Thurrott Daily: February 12

Thurrott Daily: January 12

A few tidbits from around the web.

2/12/2016 5:43:39 PM

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Blast from the past: Use Windows 3.x in your web browser

Here’s some fun for you old-school Windows fans: You can now run complete Windows 3.x installs directly from your web browser. The The Windows 3.x Showcase is “a collection of curated Windows 3.x software, meant to show the range of software products available for the 3.x Operating System in the early 1990s.”

Good stuff.

This should have been framed as an open letter to Russia

In what appears to be interesting timing given recent news about Russia wanting to “ban” Windows, Microsoft has reminded the world that Windows in fact the most secure OS for governments.

Windows 10 has been designed to address security threats in a world of escalating risks. As we were building Windows 10, security was a prime focus. And we’ve incorporated several innovative technologies into our new operating system to protect governments against both current and future threats.

Windows 10 is our best Windows yet, and the security it provides is no exception. As governments work to keep their information safe, Windows 10 is right there beside them, helping to protect them against the most nefarious threats. To learn more about Windows 10 security settings, please see ourWindows 10 Enterprise security guides.

I’m surprised they don’t mention that governments gets source code access to Windows, too.

Minor job cuts at Microsoft in Finland

This garnered big headlines in Microsoft blogosphere, but it’s not really worthy of that much attention: According to a report in the Finnish newspaper Helsigin Sanomat, Microsoft is laying off “dozens” of employees there. I found out about thisfrom Mary Jo, but here’s a translation of the pertitent part of the report:

Software company Microsoft intends to cut dozens of jobs in Finland … especially in marketing.

The reduction is due to the fact that the company’s phone business is in deep trouble and are forced to cut costs.

The job cuts are on top of the thousands of jobs Microsoft cut last July.

“No, Microsoft’s Surface Isn’t Beating the iPad”

Sounds like something I wrote months ago. Oh, right.

Google is killing Picasa, moving users to Google Photos

Google announced today that it is killing off its web-based Picasa photo service and will be pushing users to Google Photos. Since they are the same backend, and Google Photos is superior, no harm no foul.

We’ve decided to retire Picasa over the coming months in order to focus entirely on a single photo service in Google Photos. We believe we can create a much better experience by focusing on one service that provides more functionality and works across mobile and desktop, rather than divide our efforts across two different products.

For those of you who don’t want to use Google Photos or who still want to be able to view specific content, such as tags, captions or comments, we will be creating a new place for you to access your Picasa Web Albums data. That way, you will still be able to view, download, or delete your Picasa Web Albums, you just won’t be able to create, organize or edit albums (you would now do this in Google Photos).

The bad news? Google is killing the Picasa desktop application too. This was their alternative to Windows Live Photos, which I coincidentally just wrote about.

As of March 15, 2016, we will no longer be supporting the Picasa desktop application. For those who have already downloaded this—or choose to do so before this date—it will continue to work as it does today, but we will not be developing it further, and there will be no future updates. If you choose to switch to Google Photos, you can continue to upload photos and videos using the desktop uploader at photos.google.com/apps.

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