JorgeA

A provocative analysis, written before this week's revelations about Windows 8.2: Tablet OSes killed Windows 8 and Microsoft with it Highlights: . . --JorgeA

Evidently there are some "change addicts" out there, who can't bear to live without everything around them getting constantly modified totally beyond their control. "Change" is all we've been getting from Mozilla for the last couple of years, and at an ever faster pace. It's "change fatigue" they should be looking into, not fear of change. Leave it alone already!!! We may want to start monitoring browser usage, the way we've been reporting on OS market share. It'll be interesting to see what happens to FF's popularity after they complete the UI makeover. --JorgeA

A little bit more about the shakeup in the Windows group: Windows division loses two program management directors to Bing -- fresh blood on the way? --JorgeA

Some more information (maybe) on Windows 8.2: The Start menu will return in new Desktop-optimized version of Windows 8.2 This is a little confusing. It makes it sound like there will be one particular version of Windows that's Desktop only. Could that really be so? --JorgeA

The Mozilla/Firefox crowd seems to have developed Google envy and gotten infected by Metro madness: Firefox debuts new UI that looks like Chrome, but does that mean it can compete with Chrome? Watch the two-minute video further down the page. You will see the key words MODERN and FLUID being used to describe this new version. I'm surprised the writer didn't say FF was looking "dated and cheesy." For an uninhibited review of the coming Firefox, check this out: Welcome to the Firefox s*ckfest! You'll have to read it for yourself, there are too many quotable passages... --JorgeA

And another tidbit from that article... ...which ties in to this one: Do Antivirus Companies Whitelist NSA Malware? Maybe these companies are prevented by law or court order from even discussing whether they've been told to allow official spyware through. But it's looking increasingly like they ought to be reclassified from "anti-"malware to "pro-malware" products. --JorgeA

Looks like @bpalone was right to be skeptical of Microsoft's supposed newfound commitment to privacy: Microsoft fails to mention Skype in promises to protect users from NSA surveillance --JorgeA

That NeoWin article is especially interesting because it contains a disclaimer for the fact that Stardock is involved with NeoWin. This is ironic because the NeoWinnies are such hardcore Metro fanboys and yet a significant portion of Stardock's business has to do with fixing the mess created by Windows 8. (Well, maybe that actually explains it...) --JorgeA

Ouch. Sounds like a pretty clever case of social sabotage, the bait being a desirable feature that Microsoft purposely obsolesced from the new Xbox. The devious perps ( Sony fanboys? ) see this opening, design a fake fix for the Xbox to restore backwards compatibility and voilà ... Xbrick! Clever and devious. The actual trick isn't fake, it just won't work if you do it wrong (much like USB connectors) Microsoft had already said that there will be no Xbox One devkits, and it was discovered that all retail Xbox Ones have a devkit menu. The problem with it "not working" is due to people not having an authorized key to enter in the field. The real problem here is that you can actually break the boot sequence of the console by playing with this menu. That is the fault of the developer, not the users of the menu. This is all so mysterious and intriguing, I'm tempted to go out and get an Xbox One just to see for myself what it's all about! --JorgeA

http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/further-changes-coming-windows-threshold After firing Sinosfky Windows may go back to the right direction. Again, this is really good news -- thank you for posting it! With BigMuscle's AeroGlass, I could see myself using this 8.2 on a daily basis. I could even make it look like Longhorn, the OS that never was. BTW, a commenter to that article agrees with you about Sinofsky: --JorgeA

Wow, two very exciting Windows news items on the same day! Maybe Windows 7 will become "the new XP" after all -- the OS that customers demand and buy instead of the new version that Microsoft is pushing. And if they do bring back the real Start Menu, we'll have gone a long way toward getting everything we've been asking for. Maybe there are some brains left over at MSFT HQ -- people who pay more attention to customers' wishes and sales figures than to "telemetry data" and arrogant theories about how everybody ought to be interacting with their computers. --JorgeA

