A new version of SmartScreen Filter has been integrated into the Windows 8 Developer Preview. It is not clear yet if the feature will make it into the final version of Windows 8 in this form, or at all, but it is likely that it does. Whenever you execute a file that you have downloaded from the Internet, it is first checked by SmartScreen Filter against a database. Files that cannot be identified are blocked automatically, and a warning is displayed instead.

Windows protected your PC

Windows SmartScreen prevented an unrecognized program from starting. Running this program might put your PC at risk.

The only two options on the screen are the highlighted OK button, and a more info link that is nearly as distinguishable from the background. A click on OK closes the message and blocks the executable from being started. If you want to start the program, you need to click on More Info. This changes the Windows protected your PC screen slightly.

Microsoft displays publisher and program information, and a run anyway button. The program will be executed on your system if you click on that button.

This feature has the potential to cost you some time and a lot of nerves. If you are running an up to date antivirus software, you probably have no need for SmartScreen Filter’s additional protection.

Disabling SmartScreen Filter In Windows 8

You can disable SmartScreen Filter in the Windows Control Panel. Use Windows-Pause to bring it up, and click on Control Panel in the address bar afterwards. Select System and Security and then Action Center afterwards.

Select Change SmartScreen Settings on the left. This opens the following menu where you can turn Windows SmartScreen off.

The following options are available:

• Require approval from an administrator before running unrecognized programs from the Internet (recommended)
• Give a warning before running unrecognized programs from the Internet, but don’t require administrator approval
• Turn off Windows SmartScreen

Windows SmartScreen could be Windows 8′s User Account Control. A feature that aims to make the system more secure and annoys the hell out of users at the same time. (thanks Caschy for the tip)

Ciuvo identifies items on shopping sites automatically, pulls price and other information from its database, and displays those information in a small toolbar that it attaches to the top of the web page.

This toolbar highlights the cheapest price it found in its database, the number of total sites carrying the item, and links to additional information like product videos.

You can use the information to compare the price on the site you are currently on to the cheapest price that Ciuvo found in its product database. This can be reassuring if the site you are on has the cheapest price, or a money saver if it does not. Details about each offer are displayed in the menu that opens up when you move the mouse cursor over offers in the toolbar.

Here you see the price and shipping information, whether the product is available, the store’s rating and a short description of the product.

A click opens the item’s page on the shopping site in a new browser tab. It is still important to compare the product details on all shipping pages to make sure that the same product is offered on both. The add-on had for instance issues identifying different product versions on a single Amazon item page. It always compared the price of the default product with its database.

Ciuvo checks YouTube for product videos which can be viewed directly on the shopping site. Just hover with your mouse over the video menu and select one of the videos to watch it directly in an overlay on the page.

Here is a short add-on demonstration video.

Ciuvo is only compatible with select online shops in the US, UK, Austria, Germany, France and Poland. Firefox users interested in an unobtrusive price comparison add-on should check it out.

One user recently created a Perl script that dumped all of the site’s magnet links. The dump contains more than 1.5 million torrents indexed by The Pirate Bay website in a fairly simple format:

ID|Name|Size in bytes|Seeders|Leechers|Magnet Link Hash

The whole archive takes up 90 Megabytes in zipped format, and 164 Megabytes unpacked on the system. It is not clear why seeder and leecher information have been added, as they are constantly changing.

The magnet link only contains the hash, and not the necessary link structure to load it into a torrent downloader. You need to add magnet:?xt=urn:btih: in front of the hash for that to work correctly.

You need to load the archive in a program that is capable of loading a 164 Megabyte text document (Notepad++ is an option). You can use the text editor’s search to find the files you are looking for.

There is a discrepancy between the number of torrent links in the dump and the number of torrents listed on The Pirate Bay website. The footer lists 4.5 million torrents, of which not all are hosted by the site. It is also noteworthy that adult torrents have not been included in the dump.

The author of the script has released the script at Pastebin.

The dump is significant for a number of reasons. First that a large number of torrents fit in a small archive, and second that the archive will remain functional even if The Pirate Bay would shut down completely.

This archive could furthermore help if The Pirate Bay website is blocked in a network or country. (via Torrentfreak)

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google is about to launch Google Drive for real this time. Sources are not disclosed, and information other than the name of the cloud based hosting service are not offered in the article.

