Posts by Wade Burchette

Clippy rises from the dead in major update to Copilot and its voice interface

Re: "the AI making so many decisions"

Um ... Did you see how many people were crippled with AWS-East went down on Monday? We are already there. Some people couldn't even sleep because their $200/month app stopped working.

Bose kills SoundTouch: Smart speakers go dumb in Feb

BOSE

Buy Other Sound Equipment.

As the saying goes, "a fool and his money are soon parted." With Bose, you are just paying for the name. You can get better sound equipment for less money.

Apple's 'Awe Droppings' fall close to the tree

"While its focus on privacy and on-device processing remains a competitive advantage, this value proposition needs to be communicated more effectively to reinforce user trust and adoption."

I tell you what I once did many years ago: buy a new LG phone over the Samsung only because LG had a removable battery after Samsung copied Apple's bad idea. The problem with Apple is that a significant number of their customers would buy iDirt for their houseplant and swear to you that this dirt is better than regular dirt and that using iDirt somehow makes them better. Apple has had anti-consumer idea after idea, and never once were they punished for it. I tried to punish Samsung for not including a removable battery, but I was in the minority and I lost that battle. Now every company has copied Apple and has a fixed battery, to our detriment, a lack of a headphone jack, to our detriment, and parts pairing, to our detriment.

Now Apple is doing something else to screw people over -- removing the SIM card. Make no mistake, the people in the Apple cult will not punish Apple for this travesty. And then Samsung, Google, et al will see that since Apple got by with screwing people, they will do the same thing.

User trust -- You don't have it Apple. You have user worship. I am not brand loyal, but I am brand disloyal. Because you, Apple, keep taking steps to screw over the customer to your benefit, never ours, I will never give you any of my money. I just wished the other companies wouldn't follow Apple's bad example.

Microsoft eventually realized the world isn't just the Northern Hemisphere

unconscious bias

Another unconscious bias that appears here in the US is that Microsoft assumes everyone lives in the Pacific timezone like they do. Windows 7 and earlier would ask you what timezone you lived in. Not anymore. Because Redmond is in the Pacific timezone, they assume you do as well.

Make Redmond angry by setting up Windows 11 with a local account

Doesn't work for S-Mode

For anyone cursed with Windows S-Mode, aka Stupid-Mode, SHIFT+F10 doesn't work. To get around the local account with Windows Stupid-Mode, I do this: (1) create a bogus @outlook or @hotmail email address. Use a bunch a random numbers and letters so you don't accidentally use it again. When asked for a name and birthday, just fill in junk. (2) Switch out of Stupid-Mode. (3) Create a proper local account in the settings. (4) Log out and then log in it to the local account. (5) Immediately delete the account with the one time bogus email address and forget all about it. (6) Immediately after that, triple-check to make sure bitlocker is turned off. Usually I turn it on and then off right away to make sure.

Nothing to see here: Brave browser blocks privacy-busting Microsoft Recall

Just like co-pilot was opt-in for Office 365. But since so few people were rightly not getting in, Microsoft made it opt-out.

OS-busting bug so bad that Microsoft blocks Windows Insider release

Re: Users versus Microsoft - round 3.1

It seems to me that Microsoft's new motto is "If it ain't broke, then make an unwanted and unnecessary change and break it." One of these days Microsoft will go too far and a major business will switch to Linux. Word will get around, and another will and then another will. Then the people who work for these businesses will demand a Linux computer like they have at work. And soon enough to snowball will become a giant avalanche. Right now they can only get away with their utter contempt for the customer because they have major businesses captured. But a man can only take so much before he snaps ...

Microsoft to preload Word minutes after boot

And Office 2003 didn't have that design abomination known as the ribbon. And sadly, Microsoft insists on putting it everywhere when it should never have been anywhere.

Whether it is auto-starting Word, to installing unwanted AI, to auto-starting Edge, to putting the stupid ribbon into everything, to encrypting the hard drive without permission, to making it next to impossible to not provide them any personal information to use the computer -- Microsoft shows once again that they assume their your computer is their computer and that they are wiser than the "customer". Who gave them the right to auto-start Word without my permission? No one, that is who. Sooner or later, they are going to go too far and businesses will jump ship to Linux, not because they want to, but because they are just too angry at what Microsoft is doing.

