Windows Weekly Episode 803 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 Thra is here. We'll talk a little bit about the new Windows 11 Beta channel. Some weird <laugh> improvements. Actually some really nice improvements with the task manager will give you a demo of that. The Bill Gates report, the independent report on Microsoft Discrimination and Harassment is out. What will Microsoft do about that? And we celebrate a very, very big day for Call of Duty fans. Season one Call of Duty Modern Warfare two ships. Today. Paul will sing its praises and a lot more. It's all coming up next on Windows Weekly podcasts you love
TWiT Intro (00:00:37):
From people you trust. This is TWiT.
Leo Laporte (00:00:48):
This is Windows Weekly with Paul Thra. Episode 803 Recorded Wednesday, November 16th, 2022. D plus plus Windows Weekly is brought to you by Code Comments. An original podcast from Red Hat that lets you listen in on two experienced technologists as they describe their building process and what they've learned from their experiences. Search for code comments in your podcast player and by thinks Canary. Detect attackers on your network while avoiding irritating false alarms. Get the alerts that matter for 10% off and a 60 day money back guarantee. Go to canary.tools/TWiT and edit the code TWiTT in the how did you Hear about a Box? And by unify meeting from MIMO monitors, unify simplifies your work life by combining your favorite video conferencing solutions into one reliable universal user interface. Visit unify meeting.com. Enter the code WW 50 for 50% off a year subscription. Or use the code WW to get 25% off any of mi mo's displays. Limited time offer. It's time for Windows Weekly, the show we cover the latest news from Microsoft with Paul thra of thra.com. First ring daily, lean pub.com, all of the things. And he has a giant mug of what is in your mug today.
Paul Thurrott (00:02:20):
Oh my God. This is Pimple Moose La LaCroix.
Leo Laporte (00:02:24):
Ooh,
Paul Thurrott (00:02:25):
Pimple moose flavor
Leo Laporte (00:02:26):
Grapefruit.
Paul Thurrott (00:02:27):
Yum. They strain up moose.
Leo Laporte (00:02:30):
<laugh>.
Paul Thurrott (00:02:32):
It's grapefruit. I don't speak French, but I think that's what that means. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:02:36):
It's made with moose. Yummy. Yum.
Paul Thurrott (00:02:40):
I like,
Leo Laporte (00:02:41):
Actually they're not a sponsor, but I like them. We
Paul Thurrott (00:02:44):
Have La Cro, we usually get the Kirk Croix as we call it when we go to Costco. But somehow we ended up with this. I
Leo Laporte (00:02:50):
Dunno, is that a Cherry Croix?
Paul Thurrott (00:02:53):
No, it's just like, that's fake. Kirkland Croix. Oh,
Leo Laporte (00:02:56):
The Kirk Croix. I get it. <laugh>. Yeah. I guess I should say this every time for the next few episodes. Yes. There's no Mary Jo. You notice <laugh>? She's moved on. She is now editing,
Paul Thurrott (00:03:12):
Chasing rabbits outta the farm.
Leo Laporte (00:03:14):
Yes. <laugh> we sold through the farmer. <laugh> <laugh>. No, she's s That's mean she's passed on. Yeah, she's in a better place. It's called Directions on microsoft.com right? That's right. And where she's editor in chief. But she'll join us from time to time and I don't know, I think we should start getting Rich Campbell queue up cuz he said he would be able to visit us in December. I have another question for you actually, and I'll ask it on the air and I don't know why. What about Chris Capello? Was that a Mary Jo thing or do you have access as
Paul Thurrott (00:03:50):
Well? I do have access, but we had gotten word that this might not be happening this year. Oh shoot. Previous too Mary Jo leaving, so I'll verify that. But
Leo Laporte (00:03:57):
I know, yeah, let me know. Usually it's the last show of the year, which would be I guess December. Yeah. I asked her first,
Paul Thurrott (00:04:04):
I said, if this happens, you should come back for
Leo Laporte (00:04:06):
That one. Oh yeah, that's a good point.
Paul Thurrott (00:04:09):
But I don't think it's gonna happen.
Leo Laporte (00:04:10):
Yeah. So, oh, that's too bad because I have already ordered my ugly Christmas sweater. No, not this. The one with Clipy on it and for the first time, cuz usually he'd come on and he'd, he'd wear it <affirmative> and I'd say, I gotta get that. And then of course they're long gone. So this time I paid attention. They went on sale yesterday,
Paul Thurrott (00:04:30):
I think 75 Butz ski.
Leo Laporte (00:04:31):
Yeah. Well they're not cheap and it's probably gonna
Paul Thurrott (00:04:35):
Be not coming supposedly. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:04:36):
Yeah. Are you getting one too good. So let's wear that
Paul Thurrott (00:04:41):
<laugh>. I
Leo Laporte (00:04:41):
Have on December 21st.
Paul Thurrott (00:04:42):
For the meantime I have this little bit of swag.
Leo Laporte (00:04:45):
Never forget, is that a laptop sheath
Paul Thurrott (00:04:49):
Or it's like a, well no, it's like a gadget bag. It really what it is is a really poorly made say how it kind of runs off the bottom
Leo Laporte (00:04:55):
For those not watching. It says, yeah, it doesn't, it's not folded probably it's, it
Paul Thurrott (00:05:00):
Says subtly done as clippy itself.
Leo Laporte (00:05:02):
It's a clippy with the words. Never forget <laugh>. That'd be a great tattoo. You might consider that right on the bicep there.
Paul Thurrott (00:05:11):
Geez. So the better. So if you look at his eyes, his eyes are both round here. I think the classic clippy image is one eye is kind of cockeyed. A little bit like half clothes. Cuz he looks like drunk. And that's how I'll always think of clippy. <laugh> half in the bag. He has no idea what's going on.
Leo Laporte (00:05:28):
<laugh>
Paul Thurrott (00:05:29):
Just tripping over stuff.
Leo Laporte (00:05:31):
Wow. Yep. Yeah. Okay. Wow. In the bag. Clippy is in the bag.
Paul Thurrott (00:05:43):
Clippy is in the
Leo Laporte (00:05:44):
Bag. I was just looking to see if I could find a picture of Clippy to see, to verify
Paul Thurrott (00:05:49):
If he got into the hard liquor again. That's all I'm saying. It's
Leo Laporte (00:05:52):
Just let's the sweater, here's the ugly sweater. Now I'm, I'm really curious. Yeah. Where is it?
Paul Thurrott (00:06:06):
Microsoft is so far heart ahead of the game when you think about it. Little digital assistance coming on screen to help you out and stuff. They're
Leo Laporte (00:06:13):
So good at that.
Paul Thurrott (00:06:14):
It's all the rage now,
Leo Laporte (00:06:18):
Except
Paul Thurrott (00:06:18):
Now it's AI that just does things for you. Doesn't help you do it. It just does it. Right. It's like clippy, I need to write a report about Columbus. It needs to be 800 words long and please slate three sources,
Leo Laporte (00:06:30):
That kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. He does look kinda a little toasted. Yeah. <laugh> like a little bit. Okay. But that's not the news. Not the big news of the day Should be be Paul and Leo getting ugly Christmas sweaters.
Paul Thurrott (00:06:52):
Yep.
Leo Laporte (00:06:53):
But there is Windows 11 news. We should probably talk about that as well.
Paul Thurrott (00:06:57):
Yeah. Sorry everybody.
Leo Laporte (00:06:59):
I'm sorry <laugh>. So sorry.
Paul Thurrott (00:07:03):
I was hoping to see some builds today and to my knowledge that has not happened yet. Maybe it will happen during the show, but we did get a set of beta channel builds last week. So the version that remember some come with new features, some don't. It looks like they're working on the task manager now, which is fantastic. Another set of screenshots I'll have to retake. Thank you for that. Geez
(00:07:26):
<laugh>. No, it's okay. Actually in writing about task manager, one of the things I was thinking about and was surprised was not there was a search box, search for processes, search for background processes, whatever they might be. And that is coming. And so that's cool. I mean this is just minor stuff. The big refresh to task manager came, actually I think it was, I can't remember anymore if it was the first version of Windows 11 or 22 H two, but it's been refreshed mostly for the better. The one thing that's weird about it is it used to have tabs across the top, which is kind of an old fashioned look now. But when you have tabs on the screen, you can see what each of the tabs is cuz there's a word there. And if you look at task manager today, it uses that kind of Windows 11 style app navigation scheme where there's navigation bar that's collapsible on the side, but it's collapsed by the default and you can't actually tell what end of the icons are, which is actually a huge problem in Windows 11 in general, by the way. You can expand it to see what they are, but you can't leave it expanded. I think if you resize it to a certain size it will stay expanded. But any hope so that's getting better. Most of what I would say is new. I think there's a setting sync, which is like the thing that we're getting rid of in Windows 11 is apparently making some form of a combat, a comeback possibly. It's in the beta channel so it doesn't mean it's gonna happen. But
(00:08:55):
That's it. I just got an exciting notification on my Apple watch telling you that I achieved a move call while I was sitting here
Leo Laporte (00:09:00):
Doing a podcast, doing absolutely nothing. So that pro Kid's podcast is good for you.
Paul Thurrott (00:09:07):
All that gesticulating really helps
Leo Laporte (00:09:09):
<laugh>. Yeah, that's good. It thought you were <laugh> it were exercising when instead you were just the only articulating.
Paul Thurrott (00:09:17):
Yeah, I'm not gonna get any stand gold stuff here while I do the show unfortunately,
Leo Laporte (00:09:22):
But Well, you can't. One thing at a time you closed your activity ring and that's what matters. It's incredible. That's funny. I don't know. You wore an Apple watch. Yeah. Gave up on that Windows Watch, huh?
Paul Thurrott (00:09:39):
<laugh>. Well no Leo, it gave up on me.
Leo Laporte (00:09:41):
Oh yeah, that's right.
Paul Thurrott (00:09:42):
Yeah. I like the Microsoft band, but Microsoft doesn't have that sticktuitiveness or whatever.
Leo Laporte (00:09:49):
Frank, have they said anything about the amazing shifting magnifying glass?
Paul Thurrott (00:09:58):
No, and that's actually something that really, that's part of the bother of this is the type of thing that you would expect to appear. Just so we're clear. No one knows what he means. Windows 11 to date has had a magnifying glass icon in the task bar for search. When you mouse over it, you get a list, a little popup that comes up, a flyout that shows you some of your recent searches and you click it and obviously search appears. Some people are now seeing a pill shaped search box that says search on it. So it looks different. In fact, let me look at this computer cuz it has been changing.
Leo Laporte (00:10:35):
We talked about this last week and I had the magnifying class. I now have the pill and you know what the pill in that that's lost, which I really dis is sad about as you talked about the right click on it, which gave me his search history. And it doesn't do
Paul Thurrott (00:10:51):
Yeah, yeah, it doesn't do anything.
Leo Laporte (00:10:52):
Doesn't do anything anymore.
Paul Thurrott (00:10:53):
So I'm actually, this is my third computer now that has it. Here's the thing, it's
Leo Laporte (00:10:59):
Leaking out bit by bit.
Paul Thurrott (00:11:01):
Yeah, it feels like a mistake. It, it's obviously incomplete. It should do that. Most overing. There's no reason why it can't. This particular computer, this is, we were talking about this briefly before the show. This is just an insight into the darkness of my soul. The thing that makes me crazy the most is just the inconsistencies across multiple computers. I'm trying to write a book, I want to be able to say this is this. And now I have to say things like this may be this and sometimes it's this, sometimes I don't know why. And then time will go by and maybe one of them disappears or something. I don't know. But here's what I do know, multiple computers. I just sent back eight computers I reviewed to PC Maker. So I had fewer computers to look at than I used to. But I still have tons of computers and most of them are sort of on the same build. This particular computer that I'm using here, which I literally wiped out last weekend and installed using the ISO that Microsoft gives you from their website. And in an effort to get to the very latest build, it's not on the very latest build. I have the search pill we've been discussing on this computer. What I don't have is right click and task manager. It's not there on this one computer. I have the update that delivers that feature that has been installed. No, this stuff makes me crazy.
Leo Laporte (00:12:22):
Yeah. I have the right click and task manager, but I also have the search pill.
Paul Thurrott (00:12:27):
No, this is I,
Leo Laporte (00:12:28):
What's weird is I don't think I got an update. There was Patch Tuesday yesterday. Maybe it came in the patch Tuesday that I didn't,
Paul Thurrott (00:12:35):
That's probably So Patch Tuesday was last week.
Leo Laporte (00:12:38):
Oh it was last week. You're
Paul Thurrott (00:12:39):
Right. Yes. Yeah. Remember it was like the nine nine
Leo Laporte (00:12:41):
And I'd already
Paul Thurrott (00:12:42):
Applied it something
Leo Laporte (00:12:43):
And I still had the old fashioned magnifying class. Now I have search pill,
Paul Thurrott (00:12:49):
So I don't have task, I don't have right click Task manager, I went to the Microsoft catalog, manually downloaded the update, tried to install it and they said, you already have this. It's on your computer. Actually I just looked at the bill. I do have the latest build, I'm sorry, I'm on 22 6 21 8 19, which is I think the latest stable build. And I don't have some of the, I can't explain this. So I, this
Leo Laporte (00:13:13):
Got a cumulative update for the Windows 11 insider preview on 1111, maybe that was, oh
Paul Thurrott (00:13:18):
Of course you're up. But you are on, you're on the right. Yeah. I do have suggested actions. I don't know what to tell you. <laugh>,
Leo Laporte (00:13:25):
Somebody in the chat room said it's inconsistency as a service.
Paul Thurrott (00:13:29):
Yeah. This is my biggest pet peeve of all. I don't get it. So there you go. I was telling Leo earlier, my wife wanted to reset her computer start from scratch. She's been using it for a couple years, starting to slow down or whatever. I'm like, yeah, no problem. I literally am writing that chapter for the Windows 11 book right now. This is fresh in my brain. Not, not that matters because I reset computers all the time. In fact, those eight PCs I sent back all were reset, right? So I could send 'em back. And I did that all in one day. I do this all the time. And in the process of resetting her computer, what we wanted to do for her was, lemme see if I can, it was save her data and do a refresh essentially not clean the disc. You know, that kind of thing. Right. And that it came, look in the middle of it, it said we weren't able to save your stuff. Sorry about that <laugh>. I was like, wait, what? I've never
Leo Laporte (00:14:21):
Couldn't up. We couldn't save it. We couldn't save it. Sorry. We
Paul Thurrott (00:14:25):
Tried. We did the best we could. It just, it wasn't, I mean it just What Flat lined. I know. I've never seen it. I've never seen as specialist before. I must have used PC reset a thousand times in my life. I must have. I've never seen that message. We could just never seen
Leo Laporte (00:14:41):
It. Sorry. We couldn
Paul Thurrott (00:14:42):
Couldn't do it. We tried. We wanted it. We did everything we could. The patient was unresponsive. I don't know why the death jokes keep coming. So <laugh>, <laugh> just,
Leo Laporte (00:14:51):
I know why I'm not telling you. It's just,
Paul Thurrott (00:14:54):
It's okay. So it's just the way things have been for me anyway. <laugh>. So I don't know what to tell you. But you are. See but you're in a different situation. I am in in the beta
Leo Laporte (00:15:08):
Channel. I'm an insider. Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (00:15:09):
Yeah, actually. So you should bring up task manager and see if you have the new search box.
Leo Laporte (00:15:14):
Oh,
Paul Thurrott (00:15:15):
You might even have the new stuff.
Leo Laporte (00:15:16):
Right? Click on the task bar. Open task manager. <affirmative>. Yes. Type a. Name publisher or P to search.
Paul Thurrott (00:15:24):
Look at that. Look
Leo Laporte (00:15:25):
At that
Paul Thurrott (00:15:26):
Name. Publisher or P
Leo Laporte (00:15:28):
Process id
Paul Thurrott (00:15:29):
X. Does it actually say that or you just
Leo Laporte (00:15:32):
Know that it says pi? No, it doesn't say that. I just, that's I think what it means.
Paul Thurrott (00:15:36):
No, I think you're No, you're a hundred percent right. I'm just saying that's a terrible acronym to put in a search box. But no one would know what that means. Well
Leo Laporte (00:15:42):
If you're using task manager, you gotta know what a pit is.
Paul Thurrott (00:15:45):
I'd probably Come on.
Leo Laporte (00:15:47):
Come on.
Paul Thurrott (00:15:48):
Do you know what a pit is? No. Then you can't run this. No,
Leo Laporte (00:15:51):
Not allowed.
Paul Thurrott (00:15:53):
I like that. You might be searching by process id by the way this would ever come up.
Leo Laporte (00:15:57):
It does in reason. I know it is. Cause it does in Linux a lot or any Unix C operating system. When you do a command like top, it'll show you of the process. See the pit. Yeah. And then if you wanna do kill, kill it by process id. But what's interesting about this is it doesn't show the process IDs <laugh>.
Paul Thurrott (00:16:17):
So it can, oh by the way, it can,
Leo Laporte (00:16:19):
I can turn that on. But adding a column or something.
Paul Thurrott (00:16:22):
That's right. That's right <laugh>. Right <laugh>.
Leo Laporte (00:16:26):
You don't know what a pit is and you know, don't know what the pit is. So forget the pit baby. The PIT stuff, you can't handle the pi.
Paul Thurrott (00:16:35):
I like that. The right click menu says PI too, but doesn't explain what it is. It doesn't spell it out right. It's funny. Wow. You can sort by PI <laugh>, what do you wanna sort by? Whatever.
Leo Laporte (00:16:45):
Where do you see PIs? I don't see PIs.
Paul Thurrott (00:16:47):
Right. Click the column of the column headers.
Leo Laporte (00:16:50):
Cpu. So you can add it to your column headers. You
Paul Thurrott (00:16:53):
Can add it. Yeah, yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:16:54):
Yeah. Okay. See I'm right clicking. Ah there, there's pi. There you go. Some things have no p I know. Is that possible? How could you not have a pi? Hmm.
Paul Thurrott (00:17:08):
Oh the mysteries of Windows. Many
Leo Laporte (00:17:11):
Sort by PI system interrupts Windows, default lock screen, windows Shell, Microsoft Edge has no PI. Widgets, discord, Firefox has no pi. Nothing has a pi. I guess it's only services.
Paul Thurrott (00:17:24):
All
Leo Laporte (00:17:25):
Background. It's all, yeah, maybe that's it. It's just gotta be background. Yeah, no foreground. It's all services. That's what it's, that's interesting. But even things like Runtime Broker and Runtime Broker two have no pi. Oh yes they do. They have a pit. If I expand it, I have to expand it and then I will see the pi.
Paul Thurrott (00:17:41):
Even some, oh there you go.
Leo Laporte (00:17:43):
Okay. Oh I see. Same thing with Edge. It has so many PIs. <laugh>.
Paul Thurrott (00:17:48):
That's right. That sure does. One might say it has too many pits.
Leo Laporte (00:17:52):
Yeah. Okay, now I see. Now I see. Same with Firefox. Probably has a long Yeah, Firefox pits go on and on and on. Yeah,
Paul Thurrott (00:18:00):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:18:01):
Nice thing about Edge. At least it labels their processes. So I can see what tab it is. Not with Firefox. It's just Firefox. It also with Edge has a little green leaf symbol.
Paul Thurrott (00:18:15):
Yeah. For efficiency mode. Yeah. So this is a, yeah, edge actually does have some advantages over are the browsers when you run it on Windows 11. And one of them is that it integrates with this Windows 11 feature called Efficiency mode. By default you can actually turn that off, but you kind of want that. It basically, yeah, it takes the load off the cpu. Um, I have a feeling in the future efficiency mode is going to expand to include other resource usage like ram obviously GPU probably. But today it's just for cpu. Um, it's actually a new troubleshooting tip for Windows 11 because one of the things you can do if you have an application that's not responding is go into task manager instead of kill it because maybe it's worried and you have a document and you haven't saved or something like that. You can click and try to put it into efficiency mode. And that actually takes the load off of the cpu. And I, I've never run into an actual real world example where this works in the sense that I've never had a hung application that I could put into efficiency mode to rescue it. But the idea is it's supposed to possibly do that. And if it does, you don't have to kill it. And then you can save your data, close it, reopen it if you want to, something like that. So Edge is the kind of PostIt channel for this. So
Leo Laporte (00:19:26):
If you have a Intel 12 or 13th gen with efficiency cores, <affirmative>, it would be kind of cool if it would allocate those to the efficiency course.
Paul Thurrott (00:19:38):
Nothing about Windows, Leo
Leo Laporte (00:19:40):
<laugh>?