It is likely that Google Drive will offer free basic storage options and upgrades for users and teams that require more than the basic amount of storage. The pricing structure has not been revealed yet, but it seems possible that Google could simply add Drive o the list of services that you can already purchase additional storage for.

When you compare those prices to Dropbox’s tiered structure, you will notice that they are a lot cheaper. Google Drive users had to pay $5 per year for 20 Gigabytes of extra space, while the cheapest storage increase on Dropbox would set them back $99 per year for 50 Gigabytes.

Then again, it is not only about storage space but also about functionality and accessibility.

Techcrunch back in September of 2011 mentioned that Google Drive would come with a synchronization software to sync data between desktop computers and mobile devices. If that is the case, and if support goes beyond Windows and Android, then it could force Dropbox to adjust their pricing structure to stay competitive.

It is not clear yet if Google will encrypt data stored on their servers.

Drive ultimately would allow users to access data on the Internet and on all supported devices.

It is likely that Google will make the service available under http://drive.google.com/. The page is currently returning a 404 not found error which indicates that it has already been created by Google (if you open a bogus subdomain you get a different error).

This looks like a reasonable time to launch the beta given that Microsoft previously said it would release it at the end of February.  For those on the official testing programme or who subscribe to their software via the MDSN website, with Windows 7 these groups received the beta around one week to ten days before so if this is repeated this could mean that they get delivery of the beta any time from the 17th of this month, which is what I was expecting personally.

The Consumer Preview will include many features not seen in the previous Developer Preview release, which Microsoft gave out publicly in September last year.  This is because many of those features either had not been written yet or were not finished.  One of the things that is set to change considerably is the new Metro interface, and several leaks in the last couple of weeks have shown that in some ways Microsoft has changed it significantly.

The Developer Preview has received some criticisms from business users and IT Pros, primarily because of Metro, but it remains to be seen how many of those criticisms are answered satisfactorily by the Consumer Preview.  Business users should not be concerned about the name “Consumer Preview” either as this is basically code for, “We’ve got developers excited [hopefully] but now we need to spur those developers on and make sure they’ve not forgotten about us by getting millions of members of the public excited as well.”

New features that have been demonstrated but not yet used by the public, including the new “Windows App Store” will open at the same time.  The final release of the operating system is expected later in the year around October.

Google Wallet as of now is only available in the United States, on two wireless providers – Sprint and AT&T, and only if the Samsung Nexus S 4G smartphone is used. Whenever Google Wallet users make purchases, they need to enter the pin to verify it. One of the weaknesses of the system is that Google decided to use a four digit pin limiting the possibilities to just 10,000. While that is convenient for the user, it is problematic from a security point of view.

Joshua Rubin over at Zvelo published an article yesterday that describes how his company analyzed the data Google Wallet saves to the phone to find out that the pin could be brute forced quite easily.

Researchers at Zvelo discovered that Google was saving the pin in encrpyted form on the smartphone. With the hash and salt discovered, they immediately started to program a brute forcing software to decrypt the information.

Google Wallet Hacker displays the Google Wallet pin in about a second after it is run. The program has to be run on the smartphone Google Wallet is used, which is currently the greatest restriction.

The vulnerability has been disclosed to Google before it was publicly disclosed. The system has not been updated yet though which poses a risk to Google Wallet users. Mitigating factors have been posted by Zvelo which may help Google Wallet users keep their pin secure from brute forcing attacks.

• Do Not “Root” the Cell Phone – Doing so will be one less step for a thief.
• Enable Lock Screens – “Face Unlock,” “Pattern,” “PIN” and “Password” all increase physical security to the device. “Slide,” however, does not.
• Disable USB Debugging – When enabled, the data on mobile devices can be accessed without first passing a lock screen challenge unless Full Disk Encryption is also enabled.
• Enable Full Disk Encryption – This will prevent even USB Debugging from bypassing the lock screen.
• Maintain Device Up-To-Date – Ensure the device is current with the latest official software.

Should you be using Google Wallet right now? This is ultimately your decision, I for one would refrain from using it until the issue gets resolved.

