Windows stopped using cooperative multitasking with Win95 and NT never used it as far as I know.

Would my web servers be more secure if I airgapped a couple NT 3.51 boxes and set the passwords to password1234?

Right now I'm running Apache on Linux with a single login account protected by a 2048 bit RSA key that can su to root with a 32 character password.

Just looking for an expert opinion.

It worked flawlessly for me.

1. Hit Start button on keyboard.
2. Type "bash"
3. Hit Enter

Easy access to a proper interface.

I never had professional experience with 3.1 as I was still in middle school when it came out, so I can't really speak from experience on the networking woes therein. That said, I have no reason to believe that an OS that uses cooperative multitasking would be anything but nightmarish to network. But I did say that most of the improvements in Windows over the last 20+ years were under the hood.

My main argument there was referring to the differences between the typical PC owner then and now as well as the different pace of changes in the industry. Back then, we didn't have Facebook, Candy Crush and Skype to draw in the general masses. A larger percentage of PC users then were techies, early adopters, and people that would later become slashdotters. Also, this was a time when PC systems were obsoleted by newer hardware by the time the shrink wrap hit the landfill (some hyperbole there but not much). After replacing an aging 25MHz 486SX with a 100MHz DX4 and then turning around a year later and buying a Pentium 166, you just kinda roll with the OS change as being part of the new system.

I agree that they dropped the ball on the Win 8 UI. I think it will continue improve as it did with 8.1. From my development experience, and I could be wrong, it looks like many of its sins are the result of interference from an executive that nobody is allowed to say 'no' to. It struck me as odd that as soon as Balmer started packing his desk MS reversed course on several design decisions regarding the XBOne and they opened up 8.1 to MSDN subscribers for early access. But that could just be coincidence.

Currently, their server OS and desktop OS are basically different builds/configurations of the same NT code base; it only makes sense that they would use it again for a tablet/phone OS. This is especially true if you remember the results of the Windows CE line, particularly as applied to earlier "smart" phones. Basing Windows tablets and phones on the NT core for 8 was the right idea with a poorly thought out implementation.

All in all, I'd wager on Windows 9 (or whatever it will be called) fixing the bad, and possibly forced by executive fiat, UI decisions in 8.

Another part of the good old days was that since everything was new the users were early adopters by definition. They weren't as strongly committed to the specifics of a given piece of software.

Moving from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 was at least as much UI change as going from XP straight to 8, skipping Vista and 7. If we made that exact same transition after people spent the better part of a decade getting familiar with 3.1, we would have the same "it was good enough" arguments.

The truth, though, 3.1 wasn't good enough; it was built with hard coded assumptions about the limits of computer hardware, limits that were rapidly changing at the time. 95/98(se)/ME weren't good enough; they were attempts to extend the legacy DOS architecture well beyond it's original purpose. Stability on that line went to hell by the time ME came about. Windows 2000 (a.k.a. NT 5.0) was meant for business users and extended to add consumer friendly features with XP (a.k.a. NT 5.1). Those weren't good enough either. How many people can close their eyes and easily picture a Win XP BSOD? If you're worried about getting work done, I hope you remember to save frequently. Vista wasn't good enough, it was a fresh refactor to the NT 6.x kernel and showed signs of being rushed out the door at the end.

Windows 7 and its counterpart Server 2008R2 (both a.k.a NT 6.1) were good enough at the time but two big things drove the push to Win 8/ Server 2012. On the consumer side, MS is looking at a booming tablet market full of consumers that just want a device to consume media, not create it; Windows 7 is not a suitable tablet OS and developing a wholly separate OS for mobile/tablet would be a massive waste of resources. On the server side there is a big push toward virtualization, cloud computing or whatever you want to call it. The consumer side brought us the Metro UI which has caused nearly all the backlash over Win 8 while the server side brought us things like a type-1 hypervisor included in the base OS and a kernel that can handle changes to the amount of physical memory visible on the fly.

Windows 8/ Server 2012 aren't cash grabs resulting from MS assuming people will flock to buy anything new they release, they exist as solutions to use cases that weren't considered in Win 7/ 2008R2. Apple would be the company that makes that assumption with their "One more thing..." announcements and OS service packs bearing price tags.