Paul Thurrott (00:19:43):
No, I'm sure that's the plan. Ignorant
Leo Laporte (00:19:47):
Slut,
Paul Thurrott (00:19:47):
<laugh>. Nothing about Windows. Yeah. I don't know this magical world you live in your brain or everything just makes sense. Yeah, no, maybe that must be
Leo Laporte (00:19:58):
The plan. Come on, tell me.
Paul Thurrott (00:19:59):
It's got plan. It's got No, it's gotta be, it's
Leo Laporte (00:20:01):
Be the plan. It's gotta be. I like the little green leaf though. That's cool. I did too. Yeah. Yep. Widgets gets a green leaf. That's nice.
Paul Thurrott (00:20:10):
So I don't know if you could do it to Firefox, but I've done this with things like Word and notepad. If you right click one of the other processes in there, you should be able to put it into efficiency mode.
Leo Laporte (00:20:19):
Ah, nice. So you have to do it manual manually for Firefox, right Click.
Paul Thurrott (00:20:25):
Yeah. And I don't know that, I don't wanna efficiency
Leo Laporte (00:20:27):
Mode anything. Yeah, no, no,
Paul Thurrott (00:20:28):
No. It's not available everywhere. Not for every app. And actually if, I think sometimes you might have to expand the outside container and get to the in notion, for example, notion has eight processes running somehow in my computer and I could put individual processes into efficiency mode mode. But the idea there is you can see the CPU column, you can see if something's hammering it right. And you can just as a temporary, maybe this will save it.
Leo Laporte (00:20:56):
You can also see power usage. I wish I could show you mine because I know you, but I wish I could show the audience mine. I'm having trouble getting the output of this computer, but boy, this is nice. You can sort by status, what's paused, what's efficient. You can take a look at power usage ranging from low, very low to high. I guess this is really cool. This is nicely done.
Paul Thurrott (00:21:22):
I do think there's a plan, by the way, I was kind of joking earlier. I don't know specifically with efficiency cores, but I think one of the ideas here is that in the beginning you give one capability and you make it manual and then over time you add additional capabilities, like I said, related to RAM or GP or whatever. And then you make it automatic. Ideally Windows gets more sophisticated over time and applications that are written correctly can automatically go into efficiency mode or whatever or take advantage of efficiency mode. And it will be more wide ranging than the CPU usage. But early days we'll get there I hope.
Leo Laporte (00:21:59):
I hope. Hoop, hoop, hoop.
Paul Thurrott (00:22:02):
Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:22:04):
Nice. Okay,
Paul Thurrott (00:22:08):
There you go. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:22:10):
That's a really, really nice feature that the task manager, it always cracks me up when you launch a task manager on a system and it shows you if you sort it, the default sort usually is CPU usage. And the top thing is the task manager. <laugh> this task manager.
Paul Thurrott (00:22:27):
Well if you have enough stuff running, that won't be the case.
Leo Laporte (00:22:29):
But <laugh> a tough thing on mine. <laugh> pretty funny.
Paul Thurrott (00:22:34):
And if you ever doubted that Edge was a sophisticated near operating system type program, edge has its own task manager that you can access through this, that system menu go down to, I think it's more tools and you'll find a task manager option in there and who is spending their life doing that? <laugh>. Yeah. It's like micro micromanaging browser tasks. But maybe for a developer that might be valuable. Maybe it's a developer tool just to see if
Leo Laporte (00:23:02):
I find 'em handy. If you're having problems, being able to go into Task manager and see what's using all that memory, what's using all that CPU or what's running in the background. And I really like this efficiency thing.
Paul Thurrott (00:23:18):
Brand
Leo Laporte (00:23:18):
New. It's an analog to the nice command on Unix. Is <laugh> pretty? You could tell something, it'd be nice and it won't haul the
Paul Thurrott (00:23:26):
Cpu. Yeah, the rare instance where Linux actually is simpler and clean.
Leo Laporte (00:23:30):
Well it's not the same thing. I mean efficiency, I don't think it's more than nice. I would think, especially if you have efficiency course. Nice. Just says don't lock the processor.
Paul Thurrott (00:23:39):
Yeah, play nice. No, I, no, I think that's a neat, actually a great name. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:23:45):
Be nice. Steal it. Play nice
Paul Thurrott (00:23:48):
Microsoft. Be nice and steal it. <laugh> no one will notice. No one
Leo Laporte (00:23:52):
Will know. All right. I just noticing saw Camp. I'm reading the head again. I'm sorry, I apologize <affirmative>, but I just, cuz I saw that your next item and I thought, well let me launch photos and sure enough I, it says you want to use iCloud, you wanna have your iCloud photos, my Apple photos. And I said yeah so you have to go to the store and download it. But that's really cool. Now I can turn on iCloud for Windows
Paul Thurrott (00:24:21):
And perhaps not. Or perhaps predictably I should say I do not see that <laugh> of course, but supposed well maybe I need to update the app. So as of just, I think a couple of days ago, this capability, which they have been testing in the insider program is rolling out to everybody who has Windows 11. So this is iCloud integration in the photos app. Yeah, this is fine. I would prefer this to be an open platform and it's available to everybody and even a third party could write plugins or whatever that would bring whatever cloud service into this app. I think this should
Leo Laporte (00:24:58):
Make That would be awesome. Like Amazon photos or whatever. Yeah,
Paul Thurrott (00:25:01):
Exactly. And well Google photos, especially for me anyway selfishly, but yeah, no, I mean this is good. I use some Apple devices and iCloud is one of those things I have great difficulty with actually. So for example, the other day I was looking at my iPad for whatever reason cuz I do stuff like I'm stupid, I go through settings. I look like how much storage am I using <laugh>. And one of the things, big items, so I think a third or fourth biggest item was photos. I'm like, that's fascinating. I don't use photos of my iPad. Why is this happening? And it turns out I had some number of gigabytes of space wasted by photos that were synced from iCloud to my iPad. Okay, well this should be easy to solve and 200 Google searches. And about two hours later I finally figured out not just how to delete them and be sure I'm not deleting them from a cloud, which is one of the big issues. But how to do that efficiently because there's no way, there's no select all command in the iPad or an iOS or I iPad os. And if you have several thousand photos in there, I did, you know, have to swipe up the screen and let it scroll by so you can get to the top. That's dumb. It turns out there's a handy shortcut for doing that. This isn't an iPad show so I'm not gonna tell you what it is, who cares <laugh>. But the point is
Leo Laporte (00:26:20):
We'll say that for, I always say
Paul Thurrott (00:26:22):
That you can, I'm sure, yeah sure Micah knows that you guys can do that on some other show. But it was stupid and I wasted my time. But the integration or the interaction on via iCloud of my photos between my couple of I or iPhone iPad devices, whatever to me is very confusing. Obviously I don't think I figured it out. I think I just deleted, I'm sure if I go back today there are photos there because I took more photos. But this is a good capability and this is the type of thing I want. To me, this is more along the lines of what I would want than what Apple does. When I know Apple, what Apple does is great for Apple people who are on Apple everything. But for me, I prefer to go into an app I want to use and say yes I want this integration.
(00:27:06):
And have those photos kind of show up because this makes them available to all of the things that are in Windows 11 that you can do with photos. And I don't just mean editing and stuff like that. I mean sharing them in different ways, using nearby share that feature I keep talking about that nobody uses or sharing them via the mail app. If you want to mail photos, whatever it might be. So this is cool cuz this was a hole that has been filled but it's still a whole like, you know, said Amazon photos or use Google Photos or whatever, flicker or whatever other service. I'd love to see this be more of an open thing that other services could,
Leo Laporte (00:27:42):
I'm gonna assume that Apple writes the iCloud app for Windows. It's not a Microsoft app, right? But you can turn on syncing with iCloud drive with photos. That's true. Contacts and calendars will sync with Outlook, bookmarks will sync with Edge Chrome or Firefox. You can sync your passwords with Edge or Chrome, which I'm gonna turn that off.
Paul Thurrott (00:28:07):
You could. I'm
Leo Laporte (00:28:09):
Not gonna do that.
Paul Thurrott (00:28:09):
Yeah, not
Leo Laporte (00:28:11):
Gonna do that. That makes, but what it does and it's actually very generous of Apple because what it does, I mean I've not Apple of Microsoft, apple would never do this with Andrew. But what it does is it means that I could for instance use the password manager on my iPhone <affirmative> and sync it up with the password manager and Edge. And that's great. That's a nice, that
Paul Thurrott (00:28:32):
Is great.
Leo Laporte (00:28:33):
So I
Paul Thurrott (00:28:34):
Like these, what these connections between ecosystems are always fascinating to me. It's always a little depressing cuz they are holes everywhere. You know what you said Android, whatever, but
Leo Laporte (00:28:45):
Oh look, there's all iCloud photos. That's really awesome. And it's up to date. That's nice. That's great.
Paul Thurrott (00:28:53):
It has with Microsoft. So it probably won't always be up to great. But <laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:28:57):
Puts a little iCloud icon so I know where it came from in my photos. Right, right. This is really nice. I
Paul Thurrott (00:29:06):
Should, should look for mine.
Leo Laporte (00:29:08):
And now it's syncing and I'm seeing the number of photos go up very rapidly. So I think it's probably sinking to one drive, which is good. Let's have another backup. Let's have another backup of my photos. Oh, look at that. Well 1,945 photos synced.
Paul Thurrott (00:29:26):
Well
Leo Laporte (00:29:27):
That's nice. Okay. I like it. Yeah, I like it.
Paul Thurrott (00:29:31):
This is especially good because the iPhone integration stuff that Microsoft provides in Windows 11 is almost nonexistent. Right. Use that PC link app or whatever they're calling it this week and a phone link or whatever and it's just not very good. There's a lot of stuff on Android, there's a lot of stuff. If you have a Samsung phone, if you have an iPhone, you just really don't get much at all. Right. So this is nice.
Leo Laporte (00:29:56):
And I can export my, now my iCloud photos to Clip Champ. So there you go.
Paul Thurrott (00:30:02):
That's exactly the kind of integration I was talking about. Although, well, no, no, I'm not gonna, although that I have something for later about video editing. We'll get to that later. But Oh, save it. Yes, that's the point. You can integrate it with anything that's in Windows 11 that can accept photos. So good.
Leo Laporte (00:30:18):
I have really, I'm sorry that my technology has failed. I would love to show you this whole thing, but for some reason I can't get the screen off this Dell into our system. I it's, but it comes and goes. Sometimes I can, every morning I come in and say, will I be able to see it today? Today I cannot last. But it works. I can vouch for it and work
Paul Thurrott (00:30:39):
Nicely not to keep ripping on Apple products. But my iPhone will no longer connect to the Bluetooth of my car for music. It does it for the phone. So I <laugh>, this is a goofy coincidence, but I have exactly four us b A to lightning cables in my possession. Three of them are in Mexico. So the one that's in the car is damaged. So it doesn't work all the time. And I almost don't have any way to play music or podcast or whatever in the car. And I sit there and I flip the cable around. Cause sometimes it works one way or the other. And this is what it's like for me to use technology. This is, I think maybe it's not just Microsoft, maybe. Maybe it's me. I don't know. I'm trying
Leo Laporte (00:31:20):
<laugh>
Paul Thurrott (00:31:22):
I three, three of these cables. Three Three of these cables in Mexico.
Leo Laporte (00:31:25):
Yeah,
Paul Thurrott (00:31:27):
Three
Leo Laporte (00:31:28):
You got, oh, so you rent a car in Mexico?
Paul Thurrott (00:31:31):
No, I just have three of the cables. One of them came with the Apple tv. Right? One of them. The cars.
Leo Laporte (00:31:37):
The cars in Pennsylvania, but the cables are in Mexico. That might be part of the problem.
Paul Thurrott (00:31:42):
Problem. Literally there was a, because you know how you get compulsive, you traveling and I have an iPhone. Yeah. So I'm thinking, what if I want to charge this thing on the plane, they'll have a U S B A cable. So I need to have this cable. So I had one in my gadget bag. I had one out in the kitchen. And then as we were leaving the car, I said I should grab this cable just in case I brought it to Mexico. Cuz the cable needs to see Mexico <laugh>. And then I have one in the apartment cuz we have an Apple TV and that's how you charge the remote. So I have four of these damn cables. They're all in Mexico, <laugh>. And I'm like, I'll just, I'm gonna bring one of them home. I never need these things again. The one I bring home is broken. And this is what my life's like. This is, I own four of
Leo Laporte (00:32:22):
Them. This Paul, this is what happens when you have two homes.
Paul Thurrott (00:32:27):
I told, I'm sorry, you have to get
Leo Laporte (00:32:28):
Two of everything Paul.
Paul Thurrott (00:32:30):
I have four of everything. I didn't think I needed one of these. You're not supposed to bring them
Leo Laporte (00:32:35):
All to Mexico.
Paul Thurrott (00:32:36):
I didn't mean to. I just did. And then I only brought one
Leo Laporte (00:32:39):
Home. This is, we have
Paul Thurrott (00:32:40):
The opposite. I'm not
Leo Laporte (00:32:41):
Yeah, we have the opposite problem when we travel. Lisa. Oh is this is like that insurance ad where you said you would pack the life vest. Lisa says, you said you would pack the cables, right? I said I thought you pack the cables.
Paul Thurrott (00:32:56):
Oh see we, we have very specific jobs when we travel. I'm passports and cables.
Leo Laporte (00:33:01):
That's passports and cables. You tech. That's good.
Paul Thurrott (00:33:03):
Yeah, that's pretty much, that's it. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:33:05):
We're grownups. We each, I responsible for own passports, but <laugh> not apparently for cables. For cables. That's my job.
Paul Thurrott (00:33:14):
No, they asked my wife for a passport. I'm like, I got this. Okay, I got this. I got it, man.
Leo Laporte (00:33:18):
Okay. Stand
Paul Thurrott (00:33:19):
Back. I don't, don't know why you're talking to her. I
Leo Laporte (00:33:22):
Got the passports.
Paul Thurrott (00:33:23):
No, I just carry 'em in my bag.
Leo Laporte (00:33:25):
Yeah, no, no, that's smart. Actually. Who carries the tickets? Do you have that worked out?
Paul Thurrott (00:33:29):
Well those are all electronic now. So we both have,
Leo Laporte (00:33:31):
Oh that's apps or whatever. Oh wow. You're very fancy. I did for the first time. I used my watch to,
Paul Thurrott (00:33:38):
Did I what? So
Leo Laporte (00:33:39):
<laugh> check in.
Paul Thurrott (00:33:40):
When the first Apple Watch came out, I was still living in Boston. I was flying JetBlue all the time. So status was awesome. And one of the first apps that was on Apple Watch was JetBlue. I could not wait to check in with my wrist. I could not wait. So they have this little scanner machine that's sitting under the desk. You walk up, most people put their ticket under it puts the light on whatever. So I go to put my wrist under there and it's like this high. So I can't fit the thing under the wrist. And she's like, you gonna have to take the watch off. And I'm like, I don't think it works if it's off my wrist. And she's like, do you have a paper ticket? I'm like, no. I thought I was gonna do, what did you do? They let me, in
Leo Laporte (00:34:16):
The early days, they didn't have readers that had room for you to put your wrist in.
Paul Thurrott (00:34:21):
Right? That's right. No, I experienced this. Yep. I remember
Leo Laporte (00:34:25):
Standing in line with somebody, somebody doing the same thing going, yep man, come on man. In fact, I have only just now not do, done the insurance printout of the boarding pass. I'm only now trusting these devices.
Paul Thurrott (00:34:41):
No, I trust we've trusted devices for a while, but I don't have have to this day never checked into an airplane using an Apple watch. I tried it once and I was like, yep. I gets
Leo Laporte (00:34:53):
The tickets, the ticket going to a concert ticket. These guys monopolist. Horrible. You saw what happened with Ticketmaster and Taylor Swift <affirmative>. Now, by the way, if you wanna see Taylor Swift, you can buy a ticket but it's a hundred thousand dollars. Anyway. Wait, what? Don't get me. No, I'm not kidding. <laugh>. I am not kidding.
Paul Thurrott (00:35:12):
Well she needs a new studio so it's gonna go to a good cost.
Leo Laporte (00:35:15):
So when we went to see to Vegas down c Katy Perry, she uses a access, which is a competitor Ticket master.
Paul Thurrott (00:35:23):
Yeah, we have that here.
Leo Laporte (00:35:24):
You have to have the app and you cannot screenshot or print the QR code because they're so paranoid. They change it every 30 seconds. It's a revolving QR code. Oh,
Paul Thurrott (00:35:35):
That's
Leo Laporte (00:35:35):
Amazing. So you have to have it on your phone and you can't, I couldn't send Lisa a screenshot. She had to either, I have to have both tickets or she has to have the exs app with access to my account. So I guess there's a reason to be that paranoid. But you can't print it. You can't screen cop it. Sava says, no, don't bother, don't bother, don't bother screen capturing this. It's gonna be different in 30 seconds.
Paul Thurrott (00:36:01):
That's incredible.
Leo Laporte (00:36:02):
Yeah. Talk about security. Wow. I'm glad the airlines are not doing that. Thank you.
Paul Thurrott (00:36:08):
Oh, don't do me any ideas. This is next.
Leo Laporte (00:36:12):
It's not because nobody's, people aren't vying to get into the airplane <laugh>. No, that's true. No,
Paul Thurrott (00:36:21):
I
Leo Laporte (00:36:21):
Wanna be in the front row. No, I'm in the front room. By the way, another reason not to, this is why I liked the concert in Vegas, because they have burley scary ass security guards. When we went to see Motley Crew, nobody sitting around has had tickets to sit around us. They all snuck down and the ticket holders would show up and they'd go, oh. And they'd leave. And then they move to the other seat and the guards are completely overwhelmed. They can't stop it. At the end of the show, there's a rush to get to the front. It's not worth sitting close to the front if you're not in Vegas. In Vegas.
Paul Thurrott (00:36:58):
What was the stadium in Vegas?
Leo Laporte (00:37:01):
It wasn't. It was in inside at the Resort World's Theater, which is nice. Nice. It's a very nice theater. It was Katie Perry's theater. Now it's gonna, it's Luke. Oh, Luke somebody. It's Luke, Luke Perry, Luke Perry. It's probably about Luke, not Luke Perry. Look, you're dead. I some country guy named Luke. Yeah, not Luke here. <laugh>. And then like the purpose built theaters. Aerosmith apparently is amazing at MGM Park because they have, the theater has been built for them for the sound and they have sound in the seats. And
Paul Thurrott (00:37:35):
I wanna live in Vegas, but it would be worth living there just for concerts.
Leo Laporte (00:37:38):
Lisa and I say the concerts, restaurants and restaurants just shows in general. And let's not forget the rodeo.
Paul Thurrott (00:37:46):
No, let's
Leo Laporte (00:37:47):
<laugh>. There's nothing to compete with the Calgary stamped. I'm just gonna say that right now. Let's talk about the S D K, which is like the PI only for
Paul Thurrott (00:37:59):
Developers. Yeah, well I bet SDK is a little better understood by mainstream people. But the software developer kit, this is for the Windows app sdk. This is the successor to the Universal Windows platform. Couple of big differences, it's first of all, it's moving forward. So it's all WIN UI three, which uwp is kinda stuck on Wi White two, which is the modern UI shell, the Chrome bit. But also they did that versioning thing where one of the problems with DWP is that as they added new features, they were specific to some version of Windows 10 and now 11. And it made it very hard for versioning because you want to use this feature, but you have to do a check at the beginning, make sure they're running the right version. And so the way that the Windows app SDK works is that these features are all available on any supported version of Windows 10 or 11.
(00:38:48):
And that's kind of cool. So they usually release and updated this alongside their.net and Visual Studio updates, which come out every November and did come out, I think it was last week or two weeks ago now, dot net seven and the latest version in Visual Studio. So the app SDK kind of maps to that and a couple of things. So first of all, third party widget is support, which is not actually in the OS yet, but developers can now use the Windows app SDK to create packaged when 32 apps, these are desktop apps that are packaged, not uwp or modern style apps. That will become widgets in the widget board that's available in Windows 11 right now, if you're in the insider program, you can access third party widgets. But this will be coming mainstream or to stable sometimes soon. So when UI three updates, new controls, especially around media playback, this a new voice feature which actually uses the Azure communication service on the back end, which is the same service that Microsoft uses for calling and Microsoft Teams.
