Market Share: Windows 57.5% - Linux 40.6% - an Open Source Dream Come True!

When it comes down to the operating system market, Windows, Mac OS X and Linux are in a traditional three horse rage for the largest install base. So far, Microsoft has virtually owned the market, dominating with a share of over 90% with the Windows platform, Apple is runner up with Mac OS X at about 5-6%, and Linux is the undisputed underdog with percentages varying in accordance with different reports from under 1% (Net Application) to almost 2% (W3Counter). At the same time, a survey,
put together by the Linux Foundation, comes to underline a strong growth in popularity for the open source platform, even with the advent of Windows Vista and Mac OS X 10.5 Tiger.

The Linux Foundation survey highlightes the options of no less than 20,000 participants, mainly representatives of organizations in the small business sector. According to the survey, Windows and Linux are in fact dividing the operating system market in almost equal shares. 57.5% of respondents did reveal that they were running Windows on their desktops/clients, with a staggering 40.6% pointing to Linux as their operating system of choice. Such percentages are nothing but a dream come true for the open source community, but in the real world things are a tad different.

The survey also points out that while 53.3% of participants use Linux on development desktops, with 39.2% in departmental servers, 38.1% in enterprise server and 55.2% in web servers (yes, it is more than 100% - which means that the respondents have integrated the open source operating system into more than one aspect of their IT infrastructure), another 66.1% are using it on client desktops. Now, if Linux would indeed manage to win client desktops from Microsoft, then that would be a real victory. The open source operating system has already had a strong momentum on the server side, although the launch of Windows Server 2008 is bound to produce quite an impact.

But at the same time, 20,000 respondents of the Linux Foundation's 2007 survey fail to paint an accurate overall picture. I am not disputing in any manner the fact that there are companies, especially in the small business sector, that have leveraged the advantages Linux has to offer to a great extent, migrating a consistent part of their infrastructure away from Windows. But, what I am saying is that these are rather isolated cases, nothing more than 20,000 exceptions that confirm the general rule of Windows' dominance.

Think XP and Vista Are Security Disasters? Have You Looked at Tiger and Leopard Lately?

Do you think that Windows Vista and Windows XP are security disasters? Well, in all fairness, chances are that indeed you would think that. Traditionally, The Windows platform, no mater the actual label of the iterations, has not been associated with a bulletproof operating system. Mac OS X and Linux, on the other hand, come with a natural end user perception of security. But at the same time, and this is a direct result of Apple's irresponsible marketing techniques, OS X has somewhat of an aura of impermeability to malicious code.

In fact, among the list of reasons delivered by the Cupertino-based software company as incentive to grab a copy of the latest cat, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Apple states: "It’s secure. In a world where PCs constantly
do battle with viruses and malware, Mac OS X is a sea of tranquility. Just go about your business and Mac OS X minds the fortress. Your documents are safe even if you share your Mac with others, and you can keep your kids safe by using a rich set of parental controls."

Sea of tranquility? Fortress? The immediate consequence of such "descriptive" epithets for OS X security is the fact that Apple users generally run the operating system without a security solution. In fact, OS X users even deride Windows for the constant and immutable need to run an antivirus. But, OS X is not a fortress. Not by a long shot.

Case in point the December 12th, 2007 Apple Security Update 2007-009. With the update, the Cupertino-based company patched no less than 31 security holes impacting a variety of products, but with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard taking center stage. Although Apple does not rate security flaws in accordance to a severity rating, almost half of the vulnerabilities allow for the execution of arbitrary code. This is equivalent with a Critical label judging by Microsoft terms.

In order to make a comparison between Vista and Leopard, you would have to consider that Microsoft has released a total of 12 Critical security bulletins for its latest Windows client, in the entire period since its launch, for over a year, judging according to the business release in November 2006. Out of the 18 patched impacting Leopard, no less than eight can be considered critical, as the vulnerabilities allow potential attacker to run arbitrary code on an affected platform.

That's eight in a single month. Now in all fairness, Microsoft's security bulletins account for more vulnerabilities in some cases, as a single release can address multiple holes, but by the looks of it Apple's really catching up with Leopard. And when it comes to malicious code, last I checked Sunbelt had an extensive list of websites serving the TrojanDNSChanger Trojan Horse (just scroll down and read the posts). And all that malware needs its vulnerabilities, well, Leopard and Tiger have plenty of those.

Chelsio to Ship 10-Gigabit Ethernet Solutions for Blade Servers

Chelsio have just unveiled their T3-based Unified Wire Accelerators, expected to enable server networking, storage networking and clustering on a single IBM BladeCenter platform. The device has recently been approved for use with IBM BladeCenter enterprise servers.

The new expansion card, code-named S320EM-BCH, is a dual-port 10Gb Ethernet adapter that connects to the server via a PCI Express interface. It is alleged to offload TCP/IP, iSCSI and iWARP RDMA processing from the host system, thus sparing precious CPU cycles that can be assigned to other applications. The 10GB iWARP implementation is fully compatible with the industry standard and is the only one accepted into the Open Fabrics Enterprise Distribution.

The Chelsio card can easily run InfiniBand applications on 10 Gigabit Ethernet and, if combined with the company's iSCSI target stack, it can run Fibre Channel applications on Ethernet. The device takes up only 16 watts of electrical power, which makes it the most efficient power solution of its type on the market.

"IBM continues to innovate and evolve blade server computing with the trailblazing IBM BladeCenter platform", said Kianoosh Naghshineh, president and CEO of Chelsio Communications. "With the Chelsio 10GbE Unified Wire expansion card for IBM BladeCenter, customers can deploy networking, storage, and cluster communications over a unified 10GbE fabric for ease-of-use, reliability, availability and performance."

IBM BladeCenter is the industry's greatest provider of blade offerings. Its portfolio includes five blade enclosures, five compatible server blades and five I/O fabrics with a common architecture that allows clients to customize the server according to their business requirements.

"Blade continues to expand the ecosystem of technologies and solutions available for blade customers", said Doug Balog, vice president of development for IBM BladeCenter. "The new 10GbE Unified Wire expansion card built by Chelsio for IBM BladeCenter enables blade customers to build flexible I/O networks utilizing a 10GbE-based unifying fabric for clustering, storage and networking."

Run Vista SP1! Ruuuuuun!

Make no mistake about it, the RTM for Windows Vista's first Service Pack is just around the corner. It is only a matter of passing into the next year. Microsoft indicated the first quarter of 2008 as a rather blurred deadline for the serving of Windows Vista SP1. Case in point: Service Pack 1 for the Office 2007 System. Office 2007 SP1 was initially planned to be released to manufacturing alongside Vista SP1 in Q1 2008. But Microsoft managed to beat its own deadline, by a long shot, and delivered Office 2007 SP1 on December 11, 2007. On the official webpage for the Windows Service Pack Road Map, the Redmond company informs only that "SP1 for Windows Vista is planned for 1Q CY2008. This date is based on beta feedback."

When it comes down to Windows XP Service Pack 3 the estimated - preliminary date of availability of the next update is 1H CY2008. Still, Microsoft is sending out strong indications that the baking process of Windows Vista SP1, Windows XP SP3 and Windows Server 2008 is extremely close to finalization. Firstly, Vista users are able to access the first public Release Candidate build of Vista SP1. On top of this, Microsoft has also served Windows Server 2008 RC1, and the Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V beta role shipped early. Now, Hyper-V, the hypervisor formerly codenamed Viridian, was initially planned to be integrated as a beta variant, in the RTM version of Windows Server 2008. The fact that Hyper-V debuted into beta early comes not only as a milestone for Microsoft's last 32-bit server operating system, but also as a signal of Windows Server 2008's proximity to RTM.

December also brought to the table the opening up of the beta testing for the third and final service pack for Windows XP. Build 3244 of Windows XP SP3, namely Release Candidate 1, was opened up and made available for download straight from Microsoft. The bottom line, in this context, is the fact that Vista SP1, Windows Server 2008 and XP SP3 are in their last respective stages before RTM. And the release to manufacturing date, although varying from the first quarter of 2008 to the first half, is actually closer than you may think.

The Near-Final Preview of Vista SP1

With the public Release Candidate for Vista SP1, Microsoft is giving end users the possibility to get an early taste of what the service pack will bring to the latest Windows client. At this point in time, Microsoft dropped no less than four standalone packages for Vista SP1, including the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the package involving the English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese languages. The x86 and x64 variants of the standalone packages for all the remaining supported languages of Vista SP1 is also up for grabs. Via Windows Update, the installation of the service pack is possible with the Windows Vista Service Pack 1 RC Public Availability Program.

"In addition to all previously
released updates, SP1 will contain changes focused on addressing specific reliability and performance issues, supporting new types of hardware, and adding support for several emerging standards. SP1 also will continue to make it easier for IT administrators to deploy and manage Windows Vista. Service Packs are not intended to be a vehicle for releasing significant new features or functionality; however some existing components do gain slightly enhanced functionality in SP1 to support industry standards and new requirements", Microsoft stated.

