Ask Paul: December 23 (Premium)

Happy Friday, and Happy Holidays! Thank you to everyone for the kind words about the site makeover, especially. It’s a wonderful update. Obviously, we still have some work to do, and we still have our normal work to do. And that brings us to …

Streaming sports

sabertooth920 asks:

Do you see any legitimate way that Google will not bleed money on the NFL Sunday Ticket?

It’s fascinating to me that streaming service owners—Amazon, Apple, Google, etc.—are falling over each other to become the exclusive home of whatever sport on whatever night(s). It’s possible this is good money—Google/YouTube would know better than any of us—but the dollar amounts that it will pay to the NFL are eye-bleeding: $2 billion per season for the next seven years. (And Apple walked away from this particular deal.) It looks like DirecTV was paying $1.5 billion per season over the past eight years, by way of comparison, and that the NFL wanted $2.5 billion.

But I feel like Google knew what the line was for where this will and will not make sense based on ad revenues, (real and potential) subscriber numbers, and historical viewer numbers. And it looks like current customers, of which there are 2 million, pay $300 to $400 per season for this service. But yeah. It’s a bet, for sure.

The big issue I have here is that, as an erstwhile sports fan, figuring out where each game will be broadcast was already complicated enough when it was just cable TV, but with streamers in the picture—Amazon on Thursdays (for 11 years, no less), YouTube on Sunday Ticket—it’s only going to get more complicated. (Apple also has MLB baseball and US soccer deals.) Back in the day, you just had to worry about two things: a cable TV subscription and the local blackout rules. Now you have to find, and pay for, different services. This isn’t great.

Windows 11, unsupported hardware, and you

Lewk asks:

I built my own PC in 2016 using a sixth-generation Intel CPU. Last year I used an ISO image to install Windows 11 due to Microsoft’s strict hardware requirements. Windows 11 has received all the security and cumulative updates without issue (and even performs better than Windows 10 did). However, I haven’t received 22H2. There are no prompts or messages, no banner in Windows Update or any indication that 22H2 exists. While I intend on doing a clean install again anyway, I find it strange that no Microsoft Watchers are reporting on this.

My guess is that it’s because so few people did this (comparatively) and that almost literally all of them are technical people who can make that upgrade happen manually. They did, after all, figure out the workaround. I tested this mostly for the book, on three different PCs. I’m not sure I would have otherwise.

Microsoft did say that 22H2 is only available for PC’s that meet the hardware requirements, but it makes no sense that it isn’t made available to those already on Windows 11 21H2.

The big point here involves the support lifecycle: I’m not surprised that Microsoft has delivered all of the security and other cumulative updates to those with unsupported hardware, but what about the future? 22H2 is out now, and support for Windows 11 version 21H2 (the initial version) ends on October 10, 2023 (for Home and Pro users). So what happens to your PC and others like it then? Does it just … exit support?

Honestly, that’s not unacceptable. As noted, only technical people will do this anyway, and it’s easy enough to download a 22H2 ISO now and upgrade. This seems like a reasonable thing to do: deter non-technical people from upgrading on non-supported hardware but let others do as they will, with a bit of work.

Do you think Microsoft is being irresponsible by withholding 22H2 to those of us with PC’s that have CPU’s that don’t meet the hardware requirements, even though we’re already on Windows 11? I could understand it not being offered if we were still on Windows 10. But I am concerned as I have seen countless tweets and comments online, as well as colleagues and friends, who have said they upgraded their families’ PC’s to Windows 11 while at thanksgiving or Christmas gatherings. I can’t help but worry these PC’s will fall out of support in October next year when the 21H2 lifecycle ends if they have hardware that doesn’t meet Microsoft’s requirements.

That’s where the trouble starts: so now we have technical people force-upgrading on unsupported hardware owned by non-technical friends and family members. That seems like a rather irresponsible thing to do. But, again, if they provide that level of service now, doing an annual manual in-place upgrade, if that’s what’s required, doesn’t seem all that horrible.

So, no, I don’t think it’s being irresponsible. I think Microsoft is meeting some legal need for support tied to its hardware requirements (which, yes, are bogus) while still giving those who are technical the means to do as they will.

I almost wrote “while giving those who are technical enough rope to hang themselves,” but that’s overly dramatic. Unless Microsoft follows through on its threat to stop shipping security/cumulative updates to those PCs. I don’t see that happening.

