Good job, YouTube.

Well, Google has once again amazed us by how accurate it is while pointing a gun to its own foot, and shot themselves once more with the stupid redesign on the YouTube layout.
This time it goes beyond changing the graphics, which they did, to match their inorganic, minimalist, sterile layouts of Google+ and the rest of their products (It looks like that from in here, as I type in Blogger, another product under the Google wing).
This time they seriously fucked with the functionality of the website. First of all, your home page is not your customized experience you were used to until now. Now, Google will FORCE you to check out a list of videos their amazingly stupid algorithm has picked for you, which often includes videos you have already watched (check image below).

Holy shit, you recommend something I already watched? You must be a mind reader!!

I used to have my homepage as the latest videos uploaded by my subscribed channels, hiding all other activity such as comments and likes. Now, to get to that page, you have to click in several places, and it will not remember your preference for the next time.
If you would like to go directly to your subscriptions, I recommend you change your current bookmark from going to http://www.youtube.com to http://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions/u

Lastly a message for Google, which I'm sure they'll never see, but I gotta get it off my chest...

STOP FUCKING AROUND WITH THE LAYOUT AND IMPROVE THE GOD DAMN FUNCTIONALITY. DO YOU WANT TO BE THE REALPLAYER OF ONLINE VIDEO STREAMING WEBSITES?


The only reason why flocks of people are not leaving YouTube already is because the content creators are still attracted by Google's ad revenue network, which is one of a kind right now in the websphere. With nobody to compete with realistically, YouTube is getting sloppier and overall, worse. What a damn shame.

The conundrum of finding a job

How is one to get their first job when employers act like this?
Well I tell you how. You gotta know someone who knows someone who will get you in. Corruption at its finest.

Problems aren't solved in Facebook

I'm pretty sick and tired of people who try to show political activism or try to be pseudo ecologists by sharing stupid images or infographics in Facebook.
Newsflash, idiots:

ANYONE CAN MAKE ONE OF THESE WITH ABSOLUTELY NO RESEARCH
and you would probably still share it. Without double checking any facts.

In what I can recall, he already posted images suggesting:

• there is a water-powered car (total bullshit) which is being kept secret as a conspiracy by big oil companies, cos obviously that would leave them bankrupt... doesn't matter this car concept violates the laws of physics, it must be hidden somewhere, we need to recover it!!1
• boycott a million number of brands, most of which he probably uses and wears, because they're using harmful processes and/or exploiting children and/or making baby seals cry
• suggested that microwaved water is somehow harmful to plants, showing a bogus "highschool experiment" that has been known to be a damn lie for years.
• everything about modern society is wrong and the native americans knew best, we should all go back to "those good times"... and ignore the fact they died at 40 and were a bunch of bloody fucks who would have no problem sacrificing humans among other things.
• we should leave everything we are doing every day and dedicate ourselves to being in constant protest and riots; when the police comes to put us in our place, make sure to snap a picture and send it to Facebook!
• FIGHT CAPITALISM!!

Recovering a failed hard drive. Part II, the solution

Getting SpinRite to start working is really easy. With the burnt CD inside the CD drive, all one has to do is turn the computer on, with the intended hard drive to recover connected, and wait some time. A welcome screen with clear options tells you what you need to press for which operations, and off you go.


SpinRite has different “levels” of operation, for different functions. The default and recommended level is level 2, which will scan the contents of the disk and attempt to recover whichever sectors are damaged or unreadable. I chose this option and let it go. At first, the scan seemed to go quite fast. Obviously the scanned parts were healthy and were duly being skipped. After about 12 hours of operation, the screen was telling me it was 2.89% done, trying to repair the first bad sector… at which point I understood it was going to take a while, lost interest, and turned the screen off. I let it work for around 12 hours before I checked on it again.

Recovering a failed hard drive. Part I, the problem.

Two weeks ago I was going through old computer parts I stored in a box when I came across 6 defunct hard drives. What I mean by defunct is that the data inside them is not accessible any more for a bunch of different reasons. Data loss is one of the nightmares of any computer user, and all hard drives will eventually fail: it's not a matter of IF, but a matter of WHEN. Since I've had personal computers for more than ten years, it only makes sense that I have a fair collection of failed hard drives.

