Posts by Bob Camp

Are you getting it? Yes, armageddon it: Mass hysteria takes hold as the Windows 7 axe falls

Re: Microsoft Win10 Specs

I'm running it on a Compaq Presario, two 2 GHz cores, 4 GB RAM, and 30 GB partition and it runs great. This PC has a Windows Vista sticker on it.

Way better than Linux, which for some reason locks up on boot, suspend, resume, or just randomly whenever it wants. I think it's the Nvidia graphics, but the open source drivers cause massive flickering and Nvidia's proprietary drivers just aren't working. I've tried a few flavors of Ubuntu, Mint, Zorin, Manjaro ... all have the same problem.

If your PC was running Windows 7, it'll run Windows 10. One trick I haven't seen anywhere else is to disable all the background apps you don't use or don't need to run in the background. That really speeds things up.

Big bang theory: Was mystery explosion over New York caused by a meteor? Dunno. By a military jet? Maybe...

I heard it

I live north of Syracuse, New York. It sounded like a large explosion. It shook the house. At first I thought it was inside my house, so I walked around to see if anything was wrong, like part of my house was missing or on fire. Then I got a few text messages from my neighbors saying they heard it too. We thought maybe a gas explosion somewhere in the neighborhood, but then we realized people heard it from over 50 miles away.

I did not see the streak or a bright flash of light, but I was indoors. Others apparently saw the streak and there are a couple of cameras that caught the bright flash a few minutes before the boom.

Apple, Samsung feel the pain as smartphone market slumps to lowest shipments in 5 YEARS

I also have a Moto G6 and agree with you. It's plenty fast enough for me and battery usually lasts two days unless I've been using the phone a lot. Plus, if I lose or drop it, I'll just go buy another one.

The same thing that happened to PCs is happening to smartphones. Low and mid-range products are plenty fast enough for almost everybody.

Crystal ball gazers declare that Windows 10 has finally overtaken Windows 7

Re: Curious about the enterprise situation.

In the U.S, most places lease their PCs for three years on a staggered schedule. Since two years ago, the new PCs trickling in to my company have had Windows 10 on them. Nobody upgrades their PC from 7 to 10; when the lease on their PC has run out, they just turn in their Win 7 PC and get a new Win 10 PC. And life goes on without any complaints or hiccups.

Windows 10 can carry on slurping even when you're sure you yelled STOP!

And you think Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon are any better?

I find it humorous when people complain about Microsoft doing this while continuing to use their smartphone.

I find it more humorous when people post, "that's why I'm running Linux" while using Chrome to make that very post.

Microsoft Windows 10 October update giving HP users BSOD

Re: Again

If you're having team meetings, you should be running the Enterprise version of Windows which allows your IT department to schedule updates.

Intel's commitment to making its stuff secure is called into question

Re: Speed

The last time I looked at buying a processor (two years ago), I wasn't concerned about security at all. It was all about speed. Benchmarks all measured speed and none measured security. I know everybody else did the same thing. So Intel and AMD gave the masses what they wanted, and you can't really fault them for that.

Safety and security always seem to be an afterthought.

Sitting pretty in IPv4 land? Look, you're gonna have to talk to IPv6 at some stage

Re: Never!

NAT isn't technically a security feature. And collusion isn't technically a crime. However, collusion has over a dozen different crimes associated with it. And all of THOSE crimes ARE illegal. Quit playing the semantics game, as an American I'm well aware of this game and am tired of it.

IPv4 NAT forces you to use your router, which in turn forces you to use your router's firewall. And if something breaks, it fails safely and blocks all Internet traffic until you fix it. That is a security feature, and one that the industry has used as a crutch for a long time. Home users doubly so.

Internet engineers tear into United Nations' plan to move us all to IPv6

IPv6 should have taken off by now

Isn't IPv6 over 20 years old? If it were actually good in everything it had to do wouldn't it be widely adopted by now?

If I had a nickel every time I heard "this is the year IPv6 will really take off" and "this is the year of the Linux desktop" I'd be a billionaire.

