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Windows 10 - Deeper Impressions


xper

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I have just concluded several DAYS' worth of focusing, to the exclusion of almost everything else, on a certain tech problem that highlights the problems inherent in the direction in which Microsoft wants to drag Windows users. I am dog-tired and badly need some sleep. Suffice it to say for now that what happened to us demonstrates the idi0cy of the model that Microsoft is promoting.

More details tomorrow after I get some rest.

--JorgeA

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13 hours ago, NoelC said:

Hm, someone uses commas the way someone else uses periods.  Imagine that.

I wonder how many times that's thrown off collaborative science projects.  ;)

-Noel

The decimal separator is a convention, but, unfortunately for you (US and for some other English speaking countries), the international ISO standards use the comma. though *like* 99.99% of the people (please note the comma as decimal mark) simply ignore that, it is a requirement for international standards:

http://www.iso.org/sites/directives/2016/part2/index.xhtml#_idTextAnchor098
 

As Oracle :w00t: puts it:
https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19455-01/806-0169/overview-9/index.html

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Great Britain and the United States are two of the few places in the world that use a period to indicate the decimal place. 
 

But in practice scientists tend to be smart enough to understand which is which :):

https://web.archive.org/web/20130228062258/http://www.councilscienceeditors.org/files/scienceeditor/v31n2p042-043.pdf

jaclaz


 

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And now, if you think that Windows 10 is bad, meet Finch :w00t: which is what the good Google guys can use to change your chrome (or Chromium) remotely :ph34r: (separate from the "normal" upgrade/update engine):

https://sslmate.com/blog/post/ct_redaction_in_chrome_53

in a nutshell:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12953172


 

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1. In September, Chrome 53 was released, which enabled mandatory Certificate Transparency for Symantec certificates due to Symantec's history of incompetence. Some website operators, such as Chase, asked Symantec to submit their certificates to Certificate Transparency logs in such a way that the certificate wouldn't be trusted by Chrome, triggering the ERR_CERTIFICATE_TRANSPARENCY_REQUIRED error. This is when I wrote this blog post.

2. Last week, an internal timebomb expired in older versions of Chrome causing this error message for any website using a Symantec certificate issued since June. Basically, Chrome contains a list of Certificate Transparency logs that it trusts, and this list has a 10 week expiration date. So if Chrome was built more than 10 weeks ago, there would be no trusted Certificate Transparency logs, and therefore any certificate that was supposed to be logged (such as new Symantec certs) would be untrusted and display this error message. The Chrome team was able to fix this within 24 hours by remotely disabling CT enforcement in Chrome. (When Chrome starts up, it fetches a list of feature flags from a Chrome server using a system called Finch which is independent of the normal upgrade system.)

3. Today, the Chromium packages in several Linux distros, including Ubuntu, became 10 weeks old. For some reason, they have not picked up the Finch update, and so they are displaying this error message for all Symantec certificates issued since June. This is not confirmed yet, but the current hypothesis is that the distros have disabled Finch for privacy reasons. It will probably require a distro package upgrade to fix.


 

jaclaz


 

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On lunedì 14 novembre 2016 at 7:35 AM, bookie32 said:

I would like to hear what the problems are because like Linux on a daily basis and haven't any real problems with it at al..

In this website you can found a thoroughly list of problems which are present on Linux as of today

https://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.the.desktop.current-2017.html

Here and there you can find some Linux fanatics which will try to dismiss that list, and they might say "I don't have any problem in Linux", but they aren't different nor better than Windows and MacOS fanatics.

Linux is fine, but it's not for the average people.

Edited by Agorima
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Hi Agorima!

