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A huge problem at Microsoft seems to me to be that people there, or maybe just the leaders, seem socially unsophisticated. In fact, neither of the articles quoted below explains the underlying reason that Microsoft is buying Revolution Analytics. That needs to be explained. (All quotes retrieved Sunday, January 25, 2015, around 07:00 PST.)

In The Official Microsoft Blog there is a lot of corporate-speak, of the kind used by people with no actual interest in a subject who nevertheless want to be considered knowledgeable:
"find ... value"
"data-driven decisions"
"reduce the ... skills gap"
"enterprise-class platform"
"analytic solutions"
"advanced analytics within ... platforms on-premises"
"we are at the threshold"

From another article linked from that article, Revolution Analytics joins Microsoft, by "David Smith, Chief Community Officer":

"Microsoft might seem like a strange bedfellow for an open-source company..."

It was not a good idea to use the word "bedfellow". That word is more appropriate for a novel. The primary meaning of "bedfellow" is "a person who shares a bed with another".

'CEO Satya Nadella proclaimed "Microsoft loves Linux" '

On the surface, that makes no sense. Below the surface, is Microsoft trying to say, "We want Microsoft to be popular"?

"We're excited the work..."

That should have been "We're excited [that] the work...".

I'm not the only person who feels uncomfortable with those statements. One of the comments to that story is this one:

"What a joke. You're really working hard to try and convince readers that this is a good match, going on and on about how supportive Microsoft is of open-source. You were probably sweating while trying to come up with excuses as to why this is good, knowing that you were typing bullshit. I would suggest growing a pair of balls and just being honest, but I'm sure you've never had to do that in your career. -- Posted by: Anonymous | January 23, 2015 at 11:22"

David Smith replied to that comment: "Anonymous, I've never been anything but frank on this blog and this is no exception. I'm truly excited for the future, and I'm sure I speak for the rest of the team as well. -- Posted by: David Smith | January 23, 2015 at 11:25"

Sometimes the lack of social ability at Microsoft is shocking. The cover of the January 16, 2013 issue of BusinessWeek magazine has a large photo of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer with the headline calling him "Monkey Boy". See the BusinessWeek cover in this article: Steve Ballmer Is No Longer A Monkey Boy, Says Bloomberg BusinessWeek. The BusinessWeek cover says "No More" and "Mr.", but that doesn't take much away from the fact that the magazine called him Monkey Boy -- on its cover.

In many years of following such things I have never seen such disrespect of a CEO. Of course, whoever wrote the cover headline was merely repeating a common phrase applied to Steve Ballmer by people in the computer industry.

Worst CEO: Quote from an article in Forbes Magazine about Steve Ballmer: "Without a doubt, Mr. Ballmer is the worst CEO of a large publicly traded American company today."

Another quote: "The reach of his bad leadership has extended far beyond

One of the latest trends I have seen is to make the middle mouse button a touch surface.

As I also love the middle mouse button but hate the wheel I have found these to be excellent. I have three of them (all Microsoft mice if you want to hold that against me) and the middle button is just as easy to press as either of the side ones.

Well two anyway. Do a bit of research first. The Surface Arc for instance looks like it has a middle button but it doesn't. It requires a double touch on the middle section to simulate a middle click which is really annoying.

The one I use at home is similar but not exactly this model: Sculpt Touch Mouse

EMET http://support.microsoft.com/k... along with whatever antivirus you choose.

I like ESET, especially the business version with console. I get it for my large customers.
Kaspersky is good. I use it for email gateways and small offices. The firewall breaks some shit, though.
I'm always removing viruses from computers that are running avast!, McAfee, Symantec, and AVG, so I won't be using those anytime soon
Trend Micro seems to be great, but I only have a couple of users running it so I have never used it in a large environment.
Vipre is a bad joke (I tested it).
MalwareBytes is great at removing crap and I use it often, but I have yet to use the paid version.
TDSSKiller http://support.kaspersky.com/v... for rootkits.

