Microsoft hires Pawn Stars to shaft Google

POP3?

Do you know there's a more modern, better protocol called IMAP4 which lets you to sync your mailbox across different devices easily also?

> except I use the pop3 servers on both, so miss the ads

I thought the point they were making was not so much that you get ads but that your emails are being "read".

Of course they were the first to eagerly sign up to PRISM so it's a bit of a mixed bag really.

Ads

"adverts that big it up as being private vs gmail's web interface which has targeted ads"

Personally I pride myself in having a modicum of intelligence and free will preventing me from getting unwillingly swayed by adverts no matter how targeted. If, by some slim chance, an advert DOES present me with something I'm interested in buying, I'm more likely to THANK Google than curse them!

Re: RT?

"Yeah it's a brick without a broadband connection,"

Why is it a brick without broadband? You can do most stuff offline that you can do with a normal laptop, it has local storage for media and lots of apps, your docs, emails etc are available offline.

Re: RT?

"This Surface RT isn't a real laptop," one says. "It doesn't have Windows it has RT which uses a titled interface, it has a half assed Office that runs like a dog. Without Wi-Fi those pretty tiles don't do much at all unless you suffer from epilepsy and when you are online, Microsoft sends you to bing and outlook. That's how you get Microshafted"

& you work in IT? Damn, your bosses must have been extremely desperate to employ you if this is the sort of drivel you come out with!

Surface RT is NOT a laptop, but a TABLET first of all which you can attach a keyboard to, just like you can with several Android tablets & iPad's. If it doesn't have Windows what does it run as it was Windows when you look at the properties & system information. That's like saying that Windows XP or NT were not real Windows.... Half assed Office? Haven't found anything in the Office 2013 that is supplied with RT that is missing from what the vast majority of people use on the desktop versions. With or without WiFi, those "pretty tiles" don't do much anyway as most users will revert to Desktop mode where the tiles are irrelevant! Microsoft doesn't send you anywhere you don't want to go to as you do have a choice going through the desktop IE (yes that's the only drawback, you don't have much of a choice of browsers).

I haven't found any need to run malware, AV or any other scans with RT nor pestered with windows updates (other than 8.1 update & the automatic Defender definitions update).

May be it is worth opening your eyes to things other than Google, and not slate things until you have actually used them, FYI I use most of the Google products on my desktop machines, as well as using a Surface RT most of the time when I am on-site rather than lugging a much heavier laptop with a lot lower battery life, yet can still do everything I need to do.

Re: RT?

I think for your mother’s use case, a basic tablet would be better than a pretend laptop.

The Surface RT can be great if you need of-line access to Exchange email while on the train etc, as well as being able to work with MS-Office documents. However I tent to put in into the same camp as tablets and not think of it as a laptop.

Storage Hunter

As in hunting for storage, and finding that you can't actually add a microSD to an apple device.

Re: Microsoft, the 90s called, they want their FUD back.

Strange that Microsoft are making so much money then....Record results last quarter.

Yep, they're going supernova. Right now their profits appear to shine really brightly, and they've expanded to a very large size.

Soon as the core collapses though, you'll get one of two things: a white dwarf, or a black hole.

IBM became a white dwarf.

Re: Microsoft, the 90s called, they want their FUD back.

the fact they jack up the ransom 10-30% err prices every year may have something to do with "record" results