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Better search results and a better privacy policy made me switch from Google to Bing. I do not have anything to hide but I prefer to use tools and services that value my privacy as much as I do. For example, Bing will remove the entire IP associated with the log after 18 months:

Further, we have built-in technological and procedural safeguards designed to prevent the unauthorized correlation of this data. We take additional steps to protect the privacy of stored search information by removing the entirety of the IP address, cookies and other cross session identifiers, after 18 months(more info here).

On the other hand Google will remove at most last octet from the IP address from thisarticle:

We are removing the last octet of the IP address. In other words, we put zeros into the last eight bits of a 32-bit IP address. Technically speaking, there can be one to three digits in the last octet, when it is written in decimal notation.

I was surprised to find a google search returned no hits from M$ itself, but when I switched to bing, it worked. It seems that M$ is blocking google from searching it's site.

Really? I just copied the phrase from your post "Exchange Certificate on a winmo smartphone" into Google and the first result was a technet article at Microsoft. The best that Bing could do with the same phrase was some press release stuff about the phones (at least on the first page).

I know the results vary depending on your country and phase of the moon, but it seems a bit premature to suggest that Microsoft are blocking google when a million other test searches could easily prove that wrong.

Then after installing XP on another computer, and updating everything (since she wouldnt) I found that in the newest IE I couldnt use google as my search, the "easy" way of adding it was gone.

In other branches of this thread, everyone else has already mentioned the Find more providers option (which really doesn't seem that hard), but what "easy" way has been removed?

You obviously haven't used Windows in some time or are ignorant to the operation of MSI installers. MSI installed applications will copy themselves into the WINNT\Installer folder so they can be removed later by running this install file. If you remove these files, setup fails or they are corrupted, you have to run a special tool to remove the registry entries for that application in order to upgrade or remove said application. In essence, you could have to re-install said application in order to uninstall it. It's also a waste of space to retain the install files for your applications within the Windows directory (especially if you partition your drive and maintain a small footprint "OS" partition for easy backup.)

My "stupid ass signature" will remain.

You said, "Using IE6 is like using Firefox 1. Are you feeling lucky?"

Note that you were confused by Microsoft public relations that is apparently trying to avoid responsibility. Here is a quote from the article:

"Our investigation has shown that Internet explorer is vulnerable on all of Microsoft's most recent operating system releases, including Windows 7."

Windows 7 uses Internet Explorer 8, the latest version. According to Microsoft, all versions of IE are vulnerable. But Microsoft makes a statement that is apparently meant to confuse:

'Shortly after the report, Microsoft confirmed the new IE vulnerability was "one of the vectors used in targeted and sophisticated attacks against Google and possibly other corporate networks." A company statement said the attacks were carried out against version 6 of the widely used browser and suggested users protect themselves by enabling security features that have been added to successor versions'

At present, 2010-01-15, 03:59 PDT, the Microsoft Security Advisory (979352) tells the truth, but also in a way apparently designed to confuse. This is an exact quote, after the confusing introduction, eliminating other confusing words:

"... Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8 on ... Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2 are affected."

At present, here is the full, confusing paragraph from that Microsoft web page:

"Our investigation so far has shown that Internet Explorer 5.01 Service Pack 4 on Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 is not affected, and that Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 on Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, and Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8 on supported editions of Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2 are affected."

For the apparent reason Microsoft allows IE to be insecure, see the New York Times article Corrupted PC's Find New Home in the Dumpster. As the article explains, operating system corruption and vulnerability to malware is very profitable for Microsoft and its main customers, who are computer manufacturers.

Sadly, microsoft doesn't seem to have anything you can do to fix this.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/979352.mspx
It's seems all they advise will only reduce your odds of getting hit (by helping protect against the methods they've seen used to exploit it) and reducing the damage done after IE runs the malicious code on your system.

What they should be suggesting is that people not use IE on the internet (if possible) until this is fixed.

'0 day' exploits are everywhere. What matters to me is that once discovered they are quickly patched or at the very least, a work around that actually prevents exploitation is provided.

I'd be interested to know more about the social engineering aspect of this attack. Was this more of the usual attempts (something that really should have been caught by anyone who knows better than to open random attachments and click links from strangers) or was there something much more involved that allowed the attackers to gain sufficient trust that any one of us would have likely fallen for this. Did the attackers spend months building a strong level of trust with the people at these companies or did someone click an on E-card?

