GNN Tech: 7 Quick Tips & Hacks To Optimize Your Windows 10 Experience

(GNN) - Windows 10 is more than an upgrade from Windows 8, it’s an evolution. We’ve covered many of the big changes, including Cortana integration, the resurrected Start Menu, or new Gaming features.

Lots of minor things changed, too and knowing them could significantly enhance your Windows 10 experience.

We’ve compiled the most useful small tips & hacks for Windows 10. Let’s see whether we can teach you a new trick.

Learn Essential Keyboard Shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts are the best way to save lots of time inside Windows. Often, they’re much easier to remember, than the path to a specific feature.

Windows key + A to Launch the Action Center
This is a novel shortcut. It’s essential because not only does the Action Center hold notifications you might have missed, you’ll also find a number of handy shortcuts at its bottom. They provide a quick way to toggle tablet and airplane mode or manage display settings. The exact selection of tiles will depend on your device.

Windows Key + I to Launch Settings App
You will need this shortcut a lot! The Settings app increasingly replaces the Control Panel and it’s much more accessible, particularly if you’re using the touch interface.

Sadly, some advanced features are missing. However, you can still access what remains of the Control Panel, either by searching in the Settings app or by clicking the Windows key and typing away.

Windows Key + X to Launch Power User Menu
This shortcut has been around for a while. In Windows 7, it opens the Windows Mobility Center. Since Windows 8, it launches the power user menu, which contains access to all the advanced Windows features you’ll ever need, including the Mobility Center, Computer Management, elevated Command Prompt, Control Panel, and shut down options. It’s not new, but with so many things changing, it’s good to know how to access the basics.

Extend Battery Life with Battery Saver
The Settings app contains a few new features, including Battery Saver. While it only limits background activity, which may not have a lot of potential to save battery life, it does have a small effect.

Press Windows + I to launch the Settings app, go to System > Battery saver > Battery saver settings, check the box to enable the feature, and pick a percentage at which you want it to kick in.

Under System > Battery saver > Battery usage you can check how much energy is wasted on background processes. If this number is large, you might want to examine what’s starting up with Windows and maybe enable Battery Saver at a higher percentage.

Speed Up Application Launch at Boot
For Windows 8, Microsoft commissioned a dedicated team to reengineer the Windows boot experience. One of their strategies to make the boot time appear faster was to delay the launch of applications.

This start-up delay persists in Windows 10. If you run Windows 10 on a high end machine and have experienced super fast boot times, but are annoyed by apps not being available immediately, you might benefit from disabling this startup delay.

Press Windows + R to launch the Run menu. Type regedit, hit Enter or click OK to launch the Windows Registry, then open the following Registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Serialize

If you can’t find the Serialize key, right click Explorer, select New > Key, and name it Serialize. Under this key, create a new DWORD value called StartupDelayInMSec and set it to 0.

In case you notice longer boot times after adding this key, you could increase the delay to 1 or 2 milliseconds or delete the Serialize key to restore default settings.

Disable Taskbar Search
The new search bar, which ties in Cortana, takes up a lot of space in the Windows Taskbar. If you don’t use the Taskbar search that often and would rather preserve that space for something else, here is an easy way to change it.

Right-click the Taskbar, select Search, and either select Show search icon, which will replace the bar with a much smaller magnifier icon, or Disabled, which will remove it from the Taskbar entirely.

Note that in both cases, the search bar still pops up when you open the Start Menu, for example by pressing the Windows key.

Enable New Command Line Features

Windows 10 adds some overdue improvements to the command prompt. For example, you’ll finally be able to resize the window horizontally and enjoy word wrap. Moreover, the command prompt will support keyboard shortcuts for copying, cutting, pasting, and selecting text. However, these features are considered experimental and are not enabled by default.

To try out the new command prompt features press Windows + R, type cmd and click OK to open the familiar white on black command prompt. Right-click the title bar, select Properties, switch to the Experimental tab, and check the box to generally enable experimental console features. From the list, check the specific features you’d like to enable.

You can read more about these improvements on the Windows Blog or on the Windows Dev Feedback page.

Which new features and shortcuts do you most enjoy about Windows 10? Have you discovered anything that we haven’t mentioned yet? Please share in the comments!

How to Upgrade to Windows 10 via Windows Update

(GNN) - Eager to check out the next iteration of Windows? Here’s all you need to know to upgrade to Windows 10 directly from Windows 7 or 8.1 and start getting to grips with the future of Windows.

Ever since it was officially unveiled last year, Windows 10 has been an intriguing prospect for PC users. Given that Microsoft is set to make the upgrade free for its first year of availability, it certainly seems that the company is looking to encourage people to upgrade in any way that they can.

To that end, Microsoft has made it as easy as possible for users to get started with Windows 10. Using Windows Update, it’s trivially simple to get on board with the future of Windows. Here’s everything you need to know about that process, as well as a guide to some of the major features of Windows 10 that you’ll want to check out for yourself.
Before You Upgrade

While Windows 10 is still in the testing phase, it’s worth taking a moment before you install the Technical Preview to consider the risks of using any kind of pre-release software — particularly a new operating system. This shouldn’t necessarily scare you off, it’s just important to be clear on what the Technical Preview is and isn’t.

