The tool you want to trouble shoot this is xperf (specifically xbootmgr.exe) from the Windows Performance Toolkit. That is part of the Windows SDK. This tool will give you a look into exactly what is going on during boot and what is hogging disk, CPU, and everything. It is very detailed. Our Windows 7 boot is about 35 seconds from "starting Windows" to being at the desktop with the network icon showing an internet connection and being usable. xperf helped us to get to that state. The Windows SDK is here: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=8279. With their web installer you can select the components you want and not have to download the rest - for xperf you just need the "Windows Performance Toolkit".

I doubt that it really gets returned to sender though (since it is not first or second class mail). What is more fun (but more time consuming) is to take any two pieces of junk mail, open them both and place the adverts from one (and even folded outer envelope) into the "business reply mail" inserts of the other and then send them back. The only thing you remove is anything personally identifiable - names, addresses, bar codes and the like. So, for example, Capital One gets the adverts from some mortgage company and some mortgage company gets the adverts from Capital One. Imagine what would happen if we could get just 30% of people receiving junk mail to do that! (On the very rare day that we get just one piece of junk mail with a business reply envelope they just get back things from the trash like a Kleenex or possibly a piece of "postcard style" junk mail if it has a label that can be peeled off.)

This is much more satisfying because you know they actually DO receive this and must pay the (admittedly low) rate for the business reply mail. Also it will be kicked out by their automated processing equipment and need to be viewed by a human.

Some of us at work the other day were figuring on this exact scenario. Since Moto had recently been threatening other Android phone makers (who were also members of the open handset alliance) with patent lawsuits, Google saw that they could do a couple of things in one stroke:

- Get a patent war chest to help defend Android
- Neuter a company that was starting to threaten other Android licensees.

We'll have to see if we (and you) are right or not over the next 12 - 18 months.

True, but looking at my new Droid 3 from Motorola - Motorola didn't cruft it up much. They put Blur and Motoprint on it. Verizon crufted the hell out of it. Enough to make me get my rant on here about it: http://gildude.blogspot.com/2011/08/call-to-action-for-verizon-and-motorola.html. Of course, if we just get rid of Blur and maybe the locked bootloader that will be enough of a win. But it would be great to get back to Google Experience Devices that don't have all the carrier garbage on them to begin with.

Wow, some of the times in this thread are just crazy long. We measure the performance of our boot from the "starting windows" screen (simply because different hardware takes a different amount of time in the POST test / BIOS, but typically only about 8 seconds or so). We measure until the network icon in the system tray shows that it is connected to the internet. In our experience, this is about the same time that the machine will start to respond correctly to input and allow the user - for example - to start Outlook or something. On desktops, the time is about 35 seconds on last generation stuff. Slightly faster on the newest machines. On notebooks with spinning drives it is about 45 seconds. Add SSD to the notebook and it drops another 20% off the time. Again, add about 8 or 10 seconds total for the POST test. It is still under a minute from power on until a usable machine. I don't know what other folks are doing to make their time take longer.

Oh, on Wndows 7 we had to set the "WaitForNetwork" time to 1 second (by default it is 30 seconds!!!) to achieve these times. If Windows 7 spends about 40 seconds with a spinning "circle of wait" on the screen saying "welcome" then you are impacted by the extra 30 second delay. It only affects people with home drives and redirected folders though. If you are seeing long boot times on either Vista or Windows 7 you may want to spend some time with the free Microsoft Windows Performance Toolkit (in particular xbootmgr) and find out what is going on. The toolkit comes with the Windows SDK. You can then work with whatever vendor's software is causing the problem and have them fix it.

True, for the rest you simply boot to Windows PE from a USB Key or DVD and mount the host machine's registry and remove the offending entries (typically in services or the typical "run" keys. You can also delete the executables from the file system. Obviously the more experience you have doing this the easier it is to identify what to remove. If the machine is running BitLocker you will need the recovery key to use this method, but as long as you have the key it works fine.

Most of the ones I've encountered in the US, from my first one ever in 1992 in Arkansas through the ones I just went through in Hayward, CA two days ago are problematic for folks who aren't local. They tend to be small, with the signage insufficient for people to find the street they need to exit on (again, locals have no problem). For those of us relying on written instructions or possibly a navigation system the small size of the roundabouts and signage too close to the exits makes it very difficult to manage the proper yielding, speed, merging, etc. while trying to find your exit. It is small wonder that they cause trepidation in folks. I was not too sanguine with the two I went through in Hayward due to this. Once I had been through them a few times it would be fine though. If they were larger with the signage farther from the exits it would also be fine.

