Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions

[JorgeA]

LG, Cisco and others looking to create common platform for future "Smart Homes" ( NeoWin 2013-10-31 )

While most folks are still getting used to the marvelous idea that their smartphones are always connected to the internet, some people are already looking towards the future and the so called internet of everything.

Smart Homes, where appliances and HVAC systems are always connected and can be controlled via apps on smartphones are part of this vision of the future, and now a consortium of companies is looking to create a common standard on which this vision can be built.

[...]

The goal is to create the foundation on which all electronics manufacturers can then create an interconnected ecosystem; and while theres no timeframe mentioned in the announcement, the sooner standardization comes to this field the sooner more users will get to experience it.

~tsk~ One bad idea after another. UPnP apparently wasn't enough of a shortcut for the ConnectTards, instead they desire the ability to have anyone walking into any home and turn anything on and off from any cellphone and tablet. Next wave of software growth to respond to this ... apps that promise to guard against threats from strangers controlling your toaster, TV, lights, baby monitors and security alarms! Home security redefined. Let Norton and McAfee guard your house. What could probably go wrong with that. ( well, you'll probably come home one day and find your door unlocked and a message reminding you that your subscription expired, please renew to re-enable home protection ).

But the sheeple will be thrilled at their new ability to turn on lights or the stereo from their cellphone while sitting on their ever-fattening butts on the couch. Future criminals will never have had it so easy. Cellphones with war-dialers that try millions of combinations per second to unlock the victim's front door and then make off with their Xbox and giant LED TV. I wonder who the victim will blame when they come home to find their stuff is gone.

Along these lines, check out the following report:

China is spying on you through your KETTLE: Bugs that scan wi-fi devices found in imported kitchen gadgets

Russian investigators claim to have found household appliances imported from China which contain hidden microchips that pump spam data and malware into wi-fi networks.

Authorities in St Petersburg allegedly discovered 20 to 30 kettles and irons with 'spy microchips that send some data to the foreign server', according to Russian media.

The revelation comes just as the EU launches an investigation into claims that Russia itself bugged gifts to delegates at last month's G20 summit in an attempt to retrieve data from computers and telephones.

This has led to speculation that the chips allegedly found in the home appliances may also have the ability to steal data and send it back to Chinese servers.

Whether these specific allegations are true or not, what's undeniable is that the time is fast approaching when this sort of thing will be technically feasible. Your life will become an open book not just for your friendly national government spooks, but also for the foreigners who made your household goods and for all hackers expert enough to break into them -- as well as for run-of-the-mill criminals willing to bribe officials or to buy from the hackers.

We will all be featured in The Truman Show, playing to a small select audience...

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

Fabulous emoticons!!

How will psychologists describe the iPhone syndrome in the future?

8. Apple decides which applications you can install on the phone: This is good, because Apple thereby ensures that you do not get inferior programs on your phone.

9. The app store is a closed universe: Apple knows what is best for end users, which is good for the many iPhone users.

That's slave talk in my book. I'll better switch off my comps for good than ever submit to such nazism. No wonder they call it "jailbreaking" when they manage to escape from that Konzentrationslager.

Yeah, I'm with you! And a great point about the meaning of "jailbreaking."

The saddest part is that there really are people who think that way, they'll come up with any reason to comply with somebody else's plans. I remember coaching an elementary-school chess club years ago. One day we tried a chess variant where two players on a team take turns making moves for their side of the board, without consulting each other. One little boy didn't want to play -- he came straight out and said, "I don't wanna think for myself, I just wanna be told what to do!"

Different part of the thread discussion, but -- we're not the only ones who've thought of the "nazism" angle. Check out these photos taken recently at the site of a speed-enforcement camera in the U.S. state of Maryland. (It's the first three shots in the gallery; I hesitate to upload them here, lest they be found offensive.)

--JorgeA

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Whether these specific allegations are true or not, what's undeniable is that the time is fast approaching when this sort of thing will be technically feasible. Your life will become an open book not just for your friendly national government spooks, but also for the foreigners who made your household goods and for all hackers expert enough to break into them -- as well as for run-of-the-mill criminals willing to bribe officials or to buy from the hackers.

We will all be featured in The Truman Show, playing to a small select audience...

Absolutely. The first line of defense of a civilized society is for humans to police themselves ... individually ... self-restraint.

