Having dipped my toe into the Windows Vista beta 2 waters, I found myself in want of anti-virus to secure my OS. I remembered Ed Bott reported about free anti-virus options for Windows Vista so I went looking, and found this article. Ed reports that there are free versions of both eTrust EZ AntiVirus and Trend Micro's PC-Cillin products available. Happy antivirusing!
Stop Windows from nagging you to reboot after an update
Almost anyone who has applied Windows Updates during their day has been annoyed by this issue. Once Windows finishes its update, it asks you to reboot. You click "later". Ten minutes later, a window pops up asking you to reboot again. If you're unfortunate enough to be in the middle of typing, this can actually trigger the "Reboot" button (the default is this button, so simply pressing the space bar while that window is in focus will do it) effectively losing whatever you've been working on. There's a solution for this issue, which is that the length of time Windows waits before hassling you again is configurable. Colin Mackay has the details.
IE7 phishing filter thought this site to be a fraud
The last post regarding Marc Orchant`s OneNote article was the first that I have posted here running the Windows Vista and IE 7 betas. After making the post, I viewed it in IE to double-check that everything rendered correctly, and was greeted with a warning that The Unofficial Microsoft Weblog may indeed be a phishing site.
Now I commend Microsoft for doing something about the phishing problem that plagues the web - it`s certainly not going away, and anything the tools we use can do to help us not get taken in by these scams is welcome by me. Of course, it`s quite disconcerting to discover that one`s own site is considered to be a potential threat.
But, consider that we are a site that has `Microsoft`right in our sub-domain, even though we`re not part of Microsoft`s microsoft.com domain. And we collect information, if you call asking for a name, email address and URL to comment on posts as collecting information, which in fact it is. So it`s reasonable that software might consider us as a potential threat.
Fortunately, Microsoft foresaw that the tool might pick up many false positives, and offers a form right on the warning to allow site owners to alert the Phishing Filter team to the problem. There also appears to be a voting mechanism so that if enough regular site visitors tag the site as either legit or not, the site will be considered that way. Pretty cool, as long as that is not easily abused.
Kudos to Microsoft for attempting to further protect us. I can`t say that I`ll stick with IE7 for longer than it takes to get a feel for it - in my opinion Firefox is still leaps and bounds ahead of IE in terms of usability and extensibility. But so far IE7 is a welcome update to a sorely outdated browser.
Marc Orchant article on Office 2007 preview site
Marc Orchant, who most of you will remember as the sole voice of this Microsoft-focused blog for many months before his departure, today had an article posted at Microsoft's Office 2007 preview site. The article highlights all of the new innovations in OneNote that have turned it into a real personal information hub, collaboration powerhouse as well as a time and task management tool. Rather than steal any of Marc`s thunder, I`ll just point you to the article which is well worth a read.
Microsoft Calculator Plus 2
Chris Pirillo points us to a freely downloadable calculator from Microsoft that is head and shoulders beyond the default Windows calculator in terms of features. Of course, as with most downloads from Microsoft these days, this one requires Windows Genuine Advantage certification. If that makes you nervous, steer clear, but if you're looking for a new calculator application that gives you conversions including currency exchange conversions (it can even download exchange rates), give this one a try.ClearContext annual email usage survey
ClearContext (makers of a very popular Outlook add-in) have posted their annual email usage survey, which they use to aggregate email usage trends and determine what email users need most. For taking the survey, you'll earn yourself a coupon worth $15 off the purchase of a ClearContext product, and will be in the running to be one of a randomly picked selection of users who will receive a full license for ClearContext IMS Pro. Considering they graciously share the results of the survey, it should be worth your time to take part.See Windows Vista demo site
Microsoft has a marketing site up called See Windows Vista, where Tom Skerrit invites you click on links to view videos describing the virtues of Vista. Although the site is very polished, and has a few nice touches (leave your browser sitting on the site for awhile and Tom will do a few cute things to try to draw you back in), I can't help but notice that while the site works under Firefox, it occasionally has some rendering problems. Regardless, if you're looking to be convinced why upgrading to Vista will be a good thing, this is perfect for you.
Microsoft releases Mac-specific keyboard and mouse
It's not all that common that we're able to link to our sister site, TUAW, in reference to Microsoft news. But today we can do just that. Microsoft has released a keyboard and mouse combination specifically for Macs, right down to the brushed silver / grey color, and lack of a Windows key. While I think most people can agree that Microsoft's current generation of PC hardware - specifically user input devices - is top-notch, it's still a little bit perplexing that Microsoft would go so far as to actually release Mac only hardware. Their keyboards and mice have long been compatible with Macs, and currently have markings for both Windows and OS X on new keyboards. To be clear, I'm not against the Mac-specific hardware, just a little confused as to the need for it. But, there you go.
