This removes the video ads that play prior to the main video. The onscreen popups may still appear. Someone else please verify.

Supposed you want to wish your mother a Happy Dub Step Mothers Day with this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9J0o65u73Nc

But you want to strip the adds and go fullscreen:

Easy, simply change the URL: delete "watch?v=" and replace with "v/"
http://www.youtube.com/v/9J0o65u73Nc

sarcasm
Microsoft must have some really smart developers to have figured out how to rewrite the YouTube URL using computer programming. I am going to run out and get a Surface with Windows 8 before Best Buy closes tonight. Microsoft might be adding more useful features soon and I don't want to miss out. It would be a shame to watch a 5 second YouTube Ad and support that rich Google company. Microsoft is sticking it to man! Wait, I thought they were the man. Hmmm... something has changed. I'm so confused.
sarcasm

A company and a society are judged and remembered by what they build and not what they destroy.

You might think scores are flat or declining, but this is not acccurate. There is a large gap betweeen what is tested and what is "required" to be taught. State curriculum websites are more of wish lists than actual curriculum guides. They are typically "a mile wide and an inch deep". It is impossible to cover all the material with any fidelity.

And then there's the test. What will be tested and how will the questions be constructed. I can teach you an simple concept like Ohms law and then have a test writer construct a 4-paragraph question with multiple graphs about resistance and current followed by 3 tricky multiple choice questions and there is a good chance you will screw it up.

This is the way I see it. Many schools are "good" and server their communities and students well. Schools is less desiriable communities are understaffed, under-resources, have large staff turn over and are the poster child for school reform and waste.

Some politicians look at education in the same manner that the look at defense spending... LOOK A BIG PILE OF MONEY... HOW DO I FUNNEL IT TO MY FRIENDS? The trick is to constant "reform" schools until they system can no longer respond to change and shows up on test scores as a flat-line or negative grow. Then you can shout, "LOOK ALL THE SCHOOLS ARE FAILING, HA! WE TOLD YOU!" we need an unlimited voucher program. People should be free to choose any school.

What will happen is that schools will accept the vouchers + tuition and education will become stratified. Everyone will pay as much as they can to send their kids to a "good school" while the poor concetrate and languish in the left-over public schools.

As a parent, I like the idea of vouchers and being able to send my kid anywhere, public or private. The voucher could be used as a coupon for that really expensive private school. As a citizen in a democracy, I shudder, thinking that our democracy depends on strong public institutions like public schools and without them our society will crumble. I also believe history bears this out.

What is the solution? ..... ask me and I will share my education policy. :)

Then Apple could put the new Final Cut Pro X out of it's misery and switch us all over to Premiere. This is a good plan.

Bill, if people want a laptop, let them by a laptop. If they want a keyboard for their Surface or iPad you pay more and there are plenty available. The PC World is not the Tablet world and the Tablet World is NOT THE PC World. It is a new category of device and people really seem to like them. Oh, and if you get a keyboard for your iPad I recommend the Zaggfolio. I am not sure what to do about the mouse. I am sure that the lack of a extra thing on the desk is really frustrating people as well instead of just touching what you want on the screen.

In case you miss it you can get a mouse of for the Surface and turn your tablet into a laptop, with the same battery life as a laptop vs. the 10 hours on a real tablet.

Oh and if you get a mouse, I recommend the Logitech Performance MX.

Seriously, you mean a data center like this can't handle the traffic?

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/

and the 5 million people (as of 2011) with security clearances aren't enough?

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/07/security-clearances-increasing/

and the NSA recruiting at Defcon and math colleges all around the country isn't happening?

http://www.federalnewsradio.com/411/2890348/NSA-hiring-reforms-serve-as-model-for-government

These guys have cash and are all of their activities are shielded under FISA and the National Security Act and State Secrets Privilege.

http://www.aclu.org/national-security/fix-fisa-end-warrantless-wiretapping

It's happening, it is a reality, and it is more than possible. Even with an inside whistle blower, the courts will not limit the power of the government to spy on us.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

The only thing we really have going for us is the Catch-22 on the use of the data. If it is every used in a trial, chain of custody and 4th amendment issues likethe exclusionary rule will suppress the evidence since it was obtained without a warrant. The only thing that stands in the way of the NSA and fully implementing 1984 is the 4th amendment.

While the FBI might not be the sharpest tool in the shed they have infinite resources thanks to the national security black budget. Granted if you have a private network that doesn't peer with any of the big backbones like AT&T then your a probably safe. Once your voice/data hops onto a major backbone like AT&T your data has been sold to the US Government. There are even allegation that this system is contributing names to the no-fly list through heuristic language analysis of voice traffic. To see if you networks are safe, use the word "bomb" as often as you can and if you aren't added to the no-fly list, your networks are probably safe :)

I think the real solution to the problem is to start generating massive amounts of meaningless data until the spooks run out of storage.

