John Madden Retires

Hall of Fame Coach Madden ends his career in the booth

“John will always have a unique place in the history of pro football. No one has made the sport more interesting, more relevant and more enjoyable to watch and listen to than John. There’s never been anyone like him and he’s been the gold standard for analysts for almost three decades. On a personal note, I’ll miss working with John on many levels. As a broadcast partner, I could always count on him — no one ever came to work more prepared. … As John said today, ‘it was time.’ That’s John — succinct, pithy and right to the point.”
— Broadcast partner Al Michaels.

I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. I simply cannot think of “football” and not also think of “Madden”..

Enjoy your retirement, Coach. We’re going to miss you.

XP End-of-Cycle | What Happens Next?

A reader submitted a question that I think merits a short posting, regarding the demise of “Microsoft support” for Windows XP.

This reader is one of many people who have – for various reasons – remained staunchly loyal to Windows XP, and was afraid that the end-of-life “phasing out” of XP would force them into installing and learning Linux.

Q: I read that Microsoft will stop supporting XP in April. Does that mean my computer will stop working? I absolutely refuse to use Vista, and want to keep using XP!! What do I have to do to keep my computer functional?

A: Microsoft is indeed ending full support (called “mainstream”) for Windows XP SP3 on April 14th. It will then offer a much more limited support level – called “Extended” – until April 8, 2014. Of course, this is subject to change, but, basically 5 more years.
When those dates are reached, no – your copy of XP will not “stop working”, it just will be incredibly obsolete, and after 2014 no new security patches will be released.. which will make it a golden target.

What happens in April this year? Microsoft defines “Extended Support” as follows:

3. What is the difference between Mainstream Support, Extended Support, and online self-help support?

Support provided	Mainstream Support phase	Extended Support phase
Paid support (per-incident, per hour, and others)	X	X
Security update support	X	X
Non-security hotfix support	X	Requires extended hotfix agreement, purchased within 90 days of mainstream support ending.
No-charge incident support	X
Warranty claims	X
Design changes and feature requests	X
Product-specific information that is available by using the online Microsoft Knowledge Base	X	X
Product-specific information that is available by using the Support site at Microsoft Help and Support to find answers to technical questions	X	X

Note A hotfix is a modification to the commercially available Microsoft product software code to address specific critical problems.

* Hopefully before 2014 arrives, you will find an OS to your liking (https://techpaul.wordpress.com/2009/01/11/a-techs-first-impression-of-windows-7/) and you can let XP retire into pleasant memory..

For more details see, the Microsoft Support Lifecycle Policy FAQ.
Also, for other Microsoft products, click here.

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