Windows 10 is downloadable for testing. It's said to be better than any previous version, perhaps even better than all previous versions combined.



Highlights of fantastic innovations:

- Start menu is back
- Live tiles moved into start menu
- Store apps, irretrievably fullscreen in Win 8, can now be resized
- Multitask app-switcher (like Alt+Tab, but looks now like in Nexus tablet)
- Window snapping/tiling
- Adding a desktop

Of course all this is stuff that either used to be there or have been there in other OS's for a decade or more (the first thing used to be the norm in Windows itself) but I guess it counts as innovation in the world of Microsoft.

The preview is available in the most important languages of the world: English, Chinese, and Portuguese.
Happy trying http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/preview-iso

Odd. It says you need to sign up for Windows Insider, but I can download those ISOs just fine. I guess that product key, NKJFK-GPHP7-G8C3J-P6JXR-HQRJR, will deactivate after a few months or something? I could give it a whirl in a VM, but I doubt I'll bother.

Windows 10 is downloadable for testing.
The preview is available in the most important languages of the world: English, Chinese, and Portuguese.
Happy trying http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/preview-iso

Happy trying 

Microsoft's Windows 10 Preview has permission to watch your every move

The Windows Insider Programme seemed like a gesture of openness and willingness to collaborate with developers on a peer level. But a closer look at the privacy policy of the Windows 10 preview reveals some startling permissions that you grant by installing and using it.

Windows 10 is downloadable for testing. It's said to be better than any previous version, perhaps even better than all previous versions combined.

Don't they say that about every new version, every time?

I could give it a whirl in a VM, but I doubt I'll bother.

If you don't bother, then how am I going to know how it works?

Windows 10 is downloadable for testing. It's said to be better than any previous version, perhaps even better than all previous versions combined.

Don't they say that about every new version, every time?

Weren't they right at least once?

If you don't bother, then how am I going to know how it works?

Eh, if you've ever tried Windows 8 you know how it works based on the description and screenshots. I understand they stripped out those ridiculous "charms" which require you to move and click yourself into an RSI condition for the simplest of tasks. I've also read they got rid of the cretinous concept of fullscreen junk, which made one wonder how they dared call the product Windows. More like Window. Anyway, so it's back to normal except with some of those silly tiles integrated in the start menu, and doubtless Classic Shell will still be better just like it was on Windows Vista and 7.

Things they almost surely won't change: defaulting to sending all kinds of information about you to Microsoft. Debian and Opera can do it too, but they default to not doing it.

What more is there to know?

Windows 10 is downloadable for testing. It's said to be better than any previous version, perhaps even better than all previous versions combined.

Don't they say that about every new version, every time?

Weren't they right at least once?

Depends how you measure 'betterness'

Depends how you measure 'betterness'

How about OS/2 or Windows 3.0?

Depends how you measure 'betterness'

How about OS/2 or Windows 3.0?

I kinda liked Warp 4.
How about NT 3.51? Then there's the whole Windows CE clusterfuck.
Which reminds me, I wonder how ReactOS is doing these days.

I wonder how ReactOS is doing these days.

I don't really understand that project.

Well, here's a review for the rest of us: http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/windows-10-preview.html

I wonder how ReactOS is doing these days.

I don't really understand that project.

Isn't that project meant to be like, you can install exe's the same way as in Win, but it's not Win? Doesn't seem a very noble or practical idea to me, but it should be technically possible.

By the time React becomes a workable alternative, I suppose all Win apps and drivers will have some "security" mechanism to annoy those who attempt "unauthorised" use of them. This tendency has already been taken far enough in my opinion.

Doesn't seem a very noble or practical idea to me

Exactly, I don't really see the point. Something like Wine seems more useful to me,* although in practice I tend to prefer the complete isolation (and snapshots!) of VirtualBox. On a CPU with virtualization support it's nice and fast. Then again, I suppose could run ReactOS in a VM without having to go look for disks and serial numbers.

By the time React becomes a workable alternative, I suppose all Win apps and drivers will have some "security" mechanism to annoy those who attempt "unauthorised" use of them. This tendency has already been taken far enough in my opinion.

I wouldn't be surprised if that kind of stuff is among the primary reasons e.g. MS Office 2013 doesn't work in Wine, although I could be mistaken.

* ReactOS actually uses Wine libraries to prevent duplication of effort, so that certainly helps.

GitHub goes Microsoft https://news.microsoft.com/2018/06/04/microsoft-to-acquire-github-for-7-5-billion/

Yeah, I'm curious to see where that'll lead. Hopefully not where Skype went... that's much worse than it used to be. I have a LinkedIn account and a GitHub account, but GH is by far my favorite big social network type website.

GitHub's comments are not promising.

When GitHub first launched ten years ago, I could have never imagined this headline.^[1] Git was a powerful but niche tool, clouds were just things in the sky, and Microsoft was a very different company. Open source and business, people said at the time, mixed as well as oil and water.

We disagreed. As developers, we knew this was a false dichotomy--we had been using open source software successfully in a business setting for a long time. What we really needed was an easier way to work with others regardless of whether the code was public, private, or something in-between.

Not really. On GitHub, only fully open-source code makes sense, because GitHub is a free and open code-sharing place. If it stops being that, it stops making sense, and the entire community must find another home.

¹ The headline: A bright future for GitHub. The beginning words: I am very excited to announce that Microsoft is acquiring GitHub...↵

Microsoft just made 60,000 of its patents open source

It is something Opera ASA should have done with the browser. The way they left it was burying their own most notable product alive, not letting anyone else keep it alive either.

More browsers, less browsers

Microsoft is building its own Chromium browser to replace the default [browser called Edge] on Windows 10.

