Posts with tag microsoft
Posted Oct 10th 2007 8:00AM by Ted Wallingford
Filed under: Windows, Macintosh, Blogging, Microsoft, Shareware, Freeware
There are two fantastic options for offline blogging (that is, managing a blog without using the web-based browser interface the blogging service provides). The first is
Windows Live Writer Beta, which, as the name would suggest is a Windows app, but one that's so useful it might compel Mac users to invest in
Parallels Desktop just to run it. The second is
Ecto, a Mac-native blog composition tool that many bloggers swear by. (Ecto also runs on Windows.)
We've tried them both recently, so we were able to pit them head to head like the Indians and the Yankees to see which one is better. As was the case with many
shocked Yankees fans, the conclusion of our little challenge was surprising. So which is superior--Live Writer for Windows (pictured above) or Ecto for the Mac? You be the judge after the jump.
Continue reading Head-to-head smackdown: Live Writer versus Ecto
Posted Oct 2nd 2007 5:06PM by Chris Gilmer
Filed under: Business, Internet, Web services, Microsoft
Microsoft has just acquired
JellyFish, a comparative shopping engine.
The team in Redmond Washington has been working on shopping and commerce components for Live Search, and the
recent addition of JellyFish to the Live team could mean some new improvements for the MSN Shopping space.
Jellyfish calls itself the "internet's first buying engine". The service pieces together the shopping puzzle with information and content relating to the particular item you might be interested in and presents you with trusted merchants to take your pick from. Jellyfish makes money by taking a share of the revenue associated with the purchase and actually split it with the buyer. Advertisers in the JellyFish marketplace compete by paying more to get higher on the listings. This in turn makes the end price lower. Everyone's happy. Customer got their product cheaper, and merchant got a sale.
What does this mean for users of Live.com search? We're sure a few more highly targeted and relevant product links will be appearing in the search results. But the real question is, will Microsoft continue the JellyFish revenue sharing model, or keep all that cash for themselves?
Posted Sep 28th 2007 3:00PM by Chris Gilmer
Filed under: Business, Internet, Web services, Microsoft, web 2.0
Is Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in Seattle to talk with Bill Gates about becoming a billionaire, or are they merely talking about the large rumored investment that could be coming down the pipes?
Zuckerberg has been spotted around Microsoft's hometown possibly chatting about a reported $500 million, 5% stake in the famous social network, making its valuation hit $10 billion. With many stating that there is no chance that Facebook could be close to that amount, the data of its 43 million users might think otherwise.
It's a highly effective tool for staying in touch while creating an internet identity, and with its individualized profile information it could become an advertising giant. But could that possibly be the price tag?
Posted Sep 28th 2007 12:30PM by Chris Gilmer
Filed under: Business, Internet, OS Updates, Office, Productivity, Microsoft
Bowing into pressure from customers, Microsoft has decided to continue selling the
Windows XP operating system in stores for another five months.
Previous versions of operating systems released by Microsoft have generally been available for up to two years after the shipment of a new OS. Microsoft had planned on cutting XP in stores just one year after the release of Vista, however, due to its slow sales and customer demand Microsoft has added a few more months and will let it stay on store shelves until mid 2008.
Many current customers have not been interested in switching to Vista, with computer giant Dell even going so far as to start up offering XP pre installed on new PC's instead of Vista early this year. Now what does that say about a new OS compared to a six year old one?
If you've switched to Vista, how is it working out for you? Do you recommend upgrading yet?
Posted Sep 26th 2007 1:30PM by Chris Gilmer
Filed under: Business, Internet, Blogging, Web services, Microsoft, Search
Microsoft is headed towards the rollout of a new Live.com search today, including a brand spankin' new interface.
There will be a gathering in Mountain View at the Microsoft campus for industry insiders to get a glimpse at Microsoft's latest search interface and redesign today. The new redesign will see a refreshing look for the search interface taking cues from both Ask and Google Universal Search. MSN Shopping will also get tied into the search results for consumer product results, making for an all around better user experience.
Akram Hussein, a Windows Live Platform Program Manager
caught a glimpse of the new look while on his home PC, and managed to snap a few shots of the cleaned up design. He has since pulled down the post with images from his website but we did manage to get copies and have
compared them with the current Live.com search results. We will have to wait and see what else is truly unveiled as all information from the meeting will be under an embargo for later this evening.
