Windows 10 - Deeper Impressions

[jaclaz]

For the usual OT (Off Topic ) meanwhile in Cupertino ...

... little, minor, trifling, things that should however *somehow* trigger an alarm ...

The Scourge (or Beauty) of “Snap To Road” with iPhone Location-Tracking Apps

http://regex.info/blog/2015-12-03/2651

More Details on the Insidious iOS Snap-to-Road “Feature”

http://regex.info/blog/2016-01-19/2666

 

jaclaz

[NoelC]

Jaclaz, I have a pretty free-associative mind but even labeling it "Off Topic" at the 100%+  level makes posting a blurb about Apple programmers trying to be "too helpful" (and not surprisingly being unable to manage it technically) a bit odd in a thread about Windows.

 

Are you trying to connect this disjointed info somehow to this thread by pointing out that "being as helpful as possible and more" is what Microsoft is trying to do for (to?) all the masses of er, ah, technically challenged people on the planet with the big-font, dumbed-down Windows 10 implementation?

 

I am imagining that OS programmers are becoming mixed up with Application programmers in today's oversimplified world.  Only the cream of the cream of the crop can actually write good OS software in reality, but that's not stopping them.

 

What's funny is that we have been through the "one separate device for each task" era (i.e., anything before roughly 1980).  I guess it proves that since almost all humans can't multitask, they really can't conceive of an OS that multitasks.

 

-Noel

[jaclaz]

Naah, just trying to give some - by comparison with what the good Apple guys do - relief to the good MS guys that put together the crappy OS and to their executives that are trying to impose the one-size-fits-all paradigm to end users.

The "new paradigm" is the same, "we are doing this (possibly without telling you exactly what it is or without telling you at all about the *whatever change* at hand) because we know better than you and it is for your own good, and still for your own good we are removing from you any possibility to control this *feature*".

jaclaz

[Drugwash]

According to the link in post #1285, freedom - as in 'open-source' at least but not only - is just a word in a dictionary (still, we don't know for how long).

I've said before that 'there can be only one' and that M$ might soon buy out Apple. It may sound crazy, utopian, but the way things go this is the only logical course of action.

They don't want clever/smart people, they don't want people that can say 'NO' firmly and knowledgeably to their bull$h!t. They want full control and they'll get it. Sadly, they will.

I just hope I won't be around by then.

Unless the world gets rid of them M$, Google, Apple and all other huge corporations that hold monopoly to everything, soon including our own thoughts.

Yeah, utopian too.

[dencorso]

Not necessarily: MS has already rescued Apple from bankrupcy, IIRR. That reminds me of how the United Fruit Co. (now "Chiquita"), the banana MS which actually "created" bananas as a household fruit kept nursing Standard Fruit Co. (now "Dole"), just to prove it (viz.: United) wasn't a monopoly (although Standard's share of the banana market was consistently somewhat bigger than Apple's share of the OS market has ever been).

[Drugwash]

There will come a time when they won't hide anymore.

[JorgeA]

Why must these updates give you a sickly feeling that something will break- then an lo, it DOES!

 

I installed that lovely new Dell system at my friends house. Migrated their files and documents. All fine.

 

Then we noticed it was running IE8, and we thought nothing of installing the IE11 update. At least it was already running Win7 SP1.

40minutes later on our limited connection it completed the install and rebooted the machine only to lose the monitor settings and has reverted to non-pnp analog display. The Dell website can only can a suggestion to update the bios and two other minor drivers.

 

Nothing attempted so far has restored the previously working settings other than using a quick image of the system I made before before I installed IE11.

That will lose an another hour of work to try another broswer, do another image, and possibly attempt another go at IE11 after further Windows updates are added.

 

This was supposed to be simple.

 

Did you move directly from IE8 to IE11?

 

Maybe (I'm not sure) you need to upgrade step by step from IE8 to IE9, then 10 and only then 11. Is that conceivable?