UN says Asian scam call center epidemic expanding globally amid political heat

People who are aware of scams are the ones more likely to be scammed. Here is a study about that.

HP settles fake discount lawsuit for just $4M. Don’t expect much of a payout

JC Penny -- a large clothing chain in the US -- is famous for having the "biggest sale of the year" every weekend. Once they tried making the sale prices their every day prices. It was a disaster and their sales plummeted bad. So now they are back to having the "biggest sale of the year" every weekend again.

I concluded from this that people want to think they are getting a deal, even if they aren't really. People love to boast about getting a deal, even if they know the product is perpetually sold at a discount. These companies know what they are doing. I think where HP went wrong was always saying "Just 1 left" even though the warehouse was full of the items.

Windows 11 roadmap great for knowing what's coming next week. Not so good for next year

Good news everybody!

I will now have months to figure out how to disable a new unwanted feature instead of days. Good news indeed.

23andMe's genes not strong enough to avoid Chapter 11

Re: The court will now oversee the sale of 23andMe's assets

I was thinking of this story from the CBC. It is a few years old, but I made sure to keep a bookmark of it. Identical twins sent their DNA to several of these testing sites, and each received a different result. 23andMe was the most different between the twins. And none of the DNA testers matched the heritage of the twins. The charts included are interesting.

HP ditches 15-minute wait time policy due to 'feedback'

Um ... this is HP. Did you think they had any competent people in management? These are the same people who changed from Hewitt-Packard into Horrible-Products.

Why did the Windows 95 setup use Windows 3.1?

Re: Makes sense

I would rather pay for my next version of Windows than to have ads, telemetry, and AI shoved down my throat.

Oracle starts laying mines in JavaScript trademark battle

What do you expect from a company that makes their employees sign mandatory binding arbitration clauses. And when the Oracle paid arbitration bites the hand that feeds them, Oracle sues the arbitrator. Oracle is pure evil. I am still convinced to this day that this company has a factory dedicated to kicking kittens and punching puppies, they are just that evil. I would choose to work at the local Qwick-E-Mart rather than to work for this evil company; and I would choose to pay twice as much for a competitor's product than to use Oracle's.

Amazon sued for allegedly slurping sensitive data via advertising SDK

Blokada is your friend

Blokada is your friend. This app blocks all manner of snooping done on your phone or tablet. You will be shocked to see how much snooping goes on with an Android device. I stick with version 5 personally, because that version is so damaging to Google, it is banned on their app store. Once the app is installed, you must whitelist a few system apps, such as Visual Voicemail and Phone and maybe a few other ones I cannot remember right now. I also dig through the settings and change my DNS to one that blocks malware.

But Blokada is my friend. It blocks Amazon's creepy ads in apps, it blocks Google's creepy tracking that is built-in to Android, it stops Whats-app from snooping on your conversations. It has blocked about 450,000 tracking/advertising requests since I bought Samsung S22 a few years ago. I recommend it for every Android device.

Intel pitches modular PC designs to make repairs less painful

Re: WTF

Well, the big OEM's are already shifting away from standards on their desktop computers. The power supply is a proprietary design, not a common standard. I had a friends whose Lenovo gaming desktop motherboard went bad. It was cheaper to buy an Asrock motherboard. But the Lenovo motherboard used a non-standard cooling fan and non-standard connectors for the power button -- fortunately it did use a standard ATX power supply and microATX motherboard design.

I think Intel could a long ways reducing e-waste simply by requiring OEM's to conform to standards, instead of proprietary components. And supporting a socket for more than 2 designs. (Look to AMD for that. AM4 lasted as long as DDR4 was being used. I don't expect AM5 to replaced until DDR6 comes out.)

Samsung Galaxy S25 is so smart it wears Crocs, allegedly resists quantum decryption

Still doesn't have what I want

Thinner, AI, quantum something or rather, an ugly case ... it seems like the phone manufacturers are going out of their way to give us the things we actually want: user-replaceable batteries, screws to easily disassemble the device and repair it, a headphone jack, and a microSD card slot. I'd pay extra for a phone with those features and would gladly replace my working S22 for that; but you would have to pay me a lot of money to replace my working phone for one with AI.

