TechByter Worldwide

If you enjoy today's article, please share it!

Program Date: 05 Oct 2014

Implementing Windows X (ah, 10)

Microsoft caught just about everyone off guard this week by announcing that the expected Windows 9 would not be released soon. In fact, it won't be released at all. Instead Microsoft will release Windows 10 next year. Late next year.

Microsoft has never been very good with version numbers. Windows progressed from 3 to 95 and 98, then NT and 2000, Vista (the version with no number), 7, 8, and then 10. Maybe with 10, they'll adopt Apple's approach, retain "10", and just add decimal numbers.

Click for a larger view.Apparently the biggest news is that the Start Menu will be back. In some ways, this vindicates my opinion from the year before Windows 8 was released. In other ways, it's discouraging.

See! It's back and it has an optional customizable space for apps ....

In September 2011, I wrote "Windows 8 will have a Desktop. Currently there's just a Start Screen but I hope that the Start Menu will be retained for the Desktop view or that at least the Start Screen will be modified to allow more customization than is currently present." In several subsequent programs, I repeated that opinion.

Later, after using Windows 8 for only a day or two, I reversed my opinion on the Start Menu. It really wasn't needed then and isn't needed now, but it will make a return in Windows 10. Perhaps this will placate those who simply cannot deal with change in any form.

And that's the discouraging part. Microsoft is reinventing an old wheel that isn't really needed in today's world. That concern aside, the road map for Windows 10 looks promising.

If Microsoft's history tells us anything it's that the company is very good at iterative processes.

Click for a larger view.Previously, Metro|Modern apps ran full screen or in very rigid boxes. Now even apps run in a window just as desktop applications do. They can be resized and moved around and have title bars at the top so that users can maximize, minimize, and close with a click.

Microsoft is also very good about not communicating anything to anyone outside the company until they're willing to do so. In recent weeks, it's been impossible to find anyone who would even admit that the company was working on a new version of the operating system.

If you don't know how to create a DVD from an ISO file, do not proceed.

Reading the tea leaves of this week's announcements suggest strongly that Microsoft will continue the process of developing a single operating system for phones, tablets, notebooks, and desktop systems. I consider that to be the right approach.

The most frightening problem Windows 8 created for Microsoft was a reluctance by corporate IT managers to adopt Windows 8. Some misguided IT managers still have Windows XP installed on users' machines. Others have moved on to Windows 7, but Windows 8 has been a very tough sale in the corporate market. Tech research firm Forrester Research says that only about 20% of corporate IT divisions make Windows 8 an option for employees. Most businesses are still running the 4-year-old Windows 7 and some have continued to stick with Windows XP, even though it is no longer supported.

Perhaps Windows 9 wasn't seen as sufficiently different from Windows 8, hence the scrapping of that version with plans to release Windows 10 late in 2015.

Click for a larger view.Microsoft says that Windows 10 allows users to have four apps snapped on the same screen with a new quadrant layout. Windows will also show other apps and programs running for additional snapping and can make "smart suggestions" on filling available screen space with other open apps.

Click for a larger view.The ability to create multiple desktops isn't new. Linux users have been able to do this for a long time and there have been utilities that allowed Windows users to do it. Now it will be part of the operating system so that users can create workspaces for different purposes and projects, and then switch between these desktops easily.

Windows Insider

Microsoft will release preview versions of Windows 10 for anyone who wants to download it and that includes the current development version. Should you take the company up on this offer?

The Windows Technical Preview is not production-ready software, but you can join the Windows Insider Program if you don't mind dealing with what Microsoft calls a "moving target". You can download the ISO file here.

The cautions to keep in mind if you're thinking about trying Windows 10: Download and install the preview only if you ...

That final point is critical. Do not install pre-production software a computer you depend on for important information. Microsoft says "The Windows Insider Program is intended for PC experts and IT pros who are comfortable using pre-release software with variable quality. Insiders will receive a steady stream of early builds from us with the latest features we're experimenting with."

When you download the ISO file, you will receive even more stringent warnings:

Consider this version of Windows to be a first draft of what will be in a year or so. And consider the landscape to be very much uncharted territory. Proceed with caution!

I wrote the first part of this report while waiting for routine maintenance to be performed on my car. Minor irony: The computer I used to write it is a Chromebook.

My Experience So Far

A few things are important to note before I go any further:

The system I used had Windows 8.1 installed and the Windows 10 installer should have offered to update the existing system. It didn't and I don't know why. Instead, I was offered only the option to keep my document files or to keep nothing. I understood the options as presented and elected to keep the documents knowing that installed applications would be gone when the process was complete.

