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Never paid for windows since xp. You were saying?

You either use another OS or you're a software pirate, so your post is completely irrelevant.

You appear to have forgotten a third option: someone else is paying for Anonymous Coward #50924157's copy of Windows. This is likely the publisher of trialware bundled with a name brand PC. I can tell that publishers of trialware for Windows fully subsidize Windows because GNU/Linux PCs from companies such as System76 tend to cost more than Windows PCs with equivalent specifications. The maker of PCs that ship with GNU/Linux cannot collect revenue from trialware publishers because trialware publishers are on the whole unwilling to port their products to GNU/Linux.

No, I didn't. I don't (and can't) know specific numbers or anything, but even if Microsoft gives OEMs licenses of Windows for, say, $16 and crapware vendors give OEMs $16 or more per computer, you're still paying for a license. Sure, the net cost of the license might be $0 or less, but the cost of the license is built into the price of the computer. In simple terms it's essentially ($hardware + $windows) - $crapware = $cost. I left out stuff like marketing and R&D, but lumped those into hardware costs. A big reason that System76 and others' laptops that run alternative OS's, for example, cost more because they just can't do the volume that Dell and other OEM's can, so they don't get quite the same price breaks from the OEM's.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/h...

The first time I used the bittorrent protocol, I used it to get a copy of Debian. I'd never heard of it before, but I read up on it and was impressed how potentially useful it could be. Software updates were the obvious first thing that sprang to my mind (as I work with a program that gets a lot of updates, all from a host that was more or less flat lining every time the updates came out.) When I found out people were using it for copyright infringement, I was shocked since, by it's nature, the protocol shares the IPs of everyone sharing the file.

I recalled there was some company that was using it for software updates so I googled for it, and not only found that, but some other rather significant users of bittorrent protocol:

• Blizzard Entertainment uses its own BitTorrent client to download World of Warcraft, Starcraft II, and Diablo III.
• Facebook and Twitter both use BitTorrent internally to move files around.
• The Internet Archive recommends people use BitTorrent to download its content, as it’s the fastest method and allows the non-profit organization to save on bandwidth costs.
• Linux ISO distribution, as I first discovered it, is a big use.
• The UK government released several large data sets showing how public money was being spent.

Then there's NASA, and BitTorrent Sync and all the legal music and videos Bittorrent Inc puts out. P2P file sharing just makes sense for so many things, I'm still surprised people associate it with copyright infringement. I think the real key to understanding that association is all the media coverage of the *AA battles against Napster, Limewire, Mopheus and The Pirate Bay. I suspect there would be a lot less infringement if the public wasn't constantly hearing news about how people are getting content without paying.

What I find most newsworthy is that Microsoft is using P2P to distribute updates now. Maybe the makers of the software I work with will finally get the hint.

Citation needed.

No citation needed, it's an assertion based upon the most rudimentary understanding of economics. Of course, I might be wrong.

Sure. But there are other ways to pay programmers than by the sale of proprietary software.

You are correct. However, all of the points referenced therein make presumptions about open source software that was already mature. How do you think such open source software becomes mature? By developers with programming skills. How do those developers gain programming skills? Hint: not solely through open source projects.

And you don't think the benefit flows in the other direction too?

Of course it does. There are many mutually-beneficial relationships between open source projects and commercial entities that use them.

It turns out there is a registry or a local policy hack to disable forced restarts. I have no idea why Microsoft went to so much effort to bury that kind of option.
A bit of Googling produded this link.

Of course other OS's allow most updates to be installed without requiring a reboot for them to take effect. Also said OS's tend to treat the user as a person that's capable of learning and taking responsibility for their actions.

I bet that the corporate, proprietary world has done more good for free software than free software has.

Citation needed.

After all, someone has to pay the salaries of programmers, right?

Sure. But there are other ways to pay programmers than by the sale of proprietary software.

