Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions

[JorgeA]

I dont know why M$ is in the console wars. The "pc" is better than any console can ever be.

 

Only reason I can come up with is that they thought they could or should extend their domination from the office to the family room.

 

What they don't seem to realize is that the consumer market is fundamentally different from the office market. In business, standardization and compatibility are extremely important as you want to be able to read other people's stuff and send them your own stuff and have them be able to use it. You don't want to lose a customer because you insist on utilizing some oddball document format. But the need for this is much less in the consumer market, so there's much more room for variation. People may want MS Office at the (ahem) office, but once they're on the street or at home, anything goes, which is why iPads coexist with Android tablets, and iPhones with Android phones, in a way that (say) Word and WordPerfect or Lotus 1-2-3 and Excel could never coexist.

 

I think the failure to recognize these differences helps to explain why MSFT keeps failing at consumer markets, and has largely failed in its attempt to "consumerize" Windows with Win8/Metro. Just like a PC is not a tablet is not a phone (which shows how ridiculous it's been to try to shoehorn a tablet UI onto PCs), so the business market is not like the individual consumer market.

 

--JorgeA

 

P.S. And yes, nothing beats a PC for gaming.

Edited June 17, 2014 by JorgeA

[jaclaz]

Jaclaz, if you don't mind me asking, could you please tell me what do you think about this email provider:

 

http://www.autistici.org/en/

Better late than never .

I had a quick look and they seem to me like good guys though they are a little bit too "politically oriented" for my personal tastes.

 

http://www.autistici.org/en/about.html

 

Who we are

A/I was born more than 10 years ago to provide internet support (through website hosting, e-mail accounts, mailing lists, chat, instant messaging, anonymous remailing, blogs, and much more) to activists and collectives coming from the world of grassroot and social movements. Our principles are fairly straightforward: the world should not be run on money, but it should be rooted in solidarity, community, mutual help, equal rights and freedoms, and social justice. Easy, isn't it?

We support individuals, collectives, communities, groups and so on whose political and social activities fit within this worldview and who share with us some fundamental principles: anti-fascism, anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-militarism. And on top of that, one has to share our basic attitude towards money and the capitalistic world: a deep feeling of uneasyness and unrest.

All in all another club I would resign from

Please accept my resignation. I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.

jaclaz

[TELVM]

^ Thanks Jaclaz.

[JorgeA]

The dirt starts coming out:

 

China leaks $2bn of secret Microsoft Android patents

 

Microsoft has maintained for the last three years or so that every Android phone ever made infringes on patents locked away somewhere in Redmond. High-profile legal cases, like Microsoft's suit against the Android-powered Barnes & Noble Nook e-reader, and its successful lawsuits against five major Android smartphone manufacturers, have fueled a huge amount of public speculation as to what exactly those patents are.

 

The problem is, Microsoft hasn't been saying, and with only a few exceptions has taken every measure possible to keep them hidden from the public.

 

Now the Chinese government has lifted the lid on the mystery with an astounding and unprecedented series of leaks. A full list containing hundreds of patents has been thrown open to the public. The list describes in minute detail all of the patents that Microsoft believes entitle it to royalties over the more than 900 million android devices currently operating in the world today.

 

--JorgeA

 

[JorgeA]

Microsoft is getting increasingly obnoxious about channeling customers into its predetermined rut:

 

For Internet Explorer 11 users, no update now means no security fixes

 

When Microsoft released the Windows 8.1 Update, IT feathers were ruffled by Microsoft's decision to make it a compulsory update: without it, Windows 8.1 systems would no longer receive security fixes. As spotted by Computerworld's Gregg Keizer, Microsoft is applying the same rules, at least in part, to Windows 7.

 

Windows 7 users who've installed Internet Explorer 11 are required to install the KB2929437 update. This is the Internet Explorer 11 update that corresponds to the Windows 8.1 Update; it doesn't just include security fixes for Microsoft's browser. There are also some new and improved features, including a more capable WebGL implementation and some additional high performance JavaScript features. If users don't install the update, Windows Update will not provide any more security fixes for their browser.