I'm thinking purchasing MalewareBytes for a small office soon (8 users), but I may go with Trend Micro. I'm on the fence.

I just can't picture needing anything beyond that.

While technically not an "antivirus" product in the conventional sense, Microsoft's Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit adds a significant layer of defense on top of Windows.

I remember this too. Wasn't compatibility the main reason for sticking to 32 bit Windows XP on a 64 bit system? A big reason I remember is that if you didn't have more than 4 GB of ram you wouldn't see a benefit, and at the time, 2 GB was still huge. Actually, 2 GB was the limitation most 32 bit software had because you needed to flip the /3GB switch in boot.ini, and even then the software had to be compiled a certain way to be large address aware.

At the time, AMD was known for having the faster processor at a lower price. 64 bit version or not, people and businesses were buying these things like crazy back then.

Office 2000 through 2003 users can download Microsoft's Office 2007 compatibility pack to read and save in .docx, xisx, etc. formats. Here's the link: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us... Or, if Office 2016 format is changed, they could just install the version of LibreOffice that will be released just after MS Office 2016, which will open MS formats.

If they aren't going to support it anymore, they should at least provide a supported way for running whatever apps you want to on it. Let people program their own applications at least.

In theory, you can get a developer license without charge to privately deploy self-made apps onto an Internet-connected Windows RT device. Like the Steam receipt cache, a Windows developer license expires after a month but can be renewed without charge indefinitely.

Name one function that was removed since 2003.

Microsoft removed the ability to "Insert from Scanner or Camera". For subsequent versions, the workaroundis to scan to an image file on your computer, and then insert the saved image into the document, rather than scanning directly into the document as before.

The removal of this menu item annoyed a lot of people, including myself.

Like they dumped CE

Windows CE, a.k.a. Windows Mobile, a.k.a. Windows Embedded Handheld 6.5?

Did you mean that "dumped" = "still supported after its intended replacement goes EOL"? WinEH 6.5 is supported until 2020 (source). Windows Phone 7 was supposed to be its replacement, and it has been EOL'ed (back in October). Windows Phone 8/8.1 will be EOL'ed in 2017. (Source for those last two)

I wouldn't call that "dumped".

Like they dumped CE

Windows CE, a.k.a. Windows Mobile, a.k.a. Windows Embedded Handheld 6.5?

Did you mean that "dumped" = "still supported after its intended replacement goes EOL"? WinEH 6.5 is supported until 2020 (source). Windows Phone 7 was supposed to be its replacement, and it has been EOL'ed (back in October). Windows Phone 8/8.1 will be EOL'ed in 2017. (Source for those last two)

I wouldn't call that "dumped".

Like they dumped CE

Windows CE is still around, actually.

Windows Embedded Compact is the new name for Windows CE - it's confusing as hell since it's similar to Windows Embedded (which is based off standard Windows), but the "Compact" (or "Automotive") version is Windows CE.

it was this way since Windows CE 7 which was renamed to Windows Embedded Compact 7. (Now they're at Compact 2013)

Taking your comment seriously, :-) are you suggesting simulated seems to imply fake, but virtual implies essentially the same? Maybe there is some related change in social consciousness on these topics reflected by "virtual" becoming a more commonly used word?

From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V...
"Virtuality, the quality of having the attributes of something without sharing its (real or imagined) physical form"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
"Simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time."

Virtual can also potentially be a subtype of simulation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

So yes, simulation does seem to imply more fakeness (imitation) than virtuality (which implies the essence is still there).

So, I stand corrected! Thank you, fyngyrz! It's virtual turtles all the way down. :-) Sorry for being insensitive about that!

BTW, I watched this excellent video last night of "Inventing the Future" with Robert Tercek, interviewing Bruce Schneier and Julian Sanchez about pervasive surveillance, drones, and related social changes, and the advertisements were all about Microsoft HoloLens:
"Next Future Terrifying Technology Will Blow Your Mind"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

A decade or more ago I saw a video of similar augmented reality demo (Steve Feinberg walking around Columbia university?),.
http://www.cnet.com/pictures/g...
"Steven Feinberg (left), a professor of computer science at Columbia University, created the first outdoor mobile augmented reality system using a see-through display in 1996."

