2000-2009: Microsoft’s Decade of Shattered Dreams

Microsoft 94 Comments
BetaNews writes: "Microsoft executives and product managers -- Chairman Bill Gates, above all of them -- showed great technology vision for the new millennium. The company was right about so many trends to come but, sadly, executed poorly in bringing too many of them to market. Microsoft's stiffness, perhaps a sign of its aging leadership, consistently proved its foible. Then there is arcane organizational structure, which has swelled with needless middle managers, and the system of group competition".
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Songbird 1.4.x Released

Wireless 71 Comments
Just before Christmas Songbird 1.4.0 was released, and a new fix versions was released today as 1.4.3. Songbird now supports MSC storage devices and CD ripping, bringing the app one step closer to replacing iTunes for some users. What's particularly interesting is that Songbird now specifically pushes their product against users of Android, Nokia and Palm smartphones -- which is something I also suggested a few months too. Hopefully Google, Nokia, and Palm will get behind the small team in San Francisco to help out the cause, since it's also on their best interest too.
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A Possible Cure for Exploitable Heap Corruption in Windows 7

Windows 7 Comments
"Last November, Russinovich triumphantly introduced developers at the company's annual PDC conference in Los Angeles to a multitude of measures implemented in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 not only to improve reliability and harden security, but to overcome the deficiencies he openly admits characterized the brief era of Windows Vista. Collectively, just the introductions to these new features by Russinovich and his partners consumed 11 hours over the first two days, all of that time with a standing-room-only crowd."
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“Google Nexus One Phone Likely to Launch Jan. 5”

Google 10 Comments
"Google's much-anticipated new phone, the HTC-designed Nexus One, could make its debut next week. Google has scheduled a press event for Tuesday, January 5 at its Mountain View, California, headquarters. Though the company hasn't mentioned Nexus One, the invitation mentions Android, Google's mobile operating system for phones, and the company is widely expected to show the device that has had smartphone industry watchers buzzing for weeks."
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Psystar Switches to Linux, Temporarily Halts Sales of Rebel EFI

  Submitted by OSGuy Hardware 48 Comments
Earlier this month, Psystar suspended all sales of its hardware products, honouring the court's decision which favoured Apple. This week, Psystar has also temporarily halted sales of Rebel EFI while the former clone maker confirms the tool's legality with the court. Psystar also announced it will continue hardware sales in the coming days - with Linux rather than Mac OS X.
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Dave Barry’s Year In Review

Humor 4 Comments
Continuing with our slow-news-week theme, I'd bring your attention to Dave Barry's year-end column. People outside the US may not be familiar with Barry, a prominent nationally-syndicated satirist whose columns are full of hyberbolic nonsense. But in addition to national and international events, he covers some technology news to, excerpted after the jump.
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Mozilla Pushes Back Firefox 3.6, 4.0 Deadlines

Mozilla, Gecko 21 Comments
Mozilla won't make a 2009 deadline for releasing Firefox 3.6 and is giving itself more time to complete a major update, version 4.0. The organization behind the open-source Web browser had predicted a final release of Firefox 3.6 in December 2009, but the Mozilla Web site now includes "ship Firefox 3.6" as a goal for the first quarter of 2010. In addition, Firefox 4.0, which had been due in 2010, now is "aimed at late 2010 or early 2011," with a beta due in the summer of 2010, according to Mozilla.
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Your KDE4 Experiences

KDE 236 Comments
Since the stream of news is still pretty much dry, I figured I'd throw in something I've been meaning to talk about for a while now, but really didn't dare to: KDE4's performance. Since experiences with KDE4 seem to widely differ between people, it might be a good idea if we, together, can find a common cause among those of us having problems.
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