http://www.computerworld.com/article/2847703/microsoft-updates-windows-10-get...

Microsoft updates Windows 10, gets an earful from users about OneDrive changes

"Microsoft is using the Technical Preview to not only show customers what Windows 10 will include, but also to test the faster release pace. Build 9879, however, is a full, in-place upgrade, and not one of the smaller updates that next year will include only changes since the last version.

This last release touted several changes to Windows 10 in the latest build, including one that users bashed as a giant step backwards.

"We're also introducing changes to how OneDrive syncs your files in this build," Aul wrote. "In Windows 8.1, we use placeholders on your PC to represent files you have stored in OneDrive. People had to learn the difference between what files were 'available online' (placeholders) versus what was 'available offline' and physically on your PC."

In other words, OneDrive on Windows 8.1 did not automatically place actual copies of all files in the cloud storage service on a device, but instead showed placeholder icons, what Microsoft calls "smart files," that included a thumbnail image of the file -- useful when searching through photographs -- and searchable metadata. When clicked, the placeholder/smart file kicked off a file download to the local device. That was counter to, say, Dropbox's method of everything-is- available-locally-on-every-device, but also saved local storage space and the bandwidth necessary to download and synchronize large OneDrive collections."

Now we will begin to see MS trying to helplessly lock users into Win 10 by automatically taking away their personal files, putting them on a MS server and only allowing the user bookmarks to go get them through One Drive Sync (which will be a yearly pay me service).

Bad move boys, back it down and undo it .....   this sort of stuff might be needed for a Streambook that HAS NO DRIVE SPACE at all on it, but for your more traditional users they will not let you AUTOMATICALLY hold their personal data hostage on a "pay me starting next year" service like that.    NOT EVER.

I suspect even the Streambook users will have a terabyte USB drive plugged into their USB port as needed for storing their personal files, and no one is going to want to use your pay me ONE DRIVE SERVICE as their only totally automatic "must use" data storage service.  
They may use it for free as a backup service, but not as their only data storage method.

They certainly aren't going to let you only just give them a bookmark on their local storage instead of their data .....

"Daddy, I backed everything up to my terabyte USB drive, but when I went to get it by plugging the drive into the PC at home all that was really there were some stupid bookmark thing-a-ma-gigs.   My data wasn't there at all."


=======================================


German and British users have already bailed en mass on the Win 10 Preview because of MS's intrusive keystroke tracking practices and I bet MS will lose a few more around the world over this One Drive only fiasco.

People have trust issues with MS, don't they get that yet?

You are not teaching people to love and trust you right now, MS,  instead you are showing us some more of that careless MS arrogance again as you try to find out just how far you can push things as you herd the lemmings on into Win 10 dependency.

I'm completely Linux Mint Mate 17 at the moment, but I hold out hope for Chromeboxes as they allow you to Crouton Ubuntu at will -- plus go Android as any Android app good for Lollipop will go on Chrome OS as well, naturally.

Android is very light and very fast -- it performs better streaming music and movies than any other OS out there as far as giving perfect performance at less than half the required resources.

Where Android and Chrome shines is that it will run anybody's streaming movie stuff except Amazon's and that is because Amazon chooses to MAKE it impossible.

Been playing with the little RCA tablet

http://www.walmart.com/ip/RCA-Pro-10-with-WiFi-10.1-Touchscreen-Tablet-PC-Fea...

.... it works great, really sharp display, great surfing machine... but.....
It doesn't have a "print" on internet software screen.... not sure why.
My laptop will not "recognize" it, hearing it might be a flaw in about 2% or them...
You have to buy a mini (female) to micro (male) adapter to use a mouse with the keyboard.
AND....
Walmart just dropped the price $59 !
Going to take this one back and tell them it will not recognize to swap files... get the newer version for $59 cheaper and get a 32gb micro card for it as I only have an 8GB laying around. (I have ordered the usb adapter already).

(this is a video, so just click on it)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fFB-cFLhhs

Is a $230 Laptop Worth It?