I've personally been involved in huge numbers of projects where developer's exposure to open source projects, within the context of a proprietary-only workplace, has enabled the skills and exposure to those open source projects, with said developers going on to work on derivative, open source projects in their spare time.

And you don't think the benefit flows in the other direction too?

Good day Mr. Literal, you have a very limited concept of "work" but I don't blame you, it's a sign of the times.

Usually, an HD does not mangle filenames nor folder layouts, nor needs updating a firewire_id entry every time a different system mounts the ipod, else have it misbehave.

"Youâ(TM)ll find your music there randomly scattered across multiple folders and with scrambled file names"

I have used Ubuntu for a long time and have 12.04 version. Love it to bits, but the only problem is when we want to put different music on iPod products. Use Rhythmbox, but that doesn't work, it just seems to remove all the music. (suggested solution: use a VM)

Before android got dominant and ditched usb storage, the ipod was unique in having basic I/O functionality made difficult on purpose.

Sure there is. All you have to do is use stegnography to encode your message into a photo, then use that photo in what looks like a spam email message, then pretend your computer is taken over by a botnet and send the spam to a few thousand email addresses (including the one you actually want to send to). Absolutely no useful metadata there.

Do you know what metadata is? It's the information like who it originated from and the destination address. That will still be

Are you REALLY buying your own BS, or are you just trolling? As one Linux friendly site easily defines "a year of the desktop where Linux desktop market share suddenly rises in relatively dramatic fashion."

And NO Virginia that does NOT mean going from the current lousy 1.34% which just FYI is sooo low that they officially now lump Linux in the "other" category to a 2%, that means a real significant rise as in double digits?

But lets face reality, its been...what? 24 years now? And you've NEVER even cracked 2%? I'm sorry but you have less of a chance at having a year of the Linux desktop than RMS has of becoming the POTUS. Its not gonna happen, it didn't happen when Shuttleworth was blowing millions plugging Ubuntu, didn't happen when Wally World was trying to hawk gOS desktops for $199, and its certainly not gonna happen now that Ballmer has been replaced by a guy with a functional brain, its just not gonna happen. We have already seen the future, and its a proprietary Android, a proprietary OSX/iOS, and a proprietary Windows....THAT is the future. Pretending the "year of a Linux desktop" is anything but a punchline? I'm sorry but you really shouldn't be hitting the pipe THAT hard buddy.

Is Your Antivirus Tracking You? You'd Be Surprised At What It Sends

by Chris Hoffman, 28th May, 2014, MakeUseOf.com

#

PLEASE READ THE PDF. THE QUOTE FROM THIS ARTICLE DRAWS REFERENCE TO WEB URLs BUT IN ORDER TO PROPERLY COMPREHEND THE MAGNITUDE OF DATA COLLECTION, YOU NEED TO READ THE PDF. PREPARE TO BE FLOORED.

DOWNLOAD THE PDF. STORE IT. CONVERT IT TO OTHER FORMATS. SHARE IT. MAKE SURE IT IS ALWAYS AVAILABLE SOMEWHERE ON-LINE OTHER THAN THE SOURCE BELOW. DON'T BLINDLY TRUST ARCHIVE.ORG OR SITES LIKE IT TO KEEP IT FOR YOU.

EVERYONE NEEDS TO READ THIS PDF BEFORE CONTINUING TO USE ANTI-VIRUS PROGRAMS.

#

        "Your antivirus software is watching you. A recent study shows that popular antivirus applications like Avast assign your computer a unique identifier and send a list of all web addresses you visit to the manufacturer. If the antivirus finds a suspicious document, it will send the document to the antivirus company. Yes, your antivirus company might have a list of web pages you've visited along with your sensitive personal documents!

        AV-Comparatives' Data Transmission Report

        We're getting this information from AV-Comparative's Data transmission in Internet security products report, released on May 8, 2014. AV-Comparatives is an antivirus testing and comparison organization.

        The study was performed by analyzing antivirus products running in a virtual machine to see what they sent to the antivirus company, reading each antivirus product's end user license agreement (EULA), and sending a detailed questionnaire to each antivirus company so they could explain what their products do........""