 

 

Micorosft fanboys (including Peter Bright, the article author) who think that everybody ought to fall into line with every MS directive, get spanked in the comments section -- so hard that they stopped arguing (at least for a while):

 

And going to the same insane release schedule as chrome and Firefox? Screw that. That's just adding chaos to the mix. It's not enough time to properly validate anything that intertwined with Windows, especially for Microsoft. Hell, Mozilla can't really do it, but they're just hell bent on stripping absolutely everything out of Firefox that isn't page rendering, you have to wonder if they even use it themselves anymore...

 

 

And:

 

...it is a dangerous game Microsoft is playing.

THE
ONLY
REASON

corps are so bound to Microsoft's ecosystem is because they maintain backwards compatibility, and the mission critical apps written in 2000 still work.

If large scale changes to mission critical apps are going to be required, then business users either won't upgrade (see: Windows 8) or will consider other platforms while they're at it. Neither option is good for Microsoft.

Annoying your customers is not a good business practice.

 

Developers who think nothing of pushing UI changes on users and then arrogantly scolding them for objecting, should arrive at the office one day to find their desk drawers all rearranged, with pictures of unknown people on the wall, the mouse buttons reversed, and a yellow stickie note on the monitor informing them that this all is for their own good.

 

--JorgeA

 

[Formfiller]

I PM'd Charlotte at the end of April, and the message hasn't even been read yet, let alone answered.  

 

Hoping he can come back, and soon. We miss his contributions all around the Forum, and especially in this thread.

 

--JorgeA

 

Well, the Windows 8 front is very quiet now. There is not much to say until the supposed start menu update.

[JorgeA]

That may not be for another year or so. IIRC I read somewhere recently that the revived Start Menu won't be going into Windows 8.1 Update 2 (or whatever they end up calling it) this summer or fall, but will have to wait 'til Windows 9 next spring.

 

If nothing else, that'll keep the Start Menu alternatives going for a while longer. (Wonder if they'll still work when the Start Menu comes back; I guess that they would.)

 

--JorgeA

Edited June 18, 2014 by JorgeA

[JorgeA]

Gmail Encryption May Stop NSA Snooping, Not Google's

 

While Google's announcement that it wants to encrypt all Gmail messages while they're in transit was praised for making government spying more difficult, observers point out that the move won't save your messages from Google's own prying eyes.

 

"The email provider can still see the message. They're just encrypting it when it's going over the Internet, not when the message is in their own system," said Seth Schoen, a senior technologist with the privacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation. Schoen walked this reporter through the myriad possible methods of email encryption.

 

Would it be safe to say that this pertains to Gmail that the user writes up on his computer but saves to Google's servers?

 

A hint that this might be so is suggested by the following:

 

Even when both parties use TLS, data are only protected from the time they leave your device to the time they land in someone else's inbox. So Google — and in theory any email provider looking within its own system — still gets a peak at your emails before they're encrypted and after they're received and decrypted, Schoen says.

 

But if that's the case, then could it be said that the e-mail is unprotected even from the NSA as it makes its way from your keyboard to Google's servers? After all, once it's encrypted then Google can't read the e-mail, but the premise is that Google can in fact read it. And we know that (with Google's consent or otherwise) the NSA taps into what Google sees.

 

Thoughts?

 

--JorgeA

 

[Tripredacus]

Would it be safe to say that this pertains to Gmail that the user writes up on his computer but saves to Google's servers?

Having worked for an ISP before, I can tell you that anyone at Google who has the ability to log into the mail server or mail exchangers, can read any email they want.

[NoelC]

If nothing else, that'll keep the Start Menu alternatives going for a while longer. (Wonder if they'll still work when the Start Menu comes back; I guess that they would.)

 

I've used Classic Shell since Vista.  I don't anticipate using anything else, even if Microsoft does bring back theirs.  My user experience has been consistent, and Microsoft's software isn't actually as good as 3rd party implementations anyway.

 

-Noel

[JorgeA]

 

Would it be safe to say that this pertains to Gmail that the user writes up on his computer but saves to Google's servers?

