JorgeA

The website with a link to their full paper is here: http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/~tromer/acoustic/ Just makes one feel all warm and fuzzy. bpalone Unbelievable. Sometimes it is said that ever-expanding knowledge will produce a kind of human paradise, but the more these sorts of things come out, the clearer it is to me that it'll actually lead to a sort of h*!!. --JorgeA

I'm glad to be able to help, and happy to hear that other people are using it! IMHO SoftMaker deserves to be much better known. --JorgeA

Whoops: Microsoft Pulls Surface Pro 2 Firmware Update . I couldn't have put it better than Paul did: --JorgeA

The creators of SoftMaker, an MS Office-compatible suite, are offering a free version at this page. Germany-based SoftMaker will make a small donation to charity groups for every download of SoftMaker FreeOffice. Holiday fonts are also available for free download through December 24, and they, too, are included in the donation program. Here's the direct download page for the office package. (They do ask for minimal registration info -- name, e-mail, country.) I have a little experience with the paid version of SoftMaker's suite, and as advertised it seems to be fully compatible with Office. Plus, they don't have the Ribbon. --JorgeA

Big Brother approaches in the land of Orwell: Report accuses BT of supplying backdoors for GCHQ and NSA The report's findings aren't uncontested (see the last page), but with any luck it will spark a round of healthy and highly technical debate. --JorgeA

Forget Gmail, Google announces Blackmail service [NSFW warning] Pretty funny and on the mark, but do pay heed to that NSFW notice... --JorgeA

Thanks, I hadn't heard of that one. Will look into it. --JorgeA

Facebook can see what users type even if status is not posted Why anybody with even a single working brain cell would EVER go on this site, is beyond me. 127.0.0.1 www.facebook.com [how ironic that the forum software turns this into a link] --JorgeA EDIT: More (and more technical) information here: Facebook is tracking what you don’t do on Facebook .

When I read the article, I didn't come away with a real good feeling about the "accidentally" part of the story. I am old school, I want what I purchase to be in my hot little hand. It might get converted into a more portable format, so that I can enjoy it when on the road, but I want the actual medium in possession. Here is a link to the article: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/16/amazon-disney-christmas-tv-special-prep-and-landing Merry Christmas everyone. bpalone +100 I, too, feel comfortable only if I have my purchased files safely stored offline, out of their reach. And, Merry Christmas! --JorgeA

@dencorso uses Pale Moon and also recommends it, IIRC. I tried it and it looks good -- I like it that they're providing an alternative for people who aren't desperate to follow along with every UI change the Mozilla folks throw their way. The thing I'd need to get used to, is that Norton doesn't support the Norton Toolbar (which gives me an instant visual idea of a website's safety as it's loading) for Pale Moon. Presumably, Norton would still warn or stop me if I did try to visit an unsafe site. --JorgeA

Expect by end of 2019/early 2020 the same statement applied to Metro/NCI, it seems like 7 to 8 years are needed to Steve Ballmer to exit denial mode about what are self-evident truths to the rest of the world.jaclaz I'll mark the date on my Outlook 2007 calendar (in Vista, of course!) to check for Ballmer quotes around that time. --JorgeA

Yup. Down here it began as snow, but then turned to a freezing rain that changed everything under it to ice. It's not fun having to shovel ice, I'm still recovering... That image recalls some of the Start Menu replacements we list over in that thread, which chose a Metrofied look. And it might yet turn out to be more than a MetroTard fantasy. Not to spoil the Start Menu party, but we may want to hold off celebrating until we see what this revived Start Menu is actually like. The reason is found in the first Neowin article that you linked to above: So there's the possibility that we may end up with something that's not unlike the "Start Menu fantasy" you showed: that is, simply a Metro Start Screen that doesn't take up all of the monitor's real estate. Calling it "mini-Start" adds to my suspicions. Another article that you'd linked to from Tom's Hardware runs along the same lines: Given what they did with the pseudo-Start Button in Windows 8.1, I wouldn't put it past Microsoft to come up with a similarly insulting, grudging halfway "solution" in place of the real Start Menu. In the meantime, here's another cry for the return of the real Start Menu. --JorgeA

And a few little and fanciful ways to fight back: The New Armor That Lets You Sense Surveillance Cameras --JorgeA

Apropos of all that -- By cracking cellphone code, NSA has capacity for decoding private conversations This really complicates mattters. If other spy agencies can do it too, then the argument can be made that by putting an end to NSA snooping we'd simply be disarming ourselves, relative to other governments. One solution would be to disarm all of them at the same time by using strong encryption every step of the way: --JorgeA

Wow, that's pretty brazen, in light of this year's disclosures. And the CIA story makes a good argument for buying the "dumbest" (unconnected) things that you can put in your house. I'd try going on Facebook to check out the President's presumably bogus page, but I have Facebook in my Hosts file. --JorgeA

In cybersecurity news: “We cannot trust” Intel and Via’s chip-based crypto, FreeBSD developers say --JorgeA

Neat trick, I'd like to try it! Any tips on how to do this, or is it considered un-kosher? --JorgeA

Connerie. Ahh, thank you. Wonder what Sir Sean might have to say about that... (I know it's not pronounced the same ) (source) Wow, that would really stink. Comments as to what will happen if you try to activate XP after April 8 are all over the place, but my guess is that the Microsoft rep thought (mistakenly) that the guy was asking about some kind of official support after that date. See here and here. Here's another MSFT person on that topic: One way (maybe) to hedge against the possibility of the XP activation servers going offline would be this. --JorgeA

Rather than by releasing new versions of Windows, one way to push everybody off XP/Vista/7 is by making them unable to perform one of the major functions in computing -- using a browser: I'm on IE8 on my Vista machine. I have declined to use IE9 because its UI is not as informative as that of IE8, and I find the flatter visual design to be boring. Chrome, on the other hand, is associated with Google and I remain suspicious of it. And Firefox keeps messing with the UI, not to mention the fact that they release a new version seemingly every couple of hours. Over time, my browser choices on Vista (but also eventually on 7) will become increasingly annoying and restricted. :angrym: In a different (though analogous) context, this comment in the forum thread seen in the screenshot above is apt: --JorgeA

One of my PCs received a Windows Update today referencing some French CA issuing bad certificates. This must be what it's about: French agency caught minting SSL certificates impersonating Google Human error, right -- if you believe that, I have some swampland in Normandy I'd like to sell you. How do you say "bu!!$h/t" in French? Methinks they simply got caught doing something they fully and consciously meant to do. Good for Google on this one. --JorgeA

And now for Gmail fans: Dear Gmailer: I know what you read last summer (and last night and today) --JorgeA

The joys of life in the cloud, chapter 497: Yahoo Says Mail Functionality Is Returning, but Some Users Might Be Missing Up to Two Weeks of Email Ahh yes, webmail is SOOOOOO convenient. Maybe the NSA can restore the lost e-mails to these users' accounts... --JorgeA

A brief rundown of some of the major (free and pay) Start Button/Menu replacements: Don’t wait for Windows 'Threshold', get a Start button and menu in Windows 8.1 NOW --JorgeA

It's starting to look like the ultimate Start Menu replacement might be put out by... Microsoft itself: What might a new Windows Start Menu look like? --JorgeA

What might a new Windows Start Menu look like? Mary Jo Foley gets the scoop again: . --JorgeA