Thursday, October 3, 2013

2013 10 07 WTKM Talking Points (Oct 7th 2013)

As you may know on the first Monday of every month I am "guest of honor" for computer questions in a live call-in talk show on our local radio station WTKM on FM 104.9 out of Hartford, Wisconsin.

I have decided to publish my Talking Points for the show here on my blog so that interested listeners can easily follow links to other websites with much more detailed information than can be explained on air.

Windows 8.1 rolls out Oct 17.

New Windows 8 computer?
I use and set up "local account"
ONLY!
Don't use Microsoft account! (privacy vs. convenience)
More info: What Exactly is a Microsoft Account
Either way MS tracks all searches, local & internet. (NO to Bing)
Turn off Smart Search
Use Classic Shell (free) or Start8 ($5)
Install VLC media player (MS removed Media Player!)
Recent Windows Update problems:Mostly caused by pre existing registry corruption. Quote:
On Windows 7 . . .  Registry cleaners might be at fault.
Those utilities were helpful with Windows XP, but they might
easily cause more problems than they fix in Windows 7 (or Win8).
Micro$oft had to re-issue updates from Sept. 9th.

Instead of registry cleaners run sfc /scannow as administrator. See MS Support article 929833 for instructions on SFC and other advanced troubleshooting tips.

Can't boot your game disk (CD or DVD) on your brand new Windows 8 computer?
Thank Micro$oft's and
UEFI's Secure Boot. For details on the difference between
BIOS and UEFI see this article:
The pitfalls of Windows 8′s Secure Boot   

Windows 8 lures the user into MS accounts and into MS cloud services.

The rest of the world and Windows 8:
Yes  it's true; Microsoft wants us to massively migrate to Microsoft based cloud services. But in my country that will not happen as Microsoft wants it, especially   because these "virtual cloud services" are to 85% physically located within the USA.  
That is for most foreign people simply unacceptable. It's not only for reasons like privacy, piracy, taxes, company secrets - there is also a difference in mind-sets.
What if our sensitive data sits there in a physical data center somewhere in the US of A, and bad things really start happening, like for instance war, wide spread diseases, natural disaster, terrorism attack, you name it -  anything could happen anywhere.
Foreigners don't trust CIA/FBI/NSA that much, we learned from the past months.
My customers are saying..., even refusing, to migrate their financial and sensitive business data to somewhere in the 'Microsoft' or even  the 'Amazon cloud'; abroad, unknown where it really is, in a far away foreign country, and nobody knows, or even checks what is happening to their data. It may be leaked to the NSA, via a built-in back door when Micro$oft sold this opportunity to the NSA/US-Government.
 No, sorry, not with us!  We aren't like that!
We even don't come close to this kind of behavior.
Java needs to be kept up to date! As of Sept.15th 2013 it is version 7.0.40 
Adobe Flash and Adobe Reader need to be kept up to date! Even businesses fail to do this!
Still running Windows XP?
Time to buy a new computer!
(with very few exceptions only!)
New, massiveky exploited flaw in Internet Explorer! Don't use IE!
Adobe's computer systems have been hit by numerous "sophisticated attacks"; information of 2.9 million customers compromised, the source code of Adobe products accessed.
End of "WTKM Talking Points for October 7th 2013".

As usual I welcome suggestions and comments right here in the blog.  
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