I'm personally just glad that all of those people who don't bother using anything other than the default browser will finally have a decent default browser.
Long-time Windows user. I'm comfortable with Linux and have used it for a number of projects, but when it comes to using it as the main OS on my "daily driver", I just can't grapple with it. I actually enjoy tinkering, so part of me would be interested in doing this, and I think about it from time to time. Recently I made a list of the things stopping me:
* I need seamless disk encryption — it looks like there are solutions for this but nothing as stupid simple to set up and deal with as BitLocker.
* Doesn't appear to be any way to get my fingerprint reader to work for login (Dell Precision FIPS) — I hate typing passwords.
* No good MS Exchange client from what I can tell, I need both email and calendaring working well.
* No OneDrive sync client.
* No OneNote client (I suppose I could switch to Evernote).
* No good Quicken alternative, I rely on it a lot for personal finance and managing a small business... Quicken has its own set of issues, but everything else I have tried totally pales in comparison.
* No good way to sync/manage my iPhone (need iTunes here).
* No good way to sync up my iCloud photo library (the Windows iCloud client is pretty terrible, but it does work).
* I use Adobe Lightroom for photo management and I dread having to switch to something else...
I'm actually totally interested in ideas to get around any of these, but I imagine that many of them involve totally changing up how I do things. For example, getting away from Microsoft services (i.e. OneDrive) or Apple services (i.e. iCloud for photos) to switch to something more "Linux-friendly" would impact my whole family. My extended family in the case of Apple. I've got too much going on in my life to take on that project. Looking at this list, I realize that switching to macOS is a lot more feasible; but, I really don't like the direction that Apple is taking with hardware as far as "PCs" are concerned... I don't think that I would be a very happy MacBook owner.
Things have been moving well in the opposite direction, though. With Microsoft's "Subsystem for Linux", when I need Linux for something I rarely actually have to boot it up anymore.
OK, so, business that bring in less than $1 million per year don't have to comply. Businesses that bring in more than $1 million per year can pay... $300 per year in fines, and then just ignore it? How is this actually going to work?
There are some services that offer a solution to this, for example, Google Voice lets you turn on "call screening" which requires the caller to say their name and press a button (or something) and then it will ask you if you want to take the call.
That's a hassle, you have to pick up the phone and listen to hear who is calling. Couldn't your smartphone automatically answer the call, provide a friendly voice prompt asking the caller to key in a random three-digit number sequence, upon success which it would say "please wait to be connected" and then start ringing your phone? This would only be for callers not in your contact list. I wonder if anyone has tried to implement something like this.
You don't know how many times that I received a screen shot of some text in a Word document. But I've gotten the same thing a number of times in an Excel spreadsheet as well. They should put this in desktop Excel.
I believe Windows Media Center could be installed as an optional component on Windows 8? You had to upgrade the edition from "Pro" to "Pro + Media Center" or something. There was a window of time to do this for free which has long passed.
That would only get you another ~3 years of support anyway...
I'm curious what you use for managing your finances on Linux? Quicken is one of the few things keeping me tied to Windows (alternatives I've tried are not even close).
Most of the complaints are coming from users who upgraded but I have seen some from people who bought Pro keys. So, I wonder if the "guess" that only upgrades are impacted isn't quite right. It could be that only OEM installs are *not* impacted. Since the vast majority of installs are either OEM (machine shipped with Windows 10) or upgrade (during the free/promo period a few years back)... Users that actually purchased a Windows 10 standalone key might be lost in the shuffle.
In any case, this is clearly quickly becoming a hot topic and I'm sure Microsoft will address it soon... Doesn't say great things about their QC though. (Hey, where's that 1809 / October 2018 update at?)
Considering that Dell is already shipping laptops with 128GB of memory as an option (Dell Precision 7530, 7730) — these are single-CPU, 8th gen systems — hasn't the ship sailed on this already?
A lot of things about Windows 10 I honestly don't mind, but this is absolutely ridiculous. Never-mind that I may leave stuff open and want to come back to it without interruption the next day. Sometimes I have a long-running video encode or compute job (i.e. multiple days). I don't need Windows randomly deciding to reboot and throw away my progress.
Why do we need machine learning for this? Just give users the option to decide when they want to reboot.
Anyway, to those who haven't figured it out yet, there's an easy way to stop this behavior.
Visit C:\Windows\System32\Tasks\Microsoft\Windows\UpdateOrchestrator.
Delete the file named "Reboot". This is the scheduled task that actually fires off the reboot after an update.
Create a folder in the same place named "Reboot". This prevents Windows from automatically re-creating the file that you deleted.
Done.
I can only imagine that this would start a game, wherein nefarious add-on makers would create fake accounts to use to post positive peer reviews of their extension... There would have to be some kind of trust mechanism included and I'm not sure how that would work.
