A good OS is like a football referee

2015-09-16 -

I was amused, and encouraged, by the letter from Keith Pearson (‘Lukewarm about Windows 10’, Issue 457), because his views reflected mine about Windows 8. It had its problems, but once I got someone to show me how to get rid of the annoying tiles in favour of my friendly Desktop, it was fine. I never understood all the fuss about the absent Start button, because I’d hardly ever used it for anything except switching off my PC. The icons on the Desktop and Taskbar had always enabled me to go to whatever program I wanted. I moved to Windows 8.1 not to get the Start button, but to have the latest version.

My biggest grumble about Windows 8 was its so-called facility to switch between what I was currently doing, and what I’d done immediately before, whenever my cursor came anywhere near the top-left corner of the screen. I endured a week or so of frustration as my work kept flying off the screen without warning, and then flew back just as quickly (but I knew not how!). Once I found out how, I quickly got that “facility” disabled, too.

It strikes me that a good operating system should be like a good football referee – making things flow without being noticed. Surely it’s only there to enable the things I use (Word, Excel, email, internet) to function, not to be the star of the show itself. I’ve moved to Windows 10 not because there’s anything wrong with Windows 8, but just to be up to date. And I’m another stick-in-the mud who likes his computer to be silent – sorry Cortana!

We’ll try, because we don’t believe Apple should block George’s request on spurious legal grounds. But sadly this isn’t the first time Apple has made life difficult for people in a similar situation to George. Last year, Apple refused Josh and Patrick Grant access to the ipad that had belonged to their mother, who had died of cancer (as reported in the

www.snipca.com/17676). In that case, Apple gave the US Electronic Communications Privacy Act as the reason why it couldn’t

Aunlock the ipad. But we think this was an inappropriate use of the act, which was primarily set up to restrict the US Government’s access to data sent by computers owned by members of the public.

In the UK Apple is actually bound by the Data Protection Act, but this law only places a duty of care on Apple to protect “personal data” that can be used to identify a living individual. Although Apple’s terms and conditions state: “You agree that your account is non-transferable and that any rights to your Apple ID or Content within your account terminate upon your death”, George doesn’t want access to his brother’s account; he just wants the ipad unlocked.

As for a receipt, George only has to access his brother’s bank account showing payment, which he can legally do as the will’s executor. There’s ample legal proof that George is now the legitimate owner, so we can’t see any legal restrictions stopping Apple unlocking the ipad. We’ve explained this to the company, so we’re hoping it will be more flexible than in the past.

www.snipca.com/17631

https://forums.adobe.com

www.snipca.com/17624 https://discussions.apple. com/welcome

https://forum.avast.com

www.snipca.com/17629 http://en.community.dell. com/support-forums

www.snipca.com/17625

www.snipca.com/17628

www.snipca.com/17623

www.snipca.com/17630 http://answers.microsoft.com/ en-us/ie

http://forum.kaspersky.com

https://forums.lenovo.com

http://libreofficeforum.org