Gadgetopia

Will XP fill need for speed in 2008 better than Vista?: Could the Vista situation get worse? XP SP3 is coming next year, as is Vista SP1. Wellington, Fla.-based Devil Mountain Software ran several versions of XP and Vista through a test simulating common desktop computing tasks. It found the ...

Welcome to See Windows Vista: Let Viper tell you how cool Windows Vista is. And it looks pretty cool. Nice demo.

Windows Vista Will Be an Important Measure: The next version of Windows has an official name. Microsoft announced Friday that it would replace the code-name Longhorn with the proper name Windows Vista.

Microsoft Windows Vista: Confident: This is quite a claim. A Windows Vista computer starts and shuts down as quickly and reliably as a television, typically within 2 to 3 seconds. Windows Vista processes login scripts and startup programs and services in the background so you can start working right away.

Microsoft Ships First Vista Security Patches: I know it's still in beta, but this can't be good for a product that hasn't even been released yet. At least they're working the bugs out of the patching engine. Microsoft Corp. has shipped the first critical security update for Windows Vista, the ...

Microsoft blunder leaks information about Vista: Microsoft accidentally published a page on its site that leaked details of the upcoming Vista. (This is why you need good content management, people.) Apparently there are going to be six primary versions of Vista. Included in those listed offerings was Windows Starter 2007, ...

I support and manage a number of Windows desktops as part of my job, and have been a little frustrated lately, having to put off even trying Vista on our network because the database software package we run just doesn t play well with anything but XP Pro. XP Pro is ...

Bulky System Requirements for Windows Vista: According to this bit over at Slashdot, Windows Vista will need a video card that can reverse the rotation of the Earth with its spare cycles. To render the screen in the GPU requires an awful lot of memory to do optimally - 256MB ...

Microsoft delays consumer launch of Windows Vista: When Sony delayed the launch of the PS3 last week, Microsoft jumped all over it. And now... Microsoft Corp. said on Tuesday it plans to delay the consumer launch of its much-anticipated Windows Vista operating system to January 2007 from its earlier target ...

Microsoft gets Vista launch off the ground: My prediction is that the world will let out a big, collective yawn over this. The biggest, and broadest, product launch in Microsoft's 32-year history started Tuesday. And the near-term success of the world's largest software maker will greatly be determined on how ...

As of yesterday afternoon, if you want to buy a Dell computer with Windows XP Pro, you have exactly one choice of model: the Optiplex. Everything else is Vista Business only.

Features that didn't make the cut: This is extremely funny. From within the Borg Cube, no less. As you may know from my previous blog entry, we have taken flack in the past for Minesweeper and the use of mines. Although we don't have land mines in the USA, in ...

Everything s Coming Up Milhouse: Some great commentary on the state of the Mac. Even though I m generally a Mac hater, I don t disgaree with anything written here. The Mac has never experienced sustained growth at this sort of pace. Breaking this quarterly sales record isn’t a fluke — it’s part ...

Microsoft says XP is definitely dead in June, Dell says it ll keep installing it: Dell has found a loophole in Vista licensing which it plans to exploit in order to keep selling XP machines. Dell s going to report a Vista sale to Microsoft, but deliver an XP box with Vista ...

Microsoft to hackers: Take your best shot: I'm fascinated to see how this is going to work out. After suffering embarrassing security exploits over the past several years, Microsoft Corp. is trying a new tactic: inviting some of the world's best-known computer experts to try to poke holes in Vista, ...

Users force Dell to resurrect XP: This is interesting. If you remember, a few months ago, I had to work pretty had to find a Dell with XP. Responding to customer demand Dell has restarted selling new PCs with Windows XP installed on them. The decision reverses a policy begun ...

Windows AntiSpyware becomes 'Defender': I know that many jokes will ensue, but this is a pretty good product. Microsoft is giving Windows AntiSpyware a makeover. The tool, designed to protect PCs against hidden software, has been renamed "Windows Defender" and is getting a new look as well as capabilities to ...

Microsoft's PHP initiative: This is interesting. Microsoft has recently released the second technical preview release of FastCGI for IIS, a new component for Microsoft's Web server platform. This release is available immediately for download to Windows Vista, IIS including IIS 6.0 in Windows 2003 Server and IIS 5.1 in ...

Microsoft removes ActiveX activation warning from IE: The Eolas debacle has apparently ended. Microsoft paid them off and hopes to update all IE versions by April 2008. For an undisclosed sum, the software maker has licensed the patented technology in question from Eolas, allowing it to modify IE6 and 7 ...

We've talked a bit about keyloggers before, which can be a brutally effective way to capture passwords (see this post, this post, or this post). But there's a completely simple way to defeat them, based on the fact that a keylogger doesn't know where on the page the focus is ...

The World As Best As I Remember It : Broken Windows Theory: This essay from a Windows developer (like, a guy who develops Windows, not develops on Windows) is a fairly telling look into the world of the Windows development group. Some excerpts: Vista has suffered a series of high-profile ...

7 Reasons Why Microsoft is DOOMED!: I don t normally post things like this, but I read it, and somehow I can t argue with the guy s logic. Name one area where Microsoft is really innovating anymore. The Zune was a bust; the XBox is getting beaten by the Wii on price, ...

Bribing Bloggers: This is a really interesting post from Spolsky about the ethics of bloggers accepting free stuff from vendors. Apparently Microsoft offered to send Joel a new Ferrari laptop pre-loaded with Vista, for free. [...] I've decided that from this point forward I'm not accepting anything, full stop. Even ...