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 company. → 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 Vista.” This is really funny at first, but who is thinking of the State IT workers? Seriously! Who is thinking of them! → 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 making them again. → 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 that turned out. But didja know that Microsoft might have banked over $1.5 billion because of those little stickers? → 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 The Ultimate Steal. → 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 Advertising – 3.3 cents on R&D For each $1 of sales Microsoft spends: – 2.6 cents on Advertising – 13.9 cents on R&D → 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 claim, that Vista is dead to Microsoft. For example, Microsoft didn’t bleat endlessly about Vista licenses sold during last week’s earnings call. Is that because sales are down, or because sales weren’t as impressive at last quarter? There’s also netbooks, the tiny half-laptops that, for whatever reason, people are snapping up. Needless to say, RAM- and graphics-hungry Vista doesn’t exactly run well on netbooks, which is why so manufacturers offer XP or Linux in lieu of Vista. If Microsoft can’t sell its fancy operating system to manufacturers of netbooks, where is growth going to come from, Mars? This is why, by the way, Microsoft is so bullish on Windows 7—ignore that whole Vista thing, ’twas but a minor setback. → 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 more than that. I nursed my hope that 7 would be a completely different experience for a while, but now it seems less and less likely by the day. → 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. Although it’s worth considering that laptops are more often upgraded “whole” (i.e. a new machine with Vista pre-installed) while desktops have a little more inertia in the household. There’s a lot more info out there to collate (pick-up rates at Best Buys and stuff are probably way higher) but Amazon is a valuable metric. Looking at what’s available there… I don’t see how they can even run Vista on this thing. → Read More
