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I'm laughing at my own suggestion but I'm genuinely curious how well it would actually work:

https://office.live.com/start/...

How well does the online version work?

I have a few friends that use Office 365, and they say it's not bad. Not perfect, but not bad.

Fun Fact: Office 365 won't pass Microsoft's own tests for compatibility with Word and Excel. It's true, I know a tester that works at MS and he says it's an open secret there.

I'm laughing at my own suggestion but I'm genuinely curious how well it would actually work:

https://office.live.com/start/...

How well does the online version work?

The original quote from https://view.officeapps.live.c... : "As expected, Enterprise Services revenue declined 1 percent and was flat in constant currency, due to a lower volume of Windows Server 2003 custom support agreements."

I was guessing that this decline is because the revenue declined by tens of millions, which implies that they are likely making much more than that total in these contracts especially given that Server 2003 is still widely used. I checked "Productivity and Business Processes", "Intelligent Cloud" and "More Personal Computing" for this quarter and all of these individually total about $7-9 billion.

From https://view.officeapps.live.c... : "As expected, Enterprise Services revenue declined 1 percent and was flat in constant currency, due to a lower volume of Windows Server 2003 custom support agreements."
I did not even know that Custom Support has to do with MS quarterly earnings until today! I wonder how much it actually costs for MS.

Well, Let's Encrypt certificates are now going to be treated like self-signed certificates. Don't believe me? Just wait and see.

With both Mozilla and Google as "major sponsors" of Let's Encrypt listed on the front page, I don't see how this will happen any time soon. If Microsoft and Apple distrust Let's Encrypt for following the same CA/Browser Forum Baseline Requirements as every other certificate authority issuing domain-validated (DV) certificates, the only way to avoid a double standard would be to distrust all DV certificates. And as of today, the service formerly known as Hotmail appears to be using a DV certificate.

Is this really surprising? From the company that just made accepting every update they want to push mandatory? I didn't trust Microsoft before they did that, now it's just blatant in your face "we own your computer". The fact that anyone trusts BitLocker is what astounds me.

Your Windows 10 friends are:
1) Windows Update Mini Tool. Gives you back control of your windows update experience.
2) Windows updates details. A spreadsheet maintained with every patch and what it does. Microsoft gets more and more evasive with their explanations of what their patches do, this is a good site for info. And, for heaven's sake, please please please get...
3) VeraCrypt. Based on TrueCrypt 7.1, development was continued by the community. Security audits have been done on this code base and, while no non-trivial software can ever be proven completely safe, I trust this software far more than BitLocker (which I actively distrust).

My Windows 7 laptop was safe from the whole Windows 10 upgrade debacle and the "we are going to upgrade your OS unless you happen to catch this message in time and say no" nagware because I carefully and meticulously have always gone over every windows update that goes on my computer. It was with literal astonishment that I learned that update is mandatory in Windows 10. I can't believe people stand for it. I've managed to work around it, but that was really the last straw for me. I have finally migrated mostly to Linux. I have used it for my servers and personal cloud services since the days of SLS but never really adopted for my desktop. I kept it for stuff I couldn't do in Windows. Now I've reversed that, using Linux for everything I can and only using Windows for gaming or software I absolutely can't do in Linux.

Against my better judgment, since there really should be no reason the user can't pull out their phone (or use a browser while signed in to your account) and navigate to https://account.live.com/password/reset (found by googling "reset microsoft account password") and reset their password... because this may be useful for someone who isn't trying to snoop on their kids' porn viewing activities.

If you're an admin user you should be able to take ownership of their user directory and everything in it. Navigate to C:\Users, right-click their user directory, then select Properties, click over to the Security tab, and click Advanced. You should see the Owner line near the top of the resulting dialog, click Change and seelct your user. A checkbox will appear below thee Owner line labeled "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects", you'll want to check that as well.

I recently had to do this on a folder inside my own home directory after I royally screwed some file permissions in Cygwin,.

I don't have a system using Microsoft Accounts where I am right now, but if I recall it displays the email address on the login page under the user name (which I would rather that it didn't). Plug that email address into the reset password page. It will send a confirmation message to that email address (or if a phone was attached to the account then it will send a text message). Follow the instructions.

Ensure that the computer is connected to an Internet connected network (either by cable or WiFi) and try to login using the newly reset password. I can't test this myself right now, so I hope that this does the trick.

