That's interesting, I didn't know about Macrovision buying the Rovi name, apparently.

I've often appreciated the Rovi movie summaries.

My first gen iMac boots from external CDROM on USB just fine, thank you.

Hold the Alt key at startup to get the boot device menu, plug in your cdrom if need be and press alt again to update the device list, and click on the big giant CD icon.

Both OS X and YellowDog Linux boot fine this way, and I've installed and reinstalled both more than once.

Firmware hasn't ever been manually upgraded either, so unless some patch came with OS X 10.1 or something, the firmware hasn't been upgraded beyond factory as well.

I've not tried the "C" key shortcut on it, as I didn't learn about that one until later sometime around/after I had my i7 macbook.

But even today I prefer the alt key method of selecting a boot device from the list over the "C" key that can't confirm the cd media is even bootable before skipping past it on to the HD.
Too many cdrw discs having boot sector problems with various older cdrom drives I guess.

How is that not easy to do?

"[Man] Kids, get in the house."

Now only one person remains in danger of a drone falling on him, zero people are in danger of the shotgun pellets coming down, and as the one main remaining is also the land owner, you clearly have the land owners permission to act as well as already accepting the risk of damage to their own property.

Easy Peasy

I have to bring that statement into question.

If you really did use computers back in the day before Windows, you would already know that key - called Super - has existed since the 80s and was first removed on the IBM 8800 computer, which it remained missing until Microsoft requested keyboard manufacturers to put the Super key back and stick their logo on it.

Unix systems used and still use Super as an extra modifier similar to Hyper, Meta, Alt, AltGr, and Control.
The classic Macs used it as the "open apple" / command key, which was used for keyboard shortcuts leaving Control free to insert control characters as originally intended.
Sun had a dedicated key on the left-hand function keys.

LISP programmers have said they can't live without Meta.
Even emacs remaps the keycode back in for command shortcuts.

Personally when the key REappeared I was quite happy, as any cheap-o $10 keyboard would have similar functionality to any 104-key keyboard in the past, and no longer commanded higher prices to get.

Right click is pretty popular on most every desktop OS out there.

What shocks me the most is they didn't report mouse buttons 3, 4, and 5 as least used.
Button 3 is pretty well used by power users, but 4/5 require an external mouse, so macbooks don't have those two buttons built in as hardware.

I'm still waiting on Windows to actually add in support for buttons 4 and 5 instead of faking it and mapping them to browser forward/back.

The most used desktop OS (Windows) still to this day doesn't support as many mouse buttons as younger OSes like OS X and Linux, it's simply amazing.

In my opinion, Microsoft is an extremely badly managed and abusive company. I see these issues as supporting that widely shared opinion:

One effect of "upgrading" to Windows 10: Windows Media Center will be deleted. Microsoft is also apparently trying to kill Windows Media Center software in other versions of Windows, without notice, by stopping providing the TV program schedule (EPG, Electronic Program Guide). That affects hundreds of thousands of users. The issue is not who uses Windows Media Center. The issue is that apparently Microsoft is operating in a sneaky fashion that is extremely anti-customer, and that shows Microsoft is trying to take even more control over its users.

Microsoft and thousands of customers are blaming Rovi. Notice, for example, how many times Rovi is mentioned on this Microsoft web page:
https://connect.microsoft.com/site1145/Feedback

This Microsoft web pages says the TV Guide has been "Updated":
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3078428,
but many Windows Media Center users no longer have a TV schedule, making Windows Media Center worthless because it is very difficult to record without the schedule.

Microsoft is apparently deliberately destroying Windows Media Center, and letting Rovi take the blame. For example, a new installation of Windows Media Center on a fully updated Windows 7 Ultimate computer has several flaws, not just the lack of a TV program guide.

