the system disk, perhaps vertically in the front bottom without a fan blowing on it, or mounted above something warm and warm air rose to affect it. I've seen them all. What I have been doing for many years is collecting spare 3.5" cages out computer cases ( some hold two, four, even more drives ). I turn them into standalone HDD racks with rubber feet and a handle ( remove the sharp edges, paint them etc ) and modify my own cases by removing any HDD cages ( leaving a big empty space there ) add in 120mm fans in the front bottom. Now I just drop in one of the cages with HDD's already mounted and just pop in the wires already dangling off the motherboard and power supply. It makes drive swapping, cleaning and re-arrangement very quick and thorough and I can also easily get to the fans. Most importantly it means all my HDD's are always located in identical conditions on any computer with a fan blowing directly on it, no major vibrations ( rubber feet ). It is a consistently controlled parameter, well as much as possible. One of these days I'll post some pictures which will make it more understandable. The main point being, controlling variables that can make benchmarks anomalous and non-comparable. Of course this doesn't help if a benchmark occurred in the distant past and your time machine is broken, I have many historical cases that fall under that category and nothing can be done about it now ). But at least going forward all drives get the same treatment.

Brave New World section ... continued ... Verizon Will Publish Transparency Report Next Quarter ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-19 ) And it will be as transparent as mud. If there ever was an example of going through the motions just for show, this one is it. How the BitTorrent Chat Client Works ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-20 ) Interesting and detailed article about a new, secure, communication software. How would you like to be in these guys shoes? You know they are all soon going to experience the warm hand of Big Brother when he comes to deliver their Colonoscopy. Dish mulling buyout bid for T-Mobile to become fourth major wireless carrier ( TechSpot 2013-12-19 ) : T-Mobile to unveil Uncarrier 4.0 strategy at CES, could pay your early termination fee to switch ( TechSpot 2013-12-21 ) : How much you wanna bet that our government protectors would allow them to be gobbled up? After all, it would be much better for the spooks to have only a couple of companies to penetrate. These two competing stories which are truly mutually exclusive really put the spotlight on the big issue. T-Mobile is right on the verge of really shaking up this sheeple Ponzi scheme of subsidizing overpriced gadgets in exchange for two years of indentured servitude and metering out bits and bytes while pushing out advertising and spam for good measure. Naturally Dish ( and previously Sprint and others ) want to swallow them up and have them evaporate before our eyes. Let's hope this plan of theirs isn't just an elaborate pump and dump and they are serious about breaking the stranglehold by those four Telecomms, and that they resist rather than accept a merger. More details revealed on how Microsoft's services will improve their encryption ( NeoWin 2013-12-18 ) Well I'm gonna bite my lip since Mark is one of the few left up there who I admire and respect greatly ( hey, make him the CEO you nitwits ). And even though he is now involved in Azure ( what a waste of talent ) those decisions that cause Microsoft to drop trow and bend over for Big Brother obviously come from above him. I can easily envision Mark designing a foolproof system that thwarts even federal spooks, but then it is all undone by a single high ranking bureaucrat who hands over the master keys anyway. Therefore this article and the Wired source story is window dressing and damage control. At this point in time from what we have been allowed to know there is no evidence that there are high ranking Softies with the same integrity and stones that the Lavabit founder has. In fact I see no evidence they are even trying to make believe they have that level of courage. EDIT: typo

Brave New World section ... continued ... again ... Computer Sounds Give Up Secret Information ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-19 ) ( mentioned previously by bpalone ). This is proof of concept of an old avenue of spying. It is a variation on capturing EMR from CRT displays which allowed spooks to read what was currently displayed on a screen if they happened to be located nearby, parked in a van full of sensitive spying equipment. It lead to some software that worked to counter the surveillance ( so-called "zero-emission" text editors and other things ), which themselves were probably quickly countered. I'm pretty sure sound and all emissions from a device have been fully explored by the spooks at great expense to taxpayers and I wouldn't doubt that they can be captured and interpreted in some circumstances. Now we await the inevitable home security white noise and EMR generator with a smart randomizing algorithm that shoots out all manner of signals to thwart the government protectors. Such is the arms race. But the real interesting angle to this story is this ... ... which leads directly to something which is a burning issue in the crypto community ( and mentioned above by Jorge ) ... $10m NSA contract with security firm RSA led to encryption 'back door' ( UK Guardian 2013-12-20 ) NSA Paid RSA $10 Million to Use Flawed Security Standard ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-21 ) In summary, there is some evidence that RSA, the company, may have been bribed willingly or duped unwittingly to become a tool of No Such Agency. Both angles are highlighted in the article. First is the "willingly" ... And also the "unwittingly" ... Either way, RSA has some explainin' to do, considering the extraordinary position of trust and reputation these three, Rivest, Shamir, and Adleman enjoy. Most importantly is the one ( of perhaps many ) known backdoors that made its way into Vista among other products ... These guys would do well to start talking straight about all these issues, although I can't imagine anyone taking their word for it at face value. We've seen the pressure put on other less prominent names, such as the Lavabit company