Run Vista SP1! Ruuuuuun!

One of Vista's weak points in the face-off with XP, and one that took an abrupt contour for Microsoft via the comparison involving beta builds of Vista SP1 and XP SP3, is related to performance. Of course that XP, released in 2001, and refreshed in 2004 with SP2, would simply fly on today's systems, as its initial system requirements are just a fraction of what the current configurations have to offer. The comparison however was inevitable. Microsoft itself did it with the RTM version of Vista and XP SP2 for early 2008. And with SP1 offering a veritable incarnation of Vista on steroids, the Redmond company promised enhancements on all fronts, from security to reliability, and from stability to performance.

SP1 includes a luxuriant collection of tweaks designed to boost the performance of Vista, but at the same time with a warning from Microsoft: "Performance improvements vary from PC to PC based on hardware, environment, scenarios, and usage, so different customers will experience varying levels of benefits. About 20-25% of these improvements will be released separately via Windows update, prior to Windows Vista SP1." The truth of the matter is that the RTM version of Vista managed to hit a variety of speed bumps when it came down to performing mundane and anodyne scenarios, such as copying and moving files or extracting content from archives. Below you will be able to find a few excerpts from a much more extensive list provided by Microsoft underlining the performance enhancements synonymous with SP1.

• Improves the performance of browsing network file shares, by consuming less bandwidth.
• Improves the speed of adding and extracting files to and from a compressed (zipped) folder.
• Significantly improves the speed of moving a directory with many files underneath.
• Improves performance while copying files using BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service).
• Improves performance over Windows Vista's current performance across the following scenarios:
- 25% faster when copying files locally on the same disk on the same machine;
- 45% faster when copying files from a remote non-Windows Vista system to a SP1 system;
- 50% faster when copying files from a remote SP1 system to a local SP1 system;
- Improves responsiveness when doing many kinds of file or media manipulations. For example, with Windows Vista today, copying files after deleting a different set of files can make the copy operation take longer than needed. In SP1, the file copy time is the same as if no files were initially deleted.
• Improves the copy progress estimation when copying files within Windows Explorer to about two seconds.
• Improves the time to read large images by approximately 50%.
• Improves overall media performance, by reducing many glitches.
• The Windows Vista SP1 install process clears the user-specific data that is used by Windows to optimize performance, which may make the system feel less responsive immediately after install. As the customer uses the SP1 PC, the system will be retrained over the course of a few hours or days, and will return to the previous level of responsiveness.
• SP1 addresses a number of customer performance concerns with new print driver technologies, including XPS-based printing.

Now, Microsoft is offering a real guarantee that SP1 will deliver some extra juice to Vista. The Redmond company has applauded on more than one occasion the performance boost planned for Vista at the beginning of 2008. At the same time, Vista RTM itself was introduced as an epitome of performance, and Microsoft continued to play the same tune relentlessly, even though end user feedback pointed in the opposite direction. Worst off is also the input generated so far related to the development milestones of Vista SP1. Microsoft did come out with an official comment, saying that any testing is irrelevant in the context of an absent version of Vista SP1 RTM. The company is, of course, right. Beta builds of Vista SP1 will not impact on a large scale users of the operating system.

The RTM build on the other hand will. But in the end, real life scenarios are the ones that will make the difference in the case of Vista SP1 RTM. Benchmarking tests will undoubtedly offer a perspective over the performances of the service pack, but in the end, running Vista SP1 in a benchmark configuration and in a controlled environment can make the results swing both in the advantage and in the disadvantage of the refresh. The true vote will be cast by end users running the service pack on a daily basis.

Setup and Deployment - Get Them While Their Hot!

Via SP1 it will be increasingly easy to manage multi-lingual deployments, the sole trade-off being the added size of the standalone packages. The service pack will permit access to additional help files, and will deliver support for hotpatching, a move designed to drastically reduce the volume of reboots, traditionally associated with the updating process. Following SP1 installations via a WinPE image will offer the possibility to deploy the x64 version of the platform from the 32-bit operating system. Deployment enhancements related to WinPE scenarios will also involve support for the installation of offline boot critical storage drivers. The update servicing model has also been revamped, in order to avoid issues associated with the deployment failure of multiple updates when just one item is not managed properly. But, the evolution of the setup and deployment enhancements planned for Vista SP1 does not stop here, and Microsoft does provide additional details about the upcoming service pack:

"• Improves overall install time for updates, by optimizing the query for installed OS updates.
• Improves robustness during the patch installation, by being resilient to transient errors such as sharing violations or access violations.
• Improves robustness of transient failures during the disk cleanup of old OS files after install.
• Improves the uninstallation experience for OS updates, by improving the uninstallation routines in custom OS installation code.
• Improves reliability of OS updates, by making them more resilient to unexpected interruptions, such as power failure.
• Improved instrumentation allows additional data to be sent to Microsoft via the CEIP (Customer Experience Improvement Program) when enabled.
• After the SP1 version of the OPK (OEM pre-installation kit) is installed, further OPK updates will not be required if a servicing stack update is issued."

Can You Feel the Reliability?

Most of Vista SP1 users will not be able to get their hands on experiencing the reliability boost delivered by the service pack. This because there are a multitude of factors impacting the reliability of the operating system, from the hardware to the environment and the usage. Vista SP1 will feature a new Startup Repair Tool (a part of the Windows Recovery environment), enhanced backup capabilities covering EFS encrypted files, superior quality peer-to-peer connections, as well as wireless ad-hoc connectivity, and a wide variety of issues reported via the Windows Error Reporting.

Brand New Support for Hardware, Technologies, Standards... All Free!

Windows Vista SP1 will be a virtual feast of fresh support for hardware. The refresh will make it possible for Vista users to enjoy the benefits of Unified Extensible Firmware Interface, x64 EFI network boot, 64-bit version of MSDASQL, the exFAT file system, SD Advanced DMA, and others. In this regard, it is important to mention that Vista SP1will evolve DirectX 10 to DirectX 10.1. As such, the service pack will deliver support for DirectX 10.1 capable video cards, and an illustrative example is the additional support for Direct3D 10.1 application programing interface.

In a move similar to the introduction of new support for hardware, Microsoft will also integrate new technologies and standards into Vista with SP1. The list begins with Ipsec cryptographic algorithms, and it continues with the extension of the existing pseudo-random number generators of the operating system. Vista SP1 will come with Secure Sockets Tunnel Protocol, a taste of the company's Routing and Remote Access Service platform, but also with support for the latest IEEE iteration and the Windows Smartcard Framework. On top of it all, Microsoft will also bundle critical third-party drivers into the service pack.

Security, Administration and Management

In terms of security, Microsoft will further bulletproof Vista with the availability of SP1. The service pack will contain all the security bulletins impacting the operating system, along with an exhaustive list of hotfixes and updates for the Secure Development Lifecycle. Vista SP1 will also play well with third-party security solutions that need to work in the context of Kernel Patch Protection in the 64-bit SKUs of the platform. Data Execution Prevention will also be boosted, and Microsoft will increase the security of the Teredo interface, having all unsolicited traffic blocked by default. Additionally, Vista SP1 will also offer a complex set of enhancements to the administrative and management capabilities of the operating system.

Anything Else?

Well, as a matter of fact, yes. Vista SP1 will no longer feature the Group Policy Management Console, and all Local Group Policy editing will have to be done via GPedit, or through an updated GPMC that will be made available for download. The refresh will also permit a more streamlined integration of the operating system with Windows Server 2008 and with third party applications in networking scenarios, involving high bandwidth and high latency links. Of course, with SP1, Microsoft will finally tackle two of the most common cracks designed to bypass the activation process. The OEM Bios and Grace Timer Vista activation workarounds will both be rendered useless with SP1.

The search infrastructure of the operating system will be modified, in order to better accommodate third party desktop search applications. The User Account Control is going to be less present when dealing with folders placed in protected scenarios, but Microsoft will also tweak the information displayed in relation to the Licensing User Interface, User Experience, as well as the Ultimate Extras Control Panel. The hint password model during the setup of the operating system, similar to that of XP, is back by popular demand. And last, but definitely not least, on 32-bit platforms Vista will report a total of 4 GB of RAM, even though it will use and be able to address much less.

"With SP1, Windows Vista will report the amount of system memory installed rather than report the amount of system memory available to the OS. Therefore 32-bit systems equipped with 4GB of RAM will report all 4BG in many places throughout the OS, such as the System Control Panel. However, this behavior is dependent on having a compatible BIOS, so not all users may notice this change", Microsoft explained.

No More Ads Opened in the Same Window from AdSense

Google China announced today that they might be toying with the idea of opening the AdSense clicked links in a new browser window or tab, the translation wasn’t all that clear. Do not
mistake this for pop-up windows, they are truly autonomous, these tabs will only open in the eventuality that you have clicked one ad and that’s where you will be redirected to it.

