Tag Archives: Microsoft

Oh, Microsoft.

21 Tuesday Oct 2025

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I get it, Microsoft is trying to take over the world and our descent in Windows 11 is the last straw. With the new computers we’re going to have to buy, they’ll soon be logging our toilet habits and how often we cut the grass, all in a great master plan to keep us docile and obedient.

OK, so I’m exaggerating somewhat. I’ve read some pretty hair-raising stuff about Microsoft’s plans for world domination, but fortunately I don’t believe everything I read on the Internet. Sure, I’d love to move to Linux, or something similar, but life is too short to waste on the techie-heaven of Unix-inspired products, wonderful though they may be. I’m also sharing a house with people who will happily give up some independence to Microsoft if it means they can watch their favourite videos, or upload decades-old pictures to the cloud, with little or no additional techie knowhow. Much as the anti-Windows crowd will call me, us, slaves to the ‘Soft, frankly we don’t care enough to be concerned.

All that said, I am a little miffed that three perfectly serviceable PCs in our house only have a year to struggle on using Windows 10. Two of the offending PCs are Microsoft Surface laptops, which tends to rub salt into the wound. However, doing a little digging, I realise that my outrage is perhaps a wee bit premature.

The HP desktop that can’t move to Windows 11 is eight years old, and the Surface laptops are seven and six years old, which in PC terms is geriatric. Sure, they’re all still working, but like cars, we tend to like a new one every now and again (acknowledging that not everyone can afford a car, let alone a new one every few years), and PCs are nothing like the cost of a new car. Is it just that because we’re being told we need a new PC that we’re resisting? It might just be the case.

I’ve signed up the three PCs for Windows 10 security updates and will look at getting new kit in the New Year, but I think, honestly, I should have been doing that anyway. That big old HP desktop is working now, but who is to say that it’ll keep going? They’re fickle things, Personal Computers.

So maybe Microsoft is doing me a good service here?

To the folks who worry about data collection and control, I’ll say this; check your phone’s habits before you worry about your PC.

As a final note, anyone suggesting that we move to Apple products can either send me the money to buy the overpriced hardware and software, or stay in their lane.

Now, how do I get that Windows 10 context menu back…

Cock Up On The Google Front

21 Thursday Sep 2023

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Or “How Not To Do It”

Ever since we bought our Airstream Trailer, I have documented our travels. I’ve used various apps and media to do that, but had settled on Google Drive and a whole heap of PDF files, all tied up with a Google Sites free website.

Why wouldn’t I? Everything is in The Cloud, they do the backups and I had a massive amount of storage space bought and paid for. Everything was looking rosy.

Then last week, I had a series of prompts from Google, on my phone, suggesting that I clear down unwanted data. I wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention, and stuff on the phone is usually pretty meagre, so I had assumed that they were talking about duplicate files, previously deleted files, and things that hadn’t been used. I happily clicked “Yes”, even to the warning that the action I was taking was irreversible, and went to bed happy.

The next day, though, the horrible truth dawned on me when I noticed that a few files had been replaced by placeholders on my Sites page. A further delve into Google Drive and it became instantly clear that there wasn’t a single file left in the entire space. Not one. The pieces fell into place and my heart sank; I had deleted everything, and nothing could get it back again.

Google, of course, doesn’t mirror your cloud storage on your local PC like Microsoft OneDrive, so it only takes one idiotic person to make one idiotic mistake and it’s all lost. I could, I suppose, have backed up everything locally myself, but the whole idea is that using Google Drive means that you don’t have to. But in reality you do.

The good news for me was that apart from the Airstream Blog, I didn’t have anything that was critical stored in Google. I had, curiously, kept key things in Microsoft OneDrive where, even if I had screwed that up, I would have had a local backup. Also, everything I had squirreled away in Google Photos was still intact, as was the data in Google’s Blogger app. That said, I am busy making a local backup of Google Photos as we speak.

The upshot of all this has been my partial return to the Microsoft fold. Key documents are in their OneDrive, in the cloud and on my PC. I’ve gone back to Outlook for mail and calendar functions, picked up with Office products again, and I’ve even started to use the Edge Browser a bit. It’s not that the Google offerings don’t work, but I simply do not trust them any more. Anyway, I pay a fat wad of cash to Microsoft each year so I might as well get the most from them.

I’m not advocating a mass rush away from Google, especially given that most of what they do is very cheap, or free. It’s just that you have to be careful when using their products, which is something I clearly wasn’t. Still, onwards and upwards.