#

Rest of article and comments here:
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/a... .PDF - The Study, dated May 20, 2014:
http://www.av-comparatives.org... .PDF-To-Images Free 0n-Line Viewer:
http://view.samurajdata.se/

"Is Your Antivirus Tracking You? You'd Be Surprised At What It Sends"
by Chris Hoffman, 28th May, 2014, MakeUseOf.com

############

PLEASE READ THE PDF. THE QUOTE FROM THIS ARTICLE DRAWS REFERENCE TO WEB URLs BUT IN ORDER TO PROPERLY COMPREHEND THE MAGNITUDE OF DATA COLLECTION, YOU NEED TO READ THE PDF. PREPARE TO BE FLOORED.

DOWNLOAD THE PDF. STORE IT. CONVERT IT TO OTHER FORMATS. SHARE IT. MAKE SURE IT IS ALWAYS AVAILABLE SOMEWHERE ON-LINE OTHER THAN THE SOURCE BELOW. DON'T BLINDLY TRUST ARCHIVE.ORG OR SITES LIKE IT TO KEEP IT FOR YOU.

EVERYONE NEEDS TO READ THIS PDF BEFORE CONTINUING TO USE ANTI-VIRUS PROGRAMS.

############

        "Your antivirus software is watching you. A recent study shows that popular antivirus applications like Avast assign your computer a unique identifier and send a list of all web addresses you visit to the manufacturer. If the antivirus finds a suspicious document, it will send the document to the antivirus company. Yes, your antivirus company might have a list of web pages you've visited along with your sensitive personal documents!

        AV-Comparatives' Data Transmission Report

        We're getting this information from AV-Comparative's Data transmission in Internet security products report, released on May 8, 2014. AV-Comparatives is an antivirus testing and comparison organization.

        The study was performed by analyzing antivirus products running in a virtual machine to see what they sent to the antivirus company, reading each antivirus product's end user license agreement (EULA), and sending a detailed questionnaire to each antivirus company so they could explain what their products do........""

############

Rest of article and comments here:
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/a... .PDF - The Study, dated May 20, 2014:
http://www.av-comparatives.org... .PDF-To-Images Free 0n-Line Viewer:
http://view.samurajdata.se/

"Is Your Antivirus Tracking You? You'd Be Surprised At What It Sends"
by Chris Hoffman, 28th May, 2014, MakeUseOf.com

############

PLEASE READ THE PDF. THE QUOTE FROM THIS ARTICLE DRAWS REFERENCE TO WEB URLs BUT IN ORDER TO PROPERLY COMPREHEND THE MAGNITUDE OF DATA COLLECTION, YOU NEED TO READ THE PDF. PREPARE TO BE FLOORED.

DOWNLOAD THE PDF. STORE IT. CONVERT IT TO OTHER FORMATS. SHARE IT. MAKE SURE IT IS ALWAYS AVAILABLE SOMEWHERE ON-LINE OTHER THAN THE SOURCE BELOW. DON'T BLINDLY TRUST ARCHIVE.ORG OR SITES LIKE IT TO KEEP IT FOR YOU.

EVERYONE NEEDS TO READ THIS PDF BEFORE CONTINUING TO USE ANTI-VIRUS PROGRAMS.

############

        "Your antivirus software is watching you. A recent study shows that popular antivirus applications like Avast assign your computer a unique identifier and send a list of all web addresses you visit to the manufacturer. If the antivirus finds a suspicious document, it will send the document to the antivirus company. Yes, your antivirus company might have a list of web pages you've visited along with your sensitive personal documents!

        AV-Comparatives' Data Transmission Report

        We're getting this information from AV-Comparative's Data transmission in Internet security products report, released on May 8, 2014. AV-Comparatives is an antivirus testing and comparison organization.

