It’s almost January 1st, 2010 and we’ve been mulling over our favorites of 2009 – and the previous decade. Here we present another installment of our “TenYears” list. We already did the biggest losers in the tech industry but why not talk about the biggest product flops? Here are a few of the biggest failures of the decade, starting with one monster release from a fairly well-known… → Read More
Looks like Microsft may well have a hit on its hands in Windows 7. In just eight hours, Windows 7 pre-orders outpaced the total number of pre-orders for Vista on Amazon UK. Vista was available for pre-order for a full 17 weeks, so this is something of an accomplishment for Microsoft. → Read More
Good to see that, sometimes, even the biggest tech companies can come to their senses. Today Sony in Japan announced a new Vaio P model, the Vaio P50 [JP], which comes with Windows XP SP3 instead of the hopelessly wrong Vista Sony shipped their Ps with so far. → Read More
What’s up now, Ballmer! The entire State of Texas is one step closer to banning the somewhat craptastic Windows Vista from government computers ’cause one State Senator heard the OS has problems. State agencies will have to receive written approval from the Finance Committee once the rider is enacted. Just to recap, this is because Senator Juan Hinojosa heard “of the many reports of problems with… → Read More
Microsoft Vista is a polarizing operating system: folks either love it or hate it. I have yet to meet someone that said “Meh. I can take it or leave it.” I’m not a Microsoft apologist, so it’s easy for me to focus on all of Vista’s many shortcomings; but the reality is that Microsoft did get some stuff right. And like any successful company, they’re learning from their mistakes in order to avoid… → Read More
Microsoft has been putting together the Windows 7 Technical Guarantee Program and it appears that it’ll likely go into effect starting July 1st of this year. It’s that program that lets you purchase a machine with Microsoft’s current operating system and then upgrade it to the newest one when it launches, similar to what the company did when getting ready for Vista. → Read More
You know what Microsoft needs to do? Write off Vista totally and compensate everyone with an upgrade to Windows 7. Forget about the impending SP2 and refocus everyone into Windows 7 development. That being said, the next update for Vista might not drop until May or June and should bring some well needed feature upgrades. It’s still craptacular Vista in the end though. → Read More
Deep inside a dimly lit Microsoft boardroom a few years ago, several overpaid marketing tools came up with the term ‘Vista Capable.” This moniker was to be affixed to new computers ahead of Vista’s highly publicized launch. That way consumers could feel warm and fuzzy knowing that their new computer will be able to upgrade to glorious Vista down the road and it will run honky dory. We all know how… → Read More
Microsoft initially intended for Windows XP to die when the ball dropped on New Years Eve ’08, but the OS has gotten a reprieve – for now at least. The new cut off date for licenses will be May 20, 2009. → Read More
Running Vista on your Mac? Having problems with the touchpad? Well good news, Apple released an updated driver for the Multi-touch trackpad today. It’s intended to fix the scrolling and tracking problems that the original drivers had. You can download it directly from Apple by clicking here. → Read More
If you don’t want to buy a new Dell PC to get the Windows Vista Ultimate (RED) edition, you can pre-order the standalone operating system over at Amazon for $219.95. If you’re a lucky college student like me, you can purchase the OS at a discount price of $64.95 at The Ultimate Steal. The OS is expected to be released on December 15th but it looks like you can download it now at… → Read More
The above is a scan of some Windows Vista promotional material. But, is that an old MacBook Pro this perfect family is using? Now, Apple doesn’t have a monopoly on silver laptops chassis but wouldn’t it have been wiser to have something more distinctly PC? → Read More
The ever-sassy Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is pointing out that Apple is essentially lying like Satan lied to man about the cancer-causing potency of high-fructose corn syrup. In “Bean Counter,” for example, Apple suggests that Microsoft spends more on advertising than on “fixing Vista.” Adrian tells the honest truth: For each $1 of sales Apple spends: – 1.9 cents on… → Read More
Read this line and you’ll understand how Joe Wilcox (and pretty much everyone else online) over at eWeek feels about Windows Vista: Vista is headed to as quick a death as Microsoft can give it. Someday soon, some gun-toting Microsoft executive will lead Vista out back and “Pop!” Screaming “Vista sucks!” is by no means a novel idea, but Wilcox uses, you know, evidence to support his… → Read More
This Life Takes Vista site is either fanboyism to the extreme or some junior associate at Microsoft’s ad firm playing around. Whatever it turns out to be though, it’s safe to say it ain’t from Redmond as the HTML is loaded with Adobe Dreamweaver tags. Props to whoever made it ’cause some of the center photos are clever – like the one above. Still, WTF is it? → Read More
PCs and Macs are always poking and stabbing at each other; Genius Bar this, everyone uses Windows that. Can’t we all get along? Everyone knows which one is superior. Second video after the jump. → Read More