It’s a step forward, if you ask me, not many people being fond of hitting the "Back" button as many times as it would be needed in order to go back to the page they first saw the ad in, because from the first click on the ad and until the final action is performed, be it the buying of something or not, more than one click is often required and navigation through more than one URL redirecting.

Keith Chan, of Gspy.blogspot.com, translated some of the Google post announcing this: "The Chinese market and the demands of Chinese publishers is very important to Google AdSense network. We hope to [bring] better experience to users, more revenue to publishers and more earnings to advertisers through constant improvement of our products. By this, we could achieve [a] four-win situation: users win, publishers win, advertisers win, Google wins."

Bad luck for the rest of the world, this is an experiment that will only happen in China, "at this time we do not have an option to open Google ads in a new browser window. Please do not modify the AdSense ad code or alter the result of clicking on an ad on your website, as this is against our program policies" is what Google says of the idea.

Why only in China? Colin Colehour, a former contractor for Google, thinks that it is because China is the biggest market where Google isn’t leading, so they might be willing to try and change things around a bit to see what impact they might have, because keeping them the way they are now hasn’t proven to be all that successful.

Dirk Meyer and AMD's Achievements List

Dirk Meyer

The achievements AMD has been enjoying in the last year have been shaded by the launch and delivery pit stop because of their quad-core lines. These issues prevent AMD from keeping their promise to their customers and force the company to delay the shipment of several products until the first quarter of 2008.

The most affected lines are Phenoms and Barcelonas, the long-awaited and the extremely hated, at the same time. The company even admits that some customers have disagreed with the Quad Core processor delay so it is working on welding on the broken supply chain.

"We haven't delivered our Quad Core consistent with our plan and the Quad Core issues have overshadowed some of our achievements", Dirk Meyer, president and chief operating officer of the company, said. "We know exactly what the issues are with the Quad Core. We know how to fix them and we are hell-bent on getting those fixes into the market as soon as possible."

Drawing the bottom line, the company managed to gain some market share in the year that is about to end, but they also reached high figures in mobile processor shipment (as a matter of fact, studies say that AMD's mobile solution was the year's pick), as well as make the step from 65-nanometer to 45-nanometer technology.

"Since first quarter, we've done a lot of things really well", Meyer said. "We've acquired and quickly expanded our business with another global tier-1 OEM, we've grown our mobile business faster than the red-hot mobile business overall, we've accelerated our platform design wins, we've regained momentum in the CPU channel, we've fully transitioned our CPU output to 65 nanometer technology where the yields are outstanding and we've established a yields baseline for 45 nanometer technology."

This is quite a history, given the fact that AMD is not facing ordinary semiconductor competition, but the greatest CPU maker in the world, the competition, is pretty acid. Despite this, AMD is continually getting slapped by some major mistakes in the recent past. Well, since we are close to the year's end, it would be nice to give them another go and hope that the year to come will be better for them and, consequently, for the computer market.

Samsung's Got A Wireless Digital Photo Frame in Store for US

Wireless digital photo frames are most likely the next major trend in this particular market segment, as they allow users to transfer photos either from their PC or from the Internet onto the frame without having to move it one inch. And the latest announcement regarding such a product comes from Samsung,
who has just rolled out the US version of the SPF-83V model (available starting with October in Korea and other markets), which provides certain interesting features, including a wireless module.

First of foremost, it's important to note the fact that what we're dealing with here is an 8-inch frame, whose LCD display provides an 800 x 600 pixels resolution, a 200 cd/m2 brightness level, as well as a 500:1 contrast ratio. This is not exactly bad (for an 8 incher), but it's not fantastic either, since there are several superior model available on the market.

However, the most important selling point of the SPF-83V is represented by the 802.11b/g wireless connectivity, which means that the photo display can be connected directly to a PC or the Internet (via an access point) in order to receive automatic photo updates via a Windows Live Space or one of the many photo-sharing websites that offer RSS feeds.

Beside the aforementioned wireless connectivity, the device also comes packed with some more "traditional" data transfer solutions. Thus, the SPF-83V has been equipped with a memory card reader, which works with the CompactFlash (CF), MultiMediaCard (MMC), Secure Digital (SD), Memory Stick and xD-Picture Card formats, as well as 2 USB ports (1 Type-A and 1 Type-B), for higher versatility.

The SPF-83V also incorporates 64MB of flash memory, which can be used for storing the user's favorite photos. Furthermore, a new ball hinge mechanism using an elastomer ball allows fluid movement and a more natural viewing angle, while the wall mounting system frees up space and creates an elegant look.

Unfortunately, no pricing details are available for the time being, but since this thing sells internationally for around 250 US dollars, that's what you should probably expect.

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 RC1 Will Expire on June 30, 2008

The first Release Candidate of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is available as a free download from Microsoft. The final SP1 will also be delivered at no extra charge to all Windows Vista users, as it is the practice with service pack releases. But, another tradition over at Microsoft is to time-bomb the testing releases of upcoming software products. In the perspective of the Redmond company, the testers are able to access the bits in the early stages of building and get a sneak peek, without dropping a single cent. Of course, that the true transaction comes in terms of the feedback generated, so in the end, it is still a case of Quid Pro Quo, even if financial matters are put aside.

On December 12th, 2007, the company dropped the first public version of Vista SP1 with the
RC build via the Microsoft Download Center. Vista SP1 RC1 was previously accessible only through Connect, and by MSDN and TechNet subscribers. But, as it was forecasted following the initial introduction of the first pre-beta variants of Vista SP1, the service pack went to the general public by the end of 2007. Users that will implement Vista SP1 RC1 into their copy of the operating system will be able to run it for a little over half a year. Vista SP1 RC1 is scheduled to expire on June 30th, 2008.

"Windows Vista SP1 Release Candidate is time-limited software. It will no longer operate after June 30, 2008 and should be uninstalled prior to that date", revealed Nick White, Microsoft Product Manager. "If you install the Service Pack 1 Release Candidate, it is strongly recommended that you also plan to install the final version of Windows Vista SP1 when it is released in the first quarter of 2008. To do this, you will be required to uninstall this pre-release code. You must have a genuine copy of Windows Vista installed on the computer prior to installing the Windows Vista SP1 update."

White failed to inform what will happen to the operating systems from which SP1 RC1 will not be removed past the expiration date. In this context, it is interesting to see if the expiration of the Release Candidate of the Service Pack will cause the end users to experience problems with Windows Vista RTM on which the refresh was deployed.

Windows Vista SP1 RC1 "is pre-release code and will change before the final release. This pre-release software is provided for testing purposes only. Microsoft does not recommend installing this software on primary or mission-critical systems. Microsoft recommends that you backup your data prior to installing any pre-release software. Support is through self-help and peer support via the Windows Vista SP1 forum. Assisted support (phone, email and online chat) is not available from Microsoft Support for this RC release of SP1", White added.

That's It! No More Windows Live Messenger 9.0 Beta for You!

That's it! No more Windows Live Messenger 9.0 Beta for you! Windows Live Messenger 9.0 is designed to be the successor of Windows Live Messenger 8.5. The latest, finalized release of Microsoft's instant messaging client dropped at the beginning of November 2007,
the application being tailored on Windows Vista. Version 8.5 was released into beta earlier this year, on the heels of the launch of Windows Live Messenger 8.1, which introduced support for Vista as the latest Windows client hit the shelves.

But, the past month brought with it the release of an early, pre-beta development milestone for Windows Live Messenger 9.0. Microsoft sent out the invitations and then opened up the testing program. In the process, the Beta release of Windows Live Messenger 9.0 was leaked to the Internet, and became widely available for download, although it was intended for only approximately 5,000 testers. Starting on November 2007, Windows Live Messenger has also been available for download via Softpedia.

This is no longer the case. As a direct consequence of a request from Microsoft, we have discontinued the download of Windows Live Messenger 9.0 Beta. Users will not notice that the download link is no longer functional. This situation is temporary and will last until the Redmond company will make available the first official release of Windows Live Messenger 9.0 opened to the general public.

Users will simply have to hold in there for a little longer, but from what we have seen out of Windows Live Messenger 9.0 Beta, it will surely be worth the wait. We only hope that the testing and development process of Windows Live Messenger is not affected in any way, as Microsoft informed that it would consider shutting down access to development milestones of the next iteration of its instant messaging client in the eventuality of a leak. For the time being, users will simply have to do with Windows Live Messenger 8.5 and Yahoo Messenger for Windows Vista.

Deploying Windows XP SP3

With a pre-Release Candidate build of Windows XP Service Pack 3 available for download, the imminence of the final version of the refresh is starting to take contour. Until this point, Microsoft has flailed to point to the official availability date for the third and final service pack, and is still just offering the abstract first half of 2008 as a deadline. However, the intimate connection
between Vista SP1 and XP SP3 indicates the possibility of a concomitant release for the two service packs in the first quarter of 2007. When it comes down to the deployment of Windows XP SP3, the similitudes with that of Vista SP1 are indisputable. However, it still remains to be seen if Windows XP SP3 and Windows Vista SP1 will be joined at the hip early next year.