owner who has the stones to fight back. Whether the RSA principals have similar inclinations remains to be seen. Read the Wikipedia page for a synopsis of the issues and links outside to other stories. This is quite important IMHO, and could ultimately lead to vital information we need such as what other backdoors are in place in Windows and other products. Microsoft: Skype now runs on Windows Azure; SkyDrive moving to Azure soon ( NeoWin 2013-12-16 ) Well now, Skype, Office 364, Xbox Live and SpyDrive ( what, no Outlook? ) are all plugged into the Blue Cloud I mean Azure. Strangely enough two of those four, Skype and Xbox Live are already implicated in Snowden leaks and a third, SpyDrive gets spied on by Microsoft at the minimum. What's the possible common denominator here? Jeez, I don't know yet. Perhaps after the inevitable future Snowden leak about Office we'll be able to connect the dots. Unrelated but related is the fact that all four have been reported to have outages over the past year and mentioned here in this thread. Again, what's the common denominator here? I just don't know. Probably nothing. Move along now, nothing to see here. By the way, if anyone eats something bad or drinks too much over the holidays and finds themselves needing to stick your fingers down your throat, it's easier if you just skim through the comments on this one. It is yet another bonafide pukeworthy thread populated by those cheering the p2p-less NuSkype and Microsoft for their wonderful cloud consolidation. No really, they are. I swear. EDIT: added Guardian link which is the source of the article concerning RSA and the backdoor obviously

Brave New World section ... continued ... UPDATED: Target Customers Targeted in Massive Data Breach ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-18 ) Target falls victim to massive Black Friday hack, up to 40 million credit cards at risk ( TechSpot 2013-12-19 ) 40 million credit card numbers stolen from Target ( NeoWin 2013-12-19 ) Target: PINs not part of stolen credit card info ( USA Today 2013-12-20 ) Don't you just love that response: '40 million credit cards snatched but "no indication that debit card PINs were impacted"' I'm sure our government protectors are on the case though. With all their hooks into the system and our private lives it should be just a matter of tick tocks before they ID the perps and send in the SWAT teams. Oh wait, that would expose methods. Never mind. Washington Post Hacked A Third Time; Damage Unclear ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-19 ) And it continues. And as usual the details on the backend are missing. Who is the hosting company or network/cloud provider? Who does security? We want names dammit. Same goes for each and every one of these stories. Botnet Discovered by CERT Polska Invades Linux, Windows ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-20 ) ~sigh~ Experienced Windows veterans know enough to use ProcExp as their task manager and to customize it to add extra fields to the display ( 'Select Columns' ), most importantly the full path of the images. If you see SVHOST.EXE or some other variation instead of SVCHOST.EXE then you have a problem. If you see any permutation of that name running from \Windows or from \System or from \Documents and Settings or from \Users or anywhere except \System32 you have a problem. Blame Microsoft for the confusion though. They created task manager as a dumb toy purposefully hiding critical information. They designed Windows itself to have a service container show up in multiple instances in whatever task manager the latest dumbed down version of Windows contains. They designed Windows to inexplicably allow this service container to be replaceable by malware rather than making it a core kernel file with code to ensure it cannot be compromised. They even obfuscated it further with similar permutations of that name such as SMSVCHOST.EXE in the .NET folder structure. They were just asking for it to be exploited by the black hats. And they happily obliged. EDIT: removed misplaced link

Brave New World section ... Facebook to debut auto-playing video ads in feeds later this week ( NeoWin 2013-12-17 ) In a world full of bad ideas will anyone even notice? Surprisingly enough myself and the NeoKids are in agreement on this one, although they are are speaking of adblock as a countermeasure and I say blacklist the site in the router firmware. Unfortunately for the kids they should probably expect an Amendment to the DMCA that prohibits "circumventing" or "tampering" with website streams ( sorry, no ad or video blocking allowed, that's the law! hehehe ). The precedent already exists. You can't modify your very own DVD player to not display things read off your very own DVD disc. It's only natural that you can't modify your very own computer to not display something in a stream flowing in from some external source. Yeah, that's the ticket. Presumably Zuck has by now done enough lobbying to secure such legislation and naturally the Feds side with whoever pays I mean lobbies them the most. In truth I'm now torn on this one. There is certifiable Darwinian component to this Facebook exploitation. Watching Zuck fleece his sheeple kinda makes sense you know? Don't be fooled by the 60 Minutes report on the NSA ( The Verge 2013-12-15 ) Good article from last week picking apart one of the face-saving publicity stunts by our friendly neighborhood spooks. Just ignore ( most of ) the children in the comments. Microsoft claims ZeroAccess botnet has been abandoned ( NeoWin 2013-12-20 ) All well and good, right? They rolled up a mysterious botnet and have successfully defended the indefensible sheeple from evil advertisers that game the system rather than pay money right to Microsoft or Google. Got it. But then they say this ... Wait, what? All it takes is an official surrender message to call off the dogs? Wow. I sure hope the black hats aren't thinking what I think they're thinking. Report claims Microsoft's 'Surface Mini' to get Kinect-like features ( NeoWin 2013-12-17 ) Oh come on now. Aren't they just making it official what we all are suspecting anyway? Oh, nevermind, they're saying that the spying capabilities can now be put to some positive use by the actual owner of the device, rather than only by spooks and hackers and law enforcement and Microsoft and ...