Sony launching 'PlayStation' branded luxury goods
The always entertaining Mike Elgan points to a Japanese site that purportedly has news of Sony launching a new 'PlayStation' brand of luxury goods, such as wine glasses, corkscrews, photo frames and even sweaters. While we haven't been able to confirm this, it's a rumor that's not all that difficult to believe given some of the crazy messages that have been coming out of Sony about the premium price point of the upcoming PlayStation 3 console. But PlayStation as a luxury brand? To be honest, even Xbox is a better brand name for that type of product line. Xbox implies something mysterious, something new. PlayStation implies a toy my one-year-old would play with.
Google Desktop Search to be bundled on Dells instead of Microsoft
Engadget reported a few days ago on the fact that Google had outmanouvered Microsoft with respect to ensuring that their Google Desktop software comes preinstalled on Dell hardware instead of Microsoft's desktop search product, MSN Toolbar. This deal also means that Google will be the default search engine on Dell machines, rather than defaulting to Microsoft's MSN Search page. The truth is that this is as it should be; Google really is the top of the heap in terms of online search engines, so it's good to see that Dell users will get that by default. It isn't clear to me, however, that Google Desktop or MSN Toolbar for that matter are particularly good choices to be installed for new users. Time will tell.IE 7 in Vista to be called IE 7+
Microsoft has decided to differentiate between the version of Internet Explorer 7 that is available for Windows XP, and the version that will release with Windows Vista by calling the Vista version Internet Explorer 7+. The reason for the difference in designation stems from the fact that there are features that will be included in IE on Vista that apparently were not easy to create for XP - presumably they rely on technologies that are built in to Vista. Of course I can't let this go by without mentioning that although this is a relatively minor example of it, this is yet another case of poor product naming. The 'plus' designation in software has had a long-standing perception of being a version of software that you pay extra for - and get extra features. In other words, a user that has IE 7 may well wonder what they can do to get IE 7+. When the answer turns out to be upgrade to Vista or buy a new PC, you can bet they won't be very impressed.
In fact, is it really necessary to differentiate the products by name? It's perfectly reasonable that in any given product, some features that might rely on the operating system might be available in the new OS but not the old one. Isn't it?
Send a Smile utility for Office 2007 beta testers
Last week Microsoft released Office 2007 Beta 2 to the world, and had somewhere over 500,000 downloads in the first two days. The primary reason for releasing this test version of the software so early is to get as much feedback from the Office using community as possible, soon enough that final product decisions can be made before it is released to manufacturing. To that end, the Office team has released a utility called Send a Smile. Once installed, it offers both a happy face and sad face icon in your system tray. The idea here is that when you find something in Office that you want to make a positive comment on, you click the smiley face, and if you find a problem you click on the sad face. Jensen Harris reports that in the past features that were thought to have been rarely used would be removed, only to find out that many people enjoyed the use of that feature. Sending a smile is offered as a way to effectively vote for your favorite features, to ensure they make the cut when Office 2007 is finally released.
Mini-Microsoft taking a break
For quite some time, Microsoft has had a relatively high-level manager blogging under the pseudonym "mini-microsoft". This blogger is widely considered to be the real deal, not some imposter posing as a Microsoft employee. One of Mini's theme's since the inception of the blog has been that Microsoft needs to downsize / rightsize - thus the nickname "mini-microsoft". The blog has also gone to great lengths to expose flaws in the way in which employees are reviewed and rated against one another. Recently, Microsoft announced plans to scrap the old method of rating its employees on a curve, which was one of mini's main complaints. There are also a number of other changes going on at Microsoft that mini finds encouraging, and thus has decided to take a break from the intense posts mini had become renowned for.
Many have called for mini to reveal him or herself, but it is expected that due to the level of detail mini had exposed Microsoft's internal practices, it would be a career ending move. Mini reports no intention to reveal himself, but will be taking a reprieve from blogging for awhile to see how these new changes take shape.
DownloadSquad tells us how to fix Windows quickly
Jordan over at DownloadSquad has a post about how to repair Windows XP with only eight commands. Thankfully it's been quite some time since I've been in a position of having to fire up the Windows Recovery Console, but unfortunately problems do hit from time to time and it's worthwhile to be prepared. As Jordan recommends, it's a good idea to read the entire article before attempting the procedure it describes, as there are a few instances where a wrong step could mean catastrophe. But since the process is intended to bring you back from the edge, it's a risk worth taking - and if you're careful about it, it's no risk at all.Hands-on with OneNote Mobile from Office 2007 beta 2
James Kendrick over at jkontherun has posted his first impressions of working with OneNote Mobile, the much anticipated add-on for OneNote 2007. So far he's giving it a thumbs up, save for the fact that it appears not to be able to handle ink input, or the ability to sync ink back to the mobile unit. It seems OneNote Mobile was written initially for SmartPhones which lack a touchscreen for input, but I wonder if the decision not to support ink (at least initially) is out of concern for file size? That being said, Pocket PCs handle ink input just fine, thank you very much, so JK's probably on to something. Here's hoping they add ink before the final release. It would be nice to have a quick ink input method for those of us that are not lucky enough to have Tablet PCs!