        The study was performed by analyzing antivirus products running in a virtual machine to see what they sent to the antivirus company, reading each antivirus product's end user license agreement (EULA), and sending a detailed questionnaire to each antivirus company so they could explain what their products do........""

############

Rest of article and comments here:
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/a... .PDF - The Study, dated May 20, 2014:
http://www.av-comparatives.org... .PDF-To-Images Free 0n-Line Viewer:
http://view.samurajdata.se/

My notes on the registry hack reference:
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/q...

I do remember using that in the dev preview, but I didn't muck around much in the consumer preview at all.
The confusing way they word the first paragraph must have been what lead me to believe the same trick would work in the consumer preview as well.

Why not use older hardware? Is it really so hard to find an old IBM think center or Dell computer that still has IDE, etc.? We have a few at work that I keep around because I keep telling myself that one day I will have time to throw an old Slack distro on them or Windows 3/3.5 and show the kids what it was like "in my day!"

A quick google turned up this: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3...

But I only quickly looked at it, I am not recommending it or anything...

"Is Your Antivirus Tracking You? You'd Be Surprised At What It Sends"

by Chris Hoffman, 28th May, 2014, MakeUseOf.com

############

PLEASE READ THE PDF. THE QUOTE FROM THIS ARTICLE DRAWS REFERENCE TO WEB URLs BUT IN ORDER TO PROPERLY COMPREHEND THE MAGNITUDE OF DATA COLLECTION, YOU NEED TO READ THE PDF. PREPARE TO BE FLOORED.

DOWNLOAD THE PDF. STORE IT. CONVERT IT TO OTHER FORMATS. SHARE IT. MAKE SURE IT IS ALWAYS AVAILABLE SOMEWHERE ON-LINE OTHER THAN THE SOURCE BELOW. DON'T BLINDLY TRUST ARCHIVE.ORG TO KEEP IT FOR YOU.

EVERYONE NEEDS TO READ THIS PDF BEFORE CONTINUING TO USE ANTI-VIRUS PROGRAMS.

############

        "Your antivirus software is watching you. A recent study shows that popular antivirus applications like Avast assign your computer a unique identifier and send a list of all web addresses you visit to the manufacturer. If the antivirus finds a suspicious document, it will send the document to the antivirus company. Yes, your antivirus company might have a list of web pages you've visited along with your sensitive personal documents!

        AV-Comparatives' Data Transmission Report

        We're getting this information from AV-Comparative's Data transmission in Internet security products report, released on May 8, 2014. AV-Comparatives is an antivirus testing and comparison organization.

        The study was performed by analyzing antivirus products running in a virtual machine to see what they sent to the antivirus company, reading each antivirus product's end user license agreement (EULA), and sending a detailed questionnaire to each antivirus company so they could explain what their products do........""

############

Rest of article and comments here:
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/a...

.PDF - The Study, dated May 20, 2014:
http://www.av-comparatives.org...

.PDF-To-Images Free 0n-Line Viewer:
http://view.samurajdata.se/

in linux any screen grab program can capture streams if you 'trust' the third party repository that hosts the software that convinces netflix it's streaming to a windows machine -- as long as you are using the open source driver to your gpu/apu whatever. in windows the driver enters a secure mode so you get a pink screen instead of the video, at least on ati it does.

the url you mentioned or one of them is here http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/easily-enable-silverlight-watch-netflix-linux/

I liked gadgets, too. Minor things like a desktop clock, calendar, weather, scrachpad, that kind of thing helps your workflow and save you the time and risk of looking for some random shareware solution. I was never too clear on any security problems with gadgets, thought they were sandboxed. I figured they got dropped because Microsoft just decided the desktop was history and all is Metro. Same reason I figured this or that UI bug in 7 would never get fixed.

There are unofficial ways to get them back on Windows 8, and so far it's worked reliably for me.

According to this article only DropBox supports re-syncing just parts of a file that have changed. Google Drive re-uploads the entire file every time, so if you have a 10GB TrueCrypt container and change a few bytes in a text file it re-uploads 10GB.