Backwards compatibility is *everything* in the technology world, especially if it's something the average Joe uses. I don't care if your solution is supposedly superior, if it's missing backwards compatibility than it's actually inferior despite what you think. Your 4G cell phone still supports 3G and 2G for a reason. Your 4K TV still supports 480i for a reason. You can run almost all Vista apps in Windows 10 for a reason. And in all those examples, there is a consumer-visible benefit of upgrading unlike IPv6.

Things were far different 20 years ago than they are today. Why continue push a 20-year-old solution for a modern problem? So the UN came up with solutions, which the IPv6 advocates/snobs were automatically going to hate for various reasons (mainly pride). But the real message from the UN to IPv6 advocates is that backwards compatibility with IPv4 is essential. Stop providing excuses and start providing solutions.

IPv6 growth is slowing and no one knows why. Let's see if El Reg can address what's going on

NAT isn't security, but does enforce its use

IPv6 was designed too many years ago where security wasn't a problem. Nobody today would dare connect anything directly to the Internet unless it was protected with a good firewall.

IPv4 forces you to use NAT, which in turn forces you to use your router's firewall. If something isn't working between your router and your device, you have no Internet connection or broken functionality (i.e. port isn't opened or being forwarded correctly) while you attempt to troubleshoot it. Which is a good thing. It fails closed. It is obvious something is wrong, and your device is protected while you troubleshoot the problem.

Anybody who's pro-IPv6 thinks using NAT with it is blasphemy. They will say NAT doesn't provide security and that you can still have a hardware firewall. But they won't mention that it's not immediately obvious if all of your devices are actually using it or if the firewall is configured correctly. Your devices could be directly connected to the Internet and you wouldn't know it because your device would be working fine -- until it was pwned. Which would probably be within 30 minutes....

Between that and the fact that IPv6 isn't backwards compatible, I don't think IPv6 will ever be widely adopted. It is a 20th century protocol and we are now in 2018. It's time to go back to the drawing board.

Nervous Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg passes Turing Test in Congress

Facebook is not the only one

We all know that Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon are all doing the same thing. It's in their EULAs too. People just blindly give their privacy permissions away, never stopping to think why Facebook needs access to your text messages or contacts.

Ubuntu wants to slurp PCs' vital statistics – even location – with new desktop installs

You can switch to a different Linux distro.

You can also use a version of Windows 10 that is not Home or Pro to disable all that telemetry.

Of course, the moment you use Google to search for anything all that privacy goes out the window.

'WHAT THE F*CK IS GOING ON?' Linus Torvalds explodes at Intel spinning Spectre fix as a security feature

It's about time

Intel and AMD are going to take several years and a few hundred engineers to properly fix Spectre in their hardware. That "fixed" ID bit Linus wants is going to be '0' for the next 4-5 years. Although there are no active exploits for Spectre now, I'd have to imagine somebody will develop one within that time frame.

Which is why everybody needs to run an anti-virus program with real-time protection. Even if you run Linux, OS X, or Android. Yes, even you. You should have already been doing that anyway, but now you can't hide behind the false pretense that "my machine is stable, fast, *AND* exploit-free". It never was really exploit-free, it's currently not stable, and now it won't even be that fast.

Microsoft patches Windows to cool off Intel's Meltdown – wait, antivirus? Slow your roll

Re: Not just AV

Which is why nobody should be forcing the update. Just let it happen naturally. Some systems may be vulnerable for several more days, but whats that compared to 22 years?

Yes, your old iPhone is slowing down: iOS hits brakes on CPUs as batteries wear out

Re: Smartphones should be inexpensive, disposable commodities

I can tell you that smartphones are designed to have a churn rate of just over 2 years. Anything you get beyond that is a bonus. I know this because I worked for a cell phone manufacturer.

Customers don't want to believe it, because they have to justify to themselves that the high prices they are paying (especially if you're an iCustomer) are an investment. They have to tell themselves it will last a long time and that it won't quickly depreciate. But they are just kidding themselves.