Some more info on this project: Free software activists to take on Google with new free search engine YaCy: It's About Freedom, Not Beating Google However, one guy who tried it recently was less than impressed: Yacy: Another Example of Why Java Sucks Like that guy (as you'll see in the full blog post), I do wish that more of the documentation (and the forum) were in a language that I can read. But it's still a promising-sounding idea and we should check on them every so often. Maybe you can give it a shot on a server like you suggested, and tell us how it went? --JorgeA

@Charlotte answered this pretty well (IMHO) with some very plausible methodologies. It's entirely possible that every computer comes with malware already built into the OS or even the firmware, waiting for orders from the mother ship. Certainly that quote from the FBI agent gives the idea more credibility than ever before (assuming that he's accurate). So you'd have to add one or two extra steps to my "checklist" upthread: Cover the webcam lens with opaque tape, or remove the webcamCover the microphone with some sound-buffering material, or remove the microphone--JorgeA

Wow, that's pretty scary. Talk about "spy"ware. And of course, with decreasing storage costs and increasing processing power there's nothing to stop them from eventually doing this on a massive scale rather than a few select targets. All for the purpose of (needless to say) detecting "patterns" so that they can "protect us better." Checklist for a new laptop: Turn off the microphone and webcamKill their processes in Task ManagerRemove them from the startup groupDisable the devices in Device ManagerThat, at least until we get a completely atrophied Metrofied Windows 9 or 10 that has no Task Manager, startup configurability, or Device Manager. --JorgeA

No-one can argue with that idea, because everyone has this problem at one time or another. However, to experience this problem you must first be able to see the friggin USB receptacle in the first place. Besides being either upside down or flipped horizontally, the biggest problem is that almost every one is invisible on the device because the the little keying insert is almost always the same color as the device. Furthermore, the USB geniuses came up with a cute little icon for themselves rather than using 3 simple letters U-S-B. Try to describe that ridiculous little icon to a n00b user over the telephone, I dare you! Of course it's not just them, it's everyone really, including the device manufacturers who have never met a hardware or software GUI that they couldn't manage to screw up. Black on black? Check. Tiny icons? no problem. Connectors all jammed together? Of course. I've been working some graphics with examples of hardware fails, here's part of one ... That was a very nicely put together graphic, and an excellent presentation. --JorgeA

This is intriguing. I haven't read through everything yet, but two questions crop up after the first couple of pages: Doesn't opening a port to all and sundry, represent a security threat to the participant's PC? "YaCy harvests web pages with a web crawler." Doesn't crawling the Web also expose that PC to whatever nasties might be lying in wait out there? (You'd better have multiple layers of defenses.)Maybe the questions will be answered as I page through more of the project's site, but it's an appealing idea for sure. --JorgeA

Now if Microsoft puts their money where their mouth is, and comes up with a practicable way of using e-mail and surfing the Web with end-to-end encryption -- that's one of the few things that could trump the insults and annoyances of the Metro environment. --JorgeA Let's not forget just who was in bed with and just how deeply they were involved here. Seems like I remember a mention here of a comment by the NSA of just how much more data they were getting after Microsoft purchased Skype. I don't know abut you or anybody else here, but Microsoft has blown their credibility with me. bpalone Good point, and I agree. The lawyer inside me hastens to point out that their coming out with end-to-end encryption "could" trump Metro, rather than "would." But still, I think I let my enthusiasm for the possibility of perfect Internet privacy run ahead of the fact that, after all, is IS Microsoft we're talking about. --JorgeA

That was pretty good! Our new Android phones are like that somewhat -- there's a nice-looking "desktop" (the home screen) that reminds me of Vista and Windows 7, but no file manager. It's weird, not knowing (for example) where the cookies are so that I can go in and delete them. We'll have to see if there's a way to install a proper file manager without signing up for Google Play. Wonder if CCleaner has an Android version... --JorgeA P.S. Thanks in another way for that article link. While on that page, I saw the headline for my previous post.