(00:39:50):
So that's not gonna work at all. And then Native Arms 64 developer support. So you could already write Windows app s STK apps that would run on Windows 11 arm. But now that you can develop apps on Windows 11 on arm using a data version of Visual Studio, which just came out a week or two ago also, this is one of the workloads you can target. So I don't remember every workload, but if you think about Visual Studio and all the different things you can do, cause it's everything from desktop apps to IOT to server and cloud apps and whatever ai, whatever. There's a subset of those that work on arm. I know it's the desktop stuff, I know it's the.net stuff. So you could write a Windows format, a Windows presentation Foundation app. You could write a c plus plus desktop app for some reason. Do that. I suspect Web app is in there somewhere. I don't remember the exact list of workloads, but one of the workloads is Windows app SD caps. So these are the modern apps you would create for Windows 10 or 11. So that is pretty cool.
(00:40:52):
Anyone, well this comes up a lot with what's the future with app development on Windows. I don't think there is a future for Windows app development. I don't think there's some new APIs, some new SDK coming down the pipe that's gonna be awesome for everything. I think this is an interesting thing to do because it lets you take an existing app and then put a modern front end on top of it. I don't actually know for a fact that this is how they did it, but I think Notepad is a great example of that <affirmative>, where there's kind of a backend and then they ripped off the shell, the part you interact with and replaced it with a w I'm gonna call it a W UI front end. I actually don't know how they did it, but I believe, I wouldn't be surprised if this is what it is, what it was.
(00:41:33):
Notepad is app that dates back to the 1990s probably in Windows NT and all that stuff. And it's been updated over the years. Vista had a new version. I'm sure there were new versions, but the version of Windows and Lovett is actually really nice. It's a nice example of a classic app with a nice kind of win UI style front end and maybe a good example of what you might be able to do with the Windows app sdk. So it's a good approach for existing apps. I don't think a lot of people are gonna be like, oh, I'm gonna write my next app. I think I'll use the Windows app sdk. I don't think that's gonna happen a lot, but you have an existing project of whatever complexity you wanna bring it forward and have a look modern and pretty on Windows 11. This is a good approach. So
Leo Laporte (00:42:12):
It's good. Very nice I have to say. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, the thing I like about you is your developer because you're a developer yourself. The developer focus. In fact, you started writing books about programming about Delphi and I really enjoy that. Cause I, my hobby, yeah, <laugh>, I know we lost our enterprise host, but I'm glad we lost an enterprise host, but we gained a developer and I think that's a <laugh>. Sure, that's
Paul Thurrott (00:42:44):
A good thing. No, the developer stuff matters. I, I did that big history Windows thing. I loved that it was sort of a developer angle to it. But the reality is I don't think a lot of mainstream Windows users would ever think about the history of Windows at all. But if they did, they wouldn't really think about it in terms of why were certain things invented or why were things the way they were or whatever it was. And a lot of it is because of developer reasons, because of whatever initiative was happening at the time or whatever desire there was to update things on the back end to make things better across the stack or whatever it was, I think is, I don't know. It's important to have some toe in that.
Leo Laporte (00:43:23):
I totally agree. And it's the best hobby ever. And I think that we probably have a lot of developers who listen. Actually I wanna talk about our sponsor for this segment, <affirmative> of the show, cuz it is also for developers from Red Hat. So there are a lot of developers at Red Hat. It's called Code Comments. So that gives you some idea about what you're gonna get. It's original podcast from Red Hat, what a comment is in code, a little reminder to others, or maybe more importantly to yourself six months from now, what this section does, what this is all about. The podcast is code comments. It takes that idea by letting you listen in on two experienced technologists as they describe how they build their software, which is I think a wonderful peak into the process. Behind the scenes, a peak behind the curtain. I just love it.
(00:44:21):
A lot of work goes into bringing a project from whiteboard to development to shipping and modern software. I, you know, and I write our code by ourselves, but Modern Software is generally a big team. No, nobody's doing it alone. So the host is Bur Sutter. He's a Red Hatter, lifelong developer advocate. He knows how to talk to developers, he can speak to speak and then translate it to English. He's a community organizer. So the way the podcast goes, each episode, Burr will sit down with an experienced technologist from some part of the industry and they'll trade stories, talk about development, talk about the life cycle of software, how a project comes to life, and what they've learned from these experiences, which is really fantastic. If you wanna learn about, just go and look at the list at red hat.com/code comments podcast. I really enjoy. So the latest episode was Rethinking Networks in telecommunications. Fascinating stuff. Deep learning in the enterprise. I guess there's only two right now. So they've just started the new season, which is great. It's a brand new show. Pivotal moments and technical projects from those who lived through them. We love, we've always talked about how we love books like that.
(00:45:45):
What was the Pascal Zachary's great book about the development of Windows nt. We love that. The behind the scenes stuff, that's what this is in a podcast. Episodes are available wherever you listen to podcasts. You search for code comments or as I said, red hat.com/code comments podcast. There are two out so far. You <laugh> have to listen to each week, which is gonna make you want more, I think. Search for code comments in your podcast player. We'll also put a link at TWiT tv slash ww in the show notes for episode, this episode. Thanks so much to Red Hat for code comments. And actually I wanna thank Red Hat for doing these, cuz they do a lot of podcasts for us geeks, for the real enthusiasts. And this is a perfect example, how projects come to life with the people who made them the stories, the anecdotes and all of that. Code comments. Listen wherever you get your podcasts on, we go show
Paul Thurrott (00:46:41):
Stopper,
Leo Laporte (00:46:42):
Show stopper, show stopper, Jeep Pascal, Zachary, and I love the soul of the new machine. Tracy Kiters, classic cook. Yeah, yeah. I love how they made this stuff. I just love that stuff. Yeah, yeah.
Paul Thurrott (00:46:54):
There's a fiction called, I think it's called Micro Surfs.
Leo Laporte (00:47:00):
Oh yeah, micro surfs is great. I love
Paul Thurrott (00:47:02):
That. Micro surfs is great, but my <laugh> fear was there was a developer who was having emotional problems. He locked himself in his office and they were afraid that he was gonna starve to death. So they had to slip flat food under his door. So the only you could have baloney and pizza. Fruit leathers. Yeah. It was like whatever would fit under the door was all he could eat. That's hysterical. I always thought that was, it's just beautiful.
Leo Laporte (00:47:28):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I always enjoy the behind the scenes stuff. Actually. That's what you do so well, which is great. <laugh>. Alright, so as some of a little history lesson, bill Gates, founder of Microsoft No longer there, resigned kind of abruptly from the board. And we find then we got news that, well maybe that was because of an investigation that was going on about Bill. That's right. And a consensual relationship with a subordinate inside
Paul Thurrott (00:48:01):
Microsoft. That's what he said. That's not what she said.
Leo Laporte (00:48:03):
Oh, interesting. So Microsoft did have to, and I think appropriately so commission an independent review and that review is out, right?
Paul Thurrott (00:48:14):
So this isn't the first time this has happened with Gates. Gates is one of those troubling people in our industry because a lot of people are driven and near genius in one capacity aren't necessarily great in other aspects of life and we don't need to beat that one to death. But the weird thing about Bill Gates, I think is most people will always associate him with Microsoft. And I bet if you did one of those Jaylen Oman on the street things and Zaa the CEO of Microsoft, I bet a lot of people would say Bill Gates, I, he's just associated with the company. I don't remember the timing of all the stuff, but of course at some point he's stepped down as CEO and Steve Bomber became ceo. Um, and then he stepped down from day to day at some point to work on his philanthropy stuff, which raises another interesting problem.
(00:48:59):
There was a Gates documentary that I think landed during the Pandemic, which was a bald faced attempt to make him seem like a kindly old man who was out to save the world from mosquitoes and toilets and things like that. I don't remember the exact details, but that really stepped very lightly on as many problems, which I thought was disingenuous frankly. But Microsoft, for all of the good vibes I think that have come out of the Sat and Adela era at Microsoft, I think the one thing they haven't got a handle on yet is this poorly behaving white, middle-aged white men thing, for lack of a better term. This has been a problem in the tech industry since it's been a tech industry. It's been a problem for Microsoft, since it's been a Microsoft, it's continuing to this day. Unfortunately, they now say they're gonna do something about it and I'll take them at the word.
(00:49:53):
I mean, I think Microsoft is well run today and generally speaking has its heart in the right place, so to speak, if that makes sense for a company. But yeah, they had to go to Gates and be like, Hey, and by, I'm sorry, Microsoft president Brad Smith went to Microsoft, went to Gates and said, Hey, this woman said you've been doing this or whatever. He claimed it was consensual and then he stepped on the board. And so when Satya Nadela came back, bill Gates actually came back to Microsoft in a limited role as an advisor to Satya Nadella. So he has actually been more involved over the past several years than he had been the previous several years. But he was also on the board this whole time. So he's no longer, I would say, I hope I'm correct to say now he has no formal role at Microsoft anymore. Right. Except as a shareholder <laugh>. So I believe, anyway, it's good to see that the board of directors took the this seriously. Eventually they finally did. They did go to an outside review. They've released a hundred and I dunno how many pages, oh, the 50 page report, I'm sorry.
(00:51:01):
Identified a bunch of, it's
Leo Laporte (00:51:02):
Pointing though that Microsoft hasn't improved under Nadela.
Paul Thurrott (00:51:08):
Right. Which is one of
Leo Laporte (00:51:09):
The, I think that's conclusions that they came up with.
Paul Thurrott (00:51:11):
Well that's, that's funny cuz that's, I've been saying that, I mean that when you look at people like what's the guy that used to run HoloLens had this, Alex Kipman had this problem. There have been other examples of this. The guy like Angelo had issues like this. He used to work on the Windows team under Steven. This has been a, it's an issue. It's been an ongoing issue. Now granted some of that predates Nadella, but I think what we're seeing here is Microsoft finally addressing this and doing so in a very transparent and public way. They are going to undertake all of the recommendations that were offered by the independent review and they're gonna be transparent and public going forward about this on a regular basis. And hopefully this kind of thing can't happen again. It's kind of tough when it's someone like Gates, obviously, because he's an industry icon and it's not the type of person a lot of people can say no to.
(00:52:08):
And I mean that on broadly, but this notion of harassment or I don't know what you wanna call it, I'm looking for a clean word here, but is a problem. It's always been a problem in tech. And I think the good news out of this is that it took a while, but it does look like this is gonna be that one part of Microsoft and it really didn't rise to the level that we kind of expected this man and this company. And it looks like they're gonna turn it around. So maybe there's no reason to beat it to death, but it's just disappointing.
Leo Laporte (00:52:44):
Let's keep an eye on it because you could put out the report and not do anything. So yeah,
Paul Thurrott (00:52:50):
I mean don't Mike, look, Brad Smith is a lot of things, but Brad, he has been very public and vocal about Microsoft as an agent of good in a company that's trying to do the right thing, whether it's environmental or just for the industry or just even morally or whatever, which is kind of goofy, but this is overdue. But I bet they do pretty well by this.
Leo Laporte (00:53:13):
You point out in your article that Gates left when he was confronted by Smith, Brad Smith, that's right. Confronted Bill Gates. So good.
Paul Thurrott (00:53:23):
Gates said it was consensual. Yeah, right. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:53:25):
Smith's a lawyer. He knows. He understands that he has liability, the company has liability. Oh yeah. So there's good reason and if you say something as a public company, you say you're gonna fix something, you kind of have to fix it.
Paul Thurrott (00:53:39):
Yep, that's right. Yeah. Actually the reason this occurred was there was an overwhelming shareholder vote to make this happen. So one thing that Micro was communicated to Microsoft very effectively was that the people who are the real owners of this company want this to be fixed. And they heard that loud and clear. So I think it's gonna go in the right direction, I hope. I don't know, I don't like this kind of thing, but hopefully it is rectified.
Leo Laporte (00:54:06):
Yeah. Alright. Alright, let's move on, shall we? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> to Microsoft 365, which in the current parlance is everything, right?
Paul Thurrott (00:54:21):
<laugh>,
Leo Laporte (00:54:22):
We're
Paul Thurrott (00:54:23):
Gonna talk about this actually as we move on the list because this is something we'll get to it. I was just thinking about this and I ended up writing about it and Oh good, good, good. Let's talk about that. Let's get the little stuff outta the way first though, because that's kind of a big topic. Microsoft has an office mobile app, as you probably know, on mobile, on Android and iOS, and possibly an iPad, I'm not actually sure about that. It kind of brings together their core apps into a single experience with some other capabilities like the office lens stuff and all that kind of stuff. It's a nice little app. We know that it is transitioning to become a Microsoft 365 app soon. And I think the big change there, other than the branding and some new look and feel, is that they're trying to push this notion of people who work together and can do so through this app now.
(00:55:14):
And so there's teams of people, in other words, in a commercial setting, but ahead of that change, they're getting rid of a couple of the, I'm gonna call 'em file sharing features that have been available in, I think it's just the Android version of the app. One is called Share Nearby, not to be confused with Nearby Share, which is the Windows 11 feature, but does basically the same thing. The idea is you're looking at a file, you wanna share it to another person who's on an Android phone. This uses an underlying Android feature that's very similar to nearby share on Windows and you share it that way. And so they're gonna retire that. I think the issue there is that it only works on Android <laugh>, so it's kinda goofy. So I think they're gonna go with more tradition. There's already a share interface on both Android and iOS and also on Windows.
(00:56:00):
And so I think the basic gist there is we have a way to share on mobile. We don't really need this. The other one is a file transfer option. I think this one is Android only, but this one might actually be on iPhone. And this is basically the idea where you can use a QR code, you scan the PC and it will inst institute, I institute, it will institute, what's the word I'm looking for? It'll instigate, it will begin a file share between the two devices using a QR code. And so they're gonna get rid of that feature as well. Although the ability to transfer files is still end up being the office app. So these things are happening I believe by the end of this year. I think one of them might be January. And this is the time period where we're gonna be transitioning to this new app anyway.
(00:56:48):
So I suspect the way this actually happens is we just get a new app and this stuff isn't there. So we'll see. Not a big big deal. What is a bigger deal? <laugh>, although this was telegraphed, I think they announced this, maybe it ignites that we knew this was coming, but Microsoft has just implemented some casual games in Microsoft teams only for enterprise and education. Cuz obviously those are the people that need to play games the most. And they're the kind of Microsoft casual games you're familiar with Solitary mind sweeper and some others. And geez, <laugh>, look, I just don't, does everything have to have everything? Like Microsoft Edge has a game pain in the sidebar that you can play casual games in the browser and now teams, not for everybody, but for a lot of customers is gonna have a casual game. <laugh>, what's what? I don't know. So this is the world we live in. I recommended to Lauren who wrote this story for us that he uses, he used a picture of Fonzi jumping over the shark. Hey, he didn't understand the reference, so I got to describe that to him. And really, of
Leo Laporte (00:58:02):
Course not. He grew up where? In France or
Paul Thurrott (00:58:03):
He grew up in France and he is young. So it's interestingly he had heard the term Jump the shark, but did not know what it came from. And I said, well, I didn't actually tell him this, but I watched this live when it happened. So did you Fonzi on a huge fan.
Leo Laporte (00:58:18):
He was like water skiing and he And there's water.
Paul Thurrott (00:58:21):
Yeah. Yep. It was one of the lamest, well because they had done the season ender where he jumped on his motorcycle over some I barrels of cars or whatever. And then he crashed and that was the, it was the who shot Jr moment for the show. And they were like, well how are we gonna top this? And obviously, and a leather jacket, water skiing.
Leo Laporte (00:58:45):
What was, see this is interesting. This is a real anthropological study because right, there aren't that many people who don't know about this.
Paul Thurrott (00:58:54):
Well actually there probably are, right? This is common to us. We grew up with this show when we're from the United States of America. But yeah, I mean in different parts of the world, not so much like the stock footage of a shark. Oh, there is Fonzi, obviously
Leo Laporte (00:59:09):
A leather jacket and bathing suit. Richie Ingham driving the ski boat. Sure. And everybody's watching
Paul Thurrott (00:59:19):
Mr. C.
Leo Laporte (00:59:19):
Mr. C, he's on the, and they're just fonzi jumping in the air. And what jumps up underneath Fonzi. Boy, you really got some airtime on that.
Paul Thurrott (00:59:28):
The thing is, he could have landed where the shark was and not been hurt because the shark is under the water anyway, <laugh>. And he's got, I mean, I don't know, weak. Really weak. Okay,
Leo Laporte (00:59:42):
Monday, happy days, Tuesday.
Paul Thurrott (00:59:44):
So this is one of my earliest examples of this was something I loved as a child. There are things that have kind of moved forward that are still fantastic. Lord, I read the Lord of the Rings in the sixth grade. Or trying to think, what else is that? That one la that one great. It's been great my entire life. But I remember going back and watching Happy Days as an adult and just being
Leo Laporte (01:00:06):
Horrified. Oh yes. Terrible. <laugh>
Paul Thurrott (01:00:08):
Horrified at how bad it was. I loved this show as a show. I mean I would've, I was like 10 years old or something or whatever. But I thought this show was great. <laugh>, this show was not great. Not great.
Leo Laporte (01:00:22):
And so the reason this is relevant is because it was kind of like they were trying to, this show had long ago
Paul Thurrott (01:00:29):
Expired. Oh yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:00:32):
<laugh>. But
Paul Thurrott (01:00:33):
Yeah, no, I, it had generations. Remember in the beginning was that core group of friends, right? Richie had a brother, but then Joni grew up and then it was Joni and Chachi and Yeah, it just didn't, yeah. Was not not good was so the Fons was on it the whole time. Yeah, he was consistent. And I think the parents, Mr. Mrs c Cunningham there
Leo Laporte (01:00:55):
And apparently Richie, cuz he's driving the vote.
Paul Thurrott (01:00:57):
No he didn't. He left eventually he did leave. Oh he was not there for probably the second
Leo Laporte (01:01:02):
Half of it. So really the fault lies with the network that just can't give up on a show.
Paul Thurrott (01:01:07):
Who's gonna give up on money? I know <laugh>. That's the problem with success.
Leo Laporte (01:01:12):
Yosemite is back with its fifth season and Lisa and I talked about it. We said it's rare that a show surpasses its fourth season usually.
Paul Thurrott (01:01:20):
Oh, every show I love wears on. Its welcome. I felt that way about Mad Men, which was a great show. But by the time that thing ended I was like, good get going. We just re-watched Mash, which was on TV for what, 11 years, 12 years. And geez, by the end of it, it's like, good deal, please get going. It also,
Leo Laporte (01:01:37):
It doesn't Angel. Well I bought Mash cuz Apple offered it for 39 bucks for all the episodes. And the first episode, I actually never watched more. The first episode was horrific. He Hawkeye his harassing hot lips in a way that today would not only get him fired and put him in jail.
Paul Thurrott (01:01:53):
There's also a crazy racial sir for a black eye on the show. A lot of harassment stuff
Leo Laporte (01:01:59):
Dated. And this was only the seventies. I mean
Paul Thurrott (01:02:03):
I know it's a good show in many ways. This is how people talk about the Confederate flag. I don't know what to say, <laugh>. It just doesn't,
Leo Laporte (01:02:13):
It is, we gotta move on. We change with the times and
Paul Thurrott (01:02:19):
It just doesn't
Leo Laporte (01:02:20):
Look forward. Sometimes things don't age well. They're past their best Buy date. That's right. Not Windows Weekly. However, this show,
Paul Thurrott (01:02:30):
If there's a shark, I'll jump at Leo, just <laugh>. There's no depth that I will not fall to.
Leo Laporte (01:02:38):
Where are we? I've lost,
Paul Thurrott (01:02:40):
That's okay. We're in the, Nvidia has partnered Nas, Microsoft, I dunno if you saw this. They also partnered with Oracle for something very similar. They're gonna create an AI supercomputer in this case, powered by Microsoft Azure, which I almost called Windows Azure. And they're gonna use tens of thousands of Nvidia GPUs, all of which we returned by cryptocurrency idiots who don't need them anymore probably. And I don't know what they're gonna, I mean everything every, well, not every, I would say 50% of all of the announcements I get that I care about in the slightest these days are AI related. We're gonna talk about one of these in the app pick and we briefly talked about Notion as doing some kind of an AI thing where they're gonna write for you, which is hilarious. Like notion, write me a tweet about whatever topic and here's an exam and yeah, that sounds great. Eventually people like me who actually write aren't gonna be needed. And I don't know what Microsoft intends to do with this. Probably deep learning, machine learning, putting me out of business. I don't know. Who knows? <laugh>, they'll make perfect mayonnaise. I don't know.
Leo Laporte (01:03:49):
<laugh>, did you say perfect mayonnaise?
Paul Thurrott (01:03:52):
I did.
Leo Laporte (01:03:53):
Okay.
Paul Thurrott (01:03:54):
Mayonnaise is hard to make.