The iPhone 6S, released just over two years ago, is now considered to be "old."

Re: Nexus 7 tablet

For my Nexus 7 2012, I put stock KitKat back on then rooted it just to turn off the system update. It runs like a dream.

So the 'Year of Linux' never happened. When is it Chrome OS's turn?

Re: Linux on the desktop

Printing can be such a huge hassle on Linux, Android, and ChromeOS. And forget about scanning. It's like they don't realize that paper is still widely used.

None of them can run the latest version of iTunes or Microsoft Office either, and that along with printing and scanning issues make them non-starters for most desktops.

CrashPlan crashes out of cloudy consumer backup caper

SOS backup has unlimited version retention, but can get a little pricey.

iDrive is fast and has decent pricing, but not unlimited version retention.

Backblaze is soooooo slow.

Feelin' safe and snug on Linux while the Windows world burns? Stop that

Re: How do people find the time for Win10 1607 Post install Bloatware?..And its getting worse.

I installed Windows 10 in 20 minutes last weekend. Everything was recognized, all ready to go. Not sure what your problem was. You did grab the latest version off the Internet first, right? That has all the patches already in it. Just like Mint 18.2 did.

I mean, I could install Mint 17 and get the same experience you got with Windows 10, but that wouldn't be a fair comparison.

HMS Windows XP: Britain's newest warship running Swiss Cheese OS

Less vulnerable than most other systems. Somehow I don't think warships are connected to the Internet, so sneaker net is the only way viruses can be spread. But since everybody is trained not to plug anything in from home, even that risk is very low. Generally speaking (no pun intended), on defense equipment the CD-ROM drives and USB ports are disconnected to prevent potential infection. Finally, it's possible they're running Windows XPe, which will have fewer vulnerabilities since a lot of the services in XP don't ever load.

I just bought brand new pieces of test equipment that use Windows XP. I assume it's the embedded version. And they even have Ethernet ports on them. In the past we have used embedded XP devices on our network all the time and have never been infected.

Microsoft patched more Malware Protection Engine bugs last week

Re: Leaking seive

Ah yes, Linux. Where kernel updates are discouraged by the #1 distribution because they have a semi-decent chance of breaking your computer. Where there is typically NO virus detection so you can be pwned and not know it. Where security vulnerabilities go for a decade without being patched. Security theater at its finest.

This new type of virus is ironic, using your malware detector to install malware. I'm sure other third-party AV software have similar bugs in them.

Don't install our buggy Windows 10 Creators Update, begs Microsoft

Re: How do you abort the update?

You're fine. I'm running the Creators Update without any issues so far. I just let the PC do its own thing. I didn't even notice it had happened until I expanded my taskbar icons and there was a Window Defender icon with a green checkmark in its lower-right corner.

Microsoft just doesn't want people to go get it and force the update manually. If the update is happening on your PC without any prodding by you, it means Microsoft has blessed your PC to get the update.

New iPad revealed. Big price cut is main feature

Re: New Tablet

My iPad 4th gen died after just three years (at least I got it for free). And unfortunately, my daughter is part of an iGroup that uses iMessage so I have to buy a new one. But we're otherwise an Android household because we aren't fools and want to keep our money.

It's weird because a refurbished iPad Air with 16GB will be just $10 less than this brand new 32 GB iPad. I'm hoping Apple also drops the prices of their refurbs. Maybe the eBay prices will drop as well.

Confirmed: TSA bans gear bigger than phones from airplane cabins

Re: Let's see what other countries do

The U.K. has implemented the same ban.

Well, (theoretically) it's about time

It's pretty trivial to rig a battery so that the thermal runaway reaction occurs on demand. We have all kinds of devices that do this (hoverboards, Samsung Note 7) that do this DESPITE the safeguards in place to prevent that from happening. Disable the safeguards and you have a bomb without the explosive residue that are typical of other bombs. To that end, I'd ban cell phones with removable batteries too, as some of these phablets (like the Note 7) have relatively large batteries. Or I'd at least visually inspect all cell phones to see if they've been tampered with.