Heh, the Windows key is the worst invention ever. It's so fun to accidently hit the Windows key and have your window minimize and the start menu pop up, just great when you are in the middle of a twitch game!

And, yes, I know that I can disable the Windows key but it's still a pain when you are on someone else's system.

Unless there are gaming or itunes needs I would move your home machines to a free(as in speech & beer) OS. Fedora/Ubuntu have all matured enough for general home use. Go try a LiveCD.

You can re-skin them to look like Windows. See this comment for links.

Otherwise look at BizSpark for your Microsoft software needs.

Fee: A USD $100 Program Offering Fee is due when the Startup exits the Program. As part
of Microsoft's commitment to Startup success, there are no initial costs for Startups to join
BizSpark.

Technology offering: The BizSpark technology offering to Startups currently includes:
      For design, development, testing and demonstration of your software application:
        - Software included in a Visual Studio Team System Team Suite (VSTS) with MSDN
              Premium subscription is included in this Program. Additionally, VSTS Team
              Foundation Server (Standard Edition) is available for use by the entire development
              team

What does this mean? Cell phones are pretty much embedded devices that must work when they leave the factory floor. They can't easily be mussed with after the fact. This is less true of smart phones, but the standard policy of throwing code together to ship a product and then making it work does not really work with cell phones. People do not expect to debug phones in the way that we have to debug general purpose computers. We expect it to do what it does.

Even MS, who should know how to write code had trouble getting a reliable code base together. Apple barely did it, but people tend to be tolerant of less function if the machine is pretty, even I so do. But google, who, as far as I know, does not do 100% uptime embedded devices is competing against companies who have been doing this for maybe longer than the google founders have been alive.

It is only to be expected that they do not have the know how to integrate the components into a reliable stack. Reaching for conspiracy theories and collusion and copyright abuse is simply disrespecting the complexity of the job.

Outlook on Earth.

Fuck the Evildoers.

Yours In Perm,
K. Trout

It still relies on flaky third-party "security" products to try to prevent virus infections (which simply don't ever happen with proper operating systems)

Actually, there's a first-party product for that now. Too bad Microsoft would be sued if they tried including it with Windows.

I have a feeling after SP2 MSFT will just let Vista quietly die

This statement seems to imply that SP2 is coming out some time in the future, but it came out on June 30, 2009, a month prior to 7's early release.

I present to you for your reading pleasure right from the horses mouth.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/mojave-experiment/ Seems they have changed it since the last time I looked.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojave_Experiment

What did they learn? People really do not care what it was called just dont call it vista. They even tested it on a group of people.

http://www.whibb.com/win-7-windows-vista-difference.html

The real differences between vista and 7 are fairly 'minor' usability changes. 'faster' should have been in a service pack (oh sp2-sp3)... The under the hood stuff was not really that compelling to warrant a full version change. It is a rebrand to make people think 'oh they fixed a bunch of things'. When the reality is they made all the hard changes in vista. Vista was miserable because of those changes. They had 4 years to fix all of that in the driver stacks... Which is why 7 is firing on all cylinders...

You look at the benchmarks coming out and they are pretty much the same between vista and 7.

Call me a moron if you will. But I see a marketing ploy that is working pretty good.

Wrong.

From a previous post of mine: "Microsoft has an exclusivity deal with Netflix for the time being. Either due to technical or legal reasons, requiring the disc is a way to get around this. Considering Sony has already said the required disc is temporary, this implies the exclusivity deal is nearing its end. This also implies any disc required for the Wii would be temporary as well."

To add to this, it's also possible that since Silverlight is currently used for streaming except to the PS3, there is a technology issue. Streaming to PS3's currently uses the BD-Live protocol, hence the need for a disc. Once either the exclusivity deal runs out or they implement a different streaming solution for the PS3, the disc will be no longer needed.

I hate the four-letter words you mentioned as much as the next guy, but they aren't the cause of everything.

...Microsoft has an exclusivity deal with Netflix for the time being. Either due to technical or legal reasons, requiring the disc is a way to get around this. Considering Sony has already said the required disc is temporary, this implies the exclusivity deal is nearing its end. This also implies any disc required for the Wii would be temporary as well.