There’ll be bugs, it might not work exactly as you expect, and your usage will be monitored so that Microsoft can continue to refine the software ahead of its official release. For those reasons, it’s recommended that you don’t install the Technical Preview on your primary computer.

Updating to Windows 10
While there’s more than one way to install Windows 10 on your computer, the easiest method is to use Windows Update. The installation will preserve all your personal files and installed programs.

However, there’s a little bit of groundwork to lay before you can take this route. First, take a moment to look over the system requirements for Windows 10 and confirm that your computer will be able to handle it.

Afterwards, you need to sign up for the Windows Insider program on the Microsoft website. This is a very minor procedure, and if you already have a Microsoft account, it’ll only take a few clicks. Once you’ve done that, you’re ready to start the update; visit the Technical Preview page on Microsoft’s website and click Start upgrade now to begin the process.

The site will begin downloading the necessary files to prepare your upgrade — launch the executable once it’s downloaded, and it will install those files. Afterwards, you’ll probably be prompted to restart your computer before the final stage of the process can begin. Once that’s done, open up Windows Update and you should see something similar to the above screenshot.

This is your last chance to back out, so be sure that you definitely want to upgrade to Windows 10. If so, click Install and you’ll be taken through the update process just the same as with any new version of the OS.

The installation can take some time, even upwards of an hour, so don’t worry if it seems to be a slow process. Once it’s complete, you’ll have the opportunity to fine-tune some settings to suit your tastes, or simply use the express settings to speed up the process.

When that’s done, you should be up and running with a complete install of the Windows 10.

What Next?
With Windows 10 freshly installed on your computer, it’s time to test out some of the new features that Windows 10 will offer in its full release. Many of these new pieces of functionality are at their best when they’re in use on a touch-enabled or two-in-one device, but even if you’re using a conventional desktop PC, there are things for you to try out.

Changes to the Desktop
Depending on what version of Windows you upgraded from, you’ll see different changes to the Desktop; for instance, Windows 8 users will find that it’s now the first thing to fill your screen as you power on, rather than the Start Screen. This has booting to desktop has been a popular tweak, but it was formerly a customization that individuals would have to implement for themselves — now, it seems that Microsoft is following the wisdom of their users.

However, that’s not the only change that’s been made. The Start Screen has been absorbed into the Start Menu, retaining the same tile-based interface, but being made more easy to access from within the Desktop environment. There’s also a search bar in the Taskbar by default, which can either search your computer or use Bing to search the Internet.

Universal Apps
It seems that what was once referred to as Modern apps is being rebranded as Universal apps, in light of Microsoft’s push to offer software that offers a comparable experience regardless of what device you’re using. An early preview of the touch-enabled version of Microsoft’s Office suite is currently available for users running the Technical Preview to download and test out, with the core lineup of Word, Excel and PowerPoint all included.

Apps in general have undergone quite a sizeable change, too; you can now launch them to the Desktop as a window of their own. This is one of many tweaks in Windows 10 that aim to integrate the Modern interface into the traditional Desktop, rather than previous attempts to keep the two separate from one another.

Task View & More
There are plenty of new features and tweaks to take in following your update to Windows 10 — but if things get too overwhelming, you can always turn to Task View to help simplify things.

This new feature allows users to take stock of all the programs that they have running, and separate them out into different Desktops to perform different tasks. Mac users will perhaps recognize this sort of functionality from OS X’s Mission Control, and it’s certainly a handy tool to have at your disposal.

Between the all-new features and the tweaks to existing functionality, it seems that the future of Windows is very bright indeed. Microsoft will be taking on board user feedback from the Technical Preview to refine the full release, so if you’re keen to play a part in the way that Windows 10 is shaping up, there’s not time like the present to get started.

Have you taken the plunge and updated to the Windows 10? Share your tips for the new OS, as well as any advice on the update process itself in the comments section below.

Skype, Get Your Shit Together

Skype is part of TechCrunch’s newsroom workflow. It’s the standard way that individual authors converse, share, collaborate and the like. We use other software to work as a team, but for one-on-one chats, Skype is our jam.

The downside is that it just doesn’t work very well. It’s become a running joke in the office: Skype’d it to you — So, you’ll get it tomorrow?

What is wrong with Skype? It can’t sync messages properly across devices, so god forbid if you use Skype on a Mac at work and a PC at home. File transfer remains ungodly slow. Messages often do not show up for some time on the machines of recipients, leading to confusion and, occasionally, bruised egos. And then there are Skype group chats that some of us can’t get into until the next day.

To quote my colleague Ryan Lawler, Skype “had one job!” — messaging — and it “can’t even do that right.”