On Android, Edge's square-y tile-y tab-switching is comfy. And the reading view is nice - no settings, but no settings needed because the default happens to suit me. Should I avoid updating from now on?

Microsoft to end Windows 10 Mobile updates and support in December [2019]

Microsoft is now recommending that Windows 10 Mobile users move to iOS or Android devices. "With the Windows 10 Mobile OS end of support, we recommend that customers move to a supported Android or iOS device...."

When something works good enough, it does not need "support". For example Opera 11 still works fine for email and for opening some links from email. So, legacy Opera still works for the primary purpose that I adopted it for.

I have not seen Windows Mobile opsys, but I guess the Edge browser on Android conveys the main idea of its interface - instead of a caroussel/coverflow style of switching tabs/apps as in Android, Windows presents a square-y tile-y overview. The latter works much better for my fingertips. I would not mind the former, if I could press with the fingernail. Actually, if I could press with the fingernail, I would vastly prefer a presentation of a solid list, just like it used to be in Symbian OS touch interface at the beginning of the century.

Funny that we are supposedly evolving, but nobody seems to be able to make a launcher interface where the user chooses whether to view things a la coverflow, square-y tile-y, or as a list. Wait, actually Koreader has the "Display mode" submenu. You guys should make your own Android launcher or a Linux window manager!

What about this one? https://github.com/light-launcher/Light-Android-Launcher/blob/HEAD/README.md

Window managers are hard. But also, just about anything I can imagine already exists, although I don't know why the concept of https://github.com/Frenzie/nimbler hasn't caught on more.

What about this one? https://github.com/light-launcher/Light-Android-Launcher/blob/HEAD/README.md

This one presents the app drawer as a list. This is a good improvement over the default app drawer that for some weird reason comes in several pages of icons to be swiped only left-right, without a configuration option to make it one bottomless pit to be swiped up-down, as icons or as a list of names, or both.

However, the more important improvement I have in mind is the (preferably configurable) list of *currently open* apps. Does that launcher do that? [Just tried it. The answer: Nope]

Window managers are hard. But also, just about anything I can imagine already exists, although I don't know why the concept of https://github.com/Frenzie/nimbler hasn't caught on more.

Something like your Nimbler is available with Rofi. It does not order open windows per workspace, but I don't see why ordering per workspace would be needed anyway. Whether I have over half a dozen workspaces open like in i3wm or just two like in Cinnamon or Openbox, all I want is to get to a specific window, wherever it is, from a multitude, which is why Rofi's searchfield - always found at the same spot on the screen - is perfect to take me there.

In Cinnamon's taskbar there is a button that displays all open windows as a list. And I am pretty sure I have seen it in Xfce also.

Edit: To continue on the same theme of managing windows... Much has been said and done about taking your focus to a given window, but hardly any thought has been given to fetching a window from anywhere to bring it to wherever your focus currently is.

I am very much missing this in multi-monitor settings: I have some business at a given monitor and suddenly I need another app next to it, exactly there. If the app is not opened yet, then it's just a matter of opening it then and there, but when it is already open, the ordinary procedure is to

1. drop what is at hand to look for the app
2. grab it
3. return to your starting point, dragging the app window along with the mouse

It should be

1. bring up rofi or the like
2. select or start typing to select
3. specify the parameter that brings the app window here, i.e. fetches it, instead of going to where the app window is

i3wm somewhat does it: Fetching a specific window is possible after you have tagged (i.e. given a nick to) the window, or you can fetch a whole workspace-ful of windows (if you know the name/number of the workspace), but you cannot fetch an untagged window or an arbitrary selection of them. It would be much better with a proper list-formatted window-flipping tool, without a need of tagging and nicking. 

Something like your Nimbler is available with Rofi.

Yes, I believe this is still a good list.

By the way, how do you like Win+Tab in Windows 10? It displays a mosaic of currently open windows per monitor.

Indeed, they updated it from the useless Win+Tab in Windows 7. I don't like it overly much, other than that combined with the three-finger up gesture to pull it up it makes for much nicer touchpad control of your device. With the keyboard I just Alt+Tab.

https://fransdejonge.com/2018/05/mimic-windows-touchpad-gestures-in-xfce-with-libinput-gestures/

But it's certainly not horrible or anything. Ctrl + Win + arrows switches between virtual desktops. Ctrl+Win+D creates one, Ctrl+Win+F4 closes one. Three-finger swipe left/right is similar to Alt+Tab, which works quite elegantly.

Also potentially somewhat interesting is that Win + a number switches to that number window on the taskbar. Of course that only really works elegantly for the few that you might've pinned since there's no indication otherwise.

Microsoft's Free Rein Over EU Staff Data Sparks Privacy Warning

The EU's in-house data protection regulator said in its findings of a probe that institutions' lack of control "over which sub-processors Microsoft used and lack of meaningful audit rights also presented significant issues."

EU institutions should "carefully consider any purchases of Microsoft products and services or new uses of existing products and services until after they have analyzed and implemented the recommendations" of the European Data Protection Supervisor, the watchdog said.

The staff and agencies using the products "had insufficient clarity as to the nature, scope and purposes of the processing and the risks to data subjects to be able to meet their transparency obligations," the EDPS, which acts independently of the EU bodies it oversees, said in the 29-page report on its findings.

Microsoft products are annoying on many levels and dangerous in many ways. It is long overdue that somebody start questioning the terms Microsoft is imposing on the users and what it is doing inside the cloud services.

The full report https://edps.europa.eu/press-publications/press-news/press-releases/2020/edps-report-eu-institutions-use-data-protection_en