This only affects Microsoft Accounts and Azure AD, not local Windows accounts.

You know what the error message says on Windows 10 when you type your password incorrectly?

"Your password is incorrect. Make sure you're using the password for your Microsoft account. You can always reset it at http://account.live.com/passwo..."

For most common folk their Windows 10 logons ARE their Microsoft accounts. Even some Slashdotters who should know better believe that you can't run Windows 10 without linking to a live account because they didn't find the tiny text in the bottom left of the screen during setup which allows you to setup a local only account.

Sorry but you can not cook the numbers to make your solution look feasible. The UBI is based on the minimum amount to live reasonably. You can't just arbitrarily set it to an amount that works.

UBI does not necessarily translate to a living wage - it's just an extra payment. Ideally, yes, it should be at least a living wage, but realistically it may not be possible depending on what the economy looks like. Just like existing minimum wage is not living wage.

Either way, if I "cooked" the numbers, then so did you - you just gave some arbitrary figures that don't correspond to real economy. Like I said, in that particular abstract economy, assuming there's no-one else other than those three guys in it, UBI (and welfare in general) cannot be as high as you've asked it to be.

Say one person makes $1000/month and the UBI is $800. he receives a cheque for $800/month how much money would he get for that month and please show your math.

Like I said, it depends on how many other people are in the economy, and how much they are getting. That defines how much income we have, and therefore what tax burden we can place and redistribute. Without those other figures, your question is meaningless. UBI doesn't work if your economy consists of a single person.

If the context is the numbers that I have offered above (which are real numbers of average income for US in 2009), then I can give an answer, but first we need to adjust the inputs, because my numbers were about households, not individuals (I couldn't find statistics for individuals quickly). So let's assume that we're talking about a household of two, each of which is like you've described - $1K income, and $800 UBI per month. The combined yearly UBI of that household would then be $19,200/year. And their combined wages would be $24,000/year.

Now, to make this work with a flat tax rate in the economy described by my numbers, you would need a tax rate on non-UBI portion to be 35% for everyone. So this particular household would pay 35% of their wages (not of their total income including UBI check!) - so $8,400/year. And, as we have already computed above, they will receive an UBI checks totalling $19,200 in that year. So they will end up getting $10,800 on top of what they have earned, after we reconcile their taxes with their UBI checks. So they're getting an extra $900 per month together - so each one of them is getting an extra $450.

And no, this system does not imply that we send them the check for the difference - we collect taxes separately, and mail the checks separately, and it's reconciled by recipient. Income tax would be collected in the same way it it collected today for most - you'd simply get it subtracted from your paycheck by your employer. But now, in addition to the paycheck every month, which will be $X dollars smaller, you would also receive the UBI check every month, which will be $Y dollars bigger. Thus, the UBI system doesn't need to keep track of anything, and tax system doesn't need to keep track of anything that it already doesn't track today (i.e. your wages).

Here's the spreadsheet that I was using to make these computations. First two columns - yearly income, and number of households earning that income - are from this chart, as I have described before. The only other input is the desired UBI payout - this is the bold figure at the top. The rest of the table is automatically calculated from these two inputs, producing the tax rate on wages portion of income (at the bottom) that is necessary to produce a balanced UBI budget. The second-to-last column is how much net benefit every household in that income bracket receives from the UBI system. The last column is their total household income after all taxes are paid and UBI checks are cashed in.

Does that make sense now?

I mentioned that it does "feel" heavy, but I have no discomfort using it where I used my kindle before or for as long as I did. But I also find that in situations where the form factor is inconvenient, it's so easy to set down. Everything from using it to read sheet music, plonking it on the rumpled sheets of the unmade bed - I was *convinced* it would fall over but it's actually at that intersection between lightness and heft that even with me banging on the osk it stayed stable, damn it.

What you're saying will likely be true for many users, but I think it's also the same argument that us old farts were making about phones and then tablets in the first place. It's a different form factor and you adapt to it. If I were looking for a device to put in the hands of the forklift operators in a factory? A 6-8in tablet; maybe even a 4-5in phone or pad with a REALLY simple UI.

The surface, to me, feels like a revival of the sub-notebook form factor. I was never comfortable with that because the keyboard got in the way, the surface solves that.