Calm down people. Jeebus.

It has cum to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality,' which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to pedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and copyright of posters to Slashdot by gathering

It has cum to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality,' which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to pedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and copyright of posters to Slashdot by gathering

It has cum to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality,' which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to pedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and copyright of posters to Slashdot by gathering

Hey Symbolset :)

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Were all back form the Hollidays at work and Ive been a bit busy.

Got it - thats what I thought you meant by Telepresence. Yes, thats going to be a killer feature in phones and other highly portable devices. I actualy use it often for personal stuff via Windows Live Messanger quite a bit. On a scale of 1 to 10, its about a 6.5. Sometims its a bit glitchy and the audio-video sync slips a bit. The WLM team is working on this and they understand the major issues.

Microsoft Office Communicator R2 also supports telepresence. It works very well, about a 7 or 8 on a 10 point scale. It uses a different stack than WLM. This is used day to day inside MSFT. Almost everyone has a decent web cam on the main desktop and/or in the laptop. For example, we have a team in Beijing - we use this as our primary way to work with them.

Ya - the only reason I need to use iTunes is to backup my phone. I use Napster for most of my music purchass, also in MP3.

Yes, office for he MAC is still around. Its pretty much the only viable office suite for the MAC. Apple doesnt sell one any more. Its quite compatble. The MAC-BU (Macintosh Business Unit) removed VB from Office 2008 for the MAC. This all had to do with the Macintoshs move from PowerPC to the Intel Architecture. You can find all the gorey details here. Here is another related article. It seems like they are putting back in for the next revision.

Agreed on the Tablet front. Things are getting interesting. Apple may be able to do what we havent - spark the tablet market. Well see.

Ill stick with my prediction - if the new iSlate (or whatever it is they are calling it) is Intel based and is essentilay a MAC, then it will be sucesfull. If its ARM based, and thus really a big iPhone, then it will be a very cool, but niche product. this has nothing to do with ARM, and everyitng with what people can do with it.

Best Regards
-Foredecker

Your appeal to authority is based on references(Chris Hecker and John Carmack) who were commenting on the state of Direct3D over 10 years ago! Chris Hecker's article discusses execute buffers, a feature in Direct X version 3! John Carmack's .plan is from 1996. Comparing DirectX 3 and DX9 is just silly. The API has drastically changed. Right around DX9 it was doing a better job of exposing the underlying hardware than OGL. As of 2003(the last time I used OpenGL) OGL had all these vendor extensions, which meant you had to write different versions of your code(and your shaders!) to work on different hardware(e.g. NV_VERTEX_PROGRAM/NV_FRAGMENT_PROGRAM was nvidia only, and you needed different code for ATI). They finally came out with ARB extensions that worked on all hardware. Also both Nvidia and ATI had separate extensions for uploading geometry to the GPU for a while. It was a total pain.

Here's one random example where DirectX has more helper functions than OpenGL. DirectX has built in support for Quaternions: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb281611(VS.85).aspx
OpenGL does not(you would need to use a custom library). Built in font rendering is another example. You have to load bitmap fonts in OpenGL.

Sure Google is interested in cheaper costs. But there are other issues at play. Politics can affect your costs as well. Al Gore is a senior advisor to Google. Not that surprising the focus on wind power. I remember Google (and Microsoft) advertised installing solar panels to help power their installations not that long ago. Solar photovoltaic is like one of the least cost efficient ways to generate electricity. But it sure provides a nice press release and warm fuzzy feelings.

Microsoft has already announced that they'll ship a Mac version of Outlook with their next release of Office for Mac:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/aug09/08-13MacOutlookPR.mspx?rss_fdn=Press%20Releases

If it works well, this might allow me to drop the PC I keep in my office and just use my iMac.

Wow, this is such a great idea that I'm surprised that no one has done this before.

Getting the full documentation requires a subscription, but there is a lot online at http://msdn.microsoft.com./ [msdn.microsoft.com]

What? You mean like this free link here?

"What you have to do is write a program that runs on the AVR (using for instance WinAVR) and this program talks to Robotics Studio running on a PC."

This isn’t new news. None of this is hidden, it’s all documented. For the full list try here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee330741(VS.85).aspx

Ummm... What do you mean by "undocumented"? http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee330741(VS.85).aspx All these stupid articles are simply fanboys trying to get clicks on their sites. This is old news. Move along.

