Tag: microsoft

Windows Defender (Beta 2)

Post ImageMicrosoft released Windows Defender (formerly Microsoft Antispyware, hence the Beta 2) yesterday, making it available as a free download and I just installed it. Apparently existing Antispyware users will be notified about the update, but I hadn’t received anything before I installed Defender. Fortunately it appears to have upgraded or removed Antispyware for me. Here’s Microsoft’s description of the software:

Windows Defender (Beta 2) is a free program that helps you stay productive by protecting your computer against pop-ups, slow performance and security threats caused by spyware and other potentially unwanted software.

Some of the main changes/features include a redesigned interface, improved detection and removal, support for 64 bit platforms, and the most important one of all: Windows Defender can be run by all users on a computer, with or without administrative privileges.

Some other things I noticed:

  • Checking for updates seemed to take a long time, and the UI for it is ugly compared to Antispyware.
  • The red and yellow target icon has been replaced by a grey, plain looking brick wall. The icon doesn’t appear to stay in the status bar anymore.
  • The logo is using the new Vista graphic for Windows (this makes it the first application I have installed that uses the graphic).
  • There’s a lot of wasted whitespace on the “Home” screen.
  • Software Explorer is a new feature that lets you manage software permissions. Also shows you a bunch of information about each program.
  • I need to test it out a little more, but so far it seems to use more memory than Antispyware.

If you want to give it a try, you can download it from Microsoft.

Read: Windows Defender

Scoble's Vista Demo

Post ImageSo the icon is a little different, but we’re still at Northern Voice. This session is a demo – Robert Scoble is going to be sharing Windows Vista (hence the graphic!). Here are my notes:

  • Scoble’s just getting things setup now, looks pretty sexy so far, people are watching and chatting. I can hear a few people in the audience saying “that’s just expose” or something – the Mac bunch is out in full force!
  • This is not a scripted demo! Chris Pirillo is helping out. The build used in this demo is only two nights old!
  • They are starting by showing a video of two machines, XP against Vista, to see the stress on the system. Windows XP is failing under the stress – essentially they simulate 100% CPU usage with different levels of priority. Now for Vista: much, much better!
  • Underneath the covers, things are quite a bit different.
  • Chris has been talking with the UI team to make sure all of the artwork, icons, etc. are updated.
  • Aero is supposed to evoke a feeling of “more space” on the desktop.
  • Scoble is not showing the tablet, media, or any of the other custom versions.
  • You now have the ability to do per-application volume levels!
  • Entire networking stack has been rewritten, and the performance is about 40 times better between Vista and Vista compared to what it was with XP. There is a 2-10 times performance between Vista and Linux machines.
  • Customization for colors and that sort of thing is much, much improved. No more Blue, Silver and Green – you can choose anything! Chris says he’s been hammering away at making sure that the fit and polish makes it into the product.
  • Apparently when it crashes in the beta builds, a dialog box appears that says “Blue Screen” 🙂
  • Search really is everywhere, in every window.
  • When you edit photos, the original and the edit are both saved, so you can always go back to the original photo. And RAW is handled by default.
  • The new IE7 is “open search compliant” – something created by A9. Chris says this is basically RSS search.
  • Printing has been completely revamped, so printing is easier and much more accurate.
  • IE7 converts everything to RSS 2.0 and uses a transform to display it in the browser. When you subscribe, the feed is pushed to a central store. Windows Mail is the aggregator by default, though IE does save the feeds and stuff. Outlook 12 has an RSS aggregator using the same feed store.
  • The RSS rendering in IE7 also strips out anything that might be a security concern.
  • Apparently the Gadgets will be Firefox compatible.
  • Beta 2 is coming in the next month or so, release sometime in August with a release candidate sometime in the middle, which means users should have it around Christmas time.
  • The concept of tagging and stacking files is definitely in the product. People using the product so far are losing the concept of hierarchies, which is good for everyone!
  • Vista looks awesome!

To end, Chris announces that he has OS X running on his ThinkPad (the developer build). And now we better leave before the Apple lawyers descend…

What the hell Yahoo?

Post ImageOne interesting item floating around the blogosphere today is that Yahoo has decided to give up in the search industry, essentially conceding defeat to Google. Yes, you read that correctly – sickening isn’t it?

“We don’t think it’s reasonable to assume we’re going to gain a lot of share from Google,” Chief Financial Officer Susan Decker said in an interview. “It’s not our goal to be No. 1 in Internet search. We would be very happy to maintain our market share.”

I think it’s incredibly sad and disappointing that they have made such a decision. And I really have to disagree with Henry Blodget:

Yahoo! has finally read the writing on the wall that everyone else (except Microsoft) has been reading for three years: The search game is over and Google has won.

