JorgeA

Wow, I didn't know HDDs even existed at all in the '70s. That was before my time. --JorgeA

It's just between you and me and the NSA: Exclusive: Google Will Soon Introduce 'Nearby' To Let Other 'People, Places, And Things' Know When You're Around [emphasis added] The feature holds plenty of potential for new uses: Maybe I've been watching too much "24" lately (anybody else following the current season? ), but it's not all that hard to imagine what some of those "extremely targeted location-based interactions" might possibly consist of... --JorgeA EDIT: missing word!

I may have told this anecdote somewhere on the Forum, so if that's the case please forgive me, but here goes anyway: Back about 1985, my father and I each had our own Sanyo MBC-550, outfitted with two double-sided, double-density, 360K 5.25-inch floppy disk drives. I remember the two of us browsing at a computer store at the mall one night. They had boxes of 10 diskettes hanging off a rack on the wall. My father turned to me and said (not in this language; translated ) , "What am I ever going to need ten of these for???" And I smiled at him... in agreement. --JorgeA

Judge Orders NSA To Stop Destroying Evidence — For The Third Time I guess they figure if you scoff at the law enough times, eventually they'll give up and you'll get away with it. The trouble is, the scofflaws here are the same ones who are in charge of enforcing it. --JorgeA

Google Hid a Little NSA Joke Within Lines of Code for Its New Security Tool --JorgeA

LOL, OK I remember once going into a Norton/Symantec tech support page and getting one of those security errors. --JorgeA

Thanks, @NoelC. I tried various color settings for the IE11 scrollbar button. The result is always the same -- a flat rectangle that's hard to tell apart from its surroundings. Black is better than gray, but it still doesn't hold a candle to what we had in IE8 and 9. (And IE8 is superior to IE9 in that respect since it does have that animation.) Still curious to learn whether it'd be possible for the Classic Shell (Classic IE) folks to bring back that 3D scrollbar button if they decided to. @xpclient? --JorgeA

+1 Apropos of that, I saw this thread on the Technet forum: Some pretty vigorous statements throughout, well deserved. Assuming it was you who posted that (and I apologize if it wasn't), did you ever find a solution for this issue (other than staying on IE9 or dumping IE altogether)? ^ Exactly my feeling. In the not-too-distant future everything is going to be dumbed-down, walled-gardened, clouded, monthly-subscribed, and in general screwed up for the users in every form imaginable. Enjoy W7 while it lasts, for beyond Se7en lies the abyss ... The same can be said of WinXP. I enjoyed WinXP while it lasted. Still enjoy it with Embedded updates hack. Windows 7/Vista is for many users (including me) already dumbed-down, locked down from customization, and in general screwed up (hence the need for Classic Shell) Windows 8 is only the next-generation of dumbing down. Things will mostly remain at the Windows 8/Apple level of dumbing down for next few years I think. Microsoft suddenly started equating iOS/Android OSes with desktop OSes hence the extra torture for customers. Speaking of things that got screwed up, is there any way for the Classic Shell folks to reconstitute the 3D scrollbar button in IE10/11? The new button is a faint gray blob that's really hard to pinpoint, and even if you change it to a dark shade it's still just a flat block that hardly stands out from its surroundings. This slows down your work as your eyes have to methodically look for it, rather than just seeing it at a glance. --JorgeA

FWIW, when I went to that site I got a warning from Internet Explorer saying that, "Internet Explorer blocked this website from displayhing content with security certificate errors." --JorgeA

Sarcasm huh. Well I wish them luck with that for they are going to have a mighty good time trying to crack that one Yeah. We have enough of a hard time here when people can't tell when jaclaz is using sarcasm. Cheers and Regards LOL! --JorgeA