And instead of getting better, it’s getting worse. At least in our office. A sampling of our public conversations about Skype:

RT @kylebrussell: "Skype unexpectedly quit" is an oxymoron [Skype: The Worst.]
— Alex (@alex) October 29, 2014

Obligatory ‘Skype is such a piece of shit’ message of the day
— Ryan Lawler (@ryanlawler) March 4, 2015

@alex The best is when you get a message from 8-12 hours earlier. "Why is this just now getting delivered to me!?!?"
— Travis Bernard (@travisbernard) October 7, 2014

And the list goes on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on.

I reached out to Microsoft about message federation, the ability to join groups, and general reliability. The company pointed TechCrunch to public resources on how to ensure that a Skype call has the best chance of success.

I asked TechCrunch’s Anthony Ha to describe how annoying it is when your Skype room fails to allow certain members of the group to actually get into the damn thing:

You know what’s awesome? Creating a Skype room so that a group of TechCrunch writers can work together — and then being told by one or more writers that they “can’t see it.” So you sit there and wonder: What? Why? Should it really be this hard to create a group? 

But hey, you’re trying to cover a big, breaking news story, so you can only wonder for a few seconds. Then you just shrug, try to keep everyone clued in about what’s happening in the room, and hope that a crucial piece of information doesn’t get dropped while you’re playing telephone.

A R G H.

Microsoft purchased Skype for $8.5 billion in 2011. It’s 2015, and Skype remains a tenuous experience. For a tool that is so globally liked, and used, it’s an odd situation. Microsoft recently doubled down on the Skype brand, moving its enterprise chat service under the “Skype for Business” moniker. Given the issues that consumer Skype has, you almost wonder about the efficacy of the choice.

Microsoft Hints At Faster Windows 10 Build Releases

(GNN) - Microsoft’s Gabe Aul hinted today at faster releases of new builds of the company’s Windows 10 operating system.

The company’s public testing program has attracted more than 2 million users to date. However, according to Aul, there are “lots of questions” regarding when a new build will be released. Given that Microsoft is more than willing to drop new code in between keynote releases, like its original enterprise preview, and its coming developer preview, the question matters.

According to Aul, there are several internal rings that employ even less-baked software than is released to Microsoft’s self-selected testing community. Here’s his diagram:

There are more internal tiers than external, unsurprisingly.

According to Aul, Microsoft may have been “too conservative about pushing builds to the Fast ring for Windows Insiders.” Perhaps. Aul’s group, according to the executive, has had “serious conversations last week […] about a ‘Ludicrous Speed’ ring,” which he then asserts is “no joke.”

I highlight the above not strictly for its Windows 10 impact, but also to underline how Windows might be constructed in the future. If Microsoft wants to move faster with builds now, it might move faster in the future. That makes the current Windows 10 pace perhaps slower than what we will see next.

Anyhoo, summing the above, Microsoft is doubling down on its plan to get new operating system code into the market more quickly than before.

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Windows Genuine Advantage WGA program is part of the commitment by Microsoft to protect its customers and partners from counterfeiters through education, engineering, and enforcement of policies and laws. WGA differentiates the value of genuine Windows software from counterfeit software.

This enables you to enjoy the capabilities that you expect, the confidence that your software is authentic, and the ongoing system improvements that help you do more with your personal computer.

The WGA program creates an improved Windows experience for users who have a genuine copy of Windows. By using genuine Microsoft software, you can be confident that you will have access to the latest features, security, and support.

This helps improve your productivity and expand the capabilities of your computer. You will also have access to innovations and offerings available only to genuine Microsoft software customers.

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Windows Genuine Advantage WGA program is part of the commitment by Microsoft to protect its customers and partners from counterfeiters through education, engineering, and enforcement of policies and laws. WGA differentiates the value of genuine Windows software from counterfeit software.

This enables you to enjoy the capabilities that you expect, the confidence that your software is authentic, and the ongoing system improvements that help you do more with your personal computer

The WGA program creates an improved Windows experience for users who have a genuine copy of Windows.

By using genuine Microsoft software, you can be confident that you will have access to the latest features, security, and support. This helps improve your productivity and expand the capabilities of your computer.

You will also have access to innovations and offerings available only to genuine Microsoft software customers.

Windows XP Professional SP3 32 Bit x86 Full Version Free Download

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Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) includes all previously released updates for the Windows XP operating system, in addition to a small number of new updates. Windows XP SP3 will not significantly change the Windows XP experience. Installation media and documentation on disc for Windows XP SP3 may sometimes refer to Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2). Windows XP SP2 installation guide instructions apply to Windows XP SP3.

Windows XP SP3 includes all previously released Windows XP updates, including security updates and hotfixes, and select out-of-band releases. For example, the service pack includes functionality previously released as updates, such as the Microsoft® Management Console (MMC) 3.0 and the Microsoft Core XML Services 6.0 (MSXML6).

Microsoft is not adding significant functionality from newer versions of Windows, such as Windows Vista, to Windows XP through XP SP3. For instance, Windows XP SP3 does not include Windows Internet Explorer 7, although Windows XP SP3 does include updates to both Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7, and it will update whichever version is installed on the computer. For more information about Internet Explorer 7, visit the Internet Explorer home page.

