Could someone check down the back of the sofa, please? It’s just that Microsoft seems to have disappeared. To be fair, not the whole thing. I’m pretty certain there’s still a large group of buildings in Redmond toting the Microsoft logo, and Reading for that matter, but if you speak to Microsoft execs these days you can be pretty sure their sentences will start with “Windows…” rather than “Microsoft…”
Of course, it’s all about the brand. Somewhere in a high-level board meeting, someone’s decided that the Windows brand is more important than the Microsoft brand, which is after all creaking at the seams now. There was a time when it was cutting edge to be SomethingSoft, but those were the days of the 80s when Rick Astley was an up-and-coming young hipster. (more…)
Microsoft put out a fascinating white paper last week. It’s a research report entitled “Impact of Unlicensed Software on Mid-Market Companies.”
It was actually produced by the Harrison Group, but the study was commissioned and paid for by Microsoft. Its stated aim was to find out whether there’s a correlation between “the presence of unlicensed software in mid-market companies and IT related problems those companies might face.” (more…)
I remember a time when Yahoo was the king of search. If you wanted to find anything useful in the morass of the web, you turned to the friendly editors at the California-based firm and, likely as not, you’d get what you were looking for.
But then a certain Google went and changed everything and Yahoo has struggled to maintain a foothold ever since.
It still is, by the look of things. Yesterday I attended a Yahoo 2009 preview event, held in modest surroundings in London’s East End, where the firm was showcasing upcoming developments and changes. The key message seemed to be that a) we’re still big in search and b) we’re going to be more ‘open’. In fact I encountered the word ‘open’ in its various forms more than 20 times during the various presentations (I was keeping tally, just in case you were wondering).
I’m optimistically titling this post “Email etiquette - rules 1 & 2″ in the hope that I’ll go on to work out the remaining xx over the next few days/months/years, because if there’s one thing I know it’s that the world isn’t very good at them.
Now there are already some sites that cover email etiquette, but as their advice tends to be along the lines of “DO NOT WRITE IN CAPITALS” I think it’s safe to say they’re not targeting the more experienced of users.
I’m starting off with a more complicated one: when you send someone an email, and they send you one back with the answer, do you reply to thank them? It’s a tricky one. Risk appearing rude and ungrateful, or adding to people’s considerable email burden.
My conclusion: reply, but be brief and don’t give them any reason to send you a reply back.
Number two is related: if someone sends you an email, but you know it’s going to take you a day to reply, do you ignore it until you can send a meaningful reply or send an immediate acknowledgement?
Again, I go for brief acknowledgement, but I know others disagree.
So what do you think? Am I alone in even pondering these things? Should I, just maybe, get a life? Feel free to send in your own email etiquette suggestions… and indeed various forms of verbal abuse.
This week I have mostly been in Madrid, trying not to laugh when someone said: “Security products are too slow” or, and this one is worth waiting for, “People shouldn’t tolerate a security product with poor performance.”
The reason for my exercise in ROFL-stifling being that the person saying this happened to be none other than Rowan Trollope, the Vice President of Consumer Business at Symantec. In Madrid to oversee the official launch of Norton Internet Security 2009. (more…)
Well, we’re into day three and a half of the Chrome experience. And as the initial excitement dies down, we’re starting to notice a few niggles – plus some nice little features that aren’t immediately obvious.
Thankfully, most of our problems are minor bugs, which will hopefully be fixed in short order, either by Google or by website developers. For example, the button for switching between the old and new Facebook interfaces doesn’t currently work in Chrome. And despite its multi-process cleverness, the whole thing grinds to a halt when it tries to launch Adobe Reader (though in fairness, what doesn’t?). (more…)
The constantly-evolving nature of technology is, for me, a source of endless fascination — and frequent amusement when it catches us off guard.
Just last night, our own Dear Leader was on the radio talking about Microsoft’s latest salvo in the browser wars. This morning, the battlefield has changed completely, thanks to the surprise arrival of Google Chrome.