The Competition ... LG joins the Chrome OS party with 21"" all-in-one Chromebase ( TechSpot 2013-12-18 ) LG Plans to Unveil an All-in-One System Running Chrome OS at CES 2014 ( Maximum PC 2013-12-18 ) LG Chromebase is an All-in-One Running Chrome OS ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-18 ) Stunning eh? That product that the NeoKids insist cannot be made or sold for any money is actively being produced by Dell and LG. What are they going to do if Google ever really jumps into desktop operating systems? They have all the pieces in place now, OEMs to build them, programmers writing several OS's, and a lot of users getting familiar with Android, Chrome and other derivatives of Linux. Admittedly this current set of OS's are not my cup of tea, but it is definitely a good thing that some kind of competition has popped up to knock Microsoft off their cloud. I guess we now know why there is a Scroogle campaign in the first place and it shows that Microsoft identified Chrome/Android as a threat long before we all did. Valve's prototype Steam Machine benchmarked with Windows 7 ( NeoWin 2013-12-16 ) First Round of GeForce Benchmarks on SteamOS Beta Pop Up Online ( Maximum PC 2013-12-16 ) Partial Steam Machine Tear Down Video Shows Off Excellent Cable Management ( Maximum PC 2013-12-16 ) Valve's Steam Machine Gets iFixit Teardown ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-19 ) Steam Machines unboxing video shows snug components, hot cable management action ( PC Gamer 2013-12-16 ) iFixit: Valve's Steam Machine prototype has high repairability rating ( NeoWin 2013-12-20 ) Hands-on with Valve's Steam machine and the Steam controller: part one ( PC Gamer 2013-12-20 ) Some clueless commenters notwithstanding, it is kind of impressive the steady professionalism that Valve is showing here, especially with these beta units handed out for testing and feedback. An open source OS that anyone can use, including OEMs who get to pocket the previous Microsoft Tax. I would hope and expect non-gaming apps for SteamOS to arrive on the scene shortly, maybe audio/video, Facebook, Twitter, web browsing and email. All Valve has to do now is develop a true emulator for Windows binaries or maybe team up with Google and make a bulletproof version of WINE available and lots of people ( not sheeple ) will consider fleeing the mothership for good. The effect on Microsoft would be profound and beneficial to all. After CES we should have a pretty good idea of where this is all going. Regardless, the competition is critical and is clearly already having an effect. Samsung May Reveal Tizen Devices in February ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-20 ) Another Linux derivative nipping at Microsoft's ( and maybe even Google's ) heels. With both Samsung and Intel onboard it cannot be dismissed too easily IMHO. I would guess that any hopes that Microsoft has of polluting the firmware world of TV and DVD player and other consumer devices with their Metro madness are pipe dreams now. Google and HP recall all Chromebook 11 chargers after overheating reports ( NeoWin 2013-12-17 ) Seems like they handled this very well and are possibly teaching a lesson to Apple and especially Samsung about public relations in the process. This will likely put a dent into their very thin profit margins, as pointed out by the NeoKids who are trying to find something consequential to say about it ( to no avail ) and that speaks volumes about their customer service IMHO. EDIT: added missing link ( )

Microsoft pulls December Surface Pro 2 firmware update ( NeoWin 2013-12-18 ) ( mentioned here in this thread a few times this past month ) So Microsoft has pulled an automatic update that caused some trouble, so far so good. But talk about putting lipstick on a pig ... Umm, just problems installing, or shorter battery life? What, no mention of crypto-bricked systems because their authentication failed and they need to enter a giant passphrase? Microsoft's comment there is really quite the marvel of understatement, perhaps written by lawyers or damage control specialists. And NeoWin's spin also leaves out the nitty gritty. I guess it really is the season to be jolly. Xbox One owners reporting audio sync issues with Blu-ray movies at 24Hz ( NeoWin 2013-12-16 ) I'm sorry, am I piling on? Too soon? These things happen I guess, but Xbox 180 sure seems cursed. Anyway, if you need some entertainment value read the comments. It's one of those where the fanboys are eating each other alive because some of the NeoKids actually have the problem or can sympathize with the issue, while the others are incensed that anyone has the temerity to even report problems with Xbox or Microsoft itself. Self-education ensues when NeoKids lecture NeoKiddieKids. A good time is had by none, except for by all of us watching the hilarity ensue. Just for Programmers ... Microsoft exec gives insight on 'Roslyn' compiler ( NeoWin 2013-12-17 ) Microsoft releases Project Siena' and you should probably take notice ( NeoWin 2013-12-19 ) Aviary stops image editing SDK support for Windows Phone and Windows 8 ( NeoWin 2013-12-21 ) Lots of details on the RFADK Rapid Fart App Development Kit that Microsoft has chosen for it minions to empower them to drown the world in retard apps. At the first article don't miss the poor NeoKid wondering aloud about the obscene UPPERCASE menus and then getting told to stop complaining. At the second article more kids than expected seem to grasp the magnitude of the consequences for releasing a Playskool authoring tool that will not only pollute the world, but also their precious Microsoft Store ( hehe ). Finally, the last one isn't about Microsoft per se, but a 3rd party no longer making a drop in module for Playskool apps, one that gives photo-editing capabilities. The interesting thing is in the developer explanation ... Well I guess that's one way of interpreting "lack of traction" Could it perhaps mean the platform itself?

