I'm still glad I'm running a Mac.

I thought Open Office was completely compatible with windows files. Luckily, we get Office for an employee price so I occasionally upgrade. I am still using 2007 on my work computer and just received hate mail from IT I have to go to 2013. Office is just as bad as any other MS stuff for issues, I still have 3 or 4 different XL file formats now, and each does weird stuff the other doesn't depending on version. I wonder if Ubuntu can run Star Citizens Launcher, they haven't detailed any specifics on it.Good job at avoiding the beast...

I recently purchased a new machine for my daughter and replaced Win 10 with Ubuntu before she opened the box. She was 3 weeks in and comfortable with Ubuntu before she realized it wasn't Windows. She thought that I had "customized" it for her. I did have to sign up for Office 365 so that she had access to the regular Office suite for school stuff.

You can download Ubuntu here: http://www.ubuntu.com/download

It was not real easy to get rid of Win 10 but with a bit of effort it happened.

Bitcoin, as with all things new, will take a little adjustment and debugging to close all the gaps and holes. By then it might even be a different animal all together. But my gut feeling is that it or something similar will succeed.

Some enterprising folks have come up with different ways to use the block chain for verification of things other than monetary transactions which could lead to a whole different concept in how the block chain is handled which could very well lead to a better system. I'm keeping an ear to the ground on this one.

Pluses for promotion of cyberspace Gulch. Distributed processing and communication, with dynamic, constantly changing provider sources certainly makes government snooping more difficult. Use of public/private keyword encryption in voice communication isn't difficult, either. There's an iPhone app called Signal that makes encrypted cellphone communications painless, and it's compatible with an Android app (name escapes me at present), so the type of cellphone is no barrier.

Bitcoin has proven problematic, with trust and fraud issues cropping up, but that seems to be getting resolved. Undoubtedly there are already creative minds working on the next better monetary exchange medium.

I have been delving into the world of secure communication, cryptography, cryptocurrency and P2P networking. I'm finding a lot of interesting ideas such as Ethereum (www.ethereum.org). The idea that we can conduct our business in a secure environment without the prying eyes of some oversight government agency is quite a step up in privacy. I'm hoping this will lead to decentralized money controls (such as bitcoin) and to a more crowd funding type arrangement where the social arrangement pitches in (for some reward) for purchase of real estate, business ventures and other high priced necessities. Let social contract fund the world, not the centralized banks. Centralized control of anything leads to corruption of everything under it.

I've seen a lot of chit chat on this board as to where should Galt's Gulch be.... Well, right here in cyberspace. If, as a society, we can learn how to work through pushing any type of governmental control systems to the peripheral of an enclosed domain that would be a cyber Coup d'etat! If society is to determine it's directions, we must develop the tools to move ourselves out of the control of centralized authority and into a means of social contract where no one entity has the ultimate power to determine right or wrong. If this means moving off the public networks and into the “Enlightened Net” (Don't like Dark net... seems a bit sinister) then so be it.

So here is my question for the group.... What would need to be done to make this happen?

And you are right about Apple. However, it is just a larger share of a declining market! Since 2010 the tablet market has out paced both desktop and laptop markets with both laptops and desktops declining in sales.

Agreed. There is no reason you can persuade me to believe that "requires" .docx. If it works, you get the marks. What is more important, the product, or the delivery method?

In the days of yore, just a few blocks from our publishing firm there was a component manufacturer who also made custom computers This was before Windows. We used MS Dos and a system called Pathfinder devised for dummies like me. No problem. They'd whip one up in a week. At 1/2 the market price. They also offered to create an easy to use operating system, but I never got around to ordering one.

Good luck, nick. My last install was about 6 months ago, changing an XP machine to W7 (Ultimate SP1) to use a more recent version of android studio (iirc.) I didn't do any MSFT updates (yet.) I am using that same version on all my computers at present. ( I have used PCMover to avoid reinstalling all the applications with good results. ) Let me know how it goes here if you have time.

There is a possibility to use OSX on a windows platform, I saw some articles that explained it, involving using a win emulator to run it. Seemed complicated but may be worthwhile.

Government today acts as a toll collector for any startup, and part of it is to make you belive you need their money (our money they took) to get you going, and if you fail..so what? It's only money.

Killsem, Kill sem all!!

Yep, the reg edit will block it permanently. Also blocking the update as ewv details below.

That is one way to handle it. I tend to make sure I don't see any hate mail on various updates and then install them. Win7 take a long time to do a fresh install on, I am putting together a I7 5930K machine and am having that particular thought.

Thanks, very comprehensive list!

Here is a comparison of security software designed to block usoft telemetry reporting back to the home planet from Windows 7-10: http://www.ghacks.net/2015/08/14/comp...

An easy to use one is AntiBeacon at https://forums.spybot.info/downloads.... and downloadable from http://www.softpedia.com/get/PORTABLE...

