http://www.osnews.com/ Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams OSNews version 4 donotreply@osnews.com (Adam Scheinberg) donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:58:25 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com/ 120 http://www.osnews.com/story/21802/Microsoft_s_Big_Announcement_Next_Monday_What_s_Up_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21802/Microsoft_s_Big_Announcement_Next_Monday_What_s_Up_/ With Google being in the spotlight with its announcement of the Google Chrome OS, and what this could possibly mean for Microsoft, something almost slipped us by: apparently, Microsoft has a big announcement coming next Monday during its Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans - and it's related to Chrome OS. Let the speculation begin! Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:09:21 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Microsoft 39 http://www.osnews.com/topics/23 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21696/Microsoft_Announces_Free_Antivirus_Limited_Public_Beta/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21696/Microsoft_Announces_Free_Antivirus_Limited_Public_Beta/ "Microsoft today officially announced Microsoft Security Essentials, its free, real-time consumer antimalware solution for fighting viruses, spyware, rootkits, and trojans. Currently being tested by Microsoft employees and a select few testers, MSE is Microsoft's latest offering intended to help users fight the threats that plague Windows PCs. Microsoft notes that the threat ecosystem has expanded to include rogue security software, auto-run malware, fake or pirated software and content, as well as banking malware, and the company is aiming to help the users who are not well protected. A beta of MSE will be available in English and Brazilian Portuguese for public download on June 23, 2009 for the first 75,000 users. This is a target number, but Microsoft is willing to increase it if necessary." Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:42:07 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Microsoft 14 http://www.osnews.com/topics/23 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21645/Colossal_Patch_Tuesday_Addresses_31_Windows_IE8_vulnerabilities/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21645/Colossal_Patch_Tuesday_Addresses_31_Windows_IE8_vulnerabilities/ "Just when it appeared Windows and its associated services were looking more stable month after month, Microsoft chose June to tackle a plethora of vulnerabilities including no fewer than 14 that its security engineers believe could be exploitable within the next 30 days. Microsoft Security Response Center engineers Adrian Stone and Jerry Bryant were audibly panting as they delivered the news to Microsoft customers today." Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:18:09 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Microsoft 1 http://www.osnews.com/topics/23 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21512/Microsoft_Ships_Betas_of_Visual_Studio_2010_NET_Framework_4_0/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21512/Microsoft_Ships_Betas_of_Visual_Studio_2010_NET_Framework_4_0/ As expected, Microsoft has released Beta 1 of its Visual Studio 2010 tool set along with the first beta of the NET Framework 4.0. The software represents the next major version of Microsoft's flag ship software development environment. Mon, 18 May 2009 22:25:05 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Microsoft 14 http://www.osnews.com/topics/23 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21504/Microsoft_Surface_SP1_Released/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21504/Microsoft_Surface_SP1_Released/ Quietly, without any fanfare, Microsoft has released the first service pack for Surface, their big multitouch table computer. The update was released during TechEd 2009, but no press release or any other form of promotional material was sent out. Still, there are some really interesting additions in this service pack, making it quite a substantial upgrade for Surface owners. Sat, 16 May 2009 15:14:42 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Microsoft 11 http://www.osnews.com/topics/23 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21397/Office_2007_Service_Pack_2_Released/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21397/Office_2007_Service_Pack_2_Released/ Microsoft released the second service pack for Office 2007, with ODF and PDF support. "Now all Office users will have the option to load and save OpenDocument files, with today's distribution of Service Pack 2 of Office 2007. In something of a surprise -- contrary to what many at Microsoft led us to believe -- upon installing SP2 on our test systems, we immediately located an option for saving files in ODF by default. That means you don't have to "Save As" and export to ODF if you don't ever want to use Microsoft's OOXML or Office 2003 "compatibility mode;" you can at least try to use Word, Excel, and PowerPoint as substitutes for OpenOffice." Wed, 29 Apr 2009 14:03:33 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Microsoft 6 http://www.osnews.com/topics/23 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21371/Surface_Setup_Is_Bad_User_Experience_Stunning/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21371/Surface_Setup_Is_Bad_User_Experience_Stunning/ Microsoft's Surface computer is a revolutionary table-top multitouch computer that can do all sorts of fancy tricks. It makes use of a projector and five cameras to track hand movements, as well as read "Surface tags", which are a sort of barcodes underneath objects. It's a software+hardware package, and for 17000 USD, you'd think it'd be a treat to unbox and install one. Well, no. Near-instant update: Microsoft has replied to the blog post, and as it turns out, the unit delivered to Miller for one of his clients was scheduled to be setup by Microsoft - a service that comes standard with the device. More details inside. Fri, 24 Apr 2009 22:20:23 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Microsoft 26 http://www.osnews.com/topics/23 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21363/Microsoft_Finances_Open_Source_NFS_v4_for_Windows/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21363/Microsoft_Finances_Open_Source_NFS_v4_for_Windows/ "Microsoft has forged a deal with a University of Michigan research unit to create an open-source version of the NFS version 4 protocol that will work with Windows. Microsoft already offers NFS support in Windows client and server, but for Version 3 only." Thu, 23 Apr 2009 21:28:42 