I don't own a lot of apple gear but I will say that I have been enjoying the Apple TV, more so than my main Samsung TV, because of one little quality of life feature, there's no fucking ads on the home menu and it doesn't lag when starting up, because on the Samsung I managed to block all the ads, but the device is always trying to phone home to an ad server.

When reading the title, I thought it was going to be the beginning of the end. - Like, I don't necessarily like Apple as a company, but the user experience has genuinely been enjoyable compared to their competitors, yes, there are other parts of their ecosystem that annoy me, but I honestly thought the ads were going to be really obnoxious pop-ups that get in your way, or if you're trying to navigate somewhere, it would suggest adding stops to sponsored locations, that doesn't seem to be the case here but it's not something I wouldn't put pass the likes of Google, but, at least for the moment it seems pretty tame here.

I don't use Apple maps anyway so I can just ‘eh’ at the notion, that's because I've never bothered to use it before because I'm too used to using Google Maps, or Open Street maps.

Samsung managed to do something Apple could never, that was make me consider buying an iPhone for my next device...

Yeah, I've had this problem before, But I'm quick to blame Spotify's UI because it sucks, when a new album releases, I do not care and the last thing I want to see when I'm driving is a pop up for it. (Yes, this has happened to me), I have a single playlist that I play all the time and if a song that's playing that I don't like or don't feel in the mood for I skip it, using the physical buttons on my steering wheel, and not taking my eyes off the road, (not that Spotify's Shuffle algorithm is any good, it's absolute dog shit).

And before I leave, I always make sure it's set to that playlist as I switch to alternative playlists when I'm doing other tasks, and it's incredibly difficult to try and change playlists while driving, I learned my lesson a long time ago and I just pull over or mute the stereo entirely and sit in silence. (No, I've never had an accident before, but I don't need to, to know that trying to navigate a touch screen while driving is a bad idea, even at very low speeds).

For some stupid reason as well the user interface is different per phone device, my partner hates it on a new whatever the fuck Samsung's new flip phone is, because the seek bar is a wobbly groove for some stupid reason, and the album art is in the wrong spot and for some stupid reason they keep insisting on changing the interface because product managers have to justify their job....

I usually have it where if I'm driving with my partner, I get her to set the playlist, but she always puts her trash music on.

Google for some stupid reason also decided to give me Gemini so trying to set navigation through voice commands is an impossible task until I changed it back, it's still not perfect but it's better than arguing with a clanker.

Saw the icon for this article and thought it was Quake 3 remaster related, in other news, a Quake 4 Expansion pack alpha got released, also bring back quake wars!

I can't argue with a free update though only been playing it for the last 30 years.

*Scurries away to play quake one expansion...*

Imagine paying $1,000 for a monitor that puts ads on your screen.

Oh no, I have Windows 11 at work, had also gotten a new workstation recently, and was having a pretty serious meeting with some clients over MS Teams too, then it decides to recommend that I play Farming Simulator through the Xbox app. This is an Out of the box experience, granted the machine was new, so it hadn't quite gotten all of its policies set up yet, but still fucking mental to happen on an enterprise machine.

[According to Lansweeper's figures, 14% of Windows 10 assets have applied Extended Security Update patches.]

I do know of a few people who have applied for the extended security updates, and while it may appear as if the computer is enrolled, it is not. Myself included, plus a few people who rely on me for the unpaid IT support that I am forced to provide despite no longer working in that sector of the industry, it's a rabbit hole I don't want to go down or a can of worms I don't want to open.

I like to proclaim that I'm a native Linux user, but I've still got a few Windows 10 boxes laying around, occasionally I find myself going back to them, it's a nasty habit that I need to break.

There is still Windows XP in the medical industry.

I did have an experience with a Windows 11 evangelist who went to the extent of specking me out a rather expensive copilot laptop with half the spec of my Windows 10 desktop, 32gb instead of 64gb ram for example. Then they got fully really flustered when I politely declined, I've got a MacBook I keep up to date that I do all my secure transactions on so I should be fine...

I don't hate windows 11 just never saw the need to upgrade to it and I could if I was to go buy a $30 TPM chip for my motherboard, but I don't want to, plus being on an unsupported platform means I'm free from the tyranny of government oversight that appears to be gaining in enforcement in recent times.

I've always stuck with the idea that you should always keep your devices up to date so that they stay secure, but that also means you get new features, the problem with those new features is that they are absolutely shit, this applies to not only windows devices but smartphones, fridges all that other bullshit, nobody wants that, I'd rather just stay on an unsupported device and be happy, Just like how things were back in the XP era where you just installed the OS and then no one would fuck wid it...