First thing that users notice is the new installer. Avast notes that the beta versions can be installed over existing Avast 6 installations, or separately on the system. The custom installation provides options to install a typical, minimal or custom version of the security software on the system. Especially the latter option should appeal to security interested computer users, as it allows them to block modules from being installed on their computer. Here it is possible to disable any module that you do not want to use, and not only some which seems to be more common in custom installers. This can for instance be useful if those modules are not needed or interfering with other security software installed on the system.

Avast 7 Beta is compatible with all recent 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the windows operating system and the Windows 8 Developer Preview version released last year. The program interface has received a facelift as well. Core program features are available in the side bar menu.

The Real-Time Shields display for instance displays visual information about each security module installed on the system.

One of the new features that Avast has integrated into the beta versions is a cloud based reputation service which improves the decision making process of the program.

Here is the full list of new features:

• New installer
• UI facelift
• FileRep service (cloud based)
• Streaming updates
• Sandbox & Autosandbox improvements
• Browser protection improvements
• Remote assistance feature to help your friends with computer troubles
• Support tool
• Export/Import settings
• Screensaver facelift
• runs on Win8 Developer Preview

It is recommended to check the known issues before installing the beta software on a system.

- In some cases, WebRep Chrome plugin is not installed correctly
- The Safezone browser is opening each time when you switch back and to the Safezone
- Plugins for Outlook 2k3 and 2k7 show “runtime error” message
- Sometimes autosandbox toaster does not close correctly
- Problems with avast sounds on Win 7 and Win Vista
- Remote assistance feature sometimes crashes on Win 7 32b, Win Vista 64b
- avast! account functionality is disabled

Avast’s Auto Sandbox feature sounds like a real winner, if Avast gets the detection right. It puts suspicious processes automatically in a sandbox to prevent them from damaging the underlying operating system, other programs and files.

I would not recommend running the beta version in a productive environment though. It is likely that Avast will release the final version of the program in the coming months. (via Vishal)

Omnibox Prerendering basically preloads some of the pages that are presented to you in the browser’s address bar. This reduces the time between hitting the Enter key on the keyboard and seeing the page fully rendered in the browser window. It is not clear how Chrome selects those pages, but it is likely that your previous browsing history and bookmarks may have something to do with it. This does create some overhead though, especially if the browser does not select the right pages that often.

Chrome users who do not want or need the prerendering feature can disable it in the following way:

• Open chrome://flags/ in the Chrome address bar and hit enter.
• Locate the flag Prerender from omnibox and change the feature’s state to disabled.



The second new feature is the automatic scanning of executable files like exe or msi in Chrome to warn you if you are downloading a malicious file or a file from a host that is know to host a high percentage of malicious downloads.

Google maintains a whitelist of files that are not checked. All other files are checked with Google to retrieve more information. While not a fail safe approach, it can warn users if they are about to download known malicious files. The concept looks similar to Microsoft’s SmartScreen Filter. It does not seem possible to disable the feature right now in the browser.

In addition, a total of 20 security vulnerabilities were closed in Chrome 17 of which one received the highest possible severity rating of critical.

You can read up on the changes at the official Chrome Release blog. Chrome updates should already been applied to existing Chrome Stable installations. You can verify the version with a click on Wrench > About Google Chrome. There you can also download and apply the update if the browser has not been updated yet.

The browser add-on, available for both the Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome web browser, monitors all browser tabs automatically from the moment it has been installed. It cannot notify you of updates if a website is closed though, which means that it is best for users who have their messaging and social sites up whenever the browser is up and running.

Tab Notifier can display notifications even if the browser is minimized or not visible on the screen.

The extension watches all open tabs but the active tab by default. This behavior can be modified in the extension options to a more stricter policy. Instead of watching all sites, it is possible to configure the add-on to watch only sites listed in the settings window.

Notifications furthermore can be configured to close automatically after a set amount of seconds, which may be useful for users who receive many throughout the day.

A right-click on a web page and the selection of the configure tab notifier for site context menu option displays a site specific configuration menu. This overrides the global extension settings so that it either offers to run a whitelist or blacklist of sites.

Advanced users can use regular expressions to fine tune title matches for specific sites. This can be useful if a site uses different page titles instead of just one (or to be only notified if the notification count reaches ten or more messages).