Copilot invades Microsoft 365 Personal and Family for an extra three bucks a month

At this point, I don't think even the fires of Mordor can properly kill the unhelpful, unwanted, unloved copilot / gemeni / apple intelligence menace.

New Outlook marches onto Windows 10 for what little time it has left

Re: Why?

Push notifications when the new Outlook isn't running ... Doesn't that imply that all my emails are being routed through Microsoft's servers? No thank you. I would rather get rid of all my email addresses permanently than to route them through Microsoft.

Firefox ditches Do Not Track because nobody was listening anyway

Often, the tracking is done by a third party, and not by the website itself. And those websites are full of third party scripts. Very few major websites are devoid of third party scripts. Let me give you an example: one local news website that I visit has 14 third party scripts, as identified by NoScript. Another one has 18 third party scripts. Many websites now will not work unless you enable certain third party scripts. That is a major problem. It is my opinion that a website should never require javascript to work and also should never require any third party scripts to work.

Microsoft rolls out Recall for Intel, AMD-based Copilot+ PCs

Re: Bad ideas must be good for someone

I am convinced that Microsoft has a fetish for AI right now because they know in their history they have missed on some big moneymaking ideas. For example: Windows Phone was a knee-jerk reaction to iPhone and Android; it failed badly. Zune was a knee-jerk reaction to iPod; it failed badly. Bing is a knee-jerk reaction to Google; it is still struggling against Google both in market share and performance.

Microsoft doesn't want to be left behind again. So they are doubling down -- actually quadrupling down -- on what the know-nothing know-it-all's say is the next BIG thing. While AI will have its uses, for the vast majority of people it will be useless.

I have decided to once a week to offer a polite suggestion through Microsoft's feedback hub telling them how we, the users of Windows, do not want Co-pilot or anything AI in any form. I even told them that I am willing to pay to make it go away. Maybe if we organize a polite "AI GO AWAY" spamming campaign on the feedback hub, Microsoft will finally get it through their thick skull how unwanted this is. (It must be polite, otherwise it goes straight to the trash bin.)

Windows 11 24H2 rolls out to more devices – with a growing list of known issues

Re: Break/fix/break

It wasn't just older NAS it broke. I could not connect to my fully patched, up-to-date, still supported QNap NAS after the update. I even disabled every file share option except for the highest level SMB. Still nothing. I kept getting some NTLM authentication error. I changed every group policy entry related to NTLM -- still no go. I even used the IP address instead of the name (i.e. \\192.168.1.xxx\) -- still no go. I went back to 23H2 and everything worked.

Outlook is poor for those still on Windows Mail, Calendar, People apps by end of year

For example, Outlook Express.

Outlook Express was a very good free email application. It worked well enough for most people. So, naturally, it had to go. The replacement was Windows Mail, a flaming piece of garbage that was confusing to use and confusing to configure. Have you ever tried to change the server settings in Windows Mail? For years I believed that Windows Mail was designed to be horrible so that you will pay for Outlook -- not many people know about Thunderbird or other alternatives. And now the replacement in "new" Outlook. What brain dead idiot thought it was a good idea to have 3 distinct products with the exact same name? The "new" Outlook looks and feels a lot like outlook.com and not at all like the "classic" Outlook. So now when you search for help, you don't know if it is for "new" Outlook, "classic" Outlook, or outlook.com. (This decision must have been by the idiots who thought having two distinct versions of Teams, a business and consumer one, that each work completely different was a good idea. So when you search for help, you don't know if the instructions are for business Teams or consumer Teams.)

If Microsoft wants to give us a good free email program, bring back Outlook Express and incorporate OAuth2 in it. Simple, cheap, and good for the customer. So, naturally, it won't be done. Microsoft gave up on doing what is best for the customer when Windows 7 expired.

QNAP NAS users locked out after firmware update snafu

I have a QNap NAS and there was one update that was constantly rebooting and I had to downgrade. To downgrade, you have to power off the machine, remove all the hard drives including the M.2 drives if you have them, then turn on the NAS. Once there, you enter an IP address and you are given the option to install a new firmware. After the firmware is installed and the machine rebooted, you turn it off again and put all the drives back.