But Microsoft HoloLens looked so much more impressive and integrated, and I can imagine with better head tracking technology like for Oculus Rift, that it would work better. Slashdot has an article on HoloLens from eight hours ago:
http://tech.slashdot.org/story...

But in the context of this discussion, Microsoft's "HoloLens" show how the line between "physical" and "virtual" can start to become blurred.
http://www.microsoft.com/micro...
"The result is the world's most advanced holographic computing platform, enabled by Windows 10. For the first time ever, Microsoft HoloLens brings high-definition holograms to life in your world, where they integrate with your physical places, spaces, and things. Holograms will improve the way you do things every day, and enable you to do things youâ(TM)ve never done before."

Reminds me a bit of Red Dwarf and Arnold Rimmer. :-)

Perhaps many religions are right, and for our situation at least, an omniscient "god" really does know everything we do? And if every timestep of the virtuality/simulation is recorded somehow, then perhaps nothing is ever lost -- except in a stegnographic sense, or perhaps in the sense of having no more significant runtime devoted directly to its continued processing as an entity as it has lost obvious coherence?

People talk about how any singularity might be more about humans merging with machines then machines taking over, and one can wonder if, the first time, if there was one, virtualizing was more about a merging of physical and simulated/computed/virtualized as with HoloLens than one or the other?

Anyway, just random thoughts. It is in the nature of virtualization that you can never be sure what layers really surrounds you, so we may never know...

One other tangential issue:

I agree that the shown examples make one think that it is supposed to be used only at home or at work, however, microsoft states that it doesn't need a "connection" to a PC to work:

http://www.microsoft.com/micro...

So I think it will raise the very same privacy issues as google glass. Obviously, giving the bulky appearance, not so many idiots would wear that in public. But the problem is still there, because the design might be changed to make them look leaner.

That is how several people who saw the presentation interpreted it. Watch it for yourself and see if you agree. You don't have to rely merely on Slashdot summaries.

http://www.microsoft.com/en/mo...

Businesses have still been buying Windows 7, AFAICT. Once Windows 10 is out, they may well be more receptive.

Not if Windows 10 is as tied to using OneDrive and other Microsoft services as the Development Preview is now.
And Live Tiles has got to go, too. Such distracting, marketing, productivity-killing click-bait has no place in the office (or the start menu).

"Windows XP's lifespan wasn't short."

Software doesn't have a "lifespan". It works the same as it always did, with the same hardware.

Businesses doing the same work every day don't need new hardware or software if the equipment they have now is serving them well.

It wasn't until Service Pack 2 was released on August 10, 2004 that many of the very serious problems in Windows XP were fixed. Windows XP with Service Pack 2 might be considered to be a different version of the Windows XP operating system, it was so different from the initial Windows XP version. See the Microsoft article, List of fixes included in Windows XP Service Pack 2. There were 828 fixes.

See the article, Microsoft Windows XP "end of life": Conflict of interest.

"Windows XP's lifespan wasn't short."

Software doesn't have a "lifespan". It works the same as it always did, with the same hardware.

Businesses doing the same work every day don't need new hardware or software if the equipment they have now is serving them well.

It wasn't until Service Pack 2 was released on August 10, 2004 that many of the very serious problems in Windows XP were fixed. Windows XP with Service Pack 2 might be considered to be a different version of the Windows XP operating system, it was so different from the initial Windows XP version. See the Microsoft article, List of fixes included in Windows XP Service Pack 2. There were 828 fixes.

See the article, Microsoft Windows XP "end of life": Conflict of interest.

The following article may help;

How to convert between ASCII and EBCDIC character codes

There are also commercial products you can buy. As you're running a mainframe, you should be able to afford one of these.

Hope this helps.