Umm. So, I'm writing this at my desktop, but I'm using my surface, which I'd dropped on the most convenient thing on my desk - my keyboard (pic)

- Oliver

I'm just gonna leave this here in the hopes that you'll get a clue...

Office Online

Take a backup if you are so precious about your current OS, it even tells you how in the Insider documentation - enough has changed that they have to migrate the user account stuff, so that gives an indication of how different things are now.

And yes, you can select your updates, just like before.

I don't wish to be "stuck" with Win10 as it's going subscription after a year free. I'm used to dual booting always have, it allows a choice.

Should be a way do this (EasyBCD), I'll figure it out (not asking).

Thanks for the update on the updates. :)

It should be noted that if you upgrade within the first year of its release, its free for the life Windows 10. So its not a subscription but rather a limited time offer.

Second reply, different day.

I'm going to try it out, I was loaned a brand new Acer Aspire 64 bit laptop. It's Win8, so I've been prepping it for Win8.1 then thought hell, might as well go on to Win10. I had much more to add but after reading the agreement it's best left unsaid, and the tape over the web cam stays.

But may disable mobile phones permanently? That's harsh.

Had a hell of a scare, hotmail.com is my e-mail address, https://account.live.com/ kept verifying me by sending E-mail that said if it's really me don't do anything, wrong. This went on for over an hour, the account itself in jeopardy.

The scare? I rarely log into MS yet most of my E-mail goes to hotmail.com (https://account.live.com ?) then forwarded elsewhere. Been like that for a very long time, they now have a second e-mail address to verify me by; but hell they've been forwarding to it for just as long... Wonder how Bing is holding up...

* Hotmail didn't have POP3, the other address did, I download all of my E-mail to read with Forte's Agent 6.

The only conclusion that I can draw is that these major providers all use the same dynamic, or what they interpret as dynamic anyhow, IP lists and block based on them. I can understand that... the part that I have an issue with is that I have no recourse to have my IP reevaluated.

IME, it's unlikely that Hotmail and Yahoo do something in the same way; khasim is right, attach a firewall and have outgoing port 25 connections logged, then compare that log with your mail server's "official" log. That's the nasty side of remote control.

Subscribing to their FBL might also, occasionally, reveal unwanted activity. You need DKIM signatures for Yahoo. For Hotmail, you have to prepare a curl script that downloads their page every 12~24 hrs.

Thanks for the reply, I appreciate it. To answer your questions:

1) Yes, I have a domain. The reverse DNS is correct and I have SPF records for the domain. Also, I'm not running an open relay and my mail server and IP address are not on any RBLs.

2) Each mail service I listed above provides different results. First, Google doesn't send me an email back notifying of an issue. They simply dump the email into the spam folder of whomever I email. Yahoo spits out several messages:

Deferred: 421 4.7.1 [TS03] All messages from XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX will be permanently deferred; Retrying will NOT succeed. See http://postmaster.yahoo.com/42...

Deferred: 421 4.7.0 [TS01] Messages from XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX temporarily deferred due to user complaints - 4.16.55.1; see http://postmaster.yahoo.com/42...

Hotmail spits back this message:

Deferred: 421 RP-001 (BAY004-MC5F24) Unfortunately, some messages from XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX weren't sent. Please try again. We have limits for how many messages can be sent per hour and per day. You can also refer to http://mail.live.com/mail/trou....

here

To Microsoft's credit, they publish reasonably interesting root-cause-analysis after each significant failure, where as Google seem to have a canned response (so far). Their response to the Outlook.com outage and their response to the recent Azure outage caused by an expired SSL certificate.

To be fair, that's a list of OS shortcuts and application shortcuts. Looking at just OS shortcuts they're much of a muchness: https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=2ee8d462a8f365a0&id=2EE8D462A8F365A0!141

I agree, sorta-kinda. But even if we include the Explorer shortcuts to offset the Finder shortcuts, I think the OS X list is still significantly longer.

To be fair, that's a list of OS shortcuts and application shortcuts. Looking at just OS shortcuts they're much of a muchness: https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=2ee8d462a8f365a0&id=2EE8D462A8F365A0!141

As much as they're derided here on Slashdot, every Windows tablet comes with at least one full size USB port, some form of video out (either full hdmi, mini display port, or micro hdmi), and only one model doesn't come with an SD card slot. These tablets are coming from Asus, Samsung, Sony, Lenovo, Dell, Acer, HP, Fujitsu, Toshiba, and Microsoft.