Leo Laporte (01:03:55):
Is that something you're, that's you're something you're seeking. I've
Paul Thurrott (01:03:59):
Made man. Yeah, no, it's like the perfect Hollands is like
Leo Laporte (01:04:02):
This. Oh that's hard.
Paul Thurrott (01:04:03):
You're right. I told you I didn't even tell you. So Rafael went to Cordo Blue, right? He's a
Leo Laporte (01:04:07):
No, I didn't know that. In
Paul Thurrott (01:04:09):
Paris. I was watching No in
Leo Laporte (01:04:12):
Oh in Mune.
Paul Thurrott (01:04:13):
Not sure, right? Not quite
Leo Laporte (01:04:14):
Somewhere else.
Paul Thurrott (01:04:15):
Okay. Well I know but he still, I mean he went through that whole thing, right? No, that's
Leo Laporte (01:04:19):
A big deal. That mean
Paul Thurrott (01:04:19):
He's incredible.
Leo Laporte (01:04:20):
Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (01:04:22):
And I dunno if we reading or watching some Julia Child thing a million years ago I was like, I wanna make my own holidays. I love holiday sauce. And so I said, can we get it on the phone? And just described this to me and he goes, yeah. He goes, I got this perfectly. I can.
Leo Laporte (01:04:36):
That's what you learned if you go to Cordoba.
Paul Thurrott (01:04:38):
So we have the whole thing. He went down the whole list. You do this, you mix it up, you do this, you let it sit, you do this. Yeah. He goes, you get that all down? And I'm like, yeah. He goes, good. Now throw it away cuz holidays is disgusting <laugh>.
Leo Laporte (01:04:52):
I'm like, okay. That may be why it's the famous Anthony Bourdain line Chefs hate brunch. Maybe that's why. Yes,
Paul Thurrott (01:05:00):
It might be. Holidays is hard, holidays is worse than
Leo Laporte (01:05:03):
Mayonnaise. But it separates. Those
Paul Thurrott (01:05:04):
Things are very, they're
Leo Laporte (01:05:06):
Here's the tip. The tip. If you're making your homemade mayonnaise, call it aioli
Paul Thurrott (01:05:09):
<affirmative> and no one will know. There you go. Yeah, exactly. And
Leo Laporte (01:05:12):
Then we'll go, oh it's aioli <laugh>.
Paul Thurrott (01:05:14):
It could be anything. It could be
Leo Laporte (01:05:16):
Anything. Do you do it in the CUAs night though? It's pretty easy in the queasy night. Or a good blender. Yeah, because it's all about an emulsion. Yeah,
Paul Thurrott (01:05:26):
It's about viscosity and the consistency of it. You
Leo Laporte (01:05:31):
Know, drizzle the, that's the cuisine art. It makes it pretty drizzle the oil into the CUAs art with the egg yolks. Sure. Anyway, this isn't the show to do the perfect mayonnaise. Although maybe that's the next TWiTtch show that would be jumping the shark if we did a show mayonnaise.
Paul Thurrott (01:05:45):
I don't say that. I actually think there are incredible parallels between software development and cooking. I really do.
Leo Laporte (01:05:54):
Oh, I think you're exactly right. I think you're exactly right.
Paul Thurrott (01:05:57):
There's something weird about, we were just talking about this with Windows 11 and in this case there's really a reason. But let's not worry about that. For some reason, most people in Windows 11 have a search icon that is normal, does the flyovers and everything. Some people have this pill, we don't know why that flyovers don't work. And it's like, you know what? You could give the same recipe to a hundred people, 87 of them will get it exactly right. And the other 13 it's like, I don't know what you made <laugh>. Not even sure you used the same ingredients.
Leo Laporte (01:06:25):
Yeah, there's an art to it.
Paul Thurrott (01:06:27):
<laugh>. Yeah, there's something else to, even though you did exactly the same thing, it didn't come out the same way. And that part of it is weird to me too.
Leo Laporte (01:06:37):
So there's a lot in common cuz really programming is writing a recipe.
Paul Thurrott (01:06:45):
Yes.
Leo Laporte (01:06:48):
And you have to be more explicit than you would be in real life because the computer is not a great cook.
Paul Thurrott (01:06:54):
I got into writing from a software developer professor and I used to work in the lab at night with this other guy, mark. And we would grade people who were taking the class. It was a c plus plus class and really it was a lot of cut copy and paste. There was no reason you couldn't get this. And yet some people could not get it. So I had this one, one, I'm looking over his shoulder and I'm like, yeah, geez, I don't even know what you did here. Is this a different language? Yeah, I didn't know what was happening. So I brought Mark over, he was a more senior guy and I said, mark, what do you think? And he looked at it and he goes, I think she's gonna get a d plus plus
Leo Laporte (01:07:28):
<laugh>.
Paul Thurrott (01:07:29):
Good
Leo Laporte (01:07:30):
Line. Yeah
Paul Thurrott (01:07:31):
That was it.
Leo Laporte (01:07:33):
<laugh> like, yep, that's
Paul Thurrott (01:07:36):
Good. I can't fix this. Ice is not fix. Plus
Leo Laporte (01:07:38):
Baby,
Paul Thurrott (01:07:40):
She's just accept it. Well
Leo Laporte (01:07:42):
Now we have two show titles. Perfect Mayonnaise and d plus plus. You're making it hard for me actually. Sorry, you said you were gonna talk about this Microsoft 365. Every time I see this, I try to think, what are we talking about here?
Paul Thurrott (01:07:56):
This is a broader thing and this is actually, interestingly, I mentioned, I was just thinking about you and I actually feel like you're in this world. I feel like you're in this space and I feel like you're moving in this direction and that direction is, we've been kind of pushed into this world of subscription services, online services, whatever. And a lot of us, there's a fatigue to that. But some of the stuff that we pay for every month or every year is important. And I've made the case in the past, especially for Microsoft 365 family where you get six users, all of whom get one terabyte of storage and access to all of the desktop apps and all the other stuff you get from Microsoft 365 on multiple computers and mobile devices for 99 bucks a year is an incredible value. A no-brainer. Even if you just use it for just the storage, like a terabyte of storage.
(01:08:48):
But I, I read the morning on an iPad and in my newsfeed I'm looking at technology stories. There's all these things that are not technology stories that are in the technology section, but they're, they're from technology publications and they really just ads get this Office 365 bundle for just name your price and all you have to do is sell your soul and give 'em all your information and it'll give you this PDF file or something. But the other thing I see all the time, it's very strange, is they don't call it a perpetual license, but that's what they're actually saying. What they say is get use Microsoft Office forever for just $39 or whatever the price is. And so I sometimes I'll look at this thing and it'll be like Tech Crunch or one of those sites Wired or whatever and they link to some site that's offering this perpetual license version of office.
(01:09:38):
It could be whatever. There are different versions of Office of course and it's macro windows, whatever. But you're stuck on that version. That's the way that works. Microsoft still sells this product that is not Microsoft 365, it's just Office. So it's Office 2021 professional. It has eight desktop apps, you can install it on one computer. That's it. Right? You should be able to move it. I don't know how that works anymore. I used that used to be a thing, used to be able to install it on two and you could move it pretty easily. Maybe they restrict that in some way. I don't, I'm not really sure. But I was thinking to myself at some point I could imagine actually doing this. I am a professional writer. I've made, I could have said this on the first episode of the show we ever recorded 16 years ago, I could have made this claim.
(01:10:24):
I use maybe 10 or 8% of Word. I don't even use the rest of office. That's all I do. I don't need much of it. They have added 1100 features over the previous 16 years. I have no idea. I still only use eight or 10% of it. I use the same eight or 10% of it. I don't even use anything that's newer than 1999 probably. I have no idea. But that's the thing I need. I need this product, I use it but I don't need it to be updated. Like the central premise, one of the central premises of Microsoft 365 is you're paying every month or you're paying every year and you're gonna get all these new features and I don't need new features. And I think a lot of people think like that. And the problem is they have this set of apps, it's like four to eight depending on which version you're looking at that are just core to Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, outlook, maybe OneNote, maybe publisher, maybe Access, maybe whatever else is in there.
(01:11:22):
I don't know. There's some set of those apps they, they're largely unchanged over the years, but then they have this giant universe of stuff that's over on the other side. That's Microsoft 365 online services, new web and mobile apps. Things that are updated all the time. I think the poster child for this stuff is Microsoft Teams. Teams is something that is, has emerged out of the go. That is the stuff that is not gunk, that is not the traditional office suite. And as a superstar product that's used by hundreds of millions of people, it is updated at an alarming rate every month with new features. It's a web app really is what it really is on the back end that they did it that way. That they knew it was gonna be cross platform. It's not like the old days where were, this is gonna be Windows and it has whatever usage, it hasn't hit with consumers but it's a big deal in businesses.
(01:12:16):
Microsoft Loop may maybe move into this category, we'll see how that happens as it rolls out. But none of this other stuff is really emerged as anything important. I think for most people it's storage, right? Yeah. Right. Yeah. I mean that's storage. You say that all the time. We talk about this. Look at all the storage you get. The thing is the storage deal on Microsoft 365 isn't actually that good. This is not a fair comparison because Microsoft 365 family especially cuz you can do six people. But if you went to Google one for example and said, well I'm gonna give you a hundred bucks a year, where can you gimme? They would give you two terabytes of storage. Not one for one thing. Now you don't get the Microsoft office apps, but this is the boat anchor on Microsoft 365. It, the thing that comes in the serial box is a little prize.
(01:13:06):
You're supposed to be there for the other stuff, but everyone just wants the old thing. And the thing is they really want the old thing. They don't want the old thing updated with new toolbar and new features and new things. They don't want flashy new interfaces and whatever. They just want to write words or crunch numbers or send email or whatever. And this is it. It's kind of the central problem with Office slash Microsoft 365 today. Because these two things are in many ways two different things. You could kind of view Office the suite as a perk of Microsoft 365 something you get to use because you're paying for this other thing. But I bet I was talking to my wife about this cuz we talk about the future and saving money and what does retirement look like and all this stuff. And I was like, if we could just figure out the storage thing, I don't think I'd ever have to upgrade Microsoft where to ever again for the rest of my life.
(01:13:58):
I don't need it to do anything else. I don't think I will ever need it to do anything else. And I think this is the problem that Microsoft has selling this thing that there's some hundreds of millions of people that use Microsoft 365 and pay for it. I don't remember the exact number, but on the consumer side it's as low as 160 million, something like that. They haven't given a number on the commercial side. But last time, if again off the top of my head, probably not accurate, was somewhere in the 300 million range, which is pretty good. But there are 1.5 billion people using office. So obviously they would like to get more money <laugh>, they don't want you just to buy a version to use it forever. But I think that's what most people need. I think aside from storage, Microsoft has a problem because all that people really want is office, which is this thing they can't update or people get upset. It's kind of a weird problem. That's a
Leo Laporte (01:15:00):
Really good point.
Paul Thurrott (01:15:02):
Anyway. Well, I don't know. I don't what it is, but I was thinking about, I know you go back and forth a lot on things like online services, social media, et cetera, you know, created this massive on only lately incidents. I called it a ma. No, not well,
Leo Laporte (01:15:16):
No. Always. I've tried everything, but that's part of tech and that's part of my job. Your job too is that we have to be Dantes, we have to try everything.
Paul Thurrott (01:15:27):
Well, okay, but here, for example, everyone else on Earth, apparently I pay for Netflix, right? Netflix is the one service. I'm not sure I could give up. It's like there's always something it's, it's the one service I think that makes the most sense. But we don't have to debate that. It's just, it is what it is. So to me Netflix is for
Leo Laporte (01:15:46):
Everybody. There is something like that. The one service.
Paul Thurrott (01:15:48):
Yeah. Okay. However, one of the possible futures I imagine for myself was my wife and I take a year off and drive around in an RV or whatever and what if we were offline a lot? And what if I have this NA out here that has 1500 movies,
Leo Laporte (01:16:04):
Million movies, most people do. We
Paul Thurrott (01:16:06):
We could watch a movie every night for the rest of our lives and never get through it. A to Z, never get through it. I'm not gonna do it. <laugh> probably, but I mean it's like, do I need this thing? Do I need to pay monthly for this? I think a lot of people are starting to rethink stuff. It's awesome having access to 70 million songs for whatever service you subscribe to, Spotify, apple Music, whatever. But I only play like 170 of 'em and I own all those songs. So what am I paying for here? It's not really true. I actually do use the service and I think a lot of other people might too. But I don't know, you could almost look at what your movie buying or music buying activities like in a given year and compare it to the cost of a subscription service and be like, am I using this as much as I'm paying for it? And don't, I'm not sure.
Leo Laporte (01:16:59):
Don't get me started.
Paul Thurrott (01:17:02):
I know. Well that's why I thought of you. Cause I know you're in this, I know your head's in this space. Oh
Leo Laporte (01:17:06):
Gosh. If we have a sponsor called Rocket Money. That was true. Bill. I don't know if you ever used True Bill in the day.
Paul Thurrott (01:17:13):
I actually told my wife about this. We did this ad last week.
Leo Laporte (01:17:16):
Yeah. It finds old subscriptions and it's so depressing to see the stuff that I've been paying for years and completely forgot about, never used,
Paul Thurrott (01:17:26):
Just the domains I pay for that I never use.
Leo Laporte (01:17:30):
Oh God, there's hundreds of
Paul Thurrott (01:17:31):
Those <laugh>. Yeah, we <laugh> wanted to watch the end of the World Series when we got back from Mexico. We have abused every single TV service there is. And could not get a free bee for one week. You can normally, because we've used every single world
Leo Laporte (01:17:47):
Already. You've signed up
Paul Thurrott (01:17:49):
From all Yeah. You run into a weird
Leo Laporte (01:17:51):
Problem. No free trial for you and everybody.
Paul Thurrott (01:17:53):
I don't know if you noticed, but these things that used to be, I could be wrong, but I think YouTube TV when it launched was 35 bucks a month.
Leo Laporte (01:18:01):
Yeah, yeah. It was
Paul Thurrott (01:18:02):
That thing's like 85 bucks a month
Leo Laporte (01:18:04):
Though. Yeah, it's a cable subscription. What
Paul Thurrott (01:18:08):
Happened there? Yeah. What's going on?
Leo Laporte (01:18:10):
Well, they blame the local channels. They blame the services for raising prices. I think it's 65, but then I paid an extra 20 for 4k. So it makes it 85. And then for a lot of showtime in hbo. You bet. Yeah. Yep. They you spend a lot
Paul Thurrott (01:18:28):
Of money.
Leo Laporte (01:18:28):
It's like, you know what, we're back at cable. That's all. It's instead of wire under the ground, it's through. It's over your internet, which is probably wire under the ground.
Paul Thurrott (01:18:37):
Absolutely. But there's still one fundamental advantage, which is you can leave at any time. I like that. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (01:18:43):
No,
Paul Thurrott (01:18:43):
I, cable was kind of tough. I'm
Leo Laporte (01:18:45):
A fan of, if I do what you do, if I had several homes I would,
Paul Thurrott (01:18:50):
Hold on a
Leo Laporte (01:18:51):
Second, but <laugh>,
Paul Thurrott (01:18:54):
Let me get my mole later. <laugh>. If
Leo Laporte (01:18:57):
I were in your shoes, I have a friend, I won't won't name names. Very famous. Okay. Very wealthy. He was upset because
Paul Thurrott (01:19:10):
This is Steve Martin story.
Leo Laporte (01:19:12):
<laugh>. Now you've spoiled it.
Paul Thurrott (01:19:14):
I could already tell now
Leo Laporte (01:19:15):
You've spoiled, but I can't remember what it was. But let's say it was office.
Paul Thurrott (01:19:20):
Yeah. He
Leo Laporte (01:19:21):
Said something like, well, it only allows me to install on five machines. I have 11 homes. <laugh>. It was something like that. I'm not doing him, I'm doing him in his service. Yeah. But <laugh>, if you're wealthy enough to have multiple homes. Yeah, there's problems. Arise.
Paul Thurrott (01:19:39):
Okay, well <laugh>, I am.
Leo Laporte (01:19:44):
Oh, I'm sorry Steve. He outed you. Not me. Not me. I don't listens to Windows Weekly. He's a Matt guy.
Paul Thurrott (01:19:51):
I would hope not. My God.
Leo Laporte (01:19:52):
Yeah. He's gonna call the radio show on Saturday just
Paul Thurrott (01:19:56):
A little. Oh, nice. Insight.
Leo Laporte (01:19:57):
Insight. I figure I will solve these subscription problems when I retire. It's too hard to do it now. And I can justify it by saying, well, it's my business. I need to cover all this stuff. I need to see every
Paul Thurrott (01:20:13):
Possible How subsidizing your children. I bet I am.
Leo Laporte (01:20:16):
Netflix
Paul Thurrott (01:20:17):
Cost
Leo Laporte (01:20:17):
Centers just sent me a note saying, there are some accounts you could take off. <affirmative>. <affirmative>. Little cost centers. Little cost centers. Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (01:20:24):
Yep.
Leo Laporte (01:20:25):
Yeah. Just a word of warning. Your kids are still,
Paul Thurrott (01:20:28):
I was gonna say you. You think I have two homes. I have four homes. One my lives in Rochester and the other one, my daughter lives in Charlotte have four. You these people are not paying for
Leo Laporte (01:20:38):
This. I'm paying for their no funds for their, now Netflix, the whole thing. And it's really hard to get out of it. The call you don't wanna make is, Hey honey, <laugh> that cell phone I've been paying for your entire life. I'm not gonna pay for it anymore. I don't wanna make that call. She'll burst into tears.
Paul Thurrott (01:20:57):
I know. It's awful.
Leo Laporte (01:20:59):
She's
Paul Thurrott (01:20:59):
Like, I'm talking about my ex. I've married. Yeah. I was like, I have been married for 10 years and I have a baby coming. Is this really the right time to
Leo Laporte (01:21:06):
Do this? 30. My son's 28. Yeah. When does this end? Yeah. Anyway, I figure I'm gonna defer it all till till I'm retired and then, right. Because I'll be on a fixed income. Right. Cuz Papa didn't save. I will be going through everything.
Paul Thurrott (01:21:24):
I think papa's probably saved pretty well. But the
Leo Laporte (01:21:27):
Papa, Papa mama save the Thank God Mama saved. Cuz
Paul Thurrott (01:21:30):
Papa, the gates have to, the gate has to come
Leo Laporte (01:21:32):
Down. The gate has to come down. And then I have an excuse. I could say, well look, I don't have any income, so I'm just canceling <laugh>. Canceling you. All right. Oh Paul. Sometime when we're not in public, I will tell you the whole,
Paul Thurrott (01:21:50):
Oh I story. It's not a contest, but I feel like I'm gonna be able to keep up
Leo Laporte (01:21:55):
<laugh>. I think you might.
Paul Thurrott (01:21:59):
I
Leo Laporte (01:22:00):
Think might, what's fun is when we started doing this show many moons ago, both our kids were little. Right. They were at home.
Paul Thurrott (01:22:07):
Right.
Leo Laporte (01:22:08):
I remember you talking about with your son on Black Friday.
Paul Thurrott (01:22:14):
That's
Leo Laporte (01:22:14):
Right. To, what was it? Game Stop or Target or somewhere to get the
Paul Thurrott (01:22:18):
Best Buy. Best Buy. And the dumb thing, the dumb thing about that was there was a Best Buy in Dham, but because of some local regulation, they couldn't open at midnight. So we had to drive down to Brockton, which is like 20, 25 minutes away. And so we'd blow down the highway at midnight like you do with your kid on a Tuesday night or whatever it was.
Leo Laporte (01:22:35):
And you're not gonna school tomorrow, kid. We're going, abide Call of Duty. Oh
Paul Thurrott (01:22:39):
No, no, you're going to school tomorrow, but you're gonna stay up until three with me playing Call of Duty, <laugh>. He was in for it.
Leo Laporte (01:22:45):
But I have to tell you, maybe at the time it seemed hard or exhausting. Those are the things you really cherish and
Paul Thurrott (01:22:52):
Remember. Oh my God, of course. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Leo Laporte (01:22:54):
And I would do it in the heartbeat all over again if I could. But at the time it's exhausting <laugh>.
Paul Thurrott (01:23:00):
Well, I didn't have to get up, so he had to get up. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (01:23:02):
Right. He was
Paul Thurrott (01:23:04):
Young, he was fine.
Leo Laporte (01:23:06):
Oh my son, he,
Paul Thurrott (01:23:07):
We've been texting about the new Call of Duty. He would just text me.
