JorgeA

These updates didn't negatively impact any of our Win7 systems. However, Microsoft sneaked back into my wife's updates list that April Update that "eases the upgrade experience" for installing Windows 8, and we didn't notice it. Next thing you know, her Outlook can't download images that go along with e-mails. She remembered this happening before (I didn't). The solution was the same: to uninstall said Update. We must have hidden the update which is why it hadn't shown up again since April, but evidently Microsoft decided to un-hide it again (without our consent ), no doubt in hopes of getting it past people who had declined it before. There have been reports about PCs freezing and browsers not working properly anymore after installing this update. Maybe the idea is to mess up people's Win7 systems so that Win8 sounds more appealing by comparison... --JorgeA

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/172137-internet-explorer-name-officially-changed/ That's pretty funny. --JorgeA

GEEZ, how I hate people who think it matters what the ******* software is called!!! Microsoft needs to fire every ******* one of them with extreme prejudice. I'm holding back here out of common decency. THESE very people are the ones ruining the world!!!!!!!! -Noel LOL I hear you. Style (branding) over substance. Maybe they think that, "if you name a mousetrap better, the world will beat a path to your door." --JorgeA

Get your disk drives ready: Microsoft to deliver Windows 'Threshold' tech preview around late September First, the good news: But now for the not-so-good news: I still have the Win8 Developer Preview installed on one machine. I fire it up every so often to remind myself just how bad it was. The CP and RP are on it, too, chronicling how Aero Glass got progressively obliterated. Hmm, maybe I can make image files of each Win9 iteration as it comes out and gets installed. --JorgeA

Wow, is IE's reputation really that bad? Microsoft internally debated rebranding Internet Explorer --JorgeA

I guess a key question to ask one of these experts is: "Would you sit next to an Ebola victim on an airplane?" I'm skeptical that it can't be transmitted through the air. If nothing else, we're told that it's transmitted via "bodily fluids," but saliva and nasal secretions are bodily fluids. It only takes a sneeze, cough, or even conversation to send these bodily fluids airborne. FWIW, here's the relevant discussion on the Wikipedia page for Ebola: --JorgeA

In case you still needed a reason to stay off Facebook: Facebook to Track Users Across Devices to Study Shopping Habits --JorgeA

Snowden: Clapper comments pushed me to become leaker This is one of the main threats that surveillance poses to democracy: it expands the ability of those in power to use personal information about the opposition to blackmail them into silence. No need to resort to crude beatings or kidnappings arrests (that's the province of brazenly undemocratic governments); just threaten to disclose embarrassing details about their private lives. --JorgeA

Long ago, we discussed the subject of Microsoft "astroturfing" popular support for Metro by using paid shills to post favorable comments on forums and comments sections. We've also speculated on Paul Thurrott. I just came across the following exchange on Windows Weekly, which touches on both those topics. (For those who'd rather listen to the podcast, it starts at about 1:25.) --JorgeA

I went straight from Windows 98 to Vista, never had much experience with XP. I found Vista to be (while imperfect) vastly more reliable (stable) than 98, and incomparably more appealing visually than anything before it (and especially the Fisher-Price XP and its chiclet window buttons). Visuals are important to me. To my mind, Win7 is a less beautiful version of Vista. One of the first things I do when setting up a 7 system is to get rid of those enormous, gaudy taskbar icons and switch to informative text-based buttons. I've even installed a Vista theme (with the IMHO gorgeous 3D taskbar) on one system and am very happy with it. --JorgeA

Eventually they all came up. Weird, this has never happened to me before. --JorgeA

The Windows 7 Updates arrived here early this afternoon, and as usual I clicked on the "More information" link for each of them to see what they were about. The first Update I clicked on gave normal information, but every other one I tried led me to a page that looked like this: Doesnt' exactly inspire a lot of confidence in their process. I ain't installing nothin' until they tell me what the Updates are and what they do. --JorgeA

OK, I modified the CSS file that I was using. The only change from what I had before was to switch the scrollbar base color from black to "darkgray", leading to this: html {scrollbar-base-color: darkgray;scrollbar-arrow-color: black;scrollbar-track-color: lightgray;scrollbar-shadow-color: black;scrollbar-lightshadow-color: black;scrollbar-darkshadow-color: gray;scrollbar-highlight-color: white;scrollbar-3dlight-color: black;}And here's the result: That's easier to find than a solid block of any kind. Thanks for the tip! You may have just saved IE for me for the foreseeable future... 'til they find something else to screw up. --JorgeA

You're welcome! I, too, am happy that I found it, as it was basically by sheer chance. Guess only time will tell if the report about 1.2 billion stolen passwords was real news or hype. Maybe somebody else here will have new/more details. --JorgeA