I'll have to dig a little deeper, but my experience of installing software on Mac OS has been mixed, I didn't even realise I had LibreOffice already installed on it, the last thing I tried to install that gave me grief was Code::Blocks, It works but it gives me a clear warning about the software being untrusted and I haven't had the energy to try and fix it. It is something I want to explore more in the Mac OS ecosystem, and it honestly might come down to whether it was installed via DMG, PKG or just an App in a zip file.

Then there's gatekeeper, in my support days there's a certain key combination you have to hold down in order for it to give you the option to *install anyway* or *run anyway*, which usually results in Googling it and hoping you land on the right thread.

I was also just remembering a few months back when the Logitech software for the mx master broke due to a certificate issue. - That's the basket I'm putting this in, and I was under the impression that it was distributed via App Store which probably cost money to update, but I also just checked Logitech's website and was proven wrong, so I don't know, maybe I'm miss remembering it...

I'm actually gonna try and defend Microsoft here, if only to get this statement out, and ask the question...

Don't get me wrong I think what Microsoft is doing is bad and fucking over their customers, but I have a strange feeling the certificate changeover is actually the result of an Apple policy, like I can see in this thread that people are still running ancient versions of Office 2011, and probably on ancient versions of Mac OS, but modern Mac OS is a bit of a security pig and you have to appease the Apple gods to get anything to work, If you've ever had to try and download software externally outside of the App Store there is a bunch of security warnings and annoying bullshit you have to bypass.

Microsoft probably should get a spokesperson out to give some sort of response, but I have a strange feeling it may actually be the work of apple not letting Microsoft renew the certificates as to why the software will break, just wanna put that out there.

That said they shouldn't have modified the webpage, and they should have been more transparent.

They could have done something like "dear customer, sorry about the certificate renewal bullshit here free copy of office 2024" or something, and that would have won them good favours in the press and the consumer.

What are your thoughts!?

Edit: I am literally a guy running a pirated version of word 2023?? (365), the version before they put the stupid copilot dingbat on the cursor that follows you around, and I use Windows, Linux and Mac both as a software professional and a masochist...

>Be me
>Posted in the wrong thread like a moron.

I'm actually gonna try and defend Microsoft here, if only to get this statement out, and ask the question...

Don't get me wrong I think what Microsoft is doing is bad and fucking over their customers, but I have a strange feeling the certificate changeover is actually the result of an Apple policy, like I can see in this thread that people are still running ancient versions of Office 2011, and probably on ancient versions of Mac OS, but modern Mac OS is a bit of a security pig and you have to appease the Apple gods to get anything to work, If you've ever had to try and download software externally outside of the App Store there is a bunch of security warnings and annoying bullshit you have to bypass.

Microsoft probably should get a spokesperson out to give some sort of response, but I have a strange feeling it may actually be the work of apple not letting Microsoft renew the certificates as to why the software will break, just wanna put that out there.

That said they shouldn't have modified the webpage, and they should have been more transparent.

They could have done something like "dear customer, sorry about the certificate renewal bullshit here free copy of office 2024" or something, and that would have won them good favours in the press and the consumer.

What are your thoughts!?

Edit: I am literally a guy running a pirated version of word 2023?? (365), the version before they put the stupid copilot dingbat on the cursor that follows you around, and I use Windows, Linux and Mac both as a software professional and a masochist...

Damn that was a good opportunity to say some very very naughty things!

I could have said some very very naughty things in a git commit and blamed copilot.

I have a colleague whos code I was *fixing* and I could have let loose...

(You can interpret naughty however you like, rude, mean, kinky, whatever.)

"what I don't understand is why the rust in the linux kernel didn’t stop this? thought it was meant to be safe..."

That's pretty neat I guess I'm just remembering a product that I used back in the day, circa Windows 7 era called andLinux, it was great going through university with it because it gave me access to the Linux shell for my networking classes, and I think you could compile stuff through GCC with it, and it also didn't leave me with the burden of not being able to open .doc files, because I know that was a problem with the people running full Linux systems. - This is almost 20 years ago but universities aren't great at catering to people running more than one different system, even the Mac users were treated as second class citizens.

I do like that people are still developing stuff for very old systems and I also like being operating system agnostic. Life is great!

Of course Ruby is still a serious programming language! So many people on my GitHub fork my code to tell me to RIIR (Rewrite it in Ruby)...

Mango DB? Yeah I got that.

Want to try out the new Visual Studio 2026, but worried its full of AI crap. Still rocking VS 2019.