If there is anything Google has taught us, it’s that search is important! While Yahoo and Excite and everyone was ignoring search, Google improved it, and look where they are now (definitely read John Battelle’s book The Search, it covers this in great detail). Search is not even close to perfect – there is so much left to be done! I think it’s a mistake to give up, and I don’t think there’s any “writing on the wall” either.

Thank goodness we have Microsoft! Instead of giving up, they’ve decided to pour oodles of money into search to try and improve the experience far beyond Google. Of course we won’t know how successful they are for a while, but that’s not the point. The point is that they did not give up, they continue to try and innovate, and in the end, it will result in better search for all of us (as Google is forced to further innovate as well).

Yahoo was looking really good lately, with their string of strategic “Web 2.0” acquisitions, then they go and make a statement like this. I’m kind of baffled, really. Certainly Yahoo’s business is not entirely search, but if they don’t think that search is and will continue to be a big part of their business, even indirectly, then I think they’re making a big mistake.

Read: seattlepi.com

No SP3 for Windows XP until late 2007

Post ImageI’m not sure this date will remain final, but Microsoft has announced that the release date for Windows XP Service Pack 3 is not until the second half of 2007. Apparently most people anticipated having SP3 a lot sooner than that:

Microsoft also has published “latter half of 2006” as the tentative release date for the second service pack for Windows Server 2003. The “preliminary” due date for Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2) date jibes with what industry experts were expecting.

Microsoft has not made public an official list of planned fixes (and new features, if any) that will be part of either the Windows Server 2003 SP2 or Windows XP SP3 releases.

I realize that SP3 is important for business customers who aren’t going to upgrade, but I will for sure be running Windows Vista by the time XPSP3 is released. That said, the best part of these news stories isn’t future planning but spreading rumors:

Microsoft officials attributed some of the delays in Longhorn/Windows Vista to SP2. Officials claimed the company’s decision to reassign developers working on Vista to finishing and testing SP2 had a negative impact on Vista’s schedule.

It is unclear if Microsoft is pushing back SP3’s delivery date in order to avoid a similar negative impact on Vista’s schedule. It’s also unclear whether Microsoft may be holding back SP3 in order to help stimulate upgrade demand for Vista.

True or not, there will undoubtedly be a “respectable” media outlet or two that will pick up on that as fact.

I guess when you think about it, 2007 is a long time though. If Vista really does ship this year like Microsoft says, I’d almost expect a service pack for it to be released in the second half of 2007. As I mentioned earlier today, I think Windows XP SP2 is pretty solid – maybe the “way out there” release date for SP3 is simply a reflection of that?! Not that you’d ever read that in the media.

Read: Microsoft Watch

Another misleading headline

Post ImageI took a quick look at the headlines on CNET News.com, and one in particular caught my eye. The story is titled “Windows Wi-Fi vulnerability discovered“, and given that I use wireless networks all the time, I decided I should take a look. Here’s how the article describes the problem:

When a PC running Windows XP or Windows 2000 boots up, it will automatically try to connect to a wireless network. If the computer can’t set up a wireless connection, it will establish an ad hoc connection to a local address. This is assigned with an IP address and Windows associates this address with the SSID of the last wireless network it connected to.

The machine will then broadcast this SSID, looking to connect with other computers in the immediate area.

The idea is that a hacker could then connect to the computer and compromise it. All of that I understand. Yet as I was reading this, I kept thinking to myself, “that’s not what happens when there are no wireless networks.” I don’t experience what is described above! Then I realized why.

A full nine paragraphs into the story:

MessageLabs believes that users running Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) are not at risk.

There’s no way they could have mentioned that earlier? All this kind of story does is spread needless FUD about Windows. If you have a properly updated machine, you’re fine! Not only that, but any firewall (like the one built-in to XP and enabled by default in SP2) would prevent any such problem.

If nothing else, I hope Windows Vista is regarded as secure, so that I don’t have to put up with articles such as this one. No matter your religious affiliation, the current Windows stuff is pretty solid. And no matter what operating system you use, if you don’t keep it properly updated, you do so at your own risk!

Read: CNET News.com

PlaysForSure

Post ImageI had my first “PlaysForSure” experience last night with Windows Media Player 10 and my Creative Zen Touch. I was browsing the downloads available for the Zen Touch the other day and came across a firmware update that added support for Microsoft’s PlaysForSure. What exactly is it? Here is the marketing fluff from Microsoft:

Choose your music. Choose your device. Know it’s going to work.

When your device and music service are compatible with each other, all you have to do is choose the music that’s compatible with you. Look for the PlaysForSure logo on a wide selection of devices and music stores.

Essentially for me it means I can plug the Zen Touch into any Windows XP machine and not have to install any drivers. Additionally I can use Windows Media Player 10 for transferring music and playlists, meaning I no longer need extra software. Considering I only use WMP10, this is great!