To be precise, Chrome isn’t here quite yet: the beta is due out later today. For now, I’ve had to content myself with reading the product notes, which Google has oddly elected to release in cartoon form. Cute, but hardly practical.
Still, it looks like a lot of good ideas have gone into Chrome, and there’s one idea that excites me in particular:
As I say, we’re still waiting for the beta, so we don’t yet know how this works in practice. But running each tab, and each extension, as an independent process should, in theory, enable Chrome to make very effective use of multiple CPU cores.
Thus, not only is Google set to shake up the browser wars; it could actually make “cloud” computing as stable, efficient and responsive as local software – or more so in many scenarios. That would set the scene for a revolution in our very model of personal computing.
Of course, for now this is all just speculation. But even without seeing the software, I can confidently say this much: Google hasn’t lost its knack for disrupting the market.
No not the middle finger… Those who are keen followers of the articles pages here might have seen my little refugee item-ette from a forthcoming PC Pro feature: for those who haven’t, I confess my fragile ego wants me toshow it to you. Not because I took the photos all on my own (though I did, with my Sony with the busted CF door sensor that drives me nuts) but because I’ve just been through a bodge cycle on the HP ML115 that gave me the giggles.
I now find out of course, that VMWare Server isn’t officially supported on Windows Server 2008. Beta 2.0 is but that’s a whole different world, and I need Bowie, Iggy and friends to run without hassle. Searching in the usual places produces a load of whingers who don’t see why it can’t work, and almost nobody who really has the inside track…
…and one completely crazy fix. The problem is, Windows Sever 2008 won’t run with unsigned drivers, unless you press F8 on startup and choose the option which - well, runs without checking driver signing. There is no way to automate this within Windows: you can automate the opposite, so it never runs an unsigned driver: but you can’t turn the check off.
Well, unless you use ReadyDriverPlus that is. It’s not so much the need for somethign like this: it’s how it does it. Registry patch? Nah. Group Policy template? uh-uh.
It stuffs the keyboard buffer in the pre-GUI startup phase, to push in an F8 and the required number of up-arrows (plus a return) to always start server 2008 in unsigned driver mode.
Looks like the Summer Season has well and truly landed at Microsoft: one client has been battling to download some licences from eopen for two days. This is not the first time the lights have been out at the software licencing pickup point - just as well it’s not a drive-thru (ugh).
But what takes the biscuit is their reply to his email asking when he can have his licences: oh sorry… would you like some CDs with the keys stuck on the back? Should be with you in…
(any guesses?)
…four weeks!
Adopting strictly limited software licencing systems tied tightly to the physical machine and the software install process looks good, for exactly as long as you can be bothered to stay responsive when people ask for new licences. A major cause of unease amongst my clients is the idea that one day, their right to get into their own files will be removed: having it taken away because you haven’t paid is pretty bad (if you thought you’d stopped paying). Having it taken away because someone is asleep at the wheel, or penny-pinching, or deliberately turning their back on the stream of customer-service requests… that’s far more worrying.
Thanks to Microsoft’s vow of semi-silence, we know very little about what to expect from Windows 7. We know it’s coming in 2009/2010, we know about the whizzy touch interface, we know there’s no new kernel, and that - oficially at least - is about all we do know.
So, given we have something of a blank canvas to work with right now, what would you like to see in Windows 7?
What would you change about the interface? How would you improve Windows’ security? Is it time to wave goodbye to 32-bit versions of the OS? Should driver and app signing be mandatory?
Let us know your thoughts and suggestions using the Comments facility below, and you never know, Microsoft might even be listening.
Could someone check down the back of the sofa, please? It’s just that Microsoft seems to have disappeared. To be fair, not the whole thing. I’m pretty certain there’s still a large group of buildings in Redmond toting the Microsoft logo, and Reading for that matter, but if you speak to Microsoft execs these days you can be pretty sure their sentences will start with “Windows…” rather than “Microsoft…”
Microsoft put out a fascinating 
The constantly-evolving nature of technology is, for me, a source of endless fascination — and frequent amusement when it catches us off guard.