The problem

Lack of posts

I have been diagnosed with clinical lazyness and that's why I haven't been submitting any posts as of lately.

The case is being handled by Doctor Nick. I hope this medication he prescribed me helps.

I'll be back soon with more interesting stuff. Unless these pills don't work.

Where's Megaupload?

So as many of you know, the sharing site Megaupload was forcefully closed by the U.S. Justice Department yesterday after an investigation into alleged copyright infringement. It's founders were detained in New Zealand and will be shipped to the US where they will await trial.

The reasons for this raid are simply ridiculous, far fetched and unjustified; at points, it's borderline crazy or paranoid. It's just corporate America wanting to limit the sharing freedom of the people: Megaupload was previously targeted by large corporate copyright sharks such as Universal Music Group.


The legal document released is full of complete garbage that doesn't justify such drastic action. Read the whole thing here, if you wanna subject your brain to injury. If you don't, I did it already... read some excerpts below and what I think of them.

Calling the owners of Megaupload "The Mega Conspiracy", a worldwide criminal organization whose mombers engaged in criminal copyright infringement and money laundering on a massive scale, with estimated harm to copyright holders well in excess of $500,000,00"

Well we're off to a good start. Let the paranoia begin! A file hosting service is not such thing, not even a conspiracy. It's the Mega Conspiracy against those honest hard working copyright holders that are losing so much money because of the Internet, it's intolerable and has to end ! </sarcasm>

Megaupload.com is a commercial website and service operated by the Mega Conspiracy that reproduces and distributes copies of popular copyrighted content over the Internet without authorization. 

No, it's a site where anyone can upload anything at any time and where as there are files which are intellectual property of some, it doesn't mean the primary goal of the site was to host illegal files.

Megaupload.com was at one point in its history estimated to be the 13th most frequently website on the entire Internet. The site claims to have had more than one billion visitors in its history more than 180,000,000 registered users to date (...).

So being successful is a crime?

Megaupload.com's income comes primarily from two sources: premium subscriptions and online advertising.

Like many websites nowadays.

In exchange for payment, the Mega Conspiracy provides the fast reproduction and distribution of infringing copies of copyrighted works from its computer servers located around the world.

No, that's nowhere on the site and are bogus conclusions of what someone CAN do with a megaupload membership, not what they were designed for. 

Subscription fees collected during the existance of the Mega Conspiracy from premium users are estimated to be more than $150 million. 

Good for them...?

Any internet user who goes to the Megaupload.com website can upload a computer file. Once that user has selected a file on their computer and clicks the "upload" button, Megaupload.com reproduces the file on at least one computer server it controls and provides the uploading user with a unique Uniform Resource Locator ("URL") link that allows anyone with the link to download the file.

Thank you for explaining how someone can host ANY file in megaupload, not only copyrighted material.

For example, a link distributed on December 3, 2006, by defendant DOTCOM links to a musical recording by US recording artist "50 Cent." A single click on the link accesses a Megaupload.com download page that allows any internet user to download a copy of the file from a computer server that is controlled by the Mega Conspiracy.

A link from 2006? Damn, these guys talk like most of the content in Megaupload.com is copyrighted material, and all they could find is a 50 Cent mp3 from 5 years ago? 

It must have been a huge deal though. That poor guy must be living on the streets because megaupload deprived him of so many dollars. The poor fella.

Megaupload.com advertises itself as a "cyberlocker", which is a private data storage provider. However, as part of the design of the service, the vast majority of Megaupload.com users do not have significant capabilities to store private content long-term. Unregistered users (referred to as "non-members" by the Conspiracy) are allowed to upload and download content files, but any Non-member-uploaded content that is not downloaded within 21 days is permanently deleted. 

Surely deleting old unused files can't be because hosting files costs them money. Oh no, it's a conspiracy. 

Yes, if you want your files to permanently occupy space on a server rented and paid for by megaupload.com, you must pay some cash to help with the bill. Is this proof of criminal activity or just something that makes sense?

Once a user clicks on a link, the user is generally brought to a download page for the file. The download page contains online advertisements provided by the Conspiracy, which means that every download on Megaupload.com provides a financial gain to the Conspiracy that is direcltly tied to the download. The more popular the content, such as copies of well-known copyrighted works, the more users that find their way to a Megaupload.com download page; the access of these additional users, in turn, makes the Mega Conspiracy more money. 

