Windows Weekly Episode 779 Transcript
Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word.
Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.
Leo Laporte (00:00:00):
It's time for windows weekly. Paul Thurrotts here, Mary Jo Foley is here. Paul's installed the latest version of windows 1122 H two. He has some updates and I'll ask the critical question. Should I install 22 H two big big news for PC makers, Dell and Lenovo. And what's the deal with duck? Duck go well, it's all coming up next on windows, weekly podcasts you love from people you trust. This is tweet.
Leo Laporte (00:00:36):
This is windows weekly with Paul Thurrott and Mary Jo Foley episode 779 recorded Wednesday, June 1st, 2022 senior on say this episode of windows weekly is brought to you by user way.org, user ways of world's number one accessibility solution. And it's committed to enabling the fundamental human right of digital accessibility for everyone. So when you're ready to make your site compliant, deciding which solution to use is an easy choice to make, go to user way.org/TWiT for 30% off user ways, AI powered accessibility solutions, and by Melissa, make sure your customer contacts data is up to date. Try Melissa's API in the developer portal. It's easy to log on, sign up and start playing in the API sandbox. 24 7. Get started today with 1000 records cleaned free at melissa.com/TWiT and by hacker rank, it's time to reboot your technical interviews with hacker ranks. Easy to use tools with a premade question. Library, code playback, and built in whiteboard. You'll be conducting better technical interviews and instantly identifying the right talent. Go to hacker rank.com/ww to start a better tech interview for free today. Hello dozers, it's time for windows weekly. Once again, gathering around the virtual window to talk about Microsoft with Paul Thra thera.com. He is in the us of a today. You never know. You
Paul Thurrott (00:02:13):
Never know it's true. I am
Leo Laporte (00:02:16):
Also here with us, Mary Jo Foley, all about microsoft.com or heating net blog. She is in the USA as well in New York, New York. I am <laugh>. Will there be a big parade today for the queen 70th Jubilee? No maybe in Queens they should do that. It's named after isn't it?
Paul Thurrott (00:02:33):
I don't, I don't think that's
Leo Laporte (00:02:36):
No <laugh> no, no, I don't think so. No. No. All right. Senior on say it's time to talk windows 11. What's the latest,
Paul Thurrott (00:02:47):
Well, there is no latest. We don't have a bill. Do we?
Leo Laporte (00:02:50):
Oh, we usually do by now. Right?
Paul Thurrott (00:02:52):
Well, yeah, often
Leo Laporte (00:02:54):
It's a short week. It's a short week. Oh yeah, this is, yeah. They didn't have a Monday. So tomorrow, maybe
Mary Jo Foley (00:02:59):
Tomorrow.
Leo Laporte (00:03:00):
Yeah,
Paul Thurrott (00:03:00):
Maybe.
Leo Laporte (00:03:01):
Yeah.
Mary Jo Foley (00:03:02):
Plus there's no bill. I mean, what are you waiting for? There's gonna be like some fixes. There's not gonna be anything at it. There
Leo Laporte (00:03:07):
You go. The voice of reasons.
Paul Thurrott (00:03:09):
Most likely once again. Yeah. We could get like a, a, a dev channel build or something. No. Okay. I think it's
Leo Laporte (00:03:15):
Over.
Mary Jo Foley (00:03:16):
No, we could, but come on. You're you're holding out hope. Like there's gonna be some big boom feature. No, no.
Leo Laporte (00:03:23):
Well you know, I'll start to
Paul Thurrott (00:03:25):
Care about this, the candle and the wind. You're the candle. I'm the candle. And you are the wind.
Mary Jo Foley (00:03:28):
<Laugh> exactly slowing it out.
Paul Thurrott (00:03:31):
Like put down the candle and go to bed. If
Mary Jo Foley (00:03:34):
It's time to put down the candle. As
Leo Laporte (00:03:35):
Soon as Shanghai releases my Dell XPS, I will, I will care about this. You will. Right. So don't really, yeah. Should I be on the in, on an insider ring of some of some sort you think so,
Paul Thurrott (00:03:51):
Given the timing, I, you know, last week, my tip was <laugh> contrary to Mary Jo's facial expression. <Laugh> <laugh> I, I have since upgraded all of the computers that I could use to 22 H two using one of the methods I talked about last week, I mostly, I used the sign into the insider program for the beta channel reboot, install the build, and then say, you want to be off of this as soon as the final build
Leo Laporte (00:04:19):
Is out. That's the shutting maneuver. You spoke mm-hmm <affirmative> yeah,
Paul Thurrott (00:04:23):
Yeah, yeah. So that's worked fine. I, I I, it's a weird thing. You know, windows 11 was not much of an upgrade itself. Really. When you think about it, once you get past the UI, there's a kind of a handful of things that are pretty useful, but I mean, nothing.
Leo Laporte (00:04:39):
Can I ask a question?
Leo Laporte (00:04:40):
Are you on it right now? <Laugh> yes. Cause it's breaking up.
Paul Thurrott (00:04:46):
Yeah, it is. I've had this problem this week. I don't think it, I think it's my connection.
Leo Laporte (00:04:49):
It's 22 H two baby.
Paul Thurrott (00:04:51):
Like it's the eight, the the hot and hazy humid. It's the weather
Leo Laporte (00:04:56):
Problem, the weather. And I think
Mary Jo Foley (00:04:58):
It's been really hot. I
Leo Laporte (00:05:00):
Don't think that's gonna do it. <Laugh>
Paul Thurrott (00:05:03):
Yeah, this happened this morning or the other morning. I dunno.
Mary Jo Foley (00:05:06):
It's been hot.
Leo Laporte (00:05:08):
It's getting hot in here. All right. Well, whatever. It's okay. It seems like it's better
Paul Thurrott (00:05:11):
Now. It's an irony that my internet connection in Mexico is better than it is
Leo Laporte (00:05:15):
Here. Isn't that interesting. Yeah.
Mary Jo Foley (00:05:17):
Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:05:19):
But you feel confident that 22 H two is reliable enough to actually do this show on <laugh>
Mary Jo Foley (00:05:26):
He's a fool. What can he say? Yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:05:29):
Yeah,
Paul Thurrott (00:05:30):
Yeah. I guess I do.
Leo Laporte (00:05:31):
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I far be it for me to
Paul Thurrott (00:05:38):
Quail. I never drew a correlation between the build and the problems I'm having. But now that you say that it's
Leo Laporte (00:05:44):
No. Why would it have anything to do with that?
Paul Thurrott (00:05:47):
It's Microsoft software. What are
Leo Laporte (00:05:49):
We worried about? Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (00:05:49):
It's always high quality. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:05:51):
So again, I'll ask the question. Should I, you talked yesterday last week, about how I could put 22 H two on there. Yes. But should I, is the,
Paul Thurrott (00:06:02):
I would
Leo Laporte (00:06:03):
Really? Why not? In other words. Yeah. Yeah. You said last week that all the bugs have been fixed. <Laugh>
Paul Thurrott (00:06:13):
I don't know that I said that, but I, I, I there different things were said
Leo Laporte (00:06:20):
Things were said, things were said not all of which he wants to stand behind, but okay.
Paul Thurrott (00:06:25):
Yeah. Yeah. There's little things in it that I kinda like, you know, little, just little, little bits you notice it's not nothing major it's they really haven't done much to fix some of the things we complained about with like the immature task bar, et cetera, et cetera. Right. but there's, you know, there's some more start customization things, which I think are nice. The file Explorer enhancements are nice.
Mary Jo Foley (00:06:48):
Stickers. I know you want the stickers. That's
Paul Thurrott (00:06:50):
Stickers is not one I've. I can't say I've no spent too much time with what
Leo Laporte (00:06:55):
Are
Paul Thurrott (00:06:55):
You spotlight on the desktop?
Leo Laporte (00:06:56):
What do you mean by stickers
Paul Thurrott (00:07:00):
In your deepest, darkest imagination? How stupid do you think that could be?
Leo Laporte (00:07:03):
Like bugs bunny? Like a little, yeah.
Paul Thurrott (00:07:07):
Like graphical stickers,
Leo Laporte (00:07:08):
Look, graphical sticker.
Mary Jo Foley (00:07:10):
Customize your desktop with stickers.
Leo Laporte (00:07:13):
Yeah. For what? 11 year olds.
Paul Thurrott (00:07:15):
Yeah. You know how sometimes people put a bunch of bumper stickers on the outside of
Leo Laporte (00:07:18):
The car. Yeah. Oh,
Paul Thurrott (00:07:19):
It's these now imagine you only did that on the inside of the glove box. Only you could see it sometimes. <Laugh> that's what this is like, if
Leo Laporte (00:07:26):
You can read this you're too close. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> yeah. Okay. Wow. That is not a feature. I would've <laugh> I would've upgraded for, but you know,
Paul Thurrott (00:07:36):
But at least it takes extra steps to get to task manager, which by the way, in 22, H two has been visually overhauled for the first time since oh, wow. I don't know. Windows 10 or windows eight one. I don't know. It's been a while.
Leo Laporte (00:07:47):
Interesting.
Mary Jo Foley (00:07:48):
Yeah. Yeah. But for normal people, should you be on 22 H two right now the answer is no we're catering. We should
Paul Thurrott (00:07:55):
Not. Are we catering to normal people
Mary Jo Foley (00:07:56):
Though? Yes, we should be. <Laugh> there's not my, my point is there's no feature. That's really big at this point, unless you care about the start menu customization thing. And they're gonna keep patching this thing for the next several months,
Paul Thurrott (00:08:14):
This some nice snap improvements, which I think are kind of cool discoverability improvements. No. Okay. That's fine. The folders look pretier if you have stuff in them, nothing.
Leo Laporte (00:08:26):
Nothing.
Paul Thurrott (00:08:27):
<Laugh>.
Leo Laporte (00:08:28):
But, but what you're really saying, I believe is there's no detriment to doing it. So you might as well,
Mary Jo Foley (00:08:36):
Is that what you're saying? You're just gonna be a tester, right? If you do it, you're in the pool of testers.
Leo Laporte (00:08:40):
So I shouldn't do it.
Paul Thurrott (00:08:43):
I think Mary Jo's been in the COVID lockdown for too long.
Leo Laporte (00:08:47):
<Laugh> <laugh>
Mary Jo Foley (00:08:48):
I think I'm, I think sometimes it's good to get a little dose of realism on the show. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:08:54):
Yeah. Right now I'm confused. Do I want to be AALL or do I want to be a Mary Jo?
Paul Thurrott (00:09:00):
Oh boy.
Mary Jo Foley (00:09:00):
I don't even think that's a question.
Leo Laporte (00:09:06):
I think. So it will come with, what will it come with? It will come with windows 1121 H
Paul Thurrott (00:09:13):
1, 2, 1 H two, I guess
Leo Laporte (00:09:15):
There is a 21 H two. Okay.
Mary Jo Foley (00:09:17):
Yeah. Okay. Probably 20 two's
Paul Thurrott (00:09:19):
Two first. The first release. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:09:21):
22 H one.
Mary Jo Foley (00:09:22):
No,
Paul Thurrott (00:09:22):
2 21 H two.
Leo Laporte (00:09:24):
<Laugh> not 22. H H 2 21 H two. Not
Paul Thurrott (00:09:28):
So 22 H is two
Leo Laporte (00:09:29):
Is one H two, one H one.
Mary Jo Foley (00:09:31):
That's right. There is the 21, 18 for windows 11 that's for windows 11. Got it for windows 11.
Leo Laporte (00:09:36):
So it's, it is a windows 11 machine. I noted that in the box. So it will be 21 H two. Okay. You think 22 H two. Is that much better? That I should probably. What did I, what did I have to do? I have to join the insider program to get it right?
Paul Thurrott (00:09:52):
Yeah, that's right.
Leo Laporte (00:09:54):
And mm-hmm <affirmative> and will I then be on, on a trail of tears for the rest of the year? Yeah. Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (00:10:00):
No, not for the rest of the year. You'll be on a trail of tears until 22 H two is formally released to the public. In which case you'll just then merge back into the,
Leo Laporte (00:10:10):
Then, then I will be normal again. Oh, okay. Yeah. Which ring is that?
Paul Thurrott (00:10:14):
<Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:10:14):
Beta beta. So Paul's recommendation has join the beta ring. Mary Jo's recommendation is what are you crazy?
Mary Jo Foley (00:10:22):
Yeah. My recommendation is stay on your stable mainstream channel. Yeah. It's so machine you care about you wanna use it
Paul Thurrott (00:10:30):
So risk diverse.
Leo Laporte (00:10:30):
I don't need to be <laugh> fancy. And, and mainly this is gonna be for the use in the radio show. When people ask you
Mary Jo Foley (00:10:37):
Questions, right? You want it to be solid. Right?
Leo Laporte (00:10:39):
I got, and I got a normal machine. I didn't get a graphics card. I didn't get, I get an I five. I only got 16 gigs of Ram. I didn't go crazy. And that was Paul. That was kinda what you said too. You wanna have a kind of a normal experience, right? It is 12th generation. That's kind of the main thing I'm looking at. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> is there anything any, any software that I would want to, you know, upgrade to, to take advantage of the 12th generation?
Mary Jo Foley (00:11:05):
<Laugh>
Paul Thurrott (00:11:06):
No, I actually I'm really curious. Have you tried a 12th gen chip set yet? No. Have you had
Leo Laporte (00:11:11):
Experiences? No.
Paul Thurrott (00:11:12):
Have you, so I, yes. Oh. And I've had the same weird experience with the two computers I've gotten for review so far. Oh,
Leo Laporte (00:11:19):
Which is, this is interesting. This is why I wanted to get it. Yeah, yeah,
Paul Thurrott (00:11:22):
Yeah. I, the first one I got, I, I thought this something's, this isn't right. Like something's wrong. And then it happened again on the next one. And there, I don't know. I I'm, I keep looking for people to say this in a review somewhere. I've never seen anyone else mention this, but the performance is not great right up front. Like there are weird problems. Oh, do little things that normally you don't think about cuz they just happen. All of a sudden the system will kind of freeze and like the window, you know, goes blank for a second cuz it's, you know, rendering correctly. Huh. And you think you're gonna have to start going into task manager and that just comes back. Is it
Leo Laporte (00:11:58):
Indexing, you think? Is it a service
Paul Thurrott (00:12:01):
Or what did it
Leo Laporte (00:12:02):
Heat? Did you get an I you get I seven S probably.
Paul Thurrott (00:12:06):
Yeah. I think they're both I seven S yeah. So
Leo Laporte (00:12:08):
That's one of the reasons I got the I five, because the early benchmarks I've seen show that seem to show
Paul Thurrott (00:12:13):
Actually a little faster. The
Leo Laporte (00:12:14):
I five's a little faster. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Because it's throttling issues.
Paul Thurrott (00:12:18):
I think there's a weird, right, right. It's it's the first time they've gone mainstream with this kind of hybrid architecture efficiency
Leo Laporte (00:12:26):
Course and performance scores, all LA.
Paul Thurrott (00:12:28):
Yep. And I know Microsoft's done some work to make that, you know, make sense, but it's, it goes away. I mean it, the first couple of days it's like, man, something's wrong with this? Don't think it's
Leo Laporte (00:12:38):
Unusual. You prob you, you know, that I think is not an unusual experience. I hear from people a lot that, you know, in the first few days and that's cuz of indexing and stuff
Paul Thurrott (00:12:48):
Like that. No, no, I, I sure. I, I just, I've just gotten so long without thinking about it and not having that experience. Right. I it's just really struck me.
Leo Laporte (00:12:57):
Right. But it's all better now.
Paul Thurrott (00:12:59):
Yeah. It's fine.
Leo Laporte (00:13:00):
Yeah. Interesting. And were there updates maybe that could have fixed something or it just,
Paul Thurrott (00:13:06):
That could have been, yeah. I mean, both of these machines were Lenovos. And I do because I'm me routinely check the Lenovo vantage app. Right, right. For firmware updates and things like that. Maybe, yeah. I don't know.
Leo Laporte (00:13:21):
Well, I'll, I'll give you another data point at some point as soon as yeah. I'm just curious, Shanghai releases my laptop. It's still <laugh> I understand the lockdown is ending in Shanghai, which is probably, is it okay? It's probably very good news after 65 days. So just
Paul Thurrott (00:13:39):
In time for the iPhone 14.
Leo Laporte (00:13:41):
Yeah. Isn't that interesting? How you gotta wonder how much of the reason they ended the mm-hmm <affirmative> lockdown was medical and how much of it was economic.
Paul Thurrott (00:13:50):
Oh, it's just like any other insurance, math. How many people need to die before this doesn't make sense. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:13:55):
You know, because it's not like it's all over. Oh yeah. Take down the barricades. We, we won.
Paul Thurrott (00:13:59):
We solved it. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:14:00):
We solved it. It's not like the virus went away. So I'm puzzled why they're taking the BA down the barricades, except that they probably realized it was an ill-advised thing anyway, in the first place and people are getting a little upset and it's costing them a lot of money.
