I have two Windows desktops that I don't use that much. One is on Windows 8.1 and the other is on Windows 7. I will likely upgrade one of them to Windows 10 as I feel that I need to have some knowledge of using it as part of me being the IT guy for family and friends. BTW, upgrading to 8.0 and 8.1 was a mistake - I really don't like it but I am using Classic Start that helps. They spyware is probably there though. I do the vast majority of my PC computing on my MacBook Pro these days and am very, very happy to do very little on Windows anymore. Microsoft has been shooting themselves in the foot for quite some time now.
I would think that a department of prosecutors would want the best security that they could get for their employees so that the very sensitive information on their phones wouldn't get compromised by criminals. Instead, it seems like they prefer to buy phones that are crackable. I'd guess that companies looking to buy phones for their employees would want the best security available at reasonable cost.
We had an ice storm several years ago and the power went out. Those gasoline stations with a generator for powering the pumps didn't power their payment systems so you had to pay in cash if you wanted gasoline. My credit cards have been hacked a few times in the past ten years and it's a headache when you can't use them (I only carry two of them as it's easier to keep track of). It's a pain to make trips to the bank when you need cash and you can't use plastic or paper checks.
I rarely use $100 bills - usually only for trips where I want some cash in case of problems with payment systems or at places which don't take plastic. Lately the bank has been giving me $50s for large amounts though I usually don't specify the denominations. Of course an easy way to move larger amounts of cash is 1-ounce gold coins. They're worth about $1,200 right now and they are compact and easy to buy and sell. You might have problems with a metal detector at an airport carrying a bunch though.
I guess the ultimate way to eliminate crime would be to force everyone to use pennies.
Our military and government depend on crypto as well so getting rid of all crypto would make our security services less secure too.
I agree that implementing crypto is pretty easy for those with the right background and criminals likely have the money to pay for it.
I like your points though I'm surprised at the level of political commentary in other posts. I'm a bit torn over the issue because you have the issue of security versus privacy. If you allow a backdoor, someone else will find it and use it or sell it and it's someone that you might not want with access. It seems like we should be able to do things with policy and legislation to decrease the likelihood of crime and terrorism.
The problem with giving LE access to your stuff is potential misuse. We've all heard of the examples of Google SysAdmins showing customer data to friends or police officers looking up people on their LE databases for potential dates or credit processing company employees looking up information on celebrities. What's to prevent looking through financial information to steal or figuring out when you're on vacation or leaving your home for a trip to allow someone the opportunity to rob your place when you're away?
The FBI has said that this stuff would only be done with warrants but don't all LE organizations and individuals come under some temptation to cheat? And there are clearly well-known cases where they do so.
So the balance is difficult. I think that anyone with a CS degree could design their own encryption system for sensitive files that couldn't be broken, even by Apple or Google. You might not be able to use something like this on a phone without an App and it would likely be cumbersome to do even with an App that you write yourself. But it could be done.
Google's text ads are fine - they're often relevant too.
Small image ads are fine - but no animated stuff and certainly no audio or video playing.
Don't make your pages 67% ads and 33% content.
Don't intersperse ads and links in the text content.
Ideally, make the ads relevant.
Yup. I can live without Wired (don't recall reading stuff there).
BTW, I'm giving Brave a shot. It's interesting - you can view ads but they aren't annoying. You can turn them off too but I will likely just leave them on.
I've migrated about 90% of my stuff to Mac OS X but I still have two powerful Windows 7 and 8.1 machines which I use for some small tasks. I will likely upgrade one of them to Windows 10 as I should know what Windows 10 is like but I may just leave Windows 7 on the other one as it only runs one thing and the likelyhood of malware is very low. I'm also considering Linux of course.
I really don't like that they have the ESPN monopoly where the cable companies have to carry them to get other content so they force everyone with cable packages to pay for the service, whether they use it or not. The Over-The-Top movement is having a little effect on this but it's still a strong exercise in market power. Disney is a very powerful brand and a lot of people identify with it - I'm just not one of them. If they want respect from me, then they're going to have to behave as if they deserved the respect.
I like to read the news on my iPad Mini and I don't use an Ad Blocker. The iPad Mini isn't the most powerful computer around and it gets pretty slow with one or two news pages in the background with all of the crap on web pages these days. If something takes too long to load, then I dump it to read it on a PC later on. If a page is cluttered with ads, I use reader mode. If there's an ad following me around because I shopped for something - then I don't buy the item. Dump the analytics, noisy ads, etc. Google's text ads are fine and they're often relevant. Video is unnecessary - I'm not really a video-person. If things are really bad, I cut and paste the text into an Emacs session and create a Kindle document to read later.