Throughout the history of Windows the biggest changes have been under the hood. How many of the people above that can picture an XP BSOD know, first hand, that the Win 8 BSOD was completely redesigned? I've seen it only once during an experiment in overclocking. Now consider that XP was much more stable than any of the 9x/ME versions before it. Every step of the way were people that cried "but it was good enough!" but I, personally, would rather *get work done* on Win 8 where my system uptime is mostly determined by the local power company. I can adjust myself to a new UI after a week or two of exploration; a price I'm happily paying to avoid losing whatever I'm working on to some random IRQ Not Less Than or Equal bug.

The UI has only gone through two big changes, 3.1 > 95 and 7 > 8 (I'm ignoring 1.0 and 2.0 because they never gained mass popularity). Over the next several iterations we'll see the same tweaking that went into the 95 through 7 UI, i.e. change the colors, add curves, rearrange the menu, tone down the colors, make it look like glass, bigger icons and ditch the curves. We've already seen the first iteration with 8.1 restoring the start icon and allowing multiple metro apps on different monitors. Then, when everyone thinks that Metro is "good enough" MS will create something completely different to respond to a form factor or use case that has not been imagined or invented yet.

And the masses will whine and complain again. So goes the circle of tech.

I have the G700S for my desktop and a M510 for my laptop.

The G700 works well as a desktop/gaming mouse. The battery life is a bit weak in wireless mode, you can get somewhere between 12 and 16 hours on a charge, but you can always plug the cord in at any time to turn it into a wired mouse. You don't have to explain to your guild that you need to bow out mid raid to recharge or run to the store for batteries. As an added bonus, the cord also fits any micro-usb cell phone for charging or sync.

The M510 is not rechargeable but works as smoothly as a $20-30 wired and will last about 6 months or more on a pair of AAs.

I think Logitech has the whole wireless mouse problem "solved" at the moment.

Assuming you have a smartphone of some sort, Amazon actually has an app that does most of the work for you. Especially if you want help from co-workers/volunteers/etc. that might not know the difference between "Learn Excel 20xx in 24 Hours" and "Code Complete 2nd Ed.".

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.amazon.pricecheck

If it sells for a penny, pulp it.
If it sells for a dollar, give it away.
If it sells for more, sell it.

Or whatever thresholds you like.

Just my 2 cents.

They do have a split line between consumer and professional; if you tilt your head and squint really hard, that is.

And they put Metro on Windows Server 2012!!!!

It is a bit challenging hitting the little corner charms triggers when your UI is in a windowed virtual machine.

Or have access to a MSDN subscription.

Ubisoft lost me as a customer with Starforce on Splinter Cell:Chaos Theory. I bought the game and was never able to play it. By the time the cracks were out I had moved on.
Blizzard lost me with Diablo 3, due to service outages preventing me from playing initially and then their stance of blaming me for not buying an authenticator fob when my account gets hacked. 10 years on SOE and my account stayed safe. 2 weeks on Blizzard and I'm robbed of every ounce of gold my level 10 character had collected.

So let's look at the other side. I have a Steam account worth more than my car (granted, it's a crappy car) and every game that I purchased on Steam is playable (though Dirt 3 gets a bit annoying with the whole Games for Windows LIVE thing). Valve doesn't add any significant DRM to their software other than the basic limitation of not being able to play the same game on the same account in more than one location at a time; a limitation that can be bypassed by putting one machine in offline mode. No hacking, cracking or torrenting to get a purchased game to work.

Valve, as a company, has an estimated value of ~$3B; Ubisoft has a market cap of $0.6B. Valve may have the right idea about combating piracy by adding value rather than restricting use. I think it's very possible that the game companies that stay on the bleeding edge (their customers' blood, not their own) of DRM technology are actually caught up in a feedback loop where the DRM hurts legitimate sales so the piracy ratio goes up causing them to add more DRM to exacerbate the problem further.

Seeing PA get slashdotted (as well as farked and whatever else have you) gives me pangs of fear for my own web servers.

I assumed that since he's moving from a 1.5Mbit residential connection and only mentioned running a personal website he's probably not pushing more than the 15GB free tier allowance per month.

IO charges are tough to estimate but a micro running as a web/email server and not doing obscene amounts of disk thrashing should come in slightly cheaper than a typical gumball machine purchase per month. We have half a dozen internal services instances running databases, web servers, server monitoring and logging services in one region that used a whopping $2.16 in I/O last month. Our main region was a bit more but that's where we have servers that automatically spawn other servers depending on user load.

I actually factored the heavy use (i.e. on 24/7) reservations of $62 and $100 for my reserved prices. The actual monthly fee is about $3.65 after you've committed to (i.e. paid for) a heavy use reservation. That's part of why I put the word "average" in front of those prices.