Paul Thurrott (00:14:15):
65 days though.
Leo Laporte (00:14:16):
That's crazy long time. But Quanta, which makes Apple's laptops was in the shutdown. I don't know who makes Dell's I'm but it's coming from China. So in fact it says specifically it's coming from Shanghai. Cuz there's a big, I told you last week, the big banner on the page saying we don't know when we're not gonna start the clock. Yeah. Until it comes into the us. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> so don't look for a tracking number here. Yeah. Well I'm just, you know, I'm get, you can tell, I'm getting a little excited. You remember last time I had a windows machine, I asked you peppered you with questions. <Laugh> mm-hmm <affirmative> that'll be happening again.
Paul Thurrott (00:14:52):
No, I think you got a good one. Like this will be I'm excited. I like this. This is one I would consider spending my own money on
Leo Laporte (00:14:57):
For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Well I did.
Mary Jo Foley (00:15:00):
<Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:15:01):
Including $50. I'm excited on the McAfee thing.
Paul Thurrott (00:15:07):
<Laugh> really, I
Leo Laporte (00:15:08):
Don't remember them asking me if they had said, do you want any, you know, crap wear on your machine? I would've said no.
Paul Thurrott (00:15:15):
Yeah. That should be a box in the configurator. Yeah,
Mary Jo Foley (00:15:18):
It should.
Leo Laporte (00:15:18):
I think it's just a way of adding a little extra, you know, something, something, oh, you wanted that didn't you
Paul Thurrott (00:15:28):
That's the entire model I think in the PC space because
Leo Laporte (00:15:31):
I don't, I don't remember. And I think I would have, cuz I tell people don't whatever you do.
Mary Jo Foley (00:15:36):
Yeah. You wouldn't have chosen that
Leo Laporte (00:15:37):
If you oh yeah. Really want that. I mean, I guess I could have mixed, missed a, you know, a checkbox somewhere, but I don't think I did. There are a couple of little things like that. <Laugh> there's like, like I, I don't remember if I chose the ad advanced support, but they're charging me for that.
Mary Jo Foley (00:15:56):
Oh wow.
Leo Laporte (00:15:58):
Yeah. But well, and I, you know, I guess I, I don't normally buy that either, but I, I kind like that, you know, where they come and, you know, check you out, check it out, but you have to apparently do a phone call first and all that stuff. So right. Anyway enough about me. What about you?
Mary Jo Foley (00:16:17):
<Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:16:19):
How how is how's it going in the world at Casa day thro?
Paul Thurrott (00:16:24):
Well, this is the upgrades I was talking about. Yeah. So I've upgraded all the computers. I haven't touched my wife's computer because you know, I'm not insane, but
Mary Jo Foley (00:16:31):
<Laugh>
Paul Thurrott (00:16:33):
Although, you know, I feel like I've, I upgraded hers without letting her know. She wouldn't even notice. Right.
Mary Jo Foley (00:16:38):
Mm-Hmm <affirmative> right.
Leo Laporte (00:16:38):
Which is a good reason not to.
Mary Jo Foley (00:16:42):
Yep. Yeah,
Paul Thurrott (00:16:43):
Yeah, yeah. But I get a, you know, this is I'm, you know, this book that I keep talking about since last year and haven't actually published yet is all gonna be based on this version, so
Leo Laporte (00:16:54):
Oh, okay.
Paul Thurrott (00:16:55):
I used to field
Leo Laporte (00:16:56):
Guide to wins 1122 H two.
Paul Thurrott (00:16:58):
Well, it will just start with 22 H two. I, I just, I felt like the uptick was so slow on the first version anyway, and this is the one maybe they should have released. And I don't know. I have been kind of unexcited <laugh> yeah. But windows 11 to date. So trying to get there.
Leo Laporte (00:17:16):
Cool.
Mary Jo Foley (00:17:17):
What's the status of tabs and file Explorer on this. Not there. Right?
Paul Thurrott (00:17:23):
Not there, not
Mary Jo Foley (00:17:24):
There, not there. Yeah. So, but it could be added at any time, right?
Paul Thurrott (00:17:28):
That's right. Yep. Yeah. And it wouldn't surprise me. Right. Some random month this year.
Mary Jo Foley (00:17:33):
Yep.
Paul Thurrott (00:17:33):
Just kind of appears there could even be one of those day, one type updates where this thing mm-hmm, <affirmative>, you know, ships in September, whatever it is. Yeah. And then is
Leo Laporte (00:17:41):
That a hotly anticipated
Mary Jo Foley (00:17:43):
Update. So many people care. I don't know.
Leo Laporte (00:17:46):
Tabs in file Explorer. They do. Okay.
Paul Thurrott (00:17:49):
Okay. Yeah. This has been well, remember they were gonna have sets in windows 10, right. And then they pulled that there was some problem. And that was actually a pretty aggressive feature because that was gonna be tabs in any window, including application windows, like word and Excel. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> you know, that kind of thing. I thought that was, that was curiously far reaching. So just adding tabs to individual apps, to me makes sense. I don't see why they can't do it with final Explorer, but Hey, we have stickers. So that will just tie, you know, keep you tied it over until
Mary Jo Foley (00:18:23):
Exactly.
Paul Thurrott (00:18:23):
<Laugh> until we get tabs. I don't dunno.
Leo Laporte (00:18:30):
I just don't know. Yep. All right. Well, this is this is definitely the juiciest windows weekly in a long time. <Laugh>
Mary Jo Foley (00:18:38):
It's a rough week. Well, you get the holiday plus week after build. I'm like, oh, a scrap two day
Paul Thurrott (00:18:43):
Week. What do you want? It's
Leo Laporte (00:18:44):
All right. Hey,
Mary Jo Foley (00:18:45):
Scraping.
Leo Laporte (00:18:45):
There was, I had to do Mac break weekly yesterday and there's oh
Mary Jo Foley (00:18:49):
Man. You know,
Leo Laporte (00:18:49):
The day, the week before an apple event, nothing
Mary Jo Foley (00:18:52):
That's rough. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:18:53):
And they manage to get two and a squeeze two and a half hours out of it. Of course. There's wow. Three of them and there's only two of you, so
Mary Jo Foley (00:18:59):
Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:19:00):
Spotify
Paul Thurrott (00:19:01):
73 minutes, I think. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:19:03):
<Laugh> do the math. Yeah. Spotify releases a native arm version of its client on windows
Paul Thurrott (00:19:10):
11. For some reason. I hope I put in the notes. Yeah, I don't quite,
Paul Thurrott (00:19:15):
You know, so the issue just, just to restate this, the obvious, I guess most applications in the windows space are X 86, 6 64, right. 64 bit X 86, probably these days arm can emulate that and does, and it's okay. You know, it's not great. It's it's fine. I, I guess the theory here is that they do a date of arm version. It will be better performance, I guess. I don't know. So it's just a beta. You have to go to a particular, I think it's like their support website, community website. You have to uninstall the X 86 version if you've installed that. I assume that includes the store version eventually. I'm sure the store version will just give you that arm 64 version. And maybe that's maybe that's the point right there. If you do install this version, you won't be able to play video podcasts. So that's a temporary condition, but just so you know I, I, I feel like we could safely call out every single time any OEM or, or ISV, I guess releases an arm, 64 version of anything. Cause this doesn't really happen all that often, often,
Paul Thurrott (00:20:22):
But you know, Spotify's obviously a big deal.
Leo Laporte (00:20:23):
What does it mean? Does it mean mainstream support for arm is coming?
Paul Thurrott (00:20:31):
I don't even want to take that risk of saying that I'm not really sure what it
Leo Laporte (00:20:35):
Means. It's interesting. They would devote resources to it.
Mary Jo Foley (00:20:39):
I mean, Microsoft had a partnership with Spotify. Remember when they discontinued groove. Right. And they started telling people to use Spotify instead. So maybe that's why maybe they're like, you know what let's, let's give 'em a little let's firm, a bone let's do an native or windows on arm. <Laugh> they're also cause it's not for usage. Right. There's nobody using these PCs.
Paul Thurrott (00:20:59):
Yeah, no. I mean, but Spotify, there's a, I don't know what you call this, but there's a weird little group of apps that are not really installed, but they're in your start venue in the third party apps. Right. And they can vary from computer to computer, but on this computer, I see Spotify, I see Disney plus I see prime video, Amazon prime video. And I see TikTok and I think that's it. Yeah. And I there's some partnership going on there. I don't know what the deal is or how it works, but I have never clicked on Disney plus, but I know if I do now, it will install it from the store and then the apple come up. Right. That it's like a, I don't know what you call that. It's a partnership thing. So maybe as a condition of getting yourself in front of every windows user like that, mm-hmm <affirmative> you might have to at least show you working on an armed version that
Mary Jo Foley (00:21:48):
You want. I bet you're right. That makes a lot of sense that that's I'm
Paul Thurrott (00:21:50):
Just guessing reason. Yeah. I have no idea. Yeah, no
Mary Jo Foley (00:21:52):
Idea. It's like mini crap wear like not full on crap wear, but like half there. Not really there until you press the button. <Laugh> exactly. <Laugh>
Paul Thurrott (00:22:03):
It's crap where as a service is what
Mary Jo Foley (00:22:05):
It's it is. That's what it is. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:22:10):
Oh, wow.
Paul Thurrott (00:22:11):
Okay. That's my guess. But I don't.
Mary Jo Foley (00:22:12):
Yeah, I think you're right. I bet. I bet you're right, because that's an advertising play to get your app. It featured right. If somebody hasn't already downloaded it. Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (00:22:23):
It's not look for a non-complicated app. Spotify's a complicated app, but you know, for a simple app. Yeah. It's a, you could basically check a box of visual studio, recom compile, and you get a native arm version it's automatic and put it in the story. You don't really have to do any work. I mean, you should test it obviously, but like, you know, that kind of thing should just work. Yeah. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> an application like Spotify or the office applications or visual studio soon. These are big complex applications. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> so it's gonna require some testing, but you know, if you want, I guess yeah. You know, that's a, that's my theory. I don't know.
Mary Jo Foley (00:22:56):
Mm-Hmm <affirmative> like it.
Leo Laporte (00:23:00):
Okie dokey.
Mary Jo Foley (00:23:02):
<Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:23:05):
Do you want, well, let's take a break and then we will get to the earnings mm-hmm <affirmative> from let's see how much Dell more Dell made thanks to charging me $49. Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (00:23:13):
They actually called you up by name, in their, in announcement, Leo. They said we wanted to thank Leo Laport for in the company for three months. That
Leo Laporte (00:23:21):
Changed the bottom line. Big time. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> big time. Our show today. I'm very happy to say is brought to you by user wade.org. In fact, if you go to our website, you will notice something kind of relatively new at the bottom of our website, there's a little button there for accessibility. And I'm very, I'm actually really proud of that. We put that there so that everybody can use our website and I gotta thank the folks@userway.org for making that possible. Let me let me give you a little tour of what user way can do user way.org. I'm talking about making your website, ADA compliant, accessible. Not only is it the right thing to do because you're opening up your website to a much larger group, 60 million plus people, you have a responsibility to make your site accessible. It's a public entity, so you gotta make it accessible.
Leo Laporte (00:24:21):
And with user way it's easy. That was my biggest concern was, oh, I can't afford it. Or it's gonna be too hard. No user way's really affordable. And it's really easy and incredible. It's AI powered it tirelessly, enforces all the accessibility guidelines, the w C a G WCA guidelines. And I love this. So do our engineers. It's one line of JavaScript. That's it? Because user way is so good. It's used by more than a million websites, including the big guys Coca-Cola Disney eBay. These are companies that really have to be accessible and user way can do that. As you get bigger, they scale with you. If they can handle Disney, absolutely they can handle you. They make best in class enterprise level accessibility tools available to you, your small or medium sized business. And then as you scale, you need user way and you're ready.
Leo Laporte (00:25:11):
It just makes business sense. Some of the biggest problems, nav menus, very difficult. So the way this works, if you're blind or you're using accessibility tools, there is what they call an accessibility layer. That's what the screen reader sees. So really what user way does, is make sure that all the information available to the front page to the sighted user is available to the browser in the accessibility layer. It changes colors. Now you've got your Pantone color for your business. Of course we do too. Doesn't change that, but it adjusts hu and luminance. So it's easier for people with vision issues to read. So user way will generate all tags. That's one of the reasons it needs AI. It can actually see the picture and generate an all tag that matches the picture automatically. You can go in if you want, you can modify it.
Leo Laporte (00:25:55):
Of course it fixes violations like vague links, fixes, broken links makes sure that your website uses accessible colors and you'll get a detailed report of all the violations that were fixed on your website. So you know exactly what it did. Plus you can work with it user way, integrates seamlessly with your site builder software, let user way help your business. Meet its compliance goals. Improve the experience for your users user way can make any website fully accessible, ADA compliant, and everyone who visits can browse seamlessly, customize it to fit their needs. It's a great way to show your brand's commitment to the millions of people with disabilities. It's the right thing to do user way. It can make any website fully accessible and ADA compliant with user way. Everyone who visits your site can browse seamlessly and customize it to fit their needs. It's also a perfect way to showcase your brand's commitment to millions of people with disabilities, go to user way.org/TWiT, and you'll get 30% off user ways. AI powered accessibility solution, user way, making the internet accessible for everyone. Visit user way.org/TWiT today. Now let us talk about results, quarterly results. How'd the, how'd the how my little how'd my company do. <Laugh>
Paul Thurrott (00:27:17):
Your company did great. Did they? So, and yeah, Dell and Lenovo. Yeah, both reported quarterly earnings. They're kind of on off quarters, like Dell's quarter ended on April 29th, 2022 or 2002 there. That's good. And it's a month Novo actually did. Yeah, well it's always kind of a month behind it's. Oh, okay. More typical for a quarterly or a quarter fiscal quarter tag, March 31st in March. Yeah. Yeah. You know? Yeah. That's the in Lenovo's calendar quarter, but that was also, yeah. They, you know, those things vary. So, but Lenovo and Dell both just announced record revenues actually in both cases. Right? So 16% gain for Dell to 26.1 billion, the quarter ending Jan or April 29th. So it's over 50%, but over 50% of their business is related to PCs. And thanks to what they described as continued strengthen commercial, PC sales this folks that part of the business, just commercial PC sales, there was 12, 12 billion in revenues.
Paul Thurrott (00:28:27):
Consumer PC revenues was 3.3 billion. So up 22% PCs, commercial PC sales. Wow. Just commercial pieces like by revenue. So this is sort of deflating my theory that the COVID era boom is over. Yeah. Because Lenovo, which is the world's biggest maker of computers also record revenue for both the quarter and the year <laugh> right. This revenue is of 71.6 billion. This is for the year 18 up 18% year over year, their, their PC business up 30% year over year <laugh> it's like crazy. Like I, neither one of them gave a, like a unit, you know, sale kind of figure, but just by revenue, like their PC businesses are going gangbusters. They both have other businesses obviously, but in both cases, the PC part of it is the biggest part.
Leo Laporte (00:29:18):
Do you think it's maybe, huh. Maybe businesses are saying uhoh hybrid. We better buy laptops for people mm-hmm
Paul Thurrott (00:29:25):
<Affirmative> well forced to kind of retreat from my previous position. Yes. I agree with that 100%. I <laugh>, I sort of thought, I thought this is, I figured we were gonna level out again, but well, yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:29:38):
But we thought people would be going back to the office again and that's true. Proving to be that's right. Not
Mary Jo Foley (00:29:44):
A mixed
Leo Laporte (00:29:44):
Bag. Yeah. A mixed bag. Yeah. Although you saw Elon Musk's memo to his employees, all Theves,
Paul Thurrott (00:29:51):
You're working somewhere else as
Leo Laporte (00:29:53):
What? Yeah. He said, you must be in the office 40 hours a week, or I gonna fire you and don't pretend that don't go to some satellite office that has nothing to do with your, your department. You gotta go to your department. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> wow.
Paul Thurrott (00:30:07):
He's so forward looking, you know? Yeah. The guy is progressive,
Leo Laporte (00:30:10):
Really a progressive genius, I think is the word I would use <laugh> yeah.
Mary Jo Foley (00:30:16):
So would he,
Leo Laporte (00:30:17):
Yeah. So would he,
Paul Thurrott (00:30:19):
Would he, he's the genius just asking though, would
Leo Laporte (00:30:21):
He,
Mary Jo Foley (00:30:22):
Yeah. You know, what I think is up with this PC demand too, is there are a lot of older PCs in the market, right? Like, like I forget what percentage of PCs are older than five years, but it's still a really big number. Right. And,
Paul Thurrott (00:30:35):
Oh, that's definitely true. Yeah. So
Mary Jo Foley (00:30:37):
Maybe, but like a lot of people are like, it's time to upgrade these, right? Like these are getting
Paul Thurrott (00:30:41):
There have been these cycles in the past, right. That were kind of tied to different versions of windows. Like windows seven was just time. Great. It was gangbusters. We know that story. Windows 10 followed windows eight again that actually coincided with a weird downturn in the PC BI, but the, despite some shenanigan, Ontario Mar's part <laugh> windows 10 uptick was actually very fast and, and rightfully so. I mean, windows eight was garbage and people wanted to get past that. Plus the support time cycle or support life cycle for windows seven was inning. So that made sense. But you know, then they kept windows 10 in the market for like six years which by the way, is longer than XP was in the market as the only new version windows. Right. Which at the time was an incredible thing. And it was really bad, you know, we'll never do that again, you know, but they kept windows 10 around. And I was this, you know, by the way, I was just writing about that part of it. I was reliving our confusion at that January, 2015 event where they said that windows 10 would be supported for the lifetime of the device. And everyone looked at each other, like, what does that, what does that mean? Like what? That, that's not a,
Leo Laporte (00:31:46):
That
Mary Jo Foley (00:31:46):
Doesn't mean they never have said what it means.