The ability to "just say no" and being mindful of setting precedents and setting a good example are core traits of a wise adult. Presumably adults are present in all these industries, and all the spy agencies, and in all the myriad government positions. Either we have run out of adults or we have already degenerated into an uncivilized society where anything goes. And by anything goes I really mean anything goes. And it leads to a guaranteed snowball effect as others watching those that do questionable things become assured that they can and should match it and then exceed it.

An off-the-wall example is how TV commericals evolve by copying and exceeding each others forays into new territory. Commercials get louder and louder, the government makes a small pushback, they pause and catch their breath, then continue on. Subliminal messages are used, then caught, and most likely being used again ( I suspect that trick they use by first airing long spots and then shortening them to cause your mind to fill in the blanks is a form of it).

I've been amazed to see how risqué things appeared slowly but surely on plain old regular TV channels during the supposed safe daytime. Long ago you had some Coppertone suntan commercials break new ground with bikinis, then skimpy clothes on underwear ads, then penis pills without mentioning that actual subject using euphemisms, then penis pills talking about penis pills, then vibrators but not actually mentioning it ( personal massage ), and now vibrators, at all hours.

Can't you just wait to see what new ground we break next year?

The tech industry and government itself capitalize on this exact same phenomenon. The slow cooking frog.

[jaclaz]

Personally I can't stand USB adapters for native interfaces like IDE, SATA and Ethernet. All they had to do was build in the original interfaces, even using a new smaller connector if necessary, to avoid this crap. But when you are intent on building your own walled-garden, everything that worked previously looks like legacy to you.

On this, I beg to disagree.

IF we had a valid connection bus, fast enough and "standard" (and I mean really standard), the "real" way to be ecological, save money, re-use devices, have them portable and what not, would be a new generation of PC's made basically of just a PSU, a processor, some storage.

To this you add a bus (as sad really universal) on which you plug each and every other device/component, including RAM.

There has been an only seemingly unrelated smart approach for issues with video drivers in PE's, use a USB video card and have the build pre-configured for that video card drivers.

And - just as an example - there is a NVDA enabled PE (NVDA is a special "screen reading software" for the visually impaired) that uses this approach.

Since typically to setup an audio card (and it's drivers) requires settings/user intervention, the idea was to make the build pre-configured for a USB headset , so that the user can use it :

http://reboot.pro/topic/15080-live-repair-disk-for-blind-people/

jaclaz

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Personally I can't stand USB adapters for native interfaces like IDE, SATA and Ethernet. All they had to do was build in the original interfaces, even using a new smaller connector if necessary, to avoid this crap. But when you are intent on building your own walled-garden, everything that worked previously looks like legacy to you.

On this, I beg to disagree.

IF we had a valid connection bus, fast enough and "standard" (and I mean really standard), the "real" way to be ecological, save money, re-use devices, have them portable and what not, would be a new generation of PC's made basically of just a PSU, a processor, some storage.

To this you add a bus (as sad really universal) on which you plug each and every other device/component, including RAM.

I would love a reliable singular bus but I don't think USB is a really great choice. It's main failing is being so Windows dependent. Not completely dependent, we know it works fine in the BIOS for Keyboard and Mouse so it is possible to use BIOS based code to run the thing, but inside Windows it can be a nightmare because of the piles of hooks kept in the registry. A BIOS approach similar to Floppy/IDE/SATA/Serial/Parallel where adequate code is already onboard that would allow at least for flash storage was never factored in.

The problem arises when you have a sick computer, which usually means a sick registry, and before you can even start popping in Ethernet converters or Thumbdrives to do some work you must first trust the sick computer to ID the inserted device to load "drivers" for it, stick them in the registry which means CfgMgr correctly enumerating all the existing keys and giving the new device the next free sequential ID and then inserting all the related keys correctly. This is not an optimum scenario for a sick patient and kinda violates the Hypocratic oath or something. It's like telling the patient on the operating table to "hold these instruments and shine that light on you so I can get to work now.

I don't know how that USB consortium made their decisions back in the late 1990's but someone should have held their hand up and said something before the interface became another Windows registry victim. I don't pretend to know the answer though. I could guess that maybe something with smart p2p logic like SCSI. But somehow we wound up with USB flash and printers and other toys that live or die by Windows working properly. And it all vanishes on a repair installation that writes a new registry of course ( flashdrives are no biggie obviously, but printers and scanners and cameras and similar need to be reinstalled ).

