Story time....

A few weeks ago, I came across two gift cards to Best Buy that I had been given, but completely forgotten about. I checked them and they were unused and had the full marked amounts.

Not being in need of anything, I decided to purchase an Insignia NS-P08W7100 tablet and folio cover for my Church. (The total cost was below the total gift card amount so, I have a fair amount left over).

I brought the stuff home, put the tablet into the folio, powered it up and began the registration process. I created a temporary Outlook account with the knowledge that a more permanent one would be forthcoming.

The little tablet updated properly (running the 2015 version of Windows 10) and worked well. I took it to Church and let the person would be the primary user spend some time with it.

Two days ago, the tablet received the Anniversary Update for Windows 10. I loaded the OS up and brought the tablet home to get all of the updates...50M FiOS at home vs. 7M DSL at Church.

I then set out to create a more permanent account for the tablet. After the account was opened in Outlook, I then began to wipe the tablet and register it under the new account.

For some unknown reason, the tablet would not fully reset. It kept stopping the process due to an error of some kind each time I tried to execute the factory default.
Having seen this before with my Surface units, I proceeded to download a clean copy of Windows 10.

Now, the tablet was running the Anniversary Edition of Windows 10, and, I thought the it would receive a fresh copy of the OS as Microsoft had not pushed the Creator's Update out to it as of yet.

Wrong....the tablet received the C.U.

I completed the OS and patch downloads and updated the apps.

Now, here is the "fun" part. The tablet came with mobile versions of Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint and Word. Those programs were removed with the new OS. The legacy Notepad and WordPad programs still exist though.

I checked the App Store and the mobile apps are nowhere to be found.

I went to Office and checked out the situation. The usual subscriptions to Office 365 are there. But, towards the bottom of the page, I saw a section devoted to Cloud versions of Office apps.

I checked and the account has been given space in Office Cloud. Of course, there is more space available on One Drive.

So, I'm guessing that going forward, unless we purchase a subscription to Office 365, or purchase one of the untimed Office offerings, users of the tablet will be creating documents using the Cloud and then storing on One Drive.

Being the first time I've experienced something like this, I found creating test documents in Office Cloud and moving them to One Drive a bit cumbersome to the way I've done computing since I first laid my hands on a TRS-80 back in the 8th grade.

Is this the way most computing is going to take place in the not-too-distant future? Is this the principle behind Chromebooks and similar devices? I suppose if I were in school now, as opposed to the 1970's and 80's, this might not seem so unusual. But, to an...dare I say..."old timer", this is going to take some getting used to.

Paul, I'm glad that you asked because I consider you to be more computer-savvy than I am. I also went to an Outlook.com account when my Thunderbird e-mail (through Firefox) went away. I noticed that it offered One Drive, and honestly, I didn't even care. The only thing that I noticed is that when I save documents, it automatically saves them there as well as on my local drive. I suppose that's a good thing for the regular private user, but I can see where it might be an issue for others. I'm looking forward to further discussion on this subject, since it's new to me.

I have a strange feeling Microsoft is looking to be the next big boy telephone company and gather as much information as possible, Hence the reason for all the hacks, their not Microsoft and can't get personal info any other way.

Saving documents to the Cloud isn't all that new to me. What feels odd is using Microsoft Office programs that are not physically installed on the tablet.

Now, on the other hand, the Insignia has only 32G of memory, and, a chunk of that is taken by the OS. So, from that perspective, locating the programs outside the device makes sense.

I'm wondering if this is how Microsoft's pending notebooks will operate. The company is going to have an event on May 2nd that will focus on education.

If corporate and business users aren't jumping up and down over privacy issues they should be.

With the Millennial generation at the helm we just get dumber and dumber.

-Hal

Pilots are trained to fly above or below clouds because if you can't see it is dangerous. Even with instruments that "know" what's up ahead, an experienced pilot would be much happier if he/she can see what's ahead.

Think of this Microsoft "Big Brother" cloud as a huge depository of all your personal information. Some 12 year old kid in Russia is going to hack away until he/she hacks the cloud and ALL the data Microsquish has been gathering will be available, for a price, at your local hackers dark web site.

Think it's funny? Think again. Just because they made it "convenient" does not mean it's safe or under your control.

Apathy and Big Corporation Lust for control is the hackers BEST friend.

Rcaman

Just tell Netflix how safe the cloud is.

They just had the whole new season of their series Orange released online aft it was stolen

They most likely have already been hacked several times. The big stores and franchises are being hacked far more then we are being told. I see 2-3 large businesses being hacked every week. Any information stored in a cloud is available to the world.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist but I would add "the government" to that statement. I suspect they are behind the cloud push. How great is it to have a central repository for everybodies records and information. One stop shopping, no more search warrants, raids, deleted or encrypted data, destroyed hard drives...

-Hal

Hal,

I have a good quantity of tin foil and a good hat template. Are you interested?

Rcaman

Shhhh. There's a black SUV parked across the street already.

-Hal

Paul, yeah, this is the future. Remember the phrase that was used throughout the user interface in earlier versions of Windows: "My Computer"

Haven't seen that in a while.

If [when] "they" get their way, every single piece of equipment in your world, even your freaking toaster, will be based on the hosted PBX model.

As far as the rest of this thread, I feel there is no tin foil indicated. Governments, corporations, and their bastard spawn have various motivations, some overlapping, some not, for wanting the same thing. What is that, you ask? Allow me to put it this way: Their biggest fear is that you might read, watch, or hear any form of "content," and they won't know about it, or get to watch [and listen] to you doing it. No wonder they burned all the books in Ray Bradbury's best known work.

Try capturing the device fingerprinting process in real time. When you read through the logs, it absolutely will creep you out. If it doesn't, it should.

I could say a lot more about all this, but this is already hijacking Paul's original thread, so back to lurk mode now.

Jim
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Adding another layer of foil to my special hat.

Trash 80 in the 8 Grade (Model 1...3?). Now I feel old! Are you thinking Single-Side, Single Density or the more robust Double-side Double Density in you analogy?



Glad to hear that about Creators Update. I was going to post a question regarding any issues with CU. I have the Office Suite but I hate working in the cloud $$$.

Adobe Lightroom ® is only available in the cloud for a monthly fee. Which is higher than the original download price. I purchased mine just prior so I have the actual e-disc*.

*E-disc: A term I just made up for software you download once without and don't have recurring fees.