Paul Thurrott (00:31:48):
No, they never, no, but you know, it opened a loophole for them to be able to do things like midstream when they had the problem with sky lake and Intel, they could go back and say, well, Intel, we wanted Intel to support these people. They won't do it now. We're not gonna support older Intel chip sets on windows 10 that gave them their, well, we said it was supported from the lifetime of the device. Well now the lifetime, the device is up. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> but then you're right. They never explained that. So yeah, I, I think that combined with the, the whole pandemic couple years, and then now we're in this hybrid era. Yeah. A lot of PCs out there that, by the way, I think it worked fine they've they PCs are mm-hmm, <affirmative> more reliable than they've ever been. They last a long time. Yeah. But you know, the, the quad core thing happened four ish years ago. Now we're going to this hybrid core situation. We're finally getting, you know full HD webcams, you know, modern ports, all this stuff. I mean, an upgrade these days would probably good. Be good for a lot of people. So yeah.
Paul Thurrott (00:32:49):
I thought it was gonna go south, but <laugh> that's anyway,
Leo Laporte (00:32:52):
That's mm-hmm <affirmative> but businesses what's happened. Do bus. Okay. So do businesses think that way like, oh, this would be good. You know, you'd have no, no,
Paul Thurrott (00:33:02):
No, no business has ever said, we think this would be good.
Leo Laporte (00:33:04):
We don't care what that user experience is.
Paul Thurrott (00:33:08):
Well, they, I mean, look, I,
Leo Laporte (00:33:09):
They care about security. Maybe that's an important thing they care about. Obviously for some staff, like, you know, where productivity is important, like your engineers, maybe you wanna make sure you have a very fast machine, but for, for frontline workers, for office workers. No, I don't think they care.
Mary Jo Foley (00:33:27):
No, I think it depends on the business. Right? Like small businesses, less so, oh yeah. Don't because they don't wanna spend the money. That's expensive. Right. But a lot of businesses like to touch things once they talk about one touch, so they wanna upgrade windows office in the hardware altogether, do it. All right. That makes sense. That's the goal, right? <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:33:46):
Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (00:33:46):
Or do it, I mean, not even do that, if they can ship it yeah. To the customer, the end user, have them log in with their corporate credentials. Yeah. And then have all those policies come down kind of a zero touch situation.
Leo Laporte (00:33:57):
Sure. We, our editors machines, they all use Dell workstations mm-hmm <affirmative> were getting a little superannuated. They were running windows eight mm-hmm <affirmative>. So we bought all new machines, but you know, it's taken, Brussel's got a, he's got, 'em all lined up on a desk and he is got, it's taken him weeks to kind of configure them all, get 'em all just right. Just so get everything working and then he's gonna put in it, but you're right. Touch once he doesn't want to go back and, and mess with that. He's gonna, in fact, that's why we are still running windows eight because it was all set up. It was perfect. There was no reason to change. Yeah.
Mary Jo Foley (00:34:34):
Wow. I can't believe you guys were running windows eight still.
Leo Laporte (00:34:36):
Well now we're windows 11. Sure. Yeah. You know, we use Adobe premier and actually the editors probably rarely exit premiere. Right. So they don't see the operating system so much, but I understand that, but, but, you know, that gives you some idea of how long we waited. It's I dunno, is that 10 years, eight years
Paul Thurrott (00:34:53):
You don't, you don't fix something that works
Leo Laporte (00:34:55):
<Laugh> yeah. Well you don't right. Not because you're cheap that's because you don't it's working. You
Mary Jo Foley (00:35:00):
Don't. Yeah. Like the Dell I had that's yeah. I had a pretend.
Paul Thurrott (00:35:02):
That's really interesting. Yeah. So one of, one of the, I, again, I've just been writing about this, but one of the promises for windows 10, and this was something directed at both individuals and businesses was this notion that upgrades are seamless. Now, you know, everyone has this notion in their head, like you can't upgrade from one version to another because something will go horribly wrong. Mm. And in the case of an enterprise or a big business, obviously that would just have to do with complexity. Not that probably there'd be huge problems, but for individuals, I think a lot of people, anyone who had ever heard this notion of upgrading windows had probably said, no, this is, I, I don't know why I know this, but I know this is horrible. Yeah. And they tried to sell this notion that it wasn't horrible anymore. And the way they pushed that home was to <laugh> ship like 36 upgrades a year. But they went kind of went overboard there, but yeah. It's interesting to me that your business actually skipped windows 10 which, you know, I honestly is probably the most successful version of windows that ever has ever been released just by volume. You
Leo Laporte (00:36:05):
Know, I think it's just the accident of the calendar of when we bought. Yeah. Yeah. We, you know, we bought those because apple had screwed up final cut pro and taken out a feature that we had to have. So we had, before that they had Mac pros. So we placed the Mac pros with the Dell precision workstation. So that, yeah, that's gotta be almost 10 years ago. And we just, and there was no reason to move. They were fast enough. There were good enough and gosh, darn it. People liked it. So we just, we stayed with it. Yeah. And I guess that that's what was happening. Things were starting to fail or I, I don't, you know, there was some triggering event and then you go, you look at the budget and you say, well, how much is that gonna cost? And it's a lot of money. These are
Paul Thurrott (00:36:49):
Five
Leo Laporte (00:36:50):
Or six or 7,000 each. I don't know what they are. And there's six of 'em five
Paul Thurrott (00:36:53):
Or six of 'em. You got several years of use out of them. I mean, it's,
Leo Laporte (00:36:55):
Yeah, we got our, we, we, you know, and we're like any small business, we're not fat, you know, we're yeah. We're not Google where, you know, Hey, good. You know, you're gonna, we gotta have the latest, I get the latest you know, our host, well, our hosts do, cuz they're talking about this stuff. But so the hosts all get upgrades, you know, every few years, not all the time, not as much as me. Yep. I get a new thing at the drop of a hat, but I am spending my money as opposed to everybody else they're spending my money. <Laugh> so, so but I just, I think it was working fine and until it wasn't and then we replace it. Right. Yep. And, and I think that's the way any small business is gonna work. If you're a really rich fat business, maybe not, but, but any business is gonna be, that's just
Paul Thurrott (00:37:46):
Sensible. Yeah. Businesses are not tied to windows releases. They don't care about don't care stuff. We don't care. The most part. I, I, I think in my head, I guess what I was going through was just this notion that, like I said, there were, there were these super cycles that occurred for various reasons. Windows seven was one and windows 10 was one. And so when you look at windows 11, you think, well, objectively, this doesn't do enough to push the needle. Why would anyone upgrade end mass mm-hmm <affirmative>? And the real reason is it's not so much windows 11, although maybe that was a little bit of a push for people just, you know, better visuals, whatever. But it literally has been <laugh>. So over six years since they released the, the first version of windows 10, and that's a really long time in the scope of any version of windows like I said, it's been in market longer than any version of windows had been without being replaced by a new version. You know, like windows XP was released in 2001 and then Vista came out in the end of 2006. So that was only, you know, five years. And at the time it, it felt like, you know, forever.
Mary Jo Foley (00:38:46):
Yeah. I feel like in the older days, people used to think about, okay, if a new version of windows comes out, we'll get new hardware to go with it. Now I feel like it's more about the end of support. Right? So, oh yes, yes. Around 2025 and windows 10 goes outta support, there should be a pretty big surge in PC sales, I would think.
Paul Thurrott (00:39:08):
Right. So that was what gonna be my question, assuming this did windows 11, do what Microsoft, I think really wanted it to do
Mary Jo Foley (00:39:15):
Was that why market sales
Paul Thurrott (00:39:16):
Are, are up <laugh> but I, I don't think it as honestly, windows 11, no, just based on the percentages that we see for windows 11 out in the world. Although the next story I'll, I'll give you a little bit of contrary information which I actually don't agree with, but I, I, I, I think, I really think it's, you know, businesses do their own thing on their own, like your business, right. So they do it's you're on this several year upgrade path. And I think with window, because of the windows 10, they finally kind of came out and said, all right, look, we're we are gonna support windows 10 for 10 years. Right. They never said that in the beginning. They didn't say that until last year, I think. And I was surprised. Yeah. Oh no, we were always gonna do that. We were just kidding about the whole life cycle of the device. <Laugh> and I don't know what that was about, but yeah. I, I, I don't think that's enough to get, you know, businesses like, eh, who cares? Whatever. Okay, fine. Yeah. And now, now, like, but, but now it's gonna expire like Mary Jo said. So I think between now and then what we're gonna see is a, a few years of these corporate type upgrades mm-hmm <affirmative> think on their own.
Mary Jo Foley (00:40:16):
I think they wanted,
Paul Thurrott (00:40:17):
I think not driven by 11, right?
Mary Jo Foley (00:40:20):
No, I think windows 11, they wanted to try to push people to buy new PCs and the way they did that was by adding those CPU and TPU requirements. And they're saying, okay, let's force some hardware to be obsolete for people. Right. And that will make up, make people say, okay, if we do want windows 11, we're gonna have to buy new hardware. And I think that hasn't really happened on mass yet, but when you're looking to upgrade and going forward, you'll be like, oh, wait, I can't run windows 11 on this because of the CPU TPU thing
Paul Thurrott (00:40:52):
And windows 10 is expiring and
Mary Jo Foley (00:40:54):
Right, right. Like you're getting like squeezed kind of right.
Paul Thurrott (00:40:59):
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. I just, yeah. So I, I don't remember what happened after this was announced, but when windows 10 came out TPM 1.2 or 2.0 were optional features at that time, Microsoft said in one year TPM 2.0 will be required. Now I'm guessing that never happened because when wins 11 shipped TPM 2.0 was required and it hit the fan at that point. Right. So yeah, I'm guessing they got pushback then, and this is something they've wanted to do for several years. And they're finally doing it with windows 11 and getting everyone on board. But you know, Leo's computers, I don't know exactly what they are, what gen Intel processor, they have, et cetera, et cetera. But like I said, we're, we're actually at the point where, you know, the PC industry kind of moves slowly with regards to innovative new, you know, anything, hardware related.
Paul Thurrott (00:41:54):
Mm-Hmm <affirmative> you want to talk like six, seven years and compare that chip set that's in there, the speed of the Ram the type of graphics card you can get, how integrated graphics now are actually excellent or can be excellent. You know, the port situation, like I said, Thunderbolt for was not a thing, you know, five to seven years ago. That's a pretty good upgrade all of a sudden, you know? Yeah. It was a pretty good upgrade when Intel went from dual core to quad core with the eighth gen. Now we're on 12th gen and now they're going hybrid core mm-hmm <affirmative> I just, I, it, it is fair to say that computers have changed a lot.
Leo Laporte (00:42:29):
Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (00:42:29):
The battery life is still terrible.
Leo Laporte (00:42:31):
<Laugh> but, but far as the, how about the 12th generation? Are you getting better at battery life on on your Lenovos?
Paul Thurrott (00:42:37):
No, not that I've seen.
Leo Laporte (00:42:38):
Oh, that's disappointing. Mm-Hmm it is by the way judge Judy has just come into the courtroom <laugh> and oh yeah. She talked to the jury and said, you didn't finish your job. You gotta finish filling out the forms. So she has sent them back into the jury room. Oh man. To fill out the, what they consider would be compensatory damages. <Laugh> write in any amount. So juries back. Interesting. And they're back
Paul Thurrott (00:43:03):
To, that's basically what San your onsite told me. I didn't finish filling out a form
Leo Laporte (00:43:06):
Senior, not fills, filled out the compensatory damages. We need to know <laugh> damages. We don't need know damages. I'm sorry. I shouldn't do that. Anyway, I, you know, I just wanted, let everybody know that we are keeping on top of the big stories of the day
Paul Thurrott (00:43:24):
<Laugh> yeah. Yes.
Leo Laporte (00:43:25):
Following it, close following
Paul Thurrott (00:43:27):
Water with this PC nonsense.
Leo Laporte (00:43:29):
<Laugh> she really does look like judge Judy too, by the way. I just, you know, it's not I, maybe it is judge Judy. I don't know. She's you know, she's off the air. She's it's her sister it's her's TWiTn. It's her digital TWiTn. Yeah. This
Paul Thurrott (00:43:43):
Is an entertainment industry thing. So
Leo Laporte (00:43:49):
Did you talk about the edge story? No. No. So I think that's kind of interesting.
Paul Thurrott (00:43:55):
I do too. Yeah. So the headline here is this, this came from a company I've never heard of Atlas VPN, and they're, they're really using data from, from two different places. And then they're coming up with raw numbers for how many browsers there are in the world. So it's kind of interesting. We know that like stat counter for example, will give us percentages for bread browsers and also desktop operating systems and things like that. They call it market share. That's actually usage share. But the idea is that like 65% of the web is, you know, a webs browse with Chrome. Like we know that right. But how many Chrome users are there. Right. And they went to where's the data where they got this from the, the, they used what they called in internet, world stats, internet, user metric. So they used these two stats and they converted them into numbers, like raw numbers.
Paul Thurrott (00:44:41):
And so what they found was that there's like 3.4, almost billion people using Google Chrome, that safari just this month surpassed 1 billion. So safari, apple safari is the second web browser have over a billion users. Right. Which is an incredible number. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative> 900 something. <Laugh>, you know, thousand of those, or obviously on iOS or iPad OS and then some number on Mac or whatever. But you know, that safari is an apple only product. I mean, that kind of shows you Apple's reach right there. It's incredible. But down there, number three, right. We knew that edge had surpassed Firefox usage within the last month or two, 200, and we're gonna call it 213 million people are using Microsoft edge. They're in third place, a distant third to be sure. But ahead of Firefox, which is about 179 million and a Samsung internet, which only runs on Android, mobile devices is not quite 150 million and an operas at about 109 million.
Paul Thurrott (00:45:40):
Okay. So's some numbers it's kind of neat and you can see the chart and how big things are, but this was the commentary that they had about edge <laugh>. It's like, it's, I just disagree with this. But anyway, since the release of windows 11, Microsoft said it as the default browser in all devices and made it difficult for uses to change to the preferred option. That's true. That is absolutely true. We complained about that. Microsoft has made it a little bit easier. In fact, that's one of the features that's in 22 H two, right? The, the, oh yeah, true. You know, the, the default single button option, which is yeah. Which isn't a hundred percent, but you know, it's mostly what people want. Yeah. Therefore they continue edge received a significant increase in its user base. Yeah. Not really. Right. Like windows 11.
Paul Thurrott (00:46:26):
Isn't really on that many computers. Like it's not, I don't, I don't, I, I, this is, this is, I think we all understand this notion of the power of defaults. Right. But I also think that I was just thinking about the think about 20 years ago, Microsoft was found guilty of sweeping antitrust violations. Right? The key complaint was that Microsoft bundled internet Explorer into windows, and they did it in such a way to harm com competitors. They deeply integrated this system into windows for no good reason, which by the way, is absolutely true. And they did it because they wanted there be to be no way to tear out internet Explorer, like you'd be forced to use internet Explorer. The thing is <laugh> if, as a user you could use internet Explorer to install Firefox at the time or the Chrome later, or whatever browser and use that instead.
Paul Thurrott (00:47:21):
Like there was there's no, there's no problem doing that when ever including back then. And yet that was a huge problem today. Microsoft flash forward 20 years, antitrust is focused on Google and apple, Facebook, maybe me or whatever. Well, we'll screw around a little bit here. See if anyone notices <laugh>, you know, like they're back at they're, they're back to the kind of these dirty tricks. Again, they made it hard windows 11. Now windows 11 is not on that many different or many computers by the time it is on a lot of computers. It will be just, well, not exactly just, but it will be much like it was before you can click a button, default browser or all set. You can use anything you want. So I mean, compared to like, you know, iOS where yeah. You can use the different browser and yeah, you can set it as the default, but you're using their browser under the covers.
Paul Thurrott (00:48:09):
Like you can't not use their browser what they've done, even what they've done in windows 11, as much as it offends me is not all that bad. I mean, comparatively speaking, I think it's terrible, but I think it's just mean because it's just, it just hurts normal people. I don't even understand what the point of it is. But to, to say that like edge surpassed the usage of Firefox because of this tactic is you have to pretend that Firefox hasn't been on the decline for the past several years. Right? Like every year Firefox usage hasn't been going down. So, I mean,
Leo Laporte (00:48:44):
Which hurts me by the way. Yeah. I'm on an active campaign to get everybody used Firefox. I don't know why people are turning away from Firefox.