"Fundamentally, deploying Windows XP SP3 works the same as deploying SP1 and SP2 for Windows XP. SP3 is cumulative, so users can install SP3 on top of Windows XP SP1 or SP2. Windows XP SP3 supports the same languages as Windows XP did in its initial release. You can run the SP3 update package on any SKU of Windows XP SP1 or SP2. For example, you can run the SP3 update package on a computer running the Windows XP Media Center Edition with SP1", Microsoft added.

According to Microsoft, the standalone packages of Vista SP1 weight in at 450 MB (5 language package) and 550 MB (full 36 language package). The variant of the Vista Service Pack 1 served via Windows Update will be just 65 MB. The Redmond company will additionally offer Vista SP1 via Connect, MSDN, TechNet, pre-loaded on original equipment manufacturers computers and through new copies of the operating system. The same is valid for XP SP3.

"Windows XP SP3 will be available through Windows Update and the Microsoft Download Center. The service pack will also be available to Volume License customers, TechNet subscribers, and MSDN subscribers. Through Windows Update, the download size varies, but it is typically 70 megabytes (MB), depending on the computer's configuration. Through the Download Center, the download size is approximately 580 MB", Microsoft revealed.

Vista SP1's File Sharing Subsystem to "Benefit" from Thousands of Inbound Concurrent Connections

Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 are "aligned" operating systems despite the client and server side separation. In this context, the first service pack for Windows Vista, directly dependent of Windows Server 2008, will feature evolution in various aspects, as generated by the development of Microsoft's last 32-bit server operating system. The two platforms share the same core, but the similitudes stretch well beyond kernel-level. Discussing the alignment of Vista and Windows Server 2008, in terms of files common to the two platforms, Microsoft revealed that modifications introduced to such files in Windows Server 2008 would catalyze similar changes in Vista SP1, even if, ultimately
they would deliver an impact only in server scenarios. An illustrative example is Vista SP1 file sharing.

"The file sharing subsystem on Windows Vista only allows 10 concurrent inbound connections. Windows Server 2008 must scale to support thousands of concurrent connections. During the testing and customer feedback phase of Windows Server 2008 development, the file sharing subsystems are tuned and refined to optimize the file sharing stack for performance, scalability and reliability. This level of tuning and refinement are not typically applicable on a 10-connection limit client, but are critical to a file server role. Changes like this are done primarily for the server scenarios, although these changes may also benefit Windows Vista SP1", Microsoft explained.

But, the file sharing subsystem on Vista SP1 is not the sole affected. The Redmond company will integrate the changes synonymous with the evolution of IIS 7 components into Vista SP1. Some editions of the latest Windows client do feature IIS, a move designed to facilitate the building and testing of web applications on the platform. But, Vista does not have IIS7 installed, unlike Windows Server 2008 where IIS has a server role. However, since IIS7 has grown from the release of Vista to that of Windows Server 2008 early next year, Microsoft will integrate the changes in SP1.

"Key subsystems such as the Windows Logon process and the core kernel need only support user-switching scenarios on Windows Vista. However, on Windows Server 2008, where a Terminal Server may have thousands of users logged in simultaneously, these subsystems must be tuned for maximum performance and reliability. Changes like this are done primarily for the server scenarios, although they may also benefit Windows Vista SP1", Microsoft added.

Shenzhen Tongfang Comes with Good Features but Crappy Name

So, uh, what happened? Since when do crappy names hide cool features?! Well, there was a Tomato, an Onion and now there Shenzhen Tongfang! I am not going to discuss the trends in media player names. With so many players popping out on the market like mushrooms after a warm April rain, it would be impossible to have only commonly named electronic items.

As I mentioned before, this media player's name is Shenzhen Tongfang, but besides its silly name, you might want to know the item comes from the same fellows who brought you the PMC-V800 media device. Dubbed PMP 11, or "Aqua Pad" as some engraved letters below the controls propose, this player looks weirder that other devices of its kind...in a good way.

As we continue to stare in amazement at its humble 2 inch 176 x 220 TFT LCD Mediterranean-blue screen, we can easily notice the makers have bundled the device with lots of features that would make you want to dive deep inside its buoyant body casing.

Regarding the player's specs, it can deal with a bunch of popular file formats on the market, such as MP3 and WMA for the music content, as well as AVI for the video one and JPG and BMP for the photo files. As for its extra stuff, the player features a built-in FM radio and games capabilities. The player's file transfer is done using the USB 2.0 interface.

Sadly, there isn't any price tag attached to this player, so there's no way of telling how much of this is functionality and how much is appearance.

AMD's RV635, to Feature the New DisplayPort Interface

There have been a lot of rumors and suppositions about AMD's RV635 XT board, the world's first graphics card to provide the new digital display interface, dubbed DisplayPort by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA). The new interface is alleged to replace the old and not-so-efficient DVI and VGA connections in the near future.

Based on a micro-packet architecture, the DisplayPort is supposed to deliver higher bandwidth for multi-monitor implementations over a single data cable. Moreover, the DisplayPort will integrate the 8-channel 24-bit audio signal too, just like HDMI, while providing extra links for I/O panel and other microphone connections.

The new standard is the result of a joint effort of big names in the video industry and not only, such as AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, Samsung and Dell. Currently, the DisplayPort is fueled to compete with rival HDMI for desktop and notebook supremacy, but there are chances that both standards are more likely to co-exist, as HDMI is already integrated on a wide scale into consumer electronics products such as DVD players and set-top boxes. DisplayPort is more likely to take the lead in the computing sector than in consumer electronics, since it has been designed from ground up for such use.

AMD's RV635 XT with Dual DisplayPort and DVI-D

Luckily for AMD, they have been the first to come with a DisplayPort enabled graphics card. Almost unbelievable, as the company has not come up first with real innovations for a long time. Moreover, rumor has it that rival Nvidia is pumping up harder to come up with their DisplayPort capable graphics cards to be ready early next year. The RV635 XT board is scheduled for launch around the same time, but AMD has not yet disclosed the exact date.

Yet Another “World's Fastest” 16GB UDMA CompactFlash Card Hits the Shelves

Although 16 GB UDMA CompactFlash cards are not exactly growing on trees, it seems that they're becoming increasingly popular among semi-pro and professional photographer, due to their high access speeds, large capacities and, more importantly, to the emergence of digital cameras that can actually take advantage of these features (Canon 1Ds Mark III, Nikon D300 and Nikon D3).
And the latest announcement regarding such a product comes from Delkin, who has just released the Compact Flash PRO 305x 16 GB, which provides both very large data transfer speeds, as well as a storage capacity to match.

As the name says it, the memory card can reach very high access speeds of 305X (which translates into a theoretical transfer rate of 45MB/sec). This is partly due to the fact that the CF card uses high grade SLC NAND flash modules, which allows for the aforementioned large data transfer rates. However, this 305X speed is not as impressive as you might think, since 300X speeds are already becoming standard.

However, it seems that Delkin's new offering also targets those (rather unfortunate, but quite many) photographers without UDMA enabled digital cameras and camera backs. Thus, the card-to-computer transfer times are touted to be very low, especially when the card is used (why am I not surprised) with the company's UDMA enabled FireWire reader and adapters.

"Delkin confirms its commitment to continuing leadership in speed, capacity and reliability of memory cards with this new expansion to our PRO memory card line," said Eric Richter, Delkin's Marketing Manager. "What's more, Delkin's complete UDMA solution for professional photographers is unmatched by any other manufacturer. Besides our CompactFlash PRO cards, we offer UDMA enabled ExpressCard and CardBus adapters, and a FireWire reader for the fastest download speeds to the computer. That's critical for such working pros as news, sports, and wedding photographers, but any photographer working with larger RAW files will benefit."

The Delkin Compact Flash PRO 305x 16 GB card has a MSRP of around 400 US dollars, which is comparable to the other similar offerings coming from SanDisk, for example.

Windows Vista SP1 Release Candidate Is Here – It Goes Public Next Week

The first Release Candidate of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 is here, and Microsoft will make available a public build of the development milestone the coming week. On December 5, the Redmond company dropped Vista SP1 RC via Microsoft Connect, opening up the build to MSDN and TechNet subscribers today, on December 6. In addition to these locations, Vista SP1 RC will hit the Microsoft Download Center in just a few days, come December 10. Nick White, Microsoft Product Manager working
with the Vista launch team, has revealed that by this stage of development Vista SP1 can be considered as close to finish as possible. White indicated that the next move for Microsoft would be to release Vista SP1 to manufacturing, and stressed increased levels of performance and stability for the service pack.

"The size of the standalone installers have decreased significantly. For example, the standalone installer packages consisting of all 36 languages (x86 and x64 chip architectures) are smaller by over 50%. The standalone installer packages consisting of just the 5 languages (again, x86 and x64) slated for initial release are more than 30% smaller in size. The required amount of disc space for SP1 installation has also decreased significantly. Furthermore, with the RC, if more space is required to install SP1, an error message will now display exactly how much space is needed to complete the installation. Previous SP1 versions left behind a directory of files that wasn't needed after installation and occupied about 1GB of space; the RC includes automatic disk clean-up to remove this directory", White enumerated some of the modifications delivered by RC1 in comparison to the Beta builds of Vista SP1.