When USB 1.0 or 1.1 came on motherboards I remember the first indication of this mistake when it became impossible to print out BIOS screens if all you had was a USB printer because they didn't even include enough BIOS code to act on PrtScr and reroute the contents of the display to USB. It wouldn't have been so bad if there were cheap digital cameras then. Lucky they did realize that someone might only have a USB keyboard and put enough code to make thing work ( well on most motherboards anyway ).

[JorgeA]

I came across this post in the Norton forum. The new Norton versions eliminate local password storage and put it on Norton's servers. We're not the only ones concerned about the implications of all-cloud storage.

I was going to quote highlights but really the whole thing is worth reproducing:

I've been ranting about this since I had lost my local vault but despite all of us here demanding/requesting the return of the local vault (which they had removed without giving us any option or explanation why) there is not one reply from the NORTON bigwigs themselves on what to do with this issue. It almost feels like that this was their ultimate goal. To get a hold of our log-in credentials.

For some reason I can't help but feel that the NSA/CIA aka PRISM had their hand on this. What's not to say that when the spooks flash their "patriotic act" badge at Norton that they are not going to comply? Even the mighty US companies Google, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo cannot refuse a request (more like a demand) from these agencies to comply. Heck they are not even allow to divulge on to what extent they have shared (more like handed over) someone's information. Mr. Snowden's expose just confirms all this - to what extent the agency would go to know more about a "person of interest"...

Our online log-in details are a GOLDMINE for anyone who wants to get their hands on them. The CLOUD system for the Identity Vault just makes it easier (for companies who deals with these kind of services) to just hand them over.

So what's there to gain? For starters it can be one or all of the following:

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, various email accounts, bank details, online billing for utilities and phone (which will include telephone numbers of the people you contacted) - basically your whole life and that may include your links to friends and family and of course where you live. AGAIN - it's a gold mine. It's not just a silly program storing your log-in details - it's THE PROGRAM (software) that stores your life. In the wrong hands, it could even destroy your life - cancel payments and direct debits... send bogus (libelous) e-mails using your account... just to name a few possibilities.

So much for the "convenience" huh?

I just find it very suspicious that Norton migrated us to the cloud services without an opt out option or the choice to keep it local. One day I had my local vault and the next day it's gone and I've involuntarily subscribed to their online cloud services.

And the fact that with so much clamour to bring it back (and mind you these are Norton's loyal PAYING customers who may have been subscribing for years) goes on deaf ears worries me even more. It was so easy for them to "update" the software and totally removed the local vault option from something that was working fine for the most of us... and I see no reason why it should be HARD for them to release an update to bring it back.

Plain and simple, THEY DON'T WANT TO GIVE IT BACK. If indeed they wanted to, we would have gotten it ages ago.

Sorry but no Norton for me come 2014. Tired of this ****. I just hope that the European Union courts get a wind of this and fine Norton/Symantec just as how they did to Google for illegal username/password harvesting and Microsoft for Anti-trust violations. You gotta teach these companies a lesson or they'll keep crossing THAT line and trample into our right to privacy and consumer choice.

And note the useless, sarcastic replies by the volunteer "guru" forum staff apologists. Incredible.

--JorgeA

[jaclaz]

Let me think: how many years since I don't use anymore any Norton crap ?

(actually Symantec, when Peter Norton was still around the products were very good IMHO)

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, HECK! (I need to take my left shoe off ), 11, 12, yeah, that's it more or less.

And never seen any actual reason to use one since .

jaclaz

[JorgeA]

jaclaz, do you use any antivirus software, and if so then which one? (Just curious.)

Norton protection has served us well over the years (it's stopped some really nasty stuff), and nowadays it sports a light CPU footprint, but I'm dissatisfied with their removing or wrecking features and ruining (Metroizing) the UI, so chances right now are good that I won't be renewing them.

--JorgeA

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Let me think: how many years since I don't use anymore any Norton crap ?

(actually Symantec, when Peter Norton was still around the products were very good IMHO)

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, HECK! (I need to take my left shoe off ), 11, 12, yeah, that's it more or less.

And never seen any actual reason to use one since .

That got me wondering ( and searching ) ...