Reading on the PC is easier because of AdBlock Plus or similar, and the PC has the resources to block all of the bad stuff or load the bad stuff and still perform. We shouldn't need high-end PCs, phones or tablets to read web pages though. More Ad crap is not better Ad crap. I think that ads could be done a lot better with some kind of global opt-in but I don't see it happening.
I'm actually very happy with Firefox these days. I have a fairly new MacBook Pro with 16 GB of RAM, SSD and performance on the browser is fine. It may be that older machines or those with lower configurations don't run as well but anything mid-range or high-end within the last two years should run Firefox just fine.
I am considering setting up a disposable Linux VM for reading sites that won't show you content with AdBlock on.
But there's no content worth risking your machine. And there are multiple sites for news articles - Forbes isn't unique - and their articles are sometimes quite poor.
I generally prefer reading news on Safari. If the ads are obnoxious (as in ads following you around as you scroll), then I go into Reader Mode and I just get text (and maybe an image). I find the Boston Globe news app tolerable though it has those ads that follow you around in the menu page. My preferred style of reading is to use web pages, then cut and paste the text into emacs to save a few days of articles. When I have enough of them, I cut and paste them into LibreOffice, save as.docx and email it to my Kindle account and then just read the news as text on the Kindle. That might be a tablet, phone, or iPod. It's nice in that it syncs where I left off through all of my devices.
I have AdBlock Plus on Firefox but I need to use multiple browsers for different news sites. I will also forward news articles or dump of them to other family members.
I still read novels, articles, old books, etc. from time to time but I do it mostly on electronic devices. I have over 3,000 books at home on a variety of topics and I still use them from time to time. The electronic stuff is just so much more convenient.
If books are dead, why do we have an Authoress like JK Rowling with incredible book revenues? I don't think that reading is anywhere near dead but, then again, I don't really do social media stuff either.
I thought that I would want an x64 Windows phone many years ago so that I could hook up a KVM and just carry my phone back and forth but I have an iPhone and a MacBook Pro right now and these two work quite well for me. The phone takes care of phone stuff and the MacBook Pro takes care of work and PC stuff. I don't see how the phone could ever have the specs of a very good laptop.
Then Microsoft came out with Windows 8/8.1/10 and my thinking is that I'll never buy a Windows system. Ever. Again. That article had it right. Microsoft is making what they think we should use. Not what we want.
I've never tried a Windows Phone. There are a number of Apps that I use that don't have Windows equivalents (my financial institutions are important ones). I use a few Apps on my iPhone that don't even have Android ports. BTW, I overall prefer the Android customization capabilities on the home screens but prefer iOS for security and simplicity of use. I could be happy on Android or iOS though. Most of the Apps that I want are available on Android and I could just use an iPod Touch or old iPhone for the rest.
I'm spoiled with an i7, 16 GB of RAM, 512 GB of SSD storage and lots of ports to hook up to multiple monitors. Apple's model is separate - you have your phone and you have your PC and you have your tablet. I think that Microsoft is fine with convertible tablets but the phone is a problem. I think that they are seeing pretty good success with their mobile apps on Android and iOS. Microsoft is a software company and maybe they could just keep going in that direction and drop phones altogether as they seem to be going nowhere with that. The downside to dropping the phone is that developers have even less incentive to develop Apps for Windows. But are developers seriously doing that right now?
I have two Nehalem (as in old) desktops running Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. When Windows 7 goes off support, I'm thinking of putting Linux on it. I will likely upgrade the Windows 8.1 system to Windows 10 as I feel that I should keep up with Windows as a professional, even if I really don't care to use it. Mac OS X has made great strides in usability and application software and I feel that I can do everything outside of 1 application on it. One todo list item I have is to get that 1 application to run under Wine in Linux.
I tried it on an iPhone 6 and the problem was that the ad-blocker slowed down Safari more than the ads do. So I disabled it and am back to using Reader Mode. I use AdBlock Plus on my Mac but it's a very fast system where the overhead from the AdBlock software isn't noticeable.
I had a bunch of amalgam fillings replaced with porcelain fillings many years ago. These things look great, perform better than the originals and amalgam and aren't subject to decay. My dentist has a Cerec machine (Siemens) that takes a 3-D picture of the tooth and he designs a cap, pushes a button and a device grinds out the cap and he then glues it in - one visit service. He's had this system since the 1990s. The only downside is that they cost $400 to $600 a pop. A lot more for crowns.