"the claim that this can work against all Microsoft Wireless Keyboards is 100% BS, and has been since 2007, when the issue was first uncovered; covered in depth by Schneier, and remedied in all versions of the Microsoft Wireless Keyboard created since then, which use at minimum 128-bit AES; NOT XOR."

The only meaningful hits on 'schneier microsoft wireless keyboard' is just a few broken links to a Dreamlab study: http://www.google.com/search?q...,

Those were using a 27 MHz transmitter (near field, i suppose) and an association process that at least uses a different xor key each time. TFA claims that the newer 2.4 GHz keyboards always use the same xor key, 0xCD. TFA mentions at least two recent keyboard models that use this protocol. (Maybe I overlooked other ones)

It seems that there is only the MS "2000 AES for business" keyboard that is explicitly marketed as using AES. http://www.microsoft.com/hardw...

Ok, ms support fixes for xp fow 12 years. Good. But android is not an OS for pc...

Who cares? It is computer operating system software, they should orphan everything just because they came out with a new version, no other company does that!

Winphone 8 application don't even run on winwphone 7 (2010-), and you can't upgrade to winphone 8. If you buy a 7.5 winphone, same situation, you can't run winphone 8 application, and no upgrade available. So basically you get an already obsoleted smart phone.

There was one time this occurred in the Windows Phone system when they changed the kernel to be consistent with the desktop kernel to have better interoperability however even then Microsoft continued to support the 7.x line by releasing the 7.8 update, they didn't just abandon it like Google do with older versions. Android does this with every single release, leaving hundreds of millions of devices stranded and unsupported.

If you have winphone 6.5 (2009).... good luck....

Nope that release went EOL in 2013, nearly 4 years of support.

I would have to sign up for a Microsoft Live account, and then use that to log into Windows.

No. That is false. You can use the app store perfectly fine while logged into a local or domain windows account. You do not have log into windows with a microsoft account to use the app store.

Had they made it so I could browse...

http://windows.microsoft.com/e...

Browse to your hears content.

and download apps without requiring a log-in (only requiring an account for paid applications so it could be tied to one subscription) I would have been much more open to Microsoft's implementation.

Yes. You do have to log into the store to download stuff. So what? All that needs is a working email address. You have to have an apple id to get free stuff from ios app store. A google account to use the play store. A steam account to use steam. An account with GoG.com to download the free stuff from them. Etc. This is not some new Horror from microsoft.

Further, having an account means that even your 'free stuff' is tied to that account and can be trivially installed on all your computers; just as the Apple and Google and Steam stores work...

I just searched the web directly for the applications I was interested in

That's Great. I wouldn't want the app store to be the only way to get apps either. Its precisely why I don't use ios.

and bypassed the entire Windows 8 app infrastructure.

Yes. But you did it because you were GROSSLY misinformed about it. Not exactly a crowning achievement.

Well, Microsoft is doing their part.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-u...

"Microsoft and CAS recently launched QuickStart Computing. With funding from Microsoft and the Department for Education, Computing At School produced the training toolkit for teachers" ref.

"Software Development – MTA EXAM
Web Development Fundamentals – MTA EXAM
Working with XML, Data Objects, and WCF
C# Fundamentals: Development for Absolute
Microsoft.NET Fundamentals: MTA EXAM
Microsoft .NET Fundamentals" ref

" What is MTA,?: Microsoft Technology Associate (MTA) is an introductory Microsoft certification for individuals considering a career in technology" ref

You seem to be obsessed with this word, "crud." Can you be more specific and less hyperbolic? Fire up Sysinternals Process Exporer and tell us exactly what you're referring to.

Download the free ISO of Windows 10 Technical Preview while waiting. :)

Bad form responding to own post. I clicked post before putting in the part about PAST/FreePastry I recall something similar technically six years ago for peer to peer storage. No direct experience with FreePastry or Storj. I'm trying to understand the technical differences here.
PAST white paper
http://research.microsoft.com/...
I'm guessing they licensed it out here?
https://trac.freepastry.org/wi...

