Hacker News Reader

fnameon Under the hood of Windows 8, or why desktop users should upgrade from Windows 7

They're attempting to bridge the gap between a tablet and PC using 1 operating system. If played right, it could be a huge advantage to people really only needing one device for everything. You can see this in the new OEM devices coming out (ASUS Transformers, Samsung, etc..)

Why would I want 2 different operating systems if the underlying goal is to reduce the complexities of needing 2 devices... one for 'play' and one for 'work'?

fnameon The Story of the New Microsoft.com

I know I'm feeding the troll here, but this is the most inane response I've heard. If you want to be taken seriously, please learn the proper use of there, their, and they're. It's that simple.

fnameon Microsoft has their own Windows Phone in the works

To be fair, HP did drop out of the WinRT tablet race to focus only on Windows 8 x86 (non-ARM) hardware. I can't seem to find a link to back that up, but I do remember it being a story a few months ago.

fnameon Facebook Users Report Seeing Old Private Messages Showing Up On Timelines

Had the same problem as well. About 10-15 private messages were shown on my timeline form 2008-2009. I've hid my timeline so only I can see it for right now until it's fixed. Seems like an quicker /easier than deleting the messages.

fnameon Am I An Outlier, Or Are Apple Products No Longer Easy To Use?

I think you're missing the point. He didn't ignore the suggestions, he felt that particular suggestion to restore the entire phone was unacceptable. Just because Apple says to do it, doesn't mean it may be the absolute best solution so the author went about finding other possible alternatives among the community. Unfortunately, beyond jailbreaking it there was no other worthwhile solution. In the end, he did exactly what Apple told him to do... and it still failed.

Now what?

fnameon Microsoft is starting to pivot

I know you got downvoted and while I agree with you, it's not really Microsoft's fault. Microsoft is actually trying to stop it themselves by offering the same (sometimes) PCs in their own stores that come without the crapware.

fnameon NASDAQ:FB

Probably wont see the first trade for a couple more hours

fnameon Google responds to the Mocality blog post

Every Company that has stock holders? Absolutely.

fnameon Hell freezes over: Forrester urges IT to support the Mac

I'm also pretty sure that once MacOS starts becoming prevalent in the enterprise, they'll eventually need antivirus, back up agents, and some sort of management agent as well.

How would an IT organization manage the settings on the OS without some sort of management agent?

fnameon Microsoft launches Bing Booster program for startups that want to use Bing

They didn't mess up the internal version number. It was done for software compatibility reasons.

Windows 2000 code was 5.0 and then we shipped Windows XP as 5.1, even though it was a major release we didn't' want to change code version numbers to maximize application compatibility.

That brings us to Windows Vista, which is 6.0. So we see Windows 7 as our next logical significant release and 7th in the family of Windows releases.

We learned a lot about using 5.1 for XP and how that helped developers with version checking for API compatibility. We also had the lesson reinforced when we applied the version number in the Windows Vista code as Windows 6.0-- that changing basic version numbers can cause application compatibility issues.

So we decided to ship the Windows 7 code as Windows 6.1 - which is what you will see in the actual version of the product in cmd.exe or computer properties.

http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/archive/b/windowsvista/ar...

fnameon Akamai close to being acquired by Google

A lot of corporations use Akamai, Microsoft included -- http://www.akamai.com/html/customers/customer_list.html. Interesting enough, the only name missing from that list? Google.

fnameon Can anyone explain why Windows is so bad at copying files?

http://xkcd.com/612/

fnameon How To Enable Facebook Timeline Right This Second

That's exactly what it is. Looks like it will be live for everyone next week. Once you make the change and publish it, however, it's only available to other Dev-enabled FB profiles to see. Everyone else still sees the old profile.

fnameon Windows 8 on a laptop: first look

Here's a Registry hack to get it back: http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-pick/how-to-get-a-windows-...

fnameon Why HN Got Slow

Link to the article?