Paul Thurrott (00:48:56):
I can, I mean, I can't, I can only speak to my own experience. I think what I've noticed using Firefox is that it doesn't perform as well.
Leo Laporte (00:49:04):
I don't find that to be true.
Paul Thurrott (00:49:06):
Yeah. See, I've I always, that's always the one that gets me, but there are little differences in the way it does things like downloads and right click, like the developer tools, which I used to get images for articles or it's just a bunch of little things, just little things.
Leo Laporte (00:49:19):
It doesn't,
Paul Thurrott (00:49:20):
Well,
Leo Laporte (00:49:20):
I can walk
Paul Thurrott (00:49:21):
Away from PWAs, which I don't understand. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:49:25):
That bothers me, but Apple's not there either. So it's really Chrome and Microsoft or Google and Microsoft, so
Paul Thurrott (00:49:32):
Yeah, I don't think so. I was okay. Actually my, the point I wanted to make earlier was simply, I don't know that the power of defaults applies anymore when it comes to web browsers. I don't know that it ever applied, well, maybe back in 2000 it did, right. It is so easy to install another browser. Like the one thing, the biggest success of Chrome, I think has been getting people to forget that there's a browser on the computer. Right. And that they know in their heads, that's the first thing to do. Yep. Go get a Chrome. And maybe that explains Microsoft's behavior, by the way, because in their eyes they've created something that's just about the same as Chrome and why not just use ours and, you know, fair enough. But this notion that, you know, by the power of the default, Microsoft has, you know, kind of sneakily raise their engagement. It's like I don't know. I don't know.
Mary Jo Foley (00:50:20):
I don't know. I don't see. I think, I think you're underestimating. Maybe how many normal people just don't change the browser right. On the PC.
Leo Laporte (00:50:28):
That's, that's the thing there, faulty that defaults.
Mary Jo Foley (00:50:31):
Although what happens is no, your kids come home for Christmas for a long weekend and they're like, mom, you don't have, you don't have Chrome on this. Like the kids put it on the parents' PC. I don't think it's
Paul Thurrott (00:50:42):
So I'm not, I, I just, this is a weird coincidence, but just today, my neighbor emailed me or texted me, sorry, which I would just read to you. But I, you know, I'm using my phone for this <laugh> but he said, he said, I installed an update to windows eight, one. He's still on windows eight one. And we had this conversation, him and I, so he's still on windows eight one. And it erased all of my Chrome bookmarks. So even this guy, who's 65, 70 years old, retired. Yeah. Not particularly tech savvy uses Chrome, Chrome. Now he has a kid. I know his kid goes to MIT. Maybe his kid was the one who said someday 10 years ago, you gotta run Chrome. I don't know. But I mean, even this
Leo Laporte (00:51:22):
Well, Google, I think Google speaking of dirty tricks, Google resorts to all sorts of tricks to get you to use Chrome, including, I mean, I go to websites including my employer at premier networks where they say, well, you need Chrome. If you wanna watch this slideshow that we are requiring. So I'm not surprised to hear that. I mean, I think Google does all sorts of things.
Mary Jo Foley (00:51:45):
Yeah, they do. For
Leo Laporte (00:51:46):
Sure that pushes it from just says, Microsoft pushes you the edge.
Paul Thurrott (00:51:49):
I Haven heard anyone complain about Google's business tactics, but I'll take your word for it. Maybe, maybe, you know, maybe I don't know,
Mary Jo Foley (00:51:56):
Except that Gmail man guy, but other than that, no. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:52:02):
Yeah. So I don't know. I just dunno.
Mary Jo Foley (00:52:04):
I yeah. Yeah. I think, I think what's gonna, what could bite Microsoft in the end and our friend rich woods who works at XDA developers, just sort an editorial about this. He, he said ed CR edge started out as a really good browser. I loved it. I was running it, advising people to use it. They've jump it up so much that I just don't even tell people they should use it anymore because it's so full of like popups for shopping and this and that. And yes, you can turn them off. And I do cuz I'm a, I'm an edge user, but this is the little,
Paul Thurrott (00:52:37):
You know, the, the irony is there is that as you recall, the original code name for edge was project Spartan. Right. And a lot of people, a lot of the windows, 10 code names were kind of halo related, right? Like threshold, right. Was the code name for windows 10, which was a planet that was sort of in halo. Wasn't really a central part of halo, but it was in halo and Spartan of course is the name of the type of character that master chief is. But Spartan also has a different meaning. Doesn't it? <Laugh> right. Yeah. And Spartan has a more general meaning. And when, when edge first came out, it was a Spartan web browser. They did have a couple of this is the non chroming version, but they obviously had like features that were unique to windows like inking and stuff like that.
Paul Thurrott (00:53:17):
Mm-Hmm <affirmative> annotations and, and nice PDF features and that kind of stuff. But that was all very productivity focused. It made sense. Yeah. It was. We can have this debate about things that should be extensions and things that should just be built in. And I felt like with the original edge in particular, the things that were built in kind of made sense as in browser features, mm-hmm <affirmative> I think the mistake they've made with chromium was after making this shift, which they did great. They started piling on the, the crap that rich is referring to, which is absolutely correct. Yeah. They there's a, so there's a feature in edge today called collections, which supposedly came right from Joe, be Fior. He's like I was planning a trip and I didn't have any way to do this and how I can collect all this information, blah, blah, blah, whatever. And whatever you think of collections. I mean, there's a handful of people that probably love it and use it. And there's a bunch of people who probably ignore it and don't even know what it is. Couldn't care less. Whatever. But the point of collections is when you make collections of these, either webpages or parts of webpages, they persist across different installs. They, they, they sync and now there's a feature coming to it's in Canary, which I've just forgotten the name. But I think it's just called, it's got a name like drop or
Mary Jo Foley (00:54:25):
It does drop stuff over into a panel, right? Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (00:54:29):
Well, the idea is you <laugh>, you're trying to save information online. Yeah. And you want it to sync between two different pieces. It's like, guys, we have this feature.
Mary Jo Foley (00:54:38):
I know
Paul Thurrott (00:54:39):
We already have it. <Laugh> why, why
Mary Jo Foley (00:54:41):
Called collections? You're make <laugh>
Paul Thurrott (00:54:43):
You're putting another one of these things in there.
Mary Jo Foley (00:54:45):
Like
Paul Thurrott (00:54:46):
I don't, I don't, I don't know.
Mary Jo Foley (00:54:49):
I don't know. No, I, I feel like, I feel like there's all different teams giving them input. Right? Like I, I feel like this drop thing that you're describing maybe came from the tasks and notes team. Like the people who thought sticky notes would be a big thing for Microsoft. And now they're like, sure. What if, what if instead of like having to pin things on a sticky note, you could just drop it in your browser. The browsers just be because the browser is the most used app and it's the front, it's where you sit all day. If you're a PC user, you're in your browser. Right. I, I feel like they're just like, let's add this to the browser cuz that'll get more people to try this. Right. And I think it's a mistake. I do <laugh>
Paul Thurrott (00:55:28):
Again, I can only project and sort of try to understand why things happen the way they happen. But one of the big steps back in windows 11 is they got rid of this notion of pervasive sync settings sync, right. Between computers. Yep. So like one of the very, this, one of the simplest things you could possibly imagine is I have a desktop wallpaper. I love, it's a picture of my family. I want that thing to appear on every computer. I can check a box and there it is, that's gone. It's not in windows 11. And I wonder if this sort of computer to computer sync feature, that's coming to edge. Isn't an acknowledgement that we're losing sync features in the operating system. Oh. And edge runs on Mac and Linux and wherever mobile, where these things don't exist anyway. And maybe that's the rationale. I'm not defending it. But yeah, you have to wonder like, what's the impetus for this idea. Plus you already have something that's kind of a lot like it, you know, already, but
Mary Jo Foley (00:56:22):
Yeah. Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (00:56:24):
You, you,
Mary Jo Foley (00:56:24):
I keep going back to no, you know what? I keep going back to there's this team at Microsoft called WebEx T web experiences team. Their job is to take edge the MSN news feed start thing B ads and mush them all together and like use the power of edge to, to get more users for Bing and more users for advertising and Microsoft search. And like that's their job, right?
Paul Thurrott (00:56:56):
<Laugh> you're you've said two things which sound religious to me, which is like the power of edge compels you. And also those people are doing the devil's work. <Laugh> right. You're you're, you're saying
Mary Jo Foley (00:57:10):
This is
Paul Thurrott (00:57:10):
The group users that wanna right. That's what I mean, like you've signed, this is what every day nine to five, this is what you do. Yeah. You've got people using your product and you, all you can think of is how do I get them in front of other Microsoft services?
Mary Jo Foley (00:57:22):
Yeah, no, I, I just saw job posting for them this week that said our job is to get users through edge, to engage in shopping news and gaming like that. This is what they see edge as like the portal to getting more users on those Microsoft services. That's what they're doing and it's wrong. I hate it. I hate that. They're junking this up. <Laugh>
Paul Thurrott (00:57:47):
Yeah. The reason I, this bothers me mostly other than the obvious is they, they do this from time to time and then they give up on this stuff, right? Yeah. So one of the core features of the original version of edge was that Cortana was gonna show up. I remember Cortana was an edge. So you went to a restaurant's website and Cortana would be like, Hey, I got you covered. You want know when they're opened? You want to see their menu. That kind of thing. Little Cortana. Yeah. Somewhat useful. Yeah. Yep. But then they said, and we're gonna do this with more types of websites in the future and you know what? They did nothing. <Laugh> it never expanded past that, that it never got. And now it's just gone. Yeah. And you know, plumbing, a website for the information that you're really looking for.
Paul Thurrott (00:58:27):
I guess we could kind of quibble over whether, you know, that's ethical or whatever, but it it's, it's, it's useful to people for sure. Yeah. Piling crap in a browser that has nothing to do with what anyone's doing. People launch this thing for reasons. And I don't, I, I guess one of those reasons is shopping for sure. I mean, I right. We definitely shop, but do I mean, isn't that what's wrong with this world? Like why would you make it easier? I, I don't know. Is it too hard to, is one click too hard? I mean, is edge making it like half a click? What is, what is edge adding? I know coupons
Mary Jo Foley (00:59:03):
And no, you know, it's a telemetry thing. They've got some data saying what, how often do people use their browser to shop and okay. We know it's a big percentage. Right? So, so let's, let's make it. So you're more tied in with Bing and, and our
Paul Thurrott (00:59:20):
Properties. They doing it. I'm telling you two, three years from now, they'll be, they'll be on to the next thing. I don't remember the timeframe for this, but there was a, there was a Bing refresh. Yeah. And the big thing back then was this could have been 10 years ago now was, Hey, you know what we discovered was people often brow like search for celebrities. So we're gonna focus on that. Oh yeah. We're gonna make, we're gonna make our celebrity search results. Awesome. Yeah. So you're gonna have like this awesome page. Lots of information. If you look for photos, it's gonna be
Mary Jo Foley (00:59:46):
A beautiful wall. The wonder wall. Remember
Leo Laporte (00:59:47):
That? Did somebody say celebrity? Because I just heard that the jury has said that Amber heard did defam. Johnny Depp.
Mary Jo Foley (00:59:58):
Yeah. Mm-Hmm
Leo Laporte (00:59:58):
<Affirmative> so
Mary Jo Foley (01:00:00):
If you go to start right now, Microsoft feed, I'm sure there are many stories
Leo Laporte (01:00:04):
Amongst the BII rich comment competent.
Mary Jo Foley (01:00:07):
There'll be exactly now,
Leo Laporte (01:00:09):
But we haven't heard on the other side about her case and it could be, they declare both victors and award of dollars. So
Mary Jo Foley (01:00:17):
Stage,
Paul Thurrott (01:00:17):
So Mary Jo said something interesting. She said, if you go to start, what, what, what, how do I go to start?
Leo Laporte (01:00:24):
What does that you, the
Mary Jo Foley (01:00:24):
Start, have you heard of that? Feed? The start feed.
Paul Thurrott (01:00:29):
Where's the, oh, I,
Mary Jo Foley (01:00:31):
You probably have a shut off I'm sure.
Paul Thurrott (01:00:33):
I guess it's yeah, I do have a
Mary Jo Foley (01:00:35):
Go to your widget, go to your widgets,
Paul Thurrott (01:00:36):
Go, go to start.com. Star do com
Mary Jo Foley (01:00:39):
We do it. Yeah. Or widgets. You could also go that way. Am I wrong? Or am I right? I don't. They already get Johnny Depp and Amber in there.
Leo Laporte (01:00:48):
Yes, yes, yes. She acted with malice. She sure did. Yeah. Wow. And I don't know, I don't have an opinion on this. These people are nuts, but <laugh> she didn't mention 'em by name in the oped. So, but apparently that didn't, that didn't matter. So so far the jury
Paul Thurrott (01:01:05):
Really well, cause she had been talking
Leo Laporte (01:01:06):
<Laugh> right. Well, I guess
Paul Thurrott (01:01:08):
Like one of my female cohosts on a podcast has been awfully abusive and
Mary Jo Foley (01:01:13):
I'm not gonna, but I'm not gonna name names, but you talking
Leo Laporte (01:01:17):
About MEA <laugh> Hey, I wanna take a little bit,
Paul Thurrott (01:01:20):
His name rhymes was
Leo Laporte (01:01:22):
SAS. <Laugh>
Mary Jo Foley (01:01:23):
<Laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:01:24):
I wanna take a little de depth, I mean break and and watch TV. No. And, and talk about our sponsor. But when we come back, there is a really big story. Steve Gibson made it his lead story yesterday in screen. Now the duck, duck go story. Yeah. Which has a Microsoft angle. So we'll get to that in a moment. But first word from our sponsor, Melissa, the data experts, the last thing you need in business is a a, a customer contact list that is out of date that has the wrong name in it, or supplier list or any, any of your data, poor data costs organizations on average, 15 million every year. And of course the longer poor data stays in your system. Poor quality data, the more losses you accumulate, you gotta ensure your business has the right information. That's key to success.
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Leo Laporte (01:05:35):
I'm still watching the results come in. It's a long mm-hmm <affirmative> long <laugh> verdict, but it sounds like a complete and utter important importantly, are you gotta get this one right? For Johnny Depp? Yeah. I don't wanna get it wrong. Sure. In fact, I think they're awarding him 5 million in damages. So I'm still watching, they're still reading the verdict. But it, so one sixth of a pirate movie <laugh> <laugh> it looks like yeah, but again, I don't, you don't listen to this show for the latest on the Johnny de Amber heard trial. Not yes you do, but <laugh> some of you do. Yeah. So I just, I didn't want you to, I didn't want you to, you know, get off this podcast and go what happened, what happened.
Mary Jo Foley (01:06:21):
Exactly.
Leo Laporte (01:06:22):
Yeah, exactly. Sure. Yeah, sure. Back we go, let's we're gonna get to that duck, duck, go story cuz that's that's great. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> stuff, but there's other stuff in the Microsoft 365 world, Mary Jo. You wanna, he is you wanna take this?
Mary Jo Foley (01:06:39):
I do. I thought this was a story you were saying Steve Gibson was excited about
Leo Laporte (01:06:44):
<Laugh> no, no, no. Oh, actually that, that would make some sense. Yeah,
Mary Jo Foley (01:06:48):
It would. Okay. So, you know, Microsoft's been rebranding everything lately with very short one word names like we've got defender referring to a whole suite of security stuff, Priva privacy management stuff, purview compliance and governance. Well, now there's another one, entra, E N T R a Microsoft entra. And what this is, is a family of security and identity access products for Microsoft. That's why I thought maybe Steve cared about this. So in this family, you've got Azure active directory. You've got permissions management technology from their cloud NOx acquisition from last year and verified ID technology that they're working on now and is in public preview. The, the Microsoft thinking here is bundle all this up into a suite, works for them because then customers tend to buy all the products bundled and they sell all three together. From a customer standpoint, their claim is it's simpler.
Mary Jo Foley (01:07:50):
It's we do all the integration. It works across all the clouds and it works across all devices so that you can be sure in our ever expanding security defense perimeter world, that you will be protecting everything. Even when you have suppliers coming in and out of your domain, you'll be able to use the secure signin and the digital identity verification to make sure you know, who you're dealing with and thus reduce security issues. So I'm more intrigued by the name than I am with all the stuff in this thing, because I think it's super interesting since Charlie bell came over to Microsoft from AWS, he was a big wig over there at AWS. Now he runs like the unified security compliance identity teams all up that they've been doing all this rebranding repackaging. There've been a lot of shakeups internally in terms of reorgs.
