JorgeA

What's good for the goose...: With Credit Card Data in Play, Who Hacks the Hackers? --JorgeA

Well, it looks like all that is left is the Wake. Here's a concurring opinion: Mozilla's Metro move shows that modern apps belong in the mortuary --JorgeA

OneDrive trademark whoops: https://one.ubuntu.com/ http://www.one.com/en/ Wonder what these companies' lawyers will have to say about the newly rebranded OneDrive... --JorgeA

Six clicks: What we think we know about Windows 9 Things aren't looking real promising right now. Check out the text for Image 6: Let Metro stay in the codebase. Unless Windows 9 offers a way to banish Metro totally, utterly, and completely from the user's consciousness, I'm thinking that after Win7 I will be moving on to Linux. --JorgeA

Thanks TELVM, that was in fact helpful. Looking at the picture of that ridiculously tiny put-put next to the humongous bus, I'm not surprised it didn't make it in the auto marketplace. Imagine being in one of those go-carts with a semi truck coming up behind you on the highway... The trucker might not even notice anything out of the ordinary as you get turned into pizza. --JorgeA

If this works as advertised, it'll be a halfway step toward the type of choice-of-UI concept that we've been calling for (where the user could decide which UI or UIs, Metro and/or Desktop, to install on his machine). --JorgeA Windows 8 = windows 1 windows 8.1 = windows 3 windows 8.1 u1 = windows Chicago build? Its fun watching Microsoft trying to reinvent the 95 UI. At the pace their going to reinvent in time for windows 9. LOL The funny (or sad) thing is, even the Windows 95 UI was superior to that of Windows 8. No Aero Glass, but it did have a proper Start Button and Start Menu, and it even had 3D buttons so that you could tell at a glance what was clickable and what wasn't. Heck, even Windows 3.1 had 3D buttons. --JorgeA

Here's a visual tour of the (mostly measly) changes Microsoft is introducing with Windows 8.1 Update 1: Deep inside Windows 8.1's spring update: New changes in picturesThe most significant improvement is on Slide 2 -- If this works as advertised, it'll be a halfway step toward the type of choice-of-UI concept that we've been calling for (where the user could decide which UI or UIs, Metro and/or Desktop, to install on his machine). --JorgeA

You beat me to the punch. I was going to post the following piece, which is based on the TOI article but then adds its own analysis: Microsoft starts giving away Windows Phone for free, to compete with Android --JorgeA

That concept car manages to be cute, cool, and creepy all at the same time! I hadn't heard of this project. --JorgeA

Well, it looks like all that is left is the Wake. ^ Such a humongous horde!!! Not very impressive at all. But what I was wondering about is, how would Mozilla even know how many Metro Firefox users there are at any given moment? --JorgeA

To supplement Charlotte's trove of XBox news: Will Microsoft’s XBox One survive? The details are hidden behind a paywall, but the general analysis is amply presented in the for-free portion (which contains much more than I quoted above). If the XBox One does go the way of the dodo, then maybe Windows Media Center (which has seen no improvements or flaw fixes in years) may start getting some attention again from its parents at Microsoft. --JorgeA

In privacy news: Google Wants E-Mail Scanning Information Blocked The quote says it all... Cars could soon monitor our EMOTIONS: Device reads facial expressions to prevent road rage Fantastic, just imagine the possibilities. That tiny camera could watch your reaction while a tiny microphone -- also installed for safety reasons of course, to check for distracted driving -- takes in the station you're listening to. (No no, it wouldn't actually RECORD what you're listening to, let alone what you're saying, rest assured that it would only capture the metadata of station call letters and time of day.) A shill for a future president comes on and your face starts twisting in fear, anger, sadness, disgust, and suspicion. The camera duly records these reactions... Oh, what could possibly go wrong with the use of this technology?? --JorgeA

Microsoft copied what Ubuntu did. http://features.techworld.com/operating-systems/3337293/eight-features-windows-8-copies-from-linux/ . Apparently Microsoft didn't realize Ubuntu was flamed for their outrageous changes. I guess history really does repeat its self. EDIT: particularly the quote I was referring to Thanks Flasche, that was an interesting read. So basically the folks at MSFT are running out of good ideas and took to borrowing other people's bad ones! I will say, though, that I find the Windows Media Center interface to be pleasing, understated, and classy -- totally unlike the garish, blocky horror picture show that's the Metro Start Screen. Instead of sharp corners, WMC buttons have rounded corners. The blue background serves perfectly as a background -- it neither screams for the user's attention like the psychedelic Metro wallpapers, nor does it clash with the (also blue) buttons. And the reason the WMC buttons can blend in with the overall scheme but still be located is because the buttons are in 3D , a concept that's been banished from the Windows 8 UI. And finally, the WMC menu is hierarchical: you scroll around for a type of task to select, then click on it and it shows you specific tasks to pick from. Compare this to the flattened concept of the Metro Start Screen where all the application icons are presented at once to the user, without rhyme or reason, on the same screen. The WMC menu may have served as the inspiration for the Start Screen, but when it comes to Windows 8 MSFT's UI geniuses kept tinkering with the model 'til they broke it. --JorgeA

[emphasis added] Few can match their skill at this! --JorgeA Well, to re-connect with Unity, Canonical would not be that bad at it either, judging from the known indiegogo hiccup with Ubuntu Edge: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-edge jaclaz You're correct, they're right up there too. The Ubuntu folks have made two of the same fundamental mistakes as Microsoft: grafting an ugly, ridiculous UI onto the desktop; and believing that all computing devices are equivalent. You can hear it in the very first sentence spoken in the presentation that you linked to: "Convergence is the future of computing." --JorgeA