Another loss in Windows 10: Windows Updates will be forced, in some versions. Will there be other lost features, now or later? Will Microsoft extend its control over Windows in other hidden or complicated ways? Online comments say that Microsoft will try to move Windows to a model that requires monthly payments. The issue is not whether technically-knowledgeable users will be able to stop forced updates; the issue is that most people won't know how to regain control over their systems. That control is important because often Microsoft has issued poorly designed updates that have caused problems on user's systems. See this Slashdot story, for example, Windows 10's Automatic Updates For NVidia Drivers Causing Trouble.

More about Microsoft releasing buggy software: The Slashdot story, Windows 10 Launches, says Windows 10 is "buggier than Windows 8.1, 8, 7, or Vista were on their respective launch days" and "During my testing on a variety of hardware, I've run into a lot of bugs and issues -- even with the version that will be released to consumers on launch day".

(At present, the best way to update Windows 7 is to use Autopatcher, because Microsoft's anti-customer "updates" are avoided.)

Firefox: Embraced, "Extended", soon to be Extinguished? Mozilla Foundation now gets most of its money from Microsoft. Microsoft pays Yahoo. Yahoo pays Mozilla Foundation to make "Yahoo search" (actually Microsoft Bing search) the default search engine in Firefox. Most people don't have the technical knowledge to know how they've been manipulated, or how to restore the default search engine to Google search.

Thunderbird and SeaMonkey Composer GUIs: Damaged, apparently deliberately. Every time you do a file save, the newer versions of both ask for a new file name, and don't suggest the last one chosen. The damage was reported several months ago, but has not been fixed. Is that another example of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish? People who feel forced away from Thunderbird may choose Microsoft software to replace it. Is that what Microsoft is trying to accomplish?

Microsoft is amazingly badly managed. The company apparently survives only because of having an unregulated virtual monopoly that allows it to charge full price for each new version, and to alternate good and bad versions, so customers pay twice for new versions. (Windows 98, good, except later when there were file system problems; Windows ME, bad; Windows XP, good, after several years of patches; Windows Vista, bad; Windows 7, good; Windows 8, so bad the next version, Windows 10 is "free".)

"Monkey Boy" The cover of the January 16, 2013 issue of BusinessWeek magazine has a large photo of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer (now replaced) with the headline calling him "Monkey Boy". See the BusinessWeek cover in this article: Steve Ballmer Is No Longer A Monkey Boy, Says Bloomberg BusinessWeek. The BusinessWeek cover says "No More" and "Mr.", but that doesn't take much away from the fact that the magazine called Ballmer Monkey Boy -- on its cover.

Worst CEO: Quote from an article in Forbes Magazine about Steve Ballmer: "Without a doubt, Mr. Ballmer is the worst CEO of a large publicly traded American company today."

Another quote: "The reach of his bad leadership has extended far beyond Microsoft when it comes to destroying shareholder value -- and jobs." (May 12, 2012)

CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

Ctrl.

(Typing this on a day-old Chromebook that has a search key mapped to that position. Anyone know how I can map that to Ctrl?)

Yes, people were vocal, but not helpful. Maybe we could give them help.

As another noted on the Red Site:

"We'll know everything* about you and we'll be snitching (including your BitLocker key) whenever and/or to anyone we think is in our interest to. Starting Aug 15"[1]

In particular, this is more than a little disturbing.

"But Microsoftâ(TM)s updated privacy policy is not only bad news for privacy. Your free speech rights can also be violated on an ad hoc basis as the company warns:

In particular, âoeWe will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary toâ, for example, âoeprotect their customersâ or âoeenforce the terms governing
the use of the servicesâ."

As with all things Microsoft, use at your own risk. Only now, the risks to you personally are higher than ever before.

[1]https://soylentnews.org/breakingnews/comments.pl?sid=8667&cid=215390#commentwrap

The underlying problem, it seems to me, is that DHI doesn't know how to operate Slashdot. DHI managers apparently are not knowledgeable about technology. Slashdot beta is an example.

Could some of us help teach DHI managers to do better with Slashdot? I'd be willing to help.