No... While the Windows update does include some back-end stuff that allows other applications to read HEIC/HEIF files, it looks like the applications will need to be updated in most cases. (It's probably trivial for many, just adding a few lines that are like, "if the file extension is HEIF, open this file using WIC" — but you can bet that Adobe won't be updating older Photoshop versions for this...)
Just a note... The broadcast standard currently in use is ATSC 1.0. The new one recently approved is ATSC 3.0. ATSC 2.0 (mentioned in the article) actually died on the vine somewhere.
They've been attaching a version number to each one. (Granted, it may make sense to make the version number a little more obvious.) The latest "Creator's Update" is version 1703. The version number is just a representation of the year and month of release.
Agreed...
I have a 4 year old laptop, high-end so admittedly expensive when I bought it, but it can play today's games without much trouble and they look fine. Yes, some games can't be played at the highest settings, but a lot of games aren't "pushing the envelope" as hard as they used to for graphics.
A desktop computer is even easier, you can buy almost any desktop that comes in a regular case, add in a reasonable graphics card and you are good to go, even if the rest of the components are 3-5 years old.
This may be it. I heard an interview on NPR with an ex-NSA guy and this topic came up. He said his advice to the FBI, if he still worked in the government, would be something along the lines of "Bring the phone to the NSA and we will solve this problem for you." He said he had spoken to a number of experts who believed that the NSA has the resources to unlock this phone, but the FBI hadn't asked them, as they were more interested in the precedent than the result.
I found that Airport Utility 5.6 (for Windows --- haven't tried OS X version) can talk to the newer 802.11ac units. While not "supported", all of the options were there and the thing seemed to work fine.
They did this to me too. I used to have Internet and basic cable, and they would regularly call me to try and get me to add phone service. I ended up having the number that they were calling from go directly to voicemail, but from the logs I can see that they continued to call for quite a while.
That might be the first thing you would do. Thieves often aren't techies. They'll just boot it up and see if they can get it to work, and then pawn it or sell it to someone else.
If you want to be able to track your machine after it is stolen, just make sure it is easy enough for anyone to get to a web browser (easy-to-find guest account with restricted permissions, but can still connect to the local wifi?). Then run some software like Prey. If you have sensitive data, encrypt it but make sure the machine is still bootable.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm personally just glad that all of those people who don't bother using anything other than the default browser will finally have a decent default browser.
Long-time Windows user. I'm comfortable with Linux and have used it for a number of projects, but when it comes to using it as the main OS on my "daily driver", I just can't grapple with it. I actually enjoy tinkering, so part of me would be interested in doing this, and I think about it from time to time. Recently I made a list of the things stopping me:
* I need seamless disk encryption — it looks like there are solutions for this but nothing as stupid simple to set up and deal with as BitLocker.
* Doesn't appear to be any way to get my fingerprint reader to work for login (Dell Precision FIPS) — I hate typing passwords.
* No good MS Exchange client from what I can tell, I need both email and calendaring working well.
* No OneDrive sync client.
* No OneNote client (I suppose I could switch to Evernote).
* No good Quicken alternative, I rely on it a lot for personal finance and managing a small business... Quicken has its own set of issues, but everything else I have tried totally pales in comparison.
* No good way to sync/manage my iPhone (need iTunes here).
* No good way to sync up my iCloud photo library (the Windows iCloud client is pretty terrible, but it does work).
* I use Adobe Lightroom for photo management and I dread having to switch to something else...
I'm actually totally interested in ideas to get around any of these, but I imagine that many of them involve totally changing up how I do things. For example, getting away from Microsoft services (i.e. OneDrive) or Apple services (i.e. iCloud for photos) to switch to something more "Linux-friendly" would impact my whole family. My extended family in the case of Apple. I've got too much going on in my life to take on that project. Looking at this list, I realize that switching to macOS is a lot more feasible; but, I really don't like the direction that Apple is taking with hardware as far as "PCs" are concerned... I don't think that I would be a very happy MacBook owner.
Things have been moving well in the opposite direction, though. With Microsoft's "Subsystem for Linux", when I need Linux for something I rarely actually have to boot it up anymore.
OK, so, business that bring in less than $1 million per year don't have to comply. Businesses that bring in more than $1 million per year can pay... $300 per year in fines, and then just ignore it? How is this actually going to work?
There are some services that offer a solution to this, for example, Google Voice lets you turn on "call screening" which requires the caller to say their name and press a button (or something) and then it will ask you if you want to take the call.
That's a hassle, you have to pick up the phone and listen to hear who is calling. Couldn't your smartphone automatically answer the call, provide a friendly voice prompt asking the caller to key in a random three-digit number sequence, upon success which it would say "please wait to be connected" and then start ringing your phone? This would only be for callers not in your contact list. I wonder if anyone has tried to implement something like this.
You don't know how many times that I received a screen shot of some text in a Word document. But I've gotten the same thing a number of times in an Excel spreadsheet as well. They should put this in desktop Excel.