As far as the argument that everything is scanned, it is done so poorly that they may as well not scan at all. The TSA's positive detection rate is a pitiful 5%.

Business travelers are going to complain, and rightly so. If you're paranoid about somebody hacking into your laptop, take out the hard drive and carry it with you. If you're worried about damage or theft, don't bring it and put the data/presentation on a USB stick. Or ship a notebook PC to your destination ahead of time. Also, I'm sure the company you're traveling to has a competent IT department and can loan you a notebook PC when you arrive (our IT department does this quite a bit).

Don't get me wrong, this whole thing is still silly because it's easy to circumvent. You can rig your PC to explode in the cargo hold when it receives a signal from your cell phone. Or put it on a timer. You can book two separate flights (but that might raise a red flag). And I don't think the risk of an intentional explosion is greater than the risk of an unintentional explosion.

But I thought that it was silly to ban all liquids when rechargeable batteries were the bigger theoretical threat. I thought they'd start letting liquids back onto planes, but this idiotic administration went the OTHER way (no surprise).

'I'm innocent!' says IT contractor on trial after Office 365 bill row spiraled out of control

The most astonishing thing in this article is that the pound is now just 1.25 USD! I can remember when it was worth more than 2 USD! Are you guys across the pond OK?

Don't panic, I'm sure our new President will screw something up and the dollar will plummet. Just hang in there.

Chevy Bolt electric car came alive, reversed into my workbench, says stunned bloke

No American drives a stick anymore, unless it's a sports car. So you only use the parking brake when parking on a steep hill.

Plus, in the north, with all the salt on the roads in the winter, the cable sometimes corrodes and the parking brake gets stuck. Sometimes it can't be applied, and sometimes it won't release. In my state (New York), the parking brake is inspected each year, but in many states it isn't.

It looks like the car went into neutral somehow and rolled into his bench. I think there would be more damage if it actually had backed into his work bench. But I know some electric cars don't have a neutral, because they have to be towed on a flatbed.

Microsoft Germany says Windows 7 already unfit for business users

There's nothing wrong with Windows 10 Enterprise for businesses. It even has an LTSB version so you don't get updates, just security and other bug fixes. And even the Pro version lets you defer feature upgrades for months if you want.

What the real problem is, is businesses trying to use a Home edition in a Pro or Enterprise environment to save a little money. The Home version is tailored towards the home user, period. It has "features" (major annoyances) that aren't at all appropriate for a work environment. I think people who work out of their home should use the Pro version. Even IT people should use the Pro version on their home PCs, because they generally know what they are doing and it gets rid of almost all of their complaints about the Home version, which they mistake as general Windows 10 problems.

How the NYE leap second clocked Cloudflare – and how a single character fixed it

Exactly. Ask a programmer how many seconds are in a minute, and they will say "60", which is incorrect.

Like it or not, here are ALL your October Microsoft patches

Re: How big?

Well, you can go into your network settings and say you have a metered connection. That will disable automatic updates in Windows 10.

Or if you have any other version of Windows 10 besides Home, you can disable automatic updates using the group policy editor.

NIST: People have given up on cybersecurity – it's too much hassle

Re: Ditch Windows

Most people need the latest version of iTunes to work, because most people have an iDevice. They may also need to actually use their printer and Microsoft Office.

And FYI, Linux web browsers get hijacked just as easily as their Windows versions. So Linux won't protect you if you visit a nefarious web site just before you do your online banking.

US govt pleads: What's it gonna take to get you people using IPv6?

It's been too long

If IPv6 hasn't taken over by now, it'll never be widespread. It's actually obsolete -- it was developed 20 years ago, and the Internet has completely changed since then. IPv6 was actually designed as an alternative to IPv4, not an extension. As a result, there was no defined upgrade path, so nobody upgraded to it and nobody completely dropped IPv4 support.