"Firefox makes Yahoo default"

No, Firefox made Microsoft Bing search the default now: Advertise on the Yahoo Bing Network.

That's giving some people the EEDIE Jeebies. Will Microsoft Embrace, Extend, then Demonically Implement Evil?

If Microsoft stops providing Bing search, many people will desert Yahoo, stop seeing Yahoo ads, and Yahoo may slowly (quickly?) die.

You can self-register at http://mybulletins.technet.microsoft.com/, even if you are a bad guy.

FWIW, the interface sucks.

I still remember trying to set up an older printer on my mothers laptop with windows 8. I spent what felt like a half hour clicking around trying to find the damn printer settings. Eventually I gave up and googled it. The instructions on _Microsoft's_ site used the built in search feature. Even they couldn't figure out the convoluted path to the "add new printer" page. This was my first (though unfortunately not last) experience with windows 8, and subsequent exposure has not gone any better.

They've sinced changed it, but you can still use archive.org to view the old version:

Current: http://windows.microsoft.com/e...
Old: https://web.archive.org/web/20...

Even though the article claims that it is not typo, I find it startling that it would actually pack only 8 MB of RAM. It must be an error?

I don't think that it is an error. In fact, it is double the RAM that is in the Nokia 108, which was a particularly disgusting phone that had a very limited support for Bluetooth that only allowed transferring contacts and not connecting audio devices! Surely connecting a headset is what people think of when they talk about having a Bluetooth enabled phone! It implemented just enough to tick a feature box, but not enough to be useful.

The slightly good news is that the 215 at least allows for Bluetooth headsets, although even it misses some (unnamed) features.

Even though the article claims that it is not typo, I find it startling that it would actually pack only 8 MB of RAM. It must be an error?

I don't think that it is an error. In fact, it is double the RAM that is in the Nokia 108, which was a particularly disgusting phone that had a very limited support for Bluetooth that only allowed transferring contacts and not connecting audio devices! Surely connecting a headset is what people think of when they talk about having a Bluetooth enabled phone! It implemented just enough to tick a feature box, but not enough to be useful.

The slightly good news is that the 215 at least allows for Bluetooth headsets, although even it misses some (unnamed) features.

That hasn't been true since Windows Vista. Microsoft ued to make ISOs of installation media available for all of their operating systems on Digital River, but now you download a media creator which writes installation files to a USB drive.

Isn't [Linux] the hacking OS that uses text on a black screen?

I'm sorry. You must have Linux confused with Windows Server Core.

You're supposed to buy Visual Studio to debug webpages in internet explorer.

Just because TV shows do ridiculous stuff doesn't mean that it's not obvious that you can get fingerprints from multiple photos taken by modern cameras.

Furthermore you can enhance images if you have many different pictures or videos of the same thing.

See: "Creating Photographs from Videos": http://research.microsoft.com/...
And: http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~k...

Per my subject vs. many kinds of DoS/DDoS - Defensive measures that work:

Microsoft Windows NT-based OS settings vs. DDoS/DoS:

Protect Against SYN Attacks

FROM -> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-u...

A SYN attack exploits a vulnerability in the TCP/IP connection establishment mechanism. To mount a SYN flood attack, an attacker uses a program to send a flood of TCP SYN requests to fill the pending connection queue on the server. This prevents other users from establishing network connections.

To protect the network against SYN attacks, follow these generalized steps, explained later in this document:

Enable SYN attack protection
Set SYN protection thresholds
Set additional protections

Enable SYN Attack Protection

---

The named value to enable SYN attack protection is located beneath the registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\TcpIp\Parameters.

Value name: SynAttackProtect

Recommended value: 2

Valid values: 0, 1, 2

Description: Causes TCP to adjust retransmission of SYN-ACKS. When you configure this value the connection responses timeout more quickly in the event of a SYN attack. A SYN attack is triggered when the values of TcpMaxHalfOpen or TcpMaxHalfOpenRetried are exceeded.