Here's a pretty comprehensive list of the current offerings with sortable specs: https://skydrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=DA410C7F7E038D!9136&app=Excel

You assume that this is case, yet the poster provides a link to management data which at least appears to show that your assumption is incorrect

I assume this is the case because, like I said, having actually worked on a large spam filter I've seen this kind of story many times before. These people are always amazed to discover that people are pressing report spam on their wonderful bulk mail. Yet the fact remained that people were doing exactly that. They didn't want the mail.

Look at it this way. This guys screenshot shows Hotmail themselves saying he hit some of their spamtraps. From the SNDS FAQ we can see that "trap hits" means he mailed accounts that don't solicit mail - ever - so we already know his claim that every account is opt in isn't true. What else isn't true?

Pushing the problem onto the 400,000+ individual users instead of dealiing with it at the ISP level is exactly the sort of free market failure tha the poster complains of.

It's not a free market failure at all, these sorts of big webmail spam filters are very effective. If users are seeing false positives they can go and unmark the mail as spam, the system will learn that the user wants that mail and the problem is solved.

Again, deny any version of reality that doesn't align with your assumptions.

My assumption is that this story is much like all the other such stories I've come across - the guy is a spammer and doesn't realize it. This assumption is very, very likely to line up with reality.

Well that didn't work...try this link (these tables are not mine).

The Surface Pro does. Here is a longer list of Windows 8 tablets with DPI > 150 and a stylus. I find 150 DPI to be the minimum if you want subscripts to be legible when placing a full page on screen (width maximized). Of course, the higher the better.

I've long been frustrate that Apple decided to forgo the stylus (and all others are playing copycat), and I'm really really frustrated that no one else sees the utility and use case in a computer that acts like paper (facepalm). I'll give Windows 8 a try for 5 or 10 minutes, but then Ubuntu and Xournal are going on mine. I'm also really frustrated that all these morons decided a 16:9 TV screen is the only way to make a computer screen: they're substantially narrower and taller than a Letter or A4 piece of paper. But at least they've finally returned to the desired DPI and stylus feature-point. The last time that happened was 2007 with the Thinkpad x61 tablet (with the SXGA+ screen upgrade).

this has also been happening to Technet & MSDN logins for a while now

trying to access https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/securedownloads/default.aspx (or the equivalent technet downloads page) you get redirected to a login page that starts with https://login.live.com/login.srf and that form only alows 16 chars

i went bonkers when it started to happen, a few months ago, but then i got used to it... this is the regular crap that's pulled by MS these days. :(

It is just "live" email with a new front end, and domain name. :-/ Meh

https://blu002.mail.live.com/default.aspx

Just a suggestion, but SkyDrive is great. You get 25GB for free and it is also going to be integrated fully into Windows 8 in future.

Android App for SkyDrive: https://apps.live.com/skydrive/app/4c12c1cf-063a-4440-a75b-1fe1ea0b9df5

This is all out of date as of yesterday. Max file size sync has changed, etc... Please keep up!

Skydrive offers 7GB for Free, Google Drive offers 5GB. Sky Drive offers a max of 100GB of Paid Storage, Google Drive offers 16TB of paid storage.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/04/23/the-next-chapter-for-skydrive-personal-cloud-storage-for-windows-available-anywhere.aspx
https://apps.live.com/skydrive

They need to update their Google compare: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/skydrive/compare
Make sure you keep up with the news :)

I manage a large volume email installation (many mil+ daily). I block ips that do not have reverse DNS with little to no problem. It is a common requirement, and those mailing without reverse dns won't be able to mail a lot of people. This hasn't been a problem, but as a large local provider it may just be I'm in a strong position to bully people into fixing their dns.

I don't block those who have _broken_ reverse dns. That's common, even among some big sites. By that I mean their ip address resolves to a hostname, but that hostname does not resolve back to that ip. If you block based on this you will loose legitimate mail.

Microsoft already does this. https://devices.live.com/

Here it is: http://inference.location.live.com/

Unfortunately after signing in it doesn't work, it takes you back to your Live main page. Perhaps they took it down after realizing it was a bad idea ...

Can someone confirm?