Microsoft: We will work on fixing SVCHOST bug in Windows XP "through the holiday" ( NeoWin 2013-12-16 ) And the NeoKids once again open mouths and insert both feet. Kind of understandable though. They're children, and they need to lash out considering how everything connected with their retarded Playskool toy has been backfiring. Off to bed now, that's enough temper tantrums for today NeoKids. Jobs: Write for Neowin! ( NeoWin 2013-12-20 ) Speaking of NeoKids, along comes this article from the NeoWin powers-that-be, a job offer for writers which offers us a precise explanation for Steven's business model of using clickbait articles ( like just above ) designed to get the NeoKids to wet their beds and cry about Windows XP and other things ... Bingo. Number of hits per article as criteria for author payment. Hence the perpetual tolerance of the petulant MicroBabies. Ironic that it is Brad Sams that confirms this since he is the lead kid ( you know, the first one that starts a tantrum which spreads around the class of kids like chicken pox ). I expect that The Verge Tribe offers similar incentive. It's hard for me to remember 4th grade so long ago, but we have the equivalent of that with the exception being that instead of the adult teacher grabbing the ruler and walking menacingly towards the troublemakers, the adults this time give them lollipops as a reward for their ignorance and mouthing off. It's a Brave New World. Nokia has reportedly cancelled its 8-inch Lumia Windows tablet ( NeoWin 2013-12-16 ) Not sure what this means yet. It could be a sign that the tablet market, particularly that for Microsoft Tiles is getting soft and they are seeing inside information that we don't. Or, we can believe the spin from NeoWin that it is because of Microsoft swallowing Nokia and not wanting competition for Surface. The "I got a Windows 8.1 machine for Christmas, now what do I do?" guide ( NeoWin 2013-12-16 ) The NeoWin approved guidebook for Metron00bs lost in those magnificent fields of Windows bliss but unable to find their own way into the nice cozy sheeple pens. A few funny comments as you can imagine, and of course some sheep bleating ( "Ugh, these poor people suggesting some awful old-fashioned start menu replacement or even worse, install windows 7... It's like the people who were wedded to the Windows 3.1 Program Manager and DOS when Windows 95 came out." ... Liar. ). Rather than going through all this trouble I would have just given a link ...

Steve Ballmer: "Nobody ever buys Windows. They buy Windows PCs." ( NeoWin 2013-12-18 ) And the NeoKids are genuinely stumped now. It puts quite a damper on their meme last year of 100 million Windows 8 "customers", implying those poor lab rats went out and intentionally bought Microsoft Tiles on purpose. Nope. The big man says all you NeoKids were mistaken. And I say he is mistaken. They didn't all intentionally buy "Windows" computers either, or at least not as criteria number one. First and foremost it was price point, secondarily it was capacity and capability such as storage or screen size, display their photos, play their tunes. So for the fanboys their entire worldview was mistaken and this has been confirmed by SteveB. Sorry kids, Windows 8 merely came along for the ride and did a crap job at that. What Ballmer is saying here is a sort of rationalization for the "devices" portion of the 'services and devices' business plan they hatched up in their Redmond bunker. Unfortunately for Microsoft, Ballmer has put a yellow highlight over the problem. People actually used to buy "Windows Computers" on purpose. It was their strength. A platform where the only difference from one generation to another was CPU speed and storage space. There was backward compatibility and new features were added ( both hardware and software ) while the previous ones survived. A Windows app was always a Windows app. But over time since Windows XP they used "Windows" as the leverage for planned obsolescence, forcing upgrades, losing features, and most of all creating uncertainty. It is no longer a platform because people now speak of Windows XP or Windows 7 or Windows 8 apps instead of "Windows apps". That's not a platform. That's a rolling average. A moving target. Great job fathead. And all this is even bad enough without bringing up the evil part of the plan involving using the OEM monopoly as leverage to push Microsoft Tiles and the captive Microsoft Store into a captive audience. There is evil, and then there is this obscene robber baron level of evil manipulation. Microsoft: Bing is now "on course or ahead of course" to stop losing money ( NeoWin 2013-12-20 ) Ummm, they're gonna have to do a little better than break even. Sunk costs are not last year's news and don't evaporate with time. But they've got an app for that, creative book-keeping ... That's the kind of thing that brings the SEC knocking on your door. Better hope that new CEO doesn't hear about this. He just might ask to see both sets of books, then he'll need to decide on whether to play along and risk a prison cell or go rogue and clean house and tank MSFT in the process. Could be why they're having such a hard time getting a CEO. Either they're all wary of the job or Microsoft insiders are wary of them. Oh but wait. One of the MicroZealots offers us some wisdom Yeah, that's what we call the private sector genius. You have every right to go broke on your own business ( well, unless you count us taxpayers having to bail you out of bankruptcy but that's beside the point ). Perhaps his dictionary stops before the word "Fiduciary" and its related concepts. Like it or not ( and I really don't ) Microsoft answers to her stockholders and regulators first. Books have to be accurate and hiding things is, well, frowned upon. If stockholders ever got organized ( I mean moreso than the little power play that likely helped to oust Ballmer ) they could cause a huge fuss and those bleeding products like Bing and Xbox would be fast out the door. Bill Gates helps to fund project for powering cellphones with urine ( NeoWin 2013-12-20 ) Well, I'll just leave this here as one of those headlines that you thought you would never see. Check that, actually I have to give props to a NeoKid for coining the phrase of the day ... pPhone ...