Another good idea they didn't have which they wish they did, probably. To pay for the costs of freely-hosted files, those which are not supported by the paying members, Megaupload displays ads and generates some revenue which goes to paying hosting costs for those files. Again not an illegal thing to do. 

The argument that most popular files are copyrighted material is debatable and no actual evidence was shown for this claim.

Though the public-facing Megaupload.com website itself does not allow searches, it does list its "Top 100 files", which includes motion picture trailers and software trials that are freely available on the Internet. The Top 100 list, however, does not actually portray the most popular downloads on Megaupload.com which makes the website appear more legitimate and hides the popular copyright-infringing content that drives its revenue.   

So at least some honesty in the middle of this witch burning circus. Megaupload is NOT searchable, so that makes it not a reliable means of getting copyrighted material. Saying the Top 100 files is a façade hiding the illegal pirating scene is just going complete bananas at this point.

A non-premium user is limited to watching 72 minutes of any given video on Megavideo.com at a time, which, since nearly all commercial motion pictures exceed that length, provides a significant incentive for users who are seeking infringing copies of motion pictures to pay the Mega Conspiracy a fee for premium access.

Again, someone forgot that hosting video and streaming that video is very expensive both in server capacity and bandwidth prices, and pushing people into buying the premium access is also a way to paying the bills and making a little money, which is what most sites actually aim for, right?

It goes on and on with useless points that anyone with a shade of intelligence could tear apart in just seconds.
What's really scary about this event is that if SOPA passes, we will be seeing this everywhere. Again, I urge everyone to do whatever they can to speak up and stop this complete nonsense.

Winter Solstice

If you're in the northern hemisphere, today is the winter solstice (well actually this year it's tomorrow but we can't be changing our calendars every year for astronomical reasons, can we?)

By any means, Winter starts. The sun will travel through it's lowest arch in the sky, it will be the shortest day and the longest night, all that. If it's snowing where you live, go and have fun!

If you live in the southern hemisphere, well, reverse all I've said and happy Summer!

SOPA, and why it sucks

Let's talk about something shameful. Online censorship. 

One of the reasons why the internet grew at the rate it did was because people felt liberated and freed by it, the ability to say anything and read anything at any time. View content from across the world in a few seconds, created by someone like you. Soon, this shape of the internet might change drastically. Enter SOPA.

What is it? 

Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a bill that's proposed to become a U.S. Law, soon to be voted by congress. Basically, it's a censorship program, which would allow corporations, through intimidation of multi million dollar lawsuits, to close any website they deem are infringing their copyrights. If those websites refuse to close, they could go straight to the companies that host the domains and servers of said websites and sue them instead, giving the corporations such as RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) the power to basically squash any little bug that's smaller than them.

Why is this so bad?

Basically, anything that even slightly breaks the copyright laws is liable to get censored. Even more, websites that host user submitted content are liable for what those users are saying. So if anyone posts lyrics of a song in Facebook, for example, then the copyright holders could force Facebook to block that post unless they wanna face legal action. There go all those lovely song covers in YouTube, any tribute band hosted in MySpace, etc..

Let's make believe SOPA passed on the year 2000, which websites would probably have never existed (or would have been extremely less successful)?

Google
Yahoo!
MySpace
DeviantArt
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Tumblr
Reddit
and many, many more.

What is the drive behind SOPA?

Nothing else but greed. The reason why these corporations see this is necessary is because they are "losing over 100 billion dollars annually". What the mean is they are not earning those 100 billion (allegedly, this figure is probably fabricated and false) on top of their already multi billion dollar earnings. The musicians nowadays live a much wealthier lifestyle than those in the 50s or 60s when piracy was nowhere to be seen. The movies keep breaking income records year after year. Movie stars are paid millions of dollars for 3 months worth of work, more than any normal human being will make in their entire lives. Socialites out of stupid reality TV shows are paid thousands of dollars just to show up at an event.

Why is it ridiculous?