Mmm.. it's not a locker. It's a sync service. I used long time ago, but just checking I think it's called Windows Live Mesh.

When I used it, you had some online storage that you could sync, or you could leave your computer on, and remotely access it through your account. That is, you could have your files in their servers or on your computer and they would help you to remotely access them (which was particularly useful also to connect to computers connected to the internet through ISPs doing NAT).

Anyway, yes that service has been around already commercially available besides what a geek could attempt on their side.

Funnily, I just checked, and its STILL screwed up! http://explore.live.com/windows-live-Messenger-XP [live.com] This was months ago I saw this and it is STILL screwed up! Notice how the "Download Windows Media Player Plugin" text overlaps the "Choose Language" box and you can't actually click the box!

Maybe if you updated from IE6 you'd have more success.
55 minutes and you didn't think to get the latest supported browser for your OS? Hand in your geek card, you failed.

The lead people at MS are killing the company. I have no doubt about it.

Have you ever read the e-mails from Bill Gates to his top guys at MS? The e-mails where he describes his intent to use windows movie maker and ended up in an hours-long fiasco of installing all kinds of crap and encountering dysfunction along the entire path? If not it is worth googling.

I had this EXACT same experience, except I wasn't a former owner writing e-mails... I was just a guy laughing at how ridiculous it was.

I attempted to get windows messenger for windows xp. Normally to update messenger, it offers an update. But this was not working at all (lol). So I decided to go to www.microsoft.com and dig up the software. Even though their website detected my OS, it gave me the download to Windows Live Messenger that was *NOT* for XP. I downloaded and attempted to install twice, only to be faced with a 'corrupted file' error.... funny.. because it wasn't corrupted.. it just didn't run on XP.

So after bumbling around a bit and curiously wondering why the regular update didn't work and their site's download didn't work... I stumble upon the fact that there is a separate messenger for XP. When I get to that page, which is on microsofts site, it doesn't render well. The page, viewed in MS internet explorer, was dilapidated and you couldn't actually hit the SELECT LANGUAGE box!

Funnily, I just checked, and its STILL screwed up! http://explore.live.com/windows-live-Messenger-XP This was months ago I saw this and it is STILL screwed up! Notice how the "Download Windows Media Player Plugin" text overlaps the "Choose Language" box and you can't actually click the box!

I had to dork around with this page for a good 15 minutes before I somehow got to select a language.... from there I finally got my download and got windows messenger for XP installed.

THE TOTAL PROCESS TOOK ABOUT 55 MINS. And I've been a nerd since 1992 if that gives you any reference to how fast I can usually solve problems.
--------------------

I was laughing the whole time, yet outrageously irritated. I was laughing because it is clear to me that the people running microsoft are clearly and without any question trying to kill the company. They are by neglect or deliberate act, ignoring every important thing that matters in software. Bill Gates complained a lot, and in his fervor, you can sense he wanted his software to operate like Apple's does.

cower in my shadow behind your chosen fantasy based pseudonym, feeb.

you're completely pathetic.

That's how this looks in a telnet port 25 session from a DSL line:

telnet mx2.hotmail.com 25

220 bay0-mc3-f21.Bay0.hotmail.com Sending unsolicited commercial or bulk e-mail
to Microsoft's computer network is prohibited. Other restrictions are found at h
ttp://privacy.msn.com/Anti-spam/. Violations will result in use of equipment loc
ated in California and other states. Mon, 21 Feb 2011 17:47:40 -0800
EHLO mine.home.net
250-bay0-mc3-f21.Bay0.hotmail.com (3.12.0.56) Hello [xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx]
250-SIZE 36909875
250-PIPELINING
250-8bitmime
250-BINARYMIME
250-CHUNKING
250-AUTH LOGIN
250-AUTH=LOGIN
250 OK
MAIL FROM: i@home.net
550 DY-001 Unfortunately, messages from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx weren't sent. Please conta
ct your Internet service provider. You can tell them that Hotmail does not relay
  dynamically-assigned IP ranges. You can also refer your provider to http://mail.live.com/mail/troubleshooting.aspx#errors.

Now if you've got a dynamic IP or a static IP in a dynamic IP range or maybe even a static IP from a static IP range from a larger known-to-be-dynamically-assigned IPs...

I remember once upon a time when I was first setting up my mail server I experienced this exact problem. As I recall, there was some kind of hotmail-ish website I went to that helped me get its IP allowed by their system.

