Posts by td97402

Windows 10 marks the end of 'pay once, use forever' software

Time to get a very high end used Thinkpad with W7, I think...

There are brand new, high end ThinkPads available to purchase at least for a while longer.

'Fix these Windows 10 Horrors': Readers turn their guns on Redmond

Control Panel or Pc Settings

The author writes: "Either bin and kill old control panel and functionally fix the new panels, or kill the new panels and do control through control panel."

I tend to agree but I'd suggest instead:

Microsoft has a de facto monopoly on business operating systems for computers. The need to remember that and recall that a lot of business do not have the luxury of abandoning legacy systems, can't really afford to retrain thousands of workers, etc. How about insuring that I can manage my computer from Command Shell/Power Shell, Control Panel or PC Settings interchangeably? Oh, and don't forget that I need to manage all the new Metro gimmicks in Group Policy too!

Ballmer's billion-dollar blunders: When he gambled Microsoft's money and lost

Re: Xbox 360

To be fair, the entire industry switched away from lead about that time and not only in the E.U. The first generation of replacement solder materials seemed pretty sketchy. It wasn't just the XBox 360 either. Lookup the "nVidia graphics recall" sometime. 21 million dodgy laptops due to bad "plastic" solder there. You might also Google "non lead solder problems".

Jeep breach: Scared? You should be, it could be you next

Hey! There should be an app for that!!

No doubt some Chrysler VP or other thought himself technically savvy and had a little "eureka" moment. At the very next board meeting he explained his idea. Then the head of marketing chimed in and decided it would be insanely awesome in commercials to have someone unlock a car's door and start the engine from her cell phone while her husband and his buddy watched. The marketing guy got the insane part right. Anyway, the decision was made by the board and the engineers were directed to make it so. No discussion of the merits of the scheme at the engineering level ever occurred.

SpaceX's blast shock delays world's MOST POWERFUL ROCKET

Re: Re-Use

I believe the Shuttle program quit re-using the SRBs right after the Challenger exploded. The Shuttle orbiter itself became the only reusable part albeit with a massive amount of refurbishment following each launch.

Microsoft to Windows 10 consumers: You'll get updates LIKE IT or NOT

Re: no matter what MS force on us

Now, let's not exaggerate things too much. Or, if your doctor/clinic/hospital really uses consumer versions of WIndows then maybe you should look elsewhere for your health care?

Enterprise Volume License customers will be on the Long Term Support Branch and their IT staff will decide when to update their computers.

Re: no matter what MS force on us

Did you even bother to read the article? Microsoft will be pushing new features, and possibly removing existing features, by way of the mandated update process. This is the most onerous license has ever forced on consumer versions of Windows. You'd think they'd learnt a lesson when they forced the Metro Start Screen on purchasers of new Windows 8 computers but no.

Re: no matter what MS force on us

Remember that you don't own the the copy of Windows installed on your computer. Microsoft does. You are given a limited rights license to use that copy of Windows. Basically, whatever bits Microsoft chooses to allow you to access this week will have to do, no matter what you had last week, no matter whether it continues to suit your needs or is fit for any specific purpose. You can hire a lawyer and sue but judges will point at the license agreement and tell you to go away. So, unless you are a big boy and buy and Enterprise Volume License, screw you.

We tried using Windows 10 for real work and ... oh, the horror

Isn't this the way software is done these days?

Have you not seen the new Apple Music release on iOS (or iTunes 12 on Mac/PC)? Calling it a disjointed, confusing mess is me being nice. Windows 10 is much the same. Both seemed to have been built in sections with little time or thought devoted to the overarching design.

Speaking of design, it seems that the artistic design people run things at Apple, and oh does MS want to be like Apple. I once appreciated the minimalist design out of Cupertino but since iOS 7, not so much, and there's MS following right along in their footsteps. Come on guys, fresh? Clean? Modern? What about FUNCTIONAL? Freaking 30 years of GUI engineering and design tossed out the window in favor of the Metro UI? How many times will MS iterate through wholesale batches of tweaks trying to shoehorn a so-so phone UI onto the desktop?

Here's a shout out to MIcrosoft: After more than 20 years of being a loyal Windows user, I no longer have a Windows computer in my house.

Is it possible that in going from 8 to 10 they've skipped the decent release?