One notable exception is that, SP3 does include Network Access Protection (NAP) to help organizations that use Windows XP to take advantage of new features in the Windows Server® 2008 operating system.

Knowledge Base article 936929 lists all other all Knowledge Base articles associated with updates that are included in Windows XP SP3. The following sections also provide a high-level description of the functionality included in Windows XP SP3.

Windows XP SP3 will be available through Windows Update and the Microsoft Download Center. The service pack will also be available to Volume License customers, TechNet subscribers, and MSDN® subscribers.

Through Windows Update, the download size varies, but it is typically 70 megabytes (MB), depending on the computer’s configuration. Through the Download Center, the download size is approximately 580 MB.

Fundamentally, deploying Windows XP SP3 works the same as deploying SP1 and SP2 for Windows XP:
SP3 is cumulative, so users can install SP3 on top of Windows XP SP1 or SP2.

Windows XP SP3 supports the same languages as Windows XP did in its initial release.

You can run the SP3 update package on any edition of Windows XP SP1 or SP2. For example, you can run the SP3 update package on a computer running the Windows XP Media Center Edition with SP1. The exceptions are Embedded editions for XP.

Tools and guidance for system administrators have not fundamentally changed from Windows XP SP2. For comprehensive information, visit the Deploy Windows XP Professional and Windows XP Service Pack 2 Deployment Information sites on Microsoft TechNet.

You can deploy SP3 using Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003, Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007, or third-party solutions. The process has not fundamentally changed.

Windows XP SP3 is for x86 editions of Windows XP only. The x64 editions of Windows XP were serviced by Windows Server 2003 SP2. For additional information, go to Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2.

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Microsoft Officially Launches Azure Machine Learning Platform

(GNN) - You know all that big data that’s streaming into your company from sensors, customers, social media, Excel spreadsheets, and data sources all over the internet? Microsoft wants to help you process all of it, build APIs and make use of that data in the cloud with machine learning technology.

And to that end, Microsoft officially announced at the Strata Conference today, the general availability of the Azure Machine Learning service for big data processing in the cloud. It also announced some enhancements to the platform since its Beta release in June.

As we wrote in June, “The product is built on the machine learning capabilities already available in several Microsoft products including Xbox and Bing and using predefined templates and workflows has been built to help companies launch predictive applications much more quickly than traditional development methods, even allowing customers to publish APIs and web services on top of the Azure ML platform.”

Joseph Sirosh, corporate vice president at Microsoft, who is in charge of the Azure ML, and spent years at Amazon before joining Microsoft to lead this project, said the latest version supports Python in addition to the popular R.

“We have added Python, which is a big favorite of data scientists. There is a huge ecosystem for this,” Sirosh told Tc.

He said this capability will be powerful for data scientists. “We made a lot of improvements and adding Python was part of that. Azure Machine Learning is the platform. You can copy a bit of Python code and plug it into the studio and create an API,” he explained.

In addition, the platform now supports Hadoop and Spark, giving it a fairly comprehensive set of tools for processing big data, regardless of your platform of choice.

The real strength of this platform is the ability to create APIs and begin processing data very quickly.
“The cloud solves the last mile problem, Sirosh explained. Before a service like this, you needed data scientists to identify the data set, then have IT build an application to support that. This last part often took weeks or months to code and engineer at scale. He says Azure ML takes that process and provides a way to build that same application in hours,” as we wrote in the June article.

Sirosh was clearly excited describing the range of choices available. “Data scientists can publish APIs with a few clicks. Applications can include R code, python code [or a combination]. It’s such an incredible selection of capabilities,” Sirosh said.

He said while competitors like IBM and SAS offered a range of services, he claimed none of them offered it in this integrated fashion that Azure Machine Learning provides its users.

“This is an integrated tool set that’s fully managed,” he said. “You don’t have to install hardware and software and you can do advanced learning and analytics.”

In addition to providing tools for big data processing in the cloud, Microsoft is also offering a marketplace where people can share applications and APIs they have created. Sirosh says this is a great way for data scientists to test their ideas publically.

The marketplace has more than 20 starter experiments today, but Sirosh sees it as having tremendous potential. He believes over time the vast majority of enterprises can meet their big data processing needs by finding the right tool in the marketplace.

“When Azure Machine Learning arrives, it’s so easy to use, and the cost of producing an API is so low, it becomes easy for data scientists and developers to make fully machine learning APIs in the cloud,” he said.
In terms of visualizing the data, the platform has some built-in capabilities, but it’s also compatible with Microsoft Power BI and IPython Notebook for further plotting and visualization of processed data.

One Year In, Nadella Is Planning Microsoft’s Long And Short Game

(GNN) - Golfers like to talk about their long game and their short game. Maybe it’s useful to look at Microsoft’s strategy that way too. Since Satya Nadella took over just over a year ago as CEO at Microsoft, he has started to redirect the company, looking at the short term, while perhaps beginning to formulate a plan for the next wave of computing.