It really doesn't matter what we old farts think, what do the young people think about these new machines.   The reviewer is just HARSH in what he says, but his comparison is accurate and his casual comments are representative of knowledgeable young people.

Watch the video then read all the user comments below -- kids are very up on this new stuff and they have preferences based upon what they really do with machines now days.

I was surprised that Chrome and net based stuff was actually so much of their lives now, more so than I would have thought.   Also pleasantly surprised at the multiple OS answer kids, including the Linux crouton crew.

Base answer -- most have multiple machines and use one for this task, this one for carry around at school, this one for gaming, etc.  

The people with only one machine go with Windows.

Well, Black Friday is here and I do not see a promise from MS that any machine bought this Christmas will get an automatic free update to Win 10.

We do see some hundred dollar off across the board actions going on, so there is some fairly good price reductions, but not a lot of real panic dumping going on yet.


=============================

Windows fan boys are all being quiet right now and the hit traffic on MS's biggest Explorer home page and Bing search pages are down by nearly a third each.

http://www.businessinsider.com/msn-redesign-hurts-traffic-2014-11



Well, you can say "Well that new look for MS Explorer, well they screwed up the web page itself so it didn't auto-point at Bing properly" but that doesn't really cover BOTH of these pieces of information really very well at all, now does it?

This seems to say that MSN (Microsoft's main Explorer web page) is down 30% AND Bing searches in general are down ~20% or roughly about the same range.    Could an alternate explanation be that people are actively dumping Explorer and Bing right along with it since they don't like it as well, say compared to the current Google Chrome and Firefox offerings?



Seriously, people are getting a little better educated now and are actually going and trying new products more so than they ever used to do.    Part of this is MS no longer has the ability to keep your arm twisted up behind your back the way they used to, and their products are NOT really as good as the competition right now.  

Plus, MS seems to be screwing up with fair regularity now on several fronts -- security updates, Win 10 releases and now supposedly the Explorer interface itself ???


      Sounds like a bit of hasty spin doctoring on some fairly nasty statistics down trends, now doesn't it?

But MS has a fix for these pesky issues, they want the hit counters to start to LUMP ALL OF MS"S REPORTING COUNTING ITEMS together into one BIG general single big hit number, so these little pesky "market movements" won't stick out so clearly.
 
      Now how does that work again ??                  

How big is Chromebook/Chromeboxes stacking what has been sold against the entire pre-existing world of "all devices that are still running" in all computing?

Of all the PC stuff extant at this time,  Chromebook/Chromeboxes constitutes just a hair over 1%

On the same "all of everything ever" scale, pure desktop Linux machines only constitutes 1.7% of the primary boot sectors on all machines.  

(yep, all them dual boot machines get counted as Windows "primary boot sector" units and don't get counted as Linux at all, anywhere).

Chromebooks should clearly report as "Google browser" on the internet hit/access analysis and they should report as Linux on the boot sector reporting stuff.  It is hard to get any running stats on Chromebooks because they generally get listed as other things.  

As such, Chromebooks still likely get reported "biggest" on any current period released sales figures, but that only comes available when somebody willingly chooses to release such numbers.

Current sales are not so hot on all of computing in America right now, so if you just want to see "bigger numbers" look to where it is stated as a percentage of what is selling right now.  

What is moving right now are the lower end machines, so Chromebooks are "big" right now in that currently selling low end market segment.



So, tablets killed off traditional netbooks and the 11" Chromebooks are looking like the netbook market segment staging a comeback of sorts against the ever cheaper (but no keyboard and no good typing) Android tablets.

It all really begins to look like most folks have multiple machines now and they simply use the one that is handiest for the task at hand.   And by handiest I mean closest to hand.

Example, I have a dedicated car computer now, it is an old tablet and it simply lives in the car.   The cover folds over the steering wheel to hold it up for me and I can net search or watch something if I am waiting in the car for some reason, if I can get a signal from a nearby burger joint, etc.    If I can't,  I crank up my phone and use it as a hot spot, or else I just use the phone directly if the little screen is OK for what I am doing.