Yes, they most certainly did. Windows 9 should have been a return to the classic interface of Windows 7 , perhaps keeping the tweaks and optimizations under the hood from Windows 8. Basically like New Coke was replaced by Coke Classic and simply became Coke again. Where is my Windows Classic?

RE: I'm probably not going to even look at it until SP1

Unfortunately they've adopted this Windows as a service model and you'll never see another Service Pack. Instead they are going to dribble out updates and patches and new features continuously.

Yep, it's true: Android is the poor man's phone worldwide

It really is about price...

I would be willing to bet that half of the market share that Google enjoys is based on low-end, sort of smart phones in use in 3rd world countries. I'd go further and say that much of the Android install base is not Google Play attached due to these non-conforming, low-cost, low performance phones. They're kind of the new "feature phone", Smart-In-Name-Only.

BOOM! Stephen Elop shuffled out of Microsoft door

Windows & Devices Group?

They've made it official! Windows is all about mobile devices and desktop users can just go pound sand.

US mega-hack: White House orders govt IT to do what it should have done in the first place

Air Gapping Anyone?

You'd think that some of the systems that have been hacked recently should never have been accessible from the public Internet. Oh and before anyone brings it up, the only working USB ports on such systems should be behind physical lock and key as well.

Elon Musk's $4.9bn taxpayer windfall revealed

Re: how capitalism is supposed to work??

HAHAHAHAHA!!! ROTFLMAO

While true that there were no income taxes 100 years ago, there was plenty of other taxes collected and there are ways besides tax dollars that governments enrich their favorite citizens. Thousands and thousands of acres land were given to the railroads along the rail lines they built. The government paid per mile for the trans-continental railroad to be built and let the railroads keep the rail line.

Pure capitalism has never existed and probably would not be something you'd actually care for if it did. The government has always been around to put some limits on and set some goals for private enterprise.

Re: Seems legit

Quite a well written treatise on personal income tax but I wonder if it is really on point. Billionaires tend not to get paychecks. I'd say that everyone subject to income tax withholding from their paycheck is a common taxpayer.

New Windows 10 will STAGGER to its feet, says Microsoft OS veep

Re: Why "upgrade"?

I am with you. Win 7 support ends in 2020. I think I will at least semi-retire then too.

Oh, and I believe you meant Dumb and Dumberer...

Re: see nothing worthwhile on windows 10 here

To be fair, XBone is doing OK. Now Windows Phone seems done.

Re: Tech enthusiast, not necessarily IT.

WHy does a calculator app have to take up 1/3 of the screen again? Microsoft really wanted us to buy into the Metro app thing with their half-baked release of Windows 8. Perhaps the Metro apps are great on a phone or small tablet but you missed the point of the original post. Many of us have reasonable complex workflows and the Metro environment just was not suited. Windows isn't Windows without Windows!

Before you point out the Windows 10 allows Metro apps to run in Windows I must warn you I've got the preview running right here. Metro apps are overly large on screen because all the UI elements are double spaced for thumb friendliness (touch) even when I am not in tablet mode. The damn calculator app insists on taking up twice the space of the now MIA calculator program of Windows 7 and that is just one example.

I would have been OK with a Metro emulator to allow me to run Metro apps on my desktop PC. I resent the complete makeover of the full Windows UI to cater to the tablet monkeys.

Apple about to make Apple TV WAY LESS SUCKY - report

Re: UK media rights problems

Well, in the US, it is not always the cable companies doing the bundling. It is the content providers. If you want to carry NBC then you are going to have to buy the other channels they own, like USA, SyFy, etc.

Apple's Tim Cook and Salesforce's Marc Benioff DECLARE WAR on anti-gay Indiana

@jal - "It's all a bit cyberpunk, isn't it, when Corporations can have a direct influence on political policy. Not even via the behind-the-scenes funding and lobbying, this is Big Corporations publically announcing the way they want the laws to be."

Well, as I recall this has been going on forever. Back in the 50s the chairman of GM was quite cozy with Eisenhower and when called out about it quite famously said "What is good for GM is good for the country and vice versa."

Re: Indiana, WTF?

"Common Sense is almost totally absent in a large part of the US especially (IMHO) amongst those who watch Fox News."

I'm pretty sure that you've misspelled it, I believe it is FAUX NEWS.

