Slashdot Mirror

As they say, truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense.

It's true. If you are running 8.1, update 1 is mandatory to keep getting support: http://www.infoworld.com/t/mic...

Microsoft said it themselves here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/gla...

Originally they only gave 30 days to install it, but then they upped that to 120 because of all the compatibility and installation problems (and the few companies running Windows 8 screaming).

Bizzarely, Windows 8.0 users aren't affected in the same way. This affects 8.1 users only. As usual, Windows 7 users can ignore this ongoing fiasco and keep doing productive work.

You absolutely see Microsoft advocating permanent residence for H1B holders, which in economic terms is basically the same thing as citizenship and is in any case a necessary step.

For instance:

http://www.infoworld.com/t/fed...

" Microsoft has called on the feds to issue 20,000 more H-1B visas and 20,000 additional green cards per year"

Exactly one more green card per extra H-1B.

I can't find the article I've seen before, but here is a starting point:

http://www.infoworld.com/d/app...

I'll link more as I find them below this.

OOXML was inappropriately fast tracked, and MS leaned on members of the standards body to vote in favor of OOXML. MS is a convicted monopolist in both the US (United States vs. Microsoft Corp., 2001) and Europe (Microsoft Corp. v Commission of the European Communities, 2007). MS agreed to stop strongarming their users into using the Internet Explorer browser by offering choices, then due to a "technical error" in Windows 7 service pack 1, failed to fulfill that promise for 14 months starting in 2011. In March 2013, Microsoft was fined, again, for that failure.

For years, anyone who tried to buy a music player that could play the Ogg Vorbis format would have no luck in the US, thanks to Microsoft trying to kill competition to their WMA format. The very same hardware, such as the Samsung Yepp YP-U2 music player, had different code in the ROM between Europe and the US, with the European version able to play Ogg Vorbis, and the US version not.

Another dirty stunt was Microsoft's support of SCO Unix when they tried to extort license fees from innocent users of Linux, which dragged on through 2008.

you misspelled nvidia.

The city of Freiburg in Germany embarked on a migration to OpenOffice.org and failed terribly while another German city -- Munich -- announced that the success of its open source migration had netted savings around $13 million. Partial migration / mixed environments seem to be a very bad idea.

HTML5 was touted as the panacea of mobile app development back in 2012 (IIRC). The big news was when companies like Facebook and Linkedin migrated their iOS/Android apps to HTML5. Only problem is that the big name companies have since ditched their HTML5 mobile apps and gone back to using native APIs. They cite performance issues (apps running out of memory and stuttery animation) as the reasons for the switch. This is not just limited to the big companies, and others are leaving the HTML5 mobile app boat.

Google seems a little late to the party.

Why Software Patents are Evil, Video Codec edition.. The problem is not a matter of the OS communities working harder, the problem is having broad software patents effectively stifling innovation in the video codec space, combined with special interest groups pushing patent encumbered formats into our open protocols and services.

To fix this problem just run the latest Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer - for December this is KB2898785. Once you've run the update, reboot and then the updates will work.

I've had to do this for October, November and December.

This article has some more info about it - read the comments.

http://www.infoworld.com/t/microsoft-windows/windows-xp-update-locks-machines-svchost-redlined-100-fix-it-kb-2879017-230733#disqus_thread/

The bill actually does touch on the style of patent litigation used by big tech companies:

But a number of voices, most with vested interests, have been scrambling to protect the trolls even with the concerns of the big trolls taken into account with the reduction of the bill's impact on "covered business methods." This part of patent law is used more by large corporate patent holders and thus opposed by the likes of IBM, Microsoft, General Electric, and Adobe.

(detail)

Quite a dated article comparing the open source migration attempted by Freiburg vs Munich. There was also a slashdot submission on Freiburg

read the PDF; seemed like they were trying to cover their asses.

There are plenty of articles and editorials that say otherwise:

http://www.infoworld.com/t/government-use-it/the-terry-childs-case-san-francisco-just-guilty-886
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/28/sf_rogue_sysadmin_password_mess/
http://www.pcworld.com/article/149159/terry_childs_case.html

Is this the real Robert X. Cringley, or the dishonest Sears Robert X. Cringley.

http://www.infoworld.com/t/microsoft-windows/users-hit-blue-screen-0xc1900101-0x40017-error-windows-81-update-229058

There is also a widespread issue with updating to 8.1 failing with a 0xC1900101 - 0x40017 error on PCs.