FTA, this is probably why they are "hidden": "These canonical names do not change for different languages. They are always in English, even if the system's language is non-English."

It's odd that as their OSes became more complex, they also had less and less documentation.

This is not even remotely true.

I have in my drawer a large DVD case filled with MSDN documentation on primarily Microsoft OS and Server products. I get a new disk every couple of months. This is the Microsoft documentation, and it is vast.

In fact, if it were on paper, I'd probably need an entire library dedicated to it.

In other words, you don't know what you are talking about. There is, in fact, so much documentation that it can be difficult to find exactly what you need in the MSDN library.

The documentation isn't meant for end users, Microsoft designs their OS to be as easy as they can manage to make it for the user at the expense of making things more difficult for the developer. As such, all of the documentation is for developers, not users, because it is the developers who need it.

Getting the full documentation requires a subscription, but there is a lot online at http://msdn.microsoft.com./

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee330741(VS.85).aspx

godmode isn't needed, that's just the name of the folder (Cnet named thiers thankscnet). Also, that so-called 'godmode' folder probably isn't documented because it's broken on x64.

Works fine on my copy of Win7 x64.

This feature is deocumented. Take a look at the tips.txt file from Windows 95: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/135893

That file first describes these magical folders. I will admit that it does not clearly document that other items can be created by using their GUID, but I suspect someplace they have documented that.

I will note the "All Tasks" GUID is undocumented (a search of msdn.microsoft.com, and the whole of microsoft.com confirms this, since the GUID only comes up in user posted content), with the exception that it is effectively documented by the registry entry responsible for it.

Ummm... What do you mean by "undocumented"? http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee330741(VS.85).aspx

All these stupid articles are simply fanboys trying to get clicks on their sites. This is old news. Move along.

All are on the linked MSDN article except {ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C} This is the undocumented Master Control Panel showing all the "Hidden" options that do not appear on the regular control panel.....

Documentation on this would be nice?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee330741(VS.85).aspx

godmode isn't needed, that's just the name of the folder (Cnet named thiers thankscnet). Also, that so-called 'godmode' folder probably isn't documented because it's broken on x64.

Ummm... What do you mean by "undocumented"? http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee330741(VS.85).aspx All these stupid articles are simply fanboys trying to get clicks on their sites. This is old news. Move along.

Microsoft took one of your bug reports seriously?

Look at the state of IE. There's a huge pile of WONTFIX.

SPF records, domain keys, etc, can help but can also be more trouble than they're worth some times and don't really prove much of anything anyway, and even those could be forged if you REALLY wanted to by doing a DNS cache poisoning or something.

I think that this illustrates that they are not more trouble than they are worth. Forging a "from" header is trivial, some email clients just let yo enter the "from address". DNS cache poisoning is not. For most people setting up an SPF record is a "one off" operation and with online testing tools and online wizards is not that difficult.

#1: In the past, Microsoft has made attempts at marketing tablets, and failed miserably (http://www.pencomputing.com/frames/tablet_pc.html and http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2002/Nov02/11-07tabletlaunch.mspx). Hence, they ELUDED the subject. My humor isn't up to your standards, person I will never meet.

#2: Sorry you feel that way. We only have a few regulars that check in every day, but like I said that is fine by me.

#3: Having a user id that is an "order of magnitude" lower than mine means you should be setting the standard instead of lowering it.

Get it?

Which is the sole reason I dont use NetFlix. Or watch videos on Microsoft's site.

I've seen this response many times, yet I have never seen a reasonable explanation for the boycott. Do you hate Silverlight because it's Microsoft or is there something wrong with the technology that has made you stay away?

I have limited exposure to the Bing Video site, but with that limited exposure, I have had nothing but positive experiences. I've experienced no problem streaming HD content, for example. YouTube, on the other hand, struggled badly to stream 720P content through my FiOS connection running at 25 Mb/sec (both up and down).

From an architectural / security standpoint, Silverlight runs in a Sandbox, among other things, which greatly improve security (this most certainly isn't another Active X). Additionally, as a developer, I feel that C# is a better language than AS 3. I don't know any designers that have worked in Expression Blend, so I can't comment on their vantage point. I welcome their comments, however.

