Wednesday, January 29, 2025

Microsoft Keeps on Giving (and Taking). The return of Clippy!!!

Microsoft is intent on getting you to use CoPilot. In brief we can refer to CoPilot as Microsoft AI. Whereas I hate using the term Artificial Intelligence, since although it is artificial, it is not intelligent, I would prefer the term MS LLM (Large Language Model).


All Windows users had a sudden toolbar addition added to their PC's for CoPilot (BTW, you can get rid of it!). Apparently, that wasn't not enough, so MS is putting CoPilot in 365 Versions of Office, whether you want it or not. In addition, they're going to charge you an additional fee for it, which may be based on one's usage of the service.
Although you may be indifferent to this new feature, some may find it intrusive like Microsoft's famous Clippy service, which would often interrupt your work process with suggestions, etc.

You can opt out of this new service integration, but only temporarily. Read the article below about your opt-out options, which involve making a change to your subscription to an Office classic plan.

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3806855/copilot-ai-microsoft-365.html

Wednesday, January 22, 2025

A New Outlook

This is not an optimistic letter about having a new outlook. No, it's actually the opposite.


Next month (February 2025) Microsoft will be forcibly updating those using the latest version of Outlook to a new interface. This only concerns users of Outlook for Office365.
This does not affect Classic Outlook. What distinguishes the classic versions beguiles me, as it's obviously not just an older version, but a completely distinct version of Outlook.

Now, this might not seem so bad, but I have encountered clients with issues using the new interface and made sure they stayed with the older interface.
Fortunately, there is a fix. However, the fix can only be applied after Microsoft has come out with the February update.
You can read all about this "update" and the fix at:
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-to-force-install-new-outlook-on-windows-10-pcs-in-february/

I would also be remiss if I didn't mention an analysis by German researchers into possible account access Microsoft will have to any non-Microsoft account that is used in the new Outlook.
You can read about this issue here:

Microsoft Keeps on Giving (and Taking). The return of Clippy!!!

Microsoft is intent on getting you to use CoPilot. In brief we can refer to CoPilot as Microsoft AI. Whereas I hate using the term Artificia...