I think everyone can figure out their own reasons to find this bill extremely laughable but worrying at the same time. For me, it's a couple of reasons. First of all it's so against everything the United States of America is usually proud of, "freedom". It is sadly funny to see how America opposes countries like China, Iran or Syria censoring their internets for the sake of religion or government control, and now they're bound to pass a law for the sake of making fat corporations even fatter.

Secondly, it's a case of bullying. It's exactly like that fat, big, not so bright bully at school, getting what he wants by force. Instead of adapting to the changes of the times, these corporations are looking to stomp on change and innovation. They are crying because they didn't have such ideas first. With this attitude not only would they be crushing already existing content, but also hampering the growth of new ideas, companies, and ventures. A study shows that venture capitalists would be extremely fearful to invest in new start-up companies in fear of the legal consequences.

Lastly, some copyright infringement actually leads to earnings for these companies. I have, on many occasions accidentally, come across new bands I had no idea about in YouTube videos which used them as a background music.
For example, this famous video by MadV has a soundtrack by Mogwai, which led me to download (yes, illegally) some more of their music and ultimately to become a fan. Remember this post back from summer? Yes, I paid 75 euros to attend a festival with friends mainly to go see them play and I loved the experience, and will go see them again if they play here. I am sure many people have examples just like this where "illegal" content is actually doing something the record companies have failed doing these past 10 years, advertising and promotion.

I'm not American, why should I worry?

As we all know, the western world has a tendency to follow on the footsteps of the US, whether we like it or not. There are other initiatives in the U.S., such as the PROTECT IP, which could be implemented even if SOPA fails, and more worryingly, something international is being pushed called ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) which, quote, "the current draft of ACTA would profoundly restrict the fundamental rights and freedoms of European citizens, most notably the freedom of expression and communication privacy."

What are our weapons?

Luckily, there is a lot to be done by many people. Many huge internet ventures like Google (by extension, YouTube), Facebook, Mozilla, Wikipedia, to name a few. The president of the United States, Barack Obama, has said he would move to veto this bill, but the congress could still overrule him. Hopefully, even if it becomes law, the Supreme Court could deem it unconstitutional (which it is, see link below), and scrap it.
Visit this website to learn more about what can you do in your current position, be it as a webmaster, just a user, US citizen or not.

Other links:

Funny anti-censorship comics

SOPA is unconstitutional

A list of companies supporting SOPA

Internet passwords

I am beginning to get pissed off about the requirements of some websites when you're creating a new account, when it comes to choosing your password. It's getting to a point where all the symbols on the keyboard must to be used, which makes passwords really hard to remember.

This isn't the worst I've seen...

I admit they make them really hard to guess, but whoever uses passwords that are "guessable" deserve to be hacked in the first place.

It's really easy to come up with a password that is only letters and that sticks to your head.

heymanitsmeletmein -> Secure, easy to forget, hard to guess, hard to find by brute force.

Randy22# -> Hard to remember, although secure online, easy to crack by brute force if it's a local file.

What's more, websites advise you to never repeat a password. So if I'm signed up to half a dozen forums, three email services, online banking, two gaming portals and wikipedia, how many upper-lower-case-number-and-symbol passwords can I remember before I forget one and have to go through the process of "recover your password" just to forget that one the next day as well?

Passwords should be whatever you want, and as such, at your own risk if they are too easy to guess. If you use your dog's name as the key to your important stuff, then it's your fault for being stupid when some guy signs in and starts sending spam to all your contacts.

I finish my rant with the classic XKCD strip that wraps it all up perfectly:

Make a wish

They say if you make a wish at 11:11, it comes true. Or at least an asian friend of mine said so.

In any case, happy 11/11/11! Make a wish at that time and it should be ultra empowered.

Don't wish for money or you might be buried under a pile of gold.

The world in shades of bastards.

cor·rup·tion noun \kə-ˈrəp-shən\
  a : impairment of integrity, virtue, or moral principle : depravity
  b : decay, decomposition
  c : inducement to wrong by improper or unlawful means (as bribery)
  d : a departure from the original or from what is pure or correct

This is a word most of us are familiar with, and when applied to government or the ruling class of a country or state, it refers to the deviation of public funds for private enrichment, as well as the acceptance of bribes or generally speaking, forgetting about the greater good for personal gain.

It has always been a huge problem in human societies because, like it or not, we are many times driven by greed. It is not a good basis to function on, and it shows.