Roger Grimes over at InfoWorld has an excellent security column and Java security has been one of his biggest gripes for a long time (example). This will be great for anyone who doesn't stay on top of patching (and also good for those who do, to a lesser extent). The newest release of Java also allows for finer grain security control, something that's been missing for years. I think Oracle's finally starting to try and seriously tackle Java security. Besides, "casual Java" use (at least for in-browser applets, which this seems to be about) isn't really that common anymore anyway (most of it's Flash now) and it's a small sacrifice to make for greatly increased security.

.
What if Verizon succeeds in killing the Internet?

I've posted countless essays over the years on the importance of Net neutrality and how big ISPs are trying to turn the Internet into a pay-per-view system, rather than the open-access system it was always intended to be. I've written open letters to federal legislators; remarked on the various games being played by AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and the like; and cheered Google Fiber for demonstrating that the big ISPs are full of nonsense when they claim their backs are against the wall in terms of broadband speeds and reach.

And now, Verizon is claiming it has free speech rights to limit and block content flowing from the Internet to its customers....

Nice straw man Billy, might want to watch out for matches...WHOOSH! Why are you not driving your car with bike handlebars? Bikes are the #1 vehicle, are YOU afraid of innovation? Because that is exactly how retarded you sound because a SHITTY UI IS A SHITTY UI and just for the record, time it took me to "embrace innovation" with Android? About 3 minutes. OSX? Less than 10, iOS? About 4 minutes...Win 8? THREE FUCKING HOURS LATER AND THE BITCH IS STILL FIGHT ME because "herpa de derp we think a fucking touchpad and a touchscreen are the same thing, they both say touch right? herpa derpa".

I have used everything from DOS to OS/2 to BeOS, how many OSes have YOU used Billy? I have ALWAYS been on the bleeding edge, when your ass was dragging behind on XP? I was running a beta of 2K3 stripped down into a desktop and the SECOND that XP X64 hit beta my ass was on it. I know innovation sir, I'm friends with innovation and Windows 8 is NOT innovation!

But don't take MY word for it, how about some citations? here is a good one and this shows how they cocked up even the shutdown process and reviewers agree with me its THAT bad and the OEMs also know its a turkey., Face it win 8 is a joke and you can say having Ballmer take a steaming dump on your PC is "innovative" all you want Billy, its still a big pile of feces lying there.

OMG perfect! Download apps to keep track of your apps. Apps for getting apps. Apps for watching apps. Apps to launch apps. Apps to search for launching apps that launch other apps to watch other apps for all my apps to simpy get cell phone apps!

Sign me up today. I will take that Atom and my new Cryris 3 app to run inside my VMWare workstation app with emulated OpenGL/Direct X. According to www.tomshardware.com all the x87 fpu benchmarks show it can cream the hell out of AMD piledriver 8 core anyday and represents real world performance according to the fan boys on here and over at that site ... with the all so loving Metro UI on a non touchscreen.

Nice straw man Billy, might want to watch out for matches...WHOOSH! Why are you not driving your car with bike handlebars? Bikes are the #1 vehicle, are YOU afraid of innovation? Because that is exactly how retarded you sound because a SHITTY UI IS A SHITTY UI and just for the record, time it took me to "embrace innovation" with Android? About 3 minutes. OSX? Less than 10, iOS? About 4 minutes...Win 8? THREE FUCKING HOURS LATER AND THE BITCH IS STILL FIGHT ME because "herpa de derp we think a fucking touchpad and a touchscreen are the same thing, they both say touch right? herpa derpa".

I have used everything from DOS to OS/2 to BeOS, how many OSes have YOU used Billy? I have ALWAYS been on the bleeding edge, when your ass was dragging behind on XP? I was running a beta of 2K3 stripped down into a desktop and the SECOND that XP X64 hit beta my ass was on it. I know innovation sir, I'm friends with innovation and Windows 8 is NOT innovation!

But don't take MY word for it, how about some citations? here is a good one and this shows how they cocked up even the shutdown process and reviewers agree with me its THAT bad and the OEMs also know its a turkey., Face it win 8 is a joke and you can say having Ballmer take a steaming dump on your PC is "innovative" all you want Billy, its still a big pile of feces lying there.

This is not the first time this has happened. From 2007:

But Microsoft's recent gains have been so fast that furious open source proponents such as Bruce Perens claimed last year that Microsoft was paying large domain name resellers such as Go Daddy to "park" unused domain names in IIS rather than Apache.

So probably a slashdot story about that first time as well.