When you download the ISO file, you'll see a product key, but you won't have to enter it. No activation is required for the Technical Preview, but the words "Evaluation Version" will appear in the lower right corner of the screen, along with the build number.

If you install Windows 10 on a working system that contains important programs and data, be sure to read everything carefully. This is an early beta version of the operating system. Microsoft expects to offer a consumer preview version around the end of the year. Development will have progressed substantially by then and the operating system will be more stable. If you're not a true geek and a masochist, I would recommend not installing Windows 10 now.

Should something go wrong, you have no recourse whatsoever. During the installation process, you agree to these terms: "The Program Services include experimental and early pre-release software. This means that you may experience occasional crashes and in rare cases data loss. To recover, you may have to reinstall your applications, the operating system, or re-flash your device. Using the Program Services on some devices may impact your warranty (check with your device provider). By participating, you agree to frequently backup your data.”

The installation itself proceeded normally and took a little over half an hour.

My first impression of the Start Menu with Apps Panel is that it works. The Start Menu will be familiar to the hopelessly change-averse users who could never get the hang of either the Start Screen or just typing the first few characters of the program they wanted to use ("wor" to start Word, for example). The optional apps panel will be helpful for touch-enabled devices and for users who run Metro|Modern apps on standard devices. I'll probably continue to pin my most-used programs to the Task Bar and use the Windows key and a few characters of the program's name to start other applications, just as I have since the advent of Windows 8.

If you're one of the 3 people on the planet who's willing to admit that you liked the Start Screen, you can get it back. Click the Start button, type "navigation properties", and then click Navigation properties in the resulting display. Select the Start Menu tab, clear the check box in front of Use the Start Menu instead of the Start Screen, and then click OK.

Microsoft explains it this way: "The Start menu is back—and it’s more personal, more organized, and more fun than before. The full-sized Start screen is here too, and it's easy to switch between them. Your choice." Probably someone at an advertising agency spent half a day on those two sentences.

Charms are gone and I suspect that users of tablets will miss them. On non-touch devices, the Charms panel appears when the mouse cursor hovers in the upper right or lower right corner for more than a second. Search, Share, Start, Devices, and Settings are all available from that menu. On touch devices, the panel can be swiped in from the right and the options differ slightly if the Metro|Modern interface is active.

Avast Antivirus has been removed and Microsoft Security Essentials has taken its place. When I attempted to install Avast, the download ran as expected, but the program could not be installed because of unspecified "compatibility" issues. This isn't too surprising given the early beta status of the operating system.

I haven't seen anything that's seriously broken, even in the early preview version. Overall, it appears that Microsoft's software engineers have done a pretty good job of melding the requirements of a desktop system to those of a phone and tablet system. It's definitely not yet ready for use on production machines, but Microsoft has a year to work that out.

Short Circuits

Lies at the Speed of Light

An article by Brendan Nyhan, an assistant professor of government at Dartmouth College, reminds me of the observation by Samuel Clemens (as Mark Twain) that lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. And that was in the 1800s. The Internet compounds the problem.

"It's no surprise that interesting and unusual claims are often the most widely circulated articles on social media," Nyhan writes. "Who wants to share boring stuff?"

The champion myth-and-lie buster is snopes.com, a site that's operated by Barbara and David Mikkelson. Truthfully, they met at alt.folklore.urban newsgroup. The site's objective is to confirm or debunk "urban legends". In fact, some of the liars who send messages they know to be false actually state that the information they are providing has been verified on Snopes.com.

The site goes beyond stating that a rumor is true or false and presents the evidence that the Mikkelsons have used to draw their conclusion. If there's insufficient evidence one way or the other, the item will be characterized as "undetermined" or "unverifiable"

Nyhan says that everyone knows there is dubious information online, but estimating the magnitude of the problem has been difficult. He cites work by Craig Silverman, a journalist and fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University: "[Silverman] developed Emergent, a tool that tracks the dissemination of rumors online on topics ranging from a Microsoft acquisition to a supposed pumpkin spice condom created by Durex."

The Microsoft story was true according to Silverman and the condom story was false.

The full story is on the NY Times website and the Snopes website is at www.Snopes.com.

At a time when it's difficult to tell the difference between fact and fiction or between reality and satire, it's easy to pass something along because it seems plausible. But it's also easy enough to check a site such as Snopes to obtain a second opinion and thereby avoid the embarrassment of signing your name to a lie. Perhaps the most annoying and disheartening response I've heard when I point out to someone that they've passed something along that simply wasn't true is something like "Well, yeah, but I thought it was funny."