But, most of all the Redmond company has focused on improving the installation experience with Vista SP1 RC. White noted a boost in reliability, as well as the addition of extra guidance from Windows Update. Now, users can benefit from a succession of screens displayed during the installation process of Vista SP1 RC. At this point in time, it is clear that Microsoft will open up the Release Candidate for Vista SP1 quite soon. But at the same time, going public with Vista SP1 RC means that the service pack is as close to finalization as possible. This could, in fact, be an indication that Vista SP1's release in the first quarter of 2008, might be close to January-February.

2.4 GHz Phenom Available in December

The Phenom family has taken AMD through a lot of pain since the official unveiling. We have talked about the TLB errata that affect any Phenom running at more than 2.3 GHz to cause serious
faults in the L3 cache allocation. Finally, this makes the whole system freeze, and of course, users tear the hairs off their heads.

The Phenom 9700 series could not make it to the market because of this issue and has been postponed until further orders. However, a leaked AMD internal note revealed that AMD Phenom 9700, 2.4 GHz processor is to become available starting mid-December. The Phenom 9600 series to run at 2.3GHz has been slated for general availability starting the first quarter of the next year.

AMD's desktop product marketing manager Michael Saucier confirmed that all the Phenoms are subject to the same TLB issue and that AMD is currently working on a microcode fix. This patch would decrease the 9700's performance with up to 10 percent, to maintain the maximum CPU clock under 2.4 GHz.

The chip maker has launched the Spider platform back in November. It included the Phenom processor, the RD790 chipset and the RV670 graphics processor, and shortly after, MSI announced the first Phenom-Ready motherboard built around the RD790 chipset, the MSI K9A2 Platinum. Asus and Gigabyte motherboards to support Phenom quad-core processors (as well as the "defective" tri-cores) have been announced since early October.

The Phenom 9700 is about to land, which should be a reason to celebrate. Nevertheless, it seems that the MSI K9A2 Platinum, which is the favorite Phenom-Ready motherboard at AMD, is not to be found at all on the market. Moreover, rumors had it that there was a design error and the motherboard manufacturing had been ceased. MSI however denied the allegations and made it clear that the board was in high demand and had sold out. The manufacturer will start shipping again next week, just in time for the arrival of the 9700 Phenom.

Santa Offers Support for Your Holiday Gift via Microsoft

Do you need support for your holiday gift? Well, the Redmond company is quite in a jolly mood, seeing as the holiday spirit will manage to drive up the adoption of its products. And with a healthy line-up of offerings available this Christmas, Microsoft is not just going to let consumers out hanging. So, the inauguration of the Holiday Support Center comes as an extra bonus for your holiday shopping, provided that your gift has the Microsoft logo on it. The support center is nothing more than a collection of resources aimed at offering online assistance, or how the company has put it - helping consumers get the most from their gifts.

"We want to do all that we can over the holiday season to help customers maximize their
time," says Denise Rundle, general manager of Microsoft consumer support. "With the Holiday Support Center, we’ve brought together helpful resources in one easy-to-find place. We want customers to have access to the right resources so they can enjoy their holiday gifts as quickly as possible", she continued.

The Microsoft Holiday Support Center is centered on a range of products, of course, with Windows Vista at the top. Having missed the previous holiday season, because of repeated delays of the operating system, the Redmond company is now prepared to make the best out of Vista's first Christmas on the shelves. And accompanying Vista this Christmas, there are Windows Home Server, the office 2007 System, a variety of hardware offerings, games for Windows, the Xbox console and Zune. At the same time, Microsoft's support center will give users out of the bag resources on Internet Explorer 7, Windows Media Player and a variety of downloads designed to integrated with products, from Vista to Windows Live Messenger.

"’Tis the season for holiday traditions: trimming the tree, lighting candles, hanging mistletoe, baking cookies and catching a performance of The Nutcracker - not to mention countless hours of holiday shopping and gift wrapping. In keeping with the spirit of the season, Microsoft is upholding one of its own traditions — the Microsoft Holiday Support Center. Provided to customers for the ninth year, this online support resource offers assistance at no charge to consumers with issues related to Microsoft consumer products and technologies. A convenient, one-stop portal, the site condenses the top questions likely to come up over the holidays for popular products, and provides relevant solutions and resources," Microsoft added.

COWON Q5W Wireless PMPs Deployed In the US!

COWON has just announced its intentions to ship its next-generation Q5W portable media player in the U.S. The more important is the fact that this PMP is actually the first one ever to combine Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless technologies with a cool 5-inch wide screen color TFT LCD. Not to mention it was given a classy touch sensitive interface to go with the smooth polished design line.

Based on a AMD Alchemy Au1250 600 Mhz internal processor, the PMP is said to be fully compatible with Microsoft Windows CE 5.0 Professional operating system.

Why is it so important for COWON? It seems like: "The COWON Q5W is the first three-in-one portable device that delivers premium multimedia player, mobile PC and GPS navigation capabilities to holiday gadget shoppers and digital media enthusiasts nationwide.

COWON Q5W PMP

"Discriminating consumers can now do it all in one definitive PMP package: watch movies on a large wide-screen, use Wi-Fi to browse the Internet and check e-mails, wirelessly connect to Bluetooth-enabled stereo headphones and even plot their journey home with an optional GPS navigation package. To top it off, the Q5W offers 40GB or 60GB of storage capacity, an advanced photo and document viewer, built-in stereo speakers, an FM tuner and the industry’s best audio/video format support," explains Francis Choi, senior marketing manager, COWON America.

Juiced up for about 13 hours via a single lithium polymer rechargeable battery, the COWON Q5W can deal with lots of file formats such as MP3, WMA, ASF, OGG, WAV, FLAC, APE and MPC file formats for audio content, as well as AVI, ASF, WMV, MPEG and OGM file formats. The sound performance can be customized with JetEffect BBE, Mach3 Bass, MP Enhance, 3D Surround or with one of the 5 equalizer modes. The PMP also features an integrated Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g) feature and enables users to wirelessly connect to the Internet to surf the Web, use e-mail and MSN voice-enabled Messenger service.

COWON Q5W PMP

The pre-installed Adobe Embedded Flash Player 7 allows users to create and experience interactive content, applications and video on the Web. Additionally, the COWON Q5W includes the latest Bluetooth 2.0 technology to wirelessly connect to Bluetooth-enabled stereo headphones.

Interested in getting yourself one of those, then you should know the prices of the Cowon Q5W 40 GB and 60GB are 549.99 bucks and 599.99 bucks, respectively. What's more? An optional COWON Q5W GPS navigation package is available for $199.99.

Google Making Another Move for Fairness

Almost a decade ago, when baby Google was born, it wasn’t the company of dreams it is today. It had a reduced number of employees, the pay was far from impressing and the headquarters… well… let’s just say they were galaxies away from today but, by popular choice and a very good ad-distribution platform, they managed to become the leading company on the Internet. Doesn’t that sound like every Hollywood
gangster movie that you’ve ever seen? Young and poor – rich and famous, with a cash flow that would make King Solomon blush with envy.

The only difference between the Mountain View-based giant and the prodigal gangsters of the ‘30s, when the prohibition made it all so very easy to get rich, or to those of the 60’s and the 70’s, when drugs did the trick, is exactly the ad platform I mentioned earlier. Everything else is the same, the people working side by side, the deliveries, the people knocking at its doors for a shot at greatness.

Following a trend that started with the removal of page ranks from PayPerPost bloggers and the reducing of the clickable area for ads, Google decided yesterday that it was time for some more order to be made. It removed the text link advertising methods that didn’t carry the "nofollow" attribute as a "machine-readable disclosure." The point was to disallow the advertising for such PageRank-selling schemes via Google, according to Matt Cutts.

Yesterday's search results for PR8

Philipp Lenssen of blogoscoped.com noted that "while many to most paid links marketplaces are now disappearing from ads in Google search results and sites using AdSense, there is nothing in Google’s guidelines that would disallow one to build a "nofollowed" paid links service, as this ban is only for what Google considers 'PageRank-passing' ads."

Be that as it may, the change of implementation is in accordance to Google’s existing AdWords and Webmaster guidelines, so it was well within its rights to do so in an attempt to clear its "ranks".

While the Sunday wipe was most effective, there are still a few sites out there that have not been found, but thanks to the feedback and interest of the public, they too will most likely be missing their page ranks by the end of the week.

Is Microsoft Getting Ready to Let the Internet Explorer 8 Genie Out of the Bottle?

Microsoft is gearing up to let the Internet Explorer 8 genie out of the bottle. Like all things connected to the Windows platform, the future version of Internet Explorer, along with products such as Windows Vista Service pack 1, Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Windows 7, fall under the strict
Windows Omerta, imposed by Steven codename Translucency Sinofsky, the senior vice president for the Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group — the user experience of Microsoft Windows and Windows Live services.