Rumor: Many Microsoft employees want new CEO named soon ( NeoWin 2013-12-16 ) Microsoft: CEO to be selected in early 2014 ( NeoWin 2013-12-17 ) Microsoft won't announce Ballmer's successor until early 2014 ( TechSpot 2013-12-18 ) Microsoft Will Name a New CEO By Early 2014 ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-18 ) That announcement about "early 2014" should have been made four months ago ( almost to the very day! ) when the Ballmer news came out. I can't believe how this thing is being done so publicly, it is just so unprofessional. I remember years ago some big changes at other companies too, huge blue chips like IBM and AT&T but nothing aired like this. It could be the Internet amplification I guess, but even with Yahoo and HP I don't recall the CEO search as a weekly or daily story. I bet they don't even realize that this amplification means their choice will either spike or bury the stock price when announced. So once again Redmond is failing in its fiduciary duty to stockholders by not keeping this thing under control ( e.g., none of the "candidates" should be doing interviews ). In a lot of ways Microsoft resembles the MSFT of the early years, the hectic period from IPO to about 1995, their first ten years or so on the street. Microsoft CEO Candidate Talks Future Beyond Windows ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-19 ) Speaking of interviews, here's yet another. Are these guys seriously running for CEO in the press? :-0 Now this dude, their cloud guy, comes along and doubles down on stoopid promising to bury Microsoft in the nebulous fog of "services" and other buzz words, another Cisco, Sun/Oracle, whatever. To me there is something very dodgey about that segment of the market, companies that all yearn to drag the world back into the past of client-server feudalism, and I half expect many of them to suddenly come clean and admit their business models suck *ss and are drowning in bureaucracy and red ink. Well that's what I hope for anyway. Here's their cloud guy, a CEO candidate ... ~barf~ Good comments at the link though IMHO ... Yep. Microsoft loses top engineer to Google ( The Verge 2013-12-16 ) Key Microsoft engineer for Bing Maps and Photosynth departs for Google ( NeoWin 2013-12-16 ) Ouch. That's definitely gonna leave a mark ( maybe a mark on the wall as this picture from a commenter shows ). But not to worry, the fanboys are mostly saying: "it happens all the time. no big deal". Okay then, I believe you. Senior Microsoft manager charged with insider trading ( NeoWin 2013-12-19 ) I was very hesitant to post this story. It has nothing to do with Windows and in truth really has little to do with Microsoft since so many companies have bad apples, and it is inevitable that they would also pop up there. No-one is immune to hiring greedy SOB's. My interest is in the level of detail that the regulators and Microsoft were able to muster out of the investigation. It begs the question of how so many network security failures are occurring and how they cannot track down the hackers almost instantly. Call me a cynic, but the only thing that comes to mind is that there are some things the Feds and Big Data care about, and then there's everything else.