======================


Notes from Grandma's house at Thanksgiving Dinner.

Everybody had a phone and a tablet that they took out and used freely.  Nobody had any issues getting on line off Grandma's router as they had all added it to their device on earlier trips.   You had at least 5 people on line all the time, with peaks going up to 10-12 people on line at the same time.   The netscape router just handled it all, along with driving the Roku for the TV which was constantly streaming kiddie movies.

NOBODY pulled out the Win 7 laptop that is kept at Grandma's for folks to use (it is too heavy and klunky for tablet people to want to mess with).

I was pleasantly surprised that everything Wifi held up and didn't require any attention or rebooting at all.

Every grandkid had a tablet and a phone.   Two grandkids brought their Win 7 gaming laptops so they could play a game -- but that was all they used it for.

http://liliputing.com/2014/12/compulab-launches-utilite2-tiny-arm-based-ubunt...

CompuLab launches Utilite2: Tiny ARM-based Ubuntu PC



"The Utilite2 can run Ubuntu or Android software, has fanless aluminum case, and features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 quad-core processor. It should be available for purchase this month.

The little computer measures 3.4″ x 2.3″ x 1.1″ and uses between 3W and 8W of power. It features 2GB of RAM, 4GB of built-in storage and support for up to 128GB of removable storage thanks to a microSDXC card slot as well as mSATA SSD support for up to 512GB of additional storage.

The Utilite2 features Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, 4 USB 2.0 ports, a micro USB OTG port, line out and line in audio jacks, and HDMI output."

Why is this significant?  Up until this point all the boxes have been Intel based and have been "upper end" Linux boxes power-wise.

Like many things computerish, the lower end of stuff has moved up in power to cuddle up to the mid and upper reaches of "what used to be" top end only a year ago.    

This is a mid-level Qualcomm Quad Core system on a chip that was first used in phones, yes, but the ongoing changes in Linux have suddenly made this fully supported system on a chip a little Linux power house that can easily run a full bore fanless Ubuntu desktop station.

Qualcomm, the 800 pound Gorilla of Mobile, Intel's current mobile nemesis has actually arrived on the desktop .....  

Auuuggggh !!!

Extend this thinking a bit --- Win 10 is supposed to run on phones and tablets.   Eventually, it is supposed to run on native ANDROID/ARM chipsets too.   If MS intends to survive and grow in China, this is the sort of hardware they need to be able to run upon.   Once MS rewrites Win 10 to get lean and mean and fit on this sort of hardware, by then the hardware will have grown in power to come up to meet all the needs that Win 10 will have.

Intel is not blind to this, they have already created a crop of Haswell and Bay Trail stuff that gets very close to this Android/ARM/Linux/Intel/Microsoft convergence point.   If MS was keeping up better than they actually are, the convergence would have already happened.

The new Chinese Spreadtrum partnered Intel stuff makes further motions in this direction, and MS is a current part of that activity as well.   Eventually, MS will get there.

Give it a year and OS/hardware convergence will happen.


=================================================


My interest was always "what can replace my existing hardware with 2x better stuff on the cheap".   If I was still running my old single core AMD Athlon 64 white box machine, this stuff would fit the 2x bill with lots of room left over.   Soom my "new" Core Duo machine will become replaceable as well.

Asus's little Win 8.1 Eeee 205 laptop full retails at $199 and Amazon, Best Buy and Staples are running it on sale at $149 fairly regularly now.   In other words, if you bought one for more than $149 you aren't paying attention.    

Reasonable laptop tech now sells regularly for less than $200.

Windows machines are UNDERCUTTING Chromeboxes price-wise right now --- this is significant and it does signal a change that all PC makers need to take a closer look at what they plan to be building over the next few years.   Remember, 85% of non-business related PC sales are taking place in these lower price ranges right now.

Reviewers are saying the Asus 205 machines are acceptable for keyboard and trackpad and speed for any net-based operations.

All reviewers are also beginning to give lighter consideration to "local run softwares" as the local run stuff is beginning to kinda phase out now.  