I think I get your point, but Sony paid somewhere around 5.75 million it looks like. The interesting thing you'll note from the article is that if you have enough money you can pay a state to stop its investigation into your case.

http://www.infoworld.com/d/security-central/sony-rootkit-settlement-states-reaches-575m-558

Sufficient participation may not be direct control, but knowledge about the participants is certainly some sort of control. If I really believed that Bitcoin represented a better currency than the fiat stuff we have with the dollar, I could almost wish for it to be government supported. I'm not quite that devout.

I don't disagree with your assessment that the NSA is likely unable to hack into every single computer running every OS. That isn't the end of the story though. I read an article recently that you might find enlightening. It was with a hacker who works for the government. The NSA wasn't actually identified, but I believe that the interviewee who works for an unnamed agency has essentially the same access to tools that they do. (The veracity of the claim is debatable, but the article gives me sufficient information to believe it is likely true.) Assuming that is the case, they have the ability to hack into most computers connected to the Internet, or at least most servers. I doubt they have the manpower and motivation but I don't doubt the capability.

I like to believe I'm pretty good at security. I use SELinux correctly, keep it current and I set up servers to minimize exposure and I do layered security, but I know what some of the weaknesses I leave are as well. There is software that I run that hasn't had the level of expert peer-review that I wish it did. I don't always have BIOS passwords and I rarely require them to boot and I don't usually encrypt the OS. I understand the vulnerabilities that my choices leave and accept them based on a risk analysis. I make systems that are exposing services to the Internet more secure and segregate them from ones that aren't intended to act as servers. I put anti-virus and firewalls where appropriate and use secure settings on workstations. I try to maintain good physical security. Still, I know enough to know how I'd go about breaking into the systems I set up and I honestly believe that if the NSA decided to, that they could get past my defenses. I don't know if it would be easy for them and I think most hackers would find it extremely difficult. That's what I aim for. I try to make it very likely to be very difficult for most hackers.

I don't kid myself though. Is there a 0-day for up-to-date OpenSSH? Is there a browser insecurity that would allow privilege escalation from a machine that someone has used to access a compromised website and then used to access a secured system? Has someone I work with done something sufficient to be targeted by an agency willing to sneak into their home and install keyloggers on their machines? Has my company been served a secret order to let them install hardware I didn't see? I don't think so but I can't be absolutely certain. I can think of literally dozens of scenarios where even the best security I can think of could be compromised and I try to think of them so I can determine reasonable defenses, but certainty is not something it gives me.

All my opinions of the potential value my systems and what is reasonable security could be completely thrown out of whack if the NSA or a similar agency decides my systems have more value as mining machines than I have assumed.

Oh, for the love of %DEITY....

Here's a link to the one page version of the story:

http://www.infoworld.com/print/222831

Same source as this fairy tale.. http://www.infoworld.com/d/security/in-his-own-words-confessions-of-cyber-warrior-222266

I am a C++ developer for more than 16 years now and I did some Java and C# development in the past. Based on that experience, I can fully attest the correctness of the reasoning presented in the article. In addition, I am aware of the fact that practical (as opposed to theoretical) C and C++ programs are chock-full of security issues, most of which can be attributed to the lack of type safety in C and C++.

Being an engineer, I started to develop a "fix" for the deficiencies of C and C++, but at the same time tried to retain all the good aspects such as stack allocation, value arrays and so on. The language is called Sappeur (from Sapeurs-Pompiers, french for Firebrigade-Member (which I once was)) and technically is a compiler that translates into Posix-compliant (pthreads) C++ code. That means it should compile into binaries on all major platforms from phones to mainframes.

Here it is:

Disclaimer: Yes, the current compiler version definitely is not polished, it probably is in some ways a quick hack, but if you work around the quirks, I am quite positive it can provide real value relative to Java (more efficient, better resposniveness, smaller memory footprint) and relative to C or C++ (more secure).

Especially when you read things like this

Despite the fact HP could not avoid the "Ping Of Death",

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ping_of_death

I can hear all the C and C++ developers tell me, my cat and the entire world that "good programmers can write secure C and C++ code". It appears all the operating system developers at HP, SUN, IBM and the like were simply shitty programmers. That's one explanation.

The other explanation is that C and C++ are horribly dangerous programming languages and should not be used, AS PEOPLE WILL OTHERWISE STOP USING COMPUTERS. That will affect all of us as in "NO MORE JOBS FOR DEVELOPERS AND OTHER IT FIDDLERS OF INSECURE CRAP ".

