Posts by glnz

If you're forced to use Windows 11, here's how to steal some of your time back

@ Jeroen Braamhaar

Thanks for your debloat suggestions. Are they working well?

Microsoft keeps adding stuff into Windows we don't want – here's what we actually need

Sorry that these are comments for MS Word, but that's my world as a transactional lawyer:

1) Accept that Styles are a complete failure and disaster for the legal profession and help us out of the pit. Since 2002, when my prior law firm converted form WordPerfect to Word -- and it was shocking how terrible was Word when compared to WordPerfect -- not one Word document I have received from another counsel has been correctly styled or has been without formatting problems. Not one. I made an effort to learn this garbage in order to save myself from formatting disasters at 2am on a heavy deal, but MS has made no effort ever to help us. MS does not accept that NOT ONE SINGLE LAWYER OR LEGAL SECRETARY HAS LEARNED THIS JUNK or that different users do NOT have the same styles, and so we have endless problems that waste a ton of time.

2) Give us back the EASY one-right-click functionality to make a typo correction a permanent auto-correct going forward. Word 2003 had it, but Word 2016, 2019 and MS 365 do not. Why was it removed?

3) Track Changes is not an adequate substitute for a true redlining program, which we must buy separately. (Among other things, if I use Track Changes, there is no way to assure that opposing counsel opening my revisions will see it the same way.) Why does Word not have a decent redlining function?

4) Word does not program automatic paragraph numbering or Table of Contents well, and again we must buy third-party software to do that. And then opposing counsel without that same software cannot update Tables of Contents correctly.

5) And no one in the legal world understands Section Breaks, which are constantly misused and create new problems. Among other things, whenever I delete a Section Break or convert a Section from the default "Different first page" to not, the footers get scrambled and have to be redone. Everything about that process is backwards.

6) If I add a Comment bubble to appear in the right margin, I cannot be assured that our client or opposing counsel receiving my document will actually see the bubble.

I could go on. Please reply with your own comments.

Cheapest, oldest, slowest part fixed very modern Mac

Hey! Maybe that's why my old wonderful IBM mouse that's big and fat and fits my hand well is so intermittent when it's plugged into my Dell Optiplex 7010 running Win 10 Pro 64-bit.

Maybe I need some type of USB hub (?) that will honor the mouse's older USB and translate it to USB 2 or 3 to the Optiplex?

What do you think? What should I try?

Thanks!!!

Microsoft does and doesn't require VMs to meet hardware requirements for Windows 11

Well, can I run it in Hyper-V with only TPM 1.2 in the hardware ????

I'm not a tech, so basic question: Can I run Win 11 in Hyper-V, which is in my Win 10 Pro 64-bit v. 21H1 on a Dell Optiplex 7010 with only TPM 1.2 that I haven't ever turned on?

Thanks.

Something something DANE cook: Microsoft pledges to wrap its email systems in secure anti-snooping protocol

Does this apply to Outlook in Office 365 Home 64-bit for email account at outlook.com?

Does this apply to Outlook in Office 365 Home 64-bit, when Outlook connects to my email account [myname]@outlook.com?

As you can tell, I'm not a tech. I'm not even a Brit. Try to make sense. Thanks.

RIP: Microsoft finally pulls plug on last XP survivor... POSReady 2009

Tip of the hat to the gang at MSFN for helping us install all the updates for POS 2009 into our XP machines for FIVE YEARS.

Google "MSFN XP POS".

Which is why my XP box rings like a cash register and the DVD drawer opens to give change..

Sync your teeth into power browser Vivaldi's largest update so far

Hey Vivaldi - if you make an email client, please make sure it can instantly import everything from my Outlook Express 6 on my XP machine (which I've kept updated using the POS hack). And then NOT RE-DOWNLOAD THE LAST EIGHT YEARS OF EMAILS FROM THE SERVERS.

And that's Outlook EXPRESS, not Outlook.

Thanks.

DNSSEC in a click: Cloudflare tries to crack uptake inertia

Is Cloudflare a web hosting service like Network Solutions or GoDaddy?

Should we move our very small domain to Cloudflare?

We are NOT techies. All I know is that I like Cloudflare's 1-1-1-1 DNS lookup service.

It liiives! Sorta. Gentle azure glow of Windows XP clocked in Tesco's self-checkouts, no less

I've been updating my XP Desktop the last 4+ years with the POSReady 2009 updates, per a great and very long thread on MSFN.

Which is why my XP box rings like a cash register and the DVD drawer opens to give change.

Kaspersky VPN blabbed domain names of visited websites – and gave me a $0 reward, says chap

But do these tests work to check protected DNS lookups?

When I use a VPN, I run these tests first to confirm my DNS queries are going only via the VPN tunnel - but I'm not a tech, so am I doing the right thing?

https://www.dnsleaktest.com/

https://ipleak.net/

Also, what do you all think about Simple DNSCrypt?

Microsoft might not support Windows XP any more, but GandCrab v4.1 ransomware does

What about the POS hack? What, you didn't know?

Hey, smarty pants Register people - you never say what will happen if the XP machine has been kept updated with the POS hack.

Well, what about it? If updated, vulnerable to this mosquito?

And what about FollishIT's CryptoPrevent? Does it work?

Microsoft tries cutting the Ribbon in Office UI upgrade

FROM COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE LAWYER WHO WORKS IN WORD 24/7:

Hey, MS engineers who occasionally (once a century) take comments from real-world users:

Get rid of styles and section breaks. Get rid of them. They stink. No one in any law firm knows how to use them. Not one person. Even after 20± years of wrestling with your garbage program Word, not one person in any law firm has mastered their use.