Security, Privacy, and Big Brotherhood ... NSA uses Google's PREF and other commercial tracking cookies to spy on folks ( NeoWin 2013-12-11 ) NSA uses Google-specific cookie to locate and hack selected targets ( TechSpot 2013-12-12 ) More coverage of yet another Snowden leak mentioned above. Unexpected detour taken in the NeoWin comments after a pretty good point was raised: "What I also find shocking is that one man - Edward Snowden - had access to such a massive, and varied amount of NSA information. Surely, the NSA would not grant such widespread access to any one individual within the organization!? Makes you wonder just what else will emerge from the Snowden leaks in the coming weeks/months!". Indeed it is not logical that any spy org would fail to compartmentalize critical information and keep it offline in the first place. The tried and true "eyes only" method seems lost on the NuSpooks in our brave NuWorld ( ironically this amateurism is a good thing for us because we would know nothing now ). Anyway, what is interesting is how one of the most outspoken MicroZealot fanboys jumps in to suggest that the leaks are false, perhaps faked. For those that follow the mindless meanderings of the NeoKids you really gotta wonder about this coincidence of defending Microsoft with every breath and now defending the government spooks! Who does he work for I wonder? My bet is still that he is a Softie ( who is supposed to identify himself BTW ) but is so rattled by the goings-on of the past few years and the accelerated pace of the failure that he can't help but plumb new depths of zealotry by being forced into the position of discrediting and denying the massive surveillance just in order to absolve Microsoft's involvement. Psychiatrists could make a nice living just by treating NeoKids. British Telecom Blocking Porn by Default for New Customers ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-13 ) UK ISP BT Broadband to block porn for new customers by default ( NeoWin 2013-12-15 ) That's right, even if you don't have any kids. Pssst, China called, they're suing you for copyright infringement ( now wouldn't that be perfect? ). Tips for the terminally gullible: next up: No Snowden articles unless you specify that you want it. And later: No anti-government articles unless you specify that you want it. .Got criticism for the PM or your MP? They'll plug that hole later.. ad nauseum ... There are infinite things our government protectors will find to save us from, but almost every single one will be about protecting themselves, they only start off with something like p0rn because it divides and conquers the sheeple, some of which baaahhh and bleat in agreement ( see comments ), but after the sheep pen gates are erected and everyone is corralled into their safe and cozy new infrastructure, there will be no need to continue the illusion. They'll just continually amend those early specifications to include this year's cause celebe. Microsoft joins FIDO Alliance that wants to replace passwords ( NeoWin 2013-12-14 ) It's funny how 30, 20, even 10 years ago we would shrug our shoulders at this story because Microsoft and IBM and later W3C and Google ( etc ) are big players in Big Data and should rightly be at the center of these things. Now, not so much, since we now know they are all compromised by government spooks, not to mention all having their own agendas. In this article it all really comes together and instead of making perfect sense it smells of rotting fish. So all these "powers-that-be" in wake of all the spying revelations see fit to get together now and do some more work on behalf of the sheeple, I mean citizens? They're gonna work on an identity infrastructure eh? Protecting privacy will certainly rate big here. Not. The part about Trusted Platform pretty much sours the whole thing really. They probably just want to get a secure purchasing channel up and running, and that means secure for them to ensure that crooks can't rip off their checkout carts and stuff. As far as security or privacy for the sheeple, I mean customers, well that will come later, I mean never. It sounds like a fiefdom planning session, and in such a meeting the pecking order is government spooks, then the Big Data member companies, and then finally the sheeple, I mean citizens. That's a similar arrangement to feudal times with royalty, nobility, peasants. Meetings involving the first two rarely occurred for the purpose of benefiting the latter.

Miscellaneous ... Mozilla shows off new Firefox start screen for Windows 8 version ( NeoWin 2013-12-12 ) NeoWin coverage of what we were talking about a few days ago. The example they show is just horrific. All freaking gray and white and washed out. I just cannot believe these idi0ts. This is worse than the color and screen elements from the earliest days of the web. It is HTML crap. Naturally quite a few NeoKids LOVE this garbage. Two NeoKids ... Strangely and suspiciously that post at Mozilla has one single comment. I'm not sure what's going on with them as I rarely use FF except by necessity because a page doesn't work well in Opera, but if they do continue down this path they are just crazy. In fact they would be crazier than Microsoft who is already clearly suffering from their NuGUI trend, and now Mozilla would follow them but with a timelag that means they will arrive after the party is over. I hope Firefox users write to them and demand a NON-RETARD version or theme for the desktop browser. Don't mince words either. Harlem in New York to get the country's biggest free public Wi-Fi network ( TechSpot 2013-12-11 ) Sure, why not, let's expedite and complete the transition into Orwell. Give away free phones, check, free service, check. If you don't think every single drop of data is being funneled into the government vacuum, well then you're not a sentient human. The idi0t mayor of NYC describes this as privately funded of course, with advertising at the core which is bad enough, but if you believe him then I got a bridge for sale just a couple miles south of Harlem. AT&T CEO: Wireless carriers can't keep doing big subsidies on smartphones ( NeoWin 2013-12-11 ) AT&T CEO Says Subsidizing Phones Must Stop ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-11 ) Boy would this be a great thing! Leaving aside the little narcissists already showing up in the comments saying 'well they better reduce plan costs ... etc' the fact remains that this is the most artificial industry yet conceived by humans. There is no way to sell billions of $500-$1000 easily stolen or misplaced pocket-size gadgets without a huge assist from somewhere. The damage caused by this model is that these valuable devices are now routinely treated like valueless commodities. They are dropped and broken or lost and all the 'owner' says is: "oh well, my plan will give me another". Meanwhile they go deeper in debt or take on extra monthly expenses that are equal to what rent or car payments were not too long ago. Sure they get instant communication and tiny little games to waste their presumably valuable time, but the cost has been to acclimate them to becoming first order sheeple in the Brave NuWorld. But the most important thing of all is that this business model has completely skewed the technology landscape and impacted the evolution of computers, their sales, and their operating systems. So I for one hoping this CEO is not just blowing smoke. If this is true and they end the subsidy nonsense then the mobile bubble we pop faster than the tech bubble did 13 years ago. People would stop jumping on the latest everything, they would squeeze every last drop of use out of their existing gear, particularly expensive little toys, and the 'Desktop is dead' and all other mantras by NuTards would be exposed as the Idiocracy they always were. This statement by the CEO clearly underlines the huge mistake Microsoft made chasing the latest fad, and shows their impeccable timing is as late as always. They will be forced to survey the landscape of destruction in the wake of their kneejerk lurching towards the mobile trend, the battered shell of 'Windows' ruined by knuckleheads in Redmond, and the complete loss of respect of the Microsoft brand by longtime veterans.