In more MSN news, there is also talk of
MSN Video adding instant start and less intrusive ads in video content.
UPDATE: Microsoft's press release on the new updated
Live Search Engine.
[via
marketingpilgrim]
Posted Sep 18th 2007 1:00PM by Emily Price
Filed under: Internet, Microsoft, Search
Sprint and Microsoft
have teamed up to bring users what they call "the industry's first fully integrated GPS location-aware mobile search service."
The service which launches today is available on Sprint phones and allows users to use one search box to search the web, local listings, and maps at the same time as well as use their cell phones GPS to quickly find local businesses without having to manually input their location. So next time you're on vacation you don't have to know where you are to find out where the nearest Starbucks is or where you can score a piece of pizza. One neat aspect of the new service is voice search which allows users to search by saying a business name and then have their search results show up on the screen.
Sprint's enhanced mobile search is available now on most data-enabled Sprint phones at no additional cost for data subscribers. The voice search feature is available for users on select handsets as a free download.
Posted Sep 17th 2007 10:00AM by Chris Gilmer
Filed under: Business, Design, Microsoft
Everyone most likely knows about that little shack in the woods in the Seattle suburb of Medina on the shores of Lake Washington that Bill Gates created in 1997, but have you ever been inside?
The
$53 Million dollar, 66,000 square foot estate has all the technological goodies that you might not even be able dream up. With tons of centrally controlled music, lighting and video you can bet that this is the one of the most technologically advanced homes in the world. US News has put together a
tour of the estate, from the pool building, to the library, to the underground garage so that you can drool over where the
Forbes number one billionaire lives.
Some interesting
tidbits:
- 104 electricians used
- All timber used in the house are perfectly finished and nearly perfect with almost no knots.
- All woodwork is flawless
- Acoustics were a big concern. Woods and fabrics were used to ensure perfect acoustics throughout the house.
- Flooring is heated, even in the driveway and walkways throughout the estate.
- Security system is monitored from the Microsoft campus.
- There is a salmon hatchery on the estate.
- 52 miles of communication cable
- Hidden cameras are everywhere, including some hidden inside stone walls.
- Floor sensors can track a person within 6 inches.
- The bathtub can be filled and temperature can be controlled by Gates as he drives home from work.
Was the Bill Gates estate designed on a PC? Well, not exactly, we can thank rival Apple for
having a hand in it.
(Not to worry, doesn't Microsoft own a small % of Apple anyway.) Check out some
additional pictures of the estate here.
Also, check out the money face off,
Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates on Blogging Stocks.
Posted Sep 11th 2007 6:00PM by Chris Gilmer
Filed under: Business, Internet, Web services, Social Software
Facebook is sure ready to secure its future and ward off any threats from the likes of Microsoft, Google and MySpace and anyone else who wants to try and get into their social networking path.
AllThingD is reporting that Facebook is contemplating bringing in a few more investors and raising more money so that they can either expand, or possibly get acquired. The company did get $25 million in funding in 2006 and there were a few offers on the table from Yahoo! ($1billion), and Microsoft ($6billion) that fell apart. The company that has been listed as the next best thing since Google is moving ahead fast with a reported
valuation of $525 million.
Posted Sep 10th 2007 11:00AM by Chris Gilmer
Filed under: Business, Design, Developer, Internet, Office, Web services, web 2.0
A leading worldwide IT consultancy and outsourcing business with control of over 1 million corporate desktops has added Google Apps to its technology arsenal.
CapGemini [PDF] will start to target the desktops of over a million corporate workers with Google's spread of online office applications that consist of Email, Calendar, Docs and Spreadsheets. Slashing IT costs, and saving corporations countless dollars. CapGemini is currently a Microsoft Vista and Lotus Notes partner, but given the search giant's efforts with their "accessible anywhere" applications and storage, CapGemini's clients will have yet another option for the most appropriate technology that fits into their business goals. With Google's applications, users can allow for complete collaboration watching changes in real time.
Google is rumored to be launching a
Presentation application into its suite of applications shorty, rounding out its professional offerings. Something for Microsoft to watch out for. CapGemini will collect a £25 license fee charged by Google for the use of its applications.
[via
Guardian]
Posted Sep 7th 2007 8:30AM by Chris Gilmer
Filed under: Business, Developer, OS Updates, Microsoft
Microsoft is getting together security updates for
Windows 2000. There are five security bulletins that are set for release on September 11th 2007 that will update a version of the Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool on Windows Update, Microsoft Update, Windows Server Update Services and in the Download Center.