Chip rumor-gasm: Intel to buy Altera! Samsung to buy AMD! ... or not

Re: Samsung AMD one sounds a bit rubbish

A lot of companies use AMD processors. Lenovo is using them in their ThinkPad E555 series of laptops and their ThinkCentre M79 series of desktops. I also think that AMD shot themselves in the foot on more than one occasion. They had Intel running scared 10 years ago then they followed up K8 and K10 with the Bulldozer and that was the beginning of the end.

This ISN'T Net Neutrality. This is Net Google. This is Net Netflix – the FCC's new masters

Give me a break!

The new regulation specifically allows the ISPs to manage traffic. How you get from the false assertion of no ISP traffic management leading to government control of traffic is really hilarious.

Cry me a river...

"on the other side it creates restrictions on the old status quo"

You mean the Cable & Telco companies that have been caught red handed throttling services that I already paid to access? That old status quo has demonstrated that it needs to be regulated. The Internet companies start behaving badly then we can look to their regulatory needs. Regulation in advance of need is the sort of thing that gives government oversight a bad name.

CONFIRMED: Tiny Windows Server is on the way

RE: So maybe Microsoft aren't so bad...

Yes, they are pretty bad. You are engaging in deflection. Microsoft has actually been convicted of crimes. Were it not for some "hanging chad" in Florida, Microsoft might have even been broken up back in the early 2000s.

$250K: That's what Lenovo earned to rat you out with Superfish

It is more than just SuperFish and more than just Lenovo

Wake up and smell the coffee kids. This problem is not new. Just today I am running a Lenovo Thinkpad's system updater program. It offers me a "free" system check, you know, to speed up my computer. I see a small text link to Iolo T&C. Well, I don't really want Iolo System Mechanic or any other 3rd party software added to my system, I just want the manufacturer drivers and utilities updated! Some bean counter at Lenovo decided to monetize this bit of support effort!

Try talking to HP or Dell or Lenovo or Microsoft tech support past your warranty period. Like as not, they'll refer you to "paid support" and your call will be forwarded to some 3rd party outfit in India that will try to upsell you to some annual support plan for the low, low price...

Monetization of formerly complimentary services is the rule these days, not the exception. It won't change anytime soon because most people buy everything based on price and manufacturers respond by dropping the price of their computers to such razor thin margins that they can't afford to also provide free tech support and updates.

Hey Apple - what's the $178bn for? Are you down with OTT?

Re: BBC Death

WHile I also have no use for most of the shows listed, Archer can be just hilarious, reminds of so many people these days that are into themselves, unwilling to work together, or even listen to one another.

IBM drops patent bomb on Priceline.com

^@#$&*^@#$* Software Patents

I've been saying it for years now and I'll keep on saying it; software patents are evil. We got along for years with software copyrights. The PC revolution would have never happened if software patents were allowed back then and IBM had a patent on BIOS. Only a few countries in the world even allow software patents. Software patents need to be abolished.

Just because you wrote some trivial bit of code and can describe it in vague language so as to obtain a patent should not prevent the rest of us, having never seen your product (if there even is one) let alone its code, from coding the same obvious solution from scratch.

If you spend time and money on software coding then copyright it and then I can either license it or spend time and money to program my own code. That should be protection enough!

Enough is enough: It's time to flush Flash back to where it came from – Hell

Re: This is or isn't funny....

Perhaps you missed his saying his "ex-chromebook". The google Chrome browser on the Chromebook might have supported Flash but since he rooted and installed another OS, I guess it doesn't now. Much like my former Windows laptop that now runs a flavor of Ubuntu and has no flash installed.

Smartphones merge into homogeneous mass as 'flagship fatigue' bites

Re: Obligatory anti-fanboi tirade

Well, I don't know if I am a fanboi, I do know that I am not rich, don't wear designer clothes and my car is 8 years old. I am probably a tired old fart as well. All of that being said, I really like the build quality, simplicity and functionality of the iPhones. It is probably the only "luxury" product I own. I've also had great experience with Apple customer service on the rare occasions I've had to contact them. If Apple has managed to make a hefty profit then good for them. I am really enjoying my iPhone 6 and it didn't cost that much more than other high end phones.