Also, it's a lot easier for an end user to securely configure ONE device instead of the dozen or so devices that are in his house. As a result, he (and everybody else) is hiding behind NAT and the firewall in his router. Yet IPv6 essentially eliminates NAT, which is the #1 Internet security device in use today. Twenty years ago, security wasn't a problem. Today, if an end user connects an unprotected device directly to the Internet, it will be hacked by the time he downloads, installs, and configures his firewall.

My router and ISP support IPv6, but all the devices connected to that router are IPv4 with non-routable addresses. This is how most people have it set up, even though they probably don't know it. Until their router crashes from all the juggling going on, at which point tech. support will tell them to configure the router to be IPv4 all the way (like I did).

I hope the next iteration is just IPv4 with more bytes in the IP address.

Microsoft deletes Windows 10 nagware from Windows 7 and 8

Re: Windows Update is unbelievably shit

Try this:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3172605

It has the fixes for Windows Update you need. I had the same problem but this fixed it. I can't help but think the Windows 10 offer messed it up somehow.

Microsoft's Windows 10 nagware goes FULL SCREEN in final push

Re: KB:3173040

You don't have to do all that. The two registry entries suggested by Microsoft to block all this work great. This is supposed to be an IT forum, right? Why is everybody whining and complaining about something they could easily fix?

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3080351

I agree that we shouldn't have to do this, but it's simple enough to do. I mean, I also shouldn't have to spend 10 hours hunting down just the right version of driver for my graphics adapter for Linux Mint. I also shouldn't have to buy a Lightning cable once every six months.

No means no: Windows 10 nagware's red X will stop update – Microsoft

Subkey: HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate

DWORD value: DisableOSUpgrade = 1

Subkey: HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Gwx

DWORD value: DisableGwx = 1

The first one disables the auto upgrade of Windows 10. The second one gets rid of the notifications. No need for special software.

I do agree there should be a "no and don't ask again" option.

CIA says it 'accidentally' nuked torture report hard drive

That's weird

Last week I watched a Showtime (premium cable channel) documentary regarding U.S. policy on torture. One of the CIA officials openly admitted to destroying the evidence. He said he did it to protect his subordinates from civil and criminal charges. I think the show was called "The Spymasters".

Anyway, that completely contradicts this article.

Mud sticks: Microsoft, Windows 10 and reputational damage

Oh please. Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Canonical (Ubuntu), and a hundred other websites along with your smartphone and tablet are data mining your browsing habits and/or "non-personally identifying information". Privacy in electronics is unfortunately a thing of the past. It astonishes me that when Microsoft wants to get in on the act too, it's only *now* that people are getting offended by all that data mining that's been going on for years.

As far as Linux goes, I need an OS that can run on my hardware and support all my programs. Linux simply isn't it. There are ALWAYS issues with Linux (including Mint 17.3) whether it's my PC not waking up properly, to unsupported hardware, to graphics issues, and let's not forget iTunes and PC games requiring Direct X.

The problem Windows 10 had was twofold: it was somehow expected to resurrect PC sales in an era when smartphones and tablets have taken over, and it was too aggressive in getting people to update too soon after launch. The aggressiveness actually offended people and caused some problems since the OS wasn't quite ready for prime time. Today, Windows 10 works just fine on the same notebook that Mint 17.3 simply couldn't handle, but because Microsoft botched the launch Windows 10 will have this stigma on it for a long time.

FBI backs down against Apple: Feds may be able to crack killer's iPhone without iGiant's help

I don't think it's a precedent-setting case. There's already been one other case where the FBI has been denied access, yet the judge in this case granted it. So apparently it's on a case-by-case basis.

The important thing to remember is that your phone is totally hackable, and Apple is kidding themselves by proclaiming that it isn't. I also doubt the FBI will share the exploit they used with Apple.

Now that we can put all that behind us, Apple can resume pushing iWallet to its iDiots.