He does composite fillings as well for simpler fillings. He stopped doing amalgam fillings long ago though these are the cheapest approach.
Graphene supposedly nasty for the lungs so I'd hope that any production process would not release this stuff into the air. Head supposedly uses Graphene in its tennis racquets though I suspect that it's a tiny amount of the stuff.
I bought the Jaybird Bluebuds X two years ago and have been very happy with them. I use them for running and in the gym and it's nice to not have to worry about cords getting caught on equipment or your wires getting caught up on the treadmill arms when running indoors or dealing with cord tangle. Yes, wired sound quality is better but it wouldn't be perfect anyways because of the bouncing around running, banging of weight plates and people dropping dumbbells and barbells on the ground.
Dell had a habit of putting in power supplies that just covered the configuration. Over time, the amount of power declines to the point where you can get intermittent booting or crashing problems. I had this problem with a pair of Dell systems that I bought. Putting in much better power supplies fixed both systems. Of course it took a while to diagnose this problem. With your own build, you can make sure that you get a power supply that will more than handle your potentially most power-hungry configuration.
I had to make this decision about five years ago and I had a buddy at the office willing to help me pick out components and put it together. I ordered the components and we did some of the work of putting it together in my office. I did most of the work but had somebody to ask questions if I didn't know what to do. The downside was that the motherboard was recalled shortly after I put it together so I had to take it apart and put it back together again but I am glad that I went through the experience. I'd recommend doing it with someone that has some experience, either in-person or online. If you're in a forum that has a section or thread for building a computer - so much the better. You might find someone that you already know online that can help you out.
On family PCs - I think things work out better when everyone has their own system as you don't have contention issues.
The skills that you get building your own are useful with other systems at work, with friends and with relatives in that you should wind up better at diagnosing problems and potentially fixing hardware issues.
I don't use bookmarks that much. Instead, I create a simple HTML page with links, with similar pages categorized together. I will benchmark pages that I'm interested in and eventually move them to the home page or delete them if they've been there for a while with me not using them. I manually propagate the homepage to other systems.
Slashdot Mirror
I have two Windows desktops that I don't use that much. One is on Windows 8.1 and the other is on Windows 7. I will likely upgrade one of them to Windows 10 as I feel that I need to have some knowledge of using it as part of me being the IT guy for family and friends. BTW, upgrading to 8.0 and 8.1 was a mistake - I really don't like it but I am using Classic Start that helps. They spyware is probably there though. I do the vast majority of my PC computing on my MacBook Pro these days and am very, very happy to do very little on Windows anymore. Microsoft has been shooting themselves in the foot for quite some time now.
Maybe they'll activate your camera to see your reactions to ads next as is being done with some billboards.
I would think that a department of prosecutors would want the best security that they could get for their employees so that the very sensitive information on their phones wouldn't get compromised by criminals. Instead, it seems like they prefer to buy phones that are crackable. I'd guess that companies looking to buy phones for their employees would want the best security available at reasonable cost.
We had an ice storm several years ago and the power went out. Those gasoline stations with a generator for powering the pumps didn't power their payment systems so you had to pay in cash if you wanted gasoline. My credit cards have been hacked a few times in the past ten years and it's a headache when you can't use them (I only carry two of them as it's easier to keep track of). It's a pain to make trips to the bank when you need cash and you can't use plastic or paper checks. I rarely use $100 bills - usually only for trips where I want some cash in case of problems with payment systems or at places which don't take plastic. Lately the bank has been giving me $50s for large amounts though I usually don't specify the denominations. Of course an easy way to move larger amounts of cash is 1-ounce gold coins. They're worth about $1,200 right now and they are compact and easy to buy and sell. You might have problems with a metal detector at an airport carrying a bunch though. I guess the ultimate way to eliminate crime would be to force everyone to use pennies.
Our military and government depend on crypto as well so getting rid of all crypto would make our security services less secure too. I agree that implementing crypto is pretty easy for those with the right background and criminals likely have the money to pay for it.