Welcome to Spartan, Microsoft's persuasive argument for... Chrome

I vote WebKit

How about Microsoft just throws in the towel already builds off of WebKit like most of the rest of world. WebKit based browsers, of which Chrome is but one example, are the most widely in the world today. The only other major engine is FireFox Gecko and I think there may be way too much irony in going there after the browser wars :)

The Great Smartphone Massacre: Android bloodbath gathers pace

Re: Chinese advantages?

Yeah, it is tough to be in a developed country, where it is politically impossible to have a FAIR competition with the Chinese and other countries because the corporate types have decided there's money to be made gutting our economy in the name of their bottom line. Now the chinese are discovering the benefits of air so bad in their major cities that they have jumbotrons to show them what the sunset would look like if they could actually see it, or see the jumbotron from more than a few hundred feet away for that matter. Meanwhile, as China becomes more developed, the corporate types are already moving on to even lower cost countries.

Re: Android OEMs are copying Apple in all the wrong ways

Yep, customize and optimize your ARM processor and make it 64 bit before ARM even does. Just a bit of an incremental improvement there. Now rewrite your OS and your preloaded Apps to use 64 bit and gain 25% or more performance in the process. Definitely just another bit of incrementalism. Before anyone points out that I am talking about the iPhone 5s, I am still waiting on my 6, so I won't comment about what it brings to the party...oh wait...a whole new mobile payments system that finally does NFC payments right, so much so that the freaking credit card companies are willing to cough up a slice of their coveted processing fees. Need I go on.

I am interested to see what Android Lollipop is going to look like. I hope they let me upgrade my spare tablet to it some day.

Re: Commoditisation

"There is a small demand for expensive ballpoints made of exotic materials, but they don't write any better."

Oh but they do. Give me a nice Uni-Ball, Pilot or Pentel gel pen any day of the week over the cheap, nearly free ballpoints. I am perfectly willing to, and do, pay 5-10 times the price.

Now as to phones, I'm an unabashed fan of the iPhones since my first iPhone 4s. Simply great build quality and speedy, smooth, nearly flawless performance. Can't wait for my 3rd iPhone, the iPhone 6, to arrive. There is now a 4-6 week wait :(

Sophos to offshore American support operations

Re: Why can't they just honestly say...

Don't forget:

"allow for clarity in team composition"

Is this what they teach in business school then? Is it really as simple as being a degree doubletalk and gobbledygook??

Oh, and mark me down as never recommending Sophos to a client again!! If you sell it here then support it here is what I look for.

No tiles, no NAP – next Windows for data centre looks promising

Defender is not AV?

Actually, you are still living in the Vista days I think. Vista and Windows 7 both had Defender baked in to the OS that provided basic anti-spyware. Microsoft eventually released Security Essentials, as an optional download, that provided anti-virus/spyware/etc. and disabled Windows Defender when installed. When Windows 8 was released Security Essentials was baked into the OS and renamed as Windows Defender. Not confusing at all, right?

It's not as though...

I see it all the time. Small businesses setting their server right under a staff members desk because its a computer isn't it? Servers with the administrator account login as "administrator" with the password of "password". Businesses too cheap to buy a server AV license. Now I don't know if I'd actually run Windows Defender on a server or not. I guess it all depends on how MS have tweaked it for server use, if at all.

MOST iPhone strokers SPURN iOS 8: iOS 7 'un-updatening' in 5...4...

Re: Safari

Actually I've been seeing that for at least a couple of months now on my iPad. Of course, I keep tabs around forever, sometimes I'll have a couple of reference pages loaded for weeks that I occasionally switch to and they reload if I haven't viewed them for a day or so. Probably an automatic page refresh feature

Re: Declined?

I know, right! I also got the smaller iPhone 5s. Plugged it in to my computer, ran iTunes, a little while later I was all updated.

BTW, no battery problems, have not noticed any WiFi problems. The only issue so far is that some apps displaying lists of items will freeze. No scroll up, no scroll down, have to exit via home button and then go back to app.

Final thought: I REALLLLLLY LIKE THE NEW SIRI!! Text to speech in real time is fun to watch and seems more accurate then before.

Man's future in space ... Barack Obama: Mars. Narendra Modi: Mars. Vladimir Putin: Er, Moon

Re: Oh?

The way things are going, it is hard to say, do you recall the hysteria following the Russian's launching Sputnik? Quite literally kickstarted the U.S. Space Program and put the Nuclear ICBM programs into high gear. Think about having Chinese and Russian presences right overhead. It very well might make quite a few people nervous.