This enormous and allegedly unsolicited blog entry by an “ordinary Joe developer” (is he related to the plumber?) details some of the under-the-hood stuff that’s going on with Windows 7 development. Although Ballmer has described 7 as being “Windows Vista with clean-up in user interface [and] improvements in performance,” this guy seems to think it’s a little… → Read More
You may have noticed when we looked at the top 10 tech items being sold on Amazon the other day that there were no Vista-based laptops on there. That’s because the Vista laptops are more like top 25 material. After all, the high system requirements have prevented many people with desktops from making the switch; so it’s natural that notebooks would have an even lower pickup rate. → Read More
Windows 7 might be on its way sometime soon, but Vista should get SP2 before the new OS drops. According to some ZDnet sources, Redmond is aiming to update Vista first so it will be interesting to see if any new Windows 7 features come with it. Details should drop from Microsoft about the upcoming service pack within the coming months but there isn’t any firm release date as of yet. → Read More
I sadly missed this story last week but it bears further inspection. Charlie “The Animal” White wrote a piece “fact-checking” the claims that Vista is buggy, slow, and a big hassle. While I cannot agree that Vista is a sub par offering from Microsoft, I can unequivocally state that it’s good enough for the average user and no matter how much we whine and cry… → Read More
It reads,”Windows Vista – The Digital Future Starts Here.” Where does it start? There, right there? Gross. → Read More
HP denies that they are making an OS to rival Vista, but, they do acknowledge that they are developing software that would bypass some of its functions altogether. HP formed the “customer experience” group nine months ago in an effort to give customers a quick and easy alternative to certain applications. The team is focusing on touchscreen technology where users can watch movies or view… → Read More
http://www.crunchgear.com/video/player.swf?movie=microsoft.flv Here’s that commercial we told you about earlier – the first in the series of ads for Microsoft’s $300 million campaign to help prop up Windows Vista. I just grabbed it off my TV while watching the Giants/Redskins game. While this ad doesn’t really tell us anything about Microsoft or its products, it does tell us that someday… → Read More
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Microsoft is launching a $300 million ad campaign starting September 4th. The ads will star none other than Jerry Seinfeld, who’s reported to be receiving about $10 million. Not bad, eh? The campaign is being developed to combat the negative image that many consumers have about Windows Vista and also to finally push back against Apple’s popular Mac vs. → Read More
Microsoft has a blog about Windows 7 now. It’s called E7, and it’s aimed at people like us, people who scrutinize the development (or lack thereof) of Windows to the nth degree. It’s supposed to be a conversation, right, about how they’re making Windows 7. The blog will primarily be written by two senior project managers, along with occasional input from the rest of the… → Read More
The latest upgrade to WMC, codename Fiji, is finally official. We’ll try not to harp on Microsoft to bad about the Windows Media Center TV Pack, but honestly, that’s kind of hard as the pack isn’t what it was suppose to be. Missing is the DirecTV and H.264 video compression support. More importantly though, the good folks at Redmond choose not to allow home theater PC enthusiasts… → Read More
A recent article in APC Magazine finds a marketing manager for HP detailing how business users are still able to order machines pre-loaded with Windows XP while making it appear that the OS sold was Windows Vista. Jane Bradburn of HP Australia says, “From the 30th of June, we have no longer been able to ship a PC with a XP licence. However, what we have been able to do with Microsoft is ship PCs… → Read More
Apple’s success with the iPod, iPhone and Mac is finally starting to worry Microsoft, according to the company’s recently filed 10-K form with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. (10-K forms summarize a publicly traded corporation’s performance, as required by the SEC.) In the filing, Microsoft says the following about a certain vertically integrated rival: A competing… → Read More
Nobody would argue that Linux has an appreciable market share. They could however say that they have an appreciating share. Cause in fact they do. Since Microsoft launched Vista in January 2007, U.K. preinstalls of Linux have multiplied 28 times. But unfortunately for Linux, 28 times a little is still a little. However, consider that pre-Vista, Linux was being shipped on only .1% of PC’s. → Read More
Willcom D4 UMPC: Vista Home Premium performance from Jenn Lee on Vimeo. Windows Vista gets a lot of stink for being too resource demanding, something this video here tries to dispel. This 12-minute video shows a Willcom D4 (1.33GHz Intel Atom processor, 1GB RAM) running Vista, going through various processes in order to put the tablet to the sword, so to speak. As you might imagine, the tablet… → Read More
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