Fat Tire is not discontinued and is not from Anheuser-Busch. It is from New Belgium, and is one of my go-to beers: http://www.newbelgium.com/beer/detail.aspx?id=7c5b394b-d7b7-486a-ac9a-316256a7b0ee. My other current favorite being Mirror Pond from Deschutes.

Most likely their automated testing always used the correct password so they didn't see the problem. If their testing included using a few incorrect passwords the problem would have instantly shown itself. Probably just a failure in designing the proper test inputs.

Obviously your argument is simplistic. Now, we all know that it doesn't cost much (if anything) more to run a network running at 50% capacity than one running at 10%, so the straight up "utility" model like electricity or water billing doesn't exactly translate. However, it DOES cost more when you have to split out areas that are currently on one cable loop into two or more cable loops (as an example). So there absolutely is a cost to allowing usage to climb with no limit and no increased price. What the real solution has to be is some form of tiered service. Not a "aha! you went over your limit by 2 GB - you owe $100" type of gouging tier. More of a "all use between 0 and 150 GB per month you pay $0.10 per GB, for use between 150 and 300 GB per month you are billed at $0.15 per GB, and for usage over 300 GB per month you are billed at $0.20 per GB" type of deal. There would be a "connection / account maintenance" base fee (like a meter fee for electricity - for an example say $10), and any rental fees (if you rent your modem, etc.). The rest would be simple tiered usage based.

With my admittedly pulled out of somewhere the sun doesn't shine sample numbers it would look like this:

Use 80 GB per month: Base fee + 80 * $.10 = $18.
Use 200 GB per month: Base fee + (150 * $0.10) + (50 * $0.15) = $32.50
Use 400 GB per month: Base fee + (150 * $0.10) + (150 * $0.15) + (100 * $0.20) = $67.50

Obviously those are just sample numbers, but they contain a penalty for using "a lot" of bandwidth. People can argue about whether there should be "night time GB" and "weekend GB" and all that - but the basics of pay as you go should really end up being the model for network usage.

That's an interesting thought. How about "cars should be safe to operate without expensive add on software / hardware". Guess what? They are! It is the idiot drivers that crash the cars by going too fast in poor conditions, tailgating, and other poor decisions and unsafe usage. This is the same thing as with computers. All major operating systems ship now with security features in place that help to keep users safe. Firewalls (on by default), ASLR, DEP, etc. have become pretty standard. The thing that hasn't changed is the user. Just like the driver that makes unsafe lane changes, the computer user runs untrusted code that was sent to them by strangers. Often times they "have to install this special video codec to watch [insert celebrity name here] boobs". Not only do they install this "codec", they give it admin rights.

Computers are safe to use without add on software. It is the user who isn't safe because they don't pay any attention to the myriad of warnings they are given and continue to practice unsafe computing.

Actually Stuxnet has been analyzed pretty well and would have attacked Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 - no autoplay required. Remember the purpose of placing a USB key in one of these machines is to copy data from / to it because the machines aren't networked and the data has to be analyzed. In this case, a couple of zero day vulnerabilities were utilized that caused Windows to get infected by just opening the folder. Mark Russinovich did a nice, digestible 3 part write up on it that starts here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2011/03/30/3416253.aspx.

Exactly. Also some basic, much maligned but still useful, security by obscurity can be used. For example, if you have trouble remembering your ATM PIN, simply put a piece of paper in your wallet with a couple of "phone numbers" on it (for example one would be "Adam - 722-1416" where 1416 is your PIN.) Simple mnemonic - Adam - ATOM - ATM... Simple thieves won't get your PIN from that, but you certainly can remember it. Passwords can be done in a similar fashion.

Most notepad apps sync to cloud servers. So they would still require "internet" access, which means the ads would not be gone. The biggest problem with being able to remove permissions is that people will use that to try to get rid of in app advertising. That in turn may cripple app functionality. Not a problem for technical users, but for normal users that is not a good experience. For developers, it means less revenue. For these reasons it is doubtful that Google would adopt this model of "you asked for x but I only gave you y".

If they stole my notebook, they would have to format it. There is no way they would be able to guess my password and get logged on. And since the drive is encrypted - simply removing it and placing it in another computer to try to get the data is not going to work. I am always amazed at these people who do things like loading this "prey" software but can't be bothered to have a strong password on their notebook. It just seems stupid to not protect your data more than you protect your device. I imagine most people here take simple precautions like strong passwords and drive encryption, right?