Microsoft has repeatedly declined to be in the least transparent on IE8, offering the argument that it cannot discuss the future of the Internet Explorer browser as long as it does not have a firm plan in place. This is why, one year after the Redmond company made available Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP Sp2 and Windows Server 2003, IE8 is still a mirage for users and developers. But there is life after IE7, and IE8 might as well be on the horizon.

At over one year since IE7 dropped in October 2006, Microsoft drew the line on the browser version and revealed an install base of over 300 million worldwide. At the same time, Tony Chor, IE Group Program Manager posted a stay tunned message focused on Internet Explorer 8. "While we’re happy with how well IE7 is doing, as always, we continue to listen to our customers and find ways to further improve Internet Explorer. Look for more news on this front in the coming weeks," Chor stated.

At this point in time, however, there are little details available about IE8, except a possible release date sometime in late 2008, early 2009. In the meantime, Mozilla is preparing to drop the second beta for Firefox 3.0 by the end of December 2007. Microsoft too is dogfooding IE8, but little has transpired outside of Microsoft.

Google Turning to the Military

The poor old fat guy, wearing the red suit, can kiss privacy goodbye. He doesn’t know it yet, but people all over the world are out to see his every move and satellites are linking up in outer space just to track his sorry ass all across the globe… now in 3D!

The tradition started 52 years ago out of a mistake, made by a clerk in a Sears Roebuck & Co., who misprinted a special hotline for kids to call Santa and put instead the
number to the commander-in-chief of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). The red phone, you know, the one they always take the time, in movies, to look worried when it rings. Yes, the one next to the nuclear launch big button. Luckily for the kids and especially for the clerk, Colonel Harry Shoup, the director of operations at the time, had a sense of humor and, furthermore, had children of his own and didn’t want to disappoint them, so he took the time to make his staff check the radar for any indication of a sleigh making its way from the North Pole.

Guess what? They did find signs of that happening, so they updated every child who called on the jolly guy’s location and they have been doing that on Christmas Eve ever since, no matter who took the helm in the years to come.

This year, Google looked down on this tradition and decided that it could help expand it at a global scale, and so partnered with NORAD and provided the Google Earth, Google Maps, iGoogle and YouTube resources, in order to provide the little ones with a more accurate image of things. Carrie Farrell, Colonel Harry Shoup’s grandniece, also working at Google, provided more accurate insight on this service:

"The countdown begins December 1st on NORAD's website, where families can find a new kid-friendly game or activity every day until December 24th. And starting at 1:00 am PST on December 24th, you'll be able to track Santa's trip in real time. You can download Google Earth and add the NORAD Tracks Santa iGoogle gadget to your iGoogle page anytime, but make sure to come back to noradsanta.org on December 24th to download the special Santa Tracking file for an enhanced 3D Santa-tracking experience." Poor guy has a bulls-eye on his ass and doesn’t even know it (large grin).

Hackers Broke Into The Rolls-Royce Network

It has happened before, but this time, hackers bit the dust as they didn't manage to access valuable data stored on the computers. Rolls-Royce, a famous company
based on the production of luxury vehicles and airplane engines, was the victim of a Chinese hack attack targeting the private data stored on the firm's computers, "TerraNet" reported citing "The Times". According to the same website, some anonymous sources told the online publication that hackers attempted to break into the computers, but they didn't manage to reach the valuable information before being disconnected.

"The Chinese -- the People's Liberation Army -- have been up to it for a good while, but it has really come to the fore recently. They tried to get inside Rolls-Royce -- their IT systems. They did not get enough inside, but it was a sufficiently big attack to get very worried. They got to the so-called not very important information before being rooted out," the anonymous source told "The Times", according to "TerraNet".

It seems that the entire attack was based on a Trojan horse, installed into one of the computers, but nobody knows for sure how did it manage to reach the system. An interesting fact is that a Trojan horse is usually deployed by another malware/infection or directly by the user, after managing or downloading a malicious file. As we're talking about such a powerful company like Rolls-Royce, I really believe their computers were protected with some sort of antivirus, so we're now talking about the second option.

Sure, it's only pure speculation, but there have been lots of reports about companies that have been infected or attacked by hackers, after their employees visited dangerous malicious pages equipped with all sorts of infections. And even worse, some people took their workstations at home and lost all the information stored on the hard-drives, after connecting the computers to the Internet. Quite smart...

VAVE100, The Vista-Friendly Bluetooth Universal Remote Control

Since the number of devices that make up our home entertainment systems has seriously increased over the past few years, the same has happened with the demand for advanced universal remote controls, capable of controlling all the aforementioned electronics from a single terminal.
And one very good example of such a product is the VAVE100, the latest Bluetooth universal remote control presented by the people over at RicaVision that, besides its many other features, is designed to work with Window Vista's famous SideShow technology.

Thus, the VAVE100 allows users to control over 20 different entertainment devices from a distance of over 50 feet (15 meters) via IR. The device sports a built-in database of over 1500 worldwide brand names, so chances are that the codes for most of your home devices are already stored in the remote's memory. However, like all advanced universal remote controls, the VAVE100 also includes a learning function, while the user-definable macro functions allows the owner to to set-up one-button access for all the controlled equipment.

Furthermore, in addition to IR, the VAVE100 also includes a Bluetooth module (Class 1 SPP/A2DP), as well as the very important 2.4-inch QVGA color LCD display, which can be used either for viewing the various control options, or, more importantly, for the SideShow features.

As mentioned earlier, one of the remote control's main selling points is the compatibility with Windows Vista SideShow technology. This means that the VAVE100 is capable of connecting via Bluetooth (which supports a higher data rate than infrared) to a Windows Vista PC or Media Center and displaying such information as headline news, weather, e-mails, pictures, etc., which it receives from the gadgets running in Vista.

Unfortunately, the VAVE100 will arrive only in February 2008 (to late to be paired directly with the new "toys" one might get for Christmas this year) and will be priced at around 275 US dollars, which is a bit much, but not quite unfair, taking into consideration the features this thing has to offer.

YouTube Clones for All, Courtesy of Microsoft

YouTube clones for all, courtesy of Microsoft. This perspective, although it might seem somewhat far fetched, is actually close to taking contour. And the Redmond company, together with Vertigo Software, made one step closer to such scenarios, having updated Video.Show to Release Candidate 1.0 stage. Vertigo Software is the development company that has put together an "end-to-end reference-quality sample for user-generated video content" as a project commissioned by Microsoft and centered around the Silverlight technology.

Video.Show went live in mid November. The concept behind it is rather simple. Video.Show is
designed to do all the heavy lifting in building a video community website. Until now, in beta, Video.Show has evolved into the first Release Candidate stage bringing to the table a range of improvements.

"Role management, allowing for hosted installations in which new users do not have upload rights. Users now fall into one of three categories: untrusted users (not able to upload videos); trusted users (who also have the "upload user" right), and an administrator role. Basic debugging information is written to the database when video processing (encode, upload to Silverlight Streaming) fails. [And] general code cleanup, commenting, and bug fixes," revealed Tim Sneath, Microsoft group manager for client platforms.

With this update for Video.Show, Microsoft has also introduced support for the RTM version of Visual Studio 2008. The beta build of Video.Show was designed to integrate with Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2. Sneath added that the final release of Video.Show is on the horizon.

"We're close to releasing this as a production-quality sample. We're currently doing a security audit on the code to make sure there aren't any nasty SQL injection-type issues. As mentioned above, we're also working on some documentation and other pieces; we're doing some componentization work to make it easier to swap various pieces out (e.g. to replace the Silverlight Streaming hosting with a local IIS / Windows Media Server-based hosting model)," Sneath added.

Windows Pirates Take Internet Explorer 7 to the Top of the World

Internet Explorer 7 is slowly crawling towards the top of the world wide web, and Windows pirates are its vessels. Microsoft's latest strategy with IE7 is to apply an "all is fair in browser war" tactics. And to get the upper hand in the browser measuring contest that puts IE7 and Firefox 2.0 in the same arena of public audience, back in early October, the Redmond company
has made available for download a fresh version of Internet Explorer 7, stripped of the Windows Genuine Advantage anti-piracy mechanism. And it seems that Microsoft's gambit with its anti-piracy mitigations is paying off. Internet Explorer 7 currently accounts for in excess of 300 million users worldwide.

"It’s been a little over a year since we released IE7 on Windows XP and for Windows Vista, so I thought it would be worthwhile to talk about where we are after the year. According to internal Microsoft research based on data from Visual Sciences Corporation, there are over 300 million users are experiencing the web with IE7. This makes IE7 the second most popular browser after IE6. IE7 is already #1 in the US and UK, and we expect IE7 to surpass IE6 worldwide shortly," revealed Tony Chor, IE Group Program Manager.