Even DropBox has problems with TrueCrypt though if you try to share the container between multiple machines. It's okay for just doing backups from a single machine though.

I would consider: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/b... ... and then plug a big array into the pi. Then host that in someone else's home (someone I trust of course!).

Windows 7 supports only the Win32 API; Windows RT 8 and Windows RT 8.1 support only the new WinRT API.

This isn't ENTIRELY true. RT does have the Win32 API, in the sense that code written in it will run if compiled for it. The example for this is Office 2013 that's installed on every Surface (non-pro). The issue is that non-WinRT stuff on RT needs a special signature on it that only Microsoft has right now. Current versions of Visual Studio include the ARM compiler and your Win32 code will execute on RT, it just throws an error saying it's not signed right. This distinction allowed things like this to happen: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/h...

Does a "gesture friendly touchpad" mean its one of those completely flat surfaces with no edges that randomly make shit flip down/out/over what I'm trying to work on because there's no way to tell when you're moving the pointer and when you're swiping the charms bar?

Or does it mean one where the damn gestures are turned off by default without having to install synaptic drivers and dig through their driver menus, or hunt around in the registry, or say fuck it and replace windows entirely?

This has been going on for a long time - Skype was banned or crippled in the UAE for a long time, but recently unblocked:

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/business/technology/2013/04/08/Etisalat-unblocks-Skype-website-in-the-UAE.html

At the time, it was more about securing revenue from the lucrative expat market than locking-down protest movements.
Of course, these latter do exist, but less so in Saudi & UAE than, say, Egypt.

I guess this latest move will just drive more interest in alternatives, which are often 'open' and perhaps more secure...

http://www.pidgin.im/

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/fed-up-with-skype-here-are-6-of-the-best-free-alternatives/

I've been using Brief (add-on for Firefox) for about two months, and I'm quite satisfied. Getting used to the bookmark integration took some time, but it's not so bad. It can import feeds exported from Google Reader. More details here.

Even SSD drives couldn't send data fast enough for this. Most of my customers still use 100baseT. Some have upgraded to gigabit. I see very little use for this outside of large data centers,

1) Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons. - Popular Mechanics, 1949
2) I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won’t last out the year. - Editor of Prentice Hall business books, 1957
3) There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home. - Ken Olsen, 1977
4) We will never make a 32-bit operating system. - Bill Gates, 1989*
5) I believe OS/2 is destined to be the most important operating system, and possibly program, of all time. - Bill Gates, 1987


So... where do you think you rank? Source.

*Of course, you could argue that they didn't "make" it.

Most people don't understand that they don't really need any office at all !!

Office is used as a swiss army knife, but many times they are using the wrong tool (when all you got is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail!!)

-email and wikis replaced the most of the word processing
-calculator, real databases and special data tools replace most of the the spreadsheet
-PDF, youtube, web presentation and screen capture replace most of the presentations (and keep the presentations simple, NO ANIMATIONS, please!!)
-real databases or sqlite replace what some insist in using, even knowing that is broken, access
-a real email client or webmail replaces outlook (so broken by design that today many people thinks that is the only way that email to work... until they see good webmails working)

Yes, some people do really write documents (most of then should use latex instead)...
Yes, some people do really need spreadsheets (this is by far the most important tool in MS office
No, "fun" powerpoints are not important, please let it die and go do something productive ... like reading slashdot posts! ;)

So...there are people that need MS office (most of this can use any office for that matter), but those arent really the normal people, those don't really need any office (how many times did tablet owners really used one office?)

I never do.

Really, the biggest change in Windows 8, is that I have to press the windows key when I login. Nothing else really changed in the OS for me. I still just hit win+r for the "Run" prompt, or click a shortcut in the number of places I've aggregated them that make much more sense than Win 7's start menu layout. I got Windows 8 because it was just $15 for a valid windows license.