Is it possible to measure corruption? Well, with some surveys and studies, people certainly have tried. The folks at Transparency International compiled all the results into a simple graphical media where we can appreciate the severity of the problem, the Corruption Perceptions Index 2010 Results.

The countries are given a rating from 0 to 10, with lower numbers indicating more corruption and higher numbers indicating more transparency, based on several surveys conducted (at least 3 or 4, with as many as 10 for some).

Happy birthday Google

So, today Google becomes a teenager.

I can remember more or less my reaction when I first heard of it... "Google, what is this? some kind of competition for Lycos? those fools, they'll never be as big".

The interface in 1998

Right now the company is one the largest internet related businesses offering everything: searches, blog hosting, videos, documents, and even a new social network. Who would have thought about it all those years ago? And people who have grown with Google, how do they think we searched the web before it existed?

Well there were several web hosting companies that offered a search, and some others that established themselves as the first generation of dedicated search engines: Altavista, Lycos, Excite, Yahoo!. Some of these still exist but none has a chance of competing with the almight Googz, not even Microsoft's attempt Bing.

Will the domination end? Will space explorers still use Google's services 500 years from now? Will it all end December 21st, 2012?
For now, Happy birthday, yo.

Laptop shopping

Since my last laptop completely died on me, I have been putting off buying a new one for a number of different reasons, not having enough money being the primary one. In the past few weeks I've been out and about both in electronic stores and their websites, reading and comparing models, and here's what I've found out:

THERE'S TOO MUCH CHOICE

Yeah how can this be a bad thing do you ask? Because when you really start comparing, you begin noticing that there are tiny differences between models sometimes, only varying slightly in the processor they use, or the amount of memory, the size of the hard drive.

It is then when you begin to wonder "what if I buy something, and two days later I find there was something much better for exactly the same price?" that you start to get frustrated. It baffles my mind and I've been around computers since I was 6 years old, but even more than that, I can't understand the logic behind this.  Sometimes the same brand will do 3 different laptops with a tiny difference in their incoherently long names of letters and numbers. I'll give you an example with these three Samsung models, which cost exactly the same:

RV520-S01
RC520-S01
RC520-S02

These three are basically the same except one of them has a 500 GB hard drive instead of a 640 GB. It's the middle one. But the middle one has 1 GB of memory dedicated to it's graphics card, the top one has only half of that, 512 MB. But the bottom one has both the nice hard drive and the nice memory. So why do they have to build all 3 instead of just offering the nice one?!

It gets even funnier. The RV520-S02 is worse than the RV520-S01, and costs less. Why not call it the RV519 or something and make it simple? Higher number, better quality, makes the world a lot easier to figure out.

It's not a Samsung thing, either, all the brands fall on to the same mistakes. It's becoming quite hard for me to choose one without getting that feeling that my money would have better be spent on another model. I haven't even dipped my toes in the world of tablets, 'cos I know if I did, my head would explode in a thousand different directions.

I've made up my mind though... I'm going to buy 600 euros worth of pens and paper. Brb.

Science and tech roundup

It has been a very interesting week as far as scientific and technological news. In the middle of the whole economic crisis, this gives me both entertainment and hope. Here's a quick round-up.

Astronomers find Tatooine!

It doesn't look like this at all.

Well not so much, but they think they've found proof of a planet orbiting around a binary star system, that is, two stars rotating around each other. The planet is thought to be a cold gas giant, something like Saturn, and not the hot arid Star Wars deal. We will have to keep searching for the Jedis somewhere else.

I'm back! Paredes de Coura report

Well, after that short summer break of doing nothing and procrastinating as far as blog posts go, I'm back. Like you hadn't noticed by the fact there's a new post. Thank you Mr. Obvious Blogger... carrying on.

As I referenced in my last post I was attending an annual summer festival called Paredes de Coura, located in the far north of Portugal. I had never gone to it so it was a great new experience. As we all know the world is in economic turmoil and this country is one of the most affected at the moment by it, so the line up was not full of stars and world class bands, yet those who attended did their best to put on a show.