Notifications are displayed in the lower right corner of the screen, and not in the browser window. Firefox users can download Tab Notifier from the Mozilla Add-ons repository, Chrome users from the developer’s website. Apple Macintosh users need to have Growl installed to use the extension.

TrueCrypt is that solid that its developers need to update it only once or twice a year. The last update dates back to September 2011 where support for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion was added to the application, and the update before that was almost a year before that.

Yesterday the first 2012 update was released. The change log over at the TrueCrypt website lists minor improvements and bug fixes as the only changes in TrueCrypt 7.1a. It does not go into further detail, other than stating that these have been applied to all supported operating systems.

TrueCrypt users can download the latest version of the application from the official project website. You need to close all TrueCrypt instances running on the system before the update can be installed.

Should you install the update if you are running a version of TrueCrypt that is not causing problems or issues on your system? I’d say you may still want to update to TrueCrypt 7.1a, considering that the update may have resolved rare bugs that you might experience in the future if you do not apply the update.

If you are a new TrueCrypt user you may be interested in our collection of TrueCrypt tutorials that we have published over the years. Here is a short selection of guides to get you started:

• Create a secure data safe with True Crypt
• Create a secure USB Data Safe
• How to Create a Hidden Encrypted Volume With True Crypt
• Storing Data In The Cloud With Dropbox And TrueCrypt
• Disguising True Crypt Volumes In MP4 Videos
• TruPax, Create TrueCrypt Containers Without True Crypt

Are you a TrueCrypt user, or do you prefer a different encryption software? (via Caschy)

Google is about to launch Screenwise, a project that allows them to monitor the sites users visit and how they use them. For that, participating users get paid up to $25 in gift cards over the course of a year. Users who sign up get a $5 Amazon gift card right away, and then additional $5 gift cards for every three months they stay in the project.

According to the information posted on the Screenwise Landing panel, Google attempts to use the information to “improve Google products and services and make a better online experience for everyone”.

Participating users need to download the Google Screenwise browser extension for the Chrome web browser and use the browser for their Internet activities. Eligible are Google account users who are at least 13 years of age. Google notes on the page that the company will not save user email addresses, or “associate it with any other personally identifiable information”.

Google has partnered up with Knowledge Networks, a research company that specializes in Internet research.

Interested users can submit their email address to receive notifications when registration opens. According to the landing page information, users will receive participation information in the coming days.

The process, even though opt-in, will certainly face its share of criticism, especially since Google is currently already facing public pressure over their privacy policy and terms of service changes.

The question is, how many users are willing to give up their privacy for 12 months for $25 in Amazon gift certificates? What’s your take on this?

The incident came to light only recently, when hackers started to upload code sneak peeks and information to the Internet.

Symantec by then asked users of pcAnywhere to stop using the software to analyze and mitigate any arising risks. Symantec later on released a security recommendations whitepaper that described possible risk scenarios.

• The encoding and encryption elements within pcAnywhere are vulnerable, making users susceptible to man-in-the-middle attacks, depending on the configuration and use of the product. If a man-in-the-middle attack should occur, the malicious user could steal session data or credentials.
• A secondary risk: If a malicious user obtains the cryptographic key, they can launch unauthorized remote control sessions and thus access systems and sensitive data.
• If the cryptographic key itself is using Active Directory credentials, it is also possible for attackers to perpetrate other malicious activities on the network.
• In an internal pcAnywhere environment, if a network sniffer was in place on a customer’s internal network and the attacker had access to the encryption details, the pcAnywhere traffic could be intercepted and decoded. This implies that a customer either has a malicious insider who planted the network sniffer or has an unknown Botnet operating in their environment. As always, security best practices are encouraged to mitigate this risk.
• Since pcAnywhere exchanges user login credentials, the risk exists that a network sniffer or Botnet could intercept this exchange of information, though it would still be difficult to actually interpret the data even if the pcAnywhere source code is released.
• For environments with remote users, this credential exchange introduces an additional level of exposure to external attacks.

These information where later removed from the whitepaper after a patch had been issued.

