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Kent Sharkey wrote: Why new security features? Did something happen?
Them darn rogue icons... 
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Does this mean I can control when it reboots?
Or, wonder of wonder, does it mean it can use all its cool new virtualisation features to do patches without the need for rebooting?
Nah... that would be too clever by half.
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Quote: virtualized time zones
Please let this be coming to Win10 too. Data rot affecting timestamps all over my system due to multiple timezone changes is the absolute worst part of trying to debug timezone related problems in code.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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A study by VPN provider Surfshark has found that the planet’s least affordable internet is also often its worst. My 7 minutes worth
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Quote: How many hours of work pay the internet bill?
What...? Do we have to work to pay for the internet? I thought our data was paying for it... 
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Today we’re introducing the newest member of the Microsoft Power Platform family: Microsoft Power Fx, an open source formula language for low code that’s based on Microsoft Excel. 'Power' is the new 'Active'
Not only is Excel the most-used database, now it can be the most-used low-code language!
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Quote: To put the magnitude of Excel users in perspective, analysts at IDC estimate that the most popular coding language, JavaScript, is used moderately or heavily by 11.7 million software developers today.
They didn't say how many Excel users there are. Is that an implicit acknowledgment that most Excel users aren't good enough coders to be considered programmers? 
(And anyone who uses Excel as a database should wear a scarlet letter, or something, and be unhirable. Unless management won't allow them to purchase any DB, and won't allow MySQL or an equivalent. Then management should be the ones with the scarlet letter, and unhirable.)
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David O'Neil wrote: Is that an implicit acknowledgment that most Excel users aren't good enough coders to be considered programmers?
In my very humble opinion, there is no shame in saying this. It is undoubtedly true. Surely most Excel users are people who want to store and manipulate data; why should they be programmers.
What I do not get, however, is how or why this new language will change anything. The whole point of VBA was that it was an easy to use macro language that non-programmers could use with little additional effort. Now we have a shiny new language that non-programmers could use with little additional effort.
Was VBA not easy enough?
Are people more stupid today?
I suppose that people do increasingly expect "I want to do more, it has to be easy, it has to just work" and if ActiveFX... err I mean if PowerFX can do that more easily than VBA then so be it. I can see Microsoft's thinking in terms of basing it on Excel functions which are at least familiar to Excel users.
But I very, very strongly suspect that this will give rise to a whole new class of errors. If it succeeds in not merely displacing VBA but in opening up macro programming to a much wider range of end users then the new style of non-coding errors will make old fashioned faulty corporate and home spreadsheets look like mere typos.
David O'Neil wrote: (And anyone who uses Excel as a database should wear a scarlet letter, or something, and be unhirable. Unless management won't allow them to purchase any DB, and won't allow MySQL or an equivalent. Then management should be the ones with the scarlet letter, and unhirable.)
Isn't this a "getting things done expediently" and "getting things done with minimal or no budget requirement" issue. Excel has the sweet spot of the ability to store data coupled with a useable UI (which is configurable with quickly learnable skills). In contrast, making a database that useful requires a lot more work to get to the same spot.
I fully accept and agree that, beyond a certain point of complexity, moving to a database is important but at that point it's going to require either skills that the end user doesn't have, time that the end user doesn't have, or a not-insignificant budget approval. Real life (both at home and in business) means that the spreadsheets often soldier on.
I can see how Microsoft might be thinking that PowerFX will in part address this situation. Bolting on PowerFX as a programmable front end to Access (alongside VBA, not instead of it) might help migration to an extent.
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markrlondon wrote: making a database that useful requires a lot more work to get to the same spot.
Part of me disagrees with this statement, and part of me agrees. To make it easier, use Access which many frown upon. By the time you've done that work, the DB approach is far easier to get more information from than Excel is, in my opinion. And you can take it to a better DB from there. Once you know the tool, you know why to use a DB in the first place.
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markrlondon wrote: Are people more stupid today?
Have you visited the Q&A lately? 
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Hah, quite. I was looking at that and I can't believe people ask questions like that where it's clear they haven't made any effort themselves.
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Kent Sharkey wrote: hat’s based on Microsoft Excel.
Didn't you post something a week ago or so about Google doing a low-code thing in their spreadsheet? Yeah, "AppSheet". Of course Microsoft is the copycat. 
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Came across this today. It is a better response.
(It is just a laugh. If Excel brings you into programming, great!)
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Microsoft's updated set of Azure mixed-reality services will work with virtual-reality, and later, holoportation, scenarios across devices. Because we all deserve a better reality
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Kent Sharkey wrote: Because we all deserve a better reality
And are you sure you want Microsoft developing it? 
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Ooof. Good point.
TTFN - Kent
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Cyberattackers have turned to search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to deploy malware payloads to as many victims as possible. That's considerate of them, isn't it?
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Windows 10 users can harness the power of low-code RPA by downloading Power Automate Desktop on March 2, and it will be included in Windows Insider Preview builds in the coming weeks. And remember: with great Power Automate Desktop comes great Responsibility Automate Desktop
Now taking bets on when it gets used to hack machines... By end of week or end of month?
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Later today probably.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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We hope you enjoy the new features highlighted from some of teams such as C++, .NET Productivity, Address Sanitizer, XAML Tooling, and IntelliCode teams. "You could blow with this, or you could blow with that"
It's going to be a little obvious there's a Microsoft conference going on today.
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The .NET Upgrade Assistant is a .NET global command-line tool that gives you a guided experience for incrementally upgrading your applications. "It'll do magic believe it or not. Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo."
Pity for all the Wizards out of work these days.
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Quote: Update C# source. Now that all your projects have been upgraded to .NET 5 and references upgraded when the tool could help, it’s time to make some specific fixes to the C# code. Right now, the tool offers a set of ASP.NET analyzers, which will apply fixes for known patterns that where in .NET Framework that have .NET 5 equivalents. You can pick and choose the analyzers you want to run on your code or run all of them to catch any usages of older .NET Framework patterns. Some examples for ASP.NET include:
- Apply fix for AM0001: ASP.NET Core projects should not reference ASP.NET namespaces
- Apply fix for AM0002: HtmlString types should be replaced with Microsoft.AspNetCore.Html.HtmlString
- Apply fix for AM0003: ActionResult types should come from the Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc namespace
Reporting "I have no idea how to fix this problem" to the the first bullet point here was the biggest reason I rolled my eyes at MS's previous tool as being a useless joke.
Although I'm not working on it anymore, I'm going to have to find a bit of my own time to try running the .netframework web app I used to support through the new tool and see if it actually does enough to make planning an upgrade plausible.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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Tattoos are usually considered a form of personal expression, but a team of researchers in Europe have created what they’re calling the world’s first light-emitting tattoo based on OLED screen technology that, besides presumably looking kind of cool, could also serve as a visible warning about potential health concerns. "And I just love your flashy ways"
edit: added the missing quote from the article 
modified 1-Mar-21 16:44pm.
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The important question: How much does it cost to have it removed? 
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