Apple fires legal salvo at FBI for using All Writs law in iPhone brouhaha

Re: safe cracking

But Apple could tie the hacked software to a specific IMEI/MEID. The software wouldn't run if the IMEI/MEID doesn't match. That way, even if the software leaks out (which hasn't been a problem in the past) it wouldn't work on someone else's phone. So it's not "all locks" that's the issue.

The issue is more like the FBI forcing Apple to hire full time locksmiths just for this purpose.

Re: "rescue neighborhoods from terrorists"

The word "terrorism" has such an overly broad definition in the U.S. now that this act is considered an act of domestic terrorism. Pretty much any random shooting incident involving several people is considered to be a terror attack. The phone's owner is therefore a terrorist.

Besides, many people were killed at Pearl Harbor and that was a U.S. territory at the time. So to answer your question, at least 1,117 have died on U.S. soil.

FBI v Apple spat latest: Bill Gates is really upset that you all thought he was on the Feds' side

Re: Bill's "more nuanced view"

Dozens of different judges have given dozens of different rulings on each of those phones individually? I didn't see that in any of the articles or comments. I understand precedent, but judges don't always blindly follow precedent, hence the case-by-case argument.

When the government seizes your phone using a legal court order, it's no longer your phone and the information on it is no longer your information. It's theirs. They can do what they want with it. You may not like it, so either stop putting sensitive information on smartphones or go change the law. But good luck with that, because deep down people want the bad guys' phones to be unlocked by the government. They'll take security over liberty every time.

Finally, Apple is saying that they don't trust themselves enough to keep that special iOS version in-house. They believe the software will get leaked. And yet you trust them with protecting your personal data after they admitted that they can't even protect their own software? Really?

Either way, the data on a smartphone isn't nearly as secure as everybody thinks it is. It's making people second-guessing the security of smartphones. And that's why this case is getting so much attention.

Re: Bill's "more nuanced view"

They're not violating your freedoms. They have a search warrant. You don't have to provide your password, but the government has the right to hack into it any way they can.

The issue here is if the government can order a company to assist hacking one of their products. I don't see why the government can't order a company to do that if they have a search warrant. There's no protection under the law for Apple, and a judge has agreed. It would have to be on a case-by-case basis. And yes, there are dozens of cases where this has come up. So what? Is it that hard to believe that criminals might use smartphones?

However, I don't think the government can order Apple to introduce a backdoor into all of their products. That would cut Apple out of the loop and entrust their product's security to the government. You'd know that backdoor password would leak out, and then *everybody's* phones would be affected.

State Department finds 22 classified emails in Hillary’s server, denies wrongdoing

Re: We need to know the truth

It's not illegal to receive a classified e-mail. It's illegal to send one to an unclassifed user. Sending them to a classified person using an insecure server is also illegal. But not all e-mails for work are classified.

The key answers are (since I worked with classified documents before):

a) Don't know, but that would get her in trouble. Receiving them won't get her in trouble. Allowing a third-party company to back them up could get her into trouble if they were classified at the time.

b) You're not required to do anything except immediately delete them. And maybe yell at whoever sent it to you. But remember they may not have been classified at the time she first received them.

c) She didn't want to carry around two smart phones, two PCs, etc.

And yes, the U.S. is dumb enough to retroactively classify e-mails. That's the problem here. I think Hillary simply didn't know that or knew it but didn't realize it happens more than it should. Having the private server is not illegal per se. But you can get into trouble pretty easily if somebody else screws up.

How Microsoft will cram Windows 10 even harder down your PC's throat early next year

So just block it already!

You guys are aware of this utility, right?

http://blog.ultimateoutsider.com/2015/08/using-gwx-stopper-to-permanently-remove.html

I found it pretty quickly by searching the Internet. I'm not the kind of person to type a five-page rant on something that takes 5 minutes to fix. But I guess people have to get upset about something.

Microsoft is pushing Windows 10 when it isn't that proven yet. I think the aggressive behavior they're doing now would be more appropriate 6-9 months from now. There are too many incompatibilities in hardware and software that still need to be worked out for them to be pushing it like they are today. But early next year, they're going to make the Windows 10 update an automatic recommended update for everybody (except Enterprise users), and since most people have their PCs set to automatically install recommended updates I can imagine more contempt from Microsoft then.

