Win8.1 + ClassicShell is better than Win7. Obviously the Win8.1 UI is a joke, but ClassicShell fixes that, and for free. I never see the tile screen and "gestures" never happen.

The link to the actual report in TFA is broken, as it was on the Belgian commission's own site until a few moments ago. So here it is:
http://www.privacycommission.b...

The recommendations for site owners is to enhance the cookie opt-in banner that you already see on European sites. A cookie for cookies! It's buried deep in the heavily enumerated document, so I'll quote it in full:

To Website Owners
Relating to website owners or webmasters who wish to use the social plug-ins offered by Facebook, the Privacy Commission refers to its own-initiative recommendation on the use of cookies, in which it stipulates that owners must properly inform visitors of their website and obtain the latter's specific consent for cookies and other meta files of which they may not control re-use. In this context, the Privacy Commission refers to social networks, among others, and recommends that social network buttons are not activated until users have given their specific consent. The current integration possibilities of social plug-ins offered by Facebook, however, do not meet these criteria yet. For the time being, the Privacy Commission therefore recommends to use tools such as "Social Share Privacy" ( http://panzi.github.io/SocialS... ) as a way to obtain user consent. By using a tool such as "Social Share Privacy", third-party plug-ins do not connect to third-party servers (and consequently data are not sent to third parties) until users have clicked on the social plug-in.

Split the password in two.

Urchin would be suspicious and buy one for himself too. Then he'd get to split the jackpot.

I doubt it has a catch-up feature to make a quota. Just random odds, same luck every time. If that's not working, they know something is really wrong.

Right, I think the fact that he waited until the last minute to claim it, using a lawyer, shows he didn't trust anyone. By waiting he probably was trying to prevent the lawyer from coming up with a plan to take the ticket.

Yep, from TFA: "The winning ticket went unclaimed for almost a year. Hours before it was scheduled to expire, a company incorporated in Belize tried to claim the prize through a New York attorney."

RTFA, he was "obsessed" with self-erasing rootkits, so could defeat an audit log I'd assume.

Probably takes two keys to get in.

Didn't need to. Somebody had root, probably him. He at least had privileges to change the time!

And on NPR the talk format is wiping out the music format in many markets.

More accurately, disable the Java plugin if you have Java installed for other purposes.

Mod parent up.

On Win8, Chrome and IE have Flash built-in. Flash updates have become an issue only on Firefox, and even there you can make Flash "ask to activate," and Mozilla central blocks outdated versions. On Win7 you still have to update Flash for IE as well as Firefox.

I guess everyone using a browser knows this, but hasn't deemed it worthwhile to respond to these comments apparently from some archived library of ranting. Or you're on Linux or Apple! I don't know how it works there.

I'm guessing Yahoo Small Business is how they'd like to make money, but it's a bit of a legacy monster. Certainly very hard to get a customer out of and onto a different platform. Comcast Small Biz is similar confusing mess of intersecting control panels (maybe the same software?). A few other companies run the same game, getting business clients locked in complex setups, but I'm not sure it's even intentional with these players on the bottom end of the business hosting market.

On a similar note I called Network Solutions today to get a better domain renewal price, and the customer rep told me domain reg was no longer its main business and we should consider switching to another company if we did not want any other services. It's now Network Solutions,a "web-dot-com" company. They do still offer a $10 panic price though if you click for your transfer authorization code.