Microsoft is the quintessential personal computer company. It came of age with the rise of the PC and thrived in the 1990s and early 2000s by giving us the tools to operate and be efficient on those machines. Surely, we complained about it — and made many a joke about blue screens of death — but in the end Microsoft provided the fuel for the PC revolution, making its founders rich beyond measure as a result.


Over time, as we’ve witnessed the shift to mobile, Microsoft has let the mobile revolution pass it by. It wasn’t completely oblivious to it, but its attempts can be characterized as feeble swings and misses, Today, it finds itself buried in marketshare terms behind iOS and Android, which between them controlled more than 95 percent of the world market last year.

Microsoft understands that to win the short game, it needs to gain mobile (and cloud) marketshare and Nadella has taken steps to do that. Under his leadership, they have begun to make some strides by turning outward. Traditionally, Microsoft has tried to keep everyone firmly inside the Microsoft ecosystem, but lately that’s changing as the company recently passed 100 iOS and Android apps (and if you haven’t tried the new version Outlook for iOS, you should).

It’s also made some progress with its tablet push, making steady sales gains over the last couple of quarters. Perhaps, most important of all, it has Windows 10 teed up to push the mobile side as much as it can in the coming year with a new one-screen-to rule-them-all strategy, but Microsoft hasn’t stopped with the short-term view, something it could very much have been accused of doing under former CEO, Steve Ballmer.

Microsoft has also cast an eye to the future as Hololens, XBox and the Minecraft purchase all suggest, and perhaps Microsoft is trying to gain a foothold with a younger generation of users who don’t give a hoot about Windows and Office, but do care very much about gaming and virtual reality.

The Mobile Present

Even as it tries to build a new mobile vision, is only reasonable to point out Microsoft’s minute mobile market share. Such are the numbers. And it is fair to note that some of the company’s attempts to grow its slice of that market have been futile at best. The Kin project is a notable, failed attempt to boost Microsoft’s numbers, while the Zune project manages to maintain the irony of eventually shipping both strong hardware, and software, but dying regardless.

In the face of past failure, and set right next to Windows Phone’s just-sufficient-to-not-die numbers over the last five years, Microsoft is making another attempt. Put simply: Windows 10 is likely Microsoft’s last chance to get into mobile. The firm is betting the farm that a unified platform across phones, tablets, smartphones, laptops, desktop computers, and even 84 inch touch-based behemoths, will not only bring the glow of user-love to Windows, but also bolster its mobile efforts as developers flock to the platform.


Such is the goal. TechCrunch has written repeatedly that Windows 10 is certainly among the company’s most audacious software projects. Which is perfectly fitting, as Microsoft needs something massive to shake up its mobile malaise. Windows Phone has long been a capable platform that has been plagued by a lack of attention.

If Windows 10 can drive developer interest, and thus app support not only on PCs, but also on their diminutive cousins, then Microsoft can enjoy draft winds across its platform.

The Next Computing Wave Future

Yet even while Microsoft focuses its energy on the short-term of mobile, it seems to be casting an eye outward as well. We’ve seen some signs of this over the last year, particularly with the announcement of HoloLens at the Windows 10 announcement last month. This futuristic 3D holographic “Nerd Helmet” gives Microsoft a big head start in the race for the face computer with Facebook and Google. And positions it well ahead of Apple, which doesn’t offer anything like it (yet).

Chris Haroun, a partner at venture capital firm Artis Ventures, believes HoloLens, along with the XBox and the Minecraft purchase are all part of a broader strategy to capture the younger generation, who may not have any sense of 1990s computing, but surely understand gaming.

He points to his own young sons who are all under nine and already engaged with Minecraft performing rudimentary programming in the form of if/then statements. These kids see the Microsoft brand associated with this game and the XBox in general in a positive light, and that’s putting the Microsoft name in front of kids who don’t care about Windows phones or desktop PCs.

Haroun says it’s entirely possible that Microsoft is looking ahead to a new generation of virtual-reality-based computing and its placing its bets early. While he’s not writing off Microsoft’s short game by any means, — he thinks giving away Windows 10 is a brilliant move and he likes what he sees with Windows tablets — he is impressed by what he sees in the long game and that Microsoft is attempting to get ahead of it.

Putting It All Together

There was a time when Microsoft was the platform, running the PC market, then came its failed attempts to win mobile. Perhaps we’ve come full circle with its current attempts to once again take on that market, along with some long shots at the future. Where does that put the company now? In a tough transitional spot.

Microsoft took it on the chin during its last earnings report proving that transformation is tough business — as IBM is learning –noting that it expects to grow a very modest 5 percent in its current fiscal year.

Rebuilding your company structure, business model and leadership team on the fly is no small game. Still, Microsoft is making immediate bets for that could bear out over the long term.

The good news is that strategy is no longer a big question mark hanging over Microsoft. Instead, it’s a matter of execution. If the company can pull off its vision, it has a shot at more than just mobile, even including virtual reality computing platforms that remain more smoke than fire.