Microsoft shuttering dedicated licensing education, certification site

Don't forget, that to get license X you will also need to purchase a special license not openly listed, but the requirement will be buried deep in the terms of service. To purchase this special license, you must go to the licensing department. It is in a cellar at Microsoft's HQ behind a locked door marked "Beware of the leopard". Be sure to bring your flashlight. Woebegone to any business that does not purchase this special license.

Microsoft goes thin client with $349 Windows 365 Link mini PC

And so it begins ...

The way I see it, this is Microsoft's way of introducing Windows as a Subscription.

Start first with a thin client with a yearly fee. And then the pricing creep will begin. Next, a $10 fee per year to use Windows with a local account at any time -- waived if you subscribe to Office 365. Oh wait, now it is an additional $10 per year for security updates, but if you subscribe to Office 365 that fee is waived. Oh wait, that fee is now it is $30 per year, but if you can still avoid the fee by paying for Office 365. Oh wait, the price for Office 365 just went up by $20. Good news, we've lowered the price of Microsoft 365 back to $99/year, and now it is mandatory to even use Windows at all, what a deal! Don't even bother switching to Linux, the cost to retrain your employees will exceed the cost of Microsoft 365. You were going to license it anyway, so just pay up.

That is the holy grail for Microsoft, making you pay just to use your computer.

AI PCs flood the market. Their makers hope someone wants them

Re: Generative AI is only a bullshit generator.

"It smacks of 3DTV all over again."

Not true. 3DTV, if done right, is actually quite neat and entertaining. (The key is if it is done right, which often it wasn't on movies or home TV's.) AI PC's on the other hand have none of those advantages even if done right.

O2's AI granny knits tall tales to waste scam callers' time

Only a matter of time now

You just know the scammers will begin to deploy AI voices for themselves. It is only a matter of time before "Daisy" AI talks to "Larry" AI from the local bank. What a delight that would be. Neither would get tired of talking to each other. That will be a conversation that never ends.

Then it will only be a matter of time before "Larry" AI proposes to "Daisy" AI and they get married over the phone.

Microsoft has reached $1M giveaway levels of desperation to attract users to Bing

Re: Doesn’t have the Edge

I often tell people that Edge is Google Chrome but with the Google profit stripped out and replaced with Microsoft profit instead. I then mention Firefox and Brave as alternatives -- however you now need to change a setting in Firefox to stop tracking.

Windows 10 given an extra year of supported life, for $30

Coming soon ...

Coming soon, the all new Windows 12. It will be completely free, but if you want any updates, that will cost you $10 for the first year, but $30 for every year thereafter. Or, the fee can be waived if you provide Microsoft your personal information, agree to activate S-mode, use only Edge to browse websites, and purchase 5 apps each year from the Microsoft store or subscribe to Microsoft 365. Of course, education and government institutions will get all of this for free without restrictions so that they can instruct people on how to use Windows 12.

Bitcoin creator suspect says he is not Bitcoin creator suspect

Re: I wonder...

Satoshi Nakamoto is actually the RAND Corporation, in conjunction with the saucer people, and under the supervision of the reverse vampires. We are through the looking glass here people.

Samsung and pals Hyundai, Kia team for software-defined cars, IoT integration

Samsung appliances

Samsung appliances are already on my "do not buy" list because of their terrible reliability. Now I see why they are so unreliable: Samsung is focusing on useless stuff you don't need -- like a camera in a washing machine -- instead of stuff you do need, like an appliance that will work well without needing any repairs for at least 15 years. Connecting the car to my appliance is yet another thing I don't need.

Dear Samsung: I rather buy my appliances from the other South Korean company, LG, because they are far more reliable. Your washer and dryer can automatically pick up my clothes and wash them and I still won't buy it because of how often it breaks down. If a product is unreliable, nothing else matters, period.

Open source orgs strengthen alliance against patent trolls

Lawyers

Many US politicians are former lawyers. And lawyers love complex laws and lawsuits. It is not in their financial interests, or the financial interests of their friends, to fix the legal system with common sense ideas.

If HDMI screen rips aren't good enough for you pirates, DeCENC is another way to beat web video DRM

Re: and the like is doomed

DRM currently has a 0% success rate in stopping copyright infringement. Which means that the only thing it does is make life harder for legitimate paying customers.

FTC urged to stop tech makers downgrading devices after you've bought them

Re: Car thing

Along the same line of thought --

Apple sells a phone with an unremovable battery, Apple users go "meh". And then Samsung sees that Apple was not punished for doing the wrong thing, and now their phones have unremovable batteries.