Mary Jo Foley (01:08:45):
So he's, you know, like he's a very low profile guy publicly. He's only given a couple interviews, but he's doing a lot of things under the covers to try to bring some unity to the various things that Microsoft has going on in security, identity compliance. <Laugh> I know a lot of people hate these rebrands because they, you know, especially if you're a partner or a customer, you have to remember all these new names like Preva purview. Now you've got entra. But that's where we're going. And I I'm guessing we're gonna see even more of these bundles going forward. They don't seem to have a problem bundling stuff. Like Paul said earlier in the podcast Microsoft had some problems about bundling internet Explorer and windows in the past, but ever since that was over, they've gotten Boulder and Boulder about bundling things together and they seem to just be going full steam ahead with that. See, yeah. There you go. Entra, when you hear entra think digital identity and
Leo Laporte (01:09:45):
Security. Yeah. Actually I could have seen Steve talking about that.
Mary Jo Foley (01:09:48):
Yeah, yeah. Me too. Yeah. Yeah. <laugh> yeah,
Leo Laporte (01:09:50):
Yeah, yeah. And Microsoft's famous. I don't like the, I don't like this name though. Antra yeah. Cuz you Accentra like Viva intra.
Mary Jo Foley (01:09:59):
Yeah. You know, I, I had an interview with Alex. I think his last name is Simmons or Simons Microsoft, who is a VP in this space. And I said, I asked him about the name mm-hmm <affirmative> and he said, well, as you know, when we name things, we, we look at many names. I mean they spend millions of dollars when they name something.
Leo Laporte (01:10:15):
Oh God outside firms.
Mary Jo Foley (01:10:17):
Yeah. They hire yeah. Outside firms and do all kinds of research. And he said, the reason they picked enter was because they wanted it to imply it's an entrance into a secure world and they didn't want a gate type name because that would imply you weren't getting access to the secure perimeter. They think these things through you guys like a lot, <laugh> like they think a lot about the names of this stuff <laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:10:41):
They should called it Nova
Mary Jo Foley (01:10:43):
Nova. Hey, you know what? That might be a future name might be a future name for something
Leo Laporte (01:10:48):
<Laugh> doesn't go right. <Laugh>
Mary Jo Foley (01:10:50):
<Laugh> no V no V
Leo Laporte (01:10:54):
Uhhuh. I, I have to correct myself. I guess there is a little money going to Amber herd a lot more money, Johnny Def. So it's basically a victory for Johnny Depp, although they did find Amber Hurtt guilty of some defamation and I think 2 million for her 15 million for for Johnny. So I don't know. It's Hey,
Mary Jo Foley (01:11:16):
I'd report. It's a mixed
Leo Laporte (01:11:17):
Bag. I'd report the scores of the world cup two. It's just, you know, it's all, it's all in there. I just don't want you to
Mary Jo Foley (01:11:22):
It's like, it's all part of the show's
Leo Laporte (01:11:23):
You're part of, it's all part of the revision Euro, a vision Ukraine one and donated the, they sold their trophy and donated the mm-hmm
Mary Jo Foley (01:11:33):
<Affirmative> I know that was cool. Proceeds
Leo Laporte (01:11:35):
To the Ukraine WARF effort. So yeah, that was very cool. Three, not one, not two but three exclusive Excel features. Are you excited?
Mary Jo Foley (01:11:47):
Oh, they're one of these I'm surprised about.
Leo Laporte (01:11:50):
Oh, they're they're they're oh, they're not adding them. They're subtracting them,
Mary Jo Foley (01:11:54):
Right?
Leo Laporte (01:11:54):
Yeah. Oh,
Mary Jo Foley (01:11:55):
I, okay. So the, the first one they're subtracting is money and Excel. And I am kind of surprised about this one because they made a pretty big deal out of this. When they launched this two years ago, it was a personal finance management service that they were going to add to your office 365 consumer plans as a benefit. So it was meant to be like a carrot to get you help get you to subscribe. It was just a template and Excel for you to like maintain, look at, look at your finances and budget and do all that through using plaid as the inter interim service connecting you to the banks. And the, the reason they're discontinuing this, they, they, I mean, they don't come right out and say it, but what they say is basically no one was using it. That's kind of the, the gist. Right. <laugh> and yeah. They're advising people to go to a service that's very similar called tiller, which I had never heard of, but yeah. Does something very similar, right. They're giving you a two month. What's interesting that yeah.
Paul Thurrott (01:12:55):
Tiller is a solution like money in Excel. It's Excel based. Yeah. It's not a, you know, it is a third party money management solution, but it literally works in Excel. Yeah. So they, I guess if you prefer to money, you manage your money in a spreadsheet <laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:13:12):
For some reason. Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (01:13:15):
It will be at least familiar, but this this was kind of a rapid turnaround. I mean, are we gonna be this aggressive about getting great features that nobody uses? It seems kind of surprising
Leo Laporte (01:13:26):
What, so what, so
Paul Thurrott (01:13:29):
Do, what is it,
Leo Laporte (01:13:30):
What do you do with these?
Paul Thurrott (01:13:31):
Yeah, so, right. So in other way, like, well, so the first thing to understand is that with any office product there's and just talking about Excel in this case, there's a standalone version of Excel that's sold in perpetual versions of office that does not get this feature, right. This was just for Microsoft 365 subscribers. So one of the selling points of Microsoft 365 is that you keep getting new features. And by the way, if you pay attention to this, they just release to yet another monthly blog post every month, dozens and dozens, if not, hundreds of features are added to Microsoft 365. So this was one of them a while back. And I do remember thinking at the time, I don't know that managing money in a spreadsheet is necessarily the best way to do that. But obviously some people think that way and, and, and it's, yeah, it's a spreadsheet, money, you know, numbers, whatever. But anyway, I, so it was one of, probably 52 features it released in may 20, 21 or whatever it was. Okay. But yeah, you don't hear a lot about them taking features away. Like, I can't remember. Mm-Hmm
Leo Laporte (01:14:33):
<Affirmative>
Paul Thurrott (01:14:34):
I can't remember them ever doing this to be honest. So it, it only applies to Microsoft 365 subscribers.
Leo Laporte (01:14:41):
Mm-Hmm
Paul Thurrott (01:14:41):
<Affirmative>, you're not gonna lose anything. I mean, the, they, the data Connect's gonna go away, but your spreadsheet will remain on your computer or in one drive, whatever. And we'll have your data in it. You can move to tiller. Like Mary Jo said I don't <laugh>, I don't know. This caused me to go look at these features cuz one of the other ones was like Wolf from data types, which is kind of curious. Yeah. And and I, I distinctly remember them promoting this notion that Excel me too was sort of like SQL server. It could work with almost any data type and you know, this was proof of that. And then the other one was like these partner offers. Did you look at the partner offers?
Mary Jo Foley (01:15:16):
Yeah. Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (01:15:17):
So it's like a, you know, the, the start of subscription to a mail mail delivery service, like it's like this weird collection of four or five little yeah. Freebies. I
Leo Laporte (01:15:27):
So that's okay. I, yeah, I don't,
Mary Jo Foley (01:15:30):
I feel like they're trying to clean. I feel like they're trying to clean up these subscriptions and make room for other things that they're gonna add in. That's my guess what's going on here right there. Like, okay, who's using this. Okay. Not enough people let's get rid of that and let's make room for some other features. We're gonna try adding in.
Paul Thurrott (01:15:49):
Okay. I mean,
Leo Laporte (01:15:51):
All right.
Paul Thurrott (01:15:51):
Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. Maybe
Mary Jo Foley (01:15:53):
It just was surprising. I agree with you. It was surprising. It's
Leo Laporte (01:15:56):
Weird. But you know, maybe it's, there is some support cost to it and yeah, sure. Maybe there, some of these things are changing and they didn't want to spend the money to make it work. Yeah. Or
Mary Jo Foley (01:16:06):
Something
Leo Laporte (01:16:06):
Like that. Right. I don't, we don't know. We
Mary Jo Foley (01:16:07):
Knew plaid was holding him up. Plaid was like, let's increase. That costs it cost,
Leo Laporte (01:16:11):
You know what? That could really be. It could be, it could, yeah. You don't
Paul Thurrott (01:16:14):
Know plaid, maybe plaid moved to AWS and they were like, screw those guys.
Leo Laporte (01:16:18):
I guarantee I'm gonna hear from somebody though on the radio show who uses this, you are, of course my whole financial life is in Excel and I'm
Mary Jo Foley (01:16:25):
No, we've got, we've got somebody in discord uses it here. Yeah. who is our 7 0 7 15? Yeah. <Laugh> that guy.
Leo Laporte (01:16:34):
He, he lives in Mexico and he uses the features to convert from pesos to us dollars. So he's basically looking up the exchange rate through the,
Mary Jo Foley (01:16:43):
And track his grocery purchases. Right.
Leo Laporte (01:16:45):
There probably are. Other ways you could do that. I'm almost certain, there are other ways you could do
Paul Thurrott (01:16:49):
That. I literally tried to write it app to do this, but yes. I would think there are ways to
Leo Laporte (01:16:53):
Do this. Yeah. I mean, there's gotta be some data connected that can get for sure to that information. Yeah. I would think maybe not.
Paul Thurrott (01:17:00):
I researched that and it's very hard to find without paying for it.
Leo Laporte (01:17:02):
Really interesting. Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (01:17:05):
Huh. Yep. What I wanted was an alert. If the peso to dollar exchange rate changed to a certain amount plus or minus 20 and like that kinda live data thing very hard. If you just want, like here was the average from today, that's not so hard, but if you actually want like, you know, live data, it's expensive.
Leo Laporte (01:17:25):
Forget about Amber. And Johnny here's a big story just came across the wire, according to CNBC Facebook's COO Shel Sandberg is stepping down
Mary Jo Foley (01:17:36):
It's time. Right?
Leo Laporte (01:17:38):
<Laugh> she was one of now the kind of triumvirate mark handled, you know, the, the, she handled the business, mark Zuckerberg handled the SI you know, the engineering. And then of course they brought it
Paul Thurrott (01:17:48):
And she handled going after Toto on her
Leo Laporte (01:17:50):
Broom <laugh> they brought him, they brought in Nick CLA to kind of handle global relations. Yeah. And that was a, you know, a triumph for it. That was running Facebook. Yeah. And it has been for, well, Cheryl, mark for some time. So Cheryl Sandberg stepping down is a, is a big deal.
Paul Thurrott (01:18:05):
She's gonna end up in a business with mark Penn or something, you know? Well,
Leo Laporte (01:18:08):
I think she saw, she saw how much money Johnny Depp got and now she's gonna, right. I don't know.
Mary Jo Foley (01:18:13):
Now wasn't she in trouble for dating the head of act division? Is that she
Leo Laporte (01:18:17):
Was, she, she and Bobby Codick were an item
Paul Thurrott (01:18:21):
Come on. Yeah, come on. Yeah, seriously.
Leo Laporte (01:18:24):
We can turn everything into gossip. My friend, we
Mary Jo Foley (01:18:27):
Can just, we used to our own Microsoft start service, but a better one with no bikini pictures and only gossip.
Leo Laporte (01:18:33):
<Laugh> here's your here's your statement from Facebook today? I'm sharing the news that after 14 years I will be leaving me. She talks a lot about how hard she worked, blah, blah, blah. Sitting by mark se for these 14 years has been the honor and privilege of a lifetime, blah, blah, blah. When I, when I joined Facebook, I had a two year old on a six month old. I didn't know if this was the right time for noon, demanding job, blah, blah, blah. <Laugh>. I'm just trying to find out why she's leaving. Right. That's
Mary Jo Foley (01:19:02):
Right. I leaned in, then I leaned down.
Leo Laporte (01:19:03):
I leaned in, I wrote a book and I killed my husband. Thank you. Sorry. <Laugh> thanks to mark for giving me
Paul Thurrott (01:19:12):
And what's she doing now? Where's she going?
Leo Laporte (01:19:13):
Well, that's what I, when I took this job in 2008, I hope this would be in this role for five years, 14 years later. It's time for me to write the next chapter of my life. I'm not entirely sure what the future will bring. I've learned. No one ever is, but I know it'll include, oh, she's gonna spend more time with her money, focusing more on my foundation and philanthropic work, which is more important to me than ever given how critical this woman is
Paul Thurrott (01:19:36):
For women. This star movies need a villain or something what's
Leo Laporte (01:19:38):
Going on. Oh, she's, she's marrying Tom this summer. We don't know who to, I don't know
Paul Thurrott (01:19:44):
To is what is Tom? Is Tom? The guy that, the guy that married Oprah,
Leo Laporte (01:19:47):
Some guy named Tom <laugh>. No, I think he's the guy who started my away. You think anyway, parenting our expanded family of five children over the next few months, mark and I will transition my direct reports and I will leave the company this fall. She will continue to serve on the board of directors. So that's a, that's a big story. I don't know what, what it means. She's gonna, you know,
Paul Thurrott (01:20:07):
I took this company from a friendly family sharing site to a data gathering nightmare. Yeah. Couldn't be prouder.
Leo Laporte (01:20:15):
Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (01:20:17):
Couldn't be prouder.
Leo Laporte (01:20:19):
You think it it's it's I, I actually take it at face value because yeah. She's been in the hot seat, but she's been in the hot seat for a while. I don't think that's new for sure. And she's weathered it pretty well, including the Francis Hogan whistleblower complaints.
Paul Thurrott (01:20:35):
We just talked about there, these people that work on the, was it edge experiences, team, web experiences, team <laugh> and you know, how do they face their life every day? I mean, I, I think working at meta is that ex exponentially worse.
Leo Laporte (01:20:50):
Can you imagine, can you imagine
Mary Jo Foley (01:20:52):
It's a lot of stress? How hard? No, a lot. A lot of stress.
Paul Thurrott (01:20:54):
Well, I assume you get paid really well. That's how you kind of cope with it, but yeah, I don't know.
Leo Laporte (01:20:59):
And I think she's, she's always been somewhat politically active, especially for women's causes. And I think that she may be anticipating the fight over Roe V. Wade coming up in the next couple of weeks and yeah, I think maybe she I think I'm gonna take it to face value. Plus she's got a new family. She's getting married to Tom. Great. My space, Tom. So that's exciting.
Mary Jo Foley (01:21:19):
Is it really him? No. It's that? Sure.
Leo Laporte (01:21:22):
Oh,
Mary Jo Foley (01:21:22):
Certain, well, that would be hilarious though. <Laugh>
Paul Thurrott (01:21:26):
Let me list the things I care about less than Tom
Leo Laporte (01:21:28):
I'm done. Tom, her, his name is Tom Fernal and they got engaged in February 20, 20. He's the founder and CEO of a strategic consulting agency called Kelton global Kelton global. So money, money guy, I guess <laugh>
Mary Jo Foley (01:21:48):
Yeah. Money guy,
Leo Laporte (01:21:48):
Money guy. Yeah.
Mary Jo Foley (01:21:50):
Web three NFT, blah, blah, blah.
Leo Laporte (01:21:52):
No, really?
Mary Jo Foley (01:21:53):
No I'm making, I hope not, but it could be. I hope not.
Leo Laporte (01:21:56):
<Laugh> I hope not. Guys,
Paul Thurrott (01:21:59):
Yes. Dr. Has a Microsoft problem.
Leo Laporte (01:22:02):
Can we, can we talk about that? Cuz I do this
Mary Jo Foley (01:22:04):
Was, I wanna hear this story. This was,
Leo Laporte (01:22:05):
I wanna hear this story Gibson's story of the, of the week.
Paul Thurrott (01:22:08):
Yeah. So don't tell me what he said, cuz it's gonna be a lot smarter than what I have to say about it. Yeah. I actually watched the unfold on TWiTtter and basically there's a guy. Yeah. Is how it happened. Right. So there's a guy who describes himself as a privacy and data supply chain researcher who had done some audits and got some results he didn't expect. And he checked them TWiTce like Santa Claus and came back and said, yeah, the duck Duco version browsers on iOS and Android are not blocking what he called Microsoft data flows for services like LinkedIn or B. In other words, it was allowing the brow or it was allowing those services to track users, which is something duck Duco. Of course they make the privacy browser says that it blocks right automatically blocks, hidden third party trackers. So he mentioned this publicly on TWiTtter. So this guy from doc dot go, who is, was he the I'm trying to find out who he is.
Leo Laporte (01:23:10):
He's the CEO, founder and CEO posted on TWiTtter
Paul Thurrott (01:23:13):
CEO. Okay. So he responded on TWiTtter. He explained the situation and read, he said a long
Leo Laporte (01:23:17):
Post on Reddit as well. Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (01:23:20):
Okay. Interesting. So multi was kind of a multi post multi tweet thing on TWiTtter and basically what he was saying. And I guess we should just step for back back for a second and remember what it is that this browser is, right? So duck doco is a, is a third small third party company. They create extensions for mainstream browsers like Chrome and edge and so forth that will help block tracking and they have their own browser and they've been expanding that product. So now they have versions on mobile as well. That product doesn't support extensions yet. Interestingly, although it will eventually, and you know, you'd be able to add to the functionality, but they also have their own search service. Right. And so they, you don't have to start a search service from scratch. You gathered that you partner with other companies and one of the big partners in this space is Microsoft. Right.
