JorgeA

Liberally translated into English (to try and keep the rhyme): I guess that it's time to replace "money" with "data", when referring both to the "cloud" and to the "prism" surveillance. I'm not sure if this carries the same meaning that you want to convey, but in the U.S. legal system there's a maxim that says, "possession is nine-tenths of the law." Nice translation BTW, keeping the basic meaning and the rhyme. Regarding the possession of data, I always say that the safest cloud data is the one that doesn't exist. --JorgeA

I read it, more moons ago than I care to admit. I remember feeling even more depressed at the end of that book than after "1984," but I'd forgotten the detail that you report. Maybe it's time to read it again. --JorgeA

Amazing -- it's like they're more radically Bolshevik than Lenin himself. Excellent news about the Xbox One, BTW. --JorgeA

Something that doesn't seem to have clicked yet with tech journalism is that selling one million units no longer makes the item mass market. Once upon a time, back in the 80s, selling a million of a device meant that "everyone had one", at least to the extent one could realistically consider the market. But now a million is niche. Wii-U has sold over 3.5 million units and the Vita over 2.5 and both are considered niche. These days, a vendor needs to sell literally an order of magnitude more to be considered at the same level as a few decades ago. 5 million is the new 500 thousand. Ssshhhh -- you're not allowed to point that out!! Didn't anybody tell you that you're supposed to accept all the spin they give you, at face value? --JorgeA

Thanks for the links, and welcome! Good point about keeping all of Aero and not just the Glass part. I guess we had focused on that because it's one of the most visible aspects during normal work, but you're right: Microsoft seems bent on eliminating most of the esthetic aspects of Aero, and I wouldn't be surprised if they intended to get rid of it all eventually. --JorgeA

FYI: Microsoft unloading Surface RT units at $199, offering schools major discount --JorgeA

About 20 years ago, I connected two DOS machines using the INTERLNK command and a cable between the two, although I can't remember now whether it was connected to the serial or the parallel ports. I do recall getting that "Wow" feeling the first time I saw one PC's directory show up on the other PC's screen. --JorgeA

Agreed. It sounds like the OEMs were led down a primrose path and believed the next Windows would not cause upheaval, but quite the contrary, be the proverbial shot in the arm. I'm not sure what conference he is talking about, it might be a workshop at //build/ 2011 which is also around the first time I remember hearing about this disaster, it was summer 2011 ... I made my own transcript and posted it. I couldn't make out exactly what workshop he was talking about -- sounded like "reviewers workshop" to me, but it could have been "previewers." Yes, that looks like it says version 6.2.7067. And notice the Start Button at the left end of the Taskbar. If it was at CES, it must have been in January 2011. Thanks a bunch for the background info, BTW. --JorgeA

Does anybody have inside or other additional info on this quote? It starts almost exactly 8 minutes into episode 39 of This Week in Enterprise Tech, during a discussion of Windows 8.1. (Host: Fr. Robert Ballecer. Guest: Brian Chee.) [emphasis added]That would be quite a revelation, that early on Microsoft was promising that you could install Windows 8 without Metro. Breaking that promise can only have contributed to the anger and disappointment that has met the version of Windows 8 that eventually got released. --JorgeA

--JorgeA

Recall that one of al Qaeda's goals is to destroy the U.S. economy. If all this snooping and spying ends up harming (let alone destroying) the U.S. economy, then what does logic say about the agencies involved? As the saying goes, "The road to he!! is paved with good intentions." --JorgeA

Good point there in the last paragraph. We could liken it to a gold mine, where all the easy pickings get taken first and then it gets harder and harder to come up with anything worthwhile. Similarly, it takes more effort to devise truly new games. Not that I would know, personally, but the theory makes sense to me. While I'm in the mood for reminiscing, the last PC game I ever spent any time with (though that was LOTS of time) was Gary Grigsby's "Second Front," on my Amstrad PC6400. But after that PC games seemed (from my perspective) to devolve from high-concept strategic simulations to first-person shooters -- basically (IMHO) more complex and sophisticated versions of Space Invaders or Pacman. Strategic- and operational-level simulations appeared to go by the wayside, and I haven't paid much attention to PC gaming since. For all I know there could have been a renaissance, but if so then I've totally missed it. --JorgeA