Here are some great resources on sending email to hotmail:

http://mail.live.com/mail/troubleshooting.aspx (generic troubleshooting page for sending to hotmail)

https://postmaster.live.com/snds/ (Signing up here lets you see what hotmail thinks of a specific IP, assuming you control RDNS for it. This might have been what I did once upon a time)

Finally, if none of those help, you can ask them directly here:

https://support.msn.com/eform.aspx?productKey=edfsmsbl&ct=eformts&st=1&wfxredirect=1

Regards,

Anom

I remember once upon a time when I was first setting up my mail server I experienced this exact problem. As I recall, there was some kind of hotmail-ish website I went to that helped me get its IP allowed by their system.

Here are some great resources on sending email to hotmail:

http://mail.live.com/mail/troubleshooting.aspx (generic troubleshooting page for sending to hotmail)

https://postmaster.live.com/snds/ (Signing up here lets you see what hotmail thinks of a specific IP, assuming you control RDNS for it. This might have been what I did once upon a time)

Finally, if none of those help, you can ask them directly here:

https://support.msn.com/eform.aspx?productKey=edfsmsbl&ct=eformts&st=1&wfxredirect=1

Regards,

Anom

No problem. You'd be surprised how many customers I've built a new machine for that went "ZOMG! Windows is sucked up all my RAMs!" and I would have to explain that superfetch always has lowest priority so that ANY app that asks for that RAM is free to have it, it is ONLY when it isn't being used by anything else that superfetch uses it. Same as how Readyboost will ONLY use a flash drive if you specifically tell it to, otherwise it is just another flash stick.

That is why I have started giving them All CPU Meter that is a wonderful little free Windows gadget that tells them EXACTLY how much RAM they have "free" by simply not taking the superfetch cache (which as I said is free to any program that asks for it) into consideration. Folks like having a "car gauge" as one called it to easily see "what is going on" and it'll even integrate CoreTemp into All CPU Meter so you have a "one stop shop" that lets you know what is going on inside.

But that whole "must have free RAM!" myth is one that I will be happy when it finally dies. Sure you needed free RAM in Win9X because the 16/32 bit hybrid nature of Win9X made memory leaks common and the memory subsystem wasn't great to start with, but what is the point of having multiGb of RAM if all it does is just sit there doing nothing? one of the best improvements in Windows IMHO was when MSFT made having more RAM beneficial not only when you are running a heavy app, but for day to day usage as well.

The site has been offline for two years, but the Internet Archive has most of it is HERE .

Read it and weep. Nothing will be done because most Windows users, like you, prefer to not believe that they are being spied on, or that former Microsoft employee James Plamondon trained "Technical Evangelists" who astroturf websites making fun of such claims.

You should read James Plamondon's mea culpa concerning his training of PAID "Technical Evangelists" to do the "Slog", the "Stuffed Panel", Astroturf congress and various websites with pro Microsoft and/or anti-Apple or Linux lies, etc...

Plamondon had to do a mea culpa because his activity was exposed in the Combs vs Microsoft lawsuit where the training documents he wrote were released to the public. As an example of how TE's work, read exerpts from Plamondon's training manual for the phrase "stacked panel", "The Slog", and other techniques here.

When Joe Barr wrote SLIME in 1994, he didn't know about the TE's Microsoft had unleashed on the world, but he described them to a tea:
http://slated.org/more_microsoft_dirty_tricks_history

Internet Achive has the "SLIME" article here.

A more complete, but not exhaustive list of dirty tricks by Microsoft are listed here:
http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/Dirty_Tricks_history

Same, doesn't work in Chrome 8.0.552.215. How ironic Google would release tools that don't work on their own browser...

Hey Google, should I use IE to view the Google Body Browser? Wonder if Windows Live would ever recommend I use Chrome...

Syncing bookmarks is exactly what Firefox Sync aims to do. Windows Live Mesh does the same for the IE crowd.

I'm using and loving WMC, but sounds like you have installed some cool options. Could you post/list what you have extended it with? Thanks!

