Ask Paul: May 7 (Premium) (Updated)

UPDATE: Microsoft has released a preview version of Project Moca (Outlook Spaces) on the web, which someone had asked about below. --Paul

Happy Friday! Here’s another great set of reader questions to kick off the weekend a bit early.
Movie time
bschnatt asks:

Movie time! Believe it or not, I've never seen Casablanca or The Godfather. I'm actually a noire fan, so the former might be a surprise to y'all - it's just never popped up on Prime or Netflix or over-the-air (but to be fair, I rarely look for it). As to the latter, I've already seen Goodfellas and, while it's well done, I've kinda had my fill of dark, crime-oriented epics. I've seen (and own) the Lethal Weapons and Die Hards (among others), and I've moved on to lighter fair, but I'm still open-minded about this. Is Casablanca all it's cracked up to be? Is The Godfather worth watching, or is it just another shock-fest glorification of violence? I'd also like to know if you like those Fred Astaire / Ginger Rogers movies. I own tons of 'em... ;)

I’m not a huge fan of Casablanca, personally, and it’s not because it’s black and white. It just feels like one of those old movies that were made on a sound stage instead of being on location, which would have made it a lot more interesting to me.

But the Godfather series is another thing entirely. The first two movies are among the greatest movies ever made, and while most people dump on Godfather Part III, I actually liked it. That movie was just re-released as The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone that we’ll be watching soon.

When I had my second ACL surgery in the very early 1990s, I had to stay home from work for a week or so, and one day I had rented all three Godfather movies so I could watch them back to back. When my wife came home from work, she asked me how my day was, and I told her it was the most depressing day I’d ever had. I was mostly joking, but the movies are a bit dark. But, absolutely classics and worth the time.
Microsoft + Linux
bschnatt also asks:

We've all had our chuckles about Microsoft's sudden love of Linux (ahem), but what do you think would happen if Microsoft actually officially endorsed Ubuntu as the be-all, end-all and announced that they would be releasing all their "big name" apps for it? Do you think there are people that use Linux not because they hate Microsoft, but just because they hate Windows?

Sure, but Linux desktop usage has never really amounted to much, and Microsoft embracing any one Linux distribution---or some number of them---from a desktop app perspective probably won’t change anything at this point. I understand putting Microsoft Edge and Visual Studio Code on Linux, but I feel like Microsoft’s core software suite for end users---Office, of course, Teams---is covered adequately on Linux by web apps. And I doubt Microsoft would make a bigger investment in such a small market. All it would do is further chip away at Windows if it was at all s...