Don't argue about it. What I just wrote is reality.

Because of styles and section breaks, Word remains the worst word processing program I have ever used. WordPerfect in 1996 was better then every single version of Word from then to now. Your new version won't change this unless you jettison those two huge -- and unfixable -- problem areas.

I'm not talking about users who can barely write a few paragraphs in a letter. I'm talking about professionals who crank out and negotiate and heavily revise 100+ page documents. Thanks to Word, they are all so full of computer problems that they look terrible on the page and quickly become uneditable.

Here's something you haven't considered in all this time: Every document gets emailed to another lawyer, who makes a new version, revises it and sends it back. So every single document has conflicting styles from different law firms, different users and multiplying, cascading tech issues. And 95% of secretaries try to fix with manual formatting. The result is a mess every single time. And the worst culprits are styles and section breaks.

I don't blame the secretaries or lawyers. These "features" are too hard to use. Stop arguing - I'm right. You've been sending training tips and hints for 20 years, and they cannot overcome the inherent complexity of your garbage program.

There's more, of course. Various features of Word simply do not work. As one of many examples, Table of Contents is supposed to be programmable to pick up only the first "sentence" of a paragraph (ending at the first period). In other words, if I elect certain settings, it is supposed to pick up only the caption ending with the first period and skip the following text. This simply DOES NOT WORK. Your program fails at its own task.

As a result, we had to buy a special program to make this feature work. But then the next law firm cannot update the TOC because your "native" feature does not work.

"Track changes" is a sick joke. In all the years you have seen the good results of true "redlining" programs, why have you not offered this feature to professional users? No - it would be too usable. Instead we get the latest in web-site-friendly nonsense that we lawyers have never used and will never use.

There is so much more that's wrong and stupid in Word, it would take an endless series of articles to analyze them.

Your new "features" will not even begin to fix fundamental issues with Word, which would never have been accepted in the real world without Windows's monopoly position for the last 20+ years.

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

Verizon FIOS and DSL do not support IPv6

That's right - Verizon FIOS and DSL do not support IPv6. Not at all.

OK, this time it's for real: The last available IPv4 address block has gone

Just moved to Verizon FIOS in NYC, which does NOT support IPv6.

Let me repeat - the entire Verizon FIOS network in the US does NOT support IPv6.

Just moved to Verizon FIOS in NYC, which does NOT support IPv6.

Let me repeat - the entire US Verizon FIOS network does NOT support IPv6.

Malware hidden in vid app is so nasty, victims should wipe their Macs

How to scan for those files or folders? Not an Apple person.

Really dumb Q but need your help because I am not an Apple person.

Author writes:

"… just in case, do a scan for the following files:

/tmp/Updater.app/

/Library/LaunchAgents/com.Eltima.UpdaterAgent.plist

/Library/.rand/

/Library/.rand/updateragent.app/

If any of those exist, then you've got Proton on your computer. "

So, how exactly does my wife scan for these on her iMac and MacBook Pro? She'll ask and I don't know.

Thanks.

Microsoft officially hangs up on old Skype phones, users fuming

Responding to my own post - I've moved our mini-office and white plastic phone to Google Voice.

Disconnected the ConnectMe FreeTalk for Skype and got an OBi200 for Google Voice.

I'll continue to pay Skype $3/month to continue our Skype-in number, which our customers have. In Skype, I've set it to forward to our new Google Voice number to which the white plastic phone is now connected. Seems to be working.

But I certainly hope MS ends up writing off its $8+ Billion investment in Skype.

Just discovered this. What should I do to replace the plastic phone+FreeTalk set-up in my wife's mini-office that worked great with its Skype-in number?

On an emergency basis, should we be running Skype at startup on the Win 7 Pro computer? Will it receive our customer's calls to our Skype-in number? Will the PC actually ring? Is there anything I can connect to that PC that we can pick up and answer like the phone?

Agree with all the complaints here against MS, but am desperate for fast practical advice to be able to answer our incoming Skype-in calls!!

Thanks.

Mozilla wants infosec activism to be the next green movement

Moz not good on security itself

Sorry, anything Moz says about security is junk and hypocritical.

Do you remember the VERY FIRST security setting you learned, probably on IE? It was to make the browser ask you every time whether you would Allow cookies from a new source, and you maybe also set it to Deny third-party cookies automatically.

And when we all got Firefox for the first time, it had the same thing in its privacy setting: "Ask me every time" for permitting cookies. With that turned on, after a while, we all had a very good list of Allowed and a much longer list of Denied cookie sources.

Well, about a year and a half ago, Mozilla got rid of the "Ask me every time" option in FF, set it to Allow ALL cookies, and didn't tell anyone. They have rebuffed all objections and have no intention of returning this basic, user-friendly and good protective feature.

So, today, FF is less secure than IE and Edge.

When Mozilla gets all high and mighty about internet security, don't believe it. It's a phish.

Microsoft shifts Windows 7 and 8.1 fixes to 'rollup' bundles

Dumb Q - A week ago, on my Win 7 Pro 64-bit, I installed first kb3138612 and then kb3145739 specifically to make downloading of updates faster.

Last night I stupidly UNinstalled kb3138612 because it was on a Stop Win 10 list.

Seeing your reminder here, I just REinstalled kb3138612.

But I am now worried that I have installed kb3138612 and kb3145739 in the wrong "order", with kb3145739 "first".

► Am I ok, or should I now UNinstall kb3145739 and then REinstall kb3145739 so that the two KBs are installed in the right "order"?

Sorry, and thanks.