Windows 10 has been in the news lately because of fears that it transmits a lot of personal information from the computers, tablets and phones it runs on.

That’s concern enough, but the deeper problem is a lot more like power windows and door locks. In an effort to be ‘convenient,’ even helpful, modern computing devices bring along a lot of baggage and risks that consumers really don’t understand. Windows is just one of the latest, but 10 takes it to a new level.

While Microsoft and others really do want to data mine your activity to make money, there is a more fundamental shift. They are trying to improve the computing experience, to make it more integrated, and to be more helpful to the consumer. It isn’t necessarily malicious, but there are implications way beyond privacy.

Windows 10 is fundamentally different from earlier technology products in several ways

• it tracks your activity and personal information (if you let it)
• it is designed to be ‘live linked’ to online resources
• it constantly tries to modify itself to stay ‘current’
• it tries to anticipate your needs and do things automatically to be helpful
• it ‘assumes’ that you want all of this as a default

Windows and other computing platforms used to connect to online services as needed. As a consumer, you were generally aware that you were accessing remote resources. 10 changes all that. It integrates online resources into its basic operations. Its default settings include options to track your behavior, suggest content, target advertising and provide answers predicted by your behavior. It also continually updates itself at regular intervals.

The platform connects you to available open hot spots, and it shares resources with computers identified by your contacts list. It allows ‘friends’ devices to share your network access when they visit your home. It even goes so far as to have program updates get shared by other computers in your local network.

All this gets done without any effort on your part. That may all sound wonderful, but it has drawbacks. With all the activity you may find that 10 is taxing your network. According to The Hacker News, even with all the privacy options enabled, 10 will contact external servers 5,500 times per day! Add three computers to your home LAN; they all start chattering; and, you suddenly have a lot of network traffic.

With all this ‘activity’ 10 will

• use a lot of network bandwidth with endless communication
• potentially disrupt your work or apps with automatic updates
• create a greater opportunity to be hacked with all the communication
• expose your device(s) by connecting to open hot spots
• risk your device(s) by allowing other computers to use your network
• obscure when you are connecting to outside resources
• transport your personal information around putting it at risk
• freely update guest computers with your network via peer to peer distribution

Perhaps worst of all, the platform does all this automatically. Some of the options can be turned off, but a basic installation turns these features on by default. If hackers break into the inter-system communications, any corruption or malware would be spread like wildfire.

Assuming that no one would or will hack into this infrastructure seems foolhardy. Forcing this risk on consumers without their understanding is unfair and irresponsible.

For more understanding check out:

PCWorld: How to reclaim your privacy in Windows 10, piece by piece

The Hacker News: Windows 10 Sends Your Data 5500 Times Every Day After Tweaking Settings

ars technica: Even when told not to, Windows 10 just can’t stop talking to Microsoft

Slate: Broken Windows Theory

isleaked.com: fix windows 10 (see settings screens)

As Always, Happy Computing!

The constant challenge is to learn (and remember) all the individual tools you need to develop solutions for each platform. At ICAL we use a product called XOJO to do a lot of our cross platform development. It is one of the few truly cross-platform tool sets.

Toward the end of January we were invited to discuss XOJO with the people who produce it. ICAL, Tom and Arthur (not to be confused with Tom and Ray) spoke with XOJO Inc’s Paul Lefebvre about enterprise solutions using XOJO.

We’re not radio jocks, but it is an interesting topic for technology consumers/developers. The rest of you non-techies with sleep disorders may also find it helpful.

Check it out: XojoTalk 21 (Enterprise Consulting)

We have always approached our clients. Rarely have people approached us, so we treated our web site like an online brochure. The old site covered the basics of who we are and how we work. The technology we use changes constantly, but those basics don’t.

For some companies, changing their web site is like changing outfits for the evening. To a fault, we are not that flippant. We struggle with the content, the context and the presentation. As we approached the new year, we began the lengthy and painful process of re-design.

Philosophically, we are not big fans of dynamic web designs. Those of us who grew up with The Elements of Style and consistent layouts, struggle with shape shifting of purely dynamic pages.

Philosophy aside, we had to give the nod to the 21st Century. Our new site steps down dynamically with different sized view ports, and we now have images that exceed 10k bytes. Alas poor Yorick, I remember him well.

Jesters aside, the site was showing its age, and it didn’t represent us well, especially on large screens. The new site steps through different view port sizes rather than morphing infinitely. It maintains layouts rather than center tagging all content. It just had to; we’re still old school layout. We still believe in form and function.

Let us know what you think.

Happy Computing!

Tom & Arthur

It was both interesting and fun. We were also duly impressed by the caliber of the people attending. The group shared projects that we never imagined being built with this tool set. Based on their experiences, Xojo has demonstrated itself as a versatile platform for building most software solutions that a company may need.

Part of the discussion focused on how Xojo could be used as key component within an enterprise. It had been used by the group as sort of a Swiss Army Knife for data conversion and presentation.

As techies, we sometimes get caught in our own little world. We forget that getting together once in a while helps us to be better and more successful at what we do.

Thank you ALL for making this successful. In particular, thank you Paul Lefebvre for taking the time to get down here and share some very helpful insights into Xojo and its future direction.

We look forward to hearing from all of you and getting together again. Please contact us with your ideas for what you might like to do in the future. We look to seeing you all again

Tom & Arthur