The hackers in the meantime have released email correspondence on PasteBin. Here it gets a bit blurry as both sides apparently tried to broker a deal that would prevent the source codes from being released to the public. According to Symantec, it was a sting operation from the very beginning. The hackers on the other hand stated that they tried to “humiliate them” further.

A torrent of the source code has since then been released on the popular Bittorrent indexing site The Piratebay where it quickly climbed into the top 5 seeded files of the Misc category.

The hackers have already announced that they will also release the Norton Antivirus source code.

Should Norton and Symantec customers be worried about the source code release? Symantec stated that user’s who have upgraded the products to the latest version have nothing to worry about.

I’m writing this as an outsider looking in.  I’ve no real idea why Microsoft have chosen to keep quiet on so many things, such as having Windows 8 default to the desktop as the main user interface which seems to be the biggest and most common question.  I do have some insight into the company, the products and the people behind Windows 8 however, so hopefully I might be able to shed some light as to the reasons why, and what the historical perspective of this is.

Before Windows 7 the Windows betas were a mess.  The official testing community, of which I have been a member for years, usually got access to builds of a new operating system during the alpha stage.  This was pretty pointless as if Microsoft wanted you to find bugs you would probably find one within five minutes of installing the thing that would prevent you from using it completely.  In fact Microsoft have said that the majority of bugs reported by testers over the years were things the company already knew about.  One of the problems associated with such an open development process was that features that never made it to the final product, either because they never worked reliably, or because the company simply ran out of development time, did on occasion cause some distress for testers and bad publicity for Microsoft.  A couple of great examples are the relational file system WinFS and a new Guest Mode that would roll back user settings and files when someone new finished using your PC.  Both were slated for release in Windows Vista and neither worked properly.  WinFS, under a new name, is only making a comeback now, and only in Windows Server 8.

It was after this that the former head of Microsoft’s Office division, Steven Sinofsky, took charge of Windows development.  Sinofsky was already a very secretive man and much of the secrecy now revolves around him, his personality and his desire to make certain that the only information that makes it out into the public domain is the correct information.

Thus Microsoft launched the Building Windows 8 blog where Sinofsky and his team have been trickling out information steadily since shortly before the Developer Preview of Windows 8 was released.  We can be certain that if Microsoft didn’t need to get developers writing Metro apps we certainly wouldn’t have seen Windows 8 then at all, and it wouldn’t be appearing for the first time until now.  This is because Sinofsky and the Windows development team hate releasing anything that’s neither finished nor ready.

Alas this was what they had to do with the Developer Preview and, as such, it’s had a lot of very bad, and probably equally unfair, press.  What Microsoft didn’t do was adjust their marketing strategy at the same time and, as such, the communication about the operating system has focused almost entirely on what’s new, what’s cool, where huge improvements have been made, but that it has not actually been answering many of the questions people have been asking.

This could be because at the time the answers to those questions simply didn’t exist.  Don’t forget that Windows 8 still had an awful lot of development to get through after the DP was signed off at the beginning of last August.  That’s a long time ago now.  It could equally be though that it wasn’t the discussion Microsoft wanted to have.  For example, telling IT Pros that they could simply switch to the desktop as their default UI could very well have undermined all the work they have been doing getting the world, and software developers, excited about Metro.  After all, if Metro was something that could just be switched off, why would people worry about it and you’d very quickly find it being relegated to a minor sub-feature in Windows like Media Centre.

I may be wrong with my assumptions and assertions here, but it’s certainly true that nobody within Microsoft is coming up with the answers.  This might change in the coming weeks or it might not.  One thing is for certain though, the wider world is simply not going to stop asking.

Android users can download Chrome Beta from Android Market, where it is available for download. A version of the browser has also been downloaded and made available again by members of the XDA-Developer forum.

Chrome for Android Beta ships with some Chrome desktop features, including the browser’s omnibox to search and navigate directly from the browser’s address bar, a tab driven interface, and the private browsing mode (incognito mode). Other features of the desktop version, like themes and extensions support are currently not available in the beta client.

Chrome for Android furthermore synchronizes bookmarks and open tabs with desktop versions.For synchronization to work, you need to sign in to Chrome on all devices that you want to synchronize.

The mobile version of Chrome introduces several device specific features. This includes options to flip through all open tabs with a swipe, or the new link zooming feature that makes the selection of links more comfortable in the mobile browser.