Everything worked perfectly for me. The only complaint I have is about transferring playlists – it is not immediately clear that you need to setup a sync for playlists. When WMP10 opens up, your media is on the left and your device on the right. Choosing a playlist and clicking Sync does not create a playlist on the device, it only copies the music! You need to setup the sync in order to have playlists transfer as well – minor step, but not immediately intuitive.

Seems to me that Microsoft has made excellent progress on the software side of things. Now if only they (and their partners) could produce a device as desirable as the iPod!

Read: PlaysForSure

Windows Vista at CES

It’s that time of year again, when all the electonics manufacturers get together at CES to show off their new wares. Microsoft is busy at the show this year too, showing off some of the new capabilities of Windows Vista. Bringing Vista to life is a short but interesting video that shows off some of the features coming in Vista:

Be one of the first to see Windows Vista in use as Gates and Microsoft Group Product Manager Aaron Woodman show off the slick new OS during the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show.

Aaron shows the live previewing, Flip 3D application switching, the Sidebar with Gadgets, and the new Sideshow feature for notebooks. In another Microsoft video, Bill Gates shows off part of his vision for the digital future. It’s a very cool video – I love the screens!!

UPDATE: The blogosphere is buzzing about Bill Gates’ speech at CES. Watch the entire keynote online!

Mindboggling – Microsoft buying Yahoo?

Post ImageEvery once in a while a rumor comes along that is so outlandish, so crazy, so never-gonna-happen, that it makes you really hope it does happen! The latest such rumor is that Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo, a rumor that has sent investors into a craze:

Analysts said reasons for the heightened interest in Yahoo call options ranged from recent rumors that software company Microsoft Corp. might be seeking to partner or merge with the Internet company, to bullish expectations for the company’s upcoming fourth quarter earnings report.

“The speculative activity in short-term calls might reflect the recent talk about an alliance with Microsoft,” Ruffy said.

Such rumors have been rampant since Google Inc. recently fortified its lead in the Web search market by taking a 5 percent stake in Time Warner Inc.’s AOL Internet unit.

On Sunday the Los Angeles Times cited what it called speculation that Yahoo had rebuffed an $80 billion bid from Microsoft as too low.

Did you see that? Eighty billion dollars! I can’t quite wrap my head around that amount! According to Microsoft Watch, the software giant currently has about $40 billion in cash.

There’s too much to consider if such a merger were to take place that I won’t even bother unless it actually happens.

Read: Reuters

Virus disguised as MSN Messenger beta

Post ImageIf you’re like me and you don’t mind installing a beta or two to check out new software, you might want to be careful about trying to install a beta for MSN Messenger 8:

A virus masquerading as a new beta version of Microsoft’s MSN Messenger has begun circulating, antivirus company F-Secure said on its blog Tuesday.

The virus, which F-Secure calls Virkel.F, comes as a file called BETA8WEBINSTALL.EXE that can be downloaded from a Web site. Running the program installs not a new MSN Messenger beta, but rather a virus that sends download links to a computer user’s MSN Messenger buddies. The virus falsely labels the link as “MSN Messenger 8 Working BETA.”

Of course, the filename may be something different so don’t watch only for that one. Nothing like a good virus for the holidays, eh?

Read: CNET News.com

New Feed Icon

Post ImageYou might have read lately that Microsoft and Mozilla have decided to standardize their icons for feeds on the one used in Firefox. The Microsoft RSS Team reported they would adopt the Firefox icon a couple weeks ago:

We’ll be using the icon in the IE7 command bar whenever a page has a feed associated with it, and we’ll also use it in other places in the browser whenever we need a visual to represent RSS and feeds.

The Outlook 12 team has announced they’ll be using the same icon. Great news!

I think it is great news indeed! A standard icon will go a long way towards making web feeds even more mainstream, especially since I would expect many other companies to now adopt the icon as well. I have added the icon to my website, which you’ll see on the black bar above, next to the web feed icon. I haven’t yet decided if I’ll get rid of the web feed icon or keep it. I guess the new icon is really the “web feed icon” now!

The new icon is a departure from the RSS or XML icons, which is very good. Here’s what I wrote in August:

There’s some really simple reasons that we should be calling them web feeds. When you ask your friend or co-worker about something on the Internet, do you talk about visiting an “HTML page” or a “web page”? Does your web browser (not “HTML page browser”) load up “HTML pages” or “web pages”? Clearly, you talk about web pages, and that’s what your browser loads. There are three very good reasons we use the term web pages…For the very same reasons, we should be using web feeds, not RSS feeds.

Now that the graphic no longer says “rss” or “xml” or any word or acronym at all, I think it will become much easier to adopt the name “web feed”. And yes, we still need a name you can say in words, just like Prince was still called Prince after he adopted an icon to represent himself!