Will Windows 10 rejuvenate the PC market? Will it finally make Windows Phone, or whatever it is eventually called, relevant? Can Microsoft in fact chase market share in a mobile market that is dominated by two of its biggest rivals? And finally, is mobile as a market where Microsoft should train its aim, given that the next platform revolution is likely no more than 5 years away?


Microsoft is betting that it can fight both wars at once. We’ll know much more when Windows 10 touches down this summer. We’ll know whether it can become cool in the eyes of a new generation of users over the longer term. Regardless, this should be a fun game to watch, as Microsoft navigates the course between the present and the future.

Don’t Be Google

(GNN) - Dear Google: what happened? Android sales are falling. Chrome has become a bloated hog. Analysts are calling you the new Microsoft, or, much worse, “the new Yahoo!” And most damning of all: you have squandered our trust. You used to be special, Google. Or at least we used to believe you were special.

But you seem more and more like just another megacorporation.
Does that sound harsh? Consider the Zoe Keating kerfuffle:

YouTube gave Keating a take-it-or-leave contract, some terms of which were unacceptable to her. Some of the terms were also pretty hard to understand […] As YouTube now explains it — following a public debate following Keating’s blog post — Keating has a relatively simple choice […] These responses go against descriptions of the agreement presented to Keating (and transcribed by her) by YouTube previously, and presumably represent an update to the contract’s terms.

At best, Google is guilty of incredibly confusing and heavy-handed communication, something they have long been (rightly) accused of. At best. But, as Jamie Zawinski put it:

This sounds like Google using the same strategy they used with Google Plus: instead of creating a new service and letting it compete on its own merits, they’re going to artificially prop it up by giving people no choice but to sign up for it. Except in this case the people being strong-armed are the copyright holders instead of the end users. (So far, that is! Wait for it.)

Consider “Never trust a corporation to do a library’s job“:

As Google abandons its past, Internet archivists step in to save our collective memory … Google Groups is effectively dead … Google News Archives are dead … Projects that preserve the past for the public good aren’t really a big profit center. Old Google knew that, but didn’t seem to care […] The desire to preserve the past died along with 20% time, Google Labs, and the spirit of haphazard experimentation.

…or, as VICE puts it: “Google, a Search Company, Has Made Its Internet Archive Impossible to Search.”
Consider “Google to shut down GTalk on February 16, will force users to switch to Hangouts“:

Again, Google exhibiting 90s era Microsoft behavior. But they're like totally not evil or anything.
— 1.0.0-alpha (@steveklabnik) February 13, 2015

Remember the good old days, a decade ago, when everyone admired everything Google did? What happened?

…I believe I may have an answer or two to that question.

Google has long been a bizarre swan of a company. To the casual eye, it’s a billion Android phones playing YouTube videos, its nonpareil search engine, plus its Google X moonshots and miracles, robot dogs rescued from the military, SpaceX funding rounds, etc, all cruising effortlessly along. Call that Awesome Google. But under the waterline, a gargantuan advertising machine paddles desperately, propelling Awesome Google towards its applause. Call that Mammon Google.

For all those analysts cavils, Mammon Google is still a colossal money-making machine, and both it and Awesome Google employ thousands of the smartest people alive (including — disclaimer/disclosure — multiple personal friends.) I fully expect Google to overcome the business challenges it faces…

…but I no longer expect to be particularly happy about this.

We’ve all been conditioned to see Awesome Google, but of late, Mammon Google seems harder and harder to ignore. Why is this? There seems to be no need for this. Mammon is still pouring money into Awesome. So what happened to the golden glory-days Google we knew and loved?

It’s true what Ben Thompson of Stratechery says: Google today is very reminiscent of Microsoft in the 90s. They too were the beneficiary of a seemingly endless, unassailable, firehose of money. But instead of spending that money on moonshots, Microsoft became a much-loathed corporate predator that wasted colossal amounts of time and money on infighting and horrors like Microsoft Bob and Windows Vista. Why has Google apparently taken a few steps down that cursed primrose path? Why is Mountain View in danger of becoming the new Redmond?

Why indeed. It turns out that Google is literally the new Microsoft:

Where Google employees formerly worked. Most from Microsoft. pic.twitter.com/uJcI1Q2B6D
— Bill Gross (@Bill_Gross) February 14, 2015

(And we’re not just talking about low-level engineers here. Vic Gundotra, the former head of Google Plus, was a former Microsoft executive; which kind of explains a lot.)

This may help to explain why Google is, I believe, slowly but steadily losing our trust. Nowadays, when you interact with Google, you don’t know if you’ll be talking to Awesome Google; Mammon Google; …or a former Microsoftian whose beliefs and values were birthed in Redmond, and who, as a result, identifies a whole lot more with Mammon — and with bureaucratic infighting — than with Awesome.

Say what you like about Apple, and I can complain about them at length, you always know what to expect from them. (A gorgeous velvet glove enclosing an exquisitely sleek titanium fist.) But Google seems increasingly to have fragmented into a hydra with a hundred tone-deaf heads, each with its own distinct morality and personality.

