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Ugh, yeah, I hate it when they spam your inbox AND your phone. I mean, if I was the least bit interested, I would have replied to the e-mail instead of tossing it in my junk box and blocking their entire domain.
That's my spam policy at work, by the way... They spam me once, I just block the whole domain... Some notable exceptions, of course.
And I hate the ones that send "On behalf of", so I have to set up manual filters to block the entire mass-mailing service instead of each one individually. "ccsend.com" really annoyed me with that for a while...
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This doesn't seem bad at all. They're just following up with you and trying to update their records. It's sales.
On the other hand, I received one today from a recruiter for a job position that was on the other side of the country and only required a fraction of the experience I have. 
There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
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I love reading these from you guys, I've been in the one contract for so long I have fallen off the radar of all agencies. They have a really short attention span, if you are not churning contracts they lose interest real quick.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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XP was a great improvement over 3.1. I skipped the stuff inbetween then and was happy to upgrade to W7.
But I definitely loathed the new Metro look of W8, and I'm really reluctant to install W10. And since I have updates disabled, I haven't been bothered with pesky notices, downloads, and all that crap.
In fact, I bought a nice new laptop a couple weeks ago and opted for W7. It did come with a thumb drive to upgrade to W10, it's sitting somewhere on my desk getting dusty.
So I wonder, what has happened that I'm just not looking forward to upgrading? How did Microsoft kill my enthusiasm? (Well, Metro is one answer.)
Marc
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I find that Windows 10 is a lot better than Windows 8.1 (limited experienced with Win8).
I installed it at home (gaming machine), I only have one minor issue right now is that Diablo 3 freezes, but that is related to the graphic driver.
If your machine is non-critical and has a fresh install of Windows (nothing installed yet), I would upgrade to test it and revert back if necessary.
If you machine is critical, then wait for drivers to stabilized before updating.
I'd rather be phishing!
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To me, XP and Win7 got it right, because all I needed was simple desktop, start menu and file manager. I didn't use any of the other stuff anyway, and in those systems the rest was fairy unobtrusive. A simple stripped down OS suits me just fine.
On top of that I can install applications that are specifically designed for the purpose they are to serve, not MS implementations of the stuff. I find that MS keep making the mistake of giving us features they think we want, rather than what we actually need. Who really needs Cortana in a desktop for instance?
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Who needs Cortana in a desktop? Uh, me. Apparently you haven't used it. It has a LOT to offer.
But keep using your antiquated OS. Ignore all the progress around you.
Meanwhile, I'll be doing things sort of like StarTrek envisioned. I just said, "Hey Cortana launch Insteon" and she told me she was launching Insteon Hub. And up it came. Quicker than moving my hands off the keyboard to touch the touchpad and do a some clicking.
And there is a LOT of other things it does. Just to mention one from yesterday. I ordered something from Amazon. Received a confirmation email from Amazon that contained the tracking number. Later, when I popped up the Cortana UI, there was an item that asked me if I wanted to check the status of my UPS package using the tracking number.
Pretty cool stuff that isn't in XP or Win7.
And in time, there will be a lot more interesting new things.
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While I have Win 10 sitting in my inbox ready to be installed (currently running Win 7), I hesitate to make the switch given the intrusiveness of MS's latest OS. While the author seems to like the fact Cortana asks if they want to check on the status of their order, I personally don't like the fact that MS is gathering all this information about my on line activity as well as who knows what other information they gather. They certainly aren't talking.
For me the decision is to move away from MS and on to something else. Possibly a linux distro.
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No one said that Microsoft was "gathering all this information". There seem to be a lot of people that are paranoid lately. Cortana on the local machine looks at my local email and offers to help. Cortana is configurable. If you don't want it to help you out, you can turn that feature off in Cortana's settings. (I don't remember, but off may have been the default).
But even if they did gather the information, it doesn't bother me.
You say "They certainly aren't talking". There is quite a bit of information about how things work regarding privacy here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement/Default.aspx[^]
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Check out the following two articles concerning the way Microsoft is gathering informaton.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2489212,00.asp
http://lifehacker.com/what-windows-10s-privacy-nightmare-settings-actually-1722267229
from other discussions, it is clear that you can protect yourself from most of the data collection, that not all data collection is controlled from the privacy settings and no one is sure what data is being collected or for what reason. Thus my paranoia
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Yep, both articles basically say it is no big deal and if you are paranoid, turn off what you can.
I feel sorry for paranoid people. Really.
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I guess I have been toying with the move to linux for several years and this maybe the straw that breaks the camel's back so to speak. I will most likely stick with Win7 for awhile and see what happens, and maybe load a second laptop with a linux distro and see how that goes.
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I can't even imagine going back to Windows 8, let alone Windows 7.