Norton_1984-01-02_SM.jpg

Norton_1984-01-02_DL.jpg

Norton_1983-07-04_FH.jpg

The oldest I could find is version 2.01, but darn I know I have version 1 somewhere. If I'm not mistaken when we upgraded you sent back the diskettes and got the next version ( kind of proof of purchase IIRC ). But I must have copied the files somewhere.

These three were safe enough to fire up and then exit. Others not so much! SSAR ( Special Search And Recovery ) started reading the empty floppy drive and wouldn't stop. SI ( System Information ) reported all laughingly inaccurate information.

The earliest DiskEdit looks like v5.0 in 1990 unless it had a different name before that. Everything earlier is still named with short acronyms.

Funny how the really old versions had that DOS text GUI, and the next few versions went straight to CLI only. Then later again they added a quasi-GUI back with that Integrator thing. Such great memories from this era!

[TELVM]

... "I don't wanna think for myself, I just wanna be told what to do!"

One is reminded of those kids time ago that ended up searching for Fegelein.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

NOOOOOOOOOOO! WHY????

Ironically his reaction there mirrors those from the adults a year and a half ago seen in the official Destroying Windows Blog when the murder of Aero was announced, and at many other times over the past two years. So to Dot MetroTard I say ...

Homeric!!!

Start stocking up on graphics like that because they will become very useful as the fanboys hopes and dreams get shattered over the coming months and years.

We're gonna need some industrial strength sympathy graphics if things like Xbox vanish ...

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen may want the company to spin off Xbox business ( NeoWin 2013-11-03 )

Hopefully the fanboys will be able to see the images through the tears.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Report: Recent Surface Pro 2 WiFi firmware update greatly boosts battery life ( NeoWin 2013-11-02 )

Before the firmware update, the Surface Pro 2 lasted 6.65 hours before the battery died. After the firmware update, the battery kept going over an hour longer until it stopped at 7.73 hours, an increase of 16 percent.

This is classic headline spin from NeoWin where they try to turn an exposed bug into a feature.

What we know for sure is that the buggy firmware was shortening battery life and they fixed it and now the battery lasts as long as it was intended to. Surface 2 was supposed to have longer battery life by design but the firmware hampered that effort and some reports had it with the same battery life as the original Surface. So the fanboys get to believe they just received a gift of extra battery life when they most likely never even noticed that their Surface 2 was under-performing from the start. No surprise there.

PC Gamers Affected By Mouse Problems From Windows 8.1 Update ( Maximum PC 2013-11-02 )

Microsoft: There are several issues in Windows 8.1 with somce mice in games ( NeoWin 2013-11-03 )

NeoWin is late reporting this story for some reason. Yet another screwup that begs the question of whether there was any real world testing of Windows 8.1 Blew. But how can that be the case since so many people have had the update for so long all around the world? So Microsoft had better hope there is something causing this in the post-Blew updates because otherwise they have failed on so many levels here by not testing games and mice thoroughly.

Microsoft updates Xbox privacy policies ahead of Xbox One launch ( NeoWin 2013-11-01 )

Updated Microsoft Privacy Policy Details What Xbox One Is Recording ( Maximum PC 2013-11-02 )

What data does Microsoft's Xbox services collect? We break it down ( PC World 2013-11-02 ) <---- Lots of details

Read the PC World article ( but definitely ignore the idi0tic snark by the author ) as it has lots of detail and yet may not even cover it all.

I just love how some fanboys immediately jump to argumentum absurdum with their logic of 'you can always choose to live like a hermit' or 'you have a cellphone' etc. The human race is doomed if this ever becomes the prevailing thought process. They are saying that because you have accepted limited uses of technology you should now jump in feet first by inviting the literal definition of 1984 big brother into the house.

This thing is really a stunning insult to the intelligence. When a console fanboy is happily playing a console game they have up to 6 separate expenses that their hapless parents need to pay for ... The sheeple not only get to pay for a $500 Xbox, and then purchase expensive retail games, an Xbox Live account plan, and also pay for an ISP for broadband, you must buy a Television set, and of course pay the Electricity Bill to power everything, they then get to be milked like cows for information that they are telling you is being sold to advertisers to bombard you with targeted ads. The total cost of this insanity is extremely high and you still get the ads! And you voluntarily give up your privacy in the process.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Less Than Half of Microsoft Employees Approve of Ballmer ( Tom's Hardware 2013-11-02 )

And that is really saying something considering just how many employees bailed on Microsoft since the Stink Ranking program began. Better title for the survey results should be: Less Than Half of all remaining Microsoft Employees Approve of Ballmer :

Microsoft to offer Office 365 for free to 4 million students in Sao Paulo, Brazil ( NeoWin 2013-11-02 )

Well that's one way to inflate your subscription numbers. From just over a week ago ...