Leo Laporte (01:23:10):
Oh, isn't that, he isn't that sweet. Yeah, you got that, got that something. Killing Nazis together. Yeah, that's
Paul Thurrott (01:23:14):
Exactly, yeah. That's the bonds that father and sons will always have.
Leo Laporte (01:23:18):
<laugh>, my son was my travel opinion cuz nobody else wanted to go on these geek cruises with me. And so since he was a little kid, he would go and he asked me the other day, say, Def, have I ever been to China? I said, yes.
Paul Thurrott (01:23:32):
That's
Leo Laporte (01:23:33):
Awesome. Did I see the terracotta Warriors? Let me send you a picture of you posing next to the terracotta warriors.
Paul Thurrott (01:23:41):
We still have a running G. When my daughter Kelly, which amounts to someone asking her, Kelly, where's the Roman forum or the Coliseum? And she's like, and her answer to that, we came back, we usually have to go through customs and talk to a person. And the guy asked where we had been and I started to talk and he said, you I'm talking to the kid. And she was like five or seven or something. And actually I could do the math in that. Yeah, she was seven, eight, something like that. And Kelly looks at me and I'm like, answer the question. And he says, where were you guys? And she goes, Europe,
Leo Laporte (01:24:18):
<laugh>. I know it wasn't here. What
Paul Thurrott (01:24:21):
Part of Europe? And she looks at me and I'm like, Kelly, just answer the question. She goes, Europe,
Leo Laporte (01:24:26):
<laugh>.
Paul Thurrott (01:24:27):
And the guy said, you're American, welcome to the United States. <laugh>,
Leo Laporte (01:24:31):
Come on in.
Paul Thurrott (01:24:32):
And she had no, but we had been in Rome and went to all these places. And I'm like, so now we just ask her, I'm like, Kelly, where's the Coliseum?
Leo Laporte (01:24:38):
Europe?
Paul Thurrott (01:24:40):
<laugh> idiot.
Leo Laporte (01:24:43):
<laugh>. No, no, I have to then maybe this is just rationalization, but I have to take it sinks in there somewhere and somehow it will inform their future life. Look,
Paul Thurrott (01:24:55):
I
Leo Laporte (01:24:56):
Spent a lot of time cooking with my son, teaching him grandma's spaghetti sauce and stuff. And never with any intent that he'd do anything but at least know how to cook in one meal. And now he's like a famous internet famous chef. So you never know.
Paul Thurrott (01:25:10):
I literally had a conversation with a friend from work when I was still at, back at Penton. We were in Colorado. I will never forget this. I had two amazing interactions with this guy that are just relevant to other people wanting to hear the story. But he actually said to me, he said, what do you think your kids are gonna do? Thank you someday. Cuz you took 'em on all these trips. And I was like, no, I expect them to be better people because I took them on all these trips. What you're talking about. Yeah, that's a
Leo Laporte (01:25:36):
Good way to think of it. Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (01:25:38):
No, you don't have to thank me. They just have to be better. We did
Leo Laporte (01:25:42):
A
Paul Thurrott (01:25:43):
Little more worldly. Go to places where things aren't exactly the same as where you live and experience the difference and then understand the different places are different and that different people are different. And just be accepting of that.
Leo Laporte (01:25:53):
You got your reward. You've had both Kelly and Mark to your house in Mexico, <affirmative>. And they loved it. And they're
Paul Thurrott (01:25:59):
Travelers. They love to travel and they still love to travel with us. Which makes sense cuz we pay for it.
Leo Laporte (01:26:04):
Both my kids.
Paul Thurrott (01:26:05):
Right. Thanks dad. No, but I, no, but I love that. They love that.
Leo Laporte (01:26:08):
And yeah, no, both my kids the same thing. Yeah, absolutely. Let's take a little break. You want, we'll talk about Google vpn. We've got hardware. We've got
Paul Thurrott (01:26:16):
Xbox. Xbox. Actually let's just both, let's just wanna
Leo Laporte (01:26:18):
Do the Google right
Paul Thurrott (01:26:19):
Just real quick cuz it's like 60 seconds. So we talked about this last week. I don't know that I brought this up last week, but if, do you have a way to show the image that's at the top of this article? I shall so. This <laugh> is amazing to me. So Google announced Google one VPN for Windows and Mac. And this is the screenshot they chose. Now this screenshot, no, no, actually Zoom back out. Sorry. This screenshot's fake. And the reason I know it's fake is if you look at the operating system, it's running on, that's the first version of Windows 10. From 2015, they didn't even get a new shot of Window <laugh>. The old icon style. Look at the old version of Edge.
Leo Laporte (01:27:03):
Look at the Edge. Edge logo.
Paul Thurrott (01:27:05):
<laugh> the Edge logo is the one, the original edge. Before they went to Chromium <laugh>. I mean, would you trust these people to do a VPN on Windows?
Leo Laporte (01:27:15):
Hey, at least they didn't do it as they often do. Cuz this is an agency, this is not Microsoft at least, or a Google, it's an agency, but at least they didn't do it on a Mac, which they often do.
Paul Thurrott (01:27:26):
By the way, this's probably a Mac os ten one point oh pitcher of the same thing. What? I mean, try a little bit like That's crazy how old that
Leo Laporte (01:27:36):
You don't even have to look at how old it is.
Paul Thurrott (01:27:39):
There's a date. The date. Yeah, I saw you. I told you there's a date. So that's the, that's like a week. That's the week it launched, I think
Leo Laporte (01:27:48):
July 30th, 2015. So they used a seven year old.
Paul Thurrott (01:27:53):
Yep. Screenshot,
Leo Laporte (01:27:54):
Screenshot. And then just put their
Paul Thurrott (01:27:56):
Piece it up. Yep. That's
Leo Laporte (01:27:58):
Embarrassing. That's
Paul Thurrott (01:27:59):
Embarra. That's how much effort they put into, yeah, that's terrible.
Leo Laporte (01:28:01):
I could see how you might not know. Oh yeah, that's, that's the old Edge icon. But it does actually have the date.
Paul Thurrott (01:28:07):
No, I looked at that. I saw those icons immediately. This is literally the first version of Windows 10 <laugh>. And there it is. 2015. That's exactly it. Yep.
Leo Laporte (01:28:16):
<laugh>. I mean you could maybe make the excuse. Oh, well we still use that old version of Windows 10. But no, the calendar, it was 6:30 AM
Paul Thurrott (01:28:25):
First of all, that was Port for like five years. That's
Leo Laporte (01:28:28):
Hysterical.
Paul Thurrott (01:28:29):
You can't use that. Anyway, I don't remember if this came up last week. I just wanted to make sure people saw that. It's like, you gonna be kidding me? That's
Leo Laporte (01:28:37):
Horrific. They still have five notifications from back there
Paul Thurrott (01:28:40):
And there's no battery life at all. What? What's going on
Leo Laporte (01:28:42):
In this? Oh, the battery's dead.
Paul Thurrott (01:28:44):
That thing with the green little thing. I don't even know what that is. I have no idea. Oh, maybe that's, you know what? That's, that's their icon. I bet that's their,
Leo Laporte (01:28:51):
Oh, that's their VPN icon.
Paul Thurrott (01:28:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:28:53):
I thought it was Calvin and Hobbs fighting. I didn't know
Paul Thurrott (01:28:55):
What it was. It's crazy. Looking crazy. Anyway, I just wanted to throw that out as humor,
Leo Laporte (01:29:00):
Basically. I love it. It's nuts, right? Yeah. Good catch everyone. Not every once in a while. Frequently you will see agencies who all use Max, an HP computer that has a Mac screen. Yeah. That's very common. Yeah, because all the agencies are on Max. They're not using it. You can bring it, but they put it on their blog posts. They publish that. Google should notice live with that. Just notice. Yeah, just try a little bit. Believe me, <laugh>, we work with agencies. We know exactly who's there. <laugh> kind of amazing. I'm gonna tell you a company we work with that we love. Windows Weekly is brought to you by Thanks Canary. The thanks folks. These guys invented something totally amazing. This is a honey pot in my hand. I'm holding something that looks like an external hard drive. Basically it's a black thing with a green light, has a internet ethernet cable connection and a power cable.
(01:30:02):
And that's it. That's it. No user serviceable parts. But this thing is the best security device ever. See, security is a, we say it all the time, it's, it's a matter of layers. There's no one perfect solution. You do a variety of things to protect yourself. I think a lot of people have perimeter security. They figure, well, we wall the castle off. We built a very nice moat so we don't have to worry about anybody inside the network. Wrong bad guys. These days. Go right around your perimeter security with fishing scams, with spear fishing, with targeted attacks on your employees. They open the email, click the link, it's a PDF from the boss. No it's not. And now the bad guy's in problem is. You may not know. You probably don't. And if you have that, that security posture that well, we've perfected the perimeter protection.
(01:30:58):
We don't have to worry about anybody getting in. You're a deep trouble. It's probably why on average it takes 191 days for a company to realize there's been a data breach six months plus. And what happens, these bad guys, they get on your network, they look at everything. They try to ex-filtrate data. Maybe they're there for a ransomware attack. They don't trigger it right away. They put all the data out first so they can blackmail you if the ransomware doesn't work. And then they also look at where you're backing everything up. They look at everything so that the attack is more effective. That's what these things stop. This little black box is a thinked canary, like a canary in a coal mine.
(01:31:41):
It doesn't look like a security device to the bad guys. It looks like something else. It can look like a variety of things. A SCADA device, a Windows server, a Linux server. It can look like this one is set up to look like a Sonology na. And when you set it up to look like that, it's very easy to do that. You do that from the web interface and you could choose if dropdowns for all this stuff. You could say what version and all that. It does it perfectly. For instance, this Sonology Nest has a Sonology Mac address. It's, it's not some random Mac address. It's a S Sonology Mac address. It has the exact login that they would see for DSM seven. And the bad guy doesn't know, even if he's very cautious. Yeah, that's a phenology. He tries to log in and now you get an alert.
(01:32:25):
And that's so cool about these no false alarms, just alerts when the really, the worst thing has happened. Somebody is prowling your network. They can be deployed throughout your network. You can make 'em look identical to a router, a switch, a NAS server, a Linux box, a Windows server. You could put fake files on 'em. You can enroll 'em in Active directory might as well, right? <laugh>. Hey guys, here's, here's what you should break into. Put in an active directory, cuz it would be, wouldn't it in the business. You can also create canary tokens with these things, which are little files. That could be PDFs, Excel spreadsheets, word documents, whatever you want. Spread 'em around the network. And whenever anybody tries to open them, they phone home and you get the alert. So for instance, I, I'm not saying I do have an XLS file that says payroll information on a file server somewhere.
(01:33:18):
Right? Hacker sees that they're gonna open that and you're gonna know they can be installed and configured in minutes. You don't have to think about 'em again. I just leave it here, sitting here on the network. As long as that green light's on, I can see it. I know it's watching. When an alert happens, it'll happen because somebody bad has gotten into your network and you will get alerts in the way you prefer. Any way you want 'em basically email, text, message, they, you're gonna get a console with your Canaries. It works with Slack. They support web hooks, which means it work with almost anything. They even have an api. So you can write your own code if you want little Python script that whatever it works. Withy log on a lot. A lot of sys admins keep an eye on their says look. So this is a great way to know that you're, you're secure.
(01:34:07):
Nobody's in the network and you need these. Now many banks would have hundreds spread out all over the place. A smaller business like ours might just have a handful of them. You get five of them, right? Put 'em around the business, five of them, hide 'em in all the places, 7,500 bucks a year. But for that, you get the Canaries, you get your own hosted console. All the upgrades are free. Support is free maintenance. And if you use the code TWiT and the how did you hear about Us Box, and this is really generous. You're gonna get 10% off for life forever. So please do use the offer code. T W I T in the, how did you hear about this box at canary.tools/TWiT? This is such a good idea. Everybody should have something like this because perimeter defense is one thing. But you need to know if somebody has gotten through, and by the way, I love this.
(01:34:59):
We know you're gonna love your things to Canary, but if you're not happy, you could always return it with a two month money back guarantee. Full refund for two months, 60 days. Plenty of time. But you know what? If you've done a good job with security, you may not hear from your canary. That's good. You only wanna hear from it when somebody bad is in the network. You could test it, you know, see what happens. canary.tools/TWiT, that's the website Canary, C A N A R y.tools/TWiT offer code is TWiT for 10% off. Just put that, how did you hear about Us Box? This is something a must have for anybody. If you've got a network, you need a Canary. canary.tools/TWiTt. Okay, let's see. On we go with the show, we've come to the hardware section.
Paul Thurrott (01:35:50):
Yeah, it's just a couple of things. Microsoft has released a special edition version of Service Pro nine, which is called Liberty Special Edition, which I got momentarily excited about.
Leo Laporte (01:36:03):
American A flag?
Paul Thurrott (01:36:04):
No. It's apparently a British design company called Liberty, which designed kind of a little too literal version of the Bloom Effect. You see in the Windows 11 wallpaper engraved into the material of the tablet. It's Blue <laugh>.
Leo Laporte (01:36:26):
Oh, we talked about this when they announced that it's a designer. I remember we talked about this.
Paul Thurrott (01:36:31):
I don't remember this. I don't
Leo Laporte (01:36:33):
Remember. Yeah, they talked about it. It's weird looking.
Paul Thurrott (01:36:35):
Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:36:35):
Is this on a pattern on it? Right?
Paul Thurrott (01:36:37):
What's that guy, that singer who has tattoos all over his face?
Leo Laporte (01:36:41):
Yeah, it's like that guy
Paul Thurrott (01:36:43):
<laugh>. It looks like him. <laugh>. I don't know what's going on here. It's a little busy for my taste. Yeah, but if you like blue stuff.
Leo Laporte (01:36:50):
No, they mentioned this P stuff. This in the event. Yeah, right. What is his name now? Now you got me. I don't know. I know it's running the tip of my tongue.
Paul Thurrott (01:37:00):
It's the type of thing Johnny I would do, but he doesn't work with Microsoft. I don't know. It doesn't appeal to me. But it might have appeal to you. I dunno.
Leo Laporte (01:37:07):
I don't mind. You know what, it's not
Paul Thurrott (01:37:09):
Color versions of things in there. It's
Leo Laporte (01:37:10):
Not a beige box.
Paul Thurrott (01:37:12):
It's not. That's true <laugh>.
Leo Laporte (01:37:13):
That's true. You gotta say that. And
Paul Thurrott (01:37:15):
The laser engraving probably makes it 2% faster. So
Leo Laporte (01:37:19):
<laugh>, <laugh>, it's got Laser Post Malone. Thank you
Paul Thurrott (01:37:24):
Malone. Thank
Leo Laporte (01:37:24):
You. Yes. Or Machine Gun Kelly. You get your choice. Apparently
Paul Thurrott (01:37:27):
There's Post Malone is what I meant. I thought that's what you were <laugh>. So Qualcomm is hosting their Snapdragon summit this week and yesterday, I think it was last night maybe they announced the new Snap and eight gen two chip. This is for smartphone. Now we're waiting for the next version chip set for Windows. Of course, normally I would've expected that announcement to happen today. And it still might. It's still early, I guess. But now I'm actually starting to wonder if they're not gonna hold off because Qualcom, and I think it might have been the ceo, uh, Christiana, I forgot his last name again, I keep forgetting his name. Amman. Amman announced that 2024 is gonna be the year for this. This is the year they finally catch up. So they have to announce something. I mean they have to do something between now, but we don't have that yet. But we did get a little peek at what's going on with Windows and Arm when they announced that Adobe Fresco and Adobe Acrobat are gonna run natively on Windows and Arm piece, arm PC starting in 2023. So it's kind of dribbling in that direction. I guess we'll get there. So there's that. Didn't
Leo Laporte (01:38:38):
One of them have a Samsung exclusive or am I misremembering that? I feel like Samsung got an exclusive on one of these chips.
Paul Thurrott (01:38:46):
That could be. I didn't pay
Leo Laporte (01:38:47):
Attention. Samsung normally it uses Qualcomm in the US and EXOS everywhere. That's right. Else. And maybe they were but no, maybe
Paul Thurrott (01:38:53):
They were are going all qu growing all Qualcomm. Yep, that's right. Yeah. As they should really. I mean I've never quite understood that, but
Leo Laporte (01:39:00):
So Apple used to make its a chips, a series chips. Not just tmc smc, but also Samsung.
Paul Thurrott (01:39:06):
Also Samsung. That's right.
Leo Laporte (01:39:08):
And they, Samsung lost that business. I seems odd that they would kind of give up on that business, but
Paul Thurrott (01:39:13):
I think they couldn't keep up.
Leo Laporte (01:39:15):
Maybe that's it.
Paul Thurrott (01:39:16):
They just didn't. I think the smaller nano process is just something that one company's been able to do. Mean even Intel has said we're gonna use them <laugh>. It's just the way it is. It's
Leo Laporte (01:39:30):
Kind of amazing, isn't it really?
Paul Thurrott (01:39:31):
Yeah. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:39:32):
Warren Buffet just bought a 4.2 billion steak in SMC
Paul Thurrott (01:39:38):
And Right. Well they're coming to the us,
Leo Laporte (01:39:41):
Right? That's right. You knew what the end was. Apple has said, we will, Tim Cook said as soon as they open that plan, which is not for a couple years, that's where we're getting our chips. Nobody wants to be completely dependent on Taiwan, cuz
Paul Thurrott (01:39:53):
Ye, that's right. Yikes. That's right. Yeah. Hopefully they'll also build the phones here, <laugh> or whatever. But we'll see how that goes. Apple hasn't had a lot of success in recent years trying to make that kind of thing happen. But you know what, there's some incentive now not to have everything built in China. So anything could happen.
Leo Laporte (01:40:17):
Building 'em in Brazil and India and Vietnam.
Paul Thurrott (01:40:19):
Vietnam. Yep. That's right.
Leo Laporte (01:40:21):
Yeah. I mean, you gotta diversify. I don't care. Well, who makes do the surface stuff? It's
Paul Thurrott (01:40:28):
Probably the ships. I mean, it's all Intel. So
Leo Laporte (01:40:30):
I mean No, no. The machines
Paul Thurrott (01:40:32):
Who makes them? Oh yeah, no, it's China. Yeah, it's in
Leo Laporte (01:40:34):
China. It's Pegatron or somebody in China. Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (01:40:36):
Yep. Yeah, actually, what's the big one in China? The one that Apple uses?
Leo Laporte (01:40:41):
Quantum?
Paul Thurrott (01:40:42):
No. Well,
Leo Laporte (01:40:43):
Megatrons one. Quantums
Paul Thurrott (01:40:45):
Fox. Run. Fox. Oh,
Leo Laporte (01:40:46):
Fox.
Paul Thurrott (01:40:48):
Yeah. I think it's Fox
Leo Laporte (01:40:50):
Run,
Paul Thurrott (01:40:51):
Tron, Fox Run Company of the Future.
Leo Laporte (01:40:54):
<laugh>.
Paul Thurrott (01:40:55):
Everything is plastic.
Leo Laporte (01:40:57):
There's Pegatron, there's Quantum, which I think is in Taiwan and there's no, no, no, no. Quantums in China and
Paul Thurrott (01:41:06):
I think it's,
Leo Laporte (01:41:07):
Yeah, Foxconn's building a plant in the US as well.
Paul Thurrott (01:41:10):
Yeah. Yep.
Leo Laporte (01:41:13):
Smart. Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (01:41:14):
All right. So for the second time in three weeks, we have an enormous sex box section. This is completely coincidental, but Oh yeah,
Leo Laporte (01:41:23):
Sure. Paul <laugh>.
Paul Thurrott (01:41:24):
So without that meddling, Mary Jo, I can finally spend the time it desert.
Leo Laporte (01:41:30):
Let's give it all the time it deserves. Absolutely,
Paul Thurrott (01:41:34):
Please. So Phil Spencer has come out for what I believe is the 117th time and said, guys, he's adamant we're not gonna take all duty off of the PlayStation. He
Leo Laporte (01:41:44):
Is adamant
Paul Thurrott (01:41:46):
We can't make a contract that says forever, but we will always put it on PlayStation. I promise. So I do think this is the sticking point for regulators, the UK and the eu. I, it's confusing to me that nobody seems to understand this. It doesn't make any sense for him not to do this. The other thing Spencer said, I don't know if it was in the same podcast, but he said, guys, the point of this acquisition for us is not Call of Duty. We want the mobile stuff. We want mobile. We don't have a mobile story. They do, but they don't have a very good mobile story. So Activision Blizzard owns a lot of good mobile assets, and that's really what this is about. But anywho, yeah, but please let's <laugh> keep arguing about College of Duty, which we will never take off of the PlayStation. I don't know if you saw this story, I didn't write about this, but there was a guy who works for the European Commission who tweeted about this and said, the problem is we wanna make sure that the Call of Duty series stays on my PlayStation. This guy doesn't work for the part of that organization that does antitrust and has nothing to do with this case. He did used to work for the competition commissioner in the eu. It's unclear why he tweeted what he tweeted, because he, well, I'll tell you, he looked like he's getting
Leo Laporte (01:43:14):
Calls from Samsung, Sony
Paul Thurrott (01:43:17):
<laugh> called, but he's, no, that's like saying, I'm trying to inject change at mic change at Microsoft. I'm gonna call their help center and get one of those guys to tweet something about official policy at Microsoft. He has nothing to do with
Leo Laporte (01:43:30):
This. That's what we love about TWiTtter. Doesn't matter.