Ah so the 360 is so loud so they could sell you Microsoft headphones. http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/digitalcommunication/productdetails.aspx?pid=006

Everyone is pretty much in agreement that the 360 hardware was abysmal which is no surprise since they rushed it out the door to beat Sony.

Windows Mobile is having trouble figuring out what year this is. The next version isn't out until "late this year", and in Windows land that means maybe not until it's actually 2016.

And then there's the whole Danger fiasco.

Win Mo? You can keep it.

But I assume the database vendors know what they are doing, and they seem to assume true floating point decimal is needed, not just fixed point.

Funny but the money data type has been in Microsoft SQL Server since SQLSrvr2000, and there's at least one other. But yeah, Oracle currently only supports BCD-style Numeric(). Of course there's a lot of non-financial data that's better suited to floating point.

But the important point is that, unless you've got infinite memory to hold repeating decimal places (such as when you divide by 3), at the end of the day, you're still going to be doing some kind of rounding off with BCDs as much as with fixed point binary. Yeah, there's maybe a little more work in using integer ops to do fixed points than there is with floating point, but it's going to be way faster than BCD calculations. If you're smart, you use a language or a compiler that allows you to hide most of that. For nearly all financial transactions, money is a fixed point value, and you can deal with it appropriately that way in decimal or binary arithmetic.

In the event of Oracle funny business. What stops anyone from starting a new project, let's pretend it is called "FreeSQL" to avoid trademark issues. Which continues to enhance and releases the current version of MySQL, which is already open source. You can't undo open source of versions already released, the license has no provisions to do so.
If there are patent issues then I guess that teaches all a lesson about bothering to file "defensive patents", unless they are assigned to some organization that cannot be easily sold or liquidated(FSF perhaps?). And simply publishing the patent information without filing is sufficient to block the creation of patent in that specific event, but not useful in a "defensive" patent trade. Of course defense of patents can be handled through copyright strong arming, for example an open source license that has a poison pill for patent litigation. Such a license might be worth considering for future projects, Ms-RL comes to mind as an example.

Not much on the phone. Windows Mobile is not at all competitive and hasn't been for a long time. In terms of usefefullness and coolness, the Blackberry, iPhone and Android past it like it was standing still.

Im not sure what your point is about the netbook. We certainly havent done anything to inhibit them. We like them quite a bit, most of them ship with Windows. Linux is said to run well on them, but I havent tried it myself. I do know that W7 runs great on them. My friend just bought a Asus for his daughter. Single core Atom, 1GB memory, Intel 945G graphics - runs W7 just fine. I ask his daughter how often she plugs it in. She said "at night, like my phone".

Well there be a market for something less capable that doesnt run Windows? Say something with 512MB of memory, a 16GB SSD and something like the Intel GMA 500 Graphics? I dont know. We shall see.... Consumers want general purpose computing devices - even as phones. Apple has proved that. Palm proved that with their original Pilot device.

On the tablet space, Microsoft has been the leader there for a long, long time. Have you tried W7 on a tablet PC? I have it on a Toshiba M4 and its really good. Despite the crappy hardware (and them M4 is crappy), it works extremely well. Systems like the Lenovo tablet are really, really good.

The Windows handwriting recognition is excellent. No funny virtual keyboard needed. My daughter writes entire papers for school on it with ease and accuracy

The Multi-touch in W7 is pretty good too - especially considering its first generation.

Of course, there is TONs of hype about the new Apple iSlate. Well see how that works. Is it just a big iPhone? Or will it be a general purpose computing device? For example, will it run Windows office for the MAC. Here is my prediction: If it does, then it will be a hit, if not then it will be a niche produce. But if you believe the speculation, then it will be a MAC, but look a lot like the iPhone. The puported specs are very PC like... Apparently well see on Tuesday.

One thing Apple does great is engender customer happiness and loyalty. Heck, my direct family has five iPhones! We love them. (note, iTunes surely truely sucks, the Zune software is light years better....) Wikipeida says that through Q2 of 2009, Apple had sold a total of 21.17 million iPhones. Thats pretty spiffy. To put things in perspective:

Apples iPhone hhas topped Microsofts Windows Mobile in U.S. market share of smartphone operating systems for the first time, putting it in the No. 2 spot, according to a report from ComScore released Thursday. [ cnet december 2009 ]

Its phenomenal that the iPhone went from zero to #2 in three years. But as awesome as it is, it is still just now #2 with Blackberry still being #1 and Windows Mobile a close #2. People tend to forget that its not the dominant smart phone - its one of three.