Google has released a video that introduces the Chrome for Android beta version. The video demonstrates the tab swiping capabilities of the browser among other things.

Most user comments on Android Market, Google Plus and other announcement locations are quite positive. The average rating currently on Android market is 4.3. Critics have pointed out that Chrome for Android does not support Flash, and that it is not possible to switch to the desktop version of a site if available. Positive aspects are speed mainly and the synchronization of tabs and bookmarks.

Google plans to release the mobile browser in other countries in the near future. It is not clear at this point in time if pre-Android 4.0 devices will also be able to download and install the browser. (via Caschy)

Have you played around with Chrome for Android yet? Let me know what you think of this initial release in the comments.

All drive partitions are listed underneath each drive with their assigned drive letters, file system, size and status.

Below the drive listing is an area with six tabs that display information about the selected hard drive or partition.

The Information tab lists everything there is to know about the selected drive. From the firmware version over transfer mode and version, to the drive’s rotation rate, temperature, transfer features and controller information.

The S.M.A.R.T. tab lists all Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology information that the drive provides. This can be helpful for troubleshooting purposes, as you get realtime data that may reveal upcoming drive issues. Error logs, including self-test logs, write and read stream error logs or extended self-test logs are displayed in the logs tab next to it.

The Control tab lists supported drive features and whether they are enabled or not. This includes features such as S.M.A.R.T. but also Advanced Power Management, Advanced Acoustic Management or Auto Offline Data Collection. State changes are not saved even though it is possible to click on on or off to switch a feature on or off.

DHE Drive Info offers additional tools that are mostly relevant to technicians. This includes a built-in sector browser, a list of all supported features and commands, and an option to create reports via the File > Save Reports menu.

Regular users can configure the program to display a notification if a drive’s temperature reaches a selected threshold.

DH Drive Info is a useful hard drive diagnostic software for the Windows operating system. The portable nature of the application makes it a good fit for a troubleshooting DVD or USB stick.

You will notice immediately that WunderMap uses Google Maps as the underlying mapping service. The zoomed in map displays weather station information by default. This includes the temperature and wind strength and direction, with options to switch to dew point / humidity or precipitation instead. A click on a weather station displays all available information, plus forecasts.

Additional weather related information are selectable on the right. From severe weather and satellite imagery to webcams, traffic or storm reports. All that it takes to enable the new layers is to check an item to have it displayed on the map. Most offer options to change data sources or display different kinds of information on the map.

One interesting option is available with a click on the clock icon next to the selected location. Here you can go back in time (hour, day, month or year) for information about the weather location at a specific date and time in history.

You can furthermore select future dates (in the day range) to see weather forecasts on the map.

The different layers, and the ability to go back in time, make WunderMap an interesting service. It is usually not something that you would go to to get a weather report though. The service has its specialized uses, you can for instance pull past data from holiday locations to see how the weather conditions have been during your planned stay.

Some layers are only available if you are displaying a location in the United States. You can check out Wundermap here.

Some might now bring forth the old argument of having nothing to fear if you have got nothing to hide, which has been refuted over and over again. One argument against is that you may value your privacy. There is really no need for someone else to see family photos, financial documents or private email messages when you are crossing the border.

Zer0 is a basic program for Windows that deletes files so that they become unrecoverable on the system. The developers state that it is using a “high security file deletion” algorithm, but fail to elaborate on that. Tests confirmed that files can’t be recovered with software like Recuva or Undelete My Files.

While that may do for private use, it is not recommended for corporate environments because of the lack of information.

Files can only be added via drag and drop to the program interface. Each file is listed with its full file path, size and a status code.

A click on delete removes the selected files from the system and overwrites the occupied space on the hard drive so that it cannot be recovered afterwards. Successful deletions are indicated in the status column in the interface.

Zer0 is nowhere near as sophisticated as Eraser for instance. The program still gets the job done even though you’d probably would want to skip it if you are deleting a lot of files regularly on the system.

You can download the program from the developer website. Please note that a “free of all sponsored” offers version is provided on the download page next to the regular program versions. If you download the regular version, you will notice that it is filled to the brim with those offers that install toolbars and other gimmicks that you may not need on your system.