That wouldn’t matter so much if trust and awesomeness — “don’t be evil!” “moonshots!” — weren’t so intrinsic to the Google brand … which, to my mind, gets a little more tarnished every year.

11 Awesome Windows 10 features that you’ll love

(GNN) Microsoft has just announced its next operating system, the Windows 10 (not Windows 9 as all of us were expecting), it is unclear why Microsoft skipped the name Windows 9. The new operating system’s Technical Preview  can be officially downloaded from Microsoft website and we have written a detailed and quick guide on how to download and install Windows 10 Technical Preview on your PC.

Now, coming to the feature, Windows 10 Technical Preview has got a lot of improvement over Windows 8 or 8.1, we have downloaded, installed and checked what’s new in the new operating system, here are 12 great features that you will really love.

1. The Start Menu is back
Microsoft has finally realized that taking away the start menu in Windows 8 and 8.1 was a mistake. The Start menu in Windows 10 is redesigned and looks like Microsoft has fused Windows 7 start menu and Windows 8 Start screen together. It looks great, more beautiful and more functional.

 2. Apps are now Windowed, no more default full-screen
This is great, all windows apps from the store now runs in windowed mode, they don’t open in full-screen anymore. This is great for desktop users.

 3. The Start Menu can be resized by dragging
As you add apps to the start menu it get resized automatically, and you can also drag the start menu to change the size manually, you can make it taller or broader as you like.

4. Snap four Windows side by side in corners
Now you can snap four Windows side by side in the corners. Just drag a Windows and hot in the corner, it will resize itself and fit in one fourth of the screen. This is more useful while multitasking.

5. Snap Assist shows suggestions
Once you snap any Window in one of the corner, the snap assist shows other open windows for you to choose to snap next.

6. Virtual Desktops
This feature is very new to Windows and very very helpful for people who are multitasking. Click the Task-View icon next to search icon in the task bar, and click “Add to desktop” to add another virtual desktop. Say for example in the first desktop you work with programs like Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash, you can add a Virtual desktop and work on other programs like Word, PowerPoint and Notepad. Switch between these two virtual desktop to streamline your workflow, a line under the program icon in the taskbar will indicate that the program is open in the other virtual desktop.

7. Share Files from the File Explorer
Now you can share files faster, Windows 10 has a Share option right inside the file explorer. Select files you wish you share, click the Share menu & Click Share.

8. Improved Command Prompt
Now it is possible to use the keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl+C to copy and Ctrl+V to paste inside the command prompt window. Text within the command prompt window can be selected with mouse. You can also add transparency to the command prompt window. Right click on top of command prompt window, select properties and you can change these settings under the Experimental tab.

9. Switch back to Windows 8 style Start screen
If you wish to switch back the Start Menu to Windows 8 style Start screen, just Right click on the task bar, select Properties and under the Start Menu tab uncheck the check box that says “Use the Start Menu instead of Start Screen“, you will be asked to sign out and sign in again, and you can see the Windows 8 style Start Screen.

10. Speed Improvements, Window Drop Shadows, Faster Searches
Although we haven’t run any Performance benchmark tests on Windows technical Preview, it seems to be faster and more responsive than the previous operating system. You can also notice some drop shadows around the Windows. The search function also seems to be faster.

11. Very thin Window borders
The thin Window borders adds some aesthetic to the already beautiful operating system, it is clearly noticeable when you play some movie and there is very thin or almost no borders in sides of the Window.

If you are experimenting with Windows 10 Technical Preview, please post your thoughts in the comments below

Microsoft Promises To Remove Scammy Apps From The Windows Store, Kills Off 1,500 Apps To Start

#GNN Tech - The Windows app store has a problem: it’s full of garbage.

For every popular app, there’s a dozen-plus apps trying their damnedest to trick the user into buying it.

No app store is without its shady apps — even Apple, with their infamously/painfully stringent restrictions (which, notably, seem to have been relaxed a bit over time), has its fair share of iffy clones and trademark violations.

But many of the apps on the Windows Store went far beyond being tacky conceptual clones; many of them didn’t even bother to create new icons, or come up with new names beyond changing a few characters.

Meanwhile, blatant trademark violations were rife. You want iTunes? How about “Itunes PC”, for $4? Or “Itunes Play App” for $9? The icons were the same; the names were intentionally confusing. The only difference was that behind that download button was a hot pile of garbage that no one was likely to download intentionally. And until now, it didn’t seem like Microsoft really wanted to do anything about it.

How-To Geek tore into Microsoft over the issue last week, and now Microsoft is promising to fix it.

In a just published blog post, Microsoft announced three changes to their certification process:

• App names have to be clear (So “iTunes PC” is probably a no go.)
• Apps must be categorized properly (So no more premium “How To” guides disguised as functional apps)
• Icons must be unique enough that you couldn’t get two apps confused with each other.

They all seem like fairly obvious rules that probably should’ve been in place to begin with — but at least they’re in there now.