Im not sure what you mean by diction, but I think you mean voice recognition. That hasnt yet arrived as a technology. But its starting to be pretty useful. Have you tried Bing on the iPhone? Its better than Google on the iPhone and it has server based voice recognition. I think its based on the Tellme technology we acquired in 2007. Microsoft has long invested heavily in speech recognition research. The stuff in Vista was actually pretty good - better than Dragon Naturally speaking. The W7 stuff is better still. But! Its still not ready for prime time like on the Jetsons or Star Trek.

But its getting there: Of course we are running the lat

Not much on the phone. Windows Mobile is not at all competitive and hasn't been for a long time. In terms of usefefullness and coolness, the Blackberry, iPhone and Android past it like it was standing still.

Im not sure what your point is about the netbook. We certainly havent done anything to inhibit them. We like them quite a bit, most of them ship with Windows. Linux is said to run well on them, but I havent tried it myself. I do know that W7 runs great on them. My friend just bought a Asus for his daughter. Single core Atom, 1GB memory, Intel 945G graphics - runs W7 just fine. I ask his daughter how often she plugs it in. She said "at night, like my phone".

Well there be a market for something less capable that doesnt run Windows? Say something with 512MB of memory, a 16GB SSD and something like the Intel GMA 500 Graphics? I dont know. We shall see.... Consumers want general purpose computing devices - even as phones. Apple has proved that. Palm proved that with their original Pilot device.

On the tablet space, Microsoft has been the leader there for a long, long time. Have you tried W7 on a tablet PC? I have it on a Toshiba M4 and its really good. Despite the crappy hardware (and them M4 is crappy), it works extremely well. Systems like the Lenovo tablet are really, really good.

The Windows handwriting recognition is excellent. No funny virtual keyboard needed. My daughter writes entire papers for school on it with ease and accuracy

The Multi-touch in W7 is pretty good too - especially considering its first generation.

Of course, there is TONs of hype about the new Apple iSlate. Well see how that works. Is it just a big iPhone? Or will it be a general purpose computing device? For example, will it run Windows office for the MAC. Here is my prediction: If it does, then it will be a hit, if not then it will be a niche produce. But if you believe the speculation, then it will be a MAC, but look a lot like the iPhone. The puported specs are very PC like... Apparently well see on Tuesday.

One thing Apple does great is engender customer happiness and loyalty. Heck, my direct family has five iPhones! We love them. (note, iTunes surely truely sucks, the Zune software is light years better....) Wikipeida says that through Q2 of 2009, Apple had sold a total of 21.17 million iPhones. Thats pretty spiffy. To put things in perspective:

Apples iPhone hhas topped Microsofts Windows Mobile in U.S. market share of smartphone operating systems for the first time, putting it in the No. 2 spot, according to a report from ComScore released Thursday. [ cnet december 2009 ]

Its phenomenal that the iPhone went from zero to #2 in three years. But as awesome as it is, it is still just now #2 with Blackberry still being #1 and Windows Mobile a close #2. People tend to forget that its not the dominant smart phone - its one of three.

Im not sure what you mean by diction, but I think you mean voice recognition. That hasnt yet arrived as a technology. But its starting to be pretty useful. Have you tried Bing on the iPhone? Its better than Google on the iPhone and it has server based voice recognition. I think its based on the Tellme technology we acquired in 2007. Microsoft has long invested heavily in speech recognition research. The stuff in Vista was actually pretty good - better than Dragon Naturally speaking. The W7 stuff is better still. But! Its still not ready for prime time like on the Jetsons or Star Trek.

But its getting there: Of course we are running the lat

How about the incredibly overrated Conficker / Kido / Downadup worm that was going to cause the end of the Internet on April 1st 2009? Big media blew it out of proportion considering Microsoft had patched the flaw and all major AV vendors had protected against it months before April 1st. The only people really affected by it were the patch-avoiders.