Leo Laporte (01:24:05):
There's really only two. In fact, yeah, that's what Gabriel said is, you know, we could have gone to Google or we could have gone to Microsoft.
Paul Thurrott (01:24:12):
Yep. So they went
Leo Laporte (01:24:13):
To Microsoft and he said, the reason's only two is they each spend more than a billion a year to maintain this search index. It's not, yeah. This something, you can just do yourself,
Paul Thurrott (01:24:21):
College interns. Aren't gonna come up with one of these things this summer. This is not, you know, this is the way it is. So anyway, but what he basically said was because of its agreement with Microsoft it does a lot. It does pass through trackers, by the way, this has been on doc deco's website forever. This is not, he didn't discover something we didn't know about they, this is, this is on their website. You can go see it for yourself. It's been there forever. Well, it's been there for as long as they've had the service and ad clicks are managed by Microsoft's ad network is one of the little quotes in there. So basically what he's saying is that yes, we, we allow the tracking to go through however we do anonymize everything. Right? So I think we all understand that this stuff is sophisticated enough that Microsoft probably has enough, you know, data tends.
Paul Thurrott (01:25:05):
They could sort of figure out who you are. Exactly, but it, but they actually do anonymize the data. So the way they describe it is we work with Microsoft to make ad clicks, protected, meaning they're completely anonymous for non search tracker blocking in our browser. We block most third party trackers. Unfortunately, our search syndication agreement with Microsoft prevents us from doing more to Microsoft owned properties and then we've been continually pushing and expect to be doing more soon. Okay. So I guess my stance on this is like, it comes down to, to have the service they have to partner with somebody. Is it better with air quotes to be tracked by Microsoft than Google objectively? Probably. Right. I mean, just because Microsoft doesn't have the market power that Google does in this case. But it's not gonna be tracked either way for sure.
Paul Thurrott (01:25:56):
And I also, what this reminded me and this made me go back and look something up when, when the chromium based version of edge first came out, which might be as long as three years ago. Now I don't remember two or three years ago. I of course went all in with this thing. And remember one of the innovations, the Microsoft browser was they had this really simple anti tracking interface. You could have the like, you know, it's like low, medium, high and high tracking. They said, or high tracker blocking could conceivably cause problems on the web. Right. And so I turned it on and then I noticed <laugh> things. Everyone notices when they're browsing, I searched for a particular kind of sneaker and I started getting ads for this sneaker. And I'm thinking what's going on here. And as it turns out, even with a browser like edge where they marketed it for its anti tracking capabilities, you actually have to use really strong anti tracker extensions to not be tracked.
Paul Thurrott (01:26:50):
And so the problem with like a duck deco browser is those extensions can't exist. Of course, duck deco would build that in themselves if they could, which they can't for Microsoft. So it's kind of an nebulous area like it by default, the duck Duco browser is probably more, or is absolutely more private than Chrome or edge, or I don't know about safari fry Fox, honestly, but definitely than the big browsers, most of the big browsers, but it's not like it's not a hundred percent just like the anti tracking solution and edge is not a hundred percent, you know? And so you kind of have to just understand where that's at. So what did Steve say? I bet Steve was a little more critical
Leo Laporte (01:27:27):
Of that. No, actually I think he kind of pretty much echoed what you were saying. He rewrote Gabriel's statement because he said it's not, it's not at all clear and what he should have said was this yeah, first of all, I don't know if it's anonymized, basically they allow Microsoft trackers in this case, it was LinkedIn mm-hmm <affirmative> full access. So whatever they would get any other time they get, it's not like duck, duck is in between you and LinkedIn. They just, there's a LinkedIn track. They
Paul Thurrott (01:27:55):
Pass it through. Oh,
Leo Laporte (01:27:57):
Interesting. Yeah, it's passed right in. But their point was, and actually this is the thing to me, that's most interesting Microsoft in order to use Bing, we had to do this, even though this isn't part of search, this is part of a browser. We had to do it according to Microsoft, furthermore, Microsoft enjoined them from telling anybody they were doing it.
Paul Thurrott (01:28:17):
Oh, oh well,
Leo Laporte (01:28:19):
That's, that's why they did not announce this ahead of time. In fact, they can only respond once it had been discovered. Don't know if that's true or not, but that's what he said. And then, so to me, what that raises is a couple of very interesting questions. Presumably Google must do the same thing. I would guess
Paul Thurrott (01:28:36):
So. I mean, there's been a thing on their website for over two years. That explains,
Leo Laporte (01:28:41):
Well, the browsers are new, so this is different. Yeah. But was going on is
Paul Thurrott (01:28:46):
Search. Okay. Yeah. Okay.
Leo Laporte (01:28:48):
This is, these are brand new.
Leo Laporte (01:28:50):
Yep. That's true. What they say in their, and they are changing this. This is from their description of the app and escape website tracking tracker radar automatically blocks, hidden third party trackers. We can find lurking on websites, you visit in duck dot go, which stops the companies behind those trackers from collecting and selling your data except, and it should say except asterisk, my Microsoft's trackers. And so this security researcher went to me's workplace and, and, and here, you know, duck do go said, oh, I blocked Google and Facebook. They were trying to track you. I blocked them. Hey, I blocked them. But what they didn't say is, but LinkedIn went right through. So, you know, right. Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (01:29:37):
Interesting.
Leo Laporte (01:29:37):
But I, I have the larger question. I mean, you might say, well okay. You obvi, I mean, I agree you, you can't create your own search engine because it's just too expensive, too hard. And it's been too much time under water under the bridge. Nevertheless, there are companies like brave the claim they do in that. And there are a lot of other sites that claim, well, they brave
Paul Thurrott (01:29:59):
Had, I think brave might have bought a company as well, but, but yeah, it it's, but how good is that then? How
Leo Laporte (01:30:05):
Good is it? I mean, how,
Paul Thurrott (01:30:06):
How good is brave
Leo Laporte (01:30:07):
Search? A lot of them aggregate Google or being, or both search results, like start pages. They say anonymized, Google results. What we don't know is does why I, if Microsoft does this, I'm gonna presume Google does as well. So can you truly, I mean, what are the agreements these companies have and can you truly anonymize it? And you're right. It's kind of, it's better than nothing. So, but it's, but it's,
Paul Thurrott (01:30:31):
But this gets into it. Yeah. But this gets into a problem because you could say, well, I'll use brave and I know that's not tracking me. You know? I mean, or you could say, well, I'll use Firefox or I'll use edge, or I feel like Firefox
Leo Laporte (01:30:44):
All of this stuff.
Paul Thurrott (01:30:46):
Okay. But
Leo Laporte (01:30:46):
They are using Google
Paul Thurrott (01:30:47):
Extensions. You can, you can
Leo Laporte (01:30:50):
I have block
Paul Thurrott (01:30:51):
Installing six extensions. Yep. Yep. You can get privacy badge or whatever you want. And I guess it's a weird situation because you wanna kinda liken trust doco. I like what they're doing. I like the whole stance of the company, but they have a web browser that doesn't support extensions and they're not blocking one of the biggest tech companies on earth. So yeah, it's a, it's a little bit of a problem.
Leo Laporte (01:31:14):
Steve says, I think their heart's in the right place. They would not be making an exception to allow Microsoft's domain to run third party scripts. If their search index syndication contract did not require it, they're not happy about it either. And it's the price they pay for being able to offer duct goes tracking free search service. And I really would love to know what Google asks, cuz I can't imagine Microsoft asks for this and Google doesn't. Right, right.
Paul Thurrott (01:31:41):
Yeah. But you, but go, Google is so much more rapacious in this space. Aren't they? I mean like,
Leo Laporte (01:31:45):
So they must be even worse this
Paul Thurrott (01:31:47):
Much, much, but this is like a lesser to evil thing. Not Microsoft is awesome. Like Microsoft would love to be as evil as Google and do you know and have the results that Google has.
Leo Laporte (01:31:57):
Well, I think Microsoft needs to lift the restriction about not telling anybody what's going on. Yeah. Because we need to know what in order to make that decision, that's a reasonable thing.
Paul Thurrott (01:32:08):
Yeah. Yeah. And then we get to, but you know, what's the point of a duck doco browser that
Leo Laporte (01:32:15):
Well blocks 90% blocks.
Paul Thurrott (01:32:17):
I know, but <laugh>, it's not perfect. I mean, it's not, nothing's perfect, but, but I guess the problem, like I said, I feel like almost any mainstream browser with one extension is probably more private than duck dot ghost thing. And that's, that's the problem. Cuz you thought you were doing the right thing by installing this thing. Right. That's the that's that's the unfortunate reality here.
Leo Laporte (01:32:41):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, honestly I think the message that we ought to give our listeners I certainly a message. I give my listener. If you are on the internet, you're in a public place, you're probably being tracked in a variety of ways. Anything you post on the internet eventually will be public. You cannot assume that anything you post will always be private and you should never right
Paul Thurrott (01:33:13):
In this, in this conversation alone, I have made commentary about the queen. Amber heard
Leo Laporte (01:33:19):
Cheryl Sandberg and everybody knows.
Paul Thurrott (01:33:22):
So
Leo Laporte (01:33:22):
It's all out there. It's I, I think it it's a fools paradise to say, oh no, I'm using the internet and no one knows what I'm doing. If you really want to be private, you need to move to a log cabin in the woods and oh, by the way, no electricity no utilities at all.
Paul Thurrott (01:33:38):
Scott Mcneley was
Leo Laporte (01:33:39):
Right. And you better have a camouflage net above your head cuz there's helicopters and drones. I mean it's very, yes, Scott Mcneley was right. Privacy is, he said, privacy is over. Get over
Paul Thurrott (01:33:50):
It. He said get over it. Yep.
Leo Laporte (01:33:52):
Get over it. He's right. I
Paul Thurrott (01:33:54):
Mean, I don't, this is like 1998 ish.
Leo Laporte (01:33:56):
Yeah. A long time. I don't know if I, I, I think we should get over it, but you know,
Paul Thurrott (01:34:01):
We should. Well, we, but we sh I
Leo Laporte (01:34:03):
Mean, but let's not be foolish either. We know. Right. Let's
Paul Thurrott (01:34:05):
Not, yes. Let's not be naive. Let's
Leo Laporte (01:34:07):
Not be naive. There's a better word than foolish. Yeah. Let's not be naive about it. Yeah. And, and, and you know, you probably should act accordingly.
Paul Thurrott (01:34:15):
I feel bad about this. I, I, I like duck, duck go. And I like what they're trying to do. I've recommended their products.
Leo Laporte (01:34:21):
This is gonna hurt them. I think.
Paul Thurrott (01:34:23):
Yeah, I do. And I, I feel bad about that because they're like Steve said their heart is in the right place. Yeah. And I, they try to do the right thing and I think we should support that. But in the short term, you need to do what's right. For you as an individual. And I feel very strongly how, regardless of what web browser using, you gotta use something like,
Leo Laporte (01:34:40):
Like you said, is Microsoft in this is any blame. A hundred
Paul Thurrott (01:34:43):
Percent. Yeah. It's all, it's all the, I mean, it's almost all their blame.
Leo Laporte (01:34:47):
Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (01:34:49):
Or the blame is, I don't know how to speak, but it's it's almost a hundred percent them. Right. It's their requirements is the reason duck doco couldn't communicate this.
Leo Laporte (01:35:00):
Yeah. Yeah. That's I think that's something Microsoft should rethink because that that's like that's, if you say that, that means you're guilty. Like you feel guilty like, oh, and don't tell anybody exactly.
Paul Thurrott (01:35:13):
Don't tell anyone, this is our agreement. I mean, if
Leo Laporte (01:35:15):
You're gonna track. Yeah. That's
Paul Thurrott (01:35:16):
Not how that's not saying we're
Leo Laporte (01:35:18):
Tracking people talk,
Paul Thurrott (01:35:19):
We're tracking exactly.
Leo Laporte (01:35:20):
Admit it. Tell people we're tracking. And the more people know that the more they maybe will calm down maybe because they know they're being, I don't know. I just, why don't lie about it. Don't and don't force others. People
Mary Jo Foley (01:35:32):
Are gonna find out, people are gonna find,
Leo Laporte (01:35:34):
And then it's really embarrasing you look worse.
Mary Jo Foley (01:35:36):
Yes. Great. You look way worse. Start
Leo Laporte (01:35:37):
In the end. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Hey should I buy a new surface laptop go <laugh>
Paul Thurrott (01:35:44):
No. Well actually, you know what?
Leo Laporte (01:35:46):
<Laugh> so it's a little better, right? I
Paul Thurrott (01:35:48):
Think, I think it's a lot better. This is a cool little computer. My, my issue with it is that it does not have keyboard back lighting from what I can tell this in the sense that it's never come up. So I'm assuming it's just not there. I don't understand. Not offering it. I don't understand. Not offering it for like $19 or something like, you know, charge extra for it. <Laugh> but 12.4 inch three by two display. It's all plastic, you know, it's cheap. Yeah. But you know, 11th gen not 12th gen, but again, it's the low end thing. Core I five, you can get eight, 16 gigs of Ram. You can get a hundred twenty eight, two fifty six, I think even more on the storage. I, this, I think this, the other thing, and maybe Mary Jo remembers this. I feel like the first version of this and I could be completely wrong. I thought it was education only. Is
Leo Laporte (01:36:35):
That not right?
Paul Thurrott (01:36:36):
I don't
Leo Laporte (01:36:37):
Remember, but
Mary Jo Foley (01:36:37):
I always get confused with surface. Go and laptop go.
Leo Laporte (01:36:42):
Yeah. Well surface, like
Mary Jo Foley (01:36:44):
What's who's for what? In the world,
Paul Thurrott (01:36:46):
Right? Right. Yeah. I thought, I thought the original surface laptop go was an educational only device. Like that was how you had to get it. And it looks to me like, they're just selling this thing off their website now. And honestly
Mary Jo Foley (01:36:58):
There's
Leo Laporte (01:36:58):
There's so I share your confusing, Mary Jo, cuz I was thinking this is a surface go.
Mary Jo Foley (01:37:02):
Yeah, this is the
Leo Laporte (01:37:03):
Surface laptop go.
Paul Thurrott (01:37:04):
Right, right.
Leo Laporte (01:37:05):
Got it.
Mary Jo Foley (01:37:06):
Okay. Right.
Leo Laporte (01:37:07):
This
Paul Thurrott (01:37:07):
To me looks like a nice little laptop
Leo Laporte (01:37:09):
That's and it's not, it's not cheap. It's not a cheesy cl Chromebook clone anymore. It's better.
Paul Thurrott (01:37:16):
Right? Right. They have normal core pro you know, processors you know, kind of a minimum
Leo Laporte (01:37:21):
Network. It's 11th gen, but it's still it's you know,
Paul Thurrott (01:37:23):
That's fine. That's fine for a low end product like this. I dunno. This looks good to me. Okay. It's fun. Colors is a Sage color this
Leo Laporte (01:37:31):
Year. What's the price. Do we know?
Paul Thurrott (01:37:33):
I think it starts at, I wanna say 5 99 and then goes
Leo Laporte (01:37:37):
Up
Mary Jo Foley (01:37:37):
No keyboard. I think. No, that does have the keyboard <laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:37:39):
Oh
Paul Thurrott (01:37:40):
No, this is the keyboard. So I think you could configure it pretty well. Like it would be 7 99, maybe 8 99. Yeah. If a really high end version. That's great.
Leo Laporte (01:37:49):
It's an I five, a real core I five. Yep. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> eight gigs of Ram. It's a little light
Paul Thurrott (01:37:57):
It's you know, but you can get 16.
Leo Laporte (01:37:59):
Oh you can 16. Oh, okay.
Paul Thurrott (01:38:00):
Mm-Hmm <affirmative> yeah, no,
Mary Jo Foley (01:38:01):
It's a, yeah. You can configure these pretty high up and like there's business versions and there's consumer versions. Some have fingerprint readers. Some don't like, there's a whole lot of skews of this thing. <Laugh> I
Paul Thurrott (01:38:11):
Could have sworn this was education only. And, and if I'm wrong, I'm
Leo Laporte (01:38:15):
Whatever. I
Mary Jo Foley (01:38:15):
Don't remember. But you can't
Paul Thurrott (01:38:16):
Remember, but I, I like that it's out in the world. I think this is nice. I, I felt like the first version of this might have harmed the brand a little bit because, and that was the other thing, right? Wasn't it, it was 16 by nine. It wasn't this, this product. Am I missing something?
Mary Jo Foley (01:38:31):
Remember, was this product I really, I cannot keep the go and the laptop goes straight. I cannot.
Paul Thurrott (01:38:38):
Yeah. Right.
Mary Jo Foley (01:38:40):
Well, I
Paul Thurrott (01:38:41):
Problems in the beginning of first,
Mary Jo Foley (01:38:43):
The go is really tiny. Like, like smush keyboard, like hard to type on. And I thought the laptop go was the same, but I might be wrong. Right.