If you are using Windows 7 the steps below work so far to block W7 downgrades to W10 and the annoying goading.

suppress display of W10 update popup notices in Windows 7:
....control panel > all control panel items > notification areas icons
..or
....right click taskbar > properties > customize
then
......."GWX Get Windows 10" - "Hide icon and notifications"

to remove KB3035583 "update" pushing W10:
....control panel > all control panel items > programs and features > installed updates
........"Upgrade for Windows 7 for x64-based systems (KB3035583)"
............right click > uninstall

to view update history
....control panel > all control panel items > windows update > view update history

hide KB3035583 "update" to prevent future "offer"
....control panel > all control panel items > windows update > select updates to install
........important
............"Upgrade for Windows 7 for x64-based systems (KB3035583)"
............right click > hide update

prevent silent automatic updates -- notification only, to choose updates installed
....(updates are normally released on the second Tues of each month)
........control panel > windows update > change settings
............notify important updates
............notify recommended updates

The beginning of a major article on the subject of antitrust:

Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal Ch 3. "America's Persecuted Minority: Big Business"

"If I were asked to choose the date which marks the turning point on the road to the ultimate destruction of American industry, and the most infamous piece of legislation in American history, I would choose the year 1890 and the Sherman Act—which began that grotesque, irrational, malignant growth of unenforceable, uncompliable, unjudicable contradictions known as the antitrust laws.

"Under the antitrust laws, a man becomes a criminal from the moment he goes into business, no matter what he does. If he complies with one of these laws, he faces criminal prosecution under several others. For instance, if he charges prices which some bureaucrats judge as too high, he can be prose-cured for monopoly, or, rather, for a successful 'intent to monopolize'; if he charges prices lower than those of his competitors, he can be prosecuted for 'unfair competition' or 'restraint of trade'; and if he charges the same prices as his competitors, he can be prosecuted for 'collusion' or 'conspiracy.'

"I recommend to your attention an excellent book entitled The Antitrust Laws of the U.S.A. by A. D. Neale..."

- and specifically on monopoly as a threat only when enforced by government:

Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal Ch 7 "Notes On The History Of American Free Enterprise"

From the very first issue of The Objectivist Newsletter Vol. 1 No. 1 & No. 2 January and February, 1962 "Check Your Premises -- Antitrust: the Rule of Unreason" in addition to "Choose Your Issues"

"They seem to be a double move planned by the statists, one to destroy intellectual freedom, the other to destroy economic freedom. The chief means to the first is the Federal Communications Commission, to the second—the Anti-Trust laws..."

Opposition to anti trust laws is also discussed as a major theme in:

The Objectivist Newsletter Vol. 1 No. 3 March, 1962 "Check Your Premises -- Have Gun, Will Nudge"

The Objectivist Newsletter Vol. 1 No. 4 April, 1962 "BOOKS: Ten Thousand Commandments by Harold Fleming"

The Objectivist Newsletter Vol. 1 No. 5 May, 1962 "Check Your Premises -- Who Will Protect Us from Our Protectors?"

The Objectivist Newsletter Vol. 2 No. 7 July, 1963 "Check Your Premises -- Vast Quicksands"

The Objectivist Newsletter Vol. 2 No. 8 August, 1963 "BOOKS: The Language of Dissent, by Lowell B. Mason"

The Objectivist Newsletter Vol. 3 No. 5 May, 1964 "Intellectual Ammunition Department - What is the Objectivist position in regard to patents and copyrights?"

The Ayn Rand Letter Vol. 1, No. 3 November 8, 1971 "The Moratorium On Brains"

The Ayn Rand Letter Vol. 1, No. 23 August 14, 1972 "A Preview"

The Ayn Rand Letter Vol. 1, No. 26 September 25, 1972 "How To Read (And Not To Write)"

The Ayn Rand Letter Vol. II, No. 23 August 13, 1973 "Censorship: Local And Express"

The Ayn Rand Letter Vol. III, No. 4 November 19, 1973 "The Energy Crisis"

The Ayn Rand Letter Vol. III, No. 11 February 25, 1974 "Ideas V. Goods"

The Ayn Rand Letter Vol. III, No. 15 April 22, 1974 "Ideas V. Men"

Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal Ch 11 "Patents And Copyrights"

Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal Ch 15 "Is Atlas Shrugging?"

Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal Ch 20 "The New Fascism: Rule By Consensus"

The Art of Nonfiction Ch 3 "Judging One's Audience"

The Ayn Rand Column "Progress or Sacrifice" July 1, 1962

The Ayn Rand Column "The Cold Civil War" July 22, 1962

The Ayn Rand Column "Government by Intimidation" July 29, 1962

(Some of the articles were later republished in anthologies other than Capitalism.)

Actually, Apple's PC share is growing, even though they push their tablets more aggressively. I agree that Apple is making changes to their OS-X operating system to make it more like IOS used in their iPhone and iPad. Even without the cloud, migrating data between Apple devices is effortless. I have noticed heavy marketing to push users to the cloud, but I continue to ignore them.

It almost seems like the only way to maintain any sense of independence is to stick with Linux and use the Dark net instead of the regular internet.

Thank You -- truth plus truth = new truth. . lovely! -- j
.

Hegelian Dialectic

I have heard that explanation more than once;;; it makes
perfect sense, like government creating chaos in the
healthcare world and then rushing in to clean it up! -- j
.

While I like the MS OS (though, don't like the Win10 campaign), that company pays more than a token allegiance to the liberal causes. So you have a capitalist mega-corp that supports liberal philosophy and dislikes open source.

Maybe a bit confused?

Jan

"The Antitrust laws—an unenforceable, uncompliable, unjudicable mess of contradictions—have for decades kept American businessmen under a silent, growing reign of terror." - Ayn Rand, Choose Your Issues.

As long as open source is voluntary, why should an Objectivist object?