Control+Alt+Delete Was a Mistake

Bill Gates: 'Control+Alt+Delete' Was a Mistake

       Bill Gates recently admitted that the familiar          "Control+Alt+Delete" command was a "mistake."

During a far-reaching discussion at Harvard on Sept. 21, Gates was questioned about why the architects of the PC decided to go with the Control+Alt+Delete command. He said the decision was actually made by IBM.

"We could've had a single button, but the guy who did the IBM keyboard design didn't want to give us our single button," Gates said. "It was a mistake."

That guy, as GeekWire pointed out, is David Bradley, who designed the original IBM PC. During IBM's 20th anniversary of the IBM PC, Bradley said Control+Alt+Delete came about when PC architects were "trying to solve a development problem." While testing software, it would often freeze, requiring a reboot. As a result, Bradley created a shortcut, which was Control+Alt+Delete.

Developers "originally intended it to be an Easter egg," Bradley continued, but news of the shortcut caught on. "It was like a five-minute job," he said, "I didn't realize I was going to create a cultural icon when I did it."

He then quipped that while "I may have invented it, but I think Bill made it famous."

"We did some very clever things" when developing the PC, Gates said last week, but Control+Alt+Delete was not one of them.

Gates went into a bit more detail about why such a command is necessary, regardless of the keyboard configuration. "When you turn your computer on, you're going to see some screens and eventually type your password in, you want to have something you do with the keyboard that is signaling to a very low level of the software – actually hard-coded in the hardware – that it really is bringing in the operating system you expect," Gates said.

The hour-long chat delved into the rise of Microsoft, Gates's current philanthropic efforts, his friendship with Warren Buffett, and more. The Control+Alt+Delete part of the discussion comes in around 16:30 in the video below.

iOS 7 - 11 Ways To Improve Battery Life

11 Ways To Improve Battery Life

              Your iPhone's new operating system comes with plenty of advantages, but iOS 7's not without its drawbacks. Battery life just ain't quite what you'd want it to be, but we've got some tips to squeeze the most out of that sucker and stay juiced all day long. iOS 7 comes with a whole bunch of new features that are handy if you need/want them. If you don't, they're just eating away at that precious battery life behind the scenes, and give you exactly zero help for your trouble. So shut 'em down.

1. Turn off parallax Parallax is fun, but it's the definition of "extra." And maybe it even makes you dizzy. Who needs it? Not you. You can turn it off in accessibility settings, by going to Settings>>General>>Accessibility and setting "Reduce Motion" to on.

2. Turn off AirDrop/Bluetooth. if you're not going to use it  AirDrop is great when you are AirDropping. The rest of the time it's just fidgeting in its seat, looking for another device to play with. Turning it off is easy, just swipe up your Control Center, and hit the toggle.

3. Stop searching for Wi-Fi. There's no need to have your phone searching for Wi-Fi when there's no trusted network in sight. You'll save yourself some trouble if you get in the habit of turning of Wi-Fi from the Control Center when you leave the house. Alternatively, you can go to Settings>>Wi-Fi and turn "Ask to Join Networks" to off. This way your phone will hope on Wi-Fi's it knows, but won't look around for more without direct orders.

4. Disable location services (for apps that don't need it). Google Maps needs to know where you are, yes. But Facebook? Hop over to Settings>>Privacy>>Location Services to get a full list of the apps that are asking about where you are. You can probably turn off about half, and cut down on a lot of GPS polling.

5. Turn off background app updates. Immediate app updates are rarely a huge deal, but having enough battery can be. Go to Settings>>iTunes & App Store and then scroll down. You'll see "Updates" under "Automatic Downloads." Turn it off. Just don't forget to stop by the App Store and update manually now and then.

6. Turn off background app refreshing. The brutal downside of good multitasking is running things in the background (duh). But if you go to Settings>>General>>Background App Refresh, you can disable background-runnin' for the apps that aren't important. Or all of them if you want to go all the way.

7. Disable auto-brightness. Chances are, auto-brightness keeps you more well-lit than you need to be. You can shut it off and get your mood-lighting on by going to Settings>>Wallpapers & Brightness and flipping the toggle. While you're there, crank that backlight alllll the way down, or as far down as you can handle. If you step outside, that's what the Control Center is for.

8. Go on a push notification diet. Not every app needs to push its notifications; that stuff takes power. Go to Settings>>Notification Center and scroll down to the "Include" section. Then go on a toggling spree.

Don't push; fetch. If your email isn't that important, or you have a couple accounts, go turn the low-priority ones to fetch instead of push. This one is pretty dependent on how often you get emails and how crucial they are, so you'll have to feel it out, but you can set to fetch in Settings>>Mail, Contacts and Calendar>>Fetch New Data

9. Turn off Siri's "Raise to Speak" feature. If you want Siri to eat less of your precious battery, turn off his or her "Raise to Speak" feature in Settings>>General>>Siri>>Raise to Speak. Or, if you're really not fond of the dude/lady turn him/her off to go dream of electric sheep.

10. Turn off 4G (if times are tough). Disabling 4G is going to hurt a little but, but desperate times can call for desperate measures and LTE is a battery-burner. You can choke off the data-hose by going to Settings>>Cellular>>Enable LTE/Enable 4G

11. And treat your battery right in general. But even without all these tweaks, it pays to treat your lithium-ion battery right from the start, especially if you have a new gadget. Just keep on scrolling down for our tips and tricks that'll work for any phone.

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