Leo Laporte (01:38:51):
That I don't think so. I mean it's small. No, I
Paul Thurrott (01:38:52):
Think it's a little bigger. It's still small. Is it? But it's okay. I think when you, when you have a three by two display
Leo Laporte (01:38:58):
It
Paul Thurrott (01:38:58):
Three, two inches, which is
Leo Laporte (01:38:59):
Small. Yeah. 3, 2 12. We
Paul Thurrott (01:39:01):
Remember surface pro has been 12 point something inches forever. Yeah. True. Three by two gives. You's fine. You know? Yeah. It almost gets into a 13 inch category. Yeah. I don't know. I, it looks good to me on paper. I don't have one. I, I, but it, and maybe I'm mixing something maybe is there some, is there some education product that I've completely zoned on that I'm confusing this with because I could have sworn the first version of this was a Chromebook.
Mary Jo Foley (01:39:28):
The first education. No. You know what? The first surface laptop was education. Right? That was the target.
Paul Thurrott (01:39:34):
No, no, I know that, but that was, that was always a full, that was always a full,
Leo Laporte (01:39:37):
The go was Chrome book. Competitor was original. So by the way, this is a leak. This is not official. So
Mary Jo Foley (01:39:44):
Oh no. It came out today. The official, oh
Paul Thurrott (01:39:46):
No. Now it is official. So it's leak and now it's it's yeah. Oh
Leo Laporte (01:39:49):
Good.
Mary Jo Foley (01:39:49):
Okay. It's pre pre-orders today goes on sales starting next week.
Leo Laporte (01:39:55):
Well, let me go to surface.com. Yep.
Mary Jo Foley (01:39:57):
<Laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:39:58):
I had no
Paul Thurrott (01:39:58):
Idea. I like the new, I like the color. I,
Mary Jo Foley (01:40:01):
Yeah, the green, the green is nice. Nice to me. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:40:04):
So surface go. Oh yeah. Here.
Paul Thurrott (01:40:07):
Yeah. Surface go to me was always too small this, but this is like, okay.
Leo Laporte (01:40:11):
Oh, don't sign me up.
Paul Thurrott (01:40:12):
<Laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:40:14):
Oh, Microsoft, how important is back? Lighting. Paul? You, you and the verge both say, oh, no back. Huge.
Mary Jo Foley (01:40:19):
So the keyboard huge. I Don I don't like keyboards with no back light without,
Leo Laporte (01:40:23):
Cause you use 'em in the dark. Yep. Could not use it. Okay. So starts 600 release state. June 6th, Monday. Oh, you still have to check. Oh no. That's for special pricing. Okay. So there still is eligible students, students, teachers, parents, military special.
Paul Thurrott (01:40:40):
You could a sworn. I gotta I'll look, I should look this up. I don't
Mary Jo Foley (01:40:43):
Know. Serious. Yeah. Look it up. It's gonna bug you. You have to look <laugh>
Paul Thurrott (01:40:48):
It's really bugging me. I could have sworn this was educationally.
Leo Laporte (01:40:51):
Yeah. I think, I think you're right. Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (01:40:53):
October 20, 20. That's
Leo Laporte (01:40:55):
My memory.
Paul Thurrott (01:40:56):
I think so
Leo Laporte (01:40:57):
As a touch screen. Okay. Yep. I just turn up the screen bright
Paul Thurrott (01:41:02):
And I can actually, it was three by, it was three by two.
Leo Laporte (01:41:06):
Yeah. Still is there's people holding it up in the window so they can read the keys. So there's, there's one solution to the back line.
Mary Jo Foley (01:41:13):
There's also no pictures of anyone used it on their lap. Oh. Oh. And you know why, you know why
Leo Laporte (01:41:19):
<Laugh>
Mary Jo Foley (01:41:21):
Now this should be, this should, it's a laptop. It should
Leo Laporte (01:41:25):
Be.
Paul Thurrott (01:41:25):
Oh, oh, okay. Here, here we go. Guys. This is what I'm con I'm confusing things. I, I knew something was off there's something called surface laptop
Leo Laporte (01:41:33):
Se. Oh, that's right.
Mary Jo Foley (01:41:35):
That's that's only for, that's
Paul Thurrott (01:41:38):
The one that has the 16 by day display, right? That's right. That's right. Okay. I'm so sorry. I completely, so this
Leo Laporte (01:41:43):
That's right. This has just always been their kind of lowest. Is this their lowest end surface? Would you say?
Paul Thurrott (01:41:49):
Well, except for that se thing I was just talking
Leo Laporte (01:41:51):
About. Yeah. But I mean, for normal people,
Paul Thurrott (01:41:52):
I guess, guess technically speaking, well you could get a surface go, which is the tablet for less. If you didn't get the keyboard, I, I assume
Leo Laporte (01:42:00):
No, it's kind of heavy. It's two and a half pounds. Does that seem heavy to you?
Mary Jo Foley (01:42:04):
It's like a full size laptop plate. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:42:06):
That's lap laptop way, huh? Yeah. All right.
Mary Jo Foley (01:42:10):
Well, it is a laptop, right? It is right. Yeah. So, well, yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:42:16):
16 gig Ram storage. I 5, 10 99, 10 99.
Paul Thurrott (01:42:23):
It's
Mary Jo Foley (01:42:23):
Not cheap. Not cheap.
Leo Laporte (01:42:26):
Yeah. Yes.
Paul Thurrott (01:42:27):
Yeah. Cer well, it's, it is a premium PC line, except for that se thing. I was confusing, but
Mary Jo Foley (01:42:32):
Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (01:42:34):
Okay. Well, there you go.
Mary Jo Foley (01:42:36):
Mm-Hmm <affirmative>
Leo Laporte (01:42:38):
Mm-Hmm <affirmative> all right. Studio service, laptop studio.
Paul Thurrott (01:42:45):
Yeah. So this is the the kind of folding laptop thing. That's replaces surface book. Yeah. And it was announced what last September, October. So this is a brand new product. I believe at that time they said that it would support a dynamic refresh rate. And now via the may 20, 22 firmware updates, that feature is available. So mm-hmm, <affirmative>, I guess it's been in the insider program or something, but this is another surface I do not have, but I wish I did. This is a nice one. So it can go up to 120. So, you know, obviously variable or dynamic refresh rate will, you know, dynamically change the refresh rate for you, which saves battery life. If it's, so it doesn't have to always be in a high refresh rate if it's not doing anything mm-hmm
Mary Jo Foley (01:43:28):
<Affirmative>
Paul Thurrott (01:43:30):
So no big deal. It's just something quick. But you know, it's not gonna be quick. A lot of Xbox stuff.
Mary Jo Foley (01:43:37):
I know Joe, but
Paul Thurrott (01:43:40):
Luckily you're feeling threatened just
Leo Laporte (01:43:42):
Since Mary Jo has something she's got,
Mary Jo Foley (01:43:44):
What is that? Sorachi soft snack. So I can take up my time, feeding him in don't Joe that's. I will not, I will not, although it is that bad, but I'm gonna share it little Sorachi while you guys are Xbox
Leo Laporte (01:44:00):
<Laugh>
Paul Thurrott (01:44:00):
I gotta blow through this. So
Leo Laporte (01:44:02):
Enjoy I'll turn off your microphone. So we won't hear this, the chewing and the cat walling
Paul Thurrott (01:44:08):
<Laugh> so we've, we've known for several years. Mostly thanks to Brad Sams that Microsoft has been working on a dongle for Xbox cloud gaming which, you know, has gone by different names. Microsoft actually confirmed this past week that it has been working on this game streaming device, which they codenamed Keystone. And this is like, you would expect it's like any, donga like a, like a Roku or Amazon fire TV donkey. You plug it into a day, day port. And it has, in this case, it would have compatibility with your Xbox wireless controller, unless you stream games to your smart TV and play them that way. But I don't know why they announced this, but they actually came out and Microsoft said, yeah, we've been working on this thing and we've decided to pivot away from the current iteration of the device. And they used the word phrase, the word learnings, of course, it's Microsoft.
Paul Thurrott (01:45:00):
They said we will take our learnings and refocus our efforts on a new approach that will allow us to deliver Xbox cloud gaming to more players around the world. In the future. I can tell you what that new approach should be. Just put the app everywhere. It should be on apple TV. It should be on fire TV. It should be on Roku. It should be on newer generation, Samsung, LG, whatever smart displays smart TVs. I don't, there's no reason for a standalone device. I mean, the, I always use my wife as this example, cuz she's really smart, but she's also a normal person. And one of the things she kind of can't deal with because she doesn't, her brain doesn't work this way is HT. I inputs on a TV. <Laugh> like to her, it's like, no, I want one interface. I want to remote.
Paul Thurrott (01:45:42):
We click around and that's how it works. And I think adding yet another device to the back of a TV is not necessarily a great approach. And even if this thing was relatively inexpensive, like that Microsoft mirror cast thing you know, what's the point. So hopefully what they're doing is a smart thing, which is just allowing this, you know, bringing their app, their Xbox app is what it would be to every conceivable platform. That's how you get this thing out into the world. So maybe that's what they made. Maybe look em up with a device. I don't know, but they confirmed, they were looking or working on one.
Leo Laporte (01:46:14):
So we thought it was gonna be as well. I mean, the rumor was, was gonna be like a stick that, that let you play, but it didn't have much, did it have processing in it or was it more like Chrome
Paul Thurrott (01:46:24):
Dust? No, it was, that was basically the chip set would be, it probably was basically a mirror cast thing with a a little chip set for the Xbox wireless control. Right. So you could directly connect to that thing. Yeah, that makes sense. I think that's what the, that was, and I, I don't know, like meas honestly is not that great. I, I don't, I don't know exactly what they were doing, but like I said, I, I, I get the point of it. I don't think we need yet another device. So I think they've made the right decision there.
Leo Laporte (01:46:48):
Right. Right.
Paul Thurrott (01:46:50):
All right. So as we record this it's June 1st, which we'll always call it Johnny DEP day from here on up Johnny
Leo Laporte (01:46:57):
DEP day and
Paul Thurrott (01:46:58):
<Laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:46:58):
Or chill Sandberg day one or the other
Paul Thurrott (01:47:00):
Deb topless. Anyway so we have new games with gold to deal with in the first set of game pass game. So games with goals looking pretty good. The big one this month is that's classic from several years ago now. Super meat boy from Xbox 360 mm-hmm <affirmative>, that's a big one. And then the other ones, I don't actually Pascal's project Highrise, architects, adventure, and even colony. So those all become available. If you have an Xbox live gold subscription or Xbox game pass ultimate sometime this month and then with regards to Xbox game pass with there three versions, right? The version for console, the version for PC, and then ultimate works, works across both and also gives you game streaming. The first set of titles for the first half of the month have been announced there's only six oddly, but there's a big one, which is assassins creed origins, which is the one that took place in Egypt. That's actually one of the really good ones.
Leo Laporte (01:47:59):
This might be the last day mm-hmm <affirmative> but
Paul Thurrott (01:48:04):
I know what you're gonna say, Bioshock. Yes. The Bioshock series on
Leo Laporte (01:48:08):
Epic free on epic games. Yeah, yeah.
Paul Thurrott (01:48:10):
For PC, right?
Leo Laporte (01:48:12):
One of the, one of the greatest series of all time. I mean, absolutely absolutely fantastic games.
Paul Thurrott (01:48:17):
I meant to mention that LA I'm glad you brought that up. I actually took advantage of that. Those games are fantastic. Like all
Leo Laporte (01:48:23):
Of them all promo ends tomorrow, June 2nd, so, okay. So to hear this waste, no time.
Paul Thurrott (01:48:28):
Yep, yep. No cost.
Leo Laporte (01:48:31):
I own all three, but I, but I still, I almost like I still wanna do it just cuz
Paul Thurrott (01:48:35):
I have
Leo Laporte (01:48:35):
Finished. I so great.
Paul Thurrott (01:48:36):
I think I've only finished two of them, but I, yeah, I guess two of them, but yeah, really good.
Leo Laporte (01:48:42):
Really good. So good. Yep.
Paul Thurrott (01:48:44):
And, and the first one, especially the way that begins when you dive down into the city mm-hmm <affirmative> I don't understand how they haven't made a movie of that yet.
Leo Laporte (01:48:52):
This one too, the, the, just the story is so great. Yep.
Paul Thurrott (01:48:55):
That's excellent.
Leo Laporte (01:48:56):
And and the third one, infinite, just beautiful. So yeah, it is, I think, and the gameplay is good. I think this is gonna you one of the great games of all time. So free agree. Get all three of them free.
Paul Thurrott (01:49:08):
Yep.
Leo Laporte (01:49:10):
And I think Netflix says they're gonna do a movie.
Paul Thurrott (01:49:14):
There you go. They should. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (01:49:15):
They should. Netflix tweeted. Oh no. It's Netflix geeked, Netflix bus, bio shock. I'd be honest entre.
Paul Thurrott (01:49:25):
Interesting. I, you know, halo, obviously they have done a show gears.
Leo Laporte (01:49:29):
Oh, this wouldn't be so good. Think it would be
Paul Thurrott (01:49:30):
A great show and, and absolutely. Bioshock. Yep. Also because it's June, we have a new Xbox system update for, this is for Xbox one and Xbox series X and S there's a couple things like the big one is you know, this is kind of goofy, but there's this notion of secret Xbox achievements. And what that means is that the game could have some set of achievements and they kinda list out what they're, but some of them are secret and you don't know what they are until you actually get them. This actually bit me really hard. One year it was the college duty game. It was co world at war. It was the one of the world war II games, you know, when they went back and <laugh>, I read somewhere that one of the achievement, one of the, there were two hidden achievements.
Paul Thurrott (01:50:10):
I had every achievement except for one. And supposedly the last achievement was there. There was one multiplayer level where you could drive a tank. And they said, if you drove a tank, I think it was like 20 miles or some number. You'll get this achievement. So I actually spent days driving a tank around at a level. <Laugh> just trying to get this achievement. And then one of my friends texted me and he said, Hey, by the way I found I was <laugh> I found out that's not the secret achievement. So now with this new system update, you can unveil secret achievement. So you don't have to, if you wanna see what it is, you can actually see what a secret achievement. So I wish I had had that several years ago, cuz that was one of the dumbest ways I've ever spent time in my life.
Paul Thurrott (01:50:48):
<Laugh> <laugh> it wasn't didn't do anything <laugh> I ran over some people that was kind of fun. And then the final story is not really Xbox related per se, but Sony in the sense that I feel like Sony has been really closely watching Microsoft and seeing what they're doing, right. They're you know, they're coming out with these game streaming services, they're, you know, really closely in line with what Microsoft is doing. Microsoft announced, I'm sorry. Sony announced that its goal is to ship almost 50% of its games on PC and mobile by 2025. Wow. So today they probably ship, I don't know, 5%, some small amount. Granted they have a couple of big games on, on PC now, especially, but this is something I've never understood about Sony or Nintendo frankly, is them ignoring money <laugh> because they could just support their games to other platforms. Wouldn't be that hard. Would it much money? Yeah. Yep. But they make money.
Leo Laporte (01:51:44):
He has five too. So maybe they just wanna make sure it's
Paul Thurrott (01:51:47):
No, I know, but I mean, this is a way to reach an audience that isn't gonna buy one of your costs. Right. Cause I mean, I'm an Xbox guy, but there's a handful of Sony PlayStation games that I really would like to play the last of us, you know? <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:52:01):
Oh, that's a great game.
Paul Thurrott (01:52:02):
Yeah. And this is, yeah. So this is, you know, they're not going Xbox, but I mean bringing these things to PC and mobile is very interesting and I think this could be part of their all upstreaming play too. I mean you get into an interesting area where they port games to PCs, but you could also stream games to PCs. And if you had some kind of a Sony client, you could get that stuff going on. The well they have something like that actually. So anyway, they, they, this is, this makes sense to me. I'm surprised it takes all so that's good. Yay. Mary Jo, I didn't, I didn't actually look on the screen. I hope you weren't blinking for help. I didn't
Leo Laporte (01:52:37):
<Laugh>
Paul Thurrott (01:52:38):
Did see you. I'm sorry.
Leo Laporte (01:52:40):
She's like, oh no, no. Mary Jo's cat treat of the week is coming up a little later on. It is. Yeah. Uhhuh <laugh> along with our apps and enterprise picks of the week. The back of the book just around the corner is is, does Sorachi like get up, eat it and then go back to sleep or is he he's cleaning himself right here. He's that was very satisfying. Washing his face a heart. Oh. I wanna take a break and talk about our sponsor cuz they're so good. Hacker rank. If you've ever looked for a job in tech, if you've ever hired in tech, I'm sure. You know, the name hacker rank. I know it because I like to do their puzzles. These are puzzles really aimed at developers who want to get a job in tech. And you know, these are the kind of interview questions you might get and so forth, and that's a way to kind of Polish your skills.
Leo Laporte (01:53:33):
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Paul Thurrott (01:56:08):
The week. Yep.