12th-Gen update

ianceicys asks:

Hey Paul, any update on the in-depth troubleshooting as it relates to your suspicions of Intel 12th Gen?

Yes. I discussed this on the December 15 episode of Windows Weekly, but someone who deploys PCs for a living heard about my issues and reported exactly the same issues with any combination of 12th-Gen Intel Core-based PCs from a variety of PC makers and any USB-C hub or Thunderbolt 3/4 dock from Anker, Dell, or HP. He didn’t experience the web browser issues I described, though I feel like web browsers freeze up enough these days for power users that we sort of stop even thinking about it. Instead, he mostly noticed this issue in Teams.

But he added two additional bits of information that go beyond the confirmation he provided.

First, one of the PC makers that he deals with, Dell, has issued a flurry of BIOS updates over the past few months, and these have fixed the problem on those PCs. I feel like that gives us some insight into how this issue will be fixed: by the PC makers, and via firmware updates. And maybe this is just coincidental, but I have seen a lot of HP and Lenovo firmware updates recently too.

Second, he noticed that the base clock speed of the CPU would downclock to below 0.5 GHz when the issue happens. And he suggested I examine Task Manager to see whether I experience the same. I’ve been using an AMD-based laptop with my USB-C dock in recent weeks, so I’ve not had a chance to test that yet.

More testing is needed. But once I finish the review of this AMD-based laptop, I will make that happen with both the USB-C hub and the Thunderbolt 3 dock I have here.

Webcams

ianceicys also asks:

Any chance your going to upgrade your camera setup from the HP conference monitor? Same a Cam Link setup from Elgato? Any thoughts on Elgato – Corsair gear?

I’ve not used the built-in webcam in the HP Conferencing Monitor in several months. Instead, I’ve been rotating between an HP 4K webcam and two Dell webcams, one 4K and one Full HD. They’re all much better than the other webcam, but I also have unplug-replug them from time to time, which is irritating. I think my endgame here will be using a laptop with a high-quality 5/8 MP built-in webcam. I’m so tired of all the nonsense around the webcams.

And not to belabor the point, but here is an actual workflow I was just prompted to perform by HP:

• I open Teams to make sure A/V inputs are all correct, because they silently change 2-3 times per week. The webcam is not working.
• I unplug the webcam and plug it back in.
• This also has the effect of changing the field of view for some reason, so I run the HP Accessories app to reconfigure it for the millionth time. I am prompted to uninstall the current HP Presence driver and reinstall; otherwise, I cannot make configuration changes. This requires me to click a link to uninstall the driver, which must be done with Admin privileges, but a command line runs automatically, so not with Admin. So I redo that correctly, something no normal person would figure out. And it says I can’t uninstall it because Teams is running. Here, again, you need to know what you’re doing because you can’t just close Teams to kill it. You have to really kill it.
• And so. I mean, screw this. Seriously.

I will give up on external webcams as soon as I can. Hopefully in time for the first podcast recordings in January.

Pixel 7 Pro review

dremy1011 asks:

Hi Paul, Wondering if you have any updates on your Pixel 7 review?

It’s done except for the camera and software sections. Which, yeah, means I’ve held off on the most important parts to the end. There’s just so much to discuss in both cases. But this will be a big one: in its current form, it’s over 2800 words long, and I suspect I will need another 1000. But it will be up in the next few days, mostly very positive.

Windows 11 and Edge, two peas in a pod

infloop asks:

What are your thoughts on the direction Microsoft has been taking products like Edge and Windows? It does seem like they are making the product benefit Microsoft instead of the user. Is this because Nadella said that each group/product needed to justify their existence (apologies if I got this wrong) and/or for other reasons?

Yes, exactly right on both counts. In fact, we can see the same forms of prodding to accept Microsoft defaults, which do benefit it more than they do users, in both products. I wrote previously somewhere about how horrible it was in many ways to use Edge again because of the book after having switched to Brave, and that in using Edge more and more, I realized I needed an upfront chapter about working around all the horrific pushiness. But there’s more, really: after version upgrades, which happen every four weeks now, Edge will often prompt users again to accept Microsoft defaults. It’s kind of insane. Windows does the same thing, but those are less frequent. For now.

