larrybud's comments

The minimal text editor shipped with Windows is now Edit https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/edit/

So you're outraged at something that hasn't happened. Or to say it another way, you're outraged because you can imagine something bad happening?

Is ANYONE reading the article or going to the source prior to posting with outrage? Source: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/experimental-age... (the original article is not available at the moment due to the ongoing Cloudfare outage)

What I see is that the AI agent is an optional, experimental off-by-default service that is configured to only have access to the folders you specifically choose.

From the MS article: "An agent workspace is a separate, contained space in Windows where you can grant agents access to your apps and files so they can complete tasks for you in the background while you continue to use your device. Each agent operates using its own account, distinct from your personal user account. This dedicated agent account establishes clear boundaries between agent activity and your own, enabling scoped authorization and runtime isolation. As a result, you can delegate tasks to agents while retaining full control, visibility into agent actions, and the ability to manage access at any time.

Agents typically get access to known folders or specific shared folders, and you can see this reflected in the folder’s access control settings. Each agent has its own workspace and its own permissions—what one agent can access doesn’t automatically apply to others.

[..]

Agent workspace is only enabled when you toggle on the experimental agentic feature setting. The feature is off by default."

+1 to this post. Ex-Microsoft employee here (left last year after 7 years) and I agree completely with the parent.

The article makes mountains out of molehills. Every large company has its own culture and its own BS. Having worked at many over my career, Microsoft’s was better than most (actually, I’d say it was better than all of them).

Yes, I’ve done this for years. And to be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever “caught” a business sharing a service when they shouldn’t have. Makes me question why continue to do it.

Agreed; the article is very one sided and also get some of the fundamentals wrong (for example, it uses the term “web sites” when it should be talking about domains)

It also fails to draw any analogy between domain privacy services and real world analogies such as using LLCs.

It was a useful way to run kindle on a surface tablet (as the windows version of the kindle app is not touchscreen friendly). Other than that, I didn’t find many use cases.

Appreciate the effort, but my sample question (what’s the best double oven) gave a non-answer:

> There is no clear consensus on the best double oven, as opinions vary widely depending on personal preferences and experiences. Some popular options include LG Electronics, OSTER French Door Stainless Steel, and KitchenAid Compact Convection Countertop Oven. Other users suggest considering factors such as size, color, budget, type of top, and amount and type of ovens. Some users recommend buying used or considering a convection microwave as a second oven. Others caution against combo units and suggest investing in separate high-quality appliances for specific tasks, such as a toaster oven for toasting and an air fryer for frying.

While cool that this was able to be synthesized, from a practical standpoint, the answer is useless. OF COURSE I am going to consider different brands, size, color, budget, etc.

Yahoo mail, still used by your grandmother.

> GCP and Azure currently lose money for Google and Microsoft

100% not true for Microsoft. Just listen to the most recent earnings call or read the analyst reports.

Eg https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/microsoft-nasdaq:msft:-cloud... “In fiscal Q2, Microsoft Cloud’s gross profit margin even expanded by about 2% year-over-year to 72%. When you have a business with such high margins growing at 20%+, profitability is set to expand considerably even if revenues in other segments fail to rebound”

Back in the early 2000’s I read an interview with Ben Affleck where he said his favorite pizza was HIFi! Sadly I can’t find the article via an internet search; it was in some inflight magazine I was flipping through to kill time.

Be aware of the following: Unfortunately, if you want to use the new iOS advanced data protection feature of iOS 16.2, ALL your devices must be at 16.2 or higher. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212520

Meaning, if you are using your very old iPad that can’t be upgraded, you won’t be able to use advanced data protection on your primary, up to date devices. Eg, in my case, I am sadly retiring these old devices that I was just using for ebook purposes.

I’m not sure if you’re trolling or not, but let’s play this out. You really don’t use your phone for any of the following? (Web or app)

Online banking

Online shopping

Social media

Airlines, hotels, or other Tavel bookings

Online news sources requiring accounts Eg hacker news, NYT, etc

Medical / pharmacy

You can also use docker desktop alternatives on the windows side such as Rancher Desktop or Podman Desktop. Both work similar to Docker desktop in how they integrate with WSL2, but unlike Docker Desktop both are free to use.

Slightly off topic, but why is there no ability (as far as I can tell) to lock your Apple health records with a password/pin/faceid? Seems crazy that every other app containing pii (bank, airline, etc) is lockable but my health records are wide open to anyone who picks up my unlocked phone.

I wish they were more definitive as to if there was (or was not) any compromise of the source code repository credentials. Eg could the attacker have injected malware into the code as in the Solarwinds incident?

It’s pretty far off, at least for azure. It shows a number of azure regions as being located in downtown urban areas, which is typically not the case

(Disclaimer: I work at Microsoft)

I don't think it's fair to generalize about limitations of Premium SSD V2 disks. This service is brand-new and still in preview; literally was announced today https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/blog/azure-premium-ssd-v2-...

Services in preview are just that, preview, and may not be fully featured yet. I would expect many/most of these limitations to be removed by the time the service reaches GA (just speculating, I don't have any specific knowledge of the service)

> Perl is really nice when you are passing a lot of data around compared to bash

I know some might consider this heretical, but have you considered Powershell for these type of scripts?

> I was telling a middle aged person (50 years) about password managers and were unable to grasp the idea of it.

This is more than a little ageist, don’t you think?

> Why would you store passwords in cloud based password manager from a company I have never heard of?

This is actually a very valid question; hope you didn’t just dismiss it due to “the oldie doesn’t understand.”