Details, details. But it's modern and fluid! Are you against change? Have you even tried it?? Oh well, haterz gonna hate. More seriously (and speaking of automotive UIs), here's another insightful analysis by the NN Group. It's so good, I could highlight the entire article: Maximize the Content-to-Chrome Ratio, Not the Amount of Content on Screen --JorgeA

This analysis throws a somewhat different light on the subject: Security firm that revealed “billion password” breach demands $120 before it will say if you’re a victim (There's more at the link.) As Cluley (a cybersecurity researcher) says, there's probably something to this, but then the way the discoverer wants to handle it is also fishy: Personally, I don't plan to change any passwords anywhere as a result of this. Among other things (as I read somewhere), because Hold Security has been so private about which websites exactly were compromised and how, you can't know if any given website was compromised -- meaning that if you change your password now, you can't know if that'll do you any good. If a site hasn't been notified of the breach, it can't fix whatever the problem may be, thus the hackers may have continuing access to it and to any new password you enter. --JorgeA

Neat! How did you get the edges of the scroll bar/thumb to look darker than the inside? That's better than a uniform solid color throughout. I'll have to try this. Some weeks ago when I was experimenting with various style sheet color settings, I don't remember getting any that had that border around them. (Doesn't mean it didn' thappen, only that I can't remember. ) --JorgeA P.S. It sure seems that way, doesn't it?

And while we're on THAT subject ... Microsoft to drop support for older versions of Internet Explorer I tried IE10/11 and I found it much harder to find the scrollbar button on the right, which used to be a distinct 3D image but in recent IE versions has become a solid rectangle that's hard to pick out at a glance from its surroundings (no matter what solid color I give it, and solid colors are apparently the only options). And on my Vista systems I'm hanging on to IE 7 or 8, which I find much more visually appealing, in addition to the fact that -- unlike later versions -- they offer a status bar at the bottom that gives useful information. (Sadly, Classic Shell doesn't or can't restore all of the status bar's features.) So now they're trying to herd everyone into IE11. Hmm -- I can't stand the dingy look of Chrome and its UI imitators like the new Firefox. OTOH, Pale Moon hasn't been a resounding success on my systems as it has problems printing Adobe PDFs (they often come out as garbage) and for whatever reason (I've spent far too much time researching this on the PM forums) it has trouble playing a lot of videos. So ultimately I will have to settle for a mediocre browser experience from somebody. FF with the Classic Theme Restorer might be the least unaccceptable option. Another halfway acceptable approach would be for the Classic Shell folks to create a 3D scrollbar button, but to judge from the lack of response (one way or the other) to such requests on their forum, they appear to have zero interest in this particular UI improvement. (It would be nice if they'd at least comment on it.) --JorgeA

Win Phone 7 users aghast Microsoft axed Skype for their phones Microsoft is bidding strongly to become the anti-Dale Carnegie. Their own motivational guidebook could be titled, How to Lose Friends and Negatively Influence People. Way to go, folks. I am SO glad I never bought one of your Windows Phones. --JorgeA

In other cyberprivacy and surveillance news: John McAfee at Def Con: Don’t Use Smartphones Fear and Loathing Over Russia’s Anonymous Wi-Fi Ban --JorgeA

Hackers, hacked: FinFisher Government Spy Software Secrets Revealed by Hackers --JorgeA

More good news: Windows 9 (Threshold): The Charms bar as you know it will no longer exist on the desktop Microsoft's Windows 'Threshold' expected to add virtual desktops, drop charms --JorgeA

And coming back closer to on-topic: Microsoft posts its worst-ever quarterly Surface loss Score another one for the abomination that is Metro. --JorgeA

And speaking of this stuff -- China tightens grip on instant messaging services The freedom-squeezing process in action. --JorgeA

You've just explained the logic of totalitarianism very clearly. Following the logic, before we know it we have 1984. (If I had any novelistic skills, I would be of a mind to write a "prequel" to Orwell's book, describing how Winston Smith's world came to be. As they say, the road to h*!! is paved with good intentions.) Once one accepts the internal logic of this thought process (because X is bad, we need to be able to nose around and make sure you're not doing it), all of our rights and freedoms are eventually threatened by the excuse that "you MIGHT be doing X." It's a neurotic attitude, rationalized by the fact that yes, sometimes somebody does do it -- like the inscription on the hypochondriac's tombstone: "I told you I was sick!" That's why IMO the way to attack that logic is from the outside, not accepting the connection between premise and conclusion, and observing that the cure is worse than the disease. Matter of fact, I avoid it as much as possible. It used to be a pleasure to fly, now you get treated like a suspect or worse. Your countryman (a few centuries removed ) Dante Alighieri famously had the sign above the gates of the Inferno, "Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here." Over the entrances to airports there should now be signs that read, "Abandon All Rights, Ye Who Enter Here." --JorgeA