I believe Windows Media Center could be installed as an optional component on Windows 8? You had to upgrade the edition from "Pro" to "Pro + Media Center" or something. There was a window of time to do this for free which has long passed.
That would only get you another ~3 years of support anyway...
You can't feed in a bunch of musical information to a computer and have it spontaneously generate music.
Check this out:
Aiva
Related TED talk
Looks like this is coming along...
Seems to be fixed now, multiple users reporting successful reactivation (including me!).
I'm curious what you use for managing your finances on Linux? Quicken is one of the few things keeping me tied to Windows (alternatives I've tried are not even close).
Most of the complaints are coming from users who upgraded but I have seen some from people who bought Pro keys. So, I wonder if the "guess" that only upgrades are impacted isn't quite right. It could be that only OEM installs are *not* impacted. Since the vast majority of installs are either OEM (machine shipped with Windows 10) or upgrade (during the free/promo period a few years back)... Users that actually purchased a Windows 10 standalone key might be lost in the shuffle.
In any case, this is clearly quickly becoming a hot topic and I'm sure Microsoft will address it soon... Doesn't say great things about their QC though. (Hey, where's that 1809 / October 2018 update at?)
They did post an updated Windows Server 2016 image that has all of the updates through this past February.
Considering that Dell is already shipping laptops with 128GB of memory as an option (Dell Precision 7530, 7730) — these are single-CPU, 8th gen systems — hasn't the ship sailed on this already?
A lot of things about Windows 10 I honestly don't mind, but this is absolutely ridiculous. Never-mind that I may leave stuff open and want to come back to it without interruption the next day. Sometimes I have a long-running video encode or compute job (i.e. multiple days). I don't need Windows randomly deciding to reboot and throw away my progress.
Why do we need machine learning for this? Just give users the option to decide when they want to reboot.
Anyway, to those who haven't figured it out yet, there's an easy way to stop this behavior.
Visit C:\Windows\System32\Tasks\Microsoft\Windows\UpdateOrchestrator.
Delete the file named "Reboot". This is the scheduled task that actually fires off the reboot after an update.
Create a folder in the same place named "Reboot". This prevents Windows from automatically re-creating the file that you deleted.
Done.
I can only imagine that this would start a game, wherein nefarious add-on makers would create fake accounts to use to post positive peer reviews of their extension... There would have to be some kind of trust mechanism included and I'm not sure how that would work.
No... While the Windows update does include some back-end stuff that allows other applications to read HEIC/HEIF files, it looks like the applications will need to be updated in most cases. (It's probably trivial for many, just adding a few lines that are like, "if the file extension is HEIF, open this file using WIC" — but you can bet that Adobe won't be updating older Photoshop versions for this...)
Just a note... The broadcast standard currently in use is ATSC 1.0. The new one recently approved is ATSC 3.0. ATSC 2.0 (mentioned in the article) actually died on the vine somewhere.
Err, the time change is this weekend (in the U.S.), seems timely enough to me...
They've been attaching a version number to each one. (Granted, it may make sense to make the version number a little more obvious.) The latest "Creator's Update" is version 1703. The version number is just a representation of the year and month of release.
Could smart criminals just also run a Tor exit node, and just use it to blame anything that they get caught on?
Agreed... I have a 4 year old laptop, high-end so admittedly expensive when I bought it, but it can play today's games without much trouble and they look fine. Yes, some games can't be played at the highest settings, but a lot of games aren't "pushing the envelope" as hard as they used to for graphics. A desktop computer is even easier, you can buy almost any desktop that comes in a regular case, add in a reasonable graphics card and you are good to go, even if the rest of the components are 3-5 years old.
This may be it. I heard an interview on NPR with an ex-NSA guy and this topic came up. He said his advice to the FBI, if he still worked in the government, would be something along the lines of "Bring the phone to the NSA and we will solve this problem for you." He said he had spoken to a number of experts who believed that the NSA has the resources to unlock this phone, but the FBI hadn't asked them, as they were more interested in the precedent than the result.
I found that Airport Utility 5.6 (for Windows --- haven't tried OS X version) can talk to the newer 802.11ac units. While not "supported", all of the options were there and the thing seemed to work fine.
They did this to me too. I used to have Internet and basic cable, and they would regularly call me to try and get me to add phone service. I ended up having the number that they were calling from go directly to voicemail, but from the logs I can see that they continued to call for quite a while.
It says in the article that configuration changes must be made on the WiFi access points as well.
That might be the first thing you would do. Thieves often aren't techies. They'll just boot it up and see if they can get it to work, and then pawn it or sell it to someone else.
If you want to be able to track your machine after it is stolen, just make sure it is easy enough for anyone to get to a web browser (easy-to-find guest account with restricted permissions, but can still connect to the local wifi?). Then run some software like Prey. If you have sensitive data, encrypt it but make sure the machine is still bootable.