Short Takes: October 25, 2013 (Microsoft Earnings Special Edition) ( Thurrott 2013-10-25 )

Microsoft Earnings: Office 365 Home Premium Hits the 2 Million Subscriber Mark

The consumer version of Office 365, called Office 365 Home Premium, has hit the 2 million subscriber mark, Microsoft said. This comes just five months after it hit the 1 million mark back in May. (The service first launched in January, so this is pretty consistent growth.) But here's a weird one: Consumer Office revenues still declined overall this quarter, though Microsoft said it expected that. A tremendous value at $99.99 per year, Office 365 lets you install the full Office 2013 Professional Plus suite on up to five PCs in a household, so it works for multiple users in a family. And for the record, that's a much better deal than Apple's supposedly free iWork suite, which only works on that firm's high-priced Macs and iPads. No need to spend through the roof to get office productivity, folks. You can get the superior solution from Microsoft, and it's bargain-priced.

I just don't understand their optimism, it's almost crazy because those numbers are abysmal! 5 months to get to one million, 10 months to get 2 million! TWO MILLION? This article from two years ago said they sold 31 MILLION copies just of Office 2010 by that time, and also that Office is used on ONE BILLION Windows computers in total. Thurrott and NeoWin are seriously off their rocker.

A real board of directors would locate the CloudTards in Redmond and tar and feather them in front of the entire campus on a hot summer day as a lesson to warn others of why you don't mess with success.

Microsoft offers Visual Studio 2013 to DreamSpark subscribers ( NeoWin 2013-11-02 )

And that's another way to inflate your numbers. From less than a month ago ...

Microsoft: 5.5 million downloads of Visual Studio 2012 since launch ( NeoWin 2013-10-09 )

Microsoft launched Visual Studio 2012 for MSDN and TechNet subscribers in August 2012 and for everyone else a month later. As we await the official launch of the next version, Visual Studio 2013, Microsoft has revealed some rather impressive download numbers for the current version.

( original photo from NeoWin )

Now isn't that a sight for that causes sore eyes. That GUI is easily the worse thing I could imagine having to work in. It's like an alternate universe now. It's like they gave the source code to the high school geek club and they produced this in between smoking pot and keg parties. Evey single thing about the earlier Visual Studio versions has been ruined, and every possible bad idea has been sprinkled on top. The only useful purpose for that ridiculous GUI would be use as a flashlight app on a cellphone.

Anywho, are they seriously bragging about 5.5 million downloads in one-year? That is positively anemic.

[jaclaz]

Can I bring forward another question?

Anyone has any idea on how "working" are ads (and "piloted" ads)?

I mean everyday's life (needed preamble being that I never, and when I say never, I do mean never, clicked on an ad on google results):

1. I search on google for a given product/service/firm/whatever
2. I do not click on the "sponsored" results, but rather look at the "plain" results
3. I look a few related pages, then go about doing some actual work
4. later I go to the usual "places", MSFN, 911CD reboot.pro
5. very often the ads on MSFN and reboot.pro are for products that were on the SAME page(s) I have already been to

Now, if those ads had been for some other, different, similar product it would have made some (litlle) sense to me, re-pushing over and over the SAME products I have already seen is not (at least for me) particularly "productive".

What do you think?

jaclaz

[JorgeA]

Tidbit from Taiwan:

Windows 8.1 tablet sales 20-30% below expectations

Channel retailers are seeing their Windows 8.1-based tablet sales in October 20-30% below than their original expectations, despite strong price/performance ratios.

[...]

Since Windows 8.1-based tablets are starting to face problems similar to those of previous Windows-based models, the sources are concerned that inventory issues may rise again in 2014.

It's not clear whether this information is for the ROC market or the global market, but it's undeniable that Metro tablets are failing (so far) to set the world on fire.

--JorgeA