JorgeA

I just received my first e-mail new-post notification in several months, for @buyerninety's post just above. Keeping fingers crossed that whatever was blocking notifications from going out to me has now been removed, and that notifications for other threads will start flowing once again too. --JorgeA

Xbox One Debut Could Be Last Major Console Launch I'm sure that the Xbox One strategy is the reason Microsoft has let Windows Media Center wither on the vine. The ideal approach would be for them to drop the Xbone and promote WMC as the truly fantastic product that it is, now that (for viewers in the U.S.) the CableCARD issue has been sorted out and it's fairly easy to watch and record cable TV on your PC. More likely, though, if these critics were to win out and the Xbox got sold off, then WMC and all entertainment-related stuff would also go out the window. --JorgeA

#2, only if you're a "scorpion whisperer." The ultimate solution to the "LG problem" is not to connect the thingy to the Internet. Go ahead, SpyTV, talk all you want -- nobody can hear you! --JorgeA

Amazing! Not that we'd be given permission to use their company logos , but I wonder how much this complete set of coffee mugs would sell for on eBay... --JorgeA

Commenters clearly state that Xbox.com is also down, so that pretty much covers everything. So they had themselves quite an outage and it could definitely be related to the Xbox launch. I'll bet they re-tasked resources to handle the expected influx of gamers, but since it could only be a couple of million max, what does this really say about their capacity management? Just imagine if hundreds of millions of sheeple actually went to cloud versions of Office and other things they would be dead in the water I think. One wonders how many well-publicized service outages it will take to take the shine off this cloud thing. A lot fewer in business than among the general public, I suspect: not getting your e-mail right away is an annoyance to us as private individuals -- but losing access to customer data, even temporarily, could mean lost customers to a sole proprietor or company. --JorgeA

Even more positive fallout from the NSA's shenanigans: Google’s Schmidt Sees Encryption Killing Censorship --JorgeA

We here at MSFN aren't the only ones who see things a certain way with regard to Metrofication and the NSA: For better context, read the page linked, there are only four posts on it (last time I checked). --JorgeA

You asked Fabulous!! Great job!!! --JorgeA

Maybe this report will throw some light on the issue. Scroll down to the "Vulnerabilities" section. If I read it right, it sounds like the great majority of security holes nowadays are in Adobe or Java products rather than the operating system. Anybody have better (clearer or more definitive) numbers? --JorgeA P.S. Also check this out, especially the charts on pages 31 and 42 of the Full Report. P.P.S. And one more:

Here goes a test post. I, too, would like to get my notifications back, so I have an interest in the situation. --JorgeA

Actually, there's an argument to be made that it's the money angle that's helped to keep Microsoft OS's around for years on end. If Windows users were asked to change their OS every year or two, Microsoft would long since have had a riot on their hands. OTOH, installing a new OS every six months or couple of years is exactly what the developers of so many Linux ("free" software) distros expect users to do. Linux developers couldn't care less about the annoyance and disruption they visit on users because with few exceptions their living doesn't depend on making an OS that people will pay for. Some months ago I went into the Linux partition on one of my machines to get updates for the OS that I had there (Zorin 5.2), and there were no updates to be had as they'd moved on to version 6 -- IIRC the URL used by the package manager didn't work anymore. I had only installed 5.2 like nine months before!! And now this year they're already up to version 7. Sheesh. Linux "long-term" releases are supported for what, 3 years. I'm on Vista which came out 7 years ago, am still getting official patches, and will be on extended support until 2017. More than ten years in all. Windows XP will have enjoyed 13 years of support when the patches stop coming next April, and Windows 7 is slated to get like 11 years (2020). --JorgeA

LOL, it looks more like vintage 1993. No doubt somebody out there will mistake the typos for the real thing... --JorgeA P.S. thanks @Tripredacus and @bphlpt. Sounds like nobody's all that worried about Android malware.