Paul Thurrott (01:43:33):
So of course the EU has had to come out and be like, well, the guy's TWiTtter count makes Alaris is tweeting his own opinions, <laugh>. And it's like, no, he made it look like it was an official
Leo Laporte (01:43:42):
Stance. That's
Paul Thurrott (01:43:43):
A, but why did he say my place? What is that? Anyway, it introduced the specter of bias. And so that was dumb on his part. But I don't feel like the EU handled that very well either. But whatever. Anyway, guys, PlayStation will always be in a PlayStation. Call of Duty will always be on the PlayStation. So I don't know that we have to worry about that anywho until it's not. I mean, honestly, until it's, well, I mean, I would take it away immediately if it was up to me, but whatever. <laugh>, they're not gonna do that. No. I mean that's a huge market, by the way. The PlayStation five outsold the Xbox Series. Xn S what? Which it doesn't actually do. Usually in the United States in October because of the launch of Call of Duty, that game made a billion dollars in 10 days or something. There was some crazy amount of money 15th year in a row. That Call of Duty was the best selling game in October. That's how big aren't many Hollywood movies that make more money than this game or these games. And none of them do it in the short number of days. That Call of Duty does it. I mean, it's like the biggest thing. Anyway. They're not taking out, they're not gonna get rid of that.
Leo Laporte (01:44:52):
This is a classic carrot and stick. You've got the carrot of revenue and the stick of regulation. They're not, yeah. Yeah. It'd be crazy to do anything.
Paul Thurrott (01:45:01):
I don't know. I don't understand the debate here. It's so easy for Microsoft and whatever regulator to come to a formal agreement. Yeah, we're, we're gonna keep doing this. Just put it on paper. We're never gonna stop making this game on PlayStation. He has literally said, as long as there's something called PlayStation, there will be something called Call of Duty that runs on it. We will never stop doing that. I don't know. I don't understand why people are freaking over this. In fact, I don't think anyone is freaking over this, except for the guy who's the president of PlayStation. <laugh>. Like he seems to be the one guy that seems upset about this. Anyhow, moving on, cuz we're gonna talk about Call of Duty a little bit more soon. Microsoft released its first ever Xbox Transparency report. This one had nothing to do with Bill Gates. The idea here is that they're trying to make the Xbox network safe for players, which is kind of hilarious because I play on this thing every single day and man, toxicity is a huge problem. It's a huge problem in New Call of Duty and Call of Duty. The new Call of Duty has an anti toxicity thing. Were
Leo Laporte (01:46:08):
You amazed by the number of accounts that they've suspended or canceled? Yeah, it was like 24 million.
Paul Thurrott (01:46:16):
Yeah. So when I first read that, I thought to myself, what are these things like, are these people behaving badly or actually it turns out most of them are, there are some cheating accounts. There are just some accounts that just aren't even active kind of a thing. There are bought created accounts, which I think is over half of all of what they are. I mean, I report people to Xbox Live regularly. Now that the New Call of Duty has its own built in toxicity interface, anti toxicity I should say, I've reported,
Leo Laporte (01:46:51):
What does that look like? Is it just a report button kind
Paul Thurrott (01:46:53):
Of, or? Yeah, so you bring up a list of the players you hit why it then brings up another list of the players and you can select them and then report them and explain why. So the things I've reported in, so what, this is actually kind of stupid. So if you think about every, well most Call of Duty games over history, for me, I play them on Xbox Live. So the people I'm playing against are Xbox players. And so the, they're, of course I report to Microsoft cuz they're all in Xbox and maybe they have, they're spewing awful things on Voice Chat. Maybe they have terrible screen names that never should have been allowed by Microsoft, but were whatever. The problem now is, call of Duty is cross play. So when I play cross the latest Call of Duty game, I'm playing against people on PS five and against people on pc and they have to have controllers to play in the game with me. But that means that Activision had to create a screen name system that's specific to Call of Duty. So everyone got to take names against like TWiTtter, I played against Elvis Presley, I played against presidents, I played against fame, whatever. It's cute. It's cute. But some of these names aren't great <laugh>. So some of them are funny, some of them are whatever, but some of them are just terrible. And so, you know, report 'em. And now I'm reporting to Act Division Blizzard, because now they're in the system that spans multiple consoles or
Leo Laporte (01:48:15):
Whatever. Oh, I get it. I see.
Paul Thurrott (01:48:17):
Toxicity is always gonna be a problem when you're in a game where you are shooting people and you know what I mean? It's an action. Is it? It's violent game.
Leo Laporte (01:48:25):
Cause ever since Gamer Gate, I've always had the impression that gamers are the worst. I, I consider myself a gamer. You're a gamer. We like playing games, but it seems to attract the worst elements of
Paul Thurrott (01:48:36):
Society. So one of the first things I do, I had to figure out how to do this in the new Call of Duty, is I just mute everybody. I don't play games where I need to communicate with the people around my team. Because one of the ironic or crazy things about Call of Duty, when you think about a game that is called Team Death matches, there's no team going on here. My goal is to outplay the people on my team as well as kill the people on the other team. And we're all doing the same thing, working against each other. And so this awful behavior that can happen, and I absolutely engage in it, not because I'm like a toxic idiot, but because a lot of it is retaliatory against people who are themselves toxic or whatever.
(01:49:16):
This is no avoiding. It's awful. It's just awful behavior. It's awful. People being awful with some form of anonymity. But there's no way to know if any of this stuff has any effect. I actually have very specific examples from people in Xbox. There are people who somehow have come back and figured out I was probably the person, I had this one guy who's had to change his name multiple times because of me and his, what is his name? I think it's Anonymous Gamer 7 81 or some crazy thing. Yeah. Because he can't pick a name that isn't offensive <laugh>. So he's completely unable. Yeah. At least three times he came. I was like, no, that's pretty funny. Yeah, yeah. I can tell he thinks it's me cuz I don't, again, I'm mute. I mute you. How do I know? I think it's because of the way he teabags me and shoots my corpse when I'm dead. I think he just knows it's me. I can think.
Leo Laporte (01:50:18):
Not a fan. 37 29.
Paul Thurrott (01:50:20):
Yeah. Whoever he is. Yeah, it's okay. Anyway, I am happy with any anti toxicity, whatevers they wanted. That's good. Moving on. So it's the second half of the month and that means we're getting a new round of Xbox Game Pass games. The big one, maybe. I actually had the chance to review this and I looked at it now, it really wasn't my thing. But there's a game called Ment that just came out. This is on cloud console npc. This is kind of a hard thing to describe, but it's sort of a sideways graphic. Remember that World War I game with the little guys running around and there were Derivable. It kind of has that feel. It's almost like it was made of paper. It's like a medieval game. I don't know. I looked at it and I was like, yeah, it's not my thing. But yeah, it looks cool.
Leo Laporte (01:51:12):
There's
Paul Thurrott (01:51:13):
In the
Leo Laporte (01:51:14):
Game,
Paul Thurrott (01:51:16):
<affirmative>,
Leo Laporte (01:51:17):
It's an old fashioned physical game. Pimentos or something where you,
Paul Thurrott (01:51:24):
Oh, let me think. It maybe is the inspiration. Yeah, well they could be.
Leo Laporte (01:51:29):
I mean, but there's people in this running around, so it's not the same. Yeah, that's just a pure geographic
Paul Thurrott (01:51:35):
Oh
Leo Laporte (01:51:35):
Okay thing. I mean, not geographic geometric
Paul Thurrott (01:51:38):
Sentiment is a, I like the name. It sounds like it means something. And I'm just not privy to what it is. I don't know. Anyway, a sculpture, just
Leo Laporte (01:51:49):
It looks is the presence or emergence of early images. Earlier images, forms or strokes that have been changed or painted over. It's when you have a painting <affirmative> and you find underneath it. Yeah, the original. That is a pentimento.
Paul Thurrott (01:52:04):
Oh, okay. That happens a lot actually.
Leo Laporte (01:52:07):
It does because it comes from the Italian for repentance. Yeah. I repent.
Paul Thurrott (01:52:15):
Was the surface they painted on really expensive during the <laugh>? I mean it No, I painting it was think I'm gonna paint over it.
Leo Laporte (01:52:25):
They would reuse canvases. Absolutely.
Paul Thurrott (01:52:27):
Yeah. Well, okay.
Leo Laporte (01:52:31):
<laugh>. Or they'd look at it and they'd go, yeah, I wanna just change this thing.
Paul Thurrott (01:52:37):
Maybe it isn't this. There's also one of the things that happens on Xbox Cloud gaming is they're adding touch controls. So if you're playing on a smartphone, a tablet, you don't have to have a controller. And actually now you can play Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Assassin's Creed Origins through Xbox Cloud gaming using just your touch controls in your phone. That's kind of cool.
Leo Laporte (01:52:59):
I think this is called ment cuz it's medieval for that reason. Yeah,
Paul Thurrott (01:53:04):
Right. Okay. So not necessarily related, but similar. It's
Leo Laporte (01:53:08):
Kinda a cool looking game. I like this. I
Paul Thurrott (01:53:10):
Would play. Yeah, it is a cool looking game. I just don't, yeah, to me it's like, are there Nazis I can shoot? Or
Leo Laporte (01:53:14):
It's World of Warcraft as if painted by Rembrandt or something. I don't know.
Paul Thurrott (01:53:19):
Yeah, there you go. Repainted,
Leo Laporte (01:53:22):
Repainted, repainted by. It's medieval. It's not even Rembrandt, it's pre Rembrandt.
Paul Thurrott (01:53:26):
But it has that look of as if it were made with paper and they're animating it. Yeah, I like that. I do.
Leo Laporte (01:53:32):
It's really kinda interesting. So that's ment.
Paul Thurrott (01:53:35):
Yeah, it's kinda old fashion
Leo Laporte (01:53:36):
Looking. And is that free or is that just cheap?
Paul Thurrott (01:53:39):
It's Sox, Xbox Scam Pass. So if you're paying for the subscription, you get it. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (01:53:43):
It's a bth. It was in the, I think it's on everything. It was in the Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase, which we did not do this year.
Paul Thurrott (01:53:52):
Right. Well, after that disaster from a couple years ago, we learned, why would you even look at that again? We learned
Leo Laporte (01:53:58):
Our lesson.
Paul Thurrott (01:53:59):
I can't trust you. <laugh>. So the Xbox series, I don't have this in the notes, but I believe the Xbox Series S is $50 off right now, meaning it's 2 49, which is an incredible deal. But there's also a new bundle that's launching on the 29th in about two weeks, which is called the Gilded Hunter Bundle. So this is gonna be the normal 2 99 price for Xbox Series S. But it comes with, because saying it comes with the games doesn't mean anything cuz these games are all free. But it comes with digital assets for Fortnite, fall guys and Rocket League.
Leo Laporte (01:54:32):
Oh, neat. Right? Oh,
Paul Thurrott (01:54:34):
Neat. Yeah. So you get hunt outfits and weapons and points, whatever they call it, V bucks, shoba, whatever the name is. Different games have different names for these kinds of things. And that will be available as long as it lasts. It's one of those things you can pre-order it. Now, if you wanted to do that, you can buy it with Xbox All Access for some of my, I think it's probably 25 bucks a month, if I remember correctly, something like that where you pay for it over a couple years. And this actually, if you're an Xbox Game pass, you get this. But Microsoft Flight Simulator just released the 40th anniversary edition, which is free to anyone who has the game, however you get it. And that adds a bunch of airports and planes and all that stuff. But the first version of the game ever, I believe in its entire history to include helicopters and gliders. Oh, neat. As well as hel or he ports, and I guess they're called Glider airports. So there were 14 heliports, 15 glider airports, 24 classic missions from the past, et cetera, et cetera. So this is available would be fun. Wherever you get this thing, it's available for everybody.
Leo Laporte (01:55:38):
Neat.
Paul Thurrott (01:55:40):
And then this is actually a bigger deal than I thought it was originally. Every month Microsoft Release, well not every month, but almost every month. It's like an Xbox monthly update. So the November update is out. And actually there's a lot of stuff here as I need to go kind of look at this. So Discord integration has been available in the Xbox for a while that has been improved. There's some new voice features, like the noise suppression feature is activated now. So if using Discord, it will block out background noises, like barking dogs and whatever it supports. I gotta go through this list cuz this is really big. But at the bottom somewhere, sports Live streaming, not just from TWiTtch, but from LightStream and Stream Lab Studio directly from the console. I have never heard of either of those things, but different ways to do live streams, that's kind of cool. What's not there? Mixer? Yeah, I, yeah, I was gonna say <laugh>. Yeah. What's not anywhere? Mixer. Mixer.
(01:56:36):
There's some Microsoft store stuff around notifications about sales and stuff like that. That's kind of cool. There's a new Captures app, and this is for not just well capture capabilities are built, in fact, they're on the hand controller now. So you can take screenshots and video clips, but this app will allow you to view, manage, and then edit your game Captures as well. Nice. Which is cool. They haven't implemented that power option thing I was talking about. This is something Microsoft is kind of taking a poll of the user base, but they're kind of moving toward it. So the start is, if you go into power settings, power options and settings, you'll see new language around the different modes. Remember we had energy saving mode and sleep mode and whatever. So they've kind of renamed these things to make it more obvious what's what. Because when you buy a console now in sharp contrast to when to say you did like a year or two ago, it actually defaults to energy saving mode, which is now called shut mode.
(01:57:31):
So that when it goes to sleep, it actually shuts down. So every time you turn it on, it boots up. The idea there is it's not sitting on with some low power capacity sucking energy. They're trying to save energy by default. But you can set it back if you want it the other way. Which I would, so the other thing, the final thing, and this is really cool, I almost talked about this with the Game pass game cloud gaming thing. They're adding Controller Rumble support for X Cloud, Xbox Cloud gaming games. These are the game streaming games on PC and Mac. So I didn't know that wasn't available. So obviously if you're playing, or maybe not obviously, but I play on a console. So as I got shot or whatever happens, the controller rumbles in my hand. They're adding that to cloud gaming. Finally. I didn't realize that wasn't there.
(01:58:14):
So if you use Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome or Samsung TV support that this stuff is coming soon, that's kind of cool too. So most of it, there's actually more, there's actually a lot more, there's like settings, recommendations. It will look at your TV and say, Hey, you support 4k, why don't you turn on 4k? That kind of thing. Or you can enable HT M I CEC to control your TV power and volume along with the console, yada, yada, yada. So there's a lot of capabilities that your console slash TV may have that you don't know about. They're gonna start surfacing that stuff so that you can have the optimal setup. That's
Leo Laporte (01:58:48):
Smart. Nice. By the way, one more thing in the flight sim that outta sync is reminding, because I saw, I've seen screenshots. I really wanna download this. You could fly Howard Hughes, spruce Goose. Yeah,
Paul Thurrott (01:59:01):
That's right. That's right. Giant. That was the largest airplane wooden plane, right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:59:07):
It never flew commercially. He, it was huge. Yeah, right. I saw a picture and I thought, oh I, that's a real reason to download this. And that
Paul Thurrott (01:59:15):
Is not, is that around somewhere? Is that
Leo Laporte (01:59:17):
It used to be floating somewhere. Cause it was a sea plane. Cuz no airport. You could land in an airport. It used to be around somewhere. I don't know. Is this, I'll have to Google
Paul Thurrott (01:59:29):
It must be a museum or something
Leo Laporte (01:59:31):
That go, yeah, you'd think, but on the other hand it's wood <laugh>. How well would it wear, right <laugh>. Right.
Paul Thurrott (01:59:39):
Well, if you wanted to want it to last, just throw it at the bottom of the ocean and go get it again in 40 years. It'll be
Leo Laporte (01:59:45):
Fine. It's in the Evergreen Museum, which is, where is the ever evergreen space? Museum Aviation. Space Museum. 75 years old. It's in McMinville, Oregon. Oh, John John's been there. Jamer B says, oh yeah, it's beautiful.
Paul Thurrott (02:00:05):
Yeah, it must be.
Leo Laporte (02:00:06):
Yeah. McMinville Oregon. Who would've thought that? There's an aviation and Space museum. <laugh> in Oregon. Millville, mcm, whatever. McMinville, Oregon. But
Paul Thurrott (02:00:20):
All the trees came from,
Leo Laporte (02:00:22):
Yeah, they have a new exhibit. It's an interactive exhibit. The 75th anniversary. This ridiculous air, the largest wooden airplane ever built in beautiful McMinville. It
Paul Thurrott (02:00:34):
Flew from F
Leo Laporte (02:00:34):
Minville, it flew from Long Beach where it was left by Howard and all the way up to McMinville. And now it's worth a trip. Worth a trip to McMinville.
Paul Thurrott (02:00:48):
So this thing is essentially the largest balsa wood plane in
Leo Laporte (02:00:51):
The
Paul Thurrott (02:00:52):
<laugh>. I think it's Spruce. He's like a giant rubber band. It's got rubber band to
Leo Laporte (02:00:56):
The Air Motors, 75 years old. And as far as I know it never 320 foot wings span. 218 feet long, 79 feet.
Paul Thurrott (02:01:09):
What was the point of it? I mean, why even make this thing
Leo Laporte (02:01:14):
Military transport? Well, you put a lot of troops in there. Well, yeah. Big little thing. Look at the size of that. Yeah, it's crazy. Crazy. You know what I'm on, I'm going to McMinville, why don't we do a road trip? Paul <laugh>. Let's
Paul Thurrott (02:01:30):
Head do likes. I do like planes. Yeah. You gotta go to Arizona. Have you been to the plain graveyard thing?
Leo Laporte (02:01:36):
No, I've heard about it though. We're all the old 1730 sevens and seven 20 sevens are and yeah, I've heard about it. John, is it worth a trip? Is it good? You like it? So lots of stuff to see at the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum. He said it'll fill a day and that's really all I'm looking for.
Paul Thurrott (02:01:56):
So will that name, there's one too many ends in
Leo Laporte (02:02:00):
<laugh>. Yeah, I'm really into this stuff. So I think that sounds cool.
Paul Thurrott (02:02:06):
That is cool.
Leo Laporte (02:02:06):
Yeah. All right. Look at that. It's a big hanger with all sorts of planes in there, <laugh>. Well, yes. As it would be one and one would expect as. Yeah. Well I've been to the Uvar Hazy Air Space Museum in Washington. It's at Dulles Airport. And that's incredible. I mean, they've got a space shuttle in there. They've got the stealth bomber. I mean, they have all sorts of stuff.
Paul Thurrott (02:02:29):
So you've been to the Air Space Museum right? In Washington DC Yeah,
Leo Laporte (02:02:32):
Yeah. This is the Uvar. Hazy is the a
Paul Thurrott (02:02:35):
Billion times bigger. Yeah. Yeah. It's
Leo Laporte (02:02:36):
The continuation of it because Right, right. Yeah. We did it with
Paul Thurrott (02:02:39):
Screen. There's only so much space
Leo Laporte (02:02:40):
Screen's show from there.
Paul Thurrott (02:02:42):
Oh
Leo Laporte (02:02:43):
Nice. Yeah, it's really cool. Good. I'm go. How far away is McMinville John? Is it ours? <laugh> not a day trip. I think we're gonna have to spend the night.
Paul Thurrott (02:02:53):
Yeah, yeah. You might have to fly there.
Leo Laporte (02:02:58):
Our southwest of Portland.
Paul Thurrott (02:03:00):
Ironically, you cannot fly to Mc Manville. It's one
Leo Laporte (02:03:03):
Of the You can't fly there. No, you have to drive <laugh>. You have to drive
Paul Thurrott (02:03:05):
There. It kinda doesn't make sense. You think they would've a runway.
Leo Laporte (02:03:08):
Looks like it's got Air Force One and Old Air Force one there. Oh wow. Very cool. Yeah. Anyway, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hijack the show. No,
Paul Thurrott (02:03:18):
That's fine. No,
Leo Laporte (02:03:19):
You got all excited.