Microsoft now awfully pushy with Windows 10 on Win 7, 8 PCs – Reg readers hit back

Re: I actually opted in for the auto update...

One of my PCs does that. I found out through clicking on the Windows 10 system tray icon that having my PC set to auto-login on a non-administrator account is delaying the update. Microsoft is doing the rollout in waves, so if they think your PC will have trouble they don't bother you.

The other PC reminds me once every two weeks how great Windows 10 is by popping up a window that I have to close. Otherwise it's behaving.

Dead device walking: Apple iPod Touch 6th generation

Where's the market?

Teens and adults typically want a smartphone. The iPod is now relegated to children under the age of 12 (or so) whose parents don't actually want to pay $600 plus service just so little Johnny can play games in waiting rooms and restaurants.

However, since cell phone contracts get renewed every two years, there are tons of old smartphones out there. When Mom get her new iPhone, she just gives Johnny her old iPhone without service. I suppose if Mom broke her old iPhone, then maybe she'd be interested in an iPod. But I don't see a lot of customers for this product today.

And for the price of an iPod, you can get a Moto G 2nd Generation phone, unlocked, without service, for cheaper. Then when Johnny grows up into John, you can just get him service for his existing device. There is no Android version of an iPod, because there are smartphones and even some tablets out there that are cheaper. Heck, even a used Moto X is only $150 on eBay.

Microsoft nixes A-V updates for XP, exposes 180 MEEELLION luddites

Microsft A/V support ending? No great loss.

Well, there are other anti-virus solutions than Microsoft's. Their solutions were never that good anyway. Many of the other A/V solutions still support XP.

I tried out Linux (XFCE Mint 17.1), but it ran very slowly and did not support my printer. So I erased its partitions and am sticking with XP on that machine. It just works.

Clinton defence of personal email server fails to placate critics

Re: Convenience

The Secret Service (Department of Homeland Security) was responsible for securing and maintaining the server. She used her husband's (former President) e-mail server. She also asked if it was allowed and she was told that it was. Now maybe that's bad information, but it isn't like she was secretly using it or was blatantly disregarding what she was told.

Colin Powell did the same thing when he was Secretary of State. Nobody in D.C. knows what the hell they're doing, this is just another example of it.

At first I thought it was a huge deal, but the more I read about it the less worried I get. I still wish she hadn't used that private e-mail account, but the NSA probably has an archive of all those e-mails anyway.

One year on, Windows 8.1 hits milestone, nudges past XP

Too late to save Windows 8

The latest version of Windows 8.1 is finally at the point where you can easily use a keyboard and mouse. I have a touch screen notebook PC, so I have a touch pad, touch screen, keyboard, and mouse. I find myself using the touch screen less and less. There are also a lot of little but important updates, such as putting the power icon right on the home screen instead of burying it under menus.

The problem is, it took Microsoft way too long to get to this point, so Windows 8 will now always be labeled as a failure no matter how good it is now. The other problem is that their apps suck, so nobody is willing to put up with the new UI (Metro/Modern/Whatever is the name of the day) to use to those apps.

Nexus 7 fandroids tell of salty taste after sucking on Google's Lollipop

Re: Not running terribly well

Every time Google comes out with a major OS update, some people complain about how slow their tablet has become. It also happened with 4.2, 4.3, and 4.4. With 4.4.4, I get an occasional 5 second lock up. I also have never done a factory reset and have 130 apps installed. So yeah, I'm kind of expecting that. But it's also the nature of the beast. Linux is best with a clean start, which is a huge PITA and shouldn't have to be done, but at least there are third-party solutions in Android to backup the app data. For whatever reason, Linux-based OSs don't do well with patches.

There are very, very few people who have still issues with Lollipop and a Nexus 7 2012 once they factory reset and DON'T reinstall any Facebook apps.