Having worked for an ISP before, I can tell you that anyone at Google who has the ability to log into the mail server or mail exchangers, can read any email they want.

 

 

That's good to know, in the sense that it'll protect us from the false sense of security given by inadequate encryption schemes.

 

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

 

If nothing else, that'll keep the Start Menu alternatives going for a while longer. (Wonder if they'll still work when the Start Menu comes back; I guess that they would.)

 

I've used Classic Shell since Vista.  I don't anticipate using anything else, even if Microsoft does bring back theirs.  My user experience has been consistent, and Microsoft's software isn't actually as good as 3rd party implementations anyway.

 

-Noel

 

 

Cool, maybe then there'll still be a use for the Start Menu alternatives sticky (with regular maintenace) even after Microsoft brings back the native menu.

 

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

It’s Complicated: Facebook’s History of Tracking You

 

For years people have noticed a funny thing about Facebook's ubiquitous Like button. It has been sending data to Facebook tracking the sites you visit. Each time details of the tracking were revealed, Facebook promised that it wasn't using the data for any commercial purposes.

 

No longer. Last week, Facebook announced it will start using its Like button and similar tools to track people across the Internet for advertising purposes.

 

A rundown of Facebook's assurances that it's not as bad as you think it is, followed by admissions that it IS as bad.

 

What isn't yet totally clear in my mind, is whether Facebook's "Like" button can also be used to track people who don't have and never had a Facebook account.

 

Also, note the following statement in the article linked to in the above excerpt:

 

In a move bound to stir up some controversy given the company's reach and scale, the social network will not be honoring the do-not-track setting on web browsers.

 

--JorgeA

 

[JorgeA]

Once again  , yet another case of meddlesome government hobbling value-producing enterprise. This time, though, in an indirect way:

 

Microsoft’s Top Lawyer Says Government Data Demands Hurting Business

 

Microsoft’s top lawyer said the U.S. government’s demand for user emails stored outside the country is spooking potential customers of the software company and other U.S. technology suppliers.

 

Brad Smith, Microsoft 's general counsel, tried to illustrate the problem Thursday at a technology conference by recounting a meeting a month ago with corporate-technology executives in Berlin. One of them came clutching a copy of the recent U.S. federal magistrate ruling forcing Microsoft to turn over a user’s emails and other digital information stored in a company data center in Ireland.

 

The unnamed German executive said that, until the judge’s decision is reversed, his company can’t trust its corporate information to computing hubs owned by any U.S. tech company, Smith recounted at the Gigaom Structure conference in San Francisco.

 

[...]

 

Smith said the U.S. government would never put up with other countries’ courts reaching into digital information of U.S. companies in their own country.

 

--JorgeA

 

[JorgeA]

Good editorial about European public reaction to NSA surveillance in Der Spiegel:

 

Opinion: Where is Europe’s outrage?

 

...In Germany, where indignation over NSA spying was particularly strong, polls showed that due to the Snowden revelations trust in the US had fallen to levels not seen since George W. Bush and that Germans overwhelmingly opposed surveillance of their communications data by their government.

 

So when documents published by Der Spiegel and The Intercept over the weekend detailed what most intelligence experts had claimed for a long time - namely, that most European countries have in fact very close partnerships with the NSA which essentially makes the agency's dragnet surveillance possible - one would expect another huge public outcry, this time directed against their own governments and spy services, right?

 

Wrong. Whether numbed by World Cup fever or NSA fatigue the political, medial and public reaction to the revelations that most of Europe is in cahoots with the NSA has been disappointing. For instance in Germany, where the large cache of documents published by Der Spiegel meticulously documents the long-standing and deep connection of the country's BND with its US counterpart, coverage of the news has so far been mostly perfunctory as has been the political reaction to it.

 

Perhaps it was cool to protest when the USA could be singled out as the uniquely bad guys, but not so much now that all these governments elected by their own people have been shown to be working side-by-side with the Americans to spy on them. (Sorry for the nationalistic tone, but now one has to wonder what, for too many folks, the outrage was really all about.)

 

--JorgeA

Edited June 23, 2014 by JorgeA