Showing posts with label privacy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label privacy. Show all posts

Thursday, August 06, 2015

Windows 10 and Calendar / Contact Privacy

For those of you who have upgraded to Windows 10 (and if you had Windows 8 this was a no-brainer), you HAVE to read:  Windows 10 is spying on almost everything you do – here’s how to opt out and Windows 10 defaults to keylogging, harvesting browser history, purchases, and covert listening and Digging into and Understanding Windows 10’s Privacy Settings

The most sober reading I've seen comes from Lifehacker.

Now since we're calendar geeks, we're going to show you how to keep your calendar and contacts private, which should be the default in the first place, but is not.

You do not have many choices in your Calendar.  If you want to use Cortona to set your appointments, it needs to check your calendar.  If you are worried Cortona is a nosy rhymes-with-witch who is ratting you out at every opportunity, then turn this off.



You have more choices in your Contacts -- but what "App connector" and "Windows Shell Experience" are is 1.) unclear 2.) why these are options for contacts but not calendar and 3.) WTF?  Microsoft support ducks the question not only about what they are but why they need specific access.


Short answer: beats the heck out of me -- but I dialed my privacy settings to the max.

My main previously unanswered question:  I'm happy with Windows 7 on my desktop.  How do I get rid of the Microsoft annoyanceware in my lower left hand corner?

Simple.

Click that nearly invisible "Up" triangle:

Then select: GWX "Hide icon and notifications"
Yeah!  I get to keep Windows 7!!!!!  And NOT be badgered about it!!!!!!

Our conversion server for Meeting Maker to Exchange still runs Windows XP.  I needed to take the darned thing off the network to make sure Microsoft / Java / Whoever didn't "improve" it by making it unusable with an automatic update.

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Opting out of Anyone on Google+ Sending you Email

Google has decided it does not have enough exploitable data traffic already and has made it a default for ANYONE on Google+ to send you email.

If you do not want this to happen to you (or your users) the Wall Street Journal published an easy-to-follow tutorial about changing this in your Settings.

Go here.

My two cents:  Google’s really pushing to be relevant in social networking.  But let us face it, this is a stretch.  They changed the whole YouTube comment system to Google+, and even the folks I know on YouTube all the time don’t give a damn.

Thursday, December 05, 2013

Protecting customer data from government snooping

Hell freezing over is too cliche.  

But Microsoft's Blog Entry from their General Counsel  is that kind of amazing just because I find myself in the rare position of applauding Redmond for taking some stand for user privacy against the knee-jerk, butt-covering, bureaucrats who think Orwell proposed a really great idea.

Keep it up, guys!

Yes, this is one of our rare posts that has nothing to do with calendaring but it is so momentous I need to get on record as supporting it.