More, um, "clouds" on the horizon: U.S. to relinquish remaining control over the Internet While the U.S. government's attitude toward Internet privacy is disappointing when not outrageous, turning governance of the Internet over to the likes of Russia, China, and Iran can only make things much worse. Are we headed for a future where our choices on the Web are limited to ads and government-filtered propaganda? The NSA scandal in this case is a red herring IMO. The NSA can tap into server traffic no matter who's in charge. --JorgeA

Haven't read much about this meeting, but I highly doubt that Bruce Schneier is as onboard as they describe ( God forbid he gets bought off and jumps over to the darkside ) . I certainly have no doubt that Microsoft and Google are in damage control mode though, hence this stupid conference. Paul Thurrott also mentioned it ( and the latest GCHQ story ) here. I don't know (and am skeptical) about the cloud services that Google and Microsoft offer, but I was going to post the following when I saw your post above. Loaded and locked: 3 seriously secure cloud storage services From the looks of it, these could really be the sort of safe (from snooping) cloud storage services that we'd like to see. It goes without saying that we're still dependent on these services to be actually up and running the moment we need to use them. Comments on potential vulnerabilities welcome! --JorgeA

Good to see you back, Charlotte. We do appreciate the avalanches of material. Dang, and I was going to do my taxes this weekend -- I guess that's out the window now. [emphasis added] Few can match their skill at this! --JorgeA

[emphasis added] What Super Bowl ad?? High-impact, I see... And we tape the Super Bowl every year for the express (and only) purpose of watching the commercials! --JorgeA P.S. Honestly, I don't recall ever seeing anything from an "Honestly" campaign.

Great "rant"! For all the improvements in usability, blah blah blah, since the introduction of Windows, there are still some mysterious, frustrating limitations. When I was on Win98, more than once I had a need to print out the contents (filenames) of a directory. I couldn't believe it when I discovered that there is no built-in way to do this! I actually had to go out and find a third-party utility to do it. :angrym: I don't know if this is still the case in more recent versions of Windows, but it wouldn't surprise me if it were. It'll be interesting to see what they do with Windows 9. Suppose that they fix the UI -- you get Aero Glass back, Metro can be sent into permanent exile if you wish, and so forth -- but they nail down the thing further to make it even harder to install Linux, and this time you really are required to open a Microsoft Account. Would that be worth it? --JorgeA EDIT: typo

Same here, I just can't stand most of this special folders stuff. The 'Libraries' in particular have a special place in my heart . This is of course due to us being surviving fossils from the PleisDOScene epoch, stubborn resistant to change creatures anachronistically bent on something as démodé as directly controlling where our stuff is really located . Yeah, imagine that -- users who actually want to understand how their computers work and how their info is being managed. People who don't want to be putty at the hands of developers and UI designers. Love that "PleisDOScene epoch" line! --JorgeA

Here is a case that suggests government cybersnooping has gone beyond its original "national security" charter (DHS = Department of Homeland Security): DHS uses email intercepts to question US citizen about her sex life More on this story here. Full text of the lawsuit here (scroll down to about the middle of the web page). Key excerpt: So, either cybersnooping has extended beyond the NSA, or the NSA is sharing the loot. Either way, it's chilling. Give them one finger and they'll grab the whole arm. --JorgeA

That's a way to look at it that I (and probably a lot of other people) hadn't considered. Instead of waiting until XP patches stop coming out, you're saying that it's still worth it for malware writers to release their exploits before April 8. There is sense in this, because the way Microsoft's cycle works the bad guys would still get several weeks' head start on the exploit. That said, I'd like to suggest that MSFT could win a lot of postiive publicity by continuing to issue sporadic patches for XP at random times for an indeterminate period. Any hackers who think it's clear sailing from here on out as of 4/8 could be presented with a disappointing surprise. That could discourage the production of new XP exploits and help keep the OS safer on top of the factor of diminishing expected returns as people move off XP (although paradoxically it would serve to mitigate those diminishing returns if it encouraged users to stay on XP). But the main purpose would be to counter some of the negativity they've been getting as a result of abandoning an otherwise fine and working OS. --JorgeA

Truer words have not been spoken (or written). You mentioned security. The security aspects of having all devices synced up with each other hasn't been paid enouigh attention IMHO. You lose one, or one of them gets hacked, suddenly all of your devices are in jeopardy. I'm for strict separation of functions and accounts between devices, to minimize the potential damage. --JorgeA

My guess is that someone in a decision-making role decided that it would be "cool" to do this, without giving much thought to the real-life scenarios where actual people would actually want to do this. I'll do my own syncing, thank you very much. People have (for example) lost thousands of MP3's "thanks" to iTunes' insistence on "syncing" all your devices. --JorgeA

Sounds good to me. In one sense this has been going on since Windows 98 (95?). I remember when I first started using Win98FE and saw this mysterious "My Documents" directory. What do they call that, a virtual directory or something? I never did get a good handle on exactly where the documents ACTUALLY lived on the computer, which for someone like me who grew up on DOS was always a problem when I had to do some troubleshooting. And then when Vista came along they buried the location of the Temporary Internet Files. Well, you know, sometimes you want to go back and retrieve an image you saw without having to go back and reload the web page. This would have been more of an issue had I not made the switch from dial-up at the same time I changed to Vista from 98. Then they came up with these "Favorite Links" (Vista) or "Libraries" (Win7) in Windows Explorer. More abstraction away from where the files actually are. Waht I'm getting at is that for a long time they've been making the computer harder to use in some ways, in the name of making it easier or safer to use. But Win8 jumps way off the deep end. --JorgeA