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Windows 10 patch suddenly reappears on Win7/8.1 PCs

Around noon Pacific time on Tuesday, users started getting notices from Windows 7 and 8.1 users that the old, dreaded Get Windows 10 patch KB 3035583 had returned. As of early Wednesday morning, neither the official Windows Update list nor the KB article itself mention a new release. It appears Microsoft simply shipped it out again and didn't bother to tell anybody.

No doubt you recall KB 3035583 -- a patch better described as adware, or a "potentially unwanted program." It first appeared last March, titled "Update enables additional capabilities for Windows Update notifications in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 SP1." We didn't figure out until a week later that it was in fact dropping the Get Windows 10 (GWX) installation subsystem.

GWX has drawn nearly universal condemnation. It has a complex installer that puts hooks into various and sundry parts of Windows 7 and 8.1, all of which are designed to convince you to upgrade to Windows 10.

GWX has been associated with all manner of ills, including the following:

Even the KB article that was supposed to explain how to bypass GWX's excesses was wrong, until research forced Microsoft to fix it. Of course, GWX doesn't give you an opportunity to simply say, "Go away and stop bothering me."

Thanks to more than 100 respondents on AskWoody.com, Twitter, and AskWoody on Facebook, I've been able to piece together the information that Microsoft somehow neglected to give us.

It looks like most Windows 7 and 8.1 Home and Pro PCs received the patch in Windows Update on Tuesday afternoon. (Enterprise didn't get it, as before.) Some systems have it listed among the Optional patches in Windows Update and others as Important -- with no clear reason for the distinction. The description of the patch (in the right pane if you click on the Windows Update entry) says it's a "Recommended Update."

For those who have the Windows Update settings box marked "Give me recommended updates the same way I receive important updates" unchecked, the entry in Windows Update appears italicized. (I always wondered what turned the WU entries italicized.)

I've seen only rare reports that the patch in Windows Update is "checked" -- that is, KB 3035583 will install for those who have "Install updates automatically (recommended)" or "Download updates but let me choose whether to install them" chosen as the Important updates installation option.

Josh Mayfield, the developer behind GWX Control Panel, wrote to me and said:

"I installed it and didn't see any problematic differences. Still honors DisableGwx and didn't install any new background tasks. I did notice that the GWX "version" value changed from 5 to 6, but I'm not seeing any new symptoms/behaviors."

Learn more about Windows OS here.

Google is closing down Picasa to focus on Google Photos

Did you remove Picasa on your devices, do you wanna remove it and switch to another application replacing your Picasa? If not, you might need to perform the uninstall sooner or later for Google has announced that it is shuttering Picasa and focus on Google Photos.

"After much thought and consideration, we've decided to retire Picasa over the coming months in order to focus entirely on a single photo service in Google Photos," this is what Google wrote on its official blog post, which was announced on Thursday.

As for people who are still using Picasa, they may be worried about their meaningful and beautiful photos on their Picasa account. According to Google, Picasa users can sign up for a Google Photos account, where they can “deliver” those important pictures on Picasa onto the new Google Photos account. Simply speaking, people who are using Picasa won’t lose their pictures and get all the memorial photos on Google Photos.

Picasa is a dated photo organizer, which was purchased by Google in 2004. It does bring people fun when they are playing with pictures. Yet from now on, Picasa users might need to think about whether to ditch and remove Picasa and move onto Google Photos, which is launched in May, 2015, and continue having fun. Picasa focus on uploading pictures from mobile phones, while Google Photos is desktop-oriented.

Starting March 15, Google will no longer provide the Picasa desktop application, though users can still use the App. The thing is, Google won’t provide any update for Picasa and that means people can only use the current version they are using now. Besides, Google will shutter web albums on May 1 this year.

As for the alternative for Picasa, i.e Google Photos,the company feels confident, and believes that Google Photos will enable users to have much better experience based on what Google wrote on the blog. "We believe we can create a much better experience by focusing on one service that provides more functionality and works across mobile and desktop, rather than divide our efforts across two different products."

Click here for more information about how to uninstall Picasa on Mac

Evernote is shutting down its e-commerce platform on this Wednesday?

There was?speculation?whether Evernote would go out of business in the last September due to what Evernote has done. Yet right at the beginning of February in 2016, Evernote is reportedly to shut down the market on this Wednesday.

"I believe that a smaller, more focused team today will set us up for growth and expansion tomorrow",Chris O'Neil, the CEO of Evernote wrote in his blog post in the last changes in September, 2015.

Last year, Evernote laid off 13% of it global employees and shut down three offices in Taiwan,Singapore, and Moscow. Based on what O'Neil wrote in the announcement, the changes will brings forward the health of the company for it focuses more on the becoming a business tool and shifts away from the consumers.

When the announcement made, people who were using Evernote were wondering if that was the bodement of the close-down of Evernote. Evernote today has announced that it would close down its online product stores.

As what Evernote claimed, it won't stop branding products, the so-called shut-down is to let its partners take control of the market rather than shuttering completely.

"Instead of selling and fulfilling orders ourselves, on February 3rd, we will transition the Market to promote Evernote-integrated products made and sold by our partners at Adonit, Moleskine, and PFU. We plan to continue adding partners and integrations that strongly and elegantly complement Evernote to that list."

Evernote is a?startup based around?keeping?documents in the cloud?— and eliminating the need for paper. Yet the company now seems to have different plans focusing on some other products. When Evernote shut down the market and focus on other products, the the note-taking app?of the same name might be intrusive.Will products like Evernote, the note-taking App disappear entirely on the market? Maybe some day, users will need to cut the reliance on Evernote and remove Evernote, the App totally.

Click here to see how to uninstall Evernote on Mac

SurveyGizmo review: Make the most of your surveys

Surveys are conducted to understand the pulse of users. The requirements and aspirations of customers can be collected and new products and services can be designed by businesses. If you have access to a set of tools, you will certainly be able to make the most of your surveys. SurveyGizmo will help you in this context. When you use the product, you should want to have the product logo at all circumstances.