Paul Thurrott (02:03:20):
Excited. That's excited. I skipped right over it by mistake,
Leo Laporte (02:03:24):
Goose.
Paul Thurrott (02:03:25):
Last week I mentioned the Cliffy B book, which was his history of writing video games or creating video games at Epic. Oh yeah. He played a role in Unreal in the Unreal tournament games. And then he created Gears War, which was kind of his biggest thing ever. And it, it's, so since then I finished the book. And just two things I wanted to say was after he left Epic, which he left after he asked for a massive raise and was refused. He had a much not enough money to retire was he's Rich. And he took a couple years off. And the thing I was a hundred percent familiar with his entire story, up until G War ended Gears War was sold by Epic to Microsoft. Epic went on to create a different game franchise, I think for Sony, which kind of upset Microsoft or whatever, but he wasn't part of that.
(02:04:15):
He dropped off the Raider and I had no idea what he had done after that. So as that part of the book entered in, I thought, well surely I'm gonna have heard of this. And I gotta tell you, the end of this guy's thing is like, nope. He created a company called Boskey. They created a game called Lawbreakers that failed immediately. And then they tried to create a game that was a Fortnite battle rail, whatever. And it just failed. And now he's in theater production, which is kind of weird. But isn't that how Scott Forstall ended up as well? Didn't he go to the theater after? I think he did. Yeah. It's
Leo Laporte (02:04:48):
Home. Anyway. The book's, too many A Lost Technologists,
Paul Thurrott (02:04:51):
Right? I mean, it's some crossover there that I'm not familiar with. But anyway. Oh yeah, I have to
Leo Laporte (02:04:57):
Break. You've got plenty of money.
Paul Thurrott (02:04:59):
Yep. Do something
Leo Laporte (02:05:00):
You love showbiz. There you
Paul Thurrott (02:05:02):
Go. But I gotta say, I meant to tell you that, so when I mentioned this book last week, you immediately blurted out something. It was not only correct, but it was literally part of the book, which was we were talking about Unreal Tournament and how fast it was. It was fast action. And they had a term for it. I'm not gonna get Right. But it was like Bright Lights, fast action. And it was all about colored lighting at
Leo Laporte (02:05:26):
The time. That's right.
Paul Thurrott (02:05:28):
And what you said was, this is so perceptive. This is why I don't, I hope people appreciate how amazing youre like this. You literally said just off the top of your head, you're like, oh, gears of War is the exact opposite of that. Yeah. I was like, that's exactly, well
Leo Laporte (02:05:43):
I remembered that cuz I remember very viscerally the first ads for Gears of War and I was thinking,
Paul Thurrott (02:05:49):
Yeah, bump, bump, bump.
Leo Laporte (02:05:51):
It's so dark, it's
Paul Thurrott (02:05:53):
Slow and sad.
Leo Laporte (02:05:54):
It's so different. And so it stuck in my brain. That was what they were doing. So he
Paul Thurrott (02:06:00):
Talks about that. Originally it was gonna be very much like the Unreal Tournament games, <affirmative>, but there was a game called, I think it was called Kill Streak or something like Kills or Kill Zone Kills Streak, something like that. Which was, it just was a side scroller. Not nothing like Gears war, but it had this notion of cover. And he thought, oh, he's like, that's realistic. You don't just go out with a bao and blow stuff up and move at the speed of sound. Like real war is hard and it's grueling and it's gritty and it's realistic. And he wanted it to be banded brothers and blown out Europe at the end of World War ii. And anyway, he explains this in great detail and you were like, this is what this is. And I was like, Mike, you don't have to read the book cuz that's exactly what,
Leo Laporte (02:06:42):
But you knew too. You remembered how
Paul Thurrott (02:06:45):
Oh my, oh my God, yes.
Leo Laporte (02:06:45):
Grit. Gears of War was, yeah.
Paul Thurrott (02:06:47):
Yep. It really looked. I actually kind of want go, I want go replay it. I kind
Leo Laporte (02:06:51):
Of do
Paul Thurrott (02:06:52):
Too. I have played the first one many times. It's sort of like the first two halos actually. First three Halos. I've played that one a lot. And this, they redid it, they remastered it. They added a level with that BAC thing at some point. The Godzilla type monster. Anyway, it's just, anyway, it's a great book. I know we talked about it last week, but I it's,
Leo Laporte (02:07:14):
It was the first great industry book. First game I got for the Xbox 360, as
Paul Thurrott (02:07:19):
I remember. Yeah, actually it was one of the big launch titles, basically. It was one, I think it was the Marquee. Yeah. Yeah, it was great.
Leo Laporte (02:07:25):
I could still see the little CD cover <laugh>. Yeah, yeah,
Paul Thurrott (02:07:29):
Absolutely.
Leo Laporte (02:07:30):
That's back when you bought games.
Paul Thurrott (02:07:32):
Yeah. Joe
Leo Laporte (02:07:33):
Box game Stop. They would come in a box. That's
Paul Thurrott (02:07:36):
Right. <laugh>. Yep.
Leo Laporte (02:07:37):
Now you could still buy the box, but the game really is online. <laugh>. No,
Paul Thurrott (02:07:42):
Well you can buy anything you want, but you're still gonna be downloading 250 gigabytes. You can, I mean, feel free to buy the plastic, but Exactly. You're gonna download. It's just the way it is. Yeah. Anyway, great book. So I finished that and now I have nothing to listen to. And I'm all inside. I will add
Leo Laporte (02:07:57):
To my list. I get new books in five days. I will add that
Paul Thurrott (02:08:01):
To my, so today is the biggest day of the year because
(02:08:07):
Call of Duty model War for two, which by the way is Roman numeral two, not number two. Everyone gets that wrong. It's making me Crazy. Is now in season one and season one brings War Zone, the new version of War Zone, which I don't care about as much, but for me it brings the hardcore playlist, which is now called something else. I forgot the name of it already. It brings your progression so you can see how you're doing on the KD ratio. I checked it and I was literally even <laugh> in an even number of deaths and kills and deaths. I wanna be above one obviously, but I've been forced to play the non hardcore mode, which is very hard for me because people don't just die instantly. They die very slowly. And I prefer the hardcore mode, which is, it is called tier one if I'm not mistaken. So this is big. I woke up this morning, I thought, I knew this was supposed to happen later in the day, but I checked it, it was there. I checked my progression. I, I've already prestiged by the way, I would've prestige weeks ago. But they didn't let you do that until now. But now you can. So I was stuck on level 55 for probably a week and a half, two weeks, whatever it
Leo Laporte (02:09:18):
Was. What's your favorite map?
Paul Thurrott (02:09:22):
So actually, well I don't know the names of the maps. I'll see, I'll tell you if it comes up here. Cuz I recognize this
Leo Laporte (02:09:30):
Is the trailer running
Paul Thurrott (02:09:31):
Here. So this is probably War Zone, but War Zone is a collection of the maps that are in multiplayer. So as they're driving around, you're like, oh, I even know that place. You're like, oh, I know the place. Right. I've been there. Yeah. I like that kind of stuff. Is
Leo Laporte (02:09:42):
This for Battle Royal? Cause it looked like everybody was jumping out the plane together, so it
Paul Thurrott (02:09:45):
Is is Battle rail. Yeah. So I was just thinking that might be the map. Sorry, I don't know the names of the map. Ed distracted. No, it's okay there. I'm watching the game, I'm watching the video. So there are two new multiplayer maps and one of them is called, I think it's called Kill House, which is a classic map from the pass. That map is awesome. I will say overall the maps are actually pretty great. There's a couple don't, there's one that takes place in kind of the center of a race track. It's like a, it's race, I dunno, doesn't do much for me. And there's also kind of a controversial one where it's the bridge between Mexico and the United States and all the cars are jammed up there. Oh yeah. And you fight on the bridge and it's just people lobbing grenades and cars blowing up and God, lots of people die. Geez. It's a little tedious, but I don't know. I've had some good games on that one.
Leo Laporte (02:10:36):
So you play exclusively multiplayer? Pretty much. I mean,
Paul Thurrott (02:10:39):
Yeah. Hardcore Team Death Match. Yeah, yeah. Which is now called something else. But yeah, what is it called? I think it's called Tier one. Is that the right name? I don't know why they don't call Harbor. I will say the new hardcore, whatever they call it, is more hardcore than before. So what makes our game hardcore is they get, well first of all, you die very easily. They get rid of a lot of the HUD stuff. So you don't have a lot of information about when you have perks and power ups. Yeah, but they've actually gone even further in this game. You don't see the names of anybody. So if you get killed by somebody or you kill somebody, whether he's on your team, which you can do right by mistake, or on the other team, you don't actually ever see who it is. And it's like, this is what my son and I were texting about today cuz he's like, have you tried out this new hardcore thing? I'm like, I don't understand. He's like, right, they don't tell you when one is. And I, I've never seen that before. That's unusual. So we'll see how people adapt to it or if they fix it, they might actually fix it. We'll see. But there's a bunch of new stuff that happened in season one that I will never bother with cuz right now all I care about is I get finally to play hardcore. My life is complete. Does this thing, does it say the name of the new maps? I think one is Kill
Leo Laporte (02:11:56):
House. They show two new maps. I don't know if it's the only new maps,
Paul Thurrott (02:12:00):
But No, yeah, there's only two right now. Okay.
Leo Laporte (02:12:02):
Two new ones they showed, just showed them somewhere and I saw them. Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (02:12:05):
Where are
Leo Laporte (02:12:06):
They? Well, they're
Paul Thurrott (02:12:07):
Both good. They're both classics. One of them is the, actually it's not out yet. So the second one's not out yet. The other one is that container, the container boat from the original Monte Warfare two, which is, it takes place in the rain at night and it's an awesome map that's coming out before the end of the month. But the kill house, kill zone, whatever the hell it's called is available now. One. It's fantastic.
Leo Laporte (02:12:31):
I can't even use the website, so I'm definitely not playing the game for sure.
Paul Thurrott (02:12:35):
There you go. <laugh> don't, like I've said this before about Call of Duty, but someone this year saying, I've heard this Call of Duty thing's pretty big. I think I'm gonna start playing multiple, I'll like, yeah, I don't think you're gonna be doing that.
Leo Laporte (02:12:48):
And Farm S 18,
Paul Thurrott (02:12:50):
Actually Farm 18 is my favorite map. That's the one I like the most. Those aren't new to now. Those are already there, but those are both good maps. Most of the maps are great. That's a big deal. You gotta get everything right. The weapons, the kill streaks, the perks, the, the maps, the lag and latency stuff, the quality of the graph. It's kind of hard
Leo Laporte (02:13:10):
To imagine the amount of work goes into something like this. I mean,
Paul Thurrott (02:13:15):
No, it's making a movie or more. And we're gonna be with this game for years. There's not a new Call of duty coming next year. This is gonna be new content. So they had to get this one right. I mean, they're a thing. I mean I obviously complain about anything, but by and large they got it. And now that it's sort, it's like Windows 1122 H two, right? <laugh>, there was a release and then a few weeks later they released more.
Leo Laporte (02:13:39):
It's nothing
Paul Thurrott (02:13:39):
Like that. Kind of like that.
Leo Laporte (02:13:41):
Do you have to pick one of these guys to be soap gas? You
Paul Thurrott (02:13:45):
Look, I don't
Leo Laporte (02:13:46):
John or aj? Yeah,
Paul Thurrott (02:13:48):
I don't look at any of that stuff. <laugh>. I don't care about what I look like. <laugh>,
Leo Laporte (02:13:52):
Just gimme a gun and put me on
Paul Thurrott (02:13:54):
The map. I'm probably just a guy in his tidy whites running around with no arm run at all. Don't you
Leo Laporte (02:14:01):
Can do that in, what's that really hard game that came out that I, I've intentionally blacked out because I don't ever wanna look at it again. You can choose all the bar, all the different character classes, all the different clothing. And there's one guy, basically he's wearing a diaper and that's
Paul Thurrott (02:14:19):
It. Yeah, yeah, exactly. <laugh>. Yeah, that's it. Yep. That's
Leo Laporte (02:14:22):
All I need.
Paul Thurrott (02:14:23):
<laugh>. I just need to, what I wanna look like is Bozo the clown and just run around. It's more
Leo Laporte (02:14:28):
Scary
Paul Thurrott (02:14:28):
That way. A honking sound boat. I'm behind someone. <laugh>. Exactly like, what's that exactly, <laugh>.
Leo Laporte (02:14:37):
Truly terrifying. Then you're really scary.
Paul Thurrott (02:14:40):
There you go.
Leo Laporte (02:14:41):
Wow. See, Mary Jo would never have let us do this segment. I could tell you that
Paul Thurrott (02:14:45):
Right now.
Leo Laporte (02:14:46):
I know this is the all new Windows Weekly baby
Paul Thurrott (02:14:51):
<laugh>. Yeah, I guess.
Leo Laporte (02:14:53):
Yeah. She would've been so revolted
Paul Thurrott (02:14:55):
<laugh>. It is completely random how much stuff there's been. I can't explain it.
Leo Laporte (02:15:01):
I love the Gann Stein. All right, we're gonna take a little break and then we do have the back of the book and Paul's tip and app picked of the week. And actually I really want to ask you about the second one because I'm very intrigued. But before we do that, let me tell you about MIMO monitors and their new wonderful piece of software called Unify Meeting. And I say wonderful because it's made for people like me and maybe you too. Nowadays we're doing a lot of meetings. If you're lucky, you're only using one program teams or Zoom or Google Meet and you don't have to, for me, everybody uses something different. And there's a problem cuz the user interface is different on all of them. For instance, we use Google Meet for our staff meetings and I invariably join the meeting and hang up because on Google Meet the unmute <laugh>, the unmute button is actually the hang up button.
(02:16:00):
And I on Zoom, it's where the it's, I'm used to Zoom saying and the unmute button and I click that and it hangs up. So they know when we do a staff meeting, legal's gonna join, he's gonna disappear. And then he is gonna come back and say, whoops, I hit the wrong button. Invariably Unify meeting solves this. It's, it's awesome whether you're working in the office or hybrid or remote, we all have meetings, now we gotta go to, it simplifies your work life by taking those favorite video conferencing software solutions and putting him in one Universal user interface. So the button's in the same place every time, no matter what you're using, unify meeting, the name says it right. It's reliable every time. Cuz the buttons, the commands are always in the same place for Zoom teams or Meet wherever you're working from. Unify will keep your video conferencing simple and intuitive.
(02:16:57):
You can navigate between all your meetings easily. You don't have to keep track of who's using what. It just opens the right way. Unify meeting, you can keep it open on your desktop. And then if you're not in the meeting, it's your calendar with your upcoming stuff, including your meetings and you say, oh, it's time for a meeting. You click the calendar and it opens the appropriate program. So you don't even have to know that. And it opens the unified meeting interface. So it's so easy. It's even better if you've got a MIMO monitor, a second display or a third display. MIMO monitors. They make Monitor seven inches and bigger. But Perfect would be a little seven inch MIMO monitor. You plug it in via the USB port to your computer and unify meeting lives on that. So now you've got a little calendar display that's always there, convenience small out of the way.
(02:17:45):
You click on it when it's time for the meeting, there's your conference call. And as an added benefit on the big screen, the PC screen, the actual program Zoom teams or meet that you're using will show up. So you have access kinda the best of both worlds. The Unified, unified meeting interface on the MIMO Monitor and on the big screen the interface for that program. So if you really need to dig into the preferences or whatever, you could do that. It's such a great way to do meetings. We're all doing a lot of meetings these days. This is the solution to make your life a lot easier when you take advantage of nemo's Black Friday Cyber Monday deal, which doesn't not on yet. It starts November 24th through the 28th. So maybe you wanna wait on this. Don't forget though, you'll get 50% off a Unify license.
(02:18:40):
And I love this. They're gonna donate a hundred percent of the proceeds to the American Cancer Society. That's great. So you'll be doing good. You'll save money after that discount. It's only $20 for the whole year for Unify meeting. Now, honestly, my preferred solution is to buy a MIMO monitor. If you buy a MIMO monitor, you get a unified meeting for free with it. So I mean, it's up to you what you wanna do, but I would suggest getting the monitor. But anyway, try unify for your team at work or try it yourself by the Yeah, business. Just buy unify for everybody. There's business licenses. It'll solve a lot of problems. You and I F Y meeting, M E E T I N G unify meeting.com. We've got an offer code WW 50 for 50% off a year subscription or just use WW without the 50.
(02:19:34):
You'll get 25% off of any memo's, displays. And then you get the MIMO Unify meeting for free. Right? So 50% off a year subscription with WW 50, 25% off any of memo's displays, limited time offer. Take advantage of this. Don't forget the Cyber Monday Black Friday deal, November 24th through the 28th, a hundred percent of the proceeds going to the American Cancer Society. Great company. That's a great offer. And I think you will say lifesaving tool unify meeting.com. WW 50 for half off the software WW all by itself for 25% off the MIMO display. And you got the software for free. Simplify with Unify. And we thank him so much for supporting Windows Weekly. Yay MIMO monitors. Woo. Now Paul is back with his tip of the weekend. I have to say I like your style my friend.
Paul Thurrott (02:20:32):
It seems like the rats are leaving the ship <laugh>.
Leo Laporte (02:20:35):
Yeah, well the ship is
Paul Thurrott (02:20:36):
Actually, maybe the rats are staying on the ship and the rest of us leaving.
Leo Laporte (02:20:40):
But yeah, maybe that's really what's going on. Yeah, this,
Paul Thurrott (02:20:43):
Yeah, is gonna be an interesting transition, but I'm, I'm gonna give it a shot. So it's worth,
Leo Laporte (02:20:47):
I have a, first of all, I'm not gonna get rid of my TWiTtter account because I don't want anybody squatting it. And so I still go there probably every day just to see what fresh assault the latest is. Elon sends out an email to every engineer saying, you got two choices. This is dirty, freaking hairy. Okay, punk is, you feel lucky. You got two choices. It's nasty.
Paul Thurrott (02:21:16):
Are you serious about you serious
Leo Laporte (02:21:18):
War? If you're willing to work 80 hours a week for no additional compensation and drive this company forward, click yes. If you click no, you're fired.
Paul Thurrott (02:21:29):
As I said to Brad this morning, it's like when you get one of those triangle notes in high school and it's like, do you like me? Yes or no <laugh>. And then you open it and it's like you get to stay <laugh>
Leo Laporte (02:21:40):
Anyway. I mean honestly, I don't, if I were, and I can't speak for everybody at TWiTtter, but if I were an engineer and I got that, and he is saying, well, you either say agree to this ridiculous proposition that you're gonna not have no life now for an undetermined amount of time without additional pay. And by the way, there's no stock, so you ain't getting any stock options. He says, we'll give you stake in the company. But I've been through that before without a public market. It ain't worth the paper it's written on. Or we'll give you 90 day severance, who's gonna stay?
Paul Thurrott (02:22:15):
This is what TWiTtter is like. I made fun of that today On TWiTtter.
Leo Laporte (02:22:20):
On TWiTtter.
Paul Thurrott (02:22:21):
And of course you hear from these people who are like, well defend this guy. And no matter what he does,
Leo Laporte (02:22:26):
But they don't work for TWiTtter 80 hours a week. I bet. No,
Paul Thurrott (02:22:29):
Of course they're idiots. This is the blind allegiance to a human being who is terrible. Doesn't make sense to me. But anyway, one of the replies I got was
Leo Laporte (02:22:38):
Like, that's the story of the last five years, six years in the American Republic
Paul Thurrott (02:22:43):
<laugh>. I know. Well, like I said,
Leo Laporte (02:22:46):
That's gonna be on our tombstone. We were blindly,
Paul Thurrott (02:22:50):
I think we're growing past it, but not with Elon Musk get, so one guy said, he goes, I don't know what you're complaining about. 90 days sounds pretty reasonable to me. It's like, could you think a little bit? Anyway, he
Leo Laporte (02:23:03):
Has to do the 90 days because of the warrant act. When you do mass layoffs, you have to give the employees and the state advanced notice, which obviously he couldn't because he only
Paul Thurrott (02:23:13):
Just got, you're making it sound like he didn't do it from the kindness of his life, the him
Leo Laporte (02:23:19):
Over <laugh> and said, and by the way, did you see his defense? So he's been testifying in the Tesla trial. Right. And
Paul Thurrott (02:23:29):
He had nothing to do with his compensation is nothing.