---

Set SYN Protection Thresholds

The following values determine the thresholds for which SYN protection is triggered. All of the keys and values in this section are under the registry key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\TcpIp\Parameters

These keys and values are:

Value name: TcpMaxPortsExhausted

Recommended value: 5

Valid values: 0?65535

Description: Specifies the threshold of TCP connection requests that must be exceeded before SYN flood protection is triggered.

Value name: TcpMaxHalfOpen

Recommended value data: 500

Valid values: 100?65535

Description: When SynAttackProtect is enabled, this value specifies the threshold of TCP connections in the SYN_RCVD state. When SynAttackProtect is exceeded, SYN flood protection is triggered.

Value name: TcpMaxHalfOpenRetried

Recommended value data: 400

Valid values: 80?65535

Description: When SynAttackProtect is enabled, this value specifies the threshold of TCP connections in the SYN_RCVD state for which at least one retransmission has been sent. When SynAttackProtect is exceeded, SYN flood protection is triggered.

---

Set Additional Protections

All the keys and values in this section are located under the registry key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\TcpIp\Parameters. These keys and values are:

Value name: TcpMaxConnectResponseRetransmissions

Recommended value data: 2

Valid values: 0?255

Description: Controls how many times a SYN-ACK is retransmitted before canceling the attempt when responding to a SYN request.

Value name: TcpMaxDataRetransmissions

Recommended value data: 2

Valid values: 0?65535

Description: Specifies the number of times that TCP retransmits an individual data segment (not connection request segments) before aborting the connection.

Value name: EnablePMTUDiscovery

Recommended value data: 0

Valid values: 0, 1

Description: Setting this value to 1 (the default) forces TCP to discover the maximum transmission unit or largest packet size over the path to a remote host. An attacker can force packet fragmentation, which overworks the stack.

Specifying 0 forces the MTU of 576 bytes for connections from hosts not on the local subnet.

Value name: KeepAliveTime

Recommended value data: 300000

Valid values: 80?4294967295

Description: Specifies how often TCP attempts to verify that an idle connectio

Microsoft Windows NT-based OS settings vs. DDoS/DoS:

Protect Against SYN Attacks

FROM -> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-u...

A SYN attack exploits a vulnerability in the TCP/IP connection establishment mechanism. To mount a SYN flood attack, an attacker uses a program to send a flood of TCP SYN requests to fill the pending connection queue on the server. This prevents other users from establishing network connections.

To protect the network against SYN attacks, follow these generalized steps, explained later in this document:

Enable SYN attack protection
Set SYN protection thresholds
Set additional protections

Enable SYN Attack Protection

---

The named value to enable SYN attack protection is located beneath the registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\TcpIp\Parameters.

Value name: SynAttackProtect

Recommended value: 2

Valid values: 0, 1, 2

Description: Causes TCP to adjust retransmission of SYN-ACKS. When you configure this value the connection responses timeout more quickly in the event of a SYN attack. A SYN attack is triggered when the values of TcpMaxHalfOpen or TcpMaxHalfOpenRetried are exceeded.

---

Set SYN Protection Thresholds

The following values determine the thresholds for which SYN protection is triggered. All of the keys and values in this section are under the registry key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\TcpIp\Parameters

These keys and values are:

Value name: TcpMaxPortsExhausted

Recommended value: 5

Valid values: 0?65535

Description: Specifies the threshold of TCP connection requests that must be exceeded before SYN flood protection is triggered.

Value name: TcpMaxHalfOpen

Recommended value data: 500

Valid values: 100?65535

Description: When SynAttackProtect is enabled, this value specifies the threshold of TCP connections in the SYN_RCVD state. When SynAttackProtect is exceeded, SYN flood protection is triggered.

Value name: TcpMaxHalfOpenRetried

Recommended value data: 400

Valid values: 80?65535

Description: When SynAttackProtect is enabled, this value specifies the threshold of TCP connections in the SYN_RCVD state for which at least one retransmission has been sent. When SynAttackProtect is exceeded, SYN flood protection is triggered.