And what's really distressing is discovering that someone has passed along a story from the Onion, a satire site, as if it was a legitimate news story.

Which is not to claim that I've never accidentally forwarded something that seemed true only to discover later that it was false. Checking with Snopes takes only a few moments, so do yourself and truth a favor.

Where's the FCC Going with Net Neutrality?

Despite his background in the cable and wireless industries, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler seems to be trying to achieve at least adequate results for Internet users. It's going to be difficult. The Republican members of the commission are opposed to any regulation at all while open Internet advocates are resolutely opposed to anything that sounds like "slow lane" versus "fast lane".

Wheeler has proposed the creation of a "fast lane" for those providers who would be willing to pay more, but that would seem to create a de-facto "slow lane" for everyone else. Internet speeds in the United States already suffer by comparison to what consumers have in large areas of Europe and Asia even though users in the US pay more.

Where the FCC will come down on the issue of Net Neutrality is still very much an open question, but I'm beginning to reconsider my overall opinion of Wheeler.

The topic is a hot one. It has generated more public comment than any other issue in the FCC's history and the deluge of comments has caused the server that the FCC uses to collect public comments to crash. Several times. Nearly 4 million comments, most of them charging that Wheeler's proposal of Net Neutrality with a Fast Lane doesn't go far enough to protect consumers who want to use their Internet connections for activities such as viewing video or to protect new businesses that could develop useful services but would be shut out of the market because they would be unable to pay for access to the fast lane.

For someone who has spent much of his professional life as a lobbyist for cable and cellular companies, Wheeler's opinions are unusual. If he's counting on the revolving door to take him back to the commercial side following his term as FCC commissioner, his opposition (with the Department of Justice) to the merger of Sprint and T-Mobile isn't going to help. Now Wheeler says that he believes wireless broadband service should be regulated by the FCC in the same way wired services would be under his proposal.

But then maybe he doesn't want to go back to being a lobbyist. He made a lot of money in business. Now in his mid 60s, Wheeler might be thinking of retiring at the end of the term.

And Wheeler is familiar with the problem that start-ups would face. In the 1980s, Wheeler formed a company that intended to deliver high-speed data to homes by using cable television lines. Sound familiar? That's the Internet via cable service as we know it today, but in 1984 the start-up company didn't have enough money to pay what the cable operators demanded. The company failed.

So maybe it's time for me to re-asses my opinion of Wheeler's proposal. If the "fast lane" is truly supersonic and the "everybody else" lane is mandated to provide reasonably fast service (something in the range of 20Mbps or faster) I could support the plan.

What do you think?

Ebay will Spin PayPal Next Year

After a dozen years as a wholly owned subsidiary of Ebay, PayPal will become a separate company next year. Ebay acquired PayPal in 2002. Headquartered in San Jose, PayPal is located on Ebay's corporate campus. It also has offices in several other cities in the US, Europe, and the Middle East.

PayPal is payment processor for online vendors, auction sites, and commercial users. It charges a fee for each transaction depending on the currency or payment method the seller uses.

Besides San Jose, PayPal has offices in Omaha, Scottsdale, Charlotte, Boston, Baltimore, and Austin. European offices are located in Ireland and Germany. PayPal also has operations at 2 locations in India and in Israel. It operates in Europe as a bank based in Luxembourg.

In announcing the spin-off, Ebay said that the event should happen in the second half of 2015. The objective is to improve growth opportunities for both Ebay and PayPal by allowing them to concentrate on their respective strengths and market areas.

The company also named Dan Schulman as the president of PayPal. He will become CEO following the spin. Until this week, Schulman was president of the enterprise growth group at American Express.

Blackberry's Good News: Losses are Smaller

BlackBerry says that it lost "just" $207 million in the second quarter and CEO John Chen says the company is "definitely in the first half" of an 8-quarter turnaround. Hinting perhaps that worse news may still be ahead, Chen said the company may not be at the lowest point, but "we are near the bottoming out of this revenue."

BlackBerry tried to sell itself to another company a little less than a year ago. That effort failed and Chen became the new CEO. At the time he said that his goal was to return the company to profitability by the end of the 2014 fiscal year (ending in February 2015).

A year ago, BlackBerry reported a quarterly loss of $965 million, so reducing the loss to $207 million was quite an accomplishment.

Chen has emphasized BlackBerry's software division that creates applications IT departments can use to manage mobile devices that are connected to their networks. Other smart phone manufacturers do not offer such applications.

A week ago, Chen showed the Passport, a new large-screen smart phone. The launch event was held in Toronto, but no similar event was scheduled for the United States because of a lack of demand for BlackBerry products.