Windows 8 - Microsoft's Itanium moment

No one likes Windows 8, people are saying it's even worse than Vista, and the head of the Windows division at MS has been sacked. What went wrong?

For my money, Win8 was a last, desperate throw of the dice. Microsoft decided it had to win the mobile space, and wagered the desktop as its stake. MS famously understands the value of developers, and knew that there just weren't enough people developing for Windows phone, so voilà! it was going to forcibly convert all its desktop developers into becoming mobile developers by foisting a unified GUI onto them. The initial release of the new Visual Studio was the big clue for this: free app development was going to be tied to the Metro interface - a decision they quickly had to revise, but it revealed the thinking behind their actions.

And now it looks like they've lost the bet. Enterprises are already allowing people to choose to bring their own devices to work. Now that a substantial workforce re-education appears to be necessary for Metro-or-whatever-it's-called-now, they may decide to go with Macs instead. Or maybe, just maybe, 2013 will be the year of Linux on the desktop?

Recipes: Sweet and Sour Pork, and Egg Fried Rice

Two nicely complementary recipes, courtesy of the Christian Science Monitor. Homemade sweet-and-sour pork and Five secrets to fabulous fried rice.

For those unwilling to follow the links, the key to getting rice to fry properly without turning into a mushy mess is to allow it to cool after boiling it and, if you can afford the extra time, to also allow the outside of the grains to dry. An hour or so should be about right.

I find that it can also be good to toast the rice in a dry frying pan for a minute or so before boiling it; that makes it a little more flavoursome and helps it maintain its integrity after boiling.