Apple takes away the headphone jack on the phone, Apple users go "meh". And then Samsung sees that Apple was not punished for doing the wrong thing, and now their phones no longer have a headphone jack.

Apple implemented parts pairing just to prevent you from fixing your own product, Apple users go "meh". And then Samsung sees that Apple was not punished for doing the wrong thing, and now their phones have parts pairing too.

Of course, Apple is not the only company that kicks you hard in the groin and then demands you say thank you for the privilege. I am just using them to make a point. When did consumers become so apathetic to companies screwing us that we just accept and go on? Why aren't we doing more to punish companies that are openly doing us wrong? As shown by the Apple example, when one company is not punished for doing the wrong thing, other companies in their greed also follow suit. How did it get this way? Whenever people ask why I don't like Apple, I openly tell them it is because of how they did us wrong, and since we the consumer didn't punish them for doing wrong, now every other company is also doing the wrong thing.

I think we need to get more vocal telling people how they are being cheated. If enough people wake up, things can change.

Copilot for Microsoft 365 might boost productivity if you survive the compliance minefield

Re: Costs or free

"Copilot for Microsoft 365 is an add-on for which Microsoft expects $30 per user per month, with an annual subscription."

Ain't no way I will pay $360 per year to use this. In fact, even if Microsoft paid me $360/year, I still wouldn't use it. And I think I am in the majority. This will not be the big money maker Microsoft, Google, et al thinks it will be. A few out-of-touch managers will use it, but these are the kind of people who jump on every fad no matter how stupid. They are not the majority.

Microsoft squashes bug that sent Windows devices to BitLocker recovery

I much rather Microsoft start asking me what I want my computer to do, instead of doing everything without my knowledge or permission.

Bitlocker is turned on without my knowledge or permission. Drivers are installed without my permission. The Edge browser starts when the computer does without my knowledge or permission. Updates are installed without my permission. The useless AI junk is turn on without my permission. Telemetry is collected without my knowledge or permission.

And the list goes on. Microsoft forgot that this is my computer, not theirs. And since this is my computer, I know what is best for it, they never do.

Google brings more Gemini AI features to Android, saves the best for Pixel 9

Re: a voice-based assistant that you can have a real conversation with

Ain't no way I would pay $20 a month to use that. In fact, I think if Google paid me $20 per month to use it, I still wouldn't use it. And I think I am in the majority.

Microsoft really wants those old Exchange 2016 servers put out to pasture

Exchange has been a mess for years

About a decade ago, I decided to play with Exchange on a NAS that I have. I had a TechNet subscription which allowed me to get Server 2012 R2 and Exchange.

My first try: I install Server in a VM. I first installed the Essentials experience for the great backup it had. I then went to Microsoft's website for instructions on how to install Exchange. I followed the instructions to the letter. But Exchange didn't work. Neither by powershell nor by the new web browser interface. After getting nowhere trying to fix it, I finally discovered Essentials is incompatible with Exchange. Exchange didn't say that during the install.

Second try: So I format the VM and install Server 2012 again. This time I only installed the features and roles Microsoft said Exchange needed. Then I again followed Microsoft's instructions to the letter. Again, Exchange didn't work. Neither by powershell nor by the new web browser interface. After spending days looking up articles to fix the problem, I gave up and bought a book.

Third try: When I looked at the instructions in my book, I noticed quickly it had a step Microsoft never mentioned. I followed the book's instructions to the letter, and finally Exchange worked! I could do what I needed to do in the browser interface ...

... for a month. This was a server in a VM. I didn't touch anything in it. The backend of Exchange was still working, powershell was still working, but the browser interface didn't work anymore. The only that happened was Microsoft install security updates. I left the VM server completely alone, never changing anything. And Exchange broke itself. But since the calendar and email was still working, I left it alone. A year later, both stopped working. I changed nothing on the VM server. Not Exchange powershell worked. It completely broke itself.

I decided then and there that Exchange is not worth the trouble. It was such a broken mess that I don't know how anybody keeps using it. My experience was the pre-SatyaNad days, before he decided to get rid of quality control people to boost stock prices. I can't imagine how horrible it is now that even more testers have been shown the door.