Sorry if I was to believe everything written on that report I wouldn't use Linux at all....If I don't experience problems then I don't experience problems...but Linux isn't for the faint hearted...it demands time and energy but is more stable than Windows will ever be....and as the state of Windows is on the decline I will happily use Linux and not spend my days fighting to get things to work....and as it happens Ubuntu is one of the poorest examples of an OS from Linux...they have changed track so many times it is hard to know what they will do next...but Debian and versions like that are stable and dependable not forgetting that Ubuntu is Debian based (very loosely nowadays)....I have just had a computer where simple ps2 connections don't work...and guess what.... it is Windows 10 crap!!

bookie32

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Well, I'm using Linux Mint 18 right now https://www.linuxmint.com/

Not having any problems with it-but I just use it for web surfing, writing stuff on Libre Office (same as I did with XP) and some gaming so my usage is strictly non professional.  I wouldn't recommend Ubuntu due to the fact that the Unity desktop is just plain weird!  I always enjoyed Zorin OS, Xubuntu seems pretty good as well.  Ubuntu Mate seemed good, but I always got a weird error or two (might have been hardware on my part). 

While I plan on reinstalling XP on one of my towers for gaming purposes, I do plan on keeping Linux on my laptops.  The only thing I don't like is that security programs are in short supply.  While I use ClamAV and Bleachbit, I just don't feel I have the amount of protection I had in windows with all of the security programs available for it, if something got by my antivirus, the anti malware caught it and vise versa.  With security options so narrow on Linux, it might be problematic if more hackers start targeting it.

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4 hours ago, Agorima said:

In this website you can found a thoroughly list of problems which are present on Linux as of today

https://itvision.altervista.org/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.the.desktop.current-2017.html

Here and there you can find some Linux fanatics which will try to dismiss that list, and they might say "I don't have any problem in Linux", but they aren't different nor better than Windows and MacOS fanatics.

Linux is fine, but it's not for the average people.

Really like: "...please close this page..."

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1 hour ago, OldSchool38 said:

Well, I'm using Linux Mint 18 right now https://www.linuxmint.com/

Not having any problems with it-but I just use it for web surfing, writing stuff on Libre Office (same as I did with XP) and some gaming so my usage is strictly non professional.  I wouldn't recommend Ubuntu due to the fact that the Unity desktop is just plain weird!  I always enjoyed Zorin OS, Xubuntu seems pretty good as well.  Ubuntu Mate seemed good, but I always got a weird error or two (might have been hardware on my part). 

While I plan on reinstalling XP on one of my towers for gaming purposes, I do plan on keeping Linux on my laptops.  The only thing I don't like is that security programs are in short supply.  While I use ClamAV and Bleachbit, I just don't feel I have the amount of protection I had in windows with all of the security programs available for it, if something got by my antivirus, the anti malware caught it and vise versa.  With security options so narrow on Linux, it might be problematic if more hackers start targeting it.

I like Mint 18 too, No problems so far...

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I think it will be hard to replace windows than most people think I have clients (i mostly do extremely small business owners/ home clients) and they ultimately will put up with the BS Microsoft shoves out even against my advisement. Most don't have the money for Mac and absolutely no tolerance for learning Linux it took me over two years to explain the difference between open Office (now Libra Office ugh) vs MS Office / rent office (2016). I am not sure what to do at this point I am winging it giving my customers what I belive to be their best option at the time. If it happens to be Windows 10 or a monthy sub then so be it. They say this what I want and I say Yes sir/mam

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All right, here's the promised report...

We use Android smartphones. Last Wednesday, my wife wanted to install a health app on her phone. But first, for safety, she wanted to install an AV app. Piece of cake, right? Just open the Google Play app and go into the store, do a search, and download+install the two apps.

Except that she could not enter the Google Play Store, it kept telling her that it couldn’t communicate with the Google servers. So she turned the phone over to the family techie. I verified that she couldn't use the Google Play app to get into the store, so I tried going into the store via the Chrome browser. No dice. I could go everywhere on the Web that I tried, but not into the Google Play store. Time to go into "device doctor" mode.

I ran through the usual fixes and troubleshooting steps, deleting the cache and clearing the data for Google Play and for Google Framework Services. Nothing worked and the situation slowly mushroomed. Here I was, sitting at the kitchen table with this stubborn piece of hardware in front of me and, behind me, a wife muttering increasingly dark thoughts about technology. (She is not blessed with an excess of either patience or persistence, which is what high-tech problems require.)