I like your points though I'm surprised at the level of political commentary in other posts. I'm a bit torn over the issue because you have the issue of security versus privacy. If you allow a backdoor, someone else will find it and use it or sell it and it's someone that you might not want with access. It seems like we should be able to do things with policy and legislation to decrease the likelihood of crime and terrorism. The problem with giving LE access to your stuff is potential misuse. We've all heard of the examples of Google SysAdmins showing customer data to friends or police officers looking up people on their LE databases for potential dates or credit processing company employees looking up information on celebrities. What's to prevent looking through financial information to steal or figuring out when you're on vacation or leaving your home for a trip to allow someone the opportunity to rob your place when you're away? The FBI has said that this stuff would only be done with warrants but don't all LE organizations and individuals come under some temptation to cheat? And there are clearly well-known cases where they do so. So the balance is difficult. I think that anyone with a CS degree could design their own encryption system for sensitive files that couldn't be broken, even by Apple or Google. You might not be able to use something like this on a phone without an App and it would likely be cumbersome to do even with an App that you write yourself. But it could be done.
I would have gone with Avis or Enterprise if I knew they were doing this.
Google's text ads are fine - they're often relevant too. Small image ads are fine - but no animated stuff and certainly no audio or video playing. Don't make your pages 67% ads and 33% content. Don't intersperse ads and links in the text content. Ideally, make the ads relevant.
Yup. I can live without Wired (don't recall reading stuff there). BTW, I'm giving Brave a shot. It's interesting - you can view ads but they aren't annoying. You can turn them off too but I will likely just leave them on.
I'd be happy to update my Windows XP systems to Windows 10 if they offered it.
I've migrated about 90% of my stuff to Mac OS X but I still have two powerful Windows 7 and 8.1 machines which I use for some small tasks. I will likely upgrade one of them to Windows 10 as I should know what Windows 10 is like but I may just leave Windows 7 on the other one as it only runs one thing and the likelyhood of malware is very low. I'm also considering Linux of course.
+1
I really don't like that they have the ESPN monopoly where the cable companies have to carry them to get other content so they force everyone with cable packages to pay for the service, whether they use it or not. The Over-The-Top movement is having a little effect on this but it's still a strong exercise in market power. Disney is a very powerful brand and a lot of people identify with it - I'm just not one of them. If they want respect from me, then they're going to have to behave as if they deserved the respect.
I like to read the news on my iPad Mini and I don't use an Ad Blocker. The iPad Mini isn't the most powerful computer around and it gets pretty slow with one or two news pages in the background with all of the crap on web pages these days. If something takes too long to load, then I dump it to read it on a PC later on. If a page is cluttered with ads, I use reader mode. If there's an ad following me around because I shopped for something - then I don't buy the item. Dump the analytics, noisy ads, etc. Google's text ads are fine and they're often relevant. Video is unnecessary - I'm not really a video-person. If things are really bad, I cut and paste the text into an Emacs session and create a Kindle document to read later. Reading on the PC is easier because of AdBlock Plus or similar, and the PC has the resources to block all of the bad stuff or load the bad stuff and still perform. We shouldn't need high-end PCs, phones or tablets to read web pages though. More Ad crap is not better Ad crap. I think that ads could be done a lot better with some kind of global opt-in but I don't see it happening.
I'm actually very happy with Firefox these days. I have a fairly new MacBook Pro with 16 GB of RAM, SSD and performance on the browser is fine. It may be that older machines or those with lower configurations don't run as well but anything mid-range or high-end within the last two years should run Firefox just fine.
I am considering setting up a disposable Linux VM for reading sites that won't show you content with AdBlock on. But there's no content worth risking your machine. And there are multiple sites for news articles - Forbes isn't unique - and their articles are sometimes quite poor.
I generally prefer reading news on Safari. If the ads are obnoxious (as in ads following you around as you scroll), then I go into Reader Mode and I just get text (and maybe an image). I find the Boston Globe news app tolerable though it has those ads that follow you around in the menu page. My preferred style of reading is to use web pages, then cut and paste the text into emacs to save a few days of articles. When I have enough of them, I cut and paste them into LibreOffice, save as .docx and email it to my Kindle account and then just read the news as text on the Kindle. That might be a tablet, phone, or iPod. It's nice in that it syncs where I left off through all of my devices.
I have AdBlock Plus on Firefox but I need to use multiple browsers for different news sites. I will also forward news articles or dump of them to other family members.
I still read novels, articles, old books, etc. from time to time but I do it mostly on electronic devices. I have over 3,000 books at home on a variety of topics and I still use them from time to time. The electronic stuff is just so much more convenient. If books are dead, why do we have an Authoress like JK Rowling with incredible book revenues? I don't think that reading is anywhere near dead but, then again, I don't really do social media stuff either.