Summer festival camping

I've always loved camping for some reason. It's a primal feeling of survival, I guess, to live in a place you "built", outdoors, unplugged a little from our apartments, houses, electricity, TVs and the interweb.
However, it's been quite long since I last done it, so the fact I'm going to a 5 day summer music festival where we'll be camping out for the duration of it comes as a nice deal for me.

I am quite the forgetful guy. Knowing a checklist would be of great use to me, on to Google for one. This website dedicated to the outdoors had a huge list of things you would only need if you are planning on moving permanently to your tent, but still, it was of great use. I narrowed it down to what seems to be the basics:

Borrowed something like this from my uncle.  4 spaces all for me.

•  Tent
•  Rope/stakes
• Hammer
• Mat for tent entrance
• Backpack
• Dust pan/brush
• Sleeping bag
• Sheets/blankets
• Pillow
• Air mattress
• Air pump
• Utility bags for storage
• Garbage bags
• Knife/swiss army knife
• Shoes
• Jeans/pants
• Shorts
• T-shirts
• Socks/extra socks
• Hat/belt
• Sweatshirt/jacket
• Underwear
• Swim suit/towel
• Laundry bag
• Flip flops
• Towels/washcloth
• Shampoo
• Tooth brush/tooth paste
• Deodorant
• Comb/brush
• Razor
• Toilet paper
• Personal medications (painkillers)
• Sunscreen
• Bug repellant
• Flashlight/batteries
• Camera
• Tissues
• Cell phone/charger
• Small sewing kit

Phew, that's a lot. Since I haven't started packing stuff, I better stop writing and go do that.
Which 3 items, other than the tent and the sleeping bag, you couldn't be without in a camping trip?

What a crazy week

So it's the middle of the summer and everyone, including me, is taking their breaks from routines and going in vacations. However that didn't stop this week from being one of the most action packed one this year so far.

We got countries getting their ratings cut , markets going up and down like roller coasters, London in flames, more people dead in protests in northern Africa, all of this merely days after a nut-case shot all of those people in Norway.
Is it just me who thinks things are getting out of hand?

This was funny though:

Video games are always to blame, aren't they?

Have you ever been reading about some historical happening and wondered how living was back then? Well, open your eyes, history is in the making and we are witnessing it first hand. Some day we might be able to say "Yeah I was there in the big crisis of the 2000s".

Either that or it all goes to extreme shit, and we all start fighting each other for food and internet access becoming modern broadband eating zombies.

Summer's here!

Well if you live in the northern hemisphere, at least, summer is starting. Here are a good few tips to remember for these hot months ahead:

• Don't forget the sunscreen, and keep checking the UV level from your local weather forecast.
• Whenever possible, wear a hat!
•  If you're a woman and fear old age and wrinkles, then don't tan too much. It makes the skin old faster.
• Vitamin D is only available through ingestion, or through a process that requires sunlight. So don't stay indoors all day, either.
• Feeling like putting ice in a beverage but you don't like it diluting it to water? Then prepare some ice cubes made of the drink of your choice before hand!
•  Even better, make alcoholic ice cubes and slip them into a friends drink for a prank (vodka is the best choice cos it's clear like water).

But whatever you do, don't be like these idiots:



Enjoy your summer, be safe, and if you're gonna do something stupid, PLEASE make sure someone films you so we can all laugh.

That is all from me, warmth makes me lazy - toodledoo!

Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal

Today marks the release of the next Ubuntu version, 11.04, named "Natty Narwhal".

Some of you might be asking 'What the hell is a narwhal?", so for those of you:

You still don't know what it is? Don't worry, neither do I.

Others might be asking what Ubuntu is. Strictly speaking, it's an African philosophy:

 A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed. 

Archbishop Desmond Tutu

 But for us, people of technological surroundings, it's a Linux distribution. One that has attempted to bring Linux to the masses by creating an easy to understand, friendly environment, as far away removed from the hardships of "making everything work by yourself" which has characterized Linux for the most part, leaving it's usage to only those who know enough or are willing to learn enough to make any use of it.

So with a user friendly installation, interface and tools, it should be a good choice to everyone right?
No, not yet. It still is a bit far from being a "good to go" operating system out of the box. I have ran into a number of difficulties myself, even with 10 years of experience with computers, I've been tempted to uninstall it and go back to comfortable Windows.

So what's new in this latest edition of the OS?