Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions

[JorgeA]

I posted this link in the "Start Button replacements" thread, but it's relevant here too (maybe more so):

'Start' button devs say Windows 8.1 doesn't put them out of business

Right-on-the-money comment down below:

"These products fill a need: to ease the transition to Windows 8 and its unfamiliar Start page"

I suppose that's one way of putting it. And yet another way to put it is that these products restore a critical productivity tool Microsoft removed for the sole purpose of trying to force industrial and enterprise users to use a cell-phone interface on their PC, namely the hated, productivity-killing, single-window, no-taskbar, touchy-feely, flashy-blinky Metro UI screen, which is pretty much useful only for looking up the latest cat videos, and texting, tweeting and talking.

--JorgeA

[jaclaz]

No doubt the NSA is interested in the contents of e-mails, but the newspaper reporting so far has indicated that, while they may or may not have access to those contents, they do have access to the kind of metadata that the MIT project analyzes. Therefore the MIT project serves as an illustration of what the NSA can do, with the proviso that the NSA does this with most or all e-mail services out there and not just Gmail, so they get a more complete picture of people's webs of relationships. And of course users send their info knowingly and voluntarily to MIT, which is more than can be said for the NSA.

--JorgeA

Still, those articles are pure bull§hit, that VERY nice thingy : from the MIT guys has nothing to do with Prism (or similar NSA controls/accesses) and, JFYI, provides completely meaningless data (when it comes to "investigation").

You see, the number of e-mails you get and send is a completely meaningless piece of data, we could exchange - say - 6 mails a day for several years, and then (IF you are Dr.Evil in disguise )you could send a single e-mail to a "disposable" e-mail address commanding the next 9/11 attack , and this would have in one of those graphic no highlight/relevance whatsoever.

The (as said very nice) graphics created with the data is mostly eye-candy, just imagine the NSA analyst clicking his/her way through a zillion baloons!

And then there is the not-so-trifling issue of the six (or maybe seven) degrees of separation theory:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation

Rest assured that *whatever* the NSA has is both "much better" and "very different" from the thingy that those articles FALSELY represented as an example of what they have.

jaclaz

Edited July 15, 2013 by jaclaz

[JorgeA]

We here are not the only ones to be concerned over working in the cloud:

Companies Still Fear Cloud Computing, Survey Finds

In the poll, 64% of companies cited potential poor end-user experience due to performance bottlenecks as their chief concern about the cloud. That issue got the greatest response.

The impact of poor performance on brand reputation and/or customer loyalty was a worry of 51% of respondents.

The third most pressing concern was loss of revenue due to cloud service problems, cited by 43.5% of the companies.

Makes sense to me. If you're no longer the one to store and maintain your own data, you put yourself in the awkward situation of becoming the focus of customer complaints without being able to do much about them.

Imagine that you've succumbed to fashion: your business documents are now stored in SkyDrive via your oh-so-cool Surface -- and SkyDrive goes down. Or Office 365 (364 as @Charlotte tagged it ) goes down just as you need to make last-minute fixes on a contract or a spreadsheet before forwarding.

Something to consider before marching blindly onward into the cloud...

--JorgeA

[Formfiller]

The disease spreads:

Google Play Store got metrofied! What a sad world, wow.

I can't believe Apple and Google are copying the great success that is Windows 8. Instead of using the opportunity that Microsoft pissed so many customers off, they are following their footsteps. So many billions in the banks, yet so many idiots in the corporate offices..

[jaclaz]

Imagine that you've succumbed to fashion: your business documents are now stored in SkyDrive via your oh-so-cool Surface -- and SkyDrive goes down. Or Office 365 (364 as @Charlotte tagged it ) goes down just as you need to make last-minute fixes on a contract or a spreadsheet before forwarding.

Something to consider before marching blindly onward into the cloud...

Well, yes and no.

That would be comparable to a "glitch in the matrix", a temporary hiccup, not unlike a dead phone/dsl line or a Server hard disk failing abruptly.

Something that can be restored/fixed within a few hours or at the very most one-two days.

It's when you don't know WHERE exactly your DATA is and WHO EXACTLY is responsible for it that the problem may come out.

You cannot use the Big ones (because of the seen problems with privacy/government snooping/etc.).

You cannot use the Middle sized ones (because they will have costs so high that they will most probably sub-franchise to smaller operators, John Doe's like, that will have your data placed in a single location - i.e subject to any kind of physical damage - and/or might go out of business over the night )

You cannot use the Small sized ones (because they are ALREADY John Doe ).

You cannot anyway actually trust anyone of them, so you will need to have a replicating service (possibly with hosts surely in another country and/or location), provided that you actually know where the actual "main" cloud provider physical hard disks are located (and then again your data will be more subject to snooping by either the government or the guys of the replicating service.

Also, let's say that a cloud provider (good, solid company, in perfect good faith) has your data together with those of a parallel (say) web activity like file hosting.