!!! Microsoft: US government is an 'advanced persistent threat' Now if Microsoft puts their money where their mouth is, and comes up with a practicable way of using e-mail and surfing the Web with end-to-end encryption -- that's one of the few things that could trump the insults and annoyances of the Metro environment. --JorgeA

And to what ROTS was saying: NSA tracking cellphone locations worldwide, Snowden documents show NSA gathering 5bn cell phone records daily, Snowden documents show --JorgeA

Darknet, anyone? I think you hit the mail on the head. Sooner or later, every organization loses sight of its original purpose and starts focusing on aggrandizing itself, accumulating power and wielding it. Governments, corporations, unions, volunteer organizations -- they all ultimately become more about themselves than about the people they were originally founded to serve. That's why I think that the smaller they are or the easier it is to leave them and start a fresh new one, the better for everyone (except the powermongers): It helps to keep 'em honest and humble. This would be a really good time for the ReactOS people to get their act together and start moving in a serious way. --JorgeA

ADDED: *** Before anyone points it out, perhaps I was overstating it. Copyright was an issue prior to MP3 in a different manner. Famously it was the vehicle used by labels and recording studios and publishers to separate the actual artist from his/her rights. Books and movies have been made to illustrate the many ways that artists became session slaves to producers who suddenly had all or most rights to that artist's hard work, sometimes their lifetime's work. It happened in movies early on with the "studio system" with the actual actors reduced to receiving little or nothing as they appear in perpetuity on the big and little screen. Precedents again. The music world with some major overlap just continued on with the practices. Making slaves again out of pioneering southern black blues musicians, Motown pop, radio payola, all wonderful innovations by the music powers-that-be. It's no wonder when the MP3 crisis came around that many musicians were alert to their hypocrisy of using the artists as their "victim", when all along it was them - Big Music. Humans appear to have a genetic defect that lends themselves to becoming feudal royalty lording over peasant slave workers. Movies, Music, Computers, in all three fields the same type of fiefdoms emerge to manage and profit off the intellectual property of others, their employee servants. The one thing we all have going for us now is that this Internet thing exists to let us state these facts and hopefully educate some of the uneducated. Wow, that was interesting. I'm definitely on board for evidence showing that getting rid of DRM actually increases sales. Wouldn't be the first time that dynamic factors outweighed plausible mechanistic logic. I agree that there seems to be a flaw in people's makeup, which predisposes (too many of) them to become groupies and followers given the right circumstances. We saw it happen in our native land, where a charismatic BSer seduced most of a nation; people who previously had appeared to be reasonable thinking folk suddenly became militant groupthinkers incapable of recognizing the reality of what was happening all around them even as the country became one big plantation. It was as if a switch had been flipped and they fell into line. It's not as OT as it might sound, as in the tech world we see an analogous process going on with Metro: some people are fanatical apologists impervious to facts or reason. --JorgeA

Darn you ROTS, I ended up playing that clip from Demolition Man like 35 times. But seriously, I'm with you on this. We just got smartphones, but we're keeping them turned off until needed, and we are certainly not signing up for Google Play. Even a certain serf-mentality family member who's OK with being tracked and monitored and having his choices constrained as long as he gets his government handout, advises against Google Play. I managed to live 384 years without smartphone apps, I can go on just as long again without them. --JorgeA

Well, at least the French are brazenly open about it: French lawmakers propose warrantless access to live user data from ISPs and hosting sites At first I thought this was another cannonball against filesharing, but -- "State aggression." Hmm... So, who protects Frenchmen from this newest aggression by the French state? Maybe they're too busy faisant l'amour to care about being numbered and tracked. The zoo society keeps marching Forward. --JorgeA

MSFN seems to have had another hiccup. I couldn't get on at all on Monday (afternoon EST onwards). Did we lose any posts? I think that Formfiller's reply on Google's joke Start Screen by TELVM was the last post before this one, so I don't think we did. --JorgeA