I'm in full agreement that there's no reason to upgrade from windows 7 to windows 8. But if you get windows 8, it's not the end of the world (unless you're really married to the start menu). Or hell, if you really need the start menu, just go download it and install it. If you're on slashdot you should know how to do this. This askslashdot is kind of a no-brainer.

Right, but you need a SIM card... somehow missed that part. But you don't actually need a cell phone contract for that - you can send and receive e-mail using SMS. Check out Email to SMS. Basically, you use the e-mail address associated with their phone number to send a text message. They text back, and you get an e-mail. And if you need mobile Internet, Ting does allow tethering, and sells mobile hotspots. See, I'm on topic!

But how do they test for effectiveness against zero-day attacks? Where do they get the zero-days from? If I'm a virus author I'd test my zero day with one of those websites ( http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-reliable-sites-quick-free-anti-virus-scan/ ) that scan for viruses with practically all the AV software in the market.

So the zero day when finally released will NOT be detected by ANY of them!

Maybe what an AV vendor could do is secretly work with these AV websites to detect suspicious activity..

Most simple - buy a NAS box

Or...

http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-i-set-home-file-server-free-review-freenas.htm

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/replace-windows-home-server-great-free-tools/

Better yet set up your own 'home cloud'...

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/101441-create-your-own-personal-media-cloud

Well, it is not like other industry giants make better predictions. Like these or these or these.

Got sources for that? Software these days are multi-gigabyte

More than 1% of Software is multi-gigabyte? Are you insane? Search for "best windows software" - gives makeuseof as the first result. 50-60 software listed on first page for windows, none of them multi-gigabyte.

Second result : download.com. Top-20 software by number of downloads listed on home page. None of them multi-gigabyte.

If less than 1% of software is multi-gigabyte, it is highly misrepresentational to say "Software these days are multi-gigabyte". It is the other 99% of Software that can easily be downloaded being discussed.

Why can't we have a phone number whitelist just like I have for MAC addresses on my wireless router? Everything else dumps to VM.

I believe this will do what you want (if you have an Android phone):

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/a-better-way-to-block-unwanted-calls-on-your-android-phone/

i've seen many ssd's die in enterprise SAN kit and will even go so far as to say as a percentage they die far more often then spinning rusty metal.

However, this is because of how they are used in SAN. Often they are used in a multi-tier way, where most frequently accessed data is pushed up to the SSD's to allow quick access, so they get hit the hardest.

I would be guessing your asking this question simply cause its easier to understand why a part-in-motion can slowly die over time where something thats in silicon shouldnt. You'd probably be surprised to know that alot of drives die a controller death, not a platter/motor death. Typically a platter/motor death usually means a badly made drive (mostly because makers of spinning rusty metal have gotten very good at the mechanics behind them) and while the mechanics in a drive will slowly wear over time, typically something silicon in the controller goes first. The exception to that is where drivers are physically in motion not of their own (i.e. laptops for example), often then the drive shaft in the drive itself starts to get wear unevenly and that usually gets worse over time (or at least, this is what i've been told).

Some SAN makers will even put hdd's through their paces first to make sure they actually perform ok - for eg, they'll measure vibration, etc (i.e. the mechanical components) to make sure a drive is up to spec before it goes into their kit - they cant really do the same as easily with silicon as theres not much to work off that can be measured - so often in enterprise grade SAN's, silicon dies before mechanical.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/solidstate-drives-work-makeuseof-explains/ is a fairly good explanation of why ssd's die (and relavent).

Having said all that, i honestly cant wait for the death of spinning rusty metal for the simple reason that ssds should (and havent yet) taken on forms which would be much more useful - why use a sata 2.5" format when you could have much better geometries for example? Then theres the interfaces we use where were really designed with hard drives in mind... but thats an entirely different issue.

