According to a recent TechCrunch article, Microsoft is planning to rename its Live Search product, Kumar, which means cloud or spider in Japanese. What Microsoft needs to learn, and what the Get a Mac ads have captured so well, is that it's not about PR or branding or the name of the products, it's... (Read More)

Way down deep it's the same old you Way down deep you ain't hiding the truth Just for a minute you had me confused Baby way down deep it's the same old you ~Tom Petty, Same Old You. My colleague Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols in his aptly titled Cyber Cynic column on Computer World is always good for a... (Read More)

I read an article on Yahoo Tech yesterday that I have to share with you. The title is "Microsoft says next Windows won't be as annoying". It's funny that Microsoft realizes, and admits, that Windows Vista is a tremendous blunder. They don't say it as strongly as I just did but they should. Like... (Read More)

You cannot have escaped the fact that this week is the Microsoft PDC2008. Those attending the Professional Developers Conference, only held every other year, were lucky enough to witness the first full public demo of Windows 7. What's more, PDC attendees even walked away with a full pre-Beta build... (Read More)

You can do one of two things; just shut up, which is something I don't find easy, or learn an awful lot very fast which is what I tried to do. ~Jane Fonda Steve Ballmer doesn't seem to have learned Jane Fonda's big life lesson. In fact, dude doesn't know when to shut up, which is fairly odd given... (Read More)

John Dvorak at PC Magazine, a grand old curmudgeon who never pulls any punches created a wish list for Windows 7. It got me thinking about my own wish list, so here goes: 1. Don't Make Me Wait Forever at Boot Time Nothing aggravates me more than waiting for Windows to boot up. It takes forever... (Read More)

The second Microsoft-Seinfeld ad was released Friday. It had a few funny moments, but once again left most people shaking their heads wondering exactly what Microsoft hopes to achieve. I'm not sure they know. Although they may have a game plan, it's hard for anyone to see exactly what it is. We... (Read More)

If your plan is to strong-arm customers into offering your products exclusively, you had better give them something people want to buy. With Microsoft and Windows Vista, such is not the case, and Hewlett-Packard isn't taking it lying down. HP, the world's number one PC supplier in terms of volume... (Read More)

If you have to release a statement explaining your commercial, I think it's safe to say it was a failure. The much anticipated Microsoft commercial featuring comedian Jerry Seinfeld debuted yesterday, and quickly rose in the viewer ranks on YouTube. Not only was the 90-second spot not funny, it... (Read More)

Microsoft has announced a $300M dollar ad campaign, featuring 90s TV star Jerry Seinfeld, which according to multiple reports has been designed to save Vista and salvage Microsoft's battered reputation. There is so much wrong with this strategy, it's really hard to know where to start. First of... (Read More)

I first heard about the Mojave Experiment indirectly through Daniweb, whilst reading a blog post about something different. I also decided to check it out whilst reading through a thread on here. And I'm glad I did, if only so I could get to share my opinion on it. After viewing about two-fifths of... (Read More)

My colleague Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols recently wrote a piece on his fine Practical Technology blog called Dear Microsoft, Thanks for the help, Linux in which he argues that Microsoft’s ill-timed decision to cut off easy access to XP tomorrow (June 30th) combined with its announcement it would... (Read More)

Hello, I know this is over reported and pretty much common knowledge amongst most circles (most of whom frequently orbit Daniweb) but I've decided to revisit an age old issue. The problem of some versions of Vista not reading or display 4GB or RAM isn't a new exactly a new one, so why is it still... (Read More)

There's an interesting story up at The Consumerist at the moment about some chap called Bill who has been charged $1632 for a single Windows Vista Ultimate upgrade license. It would appear what has happened is that Windows Live Marketplace kept saying to try again later when Bill pressed the submit... (Read More)

Slippery Brick reports that it is now possible to run Windows Vista on your iPhone, well after a fashion at any rate. In fact what you get is a Vista emulator called VistaPerfection 2.0 which provides your iPhone with "wallpapers, sliders, sound effects and over 90 Vista-themed icons for everything... (Read More)

Before I tell you about Bill Gates’ speech at CEO Summit 2008 today, I’d like to share one more story from my trip to Orlando for STAREAST last week. And then I’ll tie the two together. In my May 10 post from the conference, I mentioned “Testing Dialogues—In the Executive Suite,” an... (Read More)

Microsoft has put the brakes on Windows XP Service Pack 3, which was supposed to be available yesterday through the Windows Update Website. A Tuesday post on its TechNet site said a “compatibility issue” between Microsoft’s Dynamics Retail Management System point-of-sale application and SP3... (Read More)

With the lackluster adoption of Vista, perhaps Microsoft plans to migrate XP users by attrition—one service pack at a time. The company today released Windows XP SP3, which enables in XP a slew of features, many native to Vista. Available now as a stand-alone installer pack, the update brings... (Read More)

I'm no Microsoft basher, but I've never hidden my personal loathing for Vista. Yet even I was surprised to learn this week just how cynical Microsoft appears to be regarding Vista. It started the other day when a Steve Ballmer speech to the Microsoft MVPs leaked out. According to several news... (Read More)

According to reports it looks possible that the next big upgrade to the Windows OS, the fabled Windows 7, could arrive much earlier than expected. Within the next 12 months even. And who is responsible for making this prediction? None other than Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates himself,... (Read More)

It should come as no surprise that the upcoming 'Patch Tuesday' from Microsoft should include critical patches covering the likes of VBScript and Jscript implementation in Windows 2000, XP and 2003. However, some reporters have expressed just a little astonishment that both Windows Server 2008 and... (Read More)

Hello! Since installing the shiny new Vista first service pack; I had been getting some problems browsing - although I hadn't actually changed anything apart from installed SP1. It was mainly websites that were running on flash or those that used ActiveX controls that seemed to be having problems... (Read More)

According to IT Pro Microsoft has done a u-turn when it comes to charging users for installation or compatibility support with regard to Vista SP1. It says that Microsoft is now "offering free support to any Windows Vista SP1 user experiencing problems." Quoting Microsoft MVP Brandon LeBlanc, it... (Read More)

Evening everyone! As most of you will proberbly already be aware that the first service pack for MS Vista is looming. Although the final version won't be available on MS update until proberbly next month - it is available as a download (roughly about 450Mb) direct from MS. I decided to go all out... (Read More)

Ever wondered just how smart a smartcard is, from the security perspective? Obviously there are problems as detailed in a DaniWeb blog posting last month which described how hackers can exploit hardware RFID weaknesses to access credit card account data for example. But now a former member of the... (Read More)