Here is my little attempt to improve Software Security:

http://sourceforge.net/p/sappeurcompiler/code-0/2/tree/trunk/

And if you still think C and C++ are a great idea, read this:

http://www.infoworld.com/d/security/in-his-own-words-confessions-of-cyber-warrior-222266

Since I'm a computer expert, I've decided to soup-up your post with bleeding-edge, World Wide Web 1.0 "Hyper-Link" technology. Now all you have to do is point your cursor (computer mouse*) at a "URL" and click the button (on the computer mouse) and Netscape Navigator will automatically go to the new web "page." Amazing!

* If you have a newer computer mouse, it might have more than one button... Check your owner's manual for which button to press.

Seriously, how many people are going to switch to Linux over this? Nobody.

Except a whole bunch of OEMs who used to be staunch Microsoft partners.

"HP shows off 21-inch all-in-one Android desktop
PC makers are experimenting with Android given that Microsoft's Windows 8 devices have struggled to attract consumers"

http://www.infoworld.com/d/computer-hardware/update-hp-shows-21-inch-all-in-one-android-desktop-221316

CoolShip,an android desktop computer that looks like a keyboard
CoolShip has a 1.5Ghz dualcore ARM processor inside.It is a low cost home PC,PC for elderly and children,also a solution of hotel PC for guests,educational PC.

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/coolship-an-android-desktop-computer-that-looks-like-a-keyboard

Acer shows 21-inch Android desktop
Taiwan's Acer is breaking Android out of its comfort zone and has installed the operating system on a 21.5-inch all-in-one desktop PC that is expected on sale in the U.S. later this year.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2040886/acer-shows-21inch-android-desktop.html

Get used to it.

Not a chance. I'm really enjoying the innovation and competition that's coming our way now the Windows monopoly's tumbling. Can't wait until Office is usurped as well!

It already was GPL-compatible, so that part hasn't changed. They've gone from a more liberal license (the old license was compatible with, among other things, the GPL v2) to a less liberal one. That's always going to piss off some people. Just look at the controversy when a project goes from BSD or MIT to GPL.

Where was the outcry when MySQL AB switched their client library from LGPL to GPL?

http://lists.mysql.com/mysql/120620

There was some,

http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/open-source-lock-in-134

but Monty needed $$$$. So now he has money, and look what happens,

http://openquery.com/blog/mariadb-client-libraries-end-duallicensing

client library is now LGPL again - perhaps just to piss into Oracle's pond.

But I get it, whatever Oracle does is bad. Whatever other people do that is similar, is good.

Nothing to see here, move along. People can always use SQLite or PostgreSQL. Oh wait, they were for last 10 years.

Instead of throwing insults, as you seem to only be capable of, why don't i let the citations do the talking? Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it. Might want to rethink asking for citations or examples from me pal, I'm more than happy to slap some truth down, and I'm not even gonna call you names.

This is not a new situation with Cogent:

http://ask.slashdot.org/story/05/10/05/2247207/internet-partitioning---cogent-vs-level-3

https://www.infoworld.com/d/security-central/sprint-cogent-dispute-puts-small-rip-in-fabric-internet-474

http://www.infoblox.com/community/blog/bad-blood-and-world-ipv6-day

Mac sales are down.

http://www.infoworld.com/d/computer-hardware/idc-pc-sales-drop-precipitously-mac-sales-also-decline-in-major-market-shift-216203

Put more succinctly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor
Also, for our edification and amusement: http://www.infoworld.com/t/sql/mr-sulu-steers-facebook-mysql-solution-188269

That is if you believe them

http://www.infoworld.com/t/microsoft-windows/microsofts-own-numbers-show-windows-8-sales-falling-rapidly-218050

Because of SEC rules, people at Microsoft go to jail if they publish incorrect numbers.
Because of advertising clicks, InfoWorld makes money when they they do.

Sort of like how Slashdot makes money when they whip the anti-MS zealots up.

That is if you believe them http://www.infoworld.com/t/microsoft-windows/microsofts-own-numbers-show-windows-8-sales-falling-rapidly-218050

Transparent urns and local counting do not prevent tampering at all, although they may help to increase security a bit.

Merely stating so does not mean it's true. You'll have to tell us what reasoning lead you to that conclusion if you want to convince reasonable people.

Anonymity and security are like speed and position in Heisenberg Principle, the more you get from one of them the less you will have from the other.

A bad analogy does not a proof make.

Local counting gives away anonymity for security.