As for "if its all the same, why doesnt it die at the same time?"... because at a fundamental level, it isnt the same. When we make anything no matter what it is it, the materials go thru some form of refining process where impurities are removed. Its impractical and near impossible to get anything 100% pure (not to mention entirely uneconomical - you might pay $1/tonne for 90% pure iron and $100/tonne for 91% pure iron as an example). The nature of where we get those materials often means the impurities vary greatly in composition in small spaces of time, hence why two hdd's sitting next to each other on the assembly line might mean one will die after 2 days and the other will die after 200 years. Theres also other components to this in that if you looked at iron (again an example, but true of most metals) under a microscope you'd find that it isnt a uniform substance, its quite grainy so to speak and those grains vary considerably. This too impacts the nature of the substance and its longevity. Using iron as an example, when its cooled its very hard to get a truly consistent cooling of it across the entire piece and the cooling determines how those grains form - i.e. grains in the center of the material will be quite different to grains at the edge and so forth. Thats just a small number of things that explain why consistency isnt quite as 100% as it might appear to be on the surface, there are quite alot of factors that come together to effect materials we use. Ultimately the way we choose the materials we produce things with is by tolerance, i.e. i expect 99% of my metal you sell me to fall into 90% pure and have x tensile strength or any number of variables you might consider important to your manufacturing process but even then its never 100%, you always except at some point that you'll get raw materials that'll fall outside those tolerances and as with everything on the planet its a trade off between price vs quality!

From what I understand, SSD die because of "write-burnout" if they are FLASH based and from what I understand the majority of SSDs are flashed based now. So while I haven't actually had a drive fail on me, I assume that I would be able to still read data off a failing drive and restore it, making it an ideal failure path. I did a google search and found a good article on the issue: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/data-recovered-failed-ssd/

Which is why you can do the same from a failed usb flash drive?

It's a nice theory, but it's highly dependent on the controller.

You have it all wrong. Facebook is cutting-edge technology. They use Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, and MemCache. What is more innovative than that?

They also developed the hiphop php compiler, cassandra, thrift, and scribe... but those are nearly entirely to work around problems with using LAMP on a site that large.

Jobs' vision.

That's one of the downsides of the walled garden.
Why? a walled garden hasn't stopped Apple before... ;-)

Amazon apparently still needs to learn this, given the recent Kindle Touch remote root exploit.

Not true:

https://spideroak.com/faq/questions/3/does_spideroak_use_encryption_when_storing_and_transferring_data/
http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/04/spideroak-dropbox-for-the-security-obsessive/

Disclamer: I have not used this service.

Here are some more (same disclaimer):

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/secure-files-3-encrypted-dropbox-alternatives/

Obligatory: http://www.makeuseof.com/tech-fun/pirated-dvd-vs-legal-dvd/

Now go check to see what things have been made possible via Kickstarter . Even things for all to enjoy .

"shipping soon", a printed web comic, an iPhone dock, no thanks dude.

As a nerd who was heavily into consumer VR headsets and has been disappointed in the offerings available since the 90s, this excites me. Now consider that:

1. People here are highly interested in tech stuff (you know, stuff that matters)
2. Putting something here, to the attention of the 100s of thousands of Slashdot users increases the chances that a project such as this will reach its funding goal and you know, we get the story about it successfully shipping in the next year.
3. They already have a working prototype (must have missed the duct tape) and working software.
4. The developer units (you know if you pledge $300) ship in December.
5. Not all of us are cynical assholes and are willing to chip into other fellow geeks/techies/engineer's dreams.

So excuse us while we get excited over new tech and chip in any way we can to make it happen instead of bitching and moaning about it on a forum.

Now go check to see what things have been made possible via Kickstarter . Even things for all to enjoy .

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/encrypt-gmail-facebook-messages/

I went searching for Ghostery to install on Opera, and ran across this. Agree or disagree?