Next step was to call Google. They suggested most of the steps that I had already done and then offered to do a factory reset. A frightening prospect, as it would erase everything she had on the phone. So I called Samsung tech support. Similar steps, similar (lack of) results. They suggested updating the OS. It had like 1.3GB :w00t: worth of updates to download, so I connected the phone to her PC and used Samsung's Smart Switch application to download the updates in order to install them in the morning.

Next morning after installing the Android updates, when I tried to enter the Google store, I could not even get on the Internet at all, let alone into the store. And Google Maps was now showing our location as a blue dot on an otherwise completely blank map. If I entered a destination, it would show me the route and an alternative way of getting there -- and no other roads or streets. It was as if we were living in a void and the world would be revealed to us only as we moved through it.

So back to Google tech support. I reported all that had transpired until then, and they told me we were out of options: We needed to try the factory reset. I consulted with wife, and after some weak, demoralized resistance she agreed to the reset. That's when I learned how to get Terminal on an Android device. :)

A while later, the reset was finished and we tried going into the Google Store for the friggin' apps, as this is the only friggin' way to get them. And wouldn't you know it -- we still couldn't sign into Google Play. After entering her Google Account e-mail address, it simply would never get to the point where she could type in her password. By this time, wife was loudly announcing the impending need for both a new phone and a new kitchen window (meaning, after she threw the phone through it).

Over to Samsung support a second time. The tech support guy recommended that we take the phone to the store where we bought it so that they could "reflash" it. That, we did on Saturday. The Samsung rep performed the reflash, and -- lo and behold! -- he got us into the Google store right there. We went home feeling relieved and delighted.

Sunday morning we eagerly went to download the two apps... and we could not get into the Store. Same old sh*t. More talk about the need for a new window.

That night we went to a different branch of the big-box store where we purchased the phone. Somehow he got it to work; I think he uninstalled Google Play and Google Framework Services and then reinstalled them. Took the phone home feeling relieved, went to install the apps -- and the thing once again wasn't working!!! At some point I managed to get into the store and even to find the first app, but then it would not complete (or perhaps not even start) the download, all we got was a spinning round arrow.

After some eight hours on the phone (a landline phone :) ) with various tech support people, hours driving to and from stores, and more hours researching the problem on the Web, all to no avail, I was almost ready to give up. Then I recalled that the phone seemed to work fine at the store when the guy connected it to his own phone's Wi-Fi. (Yes, we changed the Google password via wife's PC as soon as we got home. And then I had her sign out of Google on the PC.) So I created a Wi-Fi network on my computer and connected the phone to it. (In or out of the house, we use only our mobile data plan to connect to the Internet, as she fears the health effects of Wi-Fi while I consider it an inherently insecure technology.) At long last, we git to download and install the apps. (And I stopped the WLAN service on my computer.)

Everything finally is working now (or it appears to be -- fingers crossed).

Bottom line: I suspect that this whole nightmare would not have happened, were it possible to simply visit the software company's website and directly download their app to the phone. I have no doubt it was all due to some bu!!$h/t having to do with Google's servers, or with its app, or with the d*mned Google Store. Just like we have always done it in the Windows ecosystem.

And now Microsoft wants to turn Windows into the same sh!t model as Android with the Google Store. :puke::realmad:

--JorgeA

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>they already have

@bookie32, not according to 2/3 of the Windows users on the planet still, who are not running Windows 10 yet.  YEARS after its debut.

>Everything finally is working now (or it appears to be -- fingers crossed).

@JorgeA, my heart goes out to you.  Somewhere part way into all that I'm sure you began to wonder whether carrying around a smart phone was at all worth anything like the trouble it was causing and time it was wasting.  And THAT is a pertinent question.

Virtually EVERYONE is having trouble, wasting time, and spending hard-earned money on portable tech.  You may feel a portable electronic device makes you better informed, and thus able to make better decisions that save you time, but what good things could you have done if you didn't have that wasted time and endured that stress?  Not to mention how much it costs each and every month.  The impact to society is not insignificant!

-Noel

Edited by NoelC
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