 

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

 

I'll stick with my fortified Win 7 as i have second thoughts about Linux. Especially after reading this:

The Linux Foundation Has Become Like a Corporate Think Tank, Microsoft Influence Included

 

 

Yeah, there are no perfect solutions unfortunately.

 

Look at Mozilla -- a non-profit foundation, and yet they're every bit as contemptuous and disregarding of their users' preferences as Microsoft ever was. Their share of the browser market is (IIRC) hovering barely above 10%, and still they keep plowing ahead with unwelcome and constant changes.

 

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

On a lighter note, Symantec/Norton thinks that a Windows 10 system using Windows Defender has no protection! 

 

 

--JorgeA

Edited January 25, 2016 by JorgeA

[Agorima]

Microsoft struggles against self-inflicted Office 365 IMAP outage

 

Seven days is a long time in cloud

 

Microsoft engineers are struggling to fix a seven-day-old, self-inflicted Office 365 IMAP outage.

IMAP access to Office 365 tanked on January 18, meaning customers could not access emails using Exchange Online via IMAP or connect third-party mail clients via IMAP.

Microsoft told disgruntled Office 365 customers that the problem affected a limited number of licensees – but that those customers hit had a "large number of users.”

The culprit was found to be a botched Microsoft update that stopped the IMAP protocol automatically loading data from Exchange Online databases.

Following preliminary analysis of the cause, Microsoft told disgruntled users on January 22:

As part of our efforts to improve service performance, an update was deployed to a subset of code which is responsible for obtaining the subscribed folder list. However, the update caused a code issue that prevented the list from being automatically loaded.

Microsoft promised to fix the problem by January 23 – five days after the outage. Those plans then had to be pushed back. Restoration time for the service was estimated for today (January 25), however, Microsoft is still nowhere near a fix.

Meanwhile, one Reg reader got in touch today to complain that all mail sign-ins – including Exchange protocol – had gone titsup.

Microsoft, meanwhile, told users: “The deployment process is taking longer than initially expected due to a configuration issue.

“Engineers reconfigured the problematic portion of capacity and are continuing to monitor the deployment to ensure it propagates throughout the infrastructure in a timely manner. Customers will begin to experience service restoration as the deployment progresses.”

 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/25/office_365_imap_outage/

 

It's soon to be called Office 358

Edited January 25, 2016 by Agorima

[rn10950]

 

 

I'll stick with my fortified Win 7 as i have second thoughts about Linux. Especially after reading this:

The Linux Foundation Has Become Like a Corporate Think Tank, Microsoft Influence Included

 

 

Yeah, there are no perfect solutions unfortunately.

 

Look at Mozilla -- a non-profit foundation, and yet they're every bit as contemptuous and disregarding of their users' preferences as Microsoft ever was. Their share of the browser market is (IIRC) hovering barely above 10%, and still they keep plowing ahead with unwelcome and constant changes.

 

--JorgeA

 

 

Mozilla as in Firefox may be like that, but their other, lesser-known project, SeaMonkey, doesn't have half of the lockdowns that Firefox has, and in my experience, it's also lighter. (which is ironic, since Firefox was originally created to reduce the bloat of the Mozilla Suite) As an example of how customizable SeaMonkey is, this is the latest version with a custom Navigator 4 theme applied.

 

 

I highly recommend it, it has all the capabilities of the latest Gecko, with the much less locked down nature of the old Mozilla, while preserving compatibility with many of the newer Firefox add-ons, such as uBlock (ABP shown here) and Greasemonkey.

[JorgeA]

 

Mozilla as in Firefox may be like that, but their other, lesser-known project, SeaMonkey, doesn't have half of the lockdowns that Firefox has, and in my experience, it's also lighter. (which is ironic, since Firefox was originally created to reduce the bloat of the Mozilla Suite) As an example of how customizable SeaMonkey is, this is the latest version with a custom Navigator 4 theme applied.

