I have to say at this point that all versions of Windows since Windows 2000 have had support for NFC in its Smartcard Interface (WinSCard.dll). My take on Win8 is if you want the confusing Metronew interface apps go for it. Personally I'm waiting for Windows to fragment into 2 (again) aimed at tablets/phones and proper computers/desktops/laptops.

A small potted history of my career... Was writing code for educational software at Grammer school (in the UK) whilst still at the school (12-17 years old - 7 unremarkable O-levels) Flunked my first go at A-Levels (17 years old), went to college and got the A-levels (18 years old). I don't know what the difference between US and UK education standards were, but it doesn't matter). Went to Uni for BSc in Computer stuff - realized the course was not what I wanted from life (only took 2 years to figure - but I got educational experience - see below). Spend a year looking for ideal work whilst working in bookshops and such dead-end stuff. Spoke with a friends brother, was hired on a pitiful salary (they had to pay my travel from Mums to work..). The poor pay only lasted until I proved myself, then got a realistic wage for experience. Have spent the last 20 years gaining more experience (you can NEVER have enough experience). Many of my peers do not have Uni degrees, but lots of base experience... In summary - it's not what you know, it's who you know (or how long you've used what you know) that matters...

I have to say that just checking for one web address is pretty poor! In order to determine if an internet end point is available, check to see if the connection is there (via Ping, or what ever) and this if the timeout (only needs to be short) fails, then try the next node that will serve the desired result. once you have run out of nodes to check then you are offline. You may wish to try again later... There may be blips at an endpoint caused by many events (power outage, load balancers, etc) which could (and do) lead to momentary drop outs. It is just that most browsers have quite a good timeout that they "just work" and the end user notices only a slightly slower page load than some drastic moment at a data centre! But then I could be wrong!