Re: No Brainer, Really....

Speaking of "no brainers", billionaire health care is a lot different than what you or I get these days and is looking to get very interesting in the near future. I can see the "Head of Putin" still giving orders in 50 years!

Re: Moon is a harsh mistress

You've got to get rocks to drop from somewhere and there's no other nearby source. Many people have described magnetically accelerated mass drivers on the moon. See Heinlein.

Re: Moon is a harsh mistress

The sending people to Mars thing is a bit of nationalistic grandstanding with no real scientific value. First to the pole, first to the top of Everest and all that. There are always going to be the adventurer types. Like Buzz Aldrin one of the Mars expedition's most visible proponents. It will likely end up costing 100 to 200 billion dollars to go, putter around in the grimy red dust, grab a few rocks and come back. Our robotic missions seem to be doing a lot of science already for significantly less cash.

Now, spending 100 to 200 billion dollars to get a real moon base going, you at least have something to show for your cash at the end of the day. Might even be, over the extreme long haul, profitable with moon based industries, mining, who knows what. There's certainly some interesting science projects that would need humans to build. Far side of the moon radio astronomy comes to mind.

ISPs' post-net-neutrality world is built on 'bribes' says Tim Berners-Lee

Seems you've already bought into the ISPs arguments...

NetFlix was paying third parties for transit from their servers right to the very front doors of the various ISPs. They, in fact, tried to provide robust delivery capacity at their own expense directly to the various ISPs.

The ISPs, quite simply, want to charge content providers like NetFlix for access to their property, namely their customers, you and me. I'm paying a goodly amount for high speed access to the Internet. I choose to access NetFlix. Comcast and the other ISPs have been shown to be intentionally slowing such traffic. That is until NetFlix pays the toll for access to my ISP's network.

Quite simply the ISPs see the opportunity to be paid twice. Also, it isn't going to hurt that this will probably cause rates for services like NetFlix that compete with the ISPs own content services.

I await the day, when they'll ask consumers to pay extra for Premium Ultra HD Video Streaming or whatever on top of the fee for basic Internet access. Now, should you also happen to be using a competing VOIP (telephone over the internet service), there's going to be another fee for ClearCall Voice Prioritizing Service or somesuch. They'll teach you to use their services for sure!!!

Why Apple had to craft a pocket-busting 5.5in Plus-sized iPhone 6 (thank LG, Samsung etc)

Re: Color Me (Still) Skeptical

iTunes hasn't been required for a bit now. Go play with Samsung Kies for a while and get back to us.

Re: With a 5.5" screen -

Sure, and you can pretty much the same money for Sammy's new, OMG, metal bodied Galaxy Alpha.

iPhone Ketchup?

"Cupertino is playing catch up, say analysts"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! ROTFL. Apple does not need to play catch up. They release what works for them as they please. Really, like there is some secret sauce that only Sammy or HTC or LG know about how to slap together a <insert size here> phone and toss it out on the market.

Could it be that Apple wanted to balance screen size, battery life, performance, quality, etc. and then when the time seemed opportune release a large phone? No, they just couldn't figure out how to make one until now and they're playing catch up. Sure.

You can thank Brit funnyman John Oliver for fixing US broadband policy, beams Netflix

Re: Correct me if I'm wrong...

Exactly, we are already paying Comcast for access to the Internet, they've no business complaining about Netflix hogging the bandwidth without paying. I paid. It's my bandwidth. I want to use my bandwidth to watch Netflix. End of story.

I am sick of the disingenuous arguments and canards put forth by the cable internet industry. Netflix was already paying for transit across the Internet right up to Comcast's front door. I am already paying for access to Comcast's network. The only real deal here is that I don't want to pay for Comcast's expensive TV service too.

Comcast is icing competitor's traffic unless they pay Comcast a toll and denying me the service I've paid for in the process. That should be actionable right there!

CryptoWall! crooks! 'turn! to! Yahoo! ads! to! spread! ransomware!'

Where there's money to be made...

It is easy to wink, nod, and look the other way.

This is Yahoo's fault, and the fault of the other advertising networks as well. They apparently sell ad space on auto-pilot with no screening. Anyone recall yahoo.co.uk giving folks a virus from their home page back on New Year's day?