Monthly Archive:: January 2007

Report: Vista’s Business Sales Stronger Than Expected

Windows 38 Comments
Sales of Windows Vista to businesses were stronger than expected during the operating system's debut month, according to a report from NPD Group. The sales outpaced the first month's tally for Windows 2000 and only slightly trailed that for Windows XP, the market researcher said Thursday. Commercial revenue from Vista in December was 62.5 percent above that racked up by Windows 2000 in March 2000, its first month after launch. But Vista's total is 3.7 percent below what Microsoft got in the commercial channel for Windows XP in November 2001, its first month on the market.
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Unofficial Mac Tablet Draws Record Crowd at Macworld

Apple 18 Comments
Axiotron, together with distribution partner Other World Computing, is drawing huge crowds at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco this week, as attendees flock to take its new Mac OS X-based 'ModBook' tablet computer for a test run. Unveiled on Tuesday, the USD 2279 device is an after-market hardware modification to Apple's MacBook notebook line. The companies claim it's the 'first ever Mac OS X tablet computer solution'. Each ModBook starts off as a MacBook Core 2 Duo but undergoes a surgical operation where its original display and keyboard are severed, then replaced with a new 13.3-inch Wacom pen enabled widescreen display set in a chrome-plated magnesium top shell. The device runs the current version of Mac OS X and utilizes that software's built-in Inkwell handwriting recognition.
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Mac Flaw Puts Safari Surfers at Risk

macOS 13 Comments
A serious security flaw in Mac OS X opens machines with Apple's Safari Web browser to hijack by outsiders, Secunia has warned. The vulnerability and 'proof of concept' code to exploit it were released on Wednesday as part of the Month of Apple Bugs project. It affects Mac OS X 10.4.8, the most recent version of Apple's operating system and, possibly, previous versions, security researcher LMH said in the posting on MOAB's Web site.
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Microsoft Exec: ‘Craplets’ Could Damage Vista Launch

  Submitted by jayson.knight Windows 70 Comments
A senior Microsoft executive says the company is concerned that uncertified third-party software loaded onto new computers by manufacturers could hurt the launch of consumer versions of its Windows Vista operating system later this month. In a discussion Tuesday night at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the Microsoft official told CBC News Online, on condition of anonymity, that the world's largest software maker is frustrated by legal shackles that prevent the company from restricting what kinds of software major computer makers install on new PCs. "We can't do anything about it because it would be illegal," the executive said in reference to restrictions placed on the company following a U.S. federal anti-trust lawsuit against the company.
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Microsoft on Responsible Vulnerability Disclosure

  Submitted by Esther Schindler Microsoft 8 Comments
Mark Miller, director of the Microsoft Security Response Center, shares his opinions about the wisdom of sharing vulnerabilities with customers. "Responsible disclosure, reporting a vulnerability directly to the vendor and allowing sufficient time to produce an update, benefits the users and everyone else in the security ecosystem by providing the most comprehensive and highest-quality security update possible."
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Internet Explorer Still Cannot Be Removed From Windows

Internet Explorer 128 Comments
Groklaw has an article arguing that Microsoft has not yet complied with the DOJ order that users must be able to remove Internet Explorer from Windows. "So he explained the blue and white screens of death, what a dual boot startup is, commingling code, and then tying or bundling, specifically tying Internet Explorer with the operating system. He explained how you can't use Add/Remove to get IE or Media Player off your hard drive, but that you can use SPAD, 'set program access and defaults', to choose Firefox or another browser as your default browser instead of IE. However, IE remains on your hard drive."
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Government Agency Tells Schools to Shun Vista

Windows 44 Comments
In a surprise criticism of Microsoft, the UK government's schools computer agency, has warned that deploying Vista carries too much risk and that its benefits are unclear. Becta, the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, said on Wednesday that it 'strongly recommends' schools do not deploy Microsoft's next operating system within the next 12 months. And in a further dig at Microsoft, Becta argues there are no 'must-have' features in Vista and that "technical, financial and organisational challenges associated with early deployment currently make a high-risk strategy."
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For Vista Testers, It’s All in the Family

Windows 15 Comments
Millions of computer users participate in software beta programs every year, usually toiling away in anonymity, never quite sure if whatever they find or report will matter in the final product. Others find the experience a lot more fulfilling, such as the families that participated in Microsoft's Life with Windows Vista program. In addition to the more than 2 million testers of Vista, Microsoft selected 50 families from around the world and watched, in a reality TV kind of way, how they interacted with Vista, right out of the box with the first beta and all the way up to release to manufacturing.
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