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Microsoft 20 http://www.osnews.com/topics/23 News poundsmack http://www.osnews.com/story/21362/Microsoft_Sales_Fall_6_Percent_From_a_Year_Ago/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21362/Microsoft_Sales_Fall_6_Percent_From_a_Year_Ago/ "As analysts predicted it might, Microsoft on Thursday reported the company's first ever year-over-year sales decline for the quarter ended March 31. The software maker said fiscal third-quarter sales totaled $13.65 billion, down 6 percent compared with $14.45 billion in the same quarter a year ago. Its per-share earnings were 33 cents per share, although that included severance and investment impairment charges that reduced earnings by 6 cents per share. Analysts had been projecting sales of $14.15 billion and per-share earnings of 39 cents, down from 47 cents a year ago, according to Reuters Estimates. Microsoft had said in January that the crystal ball for the company was cloudy and at the time announced its first companywide layoffs, with plans to chop 5,000 jobs over an 18-month period." Thu, 23 Apr 2009 21:09:29 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Microsoft 13 http://www.osnews.com/topics/23 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21310/Office_2007_SP2_Nears_Office_2010_Details_Revealed/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21310/Office_2007_SP2_Nears_Office_2010_Details_Revealed/ With the spotlight on Windows 7, you'd almost forget that there's another product category Microsoft is rather successful in: office suites. Microsoft Office 2007 was a massive change from previous versions, delivering a completely new interface that was genuinely easier to use. Office 2007 will soon be seeing its second service pack (with OpenDocument Format support for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint), while the next version of of Office, dubbed Office 2010, will arrive pretty soon as well. Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:26:30 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Microsoft 28 http://www.osnews.com/topics/23 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21308/Microsoft_Ends_Mainstream_XP_Office_2003_Support/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21308/Microsoft_Ends_Mainstream_XP_Office_2003_Support/ "Microsoft retired mainstream support for Windows XP and Office 2003 today - but that doesn’t necessarily mean anyone should be in a hurry to upgrade to Vista yet. The firm will continue to offer extended support packages on both products through to 8 April 2014, allowing businesses and individuals plenty of time to consider their options before plumping for a new operating system. From today Redmond will charge XP and Office 2003 customers who need assistance on a per-incident, per hour, or alternative basis. The changes apply to all editions of the Office suite as well as all versions of XP with the exception of Embedded. Non-security critical fixes will be available to those punters who signed up to Microsoft’s Extended Hotfix Support program 90 days before mainstream support was killed off. Security updates will be pumped out free of charge for Office 2003 and XP until 4 August 2014." Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:02:21 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Microsoft 6 http://www.osnews.com/topics/23 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21303/Microsoft_s_Ramji_About_Microsoft_and_Open_Source/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21303/Microsoft_s_Ramji_About_Microsoft_and_Open_Source/ At the Linux Collaboration Summit, held last week in San Francisco, an interesting panel discussion took place about Linux' position in the wider operating systems market. Included were Jim Zemlin, Linux Foundation executive director, Ian Murdock, Sun community and developer vice president, and Sam Ramji, Microsoft platform strategy director. Titled "Why Can't We All Just Get Along?", the discussion focussed on Microsoft's somewhat dubious relationship with the open source community. Mon, 13 Apr 2009 22:11:35 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Microsoft 24 http://www.osnews.com/topics/23 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21290/Microsoft_s_Hidden_Apple_Tax_Misses_the_Mark/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21290/Microsoft_s_Hidden_Apple_Tax_Misses_the_Mark/ After the more-or-less positively received "You find it, you keep it" television advertisements, it seems as if Microsoft is quickly falling back to its previous mistakes of relying on easily countered FUD-like tactics. We already discussed the blog post regarding Linux on netbooks, which was easily countered on virtually every point made. However, it gets even worse: Microsoft has ordered a study detailing what the company calls the hidden "Apple tax" that you are supposedly paying if you go Apple. Now, I'm the first to state that Apple simply doesn't provide the optimal pricing for everyone, but this Microsoft sponsored study is so completely and utterly ridiculous it makes me wonder just who on earth would look at it and go "Yeah, this looks pretty convincing!" Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:21:53 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Microsoft 108 http://www.osnews.com/topics/23 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21262/Jonathan_Shapiro_of_Coyotos_BitC_Joins_Microsoft/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21262/Jonathan_Shapiro_of_Coyotos_BitC_Joins_Microsoft/ Jonathan Shapiro, main developer of Coyotos and BitC, has announced on the project's mailing list that he has been hired by Microsoft, and that he won't be able to continue to work on Coyotos and BitC. He promises to deliver a final release of BitC, with all the intended features, but he warns that that may not be possible. At Microsoft, he's going to work on the Midori project. Mon, 06 Apr 2009 10:05:35 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Microsoft 32 http://www.osnews.com/topics/23 News http://www.osnews.com/story/21235/Collecting_Underpants_in_the_Cloud/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21235/Collecting_Underpants_in_the_Cloud/ The technology world is all aflame about "cloud computing", and how businesses are supposed to move all of their stuff into the cloud, or die. Or something. In my eyes, "cloud" is simply a different name for the internet, and cloud computing is simply a different and fancier name for what most internet users have been doing for ages. Wed, 01 Apr 2009 10:02:09 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Microsoft 19 http://www.osnews.com/topics/23 News inkslinger