Ask Paul: December 13 (Premium)

It’s Friday the 13th, and after a particularly arduous trip to New York, I’m ready for the weekend to start. Let’s kick it off with …

Tech polygamy

Simard57 asks:

What strategy do you use to exist in three ecosystems – Microsoft, Apple & Google – and unify your experience (passwords, files, photos, …)?

This is a lot easier than it used to be, but the general rule I follow is to not use any “one-way, dead-end streets,” those products and services that are tied to a particular platform, whenever possible. Historically, many (but not all) of Apple’s apps and services were like that, designed to lock users into their ecosystem, though that’s finally changing in some cases (the Apple TV app, for example, is pretty much everywhere, Apple Music is on Android, and so on).

There are lots of examples of this kind of thing. I’d never use Apple Podcasts because I want the freedom to move between iOS and Android; I prefer apps/services that work everywhere. (Granted, podcast apps aren’t particularly “sticky” in that it’s easy to move from app to app at any time, but you get the idea.) Same with music apps, video apps, news/reading apps, etc.

In some cases, of course, you simply have to choose whatever is best, even if there is some lock-in, and the goal here is to pick a solution from a company that is serious about that thing and will never leave that market. Kindle e-books probably fall into this category, though their app is pretty much everywhere it needs to be (with some serious limitations on iOS).

For passwords, I recommend a password manager of some kind. I actually use Chrome/the new Edge for this at the moment, and you could argue that it doesn’t meet my pervasiveness rule since the passwords do sync to Android apps, which is awesome, but not to iOS apps. (I get around this by syncing my Chrome settings to Safari, and that gets them into the iOS ecosystem.) A third-party password manager like LastPass or 1Password (or whatever) is probably the better choice.

I use OneDrive pretty exclusively for work and personal documents because it works best with Windows, which I use, and because I use Office 365, which gives me a lot of storage. (OneDrive is also on Mac and mobile, of course.) I back up phone photos, and store my entire photos collection, to both Google Photos and OneDrive. Google is actually better for this than Microsoft, in my opinion, but they both work well and are both available everywhere. (If you’re a Prime member, you should look at Amazon photos too.) You should always put your photos in multiple services for redundancy reasons.

For the most part, I find it very easy to move between Android and iOS on mobile, and I’d probably likewise have a reasonably good experience moving between Windows and Mac on desktop if I cared about using the Mac. Chrome OS and Linux aren’t there yet for me because of missing apps and some workflow issues (no local OneDrive sync, which I could frankly work around). But that could easily change, and there are rumors it will. I hope it does, not from some desire to use some non-Windows platform but because this kind of accessibility is just the way things should be.

The future of Thurrott.com

will asks:

Now that Thurrott.com has been going strong for a few years, I wanted to see if there were any big plans or changes coming to the site as we get ready to start the new decade?

2020 will be the year that Thurrott.com finally gets its redesign, and I am very eager to see that happen. If you haven’t done so, please take a peek at Petri.com, which is partway through its own redesign and has hints about how the new Thurrott.com will eventually look. Petri’s remodeling has taken a lot longer than expected, but I’m hoping the process will be easier and quicker when we get to this site since we’ll have that experience behind us.

Plus I wanted to ask how COD has been for you this year?

It’s been OK.

There is a lot to like about the new Call of Duty. But it’s also very complex, with too many options and configurable bits, and it’s confusing even now, a few months into it. My K/D (kill-death ratio) is much lower than it’s ever been, and has been hovering around or even below 1:1. And I find it very hard to get streaks going. I haven’t been this confused by a COD game since the original Modern Warfare. Maybe that is the point.

Overall, it’s a great game, but I’m alarmed at how little I still understand about how it all works. I didn’t figure out how to get to hardcore (vs. “normal”) game modes until literally a month of playing the game; they’re so well hidden, I thought they were not even available. I do like that new maps are free, and bringing back some classic Modern Warfare maps was a good call.

Surface Pro X

Simard57 asks:

Will you be reviewing the Surface Pro X?

I would love to, but Microsoft needs to send me one. I’ve asked multiple times. And have been told that inventory is tight or whatever, multiple times.

Fluent series

lvthunder asks:

Can you do a series of articles similar to the Notepad ones dealing with the Fluent Design Language?

That’s an interesting idea. But it would likely be on the tail end of a progression of series covering things like Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Universal Windows Platform (UWP), and possible topics like Xamarin, Flutter, or PWAs. But I will look into that.

The future of Stadia

Vladimir asks:

We read a lot of debate on the limitations and disappointments of stadia. It’s obviously an early access right now. However, next year, the free tier will be released. In my opinion the big deal about stadia are the millions of young people who will have their boring and crappy chromebooks transformed overnight in gaming laptops. Do you think this could be what will drive stadia to success?

It could be, but there’s no reason that Project xCloud or upcoming services from Sony and others can’t do the same. And that’s the problem for Stadia: Virtually everything Google can add to the service can be done by others, and some other firms, like Sony and Microsoft, have much deeper ecosystems and installed bases already.

China v. U.S. tech

TomKer asks:

I’ve read a couple of news reports about the Chinese government replacing Windows on all their government PCs by 2022 with something else (Linux?). This seems like a big deal to me, but it hasn’t seemed to set off any alarms yet. Would love to hear your thoughts on this.