Intel: Our balance sheet is a smoking ruin, but we think our new chips work

Re: The chip shop

I am certain that Intel will eventually turn things around. The real damage over the last few years is to their reputation. Companies that once would have never considered AMD are now openly saying they dumping their Intel servers for AMD ones. The way Intel has handled the damaged 13/14 chips has alienated all but the most blind fanboys. AMD is coming out this a winner only because they have been delivering the last several years.

Google gamed into advertising a malicious version of Authenticator

It seems to me that advertisers only care if the money is good. For that reason, people who use ad-blockers are not the bad people, the advertisers are.

I use Firefox + NoScript and that blocks all of the malicious ads that redirect your browser. But some websites do not work on Firefox -- because testing on multiple products is so passe ... but that is a story for another day. So I use Brave on those websites. And a few try to guilt me into turning off my security software, what they call my ad-blocker. I make it a point to tell them that my security and privacy is more important than their profit. I also tell them that they are the evil ones for allowing malvertising to exist.

Ads are not a problem. It what they have become that is the problem. If ads went to the days when the internet went from luxury to necessity I wouldn't mind so much. If static, non-in-your-face, non-tracking, and safe ads worked once, they can work again.

Skype goes ad-free, which is unusual for Microsoft

Re: Skype sucks

The iron law of business acquisitions goes like this:

1 - Big business buys smaller business.

2 - Big business over time forces out all the people who created the smaller business.

3 - Smaller business product becomes worse because the people who cared about are gone and replaced by people who only care about profit.

4 - People stop using smaller business product.

Skype was once great; not anymore. LinkedIn was once great; not anymore.

Google's plan to drop third-party cookies in Chrome crumbles

Re: Firefox

Firefox also has their problems with privacy. Starting with version 128, Mozilla added an option "Allow websites to perform privacy-preserving ad measurement". Mozilla didn't openly tell you about this option, and it was turned on by default. From my point of view, "ad measurement" is just as wrong as third party cookie tracking and everything else Google does to track you.

Copilot+ PCs software compatibility issues left to you to sort out, with help from crowdsourcers

Re: nice measure...

The real question is: How does Microsoft know how many app minutes people are using to begin with? What I do on my computer is none of their business! How long I play a game is none of their business! Which program I install is none of their business! My personal information is none of their business!

Feds sue Adobe and execs for stinging subscribers with 'hidden' cancellation fees

Re: Subscription services are convenient, flexible and cost effective

A more convenient, flexible, and cost effective way would be to ban software by subscription and require the creator to provide updates for at least 10 years after they stopped selling that version. In other words, software is not licensed but owned. (Antivirus type software would be allowed to charge yearly for the definition updates, but the software is still owned.) If the creator does not provide a physical disc to install the software, they must allow the download of that software forever. Finally, if the software requires activation, the activation servers must be available forever or a patch must be provided to bypass activation. Now that would be convenient, flexible, and cost effective! For me, the customer, at least.

Oracle Java police start knocking on Fortune 200's doors for first time

Oracle is pure evil

Oracle makes their employees sign binding arbitration clauses. And when the Oracle paid arbitrator has the audacity to bite the hand that feeds them, Oracle sues them. Oracle can sue you, but will not let you sue them. They are an evil company. To this day I am convinced they have a factory dedicated to punching puppies and kicking kittens. I would rather do without than to give them any money, ever.

Intel details how Lunar Lake PC chips deliver 120 TOPS

Microsoft's bar

"In an effort to define the market, Microsoft has set the bar at 40 TOPS to earn its designation as a "Copilot+ PC" that can take advantage of its AI bells and whistles."

Which is why I want my next CPU to feature (-40,000,000,000) TOPS. The further this AI fad stays away from my PC, the better. I am willing to pay extra for a computer without any so-called AI features.

PayPal is planning an ad network built off your purchase history

Re: Remind me : Musk has been thrown out of PayPal, right ?

I closed my PayPal account when they updated the terms that allowed them to seize your funds if you made social media posts they don't like and also because they no longer refund the 3% processing fee if the other party requested a refund. Soon after PayPal did that, other credit card processors soon copied them and called it industry standard. To me, it is the principle of the matter.

Re: You just bought a kettle...

You should have skipped Amazon and gone to Spatula City instead.