More NSA fallout, this time on the negative side of the ledger: Is a Snowden effect stalking US telecom sales? --JorgeA

ROFL!!! Can the graphics arts experts here substitute an NSA shield for the Chrome logo? Don't want to get political, but I can't pass up this photo of a demonstration in Berlin: [source} --JorgeA

And speaking of people collecting information about your preferences and personal life: Data brokers' collection of internet activity data raises privacy issues What planet is she on?? It's precisely when ads reflect my preferences that they start feeling creepy and intrusive. I don't mind getting ads on a website, what I do mind is getting ads on a website based on my searches and actions on other sites. I don't mind paying more for the things I buy, if it comes to that -- my privacy is worth something to me, and it's NONE OF YOUR D*MN BUSINESS. [emphasis added] One way to deal with this might be by using a well-stocked hosts file. If your computer is blocked from connecting to a data collector's server, no data can be collected, right? --JorgeA

Great find, ricktendo! This is friggin' unbelievable. "Smart TVs", eh? I want the DUMBEST television set that's out there. I wonder what happens if the TV purchaser declines to accept the Terms & Conditions. Does the TV stop working? Like when you click "Off" on the data collection option in the setttings, does the TV work and simply proceed anyway to collect all the info under the terms that you just refused to agree to? This is an argument for keeping your TV well away from the 'Net. --JorgeA UPDATE: In the comments, one writer reports that... What matters to me is that it receive signals from over-the-air or cable sources, I don't care whether YouTube or any other Internet-based service works.

Just to clarify, by "we" I mean our family has gotten our first smartphones. --JorgeA

Uh-oh, the sh*t's about to hit the fan: Private firms selling mass surveillance systems around world, documents show Brings to mind Lenin's prediction that capitalists would sell him the rope that they'd be hanged with. Mor*ns -- like they won't be affected by all this stuff going on. The folks at Yahoo (see upthread) had better hurry up. [emphasis added] --JorgeA

More positive fallout from the NSA snooping scandal: Yahoo vows to encrypt all its users' personal data So long as the data arrives at Yahoo's servers already encrypted, that would be a good thing. Otherwise it'll simply be read in the clear by the NSA as it flows in. --JorgeA

That was OCR'd and then software translated. For comparison, another commenter who claims fluency in Chinese offers this translation ... Hmm... those "Hispanic Wei production 8 sprouts" caught my eye (no Nobel prizes for guessing why!), but trying to draw up a mental picture of them kind of left me scratching my head. Anyway, it was a relief to learn that the door did not quit them. Good to know that the professional translation industry still has nothing to fear from machine translation... --JorgeA

Her sentiments are right on the money, but her vocabulary (as illustrated by the song lyrics) appears to be somewhat limited. --JorgeA

We have joined the 21st century and gotten our first smartphones. Ever conscious of privacy and security concerns, we intend to keep GPS and location services turned off except when specifically needed, and generally to keep the phones turned off unless we're making or expecting a call, or are using Google Maps. We've also discovered that it's possible to avoid entering Google's Matrix by not opening an account with them, and all the features we're interested in will still work. But I do have a question: is there any value to buying anti-virus or Internet security software for an Android phone? One product that I saw has a neat feature where you can make the phone emit a loud noise so that you can find it if you've misplaced it, but what about the "core" AV functionality -- is that useful on Android, or not really? We might do some Web surfing on the phones, the most likely scenario being to settle arguments with other family members over dinner at a restaurant. Thanks for any (knowledgeable ) advice on this. --JorgeA

Big news: if this article is correct, then the root of the problem with Microsoft lies, not in Steve B. or Steve S. or Julie L.-G., but in the board of directors -- Ballmer on Ballmer: His Exit From Microsoft That last one strikes an odd chord. Why would a hard-drive company (Seagate) want to push a strategy that includes herding users into the cloud, thereby destroying demand for its flagship products?? Whatever the answer may be, if the article has it right then there is no hope of salvation for Microsoft. Better get used to Metro and the walled garden, or start learning Linux for that inevitable day down the road when Windows 7 becomes totally obsolete. If recent developments are any indication, as Web standards evolve then before too long you may not even be able to run your favorite (or any) browser with any degree of usefulness whatever. --JorgeA

I'm using IE9 on my Windows 7 systems (still on IE8 in my Vista machines) and have not encountered any problems. That's not to say you won't start running into issues, as browser developers (and many webmasters) seem to want to pull everybody along on their increasingly short version cycles, but for now everything's OK. --JorgeA

Just incredible. I guess they go to the same schools. Maybe there is some proportion of the public that somehow likes to be dissed and jerked around, and that's who they're counting on to keep them afloat. --JorgeA