But yes, the issue here is that these products need to make sense in a Microsoft that is focused on cloud computing, which really means a Microsoft that is focused on regular recurring revenues. The old-school Windows model is that Microsoft gets paid when you upgrade/buy a new PC, and that just doesn’t happen as often, especially with Windows 10 and 11 being free upgrades for most. And since there’s no version of this story where Microsoft can start charging for that, you see the terribleness you see now in Windows: arbitrary hardware requirements to force PC upgrades more quickly and all the suggestions and ads. And it’s only going to get worse. I will likely write about this topic soon in a separate article that I’ve already started.

Ads and tracking

infloop asks:

Also, will there be more posts to come in the ads/tracking topic?

Yes. There are two on the way: one concerning moving my wife’s phone to NextDNS to see how that goes with a non-technical person. And one about using NextDNS on PCs, which I’ve largely avoided to date. Should those both work out, the third step is doing so at the router level, which I can do now that I’ve switched to Eero. These things take a bit of time because you actually have to use the devices and make sure nothing breaks.

Brave

Ruvger asks:

What do you use to sync Brave? I’ve just switched and only have brave installed on one machine.

In the past, Brave’s strange and unique settings sync feature, which is unlike anything you see on other browsers, was one of the biggest stumbling blocks, and I found myself going back to whatever other browser again and again. But once I did make the switch to Brave this past year, I found that this settings sync feature is, in many ways, one of its best features. I really like how it works.

Let’s say you bring up Brave for the first time on some PC. When you do so, you will want to import your settings from whatever browser you’re using, of course. And that works as expected: you can import history, bookmarks, passwords, extensions, and maybe more depending on the browser. And then you’re up and running.

But now you want to use Brave on other PCs or mobile devices. And that’s when its unique settings sync comes into play. The way this works is that you have a sync chain, which is decentralized, meaning that Brave, unlike other browser makers, doesn’t store it for you in their cloud. This is just for you. So you can add a new device from the existing first install or from the new install, and there are two ways to get the new device in the sync chain: using a QR code on mobile (via the camera) or using a 25-word code that is unique to your chain. You can email this to yourself, type it in manually, whatever.

I’ve added several PCs and devices to this chain. And on each, I can configure which settings to sync between apps, bookmarks, extensions, history, settings, theme, reading list, open tabs, passwords, and/or addresses and more. It’s such a great system.

To find this in Brave on PC, open Settings and you’ll see a Sync item in the navigation bar on the left. On mobile, it’s the same thing: Settings > Sync.

Before moving on, consider the disaster scenario: you somehow manage to delete Brave everywhere or reformat all your PCs and devices, and because your sync chain isn’t centrally stored in some cloud, it’s gone forever. So what? Install Brave again and, if needed, your previous browser, import your settings again, and just start anew. You may lose a few bookmarks or passwords you created in Brave, I guess. But life will go on. And you probably won’t delete or lose all your Brave instances anyway. That’s just a remote possibility.

I love Brave. I’m going to write a short post soon about my top apps of 2022, which in this case are those apps that caused behavioral changes. And Brave is at the top of the list.

Discovering more music and more about music

wolters asks:

Thank you for your discussions on music lately…I have enjoyed the music topics immensely.

Thanks. I may/may not publish something like “My Favorite Music of 2022,” which is based on my year-end YouTube Music recommendations and the recap playlist it created for me. I’m not sure how far off-topic this is for the site. But … maybe. I started it.

You mentioned that you like Professor of Rock and I cannot agree more…he has excellent, well thought content and often with impressive interviews. Do you watch Rick Beato? I was curious on your thoughts about him. I find his music theory to be interesting though his videos get a little “clickbaity”….

I do. Those are my two top YouTube channels for music, and I subscribe to both. In fact, Beato might be the reason that Sting somehow factored into my year-end list: I don’t actually listen to Sting or the Police all that much, but Beato interviewed Sting this past year, and I did create a Sting playlist as a result. (I created a lot of playlists, though, and listen to others much more.)

Anyway.

Do you have other favorite music podcasts or YouTube channels you could recommend?

Yes.

I strongly recommend Sunset Sound Recorders, which is going through an incredible history of all the bands that have recorded there (Van Halen, especially, Prince, and more), and those discussions are excellent. The Hindley Street Country Club is literally just this incredible multi-person band from Australia that duplicates hit pop and rock songs nearly perfectly; they’re incredible. I really like Full in Bloom, which is mostly about hard rock, but only watch/listen when it’s bands I care about. And I subscribe to the Def Leppard and Collective Soul channels because I’m a fan.

Happy Holidays everyone! There’s no First Ring Daily next week, but I’ll be around all week as usual. –Paul