I can even remember when PC's and Software came with manuals ("real" books), I still have a DOS manual that came with the pre-installed DOS (and Windows 3.x) Compaq computer, which is actually very good, and that no "hyperlinked" help file can beat (not because of being hyperlinked help files instead of print on paper but because having been poorly written, and missing 2/3 to 3/4 of commands, sintaxes and anything besides very basic usage). Ditto. I agree with every word you wrote in there. My first computer, a Sanyo MBC-550, came with about six ring binders full of manuals for MS-DOS and associated programs (mainly for programmers). I still have them stored in a box somewhere. I bought two Dells in the '90s -- a WFWG 3.11 in 1995, and a Win98(FE) in 1998. The first one came with all manner of quality-bound paperback manuals; the second one, just a few years later, already came with most of the documentation (such as there was) on the hard drive. --JorgeA EDIT: typo!!

Oh, and yet another embarrassment for MSFT (not sure if we've covered this one already): Microsoft reportedly miscalculated the screen size in Windows 8 vs iPad comparison Who's minding the store over in Redmond? --JorgeA

Apple internally refers to its new design interface as 'Modern UI' Apple Envy on one side is now becoming Microsoft Envy on the other!! The two companies, once a study in contrasts, are converging toward one flat, kiddie walled-garden model. The source: [source] So, in a way -- given what we just saw about Microsoft demo'ing Xbox One games on a Windows 7 system and not Win8 -- you could say that Apple likes Win8 better than does Microsoft... --JorgeA

I'd never thought of it that way, but it makes sense, like some sort of eco-balance between competing pests... --JorgeA

Now that is funny. If you look closely at the monitor in one of the key shots, you will see what could well be a Start Button in the lower left-hand corner. (That is, it's not set off a little to the right of the corner like the IE icon is on the Win8 taskbar.) Plus, that's a standard Windows 7 Desktop wallpaper. :lol: --JorgeA

Assuming the veracity of the strategy attributed to Microsoft there, and in light of @Charlotte's description, a few posts up, of their longstanding objectives -- -- the following excerpt from the article above is particularly noteworthy: Things are getting to the point where it'll be better to put up with the Linux snobs than with the MSFT control freaks. BTW, thanks for the background on the history, Charlotte. --JorgeA

German Official: Xbox One Spying Capabilities a 'Twisted Nightmare' Maybe I suppressed the memory as too horrible to remember, but I don't recall reading before about the part where the Kinect reads your heart rate with infrared cameras. Seems like every time I read about this device it gets worse and worse. --JorgeA

Unless I missed it in the mass of information, I wonder what sort of "telemetry" MSFT is going to claim they have, "demonstrating" that gamers actually prefer having to keep their console connected to the Internet and also being unable to freely lend or trade their games to each other. --JorgeA

Frankly, I've always suspected something like that. But stil... Yeah, it's still disappointing to see something like this being confirmed. Hmm, another reason to consider some Linux variant... --JorgeA

I came across this by sheer chance after our recent discussion of the Sony rootkit (I wasn't researching that). This is unfreakinbelievable: USA to legalize rootkits, spyware, ransomware and trojans to combat piracy? They go on to declare: Bravo for this cybersecurity company! --JorgeA EDIT: (Due diligence) Charlotte gave a different article discussing this story here. But the angle from Emsisoft is new to this thread.

I was scratching my head over this me, trying to figure out what it was without peeking! Ultimately, I gave up and looked. Very nice! If I get the chance to, I'll look into what happened early in 2012 to cause the big jump. Meanwhile, I've found another search engine that is said to offer a great degree of user privacy. --JorgeA

Do you need to sign your name every time? Are people too stupid to know you wrote the contents of what is in your own post? I also find it really funny when you are quoting something somebody else wrote and bellow you sign your name I may be old-school on this, but I consider it a common courtesy to sign a piece of correspondence, which is how I view this kind of communication. To my mind, posts lacking a signature tend to come off as cold and impersonal, regardless of their content. But far be it for me to tell other people how to construct their own postings. Typos in the critical word. --JorgeA

There was a very interesting letter to the editor in the July 2013 issue of PCWorld. It first appeared in the magazine forum: Yeah -- "Modern" UI, my foot. It's a regression, not progress. A pretty vigorous discussion there, BTW. --JorgeA