Yes, opening up Internet Explorer 7 to all Windows pirates, as Microsoft itself has put it, was a move that simply revitalized IE7, which by October this year was going fast nowhere. And the fact of the matter is that, although at this point in time Internet Explorer 6 is still the dominant presence on the worldwide browser market, its foundation is shaking. At the current rate of growth, IE7 will take the lead from IE6 by the end of 2007, but no later than the end of January 2008. According to statistics made available by Net Applications, at the end of November, IE6 had still accounted for some 40.24% (down from 43.44% in October) of the browser market while IE7 had grown to 36.84% (up from 34.60%).

AMD Accuses Intel of Monopoly Abuse

Although things have finally started to move for number two chip manufacturer, the situation is still far from what AMD would have wished. When the Arabian company Mubadala announced that they have purchased Advanced Micro Devices shares that were worth $622 million, things have started
falling apart on the stock market. The company's stock has dropped almost $2 a share, which would translate in 20 percent loss. Of course, this might not be the result of silicon technology mixed with oil extraction, but it casts AMD into a deeper state of coma, given the fact that they are facing a pretty huge minus of over $5 billion.

In a recent interview, AMD's Head and CEO, Hector Ruiz, affirmed that the current stock price in AMD's shares has dropped because of an "extremely pessimistic" state of the technology market, that is due to end in two quarters at most. "But I think things will have to settle down. That may take one or two quarters to occur," Ruiz added. AMD has suffered market recessions since January 2006 and, during that time, the company has lost about 75 per cent of their value, from $42 to $10 a share – the current price.

Stock analysts say that AMD's drop is caused by the ruthless competition with rival Intel, as well as the company's precarious state of finances that occurred immediately after the ATI acquisition. Ruiz considers that Abu Dhabi's investment comes at the right time and would help AMD continue funding the research and development operations, the strongest point of the chipmaker. "If you look at the last five years, if you look at what major innovations have occurred in computing technology, every single one of them came from AMD. Not a single innovation came from Intel," continues Hector Ruiz.

The series of problems AMD is facing is completed by Intel's attempt at squeezing the competition out of the market by using their market share and production capabilities. "Intel continues... to abuse their monopoly and that's why around the world governments and regulatory agencies continue to go after them," claims CEO Ruiz. AMD is not the only to complain that Intel adopts unfair measures, as Intel has been accused of anti-competitive practices by both the European Union and the South Korea, but US's Federal Trade Commission said that they would stay away and wouldn't charge Intel with anti-competitive practices.

What’s New in Microsoft Land: 26th – 30th November 2007

Monday was a gush of fresh air for the 2.2 million members community of Microsoft Certified Professionals (MCPs) that were announced that as of that day they will be receiving new benefits that will help them successfully deploy and support new technologies by increasing the access to Microsoft’s internal resources and networking with their peers.

As Microsoft is preparing for the "Windows Server 2008" launch, the new benefits are being introduced and customers have already started taking advantage of the resources available. "As new technology is released, Microsoft is investing in unique benefits for MCPs that provide ongoing value that will help them improve their performance on the job while distinguishing themselves from their peers," says Lutz Ziob, general manager of Microsoft Learning.

The new MCP program features include:

Knowledge Base Access – that’s basically access to the extensive partner-level Microsoft Product Support knowledge Base that wasn’t available before to all, just to the Most Valuable Professionals and Microsoft partners. The whole point of it is to give the MCPs the chance to become more valuable to their peers and employers because of the inside track of important technical issues provided.
MCP Community Profiles – any MCP will be able to build and maintain his own landing page on Microsoft.com web site in order to ease the interaction inside the community and increase their visibility. Security levels include visualizing the personal profile by the worldwide public, MCP peers or just by Microsoft.
MCP Member Directory Search – it’s an option to plane locate other MCPs whereabouts for professional networking, mentoring and community involvement.
Transcript Manager – all credentials earned by MCPs are now combined into one single transcripts, available for download in both PD and XPS formats. The transcripts can easily be forwarded by MCPs to their respective managers because of the new option.
Certificate Manager – it really shortens the period within which new credentials can be downloaded as high-resolution Microsoft certifications.
Logo Manager – the option to download logos from the Library of Microsoft certification in order to be used for the MCPs resumes, web sites and business communications has been prolonged. "Microsoft certification gives you a way to connect with Microsoft because of the MCP program," says James Kovacs, a Microsoft MVP – Visual Developer, Solutions Architect. "You start getting the newsletter and seeing what other people are doing with certifications and what other training opportunities are out there. It’s a career builder."


After spending five years focusing on building software and services for mobile phones, Microsoft announced on Tuesday that it will be supporting the Verizon Wireless Open Development Initiative and Any Apps, Any Device option offered by Verizon Wireless.

It was Microsoft Corp’s Senior Vice President of the Mobile Communications Business Pieter Nook that announced the big step forward and he was reported as saying that "Microsoft is very excited to see Verizon Wireless make such a bold move to satisfy the demands of wireless consumers. As people’s mobile needs become more sophisticated and varied, they will require smarter and more adaptable mobile devices. We are proud to support any open access that puts more power in people’s hands to connect them to the information they want when and where they want it."

Microsoft’s rich experience with the mobile phones technology includes more than 140 phone designs created by more than 48 device manufacturers worldwide, more than 18 thousand applications are supported by Microsoft Mobile (MM) while just last year more than 11 million MM licenses were issued.


Wednesday brought in good news for the Redmond based giant, proving that despite not acquiring YouTube is still one of the worst managerial decisions made, steps have been taken to level the playing field with the now Google-owned video sharing service.



Numbers in from Compete showed that by taking Soapbox under the MSN Video umbrella, the visitors flocked towards it and thus created a so-far worthy YouTube competitor. "Extraordinary gains were realized by the Microsoft family of video sites, which includes MSN Video and Live Search Video, catapulting the Redmond rival into 2nd place, three spots ahead of its rank in September. MSN/Live Video grew 25.3% to 35M visits on the strength of 21M visitors.

Meanwhile, major losses struck Yahoo! Video, MySpaceTV and Heavy.com. MySpace’s decline is particularly troublesome given that it’s the 3rd straight month of double-digit losses for the social networking giant. Since July 2007, MySpace has seen its online video market share halved to 7.6%," revealed Compete's Alex Patriquin.


Thursday happily rolled around with the announcing of several strategic efforts to be made by Infosys Technologies Ltd. in order to deepen the services it already provides Microsoft Corp. with, among which a new dedicated vendor offshore facility (VOF) and a Microsoft Dynamics Concept Center.

The partnership between the two companies goes as back as 1998, the year when Infosys, a world leader in consulting and information technology, brought in to the table measurable enhancements to productivity, customer and partner experience and by that helping Microsoft be the giant it is today.

Moorthy Uppaluri, CEO of Microsoft IT-Global, stated, "Together with Infosys we are creating technology solutions that enable the businesses of our customers and stakeholders to be People Ready. At Microsoft, we firmly believe that the talented people we engage with are our fundamental and most important asset, helping us accelerate the transformation and growth of our business. I expect this relationship to grow deeper and broader with time. The infrastructure and support that Infosys has dedicated to Microsoft represents its commitment to our continued success."

Some examples of joint projects are the architecting and deploying a business intelligence platform built on Microsoft’s next gen BI technologies, architecting and deploying a download site to help with Microsoft’s improving their customer experience level, the establishing of a Test Center of Excellence focused exclusively on quality assurance of IT solutions for the Redmond giant and so on.


And in case you were wondering what’s with the subtitle, Microsoft had a party to close down the week and it had two reasons: one is that Windows Vista turned one year on Friday or more exactly the business SKU of it. The other is that Internet Explorer for Windows XP SP2 was granted an upgrade, available for download.



While not doing much more than its not-upgraded predecessor, the IE7 version completely turns its face from the Vista users and delivers them nothing at all despite the fact that they are taking that version of the browser by default.

"Internet Explorer 7 has been designed to make everyday tasks easier, provide dynamic security protection and improve the development platform and manageability. End user improvements include a streamlined interface, tabbed browsing, printing advances, improved search functionality, instant feeds (RSS), dynamic security protection and more.

This download is for Microsoft XP Service Pack 2 in English only. This custom IE7 download will be available during November 2007 - January 31, 2008," Microsoft announced on the download page.

I know it sounds far-fetched but it looks like the engineers over at the Redmond headquarters seem to be turning into party-animals that are going at it week after week… No, it really is far-fetched, erase that last remark.

Parents Worried About Pornographic Websites

The children's online security has always been a problem, even if their computers were protected with all sorts of software solutions. And nobody can guarantee 100
percent that the kids are secure, since dangerous websites appear every day and new threats rise up every hour. But even so, the parents are not able to monitor their children's online activity, a recent survey conducted by MoneySupermarket.com revealed, according to Web User News. "No less than 46 percent of the parents avoid checking the websites visited by the kids while only 21 percent installed software technologies to monitor the activity," the same source continued.

With continuously growing up social networking solutions, children must be protected because the threats are all around these websites. Not only can they be exposed to all sorts of dangers, but this kind of webpages connect people from all over the world.