Free File Wiper is an alternative that provides more information about the file deletion process.

I don’t want you to think though that I will be spouting Microsoft’s official PR line, the company is perfectly capable of doing that on their own and they don’t need me to help them.  What I want to bring to the discussion though are the thoughts from someone who has spent some time with the OS, knows perhaps a bit more about what’s coming than I generally let on  ;)  and understands the different aspects of the OS in some depth.

Many of Martin’s concerns centre around the new dual-interface between the desktop and the Metro UI.  This is a legitimate question about why we either need or should have a dual-interface in an operating system.  I feel that Windows 8 is a transitional OS between the way we’ve been doing things now for around 30 years and the way we’ll be doing them in the future.  Anybody who has spent any time working with a tablet will intuitively use Metro and won’t even think about the fact that they’ve only got one (or two) apps open at a time.  We’ve just gotten used to it.

Martin is quite right though that people often have other things running in the background such as messenger apps, multiple browser tabs and so on.  If you look at the way some tablet operating systems handle these you can get some idea of the direction that we’re going in with Windows 8.  Don’t assume for a moment though that Metro in Windows 8, as seen in the Developer Preview or as expanded in the Consumer Preview (beta) will be anything like Metro when Windows 9 arrives, or even Metro when Windows 8 Service Pack 1 is delivered.  As a UI it’s still a concept, even though it’s roots can be traced back almost a decade ot Windows Media Centre, and as such much is set to change and evolve in the next three years.

So how this multi-application space works in Metro with Windows 8 will be determined by how people and companies write their apps.  We will see a great many different ways of doing things as many imaginative people bring their own ideas and concepts to the Metro UI, and it will be interesting to see where these take us and what Microsoft officially adopt.

Ultimately then we will lose the desktop.  The fact that we’ve been using it for the last thirty years doesn’t mean there isn’t a better way of working.  Metro may not be it, but we have to start somewhere.  I’m not sure how much I’ll use Metro myself but despite having a very uncluttered desktop, the prospect of having an interactive one that is telling me, all in one place, what my latest email is, who’s mentioning me on Twitter, what the forecast is for tomorrow, what my next appointment is, the current currency rate between the £ and the US$ and more is very appealing.

Regards using the desktop, Microsoft have said that, even if it’s just in group policy, you will be able to set the desktop as your default UI.  This will be important for people for whom all their software requires it.  While we’ve seen some very imaginative tablet apps appear such as Adobe Photoshop Touch, it will be several years before top quality professional-grade apps appear for Metro.

Martin also raised concerns about using Metro and the new Windows-orb’less desktop with a mouse and keyboard.  While Microsoft have not announced anything yet, they have said that everything you can do with touch you will be able to do with the mouse and keyboard.  Personally I’m looking forward to seeing what new mouse gestures they offer.  Also don’t forget that very soon we will have monitors and laptops with Kinect sensors in them as well.

Martin is quite right though that as things stand the dual-interface, and how you switch between them and control them, can be confusing.  It’s partly for this reason that one of my new books “Windows 8: Out of the Box” has been commissioned where it probably wouldn’t have been for Windows 7.  On this we’ll just have to see what Microsoft offer us to increase usability and to minimise the learning curve.

So what about the Start Menu?  Microsoft wrote a very long blog post detailing why they were making the changes they were back in October.  I am of the opinion however that the Start Menu should have been dropped when the Windows 7 taskbar was introduced.  These essentially offered us two completely different ways to find and launch programs.  All Microsoft need to do is find a way to control (or bucket) all the extra programs (uninstallers / utilities etc.) that appear in the Start Menu and all new programs should be pinned to the taskbar by default.  For my part, I won’t be sad to see the Start Menu go.

To reassure you Martin there is a great deal more coming for desktop users and IT Pros, but that none of it was finished in time for the Developer Preview.  When the Consumer Preview is released in a couple of weeks we will all see what these features are but Microsoft have promised several hundred small and large features in total still to come.