The Competition, Apple Edition ... Apple granted patent for curved touch surfaces, could lead to curved-display iPhones ( TechSpot 2013-12-11 ) Apple jumps on the curved screen bandwagon by securing patent ( NeoWin 2013-12-11 ) ( see the TechSpot article for actual illustrations from the patent ) Well I'm not surprised by this. The only thing that does surprise me is the continual reaction by MicroTards that cannot grasp how the consumer thinks. Example: "None of the curved phones look good or make any sense, they're solving a problem that doesn't exist by making new ones...". These are the same kinds of people that embrace Microsoft Tiles and ridicule iPhones and Androids, which explains how Microsoft found itself in the position of constantly playing catch-up. Of course there will be designer phones with teardrops or hearts or whatever shape. And they will sell, by the boatload. All that commenter shows is that he does not understand what Art is. Art has no practical purpose that can be defined, and it certainly cannot be explained to or understood by MicroTards. They will forever be caught flat-footed by every development that comes along. The only thing they can ever be counted on is planning, designing and building for the previous trend. That is their trademark and they should patent it. Ha! Analyst predicts that Microsoft and Apple will soon merge ( NeoWin 2013-12-11 ) This one is just for fun and just to upset the MicroZealots. But I'm not exactly sure which of the two - Apple or Microsoft fans will be more insulted by thought of this. I've been referring to them already as MicroApple for obvious reasons but this puts a whole new spin on it. Obviously there is no way in hell that a sane regulator would allow this to happen though! Wikipedia :: OS Marketshare consolidates many different methods of counting these things and pretty much shows why this theory is impossible, well, not as long as any desktops or laptops are being sold ... Desktops/Laptops ... Microsoft +90% plus Apple +07% = ~98% Phones/Tablets ..... Microsoft +01% plus Apple +20% = ~22% Perhaps Apple would be allowed to purchase the Nokia division but that's as far as a sane person would let this go, especially with the antitrust history of Microsoft already on the books. They are fantasizing with this story. Anyway, NeoWin posts a possible logo here ( unfortunately uncredited as are most photos these days ) which isn't half bad ... ( Image Source: NeoWin ) I made one that could also work ... MicroApple ( Source images: 1, 2 ) Bitcoin hoax dupes Mac users into wiping their hard drives ( NeoWin 2013-12-14 ) For a real educational glimpse into the sick minds of not some, but many fanboys check out the comments where there is laughing and sarcasm and at least one promising to spread this "prank" further. Where did these zealots came from, would someone tell me? In over 30 years in the PC universe I can't remember dealing with a single person that would fit this profile and hang out in this crowd of malcontent losers. It's literally like Crips and Bloods. They are simply pathetic human beings. If I had caught one of my kids morphing into a cretin like any of these I would have kicked him out on his *ss and tell him to live with his fanboy friends in their parents' basement and support himself by selling the hatred they spew for Apple or Linux users. Surely someone would want to hire them. Not.