Some time ago, the authorities discovered thousands of sex offenders who created accounts on MySpace and on Facebook to find teenagers and to demand from them explicit photos and adult material. Moreover, some of them attempted to meet the young users which is pretty dangerous since they usually provide false information and pictures.

"The results show parents are aware they need to monitor how their child is using the Internet but could do more. I would suggest setting rules and expecting children to obey them, especially teenagers, is not enough. At the very least the computer should be in a communal area. However, putting parental control software on your home computer, such as Net Nanny or WebBlocker would offer more security as well as give parents extra peace of mind that their child is safe when surfing the net," Rob Barnes, head of mobiles and broadband at MoneySupermarket.com said, according to Web User News.

€10,000 from Intel for the Winner of University Notebook Challenge

Intel launched in April, in the spirit of innovation toward energy-efficient technology, a challenge to European universities to design a device that would be capable of powering laptops by using sustainable and renewable energy sources. After seven months of creative work from the participants, the winners of the Intel University Competition On Renewable Energy (CORE) were rewarded yesterday.
The winners were given €10,000 as funding to support scientific research.

The three members jury had to judge entries from universities in Belgium, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Spain. The three members, Nir Tessler, professor at the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Eszter Morvay, IT analyst, and Ofri Wechsler, Intel employee, judged each entry according to several criteria, as ecological value, ingenuity of design or commercial viability.

The winner of the competition was the Spanish team, which presented a solution based on a pedal machine powered by human motion. The energy produced by the cycling action is turned into electricity by a power electronics converter and this way can power the laptop. The jury considered that this solution dealt with all aspects of the challenge, from ease of implementation to innovative quality of its components and also that it allows for a realistic usage model. The device is user-friendly allowing the user to adopt a flexible rhythm and take any breaks necessary. The power electronic converter is specifically designed to minimize charging time and to keep the energy flow at a constant level.

The Polytechnic of Milan from Italy and Delft's University of Technology from Netherlands, the runners-up will be recognized too for the merits of their designs. The Italian team designed a system that uses hydrogen fuel to power a laptop. This solution is noteworthy for its duration and also for being environmentally clean. Although it can not be found on Earth in its elemental form, hydrogen can be obtained through electrolysis from water. The Netherlands team presented a project consisting mainly of a rocking motion pedal mechanism. Both runners-up received a top of the line laptop.

Google External Hard Disks Released

Google is rumored to be secretly working on an operating system but no one was willing to fully deny or confirm it. A "not yet" is all I could come up with as an answer after asking somebody working there and that will never be good enough.

But it seems that Google is going to the hardware market before that, and the picture on the left says the whole story. "Google compatible" is what the box
reads and, believe you me, it’s a strange thing to find written on a box. The picture was sent by Markus Renschler to Philipp Lenssen of blogoscoped.com and it really shows just how big the Mountain View based company has become over the past 7 years or so.

The moment you, as a search engine and as a company dealing solely with the Internet, get to have your brand on the box of a hardware component is the moment you know you own the Internet. When your competition uses your advertising platform in order to advertise theirs, you own that specific area. When you are the standard to which everything moving online is measured, you own. Basically, Google owns us and it is actually taking care of us at the same time, providing each and every one of us with personalized ads.

OK, I might have exaggerated a bit, but the fact remains that if a company thought it would be benefic for its business to be stamping a "Google compatible" sticker on the boxes of its products, the Great Search Engine is pretty damn big, as if we didn’t already know it.

Oh, don’t worry, it’s nothing serious, the only problem still in question is Google’s alleged Operating System, there’s nothing hardware-related brewing… Yet. At the rate things are going, I don’t know if next year I’ll be able to say the same thing.

Skype = Internet Telephony

It's well known the fact that Skype has millions of users from all over the world, and no other company involved in the Internet telephony competition manages to challenge
Skype and to gather so many customers. A recent research conducted by Ipoque revealed that "Skype is by far the most popular Internet telephony application" but the VoIP technologies are used only by 30 percent of the total number of web users. Sure, it might sound less important but, when we think that Skype has almost 95 percent of these users (which obviously means almost 30 percent of the total Internet consumers), it may catch your attention.

In comparison with the VoIP market, the instant messaging battle records impressive numbers, as lots of users from all over the world are communicating via Windows Live Messenger, Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger or any other instant messenger. And according to Ipoque's study, 60 percent of the Internet users in the Middle East use such tools. "In Germany, however, it is only 17 percent."

Another important Internet competition is represented by the video sharing technologies which record impressive audience. In fact, it's well known that Google's YouTube lures millions of users to its page every day, so I guess it's no secret this type of technologies are quite popular among the Internet consumers. Joost, the recently released platform described as a potential YouTube killer, didn't manage to gather so many users so the Google technology is still the leader in a category with several other famous players such as MSN Video, Dailymotion or Metacafe.

"Joost does not yet have a significant relevance, despite its high media presence. Quite the opposite can be said about Flash movies embedded in Web sites like YouTube, which produced considerably more traffic. This and other forms of video streaming generated eight percent of the Internet traffic during the measurement period," it is mentioned in the research.

HD DVD Takes Quite a Beating on Black Friday

Black Friday, with its array of super-special discount offers, huge sales, scuffling in front of the cash register, etc. has come and gone, and both retailers and the companies carrying out various marketing studies are just now drawing a line. And according to the latest reports,
it seems that Blu-ray's ascending sales trend was quite visible over this period, as the Sony-backed format has accounted for around 72.6 percent of the entire number of HD discs sold.

Thus, as the "Hollywood Reporter" informs us, the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert sales data, which gathers information from Best Buy, Target and Circuit City (but, quite surprisingly, not from the giant Wal-Mart, which typically accounts for around 40% of the DVD sales market), reveals the fact that 72.6% of high-definition discs purchased by consumers were Blu-ray and just 27.4% were HD DVD. Furthermore, the "classical" DVDs have fared pretty well too, since the the number of DVD sold during this period has recorded a huge increase, namely around 175%, compared to the previous week.

One of the best-selling discs over this period was 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment's "Live Free or Die Hard," which has managed to generate first-week sales that were 20% ahead of projections, in addition to nearly 100,000 Blu-ray Disc copies, said Steve Feldstein, the division's senior vp corporate and marketing communications. "The entire category was up significantly over last year, with growth of 15% and more, in many cases on Black Friday alone," the official added.

The strangest thing is that the Blu-ray format seems to have been favored over the past period, despite the fact that Toshiba released a hurdle of very affordable HD DVD players via Wal-Mart and other retailers, the smallest discounted price being around 98 US dollars.

Does this mean that we can actually foresee a winner in the HD DVD vs. Blu-ray conflict? Well, that's a possibility, but the truth of the matter is that we're still far from a definite answer, especially since, after all, this could be just a mood swing among consumers. However, despite of this changing market trends, one thing's for sure: the PS3 (and especially its cheaper variant) did a hell of a good job as a Blu-ray promotion vehicle, and might, in the end, prove to be that "edge" required for wining this competition.

Hot Stuff! iRiver Unveils D27 And W7 PMPs!

iRiver keeps on popping out cool portable media players. This time, the giant Korean electronics company decided to release two devices, D27 and W7.

The former is much more than a media player, as it can also perform the job of an electronic dictionary. IT reveals a nice WQVGA screen display with 260k colors and a 480 x 272 pixels resolution. And there is more to come. For a better handling of the device, the makers have added a QWERY keyboard to the recipe, making the player look like one of those cool Chinese UMPCs.

Besides that, the PMP is bundled with a lot of geeky capabilities, such as dealing with lots of popular file formats on the market. Therefore, the player does a pretty good job when it comes to decoding music files like MP3, WMA, ASF, OGG, JPEG, GIF, BMP, as well as TXT files and more. File transfer management works via the latest USB 2.0 interface. The D27 PMP' s battery life was rated at about 27 hours. Size is also a bonus, as the PMP only measures 163.4 x 83.6 x21.5mm and weighs a mere 315 grams.

iRiver W7 PMP

The second new entry in the company's portfolio wears a spy name, the W7, and can do some really nifty stuff. To start with its simple, yet voguish design patterns, it will surely draw some attention. The player comes equipped with a built-in TFT LCD touch screen with 260k colors. It sports the same 480 x 272 pixels resolution and comes packed in 4GB and 8GB internal storage capacities. However, if the integrated memory proves to be not enough there is a built-in miniSD slot for an extra boost.

The PMP' s sound performances are also customizable with one of the 10 integrated EQ modes. In terms of file formats, the players is able to handle WMA, AVI, JPG, TXT, CSD, SWF and more. For easier file transfer, the PMP also uses the latest USB 2.0 version. Notably, its autonomy is rated at up to 20 hours of media content. The PMP measures about 110.5 x 52.6 x 15.7mm and weighs no more than 105 grams, just about enough to fir in the palm of your hand, with a little bit of effort.

Want one of these? Well, there is no official info on the their price tags, yet! Looking forward to that!