Security and Privacy are an illusion. Welcome to 1984 about three decades late.

I just pulled out my official Genuine Microsoft Office 2003 CD from 13-years ago from Microsoft Licensing and it has Office 2003,Publisher, Visio etc... I have always worked at places with Volume Licensing, so I guess I never realized they were all sold separately because they were all on the MS Office Professional Enterprise Edition 2003 install CD. Wikipedia shows Visio as sold separately in the Enterprise Edition, but it clearly on the install CD. Very strange.

It is neither here nor there in the grand scheme of things, but my point is that if you ship everything on one CD and the VLK (volume license key) allows the use of all the software, I am not going to repurchase something equivalent, even if it is slightly better.

--
Senior Red Hat Certified Engineer

AmiPro was better than Word. Wordperfect was best for experienced clerical staff and task Automation (macro programming).

I agree, the reason that MS won was the Microsoft Office Pro Package which bundled Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Access, Viso, and Project. Once MS crushed the competition products began to slowly become "sold separately" as we see today with Viso and Project. I think a recent strategical error of Microsoft's was not releasing a version of Office for iOS, but it looks like they will try to play catch-up in 2014 with an iPad release. I truly believe that Balmer thought the iPad would fail to gain marketshare and mocked it.

Microsoft is in no immediate danger, but in my opinion they are overplaying their hand by trying too squeeze to tight. They need to adopt the Amazon model of giving more than the customer expects. Instead of charge more than the customer expects as in the case of their new licensing model.

Apple has also made a few blunders, the iPad is not a full laptop replacement (to protect the Air) and their cloud services are a disaster. If Apple gave the iPad the ability to replace a desktop and shored up the cloud backend, it could almost be checkmate. Meanwhile, Chrome books are gaining market share while both companies calculate their next moves.

It will be interesting to see this play out and I am particularly interested in the next XBOX and the "always on" Internet requirement.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/18944/bill-gates-frustrated-windows

I agree. I think my graphics card cost more than the motherboard, CPU, and RAM. :)

That sir, is funny.

I know there is a lot of speculation into the PC Sales dip, but let's face it, it is the same old song and dance in PC land. If I buy a new PC it has Windows 8 it comes loaded with crapware and doesn't do very much of what most people want to do. Tonight I went to Staples to browse and most of the Windows 8 machines were stuck on "Your protection expired XX days ago. Would you like to purchase Norton." AND I STILL CAN'T CREATE AND EDIT A VIDEO OUT OF THE BOX. However MS-Paint, Calculator, and Notepad are still hanging in from 1987, but to be fair, MS-Paint did get a facelift.

Flash forward to the iPad. I can give grandma an iPad with iMovie within 15 minutes she has first amazing video trailer of the grandkids on YouTube. Yes, I know the PC has robust suites like Adobe, Roxio, and Vegas but they aren't simple. Grandma has to figure out the Camera, take the SDHC card out, import the video, setup a project (hmm.... does grandma want DV-NTSC Standard-48Khz or DV-NTSC-Widescreen-48Khz, or maybe AVCHD-1080i(50i) Anamorphic) , import the video segments into timelines and on and on until she gives up. It is far too painful, just opening the door to the SDHC card can be a 15 minute project.

The problem with the PC is it hasn't gotten simpler. It hasn't gotten less painful to use, and grandma still can't get her video onto YouTube. One a daily basis on I use Linux, Windows 7, iPad, and MacOS/X. To me they have just become tools to get different jobs done. The clear winner for ease of use, efficiency, and convenience is the iPad tablet where I can get my video onto YouTube without crapware popping up telling me I need to update or am unprotected.

Oh and one more reason. SSDs. I can put an SSD in an old box, and suddenly, it becomes a vibrant fast box, even with all the crapware.

And MS, if you are listening. Put some useful WOW factor, polished software into your OS. Make the consumer feel like they really got something high value for their dollar or just keep doing what your doing. And if you keep on the same path, make sure you knee-cap the next XBOX with always on Internet required for play. Also, if you decided to launch a phone, make sure you abandon all your early adopters and ensure that the phone has no polished apps. Does anyone at MS still know how to code beyond rearranging the UI? Just asking.

The real question is should our government buy counterfeit military replacement parts from China?

Until we as a people decide that our national security depends on our manufacturing base and manufacturing capability then what difference does it make? It's all coming from China no matter how you look at it. The subcontractor of my subcontractor of my subcontractor is Chairman Mao. And when you play in a commodity market, the lowest bidding supplier with a stolen formula for capacitors wins as in the case of Dell.