All parties are saying the same thing, apart from local work based data crunching  90+ percent of what you really do all takes place on the web.


=================================================


On a personal note, I have been hunting a better monitor for a while now.   My old 19" SVGA flat screen was showing its age (or my eyes were, anyway) and the VGA plug on it wasn't finding all that many things to plug into any more.

So, for $129 on a Black Friday Amazon special, I got me one of the new class of monitor/TVs, specifically a last year's top of the line Samsung 24"  Monitor/TV.  

It is odd, having a remote for my monitor, but it is a very clear, very detailed 1366 x 768 output that is a natural PC supported resolution that goes well past 720p but stops short of 1080p on the tv side.

This means NO HASSLE getting it running (it just detected and ran on Linux Mint 17) with NO HASSLES AT ALL.

I did have to turn down the backlight and bright and contrast way down towards the minimum specs on the machine itself -- as a TV it was set up to project across a room and at 3 feet that level of light output was a bit much.

So as a monitor it is easy do and flaw free.    As a TV it requires the use of a remote, which is somewhat new to me, having a remote control sitting out on my desk.

Actually, I have two remotes on my desk now, as I bought a FireStick for $24 just to see what Amazon is up to.   FireStick isn't as complete as Roku nor is it as user friendly at this early point in time.   But what a FireStick does do is stream Amazon Prime free movies and songs and all the rest of the Amazon freebies perfectly right out of the box.   The not so little 24" monitor/tv is a natural 16:9 resolution which is the standard wide screen display size for streamed movies.  

Amazon's little linux based HDMI plug in stick has NO ISSUES running the DRM stuff from Amazon while everything else Linux based is blocked from doing so (intentionally so, by Amazon of course).

So, I have a Linux Mint PC hooked up to a monitor/tv streaming Amazon Prime and Netflix and Crackle and all the other major DRM players right here at my easy chair.   I can get to all the rest of them using my Chrome browser of course, but the Amazon Prime stuff was still the main hold out that drove the need for this trick.

Speakers, I have the original Labtec PC speakers being driven by the PC and I have the built in 5 watt TV speakers that kick in when I am using the FireStick to stream a movie as a TV.   So, sound I got -- and I can still plug in my headphones for when I am watching silently while Momma is trying to sleep.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-11-6-laptop-intel-atom-2gb-memory-32gb-flash...

$99 in store at Best Buy



$99 at Best Buy -- store pick up only

Asus Eeee X205TA

2 high-speed USB 2.0 ports
For fast digital data transfer and easy peripheral connectivity.
Weighs only 2.1 lbs. and measures just 0.7" thin
For lightweight portability. Chiclet-style keyboard allows comfortable typing.
32GB flash memory
Provides space for storing movies, music and more. One Drive provides 15GB of perpetual storage, plus 100GB of storage for 2 years, and Asus Webstorage offers 500GB of storage for 2 years, so you can access data on the go.
Intel, Pentium, Celeron, Centrino, Core, Viiv, Intel Inside and the Intel Inside logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.
11.6" high-definition display
Showcases movies, games and streaming media in stunning clarity.
Built-in high-speed wireless LAN (802.11a/b/g/n)
Connect to the Internet without wires.
Microsoft Windows 8.1 32-bit operating system preinstalled
Provides a stable computing platform.
Built-in 0.3MP webcam and microphone
Make it easy to video chat with loved ones.
Intel® Atom™ processor Z3735F
Features a 2MB cache and 1.33GHz processor speed with Intel® Burst technology up to 1.8GHz.
Bluetooth 4.0 interface
Enables simple wireless pairing with compatible devices.
Intel® HD graphics
For lush, detailed images. Micro HDMI output enables simple connection to an HDTV or other high-definition display.
Digital media reader
Supports microSD format.
2GB DDR3L memory
For multitasking power.
Software package included
With Kindle, Music Maker Jam and more. Includes 30-day trial of Microsoft Office 365.


      Can you say "some kickass competition on the low end of things" ????

check for stock by calling or going on line before you make the drive over to the store