I’ve been trying to learn more about this, but I wonder if this isn’t really just part of the US/China trade war stuff, a retaliation of sorts because of the US blacklisting of Huawei. The Chinese government moving to Linux would be big news, for sure, but the bigger thing here would be China relying only on technology that was created in China. I’m not sure that’s even possible today.

TWiT visit

Eric_Rasmussen asks:

Do you have any plans to visit the TWIT.TV studio in the coming year? I’ve been wanting to go down and see a live show of Windows Weekly for a while (I live about 2.5 hours away from the studio) but I figure it would be ideal if one or both of you and Mary Jo were there live too. Thanks, and have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I don’t, sorry. We used to visit in person when Build was in San Francisco, and it was always a good time. I’m not against it, and I would really like to see the new studio. But no plans at the moment, no.

Retro tech

ErichK asks:

Hi Paul. This question may sound a little unusual even though it’s computer-related, but here goes. It’s about computer users who are also musicians who like to use really old hardware because they hate modern PCs. Now, I know you’re a writer by trade and not a musician, but here’s what I mean. I was reading one guy’s manifesto about how he produces music where he states that he would rather use an Atari ST because it has MIDI built into it and was designed with music in mind, rather than a typical PC of today. And why is that? Because “modern” PCs run 500 services in the background and have to deal with constant interruptions, etc., etc. Nevermind that a 3.5 GHz Core i5 runs rings around an Atari ST. Some of these guys can also be a little prickly and arrogant. What do you think? Do you think people like that should stop being babies and join the rest of us? It’s almost the equivalent of the Windows Mobile holdouts.

Atari’s integration of MIDI was good marketing at the time, but it wasn’t especially sophisticated or anything, and as you point out, any modern computer would run rings around such a machine. (The STs were also very poorly made, and that would make this equipment less than ideal for real-world use, especially for those wanting to bring one on tour.) So I guess I see this as more of an affectation than a need. The benefits are imaginary.

The Windows Mobile comparison is interesting; Brad and I were joking recently that Windows Mobile was the ideal solution for anyone who wanted the best security, since no one would ever bother hacking such a phone. But that’s not a real reason to pick Windows Mobile today, and it’s not the reason anyone still using this system is doing so; what people liked about Windows Mobile had nothing to do with that. Likewise, when musicians were choosing ST back in the 1980s, it was literally just because MIDI was built-in; but no one should choose one now because of that. MIDI is easy.

But as a man of a certain age, I can certainly appreciate both the tech nostalgia and wanting something simple that just works. Neither of these things (Windows Mobile or the Atari ST) rises to those requirements today.

Health hacking

BTRProducer asks:

Hey Paul. Was just wondering if you had any plans to do any further articles in your “Health Hacking” series from a couple of years ago? I found the insight into your diet choices to be quite informative. Thanks for all you do!

I’ve spent much of this year going to the gym and lifting weights, and that’s required a change in my diet, which is still low-carb, but not as low-carb as before. If I feel like I have something that will be useful for others, I could see writing more on this topic, but right now it’s just an ongoing experiment. (I’ve been switching up how/when I exercise, etc. over time) Certainly, exercising doesn’t help one lose weight directly, but that was already understood.

Xbox One + keyboard and mouse

SherlockHolmes asks:

I know this is maybe a dumb question but: Is it possible to ad a mouse and a keyboard to the XBox One S? It would be so much helpful to move through Netflix and my media library on my hdd that way.

Not a dumb question: As it turns out, the Xbox One does support using a mouse and keyboard. That said, there are some caveats.

First, it only supports USB mice and keyboards, so you’ll be dealing with wires.

Second, mouse support is only for games, and the developer has to explicitly support its use.

Third, keyboard support is enabled throughout the Xbox user interface—this page has the keyboard shortcuts you can use—so you can use it to navigate around a screen, move from screen to screen, open the Guide, select on-screen elements, and so on. But I assume that apps like Netflix would need to explicitly support it (as do games). It would certainly be useful for typing in a search box too.

And on that note, I don’t believe that Netflix supports this.

One thing to look into, however, is an Xbox remote: There are some nice-looking third-party remotes on Amazon (and I’m sure elsewhere).

Why give away the Field Guide?

helix2301 asks:

Just wondering why you decided to give the book away to premium members I appreciate it and read through quite bit of it already just wondering if there was any reason for the giveaway. Thank You.

I was originally intending to move past the current Windows 10 Field Guide but wasn’t sure what the next thing would be; a new edition, perhaps, a different book, or whatever. So it seemed like it would be a nice gesture, assuming I got the timing right. The book is currently just about up-to-date for Windows 10 version 1909 (I still have to update the Install chapter), so you could argue that it would be totally up-to-date for most people through the middle of next year. But it took us longer than expected to figure out how to even do the giveaway and then actually make it happen. And with Windows 10 version 2004 completed so early, it just sort of seemed like this giveaway wasn’t as good as I’d intended.

So the new plan is to support it through the end of 2020 at the least, meaning I’ll update it for versions 2004 and 20H2. If you own the book, and you do if you’re a Thurrott Premium member now, all the subsequent updates will be free.

After that, we’ll see. Maybe I’ll do a book on Windows 10X or whatever.

But to be clear, the Field Guide is literally a gift. I’m not getting paid by my company or whatever to give the book to Premium members, nor are my coauthors.