Is the world really going virtual?

Monday, May 18th, 2009

According to our sister site Channel Pro the number of virtual machines is set to outnumber their physical counterparts during 2009. There’s a caveat to that: we’re talking servers rather than desktop systems, but it’s still an amazing statistic. (more…)

The people vs Wolfram Alpha

Monday, May 18th, 2009

Since Wolfram Alpha launched at the weekend, I’ve lost count of the number of articles I’ve read in which the author asks it inane questions and laughs when it falls flat. Even our own Darien Graham-Smith (along with several others in the office) seems almost delighted to prod and poke at it to find instances where Wolfram’s big pre-launch claims can be mocked – usually by comparison to Google or Wikipedia.

Unfortunately, this is something that was bound to happen given the publicity the site has received in recent weeks from the mainstream press. The big problem occurs because most people are attempting to hastily test the new engine without any real reason to be using it. (more…)

Time for Microsoft to name its Windows 7 price

Monday, May 18th, 2009

A few months before the launch of Vista, a very senior person at Acer spilled the beans to me in a one-on-one press briefing held in Taipei, that Acer was going public with its criticism of the Vista pricing model, and that it felt it had no choice but to swallow the cost for putting Vista Home Premium onto its products rather than Vista Home Basic. Apparantly, Home Basic was the same cost as XP Home, and Vista Home Premium was some $20 more. (more…)

9½ things Wolfram Alpha doesn’t know

Monday, May 18th, 2009

So, after months of anticipation, Wolfram Alpha is finally here. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve found it a big disappointment.

I mean, obviously it was never going to slay Google on its first day. But after watching Stephen Wolfram’s pre-launch screencast I did believe it was at least going to be a credible alternative information source, offering authoritative and structured answers in a way no traditional search engine could aspire to.

Sadly, now Wolfram Alpha’s here it turns out that it doesn’t bloody know anything.

(more…)

The PC Pro Spotify playlist: the results

Friday, May 15th, 2009

You know it’s Friday afternoon when a hastily-written blog post asking for inspiration for PC Pro’s Spotify account gets nearly 20 responses before four in the afternoon. The result is a barkingly-mad list of music which takes in artists from The Beastie Boys to Tina Turner, and from Styx to Korn.

A quick reminder of the rules: all the songs had to have some connection to computers and they had to be found in the Spotify library. 

The winners are:

(more…)

The Art of Coarse Phishing

Friday, May 15th, 2009

Recently I received a phishing email that was a cut above the usual sloppy rubbish and even showed a bit of psychological awareness and guile – “If you recently accessed your account while traveling, the unusual log in attempts may have been initiated by you…” However, as always, there were enough tell-tale mistakes – “temporary” rather than “temporarily” – to ensure that most recipients wouldn’t be in any real danger of falling for the scam.

Like most people I’ve tended to take these spelling mistakes and grammatical errors as a reassuring sign of naivety, building a mental picture of the phishers as overseas kids having an amateurish punt rather than ruthless criminals.

But now I’ve changed my mind…

(more…)

Suggest songs for the PC Pro Computer playlist

Friday, May 15th, 2009

Here’s a bit of Friday fun: help us complete a Spotify playlist of computer-related songs.

The rules are simple:

1. The song title or artist must have a computer connection. (Kraftwerk’s Computer Love, or anything by The Commodores, for example)

2. It must be in the Spotify library  

We’ll put the best 12 suggestions into the PC Pro Computer Playlist. Add your suggestions using the comments below. 

UPDATE: Voting has now closed. Thanks for all your suggestions. See the final PC Pro playlist here. 

Dell’s sex change goes horribly wrong

Thursday, May 14th, 2009

Dell’s ham-fisted attempt to reach out to women appears to have gone, well, tits up.

A couple of days ago the company launched a site called (if you’re eating your dinner, you may want to look away from the screen now) Della. This mine of patronising twaddle included a section called “Tech Tips” in which Dell delivered advice on what the fair womenfolk might choose to use their netbook for, including pearls of wisdom such as:

3. Eat better: Find recipes online, store and organize them, and watch cooking videos.
4. Get organized: ‘Remember the Milk’ is a free, tweakable online task manager that’s easy to use.

(more…)

How to boost the performance of Windows 7’s XP Mode

Thursday, May 14th, 2009

There’s been plenty written about Windows 7’s new XP Mode since the launch of the Release Candidate – the most common criticism being that its performance sucks. 

That’s partly because, as alarming few of the critics have noticed, the Windows XP virtual machine is only assigned a meagre 256MB of RAM by default, which means it’s effectively running with the memory of a five-year-old PC. 

This situation can be very easily remedied. First shut down your virtual machine – hibernation won’t do, it’s got to be a full shut down. Then back in Windows 7 click Start | All Programs | Windows Virtual PC | Virtual Machines. Right click on the XP virtual machine and select Settings. You should see the screen below:

(more…)

Windows 7’s Disingenuous “Advantage”

Thursday, May 14th, 2009

Last week, Microsoft announced some details of anti-piracy measures in Windows 7. It sounds like they’re going to be slightly less intrusive than those in Vista, and probably roughly as effective.

I don’t exactly resent all this product validation stuff. I’d prefer it if Microsoft didn’t feel the need to do it; but I accept that the company has a legitimate interest in dissuading casual copying, and to me a one-time online authorisation doesn’t seem an unreasonable way of going about that.

But I do resent all the weasel words and spin that surround the process. (more…)