Of the five updates deemed an "important update" for users, only one has been considered critical. These fix bugs that could exploit flaws without any user interaction. The other non critical updates have to do with fixing remote code execution and elevation of privileges on in such applications as Windows Live Messenger and Windows SharePoint Server.
Posted Aug 30th 2007 3:00PM by Chris Gilmer
Filed under: Audio, Business, Developer, Internet, Video, Office, Productivity, Social Software
The team in Redmond Washington has just announced that they will be acquiring Chicago based
Parlano, developers of a cross functional group communication technology, that goes beyond your typical IM and email toolsets.
Terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed, but Microsoft is planning to integrate Parlano's technology in order to give its office programs a broader vision. For example, users would be able to see who is available only by IM as oppose to Phone or video chat. Then they would be able to transition seamlessly from email to an IM to a video chat.
This move by Microsoft marks a milestone in its Office Communications server due out late next year. An application that lets users find and communicate with the right person, immediately, through the applications that they use most.
[via
NYTimes]
Posted Aug 25th 2007 6:17PM by Nik Fletcher
Filed under: OS Updates, Windows, Microsoft
Product activation is something that's been bugging computers users for years now, and whilst the inconvenience to users has been somewhat minor, it appears that the Doomsday-esque scenario of activations being impossible due to a technical fault seems to have struck. Of all the companies that it could have hit,
BoingBoing is reporting that it has hit a rather large and dominant player in the software activation world: Microsoft. Redmond's own Windows Genuine Advantage systems apparently failed, causing any activation requests to fail, resulting in the (legitimate) copies of Windows being marked as counterfeit and reducing the feature set to users.
If that weren't bad enough, the article also mentions that Microsoft is recommending people refrain from retrying activation until Tuesday the 28th of August. If you're unfortunate enough to get caught in this let us know in the comments.
Posted Aug 22nd 2007 1:00PM by Nik Fletcher
Filed under: Design, Internet, Photo, Windows, Macintosh, Adobe, Microsoft
You may recall at the
start of the month that
MIcrosoft had achieved some recognition of its
HD Photo specification, something that has raised eyebrows amongst those of us who don't use WIndows as our Operating System. Much to its credit, however, Microsoft does seem to be working hard to ensure that the format is cross platform, and that patents are freely licenced to ensure the format is adopted. Today sees another step in the pushing of HD Photo, with Microsoft releasing beta (pre-release) versions of HD Photo plugins for
Adobe Photoshop CS2 and CS3. Whilst HD Photo is far from prevalent at the moment, if you want to experiment with the format, or a burning desire to work with it, these new plugins will come in handy.
The beta release of the plugins are available for both
Windows and
Macs, and expires after December 31st 2007.
[
Via MacWorld UK]
Posted Aug 21st 2007 9:00AM by Chris Gilmer
Filed under: Design, Developer, Windows, Microsoft
Microsoft's
CodePlex is an open source project hosting website. Microsoft has no control, review, revising, endorsing or distributing control over any projects on the website. They simply provide the web storage for developers.
So many new projects have been created to share with other developers on CodePlex, and the system seems to be progressing quite nicely.
PlentyofCode lists out the current top 25 live projects that are being hosted, and describes what they do.
This is a great initiative that Microsoft has underway, demonstrating that the open source Windows platform is a going to be a great opportunity for them.
Some top ones from the list include:
Posted Aug 14th 2007 11:42AM by Chris Gilmer
Filed under: Internet, E-mail, Productivity, Web services, Microsoft
We haven't heard from Microsoft's Hotmail in a little while, but now that
we have, we are happy about them staying in the email game and making some performance adjustments.
With Google's Gmail and Yahoo's Mail throwing Gigabytes at users, it was time that Hotmail stepped up its game and gave users a little more storage. The change from 2GB of free email, just got boosted to 5GB, with paid users getting 10GB of storage. Could it be too late? Have users already switched to another service because of the lack of space?
Other changes the team has implemented are increasing the amount of time that messages stay in junk and deleted items, contact de-duplication, smaller header so users can see more of the email, vacation replies, accepting meeting requests, and the ability to turn off the today page. With all these new changes to Hotmail, it sounds like we have an online Outlook integration in the works.
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