JorgeA

I've taken to hitting CTRL-A, CTRL-C as part of the proocedure, before clicking on the "Add Reply" button. I've lost enough posts that the extra clicks have become worthwhile. And then sometimes you get the database error message, but when you click on "here" you find out that your submission made it through anyway. --JorgeA

+1 Notice that they're advertising a "low light" smartphone camera... maybe to better record the sorts of transactions that take place late at night in that kind of location... Genius ad placement. --JorgeA

Well, that happens sometimes. --JorgeA

Well ,actually it's my bad , I should have used, instead of the plain "whistling" emoticon (which I often use to underline a friendly mocking) , the more complex "ducking"one that Larryb123456 expressly made for me to underline the spirit of some of my posts, see around here: The result was so good that the emoticon has been added in reboot.pro as the "standard" "jaclaz" emoticon: Sorry for the misunderstanding , it was intended as a friendly joke. jaclaz Thank you, jaclaz. Sorry that (not if) I was so prickly. I feel like the one you gave above that pops up all red and then goes downhill from there And, Thank You for the scratching-head emoticon. In appreciation (although you probably have one like this already), please let me offer this: --JorgeA

TechRadar has interviewed a Windows product manager, who said the following in a discussion of Windows 8 and Microsoft's approach to changing things: [emphasis added]OK boys and girls, can anybody here tell us if Microsoft threw anything away when they came out with Windows 8? Very good, and then if this guy is right, what does that say about Microsoft? Great to hear. Will you give us back the choice to use Aero Glass? To use a native Start Button that will call up a standard Start Menu? To banish the Modern UI completely from our screens? Good comment down below the end of the article: [emphasis added]--JorgeA

Thanks, bphlpt -- I wasn't aware of that other alias. Voice tone and facial expressions, which can affect the meaning of the words that are actually used, don't carry over well in print. This is where emoticons come in. But that means that we need to use emoticons carefully if we are to decrease the risk of being misinterpreted. In this case, a wink or a smile would have lightened up the message to show that it didn't "really" mean what the words said. But the whistling emoticon comes off as an implied (or maybe not so implied) putdown, which actually serves to strengthen the plain meaning of the words. Needless to say, if the intent is to help, then the safest course is to play it straight, resist offering the "rectius" and simply say something like, "Here's a head-scratching emoticon you can use." It's not so hard to do, and as a bonus it would have earned a Thank You instead. --JorgeA

Rectius: If there were I were able to find a head-scratching emoticon .... You know jaclaz, you are absolutely right -- I am completely incapable of finding an emoticon on the Web for myself. Perhaps it did not occur to you that, having decided it wasn't worth my limited time to go out looking for one elsewhere, I might possibly be referring to the forum we are in. (I challenge "The Finder" to find a head-scratching emoticon in the emoticon panel that shows up on the right when replying to a post on this forum.) One could argue that I should have made that clear, but that would miss the point. This thread exists as a place to critique Microsoft for its decisions relating to Windows 8, not whether I personally am "able" to find an emoticon somewhere else. If we here have to start taking three times as long to craft posts with complete explanations and airtight language to satisfy a lawyer, the discussion will die and the only winners will be Microsoft and its fanboys. The losers will be those of us who have found a haven here and a sounding board for views dissenting from the MSFT party line. Enough sniping at allies already. --JorgeA EDIT: changed tack

From a couple of days ago: Yep. Don't listen to the propaganda saying "Don't worry". Microsoft has plans to monetize every single shred of their so-called Intellectual Property. Given half a chance going forward, most companies will piece out everything they have for sale. They want subscriptions, they don't want customers. Fear for the future. The wild world of x86 systems and indie software have been sentenced to death. Clouds and walled gardens are all that lies on their horizon. Don't contribute to this garbage by obsoleting your hardware and software. Don't play their game. Here's the article that Neowin was working from. I bring it up because I wanted to quote the following commenter who makes -- and builds on -- a point that I've thought for decades (and not just in connection with computing): Runs parallel to what we've said here before about keeping your files in the Cloud. And now the concept is expanding to the whole desktop. If there were a head-scratching emoticon, I'd be using it right now. --JorgeA

And needless to say it is decidedly non-Metro Here is a 1920 pixel image ( as long as their link lasts ). Note from the text excerpt that the interface is user customizable. Can you imagine Microsoft or her fanboys designing this? Let's all pray that Gigabyte and Asus never collaborate with Microsoft. Oooh la la! B) With something like this, why would I ever want to load the OS?? --JorgeA

This, from the company that trawls through your SkyDrive stuff for naughty pictures. You gotta admire them for the gall. How long do you think it'll be before we find out that MS does pretty much the same thing as Google, with the Metro apps sold in the Windows Store? --JorgeA

You sure were! Really stickin' it to 'em. The conclusion is (IMHO) the best part: --JorgeA

Thanks for the analysis, jaclaz -- very nice! Just one comment -- The question hinges on what, exactly, they mean by "licenses sold." IIRC, Mary Jo Foley (and probably others) suggested that this could include licenses for PCs yet to be manufactured, or in the pipeline but not yet purchased by end users. If that's the case, then it would support the idea that MSFT "pumped up" the initial estimates to make them look better at the time. Book publishers can tell you all about print runs sold to stores but not to actual readers... There are other uncertainties in the numbers put out by Netmarketshares and others. For example, it's doubtful that they can know directly how many PCs with each OS there are out there; therefore, they're deriving estimates from the data in HTTP headers. It's not unreasonable to theorize that a person with a shiny new toy Windows 8 PC might want to take it out for a test drive on the Web and check out how it performs, leading to some additional amount of Web surfing relative to their previous PC's established level. (As the novelty wore off, the new Win8 PC's use would presumably also settle down eventually to somewhere close to the previous PC's level of use.) This would show up in the stats for a while as a certain degree of excess hits for Windows 8 over the actual proportion of PCs with that OS installed. --JorgeA EDIT: clarification