Most people don't need anything better than Home Premium. Look at the product matrix. All Ultimate gets you is XP Mode (which only works on VT-enabled processors), Domain Join (which home users don't need), Network Backup (people actually use Microsoft Backup?), Bitlocker (use TrueCrypt) and MUI (Do you really need to switch the Windows UI between 35 languages?). Professional gets you everything but the last two. If you really, truly need Professional or Ultimate, just click Anytime Upgrade and put in your credit card number.

Newegg lists 15 netbooks with Home Premium. If you choose one with the right processor (e.g. SU2300), you can even upgrade to Professional or Ultimate and use XP Mode. These things rival full-size laptops in power, and all you lose is the internal optical drive. If I hadn't just bought the Acer with the Atom Z520 (which supports the VT extensions with the latest BIOS) 4 months ago and put Win 7 Pro on it, I'd get the new SU2300 model.

Seems Microsoft is supplying some code for EFTPOS machines that is common with Windows Mobile, so it's most likely the same bug in both.

Apple has been one of the more influential and innovative companies in the industry.

Yeah? What do Apple's research labs do? How many grants to they give to CS university programs? How many scientists to they hire or support?

All they do is package ALREADY EXISTING technology created by SOMEBODY ELSE into shiny packages and sell them. Just because they make new products combining existing tech doesn't make them innovative. Most of the great innovation DOESN'T result into products.

OTOH, While MS has thousands of individual products with varying degrees of quality and success, MS has been pumping $5 billion into CS schools, research labs and hiring scientists to work on interesting projects all over the world. MSR has presented hundreds of papers at various conferences and has created tons of cool tech. If Bill Gates wasn't such a geek, NO company with the revenue of MS would ever blow $5billion on research that doesn't result in making them more money.

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

http://research.microsoft.com/research/default.aspx

Yeah, this is a desktop. You are the foolish one, if you think the specs will not filter down in a couple of years to the laptop space. Here, have a laptop with 4GB of RAM and 1GB of graphics card RAM. Here is a laptop with 6GB of RAM and 512MB of graphics card RAM. Not thin and light enough? Here, have a 4GB of RAM Lenovo U150 with a 11.6" screen.

But of course, if you currently do not need 64-bits, surely no one else does either.

Which makes this job a trap. "Linux and Open Office Compete Lead, US Subsidiary (CSI Lead)" is supposed to change perceptions of Microsoft in the open source ecosystem. But it's an impossible task because every slight misstep will put them back at zero. While part of the company wants to do the right thing, the other part is tethered to its old ways, and can't be moved.

Do a good thing like CodePlex, then essentially forget about it (or intentionally let it drop) and you have a net NEGATIVE on the perception gain. You have to commit to compete or to embrace (without the other two E's). No middle ground.

https://careers.microsoft.com/JobDetails.aspx?ss=&pg=0&so=&rw=1&jid=9914&jlang=EN

USB support was added with an earlier service pack... SP3 if memory serves.

You might want to let Microsoft know about that... they seem to think it's not supported.

I personally had a laptop with SP4 that routinely crashed when I inadvertently plugged in a USB mouse... so I know it was nowhere near as plug-and-play as in win2k.

The copy protection on DVDs is not the same as the DRM on media files, there is no shared key or anything of the sort. It is simply encryption designed to make it difficult to copy (it has also been very, very cracked).

You know that and I know that, Windows doesn't. It is/was a known issue Microsloth for DVD R disks.

No, they don't. It is based on what is read from the disk itself. Like I said, it was probably a hosed driver or something. There isn't a key in windows that plays DVDs, the key is on an area of the DVD that is not writable on writeable DVDs. That makes direct copying impossible, the encryption must be circumvented entirely before it can be written to a new DVD.

That wasn't a problem with DRM, you simply didn't actually fix whatever the virus screwed up.

Yeah, I sort of know that something isn't fixed- the problem is that every listed solution available to fix the problem short of a burndown fails. So yes, it is a problem with DRM - the data is available (plays from VLC) and can legally and legitimately be played, however due to encryption who's sole surviving function is to screw up legitimate users, it is unable to be used by the programs bought to do exactly that. Knowing Windows, the problem is most likely a single registry entry buried in some sub-sub-sub folder clearly labeled {CADLKJDEFO*IHJ$:LKNDSLKJW} and containing 'J' when it should obviously be 'K'.