Let's say that the "file hosting" branch (right or wrong) is implied/connected with hosting/providing download of Copyright protected files (or any other crime connected activity).

What would happen when the US DOJ notices it and the FBI (or whomever) shuts down the service?

Or if the Police seizes the whole server farm "as is"?

I would guess that among the people using Megaupload (to make a known example) there were also good guys making a perfectly legitimate use of the file hosting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaupload#Other_reactions

jaclaz

[JorgeA]

All good points -- the case for the cloud is even shakier than we had first imagined!

As soon as I read where you wrote, "let's say that a cloud provider... has your data together with those of a parallel (say) web activity like file hosting" -- I thought of Megaupload. And sure enough, that's the example you had in mind, Yup, that's another real risk of trusting the cloud. And not merely theoretical anymore.

A defender of the cloud might argue that, well, you need to back up your stuff locally, or use a backup cloud backup. But in the former case you may as well just use your own storage in the first place, and in the latter case the costs of using cloud services are doubled. Either way, the rationale for the cloud is dubious. On top of all the good arguments and scenarios that you brought up.

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

The disease spreads:

Google Play Store got metrofied! What a sad world, wow.

I can't believe Apple and Google are copying the great success that is Windows 8. Instead of using the opportunity that Microsoft p***ed so many customers off, they are following their footsteps. So many billions in the banks, yet so many idiots in the corporate offices..

Oh, man...

Wonder what it will take to eradicate this Metroitis infection.

--JorgeA

[jaclaz]

A defender of the cloud might argue that, well, you need to back up your stuff locally, or use a backup cloud backup. But in the former case you may as well just use your own storage in the first place, and in the latter case the costs of using cloud services are doubled. Either way, the rationale for the cloud is dubious. On top of all the good arguments and scenarios that you brought up.

But the cloud as "de-localized" backup or "redundant copy" seems to me a very good idea . (and the risks are limited)

The foolishness represented is that of the cloud in this "modern" concept of having "everything" (as opposed to a copy or backup) *somewhere* in the hands of *someone* (and senselessly moving back and forth bytes at an anyway much slower than "local lan" speed).

jaclaz

[tomasz86]

The disease spreads:

Google Play Store got metrofied! What a sad world, wow.

I can't believe my eyes. This is just horrible :puke:

It actually looks much worse than Windows 8 itself because in Windows 8 the layout is rather consistent while Google Play has become a complete mish-mash.

The funny thing is that Chrome has just crashed while I was trying to browse this "pile of junk" website.

Edited July 16, 2013 by tomasz86

[Formfiller]

The only reason why Microsoft could get away with this metro BS is because of the stupidity of the other companies.

[MagicAndre1981]

The disease spreads:

Google Play Store got metrofied! What a sad world, wow.

I can't believe my eyes. This is just horrible :puke:

It actually looks much worse than Windows 8 itself

yeah this looks so horrible

[JorgeA]

A defender of the cloud might argue that, well, you need to back up your stuff locally, or use a backup cloud backup. But in the former case you may as well just use your own storage in the first place, and in the latter case the costs of using cloud services are doubled. Either way, the rationale for the cloud is dubious. On top of all the good arguments and scenarios that you brought up.

But the cloud as "de-localized" backup or "redundant copy" seems to me a very good idea . (and the risks are limited)

The foolishness represented is that of the cloud in this "modern" concept of having "everything" (as opposed to a copy or backup) *somewhere* in the hands of *someone* (and senselessly moving back and forth bytes at an anyway much slower than "local lan" speed).

Yeah, "local first with cloud backup" is preferable to "cloud first with local backup", the latter of which is what a cloud evangelist might propose as a fallback to "all and only cloud" (in the scenario I presented).

--JorgeA

[Win2k3EE]

Google play interface looks like a drawing of an 3 year-old kid. It's pretty...if you're in kindergarten.

"Cloud storage"?

Neah! I like to keep my stuff to myself. If you need mobility, then you create your own VPN or FTP. Maybe the costs are a bit higher, but at least you know that "someone" "somewhere" is not going through your private data without your consent.

[JorgeA]

In the June 2013 issue of MaximumPC magazine, Online Managing Editor Jimmy Thang writes:

I finally made the upgrade to Windows 8 on my personal PC and I hate to admit it, but the OS is beginning to grow on me. Don't get me wrong, I still hate Metro or whatever Microsoft wants us to call it, but the free Classic Shell start button ensures that I never have to deal with that clunky mobile interface on my desktop.

--JorgeA

[jaclaz]

In the June 2013 issue of MaximumPC magazine, Online Managing Editor Jimmy Thang writes:

I finally made the upgrade to Windows 8 on my personal PC and I hate to admit it, but the OS is beginning to grow on me. Don't get me wrong, I still hate Metro or whatever Microsoft wants us to call it, but the free Classic Shell start button ensures that I never have to deal with that clunky mobile interface on my desktop.

--JorgeA

With all due respect to Mr. Jimmy Thang :

jaclaz