Let’s be honest that Windows 8, as I said earlier is a transitional OS, much in the way early builds of Apple’s OS X were when the company was moving people off old PowerPC software.  It is probably going to be painful for some, but if there really is a new way of working ahead of us that can genuinely help productivity, usability and most importantly accessibility with computers, then I believe we should embrace it.  For a while though it will have to co-exist with the traditional desktop and there can never be a truly integrated way to do that.

Most laptop keyboards display a key’s Fn action in blue on the keyboard. To activate one of the features, one has to press the Fn key and the key the function is mapped to.

Function key layouts may differ depending on the manufacturer of the laptop. Media keys most of the time are mapped to the F-key bar at the top.

One of the issues here is that it is often not that comfortable to use these keys. It may be difficult to nearly impossible to use the functionality with just one hand.

SfunKey has been designed to provide comfortable access to some of the extra keys. It maps a total of 12 keys to the F-keys on the keyboard. These features can now be activated by pressing the key twice on the keyboard, which is more comfortable than having to use the Fn key with one of the F-keys.

The following actions are available after the portable program has been launched (from F1 to F12): Sleep, LCD Brightness-. LCD Brightness+, Connect to Projector, Lock PC, Task Manager, Volume Mute, Volume-, Volume+, Previous Track, Play/Pause, Next Track.

The F12 key is not active by default, as it is often reserved by the system.

The program displays selected actions in an on screen display by default which can be disabled in the program settings.

Incompatible programs can be added to the compatibility listing which blocks program features when those applications are running on the system. This may be useful for full screen games for instance.

SFunKey is a handy portable program for mobile users who prefer to access media actions and other actions without the Fn key. The program is compatible with all recent 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Changes have been introduced, but only in select browsers at this point of time. Google Chrome for instance uses sandboxing technology and automatic updates to keep users secure. The global updater that other web browsers use on the other hand is not nearly as thorough when it comes to downloading and applying updates as soon as they get released.

Adobe today has released a new Flash preview version for the Windows operating system that contains a new feature for the Firefox web browser.

Flash Player Protected Mode aims to limit the impact of Flash based attacks in Firefox on Windows systems. The new Flash Player feature is compatible with Firefox 4.0+ on Windows Vista or higher. Only a 32-bit version of the Flash Player release is available for download.

The security mode is automatically enabled when users view Flash Player files in the Firefox web browser. Flash contents are executed in a restricted environment that prevents attacks from reaching the operating system or other applications. It is basically a sandbox comparable with Google Chrome’s sandboxing technology, Protected Mode in Adobe Reader, and Protected View in Office 2010.

Firefox users running the new version will notice that two processes are started whenever Flash contents are accessed in the web browser with Protected Mode enabled.

Adobe notes that these are the “broker and sandbox” processes which only run if Protected Mode is enabled. These are child processes of the plugin-container.exe process if enabled in the browser. Plugin-Container adds crash protection to the browser.

The Flash Player Protected Mode version for the Firefox browser has known issues. On 64-bit Windows systems for instance, a right-click on Flash contents causes Firefox to hang. Here is the list of known issues.

• Flash Access support is not enabled in this build.
• Secure Sockets are not working in this build. (3101130)
  Open and Save dialogs can hang in Windowless Mode (3096944)
• Camera streams fail to play back when encoded with the H.264/AVC codecs (3096918)
• On 64-bit Windows, Right-Clicking Flash Content cases Firefox to hang (3096953)
• Custom context menus and clipboard copy does not work (3096977)
• Local Security Dialogs are not displayed (3096714)
  When printing to “Microsoft XPS Document Writer”, the “Save File As” dialog is always minimized (3096958)
  Some Stage3D content may cause Adobe Flash Player to exit silently (#3049089)
• Closing a SecureSocket connection may block Adobe Flash Player execution and result in timeout (#3045631)
• Camera fails to play back when camera stream is being encoded with H264/AVC codec (#3049298)
• IME may not be active in Windows Vista at times between browser sessions (#3055127)
• In SandBox Stand-Alone Player, some menu items in the Microsoft IME language bar do not respond to mouse clicks (2947549)
• Some Windows function keys such as F5 may prevent the Japanese IME candidate box to pop up (#3055096

Adventurous Firefox users find the Flash Player Incubator preview release over at Adobe Labs.

A final release version of the new Flash plugin version moves the Firefox browser security wise closer to Google Chrome.