Good luck with that Linux thingee.
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Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you or aren't spying on you...
Decrease the belief in God, and you increase the numbers of those who wish to play at being God by being “society’s supervisors,” who deny the existence of divine standards, but are very serious about imposing their own standards on society.-Neal A. Maxwell
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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I agree with you. But, having just upgraded from 7 to 10 I find it is not too different. They removed all the 8/8.1 tiled desktop garbage, and left it like 7. The start menu is more in the manner of 8, but you can remove all the tiles and make it look a bit more like the old style. I haven't used it for long enough to check out all the other "exciting new features", but so far am reasonably happy.
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'Version' are coming too often? (Instead of simple quiet updates)
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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I still remember those days when I "upgraded" from bare-bones DOS to Win 3.0 and was glad but less productive for I was so used to command line commands and pipes that it was hard for me but... heck! anything for progress and loved it in a couple of months. Then upgraded to W3.1 (for workgroups) and loved it again with the new VC++ 1.0 that was a delight to work with (butt still slower than DOS and TC++) then came Win95 and all the hype that it caused and a (first I believe) worldwide launch and event, even the Rolling Stones contributed with that catchy song "Start me up". Ohhh those were the days, the new UI was so radicall but you could be still productive.
Any of you has a time travel machine for rent?, no? mmh I thought so! 
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Marc Clifton wrote: XP was a great improvement over 3.1. I
WTF! You missed 2K? THAT was a good OD. Quick? By Christ it was, NT4 with the best bits of Win95 grafted on. Simple, clean, functional. Everything since is bloat ware!
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I agree Win2K was great. Three words describe it best: stable, stable and stable.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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True, it's been so long, I forgot about Win95 and Win2000. I had those installed as well.
Marc
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I still have my installation disks for Win95, Win97, Win98, Win2K, WinXP, Win8.1. If I have to rebuild this machine, I'm stuck -- no Win10 installation disk.
The difficult may take time, the impossible a little longer.
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Twasn't Microsoft's fault. You just got old and boring and difficult to impress like the rest of us! 
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I'm with you on this.
My brother upgraded to W10 a week or so ago and just today reverted back to 8.1.
I was excited when I heard W10 was coming out I though maybe they had learned enough from 8 that mistakes would not be made but the more I hear and see of 10 the more disappointed I become and the closer I am to moving to Ubuntu. I would hate to do that as everything I've done over the last nn years has been either DEC or Windows and we all know where DEC went, proving that no one is exempt from failure.
New version: WinHeist Version 2.1.1 new web site.
I know the voices in my head are not real but damn they come up with some good ideas!
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In my case, Marc, I've settled on 8.1 for my desktop development system and W7 everywhere else on my network. Like you, I didn't care much for "Metro" but it doesn't bother me with 8.1 - I just let it boot straight to desktop and us Start8 as the menu system. 8.1 performs fine.
I'm not planning to go to 10 unless I buy a new piece of equipment and it already comes loaded on it or something. Upgrading the OS used to be something I did for fun but, to be honest, I'm tired of doing all that. It's very distracting. I would spend days fiddling with the OS instead of writing software. The stuff I write runs in the desktop or in a web browser; any version of Windows desktop will run my stuff (XP and up, yes I've even checked out 10 in a VM to make sure it still does).
In evaluating whether or not to upgrade I basically asked the question: "How will it enhance any of the work I'm doing?". I have not seen even one feature of the new system that would make me justify the time and risk of breaking anything. I had people say to me "but it's new!" and "but it's free!" ... neither of which amounts to a hill of beans as far as I'm concerned.
Am I against Windows 10? No ... I'm just done fiddling with the platform that's all. I just want the thing to work. I understand that 8.1 is going to be officially supported until 2023 (and won't just "break" after that) so I'm not particularly worried about this right now. I need to be about my business and doing this upgrade crap all the time ain't going to get that done. I'm not "anti progress" at all, I'm just sick of "pulling the rug" out just because they make one of a different color. As far as my work is concerned I can't tell you of one feature that has appeared since XP that particularly enhances my ability to get the job I'm doing done. I could literally take the tools I have, return to XP and operate as well as I do under my present system.
Quite honestly, IMHO, a lot of this is smoke and mirrors at this point. Yeah, yeah ... we're developing these things like voice technology and we can handle photo and video now but we're BASICALLY doing the same stuff with this technology that we have always done; communicate and process information. (Besides, I don't want my computer talking to me! I barely use the voice stuff on my iPhone as it is).
Well, enough of that - I have a project I need to go work on (that can only run on about 4 billion machines right now) so worry about upgrading my platform is something I'll just set aside for awhile!
-CM
modified 20-Aug-15 10:56am.
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