nm, here it is: http://www.pcworld.com/article/237616/baseball_bat_sales_ris...

fnameon Bye Bye Skype, Top 3 Free Replacements

Except that they refuted that very statement in their press release

Skype will support Microsoft devices like Xbox and Kinect, Windows Phone and a wide array of Windows devices, and Microsoft will connect Skype users with Lync, Outlook, Xbox Live and other communities. Microsoft will continue to invest in and support Skype clients on non-Microsoft platforms.

http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2011/may11/05-10Cor...

fnameon Some Users Unable to Reach The Pirate Bay

I'm on Cox and it's working for me...

fnameon Mysterious US Helicopter Used in Bin Laden Raid

It didn't crash persay. It had problems generating lift and the pilot had to land it during the raid. The military then destroyed it into into the current state you see now. Usually they do this to prevent people from reverse engineering the technology and stealing it.

fnameon Sony sued for PlayStation Network data breach

Direct link to complaint: http://www.scribd.com/doc/54070618/JohnsvSony-Complaint-FINA...

fnameon Tell HN: Please bring back comment scores

I don't think karma should be used to infer whether a statement is correct.

Completely agree. In my limited tenure here at HN, I've learned that karma scores have never been about being correct, factually or otherwise. Rather, they should be given to comments that help increase and move the discussion around the given topic even if that commenters opinion or assumption on something isn't factually accurate.

fnameon Sony Confirms PlayStation Network Outage Caused By ‘External Intrusion’

File a small claims court case, I find it hard to believe that the legal system declined to get involved. If you feel you've been wronged, then you do something about it... legally. Otherwise, sell your PS3 and move on. The best thing you can do is to exercise your rights as a consumer and not spend your hard earned money on products made by that particular company ever again.

fnameon My Latest Project - Share Music Instantly

+1, same issue in FF3.5 and IE9 (works in FF4).

fnameon A better way to teach math

The money quote:

Teachers tell me that when they begin using Jump they are surprised to discover that what they were teaching as one step may contain as many as seven micro steps

It's about finding out how to simplify what some may see as the easiest step. Think about the lowest common denominator and build from there.

fnameon Ban email archives thrown open in devastating financial crash report

If anyone is interested in this, I highly recommend reading "The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine"[1] by Michael Lewis. It talks about Greg Lippmann (mentioned in the article) and how he and others cashed out before the impending crash in 2008.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Big-Short-Inside-Doomsday-Machine/dp/0...

fnameon Poll: Display points on comments?

I'm sure it's been brought up before, but what about only displaying comments either above or below a certain threshold. For example, hide the points on a comment once it's above 4.

Or show points after someone has upvoted or downvoted a comment?

fnameon Ceglia v. Zuckerberg returns, with a bang - biglaw representation, lots of email

Lawyers rarely take cases unless they're positive they'll win outright or negotiate a good percentage of any settlement. I'd say, the chances are good some of the claims are accurate against Zuckerburg.

fnameon Ceglia v. Zuckerberg returns, with a bang - biglaw representation, lots of email

... or really smart for not accepting his $2,000 back and diluting the partnership.

fnameon Samsung blames security software false positive for StarLogger issue.

Agreed and now Samsung may be the ones who lauch the lawsuit. Though, how many people will hire NetSec consulting after blindly following the output of security scanning software? I mean, did he even look in the SL folder?

fnameon The iPad is 99% more open than any other computer

Very much agree about the openness argument. Though, speaking to the quote about teens and prediction, I present this:

This is what Motorola and Google and Samsung and BlackBerry and everyone else, with the sole exception of Apple, do not get about “open” computing. It’s powerful, but for ordinary people, it’s too powerful

Notice a prominent name missing from that list? If what the author feels is true (and being a teenager himself), this speaks volumes to just how far they are behind the curve.

fnameon How I got sued by Facebook (2010)

I'd bet money that a similar list is probably already floating around. Whether it's freely available or not may be up for interpretation.