Certainly! Here you go:

• MediaBrowser - an XBMC like interface for managing all your ripped movies and TV shows.
• Remote Potato - installs a web-server on your HTPC which will allow you to view what shows you have recorded, manage your recordings (including delete and schedule new shows) and stream recorded TV to your screen.
• MediaControl - a plugin that enables FFWD and RWD for non-WTV and DVR-MS files.
• MoveRecordedTVMovies - a simple command line app which looks for movies stored in your "Recorded TV" folder and moves them elsewhere (complete with correct folder structure). Handy if you don't want TV movies to clutter up your other recordings.
• Shark007 codec pack - the only codec pack you need. Install, select default/recommended settings and you'll be set up with all the major codec support (including MKV with DTS audio).
• TunerFreeMCE (or) NeverMiss.TV - Allows you to watch catchup shows from BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5.

You should also check out The Green Button forums as they have lots of useful information and links to third party software. Also the people on it are extremely friendly if you have questions or issues.

I also have a script which removes duplicate recorded TV shows (when series link glitches) and I'm in the process of cleaning it up to release. I'll post the link to the forum above when it is completed.

My kids have Windows Live Family Safety installed on the PC that they have access to; I can remotely deny or allow access to websites and check their browsing behaviour no matter if they're using IE, FireFox or Chrome. I can even use it to restrict how much time they're spending playing games - although their machine is in the front room where both my wife and I can see what they're up to - and all Messenger friend requests have to be vetted by me.

It's not that I don't trust my kids - I do - but I don't trust the wider internet, and they're simply too young to be given unfettered access.

Oopsie, I forgot to mention, you need a live plus account to be able to change settings at https://account.live.com/ManageSSL . But still visiting https://www.hotmail.com/ should still work for non-paying users. Here is a source if you are interested... http://lifehacker.com/5684326/hotmail-adds-always+on-secure-https-connection-option

It does work for me (with out using EFF's addon). Do try visiting https://account.live.com/ManageSSL , where you can set this up. Not sure why simply visiting https://www.hotmail.com/ does not work for you.

And I do understand what you looking for is https even beyond logon. The one I had mentioned (in this post and the prev post) is exactly for this purpose.

Would greatly appreciate if someone could please add this information onto the USB dead drops in my absense (after all the dead drops need some juicy content with government secrets):
http://www.mediafire.com/?09tf66ybzurpr0s
http://cid-3bfa0ee4c6f361ff.office.live.com/browse.aspx/Public
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B9K1bpZ8L19dNTk1YmE1NTctYTYwZC00ZjdjLWEzZGUtNDY1MzQ5ODVmNTQ0
http://cid-3bfa0ee4c6f361ff.photos.live.com/
http://evidenceagainstusgovernment.blogspot.com/
http://newworldordersatanicslavery.blogspot.com/

Would greatly appreciate if someone could please add this information onto the USB dead drops in my absense (after all the dead drops need some juicy content with government secrets):
http://www.mediafire.com/?09tf66ybzurpr0s
http://cid-3bfa0ee4c6f361ff.office.live.com/browse.aspx/Public
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B9K1bpZ8L19dNTk1YmE1NTctYTYwZC00ZjdjLWEzZGUtNDY1MzQ5ODVmNTQ0
http://cid-3bfa0ee4c6f361ff.photos.live.com/
http://evidenceagainstusgovernment.blogspot.com/
http://newworldordersatanicslavery.blogspot.com/

Ozzie is now in charge of setting the future direction for the world’s largest software maker and unlike his predecessor, he has little interest in milking past successes. He is the guy behind Microsoft’s cloud computing efforts and the products and services he’s working on have little do with Windows, Office, or Server. He knows that the world is moving on and he’s trying to move Microsoft with the same pace to this new world. Some people there will go willingly. others will go screaming, while some may simply retire, unable to handle the future Microsoft. Regardless, change is happening and its clearly visible now..

So the result of all this is that you see the birth of Live Mesh. Microsoft’s Software + Services initiative...

Seems like Ozzie was the Pappa of MOE - so some short-sighted pratt ripped anything useful out of it and turned it into a toy sync program. And as that toy was released, I'm guessing they're still at Microsoft while Ozzie leaves.

whichever AV and PKI vendors are selected naturally benefit

Hmm... like, for example, Microsoft Live OneCare? Sounds like roll-your-own will be MSFT's way to go.

Yeah, I know, OneCare's discontinued... but if this flies, how long do you think it will be before some other AV solution is rolled out by MSFT, and touted as the "best" way to maintain your internet connection?