That might be true if there was one polling station for every dozen voters. But there's normally a thousand voters per polling station. Also, unlike in the US where each ballot could be unique due to the millions of combinations of voting just for 20 resolutions, in France there are only 2 to 20 different possible ballots. So there no lifting anonymity that way either.

there is no untraceable electronic hacking.

If that were true we'd know who wrote Duqu, or who stole the account and password information from Yahoo!, LinkedIn, Twitter, Living Social, etc. The problem is that if the attacker plays his hand right we'll never even have any reason to suspect that something is wrong.

because recruiting accomplishes in a small town in the middle of nowhere is much easier and cheaper than getting them in high places, which are usually a lot more in evidence.

You don't need to recruit senators or top brass like that. Just bribe the guy guarding the voting computers in between elections. Use that time to plant a virus on one of them. Done.

Or bribe any one of the programmers at the voting company. Or a low-level election employee pissed at having his salary reduced due to budget restrictions. There are just so many people you can bribe and all you need is one to have a global impact!

Yeah, rote memorization doesn't do shit for programmers. Of course, that might explain why johnny can't code.

I dunno though, I got out of school 6 years ago and throughout the entire process there was an obvious push against rote memorization. I don't think college culture could have changed that much in that short amount of time. Are you talking about highschool? Because even a decade is pretty small time-slice when talking about culture.

Just be aware that most repositories on GitHub are actual closed source all rights reserved proprietary [1], so unless you check specifically you might accidentally contribute to non-free software.

[1] http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/github-needs-take-open-source-seriously-208046

For any privacy issues theyve had, there is NOTHING in Google's history that makes me think they would spill data to the government.

You're rather naive. Google follows the laws of the countries they operate in: How the FBI uses the Patriot Act to get info on Google users

Yeah, a few times Google has legally pressed back against government requests for data. That's great for marketing, but in the end, you let them fool you into a false level of comfort.

Okay. How about Simon Phipps who covers OSS at InfoWorld. He seems to have made around 1300 posts since March 2007. Google +"Simon Phipps" +site:slashdot.org and you get 8,230 hits. Google +"Steven Vaughan-Nichols" +site:slashdot.org and you get 101,000 hits.

Netflix wants to switch not because they're looking for DRM. They want to switch because they're looking for a better platform that also supports adequate DRM. Sure, no matter what they come up with, somebody's going to find a way to circumvent it. But the majority of people aren't going to put that amount of effort into it.

Besides, from all signs, not even Microsoft takes Silverlight seriously anymore. ( http://www.infoworld.com/t/microsoft-windows/microsoft-shuns-its-own-silverlight-while-embracing-flash-214335 )

Switching to HTML5 will allow them to build a user interface that will work on any system that'll run a modern web browser and stream video content as long as a supported DRM module is available.THAT is the reason that, as of now, the only way to stream content from Netflix on linux involves using WINE. They climbed into bed with Microsoft and moved their platform to be 100% Silverlight, and Microsoft absolutely refuses to allow their DRM interface to be ported to Mono, which means that any system that isn't Windows or MacOS is SOL.

DRM support in HTML5 allows Netflix to be in control of which platforms are going to be able to play their content.

Soon, people will break into servers to drop bitcoin miners on them.

Already happening.

Print:
1) The Economist. Very informative. Their politics are not hidden, and socially, they're definitely left of center. Financially, they're the "Voice of the Plutonomy." But, it works. The articles are typically quite informative.

Online magazines:
1) IEEE Spectrum
2) Communications of the ACM
3) Dr. Dobbs
4) Infoworld
5) Linux Journal
6) Machine Design

And a variety of online information sources for current events. Typically, Google and Google News are good starting points.

ZDNet has been known to take Microsoft's side? Even the referenced link lists a few articles critical of Microsoft within the first page.

I think people are extrapolating the wrong messages from current trends. The assumption that poor PC sales are a reaction against Windows 8, I've yet to see any correlation that's the case. Outside of corporate environments I don't think users think that far in their purchasing decisions. If there were a specific shift away from PCs then we should be seeing a corresponding rise in Mac and even Linux PC sales. As far as I know that isn't happening and in fact, I'm pretty certain the story late last year was of softening Apple sales.

In fact, here's an article from 6 days ago. Incredulously weak sales in Macs is due to external factors, but similar declines in PCs is specifically due to Windows 8.

I think there are three factors in play here:
1) Soft economy; things aren't quite as good as some would like us to believe and as such people are not spending on computers
2) Computers last longer; we're no longer in the 90's where a bargain PC could be obsoleted within a year. A decent computer is good for quite a few years, reducing the need for replacement.
3) People are finding their needs filled with less expensive tablets and smartphones.