I sure did! Well, that rules out Windows Phone for me. A VPN is the only way that I'd consider using a wireless Internet connection anywhere (maybe even at home). Not that I'm itching to get a smartphone anyway. As I told the store clerk the last time I was shopping for a mobile phone -- I want the dumbest phone you've got! --JorgeA

You know, this whole fannish Windows 8 phenomenon is very disturbing. When so many people show such an enormous capacity for self-delusion and for rationalizing demonstrably wrong opinions, it makes me despair for the human race. [possible self-deluded rationalization ahead] What prevents me from sinking into total hopelessness is the thought that the kinds of comments we see from the Neowin crowd may represent only a thin slice of the whole, and that most people are not in fact like that. --JorgeA

Yup, the numbers can swing wildly in small data sets or over short time frames, and we are correct to take them with a grain of salt. As with stock-market fluctuations, unemployment data, pre-election polls, and sports performance (win-loss percentages, batting averages), the most useful focus is not on day-to-day swings but on the trends that the data suggests, especially in relation to other comparable sets of data. For example, how Windows 8 is doing in its first several months vs. how Windows 7 and Vista did in their first several months. --JorgeA

It looks like they've removed that piece. When I clicked on the link I got an error message from Neowin saying that, "The article you were loking for could not be found". And if you click on the menu for Windows 8 articles, there's no listing for it. --JorgeA

I can see how this could be great for people with physical handicaps. OTOH, maybe my imagination is running wild tonight, or maybe I'm just in a crabby mood, but the next thing that comes to mind is the user chaos that this would cause while surfing the Web. We'd have to watch and control our facial expressions and our reactions to funny or shocking stuff, lest we end up with unwanted effects onscreen. Not sure I'd be happy having to develop a "poker face" just to be online. Nor do I think I'd want to run Skype or operate a webcam while using this FaceMouse application. --JorgeA

The graphics are unbelievably good! Those fantasy scenes look like they were filmed in real life. Look at the shine on the floor in the indoor hall. Wow. Hmm, maybe the technology is getting TOO good. It could soon present "interesting" possibilities that lawyers will have a heckuva time dealing with. Think of the ability to "place" someone in a, say, inconvenient place and time. People may start welcoming getting tracked by their smartphones just to have a record of where they were every minute of every day. --JorgeA

Well, I don't want to start an indirect quarrel, but there is something that *somehow* escaped from the cited analysis. Very impressive pair of posts, those. It's going to take a while to sort out these various insights in my mind. I'll sleep on it. --JorgeA

Yeah, so long as stores offer mainly or only Windows PCs, the market share for Windows 8 is bound to increase over time as people replace their broken-down computers, so in that sense the statistics aren't very revealing. Where the statistics come in handy is as a comparison with how earlier versions of Windows sold, at comparable points in their lifecycle. And, so far, that shouldn't be too encouraging for the folks over at Neowin. But if Microsoft insists on blurring the conceptual distinctions between mobile and desktop machines, melding all computing devices into one single category, then the proper way to look at OS share is to include iOS and Android in the pie charts. Unfortunately, Netmarketshare requires a paid subscription ($1000/year ) to get the blended figures. --JorgeA

Windows 8 market share now at 3.82%, still almost a full point below Vista (!). "Windows 8 Touch" (0.02%) and "Windows 8 RT Touch" (0.00%) are hovering in the asterisk range alongside reporting errors such as "Win64" and "Mac OS X (no version reported)." --JorgeA

Blackberry CEO: Tablets are doomed! An interesting forecast, even if it does come from the leader of a company which may itself be doomed. He believes smartphones will ultimately take over for both laptops and tablets. Personally, I can't imagine putting my whole digital life (or any important part of it) on a small device that can easily get broken, misplaced, or stolen. And I'm not sure that I'd want to do business with somebody who transacted business from their phone, as then my own information would be sitting in their stolen device. It's a recipe for disaster. --JorgeA

But what does the ad say actually? It seems the only reason the "normal folks" aren't fighting is because they are in the minority. There's no hint that they wouldn't fight if their numbers increased. Although one of the Lumia people says that there would be no fight if the others knew about Lumia, but why exactly? - "my Nokia has pureview! *punch*". There would be no fight if ALL people would only use Lumias in this scenario. Bit farfetched, huh? And what's the significance that the Nokia users are probably the poorest people there? The only actual message I can extract from it is that Lumia users are the minority, and they are poor. Makes sense to me. Given what we've seen Win8 fans say and do in forums around the Web, there's no reason to think that their kind of attitude couldn't carry over to Windows phones. If only there were enough of them... --JorgeA

Ten hours later, the guy had one solitary answer, consisting of a couple of links to other places. The first link is a 2.32MB download and I didn't look through it, but the second doesn't look very promising in terms of his needs. In fact it looks worse than neutral, as one commenter reported that --JorgeA

Both of my Windows 98 systems (one SE, one FE) have Avast! "virus recovery database" dated 4/29/13. --JorgeA