---

Set Additional Protections

All the keys and values in this section are located under the registry key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\TcpIp\Parameters. These keys and values are:

Value name: TcpMaxConnectResponseRetransmissions

Recommended value data: 2

Valid values: 0?255

Description: Controls how many times a SYN-ACK is retransmitted before canceling the attempt when responding to a SYN request.

Value name: TcpMaxDataRetransmissions

Recommended value data: 2

Valid values: 0?65535

Description: Specifies the number of times that TCP retransmits an individual data segment (not connection request segments) before aborting the connection.

Value name: EnablePMTUDiscovery

Recommended value data: 0

Valid values: 0, 1

Description: Setting this value to 1 (the default) forces TCP to discover the maximum transmission unit or largest packet size over the path to a remote host. An attacker can force packet fragmentation, which overworks the stack.

Specifying 0 forces the MTU of 576 bytes for connections from hosts not on the local subnet.

Value name: KeepAliveTime

Recommended value data: 300000

Valid values: 80?4294967295

Description: Specifies how often TCP attempts to verify that an idle connection is still intact by sending a keep-alive packet.

---

Lastly, of cou

This free Microsoft tool for automatically stiching images together to make a panorama is pretty freaking amazing, and I am no Microsoft fanboi for sure.

http://research.microsoft.com/...

The one mitigating factor is that literally no one uses Thunderbolt for anything, so it's not like anyone's likely to be coming across random compromised Thunderbolt devices. Discovering a Thunderbolt device at all would be out of the ordinary.

There was a brief moment that companies released laptops with Thunderbolt (mostly Ivy Bridge platforms). Now its a rare feature outside of Apple's laptops. Microsoft didn't put Thunderbolt into the Surface 3 because of the DMA security concerns and "InstantGo" devices (source: http://technet.microsoft.com/e... )

How many times have we seen people who set their updates to Automatic in a Windows environment get in trouble when an update mangles their system? I know people who say, "I always get every update as soon as they come out" then bitch when an update did something to their system.

Can this auto-update be turned off or changed to manual?

Yes, but the system is opt-in, not opt-out. I always wait for a few days before updating, just to see if there are any problems reported. This helped me to miss out on some doozies. Thankfully, I saw the report on the latest Microsoft update before running it on my work machine.

Clearly, you never read the EULA, or even the Warranty statement.

Microsoft only promises that it will work as intended for the first 90 days after it's installed. After 90 days, if Microsoft decides to tell you to piss off, you're SOL, because the software is presented to you AS-IS.

During the warranty period, if you have a problem, Microsoft will, AT THEIR SOLE DISCRETION, either refund the money you paid for the software (if you actually paid anything for it. If it came preinstalled on your computer, you paid nothing for the software - the computer maker did. You have to talk to them) or they can choose to fix the problem.

If you're outside of the warranty period and you don't have an active support contract, Microsoft doesn't have to care about your problems at all.

Ref:

1. Win 8
2. Win 7 home premium
3. Win XP

Clearly, you never read the EULA, or even the Warranty statement.

Microsoft only promises that it will work as intended for the first 90 days after it's installed. After 90 days, if Microsoft decides to tell you to piss off, you're SOL, because the software is presented to you AS-IS.

During the warranty period, if you have a problem, Microsoft will, AT THEIR SOLE DISCRETION, either refund the money you paid for the software (if you actually paid anything for it. If it came preinstalled on your computer, you paid nothing for the software - the computer maker did. You have to talk to them) or they can choose to fix the problem.

If you're outside of the warranty period and you don't have an active support contract, Microsoft doesn't have to care about your problems at all.

Ref:

1. Win 8
2. Win 7 home premium
3. Win XP

Clearly, you never read the EULA, or even the Warranty statement.

Microsoft only promises that it will work as intended for the first 90 days after it's installed. After 90 days, if Microsoft decides to tell you to piss off, you're SOL, because the software is presented to you AS-IS.