 

[...]

 

I highly recommend it, it has all the capabilities of the latest Gecko, with the much less locked down nature of the old Mozilla, while preserving compatibility with many of the newer Firefox add-ons, such as uBlock (ABP shown here) and Greasemonkey.

 

Thanks, that does look interesting. I had heard of SeaMonkey in my travels, but I didn't know it was associated with the Mozilla Foundation. It's a well-hidden secret. 

 

The most important browser add-on for my purposes is Adobe Acrobat's "Create PDF." That's not merely a "print to PDF" function, it converts the whole Web page to a PDF file. This is important because it seems like websites are increasingly rigging things such that if you print an article, all sorts of formatting problems crop up to make the printout useless: banners that cover chunks of text, text missing around the page breaks, and so forth. Acrobat's Create PDF extension somehow gets by these hurdles to produce a file that contains and shows the entire text.

 

So for me the question would be, can SeaMonkey handle the Create PDF add-on for Firefox? I know for example that there's a method for installing it in Pale Moon.

 

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

Microsoft struggles against self-inflicted Office 365 IMAP outage

 

Seven days is a long time in cloud

 

[...]

 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/25/office_365_imap_outage/

 

It's soon to be called Office 358

 

 

--JorgeA

[rn10950]

 

 

Mozilla as in Firefox may be like that, but their other, lesser-known project, SeaMonkey, doesn't have half of the lockdowns that Firefox has, and in my experience, it's also lighter. (which is ironic, since Firefox was originally created to reduce the bloat of the Mozilla Suite) As an example of how customizable SeaMonkey is, this is the latest version with a custom Navigator 4 theme applied.

 

[...]

 

I highly recommend it, it has all the capabilities of the latest Gecko, with the much less locked down nature of the old Mozilla, while preserving compatibility with many of the newer Firefox add-ons, such as uBlock (ABP shown here) and Greasemonkey.

 

Thanks, that does look interesting. I had heard of SeaMonkey in my travels, but I didn't know it was associated with the Mozilla Foundation. It's a well-hidden secret. 

 

The most important browser add-on for my purposes is Adobe Acrobat's "Create PDF." That's not merely a "print to PDF" function, it converts the whole Web page to a PDF file. This is important because it seems like websites are increasingly rigging things such that if you print an article, all sorts of formatting problems crop up to make the printout useless: banners that cover chunks of text, text missing around the page breaks, and so forth. Acrobat's Create PDF extension somehow gets by these hurdles to produce a file that contains and shows the entire text.

 

So for me the question would be, can SeaMonkey handle the Create PDF add-on for Firefox? I know for example that there's a method for installing it in Pale Moon.

 

--JorgeA

 

 

Can you send me the XPI? I can try to get it to run in SeaMonkey, or modify it if it doesn't.

[JorgeA]

 

Can you send me the XPI? I can try to get it to run in SeaMonkey, or modify it if it doesn't.

 

 

I was going to do that, but then I realized it's a proprietary (Adobe) file, so I'm not sure it would be kosher.   I'd like to check on that first.

 

Since I did manage to install it on Pale Moon, maybe I can download SeaMonkey and try the same installation technique. But of course if it did end up requiring modifications, then I couldn't get it to work by myself.

 

The main driver behind my search for a FF alternative (and for my annoyance with Mozilla) is their recent decision to disallow "unsigned" add-ons starting with version 44. Like Microsoft, they're accelerating changes to their software, and it's getting tiresome. I doubt that Adobe will have any interest in going through the signing process for Acrobat X -- they'd probably rather I went out and spent $299 on the current version. I refuse to stay on the upgrade treadmill, just because they want me to.

 

You might wonder why try installing this Acrobat add-on on yet another browser, if I already have it working on PM. Well, the PM project is much smaller and who knows how long they'll stay interested in maintaining it, so this is my backup plan.

 

--JorgeA