One other factor that doesn't help matters much is that in the minds of American consumers you evidently can't ever have more than two dominant players. So unless a third entity isn't a resounding success with dominant position it is considered a flop, even if it produces decent sales. Industry "experts" only exacerbate the problem. Everything devolves into a two party system.

Well, the saying is "Nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft software" (which is a variant from the original "No-one gets fired for buying IBM software (alternate reference here ). That might have to be modified to reflect this new reality: "Nobody ever got hired if they're still buying [or running] Microsoft software" ! :>)
.
Or, as many other posters have pointed out, being able to replace the stock software installed on your computer means you've got some smarts at least. IMHO, installing a full GNU/Linux distro on your system must make you a genius (not that Apple "genius bar" kind of genius either!)

Shill accounts are not only created by computers though. High quality shill accounts are created and managed by human beings who do so as their professional job. Some accounts are quite obvious, however other accounts are created and professionally maintained for years.

You can buy cheap shills and you can pay for high quality shills, it all depends on what your needs are. Professional companies or industry lobbying groups will maintain and develop shill accounts for years or even decades to increase their value and perceived trust. They are no different from the spammers or the malware authors in that they are professionals who have made a career in monetizing their product. They would certainly take the time to add in 'legitimate' looking sisters and other adjunct accounts for high quality accounts as a form of quality control.

Dude if you HAVE to use the keyboard in an OS that ironically MSFT is pushing for tablets? Then its broken, end of story. I can remove the keyboard from any Windows 7 PC and you'll be just fine, the fact that only "keyboard commanders" can tolerate that flaming turd known as Windows 8 should be all the proof one needs that its broken.

You know, touching and mousing are different things. I don't have a touchscreen. I dislike the modern ui, and I am considering switching to some kind of classing start menu program. [*] But you are missing my point. See below.

But if you didn't like the video perhaps you'll like Infoworld or ZDnet which even has a picture of Wily Coyote, kinda like that one,or maybe Consumer Reports and while they highlight different things the final verdict? Windows 8 suuuuuuccccckkkkkssss, its crap, its the wrong direction, it doesn't work, its just a bad OS.

While there's lots of bitching about the modern ui apps, Infoworld does mention: "There are few user-noticeable changes in the Windows desktop programs; as best I can tell, the changes are almost entirely cosmetic." The point: If you don't use the modern ui apps [**], you can use the 8 the same way as 7. Which was my original question: How did they break multitasking? Well. They didn't. They broke the start menu. And yes, I think you do need a keyboard to use it if you don't have a touchscreen. I guess I'm lucky that I got an advanced model with a keyboard....

[* The main problem in desktop use is that the start menu gets cluttered by the non-modern-ui programs (and I don't use others) as they [** To be more clear: Do NOT install and use the modern UI apps on desktop. Well... except perhaps Netflix, you get 5.1 sound and pausing playing with windows+tab, allowing you to alt-tab normally between other programs at the same time]

Dude if you HAVE to use the keyboard in an OS that ironically MSFT is pushing for tablets? Then its broken, end of story. I can remove the keyboard from any Windows 7 PC and you'll be just fine, the fact that only "keyboard commanders" can tolerate that flaming turd known as Windows 8 should be all the proof one needs that its broken.

But if you didn't like the video perhaps you'll like Infoworld or ZDnet which even has a picture of Wily Coyote, kinda like that one,or maybe Consumer Reports and while they highlight different things the final verdict? Windows 8 suuuuuuccccckkkkkssss, its crap, its the wrong direction, it doesn't work, its just a bad OS.

Herein

http://www.infoworld.com/t/cringely/here-lies-web-journalism-dead-the-hand-of-the-almighty-advertiser-214915

likes this fool shill

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2416859,00.asp

I think that he's right. In the time that it took to turn around and take that picture, she could just as easily have said "Hey, cut it out! Those kinds of comments are inappropriate, and I'm offended, okay?" This is a point where saying "don't make a federal case out of it" may be apropos. Does she want them to walk around wearing big "L" for losers on their foreheads, or "D" for "dicks" for what offensive things they said? Maybe she needs to reread that Scarlet Letter book.

From http://www.infoworld.com/t/internet-privacy/microsoft-attacking-gmail-tactics-it-uses-itself-212455

Update: According to The Verge, Microsoft denies that it scans email subject lines in order to deliver ads.