AdBlock, NoScript & Ghostery â" The Trifecta Of Evil [Opinion]
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/adblock-noscript-ghostery-trifecta-evil-opinion/
"Matt has already written an extensive article on why AdBlock plugin is destroying the Internet..... So when you use NoScript, youâ(TM)re breaking the Internet. Not only do you drag webpages 10 years into the past, but you prevent essential modern page components from loading..... Scare tactics are part of the problem, from conspiracy theorists who believe the government is watching them and now the Internet tracking companies know their every move too. Trouble is, a lot of people without technical knowledge on the subject believe those scare tactics......" and so on.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/free-linux-antivirus-programs/

There's an app for that.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/turn-your-android-phone-into-a-real-star-trek-tricorder/

And was taken down

http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/cbs-demands-removal-of-moonblinks-android-tricorder-app-2011097/

we can't do something like this with our gaming consoles, when they are idle.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tech-fun/computers-are-racist/

1. Work. My customers overwhelmingly use Windows. MY work is to support my customers. I use Windows so that I can run the software I support, understand and diagnose the problems my customers encounter, and assist in development by testing and diasgnosing development issues. Oh, and since Windows 7 is starting to get traction, I will see my next work machine be Windows 7.

2. Home. My wife has no interest in Apple, she thoroughly detests the single-button mouse. I explain that Apple computers can right-click now, but she's uninterested. And she uses a notebook, so a two-button touch pad is her 'need'. Since I am her primary tech support, I need to accomodate her platform of choice here also.

3. Functionality. Getting Ubuntu running on a Thinkpad X41 Tablet is not as easy as it might be. Getting Ubuntu running on an Asus G50-VTX1 isn't so easy either. Windows, I just have to wade through a myriad of updates, but it works. NVidia drivers for Windows are readily available and reasonably stable.

4. Games. Any currently popular multiplayer game I'm aware of is just not native to Linux. I see no sign of this changing.

I bumped into this comment (about a third of the way dowen the page):

"You canâ(TM)t really play the game for free if the OS it needs to run on isnâ(TM)t free. "

Well, Alex, you can't really play the game for free if the hardware it needs to run on isn't free. In other words, no computer game is free, no computer ANYTHING is free, just maybe free to you, if you don't count your time going to where the resources are 'free'.

5. Support. Alex's comment is a specific and excellent example of 'more helpful advice from the Linux community'. File this alongside the 'read the documentation', 'ask somewhere else', if you don't understand this, you shouldn't be doing it', and 'it's broken in Linux, you twit' responses. Almost as entertaining as those responses to Windows questions such as 'shoulda used Linux', 'blahblahblah windoes blahblahblah', and 'I've never seen that, do you have a virus?' answers. Linux documentation is of variable quality. The user community is getting better, but still a challenge. Asking the 'manufacturer' for help is fraught with uncertainty, since there isn't a 'manufacturer' to ask for help. NVidia drivers are a case in point.

And I run Ubuntu on one desktop, dual-boot on a laptop, and my servers are all either Debian or CentOS, with an old SUSE in there still delivering NetWare services to some old friends who can't let go. Show me Battlefield 3 or COD on Ubuntu, I'm there. Does Ubuntu hibernate or sleep correctly on current HP notebooks? Is Bluetooth working correctly on these, for any adapter less than $50 retail? Are Vst plugins working in anything in Ubuntu without having to set specific packages in advance, and then having to remove those to install something else, or even by finding it in package managers? Linux is not for the faint of heart, and my needs are not mainstream, but Windows still just does it, and the security problems are in fact manageable for me.

And then there's virtualization.

When an alternative becomes viable, I will want to boot Linux, run Windows in VMs with native DirectX support and full-speed gaming, and keep Linux desktops on the side to do other stuff. At work, I could only dream of such a setup with a Linux base, Windows VMs for various tasks, and full support for an AD environment. Until then, the answer is 'cause Windows works'.

http://www.copytrans.net/copytransmanager.php

http://www.getsharepod.com/

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/6-ways-to-sync-music-to-your-iphone-without-itunes/

For those who don’t want to install iTunes, there is a workaround:

* Download the iTunes.exe file
* Rename the .exe to .zip
* Open up the zipped file and extract AppleMobileDeviceSupport.msi
* Install this file.

You can then sync your iPhone without using iTunes