Leo Laporte (02:23:31):
No. The new one is they asked him about, cause it's Tesla's shareholder suing, saying, we don't wanna pay you all this money to run Tesla when you're clearly distracted. Right. So one of the things they asked him about was the fact that TWiTtter is under an FTC consent decree. And
Paul Thurrott (02:23:50):
He knew, which is probably the first time he heard about it, <laugh>. And he
Leo Laporte (02:23:53):
Knew feature, they roll out, they have to do a report on the security of it because they fumbled it so badly in the past. And of course this predates him and they have to report to the FTC and they have to publish this and they, there's a 90 day approval process. There's all these rules that they have to follow. When asked about that, he said, well, that was agreed to under duress. And I don't consider anything agreed to under duress. Binding,
Paul Thurrott (02:24:20):
Huh. That'll be,
Leo Laporte (02:24:23):
Well this is gonna
Paul Thurrott (02:24:24):
Be interesting interpretation of the law. I wonder how that applies to the people you fired.
Leo Laporte (02:24:30):
Or let's say I make a plea bargain because I'm on trial for murder. And they say, well you could plead guilty and we're gonna send you a jail rest of your life. Or plea, I mean innocent or plead guilty will give you six years. That's under duress. It's binding. The FTC could set degrees binding, doesn't matter why.
Paul Thurrott (02:24:49):
Right.
Leo Laporte (02:24:49):
Punish it's, it's called
Paul Thurrott (02:24:51):
Punishment. There's an alternative. It's an alternative. And it's called Mato Don. Oh, Vivaldi.
Leo Laporte (02:24:56):
I'm glad. Have you signed up yet?
Paul Thurrott (02:24:58):
I did. And you probably didn't know this. Uh, cuz Vivaldi's on the leading edge. They just announced their thing today. Vivaldi social <laugh>, but no, yeah, Mato a thing. Leo and
Leo Laporte (02:25:07):
Vivaldi's probably doing Macon. I would bet
Paul Thurrott (02:25:10):
They are absolutely doing ma.
Leo Laporte (02:25:12):
Yeah. So the thing about Macon, we have our own at TWiTt social,
Paul Thurrott (02:25:16):
Well, decentralized, federated,
Leo Laporte (02:25:18):
Open source. So we run our own server, that's the middle part. The local, I'm looking at the advanced webinar phase, <affirmative>, the local timeline. These are all the people who are members of TWiTT Social. You could follow people and you could follow them on any server. They'll show up in your home timeline. And then there's the federated timeline, which is everybody that everybody on your servers following. So friends of friends, right, right. Nice. And we're a little over 3000 members, which is I think critical mass for an instance. But I'm not encouraging you to join where, what's your new
Paul Thurrott (02:25:48):
Mass? Oh, I'm encouraging you
Leo Laporte (02:25:49):
<laugh>. Well, what's your new mast on? Where are
Paul Thurrott (02:25:51):
You? Oh, I'm on on you. I'm on TWiTtch List.
Leo Laporte (02:25:53):
Oh, are you at Thro?
Paul Thurrott (02:25:56):
I am. I have, have not set up anything. I've just Oh, you
Leo Laporte (02:26:01):
Haven't set it up yet? Okay.
Paul Thurrott (02:26:03):
Yeah. I'm still, I have to go through that process.
Leo Laporte (02:26:05):
Well, when you do, I will welcome you with arms and we will say, we talked about this last week, and you have, there's three bots on Macon in your name, and those are not you. So you will be eventually at Throt. At TWiTt.social.
Paul Thurrott (02:26:24):
Okay,
Leo Laporte (02:26:25):
Good.
Paul Thurrott (02:26:26):
Welcome. I, that's where I'm coming. That's what
Leo Laporte (02:26:29):
I'm doing. There are lots of really nice people, including most of our hosts who will welcome you and Pop father. We
Paul Thurrott (02:26:37):
About this a lot. But I feel like you've also been kind of on the leading edge of I and I feel this way too, even though obviously I read a lot about Microsoft and whatever, but I Open is the future, right? I mean,
Leo Laporte (02:26:51):
I'm a firm believer in
Paul Thurrott (02:26:52):
That. Yeah. I, no, I know you are. I'm not <laugh> not, but I mean this is where it's going. This is inevitable. I love that. Something like this could kill something terrible.
Leo Laporte (02:27:02):
I don't think it's, it's gonna kill TWiTtter, but, and it's not the same as TWiTtter. No. Elon's gonna kill TWiTtter dude.
Paul Thurrott (02:27:11):
<laugh>. Yeah. Well, right. Okay. Definitely a thousand
Leo Laporte (02:27:13):
Cuts. But it's nice that there's somewhere people can go to that will give you some, not all, but some of the feels you get when you're on TWiTtter.
Paul Thurrott (02:27:22):
Yep, yep.
Leo Laporte (02:27:23):
And there are a few things you should do. We should follow news organizations. Many of them now have migrated. I think over time. A lot of them will. Here's my great fear <affirmative> at some point, Stephen Fry's the biggest celebrity right now in Macon. And we've survived. But at some point, somebody, Barack Obama, Elon Musk, somebody with, yeah, yeah. Tens of millions of followers is gonna
Paul Thurrott (02:27:48):
Announce and it's gonna collapse.
Leo Laporte (02:27:49):
I have moved to Macon. Macon's not built to handle that.
Paul Thurrott (02:27:53):
If
Leo Laporte (02:27:53):
Steve Martin decides to go to TWiT.social, I would be thrilled and I would be spending thousands and thousands of dollars on servers. That's hardware. Interesting.
Paul Thurrott (02:28:03):
Okay.
Leo Laporte (02:28:05):
We already went through that. We've grown 20000%, 200 times bigger. And I've already spending 20 times more on the server than I did before. It's
Paul Thurrott (02:28:17):
Fine. You won't have to worry about me <laugh> causing any of those problems. But
Leo Laporte (02:28:21):
I'm very, very thrilled cuz we've been doing this for three years. I interviewed the ancestor of all this Lecona, the creator of identical Evan promo on Floss Weekly in 2008. We had a, I dunno if you remember this TWiT Army canteen. Yeah. I've been trying to get people, we do
Paul Thurrott (02:28:42):
This for few, all the toxicity on TWiTtter. There are people in Big Tech, there aren't many. But the guy who runs Automatic, which is WordPress,
Leo Laporte (02:28:51):
Matt Mullenweg, we had him on TWiT a month ago. Amazing guy.
Paul Thurrott (02:28:55):
Yeah. We gotta focus more on these people who are actually solving problems and not causing problems. And he's another big proponent of the open stuff. So
Leo Laporte (02:29:06):
Matt's got Tumblr, which is another place people are running to from TWiTtter. There are a lot of people going to Tumblr.
Paul Thurrott (02:29:10):
Yeah,
Leo Laporte (02:29:11):
There you go. Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (02:29:12):
Any that's that. And then I
Leo Laporte (02:29:16):
Just, let me give one more plug. I don't plug it anywhere else cause I only want it to be TWiT listeners. Windows Weekly listeners. <affirmative>, the As address is TWiTt social. You don't need an invite, just go there. When you sign up, you won't be immediately allowed access. Cuz I'm keeping Elon Musk and spammers out <laugh>. So I have to approve you manually. And I've been doing that every day. Okay. Every morning about 150 new people. But TWiT.social is the place if you are a TWiT listener. Yeah. But there are many, many servers. You said Vivaldi. If you love Vivaldi and you want to hang out with other people who love Vivaldi, go to vivaldi.social. That's fine. And you can still follow Paul, you can still follow me because that's how, cause it's
Paul Thurrott (02:29:58):
All federated. It's
Leo Laporte (02:29:59):
All federated. That works. That's how it works. Yep. Yeah, thank you for that.
Paul Thurrott (02:30:03):
It's good system. Yes. Yeah, no, it's the right thing. And then two epics. Neither of these are in any way Windows apps, but although I guess script is technically on Windows, there's a video editor that's been around for a few years called Descript. It's, it's actually a subscription service.
Leo Laporte (02:30:20):
There's a previous, yeah, I'm curious about this. Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (02:30:23):
And I've only just barely looked at it, but the company was started by the guy who founded or co-founded group on, if I'm not mistaken. And he seems like a good guy too actually, by the way. But it's kinda like the startup world. So in the startup world, everything is Google Docs and Google Sheets. It's not Microsoft Office. It's kind of a different way of looking at things. But the way they created this was you can create videos using techniques that are similar to the way you might create a document using Google Docs. And the new version uses AI so that when you record a video, it creates the script as you talk. So it's transcribing what you say. Then you can edit that script to edit the video. Which sounds weird at first, but this could potentially be game changing. Absolutely. If you go back several months, actually, if you go back to last year, I was working on what was gonna become the Windows 11 field guide.
(02:31:17):
I wanted it to be different from the previous version that Windows 10 field guide. And one of the things I looked at doing was video. And I thought in addition to writing about what was happening in whatever chapter, I could have a video that would show that stuff and I could put that in the document, it would be available in the web, whatever, blah, blah, blah. So I looked at all these different video editors and everything. I looked at how I might do this. And what I discovered was video is really, really hard. And in a bout of really good timing, your wife came back to me, cuz we had talked about this before the pandemic. But she said, Hey, we're starting to do new shows again. Did you wanna do what became Hands on Windows? And I said, oh my God, this is such good timing because I don't wanna do this video myself. It's too hard. And that's how that kind of happened.
Leo Laporte (02:32:01):
Many ways, God, the script wasn't around then, or we wouldn't have answers.
Paul Thurrott (02:32:03):
Well, I mean, I still am gonna need a lot of time to figure it out, but I'm intrigued by this because most, well no, all video editors, at some point you have a timeline and you're cropping things and you're pulling stuff in and you're doing whatever you do. And the way this works is actually the way Notion works. So as you type in Notion, for example, if you want to type a heading or something, you'll do slash H one or H two, whatever it might be. And the way that you edit video using the script that it creates as you talk is you type slash And then there are commands for doing things like adding video clips or adding whatever, or just trimming things. And they also got a 50 million investment from the Open AI fund, if that's the right term, I believe it is to advance the state of AI in this product.
(02:32:50):
And in the coming year, they're gonna be adding a lot more AI features to it, if that makes sense. The Open AI Startup fund. Sorry. But the way it works right now is actually really kind of exciting and very interesting. You could still go to a timeline view, it's a video editor if you want to, but the theory here is that you could be able to edit a video just using techniques that will be familiar to you from editing, like a word processing document. And that's really exciting. I mean, the thing I sort equate it to is way back when, a long time ago, one of the exciting features that Microsoft added to OneNote back in the day was the ability to record meet a meeting that you were listening to or watching. And then you would type your notes and you could go in either direction, you could go to any point in the recording and then see what you wrote at that time. Or you could go to your notes and then go to that point in the recording. And it, it's sort of like that the script that it creates, which is the transcription of what you said, becomes the point of edit for the video.
(02:33:57):
It's weird because it's different, but it's potentially very exciting. Anyway, if you care at all about video editing, you should check this out. There's a free version. Obviously if you're gonna use this, you're gonna wanna use one of the paid versions, but it's reasonable anyway. We
Leo Laporte (02:34:12):
Live in such interesting times. So really technology is really supported people doing their own thing. Yeah, Kevin Rose told me about the script
Paul Thurrott (02:34:22):
More
Leo Laporte (02:34:22):
Than a year ago. I think he must be in a,
Paul Thurrott (02:34:24):
Yeah, they've been around for a couple years, I would think. Yeah. And
Leo Laporte (02:34:26):
It's just gotten better and better and better. It's really interesting.
Paul Thurrott (02:34:30):
Yeah, I think a lot of, if you follow the progression of video editors, I mean, I think one of the big movements as it was with photos and anything else is you bring it to the web first, right? It becomes a web service. And so you have this interface like Clip Champ actually is this, and that's, we mentioned, we talked about Clip Champ briefly earlier. Clip Champ is a web app. So I know there's a Windows app version, but it's just the web app, a web app. And that's fine. I mean there's nothing wrong with that approach, but I think the next, when Google created Google Docs said, look at Microsoft Word and said, let's make this, but we'll make it in the web. And that's what Google Docs is. And they added some other things like live collaboration, which didn't come to Word for a long, long time.
(02:35:07):
But fundamentally it's just the same product we've always used, but in a different place. But this is looking at the unique characteristics of the world we live in and the platform they're running on and saying, well, it doesn't have to be the same. I mean, why can't it be different? We have different paradigms for editing, different types of things. What if this was different? What if it wasn't this really hard to learn and bulky, complicated process? And I'm not saying it's perfect, I'm not saying they're gonna succeed, but I'm saying it's very interesting and it's worth looking at for
Leo Laporte (02:35:40):
Sure. Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (02:35:41):
And then finally, if you are running Android, one thing you might wanna look at, we talked about next DNS in the past, and that's something I used all my devices. And on Apple, they have a kind of an anti tracking technology that's built into iOS to, I think it's called App Tracking Transparency or something like that. But Android doesn't have that because Google. And so Dr. Duco is among the companies that have created a solution that provides that same functionality on Android. I did use it late last year when it was in private beta on my Pixel six Pro before I switched to the iPhone. It seems to work great. It's basically, it sets itself up like a VPN app that sits between your phone and the outside world. So every time an app tries to track you, it hits the VPN and doesn't get out.
(02:36:28):
And they do it in such a way that most apps just work fine, everything's fine. Similar to next dns, they can't claim a hundred percent tracker blocking because some trackers have to get through for things to work. And one of the nice things about having an app on the device that's smart about that is they know which ones those are and so forth. And so it's available now in an open beta, so anyone with an Android phone can get it. And their statistics so that the average Android user has 35 apps on their phone. They experience anywhere from a thousand to 2000 tracking attempts every single day from 70 different tracking companies. They're the big guys, Google and Facebook. But then there's also this consortium of whatever tracking networks that basically sells your data to other companies. And it's astonishing what they find. You should read their blog post about this, just if you're not sure, I don't know if I want this. Maybe read this because you do want this. You wanna do something like this. Like I said, I'm using Next dns, which is something you can put on your network if you want, on your router. I haven't done that. I install it manually on my phones. But you want that anti tracking and this is one solution for that for sure. It's good. It's based on my experience of almost a year ago, which I know it's a long time, but it worked very well for me.
Leo Laporte (02:37:48):
Very nice. Excuse
Paul Thurrott (02:37:49):
Me. Yes. Duck.
Leo Laporte (02:37:51):
Duck Go.
Paul Thurrott (02:37:53):
Yep. Now
Leo Laporte (02:37:54):
You heard Paul say something and maybe it threw you a little bit, but he adds another show on this network called Hands On Windows. But you say, I've never seen that. Well that's cuz you're not in Club TWiTt. Club TWiTt is where we put the good stuff. No, this is where we put new shows that we haven't yet sold the advertisers. We can't S Fund <affirmative>. And what's nice is we have now this thing called Club TWiT, where Club TWiT members fund it. So hands on Macintosh with the Micah Sergeant hands on Windows with Paul Thro. These are club only specials. You get all of the shows that we do that you're used to, including this one without ads ad free. You get the Discord, which is always a lot of fun. Discord is where new shows will show up <laugh> where the weirdos are. And we have events too in the Discord tomorrow.
(02:38:51):
Jonathan Bennett from one of our shows in the club, the Untitled Linux Show and Floss Weekly. We'll sit down for an ama. Glen Fleishman, who's we love, who's been on TWiTg and Mac Break Weekly and TWiT a lot is doing a fireside chat next week. And Stacy's book club, they've announced the book for next time, which is in January. So you have a couple of months to read Project Hail Mary, which probably many of you have read. Certainly you have Paul I know and I have. And we loved it. And it's highly recommended. So that'll be fun. So that's an event. Our community manager is Aunt Pruitt. So A makes it really fun in there and keeps it going. And there's also the Tip plus feed, which has all the things that happen that aren't yet part of the podcasts, like discussions we have before and after shows and so forth. Plus hands on Macintosh, hands on windows. All of this I just described a really a basket of wonderful features is just seven bucks a month, <laugh>. Seven bucks a month. That's all
Paul Thurrott (02:39:54):
A gift basket. That doesn't suck.
Leo Laporte (02:39:55):
It's a cornucopia of TWiT content. Yes. A horn of Plenty spilling out <laugh> the good stuff. And you can join by going to TWiT.tv/club. TWiT do tv slash club. You also, I should mention, could buy hands on windows for $2 and 99 cents, but you'd only get that all of the shows are available as individual ad free versions for 2 99 a month. But really, why not spend a little bit more and get all of those benefits. There's a year long plan, which would be a great gift for a geek in your life. Holidays are coming. There's also enterprise plans for your employees, for your business, all of that at TWiT.tv/club or TWiTt tv slash club TWiTt. Check it out. We appreciate your support and thank you to, I would say thank you to all the club members, but because they get ad free versions of the shows, they don't hear this
Paul Thurrott (02:40:52):
Either. <laugh>,
Leo Laporte (02:40:55):
So I mean, when I say ad free, I mean ad free Paul Thro. It is. Oh,
Paul Thurrott (02:40:59):
Maybe before I go you added an image images to the top. I just noticed. Oh,
Leo Laporte (02:41:05):
You just noticed.
Paul Thurrott (02:41:06):
You must explain. It must explain yourself. Do
Leo Laporte (02:41:08):
You know what those images are? Well,
Paul Thurrott (02:41:10):
I mean, I know
Leo Laporte (02:41:11):
They're ADONs ish,
Paul Thurrott (02:41:13):
Ma. Oh, I see. Get it.
Leo Laporte (02:41:14):
Macada ish. Yeah. I don't think they have any actual mastodons. Gotcha, gotcha. But they were the ancestors of today's elephants. That's
Paul Thurrott (02:41:21):
Right. That's right. I think they might be making a comeback.
Leo Laporte (02:41:24):
I think they're back. So I had to do that to you, <laugh>. That's funny. That's good. You didn't put anything there. Mary Jo Foley was, I
Paul Thurrott (02:41:31):
Know. I forgot.
Leo Laporte (02:41:32):
I former banner maker, so I thought I'd stick something in there. <affirmative> to see if you noticed. Mm-hmm.
Paul Thurrott (02:41:38):
<affirmative>. Sorry. It scrolls off the top and you scroll. So I didn't see it. I noticed nice friends
Leo Laporte (02:41:44):
To start. By the way, George Toay just joined Mastodon. So maybe that Black Swan event I was talking about. It might <laugh> have just happened. We'll
Paul Thurrott (02:41:54):
See. Tumblr, you say <laugh> next week. Another
Leo Laporte (02:41:59):
Week. There are. It's amazing the growth. There are 5,000 people running servers now. Some of them are personal individual servers, but a great many of them are public, which means we've really distributed the load.
Paul Thurrott (02:42:11):
It's based on the architecture of the internet itself. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (02:42:14):
How do you like that?
Paul Thurrott (02:42:16):
Yeah.
Leo Laporte (02:42:16):
How do you like them Apples?
Paul Thurrott (02:42:18):
Yeah, exactly.
Leo Laporte (02:42:20):
Paul Thoro is@thoro.com. T H U R R O. good.com. Become a premium member there too, while at it. Another great holiday gift for the geek in your life. Lots of great content under the premium banner. His new book, the Field Guide to Windows 11 is out now and includes a copy of the Field Guide to Windows 10, and it's at lean pub.com. That's a must. That's a must for anybody who uses Windows. Thank you, Paul. It's always great to see you. I hope you don't mind. I'm trying to jump in more to be, you know, so you're not all
Paul Thurrott (02:42:51):
Don't mind. No, I rely on it.
Leo Laporte (02:42:56):
It's kinda like the old days where it was just you and me, but That's right. That's right. I appreciate the time you spend putting this show together and all the work you do on thra.com and I look forward to seeing you next week. We do Windows Weekly on Wednesdays 11 a Pacific, 2:00 PM Eastern Time. 1800 utc. 800 episodes are Wow. And more to many, many more to come if I
Paul Thurrott (02:43:21):
Have any. I can't wait till we catch up and surpass the main TWiT podcast, but we'll see.
Leo Laporte (02:43:26):
Unfortunately, they keep doing shows too.
Paul Thurrott (02:43:28):
It's like getting older than your mother.
Leo Laporte (02:43:30):
You know who you're, yeah, exactly. Ain't gonna happen. You know who you might surpass though. Steve Gibson said he's not gonna do an episode 1000. He says I only have room for three digits, so Yeah,
Paul Thurrott (02:43:42):
I know. Y2K problem.
Leo Laporte (02:43:44):
We'll see when the time comes. Interesting. Steve might miss doing security now. I think he might. Thank you, Paul. Have a wonderful week. We'll see you next time. You too. On wait as weekly. Bye. Bye.