Microsoft says that the new rules will impact all future app submissions and updates, but that they’re also going back through and re-reviewing their catalog as quickly as they can. To date, they’ve killed off about 1,500 apps. If you’re unlucky enough to have bought one of the ones that got nixed, they’ll refund your money.

[Photo modified; original photo by Clyde Robinson on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons]

Sony says Playstation users' information safe after hackers target #game sites

#GNN Tech - #Sony Corp (6758.T) said hackers had taken down its #PlayStation Network without compromising its 53 million users' personal data, while the FBI was investigating a bomb scare on a flight carrying a top Sony executive in the United States.

The hackers behind the PlayStation attack said they had also targeted the servers of World of Warcraft video gamemakers Blizzard Entertainment, whose website was down, and threatened to attack Microsoft Corp's (MSFT.O) Xbox Live network which was also experiencing problems.

Sony said on Monday it was still trying to restore access to its gaming network after the attack on Sunday.


"We are trying to get the network back up as fast as we can while finding the source of the problem but I can't say how long that will take," Sony Computer Entertainment spokesman Satoshi Nakajima said in Tokyo.

The unidentified hackers said on their @LizardSquad Twitter microblogging account that the attack was meant to pressure the Japanese tech giant to spend more of its profits on security.

"Sony, yet another large company, but they aren't spending the waves of cash they obtain on their customers' (PlayStation Network) service. End the greed," one post said on Sunday.

Sony said no PlayStation users' personal information had been accessed in the attack, which overwhelmed the system with traffic.

Blizzard Entertainment was not immediately reachable for comment but its customer support Twitter account said its servers were stabilizing.

Microsoft wrote in a post on its Xbox blog on Friday that some users had problems accessing sections of the network, while users reported that they were having problems accessing their accounts on Sunday.

"We don't comment on the root cause of a specific issue, but as you can see on Xbox.com/status, the core Xbox LIVE services are up and running," Xbox spokesman David Dennis said.

Lizard Squad also tweeted to American Airlines on Sunday to say they had heard that explosives were on board a flight carrying Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley. That was a possible reference to another tweet from a game player's forum telling the airline "I'm gonna send a bomb on your plane be ready for me tomorrow".

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A PlayStation spokeswoman in the United States said the FBI was investigating the diversion of the Dallas/Fort Worth to San Diego flight.

The FBI had no comment on the incident but American Airlines said on its Twitter account that it was "aware of threats" made over the microblogging service and had alerted security.

Sony's network business has been hit by attacks before, with a security breach in 2011 dealing a major blow to plans at the time for a looser network designed to allow for the connection of a range of Sony devices.

Since then it has invested heavily in the system and is now hoping the network can serve as a centerpiece of its plans to rebuild its business after years of losses in its flagship electronics operations.

(GNN)(Reuters)(AIP)(Additional reporting by Jim Finkle; Editing by Stephen Coates)

Looking Ahead To Windows 9

#GNN Tech - A preview of Windows 9 will be made available in either September or October, according to ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley. That timeline keeps ‘Threshold’ — Windows 9’s codename — out into the public market as a finished product likely in early 2015.

The Windows 8 era isn’t merely closing, it’s racing to an end.

Last weekend I posited that as Windows 9 appears to be galloping to market, it’s a decent time to start saying goodbye to Windows 8. Now that Foley has revealed that Windows 9’s preview should be open to the public, for a good-sized chunk of the computing world Windows 8 is all but over — they will be able to quickly scoot over to the new code, provided that the preview isn’t too buggy.

It’s both correct and unfair to say that Windows 8’s period is ending. Windows 8 itself will soon be replaced, yes, but at the same time, much of what it brought to the market will persist. As TC wrote when it became generally known that Microsoft intended to push the desktop in Windows 9:

We’re in a potentially Office 2007 situation, when Microsoft shook up the paradigm, took a number of potshots, managed to keep the bulk of the work intact and push out Office 2010 to massive success. Provided that Microsoft can keep that which is good in Windows 8, and blend in a host of strong desktop-focused updates, prioritizing each in different weight based on device form factor, the company could have a pretty solid operating system on its hands.

There is a lot of ‘maybe’ in that, of course.

What we should keep in mind is that, according to Foley’s information, getting our hands on to Windows 9 is not something to think about as some sort of far away, future eventuality. Instead, given her stated calendar, the preview is likely no more than eight to ten weeks from the market.

How well did Windows 8 perform in its life? Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 have more than twelve percent market share, combined. Put another way, about one in every eight PCs in use today runs Windows 8 or a variant of the operating system. Windows 8.1 is more popular than Windows 8, but the latter still controls just under six percent of PCs in the world.

It will be incredibly interesting to see how much of Windows 8’s market share its successor can nab, and how quickly. Windows 8, by way of comparison, hasn’t been known for its ability to get people off of its predecessor, Windows 7.

I’m curious: If you are a Windows user, do you plan on moving to Windows 9 from either Windows 7 or 8?