These records "belong" to the U.S Marshals??? (Note to sarcasm detector: ON.) Yeah, right -- show me your receipt. (OFF) The excuse offered later on in the article doesn't pass the laugh test. This goes to show that the only "transparency" too many of our public servants are truly interested in is that of private citizens' lives. Who's serving whom, exactly? --JorgeA I dont know what to say to this. Kind of reminds of the NSA attacks on Tea party members. +1 Here's somewhat more hopeful news: Can This Little Orange Box Beat the NSA? Curious what you all think of this. --JorgeA

More on a story we'd covered a few days ago: China Declares a New Foe: Windows 8 The article sits behind a paywall, but the WSJ's Digits website provides a transcript of the Chinese news report. There's a boatload of irony here, considering that the Chinese government monitors and blocks Web news and discussions about subjects it disapproves of, but the very fact that they can say this about Microsoft with any plausibility is a sad commentary on the state of affairs. --JorgeA

The lengths to which the guvvies will go to hide their activities from the people who pay their salaries: U.S. Marshals Seize Cops’ Spying Records to Keep Them From the ACLU These records "belong" to the U.S Marshals??? (Note to sarcasm detector: ON.) Yeah, right -- show me your receipt. (OFF) The excuse offered later on in the article doesn't pass the laugh test. This goes to show that the only "transparency" too many of our public servants are truly interested in is that of private citizens' lives. Who's serving whom, exactly? --JorgeA

Without all due respect , be my guest, scan this : jaclaz That's very good!! --JorgeA

N.S.A. Collecting Millions of Faces From Web Images Say "cheese!" --JorgeA

And the beat goes on: Secret Service Requests Software To Track Social Media Trends, Detect Sarcasm How long before they start acting preemptively against individuals based on their speech? "Uh-oh, he has quite an attitude about the King President -- better start monitoring him!! --JorgeA

Jorge, in a word: Yes! [...] Thanks, Noel, that's what I suspected. Efficiency having been eliminated as a candidate, the only rationalizations I can see for ditching Aero Glass are (1) (anti-)esthetic fashion; or (2) marketing B.S. that's bound to be exposed (as we just saw); or (3) a way to increase the differentiation in people's minds between Windows 8 and what came before it. Of course,the third "reason" is like coming out with a new car model that "features" a coat of dull, matte primer instead of glossy metallic paint... --JorgeA

Maybe it's been sent down the memory hole. --JorgeA

Nice graphic. So, all the talk about how Aero Glass was eliminated precisely so that Windows 8 would work better on cr@ppy mobile devices -- was that just a load of hooey? --JorgeA

Yeah, I'm not sure what to think of the guy. Right now I'm in a phase where I attribute Paul's current views to his having found the right prescription. Would be interesting to catch Paul in front of a camera with somebody asking him to square what he said before about the Desktop needing to die, with what's he's been saying lately about Micorosft doing the right thing by bringing back the Start Menu. --JorgeA

No Microsoft Start Menu for Windows 8 until 2015: Sources Critics and Metro fanboys are duking it out again in the comments sections there as well as on Paul Thurrott's site. Amazing that anybody still claims it's more efficient to use the Start Screen that obscures everything else and requires scrolling through screenfuls of low-density colored blocks to find the program whose name you can't quite remember. --JorgeA

Excerpt from a discussion of difficulties with the Windows 8.1 Update in Windows Weekly 357: [emphasis added!] Good reason to install that Update... --JorgeA

Wow, if this is real then Mary Jo Foley is getting bad information from her sources as "Windows 365" would in fact be in the works: Thanks vinifera, for the link and screenshot. --JorgeA

The bigger story is in TELVM's quote, about Windows 7 continuing to grow in market share. --JorgeA

Steve B. gets another chance to wreck a prominent business: Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer wins Clippers bidding war for $2 billion So will Ballmer start throwing chairs in the clubhouse if the Clippers go on a losing streak? Or will he lead the players in a team spirit-building chant -- "Defenders, defenders, defenders, defenders, defenders"? Or maybe he'll make them wear vomit-green uniforms with a flat tile design... --JorgeA