I thought that I would want an x64 Windows phone many years ago so that I could hook up a KVM and just carry my phone back and forth but I have an iPhone and a MacBook Pro right now and these two work quite well for me. The phone takes care of phone stuff and the MacBook Pro takes care of work and PC stuff. I don't see how the phone could ever have the specs of a very good laptop. Then Microsoft came out with Windows 8/8.1/10 and my thinking is that I'll never buy a Windows system. Ever. Again. That article had it right. Microsoft is making what they think we should use. Not what we want. I've never tried a Windows Phone. There are a number of Apps that I use that don't have Windows equivalents (my financial institutions are important ones). I use a few Apps on my iPhone that don't even have Android ports. BTW, I overall prefer the Android customization capabilities on the home screens but prefer iOS for security and simplicity of use. I could be happy on Android or iOS though. Most of the Apps that I want are available on Android and I could just use an iPod Touch or old iPhone for the rest. I'm spoiled with an i7, 16 GB of RAM, 512 GB of SSD storage and lots of ports to hook up to multiple monitors. Apple's model is separate - you have your phone and you have your PC and you have your tablet. I think that Microsoft is fine with convertible tablets but the phone is a problem. I think that they are seeing pretty good success with their mobile apps on Android and iOS. Microsoft is a software company and maybe they could just keep going in that direction and drop phones altogether as they seem to be going nowhere with that. The downside to dropping the phone is that developers have even less incentive to develop Apps for Windows. But are developers seriously doing that right now? I have two Nehalem (as in old) desktops running Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. When Windows 7 goes off support, I'm thinking of putting Linux on it. I will likely upgrade the Windows 8.1 system to Windows 10 as I feel that I should keep up with Windows as a professional, even if I really don't care to use it. Mac OS X has made great strides in usability and application software and I feel that I can do everything outside of 1 application on it. One todo list item I have is to get that 1 application to run under Wine in Linux.
I tried it on an iPhone 6 and the problem was that the ad-blocker slowed down Safari more than the ads do. So I disabled it and am back to using Reader Mode. I use AdBlock Plus on my Mac but it's a very fast system where the overhead from the AdBlock software isn't noticeable.
I had a bunch of amalgam fillings replaced with porcelain fillings many years ago. These things look great, perform better than the originals and amalgam and aren't subject to decay. My dentist has a Cerec machine (Siemens) that takes a 3-D picture of the tooth and he designs a cap, pushes a button and a device grinds out the cap and he then glues it in - one visit service. He's had this system since the 1990s. The only downside is that they cost $400 to $600 a pop. A lot more for crowns. He does composite fillings as well for simpler fillings. He stopped doing amalgam fillings long ago though these are the cheapest approach. Graphene supposedly nasty for the lungs so I'd hope that any production process would not release this stuff into the air. Head supposedly uses Graphene in its tennis racquets though I suspect that it's a tiny amount of the stuff.
I bought the Jaybird Bluebuds X two years ago and have been very happy with them. I use them for running and in the gym and it's nice to not have to worry about cords getting caught on equipment or your wires getting caught up on the treadmill arms when running indoors or dealing with cord tangle. Yes, wired sound quality is better but it wouldn't be perfect anyways because of the bouncing around running, banging of weight plates and people dropping dumbbells and barbells on the ground.
Dell had a habit of putting in power supplies that just covered the configuration. Over time, the amount of power declines to the point where you can get intermittent booting or crashing problems. I had this problem with a pair of Dell systems that I bought. Putting in much better power supplies fixed both systems. Of course it took a while to diagnose this problem. With your own build, you can make sure that you get a power supply that will more than handle your potentially most power-hungry configuration.
I had to make this decision about five years ago and I had a buddy at the office willing to help me pick out components and put it together. I ordered the components and we did some of the work of putting it together in my office. I did most of the work but had somebody to ask questions if I didn't know what to do. The downside was that the motherboard was recalled shortly after I put it together so I had to take it apart and put it back together again but I am glad that I went through the experience. I'd recommend doing it with someone that has some experience, either in-person or online. If you're in a forum that has a section or thread for building a computer - so much the better. You might find someone that you already know online that can help you out. On family PCs - I think things work out better when everyone has their own system as you don't have contention issues. The skills that you get building your own are useful with other systems at work, with friends and with relatives in that you should wind up better at diagnosing problems and potentially fixing hardware issues.
I don't use bookmarks that much. Instead, I create a simple HTML page with links, with similar pages categorized together. I will benchmark pages that I'm interested in and eventually move them to the home page or delete them if they've been there for a while with me not using them. I manually propagate the homepage to other systems.