The Competition, Steam/Linux/Android Edition ... Dell reveals its first Chromebook offering, aimed at the education market ( TechSpot 2013-12-11 ) Dell Unaffected by Scroogled Campaign, Joins the Chromebook Movement ( Maximum PC 2013-12-11 ) Dell Launching Chromebook 11 in January ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-12 ) Wait until the NeoKids hear about this one. Newly private Dell leaves the stock market analysts in the rear-view mirror and immediately starts selling a non-Microsoft device that we are continually told no-one can make any money on. It must doubly sting that Microsoft kicked in a few billion to help Dell go private. Well on the brighter side, I guess that means that Microsoft just might make some money of Chrome now! Ubuntu-powered high-end phones from an unnamed OEM coming next year ( TechSpot 2013-12-11 ) There's still life over there in Linux phone land. But we'll see if Canonical can still mess this up. Who is the mystery builder? I don't know but might guess Dell, which wouldn't exactly guarantee success unfortunately. However another Dell product that collaborates with the enemy would certainly guarantee entertainment value as the NeoKids continue to go nuts. Nokia's Android phone reportedly still in development, pictured in leaked image ( TechSpot 2013-12-10 ) Report: Nokia Has Been Working on an Android Phone ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-11 ) Nokia reportedly still developing Android smartphone despite impending Microsoft acquisition ( NeoWin 2013-12-11 ) Please, everyone say a prayer tonight for the mental health of the kids at NeoWin and The Verge Tribe. This past fall and holiday season has definitely not been kind to MicroZealots and MetroTards as nothing, I mean nothing is going the way they hoped. I'm not sure where this Nokia-Android story is going to wind up, I have my own doubts now that it will get traction after Nokia has soiled it's pretty stellar reputation by jumping in bed with Windows Phone. I can tell you what I am wishing for though, and that is that "Nokia proper", i.e., the part of the company not sold to Microsoft decides to re-enter the cellphone business independently and makes a competing phone based on Android with all kinds of new Nokia innovations. That would be worth gallons of ink of tech media publicity, and gallons of tears from MicroZealots. Please make it so. : Digital Storm Steam Machine Will Dual Boot SteamOS, Windows ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-11 ) Microsoft Says Valve is Keeping the PC Ecosystem Strong ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-11 ) SteamOS to be Released on Friday the 13th ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-12 ) Valve to ship Steam Machines, Steam Controllers and SteamOS this Friday ( TechSpot 2013-12-12 ) Valve Steam Controller Preview ( Maximum PC 2013-12-13 ) Download SteamOS now Valve's free Linux-based operating system releases ( PC Gamer 2013-12-13 ) Valve's SteamOS Now Ready to Download ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-13 ) SteamOS Compositor Details, Kernel Patches, Screenshots ( Phoronix 2013-12-13 ) Valve releases first public version of SteamOS ( NeoWin 2013-12-14 ) SteamOS beta available for download ( TechSpot 2013-12-14 ) Everything you need to know to install SteamOS on your very own computer ( Ars Technica 2013-12-14 ) Valve's Steam Machine Delivered To Homes, Gets Unboxed ( Kotaku 2013-12-14 ) There's a truckload of news on the Valve Steam OS front. Clearly this DIY gamer operating system is not vaporware as it is now officially released for beta testing ( links can be found in several of the articles to a CDROM sized package and other stuff ). Simultaneously, pre-made machines are already appearing with more to come. The Valve steam Controller is also still getting very good reviews ( although I have yet to see the version with the touchscreen LCD panel in the middle show up anywhere ). Add to this a high profile presentation scheduled for COMDEX and it's sure hard to dismiss this all as insignificant. The catch will be in native game support and I would probably guess we'll see a steady stream of announcements from COMDEX forward. Then the fanboys should really start to worry because this isn't about selling more units than Xbox or PS. It is about liberation. Perhaps all the naysaying fanboys should be asking themselves why people want to get away from MicroTards in the first place rather than constantly ridiculing 'The Year Of Linux' ( hint, it might occur before there ever is a 'Year of Windows 8' ). Another meme is that there is no 'selling point' for Steam OS since it lacks games but where are they when the exact same thing is said about Windows 8 and Windows Phone? Hypocrites. Most importantly 'selling point' is kind of ridiculous for an OS given away for free. It grants a true incentive to builders who are already operating on slim profit margins to get to pocket that cost. And the proof is seen above as Microsoft is now pondering the same idea for Windows Phone! What will the hypocrites have to say then?

Nokia Offers Free Lumia to User Whose Galaxy S4 Caught Fire ( Tom's Hardware 2013-12-11 ) Follow-up to the earlier story where Samsung and/or her lawyers really messed things up for themselves. Thing is, while this looks smart from Nokia's perspective, it is contingent on them not being similarly capable of such mistakes, and that is rather unlikely. It also presumes facts not in evidence, for one, that the guy with the melting phone wasn't at fault or a scammer, or worse, an Apple or Lumia fanboy who might eventually be exposed. Most importantly though, what if the guy hates Microsoft Tiles and it leads to their own embarrassment in a YouTube videos! This kind of thing, Nokia stepping into the spotlight voluntarily is a very risky proposition indeed. PlayStation 4 was the best selling next-gen console in November according to NPD ( TechSpot 2013-12-13 ) Microsoft sells 909,132 Xbox One units in the U.S. during November; Sony claims victory for PS4 ( NeoWin 2013-12-13 ) Not that it matters much, but as everyone expected ( except NeoKids and The Verge Tribers ) the PS4 is apparently leading sales. Next year in Q1 the launch numbers will be more official but this should have been obvious. Note the contrasting headlines with the spin by the NeoWin. Report: Xbox One hard drive becomes full at 362 GB ( NeoWin 2013-12-10 ) Continuing the theme of the day I mean week I mean month I mean season, another hiccup surfaces for the Xbox'ers. It seems the 500 GB disk has a true limit for the enduser that occurs around at 2/3 capacity. Oops. Yeah it's nitpicking, but my point is more about Microsoft than the Xbox anyway. They had to know this would be determined by someone eventually, and since they have yet to enable external storage for the Xbox this is a pressing matter now. They tried to skate over this with talk of "automatic" disk space management and by keeping the user away from views that show actual disk space in the first place. So Microsoft set this trap for themselves and step right into it. They have 23 games and they had to know someone would set about installing them all. Clairvoyance is not necessary to see these events coming.