Leo Laporte (01:56:11):
I, they, I borrowed, I had borrowed multiple cameras from TWiTt to set up a home recording system. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> and they die. They die, they die. I don't, know's something wrong with me. I don't know. And then I realized my, a Sergeant told me, you know, you can use your, your iPhone or your, or your Android phone for a camera. It's a better camera anyway.
Paul Thurrott (01:56:31):
I should have tested the Android version. So yeah. So for the past weeks I've been testing this software solution called okay. Oh good. All right. So call camo. So this is probably gonna be a huge mistake, but let me no,
Leo Laporte (01:56:43):
It's great. Oh, you're gonna
Paul Thurrott (01:56:44):
Switch. Let see if I can do this. I'm gonna, I'm gonna switch lets to see
Leo Laporte (01:56:47):
If this one I love camo. So, and the, the Android version
Paul Thurrott (01:56:51):
Display. So
Leo Laporte (01:56:51):
It doesn't work as well. Oh look.
Paul Thurrott (01:56:54):
Okay.
Leo Laporte (01:56:55):
Is this camo,
Paul Thurrott (01:56:56):
So this is, this is my web.
Leo Laporte (01:56:58):
Oh no, no. I see that your camera your phone over there. Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (01:57:02):
Yeah. You can see the phone. So and then I, when I switched to camo, see yeah, here you go. So you mean, you see like the clarity difference? The other thing that, yeah, and the thing that's really interesting about this is it's, this is only seven 20 P <laugh> through zoom. This is apparently as good as zoom does. I don't know. But
Leo Laporte (01:57:20):
We can, we can do 10 80.
Paul Thurrott (01:57:21):
It can, you know, if
Leo Laporte (01:57:22):
You
Paul Thurrott (01:57:23):
Check. Okay. So you can go hire.
Leo Laporte (01:57:24):
Yeah. So in fact, John, would you check to see if we've turned on 10 80 for a Paul cuz we're supposed to have 10 80. It's a special feature.
Paul Thurrott (01:57:32):
Okay. Well, but it it's, it's absolutely better. I mean, I have experimented in the past with just, you can do something like you could just use your phone. I, I technically, I, I've not tried this with zoom. I've done this with teams. There are serious issues with doing that, but even like the, the selfie camera on a phone is better than almost any webcam, but the back cameras on phones, this is just the main camera you can switch to the other, you know, wouldn't make sense to zoom or use ultra wide, but you could. And I honestly, it works great. My, my only complaint is it's my phone <laugh> and I use my phone every day. So I have to Mount it into this thing. I have to make sure it's at the right angle. This is not how I would want this set up.
Paul Thurrott (01:58:15):
Normally it's kind of right in front of me, ideally it would be on the back of my monitor. They, they do have you know, mounts that you can use for that kind of thing, of course, but it's just a convenience issue. So it's dramatically better quality. And I think for you know, I, I, depending on what you're using it for, well, I don't, it doesn't matter what you're using for it's it's definitely, but the quality is definitely better. So it's worked great. I've never had any glitches or problems with it. I've only used it with iPhone and only with the PC. But the, I mean the, the amount of configuration you can do if you want to is incredible, but I ultimately, I just leave it on the defaults and it works. It works great. So yeah. I you can see it for yourself. I mean,
Leo Laporte (01:58:59):
It's from rein incubate, which is, yeah, so that's the weird thing. You gotta go to rein incubate, but it, and you also need software on your PC. I think that's right, right. Yeah. That's right. Yep. And it's not free, but it's not expensive. I think it's 30 bucks a year or something like that. Right. And I've tried it on both. It works a little better on iOS. The Android version is a beta. It's fairly new. Okay. But it still works and I'm very happy with it. It's what I'm gonna be using camo. Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (01:59:33):
I yeah, I wish there was a phone I could just leave in there <laugh> you know, and just
Leo Laporte (01:59:37):
Kind of, well, that's why I wanted de Android cuz I have a couple extra Androids.
Paul Thurrott (01:59:39):
Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (01:59:41):
Excuse me. I do too.
Leo Laporte (01:59:42):
I think the iPhone works a little bit better. Yeah. And you can choose which lens you want really looks good. We should be able to do 10 80. Yeah. We should be able to do 10 80 with zoom. Okay. So we'll figure out how to do that, but yeah, as you say, this looks really good. Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (01:59:58):
I tried to, was it not to? Yeah. So like not using cam like, like I said, if you, you could use your phone of course, but then you're stuck with the mobile app version of whatever service. So when I've done this with teams, with Brad in the morning, I get into a situation where it, it just doesn't gimme all of, like if I plug in a particular microphone, I, it won't let me change the headphone correctly. And it just doesn't, it's not as good. So this kind of solves the problem. You go through your PC, you get to use the high quality camera. It's I don't know to me, to me it looks great, but I mean, given, you know yeah. I like it. I'm using it what we have to work with. But it works great. Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (02:00:38):
Camel, that's it? I, yeah. And I don't have an app pick this week, but I do have a, I'm sorry, I don't have a, a tip of the week, but I do have a second app pick actually technically two edge version 1 0 2 is out no major new features in that release, but there are some small PDF improvements and some policy changes for businesses. But Vivaldi 5.3 is out and that's actually a bigger update that has a bunch of personalization improvements, including this is gonna sound like a throwback feature, but it's the ability they call it, excuse me, they call it the ability they call it edit editable toolbar, which sounds like, Hey, we've been able to edit tool bars for a long time. It's actually a lot more than that. So you can fully edit any toolbar in the application, save it, sync it across PCs, and then send it back to defaults if you want.
Paul Thurrott (02:01:25):
That includes like the navigation bar, the status bar, the different tool bars that appear in things like Vivaldi mail and other views. It's like it's, it's soup to nut. Like it's incredible. They also added a really cool feature where on the different pages of settings, you know, you can go through and, and configure just the general browser settings. Vivaldi is like this. <Laugh> like, it's designed for personalization. If you care about personalization, this is the browser you should be using, but there's so many options and they have all these different pages and they actually now have a button on every single page that will go back to defaults, but only for that page. So you can kind of do it in a more granular fashion. You don't have to like nuke the whole thing from space and then you know, go back and do all the stuff that you want. So that's available now and there's a new version for Android as well that it came out today that will sync search engines to desktop and phone and tablet, you know, across all of them. So
Leo Laporte (02:02:22):
You're gonna do it to me again, aren't you, you're gonna, you're gonna make me switch.
Paul Thurrott (02:02:26):
Well, I just, it depends on what you care about. You know, there, I think every browser has its little niche and I think Vivaldi is one of several big chromium based browsers. So you get all those advantages, the extensions and everything. Sure. True. But they're really, really big on customization. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (02:02:44):
That's for sure.
Paul Thurrott (02:02:46):
Yep.
Leo Laporte (02:02:47):
Now time for Mary Jo Foley's enterprise pick of the week, Mary Jo.
Mary Jo Foley (02:02:52):
Yeah. I'm curious if you guys knew about this. I, I saw it was announced during build, but not at build, I guess just simultaneously with build Microsoft is allowing people who have windows server 2022 to install windows subsystem for Lennox two directly on windows server.
Leo Laporte (02:03:14):
Well, that's interesting, huh?
Mary Jo Foley (02:03:15):
Yeah. And I looked this up and I guess you could do this before with WSL one on windows server 2019, which I didn't realize either. And so I was looking up why people might wanna do this. And I saw some people saying, you know, it would be less resource, a less resource intensive way to run a Linux distro on windows server than spinning it up in a VM or doing it in some other way. Oh
Leo Laporte (02:03:40):
Yeah, for sure.
Mary Jo Foley (02:03:41):
Huh? Yep. Right. So I'm like, ah, okay. I guess that's why that might be interesting to people. And, and a lot of people have been like very enthusiastically embracing this. So it's available right now to seekers of windows server 2022. If you install last week's cumulative update, but it's going to be rolling out generally to anyone who's running windows server 2022 this month in June, probably on patch Tuesday, I would guess. So. Yeah. Kind of an interesting new TWiTst going forward, Microsoft says they're gonna be releasing WSL simultaneously for windows, desktop and windows server for all the distributions.
Paul Thurrott (02:04:24):
Isn't
Mary Jo Foley (02:04:25):
That kind of,
Paul Thurrott (02:04:25):
Isn't it moving to the store on desktop?
Mary Jo Foley (02:04:28):
Yeah. Isn't they? So, yep. How would
Paul Thurrott (02:04:31):
So <laugh> so it, obviously it's not in the store and server,
Mary Jo Foley (02:04:35):
Right.
Leo Laporte (02:04:37):
Okay. I, yeah. <Laugh> I, does server have a store? No,
Mary Jo Foley (02:04:43):
Probably not. How
Leo Laporte (02:04:44):
No? Right. They probably did briefly. Right. Maybe I don't know. I would prefer
Mary Jo Foley (02:04:48):
Because they took away the gooey. Right. Like really anything on the server anymore. Good, good. Right. So
Leo Laporte (02:04:53):
Yeah. Which is the other reason to have WSL actually, if you're in a mission environment you're already running automat things. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I'm actually one of the things I'm really excited about with the Dell is getting to run EAX on my windows machine. I cannot wait. Watch it careful with what you're saying. <Laugh>
Mary Jo Foley (02:05:08):
<Laugh> tread lightly
Leo Laporte (02:05:11):
Code name pick of the week. Mary dear.
Mary Jo Foley (02:05:14):
Yeah. So this is an interesting code name. Zach Bowden window central. He seems to have all the surface code names. He said, surface laptop, go to code name was Zuma Z U a. So it makes you wonder which Zuma there's a lot of things named Zuma. There's a very famous UK restaurant that, and there's also a New York restaurant called Zuma, a Japanese restaurant. I guess the chocolate lab on paw patrol is named Zuma who knew <laugh> <laugh> maybe for that, or there was a famous south African anti-apartheid leader whose name was Jacob Zuma and people call him JayZ. So the other JayZ also Zuma, I don't know which one it was. I don't think there's a place named Zuma. Often they use place names. But yeah. Is it
Leo Laporte (02:06:04):
There's isn't there a Zuma Arizona? Am I?
Mary Jo Foley (02:06:06):
Oh, is there
Leo Laporte (02:06:08):
Would know Zuma, Arizona Zuma. I feel like there is, but I might be wrong. Yuma. I'm going
Mary Jo Foley (02:06:13):
With paw patrol.
Leo Laporte (02:06:14):
I'm going with pop patrol. Nevermind. I'm like, yeah, like that doesn't sound okay. It could be just a nickname for Mon Zuma.
Mary Jo Foley (02:06:21):
I think paw patrol. If I was picking one, I'm going with pop
Leo Laporte (02:06:25):
Patrol. Why not? <Laugh> why not? I'm gonna let you pronounce this beer of the week.
Mary Jo Foley (02:06:31):
Yes. How's your French. So beer of the week <laugh> brassy rose Dicus. <Laugh> not bad.
Leo Laporte (02:06:40):
Yeah. Okay. <laugh>
Mary Jo Foley (02:06:43):
Brasy of the God and the sky.
Leo Laporte (02:06:46):
Yeah. Or God is Humel the God in heaven. Rasie
Mary Jo Foley (02:06:50):
The God in heaven. Rasie yeah. This is a really famous brewery in Montreal. And when Paul used to drink beer back in the day, we went to Toronto together several times. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (02:07:03):
He's hanging his head in shame.
Mary Jo Foley (02:07:05):
We drank a lot of the breast reduced seal. <Laugh> that's true. Just saying remember. Yeah, they make excellent beers. I like beer with hibiscus in it. Gives it a little, a little bit of acidity and this is a whip beer. So it's a very nice beer for hot days. And this so far, this week on the east coast, we've been having a lot of hot weather even though it's not technically summer yet. So this would be a perfect summer que if you see any of their beers, though, all of them are really good. And you can find them in the us, not just in Canada. So check 'em
Leo Laporte (02:07:41):
Out summer quencher yes. Rose DKU or
Mary Jo Foley (02:07:45):
Qui yeah. There's a better pronounced
Leo Laporte (02:07:47):
ADE. Duci
Mary Jo Foley (02:07:49):
Ooh, very nice. Oh,
Leo Laporte (02:07:50):
Tri I spit
Mary Jo Foley (02:07:53):
Up really nice.
Leo Laporte (02:07:56):
Well, well, well, well if it's beer, by the way, I'll be drinking tonight. A delicious black sugar milk tea. Oh my God. I know.
Mary Jo Foley (02:08:06):
Is that is that a bubble tea?
Leo Laporte (02:08:08):
I don't know what it is. It's we got it. We had a Korean for lunch. Oh yeah. I saw that on the memo memo and I said on the
Mary Jo Foley (02:08:14):
Air, it sounds delicious actually menu
Leo Laporte (02:08:16):
It's a little sweet. They probably milk from a yak.
Mary Jo Foley (02:08:19):
<Laugh> <laugh>
Leo Laporte (02:08:23):
Okay. It's good. It's good. It's it's not beer, but you probably it's enough sugar. You could probably ferment it. So good it for a minute. So it could be a kombucha later, later on down the road. Hey, that was fun. Thank you everybody. We survived two major breaking news incidents. <Laugh> which you did. And we got through next week have analysis of the Deb, her trial actually. Yes. We're gonna bring in some legal legals. No, that's that's coming up next on TWiTg. Paul Thra is@thra.com. That's his blog become a premium member cuz his series on programming windows. The history of windows is fantastic. And he also has a book field guide to windows ten@leanpub.com. Soon the 22 H two version of the field guide for windows 11. <Laugh> make appearance there as well. Lean pub.com, Mary Jo Foley blogs for ZD net. Her her site is all about microsoft.com and together they are. And it's also called that. It's called it. It is it is it it's all about S and it's called that.
Mary Jo Foley (02:09:32):
Yes, exactly. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (02:09:34):
We do this show every Wednesday, 11:00 AM Pacific 2:00 PM Eastern time, 1800 UTC. If you wanna watch us to it live, you don't have to cause it's, you know, it's on demand, but you know, something it's fun to watch live. And if you you've got some time of a Wednesday afternoon, just go to live.Twit.tv, there's live audio and video there. After the fact you can get on demand versions of TWiTt.tv/ww. If you don't like ads, you can get ad free versions of this show. There's actually ad free versions on iTunes. And I think Spotify now they're about, I think there's 2 99 an episode or rather a month for four episodes. So that's good price. Yeah. or you can join club TWiTtter and get all of our shows ad free for seven bucks a month. So that's obviously the, the better deal.
Leo Laporte (02:10:24):
If you like supersized packages of goodness, you also get access to the discord with club TWiT and you get the after the and before they show chit chat, things like that on our trip. Plus feed TWiTt.tv/club TWiT. If you'd like to become a member, we really, really appreciate our members. In fact, they're gonna make possible something very exciting, which will be announcing soon. Cuz we can launch shows in the club when a show gets launched, it's hard to get advertisers. They don't know the show yet. So we can launch shows in the club, supported by the club members and then as it grows, if it grows, we can we can make it public. Some shows, you know, are still in the club. Is
Paul Thurrott (02:11:02):
It gonna be a Johnny debt podcast?
Leo Laporte (02:11:04):
Sh judge Judy today. He said, he said, she said with burden depth, it'll be really fun. <Laugh> really fun. Ring bandana. Yeah. <Laugh> that is all to TV slash club TWiT, please join. We, we appreciate the support. We also have of course a YouTube channel for windows weekly. You can watch the videos of every show there probably the best, the easiest to be subscribed. Now, if you're a member of the club you can, or on the iTunes deal or the Spotify deal, you can subscribe to those ad free versions. Otherwise just you know, go to TWiTt.tv/ww. You get the URL or even a link directly to the podcast client and add it, search for it. If you have to at windows on it's called windows weekly and that way you get it automatically, the minute it's available late Wednesday. Thank you, Paul. Thank you, Mary Jo. Have a wonderful week. We'll see you. Next time on windows weekly
Paul Thurrott (02:12:47):
I gotta tell you this story just cuz it just happened. I, we went to the, the notary that we bought used to buy the house in Mexico city. Yeah. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> notaries in Mexico are more powerful than lawyers, right? So, Ooh, we actually, we had all of his staff come into the room at one time or another over the course of like four or five hours took a long time. Oh God. And then at the end, <laugh> at the end, finally, this guy came in and he was an older gentleman really well dressed had one of those like watches that was kind of hanging off his wrist. And I leaned into <laugh> leaned into my guy. Oh I should say, sorry. His name is the name of the place was called public notary 11
Leo Laporte (02:13:24):
Uhhuh <affirmative>.
Paul Thurrott (02:13:25):
So when he walked in the door, I leaned into my Jose, my representative and I said, <laugh> saying your I presume <laugh> Mr 11. He just, he just burst out laughing anyway. Send your, has Jesus San. Your has just emailed me. You're funny someone unrelated topic. I bet no one ever said that to him. That's that's really good. No, no, no, I don't can go on say <laugh> I love it.