During the warranty period, if you have a problem, Microsoft will, AT THEIR SOLE DISCRETION, either refund the money you paid for the software (if you actually paid anything for it. If it came preinstalled on your computer, you paid nothing for the software - the computer maker did. You have to talk to them) or they can choose to fix the problem.

If you're outside of the warranty period and you don't have an active support contract, Microsoft doesn't have to care about your problems at all.

Ref:

1. Win 8
2. Win 7 home premium
3. Win XP

Aw someone get in the way of your snark?

The way windows handles it by default can be a tad tricky if you are not aware of its quirks.

NTFS is case sensitive
http://support.microsoft.com/K...

Win32 which is the API most people use can be either way (default not).

You're aware that, right now, you can build cross-platform apps entirely in Microsoft Visual Studio, right? And porting .NET is part of that interoperability I was talking about. The next version of Visual Studio is going even further with it's cross-platform support.

Oh, make no mistake, they're trying to get Windows mobile kickstarted as well. I think at the moment they're just looking at the cold, hard facts. iOS and Android are absolutely dominant in that market, and if Microsoft understands one thing, it's how difficult it is to unseat a dominant market position. After all, Linux has had excellent and *completely free* offerings on the PC for years, yet it's hovering around 1%, even with the backlash by many users against Windows 8.

So, I think the strategy is to deal with the certainty that iOS and Android on mobile and Linux on servers are not going to be disappearing anytime soon. That doesn't mean that they're not going to work hard to make a viable Windows mobile platform - I think they could potentially crack into the market with some moderate success at least, but I don't think anyone, either inside or outside MS, realistically thinks that they have a prayer of dominating mobile like they did the desktop.

So, now we see them making tools and porting frameworks for easier cross-platform development. As a Windows developer, this actually makes me really happy at the prospect of using Microsoft's development tools I already own and know how to use were I to target other platforms, and I think this is exactly the reason they're doing this. Essentially, since I'm using Microsoft tools, it will probably be a no-brainer for me to also target, say, Windows mobile platforms as well. If I were using other development tools, I may not be as inclined to do so.

Back in the day, Microsoft's homepage had a gopher link.

Microsoft's demo with English/German realtime translation was very impressive, with just a single translation oddity toward the end of the demo.

I think this is it, but can't watch the video at work to verify
http://research.microsoft.com/...

true, same here - I just wish they'd made the distinction between then better - C# for RAD tooling, C++ for performance/efficiency/"heavy lifting" like it used to be with VB and C++ but instead it seems C# was designed to be "the new Microsoft language" by one division so they wouldn't have to work with the other division :-(

If you want to see a better benchmark for performance, look at MSDN magazine's article on WWS, where the Windows division wrote a compatible version of WCF using C so you can see a good comparison of 2 things that do *exactly* the same thing, but written differently.

You mean UEFI Firmware Signing?

No, that uses the UEFI standard which is nothing to do with Microsoft except that they mandate use of that standard if you want the "designed for windows" sticker.

What drives me mad is that Microsoft, in this space, makes software. THEY DON'T MAKE COMPUTERS, so why are they messing with any computer I might want to buy?

If you dont want to use UEFI's secureboot feature then just turn it off, in fact Microsoft goes to the point of ensuring that if you want that "designed for windows" sticker you *must* be able to turn that feature off.

Or an example of Microsoft breaking competing Linux technologies in enterprise?

Yes please provide a specific example.

Microsoft doesn't want you useing any OSS software when their paid solution exists.

Right that is why libreoffice and the gimp dont work on Windows for example ... oh wait, they do! Or why Linux doesnt run on Azure ... oh wait they specifically added functionality to Linux to make sure that it *does* run on Azure.

All your nonsense is just the desperation to find something to hate and a wish that microsoft could be the microsoft of the 90s so you could justifiably hate them that much. Sorry the world changed, you dont need to be angry anymore, that is a good thing.